Good morning Mumpers, I slept in today; woke up just after 4am
Read news on phone for almost an hour; got up shortly after 5am; let Bella out to potty, then she went to ‘her’ couch and went back to sleep. I decided to watch something dvr’d, play a few games and catch up with you fine folks.
The Greek Gods. And it is yummy; I’ve had other different brands in the past that turned me off but after the platelet donation the nurse said I needed to replenish either calcium or protein or maybe both, I tried this brand and I love it. We buy it at Kroger.
What do you plant that grows in the winter?
I’ll be going to work this morning; need to work on getting 3 days of transactions recorded. The county was going to have a Sr Day FunFest today but it’s been either postponed or cancelled due to the smoke. Did you hear the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave is now threatening Canada with more tariffs due to the smoke? Sheesh. Although I saw that perhaps the new Gordie Howe Bridge is actually going to open in about 10 days, that is if he doesn’t get $$$ from the owner of the Ambassador Bridge. There was speculation as to why the opening is finally going to go ahead; peeps think that Canada somehow caved to his demand to share some/more of the crossing fees. I don’t know how we are going to get through another 2-1/2 yrs of this crap.
Enjoy the start to the weekend, stay cool and safe!
Trouble getting to sleep last night, which is unusual for me, then woke up by hip pain (all too common), then woke up around 0430 and thrashed for over an hour, gave up and am now up for the day at 0600. I do like it when my kids/grands come over, but it gets my brain whirring. I also think I’m ready to pull the trigger on getting some hip injections. This is becoming problematic. Of course, I’m assuming it’s still a bursitis issue and not a hip replacement issue.
Anyway, youngest son and kids will be here in about four hours, which will be a good morale boost. His girls just returned from a cruise to Alaska with their aunt and I’m looking forward to hearing their impressions.
Today is the Christmas in July party at my mom’s. The weather forecast is not promising for a pool party, so the littles will not be happy. Ah well.
I’ve got just about everything packed to go and a note stuck on the door for the things that get packed last minute. We’ll be dropping Otis off, then picking up Daughter and her spawn. SIL isn’t going, which isn’t a surprise - my side of the family tends to be LOUD and he has some social anxiety issues.
Anyway, I need to get FCD up and moving shortly since we need to leave in a bit less than an hour. He needs to reconfigure his car, then I need to install the seat for Tobias. I’ll be glad when he crosses the threshold and can ride without a booster - probably 3 more years.
So a quick skim of my morning sites, then I need to get stuff started. Happy Saturday!!
I’ve got leeks, kale, sprouting broccoli already growing to get planted outside, as they can all make it through the worst a typical winter throws at us here. In the tunnel I should get some winter lettuce, spinach, rocket, chicory, endive, mustard and some Asian spicy winter salad mix (which is mostly mizuna), which can all take the cold but not the wind and the rain. I may include some peas and possibly some broad beans (fava beans to you) if there’s space. There’s already chard, carrots and beetroot in there which are mainly for picking in winter. I’ll also be including some violet cress cos it gives purty purply edible flowers from February til June, which make salads look all classy and makes the whole tunnel look really cheerful.
At least, that’s the plan.
Mostly everything stops growing around November, so some is planted to pick through and some is planted just to give a head start on the spring crops, like the beans. In the tunnel stuff starts growing in late Feb, which is far earlier than outside. It’s largely all there as a promise that spring will return, no, really, it will, even when it’s dark before 4pm.
Morning all. Survived the Mammoth Cave tour and also did a side trip to a much small cave and wildlife park (I petted a kangaroo) so was pretty beat last night and was asleep before 10pm. Rested and breakfasted and gassed up car last evening so hopefully will be home before noon and can start recuperating from my vacation. Have a good Sattiday.
Cat_Glove, I’m not usually a golf fan. The only exception was the time we were on a fishing vacation to Patoka Lake. We had rented a cabin near the lake, and thunderstorms kept us indoors. We turned on the TV, where a young Tiger Woods won the tournament.
It’s 59F and cloudy. We’ll have morning clouds and afternoon sun, with a daytime high of 79F.
Metal Mouse, your vacation sounds rather busy but also enjoyable. I hope your drive home is uneventful so you can get home and recuperate.
FCM, I hope the party is enjoyable despite the weather.
Swampy, the kids fly in on the 24th and depart on the 7th. They won’t be here the whole time, as they have plans to explore and even go down to the Oregon coast. We’ll see them on the 25th for sure, as they get in late on the 24th. For the last three days of their vacation, they’ll be staying here, too. They have hotels booked otherwise. There are plans for us all to do things together, and seeing as how they haven’t really been here in three years, I can’t blame them for wanting to make this a great vacation for the grandkids. Adam, especially, won’t really remember anything from Washington, and Zoe will have forgotten a lot.
