squirrel brain...

hi lovelies, how are you all on this weird wednesday?

today i thought i'd share a peek into my adhd universe.  one of my adhd issues is that my memory is going. like really bad.  i'll walk into a room for a specific purpose and then don't have a clue what that purpose was. 

i lose words sometimes.  just can't come up with them no matter how much i think.  the other day i was trying to ask my neighbor about a table i had borrowed from her and couldn't think of the word card.  (yes, card table)  i said "it's the thing you play bridge on."  ugh...

another side is that when i was on IG i had probably 50 categories for saved posts and they were all full of hundreds of posts.

the image below is how many you tube videos are in my watch later file.  i'll scroll through things of videos and movies, etc and save them to watch at a later time.  the problem is that later never comes.

i'll go to one of the streaming services i have to find something to watch and 3 hours later i'm still saving things to my watch list.  i haven't been on substack long but i have over 100 saved posts to read (and most of them are like 3 minutes long?!?)

i make lists of lists.  seriously, i'll make a list, then make another list based on the first list, etc, etc.  i can be listening to someone talking while looking right at them and still not hear what they are saying because i spaced out.

anyhoo...

this is just a little glimpse into my adhd brain.  so if i comment on your post and the comment makes no sense, please forgive me.  it's just my squirrel brain freezing in the middle of the road.  :-)

alrighty, i sense a storm coming and hear distant thunder so i'm going to get off the computer.  i hope to be back tomorrow with some garden love.

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~
 

all this to say...

i can't remember if i've mentioned it before but i miss my kids (the 4-legged kind).  it's been 11 years since i had a pet.  for those that haven't been with me long in blogging years, at one point i had 4 kids- three cats and a big wild beastie of a dog. 

alwyn was my first, a gift from a friend...

when he was a kitten, he would sleep on my neck or chest and i could walk around with him wrapped around my neck or sitting on my shoulder.  he had the prettiest blue eyes and his face was similar to falkor (bonus points if you know the reference). he passed in january of 2011.

jade came next, she was a feral cat my stepmum found at a work retreat she was at and as an animal lover just couldn't leave her there and decided she needed to be with me. she was my familiar, my witch cat with the beautiful jade green eyes.  she was the first to pass, in may of 2007.

next came my wee beastie boy, dylan.  he came from a litter my cousin's dog had and it was a last-minute decision to take him.  i never regretted a single moment with him. he was my protector, my cuddle buddy and my sweetheart.  he passed in august 2010, just before i was taken out of work.

and last came lyli...  i rescued her from a renter's house who was threatening to let her dogs eat the tiny kitten she was.  i took her to the vet and then home until i could find her a home.  she spent the rest of her life with me and was the last to pass over in june of 2014.

they all had been very ill before their passing, and if you've ever had pets, you know that comes with lots of bodily fluids everywhere.  something happened to me after lyli passed and i couldn't be anywhere near an animal without freaking out about germs.  anytime i walked by a neighbor with a pet, or my sibling's pets, i couldn't touch anything with the hand that touched the pet and had to immediately go and scrub it clean.

for the last couple years i've been thinking about getting a pet.  i'd love a cat (but don't know if i could handle a litter box).  even better, i'd feel safer with a dog.  i'm a big dog person as in no chihuahua for me.  my brother and sis-in-law lost their last dog several months ago and decided to hold off on bringing another pet into the house.  but last month my sil decided my brother needed a new dog.  i'm in love with the sweet dog they adopted.  he's about 10 months old and is so well behaved it is insane.  i'm able to pet him and hug on him and don't feel like freaking out.  i even offered to let him stay with me if they have to go out of town or something.  

anyway, all of this to say, i'm in love!  i've been surfing the shelter and rescue pages for months and found two that i really, really want.  their adoption fees are very high and both are puppies and will need lots of training.  but look at these faces!!!!

this is guiness and i really, really want him to live with me.  he's part chocolate lab and part pit bull and he has GREEN eyes!

and this is penelope.  she's part lab and part airedale terrier.  ohmygosh!  those cute little faces!!

