Random 5 for May 21 – Suggestion, posts, appliances, new blog, eyebrows

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My back yard

The power of suggestion – The back border of our yard has bushes and thick groundcover. There are ticks living there. Last weekend we were trimming and cleaning up. I wear full tick gear but I always seem to get one. The key is to find it before it gets comfy and attaches itself. You can’t always feel a tick walking on your body but sometimes you can. It’s very slight. For two days afterward, I was checking every body sensation I had. I made myself crazy. I also looked crazy checking the inside of my blouse in public! So far no ticks but it’s still early.

A milestone – On Thursday I posted my 1,000th blog post. Woo hoo! When I started I was sporadic, posting once or twice a week. Then I committed to posting four times a week with one post devoted to the cats and another to this random five concept. I don’t make myself crazy about it. I rarely check my statistics so the milestone snuck up on me. One of these days I want to put together a collection of my best posts (as defined by me!). Maybe. No pressure.

Rebooting appliances? – We have a finicky dishwasher. Sometimes it just doesn’t work. We have figured out that if we turn off the breaker for 5 minutes that will “reboot” it and all is good. The beloved husband talked to our local appliance store folks and was told that today’s appliances need “rebooting.” Who would have thought that?

A new blog – For you girly girls out there, Nancy Roman of the “not quite old” blog has started a new blog dedicated to makeup and all things girly. What’s different is that she offers a perspective for woman in their 60s and older. I don’t wear a lot of makeup but I like to cover up my age spots and put on a spot of color. I get frustrated buying something and then finding out it doesn’t work for me. She provides good suggestions along with an interesting narrative. She does good research (way more than I have the patience to do). You can find the blog here.

Speaking of beauty – Did you know you can get eyebrow wigs? They are glued on versions of natural eyebrows. They have been around for ages for cancer patients and people with alopecia but with the current focus on eyebrows (big and bushy again), are more widely worn. I can’t give you a review because that would be too much work for me but they are out there if you need them. (Consider this your public service announcement for the week!)

So how was your week?

73 thoughts on “Random 5 for May 21 – Suggestion, posts, appliances, new blog, eyebrows”

  2. My daughter-in-law has Lyme’s and I’m really uncomfortable with the fear of ticks. She went undiagnosed for way too long because Lyme’s is not common in California. Your lush green garden looks very inviting and gardeners are always in some peril from the critters that call our gardens their home! And congratulations on being so consistent with blog posting! 😊

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  3. Ticks – another reason to mandate very cold winters….which we haven’t had for a while.
    The trouble with finding a tick is that then you just itch and feel crawling for hours!
    Growing up at the farm we had multiple species of ticks: big grey cow ticks, regular sized brown ticks with a white spot and tiny “seed” ticks. As long as there were cows, horses around, ticks jumped on them, but when cattle were moved to give pastures down time, those ticks got hungry and UGH! Dad made a bamboo mat surrounded outdoor shower and mom made us strip off clothing and rinse off before coming in the house, then she draped clothing over the barbed wire fence before washing…and the ticks left. The memory of Deep Woods Off is strong in memory. (also UGH)
    Congrats on your milestone. I always get a smile here
    (and sorry for slow n response – several DIY projects in process…ditto on UGH again)

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  7. Never had ticks but I surely had bed bugs! Now I am forever feeling sensations of creepy crawlies on my skin and convinced it’s the dreaded bugs. Whenever I check into a hotel now I pull all the covers off the bed and check the corners of the mattress before I can sleep. So I know how you feel about the ticks!
    When I was younger I sported eyebrows to compete with Frida Kahlo. I plucked the daylights out of those babies. Now, centuries later, I can only dream of those bushier days as I am applying mounds of eyebrow pencil to the bald spots… but eyebrow wigs are a step too far!

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    • I’ve never seen bed bugs but I worry about picking them up at a hotel. I did some minor plucking when I was young (last century) and after a while, they don’t grow back. All that’s good. Now some of the ones I want to grow in the right places have been retiring to my chin. They say the weather’s better there.

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  9. Ticks… they are just creepy! They sneak in the house by way of CH and they head straight for me!
    Congratulations on your 1000th blog post! I am impressed by your commitment to blogging and I am happy you post because I so enjoy coming here to read.
    I am going to check out the link to the new blog, thanks for sharing it.

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  10. Reaching 1000 posts is a show of dedication, congrats. 🙂 Your yard looks great. I have never encountered a tick, (knocking on wood) and hope I never do. Our daughter has Alopecia, I’ll mention these brow wigs to her, even though she’s probably already heard of them. She pencils on eyebrows sometimes but most of the time she goes natural.

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  11. More parallel experiences for us, Kate! My husband and I had an episode last week with a tick that snuck into our house and had great fun munching on our legs (leaving a series of little ‘welts’ to prove it). Go you for having proper tick gear!!
    Congratulations on your 1000th post. That seems miraculous to me (…I am about two weeks away from hitting my 100th and am not even sure how I managed to write that many)!
    BTW – I would definitely buy a collection of your best posts. Sign me up!

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    • Thanks for your vote of confidence! When I started blogging, I never thought I’d last this long. My intent was to have a quasi-professional blog (and we see how fast that flew out the window). I expected to maintain a “working” connection to my profession but I’ve found that it’s the time to do what I really want.

