Jennifer Apodaca's Blog, page 49

Friday Five

TGIF! Time to share five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

We bought boxes and other stuff to start packing. We just doing stuff we don’t need. We plan to do this slowly over weeks.And we have learned the house won’t be ready by our move-out-of-this-house date. Wizard is surprised and I’m not. Wizard kept hearing earlier dates than I did, I suspect some of that was a version of wishful hearing We will work out what to do over the next couple weeks. These dates tend to be very fluid, and anything could happen.I called my brother yesterday!  This sounds like a stupid thing, but I’m so bad at calling people — even people I love (and yes I include my brother in that group, LOL) I procrastinate into major embarrassment most of the time. My brother forgives me He can call me too, but he truthfully calls me more than I call him. So…it was my turn and I was very happy to chat with him for a while. He’s dealing with a minor injury that the doctor told him was from overdoing it. I laughed — both of us tend to do that. Our sister is a bit smarter about pacing herself.My granddog Phoebe had some minor surgery on Monday (nothing serious). So yesterday I ran to the store to get her a toy and will take it over either last night or today. But I also used this as an excuse to bake! I made nondairy chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes. They are for the my son and daughter-in-law, not the dog (much to Maggie’s disappointment since she wanted to taste test them). I hope they turned out okay.It’s hot and humid. I’m not a fan and neither are my sinuses. Wizard’s having sinus problems to from the weather. But in good news, my new workout clothes fit (I bought smaller bike shorts) and functioned great doing yoga. It’s a little thing but it made me happy.

That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

The post Friday Five first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Prime Day Confession

I hate Prime Day on principle. I’ve always hated Black Friday too. I consider the sale items to be loss leaders get customers in the store where they will buy more. Amazon’s store is online but it’s the same principle, and I don’t like being manipulated. The hype grates on my nerves too. This is all just my personal reaction, other people love it and I say go for it if it’s your thing. But it’s not mine.

And yet…I’m so cheap I bought stuff. Pretty much all essential stuff:

Underwear. Commando is not my thing Every time I do laundry, I basically have to do a spell that beseeches the elastic to last through another washing. I’d reached the point where I either needed a new spell or new underwear. I couldn’t find any spells on sale on Prime Day Scissors. I can’t stress how badly I needed those. My butter knives cut better than the scissors in my kitchen. I got two pairs! That’s a win since I suspect Wizard will snag one pair for his garage. See how thoughtful I am? Wizard really is a lucky man Bike shorts for working out. I’m down to one pair that is getting so droopy, it’s embarrassing. So I snagged a new pair. I should have bought 2, but… CHEAPSKATE!And I bought a workout top. A short one hoping it won’t get in my way even if a little bit of my “age rolls” (fat! Sheesh just call it what it is) spills out. I won’t care as long as I don’t do something scary like walk in front of a mirror. Note: I did not buy any mirrors on Prime Day!

And that was my big spending Prime Day. I still think Prime Day is an overhyped gimmick that gets people to buy more than they need, but I’m also one of those people, LOL.

How about you?

The post Prime Day Confession first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Weekend Roundup

There’s not much weekend to roundup since it was quiet for me. But here’s a couple tidbits:

Biker Witch and I had coffee and hung out at Barnes and Noble on Friday. That was fun, and I totally lost track of time. I also bought a real book, like a trade paperback book, for the first time in years! I did it out of pure nostalgia. I love books, I love writing, I miss it. Buying that one trade paperback made me happy. I’m enjoying reading it, but I’m also realized why I read on Kindle. I can prop my Kindle up to read so my hands are free for important things, like drinking coffee.

We went to see youngest for a while. he was putting in a brick border on a flower bed and I played with his dog while Wizard advised him, LOL. Actually Wizard had good suggestions and I enjoyed watching the two of them work out exactly how to get the bricks level in a tricky area.

We drove around in the Mustang cuz…why not? Totally fun even if that machine is a gas guzzler.

We went into our new house–last week it was just barely drywalled–and this week they had done quite a bit of texturing on the walls. I went around a corner and slipped in a huge wet patch of whatever that goop is they put on the walls. I have no idea how I managed to catch myself — I was wearing flip flops! (Normally I’d be in real shoes but we didn’t know we were going by the house when we left.) Even Wizard was impressed I stayed on my feet and caught my balance while goop-skating, LOL. Luck I guess. On the other hand, falling isn’t usual my brand of Klutz. Walking into walls and other assorted things like kitchen islands is my preferred brand Klutz. One in a while I like to try something different and trip on something or other. Anyway, I was fine and Wizard even got my flip flops cleaned up after we got home Naturally, I’m the one the lectures every single person who we take in the house to be care and watch where they’re walking. I really need to take my own advise!

