WfW ~ late, but better than never

 I am writing (a few days late) with Words for Wednesday, the words for which can be found here on Mother Owl's blog for July.

The goal of WfW is to take given prompts, words, phrases, photos, colors, or music and create a story from them.

This week's words and color of the month are in bold italics.

If you visit her blog you can also read and cheer on the other writers participating in this weekly fun.

The story of Simon, Jack, and Rose ended last week with a hint of Simon finally falling in love again after a tragic loss.  The murder of the Artisan's Loft proprietor was left to the government to resolve, which is probably safer for the three of them anyway.

  This is a post about gratitude and maybe breakfast too.  Christian, one of my roomies from the Philippines, made me breakfast the other morning on his day off.

  Fried eggplant with a balsamic vinegar and pepper dipping sauce, fried rice, and scrambled eggs.  It was amazing.  I've only had eggplant before as eggplant parmesan Jay style (heavily breaded and drowned in Ranch dressing), so having it fried this way was a treat.

  It is a hot summer here, as it is across the country and the world right now.  I stopped the other morning at the Fish Hatchery to watch the birds in their pollinator garden and was thrilled to see the beautiful golden yellow goldfinches.  I hadn't put out any thistle seeds this year so hadn't seen any yet.  I love their bright yellow color.

 

  Gracie is enjoying the window seats (here she is tanning her belly).  I need to figure out how to get a bird feeder or seed out to the porch roof under my windows so that she can bird watch while she is sunning herself.

  She seems to be adjusting better to the new house, and both cats enjoy prowling the house after dark when everyone has gone to bed.  But both cats are still skittish around all the new faces and people.

  Late night confession time.  And no, I'm not trying on weird face filters on Instagram.  When I have trouble sleeping I like watching the animal reels on Instagram.  Usually, it's mostly cats or dogs that pop up in my feed, based on things that I have liked in the past, but occasionally something different.  I've become fascinated with octopuses (the collective noun for which is consortium), but I also saw recently a pod of dolphins that featured a baby dolphin seeming to do an underwater dance around its mother as if playing a game with her.  It amazes me the intelligence of some species (and the not-so-much intelligence of some humans at times).

  I'm off tomorrow, and after a quick run to the pharmacy for iron tablets and Vitamin C (I'm slightly anemic again), the day will be spent getting the last "crumbs" of clutter from the old house and moving it into an empty room to be sorted for basement storage, trash, or future yard sale.  I will have some help tho, so it should go quickly at least in getting it from there to here.

  With August starting next week, I've been thinking of some of the folklore sayings I heard shortly after moving here.  In particular one regarding the number of fog mornings in August being equal to a snowfall in winter.  I tracked the foggy mornings in August 2021, but we didn't get an equal number of snow days during the winter of 2021/2022.  

  There is another one that I'm a little more concerned about this year which says that "If the first week in August is unusually warm, the coming winter will be snowy and long."  I'm not sure how they want to define "unusually warm" since the temperature forecast looks similar to July, but even so, there is another folklore that says "If a cold August follows a hot July, it foretells a winter hard and dry."  It sounds to me like the writers of the farmer's almanac were covering both sides of the hot/cold options!

  I've already been making plans for the holidays this year, apart from the Scottish nutcracker-style soldiers that I've been working on making for my sisters.  Since one of my roomies, Bipin, is Sihk, I've reached out to some of the Indian embassies here in the US to ask if they could direct me to sites to order holiday-appropriate Indian treats, or if they could send some to him so that he does not feel left out at that time of year.

  I ordered a new ornament display tree so that I can get back to my monthly decorating, and am thinking of doing one of two options to commemorate my roomies this holiday season.  Option 1 is to order ornaments depicting the countries my roomies are from and then put their names on them.  Option 2 (which I'm leaning towards) is to purchase materials to have them paint their own ornaments however they feel depict their home countries and write their own names on them.  Then each year, I will add to them with new roomies (should I continue this adventure).

  Once all this moving and unpacking stuff is under my belt, over & done with, in the past, and whatever other finished terms you want to think of, I'm planning on taking more time to work on crafts, read books I've had on my shelf for a few years now, and generally, let my brain grow mushrooms on the weekends.

  The last few months have been higher stress than I like to live under normally on a day-to-day basis.  Since my office and bedroom are in the same room now, I am trying to make myself a little corner to disconnect from work and technology.  It was the same chair and corner that Cotton took over when she was staying here.  So I'm trying to remember that making myself a priority is a good thing.  A necessary thing.  A much-needed thing.

  I hope your Wednesday was blissful, and your weekend coming is relaxing.    Hugs,    Ci