Water Woes ~ Tuesday 7/17/18

My night went as usual, but I woke up this morning to no water throughout the house!  It was very disconcerting and, once again, made me realize how much we take for granted, day to day!  I will say that I prefer being without water (for now!) to being without electricity! We do have our hurricane supply of bottled water so it's not a big emergency.



But since we "let it mellow" at night, I have no idea of when we lost water and was worried that it was a problem with our line. I texted our neighbor Jeff to ask if they had any water, as I know he's an early riser, and he said the whole city was out but that crews should have it fixed by 8.  I woke Greg up to let him know not to jump in the shower, told Youngest Son, and got online to see if I could find confirmation of what Jeff had texted. Nothing, anywhere. Not on the city's website or Facebook page, and no message on our main line.  I found a phone number for after-hour city or sewer emergencies and called it. It rang at the police station that just answered by saying "Is this about your water?" and when I said "yes", they connected me to a recording that just said "the water is out throughout the city and we don't know when it'll be back" and the hung up on me. Hmm, OK!

So I texted Jeff to let him know (he's at work) and reminded him to get bottled water if he didn't already have it because, IMO, we'd be under boil water alert when it came back.



After about 15 minutes, the City's website suddenly had a Citizen Alert on it, saying exactly what I had just told Jeff!  By 8 a.m. the water was back but a very dark orange until it cleared the line. I left a note for Youngest Son to tell him NOT to drink the water or cook with it since I'm going to meet with a friend mid-morning and I'll be gone when he comes back from his class.



So, so much for my going back to sleep after I cooked Greg's breakfast and packed his lunch, as I had planned!  I got dressed and reheated the decaff left over from last night.



After a while I got hungry so I had a pain au chocolat.  That made me even hungrier so I had an English muffin with raspberry jam!  Hopefully this will lead me to save money at the diner where I'm meeting my friend Juliet in about 30 minutes!



I caught up on the news and blogs and earned the Daily Rewards.



I guess the cats are trying to tell us that they want more MEAT!

I wanted more coffee so I brewed a pot with bottled water.  Then I collected the trash and recycling through the house, cleaned the downstairs bathroom mirror with homemade window cleaner and a microcloth, took the trash bin down to the curb for collection, chatted with Jeff about the water situation for a short while, as he'd come back from work, and refilled the hummingbird feeders with homemade nectar.

I also set out three large pork chops to defrost, along with a bag of caramelized onions, and 2 more pitas. I thought I was done with those but I guess not!  I have another 3 or 4 in the freezer too!



I'm going to run some errands today as I'm driving into Clermont, but I don't think I'll do the big grocery shop today. Not that I need much since we ate out A LOT this past week!  I'm going to go to CVS to get milk, eggs and cereal for free with one of my gift cards, and then to the library to drop off 2 books that are due today. Not too taxing!



9:40 a.m. Well, I might need to go to Aldi to get more gallons of water after all as our boil water order is going to be for 2 to 3 DAYS!  Arrgh.



I was halfway down the driveway when I noticed that Jeff was running after my SUV so I stopped to see what he needed. He wanted to know if he could take a shower because he works outdoors and was all dirty and sweaty. I told him I wasn't sure what the rules were for when you're under a boil water order so I did a quick Google Search on my phone and it seemed that showering was OK but since he'd just had surgery and was still healing, I advised him to call his doctor's office and ask for their advice.  Then Youngest Son pulled into the driveway so I updated him about the water situation.



I went to meet my friend Juliet at an old but new-to-me diner in Clermont.  They serve breakfast every day until 2 p.m. and it was good and not too expensive so I took a picture of their breakfast menu to show Greg.  My friend and I chatted for a couple of hours and had a good time. One of her daughters (she has 3 daughters) is expecting her first baby so my friend's first grandchild and she's very excited :)  I bought her breakfast to celebrate and charged it to Discover for 5% back in Bonus Rewards.

I had a breakfast bowl that had homefries, eggs, bacon and gravy on top, with an English muffin on the side.

Yep, quite heavy, especially since I'd already eaten... twice!

From there, I went to Aldi.  I hadn't had a chance to work on my shopping list but we really didn't need much. I loaded my cart with 16 gallons of water and 4 jugs of cat litter, and then bought what I felt we needed for the week. Today I found the lemon juice, and they also are back to having my favorite whole wheat hamburger buns in stock so I bought 2 packs of those. I'm annoyed that they're "seasonal", what's "seasonal" about whole wheat baked goods?!



Last week they had bacon jerky that Greg had really liked so I was going to get him more of that, but this week they had none :( He'll be disappointed.



I went ahead and bought him a slim water container to put in the fridge. Once we get our good city water back, I'll fill it up and leave it in the fridge so he can have as much cold water as he wants, lol. It was only $4.99.

As for me, I pulled the trigger on buying 2 dog cooling mats, as I had been joking about.  I mean, at $9.99 each, I figured I had nothing to lose and if they didn't work, I could use them for the cats if we lose power again after a hurricane or storm.

They're filled with some kind of gel so they're pretty heavy!

So I spent $101.25 at Aldi altogether.  $48.70 was for groceries, including all the bottled water. I paid with Amex for 3% back in Rewards.

From there I drove to CVS.  I found a Coke bottle cap right in front of the door!

My favorite cashier exclaimed "I was just thinking about you this morning and how I haven't seen you all summer!" so I replied "Well, you would have if you'd had better deals!", LOL.  I purchased a gallon of milk, which was on sale at $2.79 even though it wasn't in the weekly ad so yay, 2 dozens of eggs on sale at $1.69 each, and 4 boxes of cereal on sale at $1.99 each.  I redeemed 2 $0.50/1 coupons for those and a $2 ECB so my total was $11.13 but I paid with a CVS gift card earned via American Express Rewards, so it was all free to me, woohoo!

My next stop was ABC Liquor because I needed to restock on whiskey. It wasn't on sale this week, poop. I think that, moving forward, I'll need to buy enough for a couple of months when I see it on sale!  I bought 4 bottles and charged them to Amex for 1% back in Rewards. I also earned some ABC reward points.

