Rainy Day Musings

 “Today is the most important thing that we have. The best way to honor that is to do all you can with the time that you have.”

I saw this quote yesterday.  It was in reference to the grief felt by those who knew a college football player who died suddenly last week.  

Nobody really has to die for us to take the quote to heart. 

In fact, it seems like a good guide for starting each and every day. 

Today it's a rainy day, and it seems like it might be hard to make the most of what the day has to offer. 

Nonetheless, when we think of frittering away the daily gift we have been given, rain or shine, there are things we can do to make the most of any day. 

Plus, it's a good reminder that "things" don't come close to rivaling the gift of life. 

Speaking of "things," though, I have added some paint to a few things around this Lovestead. 

Anyone traveling through Ireland will quickly see that the Irish use a lot of paint.  

It helps immensely with their goal of maintaining tidy communities all over the country. 

So, maybe it's just a part of my Irish genes that I like a good bucket or can of paint, especially when I can dress up my weathered yard art. 

With the warmth and dryness of the past two days, yesterday I did some major spray painting to spruce up the place for spring. 

There's lots more to do, but at least, I've gotten a good start so early in March. 

And, now it rains, so I'll have to figure out some rainy-day projects for today. 

I was planning to move some pots of young plants out to the green house, but my iPhone told me that it's possible we'll be having lows in the teens toward the end of the next week. 

I still may try a few because my friend Judy gave me a heating unit to put under the planters. And, the greenhouse has two space heaters. 

Also, today Bill and I could take the dogs and go on a rainy-day drive since we can't do much outside. 

After all, he needs to try out his newly improved eye, which was zapped by a laser for a secondary cataract yesterday.  

Bill told me that the entire procedure was pretty much easy peasy, but he rewarded himself by purchasing a new camera from the Camera Corral. 

Anywho, there are all kinds of options waiting for today and no excuse to waste away the most important thing we have. 

On another topic, I read Kathy Hubbard's health column in today's Daily Bee. This week the focus is on Dr. Hannah Robbins. 

She is the surgeon who was on duty when I was sent to the Emergency Room last year with acute appendicitis.  

Happily, I did not have any symptoms except an irregularity on the cat scan taken earlier that day. 

After an exam, Dr. Robbins looked at the scan and said she saw no reason for an appendectomy. 

I was sent home but also told to make a follow-up appointment with Dr. Robbins. 

She pretty much took charge of my gut situation from that point on, including administering a colonoscopy and following up with a steroids prescription when biopsy results determined that I had collagenous colitis. 

She has seen me three or four times over the last year.  I love that lady for her upbeat sense of humor and her professional guidance.  

She has helped me reach a place where my malady is actually manageable, which is a stark contrast from what it was for several months. 

All that said, it was fun this morning to find out more about her medical activities and her life outside the OR. 

https://bonnercountydailybee.com/news/2026/mar/04/today-the-spotlight-is-on-surgeon-hannah-robbins/

Meanwhile, I'm sad but happy for my main provider Paige.  She is moving on to a different aspect of medicine---outpatient cardiology at Kootenai Medical. 

Like all her patients, I'm going to miss Paige very much but also wish her well. 

She has been "patient" with me and has made me feel much more comfortable about going to the doctor. 

I've picked a new provider, who has "GONZAGA" in her medical and educational biography, so, of course she must be good. 

My goal is to stay healthy and away from her as long as possible.

 

My 'maters are coming along nicely.  

I think I'll put a few of them, some pansies and a pot of baby lettuce out in the greenhouse. 

I love this springy art.  

This morning, while walking around the yard, I noticed the tips of several daffodils appearing above the ground.  

It won't belong before our world is alive with color. 

Til then, enjoy your day and make the most of it.

 

Happy Wednesday, and Happy 80th to my friend Kathy.  

Tuesday Mutterings

 

Bill is headed for Coeur d'Alene this morning for surgery. 

He's quite pleased that he did not have to prepare with a bath using antibiotic soap.  He was especially happy that he didn't have to start fasting from midnight on. 

Plus, he can drive home by himself when it's all over. 

The surgery is common for folks who have had their cataracts removed.

Apparently, there's a little build-up a year or two later, which causes some mild blurry vision.

