Week 1 - Happy New Year

After fasting on Sunday, 600 calorie days on Monday and Tuesday felt like a feast! It felt good to be eating clean and healthy food to start the week off and since I'd be having a colonoscopy on Friday, I would totally be enjoying having friends over for tea on New Year's Day.

I used to do a big tea with all my knitting friends on New Year's but post-pandemic, it has evolved into just Andrea and Lori. That's much easier and so an enjoyable start the the year without any stress. There was lots of cleaning going on early in the week and then some baking (my mom's lemon squares) that morning to go with stollen and truffles. The sun was shining so we were good to drink tea, knit in the sun and chat.

But I had a mission for them. I had taken all my under-the-bed boxes of workhorse sock yarn out from under the spare bed when looking for the perfect color of yarn and they were still out. I put them all on my bed (5 boxes) and labeled 12 lunch bags with months. I asked if they'd be willing to choose 12 skeins of self-patterning yarn for each month and tape them shut. They were up for it and were laughing the whole time. They even came out to ask for paper and pen to put notes in the bags. So now I have 12 mystery bags for my reading/zoom socks for 2025. How fun is that!

It was a good thing Wednesday was fun and the food was yummy because Thursday was colonoscopy prep. I made jello but never ate it instead drinking black coffee and tea all day. I had to get up at 4:00 am on Friday to drink the 2nd half of the prep, which I mixed with tea instead of gatorade because it was SO sweet. I went for a blood draw on the way to my colonoscopy at 10:00. I was home by noon and happily had a fried bologna sandwich (a childhood favorite) for lunch. Delish! Then I took a nice nap and had a nice dinner. Done with that and 5 years until my next one.

I had planned to keep dieting before a Monday blood draw in Lincoln but they were supposed to get snow so I moved it to before my colonoscopy. This meant I could eat normally, which was a joy. I had a nice, relaxing weekend chatting with friends, knitting in the sun and doing a few chores. 

It's amazing how much you can appreciate normal after a week like this. I had 3 more doctor appointments next week but then hopefully will be all set for the rest of the year. Wish me luck.

Just One Word - 2025

It's time for a new year and a new word to focus on. As usual, I struggled on what to pick. Several sounded good until I checked back and I'd already used them. I spent some time with a thesaurus and asked friends for input and this is what I came up with:

This is my first full year of retirement and I had grand plans like go through my entire house, purging 25 years of stuff before the end of the 2024. Right. That wasn't doable. I did make a dent in things and donated 3 carloads of stuff to the Stuff for Strays sales but I still have a long way to go. My retirement plan also included starting to add in all kinds of things since my house would be done. These included starting an exercise plan, volunteering, selling on ebay, quilting, having a perfectly maintained yard and garden.... that kind of thing. On top of reading, knitting, thrifting, travel and all the other things I enjoyed while working. Now it's already halfway through January and I've yet to get going on most of that. Clearly I need to find my retirement groove.

Week 52 - A Happy Christmas

Another good week is in the books. It was good for lots of reasons but Christmas was nice too.

I started the week with a rude awakening. Darla and I had an Omaha day planned and she was supposed to arrive at 7:30. Well, she was at the door at 7:00 and I was still in my jammies and the cats were out. I slammed to get ready and Darla went out to her car so I could get the cats inside. Goodie didn't come but I found her staring at something in the compost bins. Mice maybe? I threw her inside and off we went.

The goal for the day was to find Darla some dresses to take on her cruise so we were going to hit some thrifts plus I needed to pick up a gift card at Imagiknit and go to World Market for some tea. We started at Vidlak's for a big chicken fried steak breakfast. Yum! Darla did find some dresses and I got my gift card then we stopped at Winchell's, which is across the street from the yarn shop, for a fritter. Darla took one bite and was done for the day. We did hit Aldi on the way out of town and then The Warehouse in town, where we found hamburger for $2.50 a pound. Score! Darla headed home and I made a cup of tea to enjoy with my fritter while reading in the sun in the front room. Bliss.

I woke up to fog and clouds on Tuesday but it didn't matter because I'd be spending the day in the kitchen. I made lasagna after lunch, which starts with homemade sauce so takes some time. I also made a meatloaf for Anne, which is what she wanted for Christmas dinner and I flat out refused. Of course I felt guilty but meatloaf is not festive so I was giving her a raw one for her to cook later. I had thought about making a nice dinner for Christmas Eve but with the lasagna and meatloaf done, I ran out of steam and so just used the remains of the lasagna sauce and made pasta. I cast on a new pair of socks, which is a thing - Christmas Eve cast ons - with Christmas yarn from a few years ago. I watched Die Hard and opened my present from Deanne and called Christmas Eve done.

