Healthy Living Thread

[marcy]

Hi Kids!
Dee Jay, yay for progress on the closet. I was going to take a picture of you of our bathroom sinks. I was kind of laughing about it - my side has like four things, Marty's side has too many things to count. I thought, if someone just looked at both sinks they'd think the cluttered up side was the "girls". Ha!

I did not know that is why they call Chicago the windy city - and you don't even have to explain it to me. Then again that same term applies to pretty much politics everywhere. Obviously that guy who mentioned that to me didn't learn that when he lived there.

Yep, I bet our storm heads your way. We are supposedly dropping over 50 degrees when the storm arrives, with lows of -15. Aak. Winter is not even close to being over. I don't believe there won't be any more snow or freezes until June 5 and then I wouldn't bet on it.

I did not try to knit last night. My wrist is kind of sore but I'm pushing it a bit more on bending. Also, I bet the wind isn't helping because last night I think I could tell exactly where the bone broke.

That'd be me on the box of broth. I hope your chili experiment is tasty.

Nice to hear you are getting a refund on your taxes. I hope to hear the same, but I sincerely doubt it. You did have a busy day and a nice time at lunch. Why is Portland to expensive to ship to that area?

I filled my car today for the first time since the day after I broke my wrist. I told Marty I got 9 plus gallons to over 7 weeks of house arrest. Ha Ha.

Not much new with me. I ventured to the store this morning to pick up some stew meat. Since tomorrow is forecast to be snowy and frigid, I thought what a perfect day to brew up homemade beef noodle soup. I am pretty sure I can roll out noodles, we will see. And you know me, I’m determined and adaptable.

I worked most of the day, went over a program for the astronomy meeting this week and now am going to make myself a batch of mini pizzas for the freezer. I am so out of food for lunches. Not that I mind a peanut butter sandwich, but I don’t even have things for supper.

I did walk through two small puddles today and had on my synthetic sole shoes that I had on when I fell, but I sure watched where I was going.

I got my first broken wrist bill. Apparently the company who sells the removable splint I got from the doctor bills me separately. It was over $70 for the exact same thing they sell on Amazon for $15. I’ll get a bill from the same place who provided the sling I barely wore. Fun. The rest of my bills are still in limbo. Grr. I hate bills. I want to pay them NOW.

Laters,
Curby

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

Dee Jay, did you get your clothes back in the closet?

I only worked 5 hours today. I'm kind of between projects and it's a slow week. I did get our beef noodle soup for lunch but had to have Marty come upstairs and get out a 12 pound bag of flour for me and dump some of it in my flour canister. Now, rolling out the noodles was a challenge. I couldn't get them rolled quite as thin as I normally do, but I just used a pizza cutter and made them a bit thinner when I cut them. The soup hit the spot too.

Tonight, I decided to see if I could paint my fingernails. Success! Little pleasures. I used a light pink so it will last a few days.

Marty got called for jury duty on Monday. He's thrilled especially since he has some things going on at work.

I did call the billing department at the hospital for my ER charges and doctors bills. According to the guy I talked to, everything is being processed. We'll see.

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Wednesday kids!

Curby, I got called for jury duty too! It's only the third time in all the years I've lived in Chicago (since 198. But I'm convinced this happened because a lady at my office was talking about jury duty and I told her it had been ages for me... and then I saw the notice come through in my USPS daily digest the very next day! I won't get the actual paperwork until I go downtown next week but they give you plenty of notice so I'm sure I've got time. Yay for painting your nails! I'm trying to be super careful with my two that are held together with silk wrap and super glue. If only it lasts long enough for them to grow out a little I'll be happy!

Well your weather got to us with a vengeance today. It was spitting frozen drizzle when I went to work. I should have known something when up when I pulled into the bank parking lot and there was literally only one other car there. The office was a ghost town -- pretty much everyone decided to work from home. I lasted through three meetings and then headed home at lunchtime. I've made a big dent in Mt. St. Laundry (the fifth load is in the dryer right now!) and even made a pumpkin loaf... which was so terrible that I threw it away. This was a different recipe than I made before, which wasn't perfect by any means, but at least that last one was edible. Oh well, live and learn. I hope I can find that other recipe though because now I've got all the stuff (I even froze half the pumpkin because the can had more than double what I needed).

Tomorrow I've got more meetings (of course) and I also need to run and get an order of boxes and peanuts at lunch. There is a charity event tomorrow night that Liam is involved with, but my requirement this year is just to show up and eat dinner. I can handle that!

The closet is somewhat put back together... but I have way way WAY too many clothes. For real. Too. Many. Speaking of which, the dryer just buzzed better get those folded and upstairs and then I can hit the hay!

 

[Dee*Jay]

Why is there an emoji in the year nineteen eighty-eight... ? I swear I didn't put that there!

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Thursday kids!