if it wasn't just me, i'd definitely go for both.  but... sigh...

oh well, we'll see what happens.

what do you think?  would you go for two puppies at once? 

love & kisses & magical wishes

~*~

little sparkles of happy...

good evening, my lovelies.

i'm just popping in for a little show and tell today.  i'd planned to spend a couple of hours in the garden, but the migraine gods had other plans for me.  i just went out long enough to water and pick these:

after watering i took a few pictures of other things in the garden.

my radishes are coming up but i see the seeds i planted somehow migrated during the rain or watering or something.  so i'll add a few more to fill out the pot tomorrow.  

my neighbor gave me a couple of her orchids that need some help.  i've been watching tons of videos about how to take care or revive lackluster orchids. so, i have these to work on and see if i can get them happy again.  if i do, she's gonna have to give me one since i did all the work. :-)

that's pretty much what i did today other than finish up making my first batch of homemade spaghetti sauce.  oh my word...it's delicious!

this is a recipe that came with my mum's electric skillet a long time ago.  she didn't make it often because she thought it took too long.  i've always loved it though it uses canned mushrooms and tomatoes.  now that i've got it and learned i can cook it in a stock pot/dutch oven, i may try my next batch with fresh tomatoes and mushrooms, just to see how it changes it.  hopefully it will be even better.

well...that's all for now.

thanks for being here, 

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

and that's what's happening...

happy thursday, my lovelies.  i thought i'd come to you today with a small bit of gardening fun.  i'd hoped to get back to the ever-onward task of removing the beautiful yet invasive blackberry hedge that some lovely critter gifted me years ago in my flower bed.  but bad head days have kept me inside for most of the week.  i have been making a point to keep things watered and check on progress of what's been planted.  

my plan is to get ALL the blackberry vines out of the garden, but that will be a difficult task as it is a runner and sends out shoots so quickly and dig roots so deep it is hard to get them all.  i expect i'll be pulling these up for the rest of my time living here as i refuse to use herbicides.

i'd really like to dig some up and plant in the woods behind our property.  then i could just let them do their thing and also have the benefit of getting to pick blackberries in the summers.  oh well...

here are some images from my garden as of today...

the first peony bloomed and is lovely.  just before they bloom there is a hint of light pink on the outside of the petals that lead one to think it might be a pink bloom, then they open, and it is a lovely white.  i love peonies, they are such an old-fashioned flower.

the foxgloves are starting to bloom and have started spreading.  these two self-seeded from last year or maybe the year before.  as you can see the blackberries are really close, so i'll have to be careful when i work on them as i don't want to lose any of the flowers.

when i first saw this bloom (from a different angle) i thought my love-in-a-mist was starting to bloom. but no...it's just the first bloom of the the damn blackberry. ugh...

the only thing in the veg bed yet, is these two rows of more lettuce and two rows of celery.  i've really got to get my seeds in.  

there is a plant sale on sunday that i'm going to and will try to find a long list of things i want to grow.  i don't know where i'll put them, but i feel i need them.  so i'm hoping saturday is a good planting day as i need to get stuff planted and potted before bringing home too much more. 😎

i love this spiderwort, despite it growing in a spot that i don't want.  my neighbor dug it up a couple years ago and was going to toss it so i took it.  i just plopped it down as i was going to plant it somewhere else but was in a hurry and of course never got to it and it just rooted right there.  i plan to move at least some of it down to the new flower bed next spring as it starts coming up.  it will be much easier to deal with when small. one of the reasons i love it is because these plants were from some that were split from my Great Aunt Vera's home when she passed.  i like that i was able to bring some of her and my Great Uncle Milam home with me.  

will you look at how beautiful my David Austin Lady of Shallot is doing?!?  i've never seen so many blooms at one time.  i love it so much and the blooms have such a lovely scent.  it has at least 5 open blooms, 3 buds almost ready to open and a bunch more buds that are just starting to get big.  oh...my heart!!

oh those colors!!! i so wish i could send you the scent through the screen.  it is so fantastically lovely.

