Movin' on Up

This past weekend had me down in Southern Utah to help Mom and Chuck get ready for their big move in a few weeks.  They've been in their home for 25 years so you can imagine all the nooks and crannies full of stuff.  They successfully sold their cute home in Toquerville and are buying a condo in St George.  The new place is closer to resources they will need in the future and they are driving to St George a few times a week anyway.  Plus you can't discount the carefree living of a condo with an HOA!

Friday night, I packed up Bella and John (complete with Nadine) and headed down.  Luckily we got away early enough to beat much of the UEA traffic.  Not even a slow down in Provo which is almost unheard of.

I was ready to help in any way I could but one ask was to help sell some furniture they didn't want to move and see if we could make some cash.  I took a few photos and put the items on Facebook Marketplace.  This is a newer service that Facebook offers.  It is completely free.  And it was insane. Within 30 minutes of posting on Friday night, my phone started buzzing.  It buzzed throughout the night.  I got up early in the morning to let Mom and Chuck know it was going to be a busy day selling their stuff.  We sold 2 recliners, a table and chairs, various tools, a silver teapot, a dresser, and hopefully Grandma Nell's treadle sewing machine (still pending payment and pick up).

We packed up and sorted items Mom was ready to sort and pack including the cedar chest of keepsakes Grandma had kept for years.  There were things dating back to the late 1800s.  And there was Grandma's purse, glasses, and hearing aids.  I wasn't quite ready for that and got a little teary but we made it through.  We will work on a project to better store the items in the near future.  We sorted decorations and some keepsakes Mom wanted to share with the family.  We took a huge load to charity and have another ready to go.

Overall, we cleared some space for boxes, got supplies for packing, sold stuff, made a little money, and enjoyed hanging out together.  Bella got time with Nadine (she loved it) and I got a good physical work out.  Sunday came before we knew it and I had to make the long drive home.  Can I say how good Bella is about traveling??  She really is a good travel kitty.  Barely a meow the whole way home.  I didn't have as good of luck with traffic coming home as I had driving down.  I passed 6 accidents on the freeway.  Lots of complete stops or going 20 mph on I-15.  But we made it home safe.

I wish I could help Mom more but I have to work and get ready for my big trip.  So hopefully she feels like it is doable and has a plan to get it finished.

Park City Staycation

I get regular emails with all types of travel deals.  One came through a few weeks ago for a night's stay at the Waldorf Astoria in Park City.  Philip and I have stayed there before so we knew it would be a great time and we would have fun.  We picked a weekend and made it so.

We drove up to Park City last Saturday afternoon.  We packed up stuff for dinner, snacks, signature drinks, breakfast, and games to play.  We were lucky that at check in, they did have a two bedroom condo available so that meant Philip and Tiffany got a bed instead of the fold out couch.  Each bedroom has a fireplace and large TV.  We had our own bathrooms (Philip's had a Jacuzzi tub), living area, dining room, kitchen, and even a washer and dryer to use.

I love cooking with Philip and indeed, he jumped up and worked on a lovely spaghetti dinner complete with cheesy garlic bread.  I made Palermo  drinks with grapefruit juice, lime juice, and tequila (Yummy).

After dinner, we played some games Philip and Tiffany brought.  They brought "Exploding Kittens" and "Cards Against Humanities".  We had great fun and laughed like crazy.

One of the amenities at the hotel was nightly s'mores by the fire pit.  You know we took advantage of that!  It was cold outside but we enjoyed it and thought it was not just fun but delicious.

People were swimming!!  Yes that is snow on the lounge chair!

I guess it was too much fun for Philip.  By 9:30, he was tipsy and ready for bed.  I think they wanted to just enjoy some time alone and the Jacuzzi tub.  I enjoyed relaxing in  my room with some movies and a fire.

In the morning, I got up and surprised to see SNOW!  It was just a dusting but still surprised.  I got busy in the kitchen making cinnamon rolls at Philip's request.  Now let's pause here because the kitchen has a Viking range and I am in love.  I seriously want to buy one of those for home.

