Category Archives: Life

Well, that was unexpected.

We have had a mild winter – even for the south. Yes, we’ve had some cool/cold days, but we’ve also had many days in the seventies. Any chance of snow this year seemed like a pipe dream. I was wrong.

We went to South Carolina last weekend; our kids found a house they were interested in and wanted our opinion on it. We visited the house on Saturday, then spent time visiting with the kids and discussing options. (Note: my definition of the word “kids” includes the two I birthed, their significant others, the grandchildren, and a few others I didn’t birth, mostly my boy’s friends from their school days.) While we were talking, we received a notice from the National Weather Service that our area of the state was expecting snow on Sunday. Say what? After a brief discussion, Kenn and I decided to head home Saturday afternoon instead of Sunday as planned. While the predicted snow might not materialize, we weren’t sure what the roads would be like between South Carolina and home.

As you can see from the following photos, we got snow! We only got about an inch and it was gone by 12:30pm, but it was pretty while it lasted.

The new Ice Age

I thought the unexpected snow was a one and done. I was wrong again. Since Tuesday of this week, state meteorologists have been in “this is not a drill” mode. It looks like there is a good chance that we will have an ice storm this weekend – and not just any ice storm, possibly one of historical proportions. The last forecast I saw predicted over an inch of ice for this area. We live just far enough south that we usually miss out on snow and ice events, even when the towns fifteen to twenty miles north of us are impacted. It has been several years since our last ice storm. Ice storms are never good and it doesn’t help that the pine trees endemic in the south are exceptionally bad with ice. Pines have shallow root systems and since they are evergreens, they quickly get weighted down, give up the ghost, and fall.

We have done all we can to prepare. We’ve laid in a supply of groceries. We have underground utilities, which means we won’t lose power as quickly as some areas, but it it still a possibility. We have propane and can use the stove in the camper to cook if necessary. We also have a wood-burning stove and enough wood for a couple of years (no, I’m not kidding) so, we should be warm.

Kenn says I am no longer allowed to tell people that we’ve had a mild winter, LOL. How is the weather were you are?

Out with the old, in with the flu

I tease Kenn about how he seems to like to get his medical insurance deductible out of the way as soon as possible each new year. He gets an injection in his back once or twice every year and he should get one this month, so I figured that would be where most, if not all, of his deductible went. I was wrong. He woke up with a cough on New Year’s Eve. I asked if he needed to go to an urgent care center since odds were our doctor’s office wasn’t open. He assured me it was just sinus drainage and he’d be fine. He was not. His cough did not improve and he finally went to an urgent care center around 7:30pm. He tested negative for flu, strep, and COVID. However, the nurse practitioner (Holly) told him that since his symptoms had just started, it might be too early for anything to show up on the tests. She did prescribe a cough syrup for him since our over-the-counter stuff was having no effect.

Our oldest grandson was staying with us for a few days but I made arrangements to take him to his other grandparents early New Year’s Day in an effort to reduce any exposure he might have – just in case. Kenn did nothing but get worse during the day and when his fever got over 101 degrees, I took him back to the urgent care center. This time he tested positive for flu and strep. The flu didn’t really surprise me; the strep did. Holly told Kenn that the next few days were going to suck and that this season’s flu tends to hang around for two to three weeks. She also told him to be thankful that he had gotten his flu shot; he would be way worse without it. She said that she wasn’t even going to worry about treating the flu; it was the strep that needed treatment fast. We left with a prescription for an antibiotic and hunkered down for the long haul.

My efforts to keep our grandson from getting sick were in vain; by Friday, he had a headache, fever, and lethargy. Sigh. At least his other grandparents didn’t get sick. Poor Kenn was miserable. He had no energy and a horrible cough that kept him up most nights. I settled into my role as nurse, cook, and chauffeur. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do to make things better. Kenn had a follow-up appointment with Holly this week and I took him in a day early since his cough was just not getting any better. Holly prescribed a different cough medication and an inhaler. She also backed me up when I said I thought he needed to reschedule several appointments he had this week. (Thanks, Holly!) On the plus side, his strep was gone!

