Monday, Nov 30
I slept in until 8:30 a.m. It’s snowing but changing to rain and John went out to feed horses before the rain starts. I spent a fair amount of time doing beginning of the month maintenance on my computer accounts, and a lot more time soaking and cleaning dishes to put in the dishwasher.
The sun came out, snow & rain stopped, and John went out to work until coming in for a late brunch, but we didn’t finish until almost 2:00 p.m.
I sent my thank-you email messages for photos posted in our last week’s blog.
Whoopee! Dishwasher loaded and started at 3:06 p.m.
Supper: Steak stir-fry with carrots and onions and a sliced half yellow apple. PowerAde, hot peach pie with ice cream for dessert.
Lots of work on planning for tomorrow using the web, and on working on email from a number of friends about a number of different topics.
The total number of robocaller connections: Nov 30=1.
Nice way to end November, with a photograph of Mt. Rainier by a daughter of Lee Kiesel; a friend from Briarwood Commons. 
Some days “the Mountain is out”; some days it’s not. This view is what Cheryl Kiesel White sees from her Puyallup location. An amazing view of ‘The Mountain’. Puyallup {pew-AL-up} is 30 miles south of Seattle.
Tuesday, Dec 1
Get up early to take pill, and wait ½ hr. later, drink coffee milkshake. We need to be at our first two stops before noon.
Set up my external back-up for its noon backup. It completed the backup while we were gone.
This is our day for important errands, and we had many; review here. We’re using this symbol to indicate stops: ∞∫∞ Our first stop was to drop off several boxes of groceries to a family at their house, who cannot drive because of being seeing impaired. ∞∫∞ Then on 2nd Avenue close to our next stop. ∞∫∞ Safeway, for a Just4U special, 89 ₵ head, Iceberg lettuce. ∞∫∞ then on down to the AAC to hand in and pick up materials for Thursday’s Game Day via Zoom, and deliver something else there too from last week’s game day.
Mid-afternoon snack: John had piece of peach pie and some small candy bars; I had 2 Reese’s peanut butter cups. Girl cats in new room had a bite of beef – very old 6 oz. from the freezer and now cooked for them.
Afternoon check in call from Gerald; he’s fine.
Supper: Leftover sirloin beef stir-fry with carrots & onions, yellow apples; John had a sausage patty.
Need to send links to study group, after capturing them in a Dropbox. I had severe trouble with Edge and Opera browsers on my computer, finally had to restart completely.
The total number of robocaller connections: Dec 1=3.
Wednesday, Dec 2
We are expecting the pick up of the trash bin today. Time: 7 am to 3 pm. Quite a wide window of time. John was out to open the gate at 6:45, but now it’s 9:00 and he needs to go through freezers for frozen food trash for the landfill.
I was up a couple times during the night with the dog, so I slept in this morning till 9:00 a.m.!
This morning I’ve enjoyed my coffee and milkshake (chocolate Ensure with strawberry yogurt), and gone out briefly to visit the cats in the new room.
John saved all frozen food we’d had in our freezers until this morning to load into the dumpster. It’s 11:00, and I must take my Acetaminophen. John got up in the dumpster and stomped on re-positioned boxes that cannot be showing out of the top rim of the dumpster. A cover has to go on.
Now John’s out trying to get a picture of the loaded dumpster. This was a comedy of errors. First, he went out with his own camera, climbed atop the old Chevy PU truck to get a better view from above, went to take the photo, and realized his camera battery was dead. He came in to get mine, I told him which buttons to push, and set it up for him to look through the viewfinder because he detests looking at the screen, with reflections. He went back out, climbed up again, and got a couple of photographs. 
Photographs on top are the setup, when John realized he had to come get my camera. The bottom is the filled 30 cubic yard dumpster.
Truck came about 1:30. The driver was pleased, loaded quickly and was off to the transfer station. Trash is weighed, and compacted in EBRG, then off to a landfill in East Wenatchee.
Gerald reporting in fine today, before 11:00. All’s well, just chilly for exercising outside, so he’ll walk around inside his house.
John brought a scratching log to the kitties. They weren’t impressed. Next, maybe is a carper covered post. Such are sold, but to cats use them? They are expensive. I plan to ask on the free-giving site for one from someone who may no longer need theirs. I’ve gotten so many great things free recently from those sites for moving the cats into the new room of our our house.
