days_unfolding

Overslept until almost 9 AM. Good, my CPAP said that I had eight hours.

Got my groceries delivered. A neighbor stopped by to see the dogs. He asked if he could come in the yard, and I said yes, so he came in and gave the dogs Milkbones. Gracie was jumping on his back and licking his ear. He said that he saw the sticker that Urbana Parking put on my car, so I explained the situation. He thought that was ridiculous.

I signed up for the Saturday Books 2 Prisoners session. I need to get back in the groove.

I bought some small round plastic containers in which to freeze mashed potatoes. I’ll have hamburgers and mashed potatoes for lunches or dinners.

Showered and am wearing a short-sleeved shirt, capris, and sandals. It feels good.

I looked for a very small ceiling fan for upstairs and found an 11 inch one that might work. I need to measure. Damn, it’s hot up here. The downstairs stays cool. Actually, I put two fans on and that helps.

Piano went well. I need to work on reading ahead, so Gemini gave me some suggestions on how to practice that. My teacher just said to go slower. I might ask my pianist friend for suggestions.

I’m not going to get the recycling out tonight. I got the hose partially disentangled and watered my plants. But I need to feed the fur faces (done) and feed myself. My meeting about the fall trip was rescheduled to 9 CDT.

Zara is one cool cat. Oliver insists on coming into her room when she eats because he wants to eat her leftovers. But Zara will eat calmly with him in there. Oh, and she snuggled up to me during my piano class.

I’m thinking of buying a used Windows 11 laptop for the music room. But I want to copy my mom’s drafts of emails off of the current laptop first. I need a portable hard drive.

Well, that sucked. I received a message that the trip meeting was going to be at 7 PDT, not 6, which is 9 my time. But when I logged in, they were ending the meeting. Plus, there was a lot of static. I did get an answer about my suitcase. They told me to call them, but that also, they will send emails with all the information. But bah. But I admit that I'm lucky to take the trip.

I need to do a little more laundry before I sleep and put it on the rack. (That sounds like I’m torturing my clothes.) I want to get to bed at a decent hour because I have an online meeting for a committee for which I’m a liaison.

I woke up at 7:20 AM. I’m feeling groggy. I told the people at the AARP group lunch today that I’m not feeling well. I’m going to let the dogs out and go back to sleep for a while.

Crappity crappity crap. I overslept, and came upstairs to find that the cats broke my work monitor. I’m not sure what I do about that. I guess tell work and see what happens.

Today kind of sucks. I’m feeling groggy and confused. Oliver didn’t eat his food and Zara barely did. Zara might need more appetite enhancer meds, but I think that there’s a discombobulating force field here. The dogs, however, have been happily playing in the mud.

Piano class was okay. We sight-read some music of hers, some of which are simplified adaptations of other works and some are hers. We then practice them a little in class, and then we go into breakout rooms and play what we’re working on for her. Usually, I pick out the hardest of the three pieces, and if I have a high breakout room number, I usually have a handle on it if not perfect. Not this time. I was working on the teacher’s simplified excerpt from Rubinstein’s Melody in F. I started playing for her, and she busted me back to playing hands separately. If I was on the Gong Show, I would have heard the gong. Oh well.

I stepped on Bella’s paw. She yelped, but she seems okay. I apologized over and over.

Got the recycling out. I didn’t get boxes out because the ground is still wet.

I was doing my PT exercises, and Gracie and Oliver had to get in the middle of what I was doing. The hazards of doing exercises at home.

Someone on a frugal living Facebook group suggested getting shoes on Poshmark. That never occurred to me, and they have some nice shoes in my size. Also, I have some boots that I want to sell, so I’ll try selling them there.

Woke up before my alarm a little before 7 AM. Let the dogs out. Went back to sleep. Got up a little before 9. The dogs must have gotten good exercise because Gracie is totally crashed out. (Bella probably is too, but she’s downstairs.)

