#2985 pdin 4 - a prompt

For the past year or so, I have been using writing prompts in my journal. I'll write about whatever I want, then I will respond to the prompt for that particular day. It adds a little extra fun to my regular journaling by making me think about something that maybe wouldn't occur to me to write about. 

Sometimes coming up with a topic to write about every day can be challenging, so why not respond to a prompt when I don't have much to say?

Here is the list of prompts I am using this month:

Today is Nov 4, and the prompt is: Your preferred method of communication.

My preferred method of communication is writing. At work, I like it when people send me an email with their requests and information because then it gives me something tangible to refer back to when I need clarification. It is also more helpful to me to have an email that I can drag to a task list so I can make sure the thing gets done. In my personal life, I like to get a text. I really like to get mail; it is so wonderful to get a nice handwritten card in the mail! It's true that in written communication you can't always get "tone," but I think that's more on the writer.

A recent trend that I don't like in written communication is using AI to write for you. I don't like it at all! It's weird to read something from a person and you know they don't speak like they write - but it's because they are not writing it. It's just sad to me that folks feel like they need to lean on ChatGPT or something to communicate. Use your words. Use your words.

See you tomorrow!

#2984 pdin 3 - basic fall b*tch

 Autumn is by far my favorite season. All seasons have good stuff about them, of course, but I love fall most of all. I love the cool mornings and evenings and the warm afternoons. I love the softer light. I love standard time. I love the colors of the leaves. I love wearing cozy sweatshirts. I love football. I love the Major League Baseball post-season. I love the start of basketball and hockey season. I love slowing down at this time of year; the lull between the summer and the holidays. I feel myself thinking about wrapping up in a quilt, having a nice cup of coffee, and reading a book all day. (I don’t actually do that, but I think about it.)

The weather yesterday was incredibly wonderful. The temperature was in the mid ‘60s, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, and it wasn’t even a little windy. After I walked the dogs in the morning, I declared that it might be a Hog Wallow day. MT was into it, so we had lunch at Hog Wallow Pub in Cottonwood Heights. The pub has the nicest patio! As you can see, the trees behind MT were all yellow and there were leaves actually falling around us. I worried a leaf would fall in my beer, but that did not happen.

Me and the Mr.

It’s fall!

While I have you here, take a look at these photos to see how quickly the leaves changed colors:

Red Butte Garden, October 5, 2025

Red Butte Garden, October 25

Isn’t that cool?!

That’s all for today! See ya tomorrow for more random thoughts!

#2983 pdin 2 - vacation memories day 12 - Prague (16 Sept)

at St. Vitus Cathedral // ussie by Lizzie

It's our last day in Prague and we need to see lots of stuff! The plan was to explore the west side of the Vltava River, including Prague Castle and parts of the Mala Strana (Lesser Town). We got an early start because the hotel would not have water from 7:30 am to around 7:00 pm, so we wanted to get out and about before the water was shut off.

Why was the water being shut off, you may be asking? The City of Prague was doing some work on the waterlines in the area. The hotel assured us they would provide bottled water for drinking as well as buckets of water for flushing and washing. Oy. We just decided to spend most of the day out and about.

I wanted to have a traditional Czech breakfast of a kolach and coffee, and luckily there was a kolacherie not far from the hotel. A kolach can be sweet or savory. Lizzie and I each had a sweet and a savory. Here's a pic of mine:

kolaches

The kolcach on the left is nutella with lemon curd, and on the right is ham and cheese. The bread is slightly sweet and chewy. I thought they were both delicious. After breakfast, we walked back through the square and stopped in a cool academic bookstore where I bought a blank notebook, which I call my TBW books (to be written), and postcards. We passed by this magnificent and ginormous statue in Old Town Square:

Jan Hus Monument in Old Town Square

The walk to the castle didn't take long, probably about 20 minutes, at least to get to the steps going up to the castle.. The steps were long and pretty steep; it was about three quarters of a mile uphill. We had to stop a few times along the way, and we were not the only ones stopping to catch our breath. Here's a pic of the stairs from the top:

the stairs to Prague Castle

It is free to enter the castle grounds, but there is a fee if you want to walk on the Golden Mile (the medieval shopping street), the Old Royal Palace, and the cathedral. We chose not to pay and just wander at our leisure. You can also schedule tours, which we had for Monday, but the tour was cancelled as I explained in a previous post. There was still something going on at the castle because the police were checking underneath vehicles, and there was quite a few police and military personnel on site. 

