12/8/23 not UP

 Went to bed at about 12:40am and was up at about 8:40am. Good for me :) My sleep was interrupted when I started retiring to bed with Steven, who decided to get to bed earlier and I thought I could do that too. Ha. So he went to bed with our usual Gimli routine, and I stayed up later, after having taken all my evening pills. I didn't retire until I was nodding off. That's always a good time to go to bed. Even having an afternoon nap of 20 minutes naturally, nodding off is a good time to nap. I heard but one sleep expert on youtube say that. So I wrap what I have to do around that important nodding off moment and just plan on getting to bed when it happens.

Tomorrow is brunch with the bible study friends. I will be up getting the croissants out of the freezer and onto a tray for tomorrow morning's adventure. I call it an adventure because it's the first time we've done this in daylight :) It'll be good to see how I do at that time, with taking meds earlier and getting up earlier.

Forgot to take Eyebright last night. Sticky eyes since.

Chiropractor today, yay. 

Watched "Reds" last night. Kinda wintery movie. Not Christmas stuff. Have to see what else we can do with traditions. Neighborhood lights? We walk ours in the evening. 

Later... Helped Ola write an email to Greta to tell her that she'd have to take care of mom's bonds to her hubby. But Ola, whose days and nights are inversed, doesn't think right. Mom's estate will go into probate to release that money. She will need to be patient.

Meanwhile, Steven made keto carrot cake. It came out meh. I would have done it differently, but there's no us working together on it because he doesn't hear me. C'est la vie.

Read a bio on poor old Rosemary C. 

12/7/23

 Good morning, Papa. Today will be a day of rest with little to do. Ola needs to do her medical paperwork and canceled on working on her other stuff with me. We are planning on rising quite early on Saturday to partake in a brunch with our Christian group peoples.

On my mind is a lot of unfinished business, like finding a church with like-minded people. We have enough of the others around us. Would be nice to locate Bethel folks in this area.

Our jackets order was canceled due to stock issues. Rats. We need Jesus clothes to find folks.

Another issue that is coming up frequently is getting these texts from websites that only contact by text. Don't do that.

I miss my family, but I appreciate peace as well. They aren't ones to come visit and leave. They'd rather have a piece of this, and they don't know the half of it. Surprises are nice.

One sister is estranged now, by her choice. She's been in the process for years, apparently, and when she hit the eject button, that was it. Spiritual problems. Choice problems. Faith problem.

The other is across the country from me. Should be totally on the same page, but her hubby left that part before he died, and she's a hover parent that I am not. Faith, baby. Just faith. God's got this. Someone reminded me of this truth this week.

Steven's puttering in the garage, loading my old fat clothes into the car. I had no idea how many clothes I've accumulated over the years since moving back to the mainland. Sheesh. Some are just worn out. Nice to make room in the house.

things to do in 2024:

Organize, weed through, have company be comfortable, be thankful, be balanced, exercise more, have all of our paperwork done for the last time. Imagine that :) Nine years in the renewing of paperwork annually with months of paperwork preceding. 

Be more involved in Bethel, if that is our only option locally. I'm grateful to be within 3 hours of my favorite place.

12/6/23 Up

 Lotta communication with family today. Lisa had a block of free time to talk. A lot of it when the car was turned off, waiting for a grandson's school bus. I shared French with her. Our quiet Christmas plans. She shared her stuff again. I just wanna be a sister to her. She's so far away.

Ola with her paperwork, printing stuff that is readable to deal with stuff. Not functioning with her days and nights upside down. She doesn't think so. Yeah? Well, I know so. She is me when I was that old.

Steven had a day to breathe :)

Later today are our dental appts. 

Sam's Club tonight. My feet were not cooperating. right heel spur acting up. 

Found coconut keto chocolate stuff. so good, and so waking me up :_ It was worth it. Love walking down the Christmas aisles.

French was good. Hebrew words are a daily discovery. Appreciate how God has gifted us Himself. We just need to look :)

Later...Steven at his dental appt now. Quiet house :) Drinking coffee, no sugar today, since I wanted a change. Gimli sits on Steven's chair, waiting for him to appear. A dog's life. I remembered to pet him a few minutes ago. He loves cheek kisses.

