Under A Rock

Under a rock

Not a bad place to be

If you're a bug

a worm

uh..dirt

or me

I haven't crawled under one, 

but my inactivity in the big world 

may seem like it to everyone else.

Things are great

small, quiet and great.

Ben and Anam 

were here for my B-day 

and it was so lovely.....such a sweet time.

Did we do big stuff? Nope

He cooked a couple fab meals

(I prepared a great chicken piccata)

Ben repaired everything broken that he could find,

what a super son,

and we watched great films.

I even convinced them to watch Creator,

which they either enjoyed, or lied to me  hehe

We visited, noshed and wined

and not a photo to show.

(I do wish I had a chain saw one - up in the tree)

I was in the moment, savoring each laugh,

 smile and raised eyebrow.

I never left the house,

they did a "little Vegas"..

I had several B-day lunches with pals, 

received some great B-day gifts. 

My pals are so kind, 

but oh girls, the chocolates! 

I saved time and just rubbed 'em into

my thighs and butt.

This weekend I spent quality catch up time

 with a pal just returning from 4 weeks in Europe.

Another yummy lunch, more chocolate,
this time brought back from Belgium...

they know me well.

Polished off 10 books last week.

Battled wasps and more broken tree limbs

 from latest monsoon storm.

Pooch Howie sleeping atop my feet

under my desk right this minute

“A simple life is not seeing how little we can get by with.....but how efficiently we can put first things first. . . . When you’re clear about your purpose and your priorities, you can painlessly discard whatever does not support these, whether it’s clutter in your cabinets or commitments on your calendar. 
― Victoria Moran, Lit From Within: Tending Your Soul For Lifelong Beauty

Haven't read the book but I liked this quote

Small

Simple

Quiet

Living the good life here under my rock

Dang it all to Hades Doris

So there I was a few days ago bragging 

on how the world was being nice to me.

"Gratitude is Riches - Complaint is Poverty"

Doris Day

The garage door opener broke several days ago.

No biggie, I have repaired before.

I went through all the checklist,

 and got it kinda working and then a sudden

grinding nasty noise made me fear the whole

door would buckle so a quick call to

 Sears repair was necessary.

While waiting for him yesterday in

a five hour window I decided to repair the toilet.

I had diagnosed the problem.

replacing gasket tank to bowl.

Purchased the parts $7.00 versus 

Roto Rooters charge of $250.00

(seriously I called to check)

that's $1,000 an hour folks.

Watched a video on You Tube on how to repair,

supposed to take 16 minutes...

and printed out some directions to take upstairs to follow.

GRRRRIND < EEWW< POP < CRACKLE

uh oh, my printer was jammed.

After 45 minutes of picking out paper with tweezers...

I reloaded paper and hit print.

GRRRRIND < EEWW < POP < CRACKLE

Are ya KIDDING ME?

Tweezers again

and fiddlling faddling and it's feeding

 but inks are all screwed up.

Nozzle checks blah blah blah and it's still hooey.

Just paid 59.00 for new inks so if this one goes belly up...

ARGH!

Head upstairs to work on toilet and 

the 16 minute process evolves into 90 minutes 

as the bolting does not go smoothly.

I nearly reached the tears

of frustration phase..

you know the sitting on the side

of the tub, weeping cause you're

sick of all this crappola...

Ok, so maybe I did do a little weeping.

Sometimes being on a beneath minuscule

budget and solving every problem alone gets to me. 

Even Doris Day had bad days.

Then I put things in perspective 

compared to "real" problems,

and pull up my boot straps and get back in there.

They're just metal and parts anyway

Sears Repair arrives and after $154.00

I have a working door.

 A gear had pulverized.

So one issue down.

Two more to go....

and oh

Power went out this morning around 5 a.m.

I woke up to even earlier howling from

Le Pooches 

who sensed the outage somehow.

Went to make coffee.

DANG

Check email, blogs, check the news?

DANG again

Then thought of folks who depend on 

power for medical reasons,

or for business and

quit my DANGING....

 I poured some iced coffee from carton in 

barely cold fridge and headed out to the back yard...

The sunshine still worked.

I could still read a book...

and there I sat until 8:00 until the big 

whoosh when all the air conditioners 

turned back on.

Hades can wait, right Doris?

I have an old spare printer I can hook up.

I have two other toilets my guests can use

this weekend.

Be careful with the DANGS

Be careful with the BRAGGING

A friend tells me it's all Mercury Retrograde 

anyway and by Saturday all will be well.

Check out the last part... HA!

Perhaps baking a B-day cake is too risky?

Mercury's retrograde periods can cause our plans to go awry. However, this is an excellent time to reflect on the past. Intuition is high during these periods, and coincidences can be extraordinary.

In Cancer: Expect annoyances at home with baking, gardening, and household duties under domesticated Cancer. Complete repair projects that weren't finished or done correctly.