Week 38 - Preparing for Canada

Monday started out with a half day of work so I could head home to meet the appliance guy. The freezer was cold again after his late Sunday door adjustment but there was plenty more for him to work on. I just had time to eat a quick lunch before he arrived at 1:00. We got right to work. He took out the ice maker, tested and then reinstalled it. I heard the water rush back in so was happy that’d be back. Then he started on the dishwasher. Yuck! I could see a screen in the back was gunky but when he started taking out parts for me to clean in the sink, it was so gross. There was food gunk caked on all three parts and it took lots of scrubbing to get them clean. It made me want to wash every dish in the house again. John recommended LemiShine to keep the dishwasher clean and de-cloud the glassware. Then it was downstairs to the dryer, which had the wrong vent hose installed and it was gunky too. Not completely blocked but enough to impact dry times. I was very happy with all my newly fixed appliances and he was out the door ~3:00 so I had some time before knitting. 

My first call was to the vet. I had appointments for Wrennie and Pie on Saturday but if Wrennie needed 7 days of ear drops, I’d be in Canada so that wouldn’t work. They had an appointment and she did need the meds so it was a good call. I also got a booster shot for Pie so wouldn’t need to take her on Saturday. Too bad I botched the sub-cutaneous shot when I tried. I’m calling it good though since she’s had shots every year so can skip one. Next year is rabies so she’ll be at the vet then for sure. 

After the vet, I frosted the banana cake I’d made for knitting and went through all the boxes of cereal on top of the fridge. I had 4 unopened boxes to give away and anything opened that wasn’t one of the few faves I’d eat went into the chicken bag. I went to knitting with my hands full and left empty handed. Yay! 

Tuesday was uneventful – work flew (I trained all afternoon) then swimming. But when I went to bed, I slept for only 20 minutes before waking up and I was wide awake. Damn. I got up and didn’t go back to bed until after 1:00. I’d be hurting in the morning for sure. 

I actually didn’t feel that bad the next morning and when I found out a planning meeting would be at Panera, I got a coffee and drank 2 big cups in addition to my thermos. While it kept me awake, I had a sour stomach all day. I opted to go straight home and was super productive, which I’ll chalk up to all that caffeine. I picked an heirloom tomorrow from my garden and had a delicious BLT for dinner then prepped all the concord grapes, which is doing something. You have to squeeze every single grape, cook the guts and strain the seeds then mix them back with the skins. All that and I’ll only get 2 pies out of it. But concord grape streusel pie is so delish that it’s worth it. I also fixed my blender (long overdue.) I went to bed at the regular time and slept like a rock. 

I had signed up for a weight lifting session at Campus Rec so was there and ready to work out just after 5:00 on Thursday. It was brutal! I don’t know what I expected but it was intervals between a machine and floor work – kettle bell squats, pushups and such. I was tired but felt good. Until I woke up an achy mess on Friday. My thighs hurt every time I sat down. Clearly I need to get some weights into my exercise routine. After Canada. : ) 

I started Saturday with an 8:15 hair appointment, which got me up and dressed so I didn’t sit all morning in my nightie knitting (my usual MO.) I got busy with the spare room as soon as I got home. It looked like a yarn bomb had exploded in there plus I needed to pull fall clothes to take to Canada. I moved all the loose yarn into the front room then started slogging through the rest, adding lots of clothes to the Goodwill bag in the process. I spent a chunk of the afternoon stashing all the unrecorded yarn. I made nice dinner (I reorganized the freezer in there too) and went to bed with things looking much worse than when I’d started. 

Sunday was my day to finish it all and get everything set for my upcoming trip. I had tickets to the symphony for Sunday night but had given them to Andrea when she stopped on Saturday so that was off my list. I plugged away at the piles all day and by evening things were looking good. I had clothes chosen, laundry done, yarn put away (there will be some better sorting/storing after Canada – see a trend here?) and food set for the next two days. Skipping the symphony had been a good decision because it took the pressure off and meant I had a low stress day. All good. 

