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Good Morning. Still dark out there so I can’t tell if it’s going to be clear or cloudy. Temp is 32°. Yesterdays prediction of possible, severe weather never really developed per se. We had some strong storms come through about midnight and 3 AM in the morning with a lot of lightning. But they were pretty quick movers. The first one, however, actually became more of a bit of hail or ice pellets as I think the upper 30 degree temps cooled it down. Had another brief one about 6 AM and another about 11 AM and that was the end of it.
We did get up to 58° yesterday afternoon before the cold front came through. I think the worst of the weather went into the UP because they had snow and wind and all kinds of stuff, and the downstate areas also got some severe weather. Here’s an interesting article that was in our local paper, the other day about the weather in the United States. https://apnews.com/article/tornadoes-di ... c187cd17b7.

I was able to get to all my appts. done yesterday and even a short dog walk in. Since today is going to be in the 40s in a bit breezy, I am going to finish working in my basement on my shelter project. Want to wrap that up today? Just need to do the touch up painting and put the shelf in place and that will be it. While the paint is drying, I will unpack my go bag and put the stuff in plastic bins to store down there and make a list of things I wants to get for emergency supplies.

Martha, hope you get the toilet issue fixed. If it’s one you aren’t using, you could just shut the water off to it for now. Yes Barbie, Sunday is Easter. Karen, I think you will enjoy your new ride. I have OnStar on my truck as well as WiFi. But I dropped the WiFi as I don’t need it, since I’m not traveling. I used to use it when I was camping on occasion, but you have to keep the vehicle battery turned on to use it when you parked someplace. So I didn’t want to use it too long. I had Sirius too, but dropped that after the free period expired. Don’t wanna pay to have that service as my truck is in the garage most of the time. I don’t need it just to run back-and-forth to town and I have a CD player. If I want to play some music I’ll take my own with me. I only listen to a couple of stations anyway and when I’m driving in traffic, I don’t want that distraction. Shirl, the mum is up to 4 baby leaves now,

I’m not a big fan of Walmart anymore either. It seems to me like they are cutting back on some of the products that they used to carry too. Since our Meijer store has been doing the remodeling, it has gotten to be a much better store to shop, not that it wasn’t before. They have been bringing in a lot of new products too. And they have more sales and really nice points program that Walmart doesn’t have. So in the long run you can save money. You just have to know how to play the game.

So, that’s about it from here. Have a nice day out there everyone..


The

Morning Sue and All, 66°and heavy afternoon t-storm with wind hail, yada, yada. Sue is this cold normal for your are? Bless that little mums pedals. I haven’t shop in a Walmart store for a couple years. Their curbside pick up was great. Their prices were lower than other stores but I only bought staples, can good, laundry and cleaning supplies. I stopped because Walmart is half an hour away and Food Lion is 5 minus’s. Stores are pushing us to the limits. Local Dollar Tree has empty shelves and one woman trying to run check out, stock shelves and sweep the floor. Curbside or delivery seems to be less irritating. I have chicken tenders marinating in fridge for on top of salad for dinner. Be safe

Thanks for the link to the weather article, Sue. Definitely interesting reading.

Shirl, I had Walmart grocery delivery for most of the height of the pandemic, and then stopped because of the monthly cost, mostly. Also, Walmart meat was never quite up to par - acceptable, but not the best.

I tried Walmart pick up for the first time a couple of weeks ago for my grocery staples (a big Walmart supercenter is about 5 - 10 minutes from me).

I quite liked the pick up service, and will use it again. I always know what I want in advance, and navigating the crowds inside Walmart, standing in the always-crowded checkout lines and just trying to find stuff was always a bit of a bother. Actually, more than a bit.

It was very nice to get everything brought out to my car, and have all my stuff loaded in. Just a couple of minutes for a stop, where shopping and waiting in line inside the store would always take an hour or more.

I also like that if one pays by credit card, and is a "member" of Walmart (although I don't pay anything to be a member) Walmart posts all of the items I have bought on my member portal.

Since we have been talking a bit about what we are doing in our daily lives, I will be going out to the back yard to work on getting my garden ready for planting. Already have tomato and squash plants covered on my back patio, waiting for the frosts to stop - really late frosts this year! Got a few packets of veggie seeds coming in the mail from my favorite seed company, Eden Brothers Seeds. Cucumber, pumpkin, zuchinni and butternut seeds are all on the way. Would have just bought started plants - who needs thirty or forty zuchinni seeds? But I couldn't find the plants I wanted locally.