well...that's what's happening in my garden today.  it's just started raining and we may have a bit more tomorrow which is wonderful for the garden.

tomorrow i'm learning to make my mum's delicious spaghetti sauce after i run some errands in the am.  i'll try to take good pictures so i can share.  it's a recipe she's used longer than i've been alive and is my absolute favorite sauce for pasta, on buttered bread and even on rice or baked potatoes. 

i hope you are having a good week.  how are things in your neck of the garden of planet earth?

love & kisses & magical wishes, 

~*~

 

it's a keeper...

happy silent sunday, my lovelies.  and if you are of that bent, a blessed easter to you and yours. 

this year, mum insisted we have a celebration of easter.  i finally broke down and said i would cook, but to me it is just a regular day.  she was fine since it got her out of cooking and had me doing all the work. she paid for the groceries, and i have lots of leftovers even after everyone else took some home, so not a bad deal.

there is a lovely lady who cleans house for mum who is Ukranian and she sent us a paska for our meal.  She told mum the tradition, but mum couldn't remember what we were to do, and no matter how much sleuthing i did on the interwebs, i could not find out what that traditional rites are. we did pray before trying it.  i liked it a lot and thought that it was so sweet of this lady to think of us.

i should have taken a photo after it was cut so you could see the inside. it has a lovely taste and texture.  if you or someone you know is Ukrainian and could tell me what the traditional rites are with this, i would LOVE to know!

i was up early yesterday as my s-i-l and i were heading out to the old farmers market i used to frequent before covid happened. i'd seen where it was the day for their annual plant sale and since i'm feeling much better than last year and am working in the garden, i really wanted to find some plants that just aren't sold in local plant nurseries.  

i decided to wear my outlook on my shirt yesterday.  i love having shirts with funny or sarcastic statements.  i'm working on building quite a collection of them. ;)

turns out, it wasn't plant sale day.  though there were a lot of vendors with plants for sale.  i was able to get my favorite eggs though since the local grocer seems to have stopped carrying them.  and STRAWBERRIES!!!  fresh strawberries!!  yumyumyum

and on friday, my s-i-l and i had another cheesecake session.  it had to have a water bath cooking, so she left once we got it in the oven and then i finished up with the topping on saturday after returning from the market.  we tried it last night as desert for our holiday meal and let me tell you...it is a KEEPER!

Yep, a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake, with a chocolate ganache topping.  it is soooooo good.  the cracks on the sides are indents from the springform pan being lined with parchment paper.  i think next time i'll leave the sides clear of paper.  Click the link if you want to give it a try.  I don't know what we'll be trying in June, but I'll let you know. hee hee hee  :-)

now that things have settled down and my house is mostly back together, i sat down today and read the booklet on my new predator cover to cover, then charged it.  i feel a little better knowing i can use this to keep some life saving devices charged and working.  now to focus on water storage and a way to cook if the grid is down. 

well, that's my weekend in a nutshell.  i ended up with a bad migraine last night and when i woke it was massive.  but now, it is a bit better, after nausea meds and abortive meds and judicious use of ice packs on the back of my neck and head.

how has your weekend been?

thanks for reading, 

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

ps...i've put up a link to my other site: Messages from the Ancestors if you are interested in checking it out.  the link is in the sidebar just below the copyright notice. 

where to find things...

how is it already Wednesday, lovelies?

i was going to post yesterday but had a very scary low that almost sent me to hospital.  luckily, i was able to bring it back into range.  it took almost an hour with mum sitting with me asking every 5 minutes if i was better yet. 🫤  i've never had one so low (below 40) and it really scared me.

anyhoo...i thought i'd share what silent sunday looks like around here.  so, here are some images from this past silent sunday.

spent some time working on making a notebook to keep track of where i keep things in the house.  my memory of where to find things is getting worse, so i'm hoping this will help.

sunday dinner was pasta with my mum's homemade sauce.  she's going to teach me next week how to make it.  she uses an electric skillet and can only make small batches.  i love it so much that i want to make a huge batch and freeze.  so, we'll try making it in my large dutch oven.

