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!!