Good Afternoon

Took two hours to slowly saunter around removing dust.
Wind just started to gust.
But for a little while I have been sitting here enjoying the dustless environment.

Should find a fun project to get into.
Nothing interests me 😛

Steven is being extra ugly and mean because I don't want to listen to his rants.
I don't watch the news because it stresses me too much.
And I don't care about his dead friend's widow's relative problems, not my dog.

Good Morning Everyone
"Clink!"

Good luck today with catching up Subclinical. 🙂

There are still a lot of shortages here, lots of empty shelf space.
But it's not completely wiped out like it was before.
Lots of items have a limit of one or two per customer.
I'm just so grateful that there is anything at all.

When Steven had surgery for a blood clot in his leg artery he got MRSA while in the hospital.
His wound has healed but I still need to use antibacterial disinfecting products at times.
He is on blood thinners and occasionally bleeds without knowing from even a tiny break in the skin.

So glad I minimized my gardening chores!
What I still have wears me out and makes my body ache but it's not killing me to keep it up.
Plus I am still physically able to do other things too after tending to the garden and things don't take away too much time so I can do other things.

My plan for today is to wander around removing dust in the house.
The winds will be picking up over the next few days replacing any dust I remove and bringing up the wildfire danger to extreme conditions.
So happy I don't have an overabundance of random knickknacks to fuss with dusting. ;D

There are still shortages here. The stores know they will sell out to the people who come inside before the next shipment comes in.

The CVS had a two per item limit on both bleach and alcohol. I bought the last two small jugs of bleach. I thought about only taking one, but I haven't been in a store since April 13 and don't know when I will go again. Also, I know Dd1 is having trouble getting bleach, and they are more careful about disinfecting than we are and use it on a lot of surfaces. If they had had big jugs, I would have gotten one. The alcohol was actually still in its shipping box behind the counter. You had to ask for it.

I lost ground on the dishes and laundry yesterday, so my goal is to work on those and then I don't know what else. Definitely be more productive than yesterday!

Good Evening People

Glad the wisdom teeth removal went well Subclinical.
Sorry the assistant was such an idiot.
Unfortunately many of them are and Dentists put up with them because good assistants are hard to find.
I too resent being touched by random strange people and also hate when someone unknown to me calls me by my first name.

Strange they won't put bleach or rubbing alcohol in the orders.
But glad you were able to safely enter the other store to get some.
Also glad stores have been able to restock most things like that.

WTG! for dropping off donations!
That's always a freeing feeling.

Hope you get to stay home and away from people the next few weeks.

I got everything I wanted to get done today.
House looks good, could use some more dusting, as always. 🙁

Had Scooter & Twinkles out with me while watering this morning.
Jack came by and before Scooter saw him I picked Scooter up and put him inside.
Scooter saw Jack as I was carrying him and his body immediately tensed up and Scooter said a lot of mean nasty things to Jack.
Jack totally ignored Scooter but Scooter always wants to start something with Jack.

Scooter used to always hiss at Cowgirl Kitty but stopped because now as soon as she sees him she hisses first.
Scooter gets sad wondering why she always hisses at him.
Idiot animal...

Yay canopy frame!

I took Dd2 to get her teeth out. She is doing well. I dropped the library book - used a disposable napkin to open the chute. Dropped off the goodwill stuff - Opened the car up before I got the cart and cleaned my hands after touching the cart and Then closed up the car. I felt lighter after getting rid of that stuff. Had to go in the CVS, but there was only one older, masked customer and I avoided being in the same aisle. Pharmacist and cashier were masked and behind plexiglass. AND I was able to buy bleach and rubbing alcohol. The grocery store won't put those in a pick up order.

Went back and sat in my car for two hours waiting for her. The code They gave me for their internet didn't work and I didn't want to go back in the building. I was lost in thought when they came out to tell me she was done, and the person came up and started talking at my open window and I screamed I little. Then she touched my arm. Why would you just randomly touch people right now? That is one of the things I LIKE about social distancing. If you are older than 5 and I don't love you, just don't ever Touch me.

Sat with Dd while she drifted in and out for about three hours and made sure she took her medicine, then took a 3 hour nap. I was exhausted. Leaving home and being around people is even more exhausting for me than it used to be.

