I have picked up a new hobby these last 4-6 months. I love my new hobby. It brings me much solace and therapeutic benefits given my circumstances.
Because I spend a lot of my days and evenings in the kitchen making healthy recipes and meals for my Early Alzheimer’s Mom, that on her own she would live off of strictly potato chips, cheeses, almonds, walnuts, and cheese cakes or Blue Bell ice cream exclusively, grazing on these items all morning, afternoon, evening, and into the wee-hours of 1:00am — 3:00am, without pause, so I do this in the kitchen.
How is my herb garden coming along you ask? Well, I’d say for my very first late-summer, early-autumn seeding, rooting, and transplanting, I think pretty damn good. I have some viewers and followers (Arkenatan of A Tale Unfolds) who have been doing this sort of gardening for years and decades, and compared to them I am certainly a rookie learning as I go. For the most part, I must say that I’m fairing pretty well. And according to Mom and sister, when I use some of my various herbs in recipes for them, they are impressed and sometimes rave how good a gourmet chef I’ve become. There is nothing like super fresh herbs straight from your own garden to kitchen and table! Want to see my own home-grown herbs? Of course you do. 😉
Named from top left tier to right, middle tier L to R, and bottom tier L to R images below. My pitchers of liquid seaweed in background.
Garlic Chives
Dwarf Parsley
Bunching Evergreen Onions, had to block the glare with hand.
English Thyme
Sweet Mint.
More Bunching Onions, because they need “spreading” once 3″ — 5″ tall.
Cilantro that we use in many recipes, especially our Pico de Gallo.
More Mint (Spearmint) for my hot teas and recipes like Loin of Lamb or on crackers, as seen below.
Common Oregano, or Oraganum vulgare. New sprouts on the left.
Then not pictured from my garden, but otherwise in two pot containers, my Basil Prospera F1, also known as Genovese or Basil Valentino, as pictured here:
Though mine is F1 Organic, not “PS5.”
Back in late September I planted Rosemary seeds (Rosmarinus officinalis) which grows and thrives very well here in Central Texas. But surprisingly and to my slight dismay my one little sprout—out of 4 or 5 seed-pots—died earlier this week. Grrrrr, can’t win them all, huh? I’ll try again in the Spring 2024. They should do alright for then and rooting/growing in my pots for the full sun summer.
Two of many recipes I’ve used these home-grown herbs for are my fresh Basil Pesto, Mediterranean Veggie or Margarita pizzas, or this one below, Creamy Chicken Pesto Penne Pasta with fresh spinach and sundried tomatoes:
Creamy Chicken Pesto Penne Pasta with spinach & sundried tomatoes.
Or this smash hit today, Rosemary & Olive oil crackers with my fresh Sweet Mint leaves, Rat Trap Cheddar or Danish Bleu Cheese (from Denmark), topped with cherry tomato halves. Compliment this appetizer with a glass of—my favorite red—like Mendoza Valley (Argentina) Malbec or a bold Cabernet Sauvignon to explode the flavors and fragrance in your mouth and nose, image below:
My very fresh Sweet Mint cuttings, cherry tomato halves in container. Mom in the background in her usual spot on the couch enjoying her snack immensely!
These last several months growing my herbs from seed have been wonderfully satisfying and a bit of therapy for my otherwise full-time/overtime Caretaking of Mom. I’d say it is coming along nicely, wouldn’t you? 🌱🌿
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always – Garden Lots
My free-time for WordPress blogging and commenting, on all of my sites, is going to become very short, sometimes infrequent or rare. My soon-to-be 84-year old mother will be going into a full-time Memory Care Assisted Living facility this month or early December. Her Stage 7 Dementia is now into Early Alzheimer’s.
Two other reasons have caused this over the last 4-5 months. First, Mom has fallen twice in the last 3-months. She is unable to get up from the floor or ground on her own if no one is nearby or within earshot. Fortunately, I was home when these last two falls occurred. One of them was around 2:30am when I got out of bed to use the restroom. She happened to hear me and yelled for my help. She had no idea how long she had been on the floor or how she fell/tripped.
The second reason she must go into Assisted Living is because alone by myself, 12-16 hours per day with her, the last 28-months (with no day off every single one of those 12-16 hrs days), has almost killed me. I can no longer manage everything for her life, especially with no respites at all for that long. Mentally, emotionally, and physically… I am fried, spent.
Mom at Mackinac Island, MI, June 2021 (L), and Mom & I at Kerrville Renaissance Festival, Jan. 2023
As a result of these 850+ days and nights of non-stop caretaking, I have developed chronic health problems. My own health has taken a serious nosedive the last 12-14 months primarily due to a worsening of my sacroiliitis, agitated and inflamed daily due to the fact that Mom’s Senior Community apartment is designed for elderly wheelchair residents, i.e. everything, and I mean everything in the bathrooms, sinks, kitchen appliances, pantry, bathtubs, closets, etc, are intentionally installed/built down low, where I must constantly bend over/down or get on one knee or sit on a footstool. Two plus years of doing this daily has three-times dropped me to the floor in the fetal position in excruciating pain.
