Morning, mumpers! It’s currently 6c/44f with a predicted high of 9c/48f, and mostly cloudy. Weather app declares it to be “Cloudy, fucking bullshit!”
We’re just a couple of days away from the start of a new year. I don’t make new year’s resolutions, do you?
Nothing exciting in my day today, I’m off work until Thursday so I can do as I please. The grocery run needs to happen today or tomorrow, I need to get some exercise in, and the car needs cleaning inside. Fun times, right?
FIRST!! Man, I love being an insomniac juvenile.
Saw a joke meme that ran along the lines of, “This year, my resolution is to stay fat. Maybe this one won’t stick, either.”
It’s 3:42 in the morning and I couldn’t even get the first response??? You people need to get a life! 
MusicMan and I have to go up to the VA hospital in Cleveland this morning so I am up and ready to go. Granted, my alarm was set for 4, but there was no point laying in bed staring at the ceiling for less than an hour.
New Year’s resolutions? Nope, not really. Ok, carry on and see y’all later!
I’ve brushed my teeth & am about to go to bed. Tag, you’re it!!
WOOHOO!!!
It’s 8.47am here, justifiably early for a day when I’m not at work though! Hope today’s trip is productive 
It’s 9:51 am here, I’ve already made and eaten scones and am waiting for hubby to go for a walk. It’s currently -2°C/28°F outside and overcast. Everything has a layer of hoarfrost, which is really pretty when the sun comes out.
Still on vacation all week, as Friday is the only work day. Sometimes it’s really nice to live in a Catholic Canton, as both January 1st and January 2nd are holidays, and the company is closed between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
Happy Moanday! (Must be Moanday if there’s a new MMP, right?)
1:24. I don’t set resolutions per se, but organize some tasks and intentions for myself (like seing some writing deadlines, or cleaning the house, or attempting to be nicer, dammit).
By tomorrow night, I should have my new phone in hand and with luck, a different carrier. I feel like I’m betraying this phone. I feel like this with cars and shoes, too, but the phone is more intimate.
It is 6.45 here. Its warm but rainy.
Its going to go down to the 20s starting in January and stay that way
As long as theres not too much precipitation.
I may get some groceries today.
No resolutions.
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 47 Amurrkin out and clear with a predicted high of 70 and N.O.S. I need to get a ‘script filled this mornin’. This is the great excitatement of the day. The rest of the day will be spent in high RDOS inactivities. Sup shall be the rest of the soup and some crusty bread.
I don’t make resolutions. Seems a silly custom to me. However I don’t begrudge or disparage those who do.
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, bother, I suppose I should purtify and don attire acceptable for bein’ amongst the great unwashed. How I suffer!
Happy Moanday Y’all!
Once upon a time eons ago, I’d make the usual resolutions - eat better, get exercise, dust - you know, silly things like that. 
Not gonna fall for that silliness ever again! 
I have to go to the post office today and I need to get FCD to have a look at the letter I drafted to thank Hospice for all they did for us. I kept it kinda bare bones so he can edit without making it too verbose (I hope.) But we really need to commend our nurse, our aide, and all the nurses and aides who helped us thru 8 pretty stressful months.
I haven’t thought beyond that. I should organize the little freezer. Lately, I’ve just been cramming things into any opening I could find. It started out with like things together, but that didn’t last and now I’m not entirely sure what’s in there. It’ll be a good chance to see whether I should defrost, so I guess that’s a plan.
Onward, then. Happy Moanday!
Up for bio-break. Now I’m snuggled under the blankies again, contemplating breakfast, and Monkey just walked up and chirped a “hello.”
I asked him if it was Snuggle Time, and he promptly curled himself up in the crook of my bent knee, like my leg was his personal sofa, and started purring.
D’aaaawwwwwww.
I think you’re supposed to at least buy dinner first.
ETA: methinks I hear the trash truck rattling its way down. Such excitement in da hood!
Monkey has abandoned my leg to sit in the window and watch.
You’re such a dirty, dirty girl! 
Yeah, like you don’t know that already…
I should probably head to the shower. Can’t sit around all day in my fuzzy robe and slippers… or can I???
You know, if I’d turned on my oven when I first got up, I could be eating right now. But nnoooooo … anyway, a frozen stuffed chicken boobie thing is in the oven now (and added back to the grocery list) so hopefully soon I’ll have a full tummy and can go the hell back to sleep.
