Oops. Alas, I have no photo I took today so I'm cheating a little and posting a photo I took last week that made me laugh. A teeny tiny lock someone's using at my gym.

Today I made lentil soup.

In other news, Patient Saver has dipped her toe in the dating pool again and now she has not one but two suitors. I find it kind of stressful. I  never liked dating more than one man at a time (feels deceptive and gets complicated), but in this case, I met Bachelor #1 today and Bachelor #2 is really counting on us meeting sometime this week.

They are both very different from one another but coincidentally, both grew up in the same town about 45 minutes from me, are the same age and both have 2 kids. I met Bachelor #1 today for a nice long fall walk; he is a divorced nurse anesthesiologist who had a rough childhood and is on the quiet side. He seems thoughtful and is a good listener. He is interested in fitness and plant-based nutrition as I am. Bachelor #2 has a much more outgoing personality on the phone, is retired from a lengthy career with a single (defense) employer and is widowed. I want to at least meet Bachelor #2 before making any decisions but in a way it would make it easier for me if the choice were obvious.  

After our walk today, Bachelor #1 texted me while he was driving home to ask me to dinner this weekend, and Patient Saver said yes!

Near where I live....

What I'm reading: The Nature of Oaks, by Doug Tallamy.

Today started out as a good day but that was short-lived.  That's when I entered my father's apartment to see him attempting to attach a paper towel with scotch tape to his leg, which was bleeding. The elderly have very thin skin; he had a large scab that I guess he scratched, and his entire leg was bloody from the knee down.  There was blood on his bedsheets, the floor, the rug and him. Luckily I found a full drawer of medical supplies and actual bandages. I applied pressure to stop the bleeding, which he resisted, causing us to quarrel. He is really misinformed about a lot of things, and this is one of them. In the midst of all this and trying to clean him up and his apartment (which he also resisted), I got a text from the wife of my half-brother (my father's son). He is dying. Any day now. She told me to brace myself. He learned in December, or perhaps a little earlier, that he had stage 4 colon cancer. December is when I learned about it.

So it was not a good day. I'm not going to say we were close, because we weren't. We didn't grow up together. We lived in different states, led different lives. We've been cordial when we've seen each other, but that became very infrequent, especially once he had kids. His kids are great, and I know he loved them very much. The whole thing is very upsetting, so tragic and so unnecessary. He is young. He had a colonoscopy scheduled but cancelled it due to covid and never got around to rescheduling it. This is the only reason I am sharing this info here, in case anyone has procrastinated about any kind of routine screening.  Just get it done. 

If you're wondering what this means, the phrase is a modern adaptation of Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous quote emphasizing that progress toward justice is not inevitable or automatic, and that we need active human effort to bring about change. It's meant to be a call to action urging people to work toward social change rather than waiting for justice to happen on its own. So appropros for 2025.

Even if trumpty-dumpty was not destroying the environment, selling off public lands, dismantling a wildly successful program that made health care affordable for millions of middle-class Americans, eliminating energy effciency tax credits and similar green energy incentives, hunting down and kidnapping suspected illegal immigrants with no due process, blowing up boats in the Caribbean, cozying up to dictators like Putin who is hell-bent on destroying Ukraine, dismantling the federal government, enriching himself and his family and pardoning Santos, who lied about his education, that his parents were Holacaust survivors and defrauded donors, who pardoned the Capitol rioters, I would still loathe this repulsive man. He does not have a shred of moral integrity, not an ounce of human decency. He is vindictive, cruel, self-serving and is an embarassment to this nation. 

I am so proud of the estimated 7 million souls who took time out of their lives to voice their anger and displeasure. There were some great signs, too. 

I wanted today to be a leisurely day, and it has been. This morning I headed out to nearby small city to help clean up one of their parks. Worked there for 2 hours; they were very appreciative. Oh, and I got this nice t-shirt too.

I came home, had leftovers for lunch and am contemplating my next move while there are still a few hours of sunlight left. I could do some laundry and want to make a big pot of lentil soup. Or, I could go outside and pull invasive plants. Finish tidying up the garage so I can fit my lawn furniture in there, and my vehicle. What to do, what to do?

The amazing thing is that the thousands of my photos that disappeared from my personal file folders have magically reappeared in those folders. I have no idea why, but I'm relieved, that's for sure.

All the Kiva loans I reviewed this week were from Phillippino borrowers, and all wanted money for a sanitary toilet. All of the borrower profiles showed the borrower standing next to a toilet inside a crude, cinderblock hut with a curtain for privacy. The toilet is never connected by pipes to the wall, so I can only guess they dig a pit underneath it until they can afford something approximating modern sanitation.

I think we may have had about 800 or so...maybe a thousand....people show up for our town's demonstration today. First we listened to a series of motivational speakers, including my favorite, a church pastor, and then we walked to South Main Street and lined nearly a mile of roadway with our signs, receiving a great deal of support from passing motorists.

