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Good Sunday

This week I’m grateful for the Argh People because I still haven’t read the comments on GBT.  You all have the patience of saints.

What good thing happened to you this week?

112 Responses

  1. Don’t worry, Jenny, you’ll come to it at your pace!

    What good happened this week?
    We had our annual DBA Conference on Friday. In the past, I organized everything on ny own, this time I was abke to hand over most of the work to a new colleague (responsible for our DBA program anyway) and the whole process was just a nice experience. Mine was the event management, she did the programming, and in spite of staff shortage due to 3 events runninhmg at the same time in our small business scholl, everything went well and in a relaxed vibe. Plus all 3 keynotes were excellent.
    The presentations were great, the participants were great, the whole event went smoothly – even though the agenda was packed full and we hardly had any breaks.
    But the perfect thing was working with a wonderful new colleague!

    1. I googled a bit on speed dating at bookstores, and it seems to concern real speed dating using a bookstore as a venue. It’s not obvious how an author’s presence would help sell so many of their books, so I wonder if this is some sort of “date with a book” thing.

  3. Jenny, There is a question I wanted to ask towards the end of the GBT, but by the time I got back to the post there were 197 replies. And, fortunately, you haven’t read them yet.

    What attracts you to writing a long-running series with a single protagonist (or maybe a pair)?

    I’m curious.

  4. So here’s the update on the disabled daughter of DH’s friend with dementia which is not as good as we hoped.

    I reported earlier that her mother (friend’s ex) had contacted our friend’s sister (so daughter’s aunt) saying daughter could no longer receive nutrition intravenously and was refusing to go to the hospital for treatment because it wouldn’t work and was going to die. Two doctors had said treatment would work and had her sign papers that she was refusing medical care. Mom asked hospice for palliative care but hospice said medication was outside the parameters of hospice use. Then protective services showed up with an ambulance and took daughter to hospital. Mom called aunt saying protective services would be calling aunt to see if aunt would say it was safe to discharge daughter in mom’s care. At this point the only information we had received was through the mom and I didn’t trust any of it (today DH said to me daughter could have been dead for years and we would not know and I had had the same thought!)

    So here’s the good news .
    1. Protective services did call aunt and we know it’s true daughter has been in hospital for two weeks.
    2. Daughter is responding to treatment, eating, gaining weight, can tolerate light and is talking to people.
    3. The social worker went through history with aunt and asked her to file a statement saying daughter isn’t safe with mom for court proceedings
    4. Aunt said she was reluctant to do so because she still has to deal with mom as dad’s power of attorney over resolving property disputes from divorce and didn’t want to make that more difficult
    5. Aunt gave worker our contact and said would we sign statements
    And we said of course.
    And there was much rejoicing.
    But Saturday we got an email forwarded by aunt from social workers saying mom and daughter were refusing needed additional care and would be discharged in a few days —and it was already two days after email was sent .

    So last night we wrote the social workers an email and made it clear we would sign statements and what they would say.

    We haven’t talked to daughter since she was a child but we have tons of evidence about how badly mom has mothered her. Emails from mom showing she didn’t understand medical facts and made poor parenting decisions as a result, e-mails showing she isolated daughter, emails showing she had no medical records before daughter turned 22 , emails showing she took daughter to live in a small town in Ecuador when she was medically fragile ( we think she’s a flight risk if they discharge daughter in her care).
    And we have the college essay the brother wrote about being abandoned in a hotel at 14 when his mom thought she and daughter needed to move from hotel to hotel every few days.

    Also we have other contacts who would be happy to sign statements 🙂 and who are sending us more emails from mom documenting why she didn’t get daughter ordinary medical care.

    We hope this will result in removing Katie from Betsy’s care before she can flee town.

    In other not so great news foster daughter’s future mother in law who we have never met will after all be staying with us for up to two months until they find and rent an apartment for the three of them (FD, fiancé and his mom ). A combination of no planning, insufficient funds, poor communication, and pride, I think.

    Jan Kindwoman, you are a role model she should have followed!

    Our weekend in New York was lovely and anyone who can see the musical Operation Mincemeat in NY or London should—I have now seen it in both places. We also had dinner at the same restaurant where DH proposed 40 years ago.

    1. Whoops! Jenny can you remove the names ? I was really tired last night and didn’t mean to use names.

    3. Sorry to hear about the complications, and thanks for the update. Asking the universe to send you the best possible outcomes on all fronts.

