Right now

Right now...* 

*(an occasional (mostly monthly) meme, alternating from time to time with "The Current"). (Explanation of how this started & my inspirations in my first "Right now" post, here. Also my first "The Current" post, here.)

Pandemic diary/update: September was month #42 (exactly 3 & 1/2 years) since the COVID-19 pandemic began... and the numbers are on the rise again...  :(  We remain covid-free (knocking wood, loudly...), and continue to mask in most stores and other public places, especially where there are a lot of people. (I'm more diligent/consistent in this respect than dh...!). 

September was a transitional month for us.  The early part of the month was still busy, with end-of-summer/long weekend socializing and cramming in last-minute time with Little Great-Nephew. Then, on Sept. 11th, he started school (!)(junior kindergarten) -- and SIL started a new full-time job.  BIL got permission to drive again about a week later, so dh's chauffeuring services were no longer required. Suddenly, our time was (mostly) our own again...! (albeit we were still pretty busy!)   

Among other things this month, we: 

• Saw Little Great-Nephew at BIL & SIL's house on Sept. 5th & 7th (a few days before he started school!), and at dh's cousin's cottage at the end of the month.  
• Also saw him at home on the Sunday of the Labour Day long weekend (Sept. 3rd) -- along with BIL & SIL, his parents, Younger Nephew, his wife and Little Great-Niece, SIL's two brothers and their wives/partners, her niece, the niece's husband and their little boy (age 6). We drove BIL there and he & SIL back home again. 
• Spent Labour Day Monday (Sept. 4th) at dh's cousin's house along with most of the other cousins from that side of the family -- mostly outside (despite extreme heat & humidity that left me, for one, feeling pretty wilted!). We drove BIL & SIL there.
• With SIL back at work and BIL still not allowed to drive (until mid-month), dh took BIL to the lab for bloodwork on Sept. 5th, to a medical appointment on Sept. 13th and to the supermarket on Sept. 14th.
• We walked over to a nearby lab for our own bloodwork at a nearby lab on Sept. 6th, in advance of...  
• ...Checkups with our family doctor (back in our old community) on Sept. 18th. My pre-visit bloodwork indicated rising cholesterol levels -- erk! -- time to cut back on fat and increase fibre -- although the rest of the results were pronounced "stellar." I also had my first Pap test in a while.
• Stopped off at the supermarket en route home for groceries and some takeout soup and focaccia for dinner. 
• Visited Katie at the cemetery (and changed her niche decorations to a fall theme), had haircuts back in our old community on Sept. 22nd, then stopped at the supermarket en route home to pick up some takeout soup & pizza slices for lunch, all on the morning/early afternoon of Friday, Sept. 22nd.  
• Got to see Little Great-Niece and her parents for the first time in a month (since her baptism in late August) at BIL & SIL's house on Wednesday, Sept. 27th. It was her 7-month birthday!  :) and (of course) she was adorable!  :)  (Dh has been out with BIL, but we hadn't seen SIL since the last time we saw Little Great-Nephew, on Sept. 7th.) 
• As we've done for the past two years in late September/early October, we spent a weekend (well, two days/one night -- Sept. 29th & 30th) at dh's cousin's cottage with BIL & SIL -- with the addition this year of Older Nephew, his wife and Little Great-Nephew. :) 
• Stopped at a supermarket in a town along the way to pick up a couple of things. 
• Made other shopping trips to Chapters (bookstore) and the drugstore (Sept. 11th); the nearby mega-outlet mall (Sept. 12th -- mostly masked, except for early lunch in the food court); Homesense, Rooms & Spaces (the Canadian successor to Bed Bath & Beyond), Staples and Dollarama -- all in the same "big-box" development -- and the drugstore (to pick up a prescription)(Sept. 19th); and the liquor store, Michaels, Chapters, Carters/Oshkosh and the drugstore (Sept. 26th).  

