Scheduled the kiddo with her pediatrician, can't get her in until October, so the school forms will have to wait.  Got her an appointment for a hair cut next week - may need to do one more round of blue in the tips tonight (in the mean time).

This morning she made an odd comment (as a 6yo does) about needing to keep her one foot on the rug in the bathroom because it needs the cushion.  Fortunately I didn't dismiss it and asked more.  Apparently her heel has been hurting.  I take a look and there is definitely a harder patch and a small brown ring.  I think it's probably a plantar's wart.  So now we also have an appointment for that with a podiatrist.

Back again!  Our second cruise this year is complete.  It was a short 4-nighter out of Bayonne to Halifax Nova Scotia.  We went with my favorite egg and his parents - their first cruise!   A great time was had by all.  Found an amazing tour provider and we learned a ton.  Liberty of the seas had excellent food and over the top amazing singers/dancers that were part of Saturday Night Fever.  5 stars!  It was a long drive, but dealable.

Also notable - I realized that Saturday (July 27, 2024) was my parents' 50th wedding anniversary!

Tomorrow I take the car for repairs, run the kid to another vacation bible school, and we head into a week with various appointments.  I guess I need to get a few more on the schedule to get us ready for the new school year.

We did get enough rain to fill my barrel while I was away. The plants were wilted but survived my absence.  I pulled a few more cukes and tomatoes upon my return, but little else.

We finally have a cooler temps.  We've had crazy heat for so long that the mid-70s as the sun set this evening felt cold.  It's been a struggle to keep the moisture in plants, so this little break is significant.  Tonight I gladly agreed to walk along with Avery while she rode her bike (she's getting much better and more confident).

I wish it had cooled off earlier as I spent one evening earlier this week sweating it out as I cleaned the inside of the car.  To say it's been a while since I flipped seats etc puts it lightly.  I even scraped the melted crayon out of the console.  The good news is when I drop it off to get repaired I need not feel embarrassed.

I need to follow up on the CSA basket from last week - I found a kale recipe.  It was actually a chicken and spinach recipe but I swapped out.  Matter of fact, it was so friggin good I might re-make it this weekend to use up more of the kale.  The kale chips I made were even tolerable.  Maybe this is just a more mild kale than I've ever had before.  I also made a wicked good sauted scape and parm linguine last night.

Because I am getting the texts as I type I'm going to share my frustration however... apparently everyone else getting CSA baskets can pick up immediately after it arrives mid-morning.  So I'm the only one who works?  *sigh*

I never did report on my hood's 5th of July party.  It was hot and I sweated outside from around 2pm to 11pm, but it was a blast and well worth it.  I love my neighbors.  I have been eating leftovers of what I made for the past week (fruit salad, haluski, and broccoli salad - the last I need to toss at this point).

This week has felt hectic.  Avery had a half-day VBS that had me running around 9am and noon each day.  It made it harder to get my hours in so I could take Friday afternoon off, but I did it.  Before we headed back to the church this evening for their final program we made our way to the Pittsburgh Botanic Gardens.  I've never been before and I'm angry with myself for not going before.  This place is a treasure -- and close to me, rather than in Pittsburgh.  It's still crazy hot out there, so the less than 2 hours we spent there was enough for now.

Today was the first day of my newly found CSA!  Someone in town posted, looking for interested people as they wanted to be a stop.  Of course, I'm in!  Today we had some potatoes, tomatoes, a red and a white onion of good size, tons of garlic scapes (yay!), a beautiful large head of lettuce, and a huge bundle of.... kale (y.a.y.?).

My garden on the other hand is a mixed bag.  I have another pot (this would be the 3rd one) of potatoes that I need to dump as the greens have completely dried up and died off.  Some of the tomato plants are starting to really take off size wise and are forming fruit.  I have more cukes forming.  Peppers are just starting to form (other than the cubanelle that wintered over and has two ready to pick).  As to the other things in my garden... let's just say, if I didn't mention it, you can assume nothing has changed.

I found it interesting to compare my garden's progress to that in the Botanic Garden's growing area.  Their peppers are killing it, but my beets are far ahead of theirs.

