Back to the Grindstone and a Week of Extra Work Days

I hope all of you had a wonderful 4th of July if you're in the USA, and/or a wonderful weekend if you're one of my out-of-the-country friends. We had a relaxing two days, despite the weather's best attempt at raining us out. The weather didn't succeed - the promised day-long rain yesterday never came and we were able to spend several hours sitting comfortably in the garden looking at the flowers and watching a hummingbird fly to and from my feeder. 

Frankly, I have no idea how they got the hummingbird 
to actually perch on their feeder. Mine are too active, 
flitting here and there, and changing their angle and 
direction almost constantly. They'll fly in for a quick 
drink, then back off, then back in again. It's exhausting! 

I'm delighted that a hummingbird has made my feeder a regular part of its' rounds, and I have baby birds in the flycatcher's nest with Mama Flycatcher flying back and forth feeding the greedy babies. I assume there is more than one, although one is all I've spied so far. Either way, life goes on and the summer moves on. 

Mama Flycatcher is working very hard to 
feed her demanding babies. I assume there's 
more than one, although I've only seen the 
beak of one above the nest edge so far. 
Greedy little buggers - LOL. 

This week will be hectic. Chickie is off several days at the end of this week while she and Chickie Mama go down to Mayo Clinic for some tests. It means I'll have to work on Friday instead of having a day off, so I need to make sure the things I would normally get done that day are finished on the one day I have to do them - Wednesday. It makes for a rather ooff week, and DH will have to work on both Thursday and Friday, while I'm working on my Friday. I think Chickie is back at work on Saturday, although I'll have to check the store calendar to be sure. 

It's nice living in Minnesota where going to the Mayo Clinic 
is a clear possibility. It takes a long time to get an appointment, 
but Chickie Mama is going for tests on Thursday and Chickie, 
since she had to drive her down, scheduled some stuff of 
her own for the same dates. 

I'm running late today - I spend a bit longer in my morning meditation - so I'm signing off now. If you get a chance to read my latest LJ Idol submission - America - I posted it on the 4th of July. Highly appropriate for this one. Also, don't forget Le Tour de France is on again today, and they are finally away from Denmark (which was quite beautiful). Have an excellent day and I'll be back tomorrow. I'm off to the pool! 

The First Part Went Well - Then Things Changed *sigh*

Well, best laid plans, etc, etc. I had my day planned out - grocery shopping, a bit of computer work, then on to the movie theatre to see Minions, then Best Buy to return one item I had purchased on Wednesday, and finally home to make Ogre Juice and dinner. The first part went well. 

I really wanted to see "Rise of Gru" on opening day. It was 
a special treat for myself. Unfortunately an idiot decided 
to use a gun and mess it up for me and other people. GRRRR. 

The second part ... well ... let's just call that one a clusterf**k. On Wednesday night (the 29th), at the last showing of the night in the multiplex, some asshole had started shooting in one of the screening rooms. Apparently it was a directed shooting, not some random thing, but still, it was guns, in the movies, yet again. But that was Wednesday night, and it was now Friday. I figured things would be back to normal. I was too busy to check my email. 

I love that Mini Gru and the Minions are 
gathered in the movie theatre and the 
poster is for Jaws. That dates it from Summer, 
1975, no earlier, because Jaws was released then. 

If I had checked my email, I would have seen that my showing was cancelled and my ticket refunded. I didn't see that, actually knocked on the locked doors until the manager came out to tell me (and the woman with two kids accompanying her who also, obviously, hadn't read her email either). So, I got a refund, but I didn't get the opportunity to see Minions on opening day. My next chance to see the movie on my own is on the 15th. Maybe I'll grab Chickie for a Tuesday showing on the 5th or 12th instead. But I'm VERY disappointed, nonetheless. 

I love stir fried Crimari mushrooms with 
onions. I added some fresh Thyme to the 
mix this time too. They're very tasty. 

