A New eBay Addiction?

 I've owned Tupperware for a long, long time.  I'm pretty sure I made my first Tupperware party purchase back in 1990.  I received Tupperware for my wedding in 1993. I went to a few parties in the mid to late 90s, and hosted a Tupperware party of my own in 2000.  In the late 2000s I switched to buying glass containers for things I didn't all ready own that size of container for (like microwavable leftovers to go in lunch boxes), but I did not give up using the Tupperware that I own.  Yes, it's plastic, but it's Tupperware and you can't make me give it up.  LOL.

Through the decades, some of the lids have died.  Warped, melted, cracked. . . some through misuse (I confess to boiling a few lids in 1992 in the name of sterilization after a mouse invasion of our student rental while DH and I were gone home for Christmas break his 4th year of college. Plastic lid in boiling water, yeah, they didn't fit the bowls anymore after that.  Rookie mistake.) and the rest just due to repeated use through the years.  Used to be Tupperware had a lifetime guarantee (except if you boiled the lids or otherwise damaged them by your own stupidity) and you could call up your local Tupperware rep, give them the broken item and it would be replaced free of charge.  

In the late 2000s, it got harder and harder to find a Tupperware rep (my friend who was one moved to Wyoming, so that wasn't gonna work for replacements anymore), and I started to stockpile my increasing amount of cracked lids.  I hoped to find someone local who was a Tupperware rep that I could get together with and exchange my broken ones for new ones.  But, even looking online, I couldn't come up with anyone within an hour's drive.  At least, not one who got back to me about free replacements.

In late 2025, out of desperation (and wondering why I had about a dozen broken lids in a box, and corresponding containers in my cupboards that couldn't easily be used without a lid), I searched on the Tupperware site itself not for a local rep, but for info on how to turn in broken Tupperware for a free replacement.  And found zero about lids.  A little bit, here and there, about a few other items, but nothing about replacing lids.

I even tried looking up just coughing up cash for new lids that were the same sizes and shapes as the ones I needed to replace.  On the Tupperware site, I found pretty much nothing.  I could order all new sets of containers with lids, but I could not order just a lid.  

After several more months of soul searching "Do I give away all these lidless containers?  Do I keep trying to use them with plastic wrap or foil as a lid (which really didn't work for me)?" I hit upon an acceptable to me answer: Buy new (old, used, whatever I could get) lids on eBay.  So I made a list of the model (serial?) numbers that were on my broken ones, finally threw out the box of cracked lids, and started watching eBay for Tupperware lids.

When I find a few in the size that I'm looking for, I add them to my watchlist, then wait.  No impulse buying allowed.  I compare price plus shipping, figure up how much I want to spend on each individual item, and wait some more.  Often, within a few days of a listing being added to my watchlist, the seller will send me an offer.  If I feel that discounted price is within what I want to spend, I accept.  Otherwise, I keep waiting and search again for that particular size lid after a few weeks have gone by.

At first, it was nice to just have not cracked lids on things like my big square storage containers that I use as flour and sugar cannisters.  A replacement lid was appreciated.

But recently, I scored a new lid for my biggest Wonderlier bowl, the one whose lid I'd accidentally killed by boiling after the mouse incident of January 1992.  I was excited to finally have a lid for that again.  Not just any lid, but the exact shade of the one I'd warped beyond measure.  I put it on the bowl after using the bowl to mix up a batch of cookie dough that needed to be chilled, and seeing that bowl covered by it's proper lid (not plastic wrap! not aluminum foil!) again after 34 years brought me such a thrill!*

So much so that I immediately had to jump on eBay and see what else of my replacement lid list might currently be offered.  And, not only if it was offered, but if I could get it in the original color I'd had. Add to watchlist. Wait.

I might be addicted.

But no longer will I have perfectly usable Tupperware bowls and containers languishing in my cupboards for lack of a lid.

*You may be wondering why, if I ruined the lid in 1992, I didn't turn it in for a free replacement back in the 90s when there were still Tupperware parties going on frequently and I knew Tupperware reps.  Why did I wait until 2026 to replace the lid??  That's because in 1992 I didn't know about free replacement (and even if I had, technically it was my fault--and not the company's error-- that the lid needed replacing) and I threw the warped lid away.  Without a lid to turn in, I couldn't get a free replacement, and back in the 90s raising four kids there was rarely money to spare on a pricey (it seemed at the time) new lid when plastic wrap and aluminum foil could do the job (sorta, never to my satisfaction).

