I’ve noticed a trend the past few days, one that always crops up around this time of year. One I have contemplated joining in with, but still haven’t made that leap yet. That time of emerging from our winter cocoon of hibernation and telling one’s self, it’s time to start that diet. With the warmer weather, shedding of heavy layers, it’s also time to shed those excess pounds from the holidays, from the sedentary lifestyle of the past wintery months.

I saw a post by a guy on Facebook that he had cut out cake, cookies, marshmallows, chocolate, and basically all things sugary. I could only think good for him as I nibbled on salt water taffy and called it my dinner last night.

One of my brothers started a diet after his latest check-up with his cholesterol being a little high. So he is eating a low fat, low carb, low salt, no added sugar diet of fruit and Lean Cuisine. I’m not sure how long that is going to last, but good for him for taking the initiative.

It has me thinking, I need to cut the salt and sugar as well, but then I eyeball the rest of the package of salt water taffy and tell myself, it might have to wait until after Easter. Don’t even get me started on cutting out tacos, or pizza, or anything cheesy. Is there any other food groups but those? I don’t think so, or at least the good kind of food groups.

Come spring, once I am out there slinging bags of mulch, digging holes, hauling brush, I’m sure my tune will change…a lot. So maybe I will hop on that bandwagon sooner than expected. I refuse to eat the Lean Cuisines though. So I guess googling is in order for those recipes that are low fat, low salt, low cholesterol, low sugar, and low in taste…. (sigh).

So people of Civatar, what are your favorite HEALTHY go to recipes? No Brussel sprouts though, I don’t do Brussel sprouts…ever.

Well spring has finally arrived, by the calendar anyways. Still having that roller coaster of temps though that has me guessing it will be a late unsettled spring. I only hope there isn’t much loss of plants, bushes, or the new fruit trees I planted last year. Sixty-degree temps one day and 20’s the next, can’t be good, for people either.

Not much new to report today, at least in my world. In the rest of the world it’s a mess, and I’m not even going to go there with the amount of garbage going on.

I thought the above meme was funny, but it also hits the nail on the head when it comes to society, everyone is a know it all, lots to say, and not a whole lot of listening. But for today I am going to ignore it all and the finger pointing and exaggerated outrage and other typical nonsense going on.

It’s Monday, music day again. Even though St. Patrick’s day is past, I am going to go with a “green” theme, thought it would fit in with the first day of spring. Do you have a favorite song with the word green in the title or in the group name? Feel free to post it in your own music Monday blog.

Have a good day peeps.

(Some of you are going to need crutches)

It’s a cold, quiet Monday, here and on-line. A good day to kick back and enjoy some good music.

It’s funny the things one finds one’s self googling for thru out the day. Need a product, need information, need a phone number, need directions, need to know how to change a spark plug, and it’s Google to the rescue.

Gone are those days of looking things up in an encyclopedia, searching thru a phone book, or just going out and searching with some leg work to get what is needed for that knowledge. It made me think, if someone were to go thru my browsing/Google history what would they find? My last five Google searches:

1. Diamond painting. Why diamond painting you ask? A facebook friend had posted two pics of her newest diamond paintings. I had heard of them but never really took the time to look them up to see what they really are about. Spoiler alert, diamond painting does not use or require paint!
2. Barefoot shoes. I was looking on-line for a new pair of shoes, nothing too expensive, nothing fancy. Just something to replace my garden shoes which are slowly falling apart, despite my best redneck efforts to patch them up to keep them going. So I stumbled across barefoot shoes and wondered about their comfort. In case you are wondering, nope, I decided against the barefoot shoes.
3. Wood mulch. It’s a bit early, but I have been periodically checking the prices for wood mulch for this spring and hoping the costs would soon be coming down with the supply and demand picking up. So far, too expensive to order and get yet, maybe next month.
4. Siberian iris. Specifically a garden website source I use to order from … and now they appear to be either out of business or their website is down. So that then lead to other Siberian iris sources, which then lead me to just waiting until fall now, before contemplating adding a couple of new varieties to the garden.
5. Potato chip cookies. Yep, you read that right, looking for a recipe for potato chip cookies that a neighbor use to make every Christmas that she gave out to friends. Sadly that neighbor has passed and I never got the recipe from her. Having a new bag of chips made me think of her and her cookies today and feeling a bit nostalgic I thought I might try and make some. I know there is also something similar using corn flakes, I might be daring and google for that recipe as well.

Who knows where Google will take me today. It’s always an adventure that leads to another Googling adventure, that leads to other things to search for and contemplate.

So, what’s on your Googling list? Or is it a secret between you and your browser history?

It’s another Music Monday, have a favorite song? Feel free to join in and post it.

I’m surprised they never did a sequel to this movie.

