Evaluation

Do you ever get to the end of a day and wonder what you accomplished?  That is where I find myself this evening.  I can't see anything that looks much different.  Maybe that is because the things are not things that are showy.  Cleaning that only the one doing it knows it was done.  Like cleaning inside the microwave.  My DIL gave me this cute thing for Christmas.  It is specifically made for cleaning microwaves.

Pour vinegar into her skirt to the vinegar line then water to the water line.  Place her in the microwave for 5 minutes.  Wipe clean.  The contents can be used to brighten the streaked glass cooktop.  Remember the contents are hot.  I may have forgotten.  But the vinegar water combination did leave the cooktop and stove front nice and shiney.   As for the lady figure she is as happy as anyone can be with a dress full of vinegar.

The other thing I remembered I did was clean the inside of a grubby coffee carafe.  It still needed more scrubbing but that hobbled arm said enough of this for now.  So I went to the next easy project.

The apartment roof had leaked and caused damage in our bedroom.  Our maintenance person finished the repair of our bedroom.  I told him I would take care of vacuuming the dust from the wall repair.  Once completed, I cleaned the dustbuster including washing out the filter.  

After moving my recliner to a different area of the room I have not had a good place for my mouse.  I found an unused photo holder.  It has been working good except it would fall off as it was not attached.  Today I attached it to the arm of my chair.  Problem resolved, zero cost.

I did remember to water the plants.  While doing that I thought I would plug in the fountain on the balcony.  The height of the water flow told me that the filter need to be cleaned.  Hobbled hand said do not be silly.  The brain agreed.  The brain and hand were still talking when I reached with a wet hand to unplug the fountain.  A slight tingle startled me as my hand had touched one of the metal prongs of the fountain plug.  I said ouch but no one heard me.  No biggie.

The kids were on the playground so I grabbed my phone to get a photo of the fun.  It was refreshing to hear their laughter and joy as the ran, climbed, circled, and swung.  Returning to the living area, I decided it really was time to sit for awhile.  I turned to check the temperature on the little weatherstation.  It was dead.  I tried to get Google to turn on the accent lights in the kitchen.  No response.  Great.  Hubby entered the room noting he had lost internet.  I had already checked the plug for the Google device and weather station.  It had no power.  I had not gone to check for a tripped breaker.  I did ask Hubby to do it.  Sure enough, breaker tripped.  Guess a breaker tripped when I received the slight tingle.

By now it was noon.  A bite of lunch for Hubby and  me while watching "Gunsmoke".  Caught on missed texts.  Baby Sis was needing to talk.  The dieticians I had contacted about help with proper foods to work with gastric issues wanted to schedule a phone call.  Sis and I ruined an hour checking on each other and working out details for an upcoming combo sister time, California cousins visit, and 84th birthday party for Sis #2.

After further contact with the dietician group the only reason for the phone call was to talk me into purchasing more options.  No thanks, I just want the info on the reboot, the two week program.  Please, send me the product.  All done and I have access to the basic information.  FODMAP is what the program is based upon and can be read about here.

Oh, I cleaned the bathroom, too. Including the baseboards.  Put dinner together.  Other things required for just the basic daily living.  Ok, did better that I realized.

Y'all take care.

Janice 

Hobbled

The finger brace is a real hobbler of my lifestyle.  Having to work without the full use of the left hand is an inconvenience for pretty much everything from unloading the dishwasher to dressing.  The inconvenience has certainly enhanced my compassion for persons permanently disabled. 

Last evening I reached under the coffee cart to retrieve Bruce, our replacement robot vacuum.  It was not there attached to the charger.  Checking the app, I found Bruce was disconnected which meant it was not connected to the wifi.  As it was almost midnight, I chose not to go on a hide and seek jaunt as Hubby was already asleep.

When I awoke this morning, the hide and seek game began.  With a cane in hand I swiped under every piece of furniture and beds.  Hubby was on the balcony doing a Marco Polo visit with his brother.  He came in as I was looking one more time.  Hubby said he had been looking, also.  There was one more place I could check to see if the now totally powerless Bruce could be.  A container of holiday decorations were under our bed.  Just maybe Bruce had become tangled in between that container and the table leaves stored under there.  