Well, I did everything I listed this morning except water the grass.
Also did a bunch of other miscellaneous tasks
AND scrubbed, sanitized , dried out in the sun & heat and then refilled the litter boxes.

It's 2:40pm and I still haven't eaten.
Off to find some food! 😀

Good Morning Everybody
Still morning here

Hi Tatoulia
Thanks for the drive-by 😀
Good luck with all your meetings today.

Got up and got dressed and went out and watered the garden and lilac bushes before it gets hot today.
Folded up my bedding and remade the couch.
Soon I will wash dishes and clean the kitchen.
Then I will crawl around and round up all of Scooter's toys so I can vacuum if or when Steven gets up.
Later this late afternoon/early evening I plan to water the grass.
Best for me to water grass in the evening so the sun does not magnify the water drops and burn the grass and any plants it gets on.
No worry about mold growing on the wet plants/grass here.
Plus the grass leaves have a chance to enjoy the water longer with the cooler overnight temperatures.

OK rest break is over, back to work. 😉

I'm here. Just busy with work. Cleaners came yesterday. Such a joy. All day meetings today. Will write more later

10pm.

Hi CriticalMass
Hope you are sleeping soundly.
Tomorrow morning you will be all stiff and sore.
Walk it off.
Glad you two got that canopy frame set up.
Better to sometimes sit all alone outside than always all alone inside while in quarantine.

In about 4 days you should be able to handle using scissors again and start fixing the shorts. 😉

Today I watered the trees.
Maybe tomorrow I will do something else (?)

Just popping in to say roommate and I got the framework for the patio canopy up. She used chain link fence top rail pipe. I'll try and get a picture on IG. She's going to use shade cloth for the "roof."

I used a pipe cutter tool to cut a dozen or more pipes. My hands, arms, and other muscles ache. Took aspirin. Hope tiredness will make me sleep well.

I'll work on the shorts more as soon as I can wield scissors without pain. She wanted to have the canopy as a place to sit outside when she's radioactive. Today was cooler so a good day to get it done.

Hi CriticalMass
Just finished watching "Dark Shadows, the beginning".
Sometime soon I will watch the 2 different 3 hour specials.

Good luck cutting caffeine out.
Chocolate is another thing to watch out for.

Good idea using "print friendly" to help speed up, free up the computer.

I am pretty positive EVERYBODY is all filled with stress hormones right now and the ongoing stress day after day week after week is making us all overweight and sleep deprived.

Sew your pockets!
Wear your shorts NOW!!!
Make Summer clothes a priority. It won't take long to sew in the pockets.
Yes, I am yelling. ;p

Keep chipping away at the organizing/bed freeing project.

Hi, this was going to be a driveby but it got a little longer than that. Enjoy.

I didn't go to bed till a little after 4:00 a.m. this morning. That was NOT planned! So today I'm the Walking Dead. Guess the sleep schedule struggle is not entirely over. I frequently poop out midafternoons here lately and can do nothing but nap. Wonder if it has to do with this going down on the antidepressant. I do believe it'll sort itself out but may take a week or two.

And I'm hypersensitive to caffeine even more than usual. Can't have any in the evenings, especially if I have napped. We went through the drive-thru at Arby's last night, and because it was later in the evening, I didn't want to bother making decaf iced tea at home, so I got some of theirs. Diluted it with ice, and really didn't sip that much of it, but it may still have had an effect.

Tillie, of course, Rachel - Storm Area 51! That was only last fall but boy doesn't it seem like 5 years ago now.

Enterprising crafters have started selling 2020 commemorative Dumpster Fire candles. I kid you not.

Roommate is on her laptop with a work meeting. Then we'll go do this patio project where she has the stuff to put up a shady canopy.

We got zero rain last night, dangit.

I've been on this laptop getting a few of those tabs dealt with - what I do is copy the URLs to this site called PrintFriendly. It then makes a clean copy I can either print, or hit another button and save as a PDF.

The majority of stuff I do that with is for my novel or nonfiction writing research. Plus a few topics of personal interest. I can read online or offline that way, and keep them together in files, so that when I want to write or blog on that topic, there they all are. Stuff I've "curated" via Google searches, picking the wheat from the chaff. It does entail an investment of time, but is more efficient for working later on.

The reason I keep tabs open - I do use bookmarking too, but it's like burying things out of sight out of mind. With the ADHD, I seem to need approximately 7 acres to spread things out (real papers/books or virtual either one) so I don't forget about them. And even then it's dicey. Sigh.