We all agreed it was super relaxing and we really enjoyed ourselves.  This may be one of our new permanent traditions.

Book Club Gals

I am working so so hard to stay in book club through the end of the year at least.  I announced I would be leaving after this year.  Much to my surprise, I had a huge outpouring of support for me to stay in.  I can't say I will stay but we will see what comes around.  In the meantime, we had a great book club for October.  We had a small group but it was a good group of lovely ladies that care and support each other.

Let's just say, Lesley enjoyed her wine and insisted on a selfie of the group. We laughed so hard (Love you Lesley) as she tried to get a good selfie.  I think she did pretty good.

I live in the ghetto??

When I came home from my trip, I was looking out my side patio.  Much to my surprise, the vet building next door had been tagged with graffiti.  Of course, it can happen anywhere but you don't expect that kind of behavior in my area.  And it was so close to my side patio!

I looked it up.  It stands for "All Cops are Bastards".  :-(

I had heard it is critical you remove it as quickly as possible.  And Salt Lake County has a resource to help.  So about 7 pm, I left a message on the hotline with my name, address,and type of surface.  Honestly, I didn't think they would do anything short of calling me to talk about it.

Much to my surprise, the next morning, there was a truck out front with a water tank on the back.  Of course, I am nosy so I checked it out.  It was the graffiti group from the city to come remove the marking.  What quick service!!!  The guy sprayed something from a can on it and then power sprayed the building.

In process of removal

And just like that, within 15 minutes, it was gone.  Like erased....never happened.  I'm totally impressed.

Probably irrational but it bothers me there were hooligans just outside of my patio and bedroom window.  I need to get serious about securing my patio sliding door.  Not sure what the condo association will allow but I need to check into it.

Here is the after.  Impressive right?

Final Fall Foster....Fittens?

I wasn't home long before I decided I was ready for my final batch of foster kittens.  I took a big long break over the summer while I healed from surgery and life.  Kitten season is almost over and I knew this was the window to love some babies if I was going to do it.

Meet Hydra (gray mustache), Savage(black), and Mercy (gray nose).  I just picked them up Thursday.  I suspect I will have them 2-3 weeks.  The two gray babies are growing fast but the black kitten, Savage is about 100 grams behind them in weight.

Savage is the biggest sweetheart.  He purrs when I look at him.  He has an eye infection but will be all better in a few days.  Hydra also like to snuggle and gave me his first purr this morning! Mercy is the girl and has the sweetest face.  That nose mark makes me giggle.  She is full of energy and loves to play.

Bella wants...those...babies...sooooo...bad.  She plays footsy under the door and she will pull the door open when I am in the bathroom with them.  She has made it in once.  Hydra was having none of that and charged at her immediately spitting at her.  Let's just say that Bella couldn't turn around quick enough and beat her feets out of there.  But she won't be deterred, she still plays footsy under the door and opens it. So far, I've been quick enough to keep her out.

Although fosters are additional work, I love having the floofs here.  And it helps Best Friends with the process.  So it is all good.

On the Road Again

During my slow summer months, I made a wack-a-doodle plan to make a journey to Johns Hopkins and go visit Nola in North Carolina.  We have some crafting friends in Virginia so we planned a weekend road trip for a visit.

First I traveled to Baltimore to see my expert doctor.  I'm feeling like I needed to travel on a budget so I bid on a room on Hotwire I got a room at Hotel Monaco for $120.  Hotel Monaco is a nice hotel in the middle of Baltimore.  It is a gorgeous history building.  But that means it isn't exactly mobility friendly for me.  Uneven brickside walks, stairs, long halls.  And I felt it.  But I was tired from travels so I got settled into my room and even ordered room service dinner....which was less than successful but did the job.  I thought I would share my lovely view.  It was hard to not feel claustrophobic but I've honestly had worse.  And I  wasn't going to be there long so it was fine.

Here are a few photos of beautiful Baltimore (not sure if that is punny or not).

