Morning all. Up and pilled, will break fast shortly and then have soccer from 10-12 today. No rain so we should get the sessions in, hopefully we’ll have a good turnout. Nothing else on the agenda so hopefully will be a good RDOS day.
Herald, my family tree has folks on both sides that made it into their 90’s so I feel fairly confident about sticking around for another 10-15 years at least. But ya never know…
boo fae, good wishes on the negotiations for better working pay/conditions.
FCM, I try to plan my meals a week ahead, but since I normally eat the same things each week with only a small variation, it’s not to hard for me. Happy mowage. And I can sympathize, nothing much on TV I want to watch and the newspapers are stcking up again because I won’t just lay back and read them. May need to wean myself away from the You Tube vids…
And enough time has passed so will get my Instant Breakfast and a banana for the morning calorie intake and get ready for the screaming hordes. Have a good Sattiday all.
Wild t-storms last night with nonstop lightning for about an hour or more. Sadie needed some comforting. Yeah, that’s right, Sadie needed it. I was fine. Really.
Mornin’ all - Around 0730 as I start driveling. Awoke a couple hours ago to light rain and distant thunder. Should be gray and/or rainy all day. Presently 79/26 on the way to 90/32.
Baseball was pleasant. The stands hold about 7,000 people and we had a crowd of about 150. Many of whom are the player’s parents, wives, or GFs. So no risk of contagion there. The bartender said they’d had a near capacity crowd for National Night Out a few days ago which pretty well depleted the interest in baseball for the rest of the week. At least the beer (Kona) was cold and the popcorn was fresh. And I avoided overeating and overdrinking. Yaay me. For once.
Having grown up near the beach in SoCal which is famous for its morning grayness year round, and cool to cold morning temps, I have a complicated and troubled relationship with gray days. Living 20 years in St. Louis where spring through fall tended to be either sunny or thunderstormy but winter was frigid, bleak, and unremittingly gray for 3 months hasn’t helped.
When I see gray skies I think “cold and miserable and don’t go outside.” Despite the fact it’s actually 80/27 out there right now. Perfect weather for a walk or exercise or whatever unless it’s actively raining. Good for anything except tanning. And right now it’s not raining. Radar sez there’s a 100-mile wide area of rain & thunder sitting just off shore and extending out over the Bahamas. Only the very coast here is intermittently getting the edges of it.
Would’ve been a great day to stay indoors and cuddle. Except I’m alone. Happy news there is she’s feeling much better today. Our big goal for today is a phone call to settle the dates of our joint SF trip. I’ll go out there alone a day or two before the memorial, do the memorial on Sunday, then she’ll come out a day or so later then we’ll have our week-ish together thereafter. Where there’s a will there’s a way. And we both have a lot of will.
As to y’all …
FCM: Happy snotting! Glad it’s not to your lungs … yet.
Late wife was a knitter. I’d be careful about “stocking up”, then starting on your blankets. Buy enough of something that’s easy to match to knit / crochet about 1/2 a blanket. If you get that far before losing interest, then buy the other half. When she died I gave away 20 bankers’ boxes of yarn. And she’d given away another 10 or so while she was still in decent shape and still knitting up a storm. Yarn has a habit of begetting more yarn much faster than you use it.
When I cooked for both of us your method was my norm too. I too am in awe of swampy’s detailed early planning. Now when eating out I often get the car moving before I know which restaurant, much less what to order off their menu. Planning? We don’ need no steenkin’ planning!!?!
boofae: Good luck in the Big City. Sounds fun even if you can’t make the full pilgrimage. Reading your weather reports for the last years it also sounds like your weather app was designed for sunnier climes than Drearye Olde Englande. It seems to have my weather attitude, not yours. Yours is certainly the healthier of the two.
@missred: I keep saying it, but congrats on getting this far and take courage that it’s almost over. Go you!!
Your pension is for when you’re alive. Yeah, it might be nice to know how much Brown will be providing in your old age. Yeah, you gotta share it with Spot, or his successor-in-felinity, but it’s really for you.
@Chefguy: I like a good thunderstorm as much as the next guy, but yeah, an hour+ of crashing lightning makes one wonder what else is lurking out there in the dark to come crashing into your life.
Boiled peanuts: They are truly teh suxxors. Utterly ghastly mush. What little flavor they have is un-peanutlike and offputting. Eating one was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. As in “Never again!!1!”.