I had a lovely time opening my stockings and then chatted with Ginny. I left for Anne's at 11:00 and put the lasagna right into the preheated oven when I arrived. Anne had a nice fire going and we chatted and opened our presents waiting for the lasagna to be done. We had a nice meal, chatted for hours and watched Martha on Netflix. I was home in time to watch the Call the Midwife special before going to bed. A perfectly pleasant Christmas.

My only plan for Thursday was to clean up the kitchen so when Lorri called and asked if I wanted to do lunch, I heartily agreed. I cleaned up the kitchen then met her at Mocha C's, which is where I got my grab and go lunch for years but haven't since retiring since I have all the time in the world to make my own lunch. It was yummy and we had a nice catch up. Of course I gave her socks. I stopped at The Warehouse and got more cheap hamburger on the way home then relaxed all afternoon before having lasagna for supper.

When I was out with Darla on Monday, my cousin Richard called. He and his wife had recently moved to Omaha to join their daughter and her family. His sister was in town for the holidays so I had 2 cousins to visit. I called him Friday morning and he invited me over for supper so I made a blueberry crumb pie and headed to Omaha after lunch. I had not seen Richard and Diane, his wife, since my dad's funeral in 2006 and probably didn't say 2 words to them then. I hadn't seen Peggy in even longer. We had a lovely afternoon and I got to meet his daughter and her family when they came for supper. Peggy and I talked for hours and as I said to her in a text later, I think it's the first conversation we've had as adults.

It was freakishly warm again on Saturday but the temps would be plummeting with highs in the teens in the forecast so you guessed it - I went outside to work in the yard. Actually it wasn't my yard but rather my neighbor's, who do the bare minimum in their yard. My goal was to cut all the weed trees that were growing through the fence to my side but had to be cut from theirs. I got them all cut, including some that weren't on the fence that borders my yard but would shade my veg beds. Oops. I just piled them by the alley and they will wait until spring to go to the burn pile. I mean it this time - this is my last gardening until spring. I also washed the quilt and comforter from my bed and hung them on the line. Had to take advantage of the last warm day. How festive to see my Christmas socks drying in the sun.

Like many people who have eaten too many sweets over Christmas, I started a diet on Sunday. My plan is to do some 600 calorie days before New Year's Day, which will be followed by colonoscopy prep on Thursday and the procedure on Friday. So to start off with a bang, I fasted on Sunday. I had nothing to eat until an egg sandwich and orange for supper. Let's see if I can drop a few pounds before my annual physical that's coming up.

So another good week with yummy food, visits galore, very late yard work and Christmas to boot. This is my last post in 2024 and I'm happy to say that overall it's been a good year, despite losing Hazel in February. I hope you've had a good year too. May 2025 be even better.

Week 51 - Perfect Retirement Week

It was a great week full of friends, getting things done and lots of knitting.

I started the week going to a program at the lake about winter feeding of backyard birds. It was interesting and I even won a prize - a suet cake and feeder. I rushed home because Windstream was due to come and if you're not there, they charge you $50 for a missed appointment. They did come but couldn't fix it so had to put in a service order for someone to check the line beyond my house. They'd be coming Tuesday so it was a good thing it was only my landline that was toast. I made some chocolate cookies with pastel mint chips for knitting and to give to friends. Delish!

Windstream did fix it Tuesday morning and after they were done, I ran my Wahoo errands. I had to pick up money at the library and stupidly bought a box of Christmas stuff at the bag sale. Like I needed more Christmas stuff. I did get every single candle they had, taking them out of the candle holders and leaving the holders there. After making the deposit at the bank, I went to the thrift shop and Warehouse so was gone for quite awhile. I made a cup of tea then went to the eye doctor before supper. I call that a good day.

Wednesday was a fun day with lunch at Honest Abe's with my work friends. I gave them all socks and cookies and they seemed to like them. Since I was in town, of course I did some thrifting and scored 2 lots of sock yarn. Then I stopped at Anne's and left loaded up with cookies, scones and snack mix. Yarn and treats. Merry Christmas to me! The Survivor finale rounded out another good day.

Thursday was another good day of an entirely different kind. It was almost 60 degrees so I went outside to the garden. I keep thinking I've done the last thing but I planted some garlic, which is a first for me and it might be too late but not much to lose since I just planted cloves from super market garlic. I then took the morning glory vines out of the trash, carefully put them into a big Ikea bag so as not to trash my newly vacuumed and ran them to the burn pile, getting back just in time for my favorite knitting YouTubers - the Grocery Girls. I made a nice supper of scalloped potatoes and ham and stashed a bunch of yarn on Ravelry. See? Another good day.

