Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN 'Tis 45 Amurrkin out and cloudy with a predicted high of 50 and N.O.S. for the day. The big item on today’s agenda is deheathenization (I get to be Crucifer/Slackolyte) followed by a return to da cave for a sammich N.O.L. High sloth, nappage, and general overall uselessness shall comprise the rest of the day. Any need to feed will be via forage.
FlyBoy what great vacation adventure awaits the missus and you?
MOOOOOM y’all have fun celebratin’ the Tobester!
Die glad your ‘rents are almost over the plague. I hate the thought of their Turkey Day plans bein’ ruined, but caution is always the best when it comes to this stuff.
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, purtification for deheathenization must commence.
In some ways, Buddy is definitely a normal cat. He is nowhere near as helpful when I’m knitting as he thinks he is (with any luck, I might get this scarf done before about March). He’s also a champion at getting in the way and blocking traffic.
Morning, mumpers! It’s four minutes to midday, so still morning here but only just. It’s 9c/48f out there and partly cloudy. Weather app says “Just think, it least it’s not fucking freezing outside”. I suppose that’s a fair assessment of things! I poked my nose out of the house earlier as I needed to empty the kitchen bin and put the bag of rubbish outside in the bin for collection on Tuesday. That’s the extent of my going out today, I don’t have anything else to do out there.
Vacuuming and floor mopping was accomplished yesterday, so the house looks slightly more respectable. The new catsitter is coming over today at some point to meet the fuzzbutts and collect keys so she can look after them while we’re away. I’m really looking forward to my week off, mainly because I won’t be at work, which is seriously irksome just now.
Mooom love the catbutts! I think $5 for four of them is a fair price if it’s for a fundraiser. For some reason, people seem to think anything crafty for sale at a fundraiser should be cheap. We have the same attitude when we’re selling stuff for Little Paws, stuff is priced individually but folks still want to make us an offer for things. I don’t think they’d like it much if we tried to explain that there are massive vet bills to pay and we can’t just make the vets an offer!
shoe another concerned mumper here…please stick you head in and let us know you’re still there
Nothing much on my agenda today, I need to concoct something for campus lunches for a couple of days and make sure the cats get adequate fuss and lap time. That should keep me busy for a while…
Woke to a frosty 29° and we’re not supposed to see 40° today. Glad I brought a load of firewood into the basement! I’ll get it warming up before everyone arrives.
I got an email from Labcorp with my blood test results (FAST!!!) - all my numbers are in the normal range except for Bilirubin - the max should be 1.2 and I’m at 2.0. I’ll be seeing my doc on Firday, so she can explain it to me. I tried looking on line, but medical pages just confuse me. All I know is it has something to do with liver function.
The party is at 1 - I hope everyone is gone by 4. I also hope the friends’ 3 kids don’t destroy the place - last time they were here, it was not good. They’re home-schooled by a rather flaky vegan mom (not that being vegan makes her flaky - she’d be flaky if she had a burger in each hand!) I hid the play-doh and I think I’ll hide the 2 noisy trucks, just for our sanity.
Later this week, I’m going to do a purge of the toy cubbies. There are things down there that neither kid has touched for eons. Daughter is going to do a similar purge at home and bring some of her excess to my place, so I need to make space. And with Christmas coming… OMG, more toys!!!
We’re thinking of getting Roxy a Spirograph. I loved that thing when I was a kid. They make one especially designed for the 4-6 y/o crowd - bigger gears. Kinda like Intro to Spirograph. She loves to draw and I think she’ll have fun with it. Not sure about what to get the Tobester, tho, like he cares yet.
And what’s the deal with gocomics??? Second day with nothing! Nor can I get to the Far Side. Is this some sort of DOS attack? I need my funnies!!!
Mooooom, a spirograph sounds like an excellent choice (I have one that I mess around with). Have you considered Duplo blocks or a nice set of wooden blocks for the Tobester?
Up, caffeinating, breakfasted and fixing to start KP and the other Sunday chores.
It was 26F when I walked Nelson this morning and he looked like a little burrito in his heavy winter coat.
It’s currently 28 degrees with an expected high of 48 and mostly clear skies until later this afternoon. Clouds will start moving in by then, although I didn’t see any rain in the forecast.