      1. Thanks. We had not realized they would release daughter so soon. I hope protective services will still try to remove her from mom.

        1. I really mean it. You clearly did a great job managing a difficult move on short notice with health challenges.

          2. Thanks, Debbie. I felt I had little choice, but after announcing they would not help with the move, my sons did come through in many excellent ways.

    4. What a mess with the daughter and the mom and the other parties responsible… You and DH are such good people, trying to help solve all of this. I will keep fingers crossedd that the mom does NOT get care of the daughter, it sounds like a true danger to her health and life. Please do keep us updated. Hugs!
      Happy to hear your trip to NYC was a success! It’s them small and not so small things put together that make life good.

    6. Woof that is a lot, and a long time for an unknown house guest. Fingers crossed that everything works out better than expected!

  5. Don’t worry, Jenny; I haven’t written a GBT post yet 😅.
    I went for my first hike of the season, and all the stair climbing I’ve been doing has helped immensely! I also saw cranes!

  6. The good things that happened to me this week. Had a work meeting in Allentown where I learned to make a car battery (did you know there’s grass in car batteries??) and one of the nights I got to have dinner with a dear friend that I don’t get to see very often.

    Now I’m in Sante Fe for a conference. Went to the Georgia O’Keefe museum yesterday. Can’t say I love her paintings of the reproductive organs of flowers but love her glorious landscapes and many other motifs. The museum does something exceptionally brave also with an exhibit of local Tewa people representing their land themselves with the pointed observation that it’s not O’Keefe’s landscape only and that they have many interesting things to say about it artistically.

  7. Last night, my husband, eldest daughter and I attended a concert by an a cappella group we love. The concert was popular songs written in NYC duets the 50’s and 60’s. As always, the group did a fantastic job. Such a fun concert!

    For anyone interested, a video replay can still be purchased. The group is Chicago a cappella. (There’s also a concert Sunday in Glen Ellyn, IL, for anyone who can make it.) Here’s the link: https://www.chicagoacappella.org/concert-event/building-american-pop/.

  8. Thank you for reminding me that I’ve had an incredibly good week! On Monday I learned I’ve been cancer-free for five years and can stop taking the hormone suppressant; diet and exercise have paid off and I’m no longer in the pre-diabetic stage. Tuesday, I had lunch in the “big city” with my granddaughter. The drive up and back gave us a lovely chance to talk. Wednesday, a professional cleaner whipped my apt into shape and reorganized my kitchen cabinets. Now I can reach all the things I use! Thursday, I bought Bob Mayer’s Rocky Road, but decided to reread the Rocky Start series first. Good decision! It’s even better than I remembered and I’ve been escaping into it the rest of the week. Thursday’s GBT added a good half-dozen to my TBR pile. And I finally preordered the new Murderbot, so next week is looking pretty good too!
    I don’t have weeks this good very often. Thanks for making me notice it and not let it slip by.

    2. Congratulations on the positive health news and for your good week. Thank you for sharing with us.

    5. This is one great week, Collier! Thanks for sharing it, and congratulations to a cancer-free and healthier life! And all the other great things, as well, of course. It’s good for all of us to read such good news. 🙂

  9. We got some rain yesterday!! Much needed, even though it wasn’t prolonged or heavy. Hoping this is a turn toward more normal conditions.

    On our way to run some errands, DH & I took a back route. I was driving so he could look around, and he noticed that one of the structures we passed was a radio station – complete with AM frequency number 1240. So he found it in the car’s media tuner and a show was playing called Time Warp Radio where people call in with requests from the 70s and 60s. And the station’s call letters are WSQL. (This is an inside joke: Brevard NC is famous (sort of) for its white squirrels.) We got our folk rock & funk on.

    Then DH invented something last night. Seared tuna steaks with a side of blanched beet “noodles” in zingy tomato sauce. Sounds weird, right? Trust me, it was delicious. He found the veggie noodles at the fancy hippie grocery store and decided to experiment. 🙂

    Also, I did both 30 min on the treadmill (while listening to Tommy Dorsey) and my yoga routine (while listening to birds sing) yesterday morning before writing my way through Ch 12 of the novelette-in-progress.