That’s an hour of fiddling; time to decide what/how to shevel, then go seek sustenance.
Up, caffeinating, breakfasted and fixing to do KP (that means washing the expresso pot and yesterday’s glasses and mugs). Once sheveled, I’ll head up to SIL’s for one last tea with the crew.
Moooooooom, under normal circumstances, when I was working, I’d do a big cooking day on Sunday, portion it out for the freezer and do a rotation. I’ll figure out a new routine once settled into a non-moving mode RDOS.
Mowed the lawn today, which took all of 10 minutes. Good thing, because it’s 32/92. Fortunately it’s supposed to cool down to 17/63 tomorrow morning.
Both of us got our hair cut, then I went to Aldi to buy hamburger patties for tomorrow. Went into town to buy a small rolly suitcase for carry on, chocolate and coffee. I think we spent more for chocolate than for the suitcase. Split a pulled pork sandwich and sweet potato fries.
Hubby’s getting stuff together for packing, and I should go join him. I like traveling but not a big fan of packing. It’s much easier to pack when we travel more often, in my opinion.
It’s 65°F and sunny. Our daytime high will top out at around 84°F with a mixture of sunshine and clouds. The next couple of days will be sunny with highs into the 90s.
We rarely plan for dinner. The closest we get is to take meat out of the freezer in the morning to defrost for dinner. Occasionally, I’ll decide I miss my cooking and purchase ingredients for a specific meal to make the next day, but that and Christmas are the usual exceptions.
I’ve never had boiled peanuts, and I’m not excited to try them.
I received a text from a former peer yesterday seeking my help. She couldn’t find some specific electronic files, which I know were there when I left. So, I’m going down first thing Monday morning to search for them. They need them for an inspection, and I don’t want to leave them in a bad spot. Also, technically, I’m still on leave…so there’s that. I could have said tough patooties, but I don’t operate that way.
FCM, I’m glad the cough hasn’t progressed to your lungs. I hope the snotting stops soon, too.
Oopsie, I hope you can get the mouse situation under control.
I don’t have any plans for today. I may go out somewhere, or I may just hang around and do nothing. I should go out and do something, though. I don’t want to get stuck in the rut of staying home all the time.
I had a rough night; I woke up around 1:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep. I finally slept for an hour or two between 5:00 and 7:00, and then got up.
Started Typing: 10:21 AM ET
Clicked Reply: 11:46 AM ET
It was only 62°F (and mostly sunny) when I woke up and took Bailey outside for the first time this morning! It’s currently 74 (on the way to 84) and the humidity is still blessedly low, so I’ve had the windows open all morning. I’m definitely appreciating this weather while we have it: the next couple of days will also only get into the 80s, but humidity and highs in the 90s return on Tuesday. Standard mid-August weather for DC, so it’ll be hard to complain…but I’m sure I’ll find a way.
Tonight I’ll be going to my BFFs’ for dinner. Their son (my “nephew”) is in town from TX, and so is HusbandBFF’s sister. She lives in WV, and – along with her family – used to come here for Easter and Thanksgiving every year: we get along well, and after 20+ years she’s now like extended family to me. I haven’t seen her since last year, so that will be nice. She’ll be here for the next week.
Every August for as long as anyone can remember, HusbandBFF has spent a week at his best friend’s farm in Ohio. It used to always be a family trip, but 2 years ago WifeBFF’s mobility issues became such that the trip and the farm logistics simply weren’t doable. I used to work remotely all of the time, so that year and last year I worked from their place every day for the week he and my nephew were away: it made everyone feel better, and I was able to help around the house. This year’s farm week is next week, but these days my job is different and it’s harder for me to work remotely for a full week; plus, next week in particular I have to be in the office at least Tue and Thu. WifeBFF was able to find other people to be there Tue-Thu, with the plan that I’d just work from there on Mon and Fri, but then last weekend she wound up in the hospital with a heel blister that became an infected wound. HusbandBFF was on the verge of cancelling his trip, but WifeBFF really wants him to go: he looks forward to the annual farm visit a lot, and it’s his only break from caregiving/focusing on her (it gives her a break, too!). He didn’t want WifeBFF to be alone at night because of the extra mobility challenges posed by her healing wound (it’s complicated), but at some point he came up with the idea of having his sister stay at the house and everyone agreed. So, the farm trip is still on – and my nephew will be going with him, which is why he’s in town.
