Friday, March 14th, 2025
Friday Five
TGIF!! It sure feels to me like Fridays arrive faster and faster each week! Okay, let’s get right into sharing five random things about our week:
- My website, or rather, the hosting site had some maintenance this week which made trying to post and answer on Wednesday a bit challenging. I’m impressed anyone was able to comment!
- Lots of rain this week, which we need. The sunny times between the rains with piercing blue sky and cloudscapes has been truly stunning. Maggie and I enjoyed a few walks when we got the chance. I try so hard to appreciate those small moments of joy these days.
- Speaking of joy — we babysat Baby Girl yesterday and she was fun! It poured rain and high winds all night before that, and some rain on the way there, so we left early. Turned out to be not too bad a drive. And our drive home was decent too — we got lucky! But the best part of all, is Baby Girl and her smiles — she played with us for three hours. I tried to put her down for a nap once when she was rubbing her eyes from fatigue and fell asleep, but her eyes popped open, she grinned and started chatting away. So we got her back up, played for another hour, gave her a bottle and she was out. She’s gonna be mad when she wakes up and we’re not there to keep playing. This is another moment in time we’re trying to cherish! We love her as much as Turbo, and it’s fun to see how similar and yet very different they are!
- By the way, Baby Girl is six months old now, here’s her six month photo that her mom took.
- The plan this weekend is to go to Turbo’s game on Saturday. He’s turning seven on Monday! He’s having a kid party, but we’re holding off a family celebration until after tax season. We’ll figure it out — lots of moving parts going on in our family these days, LOL. All good, just busy people trying to coordinate schedules. It’s Baby Girl’s mom’s birthday on Sunday, but they have a their fundraising camping trip (for childhood brain cancer) over the next week and that requires a lot of work so we’re going to celebrate after that.
That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours. I hope everyone has a fun, safe and if desired, productive weekend!
March 14th, 2025 at 8:30 am · Link
I was late posting on Wednesday but didn’t notice any problems, other than I was late.
I hope the rain spreads out and comes gentle. Y’all need it but not all at once. Yay for walks and pretty skies in between. What an absolute doll! She is sooooo cute and what a sweet time to spends with her. She has the family “look.” 
Yay for baseball and birthdays. How did I not correlate that Turbo was born on St. Patrick’s Day? And Happy Birthday to BG’s mom! My five:
1. So…I’m getting active on X again. And I’ve been playing around with Grok, the AI engine that comes with the platform. I’ve used it to create some graphics, and I’ve asked the occasional informational question. AI can suck you in, like you’re talking to a real person. I was ending the “conversation” on the question and it asked if it could help with anything else. I mentioned I was going to reseach Rochester as a possible setting. Grok asked about my book. I explained a little. FORTY-FIVE minutes later, I have locations and ideas for some plot elements. I know what neighborhoods to look at. I’ve got a huge festival to incorporate. And Grok brought up LEY LINES! *muppet flail* I sat there drinking coffee and carrying on a conversation with AI like it was my writing buddy and we were brainstorming. I lieterally copied and pasted the entire convo into my Scrivener notes. Mind officially blown. 🤯
2. Our weather has been gorgeous. Warm days, blue skies, chilly nights but not enough I needed to turn the heat back on. It’s been wonderful to save on utilities. Today is warm but we’ve got wind and fire warnings out. Blerg.
3. I made the mistake of adding a packet of Swiss Miss hot chocolate to my coffee. Now I’m hooked.
4. I’m still discombobulated from the whole time switch thing. I really need to get organized. I need to start writing and I’ve also got a side project–beta reading for a friend. That means less time on the computer putzing around. (ie. X
)
5. Mandatory Pete story of the week. T-shirt cat is apparently “stuck” in his “Security Cat” vest. He’s shown up every morning this week wearing it. He “pounces” as soon as I come out the door to feed and rubs up hard against my legs, like he’s trying to rub off the vest. I am NOT about to take it off for reasons–like not my cat and I don’t want to lose a hand to teeth and claws. So, the 1st couple of times, Pete ignored me when I came in. Today? He sniffed, he sneezed, and then he almost knocked me over in his vigorous rubs, laying his scent on top of the other cat’s. Or rubbing off T’s scent. Whatever. The funny part is that once he was satisfied, he immediately flopped and started rubbing his fur against the throw rug and then he gave himself a bath.
