SIX YEARS WITHOUT STEWEY. I MISS HIM.

 

OH....BEAUTY!!

 

LAST DAY OF SPINSTERCATION

Hello, Dearies!

I'm enjoying my first hot cup of damn good under one of my Snoopy blankets, and trying not to pay attention to all of the shoulds in my tiny little brain. I have a little less than twenty-four hours of being completely inert, and I think I'm going to enjoy them.

I completed another full season of the damn Housewives last night...this time Beverly Hills...and I'm all done now. It's back to The Crown and Downton Abbey I go. The distraction was fine for a minute, but three or four days of that really does one's brain in a bit, so it's best to indulge in very small and infrequent doses (in my humble opinion).

Laundry does need to be done, but just a few loads of odds and ends, and they can splosh while I finish reading the paper. As for all of those other projects I had hoped to complete these last two weeks....well, they'll just have to wait for a nice long snowy Saturday while JB watches his football and I'm twitching for something to do.

Happy Friday, my friends. I hope your weekend is exactly what you want it to be! Come tell me all about it!

IT TOOK ME A MINUTE, BUT I FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT

So here I am again in the big girl sleigh bed, reading the papers, having my damn good, and watching the world go by in the sunshine. I was trying to figure out why this makes me so darn happy, when it kinda hit me.

When I was in Indianapolis after getting BellyBean, I spent hours and hours and hours sitting in bed with the paper or my iPad thingie or a book or nothing at all, and I looked out the window and felt the sun on my face and I was so...peaceful and happy and full of a feeling of gratitude and safety and just sheer happy bliss.

(I'm pretty sure industrial strength pharmaceuticals had a lot to do with that, but nevertheless....)

So I sit here in the big girl sleigh bed and those feelings wash over me, and I am so very glad that they're still there. I've got the laundry sploshing away in the laundry machine, I'm finishing my healthy little breakfast/lunch of a banana, blueberries, and a yogurt, and the day is unfolding in front of me.

Chicken gyros for dinner tonight, and with any luck I'll get my salad things prepared for the rest of the week. How do you store your salad stuff so that it stays fresh for several days, Dearies? I'm really trying to learn how to meal prep, but the storage of veg completely eludes me.

I'll leave you with my latest fancypants nails. These are called "Caramel Apple" and are from Lily & Fox:

HAPPY PLACE

 

This is the Fall equivalent of sitting by the pool, I think. It dawned on me this morning that I enjoy sitting in the big girl sleigh bed in the mornings because I can bask in the gorgeous sunlight and I can watch the world outside.

So I think this might become an everyday ritual, and not just a weekend thing.

Laundry day today, but I'm in no hurry to get moving. I'm feeling particularly lazy and indulgent, and think I might just stop to-doing for a minute and remember how hard I wished for days like this when I was sitting in the dialysis chair.

On that note, I will wish you Dearies a very happy Monday, and I hope you have your own moments of peaceful bliss anytime you want them or need them this week. What does that look like for you? Come tell me all about it!

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER...SUNDAY MORNING HANGOVER (EDITED!)

OK, Dearies....it would appear that my humor fell completely flat. I just received about a dozen emails begging me not to drink and be reckless with my new belly bean.

For the record. I do not drink alcohol in any form whatsoever, because I was told not to do so.

My hangover is of the Spinster variety and comes from flipping back and forth between screaming housewives, the Phillies losing the World Series, and my Irish beating the #5 team in the country and then taking the field.

I think I need to learn to use my words better, and probably should have said that my Sunday morning is a bit blurry because I had so much excitement and emotional upheaval last night. Nothing more.

Cool?

 

THE SPINSTER ABOUT TOWN

Well, good morning, Dearies!

Today, I am doing my very best to impersonate an actual live functioning adult. I have outside clothings on, my old lady sneakers are doing their thing, and I'm remembering to smile and breathe.

In that order.

