Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig

It's always good to go and even better to come home.  This wasn't a long trip, that's coming this Fall when we go to Japan to visit out daughter, but it was long enough.
The Weaver of Grass asked in one of her blogs how do we pamper ourselves and I told her it's in how we travel.  If the trip is 2 hours or less we drive, if it's more than 2 we fly and if it's more than 2 or 3 hours we fly First Class, that's our treat.  So that's how we flew, to Budapest, Hungary, our very first time in Eastern Europe.  When Mac was in the Army and we lived in Germany he had a top secret clearance and wasn't allowed to travel to Eastern Europe, it was still Cold War, Berlin Wall time.
So Hungary was a whole new experience for us.
Budapest was beautiful, everything we had hoped it would be except for one thing, it was 99º  while we were there.  Our hotel had wonderful air conditioning as did the evening cruise boat we were on, but we found very little air conditioning elsewhere.  We had tickets for the Hop-On Hop-Off bus, but after an hour or so, with no air-conditioning and windows that wouldn't open we gave up.  We saw lots of the city, the food was good, the people were warm, friendly and welcoming.
Our dinner cruise was very nice, with loads of food and a 4-piece band playing, opening of course with The Blue Danube.  It was a beautiful evening and I took loads of pictures.
We upgraded our room to a suite and had  balcony overlooking the river, we opened the curtains at night and watched all the lights.
Not a long visit, just a couple of days before we flew off to London, but one that will linger in our memories.

Our 3 room suite

Boat for our dinner cruise

The little orchestra was good, but Mac said the violin player looked like Gru from Despicable Me, and he did.

View from our balcony

A Small Whine From the Swamp

I'm tired of child proof bottles, they should never be given to adults unless we request them.  There haven't been any kids under the age of 10 in this house in many a year.  Just 2 adults who would like to be able to open a bottle with out going through h••l.  You have to push down, stand on your head, reach behind your back, burn a small offering to the Gods of childproof bottles and hope you can open it.
I just want to gently twist the lid and open the bottle, is that asking too much?

Five on Friday

Yes, yes, another week has zipped by and it's time to join in with Amy at Love Made My Home for Five on Friday.  Hot, hot week here in the swamp, it's supposed to be 99º today and 100º tomorrow.  Should cool off a  little next week and only be in the lower 90's.  About all you can do is get up early, get whatever work you have to do done quickly and then lay low.  The pool has been a lifesaver.

This is the 2nd one he painted

A mixed group for my five this week  The First is my new header.  Mac painted him last week and I fell in love with it.  He said I couldn't have it, it was for sale, but he'd paint me one.  That painting sold in less than a day, he painted another one and it was gone in two.  Don't know when I'll be getting mine, but I still want one, just looks so cool.








My Second one is that I finally finished my Granny Square Afghan.  I made it to go at the foot of the double bed upstairs.  It was easy to make, I just kept getting distracted.

The Third is a rather strange movie we watched this week.  I'm a big Jane Austen fan and have read all the books numerous times and I 've seen all of the  movies and some takeoffs from the stories.  When I first heard about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies I said,"No way!"  I don't like zombies and can't imagine how they could be in a Jane Austen movie.  But then I reconsidered and got it from Netflix.  I'll be the first to say that it's not for everyone, but dang if it didn't make us laugh.  I'll never forget the scene when Elizabeth turns down Darcy's proposal.  It's a classic.

My Fourth is Miss Mouse.  Several people have written about Beatrix Potter this week and this little candle holder reminds me of Mrs. Tittlemouse.

My Fifth is some little teapot sets that have been given to me through the years.  My family knows I love teeny, tiny things.

That's my five and I'm too hot to think of much else.  Cool Deviled Egg Sandwiched for lunch.

Have a good weekend.

