SANDY PREP SUNDAY

[DeeClutter]

Seems like several of us are in the path of this lady (no lady is supposed to behave like this!) Naturally every newscast here is PREPARE, PREPARE, PREPARE.

Know many of you are praying for us to have a safe trip -could you add that perhaps we can be ready to leave even sooner than we expect?

Went to church Smorgasbord tonight. One wonderful thing about is that we get to see (and chat with) lots of old friends. Took a bunch of food things to DS-A's first. Discovered dh left a fairly large bag of miscellaneous sodas that we'll drop off there today.

Want to get my hair washed later today -before dh turns the water off to the campground. Our holding tank is full and will keep filling as long as there's water supply to it. His plan is to come back from DS-A's after pizza get-together and turn off the water to the campground (after getting his shower). Then he wants to winterize the second bath house. Think there's only 1 other couple still here. He did say he'd be running all day today and Monday. Hoping that finishing up here won't take nearly as long as he anticipates.

Why am I up? Have no idea, just can't sleep. Slept for about 3 hours and that was it.

Couldn't get internet on this last night. Thought our router was kaput, but evidently it righted itself. Hope it holds out for another day or so. I have to finish up minutes for last month's council meeting and get it emailed to the church secretary. Had meant to take it with me tonight and copy it, etc. However, I was feeling poorly long enough today that I didn't get it done.

I did only take 1/2 of my evening glipizide & the metformin last night. So I'll see how I do in the morning. Of course I ate more than our usual since we went to the Smorgasbord. I let myself indulge in a piece of pumpkin pie -was so good! First sweet I've had in a long time. So far I feel pretty good.

Put up our meds for the next two weeks when we got home last night.

Have a good night and a better morning, everyone! Will try to sleep now.

[Lynlee]

Thinking of Village ladies often even if I don't post.
Hope the winterisation at Dee's northern home camping ground goes quickly and all can be left in order there.
Harriet - I'm glad you got to spend a day out with dd32 and family.
Ivy - a stoush is a fight or brawl - and Nancy reported there seemed to be some disagreement between hens. My words - not hers. Yes I thought of your eye problems when the priest added those prayers today.
Kathryn - I find all you do quite impressive.

Its raining here tonight - we need it as it has been a while sine we had decent rain.
My Sunday report
church
spoke with a number of people who came up to me. This year of grace thing seems to have people reaching out. I want to look again at some of the practical suggestions.
pot pick a task for today =
outdoor - flood debris off the fence from an age ago. chipped out some smaller weed potiental bushes in the far corner.
indoor - bathroom door including the long forgotten top of door and frame. ugg.
walked 3k plus a little longer via a creek

still to do dishes
good night all

[OKay]

Good Morning!

Those preparing for hurricane type weather are in my thoughts. ((((Group Hugs))))

For me, today is .....
A day to recuperate.
A day to be refreshed.
A day to stop and give praise
A day of thanksgiving and rejoicing

[DeeClutter]

Thankful that I can even get here today. Have no idea what was up with my internet last night -even the router wasn't 'flashing'.

I took 1/2 my glipizide last night and the metformin. BS was 99 this morning -but I had more to eat and pumpkin pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream last night. I had butternut squash, scalloped potatoes, a biscuit topped with turkey veg gravy, a smidgen of cranberry sauce -so plenty of carbs. But I'll try the 1/2 pill again tonight and see what happens. Sure it won't be quite as high but might still be 'acceptable'.

Going to throw my laundry together and head for town. Would like to have that done today so I can finish packing. By the time I get back it'll be time to head out to dgs13's hockey game. Will get dishes done when I get back. Want to do any water-related tasks early today -before dh turns the water off to the campground. (Our holding tank will be full.)

Also will work on finishing the church council minutes this afternoon and see about emailing them to our church secretary. Hadn't planned to do that, but I'd just been too much under the weather to get them done.

Found out last night that dfriend & wife from church are delaying their winter trip to FL for a week, to let the weather pass. Sounds like a plan. Except it won't work for us. We have reservations in Lancaster, PA for a show on Thursday. As I'm looking at the storm 'of many years', it looks like it will be right up here and PA by Tuesday. What are the chances of my talking dh into NOT heading into it? Someone asked last night if we remembered hurricane Hazel. Oh yes, I do. Is that telling my age? I was a little girl then, but can remember going to 'fetch' my little brother up the street. Remember a lot of destruction up through the Adirondack Mountains. Most of you probably weren't even around yet. Remember an (black sheep) uncle getting married that evening down the street by candle light.

[DeeClutter]

PLAN B (if there was a Plan B!). Headed to the car with 1 load of laundry only to discover that the car is not out there. Evidently dh took it this morning. So guess I'll heat water for dishes and do those. Then I'll putter at packing.

Know dh is having a hard time today. He has about 60 septic tanks left to measure and he can't do it in the rain. Because the 'dip sticks' get wet, he can't get a reading on them. This could be a BIG problem this week. Do hope it quits for a while. Right now it's just a drizzle -but enough.

May as well fix my coffee and get at it.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Dee: I keep thinking the bulk of the storm will have passed by Tuesday morning. You might drive into the aftermath but if you are on the interstates they will be cleared first (and unlikely to be damaged, anyway.)

Actually it better be passed by Tuesday 4 a.m. Dh has to be at the border (and not our closest border crossing but one 2 hours away) by 8:30 for a NEXUS renewal meeting with US immigration. Sigh... The next appointment is in January and his NEXUS will have expired by then which changes the renewal process slightly. On the plus side, it is major highways between here and there. I haven't decided if I'll go or not but might if the weather is bad to give dh company.