the way i start my day every morning (and a peek inside my book of me).  i start with with pulling a card and journaling.  i'll then make a copy of the card and tape it into the journal on that page. then write on the back the meaning of the card.

one last photo for today, my goodwill find:

isn't it pretty?  it is my new house dress and soooo comfortable. i even wore it to the grocer this morning.

well...that's it for me today.  i've a busy rest of the week so i don't know when i'll be back.  but i hope it will be soon.

hope you are having a great week...

thanks for reading, 

love & kisses & magical wishes, 

~*~

silent sundays and messages for all...

good afternoon, my lovelies.

i've just finished posting to my other site for today's Messages from the Ancestors and i felt very drawn to share it more widely.  

if you're interested in reading it, click here to be taken to the site.

please let me know if it resonates with you or not.

on another note, sundays in my home are normally what i like to call silent sundays.  i do not turn on the tv or music and just go through my day with the silence of the house and the quiet of my one day out of the week when construction filled noises do not invade my brain.  three different plots are being developed and built upon around me and it is breaking my heart, not to mention the migraines all those sounds cause.

the past month or so had seen a canceling of silent sunday due to college basketball. now that it is over, i'm finding it hard to stay in silence.  i keep wanting to reach for the tv remote to check the news or put on something to hear other voices.  but i've found i need the silence at least one day a week.  hopefully, once i get moving around the house to work on things, i won't feel the urge for the tv or music.

i hope you are well and happy on this day.  

thanks for reading...

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

world turns even more crazy...

evening, lovelies!  how is your weekend going?  have you been out to look at the full moon tonight?  it's been cloudy here since yesterday when we had a lot of rain.  

because of all the rain, i haven't been able to get into the garden to get back to work on the blackberry patch.  i'm hoping to get the vegetable seeds planted in the veg bed tomorrow.

today i worked on the seasonal tree.  it's taken me some time to get up the energy to do it.  i have a lot of work to do on it.  it's kind of not great right now, but.  i'll keep working on it.

it's in a place that is hard to reach the whole thing.  i don't know how i'll move it around to get to the other side, but i'll figure it somehow.

i can't remember if i've mentioned it before but i've been becoming increasingly concerned about the possibilities of long tern power outages, water issues, etc - what with the state of the world.  so yesterday morning, during the rain i went out and did a thing.

this is something that can run a mini fridge (which i need to keep my insulin and other meds cool), charge phones (which i use for control of my insulin pump) and will also run my cpap at night.  it can be charged via an outlet/car/or solar panel.  

over the years i've had impulses and urges that come out of nowhere and urge me to do something.  whenever i've ignored them or told myself i could do it another day, i've regretted it and sometimes suffered for it.  but when i listen, and do the thing, it always turns out to be beneficial in some way.  so when i saw an ad for a solar powered generator that cost over 4k, i decided to start a search for something i could afford.  yes, i'm slowly (or not so slowly) starting to build up supplies in case the world turns even more crazy.  now i just have to learn how to set it up/charge it/use it.

i've also been working on my clean & clear plan.  i emptied my hall closet/pantry of everything so i could organize it.  but it turns out the three wire racks that are in there all need to be reattached to the walls.  so now i'm waiting on the handyman.

anywho, that's what i've been up to the last few days.  i've suddenly found myself hosting an easter dinner next saturday.  i've tried explaining that i don't celebrate easter, but... so i've got a lot of work to do this week to get ready.  plus, friday is cheesecake day with my sil. :-)

alrighty...i'm done rambling.  tell me what you are up to this weekend.  and also what you think about the being prepared thing.  are you making plans in case of emergency? i'd love to hear your thoughts.

thanks for reading, 

love & kisses & magical wishes

~*~

 

control over my rage monster...

afternoon my lovelies, 

how are you all?  i'm slowly losing my sanity and control over my rage monster every time i see a headline or turn on the news.  therefore, i am trying to limit my news watching/reading. to entertain myself i've started re-watching Outlander.  i finished season 1 last night.  i lost access to starz a few years ago and have missed several seasons.  i thought i'd start back at the beginning and watch again.  i think it is a really good show and am enjoying revisiting my jamie fraser crush. although i did fast forward through the last two episodes of season 1 (iykyk).