How The Wind Blows

 We've had several windy days at this little place here in the past week. An entire day and night of prolonged 30+ mph wind with frequent gusts around 60 mph.  A day or two of calm, then more wind of 20+ mph with 40+mph gusts.  Honestly, at this point, I'm rather tired of hearing the wind blow.

I do have to be grateful that we've had no loss of trees, or even limbs from trees, and none of the buildings have sustained damage.  The cones in my 'arena' behind the barn keep getting blown over like some odd giant bowling game, but the roofing and siding of the barn are undisturbed.

bowling overnight

bowling during the (scattered snow showery) day

The hay elevator, with three cinderblocks stored in it to weigh down the tongue end, was played with like a teeter-totter by the wind, and the (heavier) tongue end is now the end up in the air.  

Definitely not the end that's supposed to be up!

Even my mounting block, which has stood in place unaffected by wind for about two years now, was moved.  A gust must have went in the open front part and lifted it enough that it rotated about 45 degrees, as you can see from the lines in the grass.  The lines are where it's been standing for quite some time.

A close up to better see the lines from where it stood before.

The LBM wears a long mane, and during turnout it got whipped and tangled into several witches knots.  I spent close to 45 minutes untangling and combing it out, then made many braids in it to keep that from happening again in the next predicted round of strong winds (which happened a few days later).  

All this and March, which is typically a windy month, is only half over!

Pecan Drops

 In my quest to not make the same cookies twice in a row this year, I tried a new to me recipe.  It's from a cookbook I've actually owned for years but haven't explored too much (when you're enjoying being in a chocolate chip cookie rut, why branch out?)

Better Homes and Gardens Homemade Cookies is the name of the cookbook.  And the recipe I made is called Pecan Drops. 

The flavor is buttery, with a hint of pecan.  They were really yummy, and will definitely be added to my list of favorite cookie recipes.

Not only are they tasty, they are incredibly easy and quick to make.  So easy that I'm tempted to make them again right away.  But that would be breaking my 'no same recipe back to back' rule I'm trying to follow for this year's cookies, so I won't.  Maybe the batch after this next recipe though. 😉

A Happy Friday Post

 I'm still (mostly) relaxed from my great vacation I posted about here.  It really was a great time.  Even the flights went smoothly (okay, there was a little turbulence but it was minimal and all the rest of the flight/airport experience was unusually free of stress).

Other things making me happy lately:

^A new-to-me cookie recipe that was both easy to make and delicious.  I'll be posting about it soon.

^That while we got tons of rain from recent storms, we had no tornadoes or hail.

^The robins are arriving.  Which means, although we are headed into another cold spell, that we're not going to have much more snow before the weather stays warm.  Typically we get a good snowstorm shortly after the first robins are seen, and then maybe one or two more that melt within a day.  So, we are officially through the hard part of winter.

^On sunny days I've found a few half-hour sessions to work on getting the beading done on a Santa counted cross stitch that I'd worked on last year, intending for it to be done in time for Christmas gifting.  It wasn't.  But it will be this year!

^I finally finished the Yoga Camp series that I started in early 2025, unintentionally took the summer and fall off from and picked up again in January 2026.  So 30 days of yoga was spread out over nearly a year, but hey, I completed what I started. ✊

^After coming home from vacation and catching up on tasks at this little place here I started a new yoga series by the same person: Revolution, which is 31 days.  Let's see if I can get all the days done before the end of summer. (Doing yoga daily is not something I am able to fit into my schedule, so I aim for 2-3 days per week).

^Some ruminations about shedding the most recent phase of our lives (say the last 10 years or so) and stepping into the next, complete with purging of stuff that isn't needed any longer, doing some long put-off projects and switching thinking about DH's retirement from the long term to the short term as regard to plans and looking at it in months (36? Less?  Slightly more?) rather than years (5-10 depending on economy).

