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Blowing a Fuse

July 30, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Does anyone say “blew a fuse” anymore, either referring to an electric control box or losing one’s temper? Probably not. Well, except for me, and even my use isn’t strictly accurate.

Last night, I flipped a light switch. The bulb went out in a flash and blew a fuse. Or tripped a switch. Or broke the circuit. Or did whatever things do nowadays to make the electricity not work.

I checked the erstwhile fuse box that’s on the wall going down to the basement, but those switches still were in their proper position. It was raining heavily (yay for the rain!!), and dark, besides, so I couldn’t access the main breaker box. For some reason unknown to me (code requirement, maybe?), when the electricity in this 98-year-old house was modernized, the new main control box was set outside. The first insurance inspector I had said to put a lock on the box to prevent anyone messing with it, which I did. It only prevents casual passersby from accessing the box since a lock is so easily cut, but at least it makes me feel as if I am doing the right thing.

Since there was nothing I could do about the situation, and since I was too tired to worry, I went to sleep.

This morning, first thing, I changed the burnt-out bulb, which was no easy task. The screws holding up the globe light fixture hadn’t been touched in perhaps ten years, and I was balanced on a three-step stepstool, but I was careful and managed to get the cover off. Then I had to sort through my lightbulbs (another task that needed the stepstool) to find the proper one.

When those tasks were safely concluded, I found the keys to the control panel, went out and finally flipped the switch.

Such a simple and silly thing, and yet I feel as if I accomplished a monumental task, as if I were sorceress magically creating light, especially since I don’t remember ever having to change a lightbulb in an enclosed fixture. I must have at some point or other because it seemed familiar. But, whatever . . . now I have light!

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, home, house, life. Tags: breaker box, changing a light bulb, circuit breaker panel, electric control box, fuse box. 2 Comments »

Decor . . . Um

July 29, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Daily writing prompt

What’s your home decoration style?

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I thought I’d be clever and try to find some way to link décor and décor . . . um (decorum, get it?), but I really couldn’t find a fit since décor is about one’s things and decorum is about one’s actions. If my house did have the ability to act in good taste rather that simply being in good taste then, yes, the two are linked.

Still — décor? Um . . . what do I know about décor? Not much. My decorating style is whatever was donated or what I could scrounge, and yet somehow, it all fits together in a pleasant, comfortable, and inviting way.

That’s the extent of my decorating style. If left to myself, I’d probably be living in an empty house with a single furnished room: my office. And that certainly doesn’t have any sort of décor — just tables, and chairs and a day bed that I purchased and put together by myself. (I’d probably need help if I were trying to assemble the bed today. It was heavy and the pieces were awkward, but somehow I did it. Whew!)

It is interesting, though, that even without any planning, my living room ended up being so inviting. It’s impersonal enough (I don’t like pictures on the walls and I have a minimum of gadgets collecting dust) that people feel at home from the minute they walk in the door. Supposedly, too many photos and such screams “my place!” to visitors, keeping them at arm’s length, which is why realtors have sellers remove those personal items.

Or maybe not, I don’t know. All I know is whatever my decorating style, it works for me and whoever happens to stop by. (And yes, I know the mat in front of the door is not centered, but it’s where it needs to be for when I enter the house.)

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in blogging, home, house, life. Tags: dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2837, decorating style, home decor, no decorating style, using other people's cast offs. 2 Comments »

Promises

July 27, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Daily writing prompt

What’s a promise you made to yourself that you’ve actually kept?

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I don’t really make promises to myself, at least not using those words. I do wake each day with the idea of trying to do better than I did the day before at taking care of myself, such as eating real food or doing stretching exercises if nothing else. I sometimes played around with New Year’s resolutions, though those resemble my daily betterment intentions rather than any resolution or promise to myself. Oddly, my unintentional resolution of daily blogging (I never decided to do it, never promised myself I would, just started doing it) is still in effect. 208 days and counting!

The closest I ever came to promising myself anything was after Jeff died and I became determined to be spontaneous. The only time in my life I was spontaneous was right after I met him. His very presence in the world made the world feel friendly, and I felt comfortable taking chances. Over the years, I settled back into my worrisome self. Our lives became constrained by his health, our finances, and various other matters beyond our control. He told me once it bothered him that our shared life had destroyed my spontaneity — but he never understood that he was the one responsible for whatever spontaneity I had developed to begin with.

I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life mourning, didn’t want to spend my life regretting that my shared life was ended, didn’t want to . . . well, I didn’t want to do a lot of things that I had to do, such as deal with the pain and go from there. Through it all, though, I kept that determination to be spontaneous as a way to honor him. And to honor myself.