So I went to bed around ten and woke up at about two to pee and thought, "It's a little chilly in here... Liam just have turned the thermostat down." Well... NO. around 6:30 he came into the bedroom Without. My. Coffee. ??? Apparently the power had been out pretty much all night, and was still out then. We were able to take showers (in the dark) and I stopped at Starbucks on the way in where I slapped on a little makeup in the ladies' room. Fortunately I washed my hair yesterday so it doesn't look toooo bad. But what a PITA. Not sure if it's back on even now. Hopefully it will be by the time we get home tonight!

I guess if this is the worst thing that happens to me I'm doing OK!

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Saturday kids!

Happy to report in that I didn't buy a single thing at the silent auction! And dinner was ok, but the wine was surprisingly good, so that was a total bonus!

Yesterday I worked from home. And I was BUSY. I didn't even log off until almost seven last night! To be fair I also made a big pot of chili, did some laundry, and packed up an order along the way LOL. Early in the day I went all Release The Kraken on the consultant. Amazingly I then got more communication and progress in four hours that I'd gotten in the four weeks up to this point -- HA!

I've got a giant pile of dishes on the counter. The good news is these are dishes I've already had listings for and previously sold so I can reuse some of the photos... the bad news is my picture taking has improved over time so I'm going to feel compelled to retake some of them (more than I'd like... ). Oh well, it is what it is.

Liam is off to an auction (now there's a shocker -- NOT) and I should be getting up and moving. This is my love/hate relationship with weekend mornings: I can stay in bed / I need to get up and use the good light. But I want to sit her and drink my coffee / if I don't list stuff it will never leave the house. You get the picture!

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

Wow, I've been MIA for a few days. No, I wasn't arrested or drunk.

Dee Jay, oh no you got selected for the next round of jury duty. A friend of mine got her notice in the mail too. Marty is part of this session that ends in like a month. He's hoping they don't select him on Monday. I wonder if you can change your address to the North Estate and say you don't live in town anymore? Since you still own property there though, they may not care.

Yay for the closet being somewhat back together. I used to have way too many clothes. My closest has filled back in a little bit but not to it's former glory. Some of the additions are coats and jackets though. I need to throw out the "evidence" of the four things I cut up to accommodate my cast and splint.

Sorry the storm hit with a vengeance and your power was out for a while. I hope you had at least warm water for the shower. When we had that blizzard a few years ago, we were out of power for almost two days. Our gas fireplace in the living room really helped keep us warm. We were near 50 here today but it's windy. Go figure. The state is still pretty much closed. On Facebook the highway department are posting pictures of the drifts on highways and state roads; they are insane.

It is amazing how much work you can get done at home - both actual work and home chores. I totally enjoyed that when I was a WAH employee at my former job. That was nice. Too funny going all Kraken on the consultant resulted in higher productivity.

I slept in until about 7 today. It was great. Marty got up about 2:30 and disappeared. I guess he was thinking about a work issue so went down to his office and worked on it.

So what the heck have I been doing? Well, I worked most days until about 5 p.m. Marty got home from the gym early Thursday in order to drive us to the astronomy meeting. In the nasty weather too. And then we finished the 12 Monkeys series we've been watching last night since he got home from the gym early again. I'm too used to him being at the gym most evenings, but between weather and a lot of the clients switching to morning hours.

I've been faithfully working on mobility, dexterity and strength and doing well. I even knit on mini me 2 for a few hours today. It kind of irritated my thumb again but not my wrist. I think this week I'll try lifting the 15 pound bar.

We had giant grilled porterhouse steaks for dinner today. I gave Marty about 1/3 of mine, and his was about 5 more ounces than mine way. We found a place that sells local beef who deliver to our door and have been buying from them. It's been quite tasty and about 40% less expensive than Omaha Steaks.

Tomorrow, I might venture to Sams Club and get a few things. I'm down to about a month of paper towels, so I best work on hoarding more of them. I don't think we'd run out of TP for six months though. I am finding their long sleeve tee shirts are warmer than most too, but they may be out of stock by now since I bought these in October. I need batteries too.

Laters,
Curby

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

We went out for breakfast this morning and will go to Sam's Club later today. We have a few days above freezing before the next cold and snow moves in Wednesday. I need fruit and a few other things. Marty wants to get a rotisserie chicken for his dinner and then he'll make a soup out of the rest of it. Maybe, I'll pick up a burger while we are out.

I did a bit more knitting last night. I hate to overdue it. Today while I was rounding up all the trash in the house, I decided to try lifting my 15 pound bar. Yes, it's two weeks before my doctor said I could, but thought I'd try it. It was pretty easy, lifting it back up to the rack was the most difficult part. I did presses, dead-lifts and rows, five-reps and three times each. Yay. It looks like my wrist swelled a little bit and I'll see if it hurts in a while. More progress. I may do just the bar until I reach that month mark then add more weight as I can.