    1. On the flip side, Princeton NJ is noted for black squirrels, which I remember from grad school back when. The internet assures me that they’re still there, but are also to be found elsewhere and are a variant of the Eastern gray squirrel.

  10. Happy Sunday! I finished my Master’s in Literacy. Huzzah! I also am nearly done with the writing class I took for Verticals. I just have to finish the final assignment. Sigh! But also… yay! We are moving, too. Just closer to work. It’ll save me 2 hours a day. Another huzzah! So…busy, but lots of good happening. I don’t get to check in often, but I am here lurking away, happy to see all of your happiness.

    2. Congratulations!! That is really something to celebrate! May your move go smoothly and give you lots of pleasant ways to celebrate the time you will no longer have to spend commuting.

    2. Good Book Thursday. Which is usually (but not always) posted here in Thursday.

  12. My week was a mixed bag, but more good than bad. I spent Monday afternoon through Thursday afternoon visiting one of my best friends in Connecticut. I don’t drive distances, so she came and got me and took me home–3 hours in each direction–but the drive was beautiful and went reasonably smoothly. She lost her husband at the end of January, and I’ve been doing a lot of long-distance support, including almost daily phone calls, but last week was both her birthday and their 44th anniversary, her first without him, and she asked for company. So of course I went. The weather wasn’t great, and we were both tired and achy, but on Tuesday she took me to a beautiful waterfall in a nearby state park, and to a tiny but fancy chocolate shop located at a farm where they used milk from their own cows. It turned out to be literally up the road from her house, but she didn’t know it existed until she read about it in a magazine. I might have spent WAY too much money on chocolates. Then we went out for a mutual birthday dinner (mine is the 28th and hers was the 20th). A lovely day. Wednesday was mostly spent watching British television and eating charcuterie for dinner, and spoiling her three cats. She was a little sad, but mostly very glad I was there, so it was a good trip. In the meanwhile, I was also dealing with a dying refrigerator long distance (with the help of my sainted cat sitter) and then came home to deal with replacing it, but still, far more good than bad.

      1. What a beautiful place, thank you so much for sharing the pictures and video. Glad you were there for your friend. The weather looked kind too.

    2. A lucky friend you have there, to have you as her friend. Sounds like you had a good time, despite all the sad things and bad things. We might need chocolate reviews!

  13. Thank you to whoever suggested “A Crash Course In Romance”. We finished watching it this week and thoroughly enjoyed it.

    Peonies that were given to me last year are coming up and looking healthy, so hopefully will bloom this year.

    My cat has become enthusiastic about being in his “catio” which we had built last fall. He still won’t go out the cat door, and comes and meows at me to be taken out, but then has a good time watching the birds and rodents, and comes in through the cat door when he is ready, so I don’t have to keep checking on him. I still hope I can convince him the cat door works both ways, but so far unless I hold it open for him, he doesn’t believe me.

    1. That seems odd, but I imagine that you are taking a step in the right direction by holding open the cat door rather than a human door.

  16. It’s “warbler season” again! It was a very exciting birding week with lots of first-of-the-year sightings and birding trips with friends to photograph these beautiful migrants. Also, this coincides with hockey playoffs and baseball season getting into its groove. Truly the most wonderful time of the year — and made for a very happy week.

  17. After not great sales at the book fest, while those around me were selling tons of books, I reminded myself that this is my hobby, not my job. And I wrote some good stuff. I’m going to need to decide how to organize this book when I get a little further along, but right now it’s the joy of discovery.

    Also, my 26 year old kid figured out health insurance, so that’s a load off my mind. He’s mostly healthy, but I worry.

    I planned a trip to Ohio to see my parents and sister, so that’s probably good, if I can get those days off work. I’m trying to convince some of my family to also come at least part of the time and one of my sons is in if he can get some of those days off work. The day jobs really get in the way, don’t they?

  18. Been working my brains out! Never worked so hard in my entire life! Dear Sister and I have scheduled ourselves a craft day on May 12 – yippee! Other than that and Memorial day I do not expect a break till after mid-July. One of my students was telling me about brain research showing that we **need** down time for our brains to work at optimum efficiency. I believe it! Now if I can just work out a way to put that into practice…

  19. After such a busy week last week I had a very quiet week this week. It didn’t help that I was really sore (on the waiting list for right hip replacement). It was bad enough to get out the really nasty (but effective) painkillers. Didn’t go to the movie at the library on Wednesday because I didn’t think I could sit for 90 minutes even with cushions. But I have rested, read, talked to friends, done some journaling (it helps me to write my thoughts, I end up explaining myself to me). I also allowed myself comfort reads.
    Not much on this week coming, but I am doing interval cleaning today because a friend is coming tomorrow night for tea. Interval cleaning is where you do a bit (say the dusting or just one room), then rest and repeat. It may take two days for me to clean the flat (friend is coming tomorrow after 6) but I do love a clean home and it cheers me up (and kills my back).

