Category Archives: humor

08.29.21
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Making the bed…the enlightened way…

I washed sheets today.

The whole “chore” of washing sheets (it’s not like I had to use a washboard in the stream) and remaking the bed became a mindful experience for me. Instead of focusing on the facts associated with this chore, I was shockingly finished and walking out of the room without thinking “why am I the only one who knows how to wash sheets in this house”. This takes nothing away from all of the things He does on a daily basis…it’s merely an historical triggered reaction.

Right after I rejected the common habit of yelling down and asking him to help me so I don’t have to walk around the bed myself 4 times, I recognized that this was another facet of the poor-me trigger I had learned so well. The good news is while putting the pillow cases on, I realized that I really did have a valid reason for not making my bed everyday because seriously, how does the bed go about breathing and airing out when covered with sheets, blankets and comforter all day. You are welcome…you may use it!

As I was walking around the bed on an unexpected trip (making it 6 times) to measure the distance of the top sheet to the bottom of the mattress on each side, I realized that every time we make the bed together, he gives me a reading of the sheet level to the mattress on his side…and, of course, this irritates me. Because it is an historical triggered reaction to those times when we slept in a small bed with smaller sheets and every time someone turned over, it could mean one person lost the sheet. As the victim in my own story, it was always me!

So, I share this insight as encouragement for bed makers out there to use the experience as a calming, counseling session with yourself. Finding gratitude in the mundane daily activities….even making the bed…..CAN be a spiritually enlightening experience……

namaste

04.25.21
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So the thing about lists

I wasn’t quite sure how to start this one out…perhaps something like this: During an afternoon Zoom chat group, the topic of lists came up and I said quite innocently that I don’t make lists. The group got very quiet…one person shyly spoke up and said, “you are truly living life on the edge!”

That’s not how it played out but my blog, my story!

The thing about lists. Pretty much every person I know has a system of lists. The lists left on the counter and checked off with the task completed. The list that is made and never looked at again. The grocery list. The getting ready for a trip list. My question to you list makers is….what happens when you depend solely on the list. A list takes fear away about forgetting something…something you need, something you have to do. Check…its on the list.

So what happens when you depend on that list and no longer use just your memory….what happens if you don’t write undergarments on the list before a big trip. You mark everything off the list and must vacation commando? What happens if you don’t write toilet paper on the list and end up not thinking about the need for toilet paper while at the store because it wasn’t on the list?

I look at those list makers in my inner circle and I just shake my head at the risks they are taking.

I, obviously, am quite confident and secure with the fact that there is no evidence left to betray my memory.

Until next time….

04.24.21
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So many thoughts 9 more hours

There is absolutely nothing going on today. It’s breezy, barely over 60 so I decided to use this day as a ?mental?health day which turned into I really need to find something constructive to do….I’m bored!

My last thought as I was cleaning up lunch dishes and putting silverware in the dish washer was a silly comment made yesterday by my 7 (going on 8) year old grandson. Phil and I adopted several sets of silverware when our relatives passed on from old age. This is in addition to the silverware that we had used daily and another set I kept in the drawer for when we had people over and I wanted to have a set that completely matched. Yesterday “J” noticed he and his brother were eating with different patterned forks. “J” got up, opened the silverware drawer and said…. “just like snowflakes, not a fork in the drawer is the same”.

Where does a 7 year old learn these turn of phrases? And more to the point… I only notice different silverware in my drawer because I hate eating with the lightweight, narrower silverware from HIS family and much prefer the heavier, bulkier from MY family.

Not that long ago, I was actually using silverware I bought at a thrift store. Heavy because the untined (not a real word BTW) end of the fork was covered with plastic. They lasted a long time but too many washes in the dishwasher finally weakened the glue that held the plastic on. I was very protective of this silverware…and decided once it was gone, I would just stop eating.

Ya. Didn’t happen. I assume you don’t want a story about the other thoughts that have shot through my mind this morning. I took a picture of a pound of butter for later.

