Week 34 - Just Catching Up

Finally a normal week with no obligations. Nirvana! With life back to normal, it was time to make pre-trip list. I had a few biggies on it and was determined to make a dent on the list.

Work was busy, which is wonderful. The weather was awful to start the week. I ran out Tuesday over lunch and struck gold at Goodwill - sock yarn! I had considered not going out because it was blazing hot so am glad I fought that. But at 4:00, the temp was in the 90's but it was so humid that it felt like 110. Yikes! I picked up a bag of salad at The Warehouse and went home for taco salad. Storms were on the way that would break the heat and I was more than ready for them.

On the list front, I hired a cleaning lady on Wednesday night, someone Heidi had recommended. I asked her to give me the weekend to get my house in order and then she'll be coming over to see the house and meet me. Yee ha! And on Thursday morning I met with the body shop that Anne recommeded and scheduled my car to be fixed while I'm on my cruise. The only thing left is to get my phone activated. Next week.

My friend Darla was the focus of the rest of my week. She was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and was having surgery on Thursday. We met for a long lunch on Wednesday at our favorite breakfast place - Cook's Cafe. We both had breakfast for lunch and talked for ages. It was a balm for both of us. Her surgery went well on Thursday and she was going on home Friday. I went straight home Thursday, made dinner and put a breakfast casserole in the oven to take to Darla. I had just started eating when Andrea came over and asked if I wanted to go to the Not New in Wahoo rummage sale at the fairgrounds. I threw on socially acceptable clothes and off we went. It was fun and I found a couple of treasures, getting home just as the casserole needed to come out of the oven. By the time I nuked my dinner and ate, it was too late to start the pie I had planned to make so I went to bed and would deal in the morning.

Not only did I have to get up and make a pie before work, but I got an email from the travel agent in the UK saying the cruise company was requiring travel insurance, which Anne and I didn't buy. When Anne called from the gym, I got on the phone to the UK. Come to find out, UK travel insurance is more about health insurance and that's what the cruise wanted. I explained that American health insurance covered us anywhere so all we had to do was send our health insurance info. Easy peasy. I put the piping hot blueberry/peach pie in the car and headed to work.

I took Layton to Green Gateau for lunch for his birthday and after work I went to Darla's to drop off the food. She looked great and had way more energy than I had after my surgeries. All power to her.  With plans to start a rotation on Saturday, I had snack supper of chips and salsa with a beer with Dairy Queen for dessert. Yum!

So I got up late Saturday morning and was having my coffee when Helen called. She works overnights so was on her way home and wanted to stop by. She had my fair ticket, which I'd need to pick up our entries. I'd checked the results and all of my socks had ribboned and Helen had gotten not only all ribbons but best of division on one of her drawings. Nice. Anyway, we chatted for awhile and by the time she left, it was too late for breakfast so I just started my project for the day - reorganzing all the yarn and reclaiming my front room. I dug in immediately and by the time I looked up, it was 1:30. At that point, I decided to skip lunch and see how it went. I did have tea mid-afternoon but did fine without eating until dinner, which was a pork chop and broccoli. It had been easier than I thought. Hmmm....

I had made a huge dent in the yarn situation on Saturday so just had to put stuff away and finish up on Sunday. I decided to skip breakfast again and get busy. I ran over to Lorri's around lunchtime to water and ate a small tomato while I was there but otherwise did the same, eating nothing until dinner. I'm excited to see how much weight I've dropped in two days of mostly fasting. Otherwise it was a normal Sunday of chores and a long call with my Auntie Margaret. , which was lovely but not as good as seeing her in person. 

The other thing I got done this week was catching up on my blog, which you may have noticed. I will try to blog more often going forward. Wish me luck.

Week 33 - Back to Reality

I started the week on a plane. The trip was uneventful, which is all you can ask for these days when flying, and I got in sooner than I'd thought. I left Eppley just after 5:00 and even with rush hour traffic, was still in my house within an hour. Unfortunately I'd forgotten to have Lorri turn my AC down and since it was set at 82, there was no staying inside. Good thing it was Monday. I let the cats out, turned the AC down and went to the library for Monday Night Knitting. It was much cooler when I got home so I unpacked, set up the coffee pot and went to bed. Tuesday was back to reality.

