Week 37 - Dude Settling In

I was feeling fully back to normal at this point and so it was a pretty boring week. Laundry, cooking, taking care of the shelter cats, a bit of shopping... that kind of week. Labor Day was a non event except for the fact that the library was closed so no knitting.

Little Dude was settling in nicely and I took his cage down on Tuesday and loaded it in my car to give to Anne, who would return it Becky. My cats were still unhappy, of course, but Dude was having fun exploring the house, especially after I took all the Chewy boxes down giving him full access to the house and basement. My cats were coming in at night without me having to drag them. Small but I'll call it progress.

I made tetrazzini and blueberry muffins Wednesday night because I was heading to Lincoln on Thursday after a talk at the lake about leaves. I had an Emeriti/Retirees Association board meeting then went to Helen's to hang out. She was doing much better and was able to eat again so we had muffins with tea while chatting the afternoon away. I left the tetrazzini for her supper so she wouldn't have to cook. I did an Aldi run on the way home.

After a few nicer days, I had to turn the AC back on on Friday, which I hoped would be the last hot day. Fall weather was finally due to arrive on the weekend and I was thrilled. On Saturday, I opened a long unused cabinet in the laundry room and found a bunch of ancient, unlabeled, homemade jam so brought them up to dump and save the jars. That lead me to my upstairs cabinets and a few more went down the garbage disposal - 11 jars in total. Note to self - label and date jam when I make it. Duh.

I was a lovely cool day on Sunday so I got busy cooking. I made squash soup, 3 bean salad and prepped zucchini for zucchini/pineapple jam. It's a British thing and I love it. You peel and seed zucchini then shred it so that when you mix it with crushed pineapple, it soaks up the flavor and being just the flesh, you can't see that it's even in there. I'd let it soak for a couple of days then make the jam. It's a favorite of mine.

Anne and I were watching the Friends of Grand Circle Travel group on Facebook and it wasn't looking good for our cruise. With the Danube and Rhine so low that they aren't navigable, people on the same cruise were reporting being in a hotel in Vienna, on one ship for a few days and being bussed around for day trips then a long bus ride that bypassed all the castles on the Rhine and meeting up with another ship in The Netherlands. Since we were just in Amsterdam in April and in Vienna last summer, the part we were most interested was the part that we'd miss. I was all for cancelling but Anne was back and forth between cancelling and wanting to go. I was a stressed out mess waiting to hear anything from Grand Circle. Anne and I even discussed driving to Canada if we cancelled the cruise. It was just a waiting game to see what the company would do.

So that was my week. Mostly normal with a new kitty to enjoy but stress over the trip. At least the weather cooperated and finally cooled down. I'll take it.