Author: Susie (Page 21 of 48)

               For decades now I have enjoyed doing jigsaw puzzles as a relaxing hobby.  A wonderful side benefit of this activity is that it keeps my hands busy for hours, and makes me forget all about eating chips, ice cream, and other not-so-good-for-me foods in the evening hours. 

               I typically do more puzzles in winter than in other seasons, although over the past decade, autumn has become a busy puzzling-time.  That’s due to my husband’s hobby of watching college football. While I’m all in for any Ohio State game, he will watch Iowa-Nebraska, Notre Dame-Pitt, and Tinder Tech-Sisters of the Poor if it’s college football.  Those are great times for me to sit in front of my puzzle.

               Hubby supports this hobby of mine (as always) and has provided me not only with puzzles on birthdays and Christmas, but also a fabulous puzzle board.  This board has a large surface – perfect for 1000 piece puzzles (my favorite choice).  It also boasts four sorting drawers to keep pieces separated and out of sight when not in use.

               For years I have used this board on a card table, either in the room where my husband is watching sports or in another room in front of a small tv (where I can enjoy Hallmark movies or DVDs while puzzling).

               This year started out amazingly well.  My husband had purchased a Jane Austin puzzle for me.  The picture included the various homes and buildings from her works as well as all the main characters from her books. The back of the poster had a key to each figure, describing their homes as well as their attire.  I was so excited about this puzzle that I chose to work on it as my first endeavor in 2023!

               Unfortunately, we had not yet set up the card table for my work.  Having just moved back into our family room after some renovation work, I was using our pub table to work on the puzzle.  When we wanted to use the pub table, I just moved the puzzle board to the bench in front of the loveseat.  [This bench is used a footstool/coffee table until we find a replacement.  It’s a bit low for a table but perfect for resting your feet.]

               Several evenings after I started the puzzle, I was making dinner and hubby was setting the table.  Suddenly I heard a large cry from the family room.  I went to see what had happened, and my dearest had placed the puzzle board on the bench but didn’t realize there was a book on the bench.  [It had only been there a few weeks, so totally understandable.]

               This caused the board to tilt to one side and the puzzle began to slide off.  I had completed about 2/3 of the puzzle and half of it had slid to the floor.  My husband was appropriately contrite and I helped him pick up the pieces and straighten the board on the bench. We then returned to our tasks.  I wasn’t upset, because, after all, it was only a few hundred pieces.

               As we were bringing dinner to the pub table we heard another crash.  Coming into the family room, we saw our cat leaping away from the puzzle board, which she had apparently jumped up on. This action tilted the board the other way, and now the other half of the puzzle was on the floor.

               I won’t go into the strangeness of this, just let me say that we have never seen our cat jump on this bench before, or, in fact, go anywhere near the loveseat. 

               Now my puzzle had about 60 pieces put together, in three different places.  I sighed and the next day began working on the puzzle again.   Hubby fetched the card table and we set it up safely so that this would never recur. It went a bit faster and I soon had 2/3 of it (actually more like ¾ of it) put together.

               The next night I accidentally left a drawer pulled open.  As my husband was carrying something into the room, he ran right into the drawer, knocking the whole board askew. Only a few pieces fell off, but I began to suspect that my 2023 puzzling was going to be less than relaxing.

               It’s done now, by the way. I hope to start the second puzzle of the year next week.  I’m thinking a 50-piece puzzle might be better.  Any thoughts?

I learned several years ago that making “resolutions” was often a discouraging way to start a new year.  So for the past few years, I’ve set goals and objectives for myself, often with surprisingly good results.  Setting goals is an activity that builds on current strengths, so it was a great idea.

               Point in case, in 2020 I set a goal to follow a ketogenic diet to improve my health.  During the course of the year, I set a few different objectives and was pleased to find myself eating in a healthier way and enjoying the new recipes.  A really cool side effect was losing 20 pounds.  2021 saw those 20 pounds stay lost, which was a real treat!

