funny

LOST MEMORIES FOUND.

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I love remembering things from my childhood.  The best ones are the rare ones that a unique smell, sight, or sound recalls.  This cart is just a prop for a local business, but it is exactly like one we had as kids with our horses:

We had a black and white spotted Welsh pony named Dolly.  She was a brat.  It was obvious that she had been abused by people somewhere in her life, but now she was with us, and ALL of our critters were spoiled rotten (even the ones we would eventually eat – eek-haha!).  Well-fed.  Plenty of pasture room to roam.  Beautiful barn for housing everyone from the harsh Wisconsin winters (we were not far from Lake Michigan, and the winter winds off the lake are brutal).  We worked all summer long to store enough food for our critters, ourselves, and some friends and relatives.  We had some new neighbors move into the small home across the road, and they had three young boys – about our age.

Once we got to know them, they realized that we played like boys even though we were girls.  Mud was a blast.  Getting into stuff we were not supposed to was classic.  Then there were our horses which was an instant draw for all kids. 

The folks splurged on a 2-wheeled little cart (just like the pic above) for us to try to train Dolly to pull.  Keep in mind, most of our training was self-taught.  They got us a good harness, taught us the basics, and then we had at it.  When the boys next door found out, they could not wait to get up on it.

Jeffie (the youngest of the three boys) ran up to the cart all excited and was not paying attention to what he was grabbing ahold of to try to get up.  He placed his hand on the wheel instead of the seat, then pony leached forward (because she was a brat – remember?); his hand slipped in between the spokes and got caught on the edge of the seat, thus breaking his arm.

We ran him back home at once, and his folks took him to the doctor.  He came home with a cast that had to stay on most of the summer.  It never slowed down his wanting to get on the wagon, ride a horse, or just play with us. 

The best part of remembering this story now is that no attorneys, lawsuits, courts, or any of the nowadays B.S. usually happens.  It was just kids playing, and it was an ACCIDENT!  Yes, accidents really did happen back then.  Apparently, there is no such thing as an accident anymore?!?  Our parents even offered to pay the doctor bill, but the neighbors would not hear of it – “they were just being kids.”, was their reply. 

Isn’t it funny, the things you thought were long forgotten, then a simple something like seeing a cart can bring them all back? 

You can also check me out at:  https://lifelessonslived.com/ for all the fun things I have learned in life.

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When Did I Move Back to Wisconsin?

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Colorado weather can be very different than most places.  We never know what is coming over the mountains or which way it is going to flow.  I have built up a pretty good sense of when to plant our starts and when to put in seeds, but not this year. It’s been a mess in more ways than one.

I am used to wet Marches, wild weather ups-and-downs in April, and then “get-it-in” Mays.  This year has been snow, winds, wet and wet, and WET.  I swear I am back in Wisconsin, and I didn’t know I was planning on a move? 

IT’S GREEN!

Yes, Colorado does get green in the spring, but it is usually the fields, gardens, and lawns that get irrigation that the green appears.  This year I am hard-pressed to find a non-green spot.  We are supposed to be a higher altitude, arid, and much drier area – WHAT HAPPENED?  I blame it on climate change since that has been messing up tons of places over the last several years. It’s either that or Mother Nature is really pissed off at us now.  Even our poor crop farmers have had a hell of a time just trying to plant their typical fields.  Everything is mud!  FYI, tractors and mud do NOT mix.

Since our greenhouse lost its cover from the tornado, the plots have been susceptible to the weather, and right now, it’s a forest.  We even have a ground cover base under all our plots, but the grasses and weeds have gotten too much rain support to slow down.  Now the wonderful world of weather is telling us to expect close to 90degrees this Saturday.  SATURDAY?  With 80s in between.  Great.  Put some majorly intense sun and heat onto those already crazy weeds and grasses, and it will be time to dig out mazes to find the plots.