So I busied myself in the kitchen for the afternoon. I made my next batches of Ogre Juice, fried up some onions and mushrooms for dinner over the next few days, and baked a cubed butternut squash I had planned to bake up two weeks prior. I'm one of those "make something, then clean the kitchen completely, then make the next thing" people, so I now have a refrigerator full of food, a clean kitchen, and I had a good afternoon with my Oladance bone induction headphone on and my Hip-Hop play list blaring from Spotify to my headphones. I was a whirling dervish, who missed her Minions; so sad, but at least I accomplished a lot. I also got the hummingbird feeder refilled, so I'll have happy birds once again. 

I'm a bit of a headphone junkie and my Oladance 
open ear bone induction earphones are my 
favorite non-swimming headphones. I love their 
fit and I love their sound. For swimming I use 
Shokz - they have one that is made for swimming 
and other watery activities and I use that for the 
pool and the treadmill. 

That's all for today. It's back to the grind now - work today then Sunday off. But I'll also have Monday off for Independence Day and it's rare to have two days off in a row. I'm already looking forward to it. I might do a minimal post wishing everyone a good 4th of July, but a serious post won't happen again until Tuesday. So have a good extended weekend and I'll be back on Tuesday. Slava Ukraini. 

Phone Apps and Minions - A Possibly Excellent Day Off

Apparently Wednesday's Samsung lessons for DH from Chickie consisted of extending the amount of time the screen would remain on before fading out, and uninstalling unwanted/unneeded apps. Today, DH said he wants to learn how to take a photograph with the phone, since what he's been trying hasn't been working. 

I know I have something similar to this that 
came with my ring light, but I'm not finding it. 
I could order something like this from Amazon 
for very little $, but I also can control my 
Google via voice control, so I might try that 
first before buying something else to lose 
and clutter up my life. I want to get going 
on photographs and I can't do that without 
a remote control shutter for my phone and 
ring light. 

In essence, I'll be doing something similar myself, since I want to try and activate my Google voice command for remote photography. Apparently I can use voice commands to activate the shutter and take the photograph, and that, plus my new ring light, might get me going on the multitude of photos I need to take for the round Swarovski crystals. At some point I need to get back to my cubes too. I missed one cube in the A/B section of the 4mm size, and need to retake three pages. I only need the splash shot (the full 3x3 cube view) for those three pages, and the detail shot for the single color. 

Happy Canada Day to any of my Canadian 
friends and readers. Enjoy your celebration 
with friends, family and good food. 

It's already July, and I "retire" in 60 days according to my countdown calendar. It's a bit frightening. I know I'll still end up working, maybe one day a week, or just for fill-in, but I have multi-day tasks that need to happen in the house and I just can't squeeze them in on my two non-contiguous days that I currently have off now. So, I'm looking forward to retirement, but I also know it's going to be a lot of work for all of us. However, if I don't stick to my guns, DH will probably putter around pushing retirement off for another decade and that, I won't tolerate. 

The lightning yesterday morning while waiting for the gym 
to open was spectacular. So beautiful. Of course it meant 
that we needed to swim indoors, but since that's where we 
swim most of the year anyway, it wasn't a huge hardship. 

Yesterday's swim ended up being an indoor swim. It wasn't raining, but there was a LOT of lightning - beautifully lighting up the sky in a fireworks display like no other. The storm had blown over and people were in the outdoor pool by the time I finished my swim. I could have joined them, but I don't like interrupting my workout. I start swimming, and I want to continue non-stop for my mile+ before stopping. Hopefully the weather next week will be kinder for the 5:00 am group. 

I'm looking forward to seeing "Rise of Gru" today. I'll see 
it again with Chickie later in the month. I haven't been to 
a movie theatre since before Covid, and I'm a little nervous 
about it, but it's the early show and I don't think there 
will be a lot of people. I'll wear a mask (probably) and 
be careful about sanitizing. 

So, have an excellent day. I'll be doing a lot this morning, and I'm at the theatre at 11:00 am to see "The Rise of Gru". I can hardly wait! MINIONS!!! Love them so much! Have an excellent Friday, July 1st, and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini. 