i've spent time in the garden this week and also getting my bedroom sorted.  it's pretty much put back together now, other than hanging pictures, etc.  i started on the blackberries in the garden and made very good progress.  i'll show you next time i work in it.  i have foxglove, love-in-a-mist, blackeyed susans and cosmos coming up.  yay!

remember this picture...

from this post?

i thought i'd show you how my new journal is coming along.  at the time i was calling it a collective, but i just really didn't like it so i'm calling it my book of me.

i'm using the moleskine cahier kraft cover journals. they have 80 pages in each.  i'm always taping in pages to make it larger.  it was getting so hard to search for stuff that i had to add tags to seperate the months and added little tabs to some paper clips to mark the important pages for each month.  things i keep track of are habits, messages from the ancestors, daily gratitudes, quotes, movies & tv shows, books, little magics/sychronicities, affirmations.

anywho, i'm on the fourth notebook. i glue/tape the front of the next to the back of the last, then use the duct tape to form the spine.  i can't imagine how wide/tall this is going to be by the end of the year.  i'd thought this would make it easier to carry around with me, doing a smaller journal. obviously, that was wrong.

well...i guess that is it for me today. i've taken everything out of my hall closet/pantry and am waiting for the handyman to come fix the wire shelving.  (i hate wire shelving, btw.) now i've got to go through and see what to keep, giveaway, trash or recycle, and figure out how to store it all.

this is a project i'll be doing for months, as i plan to go through everything i own and do the same.  if i find any cool things that i don't want to keep but don't want to drop at goodwill, i might see about giving them away here.  we'll see how it goes and what i find. 

alrighty then, enough boring ramblings. 

thanks for reading,

love & kisses & magical wishes...

~*~

ramblings on what i think is a monday...

happy monday, lovelies!  

wait? can mondays BE happy?  i've never really thought about that before.  back when i was a working woman i never liked mondays (start of the work week, blech) and since disability, honestly, all the days sort of merge into one.  i never seem to know what day it is.

did you have a good weekend? mine was meh.  i came down with a case of the migraorbs (migraine + morbs/what i call the sads) so i didn't really do much but watch tv and try to rest.  i ended up staying awake until just before 6am this morning and then getting up just before 9.  not my plan, but by the time i was tired enough and settled enough to go to bed, i knew if i did i wouldn't wake until noon or after.

anyhoo...today is a rain day, so no garden time.  i've been in the bedroom trying to get things in order.  i've completed the cleanup/out + organization of the mystical cabinet and managed to find storage for things that i would normally store there but there is no room. now i'm bringing out books and pictures and statues, that sort of thing and getting an idea of where to put things.  speaking of...

i acquired this mirror at a yard sale/thrift shop type thing (i think) many, many moons ago (at least 10 years) and have never hung it.  i know now where i want it to go and am almost ready to hang.  the question is... to paint or not to paint. the color is very close but not quite to my sea serpent walls. so, my thoughts were i could just give it some distressing with the snowbound (trim color) and make it lighter. or do i paint it snowbound then distress to let the dark underneath show or do i gilt it or paint it gold? (and no, i did not make my bed this morning and yes that is the corner of a card table that i'm using so i don't have to bend over or up and down so much emptying boxes, etc.)

here's something kind of funny and kind of not...it took me 10 minutes and having to call my neighbor to ask her what kind of table it was.  i knew it was ___ table.  but i could not thing of card to save my life.  the joys of a brain beset by chronic pain.

anyhoo, again. what do you think? how should it be painted? should it be?

on another note, in my efforts to shop in all the right places, i gave up using my mum's sam's account to shop and took myself to costco.  i'd been hearing that there will soon be shortages on citrus fruits and while there i picked up a bag of limes and a bag of mandarins.  i ended up juicing the limes and freezing in ice cube trays.

