Friday Five!

1.  Beautiful autumn-y day today, so an extra long walk with the hound after work tonight.
2.  Decent day at work today, just stuck in with my headphones on, listening to a fcking hilarious 90 Day Fiancee podcast all day long.  So hard to stop myself LOL-ing in the near-silent office!
3.  After 17 months living on my own, OH and i have negotiated me and the hound returning to live with him.  I'll be moving the week of Christmas, as that's when my fortnight is.  He's made several promises and assurances -- none of which i actually believe will happen-- but my options are limited, so im going with eyes wide open and no expectations other than the expectations I've set for myself.
4.  The natives are restless in Dalmuir tonight... there are at least 3 really loud parties going on in my block of flats tonight, and when i was last out with the dog at 8pm, every person i passed by was off their face on one substance or another.
5.  OH coming up tomorrow and we are going to the pub for a couple of hours (the new normal:  we're booked in for 2 hours, but if no one books our table after that, they let us stay on).   Then Sunday we've got the Run Free field booked to take the hound for a big run, and then a wee trip to Tesco afterward.

Happy Friday!!!

1.) Made a coffee porter on Monday, it's ready to rack off and bottle, as it was a quick yeast. Smells awesome! 

2.) Hubby and I are going to rearrange one of the spare bedrooms rooms into an office space, as we want to get off the dining room table.   

3.) Getting a gigantic pile of wood for the stove delivered today. So I shall be stacking wood this evening for Friday night fun. 

4.) Having the in-laws round tomorrow. Rules in Scotland dictate we must be outside. So we will light the firebowl and sit outside and natter. 

5.) Monopoly again, this time adding in my BIL & partner, along with my sister and her husband.  I still hate Monopoly. LOL 

It's still Friday here, for a few more minutes...

1) We are in our new apartment. Our stuff came today. The movers were here at about 12:30 and were really working hard and were gone by 3:30pm. It was a warm day for here (compared to recently) and was 83F when the guys were schlepping the boxes. I kept handing  out bottled water, but couldn't do much else for them. My living room is now full of boxes. But we were able to set up the beds so we don't have to sleep on air mattresses anymore. That's gonna be sooooo nice. We are both walking very stiffly from sleeping, for all intents, on the floor for a week. A few boxes were really shredded, but I don't think the contents were damaged. I haven't opened the other 150+ boxes yet to check them. One was making ominous broken glass noises, but I  hope not. The top of the daughter's Ikea dresser got gouged. The deductible on the insurance is just about what it would cost to replace the dresser, so she's just pissed off about it. Not much to do - I suggested getting some wood putty and then repainting the top of the dresser. It has a glass top over that, so hopefully the damage won't be too visible.

2) We had to take the rental car back to the airport yesterday. The metro transit here has a service where you can book a ride like if you were booking uber or lyft. Since I don't have a smartphone (or, actually, I think it probably could do it but I don't want to turn on GPS and the data-eating stuff), I phoned them and I can book the same service by phoning them. They sent a little shuttle bus to pick us up and took us right to our front door. Since it's a new service they are rolling out, it was free, too!  Nice!  I hope this one lasts, as if it does I won't need a car. I won't mind paying for it, whenever that happens. And if the daughter can find work, it'll take her to and from work. Which is good, as her Calif driving license expired while she was overseas and she has to start the process from scratch here (learner permit, etc.) if she wants to drive here.

3) We went for a walk this evening, after supper, to calm down after the day's chaos. Had a donut from Dunkin and walked around in  the nearby shops. (Dunkin  donuts  are great!). On the way back we noticed a lot of odd birds darting around above us - this was just after dark. They were bats.  We have bats. Cool. So we've seen chipmunks, squirrels, porcupines, deer (a doe and her fawn), raccoons, a beaver (yep!), and now bats! The trees are thinking about changing colors for the fall. I'm looking forward to that. There are a lot of trees in the area we're living, and it has a real "neighborhood" feel - lots of kids out playing, people walking. Most seem to be of Indian or Pakistani nationality - no idea what's going on with that, but I think we're the only Americans in our building. (Again.) The hallway does smell absolutely amazing around suppertime every night.  And it feels really safe here.