I did many new things and took many chances — visiting museums, taking dance classes, hunting for wild poppy preserves, exploring the desert, hiking — though oddly, a lot of my spontaneity came with preparation and planning. For example, I couldn’t just start driving cross-country trip on a whim — I had to get both myself and my car into shape, stock up on the necessary emergency and camping equipment, notify people of my intentions in case they wanted me to stop by, and so many other niggling details. And yet, despite the planning, most of the trip was an exercise in spontaneity — driving how far I wanted each day, taking side trips when the signs beckoned me off the main road, accepting invitations from people I barely knew.

Even buying my house was as spontaneous as such a purchase can be. I got an unsolicited email from a real estate website saying that they had a house I might like. I did like it. And I bought it sight unseen. (Though I did have a realtor and two inspectors look at it for me.) Although my life has settled into a comfortable stay-at-homeness, and although I still have to live more or less according to a gardening schedule, my life is mostly unplanned. I do what I wish when I wish it, which most often means not doing much of anything, which I’m okay with, although oddly, yesterday I suddenly felt like cleaning house, so that was my big spontaneity of the day.

I suppose, in the end, I did make a promise to myself — that plan to be spontaneous — and I did keep it.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, blogging, home, life. Tags: being spontaneous, bettering myself, cross-country road trip, daily blogging, daily intentions, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2833, New Year's resolutions, resolutions, taking chances. 4 Comments »

Cooling Down

July 26, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Today is the hottest day of the year so far. Not of all years, just this year. I’ve survived hotter days than this — days when today’s high of 108 degrees was a cool-down — but still, it’s hot. Hot enough to have fried whatever energy I have. Hot enough to boil any ideas right out of my head.

So instead of writing anything of significance — assuming, of course, that I ever do — I thought I’d post photos of previous winters in the hopes that images of all that ice and snow will cool me down.

And if not that, then they will be a good reminder that although winter is officially five months away, winter weather could come as early as next month. Not that I think it will, just that it has. I remember snow in August. I also remember snow in June.

Just a reminder for people who aren’t paying attention: these are photos from previous winters. Not last year, because we had only a couple of real snowstorms, but previous years.

So are these images this cooling me off? Not particularly, but I must admit, seeing the photos is nice, especially since I don’t actually have to deal with the cold or the snow . . . yet.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, home, life. Tags: cool images for hot day, thinking of winter, winter in July, winter photos. 2 Comments »

Best Purchase Ever

July 23, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Daily writing prompt

What is the best purchase you have ever made?

View all responses

All too often, these blog prompts leave me wordless. Literally wordless. In that I can’t think of a single thing to write. A recent prompt was if I could be an animal for a week, what kind of animal would I be. Yeah, wordless. I have enough trouble imagining myself as a human animal let alone any other sort of creature.

Another prompt was about what book inspired me to travel. How would I know? I’ve read tens of thousands of books. There’s no way I could pick out a single book. And anyway, as far as I remember, no book ever inspired me to travel — reading books was how I traveled. It was being left alone in the world with no place I needed or wanted to be that gave me the impetus to go on the road.

But this blog prompt? A no brainer!

The best purchase I ever made by far has been this house. I honestly never thought I’d be able to own a house, never really wanted the responsibility, but it’s been great, especially since it happened so late in my life. It’s nice to know I am where I will be until the end unless something drastic happens. It’s nice to know where I am going to be sleeping every night. It’s nice to have control of the temperature (the rooms I rented were either too hot or too cold, with no vote on where I wanted the temperature set). It’s nice to be able to do what I want with the yard.

It’s just . . . nice.

I was lucky to find a place I could afford to buy. (That window of opportunity has closed, so I truly lucked out!) It took a long-range move to get me here where I can live life under my own terms. Well, my terms and the weather’s terms. The weather does control a lot of what I do — when it’s too hot or too windy or too snowy, I pretty much have to stay inside where I can control my environment. It’s this modicum of control that confirms (as if I needed confirmation!) that this house is the best purchase I ever made, especially during these seeringly hot days. (Spell check wants to change “seeringly” to “sneeringly,” and while that might also be apropos, it’s not the word I chose.)

I wake up every day feeling grateful. And I give a last nod of gratitude every night.