Except for just a few last minute things, I was pretty much ready for Canada. I had chosen some knitting projects to take, had clothes ready for the suitcase and the house was as neat and tidy as it gets. There’s a big list for AC (after Canada) and I’m actually excited to get to them. While this trip will be a blast, I’m looking forward to being home for three solid months. Oh the possibilities!

Week 37 - Some Long Days

We needed to be on the road by 8:00 to make it to the Amanda rendezvous by 10:00 so were up early. We stopped at Connie’s favorite coffee shop for breakfast to go and enjoyed the ride – chatting, scenery and treats. All good. Amanda arrived, I transferred my bags, hugged Connie and off we went. Oddly enough, Amanda wanted to go to Rapid City for Chinese food, which Connie and I had just driven through an hour earlier. Whatever. The food was really good and leaving from Rapid allowed us to take the interstate home, which saved time in the long run. I sat up front with Amanda so got more knitting done along with adult conversation. It was a long day though and I didn’t walk through my door until 10:33 that night. I unpacked, took a shower and went to bed. The alarm would be a rude awakening the next morning.  

It wasn’t that bad! I felt pretty rested (I had, after all, done nothing but sit on my butt all day Monday….) and was fine at work. Dodie and I had lunch at Noodles and I swam after work. It felt good to be home Tuesday night. 

After work on Wednesday, I was going to Seward to pick up Andrea's fair entries. I had gone last year and enjoyed their farmers' market so had agreed to go this year despite not having anything to pick up for myself. I got some fun stuff at the farmers' market – caramel corn, a piece of strudel and molasses cookies for the junk and sweet corn, green beans and a cuke for the healthy. All good. I decided to take a different way home to see Dwight, a little, mostly dead town I’d never been to. It had a typical Nebraska small town main drag  – PO, bar, café and many empty store fronts. But there was a small junk shop that had the front door open and a Sale Today sign propped on a chair so I went in. There was a 20 something woman in there who said she was cleaning since it was cool enough so she opened. It was a true junk shop but I found a cute little pot for my African violets for $1. She couldn’t break a $5 though so took the 65 cents I had in my coin purse. Fun. She also highly recommended the café, which makes homemade donuts on Sundays. It’s only open for breakfast and lunch so was closed. Then she mentioned that some local poet had a shop in the next block. I asked if it was Ted Koozer (former US Poet Laureate) and she thought it might be. There was a single old store that was all fixed up with “Poetry Made and Repaired” on the window and Private Studio on the door. Cute. I didn't think to take a picture but here's one from the web. And I checked with Gina, the accountant 2 cubies down who lives near there, and it is him. More fun for Dwight. I was glad I went. 

From there I drove to another small town called Brainard, which has a regional high school but otherwise was just as dead, which I found strange. I figured they’d at least have a quick shop or something since they have hundreds of students there every day, but no. Anyway, it was fun exploring and I got to Wahoo just in time to hit The Warehouse. Lorri came over to drop Honey Crisps from her brother’s tree and later Andrea stopped over to pick up her fair stuff. So, it was a busy night but fun. 

After swimming on Thursday, I waited in line at Little Caesar's for not hot, not ready pizza (won't go there again) and brought it to Becky's house. After pizza and salad, I got to visit with the kitten I helped rescue last week. She was full of energy and lots of fun but I felt no compulsion to take her home. Becky had another foster from campus that was dumped near the Military Science building. He was older and very nice but no desire to take him home either. I had so much fun playing with the kittens that I left late and it was 9:15 before I walked into my house. I was absolutely exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open so went to bed early. How nice that the next day was Friday.

Friday was over in a flash and all that was between me and a blissful weekend at home was a stop at the grocery store. The traffic on O Street was so nuts at 5:00 that I detoured over to Vine Street and so had to go right by Goodwill. It was the 10 for $10 sale so I stopped. I found a couple of things on the reject rack outside the fitting room so was going to commit to finding 8 more things (you have to buy 10 to get the price) so headed to the yarn before starting the clothes search. Well, the yarn there is usually priced twice retail (I've complained repeatedly) so I wasn't expecting much but there were tons of skeins of better quality wool and most were priced 99 cents. Score! I went back for a cart and filled it with yarn. I did manage to find 8 more clothing items but most were for friends. I was happy with the yarn, some of whichwas going to friends too. After a stop at Aldi, where I stocked up on fun German Oktoberfest food, I got home at 8:00. It was another long day but I was done. I could not wait for the weekend. 

