Made it back. I've half an hour before I am supposed to be somewhere else. This Probus club (club for retirees and semi retirees) has been taking up a lot of my time. The president packed a sad and resigned because the committee didn't see it his way, and even tho' he has resigned he is still trying to control the committee. Apparently I am head nerd so I get all the technical problems to sort out and I find he had delusions of grandeur because he sourced a grant of money from the local council and has bought a stack of technical gear and guess what, no one knows how to work it. That's okay, just dump it at Joy's place, she will sort it out. Bah humbug. Since all of the committee except for the president were new to the Probus scene and ethics, we are bumbling our way through the myriad of hall leases, certificates of covid compliance, etc.etc.etc.

So, apart from that, what's been happening? Well the sinus got a massive dose of antibiotics which cleared up a lot of the pain and mucus, and then I had to go onto prednisolone which doesn't appear to agree with me too much. So I stopped it for a while and went back to the doctor who said finish the repeats. Only two more to go. Then I'll either be in a coma or fixed.
COVID comes and goes and we have State elections here this month. Since Queensland is at the moment a Labor State (and out of the 7 States and Territories, only two are Labour held) and the Federal government is a liberal one we are getting bombarded with accusations of unfairness and stupidity because we have kept the borders closed to NSW and Victoria who are not yet COVID free. All the rest are doing just fine thank you. I'm tired of the news singling us out because one person couldn't come up to a funeral or for a hospital visit. This border closure is apparently stopping the economy from growing. Well hallelujah, look back at history and it will tell you that we will take at least 5 years to get back to where we were - and in my opinion we have an opportunity to make things better for all people, land care, environmental issues and wildlife if we give it some thought. Still since we have older middle aged grey haired or balding men in power, things will not change. Where's a women prime minister here?

I have been reading the posts from time to time - when my eyes stopped having the jazzy lines around them and I see we are all going along in a fair to muddling fashion. COVID is affecting all of the people in many different ways. I also see that Happy's DH is planning his lifetime trip downunder. I hope he has a good map of Australia, since the land area is bigger than that of the US and it really does take 2-3 days to travel 1" of the standard map. The tyranny of distance. Happy, tell him that as soon as he books the tickets I will go out and plant cauliflowers and put a box of mushroom spores in the shed so dinner will be ready when you get here :lol3: :lol3:
Seriously though, guide books are really good things, however the locals usually have some special spots that don't make the guide books. I went out on a jaunt last Sunday - had cabin fever so left home for the day. I went to so places that had been badly burnt during last years bush fires and so many people and animals lost their homes and livelihoods. So I injected a bit of cash into the local economy. It's not the big cities that I go to, they get enough publicity on their plight (the border is closed so I can't sell my coffee/ crap from China/ nail polish etc. I go to the little places up in the hills and much of it is very pretty again, but with a distinct lack of birds and animals now. Recovery is slow. And again in my opinion the only things people NEED are - a place to call home, a roof over their heads, running water, food in their belly, enough clothes to enable a change of them and some shoes and add in transport. Everything else is a nice to have. When there are no jobs, people are working from home, none or not much money coming in then pull your woolly head in and go for the basics, save some cash for a rainy day.

Okay what else - well the whole house is now fitted with Plantation Shutters apart from the sliding door which are going to be replaced shortly. Two major things came off the to do list, so that is pleasing. The family is all keeping well and safe and we have little family gatherings from time to time to make sure we are all okay. No-one in the family has been laid off work yet although my niece had a couple of weeks off at the beginning of the crisis before she got set up to work from home. So she is back to earning again.
Ruger the dog has been diagnosed with a disease called EPI. Basically speaking his pancreas is dying and he isn't producing enough enzymes to digest his food. So he got very thin. However we have changed his diet completely and he has been given some human tablets called Creon which are replacing those enzymes and he is more or less back to his normal self. Romeo the cat is his normal catself and evermore shall be I guess.
The garden is nearly finished. This month will see me pull out the last of the early tomatoes and the last of the second crop of potatoes. Beans are done and the carrots and beetroot are nearly ready. So there will be work to be done there soon. I'll leave the onions and garlic in for a while longer. Then I can turn over the soil and fertilise and mulch heavily for the summer and plant again next autumn.

I think that is about it. Adelaide family are doing okay although getting hacked off with the never ending saga of the house. DS1 calls it the house that does not want to be built. Shortages of materials, discontinuing lines without letting the owners know so they can go pick something else etc.
I think we just skipped Spring and went straight to summer - although the humidity is not too bad yet and the mornings are still delightfully cool. No doubt that will change, and we badly need rain again. It's either a feast or a famine around here - mostly famine.

Okay, that's it, I'm off, got to go see a man about some microphones, then come back here to water the yard again, check out suppliers of security screens and chop another branch off the Calistemon tree.
I'll try not to be too long getting back here again. I did think of you all and even picked up the phone to call Happy once, but then the nose started bleeding again and that was the end of that. I will get to it one of these days. Be good, be careful, wear a mask - not just for your own health, for the sake of others too.
Annie :wave: Laura :wave: Ceejay :wave: Happy :wave: Susie :wave: (congrats on the weight loss by the way)

Good Afternoon,

Some much needed good news and excitement. I did get the offer from another company and I accepted. I put in my two week notice here tomorrow. Start my new job on October 26. I am so excited and I am sure I will love it. I will be the BOA-Business Office Administor for an Edward Jones office. Money is a bit better, not a lot but better, same insurance. I am rather happy about it all. There is an opportunity 4x a year, which will make it a LOT more $$ than I make here. Very nice. It will be just me and the financial advisor and a trainee advisor. THIS IS STILL UNDER WRAPS FOR NOW. Nothing on FB please.

I will post more later tomorrow. I need to get things done here. Just wanted to update you all with some good news for a change!! :)

Thank you for all the sisterly love, prayers and good vibes!

4x a year bonus, sorry left that word out of the sentence.

Woohoo Annie

Great news Annie!! :) :) :)

Annie, this is fantastic news!!! Congratulations!!

Good morning all,

:yay: Annie :congratulations: That is wonderful news. I didn't realize you were looking. How wonderful to snag something at this time when I imagine things would be on the quieter side on the job front. I hope you will be very happy. They are soon to find out how lucky they will be to have you as you are a on the ball, think ahead kind of lady. And I'm sure your past experience will help too. My first thought after yay was that you will be in a small office - less opportunity for others to annoy you. And if you are going to be one of the very few in the office doing everything, you might as well be the manager ;) Can't wait to hear how it goes. FINALLY you get a break you righteously deserve. So happy for you :hug: Will your commute be easier?

Shad - good to hear you are muddling along. Sounds like you deal with the same political battles that we do here in the states. People have lost their darn minds and I am so tired of the push back on the virus which is politically motivated. Meanwhile we are the 3rd highest new outbreak in the USA. We have cases in my little neck of the woods but thank goodness are mild and people are quarantining at home so because people are not actually DYING, the majority of fools here are more concerned about driving around in their big trucks with big trump flags in an effort to intimidate all while crying about their freedoms being trampled. Can't wait for this to be over. I'm not sure about the virus if people don't step up and just do what they have to. I hear you on the need for a leader with common sense. I'm sorry to hear about Ruger. That had to be difficult to watch as he thinned out. So glad they found him a treatment that looks to be working for him. :crossed: Smiled at your comment about tech guru. It's funny that we have come so far, computers are a part of everyday life and still there are a great many who are woefully unskilled or terrified of them. Your skills and time will be in high demand. Bummer on the woes of DS's new home. I swear that is an omen. The man who built our current house was not a pleasant fellow. His wife was a sweet lady - he was the opposite. They built this house during the housing boom and then the real estate market crashed and they owed more than the house was worth so he divorced his wife (she was in her 70's !!), walked away from the house to avoid his debts. There were some (and still occasionally are) days in this house where I consider "bad juju" in here that affected DH and I in our relationship. I needed some crosses, sage and special stones to ward it off :lol: However I do think there are some underlying things that affect a property. I hope that is not the case with your son's new home. As for notifications on the in box, I find I get some from this site but not all. I saw the notification from Laura but not from you and certainly not from Annie. I guess best to just check in every once in a while.

Laura - DH would be flattered that you use his photo. He is fine with people admiring them, just of course does not want anyone to sell them for commercial gain which is why he puts a signature or watermark on them. If one of his photos has such, let me know which and I will email you a copy sans markings. To your question, no I have not gotten on my new high bed yet. Today is the day. I have to find a step that is safe to use and clear out some of my shoes under the bed - today's the day for that prep work. Meanwhile the cats think mummy bought them a nice, new bed - WRONG. I will have to push them all to DH's side of the bed :rofl: Glad you had a good time in Galena, we always enjoyed our weekend getaway trips up to that area. Sorry your friends could not be more outdoors active, I can commiserate - that's me now and it bugs me a great deal that I am so compromised. Still it sounds as if you had a much needed getaway and a chance to relax and enjoy yourself.

Hello to the rest of you ladies :wave:

Nothing exciting going on in my life. My knee if giving me fits. I am trying to do the NuStep and my knee is complaining after 10 minutes. I think I have gotten away from the things I need to focus on for recovery. Since this is soft tissue aches, I should be able to control it. Cooler weather brings on more aches which doesn't help. And this is the height of my allergy season so dealing with sinus congestion, stuffy nose, scratchy throat and headaches with the occasional vertigo. This will last until a couple of good long frosts to destroy the mold spores outside. At least it's not Covid.

DH and I took a couple of drives - we are trying to go out at least once a week to enjoy the last days of nice weather. The colors this fall have been brilliant and we have really enjoyed them. I don't know why DH is not posting more pictures. He is very critical and frankly he deems so many not good enough that I think are just fine so I tell him we all lose out! I am keeping my work with the Humane Society at arms length. SO much drama at the shop I don't want to go in there so I go after hours or at closing to pick up my paperwork to process. They are doing very well taking in the money so that's a good thing. We had an online auction this past week and yesterday I played cashier for those picking up their items. I managed to buy one of DH's donations (I was trying to bid up the price a bit) and also got a nice watercolor framed print of poppies. I have several framed prints I need to hang. It's just a hassle because when I ask DH to hang them he asks why we don't have more of HIS work hanging :rolleyes: and doesn't like my arrangement and it's just very frustrating so the pictures sit against the wall. I really need to get my act together this winter and do some major redecorating. We have gone to the apple orchards and I made a batch of apple sauce that came out delicious. Made 4 quarts, gave one away, ate one. I have enough apples to make another 4 quarts which I will probably do this week. I should get in the habit of eating a plain apple each day or so. I got some fresh cranberries too so will have to make some chutney and sauce. Two weeks ago I picked up a bag of salad mix that had a tangerine vinaigrette dressing. I finally made the salad (had to toss the greens because I forgot about it) but used the dressing and added fresh romaine lettuce, slivered almonds, added some chopped fresh tangerines which I zested before I cut them up. The salad mix had a packet of shaved cheese bits also. Served it with chicken kiev and DH just loved the salad. Of course that was a seasonal salad mix but I was able to order a bottle of tangerine balsamic vinegar from one of my favorite oil and vinegar stores. So hoping to make a nice recreation of that dressing and enjoy another tangerine salad with pork chops tonight. I realize we barely grilled this year which was odd because we were home so much. This year actually did pass quickly in retrospect. I am on a Housing Board that was not supposed to require much of my time. Until I joined that is :rofl: There is an incident which we need to meet on so had to rearrange my tomorrow for it. Still trying to get to swimming once a week. Not going down to visit my Mom. BIL is acting as landlord for his dad's apartment building while he is recovering from medical issues. BIL found out the tenant he talked to for about an hour tested positive for Covid so he and sis are laying low. They all had the virus earlier but I don't need to risk any possible exposure. As such everyone is keeping at bay from my Mom out of concern.