Lower of 2 repair estimates:  ~$4700

My insurance (keep in mind, the other person's insurance should be the one paying but they are playing stupid nearly 2 months later):  ~$2400

Right now I'm stuck w/a $1000 deductible, so where is the other $1300?  Oh, and don't forget I will need a rental while I am without my car.  That's about $500 a week.  Avery has a camp the week the car is going in, or I would try to go without a car.

This past weekend has me feeling young.  It is short lived because I cannot keep up that pace.  Saturday night we hung out with the (best ever) neighbors - the adults out back and the kids playing away.  This ended up being a pretty late evening, but we still needed to get up on Sunday for church.  This meant I 100% got a nap on Sunday afternoon.

Avery and I had Sunday evening plans near the airport so I took the opportunity to hit At Home and get my code orange Halloween fix!  Admittedly I already got a Halloween fix from Cracker Barrel this past week.  Our plans were meeting up with two friends from college; one was picking his son up at the airport and it was so good to get to sit and chat.  I can't believe how old we all are at this point.  Life flies.

I pulled 4 sweet 100 tomatoes yesterday, so Avery and I got our first taste.  Boy were they yummy!

Today I pulled 4 cucumbers (which look pretty ratchet looking - short, fat, stubby, and starting to get orangy-yellow).  I guess I left them on the vine too long, but I was hoping they would get a little longer.  I also plucked one rather large beet - the others remain too small.  I then planted a few more beet seeds and some lettuce in the bucket from the failed radishes.

Well dang it.  That's what I get for being motivated and trying to cross what should have been a 10 minute task off of my to do list.  I have needed to clean my dryer vent for a VERY long time.  Today, I busted out the tool I purchased and got to it.  Suffice it to say I made it worse.  The end of the vent cleaner popped off and is now somewhere along the vent under Avery's bedroom.

I guess I'm not finishing laundry today.  Trying to find a handyman around here is a difficult task.  This is compounded by the extreme number of scammers that post vent cleaning services on facebook.  Anyone miss having actual phone books to try and find legit businesses?  I've left 4 or 5 messages and sent a few texts/fb messages.

I guess the good news is I could find someone reliable and start getting some of the other things on my to do list addressed around here.

Progress!  Within 24 hours of calling my insurance and requesting their engagement I have already gotten a few calls and their claims estimator was here before 9am today.

This is one of those things I didn't want to learn about... let's talk about Pennsylvania's laws surrounding car accidents.  Apparently, not bothering to call the insurance back is a viable strategy... that's what I'm seeing.  If they don't respond they might lose their insurance, but if fault cannot be established then Pennsylvania treats it as no fault.  What does that mean?  It means I'm f'd and get to pay my deductible.  It also means that because I don't have rental coverage, I get to go without a car while repairs are going on or I get to pay for that too.

I strongly encourage you to not be at the wrong place at the wrong time when someone decides they want to abruptly be in your lane - 0/10

Let's talk about the garden.  Most everything survived the crazy hot temps while I was gone.  There was one pot of potatoes that I harvested as the plant all died away, getting way less than we should have, but still more than what was seeded.  The basil tried to flower while I was gone - as did a few of the turnips... but when I pulled the turnips most of them didn't create much of a bulb.  *shrug*

I have several sweet 100 tomatoes starting to change color.  There was a single solitary snap pea ready to be plucked and others soon to follow.  Many other tomato plants launched and have gotten to a decent size with blossoms.  I finally have a decent stalk of lettuce, not much, but I could make a salad or two.  The cukes have a few started.  The wintered over cubanelle has several peppers of decent size at this point.  The other pepper plants are still relatively small and not starting to produce.

The cauliflower and broccoli is still a fail again this year.  The pumpkin seeds are flowering, but not developing.

What really grew while I was gone?  Weeds.  I filled a decent sized dog food bag full of weeds to put to the trash today.  I also dead headed my three rose bushes which were crazy blooming earlier this summer.

We are back on dry land once again.  Avery headed out a week and a half ago - a sweet price allowed us to fly to Baltimore for our departure on Vision of the Seas for 9 nights.  With some advice from someone I know through work we sat on the right of the aircraft and had an interesting view of what remains of the Key bridge.  We were also careful to be on the port side of the ship to see the Dali as we sailed out of Baltimore (and a closer view of one side of the remains of the Key bridge.

