Week 41 - Fall is Here

It was pretty uneventful week, which worked for me. I went to PT 3 more times, swam twice and knitted. That covers the week. See? Uneventful. And my knee is better all the time. I’m at 11 degrees (from 23) and the therapist thinks that’s as straight as it will get. Since I’m walking normally and not in any pain, I’m fine with that. Just one more session and I’ll be done with PT.

Fall definitely arrived at the end of the week. We had our first hard freeze on Saturday so I pulled in all my plants but only temporarily since I plan to put the out again. The back room looks like a greenhouse. It was hovering around 60 in my house on Saturday morning and I was cold, between the hot flashes that is. It felt way too early but I turned the heat on. The sun wasn’t going to be out much and with it not forecast to even hit 50, it was only going to get colder. Oh well. I’m not complaining about the temp though. I’m all about fall this year. If we could just get some rain!

My only out of the house plans for the weekend were errands on Saturday. I drove up to the library to pick up the deposit and it was a mob scene. I had completely forgotten about the vendor fair so walked the tables and picked up a tray of homemade ginger cookies, ordered some Tastefully Simple cheeseball mixes and got a Christmas present for a friend. Then it was on to the bank, the thrift store (only filled one bag but got a cool stand up knitting bag from the 70’s) and then Andrea’s. When I got there she had a customer who was talking about peeling potatoes for the Colon church’s roast beef dinner on Sunday. Since I’d just bumped into Lorri at the library and made plans to grab lunch somewhere on Sunday, I decided it was time, after sixteen years in Nebraska, to hit one of these church dinners.

I did the big clothes swap on Saturday afternoon - pulling out all the sweaters and corduroys and putting away the capris. When that was done, I sat and knitted. Go figure. I made a comfort food dinner – Betty Crocker’s hamburger stroganoff (one of my dad’s favorites) – and went to bed hoping I’d sleep better now that the house wasn’t cold, which I did. I woke up at 4:15 on Sunday but was thankfully able to fall back asleep, not getting up until almost 8:00. Shocking! I went through the Sunday paper (I still had the past 2 weeks untouched so this was progress) and was doing chores earlier than usual. I spoke to Carolyn briefly and she asked about Connie, whom I’d emailed earlier in the week and hadn’t hear back from her. Well, I hadn’t been off the phone 2 minutes when the phone rang and it was Connie. We chatted for quite awhile (she and Gordy were driving home across South Dakota after one of his gigs) and made plans for me to drive up for a visit for last weekend in October. That’ll be fun and I’ll stay for 3 days so we can get some quality vegging in.

I was still on the phone when Lorri came. I changed out of my sweats and we headed for Colon. It’s a village of just over 100 people but there were a couple of hundred (at least) waiting in line for lunch. So Lorri and I went through the drive thru line (yes, they had a drive thru for a church dinner!) instead of waiting, taking our lunches home to eat at my house. For only $8 we got a huge portion of roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn, cole slaw, a homemade roll, a kolache (a less than stellar tasting Czech pastry that’s de rigueur in Saunders County) and a piece of pie. It was all delicious and I have enough to eat again. Maybe there’s something to these dinners? I may have to make an effort to do more of these.

The rest of the day was chores interspersed with knitting. I was still looking for the 2 watches I’d bought at the thrift store a month ago that were in a little baggie on the bar last time I saw them. I cleared the entire bar and desk but nothing. They’ll either show up somewhere stupid six months from now or they’re gone. Time will tell. I had a pile of paper after I gave up on the search so spent the evening going through mail, recycling, cutting coupons, etc. while watching TV instead of knitting.

So I’m starting the week in good shape with chores done and food in the frig for dinners after swimming. I’m facing a load of crap at work first thing on Monday but hope I can recoup from the bonehead user move and have a good week at work.