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April's here...hopefully bringing warmer weather here to stay. This past weekend we were close to 70 degrees, yesterday and today in the 40s and barely feeling like it. It's supposed to be warm again tomorrow but bringing in some nasty weather with it. On a good note...a couple weeks ago hubby won $10,000 on an Ohio lottery scratch-off! No April Fool's joke, he really did!

Ladies and germs... Black Friday has been officially cancelled for 2025, therefore us mods are deleting this site and everyone's account with it. ... wait, what day is it today???

Happy April! And to the original fool, happy birthday (my doggo turns 6 today)! I have been a cleaning, purging fool - it finally feels like our house is under control again. Now I'm ready to go out and plant some stuff but the weather just won't cooperate yet. I bought a tiny greenhouse at Aldi yesterday so that maybe I can get a head start. DS13 and I are also on the hunt for some more baby chicks, so far all of our local farm stores don't have any. I think we are going to try a hatchery, if they'll just sell us a few. DS14 turns 15 this weekend, so I guess he will be practice-driving next week! Stay off the sidewalks!!

Watch out for the fools today! My birthday month has begun (and that's no foolin')! The birthday reward emails have begun rolling in so I am starting to plan which ones I can (and want to) take advantage of. Aside from that, as the weather warms, I am starting to plan out what I intend to plant/try to grow outside this year. Romaine, leaf lettuces, spinach, dill, and parsley are back in the plan, as all have done well in my garden boxes these past two years. Cucumbers have been a struggle, as I've battled fungus attacks. However, I am enclosing part of an existing tubular structure behind my house to turn it into a greenhouse of sorts and will try again to grow some cukes, knowing that the dang fungus is airborne and the enclosure might help me fend it off better. (If anyone has any suggestions on the battle front here, I'm listening!) As for flowers, I had some solid luck with what I called a "red, white, and blue corner" last year - I intend to repeat that with similar color scheme this year - maybe reverse color order. Last year, I did short (height) red, mid white, and tall (stalk flower style) blue. Thinking short blue (purple), mid white again, and stalk red this time around. Front porch will once again get hanging baskets - not sure what flowers just yet - just going to see what strikes my fancy when I make my trip to my local greenhouse. Hope my GDer family has been surviving the severe weather that's been crossing the country lately. I know we're due for another round here tomorrow. Color me thrilled (not).

It’s April and it’s been showering all day here. Taxes are done except the painful part of sending them even more money. Not looking forward to work tomorrow. Think I need a couple of weeks off with nothing to do.

April, bloody April. April is always a busy month for me. Because I was born in April, I must inspect and register my vehicles. Because I drive cars until no one can, this is usually an adventure. April is also the month Uncle Sam demands his pound of flesh. This year was just a little bit worse because our regulator was on the premises last week and I had to deal with a recall on one of my vehicles that would necessarily delay its inspection by a week. Assessment went well. recall was uneventful, and I finished my taxes this morning. So, on April 5, I am done except for two inspections and a visit to the tax collector's office. I rewarded myself for this with a bloody mary, two slices of reheated pizza, Top Gun, and a nap. Having checked in here, I am unofficially off the clock. Happy Shopping!

It's April...that wonderful month when the soft-serve cones return from their winter hibernation.

Another month down!!! Ready to breeze thru April and into May. May is going to be awesome. I pay off my minivan and I turn 50!!!!!!!

I had my most recent annual physical in mid December. At that time, my weight has been the highest it has been since before I started keto, my blood pressure was slightly high, and my a1c test for my type II diabetes came back over 7 again, which it has done every three months for the past two years, even with the diabetic and high blood pressure medication I am on. A couple of weeks later, around New Years, I started seeing the ads for the “natural Ozempic,” as one tends to see weight loss ads at the start of the year. I mostly ignored them, but my curiosity finally convinced me to watch one, which said there was a simple three ingredient recipe that could be easily made and taken daily to help weight loss and blood sugar. So, I watched it. Of course it was for a pill that was being sold, but I decided to do some searching and see if there was anything that could made at home. I had heard of the anti inflammatory benefits of ground turmeric in the past, so I looked to see if there was anything that could be made at home that could at least help. I found some articles which claimed the combination of ground turmeric, ground ginger, and black or cayenne pepper has been studied and found to be beneficial in some participants. I decided to add each to my two cups of coffee each morning. I started off with a quarter teaspoon of ground turmeric and an eighth of a teaspoon each of ground ginger and fresh cracked black peppercorn into each cup of coffee. This is in addition to the half a teaspoon of Ceylon cinnamon I have put into each cup of coffee for the past decade or so. The combination is reminiscent of chai in my coffee, but it’s not totally unpleasant. I made no other changes to anything in my daily routine. At the end of January I had a follow up hematologist appointment, and was surprised to see my weight was down five pounds since my physical the month before. I seriously expected it to be up a few pounds, as had been the trend for the past year or so, as well as having just gone through the holiday season. The next week at the start of February I increased the amount of ground turmeric, ground ginger, and ground black pepper, basically doubling each, so I was now having a teaspoon of ground turmeric, and a half a teaspoon each of ground ginger and fresh cracked black peppercorn daily in my coffee, as well as the teaspoon of Ceylon cinnamon. Again, I changed nothing else in my daily routine. Today I had a three month diabetic follow up at my primary care physician. My weight is down another seven pounds since I saw my hematologist at the end of January, my blood pressure was 113/75, and my a1c was 6.7, the first time I’ve been under 7 in a couple of years. I know, it’s very gradual and possibly very circumstantial, so I’m probably being silly to be hopeful about this. I need to stop the turmeric, ginger, and pepper for the next couple of weeks, as even western medicine admits that turmeric is a blood thinner and I have a procedure coming up the first week of April. But, trust me. Once the procedure is finished, I’m going to be adding them back in for as long as they seem to benefit me.

The end of February brought me grand baby number 7. I'm so in love with her.

Checking in for April!

No joke...here for April....lol

Can’t believe the month is over.

March is going out like a lion in many places across the country. Hope April brings nice weather.

We have germination! I just got this set up yesterday, and even as compact as it is, it’s precariously balanced where I had room for it. Hopefully I can find a board the perfect width and length to give it stability.

So just how bad are these "ides" I hear about? Enough with the ides; I got enough problems already. Last thing I need is a trip to Wikipedia to see that "ides" are some kind of bad humors or some other medieval crap. On the bright side, I got one of those bird feeders with a camera on it so I see cardinals eight times a day.

We're having a rainy day today and tomorrow, with the potential for severe weather. Again. We had a tornado in our county a few miles from here on Monday, and scary weather a couple weeks before that. I'm about over it! Glad for the actual rain though. This week is our spring break. We have a list of things we want to do. We bought 30 bags of mulch today, and will likely get at least 30 more. Ugh.