04/08/21, Thursday

DD, yes, we downsized significantly when we combined households. We got the RV during the process and many duplicates (crock pots, coffee makers, dishes, sheets, towels etc.) are in SS. My DH sounds a lot like yours....he has piles of stuff on his side of the office. It is fabulous that school is energizing ! Especially on my toughest days, time in the classroom always grounded me ! Liz, I am so excited about you and Mike moving forward ! Good on you for reactivating your golf muscle memory ! Being three hours apart in Florida will be nothing...I feel a meet-up in our future ! Shirl... it is synchronicity ! When integrity and HARD work are recognized and validated.....SOAK IT ALL IN !! Ceci, you are like the Energizer bunny...you've got your head in the game for sure ! All of those hikes are great for more than your muscles! Peps, I totally get checking in with the # on the scale. Making peace with disordered thinking seems more doable with objective data to look at. The feats your body can perform, the amount of stamina you have, blood pressure, sleep, the way favorite pants fit, the number on the scale, etc. ...multiple measures over time to inform choices. Diane S, preparing for puppies is so exciting ! When is the last time you had a litter under foot ?

I go from excited to overwhelmed several times a day ! The time it takes for our home here to sell and close once it hits the market at the end of the month will determine a lot in terms of road trips and flights to accomplish everything. Being without a basement or outdoor shed certainly puts a limit on extraneous stuff. We are selling the inflatable paddle boards and shifting back to more rigid water modes because of the alligators. No critters slithering right up and in, puncturing me and/or the paddleboard ! XXOOXX to all !

158 last weigh. Grrrr

Diane O.--wonderful on seeing mom!! And the move

Shirl-Congrats on retirement.

I have some catching up to do!

Easter is behind us but there is always some event or something to throw me off. Currently feeling overwhelmed with schedule. Children are terrible horrible eaters (they protested blue box mac and cheese last night?). My current routine involves fixing them dinner--which is usually something I'm not proud of but I"m not about to spend hours laboring just for the dogs to get it--play, Charlotte bedtime, fix us dinner, eat, Becca bedtime. But I'm so tired by the time we eat it's almost not worth it. Which ironically usually ends with me spending more calories and less enjoyment! If we could all eat together and them both go to bed at the same time, I think my evening routine would be much improved. But while they are so demanding, I just don't know! Two bad options. I know this is just a season, but even so it sucks. I thought maybe some kind of meal prep schedule. Like meal prep Tuesday-Thursday when I'm home on Tuesday. Crockpot Monday. Something.

So question: what are you all comfortable with at this point of covid. I ask because maybe I'm too lax or maybe my friend is too paranoid. But I'm a little annoyed. I have not seen a group of girlfriends since last January. (there are 4 of us) The last one just had her first dose of the vaccine, meaning we will all be fully vaccinated by mid-May, so I proposed we go out to dinner then. One just responded that she doesn't feel comfortable doing that right now unless outside dining and adequate spacing. What is the goal, then?

It is exhausting to have two little ones, but the time will pass. And more quickly than you will be happy about looking back on it.

I have always gone out to dinner outside and visited with friends who lived with more or less the same rules as me. I have been eating inside at "safer", well spaced, well ventilated restaurants since last summer. Now that I am vaccinated I feel comfortable even sitting at a bar (and going out to eat with a similarly vaccinated group). I have friends who feel the same as me, but others who are still super careful almost as if they weren't vaccinated. One of my SILs is like that. She is willing to fly here to visit (is coming 4/18-4/29), but not willing to do anything other than go to the beach (if not busy) and eat outside.

I think everyone has his or her own comfort level as far as Covid goes. My brother is super duper paranoid. I am much less so. My father was down right cavalier about Covid, even in his 90s! I tired doing outdoor dining once and was so uncomfortable I never did it again. We have only done take away for the last year. It wasn't until I was fully vaccinated that I went into a restaurant to eat. That was in a more rural northern CA area with a pretty low infection rate. It took me a few minutes to feel comfortable. Here, I still am not wiling to go out to dinner, but by mid May, if things continue to progress as they are, I will be comfortable enough. Being fully vaccinated, I am now completely willing to do outdoor dining.