Managed finally to fall asleep. No chocolate at night, period. But it may also be these new vitamins he brought home. Choline is not my friend. 200% GDR. Nope. Will take a nap.

Lunch is had, a protein bar with a late breakfast. Waiting for the rest of the wafer in the bar to melt off my teeth before brushing. So sticky and good.

Have a box of Christmas stuff coming. The convenience of ordering online, but also knowing that we can get what we want.

I found tops online, all cotton. Haven't ordered them yet. I'm excited to find out what I will fit in now. In spite of all the chocolate goodies we ate yesterday, I lost weight because it was keto. The new bag of chocolate fun I found at Sam's seems to be a great winner. Fiber is good and the coconut isn't bothering me too much. I look forward to dropping a little lower in weight and then having a great menu that I can stick to. Seems like maintenance will be adding dessert.

Brunch set for Saturday at 10am. Way too early for us, but we'll get up and go because the hosts get to do as they like. Will bring croissants, fresh from TJ to my oven :) Ca va bien.

Dentist went as expected. Maybe or maybe not in 6 weeks, I will be done with this phase. We'll see at that time. I know there is more work, after that last tooth is in the right position. A dentist mistake that is being rectified. Sigh. I will be glad to be able to munch happily on my food again.

Tonight's Christmas month movie is 1941. 

Christmas blogging 2023

 Hard not to compare one's family with a better situationed family. Typed out this way, it looks even more ridiculous than the real thing. 

The fact is that all families have their stuff. I really don't comprehend most other family's tolerances:

Male bossiness

Women fake submission

Games people play - If I hadn't read that book from 1969, I wouldn't notice :)

Kids begging for attention that parents are clueless to.

Parents assuming what's happening between siblings. They are so wrong :)

We families need one another because we can bring insight into one another's families. But we are excluded from all generation families in this culture that is not Bethel at all. Bethel created a godly culture to correct this confusion. Dysfunction. Too bad we are just out of reach of such a thing.

It's good to have Christmas by ourselves. I'm looking at family pj's for us and Gimli. Really. Why not? My kids are doing exactly what they want as far away as possible from us.

My husband's widowed SIL declared that she can only trust herself on FB today. Sigh.

NO. We can only trust Jesus. It's in the Book. We are just sheep, clueless to what we need, reliant on Jesus, who knows us completely.

Later... bored today. Raining outside. Laundry is being washed. Would like to do something, but what? Antsy.

12/2/23 Up

 After an uncomfortable confrontation tonight, I'm up. Tried sleeping earlier, but that messes with my sleep routine of retiring at 12am, so I lay there for an hour. Oops. Time to be up and go back down. That's the way it works.

Being grateful is the only way out of this awakening. Looking around at my Christmas decor on display and knowing that I really got a great present for Christmas: A great outcome for the project we've been working on for quite a while. A good result from lots of research.

Going through the ornaments, I picked some and Steven picked his favorites for this year. We have so many that we can just go through them instead of shopping for new ones, and find things that remind us of this year. Steven thought of that this year.

For me, it was Vineyard Santa Maria church

Marching band guy

Lizzie

The animals, dad's tin soldier, Adam's stocking, Myrtle's stocking. I forgot what the extra stockings were for and I guess we got extras for when Adam, Laura and Kailey were with us back when. Adam on the scooter, Charlie Brown band, the ginger bread house, a disney music box, the Everett fireplace, the santa hats and sweaters, the candy cane lane sign and a couple on the lighted artificial tree we replaced last year. Bath hand towels. Yeah, the rest of the tin soldiers: Elvis, the miner, the sax player stuffed animal. I think that's enough.

I managed to not flip the Blaze calendar from October until the last day of November :) Current now in December :)

What can we get next year?

Gift people

a motorhome, if cheap enough

with the motorhome, we can see Napa Valley

give more to Bethel

help our kids better

fix up the patio

get a housekeeper

send school money to Blaze. help with his airfare here.

take short land trips

not have to take out loans to catch up.

see what it really takes to be retired by the month

do some conferences. a neighbor has a good pet sitter.

I am grateful that it wasn't like Susan said for us. Her disability was better than her retirement, but I forgot that her disability was from SS and that is slightly higher than her retirement. Ahhh...

Im grateful that the way some big companies work, they actually set you up to retire by making you put your raises into savings that they invest with. 

