Plant of the month – Pine

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We have three pines in our new yard, and I appreciate them as big contributors to the greens of January. Only one of them appears to have cones…and it has a lot of them in all stages of development. It has shorter needles than the other two.

I enjoyed taking some macro images of the cones close to the ground. As the cones get very old, I will probably harvest some of them to add to the pinecone wreath that was made years ago from cones from my sister’s house. It will be a good way to fill in thin places as the wired cones (that are larger) shift a little…and add even more of my heritage to the wreath.

I read an article recently about pine needle tea and have started cutting a small handful of pine needles from the two longer needle pines to add to the black tea bag and home-dried orange peel in my tea maker (a coffee maker that has never-ever been used for coffee!). I like the flavor of the result…no sweetener required…and it smells good too.

2023 Diet (Strategy)

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I am thinking about my diet strategy for 2023. It’s a mix of things that have worked before to keep my focus on nutrition and moving toward a sustained ‘normal’ weight…skewed toward lowering my carbon footprint.

  • Use the Cronometer app to watch nutrition and calories until I am at the ‘normal’ weight for my height. This worked for me 5+ years ago so I am going to do it again now that I have gained a few pounds. It is important to sustain a healthy weight rather than yo-yoing. Using the app I know I am getting enough protein; if I need to reduce something to get the calories low enough, it is usually a fat…and I want all the calories to go toward meeting nutritional goals.

  • Reduce ultra-processed foods (those foods that have a long list of ingredients…some of them unrecognizable). The hardest might be soft drinks. I also notice that when I travel, there are more instances of ultra-processed foods in my diet.

  • Eat less red meat. In 2022 it was about half my protein. In 2023, I want to reduce it to 25%. I’ll ramp up eggs, chicken, turkey, and vegetarian sources of protein (although I am not keen on the vegetarian sources of protein with ingredient lists that indicate they are ‘ultra-processed’).

  • Become vigilant about avoiding lactose. The Lactaid does not seem to totally solve the problem anymore, so it is better to avoid the foods. The big change is moving away from Lactaid Milk to Soymilk. Deciding what to eat when I travel will be a bit more challenging as well.

The theme for my 2023 diet is:

‘Good for me…and for the planet.’

A 50th Anniversary

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I posted about my parents’ 70th anniversary back in December; now I am celebrating my own 50th wedding anniversary with my husband. The anniversary prompts me to think about those 50 years of shared life from different perspectives.

Our external focus shifted through the years:

  • For the first 10 years, we were completing our education – a PhD for him, a masters for me. I was working full time during those years…not thinking about computer science as a career for the first 5 years but gradually realizing that I liked the work too much to switch fields. From the beginning he seemed to have a clearer idea of what he wanted to do. We were the first in both our families to go beyond an undergraduate degree.

  • We moved to the east coast for my husband’s work; it was a great career move for me too. We were both focused on our careers for about 5 years.

  • Then we decided to have a child and took the precautions needed for a successful pregnancy in our mid-30s. We thought we were prepared when our daughter was born but quickly realized that there was a learning curve that was just beginning. Between the two of us we successfully juggled parenting and careers…until she went off to college 20 years later.

  • There were 5 years of career focus with occasional bursts of activity to help my daughter move out of the dorm into an apartment, get to an internship, or move for graduate school. The internship and graduate school were more than halfway across the US!

  • 10 years ago - I retired and my husband started a ramp down from his career that continued for several years.

We’ve lived in several states over the 50 years: Texas for 10, Virginia for 3, Maryland for 36.5, Missouri for .5 years. The two long haul moves (from Texas to Virginia and from Maryland to Missouri) were quite different. We had a lot more household items to move the second time, the technology of finding a new house/selling our old one had improved dramatically, and we were able to buy our current house rather than get a mortgage.

Our shared interests have evolved over the years.

  • Photography. My husband was the one that enjoyed photography from the beginning….doing his own black/white and color developing (and printing too). I remember in our first house when one of the developing chemicals was not diluted enough when he poured it down the kitchen sink and it dissolved the disposal flaps! We have a lot of negatives and slides from those pre-digital years. The transition to digital happened about the time our daughter was old enough to start taking pictures. My interest in photography picked up a little when my daughter was born but ramped up dramatically once I retired.

