So…What Have You Been Up To Lately?

[OneEyedDiva]

Some members may not get the chance to post daily in the What Have You Done Today 2023 thread. I know I sometimes miss doing it even though I intend to. I eat dinner, fall asleep and when I wake up, it’s “tomorrow”.

In the past couple of weeks I’ve had two doctor appointments. One, a pleasant podiatry visit. My podiatrist and I love my visits. He says I’m his favorite patient. We have interesting conversations that span different topics. He takes time and great care with my feet. My son and I had appointments at the eye doctor Monday (more about that in its own thread later). It was also a pleasant experience.

I’ve done a lot of shopping, both at physical locations and online. That means I’ve had to rotate items several times and find places to store the extra stock. I walked to the supermarket and Amazon hub a couple of times last week. I’ve also had to walk to UPS to return a couple of things to Amazon. At least Amazon makes the return process an extremely easy one. I'll be doing the supermarket and UPS runs again today.

I took the train to the Hoboken (NJ) waterfront park on the Hudson a couple of weeks ago and did my power walk. I intended to do the same today but the real feel will be 90, a bit too hot for me. So what’s been up with you? What have you been doing?

 

[Pecos]

I am working hard at getting ready to sell this house and move to Washington State to be closer to my adult children. We are doing some serious downsizing and simplification. This is all a lot more complicated than I thought it would be.
Despite what my ENT Doctor suggested, it turns out that I don’t need hearing aids. At least not yet.
I have to find new Doctors in Washington State. That is a bit challenging.

 

[Born_To_Lose]

Same here, Pecos. I’m looking for a warmer climate and get moved before winter. I’m thinking about maybe southern Tennessee. It’s a good state for seniors and I really enjoy Country music, not to mention I know quite a few Country singers. I knew more of the older ones, but most of them are dead now.

Pecos, you don’t use VA for your hearing aids?

 

[Myrtle]

I retired again last week, 21 years this time. I believe this will be my last retirement.

The idea is to give me more time to work on getting my house ready in case I decide to sell it but so far it has given me more time to sleep later, spend more time on the Internet, run around town getting to some places I usually don't go and miscellaneous little things. I'm sure I will buckle down to the tasks at hand sooner or later.

I really worried that I might not be able to fill the hours I spent working but less than 2 weeks in I've decided that's not going to be a problem.

Myrtle, Lady of Leisure.

 

[Pepper]

On Buffy watch. Her welfare is my top priority.

 

[Born_To_Lose]

I noticed by reading a lot of posts within this forum, a lot of seniors are moving or at least are thinking about moving. You would think that when we get into our 60’s or 70’s, we would be settled until our days are over. That just doesn’t seem to be the case. I’m in my 60’s, but I’m not spending another year or winter here. No way. Before I came here, I lived for years in the Tampa Bay Area and I don’t need to go that far south because the summers are really hot, but if I could get to a place where the winter days get to around the 50’s or 60’s, I could live with that. If I would go back to Florida, it’s going to be to Naples and right on the beach with my own boat slip and a really nice Bayliner boat. I sold my last one and I actually sold it for almost I paid for it. Of course, I did add a lot of updates to it.

 

[Lee]

I am sitting on the fence about moving again. So I have been puttering around doing a bit of sprucing up just in case. Tomorrow I will tackle painting the shed to match the house.

In the last 10 years I think I have moved 8 times, moving is fun, you get to see all the stuff you forgot you had.

 

[Teacher Terry]

I made my last move 2 years ago across town to a condo that I really love. I have lived in 5 states and moved 30 times since I was 18.

 

[Pecos]

Same here, Pecos. I’m looking for a warmer climate and get moved before winter. I’m thinking about maybe southern Tennessee. It’s a good state for seniors and I really enjoy Country music, not to mention I know quite a few Country singers. I knew more of the older ones, but most of them are dead now.

Pecos, you don’t use VA for your hearing aids?

I went to the VA, but I retired as a fairly senior officer, and they have the attitude that I can pay for them myself. I also know that if I need to, I can get them serviced more easily at Costco. I am going to try the VA again after I relocate, and I will probably try that online. As for right now, I don't really need them.