FCM, years ago when my bilirubin and other liver functions were high, they removed my gallbladder. I know meds and exposure to certain things can cause high bilirubin function too. Also, I hear you on the comics! It’s messed up everywhere I guess.
I’ve heard of and seen piecaken. Not for me because it just falls in the “far too much” category for me. I prefer cake over pie, and I do love plum auflaufe (which is a German-style plum cake). It’s simple and if made right, is not dry. Chocolate cake can be dry, and think this has to do with the type of cocoa powder used in the batter. I try to use real chocolate, or at least include real chocolate in both my brownie and chocolate cake recipes just for that reason.
That spirograph sounds like a terrific idea, FCM, and I’m going to use that too. I’m struggling with what to get Zoe now. I know she likes dress-up, and I’ve got that in hand, but the spirograph sounds good too. I also loved it as a kid and remember spending countless hours with it.
shoe, I hope you’re doing okay and I hope you check in here.
Nothing on the agenda but laundry during the day and trash TV tonight.
Up, caffeinated, and sheveled. Off today. It’s 37 and overcast, but there is coffee. I shall clean today, and watch handegg.
Alex catt likes to sit on my computer mouse. One of these days, she’s likely to accidentally buy 200 bananas, a chair, and a 2 meter sphere of Unobtanium.
“Mom! This coat kills my street cred with the GSDs!” - Nelson
Do it, I still have mine. And a second on the Duplos, a perfect gift for the budding engineer.
Yeah, because that would be weird in a Human Centipede sort of way.
Morning all. Slept well again but up early. Paper retrieved, pill taken and in a surprising bit of sharp memory for a Sunday morning, have done the hold mail for Thanksgiving, which I thought about last night. After such strenuous mental exercise, the rest of the morning will be easy… Heading to Texas Roadhouse for dinner, my second chop steak option test (I used to go to Cracker Barrel for a chopped steak every couple of months, but I liked the service and food less and less, so I’m auditioning 3 other places (Longhorn, Logans’, and Texas Roadhouse) for the slot in my Sunday menu).
Getting to 45F today, still no rain to be seen. Keeping the house and me warm is the primary goal today, along with watching some tackleball and soccer (World Cup Start!).
Agree with the others, FCM, the spirograph sounds like a great choice. Good luck in surviving the party.
Dicey, congrats for the kitchen-cleaning; I really need to do something similar, just haven’t had the ambition yet.
It’s a blustery 13F. We’ve got a wind chill warning, too. I guess it’ll be below zero, at times. Yep. That’ll happen. It’s also going to be up into the 50s, starting tomorrow. Winter in Indiana. What a joy. The weather can never decide what it wants to do, around here.
Not much is planned for the day. We did catch a mouse. What they call a Deer Mouse, It was tan/brown and white. My daughter said those are the nasty ones that can carry the Hantavirus. It was a female with big nipples. She’s recently had mouselings. I hope the bastards are all dead, somewhere where they won’t stink up the hovel. So, more traps are set. We’ll see what happens.
We won’t be going to our Heathen Breakfast, this morning. One of our group has to go to an early Thanksgiving thing, another is having a COPD flare up, another two are working, and I’ve got a bit of a sore throat. So, we called it off, for this morning.
I want to go to Kroger, in awhile, to get a few items that I may need before Thursday. Might not need them before then, though. It’s a crapshoot. Hubs MAY get to come home, if there isn’t much freight to dole out to the drivers. So, we’ll see about that, too. I probably won’t know until the day before, if I’m lucky. If he won’t be here Thursday, he’ll be here on Saturday. I detest trying to make plans.
Anyway, for the Kroger excursion, I want to get some AP flour, a dozen eggs, Cool Whip, and some Crisco. Or, real refrigerated lard, IF I can find any. For pie crust. I’ll be mixing up a pumpkin pie for hubs. I need some more lettuce, and spinach, too. For me.
This ‘eating right’ is damned near killing me, I’ll have you know! You have NO idea how badly I’m craving carbs. Not sweets, though. Just starchy carbs. Like…Potatoes. In any form.
FML.