I have a weak spot for craft fairs, church fairs and things of that sort. I love homemade knit items, which remind me of my dear grandmother, as well as homemade baked goods. I saw many things my grandmother would have liked.  It's a glorious fall day and I love this time of year.

That's a knit pumpkin at left with a real pumpkin stalk on it. So clever. Also a ceramic pumpkin for my kitchen window; I bought a similar pumpkin in a teal color last year. And, my first pair of fingerless gloves so I can use my phone outdoors.

I would have liked to support the church ladies by buying a few loaves of their home-baked pumpkin bread but I forgot they don't take credit cards like the craft vendors do and I rarely carry cash these days. I remembered the same thing last fall (!) when I had no cash, but then remembered I had lots of loose change in the car for tolls or Aldi's, so I trooped back to my car last year and paid in quarters, which they didn't seem to mind. I could have done the same this year, but it escaped my mind.

I also got a high dose flu vaccine at the health fair and a variety of fun freebies like pens, notepads, a rubber jar opener thingie, etc. I've been going to the health fair for years now. It's a great resource for residents and you'll see tables for the town's emergency response system, home health care agencies, suicide prevention, our local police force, the regional health care system/hospital, a local naturopath physician, varous dentists, the senior center, etc. 

In a few hours, I'll be attending a rally on what could be a record-setting day because a record-setting number of Americans hate what is happening to this country.

This was a very good dessert this week: a flourless chocolate cake (warm) with raspberry sorbet and pistachio nuts.

Took dad to PT, then lunch. Mowed the back lawn when I got home.

So tired of difficulties posting here. 

Anyhoo, catching up for a few days of missed photos.

Tonight I went to a meeting on efforts to ban rodenticides in my state. This is a rehabbed screech owl that survived an anticoagulant poison that killed the rest of its family. They've seen a real spike in birds and mammals like foxes and even domestic cats poisoned by rat and mice bait. This woman, with a group called A Place Called Hope, was a great advocate and very informative. 

This is the view as I sat at a traffic light on my way to the meeting.

Here's the gym where I work out 3x weekly. It's actually a huge building. The gym is on the 2nd floor but there are all kinds of ball courts and they have lots of tournaments there on weekends with out of towners who come to compete. It's a great resource.

In a post that disappeared after I saved it, I explained why I'd forgotten to post, but eh, I won't go into it now.

OK, so I needed to come up with a photo today, but it's been so cold, dreary and now rainy that I haven't really ventured outside. So I had to delve into my photo gallery to pick something recent. I imagine you are getting tired of my many plant photos, so here's another dish I enjoyed at that favorite cafe in town I told you I visited last week with my father.

This dish is "meatball salad." Each meatball is the size of 3 regular meatballs. It's delicious.

I have a small collection of head planters. They're not looking too spiffy at the moment, but they look great with the right kind of plant in there.

I had an incredibly productive day.

* I took a small pussy willow cutting from my one pussy willow shrub back in APRIL, and the poor thing sat in water all these months. I wanted to plant it sooner but couldn't find the right spot for it. It needs a lot of room but also needs sun. I tucked it in the ground today, FINALLY. It had quite the root system on it. I will be curious to see how it does.

* I also transplanted one black oak seedling from a bad spot where it popped up early in the spring and put it in a better spot. I have 3 or 4 more I'd like to do the same with.

* I finished cutting down a kousa dogwood. I noticed it a year or two ago; I had mixed feelings about taking it down, but it doesn't have much wildlife value. And then I noticed it was starting to steal sunlight from a nearby oak sapling which I very much want to thrive. In 31 years I've never had a single oak  here, and now this year I have at least 5 or 6 popping up all over. This sapling was about 6 feet high last year and has doubled in height this year. 

The kousa dogwood was a lot of work since this involved cutting up larger branches and then dragging them to a brush pile hidden in the woods. I got almost 13,000 steps in today, and this was a big reason why.

* I mowed part of the lawn.

* I started organizing the garage so I can store lawn furniture in there and all my plant pots. Maybe even my SUV. Didn't quite finish but made great headway. Also filled 4 trash bags with old newspapers I had used a few years ago to suppress weeds but decided I didn't like it as it required mulch on top of it and inevitably the ugly newspaper sheets would show thru the mulch. I'm doing a more natural mulch now of just leaves. Mice had gotten into the newspaper anyway.

* Continued work cutting rampant trumpet vine at the base near soil and then dabbing it with herbicide. There are a zillion individual plants. I feel like I did quite a bit but then when I look around at how it has gotten into every nook and cranny in this area, it's quite discouraging. Yesterday I was doing the same thing and pretty much cleared and treated the vine that had been growing up a very large evergreen I'd like to save. Vines will kill a tree pretty quickly. It's really a challenge to eradicate it because by June this whole area becomes impenetrable and the best time to treat this particular plant is late summer/early fall. So I get just one shot at it all year. I CAN try to maintain some sort of narrow pathways in there in spring and if I can do that, I can at least cut back the vines even if I don't treat them. This can help maintain some sort of control.

