Wednesday Well-Prepared PWYC

[Lady Maverick]

Twins - do many of your payers use online bank bill pay service to pay their bill? I think the bank takes care of everything and it is free service at the banks we deal with.

Baby Steps....
** Breakfast cooked, ate and cleaned up.
** A pot of my favorite type of soup prepared for today.
** Inventoried ready-to-eat proteins and sides. I don't need to cook anything for my family today.
** DH volunteered to grate 4lb block of cheese for me. Most of it is in the freezer now.
** Did online video with DS16 as he was showing us the round bale feeder and asking best way to refill it. He has a round hay bale on skid steer spikes. We explained the pro/cons of the two methods to accomplish it. A VDFriend was killed when he lifted round hay bale up and it came off the spikes and landed on top of him.

[blessedw2]

I am sorry you lost your internet for a while d lady!

what a wonderful grandson you have to check on you and tell you why the Internet was off. so thoughtful
everyone in the dear lady's home stay cozy today and warm when you all go out!

I also never thought about tornado's for storage - it doesn't mean it can't happen here. We have had them around - mostly in the edges of the county but more near joliet, central Illinois and southern Illinois. (also in Tri-state area - Missouri, Illinois and Indiana).

my dear cousins live in sandwich Il and they have them in their area. Plainfield il, about an hour from us now, had a devastating one in 1990.

Blackearth in Wisconsin was bad - we lived about 55 minutes from them when we lived in Wisconsin. If we would have stayed in Wisconsin I would have had a shelter put in.

yay on your baby steps.

[blessedw2]

waving to everyone.

I am feeling better - I had a tear when dh decided he knew what to do with cleaning the couch cushions instead of what I was trying. I know I was just being sensitive -probably from last night. mom asked if it was not too much of a hardship for her being here - I think he felt bad about how he acted last night. sleep does a lot.

[CathyS]

Mystery I have been given a lot in the past couple of years. Plus I just want to "containerize" all of my jewelry into one place in our house instead of having it in numerous places. There were earrings in my car, on my desk, in my desk, in the table on my side of the bed. Now it's all in one room, all over the ironing board and a small table beside that. It's all getting picked up individually to see what brings me joy.

Dh wasn't too bad at Walmart. To keep him from wondering off down various aisles, I asked him to push the cart.

Tonight we are having bacon and cabbage and onions all cooked together. No potatoes. No bread. I didn't buy any white bread this morning. I am making gradual changes and I hope I won't crave some stuff the way I used to.

[Twins' Mom]

bw2, we rarely had tornados in this area when I was growing up - they were all to the south. Now we've had several instances closer to home, and living on what feels like a "small bluff" I don't feel as secure. The hill we are on was excavated nearly up to the property lines to build a little strip center and grocery years and years ago and it's now covered with kudzu up to our decorative wall. So we're very exposed, although we had a fantastic view if we don't look straight down at the top of the grocery. The tornado danger is of course immediate, but the power is often out and roads closed by fallen trees for several days. We could walk out (not straight down the hill, but around the road) if we needed to.

LadyM, some do use the bank to pay. There are also those who want to pay online themselves, and don't use or can't find or don't want to write a check. I typically have to do a second request for a lot of those and they whine about it. I'd still get paper checks but a lot would like the convenience. I feel bad that we said we'd probably get it set up and haven't been able to. (OTOH, this gal assured me it was easy-peasy.)

Roomba is going.

[Nancy]

Twins I had paper checks b/c I suck at balancing the book at the end b/c I suck a matching.
So I do as LH keeping enough in it to not have to worry LOL!
He learned from bil who had the farm paperwork before him.
The thing I was worrying about the other day was a scam as close as I can tell saw a yt title on it.
I had ignored it.

Got to this part of my day dressed fetched mail.
Now to fix my juice.
So yesterday I was reflecting and realize it's been nearly 20 yrs. since I had my life flight yea for today!

I have the work for do the new you to jot down my progress.
Knit on the last 8 rows of the secret baby blanket project.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Monthly "eat lunch together" is done and our social room all de-decorated. Someone stole out light timer. Sigh.... Will have to buy one for next year.

I'm getting stuff done but I still feel nauseous. I'll have a rest now before my next event of the day, chair exercise class.