The castle is a grouping of individual palaces where the noblemen lived, the main palace, and the cathedral. Prague Castle is enormous. Most of the individual palaces are now museums, but there is still official business done at the Old Royal Palace. In the middle of it all is St. Vitus Cathedral which is incredible. We stared at it for a long time.

the back of St. Vitus Cathedral

the side of St. Vitus Cathedral

front of St. Vitus Cathedral

If/when I get back to Prague, I'm going in there!

Here is a pano of the Old Royal Palace. There appears to be some squinching of Lizzie's hair on the right.

Old Royal Palace

We wandered around the grounds looking for the gardens. We found sort of a canyon with paths, but we couldn't quite figure out how to get down there, then we decided maybe we didn't want to have to work our way back up, and there were other things we wanted to see, so we kept moving. 

We stopped to have a beverage at Cafe Sternberk in Sternberg Palace - no, I didn't spell those incorrectly, they are different - then we went into a small sculpture garden where we felt we had to pose like a couple of the statues:

There were also cardboard cutouts of knights in a gift shop, and we had to put our faces in those:

the knight was tall, and I am short

Lizzie's hair wouldn't fit in the helmet

We left the castle and wandered around looking at whatever we could see. There weren't as many tourists outside of the castle, and the old streets were quiet. The farther we got from the castle, the emptier the streets were.

the Archbishop's residence with St. Vitus in the background

a quiet street in the castle district

We made our way over to Strahov Monastery. We considered going into the library there, but decided to go to the pirovar (brewery) instead for a bite to eat and a beer, of course. The beer was excellent.

cheers!

After this snack, Lizzie and I decided to make our way down the hill to see a few more things that were on our list for the day. What I can tell you is that no matter how you choose to get up to Prague Castle, it is uphill. I think I'm glad we got all our climbing over with in the straight shot up the stairs. Coming down through the charming streets was a delight. 

Prague!

so pretty!

I'm a sucker for a flower shop

There were a couple of gardens Lizzie had researched that we wanted to see. One of them was hosting a private event, so we couldn't go in there. Guess we'll save that for next time. The Vrtba Garden was open and we paid a small fee to enter. It was small, and so beautifully designed and maintained.

From Vrtba Garden, it wasn't far to the Lennon Wall, so we figured we'd better see it. It wasn't pleasing to me at all. I'm sure at one point, it was cool, but now it's just a mess.

Lennon Wall

 

However, just down the street, you can see this:

the water goblin Kabourek watches over Devil's Stream

A fun fact I learned walking around the Mala Strana is that the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda took his last name from a Czech poet, Jan Neruda. We passed by the Hotel Neruda and I wondered if Pablo Neruda had spent time in Prague. He did visit the city, but didn't stay long, I don't think. Cool name, though. I think I might like to stay in this hotel. I really liked this side of the city.

We went back across the Charles Bridge, admiring both sides of the river and the beautiful bridge itself.

on the Charles Bridge looking at the west side of Prague

another pic of Prague from the Charles Bridge

By the time we made it back to the hotel, I had logged over 19,000 steps, just over eight miles. I was beat! It was good that we tired ourselves out, though, because we decided to get to bed around 8pm in order to be able to meet our driver at 3 am for our ride to the airport to catch our flight to Amsterdam at 6 am. We had a quick dinner at the restaurant near the hotel, watched the crowds gather for the Astronomical Clock "show" then went upstairs to bed.

pooped out in Prague

The next vacation memories post will be about Amsterdam! I plan to write about it on Wednesday.

See you tomorrow!

PS pdin stands for Posting Daily in November :D

 

#2982 post every day in November - day 1

my wee calendar

Wow! It's November! 

This month I am challenging myself to post something here every day. It's a throwback to the olden days of blogging when November was National Blog Posting Month (NABLOPOMO). I don't know if that's a thing anymore, but I think it will be fun to take the time and the energy to share something here daily. I imagine it will be quite a mixed bag of stuff that shows up. I'm going to enjoy doing it, and I hope all seven of you like it too.

It's 3:00 on Saturday afternoon, and I can't help but think the time passes way more quickly on the weekend than it does during the week. I didn't sleep in too late - it was probably around 8:30 when I got out of bed, and since then the hours have passed by in a hurry. I played with the dogs, I had brunch here at home, and I've been outside getting the potted plants on the deck ready for their winter sleep. I haven't done this before, but I'm hoping it will work out. I have some rocks that I've put on four of the plants, and I covered the other two with high quality topsoil, of which I have quite a lot right now. We had a good frost earlier in the week, and some of the plants suffered. It's a really pretty day here so I took about 90 minutes to trim and winterize these six plants. There are two pots of marigolds, a geranium, an Icelandic poppy, a black eyed Susan, and a tomato plant. 

ready for winter?

