World Chocolate Day

Getting up this morning I wondered what to write about. Has anyone noticed that since the 16th of June I have managed to post every day? That is a goal I set for myself and I hope now that I have written it for all to see I won't blow it. Part of the reason for the travel computer I talked about yesterday is to keep this morning writing going no matter where I am. 

So, checking in with National Day Calendar I found out it is World Chocolate Day and it has been every July 7th since 2009. Nearly everyone likes chocolate in some form or another. I have been indulging in chocolate for a few days now. I made a Pillsbury Sugar Free Brownie mix for the 4th of July. I mixed in some walnuts and some Bake Believe No Sugar Added Dark Chocolate Chips. They are very fudgy, rich tasting and satisfy my sweet tooth.

So, will you be having any chocolate today?

Back with more again soon. 

Take care and stay cozy! 

New Laptop!

I got a new laptop yesterday. A very nice and busy Amazon driver delivered it. Since we travel a few times a year I wanted to invest in a lightweight laptop. My new one is just over 3 pounds and my old one is about 3 times that. So far so good. 

The battery life seems to be good. I used it of course once it charged for about 4 hours yesterday and not using it create this blog post and it still has about 73% charge left. 

It is smaller of course so I don't have a number pad to the right so there is that to get used to. 

The display seems nice, but I am not picky. When I first started it up the resolution was set to 1920 x 1080 at 150%. That made everything too big but at 100% everything was too small. So like Goldilocks I found a just right for me setting at 125%.

The keyboard is comfortable to use. The keys are nice and large. Not backlit but that would suck battery life, so it is okay. With the little bumps on f and j I can keep myself oriented when typing.

The trackpad seems very responsive to me. I am not a gamer or even close so this gives me all the functionality I need without having to pack a mouse.

On each end I found all the slots I needed. First of all a card reader for camera cards is a must and this computer has one. It comes with 1 new type usb and 2 of the older ones so that is good. Headphone jack for quiet movie viewing or listening to music. An HDMI slot is also part of the lineup on this computer, and I have a cable so I could connect this computer to a TV. 

The laptop came preloaded with Windows 11. It is the first time I have used this operating system but it feels comfortable. Finding where all the settings were to personalize it have been easy so far.

I paid just over $400 for this laptop and feel like I got a good deal. The pictures are affiliate links, I did buy this laptop and the opinions are my own about it. If something goes wrong or it continues to be great, I will let you know.

Back with more again soon. 

Take care and stay cozy! 

New to Me Recipe

We had a quiet and lovely Fourth of July. Just the two of us. Jim dozing through the movie he picked to watch after dinner as normal. Fireworks in the neighborhood starting around 8 pm and going till around 10 pm. I think today being a work day had something to do with the early quitting time. When the Fourth is part of a weekend some folks around here will be doing fireworks till around midnight.

We grilled of course for dinner. Simple food, burgers and corn on the grill. Watermelon and a cucumber salad to go with the meal. Brownies for desert. I tried a new salad from Love and Lemons. The salad is made with cucumbers of course, red onion, a vinegar and honey dressing, and a just before serving garnish of chopped fresh dill and fresh chives. The addition of the dill was very good and the salad was a hit with both of us. I love no cook recipes this time of year so I will keep this one around to make again and again.

So how was your Fourth?

Back with more again soon. 

Take care and stay cozy! 

Happy Fourth of July to all of you here in the US. I am still trying to create a new way to celebrate holidays here in Arizona. On the 4th when we lived in Jackson I would walk to Town Square in the morning to see the parade. Later we would use the grill for burgers and corn and homemade salads and watermelon. We would go outside to watch the fireworks going off at Snow King Resort. It was a lovely small town America way to spend the 4th.

Now I live in Arizona. It is too hot to be outside to watch a parade. Like 110 hot and that can be dangerous. We will still grill and have all our supplies ready. 