25 years ago, in September 1998,  I found myself "home alone and still trying to make sense of what had just happened to me"(as I write in the post linked below) -- dealing with (among other things) how to account for my absence at work, my return -- and then my departure again, two days later, when my grandfather died (!);  my post-partum checkup and discovering a whole new world of "real-life" and online pregnancy loss support groups. 

• September/October 1998: Home alone (warning: another long one...) 
• (I think this was the last of my "10 years later" posts, written monthly in 2008 -- this was actually written & posted in October.) 

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Also right now:  

Reading: I finished 4 books in September (reviewed on this blog, as well as Goodreads & StoryGraph, & tagged "2023 books").  

• "Tom Lake" by Ann Patchett. (My review.) 
• "The Giver" by Lois Lowry. Lori Lavender Luz and her co-hosts at Adoption Unfiltered discussed this book via Zoom on Sept. 28th.  (My review.) 
• "The Last Devil to Die" by Richard Osman (Thursday Murder Club #4!). (My review.) 
• "The Farm" by Joanne Ramos, for Lyz Lenz's Men Yell At Me Substack newsletter book club. I'm kind of late to the party -- I finished just after the last topic was posted -- but it's a book I've wanted to read for a while now, so I made an effort to get through it before the discussion ended!  (My review.) 

This brings me to 36 books read to date in 2023,  80% of my 2023 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. :)  I am currently (for the moment, anyway...!) 3 books ahead of schedule to meet my goal. (I also started the month at 3 books ahead of schedule.)  

Current read(s): 

• "The House on the Cliff" by D.E. Stevenson (with my DES group. I'll count this one as a re-read once the group finishes its chapter-by-chapter discussion, in late December.).(My original review.)   
• "The Blue Castle" by L.M. Montgomery. My LMM Readathon Facebook group read this book together back in fall 2020, and our group admin -- who is taking a well-deserved summer break -- is re-running posts related to this book over the summer/early fall.  It's one of my favourites, not just of LMM's novels, but of any book I've read ever. (Reviews here, here and, from an earlier book-related post, here.) I am following along, chapter by chapter, and will count this as a re-read when we we're finished.   
• "Living the Life Unexpected" by Jody Day.  Re-reading (for the 5th time, I think!) and discussing one chapter per month (for the second time) with a group of other childless women within the private online Gateway/Lighthouse Women community. If & when I/we complete the full 12 chapters (likely early in 2024), I'll count it as a(nother) re-read. We recently covered Chapter 6. I missed that discussion, but hope to take part when we cover Chapter 7 in mid-August! (My most recent review -- with links to previous reviews -- here.) 

Coming up: Most of my book groups have their next reads plotted out for a few months in advance -- and listing them here helps me keep track of what I should be reading next. ;)  

• For my Gateway/Lighthouse Women Nomo book club: 
• For October: "Over the Top" by Jonathan Van Ness
• For November: "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie" by Alan Bradley (my suggestion! -- a book I love, albeit one I read before I started reviewing books on this blog, so I don't have a review to point you to!)  
• For my D.E. Stevenson group:  This list of upcoming books should keep us busy through 2024, and into 2025!  (A couple of the books are ones we covered when I first joined the group back in 2014 -- you know you've been around for a while when....!)  
• Bel Lamington 
• Fletcher’s End
• Miss Buncle’s Book
• Peter West 
• Miss Buncle Married
• The Two Mrs Abbotts
• Crooked Adam 
• The Four Graces

• For Lyz Lenz's Men Yell At Me book club: "Ex-Wife" by Ursula Parrott -- considered scandalous when it first published in 1929!  Discussions on this book will start in November, with questions posted every Thursday. Most MYAM newsletter discussions are for paying subscribers only, but the book club comments will be open for anyone who wants to participate. (Hint, hint.)  :)  Details here. (CHECK)
• For the Notes from Three Pines (Louise Penny mysteries) Readalong: The last discussion was for book #3, "The Cruellest Month," posted June 7th.  So far, no word on when we can expect a discussion of book #4, "A Rule Against Murder" (reviewed here). Meanwhile, I recently finished #5 ("The Brutal Telling," -- see above), and book #6, "Bury Your Dead," is on the horizon as one of my next reads...! 