Lastly, I drove to the library to turn in the 2 books that were due today and they told me I had a book waiting for me too!  It was the book on treating Hashimoto's. My dad has it, so I suspect I might as well read the book and educate myself.

I was trying to beat the storm that had just come into town but didn't make it and it was pouring by the time I got home. Thankfully we have a large tree over our driveway and then I can back up almost to the front door!  I unloaded the SUV into the entryway and Youngest Son helped me by carrying everything into the kitchen for me.



He had to drive to the high school to see the Guidance Counselor because somehow his Fall classes were never approved correctly in the system and the Dual Enrollment Advisor told him he'd missed a step (?!) but he only found out because he emailed her to find out why his classes didn't seem approved in their system yet so it's a good thing that I had reminded him to do this last week.



He came back shortly after, frustrated because the Guidance Counselor had emailed him to come by today or tomorrow, but when he got there, he found out she was in a meeting and would be unavailable the rest of the day.  Seriously? How annoying! Thankfully he thought to make an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. The bureaucracy is unbelievable. What a waste of time for everyone!



But he did bring back the trash bin from the bottom of the driveway so there is that :)



In the meantime, we were back to having no water! My Daughter had texted me while I was at Aldi to ask if we had water because her BFF, who lives a couple of blocks away from my house, had asked her to ask me since she didn't have any and hadn't heard about the city-wide outage. So I wasn't surprised to see that it was not working once again.



So I instituted the following plan:

• Put notes in the kitchen and bathrooms and on the Brita pitcher reminding everyone to use BOTTLED water.
• Brought in 2 jugs of rainwater for each bathrooms so we could flush the toilets but also put notes reminding people to "let it mellow".
• Put hand sanitizer on the sinks in kitchen and bathrooms to wash our hands
• Instructed Greg (via text) and YS to take Navy showers with bottled water if we had no water, and to make sure not to let water come in to their eyes/nose/mouths or ears if we did have water but were still under boil order.

I had to drive to Family Dollar to pick up bottles of hand sanitizer and I also got the band-aids that I needed for our first aid kit since they were only $1. Saves me a trip to the Dollar Store since Family Dollar is about 0.5 mile away from my house. I drove the Focus there so it was more economical.

When I got back, Greg was asking me about the water situation. I checked the city's website and they had just posted that the water had been restored but we were under boil order for at least 48 hours and until further notice.  But at least now we can shower and flush!

I will not do the dishes until the boil order is rescinded. So what else is new?  LOL. I'm a pro at this!  I was training for this eventuality this whole time!

I set up the cooling pads on my mattress and laid down on them while still in my clothes and they work FABULOUSLY!  I might even get too cold, lol!  I put them under the fitted sheet and can't wait to go to bed tonight to see how they work out for me. If they do, I might be able to keep my bed and mattress!

I'll have one under my back and one under my butt.  I hope it helps!

If I get too cold, I can always put a blanket on top.

It's now 4 p.m. and I really haven't done much at all today, have I?! But at least I won't need to go grocery shopping tomorrow.



I spent quite a while trying to claim a $5 Amazon gift card on the AARP Daily Deals site at 3 p.m. I was quick enough to put it in my cart, but their freaking website wasn't working properly and at first it looked like it wasn't in my cart, and then it was but I couldn't verify the order as none of the buttons to do that worked. Arrrgh! After 20 minutes I gave up since we only had 20 minutes to confirm the order anyway. I sent them an email (well, to the company that administers that site because they're contracted by AARP, it looks like) but I don't expect an answer in my favor :(

I submitted my CVS receipt to Ibotta and received $0.25 back for "any item" so that was a money maker for me.

Amazon confirmed that I received $2 in digital credits for 2 of my Prime Day orders from yesterday.  Late last night, I also ordered a $25 Amazon gift card, which gave me a credit of $5 in my account, woohoo :)



I got on the bike at 5 p.m. and biked for 38 minutes or a little past 6.5 miles. I probably should have pushed myself to bike 45 minutes at least because I've been snacking on trail mix all afternoon, but I'd had enough.



I've been very soft on myself for several weeks now. I think I've been thinking, unconsciously, that I'd get back on all my good routine "once school starts again", only YS is already in school and won't have a break at all between summer classes and fall classes, so... I'm only kidding myself.  Ugh. So, to get started again, I'm promising myself that I'm not having decaf today. I finished drinking my coffee before I biked (later than usual because I was gone all morning but since I drank coffee at the restaurant too, I've had lots of caffeine today (well, about 3.5 to 4 cups) so I'm now switching to... water! Well yeah, if I carried 18 gallons of water into my cart and then out of my cart and then into my house... then I'm going to drink some!



Today marked almost 2 weeks since the potato plant died so I ventured into the garden to see about harvesting some potatoes... I put on gloves, got my digging tools, removed the tower quite easily from the bin... and started looking for potatoes through the dirt. Nothing!  What?!  So I went to get the wheelbarrow and the shovel, and transferred about half of the bin's dirt into the wheelbarrow so I could dig deeper.  Nothing!  Whaaaaat?! I know it was from a regular store-bought potato, but how could the plant have grown without making roots? I mean there was nothing in the bin at all, not even the remnants of the stem, any roots, nothing. I didn't dream, a potato plant grew!  I'm even sure it was a potato plant because it looked just like the last potato plant that I grew from a store-bought potatoes that had indeed given me little potatoes to harvest! So I'm dumbfounded.



But at least the experiment didn't cost me a dime since I had everything on hand. I didn't even need potatoes as I usually have to make sure the ones I buy don't go bad, lol. But it would have been a thrill to have grown something for free.  Well, poop.



In other gardening news, now it the time for Florida gardeners to start tomato seeds for our winter growing season, which is actually our main season. I might look into buying another small greenhouse since mine no longer has its plastic cover, because any seedlings that I start indoors will be ruined by those meddling cats. But if I start them outdoors, I need to protect them from the rain and the sun.  I need a potting shed!

I'd forgotten that I had left my main skillet to soak overnight, arrgh. Thankfully I have a couple of more to carry us through Thursday :) I'd thought about grilling the pork chops outside instead of pan frying them, but it's darn hot and humid out, so I chose the path of least resistance and pan fried them in some butter, with some cajun seasoning.  I cooked double the amount of white rice we need so we'll have leftovers for tomorrow and I won't have to dirty another dish, and I steamed a head of broccoli in the microwave.



