Good morning ladies,
Nice to see you all posting again. I realize life can get away from you - happens to me also but nice to keep in touch.
Yesterday we said goodbye to beautiful autumn and probably the sun too. I think this is going to be a gray and chilly winter - gray meaning it will get depressing after a while. There is a big snowstorm out west. Our first snow of the season is expected on Saturday - 1 to 3 inches. My sister is envious, I am not.
I am NOT ready for this yet.
It will recover next week to more seasonal 50's and low 40's at night. We will bounce for a short bit until real winter moves in. I always feel for the animals. I have a few more plants that will probably get taken out this weekend. My African Daisies were loving the cooler weather and both bloomed profusely lately. We have 2 skunks taking up residence under the boat shed that DH is actively trying to get rid of. I guess the boat shed makes for nice protection for a den - we have had several animals including a snake, porcupine, skunks and foxes all take up residence there at one time or another. My best story was when DH threw some large animal turd he found in the yard into the hole trying to get them out. It didn't work
So it was really breezy yesterday. I had scheduled us for a professional photo shoot they were doing as a fundraiser at the Senior Resource Center. I really wanted a nice picture of me and DH together. DH was beside himself not wanting to do this. I told him resistance was futile. He tried everything he could to get out of it including almost giving himself a Polish grandpa buzz cut haircut so he'd look terrible. I cut his hair instead. He was getting annoying so I told him to just forget it already if it was so TORTUOUS!!!
He said he hated getting his picture taken and why did I have to post pictures of us on Facebook. Well I wish I was a hundred pounds lighter and 40 years younger too but we all age so stop being so vain. Sometimes it is nice to look back. Anyway we would probably need to get passports as they are changing the rules next year and in order to fly (which is getting less and less appealing to me all the time), you will need a passport or Real-ID in order to travel. Besides, we are so close to Canada we talked about taking a road trip one day. And this photographer made her living photographing people so it was our best bet for a halfway decent picture. So we got dressed up and went over to the Center. I thought we'd do it inside but I should have known better. There is a park next to the Center with a small lake and that's where she set up the shoot. It's a steep not so easy to navigate rough slope to get to the park part - not the best thing for seniors and people with disabilities and bad knees! DH had to escort a few of us. One of the ladies who is a friend to another is kind of a pain in the keester. Her appointment was after ours and she tried to butt in ahead of us. I thought we were going to have an old people fight on our hands
So we are taking pictures and at one point she says to DH who is standing up, I am sitting beside him - give your wife a kiss on her head. He said a firm NO. I guess he was not about to be a posed boy toy for this lady!
I looked at him and said if you do this, I will NEVER ask you to do this EVER again. So he gave me a peck on the head, not sure how these pictures will come out, I have a feeling his lack of cooperation is going to come across strong. And he probably gave that same no smile prison picture look he does on drivers licenses. If they come out awful he is going to hear about it.
Geez yesterday I put on a real shirt and real pants for the photo shoot - instead of stretch pants and t-shirts which are my usual wear. OMG was that uncomfortable, could not wait to get home to change - hoping nothing was going to burst or rip
Thank heavens I did not have to wear pantyhose
that's not happening ever again I think.
We shoved all the furniture to one side of the living and dining room so he could get at the big upper windows and vacumn the dead flies and check for air leaks. That made a big mess so I came home and instead of being outside and enjoying the last of the nice weather, I stayed inside and cleaned. I tried to tell Bimmy that she wanted to spend as much time in the 3 season room as possible yesterday because that was probably going to be it for enjoying that room for a while but she didn't listen. I went to a Finance Committee meeting earlier this week but sat as a passive observant rather than an active participant - and it was nice. We have mostly women on our committee and I thought it was extremely rude when my buddy was giving an update on the Thrift Shop activities that both guys were obviously not listening, interested or paying attention. You are supposed to have a mild interest in all activities, not just your little section of the world. The board members are like that too.
I have about 2 weeks until the dental procedure. Trying not to think of that because it is stressing me a bit. I am having some issues with the left side of my mouth and have a check up on Monday with the dentist. I think they just moved the pressure from the front of the teeth to the sides. There is a small space between each tooth for flossing and it seems they are all getting a bit loose and just a touch bothersome when I eat anything harder than applesauce. I am starting to fret about whether this is going to work or not.
I did get the credit card thing all straightened out. Not much else to say at the moment.
Ceejay - it will be fun playing with babies for a long time. And since one is almost a year younger, you will get double the fun. Give 'em a hug and play every chance you get to visit. Hope the BIL will be able to tolerate his treatments. Good you are giving the choir a try - you can always bow out, might have fun too once you get used to it.