Now I’ll only be going to their place on Friday, and I’m tentatively planning to take the whole day off (I just haven’t run it past my boss yet): I’ll be a lazy bum that morning, then have lunch with WifeBFF and her sister-in-law and spend the afternoon with them. HusbandBFF and my nephew won’t get back until next Sunday – a week from tomorrow – so I might also hang out with “my girls” again next Saturday. HusbandBFF’s sister will go home the day the guys get back (or maybe the following day), but my nephew will stay in town through the following week for WifeBFF’s 65th birthday.
Except for dinner tonight, I have no plans this weekend other than continuing to build Wicket the Ewok. I finished bags 1 and 2 last night; just 9 more to go. Oh, I’ll also be connecting my portable Blu-ray player to the TV today: I still have a bunch of DVDs and Blu-rays, including the box set of The West Wing, and the other day – during my billionth re-watching of that show via streaming – I realized that I haven’t listened to the commentary/watched any special features in forever. Time to break out the discs!
(Yes, I know those things are likely available on YouTube: I’m really not a fan of watching shows that way, and if I already have the physical media it’s much easier – and likely better quality. )
Climbing into the attic isn’t an option: I wouldn’t be able to judge whether anything needs to be done, plus frankly I kind of really don’t want to see anything for myself. The ability to pretend there aren’t hordes of mice directly over my head/in my walls at all times is crucial to my sanity. The guy my property manager referred me to doesn’t work for him: he has his own company, and I’ll be paying his fee, but “trusted” is the issue…hmmm, maybe I’ll ask the neighborhood FB group for recommendations.
Kayaks are heavy, and it’s getting harder to put them on top of the Jeep. So SWMBO is looking at trailers. Yes, there are kayak trailers… but they’re at least $1,500. She found one for $79. I looked at her phone, and it was from Costco. So I went to the Costco website and searched ‘trailer’. No results. I found another place that had the same trailer for $79. I looked up the seller, and two thirds of the reviews said they’re scammers. So she looked at Harbor Freight. They don’t have kayak trailers, but they do have folding trailers. One has an 8-foot bed, and costs $699. She’s thinking about it. I’m wondering how far forward the kayaks can be, without hitting the Jeep when turning.
Home from soccer. Managed to keep around 35-40 7 year olds busy and more or less safe for a couple hours, but I’m beat, I really do not know how elementary teachers do it for 9 months with going crazy. Home and had lunch and fluids and considering what to do this afternoon…could go to the gym, the house needs some attention, I have in-line classes to take…decisions, decisions…Meanwhile it’s 85F outside so in no hurry to go back out there.
Pilot, gray skies here means 'it might be cold or it might be hot or you might get rained on or there’s a tornado coming…and being out coaching and/or refereeing, I rather like clouds rather than being irradiated all day on the soccer fields…
And then you both will have your way…
Dicey, I’ve gotten better at packing over the years but still tend to take more than I need.
Taters, nice of you to come to former peer’s rescue (one hopes).
Oopsie, have a nice dinner time. And glad the farm trip could be saved…sometimes we need our own time. Happy Lego-ing.
flyboy, I know nothing of kayaks except I don’t do well in them, so best of luck finding a trailer.
And back to pondering what to do with the afternoon…
Um, nope. I’ll buy enough for half a dozen lap robes. Once I start, I won’t stop and I can get a quantity discount and free shipping. When I did the last batch, I was literally down to a handful of yarn scraps. I’ve been doing this for 55 years - I know what I’m doing!
I mowed too - took a bit over 2 hours, but that included push mowing, riding ol’ John Deere, then washing down dusty ol’ John Deere. I still need to whack, but that’ll wait till tomorrow.
So far, so good. Tho I should have worn a mask while mowing - I churned up a lot of dust on the side hill and I shouldn’t have been inhaling it.
Teachers establish a daily routine and for the most part, kids adhere to the routine. Plus I would imagine they drink in the teacher’s lounge during recess…
After I was done and re-showered, FCD got home and we went to the boat to install the chain fall stand that he built yesterday. We’ll go back tomorrow to install some blocks to keep the legs from swaying, just in case.
