Monday I did HIIT and 35 min on the bike. I don’t know if I somehow pulled a muscle from the little bit of strength training I did but all day today my forearm would throb off/on. I applied ice but didn’t know what else to do. It appears to have stopped, thank goodness. Today I didn’t get around to exercising. I was very distracted by other things and simply lost desire. I cleaned out the car, baked off the rest of cookie dough I made this week (seriously should have biked off the cookie calories lol), assembles new TV stand so I can point tv at work area or stationary bike (yay), and started an art protect for dd’s new room. I need to do 2 more HIIT days to complete disc 1 of the 4-disc DVD set. Love the photos. @Ali in OR If I can bring my BP down I know you can. It just may require more time between checks if this visit doesn’t go as you hope. I cut back on my salt intake for several weeks before my check. I still don’t use it as often as I used to.

I didn’t get any response to my question in a freebie group about the Disney art. How it’s going…

Dang. My knee-jerk reaction is to possibly cancel. But since they did the canceling, it just seems to me an "out" for you to let the girls just be at school friends or something more causal than "spend the night over" friends. To me there's a slim to none chance they canceled for unrelated reasons. I think it's too big of a coincidence. If someone said I was "sus" I would be tempted to laugh. That's the word my kids use all the time. Everything and everyone is sus. I would assume sus just meant I looked out of place... which I would have felt in your shoes. But another theory of mine is that they were uncomfortable with the idea of a party attender carrying a knife and it was just an excuse to see what you had.

I've never understood the appeal of bento style. Just more nooks and crannies to wash and dry. But, environmentally better than ziplocks. I may be thinking more of an insert than an actual lunch box? My kids use soft structured lunch bags. I know one year ds' bag had a long strap and a handle. We own several pyrex bowls w/ lids and a LL Bean stainless steel food container. We also use sandwich bags, too. The pyrex can go in a microwave (they just remove the lid). I've packed cold pasta salad, warm spaghetti O's, and fresh fruit in the stainless steel container. I like this particular one because the handle on top to open makes it easier than the standard Funtainer lids.

I wiped down the inside with a wet microfiber cloth today. I can still smell a little. My landlord stopped by for an unrelated reason and couldn’t smell it. I think I pick up smells more than others. I told him about the cookies I had set aside for he and his wife and said he could eat or toss lol

I ran it empty today at 400 and it smelled again. I guess it’s more apparent at the higher temps.

When he was over the other day I did inquire about the wires. To me they looked sorta exposed but he said they were fine. I will definitely keep an eye out. Not using the oven was driving me nuts. I bake chicken one or two times a week but boiled instead. I hope it gets better.

I baked off a few more batches because I got impatient and the odor was very mild compared to the other day (the other day it traveled through the house. Now it’s mainly detectable if you’re opening the oven door).

I heated the new oven to 500 degrees for an hour the other day. I opened windows, ran the exhaust fan and another fan in the kitchen while I sat outside. I have also ran the oven empty once or twice briefly. Tonight I am trying to bake cookies for church but there's still a lingering smell. One site says to wash the oven. Blech stop giving me more work. It also said to toss the first batch of food (I'm not sure why you wouldn't jsut run it empty?). Well I did toss the first batch of cookies and when I opened it I could still smell a slight odor. I've read conflicting things on if this odor should be alarming or not. You know, "it's toxic" vs. "its' not dangerous unless you burned plastic like zip ties that came with it." Just don't want to feed people poison cookies. Full disclosure I did try one before I tossed them lol I could not detect an off flavor. If you don't see me again well now you have a theory of what happened.