I woke up so bloated that I felt like a balloon. I never drink enough on weekends and drank even less on vacation so I guess my body decided to retain every bit of water I'd consumed in the past week. I had noticed some bloating in Rhode Island but nothing to compare. I started drinking and didn't stop all day. By the next morning, I was down 6 pounds. 6 pounds of water! Nuts.

I had planned on having a quiet night at home on Tuesday but Helen called and said she was coming over to pick up my fair entries. Now I already had Andrea's at my house but neither of us had printed our reports to attach so Andrea ran to her shop to print ours but found only 1 piece of paper when she got there. I ran down with paper and Helen met us there. Andrea left to finish her dinner, which I'd interupted when I called, but Helen and I stood in the parking lot chatting until after dark. I get very little Helen time so it was a happy thing. Here's another happy thing - a swallowtail on my lantana.

Well I got my wish for a night at home on Wednesday. It was a busy day at work with lots of meetings so I went straight home and cracked a mango/pashionfruit cider to celebrate being home. But my stomach was feeling off as I drank it and before you know it, I had the runs. Sheesh! I took an immodium and went to bed early. Luckily I was fine the next morning.

The rest of the week flew by with more meetings and my usual lunches with Dodie and Layton. The carpet in all the offices on the opposite side of my floor was being replaced and by Friday afternoon, the fumes from the adhesive were pretty strong. Mary came in and told us we could leave so I happily left at 4:00 to start the weekend early.

Much as I wanted to stay home, I'd agreed to go to spinning in Fremont Saturday afternoon to drop something for Andrea. So after a nice chat with Carolyn, I got dressed and headed out. I had to stop at the library to print a mailing label then hit the tiny post office in Colon (yes, we have a town named Colon) on the way to Fremont. Spinning was fine but doing Goodwill and Aldi without Andrea was boring. Then to top it off, my plans to get sushi to go for dinner at home were thwarted when the sushi place was closed for renovations. Oh well. I had a relaxing and productive day on Sunday and got caught up from being away. I was looking foward to a normal week coming up.

Week 32 - My 40th Reunion

It's a good thing I was super productive on the weekend because I woke up at 3:37 Monday morning and couldn't get back to sleep. It was my last day before leaving and so was busy with the final year-end work and I mailed a big box of yarn to Dottie on the way home. After Monday Night Knitting, I started packing but with no urgency because I'd have Tuesday morning to finish up. 

I didn't need to leave for the airport until 10:00, which meant I could relax in the morning. The insurance adjuster finally called at 9:30 so I had info on moving forward with repairs before leaving. Nice. The flight was uneventful and I arrived on time. All good.

Besides my reunion, I had a few other things on my Rhode Island list. We tackled Vanity Fair on Wednesday morning and I scored new undies, new bras and a sleep shirt, all of which will go on my cruise. Checked that off. After a quick salad at Panera, we hit The Christmas Tree Shop - another must do in RI. We then headed home for the only supper I'd be having at home. We had swordfish (eating seafood - check!) and then we watched After Life on Netflix. What a fabulous show! If you haven't watched it, you should.

We were up early on Thursday to walk at Rocky Point before it started raining. My new sneakers were perfect and we got some steps in before heading to the movies while it rained. We saw Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Excellent movie so I recommend that to. 

Then I was off to the East Side to meet old friends from Brown's Urban Environment Lab (UEL), where I had a community garden plot for years before moving to Nebraska. We were meeting at a Thai restaurant then going back to Debbie and Paul's for dessert. It was wonderful to catch up with old friends. My only disappointment was not getting to see their garden, which is a patch of heaven in the city. We went out as soon as we got there but a skunk was sauntering down the path so we made a beeline inside. We backed up and so did he. We were lucky to not get sprayed. We sat inside, eating pie and chatting for a long time. There are no friends like old friends. P.S. Paul is the brother of my friend Susan's brother-in-law, who I met last month in Oregon. Small world.

