I clearly was very upset yesterday. I talked to my daughter today. She says they are fine. It takes a long time to go anywhere because so many stoplights are still out. Some of my friends got their power restored. My daughter worked at the main branch in Gary today, all run by generators. She said there were only 4 customers. Her hubby is still home, no power at his work. His son is at college downstate and he is ok, not affected by the flooding.
I am still going through my stuff in the spare bedroom. I need to get rid of a lot of stuff and re-pack what I'm keeping.
I found a picture I did in high school. It's a print from a wood block I carved. I don't have the wood block anymore. I think it got damaged in storage or something. I'm going to give it to my daughter.
I've been trying to figure out the layout of the new apartments they are building in town. As far as I can tell, there are four 3 bedroom apartments on each end with one or two bedroom apartments crammed in the middle. Not sure about that. What we know for sure is we do not want to sit out on a patio or balcony in full view of everyone else.
I was hoping to have a set up like we had in Hartford, but I don't think it will happen. I will forever miss my view.
I want to end on a good note. The weather cooled off and the humidity lowered enough I was able to turn off the air conditioner and open windows! Yay!
It's not possible that I am 76. The number must be wrong. Although the mirror keeps showing this odd person with wrinkles. I think the reason our eyes get bad as we get older is so we can't see them. And then we get glasses and we wonder what the h*** happened.
My daughter sent me flowers. My hubby had to work. But he will be off for a few days so we will go do something. I still have the UTI. I guess I need antibiotics. Ugh.
Here are my flowers. The vase is a party in itself.
Here I am at Lion's Den Gorge. My daughter and I had a "grow our hair long" thing going. Hers is past her waist. Mine turned to frizz at shoulder-length. I have since trimmed it.
Here I am with my daughter and my hubby on the bridge in Omro
The heat has been exhausting, especially for people who need to work in it. Right now it has cooled off since it rained, so I am enjoying the quiet with the A/C off.
Well, I am going to go drink more water and take more D-mannose.
My daughter and her hubby came to visit about noon last Friday, June 19th. I had presents for them to open (it was her hubby's birthday on Tuesday and I always have a little something for my daughter, too). We ate some cheese and sausage and talked a bit, and then headed out. We decided to go to the Vines and Rushes Winery, but first drove up to Omro to take a short walk, since a walk was also on the agenda. We walked across a bridge in Omro, took some pictures, and then drove to the winery.
Omro. We took family photos, too.
Italian built pizza oven at Vines and Rushes.
We tasted some wines and then ordered pizza. The pizza could have been better, not the oven's fault. We sat outside and talked for awhile, then decided to drive into town. It really had not crossed my mind that it was Ripon Fest. I wasn't paying attention to the announcement on social media.
First we walked down to the Patina Vie, a beautiful shop that just won an award as the best Independent Home Decor store in the nation for 2026. We spend some time browsing the beautiful items, some quite reasonable, others very spendy. The we started making our way back down the street to where we were parked.
Suddenly....music! 80's Rock and Roll! My daughter (an 80's girl) announced "On to the music!" and we headed to the park. A band named Cherry Pie was playing. My daughter was over the moon.
I must tell you a short story. When my daughter turned 16, she and I were playing her favorite songs. I was 36 at that time. It was late. The street was dark. We put on Van Haylen's "Jump". Oh, who can sit still with that playing?!?! We cranked it up and ran outside. We ran out to the middle of the street and were dancing like a couple of crazy happy kids. Suddenly we noticed way down at the other end of the block, headlights flipped on. They just sat there. Then they pulled out slowly. We ran inside, killed the music, closed the door and blinds, turned off the lights and looked out cautiously, just in time to watch the police creep slowly by.
Guess what song the band played...Jump!
Here is a video from June 19th in Ripon, from the Cherry Pie website. My son-in-law is on the right at 33 seconds. My daughter is next to him but they didn't pan over far enough to show her face.
We stayed quite awhile before heading back to our apartment. My daughter and hubby had to leave early because they had a race to attend in the morning. They love going to the races, and attend the Indy 500 and several other races every year.
We are happy that my daughter and her hubby have so much fun here.
Saturday, while they were at the race, hubby and I went to Grafton to walk the Lion's Den Gorge. It was a mild day, not too hot or humid. We walked all the way to the bridge, which was broken in half by a tree. We took the 100 steps down to the beach and took a long walk. We took some pictures and walked back, up all the stairs and all the way back to the parking lot. Close to 2 miles. Our feet hurt from walking on the rocks along the shore!
