SHEs Organized

I got up early because I have a 'telephone appointment' today with someone from the insurance company. However, I don't even have a 2-hour window like Dee has with her PT. I have a date and a time TBD. You'd think they could have given me a heads' up on at least afternoon, or morning. No, tie up the whole day and here I sit with my papers and phone nearby, waiting for the blasted call.

I'm tired and worn out. It's been a tough couple weeks, I think it's mostly mental fatigue.

I answered questions to Dove and LadyM in MO.

Well, cleaning out my email box I see an email from the audit lady that our audit has been done. Evidently I sent enough information for them to do it without calling us.

It has started to rain and the temp is now 0 Celcius, AKA 32 F. Snow has ice underneath it from the freezing rain last night and now with the rain, when the temps drop, the rain on the hydro wires and trees will freeze with the possibility of power outages and power lines possibly coming down.

When I lived with my x, there was an ice storm just before Christmas one year, with wires down and trees losing branches, etc. By the time the tree clean up was finally finished months later, 75,000 trees had been damaged just in our city north west of Toronto. The city crews made mulch at a few of the work yards around the city. The mulch was used for at least 3 years afterwards.

I hope we don't have power lines or trees down by the time this is finished. There are power lines down in Fort Erie this morning, which is across the bridge from Buffalo.

I've also heard that there are numerous accidents on the highway with cars in ditches.

...just went outside and discovered that the "bare" area of the patio is actually coated in ice. If I had ice skates, I could have gone skating. The overhead garage door was stuck to the cement. Then dh took a 5 foot long crowbar and now the door is unstuck.

I want to CUOP for today but no time.

This is what I tried to post after Twins' article posting yesterday and the site didn't let me. I realized it and saved it one second before the screen went, then couldn't get back. I'm glad to find out it didn't last.

Your brain can see your to-do list as a threat

says Twins' Mom's suggested article. YES! Yes, it can. Ahem.

Good article, and also check out the article it links to with the highlighted words "brain's executive center" on down in that article (right under an advertisement area) in Scientific American - so fascinating. I had no idea our brains have to deal with our previous history of stress exposure when handling today's stress. One thing that was funny (sort of) was the question, when you see a "tiger, tiger burning bright" in the forest, are you going to be good at remembering the words to the poem, or at freezing so that tiger doesn't see you?

WonderBoy must fingerprint himself and place a fingerprint inside a balloon to photograph today. (Forensic Science class is by far the most interesting of all the grands' classes this semester.) So, HRH and I will make a stop to buy balloons after appt today. They suggest light colors so if I know HRH the kid will have three packages in case there are few light colors.

We've already been out today and taken our taxes to the tax lady. She and I chatted about her insomnia (well, waking and having something incidental on her mind that stops her getting back to sleep). I suggested the notepad on a nightstand idea. But I gave her my opinion on it, that it needs to be a notepad (and pen, even) she really likes and considers personal, not just post-its, to give her a "trustworthy" feeling about leaving her thoughts "with" it. Also cautioned her about knocking something off on the floor, which can result in more lost sleep!

I feel wiped out with the temp and humidity today. Right now it's only 75 out - and cloudy, so I suspect we won't get to eighty. But it feels so uncomfortably warm to me right now. And I feel irritable. Before I went to grocery, I offered to walk the dog and she walked away from me when I picked up her harness, which she dislikes. So I left and went to the grocery. And she was a pain last night - I walked her what I consider the half-circle at 9 p.m. then she wanted out at 10 (which I did) and again at 1:30 or 2, when I asked dh to to it. (I was walking her when he got home from work yesterday, then I played outside with her again, then the 9 p.m. walk and the 10 p.m. trip outside. And I had heated up our dinner, served and cleaned up, and he had been parked in his chair the entire evening and went to bed at 9 when I went out to walk dog.)

And just now, dh showed up at home to change his pants because he spilled coffee and "had someone in his car" and was going to show him the backyard. So this guy just came on in and introduced himself, and at the same time dcleaning lady got her to start cleaning. I hate it when dh brings someone through unexpectedly. He tried to call, but I was walking ddog.

Eating a bite before I need to take off to workout. I'm actually feeling a little sore from working out on Tuesday.

I spent almost 2 hours in the kitchen cooking while DS14 sat at the kitchen bar doing homeschooling with me. Although I was on my feet being highly productive the whole time it resulted in me being short of 250 steps to make my hourly goal. At least I am predictable. Being in the kitchen or in a vehicle are the two places that I consistently miss my step goal. Otherwise, I exceed my hourly step goal about 99% of the time.

Homeschool is done.
Cooking is done and leftovers are packaged in the refrigerator. DH volunteered to do dishes (my love language).

I am going to take a couple hours slower than normal this afternoon because I have a busy evening.

The day is almost done and I have nothing to show for it but the order in to Amazon for the baskets for the freezer.

Measuring turned out to be really, really, important.

I still think in imperial measurement so I have both written on my diagram. I cut out the shapes of all 8 baskets and placed them on the diagram. Over and over again they didn't fit. I just could not get it into my head that my freezer is so small. The deep part is just 16.3" x 18.5". That feels like nothing! But that means the 1' square bins wouldn't fit because that would require 24" for there to be two side by side. Same with all permutations and combinations I could come up with.

I ended up getting a set of 3, stacking, plastic baskets with a handle (and they fold smaller if I end up using them for other stuff. And 2 hanging baskets that will still be useful (but overpriced) if they don't work in the hanging configuration. I had intended to get a third kind that would fill the space beside the plastic baskets but nothing would fit. There was one that was 1/4" too big and I kept staring at it over and over thinking it had to fit!

My cunning plan is to stack the 3 baskets and have one for chicken, one for beef, one for pork. Currently that is how I have things but in bags and they are unwieldy. My concern is that anything next to the baskets will fall into the space of the basket when I pull them out, making them useless.

The hanging baskets should be useful no matter what.

This has been all too stressful.

I'm picking up a booster seat tomorrow (used).

Dh had his cardiologist appointment via zoom and that answered all my questions about tomorrow's angiogram for dh.

I'm s2s (managed that just before the Dr. appt. at 1.)

Just wasted well over an hour pulling everything out of 2 closets looking for dh's 'heated vest'. He wanted it to wear to the hockey game tonight. Even texted DS-A to check the vest I sent up with DS-R earlier this month to be sure I didn't send it by mistake. Nice that he looked right away though and confirmed it was his friend's vest. I finally found it (after I gave up). Saw this orange/black zippered case sitting behind our clothes hamper. Of course -the vest! Glad I didn't get the chance to ask dd if she'd perhaps put it in her room. The good thing is that I pulled out every short sleeve shirt and we WILL be going through them, culling them in both his half of our closet and the office closet. Should have a stack to send north and another for donations.

I cooked up the small port roast with veggies.
I had been wanting to cook up some spaghetti squash and tom. sauce found some squash in the freezer.
So I was glad to find that to be able to use it for my lunch.
I rested an hour was up at 4:30.

Home from workout and getting right lenses into sunglasses. Finally done! I went into Fresh Market while I was in that direction and considered getting flowers and some little sweets to go alongside the fruit for dessert. But nothing impressed me that much, the store was crazy busy and there were checkout lines too. So I came on home. I'll deal with those in the a.m.

Dh texted that he's out on the boat with the river friend husband. Looks relaxing. I told him I'm picking up my dinner from our favorite restaurant (although he's shy of it now, after gall bladder surgery) and asked if he wanted anything.

Going to walk the dog.