Gleanings of the Week Ending December 14, 2024

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Unusual Foods People Used to Eat All the Time – Poke (as in pokeweed) salad, turtle soup, cream chipped beef on toast, limburger sandwich, and vinegar pie. I remember my mother serving cream chipped beef on toast in the 1960s. She also served canned chicken or hard-boiled eggs in cream sauce over toast! It was a quick meal in the days before microwaves.

Incredible Winners of the 2024 International Landscape Photographer of the Year – Take a look and pick a favorite. I like the ‘sunrise on the Atacama Desert’….its crisp lines. The lightning and double rainbow over the Grand Canyons is awesome too.

The ancient significance of the date palm - Phonecia translates to the “Land of Palms” in ancient lands, where palm growth and harvesting dates to approximately 5,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, growing along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Date palm trunks and fronds were used as the roof for homes of Akkadians, Sumerians, and Babylonians. Mature palm leaves were made into mats, baskets, screens, and fans.

'One of the greatest conservation success stories': The 1969 mission to save Vermont's wild turkey - Vermont's wild turkeys are a successful restoration story, and one that stood the test of time, unlike elsewhere in the United States where wild turkey numbers are now declining.

Here's how much home prices have risen since 1950 – I bought my first home in 1978…bought subsequent homes in 1983, 1986, 1994, and 2022. I remember the interest rates on mortgages in the 1980s being high (the article says 13.7%) and 1990s (the article says 10.1%). In 2020 the interest rate was low, but we didn’t need a mortgage to purchase our last house! Every house we’ve purchased over the years has been above the median home price (unadjusted).

VA offering 'green burial sections' at national cemeteries – Hopefully ‘green burial’ will become the norm everywhere soon. We don’t need chemicals/embalming fluids leaching into the environment.

When Did People Start Eating Three Meals a Day? - In ancient Roman times, dinner was the one large meal everyone ate, although it was consumed earlier in the day than it is today — sometime around noon. This extended into the Middle Ages in Europe. Laborers often ate a small meal of bread and ale early in the morning before starting a day’s work on the farm. Their main meal of the day, called dinner, was served around noon, and a light snack, known as supper. By the end of the 18th century, many people were eating dinner in the evening after returning home from work. It wasn’t until around 1850 that lunch officially began filling the gap between breakfast and dinner. By the turn of the 20th century, lunch had become a defined meal, typically eaten between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m., and consisting of standard lunch fare even by today’s standards: sandwiches, soups, and salads.

Can we avert the looming food crisis of climate change? - The study integrates key concepts of the dynamics of atmospheric CO2, rising temperatures, human population, and crop yield…and highlights the urgent need to address CO2 emissions to maintain agricultural productivity. It also uncovers a promising strategy to mitigate crop loss caused by climate change: developing crop varieties with a higher temperature tolerance. Next steps for the team involve refining their model to include more variables like insect population, water availability, soil quality, and nutrient levels, which also impact crop yield under climate change.

US Grid Operators Kept the Lights on This Summer with More Solar, Storage, & Wind - In summer 2024, grid operators in all regions maintained enough capacity to keep the lights on during periods of peak demand, even as they retired older generators, and an increasing number of regions used more solar and storage to meet peak demand. Because it is one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions and had near-record peak demand in 2024, the new report concentrates on ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) to analyze summer grid operations.

Square Meter Photography Project – Autumn – Macro photography on the prairie.

2nd Anniversary in our Missouri Home

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Today is our second anniversary in our Missouri home and I am thinking about what has changed relative to the house in that time. We still have some boxes in the storage areas of the house that we haven’t unpacked – a sure indication that we probably moved some items we didn’t need.

We’ve changed more in the yard than inside the house.

I planted a wildflower garden in the back and some hens and chicks in the front.

One of the pine trees in the backyard fell over last summer and I’ve planted some irises and native plants in the area where the stump was ground up after the tree was taken away; colorful stinkhorns are coming up in the mulch too!

We hired a crew to mow the yard the first summer, but I mowed it last summer and this summer too. The depression in the area where the previous owner took out a large tree in the front yard is obvious when I mow….and when mushrooms come up in the grass.

Both my husband and I are glad the yard had a sprinkler system – even though we haven’t needed it so far this season (we got 10 inches of rain in May!). This is our first house with a sprinkler system, so we have a company to check the system in the spring and fall.

We haven’t used the community pool or walked around the ponds as much as we thought we would…but I did enjoy walking patterns on the tennis courts in the snow last winter. The amenities of the neighborhood are greater than anywhere we’ve lived previously.

As far as the inside of the house….

I like my office in the basement (with windows on three sides) as much as I thought I would. The views were nice to begin with, but we’ve added bird feeders, a bird bath, spring bulbs, and some native plants. I also like having the mini-kitchen near my office. I’ve turned off the gas to the gas fireplace and put a magnet blanket over the opening; it leaked heat (from the pilot light) into my office in the summer and let in a cold draft in the winter. I like that my office area has its own heating/cooling.

We’ve only used the basement storm shelter once….but I am glad it is there. Fortunately, the storm did no damage in our neighborhood. Our challenge in using the shelter is getting our three cats (additions since we moved to the house) into crates and down there in time!

Both my husband and I have enjoyed the large shower – just as we anticipated. We still have not used the Jacuzzi tub!