Friday was the first reunion event - a reunion of the girl scouts before the unofficial pre-reunion in the bar. But before that, it was our beach day. I went downstairs at 8:00 and Carolyn said we needed to leave by 8:30 so I went right back upstairs to get dressed in my bathing suit, ate a bowl of cereal and took a cup of coffee to go. We were out the door at 8:15. As usual, we put our stuff down and started walking. East Matunuck is perfect for walking, with the channel on one side and rocks and houses on the other. We got 6000 steps in before sitting down. Normally I would swim but there was funky, brown seaweed in the water so I didn't. Despite that, it was a perfect day at the beach. When we left, I got Carolyn to agree to Aunt Carries but we just got take out and ate clamcakes and onion rings in the car. Yum! She even took the scenic route home along Route 1A. Nice. I took a shower when we got home and got dressed for the pre-reunion reunion.

I had made zero plans to see anyone but called Cornelia when we got home, realizing that she'd probably be heading to Boston to spend the weekend with her boyfriend. I caught her just as she was leaving so she stopped by for a few minutes. Better 45 minutes than nothing. It was great to see her, as always.

It was wonderful to see my old girl scouts again! Six of us were meeting for dinner before the event and we shared pictures and two of us brought our sashes. It was wonderful to catch up because these were my peeps all during high school. I had forgotten how much I loved them all and enjoyed every minute of seeing them. I was less keen on the event in the bar but it ended up being fun seeing people from high school, most of whom I hadn't thought of in 40 years. We were outside on the patio when the skies opened up and being the furthers out, I was soaking wet by the time I got in. I stayed for a bit longer but begged off to go home to a warm shower. It had been a fun night.

Carolyn and I were up early and walking at Rocky Point first thing on Saturday, after which we had a nice breakfast at The Beach Cafe in Oakland Beach. Then we hit Job Lot (last must shop on the list) and headed home. I had requested lunch and a study session with Janice (one of the girl scouts and my best friend in high school and college) because I needed to look at our yearbook. It had been pretty easy to recognize the women but the men were nearly impossible. Many of them had been small and not fully mature at the end of high school so were unrecognizable after 40 years. Normally I go to the Crow's Nest with my aunt but she was sick so couldn't come. Janice's boat is docked right across the street so her husband, Chris, joined us for lunch then we sat on the boat for a bit before heading home to get dressed for the reunion. John, who was a year behind me was my plus 1, came to Carolyn's beforehand and we hung out a bit before driving to the reunion. We were taking separate cars so he could go right back to his parents' in Newport instead of driving me back in the opposite direction. Matt was away for the weekend so I had his car.

The reunion was fun. There were lots more people there than had gone on Friday so I got to see more people and having studied our yearbook, I could actually remember them. Ha!  John and I chatted with our friend Craig and his wife but then we split up. I ended up out on the patio with my girl scouts again, where we had even more fun because Beth, who hadn't come Friday, was there too. I had a single glass of wine before switching to water and never passed up any of the passed hors d'oevres. There was a delicious cake brought by one of the teachers. I was there until almost midnight - the end of the event. It was a great experience and I'm glad I went.

Sunday was my last day and I'd informed Carolyn earlier that it was a day of rest so I would not be getting up early to walk. We had a leisurely morning and then headed to Providence. Carolyn had planned a fun day for us. We started at Bucktown, which is a fun little restaurant in the middle of a neighborhood. We had chicken fingers, collard greens, mac and cheese - all their southern specialties. The chicken was too hot for my liking but everything else was delish. From there we walked down the block to Tricyle Ice Cream, where we shared a gourmet ice cream sandwich that was nothing special. Then we went downtown to one of my favorite stores - Craftland - then walked the brand new pedestrian bridge across the Providence River. So we still got plenty of steps, just not first thing in the morning. We both had blisters from not wearing walking shoes so happily went home. John came over later and we ate spinach pies from Don's Pizza, which are one of my faves. It was nice to get a bit more time with John. I went up to pack because I'd be leaving first thing on Monday. 