Laters,
Curby

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Sunday kids!

Curby, it sounds like you're making real progress with your wrist, but be careful not to overdo it! The other night Liam called me into the living room and said, "Isn't this where Marcy lives?" and showed me a video on facebook of a vehicle driving down the highway. The snow was CRAZY deep and piled up in big "walls" on the sides. It was ridiculous! Did you make it to Sam's club? I had to run to the store yesterday for taco stuff after I took packages to the post office and I decided to go to one that I've never been to before. It was a strange experience... The parking lot was FULL but I have no idea where the people who came in those cars were because the store was pretty empty (?). When you first walk it it's like a warehouse entrance where they had long rows or carts, and then you go through another set of interior doors to the store. I rolled my cart up and down the aisles and had two things picked out already, but I was thinking, wow, this is kind of expensive compared to my regular Meijer. Then I got to the containers of spaghetti cheese and those were literally DOUBLE what I normally pay. So I put the other two things back, returned my cart to the line, got in the car and drove to the store I should have just gone to in the first place!

These past two days I've been a listing MACHINE! Yesterday I got up alllllll of the listings for the giant lot of Miss America pink I bought a few months ago. And today I did a whole bunch of other stuff, including even more things than I'd originally washed up and planned on for today, so I'm really happy. As of now I've even got sixteen listings drafted and ready to hit the button so I can put up a couple every day this week. Once again I'm out of clear stemware to list, but there's an auction tonight that has some I'm watching and my guess is I'll end up with it.

Tonight I need to throw a load of laundry in and pack up two small orders. I'll do all that while Liam takes he ferals home. If I weren't afraid I'd just sleep straight through I swear I'd go up and take a nap right now!

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Monday kids!

It's raining like a mo fo here. What a mess. At least I only had to drive ten minutes to my new office instead of two + hours to my old office, which is what it would have been in this weather.

Only one load of laundry got done yesterday... but I guess that's better than nothing! Last night's auction was a success... in that I won all four big lots I wanted, and at GREAT prices. Now I need to find time this week to go over and get everything. It never ends... !

Today I've got a bunch of meetings (!?!), including one with my boss and the consultant. And who knows what else. I just show up when things appear on my calendar and hope for the best!

Tomorrow is election day. I need to go downtown and vote. Not sure of the best way to do that. I'll likely end up working from my condo down there since we've got a polling place in my building. The bad news is there's not one candidate for Mayor that I feel strongly about voting FOR (although there are several I'm voting AGAINST). I need to read through the lists again and see the candidates' positions. And really, we're almost certainly going to have a run-off election anyway, which is what always happens here.

Alright, off to get this wet party started!

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

Dee Jay, I kind of worried I overdid it yesterday on my wrist because it was kind of making quiet Rice Krispie noises, but today it's even better. Sweet. And yes, tell Liam that is where I live and I keep posting on Facebook the picture of John Candy as a police office saying "Wyoming is closed". It is pretty much not a joke. The drifts I'm seeing from our DOT are nuts. Sometimes you can't even tell a road is there under the drifts.

We did successfully spend money like drunken sailors at Sam's Club. And came home with a load in the Curbymobile. Marty picked up a huge bag of Cara oranges since one of his clients said she really likes them. Epic fail! They look like grapefruit inside and have a very nasty aftertaste. I sent them all home today with our cleaning lady. She works at a visitors center for a state park so any food she puts out there disappears quickly. At least they didn't go to waste, even if the people who pick them up have the same opinion of them we do. That stuck the store you went to was so expensive, groceries are higher now in general so no sense paying even higher prices.

I did see new pictures on your site an Instagram. I was tempted to buy a few things my mom used to have and let my sisters pick one, but then they might not want them since they are like my mom's stuff not my mom's. Does that make sense? I was feeling sappy. I haven't been to the cemetery since before Christmas and feel like I need to get out there.

Yay for a ten minute commute to work. Mine is under a minute these days. I worked over eight hours today. I hope the rain quit by now. That four-letter white crap is coming back Wednesday.

Sweet you scored big on the auction last night. I keep waiting for glasses to show up like the ones I have, but so far no dice. I wish they had some identifying marks on them. Oh well. I still have six of them in great shape.

Doesn't that suck when you have to pick the less of all "evils" on choices to vote? Of course, what decent, respectable person would run for political office anymore? It's not like the cream of the crop shows up on the ballot anymore. I know this last election I voted against - not for - people. That's kind of sad. Good luck heading to town and voting. That's great you have a voting place in your condo. I typically go down to vote at the county clerk office early.