I was down on my knees with the cane knocking around under the bed.  I finally moved to the head of the bed and sure enough.  Wedged between the leaves, decoration box, and wall was a comatose robot vacuum.  Bruce was, like me, hobbled.  First I tried to use the handle of the cane to retrieve said robot.  That was a no go.  I finally gave up and stretched out on the floor.  It took my entire arm's length to grab the robot.  That was the good arm.  To avoid further such incidents of hide and seek, I moved the deco box against the wall.  

The search began because I had approached the robot to clean its dustbin.  An hour later the dust bin is clean and ready to go.  Bruce is back on his charger.  The robot is supposed to be a help.  It is 99.9% of the time.  With all that stretching, pulling, bending, and such, I skipped any additional exercise for the day.  Guess that was the .1% 'help' was getting my out of my recliner for a bit of exercise in spite of my hobbled hand.

Y'all take care,

Janice (and Bruce)

Sprains

 This will be a short post because of this:

After catching my ring finger between a concrete planter and a wall, my finger bruised a bit.  A couple of days later, I whacked the tof of my hand on the sharp corner of something.  On Sunday the finger and surrounding tissues began swelling.  Gave it a few days to clear on its own which it did not.  Doctor reads x-ray and no broken or chipped bones.  Great news.  Apparently the tendons and ligaments are rebelling against the abuse.  I'll be wearing this splint for a week then see if all pieces/parts are happier.  Till then typing is a real challenge.

Take care,

Janice

Distractions

The last four years have presented me with non life threatening physical health issues.  Hiatal hernia complications that silently caused damage to my voice box and reignited my childhood asthma.  Surgery in the middle of the pandemic repaired the hernia in May 2020.  Now, my voice is still not 100% but it is certainly more than a whisper!  Very pleased with that.  

Somehow in working to get in 10000 steps a day 4 years ago I irritated my adductor muscle and tendon.  The burning, almost constant pain sent me to 6 months of physical therapy in 2022-2023.  For the last 18 months I have spent so much time with ice packs and heating pads on the inside of my thighs.  But the past month that issue has made a big change.  I have been able to do chores requiring climbing a short step ladder with little to no residual discomfort.  Well, sure there are the sore muscles as one gets after being inactive over an extended time, otherwise not much discomfort.  

With feeling better I am able to get back to finessing the move in process.  Last week I changed the location of my recliner.  Sounds simple enough.  Unfortunately, the move has me isolated from a power source without adding a length of extension cord.   That should not be a big deal but for my 'I hate a spider web of cords".  The chairside table has a power center with 2 plugs and 2 usb connections.  That covers the now side by side coffee/tea cup warmers and my cell and tablet needs.  But, but, but, my laptop, my electric recliner, the table connection to power, my heating pad, and chairside lamp?  Every time I look at the temporary cluster of cords I just get a bit overwhelmed to actually come up with an organized solution.  So I just sit back down and distract myself with an online puzzle.

On the very positive side, I have reworked one portion of the 'all the places we've been' walls.  Before Christmas we heard a noise of something falling.  It took my working on displaying the penguin waddle to find what had happened.  A shadow-box collage of 2019's travels hanger had failed.  Last week Hubby repaired the hanger.  Inside the collage kept having things fall to the bottom of the frame.  While it was down I dragged out the hot glue and that should take care of the issue.  Even did it to the France trip shadow-box Monte Carlo magnet.  

Once all the shadow boxes were put back together, out came the step ladder.  The 2005 Arched Bridges over the Susquehanna River photo painting was unhooked.  Let me backup here.  We have a gallery hanging system.  The system is a 6 ft. metal rail that allows metal rods to be hooked over it.  The rods then have spring tension hangers the can slide to any position on the rod.  The rods can slide along the long metal rail.  This setup allows artwork to be replaced without having to make additional holes in walls.  Only the top metal rail is attached with screws.  The system can hold several hundred pounds. 

The Arched Bridges picture needed two of the metal rods to be moved to my right.  A third rod was relocated to make the tota arrangement to be more evenly spaced.  Here is the before with shadow-box on the floor.

Before

In the before photo two rods and two hangers are visible.  Pictures were crooked so messing with my slight OCD issue.  Hiding behind the chair is the 2019 trips shadow box.