Oh, and part of my job during all this moisture was to figure out where all the leaks are in our buildings, then try to plug them – hahaha.  It was easy to see where it was leaking, but not so easy to find a dry day to get out (or on top) and fix them.  Now that we will have drier weather, I have become a hurry up and get it done Lady.  Sure.  Two fake knees, 1-1/2 fake shoulders, one fake foot, ½ an index finger, and osteoarthritis up the wazoo – YOU GO GIRL!  Not!  If anyone tries to tell me that my joints don’t feel the changes in the weather, I will pop them in the nose. 

This old body got used to the dry, arid, comfortability of our beautiful Colorado.  Now every step I take and every move I make has a corresponding snap, crackle, or pop to it.  Oh, and let’s not discuss the getting down and trying to get back up again situation (yes, my dear friends who have seen me do this in action, you may laugh hysterically now), shall we.

So Wisconsin, you can have your floody spring back.  I want my dryer Colorado and I am not willing to compromise!

I am leaving you in this post with a perfect picture that my cousin sent me.  It totally sums up this spring for me:

You can also check me out at:  https://lifelessonslived.com/ for all the fun things I have learned in life.

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I CUT HER LOOSE – LOOK OUT!

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This last weekend I finally cut my sister loose and let her play in the dirt.  There are two big things in her life that bring her great joy:

  1. Playing in the kitchen because she has a passion for cooking.  
  2. Playing in the dirt, in this case it is starting seeds. 

I brought all the grow lights, heat pads, and various other seed starting items up from the shed.  It took her about two days to get “her” areas set up.  Yes, they are “her” areas as it is her job to do the starts.  My task now is to design all the plot areas on our little farm and what will go in where.

If you think about it I got shafted in this deal.  All her job is done in the house and in just 2 places:

  • Her porch (it is hers because that is where she can smoke and contemplate life issues).
  • Her kitchen (yes, I can cook in there too, but it is mostly just warming stuff for me).

I am better with the computer than she is, so I created some charts.  The first is centered around seed starting and maintaining the starts until transplant time – this is Spring.  The second I labeled Summer.  This will be my turn to track things.  It will have when and where I put in the transplants.  It will also have all my direct sowing information. 

This will be the first year in many, many years that we actually have some kind of handle on our gardens.  Too many disasters have stretched out too long for us to properly concentrate on the gardens.  The only bummer is that my body is only a fraction of what it was 10+ years ago.  Simple things like getting down on the ground (my favorite place to work on plots) and getting back up again take enormous effort.  Fake knee and shoulder joints, massive surgeries for my major joints, and replacement parts add to my dismay.  You would think they could come up with something like the Bionic Woman for replacement parts by now?

Yes youngsters, that was a real TV series, and yes oldsters, I watched it.

What a wonder it would be if I could just pull weeds stronger, faster.  I could pull my garden carts without major issues.  Best of all, I could get down on the ground and back up again, without looking like a Flamingo on ice (not a pretty sight but very funny to watch – oh, and don’t get me laughing or I will NEVER get up!).

My major task over the last 20 years is to make life easier and not harder.  So why does life want to throw a wrench into my ideas every time I turn around?  She is so wicked that way.  Wish me luck on my endeavors this year.  Maybe we will finally have a great fall harvest.  I will let you know how it goes.

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MY 7-DWARF’S STRIKE AGAIN!

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Short, squatty, dumpy, frumpy, snarky, gimpy, and yuck.  Yep, those little buggers in me are at it again.  First, it was the extreme heat that got them rumbling.  Then came the smoke from the Colorado fires.  Next was the smoke from the California fires.   Roll them all together, and my seven dwarfs strike again!

It’s been hard enough trying to keep the gardens going with the sun trying to bake them to a crisp, but the lack of rain has made it worse.  We are lucky and have our own well (we had it tested when we moved in – great water and a very full stash – yea!), but we still try to collect all the rainwater we can get our hands-on.  This year the tank fills have been few-and-far-between.

