Author: iagardener55

I am going to take you with me, on a journey around the park where I walk. It’s just across the street from our condo.

Mind you, as I am typing this it’s the beginning of December, and we are in the midst of another season of blooming plants. So very different from the growing cycle of the US.

As a matter of fact, last month all of the jacaranda trees were in bloom. Google jacaranda, and then look at some of the older posts I have with photos of them. They’re everywhere here, and they add an exceptional beauty to the city.

There are places in the park, however, that are clearly sparse, without any ground vegetation whatsoever. First, I’ll show you a photo of the Google map of El Parque de las Montañas. Then, I’ll follow with several photos I took a while ago, when I started walking again. (Actually, I took these on 12/06/23.) The sky was overcast so you won’t get much color punch, but you can see how I saw these amazingly beautiful plants. IN DECEMBER. (Sorry. I get a bit carried away with the vegetation here.)

As I go through this blog, and edit it, it brings such a smile to my face. Looking at the park, from your perspective, makes me want to get over there, and take more photos, or even a video of the magnificence I see when I’m there.

Would you be interested in seeing a video of the park while I’m walking through it? It takes me anywhere from 11 to 15 minutes to walk through it, depending on how often I stop to take photos, or stretch.

Until next time.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Post script: at some point I’ll video the walk around, post it, and if you don’t want to watch it, you are certainly not obligated to do so.

I stopped exercising a few weeks ago, when we got sick, just before Christmas.

Wrong move.

Well, I couldn’t exercise when I was not feeling well, because it drained the little bit of strength I had.

I bumped into the edge of a counter yesterday, and had the same shot of electricity through my back that I used to have before I started with the back strengthening exercises I had been doing.

So, it’s back to the floor I go. Not sure when I’m going to restart, but restart I must. It was so nice, walking around without pain in my lower back, again proving that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

I’ll let you know how it goes. Until then, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

We did.

On the evening of the new year, we did it.

We plugged in the space heater, and have been running it, in our bedroom, ever since.

On low!!!

To have that little bit of warmth, when the temperature inside, and out, begins at 7ºC, in the morning, rising to about 20ºC by midday, is bliss.

I do enjoy being a bit chilled, as I have mentioned in the past, but cold to the bone, for days on end, well, now that I’ve had a taste of warmth, there’s no going back.

My hands are still quite cold, but the rest of me is in Heavenly warmth. Thank you DeLonghi!!

Hoping everyone had a pleasant holiday season, and you are starting the new year as you mean to go on.

We are. Trying, anyway.

Ivan is a bit better these days; his cough is not quite so liquid, and his head isn’t quite so full of snot, so, progress. Me? Well, I’m me. Enough said.

Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves from whatever is coming.

Netflix.

While not based on actual historical events by any stretch of the imagination, it is quite the production.

Amazingly, I had just finished listening to the first 4 Bridgerton books, written by one of my favorite authors, Julia Quinn. I cannot go any further, at present, even using the VPN because the rest of the series is not available in my “region, or country”. So, what is the purpose of the VPN, if I can’t pretend to be elsewhere in the world?

I digress.

The Netflix production of Bridgerton is equally as good as the books, honestly. And the prequel, Queen Charlotte, by the reviews, is supposed to be even better. I have just started watching it, and it has brought a big smile to my heart, seeing how all of the characters, so familiar from the main books/series, have come to be, I can’t wait to continue.

Unless you flunked out of school at the age of 10, you will know that all of the “ton”, the royals of England, well Europe, generally speaking, were, for the most part, all caucasians. In the tv series, they are anything but.

Queen Charlotte, (who, in reality, was the former Princess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Germany,) is African, as are most of her court; African, and Asian, mostly.

There are representatives of just about every race included, and the “court” have all decided, (Charlotte is there to marry her son, King George III of England. This is the King George that, historians believe, was mentally ill, though with what, no one can be sure.) that everyone will be included in the ton, and everyone will be equal. They call it the Great Experiment.

