The count is four scrubby washcloths and two finished round scrubbers. The one beside the blue loom just needs the handle and strings wove in. Then by tomorrow or even before bed tonight the one on the loom will be finished. The little scrubbers as fast. And they are for face or skin. It helps with exfoliating.
I was feeling a little celebratory and wanted to lift a cup, so I added one.
Green tea is one of my favorites for any time of the day. I start with coffee, but only because since the shutdown our little stores here don’t carry Earl Grey. I miss that so much.
And about the time I was to take a sip I looked out and saw this:
It occurs to me that the reason I bought the colors of the scrubby yarn is sunset skies.
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “coffee, tea, or me.” Find a flirty phrase of your own or use “coffee, tea, or me” in your post. Have fun!
I think I covered it, coffee, tea, and a little o’ me.
Okay, I don’t have that many. Top left looks like Teddy, to the right looks like Panda who passed about a decade ago. In his place should be a pure black, Rosey. The next shelf looks like my Kimberlina (Kimmie) who passed about 15 years ago. In my arms are the strays. The orange one was here when we moved here. We called her Jasmine but she disappeared a few months ago. The one in my left is the newer stray kitten we call Smokey. I hope we can dig up the money to have all the current ones to the vet for check-ups. I’d love to have Smokey inside once it gets cold again.
No, not the sound of a bee. I mean extremely busy! But somehow that doesn’t hold the strength of the energy of my days of late. And they always say ‘busy as a bee,’ so thereby I suggest we use BUZZY for this purpose. What do you think?
I’m back on the laptop. That makes my eyes happy. But after all the scans and utilities that were run, the internet is so darn slow that I find myself walking away and doing other things while it decides to do what I asked. Maybe because we are in the middle of Oregon Outback, maybe because everyone is using far more internet than ever before. Whatever the reason I am sick of it. I write whole paragraphs that don’t show up for a long time. While waiting I can knit whole rows.
In fact, the screen just went black, except for the taskbar so now I’m writing from my phone. At least it can keep up with me.
But the phone is harder to see and navigate. Oh, grrr!
Where did my stream go?
I decided that we needed some dishcloths. So I ordered Scrubby Cotton yarn. My plan was to mix it with regular cotton yarn. But I can’t find those skeins. So I’m clearing clutter. Still no cotton yarn. But things are getting cleaner.
Giving up on the cotton, I decided to just use the Scrubby stuff. It isn’t nice on the hands. I’m learning a new pattern. That’s fun.
All the while, and in between tutorials and fuzzy internets, The Stand is being read to me.
My eyes are begging for some zzz’s. So I better put the phone and blog away. That’s as far as the stream will take me today.
Oops! Time has snuck up on me and it is nearly midnight, again. I have been so busy starting new projects that I got lost.
Yes, I’m making another pair of sock, but these will be for Hat Huggers, in other words, for charity. Oh, and I worked on my haircut and am feeling itchy so I may have to cut this short. See what I did there?
Nails, I don’t do them, except keep them clean and not too long. When they get too long they tend to break below the quick and it hurts. On the other hand, giggle, I can’t cut them too short or my fingertips hurt. As a cosmetologist, I used to do my nails all the time. But eventually, I found that the acrylics and even just polish felt heavy on my nails. Weirdly, I feel the same way about hand lotions. Even though I need them more now than ever before, my hands need to get to nearly bloody before I remember to use them. My mother was the same way. What is that? I love a good looking nail and soft beautiful hands.
Oh, no, I just looked at the clock. I have fifteen minutes. So my Stream of Consciousness Saturday is curtailed to a little leak of nonsense. I hope you all had a good Saturday. I think I did. Just so busy I didn’t even notice.
Do you remember when you were young and someone asked you how old you were? And you’d square your shoulders and tell them your age plus a half or three quarters or even larger fraction according to how much math had been imparted to your brain. Then somewhere mid-thirties or forties that all started changing. I, for one, reversed the numbers to reflect a smaller number. 41 became 14, 52 became 25. At one point that became useless. Face it. When that happens you have reached maturity. Scratch that, You’re old. Fantastic. I was hiding from my actual age the whole time I’ve been alive. Never happy with the moment wanting to be older or younger. I would have loved to be 33 forever. Mature enough to make my own decisions and young enough to do everything I ever wanted to do. At that age, I could even play in the park without feeling silly as my kids needed the accompanying adult on the slide and the swings. Then I could enjoy a drink and pretend to be a full adult.