Laura - you made me laugh with your 6 minutes on the bike comment. Reminded me I should also get in the basement on the stationary bike and NuStep again. Out of sight, out of mind but I just synch'd my Garmin with my phone so that will remind me to move. I think perms are making a come back again although I have always been told either color or perm - don't want to do both unless you like fried hair. I have some products that give beachy waves. You just have to blow dry your hair and scrunch as you are drying to get the loose wave effect. Sometimes it looks better than other times and takes a bit of practice to get it down. When you've gotten it right, it's actually faster to style your hair that way. As you are planning for your surgery - you should think about preparing some things around the house while you are immobilized. Simple things like showering, prepping meals, even what you wear and getting dressed take a bit more thought. Good thought on trying something less permanent in the garden to figure out what works. I wish we had done that with the fencing DH put in the veg garden but it's sort of hard to do temporary fencing - we mostly need to fess up and take out a whole bunch of trees. I was against tree cutting but, we have many many trees and as I look at other properties, I can see the advantage to clearing around the house but leaving the more dense trees roadside for privacy.
Speaking about privacy, we went to our friend's house over the weekend - the one who was recently widowed. She is living in the house her husband had built after his very nasty divorce. It is pretty isolated and set far off the main road. Definitely need to plow the driveway over winter although I think she plans to go back to their Florida house January through May because she hates the gray weather of our winters. I was thinking her house is too isolated for me to be comfortable with. I mean there is no one next to us on one side, and across from us is 100 acres of undeveloped land but our next door neighbor is close enough that I could run over there around the back if I had to. I don't feel quite as isolated as her. That is why I don't watch horror movies. My imagination is too active and I always think someone is watching me.
Anyway she is revamping the house - put in new carpeting as her husband thought the old stuff was just fine. She is completely remodelling the kitchen - and she is a vegetarian and doesn't cook much by her own admission. And she swapped out the bedroom furniture too. In a way it seems as if she is wiping out her husband's presence but then again maybe that is her way of coping and she doesn't want sad memories of what used to be. I don't know - was talking about that with another mutual friend of ours. Then again, this is the third husband she has had to bury so I guess she has her own way of coping with things. Life is weird.
Annie - I'm glad to hear that C is sticking to the plan. How are things with SIL? How are you doing? FInd anything enjoyable with the new job? Can't believe Jacob is 8 - boy how that time flew!!! And yes, cranberries are wonderful - especially if you are not big on sweet.
Hi Shad - do you grow shallots any different than onions? We had some local onions and they seemed more fresh and firm than the ones in bags at the store. I didn't hit the farmers market at the end of season - there is a vendor there who usually sells 25 pound bags of onions I used to get to tide me over the winter. Are you still at the mercy of your neighbors who depend on your time now that you are "free"?
Hi Susie - hope you had a nice anniversary!
Well I need to do some data entry and get on with the day. Have a good one yourselves.
What I was most concerned about is getting there and finding that because of a miscommunication, they would have to reschedule things. I am already fretting about this, don't want to wait longer and the timing of this is such that with the healing phase, I should be ok by the time the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays roll around. Not that I am planning on being a party animal or anything but would be nice to be able to eat comfortably! So I called my dearest friend who is a nurse and takes these supplements too. She suggested stopping them and then telling the oral surgeon when I go in on Tuesday. She didn't think there would be an issue with teeth surgery. I do find it getting to be more and more difficult to find things that work or someone who can do their job thoroughly. DH is having fits about a rattle in his expensive truck that Ford can't seem to find or fix. I think we will be dumping this truck when the new Toyotas are in. Still waiting to see the pictures the photographer took of us last week - I am prepared to be disappointed... And then we went out last Sunday for an evening with friends. Came home and it was night and frosty out. It was damp out too so there was a layer of frost on everything. I came up the stairs on the deck and as I stepped on to the deck I went flying. The bag I had in my hand went across the deck and I tried to stop dead as my feet went sliding out from underneath me. I froze and told DH to push me over to the side of the house because I could not walk without sliding and could not get my footing. AND I had winter boots on!! with a good tread. It's that 
deck that DH worked on. He sanded it smooth and put a coat of stain. It looks beautiful but is as dangerous as oh hey. He noticed this a week ago and mentioned it but I totally forgot about it. I don't know what I did but I hurt my knee and hip. My left knee (the bad one) was JUST starting to feel better from the cortisone shot. Now it has a very crunchy sound like separating a chicken drumstick from the thigh joint. It seems to do this whenever my leg is not perfectly straight and when it happens it gives out and is incredibly painful. And I have a pain in my right hip socket. I have been babying it and haven't gone to the doctor hoping it will work itself out. But it doesn't seem to and I don't have a lot of time left to get it checked out. I told DH we can NOT go through a winter like this and he looked at me frustrated like I am crabbing for nothing. He did both entrances this fall so I am stuck. He made a snarky remark about how I'd have to stay in the house all winter and he's lucky I didn't pop him one. Then next day I laid house carpets across the deck so I could get to the stairs. The stairs are ok because last year he covered them in a special textured paint. But even that isn't the best solution and we can't do the entire deck with this. It's going to be a LONG winter. 