So with that I will post this and head to the next task at hand. Stay safe and healthy everyone.

HOWDIE!!

Thank you for all the congrats! Sent my resignation letter to my branch manager last Friday the 9th and he is yet to respond or acknowledge it. I know HR knows cause they have sent me an exit survey. All that just makes me know I made the right decision to move on. All the other bossy "managers" have not said anything either. I know they also know cause I asked one of them. She said yes the grapevine is active. So no one really cares that I am leaving. Good cause I care about my mental health and happiness.

HAPPY...yes indeed. The new place is about 10 minutes closer to my house and I do not have to get on 465 highway. I can just scoot along back roads. I did a couple of test runs, it may be right at 20 mins from the house. My new boss has called and/or texted me every week just to chat. We are on week 3, so far a phone call and then a text this morning to see how Cs heart test went yesterday. Cs heart test was ok I guess as they did not send him on to the hospital or anything. Plus he went out fishing last evening on our pond. His job is sucking and his boss is a dingbat.

SHADDIE...glad Ruger is getting all situated. I have more sympathy for animals on most days than people. lol

Took they boys to the pumpkin patch yesterday afternoon. We were the only ones there. It was weird like a syfi movie. Couple of other mom friends of Samantha went and their kids. It was a very nice sunshiny 70 degree day. Petting zoo, slides, haystacks, kids had a ball.

Not much else going on around here. Stay healthy.

Congratulations Annie

Evening all. Happy Friday. Thinking back to last Friday when the weather was in the low 80’s and just gorgeous, and it was followed by a fabulous Saturday and Sunday in the 70’s. The colors are gorgeous. When the sun shines, the trees glow! Last Saturday I went back to the nature preserve, and brought bf with me for a walk around the paths and trails. It was later in the afternoon, after a lot of people had already gone. It was wonderful. We are having much more fall-like weather this week. Kind of chilly and gloomy, and really blustery too. Oh well, it had to happen sometime…

Shad – Head nerd! :lol: == I’m glad the sinus woes have been successfully treated. == What are the jazzy lines around your eyes?? I hope there isn’t an issue. I’ve had my new progressive lens eyeglasses for probably a couple months now and I don’t think they’re quite right. Not horrible, but some eyestrain. Or maybe I just spend too much time looking at my phone when I’m not looking at my computer screen! == I do agree with you that we really don’t need all that much in the way of material goods. Bf and I are at the point in our house that after 20 years in it, it’s getting full! With the start of my WFH in mid-March, I was focused on making room for my computer setup. Now I need to make space for the relatively sparse amount of paper I’ve generated from work. So now I need to empty out space from one of the file drawers in the home office. Guess I’ll finally purge all those old tax returns, lol. And the basement has filled up too, so the “indoor season” will be a good opportunity to do a purge. == BF has commented that we just need to take a match to it, and I know he’s being facetious…but I also know that he’ll probably want to toss items that I think should just be donated or even sold. We’ll fight those battles when we come to them, I’m sure. == I’m glad your family is staying safe and healthy. == I hope Ruger continues to thrive with the enzyme tablets and his revamped diet!

Happy – Gosh, I do think you should have someone to the house to do that smudging or whatever they call it, and maybe call in a house whisperer (I saw one on House Hunters, LOL)!! == So how is that new high bed? Instead of steps, maybe you just need one of those springboards that the gymnasts use to leap to the vault!! :rofl: Just be careful with the knee. Sorry to hear it’s giving you trouble. Will you get into the hot tub to relieve the pain? == I’m glad to not have much in the way of fall allergies, or I’m just not around the things that I react to. BF was happy to get a little flyer left by our door from an enterprising teen in our area that’s willing to rake leaves. Our big oak has barely dropped any yet, but the leaf mold is an issue for me, so if that kid’s willing to rake, we’re willing to pay! == Having enjoyed the scenery so much in Galena, I’m envious of how much beauty you have up close and personal to you. Please urge your DH to keep posting his photos so he can share the beauty with all of us urban and suburban dwellers!! == Hope your BIL is okay, along with the rest of the family! The positivity rate is back up in our area and we have to remain diligent.

Annie – The response from the managers to your resignation notice is crummy. Well, good riddance to them!! I thought when you went back to that company that it would be a good thing to have the tenure for benefits purposes, but you obviously weren’t at all happy in your position, so that’s that. I hope you love this new job. Sounds like your new boss is communicative, so that’s good! And yay for a shorter commute!! Are you taking any time off before you start the new gig? == I’m glad C’s heart test went alright. == Awww, the pumpkin patch. Sounds fun. I’d say it would be fun to carve a pumpkin like I did a few years ago, but now that I think about it…it wasn’t fun scooping all the goop and seed out of it…

Hellos to Ceejay and Susie!! :wave: Miss you!

Not a whole lot going on. Work is work. I’ve been slacking on the exercise lately. I’m sort of wanting to do what a friend of mine did – take small group personal training classes at a small gym – but she told me a couple of days ago that the gym was closed for two weeks because of a covid outbreak there. Anyway, I need to get back in the exercise groove somehow. Still logging all my eating. Not losing weight, just up and down a few pounds. Need to work on more home-cooked meals as the carryout stuff we get is generally not light or healthy.

So we’ve had the pantry emptied out all week and the contents sitting in the kitchen, dining room, and 3-season room. Bf is installing a new shelving system. What’s taking so long is that we’d never painted it when we moved in (insert blushing emoji here), so the walls were really ugly, especially after removing all the shelf supports for the old wooden shelves. There was a lot of patching to do, and then the painting, both interspersed with drying time. But today is finally the day that the new shelves go in!

Last Sunday I was browsing my FB garage sale groups and came across a cabinet from the same Ethan Allen collection (vintage, i.e., 70’s era) as my sewing cabinet, so I quickly snatched it up. It sat in the garage all week and a couple days ago I wiped it down inside and out. It was cheap, in great shape, and it’s just the right size to fit in the spare bedroom with the sewing cabinet, which it matches exactly. I’m happy about that since I’ve kind of been looking for a small cabinet to serve as a side table for the daybed in that room, as well as additional storage for my sewing stuff. Even better, when we clean out the basement, bf will move his keyboard setup out of that spare bedroom. That really makes me happy because I hate seeing all that electronic equipment!

Nothing exciting planned for this weekend, just a lot of to-do's around the house. Hope you all have a good weekend! TTFN.

Good morning ladies,


Happy Sunday Funday. It's sunny but chilly out here. Frost on the deck. Woke up to snow the last 2 days. I'm not ready for snow. But it melted during the day. Won't be long before it sticks around. I can't wait until the election is over in 17 days. I live in crazy town here - very sad trumpie land. They are having a big parade (Covid give away ;) ) on Halloween. The nut bags are fighting every single regulation that is passed by our poor governor and local authorities to control the virus outbreak. This constant lawsuit, pushback and repeal is why my state is number ONE in Covid outbreaks. :yay: :no: :nono: I'm hoping this madness will end shortly. So I hang at home a lot. And I'm ok with that. Last week I was surprised to find the organic farm I got my tomatoes from still had a few more left. So I coaxed DH into a 2 and a half hour ride down to the middle of the state to go to their farm and get 30 pounds of tomatoes. :lol: I did share some with a friend but had enough for 8 more quarts of Italian tomato sauce. And I am trying a small batch of chili based sauce today. I have cranberries and apples to make into sauce also. Now I have to find room in the freezer for all of this... I just didn't feel like canning the lot. I need to redo my kitchen and get rid of the microwave over the stove and replace the cabinet with a large vent hood. My new stove sits higher and there is no really enough clearance for the hot canning pot of boiling water so canning right now is not an easy thing unless I do pint jars which is not worth the effort. Trying to decide if it's finally time to replace my washer and dryer or make one last service call under warranty and give it one more year. If I get rid of the high double dryer cabinet I have, I could renovate the laundry room and make it more useful. I am paralyzed by indecision lately. Went to the doctor on Friday. Got my flu shot, pneumonia shot and B12 shot. They did a boo boo and gave me a B12 shot and THEN drew my blood for lab tests. Which of course showed my B12 out the roof with excessively high levels when instead, it's probably super low. :rolleyes: She said I hit my knee so hard that the top of it calcified which means the fluid and blood from the bruise on the top of my knee instead of draining / getting absorbed by the body instead turned to a hard, bony like material. I will permanently have a hard lump on my knee. And I smashed and destroyed the nerves on my shin which is why the skin along the knee and shin is more numb to the touch than the other leg that was operated on. When I do something, I do it well. :shrug: So I will always be dealing with numbness, pain and occasional gimpy leg going forward. Certainly not enjoying my 60's I tell you. But we have taken some nice drives the last few weeks including the one to the farm last week. The central part of the state is very pretty with rolling hills, farm after farm and open skies and forests. So nice to be away from the city garbage.


Laura - I have never seen in my travels anything like the beautiful glowing colors of the yellow maples you have in your area. I used to pass by a grove on them on my way to work when I was driving to Northfield and they were just stunning. They also have a nice stand of them in the forest preserves by you. Even on an overcast day they were gorgeous. Bright, like highlighter colors. We have lots of yellows here and the evergreen style tamarack tree's needles go yellow gold in the fall but nothing like those beautiful maples. I miss them. No, I am still getting used to the bed. I really don't care for it to be honest, it's too cushy on the ends - like a big sponge and I find it sort of unstable when you try to get in or out of it. DH likes his though. Sigh... a terrible amount of money for something I don't like. Thank you for the compliments on DH's pictures. He loves to take them and the attention he gets from them. I think it makes up for how his dad was nasty to him as a little kid. He was running a camera club which he finally ended due to lack of interest. Some of the people got nasty about it but he was putting a lot of effort into it and barely anyone did the assignments or participated. I told him he should develop a course and teach at the local college although the classes now are online Zoom based and that takes a special skill to develop successfully. Especially when people have different kinds of cameras. I hope you can find some ambitious kid to rake your leaves. Do you mulch your garden beds with leaves for the winter? I smiled at your comments about Ethan Allen furniture - we had a lot of it - trying to remember what though... my dining room set for sure and possibly our bedroom set too. They made sturdy furniture so good for you on the find! Laughing about the springboard for the bed too :rofl: I would probably jump, bounce off and fall on the floor and break something else :lol:


Annie - that really sucks about how people are ignoring you at work after all you have done. Sadly in my latter years in the corporate world I realized the same thing. You give your all and then some to the job and they don't really care. That's why I :nono: to Susie also when you are both overdoing it. Earn your paycheck for sure but it doesn't pay to compromise your personal life for the job. You don't get more if you give them more and you don't get chastised when you do less. It's sad, hate to be that way but "you made me be this way, I say". ;) I hope you will be very happy in your new job. Perhaps they will be nicer as it's more family oriented in a small office like that and you are used to doing a whole lot of work anyway. I hope your health stays on the positive side for you and the family.


Hello to the rest of you ladies :wave: Hope all is going well in your lives. I guess I will get off the computer - time really flies when I'm sitting her much longer than I need to be. I have a ton of things to do today - handwash my cashmere sweaters, make some sauces as well as steak and peppers and do a few loads of laundry. And pick off the Asian beetles that are somehow getting into the house and crawling on the inside windows and driving the cats crazy. Last year we had them spray the house but they had to come back out 3 times and are not offering it this year so I think their natural sprays were no match for these nasty bugs. Anyway - stay safe and healthy ♥

LAURA...no, no time off between jobs. Last day is Friday here then start on Monday at new job. That's ok I am excited to get started. Still nothing from the branch manager on leaving which really makes me think I made a great decision for me.

