Healthy Living Thread

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Sunday kids!

Curby, I keep getting stuff from Audi too. But I have no interest in buying another car right now so I'm hoping this one just keeps on chuggin' along. I'm glad Marty got a free replacement... but I'd be watching that thing like a hawk in case it happened again. Yikes. Do you think I could get just regular non-prescription lenses put into existing sunglass frames? I really like two pair of my current ones but they both have a big scratch right in the line of sight.

I have no idea where the rest of the week went. Thursday I helped Sara (the estate sale lady) some more. Friday I took videos and pictures for a whole slew of listings. Yesteday I ran by the local auction but there was nothing I wanted so I helped at the estate sale. Of course I picked up some more things at the end no one else had bought. Is that a surprise?!?

Last night my friend and I went to see Air Supply at the local casino concert hall. They are my favorite band and it's their 50tth anniversary tour so of course I couldn't miss it. Kind of amazing that it's still the same two guys that started out in 1975!

This morning I slept in verrrry late. I remember Liam telling me he was leaving, but I don't have any clue where he actually went. I'm assuming he took YF with him because he's not in his room. Or else he's been kidnapped LOL.

Alright, off to wash up some of yesterday's treasures and continue down the family room cleaning path. I've actually made BIG progress there so hopefully in the next day or two it will be DONE.

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

Dee Jay, I am quite nervous about that observatory going up in flames. There are no fire hydrants where we live either. I always had good luck with Audi's too, I'd buy another one anytime. Marty had the Curbymobile up to 140 yesterday on the side road coming home. When we went out later in the pickup, he didn't try that. The eye doctor could probably order replacement lenses for you, but their sunglass lenses aren't as dark as regular ones. Maybe see if you can find the company online to get replacement lenses.

That is nice of you to help out at estate sales and no I'm not suprised you picked up some things.

How fun to go to a concert. I like Air Supply too. I remember cruising around in my car and singing along with them. I am sure have them in my iTunes library.

I hope YF wasn't kidnapped. Someone on FB messaged me to confirm I was posting all of your listings on FB. He's kind of a jerk so my only reply was "yep".

We were up late playing telescopes. Marty's automation has bugs that keep popping up. He put my scope out there but it's not designed to leave plugged in all the time and ever if you want to move it to something right by what it's looking it, it goes back to "home" and looks for it from there. So the cord keeps getting wrapped around the base. I don't know what we are going to do about it. Marty has to carry it in and out for me if I use it from the house. It's too big for my tiny hand and awkward to carry. It's not heavy though. I got about 5 pictures but Marty shut it off when he went out there at about 1 a..m. to tweak something and I can't get to the telescope to get picture. Darn.

We went to breakfast yesterday and ran back to town in the afternoon for a hardware store run. Biggest purchase was a tool chest on wheels for the observatory. I enjoyed the lighting in Lowes, they have good diamond light.

I caught up on my recent TV series this weekend and not much else.

Laters,
Curby

 

[marcy]

I need to get Marty to process this, but here's a galaxy I shot last night. It's M51, the Whirlpool galaxy.

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Monday kids!

Curby, one of these days you're going to get a picture of a UFO with little green men zipping through the universe! I'm reporting that YF was officially NOT kidnapped LOL. Somehow Liam convinced him to go auctioning, which is a rare event indeed. There was probably some sort of "inducement" (i.e., bribe!) involved. I've said it before and I'll say it again: THANK YOU for being one of my followers! Not sure what's up with the guy who asked you about sharing the posts... I love the lighting in Costco as well as Lowes and Home Depot!

This morning I went back to the estate sale location to help the lady pack up her tables and other stuff. There is A LOT of stuff left... I hope the family isn't disappointed. Then I ran by the auction place up there because they had a rug I wanted to look at. I'm really glad I did -- once I saw it in person I talked myself out of bidding. BUT... I got six dozen glasses in tonight's auction that I need to pick up tomorrow morning.

When I got back after the chiro today I realized I had never put up my Easter listings so I *hopped* to it. ( <-- ) I only had two things so it didn't take long at all, and one of the items I listed has already sold.