This time, I froze the stems. I'm going to try to turn them into broccoli soup once I have enough. I don't care for broccoli slaw.

And I decided that we'll eat on paper plates. Since I'm not the main reason the dishes won't get done for a couple of days, I've decided to save myself some work on the back end, lol.  We're also reusing our cups from last night's dinner, since all we drank was water.



I feel very tired. It must be all the food (carbs!) that I ate today because I really didn't do much at all, save wag my tongue and type, lol.



After dinner Greg did some reading and I went to check the mail because he was waiting for a new video game from his Gamefly membership. Then I got lost in some blogs, while we listened to classical music. 

Sigh ~ Wednesday 7/18/18

So, it didn't work :(



Lying down on the cooling pads works well for a temporary cool-off, but not to sleep on. I tried various configurations with/without PJs or a blanket on top of them, but I just couldn't find one that left me comfortable. The pads did warm up under my body after a couple of hours, and then I just felt like I was lying in a big puddle of liquid. I wasn't, though, they didn't burst or anything, it was just the sensation of the warm gel under my body!



So at 1:30 a.m. I removed them from my bed and I resumed my usual restless night.  Oh my.  I woke up every 90 minutes to 2 hours.  I got up at 6:45 a.m. with a sore neck, cooked Greg's breakfast, packed his lunch, crossed Youngest Son who had just gotten up and was going to feed the cats, and went back to bed!



I slept until 10:15 a.m. but I had many bad dreams so I didn't feel rested at all when I got up, and I had a headache. I finally took ibuprofen at about 12:45 p.m. because it just wouldn't go away.



This morning I decided that trying to quit caffeine is going to be my first step, without quitting coffee altogether. So all I've had is decaf and I feel like a zombie. I have no energy, a headache, and the sky has been getting dark early to boot, so this isn't helping me!

I skipped the shower, which I probably shouldn't have had, it would have been invigorating.



I had a bowl of Great Grains cereal with fresh blueberries for breakfast, along with my decaf.  I did brew a 2nd pot of decaf with the same grounds + 1 fresh scoop.



Peeking outside, I saw that a nearby neighbor's recycling hadn't been collected yet, so I rushed to take my 2 bins down to the curb for collection. At least, that's done!



I'm so glad I don't have to go grocery shopping today, I wouldn't have felt up to it.  I did look at the new online ads for Aldi and Save A Lot. I'm missing out on cheap cherries at Aldi, poop. I might go to Save a Lot on Thursday.

I earned the daily rewards, caught up on emails and the news, and then some blogs. Youngest Son came home from his classes. He has to go to his meeting with the Guidance counselor at the high school this afternoon before his Video game Programming class.  Today he treated himself to some lunch from Hardee's with his pocket money. I don't blame him, there's hardly anything exciting in the fridge and he's probably sick of corn dogs!



For my lunch, I had salad leftovers from a couple of nights ago, the rest of the potato salad from this weekend, and I made a turkey and guacamole sandwich on a delicious whole wheat bun.

Explorer has been very insistent on cuddling ON me and today I'm just not in the mood so I've been fending him off since I've been up and it's tiresome. But I love him!

RaceTrac released my latest weekly coupon for a free medium fountain drink. I'd usually redeem it while I go shopping so I'll need to remember to try to redeem it before next Wednesday.

I'm sitting here with my headache, not wanting to read a book or even watch TV! I have Pandora playing very low but I'm thinking I'll turn the PBS app on and put on some episodes of "The Antiques RoadShow". Might as well learn something effortlessly since it doesn't look like I'm going to accomplish any chores today.  It makes me feel very guilty to even type this because Greg was working from home very late last night. I like to reciprocate by pulling my weight around here, even if I whine and whine about it, but today might not be the day.  Sigh.



It started pouring at 1:30 p.m., yay, the plants will continue to be happy.



Youngest Son needed my cooperation for a French assignment so I did that, and then he went to his appointment with Guidance. His classes should be approved now, but the answer he got about the parking situation for Dual Enrollment students was odd (they said that every day he would need to go to the Clinic to tell them he was going to his college classes!?) so I went on the high school website to see if I could find some information. A couple of years ago, when my Daughter was doing the same program, she was issued a Dual Enrollment parking tag and had to park in a specific portion of the teacher parking lot.



I didn't find any information about any type of parking, but did see that there were AP Summer Assignments that are due when classes start, on August 13. I was quite sure that YS wasn't aware of this, even though he's taken AP classes every year so far and every year he's had to work on summer assignments!  See what I mean about him not being proactive?!  Arrgh.  So now he has 2 summer assignments to complete while he's also studying for finals for his college classes, etc. At least he has about a month to work on them...



I emailed the Assistant Principal in charge of 11th grade to ask about the parking. Hopefully she's working this summer and will reply.



It's now 4 p.m. and my headache is still here. I've switched to drinking water but it's not helping :( So I think I'll skip the exercising today. I'm also hot constantly, despite the AC being on. I might need to abandon my yoga capris and switch back to shorts. The capris are super comfortable (which is why I wear them!) but the shorts would probably help me more when I have hot flashes. I'm going to have to dig out the shorts and see which ones still fit me.



I did nothing today but piddle on the laptop, going from website to website. I printed the 2 AP Summer assignments for Youngest Son.  The psychology one is to make a bunch of flash cards (so there is a bunch of research to be done) and memorize them because there'll be a quiz on them.  The World History one is a 13-page packet that he has to answer after having watched some YouTube videos and read some websites.



Middle Son called me to ask if I had any cold medicine. I directed him to Dollar Tree and texted him a picture of the cold medicine that I buy there. He lives close-by that store so it didn't make sense for him to drive all the way here to get the same stuff. 



For dinner, I grilled chicken cranberry sausages in the toaster oven, heated up the rice and broccoli leftovers, and made a big spinach salad with tomatoes, cucumber and feta cheese. I also set out grapes for the men because, for some reason, they won't eat them unless I put them right on the table!



