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Holding On Till The Next Hot Flash

Welcome to another Wrist to Forehead Sunday post.  I did not get much done today, although I tried.  I don’t know why I thought I could get anything done.  Hope springs eternal, I suppose.

It has been a cold weekend in the Mohawk Valley.  I know, it’s February, what can I expect?  As a matter of fact, I did expect it to be cold.  And I did not expect to enjoy it.  However, I will admit to feeling… not good, but as if the cold was doing me good as I walked through the Hannaford parking lot after picking up a few groceries.  You know, like an ice pack or a cold shower is sometimes just what you need.  I couldn’t pinpoint for you exactly what about me I felt needed icing at at time, but I decided to go with it.

The cold did not continue to do me good (or feel as if it was doing me good, I guess), but you’ll have that.  As usual, I just tried to hold on till the next hot flash.

We had another rehearsal for “Rubbed Out at Ruby’s,” the 1920’s murder mystery LiFT Theatre Company will present at the Overlook Mansion in Little Falls.  This week I positively will write a full blog post about it.  In the meantime, I’ll try to find a link you can click for more information.  You can also go to the Overlook’s or LiFT’s Facebook pages.

 

Snow, Costumes and Oolong Tea

Well, I am going to try to make my Scattered Saturday post before Steven comes home and we go out to meet good friends for dinner.  For one reason, I thought I would refrain from drinking and typing, as I sometimes do on a Saturday.  At least for my blog post.  About Facebook I make no promises (note to self:  make a Facebook page for Mohawk Valley Girl, in case my readers would like to Like me there).

Mmm… I paused to sip my Oolong tea.  I LOVE Oolong tea.  Why have I not been drinking it every day?  Points to ponder.  Then I paused again, because my laptop told me the battery was low.  Silly me, not plugging it in between Facebook breaks.  I moved to a different chair, plugged the damn thing in, moved my tea, which necessitated moving a piled up lace dress (that I’ll tell you about in a few), sat down, remembered my mouse, went back across the room to get the mouse… I tell you, it’s not easy being me.

We slept in this morning, because Steven did not work till 10:30.  Oh, the laziness of staying in bed till almost seven o’clock!  It was great.  It was after eight when Spunky indicated it was time for his first business meeting.  I put on a bra (do NOT tell me TMI!), my flood boots and my warmest coat.  It was still pretty frigid out, and snowing.  Spunky barked at a neighbor as she came out of her house.  We exchanged good mornings, and I told Spunky he was a silly dog (he already knew).

Steven had sensibly put off clearing the cars since more snow would fall before time to leave, but I saw that we also had to shovel.  After I got Spunky back inside, wiped his paws and gave him a treat, I went back out and started.  Steven soon joined me.  At least the snow was lightweight.  Pushing it worked fine.  Our neighbor shoveled the sidewalk in front of our house and started helping on the driveway!  How awesome of her!  I thanked her profusely, and Steven and I introduced ourselves.  After she left and Steven and I had finished up, I paid it forward by doing the walk in front of the house on the other side.

After showering and getting dressed, I wrote my weekly postcards.  My first stop on leaving the house after Steven was the post office.  Then I gassed up, got some money from the ATM and a drink at the Nice N Easy.  The drink took some debate, since I am avoiding sugar (on a doctor’s suggestion) yet wanted more than mere water.  I finally got Poland Springs Sparkling, black cherry flavor.  That stuff is awesome!  It tastes like soda only not sweet (I often don’t enjoy sweet soda after the first few sips), but there are NO calories!  Score!

I drove to Ilion Little Theatre, where a few people were hard at work on the set for Steel Magnolias.  I hope to show you a photo of the beautifully painted backdrop when it is finished.  I went upstairs to look for 1920s type costumes for the upcoming murder mystery, Rubbed Out at Ruby’s, to be presented by LiFT Theatre Company in Little Falls.  I did not have a whole lot of hope, because I went through every dress in that place when we were doing Leading Ladies and I did not remember anything I thought would work.  However, I was mistaken.  I found a few things I liked, including the lace dress I mentioned some paragraphs ago (was that mention even worth foreshadowing?).

