Thinking Positive Thursday

[Harriet]

Oh, LadyM, what a difficult thing to find out about a home not that far away. I hope the child can be taken in by someone close enough to maintain some balance in life.

The last of the vehicle running was finished early this a.m. Now to hear from dsonil, who is getting some work done on the Explorer, and our vehicle stuff will be all up-to-date for a while.

The heating/air folks will be here shortly for a check-up.

Nancy, I've got one really rough-and-tough ready-to-fight chicken and she's a hen. If she was in a larger flock, she'd probably be soup, but they have plenty of space. I'm assuming the rest will catch up with her in size, mature into layers, and the pecking-order will change. I need to check on their ages again - have forgotten the time I expected them to start laying, if I'd even guessed.

[Twins' Mom]

Still need to get box in front hall into the car, but am making progress. Challah is in the oven to bake.

-call nursing home and talk to social director lady
-return phone call from earlier in the week
-reboot laundry
-call about getting a window film on our west facing windows
-reconcile cking acct for dsis and scan stmt

[Nancy]

I cleaned out one bed in the back yard I got the plants moved. I'm so glad about that filled in a couple of holes in the lawn while doing that.

I have some other plants I can move as soon as I figure out where to plant them.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Despite the wind (gusting to 30 mph) I chose to ride to lunch because 1) it wasn't far, 2) I didn't exercise yesterday and 3) I'm trying not to use the car. The rain, which was heavy this morning, had blown through so I really didn't have an excuse. It was an easy enough ride, although slow. The wind was a cross breeze but it is uphill to that spot (it is also where our pizza place is and the discount grocery store, just over a mile away.)

Had a good lunch and visit with my friend. I remembered I had a library book to pick up and mused about biking into the wind to go get it. As we were leaving, she offered me a lift (she has a van) so I popped my bike in the back and then just had to bike home from the library which was more with the wind at my back, or at least not against me.

Got the book, did 3 flights of stairs looking for a bathroom and then biked home rather quickly.

Dh installed my bike computer yesterday and I can tell you that my average speed today over 10 mph and I covered just over 4 miles in total. The bike ride out was harder, I hadn't figured into my calculations how hard it would be to bike after not eating anything except 2/3 oz of dark chocolate over the past 15 hours.

I'm settled back at home now. My diet diary looks great because of the lack of breakfast and healthy choices at lunch. Plus we both drank lots of water.

Now to get my mind around doing some work.

[Elizabeth]

Hi everyone! Cat care is done, many DPCs are accomplished, and a lunch of sorts has been consumed (breakfast cereal). Migraine meds have also been consumed. I have also organized and put away some job search material that was in the way on the kitchen table.

One of the DPCs was to volunteer at the animal org fundraiser this weekend. I am 'on the hook' for tonight, tomorrow morning, and Saturday morning. I may not have money to contribute, but I can contribute time to our efforts to raise money. It helps that this fundraiser is a yard sale and I love doing those. I've never had my own yard sale - I get rid of stuff right away rather than save for a sale. In fact, I should take a look at the donate box and see if there is anything to take.

Next up is to take Charmander to the vet. There is nothing wrong with him, but they forgot to give him his microchip when doing the neuter. On my return, job search stuff of course! I hate to get up, I have a sleeping kitten in my lap, but I must. See you later (maybe).

[Twins' Mom]

Elizabeth, Charmander is a cute name for a kitten! Remembering the Pokemon days at my house.

I have been seriously on the run today. When I got the challah out of the oven, I took off on my quest for the day. Went to JCC for dmom's meals, then her house for a visit, then drop off at Goodwill, picked up bakery cookies and went by temple to sign cks. Back home at 4 and lasagne into the oven, finished getting meal ready for family (put together some things to add to bagged salad and mixed a salad dressing) and just dropped off. Seriously embarrassed - their baby is probably at least eight or nine months old and I'm just getting their "newborn" meal to them. Will do another on Monday and that catches me up until the next baby comes this month on our circle.

