MONDAY -what is 'scary' for you today?

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

About carding: my music friend was teasing me last week about having fake ID in order to get into the senior's centre for my Tai Chi and fitness classes. I explained that place is 50+ but then thought I should get a fake ID for those places that insist on 60 or 65+ before you get the discount!

Afternoon is falling apart here. Rush dinner of reheated pizza. We'll have about 10 minutes to actually eat.

I still haven't cuop.

[DeeClutter]

His A1C dropped to 6.0!!

Wow, LadyM -you can tell him we're all proud of him. Now my Dr and diabetic educator both tell me they don't want my A1C much below 6.8 (for a person already diabetic) but I sure keep trying. It was down about .5 points this last time and I'm pretty sure it'll be much lower yet.

[Sunny]

Hello everyone! I can't remember when I last posted; I've tried to keep cuop, though. Dinner is over and kitchen cleaned up. Time to relax this evening, maybe watch Monday night football? Today was physical therapy for dh, tomorrow is occupational therapy, Wednesday is nurse for INR test, Thursday is physical therapy again. Not sure until tomorrow when OT nurse will be here for second visit - either Thursday or Friday.

I took the weekend off and didn't do much except the essentials. I really appreciated the rest, but today was catch up day today. Weekly cleaning, one load of laundry, pupa, breakfast, lunch and kitchen cleaned up was all done by 1:30 pm, a half hour before PT-Laurie came. The house looks good now and it will be easy to get breakfast, clean up bedroom and kitchen and be ready for OT-Alona by 10 am.

Dh and I decided to skip Halloween this year. We usually set up a card table decorated with my owl light and a couple of bowls of candy. It is nice to sit there in our lawn chairs in the driveway by the front porch to greet the children and their parents and to see their delight as they choose the type of candy they like.

Dee, definitely scary stuff with dh's credit card; good thing you have a new one coming!
LadyM, I can see where an extra child might be distracting for DS8. Have you tried giving dgd5 some pages to color or practice her letters on while DS8 is working on his schoolwork? Dh's A1c is great!
Elizabeth, I'm glad your party turned out good.
BookSaver, your flower costume sounds cute.
Cathy, happy painting; the colors you chose sound very nice.
Harriet, Ren Fairs are a lot of walking, but are lots of fun!
Harmony, I am wishing so much that you did not have this hard work to do on 2H. I, too, wish we were closer so we could help you! (((Hugs)))!

Power companies and trees..... Yes, the name Asplund is familiar! Here in our neighborhood the utility lines are in the back yards, between two back to back houses. They come at least once a year and trim any tree that is growing in the right of way touching the wires. Around the town and the whole county they trim trees growing around the wires in that funny U-shape, or just chop off the one whole side that is touching the wires. I think they just don't cut down a whole tree unless absolutely necessary. Trees are very important for our ecology.

Our dog, Minnie, has been very good with the six new people she has met in the last few weeks. I think most of the people have mentioned that they have pets of their own and are not wary of her. She usually greets them, sniffs at their shoes and clothes (probably smells their own pets) and lets them pet her. When I tell her to go lay down on her bed she does. This afternoon the therapist stood up to have dh stand and as she did she either bumped against Minnie's nose or stepped on her paw. Minnie jumped slightly and moved out of the way. But the second time it happened, it must have caught Minnie a little harder and Minnie jerked her paw and gave a soft warning growl that we all heard. Of course I went right over to Minnie and scolded her. A little later Minnie came and sat by me, but let therapist pet her again. I will be watching her closely. Minnie is very protective of me and still may be a little wary of these new strangers in her home!

One last thing I need to do tonight is record our meals, then it will be time to rest!

[Nancy]

I put the hens in put up the roosts they got more pumpkin cooked peels this time. They were happy with the warmer dry day we had here. I made great progress on rhe kitchen it is way less scary now! Boiled up some eggs bc egg salad sounded good. I worked on the patio it loooks better got that checked off my Nov. Li_t already. Worked on some Nov. Planning in my ring bound planner as well. Watched some Star Wars.