The rail from which the rods hang is visible at the top.  I like it all better.  The trips are loaded from top to bottom starting at the far left rod.  Top plate is from our honeymoon.  Then the years and trips build from there.  Souvenirs are located in the hutch and more out of picture.  The plate rack is covered with magnets that I began collecting instead of photos and plates.  There is even a shadow-box with lapel pins.  Lots of trips, lots of memories.

Oh, as long as I was up there dealing with all the pictures, etc. I dusted everything.  Even Granny Chandler's 70+ years old fan received a through cleaning.  These activities along with the rearranged spare closet makes me feel just a bit more at home.  Good thing, too.  The office left a note it was time to renew our lease.  And of course the rent has gone up at our new place.  Ugh.  Just means fewer trips.  That is okay.  We had already decided 2024 needs to be a much more stay close to home year.

Hope reading this bit of days of my life has not been too much of a distraction for you.  It has been nice for you to stop by for a bit of a read.

Peace,

Janice

Missed Post

One of my "gonna do betters" for the new year was to begin posting more regularly.  I missed yesterday for no good reason.  I was pretty busy from 7 AM when I first woke.  There was a breakfast casserole to be baked for my PEO sisters.  Also, 2 dozen mini cupcakes to be refrosted following the upside down tumble.  Veggies needed to be added to the assortment I had purchased.  I managed to achieve all needed tasks as well as shower and makeup.  Even though I think I had to start at every traffic light I made it to my friend's home with time to spare to set out the snacks.  Very soon the members began arriving and began the snacking.

The meeting was like all meetings, blah, blah, motions, blah, minutes, blah, meeting dismissed.  Time to get in a few more of the snacks I brought and potty stops.  Then came the program.  One member's daughter is an artist.  The artist spoke of how she came to be an artist after being a nurse for several years.  The bulk of the program was her explaining how she is now doing a type of textured acrylic ink painting.  She applies a thin coat of joint compound to a canvas and allowed it to dry.  She does leave areas uncoated and will sand the dry compound to achieve the desired texture for her painting.

The painting is done with smaller brushes.  The ink once applied is absorbed into the compound so there is no changing after once applied.  Ms. Denny has painting as large as 5' x 5' (1.5 m x 1.5 m) one of which is currently on display at a local college.  She brought samples from her bird series and sun series.  Since I did not take photos during the meeting you can see her work here.  The Horns of Greatness was my favorite.  If I had several hundred dollars with nothing earmarked for it, it might be hanging in my home.  Needless to say, the program was a hit.  And so was the breakfast casserole.

Once my friend's kitchen and living room were mostly back together, I headed home.  We had a conference call with our financial person scheduled for around 1:30 PM.  When one does not have a ton of $$, conversations of about money are pretty short.  Some decisions were made and adjustments as needed.  By the time we ate a late lunch it was almost 4 in the afternoon. My brain was disengaged so no blog writing was happening.

Today Hubby joined a young man for coffee at his home.  I took the opportunity to do a bit of rearranging of our living area.  Once that was to my satisfaction, I returned to completing the closet rearrangement started earlier in the week.  The closet project is really just finishing up the organization from when we first moved in.  The closet is complete with room made for several additional storage tubs and Hubby's hobby items.  Now to repair the "Oh the places we have been" wall where one photo fell leaving other pictures askew.  And then the scanning for DIL, and the license plate, ad infinitum.

Surely is great to be getting back to my body working as it should.  No adductor muscle/tendon pain unless I step the wrong way.  Yes, great to be feeling better.

Y'all take care.

Janice

Shopping

Today was a pickup online orders.  I was unable to pickup my Target order yesterday.  I called last evening and a nice lady put a note to not return the items to stock. Today I arrived at the pickup desk at around 11 AM.  Sure enough there was the note.  After many minutes of searching in different areas the items were unable to be found in the pickup area.  Only option was to shop the store to locate the items.  The sweet service lady wished me luck.

Item one was 3 boxes of mini quiche for a meeting I am co-hosting tomorrow.  No mini quiche could be located by me.  Fine, I'll make a breakfast casserole, just purchase a dozen eggs to make sure I do not deprive Hubby of his egg supply.  Next item is bacon and English muffins, scored both with no problem.  Doritos for something salty.  Changed mind and purchased mixed nuts.  

Remembering that the protein bars were in short supply time was spent determining which was the most bang for my buck.  Two boxes of protein bars (15 gm protein) and one box of apple cinnamon breakfast bars (2 gm protein) added to the basket.  Oh, and there are the oranges I meant to have on the original order.  Mmmm, Hubby loves those grapes and they are on a marked down price.