  • Travel. From the very beginning we’ve both enjoyed day trips and vacations to outdoor destinations: gardens, state parks, and national parks. In the beginning, we economized by car/tent camping and not eating out. By the time we moved to Virginia we could afford flying, staying in hotels, and eating out although the road trip still dominated our vacations. When my daughter was born, we shifted our accommodations to ones that had a small kitchen to accommodate her food requirements/preferences. Some of our travel was associated with either my career or my husband’s…so that part of the travel was paid for as part of our work. After she got older and as we travelled more on our own, we enjoyed short term house rentals. For a few years before the COVID-19 pandemic, my husband and I used birding festivals as a focus for our travels.

  • Astronomy. My husband was interested in astronomy before I knew him. One of our early dates included a lunar eclipse at the local astronomy club’s observatory. In the early years of our marriage, we participated in grazing occultations (stars and the mountains of the moon); my role was to help him get the telescope set up as quickly as possible in the assigned location so he could take the measurements. Later I used the cast iron telescope mount to add weight in the back of my rear-wheel drive car – to give it more traction on snowy days in Virginia. His astronomy activity ebbed although he did replace his telescope; we (daughter included) observed the sunrise in 2000…our celebration of the new millennium. Once he retired, he became active the local astronomy club in Maryland and we both camped on the field for a star party at a dark sky site in Virginia several times; he liked the dark sky (and being able to call it a night whenever he got tired) and I enjoyed being outdoors, hiking during the day.

A lot has happened in 50 years and we’re both realizing how fortunate we are that the big decision we made all those years ago was a good one for both of us!

Cancer Diary – Entry 13

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It’s been a year since my cancer surgery. All the diagnostics at the one-year mark show that I am cancer free….so the surgery was a success.

My last post was 4 weeks after the surgery but now I realize I should have done a post at 8 weeks since that is when the hematoma was finally gone. And two weeks later, in the area where the last hematoma color had been, cellulitis developed. The cellulitis might have been unrelated to the surgery, but it was a first instance of cellulitis for me…disconcerting; it was quickly resolved by antibiotics (unfortunately, I develop a reaction to the first type prescribed right after the second dose).

My fingernails became very brittle in the spring. They have returned to normal now. I suspect that the surgery and associated medication change might have been an issue but that my body had recovered/acclimated at this point.

The scar and puckering around it are not fading as quickly as I expected – perhaps because of skin sensitivity to the recommended topical vitamin E and/or cocoa butter and sunscreen, developing hives in the scar area (reaction to an antibiotic), and the silicon patches not being as effective as advertised. My current strategy is to cover the scar when I am out in the sun (rather than using sunscreen) and to use the mildest of moisturizers.

My cancer was detected early before it impacted my perception of health, and the surgery happened expeditiously. A year later, I am feeling healthy (almost like I felt before the surgery) but 2022 had the most health related ups and downs of my life!

Previous cancer diary posts:

Ten Little Celebrations – December 2022

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Ten little…and big…celebrations for December 2022. The big ones include:

A 70th wedding anniversary. That’s a lot of years for a relationship to thrive….and for both to still be healthy enough to enjoy life and the celebration!

Winter holiday. They happen every year, but it doesn’t reduce the joy of the virtually back-to-back family celebrations that flow into January: a birthday, an anniversary, Christmas, New Years and then another big anniversary. I’m celebrating now and savoring the anticipation of more still to come!

And then there are the little celebrations that are more like the other months of the year:

Finding puzzles. When I first started looking for puzzles, I didn’t find any that I likes and then I found 2 at a thrift store and another 4 at a pharmacy….and celebrated the finds!

Gardens Aglow at Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden. Celebrating a walk-through holiday light display in Springfield MO. If we hadn’t found it, I would be missing the Brookside Gardens lights in Maryland.

Getting the wreath on the door. The kittens prolonged the time it took to get our house decorated this year (some trial and error with how they would respond). The wreath was one of the last things we did…and I celebrated that the decorating was done!

Getting to stay home on a rainy day. Celebrating that I can usually rearrange plans to avoid getting out on a cold, rainy day!

Hot tea with orange peel. Celebrating a little hint of citrus….and probably the vitamin C as well.

Macro photography at Springfield Conservation Nature Center. Celebrating the beauty of native plants through all the seasons…..particularly close-up.

