COVID

I felt absolutely horrible yesterday.  Barely slept at all on Monday night - restless while exhausted.  Couldn't get warm.  Got warm then too warm.  Then cold again.  Over and over.  It was an awful night.  

I felt disoriented and off all day yesterday - did what I could to help J. in the garage but ended up taking a nap.  Still felt horribly crummy after the nap.  

At 5PM, I enjoyed a Zoom call with friends from California - we talked non-stop for two hours - it was a blast.  It was also timed around happy hour so I enjoyed a couple small glasses of our Gamay Rouge from V. Sattui.  

The hardest part of COVID is thinking anytime you feel off or not great that 'this is it.  I've got it.  If I feel this bad with zero fever, zero congestion, zero breathing difficulties, what will happen if this IS it - will I even survive it?'.  I hate having those kind of thoughts....but I thought them all day yesterday.  

I also frequently notice aches and pains and think 'now THIS is IT'.  No, actually - your muscles hurt 'cuz you move a lot more and do a lot more in this house than you did in your old house.  Lifting stuff, moving things - it all adds up.  My arms feel super sore today but it's 'cuz I've been doing what I can to help J. with culling the garage.

This morning, we put all the Christmas decorations up on the overhead shelving.  The garage is looking pretty lean and it feels great.  We've let so much stuff GO!

I slept like a log last night (thanks to CBD drops which I skipped on Monday night) and woke up this morning feeling 1000% better than I did at anytime yesterday....so it was just a bad night's sleep combined with sinus stuff that today is much better.  

Whew!  I can't wait to get the vaccine to hopefully build up some immunity so having COVID won't be the first thing that comes to mind with every ache.  

We unpacked a small, compact stereo system and we played the only CD I had handy - John Denver.  A compilation CD a friend gave me before I retired.  Walking down memory lane all day with songs that I love and some I'd sort of forgotten about.  We look forward to music in the house daily - 

Also found the PS2 Slimline player we have - considered donating it but there are a lot of PS2 games in the cupboard and I'm always looking for 'stuff' to do - so we kept it.  And it can also play DVD's so that's great, too.

I didn't know when we moved that VHS players were no longer being made (apparently).  I don't know what we will do with the TONS of VHS tapes we have to play - and nothing to play them on.  

Tomorrow, we head to Reno for our NYE blast - I think we're going to do shots of tequila as the clock strikes midnight.  Seems like a fitting way to end the year and welcome a new one.  I'm really looking forward to playing and enjoying fun with J. .  

As 2020 Winds Down

This has been the longest year ever.  You agree?  I can't wait for midnight on 1/1/21 to say goodbye to this year.  

There was beautiful snow on the ground this morning - likely to get additional snow later this week.  

J. and I have spent two super productive days working on finishing up our culling of the garage.  

I finally went through the bins of stitchery 'stuff' from my Mom.  I let a lot of it go - but I found the small pair of scissors (in the shape of a bird) she used when she was doing her needlepoint.  They are beautiful and I remember them from when I was a kid.  I kept a lot of the embroidery floss, some of the cross stitch fabrics, all the hoops and frames and a few 'kits' that were pics that we liked.  We let a lot go to our local thrift shop and as we put each donation item in the box, I'd think how happy someone was going to be when they found these treasures.  

Also worked on going through my quilting/sewing bins and got rid of a ton of stuff from those as well.  I barely even remembered that I made a couple quilts when the kids were babies - and my taste has definitely changed in 30 years.  Small calico prints aren't my thing anymore.  And a lot of fabric quarters I'd saved for a miscellaneous patch work quilt (or two...or ten) don't really make me smile with joy, either.  So I let them go - if/when I want to make quilts, I have 3-4 kits that I saved which will be fun to work on.  

J. made two trips to thrift stores today - including a trip with the car filled to the top with storage bins.  The huge size we used in Tracy worked because we had two boys to help us get stuff up and down from the rafters - but with just us two now, we're transitioning to smaller size 'flip top' bins (from Costco) to make it easier for us to store stuff on the garage ceiling shelves.  We let 8 huge bins go to charity today along with a bunch of other stuff. 

We've got one or two more trips planned tomorrow and we should be winding down 2020 with so much less 'stuff' than we started the year.  It feels FABULOUS to let all this stuff 'go'.  I may even sleep on it tonight and in the morning, I might feel like giving up even more of the quilting/sewing stuff. 

I didn't know that I have dozens of quilt books - and if I were to quilt, the last place I would look for ideas is in a book....I'd cruise the Internet for days seeking ideas.  You Tube videos abound, too.  

We're letting the books go as well.  

Christmas will be put away by the end of this weekend for sure.   

We're heading for Atlantis Reno on Thursday for NYE.  Sort of debated spending the night but we have a room and we figure why not.  We both want to go - and play - and then we really don't like the idea of driving home late at night on a holiday where people drinking and driving might be more prevalent then other days of the year - so we'll stay.  I've warned J. that I plan to play slots into the wee hours of the morning hopefully.  (I hear the slots are fairly loose on NYE and I want to play late to see what happens.  There are so many HUGE jackpots on the machines - it could be a very exciting night).  

We're starting 2021 off with a great lessening of stuff.  There will be two cars in the garage and a 'gym' area as well!   

A List of Stuff

 A random list of stuff I've been meaning to share.  Time goes so fast these days - which I'm grateful for given that we're in 'global pandemic' status still so staying home with not a lot to go out and do is a good thing.

• Working or not, my favorite part of pretty much any day is climbing into bed at the end of the day and waiting for the snuggle factor to take me to dreamland.     

•  Today, I picked up my first online order at Walmart and I have to say I am SUPER impressed.  AND the BEST CHRISTMAS GIFT EVER:  my order included a bottle of 409, a bottle of Clorox Clean Up and 3 bottles of WalMarts multisurface grease cutter/cleaner!  I ordered them fully expecting them to be unavailable when we picked up the order - but they DID have them in stock and so we scored!  I was so giddy about the cleaning supplies, J. was laughing at me.  409 has been completely unavailable for close to a year.  It was like the best Christmas gift EVER. 

• The order was complete and perfect.  I didn't allow any substitutions - partly because I wasn't sure what their parameters were for substituting.  I will research that.  For example, if I request ground chicken and they have none, will they substitute turkey?  If they won't substitute something completely different but would substitute a different brand (Jenny-O vs. Foster Farms ground chicken), that would be OK.  But chicken vs. turkey, not so much.  So I will continue to fine tune.  
  
• I am not a huge fan of Walmart but the prices are the lowest we have available here in Carson City.  I wish we had a Winco and maybe someday we will - and while I truly don't like a lot of things about Walmart and dread shopping there, we are on a budget so lowering our food costs is what we need to do.  
• J. and I are binge watching The West Wing on Netflix again.  The series leaves Netflix in two days so we're re-watching the first few seasons (our favorites).  I proposed on Christmas Eve we should try to watch all the Christmas episodes which are epic.  
• The electricians installed the dining room light fixture now that we have the dining room table.  It looks beautiful.  
• Just after Thanksgiving, one of our neighbors across the golf course decorated her back fence.  I hadn't even thought about decorating in the back - no reason to do that in our Tracy home - but since we back to a golf course and our house can be seen from a street nearby, it made sense.  I can't wait for next year and have already given J. a heads up that we have a LOT more decorations to purchase for the backyard next year.  WAY MORE LIGHTS.  And fence decor.  Bows, maybe - lighted bows and/or lighted scenes'.  
• As I type this, I remember that last night, we had HUGE winds here and we woke up this morning to find the two dogs, the llama and the dachshund decorations in the front in a pretty sad state AND the three lighted packages we had out front are gone.  We have no idea where they went - we drove around to look - but they are GONE.  Totally gone.  
• We're not sure that they weren't stolen.  Seems like they might have been 'cuz they had to be unplugged.  

I have to stop the bullet point format.  It's a PITA and I keep saving this update and then when I get back to it, the bullet points torture me - so I'm moving on.  Back to paragraph form.  It's a hodge-podge post and I'm OK with that.    

We've had numerous discussions with B. about being here for Christmas and we've decided against it multiple times.  It's hard on him - especially him - who got through months of being deployed in a not great assignment and not great area - and the thought of spending a minimum of two weeks with us got him through a lot - so to have that event postponed indefinitely is heartbreaking.  For all of us - but especially for B..  We have a Zoom call planned for Christmas morning and will spend some time sharing our plans for the day, reminiscing about Christmas' past and talking about what we're looking forward to in 2021.  Hopefully adding travel back into our lives will happen. 