If you have been following me, you know I am an old-ish fart that has had too many major surgeries for such a young age.  Getting around now is nothing like getting around in my twenties.  Simple things like oh say, breathing, can be a challenge on a regular hot day.  Throw in smoke clouds so thick they block out the sun to an orange type of glow, and it becomes a battle.

Everything is being “spot” watered now.  I only use the sprinkler once a week in select areas.  The spot (hand) watering takes me about 3-4 times longer than my regular watering system.  The normal system takes me about 4-5 hours.  Currently, I start at about 5:00 a.m. and do not finish until around noon.  It is also hard on our well-pump, and that baby is only six years old.  I can feel her pain!

The final straw was this morning.  Working about my regular watering routine, I reached the greenhouse area.  We still don’t have a roof (thank you Colorado winds from hell, oh, and the tornado of 2018), but the plots are doing great.  This is the one place I actually laid out drip lines, AND THEY WORK!  I turn on the water line to this area, make sure my splitters are watering all my beautiful veggies first, and then proceed to wander the plot rows to see how everyone is doing. (Yes – every ”one” as I talk to them all just like I talk to humans.) 

I watch closely for anybody starting to turn color.  My method is to clear them out a bit so I can keep an eye on them every day.  When they get to just the right color, I nab them for our dinner table.  (If tons are coming in at once, they become canned, dried, or frozen foods)  I had a beauty of a tomato coming in.  Yesterday it was just about ready, but nope, I waited one more day.  I squatted down to pluck my perfect tomato (oh, by the way, it is about the size of a softball), and my fingers were covered in tomato guts-YUCK!!  DAMN MICE!!! 

We have farm cats all over the place, and I have yet to see them catch a single mouse.  The greenhouse is wide open, so they can come and go as they please.  They please to take a dump in there on occasion, but can’t seem to catch a mouse?  So, I wandered back to the house and got a trap.  It is set with peanut butter (favorite mouse food, in case you didn’t know) and sitting right now just under my poor beautiful tomato.  I swear, if I catch that stinking mouse, I will dangle it by the cat’s noses then feed it to the dogs! 

Maybe I need to buy some rubber snakes to set in my tomato bushes?  Then I can scare off the mice and myself when my old-ish age makes me forget that I placed them there.

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WHAT THE HECK IS IT MADE OF?

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I know it is moth season (yes, we have a season for them), and I know that they help to feed the birds; but do they have to be so nasty?  And, what is there poop made of?

I hate that they get stuck in my hair AND CRUNCH when I try to get them out!  I hate that they fly right into my face over and over and over again (makes me think of a Coyote/Roadrunner cartoon), and it doesn’t phase them at all.

Wilie Coyote help

The worst thing of all is the poop they leave behind – EVERYWHERE!!  What the heck is that stuff made of?  I swear it is worse than tar to try to get off, and it ends up in the strangest places.  I found several yuckies on my DSL this morning, and the thing sits upright on a box (better air circulation since it gets kind of hot), and yet it has two trash marks from Millers on it.

Moth poo 6-3-20

Have you ever tried to clean that stuff off of something?

  • They are a bug and not a real smart one.
  • They are bird and bat food.
  • They don’t live very long.
  • They turn to dust in a heartbeat.
  • They squeeze into the smallest of places.
  • They pop out of the weirdest of spots.
  • THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!

I just don’t get how something so temporary can leave such a lasting mess.  With the large amount of them appearing this year, we will be trying to clean up after the little monsters until Christmas!

The other thing I hate about them is when they pop out by the dozens in the most unsuspecting spot.  I was cleaning up the gazebo and just shifted the chair cushions and got bombarded by a gang of them.  (Yes, I have decided that a group of more than one is called a “gang” because they are so destructive when gathered together.)

If any of you out there reading this has some great idea on how to get rid of these nasty leftovers easily, please share so I can tackle this mess.  Thank you!

miller-scary

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I SWEAR, SOMETHING’S LIVING IN THERE!

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We recently lost the last of our chickens.  This is not something new, as farmers we know there will always be predators that attack all parts of a farm.

