Another hurdle jumped over

 As a widow I have had to learn innumerable things, techniques to do tasks I never did before.  Tasks I never thought about.  All those things Jerry did seamlessly, easily.  I was content to not know until I had to.  Until I had no choice.  If I was to continue living here in this lovely home I had to figure things out.  There was no other choice. 

 The last thing I want to do is become a pest to the good friends who stuck with me, who continued to care and be here while others vanished.  But that's another story, the vanishing.  This couple always say, "call anytime, we will be there, don't struggle.."  Sometimes I do prevail on them, like changing my smoke/ CO2 detector/alarms in the ceiling when their lifeexpectancy reached the end, alerting me by chirping constantly. First he came  disconnected  it, returned another day after I got replacements  and reinstalled new ones.  I  cannot reach those in the ceiling, even on a step ladder, so called Gary.  

Sometimes if they haven't heard from me they call or drop by just to see.  Gary has opened jars for me when I cannot.  I hesitate to buy the jars of olives and marinated mushrooms, because I don't want to bother him, but he laughs.  Judy has rescued me when I locked myself out of the house, unknowingly, accidentally by bringing over the house key.  They live nearby, a few blocks away and I do not know what I'd do without them.  Others have family to rely on, I do not.

I do hire a handyman for bigger things like back deck repair, etc. And thankfully here I have reliable trustworthy people to call for repairs too.  

New Whirlpool frig

  But so much for all that background, today I noticed a red warning light on the refrigerator freezer door controls  to change the water filter,  I had a new one ready that I'd purchased from Whirlpool.  I bought this new Whirlpool refrigerator  last August.  Instructions recommend changing the water filter every 6 months.  But with just me here, mostly,  I figured I could wait another month or so.  But the refrigerator disagreed.  Our former GE Profile could keep the same filter for nearly a year.  We have good clean pure city treated water.  Ok so I'm ready to do this and get rid of the red light. 

The instructions on the filter indicate it is in the right corner inside the refrigerator, but inside mine nothing. WTH?  I close and open the door a couple times incase I'mmissing something,,same, nothing.  No water filter to be changed? WTH?. So I'm thinking I'll have to call Gary later or even worse the local refrigerator repaorman who is reasonable but would surely have to charge me something.  Then Idecide to get the manual.  I look inside about water filter, same instructuons!  WTH again?  Then I notice a Section 2 for refrigerators like this model with red light indicator on the door. 

And there is another instructuion.  Aha, the water filter on this is on the base!  Thart's different.  I get down on the floor and find tthe little door but realize I can't fully open it to eject the filter.   Hmm?  Don't tell me the freezer door blocks it!  So I pen the freezer door and victory I can open the filter cartridge door.  I do, it ejects the old cartridgee.  I open the new one insert it and feel I have earned my 2nd cup of coffee and maybe another donut!  Victory dance and proud of me.  As we widows say among ourselves, a YAY ME MOMENT!!

Comic actions unintended

Yesterday I went to our local hardware store intown to get batteries replaced in my remote control for the back sunporch blinds.  I could not get the back off the contraption.  Since the directions said it would take two watch batteries and the local hardware store is where I always get my watch batteries replaced, I figured they would help me.  Sure enough the woman at the counter did and then asked if there was anything else.

  I said I needed a C battery for an old clock at home but didn't find it there among all the batteries they had.  I said I would have to go home and check for sure and just come back.  She asked if I was needing a C or D and I replied, "C"  She asked me to show her where I looked and  that they usually had C batteries.  I continued my chattering as we went to the battery display.  "I need a C but you only have C2 or C4 and I'm not sure."  I pointed to the packages.  And she very courteously told me the 2 and 4 were only the number of the batteries in the packages, they were C batteries.  I smacked myself upside my forehead and grinned.  Who knew?  Obviously not me.  I attribute this to widow brain fog a condition that seems to emerge every so often even after 3 years., When Jerry was alive and I did something this lame he'd laugh and shake his head.  I bet that the hardware store lady had a good laugh the rest of the day telling this story!  