The laundry chute has eliminated the need for hampers…and eliminated the need for carrying dirty laundry. We did put baby latches on the doors to the chute since the kittens were way too interested and dexterous at opening things; we added latches on the lower cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms for the same reason.

We discovered magnets strong enough to hold a wreath for our front door (it is metal) and added a Ring doorbell since the door did not have a peephole already installed.

The 3-car garage is a wonderful upgrade from our previous 2-car versions. We enjoy the room (and have not filled it up!).

Both my husband and I agree that this is the best house we’ve owned. It’s very satisfying to realize that we’ve thought the same thing every time we have moved!

Then and Now – Houses

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My parents house during the early 1960s was three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The bath associated with the master bedroom was very small with a shower stall rather than a bathtub. I always used the other one and so did my parents. My mother had a combination washer and dryer in a space along the hallway which my Dad had to enlarge slightly to help it fit. The kitchen had a window over the sink and a tabletop that folded up from the opposite wall which also had shelves that was the pantry. There was no built-in dishwasher, but my parents bought one that rolled over to the attach to the sink when it ran.

The house had wood floors; I can remember my mother cleaning and waxing them. The living room and what was intended as a dining room were separated by an accordion curtain that hung from the ceiling and had a track on the floor. We used the dining room as a continuation of the living room where we could play. Those two rooms were carpeted a few years before my parents built a new house in the mid-1960s.

The new house had a lot more room in every area (4 bedrooms, 3 baths) but was still one floor on a slab foundation – the most common type of construction in that area of Texas. The new house had tile in the foyer, vinyl in the high traffic areas, and carpeting in the bedrooms. I remember going with my mother to the store to pick the knobs for the builder to use in the bathroom that would be between the two bedrooms used by me and my sisters. My parents had built-ins made in all the bedrooms so that we didn’t need furniture for our clothes. My bedroom with my sister had the built-ins the closet; the furniture in the room included twin beds with bookcase type headboards, desks with chairs (without rollers), and a credenza with sliding doors. Everything was new! The two-car garage (with one door) had an enclosed storage area on one side. The roof was cedar shake.

My house today is about 1,000 more square feet and has a walkout basement and a 3-car garage. There has been heightened awareness of the radon issue since the 1980s and our house had remediation installed as we were moving in a few years ago. Our house has a storm room even though the risk of tornadoes was higher where we lived in the 1960s than it is now (and slab foundation houses don’t offer as much protection as ones with a basement).

Cedar shake shingles are no longer popular (too much of a fire risk) although I did notice some houses that still had them were on the market when we were looking for our current house; I would never buy a house with that kind of roof unless I planned to immediately replace it with another, less volatile type of shingle.

My house has all electric appliances in the kitchen unlike the gas stove tops and ovens that dominated in the 1960s.

I have vinyl flooring in the kitchens (I have two in my house), wood-like vinyl plank in the living and dining and hallways. The rest is carpeted. That is similar enough to what my mother had in her house although the carpet color is neutral in my house; my mother chose a pink/red carpeting for me and my sisters bedrooms and gold for the other rooms!

My mother did not like blinds (she had bad experiences with Venetian blinds of the 1950s)…so all the rooms had custom made lined drapery. Today all our windows have blinds for privacy and the drapery is more to add color and shape.

The large den and kitchen area of my parents’ house had dark paneling. There is no paneling at all in my house now. One similarity that surprises me a little – my mother had the kitchen in the center of the house with lower walls on two sides that looked to the breakfast area and den; in my current house, the kitchen is also in the middle of the house, has low walls that look out to the den and dining room (that we use as our piano room)…and is continuous with the breakfast area. Her kitchen did not have an island; mine does.

As I am thinking through this aspect of then and now, I am realizing that my mother’s house of the mid-1960s was probably her favorite house…and the one I am living in now is my favorite. She was in her early 30s and I am in my 70s!

Previous Then and Now posts

Houses of Wealthy in 1880

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Alexander Francis Lydon provided the illustrations for Francis Orpen Morris’ 6 volumes that document the great houses of Great Britain and Ireland as they were in 1880. Some of the houses were already old and the families were scrambling to maintain them. Others were benefiting from new wealth from industry or colonies either through marriage or new owners. These are easy books to browse!

A series of picturesque views of seats of the noblemen and gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland. V1, V2, V3, V4, V5, V6

The books are interesting from several historical perspectives. Here are some thoughts these books prompted for me:

They show the publishing technology of the time to produce color illustrations. It was new and expensive…and the publisher folded not long after these books were published.

The weapons of war that would destroy buildings from the air in World War I and World War II had not been invented in 1880. The books include houses that had survived for years because the weapons of war were not sufficient to destroy them in an instant.

Transportation was improving (trains and canals) but travel was still relatively slow, so the wealthy required large county houses for guests that stayed awhile.

The industrial revolution was in full swing, but many wealthy families were still clinging to agricultural streams of income from their lands. Country houses were not just a place to live; they were also the center of the family enterprise.

Lyndon (the illustrator) was not credited on the cover page. Why? He had worked with Morris on several projects before so their collaboration must have been a profitable one for him. He was evidently a successful artist, illustrator and engraver that supported a family with his work.

