
LIVING LIFE AND LEARNING ALL I CAN ALONG THE WAY
In part one of this blog series I focused mostly on the grief side, with the loss of our first dog, Happy Gilmore. While we are still sad and miss him dearly, we’ve also been able to experience new joys with the new dog we adopted a couple of weeks ago. Meet Copernicus — or,…
When we first moved into our house, I was excited, albeit surprised, to find chives growing underneath a pine tree in our front yard. As I was frantically trying to fill up the space that would become my perennial garden, I immediately transplanted them. They have grown happily there now for a number of years…until…
I was always under the impression that not much grew in the shade. The only shade plants I really knew were impatiens and hostas. The problem was, I had created a landscaped area in our backyard, beside our deck and underneath a weeping cherry tree. The area gets a sun in the spring, but by…
At the back of my perennial garden is a special garden space that really belongs to Tom. This is where his hops grow — with the bines growing up twine that reaches to the roof of our garage where they can then expand out sideways. Hops grow fast. Really fast. The shoots come out of…
Spring came early this year. Then it quickly faded back into winter — jumping to summer for a couple days and then back to winter. Kind of feels like the changing of the seasons in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. At any rate, I’ve been trying to get outdoors whenever the weather decides it…
The first crocus of the season – Spring is coming! Every winter, I have a tendency to hibernate. The cold and I don’t get along very well. The past couple years, I made a concerted effort to get out and enjoy winter and the snow for what it is — and we actually had a…
I’ve said it before — I take issue with Punxatawney Phil and his shadowy predictions. This Groundhog Day I was too busy with Rheumatoid Awareness Day to pay much attention to Phil, but I did hear that he didn’t see his shadow. In theory that means that spring is just around the corner. Well, judging…
Sometimes you need a last minute vacation. Okay, “need” is a strong word, but sometimes vacation ideas and opportunities present themselves at the last minute. After Tom being unable to get the time off he wanted between Christmas and New Years, and having a few “use it or lose it” vacation days before the end…
There’s really only one reason I always hope for extra tomatoes in my garden. Okay, make that two. One is salsa. Two is homemade tomato sauce. I don’t usually have much of a bumper crop, so I’ve only tried the tomato sauce thing once or twice before. This year, between my garden and our CSA,…
**This post is a part of the first annual RA Blog Week, spurred on by RADiabetes. For more information and the full list of prompts, click here. RA Blog Week Day 5 Prompt: “Exercise and RA – write about your favorite exercise. What do you like about it, and what keeps you going? Maybe you like to…