Maintainers' Ongoing Chat
 

Hello! :wave: This is the new chat thread for those who like to check in regularly with other maintainers--but everyone who's interested is welcome to join in! If you have questions, feel free to post them here.

Alice, so glad to hear you have got through your surgery just fine! You have a good attitude!

Dagmar and Bill, I looked into the Beck Solution some time ago. I liked what I read.

JayEll, thanks for starting the new thread! I hope you are doing well :)

My knee improves a little bit every day. The stretching exercises are painful, but each day I have more flexion and it's easier to straighten my knee completely. My goal is a 90 degree bend by Sunday.

:woohoo: Alice - you go girl!

Thanks for starting the new thread JayEll .

We have just gone back into a partial lock-down. Looks like it's not because the ERs will be overwhelmed but rather that so many people will be off work if we don't lock down now. I guess everyone had their version of the holidays and now we are all going to pay for it. I can keep working and will but I'm sure some of my clients will cancel at least another week of walks due to COVID exposure or illness.

Dagmar :eek:

Happy New Year's New Thread

We're also trying to figure out the current COVID life. All businesses around here are understaffed. Store shelves are looking spotty.

I've ordered yet-another N95 mask - one that an online friend says allows one to breath without fogging glasses for a long duration. I'm hopeful. All my favorite cloth masks are now declared unfit. At least I can be grateful that I can afford masks.

Thanks for getting us started with an undated thread, JayEll.

Bill I haven't found a mask yet that works 100% with glasses but I've had the most success with KN95 masks. They are not as good as the N95 but they do offer a tighter fit than cloth and they can be better adjusted along the bridge of the nose as they have a metal band that can be pinched to conform to the bridge. The is a bit of air escape at the bottom (for my face) and that keeps the glasses from fogging for some time.

Dagmar ::mag:

So it's single digit out there right now - 9 degrees F. There are two men using a cherry picker truck to trim branches high up in the Elm tree next door to my house.

They look FRIGID. Dagmar is the only person I know who might own the right clothes for that job, LOL.

It's - 18C here today. You're right Bill, I DO own the clothes to be out there. Just leaving to complete my 5th and final dog walk of the day. My hands have been cold on and off (thank goodness for heated steering wheels in cars) but otherwise I've been fairly comfortable. It's snowing now too so I'm taking my goggles along for the -31C wind chill and blowing snow.

Dagmar :brr:

We have both been sick. It's probably Covid but we haven't been tested. We're just "acting as if" that's what it is--wearing masks, distancing, using hand sanitizer when in public, but mostly doing self-quarantine at home. Fortunately we are not too sick.

However, I've lost taste and smell! And along with it, my appetite. Hm, a new weight-loss idea? :lol:

I hope you both recover completely and soon JayEll.

I will be offline for awhile. We are having some trouble with our home net work and it looks like my PC is the device affected. My laptop is ancient and won't run 3FC.

Hope to be back sometime soon!

Dagmar :shrug:

And I'm back! Turns out both DH and I have to shut down our browsers during the day and that should keep us under our internet limit each month.

I finally got on the scale and I am about the same weight as I was the last time I got on - 141 lbs. I'm going to try to cut 100 cals per day out of my diet and I hope to lose 1 lb. every 5 weeks or so for the next 6 months. That will put me in my "summer" range of 133 - 135.

I'm rereading one of Michael Pollan's books - "In Defense of Food" - to remind myself of how best to eat. He has a bit of a blind spot about cost (not all of us can afford fresh food for all our meals or have hours of time to prepare it) but a lot of what else he presents again makes sense. I hope to read through or reread all of his books in 2022 to remind myself of the "why" of food.

I'm going to try to cook and eat food as a savory experience, rather than just as fuel to keep going. This will probably only work on the weekends (when I have a bit more time and energy) but it's a start.

Dagmar :goodscale:

JayEll, sorry to hear that your household is down with Covid or facsimile :( I hope it goes away soon.

That was a quick internet vacation, Dagmar! Glad you've identified a solution. I struggle with internet limits too. We have an internet connection via microwave tower, which is unlimited but is only up about half the time. It is notoriously unusable in the evening and it can get bad any time of day. If I have a webinar or zoom, I have to rely on my phone hotspot or Verizon modem, each of which are limited to 15 gB per month.