Last night, we went to Atlantis - our casino host gave us a voucher for a free dinner (there was an issue which I will share in a future post) so we headed to Reno.  We arrived around 1:30PM and played until our 5PM reservation.  (One of the Covid guidelines in place here for all restaurants is 'must have reservations'.  It's a way to ensure the place doesn't exceed the 25% allowed capacity limit).  I played for a couple of hours on what I initially put in to begin to play - moving up and down on the range of 'in the red or in the black'.  Pretty typical day.  At 3PM or so, I headed to other machines to play my free play for the week - turned $200 in free play into $300 in cash and then headed back to my favorite Dragonlink machines.  I was shocked when I hit a Major jackpot at a little past 3:30PM - and then twelve short minutes later (moving to another machine), I hit a second Major!  It was epic.  Truly.  

Food was fantastic, service was awesome and we had a really fun time - got home a bit before 7PM. 

Also have freeplay on Saturday so fingers crossed there won't be weather that makes it impossible to get there.  

Winter is Here

 I am remiss in writing - the days just pass by quickly, full of a lot of not much.  We keep pretty busy.  

We have a new President, thank God.  It was a nail biting week of waiting for various confirmations and as expected, the guy currently holding the title of President is making the transition impossible.  It shocks me to see Facebook posts with him asking for 'prayers' - and thousands of people responding with words of support.  It's the saddest thing to realize how many people support him - never acknowledging his lack of any moral character.  Him asking for prayers?  Seriously?  He doesn't believe in any higher power.  The ONLY thing he believes is he's the greatest gift our country has ever had for President.  He's a liar and a malignant narcissist.   I am so glad he's not going to be President anymore - and I hope we can all take a deep breath and start over.  2020 has sucked so much - it's time to have some positive movement forward.  COVID-19 infection rates are climbing dramatically and people run around saying 'you can't make me where a mask'.   Our hospital here put out a notice they have no ICU beds available.  They are converting other facilities they have (like the out patient surgical center) into hospital wards - they need the beds.  All elective surgeries cancelled until further notice.  We have a corrrectional

We had the first snow of this Winter overnight on November 7th....about 4 inches, we think.  It took a long time for the snow to melt - it stayed very cold.  I woke up on the morning of the 8th and my first thought was 'snow'?  I went over to the window, opened the shutter a bit and giggled like a two year old - snow everywhere!  Sun hitting it on the rocks in the front and back that looked like glitter.  It was gorgeous.  

We had a huge wind storm this past Friday - 60 MPH gusts at times.  It felt a bit scary at times - fearing something was going to blow into a window or hit a car.  It was wild - made the high winds in Tracy look like a breeze. Our yard held up well - glad we used heavier 'rock' vs. decomposed granite throughout the yard because it held up better in the bad winds.

Our dining room set and bar stools for the island finally arrived.  We love everything!  We're still waiting on an entry way rug and a decorative bowl - and the best part is we chose to do the zero percent 36 month financing and they don't bill ANY of the items until ALL of the order is received.  So SCORE.  

J.'s doing well - halfway through his radiation treatment and still feels pretty great.  He had one day where he felt a bit fatigued but he bounced right back.  He's playing golf tomorrow and Friday and we will (usually) make a date of my weekly free play at Atlantis.  

J. made another trip to a thrift store with the car loaded up.  We are so close to getting his car in the garage, too.  We've put up a lot pictures with still many to go but we are making progress.  The house feels more like home as the furniture arrived and we put up pictures and knick knacks, etc..  

B. is back at Ft. Campbell after his deployment in Texas for border patrol.  He's looking for an apartment - getting promoted to Staff Sargent gives him a monthly housing stipend so he's looking for a place.  He bought a BMW SUV - saved up his deployment pay.  

H. is doing well albeit there's 'always/often something'.  The company he works for - a company with employees all over the world - hired three people - H. being one - in late September.  Those people got paid in early October - and that's the last time they were paid.  When the issue was escalated to corporate, they told the branch H. works at to immediately stop scheduling the three people who haven't been paid for six weeks - so he's sort of in limbo.  He's hoping to get some work with a guy who owns a fencing company to help him bring in some cash.  It's a hard situation and bless his heart, he says he's mostly stressed about telling me whatever the most recent update is.  I try super hard to just talk him through it - encouraging him to stop stressing about something he can't control.  It's a part of our history that we both feel awkward at times - but we are working through it.  After I hung up the phone from H., J. said 'you must have been a really good boss'.  Yes, I mostly was...not perfect but I always tried hard to listen.  I'm trying hard to improve the listening skills as a mom.  H. will get through this - and hopefully, it will all be worked out.  I am suggesting he prepare to be told that they will have to hire him as a temp (that is their normal practice but all three of the affected people were brought on directly - bypassing the temp placement requirement) - so we'll have to see how it works out.  He's owed a lot of money - 

I've been having some UTI issues and in spite of going to my doctor again this past Wednesday sure I had another infection, the urinalysis didn't confirm.  Friday evening - after a busy day of furniture arriving, haircut, punch list work being done by the builder's representative and the wind storm, I realized I must absolutely have another infection brewing.  Thankfully, I have the OTC products available - taking them has really helped though peeing bright orange is always weird.  I will get to the doctor tomorrow.  

We're working on getting some pics done of the inside of the house with furniture.  

Time to head to bed.  I've got lots of Vanity Fair reading to catch up on and reading is a good way to unwind. 

Retirement Changes in a Big House

In Tracy, we had a cleaning service every other week and a gardener every week.  We also had a weekly pool guy.  Those services were luxuries that we covered in our household budget as a trade off for the crazy jobs and commutes we had.  Even when I started working less than 2 miles from our house, we kept them because I knew the job with the school district was way more than a 40 hour a week job.  (WAY!).  

In our new home, we're managing to take care of things on our own so far.  I joke with myself about finding inspiration in doing simple things well - but truthfully, there is no joy or zen involved in cleaning toilets.  

J. says 'make a detailed list by room and I will follow the list'.  This sounds good in theory but...in practice, not so much.  Example:  the list for bathroom cleaning would say 'clean the toilet'.  J. will do that.  He will clean the bowl.  He won't clean the seats, under the seat, the back where the seat meats the tank, the top and sides of the tank, the toilet base.  None of that will even register as needing to be done.  He'll swish cleaner in the bowls and call it done.  

I'm thinking the idea of a list isn't really going to work unless it includes every possible item to be done with detailed precision.  And crafting that level of detail on a multi-page Excel spreadsheet with a check-list component feels exhausting. 

So I try to clean the toilets myself.  See what I mean about no joy in toilet cleaning?  

We can definitely afford to hire a cleaning lady again.  Our monthly budget is perfectly fine and we can wedge in that expense again if we'd like.  I just keep thinking we're two retired people with a lot of time on our hands so we ought to be able to do this.  

Same with the yard.  It's beautiful but I'm realizing it's also going to be super high maintenance.  Very low maintenance during Winter - so that's three months of not having to do anything at all - but when Spring comes, the next 3 seasons are going to be intense.  And that's just the general maintenance - doesn't include the vigilance required for mole prevention.  

Winter is coming and I envision lots of days holed up in our house baking bread, making soups and puttering around the house.  There should be lots of time for puttering.  

It's been in the low 20's nightly for the past few nights so we've had to turn off the drip irrigation and remove all the hoses from the hose bibs outside.  No rain means we have to water the plants at least every other day or so to ensure they head into their winter dormancy state alive.  (NOTE:  we've lost about 5 plants so far and our landscaper has already promised to replant them in the Spring.  Some of the plants he purchased just didn't survive being transplanted).  

We gauge the nightly level of freezing by the state of the water in the bird baths outside.  Frozen solid this morning but they will warm up in the sun.

Construction Cleaning

Just when J. had pretty much managed to rid the garage of a ton of cardboard boxes - filling up to the brim two HUGE recycling totes every other week since we moved in - we tackled unpacking all the wall art.  Spent the last couple days unboxing and unwrapping.  We identified quite a few pieces we plan to let Salvation Army take with them tomorrow.  The rest we sort of pended as we sketch out what will go where.

I watched the video on how to use the Command picture hanging strips.  Felt ready.  Picked the 'You're the cheese to my macaroni' wall art to start with.  It's small, not heavy.  Completely do-able.  Got the strips on no problem.  

Prepared the wall - which involved wiping the area where you plan to hang the pic with rubbing alcohol.  It dries very quickly so made sense they would suggest using that.  

Let's just say that we know have a small area of the wall in the study that is a COMPLETELY different color than the rest of the room.  Why?  'Cuz the walls are completely filthy - covered with construction dust.  We got the dust off of the area we plan to hang the picture but the rest of the space?  Super dusty. 

I just want to cry.  Really.  We need to wash every square inch of wall space in this house and while I've sort of had a feeling that's what we would need to do, the stark reality of it is just incredibly overwhelming.  

I'll be stewing over this for a while.  But it's pretty clear it's the only way to proceed - which means we spent a ton of time unpacking art work for nothing 'cuz we have a gazillion walls to wash before we can hang anything. 

Hi again.  It's now October 25th so 19 days from when I drafted the above. 