Well, here I am at 07 and thinking maybe I should be the fan of the half or three-quarter again. Maybe if the world didn’t have a pandemic and other apocalyptic things like murder wasps, I wouldn’t embrace this. But for those of us with birthdays in December, which has never been a great month for those who were born under its cold, crazy, Christmasy times, the fact may be that many of us might not be here for our birthdays. If and when we do, all the better to show we fancy every moment of life.
So today I attended a half birthday Zoom party. There were elements of fantasy as this was with a cosplay bunch of friends. I could have sworn one of the ladies had elf ears. Anyway, I thought this idea was fun and look forward to my half birthday in a few days. We have life. Let’s celebrate it. even if only on Zoom with friends and family. It may be we are closer to loved ones now than ever before as we need to keep in touch often. Wouldn’t it be great if we could measure our lives in Love? Is Rent playing in my head again? Let me share the earworm. (One of my favorite songs of all time!)
Each second should have always been this precious. We should have never put aside our elders, how quickly we become one! As we try to save lives let’s make sure to pull it in and let it sit with us. Before COVID19 a car accident or cancer could rob us of a loved one but it was so seldom that we didn’t bring it in until it was too late. We’ve been given a bit of a gift to look at saving and loving our lives and loving the lives of others.
Half-Birthday? I’m a fan. I might even enjoy a three-quarter Birthday! Hey, remember being a newlywed? We got so sappy! Two-week anniversaries were fun! Let’s get back to that kind of excitement. Life is a gift. We can still be careful and distance and hand-wash, AND love life!
Per Linda:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “fan.” Use it by itself or find a word that starts or ends with it. Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “spay/splay/spray.” Use one, use two, use ’em all, it’s up to you. Have fun!
I think we live in Pet Sematary. Remember poor dead rooster? The one that the neighbor dug a grave for and buried? Yeah, rooster and his look-a-like hen were in the chicken coop this morning. They look a little worse for wear, but they are up and free-ranging, waiting for crusts of my breakfast toast. Not a lot of crowing going on. The growl wasn’t of a zombie rooster but his normal weird growl that I think is suppose to scare predators.
Anyone hearing Twilight Zone or The Walking Dead music?
Speaking of the outside menagerie, When we moved here an orange cat came with the home. We couldn’t get too close. I don’t know if she was he or she. But without the bumps under the tail that our other ginger had before he was neutered, we had a neutered male, who we named Jasper. But if indeed she was she there would need to be a spay. On the stray. We finally decided she was she for lack of feline spraying. So we named her Jasmine. Though we fed her. We never could get near enough to try to take her to a vet.
Five years ago Jasmine looked pretty healthy even though an outdoor feral. She didn’t wander too far from home and never seemed to bring home kittens. Suddenly this year a little gray cat/older kitten showed up on the back porch. Cutest thing ever! Much more friendly than Jasmine. Does tricks on the porch rails and curls all over you if you extend your hand. We’ve named this one Smokey. Again we assume this one is female. This one we may be able to capture and take in for spaying.
Meanwhile, it’s been over a month since we saw Jasmine. And the last few times I saw her she was in the sun but looking so old and tired. I so wish we could have made her more comfortable. Then we didn’t see her anymore. Is Smokey hers? I don’t know. My brother thinks they have similar faces. But I don’t see it. Smokey is longer fur and such a different kind of personality. So when quarantine is lifted we will have to get her spayed. I hope that by that time we will feel comfortable letting her stay inside for the winter. I can see it now all three cats and Kali splayed out on my bed. I may never be able to get under my own covers! I wish I had a picture of her but I found this on Pixabay.com that looks a lot like Smokey.
The rest of–hey! It’s still Saturday! We celebrated number three son’s birthday by Zoom today. During that time all three offspring on the screen received alerts on their cells about rioting and calls for curfew in Reno. Wow! The tropes of the disaster movies flew through my brain. Luckily everyone I knew was already home and safe. Weird life in the days of #WhatDayIsItAnyway?
