Medicare warning #2

When you start Medicare, they encourage you to make a "Intro to Medicare" appt with your new Medicare health provider.  Also an annual "Wellness Check".  All either of these appts are is TALKING to you.  Medicare will pay for that.

And if you get labs - which your new provider will tell you they need - Medicare pays ZERO.  You will be looking at a $400 ish bill that you have to pay. 

 (Just got hit with this one today - SEVEN MONTHS after the appointment!!)

Apple of My Eye

 It is coming up season for fresh apples! 

 I can’t wait to see what they have at the produce auction.  But I always have trouble remembering which types are sweet verses tart.  I like mid-range heading up towards sweet and Himself likes the tart ones.

 This chart will be helpful…

 

Bye Bye Bonsai Belongings

 An ongoing part of my refining my focus on everything was to decide where I wanted to go with my bonsai.  While I really like many things in the bonsai world, to actually DO them just does not work for me.  Stress vs fun.

 I did a KonMari on all bonsai related items I had:  pots, stands, books, decor, tools.  All of it.  As I sorted I thought heavily on what I do enjoy about doing bonsai.

 I just don’t care about showing trees.  And I don’t like being pushed to do so.  I love reality; not artificial (hard to maintain) perfection.  Since I am not going to show almost all of my stands  and other show ‘needs’ are leaving.  With this realization I found the name for my bonsai garden - Atsumatta Wabi Sabi.  “Gathered Imperfect Beauty”. 

 Gathered.  I’m not going to buy bonsai or pre-bonsai trees.  Yamadori is stock collected from the wild, or in my case YARDadori… collected from my yard (which is pretty wild).  Gifts will be accepted too as long as it isn’t a white elephant.  In that case, “Thank you so much but no thank you”. 

 I adore the small size bonsai and really shallow pots are the ‘gold standard’.  However, they do not adore me.  Too much maintenance.  My focus will be medium size bonsai so all of my small pots are leaving.

 Out of a tall stack of books, only 3 are staying.

I ended up with enough to cover two 8 foot tables.

 My plan for all this surplus is to offer it to a couple guys (bonsai buddies) who do this stuff professionally.  I hope to work a swap with them.  One afternoon this spring helping me get a few trees styled in exchange for all the stuff.  Or I’ll put it up for sale… take one, take all… for $TBD. 

 

One small portion.

 

Community

 One of the good things about living out in the country is the sense of community.  Recently a family lost their home to fire.

 

The area came together last Sunday and had a BBQ pork dinner fund raiser.

 

J&R's is the local "watering hole".  Definitely not posh but it was well attended.

 You could eat inside or do take-away.  And if you didn't want to go inside the smokey bar, you could ring them up and they would bring it out to you.

 

Himself coming out with his "plate".  That smile tells it all!

 

The servings were amazing.  There was enough for several meals.

 

 

Nightly Light Show

 The lightning bugs (or fire flies) have been amazing this year.  The yard is absolutely full of them each night.  99% are the regular yellow-green lights but the other evening Himself saw a bright orange one!

 We even have a bunch of synchronous lightning bugs!

 But one bug seemed to have decided to go the spot light route.  He NEVER shut off… no flashes whatsoever!  Well… maybe that is not quite right.  He would go from bright to dim to bright to dim.  Shining all the time.  Himself caught him for a closer look.

 

Bright.

 

                     

Dim.

 Of course we let him go right away.

 

 

 

Studio- a place for everything

 I have been cutting way back on my stash of ‘creative’ supplies.  I ask myself “what is the point”?  If I don’t have a place/method to display or use it… there is no point.  I’ve rehomed a LOT.

 

This is all my paper supplies now.  I make books & journals.  I do mixed media art that I put those journals. 

 

This hutch holds all my tools, painting supplies, and some odds and ends on top

 

And this wall my jewelry making bits, upcoming projects, and more odds & ends for creating. 

Everything is labeled and easy to get to.  Pretty soon the creating will begin!

 

 

 

My Current Hero

 

Books Are Not Sacred

 I’m a member of a Marie Kondo method Facebook decluttering group.  The area that gets to largest wails of “I can’t get rid of ANY”, “they are my precious friends”, “I’ve never thrown away a XXX”, and so is the book section.  

 

The wails are usually accompanied by a photo of a junked up mess of Precious piled up with absolutely no respect.  And there are 100s of versions of the Meme “It’s Not Hoarding If It’s Books”.  Uh… yes it is.

 Because of that one of my first areas of minimalizing was my book shelves in my studio!  (Upstairs books will be gone thru as I rework each room).  I’ve actually done this before and thought I was pretty much done.

 

Doesn’t look bad… especially when you consider I used have THREE of these units… filled.

  

It took me a full day to get it to this.  (Still a mess as I now have to organize and pretty up the space.)  I smile every time I walk past!

 

 

 

 

 

My Studio - The Starting Point

 I've finally gotten everything OUT of my studio that doesn't belong to me.  Sheesh, didn't think it would take that long.  Sad thing is that it pretty much looks the same!  

Oh well.  I jumped straight into dealing with all those irritating tubs I gritched about earlier.  Things are either getting put away properly or they're gone.  It is going well albeit slow.

As I finish each section, I will share what I've done.  Keeps me accountable!