I skipped dinner because I'd had some chips and salsa a big earlier and I wasn't too hungry. My headache is still here but doesn't hurt as much.



Good news: I printed the wrong AP history summer project for YS!  I had gotten the US History and World History mixed up. He's already taken AP World History and AP US History does NOT have a summer project listed. Woo!  He still has to do the AP Psychology project but that doesn't seem to be phasing him.

Different Water Woes ~ Thursday/Friday July 19-20, 2018

Thursday 7/19/18



If I was hoping that not drinking one drop of caffeine yesterday would help my sleep, I was sorely mistaken! If anything, I woke up more often: every hour!  I don't think I have a UTI but I had to pee non-stop.  I didn't even drink as much decaf and water as I used to drink coffee and decaf!



I watched the rest of the first episode of "Sacred Games" last night, the Indian series that's on Netflix right now. People on Reddit Television News were hyping it up and it has a 9.4 rating on IMDB, but even though I was intrigued at the beginning, I didn't see anything that justified such high ratings at all!  I don't think I'll keep watching, it just didn't grip me.  I do like "Intelligence", the Canadian series that I've been watching, so I'll keep watching that but I'm not bingeing in, like I tend to do.  There's a lot that goes on in the show and I'm a little confused, even though it's in English, hahaha.



I got up at 6:45 a.m., fed the cats, cooked Greg's breakfast and put his lunch box together (he'd put the leftovers away last night as I'd forgotten to do it, oops!) and decided to go back to bed since it always seems that I sleep a little better that way and I drag less during the day (not that it worked yesterday!). Only, I couldn't really get back to sleep. I put on "Forensic Files" on my Kindle but was wide awake. I did fall asleep during the 2nd episode but only for about 30 minutes.



I got up at 8:30 a.m., checked the city's website to see if the boil water order had been rescinded but didn't see anything. So I decided to hold off on taking a shower (I know it's supposed to be OK to shower even if there is a boil water order but I'd prefer not taking any chances!) and went downstairs in my nightgown.



I had set a big pork roast (with bone) to defrost yesterday, so I threw it in the crockpot with the necessary ingredients to make Chinese Pork Roast.  I'll serve the rest of the rice with it (YS barely ate any last night) and some Brussels sprouts.

I brewed a pot of decaf and ate a bowl of cereal with fresh blueberries.



I caught up on emails, the news and earned the daily rewards.  I was able to redeem Microsoft Rewards points and get a $5 Amazon gift card, woohoo!

At 9:20 or so, I called the Utilities department to see if the boil water order had been rescinded and they said that they'd just heard that it was.  Yay!



I removed all the notes that I had taped everywhere and will need to take the jugs of rainwater, that I was planning on using to flush the toilets back when we had NO water, back outside.



Youngest Son came home from his class and started working on his AP Psychology Summer Project.



Our water bill had been emailed to me so I set about scheduling a payment via my bank (it's free for my bank to mail them a check, whereas the city would charge me a "convenience fee" if I tried to put that bill on autopay) but when I looked at the amount due, it was about $25 more than the previous month... and 3,000 more gallons of water had been consumed!  Whaaaat?  Greg and I were gone for a week, it rained every day, we don't irrigate or have an irrigation system, there aren't any leaks, I don't even shower every day!  They print the last 12 months of usage on the bill and this was by far the month with the highest consumption!

I checked with Greg and YS if they remembered something that would have caused us to use more water than usual and they said no.  I put some leather gloves and removed the ground cover over the counter (ants nest in there sometimes) and took a picture of the display and watched it for a bit: it wasn't moving, although I guess we could have a slow leak somewhere?

The reading was 10 days ago and we've already used almost 3,000 gallons according to the meter!

So I drove to City Hall to talk to the Utility clerks. It wasn't clear to me whether perhaps they estimate the consumption and then bring it back up to its actual level once a year, or what. They said, no, they actually read the meters.  Hmmm.  So they're sending someone over today to check the meter for any leaks but if the meter isn't leaking, then we're shit out of luck and will have to figure it out ourselves and, in the meantime, pay the bill.  It's not a huge amount of money but I hate having to pay more than we should, you know? And if we do have a leak, then we need to find it. I don't like wasting water.



When I got home, I checked the outside faucets and did find one that Greg had left turned on, but just over the past weekend so it wouldn't have affected the previous month's bill.  It's connected to a hose with a spray handle, but the connector does leak a bit when the water is on. So I'm glad I realized that, at least, since we never use that particular hose usually so who knows when we'd realized it otherwise.  The other faucets were turned off and Youngest Son would have noticed if someone was using our hoses while Greg and I were gone. So we'll see what happens.



In the meantime, I went ahead and scheduled the payment anyway because I didn't want to forget about it and then get a ding on my credit for something like $25 that we can afford to pay.



I noticed a bunch of weeds in the mulch around the oak tree in front of the house, so I got my hat and my gloves, a bucket, and started pulling weeds.  I got 2 buckets of weeds but I'm not done. I didn't pull them where the sun was already hitting because it was hot and very humid. I'll need to finish that over the weekend. Hopefully I'll get up early and remember to do it before the sun hits that spot.

It's the time of year when the decorative grasses are flowering!

Our oldest aloe plant is flowering as well!  I checked the other ones but they aren't. This one sits by itself on the west side of the house, pretty much completely in the shade. 

Back indoors, I decided to go ahead and switch my bed for Greg's, as he's offered for me to take the old mattress that I much prefer.  Only his bedding is queen-size and mine is full-size. 



I first tried to take Greg's bed apart, but one side board cracked (!) when I removed one bolt, so then I decided to leave it in place since I didn't want the queen headboard and footboard anyway.



I struggled to put the queen mattress on its side (that monster is SO heavy and there aren't any handles to grasp!), and then I removed the box springs. Thankfully it's actually two smaller box springs since our staircase is so narrow that a regular box spring wouldn't fit and we had to have those custom made. So they're light. Then I removed the bed frame and folded it and staged it in the bathroom so it'd be out of the way.



I took advantage of this situation to vacuum all the dust bunnies from under Greg's bed and also passed a microcloth broom under my bed and came back with a bunch of Nathalie-hair bunnies!  I might be bald before soon judging from all the freaking hair I'm losing!