SubC, I did download the D&D manual PDF sometime back thinking it might help when I want to play around with character development and plot for my science fiction. I also had purchased gaming dice a few years back, for this purpose and any simple solitaire games that use them. Who knows, maybe someday I will even play D&D.

I miss having a bunch of people to play board games with. In the community I know there are some groups that meet. Something to keep in mind for the future when I get my backlog cleared out.

I think my boyfriend and his buddies probably wanted to kill off my and my girlfriend's character back in the day when we were being twits. Maybe if this boyfriend had been a better person I would've been interested. I dunno.

Back then, too, I had not fully embraced my geekiness. I'd gotten into science fiction in high school after seeing "Star Wars" but then in college there was academic snobbery against genre writing, so I tried to comply with that and stuff down my inner nerd again. Now I'm too old to give a hoot, and am not trying to make it in academia either. I'm free to like what I like!

Rats may evolve to take over the planet when humankind is no more! Along with cockroaches.

Hope the wisdom teeth removal goes off without a hitch and recovery is swift and minimal or no pain. I was surprised when I had that tooth out in February how I didn't really have pain - but that one was about to come out on its own I think.

I have gained another pound - RATS. I'm not into a radical change of diet at this time, but I can sort of join my roommate in eating less while she endures her low iodine diet - solidarity might help both of us. And extra episodes of Dark Shadows if we can fit them in. We do enjoy that show!

All the stress going on in society, I wouldn't be surprised if that has made my body full of cortisol and more prone to pack on the pounds, and I have been snacking more than I should, no denying it. I can do something about that. Calmly and with empowerment, not feeling resentful, and sort of sneaking it past my resistance. Got to get in the chill headspace to do it.

Still working on getting the room in order then I can get the rest of the stuff off the bed - right now it literally has no place to go. I've been able to get some of it off and be able to stretch out a bit more. This is such a crazy way to live. All I can do is chip away at it...

Yesterday I did manage to try my new scheme with where to store office supplies. Some bugs to work out yet, but I think it'll ultimately work. I guess I mentioned that in my other post. What I did so far with it enabled me to make progress in my room. There's much more to go, but if I keep going I may get in the groove with it all.

Last night while watching TV I did some more cutting up of old T-shirts which will provide fabric to enlarge the pockets of my cotton knit shorts. Who knows, maybe I will even get them sewn and be able to wear the shorts before winter? This is my life.

Well, as you can see, my tired mind tends toward rambling. As I've entered into this run-up toward the two weeks of her diet (and my sorta diet, LOL), I'm going to find more little projects like the T-shirts.

Good Morning Everybody
What nice long posts 😀

Hi CriticalMass
Of course we have many UFO nutters. Rachel Nevada is where area 51 is. LOL 😀
The thrift shop is full of Tshirts and coffee cups and other touristy crap from there.

Yep, multitasking, many open and running tabs/windows will surely slow down any computer.
All the different programs are still running in the background.
Try sticking some of them in "favorites" or bringing them back up from "history" to free up computer speed.

WTG! for clearing off the bed and sleeping there!

It's not so bad once you two settle into her isolation routine and it will be over pretty quickly too.
Every day she will be less radioactive than she was the day before.

Post when you can, even a fast drive-by is appreciated. (((HUG)))

Hi Subclinical
Yes, rats are freakin smart and learn by other's mistakes.
Most rat poison is warfarin/coumadin based and it takes a little while for the rats to internally bleed to death, far enough away from the source.
Good luck and best wishes for a great outcome.

I used to play D&D.
One night Dan was whining about how he didn't want to play and was being an irritant.
So when it was my turn I killed his character.
That way he could leave us to play in peace.

Wishing Dd2 all the best with the wisdom teeth (((HUG)))
Your plan for dropping off donations sounds like a very safe way to do it.

Wonderful rule to get things out!
Never leave home empty handed and always return home without it. 😉

Supposed to get into the mid 80s today before getting into the 90s by tomorrow.
Today I need to clean the kitchen before it gets out of control.
Should do something more but I just don't care about anything any more.

Good morning!

CM, so nice to have a long post from you! I will remember not to worry if you are missing fir a while.