Marty was assigned seat #3 when he showed up for jury duty so yes, he got picked. I got a text at lunch saying "I'm not happy" so my response was "So, tag you're it?" He called me about 4:30 and asked where we were going for supper. We went out and had some wine and steaks for supper. Then I came home and finished my last article. I should write up image captions now, I bet they'd be hysterical. Or so I think.

I still have two more sessions of wristercises to do and need to knit a few rows.

Laters,
Curby

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Tuesday kids!

Curby, we followed in your "spend money like a drunken sailor" footsteps and went to Costco last night. Several hundred dollars of I couldn't even tell you what... If you ever find something on my site you want for you or your sisters just tell me and I'll send it to you -- don't buy it! I do know what you mean though about it being "like" your mom's stuff and not ACTUALLY her stuff. How did Marty's jury duty go? Did he say, "Bring the guilty b*stard in, we'll give him a fair trial!" That usually get's me sent right home.

Yesterday the consultant continued to send info through at a rapid rate, which is good because we need it, but bad because we had a 2 pm call and no time to review most of it before then. Oh well, at least we're making some headway.

Last night after mortgaging the house at Costco I did my nails and not much else. As of now I've got one small order to pack and when I take that to the post office around lunch time I'll pick up all the glass from Sunday's auction. I also just came up with an idea to deal with the three dozen or so fur coats Liam still has in the dining room coat closet. If we redeploy one of his shelving units from the shed downstairs where Packing Box Mountain is we can put our own coats away again. That would be fabulous, LOL.

Alright, time to hit the shower!

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

Dee Jay, I am glad you and Liam spent money like drunken sailors as well. It's good for the economy! I swear I average about $20 per minute that I'm in that store. I did hoard some more paper towels, but I didn't pick up TP - I don't have another spot to hide another huge package of it.

Marty was done with the trial before noon. Everyone pretty much agreed the state didn't prove their case. The guy was charged with burglary and assault with a deadly weapon. The burglary charge didn't fly since he used to live there, he had a key and went in to get things he left there. Then he got in a fight with the guy in bed with his ex and supposedly hit him in the head with brass knuckles. However, the police never saw the brass knuckles or blood or injuries from them. There was not pictures to support an injury and the officer the interviewed only mentioned the two guys fighting. If they'd charged the guy with assault then yes, it was clear he was guilty of that. I'd say the prosecutor was at fault there.

Sounds like the consultant is working out for you. Good deal.

I'll see if my sisters want me to get some of those pieces from you. I'd pay for them though. I appreciate the offer.

The idea to pack up those fur coats is a great one. I bet those coats are warm too. I worry they'd make me sneeze since most animals bother my allergies. I wore a long sleeve tee today with a flannel shirt. I was more warm than wearing sweatshirts or sweaters. Wish I had more flannel shirts now.

I worked eight hours today. I keep thinking I'll run out of things to do and then something else dumps in my lap. Today, I collected data from Googly analytics on some of our posts and put them in a spreadsheet.

Did you make it to vote? I see the current mayor didn't win today.

My fingers are pretty sore so I only knit two rows on mini me #2.

Snow may be coming in tomorrow. Again. I did see Venus and Jupiter tonight though. They'll be very close tomorrow night. I hope the YF has been watching them. I got two pictures with my cell phone.

Laters,
Curby

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[marcy]

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Wednesday kids!

Curby, well at least Marty's trial had an interesting plot line, LOL. The mayoral situation in Chicago is a sh!t show right now. We had Mayor Daley for many many years when I first got here, and he definitely did some things "just because he could," but I have to say I felt safer in the city then. After that we had Rahm Emanuel. He was OK but nothing to write home about. Now Lori Lightfoot... I know she got dealt a rough hand being a newbie mayor with the covid situation, but I just can't say I love her. In this city, if a candidate doesn't get 50% of the vote (and how could they with NINE candidates on the ballot?!) we then have a run-off election with the two top vote-collecting candidates in a few months. Welcome to Chicago politics -- the never ending circus! YF has been enjoying the sky, but I'll make sure to remind him about Jupiter in case he doesn't already know.

Yesterday I did some work, went to the post office, picked up the glasses from Sunday, took a brief nap, packed up my open orders, and started the cow bag lady's accounting in earnest.

I've been trying to do something about the dimness in my office under the cabinets. There is a light about a foot long that is attached to the underneath, but it's too small for the six foot span and it turns off randomly every few minutes. I ordered some strip lights and put them up with thumb tacks, but the "dots" annoy me. Not sure this is the right answer either. Back to the drawing board.

I need to read a bunch of stuff today that the consultant sent over. All the sudden he's giving us more than we can take in at one time. Feast or famine!

Rumor has it there are mini bundt cakes in the kitchen. I better go check that out. Yanno... just for quality control...

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

Dee Jay, I guess the house was a total pigsty (they showed pictures of it at the trial) and the lady has a toddler and is now eight-months-pregnant. She was "with" the guy on trial when she got pregnant but the baby is the other guys. A sorted mess.