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  15. Eyebrow wigs!!!! I never did get used to the over-plucked fashion on other faces. My face out-lived it by not participating. I couldn’t be bothered, and now my eyebrows have faded into oblivion, along with my hair, making me almost invisible. I like invisibility. I can be ANNE-nonymous. There is no way I’d volunteer for a Brooke Shields look, that is, if her name is still synonymous with thick brows.

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    • I’ve never been a plucker but I never had unibrows either. Mine are thinning out but they’ll do. If I want more I put on a brow filler. I can see how someone without any may be interested though. I like my routines simple.

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  16. Congratulations on your 1000th post. That’s a lot of writing. So great!!!

    I do know someone who lost her brows having chemo…I don’t recall her wearing false ones, but perhaps they weren’t made as yet.

    Love the photo of your yard. Looks very palatial. 🙂

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    • When I worked I wore makeup every day. Not a lot but to even the skin tone and highlight the eyes. Now I don’t wear it everyday and when I want to, my stuff is old or dried out. I’ve been looking at foundation to find something that’s easy and natural looking.

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  21. Congratulations on the 1,000 Posts! You have a great blog here.

    Ticks, they cause my eye to twitch like Chief Inspector Dreyfus of the Pink Panther movies. Let me notice one flea on me at someone’s home, and for two days I feel like something is crawling.

    Rebooting appliances. That is something they like to hide in the back of an instruction booklet, or paper that most of us toss out. Especially men, we don’t need any instructions. Very small power fluctuations, from a blink, or a brown out can sometimes confuse electronics. I had a laptop AC adapter stop working after a thunderstorm. I unplugged it from the wall and let it on the desk while I searched Ebay for a replacement. Just for giggles, just before ordering, I plugged it in the wall and the laptop, and it was working again.

    Eyebrow wig, I won’t need one. Michelle picks on me every few months if I don’t bush-hog them. I wish I could get that hair on the top to grow as well.

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  22. Congratulations on your 1000th post, Kate!! That’s quite an accomplishment. Here’s to the next 1000..:)

    Never heard of having to reboot an appliance but new technology can be a delicate issue..:)

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    • Ron’s explanation of small power fluctuations on a touchy motherboard may be the reason. Not so interesting when you have a full load. Initially I would empty and wash by hand. Now we go down and turn the breaker off for 5 minutes and life is good.

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    • It’s been almost a week and I’m still scratching and checking. Several years ago I had to do a round of antibiotics for Lyme disease (just in case). The specific antibiotic they use for the disease made me sick…for 10 days! Now I am vigilant. Neurotically vigilant.

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      • I would be, too. You know, they made a vaccine for Lyme disease almost two decades ago. But it came out about the time the anti-vaxxer issue took off, and the human study had some complications that the anti-vaxxers exploited. So now you can vaccinate your dog, but not yourself against Lyme disease.

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          • Absolutely. Very frustrating. Just like the opposition to the HPV vaccine, which would prevent terminal cancer in so many young women/ mothers. My oncologist sister gets livid about those anti-vaxxers especially.

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            • I thought that movement was dying out. I had every vaccine that was available to me (including the old people pneumonia and shingles shots). My husband had polio in his family (not him but 3 cousins) and it’s a bad and long-term disease. My mother had me first in line for that (it was the 50s when it was at it’s peak and no one knew what caused/spread it). If I could get HPV vaccine I would. It also causes mouth cancer. I have two acquaintances with it and it’s a brutal and debilitating treatment. Bravo for your sister!

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    • Especially with dogs. When Jake (old cat) was alive, he went outside and routinely brought in friends. He had to be checked at the door. He’s black so that was fun. They didn’t attach to him (he was medicated) but would ride in looking for us humans. So easy to munch on — no fur, no feathers, only soft skin easily accessible.

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      • I was pet sitting a dog recently who wasn’t on tick/flea meds yet, and got lots of ticks. Got her going on the preventatives right away. I think I took five ticks off me in two days. Ick!

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        • I’m surprised a dog person wouldn’dt use meds regularly. I have no outdoor cats at this point and between my husband and I, we’ve picked off about 4 so far this year. I use flea/tick stuff on my cats because they go into the screened porch. Not so much a tick issue but fleas will come in. I haven’t had flea issues without Jake but when he was around I had a bad infestation in early May. I hadn’t yet treated them all because it was early but the fleas didn’t know that. Never again!

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  27. Up and down, though we got to see my Mum which was important to me and have also been up to check on the boat and run the engine. Maggie has settled down wonderfully, though she is a little subdued at the moment down to two days of bad weather which has flared up her rheumatism so we have given her a mini dose of anti inflammatory medication for such occurrences. I’ve also got myself a check up with the breast clinic. Not that there’s a problem, but I just want to make sure everything is progressing as it should, especially as my follow up isn’t scheduled until November.

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    • Looking forward to hearing is there is any interest in your boat. Perspective buyers? Transition is always unsettling. Yay for Maggie. Maybe she like houses better than boats, at least in her older age.

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      • Interest yes, but no offers yet, but it has only been a few weeks. Could be something in the boats/house thing for Maggie, especially as her night vision isn’t so good now. Would still like to know what the beep was that I heard sometimes around the same time she was restless. Hubby didn’t hear it, and no-one had anything on low batteries. It’s a mystery.

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