After those exertions, however, I started feeling not too well again.  How stupid of me!  Why can’t I just be healthy?  And why do I have to be such a baby about it?  And here I am, troubling my readers with my complaints.  So sorry.  This is what happens, though, when I’m typing away with one eye on the clock.  I have to plug in the curling iron and do my hair (an unaccustomed chore, to be sure).   Well, I hope you have been moderately entertained by my Scattered Saturday gyrations.  As for me, that Oolong tea has given me my first hot flash of the day and all I can say is, Thank God for menopause!  I have been freezing!  Happy Saturday, everyone.

 

Steven and Me

There is nothing like not having a damn thing to post about to make one less self-conscious about the thing she did NOT want to post about yesterday (one and she being, of course, me).  Additionally, when I asked Steven what I could make my blog post about, he said, “ME!”  Well, it will be about him and me, as I share a few photos and memories (yes, I’m still relying on the find a few pics method of blog posting.  I kind of like it).

The first photo is from our wedding day, back in 1990.  Check out my ugly big glasses!  Big ugly glasses are coming back into style, but I don’t think we’ll see these again.

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How handsome Steve looks! He still is pretty cute.

We are drinking the toast offered by his best man.  I have no memory about what was said.  I don’t even remember if it was a good champagne.  I like dry champagne now, and I prefer to drink it out of a flute.

This next picture was taken at the HALO Luau Fundraiser, a few years ago.  I think I wrote a blog post about it.  I wonder if I can find it and make a link.

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Us get silly for a photo op? Say it ain’t so!

This next one is more recent.  We visited Woodland Hops Farm.  I don’t think I made a blog post about it, but I wrote an article for Mohawk Valley Living magazine.  My sister Cheryl took the picture.

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Cheers!

It’s kind of too bad that we are toasting in two but not three of the pictures.  It would have been nice to have, you know, kind of a theme. On the other hand, they are all pictures of a happy couple enjoying themselves.

 

I Ax You: Is This a Good Picture of Me?

 

Oh I am having a dreadful case of Writer’s Block.  Seriously, my brain is blocking me from writing this post (I know, I know, that’s not writing, that’s typing, as Truman Capote said).  It is Tired Tuesday, but I truly did not want to spend 200 or so words whining about how tired I am and how I can’t think of anything to write.  So I went to my new standby: looking through photos we’ve downloaded to this laptop and picking a few to write about.  I had found some good ones of me and my husband, Steven.

I don’t want to post any pictures of me!  I don’t even like looking at pictures of me!  Many people feel this way.  Most of us look better in pictures to others than we look to ourselves.  I can’t tell you how many times people have said, “Oh, what a great picture of you,” and I have thought, “Wow, I’m not nearly as cute as I think I am.”  I don’t even like to have my own picture as my Facebook profile.  This is what I currently have:

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I was having a Lizzie Borden kind of a day.

The caption doesn’t show on my Facebook.  I prefer threatening people with an ax on general principles, not to get candy.  I can buy candy.

Oh, OK, I have never actually threatened anybody with an ax in real life.  On stage once, I held an ax over the guy who was playing my husband, after I had shot him and he had fallen on the floor. However, I was not threatening; I actually brought the thing down on that bastard.  He had it coming.  This was in Roxy, a play about Roxalana Druse, a famous local murderess. Herkimer County Historical Society presented it at Ilion Little Theatre in September of 2015.  Perhaps you read some of my blog posts about it at the time.

So now I am over 300 words.  Whined a little, showed a picture, shared a memory.  I call that all right for a Tired Tuesday.  Now I’m off to my rehearsal for Steel Magnolias at Ilion Little Theatre.  Maybe I can find my Tablet and take pictures of the progress made on the set.  I think it’s looking pretty good, and will make a marvelous Wordless Wednesday post.  Hope to see you then.

 

Any Anniversary at my Age

So there I was, looking at Facebook and wondering what I could make a blog post about when on my On This Day, I noticed:  Five years ago today was my first Middle-aged Musings Monday!  I know that has largely been replaced by Monday Mental Meanderings, but it just seems so perfect:  I’m looking for a topic, I notice an anniversary.  So I’m going to middled-agedly muse.

OK, so far I don’t have much to muse about.  I had kind of a lost weekend from not feeling well and not being especially ambitious before I started feeling unwell.  There must be some sort of truism about how your level of ambition is usually indirectly proportional to the amount of things you need to accomplish.  Indirectly proportional, if I am remembering junior high math class correctly (if that was even where I learned it) means as one goes up, the other goes down.  In other words, I have a lot to get done. I need to make a list.  And then start actually doing the things on the list.