I've got the weekly call tomorrow afternoon for one of the organizations I'm doing the books for. Wednesday we head to New Mexico to visit my best friend from law school and his partner so I need to (as always!) get some laundry done and pack up. I just did my nails so that's one thing off the list that I won't need to worry about tomorrow.

That's about all I have to report.

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

Dee Jay, that's good YF was not kidnapped. LOL to catching some little green men zipping by. To be fair, I've never seen a thing I couldn't explain in all the hours I've been out in the wilderness and under a dark sky. There was a Kujo incident once. I was sitting in the trunk of my '66 mustang watching for meteors. All of a sudden I hear very heavy breathing, panting and something banging on my car. Out of the dark appears this big dog with crazy eyes and STUNK. He drank out of one guy's coffee cup. We all kind of freaked out. Another time we heard some really strange noise that kept getting closer. It turned out to be geese walking down the pavement probably because it was warm. They must have detected our presence, because they actually walked around us in the field.

No problem on following you and forwarding your posts on FB. I hope someone buys from you someday. And you must be channeling memories from my mom, those gray leaf glasses were something my mom had. Not that style, but definitely that pattern.

Good diamond lighting in stores certainly get me more likely to shop there.

Good deal to get some more glasses. I am sure the estate lady appreciates your help. And the best part about chiros are that giant heating pad.

You are building up the miles on your trips. Marty FINALLY got his expenses for Sydney approved. I'll believe it when the money gets deposited in our account.

I got another two galaxies last night. I left the scope taking pictures all night. I was excited with how they turned out. And my new Snoopy phone case arrived today. I needed a new one because Marty and my phone cases were the exact same color of blue and that was confusing.

Laters,
Curby

 

[deegee]

You ladies crack me up! Little green men, Kujo incidents, boozy visits with the sis and LOTS of glassware!

I’m checking in alive. 40 work days until retirement, so exciting! I’m on vacation at the end of this month into May, so my time left is going to fly by. My new ring has been passed around in a few meetings at the office. I have worked and traveled with some of these people for 25 years. We try on each others jewelry, shoes, purses, jackets, so no biggie. Newer people and men in the meetings usually roll their eyes. I’m at the salon right now and it’s time to get my hair rinsed. I’ll check back in later!

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

@deegee woo hoo to 40 more work days. It'll fly by ... Too funny about passing your ring around in the office. Our big conference room at work had great diamond lighting. I often had someone hunt me down after a meeting to say they really noticed my diamond sparkling in there. It was dim spotlights so it really lit up the Curbyring.

And thanks for checking in alive. We appreciate it.

Are you doing a beach get-away in May?

Dee Jay, have fun in NM. At least if you've a had a few, it's a likely place to spot aliens.

Not much new with me. I am considering getting some cocoa, I don't feel like I slept much at all, but I did. Weeds are my worst hay fever allergies and this prairie land has a lot of them popping up outside. I have been sneezing a lot. I teased Marty I should take some allergy meds. It turns me in to a crybaby b*tch which is so fun for him.

I did take a quick galaxy image last night. Sky wasn't the best and the bright moon was nearby. I'll take it though. It's Messier 101 - aka the Pinwheel Galaxy - located about 25 million light-years away in Ursa Major. It's right over the last two stars in the handle of the Big Dipper.

Laters,
Curby

 

[deegee]

marcy-I thought of you when I saw this!

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

Deegee, I thought of me too. I saw a Snoopy VW bug too. I want it.

Happy Friday.
Marcy

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Sunday from the Albuquerque airport kids!

Deegee, I am so excited for you -- we're getting close! LOL on passing your ring around at work. Some of my coworkers over the years were more than eager for me to hand over the goods whenever we'd get into a conference room. That Snoopy cone is cute!

Curby, love the new phone case! My allergies got a little crazy on this trip. The combo of allerby meds and prosecco is always a whole lotta fun! Sadly no aliens in Roswell, but I did buy a bunch of x-mas gifts. Glow in the dark alien T-shirts -- how could I resist?!

Well we've had quite the adventure! Our flight was delayed leaving on Wednesday so we just bellied up to the bar in the United lounge and waited it out. It was about midnight by the time we got the rental car here and then we had a three hour drive south. Ack. I ended up driving and was convinced the whole way I was going to get up and close and personal with some wildlife bolting across the road. Fortunately that wasn't the case, but we saw PLENTY of mule deer, elk, wild horses, bob cats, hares, and who knows what else while we were here.