I also cleaned the ice machine and in a bit, I’ll tend to the critter fountain. We’ve lunched and I still haven’t decided what we’ll have for supper. I’d like to get pizza, but a mere 2 slices will more than exceed my remaining calorie allotment for today. So maybe I’ll look for some fish-like substance in the freezer. I know I have tuna steaks in there. Yum!
I might be adopting a pup. I went and met her today. Need to get the house ready…it still looks like a wood shop threw up in my living room, tools and stuff everywhere. In person she doesn’t look as scared as she does in the pic.
I can out-stubborn a cat, wasps don’t have a chance! Besides the spray bottle, I’ve put a shallow dish of syrup on the other side of the garden. Pollinators do have an important role in my garden after all.
I remember it starting in the middle of September but just checked and it starts on the 26th here. Thanks for the reminder, when school is in session 1445-1515 are no drive times. For us! You can drive as long as it doesn’t bother you that there are busses and kids and mom cars all over the road. Its honestly worse here than it was in Snottsdale and those moms drove hummers (the big vehicle, not the birds).
I usually plan meals out a week in advance, but that’s because I’m so lazy. I batch cook so we usually eat three or four meals out of each batch, so mostly what I have to do is pull already cooked main dishes out of the freezer and throw sides together.
I don’t schedule meals daily, that kinda depends on my mood that morning, but because I had planned everything out, I already have everything I need without having to go to the store.
Today is a cook day. Hub’s bought some sirloin steaks for grilling onna stick but they came out very chewy despite an overnight marinade so this morning I seared the rest of them, sauteed some root crops, added some chicken broth I made last week and put them on slow cook for a nice stew. I’ll toss some potatoes in an hour before dinner and then toss a salad for the side.
My lettuce has mostly bolted now, but we can still get nice stuff in Charleston.
Today we drove out to the butcher in the holler. Their beef prices are still at pre-trump prices, I sure do hope nobody finds out what they could really be selling their meat for. We got four lbs of thick bacon, four lbs of butter, one lb of garlic butter - you can taste the garlic, wonderful stuff - a three lb hunk of cow, a three lb hunk of pig butt and assorted sliced cooked meats for samwiches for under 70 bucks.
Hubs could have done it alone, but I never get tired of those back country roads so was all up for a car ride. I have a game I like to play with him (he doesn’t know its my way of entertaining myself, but it is really neat to watch). An interesting car will pass and after it is around a curve, I’ll ask him a question about it. “What year was that pick-up that just passed us?”
Despite not even appearing to notice it, not looking at it from the side, not checking his mirrors, “Square body, early 80’s.” a few moments later “round headlights, Ford.” “chrome framed tail lights” and finally “That was a 1983 Ford two wheel drive with the small block engine, probably a 289.”
Once a gearhead, always a gearhead!
That sounds so familiar. Now that the reality has smacked him in the face, he’s regretting some of his choices. He also forgot that we have the money from our last house in low risk investments (well, a hundred g is in treasury bonds and bonds - so maybe not so low risk after all), and being reminded of that has settled his mind quite a bit.
He can remember what a 1983 Ford pick-up looks like but forgot a quarter of a million in savings. Minds are very odd.
Which just shows it off even better!
Quite frankly…what I’ve been hearing about the hold-ups at customs, it probably would get lost and never delivered because nobody knows what’s going on and they don’t want to risk their jobs by approving a bit of wool without written permission from the king.
If you lot are still speaking to us serfs if this ever ends, I will probably try again. Its not critical, collecting for ones hobby is a hobby of its own. (There were some very lovely designs and the prices were very reasonable even with our horrible dollar/pound conversion rate. The pewter accessories were all super cute.)
Remembering decades of doing battle with the kangaroo rats in the desert puts me firmly in your camp. Everything in the desert wants and can smell water so want to move into your home and share or take your water for themselves. Once one finds a way in, 97 million will follow.
But reading further, I understand why a renter wouldn’t be willing to spend hundreds and thousands to keep their home rodent proof.
And when folks tell you that all you need is a cat, they are lying. The first time we had mice, we figured it out because of the mouse dookies in the cat kibble bowl. Until now, we have always had catios and we cleaned dead bodies out of it on a regular basis despite not having water bowls out there.
If your hospice ever says they have enough, I’d be happy to pay the shipping to our local low-income nursing home. For the most part, their kids have all left the state and they always value and they always value hand made items if only because it makes them feel seen for a few minutes.
