We had a great weekend. Saturday was pretty normal stuff. But while running errands, I stopped by youngest to see the desk he built for his home office. It’s gorgeous! It’s a simple farmhouse design, and perfect for him. I really am impressed with the level of attention to detail he put in this desk. He’s really developing some amazing woodworking skills.

After that, I made dark chocolate brownies for Superbowl. Then I decided they are too dark chocolate for most people, so I froze those, and bought Ghirardelli’s boxed brownies, and made those to take to Middle’s. Yes, I realized that’s a bit over the top, but I do stuff like that all the time, LOL. They all seemed to like them. I passed because they had gluten, and my stomach has been touchy for a few days. I had treats at home so it doesn’t bother me to do that.

Sunday we went to Middles to watch the Superbowl. We had a delicious dinner of tri trip and tons of great conversation while watching the game. It got tense in overtime, and that’s when we left…but Wizard listened to the game on the radio. His team lost. But big congrats to all the Kansas City Chiefs! Truly, we had a lovely time with out son, daughter-in-law, their two dogs, and our dog

How was your weekend?

TGIF!! Time to share five random things about out week. Here’s mine:

1. Thursday night, the last storm blew in, bringing high winds and rain. All was fine here, but it was pretty dramatic and kept me and Maggie awake. Wizard slept through through it, LOL.
2. We continue to love the new floors. Although they aren’t self cleaning, so there’s that
3. The other day, the microwave refused to start and claimed I hadn’t put the food in. I swore at it, and then went into a mini tirade lecturing the microwave that it did not get to tell me how to do my job. Why doesn’t it just do it’s job?? Huh? Yeah, I was annoyed. Wizard was sitting at the bar laughing his butt off. Which, of course, made me laugh. It’s just a day in our life. But the microwave was wrong, just so you know. I’d put the food in, but it had forgotten that small fact (because some arbitrary amount of time passed — and it’s short term memory sucks…just saying). The microwave is lucky I need it to heat my coffee.
4. Since walking has been hit or miss with weather, I’ve upped my yoga and added some very very light weights and I’m also doing standing crunches. It’s  been a few weeks now and is going pretty well. So far, I haven’t triggered any neck or shoulder spasms. It’s been a quiet week so the little things are exciting, LOL
5. It’s Superbowl this Sunday! We are going to Middle Son’s and I can’t wait! Maggie’s invited too, she is going to be so happy! Going in the car is always the best day ever for Maggie. Wizard and I are looking forward to seeing Middle and his wife, their dogs and just hanging out for a few hours.

That’s my five, it’s been a quiet week! Now I’d love to hear yours. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

We’ve had a lot of rain, but so far, no problems for us. L.A. and some other areas have had flooding, mudslides, trees falling, and various related problems. But it looks like the worst is over. We’ll have more rain today, but it should be lighter. I feel badly for the people who’ve had property damaged or destroyed.

In one case, a dog fell in a river and his human went in after him. Both had to be rescued. I probably wouldn’t be that close to a river in a storm, but if Maggie went it, I’d probably go in after her before my common sense kicked in.

The good news for me is I made it to the doctors! Well Wizard drove because he knew I was anxious about the visit The weather lightened up for the two hours we were gone, and we were very thankful. The doctor visit went really well. The previous doctor was uninterested and said all he saw was a little redness. This doctor was a much better fit for me. He looked in my ears and nose first. Then studied my throat. He was able to clearly see what I told him was there. He declared it very weird, LOLOL. He suggested a CT Scan, and said he’d do a biopsy too if I wanted it. At that point, I felt I was in good hands and asked him his recommendation. He suggested we do the CT Scan first to see if there’s anything going on below the problem area. Then we’ll see if a biopsy is need. I agreed. He also wanted more bloodwork, and I agreed.

In this discussion, he looked at me and said, “You’re worried it’s cancer.” I nodded (because–duh, of course I am). He told me that it doesn’t look like cancer to him, but he can be wrong, and therefore the first thing he wants to do is rule out cancer. And once we do that, then we’ll try to find out what’s the root cause of the little spots, soreness and inflammation.

I walked out of there very happy with the plan.

Then, to my surprise, he called me when I was on the way home, and told me, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I think and MRI is a better test for you.”  I didn’t even hesitate, I agreed. He asked if I was claustrophic. I said yes, but I could probably deal with it. He said he’ll call in a prescription and I can decide at the time if I need it or not.

