Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Life is a Highway...

 

Image courtesy Wikipedia.

Have you seen Hamilton? The Broadway production now showing on Disney+...

DD loves the production, and I've gotten suckered into watching a few scenes now and then, but had never sat and watched the whole thing start to finish.

Until a couple of weeks ago. I'd been reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill again and in one chapter he discusses the Stock Market crash of 1929 and its cause, so I did a Google search on that, and then somewhere in conjunction with this mini research jaunt, I read that, while we learn how important Thomas Jefferson is in our history, Alexander Hamilton played a crucial albeit more background role in the forming of our nation. Which led me to sitting and watching Hamilton from start to finish.

And isn't Lin-Manuel Miranda amazing too? He wrote the book, wrote the score, and played Hamilton himself in the original production!

Image courtesy Wikipedia.

And then, wouldn't you know, DD learned that Hamilton is coming to Dallas and will be performed at the Winspear Opera House--guess who's going? :0) We have tickets and a parking pass. Now, sadly, Lin-Manuel Miranda is not performing in this particular production, but it ought to be a fantastic watch anyway.

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Back to Doing...

Last post I reported that the to-doing had tapered off, and so it had. BUT! I've been really working hard to get back to getting things done despite the changes in my schedule and routine.

I also have motivation--a friend of mine is coming to visit and she's a pretty meticulous housekeeper. And while I can't get the whole house to a level of clean that's I'd prefer, there are some rooms (guest room, anyone?) that I can definitely make nice. 

So I am doing again while trying to build up strength and stamina.

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The bursitis I experienced last year seems to be a thing of the past, thank goodness. The Hinge Health physical therapy regimen has worked wonders and I'm super pleased with its efficacy. If you have Blue Cross Blue Shield, I highly recommend it. There are several areas (hips only being one) to choose from.

I've also added yoga back to the mix. I alternate my Hinge Health routine with the yoga and the yoga has added a new level of challenge. And it feels good.

The next thing to conquer is the bad eating habits we've fallen into once again.

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And after four and a half years, I've finally seen my dear friend N in person once again. We met for lunch this past Saturday, and it was so lovely so sit and chat and catch up.

So good to see you, N!!

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Image courtesy of Amazon.

Started reading The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel and it's super interesting. He talks not about psychology mumbo jumbo, but about what drives people to make the decisions they do about money. He's divided it up into twenty items / chapter, and there are a couple of them where I felt like he was speaking directly to me... *Jen makes notes to not forget those points.*

As I said, very a interesting read and I highly recommend it.

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And that's all I have for this edition. Have a super week.

Catch you later!

 

Monday, February 12, 2024

Buc-ee's Here We Come

 

Last summer, I'd planned / hoped to have DD and my March Buc-ee's Road Trip fully funded by December 31st 2023. Well, that didn't happen, buuut...it will be fully funded* by the time we hit the road. And I'm not counting any of the money from Mom's house. I've also got a line item in the personal budget to fund next year's trip starting in March.

* I won't have 100% of the money in hand, but once I finish a proofing job, I will. It's just that I probably won't finish the job and get paid until after our trip.

And not only is there a line item for our Buc-ee's Road Trips, there's also one for my annual road trip to visit my family. I'm excited to stop going into debt while taking these trips.

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I watched this a couple of weeks ago and I highly recommend it. It's a bit sad and a bit bittersweet and hit a little too close to home, but it's really, really cute just the same.

The tag line is "It's never too late to chase a dream." It spoke to me...does it speak to you?

Anyway, the main character, Martha, became a cheerleader as a senior in high school but had to immediately drop out to care her mom who'd gotten sick. Fifty years later, she herself gets a cancer diagnosis. She decides to forgo chemo and move to a retirement community as she never married and doesn't have children.

One of the rules of the community is that you have to join a club, but there are no clubs of interest so she's encouraged to start her own. She ends up starting a cheerleading club with seven other senior women. They encounter a variety of obstacles but eventually overcome, and the journey is a lot of fun and amazing.

If you check it out, let me know what you think.

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Remember all the to-doing I was doing and going to do? Well, less of that is happening now. We implemented some changes at the office, so I'm working till five these days. It took a few days to adjust, but now I'm handling the extended hours pretty well, but yoga and cooking and cleaning lost their time slots, so now I've got re-think things. I'm not keen on shifting all the cleaning to the weekends, but I may not have a choice.

I did start to do yoga on the non-Hinge Health days (for the hips/bursitis) and that seems to be working well. It's not the every-day yoga practice I was going for, but it's a good compromise. And to be honest, I was having issues remembering to yoga on the weekend afternoons when we're all home and hanging out. And even if I remembered, it would have been weird to put whatever we were in the middle of on hold so I could do yoga for twenty minutes. :0)

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And last but not least--I got my car back! It was in the shop for 2.5 weeks getting fixed. Did I mention I got rear-ended right before Christmas? Well, I did, and now it's fixed and it's soooo nice to be back in my own vehicle.

Hope you're well. Back in a couple of weeks. Take care.