New glasses. This is my first time to get transition lenses. I am celebrating not needing to juggle my sunglasses on and off on road trips!

The plastic vase works. I was a little skeptical that the flat plastic vases would expand and hold a large bouquet....celebrated when the one I tried worked great! Now I feel more confident giving them as gifts!

Ten Little Celebrations – November 2022

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Ten little celebrations for November. Some of them weren’t so little: a 91st birthday, a grandnephew, and Thanksgiving. There was a lot of food involved too. Celebrating November foods is probably my favorite lead up to the crescendo in December and then the beginning of a new year.

A mini-pumpkin – perfect for 4 servings. My sister bought small pumpkins for a table centerpiece; we decided to cook one of them for lunch along with meatloaf. The oven was nicely full. I pricked the skin of the pumpkin before I put it in the oven since I was cooking it intact. After about an hour, I took it out of the oven, lifted the stem off, cut it into quarters, and took the seeds out from the center. Everyone sprinkled cinnamon and added butter to melt into the pulp. All that was left at the end of the meal was the skin! Yummy!

Cranberries. I like cranberries in just about everything: stir fry, sauces for meatballs (combined with tomatillo salsa), chopping as an addition to stuffing, sauteed with apples + butter + cinnamon + honey for dessert. I used to make cranberry relish on the stovetop because I enjoyed watching the cranberries pop as they cooked, but I don’t like the relish as much anymore (too sweet) so now I enjoy cranberries pooping in stir fry or when they are sauteed. I celebrate both their flavor and their color!

Getting 141 bulbs planted. It took multiple sessions in the yard…and I celebrated when they were all finally in the ground. I hope most of them survive the squirrels and bloom next spring!

Leaves – raked, blown, shredded. Mowing is adequate for the leaves at our house but not my daughter’s. She has very large trees and the leaves were thick enough to kill grass. She and I spent an afternoon focused on leaves…and celebrated our accomplishment! The weather cool and crisp for a traditional fall activity …. always helps get me in the mood for the beginning of the holiday season.

A 91st birthday. Both of my parents are 91 years old as of November. Our family celebrates these milestones…enjoying that we still have them with us.

A grandnephew. Celebrating a baby in our family…the 1st one in over 20 years…adds a another facet to our joy during the holidays.

Walnuts. Not sure why…but walnuts have become a favorite this year. I am celebrating all the ways I’ve found to add them into food I am preparing!

Ritter Springs and Neighborhood Ponds. Celebrating the crisp air outdoors…the color of leaves…the frost on the grass.

Thanksgiving. Celebrating a day to appreciate all the recent events of our lives…a prelude to the family events/gatherings of December.

Leftovers. It’s a treat to have great food in short order… prolongs the celebration. I ate too much on Thanksgiving…did better on the subsequent days and maybe enjoyed the food more.

Zentangle® – October 2022

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31 days in October….31 Zentangle tiles. A lot of the tiles this month have a seasonal palette: orange, muted red, pale green. I had a purple gel pin that I was using up too. Most of the tiles in the mosaic were made in London, Ontario during the hotel room part of my ‘retreat’ from my normal routine. One of the ways I filled the time I gained from not doing online activities or interacting with people was making the tiles. I had taken plenty of supplies.

I also drew 31 tiles that I didn’t color. I’ll probably finish them next month…maybe post the before and after images.  

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. “Zentangle” is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Unique Aspects of Days – October 2022

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Unique aspects of October….

Border crossing (US to Canada). This was not the only time I crossed the boarder from the US to Canada…but the first time in more than  decade…so rare enough to be unique for me. It was the first day of their new policy to no longer require documentation of COVID-19 vaccination….probabay made it a little faster than it would have been the day before.

Buying a baby present in Canada. Two aspects of uniqueness of this one: deciding that having a baby in my exended family is unique enough to buy an ad hoc present and enjoying shopping during vacation …wanting to buy something (and not always something for me).

Discovering that the fireplace vent was leaking cold air into my office and the hearth room upstairs. There was cold air from the bottom of our gas fireplace doors (the vent area) during our first cold weather of the season. The magnetic strip I ordered from Amazon has fixed the problem…and I am glad I noticed the problem so quickly.