The Garden, A Zoom Call and a Mystery

I have no idea how the Samsung training went between Chickie and DH yesterday. He didn't say a thing about it when he got home, just looked at the garden, deciding it should wait for water until this morning. Was that the right decision? Hard to say. We've had some real problems with the garden this year and he's very unhappy with it. But, on the bright side, my raspberries are at the beginning of ripening, and one of my tomato plants has already given me my first ripe cherry tomato. Generally, he may not be happy with the ornamental part of the garden, but I'm quite happy with my edible parts so far. 

My determinate cherry tomato plant is starting 
to have the first ripening fruit of the four 
tomato plants I have this year. I can hardly wait 
to have fresh tomatoes for my nightly salads. 

I had an 11:00 am zoom call yesterday, and built my day around it (aside from the usual Wednesday grocery shopping and three loads of laundry). At 4:00 am I had my usual phone call with my good friend in California - Aearwen - who has come through her Covid scare pretty well. She's still getting really tired easily, but she sounds SO much better. What a relief. 

Yesterday's Zoom call was a live check-in call with 
the founder of WildFit, Eric Edmeades. He's a bit 
older than this photo now - the beard is totally grey, 
but he's still a power and force, believing in all of 
us with all his heart. He lives in the Dominican 
Republic, and his power was going on and off, so 
it was an "interesting" video call. But I'm glad I 
was able to "attend". 

I was doing a quick check on my DW and LJ boards last night and got a notification that a long-time friend just unfriended me. Out of the blue. I'm quite shocked and disappointed. I'm going to write her and try and discover why. I'm mystified. Completely in the dark on this one. I'm quite upset at this one. I've been unfriended in the past, and I've done it to a few people in my past as well, but it's always been a last resort and there usually has been some sort of kerfluffle that led to it. I can't think of a single thing I did that could have caused this one. But life goes on. Friends lost and friends gained. 

Usually when I've been unfriended in the past, it's because 
of a kerfluffle in a shared platform. I don't think I've been 
saying anything super controversial lately, unless this 
friend decided they were tired of my mundane viewpoints. 
I have no idea, so I'll write her and maybe get an answer. 

I'm swimming today, and if my weather app is correct, I'll be swimming during the one hour of today when we'll have rain. We only get chased out of the pool if there is lightning, and this should just be rain, so I'll be surrounded by water. It's always unusual but rather fun to swim in the rain. 

On that note, I'm out of here. I hope you have a wonderful day and I'll be back tomorrow. As always, Slava Ukraini. 

Today Is A Do-Over - At Least for Swimming

Yesterday's swim turned into a non-swim. There was lightning, and the chlorine levels of the indoor pool were "out of whack" according to our life guard, so we were offered the option of swimming the 10-15 minutes before she would have to whistle and clear out the pool, driving over to White Bear Lake and using their pool, or just skipping the day. Rosemary and I looked at each other and decided to go home. Walter and Mary opted to head to White Bear Lake, and our small group of four plus other people dispersed. I skipped my exercise yesterday - a day off wasn't a life changing episode and variety is good. 

It's a day off and my meditation this morning 
was excellent. A great way to start off my day. 
Now to start the laundry and then have a 
glorious swim under the dawn's light. 

But today I'm dressed in my skin suit once again and the weather should be perfect. It's 60 degrees right now, so it may be a bit on the cooler side going to and from the pool, but the water itself should be glorious and the day will be sunny. A great day for my "day off", and I have my usual million things to do - LOL. 

All I asked DH to do was pick up a couple of 
USB-C charging cables at Target. That 
should have been easy. Apparently they 
had products marked "Apple" in the section 
for "Android", and he couldn't decide if they 
would work or not. I'll take a look today at 
a different Target and see if I can be more 
successful. 

Today is DH's "learn how to use my phone" day with Chickie. I hope they both survive the experience. I had asked him to pick up some charging cables, but the display was all messed up and he ended up frustrated. I'll get a couple today instead. We did indulge in a semi-annual trip to the liquor store last night, as soon as I dropped my laptop off at home. I was getting down on my rum, and wanted to try some gluten-free beer, and he needed more hard lemonade and other lighter beverages for his summer days on the patio. Of course, it's July 4th weekend, and even Total Wine was sold out of a lot of things. But we found beverages that will do. Hopefully by the time we need more refills, the stock will be back up. 