^Possibly a new horse coming to live at this little place here in April.

^I finished knitting the socks I'm planning to surprise my Mom with on Mother's Day.

^I started knitting a pair of socks intended as my Dad's Fathers Day present.  Really, when I was packing for vacation I decided that Mom's socks were so near completion it didn't make sense to take those, as I might be done with them before even boarding the flight taking us to Orlando.  So I grabbed yarn for a pair for Dad, chose a pattern, and took those to Florida instead.

What are some things making you smile these days?

A Little Down Time

 DH and I slipped away for a quick vacation.

Although I'm not sure 'slipped away' is the right phrase.  Because it took talking to and arranging with several people in order to make it happen that I could be gone.  I feel 'plotted' would be a more apt word to use.

Anyway, we went on a Florida vacation without stepping foot in a theme park, and without hanging out at a poolside bar.  Kinda like going to Vegas and never entering a casino or seeing a show.  The resort was our homebase for sleeping, but when morning came we got the heck out of dodge and went to see things an hour or more away.

Because the point wasn't to go to Orlando and see the entertainment parks in Orlando.  The point was to take advantage of a sale on resort stays in Orlando, and direct flights to Orlando, and use those resources to make possible some exploring of central Florida. To get out of Michigan, to run away from life for a while, and to enjoy warm weather in a 'new' place.  (We've been to Orlando in the past, but always in the context of Disney, not as in the region around it).

Like Cocoa Beach, which was supposedly a good place to find shells.  Spoiler alert, it wasn't.  At least, not at all like what we'd expected.  I found a few decent ones, but I've been to other places in other states that had far more shells compared to sand on the beach.  Maybe its better at a different time of year.

While we decided not to don bathing suits and swim in the ocean as the water was rather chilly at knee deep, we did take off our sandals and walk through the surf for a mile plus, while watching for decent shells and seeing several different types of wading birds as well as pelicans. At ankle deep or less, the water was pleasingly warm, except for a rogue cold wave or two.  

Wading barefoot is definitely a task you can't do on the shores of the Great Lakes here in Michigan in early March; a lot of those are still covered in ice this time of year.  So, being able to do so in Florida was a nice treat even if the shells were kind of lacking.

a willet I (barely) managed to catch a non-blurry picture of

With the exception of traffic around Orlando, which was a snarl that took forever, it seemed, it was a relaxing day.  We saw alligators on ditch banks, lots of cattle grazing, and did a quick side trip over to Cape Canaveral but decided neither one of us was interesting in going in the Kennedy Space Center enough to pay for parking plus admission when the day was half over.  Instead, we watched flamingos flying, which was rather trippy to see big pink birds in the sky, and saw a wild boar browsing along the side of a road.

The next day began with a hunt for a good doughnut for breakfast.  I rarely eat doughnuts anymore, since they are too much carb for too little breakfast ever since I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes in 2017 (2018? I don't remember), but I had planned ahead and before we left the resort I ate protein in the form of plain Greek Yogurt and was then theoretically ready to blow my carb allowance on a long John style doughnut. A careful vacation splurge, if you will.

Except a long John turned out to be an elusive thing to find.  With Dunkin shops all over the place, it was very disappointing to walk in a few locations and see pretty much only circle doughnuts with holes. And even the filled circles didn't have custard inside or chocolate frosting on top, being jelly filled and coated in powdered sugar.  Nope.  Not good enough for me.

(Side note, since it's been years since I was last in a Dunkin shop: do they even make long Johns anymore?  Or was this lack just a regional thing?) 

We looked up doughnut places online, tried, by their pictures, to determine which ones actually made long John doughnuts, and finally hit upon one that looked promising.  DH typed it in to the navigation system on our rental car and off we went on a (doughnut) treasure hunt.  Which took us to the gate of Universal Studios.  Yeah, the doughnut shop was in the theme park.  Not going there.  

With dropping blood sugar and resignation that I really needed to eat some carbs ASAP, I had DH stop at a grocery store where we also found no filled doughnuts. I did score a large container of fresh fruit, enough to cover my breakfast carb requirement.  So I had strawberries, blueberries and grapes for breakfast and DH found an Einstein Bros bagel nearby for himself.

