My first attempt at homemade English muffins.Nooks and crannies, toasted and buttered.
I’ll be brief. Here’s the recipe for no-knead English muffins. Special stress baking edition. They were really easy and absolutely delicious. I simply followed the instructions, and they came out great!
You’ll need bread flour. The dough rises about five hours at room temperature. Then you’ll dollop out muffin-sized bits of dough onto a sheet tray, and your little treasures will spend the night in the refrigerator before you cook them, so plan accordingly.
We picked up an order from a different grocery store today. We couldn’t find the pick-up point, but one of the guys dragging carts around in the parking lot told us it was by the rear entrance to the store. Once we got there, everything went smoothly.
Among the goodies today were romaine lettuce and fresh spinach. My eyes got misty at the sight of romaine. Oh, how I long for the days when romaine was the most dangerous thing that came out of a grocery store.
As we speak, Dale is doing an online order from the liquor store. In my professional expertise, an early afternoon pick-up time is ideal. Late enough to linger around in the morning but not so late as to interfere with happy hour.
Still hanging tough. It’s pouring rain today. An absolute deluge. We need it, but really? It seems like pretty soon we’ll be boarding in twos.
Our first order from Amazon Fresh delivered to our doorstep.
Shopping
We got our first delivery from Amazon Fresh. I believe you have to live near a Whole Foods store, which was a requirement on my retirement location spreadsheet.
Go me.
Amazon has two ways to shop at Whole Foods, and honestly, I don’t understand the difference, but I got what I wanted. Fresh raspberries, radishes, our favorite bacon, salmon and other goodies.
One item I ordered was a boneless ribeye steak. We usually split one. Was it as thick as we normally get? No, but hey, it’s a steak!
I liked the experience because they tell you whether it’s in stock before you complete the purchase. The packages were delivered within a two-hour window with no personal contact. Not even a ringing of the doorbell, which is fine with me.
Later we went to pick up an order at the Safeway. I drove to a designated spot, called the number posted there and popped the trunk. A few minutes later a guy put the groceries in the trunk and waved bye. No contact. They were out of oatmeal and hot sausage, but they substituted regular sausage. No substitutes for oatmeal.
Dale has entered the acceptance phase of his grocery store grief and is helping me with the tasks. He’s the supply chain guy, and he’s teaching me how to do it efficiently. I’m keeping a log of what I’ve ordered and assuming some things might not be available, I’m checking them off as they come in. Also keeping a running list of items we might need soon.
We have enough toilet paper, but I’ve been on the lookout just the same. Target claims they have some in stock, but you have to go into the store. This morning I found it on Amazon – a popular national brand – and theoretically it will be delivered next week. My days of treating toilet paper like party streamers are over. No details, of course, but it’s like my ass knows there’s a toilet paper shortage.
BAking
Oh, and I guess everyone is baking! We have plenty of flour, but thinking ahead, I ordered more AP and bread flour from King Arthur. Shipping is three to four weeks out, but that’s fine for us. I had some pastry flour in the freezer. I forget what I bought it for. I used it to make cinnamon hand pies this morning.
Reading
I successfully downloaded a book for my Kindle from the public library … the first of the Walt Longmire series by Craig Johnson. I liked it and want to read the rest, but I like to read them in order, and the next one wasn’t available as a digital download. I don’t want to pay for it, so I got another Jack Reacher by Lee Child. He can be a bit violent for me, but so far, so good. This one is “The Midnight Line.”
At the recommendation of writer Ann Patchett, I purchased (for $0.99) “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane” by Kate DiCamillo. It’s a children’s book, and I loved it. In fact, it’s a quick read, so I may read it again today. I highly recommend this book if you haven’t read it. Quite uplifting!
I’ve been reading more than watching, although I look forward to every Sunday, when a new episode of Outlander arrives.
We’ll need to replenish the liquor soon. That’s when I learn about just-in-time delivery.
A snip from our online order at a local grocery store. Cocktail peanuts, because you know … cocktails, peanuts.
I’m not feeling particularly creative, but I feel good and thought I’d share an update. So far, we’ve avoided bad craziness. But there’s still time.
We converted to online grocery shopping. Dale is not happy about it, but we made the decision together. While the precautions we took last time might be adequate, we decided it isn’t worth the risk.