Thursday in the Swamp

Hot, hot, hot.  It is definitely summertime in the south.  I mowed the lawn today, early.  Did a load of laundry and though it's hot enough to dry everything, it's humid enough to keep everything wet, isn't that nice.  Do not want to use our dryer, too hot, I'm trying to keep the house cool.
And now for something completely different: snails.  I've probably mentioned this before, I'm afraid of snails, no let me rephrase that, I'm terrified of snails.  I live in fear of touching one or of one touching me.  We camped in Bavaria for about a month one time and I must have gone through a dozen boxes of salt laying  down a barrier around our tent.
When I found out that people ate the little blighters I was horrified.  My daughter assures me that they're quite tasty, but I don't care, I'd starve first. The first time I saw people in a German gasthaus eating great big vineyard snails I couldn't believe it.
So when we travel the first thing I have to do is to learn the word for snail in whatever country we're traveling to.  I want to be able to order from a menu and not worry about accidentally ordering them.
What I've learned:
German  Schnecke
French    Escargot
Spanish   Caracol
Turkish    salyangoz
Italian      lumaca
Dutch      slak
For our next trip the word for snail is csiga, anyone know what language that is?
For Japanese I'm depending on our daughter
In Cambodia I've decided I probably won't eat anything


Are there any foods you'd walk a mile to avoid?

Packing

When you pack for a trip do you pack lightly, thinking that if you forget something you can pick it up along the way?  Or do you pack everything but the kitchen sink?  I'm bad I'm afraid, I want to travel lightly, I want our bags light enough for us to handle.  I want very few bags to deal with.
  We had so many one year that we accidentally left one on the luggage carousel and it took forever for Mac to get permission to go back in and find it.  I don't want that to happen again.  I also don't want my carry-on to be so heavy that it takes 2 people to lift it into the overhead.
I try to pack lightly, but then I worry, do I have enough of this, should I have 1 more of those, can I live without that---probably not.  So that in the end I usually have  2 of everything,
It doesn't matter if it's an overseas trip or a drive down into Florida.  For years we've packed a pretty good-sized 220volt fan every time we went to England, we always found our rooms stuffy without it. Imagine how big a suitcase that took.
I carry enough pharmaceuticals to open my own drug store, a lot are prescription and not an option, but others are just things I think I might need.
Should I take a hair dryer and even if the hotel provides one I still need a curling iron.  The list goes on and on.
Mac is in charge of paperwork and I know he has duplicates and in some cases triplicates of everything.  Copies of tickets, trip vouchers, passports.  Numbers to call in case of emergencies, for lost or stolen credit cards, local telephone numbers.
I sometimes think that less planning and less logistics went into planning D-Day than for one of our trips.  And this is for a fairly short trip.
The planning for the big one is massive!

Happy 4th of July

It's our birthday and time to celebrate, can't believe how old we are---241 years old.  Not a big celebration here,  just ribs, potato salad and watermelon.  Meant to get corn on the cob, but forgot.  We try to stay off the roads on holidays, a lot of brainless souls armed with cell phones are out driving around.  Heard some real squealers during our morning walk.
No fireworks this year though Georgia made them legal last year.  We'll watch our neighbors and the old Fort down the road from us always has a patriotic show complete with cannons.
So hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th.

Dealing With the Heat

Miss Kitty has the right idea about how to handle the heat, on her back, paws in the air, she has surrendered.  I fear that if I tried this, not even counting the fact I probably wouldn't be able to get up again, is that Mac would worry that I'd gone the way of our tomatoes.
So what little housework I'm going to do is done, the forces of evil have not been beaten back, but are still held at bay, the sky in my new puzzle is done, I've played the piano, exercised and talked to the one sister I talk to (don't want to say soap opera, but yee Gods! not her, but what she's having to deal with), so my only job to do now is to get  me into the pool before the afternoon thundershowers get too close.

Five on Friday

Like grains of sand through the hourglass, so our the days of our lives---no I've never watched this show, I don't do soap operas,  but the way the weeks keep running away that's the way it feels.  I'm again joining in with Amy, and all the other Friday Bloggers, for Five on Friday.



Cooler week, if you can call high 80's and lower 90's cooler, and a bit of rain each day.  The worst of the thunder and lightning stayed away from us thank goodness.  Everything is growing like mad, except the tomatoes who have pretty much decided to die.


