I earnestly tried to drink water yesterday.  I got 60 out of the 118.9 fl oz the app was telling me I should have daily.  I also had to step away from meetings repeatedly and got up 3 times overnight to use the facilities.  I might need diapers to achieve my goal.

This year's blood work shows that I'm getting to some of the upper limits on "normal" on a few items.  This is definitely the final warning to start to make some changes.  This morning I reactivated a few apps.  First goals are to start getting more water and get going with intermittent fasting.  I am hoping that both of these, in their own way will help cut back on my intake - but yes, I also activated my app to track what I eat and how much I exercise.

With vacations coming up I'm being realistic - I will be eating onboard.  That can be dangerous, but I usually come back not wanting to eat or cook for a while.  I can also try to use that as a 'goal', making improvements right now a small step leading up to that goal.

I also realized that when school ends I won't have as much rush in the morning.  I really should reclaim that time for me.  A younger me would have wanted the extra sleep.  I still do, but I know that my eyes will just open, so why not take that time and go for a walk?

I need these test results to be my trigger.

Another evening deferring the things on my to do list.  Tonight we had plans w/ Avery's bestie to go see the Washington Wild Things!  I've never been and it was kind of nice (even though Baseball isn't my go to sport) -- it makes me want to make the drive to Wheeling next hockey season, it's only 45 minutes away.

I also want to note that I ordered a replacement cable modem tonight.  Pray that it's an easy switch.  I tried to upgrade years back and ended up returning it as it just didn't function for me.  May as well try to get more of what I'm paying for since my current modem doesn't even support those speeds - and I gotta admit, the current one, when I look back, was purchased in 2015.  Don't judge me.

The month is getting away from me.  When someone commented that Avery only had 13 days of school left that hit hard. I still didn't book a pre-cruise hotel.  I didn't get her signed up for Camp Splash yet either.  The first weekend of swim lessons went well - she even swam the full 25independantly (w/ a few flip overs to breathe), which opens up the option for her to sign up for Kraken swim team if we wanted to.

I also had some turmoil with lawn mowing services that I think is resolved at this point.  I hope so, because needing to charge the batteries and taking a lunch hour every week to go mow isn't on my to do list.  It's hard enough to get away for a quick bite to eat much less for sweaty manual labor tasks.

Our local hardware store got the Sweet 100s in, so I planted 4 of those and 4 romas.  My main gap right now are pepper plants, which I may need to go back for.  The potatoes are looking good, same with the onions -- including two I planted from a pantry onion that decided to get growing.  I hurriedly filled several other pots with seeds the other night as late as I am with things.  The lettuce, basil and chives didn't start from my last attempt, so I tried to start more lettuce and basil.  The deeply discounted basil plants I got from the grocery store were too far gone and didn't make it.  I also tossed in some turnip, more beets and beans. I should prb start another container of carrots.

I had bought flowers earlier this month in order to send a flower in per suggestions for teacher appreciation week.  From that I filled the three hanging baskets out back, which are starting to fill out already and a pot on the deck.  I had also snagged some lavender and poppies to put in the small decorative area at the bottom of the deck stairs.  They too look pretty good and I'm hoping they'll do well there.  Out front I made a feeble attempt to add a few snapdragons.  Hopefully when the mulch gets added next week I can reinforce the need to not kill those off.  I would love to see them take hold -- they're definitely a fond memory from my childhood home.

I also managed to squeeze a little time to start readying the spare bedroom for new foster kitties.  It's the first time I've rearranged a bit in there, so it was nice to get to vacuum behind the moved larger pieces of furniture.  It also helped to open up a bit more of the footprint to interact with kitties.

The storms just keep rolling through, but that one last week that I posted about was bad.  There are still people w/o power and some roads are still a bit of a mess.  There are broken trees everywhere.  We were blessed.

We are staying busy around here running to Jiu Jitsu/Muay Thai, and now another round of swim lessons (likely her last), homework/spelling words, and trying to find spots of nice weather and free time to hang out with our neighbor friends.  Life is pretty good, but it's going too fast.

I still haven't leapt with regard to the flooring.  If one place had what I want and did all the things (e.g., didn't mean I had to buy/stain trim etc) I may have gotten the non-carpeting done at this point.  I need to get someone back in here to help me keep up with cleaning but I hate the thought of spending that money when I should be doing it my darned self.

I'm coming up on a very much needed vacation (cruise).  I'm so far behind through that I haven't booked a hotel for the night before yet.  Fortunately, I didn't find good deals on a flight either (I can drive to NJ), as I hear there is some chaos at Newark airport w/ air traffic control causing major delays and cancellations, and more than that - whistleblowers saying it isn't safe to fly into Newark.  While I don't look forward to that long drive, the goal is worth it.