One of my favorite songs is “Fort Worth Blues” by Steve Earle. It’s a tribute to Townes Van Zandt, a musician who passed away relatively young after many years of substance abuse. There’s a line referring to death, but I think it also applies to life during these strange times:
Somewhere up beyond the great divide
Where the sky is wide and the clouds are few
A man can see his way clear to the light
Just hold on tight
That’s all you gotta do
I keep thinking just hold on tight, that’s all we gotta do. We are safe at home until the worst is over. We’re the lucky ones, and I can’t even begin to describe how grateful I am. Although I’m no Mother Teresa, I made another donation to the food bank and will most likely give more throughout the year. I don’t see how I can’t.
Dale was the principal shopper prior to the pandemic, but he doesn’t want much to do with online shopping. I thought maybe he would get into it, but that has not been the case. I’m doing it in consultation with him about brands, quantities, etc.
I ended up ordering from three different services. Two are pick-ups at local grocers, and one is a delivery from Amazon Fresh. You have to reserve a time for pick-up at the local stores, and that’s running about 5-7 days out. That hasn’t been a problem, since we keep a lot of food around anyway. The window for Amazon Fresh was much quicker – two days.
Substitutions are part of the deal for all these stores, but I don’t care. I did opt out of substitutions for a couple of things – cat food, because we have a picky eater, and he only likes prime filets. I also opted out of a certain kind of sausage we prefer, assuming it’s not essential, and we probably wouldn’t like the substitute.
This sucks but actually doesn’t bother me all that much. I remember when I had cancer the first time – 1999 – and there was a high probability I would die. The most optimistic five-year survival rate was 40 percent. The majority relapsed within two years.
I tried to think of cancer as an adventure, but I had to adjust to so many changes, and it wasn’t exactly what I would call a fun adventure. Even when I was on the mend, I knew the statistics and spent five years not knowing if the treatment worked. Wondering if I would die. So, what’s a couple of months locked up in a comfy house knowing the statistics are quite possibly on my side this time?
With cancer, there was virtually no way to mitigate my risk, but now I know what to do. Stay home. I have enough to keep me amused.
The hardest part is dealing with each other’s expectations. We still like each other, but we’ve taken to not talking much during the day. He does his thing, and I do mine. I guess it gives us our space. Then we start chatting away at happy hour, just like we used to.
Although I am taking walks, I’m keeping my distance. I don’t touch anything, and I don’t touch my face. I wash my hands as soon as I get home. Our town’s population is about 45,000. Definitely not rural, but not the big squished-together urban scene, either. We have lots of walking paths, and it’s easy to keep my distance from anyone I encounter. Being outside and seeing nature at work is comforting.
I have several different routes. Some shorter, some longer, depending on how my body feels. My longer route is a five-mile loop, and I was thinking it might be kind of cool to work up to 10 miles. But I didn’t think my bladder would hold. Then it occurred to me I could do the five-mile loop, stop at the house to use the restroom, and then do the loop again.
I gave myself a pedicure today, and it looks pretty good for an amateur. I don’t keep my toenails painted anyway, so I was just going for neat and clean. Beauty base zero.
It wasn’t so bad. I have a little teak stool I put in the bathtub. Then I ran some hot water and added a handful of bath salts. Soaked, pushed back the cuticles, cut and filed the nails, used a pumice stone to remove dead skin on my feet and then shined up the nails with a buffer block.
My tools are starting to deteriorate, so I ordered new buffer blocks and fake pumice stones from Amazon. My stuff should come next week, but I checked the box that said, “No hurry.” Just doing my part for humanity.
When I let my hair grow long, it was for simplicity and convenience. I didn’t want to spend my precious time in a salon. With the current COVID-19 restrictions, staying home has not been a problem for me hair-wise, since I only get it trimmed a couple of times a year. Blunt cut with no unruly layers growing wild. No gray roots to worry about when it’s all gray!
Although I used to call it retirement hair, perhaps I should call it pandemic hair. I guess I could cut it myself if it comes to that.
Dale gets his hair cut at the military barber shop just outside the commissary, where he normally goes twice a month for “the big stuff.” He’s bald on top and gets the Number 3 for the rest of his head. His hair has been driving him nuts, and we talked about whether I could successfully cut it.
Today he said, “Let’s do this thing.”
I watched a few YouTube videos. Then I got the trimmers and
practiced without turning them on. I’m like, I think I got this. We went out to
the backyard, and I put a towel over his shoulders. I started with the fuzz
around his neck, which was easy.