I started at the lab for my twice-monthly kidney workup, and now I am sitting in the Panera trying not to look like a crackpot spinster slurping damn good and eating a sesame bagel, while furiously typing away on my iPad thingie, that I was smart enough to bring.

From here I'm heading to the car wash (if it doesn't rain), then to the Targets to get my glasses adjusted, FedEx to return a big bag of clothes from the big lady store (that were, ironically, too big), then off to the Goodwill to finally get rid of the two bags of clothes I purged from the closet.

Last.

Year.

My Cottage Care lovies are doing their thing, so when I finally return home to CS2, everything will be puffed and fluffed and sparkly clean and disinfected to within an inch of its life. It might not be Amish woman on a rant clean, but it will definitely be better than I could do in my decrepitude.

So I did a thing and started watching those Damn Housewives again. This time it's the Salt Lake City variety, and despite my very best attempts to do so, I have been unable to tear my eyes away. The good news is that I am, in fact, stitching while watching, so it's not a total and complete loss.  I tuned in because the news was sending me under the covers too much, but now that I'm knee deep into the drama....I wonder.  Is it possible that these Damn Housewives are no longer a guilty escape and actually WORSE than the news?

I did another dumb thing in addition to figuring out the Peacock app on the TeeVee.

I've recently joined the Notre Dame Club of St Joe Valley (my local Alumni Association club), and in the process of re-connecting myself to my beloved Alma Mater, I downloaded a copy of my transcript. Warning: If you were an absolute mess as a student (like Yours Truly), and you managed to get that big piece of paper that says you graduated by the skin of your teeth, don't go looking for humiliation by re-living your academic past.

What in the heck was I thinking? My adult self looked at my second semester Freshman year and said "How in the h-e-double hockey sticks did you decide to take THAT schedule of classes?!"  I took seven hundred and fifty thousand credit hours, and the class list was: Biology, Economics, Calculus, Geology, Sociology, Psychology, and Gym.

Um. Spinster? You wanted to be a lawyer. You love to read and write and look at pretty things. Why in the world would you have subjected yourself to that kind of failure?

Well, fail I did. I returned home to ElPaso (where Mom and Dad were living at the time) on academic probation, completely mortified, and begging them to let me go back to Lima, marry my high school boyfriend, and raise chickens.

Fortunately for me, my Dad really was the smartest guy in the room, because he peered over the top of the newspaper and said "Do your thing, CJ. If that's what you need to do to be happy...go right ahead and let us know how it works out for you."

So I ran to the phone and called my high school boyfriend, who told me that his parents had an old trainer in a field somewhere that we could have to live in, and I said that was great, and then realized that Lima was a very long bus ride from ElPaso, so I had better get a job and make some cash for the bus ticket.

I went to work at Domino's Pizza in the telephone service center taking pizza orders. It took me about six minutes to realize that my fellow pizza order takers weren't there because they got their feelings hurt in college or because they didn't like living in a dorm.  These people were there because they had families to support, or because they didn't have the option to go to college, or because they weren't an ignorant, spoiled, clueless, stupid brat that thought "Notre Dame is just too hard".

My heiney went back to campus and planted itself in class and the library and a tiny little apartment, and it never took the experience of being there for granted ever again. (Let's not get it twisted....I was still a complete and total disaster as a student, but I tried hard and listened and really really gave it my best shot.)

Hmmmm. What is it about this Panera-sitting that sent me down THAT particular rabbit hole, I wonder?

OK, Dearies. On with the weekend. I'm going to get home, crawl back into inside clothes, get the Damn Housewives on the TeeVee, and stitch my eyeballs out. Groceries are coming at 3:00, and tonight's dinner plan is to make another lovely salad. Tomorrow I'm making a tiny little crockpot full of chili with cornbread biscuits, and on Sunday and all next week, it's going to be all about grilled chicken....grilled chicken gyros, grilled chicken salads, and grilled chicken with roasted veg.