Costco had me try on a pair of their good ones, and I could detect no difference at all.

 

[Packerjohn]

I have been hiking in the forest. Nice to get away from the mad city noises and some of the crazy people too. The walk was mostly on a boardwalk with no hills. Much of the walk was in a cedar forest. I passed only 1 couple otherwise it was just little ole' me. A wonderful walk to clear my mind. No iphone, no music, Nada! Just me and "Mama" Nature. I couldn't ask for anything better.

 

[Pepper]

Well I just had a major meltdown. The stress just got to me. I started to explain here what happened, but it's so stupid and so was I.

 

[OneEyedDiva]

Well it's "tomorrow" again, so I'll post this here. I went to the supermarket Friday morning. When I got out of there (about 10:30) it was already hot. I decided not to walk to the UPS store after putting the groceries away and having something to eat because the real feel had climbed to 95 degrees. I watched T.V., played my games and napped instead.

After my son got home from an incredibly long work day, he kept his promise to give us some studio time. We worked on the first (or maybe second) song I composed after I got my first Clavinova 25 years ago. It's a New Age track that he showed me how to mix on the instrument. I had refined the mix when I had my (now defunct) Logic program, then transferred it into iTunes. But we had to start from scratch by transferring it from the instrument into his Logic program because using the iTunes version negates the ability to work on each instrument track separately, which is necessary for a proper mix. We hadn't worked on it in months (worked on other music instead) and I was very pleasantly surprised at how close what we completed during our two hour session sounds like what's in iTunes. We're almost there.

 

[Bella]

I've been doing yardwork. Yesterday, I trimmed some of my hedges. I can't do all of them on the same day because it's a bit too much for me to do them all at once. So, I trimmed half of them and cleaned up all the clippings. The trimming part is a bit tough because I can only hold the trimmer so high. In order to reach the back of the hedges, I have to stand on a step stool. Being only 5'2" has its disadvantages. I have a very sturdy one and make sure it's level before I climb up on it. I don't use a ladder because it's not steady enough, especially when having to maneuver the trimmer. Then I have a tall hedge that I can't reach the top of. I trim it up as far as I can and will live with it looking like Bart Simpson. I also trimmed my forsythia. I'll get to the rest of the hedges over the weekend or early next week.

When I collect the trimmings, I lug them to the back edge of my property and spread them out as mulch. That's a lot of trimmings and a lot of lugging for an older gal. Yes, I could hire a service to do it for me, but they want $600.00 to trim eight hedges. I'm going to do it for as long as I'm able. The day will come when I'll have to hire someone, but yesterday wasn't that day.

Oh, and I had a huge oak tree fall down in my backyard a few weeks ago. I had planned to hire someone to cut it down, but it beat me to it and did it itself. It was the middle of the night when it crashed into the house and woke me up. It didn't dawn on me what had happened. I got out of bed and looked around and checked the attic, but I couldn't see anything amiss. When I opened my blinds in the morning, I saw the tree. That's when I realized that the crash I heard was it hitting my house. Oh, boy. It slightly damaged my new roof and wrecked my new gutter. The roof isn't too bad and can be patched, but the gutter will have to be replaced. It could've been a lot worse.

So, I've been getting estimates to cut up the tree. I've called four tree services to come out, and the estimates were wildly different. The first guy quoted me $4000.00. The second guy said he could only cut up the limbs because he didn't have the equipment to handle the huge trunk. He quoted $2000.00 for just that. The third guy was a no-show. So scratch him. The fourth guy was out here yesterday morning and quoted me $1000.00 for the whole job except grinding the stump, which costs an extra $200.00. He's coming on Monday to do some chipping.

Do people still run away to join the circus? Asking for a friend.

 

[OneEyedDiva]

I've been doing yardwork. Yesterday, I trimmed some of my hedges. I can't do all of them on the same day because it's a bit too much for me to do them all at once. So, I trimmed half of them and cleaned up all the clippings. The trimming part is a bit tough because I can only hold the trimmer so high. In order to reach the back of the hedges, I have to stand on a step stool. Being only 5'2" has its disadvantages. I have a very sturdy one and make sure it's level before I climb up on it. I don't use a ladder because it's not steady enough, especially when having to maneuver the trimmer. Then I have a tall hedge that I can't reach the top of. I trim it up as far as I can and will live with it looking like Bart Simpson. I also trimmed my forsythia. I'll get to the rest of the hedges over the weekend or early next week.