I finally had my follow up dr appt due to the concerning BP at the last visit. Apparently BCBS can schedule a follow up for things like BP and it’s covered so there was no charge for today’s visit. My BP today was 105/70 and dr said just keep doing what I’m doing. For reference, the last dr visit it was 129/92. My cholesterol wasn’t brought up by BCBS but it wasn’t great so I’ll just keep an eye on the next wellness visit results since no lab work was done today. The nurse measured my waist (don’t think they ever have) and I have lost a couple inches since the last time I checked my waist at home. Nothing has been normal for a week or so with my life or exercise. I still have to off gas my new oven before I start using it (I tried when the kids were here and it made the whole house stink like chemicals so I turned it off and will do maybe tomorrow or this weekend and sit outside for an hour. It was raining today). I boiled chicken the other night but I don’t see how to really season it that way. Bought more produce today. Try to keep more on hand so I fill up on that. I sorta got my curtains up in the living room which has been part of the reason I’ve shied away from exercising. One of the anchors/screws is wanting to come out ugh. I definitely need to get back to exercising tomorrow. I fell asleep after my outing today.

I’m out of that place. Dropped the keys off last night. Still setting up new place. Ds moved the head of his bed which meant I finally had a place for his end table.

Yes!! It was a sauna in summer and a yeti’s cave in winter.

I forgot to go in ds’ room in that video lol oh well

Quick video I made just before leaving. I do have photos, too. I probably should have invested in some bleach for the tub caulking but that tub was a nightmare and I didn’t want to fool with it. I hate caulking. I like tubs that don’t need it. Notice how my living room gas heater was sitting on styrofoam. He never mounted it. I dropped off the keys at the police station as we discussed. I mentioned to the officer that it was obvious someone had been in my home, probably the landlord. I complained about the behavior and suggested maybe someone point out to him that’s not ok. He said he’d tell the chief. I don’t know if anything will be addressed but I don’t like my landlord’s attitude. No one cleaned the home before I moved in. I had sawdust inside cabinet drawers and such. I left a few items for the next tenant because I only have one bathroom and don’t need 2 toilet brushes etc.

Yes but I sent him a certified letter stating that per stare law he needs to return my deposit within 45 days of me leaving. If he has to keep any of it he must make an invoice and the plumbing bill is not applicable. I said if he doesn’t cooperate then I will take legal action. I also said in the letter I would fox the blinds my cat damaged (he cited the blinds as a reason to keep the deposit). one set of blinds is shy about one slat but it’s not super noticeable. I don’t gave the patience to take apart anymore. I’m gonna take pics and a walk through video before I go. I didn’t even think about cleaning inside the oven til today and I didn’t get it all clean and not sure you’re even supposed to use steel wool on that interior. I did but gave up. It didn’t work very well on the inside and all my pantry items are gone so no way to make a baking soda paste etc. If they dock me for the oven I’m ok with that. There’s no a/c in this home and I’ve been here for hours. I really need the money. I just signed my lease at the new place and saw the avg utilities. I’ll be paying more. Xh just received the notarized letter from the credit union stating there’s no lien on my car so Monday he’ll mail that to the circuit clerk or whatever it’s called so I can get a replacement title and he can sign my car over to me. All that to say pretty soon I’ll take over my auto ins which will be like $60/month (can’t remember if that’s including the renter’s insurance I’m bundling).

I looked up blinds for this house a few weeks ago and Lowe’s was out of stock. I think Walmart didn’t have the right size (width). I’ve got 2 out of 3 done. I feel like I’ll never leave this house lol

I watched 3 videos and they don’t all do it quite the same way. I don’t understand skipping 2 rungs. That leaves a visible gap but it’s still not as bad/obvious as the original.

I think this is similar to mine and why they have extra strings go inside.

I had to fight with the pull cords yesterday. They snapped up all the way to the top. I had to uninstall the blinds and then find the left snd right pull cord ends snd restring them. It was an absolute nightmare.

Please help me make my windows look presentable as I move out. My cat ruined a bunch of slats. I took slats from the bottom (there were extra). But now there’s leftover string. If I move the lower plastic bar up a few notches and cut off excess string, will that affect function? I don’t get why the bottom has string stuffed inside. it’s hard to explain. I hope someone gets what I mean. I’m trying to request my security deposit back and I don’t want the blinds held against me. He’d probably charge me the cost of a whole new set. this is my video: I can tell you with confidence he or someone he authorized, has let themselves inside my home twice this week just because my car wasn’t here. I am not amused. I’ve been sleeping in my new hone but still moving out of this one. He should have legally asked for consent. Or gave warning.