The trip had gone by in a flash. I had had to fly mid-week to mid-week so missed out on the 2nd weekend. Even so, my flight cost more than my flight next month to England. Seriously. As rushed as it was, it was still a great trip.

Week 31 - Goodbye Mabel Lee

It was closing meeting week at work (the busiest week of my work year) and I was also prepping for my Rhode Island trip so life was busy on all fronts. Which is why I absolutely didn't need an accident to start my week.

It was the last week of swimming in Mabel Lee so after vacillating on whether to go Monday night or not, which is always rushed because of Monday Night Knitting at the library, I decided to go but leave early. And after leaving 5 minutes early, I promptly backed into someone when leaving the parking lot. Now this is a lot with less than 10 cars and I wasn't 3 feet out of the spot when I heard a crunch from the back corner of my car broadsiding a man's jeep. All of my lights were in pieces, including the one embedded in the bumper, and the corner fender piece was twisted and dinged. His passenger side door was dented and his running board was hanging. It'll cost me thousands between my $500 deductible and the jacked up insurance rate I'm sure is coming. But at least both cars were drivable so I headed to knitting. Damn!

I was still beating myself up about the car so did some retail therapy over lunch on Tuesday at the new yarn shop in town. It was lovely and did help improve my mood. It was fair drop off night and since neither Lorri nor I had been called to volunteer, despite having done it every year for at least a decade, I was only dropping off my entries. I had a hair appointment first, dropped my entries and was home early. Nice. I ran back to check ribbons after swimming on Wednesday and got 6 blues and a best of lot on my gansey socks. Yay! I might have to consider entering them in the state fair now.

The rest of the week was a blur of meeting prep and year end stuff. Ben, who is supposed to be my new boss, started on Thursday and is in the 4th cubie in our office. He's got a penetrating voice and the noisiest keyboard ever so it will take some getting used to after co-existing with just my 2 quiet co-workers since March. He's a great addition to the team though so it's all good.

Also, we had our last swimming at Mabel Lee that night so a bunch of people who used to swim with us came back. We had a lot of fun and then went to Honest Abe's for a party afterwards. Anne had bought a big cookie decorated like our pool for after our burgers. It was fun but bittersweet. Water aerobics will now be across the street in a lane or 2 of the 3' deep lap pool. Not fun.

Friday started with formatting the BIG year-end spreadsheet, which takes hours and some concentration. And just like that, it was the weekend.

Since I was leaving for Rhode Island on Tuesday, I had lots to do on the weekend. But did that stop me from socializing? Nope. After doing a Friends of the Library deposit on Saturday morning, I met Lorri for coffee. It was humid but early enough that we could sit in the shade outside and catch up. I then went home to start cleaning.

I have been doing a crap job of cleaning since my last cleaning lady and I parted ways and I was determined to clean up so I wouldn't come back to a dirty house. That meant the bathroom and floors in addition to the regular chores of neatizing, dishes and laundry. I had a goal to be done by Sunday at noon because Andrea had asked me to help her out organizing her closets and spare room so her brother can stay before moving to California. So I was a machine and did get done by lunch time on Sunday and then was at Andrea's until ~4:00. 

Since everything was done, I actually relaxed that evening, which felt well deserved. All that was left was to put some laundry into a suitcase, which I'd do Monday night after knitting. Despite its shaky start, it had a been a busy and productive week and I'd deal with the car (I still hadn't connected with the adjuster yet, after playing phone and email tag all week) when I got back from Rhode Island.

Week 30 - Highs and Lows

The weather was gorgeous this week and I took full advantage - windows open, time outside gardening and a trip to The Dairy Store for an afternoon ice cream break. I was also watering my friend Lorri's containers while she was away so not sweating bullets was a treat.