The new cough syrup, Ninjacof, seemed to do the trick. Kenn finally got a couple of good nights sleep. As of this writing (Friday, January 9th) he seems to have turned the corner. He hasn’t run a fever for several days and while he is still coughing, it’s nothing like it was before. Kenn is usually very active; he’s always outside doing yardwork, etc. Not having the energy to do anything but sit around has been killing him. I knew for sure that he was better when I needed to run an errand this morning. Not only did he want to go with me, he asked if he could drive! Unless he takes a turn for the worse, he’s planning to go back to work next week, but only work half days until he gets his stamina back.

As for me, I’ve been fine. (Thank you, Jesus!) A friend also contacted me and let me know that she had some Tamiflu she had gotten as a preventative measure and had only taken a couple; she offered me the rest. I took her up on that offer and have had it on standby in case I started getting sick. If I haven’t gotten it by this point, I think I’ll be okay.

The only thing missing from the picture above is the Icy Hot. Poor Kenn coughed so much and so hard, his back muscles were spasming. Occasional massages and Icy Hot were added to the rest of the medication regime.

I hope your new year is getting off to a better start than ours and that you and your family are flu free!

Another Farewell

We almost made it through the whole year without losing a cat. Alas, it was not to be. We inherited Bob and Tippy when my daddy died in 2016. They have been my gaming buddies for several years; I play video games while they lay on my chest.

In mid-November I realized that Tippy’s left eye wasn’t opening fully. I then realized that she had a small bulge in her forehead over that eye. I took her to the vet where x-rays revealed bone cancer. The vet wanted to see her in a month so we scheduled a follow-up on December 26th.

Tippy, just after I discovered the bulge over her left eye.

I spent that month loving on Tippy extra hard while the cancer progressed rapidly. By the time we returned to the vet, the bulge had grown to the point where her left eye was a mere slit and it showed no signs of stopping. I made the decision to let her go.

So, as I always do, I held my girl while the vet administered the euthanasia meds. I made sure that the last things she felt were my hands petting her and the last thing she heard was my voice telling her how much I loved her and how much I will miss her.

Farewell, Tippy. Bob and I miss you.

Stick ’em UP

I didn’t mean to take a mini break from the blogging world. But a sinus infection, the antibiotic for the sinus infection, and a cold took the wind out of my sails for a couple of weeks. Just for funsies, my birthday and Thanksgiving were during that two week period. I think I need a do-over on my birthday celebration. Oh, well. On to the post!

We were unaware of Roxie’s kleptomaniac tendencies until we returned from our 2023 road trip only to discover most of my refrigerator magnets missing. At the time of our trip, Roxie was somewhere between six and seven months old. I still don’t know how a kitten was able to remove so many magnets; I’m guessing sheer determination played a large role. Most of my magnets are souvenirs from our travels, so I didn’t want to just not get any more, but a different solution for protecting them was needed. Fortunately, an idea presented itself.

Our kitchen cabinets have that “wasted space” between the top of the cabinet doors and the ceiling. I asked Kenn to “age” some galvanized metal like he has done for some of his other projects and fit a piece above the smallest cabinet. He did and it works perfectly! However, by the time I added this years magnets, that area was mostly full.

The wasted space.

We both like the looks of the metal so Kenn decided to continue it across the remaining cabinets. We joked that we need to put up a sign saying “Nyx’s Kitchen” since the kitchen is very much Nyx’s (our black cat) “territory.” I found some rustic-style letter magnets and voila!

It turns out, Kenn is not a fan of these magnets.🤦‍♀️
The Roxie-free magnet zone.

Now I feel like the cabinet doors need… something. I just need to figure out what. Whatever it is can wait until after the holidays!

