Thankful Thursday

A quick and random list today...

1. Friends. Last month, I got together with Melissa & Molly to celebrate a milestone birthday for Melissa. We caught up and shopped and ate and just enjoyed being together.

I've known these women for more than 30 years and am so very blessed to have them in my life and so tremendously thankful that they both also live in Colorado so we can see each other at least some. 

2. Checking things off the list. After Nathan and I returned from South Dakota, we got to scratch two more national parks off our list:

Making progress but still have a good ways to go. :) (To be honest, we realize it's unlikely we'll finish this particular list but like having the goal regardless.)

3. My office. In case you're wondering, I'm really enjoying my reorganized office. :) The standing desk is working out well and I'm so appreciative of the decreased clutter. It's like a breath of fresh air.

4. Dragon & squirrel friendships. In cleaning out my office, Nathan decided this metal dragon deserved relocation and has been using it to play with the squirrels. Initially, it freaked them out a bit (which was hilarious). But, they've adopted him into their community and are even willing to "kiss" him when Nathan sticks a walnut in his mouth, lol.

It's the little things. ;) 

5. Furnace motor. You may remember that our AC went out back in July. We were slated to be able to finish the fix properly with the new motor that was back-ordered until the end of August. But. When I called about that, it turned out that the date had been pushed to November. So the fabulous tech (Jason Lynn at FC Heating & Air) came out again and wired it to make sure we'd be able to also temporarily have heat while we waited. But. It turns out that didn't work...and when we called about that, the motor date had been pushed to January or February. So, Jason was a rock star and called around until he found a fellow tech who happened to have the actual motor we needed (still new in box) in his basement at home. And on Tuesday he brought it out and installed it and now our AC/heat is working properly again and it's lovely. So thankful for Jason and for a system that works!

And that's my list for today. :) 

My office

Just so it's recorded somewhere...

A little over a week ago, I suddenly decided to rearrange my office. I wanted to switch to a standing desk; that was the impetus of the whole thing. By plan C or so, I'd settled on an arrangement and ordered what I needed. At the core, I switched out the desk by the window for an adjustable standing desk (which was considerably more straight-forward than the earlier plans, lol). Along the way, though, I had to do a good bit of purging and sorting and shuffling of other things. It was a chore. ;P I may still make a few tweaks and have a few spots that I've noted for further sorting, but here's where things stand now... 

The photos on the left are before and the ones on the right are after. Click on the photo/collage to make it larger.

So much more open counter/desk and floor space! I know it still looks full and cluttery but I truly did get rid of a lot of stuff, honest! It feels so much cleaner. I do a good job of purging around the rest of the house; but, apparently, my office had become somewhat of a dumping ground (particularly since it's one of the only rooms on the main floor that has a door, lol). And, yes, that's a standing desk...I'm just short. ;) It's adjustable so I can still sit when I want also. 

A few things I learned through this process:

• A lot of my life has become about function over form. I'm pretty practical to start with but being surrounded by four males and their pragmatism has definitely weighed things more in one direction. I see it all around me now that I'm paying attention. 
• I still have a lot of scrapbooking stuff, lol. (Once upon a time, I scrapbooked...for myself, for a national magazine and their publications, for my monthly column in that magazine, for sponsor companies, etc.) I've gotten rid of loads of supplies over the years but still have plenty somehow.
• Knowing where your outlets are is important, and power strips are your friends. Yeah, neither of the two outlets in my office are on the open walls.
• My old furniture is really sturdy. We actually bought the matching desks and hutch (and another tall bookcase that's in another room) when we lived in North Carolina...so they've been with us longer than Noah. :)
• Reorganizing is a good time to examine what you actually use. It felt kinda liberating to get rid of stuff that I realized I wasn't using. (Yes, yes, I realize I'm not currently *using* the remaining scrapbooking supplies but am still keeping them. It's a process, lol.)

Oh, and I'm really liking my standing desk situation so far. I found this great balance board anti-fatigue mat thing and love being able to move while standing (and this one is way more comfortable on my feet than my actual balance board that I use in the basement after boot camp--which is also fun but just rough on my feet without shoes). 