HAPPY...welp bout time to wrap you in bubble wrap. You have enough going on that you can't afford to hurt yourself any more. :) My coffee buddy did leave a couple of special types of coffee on my desk as a goodbye. Hope they are as good as they sound. Bee Coffee brand. Masha tasting notes: tangerine/lemon/honey. Also Sweet Blue chocolatey, nutty lingering body. Not sure on the chocolate as I am not a fan of chocolate, but will give it a whirl.

We are celebrating Jacob's 9th birthday this Saturday with all his favorite foods. Doritos, popcorn, chicken fingers, potato chips, chocolate chip cookie cake. Junk Junk and more junk food. He just wants giftcards for his xbox, play station. So he can purchase more games. Well ok then. Pretty easy.

That's about it for me. Have a great week!!

Happy Friday all.

Happy - Oh my, that’s a long drive for a lot of tomatoes!! Have you made your tomato sauce and chili sauce and all the other stuff out of the apples and cranberries? You must be busy, and I sure do hope you find room in the freezer to keep it all! Your other option is to share the wealth, lol. ==Sorry to hear that some of the damage to your leg from that fall is permanent. Just try to work around it and keep moving somehow. == Nice that you’ve been able to take nice drives and enjoy nature. We’ve had some great color this autumn, and even despite the gloom we’ve had a lot of this week, it’s so pretty. Yes, a lot of yellows around here with the maples and other varieties. Even though the burning bush isn’t native to our area and I’ve heard it’s considered invasive, I do love the color when it changes – such a vibrant red. Our pin oak leaves turn a rather boring brown, and our young tulip tree is still mostly green. It has a few splotches of yellow leaves, so maybe as it matures it’ll be a nice yellow all over. :crossed: == Sorry you don’t like the new bed. Mattresses and pillows are hard things to select – you just never know if they’ll work out until you sleep on them at least a little bit. And mattresses…two people sharing one makes the choice even more difficult. We have an older sleep number bed and I’m glad it’s holding up because I sure don’t look forward to buying a new mattress. == Too bad dh’s photography class didn’t work out. Is nature your dh’s main photography interest, or does he also enjoy people/portraits and other things such as architecture?

Annie – Happy last day of your job! Hope they give you a nice sendoff instead of ignoring you like they’ve been doing. It’ll be nice to do something more enjoyable in this new job!!! === Wow, those coffee flavors sound interesting…as in a wild, lol. ! I bought some chai loose tea when I was in Galena and I’m disappointed with the flavor. But that’s the way it is with chai – it has a lot of different spices and too much or too little of something changes it. I’ll have to figure out how to doctor it up to make it more to my liking. But maybe it’s a good thing I wasn’t crazy about it - I’ll stick with my much less expensive Trader Joe’s chai tea bags, LOL. == Happy birthday to Jacob – 9 already!! Where did the time go?? Just reading all that junk food he wants makes me want some of that junk! Our junk food cabinet has been bare and I’ll probably have to shop for my mother this weekend and end up with my own shopping bag full of stuff I’ve been “deprived” of all week… I should be banned from doing my own shopping! Oh, wanted to tell you I was thinking of you when I made dinner the other night – it was that easy beef stroganoff recipe you shared a long time ago. Yum.

Hellos to Shad, Ceejay & Susie! Hope you all had a good week.
==
So it’s been a gloomy week and I’m working on some stuff at work that I’d rather not be, but oh well. I’ll get over it. Still slacking on the exercise. Yesterday it did warm up and clear up and I went for a walk after work. Nice to get out, even though it was a bit humid. On the way home, just down the block from the house, a family was walking their little German Shepherd puppy – so cute, still had that fuzzy fur. Adorable.

I made some banana nut bread last weekend. This weekend I might make some cookie dough for the freezer. And I’ve been jonesing for some brownies so I might make a batch of them. I want to see how they come out if I bake them in a muffin tin to get the chewy edges on all of them…

Plenty of cleanup around the house and yard to be done. It’s been rainy and it’ll probably be too wet and chilly for me to want to do anything outside. Guess that leaves the inside stuff. Perfect time to start tackling the “wreck” room in the basement. The guys who installed the new window well drain pipe a while back drilled into the concrete floor. They didn’t close off their work area to contain the concrete dust, so it’s just a mess in that room. I think I’ll be pulling things out of there one at a time and vacuuming, dusting, and wiping them down. I’ll have to wear a face mask for sure! But I guess it'll be a good opportunity to stage all the things I want to get rid of in one area.

Okay, nothing much else to report, so I’ll get this posted. Everyone stay safe and healthy!! :)

Signing out of this miserable place of employment for the last time. On to bigger and better! Pray for a peaceful landing at Ed Jones! Happy Weekend!

Good morning ladies,

Well Annie I guess you have to put thing in perspective. When you were out of work, this "miserable place of employment" was once a beacon of light. Hopefully you will enjoy the new job and your efforts will be appreciated. This is why I'm glad I'm retired. I had my fill of the corporate world when I walked out for the last time 9 years ago. It had changed greatly. Probably the last time it was decent was sadly in the 80's. They got rid of middle management which was the sort of momma bear who lead the team with encouragement, nourishing and if needed, discipline. Momma Bear was killed off and replaced with Mr. Butt Kisser. Suddenly it wasn't what you knew but WHO you knew that made your place in society. Integrity and value for hard work was replaced with doing the dirty stuff to get your bonus. And if you weren't part of the crowd, you were out with your bare butt swinging in the wind. People who once learned from good managers before them became lost and some of them figured out how to advance themselves quickly by stepping on others. It has bled over to the sad, broken society we have now a days. Relationships have changed, not sure if we can ever go back to better times. I myself have pulled within and will probably stay that way. I see my friend at the thrift shop trying so hard to wrangle the group only to have them continue to do what they want to. With Covid so widespread here, I told her it's time to stop trying to be the hero and she needs to watch out for herself. You can't exist in a world of disorganized chaos, at least I can't. My trusted group of human friends has gotten quite small and I'm ok with that. As long as I can get DH out of the house occasionally and out of my hair :rofl:

Sorry for the rant, I am so disappointed in how this world is today. Opposite of what I need so I have had to restructure my life and that's not easy. I do hope you will be very happy Annie with this new job. If there's only 3 of you in the office that may work out ok. Sometimes there is favoritism if there are too many family members and not enough outsiders but this doesn't seem to be the case. As long as you have enough and a little bit extra to get by, money isn't everything - a lot of money in a job you are miserable at just isn't worth it. I think I'd cry myself into a little ball if I had to go to work again. So thank you Jesus for having "enough" in my life.

DH wanted Salsbury Steaks the other night so he picked out a recipe and I made it. It's basically beef hamburgers with gravy. Yuk. Even though I made a good onion gravy, yuk. I told him he had to eat the other 2 leftover patties because he wanted it :lol: It's cold outside so it's time for comfort foods. The chili I made didn't come out too bad but stuff like that my stomach is not fond of. I did freeze 9 quarts of Italian Spaghetti sauce. Have one large bowl of tomatoes to finish off. Also have apples to get done this week. I need to go through my freezers and pitch some things. I was shocked to find some apple sauce frozen from 2013. Today is gather the garbage night so I am going to fill at least one bag of old stuff that is freezer burnt or just old boxes in the pantry. I stopped buying a lot of processed things about 3 years ago after I realized I didn't really use it but I always find something else to purge. I am trying to rethink my cabinets to also make more efficient use of them.

The leg is doing a bit better. Some days are good, some days are achy. I started doing a Zoom based exercise class last week from the Fitness Center I go to. It's a tough workout but something I need. Trying to do the pool once a week which is a challenge as it gets more frigid out and it's rather cool in the locker room. You don't really dry off as much as you need to but it's really good exercise for my leg and while I can do some of the exercises in the hot tub, it's only about half as I cannot for example do the marching, backwards and sideways walking moves in the hot tub. We had to cancel today as we needed to stay home to sign for delivery of a piece of camera equipment DH is eagerly awaiting. He rented this monster camera lens - I think he can see little green men on the moon with it! I will probably take a pass on swimming this week so he can make the most use of the lens for the week's rental he has it for. Why don't I drive myself to the gym? Well I could but it's a 2 lane - one in each direction, very windy road that people crawl up your butt to far exceed the speed limit. I'm not driving 70 mph in a windy road for some impatient idiot. There are only 2 places to pass so mostly you are getting tail gated. Many people have complained about that. We have far too many lead footed out of town speeders here. So I'm not really comfortable driving and there's only one road to get to the place unfortunately. And with the snow on the ground it's even more scary. As long as I take my pills (CBD oil and glucosamine), wear supportive shoes as much as possible and get some movement every day I can get by.

Laura - to your question DH prefers nature photography. He detests human photography, sometimes at Humane Society events we asked him to take pictures because the rest of us were busy and he takes awful, truly awful candid pictures. I don't know if this was planned but we stopped asking him. He won't take pictures of cats and dogs at the shelter either - admittedly cats don't pose and it takes some practice to get good dog portraits. So he prefers what's in the wild or flowers and landscapes. Anything you can't "pose" I guess is a good way to classify it. Gee it sure sounds like you have a big clean up job in the basement. Wreck room - LOL - that's a good way to put it. Now that I realized the lighting is too poor in the original hobby room, I am trying to figure out if I should make it a reading room or pantry. I have lots of nice cabinets in there so hate to give up the storage options and the basement is heated by expensive baseboard electric heat so it's not really practical to spend a lot of winter time down there. We looked into adding a pellet style wood burning stove but since our basement is deep and has window wells, they said it will not ventilate well all we could do would be an electric style heater stove, no different than the baseboard heaters we have already. They do make a lot of noise and are 20 years old so I'm sure if we replaced them, they would be more energy efficient. Always some project to do. Are you working from home through the winter? I would think with the rise in Covid cases that might be an option for you. Will be hard to go back to regular commuting one day.

Hello to the rest of you ladies. I need to go make some lunch and get off the computer and get something done around here. Hope you are all well and safe.

Afternoon all. Stopping work to clear my head of a month-end PITA accounting issue.

Happy Election Day to us here in the US. I did a mail ballot and dropped it off into the ballot drop box at our village hall last week. BF finally voted early this morning. He’d gone to village hall - our early voting site – a few times but found the lines too long. I’m glad that our part is done, but I’m afraid we’ve got a lot more election angst ahead of us… Well, at least the tv and radio ads will be done, right? ;)

I hope everyone had a nice Halloween. We had a nice day for it – mild and sunny…but also very windy. But at least it wasn’t the usual horrible cold and rain we always seem to get here on Halloween. Our village had trick-or-treating hours from 2-7 pm. We got some kids, not a ton, but some and I was glad those that wanted to come around had a nice day to do so. We bagged a couple pieces of candy each in small zip-lock baggies and put the sealed baggies out in a bowl on a tray table set up with a Halloween themed tablecloth right by the sidewalk. At least the candy itself wasn’t pawed through by multiple goblins.

The past couple days have been chilly and breezy, but bright and sunny at least. Starting today we’ll have several mild days (60’s!!) and it’ll be great to have that before late fall and winter weather settle in for good. Too bad DST ended on Sunday – I would have liked having some daylight after work to get out and enjoy the mild temps. I’ll have to get out at lunchtime I guess. I scheduled a vacation day for Friday. I also have one for Monday.

Annie – How goes the new job? I hope it’s been a positive experience now that you’ve got a week+ under your belt.

