Raige Creations

I wish I was.... This is such a peppy tune, I hope it makes your Monday feel less terrible. I need all the help I can get to feel groovy. This cold ... And that is all I am going to say about that. Instead of more complaining , I will wish you all the joy you can find in chatting with a lampost and kicking down the cobble stones. After all, complaining don't do no good. Happy Monday!

It used to be the norm. Change of season = Onset of the Common Cold . But now that my kids are older, well not even kids anymore, we don't get sick regularly anymore. I love this aspect of children growing older, by the way. click for source Used to be me and the boys got strep throat ever few months when they were little. They were prone to it and without fail every time they got it, I got it. Hubby and daughter didn't seem to be affected, but me and the boys - every damn time. And the colds, we got those every other month! Kids in school = Colds every other month. And I don't even want to tell the story of that stomach flu they brought home from school. Let's not go there. (Besides that it hit every one of us 5 days  before Christmas the one year that I was hosting a huge, like 20 people over, family Christmas. That goes in the books as THE WORST .) As they kids grew and went off to college, we noticed seasonal colds, flus, sore throats, etc virtually wer...

It's been a while. I keep wanting to get a Music Monday done. I keep picking songs, even have a Two for Tuesday picked. But when it came to writing, I was at a loss. Nothing to give. Yes, I have written about having nothing to write about. A f ew times , and then some more . It is every writers problem, at one time or another. So I will save those songs when I feel the reason I picked them in the first place. But this song I heard, and I just felt like writing. I was avoiding the Debate last Wednesday, actually. Hubby wanted to 'witness history' or something like that. Me? Nope. I honestly have such a strong dislike for Trump, that listening to him at all gets me in such an annoyed and angry state it takes me a long time to recover from. I haven't uttered much about the election or the candidates for this reason. It is best for me to just put headphones on and listen to some good music and stay in my happy place. Anyway, to drown out the blathering on TV, I put ...

First, let me apologize. I am sorry for subjecting you to The Scorpions . They are far from a band I like, but after this weekend, and until Hurricane Matthew has inched it's way out of the Caribbean, hurricanes have been in the center of our daily activies. What other song could I pick?? I moved to the Caribbean back in 1993. Being from Western New York, I was not familiar with hurricane tracking. Snow storm tracking, yes, hurricanes, no. But over the years, it became a part of daily life during hurricance season. In June, we get the little newpaper insert that has a tracking map, the list of supplies you should have on hand at any given moment, and with each Tropical update you either add the new tropical depression to what is on your radar or you sit and wait until the next one.  There were many times we prepped for whatever storm might pass close by. Got the supplies, moved our 'important' things where we thought safest from wind and water, hunckered down and wat...

I was in the kitchen the other day, cooking something I can't remember, when I noticed this little guy spying on me. Who can it be, knocking at my window? Like he was trying to figure out a way to get in, he stayed there for quite a while. As often happens, 80's songs pop in my head in certain situations, and this was no exception . Now, I like lizards. It wasn't that I didn't want him to come in really, it was just that he was there, peeking in at me rather suspiciously. Almost creepy..... I feed the lizards out back, but the ones out front are not as friendly. They run off quckly and do not let us get very close. But I do enjoy seeing them just the same. However, I can't say we say the same thing about human visitors. In fact, hubby hates having visitors. Several times last week he uttered;  "I just want to be left the *&$% alone!"   (edited to not expose you to his use of colorful language that he uses quite regularly). He does no...

I got to sleep in a little today, a nice Sunday, perfect for staying in bed a little long, just because. I got up a little after 7am, but I was feeling very guilty about not getting up earlier to go for a run/walk, or Wog (walk/jog) as I now like to call it. I was a little groggy, but got on my running gear, decided that coffee after the run would be better than before the run, got my Tom Tom Runner searching for a satellite, and turned the ipod on and headed out.  Photo By Charlesjsharp - Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography, CC BY-SA 4.0,   The ' Go! ' beep went off on the Tom Tom  , so I started walking. Got on the road and I heard this banging on metal. Strange, but then I saw the culprit. A woodpecker , probably the one I saw in the Almond tree yesterday, was searching for food in the gutters. Cool. I decided to start to run, and after a little trouble getting going with all the thoughts going on in my head - the questioning o...

I tried. Finally. Had this recipe up for almost a week, vowing to make this delicious concoction of healthy apples and sweet cinnimon, so easy, no dairy so safe for Hubby. I procrastinated, as I am prone to do , and have blogged about many, many times. But finally decided that I would be Miss Accomplishment and bake it before work today. I put on some music, and began the mixing and cutting of apples, wondering why I don't spend more time baking and cooking. It is these simple pleasures that I want to bring more to the forefront of my life. There has been too much negativity, fighting, and just plain unpleasantness going on, yet while I was mixing and cutting to music, it all fell away and I was relaxed and enjoying the process. The apples and cinnamon smelled so good, the apples weren't browning, I stirred often. The wet mixture was ready. Then all that was left was the dry ingredients - and only two of them. I was in the homestretch with time to spare. I p...