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “ch.” Find a word that starts with “ch” and use it as your prompt word. Bonus points if you start your post with that word. Enjoy!
Well, my first thought, if we are streaming, is:
Ch-ch-ch-changes is what we are all dealing with. Remember all the TV psychologists that were preaching about the time it takes to form a new habit? Yeah, that is where we are. Adjusting and reminding ourselves to do the things it takes to keep ourselves and others healthy. It is scary. If not personally, then for loved-ones.
I remember as my grandparents and then my mother lay in the hospitals very ill about thirty years and more ago. I wouldn’t bring my four youngsters around for fear that they might have a cold or something that would be caught by my sickly elders. There was no COVID19 then. I couldn’t bear the guilt should I through my recklessness if they would die. How could anyone not want to try and keep everyone healthy? I don’t understand the childish tantrums.
Well, I do understand the frustration. It is adjusting to the habits and changes that trying to stay healthy and hopefully not make others sick is sometimes overwhelming. It makes me have nightmares. I find myself writing a lot. Especially thinking about, what if this is the last time… What if I won’t see another friend or family member, regardless if it is me or them that go… There is not much in the way of a will, as, what do I have, anyway? Still, I think about things and realize that I wouldn’t want the things. I want my loved one. What if they get the stroke version or the toe-gunk or the having to be on ventilators. Death may not be the worst. Maybe it will be the suffering they, or I will deal with.
All the more stress is added to just getting food into the house. Remember when we could go to the store, hug friends if we meet them there. Stand and talk for hours in the vegetable section. Sure you’d have to get out of the way of other shoppers but they’d smile and just go around. Then the hardest thing was making sure you got everything on the list, because who wants to go to the store more often than once a week. For us, it was twice a month. We’d drive to the city 90 miles away to do the whole thing. With this, we do all the shopping in two little stores in a frontier town. Imagine grocery shopping at the convenience store. Not bad for picking stuff up for the weekend barbeque. But for daily meals with any healthy values it is very hard to do.
Oh, we all know how scary that march into the house and putting it all away is. And then the counting days from the last outing for 14 days. These are habits we didn’t learn. They are still not fully formed habits. Had it been so easy as to just washing our hands more, that would have been a hard new habit to squeeze into our every day. But all of the rest of this is hard for all of us. The sanest people are having problems with it. We are running for our lives, the lives of the medical folks who will be taking care of us or our loved ones. We have to keep reminding ourselves of that. The changes sometimes seem beyond our reach.
I was never a Bowie fan but here are the words to the song:
David Bowie Lyrics
“Changes”
I still don’t know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
And every time I thought I’d got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I’ve never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I’m much too fast to take that testCh-ch-ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-changes
Don’t want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can’t trace time
I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They’re quite aware of what they’re going through
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-changes
Don’t tell them to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-changes
Where’s your shame
You’ve left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me
But you can’t trace time
Strange fascination, fascinating me
Changes are taking the pace
I’m going through
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-changes
Oh, look out you rock ‘n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-changes
Pretty soon now you’re gonna get older
Time may change me
But I can’t trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can’t trace time
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “want.” Make the word “want” the first, second, or third word of your post. Have fun!
Waste not, want not Is the maxim I would teach
Let your watchword be despatch
And practice what you preach
Do not let your chances Like sunbeams, pass you by
For you never miss the water
Till the well runs dry
When I was a teen a hundred eighty years ago, okay, exaggeration, sixty-four years ago, and what’s the dif? I heard the above song and embraced the concept. I didn’t remember the whole song, just the above chorus.
I couldn’t find the actual song. I think it was on Mormon Tabernacle Choir album I came upon way back when. If any of you find it let me know. I didn’t want to spend all day researching while trying to stream my consciousness.
This very song is my blatant rebellion to the ‘if it doesn’t scream joy to you throw it away’ mentality of those who are the haves and have always been haves. When you have been poor you know want, need even more so. If you have moved a lot and threw away as you moved, find yourself needing things you threw away because in the new place it was important. Replacing all that is easy when you have good jobs. Not so much when times get hard. Or like now when much isn’t in the stores.
