Our weather has been mildly affected by Hurricane Helene--thankfully nothing like what the Southeast has been dealing with (and Adam, if you're reading, how are things by you?), just a fair amount of wind for a few days coming off the outer bands of the weather system. It wasn't enough to deter me from going outside for a bit both Saturday and ( Read more... )

We are less than one week from our fall concert. I was curious how things would go; this is one of the biggest concerts we've done in recent years, with enough songs that you can't possibly rehearse all of them regularly enough. Because we've done a lot of the encore marches over the years, those were mostly skipped over, and we've really only ( Read more... )

When I got home last night, all I wanted to do was sit down and have dinner. All I'd had all day was a granola bar, then, after 5 PM when the business closed, I caved and had a doughnut and a half. Well, the one had bacon on it, so it was protein, right? That didn't really help matters, which was part of why I was cranky when I got home. I'd ( Read more... )

With mom out of the house today, dad spent the day outside and I tackled a few projects inside. For him, part of what he did involved installing the sun shade he bought recently; this went over the little stage deck in the corner of the yard. However, with the initial installation, he realized it didn't work properly; it hung too low and was ( Read more... )

With this being the holiday week, things were off kilter. To wit: I neglected to put my toiletry bag in my regular bag on Wednesday, so I wasn't able to freshen up before band. I made sure to apologize to the people next to me, who just laughed it off, but I felt bad about it. Despite evidence to the contrary, I knew I didn't smell all that ( Read more... )

Saturdays seem to be the day of the week we're spending in the yard. At least, as far as I can remember, and really that only goes back to about Wednesday these days. We're still in a holding pattern with the house, meaning our plants are in limbo, but we have lots and lots of hanging baskets and a few planters, so some stuff is getting planted ( Read more... )

Except our bumblebee is a fat little thing, but more in a moment ( Read more... )

One would think the residents of my room would be falling apart with what's been happening to us over the past 7-8 weeks. You may recall that the bird got scared and molted half her tail feathers a while back. They've completely grown back in now, which is good, and it's just in time for her regular fall molt. Great. I love having feathers all ( Read more... )

I happened to be out and about today, minding my own business. It was a bit cool, mainly because it's pretty windy, but otherwise pleasant. I had my hands tucked into the sleeves of my jacket when I suddenly felt a sharp pain on my right palm. What on earth? I pulled my hand out of the sleeve and attached to my hand was a bee-like critter. I ( Read more... )

I went outside for lunch on Friday, and soon I was joined by a coworker. There had been a bee flying about; why it was interested in my beef sandwich, I'll never know. At one point I was sitting there with my legs crossed and one foot sort of up and away from the table when a bee--possibly a different one--landed on my sock. It was holding ( Read more... )