archives
categories
story collection
tags
- 12 Days of Christmas
- balls flying in my face
- Beg-A-Thon
- Bob
- book pile
- cats
- clip art
- dahlias
- digestive system
- enough about the roof already
- eternal overachiever
- everyone is stupid
- fukoladola
- getting stuff done
- Have you got a bad back?
- how to
- I hate shopping
- I made this
- leave me alone
- movies
- Ndns
- neighbors
- New Yorker
- nostalgia
- not writing
- other people's kids
- Percy
- pie
- plogic
- Priscilla Recipes
- pumpkins
- recipes
- revisiting old things
- soccer
- squirrels
- Star Wars
- things I hate
- things that aren't really free
- tomatoes
- tragedy
- travel
- wildlife
- wildlife cam
- World Cup
- writing
Author Archives: Pamela Rentz
Cookie Monster
This is Dad’s fridge.
At dinner they often offer cookies and Dad takes one but doesn’t always eat it. So then he stashes it in the fridge. You can see the upper level areas for saved cookies and the lower level areas for saved cookies.
He also had a bunch on his counter but I finally threw a bunch away because they were hard as a rock and I didn’t think he’d notice. (He didn’t.)
Also in his fridge — grapes. That is his favorite snack and we makes sure he always has some washed and ready. In season, he loves cherries, too.
Also: Smart Water. At one point one of his medical staff wanted him to drink more water and he said he didn’t like to drink water so she suggested we try the Smart Water.
She knows her business because he will drink it regularly. The lemon and the orange.
Posted in doing it wrong
Comments Off on Cookie Monster
Lose A Shoe?
This was from summer.
We were on a walk and crossed through the park and found this little shoe sitting on the picnic bench hoping to be found again.
This is the same park where I saw a pair of sunglasses propped up on a tree hoping to be found.
Let’s call this park the Lost and Found.
Posted in doing it wrong
Comments Off on Lose A Shoe?
Flipping Time
October was so crazy busy it took awhile until I had time to flip my closet. I was making do with just a couple of cold weather items.
Then we had a day that was supposed to be 37 degrees in the morning. I take the bus. I need my layers.
I keep my winter clothes mostly in underbed bags or those bags where you can suck out all the air. When I packed them for the season it started to be an organized system but ultimately I was just throwing things anywhere they fit so I could get them stashed away.
When I wanted to find something for the cold day — I ended up throwing everything in the living room and pulling them open and frantically searched around until I found the stuff I need.
There was week of chaos before I got it all cleaned up.
Posted in doing it wrong
Comments Off on Flipping Time
Sunflower Hearts
I just put the bird feeders back up.
I had them down for the summer because it seemed like it was attracting the deer and too many animals.
It’s been fun having them back and all the chaos and flying around. One of the feeds I use has peanuts and the bluejays are very possessive about the peanuts.
I filled one of the feeders most of the way with sunflower hearts and I was amazed by how fast it was getting emptied.
I went out there and saw most of the seeds on the ground. Meanwhile, the bluejay is smart enough to know the lady brings the peanuts so he stood by.
“No more peanuts until you eat the sunflower seeds,” I told the air. I wasn’t scolding the bluejay directly.
I looked it up and I guess it’s a normal bird behavior and today when I was out there the ground was mostly cleaned up. Birds and squirrels and who knows what else ate the sunflower seeds.
All the feeders were refilled.
Fig Clone Tool
The big fig belongs to my neighbor’s tree and the smaller fig is from Percy, my fig tree.
I felt that Percy’s figs were beautiful and more than adequate but it’s hard to ignore how giant the next door figs are. Also the neighbor tree had so many figs it was almost a national emergency.
I froze a bunch. We’ll see how that works out this winter.
So, what’s going on in the upper left corner of this photo? There was a note that I wanted out of the picture. I rarely use photoshop for anything except cropping and super light photo editing. I couldn’t find the clone tool and couldn’t remember the name of it. I finally figured it out and what happened to it? I didn’t understand how it worked or what I was supposed to do with the window that popped up. I used the brush tool. hehe.
If I have to start all over to learn Photoshop, then I’m getting one of those cheap knock off programs.
Posted in doing it wrong
Comments Off on Fig Clone Tool
What is Up Squirrel?
I used to put out peanuts for the blue jays and inevitably the squirrels would get them.
This picture one of those big wooden spools that was in our yard when we moved in. One time a peanut fell into the center hole and I guess a squirrel imprinted on that and now, I guess, its progeny (?), still seek snacks in that hole.
How long to squirrels live? It can’t be that long. It seems like it’s been years since that happened.
I had the hole covered just out of habit and I went out one day and that other hole had been eaten through the wood.
Is even a peanut worth that? What is wrong with squirrels? There is no food anywhere around there. Weirdos.
Posted in doing it wrong
Comments Off on What is Up Squirrel?
Fun and Games
I saw this in our neighborhood on one of our walks and thought it was funny.
I can’t remember the last time I sat around a campfire. Probably in Orleans before the pandemic.
I keep thinking Bob and I will go camping again someday. I love being outside and there are great places a short distance from where we live. But it’s harder to sleep on the ground. Or not even the sleeping part — just the getting up and down off the ground.
I still like to think, one of these days.
Posted in doing it wrong
Comments Off on Fun and Games
Pooh Little Pear
A year ago we planted our pear tree, Pooh, a Seckel honey pear.
This is the first year it had any fruit on it. It didn’t have much because the deer snacked on it when it was in bloom but this is probably good because it’s still a baby tree and pretty much just a skinny stick with leaves.
I think we had three or four of these teeny little pears and they were not harvested. They fell off.
For fun I brought them in and put them on the windowsill and they did ripen and we each had a tiny sliver. They were delicious.
Posted in garden
Comments Off on Pooh Little Pear
Summer Favorite
Karuk Garden Lemon Cucumbers!!
All went as planned.
I was in Orleans for a little over a week and brought Auntie with me.
We had all kinds of adventures including picking huckleberries and picking up chestnuts, visiting Junction Elementary, getting vegetables from the Tribe’s garden and visiting lots of people.
It was hard not to be greedy about the lemon cucumbers. They don’t travel well and there are only so many I could eat before they would be compost.
Life has conspired to keep me very busy. I haven’t even finished looking at the animal camera clips from the tip but there are deer and fox so far.
Next month is November and I will attempt to do my post a day — but it may be a pretty half-assed effort. We shall see.
Posted in Orleans
Comments Off on Summer Favorite
Floor Model
I guess I never wrote about our mattress buying adventure. There were signs in the neighborhood that said the local arts school was selling mattresses as a fundraiser.
We’ve needed new mattresses for a long time. I convinced Bob we should go look. If it seemed sketchy we didn’t have to buy anything.
It was not sketchy and we bought replacement mattresses for the upstairs and the downstairs mattress. (I’ve had the downstairs mattress since I graduated from college. I know — it was OLD.)
I wanted to use the opportunity to pull the carpet up in our bedroom. I started that corner in the first photo and there were so many staples it took me half an hour just to clear that little bit. I was very demoralized.
The mattress delivery also wanted us to move our old mattresses. They would haul them off but wanted the beds stripped and the mattresses ready to go.
We could not move the king by ourselves so we got some help. And they helped pull up the carpet, too.
Here’s what the floor looked like — no treatment other than Murphy’s Oil Soap. Can you believe that’s been under ugly yellow carpet for 20+ years? So beautiful. We love it but are still getting used to it.
The beds are here and we are happy with those too.
If all has gone as planned I was in Orleans last week to help Mom. I scheduled these posts and hopefully will have some Orleans shots for next time.