No prep here for us except to make sure the groceries are in place. Everything else is automatic (our home is backed up for everything except earthquake breaking the natural gas lines.)

Speaking of earthquakes, wonder if Nancy felt the one last night? No word from dd but since Vancouver felt hardly anything, I'll assume she's fine. Will probably call this afternoon.

On the treadmill here. Got up 30 minutes late but that was dh's fault. I got lights out at 11:30 so planned to sleep until 7:00, wake up for 30 minutes and then exercise. Dh woke up with a start at 5:30 (didn't tell me why) and then turned on the radio at 6, keeping me up from then on, but I wasn't rested enough to get out of bed. Sigh....

The reason for his 'start' was because his light had gone on at 2:11. The night before, mine went on three times through the night. They are touch lamps and if the sensor wire (from the metal touch pad to the transformer in the wall) is touched they will go on. Well, dh finally realized a mouse running back and forth behind the bed could be brushing against the wire and trigger the lights. So when his pillow shifted slightly later while he was sleeping he woke with a start. No wonder he didn't want to go back to sleep. And bless him for waiting until morning to explain his thought!

Another, less worrisome thought is that it is the phone charger. I shifted things around when I cleaned on Friday and Friday night my lamp was randomly coming on. Saturday afternoon, dh and I swapped chargers because his outlet is closer to the bed than mine and my charger cord was shorter than his so my phone could be on my night stand but held by me in bed while plugged in. So now the potentially faulty charger is on his side of the bed. That might explain why my light behaved last night and his didn't.

Church, potluck, and assorted other things on my to-do list today.

Ivy The schedule is not something I do normally, it is an extra tool I use to keep myself on track when I'm too overwhelmed to be focused. But since I changed my Basic Weekly Plan last week, I'll stay on the schedule for a week or two, or three (21 days to learn a new habit) in order to internalize my new BWP. I still work better from paper than a screen so my Parade of Daily Adventures being on the computer isn't helpful.

I pulled out all my old Bound to Be Organized materials last week when I was looking for daily planner paper (with the hours written in) and it was interesting to see how I had customized it for myself.

[DeeClutter]

Those were 'comforting' words, Kathryn. I had originally thought Sandy wasn't supposed to be here until Wednesday. Reports early today were that Tuesday was supposed to be bad. Playing it by ear I guess. We have plenty of offers to stay over with different people up here if we have to. Even ddil#2 offered her dd13's new bed. Think it might be a bit chaotic there.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

I think flooding from the storm will be the biggest problem. The storm that hit Northern Ontario a few days ago dumped a lot of rain and washed out roads up there. That's the storm hitting us now. I'm not sure if it is the same storm that will go down to join Sandy or if another storm is coming from the US West. But since the ground will already be saturated, flooding from Sandy's rain will be the only risk for those up here getting hit by her.

In general, I think the hysteria around the storm is just that the media/audience is so sick of election coverage, they are grabbing onto any excuse to make a mountain out of a modest hill in order to change the "all election all the time" news cycle they have themselves in.

[BookSaver]

Good morning, villagers ~
I got spooked last night. Walking through my office, I heard the computer whirring away rather noisily. Came to the desk to check it out, and I couldn't get anything to come up on the screen. Tried everything I could think of, including begging, "Please, little hard drive, please don't crash, please don't fry!"

Decided to do a hard shutdown and promised it that if it came up ok in the morning, I would back up all of my data files asap.

It did, so I did! I haven't even had coffee yet, but all of my documents are copied to the external hard drive. Did a random check of a few and they look ok.

The computer seems to be running just fine this morning, but I'm still spooked. I hate intermitent problems! But at least I'm no longer in panic mode, because if the desk computer goes down, I have my data files and can plug the external hard drive into my little netbook.

Now ... where's the coffee?

[BookSaver]

OK, laundry is whirling, dishes are soaking, ate some cereal for breakfast and now I can sit with my coffee.

Dishes -- ? I do dishes every day and still end up with stacks. How can only 2 people in the house dirty so many dishes?

I'm trying a new-to-me homemade formula for laundry detergent. The dry one I tried before did not work at all, I think because our water is so hard. It didn't ruin anything, but it didn't clean anything either. This time I'm trying a liquid formula. I always test on towels first for a few weeks so I don't ruin any good clothes.

Still need to do a pantry inventory. I got sidetracked yesterday because I need to print blank forms.

Bought new work gloves (so now the old ones can reappear! ) and I don't think it's supposed to rain today. I want to do some clearing in the shed this afternoon. Hopefully I can talk DH into working in the yard with me. He leaves stuff out all summer that needs to be put away before we get snow. It will be a good day for a fire in the chiminea, too, not too windy.

I'm giving up on taking glass jars to the recycling place. It would be a long drive, we can't seem to get there when they're open, and my family told me their towns no longer pick up glass in their recycle bins either. Apparently glass is easy to recycle but expensive. OK, I'll throw some in the trash each week until they're gone, because I'm tired of having them around and I can use the storage boxes for other stuff in the shed.

Dee ~ Looks like the camp owner needs to run out and buy a small pop-up awning to shield your DH from the rain while he's taking the septic readings. Seems that it would come in handy other times, when they're trying to do some maintenance in blazing sun, etc.

I'm so glad we have a 5th Tuesday this month. My sewing group meets on the 1st Tuesday every month and the library group on the 1st Thursday. This give me an "extra" week to do my own things. Plus isn't it next weekend that we set back the clocks for an extra hour? Bonus!