respublica

Asiatic Lilies

About a month ago, Dale came home with a bouquet of beautiful white flowers. They had long stalks which were filled with opened and not yet opened, blooms. Neither of us were familiar with this flower but became more and more amazed as they all opened. Not only were they gorgeous, but several times a day they would poof out the most wonderful fragrance. We looked at them and talked about them several times a day. The best part was his bouquet lasted almost 3 weeks. They are Asiatic Lilies.

This has had me bringing home other bunches of these flowers. I got a pink group and put them in with the original whites. After these all dropped their petals, I went out and got more. I'm even looking into seeing if we could grow our own. For some reason our local Schnucks usually has them these days in the front row of their floral area. They do sell well so I keep my eye on them when shopping.

Long long trucks

I've noticed recently that beer delivery trucks are getting longer and longer. With the local American Legion across our street having beer brought in every couple of days that the Coors truck is almost as long as the building is wide. And, this morning a Budweiser truck came through and is almost as big. It's no fun to be on the interstate around all those type of trucks and other trucks are as tall as they are long. And, there are millions of them on our interstates.

Dinner woes

With all the awfulness on the news this week, I feel guilty about obsessing about what to have for dinner, but here we are. Since Dale retired we've eaten at home almost 100 percent of the time. Covid shutdowns got us out of the habit of going out to eat and when we talk about going out, we never seem to be up to it.

I have used a rotating menu which I'm tired of. I made a nice roast beef last night which took a bit of effort and was worth it...not an every day plan though. I ask Dale what he'd like for supper and 95 percent of the time he mentions hot dogs. I really believe he could happily live on hot dogs.

So here we are once again.

This is most certainly not true

What is the best bakery in Illinois? According to Mashed, it is Lost Larson located in Chicago. Of course it would be located in Chicago, most food experts rarely venture much beyond that area. But I beg to differ.

Kruta Bakery in Collinsville is right up at the top when it comes to bakeries. Mashed foodies have probably never gotten further south in Illinois than Homewood. This sort of thing happens a lot when it comes to "best of" anything in Illinois.

We know better down here.

And in the same vein, a ranking of the best places to live in Illinois by niche.com, were all in the Chicago area. I mean seriously folks, do these Illinois surveyors ever get out of Chicagoland? And, the top Illinois cities in which to live are all suburbs. Shocker. Part of my growing up years were spent on the southside of Chicago, the Roseland neighborhood, the the second half in the west suburb of Villa Park. I loved those places but that is not all there is to Illinois. And...

The city ranked the top best is a place I have never heard of: Bannockburn! Sounds more like it should be in Scotland and must be a fairly new suburb comparatively.

Here is the list

1. Bannockburn
2. Long Grove
3. Clarendon Hills
4. Naperville
5. Inverness
6. Hinsdale
7. Buffalo Grove
8. Western Springs
9. Kildeer
10. Evanston

 

Cotton ball gardening hack

Lately I've been spending more and more time out in the garden areas of our yard. Got the potato pots planted, put in some radish seed using the seed tape and have begun eyeing the rest of the planting beds to see what needs doing next. It's time for some things to get planted, too early for others. But the soil still needs working to be ready.

Which means I tend to read articles on this sort of thing and this particular gardening article struck me as the dumbest thing ever.

The Cotton Ball Hack to Germinate Seeds for Your Garden. The idea is you cram a bunch of cotton balls tightly into a jar, wet them down and then pop one or two seeds into it. Place the jar in a sunny window and moisten the cotton as needed. The one or two seeds should eventually grow enough to me removed and planted.

Who is going to do this? How many jars of cotton balls will have to sit around sunny windows in order to make the garden worth while? Not gonna be me.

Is half a roll better?

We use a lot of paper towels around here. I use them for everything practically-cleaning the counters, windows, clearing drip spots from the floor, drying fruit and vegetables I wash and on and on.We go through a lot of paper towels. Somehow using a dish cloth several times over seems unsanitary and using it just once and tossing it in the washer seems a waste. Paper towels do the job. But it gets expensive, the cost of these has gone up just like everything else. So this article caught my eye.

"Woman Cuts Paper Towel Roll in Half and Swears it Saves Her Money."

Along with the article is a Tik Tok video of her doing just that. However it struck me as pretty hard to do and without a really good knife this could be ragged. This does not mean I won't test this with one of our rolls. The knife should be sharp and I wonder if using a good knife may dull it. So we shall see.

Ten Grocery Stores with the Freshest Produce

This list was put out By a foodie site and can be taken as you will. Here are their choices in order of the freshest produce.  Around here we can find a Whole Foods and a Fresh Thyme

1. Whole Foods
2. Sprouts Farmers Market
3. Central Market-Texas
4. Natural Grocers-Colorado
5. Heinen's
6. Wegman's-Out east
7. H-E-B--Texas
8. Hy-Vee-Midwest
9. Jungle Jims-Ohio
10. The Best Market-where I don't know but they are
11. Fresh Thyme, many places

Obsessive People should not be allowed to write articles

Here is one example of an obsessive person who want all of us to be like her. "How to get rid of dust in your home easily and effectively."

Right of the bat anyone who lives anywhere know this will be impossible. I read through the long list of things we should be doing to fight dust and I just finally laughed. It's unbelievable, we'd be doing nothing but dusting every day. You can read it the link if you have the energy.

The least helpful advice for lower back pain

I admit I now have lower back stiffness and discomfort. It began around the time we moved back to Collinsville and I point to two reasons, age not being one of them. I have been sitting way to much since moving back, reading, sitting at the computer or tv. This story headline attracted me but the first thing on back issues I read was a word I've never heard of. Psoas!

Now I had to take anatomy in College and read various articles on physical things fairly regularly but have never come across the word, psoas. It appears to be the name for a deep hip flexor that connects to the spine and extends down to our femur. The Femur is the longest and strongest bone in our bodies and attaches to the hip and knee. Sitting a lot causes this flexor to tighten and shorten causes problems.

The advice for helping back stiffness and pain is to get going and stretch the Psoas. I honestly do not know quite how to do this, but do know that stretching the lower back muscles and knees does help a lot. I often lay on the couch and lift by legs and hold position and can feel the back loosen. Maybe what I'm doing has something to do with the unheard of Psoas, but I'll keep doing what I'm doing.

The exercises shown in this article are kind of too much for me, but I may try a couple.

This and that

A couple of news items I found interesting or just silly. First "the worst cities to live in in Illinois".

The worst places to live in the Illinois Metro East. Probably anyone who lives in this area can name one. Here Is what the Edwardsville Intelligencer newspaper chose. Centreville is at the top, followed by Alton, East St. Louis and Cahokia.