For weeks now, it has been difficult to compose my thoughts for a decent post. Work requires great effort to get through each day, and leaves me mentally and emotionally fatigued by the end of my work day, such that the only words I have to share are negative – and who needs more of that?

Still, I try to let go of everything when the clock hits quittin’ time (easier said than done) and focus on enjoying my non-work hours, few though they are.

It was a big summer here at Sassyland. We made our way through Septic repair, Tree removal, Electrical work, Basement redo and, finally a new Fence installation. While we have been incredibly fortunate to be able to have all this done (not without incurring much debt, I assure you) and all mostly went smoothly, with relatively few glitches along the way, it is a relief to have this summer’s projects done and behind us. Just in time to buckle down for winter.

We continue to enjoy our time home with the pups (who are not hating their 24/7 access to us in the least, by the way) and I am grateful for this opportunity to spend such quality time with them (although I hate the reason why.) They have yet to make their way to the newly refurbished basement to hang out with me during the day, preferring their other Dad’s office upstairs in which they’re used to spending their days. Probably for the better, since I’d just be distracted all day by their presence.

We have been stealing scraps of mornings, afternoons, and evenings working in our yard, as the weather allows, trying to get it back into shape before the cold and snow comes. It is quite a different landscape now from what it was pre-projects, but all of it good, save for the large swaths of dirt. However, we are pleasantly surprised to see how fast grass is growing on the barren patches of dirt that replaced our once green lawn, without our intervention. While we have never had our lawn professionally cultivated or treated in any way, we’ve always enjoyed a natural, fairly lush, full green lawn, and it will be nice to have that back. We’ve been promised rain, so we seeded the bare spots to move things along, in the hopes we see the fruits of our efforts come spring 2021. We also plan to add a few wild flowers here and there for a pop of color, and possibly try our hand at a bit of vegetable growing. We are neither of us green thumbs or gardening lovers, but we like the idea of spending more time outside and providing a little more TLC to our property. (In no small part due to the lovely new fence that has replaced the rotting, collapsing, ugly eyesore that once circled our dog playground.)

We have not relaxed our isolation in any way since March, so we have not gone out to restaurant, bars, shopping, or made any non-essential trips, aside from leisure drives to get out of the house (stopping nowhere beyond red lights and stop signs.) We have remained steadfast in our commitment to remaining secluded, safe, and sound as much as possible, but it leaves us very socially isolated. The small number of people we were including in our bubble dropped from 5 to 3, as family and friends made choices that increased their exposure and risk, forcing us to make hard decisions about our interactions with them. Not a judgement, just a fact. Our one exception is the BF and his hubby in Connecticut, with whom we share a “safe corridor” between homes, and even that is currently threatened by the growing spread and the current warning that travel between CT and NY is, while not outright banned, strongly discouraged at this time. We have plans to spend Thanksgiving and bring in the New Year with them, but any plans we make currently are made with the understanding that we may not be able to follow through, if things change for the worse. Quite a pickle we all find ourselves in these days, eh? Even planning for the holidays is fraught with apprehension.

I’ve been slowly working on completing my “Want List” of comic book back issues (70 issues from various series, at last count) to fill in the gaps in my printed comic book collection. For current books, I switched to buying/reading digital comic a couple years back because I ran out of storage room and, honestly, modern comic books have grown quite dark and unappealing to me, rarely providing the joyful escapism I find in comic books before the most recent Aughts hit, so any new books I want to own actual copies of are few and far between these days. But, I do still have a collection of 10,000+ printed books, and want to fill in the missing 70 issues. I have never collected for value, just my own personal entertainment, but I do keep my books bagged and boarded and boxed to preserve them as best I can. Many of the older books (from the 60s and 70s) are in less than pristine shape, because I choose to purchase “rough around the edges” older issues since they are much cheaper and I don’t enjoy reading them any less because of it. I pride myself that, while all my comics may not always be in the best condition – I do have (or will have) complete runs of all of my series (i.e. every issue ever printed for that series.) While locating the missing issues on-line is fairly simple, I much prefer the old fashioned in-person hunt in local comic store back issue boxes but, well, you know why that’s not happening again any time soon; and the easy to find, the remaining issues I need are commanding a hefty price, even the tattered and battered ones, so this won’t be a quick (or cheap) process.

We purchased a new futon for the basement, so it can now double as a guest room if needed, in case anyone has Kamilopardaliphobia and would not enjoy staying in the Upstairs guest room (aka “Giraffe Towers.)

This allowed us to move the small beige loveseat upstairs in front of the living room window

The BF was up for a quick visit Thursday – Saturday, and we put together my giraffe shaped puzzle, which I glued and is now drying upstairs on the dining room table.

We cut out carbs (again) 3 weeks ago. The weight is slowly coming down, which is very encouraging. Our newest discovery is a recipe for Chaffles. (Cheese Waffles.) Just two eggs and a cup of shredded mozzarella cheese mixed and cooked in a waffle iron for 6 minutes. These are perfect no carb substitutes for bread that can be used for anything: sandwiches, burgers, pizzas, tacos, even actual breakfast waffles. The Mozzarella is a bland enough flavor that it works with anything, but you can use different cheeses and spices to change the flavor up. I’ve also given up Cosmos (*choke*) for the time being, as the Cranberry and Triple Sec are loaded with sugar and carbs, so I’m sticking to Gimlets and Vodka Martinis which can be made carb free. (FYI: Raspberry vodka, liquid Stevia, and a squirt of lime juice is an AMAZING no carb cocktail.)

We dropped off our Absentee Ballots Saturday morning. New York allowed residents, who would not otherwise qualify, to request Absentee Ballots to limit risk due to exposure. So we received ours and read it over several times to make sure we completed it correctly. Our votes have never been more important. We had a little anxiety heading to the polling place to drop off our ballots, given the incidents of intimidation at polling places we’ve read about, but we arrived right when the poll opened, and had no problems getting in and out quickly to hand off our ballots, without incident. The line to vote was already HUGE, so here’s hoping all these people are voting to remove 45.

That’s about all the news I have to share. Alas, another weekend soon comes to a close. It has taken me 4 days to finish writing this post, which is probably how long it felt reading through it. I hope you are all well, safe, still employed, happily retired, or otherwise able to pay your bills, and able to connect with someone as needed. We are all in this together, whether we like it or not.

Safe Distance Air Hugs, all. Please vote! Our lives, economy, planet and futures depend on it.