Random 5 for April 15 – S’mores, mice, weather, outdoor living, blogging problem

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In memoriam – Goodbye sweet S’mores frap, it was a good run. I’ll miss you! Whenever I like something you can depend on it being discontinued. This week I found out that the Starbucks S’Mores frappucino will not be coming back this summer. Boogers. Most of their fraps are too sweet for me. This one was the exception. It was very popular so it makes no sense. However, I’m not their target audience. I am a regular customer with the money to buy overpriced coffee.

Good grief! – Yesterday morning Morgan didn’t come out for breakfast. Not a good thing. I searched her favorite spots and couldn’t find her. I went down to the basement. I was greeted by a very excited Morgan (not a good thing either). Within minutes I caught and rehomed a mouse the she had found. There was another one as she was still excited. She got it last night. Let’s hope that’s it. If you missed the mousegeddon last summer you can read it here and here. In the meantime Gracie ate Morgan’s breakfast. I should have gotten fish instead of cats. Oh wait. I have fish. They are in the pond and mostly no work!

Welcome spring, you hussy! – The weather broke (finally). We hit 80 degrees on Friday and similar on Saturday. Today another cold front is moving in for a few days and then we will get seasonal. It felt so good to shed clothes (not completely). In the photo you can see that the beloved husband’s winter boots are going back into storage. Yay!

A good sign! – The porch is open for business. Furniture is uncovered and cushions are out. We had our first meal out there and it was lovely. I need to live somewhere that has consistent 70 to 80 degree weather. I’m too old for winter! (No, I wouldn’t find that boring!)

Calling all bloggers – A few questions for someone more savvy than me. I have a faithful follower who no longer gets email notifications from WordPress when I post. She has signed up again but still no notices. She sees my blog on Facebook. On my end, I can see that she is a follower but that’s all. Does anyone know why she would suddenly stop receiving email notifications? I’m thinking it has to be something on her end. Then again…

So how was your week?

 

71 thoughts on “Random 5 for April 15 – S’mores, mice, weather, outdoor living, blogging problem”

  1. I’m so envious that you have Morgan to discourage these mice, but at the same time, when our cat used to bring me his kills as a gift I’d nearly faint! Mice and I don’t do well…I can pick up a snake, but can’t be anywhere near mice. And yet we have them, too! About your blogging question, I’ve had this happen before and suggest she be absolutely sure you aren’t being sent to SPAM. It does happen. And I’ve had to “unfollow” and then “follow” again, sometimes a couple of times. I have NO idea why, but that’s how it has worked for me! It can be very frustrating, that’s for sure!

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  2. It’s disheartening when us women of a certain age have a beloved anything that gets discontinued. Boogers indeed. Maybe your blogger friend has a ‘plugin’ issue? Has she tried to logout and log back in? Otherwise she may need to check with the ‘happiness’ teammates at WP for answers. They are pretty good about getting back to you when you contact them. It sometimes happens to me so I make sure my Apple OS is up to snuff and current. If not, it may not play nice. Good luck.

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    • She does not have a WordPress account as she is not a blogger. That may have something to do with it too. I especially hate when they discontinue favorite underwear. I mean really! It’s such a boring and occasionally uncomfortable process to find a new style I like.

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  3. This climate change problem (“What climate change problem?” asked Congress) has our weather seasons so confused. Just ask Major League Baseball about that—does the season still begin in Spring or in the dead of Winter? I don’t know what’s wrong with Starbucks—don’t they realize that you’re their primary spokesperson? Best not fail to satisfy the thirst of the voice that feeds them!

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  4. I want to uncover my porch furniture so badly. I did push it out of the way for the one 70 degree day we were teased with last week, then recovered it all. Winter coats were ready to be put away and now are back in rotation. It is snowing and sleeting and a high of 38. I am quite ready for spring!

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  5. What a treat to have your porch open and put away boots. We have SNOW today. You know, I actually love snow, but it’s APRIL 16th. Guess we’re skipping spring this year, but I sure do hope we don’t skip summer, too (for crying out loud). I want to get my garden goodies going soon.

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  6. Morgan is a wonder!
    RC Cat was so annoyed there was an upside down roach in the shower last week she just kept locating staff and complaining loudly about it for the longest time until she got it across to us…not going to mover her paw about it, though…just yowl fo assistance….Molly’s the bug flipper when she gets a chance…or isn’t guarding the front window with her eyes closed.
    WP is getting ready/.in progress of massive changes. (“Gutenberg”, the new editor is part of that…being released in stages) All sorts of things are getting “lost” as they manipulate during transition. People are complaining loudly about all sorts of issues. I have resorted to keeping a list of bloggers I read/.saved email notifications in an email folder so I can find people – only way I can do it often – even Reader is neglecting to feature all your bloggers. Hang on – and fingers crossed (sometimes keeping up with the WP blog helps explain things: https://wordpress.org/news/.
    The WP update 4.9.5 supposedly fixed some of the issues from 4.9.4 which was issued the day before 4.9.5.
    They say problem solving and working with new situations keeps the brain young…we can only hope? HAHA
    Cats. They’ll get us through…and coffee…and chocolate

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  8. I haven’t heard about the notification problem, but it might explain why an old boss of mine who always comments hasn’t lately. Then again, maybe he’s just bored by what I’ve written. 🙂 I have noticed that I keep getting spam/fake email followers, however. I know they’re not legit because they’ll all these word names full of double and triple consonants, and each one uses an Outlook address. I just keep deleting them when I get the notification. It’s weird. – Marty

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    • It’s gets hard to ask someone if they are bored or stopped getting notified. I go with the assumption that no one I know reads my posts, then when I start to tell them about something they tell me they read about it in my blog. This reader is a close friend so she asked me why they stopped. We are both flummoxed.