There are a lot of nice styles of "Colorado 
Avalanche Stanley Cup Champions" t-shirts 
out there. This was one of the nicer ones, but 
there are a lot of choices. BLATANT HINT, 
SHARON - LOL. 

Hey, Sharon! I know you read my blog. Want to get me a great Holiday gift? Buy me a Colorado Avalanche Stanley Cup Winners t-shirt. I wear my Denver Broncos Superbowl Winners t-shirt a lot (I'm wearing it today, which is what brought this to mind). I'm wearing a medium or small size now, if that's a help - LOL. 

So I'm going to get pictures plugged in here and post, then get my first load of laundry going. It's a Wednesday, my "day off", and I have a million things to do. No time to waste, so I need to be focused. Have a wonderful day and enjoy it. I'll be back tomorrow. 

I Am Woman Hear Me Roar and Charging Ahead - Cables and Phones

DH spent yesterday at the shop getting more and more used to his new phone. He'd come up and ask me a question, and I'd basically say "I have no idea how that works on your phone. Ask Chickie." I sent her several texts detailing the questions he was asking me so that when they are working together tomorrow, she can run down the list of questions and supply answers. I've never had a Samsung phone - never particularly wanted one although it's a popular brand. I'm delighted with my Pixel phones and don't really want to switch over to a different brand. Every phone operates differently and what works for me might not work for him. 

Generally I love diversity, but when it comes to teaching 
DH how to use a different brand of phone? No. I'll leave 
that up to the Chickie since she's used Samsung phones 
for more than a decade. 

I did get him added to the network at the shop, so he's on the Bluetooth. But that was about all I could do, and I was busy. Very busy yesterday. That was a VERY good thing because I couldn't obsess about LJ Idol votes. I have no idea the number of votes I'm getting, hopefully I'll still keep my head above water in this very talented group. Since we had to email our votes in to our moderator, I don't think any of us know where we are in the standings this time until the votes are revealed over the weekend. I'm on needles and pins, but that's not unusual - LOL. 

We're using the same USB-C cables now, and if we both 
need to charge at the same time, that's a problem. We need 
another 2-4 USB-C cables ASAP to allow us the ability 
to recharge without being in each other's way. 

I need a few more charging cables for home and the shop. DH won't be using his old cable anymore, so we need more USB-C cables in case both of us want/need to charge at the same time. Fortunately those are generally available. Since DH is going to Target today, I'll add two cables (or more) to his shopping list. I actually think four cables would be the best quantity. I have some added to my Amazon cart, but would rather have them a bit faster than Amazon could get them to me. 

Even after decades of political representation, we still 
have a problem with women in politics. We're not 
taken as seriously, and we're perceived as not performing 
our job as effectively/efficiently as men. Piffle! Want 
an efficient person? Ask a women who grows up 
multitasking much more than any man I've ever known. 

It's the Fourth of July this weekend - Independence Day for the USA. I wonder what our Founding Fathers would think about our nation these days. One Nation, DIVISIBLE, With Liberty and Justice FOR SOME. Pretty obviously, those in power are trying to push women out of the political picture once again, trying to relegate us back to the kitchen and nursery. Of course, there are plenty of women who embrace that stereotype happily, even though it's horribly out of date. I do NOT embrace it. I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar! 

When the Women's Rights Movement was just gaining 
ground, Helen Reddy came out with this song - "I Am Woman". 
It was the anthem of my generation, and should become our 
anthem again, because we've got some serious problems in 
this country and the men just aren't getting the job done. 

On that Helen Reddy note, I'm out of here. It's a swimming day today and I'm already looking forward to it. Since I awakened with a serious leg cramp, I think I need the water to work the residual mess out of my muscles. Have an excellent Tuesday and I'll return tomorrow. 

Doing the Happy Dance After a Day of Fits and Starts - I Hate Breaking In New Phones

 First off, two items of business. 

The most important, of course, is hockey. The Colorado Avalanche pulled it off and won Lord Stanley's Cup in the 6th game of the series. I'm deliriously happy about that - truly delighted. As I told an on-line fellow hockey fan - if the Minnesota Wild couldn't win the Cup, then the second team of my heart, the Colorado Avalanche should pull it of. And the DID! Bravo and cheers and happy dances. 