Happy – Every “employee engagement” survey I complete (just did one last week), I comment that managers/supervisors should be trained in people management skills. My boss is sorely lacking in those – I think he really wishes he could just manage himself and no one else, but alas, he has three other people to deal with. == I know what you mean by being disappointed with the way things are in this world today. The mix of COVID, racial, and political tensions is so stressful. I really have trouble watching the news these days. == Comfort food = yum. I had the Pioneer Woman on tv a couple weekends ago and she was making loaf pan lasagna and I think I’ll assemble my lasagna in loaf pans next time I make some because there’s only two of us to serve, and it’s also a better size to pass along to each of our moms. I’ll get some of the disposable foil pans for that. BF made a batch of chili and I’ve got to portion some out for the freezer. BF makes it in a big stockpot and then he stores it in the basement fridge – out of site, out of mind. And he’s one of those people that doesn’t want to eat it more than a couple times a week…best to just freeze some of it for later. == How is the virtual exercise class? I want to do some sort of class – I’ll have to check into it. == As to DH’s human photography skills – maybe he deliberately took bad photos because he detests doing it!! :lol: Anyway, tell him again that I enjoy looking at his nature pics and to keep ‘em coming. == Yes, I’m working through the winter (at least) from home. Our annual fundraiser is going on right now and we’ve had the challenge of making the activities work in a remote/virtual way. I say “we”, but I haven’t gotten involved in the events this year except as an observer.

Hellos to the rest of you! Hope you’re all doing well and staying healthy. My sister was exposed to COVID a couple Thursdays ago and self-quarantined for two weeks. She felt fine. One of bf’s mom’s oldest friends passed away recently from COVID. She was very vulnerable yet attended a party given by her idiot daughter (who reportedly loved to throw big parties). She got very sick, ended up in a coma and never recovered. Both the daughter and son ended up in the hospital with bad cases as well. How will that daughter ever live with herself??!!

Okay, I’ll move on. Well, that said...nothing much else to report. I’m going to get this posted and get a quick lunch. TTFN!!

Hey ladies. LOVE LOVE LOVE it here so far. My boss, um leader as they call bosses here, is the best. I really like him. Everything is user friendly and plenty of help out there to get it. Don't miss WF at all. Finally got a text from someone there asking how I like it here. Of course I bragged. What a wonderful world.

HAPPY,,,you are right, WF was, WAS, by beacon of light. I do think if not for working there and getting experience in the advisor world that Ed Jones would not have been possible. Altho they hire those w/o experience in the field too. So God knew what he ws doing when he put me back at WF. One for the experience and two for the step towards EJ. For that I am grateful. THis sure proved to me that it is all in his timing.

LAURA..time here flies at Ed Jones. I guess because I am in training plus doing the things so far that come along. I mean, it is already Wednesday.

Samantha's bd is tomorrow the 5th, she will be 35. How is that possible as I am only 39. hahaha. I paid to have her car oil changed for her birthday so now she will get a card and dinner out. Good enough. I asked Royce what he and Jacob should get her and he said an orange hoodie. Well that was random. Made me laugh.

Cindy, my SIL, with all the medical stuff is in the hospital with what they think is Covid. Initial test indicated negative but she has had all the symptoms. Fever, can't breath, headache etc. They did another test for antibodies to see if she had it but the results won't be back until Friday. She is doing better today and can now breath better. Her lungs have "shredded glass" looking in them. This is a sure sign of covid. Poor thing what the heck else. Don't want to know.

Hello to the rest of youse! I do like my new job a lot.

OMG - I can't believe I did a paste instead of a copy and lost my entire post that I have worked on for the last 45 minutes. Grrr.

Abbreviated version...

We are having an incredible week of totally unseasonable warm weather. Using it to clean out the hot tub, replace a heater in the man cave, clean out a few boxes of stuff and just enjoy some warm sunshine on our faces. Glad the election is over, hoping for calm and stability. Covid cases are rising in our town, much in part because of the political resistance to masks (see happy note that election is over). More and more people are just outright refusing to wear masks as our cases rise. Even our schools which were once pretty clean - there are positive cases at all 3 levels of school. People stupidly say because it's a virus and will spread but the truth is, we are spreading it among ourselves. As a result, we are really hunkering down and keeping pretty much to ourselves. Our social contacts are via phone conversations.

Annie - I am so very, very VERY happy you are happy in your new job and like the people in the office. That means so much. Hope you were not offended my my comment - didn't mean to be negative. It's just that sometimes in life things are not always as they appear and bad is good and then good is bad. As you say - all in HIS plan and sometimes the bad bricks pave the way for happier times. That's how I felt about landing the job in Memphis. I hated to leave, eventually came to hate the job and could not escape fast enough. But it made it easier to land here and up until this year, I loved this place we are at. I have seen ugly politics here from people I never expected it from and so much of that is tied to the scoffing of the virus that makes it even worse. These people want to make my life miserable and I never did anything to them. I have gone from a social butterfly to a hermit but that's ok. Anyway - I think they will come to find that hiring you was the best thing they could have ever done. I'm glad you have the experience and confidence to be an asset to them and satisfied in your job. Happy birthday Sam! Are you making a special dinner as always? I'm so sorry to hear about Cindy - she certainly has had too many medical challenges. Hoping and praying for a quick recovery. Especially scary times when someone is medically compromised -- I wish people would "GET" that. Sigh.

Laura - hope you got your accounting issue resolved. Thanks for the tip on the lasagna. I am not a fan though DH loves it. This would allow me to make a batch for him to enjoy with no waste. Yes, you have to watch for the things that get lost in the back of the refrigerator. I lost 2 containers of tomato sauce and a big pan of roasted tomatoes to things that spoiled very quickly so I must have had something odd in them. Fortunately I got a second chance and got the replacements into the freezer right after I made them. We had no Halloween kids as we never do. They might have done something in town, not sure. I think it's time to rethink Halloween. The kids don't need scads or candy and we don't need big bags of leftovers to munch on. I would rather a community haunted house / Halloween party with food and a reasonable size bag of treats afterwards. I'd chip in for that. So is downtown kind of quiet with many people working from home? Several people I know who work in offices are scheduled to remain WFH for the near future. I wonder if that is having a detrimental effect on public transportation also?

DH has to go around and get some parts to replace the heater in the man cave. He asked if I wanted to trot along but I said no, I want to get the hot tub cleaned and refilled today and take advantage of cleaning a few more garage boxes out. So, going to attempt to post this again and go get busy.

Hope you are all healthy and keeping safe and a good busy in your lives. :wave:

Hello ladies,


Well for us goodbye nice weather, hello winter again. We got snow overnight - only about 3 inches. Not as bad as they said it could be. I guess the roads were pretty bad yesterday as the front moved in. We got some freezing rain for a bit - DH said to be careful going out on the deck but I ran out on Monday and stocked up on groceries and took care of errands yesterday before the snow headed in so there is no reason for me to leave the house until my B12 shot on Friday and that's just down the road.


We had an adventure. Sunday when I went to bed to wash up I noticed the water was barely warm. I checked downstairs for a possible leak - nothing appeared off. I figured the 20 year old water heater had died. Told DH about it first thing in the morning. He called one plumber (so the adventure begins...). No one answered the phone the first hour. Then some guy answered it, said he would check to see if he could get a replacement water heater and call us back. He didn't. We have propane gas here instead of natural gas so the heater needs a modification and I guess we have a different exhaust venting system too. DH got back in touch with him around 2 pm and he said he'd order a tank but it wouldn't be here until at the very earliest Friday. (This was Monday). Meanwhile I am boiling water on the stove for washing. I said we could go to the gym and take a shower. He called another plumber - no response. Then I suggested a third place. People grumble they are expensive (people up here don't like to waste their money on plumbing, would rather save it for beer, cigarettes and drugs :( ) The guy was responsive said it might just be a part and he'd have someone out late that afternoon. We waited until 5pm - no tech. DH calls and they apologize, the guy is still out on a call but someone will be there Tuesday between 8:30 and 9am. Sure enough at 9 young guy shows up. He takes a look, a valve got clogged and a part was loose. He tightened and cleaned and violla - hot water again :yay: :dancer: :carrot: Such a simple fix. This is the second time this happened chasing people when instead this business came through for us. So I told DH going forward to ALWAYS call them first. Life is better with hot water. And a shower. Now I have to tackle a real mountain of dirty laundry. I did not want to have to haul it to the laundromat in the snow.


I had some residue in the water after I drained, cleaned and refilled the hot tub. Took a ride to the hot tub place and they said it was likely either mold or scale build up in the pipes. Got a cleaner, ran the tub for 8 hours and drained and again refilled the tub. When we first got the tub, DH was doing the chemicals but he doesn't really use it - maybe only once a year. So he left the maintenance part up to me. Except I was never really trained properly and I didn't know what I was doing. A chance conversation with they guy I did bingo with made me question what I was doing. So I called the hot tub place and had a nice conversation. I was doing things all wrong all along. I usually drain and replace the water every 6 months. Mostly because winter here is 5 months long at least and it's not easy to run a hose over the deck and down the driveway to drain the hot tub when there's 2 feet of snow outside and freezing temperatures. But the thing that keeps the water the cleanest only lasts 4 months. You're supposed to drain the tub and replace the water every 4 months. My water was never dirty or cloudy - it's was just towards the end of 6 months it felt like you were taking a chemical bath and you could smell the chemicals and it had a feeling on your skin that needed to be showered off. That's why DH did not like the tub - having to shower afterwards. But that was because I was adding chemicals that were building up and not really beneficial to the water. Also you can adjust the flow of the water coming out of the jets - I have a fancy therapeutic hot tub - it has a million jets and 5 stations for various massages on different parts of the body. You can adjust the intensity of the jets and some were too strong so shut them off or turned them way down. This allowed scale to build up in the pipes. So once a week I have to run the tub will all jets fully opened and a scale cleaner to keep things sparkling. I'm ok with this as long as I know what I'm doing and what affects what. I'm glad I learned this lesson - I will enjoy the tub more now. A hot tub is a whole lot more work than a pool is because of the warm water you have to do more to keep bacteria from growing - especially with it being covered most of the time. Still it does help me with aches and pains and I am able to stretch the tight knees in the warm water. Getting my socks on is becoming a more difficult task.


I got a bargain subscription on an online craft website that has tons of cooking classes. I watched a few and learned several things in just 2 hours of classes. So I'm excited for that. I helped DH get the old heater down in the mancave and the new heater positioned for him to install it. I went through a few boxes in the garage but DH set them all along the wall and then put his tools and the ATV and mower in front of them so I could not get to anything. He was busy so I didn't want to bother him to move things so my cleaning effort got sidelined. We have large trapezoid windows on the south side of the house. In the spring the male cardinal sees his reflection in the windows and constantly bangs into the window to drive off the "intruder". It drives the cats nuts. I am also fearful of the bird hurting himself because he really bangs the window. He perches on the chimney and flies into the window. In the spring we had to get some helium balloons from the party store and put them in the window. The air waving them was enough to deter him. I can understand them doing this in the spring because they are guarding their nests for the first time ever, he is doing it now. He will also attack any car mirror sitting out in the driveway including the mirrors of the repair folks vans. I guess DH is going to have to make a trip to the dollar store and get 2 more balloons as it's sunny out now which makes the reflections even worse.