We ate wayyyy too much (nothing new there) and went to a bunch of different places (Cloudcroft, White Sands, Roswell... I can't even remember where else). This morning we left early because we wanted to see Albuquerque proper. Mmmmmm.... I gotta say, I don't think NM is the right answer for me. To be fair, we didn't get to Santa Fe or Taos, and I suspect I would like those a lot more, but as of now I'm back in an Arizona frame of mind.

I have somehow turned off the spellcheck on my computer so I might as well use this time at the gate to figure out how to turn it back on. I'm a terrible typist so it's kind of essential for me!

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

Dee Jay, sweet you picked up some alien stuff in Roswell. I wanted to pick up some alien stuff when we went through Roswell on the way to Texas (for the “supposed” eclipse) but downtown wasn’t suited for a pickup towing a RV. It was definitely a tourist town. I can’t say any of the towns we went through would inspire me to move there.

Ugh to having your flight delayed to get there. At least you found a way to amuse yourself. Good deal you didn’t get up close and personal with any large or small critters on the road. I don’t go Mach 1 at night out here with deer, antelope and rabbits everywhere.

Marty got most of the observatory painted this weekend. And completely ruined his one and only heavy duty winter coat. I tried washing it, but not dice. It has caulking stuck all over it plus paint. He’s ordering a new Carharrt as we speak. I’m not let him in the Curbymobile with that crap on his coat either. Of course the wind picked up, so he has some main color areas to touch up that got sprayed with trim color. The HOA rules say outbuildings have to match the house so he used gray as the main color, white as the trim color and dark blue as accents.

I fried up 8 pounds of hamburger today and then degreased the stove, skillets and countertop. Marty likes that fatty hamburger. I cooked myself a pound of lean hamburger first. That’ll be four suppers for me. Then he ate one pound for breakfast and the other six will be for his breakfast or supper. I got laundry done too. Yay.

We met some friends - the drinkers - for supper last night at the neighborhood steak house. The six of us only split 2 bottles of wine. It was Pino and it sure kicked up my heartbeat (it was only around 80 but it felt higher) so I stayed up until about 11. They are hosting an exchange student from Belgium. She is the least outgoing exchange student I’ve ever seen. When I was in school, they were always friendly, and very popular. This girl only speaks when spoken too. I think she’s very shy because if you talk to her, she lights up right away. I guess she spends most of her evenings and weekends in her room playing games online with friends at home. My friend and I wonder if her parents didn’t push her in to doing this to get her out of her shell. It’s hard to say, but every time i see her, I wonder why she’d choose to go to school in a foreign country when she’s such an introvert. She’s nice enough but certainly not outgoing.

Laters,
Curby

 

[marcy]

Here’s a gibbous moon from a few days ago. The Pink Moon was clouded out last night.

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Thursday kids!

Curby, I agree that Roswell was a tourist town and I can see it wouldn't have worked for any sort of RV parking. That's interesting about the exchange student. It sounds like maybe she's just shy since she is engaging once someone talks with her. Perhaps she'll be more outgoing as time goes on and she gets comfortable. I, of course, had to look up what a gibbous moon is LOL.

This week is a blur. Absolutely no idea what I did on Monday! Tuesday I had two zoom calls and did a whole bunch of accounting. (Hello... RETIRED?!) Yesterday and today I've been working on setting up an estate sale. Not a lot of treasures for me at this one, but I found a few small Christmas things today. I've become the kitchen/dining room/Christmas person in the group ha ha.

Liam just went to get YF since there's no school tomorrow. I need to get a whole bunch of listings done over the next few days because the show where I help the cowhide bag lady is next week. Tell me again when I ever had time to work?!

Alright, off to wash up a bunch of glasses.

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Easter kids!

Reporting in from messy kitchen central! Yesterday I created an ungodly mess with The Peep Project LOL. And today I'm going to do up another disaster with Easter dinner. I'm making (gluten free) pasta with alfredo sauce, shredded rotisserie chicken, sun dried tomatoes, and spinach. No idea how this will turn out and I don't have a recipe, I just kind of dreamed it up... so fingers crossed!

