Maintainers Weekly Chat Mar 11 - Mar 17
 

It's exciting to believe that bargoo's house will happen.

My challenge is to get my taxes ready by Wednesday to take to the accountant. Our business is handled rather promptly, then we listen to her tales of travels far away. I'm always in awe, and always aware that I'm one of the folks paying for those trips, LOL.

I've let the snow interfere with trips to the gym. Have called the shoveling my exercise. It is, of course, but it's a wimpy substitute. I need to shape up - Summer, itself, might arrive which means displaying this body at the beach.

Ah, summertime wear. I'm looking forward to dresses, not so much the beach.

It is an early morning for me. Awake tossing and turning until after 3, up at 5:30, DH is sick so off to take DSS to school in a minute, then back to shower and head out to work.

Ah summer :beach:. Is it really coming? I work at the beach so that's not a big draw for me. I prefer to go to cool ravines and listen to birds singing while enjoying a shaded warmth.

I am holding steady @ 137 lbs. Given the stress :yikes: of the last 6 months I figure I'm doing well. The weight loss to my 'summer" weight of 132/133 will begin after Easter/closing.

DH and I saw one semi yesterday. It was a wreck and lists for $400K. Real estate in Toronto is ridiculously priced. At the small detached house we went to next a little poodle greeted us at the screen door, which was locked. Despite repeated ringing of the bell no one else showed up to let us in.

I will have to keep alert for all sorts of people today who are sluggish from the time change. I too am not sleeping well but that's due to anxiety. I'm still not 100% convinced that the house closing won't somehow be stopped by my father doing something crazy. I am staying away from him. DH and I are plenty crazy enough without him adding to it.

Dagmar :crazy: :tired:

Yawnyawnyawnyawn! :coffee:

Pleased to report that DS was selected for one of the 8 spots on the swing choir! It's a little bittersweet because it does mean shelving the Boychoir for a year - and when/if he goes back, he will almost certainly no longer be in the treble choir. We agreed that we will attend all their concerts and continue to support them. It should be an interesting transition as my classical and opera-loving kid makes the leap into the pop, jazz and Broadway genres. :) So that concludes the craziness of figuring out the high school class schedule for next year. My work here is done! :woohoo:

It was a glorious weekend - yesterday it was 60! DH's large beehive was awake and ready to play; we were awash in our fuzzy orange and black bees as they stretched their wings and scouted the territory. Sounds like they'll have to go back in and cuddle up for a few days. I'm just happy it hasn't been warm long enough to wake up the frogs and the tree buds. It's the one year anniversary, I heard this morning, of the beginning of the long warm stretch last year that destroyed much of Michigan's fruit crop.

We have reached the end of about a 10 day stretch of carby pasta/sauce combos meant to clean out the freezer. Thank goodness. Raw veggies have never sounded, looked, and tasted so delicious!

Good morning! Yes, spring break is about three weeks away, and that means putting on a swimsuit. :eek:

My kids are home again today (teacher furlough day). Let the games begin.

I took about $75 in gift cards to Macys on Sunday and went through the 70% off racks like a gleaner, flipping through the well-picked-over merchandise.

From the shorts and pants that I tried on, I see my winter training has resulted in a curious problem: My waist is small but my thighs are, if anything, slightly bigger. Also, the wall-to-wall mirrors and unrelenting hard fluorescent overhead lighting is unforgiving. It made me not want to buy anything at all, but I ended up going home with a sleeveless leather vest and one of those long-sleeved, scoop- or boatneck stretchy cotton tops that I always seem to buy & then discard after I get a few drops of olive oil on the bust.

The racks were riotous with color, the spring clothes that I never buy -- because I don't do the resort thing, my wardrobe skips spring and goes straight to summer. Maybe it's because I no longer get an Easter outfit for church, as I used to do up through my teens.

I am thinking of Easter longingly, as a marker for spring. The little market down the street has forsythia branches and kitty willow out on the sidewalk, stuck in white plastic buckets, and also what looks like branches of apple or cherry blossoms.

Yesssss! That is glorious, and I have noticed the same issue you mentioned with small waist/substantial thighs. One of the better problems to have with clothes, I think.

I've blown up 3.2 lbs "overnight" - in reality I didn't weigh until 1 PM yesterday so yesterday was probably a false low - but that was shocking to see. Lots of BF's amazing parsnip-carrot-onion-celery chicken soup apparently = lots of water weight.

Trying not to FREAK OUT since this is my highest weigh-in in months, and I didn't get to the gym this morning because my body wouldn't cooperate with (A) waking up on time and (B) going to the bathroom. Hopefully drinking an entire pot of coffee will (in the short-term) make me less irritable, since today won't be a quick or easy day at work.