I'm going to have to schedule an appointment with the dentist. My teeth feel a bit weird. I am hoping that there is not a problem with the stability of the bone holding the implant posts in. I don't eat / bite anything that requires a lot of force to bite and pull such as corn on the cob or apples so trying not to stress the front teeth. They are not wobbly, just don't feel secure. It might be because of the way they had to do the implants with the posts in my 2 front teeth rather than the 2 teeth adjacent to them. If that's the way it is, I am ok with that, just want some reassurance or if it's a problem to stay on top of it. I am glad I did all my teeth at once. A lot of people my age and older are having to deal with expensive dental repairs including the guy I did bingo with. He also had his 4 upper front teeth replaced and showed them to me the other day. He didn't pay anywhere near what I did - he went with the bargain plan and I have to control my reaction when he smiled at me. The teeth are overly big, not sized properly as I think they were trying to cover a natural gap in his teeth. Also there was a definite mix of colors between the new teeth - a lighter color - and the rest of the teeth that naturally stain and darken over the years thanks to tea, coffee, berry, wine and other stains. So it was a hodge podge. I guess you really are better off with full on dentures or replacing them all as I did.


The video card is dying in my current laptop. Time to dust off the new laptop I bought last year and never transferred over to. Now I need to do that soon as the monitor blacks out and it goes into sleep mode. Need to do that before I lose the ability to do things. So that and laundry are my tasks for the day.


Hope all is going well with you guys. Sorry nothing interesting to report. Hope you all stay healthy and safe.

second half
 

Does anyone feel lonely and sad about not having a second half?

Evening all. TGIF. And it was payday, so that's always a good thing. You may have heard that there are a lot of fraudulent unemployment benefits filings being made (using personal information gleaned from previous data breaches). My employer sent out a warning and told us to check our bank accounts regularly as those filings could leave us open to more ID theft. Always something...

Hi majaar - We're talking about a better second half of the year, and thankfully all of us are still here for it!

Happy - Now's a pretty good time to be a hermit, so you're preventing COVID and avoiding all the unpleasant political/election ugliness to boot. === I've been working from home since March, so I have no idea what it's like in downtown Chicago these days - and I don't miss it much at all. I'd like to retrieve some personal items from my cubicle, but that won't happen any time soon. I believe Chicago might be shutting down starting Monday, so I won't ask for approval to go to the office any time soon. Well, I suppose I could probably get approval to go in on a weekend day but it would involve driving downtown and getting my bf to drive with me so he could stay with the car so I wouldn't have to find/pay for parking. I doubt he'd go for that just so I can pick up some shoes and some other items. === I'm glad you didn't have to replace your water heater! And hopefully you've found a good plumber you can turn to in the future. :crossed: === Well, sounds like more work doing one extra drain/refill of the hot tub each year, but it'll be much nicer for you. It must be nice to have that available to warm up and ease your aches and pains. And yours sounds like a fancy one - nice! === Have you gotten everything transferred to your new laptop yet? Sounds like a big job. We're contemplating switching internet and cable service and have to figure out how to back up our email...ugh. Just the thought of switching email addresses sounds horrible.

Annie - Glad you're loving your new job so far. At least you can have a good feeling that your experience from WF helped you obtain this job. So you don't have a boss, you have a leader...makes me think "Take me to your leader." (use your alien voice) LOL. === How is Cindy doing? Keeping her in my thoughts.

Hellos to the rest of you!! Hope you're all staying healthy and out of trouble. ;)

Nothing much to report on my end. Our company's fundraiser finale was yesterday and it was enjoyable. I learned this afternoon that I won a prize in one of the raffles for which I bought tickets. I won a spa gift card. I don't recall if it was from a chain or SpaFinder or what, and I don't recall the $$ amount either. I didn't want to ask...so I guess I'll just have to be patient and wait for it to arrive in the mail.

I have a hair appointment tomorrow, and I'll be grocery shopping for my mom. That's about it, other than the usual housework and slothery. I got a red underline for that last word, so I guess I made that up... :shrug:

Everyone have a good weekend.

Hello Everyone! I am sorry to have been MIA. I would think of you all and plan to come post and then read the post and not come back and the next thing I knew days had gone by.


Annie: I am thrilled to read that you are loving your job and excited to learn new things. God always gives us what we need when we need it. I hope Cindy is feeling better. What did she find out about the antibodies? My brother has them. He was sick last January before it all became such a big deal here in the States and felt really badly for 2 weeks and was being seen by his doctor but they didn't really do much testing then. So when he could get the test, he went because he wanted to know, and it showed he had them.


Laura: I have been working from home since March as well. I really don't mind it, especially if I keep my boundaries in place. i am refering to not looking at work stuff when I'm not on my regular working hours and not doing personal things during my work time. It is a struggle for me to not blend the two at times, but I work hard at not allowing that to happen.


Happy: I hate dealing with water heater issues...they always seem to be hard to get someone to come take care of it.

I am glad to hear you had a easy fix and hopefully this company will stay around and be reliable for a long time.


I seem to find good people and then after a year or two, they are no longer doing that work,


DH and I are doing pretty well being home together every single minute of the day and night,,,,,ok...maybe I could use a break now and then! lol. He went to watch one of our nieces in a scrimmage game today, she plays basket ball. I am picking up the house and catching up with all of you.


I really shouldn't complain. He has been great at doing most of the house work, and grocery shopping. He looks for things to do, he isn't used to not working. He told me that he hopes by next spring to be able to find a part-time job.


Right now we don't want to mess up his unemployment by getting a part-time job and I really felt he needed time off from all that he went through with that company he worked for especially the last 2 yrs.


We have used the time to get a lot of things medically caught up for him, especially with his feet and legs. They are a mess from working on concrete for 40 hrs a day over 30 yrs. He has seen a podiatrist and a vein specialist and has had a lot of progress and feeling better that way.


My shoulder is staying stable and the shot I got about 6 weeks ago where he put it the front of the shoulder in the AC joint (and used an live X-ray to do it, has given me a good deal of relief. I still have mild pain across the top of the bursa but that will have to taken care of with surgery, due to having to remove the bone spurs there and arthritis that is causing the tendons under the scapula to rub against the scapula.


The plan is I will see him the surgeon the end of January and go from there. I did not want to go have surgery at this time and I am hoping things will improve with the world and Covid-19 as we move into Jan and Feb.


Speaking of Covid, we had a little brush with that about 2 weeks ago. We were with a family member who 3 days after we had been with them, came down with symptoms and tested positive. It was my brother-in-love James' niece who had it and we were at their home having dinner and visiting with everyone. on a Saturday and Tuesday she let him know that she woke up not feeling well and went and had a test (she is a nurse at Children's Hospital in Columbus and they get their tests back fast as they test in their own labs.) and tested positive. We were all tested and all tested negative.


I plan to check in more.....I have missed everyone.

Good morning ladies,


Nice to see some of you back again. Get tired of talking to myself.


Susie - glad you are getting some relief with your shoulder. I'm thinking as the Covid numbers rise they will probably defer elective surgeries anyway so at least you can manage the discomfort for the time being. Might not be able to do anything until summer rolls back around. I surely hope they can get a handle on controlling the outbreak of cases. My heart breaks when I see the nurses and doctors on TV who are beyond exhaustion. I wish people would take that into account when they are poo pooing the whole virus thing. It's sort of disrespectful. Kind of like tossing a lit cigarette in a dry forest and shrugging and saying "oh well there are fireman who will put out the blaze and it's good for trees to have a fire once in a while". :shrug: If I was DH I would just keep a mild eye out for something that might come along that will interest him. I don't know what the job situation is by you but he has the definite advantage of time on his side to casually look and at least see what's out there. I'm not sure if Covid has cut back on things like it has affected so many other items. It's good that you have a proper health insurance plan so you both are covered and can take care of whatever needs doing at the moment. That means so much. My husband has a bad back and always has issues when we go shopping for too long at a place like Sam's Club that has concrete floors. Now that my knees are bad I understand what he is talking about. They were also talking on the news about the ballot counters / poll workers who are standing on concrete floors. Never realized how taxing that is on the body. Good to hear he can get some relief back but oh my... Glad you are adjusting to working from home. I am hoping they don't pile you under with thousands of tasks to handle as they did while you are in the office. Will be interesting to see what the future of corporate America looks like now that so many people are not in expensive office space any more. I'll bet the whole work scenario changes. That is scary about the family member. We are experiencing the same scenario here as the virus spreads. More incentive to keep to ourselves as much as we can.


Laura - I hope you can entice the BF to run you into downtown to pick up your office things. But then again, you've gone so long without them what's a little longer? After all the building is not going anywhere :lol: I'm sure downtown is a ghost town and maybe a bit scary even with being more deserted.


Ok, my video card is dying on my laptop - I NEED to switch computers. My screen goes black and it goes into sleep mode so I'm going to post this before I lose it. Take care everyone.

Good lord, I seem to be getting worse and worse about getting on here and chatting to you lot. The first sentence of Susie's post absolutely applies to me.

So what's been going on? Well not a lot in fact however the weather seems to have forgotten about spring and gone straight to summer and so the heat and humidity, not to mention the flies and the bugs are a constant annoyance. I did get cabin fever one weekend and went to Gold Coast hinterland to see some things that I haven't seen before despite having lived here all these years. Also since we have been on travel restrictions, and business' have been closed it was nice that some of them are allowed to reopen. So that is why I went to the smaller places where you don't get 500 shoe shops and coffee bars and too many people being their normal stupid selves. I spent cash in the out of way places and helped a few businesses to survive maybe.
I went to Springbook, Beechmont, and Advancetown where at this time last year those horrendous fires went through wiping out all sorts of treasures and wildlife. I bought handmade cards, relishes, chutney and jams, as well as some craft work for presents for Christmas etc. No one is getting a lot of expensive presents from me this year.

The garden is in the process of being put to bed for the summer. Sounds ridiculous but it really is better to grow vegetables in the winter when you live in the tropics. Our temperatures rarely get below 20C (about 60C) in the winter and our normal is around 24-25C (75F) in the winter although the nights can be a bit cool. I still have some carrots, cauliflower lettuce and tomatoes and I see today that one of the original lettuces must have gone to seed and there are now about 100 little lettuces growing. Guess I won't be short of a salad for a while.

I was going to go to Adelaide for Christmas however with the current restrictions between States here, I won't be going. I don't fancy paying out up to 3K to stay in some hotel under quarantine for 3 weeks, then having a few days with the family and then more quarantine when I get home. The restrictions had been taken off but someone from overseas came into South Australia with it and managed to give it to the security guard who managed to spread it to 17 people, so the borders were closed again. So it will be another Skype/ Messenger conversation again. Another reason why I am not upset about not going is that the family down there will be shifting into their new house eta 15th December, which is also M's birthday. I don't think I could take the excitement, OCD and outbursts that will come with that.

I was losing weight quite nicely there for a while. However after that bout of sinus that I had (and still have more or less) the doctor put me on prednisone after the antibiotics. Well that managed to put 4kilos on me that I had painstakingly lost (apparently prednisone is good at it) and I am having the devils own job to get back off again. I've cut the food right back, but it doesn't seem to be making much difference and I am up and down a kilo every week. Bah humbug, not happy

Apart from the garden, I have been puddling around the house fixing little things and sorting out this Probus Club (which is beginning to annoy me more and more) and I still have a long list of bits and pieces that need attention. Never ends around here.

I'm hoping to be able to take up some water aerobics after Christmas - really need to get more exercise in, seems that walking the dog and shovelling gravel is not cutting it anymore. Water might be cooler as well.
Okay, that's me done. Sorry that I have been missing so long, reach out and give me a kick in the butt if I don't come back during the week will you.
I won't do personals because I have to go back so far. I'll catch you all later.
Take care, sanitise, wear a mask, stay away from large groups of people. You already have the distinction of having COVID kill off the most people, I don't need the next ones to be one of you.

Good afternoon ladies, I am looking up some old stuff - I realize I have pretty much documented my life in these posts the last 16 years. Anyway, in time for Thanksgiving if you are interested, I am reposting Annie's recipe for hash brown casserole from 2017.