Dry Cleaners. I hadn’t been to a dry cleaners in years. I probably could have taken the jackets I had been wearing for a couple of years several years ago…but then the pandemic stopped our being out and about. I aired the jackets and continued to wear them occasionally. When I went to a dry cleaners near our new house, I was the only customer…and the racks didn’t look very full either.

Exploding broccoli. I was pleased to find a cup of carrots, cherry tomatoes, and broccoli in one of the places we stopped on our way back from Canada. I had not anticated that the lid would be so hard to get off. As my daughter was pulling us out of the parking lot, I was working on the packaging…finding it a bit of a challenge…when the lid suddenly came off and broccoli flew out into my lap and onto the center console! I ate it anyway…and the other veggies too!

Hail. We had quarter sized hail at our house for a brief time. I’m glad our cars were in the garage. In Maryland we never got hail above pea sized (and it was slushy). This hail bouced and stayed around on the ground longer!

Peppermint honey. I bought some peppermine infused honey in Canada…and it is yummy!

Sitting in a sunny window like a cat. A very nice place on a cold morning while I was in Canada.

Tator tots. I hadn’t had tater tots in a lot time….and they were a big disappointment…so the event will probably be unique.

Went to the doctor’s office but the doctor had called in sick. I was signing in for a doctor’s appointment when the nurse came from the back and informed the front desk that the doctor had called in sick! I ended up making an appointment with another doctor since she was so fully booked it would be more than a month before I could be worked into her schedule!

Looking back at London, Ontario

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The week in London, Ontario was a different sort of week away from home. I had anticipated several aspects and intentionally took steps on others.

More alone time. My daughter was busy with her conference, and we had separate hotel rooms…so I was alone more – and I anticipated that that it would be that way. I brought activities with me for the time the hotel room and planned at least one activity away from the hotel room for each day. Because it was cold in the morning – I usually waited to leave the hotel until mid-day. I saw the sunrise from the hotel window almost every morning and

a few sunsets with the moon visible too.

There was even some fall foliage visible from the window.

I made a lot of Zentangle tiles, wrote more than 3,000 words per day, and read novels. My favorite morning time was sitting with my feet in the sun coming through the window…feeling warm and cozy….reading novels. It was good to have a week to simply spoil myself.

Walking everywhere. I originally thought I would take the car and visit some parks in the area, but I opted instead to just walk everywhere. I went to Covent Market frequently but also down to the Thames River path, to Banting House, to Museum London, to the RBC Center. And my daughter and I walked to buy at least one meal a day…mostly take out but we ate twice at Crabby Joe’s Bar and Grill. The COVID-19 infection rate was lower in London, Ontario that most places in the US, but we were still being careful – masking when we were in indoor public places.

The slower pace of walking allowed me to see more things – the street sculpture and murals I posted about earlier…and the changing color of leaves.

From my hotel window, I noticed the street sweeper machines in the early morning…and the streets did seem cleaner than in the US. I appreciated being around people after the aloneness of the hotel room….people watching as I walked:

  • The city’s homeless were evident in this downtown area; some had strollers or battered trailers to pull behind a bicycle to carry their things. One slept in a sunny doorway of a building before the store opened.

  • There were waves students that came for snacks or lunch from the local high school…some in uniform and others not.

  • One evening there must have been an event that required costumes since there several people walking along in exaggerated outfits and makeup.

  • Part of the street was closed to vehicular traffic and there was a mini-concert one evening there.

  • The picnic area at Covent Garden had an Autumn Festival at mid-day on our last day in London, Ontario. They had decorated with squash and gourds…country music filled the air. People were enjoying the sunshine, music, and food.

  • The street was modified for handicapped access and there were people in wheelchairs maneuvering easily through the area.  I also noticed a few sight-impaired people. The crossing lights made sounds as well as visual countdowns.

  • The hotel next to ours had a fire alarm and people streamed from the building…multiple fire trucks arrived. A person in our hotel lobby commented that he was getting his passport just in case the fire spread. But it was all over quickly. We never saw any smoke or fire.

Less online time. I intentionally spent less time online. I didn’t take a complete break, but I wasn’t checking news or email frequently…and I didn’t turn on the television at all. The strategy made for a calmer…less stressful week.