But you know me. I had booked my Saturday chock full. I woke up early and had had breakfast, stripped my bed and done two loads of laundry by 8:00 a.m. After catching up with Carolyn, I headed to the library to pick up money, deposited it at the bank and met my friend Nancy for lunch at Chips. I left there just in time to grab two cats (Pixel and Tot) for a vet appointment at 2:15. When I got home, I made a cup of tea and collapsed. I was beat! After a restorative cup of tea, I forced myself to get up to do more laundry and mow. I was determined to get everything done so I could cook all day Sunday and not have anything hanging over my head. Success!

I was up early on Sunday too but the pressure was off. All I had on my agenda for the day was cooking and finishing the laundry. I started with French toast and bacon then used my farmers' market produce to make salads - 3 bean and cucumber. Over the course of the day, I interspersed knitting with laundry and more cooking. By supper time I had made cheesy baked cauliflower and a banana cake to take to knitting. On a whim I also cleared out the food corner so had a bunch of stale crackers and such for Lori's chickens to go along with all the produce scraps. 

But when I went to the freezer for an ice cream sandwich after dinner, it was soft. I made the long overdue call to the appliance guy and made an appointment for Monday at 4:00. But when I weighed losing a freezer full of food against vacation time, I called and rescheduled to 1:00. He also offered to come over and check the freezer out quickly and he had the door sealing better immediately so said everything would be OK until the next day. He'd also be looking at the dishwasher and dryer. Like I said, long overdue.

Week 36 - Black Hills Fun

It was a memorable week. Not only was I ending it in The Black Hills with Connie but there was some kitty drama.

Tuesday was the first run of monthly reports in fiscal year 16 and it wasn’t going well. I’d identified some problems and the tables had to be rebuilt by the programmers twice so by noon, when I’m usually nearly done, I had just started over. When Nora called just after noon, I picked up my pad and pen thinking she was giving me something to do. Nope, it was a cat problem.

Judy, a friend of Cheryl’s who works at a new UNL department at Airpark (outskirts of Lincoln’s airport) had driven from there to East Campus thinking she could hear something but not sure. After the van sat at East Campus all morning she then drove to our building, when she was sure she heard a cat. She opened the hood and a kitten jumped from under her hood and into the engine compartment of the car parked next to her. That’s when I got called in.

I went down to the parking lot and could hear the kitten but the whole front end was sealed up so I couldn’t see anything. The car had a temporary hang tag so after calling Parking to get whose it was then the department to find out who they gave it to, I got on the phone with a new faculty member from Turkey. I had to ask him to come to the lot with his keys. I had already put bits of stinky food under his car to no avail and now the kitten was making lots of noise. We opened the hood but couldn’t see the kitten then he moved his car and the kitten moved towards the back. When nothing worked, we drove to my mechanics and they put it up on a lift, unbolted some enormous car part in the center of the car to get better access and pulled out the cutest long haired calico kitten you ever saw from where it was hiding on top of the gas tank. It looked unscathed from its adventures but I took it to the vet for a checkup to be sure.

My mechanics didn’t charge me anything so I donated $20 towards beer. They were all a hoot – 4 big tattooed mechanics tearing the car apart to find the kitten. Anyway, from there I took the kitten across town to the vet. All this took 2.5 hours out of the middle of my day. Not good but at least the kitten was OK and I was back to deans’ reports. I worked late trying to finish my reports but found another issue so failed. I did weed for an hour when I got home though so skipping swimming wasn’t a total bust. All in all, it was a good day’s work though, in every way. Did I mention that she was gorgeous? I will NOT adopt her. NOOOOO!

I went home Wednesday and mowed since I hadn’t on the weekend and would be gone for the upcoming weekend. What is it about traveling that makes me get so much done? Anyway, after swimming on Thursday I went home to do laundry and pack. I also baked a batch of lemon chocolate chip cookies to take on the road. I left for work Friday with everything ready to go. I drove to Amanda’s at noon and after a bit of a wait, we were on the road. I sat in the backseat with Elsa (Amanda’s 5 year old) and so didn’t get as much knitting done as I’d hoped but Elsa’s a joy and we had fun. I got to the hotel in Hot Sprints at 9:15 after 9 hours on the road. It was great to see Connie and we both slept like rocks.