Well here it is, Thursday, March 2nd. Not a real earth shaking day of much importance. I did tag Nahi that it is National Banana Cream Pie day. I should have got the memo earlier. I have a pumpkin cake in the oven instead. It’s an overcast, bit dreary colder day so I am still embracing all wintery type of comfort foods for a bit. When it’s warmer, I will think of something more spring-ish.

Sadly, my week hasn’t been all of that fascinating, but it hasn’t been all of that dramatic either. Which is a good thing when dealing with a lot of things, people mostly. I can’t figure out if people have always been annoying and I just had more patience and tolerance. Perhaps, it’s not Covid we needed to be worried about at all, but some other mental virus that has permeated society? Somehow I doubt they have worked on and found a cure for it.

Sadly, no spring bulbs here yet, but I thought the above cartoon pretty much hit the nail on the head. I’ll have to look around for some pre-emergent to deal with those other kind of “bulbs”.

Here it is the start of the new month and what should appear to get the month off on a good start but a surprising package of madeleines! A big thank you to that sneaky “leprechaun” who sent them!

I have always heard of the cookie, seen images of them, looked at the specialized pans required for that iconic shape, but I have never tasted one. Until now. For those of you, like me, who have never had the pleasure of the indulgence, madeleines are a bit of a cross between a cupcake and a cakey sugar cookie. It has a very slight glaze or brushing of honey or syrup to sweeten the cookie, but it is not overly sweet. One could easily eat one or two (or more) for breakfast and not feel guilty.

A lovely treat and again a big thank-you to that sneaky leprechaun! Oh and in case my leprechaun has never had the iconic cookie either, be on the look out, you never know if they might magically appear on your doorstep in the coming days too.

(Just be glad it’s nothing green, like Brussel sprouts).

Well here we are on the 27th of February, one more day for this month before we head into March and hopefully more springlike weather. Last night a thunderstorm came thru, and even though not much rain fell, it was comforting to know that it did come down as rain and not snow.

Lots going on this week, whether I get a lot done or not remains to be seen. Spent some more time working on Divi on a site and there are a few hiccups still. I have an idea of what the issue is, but not sure if it’s something I am able to do or not. Which had me lying and bed and thinking, does it really matter?

I came here to blog, to converse, to be with others who also like to blog. I feel like I am getting further and further away from that when I try and putter around with customizing. I do however want to have some working knowledge on how things work, how it can be done, but to be truthful if I got the message, nope that is it, all you can do, I wouldn’t cry about it.

I feel like I am on the cusp of so many different things, and I am waiting. Whether to go forward, backwards, or head off completely in another direction. That’s life for you, it can never make up it’s mind so you can. But then it can’t make up it’s mind til you do. It’s a vicious cycle.

Hey it’s Monday again, time for some more music…

I did a little experimenting with my site yesterday to see a little bit more what all Divi can do or can’t do, or what I want I would like it to do and it refuses to do. So at the moment things on my site are a bit mixed up and later on today, tomorrow, or sometime this week I will set about redoing it and indulging in a little more in experimenting. Well, as long as I don’t break anything else.

The page looks okay, nothing great, not excited about it, but it was fun to try out a few things. The animated title, kinda fun, kinda interesting, kinda annoying. It will go. The colors, background, a quick stick up for something, are a bit blah, but it’s just a test. A test I think I should probably be studying for, or at least watching the videos when they are suggested for help. But it’s much more fun to “wing it” and press buttons and ask oneself, “I wonder what this does”.

I was quite proud that I had somewhat of a cohesive site up until clicking on the menu. Some links worked,some just took me back to my site. Clicking on blogs, took me nowhere. It’s all there though, somewhere lost in the Matrix. It’s what happens when you have a choice between the red or the blue pill. Or in this case, Divi or the default theme.

I gave up early on it to leave for another day, and realized what I need to do is to first decide on a template design and then go forward from there. Somethings I tried to add showed up okay when added in their little boxes, but failed to work when saved. I found some of the column choices limited in Divi, but then I have only scratched the surface. I think my next try will be to look at the different choices they already have, and try to customize one of them, other then trying to build it all from scratch right off the bat in Divi. Again, maybe if I bothered to watch a video or two might help.

Lying in bed last night, I got to thinking, if only I knew someone who did comics. They should do a running strip on the trials of the Matrix, also known as the WordPress dashboard. Morty, OhNo, and Tripod are forced to figure out all the coding and system before the Nonsequentials eat their way thru your blog site and making it go sadly wonky. Then they get to visit the Oreo who gives them all a pat on the head and a cookie, and Civatar is saved from awkward, wonky websites.

(And now another test….will this blog entry show in it’s entirety, or will it behave as the others and go nowhere? If it gets lost, I will switch things back so hopefully it shows up).