Wow to the circus of Chicago politics. I totally get the "windy city" bit. I've heard many tails about political corruption there. Then again I think that's everywhere anymore.

Bummer to dim lighting at work. I hope you can get some better lighting put up. I had that problem at my last job. They put up this horrible bright, glaring LED bulbs but they weren't evening spaced over our cubes. So they were either in your face of you were in heavy shadow. I had a double- wide open cube and one side was bright, the other side was darkish. I usually did paperwork in the middle. My den doesn't have good lighting, but once i open the shutters it's fine in here. As a side note, we have under cabinet lighting in our kitchen. I love it.

That's good the consultant is being helpful and productive. Yay.

Marty woke me up bright and early with a text to check out the sunrise. It was pretty. I logged in right away and updated my post for March. I guess I am training a girl to do my updates for me now, she lives in Spain so can get them done before I do them in MT. I made a two page pdf for her what to do. It's easy but I don't know how familiar she is with it.

Think I'll go find something to eat. I'm very hungry. How were the bundt cakes? I plan on going to Culver's for supper. Their flavor of the day is caramel swirl with peanut butter cups. I'm sold.

Laters,
Curby

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

I crack myself up. Marty just came in the den and he’s still in his robe. I said “Klinger, it’s almost noon, put on a dress!”

I learned how to post things on our three social media accounts today for work. Ooh. It's a glitchy platform. Seems easier to do them one at a time. Instagram, Facebook and Twitter need different formats and somehow it switched part of the Instagram and Facebook posts and would NOT take the Twitter post. Oh well, I just did it twice, I can't say I'm an expert on it.

It's sunny here today and I need to go pick up my drugs at Walgreens. I might pick up window food for supper while I'm out. I didn't make it to Culver's yesterday, but I did have some chocolate ice cream at home.

I did more reps with the 15 pound bar last night (YAY) and on Sunday I'm adding a bit of weight. Sadly, my thumb said "screw you" in mid third row of mini me #2. I still think it's arthritis in the thumb joint since if I don't agitate it, it's fine. If it was broke or cracked, almost everything should bug it. That's my diagnosis being a non-expert in medicine.

I hope YF got to see the planets close together last night. No such luck here. It was very cloudy. I did catch Venus peaking through the clouds briefly. I checked about every 10 minutes but never saw anything. Phooey. They should be close again tonight.

Oh well, off to scrounge up something for lunch and do round two of my wristercises.

Laters,
Curby

 

[marcy]

Here's the planets tonight. I even dug out my camera with my new two pound lens. My wrist is a bit sore now but I have fun playing with it.

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

I messed around with my camera and new lens quite a bit last night. The lens is heavy enough I have to brace it with my left hand. At about 2 a.m. my wrist said "yo, we need to talk". I finally got up and took two Advil but couldn't go back to sleep until about 5 a.m. I slept past 7 anyway. It's achy today. At this point, I'm sure I'm not hurting it or setting it back, just everything new will agitate it for a while. I totally enjoyed having my camera out though.

A friend is picking up pizza and coming over later today. I picked up wine for us and think I"ll make a pan of cocoa brownies for us. I hope I don't pass out after one glass of wine. I never take naps since if I try, it's a waste of time. Funny, I caught up with several of my old, life-long friends this week so I guess I'm being sociable this week. It's so unlike me.

Take care.
Marcy

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Saturday kids!

Curby, I gave up on the dot lights and went to Home Depot and got some patio string lights and up them up with mini clothespin thumbtacks. Not perfect, but better! LOL on the Klinger comment! I have to say I really loved that show. Your photo is great and I'm going to show it to YF. Cocoa brownies sound marvelous! I stopped at Ikea on the way back to The North Estate yesterday and stocked up on dark chocolate bars, which were on sale for $1 each if you're an Ikea member. I got a "case" of them because they were all packaged up neatly in one box. A "case" is 35 BTW. Thirty-five??? Gotta love the Swedes!

So I made the trek downtown yesterday and went to the photographer. I think of the 120+ pictures he took at least one of them should be acceptable, ha ha. After that I ran by my condo and then stopped by a friend's place to notarize a few things (he's the executor of an estate) before heading back north.

We've come up with a solution for the fur coats... my idea was to put one of the shelving units downstairs, Liam's idea was the location of the shelving unit (because the location I came up with at first wasn't the best in retrospect), so it was a joint mental effort. Today we need to actually get them down there, but when he brought me coffee a little while ago he said he took a few down already and it seems like it's going to work great. Woo hoo -- we get the dining room coat closet back!

I don't think I'm going to get any listing done today because of that, but I've still got a week's worth queued up so I'm OK. I will need to run to both the post office and UPS though to take the things I packed up last night. Tomorrow we're supposed to go to Iowa for early family Easter.

