4 day weekend

 We've had a lovely long weekend, so far, despite new window issues, and the unpleasant weather yesterday.

Took Thursday off to meet up with friends travelling through Oklahoma on their way home from Texas to Ohio.

Got the office/guest room prepared for the new windows to be installed on Friday morning.

Then, the window guys came on Friday, but were only able to install one window.  

We ordered them in January, the installer came to DOUBLE CHECK the measurements in February.

But, when he finally came to install our pair of windows, only one window was the right size. 

The installer was quite upset about this, and could not get anyone to answer the phone, so he left, and said he would either be back with the correct window, OR call and let us know.

Needless to say, he did not come back, and said that our window was nowhere to be found in the warehouse.

We wondered if maybe whoever loaded up the trucks for the crews mixed orders up, and maybe our window went to the wrong house, and we had someone else's window.... but we never got an answer on that.

Dave called the original guy at Lowe's who quoted the job, and he told Dave to call someone else to open a work order to correct the situation, but no one ever called back.

So. It could be three MORE months before we have the window we paid for in JANUARY.

MAYBE, just maybe, someone will call tomorrow with an explanation, or to say that our window was found on another truck.

We got all of our errands done Friday afternoon, and enjoyed the hot tub on Friday evening.

It was 86 degrees on Friday, and 56 yesterday, with a wicked, cold wind.

Because of the biting wind, there was no woods walk yesterday, and probably won't be today, either.  This disappoints me, but we have had a good time off anyway.

Our friend Jules came over yesterday to refresh her memory on house sitting stuff for our vacation the last week of April.

Later today, I am getting my first hair cut in almost a year, and then I have a lecture I want to watch live on Facebook.

I'm hoping the hair cut will make the most of my waves, so that my hair looks less thin.  

Next weekend, before we leave on our trip, we're going to treat ourselves to mani-pedis!

Dave continues to put off his job of raking up the front yard, that has been a mess for a full month, since the bamboo was cut back. He said he might try to get to it today.

I'd like to mow the back yard again, but we'll see.  It for sure needs to be done before we leave town.

On that note, I am off to eat breakfast (Dave has started cooking breakfast again on the weekends!).

If you're celebrating Easter today, enjoy!

Oh look, it's windy again

I am so tired of the raging Oklahoma wind.  It hasn't eased up for days, other than for a couple of hours on Friday night.

Most of the state is in extreme to exceptional drought, and the one day of rain that we had a little while back did very little to help, as the wind has swept all of that moisture away.

I am not at all surprised by the tales of pioneer women, (brought out here by their husbands, and left to fend for themselves when the men went back to civilization to bring back more supplies), would actually lose their minds- because of the wind. 

It has a name... Prairie Madness.

Civilization has now spread across the land, but that crazy-making wind has never changed.

Next week, there could be hail and tornadoes! Yay.

This past week, we got two of our planned-for home improvement things completed.  The water line from the street to the house is now made out of pex instead of copper, and we have a real couch.

Next week, new windows are being installed on the back-facing wall of my office / the guest room.  That is the third, and last planned-for project for this year, and we will continue to put aside money for windows every pay period.  

There are 23 of them in this house, and we can only afford to do them a pair at a time.

On Thursday of next week, some friends from Ohio are passing through Oklahoma, and we will be meeting up with them for lunch, so I took a floating holiday for that, and Dave took a vacation day.

My office is closed for Good Friday, so Dave took a vacation day for that, as well, and that is the day the windows will be done.  That gives us Thursday afternoon to move furniture, take down blinds and curtains, and make that room ready for the window project.

It will be nice to only work three days next week, and then be off for the last week of the month.  I need a break.

As much as I need to be seen around the building, that week off won't seem any different to my co workers.

Today will be sunny and windy, but I want to go out and look for at least one clematis plant.  The beautiful red one I had died.... and then the beautiful lavender one I had died....but I want to try again.

Gardening in Oklahoma sucks, but I keep trying.

I also want to refresh my smaller planters today, and get my herb seeds planted.

Wishing you, gentle readers, a lovely week, and a happy Eastertide, if you celebrate.

Dust

 What is it about the light in early spring time that makes ALL of the dust in the house more visible?

I've had a cold the past few days, so I didn't get much done yesterday, but today... I have a feeling there will be some serious spring cleaning going on!

