Thursday's Activities

California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica)

The California poppies that self-seeded, last year, are starting to flower in the garden!  There are only a few flowers, right now, but, hopefully, there will be more, later.

Purple Martha Washington Geraniums 

In another part of the garden, the clump of geraniums in front of the garden shed are in flower, too.  I love their color.

Today, I picked another handful of peapods. 

Later, I did more cleaning in the garage.  I am going through some of the metal shelving units, wiping down each shelf and reorganizing what I am storing there.  I also tossed the giftwrap organizer my mother sewed for me, years ago:

Hanging Gift Wrap Organizer

It had one large pocket for rolls of gift wrap, and smaller pockets on the other side for storing ribbons, bows, folded pieces of gift wrap or small gift bags, etc.  It was old, faded, and starting to tear in one corner.  I tossed some of the rolls of gift wrap that I still had in it and the small child-sized broom that you can see sticking out from the pocket - my mother brought it from Sri Lanka for my daughter - a replica of the type of brooms we used there, with coconut fiber bristles.  Then, I wiped down that wall (so many cobwebs!) and washed that window.  

I pulled out one box containing some files that can be shredded and disposed of.  Since I don't have a shredder, it means I need to tear and/or cut the documents by hand.  I didn't want to take the time to do that, today, since I was still in the process of sorting things out.  Clearing out the boxes of files is something I will do, later.

In the evening, I decided to cook pasta with ground turkey sauce for dinner.  I cooked a 1 lb. packet of ground turkey with about half an onion, a few cloves of fresh garlic, a little celery, some diced bell pepper, a grated carrot, and 2.5 cups of grated zucchini that I had frozen.  All the extra vegetables bulked up the ground turkey:

Ground Turkey and Vegetables

I added about 3/4 of a can of tomato paste (leftover from cooking the frozen kufta) and a small container of homemade tomato sauce that I had frozen, earlier. If I didn't add the tomato paste and sauce, the turkey and vegetable mixture would have been good with rice or potatoes, I think.  Daughter and I had some of the ground turkey with pasta for our dinner and there are leftovers for tomorrow.  The 1 lb. of ground turkey cost $2.99 and I didn't even try to add the cost of the other ingredients, but, I consider this to be a relatively frugal meal.

After I had cooked dinner, but, before we ate, I called friend A to check on her.  Yesterday, friend A called me in the morning to tell me that her mother, who is visiting her, has had a stroke, sometime in the night or early morning (A's daughter found her grandmother unresponsive when she went to wake her up in the morning) and was in the ICU.  I called to check on her condition, again, yesterday evening, and spoke with A's daughter who had been with her grandmother all day; she updated me on her grandmother's condition - paralysis on the right side, not much voluntary movement on the left side, either, and unable to open her eyes or speak.  Today, when I called, A said her mother had taken a turn for the worse and the doctors have told the family to prepare themselves for the inevitable.  A is in shock and I tried to comfort her.  Her daughter C was with her grandmother, again, and apparently, she will sit with her grandmother until tomorrow morning when her younger sister and father will relieve her.  I offered to take her some dinner and daughter spoke with her, but, C declined the offer, saying she can't eat in the ICU room and she didn't want to step out of the room for even a few minutes.  Provided I don't have to report for jury duty in person, next week, I have promised to stay with A for a few hours in the afternoons, to keep her company while her husband and daughters go to work/attend to grandma, etc.

Later, I chatted with friend R, too.

Finally, I ordered some groceries to be picked up, tomorrow.  Earlier this week, grocery store workers in southern California began to vote on whether to authorize a strike or not.  The results of the vote will be announced on Sunday, I believe.  An authorization to  call a strike does not necessarily mean that there will be a strike, but, I thought it would be better to get the grocery shopping done sooner rather than later.    

Today, I am grateful for:

- Flowers in the garden
- Today's garden harvest
- The garage cleaning accomplishments
- Being able to order groceries online
- Digital coupons!

Today's joyful activity was checking on the flowers in the garden and picking peapods.

Plans for tomorrow include:

- Picking up the groceries
- Taking some items to friend R
- M tending to the garden
- Continuing with the garage cleaning

How was your Thursday?  What are your plans for Friday?