LOL. Six different varieties of tomato plants this year. I do love my tomatoes!

I am also having a sale in my Etsy shop in a couple of days, have several more pieces made and photographed, need to get the photos uploaded to Etsy. I love making stuff - photographing and posting the photos. . . not so much.

Anne

Good morning! It's a gloomy day here with rain predicted - will believe it when I see it.

Barbie, One Drive is Microsoft's Cloud - not 'The Cloud'. If it were me, I would get that file saved somewhere else. One Drive has some weird quirks so I would open it, copy and paste it into another file (Word?), close One Drive and then save the new file. One Drive took all my photo files which were filed in folders by month and year and basically just made them all singles and out of order! I would not delete it from One Drive, but I would never open One Drive again. Just my 2 cents.

I like Walmart pick up for the basics, but once in a while I need to go in. I've learned to look my items up online and note which aisle they are in. So much quicker! The Walmart in Wenatchee has a 20-item limit for self-checkout which makes me crazy because I don't want to stand in a check-out line. I'm starting to think if I'm going to be home this summer, maybe I can have a tomato plant! My hibiscus has done well over the winter, but we still have some cold nights coming so can't put it outside yet.

Even with all the gloom, I need to be productive today so best get at it!

Sue-why would you unpack a "Go Bag" and store in bins? The whole purpose of a "Go Bag", is to grab if you Must leave your location. A Go Bag is typically kept near front door, so it can be grabbed on way out, such as stored in coat closet near exit. I also don't understand why keep so much in your basement shelter room? Isnt that typically to shelter if a tornado may be coming, so only used, at most, overnight so you don't have to stay awake to know when you should get down there.
It's warm, almost 60° here and sunny. Guess spring is finally here! Have some calls to make and projects to do. We won't be doing anything special for Easter. Just, day as usual. Neither of us are that excited about ham. And, for sure, no coleslaw as both of us have bad reactions to all cabbage foods. I do miss coleslaw, but not enough to suffer for days after!
Decided next week would be better to get hair ends trimmed-figure people have time off this week and are catching up on stuff like haircuts. I love being retired and able to set my own schedule.
Velda

Shirl, to answer your question, yes these temps are normal for this tine of year. Low to mid 40’s and as the month moves on, temps start into the low to mid 50’s. N May it’s hesding upward into 60’s and so on. Not to say that the temperature down fluctuate. Like yesterday we had 58 for just a little while which was away over normal for right now. Our last frost/freeze date is around May 27th. But there have been years when there have been exceptions to that too.

Velda, I’m making a change of plans regarding that bag. The go bag is in the basement at the moment. I’m going to repack it. Actually, I happened to come across what I think might even be a better one at one of our local stores and I think I might just go get it. It’s even got a little pockets on the side for a water bottles or whatever you might wanna stick in there. I am going to keep it upstairs here in my closet, and if we have severe weather threatening and we start getting warnings, then I will take it down to the basement. But I still wanna set up the room so that if my house gets damaged, I can stay down there if I have to for a while. Be like camping out, only in the house. But if I keep the go bag upstairs, in case of fire or something, out we go.

The hardware store finally called and said my mower was ready. I went and picked it up and came home and mowed Sugar's yard. She will be happy to not have the grass touching her behind. lol The guy told me this winter when I'm not using my mower to run it until it runs out of gas. The old gas is what gums up the engine. And he said to use non ethanol gas. I have seen that sold before but don't remember where right now. I put a one gallon container in the car so if I ever see any.

Sue, I did turn the water off to the toilet and I use the other bathroom. Maybe this weekend I can get the shelf unloaded and moved. If I can't figure out what's wrong I'll call a plumber next week.

The dollar stores seem to think they can run a store with no employees. I went to Ollie's Discount Store last week and they had half the store blocked off with pallets of stuff that needed to be put on shelves. The Dollar General stores are the same way. You can't get down aisles because of the stuff stacked in the aisle.

The sky looks like it could rain but hasn't yet. There is a tornado watch to the West of me so need to watch the weather.

My two mums have new leaves so they survived my neglect. Hopefully before a freeze this winter I will move them inside. I need to put some plant food on them.

I now have two Hummingbirds fighting over the feeder. I just put food yesterday and it's way down. I think some of it must have poured out from the wind yesterday.