Color My World

Fall is my favorite season. Fall is when the weather finally starts to change reminding us that the miserable heat and humidity of summer will actually come to an end. I also love the color provided by the changing of the leaves. Sadly, we live far enough south that we don’t get much color; we have a lot of evergreens and the leaves on the non-evergreens tend to just turn brown and fall off. Northern Georgia gets beautiful color, but joining the crowds of “leaf peepers” means making reservations at least a year in advance. Mostly, I just live vicariously through the photos of my fellow bloggers from the more northern climes.

However, as I look around our yard, I see that we are slowly changing things in our neck of the woods. Our crape myrtles are young, but they are doing their part to bring some color to our yard as do the forsythia.

One of our crape myrtles showing out.
Forsythia

I have had a life-long fascination with ginkgo trees due to my love of dinosaurs; fossil records indicate that ginkgos have been around since dinosaurs roamed the earth. (I recently learned that ginkgos were around before dinosaurs.) Four years ago, Kenn gifted me a ginkgo of my own which is just starting to turn the beautiful yellow they are known for.

A touch of yellow on my ginkgo.

Last fall, we planted two young Japanese maples of different varieties. When I say small, I mean small. Both trees were twigs barely a foot tall when we planted them and we weren’t sure if they would make it. However, both are doing well and while still small, they are starting to look like actual trees. I think the tree that has the red leaves of the traditional Japanese maple is going to require another year or two to come into its own. The second tree, a Japanese Sunrise, is already showing us some pretty color even though the leaves are brown-edged due to the lack of rain over the past few months.

Young Japanese Sunrise.

This year, I gifted Kenn a Flame Thrower Redbud for his birthday. However, since we didn’t want to plant it until after our road trip, I had it delivered last week and Kenn planted it the same day. While it is currently tall and skinny with big leaves, we can’t wait to see how it does over the next year. We’re hoping for spectacular color!

Our new Flame Thrower Redbud.

Do you get much fall color in your area?

Road Trip 20205: A Summary

I thought I’d do a quick summary of our trip before getting into detailed posts. After all, all I had to do was copy and paste most of the info from a FB post. What was I thinking? This is WordPress – it doesn’t do easy. Instead, it converted every individual line of the copied text into a separate paragraph. Ugh. It probably would have been simpler to re-type everything rather than fix the resulting mess, but I’m hard-headed so I did things the hard way. Anyhoo, here is the promised summary:

Trip Length: Twenty-five days and 4,505 miles

States Visited:

  • North Carolina
  • Tennessee
  • Virginia
  • West Virginia
  • Ohio
  • Indiana
  • Michigan
  • Wisconsin
  • Minnesota
  • Illinois
  • Kentucky
All of the states we have visited with our camper.

Places visited:

  • New River Gorge National Park
  • Babcock State Park (West Virginia)
  • Cuyahoga Valley National Park
  • The House from A Christmas Story
  • Indiana Dunes National Park
  • Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
  • Castle Rock (St. Ignace, Michigan)
  • Mackinac Island
  • Tahquamenon Falls State Park (Upper Peninsula of Michigan)
  • Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore
  • Apostle Islands National Lakeshore
  • Atomic Antiques (Madison, Wisconsin)
  • The Bronze Fonz (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
  • The Kaskaskia Dragon (Vandalia, Illinois)

Great Lakes:

  • Erie
  • Michigan
  • Huron
  • Superior

We’re only missing Lake Ontario!

I’ll break the future posts out by state, assuming I survive grooming (aka shaving) Kota, our long-haired cat. Wish me luck!

I’m still standing.

I don’t what happens, but every year, usually in the July time, frame I get behind on reading the posts by people I follow and my own posts become rather haphazard. I made it until August this year before this happened. (Go, me!😂) I’m actually just getting back into the swing of things so some of y’all are going to start seeing likes and comments on older posts.