4) It's almost impossible to purchase a tv that isn't a "smart" tv.  This is getting annoying! Found one at Walmart online (none in the store) and tried to buy it. Walmart keeps flagging my credit card due to "unusual activity" and cancelling the order. CapOne says there's nothing wrong with the card, it's Walmart's servicing entity. So back to the drawing board. I wonder if there's a doodad I can buy that will take the antenna signal and translate it into something the  computer monitor can display? We use it for the DVD and other thing, so maybe also TV?

5) I miss my old neighborhood. I miss going for take-out Vietnamese food. I miss being able to walk to everything I need to get to. I miss the Highlands. But we'll manage ok here. It's a good place and the people we've interacted with have been extremely welcoming and helpful. I had always heard that people  in this part of the USA were on the  surly side, but nothing could be farther from reality. 

On the way back we noticed a lot of odd birds darting around above us - this was just after dark. They were bats.  We have bats. Cool.

Bats ARE cool!
I saw one last week along the canal footpath in Clydebank, and I used to see loads out my window in Partick.  Shame you never saw them when you were in Glasgow, but at least you've got them now!

Bats ARE cool!
I saw one last week along the canal footpath in Clydebank, and I used to see loads out my window in Partick.  Shame you never saw them when you were in Glasgow, but at least you've got them now!

Yeah, we didn't see a lot of wildlife in Glasgow. Sadly, I never got to see a hedgehog.  We did have foxes. That was way cool - I had insomnia and was in my kitchen with a cup of tea looking out the back window very early one morning and one just came trotting along through the  snow. And then there was the female one out front, with the screaming.... (they make the most ungodly noise!). 

Bats are cool. I've always liked them. When I was a teen I used to go to Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. If you wait by the cave entrance at around sunset there is a nightly bat flight - hundreds of thousands of them pour out of that cave. Looks like a pillar of smoke from a distance and smells awful close up, but is really something to see! 

There were dozens of them flying around the other night. I was wondering why I hadn't been eaten alive by mosquitoes - when I was a kid in this part of the country in the early evening when it was this warm out I would have been just polka-dotted from the bites. But I didn't get a single bite and we watched them for some time. Makes sense - the bats eat 'em! The Daughter was able to hear their little clicky noises as they were looking for their supper.  Pretty big ones, too. We looked on the local wildlife website and the Daughter's guess is that they are "Big Brown Bats"  (a descriptive name, huh?). So if it's not raining tonight we're going to take another walk and watch for them. I'll bring my field glasses this time so I can make a stab at getting a good look at them. 

It's the little joys in life like this that are best for the soul, ya know?

I really miss my flat and Glasgow. But everyone is nice here. We have a nice apartment. Transportation is sorted. We found a place that delivers a spectacularly good Brooklyn style pizza and antipasto salad.  The food from the local farms is great. We were able to get a digital converter box for OTA TV that works on my computer monitor and we have 40-ish channels for free. But I do miss my old neighborhood and the old houses and, really, the cooler weather! It's been in the upper 70s and low 80s here and we've been melting. (I can remember when we would have considered that cool weather, but that was long, long ago!) We have central heat and air here and I've had to buy humidifiers for the bedrooms as sleeping with the system running leaves us with hideously dry sinuses in the morning! I miss my water-filled radiators and combi-boiler. And all the storage space in my kitchen that I had there and don't here. We're going to have to rent a SUV and make a run to NJ to get to an Ikea to buy a lot more Ivar shelving units for all my storage jars, etc. Ah, well, there's always something that was better in the old place, wherever  "the old place" has been. 

. And all the storage space in my kitchen that I had there and don't here. We're going to have to rent a SUV and make a run to NJ to get to an Ikea to buy a lot more Ivar shelving units for all my storage jars, etc. Ah, well, there's always something that was better in the old place, wherever  "the old place" has been. 

I hear you on the storage!  I'm about to move back in with my OH in Helensburgh, and the storage is the one thing I'm really going to miss from the Clydebank flat... a huge wall of 6 built-in wardrobes in the bedroom, 2 hallway cupboards, and 2 large pantry-type cupboards in the kitchen in addition to the fitted units.   

Oh, yeah, trying to find places to put stuff when you are moving from a place with lots of shelf space to one that doesn't is...a pain in the tush!

Oh. UK TVs. Yeah, they work just fine here for OTA broadcasts with the addition of a $24 digital converter box and an antenna. So it's just as well we brought the Daughter's tv that she bought over there.