Some of the plants came through the frost well. The two Russian sage plants, the guara, the catmint, and one of the coreopsis plants are still blooming. The other coreopsis isn't blooming, so I cut it down and put some white rocks around part of it. The other plant with white rocks is a lavender. She still has a pretty twig that isn't blooming, but it is still vibrant. I will watch these plants over the next week and prep their winter beds when they seem more ready. In the meantime, I will enjoy them!

still blooming, not quite ready for winter!

This past week with the frost and the colder temperatures, the leaves on the maple trees in my yard, and the leaves in the trees around the neighborhood, turned yellow nearly overnight.  The sugar maple in the forefront is really yellow. The northern maple in the back isn't quite there yet, but it's changing.

fall colors in my backyard

We have been having work done in our backyard. MT put up that pretty cedar fence you can see in the background, and along with our contractor, he put in what will be a nearly 60' long flower bed. That's why we have so much topsoil. They built the flower bed along the fence, and there's another good size bed on the side of the deck to the right of the above photo. In addition, the sprinkler system has been updated, flat stones have been placed under the fence to aid in mowing and to decrease the need for weed whacking, and the whole mulberry bush was removed. We'll have to patch the hole in the fence and do a few other things before we stop work for winter, but it's coming along. I think the contractor will be finished next week, then MT will have some things he will work on to wrap it up. I'm excited about the changes and looking forward to making our yard pretty with pollinator-friendly plants in the spring.

If you were expecting to see a vacation memories post today, come back tomorrow. I'll be writing about exploring the castle district of Prague. There are just three more vacation memory posts to do - the one about Prague that I'll write tomorrow and two about  Amsterdam. I'll post those on Sunday, Wednesday, and Sunday (probably.)

Did you have any trick or treaters last night? We had zero. It's the second year in a row that no one has come to our house for candy.  I didn't even see any kids out on the neighborhood at all. I don't think there are many kids in the neighborhood. My neighbors have kids, but it didn't seem like they were home last night. 

That's all for today. I hope you'll check in tomorrow :)

#2981 vacation memories: day 11 - Prague (Monday 15 Sept)

ussie with Prague Castle in the background on the left

The original plan for the day was to take a tour of Prague Castle with a guide, but since the castle was closed this day for some diplomatic thing, the tour was canceled. I think a high-ranking Taiwanese official was in town to meet with the leader of the Czech Republic or something, and there was also something about the crown jewels; whatever it was, we couldn't go to the castle, so we decided to do a self-guided exploration of the east side of the Vltava River. We wanted to go to a particular bookstore, see the Jewish Quarter, and soak in the vibes. Lizzie built a map and off we went.

SPOILER: there are a lot of pics in this post!

After breakfast at the hotel in the Cafe Mozart (cool!), we set out to see the town. It was cloudy and cool, perfect weather for walking around. Prague is really beautiful.

the buildings are all different

I mentioned in my previous post that one of the things that makes Prague so charming and unpredictable is that none of the buildings are the same. There are different colors, different rooftops, and different window treatments. In contrast, the buildings in Paris are very beautiful, but all similar because they were designed by one person, Haussman, and it was done with purpose, and it is gorgeous and very identifiable and charming in its way.  Prague is quirky, charming, and well, bohemian.

Prague Castle

This is my first view of Prague Castle. We found a palace with a green space that we could enter free, and gazed across the river to the castle. It's big, and I was enchanted.

Old Town Square

Old Town Square was our home base. If you look over to the right, you'll see an archway with a point; it's the tallest building you can see on the right. That was our hotel. On the left, you see Old Town Hall where the Astronomical Clock is (you can't see the clock from this angle), and of course, Our Lady Before Tyn (pronounced "teen") in the background. This photo was taken later in the day after the sky cleared up. I'm not going in order of how we walked around.

A place that Lizzie and I wanted to go was The Globe Bookstore. I wish I'd taken photos inside the bookshop. It is cozy and full of books, of course, and it's just really, really inviting. In the back of the shop, there is a cafe with indoor and outdoor seating. We sat outside and had a coffee and enjoyed a moment of peace away from the tourist throngs. The Globe is in a neighborhood, not a touristic area. I liked it a lot. I didn't buy any books, but I did buy a lot of postcards and a tote bag. Here's a pic of Lizzie outside the shop:

We loved The Globe Bookstore & Cafe!

We walked around for a few hours, passing by huge, beautiful buildings. We walked by the Jewish Cemetery and the Spanish Synagogue, and a statue of Franz Kafka - not the giant head, but the headless one.  I am not posting my photo of it because I took two pics and both of them are missing the top of the top hat. Honestly, I knew I was seeing something well known, but I didn't know exactly what it was. LOL (That's why you take guided tours!)

