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.