    GBT cheered me up too and I have ordered a couple of books from it, so thank you.

    1. Hope you feel better and pain-free soon! And that tomorrow’s visit for tea will bring you much happies.

    2. Hang in there on that hip. Had the weather changed ? I thought you had a surgery date but clearly I’m wrong.

      1. The weather has been changing back and forth between warm and frosty to that is definitely part of it Debbie. No date for the second hip yet.

  20. Good-ish health news: On Friday at my eye appointment, I had a second laser treatment for glaucoma in one eye only. (Other eye has no glaucoma so far.) The first treatment worked for about 18 months before pressure started increasing again. Hopefully this one will buy me at least that long before more inconvenient treatment options apply, but it will take a couple of months to know if it worked.

    The optometrist (at the same clinic) referring me to the opthalmologist said that it would depend on my insurance whether we could move right to the laser or I would need a consultation visit first. I figured it would probably be the latter when I learned that a second doctor would be covering for the original one, who was out that day. (Although these days medical technicians do most of the testing and measurement anyhow.) But the second doctor seemed perfectly competent and did the treatment, and I’m off the hook for a couple of months until testing to see if it worked.

    There was a lot of waiting involved, and I think I got home about 5 hours after leaving. (This time they said I could drive; I’m not sure why not the first time, since I could see perfectly well afterwards.) Residual adrenaline kept me going Friday for a while, but then I felt totally wiped out (stress only; no exertion involved) and went to bed early. Saturday I still felt tired but managed a normal bedtime. I don’t feel any too ambitious today either and I think I will be minimizing chores requiring standing and moving around. Plenty of sedentary things to do, both boring ones and also and writing up more books read so I can return them. But some stand-up chores like reloading the dishwasher had better get done too.

    1. So happy to hear the laser-treatments seem to work, Patrick. Much easier than taking eye-drops, for sure, to laser once every so often. Fingers crossed pressure will stay down for a good long while and that the other eye will stay glaucoma-free.

  21. My brother called, which is usual, and suggested we meet for lunch somewhere between our homes, which is not usual. I’ve not seen him and his wife since before the pandemic. We have reservations for next Saturday at one of my favorite places in Columbus.

  22. Last week was stressful due to chaos from having contractors all over the place, but in the end, the good thing is that I now have a nifty new heat pump dryer installed and quietly being efficient.

    AND while my coveted-for-five-years induction stove isn’t installed yet, it was delivered (with the dryer), and the gas line has been removed, revealing that there is, indeed, an outlet already installed (but not connected to the electric panel), so it just needs to be connected to a breaker instead of having to run a whole new line. I’m hopeful the electrician will be able to do it in the next week or so.

    I’m too arthritic to dance, so instead you should can picture me blowing raspberries at the evil gas company. And I’m feeling particularly vindicated in my loathing of them after reading a news story today, saying that the state-ordered report by local gas companies, detailing how they’re going to transition to no-more-gas (for climate reasons), basically didn’t bother to, yanno, explain how they’re going to transition. Because they’re evil. Okay, the news story didn’t say that last bit; it’s just my conclusion. But the gas companies apparently simply ignored what they were supposed to cover in their report, implying strongly that it was going to be business as usual. https://www.wbur.org/news/2026/04/24/natural-gas-utilities-climate-compliance-plans-gsep-eversource-national-grid

    1. We just switched to an electric stove top (not induction, though) and I’m so much happier with cooking than I was with the open flame/potential leak gas stove! And a little less PG&E. (Our electric is with the Sacramento utility district instead of the forest fire monopoly)

      I’d love to switch out our water heater and heating. I think the next step is solar panels, then more electric things. My husband discovered the flashing that’s supposed to keep the gutters from letting water up under then edge of the roof is absent, possibly removed by whoever installed the gutter guards, so we might be getting a new roof sooner than expected. So I’ll be advocating for solar!

