Oregon Living 2024 – Blog #39 – Recovery Continues, a New TV and a Busy Week!

 

Sunday, September 22^nd., 2024…… Both of us are feeling pretty good, but these last few days have been busy, to say the least!  So we decided to take it super easy today. Cathye skipped church and we won’t be going to either beginner’s class today and this evening. That meant we would be hanging around the house and watching tv. Cat did do laundry but I was pretty much resigned to my chair. I have bruises that are darkening a bit but no real issues. I think Cathye’s new meds are helping her. She doesn’t get tired as quickly as before but still feels it. She goes in tomorrow to see her gp. Later in the evening, we finished the Golden Bachelorette and then went on to watch the third Harry Potter movie. Cat has been enjoying them so far and is now hooked!      

Monday, September 23^rd., 2024…… The weather is ok these last days. We got up to 79° today. Not bad for the first day of Fall!  Because of my restrictions, no gym all this week. Cat and I headed off to Kevin’s for breakfast, then to her Dr.’s appointment this morning. He listened to her issues and made some prescription changes. But he also will be giving a referral to a pulmonologist as well as a sleep study program.  

Tuesday, September 24^th., 2024…… No square dance workshop today. There is a seminar on Fall Safety for Elders. It’s 4 hours and have interactive testing and such (foot clinics, hearing tests, etc.) so they will be using our square dance room for that today. This morning we headed over to Walmart for our vaccinations. They have finally starting scheduling up here and Walmart had availability for today. I had checked off 4 vaccines: rsv, flu, pneumonia, and covid. Come to find out we are both good on the rsv and the pneumonia, so it will be only a double ‘cocktail’ today! We got that done (one shot in each arm!) and then did some shopping while in the store. We have burnt out our old toaster and got a new one today. Later, we watched the third Harry Potter movie. If you’ve seen the series, you know they got darker and darker as they went. Well, the ‘dementors’ were too much for Cathye, who ‘Does Not Like Scary’!  So, we stopped it in midstream. We watched Tim Allen and Kirstie Alley in ‘For Richer or Poorer’ which I found on demand. That is one of my favorite movies and she enjoyed it too. Plus, it took her mind of ‘scary’!  

Wednesday, September 25^th., 2024…… Cathye has been sleeping well these last few days. I know that will help with her issues. For me, the crotch bruises are still there and still look dark purple but seem to be fading a bit. I am still on light activity with no lifting or exercising. No spa either until tomorrow. We walked and fed the dogs, then headed off to Salem for breakfast and an assignment. Last month Cathye was asked by Corey to serve custody papers to his ex-wife, who said she would accept them only from her (third party I guess!) with no issues. That done, she needed to go to the Salem courthouse and sign an affidavit that she did that task. We combined the morning with breakfast at Sybil’s in Salem. Later today, both of us had places to be. I am helping with our Club’s bylaws review, and Cat was going to a craft class. Both of these are at the Senior Center so we will cross paths briefly. After that, we came home and immediately fed the dogs and then left with Penny to Casa de Reyes in Sweet Home. It was Cathye’s late birthday party! We met up with Cherrelyn and had drinks and dinner.

They made Cat wear a sombrero and do a tequila shot!....

After we got home, we were able to watch tv for a bit then we hit the spa before bed. It was so nice to be able to get back in there again! So relaxing!

Thursday, September 26^th., 2024……  The weather here is nice these days. We will get an occasional shower cell maybe once a week that passes through and sometimes we get substantial rain. But other that, it has been really nice. Temps in the high 60s.  We had the dogs out and walked and ate breakfast This morning I worked on some more correspondence with my local badge maker. We have been back and forth via email with design and quotes. I think we have a plan. Here’s the black and white prototype….

They will be a little pricey because he will have to paint the green leaves on each one by hand. But since we don’t pay for our workshop classes, everyone seems to be ok with the one time cost.  Later, I headed off to my massage appointment. Since Cat was going through her surgery, Emily has postponed her massages for a few times. She gets to go back next month. Yaay! I got there and when she asked about my health, and I told her how I was doing after the ablation, she decided to go lightly and cut the time to ½ hour. We had leftovers for dinner and watched tv until spa and bed. The Masked Singer, Dancing With the Stars, Survivor, and Golden Bachelorette are back so we have plenty to watch. We have a new tv coming tomorrow and next week they are coming to upgrade our Directv system. Whatever is on our dvd recorders will be lost when we swap them out, so we are trying to watch everything each of us has taped.   

Friday, September 27^th., 2024……  The tv will be delivered today!  Yaay! We had shopped in Costco and found what we wanted but ordered it from Costco Online with free delivery. That thing is heavy and cumbersome so they can deliver it! Meanwhile, I had some work to do. I moved my tv out of my office and put it in the shop, replacing the smaller one out there. The one in the living room went into my room, so now we have the spot ready in there for the new one. It is somewhat bigger so I had to run longer hdmi cables for both the tv and the dvd player. It was harder than I thought, since the previous owner installed ports in the cabinets and walls for cable routing. It was pretty much impossible to snake the lines, so I had to drill some new holes. But it’s ready!  For now, we will use the sound system on the tv until we decide if that will work or if we want to put in a soundbar.  Later in the afternoon, they delivered the tv. It was super easy to unpeel the carton and get the stand installed on the tv. Then it was just a matter of hoisting it up on the entertainment center top. Once that was done, we were good to go! Start-up menus completed; we were in business! 

Next week the guy will exchange the DirecTv boxes and we will be good to go! Still watching our shows to get caught up.

Saturday, September 28^th., 2024…… A busy day. We had 6 things on our list today! First up was patio furniture moving. I moved some of the stuff from the back deck to the front porch, replacing it with the powder-coated chairs we had done a few months ago. Cat wanted to get them under the deck roof, out of the upcoming weather. 

Next up was housecleaning. We got that done and then headed off to the Tomato Festival at the Senior Center in town. They do this every year and you can sample over 100 varieties of local-grown tomatoes. 

It was crowded and I lost patience in the tasting line, but we both made it through. They also had booths/tables with local vendors, but we didn’t buy anything. We did take some tacos and tamales home for lunch though! Next up was mowing. That took 1 ½ hours and was more work than we wanted. Problem was two-fold. I set the mower blades down a little lower for today. As we get to the end of the season, we try to cut the grass way back to avoid a jungle out there during the rainy season. That would have been ok, except we didn’t wait long enough this afternoon for the grass to dry out! That made for some soggy cuttings that got caught up in our baggers and mowers.  That made for extra work but we got it all done! After cleanup, I started in pulling down the fall decoration bins from the garage. I put them on the back deck and Cat will take her time setting them up next week. We had time to rest and have dinner before we showered and dressed to go out to Corvallis to dance with the Corvallis Squares. They had moved to a new location and we found that and met up with our friends. A light turnout for their banana split dance but we had fun!  Cathye hasn’t been dancing much these past few months, but she did excellent tonight and had more energy! Back home later and bed. Like I said, a busy day!