Saturday Afternoon Chat

Zooma the Wonder Dog (my dog for those who may be new here) has this way of sitting and staring at me right at the moment I’ve finally had a chance to sit down and work on a blog post or read a book.

And what stinks is that I have no idea what she wants when she does that.

Sometimes she wants to be petted and other times she wants me to take her out. It is up to me to decipher what she wants and there are days I am just in no mood to try to figure it out.

Today as I work on this post is one of those days.

We just took her outside so I don’t think she has to go to the bathroom. What it looks like is that she wants attention. She wants to play and be petted. I guess I will have to pause and see what she needs.

Ah, yes. It was a pet and a play.

Now with that out of the way I can continue to chat with all of you, my bloggy friends.

I like my Saturday chat posts because I just ramble and then you ramble back at me. I like that we ramble about nothing and everything.

This week I have a little more to ramble about than some weeks, but not a lot more.

We didn’t do a ton but with the weather nicer we were outside more. The temps were pretty high at the beginning of the week but at the end of each night, it was cool enough for Little Miss to jump on the neighbor’s trampoline. They are so nice and put that trampoline up each year specifically for Little Miss since their kids are grown now. They do have their grandsons up to visit sometimes but they live eight hours away now so that visit doesn’t happen as often as they would all like.

The trampoline is on top of a hill behind their house and it’s a bit of a hike for this woman who is out of shape and overweight. The first night we hiked up my legs hurt and I had to stop four times. The second night the climb was way better and by the third I climbed it very easily. I was grateful I got used to that haul a bit faster than some years.

Little Miss asks me to pretend I am characters from the books we read and those characters rate her various jumps and flips. I don’t mind doing it when it is just her and me out there but a couple nights this week my neighbor’s husband was outside burning his trash and working in the garden and there I was doing my silly voices. He didn’t seem to mind, but I still explained to him what I was doing. He isn’t a super chatty guy but he smiled at me good-naturedly and either thought our little play-acting was amusing or that I’m insane. Maybe both. *wink*

On Thursday Little Miss and I visited my parents for some dinner. The Boy had worked with my dad all day after morning technical school and was tired so he crashed at home while we were gone.

We took Zooma the Wonder Dog with us to show off her crooked new hairdo. Grooming has gotten very expensive so we bought a cheap kit and decided to groom her ourselves. It didn’t come out too bad but she still needs to be trimmed on her right side. She didn’t enjoy the sound of the clippers so we used the scissors. At least the large mats behind her ears are gone.

And the fur around her legs and feet is a little shorter.

The view from my parents was absolutely beautiful on Thursday. I was dealing with some stress and depression that day and it seemed like Zooma knew I needed to see the view because she let me know she needed to use the bathroom and then led to me to the dirt road and field in front of the house where I admired the view for several moments.

My mood was greatly improved after the visit and when I went home, I read books instead of going on social media or watching anything. It helped my mood immensely.

Yesterday Little Miss, The Boy, The Husband, and I traveled to a theater 45 minutes away and watched the new Garfield movie. It wasn’t too bad. Better than I thought it would be. Afterward we picked up some lunch at a local supermarket (they have amazing fried chicken there) and then visited a park near there that was located next to the river.

There were white puffs all over the ground, which at first I thought were from dandelions but then realized that they looked like puffs of cotton. I looked up and they were floating all over in the air, falling from the trees. I knew there were trees that dropped pods or something that had white cotton-like material inside but wasn’t sure what they were so I had to search online on my phone while we were sitting there.

Of course, the cotton-like material was coming from cottonwood trees along the river. I don’t think I’ve seen that material fall from trees before so I thought cottonwood must not be as common in Pennsylvania. After I got home, I looked that up online, though, and cottonwood is fairly common but is found along rivers, lakes, streams, and marshland.

After we ate lunch, The Husband picked up some groceries for us while the kids and I stayed inside the AC car. I felt rude not helping but he moves very fast and we dawdle so he seems to do better if we aren’t with him. We sort of annoy him when we wander around the store instead of just getting what is on our list.

After the groceries were picked up we headed home and read some on the porch.

The rest of the weekend should be just hanging out and relaxing, probably at my parents on Sunday and Monday.

We have a local Memorial Day Ceremony Monday morning that we will try to attend and then we will probably have a cookout at my parents that afternoon.