For the balance of the afternoon I'm deep in laundry hell, and I need to pack a set of Christmas dishes (yes -- REALLY!) that someone bought last night.

As you can see, it's virtually some sort of Hallmark holiday action going on here at The North Estate.

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

Dee Jay, I am with you on wondering how we got things done working. Oh wait, I still am. I am still crazy busy. I spent most of the last week learning how to process my astrophotos. Luckily, Marty already has the most popular processing software and I have to admit it’s worth what it cost him.

Your Peep project was very cute. How did your Easter dinner turn out? I’ll never know about ours. We were baking a brisket. At 7 p.m. since the meat thermometer had 45 more degrees to go Marty grilled us some burgers. He pulled out the brisket when he went o bed at about 9:30. I put it in the fridge at about 10:30 when I was getting ready for bed. Marty ate the brisket for breakfast and supper. I was going to have some for supper, but cold beef doesn’t appeal to me so I had some grapes and a grilled cheese sandwich. I might cut some brisket up tomorrow and put some BBQ sauce on it. I did pick up bags of Cadbury eggs (like M&M’s) and little chocolate bunnies for both of us.

We’ve had some clear nights so I took some pictures and then Marty spent time walking me through how to use that software. I’m not doing bad for one week of practice. The third day I was trying it on my own and had a completely black image - without a single star showing - and I sent it to him and said “nailed it!” I got to laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. I thought it was funny.

It was sure “what windy” today so I never ventured outside. The landscaper showed up with two tractors to trench a line for put our row of seedlings we are getting from the conservation district.

I didn’t sleep worth a darn. I cleaned up the brisket dishes and that took me until about 11. Then I noticed some aurora on the northern horizon so I kept watching that. I was switching what my scope was taking pictures of and by the time I got in bed Marty was imitating a cheap chain saw. At about 3:30 his phone started alerting us about something with the observatory. He’s hard of hearing and wears ea plugs so I had to wake him up. He apparently didn’t calculate enough electricity to automatically close the south wall on the observatory. Gravity, man. Works every time it’s tried.

Laters,

Here’s one of my favorite galaxy pictures. It’s a cute little edge-on galaxy called the Sombrero Galaxy.

 

[marcy]

Hi Kids!

Dee Jay, I’ve been seeing your posts on FB. Are you doing those now or is someone managing them for you?

Deegee, how many days of work left?

Not much new here. We’ve had cloudy skies at night so I’ve been practicing processing pictures I already took. A friend came over for lunch today and we played cards. I won too. Woo hoo!!

Laters,
Curby

 

[Dee*Jay]

Happy Wednesday kids!

Curby, that last picture is my favorite so far! Really -- it's otherworldly. Your comment about gravity made me laugh so hard. I swear, we are living with the same man. I'm doing the FB posts myself. I gave up trying to get someone and just started doing them myself. It's sooooo hard to think of something even slightly clever to say every day. I mean, I'm selling WINE GLASSES for the most part. Shouldn't that be enough?! The good news is I can use the same post for both FB and Instagram, although the photo ratios are different so that adds another level of complexity. Ugh.

Well today was a clusterfvck. I wanted to take a bunch of photos so I can get ahead on listings. But... Liam sold a piece of industrial equipment to someone and they needed it overnighted for receipt tomorrow. OK. So first Liam sends me to the UPS air hub over by the local airport. They stopped packages there several years ago. They sent me to the local UPS store (which is about ten minutes from the house and I had to drive past to get to the air hub... ). And the store couldn't process the shipment with the guy's third party account number (not to mention the shipping was OVER THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS). So I had to get Liam to contact the guy and ask him to send me a UPS label. Well he sent me the tracking number, but not the actual label. The UPS guy totally did me a solid and produced a label from the number, which he wasn't supposed to do, but hey, I give them Christmas presents every year! See -- wine and candy win out ever time! That all took an ungodly amount of time, which means I only got three listings done. It is what it is because tomorrow I head downtown to help the cowhide bag lady for the next four days. At least I got the laundry done and I have an idea of what I'm going to take with me to wear so it shouldn't take me too long to get together in the morning -- I hope.

Alright, off to call it an early night!