Whew buddy that was a heck of a storm.  I got the severe weather alert as we were heading out for Muay Thai tonight.  Along the highway the rain and wind came - significant enough to slow traffic to under 40.  When I got off the exit all of the stop lights were out, a tree was along the road we go up, and signage for commercial buildings was toppled.

As we sat in the parking lot waiting for the rain to slow, lightning struck relatively close -- and it lit up the center console on the turned off car -- which is super weird.  When things slowed down I heard the fire whistles going and we made a run for the building.  I figured if there was more coming we were safer there.

Power was out, so the few that showed up for class ran about in the emergency lighting and had a bit of fun.  Fortunately the storm had passed by the end of our class window.  So much mess on the roads on the way home.  Power was defn out here while we were gone.  Grateful to say that the house is safe and sound.  The one rose bush out front didn't fair as well.  More than half of her broke off right near the bottom.  I'm not sure how to try and save her, but I'm trying to do my research.

That didn't last long... two weeks ago I noted that the referred lawn service folks came.  Last week I'm told they were in the neighborhood on Friday while we were out, but given that they said they were going to come on Saturdays I hadn't scooped nor unlocked the gate, so I wasn't mowed.

Today I texted before leaving the house asking that their team mow to the right of the fence if they were still coming today despite the recent rain.  Well the reply was "I apologize for the confusion but we will no longer be cutting grass."  Would they have messaged me if I hadn't texted?  Prb not, right?  Then asked me to send a check for 2 weeks of mowing.  No sir, I paid in cash for week 1 and you weren't here last Saturday.  This has potential to piss me off.  Hopefully the kid that mows for the neighbors is interested in taking on more lawns.

I got a charge on the batteries for the mower and got the front and sides done this evening before dark.  The back is thick and high right now... so that'll be fun tomorrow (if it doesn't rain more).  The batteries are charging back up.  Wish me luck.

Our neighbor came in clutch on Tuesday with that great last day of spring break idea, inviting us to go swimming with them at a nearby place where they are members.  Needless to say Avery loved getting to swim, especially with one of the neighbor friends that she plays with often.

The rest of the week went fast. I ended up only taking 1.5 hours off earlier this week once everything totaled up for the week, so I'm going to need to take more time off before the end of June.  I wish I thought I could plan ahead and somehow pick a day I will be motivated.  Today was one of those days.  When I took a small lunch break I started pulling things from one of the kitchen cabinets.  Clutter just builds to the point of insanity for me.  Add a little here, add a little there.  Eventually the cabinet is embarrassing and you can't find anything.

After work I started putting things back into that cabinet and throwing away some things that were past date or likely to not get eaten.  I wanted to rearrange a bit, moving some things to the lower shelf so Avery can reach them.  This spurred me to pull two more shelves from another cabinet and then that spread to the one lower cabinet where I had previously set up some snacks that Avery could get out for herself.

While I now have three cabinets that are cleared out and tidy I also have a couple of bags of things to go back to the basement shelves -- the basement is a whole other level of chaos that needs some attention.  Heck how many other spaces here need that level of attention, who am I kidding?

Here we are, Avery's last day of Easter/Spring break.  It's the final stretch to end 1st grade, which is crazy.  I've encouraged her to sleep in yesterday and today before we get back to the typical grind.  She was definitely ready for a break and is soaking up some time on the couch.

Break started with the resurrection party at her school and I got to go help with that.  It was fun and the kids seemed to enjoy it.  It's always good to get another glimpse at the kids and to see how each behaves.  It's kind of funny that I knew who some were just by things they said or did.  This gave me half a day off of work.  I chose to take half of the next day (Thursday) off and all of Friday.  I am so proud that I didn't even boot the computer on Friday.

On Thursday we tried to go to the basketball clinic that Avery has been participating in but only a few of us pulled up and no one came to unlock the school.  I guess we didn't get the memo?  If you say 9 weeks, start this date and end this date and that counts out to 9 weeks I assume it's happening.  This was a bummer as we would have done something else that evening had I known.

Instead we got up early and went to a 9am showing of King of Kings on Good Friday.  It was excellent.  Engaging and entertaining for me as an adult, but also full of stories from Jesus' life and a well done depiction of his death for children, which is a tough thing to try and present.  We repeated a little craft we did when Avery was much younger, creating bunnies out of a tracing of her hand - and boy have those bunnies grown.

Saturday we had a bit of running to do but then made our way to the Canonsburg Easter Egg hunt.  It's always a good time and the girl left with lots of goodies.  Then we stuck around to hang out at the park a while with her bestie.  The weather was fantastic.