As for fireworks, no big shows are near us. I think there will be some that you have to pay to get close enough to see anything and again the heat here even when the sun goes down. I can count on neighbors to be setting off all kinds of fireworks legal and illegal in the streets from about 9pm to midnight whether I like them or not. It's not good or bad, I am just used to it. The worry of course is about fire. Everything here is so dry.

So to you, dear reader, I wish you a nice fun filled day. Take care of yourself. Leave a comment about your Fourth of July. Comments are treasure to a blogger. I would love to hear from you!

Back with more again soon. 

Take care and stay cozy! 

Warning, I'm Gonna Whine

Whine, yes, yes I am gonna about 2 things this morning. 

First up is Twitter. What the hell are they thinking over there. I use twitter to post affiliate links and shop items when my Etsy shop is open. That is just a small part of my activity on Twitter. The majority of my time is spent retweeting creative types, vintage sellers, authors, photographers and more. 

My tool for doing these retweets is TweetDeck. I have a column for Notifications that lets me know who has retweeted me and I return the favor. It is so easy to scroll down the list and open up the timelines of those I want to retweet. That column is now broken and will not load or rather it has not loaded for the last 2 days.

Trying to use the Notifications from my profile page is just sooooo clunky and in no way is worth the frustration when compared to the list I can get from TweetDeck. 

I like Twitter, the good, the bad and the ugly of it. I will miss it if it collapses. I do hope it can survive Elon.

Whine number 2 is personal. My hip is feeling much better these days thank goodness. But I have a new issue and it bugs me when life goes this way. I am the one who is supposed to wake up fine every day. Jim tends to have all the aches and pains. 

I had an accident when we were moving some furniture around yesterday. We decided to do away with our shared office so Jim can have his room and I can have my own. It is a good idea but is going to need a lot of work to rearrange furniture and the organization of closets. I managed to catch my little toe on my right foot and break it. I spent a lot of time elevating and icing it yesterday. 

This morning it is sore and swollen and purple so I am looking forward to another day of the same. The  biggest pieces of furniture have been moved but the closets need to be cleaned out and my crafty debris needs to move from my old room to the new one. It is going to have to wait a few days I think.

Back with more again soon. 

Take care and stay cozy! 

From Joann's

Earlier this week my neighbor asked me if I would like to go to breakfast and then to Joann's. She needed to look for some yarn or thread in a certain color for a project. Even though I don't need any yarn right now, or possibly for the rest of my life, I said yes. We had a nice breakfast filled with good food and lots of chatter. Since I had been in California from February to June we had a lot of catching up to do.

You can see what I did find over on the left. At 70% off I figured it was worth the price I would pay. I put the wreath on the door yesterday and will probably keep it up for all of July. I like the idea of having something red, white and blue  in a wreath for the door for the holiday on the 4th and the rest of the month too.

I do have a question for any readers out there. Is it just me or is the craft part, with things like yarns and fabric, in stores like Joann's, Hobby Lobby and Michael's getting smaller and smaller while the décor areas get bigger and bigger? Do you feel manipulated like grocery stores do with the good stuff in the back so you walk through the junk to get there? You know what I mean right? Grocery stores put milk in the back because nearly everyone buys it. Craft stores put my yarn in the back so I have to walk past the décor stuff to get to it. The thing about this store plan is I am never going to look at the decorating  items unless they are on a very deep clearance discount like what I picked up at 70% off. I don't need any more stuff and after what I went through at mom's earlier this year I should be getting rid of a lot of stuff.

Back with more again soon. 

Take care and stay cozy! 

So Silly, So Sad

So I am being silly to be sad about the fact that twitter is currently broken. This means I can't do retweets for all the folks that have tweeted my posts in the last day.

I want my twitter back and it is totally beyond my control. My other issue is that twitter is my only social media now. For many reasons I deleted my Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest accounts last month. All of my online social activity is in one place. I felt so good about that but now I wonder.

So while I'm sitting here not doing what I had planned for the next hour I am wondering how y'all doin?

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Back with more again soon. 

Take care and stay cozy!