Be Prepared! 8-25-24 to 8-31-24

 Retired Life. Sunday.

The blasted annoying alarm went off way early this morning so we can get to church meetings on time. We looked at the Jesus Picture below which reminded us of how church makes us happy, and got up and going.

7:30am. Adult Youth Leaders Meeting. (The only good thing about having a meeting this time of day is there is absolutely no traffic out on Hiway 27.) Then a sandwich for breakfast in the truck. Sacrament Meeting (our nephew spoke....he will be leaving on his mission to Brazil shortly). Youth meetings. (Hanna taught the women's group and apparently did very well.) Home for lunch and a short nap. Then took Sacrament in to Mom. Back home for another nap, this one longer. Then spent the rest of the day reading, resting, and watching church videos. We try to be the definition of Day of Rest...

Hope you all had a good Sabbath.

Retired Life. Monday.

Picture 1: Hanna wanted to paint the deck. She asked if I thought it was a good idea for her to climb up a ladder and do so. No. Her bones are weakened due to her cancer and if she falls, things could be bad. So, yea, lets get elevated another six feet in the air on a ladder and then fall. (She thinks she has super powers...) So, instead of a ladder, she painted safely from above using a mirror to see what she is doing. Smart girl!

While she painted in the morning, I did the usual morning routine of breakfast, reading, dog walking, basketball, writing, etc.

In the afternoon, we drove up to the Highlands. The original plan was to go up there Sunday after church. But, after church we were tired and the idea of packing up, driving up there, unpacking, setting up didn't sound fun. Plus those yellowjackets....

So, we just drove up today, did the chores we wanted to do, and came back. Primarily, we hung No Tresspassing Signs up since hunting season is coming up soon and last year we had several folks wander onto the property.

In the evening, we watched a prerecorded football game. I was totally wrong last week when I said there would be no good games this weekend. Three of the four major games are worth watching and also two of the FCS games that were televised. Nice. I chose the Montana St vs New Mexico game because, well, it's the Big Sky and they play good football. Versus the debut of Bronco Mendenhall as he comes out of retirement to try to turn the New Mexico team around. It was a great game.

Finally, Frivvy was very happy up at the Highlands and wishes everyone a Happy Dog Day!

Retired life. Tuesday.

Grocery Day! We planned out our week. Created Menus. Prepared shopping list. Drove to Plummer. Had salads at the Gateway (and played Gin Rummy), walked on the Trail of the CDAs with Frivvy, filled up the truck with cheap gas, bought the groceries, drove home, unloaded, put everything away. Although, add on that we did this for TWO weeks and placed next week's grocery order on-line to the Safeway in Tillamook, as that is where we will be next week. On the beach....

Important stuff to note:

At home it was incredibly windy with fire warnings. Amazing, though, not much wind once we crossed into Idaho and no fire warnings. Also, there are no fire restrictions in North Idaho. There's something magic about that state line. I haven't quite figured it out...

So, I ordered the "Flings', the no carb Pop Tarts, just to see how bad they tasted. At first, I thought they weren't sweet enough and I wasn't that happy with them. But then they kind of grew on me and they aren't that bad. Full of sugar alcohol that can cause explosive gas, but so far, it hasn't. Hanna said I should get some regular Pop Tarts and do a taste test since I haven't had real Pop Tarts in years and maybe their sweetness is a figment of my imagination. So, I bought some and did the taste test today. First, I noticed the Flings cost almost 10 times more than the Pop Tarts, (which were on sale) so, using my retired math analytical skills and talents, in theory, the Flings should taste ten times better, right? Turns out, the Pop Tarts were a disappointment. Not nearly as sweet as I remembered, even though they are loaded with tons of sugar. Weird. Dang imagination! The packaging LOOKS sweet! So, the conclusion: they taste about the same, Flings are very expensive, but probably ten times healthier. I remain undecided about whether I'll order more at this point.

Finally, here's a picture of the only critters seen up at the Highland's lately.

Retired Life. Wednesday.

Stay at home and do stuff day.

Task 1: Put the finishing touches on the plans to Mayo Clinic. Made sure we have lodging each night and that there are plenty of Geocaches to be found.

