AROUND AND ABOUT FROM 3-17-25 TO 3-25-25

 Hello Family and Friends, thank you for reading and getting in touch letting me know you enjoy them still. Batten down the hatches or at least get a cuppa, this is a long one.

I always like to add this week's weather, 

3-24-25 to 3-31-25.

Monday, March 17th, 2025: St. Patrick’s Day! I hope you all had a lovely one. 

Gregg went to the car dealership. They gave him a ride home as we needed quite a bit of work done on the car. He will pick it up tomorrow. 

Breakfast: Weetabix, dates and almonds today. 

Lunch: we made our lemon spinach and pasta dish. You can find that here. A favorite meal and one our daughter-in-law gave us a long time ago. It's always a delicious treat. We made it on impulse as all the ingredients were in our supplies, except for one. It is a vegan recipe though on checking the pantry we realized we didn’t have any vegetable broth but did have beef and used that.  It was still very good, though we have the vegetable one on the shopping list for next time. We are making more meatless dishes these days.

Dinner: tomato and grated cheese sandwich on sourdough bread. 

Snacks: skinny popcorn.

Tuesday, March 18th, 2025: 

Happy Birthday Gregg! 

We had a birthday brunch with son and daughter-in-law, and were picked up and taken to an eatery father and son had been to a couple of times. Gregg said he would like to go there for his birthday. There was no skinny popcorn in sight on this day.

The place is called The Bakery & Museum Company. I found them on Yelp at this link. We had breakfast sandwiches that were excellent, and of course the company was great. I will write more about it on another day as I thought it would be nice to do a post on its own. 

The same day I had an eye exam. Gregg wanted me to get the appointment as we were out and about. He said Walmart had an optometrist and he wanted me to go over there. I wasn't thrilled but how could I say no on his birthday? (I knew I had to get to the DMV to get a new driver's license - Real ID - which will be required after May 9th for all air travel and I don't know all the ins and outs on that one.) Right now, all I have are the reading (magnifying) glasses you can buy anywhere. They have worked well for me for a long time. I felt my ability to see at a distance might be more questionable though, and I didn't want to have difficulty with the eye test when applying for my new license. The Birthday Boy, wanting to get this license taken care of, steered me to the optometrist's office. 

He went inside first to find if I could get an appointment and I was confidently saying to myself, I won't get it at this short notice. He texted me (I was waiting in the car with son as by this time our daughter-in-law had left and was getting on with her workday). It was a go! I was surprised they could fit me in right away. 

In the waiting room I filled out forms a young lady gave me. She took me into a room where she started my eye tests. Looking at a photo of a house in the distance inside the first machine, blurry then clear and I didn't have to say a thing, a light in the other view finder with a puff of air blown into each eye and somewhere there was a bright red spot but can't remember the sequence. She told me everything she was going to do right before she did it. The puff of air in the eye would have been startling. Lastly a camera which took a picture of each eye. Then I was taken into another room where I waited for the optometrist. The young lady peeked out the door and asked Gregg if he would like to join me. 

The optometrist arrived soon after checking out my results from the tests, and he was a real comedian. He put me at my ease right away with his banter. I can't remember everything about the test, but I looked into another machine with lines of letters that I had to read in different sizes. I was looking for eye charts on the wall when I went in but no, they are in the machine now. 

He asked me if I wore glasses and I showed him my reading ones and said, no other glasses just these for reading, not prescription, and told him they were a No. 4 magnifier. He looked over at Gregg after he had assessed the results, saying, "Your wife has great eyesight. She doesn't need glasses and she's fine with these reading ones." I was flabbergasted and so was husband, "What?" he said in total surprise, and "But she squints all the time. Why does she squint?" The doctor said, "Habit!" I thought about that. I think it maybe be that I adjust my eyes from looking through my readers to using my own regular vision, or it could be habit, who knows? Gregg's expression made me laugh out loud. He kept staring at me shaking his head. The eye doctor said to Gregg, "She's probably got better vision than you do." I chuckled all the way out of the office. Son came and picked us up at the door, Gregg told him and even he was surprised. 

"Your mother's got better eyesight than your dad." I said, “Not that it's a competition or anything." A favorite expression of Gregg's. He still had that look on his face. 

After all my nerves about going in, I was absolutely joyful and relieved that I didn't have to go back for another year. Father and son kept looking at me. They have both seen me squinting, both telling me I needed to go get my eyes checked for quite a while now (I did need to of course). I don't think they quite believed it. Son asked me, "Then why are you always squinting? Gregg chimed in, "I asked him that. Habit he said!"  And then son, "Can you read that sign over there?" It was quite a ways off but I read the numbers. Son took his glasses off (we were stopped at a traffic light) and he said, "I can't read that, it's a total blur. You can read that?" I read it again. I was really enjoying myself with these two. I felt like the cat with the cream after hearing them tell me all this time that I really needed to go get my eyes checked, and of course they were right. The optometrist did say I might have a very slight cataract but nothing that needed to be seen right away, and to come back in another year so he could assess. If I felt I needed to come sooner, make an appointment. I could have kissed the man! I think he enjoyed Gregg's look of astonishment as much as I did. He definitely had a twinkle in his eye.

The Birthday Boy had been waiting to hear from the car dealership, they called to tell him he could pick the car up. I was dropped off at the house and son took his dad to the dealership.

More on Gregg's birthday in a few days. He had a busy but more importantly an enjoyable one. I didn't realize when we started out, only thinking about his birthday, that his goal that day was to get me in to see the optometrist and Brad was his back-up, lol! Wild horses you know! Here are some daffodils on sale at Walmart.

I should have bought some that day, but my mind was on other things.