I'm glad you are sleeping in your bed again. Maybe that would be a good goal for This medical challenge period - to only take things off of your bed and not put anything on it even for a minute so that you have a safe, comfortable place to get enough sleep.

I started playing D&D when I was 12. By college I was playing for hours almost every weekend. Sometimes the whole weekend. Some games ran all night. Then I graduated, got a husband and a day job, and left it all behind. The books sat on my shelf for years and I didn't even teach my kids how to play.

When the guy who ran the D&D club at school decided to leave for seminary, my administration was struggling to replace him. I happened into the office and one of them said "(Subclinical), you don't know anything about Dungeons and Dragons do you?" Long story short, I ended up coming home and emailing my best friend "you're not going to believe this, but I'm going to get paid for playing D&D!"

It has been really fun. The hardest part is remembering that my gamers are my students, not my friends.

Anyway, survey results are: an hour a session, or six, afternoons, or evenings (no), once a week, or every day, high level, or moderate, off the wall characters, or standard, Stand alone, or integrated with the school year universe. Cooperative. It should definitely be cooperative. If they were going to agree on only one thing, I guess I'm happy that they don't want to fight each other. It took me long enough to teach them not to do that!

Tillie, good job on your diddlysquat!

The rats won't go near the rat traps anymore. I watched one come in along the base of the wall, get close to a snap trap filled with yummy peanut butter, turn, and run. They are too smart. I hope the poison kills them slowly enough and far enough from the feeder station that they don't figure it out.

Paperwork this morning. Rain this afternoon. Dd2 is coming tonight to stay with us for a few days. I am Taking her to get her wisdom teeth out tomorrow. I think I will drop off my library book and maybe take things to goodwill. I would roll a cart out to my car, put the things in it, and roll the cart back. Then I would clean my hands afterwards. It seems ok.

I have made a new rule that I don't leave the house unless I take something with me that doesn't come back. (Yesterday it was the trash, which I tossed in the trash can next to the gas pump)

Post 2

Trying something different - Chromium browser instead of Firefox (in which I have too many tabs open because I can't get time to deal with them). And a quick text edit app to save a copy of what I'm posting, instead of having to open up LibreOffice, in which I also have too many open documents that I can't ever get closure on. Computer techie stuff blah blah blah...

I SO need to be living by myself to even have any hope of working uninterrupted. But it isn't meant to be at this time, so I do the best I can. If it weren't for Covid-19, I'd be jetting off to the library frequently, getting at least some of my creative and researching business taken care of on their fast computers, leaving less to deal with on my slow one at home.

If only I could make the slow one be faster, able to deal with the way I need to work. Because I don't see my brain changing and becoming less full of ideas - and I wouldn't want to. My ideas are my hope for doing good in the world, having fun, and maybe even making some money again.

Okay. Rant over.

What I wanted to post about earlier - yesterday now - was that I had started the reorganizing in the bedroom, rearranging my office supplies to be more accessible. It had been tentative, because I had to see if they'd fit where I wanted to put them.

Well, then I got interrupted by roommate wanting to go to the grocery store and my van was parked behind her car. But as I have needed to go to the store too, I drove us both there. The unexpected interruption sort of blew my train of thought and motivation re the organizing, though. Plus after getting home and eating a turkey sandwich I got sleepy and ended up taking another nap.

I did, however, get the bed cleared off enough to sleep in there - if I am not up all night getting this post typed. I had been on the sofa 2-3 nights due to having set things on the bed while rearranging.

It seems the sacrifice of seeing her through these next couple of weeks has begun already. I don't mean to sound so petulant about it. I'm trying to accept the necessity of sacrifice - after all, it is so much better than the thought of her having to suffer through a lengthy and difficult thing like chemo, and with a less certain prognosis. Once we survive this, these sacrifices will look quite worth it from the other side.

Human nature, being what it is, though, tends to exaggerate the feeling of inconvenience and struggle.

We did get a break from the heat. This evening a cold front blew through and the temp is now 59. I hope we'll get rain - there was this huge radar display of rain across the whole state, but now it seems to be drifting northward. We have 5 rain barrels that are empty. It'll be back up to 96 degrees by Monday, too, so if we don't get the barrels filled, it'll be city water to keep the gardens going.

It's not really so terrible, but I know my roommate is tense about this treatment coming up, and I want to be supportive. It has been a wearying year. I sure pray and hope this might be the last big complicated thing for awhile.