Tomorrow we're getting a fairly significant storm, big enough that I charged up my 2 "power stations" just in case I lose power. The big one can keep my fridge and freezer going for 4 days.  So, maybe I'll squeeze in another mowing session before the rain starts in the afternoon. 

We had our first frost last night, which reminded me of the days when I used to do the No Heat Challenge. Ha! As I get older, I appreciate creature comforts more. Though the heat is still OFF; just threw 2 blankets on the bed.

This week I reviewed Kiva loans from Kazakhstan, Ghana and Philippines.

I was just thinking about what photo I would post today when Nature decided for me! Saw this beautiful bobcat pass through my yard just now.

Took my father to physical therapy yesterday and then one of our favorite cafes for lunch. I'm not even sure of everything that was in these, but they were soooo good: tostadas topped with potato, feta cheese, avocado, diced red peppers, a fried egg, black bean spread, oh my. Not a low calorie meal, that's for sure!

This was last night's dinner: a quick stir fry with snow peas from my garden, broccoli florets, mushrooms and cashews over jasmine rice. I'm so happy a few others are doing the Photo Challenge! Makes it more fun!

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We are finally getting some much needed rain today. Not driving rain, just a nice light to medium rain.

We're expecting a possible first frost Thursday night, which may signal the end of my herbicide treatment of tree of heaven seedlings. I'm just anxious to do as much as I can since I will have to wait an entire year to treat again. There are literally hundreds of these things popping up in back and they grow fast. The trumpet vine can continue to be treated until a HARD frost (defined as 24 degrees or colder), and temps are still well above 50 degrees. The trumpet vine is inaccessible until late September or so, so for the same reason, I want to get to as much as possible as it's killed some nice evergreens here already. It's relentless.

Yesterday was warm and humid so I didn't do any of this work then, but tomorrow will be considerably cooler and is ideal for this kind of work.

OK, with this photo I'm caught up with the daily photo challenge. It shows the new chandeleir ("sputnik" design) my handyman installed this morning. I like modern stuff. I liked the one I had before, which was more traditional, but, well, after 16 years living with it, time for a change. 

Aside from that, the only meaningful things I did today was write a two-sided handout for a presentation my invasive plants group is putting on at the senior center this week. I also went to the transfer station with mostly recyclables and stopped in at grocery store for a few items since it's nearby. I also scheduled my father for PT and will be bringing him tomorrow.

I was flooded with at least 6 or 7 pleas for money in the mail from various groups, and I vaguely remembered seeing some sort of notice a while ago indicating that my registry with the Do Not Mail list had expired. So I renewed it for another 10 years; I see now they charge you $6 to do this. I'm not positive it's the same group I registered with before, but anyway....they estimate doing so will cut down on junk mail by 80%.

Opsie. Skipped another day. I'm just busy.

View from my doorway...

In the past year, I realized my house plants were threatening to take over this small space, so I have winnowed down my collection of cacti and succulents considerably. I think I now have 8 now, plus 2 pothos. But I still have this pencil cactus, which loves its spot in my sunny bathroom. I may bring a little Ikea stool down from the attic for her.

This week I reviewed Kiva loans from Tonga, Rwanda, Phillipines and Indonesia.

Opsie, I took the photo yesterday but forgot to post. It's mistflower. It's nice to see such a vividly colored flower in bloom this time of year.

This is what I did today. Been pulling it for weeks. Rather exhausting as it also includes carrying the stuff on a pitchfork about 300 feet from where it's growing. Next stop: dump.

Now that the 3rd quarter is behind us, I thought it would be a good time to project my total 2025 income and see if I could manage a small Roth conversion while still staying in the 12% bracket, which tops out at $48,475. Cus I'm not sure my income would ever exceed the 22% bracket, which tops out at $103,350 for a single person, so not sure during a Roth conversion now and paying 22% taxes would offer any benefit.

To my surprise, my projected income this year, between annuity payouts, traditional IRA distributions and a few taxable mutual fund distributions, total about $63,000, and that's not including dividends or cap gains on two taxable brokerage funds. That was surprising since my expenses have remained in the low $40s for many, many years. But then I already forgot the January purchase of my new SUV, and the whole idea of taking out a loan for the purchase was to avoid a larger $30K bump-up in my income that would push me into the 22% bracket. I've been aggressively prepaying the loan in addition to the regular payments, and all told, all those car payments do seem to account for most of my income increase. (I plan to have it paid off next year.)

Although my income will be over $63,000 this year, with the standard deduction of $15,750, my adjusted income will be roughly $47,416, just within the 12% bracket. Cap gains and dividends will likely add another $3,000 or so to that total, but I guess I can live with that.