The author of the text (Morris) was an Anglo-Irish clergyman that had broad interests. He published books about birds and insects and heritage buildings! He was active in the movement to protect birds from the plume trade. His occupation as a vicar must have allowed sufficient free time for him to indulge his wide-ranging interests….and enjoy his family (9 children). He lived a relatively long time (82 years old when he died) and must have enjoyed what he did.

Ten Little Celebrations – February 2024

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I am always a little surprised at how easy it is to record something I celebrated every day…and how it is sometimes hard to pick the top 10 near the end of the month. The habit probably has helped me be more resilient to whatever is not going well….and appreciative of how fortunate I am.

A warm day to get the naked lady bulbs and iris rhizomes planted – Actually there were two Feburary days that were warm enough; I used one for planting in my yard and another for planting in my daughters.

Getting a full price offer on my Parents house – This was another double celebration since the offer and the closing happened in February.

Earl Grey tea – I seem to forget how much I like it…then celebrate rediscovering it.

Home again – After the many weeks away late in 2023, I find myself celebrating each and every time I arrive back home.

Out to lunch with my parents – I celebrated that they both were enthusiastic about going and that they ate well at the restaurant for lunch….and wanted their leftovers for dinner!

Snow suitable for patterns – Making patterns in the snow has been a treat this winter….celebrating my second attempt that benefited from my prior experience and the snow being wet (made the pattern I walked stand out more).

Pintails. I celebrated the picture of a pintail at Hagerman….one of my best so far this year.

Married life – Being married for over 51 years is something I often take for granted but, for some reason, I found myself celebrating more this month – that wasn’t even my annual anniversary. Having the long term relationship…a person that I know well, and that knows me well…is fundamental to the way I feel about just about everything else.

Port Aransas Whooping Crane Festival – Celebrating our first multi-day festival since COVID…more on our experiences in upcoming blog posts.

Parents’ house ready for new owner – Lots of coordination with my sisters…and physical work…celebrating that we got everything cleaned out before closing.

Ramping up Elder Care – February 2024

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My parents have rediscovered the joy of going out to a restaurant for a meal. The weekday late lunchtime seems to work best (i.e. not crowded). It is quite a production: two elderly people with walkers…and two (or three) others with them. One of my sisters bought a small refrigerator for their room and they relish being able to put their leftovers there (and seem to prefer eating them for their next meal!). This is probably something I will try to do with them every time I visit. There are a lot of restaurants near the assisted living group home to experience.

Sometimes major bends in our life path are only recognized in retrospect; the events of January and February 2024 are a bend everyone in my family anticipated and acknowledges in real time. My sisters and I are acclimating to others providing the day to day care of our parents with their move to an assisted living home and the family has lost a long term hub for family events with the selling of their house.

  • My parents moved to an assisted living group home at the end of 2023. They’ve settled into their new environment. My mother is improving; maybe it is simply a trend that started back in December, but it could also be the increased social interactions and her confidence that someone is always available to help. It is still challenging for my sisters and I to back away and not jump to assist them when we visit. The staff is helpful and patient with everyone! My dad is about the same although he was very disoriented at first; he is eating well.

  • My sisters and I began to clean out my parents’ house soon after we moved them. They had lived in the house for over 30 years. There was a lot to go through. I made two short (less than a week) trips to Carrollton to help. During January we cleared most of the house by

    • Distributing furniture to family members or selling it or marking it for donation. I took two small tables, and my daughter took a larger octagon table for her office.

    • Donating clothes. There was very little that someone else in the family could wear. The closets in their assisted living rooms are filled to the brim with clothes that they wear.

    • Following the ‘bequeath’ list for decorative and kitchen items. I got 2 items from their 50th anniversary (one passed down from my maternal grandparents’ 50th), 1 from my parents’ 25th  anniversary, items that I remember from my childhood (a knife, fork and spoon of the silver plate my mother bought before she married; a orange cut glass bowl that I bought as a present to my Mother because it was her favorite color), 2 paintings my mother made (one of a dogwood blossom…and the pressed flower that I sent to her in 1984 from my Virginia house that she used as her model), the remnants of my maternal grandmother’s China….too many things to name although I am realizing that I should make a list for myself.

  • The house went on the market on February 1st and we accepted a full-price offer on the 2nd. Closing was requested for 2/28. February became a sprint to clear out the two sheds on the property and donate the furniture that no one in the family wanted. I made a very focused trip to help.

    • Salvation Army came with a truck to get furniture and boxes of books. It was tricky since the city had the street in front of the house torn up (infrastructure update project). The truck managed the pickup from the alley.

    • Tools were mostly distributed to the sister that wanted them. Some were tools from my paternal grandfather.  My daughter got a telescoping tree trimmer (she has the bigger trees…but I can borrow it when I need it).

    • The trash and recycle bins were full for every pickup and some items were put at the curb in front of a neighbor’s house for bulk pickup.

    • Some odds and ends were taken to be repurposed. I got some white vertical blinds (not attached to anything…just loose pieces of blind) which I plan to cover with Zentangle patterns and hang (not sure where yet). There were three small pieces of Masonite that I got for another Zentangle project. Some pieces of wood were taken by my sisters for art projects and specific repairs at their house.

    • One sister is having the king headboard (purchased in 1963…beautiful wood) made into a display case. She also took the antique meat grinder that we found in one of the sheds.