We were up so early that there was no one at the desk to take our key so we went down the street for a wonderful breakfast (cheddar bacon toast with my bacon and eggs plus a piece of pecan pie bread pudding to go – yum!), went back to drop our key then headed north. I saw that we’d be near Sylvan Lake, which is Nora’s favorite place in The Black Hills, so we stopped there first. The walk around the lake was just over a mile so despite not being dressed for it, we headed off. I wasn’t 50 yards from the beginning when a piece of glass got imbedded in my toe (Birkenstocks are not the best shoes for hiking) but I was able to feel it through the ridiculous amount of blood and pull it out. Once the bleeding stopped, we finished the walk, which was lovely. From there we went to Hill City, where we shopped along the main drag. I found lots of fun stuff – stocking stuffers, a cool pin made from the handle of a vintage knife and even a shirt for work. Rapid City was next up. We got pedicures at the mall, found more clothes at JCPenney then got ribs at Texas Roadhouse, which was our regular thing when we did Omaha runs before Connie moved north. From there we headed home to Spearfish and hung out at Connie's before heading to the local Irish pub for a Guinness on the back patio. A friend of Connie's was playing but we never went inside so barely heard him, which was fine. It was nice and cool outside and was a relaxing end to the day.

Sunday was our day to head up the canyon. It was quite chilly when we woke up, the weather having changed overnight. We had a nice breakfast at home and I knitted on the patio while Connie visiting with a friend who came to pick up Gordy's lawnmower. We left for Rough Lock Falls late morning but between the barely above freezing water and the chilly air, we only stayed 5 minutes but managed to get our feet in the water 3 times for 5 seconds at a time. The water is breathtakingly cold, that's all you can manage. Wading - check. From there we went to Lead to see the visitors' center Connie helped create. It was absolutely wonderful and I could see why Connie was so proud of it. I found a few more stocking stuffers at the gift shop and off we went to Chubbies. Yay! I bought lots of truffles - enough to fill the punch card and get 4 more free. Yum. But that was all that was on our list so we were done and it was only 12:30. So many possiblities!

We grabbed a sandwich in Deadwood then headed to Wal-Mart for supplies. With so much free time, we decided to go home and get busy. We started with hanging Connie's new shelf over the dining room table, which lead to moving some artwork and then progressed to rearranging the living room furniture. When all that was done, we repotted some African violets then harvested veggies from the garden. What a fun and productive afternoon! Then I introduced Connie to Saturday snack supper but on Sunday. We made caprese salad with tomatoes from the garden and had it with shrimp cocktail. And Guinness, of course. It wouldn't be snack supper without it. We settled in for an evening of Sherlock. I packed before bed because we'd be leaving at 8:00 to meet Amanda at 10:00. It was a quick trip but so worth it. No amount of talking or emailing beats face time. I miss that with Connie but at least she's only a state away. A big state but still.

Week 35 - A Normal Week

It was a normal week. At last! Campus was back in full swing, which meant swimming was back, and everything just felt normal.

Despite the normalcy, I was struggling with my diet. By mid-week I just wanted to take a break so ended up eating cheese and cracker with Guinness for supper on Wednesday and decided to take a couple of days off. It was a 1200 calorie week so I had more leeway than a 600/900 week but that still wasn’t enough. I had a pain au raisin on Thursday morning, which was a gift from my vice chancellor who knows I love them, but just eating part of one pastry on an empty stomach gave me a killer gut ache. Lunch was buff bowls with Dodie at Noodles (no cheat there) but I wasn’t sure if I should eat or not, deciding to eat, which was the right choice. All the spinach must have counteracted the sugar. I sealed the day with a KFC bowl after swimming (it was exactly what I wanted and delish!) and that was enough. I was back to eating clean on Friday. I still wasn’t into it but I only had another week to go and was still hoping to break 60 pounds so got back on track.

