@MusicCandy @SadMe70 A place to communicate

I'm happy to hear that school is at least some sort of routine for you - and especially that you have a sweet spot for yourself. I imagine it will be fluid all year - some schools opening and closing to in person off and on. I bet it is at least a break in being home all day for you. Good that you are getting some exercise and that the animals are OK. A rooster? was that a mistake? I don't know much about it - I was a child when I was around farm chickens. If it ever stops raining I need to pull some more herbs and dry them , especially the lemon balm. That went pretty easy when I tried it a few weeks ago.

We had a pretty good week too, but my work scedule was all mixed up. My coworker was baling hay and needed an afternoon when it was finally not rainiung so i helped him out. But any change in my routine throws off everything else, and I am noticing that my wine is creeping up night by night. I know I need to get a handle on that since i was doing so well,.. its easy to slip back into the every night habit. I hope you can too. The wine just adds empty calories as we know.

I'm so sad to hear about RBG . I just wish they would wait until they get her body to the funeral home before the political crap starts up. She is such a hero for many girls and women today, no matter where ou fall on the right/left scale.So much of all this election and protests and fires and hurricaines is mind numbing. I just want to take a long nap and wake up when its over. Thinking of you this week - we start up all over again.

Hello , I was checking if you had posted this week before I get off work in the morning. Its OK because I've mised a few times too. As long as you are safe and well. I hope school wasn't too bad this week in your little corner!

I didn't do much extra this past week, dried some more herbs and took walks. I was supposed to have lunch with a friend on Wednesday, but she wasn't feeling well - which was actually OK with me - I was feeling like stayinh home anyway - it was raining. i did work Monday 7 - 3 shift for someone who was out sick - but it wasn't busy and I was sooo bored. i can;t just do my own personal stuff when the "day shift" people are around. They are a different breed of personalities. It takes 3 of them to do what i do alone all weekend. This weekend has not been busy eeither - nice for me since i CAN do my own things - exercise, catch up on e-mails and phone calls, read, and look up interesting articles on the web.

Other than that - ending September next week. I hope to hear from my Refi this week - it looks like it should be done. I will be so happy to get that accomplished despite the terrible mess in the back yard, Catch back up with me when you can. (heart)

Hello there, Sorry I am so late in writing this weekend! I meant to write yesterday morning then forgot, and then the day got away from me. I actually got lots accomplished though!

My diet has continued to be bad. My mom sent me a bucket of caramel popcorn from the beach and I ate the entire bucket myself in 3 days. I'm getting home earlier from work right now, between getting off a half hour earlier and not going to yoga, the Y, etc. so then I have dinner earlier, and then I sit and read but that makes me want to snack all evening. I gained more weight and I have to get a grip on myself. I am going to try hard this week to cut out the alcohol except weekends, and go back to my usual amount of treats at night. While I was off, I kept the bag in the basement (I have a cabinet down there for food storage like cans) instead of the kitchen. I might go back to doing that so it's harder to go back to the bag over and over. My exercise has also been spotty so I'll try harder there too. Hopefully when I write next week, I'll have stuck to these goals!

I hope you have a great week, and your refinancing comes through!

Hello, I did get myself together a bit this past week. I had no alcohol Sunday to Thursday. My treat-eating was good about half the time which is at least better than bad 100% of the time! I decided that on the 3 weekdays when my friend does not take care of the animals for me, and so I only have about 20 min to exercise, I will get up 15 minutes earlier, at 5:15. I have only done that once so far but I think I can do it. Otherwise I have to be exercising within about 15 minutes of getting up and it's hard to drag my body into that. What I find happens is that I'm ready to go by the END of my 20 minute session. Giving myself a few extra minutes to get moving will hopefully make the actual exercise time more productive. My meals were also good, though the meals are not usually the problem.

School is dragging on fairly boring for me as I am still not working with kids. I spend the mornings observing virtual classes and the afternoons screening kids for fevers etc. and bringing them into their teachers for individual testing. The testing will help them be placed in small groups, and then I should have gotten to start working with my groups. However, our school board is now pushing to bring K-2 back in person starting Nov. 2. The current plan is two half-day groups for 4 days a week, with no classes on Wed. Having half days will likely cut out all small group instruction due to lack of time, so it is likely I will continue to not work with kids. Our administrators met with all the teachers on Wed and were told that my team of paras would be taking temps on busses, cleaning desks between the AM and PM groups. I suspect also monitoring lunches since they will be eating in classrooms. However, they have not had the courtesy to meet with us, so it's all second hand info. The overall plan is in flux anyway, so who knows.

It looks like a beautiful day today, so after I have a leisurely breakfast (I like to make hot oat bran on weekends) and some time with the animals, I hope to go to the park for a nice hike. We went grocery shopping yesterday, so I'm all set to do some cooking today as well, something else I enjoy.

I hope you have had a great week, and that you are able to enjoy this beautiful weather as well!

Hello! I have done ok this week. No alcohol until Friday, and I controlled the chocolate maybe half the nights. So there is room for improvement, but I am doing better than I was for a while! I exercised each day except today, but I hope to get a walk just up and down my driveway later. Getting up 15 minutes earlier three days a week has helped me get more exercise on those days.