Remember the vaccine isn't a guarantee you are safe from Covid, but it is a safeguard against getting a severe enough case to send you to the hospital. The true goal of the vaccine is that if you get Covid after vaccination, your illness will be much less severe and you won't die from Covid. Covid is going to be around for several years in some form or another. We won't wipe it from the face of the earth in a year or two.

I have no qualms about eating out, indoors or outdoors. We're down to a 1.6% testing positivity rate and only 95 new cases today in a county of 3.2 million.

Definitely meeting up in Florida next season!!!

BTW, not only is Mike's place rented for this summer, it will also be rented at a very lucrative monthly rate from January to March next year (we will be here October-December and April-May). We are discussing living in 3 different places while the place is rented: The potential places right now are Arizona, Florida Keys, Hawaii, and/or Hilton Head. Very exciting, but the plan is for that to be the last rental as a nomad's life every year is not desirable for either of us. Mike has moved around a lot for most of his adult life and is tired of it. I have NEVER been a nomad, so am excited about trying it for a bit, but in the end I think one year of that will be enough for me.

Speaking of traveling, I am driving Mike to the airport later today to go to Cape Cod for the weekend. His daughters and their families are converging there to help with yard work. They will mostly be using the cottage from now on so they are expected to start taking care of it. Mike is going to supervise and of course visit with them for the first time since the fall. So Justice and I are on our own. It will be weird to be here without Mike, but I guess I will get used to it.

Have a safe and healthy day!

Weight 186 something. I forgot by the time I went to record it. Walk with my friend was lovely yesterday!

Two of my friends (53 and 49) just got their second doses (the first friend had Pfizer the second Moderna) and both feel really sick with fever, headaches, chills, muscle pain. The first called it "debilitating" the second had a fever of 102 for 2 days. Not looking forward to #2! Hopefully I'll be one who feels fine.

Today I'm getting my hair colored. Off to get ready! Hope you all have a good day!

Yay for multiple measures! Diane Mc. is so right. My weight jumped up 1.4 over night, but I felt "thinner" and chose to wear a shirt I don't wear because it is a skosh too tight for my comfort. It is looser and I felt quite comfortable wearing it to work today.

I had not worked out in a few weeks, so Tuesday's workout left me wonderfully sore. I know.... I'm a bit of a freak that way, but it is truly a nice sore. Not painful, but a clear indication of muscle tearing and rebuilding. I am looking forward to another workout this evening!

Not much else going on....

36 more school days.... I can't wait for next year's return to a mostly normal classroom situation.

I was always comfortable with patio dining, but patios are required to have social distance spacing here, so they weren't very crowded, but VERY in demand. Reservations were required for contact tracing (and we were called once because a host at the restaurant had a positive test) and you were usually given a 90 minute window, so they could flip the table, since they had fewer of them. And I did fly before my vaccinations, but I was a little crazy, double masked and a shield.

Now that I'm vaccinated, I will go to a properly run restaurant and eat indoors. Contemplating going to a movie with DH once he's 2weeks out from his 2nd shot(he had it yesterday). And I think I will resume purchasing some services like pedicures and massages. I will be happy to wear a mask in these situations to prevent the small chance that even vaccinated, I could have an asymptomatic or very mild case of Covid. I couldn't live with the idea that I infected someone because I wanted my toes painted. On the other hand, I've been blessed to get the vaccine, and in some ways I feel like I SHOULD use that advantage to rejoin the economy, especially small privately owned businesses. I feel very comfortable that the vaccine will prevent me from getting very sick, being hospitalized or dying. I feel very comfortable that other vaccinated people won't make me sick, and I won't make them sick, we don't need mask a when we're at home, in the car etc. I feel comfortable that if I get a break through infection, I won't spread it to unvaccinated people if I wear a mask in public.

And on the third hand I think I need to keep abreast of variants. I can't become complacent because I'm vaccinated, there's always the chance there will be a variant that won't be as easily suppressed. But for now, the current vaccines appear to be effective against the current variants.

School was fun again today, but I'm tired. The weekend will be sweet!

Still dieting, this time the scale is better than during my last attempt, so I guess the increased movement is helpful. You can't out exercise a bad diet, but exercise can give a boost to a healthy diet seems to be the take away message.