Extensive discussion about our silverware is also available at the following link:

https://ninasusan.com/2018/05/23/the-silverware-of-our-lives/

Until next time….

04.04.21
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Where do tree frogs actually reside?

I wondered from afar if the rock would be smooth enough to paint and draw a design to go along with my other kindness rocks around the house.

As I got closer, I noticed it glistened.

As I leaned it to pick it up, I realized with a sense of total panic that it was not a rock!

My next thought: if a woman panic-screams and her husband is mowing the yard with ear plugs in, did the woman really scream.

As I regained a sense of sanity, I noticed the hole beside him/her and wondered if he/she wintered there. My next thought was I’m sitting in front of the screen door where he has spent hours just hanging around……and then I looked again….

And he was gone….and I screamed….and the husband heard me…but he didn’t seem terribly concerned….it must have sounded similar to the spider in the bathtub scream.

I know he didn’t go far….the frog….husband continues mowing…..

EDIT: and so we get on with life…the hero says he has no idea where the frog is.

🤭🤣
03.25.21
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I had no idea the parents died in the movie

If it weren’t raining for day number 40 of 40 days and 40 nights, I possibly would be in a better mood. Even though we have had a few days….and I mean VERY FEW days…. without rain since our unseasonably cold days, I fear that little scream that has been bouncing around inside my head will somehow escape and scare the birds away from the feeders quicker than my shadow passing in front of the window. *rolling eyes

On a brighter note, yesterday I had a kind nurse poke a needle in my shoulder….my second COVID vaccine. I was mildly concerned that this one might result in flu like symptoms but thankfully I just couldn’t lift my left arm to remove my sweatshirt and I went to bed early because I was either very tired or just felt foggy. I was having some difficulty in comprehending what I was reading.

After a family IMessage with the daughters this morning I think I was just tired last night because it was quietly inferred that apparently my level of comprehension often wanes. Like watching the movie, Frozen, that we watched while visiting our Iowa family a few months ago. Now I find out that I must have missed the point that the parents died in the beginning which would actually be the premise for all of the other sadness, evil and pain of the children’s movie…..I have to admit I was just into it for the music anyway!

So ending this on a grateful note, we need rain to begin the growing season…yay….birds are cute, loud and chirpy, music soothes my soul and I’m now vaccinated and feel the darkness lifting….Namaste

02.16.21
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Move to Missouri she said….

You know those moments when something someone has said to you in the past comes back….repeating like you are seated side by side, say, in a movie theater and she whispers…you guys should move down here we hardly ever get snow…..and honestly I have bragged to my northern friends that…oh ya, we are always 10 or more degrees warmer in the winter…you had a foot deep snow storm?…oh goodness, that’s usually what we get in a whole season….. it didn’t seem wrong…I gave 58 years to Iowa….it kind of seemed like it was ok…the way it’s okay to complain about the spouse but if anyone else does it….

Ok…so I am a little red faced and very apologetic about my bluster after this polar vortex experience these last two weeks. But, seriously, friends around the country are sharing pictures… it’s a nightmare….and now many states can’t keep the power on because ……. the elves went to sleep while feeding the wood burner? Trump, the pandemic and now the polar vortex. Ruler across the fingers apparently we need, yet, another start over lesson.

We left the snow blower in Iowa….so…When the doorbell camera caught an elf on my sidewalk with the leaf blower this morning, I felt a sense of pride that I married a genius! My very own Macgyver.

This too shall pass or so I keep repeating it! Stay warm and safe!

02.10.21
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OH YA…..WELL WATCH THIS

The title being in all caps is the reality of the disturbance in my head…I steal the term, disturbance, after hearing it used by a tv weather guy. Talking about the Canadian air mass sitting over the region for two weeks….”cold temperatures and smaller “disturbances” equals more chance for snow.

Seriously…disturbance? from the news media who normally has us hugging ourselves tightly while they scream shelter in place, lock your doors you are all going to die as our mental health experiences nervous breakdowns through the pandemic and the Trump administration.