I hope your very own weekend is exactly as you would wish it to be. I hope your heart sings and your skirt twirls all over the place. Come tell me all about it!

BABY STEPS

 

Yesterday was...interesting. I made the mistake of staying up until 3am the night before, like a little kid who is without supervision, so everything was very "blurry" all day. I went to the dermatologist for a check of a spot on my collarbone that was bothering me, and she said "Oh, that's not good" , cut it off, sent it for biopsy, and gave me a sucker for being brave.

(And she did all of this while wearing a full body, head to toe, Minnie Mouse costume.)

(It was Halloween, after all, but I bet I'm the only person in the history of the world to have had a surgical procedure performed by Minnie Mouse.)

The rest of the day was a total bust, but later that evening, I realized that the banana I ate at 10 that morning was probably not going to sustain me for the rest of the night, so I made a lovely salad.

A good first day of getting it together, I think, even if the morning appointment didn't exactly go as planned.

Today is all about quiet. My head is clanging like a bell, so I am going to read and stitch and stay off the iPad thingie and just be still for a minute. My tiny little brain is a bit overloaded with all things news and social media and whatnot, so methinks it's time to give her a rest.

Happy Tuesday, Dearies! Are you resting today, too?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, DEARIES!

 

ON SUNDAYS WE WATCH CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG

 

Rich has left for the golfing place and I'm settling in with my second cup of damn good, the papers, stitching, and Dick VanDyke for company. Yesterday's shenanigans have left me a bit bushed, but a day of rest will put things back to rights again, I'm sure. 

Tomorrow is the start of another Spinstercation, but this time I hope to use the time to get myself back on a good schedule of walking and eating well and being just a bit productive here at CS2. I really really really need to get a few things finished, and I would love to find more stitchy time!

Happy Sunday, Dearies! I hope you can rest today, too! Come tell me all about it!

 

It took about three full days, but I'm almost back to human again. Getting multiple vaccines isn't a bad idea for most people, but for me? Ugh.

Tomorrow will be a busy day. We're going to vote, then breakfast, drop off a donation to a food drive over on campus, get rid of a lot of accumulated cardboard, drop off two big bags to Goodwill, watch the Notre Dame football game, and then go to a hockey game in the evening.

Sunday, I'll sleep while Rich goes to the golfing, and then I'll take him to the train at 9:30pm for his journey to New Jersey, and my two week Operation Get The Heck Back On Track Already will begin.

I had originally planned to order a meal delivery service called Hungryroot for the two weeks Rich will be gone, but I got a bit overwhelmed by both the cost and the complexity of it all, so methinks I might have to just take a breath and use my noodle. 

But if anybody has the magic pill for dropping 120 pounds in a month or two, please feel free to share.

Happy Weekend, Dearies! It's time for me to unplug, thread up, and get ready to watch the Phillies in the World Series! See you back here soon!

I JUST CHANNELED MY INNER 25YEAR OLD AND I'M PRETTY SURE SHE TRIED TO KILL ME

I used to get up on a Saturday morning, crank the radio up, pull my hair back into a pony tail and don some old bike shorts and a t-shirt, and clean my house like an Amish woman. Top to bottom, every crack and crevice spick and span and tidily disinfected to within an inch of its life.

Then I would shower and dress, do hair and makeup, and go to the bank, the dry cleaner, the car wash, the pharmacy, the Targets, and the grocery...take everything home and put it all away, and then get ready to out for dinner and shenanigans.

Today I did two loads of towels and half-assed attempted to wash the inside of the fridge out before Rich helped me put the grocery order away that had been delivered, and I'm heading to bed with a headache and everything so sore you would think I had done all of the above with a sofa strapped to my back.

Ugh.

(I am, however, IMMENSELY thankful to have a fridge full of good and healthy food, so please don't think me ungrateful. I do, in fact, realize that me being fat, old, and completely out of shape is fixable. My comments are merely an observation.)