Lori, Andrea and I had plans on Saturday for shopping and lunch. I had hoped to sleep in a bit but was up at 5:30 so immediately got busy. I had bought lots of clothes at Goodwill’s 99 cent sale on Friday so started laundry and got the kitchen picked up. Before Carolyn and I talked ~8:00, I had 2 loads of laundry done, dishes washed and had eaten breakfast. Not bad. I had a Friends of the Library meeting at 9:30 then went home to get more done before Lori picked me up at noon. We went to Our Corner Cottage, where I bought yet more stocking stuffers, then went to Hoot & Sadie’s, where we waited for Andrea, who didn’t show. She’d driven by and not seen us (were we in the back room maybe?) so went right to the restaurant. We had a nice lunch (I got the healthiest thing on the menu, which was ribs with a salad instead of fries) and then Drae came in to help me figure out a knitting problem. Once she left, I got inspired and pulled all the weeds from the driveway cracks. There were a LOT. They were so tall I’d been mowing them. Sheesh! I left them to shrivel overnight and went inside just in time for dinner. What a nice day! It had the perfect mix of productivity and social stuff.

I was back in laundry mode on Sunday and talked to my sister and Connie between knitting and chores. I did a bunch of food prep for the week, completely cleaning out the refrigerator in the process. The shelves were a sticky mess so all came out and got washed in the sink. I already had a big bag of veg scraps for Lori’s chickens then added to it after the frig clean so I called Lori after dinner (steak and broccoli with a small serving of illicit tabbouleh) to see if I could drop the bag off since I didn’t want to put it back in my clean frig. After a quick stop there (the mosquitos were brutal so no hanging outside) I was home for the night. I almost filled my trash can with the driveway crap but pulled more beggar’s tick to fill it up then headed inside. I finished the problem mittens Andrea had helped me with and started neatizing for the cleaning lady, who comes Tuesday. It was the last night to sleep with the windows open so I took a shower and went to bed, happy with my progress.

I’m going into another travel week so was happy with the prep I’d done for the week. Once I finish cleaning lady prep, the house will be as good as it gets and I’ll be ready for Labor Day weekend in the Black Hills. You doing anything fun for the holiday? Have a good week.

Week 34 - Sharing with Friends

After my weekend of catching up from being away, I was looking forward to a normal week but a couple of things were different that thwarted my normal.

I had 3 sessions with the consultants on the space database first thing Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I’m an 8:15 kind of person on a good day and now I had to be across campus and ready to rock and roll by 8:00. To compound that, I was filling in for another cat feeder so had to feed 3 feeders, park in my lot (the downside to assigned parking is you can’t park in another lot if you have business elsewhere on campus) and walk to the far side of campus. All that had me leaving the house at a time I was usually still knitting in pajamas. That was HARD but I got it done. I was there most of the day Tuesday and mornings Wednesday and Thursday. We actually got out earlier than expected those two days, which was nice. Having a normal morning on Friday and nothing on my calendar felt like a treat.

The second was potentially a good thing – it was one of the 3 weeks of the year with no swimming (usually at the semester change.) This meant I could go right home every single night. Lovely. I had knitting as usual on Monday and enjoyed Tuesday evening but was feeling guilty by Wednesday. The weather was very fall like and I decided I had to take advantage of it so headed to my veg beds to plant some fall greens – Swiss chard, lettuce and spinach. When I was done with that, I started weeding in an effort to pull all the beggar’s tick (the weed with the pretty flower but obnoxious seeds that the cats bring in in their fur) before it flowers. I got a ton pulled in the back yard (hopefully all of it) before my stomach sent me inside for supper. That one night redeemed me so I could enjoy the rest of my evenings of going straight home. 

Monday was a banner day. Not only did I not have to be up at the crack of dawn but when I did get up I saw an email from Amazon that they were having a one day sale on Kindle HD6 for $69. Now I have an iPad but I bought it used years ago when a friend upgraded and it's so old that I can no longer download most apps, which has cramped my style on Amazon and Hulu streaming. It still does Netflix but those days are probably numbered. I didn't take much thought to decide I should get the Kindle. I got the base model at $69 and then found a cute, orange case on ebay for $6, which beat the lowest priced one on Amazon for $29. So for $75, I was up and running on all my streaming platforms. I had it in hand on Wednesday and it came pre-linked to my Amazon account. Yay!

