Monday July 6th 2026

Woke up at 6:15......too early, but I fed the dog, made some coffee, and came back to bed, and slept for two more hours, but, nope, that still wasn't enough sleep. I just woke up at 10 AM, and I am going to do ..... something! I dare not say it, lest it falls through again!

But I do have to say I'm glad I bagged most all of my clothes and separated out what clothes I will need through the coming days, because that takes some of the pressure off me.

It is not going to be as hot today, but the humidity promises to be ridiculously high. Maybe we'll get another hum-dinger of a rain storm like we did yesterday afternoon.

Tinker totally accepted sleeping down here, because I arranged the top of the bed to resemble the one we've slept in since she came here. So my decision to do the same thing to the bed when we arrive in Florida tomorrow afternoon / early evening, is the right one. That makes me feel better that she KNOWS it is OURS.

Okay, all I can say right now is that I am going to get up out of bed. No suspense, but I will be back later to tell you what I did once I got up. Stay tuned 😉

It is now 2 hours later, and what I did, (as one of Red Skelton's characters used to say: "I done-do'ED it!") was take a shower, shampoo and condition my hair, and shave pits, my cheeks and chin of all fine facial hairs that have started getting LONGER as I age 😝, got dressed, and now I am resting before I have to dry my hair, start a laundry, and walk Tinker. I tell you what, I felt soooo wobbly in my knees and legs throughout the whole process, I got through it all with prayers and pure determination (what the Finns call 'SISU'---strength to push through what is difficult; or as j-22 (part-Finn herself) told me, like Nemo: 'Keep swimming, keep swimming.') WHEW!!

I better eat something, too, and start the re-hydrating, because I was sweating before I was all done!

It is a very pleasant 78 degrees with a light breeze blowing. I took MiL to the chiropractor and ran some errands. Now I need to get a newsletter drafted and some flyers designed. It looks my self-assigned daily weeding may not get done.

We went to eldest ds's home last night to watch the World Cup and he grilled some pork, along with potatoes, carrots and beets. I brought along a cabbage & kale slaw with dill dressing. And DiL made me a delicious gin and tonic. I don't understand much about soccer rules, but the game was still pretty exciting. The athleticism is amazing.

Poor little doggie. My dogs are such pigs that it's easy peasy to medicate them. They will swallow anything if cheese or peanut butter is involved.

Stars, the end (of the first leg) is in sight! You can do it! That heat and humidity sounds wicked. When I went with nursing students to the Dominican Republic it was hot and humid. We all ended up with swollen feet and legs. It was hard to wear shoes for the trip home! and it was snowing when we flew back into Seattle.

Hope little doggy is progressing on the mend. Hubs does most of the cat-medicating (Binx takes 3 pills each day). They have it down to an art that doesn't disturb either of them very much.

It is hot and steamy here. Saturday night Hubs and I were sitting outside watching the neighbors shoot off fireworks when the wind suddenly picked up, the temp dropped from 89 to 67, and an intense storm (including a little hail) dropped in. Afterwards, the neighbors went back to shooting their fireworks. We went to bed. The trip to the lake got squashed because I was reminded that I was on call and there was no midshift nurse for the ER. I did not get called to come in, but it would have been bad if I had been needed and was in the middle of the lake in Oklahoma City. The only shelter from the sun is in the cabin, and that would be stuffy and uncomfortable in the heat. And that storm would have been quite an experience! Can't say I'm sorry we stayed home. Our church lost a crape myrtle -- it didn't get uprooted so much as break off near the root. I think it will come back. Some areas around us had lots of wind damage and power outages. We were lucky this time.

I spent the last 4-5 days eating pretty much anything I wanted. And only gained a small amount. Back to it now. We will grill beef for fajitas tonight. I won't eat a tortilla. Or beans. Or rice. Sorry to keep beating the low-carb food horse but, well, I think about food a lot. I got a "keto for dummies" book from the library.

It is "fixing" to rain again, the thunder and clouds are announcing it. I sure hope it isn't as bad as yesterday's storm. SiL and BiL came over to help with the last of the heavy lifting and packing of the POD. PODS people said they will be picking it up tomorrow between 2:30 and 5:30 PM. I'm glad because it gives me a little more time tonight to do some last minute packing of it .....AFTER it rains, of course. I'll probably have to call on one of my neighbors to help me get that door up again, it is so tough for me to get it lifted even 10 inches! I also have to go search through the shed one last time to see if I can find those few items I really want to find before I have to say goodbye to all of it.