Alright, better go to see what's happening at "the furrier" downstairs!

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Sunday kids!

Liam and I tried to list some of the coats in the morning but the internet was sllllloooowwww so I decided to clean up the kitchen and Liam and OF ran to the Salvation Army to drop off a load of our clothes from the recent closet reorg. He sent me a picture and said "is this anything?" Well it certainly WAS! So I said Do No Leave That Shelf, I will be there in NINE MINUTES with a box and packing paper! He came across a LOAD of Tiara Cameo Black, including some rare things (ice bucket, butter dish). I swooped in there so fast there were flame shooting off the wheels of my shopping cart! When I was done packing it the box was so heavy I had to use the cart to get it out to my car, and when I got home I backed up literally to the front porch steps to bring it inside because I could barely carry it. Good boyfriend points to Liam yesterday!

We did ultimately get some of the coats listed, but they are not going to all fit on the shelving unit we took downstairs. Ugh. I made a casserole type dinner and then our friends asked if we wanted to go out. Of course their text came through just was we were digging in, so we went and met them at Cracker Barrel. Liam had cake (I resisted) and then we shopped at the little store area. I had a ball! Restraint kicked in and I only bought three bottles of colored soda for photo props and an awesome scented candle, but man, everything they had there was so damn CUTE! I've only been to a Cracker Barrel one other time in my life and it was when the CB and I were heading over to my boat house in Michigan one Friday night. There was an accident on the highway and traffic was backed up literally for hours so we got off in the middle of Indiana somewhere and went to a Cracker Barrel for dinner to kill some time. I don't remember the gift shop then, but I was probably so annoyed it just escaped me. Well now that I know about this I am definitely going back!

Alright, it's already after eight and we're supposed to be on the road by nine. Better get rolling!

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Monday kids!

Yesterday turned out pretty well! We were on the road to Iowa early-ish (i.e., only a few minutes later than the time we planned on leaving, LOL). We had Easter lunch and headed back in enough time that it was still light when we returned to The North Estate. Liam took the ferals home and I packed up my four orders... and then headed upstairs to deal with the closet some more. My most immediate issue was shoes. I brought a hanging thingie that held 20 pairs of shoes from my condo on Friday and had the perfect place for it on the wall at the end. I also redeployed a different hanging thingie from the old closet configuration and as long as I don't buy one single new pair of shoes for the rest of my life I'm in good shape!

My boss is out today and I have a slew of things that need to happen before the meetings start up in earnest this afternoon. Better go put my nose to the grindstone.

 

[marcy]

Wow, I've been slacking.

Hi Kids!

Dee Jay, I didn't die nor did Marty shove me in a closet somewhere. I'm sure he wants to at times.

Are the lights working for you at your desk? What brand of chocolate bars does IKEA sell or is it their brand? I am a total Lindt chocolate fan and Russell Stover's milk chocolate caramels. The cocoa brownies were delicious and I sent 1/2 of the remains home with my friend. An eight inch pan only makes about a few brownies. Either four, six or nine if you cut them right.

Nice to get your picture taken, do you get to pick the image they use? It took me a while to get a selfie of me to use on EarthSky. I should update it since my face is certainly thinner now. When my friend was here visiting, she mentioned how much weight I've lost and since Marty was sitting there eating two giant steaks at the time - I pointed at him that's because he eats all of my food. I couldn't resist. Which is why I mentioned earlier I'm sure he wants to shove me in a closet sometimes.

Sweet to get the coat closet back and to get some of the fur coats organized and listed. Our coat closet is unusable right now. We've got an area rug with a 1/2 inch pad under it so the door won't open. I did find my Sorel's in there recently though when I was looking for something. Yay!

That's awesome Liam found such a treasure for you at the Salvation Army. I can see you with flames shooting off your cart and hauling the "loot" in to the house. And I can also see the huge grin on your face. Liam did good.

Yes, the gift store at Cracker Barrel is awesome. I wander it far longer than Marty wants me to, but he's patient about it. They often have Snoopy things too. Good job avoiding their cake. Pretty much everything I've head there is pretty good.

Yay for getting Easter dinner with the family out of the way already. We don't even pretend to go to that anymore since my parents are gone.

So since I last posted - I had a great time visiting with my friend that brought over pizza for us. We only finished one bottle of wine between us but we sure talked a long time.

Saturday was grocery shopping and vegging out in the front of the TV most of the day.

Sunday was the day for chores, I picked up all the crap I stacked up on the dining room table since I broke my wrist. Can you believe it's been over nine weeks already? I did laundry and ran some errands. I even ran the Curbymobile through the car wash. I know it's going to snow again tomorrow (to which Marty keeps telling me to shut the F up when I mention it) but it was filthy. Then I came home and washed the back window since SUV back windows don't come out of car washes too well. Then we watched more TV.