[LadyMaverick]

Halloween 2016 is a wrap! DS8 was thrilled with his experience. He came home with 2 bags stuffed full. Without any prompting, he decided to sort through it all and only keep his favorite candy. He put 75% of the candy in a giveaway bag. SHOCK!

I saw something tonight that I've never seen before. People had signs up in their yards advertising what they were giving away for Halloween. One of the signs said "Candy, hot pizza, and cold drinks". Another yard sign said "Candy and finger lights". The homeowners were advertising to get more trick-n-treaters!

[Lilac]

Sunny, the last 2 years before this one, I have sat in a chair/stood in my driveway to give out candy. Once you reach our garage, next to it is a brick archway with a roof. It is then 24 feet to the front door. You have to climb 2 steps about 6 feet from the door. The floor is ceramic tile. When we had the new door and storm door put on, I decided to just sit in the driveway rather than have them all traipse up to the door. Dd2 had a fit every time and dh was worried about me, so this year I decided to just stand inside the house and when I seen anyone coming, I went out. Today was around 90 degrees. We usually have trick or treaters by 6. Tonight it was after 6:30, so I decided that since it was a school night I must have bought too much candy. I had 28 bags of candy bars. I usually just give 1 but tonight I gave out 2 each. I had bags made for the 4 dgkids, the girl's neighbor girl and the boys 1/2 brother. By 7:51 I was out of candy, so I shut off the porchlight, came in and shut off the kitchen light and put the blind down. I then came downstairs. In a little while, the doorbell rang. I didn't go ahead and answer it. Dd2 called and said that her ex had called and it was the boys who had rang the bell. They were down the street at the free haunted house that a family has. I told dd2 to call and tell him to call me when they came back this way and I would take their candy out. I gave ex-sil the bag of candy for his 3 year old. He commented that he hoped the bag made it home. I said, "well, it's the thought that counts, right". I couldn't believe how many people were still out at almost 8:30. I really need to make a note of all this for next years candy supply.

Today I mowed leaves and dh put the winter fertilizer on the yard and watered it in. We still have at least 50% of our leaves. I like to be done with them by Veteran's Day but last year it was the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow dh wants to go to H ome D epot, M enards and a locally owned carpet, paint and decorating store to look at lights and other things we need for the bathroom. When dh did the masterbath remodel 4 years ago, he did not put any handle/safety bars in the shower. Once he was dealing with the broken ankle we realized what a mistake that was. But I still wasn't entertaining the thought of putting any in my bathroom either. That is until the broken toe. The downstairs bathtub has shower doors and a small bar on the opposite wall. I really needed them for safety. I noticed at both hotels that we stayed at last week, that they had a long, horizontal bar on the long wall and a vertical bar at the end of the bathtub. As much, as I don't want to have them installed, I now know that for safeties sake, they are needed.

We decided we wanted to try out the new Mexican restaurant tomorrow so we have asked dd2 to join us. She asked what the occasion was and I told her that she spends all her time, jumping through hoops to make life special for her kids. So we thought that she needed to be reminded that to us, she is always loved and special.

There is a movie dh is wanting to see that comes out this Friday. If it is here, I told him I want to go to it next Tuesday night. I don't want to be home, having to avoid all the election results. I prefer to wait until the majority of votes have been counted.

[Harmony]

We never get trick-or-treaters. The 3 houses on this street either have double lots or other bare lots beside. End of street is a church with nothing going on. Too much walking for kids to come and none live on this street anyway.

I am watching Dancing with the Stars. I'm so envious of them all dancing around, jumping, running, and in high heels; such energy! During my work today I could hardly get up and down.

Prospect of selling 2H is scary. I so don't want it to sit on the market a long time.

Today's work: helped DH all morning with the fence. We are replacing about half of the pickets. We put a new bottom cross piece on. We cut the pickets 3" shorter so they're not sitting in the mulch, soaking up moisture and rotting. It's a lot of work. I came home to get some tools and had to move a huge bunch of wood, heavy stuff, big sheets of plywood, etc. so I could get a half section of fencing we had to use up. Somehow I got it loaded into the car. DH managed to get all the lumber stacked back up when he got home, thank goodness, I was dreading that job. I got all the rotted wood gathered up and in a pile to come home when the truck is empty.