Brunch: John came in and fixed ham, scrambled eggs with cheese, and hash browns for our midday vittles. We gave a treat of white tuna (canned wild albacore) to the cats.
Our electrician, Todd, came by at 3:10 and worked 20 mins. and fixed our problem. The electrical power on the water heater in the horse’s water trough was not working. Two days ago it had over an inch of ice. He fixed it by replacing the old outlet with a new one. I’m supposed to look up ground fault interrupt (GFI); needed where water might be near.
I was very tired this afternoon, so I took an afternoon nap for well over an hour! Much needed.
Then, I worked on “duckduckgo” search tonight looking for research papers for Friday’s lecture on exotic terranes and the Baja/BC connection. Nick announced the topic for Friday’s lecture was going to be Plutons. So, I have gone back to finding additional research papers to share.
Supper: John fixed steamed rice, gravy with onions, fried ham slice cut-up, a serving of BBQ baked beans, and sliced apple. We each had a piece of heated peach pie with vanilla ice cream. 
Sun setting on Mt. Stuart from Manastash Ridge Summit, 45 miles away. [at 4:10 p.m., photographed by Andrew Caveness]
John went to bed early. to leave early in his Ford Truck for White Heron to deliver a pickup load of horse manure to be used in the Mariposa Vineyard.
I unloaded the dishwasher
Thursday, Dec 3
Mail isn’t being delivered until after dark. So, John retrieved the mail and my mail order meds, and opened the gate. Delivery was at 5:35 p.m.!
Early a.m. call from Gerald; cold over there, otherwise all is well.
John took care of the cats and horses.
He left (10:20) for White Heron with a full truck load of manure, his camera, and lunch. The very top of the vineyard was dug out for sand many years ago. When re-contoured, the replacement sand had very little organic matter. Most parts had about 100 years to grow a cover, and start a soil. The bottom image shows the location, with the Columbia River 600 feet lower. This is water impounded behind the Wanapum Dam, 25 miles away. 
Top are Cameron & John; bottom the excellent Tennessee Walking horse manure for the Mariposa Vineyard. The view overlooks the Middle Columbia Valley as it turns at West Bar and flows directly south. Top-dressing of organic matter isn’t the optimum solution, but it does help – seen by inspecting adjacent rows of treated versus untreated. This is the 3rd load; and we have more.
I’ve been working on study group Dropbox entries all morning, need to finish that. That allows me to create a set of research papers at a link to allow viewers to download directly onto their C drive, the PDFs, rather than sending individual ones through email that are 4 & 5 or more Mb large.
Attend Zoom Game day at noon. Get my prompts ready. It was a game called, Catchphrase. It was a fun game to play; I’m sure we will play it again before 2020 is over. Next week, we’re playing Yahtzee, another favorite.
Having my morning milkshake of chocolate Ensure with vanilla yogurt with game play and probably cup of coffee to warm up.
For lunch I had one of my famous salads, made with Iceberg lettuce, (only lettuce I’m allowed on Coumadin, smoked turkey cubes, pistachios, Cheez-its for croutons, and threw in some grape-size tomatoes that were awful. I took it out and visited with the cats in the new room, Sue and Woody (mother/daughter).
Supper: beef & onions, baked beans BBQ, steamed rice and gravy. Dessert: piece of fruitcake, Nick’s symbol or icon of exotic terranes.
Finished emailing all the research papers to new members of study group for Zentnerds. Only 3 more lectures to go after tomorrow at 2:00.
Need to call Panasonic support. My blocked call storage space has been filled. I think it allows 250 numbers. I hope I can delete the earliest ones in the system.
The total number of robocaller connections for Dec 3=2.
I loaded the dishwasher, but no time to run it until tomorrow morning. Taking my Acetaminophen and going to bed.
Friday, Nov Dec 4
I slept in until almost 8:00 a.m.; John was late getting up, after me! He says he’ll get up when Mr. Sun does.
I started trying to start the dishwasher, and it is not working to hold the soap in the dish when closed. It was raising my blood pressure so I made a cup of coffee and opened my computer. When John checked it, he found the same thing, so just closed and started it anyway. The dishes were fine when put in the washer and the hot water and soap in the bin will still produce clean dishes.
