What's the Question? Friday W's

  

     Brrr-fall is now here, at least in the mornings. I do enjoy the sun of summer, but am  ready for a change of season. It's looking more fall like outside, but I think we are not getting great color and the blustery weather is shaking a lot of leaves off trees. Our dead tree is starting to blend in. DH needs to get that down this spring and get a new one planted. On Fridays' I ask myself a bunch of W questions to sum up my week. Play along if you'd like. 

What's top of mind: The house! We've had a water drain problem in the kitchen sink. While coincidental, no one (city works, DH) thinks it has to do with the road construction as suggested by other neighbors experiencing the same thing. Hopefully the city will look at the line from their perspective since so many of us called and see if there is a blockage, but we're having someone come out to blow our line this morning regardless. Slow drains are one thing-not being able to really use you kitchen sink more than 1X a day is quite another. 

     I've got two sorting and purging projects I want done before my daughter gets home-mostly so she can do the final purge on her things. Then, I just need a thorough, no holds bar, top to bottom deep clean. Think spring clean in the fall. Both Saturday and Sunday are slated to be cool, but nice so great cleaning weather. 

Where I've been: I've pretty much shared my comings and goings out for meals and our anniversary drive, and the park clean up. Other than that, I did my challenge shop at Aldi with a few other things we needed for groceries. Since Sunday it has been a home stay week. 

Where I'm going: I need to get a "thinking of you" card in the mail for a cousin who has an accident and is in a care facility for therapy. She's older than my oldest brother and does not have any children. My cousins, 2nd cousins really, her nieces, are providing the support day to day, but we'll all try and make sure her needs are met. I've got book club tomorrow-meeting in a park with our own chairs and blankets if needed. I may meet up 45 minutes ahead for a walk but my friend S who suggested a walk before talk, is a fast walker and in much better shape than I am. With no water, I a going to run and get myself a coffee in a few minutes. It's not take out-its a necessity. 

What I'm reading: I'm still plodding along reading Where the Crawdad's Sing for book club. I am enjoying it, but I keep falling asleep when I finally sit down to read.  will finish tonight and be read for tomorrow.

What I'm listening to: I listened to an interesting podcast, and darn if I can find it again, about women and second lives after retirement. The  guests talked about all the things they accomplished past 60, pursuing all the things family and work obligations  kept them from doing. One was a word traveler, another went to work for a community non-profit. IF you know the one I'm talking about, let me know but I'll try and find. It was a link from a Facebook post, and then I had computer slowness problems and had to clear my cache so lost my history. 

What I've been watching: I still haven't finished the first season of Finding Alice but got caught up in a Finish show on Netflix, Bordertown. It was incredibly dark, but I liked the main character, his wife, and his daughter so kept watching. When you watch a foreign language movie or film, and dubbing is an option, do you still do subtitles? I always do. I hate how the voices never seem to match the character, and in this show, it was completely ruining the show. The English voice was nothing like the Finish actors voice or personality and was so flat. 

What I'm eating: After too many meals out last weekend, I am hunkered down in my own kitchen. I started a couple meals for my 3 meals at $3 challenge, and so far, a bit of success. I've made two of the three and DH was happy with both flavor wise. I'm doing the math on the calories, sodium, protein, and fat, and know the bad culprits, but I did going into the challenge.  Shout out to Chef Owings for playing along-I loved that she, her husband, and her daughter joined in on what the would make with my shop, and what they might have bought instead. This is the fun of blogging-real people  building community over such simple topics. 

Who I'm paying attention to: Our local school board race is heating up and getting a little vicious on Facebook. There seems to be a show down for 3 seats up for election, and a fight between people who support three newcomers-who I would describe as very limited, single issue focused, and without a real agenda other than "need new faces on the school board", and two incumbents and another newcomer-who I am really liking  as a candidate. While I have no kids in school now, I have family, plus, I care about the decisions made that impact our community. The gang of three newcomers are pretty ignorant on what school boards actually do, what laws govern public education, and just seem to spout off about everything they don't like, but offer nothing in exchange. I wish the two incumbents would have bolder  information out there for people to read, but the  other new candidate has specific areas she  said she will focus on, and they are things that not only matter for education, but matter for a school district within a community. 

Who needs to be (figuratively) slapped: I don't need to slap a couple colleagues as others did it for me, lol. Other than my school board comments, I'm trying to stay out of political rants, but holy guacamole, what person with 1/2 a brain still gives any ear time to anything Trump has to say? It's beyond "he tells it like it is" to "no matter what delusional thoughts he spews, I'm going listen." And all the GOP  members that still are afraid of him-what in the world are they thinking? JUST STOP GIVING HIM ANY ATTENTION. 

What's Making Me Smile:  This was a hard one this week because I was mostly home and haven't had too much news or paid attention to too much social media. There's the obvious-pup, though he needs to leave my little trash can alone. I guess hearing the late afternoon playground and park noise makes me smile. It means kids are getting home from school (and in person school) and gathering with their friends and the chillier, but still nice weather is perfect play weather. The other day when pup and I walked, there was a big group of kids playing a game on the basketball court-kind of a team game where they had to run form one side to the other and not get tagged. There were little ones up to older kids playing and it was nice to see. 

     I must get things done this weekend that were on last weeks list plus the purge projects I talked about. The month is half over and I feel like I am still in September. Happy Friday, all.