Cats. 🐈
Tomorrow is a soccer game. There’s TV baseball and softball. There’s writing and reading. Good times ahead! Have a great one, all!
March 14th, 2025 at 2:25 pm · Link
1. Sorry about your host site difficulties. It’s good to have it worked out 😊.
2. Hurray for rain that was good and not too hard to navigate around. It always scares me when you guys get heavy rain and have to drive. All the traffic to begin with and the added water on the roads can be an issues. Nice to know that you had no problems.
3/4. Baby girl is so precious 💕. Thank you for sharing her photo. What a living doll. Did you and Wizard sleep well after all the baby play time? I bet you did. She’s very active. I’m betting on her being really smart too.
5. Have a wonderful time at Turbo’s game. Happy Birthday to Turbo as well. You’ll have a great time celebrating the birthdays of Turbo and DIL when it fits into the schedules. I love that Baby girl’s parents do so much for childhood brain cancer. They are blessed people.
1a. I got the recall taken care of on my car Wednesday. It took the tech 3 minutes but they had my car for an hour. Go figure.
2a. Last night while making dinner I got a call from the dentist. They had an opening for today (they’ve been short staffed and my cleaning had been pushed out 8 months) for a cleaning. I took it. When I got off the phone hubs was all upset that he didn’t get an appointment. I had to explain to him that he had a cleaning 3 months ago and that this was for me.
3a. It is sunny at 75F. I can’t get over it. Sunday it will be back in the low 40’s but it’s March. I’ll take what I can get.
4a. We’re still waiting on tax forms to come in from stocks and bonds. I hate this waiting. I want to get it done and out of my hair. There should be a law that all reporting must be sent to the citizens by mid Feb.
5a. I planted some barely for Spunk and it was ready today. I gave it to him for a few minutes and he mowed it nicely. I have to go find a place that sells the seeds. I got these through a kit and there were only 20 seeds. Not enough for my boy🥰.
I hope your weekend is fantastic!
March 14th, 2025 at 2:58 pm · Link
Silver, I’m glad you didn’t have any problems with the blog on your end! I probably just caught it during updates. Today it’s not much rain, more intermittent, so that’s helpful. And thank you on Baby Girl! Yep, Turbo was born on St. Paddy’s Day.
1) Wow you really scored! AI is making research a heck of a lot easier! I’ve had some convos with AI (ChatGPT) and found it interesting. I’m happy you got so much out of it!
I remember Bailey Dog doing that to Youngest when he came home to the hospital and he did it for several minutes straight. Bailey was a dog, not a cat, but the principle is the same! And no I wouldn’t take the T-Shirt off either.
2) Ugh on the fire warnings, I hope no fires break out. But yay for some pretty weather and a break on utilities!
3) Umm…there’s no way out now, your coffee will require Swiss Miss every time!!! But if it’s good, it’s a win for you!
4) I hope your system adjusts soon to the time change. And it’s hard when you have competing projects pulling at you, hopefully you can find time to write and to read!
5) I love the cats competing my marking you. Pete is very confident that he owns you
Have fun at Stormy’s game!! Hope you are able to get a chunk of work done and enjoy the baseball and softball games!
March 14th, 2025 at 3:08 pm · Link
Viki, I did get an email letting me know there’d be updates, but it was from Germany so I got the times wrong
I don’t love driving in the rain, but I’m fairly confident to do it. Wizard was driving and he thinks he’s a Nascar Driver so enough said there… And thanks on Baby Girl. Babies are such a joy, and so is watching Turbo turn into a little boy heading quickly toward young man. I can’t believe he’s going to be seven! Yet he’s still happy that we go to his games which is nice.
1) I hate car stuff like that. Glad it’s all done for you for the moment!
2) I’m sorry hubs was confused and you had to explain it. It all sounds simple enough until you’re living it every day, making every task harder.
3) You guys deserve some lovely weather!
4) I don’t know why, but I thought there was a rule that all that had to be mailed by the end of January but that’s probably just for 1099’s and the similar stuff. I’m with you on that! It’s ridiculous to be half way through March and still not have it.
5) It sounds like Spunk loved the barley! I didn’t know cats enjoyed that — I’m always learning!
I hope you have a good weekend!