I am out of leftovers so will cook the ribs for tonight. Since I will have the oven hot I might have to bake some cookies.

Martha

I am in a cheap campground at the Acoma Pueblo Casino west of Albuquerque. I paid a whopping $52 last night at a casino campground, but it was worth it because of the laundry, nice sites, and good hookups. (Having trouble typing because of band-aid on one finger.) Got three loads of laundry done last night, and this morning I spent considerable time flushing out my black tank. It stays partly full or at least shows partly full if I do not use my built-in rinse system at last every 4-6 weeks. If I partially fill it and then let it drain fast, it is amazing. Normally, at a dump station there are people waiting so it just gets a quick dump. So now, the indicators actually show it as empty! And I dug out clean rugs for my hall and entrance from underneath storage. Stuck the dirty one away, as I need to wait to wash them until I have a front loading washer somewhere.

This casino campground is full hookup but only $25, however, you can tell it was intended to have people go to casino instead of enjoying campground--no picnic tables, no grills, not much space between sites, etc. But it is clean and has good gravel and curbed sites instead of just desert dirt, so worth the $25.

Still freezing at night, but days are going to be a little better this week. I've got a few outdoor things I will do when I get to Zion because we are supposed to have a few warm days there. In the meantime, not coughing as much, but I am still stuffed up and really, really tired, so now that I am set up for three days, I am going to be very lazy. (Did a COVID test last night and it was negative.)

Oh, and just to clarify--Sue lives in the middle of the upper part of Michigan's lower peninsula. That area is the highest part of the lower peninsula and does not get much of the moderating effect of the lakes, so it is VERY cold. My ex, two kids, and I once spent a week in that area snowmobiling, and one night on some trails, I wondered why we were chilly--turns out it was 30 degrees BELOW zero. We were all well-dressed in wind-proof snowmobile suits and wore face coverings and helmets, but we decided to ride back to the cabin we were staying at!! The next morning I noticed that the small river that flowed by looked like it was full of corn syrup instead of water because it was flowing very quickly over rocks, so it did not freeze, but the water looked "thick." Normally, we snowmobiled about 50 miles south of there which was lower and always less cold.

I got up yesterday at almost the time I set for myself... got the car loaded all by myself which is a feat in and of itself I carry way to much stuff but it's like I was telling someone this way it's with me and if it want to work on my Swedish weave I can I crochet or I can choose a different book if I finish the one I was working on and we won't even mention the oxygen stuff I have to take with me... anyway I was only 45 mins later leaving than I should have guess I should have set the alarm for an earlier time we had blue skies and sunshine it felt sooo good.... got to the end of the canyon and oops no more blue and sun clouds and sun behind the clouds drove on and finally got to Idaho Falls and it started snowing more the snow flurries the kind that doesn't really stay rarely even need to turn on wipers except because of a car passing by or the mistiness of the flurries this stayed with me more or less till well into Utah but over all was a good drive... stayed awake even
got to dd #1's house and we left to go into SLC to see dd#4 visited at her inlaw's house for a couple of hours... she had a dinner with friends to go to and we went to my son's house where son and his wife and my daughter and I went to a new Thai place sorta an infusion concept although I'm not sure off what they infused with perhaps Japanese as they had a couple of things I thought more of the Japanese influence... it was really good although if I go there I won't say 1 or even 0 on the heat as there was absolutely no heat dd got a 3 and it was good... good food would go again... their dd's are fairly picky when it comes to food so they left them at home... it was a do over place
one of my friends posted on FB that they are moving and selling some stuff one item was a Shark robo vacuum messenger her about it if I can find a way to get it I might buy it off her she has either cleaned it up really well or it's not been used much... she lives in Q which really surprised me as the grass was actually grass and very green..
it is probably a good idea to have a good to place in the house in case of an emergency I don't know how it could be done but think it would be good to put something out side indicating a place of refuge just in case of the house being leveled would give rescuers a place to look... loots of water and a dare we say it but a pee bucket??? are you going to put in like a comfy chair or couch as well?
in chatting last night it sounds like if all goes as planned one of my granddaughter's will be getting married next spring... he hasn't proposed YET but they have picked a date and colors hmm kinda out of order huh?
good luck in finding your job Barbie
I was going to get my hair cut on Monday but my granddaughter said it will have to be changed till Weds I'm leaving Weds... so guess I will have to have it done as I'm headed out of town... hopefully it will work out as she is getting out of school (high) for a class on nails on Monday and Tuesday which is why my appointment has to be changed she could do it at home but I want the full experience off the wash ect...
well I think I'll go do something like Swedish Weave perhaps or as all are napping perhaps lay down or something ...
Anita will you have a balcony you can garden on?
you all have a great day may stop back as it's really early for me
sheila

Hi gals!