From the Cleveland Clinic:  

Posterior capsular opacification (secondary cataract) is a clouding of the thin membrane (lens capsule) that surrounds your newly implanted IOL. 

It’s a common complication of cataract surgery that can occur months or years afterward, causing fuzzy vision. 

Your provider can easily treat a secondary cataract through a quick laser procedure.

Bill says the entire surgery lasts about a minute, and then he'll be on his way home. 

So, that's the big news around here.  

Otherwise, we've been enjoying the beautiful weather and putzing away at spring projects. 

Bill attached the battery charger to one of my lawnmowers yesterday, and a couple of hours later, I took a spin with the mower. 

No real lawn to mow; just a lot of debris for the blades to chew up and spit out. 

I'll probably do some more today, and when the grass does grow, it will not be hampered by the debris.  

Plus, the yard looks a lot nicer out there. 

I also took some time yesterday afternoon to snap a few springy photos, mostly in the Colburn area. 

The coffee shop with the cowboy reminds me of the Green family who lived in Colburn. 

Ruth Green helped out with our Mountain View ABC's home economics 4-H club. 

I think we even attended a few meetings at her house, and with that association, I learned that Ruth and her husband Bob liked to square dance. 

I think the cowboy may have a connection to that history, and, though Colburn has changed a lot, I also think the roadside coffee shop off from HWY 95 may be located on the property where the Green's lived. 

Anyway, it's a colorful little shop which seems to be busy these days. 

The old Colburn Elementary School, which has been restored over the years.  

Lots of great childhood memories in that building for my neighbor Gary Finney and his classmates. 

The same is true for my alma mater Lincoln School aka Lake Pend Oreille Alternative School, which I think is one of the prettiest buildings in Sandpoint.  

Hope it survives as an educational facility and as a charming vestige of Sandpoint's history. 

Anyway, my afternoon drive definitely gave me a sense of spring, especially with the growing numbers of geese, which are starting to populate many of the ponds and waterways around the area. 

We are definitely approaching that "Walden" time of year where the landscape says good bye to winter dormancy and gradually comes alive and beautiful with the promise of universal renewal. 

It's happening this spring, and maybe this neat project would go really crazy in the winter time when we do more sitting.  

Still, it's a pretty neat idea coordinated by the Literacy Project of North Idaho. 

By the time you've read the whole story, you might even be able to count the article as one page in the million-page overall goal. 

https://bonnercountydailybee.com/news/2026/mar/03/one-million-pages-literacy-project-issues-reading-/

Schweitzer was rather stunning this morning with its pink backdrop, as was the painting below, which I saw on Facebook. 

  That's all for this first Tuesday of the crazy and busy month of March. 

Have a great day. 

Blue Skis, Too Many Lies, Et. Al.

Blue skies all day yesterday, and they say it will be even prettier today. 

One of the weather forecasters last night even suggested that people may not want to go to work today because it will be that pleasant.

This morning the sky is blue.  The landscape is frost-covered and the air is alive with cawing and honking and sweet twiddle-dee-dees.  

I have been out for walks three times and have enjoyed every step taken, whether it's across the hay field and over frozen pockets of water in the swale or even down the road where Monday morning traffic, including yellow school buses, have passed by on the way to coffee klatches, offices or classrooms. 

It's a March morning where much is still dormant but there's enough live action to feel invigorated. 

Ahhh, March!  

Hardly any signs of lions so far; more like lambs on these gorgeous early days of the month. 

 

High school basketball has ended and March Madness is about to begin with conference tournaments and a growing excitement as we hear that brackets are not far off. 

In the meantime, life will be changing from the winter slow mode to the spring hurry-up and "get it done and move on to the next project." 

Yesterday I did some clean-up here in my computer room after Terry signed off on the ceiling repair.  It's back to looking the way it did before the limb tore open a hole. 

We are pleased that one third of the repair projects has been completed.  Now, on to the hole in the roof and other repair work on the deck roof. 

On Saturday, Bill used his chainsaw to remove two big shrubs from the deck garden.  They had died. 

So, when plant season comes along, I'll purchase some replacements. 

Lots to do around here and definitely no time for being bored ever during March Madness. 