Covid booster, flu shot, and second shingles vac tomorrow, Dearies, so it might be a minute before you hear from me again!  In the meantime, I hope you are doing the things that make your heart sing happy songs! Come tell me all about it!

 

SCENES FROM A JERSEY BOY'S BIRTHDAY WEEK

We're home from Indianapolis safe and sound, Dearies. Yours Truly is headed for a nap, and the birthday boy is headed to the golfing course in LaPorte.

On Friday afternoon we went to a new-to-us restaurant in South Bend called the Howard Park Public House. Fantastic! This will definitely go on our list of places to visit again.

Yesterday's festivities at the University of Indianapolis were very nice, indeed. We finally found the Quincy University Alumni tailgate party, and Rich was able to chat with a few fellow Hawks before we made our way into the stadium. The bleacher seats weren't quite comfy,  but we discovered a little section in one of the end zones that had tables, chairs, and free food and drink for a very modest fee, so we watched the game from there.

(Quincy didn't have a football team when Rich was there, so this was a nice way for him to get that first game under his belt before we venture to the home campus one of these weekends.)

(They lost, sadly, but we still enjoyed the hot dogs!)

The highlight of the day was the Phillies victory over SanDiego, and after snapping a photo of the pretty sunrise this morning, we made our way home. 

I'm bushed! 

I'm going back on the Diet and Exercise Wagon tomorrow, Dearies, so please send a prayer to Saint Mary Maximus that I will be diligent, dedicated, successful, and mindful, and get these pounds off pronto! Enough screwing around with using "recovery" as an excuse. It's been a year and a month. Time to quit screwing around.

Happy Sunday! Come tell me what's new in your neck of the woods!

 

WAS IT SOMETHING I SAID?

It's a good thing I don't have abandonment issues. Four people "in my life" have suddenly disappeared, or have announced their upcoming disappearance. A normal person would think that this is an enormous coincidence. Me, however? I'm sitting here thinking that I must be just too much to handle, and that all of my being EXTRA has finally worn people out.

I went to get my brows done with Gordanna, but Gordanna no longer works there! So I met the lovely Serena instead, and had my brows fixed up. But Serena is a medical assistant and doesn't normally do brows, so it's anybody's guess who gets stuck with me when I go back next month.

Then, I went to see Dr Campbell, and she announces that she's leaving the practice! I can follow her if I want to, but she's my replacement for my beloved Dr Niklinska, so I'm wondering if I want to go through finding a replacement for the replacement, or if I should hang with her and see what kind of adventures we can have together.

Today, as Rich and I were running around having fun, the salon called to tell me that my pedicure appointment for Saturday had been cancelled because Jenny...the wonderful person responsible for keeping my toes pretty, has left the salon! And they don't have anybody who can see me in the foreseeable future, so it looks like I'm going to have to break out the ladders, pulleys, and chain saws and attempt to do them myself again.

And then, to top it all off, Dr Cavanaugh...the man who has been my thyroid doctor since I was a Freshman in college (!) sent a letter announcing his retirement! In case you're trying to do the math in your head...I was a Freshman in college in 1984. It is now 2022. That's 38 YEARS, Dearies! 

So now the question enters me tiny little brain. Will my Dearies be next?

It's OK. I'll be fine. Really. I will. I just need to remember that things seem to happen in bulk to Yours Truly, and that it's times like this that I need to concentrate on dialing my crazy down a bit and tucking it back in and getting back on my gratitude and humility wagon.

We're off like a herd of turtles tomorrow to Indianapolis. Rich's alma mater, Quincy University, is playing a football game at the University of Indianapolis, so we're heading down for the festivities. There's an alumni tailgate party before the game, so I'm hoping he'll run into some classmates and friends, and I can hear stories about my Jersey Boy as a BMOC.

Happy weekend! I hope your heart is full of joy and your days with fun and frolic! Come tell me all about it!

