My life’s on hold.

I don’t know why. The pandemic hasn’t helped but even before it moved into our lives, I was pausing and waiting . . . . . I don’t know what I’m waiting for but I am on hold.

I keep thinking I’ll do stuff after . . . . . but I can’t tell you what the after is. I just pause and think I’ll start up again when the time is right. It never is.

I’m at an age where I should be hurrying to get everything done, but I’m wasting time.

I keep thinking I’ll “organize.” I will purge and know where everything is. It doesn’t happen.

All the Covid fears and restrictions are being renewed. There’s a new variant and the number of cases have skyrocketed. The holiday has obviously contributed as folks got together. I fear we’re going to regress to the shutdown period of a year ago.

My New Years Eve plans were to go to my regular senior dance at St. John the Devine but I realize that attendance is miniscule (only 30 tickets sold) and it’ll be mostly couples. It isn’t worth the risk. I decided not to go. I had promised to give Pat a ride and I won’t let her down, but I won’t go to the dance. I wouldn’t feel right dancing with guys (if any asked me).

Pat’s guy will attend so she will have company.

I just heard on the news that almost 50,000 Florida residents were found to be positive when tested yesterday! That’s the highest one day total ever!!!

Tonight I’ll be entertaining Pat, Connie, Deb, Michele, Donna, and Donna’s husband, Larry. I have lots of munchies (cheese ball, cheese spread, meatballs, various types of chips, dip, nuts, and for beverages we’ll enjoy wine, beer, cherry juice and soft drinks.

I plan to have the TV showing a fire in a fireplace and music playing. Hope it all flows perfectly. (Note: I couldn’t get the firplace to play.)

On Saturday, casual friend Joe will stop over to enjoy the leftovers.

I am almost ready for tonight’s crowd. I love to show off my holiday decorations. The tree and lots of battery operated candle lights will be the only illumination. The food spread will be on the bar.

For a change, I feel good.

Hope I’ve thought of everything. I wish I had bought more crackers, but I probably have enough. I’ll wait until I get everything ready and maybe make a quick trip to Winn Dixie.

Because of my wi-fi problems and trying to get my printer, the thernostat, garage door opener, and the Alexia lights to work with the network. I’ve been having to study. Seems like wasted time but life would be easier with everything like it was. I need to re-learn a lot!

In addition to learning about networks, I decided to improve Sophie’s diet so I read up on Farmer’s Dog high quality food. (Sophie needs to slim down which should be helped with new food.) The initial order arrived this afternoon. (More studying was required.) I will start her on it tomorrow.

A week ago I also ordered a hydroponic growing system: Aerogarden Farm-24-xl. It’s a large 24 pod unit which should allow me to grow lettuce, herbs, and tomatoes. It came last night. It will fit nicely on the lanai near the front door. The learning curve to master this project requires a lot of youtube videos and reading a lot. I still am not sure how many pods I should put in the unit. Looks like I need to allow room for the plants to spread out.

I haven’t even taken it out of the box because I wanted Rick to assemble it but he’s not available so maybe I’ll tackle it.

So much to learn!!! I’m worn out!

I’ve been craving John’s apple bread, my apple crisp, the baked cinnamon nuts we made together, my mom’s stinky steak, my famous spare ribs, lasagna, French breakfast puffs, my oatmeal cake, John’s rice pudding, my cheese ball with nuts and pineapple, and other old favorites.

I have the recipes and could probably do any of those but they make too much.

I bought the ingredients for French onion soup and a pot roast. I just don’t get motivated early enough because their cook time is too long. (The slow cooker over-night suggestion for carmelizing method of perparing the onions sounds best.)

The stinky steak is best with a sirloin steak and marinating the steak overnight.

I haven’t purchased the apples and don’t have enough nuts. French breakfast puffs and rice pudding make huge helpings.

One of these days I’ll fix one of them.

I’m a member of several “dating” websites. (Match.com, OurTime.com, and another one or two.)

I’ve even met a few of the fellows who are here in Sun City Center. I’m surprised that a lot of the guys are looking for a sexual partner and they want it immediately! No getting acquainted, no gradually getting more intimate. First date expectations.

I’ve been alone a long while and my wonderful husband’s health limited our activities. I just assumed that slowing down was natural. Apparently I was wrong.

Two years into the pandemic and I’m so used to being alone that I rarely venture out.

I went grocery shopping today and tried unsuccessfully to get my wi-fi settings to work with my lights.

My A/C is purring but now the outside temperature is going to cool down.

My Spectrum wi-fi modem was replaced Friday the 17th by a Spectrum tech. No big deal, right? Well, I didn’t realize what replacing a wi-fi modem meant. Anything that used a wi-fi connection had to be updated.

It was fairly easy to get my Alexias to work again, but I had problems updating my garage door opener, my thermostat and my printer. Oh, yes, and my Alexia controlled lights no longer work. I spent four hours Friday and didn’t get any of them working as they worked before the modem was replaced.

I finally got my thermostat to work through my phone on Saturday (yesterday). Somehow, when I was working on my thermostat it got stuck on HEAT!!! It was 81 outside but 90+ inside.

It never got below 85 in here. Although I went to bed, I just couldn’t sleep. At 3:00 a.m. I got up and went to the great room because it had better outside air flow. With all the windows open it finally cooled down. I went back to bed about 6:00 and did sleep about an hour. By then it was a comfortable temperature inside.

I checked and still had no A/C. Before it heated up too much, I called KPW (Kings Point Warranty) which covers all my appliances including my A/C. The guy came almost immediately. He worked on the thermostat and said the “heat” setting was all that worked so it never would have cooled. It did cool quickly and I was happy but about an hour after he left, the heat came back on. (I’d opened the thermostat to make a copy of the settings and apparently that messed things up.) The installer guy said I may need to replace the thermostat. I am careful not to touch any settings.

I was exhausted from the heat and it took a while to cool the place down. I actually took kind of a nap.

It’s working now. I can change the setting with my phone. Temperature is 74 and I’m happy!!

Still no printer, no garage door when controlled by my phone, no lights except manually. I can get by. I may call the computer guy but I’ll keep trying.

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Tuesday – The lights are now working through my phone. Yea!! Only took about five hours! Now I can turn them on/off from bed. (When I turn in fairly early, I always leave at least one great room light on for Sophie. Later I turn it off. Now I can go back to that routine.)

Every year I make Christmas cards using Hallmark software for family and a few friends. It takes a while because I don’t do the same card for everyone.

I started Saturday and had most of them done by late afteroon. Sunday I planned to print them out but my printer wouldn’t run correctly. I did everything I could think of. I even reinstalled the card-making program. I wasted HOURS!! Finally it looked like everything was working but the printer wouldn’t print red. It was discouraging. I followed all the instructions but nothing would allow the printing of red. I did a
“Print Head Cleaning,” “Print Head Nozzle Check, and “Power Cleaning.” The last step took quite a bit of time and I was instructed not to print for 12 hours.

This morning it worked perfectly. I printed about two dozen cards and got the ones to California ready to be mailed tomorrow. (Of course I hand write out the envelopes so that takes time.) I should also be able to do the Michigan ones within the next day or so. I hope to have them all completed and mailed by mid-week.

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Today, Wednesday, December 15th I finally finished the last of the cards and will drop them in the mailbox on my way to the clubhouse.

My place is looking very Christmasy-fied! The tree’s decorated, the palm tree has lights, the holly placemats and table runners are out. I have my small glass table covered with candles. It’s all very festive. I need to do a little tweaking to get things the way I want them, but it’s nearly finished.