Moving in May, 5/15

Today I drove across the street to Subway instead of walking. What was I thinking? I thought of it as I pulled out of the alley, but didn't turn around & park. It took me longer to drive than it would have to walk it. I did park in the pink Victorian house lot today & walked to Lewiston State Bank & back. Then I realized I'd left my drink at work, drove back & parked on the far side of the Opera House parking lot & walked across the parking lot, the alley & into the Citizen.

So, now I'm up to 3 hours and 15 minutes, with 3 hours & 75 minutes left to walk this month.

Don & I traded nights to cook tonight. I fixed supper so Don can fix grilled burgers tomorrow night. We left the food sitting on the stove so Don-Mike could have some when he got home he could have some. Luckily he brought some food with him because Nick saw a mouse eating out of the pan. Don-Mike mentioned how he missed Astro. We all miss our little Astro-Bear. He was a good mouser.

Pickups, walking & babies

Here is Nick standing in the "new" driveway by his '69 pickup today, about 15 to 4. I'm glad it wasn't blurry. So many of my pictures turn out blurry.

This was a farm pickup & he found it out in Whitney in a field, sitting there rusting. Not sure what was wrong with it. He & Don-Mike fixed it up & he got a lot of years out of it. He traded it, plus some cash, for the Corvette, which they are now trailering home.

One of the T-tops blew off the 'Vette & the owner stopped, picked it up out of traffic, called Nick & told them to get off at the next exit. They did & he returned the T-top. They put all of the loose stuff in the camper shell on Don-Mike's pickup. They took Don-Mike's "new" diesel pickup.

On to walking. A friend had a link on her blog for a blog named Little April Rose. April's mommy has a link to Kayleigh Anne Freeman. In reading the condolences for little Kayleigh, I ran across a link, out of the thousands of comments, that intrigued me, Random Thoughts of a Great-Granny Grandma. See how blog browsing just kind of snowballs?

I read one of Great Granny's posts & thought it was interesting. It kind of summed up my day today:

1. Tell us how you sneak exercise in when you can't "get to they gym" or "the treadmill is broken" or whatever. What do you do at work/around the house/etc. to move more?

I certainly tried to be creative today. I knew I wouldn't have time for a straight 15 minute walk. I tried to get through work by 11:30 since we had DUP this afternoon & the books were being audited. I knew we would need to eat lunch. I parked out in the farthest corner of Stokes parking lot. For the local people, it was where the pink Victorian house used to be on 2nd South. I walked across the parking lot & down to Lewiston State Bank. Once I got my money, I walked down to the deli, opposite end of the grocery store & bought a couple of 3" sandwiches, a small bag of chips, a small macaroni salad & a small cherry pie for lunch. Back out to the car.

This evening, after supper at ChesterFried Chicken, we went back to Stokes to see if they had some postage stamps. I wanted to mail the DUP audit to the company secretary. However, I still have 42¢ stamps. The post office was closed because by now it was after 6 p.m. The post office used to have a vending machine, but no more. We went there & I walked in, only to find a metal sign over the wall where the stamp vending machine used to be. Stokes only have 44¢ stamps. I had Don park out quite a ways from the entrance & walked in & back out.

When Mother discovered that we were looking for 2¢ stamps she said she had some in the cupboard at home. Sure enough, she did. So, I took one & got the audit in the mail, woo hoo!!

Then, this evening, I walked down to feed the dog. Don walked with me & he watered the dog while I got the food out of the shed. Don had to make a special trip to the grocery store last night for dog food. He got the 50# bag. Now, tonight, I see the cats are almost out of food.

The second part of this was:

2. Let us know how your week went. Let us know your goals for next week. Not your long-term goals, just your goals for next week.

If you follow my blog, I let you know how my week went almost every day, LOL. Goals are to continue to walk daily, make the bed daily. One of my big goals for this week was to get MY wash caught up. I needed undies & socks. Undies washed, folded & waiting to be put away. Socks washed & in the dryer. I'm hoping I won't have any orphan socks. I have 9 orphans. I really wish I could find the mates.

Now, back to Kayleigh, April Rose, & Baby Jonah. Jonah is my cousin Loraine's grandson. He was born at 24 weeks gestation in September 2008. Loraine's dad, Jim, told me about a blog that Tanya & Dave were keeping of their baby Jonah. I started following Jonah's blog. I checked it morning & night. Dave & Tanya are sometimes very late in updating it & I couldn't go to bed without checking the blog. I was having a hard time sleeping back then. Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle night &, almost without volition, start praying for Jonah.

Now that I'm off the femara, the new CPAP helps too, I'm sleeping better. But one blog leads to another & now I have a whole list of blogs to check. My main ones though are Jonah, Kayleigh & April Rose. I have my blog list set so that those blogs that have new entries rise to the top, like cream, LOL.

Saturday, May 9

Last night about 6 p.m., my friend Janene called to say she was just entering the valley. She was in Logan for the Family History Expo (FHE) seminar held on campus at Utah State University. She was just going to grab something to eat & then go set up. Evidently they had 3 separate hotel rooms, one each for Holly, Kimberly Savage & Janene. She asked me if I wanted to come spend the night with her. Don encouraged me, so I left about 9 p.m. & got there about 10. She had finished setting up & was coming back to the hotel when I got there.

