Category Archives: General Thoughts

General thoughts and random ramblings

If We Were Having Coffee on the 4th of February, 2023 #weekendcoffeeshare

Hello and Welcome! Come on in. Quick – it’s cold out there! Here, I will warm you up with a large mug of a super strong dark roast, a cuppa tea, some hot cocoa or other beverage, as long as it is piping hot! It might be a little warmer now than when I got up this morning. With windchill it was down below -40 last night. Those in the know understand that -40 can be either F or C ;). Anyway, real temperature was at -15 F/ -26 C all night, but the wind was very, very strong. Oh, where are we that is so cold? If you didn’t guess by the cold temps (the entire east coast is cold!) and didn’t recognize the photo at the top, we are in New Hampshire.

Work was ultra-busy this week. At least the week is over!

The dogs were very demanding on walk time all week. Even Idina wanted to be out all of the time. So after work, yep, several walks. I think they like cool weather much better than warm when it comes to walking. They are both more full of energy and want to be out longer, walk farther and even go faster (when they aren’t going at a snail’s pace to sniff…)

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If We Were Having Coffee on the 28th of January, 2023 #weekendcoffeeshare

Hello and Welcome! Come on in and I’ll get you a large mug of super strong Dark Roast, a cuppa tea, some hot cocoa or other beverage. It will be a nice day out there, at least relatively speaking. The ground has a deep snow blanket that is getting a bit crunch on the surface and the thawing/freezing snow is causing ice patches, but still, a beautiful day is a beautiful day. Oh, where are we? Some of you may recognize the photo at the top as being from New Hampshire.

I didn’t post last weekend because i was in Ohio visiting family. My dad turns 90 at the end of the month so we had a surprise birthday party. Pretty much everyone (minus two spouses) was able to make it.

That is my father in the photo above. Here is my mom – the photo that got more likes on FaceBook than any other five combined ;)

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If We Were Having Coffee on the 14th of January, 2023 #weekendcoffeeshare

Hello and Welcome! Come on in where it is dry. I don’t think it is still raining, but it is misting and still very wet. It poured all day yesterday and was damp and cold on Thursday (at least Friday was warmish!). Oh, where are we? Some of you may recognize the photo at the top as being from Cape Cod.

I drove down the The Cape Wednesday after dinner. Tiberius, the little stinker, hid when I was getting ready – he loves it here, but hates the drive. Or,should I say, he hates the cat taxi – he does not want to be confined. It is just me and Alexander, and Alexander has been tied to me the entire time. If he wakes up and I’m not there, he meows until I call him. Most of the time he is in my lap. He sleeps on top of me all night. I am not sure if he is enjoying one-on-one time with Daddy or if he is out of sorts that Tiberius isn’t here. Anyway, I did post a good photo of Alexander last week (along with Grace), so here is Tiberius (caption – we got a new Christmas ornament but it seems to knock the others out of the tree).

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If We Were Having Coffee on the 7th of January, 2023 #weekendcoffeeshare

Hello and Welcome! Come on in and I’ll get you a large mug of strong dark roast, a cuppa tea or some hot cocoa. It is pretty cold out, but not frigid. We had a little wet, sloppy snow yesterday, so it is all frozen this morning. It will warm up a little during the day, so hopefully snow and ice removal will be easier. Oh, where are we? Some of you may recognize the photo at the top as being from New Hampshire (NH).

I returned to NH from Cape Cod Sunday morning. The week started off great with runs and exercise, but went down hill – it was just so super busy and the weather was awful. So.. Well, today I will pick it back up again.

Work was, well, it was trying to cram four weeks of people having vacations into one week. Ugh. Enough said.

I played with my camera a little, taking mostly indoor photos with a lens I do not use enough. Here is Grace:

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If We Were Having Coffee on the 31st of December, 2022 #weekendcoffeeshare

Hello and Welcome! Come on in and I’ll get you a large mug of strong dark roast, a cuppa tea, some hot cocoa or other beverage. It is a little damp out right now, but currently not raining. It is also relatively warm. After the frigid start to the week it is nice for it to warm up, though now it is above average and will stay warmer for a while. I’m not complaining… Oh, where are we? Some of you may recognize the photo at the top as being from Cape Cod.

First, I took the week off. I drove down here Monday afternoon, so have been here most of the week. I’ll drive back before work starts again – I did not bring my work laptop down here…

I did get into my exercise routine a little more this week, which was good. Last week was the worst for many reasons, including the animals did not like me doing it. I was able to run on Tuesday and Thursday and added a couple of miles (over 3 km) actually on the beach (sand) and not just beach access. The first time the access road was closed and people waved me off. I discovered the sand was hard enough to run, so I decided to do it again on Thursday.

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If We Were Having Coffee on the 24th of December, 2022 #weekendcoffeeshare

Hello and Welcome! Come in quickly! It is cold and windy out there. We are at 6F/-14 C now, but I think we got pretty close to 0F/-18C. It is windy, but not terribly so. Enough that you want to stay in wind shadows! Brrrr. It was 55F/13C yesterday afternoon, and then, with a wind like I haven’t seen – I opened the door to prove to the dogs nobody was out there and closed it, me being afraid – it sounded like every tree in the woods were falling. I used a flashlight to look, and it looked like every tree was about to be ripped up… It didn’t last long, but the cold followed behind. Oh, where are we? Some of you may recognize the picture at the top as being from New Hampshire.