Naturally the first thing on my list would be Make Blog Post.  It is, in fact, one of the few things I reliably get done.  Not always easily.  For example, just now it took me several tries to type in a sentence because I couldn’t quite make up my mind if using “reliably”  and “on a regular basis” in the same sentence would constitute a tautology.  Tautology is when you say the same thing more than once.  It is redundant.  Yes, that is a joke I make on a regular basis:  You used a tautology by being redundant and saying the same thing more than once!

As you may guess, I am not feeling a whole hell of a lot better than I did yesterday.  I went to the doctor today, and I’ll probably have something else to complain about soon.  In the meantime, I need to eat more chicken soup.  I’ll try for a better blog post on Tired Tuesday.

 

Wrist to Severed Head?

I interrupt my Severed Head Sunday entertainment to make my blog post.  I did not realize this was going to be a Severed Head Sunday.  I thought I was having a perfectly normal Wrist to Forehead Sunday, not getting enough done, sorry I have to go to work tomorrow, feeling a big angsty about it all.  But Steven and I decided to watch movies instead of our usual Snapped marathon.  When we agreed on Lake Placid, I realized what kind of Sunday it was.

Lake Placid, for the uninitiated, is a horror movie from 1999 about alligators terrorizing a Maine lake which is, in fact, not called Lake Placid.  I wrote a blog post about it some time ago (I wonder if I can find it and make a link).  I think it is a fun flick.  Of course, to make this a true Severed Head Sunday, it might be nice to watch at least one more movie that involves decapitation.  Or there may be an episode of Snapped that can fulfill that requirement.  I am nothing if not flexible in these things.

I have done some writing today, but not much.  At the risk of becoming tiresome, I will just mention VERY BRIEFLY that my cold seems to be back.  Perhaps I do not get enough Vitamin C in my life.   However, I liked what I wrote and I may write a little more, when the movie watching, hanging out with husband portion of the day is over.  After all, one must hang out with one’s husband.

 

Non-Sequitur Spunky

For this week’s Non-Sequitur Thursday post, I am going to talk about Spunky, our little dog.   Here is a picture of him:

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Isn’t he cute?

I think that one was taken at The Velvet Dog Grooming Salon, where he gets groomed regularly.  Regular readers may remember that the Velvet Dog was fostering Spunky after his owner died. We saw adopted him after they posted his picture on Facebook.   I wrote a blog post about it last June.  Spunky is an old guy.  He mostly likes to lay around and sleep.

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It is a pretty comfy chair.

Right now he is curled up right next to me on the couch.  He doesn’t always do that.  He has his own end, with an afghan that he sometimes burrow under.  Spunky is fond of my yarn.  I had a basket which my sister Cheryl had given me specifically for me to put yarn in, while I was working on my projects.  Spunky spotted it and climbed right in:

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I like a dog to make himself at home.

I have since taken out the unfinished projects and put in an afghan made specifically for Spunky.  After all, I can find another place to put my yarn.

I sometimes wonder about Spunky.  He was ten years old when we got him and had only had one owner.  I hope he is settling in with us.  I worry that he might not love us.  It’s not that I mind having a dog that’s not crazy about me, my low self-esteem notwithstanding.  I just want him to be happy.  How happy can you be living with people you don’t love?  So I like it when he snuggles up next to me on the couch.  And I like it when he wags his tail when he sees me.

Well, this has not been a particularly inspired blog post.  Still, with pictures of a cute little dog, what’s not to like?  If only I can think of an unrelated but catchy headline, so this is a true Non-Sequitur Thursday, I can hit Publish with a clear conscience.  Hope to see you again on Lame Post Friday.

 

Literally Running Lines

Do you like that title?  I thought of it while I was at work today.  I wanted to run, since I had taken two days off, and I need to work on my lines for Steel Magnolias (remember, that play I’m in at Ilion Little Theatre?).  Steven would be home and was willing to run them with me.  I decided to do both chores at once by running in place on the mini-tramp.

As I drove home, I regretted my plan, because it was unseasonably warm and the sidewalks looked not too bad.  However, I have lines to work on and a husband to spend time with.  I put on indoor running clothes and cleared off the tramp (it is such a handy place to put things!).  I set a bottle of water on the coffee table and got going.

As often happens when running on the mini-tramp, I felt I was moving faster than I do outside.  I really don’t enjoy the up/down motion of running in place as much as the low shuffle of running down the street.  I also like the changing scenery better than the television.  However, I was not supposed to be looking at the television; I was supposed to be thinking about my lines.