Always love to see Lake Michigan
Non-native multiflora roses perfuming the air
The gorge
Stairs
Broken bridge
Closeup of the tree that fell and broke it in half
Lake Michigan was very reflective
That's it for tonight. This post is getting quite long.
Last weekend we drove to Madison to check out a cove on Lake Mendota. It was a pretty spot, though small. It was a nice day. We took a decent walk, but the path was more overgrown than we like. We went for coffee in Middleton, our first time in that community. Looks interesting, and we want to go back. We visited the National Mustard Museum, interesting and fun, but we didn't buy any mustard.
Raymer's Cove, Lake Mendota, Madison, looking east
The west side of the cove, only a few feet away
The water is very clear
A drift of native Columbine
Close up of the flowers
The weather has been hot during the day but quite cool at night. I haven't needed to run the A/C all that often, and I've been opening the windows at night. It has been getting down to the 40's and 50's. I'm loving the low humidity.
I finally got a few succulents out on the balcony. Several are sitting in the big blue pot, which makes them easy to water. They were just doing terrible inside. The white pot in front is empty. It's a squirrel deterrent.
We have a pair of Blue Jays that come by to beg for unsalted peanuts in the shell. Sometimes they squawk and sometimes they chirp. I'm familiar with the squawk but the chirp is different. It sort of sounds like "serp" "serp". Each time they "serp" they pop up with their body. Cute.
It must be time for unusual bird sounds. One night there were several Great Horned Owls calling with a raspy "begging" chirp, probably young ones.
Some of my orchids are growing lovely new roots and leaves, a good sign they will bloom later or next year. Six of my new ones are still blooming. My first orchid, the mini white, is growing a new bloom stalk!
I have one disappointment. The lovely mini purple has root rot. I have clipped off all the dead roots, cleaned it up, sprayed with hydrogen peroxide, and dusted the bad spots with cinnamon. It is now sitting in a jar, suspended over a little water with its roots barely touching the water. It will probably drop its flowers early. The leaves are wrinkled. That's a bummer because it is very difficult to rehydrate orchid leaves. I am hoping for new, hydrated leaves and plenty of new roots. Phalaenopsis orchids usually grow one or two new leaves per season, but they can grow many roots.
Purple mini
Wrinkled leaf
Very poor root system
In hospital
My daughter and her hubby are stopping in next month for a few hours. They attend a race in Plymouth Wisconsin, which isn't too far away. They love races, and attend the Indy 500 every year. We are planning a weekend together later.
It seems like April is three months long. We had an insane amount of rain, which caused flooding in many parts of Wisconsin. Rivers flooded and people needed to be evacuated. In addition to the huge amounts of rain, we also had widespread tornados. There were three that did damage. Aside from drenching rain and thunderstorms, we were not affected by flooding, giant hail or tornados here in Ripon.
On top of all that, my hubby got sick. There was some type of respiratory thing going around at his work. He said one guy was coughing so hard he threw up, and went home. In any case, hubby caught it because he was coughing and wheezing. He took Tuesday off, and worked sick on Wednesday. He came home with a fever and coughed all night. Thursday he called off and went to the doctor. He got antibiotics, asthma spray, and a note to be excused from work for Thursday and Friday. He had a chest X-ray, covid test and flu tests. The tests were negative, but his X-ray showed some inflammation. They told him he has pneumonia. He's getting better.
Today is one of those days. I miss my mom. I miss my daughter. I miss my other daughter, the one here on earth. I miss gardening. I want so much to have a patio of big flower pots full of flowers. How the heck am I going to water them and not drain water on the downstairs neighbors? It gets hot up here, upstairs. The apartment faces west. I miss sunrises. Some of my succulents hate me. I lost a couple. My Lithops look like death warmed over. My Adromischus look like crap, except for a couple. The plants that are doing well look good. I have a few Sanseveria now. They are easy. Orchids seem to love me. So I am loving them back. Now that I know how to grow them I have jumped in with both feet. I now have 15. I need to slow down.
Last weekend we went to Harrington Beach State Park. Hubby was feeling better and we both needed a walk. We were shocked by how many trees were down. A google search said about 170 trees were knocked down by the recent storms.
I don't know if the damage was a tornado or wind. We had a good walk around Quarry Lake exercise-wise but the downed trees were sad.
I hope next month is better. My daughter is planning a get-together, not sure when. We are hoping for better weather for walks.
The drive home went well. Traffic was light. We stopped at our favorite rest area, WisDOT Rest Area 64 near Lomira, WI.
The trip to and back from the airport yesterday went well. Traffic was light. There were no problems at all at the airport. The new parking garage is awesome.