Monday night was the big yarn share at knitting. I had given out a few single skeins two weeks earlier but didn’t have the missing bag of yarn at that time so waited for the big handout. I had a tote full of skeins, all sorted by colorway, to share. Everyone seemed pretty happy to get the yarn and I was happy to get rid of it. I’d kept nearly 50 lots from the Craig’s List haul and still had scads to share with friends. Isn’t life grand?

Monday was also the official start of our WIP contest. We'd done this last year when the library flooded and we were meeting in the Vets' Club. How it works is we have a start date and anything on the needles that day counts. For each item you finish, you bring in a prize for the prize bag and you get an entry. At the end of the contest, we pick names and you get to chose a prize from the bag for each item you finished. We all get to finish old projects, get rid of knitting things we don't want and leave with new knitting things. Win, win, win! I had organized my WIPs in anticipation of the contest and by the end of the week, I had already finished 3. Yay!

Speaking of sharing, Lori had asked me if I wanted any cucumbers from her garden and since I had opened my last jar of homemade sweet relish recently, I said yes. It’s impossible to find commercial sweet relish without high fructose corn syrup and I like relish on the rare hotdog I eat so I’ve been making my own for years. Lori was going to be in town Saturday and dropped some cukes mid-afternoon so I got chopping. Making relish is a long, drawn out affair because I chop everything by hand (I like consistent chunks), then soak it for 2 hours before you can even think of cooking it down. I made a batch and a half and finished cooking it after 10:00 Saturday night. It only made 5 jars, 2 of which I shared with Andrea and Lorri (2 R’s so not the same one) when they stopped by Sunday. Andrea brought me a little leek pie when she dropped off chicken litter for my compost pile and Lorri shared some tomatoes and onions from her garden. It is good to have friends! Lori would get her jar at knitting on Monday.

Besides the relish, I had a pleasant weekend doing chores and knitting. I was ready for the work week with a frig full of food and completely recovered from my travels. The fall like weather was holding and I was thoroughly enjoying that. The heat will probably be back but in the meantime the AC was off and I was happy. Fall will be here soon enough and the students were already flocking back to campus. I do love the seasons and working in academia reinforces that. Enjoy everyone.

Week 33 - Home from Denver

I woke up way earlier than Amanda and Rene so after waiting awhile, I got dressed and walked to Starbuck’s for a coffee. I enjoyed that while knitting/streaming until they woke up. We packed in minutes, checked out and headed to the Denver Botanic Garden, eating granola bars in the car and calling it breakfast. The gardens were beautiful and the weather was perfect. We strolled around, enjoying it all until our stomachs complained so we had an early lunch in the café overlooking the water lily pool. More perfection. After a stop in the gift shop, we headed to the airport. We returned the car and then had an hour to kill so I taught Amanda to knit while we sat at the gate. She took to it immediately and the time flew, as it often does while knitting. It was another uneventful flight and I walked into my house just before 8:00 pm.

It was a wonderful trip and we had been discussing where to go next before we even got home. In that discussion, Amanda and I realized that we were both going to The Black Hills for Labor Day weekend. Since I was leery of driving my car so far through such unpopulated, no cell reception territory, Amanda offered to car pool. Eureka! I will be taking half a vacation day to meet her after lunch at her house and we’ll drive up together. She’s excited to have an adult to talk to (her 5 year old will be in the back seat) and to share gas expense. I’m excited to not have to drive, which means I can knit the whole time. And since Connie will have to drive to Hot Springs to pick me up, we decided to stay there Friday night so we can explore the southern hills on Saturday before heading to Spearfish. It all works out nicely. Life is good!

Since all I’d worn in Colorado was play clothes and I had just enough undies to make it through the work week, I opted not to do laundry when I got home Monday night. I was feeling great post-trip and was super productive at work and even ran errands over lunches, getting an oil change on Tuesday and scoring some new clothes at my thrifts on Wednesday. Wednesday I ran more errands on the way home then did a long overdue mow and so it was clear sailing to the weekend when I could do my laundry and catch up on everything that was behind from being away. The weather had even continued to be nice so I didn’t have to turn on the AC until Thursday night. And it wouldn’t be on for long because it was going to cool down again on the weekend. Yay!