We are hoping to push for a better idea of a move in date, but we know there’s no way they can really know because there are variables out of their control. We will deal with whatever happens.

No baking. I’ve been resisting, but I might make something non-dairy treats soon and pawn it off on youngest — who swears he doesn’t mind.

That was my weekend, now I’d love to hear about yours!

The post Weekend Roundup first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Friday Five

TGIF! The weeks are whipping by so quickly! Hope everyone’s weekend is off to a great start. Now it’s time to dive into sharing five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

It’s been a short week with the 4th on Monday, and it feels like it! It’s not like we have jobs, and yet, we always feel like we’re busy. But that’s better than being bored so no complaining here.Wednesday morning, one of Wizard’s dreams came true and he got a Mustang. Well, it’s his brothers very cool Mustang — a true muscle car. We went out to his brother’s house and brought it home so Wizard could get some minor work done on it (we have a good body shop). You had to see his brother giving Wizard instructions for like 15 minutes. I mean they’re both in the car, and his brother’s going over every little detail about driving it, and I’m trying so hard not to laugh. Both these men are retired but suddenly, they were 16 again. Too funny. FYI, I was following Wizard home, and I know I ruined his fun, LOL. He knew I was behind him, and that if he got a ticket, I would have videoed it and cheered the cop on while he or she wrote it. Seriously, I think that stopped him testing the car’s power and speed more than paying an actual traffic ticket and going to traffic school Yesterday I spent sooooo long on the phone sorting out an issue with my expensive medication. But the good news is this: Two different people worked hard to help me so that I could continue on this medication. It’s a co-pay issue. The co-pay is not something anyone making less than the Bills, Jeffs and Elon’s of the world can afford monthly. But if this program works, I will be able to continue on the medication that has kept me stable for years. So while it’s not fun to be on the phone for these issues, I’m beyond grateful for the two people who worked hard to help me. So. Very. Grateful.I may try making Macarons (French cookie). I’ve been thinking about it, but I need to buy more cookie sheets, and somehow I always talk myself out of it, LOL. My first attempts will likely be failures or disappointments because, I’m told, it’s an art that takes time to learn. One day I will do it. Maybe soon.Biker Witch and I rescheduled our last Friday coffee date to today. Then this weekend, we will wait and see what comes our way.

That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

The post Friday Five first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

My Fireworks Wish

** I apparently didn’t know the date, and set this to post on the 5ht instead of the 6th. I’m laughing so hard at myself because I was having a day when I thought I was on top of everything!**

Another 4th of July done! We had a great day just hanging out in the pool and doing our thing. But we stayed home with Maggie. We won’t leave her alone with the fireworks. My work at the animal shelter gave me an up close and personal view of what the blind fear will do to dogs (and other animals). And it can happen if the owner is right there due to the extreme fear-adrenaline running through the terrorized animal.

Maggie did okay through the barrages of fireworks. We worked on managing her fear all weekend, which includes exercise. She stayed on the couch by us during the two nights of nonstop fireworks, and at least she wasn’t shaking. I was so happy to see that much.

Then today, Wizard’s phone beeped and she hid under my desk.

Sigh. The only time she does that is with sudden loud thunder. Clearly she was having some residual reaction. Wizard and I went directly into our calm routine while not comforting her terror. There’s a difference between calm support and reassurance and reinforcing fear — we want our dogs as confident as possible. Since it wasn’t blistering hot, I took Maggie for a second walk to distract her worry and keep her brain moving forward. Right now she’s sleeping under her chair, so it’s working. Maggie’s not bad enough for meds but I fully support doing whatever works best for each animal.

But dang, what do people suffering from PTSD do? I hope they have strategies that help them cope too.

I don’t want to stop peoples responsible celebrations, I just really wish we could confine the fireworks to only one night. My second wish is that idiots couldn’t get fireworks, but that’s like wishing cake and cookies were healthy and calorie free

Hope everyone is having a great Wednesday!

The post My Fireworks Wish first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Happy 4th! & Weekend Roundup!

Happy 4th of July to everyone in the U.S.! I hope it’s a great day!

We had a good weekend for the most past. Friday wasn’t great — Biker Witch and I put our day out on hold because she had something come up. Then we had a “scheduled maintenance outage” for our electricity that ended up last 11 hours. In a 100 degree heat. Not fun.