One of my widow friends laughed with me and said she would have done the same thing, reminded me that we have lifetimes of things to learn now that our husbands always handled.  So true, no wonder we get confused.  AND +: 

Puzzles, perceptions, reality/

 

2018 3 16  Jerry starts a new jigsaw puzzle. 

 I have never been a fan of jigsaw puzzles like   so many are around here especially in winter.   Jerry liked them too.  I found them frustrating.  I   might try to get a few pieces in place but really   was  not interested enough to keep at it.  Short   attention span?  Maybe ,but concentrating on   shapes and fitting them didn't appeal to me. 

   Now words puzz;es like word search, jumble,   even crosswords and I'm in.  I have been doing   Wordle on line daiy now for over a year.  I lost   my original statistics when I had the laptop hard   drive replaced.  Don't understand why since it   was online with the Wordle site, but it happbed.  So I resumed and began again.  But this time I am using online hints before I try my Wordle solution. Onesource I use is Forbes which has ahint and clue, sometimes neither arehelpful to me.  But along with the Wrdle hunt there is commentary and a weekly puzzle.  Sometimes these are not of interest to me but today this solution to yesterday's puzzle was interesting.  

Which square is darker A or B?

Answer,  neither.  It is an optical illusion

I still cannot see it as an illusion,  I'm convinced A is dark and B is light.  Apparently my perceptions rule reality.   

This is called the Checker Shadow Illusion and was created by MIT professor of vision science, Edward H. Adelson, back in 1995. While the ‘A’ square appears darker, it’s just an optical illusion. If you printed this image both squares would use the identical mixture of ink and are displayed with pixels of the same exact color, which is rather astonishing. Just looking at the first picture, I still can’t make my brain accept that they’re the same. Wild! It just goes to show how much our perception of things influences how we think about them—and how unreliable our senses truly are.   

Life goes on and so do I

 

This picture was on October 20, 2017, our 50th anniversary at Sullivans in Trempeleau for dinner.  That was  a couple months over 7 years ago and my eyes had that sparkle.  I was always a joyful person.  I was "bubbly" my aunt said, always happy.  I used to giggle at nothing.  I laughed easily. 

Today I know I live in a new reality as a widow.  My life is "good", I am financially secure, hve a beautiful home, a couple very dependable local friends whom I can call on any time for anything, and am active in my church, my faith is solid. I haveoutstanding medical care thru Mayo, our PCP is a friend as well as a doctor.  My local attorney,the same.  And my financial advisor has been trustworthy all along, have known him since we moved here.  Lots to be thankful for,  Multitudes of blessings.  

Yet my eyes no longer have that sparkle,  After Jerry passed in Decemer 2020, my spark went out.  I didn't realize it at the time although I knew I was in a different solo flight part of life now.  I handled everything that needed to be done and everyone complimented me on how well I was doing.  I often said in reply to those comments, "I had no other choice."   And that was the truth.  No one but me to handle me and everything.  I convinced Jerry in his final weeks that I would be ok.  I was relieved to hear he believed me when one day he said, "you are going to be just fine, you are strong, you are secure, you will make it."  I had assurred him so he could let go peacefully because I knew he was worried as hell about me.  So many people told me these past fewyears that he asked them to "watch over Pat for me,"  Some did, like champs.  Others have vanished like ghost wisps.  That happens, people go on with their own lives in their own worlds.  Many widows experience that.  

I grew up with widows around and no one ignored them, relatives, friends.  Life and people were different.  In my early grief I could hear my mother's words to me about disappointments that I considered tragic especially in my teen years, "you are  not the only one in the world that happens to.  You're not the first, you won't be the last. Get  over it.  Don't pout."   When she became a widow she said almost the same to me, "I'm not the only widow in the worldd, I'm not the first, I won't be the last."  She well knew from her own life because she was a very young 20 year old widow pregnant with me when my father's plane disappeared in June 1944, WWII, months before my birth.  

