#MicroblogMondays: Personal odds & ends

• We took a drive up to Older Nephew's on Sunday with BIL & SIL for a few hours. There are still some lovely colours on the trees... but we had some strong winds late last week, and more and more trees now have bare branches. :(   November is coming... sigh... 
• Dh & I both had our annual checkups with our family doctor this past week. We both had bloodwork done in advance, and received the results before we saw the doctor -- so we knew a lecture was coming (erk!).  He was very nice about it (we love our doctor!) -- but he made it clear we both need to lower our cholesterol levels and lose some weight -- i.e., make better food choices, exercise more -- and indulge a little less during the Christmas holidays -- or else yet another prescription will be in each of our futures :(  -- something we would obviously like to avoid. (Both of us had higher cholesterol readings vs last year, but dh's was up significantly -- my HDL/LDL ratio was actually better than his!) We'll repeat the bloodwork in January to see if there's been any improvement.   
• Since then, dh has been going through our refrigerator & cupboards with the zeal of a new convert, lol. I've been trying to tell him for a while now that we need to be buying and eating more fruits & veggies. He's been doing most of the grocery shopping since the pandemic started (and he kind of likes doing it without me tagging along and slowing him down, lol).  I think he'll be making some different choices now...! 
• BIL introduced him to an app called Yuka. You scan the barcode on a food label and it will rate it -- which products are good for you and which ones you should avoid (on a scale from "bad" to "excellent"). (Sometimes that's fairly obvious, of course -- but there are some surprises, too!)  Apparently it also does cosmetics & skin care products too. (Haven't tried that yet!)  Dh has been having no end of fun scanning everything in the cupboards, refrigerator and on the supermarket shelves since then, lol.  
• Want to bet dh will drop 10 pounds in the time it takes me to drop 2?  :p  (Isn't that always the way with guys and weight?) 
• So far, we haven't done much in the way of intentional exercise, but we're going to try to remedy that soon with some walking, on days when the weather is decent.  We've been a little more active/out & about this past week than we have been. It all helps. 
• On the bright side, my other bloodwork results were pretty good, and my blood pressure was excellent, especially for me: 120/82.  :)   
• (Speaking of blood pressure...) Older Nephew's wife gave us all a bit of a scare this past week. :(  She's pregnant (with another great-nephew!) and due in mid/late December; she'll be having another C-section just before Christmas. At her most recent ob-gyn visit, though, her blood pressure was abnormally high, and her ob-gyn sent her straight to the hospital to get checked out.  Fortunately, all was well;  mom & baby are fine. The doctor offered to support her in leaving work early to reduce her stress levels, and we're all glad she took the doctor up on that. She's now off work, on unemployment/disability insurance until the baby is born and her maternity leave benefits kick in.  
• I can't WAIT until the U.S. election is over (while dreading it at the same time). It is SO close (HOW??!!) -- the tension just keeps on building, and it's exhausting.  (And I'm Canadian!! -- it's not even "MY" election! -- although it most certainly affects us too.)  
• I'm seeing lots of posts from U.S. friends mentioning how they are "doing their postcards" -- writing and sending postcards to encourage total strangers to vote in the upcoming election. It's not the first time I've heard people mentioning writing postcards during election season either. I have no idea when or how it started (and I'd love to know if it's actually effective!) -- but it must be an American thing, because I have never heard of it being done in Canada (or elsewhere), and I have certainly never received such a postcard myself. (Lots of flyers and other promotional material from candidates and political parties, yes. Postcards from total strangers, no.) 
• I saw my FIRST Christmas commercial this past week -- on Oct. 24th!  (From Old Navy -- I also saw one from Wayfair.)  TWO MONTHS out from Christmas Eve!!  Good grief!! -- It's not even Halloween yet, people!! 
• I know some people object to Christmas ads, decorations, etc., until after Remembrance Day (Nov. 11th). I think that's respectful -- but I recognize that ship has long since sailed...!  But waiting until after Halloween is over? I don't think it's too much to ask...!) 
• I finally booked our flights west for Christmas. Ridiculously expensive (travel within Canada always is, at the best of times), but what can you do?  I should have done it earlier, of course, plus we'll be heading there a little later in December (and staying a little longer into early January) than we have in recent years. Obviously, the closer to Christmas, the more expensive it gets. Also, we tend to travel on weekends, which makes it easier for my sister & her partner to transport us from & to the airport, neither of us particularly likes taking red eye-flights, which tend to be cheaper, etc. etc.  Oh well. 
• Does anyone else find booking travel as stressful as I do?? Actually travelling, not especially -- and dh's particular stress point is waiting to board, especially when we're travelling with carry-ons only (will there be enough room left in the overhead bins by the time we get in there??) -- but I get very tense while booking flights. Am I choosing the best flight? departure time?? seats???  etc.  Am I keying things in correctly?  Am I making a horrible error that will be difficult and/or costly to correct??
• Plus, honestly, EVERY TIME I book a flight or check in online on Air Canada, they've changed something about the process.  The options are presented differently, the screens look different. This time around, I got one email to print off. No online summary that I could print, no PDF to save (which I always like to do). Sigh.  
• Let the holiday shopping begin!!  lol  

No links this time around... more soon! 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.