This week I'm once again taking a class on historic Main Street in St. Charles. Because it seemed appropriate, I had lunch at Mexico on Main. I had thought it might be crowded but didn't seem to be doing any more business than normal.
This week's class is much harder than any I've taken here before. By 10am my brain already felt like it might explode. Something tells me I'm going to have to really concentrate to keep up.
I had fun today. Silly fun, playing with my grandkids. I went over to B&T's to pick up my two circular needles for my newest pair of socks. And sweet little Dougie asked would I play hide and seek. What's a grandmum to do? Of course, I said yes and asked how high I should count. Ten! What ensued was a fast paced game of hide and seek with everyone getting a turn at the seeking. One turn I hid behind Daddy, thinking it a good spot but was quickly found. The best hide and seek moment was when Magnus, who stuck by my side, and I hid in a kitchen corner for a couple of minutes and he was as quiet as could be. I, by that time, was sucking air and noisier than he. But when Magnus looked up at me while Dougie searched for us, it was connection that won't soon be forgotten. Then, when it was my turn to seek again, Magnus called out at each number I shouted.
Next, Dougie came over and nicely asked if I'd play Pretty, Pretty Princess with him. Having experience at this game, I once again agreed. Dougie didn't quite understand the concept of spinning the wheel, but soundly won the game. Before leaving to go home, I had to chase down each kid to get my goodbye hug. Somehow, I won't be surprised if this becomes a ritual. :)
American Red Cross blood drive today at work. I contributed my pint gladly.
While doing so, the Red Cross Latino Chick Technician: You bleed very fast!
Me: Yes, they always tell me that but I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.
RCLCT: Oh, it's a good thing.
Somehow, in a different scenario I can't see that as being a good thing.
But the point of my entry here is that such a low percentage of people donate. I'm not sure how many people work in my six story building. Let's say three hundred, knowing it's a grossly low number. Only about twenty people show up at these things. Okay, so if you're gay, or from Africa, or have traveled overseas lately, or visit prostitutes, the Red Cross doesn't want your blood. But, hey, that's still most of the building eligible. Why do less than 1% of the people show up? You get juice and cookies afterwards. And the pain is really minimal. I am the only one on my team that donated. One of two on my floor. And the Red Cross is locally low on supplies. I don't have unusual blood that they need but my O+ is a universal donor so I feel good about that.
Today I cashed out one of my mom's cds. I've been worrying over the money but after checking out the numbers, she has enough cds to last for another 8 months. We need to get her property sold before that is done. I'm hoping the sale of the property is another $20k or so. I don't want to cash in her $20K annuity until last. This stress of controlling her meager finances has really been wearing on me. The financial plan so far only allows for four years or so. What if she lives to 100? She doesn't have enough money! But I can't want her to fall and have a life ending break. After all, the longer she lives, the longer life I'm expected to live.
Selling the property is a big thing. I need to call my brother and set a date for an estate sale and selling the property.
How did I sign on for this gig? I am my mom's least favorite daughter, yet here I am taking care of things. My mother couldn't be bothered to attend my high school graduation, but I'm taking her to an eye doctor appointment Saturday. I'm trying to be the better person here. Sometimes, that's hard.
I spend an exorbitant amount of money on shoes. And the sad fact is that I don't have a huge spread of shoes in my closet. Two pairs of work/dress shoes, my Nikes, and my Birks. It's not that I buy a lot of shoes, but that I spend a lot of money on each pair. A week ago tomorrow, I bought two new pairs of shoes for work. I'm excited about their eminent arrival! They're a bit more girly than my last shoes...okay so here and here, they are. My reasoning for buying these shoes are more to show off my socks than anything. OMG, I'm going to be known at work for my socks...even more so than my friend, Judy, who wears holiday appropriate socks (and I make fun of!). But, since, they are handmade, I can live with that. Here's my first pair of wearable socks that I made. The lighting's not great but you get the idea.
I went out to sort through things at my mom's house again this weekend. Today I had a helper, Andrew. He was a real trooper and dug through the upper and lower cabinets of the kitchen. His best find was a stash of actual silverware! If nothing else, the silver can be sold by the ounce.
Talking to my boss yesterday, it seems his dad is looking for a fixer-upper around $20K and I told him about mom's place soon to be on the market. I took pictures today to show him. That would be a really win-win situation if his dad would buy my mom's place! Cross your fingers!
I spent the first of many afternoons sorting through my mom's possessions at her house. My mother is a pack rat. I swear she has never thrown anything away. Ever. Broken or not, she keeps it. She'll tell you it's because she lived through the Depression. My argument to her is that she was only 9 years old when the stock market crashed, hardly the age of responsibility. Whatever, that's her excuse. She's a pack rat.
Anyway, I put signs up in the mostly cleared living/dining room...Estate sale, Trash, eBay, Recycle, and Keep/Ask. Then I started sorting. There was a lot of stuff on the computer desk in the living room so I started there. Cigar boxes with pay stubs of my father's from the 1950's. Hospital bills from 1954 marked paid. Check stubs from the electric coop from the 50's. Really, I looked at every single piece of paper. I put the little homemade book of "See Spot Run" made by Jimmy Wood into the Keep pile. <g> Then I opened an old check box, shrieked and dropped it! I gingerly picked it back up and put the lid back on...it was a shed snake skin. I put it in the Keep pile, knowing that it could easily have been me that had preserved it so. You can be sure that every other box/bag/whatever was opened with caution after that.
