December 10 through 13

Friday, December 10

I called my brother to see how he was doing.  He has been sick with a bad cold, and 80% of the inmates at the prison where he works are infected with the new covid variant.  He said he was not positive for Covid, and his cold was much better.  We talked for quite a while, which is unusual.  Usually talking for five minutes with him is average.  He was doing some housework while we talked, and we said good-bye when he was about to vacuum.  He has Fridays off, but my sister-in-law does not.  She is still working from home, which is a good thing.  They are saving a lot of money by her not needing to drive 40 minutes every day.  Also, her vehicle was hit and damaged twice in her company’s parking lot while she has worked there.  So, no more of that either.

I accomplished a few things today—I cleaned the litterboxes, opened a new box of litter—very difficult task, added fresh litter to the boxes that needed it, and brutally cleaned out the refrigerator.  There were some things in there that were outdated in August! I filled the whole kitchen garbage can with old, yucky food.  Then I reorganized the refrigerator so that I can actually see what I have.

We are expecting a serious winter storm today into tomorrow—the last I heard was that we could get up to 18” of snow.  I texted the Schwan’s man and told him not to stop at my house due to the expected weather.  I told him I hoped his route was cancelled, but if it wasn’t, he should do it as quickly as possible and get home safely.  All the school districts in the area reported their closings last night. 

Well, as usual, the weather did not come through as predicted.  All the schools in my area could have been open all day as it never even started to snow until after 4 pm.  Larry, the Schwan’s man, showed up, telling me that he had two items I had on back order and he was running his full route since the weather was fine.  It had snowed some in the night, so my deck had about an inch of snow on the railing and the floor was wet.  I asked Larry if he would put a handful of peanuts on the railing for my squirrel friends.  He did, and before long, they had all been eaten or carried off.  I think the squirrels and blue jays constantly watch my deck for treat placement.  Ha.

Shortly after Larry left, Ross arrived with my grocery order.  We had a little chat, and I told him how I had just cleaned out my fridge and discovered absolutely ancient food mouldering away in there.  I laughed and said, “I just hope I can lift it up to get it into the bin outside!”

Sweet Ross said, “Oh, I can take that out for you!”  He picked it up like it weighed a feather and dumped it into the bin.  I was so thankful.  Carrying kitchen garbage which is always heavy out to the bin is very hard for me and really affects my bad shoulder.  I have to make him and the girls who work at the store a pan of bars or Scotcheroos or something to show them my appreciation. 

By the time I got the groceries put away, I was exhausted and starving.  I had two ham links left, so I warmed them up in the microwave and turned them into ham link sandwiches.  I also sliced up one of the ripe pears delivered with my grocery order.  That ended my work day.  I was tired. 

The snow started around 4:00, very fine and light but rapidly got heavier and thicker.  Not too far north of us, thunder snow took place.  Thunder snow is like a summer thunderstorm with thunder, lightning, and very heavy snowfall.  It’s a pretty cool thing to witness.  We, sadly, did not experience anything that dramatic here.  We did end up with around 8” of snow.  Just north of us, in Owatonna, they got around 11”.  I don’t know if anyone got the 18” they were predicting.

I watched a couple of movies on TV—one of them was Twister.  Made me sad about Bill Paxton.  I liked him as an actor.  He was only 61 when he died.  I never did hear if his family won the wrongful death suit against the surgeon who fucked up his heart surgery.  He had a great smile and a low-key humor that was fun.

The other movie I watched was Hondo with John Wayne.  It is a cheesy western with much slaughtering of Native Americans—though they were at least portrayed as three dimensional human beings for the most part. 

 

Saturday, December 11

I did very little today.  I sorted and started my laundry and washed the sink full of dishes that I was too tired to wash yesterday.  I had slept in pretty late today, and I spent most of the day watching old cowboy shows on TV and poking around on the internet.

I was pretty shocked to read that while I was watching Twister on TV last night, a massive F-4 or F-5 tornado tore through several states over 200 miles and killed dozens of people.  Apparently over 70 people were killed in a candle factory in Kentucky alone.  Ugh.  Poor souls.

Supper was a Schwan’s microwave lasagna meal.  It was just a large slice of lasagna—no other side dishes.  It was good, but not as good as homemade lasagna.  I am trying to use up the Schwan’s foods in my freezer.