And that's my office for now. :)

September so far

Oy. Apparently I haven't posted anything at all this month. Sorry! Guess it's time for some catching up...

1. Adjusting. Some of September has been about adjusting back to being a household of three now that Asher and Micah are back at their respective colleges. That's meant things like less laundry and more food being available, lol.

Simultaneously, Asher and Micah have been adjusting to their new schedules. Asher's got 17 credits this semester and is taking on more responsibilities with the UNC PE club. They have some fundraisers in the works and Asher will be going to a big convention in Denver specifically for physical education people next month. He's also still very much enjoying the UNC Taekwondo club. They've added new members this year, doubling their numbers, and have some events coming up, too. He's also working this month on finalizing his full admission to the Professional Teacher Education Program at UNC, which involves a decent amount of paperwork and is a requirement in his journey to becoming a PE teacher. Also, Asher and his three new roommates seem to be getting along just fine, he continues to ride his OneWheel to get around campus, and he comes home on the weekends. (He's not doing Karate West demo team any more but volunteered, along with another former member, to lead a practice earlier this month to help the new members with their combat fighting choreography. They may do more of that.)

Micah's gotten himself two part time jobs (at the Boulder Escape Room on the weekends and on campus at the biotechnology building on weekday mornings), is taking 15 credits, and continues to help lead the CU Taekwondo club. Yup, he's busy. :) He'll finish his BA in May and is now looking at applying to graduate programs. He's been meeting with advisors and seeking input from those in the field. He's doing a great job of juggling everything and is thoroughly enjoying college life. He and his two roommates are doing well so far with home life--cooking for themselves, paying bills, tackling maintenance, and whatnot. He's going to concerts, shopping, climbing, and everything else. He seems pretty happy. :)

2. Chilling. Amid all of that, life for me has been fairly chill. Mostly, I've been helping to make sure everyone else is getting what they need...plenty of paperwork and errands and listening. 

This picture is of my fun little robot tea infuser. I feel like he exemplifies "chilling" pretty well, lol. (Nathan was gifted some delicious oolong loose leaf tea and I've taken it. Given the steeping instructions, I dug out my little robot and it works perfectly.) When he's not in the tea glass, I let him hang out in the little white dish...and I think it looks like he's chilling in a little tub.

3. Medical stuff. I mentioned before that Micah switched treatment plans for his arthritis. Some of what I've been doing has been getting that all sorted. The new plan involves deliveries in these "critical" boxes that require opening "immediately" and refrigerating. (That's why we're having them delivered here rather than to Micah in Boulder...since I can be home to receive them but Micah and his roommates aren't reliably home, given class and work schedules.)

So far the weekly self-injections have been working well, and Micah feels considerably better than he did at the end of the summer. Yay!!

Beyond that, Micah also had a laser eye surgery earlier this week to repair a hole in his left retina. Seems to have gone well, though I suppose we won't really know for sure until his follow up appointment in December? In any case, the procedure went smoothly and he's doing well. Plus, we got to spend some time with him while collecting him from Boulder the night before the procedure and then driving him back down in the afternoon after the surgery. (By the way, Micah was far and away the youngest person at the eye center, lol. I'd not really thought about it before but apparently it's mostly older people who need eye surgery?)

4. Boot camp in Old Town. Last week (Wednesday), one of the guys in boot camp was the speaker for a Ram Talk in Old Town. George is an elephant expert and professor at CSU and spoke about what we can learn from elephant language. It was honestly fascinating! Knowing that he'd be talking, the rest of us at boot camp (aside from the three who were out of town that week) all went to offer our support. (There was discussion about heckling, but we were good, lol.)

We all sat together and enjoyed the event! (George is the one standing with his picture on the screen behind him, lol.) If you're local, there are a number of additional Ram Talks scheduled and the event space is fabulous. I'd highly recommend attending, even though George won't be speaking again.

5. Conference in AZ. While I was doing that, Nathan was at a conference for work. It was pretty swanky...at the Four Seasons in Scottsdale. Nathan enjoyed the scenery...opted for the morning hike as his chosen conference activity...and even managed to get together with a friend and his family while he was there. 