After lunch he left for job and I continued inside. Both walk-in closets cleaned and all the wire shelving wiped down. All the screws, nails out of walls and calked and painted. I started painting some of the places we re-textured. Soaked and washed again the big cold air return grate and when dry I spray painted it, 2 coats. Touched up refrigerator where paint was scuffed. Painted the doorbell plastic box which had yellowed.

I fished all the speaker wires back into the wall, calked and painted. 6 places. I got one coat of paint on a big wood plant shelf over the refrigerator. It was just bare wood and this will look better, but needs another coat. 7 hours over there.

x-tenant came and started rescreening our lanai. I think we may end up owing him money when this is all over. So that's about it for today. I am stiff and sore and very tired. Tomorrow is an early day as DH is needed back at his job and wants to finish the fence first.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

So today was successful, but not what I planned.

Dentist went well. Had lunch out with dh. The card table fits in the car without needing to fold down a seat so we didn't have to drive to dd's today, we'll take it tomorrow when we deliver dd's dmil from the airport.

I got the Halloween decorations and candy to the other buildings, I visited with the person dh invited over, and I got some email done.

Halloween candy distribution was well appreciated and we had at least 30 people stop by and chat with us in the lobby. There were at least 10 kids which is 5 more than I knew lived in the building. So that was good but candy was offered to everyone who came through, even the pizza delivery guy!

Dh and I went for a walk after. I'm not quite at my 11K steps for the day but will cross 10K. And my fitbit updated on its own for the first time in a week (for the past week it would not update without me doing all kinds of things to trick it but finally the fitbit people acknowledged the problem was with them and not the users.)

I even got mending done this morning and enough tidying done this afternoon before the visitor arrived.

I think I'll fold the laundry now and then go to bed. Tomorrow is a new day.

Harmony: I'm not sure why you should owe your x-tenant anything. He's certainly not paying you for the work he made you do with all the cleaning and repairs due to his careless treatment and negligent upkeep of your property. The best he can hope for is his debt to you be wiped clean.

[Harmony]

Well, Kathryn, we surely aren't paying him for the stuff he damaged. But repairs that are considered maintenance, that's on us. The screening on the lanai was worn out looking. He didn't damage it, it was just old. We closed in the alcoves in the kitchen ceiling, but that was our choice to change light fixtures. He painted the huge high ceiling in the living room and the family room, but that was an extra. We'd just "fogged" it when we built the house, it got sprayed with drywall mud but not paint. That was the way everyone built back then. It looks much nicer painted and its washable.

He did put up our new light fixtures for us when he did the drywall work. The cleaning? Probably should be charging for a lot of that. We will charge for the garage door he damaged. All the grass cutting, etc. he should have done anyway so we aren't paying. He only owed us 1 month's rent and 1 year of water bills (about another month's rent's worth). So, we may be about equal now given that we have a month's rent security deposit still.

Renting is complicated. I am just glad we did not have to go to court to get them evicted.

[BookSaver]

My costume turned out not a total success but was good enough. I wore a floral blouse over my teal shell because the long teal 3/4 sleeve light sweater I originally planned was too warm.

I quickly learned that I could not wear the large flower petals on my head. When I walked, they flopped down over my eyes, and I also had trouble answering the phone. I pulled the ring of petals down around my neck and that worked ok. They still blew into my face from my coworker's fan (her costume was quite warm), but I could cope with it for 1 night. The petal bracelets on my wrists were good.

We were not as busy as I'd hoped to be. I wanted to see lots of cute costumes. We finally found out from a patron that the popular part of TinyTown tonight was out in the newest section of houses with the neighbors all close together. The kids could easily get lots of treats just by walking 2 or 3 blocks. The weather was great, too, warm & dry.

My coworker and I both have extra projects set aside for slow nights, so we had plenty to do even though not a lot of people came in.