I need to supply paper plates, napkins, and serveware for the meeting tomorrow.  Well, may as well get the Valentine ones since it is close.  Oh, there is something Hubby would like for Valentine.  And another.  Walking toward the checkout area across the store I found the potted tulips I was wishing for our place.  Into the basket.  Even though I inspected several bath mats none made it into the cart.

My original order was around $35 US.  This cart of goodies was $93.  At least the pantry is restocked for some items to help Hubby stay in a good A1C range while keeping the weight going in a downward figure.  In store shopping is expensive for this impulse buyer.

Stop one sent me back home to unload the refrigerator items.  Turned out I was able to carry all but the paper goods and nuts up to the apartment on my arms.  (BTW there is no way I could have done that a year ago so great improvement in my adductor issues.)  Once the items were sanitized and put away I had about 15 minutes to grab some tea and a sit down.  

Number 2 stop went exactly as planned.  Mini valentine decorated cupcakes and veggie tray brought to my car and placed in the hatch back area.  Dropped off a few items to Goodwill.  Ran the car through the cheap line at the carwash.  Now to head to the last stop of the day, Macy's to pickup a new dress that was ordered weeks ago.  Managed by luck to park outside the pickup door.  All went as planned except a part of the order was cancelled by Macy's due to damage.  The refund was to a store card that I had shredded after my order was placed.  Now to figure out where the $10+ is.  Will deal with customer service on Thursday.  Wednesday is full.

Arrived home safely which can be a crap shoot in Austin traffic..  Gathered the three items into a bag and headed for the fourth floor apartment.  About 10 feet from the gate to enter the apartment building the bag shifted.  Only one thing slipped out of the bag.  I sent the hostess a picture of the now no longer lovely cupcakes.  Still editable was her answer.  The new dress, size 14W is too big.  I now have to decide what to do about the dress.  If I return the thing the $$ go back on the missing card.

Oh, well.  I was able to work in the extra closet getting things a bit more organized from last year's quick move in.  Still another hour or so work for that area that will probably happen on Thursday.  Decided it was tie for another tea and a sit down as it was approaching 5 PM.  

Dinner was prepared, eaten, and cleanup started while I began prep on the breakfast casserole.  Oops, no grated cheese.  Use the sliced cheese.  Just one last blip in a day of slips, flips, and misses.  That's okay cause I was able to watch those kids play on the equipment.

Peace, Janice

Charter Schools and Children

Valor Public School is located next to our new apartment.  Valor is a charter school*.  The building and temporary buildings held K through 12 grades.  For the past 7 months we have been the observing the building of an addition for a high-school with an attached gym.  In addition a new playground was put in place.  The old one was little more dirt, grass, and a few pieces of equipment.

Mid photo is where the old playground area was placed.  Little left except rubble on 6/13/23

Since school started in August, the children have been playing in a narrow strip of private driveway.  Once or twice they crossed to the park across the street where we live and had picnics.  For the last two months the new playground equipment began arriving in crates.   Assembly began in early January.  The kids watching the changes as they were passing on the way to schoon on that private street.

Prepping the future playground area.  Water retention area had major upgrades as well.

Finally crates were open and assembly began on January 5, 2024. 

On Sunday February 4 Hubby and I noticed a family on the completed playground.  The husband was stringing banners and tying up balloons.  As students arrived this morning, horns honked, kids were screaming, and a general state of excitement drifted up to our apartment.  I slept through the whole scene.  Hubby, who was dreading my procedure today, was a bit aggravated by the noise.  He soon recovered from the irritation as the children filled the completed playground at recess.  And I failed to get a photo.  But here is the silent playground this evening.

 

Each recess saw every piece of equipment crawling with kids at play.  The kids are required to wear uniforms with the girls in plaid, pleated skirts, shorts or leggings required.  So all the kids were upside down and all around.  I noticed the unique merry go round seemed to be a real favorite.  The merry go round is the blue circle nearest the retention pond.

Seeing those children at play brought a smile to my face.  Watching the joy, remembering the feel of a swing or a slide.  But mostly just enjoying watching kids at play.  Then, teachers counting heads as the kids lined up to return to the 'lessons'.

