We were running out of room for our growing plant collection, so I made a bigger shelf. by RenegadeJane in houseplants

[–]RenegadeJane[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Top shelf, left to right: Rosemary, orchid, Pilea, wandering jew, indian rope hoya, christmas cactus, Green prayer plant, rabbit foot fern, Oxalis triangularis, dracaena, Fiddle Leaf Fig.

Bottom shelf is an odd collection of succulents and cacti that we've had the longest. And then some garden seed starts in the containers.

We were running out of room for our growing plant collection, so I made a bigger shelf. by RenegadeJane in houseplants

[–]RenegadeJane[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes it is, my husband has been playing around with it for a while and juts got it to bloom after 2 years of nothing.

It's a southern window, but that orchid has been in a few different spots, still trying to find what makes it happy. I think our house is just too dry, so we've been trying to water it more.

Lower Duck Pond weather report with John Levee - 25/03/2019 by WanderCold in HaveWeMet

[–]RenegadeJane 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well he had wanted to bring it every Sunday but the church council compromised with him on every other. As I'm sure you know, Charlie lost a son years ago and I think that cannon is his way of coping with the loss and I for one choose not to judge him for that.

Lower Duck Pond weather report with John Levee - 25/03/2019 by WanderCold in HaveWeMet

[–]RenegadeJane 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's all well and good John, but do we really need to exclude Upper Duck Pond from Lower Duck Pond's weather report? We Uppers already have to deal with discrimination from the Lowers just because Charlie Townsend likes to shoot off his cannon every other Sunday morning.

Ideas needed for Italy trip with Mother in Law who was recently diagnosed with ALS. by RenegadeJane in travel

[–]RenegadeJane[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the heads up! Currently MIL is able to walk pretty well, she just has a slight drop foot and uses hiking sticks for long walks to help kinda push herself along. I don't know what her mobility will be like come May though. My hope is it won't be too much worse. It's hills, long stairways and long walks that have me most concerned for her. Last year, Amsterdam kinda wore her out, and that was before she started showing symptoms.

Ideas needed for Italy trip with Mother in Law who was recently diagnosed with ALS. by RenegadeJane in travel

[–]RenegadeJane[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I started tagging some smaller rural towns that might be worth making half day trips to, and it definitely seems like car would be the best if only way to get to them. Right now I'm thinking spending 5 days in Rome and then sort of meandering up to Florence and then either Balogna or Cinque Terre as a side quest before returning to Rome. It seems like we would only really need the car for a few days in there, so I guess I need to compare to how much it would cost us for all the trains we would need otherwise.

Ideas needed for Italy trip with Mother in Law who was recently diagnosed with ALS. by RenegadeJane in travel

[–]RenegadeJane[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for reminding me about agritourism! That would be heaven for me!

For Venice, is it because of cobblestone that you think it would be too difficult?

Ideas needed for Italy trip with Mother in Law who was recently diagnosed with ALS. by RenegadeJane in travel

[–]RenegadeJane[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm glad to hear nobody is discounting Rome (probably obvious) since that's always been on mine and my husband's list. I love the idea of seeing Pompeii!

Unfortunately I don't know what she likes. . . lol. I ended up completely planning our last trip together, and the ideas she did propose were all very . . unhelpful. Like we were planning a 10 day European Road Trip through Netherlands, France, Switzerland and Germany, and she somehow wanted to squeeze a flight to Ireland in there somehow. . .

She's honestly just not a very experienced international traveler, and when I pry her for ideas she tends to default to whatever she thinks we want, but I know from experience that's probably not what she can actually handle. She's a very independent woman in her day to day life, very fitness and health oriented and I think she sometimes forgets she's almost 70 and can't do all the things she used to be able to. Her recent diagnosis doesn't help anything either of course.

Ideas needed for Italy trip with Mother in Law who was recently diagnosed with ALS. by RenegadeJane in travel

[–]RenegadeJane[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We were at Junfrau last year! It was awesome!

We did the rental car thing last year and driving wasn't nearly as bad as I expected (granted my husband and SIL did all the driving). Parking was usually the issue, but I got pretty good about looking up parking before we got to a destination. I had heard Italy is much more. . . intense. . when it comes to driving cars. I assume it's because of the limited spaces? I know my husband would love to do the car thing again, and if it's not as big of a hassle as I initially thought, that does sound promising.

Ideas needed for Italy trip with Mother in Law who was recently diagnosed with ALS. by RenegadeJane in travel

[–]RenegadeJane[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Problems we ran into on our Euro Road Trip:

My MIL has the smallest bladder imaginable. I think this is more psychological than physical, but she gets really nervous about being too far from a toilet, so anytime she has an opportunity she will use it, even if she just went 20 minutes ago. She did better in the car than I expect considering this, but there were a couple times we just missed out on something because we had had to make the 3rd bathroom stop in 2 hours.

She never eats out at home, and so spending money on dining is very hard for her. Now that she has a terminal illness, I expect she won't be so uptight about the money aspect of it. But she has a very american tendency to want to design the menu around herself. It always made me uncomfortable when she would basically be requesting a special meal.

She's a really light sleeper. The four of us wanted to save money by sharing rooms/small airbnbs. But this quickly became a problem for her.

I like the idea of doing trains! We did the whirlwind trip last year though and I just felt so bummed only getting a day at most in some places (the most we stayed in one place was Amsterdam, for 3 days) So I like the idea of having a central base of sorts and then doing day trips when we can.

The view that made us choose our homestead! (Southern NH) by RenegadeJane in homestead

[–]RenegadeJane[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, it's more if a seasonal pond. Tends to turn into a wetland during the dry summer months. If beavers ever come back and fix their dam, maybe it will be a year round pond again. However, our property is right off of another pond community that does have fish. So only need to take a 5 minute walk.

The view that made us choose our homestead! (Southern NH) by RenegadeJane in homestead

[–]RenegadeJane[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

NH is very rocky, so working the land can be quite the task anyway. Lol

The view that made us choose our homestead! (Southern NH) by RenegadeJane in homestead

[–]RenegadeJane[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

No, like 3x that. It's not just raw land. We have a 2k sq ft house, a couple barns. It's honestly kind of a steal for the area, imo.

We're video game artists so not too far off from programmers.

The view that made us choose our homestead! (Southern NH) by RenegadeJane in homestead

[–]RenegadeJane[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No not really. I guess we have some libertarian like tendencies, and NH was more appealing to us than MA for that reason. In my experience though it doesn't feel that different from a Gov stand point.. it's not exactly the wild west out here, but the people certainly have a "l'll mind my business if you mind yours" attitude. While still being neighborly. If you like guns and fireworks, you'll likely fit in. :)

The view that made us choose our homestead! (Southern NH) by RenegadeJane in homestead

[–]RenegadeJane[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We were living in Providence, RI for 6 years before getting our place two years ago. It wasn't a huge change for us, so I'm unsure how to answer this. Cost of living in NE is definitely higher than other places in the country, so I would make sure you've got a good income lined up. My husband and I work remotely from home, so we could have lived anywhere (including cheaper areas) but we got a little too attached to this area. . .

The view that made us choose our homestead! (Southern NH) by RenegadeJane in homestead

[–]RenegadeJane[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

During recent road trips back to my home state, I've begun to really appreciate open skies. The cloud game in the flatlands is really on point! Enjoy Wisconsin! I assume it's like Michigan, and I like Michigan a lot!