We did wash the walls and glad we did.  We honestly should have done it first thing upon taking possession of the house but...we've never built a 'custom' home and honestly, truly expected the builder to hire a cleaning crew to remove all evidence of construction from the house.  He doesn't do that - they do what's called a 'broom clean' - sweeping up obvious debris and dust but not really getting the walls really clean.  It's been chore (still more to go) but it's good to be working on it.

We still have a discolored spot in the office from the rubbing alcohol so...hopefully, we can put a picture up there so it won't show.  

J. is getting his radiation therapy daily M-F.  It's pretty easy - travel is super easy - it's 5 minutes away from the house.  He's back home usually 30 minutes after he left.  So far, he feels great.  No side effects at all yet.  This coming week is week three so he is aware he may have some fatigue but so far, he's doing great!  He's playing a lot of golf and working around the yard.  He's like the energizer bunny.  

We continue "The Battle with the Moles/Voles" and hope we have made progress.  I bought a product that creates a smell they can't stand - we sprinkled that around the base of every plant in the yard.  J. also added more sonic noise emitters.  We put in a call to the golf course groundskeeper as well because honestly, the moles were on the course long before we moved in.  We've been seeing 'diggings' every day but had (wrongly) assumed it was rabbits.  It's not.  

I make one or two trips to the casino in Reno weekly depending on scheduled free play.  I have a post in process about some of my experiences and revelations about the psychology of gambling (as told by a novice).  

Our great room furniture arrived this past Thursday and WE LOVE IT!  It's really making the house feel like home and we love what we picked out.  We're still waiting on the dining room furniture, bar stools for the island and the entryway rug.  Everything is really beautiful and really high quality - it's the nicest furniture we've ever owned.  

It's really starting to feel like Fall.  I've been turning the heat on briefly before bed to take the chill off the room and J. got out our winter down comforters and duvets for the beds because we were both starting to sleep with a stack of blankets on the bed - 

B.'s unit is finally returning home to Ft. Campbell - they leave Texas on Monday.  He's super excited about being home - and his main reason is he purchased a new car in Nashville while he was deployed and the dealer is holding it for him.  He bought himself a BMW SUV - yes, you read that right.  Couldn't really argue with him doing it - he's an adult, 3 months away from turning 30 and he saved up a massive amount of money to put a huge down payment on the car.  He's super excited and I can't blame him!  

H. is working for Dr. Pepper Keurig and doing well.  It's hard work - lots of lifting...but he's doing great. He's having some issues with getting a regular paycheck routine established - he actually hasn't been paid for a few weeks and is being told it's because a couple weeks where he worked a few hours they just pended.  As of this coming week, he's officially full time - so we hope that will all get sorted out.  

I spent this past Monday evening in the ER with a UTI.  The acute INCREDIBLY painful symptoms started around 8PM and by the time 10:30PM rolled around, I was terrified of waiting overnight to get to a doctor.  I also felt terrible about using ER resources for something so simple but there really wasn't any other option.  It was a new Moon and boy, howdy the ER was a bit crazy.  But I was home just after 1:30AM and while it was an uncomfortable night, the pain was much better after the first dose of antibiotics were in my system.  I have a followup with my 'regular' doctor on Tuesday and think the meds need to continue - still having some symptoms and don't want to risk it simmering for weeks.  

That's all the news to report so far.  The days are flying by - OH!  We finally found the bag of missing Disney Pins!  We worked in the garage a bit this week, continuing the massive cardboard cutting and general tidying and viola!  There they were next to the bag of my Disney stuffed animals which we've had since the kids were babies.  I'm going to donate the stuffed animals to the thrift shop - it's time to let them go.  But the pins are staying and I can add the pins I had in a box from our Florida trip in 2018. 

Travel beckons - we are both so ready to get back to Paris & London and venture into Italy.  And I'd really love to get back to Disney World!  Someday.  

Damn COVID-19.

Homestead Update

 I've been watching You Tube videos of people who are 'homesteading'.  Living off their land.  Lots of growing food, raising animals for food, canning and preserving, baking - even making homemade eggnog.  I love the idea of learning new skills and trying different things so while we are most definitely still relying on the grocery store for our food, I am saving videos to try new things.  Homemade eggnog for the holidays is a definite 'on the list'.  It will also justify the canning jars I'm saving for no reason other than you never know when you can use them.

It's been three weeks since I last posted and I have no explanation for that other than the days fly by.  

Landscaping took 3 weeks total but the finished result was worth the wait.  Here are some pics:

We are very proud of the labyrinth which we did entirely by ourselves.  It was pretty clear the landscapers weren't sure what to do so we knocked it out in about six hours split into three sessions.  Early evening or morning to keep the heat down.  Once we got going on it, it was fun to watch it come together and on Monday morning when the landscape company owner stopped by to check in, I answered the front door and he said 'hey, labyrinth making people!'.  He agreed it was awesome.  

The birdbaths are getting used very frequently - I keep trying to capture the spa days in progress on video but they are fast.  Yesterday, there were two blue birds taking some very serious baths - flapping around so much it just looked like water splashing - the bird creating it was pretty much invisible.  It was amazing and I sure hope to get it on video soon.  

A neighbor we hadn't met before visited last week to see what we had been working on - the labyrinth.  Her house is across from ours with the 12th tee area between us.  She commented on the birdbaths - how the birds will 'poop all over the fence'.  Yep, they do.  Guess what?  Bird poop washes off.  She also commented that in the future, we will probably need to remove plants because they will expand so much.  Um, no, we WANT the yard to be full of huge plants and are willing to wait a few years for that...and will take care in pruning, shaping, trimming when the time comes.  

When she left and was well out of earshot, I said 'wow, she's a ray of sunshine, isn't she?' to no one in particular.  

It's all how you look at it, my friend.  I've got plenty of things to obsess and overthink - but bird poop on our back fence isn't one of them.  

About a week after landscape completion, we have voles or moles attacking the plants in the front yard.  They will (potentially) kill all the plants - so needless to say, we are on it.  We bought some 'sonic sound' emitters which may deter them.  We've also ordered some nasty smelling pellets which they hate the smell of.  (Hoping we don't hate the smell of them as well but...we'll see.  If they keep them away, then the smell might be worth it).  I'm lining up a host of other options which may involve mayhem and death (of them) but hopefully, we won't need it.  Another non-harm method is using peppermint oil and putting cloth or cotton balls soaked with the oil near the plants.  We'll roll out any and all approaches in the upcoming weeks.  

The 'punch list' has revealed a couple 'big' things.  The builder has agreed to have all closet and pantry shelving redone - the shelves will be removed, cleaned, sanded and re-painted.  It's a huge amount of work for us and the company doing the work - I'm kicking myself for doing a stock up trip this week so the pantry has a lot more food that it did a week ago - but it's got to be done.  

My friend C. visited last week - while she was of course welcome to stay here, I wanted to treat her to some 'me' time (for her, not me) and got her a room at Atlantis and booked her a massage.  We spent two evenings and a good chunk of last Thursday here at the house hanging out.  We played slots a bit and I had one of my most extraordinary winning streaks on a Dragonlink machine with her cheering me on.  It was lovely.  During our preparing for her visit, I cleaned the pantry door and realized something was very wrong.  The glass insert was 'moving' as I wiped and then it became clear that the edges of the glass insert were 'shattering'.  Turns out the door is warped so they will be replacing the entire door.  

We're also still having issues with the 'combination' lock on the man door from the garage to the side yard.  And still have tile and grout work to be fixed as well.  

I struggle with the 'people here' concept of all this stuff but it has to get done so I'll deal.  

B. is winding down his deployment in Texas and will hopefully be returning to KY later this month.  His leave status is a bit up in the air at the moment because he's got some irons in the fire for where he'll land next.  We know we will see him before the end of 2020 - we just don't know when - and whenever it is, we'll be thrilled.  

H. started his new job with Dr. Pepper Keurig and is loving it.  He gets home nightly absolutely exhausted but he is loving the work and the company seems really great.  

J. had his first (of two) planning sessions for his radiation treatment and he will have the second planning session next week.  Radiation treatments will start the week after and so far, he's aiming for a 4:30 time daily.  That leaves his mornings free for golf.  

On October 7th, Salvation Army will arrive to haul away most of our furniture - Lazy Boy has most of what we ordered but the dining room furniture has been delayed until November.  We plan to accept delivery of all they have in October and then we'll wait for the dining room - no choice.  So we've worked on moving some items out to the garage - the small purple couch I bought online from Overstock.com a while back (way before we knew we were moving) is in the garage now.  J. and I flipped it over and did a repair of the underside where the cats had been scratching.  The repair worked fine - glad I had some fabric scraps we could use as cover - it's really a cute couch and if we had room, we'd keep it - but we don't so out it goes.  