Happy Friday!

1.  Today is my 2-year surgi-versary.  Had my gastric bypass 2 years ago today, which totally changed my life!

2.  Plans for the weekend include beer, ham ribs, and binge-watching 90-Day Fiance.

3.  Sad about the deaths of Mac Davis & Helen Reddy this week, but have just come in to work to be told of Trump testing positive for COVID, so feeling better!    Choke on it, Cheeto.

4.   Have any of you listened to the 90-Day Cray Cray podcasts, where they discuss (and trash!) 90-Day Fiance?  Freakin hilarious... I listen to it at work with earphones and sometimes struggle to laugh silently!

5.  Rockets at McDonalds gave me pale brown water instead of coffee today.... that was NOT a welcome mouthful. 

5.  Rockets at McDonalds gave me pale brown water instead of coffee today.... that was NOT a welcome mouthful. 

 

Happy Friday!!

1.) Weather supposed to be utter pants this weekend.  So, good for brewing! 

2.) Having a Zoom drinking session with several friends tomorrow night. 

3.) Need to do some mega cleanout of spare rooms and try and make them into office space so we can get off the dining room table 

4.) Managed to sell my redundant brewing equipment  so I have almost enough money saved up now to buy a new stainless steel, all singing and dancing conical fermenter. Need just a few more months of my 'blood' money.

5.) Been working hard learning something hard on the trombone and I'm finally getting somewhere. It's exciting! 

My Friday Five:

1. After being really unhealthy during my post-Ascension quarantine and the following month, putting on several pounds, I decided that, starting Sept 1st,  I would make it my mission to lose weight and get healthy again. So, I started working out on my exercise bike as often as I could (generally 3-5 times a week), doing 30-day challenges (sit-ups, crunches, squats, tricep dips, leg raises etc.) and eating healthy.

2. On the plus side, I've lost 7 lbs since Sept 7th, I'm getting more toned, and I can do up the tighter notch on my belt again

3. On the negative side, I still have about 15 lbs to go, plus I invested in some smart scales at the beginning of the month and have discovered that my body fat percentage is really high and that even though I've lost weight, I've been losing more muscle than fat. As a result, my body fat percentage is barely changing and I've found out that the diet days I've been doing have probably not been helping. So, now I'm trying to up my protein intake (as I realised I haven't been eating nearly enough)... fingers crossed it makes a difference

4. I finally bit the bullet and ordered an induction hob for my kitchen... it's being delivered and installed on Sunday - AO.com had a free installation offer on, which saved me about £100. I had contemplated just getting a new gas hob, but a) the best Which? review for gas hobs was only rated 57%, whereas the induction hob I've ordered has a rating of 85%, and b) my cooker hood is 1cm too low to meet the new regulations for gas hobs, so buying a new one would mean buying a new hood as well.

5. I'm just generally getting tired of everything that's happening in the world at the moment. I've just been getting really emotional over all kinds of random things that wouldn't normally make me emotional.

1) It's raining. It's been blue skies since we arrived, more or less, but it's Glasgow rain outside today. Not a problem, as we went to the shop yesterday and got milk, eggs, etc., and so are good for a bit. Running out of breakfast tea! Forgot to get some - not sure they had anything I'd want to drink over at that store, though. Oh my, I need my Twinings "Everyday" tea and it's not available. Noooooo! 

2) The Pres and his inner circle seem to have Covid. God works in mysterious ways. Or he's lying and it's a ploy to get sympathy after that disastrous "debate" (aka shoutfest). Color me distrustful of ANYTHING that man says. (Or Tweets.)

3) We are making huge strides is getting unpacked. Putting up the three bookshelves in the living room took care of 15 packing boxes of books. Putting together the record cabinet today will free 10 boxes of LP records. Said boxes can then go off to the recycling bin. We still have about 30 boxes left.

4) We need another bookcase and some shelving from Ikea so we can unpack the rest of the stuff. The nearest ones are in NJ or Connecticut. Both are not well stocked, so driving down and arriving to find that what we want is not in stock is a very real possibility. Even if we rented a large car I'm not sure the boxes would fit in the car. Plus with the cost of renting the car, gas, and tolls, I think it's pretty much a better bet to just order them online for delivery and pay the $200 cost for said haulage on my CapOne card. That way if anything is wrong with them and Ikea doesn't make good to remedy that problem, CapOne will refund the cost.

