The Week Between

I had thought about how to describe this week, "limbo"?  How would I title this post? It's the last week of the year, but I'm not ready for year-end analysis or new year goals and resolutions just yet.

I had a much nicer Christmas than expected--specifically the time spent with Jeff's sister and her family. It was relaxed and fun from Christmas Eve dinner through Christmas morning. I didn't want to stay overnight originally, but it worked out well for us.

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I always hated to to back to work the day after Christmas. I felt guilty Tuesday morning as Jeff got up at 5:30. I didn't work this week. I planned to get many things done. As usual, I didn't succeed. I did a little bit of everything--TPR work, cleaning/organizing, shopping, cooking. Maybe cooking was my best category: in addition to dinners, I made carrot-ginger soup and marinara sauce and froze about half of both.

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It's been a cold week--temperatures barely making it into the twenties. It wasn't conducive for long walks or hikes. The longest walk Lola and I had this week was 35 minutes. Today it snowed for most of the day. Luckily it didn't amount to much. It did mess up my plan to go to the gym this morning. Instead, I exercised here--it was better than nothing. Jeff and I took Lola for a walk up our street--a first for Lola. She was a little skittish when cars passed by, but did well. I hope it's the first of many neighborhood walks for her.

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We're down to our last few days of drinking. Every year we stop drinking around New Year's Day. I think January 1st will be our last day this year. We'll have a long weekend. Jeff likes to have a beer on Super Bowl Sunday. I'll wait until Valentine's Day. In 2018, it's on a Wednesday. I don't know if we'll celebrate that day or the Saturday before or after. For now we're enjoying some red wine. Champagne tomorrow.

Two Years

Spike died two years ago today. He was special for many reasons.

First, he was Jeff's and my first dog. We both had dogs and other pets growing up and loved them. But we had a special bond with Spike.

Spike was a great traveler--he traveled with us up and down the East Coast from Vermont to Florida. Spike loved to go to new places--parks, art galleries, shops, wineries, restaurants.

We discovered Taylor Farm with Spike as well as other parks and trails.We met many wonderful dog-loving friends.

We knew we would love Spike and that he would require a lot of work.

We didn't know how much joy he would bring us.

We will love and miss Spike forever.

Christmas Kvetching

There was a time when I loved Christmas.

As a kid, it meant toys. We used to trim the tree Christmas Eve, have pancakes for dinner and open one present. In the morning, we'd rush down to see what Santa brought. I seem to remember having turkey for dinner at our home most years, but I'm rather vague on that.

I remember some fun Christmases when I first moved to Connecticut. We had several guests--usually people who had no family nearby--our get-togethers were casual and eclectic. I remember one--when I and someone else received a bongo board. We had dueling bongoing going on. (I still have my bongo board in the closet.)

Jeff and I got engaged on Christmas Eve. After that we had to blend holidays together. It worked well for the first several years. We spent Christmas Eve with Jeff's family, and Christmas Day with mine. It got more challenging when parents moved south.

Even with good Christmases, there's always been an undercurrent of pressure. It just seems to get worse for me. The last three Christmases have been stressful. This year I'm trying to force myself into some semblance of Christmas spirit: today I wore red and green and my Christmas earrings. I didn't turn off Christmas music Jeff was listening to when I got home from my ACT class. I put up a few Christmas decorations (but no tree.)

I'm mostly frustrated because I don't have money. I had to put $1500 into my car last month. My work has slowed down a bit, so I don't have much money coming in. Then we'll be at Jeff's sister's house, where they usually have five feet of presents (literally) stacked around the tree. I'm not even getting Jeff any presents this year except stocking stuffers and one or two small practical household type things. We need a new couch and we both need new glasses, and other medical things.

It's not just money. Jeff's father's health is not good, and I'm concerned about my mother.

I realize objectively that I don't have things that bad. But I can't dispel a feeling of unease. I wish I could just skip Christmas.

It is Done.

I mean the bathroom. The shower doors were delivered Thursday. The contractor arrived today to install them. It took about 45 minutes. Now we have an almost brand new bathroom. I can rehang a picture in the bath and return corner shelf and pictures in the hallway.

On to Christmas decorations.

Reading Update

My reading rate dropped off the second half of the year. I gave up on Thoreau's Backwoods and along the Seashore. I read the a few selections, but just couldn't get into it.

I wanted something different and chose Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser. I wanted to read a biography of Mary since I saw this movie. I did read this book, but wanted more about Mary's life. I haven't gotten very far in Fraser's book: I'm in the third chapter. Mary is still a child but is now in France.

I'm enjoying this biography. My only quibble is that there are some quotations in French. I don't speak French, and would prefer to see the translations.

Good Intentions Don't Cut It

In my last post, I complained that I've been unfocused, and I would start by getting up early yesterday.

I didn't anticipate that I would have a horrible night's sleep. I was up a little later than planned because we watched the coverage of the Alabama Senate race--thank you black women of Alabama. Then I just couldn't get to sleep. I was uncomfortable, my pillow didn't feel right, Jeff was snoring, my feet got cold, I had to pee. Ugh.