Guess that's pretty much the news to report for now.  Days just blend one after the other and I guess it's a retirement joy to just let them flow.  Nothing super pressing to worry about and while there is always plenty to do, I treasure being somewhat slow on inertia.  After decades of always feeling hurried, rushed and urgently busy, it's lovely to just let the time go. 

Labyrinth Progress

J. and I went out this evening and got started on the labyrinth. I'm glad we did because it really helped us figure out how it will (hopefully) work.

 The landscaped areas in our yard have 3/8" decomposed granite for the walking paths and 3/4" mocha for the planted areas.  We were planning to use the same stones for the labyrinth - but had some concerns that the mocha stones were too big for some areas of the labyrinth.   Some areas of the labyrinth are intricate including clover designs at the end of each accent section.

We'd asked the landscaper to get us more small 3/8" stone in a dark color -that stone was going to be delivered on Monday.  But as we started filling in the walking paths with the smaller stone, we realized that two small stones would create  more issues with one area 'bleeding' into another.  

Here are pics in process so far.  

We emailed pics to the landscaper and cancelled the order for the smaller stone.  We let him know it was possible we would need more stones to complete our project but we will know on Monday.  

Free play Saturday for both of us at Atlantis tomorrow.  No more weekend food credits so we'll use comps and possibly go to the buffet for lunch.  Then home and once it cools off a bit, we'll head back out for more work outside.  Hoping between tomorrow and Sunday, we can get a lot done - would love to surprise the work crew by having the project close to completed when they arrive on Monday morning. 

Let me know what you think in the comments, please! 

Sticky Shelves

The missing bench arrived yesterday via UPS.  Haven't seen a credit for the 'return' so guess they figured it out - perhaps the lady in Wisconsin and I ordered the same bench and mine went to her and hers went to me?  Maybe she was in the same boat seeing her bench traveling across the country nowhere near Wisconsin for the first couple days and then it arrived 'early' for her.  J. put it together and it's a really pretty bench.  Pics soon.  (Waiting for the 'full effect' of yard completed and ready for it's pictorial debut).  It's really beautiful and we are very happy with how it's turning out.

The punch list guy Logan has been here off and on a few times this past week.  He is getting done with all the little stuff and it's nice to not have small pieces of blue tape everywhere.  He's got a great work ethic, great people skills and is such a nice young man.  

One of the issues we're having are sticky shelves.  As we were going through the list, we ventured into my walk in closet - which was hard because I'd moved a ton of stuff in there to make my room more accessible.  I couldn't move something on the shelf - a wood jewelry organizer that I had placed on the shelf - and he realized that the sticky shelf issue wasn't just the pantry.  No, it is every single shelf in every single closet throughout the house.  It's a lot of shelves. 

He talked to the job sup (Ryan) and they said they could have the shelves redone - or we could just use shelf liner.  I think up until he witnessed the issue in a bedroom closet they were hoping we'd just say 'we'll just line the shelves in the pantry - no biggie'.  But no.  I'm not saying that.  This is a custom built home and we paid a lot for it.  Worth every penny, blessed we could afford it, thankful it is ours - but having shelf issues here for the rest of forever is likely not going to be OK with me.  This type of 'issue' is a thing that will have me ruminating nightly for decades at 3AM - and I shouldn't set myself up for that.  It messes with the 'joy' of this house - having an issue that was created by a lack of attention to detail - be something we decide to 'live with' for years.  

So we notified Logan to notify the builder that we want every shelf in every closet in every room of the house redone.  Sanded, cleaned and painted again with fresh paint.  We will also be notifying the builder that we will expect them to pay for labor to assist us in emptying everything out of every closet and the pantry and putting it back post re-paint.  We shouldn't have to do all this again - 

I dread the work crews here for the next few weeks.  Dread the dust, the noise, the smell, people in and out constantly.  I was so ready - once the punch list items were done and the landscaping was finished - to feel like 'now it's ours.  No more work crew.  Time to prepare for dark Winter and make it home'.  But no.  We'll be prepping for dark Winter while moving a ton of stuff in and out of closets throughout the house.  Argh!

Before the landscapers leave for the day today, they are going to put down the labyrinth template and J. and I are going to try to start working on it.  We think we can manage to do some of the stonework ourselves over the weekend.  To say the lead landscaper (Manuel) is skeptical about this plan would be an understatement.  We're hoping when he arrives on Monday, we can (at least) have each space on the labyrinth template 'coded' with what stone goes where - and maybe have started placing the stones where they go.  We have decided to use a smaller stone for the 2nd fill-in (not the colored stone we're using throughout the rest of the landscape) and that will be delivered sometime on Monday.  

J. went out last night and dug a hole and we put Dani and Chloe's cremains in.  They are pretty much (roughly) in the center of the labyrinth and I will probably get a small plaque to put on the fence nearby in their memory.  Sweetest dogs ever and we miss them.  

Sounds like the landscapers think they'll finish up by Wednesday next week.  And J. has a procedure to place 'pellets' in his prostate on Wednesday as well - another 'holy crap, he's taking Xanax again' day.  

The amount of binge watching on Netflix occurring these days may be a problem.  I'm even watching 'dubbed' Swedish, Finnish and a host of other 'other language' based series.  There is just SO MUCH content out there - 

Feeling the Cold

Windows open this morning to let in some of the low 40's fresh air.  Cats are loving having the windows open - so much activity and added sound to their window sitting.  

California is on fire and the pictures of San Francisco with bright orange skies posted by my cousin are gut wrenching.  She was outside for fifteen minutes and returned home with her eyelashes covered with ash.  

The bench was officially delivered to a lady in Wisconsin - Home Depot offered to reship and I declined.  They are processing a refund and J. and I will trek to Lowes and/or Home Depot to find a bench for the corner of our garden. 

The backyard is really coming together and pretty soon, J. and I will need to be involved in getting the labyrinth going.  Can't wait to see how that goes and really glad we have help from the landscapers.  

I'm heading to Reno for free play at Atlantis, using our weekly food credits to bring home lunch and then heading straight home.  I'm in a self-imposed break (mostly) of slot play - trying to rebuild up fun money.  We've met our tier requirement through June, 2021 so I'd like to have plenty of money beginning January, 2021 to re-qualify.  

J. booked a massage on his birthday next Saturday and we've decided to use the money we'd earmarked for our 30th anniversary celebration (last March) to have a fun day at the casino.  We'll also head to the steakhouse for dinner that evening - if we can get a reservation for an early seating.  Then we'll play into the evening and head home.  Should be fun! 

Where's Our Bench?

 Received an email from Home Depot that the bench we ordered for our Zen corner would arrive today.  

Today came and went and as we did our nightly TV watching, I checked the order status.  It showed delivered but the bench is most definitely not here.  It would be pretty hard to miss.

When I clicked on the UPS tracking link, it shows the bench was deliverd - to Lyndon Station, WI!

Printed out all the confirmations and delivery status screens and will be contacting them tomorrow.

Will also be contacting the company we ordered some other outdoor garden items who have charged me for $200 worth of stuff while only delivering $90 worth of stuff. 

COVID makes all these follow-ups challenging.  People are working at home - or people aren't going in at all and the company just tells you 'we'll respond as soon as we can'.  

I ordered a Disney purse in June - used a gift card - and am STILL waiting for my order.  Emails result in a 'standard' reply - and while I certainly am understanding of the impact the pandemic is having on everything, it sure seems hard to imagine that a purse I ordered three months ago hasn't arrived yet.  Even more concerning is I have no way to get the credit back on the gift card - so I'm out the funds and still waiting.  Phoning them results in a series of 'we will answer your call as soon as we can' as you're being disconnected.  

I'm sure everything will resolve eventually.

The backyard is looking so beautiful - will add some pics soon.  It's so very different from any yard we've ever had in our lives but we really are excited about it.  The birds still show up looking for their 'spa' (bird bath) and we know as soon as everything is set up again, they will return and be so happy.  

Next on the list to get are some hummingbird feeders and some bird feeding stations.  

B. messaged me today which was lovely.  He's busy and when he's not 'on duty', he's working on his Arizona State University class - so he's got way less 'free time' these days.  He's pretty sure they will be done with their deployment by October 25th and he'll hopefully get a months worth of leave in November/December.  Might be home for one of the holidays which would be lovely.

H.'s new job is going well but it's a big adjustment.  He's considering moving in with a co-worker he's known for a month or so - closer to where his route will be and also half what he's currently paying.  We don't want him to rush into making a change - his anxiety's high enough with a new job.  But we'll see how it goes.  He's really enjoying the job and that's really good to here.  

J. played golf today in Sparks.  Had a good round and his group finished 2nd.  

We're watching a crazy movie with Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and a host of other big names.  It's sort of typical crazy Bruce Willis and J. says it might be our new Christmas movie.  It's called RED.  We've been watching a slew of crime dramas and J. said something silly was in order.  This certainly fits that description.

