January 13, 2025 Monday--5am

Good morning!

Even though this is a dusk picture of eight partridges--lol!  I also see five coming so I may even have two coveys visiting the Critter Cafe. ;)

All week my bad gut spell was still doing quite well--lol!  Enough so that I had to reschedule my annual dr checkup and we had to reschedule Christmas again.  We'll try again for next weekend.  Wasn't only me.  Leah's back was hurting and she had a headache.  (Could have been from dealing with the snow... snowblower and shoveling were involved, I am sure.)  She deserved the rest also.

Wednesday night Dagan and Ian dropped off my groceries while Liam and Leah were out loading IKEA boxes into the car from my garage.  Ian helped me take down all the Christmas cards off the frig.  I showed him and Dagan that this year I got five cards with hand painting involved.  Never have gotten that many!  I have some talented friends!

The frig is back to pics of McFamily and the boys' school pictures.

I did get all the "have-to" stuff done...laundry, cooking and all the rest...but I didn't get a lot done in the studio.

The old handmade watercolor journals...well, I thought I had made three of the smaller ones, but maybe it was two.  I know I finished one for sure and I think I threw it away.  Maybe I threw away two of them--lol!  Anyways, I have the two larger ones and the one smaller one I have been working in.    

Not that it is all that much smaller, but those largest ones seem huge to me--lol!

I cut it apart and tossed the pages I had used.  Save the blank ones and sent them home with Ian for him and Liam to use any way they like.  Turned out the cover was in worse shape than I thought, so I tossed that, too.

So now I need to test the paper in the two larger journals.  They are so old that the waxed thread snapped in a couple places on the purple one...and I haven't even used it yet.  

Meanwhile the new journals and pad came.  I tore the front page from the front of the Visual Journal before I remembered to get a picture.  I've used the Visual Journals before and they are okay.

The other pad and journal are new to me.  I'll be testing these out, too.

I won't say this week because I am eternally optimistic...but have been mistaken for quite a while as to my feeling better--lol!  ;)  But soon, I hope.

We did get some snow!  Enough to mostly cover the grass.  So that's when the partridges show up in broad daylight and not only at dawn and dusk.

As soon as they come the little birds gather around pretty quickly because the bigger partridges can dig the seed out from the snow much easier and they want to take advantage of their stronger, bigger legs and feet--lol!

Allie froze when the partridges arrived...mid bathing her privates--lol!

The boys went to see the new Sonic movie.  I think Uncle Aaron went with, too.

The exciting thing this week was that they came to install the carpeting down the stairs a week early!  The basement stairs are on the left.

I think they matched the carpeting pretty well, too!

Down to the landing...

...and down to my door on the left.  

Leah had the orange rug for at the bottom of the stairs.  Goes well!

And the plumbers came, too.  They got that back bar installed.  Were going to do the caulking but the caulk Leah bought and put down there disappeared!  Couldn't find it anywhere.  So they'll have to come back.  But things are coming together. :)

So--another week.  I need to get my labwork done this week, but can do that any time as a walk-in at the clinic--so odds are I can manage that--I hope.  If I don't get that done I can't get my scans done the following Friday.  Fingers crossed.  

Keanna comes Tuesday.  I've been just hoping my system would straighten out--trying a few small things.  I may just have to fast a couple of days before appointments, as I have had to do in the past.  Whatever.  (Got to be a better week, right?...don't want to say that too loudly--lol!)

I plan to clean off the top part of my frig, too.  Started.  Getting rid of the hand-painted clothespin magnets I made like 40 years ago and some other things...but I will keep this one favorite magnet..."Life is short but it's wide".  I do love it so.  Can't part with it.  Probably bought that a good 40 years ago.  Time for some changes, but not that magnet.  That one is going to the new place.

I'm already buying odds and ends for the new place.  The electric skillet and the wild bamboo utensils, for example.  But also boring things like a new black wastebasket (which isn't boring to me, though...I get excited about everything like a kid at Christmas!)  

Leah and I text back and forth about things like dishwasher soap and laundry soap.  I already had promised her long ago I wouldn't use dryer sheets anymore in the new dryer.  I've been using dryer balls for years, but I also toss in a dryer sheet because I still got a lot of static.  I told her I was even getting new dryer balls and I found the perfect ones!  So me!  A rainbow of colors!  And they are not supposed to bleed the color from the balls.  I sent her a link to show her (Amazon).

We were also talking hand soap dispensers.  Leah loves her automatic ones, but they are quite expensive.  I had tried these cheaper ones from the Bed, Bath, and Beyond close out sale...but they're terrible. Have to put your hand under there like 3-5 times and just a tiny drizzle comes out.  I just wanted to go back to good old dependable pump bottles.  Already had those picked out, too.  She even offered to buy the more expensive automatic ones for me like they have, but I said I had decided to use sets--labeled refillable bottles for the bathroom and kitchen.  Less sitting out on the counter, you know?  And I found these little absorbent stone platforms to set them on.  Sent her links to show her.

Well, she ordered them all for me!!  Said she was going to have the colored dryer balls waiting for me in the new dryer...so she sent those to their house.  Awesome!  I was so excited I couldn't sleep!  No lie!  I planned to order all that (and more) in February.  But now I can set up my new soap dispensers and get rid of these awful ones that everyone complains about--myself included--sooner than I expected!  Whoohoo!!  And I have my eye on some other things to order in February, too, of course--lol!  ;)

I should be focusing on the last of my writing, card-making, and art supply purchases before I move and begin my no-buy in those areas...but it is just too darn exciting to get stuff for the new place--lol! ;)  Well, I did get the new watercolor journals and pad.  :)

Anyways, that's about it from here till next week, my friends.  Allie knows I haven't been feeling that great.  She follows me to the bathroom and sits on the rug waiting for me.  Of course, she wants me to toss a small glass of water into the shower for her to lick off the walls after I wash my hands...every time.  But even though I am up and down a lot (and she hates that) she is usually right back up on the chair with me wanting to cuddle...wet feet, butt, and tail from the shower--lol!  She's here on the chair with me right now purring loudly.  Cats!  Gotta love 'em.  

Till next week...change is coming...in many ways.  Let's hope more positive than negative.  Fingers crossed.  :)