The storm wasn’t as bad here as some places. We are cold, but not in the extremes – 0 F in New Hampshire is winter. The rain yesterday was awful and there was a lot of flooding in our state, but we didn’t have the snow fall some places got. We lost power twice – once for less than a minute and once for less than an hour. I played piano by candle light during the longer outage 🙂. Fiyero sat beside me.

Oh, thinking of Fiyero and the piano, if you didn’t see my Thursday post, I always play piano for the dogs when I feed them (they expect it now!) and on Thursday I came up with a new arrangement for Greensleeves. I will put the video at the bottom – Don’t worry, I don’t sing!! lol Yes, I did three recordings in a week, including writing a song and doing this arrangement (you can see the Thursday’s post for the third).

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If We Were Having Coffee on the 17th of December, 2022 #weekendcoffeeshare

Hello and Welcome! Come on in and I’ll get you large mug of super strong dark roast, a piping cuppa tea or a steaming mug of hot cocoa. It isn’t super cold out there, but it is snowy and wet. Oh, where are we? Some of you may recognize the photo at the top as coming from New Hampshire.

OK, I will start off with the weather. It decided it was gong to be winter this week. A bit of snow, perhaps an inch/2 cm, greeted us on Monday morning. Some of it stuck around all week, which means it was cold. And then yesterday, Friday, the system that took the nation by storm moved through. It had become a coastal storm, the low following the coast from south to north. We were close to the line of rain/snow. In the morning it was beautiful because there was a coating over everything and the trees were all covered. As it went back and forth between rain and snow, some of that beauty went away. I did shovel the major portion of snow when the heaviest part was by, but then there would be a band dumping more. It didn’t accumulate where snow existed, but covered where i had shoveled. So I went out before going to bed. Of course there is a cm/1/2 inch over car and drive. Because of how my driveway is, I have to get it off – we have a little micro climate and it will freeze and not thaw until April. I’m serious. Anyway, it is going to be another cold week.

It was a work week and it seems like everyone wanted to finish everything before people took time off for the holidays. I had back to back meetings every day all week.

I didn’t run. It is too dark by the time I get out of work, it was cold and I really didn’t feel great. I did exercise some, but not as much as usual. The dogs returned home Thursday night, so I did a few dog walks in the snow yesterday. I also did a few walks on my own. I had massage on Wednesday. Mostly it – I think I was seasonally down all week.

Oh, one thing, I did write and record a dark Christmas song on Sunday. (dark, but with hope at the end.) I put the lyrics on after work on Monday. I hate my voice, but… I’ll put the song up at the bottom of the post if you want to hear it. If you want to know more about it, I did a post on Tuesday here.

That is about it. I do have a lot to do today. I need to shovel again before it all freezes and will take some walks. I will also exercise (I hope). A few commitments (Sunday will be busy!).

Thanks for stopping in! I will try to visit all of your coffee shares. I usually do a good job, but can’t promise.

Natalie the Explorer is the host of the weekend coffee share and she is doing a wonderful job. Stop in at this week’s main share page or go to the InLinkz-Linkup to see all of the other shares! (This will be her last share for the year, but I will post the next two weeks)

Video:

(Click here if you don’t see the video below)

If We Were Having Coffee on the 10th of December, 2022 #weekendcoffeeshare

Hello and Welcome! Come on in and I’ll get you a large mug of super strong dark roast, a cuppa tea or hot cocoa. Just word – many years ago I used to offer a French Roast but in the last few it has been a Dark Roast. Just so you know, I mix two parts French Roast, two parts Sumatra and one part a Medium Roast, usually something from one of the Caribbean Islands, South America or Central America (Jamaica, Brazil, Costa Rica, etc.). Anyway, right now it is cool (not cold since it is above freezing) and a little grey and damp, though it won’t rain today. And where are we? Some of you may recognize the photo at the top as being from Cape Cod.

I drove down the “The Cape” Tuesday night. I did have to work all week and it was a very busy week. It poured rain all day Wednesday – a low spot on the road to one of the two landings still has ankle deep water across it! Yes, three days later! Thursday was better and I was able to do a few short walks during breaks and ran after work. I did my typical run that uses the access roads to the beach for a good portion of it. It was almost dark by the time I got home… I went to that same beach and took a long walk after work on Friday (yesterday). The sun was setting as I walked and again I got home when it was getting dark. Here is a photo from that walk:

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If We Were Having Coffee on the 3rd of December, 2022 #weekendcoffeeshare

Hello and Welcome! Come on in and I’ll get you a nice mug of super strong dark roast, a cuppa tea or some hot cocoa. It is a little damp out there and will rain most of the day, but relatively warm (it will be around 55 f/13 C most of the day). It was an odd week weatherwise. We had a few days that felt super cold even though it wasn’t as cold as a few weeks ago (wind, moisture in the air, etc.). And then there were a couple of nicer days – yesterday was cool but felt warm because of the sun and no wind. Oh, where are we? Some of you may recognize the photo at the top as coming from New Hampshire.

I was back to a normal work week. It wasn’t terrible, but it was busy.

I played around with music a little more this week than I have for a couple of months, which is good – I need to get back into it! I did a little blog writing, but nothing outside of it, which may be why I needed to play more music.

Despite rain and cold, I did a lot of walking this week, mostly with dogs. I had massage. I did a little exercise, though had trouble completing my routine (both dogs and cats didn’t let me!), I ran a couple of times, and pretty much had a normal late November/early December week.

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