Then I set the trimmers to 7, figuring there would be less
damage if I messed this up. Nothing horrible happened, so I gradually worked my
way down to 3. Then I just kind of went over the whole thing, zapping stray
hairs I missed and trimming around the ears. At some point, I decided I was
done.
He went into the bathroom to check himself out in the
mirror, and he said, “It looks great!” Another mission accomplished.
The whole thing reminded me of when we first got Riley, a long-haired kitty. He had nasty matts, and I got Dale’s beard trimmer to see if I could get them out. I didn’t put them back right away, and one day Dale asked if I had seen his beard trimmer.
I didn’t even think … I just said, “Oh, you mean the cat’s?”
He was horrified, but we both laughed. It still makes us laugh, which is a good thing.
Of course, we’re both in a funk of sorts. I had a meltdown about a week ago and have since felt reasonably calm and content. It was during the meltdown I said, “I’m just gonna go outside and ask people to spit on me.” I call that my rock bottom, and it has been nothing but up since.
Dale doesn’t do meltdowns, but I would say his low point was after we got back from the grocery store, because that was his happy place, and it’s not anymore. It also turns out Dale is much more extroverted than I am. He misses even the smallest interactions with clerks and neighbors.
We’ve talked through it, not without pain mind you, but we’re still a unit, committed to getting through this healthy, happy and together. I read about relationships being stressed right now, and my favorite line was something like this:
Don’t search for the perfect partner. Try to be the perfect partner.
I could tell Dale needed some comfort food and suggested burgers. We have everything for that, and he jumped right on it. We’re taking an indulgence break and will have burgers tonight. Then it’s back to broccoli on Friday.
We talked about playing board games, and I did an inventory of our toy chest:
Risk
Monopoly
Othello
Scrabble
Yahtzee
Backgammon
Dominoes
Pente
Cribbage
Most of these have been sitting idle for some time. This might be the 70s talking, but I don’t remember anything about Othello or Pente. Dale doesn’t like Scrabble or Yahtzee, my two favorites, so we’re going to start with backgammon. We used to play a lot and have a beautiful board we bought in Egypt. We’ll need to brush up on the rules.
We both used to like cribbage, but his mother was a fanatic, and we both got burned out on it during one of her visits many years ago. Perhaps enough time has passed that we can try it again.
Other unexpected items that showed up in the toy chest during my inventory include:
German flag
Survival cards
Mexican game with cup and ball on a string
Multiple decks of playing cards
Phantom of the Opera mask
Latin dictionary
Arabic at a glance
English-French dictionary
Eisenhower postage stamps
How about you? Are you playing any games while in confinement? What’s in your toy chest?
Dale’s yeast rolls, which we had with baked beans and cabbage salad.
Note: This post is longer than usual, but I thought it might be helpful to read through the details of our excursion to the grocery store. I have no way of measuring the effectiveness of our approach or whether it is even necessary. As always, proceed at your own risk.
Although we are in good shape as far as food and supplies go, we hoped to buy fresh produce and fill in a few other gaps … with dare I say it … a trip to the grocery store. We want to eat well but also want to do what we can to avoid getting this virus.
We read articles about how to shop safely during the coronavirus pandemic. We tossed ideas back and forth. Much of our strategy is based on guesswork.
I was in favor of curbside pick-up at the store or home delivery. Dale was skeptical of quality and wanted to see what stores actually had in stock before subscribing to that plan. Personally, I was not worried about getting a bruised cucumber considering the alternative.
My next favorite option was going early. Our favorite store announced they would be open from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays for those 65 and older. Dale is 70, so he qualifies, but I am 64. I didn’t imagine they would check IDs at the door, but we’re the sort who never have more than 10 items in the 10 items or less lane.
If they did check IDs, I would say I was his caregiver. Ha!
Dale envisioned a line of old people at the door starting at 6 a.m., and he could not see how that was particularly safe. Under normal conditions, he goes to that store almost daily, and he said the least crowded time was about 2:30 p.m. I trusted his judgment and said OK.
The other question for any in-store experience is whether you go solo or together. Most of the articles I read said go alone. Dale is theoretically at higher risk, but he was itching to go. I was worried about him touching stuff. We ended up going together.
I have one tiny bottle of hand sanitizer, but I have a box of vinyl disposable gloves. Antibacterial wipes are nowhere to be found, but I made a little batch of makeshift wipes by soaking paper towels in a mixture of water, isopropyl alcohol and coconut oil. I divided the folded stacks, stuffing them into quart-sized Ziplocs.