But, on the up-side, my BG is soooooo much lower! Not where I’d like it to be, but, still, it’s MUCH lower. So, I shouldn’t bitch. Humbug, though. Ugh.
To make matters a little worse, I told my daughter I’d treat her to Pizza Hut. We’ll bring it home, so I can make myself a salad for lunch. No pizza for me. Pizza Huts in my area no longer have a salad bar. Those bastards.
For now, I’ve got a load of laundry in the dryer, and another load waiting to go in, when that one is done.
I’ve drank 5 cups of coffee, too. I need to put away some dishes, and wash a few others. I already scrubbed the stove. Og, it was a mess. First, I had water from the canner splatter out of it, and then, some tomato soup spilled on it. It had to be scrubbed. A lot. That Dawn Power Wash stuff is wonderful. Just sayin’.
I’ll shut up with the mundanity of my pathetic, lonely life. Make it a good day, enjoy, and relax, if possible!
Refereeing feline sibling squabbling is SO entertaining, especially when Allie decides to go under the end table and Buddy taunts her by rubbing his face against the edge of same all innocently “my face itches”. Some cat shuffling (and a few scratches on the hands “courtesy” of Allie), she’s now safely in the bedroom with DH, who is hopefully managing to sleep. Buddy keeps wanting out, then coming back in not very long later, and it is officially freezing out there (32F, supposedly feels like 29).
For cats who don’t seem to get along with each other, they’re doing great on tag-team “drive Mom up the wall” this morning.
Road trip to SoCal; Orange to see my aunt, and Rosamond to see Mrs. L.A.'s cousin. From thence to Las Vegas to spend the night and find a buffet for Thanksgiving (there’s a Golden Corral or something across from the hotel), and then out to lo Colorado to visit the cliff dwellings.
Very chilly teens in Big Minnie today. But sunny, if not warm. We’re having problems with our apartment heat. I’m pretty sure that the thermostat needs to be replaced. It’s an antique and the calibration has gone to shit. Have to wait until Monday to get our building maintenance in here. In the meantime, we have portable heaters.
We went out for dinner with a niece last night. Man, I can’t hold my liquor any more, nor can I eat a heavy meal in the evening. I had one (ONE!) gin/tonic and a schnitzel, then crashed for ten hours and woke up feeling hung over.
Got my new UGG boots yesterday. Nicely made and very comfy, and very highly rated for warmth and a grippy sole for winter walking. It was a splurge for both the Ms. and me, but we’re worth it.
Feels like it’s cold out there, but I won’t get up to chek merely for the sake of data. A bit queasy from the Ozempic, but otherwise going well. It tires me but I expect I’ll adjust.
It was 27 feels like 20 this morning.
No dog park though.
I kept waking up last night because I was cold. I thought oh shit, I’m getting sick.
No, I was cold because the furnace stopped irking and it was cold in the house.
I put in a call this morning to get it checked out but they can’t come out until tomorrow morning.
However, Lucy dad’s brother is an HVAC guy and he told us to turn off the furnace, flip the breaker, wait 30 seconds, and flip it back on. We were supposed to wait 5 minutes and turn the furnace on, but my son didn’t turn the furnace off. The furnace came on, but now it’s back off again.
So, my son is in the basement as I type, doing it right this time.
Hopefully the furnace will come back on and stay on this time.
Nope, still not irking.
Barky mom is bringing us a space heater.
I have a feeling nothing is going to get done today except internetting while wrapped up in blankets.
I use an electric blanket when it gets cold. More efficient than heating the whole room.
We’ve run out of propane a few times in the past. Fortunately we have a wood-burning stove insert that not only heats the house, but it also pretty to watch. It does well until the propane truck can get here so I can bring the furnace back online. (And we also have electric space heaters.)
Wow, I miss one day, and there a re too many posts to reply to. I have read all, though, and hugs all around.
I’m going to take my babushka cart and head to the store for Thanksgiving supplies, minus the turkey, which is now thawing in the fridge. It’s also plant-watering day and best of all, the kids will call.
