Sunday Snippets 10/29/23
Brr! It’s gotten cold outside. Wet and cold. And my arthritis is feeling it. What’s it like in your neck of the woods?
I wanted to show you this quite tall canna plant before the freeze this week gets it. It is now a bit taller than my Japanese maple tree!
And it has been beautiful for many months, delighting all the neighbors who can see it. Everyone asks me what kind of plant it is.
Ron has told me time and again how pretty the red blooms are as he’s watched it grow.
See the canna lily next to the Japanese maple? I can’t believe that the canna lily grew so high in that container!
I’m just hoping it will make it through the winter and come back next year.
It’s supposed to be a perennial canna. But you never know when you have a plant in a container whether it will battle Old Man Winter and win.
If you plant it in the ground there is a better chance that it will survive.
I’d sure hate to lose this fern, although I read it grows year round in zones 9-11. However Tulsa is zone 8. It’s too heavy to lift, so I guess it stays put.
If we have a harsh winter I will probably lose quite a few perennials that aren’t planted in the ground. And maybe some that are. You just never know.
My yard doesn’t get much sun which would help to warm the ground.
It’s hard for me to walk out to the pathway to take a photo of John’s Halloween patio. So this photo above is as good as it’s going to get I’m afraid.
He loves Halloween and always goes all out to decorate his patio and yard.
What I Cooked This Week:
I took quite a few photos of this German chocolate cake I baked the other day, but none of them were good.
I also made a meatloaf and pasta salad. Both were tasty.
While the meatloaf and cake were cooking I would go into the living room to sit in my chair. I needed to get my ankle positioned above my heart.
But I still ended up with a bad night. And the next day was awful as well. None of the over the counter medications seem to ease the pain. I don’t have pain pills and don’t want them unless I get desperate.
Greg said I should have cooked one thing each day. But I wanted the pasta salad to eat with the meatloaf. And I figured I might as well bake the cake while I had the oven warmed up.
It takes very little to cause this ankle of mine pain it seem. I don’t know if things will ever be different. But I sure hope so.
I’m tired of having pain much of the day.
Ivy:
I thought this was a funny photo of Ivy sleeping underneath, or partly underneath, my chair in the bedroom.
What I’m Watching:
I finished watching “The Commander” last night. So I don’t know what I’m going to watch next.
What I’m Reading:
I finished reading “The House Guests.” Then I began reading Tami Hoag’s “The Boy.”
The Summary:
When Detective Nick Fourcade enters the home of Genevieve Gauthier outside the sleepy town of Bayou Breaux, Louisiana, the bloody crime scene that awaits him is both the most brutal and the most confusing he’s ever seen.
Genevieve’s seven-year-old son, KJ, has been murdered by an alleged intruder, yet Genevieve is alive and well. Meanwhile, Nick’s wife, Detective Annie Broussard, sits with the grieving Genevieve.
A mother herself, Annie understands the devastation this woman is going through, but as a detective she’s troubled: Who would murder a child and leave the only witness behind?
When KJ’s sometimes babysitter, twelve-year-old Nora Florette, is reported missing the very next day, the town fears a maniac is preying on their children.Â
With pressure mounting from a tough, no-nonsense new sheriff, the media, and the parents of Bayou Breaux, Nick and Annie dig deep into the dual mysteries.
Is someone from Genevieve’s past or present responsible for the death of her son? Is Nora a victim, or something worse? Then everything changes when Genevieve’s past as a convicted criminal comes to light.Â
Could she have killed her own child to free herself from the burden of motherhood, or is the loss of her beloved boy pushing her to the edge of insanity?
Could she have something to do with the disappearance of Nora, or is the troubled teen the key to the murder? How far will Nick and Annie have to go to uncover the dark truth of the boy?
A Scheduled MRI:
I have an MRI scheduled for my lower back on November 26th. It was the soonest I could get an appointment. And oddly enough, it’s on a Sunday.
I’m having some urinary retention with the back pain, so I think the doctor wants to rule out some other problem. Something feels like it’s pressing on my bladder.
This has been going on for months now, so it’s probably something I should get looked at.
Kasi has to come pick me up and I live about 10 miles from her. I hate asking her because she works at home and has to take off time to do it.
Then she has to put my walker in her car and drive us back in the same direction she came from close to her house. Then go back in the opposite direction to bring me home.
I try to not bother her anymore than is necessary. Their dad is worse now and it’s taking up most of their time tending to him.
{This post contains an affiliate link}
I have yellow cannas that multiply every year and they’re getting out of control, so I plan to give a bunch to the friend who gave them to me since she’s moved to a new home. I try to be sure to get them cut down before they freeze every year because they just turn to mush when they freeze and it’s a pain to get them cleaned up. If you cut them down before they freeze, they just snap when you cut them with the loppers. I love the picture of Ivy! My Sam Elliott was sleeping back in my office in my chair so I put a cotton throw over it to keep him from shedding on it. I went in there today and he had pulled the throw off the back of the chair so it covered him up. He thinks he’s safer from Smidge under there. Hate to tell him, but none of us are ever safe from Smidgey the Terrible.
How funny! Aren’t they entertaining?