When I collect the trimmings, I lug them to the back edge of my property and spread them out as mulch. That's a lot of trimmings and a lot of lugging for an older gal. Yes, I could hire a service to do it for me, but they want $600.00 to trim eight hedges. I'm going to do it for as long as I'm able. The day will come when I'll have to hire someone, but yesterday wasn't that day.

Oh, and I had a huge oak tree fall down in my backyard a few weeks ago. I had planned to hire someone to cut it down, but it beat me to it and did it itself. It was the middle of the night when it crashed into the house and woke me up. It didn't dawn on me what had happened. I got out of bed and looked around and checked the attic, but I couldn't see anything amiss. When I opened my blinds in the morning, I saw the tree. That's when I realized that the crash I heard was it hitting my house. Oh, boy. It slightly damaged my new roof and wrecked my new gutter. The roof isn't too bad and can be patched, but the gutter will have to be replaced. It could've been a lot worse.

So, I've been getting estimates to cut up the tree. I've called four tree services to come out, and the estimates were wildly different. The first guy quoted me $4000.00. The second guy said he could only cut up the limbs because he didn't have the equipment to handle the huge trunk. He quoted $2000.00 for just that. The third guy was a no-show. So scratch him. The fourth guy was out here yesterday morning and quoted me $1000.00 for the whole job except grinding the stump, which costs an extra $200.00. He's coming on Monday to do some chipping.

Do people still run away to join the circus? Asking for a friend.

I've shrunk to 5'2" so I know what you mean about the constraints of being this short. It was smart of you to do only part of it at one clip (pardon the pun ) Do be careful on that step stool. I'm sorry the tree damaged your house but it's a good thing you weren't hurt and that you found someone to do the job at a reasonable price. I think someone else here posted about the high cost of removing big trees.

 

[Bella]

I've shrunk to 5'2" so I know what you mean about the constraints of being this short. It was smart of you to do only part of it at one clip (pardon the pun ) Do be careful on that step stool. I'm sorry the tree damaged your house but it's a good thing you weren't hurt and that you found someone to do the job at a reasonable price. I think someone else here posted about the high cost of removing big trees.

Thank you, Diva. Yes, being of moderate stature has its drawbacks. It's a lot of work trying to keep up with all I have to do outside. I'm always careful and try to pace myself, so I don't kill myself! I'm just glad the damage wasn't worse. The tree is a monster, and if it was any closer to the house, it might have crashed through the roof. As far as the estimate goes, these guys are so busy that it was a struggle just finding someone to come out and take a look.

I had a tree removed a few years ago, and once again, the estimates were wildly different. It was a pretty good-sized lilac tree that was infested with poison ivy. My husband tried to eradicate it a few times, and I had it professionally treated twice to no avail. I just couldn't get rid of it, and it eventually took over the entire tree. One guy quoted me $2000.00 to cut it down, and he would poison the entire area, but it would cost extra to remove the stump. There's no way I would let him spread poison on my lawn, and there's no way I'd pay $2000.00 for this job! After a few more estimates, I found a guy to remove it by the roots for $750.00. He came in a truck with this giant grabby thing and yanked that sucker right outta the ground and carried it away in his truck. No poison was necessary, and no poison ivy has been in the area since. A happy ending.

 

[Blessed]

Bella,I had to spend a few thousand about 6 or seven years ago. I had a large tree come out of the ground after a very wet spring and a high wind during a storm. The way if fell it hit the power line to the house and tore the electrical meter to be torn from the house.

The biggest expense was having the electric box replaced. I had a tree person come. The electric provider came and took care of the tree that fell with out any cost to me. The tree person I had come took out 3 more trees so I would not have to worry about them.

 

[Tempsontime65]

Oh this an that or that an this[whichever comes first]hehehehe....just messin with ya....I'm good and glad to be here.