In the city there is but this is a very specific request so I’ll probably just try to get creative.

She really wants Amphibia and The Owl House art (Disney+ shows). I found an image I might be able to redo. But I have a few ideas.

aww, thank you for sharing. Dd wants new posters for her room but I didn't realize how expensive they were. I am thinking of trying to make my own art for her wall (with the Disney characters she likes). She has no faith in me haha. But I can transfer the image onto a canvas with a projector or tracing paper and a sharpie or something I think.... just an idea. The Amazon prices for the posters are showing the small versions. Once you click on the sizing options it's like $35 for the 24x36. That's insane to me.

I don't usually accept friend requests from people I don't know, even mutual friends, and sometimes I think they are only sending the request to try to sell me something after I add them! A friend posted a contest on her timeline and it said a winner would be drawn (she was just following instructions she got). I thought I entered the contest and that was it, but there was more to it. This lady then commented that I needed to share the post on my own wall and invite friends to play etc. I said nevermind and bowed out of the contest. I hate crap like that. I'm not going to help you peddle your product. I used to be in a facebook group for fitness. But then quickly realized the page was just an avenue to promote shakes/supplements or such. I'm pretty cynical about it all, too. I have a friend that posted a before/after video of her fake tanning product. I thought to myself, "but you still don't look tan???" LOL I didn't say anything.

Little update I just moved into a new home (rental). The kids came over after their rooms were ready but before I finished. Unfortunately the A/C was messed up then completely out of commission for a bit during their stay. I took them to the movies late one night to beat the heat (plus we'd been meaning to go see the film, anyway). We had the whole showing to ourselves and the movie was funny (Rise of Gru). We got a whole new A/C unit on Tuesday? I played one of the Big Bang Theory games with ds another visit, but it was much harder and much less about the show than we expected. Then I said oh yeah now I remember why I didn't use these games much... lol. We were able to answer some of the questions but many were ridiculous ques (like actual science questions that were over our head). Sometimes you would play Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock to steal someone's cards. I have both copies of The Hobbit (audio and hard copy) from the library. I listened to part of it but it was a challenge for me as I stated before. I watched all three Lord of the Rings movies one week by myself but not the Hobbit film. Ds said he has listened to about an hour of the audio at dad's but was only awake/paying attention for 20 min or so (lol). Due to my wifi issues this week (I had the service transferred to this address but a series of hiccups so we had no wifi for 3.5 days) I told him we might not be able to access the audio version and he was welcome to use the book if he wanted. Got wifi yesterday afternoon. Now we could access both versions but he has decided he wants to stick with the hard copy and read ~30 pages a day. I haven't been on his case about it, but this is the conclusion he came to. The librarian said you can download the hoopla books to your phone to access later, but I haven't tried that/don't remember seeing that option. That makes no sense to me as how would you "return" a book that's downloaded to your device? Ds couldn't fathom how I got this "big house" and yet I'm broke. I told him I was blessed, it's actually cheaper than a one bedroom in the city. The rent here is the same as the last place before they hike it up in Aug but this one has central air and better landlords. He made a comment about dad and I said well your father pays less because he's in faculty housing. I have no choice but to pay more. I also told him I put some things on my cc this week because of all my expenses and my dad paid for several things while he was here (he took us out to eat, bought my new floor cleaner). Later he told me that he wasn't trying to be mean with his comments, he was just vocalizing that he didn't really understand. It didn't make sense to him. I told him I live paycheck to paycheck and when I get paid I try to pay off my cc balance and most of it goes to rent/bills. He kept telling me about this Microsoft Rewards app but the first time I tried to enroll it rejected my email address. I finally got it to work (using my gmail). I think we're actually quite a lot alike. When it's his money, he definitely second guesses spending it lol. He offered me $5 yesterday to renew Peacock and I said, "you sure?" and then he thought twice and said, "I don't know, I like to hold onto my money." LOL. I'm at the point where I might be okay taking some of his money for things like that. We discussed the money thing a few weeks ago and I said, "I don't feel comfortable taking money from you. You seem to think I borrow from you all the time and hold it against me." He said it's not like that anymore, that was just for court (wow).