Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings posts give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.
Welcomings will be posted at the start of each week (usually Saturday night with a Sunday date). To find the posts, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is Moose for “I found everyone!!”).
The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining (or bragging!) about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or simply checking in.
So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?
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NOTE: The comments page will split off after 20 or so left margin comments with the most recent comments on the current page. To see the older comments, scroll to the bottom of the page (right before “Leave A Reply”) and use the Pages Tool to view previous pages, shown here with 3 pages of comments available and Page 2 circled.
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Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 41 degrees in the Desert Southwest with an expected daytime high of 55. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
New Year’s Eve Meese.
“What are you doing New Years Eve?”
There are over 300 versions listed of this 1947 Frank Loesser classic
Puerto Rico
Good morning. Not freezing, and this afternoon will be warm. I may put my plants back on their elevated places, I don’t think there’s a freeze in the forecast. Anyway, today: church and mking next week’s breakfast. And my blackyed pea dish. and a walk, darn it.
Posted:
Part 2
It’s 39 heading for 45 and sunny so far. Yesterday we generated 5.68 and the m-t-d at 135.86 can’t catch up to last year. But it can get closer.
New Year’s Eve is just another Sunday. I’ve done my cleaning, taken the Ibuprofen in hopes of getting my hands & back to shut up, and am starting my boosting day. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Good afternoon, 50 and mostly sunny in our garden today. We’ve had a windy few days so RonK is outside cleaning up branches, pine cones, etc but I’m cozy indoors and not doing much of anything. We’re staying home this evening and cooking a meal just for us. Ron plans to barbeque a chicken, and I’m thinking about baking some biscuits and a lemon pound cake for dessert. We’ll start putting Christmas away tomorrow. As always, my best wishes to all.
Good morning. Slept in, tea is steeping, I have a walk/run plan; will do this afternoon to see how long it takes, then see what time I should do it on work days. Anyway, lazing about, enjoying the smell of my tea, will cook a New Year’s dish for lunch.Happy new year, everyone.
Good morning, meeses! Monday, Gregorian calendar changing day …
It is 41 degrees in Tucson 🌵 with an expected daytime high of 61. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast. I was able to see my stars over the mountains through the clouds. We rarely have total cloud cover here, just chunks of cloudiness in different parts of the sky.
I changed out my office calendar yesterday afternoon so that I would be ready to hit the ground running this morning. I mark two days on each page before I put the calendar up: Microsoft Patch Tuesday so I know when my day will be disrupted by Microsoft Updates and SSA direct deposit day so I can glimpse the money momentarily before it leaves to pay rent and bills.
Yesterday I tidied up paper folders that were overflowing with accumulated notes and got ready to catch up on my personal accounting so that I will be ready for taxes. I like to get mine done early so there is no mad rush later even though this year I will owe money. Today I have some client work to finish before people start work tomorrow.
See all y’all later!
Good gray Monday morning, Moosekind, and welcome to 2024! It’s 41 F. outside and will be in the low 40s all this week. Naturally, it’s January. We did finish the year 8 and 1/2 inches under normal for rainfall, although the weather guys were gleefully saying we’re now out of drought mode. Why mode? Why not just “drought”? Anyway, that applies to Maryland and DC, not us in dessicated old Virginia.
My New Year’s resolutions: Every time I have an appointment, I will note it in my Witches’ Datebook as well as on my wall calendar. This may save me embarrassment, as I do look at the datebook every morning to record my weight. I’ve forgotten a couple of dates, owing to my normal affliction of extreme scatterbrained-ness.
Exercise every day. Well, practically every day. Well, how about at least 1/2 an hour five times a week? Will that do?
Keep my pledge to abstain from chocolate for two weeks, just to see whether I can. I began yesterday.
Unsub from all my junk mail. Well, at least most of it.
Continue my Swedish Death Cleaning, bit by bit, until I get it all done. Then I can pop my clogs with a clear conscience.
It’s windy this morning, and 41 F. High won’t get much higher, just like Jim Morrison.
The guy who invented avocado toast just died! He was young (54) and cute, too. See? No good ever came from eating green cold cream.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond. Look how the wind ruffles the surface of the water!* A new year begins.
P.S. And talking about that, there’s a tsunami following an earthquake in Japan this morning.
I checked the Runner’s World book for beginners out from the library. Will screenshot the pages with the plan. It goes to 6 months, which would have me running a mile right when I moved my goal to.It has 6 days/week of workouts.
Happy New Year Meese.
32 going up to 34 here – illegal fireworks kept us awake all night. Grrr.
Puerto Rico
Bad Bunny is spending the holidays in his native Puerto Rico and part of the celebration included his annual “Bonita Tradición” gift giveaway hosted by the artist and his Good Bunny Foundation. Held at the Puerto Rico Convention Center in San Juan, the free event featured traditional food and attractions, as well as 25,000 gifts that were handed out to children and teenagers. Bad Bunny was in attendance to hand out sports gear, music instruments, art sets and more gifts aimed at promoting the love of music, art and sports. Other artists who joined the cause included Miky Woodz, Young Miko and Dei V.
Welp, we greet the calendar new year at 30 heading for 42 and cloudy. Most of the week is supposed to be like that. Not what I’d call a great start or omen. Yesterday we generated over 7 KWHs, the most for any single day in December, and finished up the month at 142.6 (which gives next December a low bar to aim for). We wrapped the year at 3.899 MWHs – not the 4+ of years 2015 through 2020 but a bit better than either 2021 or 2022. So that was good.
