NST October 2026: Change

weenancyinAmerica

I agree about the chocolate. Only good part of my day today. Having real problems coming up with five things to be thankful for. Cat didn't wet on my bed, other cat hasn't scratched me today, I did get a piece of chocolate. Okay three good things. It's been that kind of a week.

weenancyinAmerica

It is raining today - the edges of Hurricane Rachel. First rain in a couple of months. Was supposed to go to class today on the bus but woke up at two in the morning with the beginnings of a cold, so I stayed home. Fed the cats (three inside, two outside). Will try and get my room organized a bit today. Still looking for a good mattress to replace my 64-year-old mattress. Well, it was a good mattress, started to break down a bit a couple of years ago. My goals for next month - get the car to work or get rid of it and buy a new mattress.

Our temperatures have gone down because of the storm but are predicted to rise again this next week to 27C by Friday. I wish it would realize that it is Autumn not Summer.

DawnW

Hope you feel better soon @weenancyinAmerica

Not much done today but I / we have:

Cleaned the bbq and stored it away in the garage for the winter

Planted up 1 trough of Lidl violas for winter garden colour.

Sorted out some sales stuff to take to my unit tomorrow. Sold a box of tat stuff that I have had for ages on FB marketplace 😊

Bought (also on FB marketplace) a stovetop kettle for my gas stove for £5. Looks like new. We mostly use an electric kettle, also a big old copper one on the wood stove. But it takes ages to boil on the gas and the handle gets hot. Thought it would be useful in case of a power cut, as the gas hob still works if I light it. Prep for winter. Can't do without a cuppa whatever happens!

Decided not to do our usual weekly shop. We have loads in so are going to use that up. If we need / want anything else we will just buy that. Should save some money.

Dinner will be leftover burgers from last night's bbq cut up and treated as meatballs in tomato sauce with pasta and cheese. No waste here!

grandmanerd

Very little done over the weekend as me leg wasn't co-operating. Still feeling overwhelmed and a bit low today (and a long way behind) so I didn't go to Coffee and Chat. Instead I put on a cheerful song and played through the rest of my playlist. I've gathered various categories of recycling, answered the door multiple times. Started the day with painkillers and my knee socks which really helped. Food has been very basic - yoghurt with oats, baked beans, toasted fruit loaf, the last banana, 2 apples (not finished as they were on the turn and not very nice) and cheese triangles. I have a few more ideas for tomorrow and may even throw a few things in a large pot.

It's been wet all day so I didn't put the washing on and was hoping not to do it tomorrow but now have so many things lying around that I have begun loading the machine. I have cleared the bit of floor at the end of the bed (about one square yard which got covered when making space to get the couch outside. So progress and a much improved mood.

Celebrate the small wins. Grateful for music (Chumbawumba through to U2), food bits, making space, painkillers and knee sleeves, the washing machine.

Rowan9

We’ve been down in Norfolk seeing family. It was a lovely break. We stopped overnight at Richmond on the way back which is always a treat for us. We love it there. Had a lovely dog walk along the old railway line then cheese scone and pot of tea in the old station. Today’s walk was up at the old racecourse before heading home. So a long weekend of good company, grandchild cuddles and fun, and beautiful big skies. I feel so grateful for this

grandmanerd

Today has improved as it went along. I was up until 2 am trying to find the paper with my patient ID on for my therapy questionnaire (I filled two bags of paper recycling). It was after midnight when I put the bin out and sat on the block of concrete in front of the library car park worrying that I might fall getting back to my house and there would be no-one to hear me and come to help me.

I woke at 6 am, took my pills and went back to sleep. Woke up again at 8 am and got a phone message with a reminder of the ID. Went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and filled a litre bottle with water. Opened my laptop (I'd already put in the link the night before) - No ID message. Checked through my emails as I did have a code email a couple of weeks ago - nothing, seriously thought I was losing my mind. In despair I looked up the phone number for the service provider and asked them to resend the ID. They did and I went into the form and completed it.

Ready for my appointment but running on very little sleep so chose not to rush round trying to shower etc. I arranged my pillows and set drinks and bananas by my side (had had a yoghurt with my pills). The session was good (2 weeks ago was fairly traumatising and last week I forgot the homework task five minutes after the session ended). Unfortunately next week is the sixth and final session. I think I'm going to need a follow up. I felt better afterwards.

I put out some of the washing I had done, opened some cooking bacon, ate some of the half inch slabs in the pack with tinned pineapple and relaxed this afternoon by watching several episodes of a serial whilst chopping up veg from the fridge (trying to use up all the old stuff before the food delivery this evening).