      1. Me too on other upgrades! I have almost brand-new roofs (mostly because of leaks, but also in anticipation of solar), but I’m not sure how well-suited my house is for solar (lots of trees obstructing sunlight). I’m all upgraded-out at the moment, so it will have to wait a few years anyway.

  23. My biggest happy this week was when the exterminator came and put poison behind a second wall in my apartment. He kept asking me where the mouse entered the apartment so he could choose the best place to put the poison. Unfortunately, by the time I saw the mouse, it could have come in anywhere so I wasn’t much help with that. After he left I immediately packed up my stuff and shlepped out to the suburbs for a few days with the one remaining cat.
    Evidently, Amber is now frightened of me, because every time She saw me approaching from the opposite direction, she would turn around and trot back away from me. This doesn’t make much difference as she spends most of the day sleeping on the bed in the master bedroom, but she used to sleep on some of the chairs downstairs to catch the sun in the afternoon and she hasn’t done that this time. Oh well. She is eating and drinking normally and using the litter box so at least I know some systems are functioning. Maybe it is just too cloudy for her to be interested in moving around the house.

    1. Ugh. We had a mouse-invasion in our previous apartment, it was horrible. I hope the poison will take care of it for you.
      I am sure Amber will come around. Maybe she just needs some alone-time.
      Refilled pocket-hug stash!

      1. This mouse has been visiting me for so long that I could probably draw a growth chart for it. Either this is a second mouse or it has grown a lot over the previous months.
        Or maybe I’m making the whole thing up because I am a greedy person who likes to hoard pocket hugs.
        We’ll see what happens…………

  24. We have wrapped up our trip to Argentina. It was wonderful and we got to celebrate birthdays for two of the grands. We went to Brazil and Uruguay, both of which still stamp passports so my passport is no longer naked. Ate a lot of ice cream and I got some of the lemon ginger sorbet I found on our last trip.
    I bought some mohair and Llama yarns for my friend to knit up for me.
    A great trip overall.
    The best part was an email for a job interview, so I may not be unemployed for long.

  25. I had my second cataract surgery and a biopsy on a spot on my chin. Good chance it’s cancerous but Dr was certain it wasn’t melanoma. I can see quite well with both eyes but will need glasses to drive.

    I have moved pepper and tomato seedlings into my indoor greenhouse – they are starting to get true leaves so will be ready for transplanting in the next couple of weeks. Indigo seeds are started and doing basil today. Lettuce, radish and pea seeds were planted this past week. Critters had a party in my snow peas – I put them back in the ground so we’ll see how they do. First meeting of the historical garden where I volunteer was today and it was nice to see everyone. This will be my 6th season and I’m looking forward to it.

    1. Cataracts: I’ll be having my surgery on both eyes in two weeks, not a moment too soon. Can’t wait! My eyes (never good) have lost their ability to read signs etc when driving, which proved most dangerous yesterday when I had to drive someone unexpectedly from one ER in small town Quebec to another in Montreal to see a retinologist at 7 pm during the big hockey game (Canadiens won!). The city had gone mad, the congestion terrible. I ended up crashing my car at 28 miles an hour and we (my companion and I) were taken to the same ER, where we were headed anyway!, by the paramedics where the eye specialist was waiting. Our bumps and bruises went untreated (tho we were triaged), but my companion’s eyes were checked out thoroughly. Near blindness we hope has been avoided. Medications, appointments arranged for. And who says Quebec medicare is in dire straits.

      So much to be grateful for! Thank you Jenny for helping us to keep all this in mind.

      1. I’m glad you and your friend are ok. My experience with cataract surgery has been largely positive, except for getting a different list of what I can and can’t do from various staff. My suggestion is to ask very specific questions: are light walks ok; do I need to keep my head over my heart if I bend down to pick something up; when can I do x, y and Z (specific activities you want to do). I didn’t ask detailed enough questions when I had my first eye done. You’ll be happy with the results. Good luck.

    2. On “Reelz” from the internet I watched a Sicilian/American plant a tomato plant from the container to the garden by cracking an egg onto the soil and placing the plant on top of it. I’m not sure of wasting an egg but the eggshells would be an addition to the nutrients of the plant.