Stayed home last night, and missed the dance show I had to withdraw from.  I had really wanted to go, but Dave did not, and I was sick, so... dang it.

Oh, and when I say "sick," don't worry.  I have not had a fever at all, and my symptoms have been manageable with decongestants and ibuprofin. 

We do have those free tests in the cabinet, too, so if I HAD been worried enough to use one, they are available.

I thought it was allergies, but the Clairtin I've been taking isn't doing anything, so I think it's just a cold. My body is doing some spring cleaning of its own.

In other news, Dave got the word that his return to office starts the second week of April, and he can just choose which two days he goes.  

They have to get him a work station set up first, though.  It's not feasible for him to have to transport the one he brought home two years ago back and forth twice a week!  

Now that we know he can choose his days, we don't have to worry about buying a second car just yet.

In other news, the accountant I hired to do our taxes this year has finished up.

Selling the condo continues to stab me in the back...at least one last time. I owe the state of Illinois over $1K, and federal around $400.00

I never should have let myself be pressured into selling the property when I didn't feel the time was right.

But, done is done, and this is the last time it can hurt me.  I hope.

I'll make my weekly trip to the office tomorrow, and then plan to start going for a full day on Mondays during the second week of April.

I will get to go twice before the week of vacation, to see how it works out.

Tomorrow isn't really an option because I would need to set it up with my co workers the week before, so that they don't do the tasks that I am going in on Mondays to do!

Plus, I have my injection appointment tomorrow, and would have to leave extra early, since I am 15 miles further away from the clinic if I leave from the office.

That's about it for this week.  It's supposed to rain later, so it will be a good day to stay in and do some tidying.

Have a good week!

Sweet relief

 When this new cycle of my Kisqali medication started last Wednesday, I stopped the hormone blocking medication.

After 4 days without it, my pain level has decreased to a low roar.  I was able to get outside and work in my container garden a bit yesterday, and hope to get more done today, as well as clean and re-fill the hot tub, as this weekend has perfect weather.

I did mention the pain to my doctor earlier this month, and he said nothing much at all about it, so I took it upon myself to do this.  

I have done this several times in the past, with Doc's permission, when the pain has become unbearable, and it has not had any dire consequences.  

I think, in a way, my doc doesn't know what to do with me anymore.

My case is pretty unusual, after all.

Dave got the word last week that he is being required to return to his office at least two days a week.

This starts the second week of April, and does not please either of us.  The good thing is that it's only two days.  If it were all week, we would have no choice but to purchase a second car.

I actually WANT to go back to my office one day a week, and hope to start doing that as soon as we know which days Dave has to go.

This is all contingent on there not being another COVID surge, of course.

SO far, there is no sign that my office is going to be eliminated/out sourced, and I feel that my showing up and being seen in the building will help my chances of keeping my job.

Plus, it will be good for me to remember what my actual pre COVID job WAS!  It will also give the person who is doing all of the tasks that have to be done on site a day to do other things.

I have not been in the building for a full day since July of last year, when they sent us home again as Delta started to take over.

Anyway, today, while I am doing stuff in the back yard, Dave is going to rake the front yard. No woods walk today, as we need to take advantage of this perfect weather.

Also, Dave got a tick last weekend, and we aren't sure if he got it on our walk, or when we released the possum out in the country. We doused it with rubbing alcohol, and I pulled it out.

He went to an urgent care and got antibiotics.  

The bite looks icky, but it's healing well.  We found another one yesterday, and pulled it out, too.  I am thinking it must have been on his shoe all this time?  Too weird.

What that means is that we probably won't be going off trail in search of the deer until next winter.  If the ticks are already this bad, and it's only March.... ugh.

We'll see.  There is also such a thing as the hats that we have to keep them off of our heads, and using repellant on our shoes and pant legs.

We just have to plan ahead.

Plans are moving forward for my "destination birthday."  

My very dear friend, Margaret, planned the whole thing.  We are going to Kentucky, staying in an Air BnB, and doing distillery tours.

There's also a boat tour that talks about the history of distilling in Kentucky.  That should be very interesting.

Some of my family is able to join us, but not all.  It will be fun, and the house she got for us is gorgeous.

