Training With Music for Great Aloha Run (Walk)

Art has once again signed us up for the Great Aloha Run (Walk) which is held in February on Presidents Day.  It's time for me to start training for it because Art is already more than ready for any walk/jog. He exercises almost daily. I'm the slouch and it's showing. I've gained 4-5 pounds over the holidays.

I like to listen to music when I walk. Art likes silence to meditate, but he makes a concession just to get me to walk.

I like listening to the Pandora radio app on my smartphone but I have to hold it in my hand which is not all that comfortable so I had this idea.

I used a little bit of some left over material and made a little pouch. It worked great and I could listen to some music when we started our evening walks.

Hmmm...

Who knows? Maybe I'll use the pouch at the Great Aloha Walk too. Anything to help me get through it.

Tweaking My Charging Station

I was very happy and excited about my new "charging station" but something bothered me. The outlet. See how it sticks out? I felt that if I  jostled the table too quickly by mistake, I could knock and damage the plugs sticking out of the wall. I also could not charge my Macbook Air there because the power adapter was too big, stuck out from the wall too far and I'd have to remove one of the other plugs to add it. Yes, yes, I know I could charge it anywhere else, but I wanted to perfect my charging station.

I was looking on line to see how other people managed their chargers and saw how some people put a multiple outlet into a shoebox with labeled holes on the box to stick the wires out.

I figured a flat to the wall multiple outlet would be much better. Fortunately, I had just such a multiple outlet. Unfortunately, I couldn't stick the plug through the slats of that top area. I knew I would have to ask Art for help to take the whole thing apart so I could get the plug through.

I used my best wheedling (and loving) voice to say, "Art, I'm so sorry. I really am... But could you help me take the table apart?"

Silence. And then... "Why....?"

I explained my idea. He didn't like it. He thought it worked fine the way it was.

"That's OK," I said.

"No, it's not OK," His exasperation was showing. "You're just going to be walking around like a dog gnawing at a bone with a sad face."

"No really..., it's OK," I repeated.

And so it went. Then he looked at the table and came up with his own much simpler idea. The bottom of that top covered shelf is removable. He just removed that bottom part and cut a very tiny hole so I could stick the cord and plug through the bottom instead of at the back like I proposed.

Yup, now I can charge everything in one place. This multiple outlet has an on and off switch so I can turn the adapters off when they're not in use.

If you're wondering why I have a multiple charger there, it's because I asked for it at Christmas. I'm afraid I don't need it anymore.

However... in the future they may invent something else I need a charger for and then I'm really ready!

My cousin, Arnold used to say, "Happy wife, happy life."

Art should be happy now.

My New Charging Station

I've been using this folding table to hold our water and nuts to snack on for quite a few years. However, I've been looking to replace it with a more stable table that I could also use for charging our electronics unobtrusively.

A flyer from Bed, Bath and Beyond had a bamboo bathroom table that caught my eye.

I liked the fact that it said it had venting slats to keep air flowing. That would keep the chargers cooler if I put it in the top drawer.

The table in the flyer said it was $99.99.

I looked it up on the Bed, Bath and Beyond website and it said the table was $79.99.

I also got online coupons for 20% off as well as in store coupons for 20%. I called ahead to make sure it would be OK to get the online price and use the in store coupon.

 Once we got to the store though, the sales associate said I could either use the online price or the 20% off coupon, but not both. I asked if it would be better to just order it on line because shipping is free on orders over $49. She called the manager.  The manager said we could use both the online price and the coupon, but told me that things cost more here in Hawaii because of shipping.

I asked if I should just order it on line and have it shipped to our house. He said it's frustrating for him, but we could just have it since we were already there.

Sigh... I felt rather bad about that. When I've asked about on line prices at Macy's and Target, they did not act as though it was a problem and cheerfully just gave me the online price.

I guess in the future, if there's this kind of discrepancy in prices and there's free shipping, I'll just have it shipped to the house.

OK... I felt bad for a while.

Then we went home and we assembled the table in a very short time. It is just small enough for the space I had.

It's very sturdy and I like how it hides most of the chargers and wires.

OK... I'm happy again.

Not 100% Yet...

I got sick when I went to the mainland last fall. I recovered from the October cold in Chicago and then caught another one in Pennsylvania just before returning to Hawaii. I returned on November 3rd. November 3rd!!! How long ago was that? Good grief! It took me over a week back in Hawaii to be totally out of bed and moving around.

Unfortunately, the symptoms would not go away.

I went to see my nurse practitioner in December and she prescribed Claritin because I had/have this horrible post nasal drip type thing that has me clearing my throat constantly with bouts of coughing.

It's terribly annoying and the Claritin did not work.

Kathy then switched me to Allegra.

Nope.

I'm still clearing my throat constantly with the occasional cough.

Although I  was exhausted all of November and most of December, I'm now back to Zumba and feeling like my energy level is getting back to normal.

I talked to my Zumba friends and several have told me they also have that post nasal drip problem, but nothing like my throat clearing symptoms.

However, Kathy says my throat is not red and my lungs are clear.

Art signed us up for the Great Aloha Run (Walk) on February 15th. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be 100% by then.

Archiving Photos for your Family

Red of Hiawatha House in Canada wrote about scanning old photos for archival purposes and it reminded me of a post I wrote in 2011 when I was working on writing about my mother's family's story. My techie savvy brother showed me how I can embed information about important photos with each image.

If you have Windows you can right click on your photo and open the menu, then click on Properties. After Properties, click on Details. From Details you can write information about your photo by clicking on Comments.

I've found this very helpful in recalling why I took a certain photo.

I'm sure you can do this on the Apple photos, but I haven't learned how. I really need to take that Apple class.

POSTSCRIPT:

 I forgot to mention that if you have your photo viewer set up with a Details pane on the side of your viewer, you can see where you're able to add information just by selecting your photo and then adding the info on the side bar.

Awesome Ko'Olina Sky

I've been completely engrossed working on my granddaughter's 10 year photo album and found this photo I thought I'd share with you.

We'd gone to Ko'Olina Beach and there was a strong breeze. When we looked up we saw that the clouds had been blown into these wispy, feathery streaks.

I've never seen skies like this in Hawaii since then.

Great App for Nature Lovers

Whenever we're on a trip, we often find flowers that we can't identify. We'll buy books on the flora of the area at tourists stops, but often times the flower we found is not listed. Now Art has discovered this app called Like That Garden.

He tested it out and was excited to find it really does work.

This is the photo he took of the flower in our garden and it identified it correctly as an ilima.

Now he's eager to go on a trip to check out other flowers with this app.

Informal Life in Hawaii

Ever since we moved to Hawaii in 2008, we've been slowly adjusting to the Hawaiian lifestyle. When we first had a family dinner party I put out our pretty Mikasa plates on placemats with cloth napkins, fork, spoon and knife. Nowadays, it's mostly disposables if we have more than 8 people. And placemats? Forget about it! Never mind cloth napkins ever.

Our wardrobe? Shorts and t-shirts. When we go to a funeral, Art wears a subdued aloha shirt. When we go to a wedding, Art wears a more colorful aloha shirt. The rest of the time, he wears a t-shirt from his HUGE collection. I wear shorts or capris with tank tops or short sleeve blouses.

Here in Hawaii I might dash off without makeup and wearing just shorts, t-shirt and sandals. On the mainland, I'm careful to put on a little makeup and nicer clothes. The main reason is probably because I might run into my former students or their parents.

Here in Hawaii, I will often talk to anybody in line at the bank or grocery store. I'm a bit more circumspect on the mainland.

And yet, I loved my life in Illinois and still do when I visit. I also love my life in Hawaii. It's all good, in different ways.

Updating, Updating, Updating!

Well...
It happened again.
My computer updated itself.

And suddenly my scanner icon was gone from my desktop. My photos viewer had changed. What else?  Arrrghhh...

I have Windows 10.

On the other hand, the viewer had been weird when I returned from Chicago in November. My brother said it was probably a glitch in Windows 10. I thought it was my monitor.

Nope, with the upgrade, everything became clear again.

Then I saw this Pickles cartoon and thought that's exactly how I feel when things get upgraded and I don't know what's going on.

I just reloaded the driver DVD for the scanner and the icron appeared again.

Ah well... Figuring it all out keeps my brain moving, and that can only be good.

Since We Didn't Win the Powerball

OK, so we didn't win the Powerball.

We're back to looking for good deals.

We were at Wendy's on Tuesday. We like Wendy's Asian Cashew Chicken Salad and the free senior drink. I used to have a Frosty tag (they sold out of 2016's tags) so that I could get a small Frosty free all year.

Well, we were in such a long line at Wendy's that we gave up and decided to go across the street to McDonalds because the Wendy's restaurant was completely full with no place to sit. Amazing!

At McDonald's, I didn't know what to order and then saw this menu on the counter .

$2 for two of either a McChicken, McDouble, French Fries, or Mozzarella Sticks.

Art has needed to gain weight so he ordered the McChicken and McDouble. I ordered the McChicken and fries. I know. I know I shouldn't have fries. Sigh...

Anyway...

Senior drinks are not free like they are at Wendy's, but it was still just 85 cents.

Our total bill was $5.97.

Unfortunately...

It didn't taste very good. The chicken sandwiches were pretty tasteless. Art's McDouble was just OK. The fries were soggy and tasted stale.

The other surprising thing was that McDonalds restaurant was very empty. I have a feeling they need to add some healthier fare to their menu so they can entice some customers away from Wendy's. Maybe they should have a Soft Serve tag. Maybe they should offer free senior drinks. Maybe they should offer better salads.

I wonder when Wendy's will get their next shipment of 2016 Frosty tags...

Exercising With Friends Again

Whenever the kids are out of school, the recreational building where we have our zumba classes is used for day care.

I missed about three weeks of Zumba and it does make a difference. I went to Zumba last Friday and was really exhausted. We all were. After class a group of us went out for lunch together.

Being together again was such an awesome feeling. We caught up on each others' lives and shared a lot of laughter and helpful hints. One very valuable hint (for Hawaii people) I learned was that tickets at Consolidated Theaters is $6 all day on Tuesdays.

I just got this from the Consolidated website:

MAHALO TUESDAY

Mahalo Tuesday is our way of saying thank you to our loyal customers in Consolidated Theatres' EXTRAS Rewards Program. Every Tuesday, EXTRAS members receive special discounts ($6 Movies, $10 TITAN XC Movies, $2 Hot Dogs, and $2 Popcorn) when they present their EXTRAS card at the box office and concession stand at Ward, Pearlridge, Koko Marina, and Koʻolau theatres. Mahalo Tuesday special ticket prices are only available at the box office of participating theatre locations on Tuesdays.

Don't have an EXTRAS card? Sign up at the box office and register your card online to start earning points every time you go to the movies. Find out more about Consolidated Theatres' loyalty program at www.CinemaExtras.com.

 I'm now back to my regular 3 times a week schedule at Zumba and find my energy level returning. I need to get up to speed because... sigh... Art has signed us up for the Great Aloha Run (Walk) again.

What If?

Last week, Art's friend, Morris told him about the Powerball. We hadn't been paying attention. Apparently the Powerball lottery had gone up to a gazillion million dollars. Morris had his son buy him some tickets. We laughed about it because we knew that you were more likely to be hit by lightning than to win the Powerball.

Still....
What if...
So we asked our son-in-law to buy us a ticket in Illinois.
He did.
He texted us a couple of days later to say we might have won the prize for not getting ANY of the numbers correct.

Ah well...

This reminded me of when our gym teacher at school started up a lottery pool. All the teachers put in $5.00 to get as many chances as they could. I didn't. I knew the chances were too slim. One of the people Art worked with in Chicago won 30 million dollars or whatever. Would you believe her office friends collected money from everyone to throw a congratulatory party for her? She attended the party and was never heard from again.

Anyway, I figured lightning wouldn't strike so close twice. How could we win if we already knew someone else who did?

Then I had this dream that the school lottery pool won and I was the only teacher that showed up for work the next morning.

I put in my $5.00. Nope, all the teachers (and principal) showed up for school the next day.

OK... so nobody won last week's gazillion million Powerball and now it's up to 1.5 billion. Puhleeze...

Oh what the heck! I asked my son-in-law to buy us another ticket. Just one.

If there's no post tomorrow I might have won and went into hiding.

Supposedly Illegal

OK, I admit that I find it fun to look out my window on New Year's Eve to watch the fireworks going off all over the island. But they are ILLEGAL... for good reason.

They worry me. Someone's house burned down from illegal aerial fireworks. I've also seen those luminaries that are really dangerous. They have a little flame in it that heats the air which causes the paper bag to float in the sky. I saw over a dozen of those go floating into the sky over residential homes in our area. There's also some really obnoxious people who set off concussion bombs which really scare me. It makes the house shake and car alarms go off. I really feel for the poor pets on the island.

My friend, Ron forwarded this photo to me recently. I also saw it on the local nightly news.

Notice all the illegal aerial fireworks? Well we had just as many on our side of the island from about 8:00 PM until almost 1:00 AM.

The police don't really do anything about it. On the other hand they've really been ticketing people who text while driving ($295!!!), not coming to a complete stop at an intersection, speeding, etc.

Well... perhaps in the grand scheme of things, I'm glad the police are concentrating on our traffic problem in Hawaii. I just wish they'd also put a damper on some of those dangerous and aggravating fireworks too.

Year End Accident

2015 ended with another dent to our holiday cheer... literally.

We were out shopping and looking for a parking space. Someone in front of us was reversing out of his space so I told Art to stop and let him out. While we waited, I noticed the car on the right of us was also reversing out. Art honked his horn frantically to signal him that we were right behind. Art couldn't back up because someone was also behind us.

So there we were sandwiched between two cars with a third backing up slowly toward us. I thought he would stop. I considered jumping out of our car to stop him, but didn't think I could do it fast enough. Besides, I thought he would stop with all the honking. Everybody else in the parking lot heard our honking.

Nope, the car backed right into us. We all got out to look at the damage. The poor fellow who hit us was terribly shaken and showed us his driver's license as well as his insurance card.

Art and I were unhappy about our car and the accident, but we felt even worse that we'd unfortunately ruined that poor fellow's holiday by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Our car is in the shop to be fixed now and the fellow is paying for it all.

In all the time we were in Illinois nobody has ever hit us when Art was driving. (Me? That's another story.) However, since we've been in Hawaii these past 8 years we've been hit three times, all more or less minor, but disfiguring to our poor car.

Art wondered for a while if we should be trading in our car for a newer model. We decided against it so we wouldn't feel bad when we got the next scrape, bang, bump or dent.

Sigh...

Star Wars and Then a Surprise!

Thank you very much for all your happy anniversary messages, everyone. It truly touched both myself and Art.

It was a very nice day after all.

Art and I rarely go to the movies, but we decided to see Star Wars, The Force Awakens on our anniversary. We were going to take mom with us, but she declined saying that she'd heard it would be too difficult for her to follow.

Art really loved it. I found it enjoyable, but not earthshaking like the first one was. The movie really took us back to the the beginning of the series which is good although I frankly loved those little Ewoks. Harrison Ford was excellent and it sure was fun seeing him as Han Solo. The new young actors did a good job and I liked seeing R2D2, C3P0 and Chewbacca again. Art and I both missed seeing someone like Yoda or Obi Wan Kenobi. The Force seems to be more a power now and is missing the mystical, philosophical side... the Zen part. Ah well...

When we got home we found a package waiting for us.

My sister-in-law, Nancy and brother had sent us this gorgeous fruit bouquet to celebrate our anniversary.

Yes, we only had left-overs for dinner, but the fruit basket certainly made our meal special.

And will we go and see the next installment of Star Wars?

Oh yes, I do think we will.

I want to see what happens to Luke Skywalker.

Nephew #3: Cody

I have only three nephews. When you have just one sibling, that would pretty much limit the number of nephews or nieces you might have. My brother and sister-in-law have three wonderful sons. Each are as different as the colors of the rainbow. And yet they are remarkably close despite their different interests, talents and personality.

The youngest is Cody. He's a lot of fun.

He and his older brother, Barry came to visit us in Illinois in 1999 and we took them for a whirlwind tour of the East coast and Canada.

We did end up in the Emergency Room in Boston with him, but that's another story. He's fun, but he was also known to have a few accidents while having fun.

We learned then that Cody doesn't like mayonnaise so we had to make sure none of his sandwiches had mayo on them. We joked with him about it but, of course he's right. Mayo isn't good for you.

Notice how he's shorter than me?

He's now well over 6 feet tall with bulging biceps and at least a foot taller than me.

He loves working on cars. I've hinted that we could sure use a mechanic in the family, but it looks like he's more inclined to be a paramedic. Then again we could sure use a paramedic too.

He's still awfully cute, isn't he?

And he still doesn't like mayonnaise, but we don't kid him about it anymore.

43 Years and Counting!

It's hard to believe that 43 years have gone by since we were married. I thought it was amazing when we reached the 10th anniversary milestone and here we are moving toward the 50th.

It hasn't always been easy. Life gave us times of joy, times of sorrow and times of stress. We tried our best to weather the difficult times as best as we could and savor the good.

We don't celebrate our anniversaries in any truly special way. Sometimes we'll go out to dinner. This year we'll be eating left overs.

We're going to try to take mom to see Star Wars in the afternoon. (Senior rate)

I guess today will be a day like many of the others, but I'm thinking it will be one that is going to be fun.

How to Name Your Photos

Now that I'm working on my grandchildren's photobooks, I'm seeing again what a mistake I'd made when I was first saving my photos some 16 years ago.

I started out naming my photo files with the month-day-year, i.e.
April.3.1998
Jan.2.1996
July.4.1997

I did this for a couple of years before figuring out it was not a good idea. In fact, it's a really bad idea because then you'll have your photos organized in alphabetical order starting with April and ending in November.

So then I fixed it with a numbering system, i.e.
01-15-2006
02-13-2008

Now I wouldn't have the alphabetical order problem, but there was still the problem of the year. Everything was being ordered by the month and it was still not organized unless I put them in separate folders by YEAR which is what I did.

Then I moved to Hawaii. My brother saw what I was doing and said I should do what they do at the police department. Sigh...

You should put the YEAR-MONTH-DAY, i.e.
2015-01-13
2015-04-16

And so on and so forth. It's also good to add a little clue to what the photo is about when you name your photo.

I wish, I wish, I wish I'd done this when I started taking digital photos some 16 years ago! Ah well... better late than never.

Starting the New Year With Relief

On the last day of 2015, Art got up around 2:00 AM with nausea, diarrhea and vomiting. Incredibly, I slept through it all not knowing the agony he was going through.

He spent all day of New Year's Eve on the reclining chair sleeping and having more stomach cleansing episodes. It was not good. He couldn't hold down very much liquids despite my coaxing with Nuun to replace electrolytes, ginger ale and water. He had half an apple that I put through the blender for lunch and maybe a half cup of noodles for dinner.

Mom was frantic for her favorite son-in-law. OK, so he's her only son-in-law, but that only makes him that much more special to her.

I was freaking out with text messages to the kids who offered their opinions. They sent photos of the grandkids to cheer us up. Art doesn't usually get sick so this was scary.

Fever erupted in the evening. I gave him Tylenol and brought up ice water for cold compresses. Water in Hawaii is too warm to do much good to bring down a fever.

Fireworks from 7:00 PM to 1:00 AM only woke him for about 10 minutes. I took a couple of photos and they really don't show just how much fireworks everybody set off. Obviously the economy must be doing well for so many people to afford such extravagant fireworks in Hawaii. In fact, a lot of these are quite illegal.

Miraculously, on New Year's Day, Art woke up saying he felt a whole lot better and was even hungry at last. The fever was gone and he said he was quite capable to do his Meals on Wheels run.

We're still going to take it easy and we'll be gentle with his tummy. Some traditional mild mochi for lunch should be safe.

And so we're starting off 2016 cautiously, but happily.

And relieved.

Happy New Year!

I have just tripped into the New Year with a couple of projects that is taking up so much of my time that many things have fallen by the wayside including my blogging. We did clean and organize the house in preparation for the new year though. That custom is ingrained in us.

The first project was to create a First Year photo book for my new grandson. Then I realized that my granddaughter would be turning 10 years of age in 2016. My daughter loved the idea I proposed to make KC a 10 Year photo book.

You can just imagine how many photos I have of KC in the past 10 years. I'm on 2010 now and the task I set out for myself is rather daunting. I never erased any photos. For every photo I want to include in the book, I've got 50-100 to look through. It's exhausting! I'll also be including a lot of thought and speech bubbles which KC loves.

I have a warning for all avid photographers. Erase your bad photos that you know you won't use in the future. They only take up space on your computer and then you have to sift through a million to find the one you want. Sigh.

And yet... for all the work, I'm imagining that both KC as well as my new grandson will love these books.

That does make me happy.

And I am wishing you all a very Happy New Year also!