In the morning, I got up way earlier than I would like as I needed to get a ride to Johns Hopkins and be there by 8:00. My appointment was at 8:30.  They got me in early to get my stats and I talked with a student fellow who checked me out and took my information and put it in the system and then I sat....and sat....and sat.  I was glad I had a plug for my phone.  I pulled a chair over so I could put up my feet.  After 1.25 hours, Dr. Christopher-Stine came in with a bound.

Poor woman was on call until 4:30 am.  She was exhausted.  She apologized profusely for being late.  I was her first appointment and all her rooms were full and the waiting room was over flowing as well.  She said the fellow brought her up to speed on how I was doing so we didn't really go over that again but she said she wanted me to consider joining a clinical trial.  I have to be post cancer treatments by 5 years so I am eligible in June 2019.  The trial might be full by then and I would have to go off my weekly Methotrexate shots for 3 months prior to joining and stay off for another 9 months.  I would also need to travel back to Johns Hopkins quarterly and that cost would not be covered by the trial.  But I would get a chance to get a new drug that is showing great promise in muscle diseases like mine.  It is a phase 2 trials so there is a placebo involvement.  It would be great to get the drug and it would suck to get the placebo.  But I don't need to make any choices until February.  I will check in with her then.

She also used her muscle measure machine and found me to be more weak which I kind of knew but it was tough to hear she could see marked decline.  This is the first time my deltoids measured a decrease.  My fingers too.  My ankles.  And my legs.  Not a damn thing I can do about it besides live my best life I can.  She warned me to stay as active as I can but to be careful not to further damage my muscles remaining.  She reminded me to watch my weight and nutrition.  We agreed to  keep in touch via messaging and she asked me to make an appointment for next year unless the trial comes up first.

I called an Uber and headed to the airport for the next part of the adventure.   I got to the airport way early so I had time to walk instead of have a wheelchair assist.  I stopped for lunch and then got a seated massage.  I was excited to see the restaurant I stopped at was based in Philadelphia.  So I was able to get a Chicken Philly Sandwich.  Which I love and have made a west coast attempt to copy over the years (my copy was spot on).  It was worth every single calorie and fat gram.

When I got to Raleigh, Nola came to pick me up.  I've started staying in a hotel in North Carolina because it is hard for me to get in Nola's house and her guest rooms are upstairs.  It works out okay and Doubletree was my home for the night.  They gave us both a hot cookie on check in.  Then we headed out to meet Gregg for dinner at Shuckin' Shack.

Shuckin' Shack is the place I love to go near the beach but they recently opened a restaurant close to Nola.  Same great food.  We shared a lb of steamed shrimp, hush puppies, and cole slaw.  Gregg got Crab Legs.  So yummy.  The "flare" from the beach location was missing (Those "salty sailors" were missing) but we still loved it.

I made plans to meet up with my co-worker, Phil.  He moved from New Hampshire to North Carolina.  In fact, he only lives about 15 minutes from Nola.  So we met up for lunch the next day.  I don't get to see Phil often.  We've worked together on our client for 12 years.  It was nice to catch up.

 After lunch, Nola and I made a stop at her house to pack up her stuff and visit her kitty Heidi.  Then we hit the road to Lynchburg, Virginia!  We chatted the whole drive and really enjoyed catching up and even stopped at a funny gas station for a snacks.  The south is just different and I always enjoy the local flare.  We made it to Lynchburg in time to check in, get settled, and rest a bit before we met our friends for dinner.

We met them at an old historic (the whole area was historic including our "not in a good way" hotel) train depot.  We sat on the big patio.  During our dinner, the train came through with the squeeking train wheels on the metal track.  The horn blazing.  It was a long train and everyone stopped to watch.  The smell the metal on metal filled the air.  Couldn't get much more genuine than that!!  What I can't believe is we didn't get photos of us together!!  Pretty sad for a group of scrapbooking women!