Canada. I found myself looking for differences between where I live in the US and London, Ontario. It seemed that the small city was cleaner than similar places in the US and that the downtown area was more vital…that infrastructure was in better shape…basically that the government was more effective. In general, people seemed less stressed. Yes – there were people looking at their phones, but they didn’t seem as distracted by the device – the high school students were generally spending more time talking to each other than looking at their phones!

One of my themes going into the week was thinking about what I want to change. I thought about it…but didn’t come up with definitive answers. I’m changing the idea to ‘what I want to change in 2023’ to give myself a little more time to decide.

London, Ontario Purchases

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My first purchases in London, Ontario were at the Covent Garden Market and were food I that would enjoy while I was there: bread from the bakery, mint dark chocolate Smoothies and dark chocolate covered ginger from The Chocolate Factory, and two kinds if tea and peppermint honey. I enjoyed the honey on the bread and to sweeten the tea.

I splurged on bone China mugs for myself…feeling the chill in the air and realizing I would be drinking hot tea in the coming months. The poppy mug was purchased from The Tea Haus in Covent Garden Market and the other I purchased from the Museum London shop; its design is from a Frank Johnston (Canadian artist) painting: Sunset in the Bush. I also purchased some other gift items at the museum shop but am not posting about them yet…want them to be a surprise to their recipients over the next few months.

I did purchase some gifts for people that are not online…more dark chocolate and an outfit for my grandnephew from Happy Wear in Covent Garden Market. Hopefully the outfit will fit him this winter!

The last day I was there I tried to find some toys for the kittens. There was no place in Convent Garden…so I opted to go to a nearby Dollarama store as I walked back to the hotel for the last time and found what I needed; the kittens are enjoying the small toys!

I am very pleased with my purchases…good food and items that are useful (not stuff to simply display in a shelf!).

Ten Little Celebrations – September 2022

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The 10 celebrations I am featuring in the September 2022 of this monthly post are about foods and health and getting things done. There is also a lot to celebrate about the outdoors this time of year.

Frito pie. I have discovered Dickey’s Frito Pie with brisket, beans, and cheese. It is packed with the Fritos in their own bag for takeout….and I like it without the Fritos! It’s a good thing for me to get when my husband is hungry for a barbeque sandwich…celebrating that the barbeque places where we live now are much better than the ones convenient to us in Maryland.

A birthday. We celebrated by daughter’s birthday. I was chagrined that ice cream cakes are harder to find these days, but she said she wanted ice cream sandwiches…and those were easy to purchase!

Getting the flu and COVID vaccine. I celebrated that the shots were available in time for me to get the shots early enough for them to protect me during my upcoming travel.  

Legal updates completed. My sister and I collaborated to get my parents legal documents updated according to their wishes….and celebrated the completed milestone.

Rings of Power series. I don’t watch much television but I am enjoying the Rings of Power….celebrating the quality of the production and seeing more of Tolkien’s world.

Our large wind chimes. My office is situated where I can hear the wind chimes on breezy days…I celebrate their sound and the memory of when we bought them too.

Poke weeds. Yes – they are weeds…but they are native, and they do produce berries that birds eat. I celebrate that I have several plants that out of the way in my landscaping so I can leave them rather than battling them all through the season.

Springfield Botanical Garden. I find something to celebrate every time I go! This time there were lots of insects to photograph.

Spider Lilies. I don’t know how I missed the orange spider lilies in my parents’ garden in previous years…but I was there at the right time this year to see them!

Great weather for being outdoors. There were still some hot days but as the month progressed, I celebrated some cooler temperatures….the ease of getting outdoors without being concerned of high heat or poor air quality.

Intentions 2022

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At the end of last year, I posted about what I thought would be different about 2022 for me – things that I wanted to make happen. Now that the year is half over, I am assessing my progress on the four areas I wrote about last December.

Releasing myself from some of my daily metrics. This has been the hardest change…and I still find myself pushing for the 12,000 steps…4 books…2,000 words each day. But there are days where other priorities have prevailed such as tasks on the critical path for our move from Maryland to Missouri. So far, I’ve ‘made up’ for the low days on books and words…am averaging the goal for 2022. I’ve not made very much of a change!