  • Prairie dogs making leg-breaking holes in animal pastures.
  • Gophers-from-hell eating the roots of our asparagus.
  • Snakes popping up when you least expect them (luckily, I only had a Rattler once -knock on wood!).
  • Skunks hiding in the cat barn to sleep with a warm, furry, bundle of cats and eat their food (yes, one of them crawled out from the cat bed box on a frigid winter day and scared the snot out of me. I calmly said: “Good Morning.” Then backed out of the barn rather fast.).
  • An opossum choosing to hang out in our barn to avoid bad storms (the little sucker hung around for over a week, and popped up in a variety of places.).

oppossum

I want to find out what monster is living in my chicken barn, but a big part of me is also afraid.  Just my luck, it will lunge at me when I discover it (eeek!!). My sister was so nice and brought up the option that it might be a badger – great?!?  Yes, we do have those out here, but we have not seen any on our property since we first bought the farm (2000).  We initially had one living on the side of the hill by the pond.  We left it alone, and it left us alone.  Roughly four years later, it disappeared.  We have not noticed any living signs on our property since (would like it to stay that way – mean critters!).

badger

During cold winter times, we purchase the critter foods and put them immediately into containers.  Then the empty bags are piled up until spring and then put into the trash.  We usually put bags into bags and simply leave them until the weather is warmer for dragging the empties to our trash.  Things have been so strange this year, that the bags have piled up.  My fear is my monster is hiding in that pile.

I have left the barn door open the last several nights (since the loss of our last chicken) in hopes that whatever got stuck in the barn has now made its way out.  Today is the day of discovery.  My task, since the winds-from-hell have subsided, is to get in there and pull everything out.  We stored large dog kennels, that we used for various reasons, in there.  I have peeked into those already and no monsters.  I do want to drag them out so I can get back in the corner behind them.   Wish me luck that all meanies are gone!

Here’s to spring cleaning – eeek!

spring cleaning

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SERIOUSLY? Don’t say you don’t have time!

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If you have been following me at all, you know that I usually try to find the humor in everything.  I even share stories of my screw-ups (especially the really bad ones) because they often make me laugh at myself, so why not share.

The pandemic is all everything everywhere is talking about – ok, it’s big, it’s terrible, and it’s scary – we got it.  I have been checking for ways to best kill time during this yuckiness (yep – I created a new word, shame on me!).

I then realized it was:

Prepping our farm and garden equipment for start-up time again, otherwise known as spring.

spring prep 1  spring prep 2

(YES – this is what the big mower bed is – eeek – and YES – we do have a tiller this big -double eeek!)

They all got the end of season shut down method late last fall, so now its start-up time.  I ran everything that used gas out of it, so they all need refilling.  Oil check and fills, spark plugs, tires, etc.  All the usual routine stuff.  The thing I forgot about was my beautiful car (idiot me!).

Once again, my email buds at familyhandyman.com popped in to remind me of this:

13 Things You Should Never Do To Your Car

Rick Muscoplat

I am not a complete idiot when it comes to my vehicles.  I grew up around motorheads (thank you, Cousin Clay!) that ignited my love of cars.  But I have to say that #6 is a newbie for me.

handyman

If you don’t know squat about your vehicle, this is a great article to memorize, save, and do.  If you do know some stuff but may not know it all, check it out.  You have the time now; just do it!

My riding lawn mower has become my second-best friend next to my Subaru.  I used to have to mow everything (talking about more than five acres here) by push mower – ouch!  It is still best for getting up close around things, but for the majority, it is my rider, hands down!

When I am in my “mowing zen”:

  1. I have my cell phone on my favorite music.
  2. Earbuds (FYI this is the only time I wear buds – HATE THEM – would rather have headphones, but can’t listen as well when the mower is running) hooked to phone and in my ears.
  3. Noise-blocker headset over the buds on my ears.
  4. Sweatband on my forehead, so nothing gets into my eyes.
  5. Sunglasses (also note tons of sunscreen because I burn easy).
  6. Bug head mesh netting over the top of all of that (completely covers my face, head & neck against the monsters that arise when mowing – and my nemesis the Wasp!).
  7. Then my gardening hat (wide brim) on top of that. It has a drawcord so I can keep everything in place while mowing.