In the morning, we made our way over to our friend's house in Madison Heights which is a suburb/neighboring city to Lynchburg.  Willa Jean has been friends with us online for years and years.  It was fun to meet her face to face.  She told us to jump in her car so we could go see our friend, Angie's house, she and her hubby Jon built.  They live about 30 minutes away in the mountains.  I'm not kidding, it was like far away on an mountain populated by a few other die hard rustic living loving people.  It had been raining so Angie and Jon's road was pure mud and washed away with a big washed out trench we had to conquer.  Never fear, Jon got Willa Jean's van up the driveway.

Jon and Angie passed through Salt Lake over the summer and I met them while they were here.  It was nice to see them at their place.  They built a log home that they modeled after a train station.  They designed and built the home themselves.   Call me impressed.

This is inside their home.  Nola, Angie, Willa Jean, and Me

John on their front porch of the "cabin"

The James River runs along their mountain

We went back to Willa Jean's house for a day of scrapbooking and card making.  Willa Jean was so excited to meet us and have us come visit.  She really rolled out the red carpet for us.  She made us a Chicken Salad lunch and made a delicious pasta dinner complete with garlic bread.  I had my first ever glass of sweet tea.

We played and played with paper.  We made cards.  I also did a few page layouts.

Before we knew it, the day was done and Willa Jean's husband had come home from work (He is a postman).  Such a nice couple and so cute together.  It was fun to be together. I love scrapbooking with Nola.  And we each got about 15 Christmas cards done!  We were exhausted as we headed back to the hotel.

In the morning, we enjoyed a nice breakfast (I had biscuits and gravy because I was in the south) and then started our trek back to Raleigh for me to catch my flight home.

One thing we wanted to do before we left was to find a few "Love" signs.  Virginia's motto is "Virginia is for Lovers" and they have about 100 large "Love" signs around.  There were 2 right close to the hotel (see that southern flare rub off??) that we found.

Some more of Lynchburg

Why is the drive home longer than the drive anywhere??  But we did a great job making our way back and even had time to stop for lunch along the way and visit for a bit before dropping me off at the airport for the long ride home.

Old farmhouse along the way

Tobacco fields

Cool barns

I luckily had a direct flight so it was pretty easy although long.  With the time change, I was home and settled in by 9:00 pm!

We had so much fun.  It was a whirl-wind trip but I am glad I could get my body to do it and I always love seeing Nola and Gregg.  As you probably know, I yearn to live in North Carolina.  Maybe one day I will make that a reality.

Let's catch up

October.  OCTOBER!!  How did it get to be October???  I'm sorely behind on my blogging so guess what?  I am going to catch up today!  So grab a beverage and let's get started.

Let me start by saying September blew by me.  I came home from the cruise and promptly caught a cold (which I still have).  I also jumped back into a stressful work regime (yes like the Nazi's) that has kept me super busy.  But let's not talk about those things because they are boring and not fun.  Let's catch up on the things I've been doing besides those things that warm my heart and sooth my soul.

Mid-September found me in my car, driving the Alpine Loop.  I know it was a little early for leaf changing adventures but it was still pretty, connected me to nature, and got me out and about so it is all a win.  When I think of fall leaves, I'm thinking those bright red and gold leaves and there were very little of that to be found.  But it was gorgeous and there was a shrub that has turned a little rust color so I will take it.

I also spent some time celebrating a friend, Christine's 50th birthday.  My friend Stacy hostessed a party at her house.  It's been awhile since I parktook in a house party with signature drinks.  It was fun and I enjoyed myself and learned a new drink (Pink Starburst Shots).

I decided to take on more leadership in getting my friends together more often.  I kicked it off with a Sunday High Tea party at Grand America.  I've gone a few times now and it never disappoints.  My friends seemed to really enjoy it too which makes it that much more fun.

I spent time with my kitties.  Never underestimate the time that takes.  And if you spend time with the kitties, they seem to behave better so it is a win/win.

Peek a boo Bella

Sissy loves snuggling her Momma

As you know, I have another cat, Baby.  It's not that I don't like her.  I do.  She just doesn't hang around much when I am taking photos.  Her sweet time it right before bed, late at night.

The end of the month had me on the road again....but I will save that for another post.