Today I am going to make a vegetarian lasagne using zucchini for the noodles, plus adding in spinach. I did something like it years ago. I am hoping it works out because I am taking it to my mom's birthday lunch tomorrow at my sister's house. I still think the lunch is a bad idea, ten of us from 6 households eating together. I had hoped to eat on the porch at least, but it's going to rain.

Your lemon balm tea sounds wonderful! I have some lemon balm and I plan to give it a try! I used to drink a cup of tea every night after a mugful of Citrucell with dinner, but that was too much liquid too close to bedtime. Even though I often have to get up to pee at night anyway, sometimes I was going twice a night with all that in me! I do drink it on weekend mornings and at work though. I love tea!

I am so glad you discovered the nursery near your house! That sounds really nice. It's so great to be able to support small businesses too. I hope you get lots of great stuff there in the future!

I like your idea of taking the big bag of salad to work, so it's there and ready for you. I have gotten back to eating more salad for work over the last two weeks also.

I might get to start doing some online lessons this coming week. They gave us the modified lesson plan, but they have not made up a schedule. Plus we are still helping with a lot of other stuff so I don't know. I hope so though!

I hope you have a great week!

Hello! I could have sworn we exchanged messages last weekend but I don't see any. Did we skip one or is my computer being weird?

I've had a good week for exercise and alcohol, less good for chocolate but not horrible. I have been taking melatonin every night so I am sleeping slightly better but still very restless because so many spots hurt. For the last two weeks I've managed a lot of walks at the park after work, 2-3 miles. The weather has been so lovely!

I finally taught my first online lessons! I've done three one-on-one lessons that started Thursday. I am supposed to have 3 each afternoon, but sadly the kids who need a lot of help often don't show up. Two of my assigned kids haven't shown up at all, so 2 of the 3 lessons I taught were to other kids. These were all first graders. I'm going to start a 2nd grader on Monday. So far all 3 went well and I'm very excited to be instructing again!

Last weekend my husband helped me do away with the 3 roosters we had from our batch of spring chicks. He did the hard part, and I dressed them. Then I made five gallons of soup!! It was sort of Brunswick stew, with okra, lima beans, corn, tomatoes, rosemary, oregano, and a little hot black pepper. We ate a good bit initially, gave some to my son, and the rest is in the freezer for easy meals. I have been planning for 2 weeks to make a casserole with a red cabbage that I have, with apples and maybe a sweet potato. Maybe I will get to that this weekend!

I hope you have been well and have been able to continue your walks and other exercise! This has been great weather for walking! I am enjoying every minute I can before it gets too dark after work. Have a happy day my friend!

Hello! I am sorry that I missed another week. Schools has been a roller coaster but I think we are settled in again. Our district had initially been considering the "blended" plan that many places have adopted, where half the kids come on 2 days, and half on the other 2 days, all grades, plus still having a virtual option. Many parents started to complain that they did not like 3 "asynchronous" days, so at one school board meeting, the superintendent presented an option to bring K-2 only back for 4 half days. This was completely un-thought out, yet the school board jumped on and approved it. Later some of them regretted it because now everyone was mad that the older grades could not come back, classes would have too many kids, etc. Twice more they voted to take it back but it failed, so we were full steam ahead preparing for them to start Nov. 5. Three days before that, they voted again and one person changed her vote, so now we are staying online until at least January. I, for one, am glad of that because I did not want to be in a classroom with lots of kids, plus the teacher unmasked while teaching. They gave us KN95 masks but they are too long for my face. The top of the mask pushes into my lower eyelids instead of sitting below them, and the bottom goes past my chin and the point of it pokes me in the neck, so not very comfy!

I have been working with a handful of kids one-on-one for almost two weeks, which I have greatly enjoyed. Now that we are staying virtual, I will get an actual full day schedule. They put together the outline on Friday afternoon, so I know what time blocks I will be with which grades. Now each grade will assign me to groups (or one-on-ones) within their block. That will phase in this coming week I think. So, I can sit in my closet away from everyone and still get my job done. I am happy!

I have cheated on my alcohol a little bit both weeks and had wine on a weeknight. First my husband bought me a glass that said "Bra off, hair up, sweats on, wine gone" so I had to be polite and try it out. I am still eating too much chocolate at night, but maybe a little less. My meals are still mostly good, and ditto on the exercise. I have been exercising in my room each morning, but not getting as many walks as I hoped after work. I was off Tuesday so I did get a lovely long walk that day on a trail I have not done lately. We are not getting together with our boys on Thanksgiving, so I'm thinking about going for a hike farther away that day. I have not been anywhere to hike except locally since February.

My son hosted a 2-day Halloween Dungeons & Dragons game last weekend. He had 7 people come to his house (sigh, he is not being as careful as I would like with Covid precautions) and patched me in on-line. It was a costume party, so I got to dress up! The character he created for me when he got me started playing online in the summer is based on Xena Warrior Princess, so I got a Xena costume with wig too from Amazon. And I wore it!! I drank my wine from a goblet that had dragons on the outside. It was really nice to be silly and goofy, in a setting where I didn't just look like a weirdo since they are all geeks too and were also in costume. Plus I stayed up to 11:00 both nights!