Then I had to drag both mattresses from one room to the other (the new mattress is much easier to move because it's sturdier so it stays on its side and there are handles sewn on the sides!) and then ditto with the spring boxes from Greg's room, and then I took apart and reinstalled my bed base in Greg's room and put together the queen bed frame in my room. I badly banged my shins against the metallic frame, ouch! No bruises but it hurts.



I took a break to reorganize the power cords near my bed, it was a mess and I never had enough outlets to plug everything that I wanted to plug in. It's still a mess, but now I have everything plugged in!



Once that was done, I had to haul the mattresses on top of the box springs/bed base in each room.  Again, the full mattress was pretty easy to set up, although the mattress is much smaller than the queen bed itself so it looks a bit odd, but if Greg wants to remove the bed (i.e headboard and footboard) completely, he can do that on his own. lol. 



Hauling the queen size mattress on top of the box springs, all by myself, wasn't easy!  Yes, I could have asked YS to help and I had told him I might need his help, but in the heat of the moment I figured I could do it on my own. And I did!  But I think I'll be in pain tonight, lol!

I made my bed with the new sheet that I bought from Amazon. It promises to be "hotel luxury soft" and indeed it feels very soft. I only put on the bottom sheet, I didn't bother with the pillow cases and I never use a top sheet anyway.

Yes, it looks weird with the full-size headboard, but the headboard didn't fit the full-size bed frame

 anyway and I like it, so I kept it :)

So in the end, it doesn't take nearly as much room as I thought it would!  And the mattress feels much more comfortable to me. I sure hope it makes a difference in my quality of sleep otherwise this will have been for naught and I'll still have to go find a new mattress!



Middle Son texted me that he felt much better about taking one of the pills that I had told him to buy from Dollar Tree yesterday. Hooray!

It rained while I was doing all of that. It's now 1:20 p.m. and I need to get lunch but Explorer just arrived and is busy making himself comfortable on my shoulder and sniffing my ear, lol.



Never mind, I really needed to eat, so I shrugged him off and went to brew a 2nd pot of decaf with the same grounds + 1 fresh scoop and figure out lunch.



I made a sandwich with a pita that is now crunchy (it's like eating pita chips!), guacamole, turkey and spinach, and a large tomato salad with mozzarella pearls and fresh basil harvested from my garden.

I'm very annoyed at my apathy because I had to compost almost 2 lbs of strawberries that went bad. I should have frozen them!



I caught up on more blogs and then decided to drive to Publix to get YS and myself some snacks.  I spent $9 there.



Upromise emailed me that we had earned some money back on our breakfast at Cheeser's Palace over the weekend! I'd completely forgotten about Upromise!

It started raining again at 4 p.m., really pouring.  I've been watching an episode of "Intelligence" on Netflix, but I'm also perusing the internet so I keep losing track of the plot and rewinding the scenes!

It's now 5 p.m.  No one from the Utilities department came to look at the meter. Grrr.



Dinner was the chinese pork roast (there are a lot of leftovers, I'm thinking about freezing them), Brussels sprouts for Greg, and I ended up cooking some frozen fries in the air fryer for YS and myself.



Youngest Son said he had a sore throat so I gave him some ibuprofen and looked up side effects of his acne medicine.  It does say to stop taking it and call his doctor if he has difficulty or pain swallowing. He said it hurt a little bit when he swallowed so we'll mention that to the dermatologist today.



After dinner I piddled around on the computer because my neck and shoulders were hurting from moving the beds around so washing the dishes wasn't going to happen.  I went to bed at 10 p.m.



For some reason Amazon had lined up a different show on my Kindle than "Forensic Files" and I pressed "play" by mistake. It's a show called "The Prosecutors" and it describes real crimes and the efforts of the prosecution teams to bring them to justice. The episodes are twice as long as "Forensic Files" and mostly use actors.  The narrator is definitely not as good as the narrator from "Forensic Files" and I don't think I'll be watching any more episodes as it did NOT help me fall asleep, lol.



The bed felt like a block of cement, so much firmer than anything I've slept on in 2 years! My shoulders and neck hurt but I was definitely cooler than on the Amazon mattress. I still got my hot flashes though, and woke up a lot of use the bathroom, although I did make it to a 3-hour stretch for once!



So not a complete victory yet, perhaps once I'm no longer sore... but an improvement.



Friday 7/20/18



I got up at 6:45 a.m., fed the cats (Youngest Son doesn't have classes on Fridays so he gets to sleep in), cooked Greg's breakfast and packed his lunch and... went back to bed, of course :)



I only slept until 8 a.m. because I had a date with my BFF this morning.  I got dressed, brewed some decaf by reusing last night's grounds + 1 scoop, and had a bowl of cereal with fresh blueberries because I was hungry.



I decided to drive the Focus since it was available and the gas mileage is much better. I usually try to run errands after I go meet my BFF all the way down in "South Clermont" but today I didn't really feel like going anywhere else, especially since I have to go back to Clermont with Youngest Son in the afternoon for his dermatologist appointment.



I took the back roads to get to my friend's, forgetting that there was road construction going on, so I got stuck in one-way traffic for a while. Since we were at a standstill, waiting for the flagman to tell us it was our turn to go, I earned the Mobile Microsoft Rewards on my phone :)



I was a bit late getting to my BFF's and then she decided we should take both cars to Wawa since she wanted to go shopping afterwards.  So we drove to Wawa separately.  I bought myself a breakfast sandwich there and drank the decaf from home, that I had brought in my travel mug.

I actually had a veggie egg white omelet on whole wheat bread with some bacon but for some reason there isn't a picture of that on their website. The hoagies look better I might have that next time!

It was hot and muggy outside but we got used to it and chatted for 90 minutes about our kids and our respective vacations.  A storm started and soon it was pouring with lighting and thunder so we moved tables to be a little more protected and, as soon as it lightening up a bit, we bid each other goodbye and went on our way.

I decided to take the main highway back home to avoid the road construction. It rained so much that it had puddled all over the road. I doesn't bother me when I drive the large SUV but I always feel more vulnerable in the tiny Focus, lol.  I had thought to stop by Aldi, since I was passing it, and get some of the cherries on sale at $1.49/lb but by the time I got there, the lightning and rain had redoubled, so I just drove on home.