I continue to do my four wristercises a day, don't know I'll get anymore range of motion, but I think I should continue to due them as long as I wake up with stiff fingers and / or wrist. I even added a bit of weight on the bar lifting. Sweet. Knitting still seems to be the worst thing I'm doing. Some nerve must be getting pinched in my thumb joint because about the third row on my afghan it started getting bad. If I let go of the knitting needle and bend and shake my hand, the numbness goes away. Marty says a lot of nerves and muscles run through the wrist and it is still a bit bruised and swollen. I can wear my diamond ring though. Yay.

Well, off to brew up some mini meatloaves for myself for supper and the freezer. I've been on a PB kick so I've been having a PB sandwich and fruit for lunch, so I'm hungry now.

I forgot, I did play more with my camera. I put on a lighter lens so I don't have to hold it with my left hand.

Laters,
Curby

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Tuesday kids!

Curby, one more day and I was going to call 911 and send them to your house. Ikea's chocolate bars are their own brand. They are the big ones, not the regular small like standard Hershey bars, and they used to be $1 but the price recently went up to $1.29. Being a F&F member though I can usually get them on sale for a buck. Because... yanno... bling money... No images from the photographer yet, but he said "this week" so maybe today... maybe not... ha. The candle I bought at Cracker Barrell the other night is The Best Candle Ever. It is Northern Lights Soft Cashmere and I am going back to get EVERY ONE they have! What's up with car washes and our back windows? It REALLY annoys me! Marty's right about all the things that go through your wrist. it sounds like you're making good progress! I've never been a PB&J fan. I'd rather just do the PB. I'm weird about sweet things being with other things. Like if you get chocolate cake at a restaurant and they drizzle it with some sort of sauce, usually raspberry. Nope!

Yesterday I did not a lot until about lunch. The motivation just didn't kick in. But then I ran to UPS, ate some chili, and kicked it hard. The weekly meeting with the consultant was pretty good, and he's sent me a few things I asked for, so we're making progress on that front too.

Last night I had BBBS from 6 to 7, and then not much else happened. I didn't have any orders to pack and I wasn't too thrilled about doing anything more in the closet so I went to bed early and just internetted until I fell asleep.

There are -- drum roll please! -- no meetings on my calendar today! It's a miracle! I do need to call one guy, but I can do that any time I want. Woo hoo!

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

Dee Jay, I can hear the 911 call - I'd like to report Curby is missing. She hasn't checked in for days.

You can't beat large - and good - chocolate bars for a dollar. I totally get saving money for bling. Since I decided I wanted more flannel shirts, I checked LL Bean to see if their flannel shirts were on sale. I told Marty - I'm far too "cheap" to pay $90 for a flannel shirt that's on sale. They can't be $72 worth more nice than the one's I ordered on sale from Land's End.

Speaking of large Hershey bars, I have a fudge recipe from a friend of my mom's that lists things like that - two large Hershey bars. I usually buy two pounds of chocolate for it because I think those large Hershey bars were a pound. There's something else in that recipe that I guess on too, but don't remember what. It's good fudge though.

What scent is a cashmere candle? I used to burn a lot of spice or vanilla candles. I'll check out Cracker Barrels candles the next time we stop for breakfast.

And yes, car washes need to figure out a spray that gets the back window of SUV's. They barely clean any of it. At least the rest of the Curbymobile looks better.

I am with you on that sweet, syrupy stuff on cheesecake, etc. The only thing I like drizzled on my dessert is chocolate. Marty makes compote (I called it compost because I think I'm funny) to put on cheesecake, but I pass on using it. He doesn't even add sugar to his, but I'm not a fan. I don't mind fresh fruit on cheesecake, waffles, ice cream, etc. However, I do use grape jelly sometimes on my PB sandwich, but not very often. I am craving PB cookies too, but I will resist baking them as long as possible.

Did you remain meeting free today? I had our weekly meeting and am quitting work after six hours. I even started late today too. I slept in and did dishes first.

We only had frost on everything this morning. So no snow yet. It's cold again or is that still?

Yes, I continue to make progress with my wrist. This Friday will be 10 weeks from that fateful - klutzy Curby was in a hurry to get inside the jewelry store - day. I even knit five rows on mini me #2 last night. I stopped for a bit after two rows, and about mid-row kind of wiggle my fingers and hand. So I made it a bit longer. Another thing, I got done last night was make my mini meatloaves. I was excited I could squeeze ketchup out of the bottle for that. Yay!

A guy that retired from this job, keeps coming up with stories he wants to write. I edited one of them and he used images that were copyrighted. So I removed them and replaced them with images that can be used and so yesterday he emails me and my boss telling me he wants them put back and he'll do it, if I want. So I replied we'll look in to getting permission to use them and if we get permission, I'll put them back. So today, I heard back from one of the image owners giving me permission. I put it back in the article and let him know. He followed up with a kind of snotty response. I didn't answer it, I don't work for him. A while ago my boss responded to that email and indicated I was following our current procedures and explained why. I was impressed she did that. It's so unlike the boss I had before.