It can wait no longer. I now have no choice but to greatly improve or recover my own health.
Therefore, my sister and I will be moving Mom into River Point of Kerrville within the next 2-4 weeks. This also means me moving out, perhaps back to Dallas, TX. This is up in the air for the moment. But one thing is certain: I can no longer live in a small country rural town with so many ultra-religious, super-Conservative rednecks and a never-ending sea of LOUD (diesel) monster pickup-trucks that don’t fit inside ANY parking-space in any parking lot! And I won’t go into the intellectual levels or prowess (or lack) of most people in this four-county area. I badly need more brain-stimulations on higher levels, period.
Hence, please excuse my increased absence here, on WordPress and your blogs. Hopefully, when life settles back down and returns (for me at least) to “normal,” after I know exactly where I will be living and working (again), then I shall be back in force. 🙂
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
Earlier this month I was asked to write a guest blog-post regarding the Israel-Hamas Conflict that erupted (again) inside Palestine Oct. 7, 2023. I was very happy to do this for a good blogging friend and offer a less than popular viewpoint about the “recent” history of Israel inside Palestine since 1947-48. For the sake of brevity and at the expense of detailed historical facts since 1945, I was also restrictedonly to the “biblical-theological” justification or evidence for Israel being inside Palestine, if there was any. This position is impossible to defend on principles as well as biblical texts. Therefore, this was a major challenge for me, especially knowing beforehand that my personal viewpoint is NOT well received inside a generally Conservative, (hyper?) religious United States and typically pro-Israel primarily on religious evangelical and very narrow political reasons only.
During the blog-post I was heavily challenged by one or two commenters about my position on the conflict. Unfortunately, those ‘challenges’ were heavily moderated and not allowed for me to answer or rebut said challenges when I was perfectly prepared to do so. I also was debating the issue of what should be done over at Gary’s Escaping Christian Fundamentalism, primarily about history’s time-periods. But my counter-rebuttals on the first blog-post, before they were even allowed, were viewed as excessive, bordering on primate fighting, and feeding an irate lion attacking me. I completely and unequivocally disagree with this hasty, premature assumption. Hence, this post. I wish to show my civility and deep knowledge on this highly controversial topic inside the U.S.
Two primary points or challenges were asserted to me based upon false pretenses:
“Ancient” history cannot be corrected or rectified in the 21st century.
Invaded, conquered, and occupied land cannot be returned to the previous owners.
Both of these pretenses cannot be adequately defended and this is why they cannot.
On #1, this weak defense is ultimately irrelevant. Of course we cannot change things for the better today that took place well over 500–2000 years ago. This is a no brainer. I have never advocated for this to take place today, particularly inside Palestine. Anyone who throws this up at me is either NOT fully reading or comprehending my thorough, deeply researched “recent” history on the conflict, or they just want to ignore it all together. Period.
On #2, actually within “recent” history, this has been done on numerous occasions. When invading, conquering, occupying nations accept in remorse and see their wrong-doing, atrocious methods of land-grabbing by annexation, violence, massacring, and/or war, there has been plenty of cases where they returned the conquered land or the international community (the U.N.) made them give back the illegally seized land.
Before I give those examples, let me define what is the difference between “ancient” history, “modern” history, and “recent” history.
Ancient history is considered by most historical scholars today as the time-period before 1500 CE, or prior to the Middle/Medieval Age. This is a period where today it is near or completely impossible to forensically investigate and/or challenge “traditional” transgenerational oral or written narrations. Victors almost always write their own version of ancient events—today we have little to go on to verify their objective accounts of events. These attempts to use ancient history to justify current 21st century facts, is usually an exercise in foolishness. It’s a can of worms for sure.
Modernhistory is considered by many/most scholars today as the time from 1500 CE to 1945. I agree with this decision. Even verifying factually events between 1500–1799 can be extremely difficult. It takes years to plausibly draw definitive conclusions about world events, much less 100% certainty.
However, Recenthistory is a whole other ballgame. The time after 1945–present day is much, MUCH easier to forensically or evidentially, via multiple sources, verify and reverify. This absolutely applies to Zionist Israel from 1897–present. It also applies to Israel’s major ally, the United States, and how the U.S. was an evil bed-partner militarily and economically in accessorizing and aiding Israel’s illegal creation in a foreign land in 1946-47 inside an already occupied territory for several millenia.
Yes, the land that Israel illegally stole from Palestine with the major help of the United States absolutely CANbe returned to Palestine with the help of the General Assembly of the U.N. Why? Because reparations or returned land has been done numerous times in the past:
In 1988 Congress voted to extend an apology and pay $20,000 to each Japanese-American survivor of the internment. More than $1.6 billion was paid to 82,219 eligible Japanese-American claimants.
African-American survivors of police abuses in Chicago; victims of forced sterilization; and black residents of a Florida town that was burned by a murderous white mob, have been given reparations.