Well, its time to go and cut up some potatoes, then I should probably go back to stitching. I’ve found Pluto TV and the dinosaur channel (Bob Ross also has his own Pluto channel.) which is my current audio distraction. Sometimes I’ll look up at the vid, mostly I look at the forest and the stupid deer. That idiot buck looks like its going to run out on the highwya. I’ll bet the neighbors hate my air horn.
ETA, someone in a lifted, loud pick-up saw me come running out and stared blowing his loud horn as well. The deer have fled back into the forest where they belong.
And I just ordered a buttload of yarn - 8 bags of 3 skeins each in assorted paired (by me) colors. JtC - I may just take you up on that shipping offer.
Tonight’s supper will be air-fried chicken wings for my sweetie and a salmon fillet for me. And sliced local ‘maters. And cantaloupe. Eating later than usual, tho, since we lunched later that usual. As soon as he’s done napping, I’ll start cooking.
Good visit with youngest son and his girlfriend. Took them to a local Asian market and bought lumpia wrappers. The wife grabbed a bag of frozen gyoza which became dinner.
Sadie actually made an appearance and allowed Anna to pet her. That’s a first.
Supposed to cool off in a couple of days. Can’t come soon enough.
Howdy Y’all! Took care of stuff at the church house and not much else today. We’ve had rain on and off all day so RDOS inactivities ruled the day. Sup got fixed and et and fartfest is underway.
BooFae I am sure your friends understand that sometimes one must frou-frou.
MOOOOOOM I plan menus a couple of days in advance to give anything that needs thawin’ out time to do so. Right now the grand scheme is to eat through the stuff, especially meat, in da freezer cause there’s a fair amount that’s been there a while. Plus we tend to eat the same kinds of foods over and over. While we are not picky eaters, we are not especially adventurous.
Oopsie have fun at dinner with your friends!
MetalMouse I think I have mentioned this already, but I declined to chaperone for the upcomin’ acolyte festival because I am waaaaaay past the ability to sleep on the floor and keepin’ adolescents from attempts to pair off together in the bathrooms. I am glad there are folk like you that volunteer to herd young’uns.
VanGo Peach looks like a sweetheart! Hope it works out.
Is ear-tipping a thing for dogs now or is that just the camera? No matter, she is adorable and i hope everything works out for both of you.
Winter is coming…
Hopefully you won’t mind if I keep one for myself and one for a friend. Ain’t none of us getting any younger.
Now I want some gyoza. I haven’t had it for a very long time and I’m sure it is because we also get into a rut.
I still fondly remember those days in Okinawa, eating street gyoza (garlic with a little bit of pork fried dumplings) and drinking Kiran beer. Then being made to sleep in the day room because my roommate couldn’t stand my breath. Good times
So I’m currently pouting. Mom promised me all of her needlepoint stuff in her will and I have just learned that the sister who is going to get the house (long and boring story) has been selling everything so she doesn’t have to deal with it later. Mom is old enough to be my mother and tends to forget things often.
I’m super grumbly because I tell her and show her pictures of my needlepoint on a regular basis but sister told her that I had stopped caring about it and got rid of “my” things because we don’t get along. (another long and boring story…do not give a car to an entitled sibling, they will expect you to continue to deal with all of the maintenance and then will blame you for the car breaking down because you didn’t check the oil on a regular basis. despite living in a different state. Yeah for dysfunctional families.)
I don’t need any of her stuff. I have plenty of my own stuff and she is left handed so a lot of her custom stuff won’t work for me. I have bins of patterns and tubs of threads. I have all of the tools she had and probably have half of the books and magazines.
I wanted the frame stand Dad made. I wanted the frames he made. I wanted the thread cabinet he made shortly before he died. While I have other things that fill those functions, I wanted the ones my father made and they got sold for pennies just to get them out of my mom’s house because she didn’t want to bother with them later. Bitch.
I finished bags 1 and 2 last night; just 9 more to go. Oh, I’ll also be connecting my portable Blu-ray player to the TV today: I still have a bunch of DVDs and Blu-rays, including the box set of The West Wing, and the other day – during my billionth re-watching of that show via streaming – I realized that I haven’t listened to the commentary/watched any special features in forever. Time to break out the discs!