Quite a bit of the music is actually contemporary, made to sound mid 18th century. In fact, if you are able to enable subtitles, you should be told the song being played.

One true fact is that the real King George, and Queen Charlotte did, indeed, have 15 children!! They are said to have a love affair for the ages. How cool is that?

Bridgerton was well done, and, so far, it appears that Queen Charlotte is as well. Warning: remember that Netflix is explicit in some depictions of intimacy. It’s definitely not for children. Thought I’d mention that.

Watch it, read it, listen to it, enjoy it. Let me know what you think. Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Post script: enjoy Queen Charlottes wigs. Each one is bigger, and more beautiful than the next. They are phenomenal!!!! Equally beautiful, and huge in both series.

Down here, they’re life saving.

As I have said, there are very few homes that have central heating, or air conditioning here.

Ours is not one of them. So, we layer our warmth. Long sleeved shirt, thermal shirt, and for me, a cotton shawl.

Thermal pants of some sort, with fleece lined socks. A must. I also have the fleece lined neck thingy that was from the set Ivan gave me for Christmas.

The shawl goes over my head, and wraps around my upper body; it’s a long, wide shawl, pashmina I believe.

I don’t have on the mittens yet, but sitting at my computer tray, I have a thermal shirt draped over my legs, helping, slightly to ward off the cold air. It’s about 8ºC this morning, and I’m blessedly chilly.

As I have said before, it may be that cold where you are, but you have central heating. Try to remember how cold you get when the electricity goes off for a day, or so. That’s how cold it is here all day.

Funny, though. I can remember being the only one sweating here when we first moved down here. Everyone thought I was crazy.

Not any longer. I have finally acclimatized to the weather, and am just as cold as everyone else.

Layers.

If the weather is changing in your area, please drive with caution, and care for yourselves, and the others on the roads. Don’t take any silly, or unnecessary chances. Please.

Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Post script; a very happy birthday, to our BIL, Larry, a few days early. I hope each, and every one is better than the last one.

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope you are all enjoying the Christmas holiday season.

I started walking, again, outside that is, the other day.

I walked two separate times around the park, at just under 11 minutes per kilometer. Each time around is just a touch over 1 kilometer, so each round is just a bit over 11 minutes. I am trying to get in as many steps per week as I can, now that the weather is cooler. It doesn’t really matter what time of the day, or evening I walk, the temperature is moderate at worst, and cool/chilly at best. Win, win.

I had been exercising nightly for about 6 weeks without any weight loss, but with significant muscle redevelopment. That, in turn, has enabled me to walk for significantly longer lengths of time without my back muscles seizing up. Spasms still make me stop, and stretch, but I can go 3, sometimes 4 minutes at a time before having to do so. Win, win.

So, now I am going to do a few core strengthening exercises, and a daily walk, (or 2), to see if I can drop a few kilos before the holidays are in full swing.

We are, for the moment, planning to spend both Christmas, and, possibly, the New Year in Los Altos with the Garcia family. Hopefully, that will all come about by the 22nd of this month. I’ll let you know.

Until then, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Post script: we have both been under the weather for the past several days, so the above post is just a memory. I walked for about 3 days, then came down with a cold. Maybe next week. We’ll see.

As I sat down to write this post I had to laugh at myself.

We are both down, but not out, with colds. Ivan’s is, hopefully, on the mend, but mine is just starting to wind up. Lovely.

Just in time for Christmas.

I chuckle because, for the past 2 years, I have been waiting to, asking to, expecting to, at some point, be cold.

I have gotten what I have asked for.

I bought a full length flannel nightgown, thinking to wear it in Los Altos this holiday season, but we are staying here. I have the nightgown on, and had to find Ivan’s old terry cloth bathrobe to put on. Then, I put on the fleece lined hat he bought for me the other day, part of a set that includes a fleece lined “scarf”, and a pair of mittens. The scarf is really more like a wide, thick collar. It stretches to be pulled over ones head, but is snug, to keep ones neck warm.