I was impressed. He put real thought, and possibly a bit of research, into my weird case. At this point, I trust his judgement. I feel like we’ll either solve this, or at least rule out anything that needs immediate treatment.

So that was my experience with the new ENT

How’s your week going?

P.S. The server is going down for maintenance so I’m going to try to post this on Tuesday evening before it goes down.

So we are waiting for the bigger second storm to hit as I’m writing this Sunday evening. It’s taking longer than forecast to get to us, which usually isn’t a great sign (slower moving means more rain). The wind is blowing now, so it’s coming. On the other hand, the media has hyped this up so much, it’s exhausting and making me a little skeptical. There are signs on the freeways telling us not to travel until Thursday night. I feel like I’m not in Southern CA anymore, LOL. And it could all turn out to just be some rain and wind. We’ll see.

And on the “Stay off the roads until Thursday night” signs??  Do they know how long I’ve waited for my ENT appt Tuesday afternoon???? Okay, seriously, if I can’t go, I’ll reschedule. But it’ll probably be fine and I’ll be able to make the 20 mile drive. I had to laugh when I mentioned this to Wizard, he said, “Don’t worry I’ll drive you.” I just shook my head. I mean if for some reason I can’t drive there, why would he be able to????? Men.

So my weekend was good. Saturday we went to see Turbo and had a nice time. I enjoyed playing with him, and Wizard got a chance to talk to Oldest for a while. He also played with Turbo, but it was nice for him to have some time with our oldest too.

Sunday we wanted to go to Middle’s house, but we headed warnings about the storm and stayed home. Then the storm was delayed. That’s a little annoying, but we both ran some other errands and got other things done, so it worked out. And I made some cookies. We’ll go to Middle’s next weekend.

One of my errands was to my fun store, Trader Joe’s But I had a bit of sad moment when I saw my beloved dark chocolate chips went up a $1.00!!! But it’s still the best price I’ve found and I bought three bags. One can never have too many bags of dark and dairy free chocolate chips!!

Today it’s supposed to rain, so we’ll be home. I’m going to do some batch cooking and maybe putting my books in the bookcases. I tried so hard in our last house to give away most of my physical books, and not buy more for this very reason. And yet I’m suddenly collecting them again and we’re talking about getting more bookcases in other rooms. I just can’t help it, I love books!

How was your weekend?

TGIF!! I’m back online and it’s time to share five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

1. The floor installation went smoothly. We love them (so far but time will tell). There’s one spot in our bathroom (the around the toilet) that crackles, which can happen. Since it’s in that spot, I’m not going to stress over it. We’ll just watch it to make sure it’s not a real problem. Overall, we’re really happy. Here’s a couple pics: The first one is the office — you’ll notice we still have more unpacking to do there, and the other one, I’m standing in the dining room (we hadn’t moved the table back yet)  looking toward the kitchen.
2. The cleaning is real, LOL. We still need to unpack books and a few more things. But we have the majority of things back in place. Now we’re cleaning everything — between taking up the old floors, and cutting the planks for the new floors, debris is everywhere! But that’s normal and it’s worth it.
3. Speaking of Maggie — she’s adjusting to the new floors pretty well. We sure hear her toenails clicking now! She can’t sneak up on us anymore, LOL. The funny think is she won’t down on the floors, but she’ll down on the cement — weird. But overall, she’s been fine, and never seemed stressed. Plus she had fun hanging out in the garage and backyard with us while the crew worked!
4. Next week I see the new ENT doctor. I’m hopeful he has, or will attempt to find, answers to what’s going on with my throat. I finally had Wizard look at it, and we took some pictures. Have you ever tried to get pics of the back of your throat? It’s…not pretty   It did, however, startle me a bit to see it that way.  But of course, this could be as simple like an allergy to something I’m consuming. Anything’s possible. Fingers crossed the ENT next week will be helpful.
5. Wizard surprised me and made reservations for dinner for us on Valentines Day. I hadn’t even given it a thought. I love that he totally surprised me.

This weekend, we plan to go see Turbo on Saturday if the rain doesn’t cause problems on the freeways. Anyway, that’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! Hope everyone has a safe and happy weekend.

My weekend was good. Saturday we did really exciting things like more packing up stuff, we worked in the planter outside and I gathered and checked some documents for taxes. My highlight of the day was running over to Youngest’s to drop off some cookies and play with my granddog.  Wizard and I didn’t go back later to see Turbo as we had more stuff to take care of at home and we were tired. Youngest got to hog Turbo all to himself We will see Turbo very soon!