We sat up until midnight bagging t-shirts for the FHE booth. But it was fun visiting. We both have trouble remembering words & finishing sentences, LOL

By the time I walked back & forth between the University Inn & the Eccles Conference Center 3 times today, I'm counting 15 minutes. I have no idea how many minutes it actually was, but I'm only trying for 15 minutes a day.

Yesterday I walked from the Citizen down to Lewiston State Bank & back to the Citizen. Again, I don't know how many minutes I actually walked, but I was gone half an hour. The good news about yesterday's walk is I did not drive a block & a half one way or 3 blocks round trip, I walked it. Sorry the picture is so big. The bank is at the south end of Stokes MarketPlace (Preston's only grocery store).

To get the picture with no one around, I had to wait for cars to drive by & a lady had just walked in & I waited til the door closed, LOL

Moving in May, 5/6

I've worked on the blog template off & on all day. I took off the labels & added a label cloud. I think they look cool. It wasn't quite what I wanted, but I have to work tomorrow & Friday, so I guess, again, I live with it, until I have some time to waste again. I also updated my personal web page on Yahoo!, just to find that now Yahoo! is doing away with GeoCities. First of all, it was the photo hosting, they transferred everything to Photobucket; then they did away with Briefcase. In that case, they just dumped everything. I don't think I lost anything that I didn't have anywhere else.

Nick is having a meltdown & even with my hearing aid turned off, I can still hear it. The next thing we know, he'll be slamming out the door, breaking the glass & pealing out of the driveway. I tried to avert it, but I think I made it worse. Don is trying to reason with him, find out what's going on. He has way more patience than I will ever have. It is, of course, to do with Runescape. I hate that game.

I was sitting here at the computer & had to go to the bathroom. I didn't want to get up & just leave windows open & logged on. My reasoning was that Eddie would come & want the Internet. I looked at the time, 8:30 p.m., & I thought, "Ya, right!" Just minutes later, the door opened & I thought it was Don-Mike. Don looked up & said, "Hi Eddie!" His dad was right behind him. Eddie has a 4-page assignment due tomorrow. He needed the Internet. He was supposed to call, but he didn't, they just showed up.

I walked again today. Don needed to go to Stokes for supper & asked if I wanted to go. On my big long list of things to do today was "distilled water" for the CPAP. I said yes. I figured I could walk around the perimeter of the store again. I must have walked around that store twice. Candice Burns, a lady from our ward, was standing by the meat department. The second time I approached her I asked if she had seen Don. She said he was right behind me the first time. So, here I am, carrying my gallon of distilled water looking for Don & he was looking for me as well. So, we both got a walk in.

Cinco de Mayo

I dropped Mother off at the door to the clinic, parked in the handicapped section, walked back to the clinic, took the elevator cuz I didn't think I could make it up 3 flights of stairs, back down after the protime & walked back out to the car. Mother was going to walk, but it was raining again. So, I got the car & drove back to the front door of the clinic.

Mother walked from a handicapped parking space to the restroom at the front of Wal-Mart. She waited at the front of the store, while I walked around Wal-Mart. I had to go clear to the back of the store to get toilet paper. Then I walked all around the refrigerated part of the store & through the freezer section trying to find the pesto. No luck. I just realized I didn't look by the tofu & that's where it is here at Stokes.

I parked out quite a ways at Stokes, the local grocery store, and walked around the perimeter of the store. I did find the pesto. After all that time of looking for pesto, I didn't use it. I didn't know if I dared because I was using a new recipe for chicken cacciatore & didn't know if I was pressing my luck by adding it. Next time I make this recipe, I'll double the tomatoes & use the pesto. Don-Mike suggested I use penne instead of macaroni. I looked at the penne, actually picked it up. Again, I didn't want to use too many "new" things so Nick wouldn't eat it.

We had major thunder storms today. I thought I was going to have to pull over because the hail was driven by such strong winds, that even the fast setting on the windshield wipers wasn't clearing the windshield. I slowed down & people were driving past me like I was standing still. Mother said she remembered one time in Missouri where I had pulled over during a major thunderstorm & she thought someone was going to slam into us. I told her that would happen in Utah, but not in Missouri. In Missouri, when the rain let up, everyone else was pulled over to the side too. Here, they just drive like bats out of hell.

The noise was so loud, Mother & I had to yell at each other to make ourselves heard over the storm. Don called about 3 p.m. After we got out of the thunderstorm, which BTW followed us clear into Logan, my phone was beeping. I saw that the missed call was Don & so I called him. I asked him if he got a "no work." He said no they'd shut the whole plant down. OMG, I had the biggest adrenalin rush. My immediate thought was the plant had been closed & everyone was out of a job. It's not unheard of. I don't even think scared comes close, terrified is more like it. I thought we were in serious trouble. Don-Mike used a stronger adjective than either of those, but this is not an R-rated blog, so I won't share it. But his word comes much closer to what I was feeling & no, it wasn't the "f" word. We don't use that at our house. Well, sometimes it comes out during a meltdown from Eddie or Nick. I've been known to kick offenders. At the very least, a verbal reprimand is forthcoming. It is a battle I choose to fight.

The main server(s) at Don's work had contracted a virus & they closed the whole plant to clean the computers. Thank you Lord, we dodged the bullet for another day.