 

IN WHICH WE CONTEMPLATE GOING TO MEDICAL SCHOOL

(At this point in my life, I think doing so would be both easier and cheaper than what I'm doing now. Besides...I could also actually speak with authority when I diagnose and treat people with mysterious ailments on TeeVee shows, rather than just spout my predictions to Rich and then have them verified by the end of the hour).

Mary Elizabeth (in real life, Dr Campbell) has no clue what's going on with me, but she suspects a sinus infection run amok. I'm happy to oblige her labwork and prescriptions for antiobiotics, but I also suggested she run a T3, T4, and TSH just in case it's my Synthroid levels acting up. I also agreed to take the Augmentin as long as she could assure me it wasn't nephrotoxic.

(Betty, before you admonish me for calling my physician by her first name, let me point out that a) she's young enough to be my daughter, b) she's a St Mary's girl, and thus like a little sister to me, and c) she asked me to.)

(And...in case you also think I sound like an ass for being so obnoxious about all things medical, may I remind you that I am a thyroid cancer survivor, Crohn's patient, and kidney transplant recipient? This ain't my first time at the rodeo, Betty, and I have always taken the management of my health quite seriously and prefer to work in partnership with my health care providers rather than stumble about like a sheep.)

So there.

I'm home and out of the raw, windy, miserably grey day we're having, and have decided to spend the next few hours back in the big girl sleigh bed with the newspapers and lots of fluids. If the sun decides to peek out, I might actually try a little walk to the trash bins and back, since my activity level has been so low that I've lost all stamina and need to get moving again.

In the meantime, I hope you are well and enjoying a blissful Tuesday! Come tell me all about it!

THE RETURN OF BED COFFEE....THE VERY BEST KIND

 

IN WHICH WE WATCH ALL THE SPORTS

Last night we watched the hockey.

Right now we're watching the baseball.

And later tonight we'll watch the football.

I'm going to thread up and start stitching in a minute, Dearies, and just enjoy a lovely October Saturday. What's new with you?
 

FRIDAY

Despite not stitching very much lately, I do have a tiny bit of progress to share on Up In The Air.

Happy Weekend, Dearies! We're going to try to go to a hockey game tonight and I'm going to tackle my chore list tomorrow!

WELL WELL WELL

Apparently, my snarky observation about these food boards has hit a nerve. Betty, calm down already. I didn't say I didn't partake of these things...I'm just wondering what the next crazy trend will be coming.

Once upon a time, we had nice, normal cheese plates:

(Even these are a little fancy, but you get the basic idea. Cheese, crackers, maybe a fruit or nut...but easy peasy and all in one zip code. No multi-levels, no need for geometry or architecture or power tools to construct an entire landscape on a twenty-six foot table table that nobody but Shaquille O'Neil could reach the middle of.)

Then we had avocado toast and cake pops and bento box lunchables for grownups;

(I never tried avocado toast, but I imagine that you could spread wallpaper paste on bread and get the same flavor profile...I eat them, but promise you that I have never once discovered that avocados taste of anything at all.)

But butter boards? I'm sorry kids, but this seems like a really good way to ruin a perfectly good board, eat entirely too much butter in one sitting, and share a lots of germs with a lot of people:

What say you, Dearies? What's the next crazy thing coming?

SLEEPY SPINSTER

 

I cannot get out of bed, Dearies. Either my thyroid levels are out of whack again, or the cool and cloudy weather is leading me straight back to bed. I'll get to the bottom of it, I promise, but in the meantime...night night!

ENOUGH WITH THE BOARDS ALREADY!

Butter boards, breakfast boards, fig and jam and rosemary blue cheese olive boards! I'm all for it, Dearies, but can we just go back to cheese and crackers on a plate, please?

EASY LIKE A SUNDAY MORNING

 

It has been a very very quiet lazy weekend here at CS2....which is lovely and appreciated. I have a ToDo list as long as my arm but am completely uninterested in even looking at it, let alone doing any of the tasks on it.

