You look so precious...

What I Just Finished Reading: Since last Wednesday I have read/finished reading: In a Dark House (A Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James Mystery) by Deborah Crombie and Seeing a Large Cat (An Amelia Peabody Mystery) by Elizabeth Peters.


What I am Currently Reading: After finishing the Amelia Peabody book on Monday I didn’t really feel like starting anything yesterday, but I plan on starting System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells today.


What I Plan to Read Next: I have more library books out, so most likely one of those!!

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Book 40 of 2025: In a Dark House (A Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James Mystery) (Deborah Crombie)

This book was really good!! ( spoilers )

I've already requested the next book in the series; I'm giving this one five hearts.

♥♥♥♥♥

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Book 41 of 2025: Seeing a Large Cat (An Amelia Peabody Mystery) (Elizabeth Peters)

This book was really good! ( spoilers )

I enjoyed this book a lot and must go request the next in the series. I'm giving this one five hearts.

♥♥♥♥♥

I spent most of the day at the hospital, which I talk about below if you want to skip it. I did some hand-washing of dishes and scooping of kitty litter when I got home. I finished the Amelia Peabody book while sitting in the waiting room. It felt weird when I was finally sitting on my bed, NOT to make my daily call to mom.

Temps started out at 59.2(F) and reached 75. It was weird coming out of the window-less waiting room (for trips to the cafeteria or restroom) to see that it was still light out.


Mom Update:

Thank you so much for all of your good wishes for mom's surgery yesterday! I really appreciate it.

( cutting for those who don’t want to read )

It's surgery day. All positive thoughts welcome. Thank you!!

Today was supposed to be parade/chicken dinner day at mom’s. Unfortunately, we had a huge amount of rain that caused ditches and creeks to overflow their banks. The parade was canceled because of flooding but the chicken bbq was still on so my siblings and I gathered at mom’s for chicken dinners. My brother came, when he doesn’t normally come for the parade and other festivities, because he wanted to see my mom before her surgery. We sat on the screened-in porch and listened to it rain outside, which was surprisingly nice when we weren’t getting wet.

I managed to do three loads of laundry, the usual amount of hand-washing dishes, and scooped kitty litter. I also watched the current ep of Resident Alien and an HGTV program, read some more Amelia Peabody, and still talked to mom on the phone. I also got extra sleep because I slept in until 8am for the first time in ages! (Going back to bed after getting the dogs back inside, of course.)

In bad personal news, we even had flooding at our home, which is unheard of because we’re not near any creeks. What happened, in two instances, was a matter of blocked drainage. The drain outside the basement got plugged, so our basement flooded for the first time ever. (Back when Hurricane Irene gave us about 13" of rain, a tiny bit of water entered the basement through a crack in the floor, but nothing before or since, until now.)

The other was the pond. Pip puts a mesh wire over the spill pipe in the spring so the baby geese don’t get sucked down it, and that mesh got blocked, so the pond built up until it spilled over the banks. A lot of fish were caught in the spill, unfortunately. And that’s in addition to the normal build-up of water we get in a line across the property (where the slight down hill from the house meets the down hill from the hill where the pine trees are). There was so much water.

Pip has been squeegeeing the basement, but a squeegee can only do so much. He’s going to have to jack hammer an actual hole into the basement floor for a sub pump and squeegee the water into it. What a pain in the ass. (Thankfully Pip had a change of plans! He’s going to try to vacuum the water out with a shop vac ~before he goes to the effort of jack hammering a hole in the floor!) He also had to go in the pond several times to unclog the mesh so the water could flow out the way it was supposed to. (In addition to the rain, the pond fills with run-off from the hill above it, and there was a LOT of run-off.)

Temps started out at 63.0(F) and reached 76.4. Thankfully the rain ended mid-afternoon and the sun came out.

I hit Agway while I was downtown (to pick up a GC for Pip’s dad for Father’s Day – I wanted to make sure I had it on hand because I don’t know what the next week is going to be like; for the same reason I picked up more dog treats so I’d have them on hand and wouldn’t need to make another trip anytime soon) and got in a short walk around the park.

I stopped by the library to return and pick-up books on the way to visit my aunt and deliver some checks to the nursing home (one for her personal savings account so she can continue to get things like pizza, massage (on her feet and lower legs because of the swelling), and hair appointments).