Made bacon soup with some of the scraps of bacon, green lentils, pearl barley, low salt veg stock cubes, some veg. I have a large bowl with a cabbage, 3 leeks, a head of celery (to make chicken stew, need to add carrots). I'm also going to do a tomatoey base and feed a whole bag of spinach into it (pasta bake, butterbean casserole and possibly something else) and I will do a veg curry tomorrow. I have carrots, mushrooms, a can of sweetcorn and some more veg bits which will all be incorporated.

Ready to settle down and try to catch up on missed sleep. Grateful for my therapy course, helpful admins, the serial, getting lots of veg prepped.

apple_muncher

I am grateful for a video call with my stepson and his family in Oz for his birthday, for sourcing my niece's upcoming birthday present from vntd, for a good gym session, for discovering xterra on utube, for the difference all my hard work in the front has made.

weenancyinAmerica

Cardiologist visit completed. She says everything is fine with my heart so surgery can proceed. Only worry she had was that I had lost 18 pounds in the last three years. Thought that was what the doctors wanted!

Still not able to do very much around the house to get ready though. Moving anything is harder than I thought.

DawnW

Flu jabs today for OH and myself. We will walk into town as it is a pleasant morning, the exercise will do us good and there are roadworks which cause long delays if travelling by car. It is quicker to walk across the park and no fuel used.

I need to go to the bank while out (yes, we still have one, good old N*tionw*de) and get some fruit and a couple of other bits from the supermarket on the way back. We didn't do a weekly shop this week, as we had a lot in, just bought a couple of bits we were running short of. Saved lots of money by not buying food that I would be struggling to use up before it went off, or trying to cram in the freezer. A bit of a reset. I will buy less going forward. I had got into the habit of buying certain things every week. A real object lesson as I am still using up items bought a fortnight ago. Most fruit and veg keep for ages if taken out of their plastic wrapping and stored in glass jars in the fridge. I have no idea why. I will make a big pasta bake tonight which will last us a couple of days and use up the rest.

grandmanerd

Thursday was a washout (therapy followed by lots of small jobs on Wednesday) but yesterday was better. It was a week since Mrs Builder came and I was a bit overwhelmed by the things that haven't got done. A couple of weeks ago I decided that if anything was particularly physically challenging I needed to do it first thing (sometimes noon before I'm reasonably functioning).

So the third time I needed to get to the bathroom I mopped the shower room and across the kitchen floor as far as the sink. It was as exhausting as I expected (mopping became problematic around 10 years ago). When I stopped and went back to the bed I fell asleep for another hour. I then had a shower and washed my hair.

I'm adding as many small tasks as possible each time I move from the front room to the kitchen or shower room or vice versa (bathroom/ brush teeth/ stop at kitchen sink to refill a 1 l bottle/ turn dial on WM to 10 min drain and spin/ set phone to charge) so when I shoved a meal in the microwave I went outside to bring in the dry washing and added a sheet from the basket in the space created.

I put cobbles/ bricks on top of the bin bag DS3 had brought down to make room for my own bag. When he came downstairs dressed to go out I asked him to bring the 2 bins back from the collection point so I could start using them again. He also took most of the bags of shopping through to the kitchen. I'd asked him to do this the day before but he didn't have time.

In the afternoon I sat in the armchair to eat and read and then moved to a garden chair (still in the front room) and moved across the floor collecting cans and bottles and added a bag of soft plastic collected over several days and took that out to the brown bin. Did quite a lot of mainly rubbish and cleared a large part of the front room floor. I even found the letter I've been hunting for the past 3 weeks (has my patient ID for therapy). Shame I only need it for one more session.

Food was very varied (hummus with celery sticks, lots of bananas, sandwiches using old wraps with the hard bits ripped off). I watched a comedy series, read books and did puzzles. I started a film on Thursday but it's fairly harrowing so needs to be done in small doses. The puzzles are helping with mental clarity now that I've learnt to ignore the untidiness of my scrawls.

I think my main problem is the physical limitations of what I can do and the frustration it causes. The winter bugs are in full flow and I seem to be very clumsy (several near misses with drinks and electric cables for laptops) and I'm spending half my time sleeping. It helps with arthritis and other pains and gives my body time to recover from the endless stream of winter bugs, but the 'things still to be done' overwhelms me frequently. I try to decide what are the most urgent tasks each day and I have lists to help (getting dressed tasks, daily maintenance tasks, designated day tasks) but it's a constant struggle.

Grateful for getting things done, all the entertainment sources, drinking lots of water and eating fairly well.