I expressed mild surprise to S.M. that she hadn’t scheduled me to close on NYEve. It’s always one of the busiest nights, like stupid busy, and I pointed out that I don’t have anyone to kiss at midnight anyway.
Yadda yadda yadda, I may wind up closing Tuesday night …
(Oh, shoe what have you done?!)
Morning, Mumpers! It’s 37degreesF here in Elkhart. I have resolved to make a resolution, so I know that’ll work. Happy New Year, in case I forget later on. Oh, and Happy Groundhog Day, while I’m at it.
Coppertone, I once told my aunt Maude her cough sounded better. She said, “It ought to, I was up all night practicing.”
Jane Doe, I surrendered my car keys because of my Parkinson’s, so my ear won’t endanger my driving.
Shoe, leaves make us happy? Remember that next September, when you’re raking! This neighborhood gets random wildlife wandering through. We’ve seen deer, geese, and a mama duck leading her ducklings in a row.
Nightshade, Elkhart is 83 miles north from Kokomo, almost to the Michigan border.
Baker, if the ham was from Rath meat-packers, and you through in a sprig of basil, you’ll have Basil Rathbone soup!
Mornin all. I decided to pop by and book-end the year.
Now an hour after sunrise it’s mostly clear with some cirrus and the temp is 79/26 with a hint of tropical humidity. Which is quite a change from gray damp rainy drizzly yesterday with a high of 70/21. We’ve had a run of gray bleh weather the last week or three, but now the trend is moving the other way. 79/26 is quite warm for this time of year and won’t last.
FCM: Sorry to hear that MIL has run her course, but it sounds like it went about as well as could be expected. {{Hugs}} to all.
Great idea. In fact excess good livin’ has started to grow me out of my pants & I need to get back on the wagon about that right quick. But first I need to finish my fruitcakes plural (Boofae: Christmas cakes). 
.
My year has been very good. Jettisoning Her Ladyship was an excellent decision and gratifyingly painless in the implementation. Boat Babe and I are still wild about each other 8-1/2 months after we met. We link up 
most weekends.
We have a 1-week Caribbean cruise in Jan w her extended family & a few friends along. Our group will number a dozen. It’s officially her mother’s 82nd birthday celebration, but we two have ulterior motives: the rest of the crowd can keep Mom & each other occupied while we have at least some couple’s time. For 82, Mom is doing great. Go Mom!!
We also have a 2-week arctic cruise in Feb. Just us two. Hoping to see the Northern Lights without dying of frostbite.
We are working up a tentative plan to cohabit beginning in March. She’s a nurse and about burnt out on her current beastly night shift job. So the idea is to find one of those 3-6 month temporary nursing gigs elsewhere that pay a silly premium over normal wages and come with a housing allowance in that strange city.
She’ll leaves her house in Miami with some extended family there, I lock the door on my apartment up here, and we go to [wherever] together. She’ll work many fewer days at a less stressful job for about same W2, I’ll make up any difference between the housing allowance and a place we actually want to live in, and we’ll practice this togetherness thing with much less work in the way, and no commuting up and down the freeway. There should be time for quickie traveling between her work weeks. And we each can bail at any time with no logistical obstacles since both our permanent residences will still be sitting there intact.
Of course there’s a variety of cities on offer so we’ll pick someplace fun and with a tolerable climate. By then it’ll be early spring, so even more northerly climes are on the table.
This whole thing is still tentative, and serious planning can’t begin until Feb. But it’ll probably happen. We shall see.
Hey, welcome back!
Sounds like your future plans, while understandably tentative, are built on solid logic, and I’m glad things are working out with your new lady!
Okay, chicken is almost fully assimilated, and in a minute I need to go to the door & holler for Monks to come back in - I opened the door so he could burn off some energy, and asked him to bring the trash bin back while he was out there.
Never got around to feeding or watering the rats last night, so I’m sure they’re hating life rt now, but Mr. Sandman has revisited in a strong way and imma crash here in a sec.
Ratties, you’re just gonna hafta wait. Sorry.
… and here comes Monkey popping up next to me! What a good boy!
(I have since topped off his kibble & decorated it with a smiley-face of squeezy-crack.)
