Update for the week

Good afternoon.
Here's a few pics I took during my morning walks this past week....

This was on a street corner near my house. It appears a hawk got a bird, and plucked it right here. That was a big pile of feathers!

And another full moon this past week.....

And you may need to click on the pic to see it better, but a duck and 3 little babies were roaming near the large fountain on the busy corner of Aliante Blvd and Elkorn Street.
Yesterday morning, I blew all the leaves out of the back yard. Our back yard is walled, and 2 of my neighbors have 3 African Sumac's just on the other side of 2 walls. As the weather gets hot, they lose about 1/3 of their leaves as a means to conserve water. So, a lot of leaves come down in my yard. Once they are all down, I blow them out of the stones onto the patio and bag them up.
I also sprayed around the foundation outside. I do this once a month to keep unwanted bugs out of our home.
And some good prices on good fruit right now. $.99 a lb for cherries and grapes, and $.99 for whole pineapples. And I've learned an easy way to cut, core and chunk them.
Also, for the months of May, June and July, Smiths (owned by Kroger) is giving double points on purchases every weekend. So we try and do all our shopping then to take advantage of that. Also, I get surveys on most receipts, and doing those gives me 50 points each. I can do 1 survey each week. We ended this month just over 1100 points, which we can use for $1.10 off a gallon, when we fill up with gas.   😀
And that's it for now.....

fewer posts.

Good evening.
Just a quick post today.
Not too much going on. Walking every morning and going to the fitness center several times a week. 
You may have noticed the number of posts I've been doing lately have come less frequently.
The reason for that is some time ago, my Mom complained I wasn't responding to her e-mails. Well, she sends quite a few, and I thought they were just comments about things and not in need of replies. So, I told her I'd try to respond to them., And I have. I e-mail her between 4-6 times a day.  But with that, I've been telling her pretty much everything about my days, and so, I don't feel I have as much to blog about. And a lot of my blogging was for her. So if you don't see me posting as much, that's why.
Now, for dinner tonight, I fixed sausage sandwiches. We both have gotten hooked on Big Dog's Tavern Kielbasas. So I have been duplicating them at home with better for us choices.

I used Chicken sausages. I fillet them and cook them in a pan. I open the buns and put ketchup and diced onions on the bun. Top that with the sausage. Add more diced onions and shredded reduced fat cheese. Put in under the broiler for a few minutes, and they are almost as good as Big Dog's with probably half the calories.
Sunday was our usual Sunday paper, coffee, and a Raspberry Fritter. Dinner was ham and scalloped potatoes. Tomorrow we'll be having beef and broccoli.
And that's about it for now....

tasty food and another project.

Good morning.
Just got back from my morning walk. Only did about 30 minutes, as I have a bum toe. I stubbed my little toe yesterday, and this morning it's all black and blue. So it's a bit sore to walk on.   :-/
A couple of days ago, I planned on having pork cutlets on the grill along with roasted veggies and long grain wild rice.

Well, when I thawed out the meat, I discovered it was chicken breasts.   :-/
I think I should start writing on the freezer bags what's inside. I do write the date I freeze it on the bag, so it doesn't sit in the freezer forever.
So... we had boneless skinless chicken breast's on the grill instead.   :-)

I love roasted veggies! They somehow taste sweeter that way.
And another day, I cleaned out our puters.....

I try to do this twice a year. Early Jan. and around July. I was surprised how little dust was in them this time. But keeping out the dust helps them run cooler and extends their life.
We also hit a high for the year so far at 112 yesterday. But even at that temp, we were able to sit out on our patio comfortably with our mister system. Low humidity makes a world of difference!
And in response to a couple of comments....
I don't know if those cargo planes were moving anything. We have Nellis Air Force Base in the eastern part of the valley, and planes are flying back and forth over our community as they fly to and from the training range to our north west. I'm assuming the big planes were in a training flight too. But of course, they don't tell us anything.   :-)
And it definitely was a rat Gene.  It doesn't look that big in the pic, but the body was a good 6 inches long without the tail.
Well, that's it for now....

more projects

Good evening.
I've been a bit busy the last few days.
First off, I walk every morning. Usually around 40-45 minutes. That is approximately one 'loop' around our community of 2000+ homes. And lately, Craig and I have been going to the fitness center many afternoons. We used to walk after he got up, but by the time he's been getting up, it's getting a bit too hot to walk.
Here's a pic of some plantings near our community center.

And I found myself a little project.
This is what a nice sparkling clean washer is suppose to look like inside.

But, emptying the dishwasher one morning, I noticed some black like sludge around the water drain cover. So I got out my tools, took off the cover, and discovered this......

This is the underside of that cover. Ewww!

And this is what was under the cover.......double Ewww!

So, I scrubbed everything real good and ran an empty load with just white vinegar to clean and sanitize the washer. I'll make sure I check this every couple of months from now on....
Then this morning, after my walk, I went out front and trimmed a few bushes and noticed the dead leaves were starting to look kind of thick in the stones. So I got out the blower and blew out the front yard.

I was surprised how many leaves I ended up with. Since the stones are similar in color, they really didn't look that bad, but wow! That was a lot of leaves! I find I need to do this about 2-3 times a year. Next week, I'll do the back yard which shouldn't be as bad as there is only 1 tree, and the yard is walled so not much can 'blow' in. So even with 'desert' landscaping, there still is yard work.   :-)
So, that's it for now....

Rats!

Good afternoon.
It's been a bit warm this week with temps around 107. But we are suppose to 'cool' back down into the mid 90's. But even with the very warm temps, we've enjoyed sitting out on our patio with the misters. Those misters sure make a big difference!
These next 2 pics you'll have to click on to even barely see the planes, but a few days ago, 5 of these very large planes went right over our neighborhood.

We have occasionally seen 1, but this is the first time we've seen 5!  I don't know if they're bombers, but they have 4 engines and are very large compared to all the other military aircraft we see.
And this is what i saw this morning on my walk....

A dead rat! Laying in a neighbors driveway. I don't know how it died.  I've heard we have rats out here. Heck, I think they are probably everywhere! I have seen rat traps along the sides of the community building and other commercial buildings around the valley. But this is the first one I've seen and I'm glad it was dead!
And here's a couple of flower pics...

A couple of Pineapple Lillies in bloom...

And a Bird of Paradise. I love the intense orange flowers!

We've also been going to the fitness center nearly every day. I walk in the early morning when the weather is perfect, but by the time Craig gets up, it's getting too hot to walk, and he wants to get some exercise too.
And with that, we're off to the fitness center. We like early afternoon, as it's not as busy as mornings.