Whimsical Wednesday # 246

Welcome back to Whimsical Wednesday!

The day for your googled giggle that gets you over the hump that is Wednesday and sliding down into the weekend.

Sudden thunder showers on Earth are really caused by Angels with Super-Soakers in Heaven.

Musical Monday # 119

Musical Monday

I was introduced to Musical Monday by Delores who copied the meme from another site.

I think it’s a fun way to show off some of the music we like and brighten up our Mondays at the same time. 

I’ll be finding my clips on you tube, so will simply credit that site since there are often so many versions of everything and I wouldn’t want to accidentally credit the wrong artist.

Today’s clip is: Toby Keith

How Do You Like Me Now

and the lyrics:

why?  for singing along with of course

don't miss me too much....

I'm going away for a few days, well, just two if I add up the hours, from mid Friday to late Sunday afternoon.

I'll be keeping an eye on two grandkids while the parents have a weekend to themselves. I can't really call it babysitting, there aren't any babies involved, the kids are 12 and 16. 
All that's required is an adult presence in case of emergency and to make sure they eat and brush their teeth. 
I'm assured they will probably spend the whole time with their computers, so I don't need to worry about backyard cricket games or footy at the park. 
My back will be grateful.
I'll take my kindle, but I'll be leaving the laptop at home, so when I don't comment anywhere, don't be worried. I'll catch up when I get home.

I agreed to all of this, hung up the phone, THEN remembered Angel. D'Oh!

He'll miss me for sure. I've arranged for someone to come in and feed him, but I've never left him alone for more than eight or ten hours. I'm sure he'll be fine. He knows and likes the person doing the feeding and I'll leave a list of instructions. But he'll miss the cuddles and sleeping on my feet at night.

Sunday Selections # 295

Welcome back to Sunday Selections!

This once-a- week-meme was originally begun by Kim of Frog Ponds Rock, as a way to showcase some of the many photos we all take, but don't get around to showing on our blogs.

The rules are very simple:-

1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title

2. link back to me, River, somewhere in your post

3. leave me a comment so that I know you've joined in and can come over and see what you've posted.

4. hop on over to Elephant’s Child to see more of her wonderful photos.

 

I usually go with a theme for my Sunday Selections and this week we have some photos I took while standing on a balcony at Port Adelaide, near where the Fisherman's Wharf Markets are, but across the river.

looking down at the old dock pylons

looking further across the Port River

over the other way, the Birkenhead Bridge

even further around, that deep blue is the ocean at Semaphore

tightly packed rooftops

Hart's Flour Mill, I really should look up the history on this, but not today.

Coast Guard doing its thing. enlarge the photo and see the man with the white collar.
I took about seven photos as this boat did its slow circle  and that man seemed to be staring at me the whole time. Probably wondering if I was a spy with my camera (*~*)

the next eight photos are this fire department boat, there'll be no commentary, just watch as she turns full circle spraying water, not sure why, may have been part of a ceremony that was going on at the wharf. There were priests, an effigy, dozens of people.

see the people and the priests in the white robes?

and off she goes again.
 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 

picture a little old lady hunched over a walking stick and shuffling along

Remember last Tuesday when I had all the energy and got everything done and even the weather was great?

Boy am I paying for it now. I knew this would happen, it always does, but it's no less annoying for the knowing. 
I don't have the walking stick, it's hanging up in the corner, but I am bent and shuffling, unable to straighten up properly.
I'll be upright again eventually, until that happens, the hot water bottle is a soothing comfort. And I'm very glad the shops are only a few minutes walk (hobble) away and there are places to sit and rest when I get there.

Wednesday's Words on a Friday

On Wednesdays, assorted people have been taking monthly turns at putting up a selection of words which is called “Words for Wednesday”.

This month the meme continues here, at Elephant’s Child’s blog, with words supplied by Margaret Adamson and Sue Fulton.

Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write.   

Each week we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music or images.   What we do with those prompts is up to us:  a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or treating them with ignore...

Some of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on their own blog.  We would really like it if as many people as possible joined in with this fun meme.

If you are posting on your own blog - let us know so that we can come along and read your masterpiece.

I’m hopeless at poetry so I always do a story.

It’s a fun challenge…why not join in?

This week's words are in fact two pictures which you will see within my story:

Dear Mum, 

       I must thank you again for this wonderful holiday. When you won the tickets I was very happy for you and when you wanted to give them to me, I didn't want to take them, but you insisted.

It would do us good to get away, you said. We'd been withdrawn and grieving long enough, you said. The children were beginning to look drawn and pale, they were too quiet, you said. 

And you were right. Iain's parents dying so suddenly hit us all hard. We loved them as much as we love you and Dad.

It's so wonderful here, blue skies, warm sunshine and other children for the kids to play with. They have pink cheeks and sparkling eyes again. Iain has been snorkelling along the reef and in the first week Dermott and Kathleen entered the Junior Talent Show and won a matched pair of giant teddy bears.

They sang an ABBA song! I had no idea they knew any and they confessed you had taught them. Thank you Mum. It's so good to see them laughing and happy again.

Our room opens on to a wide deck with a big bed on it where I can lie back against the pillows and gaze at the ocean and wonder about the island across the bay. I've heard that it is privately owned, by a woman who used to run a resort on it.  She's a hermit now, they say, retreated into the one remaining cabin after the resort was burned down by a lightning strike.

In the evenings after dinner, we all lie on the deck bed and talk about the stars, the island and Grammie and Gramps Doolan. The kids have so much to say and I'm sorry now we grieved too much to listen to them. Things are swinging in the right direction now though, we're all getting better and have you to thank for it.
We'll be back home on Friday and we'd love to have you come and stay for the weekend, maybe a whole week so we can all just talk and talk.