I suspect, in the not too distant future, I’ll have the entire set on. Plus my heavy, fleece lined socks that I bought last year.

Or, I could plug in the small electric space heater.

But, that would be admitting defeat.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, and hoping all is well with you.

Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

I had quite the week, a few weeks back.

I started off that weekend heating a hotdog, waaaay too hot, took a bite, and burned a piece of the roof of my mouth that lasted almost another week. Here is what it looked like after 5 days.

I kid you not; it got worse from the photo above.

Anyway, that’s all gone now, just a bit of a glossy feeling still, but shouldn’t be any more trouble.

It’s been overcast, and cool here the last few days, so I took some time to download free fall wallpapers for my iPhone, and the iPad Pro Max I’m using. Fall here is nothing like it is in Iowa, for sure.

The leaves fall, but the plethora that don’t are still green, and lush. Most of the trees here maintain their leaves all year long.

It is much cooler, though, at night, and even into the afternoon. In fact, we both wear thermal pullover shirts all day long now. Even if I’ve done something magical to work up a sweat, except when exercising, I leave on the thermal.

I love every minute of cool, or cold weather I can get!

Not much else to tell you right now. So, until next we meet, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Do any of you subscribe to a VPN?

We do. Surfshark, down here is a good one. I don’t know if you need it, trust it, can afford it, whatever.

The reason I subscribed to a VPN is because there are different channels on the computer, on YT, Netflix, Disney+, etc., that we can’t get because we are not in the US.

Problem solved. For the most part.

Do you even know what a VPN is? For anyone that doesn’t, it’s a Virtual Private Network, meaning that the address your compute is using is not necessarily the one that the broadcasting company thinks it is.

When our VPN is active, (you can pause it anytime you want), it appears to the computer that we are in the US, and depending on the city I choose, we could be in any major city, in any state. Actually, if we want to, we can choose any major city, in any country around the world.

Once in awhile, I want to watch MasterChef US, but can’t without the VPN. The computer tells me that the episodes are not available due to blah, blah, blah. So, I activate the VPN, and what do you know?! The episodes are suddenly able for play.

Love it. I don’t use it for anything more than that at the moment, as I don’t feel it helps with the few things I do on the computer normally. Definitely not getting our money’s worth out of it, but am enjoying watching videos I would not otherwise be able to watch.

Until next we meet, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

A few weeks ago, I wanted the opportunity to clean the fridge, and freezer; the easier of the two first.

That would be the freezer. All I had to do, when organizing the freezer, was to take everything out, throw away what was no longer edible, (rare), vacuum seal anything that needed it, and put what was left back inside. Done, and dusted.

The fridge, however, is an entirely different beast. I have to maneuver the fridge out of the built in cocoon in which it resides, gently coax it around the edge of said cocoon so it is facing, slightly, the middle of the room, and try to get the doors open far enough to be able to remove the shelves from the fridge itself. (The available floor space is approximately 9’x5’.)

Having said that, once the fridge is “in position”, there is no getting in, or out of the kitchen, as there is no room to get through the door. And, Heaven forbid I find that I forgot to do something having already put the shelves back in, and moved the fridge back, because once it’s in, it’s in. Yes, I’ve done that one too many times.

As you’ve seen in previous photos, we have an LC French door, bottom freezer fridge which we wouldn’t change for the world. I don’t think a regular opening fridge door would have made any difference in my ability to remove the shelves as the amount of space in the room is so small.

Needless to say, I only clean it when I absolutely have to. Even then, it is with the utmost disdain. You know what? I hate cleaning the fridge even more than I hate dusting. Now that’s saying something.

I didn’t take any photo’s before cleaning the freezer because I just got down, and did it. Here are the results.

That’s it for another whimsical day in the apartment. We’re ramping up for the Christmas holidays; how about you?

Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.