I’d like to take them up to Mt. Rainier, if they haven’t got that on their list. I also want to take them to the North Cascades, up to the top of Hwy 20. It’s quite beautiful. For Mount Rainier, I want to take them to Tipsoo Lake (short, easy hike), and Sunrise. We’ll see what happens, though.
I steam cleaned both the guest room and Mr. Taters’ upstairs computer room yesterday. It all takes longer when you have to move furniture around and do the carpet in sections. There’s also spot treating and the fact that it’s heavy. It’s a Bissell, but it looks like the Rug Doctor you can rent at the grocery store. I have to say that thing does a great job, and so far, it is the best steam cleaner I’ve owned. Today, I’ll do the upstairs hallway and master bedroom. Maybe the bonus room, too, if I can get those boxes of books out of there.
There will, of course, be posey watering. I didn’t water in the back yesterday since they all got a lovely soaking from the rain the day before. But, today, they’ll probably need it, especially everything in the pots.
I’m going to add a little gripe here. I’m looking for new queen-sized bedding. The bedding in the guest room is alright, but I want new bedding and an actual queen-size comforter. I hate, hate, hate those stupid full/queen sized. They do not actually fit a tall queen-sized mattress. Why do manufacturers do this? I know, I know, it’s because they’re cheap, but they want to charge the higher queen-sized price. It wouldn’t be so awful if I could just see ACTUAL queen-sized stuff when I filter, but many online sites still show the full queen size when I filter for queen, and it annoys me. Yes, first-world problem, but it’s still annoying.
Well, I suppose I should get going. Take care of yourselves, please.
Good morning, all! I was up and at 'em this morning, just in time for Spike to hit the sack. His last week at Amazon is the first week of August. I’ll be happy when he’s done with that. Staying up all night and hardly ever seeing anyone cannot be good for his mental health.
He had his second to last wellness visit with his pediatrician yesterday. They’ll kick him out after he turns twenty, then we’ll get him in with our GP.
Chloé and I walked this morning. I took a quick shower and went to the farmers’ market and got a couple Cherokee Purple tomatoes to go with the lettuce and bacon I’d already procured. I’m gonna be eating some BLTs, baby!
This afternoon is the clothing giveaway for the Lavender Closet. I’m planning to go and pick up some things. I have to keep my head about me, and not make impulsive choices. Impulsive me has absolute horrible taste in clothing.
Tonight is the MTTA night out. I’ve already got a nice outfit picked out. I’m excited. I’ve never presented in a truly public place before. I don’t think walking quickly up and down a darkly lit sidewalk really counts.
The end of the week was a busy blur. I was supposed to work from home yesterday but wound up going to the office (voluntarily) so I could take care of some classified stuff, and it was probably just as well: I was able to work in a nicely air-conditioned building vs either sweating in my home office or having a “meh” setup on my kitchen table. Plus my boss approved overtime for the CA-based-meeting days, so I’ll have 8.5 hours of extra pay in next week’s deposit. It’ll be straight time vs actual overtime, but I’m an exempt employee so usually I just suck up anything more than 40 hours/week – that said, though, I rarely work more than 45 hours in a week. This was an anomaly; it’ll be nice to get paid for all of my hours.
Yesterday I completely missed the news that my county had suspended all trash pickups due to the purple air quality, and figured the company had rejected my mostly-cardboard-filled biiiig can as a way of passive-aggressively enforcing the use of our recycling cans for that stuff. I spent a little time grumbling to myself about it while hauling the biiiig can back into the garage…and moving (some of) the carboard into the (much smaller) recycling can…and then this morning I saw the truck come through. Ah, well. Thankfully they pick up twice a week here, so the biiiig can will finally get emptied on Tuesday. And I should probably use the recycling can, anyway; that will get picked up on Wednesday.
Today’s another hot one – at 11:29am it’s already 85°F with a heat index of 93 – but we’re supposed to get some serious storms this afternoon (“and possibly a tornado” ), with highs for the coming week only in the 80s. I figure tomorrow morning I’ll change my thermostat setting from 75 back to 73, and the top floor will stop being a sauna. The thunder-and-lightning show is supposed to start around 3pm, and I plan to be building Lego at my kitchen table then: not only is Lego my afternoon plan, but that spot gives me the best view of the outside.
In a weird kind of anniversary, 50 years ago today my family was displaced by a middle-of-the-night apartment fire (caused by a neighbor who fell asleep while smoking). I was almost 5, and I still have some memories of that night: the sound of my parents and others running down the stairs banging on doors and yelling “fire!”, and being taken to the hospital by ambulance because I’d gone into shock. We lost our cat, and everything except the contents of one closet (which thankfully held photo albums!), but it could have been so much worse. This experience is behind my abiding respect and affection for firefighters, and is also why I’m a soft touch for donations to fire survivors. Our photo made one of the local papers:
This isn’t very readble, but still I redacted our last name wherever it appeared.