Our second planned fun thing for that day was to go kayaking.  We headed through the (horrendous) Orlando area traffic over to Kings Landing in the Wekiva River Basin, where we rented a couple of kayaks and went out paddling for a few hours.  

We saw many kinds of fish, enjoyed floating down the beautiful clear water, and even saw an alligator on the bank of the river.  Ironically I paddled right past it, less than 2' from where it was in some brush, and wasn't even aware of it's presence until a minute later when someone in a kayak behind me said "There's an alligator!"

Of course I had to turn around, paddle up river, and go looking for it! DH, curious but more cautious than I, turned around and came too, staying behind me (so the alligator would eat me first and leave him alone?) We stayed close to the opposite bank this time, and DH managed to get a picture or two although they came out a bit blurry.

That black bumpy thing isn't an old tire, it's a gator!

After our kayak excursion, before getting close enough to Orlando to join the traffic, we stopped at a gas station to use the restrooms and guess what I found!  Not exactly a custard filled long John with chocolate frosting, but the gas station did have a doughnut case with creme filled chocolate frosted doughnuts!  

So we bought two of those, one for me and one for DH and called it lunch.  They were (surprisingly) excellent doughnuts.  Circle K for the win!  Who would have ever thought a gas station would have a great doughnut when several doughnut shops did not.

Our final day of vacation, we drove over to Ocala, heading for the World Equestrian Center.  DH had taken it upon himself to look up the WEC online several weeks before our trip, and had seen that there was supposed to be a dressage show series starting the last day of our trip.  So our plan was to drive over and spectate some Grand Prix level dressage.

As it turned out, that was the first day of the show series, but it was not a show day.  It was a schooling day.  Which was not as exciting, but I still enjoyed watching many horses being worked.  There's not a lot of opportunity around this little place here to sit and watch riders practice piaffe, passage, canter pirouettes and zigzags, let alone doing one tempis!

I took several videos, but apparently forgot to get pictures of the cool stuff, lol.  Here's a picture of one of the riders who I most liked how he rode (quietly in the saddle and without being harsh to the horse) while he was finishing their session at a walk.

Although there were no dressage classes scheduled for that day, on other parts of the WEC grounds there were multiple jumping competitions going on.  We first watched a Young Riders (Under25) class, then headed to the main arena where we saw a few riders in a jump off round of a 1.45 meter class (where the height of the jump is about 4' 9").  That was very interesting, especially for DH who doesn't get as much joy as I do from the nuances of watching dressage.

Along with three days of interesting-to-us activities, we experienced some really good food.  Unlike most other vacations we've had, where we utilize the kitchen in our suite--and the grill(s) provided by the resort--I did zero cooking this time.  That was one of my stipulations when this vacation idea first came up: that if I was 'getting away from real life' for a bit, that had to include me not planning, shopping for, cooking, or cleaning up after any meals. I've been rather burned out on that aspect of my life for a few months now.

Instead, we made a list of cuisines we'd like to eat while we were there.  Did we find all of them?  No, our list was quite a bit longer than the number of meals we had in three days.  The main goal was to try something different than our usual.  So, preferably no pizza, no pasta, no major chains (local chains OK). . .

We had some incredible Cuban food, (my pechuga de pollo plancha with salad, fried plantains and Spanish rice is show below), awesome Turkish kebab, and discovered a breakfast place (a chain, turned out) that was so good we ate there two out of three mornings.  

delicious Cuban dinner

breakfast hash with goat cheese (minus eggs since I don't eat commercial eggs)

This was just the break from my real life that I needed.  I have to say it was the most relaxing vacation I've had in many years.  And even though we ate out a lot, the food wasn't horribly pricey despite being a tourist area with the expected price hikes.  In fact, $40 seemed to be the theme for dinner cost; two of us and no matter where we went and what we ordered, the tab was always $40.  That's not any more expensive than dinner out in our home area.

A Gnome-icide

At the end of February, we lost all our snow.  The last of the drifts and snow piles melted.  I took a little time to walk around and assess the flowerbeds. (Confession, I was looking to see if any of my crocuses were up yet.  They weren't).

While I saw only the teeniest of tips on the daffodils sprouting on the south side of the house, there were no other flowers waking up yet.  