My tummy has been off all day so if I eat dinner it will only be something light. I need to do some kitchen clean up and then might collapse. I don't know what dh's plans are tonight.

[Nancy]

Yarn crafting mtg. Went well today. I worked on a orayer shawl and my friend did some crocheting.

I chased off a hawk hens and chicks are all fine they went for cover.

ToddlerN. Was a dream to watch and wanted to say goodbye to my friend too.

H. Brought home cukes, pepper, and squash from work today yum!

Dinner is in the oven now I am grateful for meat pies today.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Dusted the apartment and cleaned the bathrooms. Dinner was leftover turkey so I made up healthy veggies to have with mine. Dh didn't have any veggies with his hot turkey sandwich. At least it was made with whole wheat bread.

The dishwasher is running. When it stops, I'll do a load of laundry. My washer and dryer will be busy tomorrow (ds is coming over with his laundry, since I pay the electric bill at the house, I asked him to bring it here) and so I'll get a bit ahead of the Mt. Washmore (Friday is my usual laundry day.)

I'm hoping the vacuum this evening as well.

Dh and ds are going off to a movie tonight. Ds is looking at an apartment to rent on his way here. The Third Amigo needs a new home (the owner of the house he is renting has put it on the market) so he's looking at a house with a 1 bedroom apartment in the basement and ds would rent from him. The price is OK for ds but he hasn't seen (or smelled) the place yet so doesn't know what it is like. Ds can afford $800 all-in and that would cut the rent for TA substantially.

Because they have 2 year olds, his wife hasn't been back to work (finding daycare for twins is prohibitively expensive for them) but she's hoping to be able to add to their income by taking in a few kids. She has no post-secondary education (I think she's only 22, maybe 21) but she is instinctively really good with kids and very active with them (possibly because she's so young!) For instance, the girls work together unloading the cutlery from the dishwasher, one taking each piece out and handing it up to the other (standing on a chair) who pattern matches where it goes in the drawer.

Ds sincerely thinks he'll be able to sleep with the girls running around on the floor above him. He points out it is a known quantity, unlike an apartment building where you never know what your neighbours will be like. Hopefully he's right because he only works nights now so needs to sleep in the daytime.

Edited to add:

Ds told me about the place. It is actually a bachelor apartment but a fair bit of storage and big enough for him. The downside is that he and TA would be signing the lease together. So ds would be responsible if anything happened and TA couldn't make the rent. And given that the lease is for more than ds makes many months of the year, that isn't a good idea. I explained that I know TA wouldn't stiff him for rent but if he was injured on the job (he works at a garage) he wouldn't be able to work and he wouldn't be able to make rent and then ds is responsible. As well, ds in theory will be moving out after a year because TGF will have moved here by then and they will want their own place. TA will either have to move his family again or find a new tenant for the basement and assume the whole rent himself. So being cosigners on the lease doesn't work for either of them.

The move in date is after October 10, which means we'd have to find storage for a few days for all of ds's things. That doesn't appeal to me either (although that's a problem money can solve.)

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Swept the apartment and put up the autumn paintings and put out autumn table and door decorations. The living room still needs to be tidied tomorrow morning but things are progressing.

Forgot to do the laundry.

Will head to bed now.

[Harriet]

I put up my wish list for future chicken breeds in Outdoor Spaces.

Dd had Engineering Club after school. She then worked the curriculum night, and because she decided to bring her laptop to play a scrolling series of images she'd collected, I went along as "muscle" to make sure of safety. I enjoyed giving information. Because I was there she and another girl got chances to make a sign that had been neglected and bring us chairs (which I greatly appreciated).

Met two of her teachers, both very nice men, but couldn't go further through the school since working at dd's table had made me so late. But those two gave excellent talks about their semester plans with just me as an audience at the last moments. Very kind.

Got home to a bunch of phone messages. Sigh. Calls to return.

Then S2Sed and am ready for the end of the day. Whew.