I hope that you all are having a nice day Memorial Day weekend, if you are in the U.S., or just a nice weekend in general.

What was your week last week? Did you do anything exciting or interesting? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to know.

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Did you ever feel like you are the outside looking in?

I’ve felt this a lot but specifically, I am talking about people who have read classic books like Little Women and I haven’t, or well hadn’t.

After reading Little Women this year I finally feel like I know what everyone is talking about when it comes to Jo and Laurie.

Finally!

I mean I have seen movies based on the book but only by reading the book did I really get why Jo and Laurie simply couldn’t be together at the end. They were too much alike. Both impulsive and passionate in ways that weren’t always good. Yes, as they grew they could have changed and mellowed but I can’t see that happening really. I think as they grew older they may have bounced off each other even more and ended up arguing all of the time, making for a miserable marriage.

They both needed partners to offset their personalities.

Jo needed someone more calming like The Professor and Laurie needed someone willing to be more genteel like Amy.

Part of me still doesn’t like that Amy and Laurie ended up together. My heart says it wasn’t right, but I can also see why Alcott didn’t make Jo and Laurie a couple. She needed to do something different – shake up the readers’ expectations and leave everyone talking for the next hundred or so years. If Laurie and Jo had ended up together then Little Women would have always been seen as a sweet book but maybe not the one ahead of its time that it is now.

What do you think? *looking at those who have read Little Women with a wide-eyed, somewhat crazed expression*

Relaxing breath.

Okay. With that off my chest, we can now move on to our regularly scheduled program of me reviewing my past week.

Today I am going to be sipping something warm – most likely tea – while writing blog posts, brainstorming more ideas for Gladwynn Shakes the Family Tree (book three in my cozy mystery series), and reading a cozy mystery. It’s a little chilly today after some very nice and warm days earlier in the week.

We had warm days and cold nights. Warm enough that our tulips came up and I thought one night they’d die in the frost we had forecasted, but they survived.

Next week I need to prepare myself to be at the playground a lot because it is supposed to be warm and sunny pretty much all week.

We spent time at the playground three days this week and a lot of time outside sitting on the porch and playing with the dog on other days.

In between all of that, we had school lessons as we marched toward the end of our school year. We will be finishing up around the first week of June.

I picked The Boy up from his trade school yesterday and we headed over to an additional location for a bakery near us that has become very, very popular before picking up our groceries.

The kids picked out some sweet treats – two Boston cream donuts for The Boy and three Oreo cupcakes for Little Miss (and an extra for dad) and three Hershey kiss cookies for me. The Boy also ordered an iced coffee but, sadly, said it had more ice than coffee. It was still good, though, he said and he will try again for one another time. He said he actually doesn’t like coffee that much but always feels like he should so he keeps ordering different kinds to see if the love for it will finally catch on.

There was a mix up at our pick up when the young man who brought out my groceries gave me two or three bags that were not mine.

I’m so glad I checked before I left because more than half my order was missing. He had grabbed the wrong stack of bags. I had to go into the store and track him down when I noticed the mistake. When he came out to the car to help correct, I let him know that I’m not in diapers yet so the one bag clearly wasn’t supposed to go me.

He was very polite and apologetic and the mistake was taken care of very quickly.

After we left there it was a quick snack from Wendy’s, which my son said was disgusting.

From there we headed home and the kids spent part of the afternoon watching Harry Potter and then a half hour at the playground.

Today The Husband has to work almost the entire day so it will be just me and the kids. We will probably watch a movie together later tonight – I’m trying to find something different that The Boy might like. He always suggests the weirdest movies so this time he’s going to watch something that I like.

Tomorrow we will visit my parents for Sunday lunch and to hang out. Little Miss likes to play games when we are there but I’m hoping that this time we can watch a fun or interesting movie instead.

This morning I spent some time crying over Tom Jones singing on The Voice. I never knew much about Tom Jones until I saw some clips on the UK version of The Voice and oh my. He is still amazing and he’s in his 80s! Just what?!

Here are a couple clips I just loved listening to while I procrastinated on cleaning the house and organizing my homeschooling supplies:

How was your week last week? Let me know in the comments and if you have a similar weekly catch-up post – no matter when you post it – link up with me.