  26. Kelly S (and anybody else who might have had questionmarks), if you’re reading this: “Skrikpanik” is a term one of the best people I know invented and uses whenever something happens that is, well, panic-inducing. It’s made up of the Swedish words “Skrik”, scream/shriek (noun), and “panik”, panic. Shriekpanic. Skrikpanik. He’s a genius, because it describes the situation and feeling so very well. If one of us texts that to the other, we know shit has hit the proverbial fan and the other needs urgent support/venting.
    I’m still operating in block-everything-out-mode, but have a few good things to report.
    – I got back into playing a visual novel style game that I really enjoy and it’s great. It’s a mystery/courtroom game where you play as a lawyer and have to solve mysteries and puzzles to be able to make a good case and defend your client. It’s good for my brain; not just to have to solve the puzzles, but also to get the reward when I see that I am right or on the right track. (There allegedly IS an Agatha Christie-game, Poirot I think, but I can’t play it because it has some gameplay problems we haven’t figured out how to get around in a blind-accessible way. Very disappointing.)
    – I have already received 4(!) birthday presents, and it’s not even my birthday yet. Flipside: One might(!) be from my drunk-tweeting dad, or perhaps more likely his girlfriend. I won’t know for sure until I open it. I’ll wait until my birthday and then figure out what to do next. So it’s a mixed good thing, I guess. The other 3 are great though, I am sure.
    – A friend has sat down to map out the entire first time set-up and tutorial of a video game for me, because he is awesome that way. And he keeps sneaking funny comments into his game-guides, which catch me completely off guard and make me laugh.
    – My purple heart-pillow experiment just refused to turn out as planned, BUT MIL wanted it anyway. She’ll use it as a neck-pillow. Sven got to test-rest on it and he liked it so much that he now wants me to knit one for him.
    – I have the best cats.

    1. I need to thank you again (and the inventor) for skrikpanik. It describes that feeling so well!

    2. Thank you for the explanation of Skrikpanik! That is absolutely brilliant! I hope and pray that you do not feel that way often. It does, however, seem to be an apt phrase for the world at large these days.

  27. An artist friend came to my studio this afternoon to mess about making prototype Pepper’s Ghost boxes. Pepper’s Ghost is a famous illusion (used a lot in the Disney haunted mansion) that looks like something hazy and diaphanous floating in a clearly solid scene. It takes something like glass or plexiglass (or, it turns out, old overhead projector film) that reflects when the light is brighter on one side, set at a 45 degree angle to the viewer and lit in a specific way.

    I made the boxes for him from laser cut cardboard, and then we stared into them at little playmobil and lego figures inside, and tried to decide what shapes worked best for the boxes, and what kinds of scenes we wanted to show. It was great fun, and I feel like I had a mini vacation, thinking about other things.

  28. Lots of little happinesses this week. Working backwards – my little handbell group played well this morning at church, even with a substitute conductor. And it rained overnight – the first time in over a month. I think we’re about 9 inches below normal rainfall for the year, so we probably want a smallish tropical system to erase the deficit. And I was successful in completing the Sunday crossword this morning without looking anything up! Huzzah!

    DH and I went to see Project Hail Mary – our second time viewing it, and we enjoyed it more than the first time. We probably go to the movies once or twice a year, so this was an occasion! And we had a mini date night this past week, as we went to a friend’s house to care for her cats during her overnight trip, and afterwards, DH and I tried out a new restaurant in the area. It was pretty good – I’m sure we’ll go again.

    It is DH’s birthday this week, so I’m preparing to go out for Italian food – DH’s favorite!

    1. Happy birthday to your DH, Nancy. Glad to hear you enjoyed Project Hail Mary, more the second time. I’d listened to it on audible and then watched it at the cinema. But my hearing [lifelong impairment] meant I should have moved up closer (how close can one get without blinding?). Thus I intend to see it again.
      Italian food? Yum.

    2. Our rivers are still flooded. Would love to send you some water in exchange for some heat. We’re supposed to be freezing again this week which is going to kill off a lot of trees and bushes and flowers. 😫

  29. Pleased with the garden, not so much the state of the back yard lawn. Can’t do much about it until we get back from Arctic. Getting excited about a week on an island off the great Mackenzie river with family. Favourite little two year will be there. We gave him mop rides around the house now we will give him a shovel ride in the snow. He sits on the mop or the shovel and one of us drag him around. Great exercise.