I like Pollan's books but agree that he doesn't have much empathy for those of us who can't devote large amounts of time and money to eating. I get tired easily right now and it's hard to motivate myself to chop up everything for my normal veggie-heavy meals.

Somehow I've lost 5 pounds since my last scale check-in. I'm 126.5 right now. I'm pretty amazed, because I've been VERY inactive, and my tracker devices think I've been overeating. Maybe healing from surgery burns a bunch of calories???

A knee replacement is a big surgery. Maybe your body has to use a lot of resources to start and maintain the healing process from such a large trauma? Interesting.

Dagmar :shrug:

My bet is that Michael Pollan doesn't personally process the vegetables for his meals every day. And that he never did.

We gave up our phone-line DSL internet because it had become unreliable, and it wasn't because we needed a new router/modem. We now have a gateway provided by T-Mobile. It uses cellphone technology, so it's like having a "big cellphone" that only acts as a hotspot. Unlimited data! We only get 2 bars of reception, but the speed is 10 to 15 times faster than the old DSL! And it is very reliable. It does cost more than the DSL, though not by too much! The point is to have reliable internet access--why pay less for crappy service if we don't have to?

I'm down 6 pounds in the last 2 weeks.

Alice, yes, surgery makes a big demand on the body! I hope you're getting enough protein.

"I'm down 6 pounds in the last 2 weeks." That's impressive, JayEll. Hope it doesn't pass with feeling better.

Spent all day yesterday in single digit F temps. I'm now ready for summer.

I'm ready for summer too! Today was less brutally cold than yesterday but we're getting a big snow dump tonite which is going to continue into tomorrow. Blowing snow. BLEAGH.

:woohoo: on the 6 lbs. JayEll !

Dagmar :beach: :sunny:

Hooray for 6 pounds down, JayEll! My tracker app says I averaged 93 grams protein per day for the last week. I think that's probably enough. I could up it a little, but I seem to be healing pretty fast.

Bill, I haven't experienced single F digits for probably 45 or 50 years! Brrrr!

Still down 6 pounds!

Sounds like a goodly amount of protein, Alice. I'm sure you're feeling even better now.

I hope things warm up a bit for you folks in the north! We had it go down to 37 one night last week, which for us is quite cold enough.

Waving quickly before a foot of snow arrives this weekend. "Predicted to arrive." Snow predictions have been way off this year. But now they're predicting a Nor'easter. And that's a mean bit of weather.

I'm hoping we had our big snow for 2022 - LOL. We got 50 cm - almost 20 inches - overnight and it wasn't pretty. Still isn't - no parking anywhere and nowhere to put all the big snow mountains when clearing them. They used to just dump them in the lake but now there's so much salt that it's affecting the lake adversely. We need aliens with a melting beam. :rofl:

We are having wicked wind chills too - minus 19 tonite and minus 21 tomorrow afternoon.

Dagmar :brr:

That looks like a wicked storm. Hope you are OK and have power.

Dagmar :brr:

Hope you are doing okay Bill! The photos I've seen show a lot of snow!! :snowglo:

We are having a brief break from cold and snow for one day tomorrow. I'm very thankful for that.

DH is going to a funeral this weekend. His uncle and aunt were both killed in a head on collision with a pick up truck. He was not close to these people at all. His family hasn't taken the COVID restrictions very seriously and this seems to be the case again. I really don't want him to go but he feels he has to so I'm keeping quiet. Masking and proof of vaccination will be required at the funeral but I'm sure they won't respect the 10 person limit or physical distancing etc.

I hope it will be OK. DH has to drive quite a distance on the highway and that'll be a challenge for him. At least the weather forecast seems to be for OK driving weather.

I hope it all goes OK.

Dagmar :(

Woohoo! Trixie's biopsy came back and she's fine! No cancer! :yay: :dance: :cp:

Dagmar :cheer2:

Yay for Trixie !!!
 

Yay for Trixie !!!

Best wishes for those who travel around Toronto. That's a lot of BIG trucks. And the end game doesn't look visible from here. Hope you can find areas to walk your dogs, Dagmar, without air horns and diesel fumes.

I'm not working today so I won't have any problems with the trucks. they are concentrating downtown too so I won't be dealing with any of it. I am concerned that these people are disrupting a lot of businesses who just got the OK to open up again. Our City has been hit very hard by all the COVID restrictions of the last 2 years. We don't need another economic blow. I'm noping the large police presence and cold weather will "encourage" these people to go home (and get the heck vaccinated!!!)