It’s cold here. It’s Iowa Cold. Thankfully this morning when I got out of bed in my more than irritable mood, I realized I was feeling the same way I did for 55+ winters in Iowa. Mentally combining that with quarantining a year in the house….my CABIN FEVER is now in overdrive. There are seriously only a certain number of Words with Friends…actually strangers….games you can play in a day so I learned how to play backgammon. But it’s just not the same as what I had dreamed it would be…sitting in a pub in Grantchester playing the Vicar over a round of pints.

My Word for the year is “nurture”. Not feeling it today…Not a whole lot of positive going on right now….my benevolence has frozen over!

Someone make me laugh?!?!?

02.03.21
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give it to mom, she’ll use it….

I was looking in the mirror in the bathroom a few minutes ago and noticed my developing marionette lines on my lower face. I decided to try some Ayurvedic formula wrinkle serum that my oldest daughter passed down to me. It was more like…hey Mom, I have this wrinkle serum that causes my face to itch, do you want to try it?

Even though I have no illusions that any ointment, serum or lotions are actually going to prevent wrinkles from forming, I said yes. Full disclosure…I know what is causing the thin skin on my forearms and the new developing wrinkles on my face.

1. No sunscreen

2. My age

3 no sunscreen

I actually laughed out loud as I looked to my right and sitting on the edge of the tub was a bottle of great smelling exfoliating, salt (feels like sand) that my younger daughter bought but wasn’t thrilled with. Hey Mom, do you want this exfoliating grit. (Not her real words). And the visit the time before, she sent me home with some lavender moisturizing oil…Hey Mom…..

Which took me back to the Life Cereal commercial from the 70’s…one of the longest continuously running commercial campaigns ever aired.

….and there you have it. Changes needed to be made when my life became reruns of TV commercials…so I got the Britbox and Acorn TV apps and now I speak with a British accent…..how much I love the term, Wanker, at a later time.

01.18.21
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Code name: Pink Flamingo

In the back of my mind, I’ve always known that if I ever became first lady or CIA, my code name would be: Pink Flamingo!

I have flamingo chimes thanks to my friend, Sue. I also have 3 metal pink flamingos in flower beds in the yard right now, as well as totes of the plastic ones which does include Christmas pink flamingos. My next door neighbor also likes them and has a little square in her side yard (my side) where her pink flamingos live along with pink flower pots. One Christmas she started decorating the yard with them and so I bought Christmas flamingos and set them up so they looked like they were headed to her yard. She and I may be the only two on the street who felt giddy about it.

Years ago my late night dispatch partner and I did crafts when 911 lulled. I taught her to crochet and she taught me to embroider. I have embroidered dish towels put away which will last many generations. I pulled out my embroidery hoops etc the other day and then sat with them because I had no idea what I would embroider or on what. I laughed thinking about his face if I started embroidering his underwear #notgoingtohappen But instead…I found this beginning/children’s punch embroidery kit during a late night excursion on Amazon. It came today.

…..and so it is!

12.12.20
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Our life with Goovi

Goovi has made her home on this planet in our dining pod because it was the only place I could find enough clearance for the runway aka her “driveway” to reach home. She needs 6 feet because quite frankly she is a horrible driver.

I had this really good idea when she first came to us via an Amazon van, that she begin work at 4 am. I didn’t think I would need to supervise her …. and that was my fault because I was thinking in human….the language of my people. Goovi is not capable of finding her way over hill and dale without getting into trouble and just giving up and shutting down when she feels trapped? For instance…the temporary coaster under the fridge foot. Consequently now before bed, I must lock the doors, turn off the lights AND place a chair in front of the refrigerator.

Which is really not any more irritating than our morning ritual of searching the house for her…or having to step over her in the hallway as we leave our bedroom. It’s like having another cat.

This morning He reports that he followed her and timed her once he heard the suction cease and she turned on her pink light indicating she was finished for the day and navigating back to her bed. It took her 15 minutes and she made it before her battery completely drained. I guess I should not expect more from her considering her Black Friday price so I’m attempting gratitude and appreciation for the help she does provide….there I go getting soft….it’s really her job!!!