It’s almost time to relocate to the kitchen for lunch and Lego… (and hopefully some big-but-not-injurious storms! )
I love the look of the red wall!
Indeed…and it’s glorious.
Same! I am often amazed to discover that random things I’ve picked out – sometimes years and years apart – actually work together pretty well.
Wait, just for caddy space reasons?? That doesn’t seem…wise. I’d be inclined to check with my doc before changing the dosage of that kind of med.
That’s how I feel about my extra Lego pieces. I separate all of my extras into unusual/special pieces that I might need or want someday vs super common pieces, and I have a few gallon-sized Ziploc bags filled with the latter. I need to take them to a local Bricks & Minifigs one of these days: they have huge bins filled with loose/miscellaneous Lego pieces that they sell for something like $0.05 each. They’ll pay for spare pieces but not much, and I want to just donate mine.
I had no idea that was even a thing that could be done!!
The parking garage at work has the same number of levels/floors as our building, and the elevator panels are identical. I park on the lowest level, and the exit level is 3…and I work on the 5th floor of our building…guess which garage elevator button I frequently press by mistake.
(The building’s 3rd floor is nearly done being renovated, and my team will be moving there: it’s going to make my elevator-ing soooo much simpler! LOL!)
I went on a cruise ~23 years ago, and decided that I don’t need to ever take another one…with the exception of someday going to Alaska.
How old are the girls?
One of my favorite jazz standards to perform is called “You Must Believe in Spring,” and my favorite lyrics from it are:
Beneath the deepest snows
The secret of a rose
Is merely that it knows
You must believe in spring.
Of course it does: baby steps are still steps! The tendency to focus on “big” milestones is natural/only human, but I hope you remember to give yourself credit for the “little” things you’ve done – and will do – leading up to them. It all counts/matters.
Your cranky night nurse friend agrees. Definitely, definitely should check with the doctor before changing number of doses, especially with Parkinson’s meds. I repeat, definitely and especially.
If it is because the pill organizer only has slots for 4 doses a day but you need 5, get a single strip organizer and keep track of the 5th daily dose with it.
Home is the traveler. Have unpacked, put the trash bin back in my garage instead of next to the house where my neighbors put it (per my wishes) and also got the recycleable bin out to the curb as it looks like they missed their pickup date again. Outside of watching soccer and going through my budget (which will take some time) I plan to do nothing, which is something I haven’t done in quite a while.
You hit it on the nose, Taters. I did several things I had not planned on (boat ferry to Put-in-Bay, Animal Park ‘Safari’, Lighthouse visits, Seneca Caverns in Ohio, Cuyahoga Valley Railway, and a couple small caves near Mammoth Cave). Slept well and ate well (probably too much, but I was working it off and my bladder was on it’s best behavior). I’ll get some pictures up on the Book of Faces once I get settled and catch up, but yeah, a great trip but one I probably won’t be doing again in the near furture.
Cat Glove, will watch the Open tomorrow, along with the World Cup final.
Taters, relish your time with the family, but sounds like they have a pretty nice trip planned. Never been to Mt. Rainier, it’s still on my list.
Mollie, my dad did night shifts for a number of years, we got used to seeing him around dinner time and on the weekends, and until he got into his 80’s his mental health was fine. Wouldn’t worry about Spike, he sounds capable.
Oopsie, I keep my recycle stuff in separate baskets in the house, so when I take them out it’s east to dump them in the right bin. And the story of the fire is something I don’t think anyone would forget; it’s one of those memories (often unpleasant) that get ingrained onto our brain and seem to last forever (or at least to 73, I can testify). And I’ve been on 2 Alaska Cruises in my life and have not been disappointed either time.
Knots, concur with BBBoo on the medications.
And that’s all for now. It is a real pleasure to be corresponding with you folks again. Next known vacation isn’t until July 27 so I guess I’ll be around for a while.
I love your tree, Bright Tree. I have always loved colored foliage and Maples are always fabulous. Yours is a wonderful example of red treeness
So, George is back from the vet and I’ll be spending a good part of the afternoon kissing up to him. Poor dude does NOT travel well so we have drugs for next time. George has some pills too.
He is reacting to something in the air, probably pollen, possibly smoke so came home with Apoquel at four bucks a pill! Holy cow!!! I hope they make him feel a whole lot better really fast.
Of course I looked them up and if this becomes a chronic thing, we can get them for less, but they are still pricey. Its a good thing he’s so cute.
So, to everyone: I am reading everything and really do wish I could respond to everyone. I appreciate the good wishes and encouragement and am looking forward to being able to type for longer than five minutes pain free.