August seemed to turn into a circular discussion on the following:

  • Are we going on a road trip this year?
  • If so, are we going to stick to the route we’ve already discussed or change it up?
  • If we stick to the route we’ve been discussing, do we want to add any additional stops to what we already have planned?

When it comes to these types of discussions, we can absolutely beat the topic to death. Discussions seem to come to an end when I reach the point where I just really don’t care any more, LOL. So, what did we decide?

  • We did go on a trip.
  • We stuck to the route we had already discussed.
  • We only added one or two stops at kitschy roadside attractions and those were added on the fly.
Selfie on the shore of Lake Superior

We’ve now been home for a week and are starting to get back into the swing of things. We’ve caught up on sleep and laundry and consoling the cats, now I’m getting back into the routine tasks like vacuuming, dusting, etc. We got home just in time for the government shutdown so Kenn hasn’t been able to go back to his part-time job yet.

I’ll be posting more about our travels over the coming weeks. Now, it’s time to go scoop litterboxes. Whoo hoo! (I miss our cats dreadfully while we’re gone. I do not miss scooping poop.)

What’s new with you?

Germ Warfare

If you’ve ever had kids, or been around children for any length of time, you know that when they are young and their immune systems are developing they basically become the world’s cutest little plague carriers. For several years, pretty much every bug going through the day care/school comes home to infect the whole family. Fortunately, as the kids grow and their immune systems strengthen, not every illness comes home. Then, after several years, the grandchildren come along and the process begins anew.

As of this writing, Kenn and I have three grandchildren: a twelve-year-old grandson, and his three-year-old brother and sister (fraternal twins). Up until our oldest son and his family (which includes all of the grandkids) moved to South Carolina, we kept our oldest grandson every other weekend; one of the times I have been the sickest was courtesy of him. At the time he was nine months old and fond of giving open-mouthed kisses as babies do when they’re first learning to kiss. It was adorable until he basically took out the whole family. I was sick as a dog for two weeks; everyone else shook it off after about a week. As for the grandson, he was fine; he was just a carrier. We still refer to it as the Babe-onic Plague.

Earlier this month, the twins were down visiting their other grandparents for a few days. Since we were headed to South Carolina for a weekend visit, we took the twins back with us. Lulu got a dose of Dramamine before we got on the road since she tends to get carsick. Everything was fine until just before we reached the Georgia/South Carolina border when Lulu started getting fussy. We took a break at the South Carolina Visitor’s Center so everyone could get out an move around. Lulu was not interested in anything. As I was carrying the pitiful little girl across the parking lot, I realized that she felt a little warm, but didn’t say anything. Kenn and I swapped off keeping an eye on the twins while the other went to the restroom. When I rejoined the group, Kenn said “Lulu feels a little warm to me.” I agreed, but we were almost to their house, so we loaded up and continued the journey. When we got to our son’s house, I told him that Lulu was fussy and felt a little warm, but he didn’t think she had a fever – until he took her temperature. Poor little girl had a temperature off 100.4o. Our daughter-in-law joined us at that point and our son greeted her with “Why does she get sick every time she visits your parents?” Of course, that’s one of those questions that has no answer. Poor little Lulu was sick all weekend; she was just miserable with a low-grade fever and a cough/congestion. (Linus, meanwhile, was fine.)

Kenn makes a pretty good napping buddy for a sick little girl.

When Kenn and I headed home on Monday, I was sleepy – which tends to be one of the first signs that I’m getting sick. The kids contacted us to let us know that Lulu’s COVID test was negative and that she was starting to feel a little better. Once we got home, Kenn and I spent the next few days suffering from a mild fatigue and I had a day of “brain fog” where words just weren’t working. After we started feeling better, I told him that I felt like I’d had a really mild case of COVID. It turns out that we probably did. Apparently there are a couple of new COVID variants that a lot of tests don’t detect. I’m just thankful that Lulu was feeling better in just a few days and that Kenn and I were only slightly under the weather.

Are there any Babe-onic Plague type stories in your family?