After we got back to Indiana we decided to go to Anderson's Winery to enjoy some wine, cheese and live music. My daughter and her hubby gave us two bottles of Fuzzy Peach (Christmas gift).
My new plants are snuggled into their spots. All of my Oxalis "fainted". A couple of my succulents look dead. All of my Jades have wrinkled leaves. My orchid dropped its blooms and my pothos looks like cr@p. Most of them will recover. Some of my plants are like cast iron, surprisingly, my Hoya and Sanseveria.
My pothos has been looking worse and worse. Ya' know, I think I would like a heart leaf philodendron instead.
It has been developing dark spots and now it's severely wilted.
All of my Oxalis look like this so I trimmed all the leaves and watered lightly. Usually they recover.
The flowers on my Orchid dried up but it still has nice buds. The good news is all the flower spikes on the other orchids look good. I watered all of them.
The succulent in the center is struggling. The one above it to the left is dead. The pot of Little Spheroids in the front right has some wrinkles but they will be fine.
Hubby is coming home tomorrow! He should be landing at O'Hare about 2 pm. We will spend the night here and go home tomorrow. It's always nice to spend time with my daughter, but I really miss my hubby.
My daughter and her hubby and I had a nice time last night. Since the bowling alley was closed, we went to Rosati's in Crown Point. We watched Indiana beat the bageebers out of Alabama in the Rose Bowl game. Oh, we did also watch the rainy Rose Bowl Parade on TV.
Today, while everyone is at work, I'm going to vacuum the bedroom I'm staying in and pack most of my stuff. I'm taking another plant home. My daughter doesn't have time for them. This is a Sanseveria (on the left) my heavenly daughter bought years ago. It has white stripes. It is clinging to life but I think it will be fine. Sanseveria are pretty tough, as long as they don't get overwatered.
It will be interesting to see how my plants did while we were gone. It was only 2 weeks. We need to shop on the way home. I will post an update tomorrow sometime or Monday. Hubby goes back to work on Tuesday.
My daughter, S-I-L and I got dressed up and went out to the bowling alley to meet some friends but found out they couldn't come because they were sick. My daughter called some other people but they were under the weather as well. We ate and went back home. We were all hoping to party but ended up just watching TV.
I'm missing my hubby. He sent a couple videos of the New Year celebrations in Kosovo. He called to wish us Happy New Year :D
I'm feeling better...yay! Hubby is feeling better. Not sure if I mentioned he has been sick. Today (over there) he took his mom and sister to the giant new mall in Prishtina. I will try to look it up and add a link. They are 7 hours ahead so they would be home and maybe sleeping by now.
We are having crazy wind, rain and thunder storms here in Indiana. It's 62 degrees! It should be sunny so we could take a walk. Crazy. It's 35 and snowing back home in Ripon.
My daughter found a bunch of craft supplies for me to fiddle with while she and S-I-L are at work next week. She gets off at noon on Wednesday, is off New Year's, works Friday (probably) and maybe half a day Saturday. Then we are off to the airport to pick up my hubby. So I guess I better hurry and finish some crafts LOL
It's raining like crazy again, some tornado warning but not for this location. That's about it for today.
I'm sorry, but I was in a funk. Before we left home I tried to do some artwork but nothing happened. I tried to do some crafts but I only had half of the supplies for anything I wanted to make. Moving twice in one year is a hard thing to do. I didn't send any cards. I looked for a special card for my daughter but everywhere was out of the nice one I had in mind. Hubby was getting packed to fly to Kosovo to visit his mom and sister and I was getting ready to stay with my daughter in Indiana. I felt woefully unprepared and not in the mood for the holidays.
On a positive note, I helped my daughter bake ten thousand cookies, or so it seemed. I helped with the assembly line duties that sped the process up tremendously, for which they are very thankful. It was all hands on deck for the fudge. I helped by prepping the bowls of ingredients, lining cake pans with foil, and washing pans and spoons for the next batch. My S-I-L cooked the fudge and my daughter stirred in the rest of the ingredients and poured the fudge. She would put the pan in the sink and place the fudge on the rack. I would wash the pan and spoon and set it on the drainboard for the next batch. There were 3 pans all going at once.
We made 17 pans of fudge and 17 batches of kolaczies, plus dozens of sugar cookies. I think they work too hard. All of this stuff gets put into giant baskets with other gifts. This was my first time helping. My S-I-L has a giant family plus friends.
It's getting late. I'm going to finish the post with some pictures and call it a night.
I love this tree my daughter gave me to decorate. I chose these lights because they looked soft and peaceful, even though I could have used bright ones. I like the look, old fashioned.