Musical Obsessions

 J. and I found a hairstylist near us - in the shopping center closest to our house which is an almost completely vacant property.  A pizza place, frozen yogurt shop, Starbucks, a uniform store, G.'s hair salon and a few other spaces that appear to be mostly meeting spaces.  

G. is in her 70's and is a fascinating, eclectic personality.  She rented stations to other stylists before the pandemic and since reopening, the shop is pretty much just her.  She's made me braver about trying a different hair style in my 61st year on the planet - and she was shocked when I said I was 60.  "No!, can't be true" she exclaimed - but I told her it most certainly was true.  She said 'you and your husband have such 'young' energy, I can't reconcile your age number with you'.  I told her she must made my day/week/month.  And said I owed it to starting to use moisturizer in my 30's and adding a renewal serum in my late 40's. 

I always enjoy the music she plays - she uses Spotify and says she picks song lists she thinks people will like.  Last visit (4 weeks ago), I heard a song that was just so beautiful, it gave me chills.  I kept saying parts of the lyrics over and over in my head to try to remember the words - but since the words were in Italian (which I thought was Spanish at the time), I didn't have a lot of luck when I tried Google searching like crazy to find the song.  I was obsessed with finding it - searched repeatedly over the course of several days - no luck.  

I went for a haircut today - which was literally a 15 minute appointment 'cuz I'm letting it grow a bit so all she needed to do was do a little touching up - and as soon as I sat in the chair, I told her about my quest for the song I heard last time I was there.  I described the chorus of the song as I remembered it - and she said 'I know what song it is, I think'.  She got her phone, played it - and sure enough!  There it was!!  Chills again - and thrilled to know what it was.  

I've been obsessing about that song for four weeks and hearing it again - can only be described as pure joy.  I always feel so darn blessed to have music that just brings me to my knees - how much I just treasure finding songs I love - usually, it's the lyrics - but this song is just a combination of catchy chorus, soaring vocals and two cellos in the background.  It's breathtaking.  

To me. Right?  Because you may listen to it and be all sorts of 'meh' about it.  Who knows. (The song is "Il Libro Dell'Amore" - The Book of Love.  Which it turns out is an older song and has been sung by Peter Gabriel and The Magnetic Fields, to name a couple).  The version I love is the one by Two Cellos featuring Zucchero. 

Music is powerful.  How much my heart warms at finding this newest obsession to play over and over is difficult to describe but how overwhelmingly blessed I feel today. 

I read the blog of an acquaintance who is battling cancer.  She's always known her treatments weren't trying to cure her cancer - there is no chance of that.  She was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer two years ago and started any and all treatments that would prolong her life - to have as much time as possible with her family - including 4 children ranging in age from 20 to 3 (today).  She shared she'd read her daily devotional and burst into tears as she approached an appointment where PET scan results would be discussed.  She thought maybe God was preparing her for bad news.  The news was OK - no huge changes good or bad - and in her case, that's 'good' because staying even is fine.  

She said she is choosing joy - which shouldn't be confused with happiness.  Happiness is often based mostly on circumstance while joy comes from whatever floats your boat.  In her case, it's her deep faith and closeness to God.  

Joy for me these days is enjoying this amazing home with all the beautiful nature that surrounds us.  Music to sing along with when traveling on the road for whatever - a haircut or a trip to Atlantis.  Joy is now also including what is going to be a truly beautiful backyard - and then nightly visits from rabbits and birds.  (We are pretty sure rabbits visited last night because some of the flowering plants are flowerless.  I can't be mad at bunnies eating flowers.  Really.  I can't.).  

Now Those are BOULDERS

Landscaping has started on our homestead and wow, it's a process.  They've finished digging the trenches for all the drip watering and sprinklers.  Yesterday, they delivered 13 fairly large boulders.  The two workers placed the boulders in a pretty linear design along an also linear design of river rock which is on top of the slight slope we have from our yard to the golf course.  That area was hard to plan for because without a lot of building up of dirt (in some small areas) and possibly adding a retaining wall (very expensive), it would be almost impossible to get things to grow there.  Largish river rock is the answer so there's about a 3 feet 'border' to our yard of stones.

The linear-ness of the added boulders didn't sit right with me - nature doesn't place huge rocks in any sort of 'pattern' really and while I don't expect our professionally landscaped yard to look as random as the hills behind us, I didn't like the two very linear things that I was seeing.

The landscape company owner came by yesterday and totally agreed - so he is here this morning to work with his team to get them to re-situate the boulders into more groupings. Even said the same thing I did about 'too linear'.  We sync alike with him.  It is hard to visualize the finished area when all we're seeing so far is bare earth and rocks everywhere.  But we trust him and it will be beautiful when it's finished.

In researching the idea of a labyrinth, I went back to the website of The Labyrinth Company to get ideas of what pattern to use.  I was planning to basically 'freehand' the design ourselves - so was looking at some fairly simple patterns we could recreate (or die trying to, anyway!) and noticed a 'template' tab that I hadn't noticed before.  And viola!  Just like that - they will place any design you like on weed fabric so you can then fill in the template with whatever medium you're using to create the labyrinth.  We're going to use decorative rock but we could have also tried plants, mulch, etc. .  

I ordered the template at 9:30PM Saturday night and it arrived Monday morning - from Connecticut!  We haven't taken it out of the box yet because we're not at the labyrinth stage of our projects yet but we will soon!  

150ish plants are being delivered today and we'll keep them watered until planted.  It will be at least another two weeks of work until completion but most of what we liked had to be ordered.  Worth the wait.  

We've decided to place the cremains of Dani & Chloe under the labyrinth.  Researched if it was legal and didn't find any reference at all in the Carson City ordinances - so we asked our landscaper and he said it's fine.  I feel a bit torn about doing it - because if/when we leave this house someday, they'll still be there - but it's OK.  It feels better than leaving them in our closet which is where Dani has been for a long time and now Chloe, too.  We loved those dogs and they will be close to our hearts as we sit in our lovely garden corner nightly watching rabbits and birds.  

Yesterday, the punch list guy was here most of the day working away on fixing the little things that have needed tweaking since we moved in.  He put up towel racks in bathrooms and did a lot of patching, texturing and painting.  He'll return next Thursday to continue so we're doing a constant 'eagle eye' approach in every room.  No firm 'deadline' for this process (yet) other than that we are very ready to not have workers here off and on for weeks.  

Today, we're planning to head to Reno to go to a nursery where we saw some other plants that our landscaper is having a hard time finding - we'll have lunch down town - free play at El Dorado and a down town adventure with a nice lunch.  

I made a big grocery list to get stocked up a bit - but changed my mind.  A website I follow is doing what they call 'Shelftember' - shop first from what you have and supplement as little as you can at the grocery store.  We've got lots of frozen meat we need to use up - and enough pantry stuff to feed us for a few weeks, I think - so we're going to 'eat down' our pantry and freezer before doing a stock up.  I'm considering thawing a bunch of beef cuts and grinding them up into 'ground beef' for soups and chili. 

Winter is coming - and while I haven't lived in a snowy climate long, I feel compelled to have 3-4 weeks of supplies 'on hand' in case it's a bad stretch of snowy days.  Picture a fire in the fireplace, cup of something warm in my hand and piddling in the kitchen cooking stews, soups and baking.  It's going to be a lovely winter!  

In other news, I survived my colonoscopy procedure and am SO GLAD that's off the list for another 3-5 years.  A week ago today was my prep day and it never fails that no matter how 'easy' the prep seems at the start, there will come a point where misery rules the day.  Adding to that this year was a procedure where I needed to be there at 6:30 AM with a prep step that happens at midnight 'the night before your procedure'.  That translated into very little sleep that night - but oh well.  It's done.  Yay! 

J. has a huge 'packet' of stuff we're going through for getting him set up for radiation treatments.  Like everything else in life, 'tis a process.  We're lucky to be retired where our days are open for the most part 'cuz they don't call you to say 'when would you like to schedule such and such?'.  They send you a list of appointments pre-set - way to get it done! 

I've been waking up at 6:30ish these days - sometimes 'assisted' by the construction crew working on our neighbors house but mostly just the small amount of light that comes in through the shutters.  While it's lovely to curl up and sleep another hour or two some mornings, I'm feeling like getting up earlier is helping me sleep so much better every night.  

Our neighbors were visiting their 'in-process' house yesterday - (SIDENOTE:  we LOVE THEM.  So fun and nice. Can't wait to have them for neighbors - two genuinely nice people who are very excited to have made the move from California to Nevada!) - and the crew working on their house didn't start at 6:30AM this morning so yay!  But I still got up!  Another yay!  

Time to get dressed.  J. says 'just pull on some shorts and come out to look'.  Um, no.  Bed head, tank top with no bra is not a look I want to show the general public.  LOL.  I need to get dressed presentably.