Called about rescheduling Zara’s appointment at the vet. Apparently the vet with whom we were scheduled is out sick. The new appointment is a little over a week out.

Overslept my nap a little. I’m getting caught up on my sleep.

Made some phone calls. Started to call the Secretary of State for the registration number and PIN for online renewal, but the Web site said that it should be on the prior registration card. Left a message for the garage guy about getting the gravel out of my yard.

There’s a lively conversation on one of the listservs at work about whether the new Obama Presidential Library would join our consortium. That would be pretty cool. I’d like to see it when it opens. (The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield is a member of our consortium, and I’ve been to the museum.) I’m wondering if we could get a group of people from high school to go together.

One of the books that I requested from the university library is in. I want to wait for the rest of them, though, before I trek over there.

Ordered a ton of fall bulbs from Breck’s. This time, I will stash the bulbs in my garage until I’m ready to plant them. (My last set got stolen.) I still need to order peonies for the front garden.

I’m waiting for my piano class and talking to Zara. I told her that she’s one tough kitty. Of the older contingent of my mom, Mimi, and Zara, I wouldn’t have thought that Zara would be the last one alive. (I think that she’s 17 now.) Piano went okay. I was working on a pretty piece (simplified Gurlitt Andante? I’m not near the music.)

I shut Oliver in the bedroom so that he won’t eat Zara’s food. Also, I need him in there when I get the recycling out.

Got the recycling out. I didn’t get the boxes on the porch, but I did put out some boxes from inside. Got the registration card for the Honda, and it did NOT have the registration number and PIN, so I need to call them tomorrow. I also discovered that the battery on the Honda is dead. Sigh.

Filed my taxes. It was more expensive than I thought because I had to pay for TurboTax as well as pay the taxes. Life is expensive right now (says the person who spent a pile of money on bulbs). I forgot to mention that the refrigerator isn’t working properly, so I need to get it fixed or replace it after I finish the kitchen.

Anyway, I should wrap things up and head to bed.

Got up at 7:45. Let the dogs out and went back to sleep for a half-hour.

Work has been zooish. There’s a lot going on. Among other things, we’re trying to set up an in-person event in April.

Ordered some stuff from Amazon including cat and dog food.

I’m getting dubious about Hot Springs Village, although I will check it out. It’s not very convenient for going elsewhere. Flights have to change in Atlanta and trains in Texas. Plus having to go to Hot Springs or Little Rock for health care. Athens is much better, although a little more expensive. There are some deals there if you look for them. It’s near the transit hub of Atlanta. You can hop the train to New Orleans from Atlanta. (New Orleans is always a good idea. I inherited an apron from my grandmother that says,”To hell with the dishes. I’m going to New Orleans!”) Athens has a really nice senior center with classes and trips.

I sang a little, and Lily sat up and gave me a bleary-eyed look. Then she settled down back to sleep in the cat bed on my desk. Oliver is perturbed that Lily is blissfully asleep in the cat bed. He’s now sitting on her in the bed. Goof :) They worked it out, and now we have synchronized napping.

I’m being grossed out by all the ads for stuff in my email and Facebook. I want an advertising detox. I guess that means that I have to spend less time online.

Gracie and Bella finally came in at 3 PM. Good. I have some items from Amazon coming tonight. (Yes, I know, buying stuff leads to more ads, but Amazon doesn’t bug me as much.)

Piano class went well. I scrambled to get there because I was IMing with a colleague right at the end of the day. Oliver pushed his way into Zara’s room and was harassing her for a while (with yelling from me), but they settled down. I enjoy playing piano. I should practice more often. Zara would like that too.

It’s supposed to rain tonight or tomorrow, so I won’t get the larger boxes out for recycling. (They won’t take them if they’re wet.) But I need to get the bin out (done).

Started washing clothes. Submitted a grocery order. I’m going to post and watch The Pitt. And then go to bed.

Overslept until a little after 9 AM and was late for work. Sigh.