Walking around to the front side of the house, I was startled to come upon a crime scene.  It appears that over the winter there had been a gnome-icide!!  Mr. and Mrs. Garden Gnome were lying face down in the flowerbed that is to the north of my front steps, and Mr. Garden Gnome had been smashed to bits!

At first I was afraid it was a double gnome-icide, but as I carefully lifted Mrs. Garden Gnome off the remains of her husband I could see that she had been prostrate with grief but otherwise unharmed.

Mr. Garden Gnome, however, was definitely a goner, and looked like he'd been departed for quite some time.  I'm pretty sure they had been covered over in a snow drift for many weeks prior to our weather warming up.  So at this point, there was no evidence of who had perpetrated this heinous crime. 

Even a sunnier day turned up no clues.  Was it the house deer that ate the arborvitae further down the flowerbed during the coldest part of the winter?  Did one of them, digging in the snow for plant matter to eat from the flowerbed, stomp Mr. Garden Gnome to death accidentally?  The snow had melted away and there were no telling deer prints found.

Or perhaps a delivery person carrying a package to the porch trudged through the drifted snow and thought they were on the sidewalk but really they were in my flowerbed and stepped onto a blown-over and buried in a drift Mr. Garden Gnome, crushing him with their human weight?  

This theory has been discarded since no packages were delivered to the front porch during the really cold and snowy weeks, all delivery drivers propped packages up against the garage doors where the approach had been plowed clear.

Or, (given the state I found this couple in with Mrs. Garden Gnome grieving over her poor mutilated  husband this one might be the true answer,) had Mr. Garden Gnome developed a small crack (or many small cracks) last fall into which water seeped.  And then when our super frigid January came had that moisture frozen, expanding in the process, and blown him apart? 

Or, maybe he had fallen over earlier in the winter, taken on water which later froze, then a stiff wind during a snowstorm blew Mrs. Garden Gnome into him and her touch was the kiss of death, with just enough force to undo him?

We may never know.

Unless Mrs. Garden Gnome shows up this spring with a new paint job and is found cavorting around the flower beds like a merry widow.

Books Read in 2026: February

 1. The Leisure Seeker by Michael Zadoorian.  This is another book I picked up at a book swap.  Elderly couple goes on a cross country road trip.  Did I like it?  Yes.  Some parts were funny, some were eerily relatable (as DH and I have been together 35 years now), some were not my moral value but even so I could empathize.

2. River of Life by Kathleen Y'Barbo. Yet another book swap book.  I tell you, if you hear of a swap in your area, go check it out!  Although I confess this was a Did Not Finish for me.  I gave it about 60 pages, wasn't getting into it at all (honestly was kind of turned off by how very similar the story line was to another book, by a different author, that I also Did Not Finish last year).  Maybe I don't like the modern cozy mystery genre?  Growing up, I was reading Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by 8th grade, so maybe that set my standard for mystery stories on a different plane?

3. Snowed In by Catherine Walsh.  A romance novel, and, except for a little explicit near the end, one that I liked. It's an engaging, quick, light read with some humor added in.  I will most likely look up more books from this author to read in the future.

4. The Maze by Lucy Rees. This is another book I picked up at last fall's book swap because the cover blurb looked like it might be interesting. I started this one while waiting for a requested library book that was in transit.  Honestly, I put it down once that awaited book was available to read and haven't picked it back up again.  Interesting?  A little bit, because it involves horses and Arizona. The characters I'm not so much connecting with, but the environment and mode of transportation (horseback) I am.  Will probably read it here and there between library books.

5. Heartwood by Amity Gaige.  Hmm.  What to say about this one?  It was weird.  Overall good and interesting.  It wove together, through one based-on-real-life event, the stories of three moms and daughters, with a touch of a couple other somewhat major characters.  Will I read more by this author?  I'm not sure.

6. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.  Very tiny print, at least in the edition I got from the library, and slow starting.  I kept slogging through because of the time period was of interest, and I wanted to see what made this a Classic.  It did get more interesting as it went on.  Now that I've wrapped it up, I think I'm in the mood for a light, modern (but not too explicit if romance-y) read.