What's on your Monday Menu?

Oh, making friends with strangers is definitely your skill.

Some have the opposite. It was often said of President Benjamin Harrison that he could speak to a crowd of 10,000 people, and they would all feel a personal connection, and love him. And if he met with all 10,000 individually, they would walk away hating him.

You would have 10,000 new friends.

Dang, Grim, God Bless America? Is this one long burp? I can burp the alphabet. Wait, no, I can't anymore. I just tried and it was very labored.

No, many burps.

One thing I lost the ability to do after RNY was a falsetto. I can't hit a high note now to save my life. I don't know why that would change, but it did. No more Frankie Valle for me.

Mornin' All!

my MIL's apt is DONE!!! We finished up everything except for the TV on Friday night and brought the TV home on Saturday. It's like Christmas around here. Hers is a 10-year-old 40" flatscreen TV, but since our other TVs are at least 20-year-old tube varieties, it's like having a movie theater in this house. We don't have cable, but I put a $10 set of old-timey rabbit ears on it, and it picks up 45 stations (more than our old TVs) - plus she had a Roku stick, so we've now got that, too. I put in the logins for my Netflix and Kanopy accounts and now...ta da! We can watch movies on this huge (to us) screen too! This is so much fun! (I'm sure the novelty will wear off, but this has really been a blast!)

We've also made progress on the financial end - finally! Now that we have an estate account for her, we closed her two regular bank accounts (checking and savings) and they transferred the $$ into our checking account. YAY! At least we've been partially reimbursed now for all these expenses we've had related to her case. And her financial advisor set up a transitional account for DH last week and the funds were moved into it on Friday. Hopefully OUR financial guy will move it all over to his place this week - but at least the transitional account is in his name, so he should have access. Things are moving along! I'm just shocked it took two months for this to happen, given all of her accounts were marked "transfer on death". Helped us to avoid probate, but definitely didn't speed things up. But..we're almost there!

in other news, I got my acceptance email for being a volunteer at the Wisconsin Film Fest in April (figured I'd be accepted, but still, it was great news) - so I'm pretty excited about that since I'll get free passes in exchange.

overall, everything is coming up roses over here!

I have my book group today, but I've read less than half the book since we've been working like fiends over at MIL's apt the last couple of weeks. The leader said to come anyway, but I don't know. I hate not being able to fully participate in the discussion. One of the cats has his bi-annual appt with his ophthalmologist this afternoon. Other than that, it'll be super warm today, but windy (so walking rather than biking), so I'll be outside for sure!

QOTD: managing/saving money and finding "lost" people on the internet

coffee with half & half

plain skyr with fruit

protein shake

cheesecake-flavored yogurt pie

Ratio yogurt

hot and sour soup - and maybe 1/2 a veggie burger?

have a great day, everyone!

I had an Amazon Firestick I bought for $49 that picked up CNN. You just buy it once and no monthly fees. You do have to figure out how to install and use it but it is a lot of free TV once you do.

thanks for the tip!! I'll look into that!!

Yay for being done!

I'm sure it feels great to have that behind you.

Good morning all and Happy Monday,

QJB- Have a great first day on the job. Hope everyone there is as wonderful as you are.

It was an interesting weekend. Good and bad. The highlight of the weekend was spending time with Emily at her place, whom I continue to get to know better. I've only known her a year and a half but have feels like I've known her soul from previous friends / relationships throughout my life.

QOTD- Low Ball. It's a form of poker in which you aim for the lowest hand. I'm pretty decent at this game since it involves more strategy. I have played it in the World Series of Poker. It is lesser known and harder to master than variations of Texas Hold Em. The billion dollars is mine, all mine; Muah hah hahhhh...

B: Dannon Light and Fit Coconut Yogurt, Tangerine.

L: Chicken Limon.

D: Chicken and avocado. Salad.

G'morning all!

QJB - sending you tons of good positive juju for your first day of work. Hopefully you took pic of your fit this morning, because no first day is complete without a picture.

QOD: I can try to compete with my crochet and knitting skills. And depending if this room is populated with Americans or not I could also compete on the number of languages I speak fluently. I say Americans, because in Europe you meet more people knowing 3-4 languages while here in US they are more of the 2 languages category, if not just English.

Speaking of crochet look what I made for DD. I saw the original on Amazon for $19. Could I have bought that? Of course yes but I wanted to make it myself. Just the yarn alone cost me more than $19, I have no idea how they make these garments so cheap. Crochet is one thing you can't use machines to make it. I hope there are no sweatshops full of little kids making these for people to buy cheap. Anyway, this is my final product after about 20 hours of work spread out in about 10 days.

My meals yesterday:

• Coffee & Barebells bar
• Left over Thai food
• Protein pudding
• Few bites of the TJ Korean sushi (I was finally able to find them after all the good reviews about it online)
• E: rest day

Happy start of a wonderful week!