My BIL had a birthday yesterday, so to celebrate and to thank him and my sister for allll of the help they’ve given me with the new house, I took them out to a nice steakhouse. (Seriously, they earned it!!). The filet I had was absolutely delicious and so tender I could have cut it with a butter knife. Sure wish I could afford to put that place on the regular rotation!
Now looking forward to a chill weekend with occasional interruptions for the usual housework.
Happy doperversary red!!
Metal Mouse welcome back from your trip, sounds like you packed a lot of fun in while you were gone.
taters good luck with the carpet cleaning, that’s a lot to do. But the family visiting should be great!
Bright Tree what a stunning maple tree, and love the paint colors
Mollie have fun today and can’t wait to hear how it went!
oopsie that fire sounds absolutely terrifying, I’m glad you all made it out.
one of my frequently said phrases is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle so for putting the cardboard into the recycling can.
I’m a tree hugger. We take our own cloth reusable bags when we go to the grocery store. Hubs keeps one in his car so he can take it into various stores when he’s on a mission to buy something. If I’m buying something or a couple somethings that I can easily carry, I tell the cashier No Bag, then if they’re quizzacle, I say Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Saves resources, saves the environment.
do you or did you have any PTSD from the fire like if you hear sirens? that was very scary for you. bet you’re super cautious about fire prevention.
We went on a Caribbean cruise for our honeymoon. I’ve had several friends go on Alaskan cruises and it’s whet my appetite to go on one.
Metal Mouse Your vacations are my cup of tea. I like to be on the go and do most of the time on vacation. Shopping is not much of my thing in daily life and even less on vacation.
With those pot kind of bunkers over there in the UK, there were some very interesting stances, aka kneeling/half kneeling at the edge of bunker, that several golfers had to do today. IMS I saw DeChambeau half in with one leg and half out kneeling on the edge and I think Rahm was another who just kneeled.
We also have a separate recycling basket in the house and you’re right, it makes it real easy to dump in correct bin.
What??? You’re leaving again in 9 days? As my family would say “TEASE”
Bella and I had a nice walk to work this morning. She received a lot of pets, rubs, scratches from 2 guys who were also working and a lot of treats from me as I gave her one every time I returned from the copier room, about 8 times, and i also gave some to the guys to give to her. I was only punched in for 87 minutes and was able to get all 3 days of transactions recorded; there weren’t any issues needing to be researched and all the software behaved.
As Og is my witness, I think we must have hired Thing 1 and Thing 2 to work here. We were short clerks, so some random guy was doing it in Smalls, K, whose work style is best summarized as “rabid squirrel on meth” was on the 300, and I was doing the 100, 200, helping on the 300, and also doing the irreg clerking, since they didn’t have a clerk either. At one point they were bringing stuff to the 300 to be clerk, but it turned out that they were tossing clerk irregs on top of the stuff for Door 46, causing triple work. Not that we had enough people to work anyways. It took until 10 to wrap up the 300, then I went back to the 200, where Thing 1 and Thing 2 had wrecked an ungodly amount of stuff. I got a chunk done, but I’m going in early on Monday to help finish up. At least I can afford Spot’s gin this week. After I had washed off 8.5 hours of filth, I had to give my shower a rinse and squeegee, because it looked like Pigpen had stepped on an IED in there. But I’m clean, the laundry is in the dryer, and the bacon, eggs, and gin&tonic are in me.
On the quilting front: I have explained the idea of the “Block of the Month” here a few times but just a quick refresher. You sign up for a class to make a quilt. You go to the class once a month and get that month’s pattern and the material to sew a portion of the quilt. Repeat twelve times and you have all of the pieces to make a nice quilt.
The 2026 class at my usual fabric store did not look like anything I would have liked to make so I passed on it. I saw another quilt I really liked. The pattern was set up for a BOM quilt but they just sold it in a kit with the pattern and enough fabric to make it.
I bought the kit. I started month number one on 06.08. A few days ago I finished month number five…
Oopsie, Metal Mouse and BBBoo, after a day and a half of sporadic painful muscle cramps, I’m going back to 5 doses a day.
Even though we take cloth shopping bags into stores, some habit-bound cashiers still put the goods in a plastic bag before putting them in the cloth bag. Palm to forehead.
Ah, well. Thankfully they pick up twice a week here, so the biiiig can will finally get emptied on Tuesday. And I should probably use the recycling can, anyway; that will get picked up on Wednesday.
), with highs for the coming week only in the 80s. I figure tomorrow morning I’ll change my thermostat setting from 75 back to 73, and the top floor will stop being a sauna. The thunder-and-lightning show is supposed to start around 3pm, and I plan to be building Lego at my kitchen table then: not only is Lego my afternoon plan, but that spot gives me the best view of the outside. 
(and hopefully some big-but-not-injurious storms! 
)
HAPPY DOPERVERSAY RED!!!