There, I earned the daily rewards, and a free large soda and popcorn at AMC, with MyCokeRewards. The voucher is good through 9/30 so I'll ask Middle Son if he wants it, since there is an AMC theater down at Disney.

My Daughter called to say she wouldn't be able to come down this weekend after all, since she has a Calculus exam on Monday and she needs to study all weekend. I'm disappointed that she won't be there, but she said she'd come next weekend instead. That might be good to keep me from getting anxious, if I find out on Friday night that I definitely need to show up for Jury Duty the following week :)



Youngest Son got up at 12:30 p.m.!  Ahhh, to be young and not have sleeping issues :)



We drove the Focus to the dermatologist's office.  We didn't have to wait long, and then the nurse practitioner, after running down all the questions about side effects and examining Youngest Son, said that we didn't have to come back next month nor does he have to go back to the lab since he's doing fine. She said she didn't like to waste people's money if they could save it. Woohoo! This makes up for all the snafus that happened with this practice.  YS and I decided not to tell her about last night's sore throat since YS's throat was feeling fine this morning.  Our co-pay was $20 and I paid with the Health FSA debit card.  I also asked her to make sure that she reauthorized YS's prescription in the IPledge system since she'd forgotten to do that last month and that had caused problems, so she went to do it right away and indeed, the pharmacy called me shortly after to tell me that the prescription was ready to be picked up. I told them I'd pick it up on Wednesday, when I run my errands.



In the car, I cancelled next month's lab appointment via their website.



We went to Panera's to pick up a late lunch to go, and I also got a salad for Greg's dinner.   I used 2 coupons that I had in my app ($1 off pasta and $2 off a dinner order) and paid for the OOP with a gift card for which I had redeemed my Ibotta rewards.  I drove home while Youngest Son ate in the car.



Back home, I watched some episodes of "The Antiques Roadshow" on PBS thanks to the Passport subscription, while I ate my lunch and up until about 6 p.m.  Panera forgot to include the dressing for my salad, grrr.



Greg left work a bit early, at 5:30 p.m. and drove home in the rain.   Once again, the water utility people didn't show up to check the meter (they're supposed to leave a hanging tag on the door telling us what the results of the inspection was, and there was no hanging tag). I'll need to call City Hall on Monday.



I finally dragged myself to do the darn dishes, LOL!  I was just finishing up when Greg came home, and YS finished his last summertime Videogame Programming class at the same time.  He liked it better than he thought he would when he first started, although he did say it's very complicated and couldn't dedicate too much extra time to work on his project in view of his other classwork, but he can continue to work on it even though the class has ended since the software he downloaded was free to start with. I wonder if he will...



I sat with Greg while he ate his Panera salad and we chatted for a bit.  Then we moved to the living room and watched more episodes of "The Antiques Roadshow".  I went up to bed at 9:45 p.m. and fell asleep while listening to "Forensic Files".

Just Call Me Goldilocks ~ Saturday 7/21/18

I know, I know, I complain too much about my sleep, my bed, waking up too often, etc.  Sorry! But that's life. Well, my life right now!



For the 2nd night in a row, my bed feels like a block of concrete. It is so hard!  I wonder why this is bothering me now when I slept on it for 14+ years without any problems?!  I did add a mattress foam top to it about 3 years ago so perhaps I did think it was too hard and forgot about it? But this time I didn't put the foam pad back on because I've had problems with being too hot so I thought it would be better to sleep without it.



I'm thinking that I might try to put it back on, though, because I wake up so sore, especially in my shoulders.  It could be that I'm still sore from moving the beds around 2 days ago, though, so we'll see.



In the meantime, I'm happy to report that I'm definitely not as hot at night!  So at least a victory in this long quest to be comfortable when I sleep.  But I still wake up every 1 to 3 hours to use the bathroom. I'm thinking I need to go back to not drinking as much.  Damned if I do, and damned if I don't!



I went to cuddle with Greg when I got up this morning because he hadn't gone fishing.  The mattress, the very one that I gave him because I hated it, felt so soft and comfy!

But the man is a furnace and that, with the heat coming off the mattress, meant that I cuddled for about 3 minutes and then couldn't take it anymore, I needed to be cool!



I came downstairs (where, incidentally, it was freezing, because we need to keep the downstairs at 73F to be at least comfortable upstairs) and decided to drink last night's decaf COLD. I get hot flashes during the day but I definitely think that they're more frequent or made worse by the fact that I drink my decaf hot.  Not actually drinking full caffeinated coffee seems to have no effect on my hot flashes, but it sure makes me feel like a zombie!



I saw the free sample pack of Dunkin' Donuts Cold Brew that I'd gotten in the mail a few weeks ago, and decided to try that.  You have to let it steep for 8 to 12 hours... I should have read the instructions first!

Then I looked up online instructions to make Cold Brew coffee with regular coffee. I might try the French press method, we will see.



I also brewed a pot of decaf since I'll have to wait until tomorrow morning to drink the Cold Brew!



I had a bowl of cereal and saved the inner bag to reuse as a freezer bag.  There were a couple of strawberries that I could save from the last container in my fridge, so I added them to my cereal, but I still had to compost several of them, and then I also had to compost an avocado that we never used.

Apathy towards my diet + no meal planning = food waste + gaining weight.  The obvious solution is to get back on the horse so why is it so hard to do so?!?

I earned the daily rewards with Explorer cuddling next to me in the spot that his sister usually occupies. But I yelled at her a couple of days ago when she very purposefully knocked a cup full of water off the side of the futon, so she's been taking refuge on Greg's recliner ever since, and pouting.

I caught up on emails and blogs and the news, and then Greg got up.  We chatted for a bit and then I offered to cook him breakfast. I cooked eggs and bacon, toasted an English muffin (and one for me!) and brewed him coffee and brought it to him on a tray in the living room. It took less than 10 minutes and I quickly counted that it probably cost us $1.50, tops, for the whole thing.