So sorry to hear of continuing pain and also that you have to have an MRI. Hope that the docs will be better able to help you!! Your meal does sound yummy…but that is quite a bit of “doing” for a day. I made a new online turkey meatball recipe I found today, for part of our supper, which was very liked by hubby and daughter. Simple but tasty…my kind of cooking these days. And German Chocolate cake was what my grandma made for birthdays, unless something different was requested…but it was certainly MY favorite!!
I still have a little of the cake left. I had not made German chocolate cake in ages.
You canna is so lovely! Fingers crossed it makes it through winter so you have the chance to enjoy it again next year. You have great spirit and fortitude to make life joyful with cooking yummy food, enjoying flowers and decorations while dealing with such discomfort. Great to hear the Walmart home delivery service is performing so well!
I’m trying to make the best of a situation I can’t totally control. And still be happy. I’ve been pretty good about adapting to life in the past.
Thanks for the recommendation of the Walmart In Home service. Back in the spring when I had surgery I signed up for the Walmart delivery, gave them a hefty tip and the service was AWFUL! They put my groceries at the bottom of a steep fight of stairs right out in the weather so I had to find someone to bring them upstairs for me. WM never even bothered to respond to my inquiry afterwards so I canceled the service a month later and swore never again! But after reading your info that it was a 3rd party service and not WM employees like I thought it was I’m going to try again with In Home delivery. I’ll be here but to have groceries brought to the kitchen will be wonderful. Thanks for the info.
If you haven’t tried Krill Oil capsules please do. I alternate between 2K and 5K per day but it manages my pain in a very safe way.
I’ll check these pain capsules out. Yeah, I don’t know why they use a third-party service for Walmart+.
How nice for your neighbors to look out onto your garden and see such a lovely view….and for you to see the cool hanging ghost! You neighbors take care of each other in so many ways.
I’ve never really decorated for Halloween since my girls grew up.
A friend years ago, always had huge canna lilies every summer. They were really tall also. In the fall she would dig them out and lay them on the floor, on newspapers in her garage, to dry. She would then save the roots in a warm place (basement usually) and replant the following spring, and always had good luck with them year after year.
She gave me some of hers one spring, but I had no place to store them over the winter, so only grew them for one year.
She died 25 years ago, but every time I see those red flowers, I think of my good friend, Shirley. Thanks for sharing Brenda…
Hugs from 34 degrees Wisconsin.
Yikes, it’s cold there! I’d like to save them. But I’m not in good enough shape to dig them up.
That photo of Ivy with half her body sticking out from beneath her “tent” is hilarious, got a good laugh out of that! John’s decorations are great. And you’ve still got flowers on your canna, so beautiful. We’re in freeze warning here in SE Wisconsin. Yesterday it was in the 50s and it sure looked like and sounded like just about everyone in the neighborhood had read the forecast and was out cutting their lawns (maybe for the last time this season) and to suck up leaves (we still have a lot of trees that aren’t close to being fully shed yet) and/or blowing leaves into the gutters for the city to come through with their big machines. I looked at the forecast and for the next couple of weeks, our “highs” may be in the 40s – maybe. Wow! Not ready for this, just not ready. Trick or treat (neighborhood between 6:30-8:30 p.m.) was last night. I bought about the same amount of candy as last year, a real splurge as the prices have gone up on everything (as we’ve all experienced), but not as many kids came through this year. Don’t know why, but now I’ve got a lot of left-over candy. I plucked the last red tomato off my tomato plant this morning, and one green pepper off my pepper plant, and my multi-colored petunias are still hanging in there. They may not make it through to tomorrow. On a totally different subject, I’ve been thinking about your ankle and the chronic pain you experience and wondered if something other than the “boot” you mention you wear on occasion might help stabilize your ankle and cut down on the pain? I’m sure no expert, but I found this website that offers a lot of different kinds of ankle supporters (braces) that look like they could help with providing stability and lessen the pain: https://www.ultraankle.com/ankle-injuries-conditions/ankle-pain-and-instability/
I’ll check the link out. I no longer wear the boot because it’s done so much current damage to my back and hips.
Good morning! Tomorrow our warm weather on the East coast will turn cold with some rain. We are scurrying around like little mice trying to finish the outside work. Or should I say the most urgent, we can never catch up. Your canna is beautiful. I didn’t know they had perennial cannas. It is always a crap shoot if our plants survive the winter. Meatloaf and German chocolate cake, yum! I know our grown children are busy but we do need to lean on them sometimes. Like you, I am lucky to have neighbors who sometimes run to a store together and help each other with errands. It just makes sense, for safety reasons, social reasons and to save gas. Wishing you well and have a good week.
I still have a bit of the cake left. Now that you mentioned it, I think I’ll go have a slice.
I bet your meatloaf, pasta salad and cake were very yummy! I love chocolate cake – hmmmm LOL
You’ve captured my attention with The Boy. Definitely adding it to my must read list. Thank you for mentioning it.
I hope your plants survive the colder months because they are beautiful. I think it’s fabulous that your neighbor, John enjoys decorating his patio. Always looks great.
John decorates for Halloween and being right across from him, I get to enjoy it.