    • Another sister is taking most of the yard equipment to distribute to her family’s houses so that it will be easier for her to do yard maintenance.

Are we through the bend….or is more to come before we settle into a new normal? As I write this my dad has tested positive for COVID-19. The symptoms were mild and initially attributed to some new eye drops. He was tested after one of my sisters that visits frequently tested positive. He is getting Paxlovid. This is the first experience with COVID for him and my mother; they are both vaccinated. Hopefully this will be a minor blip and we’ll achieve a new normal in March.

Previous posts: November 2023, November 2023 update, December 2023, January 2024

An Empty House

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A familiar house looks so different when the people and furniture are missing. That has happened to my parents’ house. The view of the garden through the sliding glass door is the same but there is no travel chair that my mother found convenient to move her position with the sun.

The sunlight coming through the windows of a bedroom and shines on a bare wall that would have recently held large pictures and the headboard of a king-size bed.

Some of decorative touches added over 33 years ago by the previous owner are still intact….a part of the house that stays. They seem more obvious with so much else gone.

The house will likely change a lot with the new owner; it will be renovated and resold…sparkling in new way…for a new family. We take the memories with us, leaving the house behind.

Staying Warm in Winter

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We had some very cold weather recently…prompting us to implement our strategies for staying comfortable.

Staying indoors is the primary strategy. We do things like closing insulating drapes and blinds…opening them if the sun is shining through the window. Opening or closing vents to help the heating system do its job. Small sources of heat like candles or halogen lamps are also something I am conscious of in the winter. They don’t do much, but I like the extra bright light and the glow of candles on a winter night. Maybe the extra warmth is purely psychological!

Warm food also helps. My winter favorites are:

  • Hot tea or milk (with water) to drink.

  • Homemade soups. They are so easy with bouillon for the broth then veggies and meats. Right now, I am doing a lot with pumpkin puree that I cooked/froze last November and frozen cranberries. I rely on my spice cabinet…or use salsa as one of the ingredients. Leftover meats or canned chicken or quinoa are my favorite proteins in soup. My favorite toppings are fried onions or pumpkin seeds. Another strategy for a winter soup: a well-seasoned spaghetti sauce from a jar, added sausage bits, and arugula. You could still eat it over pasta…but I usually eat it as soup these days.

  • Stir fry. I like chicken, bell pepper and onions a lot….then add whatever other veggies I have in the crisper or freezer. I am still savoring the flavor of cranberries with chicken – adding frozen ones from last fall to stir fries. I also like apple and raisins cooked in butter for a winter dessert. I generally make enough stir fry for a second meal – very quick heated up in the microwave.

  • Meat loaf. It’s not a bad thing to cook in the oven in the winter…no reason to not put a little extra heat into the house. Still – I try to fill the oven when I do. There is generally a baked potato for my husband (I enjoy the skin!) in with the meatloaf…and I usually cook a pumpkin custard or some cookies as well!

Clothing is important too.

  • We keep our house warm but not too warm. We wear jeans, sweaters/sweatshirts, and wool socks with shoes indoors during the winter.

  • Being outdoors can be a challenge but we both enjoy winter walks/birding. Over the past few years we’ve ramped up our gear.

  • My coat is filled with down and styled to reduce air leaks. It works beautifully for my head and body.

  • We both have snow pants that we bought them large enough to go over leggings/skinny jeans. They keep our legs very warm.

  • Wool socks help keep feet warm.

  • Our hiking boots keep our feet warm enough if we are moving. If we anticipate that we will be standing or sitting for very long outdoors (i.e. sometimes this happens when birding), we add foot warmers to the bottom of our boots.  

  • A tube scarf works well for me to cover my head and neck. The hood of my coat goes over it and keeps my head very warm.

  • We’ve discovered that the masks we have for COVID help keep our lower face and noses warm! We haven’t invested in goggles yet!

  • Gloves are still a work in progress. We have some battery powered ones that work OK…not excellent. Prior to that we used hand warmers in the palm of gloves. That worked OK but fingers still were cold when not wrapped around the warmer…and the outer part of the hand got none of the warmth. Mittens might work better but it is difficult (or impossible) to use a camera with mittens.

Overall – we’ve been comfortable this winter even when the temperature outside was below 0 degrees Fahrenheit recently.

My Parents’ House

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Once the decision was made in mid-December with my parents to move to an assisted living group home, I found myself examining the house that that had called home for more than 30 years – the last home they would own…the only one that didn’t still have a mortgage when they moved. The contents documented the whole of their lives.

The creation of the garden room not long after they moved into the house was a project that added more than space to the house.

The space was lined with house plants (some that had grown quite large) and had great light. The jigsaw puzzle table was there…a rocker and glide…and a transport chair that was easily maneuvered into a sunny spot to observe birds outside at the feeder or read the paper. The glide, puzzle table, and transport chair were moved to the assisted living group home.

The large plant in the foreground of the picture with the transport chair is one that grew up into the skylight of the garden room over the decades. My sister had brought it home from her work when an office closed. It bloomed in December (something it had done rarely over the years)…to the joy of my parents and the whole family. My sister has now managed to move it (in a U-Haul truck) to her house about an hour away; we were all relieved that it survived the trek intact.