So why lately has it begun to bother me that my eyes no longer have their sparkle?  I find times of enjoyment, But I'm just not the same. I know I'm different.  I think I'm fine just wistful.  This photo was taken August 2023 on a nasty hat day for our church directory.  About the last thing I wanted to do that day was have my picture taken.  My SIL was here from CO with her partner and their 2 dogs.  But I got ready and went.  I kept my jean shorts on because I knew it would only be a head shot.  Later I realized I had worn the very same top as in 2017 when we had photos taken fr the last dieectory.  One of those of Jerry  and me is to the side.  I orderd many because it was our 50th anniversary year.  This time I had no need and just got a few wallet sized to send to friends arund the country in Christmas cards.  People I do not see and who are not on Facebook with me.  But people with whom I've kept in touch over years.  Rhe number of those has decreased as many have passed on.  Yet I am here,  I am a survivor.  Without the sparkle in the eyes, but making it.  

   

New Year 2024 First Day of the year

 

First day of a new year and it is grey, we seem to be in a tristate cloud cover.  MN, WI, IA all clouds. Yet, at least no snow, other than a few crunchy spots residue from yesterday morning's early hours dusting.  Did not have to be shoveled for which I am also grateful.  In October, following the startling, to me, snow dump on Halloween I thought we would be in for an awful dose of whiteness all winter.  So far I have been wrong, which is fine with me.  But I still fear we haven't seen the last,  this is MN after all.  And it is darned cold.  Today we never hit the 30 degree mark.  That foiled my resolution to start the year off with a walk.  Well maybe tomorrow, if we get some sunshine.  The farthest I've walked to day is across the street to church before and after mass from my car in the parking lot.  It was not a day of obligation but if I could be up and ready for 9 o'clock mass I intended to go,  a good way to start a new year.  I made it but without my routine and without my coffee.  It was worth it.  When I returned home I still thought the sun might shine through today and surely I'd get in a short walk at least, but not to be.  I tested myself by bundling up and taking the veggie skins and an eggshell to dump back below the pole shed where I've been throwing landfill stuff like that and  leaves in the fall.  Maybe in spring I'll have Beuhler bring in a load of dirt to put over the debris to help it decompose.  Will see. 

 This coldness and grayness could give me the "gloomies" if I thought too much on it.  So I won't.  After all yesterday was my final of 365 days reading through the entire Catechism on line, You Tube with Father Mike Schmidt and Ascension.  I am very proud of myself for accomplishing that!  I wondered last January 1 when I began if I would have the stick to it I'd need and I did!  

Well here it is, another year.  Let's make it the best that we can.  I'm not  doing resolutions, haven't for years.  I  will remain the me that I am.  I  am not familiar with F>M>Knowles, but sounds like my kind of person.  

F.M. Knowles:    He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; He who makes one is a fool.

Christmas 2023

 

Another Christmas, alone.  Grey and wet outside, but at least to me it is preferable to snow.  I think after 40+ years in northern CA I got used to no snow, yet here we/ umm I mean I now live in MN.  Do I miss CA?  Nope not even on my worst day.  Best thing we ever did, moving away when we did.  Yet when Jerry decided it I thought he was kidding.  I am ever thankful he was serious.  Yet today again, Monday,   no sunshine  no sun since Thursday?  I know Friday was grey.  So I got a dose from my Happy light next to the downstairs PC where I am consigned to work online until the laptop that I so conveniently use upstairs is repaired or replaced.  I will set a nice setting for myself at my dining room table and dine on beef filet tenderloin, twice baked potato, asparagus and green salad and wine.  How I miss the hustle and bustle of Christmases of the past where I wore myself out into a tizzy cooking, baking, wrapping presents, decorating and all that over the top activity.  Life has changed and now this is my new normal.  