Saturday was much better! We went to Youngest’s house for a mini pool party. That was so fun! It was great to see Turbo too, and of course, he loved the pool. He got Grandpa to take him in before anyone else got out there. I really enjoyed the day, and the girls and I were planning adventures. Who knows if we’ll do them, but it’s fun to talk about the possibilities. Especially now that Wizard and I have had our lives on hold for a while now with the house stuff, and now there’s an end in sight. It’s also nice to know the pool parties will continue even after we move (giving up our pool).

Sunday Maggie and I walked up to see if our house was dry walled yet. It is! And while I was in there, Maggie picked up a chicken bone. She spit it out as soon as I told her to — but eww! Someone didn’t clean up after their lunch. In any case, I was happy to see how much progress they made this week, but Maggie wasn’t happy about her leaving her prized chicken bone. She managed to get over her sadness when we got home and  I have her breakfast

Today we plan to hang out at home, make ribs and apple pie. We won’t leave Maggie since fireworks scare her. If we want to go watch them, we’ll take her with us.

How was your weekend?

The post Happy 4th! & Weekend Roundup! first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Friday Five

TGIF! Hope you all had a great week! Now lets dive into sharing 5 random things about our week:

Overall it’s been a good week where we are mostly catching our breath. We did go approve the granite for the new house. I think we’ll like it, but I’m soooo not going down that road again of worrying about each and every choice we made. The granite is called Blue Galaxy and has a strong, gray, black and a little blue pattern than should contrast nicely with white cabinets without being too overwhelming. I was trying to strike a balance between not washing out, having a nice feature since the island is prominent, but not overwhelming. So this is me not agonizing, LOL!I bought myself a raft for the pool. When I tried to get it on it, I fell. Wizard laughed like the lunatic he is, and when he could breathe again, said he wished he’d videoed it. He’s mean But he’s not really laughing because I fell. Well he partly is because I’m sure it looked funny. But he was mostly laughing because he told me to go buy a raft at a store where it’s cost a reasonable amount. But I’m cheap, so I went to a store called Five Below where everything is–predictably–$5,00 and below. Little did I know they apparently shrink the rafts to sell them at that price, LOL! It’s taking all my yoga balance to get on the thing, and then it slowly deflates and I sink into the water. This all highly amuses Wizard. I ordered a better raft from Amazon today.Wizard discovered I had unfrosted chocolate cupcakes in the freezer. He’s so happy. He never really knows what’s in the freezer unless it’s an ice cream carton that he recognizes. That he can spot in under 10 seconds.A small gripe about something that annoys me. Once we did the final transaction with escrow company on the sale of our house, the escrow office sent the two of us an email addressed to Wizard congratulating him.  Just him. Only him. As in…not me because I’m…just the woman? I mean this tiny thing bugs me a lot. And worse? She’s a woman which annoys me more. Trust me, I realize this is such a small thing in a transaction that could have had dozens of big things go wrong. But since I made sure I was professional, respectful and responsive to everyone through this transaction, and I didn’t ignore the parties involved, I would like the same in return. I don’t care when someone calls Wizard to give him information assuming he’ll pass it on. He does. And I do as well. But to just leave me off a congratulations when the house was half mine is tacky. And annoying. So very annoying.Today I’m getting my hair done, then seeing Biker Witch. We might see Turbo this weekend. And Monday, I think we’re staying home and making ribs and possibly apple pie because that sounds right of the 4th of July. Those are all very fluid plans though.

So that’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

The post Friday Five first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Wednesday Update

Okay, so I expected mixed emotions and I got them But overall we are happy. We sold our house, as you all probably know by now. It sold in 5 days, and we did a short escrow. So now we’re renters.

We’re still trying to let that sink in. Backstory here, Wizard and I both considered this our dream home. A lot of people might scoff at that, and that’s fine. I mean it’s not anything special, it’s not a mansion, it’s not by the beach, it’s not on a lake, but it was everything we wanted. We raised our kids here and one of the reasons we took so long to find another house is because we loved this one. We looked for years. I’m not sure our kids even believed us anymore that we would move, LOL. So we really did love this house for 26 years.

Most of the time Nothing is perfect of course.

And now we’re letting it go. That’s a mental process. It’s also the right thing to do at the right time I think. Wizard and I are well and strong enough to put real effort into making the next house the home we want for this season in our life. And the people buying our house are a young couple for whom this house will be perfect for this season of their life. We truly want them to be as happy here as we have been. Hopefully we’ll meet them soon (the deal was made with relators, but now they are our landlords).

So we are renting until August 21st and **hopefully** our new home will be ready by then. It’s on track so fingers crossed. We are cutting it close, but this is the deal so we’ll figure it out if for some reason the house isn’t ready. This is something I’m putting in the “I can’t control when the house we be finished and signed off by the city so I’m not going to spend energy worrying about it now” category.