A clay pot that another sister made was in the corner of my parents bedroom holding a collection of peacock feathers and dried seed pod/flowers….a suncatcher. My mother selected it as something to move with her – perhaps because of the memories of each item and the vase itself. Peacock feathers are special in my family because my maternal grandparents kept peacocks in their later years.

Back in the garden room a small poinsettia purchased recently sat on the windowsill. The second image is my favorite artsy image of December 2023! The pot was small enough for the windowsill at the assisted living group home so it moved with my parents.

We are now in the phase of sifted though everything in the house….taking a little more to my parents, distributing items to family members and my parents’ friends, donating some items….recycling and trash are the last resort. There are ups and downs to the work. It is giving us time to internalize the pivot point in my parents’ lives (and our own).

Intentions 2022

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At the end of last year, I posted about what I thought would be different about 2022 for me – things that I wanted to make happen. Now that the year is half over, I am assessing my progress on the four areas I wrote about last December.

Releasing myself from some of my daily metrics. This has been the hardest change…and I still find myself pushing for the 12,000 steps…4 books…2,000 words each day. But there are days where other priorities have prevailed such as tasks on the critical path for our move from Maryland to Missouri. So far, I’ve ‘made up’ for the low days on books and words…am averaging the goal for 2022. I’ve not made very much of a change!

Reverting to a cleaner/neater house. In the Maryland house, the piles of boxes that accumulated over the three months before we moved made it harder to clean although we did clean the areas we could get to and cleaned items that were being packed. The house ended up sparkling after the carpeting was replaced; 35+ year old carpeting in a house that always had at least one cat is a cleaning challenge! In our new house, we are vacuuming frequently to clear the dog hair (previous owner)…successfully based on the vacuum canister not filling up as quickly as it did originally. We are still unpacking but there are lots of spaces to put things away and we are striving to keep more surfaces clear. The laundry chute is a plus – no hamper or other laundry receptacle in the bedroom. This intention is still a work in progress but both my husband and I are making the effort; we are motivated to have the house comfortable….keep it cleaner and neater than our Maryland house.

Look for the unique. It’s a habit now…I record something unique at the end of each day and have been surprised how easy it is to identify an event or sight or food…that was a 1st or one/only. The habit has caused a slight change in my attitude. I am more likely to look from a unique perspective or try something new than I was a year ago!

Moving to live closer to my daughter. Done! We are still working through the aftermath…address changes, new licenses/registrations, completely unpacking. Of all the changes I anticipated at the beginning of the year…this is the big one. It probably happened faster than I thought it would. We’ve owned our house in Missouri for about 1.5 months now – enough time to realize we make a great choice. I’m already set to make a fall road trip with my daughter, accompanying her on a road trip to Canada for her to attend a conference – something I would have not been able to do if we still lived in Maryland.

I am doing so well on my intentions made at the beginning of the year that I am adding to the list for the remaining months:

Spend some time each month with my parents (Carrollton).

Design/implement landscaping tweaks to our yard in the fall.

Start volunteering (again).

Nixa, MO is Home

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How soon does a new house become a home? There are indications that it has happened very quickly with our move to Nixa, MO.

I’ve found places we need:

A place to buy groceries and other household needs (a Walmart within a couple of miles of our house)

The post office (within 3 miles)

A recycling center for all the cardboard and paper left from unpacking that is unusable by others (less than 2 miles)

Gas stations (in about a mile)

The yard

While we haven’t gotten everything unpacked, we have all the items we need day to day. The gardening tools need to be unpacked since there are some weeds and tree seedlings in the flower beds that should be pulled sooner rather than later. I’ve spotted a poison ivy plant growing under one of the cedars; I’ll need my gauntlet gloves to handle that one!

We had to wait for the ladder to arrive with the truck to hang our large wind chimes (sounds like church bells). It was not something on the critical path of being able to live in the house but I wanted them up and making their beautiful sounds….another indicator that the house has become home.

I have discovered the joy of time outdoors on the patio in the early morning…creating a Zentangle tile or two…listening to the birds and the neighborhood waking up. Another discovery – fold the chair cushions down when not in use so that the part you sit on will stay free of bird poop!

The rose bushes in the back of our house are still blooming and maybe they will continue a bit longer since I’ve started watering them. I cut a flower to bring into my office recently…a sign that I am feeling at home.

The neighborhood

I’ve intentionally gotten out and about the neighborhood even while I was unpacking…enjoyed the pool more than I thought I would (particularly after 5 PM when it isn’t crowded) and the walk around the ponds. Looking forward to walking the entire neighborhood over the next month or so.

The inside of the house

We’re still arranging lamps, but the rest of the furniture is in place. There are rooms that are already exactly the way we want them.

Our internet service is not consistent throughout the house and there are some minor repairs that need to be made. It’s frustrating when problems can’t be immediately fixed. We’re persistent and confident the issues all be resolved.

We are experimenting with laundry….the laundry chute is still novel and fun. One of our old oscillating fans has found a home in the laundry room while the clothes we hang up from the washer dry. But do we hang/fold clothes from the dryer in the laundry or upstairs? Not sure which way is going to work best for us. We did end up replacing the washer/dryer left by the previous owner.

We’re eating most of our meals at home again.

The security system has been reset to our codes rather than the previous owner’s (which were unknown to us).