Dave is upset that some family members didn't even show interest in making the trip, but I can't worry about that.  

Nothing much else to report.  We are off to get this beautiful day started!  Have a good week.

I'm late, I'm late...for posting my blog!

 Oops!

Remember that possum that was hanging out a few weeks ago?

Well, he utterly destroyed the heated cat shelter, and had become a bit of a nuisance. SO... we trapped him last night.

We got up this morning, and fixed breakfast, ate, and headed out to the country.

The release took way longer than expected, as Mr Pokey Possum hung on to the wire of the cage and refused to exit.

After some degree of coaxing, and upside down hanging, he finally got out, and we headed home.

By that time, I had totally forgotten it was blog day.

My plan was to work on my container garden a bit more today, but it's SO windy that it would exhaust me.  I freaking HATE the Oklahoma wind.  It can be truly relentless.

In other news, I got a new prescription from my oncologist to help me sleep.  After almost 2 weeks of only getting 2 or 3 hours of sleep a night, I asked for help.

He prescribed tradazone, which is an old school anti-depressant that can also improve sleep.

I tried a quarter of a tablet on Friday night, and only got up about 5 times that night, and went BACK TO SLEEP every time, which was a MAJOR improvement.

So, last night, I tried a half tablet, and woke up this morning, after sleeping pretty well, feeling like I had a hang over.  It was awful, and it didn't wear off until lunch time.

Clearly, I can't take the recommended dose of half a tablet (the smallest tablet available is 50mg). I will stick with a quarter for a while, and see what happens.

I'd prefer to not take it every night, and only use it as needed.

I don't like taking drugs.

Today is Vernal Equinox, so I am planning to do a bit of a meditation later on balance, and that should help me break this cycle of despair and insomnia.

I also baked some dark chocolate fudge cookies with dark chocolate chunks and dried cherries..... THAT will for sure help!!

Nothing much else to report.  Have a good week!

Hope and despair

 I am very happy to report that I was NOT sore after doing all of that hard work last weekend! Not even a little!

Also, my doc visit went well, and my blood work still looks good.

I've had a lot of pain this past week, though, from the weather changes.

The storm that came was not too bad.  We got about 3 inches of beautiful snow, and the predicted low temperature was not as cold as they'd thought it was going to be.

Anyway, I ordered groceries for delivery last Thursday, ahead of the predicted storm, because I didn't want us to have to go out into the crazy "milk and bread" crowds ourselves that day, and we didn't know how bad the roads would be Friday and Saturday.

As it turned out, the snow stopped by 11 am Friday, and where it was on the pavement had melted by about 2 pm.  However, the morning commute saw three times the normal number of car accidents in and around the city, so it was a mess to start with.

Now, it looks like we are out of the winter weather woods for a while, and should start to see more spring-like weather on a more consistent basis.

Maybe next weekend, the pain will be gone, and I can refresh the other garden containers on the patio.

Covid numbers continue to look better and better in Oklahoma, and in the metro area.  We went out yesterday and did a few more errands.  It was SO GOOD to be out and about again!  

We even went somewhere to eat lunch...in a public place!  Yes, we wore masks, and yes, we sat far away from strangers.....but we DID visit, for a moment, with the friend who owns the business we went to patronize.

I also feel a LOT better about my job with the absence of the negative factors that have pressured me and my co workers for years and years.  

SO, that is the hope in this blog post's title.

The despair is deeper, and darker, and frightening.  

The ever-widening war in Ukraine, and the extremely dire 2022 climate report from the UN have compounded to really darken my overall outlook.

I know I am not alone in this helpless feeling that we ordinary citizens are now left with no choice but to watch our world burn.

All of this, after a devastating global pandemic.... and the new catch phrase is Crisis Fatigue.

In an effort to deal with this fatigue, I have taken a break from consuming so much news.  

No more headlines on Alexa first thing in the morning. No more lunch time news.  No more checking my phone for news updates.  Just one hour, after work, Monday through Friday. Half an hour local, half an hour national. 

That's been helping.

A trip to the woods would help more. Maybe this afternoon.

So. Today.  I will dance.  I will wash sheets.  I will cook food.  I will breathe, and I will narrow my focus.  

What will you do?

Extremes

 Oklahoma weather is a whirlwind (literally) of extremes.  