Of course. The first day of my vacation, I get in the car to make it to the early morning cross fit class, and turn on the windshield wipers to get the dew off - NOTHING. I should have been preparing for this, I know. Last week the noise started. A loud, tired whirring when the wipers were on. But did I prepare? Nope. Who ever fixes anything on a car unless it completely stops working? Especially a 20 year old car. I am left with the question - worth fixing the wiper motor to sell or just unload as is? We have been talking about selling this one for a slighty less crappy piece of crap. Tough call. The part locally is twice as much as is should be. We don't have all the tools to follow the instructions on the You Tube videos I have spent the morning pouring over. But who would pay good money for a car that immediately needs repairs? That is the problem with old cars. I am just not sure I want to spend time on my vacation to muck around with this. Perhaps just order the ...

It's another installment of 'get this song into your head - so it gets out of mine'. And a bonus Two for Tuesday, because I just didn't have time to hit "publish" on this blog yesterday. We have this album , Everclear 's So Much for the Afterglow , released in 1997, and it got put in the CD player the other week. Yes, we are old-skoolin' it with actual CD's in a CD player. (Not completely okd-skoolin' it with an AM Radio though) As you may have forgotten, when you start a CD player, it plays only the songs that are in there. I do think we are lucky to have a 5 disc player, and I believe it does have a shuffle feature, but that is not set at the moment so it plays one CD, moves on to the next, repeat 5 times. Also, if you forgot, it is kind of a pain to find CD's you actually want to listen to from your 15-25 year old, rather large and vaired collection. So you put in a set of 5 CD's and there they stay for weeks. So, this...

from Pinterest via http://paleoaholic.com/ My mind was the one that had the bright idea to try the early morning Cross Fit class. I knew I had to do it, get back to seriously exercising, but I was afraid. I had not been to Cross Fit since the end of May. Two WHOLE MONTHS. Plus, I did very little in the way of any other exercise. I stopped getting up early for run/walks. I hardly walked on the beach. Swim? Nope. Kayak? Once. Eat? Hell yeah! I ate. I ate pizza, fried fish with French fries (yumm), and more pizza, had cookies, pies, ice cream. I even broke down and had a Wendy's burger with French fries (yummm). (I LOVE French fries) Ugh. By yesterday, after polishing off half a pie in 2 days, I was downright feeling fat, disgusted with myself. Now, I DID enjoy everything I ate. I made sure to. I knew all along it would catch up with me. And yesterday it did. I felt like I was rolling down the hallways at work, sloshing around the house. When I sat I felt like Jabb...

Not often enough do we say it. I started this blog last night, thinking how thankful I am, despite the all the stresses and unknowns. It was a very nice weekend, time spent with family relaxing and doing some fun stuff too, so this song seemed to be perfect. I WAS thankful, content. But then, this morning - not enough sleep is never a good way to start the day - I could feel the grumpies set in. I was in a foul mood. Then I remembered I was going to use this song. At first, I thought - No way, this does NOT fit today at all. I almost wrote it off completely, wasn't going to do a blog at all, but then I thought about the song. The questions in it suggesting we just be thankful. Why not? How bout it? How bout stopping eating when I'm full up How bout me enjoying the moment for once How bout remembering your divinity Well, how bout pushing the grumpies right out? How bout approaching the day with seeing things through eyes of gratitude instead of through the eye...

Taking a minute to take stock of the week. It boils down to: Stories, A Stormy Start, Snails, Plants, Flowers, and Coffee (or late coffee really). Sounds nice and simple, right? Even if a little horrifying (late coffee....). But dang I am tired. It has been a long week! Stories: I did manage to get some writing in, but I have to wait to share because it will be published (!)  on this great site, Women Who Live On Rocks . It is a site featuring a fabulous group of women who, well, live on rocks. It is a collaboration of funny women writers celebrating the humorous quirks and eccentricities unique to island living . (See regular postings on the Facebook page.)  It will be my first article published there, and I am so excited to have a new outlet. Hubby stumbled across this site, and thought I would like to expand my writing a bit. As hubby said, it is more a story telling style, which he knew I would find rather challenging. I also have been taking some photos, again, w...