I stopped at Tractor Supply after visiting my aunt (Pip called; his usual supplier of corn for the geese and every other animal who eats it, let him down again), then stopped to see if the beef sticks had been restocked as I had been told they would be. Shocker, they hadn’t been. (TBF, they got more of the singly packaged sticks, but I want a bag of them. The person I talked to this time said they’d put it on the order. So I’ll check back next week.)

I did a load of laundry and the usual amount of hand-washing dishes, emptied the dishwasher, scooped kitty litter, and calculated & e-filed the quarterly sales and tire tax for the garage. (I wanted to have that done before everything happened with mom.)

I went on two short walks in the afternoon. Instead of doing the ‘crazy 8' I did a short-ish walk that I usually don’t do by myself. I’d seen flowers growing on the side of the road and was like, we have those! So I did the walk where I could see those flowers. Then I did another shortie when Pip got home and took the dogs for a walk to make up for not doing the longer walk earlier.

I got some more writing done!!!!! I added 1,100 words to my smallfandomfest fic. I also re-read All Systems Red because I’ve already forgotten some of the details and I wanted a refresher before I watched more of the show. I watched a couple HGTV programs and talked with mom.

I grilled Italian sausage for Pip’s supper; I had more French toast. What can I say? It hit the spot.

Temps started out at 70.7(F) and reached 88.2. There were some periods of straight sun, but also a lot of haziness, which helped keep the temps below 90, at least. The temps didn't get as high as yesterday, but there was more humidity. We were originally supposed to have thunderstorms today, but they’ve been moved back to tomorrow.

This one got long. Sorry about that. o_O

I had a chiropractic appointment and a pedicure this morning. I was relieved about the chiropractic appointment because my back started bothering me this morning in the shoulder blade area, to the point where I got up early because I couldn’t get comfortable and back to sleep. The pedicure was lovely and I chose a salmon-y color for my toenails.

I hit Price Chopper while I was downtown and Stewart’s (for milk) on the way to pick up the dogs. I got in a short walk around the park and did another ‘crazy 8' walk with the puppers (.50mi). (It’s a combination of two other trails that resembles a figure 8, hence the name. It’s my favorite and takes me around the pond and through the orchard.) I realized this morning that the next few weeks will be less than ideal for walking, since I’ll be going to the hospital the first week, then spending time with mom (split with my other two sisters), as she can’t be left alone for long because she’ll need help getting around and with the tubes.

(We’ve been told she’ll need care for three weeks, but we’ll see how that plays out in actuality. My one sister has already offered to take night duty and will be spending the nights with mom, so my other sister and I will just need to figure out the days. It helps that we won’t need to spend every minute of the day with her, so there’s some leeway for one leaving before the other arrives to take over.)

(Those who know me well know that I’m already dreading this, despite loving my mom very much. Not only the disruption to my usual schedule for an entire month, but also having to spend more time than I like ‘people’ing’. *bites nails*)

Speaking of my mom’s surgery, I have just found out from the surgeon (via my sister, the nurse) that the operating room has been reserved for ten hours. Ten frelling hours! For some reason, that makes me more nervous about the surgery.

In other unhappy-making news, I have sores in my mouth. The tongue sores from being burned by the pineapple went away and I had one glorious day without sores, and then, whammo!, more sores. I have a sore on the top of my tongue, inside cheek, roof of mouth, and at least two canker sores on the gum on the bottom front. I don’t know if it’s related to the pineapple, or if it’s from repressed stress, but I’m salt-water-rinsing like a fiend.

(I had a ball of anxiety in the pit of my stomach last night that kept me awake for a while, so another vote for general anxiety over everything that’s coming down the pike in the next few weeks.)

I did a load of laundry (more dog sheets), ran a load in the dishwasher and did the usual amount of hand-washing dishes, paid a bill online, placed an order online, wrote out checks for my aunt, baked chicken for the dogs’ meals, and scooped kitty litter.

I finished the Duncan Kincaid book, watched an HGTV program, and talked with mom.

I grilled steak for Pip’s supper and made French toast for myself before Pip got home (he likes French toast, but we haven’t found a good GF bread to make it with and I didn’t want him feeling left out, even though he was getting steak).

Temps started out at 62.6(F) (quite a difference from yesterday morning!) and reached 93.7. (I feel the need to remind everyone (myself) that this is the temp in the shade. It’s probably ten degrees warmer in the sun. *melts*) Pip put the AC in the bedroom last night.