This Year is Our Year for Success!
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I feel for you and your family. This is a hard time for you. I’m at BIL’s in Okeechobee. We’re here a few days before we start home. I’ve been going through my sister’s closet and bureau to help him out. I took two huge bags of clothes to Goodwill yesterday. She was really a clothes horse even though she hadn’t worn most of the clothes in years. I offered to do some of this when we spent time with her last fall. I would have shown her the clothes and asked her which pieces to donate. She didn’t want me to so we just visited. I still have another closet to do but that will wait until when we come back in the fall. At least what I’ve done makes me feel helpful. I have another bag of donations all set Togo.0
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That's great of you to do, Helene! Too bad I'm not close enough to my BIL to have helped out like that. I've actually never been to their home (in Sedona).
DH worries about BIL not having water (same with my brother should he decide to stay in Oregon). I figure they are grown men that can decide what they want to do. LOL!0 -
What’s your brother doing in Oregon? You said he was unhappy living in AZ without your sister. Had he lived in Oregon before?0
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Got an email from ancestry about a DNA update. I hadn't been for awhile (ancestry is on my "when I finally retire list). They have a new feature where they tell you what percentage of your DNA was contributed by each parent (but you don't know which parent is which). Ancestry says I'm 20% German which seems low and it all comes from one parent?????? I don't see how that's possible. I guess it has to be my dad's parents (they are from PA Dutch country; my mom's parents are from Maryland) but I never would have guessed in a million years. Of course sometimes as Ancestry refines their processes results change so that could happen. Then they ask me if I can identify which parent is which. Nope!
Hot sunny day here. Fed the colonies, now I'm doing chores, checking emails (which sent me to ancestry), etc.0 -
What’s your brother doing in Oregon? You said he was unhappy living in AZ without your sister. Had he lived in Oregon before?
I haven't updated the story I guess. He and BIL co-existed for a few months, very unhappily. Brother moved out. He travelled to Oregon to see his dog (belongs to a friend). Stayed a month or so and moved back to Gettysburg where he got a job as a night clerk at one of the battlefield motels (relatively safe COVID job I guess). Quit that job recently, gave up his apartment and drove to Oregon. I asked if he was visiting or moving and he couldn't tell me. Now it sounds like he's visiting. Time will tell I guess. My brother, the rolling stone bachelor.0 -
If he’s safe and happy, that’s what you need to hope for. At least the economy is such that he should be able to find a job in Oregon if he decides to stay.0
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If he’s safe and happy, that’s what you need to hope for. At least the economy is such that he should be able to find a job in Oregon if he decides to stay.
He said the job prospects are better although Gettysburg as both a tourist and a college town isn't too shabby in that regards. Especially if you aren't aiming any higher than motel night clerk.0 -
DH emailed this to me:
How safe and effective are 2nd booster shots? Are there side effects to getting a 4th dose of vaccine?
A 2nd booster shot (or the 4th overall dose) of the Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccines appeared to be safe and gave a “substantial” boost to immunity when given about 7 months after the 1st booster (or the 3rd overall dose), according to a new study published May 9.
“Fourth-dose Covid-19 mRNA booster vaccines are well tolerated and boost cellular and humoral immunity,” UK scientists wrote in the study published in The Lancet.
“Peak responses after the fourth dose were similar to, and possibly better than, peak responses after the third dose.”
The researchers gave study participants a half dose of the Moderna vaccine or a full dose of the Pfizer vaccine in a random selection in January, about 7 months after they received their first booster. The 2nd booster didn’t seem to have any major side effects. The biggest complaints were arm pain and fatigue.
The additional booster also generated an immune response at day 14 that was higher than that at day 28 after the 3rd dose of the Pfizer or Moderna Covid-19 vaccine.
Moderna’s fourth dose seemed to do slightly better than Pfizer’s, but it’s unclear why. Scientists said 4th doses of either vaccine generated what scientists called a “significant fold change” in protective antibodies and also boosted T-cells.
Antibodies are a first line of immune protection that can stop a virus from infecting cells. T-cells come in later and destroy infected cells. T-cells can’t protect against mild infections, but they can keep infections from progressing to severe disease.
The researchers also found that some people who had higher levels of antibodies before their 4th doses of vaccine had only “limited” boosting. Those with a history of Covid-19 had a similar limited response. The authors say this suggests there may be a ceiling or maximum response that can come with a 4th vaccine dose.
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My progress report this week (I haven't adjusted the goal BMI for having lost a little height - one thing at a time - LOL!)
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That article is interesting. DH and I got our 4th shots of the Moderna vaccine about 10 days before we left for our trip to the beach. SIL hasn’t had one yet and she did contract Covid while on the trip. DH and I did not get sick, despite being in close quarters with her before and for a day or two after she got sick. I think our booster shots definitely protected us.0
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That article is interesting. DH and I got our 4th shots of the Moderna vaccine about 10 days before we left for our trip to the beach. SIL hasn’t had one yet and she did contract Covid while on the trip. DH and I did not get sick, despite being in close quarters with her before and for a day or two after she got sick. I think our booster shots definitely protected us.