And I should probably say at this point that we're heading into uncharted waters, so if I post even less frequently until the end of the month, don't worry. I hope I will get to post almost as often as I have been, though. I like to, and it's easier to keep up with everyone that way.

Took another nap today. Midafternoon slumps have been frequent lately, maybe it's been the heat.

So I'm up late posting this, which I'd wanted to do so much earlier in the day. On my computer which was behaving okay when I first turned it on, but is now being a little slow. So I'm going to do more than one post, and am keeping my fingers crossed I'll be able to get what I want to say posted before I hit the wall and have to shut 'er down.

I hadn't thought about people being home also affecting computers, Tillie, that's a good point. Although I think for me the most likely culprit is my multitasking. But it's hard to say 100% as I'm only a junior grade geek in that area.

So you have local UFO nutters - I guess that goes with the territory in NV & NM, eh? I've found in doing my UFO research for my satirical novel that it's often difficult to determine what angle a given person is coming at it from. Books from the 80s and 90s are actually my primary source, as that's the timeframe for the UFO related part of the plot.

I'm glad of that. Videos and websites and social media these days on the subject are way more confusing. I look at a little bit of it, but as I say, it gets to the point where Joe Blow is debunking Moe Schmoe's debunking of Bo Crow's debunking of... aaand I'm lost! Can't keep track of who's who and what each one's position is.

Hope Steven was able to get anything that might've had bedbugs off the property and not carry any in on his person or clothing. Let him deal with his own rats, LOL.

The D&D game sounds interesting SubC. My first boyfriend was into D&D in the early 80s, and got me and a girlfriend to try it but we were not in the mood to learn how to play it seriously so we were snarky and annoying. It's amazing how far RPGs have come in the present day. I don't know if I'd be good at keeping track of what's going on, though. Plotting is my bugbear in my own writing.
But I bet your students will be way more familiar with gaming than I was, and enjoy it.

Okay, I am going to have to abruptly end this post, shut everything down and reboot, and make a second post, maybe more. This is beyond annoying.

Good Evening Everybody

Hi Subclinical
WTG! you did a lot!

OK yeah, that bar by the little town sounds interesting. ;p

Glad your tomato plants are all in the ground.
Wishing you great luck with all your veggies.

Relieved you safely got your Goat meds, gasoline and rat poison.
With only 10 cases found here so far, many people are going mask-less.
Wish they wouldn't.

I use those really big rat snap traps when a rat starts living under the house, gnawing on the beams and electrical wires.
Steven wants me to get the rats & mice that are out in his hoard.
I refuse, say "let them live, the snakes need to eat too".

Managed to accomplish diddlysquat today.
Been sitting watching stuff on the Roku.
Made and ate a salad and also a whole bunch of pure crap.

Did do the usual everyday cat related tasks.
Had to, the cats are slave drivers.

So Tillie, did you work on doing the nothing you haven't finished?;)

My kids are giving me suggestions all over the map. It's like trying to pick a restaurant with my family!

I planted the last of my tomato plants - they will be happy to be out of the pots! Washed and dried a load of laundry and washed and put away a load of dishes.

Unloaded the car but didn't take the stuff out from the scullery. Dh says the car is ok to drive and is putting off the oil change.

I drove to the little town away from the city (in a county with very few cases) and restocked my goat medicine cabinet and bought rat poison using curb side service. Then I filled my gas tank, sanitized my hands, and drove home. I wore my mask, but I didn't see another single person wearing one. The bar by the highway had a big sheet out front spray painted "no mask, no pants, no problem!"

Still need to do my school receipts/notes/class proposal by 11 tomorrow.

Good Morning Everyone

So sorry Subclinical about the rats & fox

I have seen some good youtube videos on mice that have given me ideas of things to try.
Maybe there are rat videos that have good ideas?
So scary when having to resort to poison and trying to keep other creatures safe (((HUG)))

Best of luck with all your plans for today.

An ongoing game of D&D sounds like fun.
Good luck Dungeon Mistress! 😉

I have no idea what I will do today or if I will do anything.

Well, they came out and stood. Everything is relative.

The fox came back. It went badly (not for the fox)

Also, I went back out to the barn for something I forgot late last night. I now have a better understanding of the scope of the rat problem. It, going to have to resort to poison. This makes me more sad and more angry. I have to figure out how to do it safely.

