What's on your Thursday Menu?

So do you get to work from home the other days? If so that's an awesome deal!

Mornin' All!

we agreed that we want to be done with MIL's apt by the end of the weekend, which I think is very do-able. The movers come a week from tomorrow to move the furniture we want over to our house, and that will be that. Hoo-ray! Meanwhile, more bureaucracy. We've already been to the post office twice to try to get her mail delivered to our house instead of her apt. We've shown them the death certificate, the part of the will that lists DH as the executor of her estate, and filled out the proper form. So yesterday she gets a letter from the PO that came to our house (yay - at least that part worked!). But it said she will have to come to the post office with a government-issued ID to prove her identity before they release her mail. WTF? So we will go back there again tomorrow (when DH is off work) armed with the death certificate (again), the will (again), her driver's license, her expired passport, and the urn containing her ashes, since she's supposed to show up in person. We should probably take the paperwork from the crematory, too, to prove to them that they're her ashes there in the urn. What's with the damn PO lately? I blame DeJoy. This is needlessly bureaucratic and frustrating!

in other news, I went to a store yesterday that sells used office furniture because we gave MIL's office chair to a friend back at the beginning of all this because we didn't think at that time we'd keep any of her furniture - that we'd just sell it. It was a very nice, three-year-old Steelcase chair. Well since then, we decided to keep some of the furniture since it's newer and very nice, and we knew we'd only get pennies on the dollar for it. This would include that desk. So I needed to get another chair because it would be very rude to ask my friend to have the one we gave her back. I didn't want anything expensive since the desk will go in the basement family room (we have another "office" on the main level), so I've been looking for good, used office chairs. I noticed on FB Marketplace two days ago that this store the next town over had an enormous inventory come in of Steelcase Cobi's that they were selling for $49. $49! Those retail for around $600-700 - and about $200 if used. So I went over there yesterday to test them out. Found a couple that were in barely-used condition and bought one. I'm so happy with my purchase!!!

QOTD: no. I have less than zero interest in the Super Bowl. It's a great time to go to the grocery store..

coffee with half & half

it's almost 9:00 and I'm not hungry at all, so I may just have a protein shake this morning (it's a great way of controlling my overall daily calories, too...I'll wait until lunch to actually eat anything)

piece of yogurt cheesecake pie

Ratio yogurt with raspberries, "safe" popcorn if I want something else

either hot & sour or celeriac soup, Danish rye bread

have a great day, everyone!

Please take a picture of the look on the postal employees face when you present the urn. I bet that will be priceless!

DeJoy should have been fired on Bidens first day!

Good Morning Queen JB and Meneurs,

I hope you find an easy way to transition from the train to your office. I know our hospitals have transit between there parking lots and the hospital. Does the school have any assistance when it comes to your commute? Perimenopause!! Welcome to my world. I never went through perimenopause I just got full blown Menopause. I turned 50 December 1st, and it reared its head on December 25. I got that flash and thought what is going on and it took about 5 minutes, and I knew. Damn. When I went to Costa Rica in October, I didn't take my Progesterone cream with me. I figured it's been 9 years surely, I am done. Two weeks later I was back to full flashes. I got more cream and I been doing it for over a month now and just beginning to feel the effects of the cream. I don't know how long this last, but I can't wait till it is over. I am hoping I am over the hump and winding down.

QOTD: I am hosting a party. We are starting at 3 for pregame so if others have game plans they can head on their way, and I can get cleaned up and relax and watch the game. I am making a 1/2 pan lasagna, 1/2 pan zucchini lasagna, crockpot of meatballs and sausage, my brother is smoking my brisket for me. I am doing baked beans and coleslaw. Desert is white chocolate cheesecake with blueberry toping, Cinnamon roll cheesecake and triple tier brownies. If I have time, I'm going to make in some corn bread. Right now I am looking for an activity to keep the kids busy. I think if I don't have something Rudy will be tortured so I'll go to Michaels to find a craft or something and set a folding table up for them to work.