Apparently, my best purchase was not just this house, but a life of gratitude, and that, too, is nice.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in blogging, books, dealing with old age, home, house, writing. Tags: best purchase ever, buying a house, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2831, going where I could buy a house, grateful, gratitude. 2 Comments »

Dealing With Bermuda Grass

July 20, 2026 — Pat Bertram

And today’s lesson, boys and girls, is all about Bermuda grass. The scientific name for Bermuda grass is Cynodon dactylon, though it goes by many names besides Bermuda grass, such as quickgrass, devil grass, twitch grass, and couch grass. It is a weed found all over the world, probably originating in sub-Saharan Africa or perhaps on islands in the western parts of the Indian Ocean. It’s called Bermuda grass because it was introduced to the USA via Bermuda. Although around here, Bermuda grass is used for lawns because of its tolerance for sun and heat, it is considered one of the world’s most invasive weeds, one moreover, that is almost impossible to get rid of. Not only is it hard to kill, it spreads by so many ways that containing it is an exercise in frustration. Its roots go down deep, sometimes as much as six feet. It spreads by rhizomes, which are long runners below the ground that pop up in unexpected places. It spreads by stolons, which are runners above ground that root themselves as they travel. (I’ve found them as long as eight feet, creeping beneath my front ramp from one garden area to the other.) They spread by seeds, and since every part of the plant is biologically viable, it also spreads by grass clippings.

So why this lesson? Because why should I be the only one to suffer with my Bermuda grass struggles!

That weed grass is taking over one section of my yard, and to be honest, if I’d known it wanted to be there so badly, I wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of digging up that area and planting a “real” lawn. I’d pretty much given up trying to control the Bermuda grass the past year or so and just let it do its thing, thinking that it at least was green. But this year, the grass went to seed, and I didn’t want my whole yard overtaken by that invader, so I’d been pulling up what I can. It turns out, the grass seed heads sprout at the end of the stolons, so I’ve been able to get rid of a lot of stolons that have been interweaving itself through the grass I planted. I realize I’m not getting the roots, but by pulling up the long stolons, I’m keeping them from rooting in other places. At least that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

The area that I’m trying to clear isn’t that big, but when I’m searching the lawn inch by inch, it seems huge! Unfortunately, by the time I’ve worked a bit pulling up stolons, I’ve used up my energy for the day, and so the weeds are taking over my garden areas. And yikes — the spurge is everywhere! It’s funny — this is such a hostile environment so in many ways: shimmeringly hot summers, frigid winters, winds all year, low moisture, and alkaline clay soil — you’d think nothing would grow, but the plants that like it here, really like it. Unfortunately, many of those plants are weeds that are extremely hard to get rid of.

Still, for all that, my yard looks pretty darn good!

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in gardening, home. Tags: bermuda grass, Bermuda grass rhizomes, bermuda grass roots, Bermuda grass stolons, invasion of Bermuda Grass. 4 Comments »

My Back Forty

July 17, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Usually at this time of year, my “back forty” is lying fallow. It’s really a “back twenty” — an area about twenty feet by ten feet, but who’s counting. Almost everything I ever planted back there has died off except for a couple of plum trees I planted a few years ago, which in six years have produced a grand total of four plums. The plants that were here when I bought the place are still going strong — a wild rose, a honeysuckle, and a trumpet vine, but those plants are obviously well adapted to their environment. I think it gets too hot in that section for most plants, with the sun reflecting off the white garage next door and then kept sandwiched in between the two garages. In the spring, the area is lush with larkspur, but once I harvest the seeds and clean out the dead stalks, I just let it be. It just never seemed worth trying to grow anything.

Last year, I’d planted a tomato plant, a pumpkin vine, a watermelon vine, and a cantaloupe vine in my raised garden, and those four plants so overwhelmed the relatively small garden that this year I decided to try planting them in my back section, thinking they’d have plenty of room to grow. And they are doing supremely well! Perhaps the trees have grown enough to provide a bit of shade, but whatever the reason, I’m delighted.

I transplanted self-planted marigolds from the raised garden to provide a bit of protection for my “farm garden.” (If four plants can be considered a garden, let alone a farm garden.) I also threw out some wildflower seeds I’d been gifted, and though in previous years, nothing ever came of the wildflowers, this year they are adding to the lushness of the area.

Going by old blog posts I’d written around this same time, this is usually a discouraging time for me. Not only are the heat and humidity hard to bear, but they deplete my energy and my desire to do anything. (I know you people who live in truly high humidity will laugh at my thinking that 40% is high, but when you are used to single digit humidity, that is a huge change. And anyway, that’s just the afternoon humidity — the early morning humidity gets close to 80%.) This year, although the heat and humidity are playing with me, I am managing to keep up a semblance of enthusiasm for the yard, and I tend to think it has to do with that back twenty. With those vines growing so long (the pumpkin vine is at least ten feet long right now, though the others are catching up), they are easily filling the area with a lot of green and some luscious blossoms.