Sunday, I had a nice lunch with my sister-in-law. We went to a little sandwich shop that she and my brother-in-law loved. I’ve been there once before, so I knew what I could eat and ordered the Chef’s Salad. The poor waitress was so confused, LOL. I said Chef’s Salad like three times before she realized I meant Cobb Salad. Yep, I’m an idiot. But the waitress was very gracious and made me feel less like an idiot.

It was great to see my sister-in-law and have lunch. She’s interesting and it was so nice to just sit and talk for a while. I’m very proud of her. She’s handling a lot, and I’m always amazed by people’s resilience and strength. I hope I can learn from others how to have grace and courage in hard moments. But she also told me a story that made me laugh way too hard. Hopefully the other customers didn’t mind my outburst of laughter!

After that I came home and did a little more to get ready for our adventure in floors (it really isn’t that much — we’ve just spaced the work out over a week so it sounds like it’s endless), and did some laundry. Monday the guys (or gals, I don’t know yet!) are showing up to start the floors. My plan is to keep Maggie with us on a leash. The only reason for the leash is to prevent her from bugging them and unintentionally getting in their way. She’s pretty nosy, LOL. If we’re lucky this will only take 2 to 3 days.

Just to let everyone know, we have to move everything out of the office, and that requires shutting down the computer. I should be able to answer comments from my phone, but I may not be able to post a blog on Wednesday. Trust me, no one wants to read a post I typed on my phone :-). So if I’m not here on Wednesday, that’s why. I should be able to post by Friday though!

How was your weekend?

TGIF! Let’s get right to sharing five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

1. It’s been a quiet and uneventful week for me. Wizard had some things to take care of this week, but he also had enough down time to hound me about buying a new Mustang. I just gave him a couple Tylenol and told him the (car) fever would pass soon Oddly, he doesn’t think I’m as funny as I do.  He wasn’t really serious about buying a Mustang, he’s just bugging me. He and Turbo’s mom are always looking at some car or truck, as they both suffer from Chronic Car Fever.
2. Monday is the planned date to start the floors. We assume it’s all going to happen as planned and are packing and moving things. But it’s been a calm week, allowing us to do this in small chunks as we fee like it, and it’s really been no stress so far.
3. Wizard is making fun of me for vacuuming all the carpets even though they’ll be pulled up Monday (except in the bedrooms where we’re keeping the carpet). I just shrugged off his comments. He’s going to be even more annoyed when I vacuum the hard floors tomorrow and ALL of those are getting pulled up. By the way, I’m doing this because I walk barefoot on them and they bug me. If I was a true clean freak I’d wash the floors (they really need it!) and the baseboards — but nope, I’m not doing that. Nor am I dusting because why when it’ll just be a mess from pulling up the floors? I’ll clean all that afterward.
4. I’m reading the autobiography “STILL ME,” by Christopher Reeve — most people remember him as the actor who played Superman, and who was later paralyzed in a horse riding accident. My brother-in-law had the book, and I snagged it while packing up. I never realized that Mike (my brother-in-law) and Christopher Reeve both broke their necks at the same level. It was so scary at the time, but thankfully, Mike was a lucky one whose spinal chord wasn’t injured during the accident that caused the break in his cervical spine. He still went through a lot to recover, but it was nowhere near as bad as it could have been. It’s really frustrating that I can’t talk to him about this book now that I’m reading it and I know he read it. Yes, I recognize this is all part of grief, but overall reading his books makes me happy and brings up so many good memories. Now back to the book — Christopher Reeve goes into a lot of what he went through with the injury, and what his recovery looked like. He shares a lot detailed medical information, both in general about spinal injuries and specifically to his injury, and talks about research (up to the point when this book was written in the late 1990’s). I find it interesting. Also, reading a book like this reminds me to be grateful for all that my body does do, and not dwell on what it no long can.
5. On Sunday, Wizard is going racing and I’m going out to have lunch with my sister-in-law, which I’m looking forward too. Oldest let me know that he and Turbo will be over Youngest’s house on Saturday, then told us to come on over. I laughed at Oldest for thinking being the eldest brother gives him to the power to invite us to youngest’s house without informing youngest. Brothers! But I may pop over there for a few minutes, we’ll see. However, I’ll call Youngest first, you know, just to prove to Oldest that it’s the polite thing to do. A mother’s job is never done!

That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a great weekend!