This may sound like overkill, but the gnats get into my ears, been stung by a Yellow Jacket on my face (2017-not a pretty sight!), and swallowed a few of God-knows-what because I like to sing as I mow.

rachel norm            Rachel wasp sting

(BEFORE………………AFTER – eeeek!!!!  Oh, and hurt like hell, but took out the wrinkles!)

I hope you will take a moment to send a little love to your vehicle.  It deserves it!

love your car

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I’m Mad As Hell, And I’m Not Gonna Take It Anymore!

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We are so tired of theft we could just scream!  It is not because of virus issues; it is something that has been building up over multitudes of years.

I am not talking about money – I am talking about our critters.

Two more of our hens were killed in the last two nights.  It took me until today to figure out how the monster(s) is getting in.  The white hen disappeared, leaving just feathers – the first clue of the perpetrator.  This morning it was our red Hennie, and I found her gutted under some sheet metal in the back corner of the chicken barn.

We have gone through great lengths to make sure our chickens are safe from the monsters in the night.  It had been working reasonably well for the last year or so.  Apparently, they have created a new gap in a far corner that I would not have found had it not been for the corpse.

We try very hard to follow the live-and-let-live motto.  However, when we are down (sorry – were down) to only four birds, it’s just wrong for the beasties to attack them.  We have prairie dogs, rabbits, mice, and various other critters very near our barn on which they could have feasted.  That would not have bothered me at all.

So, today, to try to bring our thief to justice, we are sharing photos in hopes that someone will spot this thug (and its gang) and put an end to our injustice!  Here is the criminal:

Don’t be fooled by that innocent, cute look on its face – it is a natural-born killer!  You might even find it hanging around with this murdering mob:

coyotes

(Ragged bunch of gangsters if ever I saw one.)

If you happen into their local watering hole, you may find them with the lesser thieves who only nab eggs and babies:

Notice that one even wears a mask to try to hide its identity – but I know who it is.

Please, keep an eye out for these dangerous killers and help to bring them to justice.  In the meantime, we will be having a memorial this Friday to morn the loss of our dear Hennies (beers and Yahtzee will be provided – HOWEVER no more than one at a time in the porch please.).

Stay Safe!

(Yes, I did get stilly in here, and we did lose two chickens, but it is live and let live for us, so we will forge onward with humor wherever I can find or provide it.  My wish is that I put a little smile on your face for just a moment today.)

You can also check me out at:  https://lifelessonslived.com/ for all the fun things I have learned in life.

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MASHED POTATOES DO NOT STICK.

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A dear friend reminded me of how much fun doing housework can be.  The following story is true from my past days growing up on the farm.

***********************************************************************************

Our father was way too trusting.  He believed that when he told his young daughters to do something simple like clean up the kitchen after dinner would be done without any issues.  Wrong!

Dad loved to cook but hated to clean.  This was fantastic for mom as she was just the opposite.  With parents that handled these specific chores in such a manner, what were two mischievous daughters to do?

  • Put leftover foods away.
  • Do the dishes.
  • Clean up the area.

Simple right?  Nope.  My sister and I are, even to this day, well known for never doing the simple ways.  We usually do things in a round-about way or come up with a better way a couple of years after-the-fact.  Cleaning up was perhaps where this whole issue started.

We had a very fun childhood, and our parents encouraged us every step of the way.  This was maybe not such a good idea.  Dad made dinner, which consisted of fried chicken and mashed potatoes.  Our father came from a big family, so he consistently made too much for us to eat in one sitting.  When he very innocently to clean up the kitchen, I don’t think he was even close to being prepared for our idea of “clean up.”