               So this year, I began the year by setting some new goals.  Three new goals, in fact.  The first was to write a poem every day.  I used to write and submit poetry to various places frequently and have had a number of poems published in newspapers and books.  While I let this past-time slide a bit during the pandemic, I found a book entitled “Write a Poem a Day” that my husband had given me several years ago.  So it was pretty easy to set that goal and as of day #10, I’ve met that goal.  Keep up the great work!

A neat side benefit of this activity is getting to stretch my creative muscles.  Because I do love writing and the better I am at it – the more entertaining my blog will be!

               I set a second goal to increase my walking every day.  I looked at my tracking and I had increased my daily average in 2021 (4500 steps per day) to 6000 a day in 2022.  So I set the goal at 7500 steps per day in 2023.  That seems reasonable and I check my app daily to see if I’m meeting that goal.  So far, my average has been just below 6000 per day, so I’m thinking about how to improve that the rest of the month. My objective is to increase about 250 each week and once I reach 7500, maintain that number of greater each week for the rest of the year.  That should make me reach my goal by next New Year’s Eve.  The side benefit I expect is to not only maintain my 20-pound weight loss, but perhaps add a couple of pounds to that loss.

               My third goal is to re-engage in a daily practice of either yoga or tai chi.  I started doing these during the pandemic of 2020 (when there was literally nothing else to do for a number of weeks) and really enjoyed this activity.  But somewhere over the last couple of years, I’ve stopped doing it.  I’ve spent the first few days of the new year researching the best websites and classes locally so that I might engage in more structured participation in one of these – or maybe both.  My objective is to decide on the best path forward and begin on February 1.  The nice side benefit of either of these activities is less pain in my very arthritic joints and more ability to walk.  Perhaps when doing yoga or walking, I’ll be stretching those creative writing muscles more, as well.

               As I write this, however, an interesting pattern has emerged on my goals.  I sit and write a poem every day (and my blog every ten days or so).  I have been sitting and looking at step averages and considering how best to increase them. I have been sitting at the computer researching websites and classes for movement activities.

               I guess I’m welcoming the new year with an activity I do best.  Sitting. Maybe I should include that in my goals?!

               Living in the Midwest, we become accustomed to power outages of all kinds, for varying lengths of time, and in any season.  This fact of life is compounded for us because we live in the country.  For some reason, this adds a layer of challenge to keeping things running.

               I mean, we’re used to strong winds knocking down power lines in any season.  Lightning can strike in spring, summer and fall, taking out power transformers and power poles.  Icy, frigid weather can cause power to be taken out any time. The dry hurricane we had one late summer left us without electricity for four days and that was still better than many who suffered after a number of tornadoes over the years.

               In our case, living in the country, living in a very old house, or perhaps just serendipity means that we can lose power at odd times.  When it rains – even a drizzle – our hot tub stops heating.  For years a hard rain would render our cable TV useless.  (We finally had that fixed, but it took some convincing of the cable company that water was, in fact, causing us to lose cable signal).

               During the recent Christmas weekend which brought with it sub-zero temperatures, we were not surprised to lose cable, internet and phone line. In fact, we were grateful to maintain electricity in the house throughout the weekend. But the cable/internet was a story.

               On Saturday night of the weekend, my husband was watching a football game and I decided to go to bed and read for a while.  When I entered the bedroom, it was a little chilly (considering the wind chill that night was -27, I wasn’t alarmed).  I moved the cabinet holding the TV, plugged in a space heater, and read for a while.  Then I went to sleep.

               Meanwhile, my husband woke up from his football-induced nap and realized the game was no longer playing.  In fact, nothing was playing.  So he came to bed.

               The next morning, he informed me that we had no cable, no internet, and no landline.  Fortunately, it was Christmas, and we had other things to do!  So he called the cable company, heard the recorded message that they were aware of outages in our area, and we promptly forgot about it.