    I did just see a short info clip about how one is older and less active, just 30 minutes reading is good for one’s mind. Staves off dementia. Reading for measure and one’s mind. But we know that, right?!

    Looking forward to visiting family in Edmonton too. Heading out for a walk now. Really happy my knees are getting better. Right knee almost back to normal. Left knee doth protest to much. Takes a minute to get it working after driving or sitting for too long.

    1. And I planted another peony on the front garden. So pretty. No blooms this year maybe next year.

  30. I completely forgot to mention that I had a biopsy and it’s fine. Which I’m relieved by. (But it shows you how chaotic the last few days were.)
    Also DD got to the airport to discover her budget air flight back to London was canceled weeks ago and she had been rescheduled for Tuesday but she needed to be back in time for a speaking engagement.
    I’m very proud of how she found a very cheap return airfare and when her debit card wouldn’t cover it I bought it on my phone in the time it took her to get to the right terminal. It reinforced the motto we developed watching our neighbor’s daughter produce Macbeth in high school which DD directed: if you skip the panic and the blame you can get a lot done.
    Also in a garden report our irises and blue bells and bleeding heart and lilies of the valley and lilac are in bloom as is the dianthus which is supposed to be an annual but don’t tell it that. And so far the deer have not eaten the other lilies ( but I make no promises on that). We also have video proving that the (probably nursing ) fox cannot get at the bunny whose home is under our shed.

    1. Checked on my bleeding heart – it is in full bloom. So pretty and happy to see it is thriving.

  31. Sang a couple of good concerts over the weekend. Great pieces, happy audiences, a nice 20-bar solo. It’s the first concert in many years that my mom hasn’t come to, so I had some sadness while singing the 23rd Psalm, which we read at her service in March. But I’ve learned to sing with tears when they happen. My dad came to one, but it turns out he couldn’t see it and couldn’t hear me, so not a great time for him. Getting old can be pretty rough.
    I really, really, REALLY am ready to get some good dirt, add some kitchen compost, and make little green houses with the salad and cookie containers I don’t throw out. I am ready for some seedlings and some more Spring. We have daffodils, forsythias, and a few budding trees so far. I never like to rush Spring, but okay, let’s go.

  32. I have had a good week in Arizona. The weather has been quite pleasant. I got to go through the new house and reevaluate things. We also discovered that the seller has not fixed some of the things that she was requested to fix, or did not fix them properly. But we have until Wednesday to close, so there’s time.

    I attended a choral concert in which a little girl I have watched grow up, took apart. She is a close friend of the family. Her parents and my son and his wife are all beer fest buddies.

    This morning, my daughter-in-law took me to our favorite nursery, where I found a Baja fairy duster, a creosote bush, a desert milkweed, and some flowers that can go in the pots that I have coming from Kansas. This afternoon, my son took me to Costco with his daughter, and we had a great time there. I spent the required over $100, but I found some great stuff that I really can use.

    I think I drew the most incompetent loan officer in the company, but we are getting things straightened out. The first estimate for cash I needed to bring to closing was well over the price of the townhouse. It was nuts! They were stalling and diddling around for a long time, until I called the loan processor and told him I wanted to buy points and raise the amount of the down payment in order to lower my monthly payment. He contacted the loan officer who contacted me, and finally explained that they were concerned about the income to debt ratio. Why didn’t they ask me about that? That’s why they wanted my tax returns. Anyway, I explained to the processor person that I want to be included in all these deliberations, and he said he would speak to the loan officer’s manager.

    My realtor is also a “guy” who only explains things, or keeps me updated when I ask. However, in a few days, this will all be behind me. I have plans for the small patio behind the house, and for new appliances and new flooring. And I hope I have some money left over to do that work.

    My loan amount is just over half the cost of the town home, and the amount left over from the sale of my house in Kansas will more than cover a higher down payment and the other amenities I need to purchase. If they don’t completely foul up the closing costs.

    1. I hope the closing went well today. It’s probably over by now even with the time zone difference, but wishes can have retroactive effect.

  33. Best thing this week was dinner with a friend.

    And keeping up with my yard work. We had a long, very cold December and January so a lot of die back on the various shrubs. Things are looking better bit by bit.

  34. My yoga teacher came back from holiday so yoga classes resumed. So happy about that – I really missed yoga.

    Plus, the Hugo shortlist came out this week, and at least a few of the works I nominated are on there include the Chronicles of Osreth in best series.

