JJJ - 4/1/26 - Arms

This is the  4th prompt of Just Jot it January 2026 courtesy of  Cheryl. Thank you, Cheryl! You can visit Cheryl’s blog to read her posts and say hello. 

Your prompt for JusJoJan January 4th, 2026 is “arms.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

This challenge is hosted by Linda here.

Of course one definition of "arms" relates to weaponry as in "weapons and equipment used to kill and injure people" but I'm not going in that direction.  

I'll stick to arms as in the plural of arm as in the things attached to my shoulders that are actually quite useful.

They're good at carrying things.

With hands they can carry out all sorts of tasks:

Swimming (yeah I'm not great at that)

Playing an instrument (yeah not good at that either)

Playing sports, particularly ones that require holding a piece of equipment hmm memories of rounders and hockey which both resulted in black eyes spring to mind.

But cooking and driving I can do and I'm very good at talking with my hands and arms flapping about.

Overall I'd be lost without them.

Now on a different note, I decided I would try and take more photos this year inspired by Kim who has just completed a year of taking a photo a day and is now onto the next year.

Well so far so good:

Top left are the Mandarin Ducks I snapped at the lake on New Year's Day.  

Top right is the lovely dinner Hubby cooked on 2/1/26 - it was nice to have something different from all the leftovers etc. (Pork chop and lots of root veg and peas, plus apple sauce and gravy.)

Bottom left is the latest pic I have of Grandsons Noah and Miles that I got at Christmas and snapped yesterday and

Bottom right is the glass of wine I finished off after my daughter and her family had gone home today after being here for Sunday lunch.  The kids were actually quite good until it was time to go home but playing lots of games with them is quite a challenge.

Phew I'm up to date.  Have a good week all.

#SoCS & JJJ - 3/1/26 - fast/slow

Your prompt for #JusJoJan the 3rd and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “fast/slow.” Use one, use both, use them any way you’d like. Bonus points if you use them both! Enjoy!

Well this post started slow - took me ages to find the SoCS image to add to my post in my Blogger photos folder.  Yes it would have been faster just to recopy the image from our host Linda's blog but then it puts another copy in the Blogger folder which means even more to scroll through next time.  Am I making any sense?  Probably not.  Definitely a slow start this morning.  In fact that's probably my default speed these day.  I love being retired lol.

Of course I can move fast when I need to.  As in absolutely need to.  But as my brain is still in slow gear right now I'm struggling to find an example of being fast.  I can type fast.  That helps when you're trying to get a blog post done and then get around to visiting all the other blogs and leaving comments.  

I took typing as an evening class way back when typewriters were still a thing.  That was before the days of word processors let alone personal computers and now of course laptops, tablets and phones.  I can remember being asked at work to go and trial word processors when they were first being introduced.   (Yes I'm old!) That was interesting and things were a bit slower then because you had to remember what all the function keys did for things like underlining, putting things in BOLD etc.  Things are definitely easier now.  And don't get me started on AI.  

It amazes me how people use their thumbs for typing on their phones.  I find it tricky typing on my phone because I trained to use all my fingers and you can't do that with a phone - the keyboard is too small.  Funny how things go in cycles though.  I can remember my first phone (a motorola) that felt and weighed like a brick.  Then gradually phones got smaller and smaller because that was a thing.  You had to be able to fit them in your pocket.

Now of course they've got bigger again because of all the extra things you can do with them.  And then technology moved on to give us folding phones - so you could still do all the stuff and fit it in your pocket.

Some of us still struggle with technology though.  Yesterday my Hubby picked up my phone by mistake.  (That's my fault of course for choosing a case that's the same colour as his phone case.  Believe me if I could have got a different colour I would have but the choice was black or black.  Yep I picked black which is the same as his.)  Anyway he'd gone out and I was searching for my phone.  I finally asked my daughter to call it.  To our surprise Hubby answered - he was in the car.  Mystery solved - he had my phone.  Although he was trying to insist he didn't even though he had answered it!  But of course being in the car and using hands free he couldn't understand the logic!  He can be a bit slow at times lol.

Now I'm off to find some sort of sticker to put on my phone so we can tell them apart.  Moving at a slow pace of course.

Thanks to Linda as always for hosting SoCS and Just Jot it January.  You can find all the info and join in here.

JJJ - 2/1/26 - Magnify

And we’re off and running! Welcome to the 2nd prompt of Just Jot it January 2026. Our prompt is brought to us today by our very own Barbara. Thank you, Barbara! Please be sure to visit Barbara’s blog to read her posts and say hello. And follow her while you’re there if you’re not already.

Your prompt for JusJoJan January 2nd, 2026 is “magnify.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

Hmm hopefully you won't need a magnifying glass to magnify that introduction.  As you can see I have just copied it from our host Linda's blog which you can find here.

I don't often use a magnifying glass as my vision isn't too bad and I do have glasses which are more often than not perched on my head.  I've found I need them less and less for close up work or reading but I still need them for distance so watching the TV or driving.

The time when I did use a magnifying glass was when doing this puzzle:

It does actually have the names of the countries, main cities etc on it but the writing was so small that I often resorted to using the magnifying glass to try and make out the words.  It didn't really help that much and the puzzle took ages.

We also have a magnifying mirror on the inside of our bathroom cabinet but I don't look at that too often either.   The lines on my face don't need too much scrutiny lol.

Friday's Fave Five - 2/1/26

Is anyone else having trouble keeping track of what day it is during this holiday period?  Thankfully Susanne reminds us every Friday to be thankful for the blessings in the past week and then like minded bloggers join up on her site which you can find here.  Thank you Susanne.

1)  Well firstly I'm thankful for a lovely Christmas holiday spent with family.  We had my son and his family here for 8 days and of course my daughter and her family joined us for Christmas Day and Boxing Day.  Plus we caught up with the extended family on the 27th.

2)  The run up to Christmas was busy, especially with sessions at the Foodbank so it's been nice to have a 2 week break from that and also for some quiet moments when the kids were out of the house and I could just sit and gather my thoughts.

3)  Hubby seems to be almost over whatever virus he had before and during Christmas.  

4)  A warm house.  It is really cold here in the UK at the moment.  We've had a lot of frosty mornings and some areas have had snow.  The weekend is predicted to be very cold (for us) so it's nice to be able to snuggle down in the warm.

5)  Despite the cold weather I've made a couple of walks down to the lake this week and managed to snap this pair of Mandarin Ducks.

The colourful one is the male and the plainer one is the female.

Have a good weekend all.  We still have our tree and decorations up but I'll probably taken them down over the weekend.  Then I can catch up on some housework.  Hmm maybe I won't rush to take them down.....

Out of interest I checked how many Friday Fave Fives I did in 2025 and it was 39 so 75%.  Must try harder lol.