Plenty of Room Overhead

Yesterday, I heard Nala chattering like crazy - she's usually very chatty watching birds in the yard every morning but the volume and excitement was different.  I turned to see what she was excited about and there were two deer on the golf course!  They wandered over to an area past the 12th tee where there's a low area with grass growing.  They had a good snack and then went to a shady area near a house and took a rest.  One of them was injured - limping a bit and holding a hind leg up off the ground - and very skinny.  Maybe injured and has been healing - but s/he got around OK.  We were super excited and I planned to watch them all day!  

 

 

Walked out of the room for a couple minutes and poof!  They had moved on.  

 It was super cool because the golf course started having golfers use the tees further up the hill - staying away from the deer and giving them plenty of space.  

We live in such a beautiful place.

The overhead garage shelves are in and WOW!  We have so much room!!  We never asked the handyman his rate - didn't fret too much about it (a little.  OK - I fretted a little) but he charged us his 'neighbor, friend and family' rate of $32 which is a bargain.  $400 for 12.5 hours of work.  It was a big job.  I know J. totally could have done it - he installed all the overhead shelves we had in Tracy - but really, we are officially at the point where doing things that might involve a fall or tons of hard effort, we'd rather pay for help.  

We will definitely use him again - we will eventually buy an outdoor shed so he can help us set that up.  And I'm toying with adding some shallow shelves in my closet - there's a completely blank wall and I could really use some additional storage space.  

I trekked to Atlantis today for free play - had a good run on several machines - including a new machine that I've seen there but never played.  I saw a You Tube video yesterday of someone playing it so I gave it a try - did great!  I think I'll start using free play on that machine to see what happens.  It has a lot of potential!  I also played Lu Lu Tong - the machine was pretty hot - much like it was when H. and I first played it last Fall - kept giving me bonus after bonus and I was hoping it would drop the Major or the Grand.  Not this time!  But we'll be back on Saturday for more free play so...we'll see. I came home up $100 and I played for a couple hours so that felt good.  I also stayed the heck away from Dragon Link machines.  Gave it a go with a $20 when I first arrived but hit absolutely nothing so I moved on.  

Atlantis added plexi dividers between 3 machines that I regularly play.  My first reaction was 'yay!' because I was kicked off a machine on that bank because someone was there before me on the middle machine and I couldn't be so close on the machine to the left.  I understood - and complied - but no one wants to get booted off a machine they've invested in.  Unfortunately, the middle machine has such a narrow space between the two plexi dividers, you have to (literally) pull the chair all the way out, into a busy aisle, put yourself near the machine, pull the chair back in behind you and try to get situated.  It was challenging and felt a bit claustrophobic.  I used my free play on the machine and left up $200 (at that point in the day) but was happy to move 'out' of the center spot.  

It's always great to turn free play into real money -

After the handyman left, we went into the garage to marvel at all the 'stuff' we can stash up - and I decided to use the shop vac to clean the floors.  Dust gets everywhere here - the wind blows it in constantly under the small crack of the garage doors.  We retired our old shop vac when we moved here - it had served us well for 20 years and wasn't worth moving.  The new one we bought is a silver metal finish - reminds me of R2D2 - and that's what I call it.  Got the floors swept which felt great - and marveled at how much heat the garage doors absorb.  During winter, if we're ever cold, we'll head to the garage and stay near the doors.  When the sun is out and on them, they generate a lot of warmth.

J. is busy putting together the bench we bought (from Target) for the mud room.  It's a beautiful teal color with an off-white cushion.  We'll have a place to sit in Winter to take off wet boots, etc. - 

Good news for H. .  He has officially been hired by Dr. Pepper Keurig and will start training in a week(ish).  It's a much better paying job than the gas station - $16.50 an hour + $3.50 hazard pay because he's a frontline worker.  He's super happy and can't wait to start.  We'll be working through a budget with him when he starts getting paid.  He's got a long way to go in terms of budgeting, planning ahead and recognizing that having a balance in your account doesn't mean you have discretionary income to blow through.  

Last night, we had dozens of finches come into the neighborhood.  I noticed them when I could tell things were darting around behind me (from my chair in the office).  I looked out to see birds everywhere - darting onto the roof, windowsills and walls of neighboring houses.  We headed outside and watched dozens of them line up on our fence and made use of our birdbaths.  It was so amazing.   

Nice to Feel Accomplished Today

Last night, it felt much later than it was and I shut off my computer for the day a little after 8.  Muf was caught off guard - she escorts me out to the kitchen nightly and I surprised her by deciding to wrap up early.  I told J. 'well, I'm going to go in to my room and start to work in there for a bit before I call it a night'.  

I worked on a box that contained a lot of 'memory' items from my grade school and high school days.  Taking a long walk down memory lane and finding things that maybe I've seen before but had forgotten about completely.  Like letters to my mom from my teachers - all complimentary and special.  I didn't remember that my high school history teacher had written her - he was always a favorite teacher of mine.  I did presentations with him on history and sang songs from whatever period we were studying.  I had never sung 'in public' before, was incredibly shy and quiet and it was WAY outside my comfort zone...but with his encouragement, I did it.  Really a life changing thing for me.   

Also letters between me and my family when I was on my six week Europe trip (1976) and two weeks at NAU (Flagstaff, AZ) band camp (1978).  I had been awarded the band camp scholarship because I was the outstanding band student for my graduating class - it was a super fun two weeks made even more so because I had gotten over horrible homesickness during my trip to Europe - day 10 of my trip found me sitting on a bed in Amsterdam feeling incredibly sad - and something just sort of 'snapped'.  I realized that if I continued to feel so homesick for the entire trip, I'd be missing out on so many experiences during the rest of the trip - and I was never homesick again.  Ever.  

The letters were fun to read and I kept them.  I did (finally) let go of the box of slides and postcards I had from the Europe trip - I've never looked at any of the slides and 44 years is long enough to hold on to things from a trip.  Maybe J. and I can take six weeks and retrace parts of that trip someday.  It was a whirlwind of living out of a suitcase, moving every few days and also had classes every morning.  A lot to handle but it was an amazing experience and I was so blessed to have that made that trip.  Sixteen is a good age to realize that the world is massive and amazing and traveling is such an adventure.  

I missed my Mom a lot as I read.  Very glad to have those letters.  

As usual (in retirement life), setting an alarm to be presentable at 8AM this morning for the electrician resulted in pretty crappy sleep.  I feel like a nap would be lovely but the handy man is here installing the overhead shelving so it's a bit noisy.  I feel super confident he's doing a superb job and they are really wide.  J. already got some Christmas stuff up in the rafters.  

I couldn't be in the office this morning because one of the electrical projects was adding four plug outlets in the floor between our desks.  I've been navigating a zillion cords and two cats to get to my space and it's nice to have eliminated the trip hazard.  Since I couldn't hang out on my computer and I wanted to stay out of the way of the electricians (who were also working on an HDMI connection for the Great Room TV (which will be here in a week), I headed back to my bedroom to tackle stuff.

I've had J. bring in boxes, bins and anything else he finds that belongs in the house - leaving it in the garage makes it too easy to think we're further along than we really are and that has been especially true for the room in the house that has been the most challenging for me.  

While our house supposedly has two master suites, it really has one master suite and one ensuite - my bedroom is half the size J.'s is.  And my bathroom is one third the size.  Same for my walk in closet vs. his.  Yes, we've had words about it.  We technically had plenty of lot space to bump out the wall and make both master suites comparable size - and I think we thought about it for a bit.  But adding square footage would have bumped back the timeline further and added quite a bit of expense - so we went forward.  It's OK.  It's a good size room and the walk in closet is nice.  I've never had any bathroom 'all to myself' since before I moved in with J. - and I've never had my own walk in closet, either.  So....it is an improvement.  

But boy, I've struggled with figuring out how to get things put away.  Box after box of stuff kept making it's way in the house, left outside my door in the hallway and piled inside the room. 

Biting the bullet and digging in today was just what I needed.  Having the reason to just ensconce myself and stay out of the way got me going and once I started, I just kept going.  I've emptied boxes and bins, already started a donation box (and am quickly filling it up), done some laundry to get some new (smaller size!) pants in my armoire.  Now I have to decide what to do with some clothes - I'm down a couple sizes (lovely!) so do I let the largest size go?  I think I probably will but for now, I've got the largest size in bins and will hold them for a few months before I do another massive letting go.  

The cats enjoyed being in the room with me for a bit - they aren't really 'allowed' in there and we keep the doors closed.  Nala bolted for her hiding spot (which we haven't figured out the location of) as soon as visitors arrived but Muf hung out with me for most of the morning.  She'd try to 'grab' things from me as I sorted jewelry and socks.  She is truly such a sweet, loving cat but holy cow, her CLAWS are deadly.  She knows 'no' and 'off' and 'down' and for the most part, she complies.  Just stay back from her monster paws.  

The handyman just packed up for the day.  He will take a rest day tomorrow and finish the job on Thursday.  Day 2 should go a little more quickly - doing the first one took quite awhile but he did multiple measurements, mounted all the brackets and then installed the shelf - having done one, the 2nd one went much faster.  Only two more to go.  