We may have more than we need right now, making the place messier than Marie Kondo could handle. Not as bad as Hoarders victims. But I don’t believe in throwing out. Those clothes that don’t bring joy? Make them into other items, carryalls, yarn, or patches. Book you don’t want to read? Well, you can donate to the library, which I do, but throwing out? Nope. If it was a popular textbook or best-seller, there are too many out there. They can become new art supplies, journals, decorations. You can build things with books. Heck, you can build walls to whole new rooms should you bring another in who needs privacy. Books insulate sound.
I do believe that giving to others is a good thing. If I can I do. But my energy to gather and lift and carry to the vehicle and then to a second-hand store is close to nil. My same lack of energy makes a yard sale, even prior to the lock-down, nearly impossible.
The thing is, I have had many occasions where I needed something and by having these bits of waste around I was able to build something that fills the need. I’m a firm believer in that maxim. I do not waste so I need not want.
This is my happy place. A cave with the ocean view. As a teen, my favorite beach had one of these. Now the cave is locked up. I’m glad it was open for us. So cool! It is nice that I can put this picture up here to soak the picture in. I haven’t been to a beach for a couple years.
I have loved the caves in my youth. Big pretty ones with stalactites and stalagmites. But I’ve spelunked a couple with just sand and walls.
Yet the house is often the cave. And lately not in that safe way. But a stifling way. All I need to do to stop that thought is thinking of my wonderful caves of the past, especially with the beach and I can feel my blood pressure ease.
And now that I have pulled myself back to my safe cozy place, it is time to get off the computer. I hope you are finding your safe cave.
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “directions.” Find a household cleaner/bottle of shampoo/something in the freezer/anything you can find with instructions on it, then copy down a single direction (just one) on how to use/cook/etc. your chosen thing, and make it the first line or word of your post. Then keep writing whatever comes out. Have fun!
What day is it anyway? Yeah, I woke thinking I was up in time for Kelly and Ryan. And there was a show about animals in Madagasgar. Well, look what’s on Saturday!
These days if you aren’t bathing in lotion, you probably have perfect skin. With all the hand-washing my hands got so raw the first week or so. I don’t like lotion. I feel like a greased pig. Slimy. Yuck. Most lotions don’t sink into the skin for me. But at least with the grease, I can keep the sores off my skin.
Why is liberal a bad word when it is the way something healing is applied? And who would need the instructions to not take hand lotion internally? Oh, this is making my skin so greasy, maybe if I drink it it will make my skin better?
So, I started editing the bits of Pandamapocalypse that I wrote in April. I found a lot of mistakes that the software did, but it may have been me. Maybe I hit the wrong button or something. But I didn’t know that it was messed up until I looked at it today. At least I was saving in lots of places as I shut down every night so it is fixable. As soon as part one is edited I will go on to write part two. It is fun to write about what is scaring us all. What motivates a virus? I’m learning.
Since this virus likes grease, maybe the hand lotion is a bad thing? Maybe we all will be seeing new directions on the Outbreak rules.
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “joint.” Use it as a noun, an adjective, or a verb–use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!
When I saw the prompt, Joint. I started singing a song I relate to old cartoons. But I couldn’t remember the words except “This joint is jumpin'” Googled and found this YouTube. I’m sure older people or kids who were more aware of their parents’ music remember this song.
Isn’t it a bit weird that we are so far from the freedom of that song? Well, sometimes as we try to make the best of the moment, we dance as if no one is watching. Many have taken up the occasional joint. Can you believe I am a child of the 60s and never had a joint? I do like my CBD though and since all this happened we haven’t been able to go to the city and our little green-cross shop to get the stuff. It does help with a more painless sleep at night. You know, all that pain in the joints.
Though I am caught up on my CampNaNo, well I was last night and I have written half of today’s words. But still, today has me asking What Day Is It Anyway? Because there is just so much going on while the joint is jumping and nothing is the best part of it. When nothing happened, it means we are still healthy and happy. Just knowing that makes you feel like jumping. Singing with joy. Just saying. So back to my writing so it isn’t midnight when I finish. I’ll catch you up on the word-count tomorrow.
Working on my series: Haven.
Doodler (zendoodle.com)
Music major: voice and piano
Mom of four great adults
Reiki II practitioner
I have been on disability/retired for 10 years now from depression, anxiety and fibromyalgia.
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