After the one warm day, it turned pretty chilly so I hunkered down for the rest of the week. I got a bunch of flex receipts entered, changed litter boxes, did some cleaning and got my laundry done, which was enough to not feel guilty about the serious relaxation I enjoyed the rest of the time. I chatted with friends who were on their last day of work before break and spent lots of time reading in the sun, moving from the front room to my desk after the sun went down to finish Death at the Sign of the Rook, which is the newest Jackson Brody book but not my favorite. There was lots of knitting too, of course, including a charity hat to drop in Omaha on Monday and I finished my monthly challenge socks, which I think are beautiful. I was also opening my advent sock yarn everyday with the last one on Sunday. And I organized all my unfinished sock projects so I could finish a few before casting on more. That's the plan anyway.

As far as I'm concerned, this was a perfect week. I got stuff done, had some fun with friends, found sock yarn while thrifting and had plenty of time to relax and read in the sun. Sign me up for more weeks like this please. Just a few more days until Christmas too. Life is good.

Week 50 - Ready for Christmas

The week started with the last warm day for awhile and included a couple of fun days out of town. With my packages off in the mail, I could relax on Christmas prep too. All good.

The last garden clean up task for the season (or so I thought) was cutting down the huge sweet autumn clematis that grows behind my AC unit so that's what I did first thing Monday when it was still warm. I loaded the vines and my packages - the 3 that hadn't been picked up and Dottie's too - into the car and made a trip to the post office, the city burn pile and BK to pick up lunch. I even stopped at the car wash to vacuum out the car and I put the seats back up, reclaiming my car from pick up truck duty. I made peanut butter blossoms that afternoon to take to knitting and Tuesday to Helen's. We knitted late that night until 8:45. Nice start to the week.

Tuesday was a Lincoln day for lunch with Helen. I don't know what I was thinking but I didn't bring her Christmas presents. She showered me with presents so I felt dumb. After a lunch of delicious homemade mac & cheese, we chatted the afternoon away. I thrifted a bit afterwards but had to head home in time to grab some supper before a library board meeting. That's a long day for this retiree. : )

I was home for the next three days, doing some cooking, more decorating, chatting with friends, reading, riding my exercise bike and doing some crocheting to give my hands a break from knitting because they were sore. Aren't my little choir candles cute? Some were my mom's but I collected a few more in the early years of the library holiday decoration sales. Decorating for holidays was actually on my retirement to do list. Check that off.

I had briefly considered doing a Fremont run on Friday but talked myself out of it so when Andrea said she had to go to Lincoln on Saturday morning to pick up an auction win, I invited myself along. We picked up the item, got a bagel for lunch and hit Super Saver for groceries. I was thrilled when Andrea suggested going home via Seward, which is totally not on the way home. One of my favorite thrift shops is there and I scored all kinds of fun things - fabric, a sheep to go on my Ikea yarn shelf, some vintage linens and an orange picnic set to name a few. Andrea had a Runza gift card so we got salads to go and I enjoyed it for supper later. It was a fun day.

Sunday was my typical chore day and after Lorri stopped by after church, I did the final garden chore - cutting down the morning glory vines on the driveway, which I had noticed when I came back from the burn pile earlier in the week. I didn't want to dirty my car again so put them into my empty trash can in hopes that heavy trash would break them down because they filled the can. I ended the day making a big pot of black bean soup and calling Windstream because my landline had died and my internet was flaky.

It was a good week with my packages on their way, the final garden chores done, some quality veg time at home and thrift scores on the weekend. I think I'm getting the hang of this retirement thing.

Week 49 - Gardening at Christmas

The week started with Andrea volunteering to work on Bob's socks to spare me negative knitting and ended with me working outside in just a t-shirt. In between there were appointments scheduled for January (mamogram, physical and colonoscopy), cats taken to the vet and lots of Christmas decorating. I even worked a couple of hours one morning helping Dana with yet another thing that never happened in my 21 years in the job. It was something different every day.

My silver Christmas tree went into the front window on Tuesday, after a trip to Dollar General to buy new lights. I got my live trees - one for the deck and one for inside - as my first stop on my Wednesday errands and lunch day in Lincoln. On Thursday I put up my inside tree, made a cute valance for my side door and hung my door decorations. On Friday, I put up the deck tree after another trip for new lights and then used the trimmings to decorate pots at the front and side doors. With that, phase one of decorating was done.