Escape Artists

We're prepping for the overhead shelves to be installed in the garage tomorrow (or Wednesday).  We're not sure.  The handy man will confirm we hope so we'll know but in the mean time, we're preparing like it's tomorrow.

 J. returned from playing golf in Reno and quickly got going on his list of stuff to do.  He will travel to Tracy on the 20th to deal with cancelling our safe deposit box.  He had a lot of trouble getting through to the branch - so he called the general help number.  Initially, they couldn't get through either but eventually they did - and the bank will arrange for a locksmith to be there at 1PM on Thursday - J. can empty the box and cancel it.  We know there's nothing valuable in there.  And we don't intend to set up a box here in Carson City - we have a small safe now so we don't need it.  

After he finished with that, we loaded up the car with donations. I'd spent part of the morning working on the study - side note: we found ANOTHER box office 'stuff' while continuing to shuffle things around in prep for the overhead shelves install.  Holy crap.  I ended up adding a bunch of stuff to the donation box.  

I talked to my friend C. yesterday and told her 'I don't know how/why we have SO MUCH school supply stuff'.  And she said 'cuz you probably bought it every year when things were 10 cents or 25 cents or whatever.  That conversation helped me let a ton of stuff go - 

While we were moving things from the garage to my car, I grabbed a hallway runner (rug) to add to the load and went around the other side of the car.  Saw something moving out of the corner of my eye and realized HOLY CRAP!  It was Nala. BOTH CATS curled up on the front porch - we had failed to do a firm, hard close on the front door and they'd seized the moment.  FREEDOM!  The stuck together and ended up curled up with each other on the porch.  When Muf realized I had seen them, she bolted back in the house.  Nala stayed reclined but J. grabbed her and put her back inside.

Super proud of them for just hanging out on the porch and if only we could be sure that's all they would ever do, I know they'd both love some outdoor time.  

I'm ordering two cat harnesses and leashes so we can try to train them to go for a walk.  I know, I know.  Cats don't walk on leashes - but actually, many do.  If I can secure them and allow them some freedom, we're happy to sit out on the porch and/or walk around with them to give them fresh air and some adventure.  

I've been binge watching Broadchurch on Netflix - sadly, J. doesn't seem interested but I'm enjoying it.  Into Season 2.  It's a good detective mystery crime drama set in Great Britain. 

Blueberries

J. purchased fresh blueberries at Costco as something different from my usual request for fresh strawberries.  I was looking for a fruit that could be easily cleaned and not require a lot of 'prep' to include in my morning fat free Greek yogurt.  I (now) swear by a brief soaking in water with some vinegar added combined with a thorough drying via towels (paper or other) - it works.  Berries stay fresh for a long time once soaked and I can make them last a LONG time - when I'm eating cereal or avocado toast for breakfast vs. fruit & yogurt, the vinegar rinse helps avoid wasting fruit. 

As almost always, once I had 'different' fruit available, I didn't want/have yogurt & fruit for breakfast so I had an abundance of blueberries that I didn't want to waste.  AND (somewhat miraculously though it probably is more related to 'big brother' figuring out my internet queries), I got a King Arthur Baking Company recipe for Blueberry Muffins in my Facebook feed.  Coincidence?  No way. 

I made the muffins to use up a ton of berries in one 'cook' - and they are FABULOUS.  The batter was very thick (when compared to a store bought mix version of blueberry muffins) so I was a wee bit concerned.  But they are super delicious and that recipe will now be on the recipe list for when the kids visit.  Seriously - muffins made with fresh blueberries vs. the canned in most mixes is just uber delicious!  I had a bit of batter left over and I tried to turn it into pancakes - huge fail.  I tried to eat the result of my effort but it was awful.  The texture was just wrong.  Maybe should have added additional milk (more than I had added already) to think it out more.  The pancakes were gross.  The muffins get a 10 of 10.

When we were at Atlantis on Wednesday, I ran into my friend D. .  He is usually there evenings so I was surprised to see him around lunch time - we chatted briefly and he moved to new machines.  He was sort of quiet but...slot play is serious business to us both so I figured he was in the zone.  

He texted me late yesterday to apologize for being 'so quiet'.  He lost a friend to COVID on Friday and was having a hard time.  I texted condolences and mentioned we were going to be there on Saturday and he suggested we try to meet for drinks and appetizers.  So we're meeting at 5PM tomorrow - a foursome at Napa Bistro for drinks and 'small plates'.  Appetizers are 1/2 off until 6 - J. and I will call it dinner! We're going to head to Reno around 3PM to give ourselves time to use our free play - then dinner and home.  I will be the designated driver so J. can enjoy a libation or two if he'd like to.  

We had spaghetti for dinner and I was so hungry I could hardly wait to eat.  It was DELICIOUS!  And a nice bottle of Cabernet, too.  

We talked to B. today - first time he's called me in ages.  He's doing OK.  No new symptoms to report.  He doesn't feel horrible - and they aren't testing him since his symptoms are so mild.  We'll never really know for sure if he had it or not, but it's likely he does.  Many guys in his squad/battalion are quarantined.  

 

I'm working steadily on organizing the office.  We have way less 'storage' in this office vs. our Tracy house so it's a work in process.  Today, I went through boxes of pictures and culled out a ton.  When the kids were younger and we were getting film developed, I apparently always got two sets of prints - so I let duplicates go.  I also let go of a bunch of wallet size prints - I'd take pics and get wallets made at a local film developer - I kept one of each and got rid of all the duplicates.  That consolidated two boxes of pictures down to one so that was a win!  Then I went on a Container Store online shopping spree and got some canvas boxes with lids to use for storage in the closet.  We have so many notebooks, packages of paper.  I'd normally donate them to an after school program but....those aren't happening right now so I'm hanging onto things and can always donate in the future. We've also just recycled a lot of stuff - partially used pads of paper are in recycling - we have tons of notebooks and other paper so I'm not saving 1/2 pads.  I should.  The frugal side of me wants to.  But the 60 year old thinks 'we will never use all this so better to let it go now'.  

Speaking of my 60 year self - I don't remember how it came up but I mentioned I was 60 when I was getting a haircut yesterday - and my stylist was shocked!  She said 'no way!  You can't be.  I would have never thought that!'.  I said 'you just made my day!!'.  She said 'you have such a young attitude and so does your husband'.  I said 'I don't think he looks 70' and she exclaimed 'NO WAY - he can't be 70!'.  Woot woot.  I owe it all to moisturizer, hydration and getting plenty of sleep in retirement!!  

 

Looking forward to a fun, productive weekend! And catching up with my friend C. tomorrow via Facetime or phone. 

Alarm(ing)

Twice in two weeks I've had to set an alarm and boy, does it ever mess with my sleep.  Just the knowing I have to wake up at a specific time has me doing the math of how many hours I have left to sleep before I will be jolted awake.  (I'm never really jolted awake - my phone uses one of my favorite songs as my alarm so it's not unpleasant to hear the song.)  But...I'm retired and I'm rarely awakened artificially these days so it feels like a jolt. 

J.'s oncology appointment went well - incredibly kind, warm, fun people and his oncologist is a very patient oriented doctor.  Took lots of time talking through options.  J.'s urologist had really only talked about two approaches - internal radiation or removal of the prostate gland.  The removal is not an option for J. so he was leaning towards internal.  But external radiation is also possible - and it also provides a little added 'insurance' because it will radiate slightly 'around' the prostate gland as well as the gland itself which helps possibly catch any cancer cells that have tried to (or have) migrated outside. 

External radiation involves 8+ weeks of daily M-F appointments of about 30 minutes each.  That's a pretty huge time commitment but - how blessed are we to live literally five minutes from the cancer center.  Another couple there this morning was scheduling appointments around a pretty lengthy drive which they make on a Harley - he didn't want to start up the Harley too early in the mornings because he didn't want his neighbors to be upset.  J. could make his daily walk be walking to/from the treatment center and be done with both the appointment and his daily walk - easy, peasy!

We decided to ponder it a bit over the weekend and will let them know early next week.

It turned out to be a very good thing we had to set alarms for the oncology appointment because around 7:30 this morning, a truck and trailer pulled up in front of the house and started unloading equipment.  The company is the HVAC vendor our builder used so I thought it was possible they were going to start working on the ducts for our new neighbors.  But no!  During slow times, they also do gutters and I soon realized when I heard noises ON THE HOUSE that they were indeed going to do our gutters today.  They are known for being 'the best' gutter company but they are hard to pin down since they wedge in gutters when they are slow on HVAC work - so when they are ready, you jump for joy and let the chaos begin. 

We had no advance 'warning' and would normally have been asleep when people started putting ladders up and cutting metal so...the alarm was convenient. 