It all started out the right way, put the extra food into containers (Mom was very proud of her Tupperware) then put it into the fridge.  Fill up the sinks with dishwater on one side and clean rinse water on the other.  Put the dirty dishes (after emptying them) into the dishwater.  One daughter washes and rinses, the other dries and puts the dishes away.  Once again, very simple, right?

The whole concept came to a screeching halt when my younger sister decided that mashed potatoes were a lot like clay or playdough (we had lots of arts and crafts stuff – mom’s idea to turn us into creative wizzes).  Yep – it molded into a ball beautifully when cupped in 7-year old hands.

ball mashed potatoes

It was only a matter of time before we were tossing it back and forth like you would with a ball in a game of catch.  Our game of catch turned into dodge ball.  I don’t know exactly when it happened, but somehow one of our throws ended up on the ceiling. – WOW – MASHED POTATOES STICK TO THE CEILING!

We got so squirrely excited and made the mistake of giggling.  Dad finally noticed our noises and called out from the living room (his after-dinner routine: Nightly news from his comfy recliner.),

“What are you two doing?”

To which we so innocently replied: “Nothing.”  We calmed down, and he did not bother to come to check on us.  Awesome!

LET THE STICKING BEGIN.

  1. Scoop up a nice hand full of mashed potatoes.
  2. Roll them around in your hands until they form a smooth tight consistency.
  3. Locate an easy-to-fling spot on the floor with a clear aim to the ceiling.
  4. Squat down a bit with your hand holding the potato ball hanging between your knees.
  5. Tighten your shoulder and flex your arm muscles to get an intense action.
  6. Then let-er-go!

OUTSTANDING!  The balls of mashed potatoes stuck on the ceiling.  The downside – not for very long.  We found that when we flung them up there, they would stick, but due to the butter used in making them, they slowly eeked loose from the ceiling and fell to the floor.  Then the next game became trying to catch them when they fall.

After about an hour of this (personally, I just think the news was over and he finally really heard us), dad decided to get up and see just what we were up to.

We were having so much fun that we never noticed just how many mashed potato balls were on the ceiling or floor, nor did we have any dishes done.  On our behalf, the food was all put away (except the game ball goo), and the kitchen was clean – for the most part.

Dad stepped through the arch and into the kitchen just in time to see us both throwing up our next ball.  He screeched out a: “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?”, making both of us jump to attention and immediately stop laughing.

He proceeded to reprimand us and give us follow-up instructions to get things back in order.  We heard none of it.  We both caught the fact that there was a stuck ball on the ceiling just above his head, slowly preparing to fall.  All we could do was stare at his face.  I am sure he thought we were finally being good little girls and listening close to follow his every command.  Nope, we were just waiting – quietly.

Then it happened.

The mashed potato ball above his head finally lost its grip and flopped right on top of his head.

ball to the head

It should be noted that our father was a stellar father.  He never raised a hand to his children (that was mom’s job, and she was delighted to be the Executioner) and that in most circumstances, he acted more like a kid than we did.  This, at first, was not one of those times.  He never saw it coming even though he did see dozens of residual oil spots on the ceiling.  It never dawned on him to look up before standing in a place.

We poor well-behaved children could not hold back any longer.  The laughter exploded from us to the point of rolling around on the floor and holding tight to our little tummies that ached with laughter muscle overload.

ball laughter

Initially, dad was furious (you could see it in his eyes) but, either it was the fact that it caught him by surprise, or seeing us rolling on the floor in explosions of laughter, he also could not hold back his funny bone anymore.  He burst out in laughter along with us.

Once we all calmed down a bit, he made sure we finished cleaning the rest of the kitchen up.  The unfortunate mashed potatoes that had brought so much joy were dispensed to the critter bucket (all foods that we did not reuse were given to the critters unless it was compostable.  The compostable foods went into the garden.) never to be flung again.  So sad.

I don’t know how he did it, but after we went to bed, he managed to get all the greasy ball marks off the ceiling before mom got home.  If he had not told her about our escapades, she would have never known.  Personally, I think he was so proud of our ingenuity, that he was just bursting to tell someone.  Mom just happened to be the first person he met.