There was an almost 90 degree difference between the sleet storm, and this past week.

Yesterday, it was in the 80s, today, it is going to be 40 degrees colder.

Anyway,  that being said, the warm up this past week was nice.  We were able to get out for several walks. But the bad news is that we started to smell something out in area of the back yard.

Yesterday, I followed my nose, and discovered that Arya did actually come back to us to die.  She was in the open shed with the plastic bin/straw shelters, but had crawled behind the wood box.

It was really hard for us yesterday.  We were heart-broken that we had searched so hard, but still missed her.  It felt like a failure, but then we realized that she had come back to her safest place. To us. So we kept our promise, in the long run, and tended to her.

She is now buried in our back yard, with Star, and our Louie.

Dave will get a flagstone at the Lowe's garden center to put over her.  

Before all that, after my chores were done, we had gone to the organic garden center (NOT Lowe's, HAHA) in search of fertilizer and compost.  It is time to refresh my container garden soil, to get it ready for planting.

I did the barrels yesterday, because they are the biggest, and the hardest work.  I was feeling really good yesterday, with no pain, and lots of energy, and got that accomplished.

The soil was so hard, it was like chipping rock!  I watered it down, and watered it down, and watered it down, and the water just sort of ran out the sides of the barrel, and didn't soak in past the top layer that I had pried loose.  I had to literally work like a slow-motion jack hammer with the pitch fork to break up the soil.

Got it shoveled out into the wheel barrow, where I mixed in the peat moss, mushroom compost, and some fertilizer with the pitch fork.

Dave helped me get it back into the barrels by tipping the wheel barrow up so I could scrape every last bit of the enriched soil back in.

This process of hard work gave me a wonderful sense of accomplishment.  I used to be able to work hard like that all the time.... but the random pain caused by my meds has definitely slowed me down a bit.

My muscles will probably be pretty sore by this afternoon, HAHA! Especially my shoulders and arms.... It will be satisfying in its own way, though, to feel that soreness!

This same process will be carried out with the smaller planter, and the fabric buckets, the next time we have a warm, dry weekend.  I can probably do them all at once--- just dump everything into the wheel barrow.

I basically have the same plan as last year.  The trellises in the containers will be for a cucumber plant, a delicata squash plant, and maybe a zucchini, or yellow squash, plant.  Beets and radishes in one barrel, and something else in the other.

Lettuce is NOT going in this year, because the farm bag deliveries I get always have an abundance of lettuce, and I ended up letting mine to go seed last year.

In other news, I got fitted for N95 masks on Monday.  The process was really interesting, and the masks are REALLY uncomfortable, but they are the best available.  I received several of them, and in two sizes, so Dave could have some, too.  We are ready for the next surge.

Also had my zoom meeting with the consulting team on Monday for work.  They only allowed a half hour, and that was not enough time to go over everything in my job description.  We only got about two-thirds of the way through before the time was up.  SO, I emailed the coordinator the documents that I keep in a folder on my work computer, that map out everything that I do.

My late boss had me start doing that several years ago, and I still maintain it.

Clearly, I have the greatest number of responsibilities, and have had for years.

Not sure what was accomplished, but I suppose I will find out eventually.

The covid numbers in Oklahoma have continued to decline rapidly, so we went out and bought our own groceries on Friday, after I had my blood draw.  It was so liberating to get back out, and do that myself!!

The baseball lock-out has now delayed the opening of the baseball season.  We find this disgusting and disappointing.  Baseball used to be less about money, and more about being America's Pass-time.

Spring training games should be happening now, but spring training hasn't even begun.

Later this morning, I have a zoom with my international sisterhood.  This is the one that was rescheduled from when that awful storm took out the power across areas of southern England.

Dave is going to Costco, and Petsmart.

It's supposed to rain this afternoon. It was hot and extremely windy yesterday, so there were lots of grass fires, despite the moisture from the sleet storm ten days ago.  Hopefully, it will be a good, soaking rain.

I see my Doc tomorrow for my 3 month check in (thus the blood draw I had on Friday).  Thinking about asking if I can take a month off of the hormone blocker so I can dance without pain, leading up to the showcase on April 4th.

After my zoom, I plan to do some serious practicing, even though my hip tendons hurt today, with the weather change.

Have a good week!