The Avalanche were playing excellent hockey this 
year and I am thrilled and delighted that they 
managed to win Lord Stanley's Cup. If the Cup 
couldn't go to Minnesota, Colorado is the next 
best thing for me. 

Second item of business is voting on LJ Idol which, this time, is restricted to contestants only. Bummer! Although I don't push friends and family to vote for me, I always appreciate it when some of you are kind enough to do so. Save those votes for the next challenge, however. I'm still very much in the pack and I'll be around for a while longer. In the meantime, I'll read through all of the entries and put in my own votes. We'll see how I do in a very limited field of votes this time. 

I'm a bit bummed that it's voting for contestants only this 
time, but then again I don't have a huge cadre of people 
I can call upon for votes in any case. I'll be sure to let you 
know when the voting is open once again - probably for 
the next story. I'm curious how I'll do in the votes this time - 
I'm a new kid on the block and don't have a lot of 
alliances. I just love to write to prompts, so I'm delighted 
to be a part of this group. 

I spent most of the day yesterday dealing with DH's new cellphone. It had arrived from Amazon on Friday, so I went to Verizon yesterday when they opened and got a SIM card for it. While I was there, I also picked up a $199 tablet that DH had his eyes on. I'll order screen protection for the tablet today. The rest of the day was spent by transferring the data from the old phone to the new one. 

DH now has a functional, fully operational 
Samsung S22 Galaxy phone. The way he holds 
on to things, he'll probably still have the darned 
thing when he dies - LOL. But I never want to 
try to transfer data from a phone as old as his 
old Motorola again, so I'll have to be firm and 
put my foot down. It'll have to be replaced 
sooner than the length of time it was this time. 

Normally this should have been a piece of cake. Samsung has a lovely transfer program for their phones called Samsung Smart Switch and it works well ... except when the two can't be connected via the included cable which was for USB-C to USB-C. His old Motorola phone was SO ancient, it was still using a Micro USB-X connector, and I didn't have a cable with one end Micro and the other end C. 

I have a lot of different cables, but none that are 
Micro USB to USB-C. The included cable with 
my phone and DH's phone for data transfer was 
USB-C to USB-C which is an easy transfer to do. 
I didn't have an adapter to make a Micro USB 
into a USB-C, so I had to work with a WiFi 
connection instead. It worked, but not as well 
as I had hoped it would. Still, his programs did 
shift over, even if details might not have made 
the jump. 

That meant I needed to work with an on-line WiFi program instead. I tried Mobiel Trans first, but they actually wanted me to purchase the program and no ... not going to do that unless I'm out of options. Then I tried Share It and that finally worked, but in the middle of everything I had to rediscover sign-in codes and passwords that hadn't been used forever, get the new phone onto my WiFi network, and power it up because it was only half-power and I was using a lot just for the set-up. I finally succeeded in getting his phone to the point where I could pass it over to him. He now has to deal with the fact that a lot of his data still needs to be restored - the programs pulled over fine, but not all of the data. For instance, his note-taking calendar that he uses extensively pulled over, but all of his appointments, etc didn't. He'll be re-entering appointments, contacts, and other miscellaneous items for most of today and part of the week. 

The new tablet is quite nice. He wants 
to use his old case, but I don't think it 
will fit (and the case looks like crap). 
Still, I can check that out on Wednesday. 
I won't let him have the tablet until I 
have screen protection on it anyway. 

I'll work on the new tablet in the meantime. After I get screen protection on it, I'll make sure it has everything we need on it and then pass it on to DH later this week. I have plenty of other things to do that will keep me busy. I'm almost finished with the photo grids for the round Swarovski crystals, then I can start the actual photo work and see where that goes. 

So, have a wonderful Monday. I hope I'm busy at the store, but at least DH will be kept busy working on his new phone. Enjoy your day and I'll be back tomorrow. AND, if you're a member of the LJ Idol writing group, please consider voting for my creation story. I'd appreciate your vote. Slava Ukraini