6. Filipino Community Hall National Historic Site. Many decades ago (more than 70 years ago), my mom's dad (who immigrated to the US as a teen) was a leader in his local Filipino-American community in the Yakima Valley in Washington state. He helped found the Filipino Community Hall in Wapato, the first Filipino hall built in the west. This year, the hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places! They're having a big celebration next month and putting together a commemorative book. Given the family significance and the years of memories we have there, my mom wanted to put together a full page ad for the book. I helped with that while Nathan was out of town. Here's how it turned out:

(It's nothing particularly fancy...just featuring family. :) The hardest part was gathering all the photos, lol.)

7. New tree. And while Nathan was still in Arizona, I oversaw the planting of the new tree we purchased last month. You may remember that we planted a new tree a couple years ago (see the top middle photo below). We got a 5 gallon skyline honeylocust through a city program and planted it ourselves. It made it through the first winter but sadly perished last winter due to the extreme cold. 

So. This time we opted for a 20 gallon tree through the Fort Collins Nursery and had them plant it for us. It's an Espresso Kentucky Coffee tree, which is similar to the honeylocust but felt like it had a bit more character to us. Rob & Thomas did a great job of amending the soil and planting the tree and fertilizing and staking it. They also left me with clear instructions for its care and high hopes.

8. Raccoons. Last weekend, while Nathan, Noah, Asher and I were playing a board game in the kitchen, we were visited by FOUR raccoons. They were quite curious about us and can clearly tell that Nathan feeds the squirrels right there. On that particular day, the squirrels hadn't finished off the day's last pile of walnuts and the first raccoon got a nice little treat. (He didn't share with the others.) 

Don't worry. We didn't put out any additional walnuts. :)

9. Date lunch. And, yes, Nathan and I still go out for date lunch every other week or so. Yesterday, we enjoyed lunch and hard ciders at Locust in Old Town, walked over to The Exchange for ice cream, and then wandered across the street to the new Fort Collins mural.

So. I think that's most of what's been going on in September with us. Whew. It's strangely warm and summery here right now. It's a little confusing but okay with me. Also, I'm in the middle of reorganizing my office...which has been quite the project. (More on that later.) 

I'll do better about posting in October. :) Have a wonderful weekend!

Thankful Thursday

Well. Middle of September already. Weird. We had a taste of fall last weekend but mostly it's been a continuation of summer here, weather-wise. Since last week, here are some things I'm thankful for...

1. This little guy. Asher and I found this praying mantis on our front door last Friday. I just think he's cool. :)

2. New tree. Remember awhile back when I told you about the new tree I ordered? Saturday was pick up day and the weather was perfect for it! Nathan and I picked up our nice little skyline honeylocust and managed to get it planted in the front yard... 

We've been taking good care of it and think it's a lovely addition to our front yard. Hoping it grows sturdy and strong (and quickly). We're pretty sure our other trees will need to be removed in the coming years (based on similar trees in our neighborhood planted at the same time) so are trying to be proactive. Thankful for this program for providing an affordable incentive to take action.

3. Campus Repair. Sadly, our Nissan Pathfinder's radiator neck broke on Tuesday, spewing coolant everywhere. Thankfully, Nathan was driving it at the time, not in traffic, and was able to get off the road safely. We had it towed to Campus Repair. We've worked with them before and so appreciate their excellent communication. Got Reg (that's the Pathfinder's name) back today, having replaced the radiator, thermostat and drive belt. Bleh. Thankful for the service and communication...and that we're in a position to just get things fixed and shuffle vehicles in the meantime.

4. Movie night. Now that we're settling into more of a routine here with all five of us home again, we're instituting a family movie night each week. Our first one was earlier this week and seems like it was a success. To avoid the inevitable staring at each other pondering what to watch, we actually made a list...starting from an IMBD best 250 list. Everyone got some input so there are definitely compromises but it's mostly agreed upon. Right now, we have about 40 movies on our list. We have our list broken down somewhat by type of movie (drama, comedy, etc), length of movie, and availability on our streaming services. You're probably laughing but this made choosing SOOOO much easier. (Only four were currently streaming for free and three of those were about 3 hour movies, which left just one that met our criteria/wants for that particular evening.) We ended up watching The Breakfast Club. Obviously not the world's best movie, but it was useful for cultural references and we appreciated the time/experience together.