    1. Ooh! An author whose work I love, Dave Kellett, is nominated for a Hugo award for his comic, Drive.

  36. I had to rack my brain to come up with one good thing until I remembered that I woke up to no heat one morning recently. Instead of calling the plumber I checked the thermostat and decided to change the batteries to see if that was the problem. It was. Saved $150 that I would have been charged to have a someone come out and fix it.

    1. I’m right there with you. Good thing, good thing … uh, oh, the Cowboys had an awesome draft. And I got my flowers potted.

  37. A lot of things happened this week, but I am feeling fuzzy and unmotivated again so it felt like nothing happened.

    I gave my little oral presentation to the managers at work about what I learned in the Employee Development program and I think it went well. I ended up drawing a loose landscape on a big piece of paper to illustrate my different points. I got several compliments. I’m glad that commitment is done. I feel like I have been neglecting my actual job to do these extra things and with the brain fog am behind on non-essential tasks.

    I hung a little show at a new local coffee shop. I didn’t get as much new work done for it as I wanted, but I did pull a lot of old work out of the attic that hasn’t seen the light of day in at least two years if not more. Some of my older stuff I really like, while the middle years not so much, so that is giving me something to think about. And I used up four half-finished canvas of different sizes from the studio, which feels good.

    I got to meet my new nephew. He is three months old already and smiling. Big for his age. And I took the expensive bassinet I bought for his mom over to my other cousin who is expecting in June as the January baby has grown out of it. One gift, double use. Win.

    Otherwise, I face planted all weekend. That doesn’t feel great but doing anything felt like moving through quicksand. I am having trouble being interested in anything, books, projects, etc and sleep doesn’t seem to be helping. I hope this passes soon. I had wanted to plan a garden this year but haven’t done any work on it and I wonder if I had better not, as I seem to still be struggling with everything on my plate. I guess I still have time to think about it…

    2. Brain Fog, I had it very badly lately, too much routine, work, going through the motions and lack of sleep. I am sort of back now, took a couple of days off alone time, did a craft class, had a wander, read a book and met up with a friend. Sitting in the sunlight surrounded by green space for a couple of hours each day helped a lot too

  38. I am now working three days a week, which is good for the budget (I usually work more days in the summer than winter, but this was late in starting) but bad for keeping up with the internet. I looked at GBT comments this morning and saw they had grown by more than a hundred since I last caught on Friday.

  39. Just spent an hour on a call with Protective Services and was told at start of call to expect a call from an investigator with the District Attorney. So far daughter still in hospital.
    Made it clear mom is flight risk. Gave names of doctors and other contacts with evidence. Sent emails mom sent me to them.
    Am relieved that we are making progress and also have chills and am shaking from the stress .
    Updates will of course follow.

      1. Thanks. It is. At the same time I am so grateful that someone with authority to intervene is trying to help.

  40. Nothing special going on. I just did the fortnightly feeding of my hydroponic gardens. I have many bottles of AeroGarbage liquid plant food (by MiracleGrow). Instead, I use EZGro plant food. Just sayin’.

  41. I am still recovering from minor car crash on the weekend. Achy. Strange how it has made me lose track of time. Thank heavens for my cell phone. I keep checking it to see what I need to do next: teaching four classes (check), appraiser (check), dog walker (check), coffee with sister (oops, forgot), hearing aid replacement (check), doctor’s appointment (check)… sorry to go on so long. Anyways, still mid intentions and feeling grateful.

    1. Were you checked out after the car crash? I hope so and that they found nothing wrong and this is just a time you need to rest so you can recover. May you feel better soon!

  42. My grandson was born on the 24th. He was due on the 26th but he showed up early. He has taken all of my attention this week.

  44. I went on an amazing writer’s retreat in the Sunshine Coast (I live in Australia). It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done for and by myself (I have a young family… time is not usually my own). Very grateful for an awesome Sunday (and Friday and Saturday too) ☀️🌴👩‍💻

About the Author

Jennifer Crusie is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling author and co-author of twenty-three novels, one book of literary criticism, miscellaneous articles, essays, novellas, and short stories, and the editor of three essay anthologies. She lives in a cottage in Pennsylvania, where she often stares at the ceiling and counts her blessings.

Find out more about Jenny’s published works by visiting JennyCrusie.com

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