Accountability: I ate a bag of grass roots puffs and dipped them in Heluva good French Onion dip

TSS: 6 years 1-months 26-days 160 Lowest (129.4)

B: Coffee with SF coffee mate chocolate caramel creamer

MS: L&F Creme Caramel Apple Pie Greek yogurt, berries.

CB: Coffee with SF Coffee-mate chocolate caramel creamer

L: Crockpot cubed steak and snack selects

D: crockpot cubed steak or RGF bacon wrapped chicken and roasted cauliflower.

Exercise: dog walking and Pound

Water and Vitamins: On track. I take a Bariatric Advantage Ultra multi w/iron I use bariatric advantage Calcium chews and 500mg of Magnesium. I also use MiraLAX and fiber in my first coffee of the day.

Have a great day my friends.

Brightest Blessings,

Chrissy

QJB - I forgot to mention that our university has free bus annual bus passes for students, and greatly reduced passes for faculty and staff (about $60 a year). I don't qualify for the student rate since I'm a senior auditor, but I DO qualify for the faculty/staff rate since I have emeritus status. Anyway, it might be worth checking into since you'll be working at a college. They may have a similar deal for students and employees. Maybe...

looks like they do have public transportation passes for students. It doesn't mention anything about employees on this page, but maybe on the employee benefits page? My campus does this for the same reason - parking is a real issue, so this encourages people NOT to drive to campus

https://bostonconservatory.berklee.edu/campus-life/transport ation-and-commuting

well never mind - just saw this on the employee page. Might be helpful if you were commuting every day, but maybe not since you'll be working hybrid:

https://www.berklee.edu/human-resources/commuting-program

I get $75/month towards my commute, which basically gets me 2 out of 4 weeks a month which is more than generous. But today I learned that my knee is not really for 3 miles of walking a day, so it looks like I will be adding $5 subway ride to each trip, too. It's fine, just a big surprise from the cost of the train the last time I took it in 2019.

Oh no! I'm glad you did the dry run, that would have been frustrating to find out your first day!

Good morning! My day started with a torrential downpour (love) and then sunshine on it's tail. Then I split up the the bouquets of tulips I bought at Trader Joe's yesterday and scattered them all around my house. Now I'm sitting down for coffee and reading all the things and thinking this is a stellar way to start my day. Black dog has a vet appt today because he has a front leg limp and brown dog is getting a skin tag on his lip checked. They are laying in strips of sunshine right now with no idea that the dreaded vet is about to happen. They'll be very happy going bye bye with us until we pull open the vet door. I also have an appt to recheck my eyeglass prescription. My new glasses are all messed up and they don't know if they got the prescription wrong or the placement wrong, so they are having me do a new exam before they remake them. I mean, they work if I lift them up to about mid forehead to read. I'm not loving that!

I was almost really good yesterday. I have been craving jelly beans. At Trader Joe's they have small bags of seasonal ones. I bought TWO bags, cause I am dumb. On a good front, I measured out one serving and while I ate them all, they were not at all what I was craving. So the rest will go out in a bowl for my dinner party on Saturday. On a bad note, I'm back to craving jelly beans and I can see a bag of old fashioned, regular Brach's jelly beans in my shopping cart soon. Other then the jelly bean incident, I was spot on and still landed within my calorie range goal yesterday. No real exercise though.

QJB -- nothing I like better than having a forced destination when walking. So on weather permitting days I would be forcing myself off that public transport and hiking in the last mile and a half. It's like 20 minutes and doing that twice a day, as fast as I could, would meet my exercise goals while accomplishing what was necessary. I'd be thrilled. I spent years trying to figure out if I could do mass transportation to work, but the nearest bus stop to my office was three busses and a few miles away.

QOTD: Yes, it will be on. Mostly for commercials and to hear Rog tell the officials everything they are doing wrong. I have no dog in this fight, so I am rooting for KC because a KC win will make a great friend real happy. That's generally how I pick who to root for. Who do I love that will make a win happy? I'll go with that team

food today...

B: left over from yesterday's breakfast out. poached egg and 2 pc's of sad bacon. I hate sad bacon.

L: leftovers again. Italian chicken sweet sausage on a piece of protein bread with a little mozz on top

D: Maybe egg roll in a bowl. Sounds good right now.