i had 19 small limes and was able to get almost 2 cups of juice.  i've still to do something with the mandarins other than eat them.  i'm thinking i will peel, separate and freeze individually.  then bag them all up.  i'd like to do some oranges and lemons, as well as another bag of limes.  i've read where you can slice them in rounds and freeze on a baking tray.  you can just take out a slice to add to a cup of tea or water, or whathaveyou.

yes, i'm becoming extremely paranoid and worried about what is to come.  i was thinking about one of my favorite people who sells wool she dyes.  i'm sure i've mentioned her before - Sirena from Wild_inthe_Woods.  now that i'm off insta and fb, i'm not able to keep up with some of my favorite creators very well. every year she has a yarn club, like practical magic or fleetwood or moon magic. really cool wool box and with things the way they are, i'm wondering if she'll still be able to sell to the US without it raising prices too much.  like how will these insane trifs (i'm not spelling the word - you know what i'm talking about) effect people like her and the people who like to purchase from small sellers. ugh!

ok...enough of that for right now.  i'm sure i'll be back on it another day this week as it just won't go away!

my last photo for this post is of the lovely sky on my last gardening day (i think it was friday?). i spent about an hour finishing up getting the veg bed ready. so now i just have to wait until it is a good planting day (soon i hope!), then i can get my veg seeds in the ground.  

it was definitely a beautiful day and i love to see what shapes i can see in the clouds. but good goddess! it was 83 fricken degrees! and the humidity was near 90.  too much for this early in april.

well...i think that is it for my monday ramblings.  is it still monday? 😊

i hope to be back soon with some other goings on around here that might or might not bore you to tears. haha

thanks for reading...

love & kisses & magical wishes, 

~*~

 

in my garden today...

Hello, lovelies...

I spent a little over an hour in the garden earlier today.  Above you can see the first bud of the season on my lady of shallot rose.  I had cut it way back last month, cleaned up the pot and gave it a boost from my rose fertilizer spikes and it has just exploded with growth and makes me so very happy.

This is the plant below.  In the blue/green pot on the right, which I usually plant with veggies I have several tree saplings coming up.  I'm planning to pot them up to see if I can get them to grow so I can hopefully plant them in the woods in a few years to help block the security lights from the building behind the woods. (Or, if I find my dream home and move take them with me and plant at my new home. 😊)

While I was working it started to rain, which felt wonderful as the humidity was ridiculous and felt like breathing through soup.

I went down to check on the new fleur bed and I *think* I see some sprouting things.  Gosh, I hope all those seeds will sprout.  I NEED fleurs!

Did I tell you about my new muck boots?  Aren't they cute?!  They fold down and can be worn 3 different ways and are super fabulous! I have large calves so it is hard for me to find boots/wellies like this.  Luckily, someone suggested I look at The Muck Boot Company and I found these on sale. 

Now I need to find a tray or something to keep them on by the back door as they sure do get dirty.

My spinach is growing nicely.  Yay!

Below you can see where I've cleaned out the veg bed and started prepping it.  I need more manure and planting mix to increase the depth, but other than that it will be ready for planting tomorrow.  

The black pot has the lettuce I started when I started the spinach.  Well, that's what I've been working on today, between, watching the news, my usual everyday stuff and waking up a few hours late.  I swear it takes me 3x as long to do things than it should and is very frustrating.

I'm glad I gave up when I did and came in (I worked in the rain for about 40 minutes) because about 30 minutes later, the bottom fell out of the sky, and we had very heavy rain.

I think that is it for me today.  I've a bag of limes I need to juice/slice/zest and freeze so I need to head to the kitchen for a bit.

I hope you are having a good week.  What are you up to this week?  Any exciting projects?  

Thanks for reading along...

love & magicks

~*~

 

april...

Happy April, my friends.

A short hello today as I'm completely distracted by Senator Bookers filibuster.

I hope that you are all having a great day.  We're moving from the 60's for highs today to 85+ for the rest of this week.  Crazy stuff.

Well, I'll be back tomorrow with a more interesting (I hope) and longer post. 

love & blessings

~*~