On another topic that is truly maddening, I saw the sentence below this morning and felt it was worth mentioning.

 Older Americans are losing billions of 

dollars to financial exploitation.

I copied and pasted this sentence from the New York Times Morning bulletin and thought about the incident mentioned below as well as knowing, from family and friends' experiences, that this hideous, mind-boggling activity is not at all limited to older Americans. 

Last week I did read a post about a friend's 90-year-old parent who was almost scammed out of $5,000, thanks to a computer screen message allegedly coming from Microsoft.  

He followed up on making the call and was told that $10,000 had been removed from his bank account.  

During the course of his trying to follow instructions from the scammer, he was also told not to use his phone because supposedly it had been infected. 

Fortunately family members had already been alerted and were desperately trying to get ahold of him as he had also been instructed to go to Lowe's and purchase a $5,000 gift card. 

Fortunately, his lack of tech knowledge at the self check-out prevented him from purchasing the card. 

The advice from the friend after telling this story:  PLEASE TALK TO YOUR ELDERLY PARENTS ABOUT SCAMS. MAKE THEM WATCH VIDEOS WITH YOU SO THEY ARE AWARE OF HOW THESE CRIMINALS WORK.

There are older people who are victimized as well as every day ordinary people of all ages, many of whom are tech savvy and fully in control of their faculties. 

And, there are also public entities, like the City of Clark Fork and now the nearby City of Newport, Wash, who have lost big bucks. 

https://hagadonenewsnetwork.com/news/2026/feb/26/newport-loses-330k-in-fraudulent-web-scheme/

I have personally been aware of several instances among family members and friends, including myself. A couple of years ago, I received an email telling me that I owed more than $300 for a computer virus program.  

That situation involved calling a number and then a lot of yelling at the guy demanding to have my bank account information. 

I even pounded on my desk with frustration while talking to him and later turned over the phone to Bill who also tried to reason with him.  

When we both decided that reasoning was not going to happen, Bill said we were hanging up, to which the creepy scammer said, "Thanks a lot for wasting my time." 

I don't know what we do to prevent these situations from happening because the scammers keep perfecting their strategies, and, as they say with AI, the scammers have gained an added advantage. 

We are living in a world where day by day we encounter sources of information which are invalid and outright fabrications. 

Recently, I've noticed this in dramatic fashion on Twitter aka X, where realistic news headlines suggest that something dramatic has just happened to a major figure when it's really all just made up. 

It's taken me a few embarrassing moments to learn to avoid being sucked into these headlines.  

I used to have a writing project in my English classes where I'd read to my students a few outrageous stories from the World Wide Weekly News or the Enquirer. 

We would all laugh and talk about how outlandish they were.  Then, for fun, the students would be assigned to write their own news report for either of the publications. 

They came up with some fun stuff, but we all knew it was made up.  Sadly, we now live in the real world of World Wide Weekly News or National Enquirer. 

Times have changed, and because lying by people who should know better has become so rampant, generally we can all fall victims to outright lies. 

Sadly, it's affecting us all on a wide variety of fronts and, even more sadly, our news outlets have been infiltrated and are gradually being controlled by those with personal selfish missions and motives straying far off from what's good for the general population. 

It's a scary world out there, and even with vigilance, we can be fooled into embarrassment, personal losses and even the devastatingly sad loss of our belief system. 

I guess the tried and true answer is to rid ourselves of all the wires and devices that connect us to the outside world. 

These days, that is hardly realistic. 

Still, at this point, disciplined vigilance and remaining extremely skeptical of everything you hear over the phone or what you see on your computer screen seems to be the best antidotes available. 

There are scammers at virtually every level these days, and we must be constantly watching for them. 

  Not the most upbeat Monday morning topic, but since it's such a pretty March day out there, at least it maybe be palatable. 

Happy Monday. 

Hello, March

Turning the calendars for the third time this year says  days are moving by quickly. 

Weren't we just celebrating Christmas and New Year's?  

Is it age that makes time seems to fly faster than ever?

I don't know that answer, but I do know that we're already in to March. 

February didn't end as well as we had hoped.  

We're in a war, and two Bulldog teams had great starts yesterday only to meet defeat in the end. 