[Harriet]

I think a big part of staying stocked up is that you have to have space enough without difficulty. For instance, after our move here, that is something of which we have less, moving down to 600 less square feet. Also, this type of house has smaller individual rooms, less openness, somewhat cramped closet space. There's really not a wise way of bringing in a dedicated freezer. That's one thing about any kind of downsizing, there may not be the space for the commonplace ways one used to live. Something to think about. Of course, dd44 still stocks up, with space for it and reason for it with the children. She has the barn storage, too, which helps with some things.

Both sons have large garages. Both also have dedicated pantry rooms, too - much more common in newer construction. They each faced a decision, then, about cost of square footage against space for stocking up. Hmmmm... .. Keeps their kitchens neat. In fact, photo-shoot ready. But a trade-off.

We do hope to start using our mud room in a more efficient way, shifting pantry concept more into that room, maybe. Right now, the cold is a problem for making many changes. We've discovered that the mud room vent is not working, not giving out any heat. HRH has called and added that to the check-up we will be due soon.

Feeling puny today. Moving from irritable prednisone days to tiredness and fatigue. Ugh. Staying ahead of nausea, maybe.

Again, washing dishes, cleaning kitchen some, then sitting down. We watched a movie together. HRH is talking about wanting to take classes again.

Phone call from dear friend S' former wife, who never really left his life. She was a consistent "date" over years after they split, and, at the end, his caregiver at times. I can see, frankly, what drove him crazy about her - she is a somewhat inflexible person, convinced against all medical interventions no matter how small, and generally suspicious. But everyone is different. Maybe it has served her well, who knows. It was good to get to say things on our hearts. She wanted us to know that his last day had been peaceful and simple.

[Twins' Mom]

More, I had to pause Roomba because they called right back. I'll wait another 48 hours and see what happens. She was "escalating" our case.

So I can pivot to other things already. I need a dress for the wedding in FL in a little more than two weeks. It's black tie optional. I don't know if dh will wear a suit or his tux. I need to try on what I have - I don't think anything will fit or be flattering but I'll see.

The temple isn't doing services at our building this Friday/Saturday. Everything will be Zoom. Inclement weather.

Harriet, even in the converted closed turned pantry we don't have enough space to stock up well. We do buy meat - steak, chicken, pork, and occasionally lamb - at Costco and freeze, so it's a matter of finding a protein and defrosting. We also get TP and paper towels at Costco.

[helia]

Popping in to say "hey" to all you beautiful and accomplished SHEs!

I am taking off this session at work (until Feb. 11) in terms of classes; I still have non-teaching responsibilities but overall, my schedule should be much more low-key. This is VERY lovely after hosting 2 weeks of houseguests during which time we fed 8-11 people (11 when the Cs joined us) on a regular basis. We did have cooking teams, which helped, but dh and I did cook the most and did regular clean up; running our dw 2-3x/ day was the norm. Don't get me wrong - I loved seeing ds+F. We don't get to see them that often. And it was nice to see R and K (ex-students in dd29's religious org as well as dh's lab). However, my introversion got a bit rumpled and has relished the return to a quieter life.

Today is a rare Wednesday with nothing on my calendar!! I have finished most of my morning routine and run some errands - and done a lot of digital communication. (Funny how even though I'm not teaching, I still spend time each day on work communication.) I've also arranged a coffee date with friend B in a couple weeks and a lunch date with friend SS next week. I've had lunch; it is 2:30 now. I'm going to keep drinking water, have my belated qt, and get a load of bedding going. I still need to wash all the guest bedding and towels.

Classes start again at UMich for dh today. He has been having back issues and was concerned about standing for 1.5 hours for his lecture. I hope it went OK. He's finally seeing PT - tomorrow. He now can't do any of his favorite cardio activities - running, biking, or swimming. He's a little distressed about this; he's a very active guy with a lot of energy and this is hard for him.

Because I have time, I'll make a nice dinner tonight - at least nice in our opinion: baked whole branzino with a coffee rub, fingerling potatoes, and sauteed baby bok choy and garlic.

I'm off to start a lol, and then settle down with my QT materials and some warm water to sip on. I'll plan to get out in the gray day and go for a jog in about an hour. It's good to be outdoors and moving; I can bundle up and be perfectly comfortable temperature-wise! After that, I'll switch laundry and then start dinner.