(Nora McInerny of the podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking, has also started a book club via podcast & Substack chats. She's been featuring some really interesting-sounding books too -- but I figure I can go back & listen to the relevant podcast episodes when I actually have time/get around to read those books...!)  

A few recently purchased titles (mostly in digital format, mostly discounted ($5-10 or less) or purchased with points):  

• "Empress of the Nile" by Lynne Olson 
• "The Myth of Normal" by Gabor Mate 
• 'The Whalebone Theatre" by Joanna Quinn 
• "The Improbability of Love" by Hannah Rothschild 
• "Hags: The Demonisation of Middle-Aged Women" by Victoria Smith 
• "The Bird Hotel" by Joyce Maynard 
• "Blind Ambition" by John Dean 
• "Foster" by Claire Keegan 

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Watching: Lots of great webinars, both live and later on video, from World Childless Week. You can check out the offerings (from this and previous years) on the WCW website and on its YouTube channel. 

Adoption Unfiltered's Zoom discussion about "The Giver" by Lois Lowry on Sept. 28th (mentioned in my review here).  It will form part of their next podcast, out shortly! 

Listening:  No podcasts lately (despite a huge queue...!).  

Heardle Decades: Stats as of Sept. 30th:  

• Heardle 60s:  78.0% (288/369, 124 on first guess), up slightly from last month. Max. streak: 15. 
• Heardle 70s:  77.3% (85/110, 51 on the first guess), up slightly from last month. Max. streak: 7. 
• Heardle 80s:  34.0% (73/215,  35 on the first guess), down slightly from last month. Max. streak: 6. 
• Heardle 90s: 37.05% (40/108, 10 on the first guess), way down from last month. Max. streak: 4. 

Following:  Garrett Bucks and Connie Schultz on Substack (unpaid subscriptions, so far...!). 

Eating/Drinking: WAY too much at both Older Nephew's house and dh's cousin's over the Labour Day long weekend!  One cousin's husband manages produce for a local supermarket chain, and arrived bearing several flats of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, as well as a carton full of melons. Everyone left with fruity "loot bags,"  lol. (The strawberries in particular were delicious!)  

Also WAY too much at dh's cousin's cottage on the weekend of Sept. 29th/30th. We had lasagna, sausage, potatos & peppers on Friday night for dinner, barbecued flank steaks with salad for lunch the next day, and liberal amounts of wine and coolers, lol.  

Baking/cooking (related to the above!):  I made not one, not two, but THREE pans of "Scotcheroo" treats (Special K cereal, peanut butter, syrup/sugar, topped with melted chocolate and butterscotch chips) -- for the long weekend family gatherings at Older Nephew's and dh's cousin's house, as well as to take to dh's cousin's cottage. I brought them to the cottage last year, and everyone loved them -- the cousin's teenaged son in particular, lol (I left the leftovers with him!).  I also made a crunchy coleslaw salad for the two long weekend gatherings.

Buying (besides books, lol):  We went to the mall on Sept. 12th & I went a little nuts in the children's wear stores (lol), scooping up cute stuff for Little Great-Nephew, Little Great-Niece, and Little Princess #3 (Parents' Neighbours' Daughter's new baby, whom we'll be meeting soon!), at The Children's Place, Old Navy and Gap, some of it Halloween and Christmas themed (yes, already!). (I couldn't resist buying matching Christmas PJs for LGNiece & LGNephew, lol.)    I also picked up a couple of T-shirts for both dh & me at Lucky Brand. (Since returning to the mall, post-pandemic, I have yet to make the full circuit around the mall, I think!  -- I'm out of practice!  lol  One of these days, I'll get there...!)  