I'm sure it's the same with Gonzaga, but with our Sandpoint Bulldogs, the final score did not tell the whole story. 

Sandpoint's team members played their hearts out against Vallivue.  Vallivue did the same. 

When the final buzzer went off in a game where a faulty clock hampering the flow of the game, played a role, Vallivue had grabbed the lead. 

Debbie and I went to yesterday's game in Grangeville yesterday.  It's a town about halfway down the State of Idaho. 

We saw the effort and we saw the emotions as the season for a group of talented, passionate players ended on a sad note.  

The experience was poignant, to say the least. 

There were side stories to this game too.  

We bought freeze-dried treats from a young man who was working on his senior project at Grangeville High School, also home of the Bulldogs. 

But, then we forgot and left the treats on the bleachers.  

We also bought beverages at another concession run by the school choir which presented one of the most pure and beautiful a cappella renditions of the "National Anthem"  I've ever heard. 

I found a You Tube video link to another of their performances, sung in a different venue, and will share it to demonstrate why we were so impressed.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=306149675578818

 

I loved the beautiful springlike day because it involved another fun road trip with Debbie.  We have always enjoyed a great time on these trips. 

Our noses detected at precisely the same moment the "smell" above Lewiston and its paper mills. 

It had been several years since I'd experienced that smell, but its sulfurous familiarity gave me no doubt where we were. 

We enjoyed the green fields of the Palouse with dustings of white snow.  

We also agreed that the coffee at the Winchester convenience store was among the best convenience-store brands we had ever tasted. 

That place had a couple of other distinctions:  "No Firearms" signs on the doors to the restrooms and no door on one of the stalls in the women's room.

I've never seen a "No Firearms" sign on restroom doors. 

I have seen a lot of restroom stall doors that don't latch but can't remember too many doorless stalls.  

Brave Debbie opted for that one, and I warned a lady in line that someone was in the stall with no door. 

Speaking of restroom stall doors, the folks at Grangeville have done a masterful job of sharing inspiring thoughts to at least the girls at their school. 

All the doors were there and they latched AND each had an attractive and nice message. 

I also enjoyed yesterday's opportunity to meet a few more of the players' parents---all nice people with great stories.  All are thoughtful, supportive, gracious and definitely devoted to their kids. 

Debbie and I topped off our day trip by stopping for dinner at Sweet Lou's in Athol. 

While munching on barbecued chicken sandwiches, we sat in a booth and watched the first half of the Gonzaga game against Saint Maries.  

We were feeling pretty good that first half just like we had during the first half of the SHS Bulldogs game in Grangeville. 

We all know this morning that it didn't end well for the ZAGS last night----a great boon for the third time in 31 games this season for armchair quarterbacks to share their coaching expertise. 

Being associated with a team and knowing all the variables that go into every single game played, I have learned that there are several not-so-obvious layers involved in any one game. 

Spectators see action and the final scores but not the other forces that determine how any situation will turn out. 

In their loss and their sadness yesterday, I saw so many positive dimensions to the Sandpoint High Bulldog players which made me proud and happy to be associated with them, their parents and their staff.

Who said that line about how it's not whether you win or lose but it's how you play the game. 

These young men provided a smorgasboard of exciting basketball for the fans through most of their games this year, but more importantly,  off the court, they are remarkable and fine young men. 

That's what counts in the game of life.  

An annual and fun benefit for the Bonner Community Food Bank. 

More beautiful, one-of-a-kind bowls coming your way for our Empty Bowls Fundraiser.

Join us March 6, 2026 at 12:30 PM at Marigold Bistro.  

$20 suggested donation at the door.

Come choose your bowl, enjoy handcrafted soup, and help feed our neighbors.

Mom Love and Debbie Love on an excellent road-tripping adventure. 

I visited with the Meekers from Bonners Ferry yesterday.  Their Bonners Ferry Badgers played in the second game of the afternoon.  

I heard from a good source that the Badgers defeated Weiser and earned a trip to State.  

It was a day of disappointments, yes, but like any day those moments are blended with some amazing stories, events, people or scenes. 

And, that's the spice of life. 

Happy Sunday and welcome, March.