Yesterday was running errands, picking up fremd Geld at the bank, doctor's visit for Mac, pick-up water, pick-up pants that have been tailored, go to the grocery store.   What kind of fremd Geld you say, well, that would be telling where we're going and I'd rather tell you when we get back.

Second is my new header, isn't he a sweetie, just right for the Fourth of July.  No fireworks for us this year, we'll just enjoy the neighbors, plus the old fort down the road for us always puts on a historical display including cannon firing.

Third are my lilies:  Ginger Lilies and 2 types of Day Lilies, all are doing so well this year.

Fourth is my present from Mac.  I raved so much about Mama's Mercantile's bobbins that he went online to Ebay and found me a Portuguese lace bobbin.  It's made of wood and feels so good to touch, so smooth and tactile.   I love it.












And Fifth  is my table set for the 4th of July, all red, white and blue.

Hope you have a great weekend wherever you are.

A Few Random Things.

While cleaning out some plant pots Mac found some small eggs and decided to collect them to see what exactly they were.  He figured they were lizard eggs and he was right, the first one hatched and tried to make a run for it.  Mac took its picture and let it go.  There are 2 more eggs left to hatch.  The lizard is just a simple Anole.  He needs to get into the garden and eat insects.  Lizards are always welcome here.  Though Miss Kitty, licking her thin grey lips, might put a different interpretation on that.
I've been working diligently at my German and making pretty good progress, except I'm having a time of it with "Der", "Die", Das", the 3 forms of the word for "the".  I don't mind that things are feminine, masculine or neuter, I'm use to that from Spanish.  But give me a clue, Spanish does:  if it ends in "a" it's feminine, if it ends in "o" it's masculine.  There are exceptions, but not many.
German doesn't work that way and I've had to resort to making flash cards and memorizing the word with its "the".  For example: das Essen, the food, note that food is neuter.  die Biene, the bee, a bee is feminine, der Stuhl, the chair, a chair is masculine.
Favorite German word right now, bezahle, which means to pay.  I just like the sound of it
Lots of rain last night, over an inch with lots of thunder and lightning.  We needed the rain, but not the other.  And of course it made a mess of the pool so I'll need to clean it up.

Isn't he a cutey?

Technologically Challenged

I have an MP3 player that I love, I use it every day when I exercise.  I have about 250 songs on it, but recently I decided that it was time to add some new ones.  So I went to Amazon, bought some new ones and pulled some out of my music library there, attached my MP3 player to my computer and tried to download the music.  I tried for 2 days, I went to Amazon forums for advice, I went to Google.  I wasted all of yesterday and a good portion of this morning.  I couldn't figure it out.  I mean, obviously I'd done it before, even helped Mac load stuff on his MP3.  But nothing worked.  I gave up and tried to get some housework done.
Then Mac caught me and asked if I'd turned the songs into MP3 format.  Uh, no, and how do you do that.  Well all I had to do was go to i-tunes, check preferences, select MP3 and then drag the songs into my MP3 that was on the desktop.
I felt so silly. The music was loaded in no time and I checked to make sure they were there.
 I'm going to write this down so I'll know what to do next time, because if there is one thing you can be sure of, if I don't, the next time I want to add music I will have forgotten how to do it.

Saturday in the Swamp

Up before 8am this morning and it was already 80º, so off to walk.  I was so hot by the time we got back I pulled off my shorts and top, grabbed my swimming suit top and jumped in the pool.  It felt so good.  When I got out I just kept my wet undies on and put back on my shorts and top.  It's going to be miserable today, we had to put the air condoning on by 11:30.  I manage a little vacuuming, a bit of ironing, and my aerobics, I'm through.
The other day Cynthia at I'm Retired -Adventure of a Simpler Life wrote about the local fresh fish store in her town and I told her we had one too and that Mac had made a painting of it.  Stopped by there the other day and he took a photo of the painting (from about 10 feet away so it may be a little out of focus) and a photo of the store.  Ken, who owns the place, says he gets a lot of compliments on the painting.
A very cool lunch today, ham sandwiches and deviled eggs plus a green bean salad.  Too hot to eat much. I have some sewing I need to do and then it's back in the pool for me.