Sunday after hunting her eggs here and going to church we prepared some goodies to take with us for Easter dinner.  It was at the near Aunt/Uncle's place, so that saved travel time.  A neighbor had gifted us two very large containers of cherry tomatoes.  We put them to use roasting them with olive oil and garlic and then mixing them up with mozz.  I also had a burr about banana pudding and ended up making a way too large batch of that to take with us (and eat for the next week apparently).

Yesterday and today I am back at work in the mornings.  It being our final hurrah I need to come up with something good to do this afternoon.  As a bus just went by it looks like the other neighborhood kids returned to school today.  Hopefully the weather holds so we can go enjoy it.

I hope you had a blessed Easter.  He is Risen!

We have had so much rain.  The grass is green, lush, and TALL.  Unfortunately, it's too much rain to actually mow.  But I had to get things in order for our neighborhood Easter egg hunt tomorrow.  It's a lot easier to ensure the poops are scooped if the grass is trimmed, so out came the weed eater.  I needed to pull out the leaf blower to get everything that accumulated below the deck cleared away anyhow.  So my quick "I'll just go scoop poop" turned into a couple of hours of work outside.  I am feeling accomplished with something that is long over due.

While out there I realized the robins have been busy - and there is already a nest built under my deck!  No eggs yet.  This reminds me that the time to put hummingbird food out is nearing, but the weather is still calling for some rather cold moments in the next week.

Update:  as I am typing this the new lawn care guys came.  I knew they had intended to start mowing in April, but hadn't heard more from them.  I'm glad I was here (to open the gate and pay them).  I'm glad I had already scooped poop.  But I guess some of my effort this morning was a bit of a waste.  It's ok, I could use the exercise.

Cats.  Why are they obsessed with hiding so I accidentally trap them in my bedroom in the morning?  One might also ask why I am so inattentive that I don't notice for a few hours.  In my defense I gotta get the kid off to school and then the calls and meetings start.

It's most noticeable when Church is trapped because he isn't waltzing between me and my keyboard around 10am.  This is what triggered me to notice his absence earlier this week. I left him out and he promptly went to get the breakfast he missed to find an empty bowl (oh Barney, you little piglet).  Today it was Barnabas that didn't come running when it was treat time.  I left him out and went to check the food bowls presuming I would need to hook him up with some kibble.  My charming Church didn't touch Barnabas' food until that very moment when he decided "wait, I gotta try and eat this up so he doesn't get it".

Last night Barnabas was kind (?) enough to point out to me that the present from the dog mentioned in my previous post still offends him.  He was jumping over the spot and trying to cover it with the rest of the carpet.  Roger that Barney, I'll pull out the rug scrubber and try again.

* GROSSNESS WARNING *

 

Barf. Oh yeah, that's why I stopped giving bones etc to my dogs a long time ago.  Silly me, I gave Zero a bone on the deck yesterday to keep him happy and quiet while we had company here.  Today we have vomit.  Noxious, make you gag strong vomit.  Soupy, hard to clean up vomit.  The first huge puddle was ejected in the living room, because of course it was.  Several more pools formed outside on the concrete while I attempted to rinse the bulk of it from my cleaning rags before putting them in the washing machine.  The house smells like a cesspool despite cleaning to the best of my ability.

This level of gross happened out of the blue once before in my dining room a few months back and I had not provided anything of the sort to him.  As I am trying to replace flooring in the near term, please don't allow this to be a routine thing.  I just can't.

We had a beautiful weekend.  My sister, S, came in with her bf.  On Friday we ate dinner and made a Sarris ice cream parlor run then on Saturday we took a walk around Peter's lake, made a three stop cruise between local breweries, and finished up with dinner.  It's been a while since I've gotten to see her, so it was a highlight.

The temps have cooled back off but I did get a few more seeds in pots (basil, beans, cukes, peppers) and I sprinkled some chive in a little area beside the wall out back with the hopes they will proliferate.

I also got a few Easter decorations up inside and switched out my kitchen curtain for the birds instead of the snowflakes.  Welcome spring and summer!  I've been gathering goodies for Easter, but I need to inventory to see what gaps I have.  In addition to helping the Easter bunny out, our neighbors are repeating last year's Easter egg hunt, so I am trying to get the right things pulled together for that squad, with something special for each kid - this isn't as easy as I thought given we have from 1 yo to 14 yo to account for.

This morning I realized I should have returned Avery's switch game to the library so I guess I need to run out today -- and pay a fine.  The last tax bill check cleared, so I'm done with all of that until September.