Another shopping expedition to a local big-box development yielded a cherrywood salad bowl (hostess gift for our cottage weekend) at Homesense, printer ink cartridges and other office supplies from Staples, and odds & ends from the dollar store. 

And, late in the month, I indulged in some online shopping for myself -- some longsleeved V-neck and henley T-shirts from both the Gap and Old Navy.  :) They arrived just before we headed up to dh's cousin's cottage.    

   

Wearing:  My days in capris and sandals are rapidly coming to a close as the temperatures drop...!  I'm still wearing them -- but by mid-September, I had to start wearing slippers around the house again, and I had to put on my cardigan one night!  Time to turn on the furnace soon!  

Not wearing:  My wristwatch! I realized, when we got to the cottage on Friday afternoon, that it had stopped around 3 p.m. My other watch's battery also stopped a while back. Time to get to the mall and get them replaced. I just took off the watch & put it away -- no point in having it on when it's showing the incorrect time every time I look at it -- but it feels really weird without it. I've worn a watch more or less every day since I got my first wind-up Timex from my parents for my 8th birthday.  :)  

Enjoying: Having a little more time to ourselves again (although we sure miss Little Great-Nephew...!).  Shopping for for both Little Great-Niece and Little Great-Nephew, as well as Little Princess #3. 

Noticing:  The first hints of fall colours starting to emerge hereabouts. They were gorgeous at dh's cousin's cottage (further north and east of here)  when we were there!  (SIL remarked that they seemed to become even more colourful overnight while we were there!).  

Also starting to notice a few more people wearing masks in the stores again.  Not a lot -- but a few more than there have been lately... 

Trying:  To visit dh's cousin/godson & his wife and see their "new" baby (born in early February!)(and bring a gift, of course...!). His mother made it known she was not pleased that they hadn't had many visitors from the extended family (eyeroll), but hey, it's been a pretty busy summer!  (Of course, NO ONE from either side of dh's extended family have bothered to visit US in our "new" condo yet, and we've been here SEVEN YEARS now... but, I digress...!)  We bought a gift and have been trying to co-ordinate a visit for several weeks now, along with a couple of dh's other cousins, but it's been hard to find a mutually agreeable weekend. It will now have to wait until mid-October, when we get back from visiting my parents. (Hopefully the clothes I bought for the baby will still fit him by then...!).   

Appreciating: The hospitality of dh's cousin & his family for hosting us at their beautiful "cottage"/lake home every year around this time for the past three years. We all look forward to it so much!  

Wanting: A little less drama in my life than there has been lately...!  

Wondering: What Little Great-Nephew is doing at school and whether he's enjoying it (and whether he ever thinks about us or misses us...?? -- we sure miss him!).  (We did get to see him this weekend, but I wrote this before then!) 

Prioritizing: Getting ready to head west to visit my parents & sister for a week over the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend (and the week afterward). 

Hoping:  That I'll get to see my aunt & godmother while I'm in Manitoba. It's been a couple of years since I last saw her. She lives about a 60-90 minute drive from my parents, and it's been a couple of years since I last saw her.  (My other aunt lives in the city proper, and I haven't seen her in a few years either.) We always have good intentions, but time always flies whenever we're there.  She's turning 90 (!) shortly after our visit, and her kids are throwing her a big birthday party at a restaurant in the city. My mother thinks we should change our tickets and stay an extra week in order to attend and see some of the extended family, but (for various reasons) I don't want to do that. We'll be back again in December for Christmas, likely for another two weeks. 

Loving:  This time of year (i.e., fall -- even though I know winter is coming next...!). 

Feeling: Missing Little Great-Nephew :(  but also grateful for the time we got to spend with him these past few years. Thankful that BIL & Older Nephew are continuing to recover from their surgeries.  Looking forward to heading "home" to see my family shortly, for the first time since last Christmas.  A little deflated after our recent cottage weekend (which I will try to write more about shortly...).