I’ve found it dramatic and a little scary how quickly things change for the worse in the 80s and 90s. I was behind my mom going up the 6 steps into my brother’s house and it shocked me how she struggled. I know at 90, she’s not as she was at 70 (nor am I at 70 as able as I was at 50) but it really hit me that my mom is old. She was telling me that she does her chores in the morning, but by midday, she’s done. She installed a chair lift between the kitchen and the basement. Mentally, she’s as sharp as ever, but her body is starting to fail. Hard to tell how much time she has left.
On a less morose note, your plans with Boat Babe sound interesting and a tad adventurous, what with living in different cities along the way. It’s good that you’re both hanging on to your homes - good insurance. It brought to mind an old boyfriend who, barely a week or two after his third wife died of cancer, married someone he barely knew. Within months, he realized it was a biiig mistake, and an ugly divorce followed. In the meantime, because he rushed into the marriage, the son he had with #3 got all pissed off and moved in with his older brother. Quite the soap opera. Shortly after all that drama, he ghosted me, so I have no idea if he found #5 or not. Fifty-some years ago, I thought I might like to marry him - looks like a dodged a big ol’ bullet there.
Freezer is tidy! I’ve got a bin of chicken and turkey, a bin of poke, a bag of bags of ham, a bag of bags of pulled poke, and a bin of seafood plus chicken wings. I found some soup and a roll of sausage that are in the other freezer now - I plan to offer the sausage to Daughter. I bought it with MIL in mind, but we never used it and it’s not something I generally buy.
I also found a meatloaf that’s now in the fridge to thaw - maybe our New Year’s dinner?
Once it warms a bit more, I’m going to rake up what I hope are the last of the leaves near the basement door. We’re promised 60s, but it’s just 50° at the moment, so I don’t wanna go out there yet. I’m thinking Post Office first. It’s just past 9 so it should be open.
Onward! (Again.)
Yeah. For darn sure once we’re over the hill we pick up speed on the way down. Exactly how steep how fast is a matter of individual variation & luck, with a few speshul milestones (millstones?) thrown in where there’s a step-change in the pace of the inherently unhappy proceedings.
As one retirement finance / lifestyle guru put it: “There’s the go-go 60s, the go-slow 70s, and the no-go 80s.” At 66 I’m still go-go, but not nearly the go-go I was a decade ago when I first came to FL.
Good last Moanday of 2024 to all. Slept reasonably well and it’s 47F heading to 60F later so a pretty good day is in store. Two errands to run this morning; my garage door opener stopped working so need to get a new battery for it, and my right hearing aid doesn’t seem to be working, so will stop at the ENT and see if they can figure out what I did wrong. Then the usual Jersey Mike’s sammich and try to get my swimming in.
About 3 years ago I made the resolution to join a gym, which I did. 2 years ago I resolved to stop drinking regular Pepsi and now only have Diet and Pepsi Zero in the house (will backslide occasionally when eating out). Last year I decided I would watch my calories closely and have become a pretty obsessive counter. This year, with my weight down to 200lbs my resolution is to work with the gym folks and see if I can ‘tighten up’ some; not to bodybuilder status, mind you, just ‘re-distribute’ what I have to other places on my body. We’ll see if I can carry through.
Not a resolution but the CD I started many years ago for car replacement is due to mature in May 2025 so guess I’ll be car shopping this spring if nothing else comes up.
Sticky Buns, safe journey and hope the horse-pistol visit goes well.
Dicey,enjoy the days off; most places around here don’t close on New Years but do have shorter hours.
lily, I hope your new phone is great.
FCM, nice of you to commend Hospice like that, I imagine they hear all the complaints but only a few of the compliments. And happy freezer-tetris playing (and I see you won the game). And I remember an aunt of mine, she was active and still going out and bowling at 90, then had a heavy fall one day and three weeks later… Sorry to be gloomy this early in the week, but treasure your time with her.
shoe, be careful what you wish for, if someone calls off that closing shift maybe yours anyway…
And about time to clean up and head for the Batteries and Bulb store. Have a good week all.
No s***, Sherlock!!
Pilot, thanks for the update, I see you in the aviation threads a lot and was wondering how everything was going. Sounds like you’re having a good life and I hope it continues that way for both you and Boat Babe (does she know you call her that??). And the future plan seems sound, you’re both making sure that if things don’t keep working out well that bridges haven’t been burned. I’m rooting for the pair of you.