August 5 - Early

This little guy – and six of its friends! – were out there chattering
at the crack of dawn this morning. I am, as always, charmed by them.

Things I love

My job
I'm going to be so sad not to work at the garden center any more. My responsibilities this year have been opening in the morning (just two days a week) and watering everything, as well as helping customers and keeping things tidy. I haven't done a lot of potting, and that's fine with me. I like doing that, but I really like watering. I get to see every single plant in the nursery, what's new, what's doing well, what needs some attention … and especially what would look good in my own landscape!

XL T-shirts
I love how an XL tee covered a multitude of lumps and bumps when I was fat(ter), and now that I've dropped a few pounds makes me look kinda skinny. For instance: a collarbone peeking out of a too-big V-neck. Never thought I'd see that again!

Coffee
Especially hot coffee, ready and waiting in an insulated carafe, every morning. And the coffeemaker loaded and ready to go when I finish what's left in the carafe. Courtesy of my husband.

Pulling weeds
I don't actually like the pulling of the weeds, but I LOVE the result. It's been too hot to work on the weed project this week, but temperatures will be going back down to reasonable after today, and I'm very motivated to finish the herb bed and begin working on the vegetable garden. I saw an almost-ripe tomato out there yesterday!

Running
Wow, do I love running. Although I'm really still at the jogging stage. Maybe I should just call it "picking up the pace." My husband loves my running WAY less than I do, and cautions me DAILY to 'take it easy,' 'be careful,' 'don't hurt yourself.' I am careful and I haven't hurt myself, but I have to admit I haven't really taken it easy. I try to challenge myself, especially on Cto5K training days. I've been inching up the hills at a slightly faster pace, running halfway up some that I could barely walk up six months ago. Progress!

The hummingbird feeder
This has been the best $7 I've spent in a long, long time. Those little guys are SO entertaining! I've seen as many as three at a time, and there are only four feeding stations. Why did it take me so long to jump on the hummingbird-watching bandwagon? Maybe I thought that was something old people did. Even if it is – and even if I am – SO WHAT? I'm delighted. A shout-out to my friend Lynne, whose hummingbirds charmed and inspired me to the point where I had to get my own feeder. (She probably didn't want me as a nightly dinner guest, either.)

Fresh flowers in vases
I love flowers more than I ever thought I would. When I began gardening in earnest, I was all about food. Heirloom tomatoes and several varieties of squash and unusual (at least for me) beans. The vegetable garden these days has been pared down to a minimum, and the flower beds have taken center stage. I love bringing an armful of black-eyed susans or hydrangea blooms inside to brighten up our dining-room table. Next year's vegetable plot will be cut in half, to make it more manageable. It's that getting-old thing.

Getting old …
and being healthy, pain-free and able to enjoy finding new and interesting ways to fill my days. I'm not really old, right? Sixty-two is the new 50. RIGHT? I'm sure not getting any younger chronologically, but I feel better than I did when I was 61, so there's that progress thing again. HOWEVER … my first Social Security check gets deposited in less than a week. That's the kind of old-person benchmark I'm happy to claim!

YOUR TURN
One thing … what do you love? Don't think hard about it, just leave a quick comment. What have I forgotten? What would you add? What's on your list?

I've turned into one of those people

I used to think they were snobs, or held themselves to an impossibly high standard. Maybe you've felt the same way, upon hearing that new couple announce they "don't watch television."

Well, I can't say I don't watch it at all. I spend half an hour a day with Alex Trebek. Because I'm old like that. And because my husband likes Jeopardy, so it's 30 minutes of quality time he and I spend together.

My husband also likes cable news. Me? Not so much. I've also turned into one of those people who gets her news, skewed as it is, from Facebook.

I started watching Beasts of the Southern Wild last night, but 10 minutes into it I couldn't see where it was going and wasn't interested enough to find out. I am, perhaps, a good candidate for Short Attention Span Theatre.


It's not that I don't get plenty of screen time. I'm at the computer or on my phone or tablet several hours daily. PRODUCTIVE hours, lemme tell ya. I log my daily food in LoseIt, use the MapMyRun app to track my daily workout, get my creativity on with Instagram and read your blogs on Feedly.

And then there's Pinterest.

I'm also an Imperial Mahjong whiz, and I'M CERTAIN I'm doing my brain a lot of good finding matches and tapping tiles. (My dad's wife got me hooked on mahjong. I've uninstalled it from every device I own, many times, but it's very cracklike for me. And as long as the laundry gets done and dinner is served, I'm not hurting anyone. Heh.)

I've lost so many paper lists halfway through a grocery run that I've started using an app (currently trying out ZipList) for shopping trips. Because while I might misplace a scrap of paper, my phone is permanently attached to my body.

Just ask my husband. Heh.

There are downsides to all this technology, of course. I haven't memorized a phone number in years. If I needed to reach my daughter, for instance, using your phone, I couldn't manage it AT ALL. She moved to a new house almost two years ago and I still don't know her address. It's in the palm of my hand (or on my laptop), and I've recently started saying you only need to know where to find information. Why waste brain cells memorizing something you can look up? Brain cells are a limited commodity, after all.

I'll get back to television soon. Pre-season pro football starts less than a month from now. (I know, pretty soon we're going to have year-round a year-round NFL schedule.) And college football begins August 29. Football is my reality TV, and I'll watch it all day long.

I could also watch the hummingbirds all day long. I took my first picture of one yesterday with the DSLR, and have been trying to catch one with the camera on my phone, a nearly impossible (for me) exercise. The feeder is hanging right outside the sliding glass door next to our dining table, and I can tell you that while last night's curried pork was delicious, I certainly wasn't paying as much attention to savoring my food as I was to watching the birds.

Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. But it's an entertaining thing. And probably a better use of my time than playing mahjong.

I hope you don't think I'm a snob because I don't watch CNN. Or Dancing With the Stars. How about you? What are your go-to apps? And, more importantly, how do you get your news?