I got an email from my boss. We are going to have a 4 week online summer program starting in mid July. Teachers are invited to submit proposals. By tomorrow. Planning does not seem to be a strong point right now.

I am going to run a D&D game. Dh is not sure this is a good idea, but I told him gaming is different. I will not set the schoolroom back up. I will figure out another place the Internet works and leave the gaming table set up for 4 weeks because I don't have to switch things around. I sent an email out to my kids asking for guidance on what I should offer.

Today I am going to unload all the school pottery stuff from my car into the studio barn - it will make a mess. I am also going to move school pottery stuff out of my scullery where I have parked it. Dh is going to change my oil after work, so I will hang out with him while he does that (car work happens in the studio barn which is also the shop) and sort through some of it.

Finish my school receipts so I can ask how to submit them during my end of year meeting tomorrow, and make other notes for the meeting.

At least one load of laundry and one of dishes.

Plant something.

That may be enough.

Well, that was pathetic...

The march consisted of about 30 white people hanging out in front of the old no longer used courthouse.
The old courthouse is just an historical building, around the corner is the actual courthouse.
Across the street were a group of people exercising their right to open carry.
No big deal we ALL carry open and concealed around here.
The Jesus freak who always stands on the street corner with a megaphone telling us we are all sinners and are going to hell.

Yep, just the usual weirdos, nothing new or newsworthy.

Good Evening Everybody

YEA!!! WTG!!! Subclinical! 😀
Very happy the table is back where it lives, the rug is back and the floor cleaned!
Hoping this helps with the PTSD. (((HUG)))

WOOHOO! for all the weeding done!

Been keeping busy all day.
Went out and watered the garden and since he was gone and out of my way, showered & washed my hair.
Then I washed all the linens and my clothing.
Been watering the grass this afternoon.
In between have been doing some of this & that.

Warmed up to 70F in the sunshine.
Tomorrow is supposed to be 44/77.

The den is a den again!

I put the table back where it normally lives, and I swept and scrubbed the floor (Man was that floor dirty!), and I rolled the rug back out. I would like to have washed the rug, but the hose is not hooked up and I need three or four hot dry days in a row to dry it. Maybe in July.

I finished weeding the garden today, but I haven't planted anything else.

Tillie, I'm glad some trash has left your property.

Tatoulia, I know that jangly, out of sorts feeling. I hope you find a way to get centered again.

Good Morning Everybody

Hi Subclinical
WAY TO GO! on all the garden work!
Happy you spent time with your hands in the soil. 🙂

YEA! that the traumatic video classroom will soon be erased from your sight.

Glad some people are moving away from those disposable baby wipes.
Back in the old days I bought a stack of lightweight cotton wash cloths for that job and used only cloth diapers.
The baby never once had any diaper related rashes and nothing ever went in a landfill.

When I was a kid raising my sisters
it was always a good day when at the end of the day they were still alive and basically fed and healthy.

Angry and sad these days is understandable (((((HUG)))))

Hi Tatoulia
Would taking something at bedtime help calm your inner "offness"?
Are you getting enough good sleep?
Do you think it's the work work load stressing you the most?
Get some healthy fresh easy to assemble food.
That way you have something to eat without having to cook so maybe you will eat regularly.
Try to take some time off, time to move slower without any time limits on you.
Feel better (((HUG)))

Steven put the 3 big trash bags in the truck along with my bags of household trash from the outside can and took it all to the dump.

His truck is always a mobile squalorous hoard. Nobody could sit on the passenger side because it's packed so full of stuff and garbage.
Last few days I have been seeing him out there working on decluttering the passenger side of the truck.
(?)
The truck bed has a cap on it and he always has a massive hoard in there too.
Only a 1 foot area near the gate is clear enough to put the trash in there, if he stacks it high.
He's also been fussing with stuff in the back part of the truck.
(?)
For months now he spends many hours out in the driveway just sitting in the truck playing on his phone.
I believe because it's more comfortable than in the filthy garbage filled garage full of mice and bugs or his bedroom where I do not allow alcohol or smoking.

Todays lows are in the lower 30s and the high should be in the lower 60s.
I might water the garden later if the winds are not too vigorous.
I'm cold and the cats are cold too.

Oh no Tillie. Oh no.