I had some fun with friends too. Anne, Rene and I met Amanda for dinner at BW's, which is always fun. The bonus this time was I didn't come down with an intestinal bug like last time (it wasn't anything to do with the food but I barely made it home last time we went there.) I also met knitting friends at Mocha C's on Saturday because Lorri was in town for a hair appointment. We decided to get pedicures too and the nail place next door to Mocha C's could do all 4 of us at 1:00 so we got pretty toes too. Of course we all kept knitting while they did our toes. Why not?

On a less happy note, a dear friend told me that she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which sent me into a total funk. I was completely out of it at book club and had to will myself back to happy. A good night's sleep helped immensely.

At work, I finally started the big project I'd been putting off since it was the last thing on my too short to do list. It was fun to dig in and I made tons of progress. And now that I was assured of getting more work, I wasn't afraid to get it done. Yay!

That's about all there is to say about the week. I had done my laundry on Saturday because Sunday's weather was supposed to be iffy. Without having laundry to start my chores on Sunday, I got a SLOW start and was in my jammies for a big chunk of the day. Oh well. I still got the chores done. Eventually. 

Week 29 - Back from Oregon

I woke up at the crack of dawn on Monday, clearly on Nebraska time. I puttered inside for a bit and then ventured outside ~6:30 to wander the farm, taking pics and snacking on marionberries, which grow everywhere. I’d been awake for hours before there was any sign of life in the big house but it was totally lovely. After enjoying scrambled eggs and toast, we washed eggs and packed them up for delivery to the farmers’ market. 

Bev and Susan had a fun morning of yarn and thrift shopping planned, which I totally appreciated. Bev is a big thrifter but the yarn was all for me. We hit 2 yarn shops (one lovely, one ho hum) and 2 Goodwills, where I found even more yarn. My one request was In and Out Burger so we went there for lunch. It was a mob scene so we ate in the car – double double animal style. Yum! We hit one last Goodwill and were done at 1:30. Since we were right near the airport, I told them to just drop me early since there was no point in going back home for half an hour and then have to drive back. 

The airport was lovely with free wifi so I camped out in a study carol type thing, streaming and knitting. I was even able to download the rest of the episodes of Traitors, which was a good thing because my flight was delayed. When we took off, it looked like I’d be missing my 2nd flight but that was delayed too so I made it home that night. I didn’t walk into my house until 12:45 so was pretty tired the next day but made it through work and went to bed early. 

I was good as new by Wednesday. It was blazing hot and humid on Wednesday with real temp over 100 and a heat index even higher. I had thawed salsa pork for dinner and was looking forward to that when I got home from swimming. Then I saw Pie. 

Her mouth was stuck open and, as usual, she wouldn’t let me anywhere near her. It didn’t go below 80 all night and I was up several times looking for her. When she was nowhere to be found Thursday morning, I thought she was dead. I headed to work feeling tired and worried. My lunch with Darla helped but Pie was on my mind all day. The good news was that I found her alive when I got home. She still wouldn't let me near her and the heat hadn't let up at all. I was up in the wee hour that night and finally was able to grab her Friday morning and get it shut. I left her inside with wet food mixed with water and she was fine by the time I got home. One of these times I'll learn not to worry about her. Yeah, right. 

 I had been looking forward to a weekend at home to recharge but my friend Lorri had called mid-week to say that her son had committed suicide. He'd been struggling and had tried once before. The memorial service was Saturday morning way down south in Lincoln so that was my Saturday. It would take an hour to get there so I was dressed and on the road by 10:00 and paid my respects. I hit the market afterwards and then headed to Anne's for some knitting time. Unfortunately she keeps her AC at 80 and I was super hot after going in and out of the car so much so didn't stay as long as I would have had it been cooler. My day was shot by the time I got home though so I took it easy in my 76 degree house and went to bed early. 

Sunday was my typical chore day and I had lots of laundry and cooking. Luckily a front came through and the temps dropped. I took advantage of the wet soil to get some weeding done and did get some recovery time in between chores. I was looking forward to a normal week coming up, happy to have my adventures on hiatus for awhile.