Cracker Barrel’s Hash Browns Casserole

2 lbs of frozen hash browns.
½ cup of melted margarine or butter.
1 (10 ¼ ounce) can cream of chicken soup.
1 Pint of sour cream.
½ cup of peeled and chopped onion.
2 cups of grated cheddar cheese.
1 tsp of salt.

I also added mushrooms.

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl then transfer to a sprayed 11×14 baking dish.
In a preheated oven to 350° bake for 45 minutes.

Shad,
good to hear from you again. Was beginning to wonder if you had gotten lost in the bush but then remembered you have Covid and restrictions also so you probably couldn't roam too far. I figured most people are not posting because we are out of our routines and there's nothing much going on anyway. The problem is though that once you get away, it's harder and harder to get back and oftentimes I have thought we are finally drifting apart after all these years together. Would not like to see that happen.

Must have been nice to get out of the house and see the sights a bit. I'm sure the shops were happy for your business. We have actually had much success at the stores in town. People come here to get away from the crowded cities. The locals blame the tourists / seasonals for the virus but in all honesty, from what I have seen and heard they are very careful. It's the bar flies and the politicals that are creating the problems with their anti-masking. So the small shops are doing ok - we did very well financially at the thrift shop. It's the bars that are suffering the worst of it as they depend on the high mark up liquor sales and say they can't survive on take away / carry out food orders.

As I look at the snow out there Shad, I would love some of your warmer weather but keep the bugs and flies please. I hope you are not going to enter summer with another round of drought. You have had enough weather troubles in your area. I guess it's time to give up the volunteering for you also - seems the same for all of us - eventually we get tired of the political fighting, the power grabs and feel like it's just not worth the hassle. I am at the very very fringes of my volunteering and wouldn't mind being done altogether.

I hear you on the weight loss. Steroids are infamous for puffing one up. Sorry to hear that you are having lingering problems with the sinus issues. Hope that is not permanent. I hate the headaches - nothing seems to relieve them as they took all the good over the counter medications off the market because they make good meth drugs apparently :( I have really cut back on my eating. Substantially - I eat about one meal a day which is probably not good but I fill up really quickly. Losing my taste for sugar also which I'm not complaining about. What I will complain is that I am not losing ANY weight at all. I was digging through the garage and found my old book of 7 Week Body Makeover from years and years past. I did not do the original restrictive diet but the one where you eat and avoid certain types of food based on your body type. And it introduced more frequent, mini meals thoughout the day. That worked well for me when I was working from home but once I had to go into the office again, I would often get distracted and not eat at the right times or according to program. And as Susie knows, you have to also incorporate a healthy dose of daily exercise as well.

Well I started this yesterday, walked away for some number of various reasons so going to post before I lose this. I have to get dressed and out the door shortly to go pick up the last few remaining items I need at the grocery store for Thanksgiving dinner. Hoping I got there early enough before the crowds. If I don't get back here, wishing everyone a safe and Happy Thanksgiving in this year of weirdness. We are wrapping up the year, hopefully things will be better soon.

Morning all,
Got a few minutes before I need to be somewhere else so I thought I would do some computer work. I'm playing an Elvis CD and thought of you Happy because it's one I bought when we went to Graceland together. I wonder if we will ever get together again sometime.

Our COVID restrictions are now very loose. We can have gatherings of up to 100 people, weddings and funerals are more or less back to normal - well as normal as life gets these days. We can travel just about anywhere in Australia - still a few restrictions on Sydney although I gather from this mornings news that they will disappear on December 1. Also some restrictions involving Victoria, but these days after their long and hard lockdown they have progressed amazingly. Just goes to show what discipline and determination will do for a population not familiar with the word discipline. I can't travel abroad yet, can't go home to NZ but there is talk of a travel bubble between Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and NZ coming soon. I can get to NZ if I have to, but there are quarantine restrictions because they have all but eradicated the virus. Australia is nearly there as well. However it will be a long time until we can travel to Europe, UK or USA again. I was going to have Christmas with DS1 and family but they have too much going on with moving into the new house, her birthday and various other things so I will now leave it until late January or maybe February provided no one has any outbreaks again.

Happy - It's a similar situation here , the hospitality industry is hardest hit and they moaned and groaned all through the pandemic restrictions. Some shops, eateries or otherwise will never reopen. However the ones who did okay were those who got online and delivered to various households. We actually have a drone service in our area, and while I hate the noise (sound like whining mosquitoes) it is one way of getting no contact handling of food and medicine and the tradies love it for getting hardware stuff that they needed in a hurry. They deliver (there's 3 of them) food from a local café, medical supplies to and from the pharmacies and small packets of things. These ones can't carry large loads like big pizza boxes and heavy weights but they do okay and no doubt the inventory people are working on ways to make the pizza boxes smaller.

Another hot and sunny day today. Supposed to be a storm and rain coming later, but I take that with a grain of salt. I'm coming back as a meteorologist since they get paid big bucks to get it all wrong. However it is hazy enough and hot enough out there to be a storm warning. Guess I need to go batten down the stuff in the yard in case it brings wind as well. The dog is getting restless as well - a sure sign something is going to happen since he hates storms. He will be wanting to sit on my knee again when it hits. It's hot enough without a 40Kg dog trying to get on my lap.

Tomorrow is haircut day and not before time either. It is almost completely unmanageable at the moment. I'm pretty useless with hairstyling so I guess I will tell her to cut it short but not make me bald. Okay, better go and try to sort out this blessed Christmas thing. Damned if I know what the treasurer of the club has done with the banking.

Catch you all later.

Hello hello as a member said before

Nothing new to report.
__________________
choices=consequences

!
 

Hello! This is a short work week for me. I worked today and will work tomorrow and then I am off until next Monday! We get Thanksgiving and the Day after as holiday's and I took Wednesday off as well.


Thanksgiving we will be with friends at their home. We see them every week and so we feel it is safe to do Thanksgiving Lunch with them. Other than that, I will do a bit of cyber shopping (I have a lot of it done) and DH likes to wrap so it will be good to get that started for the things we already have bought.


DH is doing well with recovery from the RAF leg outpatient surgery he had last Friday. He gets the left one done on December 3.


I am happy to report a 1.8 lb loss last week at TOPS. I have 19 lbs to go to loose my Covid-19.


We found out Friday that we will be working from home through April 30, 2021. We will hear more about returning at the first of April. It is crazy to think we left the building the middle of March and it will be over a year before we go back.


Shad: My DH and I are big Elvis fans. It has a while since we have been to Graceland. Our niece, Layna, turned 17 today and for her birthday she wanted a record player and albums for her presents. One of the albums that she wanted was Elvis' Christmas Album.


Happy: Thank you for sharing the Cracker Barrell Recipe from Annie ; it is one of my favorite things to order at Cracker Barrell.


Hello to Laura and Annie.

Hello Everyone and Happy Happy Thanksgiving....sorry Shaddie. You can be a turkey with us too if you like. :)

Still loving this job. My leader is the best. There is sooooooo much to learn and I do learn something new every day. I have a journal and writing down everything so I have a reference. We have great resources so it is not too hard to become familiar with procedures. My boss is giving me half day off tomorrow (Wednesday and also Friday off all day) Thursday is a holiday.

Our weather has turned chilly, but no snow HAPPY, which is just fine by me. We are hunkering down when I don't have to come to work.

COVID has hit a little close to home. Samantha's ex-hub and his GF both have it. THank the Good Lord neither of the boys were around them. Their tests came back positive last Saturday. He will not be getting the boys at all for Thanksgiving and really he should keep his arse at home anyway. A few days before he started feeling bad he posted on social media hanging out in a bar, no mask. What a dummy. Probably where he got it. He gave it to his GF, they live together so no getting around that one.

My niece, the nurse, who lives in Denver CO contracted it from her daughter, my grand niece, who works in the public mall setting. Now my niece the nurse has avoided it all this time and now has it. They are both mild to med symptoms. No thanks keep it in Denver.

Pretty quiet around here. My boss has gone home for the day. I am the only one here, hence posting. lol.

SUSIE...glad your shoulder is not giving you too much pain and Hubs is healing nicely.

LAURA...you won't know how to act going back in the office when the time comes. How is that sickly admin doing?

HI CEEG..hope you are well and enjoying your family.

SHADDIE...still working like a horse around the ole corral. Wouldn't expect anything less.

That is about all for me. Nothing too exciting going on. Got a chair massage appt tonight as I cannot turn my head to the left without pain. Slept on it wrong a week ago.

Love you gals!

Hellos to all.



Susie – Yes, can be hard to stay focused when working from home. Just being in the house is distracting – you keep seeing all the projects that need doing and thinking about them. When I was in the office working, it was “out of sight, out of mind” most of the time. == I’m glad things are going smoothly being at home with your DH. Nice to have someone doing the housework that isn’t you! == It’s smart for him to not try and work PT and possibly goof up his unemployment. By what you’ve already been through, you know all too well how difficult it is to deal with the unemployment agency when they are so overloaded. And it’s nice for him to get a breather! If he’s like the rest of us, he’s been working since he was a teenager and doesn’t know what it’s like to not work. I started when I was 14 - part-time back then - and have never stopped. == I’m glad the shots are working for your shoulder and that you can tolerate the pain that you do have until it’s safer to have the surgery. == I’m glad your DH’s surgery went well. Is there a long recovery? == We’re having an all-employee meeting around mid-December and I expect to hear that we’ll be WFH until sometime in spring. Who’d have thought this would go on for so long? == One year I asked for Christmas music for a gift and one of the CD’s I received that year was an Elvis Christmas album! I like it!



Happy – How’s the move to the new laptop going? I ordered a new monitor through work to use at home because my old one (taken home from our old office space before we moved and got a whole new setup in the new space) has sporadically had its screen go black and it happens at least a few times per day. The monitor was delivered today at lunchtime, so I’ll set it up tonight. == I don’t get to Cracker Barrel and haven’t had that casserole, but it looks good - what’s not to like about potatoes, butter, cheese, sour cream?? Thanks for posting it.



Shad – Hi stranger! I’d love to have a winter where the coldest it gets is ~60F. We just had our first snow where it covered the grass and it stuck around for a couple hours. I wasn’t particularly glad to see it, especially since we still have leaves to remove! But I wouldn’t like your summers…I don’t like my summers…I think I’d like summer in San Diego, LOL. As for LOLs – I was laughing when I read what you wrote about “…too many people being their normal stupid selves.” :D They're everywhere!!! == I hope you can get into a water aerobics class and that it helps move the scale. And also got a chuckle out of “I’m coming back as a meteorologist since they get paid big bucks to get it all wrong.” So true! == How did your haircut turn out?



Annie – Yay for still loving your new job. == Glad the boys didn’t get COVID from their dad!! == I agree, being back in the office, whenever that happens, will be strange. I hope to be able to keep doing some WFH even when the office re-opens. The sickly admin is hanging in there. It’s good she’s at home, of course, because she’s on anti-rejection drugs due to her kidney transplant and is one of the vulnerable. I hope you enjoy your massage and that it unkinks the kink in your neck! I won a massage gift card in a fundraising raffle and I’m wondering when it’ll show up in the mail. I imagine the person who had the gift cards and other raffle items will deliver them to the office and they will be shipped out from there. Since the office services people in our office only go there once a week these days, it’ll probably take a while before everything gets sent out. I’ll keep watching my mail.



Nothing much to report on my end. Taking days off to use my vacation time - today's the only day I worked this week. I have a 6-day weekend - woohoo! But I'm not really doing anything special. Doing some videochats with friends. Doing housework. Doing a jigsaw puzzle. TV, books. That kind of stuff.