It was time for some wrapping. With my tree aglow across the room, I started prepping presents for mailing. I had 3 packages done and scheduled a USPS pick up for Saturday, leavingjust one to go, which would be bigger so UPS. I had the packages out at 7:00 am on Saturday and when they were still there at 9:00 pm, I took them inside figuring they'd missed me. Nope. I got an email that they tried to pick them up at 9:47 that night, which is when my mail came. Wow! I packed up my last box but it wasn't as big as I thought so would have 4 to drop at the post office on Monday. Check that off.

It was gorgeous all weekend and I went out to just putter a bit and found myself cutting sunflowers and weed trees for a couple of hours. The area beside the garage was clear by the time I was done. On Sunday, I took down all the hanging pots and planters and dumped their contents in the wheel barrow. I put the pots away in the garage and msg'd to see if the kid who mows for me could come and pick up the now huge brush pile by the alley and the new one by the garage. Then my yard would be pretty much ready for winter. I made good use of the last really warm days for awhile.

I did end the week with a bit of gastric distress Sunday night but otherwise it was a great week. I'd drop the packages on Monday and I'd be ready for Christmas. It's still odd that I'm done so early but that's what happens when you have to mail your presents so early. Time to relax!

Week 48 - Planning and Turkey

Lots got done this week - cleaning, cooking, planning trips and online work. There were lots of zooms involved. What did we do before zoom?

I started the week zooming with the other moderator of my online sock group who is American but lives in Germany. We had to arrange the 12 voted on challenges for the different months next year. It was fun to chat with Lia and we got it done. There was drama later in the week when one of the members took offense at another member's post. I had to email the offender and ask her to change, which resulted in zero change and an irate return email. Oh well. It all seems to have blown over. Tempest in a teapot. Since Sunday was December 1st, I had to do the monthly tally so I spent quite a bit more time than usual on my Socks from Stash this week but it's all good.

I zoomed with Anne and Rene on Tuesday morning to plan our trip to Palm Springs at the end of January. Under the banner of everything's harder than it should be, Anne's credit card didn't work, our zoom got cut off at 30 minutes and nothing else was easy. It took some time but we got a VRBO, rented a car and bought our plane tickets. Anne had to pay through the nose for a fully refundable ticket because Rene has a free companion ticket that can't be redeemed until January so we had to reserse the seat. Sheesh!

I was hosting Thanksgiving so spent Wednesday cleaning and making pies - pumpkin, a small blueberry and banana cream for Anne (NOT a festive pie but it's what she wants.) I didn't sleep well that night and had stress dreams about broccoli, only to get up and find that my broccoli had frozen in my fridge and was nasty. Good thing I had some Brussels sprouts. Everything else went fine. I had the turkey stuffed and in the oven first thing then prepped all the veg and set the table. Rene and Anne arrived at noon and we ate all the yummy food. They left before it got dark and I had everything put away, pots and pans washed, the dishwasher running and the tukey carcas in the crockpot before I went to bed. Nice.

I spent Friday doing online stuff for my COBRA and flex reimbursements. I screwed up thinking I'd only put in $50/month on flex when I'd actually done $64 so was short with things to reimburse. I will have to dig for receipts for over the counter stuff. Hopefully I'll find some. : )

I was madly working on Christmas knitting and had finished Dee's socks and started Bob's. I had sent an email to Ginny, who shares an email account with her husband,  asking if her socks fit OK. I got a terse answer back saying they needed to be smaller. I had cast on a smaller pair for her - fewer stitches on smaller needles - and they were a slog. When I mentioned this to her, she had no idea what I was talking about. Her idiot husband had answered for himself so Ginny's socks fit fine but Bob's are too big. And what was I almost done with? Another pair of socks for Bob that now I know wouldn't fit. He laughed it off but I was pissed. I was not going to reknit his pair and it was my last pair for him so he will not be getting a better fitting pair from me. Jerk. At least I got to rip out the smaller pair for Ginny.

Other than a quick trip to the farm store to stock up on cheap birdseed, I spent the weekend inside cooking all things turkey. I made soup with the stock, turkey salad for sandwiches and put some dinners (stuffing, turkey, gravy and cranberry) in the freezer and finished up making a yummy cottage pie with the last of the turkey and gravy with the leftover mashed potatoes on top. Yum! It tasted different from all the rest, which was a good thing because I was getting sick to death of turkey, just like most of the country at this point. Until next Thanksgiving.

I hope you all had a great holiday. Christmas is only 3.5 weeks away now. Yikes!