I haven’t seen Lily this morning. Where is she? She might be in Zara's room, but Gracie is still outside, so I haven't opened the door yet. Gracie is still refusing to come in and it's been 3.5 hours and counting. Oh, I just remembered that Lily and Oliver ran into the bedroom, and I shut the door to keep Oliver from running outside. Gracie was out for almost 6 hours. She was refusing to come in the last time even though it was raining, when I started to go back in and she suddenly came in. I'm wondering if I should put a doghouse out there in case that it rains, though they could go under the porch. They could stay on the porch, but they aren't smart enough to do that.

Gracie is completely crashed out after her long exercise session.

I'm looking into training classes for Gracie that are not in PetSmart because she is so hyper. There's a place that should have classes in April, but they aren't up yet.

I received my clock! I haven't opened the box yet.

Piano class went well. One of the songs that she gave us was hard, but I was getting there. I still have problems when both hands are doing independent stuff that’s harder than chords and the like, so I asked for extra practice. Also, we did a little work with improv, which was fun. Note to self: Etude two hands two brains 162

My psychiatrist told me to take a double dose of vitamin D, and it seems to be working. I actually have energy to do stuff.

Got the recycling out. Fed the critters. I’m making myself some food. I decided to hand wash underwear, socks, and a t-shirt, and rewear my jeans and hoodie to go to the dentist tomorrow. I need to get to bed at a decent hour because I have a 9:00 webinar.

I’m telling Bella that she’s a little self-centered. All food belongs to her; all pets belong to her; all things are her toys.

I forgot to mention that Zara's getting used to Oliver because he jumps into her room so often. She'll give him a warning hiss, but he's not very interested in her, so she does her own thing while he's there. She even fell asleep while I was having my singing lesson and he was in there! Maybe eventually I'll be able to just put up a gate in the doorway to keep the dogs out.

Bella really really wanted Oliver’s dry food. I told her to eat her own food. But Oliver was eating something that she wasn’t!

Woke up around 8:15 AM.

I solved someone's problem at work, so that made me feel good.

Hmm. I want to nap at lunchtime, but I have piano tonight. Maybe I could just throw some clothes on in the afternoon and slap on some makeup.

The dogs came in on the first try. Yay.

Napped hard and overslept.

I checked when the World Figure Skating Championship is, and it's right after the Olympics. I should put a note on my calendar to find out when it will be broadcast each year.

I'm trying to figure out what prairie plants to add to the garden. I marked almost every page of my catalog, but I can't afford to buy it all. Maybe I'll get coneflower seeds and grow a patch near the fence in front. They also have "eco grass" that you can grow in spring and is drought resistant. But the jerky garage guy needs to get the gravel out of the back yard! I also want raised garden beds, but I can't afford to add them all this year either. Maybe I'll get one with legs and one low to the ground for root crops. I can grow herbs in pots this year.

I asked my dad about investing in foreign markets.

When did we start a war with Iran?!?

I’m looking at a raised bed with a “critter guard”. That’s what I need because there’s a groundhog and rabbit that used to live in the yard, although I haven’t seen them lately. (Probably afraid of the dogs.) Plus I want to keep the dogs out of the vegetable garden. I think that I want two of them. I need the garage guy to get the gravel out quickly because I want to set up the raised beds and grow lettuce and spinach, which are early crops. And peas. Hmm, I need a bed with legs for tomatoes though, but that can wait a while.

Piano class went okay. I had the urge to start private lessons, but I can't afford it right now.

Somehow it got late, and I want to get up early to jump-start the car and get the battery installed.

Kept on hitting snooze and got up at 7:20 AM. Gracie does not want to come inside. Sigh. I'm tired, and I won't get a nap at lunchtime. I'm tempted to blow off piano, but I shouldn't nap because I want to get up early on Thursday and finally get the car jump-started.

Oh man, I'm yawning my way though a meeting. I might need to take a nap after work.