Within a month of closing…the house will be fully our home. It started to feel like home as soon as the moving van arrived with our ‘stuff’ 6 days after we closed on the house…then a continuing trend toward the feeling of home until we get everything situated as we want it and are comfortable with the way we are living in the house.

Ten Little Celebrations – June 2022

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What a month! It is probably the busiest, most stressful in my post career decade….with so much that has gone right in the end…lots of little celebrations.

Hearing a phoebe in the morning….seeing a crane fly – The sights and sounds of nature often become little celebrations for me…they just happen and make the day brighter.

New low weight for the year – With all the work getting ready to move and then moving, I expended a lot more energy and lost a few pounds. I celebrated a new low weight for the year in June.

A new house – Settling into a new house/location is stressful…but there is also a lot of to celebrate. Noticing all the aspects of the house that I like…celebrating that it is becoming home.

A picture taking walk around the ponds in the early morning – The water features of my new neighborhood are more extensive than where I lived previously. There were plenty of sights to celebrate in my first walks around the ponds and I anticipate enjoying them all through the year.

Internet/cable at Missouri house (just in time to make hotel reservations for the follow night going back to Maryland) – Our internet/cable access was installed the morning after we closed on our new house; I celebrated that my husband had been proactive for making that arrangement.

Made it back to Missouri even with the blowout before lunch – The drama of a blown-out tire on the trek from Maryland to Missouri was not traumatic as it could have been….and I celebrated when we made it to the new house.

The movers arrived….delivering our stuff – The house was so empty…then was full of boxes. I celebrated that it all arrived intact even though the piles were daunting.

Finding the missing piece to husband’s desk – I had packed some pieces of my husband’s desk and we didn’t find the box for about 24 hours. Celebration by all when the piece was found!

Unpacking progress (slow but steady) – We are still unpacking but every day I celebrate the progress we are making. At this point, all the critical items are unpacked and put into their long-term location.

A contract on our Maryland house – My husband and I were pleasantly surprised that we sold our house in Maryland in just 4 days and for more than the asking price. At first, we were overwhelmed…and then we celebrated.

Closing Day – our house in Missouri

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After the walk-through and a quick lunch, my daughter drove me to the title company. I had a large cashier’s check in my purse…was looking forward to the closing to hand it over. The seller completed their portion shortly after I arrived. My segment did not take as long as I remember from previous houses; it turns out that buying a house without a mortgage requires a lot less paperwork (and signatures)!

It occurred to me that this is the first time my husband and I own two houses (i.e., no mortgage on either one)!

After the closing, my daughter and I returned to her house then both drove to the new house (me in my heavily loaded car) to unload everything…in preparation for my first night in the house. It was going to be a lot like camping with an air up mattress on the floor for a few days. After my daughter left, I settled in – listening to the sounds of the neighborhood getting quieter as the light faded, the clouds dark. I was up early the next morning – heading out to buy groceries and a few other essentials to have before the movers arrived.

Little did I know that morning – it was the calm before an increasing a flurry of activity as the day progressed.

Unique Aspects of Days – April 2022

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So much happened in April that was unique – or at least something we had not done in over 25 years! More that half the ‘days’ featured this month’s post are related to our move. I’ve listed then in the order they occurred and am surprised at the move milestones that occurred in April:

1st virtual house tour. This was not an option 25 years ago and both my husband and I were skeptical that such a tour would be ‘good enough’ to enable us to be comfortable bidding on a house. The first one convinced us that such tours were adequate to eliminate houses from consideration! Our realtor was very patient and good about highlighting aspects of houses as she walked through…and later in the month – after several experiences with virtual tours – we did indeed bid on a house before we saw in in-person.

Finding no houses available in Springfield that we liked. What a depressing day. Both my husband and I were primed to buy a house but there was a day that we had eliminated all the houses on the market.

Bid on house. And then a house came on the market. It wasn’t perfect but we had honed our idea of what we wanted enough to know that it was as close as we were going to get, and we could live with its imperfections. We scheduled a virtual tour and bid on the house the same day.

Contract signed. After one round of negotiations the contract was signed….and we were on the path to buying a house!

Seeing our house. Within 4 days we were in Springfield and walking through our house for the first time. It had a surreal quality after seeing it so thoroughly in the virtual tour.

Accepting a mover’s bid. Long distance moves are expensive and the last one we had done was paid for by our employers. The process has changed somewhat…the biggest one being the virtual way of creating the inventory of what is being moved!

There were some other unique experiences/sights in April:

1st long road trip with my husband post-pandemic.

74 black crowned night herons roosting.

A policeman – lights flashing - removing a deer carcass from a narrow roadway. I was thankful that he was taking care of it before the morning rush hour.

Several bald eagle and great blue heron nests…close together.

Bidding on a House from Afar

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We bid on a house in Springfield MO from afar (at home in Maryland). It has been accepted and we are starting a road trip to see the house in person – remove the ‘sight unseen’ rider in the bid and get the earnest money to the title company. I am writing the post about how we got to this point. There is a lot that has changed since we bought our current house more than 25 years ago.

I have been looking at houses that came on the market in Springfield MO via realtor.com for more than a year – familiarizing myself with the neighborhoods and the types of housing that were available. When my daughter was looking for houses last spring, I honed my search with her criteria, and she found the house she wanted quickly.