I’m going to try to get in to the dentist tomorrow. I spoke too soon about my good report, I guess. The day after my appointment last week, I got a tender swelling along some gums, and home measures aren’t doing anything. I almost wonder if the cleaning is responsible? Boy, the last time this happened, I had to have a root canal. I hope that’s not the case this time. Those suckers are expensive and zero fun. I also need to get to the eye clinic for to sign papers and schedule surgery.
Holy winter preview, Batman! It’s sunny today, but with a forecasted high of only 36 – and there’s a mighty wind, so it feels much colder. Of course, Bailey doesn’t mind the cold and she loves the wind (so much to smell!), so our time outside involves a lot of me trying to get her back in the house.
The traffic to/from northeast Maryland yesterday was horrible. No accidents as far as I could tell, just lots of volume. I-495 is always a crapshoot, but I-95 was also slower than usual. I’d checked the estimated duration of the 70-mile drive a few times during the week, on various days/at different times, and Google Maps always said 1 hr 15 min…so, of course, when I left the house it said 1 hr 35 min. And the drive home took nearly 2 hours! Still, it was really good to see my “aunt” for the first time in three years.
We went to Panera, and I had half of a steak-and-white-cheddar panini with an apple for the side. First time in my life I got an apple instead of chips or a baguette. It wound up being the perfect amount of food, and it was my first time having that panini – my favorite thing there – since surgery. Even though it’s scary that control of my eating habits is now back in my hands, ultimately I’m glad to be able to eat whatever I want again.
Yesterday was just my aunt and me, which was perfect, but I’ll go back some weekend in January when her husband will be home. He is 75 and still working: he’s been an MLB scout his entire career, and is currently with the Padres. At the moment he’s in the Dominican Republic. (He was with the Nationals when they won the World Series [in 2019], but between the pandemic and his traveling I haven’t seen the ring in person yet!) He’ll be back home at the end of this month and won’t leave again until spring training starts in mid-February, so my aunt and I figure that sometime in January will be perfect.
In other news, my car hit 10,000 miles on the way home. She’ll be 3 years old in January. They grow up so fast…
I started my laundry this morning: other than finishing it, today’s plans include doing a lot of nothing. The past week has been busy, including being out Friday night and most of yesterday, so I’m looking forward to just hanging out with the doggy. I’ll probably do some reading while I eat lunch.
Tomorrow I will actually go to the office: my business area is having an all hands/awards ceremony from 4:00-6:30 at a nearby hotel, and it will be much easier to get there if I just work from the office. It’ll be the first in-person event at that level since the pandemic, and it’ll be nice to see some folks from outside of my program (people I know from when I was a proposal manager).
LOL! Nearly: my aunt is in Joppatowne. We had lunch in the western part of Abingdon. She told me that on some clear/still mornings, she can hear Reveille (at 0630) from the Aberdeen Proving Ground!
BTW, the cat butts are the best thing I’ve seen in a long time.
I hadn’t heard of that before your post, so of course I had to look it up. Wow! But, it doesn’t appeal to me: as much as I love both pie and cake, I think that would be too much. I could see having a slice of pie and a slice of cake at the same time, just one at a time.
That’s my trick with doctors, but the dealership starts appointments at 7:00am and that’s just waaay too early for me. Especially on a Saturday, which is usually when I try to schedule things. 9:00am is about the earliest I’d be comfortable with, which is already too late. I made a new appointment for this coming Saturday at 10:00am, and will plan to camp out in the waiting room: I’ll bring my Kindle and my iPad, and some drinks/food. I don’t know what I was thinking when I made the Friday appointment!
This – except with my car it’s at least once a year. My first “change the oil” thingy popped up after just 8 months/2400 miles, and the dealership explained that the recommendation is as much time-based as mileage-based. The oil change I have scheduled for this weekend will be #3 in 10,000 miles/just under three years.
A million years ago, my ex and I would go to Outback every Sunday for steak. It was something he’d been doing since before we met. Neither of us cooked, and I liked Outback, so I was happy to have one meal each week when we didn’t have to decide where to go!
It wound up being the perfect amount of food, and it was my first time having that panini – my favorite thing there – since surgery. Even though it’s scary that control of my eating habits is now back in my hands, ultimately I’m glad to be able to eat whatever I want again.