That's my list for now. Noah and Asher seem to be enjoying their new jobs. Micah's enjoying at least some of his classes this semester and is busy with college application stuff. (One of the classes is pretty dry/boring but at least he has some friends in the class, lol.) We've been plugging away at homeowner type stuff (Nathan's partially through sorting out the garage and is oh-so-excited about it, lol) and will be tackling some campus visits this weekend and next month with Micah. Yup, life is good. So thankful.

Catching up...

Okay. It's been a minute. :) Since last I posted, here's what's been going on here:

1. The Rio. Deanna and I love lunching at The Rio in Old Town. Last summer, they had a kitchen fire and had to close. They've finally been able to reopen and we were finally able to go enjoy their patio on July 9. It was lovely!

2. AC repair. The next day (Sunday), our AC died. Of course it did. It's been hot here pretty much all month and with boys bedrooms being west-facing and upstairs, our house gets unevenly too hot. So. We went ahead and paid the weekend rate but were able to get a repair guy out to replace the capacitor on the compressor that afternoon. Very thankful that he was available and that it was a relatively easy fix that didn't require replacing the whole system. 

3. Deanna's wedding. That week was spent getting little details in order, and then on Saturday, July 16, Deanna & Nic got married! Having had to postpone their original April date due to covid, it was much anticipated. I helped with coordinating and decorating and am just so happy for them both. The weather thankfully cooperated beautifully (overcast...cooler than the 90s and 100s before and after it...scattered showers to keep things fresh before some evening sun). 

The ceremony and celebration was at Primrose Studio, which is a gem of a venue! (Seriously awesome. If you need a venue and have questions, I'm happy to talk with you.) The gathering there was smaller due to the occupancy limit, and it was beautiful. Here's Deanna and me along the path to the lake that her dad walked her down for the ceremony: 

Following that, there was a reception at Deanna & Nic's with cake and drinks...more laid back and more people. All the family and friends pitched in wonderfully so that everything ran smoothly at both places. iPhone photography is fabulous and means there are plenty of pictures. And I miraculously managed to not get any mosquito bites during the reception!

4. Thor. The next day, all five of us went to enjoy the morning showing of Thor: Love & Thunder. It was hilarious! We grabbed some lunch after that and enjoyed a quiet day at home together. Yay!

5. Asher's not broken. Backing up for a minute, the Friday before Deanna's wedding, during demo team practice, Asher injured his right heel. He was doing front flips and landed hard (twice). (He'd maybe gotten used to the springy floor at Mountain Kids where he teaches ninja classes...and Karate West has concrete floors with just one layer of mats over that.) Anyhow, in true Asher style, he still went and performed with the demo team the next day at the black belt promotion (at the same time as Deanna's wedding). And he went to work Monday and Tuesday. During all of that, though, he wasn't putting any weight on his right heel. Which makes things difficult given the givens.

So, on Wednesday, with him still not putting any weight on it, I took him to get x-ray'd to rule out a hairline fracture or anything. Urgent Care helped us with that (hooray for Urgent Care...Asher's been there a number of times, lol) and confirmed that nothing is broken. Whew. 

(Apparently it's just a deep bone bruise and is finally starting to feel better. I think just knowing for sure that it's not broken--so using it isn't risking making things worse--helps.)

6. Philippe's. That brings us to Thursday's date lunch...when Nathan and I remembered we have a giftcard to Philippe's and enjoyed a yummy lunch there. :) Happy sigh.

7. Fancy Bits. And then last night we were invited to a backyard band performance featuring Fancy Bits. A number of fellow boot campers were there, and it was lovely to see them in person and visit. Kicking myself for not taking a picture but many thanks to Susie for inviting us all!

And that's some of what's been going on here. Hope your July is similarly going well!