Today, Wizard and I are going to look at the slabs of granite we chose to approve it. It’s another thing I’m happy about, we have final approval on that. We can change it (supposedly) if we aren’t happy. Since granite is a natural stone, each slab varies. It’s nice to be moving forward so we don’t dwell on the past we’re letting go of. It’s time. And while the past always slips away, the memories will be ours forever.

So that’s my update. What’s the update in your life?

The post Wednesday Update first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Weekend Roundup

My weekend was good. Saturday morning we went out to see Middle Son and pick up the wine they bought for us on their trip. They travel more than us and will pick up whatever we request, then we pay them. So basically, we have a wine dealer, LOL!

Saturday night, I got to go visit Phoebe, one of my grand dogs. She’s the goofball golden retriever whom I’ve come to love very much. When I walked in the house, greeted me with typical golden retriever joy, and that is just priceless. I love that she knows and trusts me now. While I made her dinner, she sat right by my side making sure I did it right. Evidently I did because she wolfed it down. I spent, I don’t know, maybe 40 minutes with her and really enjoying hanging out with her.

Sunday, I didn’t do much. I had some plans but a cranky stomach overruled that. It’s my own fault for doing things like stressing and eating anything besides white rice and Jello But I’m fine now. By yesterday afternoon I felt better and spent an hour in the pool while Maggie tried to coax a lizard out from it’s hiding place. The lizard refused to budge.

On the cookie front, I made the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies last Friday and then when I baked them, I REMEMEBERED I DIDN’T LIKE THE RECIPE! I don’t like the texture or the way they bake. I purposely tossed out the recipe so I wouldn’t use it again, then when I got a craving, I forgot I disliked it and searched out the same freaking recipe on my go-to baking site. I’m shaking my head at myself. Why???? I guess I just don’t make oatmeal cookies much. Wizard likes them, and we eat them, but still…I’m mad about it. I have an oatmeal pumpkin recipe that I sometimes use when I looking for a healthier operation, and I REALLY wish I’d made those instead. They’d have been a much in my opinion.

So that was my weekend (well most of it, I’ll share more later this week), how was yours?

The post Weekend Roundup first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Friday Five

TGIF! Boy this week! But it’s all good, and now it’s time to share five random things about our week.

We hit some stress this week and as a result, my house is clean That’s the good news. The bad news is I ate cookie dough. And to make it worse, it was some left over store bought cookie dough I happened to have in my fridge, LOL. It was only one piece because I have standards, and my stomach had serious hard limits that it strictly enforces. If it had been home made, then I’d be in more trouble. And probably sick due to previously mention limits.The stress is resolved. This is normal stuff in the process of selling a home. We will see what happens next week.I can’t honestly remember much else about this week. I did yoga. I cleaned. I desperately wanted to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, but am trying to resist because we’ve had enough junk. By the way, I still love yoga.Oh, on yoga. A week or two ago, Wizard walked by when I was doing some poses. He sees me doing this all the time, but this time, he commented on being impressed. Not because I’m good, I’m really not. But he could see the progress I’d made and how the core and balance work paid off so I could hold a tricky balance pose. I know this is a tiny thing, but having him randomly see and recognize that meant a lot to me. Mostly, thought, I’ve been doing yoga for my own joy.I took Maggie to the vet yesterday for the mass on her belly. For the first time in my experience since I switched vets, they were using their “Covid Protocol”.  I was unsure what to expect, but it was easy. They have a courtyard in front of their office, there’s chairs and benches, and they have a sign in sheet. Super easy. It was hot, but we could get up and walk around, find shade, etc. All the dogs were well behaved and the cats were in carriers or being carried. The tech came out to get Maggie, took her in, and the veterinarian brought her back out. My stomach clenched when I saw the vet because up to then, I hadn’t seen a vet come outside. But it’s not bad news. Maggie’s mass is either a lipoma (fatty mass that we just watch) or a small hernia. The vet couldn’t manipulate the wall behind the mass to tell for sure. However it’s not urgent at this point. The vet assured me it’s fine to just watch it for now. And together, we developed a plan to remove it when she has her teeth cleaned next time, and if the vet finds a hernia then, she’ll repair it. I feel so much better. And I appreciate so much that the vet came to go over it with me. She gave me specifics to watch for that (if they happen) will make it urgent, but for now, Maggie’s in good shape. Also we discussed her over health which is also very good for her age.

That’s my five. We aren’t sure about our weekend plans yet as it’s been a weird and hectic week so we’ll see. Now I’d really love to hear about your week! Have a great weekend!

The post Friday Five first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.