I thought I had my own criteria well defined…but it is only in the past few weeks that I realized that I was getting enthusiastic about houses that really would not work well for us. It was too easy to overlook the number of steps going into the front of house (and from the garage); I knew I wanted as few steps as possible; with this move, my husband and I wanted a house where we could ‘age in place.’ My husband wanted to do astronomy from our back yard. That requirement often seemed to be in direct conflict with an easy-care yard and connection to city water/sewer. I found myself toying with the idea of a larger property with well/septic and hiring someone to keep the yard/field cut. There was about a month when I thought we wanted a house that was all on one floor; I quickly discovered there were not many that had enough square footage and my husband pushed the idea that we needed a basement as a storm shelter since Missouri is back into the part of the country that has violent storms.

I made a trip to Springfield and looked at some houses; a learning experience – nothing to bid on and we needed to get our ‘proof of funds’ letter from the bank organized anyway. Over the past couple of weeks, we kept thinking that more houses would come on the market; there were quite a few but they weren’t perfect matches and many sold very quickly. We did 3 virtual tours – discovering more problems with them than we expected: no good view of the sky, too many steps and sometimes they made the third garage unusable for a vehicle, sloping lots, small closets, etc.

Then one came on the market that looked near perfect. The problem was the only picture of a laundry room showed it in the basement…which meant stairs to do our laundry. We asked if there was a laundry on the main floor and there wasn’t. We rejected the house for about 24 hours. After going to sleep frustrated with the houses available, I woke up realizing that if everything else was right with that house, we’d put in a way to get the laundry between floors. We asked for a virtual tour. Everything else was right….AND there was a laundry chute already in the house which would make it relatively easy to put in a dumbwaiter type device for the laundry!

We worked with our realtor on an offer. They had a system where it could all be done electronically. Our agent sent our offer to the seller’s agent via email. And less that 24 hours later, the offer was accepted. Our focus now is on traveling to see the house, being there when the inspection is done…preparing to move.

The house hunting phase of the process is complete.

Ten Little Celebrations – March 2022

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March was a busy month with a variety of little celebrations – both at home and traveling.

Brookside Gardens. Brookside is one of my favorite places for photography….in any season. There were plenty of plants to photograph/celebrate in March 2022.

Snow that didn’t stick. The temperature can vary so much in March. I celebrated a snow that was pretty…but didn’t stick to the streets or walkways.

Successful transition to alternative laptop. My laptop died suddenly and completely…had to be sent to Dell for diagnosis and repair (under warranty). I celebrated that my husband helped me 1) make sure I had everything off the drive (i.e. we took it out of the laptop and accessed it from another computer…I got everything I’d been working on since the backup which was about a week old…and we made another backup) and 2) provided an alterative laptop for me to use until Dell could make the repair and return it. Writing this – I realize how much I appreciate my husband of almost 50 years still dropping everything to help me through a problem.

Big pictures fit in my car. I celebrated that the last of our big pictures fit in my car…got transported to Missouri…won’t have to go on the moving truck.

House hunting in Springfield. I learned a lot on my first round of house hunting in Springfield MO…celebrated that the process of moving has begun.

Getting to Carrollton…healthy parents. Both of my 90+ year old parents were healthy during my visit…something to celebrate after not seeing them since November.

Travel scale fixed. I was chagrined to discovered that my travel scale was not working….a little panicked that I would gain weight during my two weeks away from home. I celebrated when replacing the battery solved the problem!

New low weight of the year. And then shortly after my scale was working again – I achieved a new low weight for 2022…I always celebrate those days (usually with a little extra dark chocolate).

Antibiotics. I’ll write about my adventure of getting sick while I was away from home in a few days…will just say now that I celebrated when antibiotics worked very quickly.

Home again. I am home again as I write this…and celebrating as usual after a road trip. I’ll write more about how I got home and the backlog of activities in the upcoming week.

Our new House: House Hunting (1)

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I’ve looked at 5 houses in Springfield, MO…am gaining more appreciation of the changes in house hunting in the intervening 25 years since I last moved. I did the looking in Springfield while my husband was at home in Maryland but we both are refining our expectations based on this initial foray into house hunting.

Some of the changes in house hunting include:

  • The amount of information available via sites like www.realtor.com. Most houses for sale have 30+ pictures (most professionally done). There are flood and noise overlays on maps as well as satellite images and street views. The verbiage provides a varying amount of information but is often quite detailed. I learned a lot looking at Springfield houses virtual while my daughter was house hunting last year and them more recently for us.

  • Since the neighborhood is listed on listing sites – it is sometimes worth looking at the HOA covenants which might be available online as well. This has turned out to be important to us since my husband wants to have a small observatory for his telescope in the back yard; some neighborhoods in Springfield (and probably elsewhere) don’t allow extra small structures like that…and some don’t allow fences!

  • Now there is an expectation that the buyer will provide a pre-approved loan or cash purchase letter from financial institution before bidding on a house. The days of doing loan application after agreement is reached on purchase price (like we did 25 years ago) are no more. This is our first time to not need a mortgage to purchase the house…but we hadn’t realized that we needed to get a letter saying we had the cash in hand for the purchase!