Excited to have the gutters done so water will be channeled away from the house but also to eliminate the steady stream of companies driving around offering gutter services to new home owners.  Ours will be done.  Take us off the list, people. 

It's a busy day on the homestead because we have a handyman arriving any minute to give us an idea about the cost to assist with installing our overhead garage storage - and later, the owner of the electrical company is coming by because we have all sorts of strange 'issues' as well as some 'add on' items we need done.

Yesterday, we trekked to Atlantis for our freeplay day - the buffet reopened and it was delicious as always.  I would have left up $180 but I finished my meal and left J. to finish his and sadly tried the damn Dragonlinks and lost.  But I came home even so....I played a bit, earned 5x comps and tier points on their money.  J. was up $50 - so it was a fun day. 

Haircut at 1PM for me.  Also need to get to the bank to move funds to pay for the gutters. 

B. is quarantined for 14 days with COVID symptoms - but he is fine.  No fever but some mild chest pain and headache - so they confined him to his room.  It's a hotel room so as things go, it's a nice room but...being cooped up for two weeks is definitely not a good thing for him.  Hoping they can test him soon so if he doesn't have it, he can be out and about again.  Poor guy. 

And an exciting bird update - there are birds using the bird baths pretty often which is so cool.  Yesterday, I went out and rinsed and refilled both baths and heard a small bird chirping away - like sending out the signal 'clean water!!  There is clean water available'. 

Keeping birds hydrated makes me happy. 

Letting Go

We're still whittling away at unpacking.  A trip to the garage yesterday revealed still more boxes labeled kitchen, bathroom, etc. - I wanted to run screaming from the space. 

So much of what's left is really coming down to just letting go.  Boxes of quilting 'stuff' - much of it I inherited from my mom.  Will I get into quilting again?  Possibly.  The 'hobby room' we sort of added late in the planning of the floor plan of this house was designed with quilting in mind.  But really?  I'm not sure I will quilt.  Maybe make some 'crazy quilts' to pass on to my kids and for their kids, someday?  Only I'm not sure I want to do that either, because I'm not sure I want to saddle the kids with 'things' that they will feel obligated to keep. 

Letting go will be something they'll need to do at some point, too. 

If I were to quilt, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't choose most of the fabrics that I've carefully saved over the years. My design tastes are very different now - no more 'country chic' with lots of calico, flowery prints. 

I'd love to learn to do 'watercolor' quilts - and while some of the fabrics I have could be incorporated, I truly would probably prefer to start over. 

Starting anew and fresh is why this house was built. 

The two kitchen boxes were easily unpacked and revealed some serving/entertaining dishes that I'd wondered about - now just have to figure out where to put them.  More canning jars - which come in handy for so many things (salad dressings, caramel or chocolate sauces, bacon grease, pancetta fat, etc.).  I may have a small hording issue when it comes to canning jars but they aren't inexpensive and while I likely will never use all of them at once, the variety in sizes also comes in handy.  So...now re-configuring the pantry storage (where I'd already placed a lot of canning jars) to include all the ones I found this morning. 

Also the yogurt maker I bought a long time ago - new in box, unopened.  Bought it because we didn't have a Whole Foods or Trader Joe's in Tracy and I wanted to try to make yogurt using almond milk.  Never did try it and in Carson City, we do have a Trader Joe's so if I want almond milk yogurt, it's easy to find.  We will donate (I just typed donut - and now I am craving a donut) the yogurt maker and the accompanying yogurt cheese maker to our local thrift shop - they seem more than happy to accept any and all of the 'stuff' we are letting go of. 

We have a lot of books and this morning, I sort of regret not having some installed bookcases somewhere in the house.  We do have a wall unit coming for a wall in the Great Room that needed something - sort of a credenza in the middle with 'towers' on either side.  The credenza can definitely hold books when it arrives.  So for now, like in Tracy, we are using what is technically the linen closet to house a bunch of books - and we gave away boxes and boxes of books to the Tracy Library before we moved.  I also let go of a bunch a few weeks ago - decided I wouldn't really be re-reading every JD Robb book or the cat mystery series I've treasured forever.  And if I do want to read them, I can find them on my Kindle in the library there so...time to let stuff go. 

We'd planned to go to Atlantis today - free-play day!  But decided to do that tomorrow instead.  5x comps on Wednesdays vs. 'regular' comps on Tuesdays so why not wait a day to earn more for whatever play we do outside of free play - which won't be much.  I had a major trouncing on Saturday - what can only be described as angry, pleasantly inebriated gambling - so I'm going to go low and slow for most of August to regroup.  Why was I angry?  Well....I'll read this someday and probably not remember so I'm not going to say.  Not remembering would be preferred at this point.  Family.  You've got to love them.  And I do.  But I was super ready for alone time -

J. was diagnosed with prostate cancer a couple weeks ago - he has his first oncology appointment on Thursday and I plan to go with.  As cancer's go, prostate is a 'good' one to have - and at 70 years young, they tell us he will very likely die 'with' prostate cancer as opposed to 'of' prostate cancer.  He will have internal radiation - small rice size pellets will be implanted and will (hopefully) kill the cancer.  The side effects are minimal - fatigue, most likely - and he'll be sore for a few days post procedure - which we think is done under general anesthesia probably at the hospital.  We'll learn more about that on Thursday. 

So far, we're all holding it together - navigating this new normal.

OK - time to get to work again.  I think we're going to load up a car with thrift shop items so we can get those out of the garage.  Every little thing we (continue) to take out is one step closer to getting two cars in the garage.  Next on the list is to hire the handyman who lived next door to us in the town house rental to assist in putting up the overhead storage shelves in the garage - so we can move a massive amount of stuff up overhead and off the garage floor.  Most of the overhead stuff is holiday related.

We culled a ton of Christmas stuff before we moved but we will most definitely be culling a lot more this Christmas.  Can't wait to decorate this house from stem to stern, though!! 

Health Accountability

I had the same primary care doctor in Tracy for the 19 years we lived there.  I liked him. He had a good vibe, was encouraging and always did whatever he could to help with whatever was wrong health wise.  In all the time I saw him, he never once scheduled a follow-up.  Not once.  Just did annual blood work, reviewed the results and called it all done.  I never felt 'cheated' 'cuz I never expected anything else.  He is a busy doctor and expects his patients to do what they need to do. 

Today, I had a follow-up appointment with the Physician's Assistant I've seen a few times since we moved here.  The reminder call on Friday sort of threw me 'cuz the appointment wasn't on my phone calendar - but I confirmed I would be there.  Set an alarm this morning - hard to do after months of no alarms needed - and got there but told J. as I was getting ready 'I'm not even sure what this appointment is for.  I think he wants to follow-up on a new medication he prescribed for my arthritis'.

He followed up on that - and did a finger blood draw for an in-office A1C to check on my diabetes.  I'm doing well - very 'under control' - but considering I rarely test myself and often forget my morning medication, I felt like I got lucky. 

A 'doctor' who follows-up and wants his patients to be accountable.  That's sure new.  He makes me want to do better - test my blood every couple of days, take the medication regularly and 'try to walk a few times a week'.

I wanted to say 'technically, I do walk a fair amount - frequenting casinos results in lots of walking - really, my Fitbit confirms it!'.  But I don't.  I'm sure it counts but....a 20 minutes walk around the neighborhood or hiking up the hill at dusk a few nights a week would be a good thing to do.

I dreaded the alarm most of the night - every time I'd wake up to go to the bathroom, I'd do the math of 'only [enter # of hours and/or minutes] until the alarm goes off'.

When it went off, I was in a vivid dream state - so I remember the dream completely and was looking forward to finishing it.  But I woke up wide eyed and ready for the day so that was good.  Made a cup of coffee, settled into the study with the door closed and eased into a Monday.

Maybe setting an alarm isn't a bad thing when it gets your day started a couple of hours earlier than usual.

J. is playing golf tomorrow, the additional window shutters we ordered for my bedroom (to cover the three high windows which let in way more light than I like at a 4:45AM sunrise) will be installed on Wednesday.  I will do a free play trip to Atlantis on Wednesday and we'll go together on Saturday for free play and a meal.  We have $3450 in comps - not a typo - and since most of my play these days are on comp multiplier days, they are accumulating pretty darn quickly.  I'm going to cash in some to use for free play at some point - $1,000 in comps = $500 in free play.  Totally worth it considering we have no idea how we would ever use all the comps we have/earn.  We could totally get rooms at Atlantis for any visitors who want to stay in Reno vs. our house in Carson.  And spa days - we could do spa days weekly for a few months, I guess.

Heading out to the backyard to clean and refill the bird baths - we've seen birds using them during the day and when I was at Atlantis on Friday evening, J. saw tons of jack rabbits congregating by our back fence and we're pretty sure they might be using them during the night.  That's the idea - providing a fresh water source to assist wildlife.  I know I might feel differently when those same rabbits end up eating my garden in the future but for now, they can come visit anytime.