A dear reader, Michelle, emailed me TEN Coke codes that she snagged from her son (and the trash can!) because she knew I use those from time to time. Isn't she so sweet?! She also commiserated with me about menopause as we're the same age and she's also going through the sleep problems. It sounds funny to say this, but it really helps to know others are going through the same thing, because I always beat myself up (internally) for complaining so much about something that women have been undergoing for millenia!

I printed a Petco Pals Rewards coupon for a free 4-lb bag of dog food.  It needs to be redeemed this weekend so I might not be able to make it but if I do, I'll give it to Middle Son for my grandpup.



Greg was saying that he was feeling weird, dizzy and just not like himself ;(  I miss our hikes but it's too darn hot and humid right now. I mean, our high will only be 88F today but the humidity is a killer. So we'll just stay put.



I went to take a shower and wash my hair... and shave my legs. I felt like the yeti!

I used shampoo and conditioner from the Holiday Inn Express, it's a Bath & Body Works scent with lemon in it that's quite invigorating, I always like it.  And I used some soap that Greg had brought back from his hotel in Madrid.



When it was time to make my bed, I decided to try putting on the foam mattress top.  When I bought it, the king-size was cheaper than the queen-size, and I never got around to cutting it up to size. We made it work but it really stretched our sheets and it was a pain to make the bed, lol. Yes, I'm that lazy that in 3-4 years, I never bothered cutting it down to size!



But today I didn't want to deal with that headache anymore so I cut a cutter and a pair of scissors and trimmed it to size before putting the fitted sheet back on.  It's the one that I bought at Amazon and it's very soft and has deep pockets so it works great.  And then I decided to use the top sheet too.  You see, at night, I'm either cold or too hot.  I have a thin "cotton" blanket that I'd bought at Aldi last year, but when I'm cold, it's not enough so I add a small sherpa blanket on top. But then I'm too hot!  So I figured that I'd try the top sheet with the thin blanket to see if it might be the right mix. After all, I never take the top sheet off when we're at a hotel!  So here's hoping that I might finally be quite comfortable and not too hot!

I had to take the picture with my Kindle in my dark room so it's all fuzzy. I can't make the bed

very well since it's pushed against a wall so it never looks great, but I don't care. This is the

remnant of the pad that I cut off. I'll set it aside in case we need it for something, I guess.  I could make cat beds out of it.

On my way back downstairs, I swept the stairs with my microcloth broom. There was a bunch of cat hair on them as one of the Kittens always like to wait for us at the top of the stairs in the morning. And it's not always the same, they take turns!  Then I also swept the hallway, exercise room, breezeway, part of the Cat Room, and the stairs to the Gaming Lair.

This was actually my "good morning, it's about time!" committee this morning!

Greg said "It's not Domestic Saturday, sit down!" but I told him that since he felt weird, I felt compelled to do weird things, like cleaning on a Saturday :)



I'm worried about him, he's never really out of sorts like this. I mean, he feels sick more often than he should, but usually he knows what's wrong with him. For him to say he feels "weird" without being able to describe it, is not normal.



So I offered to go get him lunch anywhere he wanted. He decided that he felt like a burger from McDonald's but said he'd come with me.  I grabbed my phone and realized that I had missed a call and had a voicemail message from our neighbor Jeff. The message was very muddled and we couldn't understand what he was saying, but the gist seemed to be that he needed help.  Greg went to put on his shoes but since he felt "weird", I wasn't about to let him go do something that might make him sick, so I went outside so chat with Jeff. Turns out, he had needed help to hold something on his mower while he unscrewed something else, but he got his wife to help him.  I suppose that he's like Greg, he'll ask anyone for help before he asks his own wife, because we tend to question why men do what they do and they just want to do it, lol.



When I went back indoors to tell Greg he didn't need help anymore, he didn't feel like coming to McDonald's with me anymore, so I went on my own.  It was just past noon so I was dreading having to be in line at the drive-through for a long time, but I lucked out and got there right as no one was in line...but a long line formed behind me almost immediately!



I got lunch for the three of us (I always know what YS wants!) and used a $3/$10 coupon from my app to lower the cost a bit, and charged the OOP to Discover for 5% back in Bonus Rewards.

Back home, we ate lunch and Youngest Son finally got up!  He and Greg are supposed to play "Warhammer" today at some point. I guess I'll watch TV while they do that.  It was supposed to rain all afternoon and indeed the clouds had gathered about 15 minutes ago, but now at 1 p.m. the sky is blue with some white clouds and it's sunny.  If it weren't so hot and humid, I'd go sit on the porch but the futon in the living room will have to do, I suppose.



I looked at the ad preview for CVS and Walgreens and updated my shopping list. I'll get my milk at CVS, as usual, because I get it for free with the CVS gift card from Amex Rewards, but I don't need anything else from there, and I'll skip Walgreens altogether.  I've really been lazy this week and have yet to transcribe my receipts into my spreadsheets for the week and see where I stand as far as my grocery budget is concerned. Next week's shop will be the last for July so I ought to do that this weekend to avoid going over budget! This might mean buying only the bare essentials as I have a feeling that I've spent quite a bit of the budget, already.

Tabby Kitty is the only cat I know who answers to his name, although he only does that when I call him out of exasperation. He'll sit at the top of the stairs and cry for Greg if he thinks Greg is upstairs, or will sit in front of the closet that contains his favorite toy and cry.  So as soon as he cries, I call his name, and then I hear a throaty growl that he does, and he comes running to me, LOL, and then sit there in front of me and waits for me to do something, silently. If I get up, he'll run back to the spot where he came from and wish me to do something to satiate his urge.  Today, he ran back to the closet where the toy is, so I got it out and then played with all three Kittens for a short while. But as fun as it was when they were kittens because they would run and jump non-stop, now they just crouch and observe the feathery toy being shaken and tapped, and then make a half-hearted attempt to catch it. I tire of the game easily, so I just place the stick under my thigh, at the edge of the futon and then they do "run bys" and amuse themselves.  This reminds me that, if I do go to Petco this weekend, I'll need to get them a toy replacement because one of the kids must have broken the stick at some point, as it is shorter than it used to be, I think.

Then I remembered that I'd gotten them another toy for Christmas. It's a little bit different, and I was amazed by the interest that they showed in it! In 2 seconds I had all three Kittens jumping around and doing all kinds of acrobatics to get the bright pink feathers, lol! So we played for a while.