I'm hanging on by a thread again today. I don't know what to do with myself. I'll need to get groceries today. I need to figure out food. I just don't feel like myself and I don't know how else to explain it.

I hear you, SubC. Just trying to go to bed and wake up for the next day. It was cool enough to sleep with windows open last night. And that was terrific.

I just have so much work to do. I'm thinking of taking a few hours off today. Maybe go to grocery store before running errands with BF. I don't know. I hate feeling this way. So unsatisfying.

Tatoulia, I hope that you are feeling better today. It's good that you found something to do that helps with your stress.

Thank you for going to the protest. I am not brave enough to go to the protests. I'm not afraid of the police, but I am afraid if the germs.

CM, I confess to not understanding a single thing you say about computers. Mine is a magic video typewriter book. But I hope you figure out whatever you are struggling with.

When my kids were little, there were many days that I declared a success because they all went to bed healthy, happy, and fed. Not always clean, but healthy, happy, and fed. And by "happy" I don't mean "I had a great day" happy, I mean not angry, sad, or scared. My bar for success is currently lower than that for me. I will take healthy, not hungry, and not too upset to sleep. I think angry and sad are going to be with me for a while.

Mr. kitty liked to sleep on wooden chairs when it is hot. Last night he was sleeping in the rocker inside and Flat Cat was lying in the grass outside the windows staring at us.

We have bluebirds. I think they are nesting in the woodpecker holes in the dead ash trees. Nature doesn't waste anything. There are two males that have been having a little territorial spat right outside my window the last week.

Tillie, where did the three bags of garbage go?

I hope you don't get bedbugs! I don't know how you could get rid of them with Steven's room.

Yesterday I pulled weeds. The garden is almost at baseline - two more little beds to weed this morning and then maybe I will plant some more. It is getting late to plant, but I'm an optimist. I made myself a rule to weed before I plant this year so that I don't put in more than I can manage and lose control of it again. The whole garden space completely went to weeds two years ago, and I planted a little last year without really clearing the space and lost control, but this year I have almost 1/3 of what I had when the kids lived here looking good. I am eating lettuce and radishes and my peas are blooming. Working in the garden is a meditation for me. Gardening and working in clay. There is a little Shaker in me.

Also yesterday I cleared the floor in the dining porch and put the chairs back (they were stashed in the little bedroom, which has become a storage room.) Today I will vacuum the carpet where the chairs were (the little bedroom is the only space in my house with carpet) and put the "school table" back in there where it usually lives. Then I will clean the floor in the den and roll the braided rug back out and my house will be classroom free.

I am behind on dishes and laundry again.

And I have taken on a sewing project. Dd asked me to make them baby wipes, so I have to go through my fabric stash and find all the little pieces of flannel.

Good Evening

Hi Tatoulia
Jays are fun birds to watch.
Last time I watered my grass a yellow Jay kept zooming through the water catching a shower. 😀

Happy you felt well enough to join the march.

Scooter is still asleep on the white cotton sheet.

WTG! for all the work work you did!

Reason I decided to focus on sandwiches and salads is because I don't feel like cooking.
It's usually a good time of year for it except today with it being so cold again here.

YEA! for finishing the crosswords!
Pencil puzzles help our brains.

There will be a protest march here by the county buildings tomorrow.
For some reason a group of 2nd amendment rights activists say they will hold their own directly across the street from them.
These are the same yahoos that frequently report to the Sheriff UFO interference, conspiracies and abductions.
We all know who they are. 😛

Steven's dead friend's crazy hypochondriac widow is not allowed to go to the hospital or clinic any more.
She is infested with bedbugs now.
That's the place Steven has been in when all the relatives were there fighting and the Sheriff was called and another time when she had people coming by to remove his dead friend's hoard of expired zombie apocalypse food.
I am now wondering if this is the reason/motivation why he just removed 3 large bags of garbage from his bedroom???

I watched two blue jays pull apart a neighbor's window box today. They don't have any flowers in it. I was sitting at my dining room table and just watched them.

Bf came over and gave me the NYTimes magazine so I did the crossword. Finished it in one sitting (rare). Didn't love it but that's fine. Last week's was an A+ even though it was harder.

So there was a march in Boston today and I marched. It was nice and peaceful and large. I saw a bunch of my neighbors who were watching it. Now I'm showered to get all the COVID19 off of me.