I barely left the house on the weekend, staying inside and actually enjoying catching up on things. While I love to travel, no matter how fun the trip is, it’s always good to get home. And I was more than ready to start my next rotation, which I did on Saturday instead of waiting until Monday. I had gained some weight, both water and fat, in Denver so had that to lose and was just wanting to be eating clean again. I felt better immediately and looked forward to losing more weight. What a great week! Starting on vacation with friends and ending on a healthy note were the bookends of my week. : )

Week 32 - Fun in Denver

The week started with fiscal year end and finished with Denver. It feels like that could be the whole post but I’d guess you want details so here goes.

Fiscal year end was in full swing but I’d done so much prep work in the previous ten days that my to do list was not too bad by Monday. I was there for whatever Mary needed but it wasn’t too stressful. I was even able to take lunches so went out Monday and tracked down all the new Lay’s flavors so we could have a taste test at knitting. The flavors were all over the board and different people liked different ones. Erica and I like Rueben (but I’d still prefer a plain Lay’s) and Jan couldn’t put down the Biscuits and Gravy. The Truffle Fries were disappointing and the Gyros were just disgusting. I brought the leftovers to work and it was about the same. After sitting in the office for more than a week, the Gyros got thrown out.

On Tuesday night, Lori brought me the errant bag of sock yarn that she’d picked up in Omaha so we had fun sorting all that. She took a couple of bags of yarn and I’d already taken what I wanted but I still had a tote full of yarn to share. All good, right?

I did a single load of laundry when I got home on Thursday, threw the resulting clean clothes in a book bag and I was ready for Denver when I left for work on Friday, which flew by. I was pretty excited, despite finding out that Frontier charges for carry ons! $40 each way for each person! Total rip off. Anyway, I called Amanda and asked if she had a suitcase that Rene and I could combine our stuff into because that only cost $20 each way to check. She had one so we quickly repacked at her house and headed to Omaha.

The flight was uneventful (can’t ask for more these days) and we got our car and drove to the hotel, which was right downtown and just a block and a half from the 1th Street pedestrian mall. It was pretty late but we were starving so the bellhop at the hotel sent us to the 5280 Burger Bar. We didn’t eat until almost 11:00 but it was so dry and cool that we sat outside. I got the Southern Bell with housemade pimento cheese and pecan smoked bacon with fries and a Guinness. Yum! If the rest of the trip went as well, we were in for a fun time. 

After a too short night of sleep, which had me sharing a bed with Rene but that worked out fine, we were up and ready for the day. Our waitress the night before was British so we’d been talking about full English breakfasts so while they showered, I googled and found a pub that wasn’t too far away that served the real deal breakfast and had good reviews. We set out walking and found the pub in full swing, full of drunken soccer fans because it was the first day of the soccer season and they’d opened in the wee hours. We sat at the last table and enjoyed an excellent breakfast. Rene is a soccer fan so she was in her element, even drinking a shot another fan bought for her. The girl at the next table was screaming at the TV so loudly that I could feel it in my sinuses. Not exaggerating here. After a bit, Amanda and I went to sit outside to get some peace and quiet. Rene came out eventually and we headed to a yarn shop I’d looked up online. It was quite a walk but oh so pleasant. I should mention here that I’d forgotten to take my meds so my knee was none too happy at this point. We had to wait for the shop to open and then it was quirky so I made a pity purchase of some alpaca and off we went.

Right around the corner was a pot shop and we just had to check it out. It was called Euflora and you went down a flight of stairs off the main mall to a set of smoked glass doors. When they opened it was like walking onto a movie set. It was a bright store with sleek fixtures and an ultra modern vibe. You had to show a license to get in and there were tables around the center with jars of pot with explanations and statistics on each one. There were free standing towers full of edibles and paraphernalia was in recessed, well lit cubbies in one wall. The t-shirts and souvenirs were at the back. The clientele was a complete mix. There were no stoner types that I could see and the rest ran the gamut from young professionals to a hippie grandma and grandpa with the college age grandkids. Too funny! They all had scanners so scanned what they wanted to buy then went to the register to pay and get their goodies. There were helpful people walking around asking if you needed help with anything. I was floored by how mainstream it all was. And considering how many people were in there on a Saturday morning, I’ve got to say that Colorado has a gold mine on their hands. Nebraska will be the last state to legalize pot and so will miss out on all the tax revenue. Figures.