Although I have no idea whether the wipes actually work, it seems like they should. Perhaps better than nothing.
I did not take a purse but wore a raincoat with big pockets.
I had three cloth shopping bags, a Ziploc of makeshift antibacterial wipes and
my tiny bottle of hand sanitizer. Two disposable gloves, just in case. Dale had
two gloves as well.
We did all our eye-scratching, throat-clearing and generalized spewing before we got out of the car. No face-touching until after we got home and washed our hands. We pulled into the parking lot, which was mostly empty! My guy knows his store.
We agreed in advance Dale would wear gloves to push the cart around and open refrigerated cases. I would not wear gloves, but I would be the one to touch the food and put it in the cart. My thinking was if I had worn a glove and touched a contaminated product and then touched the next product, the glove wasn’t much of a help.
I had the list divided into general areas of the store – cheese, milk, meat, condiments and produce. That’s the route we would normally take anyway. We had a plan of attack, and we executed with precision.
There were 20 items on our list, and we were done in 10 minutes. It was like we were on Guy’s Grocery Games, where the winner has to find all the items on the list while the clock is ticking.
With the exception of paper goods and some cleaning supplies, we were pleased with availability. Granted, we aren’t looking for frozen pizza. We got everything on our list:
Whole milk mozzarella
Sliced Swiss cheese
Yogurt
Pickles
Sauerkraut
Green olives
Black olives
Ground meat
Dish soap
Olive oil
Triscuits
Pretzels
Broccoli
Ginger root
Iceberg lettuce
Avocados
Cucumber
Zucchini
Cilantro
Apples
There were a few other shoppers, but no one got close. There
was no one in line at our check-out. The clerk asked if we found everything we
needed, and I said, “You seem to be out of hand sanitizer.” That got a good
laugh. Gee, I hope laughing doesn’t spray germs!
Anyway, we got out of there. I unloaded the bags into the trunk. Dale dropped off the cart and removed his glove before opening the car door. I gave each of use a healthy squirt of hand sanitizer. When we got home, I brought the groceries in from the car.
I put the bags on the floor not the counter, and we washed our hands. I had placed a beach towel on the counter, and I unloaded the bags into the towel, using my wipes to clean the items with non-porous packaging.
Then I threw the grocery bags and the towel into the washing machine.
Geez, I think that’s it. We were both happy it was over. No real way to know at this point whether it worked, but it seemed safe to us. We did the best we could based on what we think we know.
I have no images from the war zone, but I added a picture of Dale’s yeast rolls, which were tender golden pillowy puffs of perfection. This is why we care about food and shopping!
We are continuing to discuss our grocery shopping options, including online ordering. Our neighbor, who is much younger, also offered to shop for us. As for meals, we’re looking at what’s the most perishable, and starting from there.
Homemade peanut butter cookie with chocolate chips.
I keep thinking it’s my birthday. You know, singing it twice
to get the full 20 seconds when you wash your hands. Interestingly, Dale had
never heard the version with you look like a monkey, and you act like one,
too.
Crazy. Just to mess with me, he used to say he was in the
witness protection program, and sometimes I wonder. Where did he really grow up?
Who were his parents? Why doesn’t he know the monkey lyric?
The golf courses have closed here, so I’ve been taking long
walks instead. Keeping my distance, certainly. There are a fair number of
people walking, running and bicycling, but it’s easy to stay spread out. The
college girls are home, jogging in their incredibly short shorts.
I saw one girl from afar, and I just kept staring. I’m sure she thought I was some sort of perv. I was convinced she was wearing support hose or something over her legs, because they were so damned perfect. When I got close, I could see it was just bare skin. Unblemished, undimpled. What a concept.
As for golf, there was a day when a closed golf course didn’t
stop me. When we lived in South Carolina, it was common for a few people to
show up at closed golf courses on a holiday and just walk the course alone. But
when we moved to Texas, that was not allowed. Probably wasn’t in South
Carolina, either, now that I think about it.
My favorite course locked the gate on holidays, but I played anyway. I parked on the side of the road and managed to climb over the gate with my pushcart and clubs. No one came to get me. I had a security clearance at the time and lived in fear of getting arrested and having my clearance pulled.
I thought about doing it now, but it’s illegal with the current order to stay home and just not smart. Plus, the restrooms are closed. That’s not a problem for men. The world is their toilet. I’ve actually seen men urinating on the fairway. Another reason not to play, wondering where your ball has been and all that.