Nothing much to mark the turning of the year except changing calendars. The same folks have the same problems and the same prayers are going out for them. As of this year I’m required to withdraw from my TIAA annually but I was going to this year anyway – and probably more than the mandatory minimum – so it doesn’t make much difference to me. Yet. Once I’ve cleared my slate of all the stuff to boost that came in overnight I do need to do my end of month/year, start of month/year recordkeeping. And I’m going to bake a ham today. So I’d best get to my boosting. Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Ham, roasted parsnips, cabbage, and a little bit of Hoppin’ John that I found in a can in Harris Teeter yesterday. Dessert will be some of the many, many mince tarts we received for Christmas!
Mine will be a smaller meal. Ham, green beans, and an apple crisp for dessert. Tomorrow I’ll make bean soup. Navy beans, not black-eyed peas, but since my GF flour mix is mostly bean/chickpea flour I’m kind of beaned out anyway. LOL. Enjoy your dinner. {{{Diana}}}
Good morning, 39 and foggy in Bellingham. RonK is walking the trails by Fairhaven Park and I’m staying cozy. We’ll take the tree out today and start putting Christmas away but for now it’s nice to just relax. I didn’t do all I had planned to do last week but oh well. A new year means I can toss the old lists and start over! Best wishes to all.
Tuesday Meese. Had my black-eyed peas and rice yesterday to start the year off the way my family has always done. Starting back with radiation today – till the end of Jan each weekday.
“Puerto Rico’s health system is in pieces and there are still those who remain in denial.”
GOTV in Florida:
A great group of folks to follow in FL – Mi Vecino
Good morning. Yesterday’s walk/run may have been too ambitious, I only made it to 5 rounds of run 1 minute, walk 2. I’ll try again on Wednesday, today is just plain walk for 30 minutes. Getting ready for work. Astronomy starts later today but at least it’s still on.
Good morning, meeses! Tuesday that feels like a Monday …
It is 42 degrees in Tucson 🌵 with an expected daytime high of 54. Sunny skies are in the forecast. It was mostly cloudy over the mountains when I got up but it is clear now. We may have gotten some rain overnight.
The next few days will be filled with “last year” retrospectives which are the most useless and lazy “journalism” ever. In second place is “the year ahead” projections which are nearly as useless but at least occasionally do journalism. Both can be safely ignored.
I had plans to spend the long weekend getting caught up but alas I still have two projects that need my attention – one that I promised for today and one that I need to do before tomorrow. I got sidetracked to what Diana calls “Swedish Death Cleaning” but from the business side. I have many boxes and a file drawer full of paper from my now closed business that need to be sorted, scanned and then shredded or stored. The plan is to scan everything and store only the legal minimum (7 years of taxes, 3 years for liability) and mark them clearly as to when they can be permanently disposed of. A lot of things were simply moved as-is when I ran out of time to sort. I am going to try to spend at least an hour a day on that project. In any event, I need to get my current project work started.
See all y’all later!
Good luck, Jan! Perhaps yours should be called “Finnish Death Cleaning”?
Hahahaha! Brilliant!
Good partly cloudy Tuesday, Meese. It’s 37 F. now, going up to 48 F. It’s also windy. A storm is making its way up the East Coast. Four-letter word has been mentioned for the weekend, so the weather guys are all excited, but as usual we’ll be lucky to get mere rain, let alone that. We did have a surprise shower yesterday, but not enough rain fell to be recorded.
Yesterday morning I was devastated, today I feel sad, but better. One of my three best friends in this world, S., died New Year’s Eve at 10:30 in the morning. She had been admitted to the hospital at 2:30 a.m., but the doctors thought she’d be well enough to go home for the weekend. Not so. They treated her for COPD and Covid, she had breakfast and sat in a chair for a bit, then went back to bed. Fifteen minutes later, she was gone.
S. was 87. The thing that comforts me this morning is the thought that, before she became so ill, she had a pretty wonderful life in many ways. She was divorced, yes, but the necessity to support herself and her child led to a career in government, during which she gained much respect.
Writing always makes me feel better, so I think I’ll write about her. Her son (about whom I will say little) is sending her body back to her native Kentucky for burial. She began life as a Catholic and ended it as a Witch.
That’s all I will say for now. Today is the day I am going to resign from four of my activities. Oh, bfitz, last night I cooked a ham. I didn’t realize there was going to be so MUCH of it. Mah gawd! We had Ham and Scram for breakfast. We’ll have some, incorporated in a dish of scalloped potatoes, later this week. We’ll have Undercover Ham Casserole. I can’t think what else to do with ALL THIS HAM! Yes, the label said I could freeze it. I’m freaked out. Wish I could mail it to someone who would like it.
Wishing a good day to all at the (so far) rippling Pond. BTW, Virginia had a 2.3 earthquake this morning, but it was nowhere near us.
{{{Diana}}} yes, there’s a LOT of ham when you cook a ham. It’s definitely fine to freeze it. If you’ve the room, freezing it in portions for 1 meal or 1 recipe is really good. I freeze it in larger portions because I eat the same protein every night for a week. Something you couldn’t get away with. LOL. Anyway, it’ll keep fine in the freezer for up to a year. Enjoy. moar{{HUGS}}}
Up to a year? Oh, good! I sweartagoddess, there’s enough to last until November! I’ll be handing it out to people standing in line waiting to vote!
But how nice to have it there in the freezer when you get a hankering for ham and potato soup or a ham quiche. 😁
It’s 30 heading for 46 and cloudy. Yesterday it cleared off enough we generated 6.33 KWHs. Our “it’d take miracle” goal is 237 but 150 to get ahead of last year would be OK. We’re actually – very early days yet – on track for the latter.
Moving slowly today so I’d best get to my boosting. I’m taking Charlie to the vet this afternoon. Hoping this weight loss is something easy & relatively inexpensive to treat – like diabetes. Anyway, Holding the Good Thoughts for everybody. {{{Meeses}}}
Wednesday Meese. Very cold here this morning – 21.
Not much news from PR.