My birthday dinner last night was fabulous! We started with some sushi and then I chose the shrimp and scallops for my entree (FIL did as well). DH had the surf & turf, MIL and DS had the lamb and DD had duck. I got to sample the lamb and duck and they were superb! I didn't feel too well afterward (DH thinks the pain killers and wine didn't go together well) so I ended up going to bed as soon as we got home. This morning the bruise on my thigh sprang up--strange that it took a day to show. But it's huge and very purple. I need to be more vigilant in looking for dog drool from now on.

My, oh, my it's early! Not looking forward to the day. It is, after all, Monday.

Saef, I've had the same trouble with smaller waist and bigger thighs after exercising the last few years, too.

I have this problem, too. It makes it difficult to buy jeans, especially.

This time change is making me feel all wibbley wobbley, timey wimey (any other Doctor Who fans out there?). Plus it was raining when I woke up and all I wanted to do was sleeeeeeep. But I can tell spring is just around the corner just have to push through the next few weeks. I have a race this Saturday and so far the weather is showing high-30s with possible snow. But such is the life of a runner in Northeast Ohio :)

Happy belated birthday, Allison! :hb:

Becky, congrats to your DS on getting into the choir!

Bill, luckily my taxes are (for now) still simple enough to use TurboTax. DH and I got them done and paid last month. It will be interesting to see what craziness happens next year when we add dependents and take away an income halfway through! Maybe we'll actually get a refund for once instead of owing $2k.

We need to figure out what to do about making a will/advance directive/that kind of stuff. Ultimately I think we need to have a living trust or something like that, but I don't know if it's worth the effort to set up right now. DH got the card for his parents' estate lawyer, but the guy charges at least $1500 for doing your will, more to set up a trust. That's a lot of money! I don't know what the going rate is for this kind of thing. I should ask some of my lawyer relatives and friends.

Dagmar, maybe the person whose house you went to see forgot about daylight savings? Good luck house hunting!

Saef, I've always had a small waist and big thighs/butt. When you're looking at jeans, try to always go for the "curvy" fit if they have one. I usually buy pants that have at least 1% spandex.

Thanks to the folks who are keeping us updated about Gary. I am also hoping that his release from the hospital means he is recovering.

TudorRose, I didn't catch you on last week's thread, but I'm in Indiana and our weather was also great yesterday! We opened the windows so the dog could get some fresh air. It's pretty warm today to (so far anyway) but it's raining. Oh well.

My accomplishment for this weekend: I made one panel of one set of curtains, and I finished making pillowcases for some throw pillows. I think maybe I can finish the curtains this weekend, but I need some special tools to make ties for the pillows to tie them onto my rocking chair. Also, we finished our baby registry, so I'm glad that's out of the way.

I think these kids are on some kind of 40 or 70-hour schedule. They'll move around like crazy for a day, then a medium amount, then there will be a day where they hardly move and I start worrying, then the day after they're wriggling so much I wish they'd stop. :lol: Last night I don't even know what was going on in there but I think one of them was doing flips. That one got lodged weirdly on the side of my belly so I had this big lump in one spot for a few minutes. We get measurements done again at this Thursday's ultrasound so we'll see how much they've grown since last month.

It's not belated. We celebrated a week early since I won't be in town on my actual birthday the 17th.

Our attorney charged us about $1900 for a trust. She has all the "will" stuff incorporated into the trust. We didn't get around to doing it until the kids were in middle school (couldn't afford it earlier) and we've gone back at least once to make changes that were necessary. I don't think we paid much at all for the changes.

Culley the office cat is really happy we're here this morning. He's acting very kitten-y and is demanding a lot of petting.

Re: Gary update, he was released from the hospital but is in a skilled nursing facility, I haven't heard if he has been released from there. Our friend is not out of the woods, yet. C-Diff is difficult to treat. Angie appreciates prayers.

I did some spring clothes shopping this weekend too. I'm going to Bald Head Island in May and I need to have some decent clothes. I scored some great shorts and pants at BJs and a couple of cute sweaters at Target, so I'm set.

And then I bought a new car. My Honda dealer called and asked if I'd like to trade in my 2011 CRV for a 2013. It was a good deal, so I went for it. Very unusual for me, as I generally keep cars for 8-10 years. The big thing was that I talked them into installing a roof rack for $300 (down from a ridiculous $900). I'll need that for vacation, since I'm going with 2 people and 2 large dogs so we need to be able to tie a crate and a Sherpa pack to the rack.

dagmar, good luck with the house hunting. Real estate is high everywhere, but I know Toronto has been crazy expensive for a long time (it's such a great city!). And fingers crossed that your closing goes smoothly.

ICU, congrats to your son! Swing choir sounds like a lot of fun.

Jessica, $1500 for a will seems a bit steep unless you've got something complicated going on. As for your taxes, 2 new dependents next year will mean almost $8,000 off your income!

I'm off to read a book about accounting for work. My boss is irritated that I haven't read it yet but it looks incredibly boring. Ugh.