Im grateful that Steven got a degree in business, though it was long coming, and he had few options, but business was one of them. Since he pretty much decided his life without my input, I've just now figured out that he did it all for the purpose of getting to this point. It's hard to be left in the dark all the time.

But other things come with single income families, like leaving the band a tip. He likes to do that alone. It's his money.

We have working moms because some men don't really believe the money isn't all theirs. Like my dad. Well, he thinks all money is his anyway, under his roof.

Even so, I haven't put myself out there in this house. I've let Steven just stomp around and enjoy his last days. But these are also my last days. Maybe I'm tired and just don't want the disruption.

It's 1:37am now. The nights can be a quiet time. What is up tomorrow? 

What would I like for Christmas? I like colorful blouses that are long. They cover my (still there) love handles. I look forward to losing more weight. It's a lifestyle for me, this keto thing. Steven can't lose more, but I'm set on doing more pound loss. 

Thankful for my wall of people, that only two are missing and no one is suffering.

I pray Adam miracles in the wild and with work. May he find the wisdom to solve his housing stuff. There's a great place waiting for him :)

Later... Managed to sleep again, yay. Up at exactly 9am. Thanks, Papa.

Looking for Xmas presents today. Ugh. I'd rather go to a store, but it's the weekend. 

Extra long leg stuff means men's more comfy pants. Steven's researching leg warmers. He found stuff in Scotland but he's also doing laundry, so...

Don't like this autocorrect that begins all my sentences. Christmas lights are on, background lights on dim. Dark days now. Need sunlight.

Up a pound from last night's clam chowder which is basically anethema for diabetics: i.e., potato soup with clams. In Heaven, no bad foods sneaking into any menu every again.

RV shopping 2024

 Time to get going on the RV thing. Did this before; they deleted my last new RV blog.

Ridiculous prices out there because of the growing mobile community.

I even found a tiny house with $950 per month lease near the sea. Hmmm...

There are tiny houses on owned land, skoolies, right sized class A's, and extra wide class b's to consider. My HOA may accept a small class B. I've seen them on driveways here. But we'd have to do the build. Steven says that's too much a project for him.

I'm watching youtube and travelers in vans in Europe and across the US. Free land camping everywhere. But those folks are still quite young. Could be my kids, who are getting too old for nonsense and just want their own houses :)

What about getting some land for  son in Maui?

12/1/23

 Time to blog...

I slept through the night :) My routine is good, so long as I do it right. TV was off at 10pm, but I took all the right meds last night:

1/2 Kirkland sleep aid

1 Dr. Berg sleep aid

Heart meds

1 Tudca

1 aspirin

If there is any deviation from this list of meds, I don't sleep.

Mistakes in my history of this routine?

Elderberry at any time either knocks me out when it kicks in the next morning (!) then I'm drowsy all day. Recommended to me by Jana as a sleep aid. Not for me.

If I run out of Dr. Berg sleep aid, I'll be awake in 3 days. So keep it in stock.

The tudca keeps my liver and body in good regulation. I also take one in the morning.

What about the project at hand?

Latest paperwork filled in and mailed off. Another request to go back to work happened yesterday. Ignore if already handled. Official numbers came a couple of days ago. I wonder if there will be a gap between now and when everything is adjusted.

Still in wonder that things actually work out when you do the paperwork right and when actually working the job so very long in your life. Still wondering what the eldest gets, but not enough to ask because everything turns into a mad contest with her. I wonder how long she will retain her marbles... 

That reminds me: Must pray for these folks, especially because they are so good at hiding their madness.

My mind presses on how next year will bring us such extra blessings to share and to help us to not need anything more.

Daughter needs training bucks. Massage school.

And son? How to help is still a mystery. The gypsy life that he loves, and is just in need of a permanent solution. Pray he doesn't get a lay off notice from the new owners.

I didn't have the means to help him 20 years ago when he asked for a bundle to start his own mechanic shop. It would have been a way to do his skills without so many licenses in specific skills. Fear of tests is a pain. Because inflation was so ridiculous where we all lived, I look back and can only sigh.

The rest, well, they have to run their journeys with Papa.

I read about a gal whose daughter strayed for a while. So heartbroken was she. Me too. There are no words.