Cm you are doing a great job with your approach for your roommate's thyroid treatment. Go easy on yourself!

My cleaners come in Wednesday so I'd like to spend some time Tuesday shredding papers.

I'm laying down peacefully right now. And the my little buddy is on her freshly washed cotton tablecloth. I ended up doing three loads of laundry.

I'm hungry but don't feel like cooking. I had thought we were going to run errands today but then the protest was going to keep us from being able to travel in a car. So I joined ?em.

I did a good deal of work work today. I'll feel better facing tmr knowing that I got some work done over the weekend. Still a heavy load.

Good Afternoon Everybody

Hi CriticalMass
Another thing that is really bogging down people's computers these days is that so many people are at home all the time.
Working online, playing computer games, streaming Netflix or just surfing the web.

Yes, make no big plans until Roommate is out of her radiation quarantine.
I remember living with Steven's was very time consuming for me with logistics and him trying to break the rules.

WAY TO GO! storing the DVDs better.
Little fixes like that make things much easier.
Good luck with your little bedroom organizing plans.

Hi Tatoulia
Thanks 😀

WTG! getting Miss Kitty's winter things washed and stored away.
I recently put a white cotton sheet on the rocking chair and both the cats just love it.
Scooter is napping there right now.

Glad today you have better weather.
No more walks when it's too hot and humid.
Hope you feel better real soon (((HUG)))

Lucky you having a thunderstorm.
YEA! for showering without cat help! ;D

Warmer inside now but I still want my socks on.
The wind is very robust, knocking branches off the trees.
Saw an Oriole this morning. Impossible to miss seeing that bright orange bird.

Hi all

Another hot day here. Both my roommate and I said about an hour ago we weren't going to take naps. Shortly thereafter she went into her room, and I was getting sleepy. So in a few minutes I'm going to take a nap too. LOL.

I thought of a place I could stack some small tubs of DVDs in my room that I had piled awkwardly, so I did that. It's a relief, because where they'd been stacked was blocking access to the art shelves I'd been happy about getting organized a few months ago.

Think I'll work on another area where office supplies are kept - things aren't efficient because some items are shoved back more out of reach than they need to be. It'll be an easy fix and I'll be glad to have done it.

Little things, that don't consume vast amounts of energy in the hot weather, but that hopefully will constitute small successes and encourage me to tackle the more challenging areas of my room.

Tillie, I confess I'm terrible about not shutting down my computer till I'm forced to. It's this frenzied brain of mine that wants to open so many tabs and also mutitasks between research online and writing I do in the word processing, and/or graphics and photoshopping or art. Plus still just trying to organize the file directories and things in this new-to-me laptop.

I did check when this Dell model came out - 2011. Not much newer than my dearly departed Toshiba. It was considered a "mobile workstation" not just a laptop, and was supposedly quite a powerful machine for its time. Refurbished, I wish I'd asked more questions as to whether there were upgrades done before these are sold and what those were. I may still be able to find out more about that.

The thing is, I used to be able to get away with this style of computing on Windows for years up till just the last few months or so on the Toshiba, when the motherboard was failing. So I don't know. The Linux operating system is hard to know what questions to ask about when you're a newbie to it, because there are so many different ways to customize it I guess. Users who know their way around amaze me. Even with newbie questions I read on help boards, the answers - sometimes the questions themselves as well - go right over my head! I need Linux Kindergarten.

But it's behaving itself better today, so yay.

SubC, you hit the nail on the head about the executive functioning. And I sure hope you're recovered okay from the panic attack. Sometimes they come when the stress is letting up, just like a person will get sick after a long time of stress. That holding on, then finally not holding on anymore to health, because the energy is depleted. It will return.

My roommate's treatment approacheth, and I've realized that to survive the logistics of that with my sanity and hers intact, I should be very low key re goals till the end of the month. Otherwise I'm just going to obsess about what I'm being thwarted in getting done, and start to feel grumpy about it. This is not the time. Realizing that wasn't thrilling but it will be helpful. I'll lower the bar to 1" off the ground if that's what it takes.

Tillie, I'm glad you got a cool day in there. What a relief. Our heat is supposed to break a little by Tuesday.

Tatoulia, sending you a big hug and bunnies send wiggle nose twitches to cheer you.

Iced tea clinks, and now I will shut the computer down completely so it can stay happy. 😀