BF’s mom ordered some Thanksgiving dinners from the senior center or some organization that usually hosted a TG luncheon in person but did it via pick-up this year for obvious reasons. The pick-up was Saturday, so we had TG dinner at her place on Saturday. I hadn’t seen her in some time, so it was nice to catch up with her. She and my mother will be coming over on Thursday for dinner, and we’ll be having ham.

That’s about it. Wishing all the Worldlies in the States a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday! Everyone stay safe and healthy!! TTFN!
:thanks1:

Good morning ladies,

Happy December already. For a weirdo crummy year this in retrospect did go by quickly. Thanksgiving was quiet. I cooked - everything from scratch and after 5 hours of standing in the kitchen by the time the meal was ready I was almost too tired to eat. DH said everything was delicious and offered to fix me a plate. I thought i had comfortable enough shoes on but maybe even my New Balances were not good enough for a marathon cooking session. And I didn't cook a ton of food since it was just the two of us. I made a small turkey breast and we had enough for 2 and a half meals. Christmas is like in 3 weeks - I can't even fathom. I can't really decorate with the 2 young cats - Conan the Destroyer and his sidekick. Whatever I do put out can't be pulled apart or chewed on so that leaves out most of my decorations and most certainly a tree. I didn't decorate last year either - the kittens were little and still would have caused mischief but I frankly just didn't feel like it. I do admit to having lost my Christmas spirit and this is probably a good year to do so since we are supposed to stay apart anyway. I am kind of glad not to have to worry about going to parties with people I'd rather not be around anyhow so it's not bad at all.

DH is turning 71 so he had to start taking money out of retirement savings. We do on a regular basis anyway to supplement as pensions alone would force us to live far more frugally than either of us care to and without kids, neither of us desire to do without so that someone else can squander the money after we die. It's a tricky game to figure out how much you can spend without setting yourself up for problems in your older, more feeble years when you might need it vs being too conservative and not enjoying it. DH has the itch to go places with his photography but my physical condition and having 4 cats really puts the kink in that so he plans a trip or two himself. It is very hard for me to get around with my knees - I think I damaged my replacement knee when I fell in May as well as some permanent damage to the left one. I am not quite ready for a double knee transplant and have to lose a substantial amount of weight in order for that to be mildly successful. The cold weather doesn't make it any easier. They closed the pool where I was going - they got a salt water system and unfortunately have had numerous problems with it ever since the facility opened. It's been down for almost a month now. I have really cut back on my eating. I have a big mid-day meal, no breakfast other than coffee and I am simply not hungry for supper most nights. I do make sure DH is fed. I have lost about 6 pounds over the last 2 months - it's super slow to come off and I swing back and forth with a pound lost, pound gained depending on the salts and such. I am not eating balanced meals either which I know is not good. I need to get more organized. In so many aspects of my life.

I would love to change the house - the interior needs a good painting but with 2 story high peaked ceilings that is a challenge. I would also love to rip out the carpet and replace all the flooring with better wood throughout. Which means we somehow need to get all the furniture out of the house. That would be a very hard job for DH to do alone, would be better to have someone come in and do it 1, 2, 3 and done in a day or two. But DH is very picky. I also have a very expensive dining room set - table, chairs, a large cabinet and smaller butler cabinet that take up a lot of room and really don't fit in here. We got them in Tennessee when we had a separate formal dining room and the people who bought our house did not want to buy them so we took them with us. It's a Thomasville all wood, dark cherry set - very nice and sturdy but not the light pine of the Northwoods. Also this house is too small for a set like that. I don't know, I seem to be paralyzed by indecision these last 2 years. We talked about changing the kitchen, changing the living room, redoing the laundry / mud room, getting me a new car, taking a trip of a lifetime to Australia and New Zealand and I just can't seem to get my act together. So another year goes by and I just get older and let able to do things. :dizzy:

I did get the laptop switched over. Was not as hard as I anticipated. I was able to download all my saved passwords into a spread sheet which helped tremendously. Some of the things I copied to an external hard drive and then copied over came out a little wonky, I am working on going through organizing things which gives me an opportunity to purge them. Windows 10 is not as awful as I remember when I first saw it. I am embarrassed that they no longer make this model of laptop (my new one) and come February my initial 2 year warranty will expire. Did I seriously leave this new laptop for almost 2 years before setting it up? :o I do like the keyboard and bigger, clearer screen. The only thing I don't like is the keyboard is metal like and it's chilly, especially in this part of the woods. Part of my cleanup was going through some documents and things that kind of took me down a trip down memory lane about my life so far. That was interesting, many bits I had forgotten or tend to get mixed up now when I try and think back.

My Mom is doing good. She stayed home for Thanksgiving for the first time ever but my sister dropped her meals twice - homemade spaghetti and meatballs which she enjoyed on Thanksgiving and then got a basket of Thanksgiving turkey and fixings on Friday after my sister cooked. I had said that after we moved to Tennessee and were not able to come back that holidays had lost their meaning to me - Easter, Mother's Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas it was just me and DH which came to be like any other day in our lives, just with better food and nicer china plates sometimes. It was sad for me and as the years passed, it actually got depressing which is why I think deep down I am not that excited about Christmas any more. But my sister who always wound up hosting the family meals said this was the first time she was ever home alone with no one but her immediate family and she LOVED IT. No cleaning the house, no cooking up a storm in her too tiny kitchen, no stress, no family members arriving 2 hours early and being totally in the way of everything just because that's the schedule they wanted to stick to. Sis said she could easily get used to these holidays. I said wait until you've had about 10 of them, in a row, for all holidays! Still I am happy that she enjoyed herself for once without the major stress and aggravation the holidays often brought to her. Sorry to be such a downer.

Laura - hope you got your new monitor set up and working and it was the monitor - not the video card that was causing the blanking out. You are right when you said you would love Shad's winters but not her summers. That's the problem with most places that have mild winter temperatures. For the most part it's either short winters and beastly hot summers or if you find a place like San Francisco that is mildly temperate all year long, it's horrendously expensive or you have to deal with Mother Nature's droughts, earthquakes, wildfires and such. We've been looking for years, no perfect place unless you have lots of money to live in 2 places and toggle the weather! Enjoy your days off. Doesn't seem like you both are big travelers and this year is not one to do it so might as well enjoy yourself at home. Have you given any more thought to getting another pet? Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving with the mommas.

Annie - one of the best parts of changing jobs I thought was that renewed enthusiasm about something different and learning new stuff. I often stayed at jobs 7 years or so and by the end you get tired, jaded because you have seen a lot of b.s. and unfair treatment. Starting fresh is just wonderful - it gets your brain active and engaged too. Like walking outside in the bright sunshine and mild weather after months of gray winter days. I'm so happy you are enjoying yourself. I'm glad the boys did not pick up Covid. As widespread as it is, going to be more and more difficult to avoid it. Hope your niece will be ok also. I'd be afraid being a medical person - ticked off too that people are being so resistant to common sense. I hope the massage fixes your neck kink. I have a neck thing I got at Amazon that is filled with beads you heat in the microwave. I sleep with it most every night and it helps with the tension in the neck and back and I think the heat is soothing and helps me relax and fall asleep more quickly. I recommended it to my Mom but like everything she poo poo'd the idea so not wasting the money to buy her one though I know it would help her. Don't be like my momma ;) :lol:

Susie - hope you enjoyed your long weekend. Do you find work less hectic now that you are working from home? Or was a big part of the stress before the conditions you were working under and the new bosses are better? Glad to hear DH is recovering well from his surgery. Is it just healing or does he have to do any P/T? Congrats on the continued weight loss.

Shad - ah that was a long time ago in Graceland. I think of you occasionally and how the world conspired to mess up travel plans. You have visited as we moved about the country and the place we are at now, I think would be the place you would most enjoy as it is about as far removed from the city live with lots of trees and nature and all that comes with it - bears, turkey, deer, birds and even the mossies in the height if summer are probably still not as bad as you are used to. Hopefully someday we can come down and you can give us the tour and you will be back here one last time before we are both in scooters or wheelchairs! Hope you sorted out the mess with the bookkeeping. I spent a few hours dealing with Microsoft and the banks because they changed the credit cards for the Humane Society and I can switch them over for the monthly subscription billing for the shelter PCs. Only to find that there is a glitch and the people I have to call - support is only available for a small window each day and then they have a 5 day holiday weekend! I am grumbling wondering why I am wasting so much of my time on this project. I do really want to be done with the volunteering. I told them I won't be doing bingo until they get this Covid under control which means maybe not at all next year which of course, they don't want to hear. Maybe 2021 will be the year of the hermit! Glad to hear that things are getting better for you. I suspect we are in for a rough patch as we have so many resistant to common sense here. The people in this country have got batty.

Hello Ceejay! :wave:

The sun is creeping up to the point where I can no longer see the screen so I'm going to post this and go on to other projects. Stay well everyone and check in from time to time.

Hello All.

Workday's over and I thought I'd come say hello. I'm so tired. My mom's bathtub drain was clogged and when I dropped off some groceries for her on Saturday, I also tried to unclog it. My hands got all raw from trying to plunge it (wood-handled plunger) and they were throbbing by the time I finally went home. I couldn't clear the clog that day, and neither could my sister the next day when she was there to take my mom for a flu shot. She had the maintenance staff come and do it today. So glad that's taken care of.

Yesterday bf and I changed out our bathroom faucet because it needed the washers replaced, but the inside workings were so rusted it couldn't be removed without wrecking it. Ugh. And it wasn't even that old of a faucet! Grrr. Bf did almost all of the work, but had me help with removing some of the parts from underneath the sink. With his ear issue, bf gets vertigo in certain positions, so that makes it very uncomfortable for him to work that way. I hated to spend money on a new faucet when we still have the crummy old vanity top. I need to get on the ball and find a trustworthy contractor to remodel our full bath. BF doesn't want to do the work and yet doesn't want to pay someone else, so it'll be an argument for sure.

So my weekend wasn't all that great, but I'll get over it. Nothing else going on in my life. Just work, housework, shopping/helping my mother, reading, tv, jigsaw puzzle...repeat.

Happy - I definitely feel it when I've been on my feet for longer periods of time. We have one of those foam runners/mats made for kitchens. It definitely helps cushion your feet. I also like it because it's easier to clean than a rug/runner - it's vinyl covered and you just sweep it off and wipe it down with a damp rag. === I haven't done any Christmas decorating so far either, and I need to buy some Christmas cards... === Re your DH's required minimum distributions - so not only must we try to make sure we have enough money to retire comfortably, but we must also continue to agonize in retirement over the right balance of spending to ensure we don't run out of money...oh fun. But it will be great to retire - saw your fb post the other day about not working. Yes, I will surely appreciate that when the time comes! But right now I'm content to appreciate not having to commute back and forth to/from work. === I'm sorry your knees aren't up for trips. :( And it's easier said than done to make health and weight loss improvements job #1, even when you're retired. Is there any kind of exercise you can do to help your knees feel better, and also exercises to amp up your metabolism? Maybe try to do some exercises with hand weights? === I know what you mean when you say you want to make changes to your house - spending so much time here now makes me hyper-aware of all the things that need doing and those I want to do. Sigh. == Glad the laptop switch wasn't as awful as you thought it might be. :) == Glad your mom enjoyed Thanksgiving - and same for your sister. I understand you no longer feeling the holidays are enjoyable without family around you, but I do understand your sister enjoying a break in having to host a meal for a big group. I find it very stressful - bf and I are never on the same page with it. I try to prep as much as I can in advance, and bf is very much a last minute person. Having people come over and then they wait hours for dinner is ridiculous and all because he didn't get an earlier start on this dish or that. Bleh. == My new monitor is set up and fine. It doesn't adjust up and down like my old one, but it seems alright at the height it is, and if I decide I need it higher, I could buy a riser for it... == Yes, I'd like to get another dog but BF has said he'll never have another one after losing our dog 4+ years ago - too devastated. I thought not having a dog for a few years would allow for some vacations/trips without worrying about a pet sitter/walker, but the trips haven't happened thanks to my foot for the past few years and due to COVID this year...I definitely want to have a dog again, but I think I'll wait until I arrange to WFH on a permanent basis even after the office reopens. This time around with the dog, I would definitely make sure things like doggy daycare, dogwalking and dogsitting are all set up so it's not like choosing between a dog and a vacation...