Going back to the Appalachian Trail book, the part that I find interesting is that it’s as much a mental challenge as a physical one. That got me wondering about my mental challenges. I tend to cave in. Maybe getting the house together is my Appalachian Trail. Maybe I should get an Appalachian Trail map and assign (big) house tasks to portions of it and color them in. I kind of like that idea. I ordered a laminated map. I can use dry-erase markers on it. I finished the book, which I liked better when she dug into the mental hardship of the trail. She also wrote a book about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, so I bought it. I found it interesting that she said the AT is harder than the PCT.

At this point, it’s too late to take a nap, so I’ll just go to bed early. I need to get into my pajamas so that I can hand-wash jeans.

I think that I’ll gather my laundry this weekend and go to a laundromat to start with clean clothes, although I really want to fix the washer this weekend. Note to self: The Courtesy Cleaning Center in Urbana is open until 10:30 PM every night.

My clothes are soaking. After I post, I'll issue sell orders for the money market (ETFs?) for some of the money in my investment account to prepare to buy actual stocks.

My phone finally charged, but I’m not sure what I did with its case. But I was doing laundry, and my washer isn’t spinning. Sigh. I wrung some stuff out and put it in the dryer. I’m not going to shower tomorrow because I had all this stuff to do today and I took a shower late. I looked up the error codes and it’s a drain-related issue.

Overslept and got up at 7 AM. So much for getting the car registered.

Had a dental appointment. I thought that it was for the implant but it was just a cleaning. I now have a date for the implant, 2/5. I'm planning to take a sick day that day. My boss has had an implant, and she said that was a good idea.

I almost forgot that I had piano class after work, so no jump-starting the car tonight. We worked on an simplified excerpt of Chopin's Impromptu Op.66 in C#, and I fell in love with it (although it was difficult to play). So I ordered a CD with the whole piece on it. I haven't listened much to Chopin. (My teacher gives us pieces with a range of difficulties, and I always tackle the harder ones. Maybe that's why she likes me. Or maybe it’s because I can read music.) I bought a couple of sheet music books with simplified Chopin for beginning piano players.

I booked a French lesson for next week because I should get cracking on it. (I'll be wandering around by myself in Paris.) I hope that she will teach me "tourist French". We'll see. She emphasizes speaking, which is good. I have an online French class that I need to also get cracking on. The good thing is that I remember a fair amount of it (I took French from junior high through part of college) when I review. I need to pick up Italian sometime, but one step at a time.

The BBC had an article about menengiç, which is a Turkish drink similar to coffee but made with pistachios. I ordered some to try. I love pistachios.

I need to get to bed soon because I want to try to get the car's registration taken care of, and it's already late.

Hmm. I've been mulling over adopting another older cat. There is one at the local Humane Society who is four years old, 18 pounds (!), and a lap cat. And he's lived with dogs. I kind of miss having a lap cat. Mimi was one, but Oliver, Lily, and Zara are not. But I wouldn't adopt one until after my trip if at all. NO MORE DOGS!!! I have my hands full with the two of them!

Woke up a little before 7 AM. I want to go back to sleep, but I have to wait until the dogs come in. The dogs came in earlier than I expected, although Gracie stood near the doorway for a while with the warm air coming out, so I’ll get an hour nap. I had a Munchie Bone out to try to get Gracie to come in, and Bella snatched it!

Overslept my nap a little.

My grandboss is having an Open House on Thursday, so I won't go to the Wind concert. The question is whether I go to the choral concert on Sunday.

I need to get my new heater set up in my home office. It's supposed to be a high of 18F/-8C tomorrow!

I gave Bella and Gracie some old food that Bella was refusing to eat because I'm low on the puppy food that they've been eating. (Bella has gained weight, so I need to get her on other food.) Gracie started to eat it, so Bella pushed her way in and started eating it! Jealousy!

Cranky cats. Oliver and Lily are squabbling.