We were getting hungry, so Lizzie suggested finding a restaurant she's come across in her research, Cafe Imperial. I was down for it, so we following the blue dot (that's the guide on the Google map program) to the cafe. We were fortunate that we did not need to have a reservation for lunch, and we were seated right away. This cafe is bonkers beautiful. It is over-the-top Art Deco, and I felt super-fancy having lunch there.

 

Cafe Imperial

Even my lunch was super-fancy, but pretty simple. They had a salad on the lunch special menu of arugula with goat cheese, walnuts and pears dressed with a light vinaigrette. Along with a glass of sauvignon blanc and some bread and butter, we felt like fine ladies.

lunch at Cafe Imperial

The main reason we had a light lunch is because we really wanted dessert. There was a display case as you walk in, filled with samples of the cakes that were available that day. Here's an example but there must have been a dozen or so options.

dessert options

I couldn't tell you what Lizzie had, but I had the Imperial - it's the one on the right. It's their specialty, so I thought I'd give it a go.

OH.

MY.

GOD.

This is the part where I tell you that this is the best dessert I have ever had. Ever. Full stop. The top layer was chocolate caramel with a fudge-like texture and consistency. The cake inside was a tender, mild gingerbread cake. The bottom half of the cake was covered in dark chocolate. I don't know if I'll ever get over it. I almost got another piece of it to go. If I am ever fortunate enough to find myself in Prague again, I will make every effort to get back to Cafe Imperial just for this dessert. It was truly incredible.

At some point during our wandering, I got a message from KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, that they would be on strike on the 17th and that our flight to Amsterdam was cancelled. As you might imagine, this was upsetting. We went back to the hotel and started messaging The Amazing Candice. This situation right here is why you need a travel advisor on your travel team. She immediately started working on a solution. KLM had rebooked us on a much later flight, but we had tours booked in Amsterdam based on our original flight that we would miss with the later flight. Candice was able to get us on a very (very) early flight out of Prague on the 17th so we wouldn't miss anything in Amsterdam. We would miss something in Prague, but more on that in the next post.

Although it was a little stressful, it was good to have a bit of rest after lunch. We'd walked five miles in the first part of the day, and we wanted to get back out in the evening, so the break was good. I recommend taking a break at your hotel or wherever you are staying in the afternoon. Being out all day, seeing new things, being surrounded by people everywhere you turn, and walking so much can be tiring. It's tempting to say, "But (your city here) is out there waiting for me!" but you'll get more out of your time in the city if you have a break. I don't think this is an age thing (I mean, I am older, but I don't think my age has anything to do with enjoying the break.) After hours out in the city, everything I'd seen was starting to run together and I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all. To rest and regroup and form a plan for the evening was really good for both of us.

Now it is getting to be evening and I really wanted to see the Charles Bridge, which was quite close to our hotel, so that's where we went.

east entrance to the Charles Bridge

Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge

view of the east gate and beyond from the bridge

one of the beautiful statues on the Charles Bridge

another view of Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge

Yes, I have a crush on Prague. Look at it! It's gorgeous.

The small salad and exquisite dessert were long gone, so we went to a pizza place with outdoor seating in the shadow of Our Lady Before Tyn. We'd passed the place several times, and it was always busy, so we had pizza in Prague. It was really good, too! After dinner, we weren't quite ready to go back to the hotel, so Lizzie suggested going to a bar she'd read about, and I was down for that. It was less than a ten minute walk from the pizza place. It was early, maybe 9:00 or 10:00, and there wasn't anyone else in the place, so we were on our own to enjoy a fine Czech pilsner and some popcorn at this really cool bar called Tynska Bar and Books.

Tynska Bar and Books

umm...

so cool!

I'm not really sure what Lizzie was doing in that middle photo. She said she'd seen someone doing this pose somewhere and so she wanted to do it. We often crack up about people posing in weird ways in front of landmarks, like they are having a photo shoot. It happens A LOT. Anyway, since it was just the two of us, it was pretty funny and pretty fun, too.

ussie by Lizzie

I could have stayed in this bar and had more drinks, but it had been a long day and we had to get up early the next day because our hotel would not have water beginning at 7:30, so we wanted to be sure to be ready to go before the water was unavailable.

Since our hotel was right in front of the Astronomical Clock and there wasn't much of a crowd, we were able to take photos.

me!

Lizzie!

Fun fact...we stood right there in front of the clock and called Mom so she could see us on the Cameras Around the World website. She did see us! (We also did this in front of the Pantheon in Rome too, and it was really fun!) 

In case you're wondering, I walked 18,176 steps that day, just over seven and a half miles!

Up next, we explore the city on the west side of the Vltava River including Prague Castle.