TPTB are working on the next generation vaccinations but for now the current vaccinations are certainly keeping a lot of people alive and out of the hospital. I'm keeping my eye on the current surge. I read it's supposed to die down by the end of the month but we're signed up for a cat show the first weekend in June. I made a mental note to reach out to everyone that week and see if anyone's uncomfortable doing the show. Playing everything by ear isn't fun but has turned into a fact of life.0 -
I made sure we had our fourth shot several weeks before traveling north. We haven’t worm masks in a while but I packed masks some and have them in the car. I expect to use them at stops along the drive back north.0
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It's a grey, drizzly day here in Baltimore. I thought it might be a good morning to go get my annual bloodwork done and it was! Got a really excellent phlebotomist also, a plus! CBC is back; all normal except for one value that apparently means my platelets are old. Of course they are! LOL! I'm sure the other results will take longer.0
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Got up today to news of school shooting and updates on baby formula shortage and other scarcities and then DH revealed we had no water! In the past week we had the anniversary of my sister's death, what would have been her 70th birthday, and my late mom's birthday. And of course we still have all the COVID idiots. I'm trying daggone hard to keep to my eating plan but it's tough.
The good news is we got water again before I went out to see what bottled water I could buy. (We have a bunch.) And I discovered that the county actually has an interactive outage map, which we didn't know before. Once upon a time, when we still had the pool in the back yard, water for the toilet was no biggie but that is no more. I did pick up cat size paper plates at the grocery store along with more plastic cutlery. I suggested maybe we keep filled buckets of water in the tub. Not sure I was 100% joking (cause I'm not sure I'm in a joking mood today).0 -
We had a tornado watch today, of all things. Were supposed to get severe thunderstorms but so far it hasn't amounted to much.
I'm just sitting here working. My vacation email message has me out until Tuesday so I can get some peace and quiet. LOL!0 -
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My sister and I went to the new Downton Abbey movie yesterday. While we were waiting for the movie to start, everyone’s phones went off with a tornado warning. No surprise, none of us left. Who knows where we would have found shelter if we left. It was only for a half hour so we sat and waited for the movie to start. I didn’t know if I’d feel like I needed to mask but there were only 19 people in the theater and we were socially distant. That was my first movie experience in 3 years. We’re in SC until Tuesday because I don’t want to be on the road with holiday traffic.0
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Tornado warnings in the spring are common around here, although this year we had fewer than normal. I saw something on TV indicating that due to climate change, weather patterns are changing the typical path of tornado activity, with areas that typically don’t get them now having tornados.
So many details are coming out now about the school shooting here in Texas this week. My paper today gave a detailed timeline including the many calls to 911 from children in the classroom begging for help and how the responding officers waited for more than an hour before confronting the gunman. So many errors were made, starting with the lack of gun regulations that allowed an 18 year old to buy 2 expensive semi-automatic assault weapons within a week and thousands of rounds of ammunition, followed by the apparent cowardice and poor judgment of the responding officers. Waiting for an hour to confront the gunman goes against their training and best practices for this type of situation, and almost certainly resulted in more deaths and injuries. I told DH yesterday, there will be many wrongful death lawsuits filed against the police department over this, and rightfully so. Those poor families. There are no words.
Helene, how did you like the movie? I’m hoping to see it this week.0 -
Pam - you're right, there are no words. Yet our politicians try to justify. Don Jr. apparently suggested someone could kill as many people with a baseball bat. Ted Cruz suggested locking all doors and putting armed guards in schools. They are all apparently terrified of losing the gun lobby's money. Such cowards. What I found a hoot and a half was the headline that you couldn't take a gun into the NRA convention.0
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It’s beyond belief that the NRA would go forward with their conference in Texas days after the mass killing of children. And lawmakers will probably respond with the same old platitudes and no real changes to gun control.
We both liked the movie a lot. We were the first two to arrive. A bit later, a couple came in and he commented that he was the only man in the audience. I told him the other guys we’re watching Top Gun. A couple more men came in but we were mostly women.0 -
It’s beyond belief that the NRA would go forward with their conference in Texas days after the mass killing of children. And lawmakers will probably respond with the same old platitudes and no real changes to gun control.
We both liked the movie a lot. We were the first two to arrive. A bit later, a couple came in and he commented that he was the only man in the audience. I told him the other guys we’re watching Top Gun. A couple more men came in but we were mostly women.
I can't wait for Top Gun to be available other than at a movie theater (haven't been to one of those since the early 80's). It's gotten fantastic reviews!0 -
Definitely wait for streaming. The theaters for TG will probably be at capacity. I can just imagine Covid germs floating around in a packed theater. And you know there will be few masks in there.0
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I’ve heard that Top Gun is a movie that really suffers when seen on a small screen. I’m sure the theaters will be packed at first, but usually if you wait 2-3 weeks, an afternoon matinee mid-week may only have a few attendees. If you’ve had your boosters, wear a mask, and socially distance where possible, I think it’s relatively low risk. We plan to see it, but probably not for a couple of weeks.