LOL, Explorer would growl every time he caught it in his mouth, to warn the other cats that it was his, and then would try to leave with it...

But I wouldn't let him

Tabby Kitty loved catching it and then sniffing the string. 

Weirdo!

Meanwhile, Princess went straight for the replacement feathers that had come with the toy!  Cheater!  I had to put them away.

Greg decided to go take a nap. I offered for him to use my bedroom since it's cooler in there than in his, due to the fact that I have two air returns for a smaller room while he only had 1 air return for a room twice the size (old houses... I guess they didn't have too much choice when they fit in the central air?)



Youngest Son spent the afternoon doing algebra homework. Boy, I don't miss being a kid all that much!

At 2:00 p.m., I decided to go harvest some tomatoes, thinking I should have a bunch that ripened since the last time...not so!  The damn bugs that have infested my tomato plants have cut a bunch of the fruit off or sucked the plants so much that the fruit has fallen. I was able to harvest 3 small tomatoes, only!

Here is one of the bugs, in the lower right quadrant. I hate those things!

My pitiful harvest :(

I pulled weeds while I was out there, sprayed a few wasps nests, refilled a couple of bird feeders, and cleaned a third one. I broke a piece off that one, by accident, so I washed the broken pieces and will try to superglue them back together once they're dry.

The volunteer papaya tree is really growing well right there. I guess I'll leave it and trim it once it gets close to the power line, if it ever does.

It's already the end of the lilies :( This is the only flower remaining on the two plants that actually grew. Such large flowers for such tiny plants!

The grey clouds are moving back in, maybe it'll rain some more! (spoiler: it didn't rain!)



Ah crap, my Publix had a Greenwise tasting event today until 3 p.m. and I had put it on my calendar but forgot to set an alarm on my phone... and it's now 2:55 p.m.! Oh well. I'd probably have spent money on stuff that we don't need.



I brought the 2 jugs of rainwater from the upstairs bathroom back downstairs, and then decided to make "chocolate instacake" for Youngest Son and myself.  I melted a whole stick of butter by mistake, instead of a half, so I saved the melted butter in the fridge (I'll just have to make more instacakes tomorrow!), and also froze the butter wrapper so I can reuse it to grease a bread or cake pan in the future).  The magic of the microwave meant that we got chocolate cake in 2 minutes, woohoo!

Gooey and yummy. I wish I still had whipped cream to put on top, though, that would have been perfect.

Princess decided to cuddle with Greg since he was insisting on using this recliner. She never ever does, so he was thrilled!

I went to add 3 cups of water to my pitcher of DD Cold Brew since it'd been 8 hours since I'd started brewing it. It's fully caffeinated coffee so I need to wait until tomorrow morning to drink it!



Greg has asked me for an automatic ice maker for his birthday since I refuse to get a whole new fridge.  So I ordered him one on Amazon, using my $5 credit from Prime Day and the $5 gift card earned with Microsoft Rewards. His birthday is not for several months, but it'll be an early surprise :) I got the red one that was cheaper than the other colors. I like red :) We'll get 5% back on our Amazon Visa card.  I should have checked if it qualified for Ebates, Ibotta or Swagbucks but I forgot. Oops, where is my head?!

Still cheaper than a whole new fridge!

Well, I guess not so much a surprise because, as soon as he came back to the living room, I told him about it, lol. He was pretty excited :)



I fake mopped the kitchen while I was boiling water (in my thrifted electric kettle) to make hummingbird nectar. "Fake Mopped" meaning I used a square of an old bath towel, wet it, and scrubbed the worst of the kitchen floor's stains and splatters with my foot on top of the rag, and then threw it in the wash. It's not the best way to clean the kitchen but it's one way to make the kitchen look cleaner, lol.



Then I went to compost the bowl of coffee grounds and filters that I'd been keeping next to the coffeemaker. I deadheaded some roses while I was outside. It's still hottish, at 6:15 p.m., but not too bad. If it weren't humid, it'd be perfect to sit outside with a nice drink and contemplate life.

When the water had boiled, I mixed it with sugar and it's now cooling off. I'll probably refill the hummingbird feeders tomorrow.



I was going to cook tilapia for dinner but then I remembered all the Chinese Pork roast that's still in the fridge (I have got to freeze what's left after dinner!) so I think we'll have leftovers. There's still some rice left too so YS and I will split that and Greg will eat the rest of the broccoli from a couple of nights ago. Easy, peasy.



I texted Middle Son to offer him the AMC voucher for the large popcorn and soda and he sounded pretty excited when he accepted it. Well, I mean an exclamation mark does signify excitement, yes?



I decided to buy another Roku 2XD, the same one as we already own, because it's my favorite version  of the hardware as it still supports the Netflix app that does NOT automatically play trailers and shows the better layout (but the remote doesn't have the headphone jack on it, crap, I just remembered that!).  I want to eventually have a TV and Roku in my bedroom so I can also have a DVD player to watch all the DVDs that I have when I'm sick or when I just want to relax in bed.  I checked Amazon but the sellers of used ones didn't have great ratings so I went on Ebay and found one from a seller that has 100% positive ratings (with a lot of ratings) and only wanted $20 + shipping for the Roku AND the remote.  I paid with Paypal so I used up $2.97 in Paypal credits that I had earned from the Coupons.com app and the rest got charged to my Discover card.  I hesitated because I recently found our Roku 1, but it had limitations and if our Roku 2XD craps out downstairs, then I can replace it with this one.

Now to get a flat screen TV for my room...  an hour later... and I went ahead and bought one off Amazon... plus a bluetooth adapter so at least I can use my bluetooth speaker with the TV since the Roku 2XD definitely can't be paired with a remote that had headphone jacks (I checked! I can put the bluetooth speaker behind my pillow on low, that way it won't bother Greg) and an HDMI cable for the Roku. So I spent about $200, yikes, but that'll be MY early birthday present.  I know I should have just waited and perhaps shopped around some more, but I've had those items on my wishlist for over a year so I just pulled the trigger.  And now Greg doesn't have to think about what to get me for my birthday!