Tired again today. Probably from deep cleaning the bathroom floor. It does look nice, though. Walked one mile, and didn't really care how fast I went.

I was in 6th grade when our class watched the Challenger explode.

This. I remember being 16, and I was in Sunday school. The woman leading the group asked us what goals we had. My friend and I told her we didn't have any, and she was just all aghast, and out loud wondered how on earth we could go through life without any goals. I'm not sure that we had all that much respect for her before, but that comment did not improve it.

On Thursday, I had a post-evaluation from the exercise class at the cancer center. The initial evaluation was in October, while I was doing chemo. I went from below-average fitness to average, for whatever that's worth. But she had me on the treadmill for 20min, gradually bumping me up to 3.5mph at an incline of 8, so I did something that day. Last night, dh and I walked around the cemetery for an hour or so.

There's an old New Yorker cartoon this reminds me of. There are two couples that have spent an evening together and now they are are saying goodbye and hugging. And the caption reads something like, "I miss shaking hands."

I rang the bell after chemo. And a few months later, I rang the bell after radiation.

I was really tired yesterday, but walked a mile. Today, I walked 1.3 miles.

I wonder if it would work for lesser known things. I have a CD from a local funk band I bought in the 90's and they are not on Spotify, and I doubt it is on anyone's radar. It would be nice to listen to it again, but we don't have a CD player.

We used to have the best mail carrier on the planet. He did the rubberband thing, and wrapped packages with the regular mail so we didn't have to walk down the long driveway. It was always here by 11:30am. Then he got a better route because the last stops on ours is in a rough neighborhood. We got a new carrier, and never knew when it would show up. Maybe not until 6pm. And then two winters ago, she refused to deliver mail to our mailbox because it wasn't shoveled out to her liking. She refused to deliver packages because our driveway was too slippery. We talked to the post master, and she said that it's illegal for them to deliver mail to a house unless you have a circular driveway. We went back and forth with them a few times. Once the driver came up the driveway when it was a little icy (though we had salted it) and snowy and gunned it like a bat out of hell in order to prove how dangerous our driveway was. We ended up picking up our mail at the post office a few miles away because it was a big headache. Last winter we had no problems. Mail is usually delivered by 3-3:30. I still miss our old carrier.

I have heard of homeschool moms that make a photocopy of the spines of all the books they return, in order to avoid such accusations. Which I can understand if you have to deal with librarians who are more interested in keeping the rules than keeping their patrons happy.

I ❤️ my OBGYN. I asked her if she knew anybody who would be a good fit. She recommended an excellent provider. Not a doctor, but a nurse practitioner. I usually like them better than doctors, anyway. My experience is that they are much more helpful.

I had a meeting to go to early this evening, about 5 miles away from my house, so I rode my bike there. It took almost 30 minutes, so I asked dh to pick me up. He's left the bike trailer on our main vehicle all summer, so transporting the bike wasn't a big deal.

Bleah. That familiar fatigue is starting to set in with the new pills. I have a few weeks to think about if this is an acceptable level of tiredness for the next two years. So while I really did not feel like going out for a walk after dinner, I managed to walk a mile, and am slightly less tired than when I started out.

Dh has long had concerns about privacy and security on the Internet. We use fastmail. We pay because we have a domain attached to it. I don't set any of this stuff up, so I can't give any details. I just use whatever he tells me to use, and get annoyed when he decides to change it, lol. This is their help page: https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/categories/1500000036522-Setup

I found this. Who could not love the super-cute pineapple? https://homeandgardendigest.com/15-crochet-amigurumi-fruits-free-patterns/

Not Guam, but it's taken well over a month for a letter to get to NY from Brazil.

I was going to suggest amigurumi, as well. So cute!

I had never heard of him before last night, but I appreciate his take on the Barbie movie as well, though I like his small town bit better.

This came up in my YouTube feed, which of course made me think of this thread. (ETA, there is cussing in this bit.) Speaking of stop lights, before GPS, we once stopped by a certain town hall in rural WNY to ask for directions. "Drive down the road that way and take a left once it gets all city-like." You want to know what made it all city-like? A flashing red light, with a farm house on the corner.

Dd and I had talked about puberty before, but when it came, I took the morning off from school the next day, and she and I went to a coffee shop for fancy drinks and then hung out and we talked about whatever was on her mind. She had my full attention, so she could ask whatever questions she wanted to without any interruptions from her younger siblings.

Found! Four were in a basket I neglected to look at in the living room, one in ds's room and one was in the dining room. I get uptight about losing one book, which is more or less a normal state of affairs for us; losing six of them at once is just more than I can handle with any kind of grace.

Yep. Mostly for one particular child. And usually after we've paid for the book. 🫤 That child now pays for those books.

Excellent suggestion, but would require that I can remember anything that far back, lol. After 4 kids, I find there are just so many things I can't remember that I used to. I think too much brain energy was devoted to knowing where pacifiers and the like had ended up.

I think I am going to lose my ever-living mind. Several weeks ago, I got a few books from the library to go along with history for ds9 and dd8. Do you think I can find them ANYWHERE? No, no I cannot. Not under the couch. Not in the book bin where library books should go. Not in the pile on the coffee table or any other pile in the living room. They have completely disappeared. They have probably been read. I don't know. Atm, I am on the verge of banning said children from prematurely reading any book that goes with a particular school subject. Maybe chaining them to the couch?

Stretching with dh at noon. I took a brisk 10 minute walk, followed by some strength training, which I bumped up to 3 sets. I had to reduce the weight from 8lbs to 5 in July because it just took too much out of me, which was discouraging. If I feel ok tomorrow, I plan on trying 8lbs next week.