dailyprompt

A woman-owned small business

~ MaryG ~ 14 Comments

If you could start a new business right now, what would it be?

View all responses

I’m retired and have no plans to start a business. However, I’m super proud of my daughter who has turned a passion into a career.

She is a professional astrologer with her own successful business—lunarxluci.com—and a large following on social media, particularly TikTok and also Instagram. She has been featured in publications such as Good Housekeeping and has endless excellent reviews from clients.

In addition to written and video readings, she recently created a downloadable, self-paced Astrology 101 course. It includes 10 in-depth video lessons (about 7 hours), companion workbooks, PowerPoint slides, and 3 celebrity chart breakdowns. By the end, students will understand how to read a birth chart and have the confidence to interpret their own and others’ charts.

Link in bio

So, if you have a new or longstanding curiosity about Astrology and how it can empower you, please check out my daughter’s offerings. A reading or the new Astrology 101 course would also make a great gift for someone in your life who likes Astrology and wants to learn more. You’d also be supporting a hardworking young woman entrepreneur (and mom) with her own small business.

Use the code THANKYOU for a 15% discount on any order.

Thank you!

😊

Mary

♊️ ☀️ ♏️ 🌙 ♑️ ⬆️

(Gemini Sun, Scorpio Moon, Capricorn Rising)

Deer me

~ MaryG ~ 21 Comments

What are your best healthy eating habits?

View all responses

So far, the dreaded Nor’easter (windy rainstorm) has not been too bad here in non-coastal Greater Boston. Our power is still on. Most of the Bosc pears are still clinging to our tree.

The deer have been enjoying the ones that have fallen. And since I’ve never seen a fat deer, I’m going to go with “eat a lot of fruit” for my best healthy eating habit.

Mom is unconcerned with paparazzi. Bambi is a bit skittish.
Chewing
Those pears are so good, even Dad finally came out of the woods to try one.

Knock on wood that the storm doesn’t get too much worse and that coastal dwellers stay safe.

Photo credit to my husband on the last two photos and the video. He got a new phone (Google Pixel 11 XL Pro) and it’s got quite an impressive zoom feature in the camera.

Basic stuff

~ MaryG ~ 19 Comments

What are some life hacks that you practice?

1.) Set-up the coffee the night before so you only have to press start in the morning.

2.) Pre-made, roll out pie crusts, specifically these:

3.) If a British lady sits next to you on Day 1 of an adult watercolor class and announces to everyone that she has ADHD and then demands so much attention from the teacher and others that you feel like you’re being pranked, move your seat for the next class.

Dog karma

~ MaryG ~ 15 Comments

Do you believe in karma?

You know how people always say that you can tell if someone is actually a good person based on how children and dogs feel about them?

Well, I don’t love that, because I’m not a big fan of dogs. Does that make me a bad person? (I’m great with kids, by the way.)

Well, last night, I had an experience that improved my dog karma (I think). There was no actual dog present (yay), but I felt the dog’s spirit.

A wonderful church friend in her 80s had had to put her beloved dog Grace down earlier that day. At choir practice, she told us the meaning behind the dog’s name and a bit about her personality. (Apparently Grace disliked men, but was a peacemaker amongst dogs.) My friend then asked us to sing two different versions of Amazing Grace in honor of Grace the Dog.

It was so moving. I have honestly never heard our choir sing so beautifully. I’ve never sung so beautifully. There were tears, even from one of the men Grace constantly barked at while she was alive.

We sang all three verses of the song over the two renditions, the last one a cappella. Then we silently closed our hymnals and moved on with choir rehearsal.

It was the perfect way to honor a dog.

Image from Pexels

Another baking post

~ MaryG ~ 22 Comments

How do you write what people actually want to read?

One of my recent posts was selected for “Freshly Pressed” on WordPress and I got some nice comments and a few new subscribers. It’s a post about baking a Dutch Pear Pie with fruit from the trees in our yard. So, welcome to anyone new here. I assume you love dessert like me.

I post about a variety of things, including baking, but mostly I just talk about whatever’s on my mind, including whatever the WordPress “daily prompt” elicits from me. I like the community here on WordPress. Most people are very kind and supportive.

We finally harvested some of the Bosc pears on our tree because a big Nor’easter (windy rainstorm) is expected this weekend.

Over 15 pounds of Bosc pears harvested and there are still many pears left on the tree.

The Bosc is the last of our fruit trees to ripen (we also have a Winesap apple and an Asian pear) and honestly, I think we should wait a bit longer to pick the rest of the pears. I don’t think the ones we picked are fully ripe yet, but that didn’t stop us from trying out another new recipe.