Instead, I think I'll stay right here with some stitching and TeeVee and enjoy the sunshine and cool breeze coming in the window!

What's new with you, Dearies?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM

Today she would have been 89. There isn't one single part of my brain that can imagine that, since she was only 54 when she died. I'm thinking about her today, and hoping that I have just a spec of her wonderfulness in me. She was elegant and smart and yet somehow very very funny and warm and goofy all at once. My friends remember that she made the very best sandwiches, my sister honors her with her little etsy shop, and Rich, I'm sure, would have adored her.

If your mom is near, hug her close today. If, like mine, she's passed on, know that you will be in my prayers today that your own memories are giving you comfort. Do something lovely and come tell me all about it!
 

GOLDFISH MOMENT

In The West Wing,  one of my favorite scenes is when Danny gives CJ a goldfish named Gail, because Josh tells him that CJ is crazy about goldfish and can't get enough of them. As he's standing there with the goldfish in the bowl to give to CJ, she bursts into laughter and explains that the goldfish she loves are the little cheese crackers that you get at parties.

Rich was heading "to the market" as he likes to say, and I said "Lovey, can you please grab a bag of candy corn and Autumn mix and little pumpkins for my jar?", and he mumbled something about not liking candy corn and off he went.

When I awoke from my nap, here's what greeted me:

I'm still laughing about it and he still hasn't figured out why.

Happy Tuesday, everybody! It's National Taco Day!

BISCOTTI FROM MRS C ... AND A LITTLE STITCHY UPDATE

 Hard Biscotti

 

1/2 lb sweet butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 eggs (1 at a time)

2 tsp vanilla

4 cups flour

3 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp almond extract

 

Mix alll ingredients, then refrigerate for 2  hours.  Bake at 350 on middle shelf of oven for 20 to 25 minutes.  Cut and rebake to dry.

 

This reminds me a lot of some of my own mom's recipes....not exactly detailed in their instructions! I followed them precisely, but when it came time to shaping the "log", I only made one on the larger side, rather than three or four much smaller ones, so my baking time was more like an hour rather than 25 minutes. 

After baking and cooling, I sliced them and then re-baked to form the final product...which were actually quite good!

If I can, I'd like to try it again this afternoon so that Rich will have a nice big batch of them for his coffee. The freezer is almost full, but I'm pretty sure I can find space for a little bag or two!

Here's my little stitchy update:

SUNDAY NAIL DAY

 

Rich is doing his thing at the golf course and I am doing my nail thing at the dining room table and making biscotti. Mrs C (Rich's mom in New Jersey) was kind enough to share her recipe, so I whipped up a batch of dough and it's resting in the fridge before baking.

It's been a lovely slow Sunday so far, with lots of resting and fluid drinking. This silly flu has decided to up its game, and in addition to the usual lousy symptoms, I'm feeling just...blah. If I don't feel better by Wednesday of this week, I'll take myself in for a poke and prod. I promise.

No new stitching to report, unfortunately, but I am very determined to get needle and thread in hand tonight. I have been falling into the iPad thingie these last few weeks, so methinks it's time to stow her away in the afternoons from now on.

I hope your Sunday has been wonderful and that you'll come tell me all about it! What's new, Dearies?

AAAAHHHHHHTOBER!

Thank you, Dearies, for your lovely comments about my BellyBeanaversary! We started the day with breakfast at my favorite place downtown South Bend called The Early Bird Eatery, and then went to campus for a nice visit to the Grotto.

It was just perfect.

My silly little flu was on its way elsewhere when it decided to linger a bit longer, so today will be a big girl sleigh bed day with lots of rest and fluids. No matter...the sun is shining and the breeze coming through the bedroom window is absolutely delicious, so I will enjoy a burrow or two under the big fat cozy blankets with my book!

Happy October!