Love, Eileen, Iain, Dermott and Kathleen. 

P.S. the teddies have been named Dinny and Mary after Gramps and Grammie.

Thursday Thoughts # 98

from Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury:
"the difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching," he said. "The lawn-mower might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime."

"...that's the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth the doing."

Liz to Tom: pre-wedding chat:
"I know a little something about baggage and I'm willing to help you carry yours if you'll help me carry mine."

Did you know?
We frequently abbreviate Christmas as Xmas because of ancient tradition. X is the Greek letter "Chi" which is an abbreviation for the word "Christ" in Greek.


Today's thoughts:

Tuesday - I don't think I sat down for more time than it took to eat. 

I didn't rush about doing everything as I used to, but I did get a lot done. Usually Tuesdays are pyjama days where I loll about in bed with a book, or sit by the computer for a while, before going back to bed with a book, but I woke up knowing that my bedding needed washing, it had that funky stale smell that unwashed bedding gets when the sleeper sweats all night and neglects the changing of the sheets.

So I stripped the bed and left the mattress bare all day to air out while I washed sheets and quilts, then I tossed in a load of clothes just because I was feeling like I should do something more instead of sitting around, and cleaned the bathroom section of the laundry/bathroom combo while the machine began sloshing the clothes around.
After hanging everything on the portable lines in the back porch I was feeling rather chilled so turned on the airconditioner when I got back inside and right away all I could smell was dust.
Uh-Oh. 
I'd been putting off cleaning the filters in it for far too long, about two and a half years :( and of course that's why the machine wasn't performing as expected. 
If I was one of the seven dwarfs, I'd be Dopey.

I turned it off again, took everything off my table, dragged it to stand directly under the wall unit and climbed up to stand on the table where I could reach the lift up panel. I took out the filters which were covered in so much dust only the frames were visible and took them outside to brush off the dust with a big old paint brush. 

Replaced the filters, turned the aircon back on and got a rush of warm air blowing down on me. Yay!
Tuesday was a chilly, rainy day, so the warmth was very welcome, but by now I was all fired up and took down the range hood filters for a good scrubbing, then cleared the benches and they got a good cleaning also. I even moved the microwave and cleaned under and behind it!

Before I remade the bed with fresh sheets, I got the long handled duster and swiped it around under the bed to get out as many fluffy bunnies as I could, I wasn't quite energetic enough to be dragging out the vacuum cleaner, the duster and dustpan would have to do. 
Once the bed was made, just like that, Tuesday was over. It was 4.30pm already, time to start dinner preparations.

I'd done a bit of blog reading in between stuff, surfed around a few real estate sites, discovered the apartment right next door to my brother's new (rented) apartment was for sale, briefly considered buying it if (hah!) I won lotto, but decided it wouldn't suit. For me alone, it would be great, but for Angel, not so good. He'd be miserable up on the seventh floor with no garden.
And of course the ever elusive lotto win is even more elusive when one doesn't even have a ticket...(*~*)

In other, much less important, news, guess who now has a smart phone? Not a fancy-schmancy i-phone, just an android, cheap enough that the budget could stand the hit as long as I don't go grocery shopping for the next few weeks.  Don't worry, I have food, all I need is a few dollars a week for milk, eggs and bread.
And I'm glad I took the leap and learned something new. I could feel the brain cells stretching and nudging each other, "wake up, wake up, something's going on here".

I first went to the big Telstra shop in Rundle Mall, last Friday, and was told they'd sold out of the one I'd seen online (K emailed me a link to the one she'd just helped a friend with), but the smaller shop at the other end of the mall might still have one, so I walked all the way back up the way I'd come and yes they did have one, so the deal was done, all my contacts  transferred and the receipt being printed when I noticed the display stand where I saw the phone I'd just purchased, right next to a sweet little Samsung Galaxy, smaller, cheaper and identical to the one my son has, so he could have helped me learn it. Oh well. Too late to change now. I took my receipt and headed to the bus stop.

Anyway, the phone. A Telstra 4GX HD, bigger than I'm used to, my little old flip phone fit into my hand nicely, this one is five and a half inches by two and three quarters and very flat, where the flip phone was a little curvy and nice to hold.

I expected a doozy of a learning curve and texted K I'd be out on Saturday so she could help me learn to manage it. K texted right  back that I shouldn't have too much trouble since I'd already worked out how to send a text message. She was right, by Saturday I'd sent and received several texts and voice calls too, so K just played around with it for a few minutes then gave me instructions which I wrote down, on how to add or delete contacts from the phone book, I no longer needed about half the contact numbers that had been transferred, also how to check the balance so I'd know when to buy a recharge voucher (it's a pre-paid $30 per month deal) and also how to delete old messages and calls. For now, that's all I need. I'll work out the camera and how to send a photo soon enough.
A gazillion useless apps? no thanks.

I hadn't really wanted to change phones, but family members often send me photos that can't be viewed because the old phone just didn't have enough disk space for them, at least, that was the message I got whenever a photo couldn't be opened. So, with this phone I should be able to see every photo they send me. 

I wanted a cover for the phone too, I like to keep my things looking new as long as possible, but both stores had sold out of covers and the glitzy little shop in the City Cross arcade only has covers for i-phones, so I texted K and while I was riding home she went online and emailed me a link to a whole page of different covers designed to fit my new phone, so when I got home I turned on the computer, opened the link and chose a black leather cover, wallet style, with a screen protector for the phone. It should arrive today.