Today a check for $1000 showed up from my insurance company.  I had left a voice mail earlier in the week and hadn't heard back from them.  I don't want to sound ungrateful, as that was such a wonderful surprise...but, what about the $400 car rental?  Like I said, this is a nice relief.

A few months ago I had my yearly appt w/ my lady doc.  She noted something she wasn't sure about, asked if she had mentioned it before (because it wasn't in my records), and asked if I wanted her to take a sample/biopsy or if I wanted to see a dermatologist.  I already had the derm appt scheduled and the thought of getting numbing in my nethers and having a core sample taken didn't seem too appealing, so I waited.

Well, today was the derm appointment.  I ended up getting numbed and a core sample taken.  Fortunately, I hadn't allowed it to bother me up until this appointment, but now I get to wait for a week to see how big of a deal this is.

This past weekend was our first ventures in Halloween.  It was good timing as the weather was still quite pleasant.  It has since gotten a bit chilly and started with the intermittent cold rains.

First, on Saturday we hit the Halloween parade and then walked the Houston Pumpkin Festival attractions.  We couldn't stay long as we had other plans later in the day, but it was nice.  Then on Sunday it was the second Kid's Day at Hundred Acres Manor.  I learned that Avery is 110% not ready for a real haunted house.  It was cool to walk through the haunt during the day with no jump scares.  I understand why they cover the gory stuff, but it was sad to not get to see those details.  We had a good time, and it was nice to hit a local Halloween offering.

I really wanted to get to Kennywood this year - and was targeting the Halloween season, but that doesn't look so promising with our current schedule.  I guess there are two more weekends that I could make it happen... but it is kinda chilly at this point.

I ordered top soil to fill holes (Zero!), smooth the edges around my concrete so I don't twist an ankle, and to put down on the spots where the grass died this year (I'm hoping it will help grass take again).  I had originally ordered 1 ton, but after a "are you sure that's enough" from my favorite egg I promptly second guessed myself and got 2 tons.  Aside:  1 ton was probably plenty.

I did have the guy who mows my lawn do some spreading to address the issues highlighted above when he came to mow, that helped me out, but there was still plenty left.  Last night I moved several wheel barrows (my old as heck with a mostly deflated/won't hold air tire wheel barrow that is).  I'm filling in light spots in the flower beds, adding some quality soil around some of the larger plants, filling the gap behind the curb along the street, adding soil at the base of the fire hydrant and water pipe where there was a gap, and putting down a line of soil along the fence.  I'm also topping off my garden buckets.  This took quite a bit away from the pile, but I defn have more to move.

I am feeling okay at the moment.  That means I'm going to be in excruciating pain tomorrow, doesn't it?  At least that exercised helped me get a better night's sleep last night.

One.  More.  Payment.  I have called and gotten that final dollar amount and I'm queuing up the last payment from my bank for my mortgage.  I'm so excited.  It was such a weight off my shoulders back at the old home to have this off the table.  To know that I could take a much less lucrative job if bad things happened and still make ends meet is an amazing feeling.

I guess it's time to talk about our cruise.  We were on Icon of the Seas, one of the biggest/newest ships - and quite different from the others in the features it has.  I wasn't sure going into it if I would love or hate some of the changes, and I gotta say, it was really nice.  We had a great time, despite the sadness that surrounded that timeframe.

The infinite balcony?  I liked it.  I don't know that I would like it as much over water, but over Central Park it was quite nice.  The chairs and footrest there were super comfortable and I spent a lot of time sitting and relaxing in those seats.  I don't think I sat on the couch even once.

The elevators?  Pretty cool.  You use a pad to select the floor outside of the elevator and it tells you which elevator to go to e.g., "Elevator B".  This greatly reduced wait times and the frequency of crammed/overcrowded elevators.

The shows?  Ice rink is circular, so that allowed for different things than the rectangle.  Pretty decent.  Wizard of Oz was excellent.  The Effectors was decent.  The aqua show amazing as always.  The aqua dome is up much higher on this ship than others and fully enclosed, making for a very different experience.  Comedians were good - this is the first time I've spotted an early show that I could drop Avery at Adventure Ocean and catch the comedians.