5) We went for about a mile's walk yesterday evening. It was definitely sweater weather. The leaves are beginning to turn colors and it was beautiful outside. That's the longest we've walked since arriving. Two weeks of forced inactivity and a week driving everywhere in a car has really messed up with our physical conditioning - it's surprising how badly out of shape three weeks of almost total inactivity have put us. So between schlepping moving boxes and walking every evening I'm hoping we'll get some muscle tone and stamina back in a few more weeks. The Daughter's mood is definitely lighter than it was when we were in Scotland. I still miss my old flat (the new one is lovely), and Glasgow. But I guess in a year or two, if we stay here, it will feel like "home" again.

4) We need another bookcase and some shelving from Ikea so we can unpack the rest of the stuff. The nearest ones are in NJ or Connecticut. Both are not well stocked, so driving down and arriving to find that what we want is not in stock is a very real possibility. Even if we rented a large car I'm not sure the boxes would fit in the car. Plus with the cost of renting the car, gas, and tolls, I think it's pretty much a better bet to just order them online for delivery and pay the $200 cost for said haulage on my CapOne card. That way if anything is wrong with them and Ikea doesn't make good to remedy that problem, CapOne will refund the cost.

You may want to see what they have at Lowes or Target if either are local. I rarely went to IKEA when I lived in the US because the closest was in Canada.

Friyay!

1.  House went live last week (rental) and had a viewing and offer on Saturday. They may be our buyer but they still have to sell their current house. Their house is supposed to be on the market as of today.

2.  Five viewings booked in this weekend. Fingers crossed!

3.  Sat in front of my SAD light for the first time today.  Took it to my husband when I was done. He said when it clicked off and he was left with the dreary rain he felt sad.

4.  Sobe the cat has lost a bit of weight so trying him on an appetite stimulant for 2 weeks. Supposed to give him a pill every other day. Something happened and he got it two days in a row. Bad tummy and RANK farts since. He’s taught me a lesson. It is definitely working though. He’s always at the food bowl and doesn’t feel as bone-y.

5.  Ksand, great minds. I too am shrinking. Lockdown weight is off.  Onto the rest of the baby weight. Slow and steady is my goal.

You may want to see what they have at Lowes or Target if either are local. I rarely went to IKEA when I lived in the US because the closest was in Canada.

Have been looking at both, and also Home Depot.    Looking locally, I haven't been able to find anything that wasn't plastic or metal, so far, but have just started looking so maybe something will turn up. I wish I could have known what kind of space we were going to have here and could have bought the components there in Glasgow and had the movers bring them with our stuff. Oh, well... 

Every time I've tried to order all the bits the Paramus store says it's all in stock, but when I go to check out it says there are not enough of the side units left allocated for delivery and I have to remove them from my basket. (Most of the other 'close' stores don't have them at all.) Without the side units, the rest is pointless.  Of course, this morning the Ikea website says the side units are back in stock, but now the Billy bookcase is out of stock. I'm not making two orders, so it's just going to be a matter of catching them when everything is available all at once.  I may end up renting a storeroom and keep all the extra stuff that would normally go on the shelves but is not a daily necessity boxed up and stored. Which is ok with me, if I can get one close and cheap, since we don't know how long we'll be staying here. We have a one-year lease, but after that we could be moving on.

The bookcase, needs to come from Ikea to match the other three we already have. It's the Billy with glass doors in dark blue. We could probably fit two more in, as long as that living room wall is, but I think one is sufficient.  It won't hold all of the remaining books, but most of the overflow are the Daughter's historical costuming books and she can keep those in another set of shelves (we've got a few of those white cube/cubby units in flat pack still) in her room.  I gave her the master bedroom as it has more closet space for clothing, which is a necessity for her, and also will afford her a place to set up her sewing machine, etc.. The "smaller" (and it's not small) bedroom I'm in has a walk-in closet with tons of shelves in it, which is perfect for me. I can keep all my genealogy and other paperwork neatly stored on those shelves. I don't have a lot of clothes that require hanging, and the rest fit neatly in my chest of drawers. So it's a win-win.

Now if I could just see the livingroom floor (for all the boxes in there still!)...

Nan, I have one book.      Needing 4 bookcases boggles my mind!