Okay, gonna get this posted. Hellos to the rest of you! :wave: Pop in when you get a chance!

Hello Ladies...

I am off FB for a while. It is just such a joy stealer. Too much negative and bs. I think people enjoy posting negative crap and hurting others. Even if it is unintentional. If you can't say anything nice just shut the fruit up. I know not everything is peachy keen, but when I let the negative get to me it is time to let it go.

My friend Gina who owns the pizza shop, her hub, momma and dad all got covid. Not too bad. All are recovering. Seems I know more and more people that have it or had it.

Our family Christmas is Sat the 19th. Same small crowd of 9 that we had for Thanksgiving. Only this time at my house. Serving the normal holiday meal. Chili. hahahahaha. Sick of ham and turkey, so chili it is. Cornbread, pie and salad. boom shocka locka.
Work still going great. Yes, I agree with you HAPPY...all the newness of learning the job makes it for a fun environment, but along with that is being treated well. That part I did not get at WFargo.

LAURA....many of my friends that WFH have adjusted to it so well that they do not want to go back into the office. They thought it was hard and couldn't do it in the beginning but now prefer it.

Have a wonderful weekend all.

Love yas.

Hello worldly chicks. It's been awhile since I've posted on this thread. I'm now posting of Steel Magnolias. They post more regularly There is nothing new to report except I've come back to Battlefield. Didn't like the other place. The day time was okay but night time was spooky. Sis made nephew move due to his behavior. I will just say he was living a playboy lifestyle and leave it at that.
This is it for me.

Hello! I am excited and happy to report that I am now out of office from December 14 to Jan 4 for vacation time and Holidays!


I am so excited to not have to think about work things!! I shouldn't have to much to go back to as most everyone will be out of office from Dec 21 to Jan 4, so really just this week and I don't think I will have that much as I told everyone 30 days before to have every thing they needed done to me by December 7 so I could work it to closure by Dec 11, my last day in the office until Jan 4. They about killed me with all they gave to me but at least I won't come back to it.


DH has had both his leg surgeries and is doing very well. The swelling in his legs has diminished completely and that is without the compression socks but they told him to wear them daily and he is. He says his legs no longer ache.


I have done all my Christmas shopping online with the exception of some Bath and Body products I need to pick up. I like to go to the store for those things. In fact we plan to go today and get that.


DH has been wrapping most of the gifts as they come in; I have his to wrap. I plan to send him to the grocery later this week and wrap while he is gone. That man can spend a couple of hours at the grocery. He is very social and talks with everyone...I tell him it is ok as long as he has his mask on and they do to and they social distance, and no hugs or shaking hands.


I wanted to check in and read all the posts as I have missed all of you.


Ceejay: It is great to see you! I'm so glad you posted on our thread


Annie: It sound like you have a nice Family Christmas planned. I'm glad to hear you are enjoying your new workplace. I hope your friend Gina and her family have recovered well from Covid.


Laura: If the boyfriend won't get on board with getting the updates done, I would at least get contractors in to give me estimates and get an idea of the costs and then share that with the boyfriend and ask if he wants to contribute sweat equity or $$ to the updates because they are going to get done....you have waited long enough.


Are you still working from home? I am and will be until May 2021 (that is what they told us 2 weeks ago). I do prefer it. I think if I could go in the office 3 times a week and two days at home, it would be a nice balance for me. I might ask about that after we come back to the office. We do have flexible working arrangements available to take.


Happy: Very nice that you got the laptop switched over.


I need to get a move on. We are planning to go get the Bathy and Body items in about an hour and I need to get my make-up on (I don't do much of that anymore daily except mascara!) and I want to eat a light lunch before we go.


I'll be back soon! I promise!!

Hi ladies,

Figured I'd check in. Not much going on. I have to finish a few Christmas cards, just not in the mood - you'd think I had to shovel a mountain's worth of dirt with all the time this is taking. I'd like Christmas to be over and the start of a New Year and put this year behind us. I am hiding out at home as much as possible. I agree with Annie - people are just crazy, crazy, crazy and opinionated and I really don't want to interact with them any more. Never noticed it as much as the last 2 years. Ugh.

My knee is acting up and it's affecting my ankle too. Not sure if it's the shoes or the lack of therapeutic exercises but I have again started my P/T exercises. DH and I went to a session at the gym yesterday about corrective exercises. The guy was enthusiastic but not everyone can teach. The session was SO technical and dry - I felt like I was in a second year medical training program. He needs to learn to translate technical to English just like I had to do with computers. We might try a second session IF he actually shows us real exercises this time. I did some shopping for myself online with sales and DH is seriously debating about a new mirrorless camera for himself so our shopping is done. I sent packages to my sister and Mom so they got their goody boxes. Swiss Colony used to offer the very best Christmas oranges and sadly they have not carried them for years. They were a favorite gift of mine as the oranges were always juicy and sweet. I could order from many Florida citrus groves but these were a special orange only available between mid-December and mid-January so don't know the right kind to order.

Susie - enjoy your time off! I'm sure you will find many ways to keep busy and have some relaxing time. Glad DH is recovering nicely.

Ceejay - nice to see you. I admit I am very confused on where you are living. Are you with your sister, on your own or living in your sister's house? It seemed like you moved to a new town, more rural recently so does this mean you are back in the city again.

Laura - sometimes the clog is so bad they need to rod it out when a plunger won't do the trick. Glad it got fixed. I feel your pain on the push me / pull you back and forth about remodeling. With us DH is getting older but he has always been meticulous. Not a perfectionist but do it correctly and let's face it, a lot of people do a mediocre job so he hates to contract someone because they do a so-so job and he gets mad paying good money for that. That's a bummer with BF's vertigo. I have the same problem, this time of year it's really bad - when the vertigo hits, it's sudden and about knocks you on your feet. A very strange feeling, not one you want to invoke but sadly it happens when you tip your head and going about life, we have to tip our heads! I hope you can find the right time to get another dog again. Yes, they do require extra thinking (tell me about it with 4 cats!!) but they bring so much to our lives. And yes, the hardest part is when they get sick or reach the natural end of their lives but it's no reason to not give another one a loving home on day. :hug:

Annie - I agree with you about Facebook. People are just getting mean. Glad your friends are doing well with the Covid. I think I am more nervous about the cases that have lingering effects long past recovery. They had a lead article in our paper this week about a local resident who had a mild case but still months later suffers from sudden onset of exhaustion and headaches. I am on the fence about the vaccine at this point but I have time to think about it as not only would I be in the 3rd group but apparently the government has not done a good job of distributing the vaccine as the manufacturers have millions of doses sitting in warehouses awaiting orders to transport and institutions are getting letters that they are getting shorted out on what they originally thought they were getting. This country is so messed up. I hope we can recover and find a good normal again. Hope your family is doing well and the boys aren't going bonkers.

Well I should get these cards finished and into the mail before the 1pm post office pick up. One week until Christmas - hoping that mailing them today will get them delivered to the next state in time. I feel badly for the post office workers. The things they put in place to slow down the post office have really messed them up for this, their busiest time of the year. Still our mail carrier is sweet and sunny when she knocks on my door and delivers the endless stream of packages.

Hello to Shad - could use some of your warm weather at the moment - a little bit of sunshine too.

Don't forget to look out your window tonight if it's clear. You will see 2 stars very close together very near the sliver of the moon. That is Jupiter and Saturn converging to create the "Christmas Star" on December 21. In all my years of being an astronomy fan, I have never seen them anywhere near this close. DH said because this has not happened in over 800 years Happy. :rofl: It's kind of cool.

Peace folks. :wave:

Hello everyone yet again MIA.
It's been a busy couple of weeks with birthdays, Christmas lunches, sorting out problems with the volunteer work. Doing the work - getting no thanks but it is done anyway. And now we are one week away from Christmas - lucky I am not doing a lot of shopping to buy gifts because I hate going to the shops now - especially the big malls.

Happy - you would not be happy with our weather. I'm about to go for my third shower of the day and 4th set of clothes and we haven't hit midday yet. The temps are well over 90F and humidity is almost total. We are waiting for the sea breeze to come in to make things bearable. Grass is growing as fast as I mow it. Rain is falling in great sheets, then it stops and the humidity strikes again. I did get the grass mowed this morning. And I have been working in the garden, and I have made tomato and capsicum soup. The computer is dead slow and this site is telling me my browser is full and to clear the browser storage. How do I do that.

Susie - good to hear you are getting on with life at home. I'm glad to hear that the DH has come through his surgery well and is healing well. How is your shoulder these days. I am only giving gifts to the little ones this year. Although I have sent a gift card to the family down south and money to the grand child. Have no idea what to buy the son up here.

Ceejay - nice to see you posting. Hope all is okay.

Annie - you will be having your Christmas lunch today. Best wishes to all the family from us lot here in sweaty Australia. Yes Facebook is a bit of a nutcase now. I post much less than I used to. Don't read all the negative bits at all unless I think I can help someone who has fallen down on their luck as so many have these days, but I don't go out of my way there either since I offered help to a family who said they were struggling only to find the parents were still drinking and smoking and maybe drugging a well. End of help.

Laura - always disagreements when we set out to do the DIY and improvements. That's usually why it is nice to live alone and make your own decisions. Right or wrong it's only you to blame. I'm still struggling through mine.

And there we are, still COVID free up here, but there has been another nasty outbreak in Sydney's Northern Beaches so they are back in lockdown. Every frigging politician is so worried about the economy they won't enforce a strict lockdown until it becomes absolutely essential. No travel without quarantine between here and NZ for at least another 3 months now. Nobody over there better die or get sick or get married etc.

So I'll head for the shower again and then have a break with a book in the air conditioning in the bedroom - A/C in lounge gave up the ghost after a big storm 3 weeks back. DS2 has been putting in a new one for me but it is not operational yet - apparently there is a leak somewhere so he has to fix that and before he could do so, he got landed with a week of night shift (which he hates) so I wait.

Happy - sorry to hear about the knees and ankles. It's not easy getting older. I doubt that it will be clear tonight enough to see the bright stars, however I will check it out shortly - where, when, why etc. Maybe the coming of a new messiah - could surely do with it. Hope whoever can talk some sense into the overpaid, underemployed, no ideas and no ideals politicians we have here.

Same old story here - hot, steamy. Not going to get any better in the next week either according to the weather bureau.

Not much to talk about except we are at the summer solstice - today is the longest day. Well that can only be good news. Roll on February

Annie - hope you are all okay there. Bloody COVID. We thought we had it bad over here, but it is nothing compared to the US. Still if it's citizens won't stay home, won't accept that it is real, won't wear the PPE gear to ensure that they don't pass things on, then the inevitable happens and good people suffer. Get well soon.

Been out to lunch 3 days in a row. Better watch the intake or I will put back on that which I have managed to get off in the last couple of weeks (2.2Kg) Finally that prednisone is wearing off.



Gotta go, beds to make, floors to sweep, dog to throw sticks for. And I had better think about some shopping for food for the dog and cat as well. Can't have them starving at Christmas.