We took the 16^th Street shuttle to the far end and then walked to another yarn shop. It was even quirkier than the last (seeing a trend here?) and I bought a little wallet but no yarn. We still weren’t hungry after our big breakfast so I opted to go back to the hotel for my meds while Amanda and Rene went shopping for water shoes for Amanda for the next day. When they got back, we headed out for a snack. Our hotel was perfectly located to everything fun downtown so we found a Mexican restaurant and enjoyed nachos in the bar. Amanda and Rene were flagging at this point so we went back to the hotel where they took a nap and I knitted while streaming Netflix. No matter how tired I am, I am not a napper. By the time they woke up, we were all starving so googled pizza and ended up at Lucky Pie, just a few shuttle stops away. It was another amazing meal. We just could not go wrong in Denver. I ended with fresh donut holes with espresso crème anglaise. Heaven! We walked back along the mall, enjoying the dry weather and festive crowds. We didn’t stay out too late because the next day was white water rafting so we needed our beauty rest.

We got up early and headed to Estes Park in our rental car, stopping along the way for a hearty breakfast in Boulder since we’d be busy at lunch time. We got on a school bus (hadn’t been on one of them in I don’t know how long) in Estes only to be driven 90 minutes to the Cache la Poudre River near Fort Collins. At least I got a bunch of knitting done. After suiting up with helmets and life jackets in a state park, they gave us a safety talk and off we went to the river. Our guide was Leo, who sat in the back and Rene and Amanda offered to be the lead paddlers in the front. I was in the middle of the boat next to a little girl who wasn’t paddling. I assured her no one would be going overboard from our raft. Can you see where this is going?

We were on the river for about 2 hours totally and had made it through the biggest rapids (level 3) plus had stopped to jump off of a rock and swim, which I’d declined since I didn’t want to get wet it being a bit chilly. We got back in our boats for the last bit of the trip when Leo asked if we wanted to go through the last rapids straight of spinning. “Spinning!” everyone shouted. When we went spinning into a spot between huge rocks, my side of the boat went under but when we hit the second rock, Rene got pitched back in. I wasn’t so lucky so was tumbling around in the rapids before popping up 20 feet away from the boat. I swam over, took the oar someone stretched out towards me and Leo grabbed my life jacket and pulled me in like I weighed nothing. I was fine through this all (chalk that up to being completely comfortable in water having grown up in The Ocean State) but he started through his check list – Are you OK? Do you need immediate medical attention? Did you swallow any water? (what’s that last one about?) I must have answered them all correctly because he settled me back on the gunwale and headed back down the river. I have to take Rene and Amanda’s word that they were frantic once I went in because by the time I was back in the boat, they were pissing themselves laughing. The only casualty was one of my diamond earrings. I’ll call it a sacrifice to the river gods. Considering all the rocks I could have hit, I consider myself lucky. And it’s a good story, right? Here's a pic of me and my savior.

Amanda’s boyfriend sent a classic text during our ride back to Estes – “I’m glad you had fun and that Marilyn didn’t die.” In celebration of my escape from death, we decided we deserved a fabulous meal so headed to the Stanley Hotel (of The Shining fame) for dinner. We checked first to make sure there was no dress code because although we’d changed back into street clothes once we got off the bus, we were just in shorts and t-shirts. We weren’t underdressed at all in the bar and had an amazing meal, complete with appetizers, dinner, dessert (Amanda eats that first) and, of course, Guinness for Amanda and me. It was so much fun. We explored a bit afterwards but most of the hotel is off limits except for guests. With full bellies, we drove back to Denver, happy with our rafting and dining adventures. It was a great last night. Stay tuned for our last day’s fun.