Reverting to a cleaner/neater house. In the Maryland house, the piles of boxes that accumulated over the three months before we moved made it harder to clean although we did clean the areas we could get to and cleaned items that were being packed. The house ended up sparkling after the carpeting was replaced; 35+ year old carpeting in a house that always had at least one cat is a cleaning challenge! In our new house, we are vacuuming frequently to clear the dog hair (previous owner)…successfully based on the vacuum canister not filling up as quickly as it did originally. We are still unpacking but there are lots of spaces to put things away and we are striving to keep more surfaces clear. The laundry chute is a plus – no hamper or other laundry receptacle in the bedroom. This intention is still a work in progress but both my husband and I are making the effort; we are motivated to have the house comfortable….keep it cleaner and neater than our Maryland house.

Look for the unique. It’s a habit now…I record something unique at the end of each day and have been surprised how easy it is to identify an event or sight or food…that was a 1st or one/only. The habit has caused a slight change in my attitude. I am more likely to look from a unique perspective or try something new than I was a year ago!

Moving to live closer to my daughter. Done! We are still working through the aftermath…address changes, new licenses/registrations, completely unpacking. Of all the changes I anticipated at the beginning of the year…this is the big one. It probably happened faster than I thought it would. We’ve owned our house in Missouri for about 1.5 months now – enough time to realize we make a great choice. I’m already set to make a fall road trip with my daughter, accompanying her on a road trip to Canada for her to attend a conference – something I would have not been able to do if we still lived in Maryland.

I am doing so well on my intentions made at the beginning of the year that I am adding to the list for the remaining months:

Spend some time each month with my parents (Carrollton).

Design/implement landscaping tweaks to our yard in the fall.

Start volunteering (again).

Unpacking

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The morning after the movers got everything into the house, I was up with the dawn (before 6 AM) and ready to start with the unpacking. My sister helped and we made good progress for the next 4 days of her visit (with a few breaks for exploring the area around Springfield).

I kept my laptop set up on the kitchen counter to mark off the boxes on my inventory as we unpacked them.

The living room was one of the prime areas that boxes were piled. I had thought ahead to have the book boxes in the area near the window and the other (lighter boxes) destined primarily for the kitchen/China cabinet) in the center of the room. The kitchen counters became cluttered with items to put away – slowing down to allow time to refresh shelf paper…and occasionally rearranging once we better understood the way we would use the kitchen.

The basement also had a big pile of boxes…mostly in the John Deere room. My husband helped me put my office furniture together and I started carrying a few items down to the kitchenette that I would use there.

We had piles of bubble wrap which we stuffed in plastic bags to return to a store for recycling, Styrofoam went in the trash. There were piles of boxes and packing paper. I posted to the community Facebook page and the boxes that were still in good shape were given to people in the neighborhood that were preparing to moving. My sister and I took the damaged boxes/paper to the recycle center since the first curbside recycling day in our new house was cancelled (they didn’t have a crew!)…and the size/amount of cardboard would have overwhelmed our bin anyway.

Every day the house became more ‘normal’ but it will probably be weeks before I unpack everything…and there are items (pictures/breakables) to get from my daughter’s basement (and a lot of beanie baby bins that she is going to take back).

As I write this – I am one week into the unpacking process and the house is livable…but still looking messy with boxes in odd places!

Plans and more plans

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As it gets closer to the time the movers will arrive at our Maryland house, I find myself making detailed plans for just about everything: food, clothing, how the cars will be loaded, internet service.

I’ve managed to use up things like protein powder and eggs. I have the milk planned to be gone before I leave for Missouri and the closing of our new house. I have one leftover that will go with me as my ‘meal in the hotel’ but otherwise the refrigerator will be mostly empty except for items my husband will need for the time he will be here monitoring the re-carpeting and the house being listed for sale. We may or may not come back for when this house closes so all the food in the house will be gone when he leaves.

The weather has gotten hot and is likely to stay that way. I have one light weight jacket…otherwise I am wearing summer clothes and flip flops (although just in case I am taking a few pairs of socks and a pair of regular shoes). I’ll do laundry a day or so after closing on our Missouri house. With the warm weather…the space needed for clothes is reduced; most will be on the truck.