Wednesday, March 19th, 2025 at 9.29 p.m: we went to Green Spring Gardens, which shared a few days ago here if you missed it. 

Thursday, March 20th, 2025: we started early today and went to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get my driver's license renewed. It doesn't run out until my birthday a few months from now, but I have to get a new license before May 9th called Real ID, which will allow us to board planes on any flight, domestic or international. I don't know all the ins and outs on that one, new rules! We ran into a roadblock and couldn't get it today, as we didn't realize we needed more ID than what we had already. We needed my birth certificate (found out later they won't accept overseas birth certificates or our overseas wedding certificate. They wouldn't have accepted them but we were given a whole list of alternatives), plus two pieces of mail addressed to me with my name on them. 

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and will probably wait until one day next week. I'd suggest if you have to do the same thing for anyone over here, check out your own DMV website, which is what we should have done before we left home for the new rules to follow.

The morning wasn't a total loss as Gregg had seen a restaurant he wanted to go to and as it was in the same area, we drove over there next. (No skinny popcorn on this day either either!) We don't usually go out to these sit-down restaurants unless it's a special occasion, but my dear other half reminded me it was still his birthday week, and we had a lovely time. The place was called The Lazy Dog. More on that in a few days also. This photo was taken by me at the entrance looking towards the sculpture.

We came home to four big boxes on the front step.

 We ordered a new kitchen set as our old one is way past its expiration date (48 years plus past to be precise). With family visiting mid-April, we thought it was a good time to get something new. We have talked about it often. That old set has been through six cross-country moves during our navy days with lots of dings added over the years, and the chairs wobble!

Gregg spent an hour putting a chair together. The instructions weren’t the best. One down, five to go and then a table (the rest went a lot faster, as did the table)! A big smile came over his face as he sat on the floor putting these together, saying these reminded him of the days when he did the same thing with the old G.I. Joe toys at Christmas and on birthdays when our son was a young boy. 

Friday, March 21st, 2025 at 8.25 p.m: I saw my doctor today. It was a good visit. She asked me lots of questions about my knee and I told her I would be seeing the orthopedic doctor soon to get another cortisone shot. With all the activity this week my knee is very sore. I told her I didn't want to do anything about having surgery yet with my overseas family visiting in less than a month. I'll revisit that subject soon after. My GP is transferring but I was happy she was coming back in three months. I will be making another appointment with her then. I can't say enough nice things about this doctor, in fact all of the people I have dealt with at that part of the hospital. It goes a long way to have confidence in those who take care of your welfare.

Saturday, March 22nd, 2025 at 7.19 p.m: I feel chilled. After our few warm days, the temperature has dropped. I fixed myself a cup of chamomile/honey/vanilla tea and it is very comforting.  

Today we have eaten lighter. No breakfast but for a late lunch Gregg had bought two individual green chili bowls from Trader Joe’s and popped those in the oven. He enjoys them more than I do but they weren’t bad. I do wish I had made soup though. Maybe tomorrow.

As we had a late lunch almost at dinner time, all I wanted was a lemon Greek yogurt for supper, and three dates along with a few pecan halves finished the meal.  

Son popped in for half an hour this afternoon as he was passing by. We will be seeing him on his usual Sunday morning. 

Gregg put together two more chairs today. He is going to get help tomorrow to put the table together.

Sunday, March 23rd, 2025 at 7.30 p.m: Gregg enjoyed putting the last two chairs together but decided to leave the table as he wanted a break.  Table will be tackled tomorrow.

Son came over for a few hours. Gregg cooked us a great breakfast of fried eggs, slices of turkey sausage from a roll (I was using it for a recipe but have forgotten what recipe I was going to make), sautéed cherry tomatoes and a scallion pancake. 

Our son shared photos of a fox he saw as he was driving into the neighborhood.

He stopped his car to get these photos. There are quite a few around the neighborhood. Coyote also apparently but I have never seen those myself.

Our usual chat-fest about this, that and the other and then it was time for him to go.

Gregg went off to Costco this afternoon for a few things; skinny popcorn (we are going to start looking like skinny popcorn but it makes a nice snack), Dawn liquid and a few paper supplies. He also went to Aldie and picked up a loaf of sourdough, as well as tomato soup, felt pads for the bottom of the chair and table legs to prevent scratching the floor, and that's about it.

Lunch was late again and turned into dinner. This time Gregg fixed a sandwich of sliced rotisserie chicken breast he also picked up from Costco, with a large thin slice of beefsteak tomato, lettuce and alfalfa sprouts. It was enjoyed and all we needed. 

For a snack later we had a bowl of skinny popcorn! I think I am getting a bit tired of that stuff now.

Shortly after dinner, a face at the window that hasn't been seen in several weeks and was a surprise. This amuses me no end because Fluffy Cat always stops nose to window and stares at Gregg who was having a rest on the sofa after putting a few chairs together. He would be the first to admit that he is not too fond of cats and prefers dogs, but Fluffy Cat always makes eye contact with him first. Look at those hypnotic eyes, "feed me" they say.

Fluffy sat in the usual spot staring through the glass, still looking at Gregg sitting on the sofa. Watched him for quite some time, until I got up to take a few photos, moves over to the top of the steps, just like the last few times and disappears shortly afterwards.

I was happy to see Fluffy again, but I had been wondering why the birds had been staying out of the way for a while. No doubt Fluffy had been roaming around the garden.

Now we're sitting around having a quiet evening. Dear Other Half is reading and I am finishing this off. 

Going to the DMV tomorrow and hopefully there will be no more delays getting my new driver's license (added note as it is now the next day, the 24th. It all went smoothly and the new license will be sent through the mail. I should get it in a week to ten days.)

A bit of a long one this time!

Thanks for reading through.

Have a great week!