I can't remember if I told you, but my husband's employer eliminated a bunch of IT positions and he lost his job, so he retired officially as of a few weeks ago. Since he lost his job, he gets a nice severance package, and he was there 25 years so it lasts 20 weeks. We had wanted for him to retire anyway (he just turned 73 yesterday) but were nervous about giving up his salary especially with things like they are now. But the decision was made for us and I'm glad for him. I am making him pumpkin pie today for his birthday (I was too tired yesterday!) so I will be eating lots of pie this weekend.

I am glad you have still been getting your walks! So far the weather has been really nice! I too, dread the coming of the really cold weather. Do you have anywhere lighted that you can walk when it gets dark early? I have been worrying about that, as I usually go to treadmills at the Y when it gets dark early, but I am not going there these days.Congratulatinos on your refi coming through!! That is great news. I know you are relieved to have that over. I don't know why they make it so complicated!

I hope you are staying safe with the positive cases going up again, and having to be around them. I feel blessed that I can continue to stay fairly isolated with this latest school board decision.

Have a great week! I will try to be better and not keep skipping weeks!

Hello again, I forgot to say earlier how beautiful the virtual choir song is. I am sorry to hear about your boss's wife. That is very sad. I found out this week that an English teacher I liked in high school died of Covid. A co-worker's husband lost his mother two weeks ago, and then his daughter died unexpectedly this week. Although none of these affect me a lot directly, it makes me so sad that people I care about are hurting. It was nice to listen to the soothing music, so thank you for that!

This was not my best week thanks to the rain. Thursday morning at 2AM our water detection alarm went off. We put one just inside the basement door a couple of months ago. The outside concrete stairwell to the basement fills up and then runs in the door. Now that we have the alarm, we usually catch it early enough to set up a pump and use the shop vac. We cleaned it up and I tried to go back to sleep. At 6 I went downstairs and that entire half of the basement was full of water, and the other side which has flooded only once, 24 years ago, was getting wet. Clearly water was coming in where the floor meets the walls.

A water abatement company came at 9 yesterday morning and vacuumed for about 90 minutes, then set out ten fans and a big dehumidifier that they planned to leave here for a week. I went downstairs about two hours after they left and all the water was building back up again. They came back and took their fans so they wouldn't get damaged if the water got too high, and told us to call a leak detection company.

All our leaks in the last 20 years have been through the basement door on the far side of the house from the driveway, but 24 years ago when I was pregnant with my younger son, water leaked in the front side of the house on the driveway end, where the basement floor meets the walls. At that time, we made a sump well at the front corner of the house and put a pump in. It never got wet there again until this week, so we had long ago pulled out the pump to use outside the basement door. We stuck it back in that sump and when I went to bed last night, most of the water was gone from the floor. I can't tell you how relieved I was because it was so scary that the water just kept coming. I haven't gone down there this morning, but I feel like there is probably no more flood thanks to that pump.

In one quadrant of the basement we have several big area carpets down, which are mostly under so much furniture and piled up junk we couldn't get to them. My son came by after work and sloshed around in the water with me to try and cut out as much carpet as we could reach and haul it up to my truck. He is going to meet me at the dump this morning to unload the truck, then he and his wife are going to come here and help me try to get to as much of the wet stuff as we can. There is so much crap in the basement, there is just not much of anywhere to put the dry stuff at the tops of piles in order to get the the bottom wet stuff. We are going to buy plastic tubs at Walmart so we can put stuff on the floor (most of our stuff is in cardboard boxes).

Now that we have the flooding under control, we hope that the company will bring their fans back because the possibility of mold is a real issue now. So many things are so wet down there. Hopefully today we can get out a lot of wet stuff, maybe the rest of the carpet. There are quite a few pieces of wooden furniture down there that are wet on the bottom, but hopefully we can at least get paper and cardboard out, and other small things. I hope that this will result in us throwing out a lot of stuff. In addition to all these things on the floor, there are two giant extra wide shelving units my husband built over the years, which are crammed with yet more stuff. We just don't need all this stuff, but I don't know if I can get him to get rid of it.

Enough about my flood! I had some wine and went to bed. Today will be better, right??

I love that putting your hair up is a sign that something's up at your house! It sounds like you've got a good man! Here's to some good hair up time on Thanksgiving! Cheers!

Flooding update: the water continues to come into the sump well, but the pump is handling it. My boys and daughter-in-law spent the day helping us. I hauled carpet to the dump in one trip with one son, and a bunch of contractor bags of wet stuff in another trip with the other son. They all helped clean up for several hours. We have all the area carpets out, but weren't able to get up the carpet that is on the interior stairs, which is very wet at the bottom. We have a lot of the wet cardboard, books, paper, etc. out also and I can get more of that out tomorrow. We have 2 big dehumidifiers and 12 fans from the water abatement company. Lots of work left to do, but it's a very good start. My husband is still keeping things that I think we should throw out, but I have been able to throw some stuff away!