So I went through everything in the living/dining room and my mom's bedroom. Those rooms had been mostly cleared out when the gang moved mom into Lake St. Charles. Then deciding to go in a clockwise motion, I tackled the north bedroom which was packed from the outside wall in with junk. Literally packed...there were two dressers in there that probably hadn't been opened in ten to twenty years because there was no room to do so. There was only enough room to stand just inside the door. This is the truth. By the time I finished this afternoon, I had reached the back wall and had cleared off the bed that had been buried for god only knows how many years. The back corner was scary and I imagined all sorts of weird diseases I'd catch from mouse droppings. But I cleared the room (except for under the bed) and emptied the drawers of both dressers.
In the end, I had added a nice bookcase (where did that come from?), a sewing machine cabinet, a small writing desk, two dressers, and misc. things to the Estate Sale pile. A few small things to the Keep/Ask pile (including Linda's graduation picture framed). A number of things to the eBay pile to research. After all, people collect the weirdest things. And six huge bags of trash to the Trash pile.
After stopping at the first gas station to wash my hands and arms thoroughly, I decided on the way home to skip the whole clockwise thing. That would mean that the next two rooms would be the largely abandoned (by my mom) junk rooms with really big stuff in them. I think next time I go out, I'll work on the kitchen. I anticipate another six bags of trash and a few finds to scout out on eBay. I'm hoping it won't be quite so dirty or mousy as today's work. Also, I need to add another sign: Goodwill.
It was Help the Easter Bunny Day! Andrew and I did our part. I couldn't decide on which egg coloring kit to buy and since they were on sale, bought three. So with nine different colors and lots of possibilities, we got to work.
It's once again approaching goose nesting season and as always this time of year, the work parking lot becomes a dangerous place. A few days ago I moved my car down a half dozen spaces because a pair of geese decided to nest in the small wedge of grass between the lot and the edge of the underground garage near my space. When I pulled out of the new space yesterday the male goose was standing right in the middle of the lane out. I eased up towards him, thinking he'd move as the car got closer. He moved...right at me. He came right at the car until I could no longer see him over the hood. I slowly backed up with his trailing until I got far enough away that he went back to where he was stationed before. I decided to go to the far left of the lane around him. Again he came at my car, squawking. I had to back off and then go way over to the other edge of the lot to get past him.
Since I am one of the last people in (I start at 9am) and I have this weird quirk that I like to be able to look out my fifth floor window and see my car, I don't have a whole lot of choices of where to park. All the best goose avoidance spots are taken by the time I get in. I may have to start ducking through the garage to avoid a face to face confrontation with the goose. If he'll attack my car, he'd think nothing of doing me bodily harm.
Some years ago, I gave up my housekeeper because she moved away. I took the duties upon myself but never came close to the quality that she had given. It has occurred to me tonight that my station in life has risen to the point that I could afford to contract those services again. I've paid off all my credit cards and my car so the only debt I owe is my mortgage. I have the income to afford the luxury of having someone else clean my house. Hurrah! But Anne is nowhere near. (I wanted to link...She has a blog...she is related to Ben after all...but I can't find it.) Anyway, if anyone has a housekeeper that they'd love to recommend, please do so. I'd rather have a recommendation than going through MerryMaids, or whatever.
I'm so excited! A clean house! Without my having to lift a finger.
Ta-da!! My first wearable sock.
I ventured into the Chesterfield Weight Watchers shop this morning and joined with a Monthly Pass. Quite frankly, it was a little scary. I chose a seat near another woman who had joined at the same time. Unfortunately, she had a friend who came in later joining for the first time. No new friendship there. And a couple seats away from me was a woman who'd brought her five year old complete with a game system screaming some Dora the Explorer game. There were quite a few more people than I expected for a Saturday morning. The meeting leader was a substitute so I don't know what the usual leader is like. Once the meeting started (finally! (late)), the mother had not yet told the kid to silence the game. After 10 minutes of my glares and quite a few others, the mother took the kid out to the reception area where the kid proceeded to up the volume so that we heard Dora throughout the meeting. I'm not good with people things...this is one of the reasons why. The leader was actually pretty good and made a few points I hadn't put together before. Like all WW meetings, there were the entrenched who've been on WW forever and will never reach goal and there were a few bright stars who were doing everything right. And, it was the first meeting where there were men!!! There were four guys at the meeting. I really have always hated that WW seemed to be a woman's domain. I like a meeting where I'll get the male prospective on things.
Anyway, next week I'll sit on the other side of the room to avoid Dora. And I'll introduce myself to one or more of the bright stars. Two of them only started three weeks ago, so we can be new together. In true form, I'm blowing off the weekend and will start counting points later. I read through the material tonight and decided that I would do the Flex Plan, counting points. I realize the Core Plan is probably the way to live life, but I work 40+ hours a week and don't have the time to work with all that unprocessed food.
Another thing I'm going to try is something I read but couldn't find to link to. This woman talked about eating breakfast, first lunch, second lunch, and dinner. That sounds perfect for me. I work 9am to 6pm. I eat breakfast at 8:20am. Lunch time at the office is 11:30 to 12:30. I don't get home until 6:30pm That's seven hours after I ate lunch and we haven't even discussed preparation times. So I'm thinking a second lunch at 3:30pm so that I can take the time to cook for a 7pm dinner. If I eat dinner that late, I should only need a couple of points for a late snack. For a daily routine, I think that will work.
I don't intend for this to become a weight loss blog. But today that's what I'm thinking about.