And I didn’t do too badly.   Some of the lines I had forgotten but remembered when Steven gave me the cue.  Some of the longer lines I did not know word for word.  But I feel pretty confident to go to rehearsal and not have my book in my hand.  For Act I Scene 1, at least.  Imagine my chagrin when I chatted with a fellow cast member via Facebook and found out we are doing Act II Scene 2.  Oh well, I have all day at work tomorrow to study that one some more.

As for my run, I ran in place for 28 minutes, six minutes more than I ran on Sunday.  Woohoo!  I only walked a three minute cool-down, because walking around the house just not as good as walking around the block.  I felt pretty pleased with myself for getting some exercise, and for giving myself something to write a blog post about, complete with headline.  Was it a great blog post?  Perhaps not, but I can’t worry about that now.  At least it wasn’t Wuss-out Wednesday.  Hope to see you all on Non-Sequitur Thursday.

 

Not Useful But Not a Bad Saturday

Once again, I post in haste on a Saturday so I can get back to enjoying my evening.  Hey, bloggers like to relax on their days off, too, you know!  I am at the coveted bra off, sweats on, wine drinking, TV watching, with husband hanging portion of the evening.  Why did I not post earlier in anticipation of this time?  No good reason.  I could not think of anything good to post about, but, really, when has that stopped me?

It has not been a usefully-spent Saturday.  I don’t know if I even did enough to warrant a Scattered Saturday post, but let’s try anyways.  We slept in till 6:30 this morning and could have slept even later but Steven had to go to work.  Rats!  After we hung out and had coffee, and I made my usual Saturday morning phone call to my parents (I call them other times, too, of course, but the Saturday morning call is kind of a thing), I started writing post cards (another Saturday morning thing).

I waited till after Steven had left and I took Spunky for a business meeting to walk to the post office.  Spunky did not walk with me.  He doesn’t seem to care for long walks.  I started making it an even longer walk than last week, but I got kind of cold and depressed, so I walked back home sooner than planned.  At least I got some exercise.

Back home I worked a little more on the murder mystery LiFT Theatre Company is doing at the Overlook Mansion in Little Falls, NY.  I read a few of the newspapers that collected all week (I don’t get the chance to read them every day).  I looked at Facebook.  I took a short nap on the couch.  I did a load of laundry and folded the last two or three that have been waiting to be folded (don’t judge me).  I talked to my sister on the telephone.

Finally I judged it OK to pour myself a glass of wine and sit down in front of the television with my knitting.  Ah, my favorite time of day.  After a while I changed into my sweats and started fixing a fairly interesting dinner.  At last Steven came home!  Now he is looking at the television and waiting for me to finish my blog post so we can go on to the movie watching portion of the evening.  And I think I’m there.  Happy Saturday, everyone.

 

Not Lame, Love!

In lieu of my usual Friday Lame Post, I thought I would share a few photos of the lovely Valentine’s Day decorations my sweetie-pie husband, Steven put up.  Steven has a real talent for decorating.  He does the various seasons at our house.  It brightens up my day.  Here is the mantle over our fireplace:

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I decorated the grapevine wreath. I was really into grapevine wreaths and my hot glue gun for a while there. Perhaps I should get back into it.

 

We almost never use our dining room table, although I do have a couple of jigsaw puzzles I’d like to work on at some point.  Usually Steven puts a seasonal table cloth on, but apparently the Valentine one he had got damaged.  I personally like the doily look.

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I gave him the roulette wheel in the center for his birthday one year. I found it at a second-hand shop.

 

The buffet is also in the dining room.  Ignore the mural on the wall; that was there when we moved in.  The poster partially blocking it was displayed in the lobby of Ilion Little Theatre during the run of Leading Ladies, the show I directed last spring.

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The juke box is out all year. It is one of Steven’s prized possessions.

 

This is the window over our kitchen sink, looking out into our backyard.

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I carefully held the Tablet so as not to photograph the dirty dishes in the sink. Um, I mean, there are no dirty dishes in my sink.

 

Now I must start thinking about Valentine’s Day.  What, oh what, can I give my beloved husband?  As you can see, we already have a lot of cutesy little stuffed toys, heart shaped boxes and other Valentine memorabilia.  I’ll try to think of something good.  Then I’ll write a blog post about it.  In the meantime, Happy Friday, everyone!