Attempting to return to normal
Jul. 17th, 2022 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillWell, Dad and Jake went home on Friday. It was a good visit and we all had more fun than I expected given the whole being still tired from Covid thing.
Now I’m trying to get back into my routine. I’m not really up to speed yet but I’m doing better, I think. I have been using a journal to try to keep track of projects I want to do around the house and upcoming trips and commitments for my various volunteer hats and such, and I think it was quite helpful in the weeks before I caught Covid so I’m getting back to that. The journal is also helpful for writing down various things I want to do next time Dad and Jake come so I can get reservations for the bus tour of Oak Ridge or Steam Train tickets before they are all sold out. I also want to check out some semi-local attractions to see if Dad might like them. One of the minor disappointments of our visit was the Asheville Museum of Science which claimed to have a model of the French Broad (that’s a river) water table, that turned out to be a very generic model that could have been any river, suitable for small children to play with rubber duckies in. We drove an hour and a half to get there. Now there was the Coburn Hall of Minerals, which was fairly cool, so it wasn’t a dead loss, but I would prefer to avoid future surprises of that sort. So I guess I’m going to do the advance scout thing, which will probably be fun and interesting, and lower pressure when it’s just me, or just me and Kip.
The journal also contains numerous minor (and major) house chores and repairs I want to do over the next year. There are things about this house that we’ve been living with for years (the shelf with screws sticking up through it, for example) that would be fairly easy to fix, and when I run across one I open my journal and write it down. So far I have a full page of them. The bigger projects—e.g. installing ceiling fans in the rooms that don’t have them—will have to wait a month or two, but some of them are simple things like “scrub mailbox” or “vacuum fans” that could happen now.
Speaking of which, I got leaf guards to install on my patio roof; they actually arrived a few days before I caught Covid, but I hadn’t gotten around to installing them. It looks like that will be fairly straightforward thing that I can do by myself, except that I will need the right size and thread and type etc of screw to do that, so I’m in the process of gathering that information. I only need 40 screws but I need them to be the right kind.
Kip’s car needed new tires and I got two last month and am getting two this week.
My old swim suit was too small, so I ordered a new one yesterday, since Lands End emailed me about this big swimsuit sale they were having. It’s a combination of a tankini top and a pair of swim shorts so it looks like it will be pretty comfortable and it also has pockets. I had to take my purse when we went swimming at Cherokee dam last week, because otherwise I had nothing to put my car keys in. Now obviously I won’t go into the water with my car keys, because I have one of those transponder fobs now and I’m pretty sure they aren’t waterproof. But I can put the car keys on my towel while I’m swimming as long as I don’t have to carry them in my hands all the time I’m out of the water.
Tomorrow will be a less packed Monday than usual, since the morning music get together is cancelled, but that is probably all to the good, since I am still trying to build up my endurance.
Kip and I are planning to eat less meat in the upcoming month, and also to eat more meals like beans and carrot burgers and omelettes, because we naturally kind of toss dietary restraint out the window while we have company over. I have plotted out dinner menus for the next couple of weeks that I think will work. I do have a waffle maker now so probably at least one of those meals will be waffles.
We are catching up on laundry—mostly washing those clothes that Dad and Jake leave here between visits, so they can take smaller carry-ons.
Now I’m trying to get back into my routine. I’m not really up to speed yet but I’m doing better, I think. I have been using a journal to try to keep track of projects I want to do around the house and upcoming trips and commitments for my various volunteer hats and such, and I think it was quite helpful in the weeks before I caught Covid so I’m getting back to that. The journal is also helpful for writing down various things I want to do next time Dad and Jake come so I can get reservations for the bus tour of Oak Ridge or Steam Train tickets before they are all sold out. I also want to check out some semi-local attractions to see if Dad might like them. One of the minor disappointments of our visit was the Asheville Museum of Science which claimed to have a model of the French Broad (that’s a river) water table, that turned out to be a very generic model that could have been any river, suitable for small children to play with rubber duckies in. We drove an hour and a half to get there. Now there was the Coburn Hall of Minerals, which was fairly cool, so it wasn’t a dead loss, but I would prefer to avoid future surprises of that sort. So I guess I’m going to do the advance scout thing, which will probably be fun and interesting, and lower pressure when it’s just me, or just me and Kip.
The journal also contains numerous minor (and major) house chores and repairs I want to do over the next year. There are things about this house that we’ve been living with for years (the shelf with screws sticking up through it, for example) that would be fairly easy to fix, and when I run across one I open my journal and write it down. So far I have a full page of them. The bigger projects—e.g. installing ceiling fans in the rooms that don’t have them—will have to wait a month or two, but some of them are simple things like “scrub mailbox” or “vacuum fans” that could happen now.
Speaking of which, I got leaf guards to install on my patio roof; they actually arrived a few days before I caught Covid, but I hadn’t gotten around to installing them. It looks like that will be fairly straightforward thing that I can do by myself, except that I will need the right size and thread and type etc of screw to do that, so I’m in the process of gathering that information. I only need 40 screws but I need them to be the right kind.
Kip’s car needed new tires and I got two last month and am getting two this week.
My old swim suit was too small, so I ordered a new one yesterday, since Lands End emailed me about this big swimsuit sale they were having. It’s a combination of a tankini top and a pair of swim shorts so it looks like it will be pretty comfortable and it also has pockets. I had to take my purse when we went swimming at Cherokee dam last week, because otherwise I had nothing to put my car keys in. Now obviously I won’t go into the water with my car keys, because I have one of those transponder fobs now and I’m pretty sure they aren’t waterproof. But I can put the car keys on my towel while I’m swimming as long as I don’t have to carry them in my hands all the time I’m out of the water.
Tomorrow will be a less packed Monday than usual, since the morning music get together is cancelled, but that is probably all to the good, since I am still trying to build up my endurance.
Kip and I are planning to eat less meat in the upcoming month, and also to eat more meals like beans and carrot burgers and omelettes, because we naturally kind of toss dietary restraint out the window while we have company over. I have plotted out dinner menus for the next couple of weeks that I think will work. I do have a waffle maker now so probably at least one of those meals will be waffles.
We are catching up on laundry—mostly washing those clothes that Dad and Jake leave here between visits, so they can take smaller carry-ons.
