Friday Five!

Please keep posting Nan, I really want to hear how things go for you in the US

Don’t be a stranger Nan ❤️ Hope you have a safe journey. Let us know how you are getting on.

My Final Scottish Friday

OMG, I had no idea it was coming up so quick!
Hope everything goes smoothly for you guys... all the best x

Thanks! Yes, departure day came way too soon. But we're here, recuperating from jet lag and doing our voluntary quarantine. We're in a nice hotel, have Chinese food coming in for lunch (they deliver to the room door) and are watching very bad TV. Which is pretty much all we are capable of doing, intellectually, right now anyway!  Will be contacting apartment complexes to schedule tours in a few days.

It's been lovely here, and the people we've dealt with have been incredibly friendly and welcoming. I think it's going to work out fine.

I still miss "home" though.

Happy Friday!!!

1.) Ahh, September already.  Funny how much time flies, even when you're not leaving your dining room. 

2.) I think it's time for some brewing again.  Definitely time to sample the American Pale Ale I bottled up 10 days ago.   

3.) I'm saving my 'blood' money  (I donate blood at work twice a month as we use it for product testing and get £20 each time we donate) for a brand new stainless steel, all singing, all dancing, integrated cooling/heating conical fermenter.  I'm about 1/3 of the way there.  It's not something I could spend my regular paycheque money on in good consciousness right now, but since it's basically 'extra' money, I figure that I can save up to it.   Maybe by the time I get there, they'll have dropped in price too. 

4.) Been doing recording again this week.  Fun!   

5.) I don't ever tire of looking out my window and seeing the chooks doing their thing. So cute. 

My boy and  I just finished our latest project, a face mask with LED animations

https://imgur.com/gallery/qjsVJYH

Notice that we designed a custom PCB for our circuit that sits on top of an Arduino for all the connections

The animations are made on a web app and stored on a SD card

That's epic!!!

OMG, patent it and become billionaires!

Sliding end before the day closes.

1.  Nice to have a short week but it felt LONG. 

2.  3 year old went back to nursery on Tuesday.  He was so excited.  He didn't realise that also meant going back on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday....

3.  6 year old started Year 2 yesterday.  People the house is SO QUIET.  Except now my husband, who used to need complete silence to work, now has to blare music to work.

4.  I've started to look into where we can go between Christmas and New Years in the UK for a nice break for not a boatload of money.  It never ceases to amaze me how expensive it is to STAY IN THE COUNTRY here.  We usually spend about £800 on flights and accommodation (nice) for the 4 of us.  Just accommodation here will set us back about £2k.  It's insane.  I think we should look into a house swap.  LOL.

5.  I'm so happy to be working for an ethical company again.  My company had everyone take a 20% paycut with COVID.  Numbers haven't been as bad as forecast, and yesterday they issued letters to everyone that they are getting paid in full from September and will also get paid back the 20% that was "withheld".  Pretty awesome.  Doesn't affect me, as I came in after the paycut was in place.  But nice to know they really take care of their employees.

Oh, we go to Highclere Castle on Sunday.  We've not watched Downton Abbey but I know it's hard to get in normally so when they announced social distance reopening, we decided to go.  And it should be dry!  Should be fun.

Quiet in here! Hope everyone is having a good Friday!

1.) Same ole, same ole....  Feeling a bit blah today 

2.) Listening to Lilith Fair artists right now and reliving the late 90s 

3.) I made Kosher dill pickles last week from homegrown cukes and onions and dill. Been enjoying these so much this week.

4.) Garage cleaning round 10,000 this weekend.   It's an ever evolving project. 

5.) Playing Monopoly over Facetime with my sister and husband tomorrow in the US.That should be amusing. I hate Monopoly!!!    I'm sure our board will get flipped as I flip out! 

3.) I made Kosher dill pickles last week from homegrown cukes and onions and dill. Been enjoying these so much this week.

It doesn't get much better than that! 

1.  I keep thinking 2020 is nearly over. Like totally thought we were in December today.

2.  We met with our interior designer Tuesday about our extension. She had some great suggestions for some minor changes.