This song is on my 'Mom's Run Playlist - Fun' (as opposed to the 'Race' one or the plain one with a whole heap of songs that really aren't good to run to....) .  I added it when my kids let me know about this AWESOME tool to make any YouTube video a file you can put on your (or on my hand-me-down) ipod, otherwise known as MP3 file . I went on a bit of a  binge on YouTube of  80's music, and that is how this made the list. It actually has a good running beat! (much to the surprise of hubby that I would put ANY Rod Stewart song on a running playlist...needless to say, he is not a fan.) So I was running, and at this point in the run I was concentrating on the words (it was hot, and I was tired). I remembered this song from my teenage years, where some of the lyrics were inspring to a young mind, who was a bit bored with the suburban life, and dreamed of more exciting things to come. Like this line: "Young hearts be free tonight. Time is on yo...

This song is included on one of my playlists for my run/walks - or Wogging (a term I just heard this past weekend at a 5k that I signed up to run, but ended up doing the walk with a jog in the middle mile. I love that term!) My oldest son made me a playlist just for Wogging , in his smart-assy way included songs with the words walk or run in them, but this one actually has a great beat for walking. The song also reminds me that taking a walk, run, or exercising in any way, really does wonders. It makes you exert energy, which lowers stress. It takes your mind off all those stressful things that have been bothering you - or else it helps you work through issues that you have been struggling with.  If you are oustide exercising, it helps to remind you how awesome nature is - either the views, the rain, the hot, the cold, the earth and plants - awesome in positive and negative ways, all keeping you humble to its power.  After you are done with your walk, run, Wogging, ...

Take this as literal, as in actually digging in the dirt and sand. The song relates to, as says Gabriel, "During this period I discovered the most unbelievable phenomena within myself, characteristics which I value for myself, but also characteristics with which I would rather not be confronted, like unlimited rage, or merciless hatred." But no such rage or hatred was involved in this digging. Only curiosity and awe at the finds. This led to research, a digging of sorts, for information on practices long changed and nearly lost. The site was next door to a cemetery, and after the earth and sand was greatly moved for a new development, these things were near the surface! Very interesting finds, and the mind does want the stories that go along with such things. Thankfully, hubby is a pro researcher, having the interest and curiosity to search and search until every possible thing is found out, every possible theory, scenario, etc. At times, it is tough to keep...

Sunrise 4-29-16 Apparently I only needed 6 hours of sleep last night. I was up at 4:30am. But, make the most of every situation, right? So when it started getting light, I popped out and put my feet in the cool sand, snapped a pic, and have high hopes this Friday, and weekend, are as spectacular as the view this morning.  At the same time, I know I will be getting tired, and know that when I am tired, the grumps set in. I may just want to hide this afternoon, kinda like this wee little froggie I caught in the banana plant.  Wee Little Froggie  Hiding Sunrises and hiding froggies.....could either be a great story of beauty and nature, or a tale of impending doom. It will be interesting to see how this Friday unfolds.

So, what comes to your head when you read that? "Uh huh, uh huh!" Yup. So when I told hubby "I brought you some coffee" to wake him up, he said "Give it to me, baby" to which I replied "Uh huh, uh huh" because, yeah, what else goes with that request? And, all day, in my head, this song was. Yup, I was keepin' it real. Enjoy!

Two weeks in a row, my Mondays have been "cursed." I won't go in to the details of last week, let's just say just when I though things couldn't get worse, well they did. (I mean, a car accident in the middle of that bad day wasn't even the worst.....bad stuff kept happening!!!) Thankfully last week ended 100 times better than it started, so I wasn't even worried this morning. Until..... I did my normal morning routine, get the coffee pot ready and sit down and check emails (and of course FB to 'see what was going on the "world"')  while it was brewing. After 10 minutes, I realized I didn't hear the usual gurgling from the coffee maker. Yup, didn't turn the damn thing on. Annoying at best, I had not though much more of it. Then, while getting ready for work, I was sipping coffee. Yes, in the bathroom, which I have already heard is a " no-no ", " unsanitary ", " you know better ", etc. B...

I commented to hubby this morning, "there is nothing better than having coffee with you, out here, on a Sunday morning". "Bee Happy" photo courtesy of Raige Creations. I totally felt that, right then, in the moment. I was truly enjoying my slightly sweetened and slightly creamy coffee, after a very good 3.1 mile run (I went past our place to get over the 3 mile mark....yes I was that runner today), and just relishing the moment (even tho hubby was trying to talk politics....my least favorite subject). I feel I should add - this was all before 8am! I just realized at that moment, I was thankful for the slow Sunday we were enjoying. You might say, "SLOW? you call getting up before 6am and running 3 miles slow?" And to that I say, "YES!!" I could get out of bed at my leisure, not because I HAD to at that moment. I got to go for that run, and witness a most beautiful sunrise, and watch an older gentleman line-fishing off shore in the fo...