Task 2: Most importantly, spent time studying every NFL player, NFL team, looking for strengths and weaknesses, using all six of my screens to do comparisons and run alogrithms determing stats and projecting who will win what games. All in preparation for this weekend's fantasy draft. This will definitely be my year!

Task 3: Mowed and trimmed the lawn.

Task 4: Had AI draw a couple of pictures of today's events. Enjoy.

Retired Life. Thursday.

It was one of those "run to town and run around" days.

The morning was spent reading, taking Frivvy for a walk, basketball, moving lawn sprinklers, shower, breakfast, cleanup in kitchen, all that jazz.

Late morning, we headed for town. Chiropractor was first up. He has a new Decompression Table that works wonders on my spine. Since using that table, my back is feeling better than ever. Then to Rosauers to pick up some Gluten Free Stuff and prescriptions. But the pharmacy was closed. Then to Safeway where they have decent Keto Bread. Then we worshipped in the temple. Back to Rosauers to get the pills. Hanna then attended her Women's Activity Committee Meeting while I waited out in the truck. For an hour. (I loaded all the Geocaches for the Mayo trip into my phone. Map below) Finally, TACOS!!! Woo Hoo! Busy day. Those still happen, even in retirement.

One cache every third county from Butte to Rochester to Omaha to Great Falls.

Sweetest dog ever. That's where he sleeps.

Retired Life. Friday.

I noticed that there were more campers going by on our road than farm trucks. Wondered what the deal was. Looked at calendar. Oh! Holiday weekend! That won't change much for us. Since we're retired, every day is a holiday!

We officially declared it "old people go to breakfast" day and went to Harvest Moon. Yes, I did have steak and eggs (again). And Hanna dominated the Gin Rummy games (as usual).

Today, the most unusual thing happened. Months ago, I created a list of things that had to be done before we left on this next trip. And today, I got it all done! First time I have cleared a project list since I considered retirement in 2022! So, here is the list of what I did today:

-Dust entire house, top to bottom.

-Hang a "Jeep Parking Only" sign out on the garage just to tease anybody who may try to park a Tesla out there.

-Installed altimeters in both vehicles so we can see how high we are.

-Synced my new Fit Bit and set it all up.

-Installed new heads on my razor.

-Moved our new water storage containers into the basement and unboxed them.

-Fixed a batch of my Sweet and Sour Beef Briscuit Stew.

We bought 320 gallons worth of water storage containers to put in our basement in preparation for the apparent upcoming catastrophic civil war. They just need to be filled up now. This created a lively discussion as to how to do this. It isn't just put hose in top and turn on. The hose will also have to be turned off once they are full so it doesn't keep running and flood the basement. Neither of us volunteered to sit in the basement and watch them fill up. So, there they sit, full of air only. How long does it take to fill 320 gallons anyway?? Hanna is also in the process of buying food storage. (We dumped all of the previous stuff when we last moved because it was decades old and disgusting.) She's even finding Gluten Free and Dairy Free selections. So, soon, our basement will be a vast storage site of water, food, guns, and ammunition. Be prepared, right?

Finally, critters had stayed away from the Highlands since we were there last, until last night. Look carefully and see the Doe and her two Fawns.

Retired Life. Saturday.

With the project list done, and not wanting to start another one quite yet, we spent the day playing around.

We drove to town and met up with Del and Ella to give them the cat. They will catsit Annie for about a month while we travel.

Then we went Geocaching. Found one out in the Valley that qualified for finding one on August 31st because Hanna had never ever found a cache on August 31st and Jasmer challenge meaning it was hidden in August of 2024.

Near this particular cache was an Ice Cream Store that we were a bit familiar with. It's the place we went right after receiving Hanna's cancer diagnosis 29 months ago and were told she had two years to live. (Ice cream cures cancer. Serious.) So we stopped in and had few scoops just to celebrate that Hanna is still miraculously around and to kill any lingering cancer cells. Here's to another 29+ months...

We stopped and fixed a bunch more of my caches that had gone missing or something on the way home. Stopped for fast food burgers as well.

And that was our day. Go have some ice cream!

                                                        Do you see the cache?