That’s about it.

 

Sunday, December 12

I ended up being up till 2 am last night as I was watching another old John Wayne movie—The Angel and the Badman.  It was one of his older ones—black and white and he was much younger.  So, I ended up only getting a few hours of sleep.  Ugh.  Dumb.

I managed to do my morning routine and fill my pill caddy as I do every Sunday morning.  Before getting on the computer for my weekly Zoom with DeAnn, I also bagged up my bedroom and living room garbage and took it to the breezeway and grabbed an apple fritter for breakfast. 

DeAnn and I had our Zoom meeting till about 2:30.  During this week’s session we each set up three goals for the coming week—one creative, one household, and one personal. 

My Creative Goal:  Get things in order to write a photo Christmas story using some of my LeeAnn dolls which I will post to one of my doll groups on FaceBook.

·        Clear a space to do the work

·        Choose 3-4 dolls to use in the story

·        Dress them in winter/Christmas clothes

·        Assemble and prepare the other materials for the story (the 18” Christmas tree, small ornaments to decorate it with, and so on)

·        Do a portrait photo of each of the dolls and write a little “background” paragraph about each of them as an introduction to the characters.

My Household Goal:  Thoroughly clean the bathroom (which is truly filthy)

·        Scrub the toilet

·        Wash the rugs

·        Scrub the sink

·        Polish the sink’s wood cabinet

·        Clean the mirror

·        Sweep and scrub the floor

·        Take out the garbage

·        Wipe down the soap dish, tooth brush holder, and other “sit around” things.

My Personal Goal:  Call the mortgage company to set up automatic payments for my refinanced mortgage and call the contractor to hound him to finish redoing the downspouts before the weather gets worse.

It was a sunny day, and the snow was beautiful, glistening in the sun.

At 7 pm, DeAnn, Sue, Tammy, Nancy, Donna (mother in law to Sue’s son), and I had a “ladies’ meeting” on Zoom.  We are all fairly isolated due to the Covid crap, and most of us have little contact with other intelligent adult women, so we have these meetings every few weeks to catch up with each other and clutch our pearls over the continuing rape of the nation by the trumplicans.  Ha.  I have never met Donna before, but she seemed like a decent person.  We laughed a lot and snorted in disgust a lot too. 

Our meeting went about two hours and we vowed to meet again soon.  When it was over, I watched the new episode of Yellowstone and was a bit shocked to witness one of the characters harvesting semen from a stallion.  Now, I have known for years that these things are done, but I just never expected to see it graphically presented on television.  Whoa. 

 

Monday, December 13

Lily stopped over on her way home from Owatonna.  She believes she had a bladder infection and had to run in for lab work.  She found Diet Coke on sale and bought me a few six-packs.  She also bought me a carton of egg nog, a loaf of French bread, and my mail.  She also brought me three blueberry muffins she had baked yesterday. 

She was worrying about her plants as she will soon be going to Texas and my cousins will only be watering her plants once a month.  So, I went on Amazon and looked for an automatic plant watering device for her.  We found one that looked like it would work well, so I ordered it for her.  She was going to my mother’s house to deliver her mail.  I sent the three boxes of Keurig pods that Mom had asked me to order for her. 

Lily is also back to planning to sell her home and move into the senior living center, so I have been saving boxes for her from my Amazon/other deliveries, so she took a few of them with her when she left as well.  We had a nice chat about random things.  I hate that she is going back to Texas where about 90% of the population appears to be clinically insane, but I have no power to stop her. 

I had written and texted a message to the contractor about the downspouts, and received a reply saying he would call the guy responsible for that again.  I thanked him.  Hopefully this will set the job in motion again.

I started working on the bathroom today too—I scrubbed the toilet within an inch of its life.  It was horribly grungy, but now it looks sparkling clean and smells fresh. I took the rugs out to wash and moved a bunch of stuff out of the way so I could clean more easily.  I swept the bathroom floor too. 

Not much else going on today.  I made a Schwan’s frozen spaghetti pod for my supper.  Again, it was okay but no where near as good as homemade spaghetti.  I was going to roast the beef roast with potatoes, carrots, onions, and cabbage today, but I did not get it done.  Maybe tomorrow.  I am looking forward to something really tasty because it is homemade.