  • There is less time spent in the house before bidding. In our previous house hunting, we had to take whatever pictures we needed to remember the house we bid on…and to plan where our furniture would be placed as the movers unloaded into the new house. This time we can do a bit more with the pictures already available even though we might need to measure rooms that might be ‘tight’ or in houses that are photographed empty (so no furniture to judge room sizes). Sometimes dimensions of bedrooms are included in the verbiage part of the listing online…but not always.

  • We had assumed we needed a basement for storm shelter…but a clean ‘crawl’ space with easy access from within the house or garage may be adequate too. We had not seen houses built like this previously but there are some in Springfield that have unfinished, unfloored spaces under the house that are tall enough to walk into!

  • Technology can allow detailed walk throughs remotely. I started a DUO call with my husband (we both have Android phones) at one of the houses so I could show him the situation for astronomy at the house. It worked relatively well, and we may need to do something similar with our agent if the perfect house comes on the market and we can’t get to Springfield fast enough to bid. The pace of the housing market is much faster than 25 years ago.

Overall – we made a start. Not to get our letter from the bank and get serious. My next visit to Springfield will probably be for The House!

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 19, 2022

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Can cloud seeding help quench thirst of the US West? – New research on an old idea…many states increase their use of the technology.

Fresh water from thin air – Another technology that might help dry regions….using hydrogels (like the ones currently used in diapers!).

What’s The Construction Industry Blueprint to Cut Carbon? – I wanted more specific examples…was a little disappointed that this article did not provide them, but maybe that would have made it a long article! I hope to see more on this topic.

Higher education must reinvent itself to meet the needs of the world today. Enter the distributed university – The pandemic has highlighted the challenges the current higher education model is facing. The ideas in this post are a start but don’t seem to be fully developed to push into full implementation. More work needs to be done to enable transition from the existing model to a new one that is more responsive to the needs not only of undergraduate students but for graduate students and continuing education. The sources of money in the current model don’t match up well. For example – in the US the sports programs (football) is a big money maker for many universities; how does that map into the new model (or do we want it to).

Upcycling plastic waste into more valuable materials could make recycling pay for itself – Hope this research can be transitioned into commercial use….we have to improve the recycling processes that are being used today. Too much is still ending up in landfills.

Fossil pollen reveals the African origins of Asia’s tropical forest – Research on Borneo’s Dipterocarps (very large trees with buttress roots, smooth/straight trunks, high crown) using fossil pollen reveals their origins in Africa…spread through India before it crashed into Asia…and then to Southeast Asia. The forests in India shrank as the climate became drier. These trees need a wet, seasonal climate to survive.

Mummification in Europe may be older than previously known – Analysis of bodies found in Mesolithic shell middens in Portugal reveal that they were probably mummified before being placed there 8,000 years ago. The description of the way the researchers came to that conclusion was interesting…a lot has been learned about forensics since the 1960s when the bodies were originally found. The oldest intentional mummification known before this finding was from the Chinchorro hunter-gatherers living in the coastal region of the Atacama Desert in shell middens (around 7,000 years old).

Lake Powell Reaches Lowest Level Since 1980s – The drought continuing in the west….

The myths and realities of modern friendship – Thought provoking. The ways we communicate with each have changed a lot over my lifetime!

The climate math of home heating electrification – The rationale for moving to heat pump heating/cooling as quickly as possible.

Our House – Touch up of Interior Painting

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The work to get our house ready to sell has begun. Last week, the painters arrived to touch up the interior painting. Prior to their arrival my husband and I had prepped the rooms they would be working in: cleared off surfaces, removed table/floor lamps, and removed smaller furniture. A recent donation and trip to the landfill had removed the old desk chairs…made for fewer pieces of small furniture to move out of the way.

In the calm before the painters were due, I noticed there was frost on the deck. I was surprised since the temperature was right at 32 degrees. I went out with my phone and macro lens. The ice crystals were melting…but were still interesting. I wondered what started the crystallization swirl seen at two magnifications in the last 2 pictures below.

The painters did as much as they could the first day….left equipment in one room and part of the plastic draping up. The job was complete after a second day of work!

One task down….more to come. The next one may be the touch up of the exterior paint; it will depend on warmer temperatures for a few days which could happen this week…or not.

Another Load to the Landfill

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My husband and I are taking carloads to the landfill (included electronics recycling and hazardous waste facilities in our county) – things we don’t want to move and cannot be donated (i.e. not in working condition). This past weekend the largest pieces were two broken office chairs. I’d already donated the ones that were still usable. There was also an old frame for collecting newspapers to be recycled in the days before single-stream curbside recycling….and when we subscribed to physical forms of newspapers. There were several broken light fixtures too. Some of these should have been jettisoned years ago!

There were two sets of old computer speakers with connections that don’t work for any of our current computers. Those went into electronic waste.

We went to the landfill on the one day of the month that hazardous waste was accepted. That part of our load included fluorescent bulbs, a ‘black light’ fluorescent from the 1970s (hadn’t been unwrapped since we moved to the east coast almost 40 years ago), a lead acid battery and a tablet with a swollen lithium battery.

Overall -we felt good about getting rid of another carload of ‘stuff’ and it was a pleasant drive on a sunny Saturday morning…not too cold. The next load – probably in April - will include a different kind of hazardous waste: old paint and yard/cleaning chemicals. There are also two very old desktop computers that will go into the electronics recycling.