Thursday, January 29, 2015

Yes, I’m Still Here

I totally bailed out of the WordPress Blogging 101 course.  While I would recommend it to beginning bloggers, the assignments were tasks I had either already tackled or ones that would take my blogs in a direction I did not wish to pursue.  So here we are, back to our regularly unscheduled, sporadic programming.

Being on a night shift schedule seems to leave me with less spare time.  By the time we get up, tend to Maggie, have breakfast and perhaps run an errand, it just about time to get back here and go on duty. True, I have a window of three to four hours at night (like right now) on my own, but these hours are spent working my part-time virtual assistant gig, paying bills, taking care of other personal business, etc.  Rarely are my solo hours a blank palette for creativeness or just goofing off playing solitaire.   

Toss into that schedule about two days of feeling fairly punky, and I have been AWOL from Blogland.  Some days I simply . . . got ‘nuttin.

So!  Since last time I ventured here, I had a hair appointment (yay! for a shape-up) and took a couple of hours one evening for a “me” errand off the property while Dave stayed here.  Gotta get off the property now and then for a bit of fun and be around other like-minded folks.

It’s interesting how food available in markets and the quality of produce varies from place to place.  We are finding that produce here is not the same quality as in New Jersey, especially lettuce.  One thing we do enjoy is fresh pasta, not the kind that comes in a box off the shelf.  Well, this is the first place we had not been able to find such and, let me tell you, we were ready for a nice plate of fettuccini Alfredo.  We could find fresh (refrigerated, that is) ravioli here but not fettuccini or linguini, even of the same major brand.  Weird.  Heck, even the Walmart up in Jersey had this, so we were perplexed why we couldn’t find it here in any of the stores.  We chalked it up to differences in culinary habits of different regions; after all, we are in the South now.  Too, the area where we are is a bit . . . umm . . . industrial?  other side of the tracks?  not as up-market?  On mentioning the lack of fresh pasta to our facility manager here, he reminded me of another market, Harris Teeter, over in the neighboring town. 

Tuesday evening I dashed over to HT and . . . oh . . . my . . . goodness!  I called Dave from the store after scoring two packages of pasta and told him, “This is a real grocery store!”  Fresh-baked artisan bread – they even had a kiosk just for that.  Honest to goodness meat and seafood counter where you can point to something and say, “Yes, please, I’d like that one.”  Scored several items that we had not seen here yet. 

The clientele was definitely more upscale and so were the prices, so we won’t be purchasing our toilet paper from there.  Ha!  For specialty items, though, it is a godsend in what has been so far a barren landscape devoid of yummies for the tummies.  On arriving in the parking lot, I remembered that we had been there once during our stay here in 2010.  I can see a monthly stock-up trip on future calendars.

Dinner Wednesday night?  Breaded chicken breasts and fettuccini Alfredo.  Yes, folks, I cooked and we actually partook of dinner together, a rarity in our time here. 

Let’s see . . . Dave spotted the two rogue dogs on the property Saturday,  thankfully out in the hinterlands and not in our personal space up front.  Still, it’s head on a swivel and I do have items on my person to defend myself when on solo duty at night.   We had Friday night chess and were slated to match wits again Sunday evening, but things were a bit busy around here (issues with the company trucks and a potential parker in the lot out front) and we rescheduled our chess time for Monday evening. 

Dave finally met up with the local bike club Sunday and truly enjoyed cycling in a group again.  He didn’t really have that up in NJ except at races.  He had hung out with this SC group during the two months we were here in 2010.  Yay for Dave!

This afternoon my Reiki table came out of the basement and I set it up in the our office suite. 

Reiki table in office suite 01292015

The table’s covering is a nice purple, but I always put this blanket on it.

Dave was the recipient of a half-hour session this evening.  While benefitting the person on the table, I also reap the positive effects of performing Reiki.  Dim the lights, put on my fave Reiki CD and away we go!  I purchased this table over 10 years ago when my Reiki work starting blossoming.  The frame is aircraft aluminum and very lightweight but sturdy.  While the legs are adjustable for height, the variance in adjustment is based on my height.  After watching other folks  struggle with heavy wooden tables, I knew I needed one I could easily transport.  Did a lot of research and found Astra-Lite.  It was a bit more expensive than others but I also knew I would buy only one Reiki table in my lifetime.   I tell ya, this table looks and performs just as it did when it was delivered all those years ago. 

It folds flat and and has a soft-sided bag but, even so, it takes up a bit of space in our RV basement.  Thing is . . . I’d ditch most of my clothes and a lot of other things before this baby and I would part company.  Who knows?  One of these days I may teach or see clients again . . . In the meantime, it’s back in its bag propped up against a wall here in the office awaiting the next session.

Discovered today that my Reiki site is not accessible via iPhones, although it can be viewed on laptops.  Apparently there have been upgrades to the site design software, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada, which boils down to my having to go with the new version. (The old version is to be phased out in the near future.)  This means I will have to start over and build my site again from scratch.  sigh  Another project on the board for me.  Ah well, it’s a a labor of love.

I spent a lot of time building my site and, while it will be work to create a new one, I do enjoy this sort of thing.  I’ll just put on my geek cap and get into it.  Sometime in the near future, but not tonight.  I become rather immersed in a project like this, so it will have to be when I have a block of free evenings or a weekend to devote to it.

Okay.  Enough.  I’m outta here.  Thanks for taking the time to catch up with me!

“All things in the world are two.  In our minds we are two, good and evil.  With our eyes we see two things, things that are fair and things that are ugly . . . We  have the right hand that strikes and makes for evil, and we have the left hand full of kindness, near the heart.  One foot may lead us to an evil way, the other foot may lead us to a good.  So are all things two, all two.”

- Letakots-Lesa (Gray Eagle Chief), Pawnee, 19th century

365 Days of Walking the Red Road

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I am a Warrior

The above bracelet is a Toby and Max design

1 comment:

  1. When we lived in North Carolina, we were horrified by the grocery stores, after coming from Seattle with all the great shopping available. Harris Teeter was such a joy to find. It's definitely not the place for paper goods, but at least they had real food. It was interesting how many NC grocery stores did not cut meat on premises. It all came from "meat central". I do not miss the Carolinas.
    Glad Dave has found a cycling group, there is safety in numbers.

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