Tomorrow I have to get my car to the dealership by 9:30 AM because although they don't have any appointments available for two weeks, they are going to try to squeeze me in.....because when I took the car out to the store this afternoon for a few items. TWO warning lights came up on the dashboard---- the Anti-lock Braking System light and the Electronic Stability Control light, EEK! It's a good thing I have been such a loyal customer for such a long time, AND that, thankfully, just last month, I renewed my car's warranty for another ten years, so HOPEFULLY they will be able to take care of it without a horrendous wait time and costs. Anyone inclined to pray for my car, I would not object to the prayers! I really would like to be able to head out on Wednesday morning as planned, and in a car that won't quit on me in the heat and humidity while I am midway down to Florida!

Dianah, hope your dog continues to get better.

Stars, good luck with the move.

I will not rant about work today but I could.

I was beginning to despair about getting to look through everything in the shed, or getting the last of the things into the POD. But it finally stopped raining, and I went out to open the POD, but naturally I couldn't. So I called across the street to a young man (?early to mid 20's?) who lives with his grandfather. He used to come over and talk w/ hubby; thought hubby was really cool and very funny (and at the time, he was, before the booze disappeared that side of him) So I needed the guy to come over to open the POD door for me, and he volunteered to help me with the boxes in the shed. We went down there and he started pulling boxes out of the piles of boxes; I had labeled most of mine, but not always very specifically, so as I was looking into or through one box, I told him to open some of the other ones, and see what was in there; I DID finally find the pictures (prints) that I was looking for!

But did not find the 'jewelry' box. So, I don't know if it is still down there or what, but it had an unusual cameo of a woman riding the back of a centaur, her hair and gown was flowing as the man/horse appeared to be running. I am not sure where it is, and I do remember that once I took it to a jewelry shop to see what it might be worth (I didn't want to sell it, but it seemed so unusual to me, I wanted to know if it was worth anything.) I found out that it was not as unusual as I thought it was. Apparently it was, if not a common theme, not so rare. The guy also showed me what made it not so expensive, the facial details were not so finely done. Anyway, I'm not sure where it is, and I doubt SiL and BiL will spend much time looking through boxes, mostly just pitching them into the large trash container they are going to borrow. It might be one of those "OH WELL" things that I just need to let go of. (Oh well>>>>☹️)

Anyway, we worked out there until well after dark, and actually had a good time, although my this-mornings-bath-fresh-feeling disappeared. I had so much sweat going on I could hardly SEE! He found some coins in one box, he said he could look them up on-line and see if they were worth anything. Meanwhile I found some stuff I did want to save, more of my writing and humorous things I'd done, and since I didn't have the time to go through them all, I had him just load them as is, into the POD. I sure hope there will be a place to store them where I'm going. If not, I'll have to rent a little storage unit, because I really don't want to ditch anything until I get to look through it. (I was a very 'funny bunch', once upon a time.) Oh, and he found a few photos of me and hubby from, uh, maybe 35 years ago, and he said, "Is that you?" and I said yeah, and he said, "Wow, you were really pretty." Which felt really weird to hear! I mean, I still see my self, but he never met me until 10 years ago, and as Merle Haggard once sang, "Time changes all it pertains to..." So, I allowed myself to feel the compliment without being, I dunno, 'insulted' or anything. But it still felt strange even though it made me smile.

I found a box of ten or twelve 4" x 6" photo albums.... see, hubby used to go to the motorcycle rallies with some of his buddies, and he had a nice camera which he took with him.....it seems a lot of the women at the rallies were always giving what is politely referred to as "free shots", flashing the upper portion of their anatomy at cameras. People used to ask me didn't it bother me that he was doing that? But I told them it didn't worry me a bit, because if he was taking the photos with his camera, he wasn't touching anything. And besides, me being a nurse, I've probably have seen many more anatomies than he ever dreamed of, AND 'I got to touch' them (which was naturally, part of the job; I mean, no 'thrill' involved.) But that wasn't an answer most people expected from me, and I did enjoy the sometimes giggling or shocked looks I got when I'd say that. But no, it really didn't bother me; and he was a 'hero' among many of his co-workers at the various jobs he had, because they just couldn't believe his wife LET HIM go take those photos. I thought it was pretty funny. And times were different back then.

So I gave those to the guy that was helping me, saying, "Here, you'll probably enjoy these". And when he looked up the coins, one of them was worth $6 and one of them might be worth $70, so because I REALLY, REALLY appreciated his assistance, I told him to take the coins too, because it was worth that to me to have been able to got so much done! And of course it was kind of insanely satisfactory to make ANOTHER mess for SiL to have to clean up. {Am I bad or what?!} One day I'll tell you what I say that, but I have no time right now.

NOW it is time for me and Tinker to go to bed and set the alarm clock so I can get to the dealership on time. I HOPE it isn't something complicated or expensive, but I have no choice, regardless. Wish me luck!

That's awesome Stars the kid was able to help you.

I have a work committee meeting and a doctor's appointment (routine 3 month visit because I'm on a benzo for sleep) on Tuesday. Always something.