February 27 through March 5

[chochiyo_sama]

Sunday, February 27

The highlight of the day was my morning Zoom meeting with DeAnn.  Later, Jack came over to give me my mail and drag my garbage and recycling bins to the curb.  It was a sad day.  All day, I thought of my sweet, precious Stewie.  This is the time of year that he died.  Way too young.  My poor, precious boy.  I miss him every day.

 

Monday, February 28

It was a pretty quiet day.  I got my pill caddy filled.  I talked to several people on the phone, on text, and on FaceBook messenger.  That took most of my day.  I got my package from Affordable Designs (Denis Bastian’s doll company) and had fun looking at the doll shoes and patterns I had ordered through him.  All the stuff he makes is adorable and high quality. 

I had two New York strip steaks, so I put them in the roaster with portabella mushrooms and onions.  I ate one and saved the other for another day.  The steaks were absolutely delicious. Those portabella mushrooms are fabulous.  They were huge and thick and very tender. It made a great and satisfying meal.

 

Tuesday, March 1

Today was unusually productive for me.  I did my laundry, cleaned the bathroom, did a sink full of dishes, and polished the cupboards below the counter with orange glow.  I don’t dare climb on anything with my bad knees and weak legs, so the higher cupboards remain unpolished.  Hope, one of my cousin Lee’s daughters, is considering starting a house cleaning business, which would be fabulous.  I already told her that I would hire her weekly or biweekly or monthly—whatever would work for her.  Any amount of help I can get would be fantastic. 

The weather has been great—much warmer and the snow is melting like crazy.  I am so ready for spring.  I can hardly wait to put some flowers and vegetables in my planters on my new deck.  I plan to plant tomatoes and summer squash for sure.  Maybe some kind of lettuce and cherry tomatoes.  Green beans would be good too.  I love fresh green beans.

 

Wednesday, March 2

 My shoulder and right hand were extremely painful this morning, so I took a very hot shower and let the hot water practically cook me like a lobster.  It helped a lot.  I had bought a copper fit hand brace in hopes that it might help the sore hand.  I am still not sure what I did to it, but it has been very painful, making it difficult to get important things done.  It even hurts to type.  Anyhow, I decided to start wearing the brace when I am not actively using water to clean and when I sleep at night. 

Since I had decided to take it easy today in hopes of getting some healing going on in my hand, I watched the movie Downsizing which was not what I expected it to be, but it was okay.  Unless he was a body double, the movie included a naked butt shot of Matt Damon.  Haha. 

Other event—I got out of facebook jail today.  Someone had put a joke post up that was a cartoon of a man insulting a woman’s cat and the woman hissed at him.  I commented that he should have been strangled with his own entrails for disrespecting her cat!  Clearly a joke.  But the facebook censor bot found it to be a “threat of violence,” so I got put in facebook jail for 7 days which ended today. I protested it again, of course.  But nothing ever comes of protesting your ban.  Morons.

 

Thursday, March 3

Today I folded my last load of laundry, cleaned the litterboxes, and used my battery operated sweeper to sweep the breezeway and kitchen.  I placed my Schwan’s order in via their website and called my grocery order in to Lerbergs.  Both deliveries will come tomorrow. 

My brother Jack stopped by to bring me my mail and drag my garbage and recycling bins back up to the house.  There was a package on the breezeway steps which he dragged into the house for me.  I was glad as it was heavy.  It would have been hard for me to get it into the house. We had a nice chat.  When he left, I warmed up my steak from the other day and had it for a very late lunch/early supper. 

 

Friday, March 4

Both of my food orders were delivered in the afternoon.  I had nice though brief chats with Larry, the Schwan’s driver, and Ross, the owner of Lerberg’s who makes the deliveries in person.  He is such a nice person.  I had a stack of bills that needed to be mailed laying next to the check I paid him with, and he was kind enough to take them with him to  throw into the mail for me. 