3.  Today we met with the architect with our changes. Getting the structural engineer around in the next week or two.

4.  We are putting our rental on the market. Our tenants are moving and it’s becoming sooooo unattractive to own a rental. We will see if we get any bites. If we don’t, we will move out of our current house and into the rental while we are building our extension.  And then either rent or sell, depending on what the market is like then.

5.  Sirius will be thrilled that I’m getting out of the landlord business since I’m a terrible one.    We are AWFUL.  Our tenants have a very complicated situation as they are starting to build in Cornwall. We are allowing them to stay as long as they want and not lock into a date until they know they are close to completion. We really are terrible!

1.  Listened to 90 Day Fiance podcasts all day at work today.  There were times i had tears in my eyes through trying not to laugh out loud.

2.  OH has been in Germany for the last week.  He's back tonight... really glad he had a good time.  He loves travelling and was gutted that most of his trips for this year ended up cancelled.

3.  While he was gone, the hound and I went to his flat and I gave it a good scrubbing and laid a new vinyl floor in the bathroom.

4.  Scored a dozen 440ml cans of Vocation Love & Hate in Tesco for £2 each!

5.  Chinese takeaway tonight. 

Happy Friday!!

1.) Got my presidential ballot yesterday. I've had my mind made up since  November 2016, so a pretty easy one. 

2.) Made egg mayo this morning and it was delicious. 

3.) Taking Monday off work. Just have days to use up.   

4.) Had to go in and clean off my desk.  They're going to deep clean. And we won't be back until at least January. Or later is what the facilities manager is rumouring (like April).  All good with me! 

5.) Doing some hill walking this weekend. Hope the weather is good. 

1) Knocking on wood, we sign our lease this afternoon and can get into our apartment. Our cargo container arrives in NYC today at noon. Three to five days to get through customs and then must be delivered, so we cut it really close with this one!  Hadn't expected the market for two-bedroom places to be as hot as it is here, though. One would be advertised and then gone three days later! The daughter thinks it's because people are working from home and want one room as an office. I tend to think it's that people are doubling-up (getting roommates to cut costs). Either way, there's a ton of one-bedroom places, but very few two-bedrooms at any given time.

2) We brought two air mattresses with us. Went to Target (a beautiful, large, well-stocked Target with almost nobody in it) and got duvets and pillows. We're going to be camping out until our stuff gets to us. We could, of course, stay in the hotel, but every two days in the hotel is another week we could rent the car, so I'd rather have the car right now.  There is no trying on of clothes at Target now - you have to take them home and then return them if they don't fit ( I think). The Daughter didn't bring enough warm clothes and today is the first day of Fall here. There's a definite cold snap in the air in the mornings and the TV says we'll have our first freeze overnight.  I think today, after we sign the papers (again, knocking on wood) we'll stop at a nearby mall and see if we can get her another pair of jeans. She can wear my extra sweatshirt until our stuff arrives.

3) People here have been really nice. It's a slower pace than SoCal was, so maybe that's it. I've only run across one disagreeable person of a New Yawk stereotype since we've arrived, and that was an apartment manager who we wouldn't rent from if it was the last apartment on the planet. (Holy cow! The daughter used the "B" word to describe that woman, and she'll only rarely call someone that.) But everyone has been very friendly and chatty (which surprised me), and helpful to a fault.

4) The grocery stores. Holy frijoles, they are huge. Sooooo much food and so many choices! We stay with minimally processed, and there's a good supply of that in both the larger and smaller grocery stores. Lots of good food. So far haven't found any restaurants that really know what to do with it (overcooked veggies, anyone?), but at least it's there and once I have a kitchen we'll be all set. We are both very tired of fast-food and drive-throughs.   

5) Avis had no compact cars when we went to pick up our rental. So I'm driving a SUV, which I thought I'd hate. But it's ok, really. Handles well, is comfortable enough, lots of room for "stuff" in it (if we had stuff), getting 28mpg. (Gas here is just over $2 a gallon.) We are going to start playing tourist and take some road trips - over to see April the Giraffe, maybe up to Niagara Falls, definitely around the back roads to visit all the farm stores and stuff like that.  We went yesterday to the old Shaker Village site and looked around a bit. Tomorrow I think we're visiting a sanctuary for retired racehorses and whatever's on the way. Seriously, once I have the keys to the apartment I will soooo be able to finally relax!