Now that I have shared one of our most favored family memories feel free to try it with our own children.  The world is full of scary stuff – why not throw in a few mashed potatoes.

You can also check me out at:  https://lifelessonslived.com/ for all the fun things I have learned in life.

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Cutting the Cord is Fun and Funny.

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Those of you that do not know, “Cutting the Cord” is the term for getting rid of expensive cable T.V.  We did this a little over two years ago now and love every minute of it.

We spend our days mainly doing farm work, gardening, and crafting (for my sister is it baking more than crafting – that is where her O.C.D. stems), so when it comes to watching T.V., we don’t need a ton of junk we don’t watch.  The cost for all that junk just kept going up and up every year, and we said enough!

I decided to bring up this little post today because I happen to be watching one of my favorite movies:

OUTBREAK:     Outbreak

The next one I am watching is:

BIRD BOX:      Bird Box

Instead of cable (and it’s huge bill), we have freebies – Pluto and Tubi – and we decided to buy into Netflix (only $12.99 per month, we can live with that).  We bought into Amazon Prime ages ago for good shipping and deals (we do love to shop online), and as of last year, we have some great things to watch on there too.  We missed our British channels/shows, so we do spend $5.99 per month extra through Prime to watch what they call “Britbox.” This has all kinds of different T.V. series and movies you could normally (sometimes) catch on PBS or specials.  This last month we added Boomerang (also through Prime) for an extra $7.47 per month.  Now we are actually paying to watch what we want to watch without all the extra B.S. that we never watch.

The interesting thing I am trying to get to here is that the freebie channels load what they choose.  I am sure there is some method to their madness, but I have no clue what that may be.  I did find it funny that, with all the hype about the Coronavirus going around, Pluto chooses to feature the movie Outbreak.

I know that the Coronavirus is serious, but when is any type of flu not serious?  Every year we seem to go through some kind of major something – cold – flu – airborne something.  Maybe, it is because I am older and have been through a lot in my life, but I don’t panic on any of this anymore.  Every year we take the same precautions:

  • Get shots if available (my sister does, I do not because I had always gotten sicker when I did)
  • Wash hands constantly. This is just a standard procedure for us anymore.
  • We can’t afford to travel abroad, so then we just watch out for friends/family that do.
  • Knowledge is power – this is my biggie! The more we know about anything, the better prepared we are to handle it.

We don’t consider ourselves preppers, but we like to be prepared.  I don’t believe that you should ignore the required shots that our ancestors lived and died to develop for our protection and the protection of our young (hello California – mumps??  That had died out when I was a kid in the 1960s.).

Meales 1    Measles 2 (Measles)

Bird flu, swine flu, Asian Flu – hell, why not just call it “flu” because they are all the same basic stuff.  Yes, we need to know and understand where they originate so we can work to fight them, but they will always be a part of human life.  The grand delusions created in things like Star-Trek are wonderful, but so not in our cards (at least not for centuries yet.).

star trek shots

There will always be something, always be those to help fight it, sometimes a cure will be found, sometimes not.  I choose not to hide under a rock, and I choose to live my life as fully as possible.  I will continue to:

  • Garden
  • Craft
  • Knit and Crochet
  • Read
  • Write
  • Play
  • Sing
  • Paint and Draw
  • Above all, Live and Laugh.

I know that some people will watch Outbreak or Birdbox and freak out.  That is sad because they are just movies.  I think we would be closer to The Day After Tomorrow if anything were to change.  Once again, that is just my opinion.

So, in the meantime, I will continue to do the things that I enjoy.  I will continue to help those that I can.  I will continue to laugh, as often and as much, as possible.  Maybe it is just because I Partied like it’s 1999 – in 1999.  (Wow, what that a great New Year’s Eve party!)

party 1999 1   party 1999 2

You can also check me out at:  https://lifelessonslived.com/ for all the fun things I have learned in life.

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