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  9. I’ve had readers tell me that WP won’t do the email notification for them. I have no idea why. I just apologize for the inconvenience [not my fault, but I’m polite] and suggest that the reader come directly to my blog on a somewhat regular basis like we all used to do all the time. Best [only?] solution I know of for that problem.

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  11. Hey Kate in Hawaii it’s aboit 70-80 all year round. There you go! 🙂
    Yesterday was so lovely! Gave me Spring fever. Have winter coat on now again today.
    Sounds like Morgan and Gracie made out well, one had fun catching mice and one got extra food! 🙂

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  13. I tell you, Kate, you need to get that black snake for your yard! 🙂 We had some toasty temperatures, too. It was so nice. We’ve got severe storms in our forecast for this afternoon. Just finished bringing in the patio furniture. I can relate to the discontinued items. It never fails, you find something you really love and and one day, it’s gone.

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    • No thanks on the snake. As willing as I am to capture and rehome mice, snakes freak me out. We have cats and predator birds (owls and hawks) who usually do a good job of keeping the mice and chipmunks in check. Yesterday was toasty at 86. Loved it. Today we won’t hit 50.

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  14. Morgan is a great mouser! Glad to hear about your weather – the spring seems late everywhere. I agree with one of your other commenters that your follower has to turn on the email notification for your blog (although WP does tinker and then stuff happens – one time I lost several people that I follow all at once). I had a good week and it’s warming up here too – +6 this week. 🙂

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  15. I’m happy to say since moving here 17 years ago, no more mousegeddons! Where I lived before no pets were allowed… although I had secret cats… so the place was overrun with rodents and my two felines couldn’t keep up! My current cats have to be content with moths and crickets… not quite the same.

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    • Dental better. From everything I’ve seen, the email notices are getting blocked at your end. It maybe a security upgrade. I show you as being a follower but I can’t see if you signed up for email notifications. You can always find me on FB!

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  19. My week? Snowed in for the second day due to a Blizzard here, and all my MN Facebook friends are posting videos of swirling snow and howling wind.

    Your friend’s email notifications are controlled by her. She can go to “reader” then click on “manage” — find your site and select “settings.” Then she can select how often she wants email notifications. Sometimes they get turned off due to updates or other weird glitches.

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  20. How nice Morgan is a mouser. My biggest fear has always been finding a mouse in my house not being able to kill anything. I relocate moths, ants and water bugs. I feel glue traps should be outlawed, I mean how would you feel like getting stuck in one, and traps, well…forget it.

    I’m glad Morgan just corralled it so you could, and I’m impressed, let it loose out in the wild.

    You have so many fans Kate, and the woman not getting your email can just go to your site, she knows when you post. You’re such a compelling writer Kate. I’ll bet you just don’t hear that enough.

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    • No on boycott. I don’t know the whole story. Was there attitude? I don’t think it’s appropriate to use a facility without buying anything. A coffee is $2. Come on folks! Wanna a free venue, try a park. Reminds me of the outcry when they had plain red cups at Christmas. *eyerolls* Big business, deep pockets. Or maybe a distraction from middle east.

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      • I get what you’re saying about using a facility without buying anything, and yet apparently they were waiting on a friend. I’ve got a girlfriend who waits on me at Corner Bakery. She just sits in a booth and/ or uses the bathroom until I arrive. Then we go to the counter and order. No one cares. She’s white, though.

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        • I don’t know the specifics. My local SB is staffed by many African-Americans so if it happened here it wouldn’t be about race. There would be another reason. I was totally freaked out by a middle eastern looking guy (but he could have been Italian, Spanish or any darker toned nationality!) who wore a hoody, carried a bag and didn’t buy anything last summer. He left after standing inside for about 5 minutes. I couldn’t make sense of it. Made me nervous. Had he not left, I was going to talk to the manager (yes, I was that freaked out).

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  22. I think you’re right in asking your follower to check her spam folder. If it is in there she may need to amend her spam filters, or white list your blog – these thing vary with email provider and they change their rules for spamming things every now and then.

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  23. No problems getting Post notifications by email here. I have had situations where a quick “twitch” on the mouse has Unfollowed; an incorrect and/or change of email address will obviously confuse matters, as would an inadvertent block against an address. Can your faithful Follower see your Blog on WP (it seems odd that she would look in FB)? Then of course there is the WP gremlins theory!

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  24. Come to think of it, I haven’t been receiving notifications of posts in my email either, and thought it was my end as Hubby had to tinker with my settings since the ‘sexy.’ episodes. I get likes as usual, but my email in box has substantially reduced. Maybe the WP gremlins have been experimenting again?

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