Space in the car is at a premium because we are minimizing the driving between Maryland and Missouri. I will do it twice but my husband will only make the drive once…..unless be both decide to come back for a last goodbye to the house as it transitions to a new owner. My Prius Prime is small so I have mapped out where items will go in the car…how I will organize the loading. I’ve already made adjustments to my plan by delaying the loading of my car somewhat to avoid 90-degree temperatures!

My husband is handling the utilities; both of us are keen to minimize the time we are without internet service in both locations! Doing everything on our phones at a time when so much is happening makes us anxious.

Overall – the planning has reassured us that everything that needs to be done….is on track (so far).

Clearing the Path to the Front Door

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One of the suggestions to prepare our house to sell quickly was to clear vegetation away from the front walkway...since it detracts from the entrance to the house. It was easy to see the point, so I started the project at 6:30 AM on what promised to be a very hot day. My first action was to cut an iris that was blooming very close to the sidewalk to enjoy inside. Most of what was leaning over onto the sidewalk were day lilies with a few iris…and milkweed.

I used the hedge trimmers as a first pass to get the leaves removed so I could see how much I would have to dig out. There were two trips with the wheelbarrow back to the brush pile with the leaves!

It will probably take a couple additional rounds of morning yard work to get the area the way I want it. I’ll post some pictures from the follow up rounds as they happen.

We also need a new welcome mat!

Round 2

The next day I cleared all the weeds from under the bushes and dug out a shovel-wide swath along the sidewalk. There were a lot of day lily buds crammed into the space. Overall – it was another 2 wheelbarrow loads back to the brush pile. We’ll put mulch down in that strip and the front should look a little less ‘wild.’

Staging our House

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We’ve got our instructions for staging our house in Maryland. Nothing surprising:

  • Open the blinds and pull back sheers/drapery…or take the drapery down completely.

  • Taking the dividers out of the transom windows gives them an updated look.

  • Take any hangers or nails for pictures out of the wall….leaving the holes is OK.

  • Clean any bugs/dust out of overhead light fixtures.

  • Weed the front flowerbeds…cut or pull anything that hangs over the sidewalk to the front door particularly.

  • The stager complimented us on the plans already made to replace the carpet…that the paint inside and out was in excellent condition.

Our plan: Complete the actions as soon as we can. By the time the pictures are taken for the house to go on the market and people start to look at the house, it will be empty. Anything left can go in a closet or in the garage.

Preparing to move (2) – May 2022

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A lot has happened since my last post about preparing to move back on 5/5.

We have packed a lot more boxes, of course. Our goal is to minimize items to go in the cars (precious/high value things, liquids, key documents, and whatever we need while the truck in enroute).

There is still some ‘messiness’ around the stacks of boxes but it is gradually being cleared away…with the rooms beginning to look ‘all packed.’ The very last will probably be the kitchen since we continue enjoying cooking/eating at home; about half the kitchen is already packed.

The boxes have been cleared from around the grand piano to make it easier for the crew that will prepare it to go on the truck. The box move was hard work since they were filled with books…the heaviest of our boxes. We managed to remove the humidifier box (which stuck out from the bottom of the piano).

I have developed a lot of skill in reusing packaging material like Styrofoam, foam squiggles, bubble/pillow wrap and paper. For example, I cut up a foam board yard sign to pad the top of a box, disconnected strips of Styrofoam from a larger piece/bent them to fill an odd space in a larger box and used squiggles to fill small spaces around paper wrapped breakable items to keep them from moving too much. I’m also realizing that plastic hangers work well to fill the top of a box without adding more weight.

The last ‘rooms’ to get packed (and the ones we are still working on are my husband’s office and the garage. We’ve made a good start and they will be packed more fully before this weekend. The before and after picture of my first round of garage packing is shown below.

We are getting rid of things we don’t want to move:

We’ve taken multiple loads of recycle and trash to our local facility.

Almost all the hazardous waste has been taken for disposal.

My husband called the county for curbside pickup of a ping pong table, glide, lawn mower, and karate punching bag for later this week – stay tune for pictures of the pile!

And I’ve scheduled another donation a few days before the movers come

Maintenance

The radon remediation has been completed.

The screens that were damaged/worn in the screened deck were replaced.

A light new bulb was put in the light fixture over the basement stairs (with some trickly ladder work).

Carpet replacement has been scheduled for after the movers are done (i.e the house is almost empty).