Wii Golf is one of my favorite hunker down diversions. The dress code is relaxed. Jammies are allowed, even preferred. I’m trying not to overdo it. It’s like toilet paper rationing – one or two games a day. I’m way better at Wii Golf than I am at real golf, so it’s actually rather satisfying. My record is -14.
We like to keep a stash of homemade cookies in the freezer for when you absolutely positively need something sweet. Yesterday I made a batch of peanut butter cookies, but I added leftover chocolate chips. Maybe half a cup?
They don’t taste like peanut butter cookies. They taste like really good chocolate chip cookies with a hint of peanut butter in the background. Did I say that was a bad thing? During these stressful times, there are no bad cookies.
I’ve been walking on a tree-lined paved path in our
neighborhood. It’s quite pleasant. The furthest I’ve ever gone on that
particular route is a street called Charter. That’s my turnaround point. Who
knows what comes after that? Today I am going to find out.
Dale and I feel pretty good about riding out the storm at home. We can sit here and look out the window if we have to. Our finances are conservatively invested, and the hit to our portfolio has not been as bad as you might think.
The bank is always bugging us about keeping too much cash in
our savings account, but here we are, and I don’t hate that money sitting there
minding its own business and earning nothing. We’re debt-free and won’t need to
dip into the portfolio for a couple more years.
As for day-to-day inconveniences, my health club closed, so no swimming for me. The golf course is still open, but I’ve canceled my participation in all group golf events. I’m getting refunds, and I can use the money to supplement my escalating digital entertainment budget.
I’m continuing to play golf during non-peak hours, walking with my personal pushcart and keeping my distance from fellow players. No clubhouse antics afterward. I prefer a solitary round of golf anyway, and I like to get out of there when I’m done, so it’s not exactly a sacrifice.
Oh, and I wish the elbow bump had been invented years ago. I
can’t tell you how many men have crushed my wrists with their manly handshakes.
It’s funny – I rather enjoyed deleting all the events on my calendar. There’s nothing on there until a dentist appointment in June, and even that may go away. I love looking at month after month of emptiness.
The food situation is crazy, but we’re OK. Dale is methodical about keeping the pantry and freezer stocked. I’ve always joked we could live for six months on what we have in-house, but I did not want to test my theory in this manner.
Dale doesn’t like to plan meals days in advance and enjoys going to the grocery store practically every day for the one or two things he might need. That has become an issue. It’s like asking him to give up his hobby. We’ve had some serious disagreements about going to the store.
I finally said, look, you’re a smart guy. I’m not going to tell you what to do, as long as you practice safe behaviors. And … I said if you get it and give it to me, you won’t have to worry about dying, because I will kill you.
This morning I got up and headed out early to see if maybe the grocery store shelves have hand sanitizer if you get there first. Apparently not. However, the Jameson shelf was full, so I snagged a bottle of that while I was there. And by the way, none of that Jameson will be converted to hand sanitizer.
We decided to visit the cannabis dispensary before that all goes to shit. There was a line at the door. Dale read somewhere that once the toilet paper was gone, everyone started wondering if they had enough weed. It was mostly old folks like me, and I kept my distance. They only let a couple of people in at a time anyway, so it works out great.
This is not fun or easy, butthere is still joy in Mudville. I had this song Weed & Whiskey on my brain and sang it on the way home.
All these pills can’t cure my ills or fix me. All I need
is a little bit of weed and whiskey.
In this special Hunker Down edition, I invite you to explore some unique reading that has nothing to do with the current pandemic … historical fiction about women who disguised themselves as men!
Although my recreational reading leans toward crime fiction, I enjoy a wide variety of genres, including historical fiction. My favorites are stories about women in the Old West. If that’s a genre, then there’s something close to a sub-genre, and that includes stories about women from roughly that time period who disguised themselves as men.
To feed my interest in this incredibly addictive sub-genre, I downloaded a book from the library, Re-dressing America’s Frontier Past by Peter Boag.
He calls it cross-dressing, although that implies there’s one approved dress code for men and one approved dress code for women. In these days of non-binary identification, the author concedes some might argue with the term cross-dressing.
I’m by no means an expert in gender studies, but my reading
indicates some women identified as women but dressed as men to pursue work,
adventure, crime and all sorts of activities where traditional women might have
difficulty gaining a foothold. Others would be what we now call transgender, in
that they didn’t feel like women and lived their lives as men, often marrying
women.