I’m prepping for the first of 2 trips. DH and I leave Saturday for NC again for my cousin’s memorial service. We will drive it in 2 long days, then stay until Thursday morning when we start the drive back. On Sunday I will drive to my sister’s home and Monday morning my sister, niece and I will drive to New Orleans where we will meet with my sister’s youngest daughter for 4 days exploring The Big Easy. We will head home on Friday. So I have lots of driving in my future, which is not my favorite mode of travel.
DH’s sister has been driving me crazy lately (so what else is new, lol!). She has decided to move to Colorado when her son and his family move this summer and that as a result, MIL should be moved to our area for us to take responsibility. This was decided without consulting us, but that’s not really the issue. After all this time, I agree that it’s only fair for us to do this. The part that is driving me crazy is that she is contacting assisted living facilities in our area and making inquiries, then telling us we need to contact them to set up appointments to tour them ASAP. She knows almost nothing about the area, so doesn’t know which facilities are in good parts of the city, have good reputations, etc. plus, as I described above, for the next few weeks we are not available to tour these places and I’d really prefer to deal with this after we are both back from our travels. I don’t want to be fielding follow up calls from them while I’m away and trying to be present for my family during these visits. After telling her again that we didn’t have time to deal with it this week, I finally told her last Sunday that I wasn’t going to deal with it until after my trips so I could be there for my family without being hassled by phone calls. She finally seemed to get it, or at least realized that she couldn’t bully me into doing what she wants. She’s not planning to move until late summer or early fall, so it’s not urgent that we get something setup immediately, anyway. So now she said she will work on a list of questions for us to ask when we do visit these places. She really wants to micromanage this process and my biggest concern about moving MIL here is that SIL will want to continue to micromanage long distance.0 -
I think we are finally ready to leave for NC tomorrow morning. It will be a long day of driving. Overall, it’s about an 18 hour drive and we plan to get about 12 hours of it out of the way tomorrow so that we can arrive a little earlier on Sunday. I’m not looking forward to the drive, but it will be nice to see our family members again.
It’s a good thing that I did laundry yesterday. I had just finished drying my hair this morning when the power went off. We were without electricity for about 3 hours. Luckily, it was fairly cool this morning, so it didn’t get too uncomfortable before the power came back on.0 -
Pam, have a safe trip to NC. We just got back home last night. We left Sanibel May 24th and stopped for 5 days with BIL. I was able to help him sort and donate some of her clothes. Then we spent a week with my brother in SC. We had an overnight visit with BIL and SIL and heard about his therapies for Parkinson’s. He’s frailer than our last visit so we kept the visit to one night.SIL has her hands full with caretaking. We offered to come down if she needs a break. I’d love to see her take a mini vacation for herself. We got home last night after a long ride with lots of construction traffic.0
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Pam - hopefully your trip is going well!
Helene - I'm glad you're home but what sad stops along the way. It's good you were able to do them though!
We're at a cat show this weekend so I'm hot and tired. LOL! Working on getting my weight in line for my cardiologist appointment.0 -
When I asked SIL how she was doing herself, she said no one had asked her that. She’s 81 and always looked 10 years younger. She feels she looks like she’s in her mid eighties now. Having a chance to vent was probably helpful. Her single daughter has taken on handling the financial aspects. They’re very close and SIL couldn’t handle the stress of that too. Both she and my niece are pretty stressed. BIL has been affected mentally as well as physically. It’s pretty sad to see his decline. He was so smart and was a gourmet cook as well.0
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When I asked SIL how she was doing herself, she said no one had asked her that. She’s 81 and always looked 10 years younger. She feels she looks like she’s in her mid eighties now. Having a chance to vent was probably helpful. Her single daughter has taken on handling the financial aspects. They’re very close and SIL couldn’t handle the stress of that too. Both she and my niece are pretty stressed. BIL has been affected mentally as well as physically. It’s pretty sad to see his decline. He was so smart and was a gourmet cook as well.
We never know how it's going to go as we age. I'm not looking forward to one of us needing help.0 -
Well, cat show setup Friday and dinner after went great but of course it's hard work. Yesterday I worked the show and then we all packed. On the way home I unloaded at the storage unit and packed the feeding supplies back in my van. That's the downside of doing both of these things. Anyway I woke up this morning, still tired and ready to start the last two weeks diet before cardiologist. I had to feed. I came home to be greeted by DH telling me there are kittens in the back yard! I pulled a trap from the van, set it up and had 2 kittens in minutes. Drove them to the vet where the girls started putting dibs on them, calling significant others and even a MIL, brainstorming names etc. On the way back I stopped at the storage unit but didn't think I had another trap there and I was right. We have a lot of traps but they are with our trap lender person. I ran over to Petsmart thinking this'll be easy but they no longer sell traps. They sent me to Home Depot. Since I never go to Home Depot I played dumb and let them lead me around. Bought 2 traps and headed home. So there are now two traps set up in the back yard. We know there is one more kitten and I'd love to get mom. Swore Bob to secrecy. Should "lost kitten" signs go up no way I'm giving them back to someone who lets them outside. More likely they were born outside though.0
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We got an adult cat. Made ANOTHER trip to the vet (which is like 45 minutes away). Cross your paws that it's the mother cat. DH swears there's another kitten - I'm not so sure.0