Oh, and just to clarify--Sue lives in the middle of the upper part of Michigan's lower peninsula.

I had to read that a couple times!

Been running around all day! Since I want to save money on gas and get as much done as possible in one shot, I made about 6 stops. WM for some non-perishable items; the temp service, since they don't answer their phone; Whole Foods to return an Amazon item and get a couple slices of pizza to take home; Michaels just to look; Vons grocery store ($$) for a few things I can't get at WM; and the library to pick up some books I ordered. Whew! Got back just in time to go do a haircut in the park here.

Just ate one large slice of pizza and will go thru my library books.

Before I went out, I put the Stop Leak in my radiator so I would be driving around and getting it where it needs to go. Will check under my car tomorrow to see if there is still a leak or not. Hoping not!!

My minisplit heater worked all night so that was nice since it got pretty chilly overnight.

My across the street neighbor's daughter is staying there again and she is the one with 4 crazy little yappy dogs! Hopefully they will all be leaving soon for the summer!

Romeow just heard his "bro" meowing outside so just ran from the bedroom closet where he sleeps, to go out to the porch to look for him! So cute!

I am going to use some of the leftover lattice to make a new cat door between the living room and porch. The old one I made is falling apart. The new one should be more sturdy and look nicer. Need to have Dave cut some of it for me tho to get it to fit in the slider doorway. I will cover the lattice with clear plastic to keep the heat out in the summer. Now I just have clear plastic lined with a magnet strip that sticks to another magnet strip around the doorway.

It has been a little warm today with no wind. I turned on my windshield washers before I pulled out this morning and all the dust on the windshield just turned to mud!

Have a good evening!

Good evening. I have been busy around the house and kitchen today. I made a pan of lasagna, cheesy hamburger rice casserole, and more chicken tortellini soup. Froze most of it for do aheads except the soup. I didnt put the tortellini in as I am going to freeze the broth and veggies and add the tortellini later as it doesnt freeze well they say. Then food savered the rest of the hamburger, chicken and some beef stew meat for later. I am just waiting for the soup to cool off so I can put it in containers and move it to the freezer. Will keep some out for tomorrow and just add the tortellini's as they only take about 4 minutes. I got spinach and ricotta tortellini this time. Got to change it up you know. I was going to make some beef stew also but will do that another day. I might go to the farmers market tomorrow morning if the weather is conducive. I have my doubts tho. It is very windy out there right now but no rain yet. Havent seen the sun now for several days....sigh.

Sheila have a great mini vacation with your family. Shirl I am off in search of onion sets this weekend. It is safe to plant those ha ha I noticed our Plant Warehouse (cheap plants) is open now but it is still way too early for me to even think about tomatoes. Judy glad you are feeling better and hoping your weather improves also. You will a bit higher at Zion 3500 - 4000ft so might be chilly. Mercy Hospital called me today to schedule my follow up Cat Scan for Feb 2024. Heck they are more optimistic than I am LOL I am actually doing well with the healthcare system here. They are very communicative. I had labs drawn yesterday and they called today to tell me they were all normal. I knew that because I just had them drawn a few weeks ago for my Rheumatologist LOL but I go with the flow.

Think I will just sit back and find something to watch on the tv

OregonLuvr wrote:Judy glad you are feeling better and hoping your weather improves also. You will a bit higher at Zion 3500 - 4000ft so might be chilly.

Actually, that is lower than I have been. Cochiti Lake is at about 5,500, and White ROck near Los Alamos is 6,300', and here at Acoma it is about 6,000' high. Actually, the weather at Zion is supposed to get up to 70 next week, then drop back to 60s, but that is better than Cochiti!! Glad your blood numbers are good. I need to get my 6-month blood draw and teleconference with my oncologist soon. I read my blood numbers like some people read the stock market!

And Barbie, would "about an inch below the tip of your middle finger" be easier? We Michiganders describe places in the lower peninsula by the location on our hands--tip of the thumb, top of the little finger, etc.