Then there were those who maybe don’t have a category or might be called gender fluid. They hated women’s clothes and the expectations that came with being a woman, but their sexual orientation was ambiguous … sometimes as seen from the outside world but sometimes even to themselves.
I like them all. Here are some of my favorites, which make
for great escapist reading.
A young Chilean woman decides to follow her lover, who left the country to seek his fortune during the California Gold Rush. A Chinese doctor she befriends on the ship dresses her as a Chinese boy to help her navigate the dangerous world of San Francisco in the 1840s.
A fictionalized account of the true story behind Charley
Parkhurst, a renowned Gold Rush-era stagecoach driver who was discovered to be
a woman only after he died. For you Californians out there, Charley is buried
in Watsonville.
Samantha, a Chinese girl in 1849 Missouri, commits a crime in self-defense and heads out on the Oregon Trail with a runaway slave. Both dressed as boys, they encounter friendly cowboys. Sammy falls in love.
Hiding from her past, Alex disguises herself as a young man and stumbles across a crude California mining town called Motherlode, where she finds her way among the locals but fears being discovered.
My new surf poncho for changing out of my wet swimsuit at the pool.When the going gets tough, the tough get cooking. My blackberry scones just out of the oven.
I just celebrated 21 years since I was diagnosed with stage
3 primary peritoneal cancer, which is virtually the same as ovarian cancer. I’ve
been free of disease since my initial treatment. My annual check-up is Monday,
but the labs are done, and all looks good. They always tell me how lucky I am,
and believe me, I am well aware of my good fortune.
During my illness, I vowed to keep a positive attitude no matter what. And this was not easy for me, a half-empty kind of gal. There’s a joke about the guy whose tombstone read, “See, I told you I was sick.” That was me.
My life was on the line, so I changed. There are plenty of people with great attitudes who die anyway, but I figured why not try? Whether I live or don’t, at least I will have enjoyed the ride.
That pretty much sums up my attitude toward our current situation. ITSNBN – It That Shall Not Be Named. I’m so sick of reading about it and don’t want to pile on. I’m being careful. Lots of elbow bumps on the golf course, hand-washing and other precautions … but still loving life.
One of my precautions is avoiding the locker room at the gym where I swim laps. I purchased this handy “surf poncho” from Amazon. I put on my suit at home and drive to the gym wearing my poncho. I go directly to the pool, remove the poncho and store it in my gym bag on the cement. I suppose there is some exposure there, but I think it’s less risky than the poolside furniture.
When I’m done with my swim, I put the poncho on, tuck my arms inside and remove my wet swimsuit. No one sees my secret body parts. It’s warm and has a hood. I walk back to my car, bypassing the locker room once again.
Foodniks
As always, when the going gets tough, we get going in the kitchen. It’s raining today, so I thought I’d try blackberry scones using Linda’s recipe, which I’ve successfully made with blueberries and raspberries. I’ll probably have to crush the blackberries a bit so they get evenly distributed.
Dale has a brisket brining for homemade corned beef, which is one of the best food discoveries ever. It won’t be ready for another week or so, but we’ll have it boiled with cabbage, potatoes and carrots the first night. Maybe Reuben sandwiches before freezing it in chunks for later use. One of our favorites is corned beef hash topped with a fried egg sunny-side-up.
For dinner, Dale’s making Cordon Bleu. He pounds veal cutlets thin, stuffs them with Muenster cheese and Black Forest ham, breads them and pan-fries them lard. We make a German-style salad with butter lettuce and a white wine vinaigrette. He’ll probably do something with potatoes, because he can’t stop himself.
relationship building
We’ve been happy little campers lately. I’m trying to get in my golf and other exercise during the week, almost like it’s my job. I’m often gone most of the day. Then in the evenings and on weekends, we commune. If I should stay home in the middle of the week, it’s a treat, and we’ll do something fun like go to a winery or have bacon for breakfast.
Sometimes I stay home and we do chores, but they aren’t nearly as fun.
In retirement, we’ve learned we both need time away from each other, and figuring out how to do that in a positive way has been helpful. But the biggest difference is Dale got new hearing aids. I’m just going to go out on a limb and say the new hearing aids have reduced our arguments by 50 percent. Our conversations are much healthier, but the downside is he can hear me mutter when I’m cleaning and complaining about what a slob he is.
Before the new hearing aids, vacuuming was like truth serum. Regrettably, unkind things were said, but at least he couldn’t hear them.