Off to goof off for a while. I'll do my round three of wristercises.

Laters,
Curby

 

[marcy]

Did you get your insurance issue taken care of? Mine is ongoing. I sent a message to our insurance and they told me to call the local office to check on it, because it goes there first. So I call the hospital who confirmed that and gave me the local office phone number. The local office can't confirm my information, so wouldn't tell me squat. And the hospital hit me up for the $60 bill they sent me that I tried to pay last week when their online payment portal kept saying I didn't owe them anything. I'll be lucky to get all this figured out by Christmas.

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Wednesday kids!

Curby, I have no idea how to describe the smell of these candles LOL. But now that you mention spice and vanilla I should run by and see if this brand has any in those scents too! Good luck explaining the copyright issue to the guy. Some people just don't get stuff like that. I THINK the insurance is taken care of. But who knows -- I could get something in the mail any day telling me I'm wrong! I did remain meeting free yesterday... until about 2 pm. And then *I* was the one who initiated a meeting. I got this 122 line item project plan from corporate risk management about the new division I was brought in to build. I was like... uh... WTF is this? And when do you need it? They said they want these plans in place before the inception of a project. Well that train has long left the station sister! I'm deep in the weeds and we could be live as early as April 1! I think I'm just going to ignore it and see what happens.

Last night on the way home Liam and I made the executive decision to go out for dinner. He wanted a "bar burger" so we headed over to a place by his office. I found it mediocre at best. No need to go back there as far as I'm concerned.

When we got back to the house I washed up all the black glass and queued up the draft listings so I can get everything photographed and taken downstairs today.

Alright, better get rolling!

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

Dee Jay, well now I'm going to have to visit a Cracker Barrel soon to smell one of those candles I hate going to Denver anymore - especially after what happened the last time I went. That guy wrote a very friendly response to my boss's email. I didn't answer it.

Oh no to getting those plans in place in a short time. Sounds like you don't have much time to get that done by April 1. Good luck with that! Surprise!!! Good idea to ignore it for now. It would have been nice to know about them yesterday.

Darn the bar burgers weren't very good. Sometimes they are great and other times, not so much. Marty rarely wants to eat bar food. I'm thinking of picking up Culver's for supper since the flavor of the day sounds quite tasty. However since it feels like 16 degrees right now, do I really want to venture out in the cold? I'll decide in a few hours, I do have some of those mini pizzas I made a few weeks ago that I could bake. And I have ice cream. Plus, I am cold right now. Shocking, I know. I caught my hand (the left one) between the arm of my chair and my desk and cut the top of my palm. Great, wounding my wounded hand. I have a Peanuts bandage on it, so that helps.

I spent most of my six hours on the clock today working on descriptions and links for the April charts. That is tedious work but I got through it today. I'll review it tomorrow then pass it on to someone else to check for me. I decided I'm done for the day. This work crap is interfering with my ability to goof off as a retired person.

Yay for taking more photos and queuing up some items for your store.

Think I'll go lift now. I am going to try 20 pounds for deadlifts.

Laters,
Curby

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

I worked on eclipse articles all day. Unusual ones going on this year so I had to do a lot of research. It was interesting though. Since I have pretty much full range of motion in my hand and it's been over a month now, I am not going to do my wristercises for a few days to see if I notice any issues. I figure working on lifting will be what I'll focus on. I just knit my first two rows on mini me #2 and will try to get six rows done tonight - resting between two rows.

We had an icy, frosty morning but it did get above freezing today. Yay.

Laters,
Curby

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Friday kids!

Curby, we got *your* snow yesterday and I'm not at all happy about it! How far along are you on mini me? I've said it before and I'll say it again... you sure work a lot for a retired person!

Yesterday was ok work-wise, and when I got home I just nibbled through dinner, had a couple glasses of prosecco, finished the seven listings for the black glass from last weekend, and went to bed early... Where I slept until about midnight and then was Wide Awake. I made the mistake of doing wordle just after midnight and sending it out to the family, and then sister #2 called when she realized I was up. A friend of ours was visiting her and there had obviously been some drinking going on LOL. So we talked for quite a bit, and then I finally finally got to sleep.

Today I have a big batch of green glass I bought last summer all laid out on the counter. There are several estate sales but only one that has anything I might want and it's a company I don't know so I'm not really inclined to trudge over there.

Other than that, I've got two orders to pack (one really good one -- four alexandrite glasses for $449, and I'll be bubble wrapping those To Death!) and I'm sure some work stuff will roll in over the course of the day. Excitement here abounds!