               As an aside, our son came over for Christmas dinner (he lives next door) and mentioned that his house had internet.  We thought that curious, but again… Christmas.  Food. Presents.  More important things to worry about.

               The next day, temperatures were warmer and my husband called again.  He got the same message, only this time it said the company would not send workers out in dangerous weather and would repair outages when they could.  That seemed fair.

               Tuesday came, and with it normal weather.  I left for work and hubby called a third time.  This time he stayed on the phone until he reached a real person, who informed him there were no outages in our area.  She dispatched a service person that was to arrive later that day.

               Upon my arrival home from work, the service person was actually wrapping up. He had told my husband that the amplifier in the bedroom (which we didn’t know we had) had come unplugged.  They both informed me that they guessed the cat had done it, and the man had fixed it so it wouldn’t happen again.

               Before I could think better of it, I said, “Oh, my.  I did that!  I must have loosened it when I plugged in the space heater!”

Lessons learned: be careful when you plug things in; when the cable goes out, check the amplifier; and the cat doesn’t mind taking responsibility for my errors.

               Just over 7 years ago, I went on a girl-trip to a bridal shower in South Carolina.  During this trip, I was inspired to develop a coffee table book that I planned to entitle “Bathrooms of the South.” Starting with our first break, somewhere in Kentucky, we stumbled upon perhaps the worst bathroom ever (and I’ve seen some really terrible ones!).

To get to this bathroom, we had to walk into the convenience store (part of a gas station chain that seemed reliable), exit a side door to a walkway that curved around to the back of the building, and finally enter another hallway to the women’s room.  It had a private sink, tucked in a private corner.  The stall, however, had a door with an eight-inch gap that gave a perfect view of the hallway (since the main door to this area did not close).  So we took turns using the facility with one of us holding up a large sweater in front of the gap.

               In North Carolina, on that same trip, we used a bathroom that had the toilet paper plopped onto the door knob of the bathroom.  There was no “holder” other than that doorknob and it was within reach.  It was difficult to wash up afterward, however, as where the sink should have been was merely a large hole in the wall.

               Naturally, I took pictures of all of these rooms and planned my coffee table book, but I didn’t think five pictures were enough. 

               So I kept looking for good bathroom shots to include.  Returning to South Carolina later that year, I found one more.  It was actually in our hotel – a brand new hotel with sparkling clean rooms and wonderful amenities. 

               As I was drying my hair the next morning, I thought my husband had gotten into the shower.  I turned around to look, but the shower was empty.   There was a waterfall, however.  It was coming from the ceiling and pouring into our tub – from the room above! 

               Over the years, I’ve continued to collect photos to memorialize interesting, dysfunctional, and funny bathrooms all over the Southeast (and some in the Midwest, as well).

               My latest bathroom adventure took place just before Christmas, again in South Carolina.  We were visiting friends and went to a wonderful restaurant for delicious homemade soups and sandwiches.  The bathroom was tucked at the back of the dining room, sort of adjacent to the back of the kitchen.

               After eating, I stood up to use the restroom.  My girlfriend said, “Read all the signs,” as I walked by.  Entering the bathroom, I turned and locked the door and saw no sign on the door.  I turned and looked at the sink and commode, and saw a cute sign that said something about washing hands.  I sat down to do my business and that’s when I noticed a small (very small) typed sign on a second door in the bathroom.  It was about six feet away and said “be sure to lock and unlock the door to the kitchen.”

               It was a little late, and of course, someone started to open that door.  I screeched out “Ack, I’m in here!” and the door to the kitchen closed quickly.

               I also finished quickly, washed up, and left the bathroom in a rush.  Okay, totally my fault, but it did seem to me that that information should have been posted in LARGE PRINT and perhaps in more than one place. 

               It occurred to me later that my friend’s advice could have been more helpful.  How about “lock both doors”??!!