Needless to say, I wasn't ready to bound out of bed in the morning. I forced myself to get up around 7. I could barely keep my eyes open the first few minutes. I told myself it was foolish to go to the gym when I was so tired. I honestly don't know if that was a reasoned decision or just a cop out.

It was bitterly cold. It would warm up later, but the wind strength would increase. I took Lola to Schenck's Island around 10. Later I went food shopping, did a little cleaning and had my first session for my new ACT class. I even managed to exercise.

At least the day wasn't a complete loss.

Unfocused

That's how I've been feeling the past few days. I overslept both Sunday and Monday. I had trouble getting myself going. I proctored a test for my new class Sunday, and had a tutoring appointment on Monday. I did the minimum that I had to do, but at least I made a few bucks. 

It's frustrating because I had been on a bit of a roll. I hate losing momentum. Honestly, any momentum I had was gone.

It's back to the drawing board for me: goals, time management, planning. First step--get my butt out of bed early in the morning.

Snow Day

It started snowing around 8:30 this morning. I got Lola to Taylor Farm by 7:30. I didn't know when the snow would start, but knew it would be snowing off-and-on all day.

Lola and I spent just about an hour at Taylor Farm. First I saw a snowflake out of the corner of my eye. Next I felt a few flakes. By the time we left, the snowflakes still hadn't coalesced. I grabbed a coffee and glazed blueberry donut at Dunkin Donuts on the way home. Since then I've been a homebody.

Jeff's away this weekend. I had planned a few fun things to do, but wanted to use this weekend to get some things done around the house. With the snow day, I gave up the outside plans (except of course for the dog park with Lola.) Yesterday I made broth using rotisserie chickens. Today I separated chicken, broth and bones, etc. to make a broth for Lola--she loves chicken broth--and some orzo, white bean chicken soup for Jeff and me. I made a double batch of flank steak, black bean chili--it's still cooking on low in the crockpot.

I filed papers away, went through and organized all the instruction and warranty brochures, and tossed some outdated papers. I did a few sewing repairs. I didn't get around to any cleaning besides dishes, but tomorrow is another day.

I watched one of my noir movies. Angel Face. I had seen part of it before, but the ending was a shocker.

A pretty productive day.

The Saga of a Bathtub Scratch

Sometime last year I noticed a scratch in the bottom of our tub. We had a tech from Kitchen Magic (KM) here because of some minor thing in the kitchen. He looked at the tub, said it as a crack and not a scratch. A crack is more serious.

An engineer came out and recommended that the tub liner be replaced. Time passed; my calls were unanswered. Finally a the tech came out to do a  patch on our tub.

The patch didn't last. About a year later, I called again, and the engineer returned. I waited. Apparently KM no longer does bathroom work; Bathroom Magic is gone. Sub-contractors came to replace the tub liner in September. Unfortunately, there was miscommunication between KM and the sub-contractors. The tub liner could not be installed without removing all the tile on the walls.

We had to re-schedule. We also had to re-order tile in case the tile wall broke when removed. But that wasn't all. The color of our tile was discontinued. No more tarragon. KM sent us tile samples of the closest colors: cilantro and rosemary. We chose cilantro. (What's with all the spice names anyway?) KM agreed to provide cilantro walls just in case. I was curious about the tarragon colored sink if we ended up with cilantro walls. We reserved the right to switch out the sink if necessary.

We scheduled installation for early November. Unfortunately, one installer had a personal emergency and had to reschedule.

To make up for the inconvenience, KM offered to give us the sink in cilantro. I figured that was part of the lifetime warranty. I asked if KM could fix a scratch on our kitchen counter. The manager agreed. So last Thursday, the tub installers and Greg, the Corian repairman, arrived.

First the Corian. It was another crack, not a scratch. The difference? A crack goes all the way through the material. On closer inspection, Greg determined the crack was due to a manufacturing defect. Yay--covered by warranty! The downside was that Greg said it would be best to take the counter off site to repair it. It's never easy to lose counter space in a small kitchen, but at least we still had our longer counters available.

As Greg left, the bathroom installers arrived, Roman, Yuri and another (whose name I never got.) As Roman told me, nothing was easy. One of the walls cracked when they removed it. They were here for the long haul--almost three full days. I expected that they would finish by noon or 1 PM on the last day, Saturday. But no such luck. As they were reinstalling the shower doors--we heard a crash--shattering glass. There goes one of our shower doors.Yuri headed to a nearby Lowe's to get us a collapsible shower rod and curtain.

We may have a new door in a week. Maybe not, but it should be installed by Christmas. Sigh.

At least Greg repaired and returned our counter top by Monday. He also buffed all the other counter tops.

And so it goes.

Morning at Oyster Shell Park

We're having our bathroom renovated. Today was the second of three days--well, maybe a half-day tomorrow. The workers were scheduled to arrive between 8 and 9:30 AM. So I figured I should take Lola out to a park early each morning.

Yesterday I took Lola to Taylor Farm around 7.Today we went to Oyster Shell Park. Here are some photos of the sunrise.

Lola wasn't much interested in the sunrise, but there were many good scents for her to peruse.