Our dog had us letting her out every two hours.
John is busy every morning cleaning the litter box and feeding, watering, and giving the girls some loving attention.
Coffee for me with chocolate Ensure milkshake with peach yogurt and I am enjoying it, while frustratingly filling in my Medical records for next week’s Medicare Wellness Exam.
I need to process my medical records from the portal at the hospital, in anticipation for next week’s visit for our annual physical and the background paperwork they need. Why they cannot access it from their portal is beyond me, but if I have to, and cannot locate something, I must call Medical Records at the hospital during weekday work hours. What do people without access to computers do? That was a PITA. Took me 17 mins to find out there are problems with their system. Wrong dates entered in the Medical Record, some procedures not entered at all. I was given a national support number to call, and they told me there was a 25 min. wait. I hung up. I called my pharmacy and got info on when we had our Shingles immunizations. I called radiology at the hospital; and found the CORRECT dates this year which were not entered in the system for my Bone Density test or mammogram. This is the portal for the same hospital for where they were performed. I knew it was this year, during COVID times. Those are now corrected on my form, but have not been corrected in the Portal records. How useless if they are updated incorrectly even within the same hospital where the test or surgery was performed.
Later, I’ll be getting ready for Nick Zentner’s Friday afternoon lecture at 2:00 p.m., when I start gathering pre-show comments at 1:00 p.m., actually, my computer is grabbing them now.
In between we have to have our lunch. I had a salad for my lunch, starting before 1:00 p.m.
Call from Gerald about 11:20; all’s well there.
We had some technical problems with YouTube today, and lost the first 18 mins of the start, so Nick had to restart a new livestream. The final outcome, made Take 2 require additional time (2 hrs 13 mins)
Nick Z, Take 2: #98 – Exotic W: Plutons
I worked on the blog.
Supper: Beef sirloin tip steak with onions, onion rings and apple slices. No dessert. I had fruitcake this afternoon for a snack.
The total number of robocaller connections for Dec 4=1.
Saturday, Dec 5
I had another restless night with many interruptions from animals and from my own inability to get to sleep. Maybe I’ll have to take an afternoon nap. I did nap for 45 mins quite late afternoon.
John took care of the cats in the new room, cleaned their litter box, and checked news via the computer there. Then he went out for the papers and the mail and to feed horses. I stayed behind working on cleaning up dirty dishes and loading the very full dishwasher. John’s out working for a couple hours in 26° temperatures; cool but nice, he says.
Late afternoon, I finally sent a note to the study group for Nick Zentner’s lecture tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. It has the link to the YouTube location and suggestions for a background study guide to previous research papers, and I remembered to add Nick’s recent audio Podcasts on Exotic Terranes.
John worked outside in the cold this morning and gathered the last of the needed rocks to fill the drip line trench at the edge of the carport. He raked leaves and pine needles and carried them to the garden. Then added a cart load of excellent Tennessee
Walking horse manure. Actually, he has added 3 or 4 carts of each (leaves, needles, manure) this week, and may till it if the surface doesn’t freeze. Coming Wednesday looks promising.
In cleaning out the freezer on Wednesday morning he found an old 4+ pound roast. He put that in the oven about Noon.
Then we had a midday meal of bacon, eggs, canned peaches in a little bowl, and toast of English muffin bread.
Supper: Oven roasted Sliced Beef Roast, Steamed rice with onion gravy, and a bowl of canned pears.
The total number of robocaller connections for Dec 5=2.
Sunday, Dec 6
Up all night off and on unable to sleep, and being awakened by our dog to go out; why can’t she go out the doggie door she has used for over 13 yrs? {John: she is finding the ramps more difficult than when she was 4.} I am going to need an afternoon nap, but first have to finish the blog.
I got up at 7:35 to fix my software and computer to collect information. Enjoyed a hot cup of coffee to warm up, to start my computer set up to load the needed software so it was ready to support and watch Nick Zentner’s 9:00 a.m. (this morning started at 8:42).
Nick’s lecture at 9:00 a.m. went long at 2 hr. 22 mins.
John came in from outside yard work, and fixed us a brunch: each an egg over easy, bacon for me sausage patty for him, piece of toast, bowl of canned peaches, & home fries. I had a small PowerAde drink.
I need to put all my medications for a week in a carrier for dispensing daily.
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan