I was cleaning out closet and saw some of my summer hats, three which I’ve not worn for ages, just gathering dust on the top shelf. I got them down and decided I’d wear one to church tomorrow if it’s not raining! Everyone, especially fair skinned red heads like me, need to keep out of the sun’s harmful rays! So why not wear these hats this summer. I have yellow and turquoise colored ones just like the brown one below….plus a lot of others resting safely in some rather ancient round cardboard hatboxes! Those boxes are as old a my children who qualify for AARP membership. I’ve always loved hats….especially big brim picture hats. My Grandma Bessie’s used to let me try on all her hats when she was redecorating them with colorful silk flowers she’d purchased to get them ready and looking like new for the for the spring and summer….she would have made a good milliner. Below are some of the favorite big brim hats I’ve worn. 

Deep pink or light red ones                  Columbine without the usual spurs                A deep lavender color

Photos of my columbine since daughter Val asked about them…..lots more than these in all shades of lavender and red etc.

I googled my address and found the MLS (multiple listing thingy) had wrong information about my home’s square footage. They had the total much less than it is….just the main floor! Since so many search real estate online to find appropriate homes, I complained about it and put a little pressure on the real estate agent I’m working with. She assured me corrections would be made and later the same day called me about having another “Open House”, so another is being scheduled for this coming Sunday…. opportunistic timing since the condo across the street from me is having one the same afternoon. My agent knows my agreement with her will run out in late June and I’ve told her I may take it off the market, try to sell it myself or sign with another real estate company. My cousin, a very successful retired realtor will be visiting me this month and I’ll ask her what she recommends doing in my case. I’ve come down in price already and don’t want to or can’t afford to come down very much more. I’ll be spending the week cleaning good and getting some flowers for the front steps and maybe some for the upstairs deck too.

If I were like my daughter, Murisopsis (aka “Val”), I’d write a poem about this. However, I’m too tired and too old. My dad and my maternal grandmother wrote many poems during their lives. I think Val got those “poet genes” but it seems they skipped my generation…I wrote a few but it was difficult for me! I wonder if it IS maybe a genetic thing. Well, Val did get my red hair genes and shape of my hands.

I took some more photos for the realtor’s online Multiple Listing website. The Remax realtor has been only so-so about these things and I had requested better photos for the online viewing. Many people DO check out the listings online before they go house hunting, but my particular agent isn’t all that tech savvy or else she is just more interested in selling houses priced in the $500,000 and up range. Here are some photos I’m sending to the company’s employee who is in charge of the online virtual tours of homes on the market.

I have “uncluttered” my rooms so much, I’m having problems in finding stuff. Friend Elaine came over to drive us out for dinner a couple of weeks ago and asked me where husband Leonard was (she meant the container with his ashes). I had to think hard. I’d moved the ashes and a nice small olive wood carved statue of Jesus the Good Shepherd from their usual places on an end table…it took a couple of seconds to  remember but then said before thinking how it would sound, “Oh, he’s in the hall closet with Jesus.” Elaine burst out laughing and came back with, “Well, good! Maybe they can talk to one another in there.” We’ve both lost our husbands but not our sense of humor, thank goodness!

My front yard looks really nice this spring with all flowers coming up and the tree and lilacs blooming.  I’ll add some photos of the kitchen, bedroom, office, family room and other bathrooms…but this is a start. If the agent with whom I signed doesn’t do anything, I’ll get someone else at the end of June. I’d really like to relocate during nice weather if possible….and have the girls take the furniture they’d like of the pieces I won’t be keeping. In the meantime, I’m keeping fit by exercising 3 or more times a week at the cardiac rehab center….for selling one’s home and moving is darn hard work! 

Daughter Val’s blog reminded me of the research I did a some years ago on the types of feet….all kinds of names for the various styles of feet we humans have been given. The Greek type supposedly is the least common with only 1/6 of people having the 2nd toe the longest. I’ve heard the straight across even length toes on a foot described as a Celtic foot or toes. My 2nd toe, the stay at home piggy, is longer than the piggy that went to market, so according to the above diagram, I have Greek style feet…like the Statue of Liberty and the statue of David by Michelangelo. 

And here is some information I found on the internet on the subject:

Val and “Sparky” arrived safely this evening. Knowing how much I love rocks, she gave me special one to wear…a Unakite necklace for my birthday. She found it in Arizona during their recent vacation out west. Now, according to this special stone’s history, I will be protected and my life enhanced in many ways by its special powers. It’s very pretty and the powerful protection is a plus!

While Val is here, she is going to make some of that delicious looking pumpkin soup sometime before going back home; but both of them will have to help me eat the big pan of lasagna prepared earlier today. I had forgotten how much harder lasagna is to prepare than just spaghetti and meat sauce, but it turned out well. I also made some “brookies” from a recipe a friend posted on Facebook. They are yummy and very fattening I fear….but okay to eat once in awhile like a special occasion when a daughter visits! It’s a wedding of brownies and chocolate chip cookies….for my version anyway. I added some chopped walnuts to half of them since walnuts are supposed to be healthy, and I needed to rationalize a reason for making them. Chocolate and walnuts both are health foods after all…well that was my sort of logical reasoning.

Here is a photo of the “brookies” which were LOTS easier and quicker to make than that lasagna. This batch had the walnuts in them. Yummy stuff indeed.

My 81st birthday is almost over. The morning was spent at church since the choir sang at both the early and second services; and there was the annual Easter breakfast in between services. Later on I stopped at First Wok for one of the $4.19 luncheon specials (mushroom chicken a little on the spicy side) and for 69 cents more had the hot sour soup. I think it’s the best in town. I made my own hot sour soup ONCE, and once was enough…never again!!! Then spent the afternoon watching the “Watchathon” free “On Demand” special running this week. I chose to watch the first year series of “Downton Abbey”. Wondering how they’ll handle the story now that Matthew Crawley was killed off???

Here’s the picture my friend took in my kitchen Saturday before we went out to lunch to celebrate our March birthdays. Daughter Andrea had sent me the flowers….for Easter and my birthday too. All in all, I had a nice birthday even though the family couldn’t be with me. And another gift was the lovely sunny weather Saturday and again Sunday afternoon. My miniature daffodils are coming up and some have little blooms already.

We received around ten inches of heavy snow…great for making snowmen or, maybe since it’s almost Easter, a big white bunny rabbit. It’s really a marshmallow world although my deck umbrella table looks more like a powdered sugar covered doughnut! I would like to see some signs of spring before my Easter Sunday birthday. That would be a very welcome nice gift! Alas and alack, it is still snowing this evening.