We can decide

I posted this on my FB today and since I am  just marking time this afternoon and having the inconvenience of using the downstairs PC I thought it a good time to post here to keep this blog alive.  Yesterday my laptop went bonkers,  when I tried to start her all I got was a black screen with computerized messages, "Boot drive not found."  etc  blah blah.  I tried running diagnostics which indicated the laptop passed.  I  unplugged and restarted her, nope, same junk.  

Well I can get by with my tablet and this PC so it is not the end of the world, but an annoyance.  So this morning I took her to the Geeks at Best Buy where she will get a once over and hopefully restoration.  If not I;ll buy a new laptop because it is convenient to have that upstairs off the side of the kitchen.  The rep at the Geek counter complimented me on my "positive good attitude" he said most  would be  upset about their computer.  I had to tell him, "well not me.  Not with what I've lived through, it's going to take more than a computer to dim any more Christmases' for me.  I've been thru worse."  

It's true lost Steve 15 years ago in December and Jerry 3 years ago in December.  I'm still surviving, and doing really well.  That come only from Grace of God and my deep rooted lifelong faith.  I no longer say, "Next?"  nor do I say "Hit me with your best shot."  That's already happened, over, done with.  

As this image portrays we can decide.  I have decided long ago to accept and go on ahead.  So inconvenienced, but I'll get by.  They sent me an email to pick her up Tuesdau at 12:40PM, so  that must be good.  

We have had a December with   very little snow and I am happy about it.  Though I dislioke our grey dreary days like yesterday, and today, it is better than shoveling snow to me.  Almost reminds me of Christmas in northern CA.  But not fully.   

I'll be at 8:00PM mass this Eve.  Lector again,  I haven't had a mass to just sit in the pews since maybe September.  Seems I am a full time lector.  I have trained others but they migrate to Sundays.  Well as my cousin reminded me, "this is Your Gift to share.  And it's as close as you get to altar girl."  Recalling my nerve back in the  50's at wanting to be an altar girl.  That was unheard of, no such thing, only altar boys.  It put the nuns and others on edge and made my grandma tell me, "don't argue with the sisters Patty." " I wasn't arguing, I was only asking a question."   That was not encouraged back there and then. Mom shrugged it off,  she knew me, she knew I ask whatever I think.  I was unfiltered., She blamed my grandma for spoiling me that way.  I had forgotten all about my stir that gave the family and beyond something to talk about until Lawrence reminded me.   Today we have altar girls too.  I was ahead of the curve.

UPDATE to keep active

 And so just incase I'd get a google inactivity flag, here I go with a nothing post.   It is supposed to be fall here, but we have a resurgence of heat, another hot couple days.  Today I was out back blowing leaves down the hill and shook my head,  I felt rain drops?  Looked up to the sky and realized this is what happened several times through the summer,  sweat from my head and brow!    This is October 2...proving to me I made the right decision not to move south into perpetual summer.  I do not like hot weather.  I like 4 seasons even though here the final one, the winter can drag on too long.  I hope we soon turn into crisp cooler fall temps before we plunge deep into the cold times.  I know I vowed this past winter which went on forever to not complain when it got warm, but this has not been a MN summer.  

Changes changes,  below is a photo of the side vintage hydrangea tree  on this day in 2016 and below it is a photo of it today.  It is  fading away.  Next year I have to have the landscaper get and plant a new one for me.  This year I put in a tree outback, Japanese lilac.  It will never replace the wonderful big old ash trees we used to enjoy before we had to take them down due to emerald ash borer.  The 2016 photo shows one old ash and the 2023 photo  below shows the new garden chain link fence.

 

  In August SIL came to visit from CO and raved about the side hydrangea which I know is looking older, more tired, just not as it used to be.  I found a photo of it August 2015 below.

And as blogger and maybe google are acting up that is it for this update for me