There seem to be many pumpkins starting to grow, but oddly, that wasn’t my main reason for planting them. And anyway, I have no idea what to do with the pumpkings once they’re big enough to eat.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in blogging, gardening, home, photography. Tags: back forty, cantaloupe plant, larkspur, planting one pumpkin, planting one watermelon, planting pumpkins, watermelon plant. 2 Comments »

Lily Forest Update

July 15, 2026 — Pat Bertram

My lily forest is still going strong. Lush and vibrant, it’s at its peak, so I am making sure to enjoy the blooms every day.

And now, you can enjoy them, too!

It’s interesting that this tiger lily showed up among the more traditional lilies.

You can see it hiding among its taller brethren in the following photo.

As I’m sure you’ve figured, I have nothing much to say today.

Still, considering that a picture is worth a thousand words, or so I’ve heard it said, then this post is a good 5,000 words long. Well, 5,000 plus the 120 words of text.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in blogging, gardening, home, life, photography. Tags: a picture is worth a thousand words, lily forest, lily photos, nothing to say, tiger lily. 1 Comment »

Alien Invasion

July 14, 2026 — Pat Bertram

If you think you’re going to be reading a blog about invaders from another planet or even from another country, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Though, truly, for all I know, this discussion of alienism could be about something from outer space. Spores, perhaps.

These plants are called hen and chicks because, I presume, of the way they proliferate. The mother hen grows multiple babies, then, when she gets tired of them clinging to her skirts, she gets ready for her end by flowering. Unlike other plants, when these particular genera of hen and chicks finish flowering, the worn-out hen gives up the ghost so that her chicks can have room to grow.

Although I like the plants, especially the way they create a lovely carpet of succulents that look like fallen blossoms, I find the flowers creepy.

The central portion of the hen grows and grows and grows, sort of like the alien in Kim Bassenger’s purse in the My Stepmother is an Alien.

Very creepy.

The flowers themselves aren’t really that bad, in fact, they’re sort of pretty in an otherworldly sort of way, like something you’d see under a microscope, but the whole thing — the base, the long stalk, the bundle of flowers at the very top — is . . . well, it’s just creepy.

Most years, my hen and chicks don’t flower, and if they do, it’s only one or two. Usually, when they start to become alienish, I pull up the mother hen. I figure, since it has to be pulled up after she flowers, I might as well do it before so I don’t get creeped out.

But this year, more than a dozen mothers all got to flowering. A veritable invasion! I let them do what they wanted, even knowing my reaction, for the same reason I do so much of what I do — it gives me a blog topic. (I used to do a whole lot of things simply to have something to write about, but I don’t do that so much anymore, so what goes on in my yard has to suffice.)

This morning, I took the photos, wrote this blog, and then I went out and got rid of my alien invasion.

Whew! Disaster averted.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in blogging, gardening, home, life, photography. Tags: alien-like plant, hen and chick blossom, hen and chick plant, hen and chicks, My Stepmother is an Alien. 4 Comments »

Being Noticed

July 12, 2026 — Pat Bertram

It rained the night before last, enough rain that not only did I not have to water yesterday, it was too muddy to work in the yard.

So I went for a walk. It felt good being out and about despite the heat and humidity, though I actually did more visiting during that hour than walking. First, I chatted with a neighbor who was thrilled with the almost two inches of rain, and then we moved onto other topics, such as theft. Solar garden lights are disappearing around town. Both of mine outside the fence went first, then someone came into my fenced yard and took one of my expensive solar lights, so I put the remaining light in the garage, where it will be safe. Useless, but safe.

Apparently, kids are stealing them to use as nightlights on their bicycles. Even if they were caught, no one would do anything about it. The sheriff, of course, couldn’t care, and the new local police force . . . actually, I don’t know anything about them other than that this town decided not to rely on the county anymore. And that they have brand new vehicles. I guess I should count myself lucky I have no information about them — it means I have no need of their services.

I continued my walk, and on the way back, as I paused to look at a tiny rosebush, a woman came rushing out of her house and said, “I’m so glad to see you’re okay.” I’d been introduced to the woman once, and had never spoken another word with her, but apparently, she’d noticed I hadn’t been out walking for a while. She mentioned that another woman, one I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen, had also been asking about me. It’s nice to know people notice and care, but the truth is, by the time they realized I was missing, my corpse could have been moldering in my house for months. But still, it is nice. And weird, too, in a way.

It’s funny — every time I go walking, I realize how much I miss it, but then something happens, like the ground drying out and my needing to do yardwork as it did today, and I never get a chance to get back in the swing of daily walking. But maybe. Someday. When it’s not hot. Or windy. Or cold. Or snowy.

Oh, who and I trying to kid. There’s always an excuse. But yesterday, I did take a walk, and it was nice.