Best Of

Carole, when I first started wearing my FitBit, it caused me so much stress over lack of sleep I almost tossed it. I had thought I was getting 7+ hours of sleep. Well I was in bed that long but my sleep was always 5.5-6+ hrs, never 7. It is what it is, I’ve kept it and even replaced it when it died. Every now and then I get over 7 hrs and it shocks me. 🤷‍♀️

Wren, wishing you an easy time with your chemo, in case I forget on Wednesday.

We did go to The Big E and had a great time. Weather was beautiful! We’re usually running with kids thru foods and on to rides, or vise versa. But with just us two, we went into the area with crafts and artists. Glass blowers, wood working, just a lot of fun. I bought myself a glass snowflake, and some fall potpourri - orange spice. And we ate dinner at the historic tavern - oysters for him, shrimp for me. I’d say no fair foods, but I did totally devour one of the fairs famous eclairs! Per FitBit I did walk 3.58 miles.

I need to floss, brush, rinse with warm salt water, and then rinse with the prescription mouth rinse. It’s a whole production!

Hope you all have a good weekend.

That Big E looks like great fun, Cindy!

Good luck on your chemo, Wren—we'll be in your pocket.

Harley, we had to cancel our NYC trip because it'd be the same weekend our HK leaves (on Bob's birthday). Our next trip will be to NOLA in Jan. (my birthday weekend) for Folk Alliance. At this stage I'm not sure how much professional networking I'm up for—we used to try to maximize the number of private showcases we played, which can be exhausting, since they begin after the official ones end, after 10:30pm. The thought of performing to a few people in someone's hotel room at 2am no longer appeals. I'm going to limit myself to no more than 2 showcases per night, manybe 4 or 5 total. (In years past, I've done aa many as 14 in a weekend). I'll probably be going more for the socislizing and the entertainment. When I was in my 50s, the goal was to advance my late-bloomer career and seek validation. Now, it's just to have fun. Nothing to prove—and certainly not going to tour! Of course, there's also the food (albeit in smaller portions). The conference hotel is next to the casino, which makes Bob happy.

After that, the CBA's continuing education trip will be to Athens & Santorini in March. We've never been to Greece, so I'm hoping Bob will want to come with.

Went to Ashley on Friday and bought a modern china cabinet (same height as the old piano, about half the width, three shelves with glass doors, and two drawers below). We have quite a bit of wall space, so also bought a wine cabinet (4'high, 3' wide) with built-in stemware hangers, a 12-bottle wine cubby, and shelves tall enough to store decanters. Both made of rubberwood, same color as our floors. I took pictures of the glassware & crystal covering the breakfront and the miscellany on the dining room table and sent them to our HK, who said she will put everything where it belongs. At this point, the place is semi-livable but for the hazards of cats and glassware (and the constant parade of boxes being opened and in various stages of "open"—the latter is feline paradise). We found the switch for the 1st floor bathroom fan—it's on the single GFCI switchplate—but the fan only hums instead of blowing. Sigh. One more expensive repair.

We went through our inexpensive mugs, wineglasses & pilsners and wrapped them up for donation along with pressed-glass faux-crystal clocks we never used (a lot of stuff from Things Remembered and hospital-board souvenirs/promos). Going through duplicate kitchen utensils. Will donate my cheaper pots & pans, especially nonstick & aluminum. Have yet to locate my Instant Pot and the rest of the everyday white Corelle and good silver. Lots of artwork & stained glass to hang—but the hooks for the latter were removed by the contractor,. At our last apartment, which lacked cabinets & counters in the kitchen (it did have a pantry), we bought a tall white metal cabinet to store dishes and small appliances (and used a dinette table as a counter). We have a bar cart in the kitchen with a white tile top. We will move that into the dining room and put the metal cabinet in its stead. The contractor didn't include a slide-out for waste disposal. and the kitchen dinette set is big enough to block easy access to the step-on waste can we used to keep in a corner. There will be a lot of rearranging to do. Almost considering consulting a decorator (though our HK moonlights as one back in B'ham). I know where everything used to hang, but it was done gradually over the decades. All at once seems daunting.

We will likely be moved in with the cats before the last week of October, and take that time to get everything out of Lincolnwood and get the latter clean enough for the next tenant. We may have to go into part of November—and will be leaving a lot of stuff we bought to make the place more like a home than a vacation rental (e.g., plastic wineglasses, George Foreman grill, toaster-oven—all the Wal-Mart-grade things that weren't supplied by the owner). Dawned on me that there are no bookshelves or bookcases here, nor any A/V components other than the TVs.

Betrayal, glad the Lidoderm patches are working. Amazing how much that extra 1% can do! I used to alternate them with Flector (diclofenac) patches so neither one was on for more than 12 hrs. These days I make do with lidocaine roll-on, Bio-Freez, and generic Voltaren gel. Might see if any of the numerous dispensaries around here carry Mary's Medicinals: they make a CBD transdermal pen with a bit more THC than the over-the-counter drugstore stuff, and when I had a medical cannabis card it used to work well to pick up the slack that the other OTC topicals couldn't suffice. Hope you're feeling better in time for next week's cruise!

The Big E photos

Clydesdales were there!