Hope each of you can enjoy a bit of the fun of recess this week.

Peace,

Janice

*An explanation of charter schools in Texas is:  "Charter schools are tuition-free public schools that are open to all students. The State of Texas grants charter schools the flexibility and freedom to meet students' individual needs— and in exchange, holds them to higher standards of academic and financial accountability than traditional school districts."     source

UGH

Today is prep day.  Intestinal check out tomorrow.   Ugh.  But that nasty drink does not start till 3 PM.  The 5 PM four pills and another 32 oz of the drink.  No fluids of any kind after 7 PM.  Ugh.  The process is a little earlier than expected due to the abdominal issues.  After the CT scan a week ago, this is the next step.  Gathering clues, hopefully the doctor will find what is going on in my old body.

Now wasn't that a fun paragraph!  All the waddle of penguins are put to bed for the year.  I did keep out the two penguins Hubby gave me about 25 years ago.  Also, Cuddy, a penguin Son and DIL gave me for Christmas four years ago.  There is the green penguin from the restaurant's gift shop in Bentonville, Arkansas.  That was last year when we attended our granddaughter's college graduation.  The weekend was, also, Mother's Day.  My green penguin is not lifesize as the one in the photo with my baby Sissy and me.

The vast majority of my collection were gifts from sisters in my Beta Sigma Phi sorority.  Dear friends.  The penguin collection, therefore is an assembly of memories.  Times spent with ladies that knew me before I was a grandmother.  A couple of the members were friends from the plant where I worked for 20+ years.  One, Smitty goes back 42 years when I first started working for ACD.  My son was only 8 years old.  That is a lot of memories.

Post graduation photo of Son, DIL, Granddaughter, and #3 Grandson

Hope you are able to either enjoy some good memories today.  Or maybe make a couple of new ones.

Peace,

Janice

Simply Saturday

Thank goodness, no hail overnight.  Just some rain.  Today we are not moving very fast and it feels good.  We did a lot of lifting yesterday so needed to be careful today.  Hubby pulled in the furniture pads off the CMax and hung them on the balcony railing.  I began the task of putting the roughly 100 + waddle of penguins.  

The hope is that instead of the one 132 L container (35 gallon) I can repack into three smaller containers to reduce the weight of the containers.  I am not getting any younger nor stronger so smaller, lighter seems like the way to go.  I have already done this resizing to the Christmas and part of the fall decorations.  In addition smaller boxes are easier to store under beds, on shelves, etc.

BTW, a waddle is one of the words used to describe groups of penguins.  Other names for a group of penguins include rookery, colony, and huddle.  I like waddle since they waddle.  Guess I'd best get back to it.  The waddle is calling.

Peace,

Janice

Prepping

Pings from September storm

 No, we are not prepping for the national government meltdown.  We are prepping for another possible round of hail.  As noted in previous posts our area received a devastating hail storm in late September.  Our vehicles were no longer in the protection of a parking garage.  Both vehicles did get several small pings.

Today we made an attempt to give the CMax and Jeep a bit of protection.  The Jeep hood is covered with a flannel lined vinyl cover we used for years.  It is laying in double thickness on the hood with a full cover over the entire body.  The CMax is covered on the hood and top with furniture pads.  I wanted to put a tarp to try to avoid the pads being completely soaked.  Hubby said no.  Not worth a fight so wet pads it will be.

The pad on top of the CMax is the color of the car.  Note straps.

I think if the hail is the size we received in September, we probably are okay.  If it is the grapefruit size some of the area received, we are so out of luck.

That's about it for the Owen Tech crew in north Austin.  Y'all take care.

Janice

TBT

There are so many things in the world that I have totally missed out on over the years.  TBT was something that took me years to discover.  Throw back Thursday.  Post old pictures or videos is basically what it is about.  So here is a bit of a throw back for this Thursday.

That is my sweet Aunt Opal holding a months old me in early 1947.  Loved her with all my heart.  Bet some of you folks have a favorite person in your life.  I was blessed with three wonderful aunts and two uncles.  There were more uncles but they had grandchildren my age. Aunt Opal, Uncle Clay, and Uncle Bud were in their mid/early 20s and unmarried when I was born.  They all spoiled me beyond reason.  Aunt Opal always told her daughters I was her first baby.

Hope you all are having a good day/week.

Take care,

Janice