I really want to take a nap, but I have 1) piano class, 2) litter box cleaning so that I can get a stool sample from the cats, and 3) getting the recycling out. And my sleep doctor told me not to take naps in the evening, but to go to bed early instead. And I do need to get up early to get the stool samples. Oh, and 4) get the clothes together for the Open House tomorrow.

Piano went well. My fingers are getting used to the keys again. I worried about Zara because she wasn’t checking out what I was doing, only to find that she was sleeping behind me while I was playing! She came over at the end of the class.

I got my Land’s End sweats (hmm, I could wear them until I change for the Open House tomorrow) and Zara’s heated bed.

I need to figure out how I can get the recycling bin out because I’ll have to drag it through 10 inches of snow. And the pickup people want us to shovel a spot for the bins. Ugh. I don’t know how I can dig out a spot for the recycling in the dark, so I’m going to give up for tonight. I can dig out a path and spot on the weekend when I can get out during the day.

OY. I let Bella and Gracie out, and Gracie was barking non-stop at a recycling bin (or at least, that was my only guess as to what she was barking at. So I got Bella in, and started trying to bribe Gracie with a hot dog so that I could grab her. She was too wily. I kept at it for a long time, but eventually went in and ate dinner. Then I opened the door, and she was almost ready to come in, and Bella burst out! I got Bella in with a hot dog (she'll do anything for a hot dog), and tempted Gracie with a donut. She was interested, and I got her to come on the porch. I opened the door and threw the donut in. It worked; Gracie came in. Whew. (Some neighbors across the street go to bed at 9 PM, and it was almost 9, so I was really stressing.)

Other people on the street got their recycling bin out, so I could have done so, but I was busy chasing Gracie.

Then I looked for the bag with the fecal sample vials, only to find that they fell out of the pocket of my purse, and the dogs did something with them. I was about ready to cry at this point. But then it occurred to me that I could use plastic baggies for the samples. Bella had left a nice sample outside, so I went out with a baggie, got hers, and put it in the refrigerator (ick). Now all I need to do is clean litter boxes to make it easy to get samples from the cats. I decided to sit and post and calm down a little first. Oh, and I need to sort out clothes for the shindig tomorrow.

I filled out a Lost and Found form for my blazer that I left on the ship. I’ll see if I get it back.

I didn’t see Zara and was swamped by the feeling that she had died. But she’s okay. I looked at other older cats on the local Humane Society’s website and did see an older black cat that I liked. But I don’t really need another pet.

Woke up a little before my alarm at 7 AM. It's gloomy out again.

Work has been an absolute zoo. I'm not sure what to pick up first.

I had a mammogram scheduled, but they had to cancel because they didn't get the films from the other hospital.

Oliver was sleeping on me, which was nice until he dug his claws in my leg :) I forgot to mention that the ship's doctor asked about the marks on my leg. Well, that's from my asshole cat....

My piano teacher really wants me to attend class. I told her that my left thumb and index finger was tingling, and she said that maybe playing piano might help. Okay. Zara will be pleased at least. No, I’m feeling dizzy and want to lie down, so I’m skipping class. I’m also skipping taking the recycling out.

Bella has started to cough. Terrific. I’ll ask the vet if they can treat her without my bringing her in. I'm a "frequent flyer," so they tend to be good to me.

The local high school is having their Thanksgiving dinner again, so I’m going to go next week.

I couldn’t decide when to do Dial-A-Carol. I’m not feeling decisive today.

It was a three-ring circus feeding the cats and dogs. I think that I need a canine behaviorist for Gracie because she will not stop chasing and barking at the cats. Oliver will swat her, but Lily just gets upset. I finally put Gracie in time-out in the bedroom. When I yell at Gracie, Bella gets upset and says, “I’m sorry.” I told her that nothing was wrong with her.

Nap time. My throat hurts. Had a nice nap. I think that I’m getting a cold. I’m going to feed the pets, take the dogs out, and go back to sleep.

I ordered some Emergen-C and DayQuil from Walmart. I need to be present for delivery though.

I ordered a knee brace and a cane with a seat.