Dagmar :rollpin:

Dagmar, so glad to hear that Trixie's test was negative!! WooHoo! Sorry about all those dimwitted people in trucks disrupting other people's lives. Sounds like Toronto is handling it much better than Ottawa.
I'm six weeks out of knee replacement surgery today. I can pedal the exercise bike without pain and today I was able to go down a flight of stairs normally! Still a lot of swelling (normal) but progress is happening :dancer:

Yay for the victory of a flight of stairs. Hope it just keeps getting better.

:woohoo: Alice! Glad your recovery is going so well!

Dagmar :yay:

I hope your recovery has continued, Alice!

Dagmar, I'm glad your DH got through the funeral.

And Bill, good for you getting through the storm, although from what I hear it wasn't as bad as predicted?

Watched the Super Bowl last night. Pretty good game--I was sorry that the Bengals lost, but Rams did the better job. The halftime show didn't appeal to me, but evidently lots of people liked it. Oh well! Could it be that it's not about me? :lol:

JayEll Glad you stopped by. I don't watch football but, since there was a big todo on Fb about the half time show, I viewed it on Youtube yesterday. I'm not a fan of hip hop/rap. To me it's a guy yelling over a big loud beat. Ho hum. The half time show was, again IMO, very sexist and quite mediocre. I did like the band, considering what they played, and the stage set was interesting. One woman on Fb said something like "it was amazing! If you didn't like it you have no joy in your life".

I beg to differ. :rofl:

Dagmar :shrug:

So the CDC says healthy people no longer need to wear masks indoors. Thank goodness. Maybe all the mask enforcers can relax now.

A couple of those 6 pounds I lost have crept back on, which is typical. I have no plans about this.

Hope you're all doing well!

Spent yesterday shoveling the foot of snow and the followup rain and sleet. Felt good. I'd just gotten the OK from my doctor that my heart was "Normal" so I was determined to put out the effort to show that it still worked.

Unfortunately, the word "Normal" sends me off to ponder: Normal for a male? For a guy my age? For a man who weighs what I weigh? Definitely not "normal" for a high school football player which I once was.

Would rather we import poutine from Canada than truck protests, but it seems like we're about to have our very own truck protest in Washington, D.C.

Yes, may you all be well. With or without masks. Or whatever.

:rofl: re the importing and :rollpin: re the truck protest. Ours was a mess and any message these people (who IMO were pawns in a political game) were trying to get out was lost.

Dagmar :(

Getting my annual physical finally, after a 2 year pause due to COVID. I'm sure I will be fine but I do need a hip x-ray (self-diagnosed sacroiliac joint problem that I'd like to check) and my weight is up. Nothing like finally getting on the scale to confirm why my pants are all too tight. :sumo:

Dagmar :mag:

Our truck protest pretty much fizzled. Overshadowed by the real suffering of the people in Ukraine. What a crazy world we live in these days.
I'm still under 130 but creeping up. I've been able to do more steps at home without getting my knee sore. In a couple of weeks I might try a real (but short) hike. Time to start burning those calories again!!

Dagmar, good luck with the physical.

I'm going to officially be a senior citizen after this weekend. Since many of our COVID protocols have been lifted I'm dragging DH out to celebrate. Dinner and then a live set of music tonite and we're going to go see "The Batman" tomorrow afternoon.

We are also having some warm weather this weekend and daylight savings time will "spring" forward in a couple of week. I will then rejoin the land of the living and be awakened by Natalie at 4:30 a.m. rather than 3:30. This means I might be able to stay up past 9 p.m. on some nights. :woohoo:

Dagmar :dance: :cheer2: :celebrate:

Welcome to the world of "senior citizen." Expect to now have all younger folks speak slowly and loudly to explain in simple terms that which you've known for decades, LOL.

I'm kind of liking how everyone gives me their seat. Calling me "sweetie" and "dear" not so much. Hoping to get some of the young'uns to show me how to do stuff on my phone! :rofl:

Dagmar :mag:

Happy birthday, Dagmar! Does this mean you'll be eligible for a government pension? I don't know how Canada works.

Alice, glad to hear your progress continues! You'll be out there in no time. Wish I was under 130! (Oh... but I don't think I ever weighed under 130, even as a young adult. Ha!)

Bill, so true! It's like some people assume elders are both deaf and addled. (On the other hand, many are! Just... not me.)