I bagged up some recycling and put the groceries away.  I had bought some chicken salad sandwich spread and coleslaw with my groceries, so I had the chicken salad on a hamburger bun, a big scoop of coleslaw, a few grapes and a zebra cake from Little Debbie.  The Zebra cake was not that great and I will never buy them again.  They tasted like dry bread frosted with Crisco with a little sweetener added to it.  Disgusting.

I spent a good part of the afternoon dozing in my recliner or poking around on my computer.  The weather channel said we could possibly have thunderstorms tomorrow, which sounded good to me.  I enjoy a good raucous thunderstorm. 

 

Saturday, March 5

A really noisy thunderstorm happened in the middle of the night.  I didn’t see any lightning as I didn’t get out of bed to look out the windows.  But there was a LOT of thunder and heavy winds and rain. 

I threw the chicken thighs I bought yesterday into the roaster with some onions and roasted them.  I plan to turn them into either chicken soup or chicken and rice hot dish.  I ate one piece when they came out of the oven and put the rest into a container in the refrigerator for the fat to rise to the surface to be skimmed off.  Hopefully, tomorrow I will turn the chicken into something good.

I put some pop into the pop fridge and bagged up more recycling.  It seems unlikely that Lily will do the sensible thing and move into the Senior Living Center, so I am going to start breaking down all the boxes I have been saving for her and recycle them.  I think it is foolish for her to worry about money.  Her son said she’d only have enough money to afford to live in the Senior Center for ten years.  My goodness!  She is 82 years old and in questionable health.  She is increasingly unable to do her own house and yard work and finding it increasingly difficult to find people willing to help her.  And she only wants to pay people a pittance to help her if anything.  In the Senior Center, she’d not be responsible for any outdoor work and maid service is available.  They have an indoor pool, a library, an exercise room, onsite medical staff, transportation services, Bible study groups, Book club groups, Crafting groups, walking paths, onsite cafeteria which provides so many meals a month with the option to eat EVERY meal there if you pay extra…Shit, in a few years, I might be willing to move there myself.  And as an added bonus, she already has friends who live there.  She’d be much better off there. 

But she has convinced herself that she cannot afford it, and I am sick of letting these boxes stack up in my living room.  Therefore, I am going to try to breakdown a few of these boxes  each day until the recycling bin is full, then send it to the curb. 

She exhausts me.

Comments

[the_godiva]

I thought of Stewie.

I still think of Caesar every year right after Veteran's Day. And Ramses at Thanksgiving. Goliath was put down the day after New Year's. Candy around Valentine's Day. Sometimes I think holidays were created so we remember the trauma in our lives.

I think the planters on the railing of the deck might be too shallow for tomatoes. You could do lettuce and radishes. Also flowers. The tomatoes may still need to be in larger pots on the deck.

Have you thought of putting orange oil on a swiffer pad and using the swiffer to reach the doors of the upper cabinets?

I think Facebook is monitoring you now after so many bans. You are red flagged and when you post anything even slightly funny or that can be misinterpreted, they come down on you.

Little Debbie isn't that great. Worse than Hostess which isn't that great either. I think the only Little Debbie product I used to eat was their peanut butter bars it has been years. The last time the quality had gotten so bad I couldn't finish them. I would buy a single to try out if I could but you have to buy an entire box and I'm not doing that for nostalgia. It was one of the things I used to buy at lunch when I worked at the middle school down the street. Perfect finish to one of the cafeteria manager's great lunches. That was the last time the school cafeterias used to have decent food. At least I have the recipe for the peanut chews. Wish I had one for the chocolate mint pie they used to make.

Lily's son is full of shit. Have Bert go over her finances. She convinced herself that she can't move there like she convinced herself she'd never be able to sell the trailer. If she respects Bert and listens to him, she might change her mind. I wouldn't get rid of the boxes quite yet. Just break them down and stack them. Or keep them until she gets back and take them all over to her house. I'll bet there is someplace there to store a stack of boxes.

I'm wondering how I am going to save $100,000 or more to buy into Carlsbad by the Sea. I want to keep the house as rental income but I might have to sell it to afford to move there. I'm not even going to get on the waiting list for at least five years. I hear there is a 10 year wait. It might be longer for me as I have a specific floor plan in mind.