Overall – the progress we are making appears to be on track to be ready for the movers…and to be almost totally focused on our house in Missouri rather than the one in Maryland by mid-June!

The Pace of our Lives

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In April our preparation to move started an uptick in the pace of our lives  and May is continuing the upward trend. It should plateau at the higher level soon…..and hopefully  begin to decline by mid-summer. I find myself reverting to techniques I used during my career to organize my life – adding detail to my calendar, making lists of things to do, taking notes in key meetings, and adding to a timeline of events for reference later.

It’s not just the pace but the variety of activity and the amount of money involved with moving. Perhaps right now is the highest stress; even though everything seems to be happening as it should, there is always the niggling feeling that either we have overlooked something or there will something major that will turn up and cause a delay rippling through all the subsequent activities.

It will be good to have less stress…but perhaps the pace is not too bad. Maybe – we’ll decide we like this faster pace and organize our life after the move to achieve the pace we had pre-pandemic (not quite as ‘hot’ as it is now…but a significantly faster pace than we lived during the pandemic).

Donate/Recycle/Trash

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We are getting rid of things we don’t want to move via donation, recycling and (last resort) trash:

Donation

We’ve done monthly donations that filled our porch – needing to be out by 8AM and picked up sometime during the day. This month the pile was front of the garage because we had maintenance people coming: boom box, yoga mat, mini-trampoline, office supplies, clothes, window/deck pressure cleaner, deck stain sprayer, clothes, coffee maker carafe, reusable water bottles, small outdoor rug.

Recycle

We have curbside pickup for some types of recycling for things like plastics, paper and cardboard, but we overwhelmed the bin with the amount we needed to recycle so we included it in our trips to the ‘landfill’ where they have recycling bins plus an area for electronics recycling: cables (computer and phone), computers, files from the 1970s and 1980s , and old cardboard.

Special recycle

Our credit union had a shredding event; we took 3 boxes of old receipts! It would have been too time consuming to do with our small home shredder.

Trash

Fortunately the most bulky items were not heavy….but it was depressing that they could only go into the trash: furnace filters that were for a furnace that has been replaced, old plastic bins, and Styrofoam from inside boxes that we used for packing not needing the Styrofoam

Hazardous waste (special trash)

More of this type of trash had accumulated in our basement and garage over the years than I realized. Most of it was very dusty. Our county has a hazardous waste area of the landfill that is staffed on Saturdays so we accumulated what we had and took it all at once – a SUV full!

  • Paint (and paint cleanup fluids)…this was the bulk of what had accumulated.

  • Gardening chemicals…some was very old and might not even be sold any more!

  • Cleaning products

26 Months in COVID-19 Pandemic

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COVID-19 cases in Maryland are increasing but all the counties in the state are still green in the CDC’s COVID-19 Community Level map. Most of Missouri is too. Still - the positivity is 5-8% in Maryland and 8-10% in Missouri…not low enough for me to be comfortable in crowds or in indoor spaces without a mask. How does that translate into our increased level of activity?

Buying a house. Both my husband and I wore masks when we walked through the house we had bid on and then the next day when we talked to the inspector. There was a meeting in the realtor’s office where we wore a mask as well. During our travel, we masked at rest stops and in registration/hallways of our hotel. We brought an air purifier into our hotel room and got takeout for meals.

Birding. We masked at the Harriet Tubman Byway visitor center and the registration/hallways of our hotel. Otherwise - the activity was outdoors, and we didn’t mask. All our meals were picked up from drive through windows.

House maintenance. We’ve had more people in our house for maintenance purposes in Maryland…preparing the house to be sold. We mask while they are here, and they do too.

Broken tooth. I have an appointment with the dentist because a molar cracked…needs repair. Hopefully the precautions the dental office has in place are effective. This seems like the highest risk situation of all the things I’ve done recently.

And we are moving over the next month! I am realizing that the precautions I have in place (following guidance re boosters, masking when I am indoors other than at home, avoiding crowds, keeping hand sanitizer in the car, taking an air purifier with me on road trips) are probably going to be my strategy for the foreseeable future unless the infection rate drops dramatically. So – this is the last of the monthly posts even though the pandemic is continuing. I’m not getting complacent…I’ve simply accepted that this is the prudent way to be…nothing new to post about every month.