Many reparations have been made by the U.S. government to Native American Indians and the many injustices done by the U.S. government and its military in the 19th-century.
After World War II, Japan returned the territories it had invaded and occupied in China, Korea and Southeast Asia.
In 1956, Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt as part of the Suez Crisis agreement.
In 1975, Spain returned the Western Sahara to Morocco and Mauritania.
In 1999, the United Kingdom returned Hong Kong to China.
In 2002, The United States returned control of the Panama Canal to Panama.
Therefore, I stand by my position on Israel-Palestine sternly, earnestly, and unwaveringly. Israel mustgive back what they have stolen from Palestine and the U.S., the U.K., and France mustbe the primary movers in making this happen pronto! Otherwise, there will never be lasting peace in Gaza-Palestine until Israel and the U.S. admit their horrible judgement and evil doing in 1946-47. Period.
Is that a realistic possibility? Odds are less than 2% to 0% because both Israel and the U.S. are highly arrogant, hyper proud, and consider themselves hyper-self-righteous and they’ve never done anything wrong to other peoples, ever in the history of humanity. Admitting wrong-doing and rectifying it is just not in the DNA of Israel or the U.S. Period.
Fair Warning for any Commenters — any incivility or personal attacks will not be tolerated. Please review my Professor’s Netiquette page for details. Thank you. 🙂
In a world of many mistakes I thought it would change. Could we make it out? Promises break so I need To hear you say, You will keep it now Not some other day.
I long for our talks, How you said my name. The way you twist, the way you rise and fall. Your heart on a sleeve and face, your strength through it all, the way you are in lace.
When the curtain called the time Will we both be home again? It wasn’t hard to feel the signs, the ease, your depth of femme Till love’s death Of peace of mind.
Never before in our country’s 247-year history has a Speaker of the House been ousted, removed, and forced to vacate. In a vote of 216 to 210, Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been (for the moment) terminated for NOTbeing the Speaker of the House chamber! He was not the House Speaker for the Republican party, but by bound duty the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representative to legislate and get bills, acts, and appropriations done. That was his sworn duty. Period. According to a majority of his own House Republicans, he failed and failed miserably.
Since this historic vote took place earlier this afternoon, I’ve watched and heard many interviews with Republican Representatives by the mainstream news outlets, and all of the Republican Reps kept trying to harp on the national debt of $31.4–$33 trillion. It is the typical deflect and divert tactic away from the sheer chaos today’s Republican party is in… and it is their own fault, their own catastrophe they themselves created in 2010–2016.
But nonetheless, let’s look much closer, much deeper into the context of their panicked response to McCarthy’s removal: the national debt and deficitthat supposedly, according to them, was caused by Democratic administrations. Grab the microscopes.
According to the Pew Research Center, a reliable established goliath in research reporting and objective fact-checking, there are five (5) facts about our accumulation of national debt that the mainstream news outlets rarely get in-depth about.
The federal government’s total public debt stood at just under $31.46 trillion as of Feb. 10th, 2023. Nearly all of that debt – about $31.38 trillion – is subject to the statutory debt limit.
For several years, the nation’s debt has been bigger than its gross domestic product (GDP). Read the Pew article for more in-depth details.
21.8% of the public debt, or $6.87 trillion, is owned by another arm of the federal government itself. This includes Medicare; specialized trust funds, such as those for highways and bank deposit insurance; and civil service and military retirement programs. But the biggest chunk of those “intragovernmental holdings” belongs to Social Security.
The Federal Reserve System is the single largest holder of U.S. government debt. The Fed bought Treasuries in massive quantities during the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to keep the U.S. economy from buckling under the strain of shutdowns and quarantines.
Servicing the debt is one of the federal government’s biggest expenses. Most of this spending is on veterans’ benefits and services due to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is more than it will spend on elementary and secondary education, disaster relief, agriculture, science and space programs, foreign aid, and natural resources and environmental protection.
The national debt has grown significantly since the early 1980s under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
The largest percentage increases to the debt occurred under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, both of whom enacted tax cuts that led to large deficits.[…]
Flashpoints that greatly contributed to the debt over the past 50 years include the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic — the latter two prompting sweeping stimulus measures from Congress that cost trillions of dollars.
And let me add to the last point of the COVID-19 pandemic, our administration at that time, the GOP and tRump, did very little (if anything substantial) for the preparation of this country to go to WAR against a highly contagious, lethal biological virus! I repeat, tRump and his administration never took the pandemic and public health and safety measures seriously. Hence, look what happened.
Therefore my fellow Americans, when you are bombarded by political party rhetoric and propaganda on this nation’s debt and deficit like those heard today from the House chamber members scrambling and panicking to put out all the fires caused by their own Party, look deeper, look much closer into the factual data. THAT is where you will find the nectar and honey of what they speak about truthfully, or lie about, or divert with vague ambiguous half-truths.
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
I have zero expectation that anything I ever say will end someone’s belief in their God. Not my goal or purpose. That alone belongs to the individual. ~ Zoe
'Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it' - Terry Pratchett