This recipe—for Pear Cobbler—is one I found on YouTube. I was able to screenshot the relevant information. (I’m sorry I lost track of the original creator.)

FRESH PEAR COBBLER

Pear Filling

• 4–5 cups diced pears

• 2 tablespoons sugar

• 2 tablespoons corn starch

• 1/4 cup water

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Batter

• 1 1/2 cups flour

• 1 cup sugar

• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 1/2 cups milk

1. Combine the diced pears with the sugar, corn starch, water, and cinnamon.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and milk until combined.

3. Set the oven to 350°. Melt one stick of butter in a 9×13 baking dish.

4. Pour the batter over the melted butter (do not stir), then spoon the pear mixture on top.

5. Bake for 1 hour.

6. Serve with ice cream.

VERDICT: Very good. It think it’ll be even better next time with riper pears. We were wondering how this cobbler was going to “cobble together” since you don’t stir it, but it actually does. It’s definitely a bit of a pain to peel the pears, but you really have to with Boscs. We used a potato peeler.

Related post: Stress baking

Going solar

~ MaryG ~ 19 Comments

What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done?

Sometimes in long marriages you develop certain “areas.” For example, I do all the travel arrangements. My husband is the vegetable gardener. I dealt with the teachers and most of the school stuff when the kids were growing up. My husband deals with the household technology (WiFi, etc). Somehow, I relinquished much involvement in his longstanding interest in buying (not leasing) solar panels for our home. I know I agreed to have him “sign for me” when the contract was finalized. It all sounded good in the 15-30 minutes I spent thinking about it. I mean, it’s a LOT of money to pay out at once, but we will allegedly get it all back in savings within 7 years. And clearly energy prices are not going down anytime soon with Orange Dipshit messing up the entire Middle East (and everything else).

But now the day has come. The guys are on the roof. It’s happening. I mean…I knew it was coming, but it feels a bit “spontaneous.” Like, are you sure you’ve thought this through?

I guess my one day of peace and quiet is all I get after our return from very loud Brooklyn.

The banging, drilling, etc has begun.

I need to go find my earplugs now.

“Made in Philippines”

Less selfishness

~ MaryG ~ 24 Comments

What’s one thing that would instantly improve your city?

We’re having high suburban drama here in my leafy suburb outside of Boston over…trash.

Due to budget constraints and a failed vote to raise our own taxes, the town has implemented a new trash policy whereby every family gets one small trash bin. (Recycling bins are separate.)

It’s proving to be very dramatic and upsetting to a lot of people. If you fill your bin and still have more trash, you have to buy special $15 bags to dispose of the rest.

Since my husband and I are empty nesters, we can deal. For families with young children, disposable diapers alone would fill up about half of these little bins. It’s an actual hardship for them.

In the grand scheme of things, this is a relatively minor problem, but it’s also just another way we’re making life harder for young families.

Conservatives say they want more babies and growing families, yet they continually vote down money to pay for schools and other services that families need.

Typical post in a town Facebook group that elicited 100+ comments and devolved into several online fights
Typical comment from a white guy who thinks he shouldn’t have to contribute to the community because he has no family of his own (gee, I wonder why?) I mean, he doesn’t even “USE THE ROADS.” Maybe he has a Jetsons-style space saucer to get around.

Readers of The Wall Street Journal

~ MaryG ~ 9 Comments

How does your mindset affect your financial success?

One thing that people who are on the other side of the political spectrum from me (my father for one) love to say is that there’s no other country in the world where people can just “have an idea” and make millions of dollars. They say that’s a uniquely American thing.

Here’s an article from the Wall Street Journal that doubles down on this idea that America is great because anyone who works hard can get rich. I’ve also noticed that these same people tend to say Europe is poor and declining. “They don’t even realize how poor they are,” I heard one Conservative acquaintance (another white man) say.

I’m all for people working hard and doing well as a result, but this idea that everyone should just “have an idea” (like opening a hot dog stand) and through sheer grit and a positive attitude make a fortune seems…naive. And also, given who tends to espouse it, the height of privilege.

The Great Elephant Migration

~ MaryG ~ 27 Comments

If your pet an elephant could talk, what would be the first thing it says?

100 life-size elephant sculptures, each hand-carved from the invasive plant lantana camara by roughly 300 Indigenous artisans from India’s Nilgiri Hills and modeled after real, named elephants, are on display for free along Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue Mall. They’re all facing in the same direction—moving as a herd down Comm Ave.

So, what would they say? Thinking…

Maybe, “stick together – we’re all we’ve got”