The food?  Dining room continues to become more mediocre, but there are lots of other options onboard, some included.  I loved hitting Surfside Bites instead of the Windjammer on day one for a snack - and it was so good that we ate there again.  The other free eatery at Surfside was great for breakfast too.  We went to the Hibachi in Izumi ($) for lunch and it was amazing.  We also went to Hooked ($) for dinner on the last night - it was a ton of food, quite good.  The creperie is yummy, but the quick chinese and sandwich place were less than awesome - my monte cristo was actually kind of gross.  Playmakers wings were HUGE and their fries were delicious.

The drinks?  Desserted ($) was not worth it.  It was just a messy messy milkshake that wasn't very tasty.  The lemon post had some unique and tasty drinks as did the lime and coconut - there is a frozen lime and coconut that I liked even more.  I also had 3 interesting concoctions at the Point and Feather along the promenade - can't think of what I only had maybe 2 lavender daquiris from the Schooner bar if that tells you how busy I was elsewhere trying different drinks.

The pools were JAMMED (I never did hit the adult only pool at AFT), but the water slides weren't bad despite some lines.  They are nicely shaded for the most part, so we didn't get sizzled.  Lots of waterflow, so I didn't get stuck like I did on Liberty - two are racer-style, two are tube where you ride together, and two are plunge.  The last two Avery wasn't tall enough for, but it was ok, we enjoyed the others.  Miniputt was nice.  Avery hit the rock wall several times.  Surfside was fun and also nicely shaded, but we're right on the cusp of outgrowing that area.

Cococay was lovely as always.  We returned to the free slides and the large pool for a majority of our time.  We also popped in at the little lake-like area and the beach proper.  St Maarten was super hot.  I hadn't planned a lot there, so we just jumped off for a little while and shopped around right at the port.  St Thomas was cancelled due to propulsion issues with the ship.  I hadn't planned on getting off there anyhow, so my only loss was having the ship more to ourselves.  Turns out they cancelled the sailing after ours to go for repairs.  That... and the hurricanes that have come through since?  I think our timing was amazing to get one more trip in for the year.

I really want to write a bit about our trip... but here I am this morning missing Saffy. It's been two weeks since she left this earth.  I probably did this to myself as I was digging through photos from the first year of her being with me (in Jingletown).

It's odd the dumb things you do that make you sad after loosing a pet.  I did a deeper clean on my bedroom on Saturday morning and as part of this I packed up a few extra beds that were in there to give her options for comfort.  I'm sure there is still plenty of her fur in there, as I didn't move the bed, but I felt like I was kicking her out of our bedroom.

I don't know where that Saturday motivation came from, but it also had me trimming things outside.  I now have two garbage cans full of cuttings (hopefully they'll take them from the bin and won't make me try to cram things into garbage bags).  I still need to tear down plants as the colder overnight temps are coming, but I didn't get there yet.  I will probably pull the tomatoes off later this week as I monitor the anticipated temps.

Now if I could carry that deeper clean along through the other rooms, that really needs to happen.  I'm hoping to be in a position to get someone coming to do the periodic cleans again relatively soon, I hope.  It really is a load off of my shoulders to have that support.

The piece of information missing from my post memorializing Safyre is that I wasn't here when it had to happen.  Avery and I were away on a cruise.  In the post prior perhaps you could sense my anxiety which was the uncertainty combined with my upcoming absence.  While she wasn't doing great, she was still doing the stairs w/ me walking behind her and needing a bit more support and encouragement... so I really thought we weren't to that point yet.

Within 36 hours of dropping her (and Zero) at the kennel, shortly after I got to Florida they were calling saying she didn't want to eat.  Then she wasn't standing on her own.  Then a wound on her hip, which I thought was a hot spot, opened up oozing and my favorite egg brought her home from the kennel, spent the night with her, and got her into the vet's office.  While there another wound that we had no idea existed opened up and the vet said they were bed sores.

I was able to video in and see the state she was in.  Hopefully she could hear me and/or see me.  I realized looking at her face that she was definitely hurting and it was time.  I'm grateful my favorite egg was able to be there with her since I wasn't, but I'm so heartbroken I wasn't there when she needed me.

Our trip was good, I'll post more about that after I've had a bit more time, and maybe that way was the best for me long term.  This one really really hurts.