Our sailing took us to... Bermuda (overnight, but still a relatively short stop having arrived around 2pm and leaving by 1pm the next day). Here Avery and I went to Warwick Long Bay/Jobson's Cove - my favorite pink sand as it is much more less touristy than Horseshoe.  We then rode the bus the rest of the way into Hamilton and took the Ferry back to King's Wharf.  On Sunday morning we rode with another passenger to attend mass at St Joseph's, the oldest Catholic church in Bermuda.

I had wanted to go out right in King's Wharf after church, but I had gone down in the middle of the night prior from both ends.  I feel I was food poisoned, but others kept pushing the idea of Noro.  Frankly, given how it presented and how quickly it passed (better after 24 hours) I still think it was food poisoning.  It was very overcast while we were in Bermuda and the seas were less than favorable for a few days (the Atlantic can be a bit finicky), so the temps stayed relatively dealable.

In Nassau Bahamas we got our first real taste of heat.  Again a relatively short stop.  This was my first time there since they made extensive renovations to the pier area.  We ran outside of the protected area long enough for some power shopping before we returned to meet our tour - where we boarded a pirate ship - one that Avery took over as Captain on after a mutiny.  I was very pleasantly surprised by this excursion, it was better than I expected.

Finally, we stopped in Cococay - which is always a delight.  There were passing rain storms, but a pretty darn nice day. Similar to our last visit, we stuck to the free water slides and the large pool.

This itinerary gave us several days at sea.  As I mentioned, several of those days were a bit rough, which means the rock wall and pool were closed at times. The final day had nice weather, but due to a poo accident the pool that allows the kids was closed.  Regardless, we had a wonderful, relaxing vacation.  Yes, the girl did get enough time on that rock wall to conquer the blue and orange paths.

The trip back was interesting.  I have never encountered so many Karens in one place.  Baltimore airport TSA is an interesting animal... still not as awful as Miami.  Glad to be home with the critters.  Churchie missed us a ton.  Barnabas admitted overnight he was happy we were back.  Jackson was meowing and happy to see us.  Zero didn't get worn our nearly enough at camp.  Saffy did ok and is resting back up.

My dear readers would know that I had a frozen right shoulder a few years ago.  You would also know that I'm having some loss of flexibility and pain in my left shoulder for a while now.  The knees, they hurt.  I feel bloated and uncomfortable about 50% of the time anymore.   I'm tired more often than not, but I find myself often waking up in the middle of the night and again by 5 or 6am.  My sinuses are constantly swollen and basically close up at night so I am now snoring, which I never did, and also getting woken from this issue.  I'm emotional and anxiety ridden - if I didn't know better I would think it was PMS.  I'm forgetting things and disorganized lately, which is 100% not me.

Sure, I'm overweight and that is probably a lot of it.  I'm not the type of person who would dive into hormone replacement etc, but when I asked "at what point that is advantageous" at my recent doctor's appointment it was indicated as "not needed unless I was having problems" (after I noted that I haven't been having as many hot flashes as I was there for a while).

Ok.  I felt a little dismissed, but I took that answer.

In one of my favorite communities (The Why Files if you must know) the topic of testosterone replacement was going on in a chat - and basically how doctors were offering it to several of the men in the group because their levels were slightly lowered.

Now I'm a little pissed.  Seriously?  You don't feel like getting down and dirty as often as you used to and maybe don't feel like yourself and the medical establishment jumps to solve that for you.  I, frankly, feel like shit more often than not and I'm left to trying various approaches on my own to deal with various symptoms.

I am not a "wah, I am so oppressed" type of person.  But I will point you back to the long touted "signs of a heart attack" that rarely match the typical symptoms a woman feels under similar duress and say that our medicine isn't doing right by women.  Fact is, I bet my insurance wouldn't cover those types of treatments unless we hopped through all kinds of tests and met a ton of criteria.... but if I were a dude and wanted female hormones... this world is so f'd.

I should have given an update on our foster, Jackson.  He continues to want more and more attention and loves to receive pets.  He still does not want to be picked up, but this weekend he put a paw up on my lap.  I'm calling it progress!

I also should have updated on my car issues - I called my insurance last week to ask for their assistance nudging things along as I continue to receive radio silence from the other person's insurance company.