Cleaning the house

I've known for a long time that I'm a bit scattered. I'm easily distracted and often go from one thing to the next without finishing the first thing.
I've made it work over the years but it does sometimes hit me that I am really all over the place! For example, today I decided to clean entire house. Here is a partial rundown of how it went:

Get out steamer for shower. I hate cleaning the shower so why not start with the worst task.
Notice laundry. Take load of laundry to the washer and start it.
Start Roomba in laundry room while I'm there.
Go back to shower. Realize I forgot a part to be able to start the steamer.
Go to laundry room for part.  See that dryer has stopped.
Take clean clothes to bedroom.
Bed is not made. Make bed so I can set clothes on bed.
Never got the part for steamer. Go to laundry room for part.
Bring back part and plug steamer in.
Get out vacuum while steamer is getting heated up.
Vacuum guest room.
Remember that I wanted to move a picture that is currently hanging in guest room. Take picture down. Try to get nail out of wall...unsuccessful. Need hammer.
Go get container of miscellaneous stuff for hanging picture on wall and place on guest bed.
Notice that trash can in guest room is dirty.
Take trash can to bathroom and attempt to clean it with steamer (that is now ready)
Steam shower for a bit. Trash can not coming clean.
Take trash can to kitchen and fill with hot soapy water.
Finish steaming shower.
Put toilet bowl cleaner in guest bath toilet. (Not the bathroom I was working on. Don't remember what caused me to even go in there!)
Vacuum guest room and office.
Realize there are things in office that need to be put away.
Take books to front room.
See plants that need watering.
Water plants.
Think to self: just finish one thing Debbie!
Scrub guest bath toilet.
Back to office...I will finish vacuuming.
Vacuum for about 5 seconds. See neighbors outside chatting. Feel sorry for self for having no friends. (Ok ok, I know I have friends. Sometimes it just doesn't feel like it)
See comforter in the office that sister gave me that we never use.
Text sister to see if she wants it back.
Decide to sell mirror that is also in office. Think about asking Frank how much to ask for it on KSL. Realize I am out of control and still haven't finished one single thing. Will deal with mirror later.
Finish vacuuming office, hall and entry.  Begin vacuuming family room.
Find hair tie that needs to go to my bathroom.
Pick up hair tie and head toward bathroom...
end up on phone for a few minutes. No idea where hair tie is now.
Found hair tie!
Take to bathroom. Notice that steamer is still plugged in. Steam bathroom sinks because why not.
Frank's sink is running slow. Take a few minutes to unplug his sink/clean drain.
Unplug steamer because I am done with it (one task finished? Well, steamer is not put away yet)

It goes on in the same way for hours...

During the time that I was doing all this Frank was working in the yard.
We were both working the whole time but Frank was systematically doing all the things he wanted to get done on the yard. He started with weeding and does all of it including using the weed whacker thing around the whole yard, then cleaning out the black berries, mowing, trimming and cleaning up.  He now has a beautiful clean yard.
I, on the other hand, have a steamer to put away, one room that still needs to be vacuumed. Two clean bathrooms (go me!) and a dishwasher that was unloaded but only partially loaded for some reason.
The guest room and office still have various things around that need doing, but I did at least get them vacuumed. I still need to go get the hammer.

Travel

I was going to put the title of this post as "Travel Woes" but that sounds kind of spoiled. I am hoping to travel this summer, which is a blessing that I am even able to consider it!  So, no, I won't complain about that fact that I get to travel.
But, can I just complain a bit about the planning of such travel??
Here's the scoop:
My son and his wife live in Wales. I have not seen them in over a year now and I would really like to visit and see them and see where they live.
 I went to London once many years ago for a long weekend to celebrate my anniversary. Frank was there on business so we had a free hotel and his flight was free (to us). It was a great 4 days but that is the extent of my European/UK travels.
I don't really know what I should plan to see while I'm there (probably going for about a week). Since I have been to London I feel like I should try to see some other place...but where?
Also between our schedules and my son and his wife's schedules, we have just a limited number of times that work. The best one is mid July which is apparently an expensive time to go.
Woe.
I've been searching flights pretty much every day for weeks and weeks. They are super expensive (like $1200 per person for the cheap seats = no seat selection and other crap like that). I've been saving so in theory I could buy these tickets but then my money would be gone and I wouldn't have a hotel or anything else. Hmmm.
But maybe I won't have a choice.
So then I start thinking maybe I should go later like September. Unfortunately Frank's work travel usually ramps up in the fall so it feels risky to try to plan a fall trip.
I tend to overthink in general so this planning thing is really making me nuts.
How do people find good deals on flights?
Yes, I've joined some groups, I use a private browser, I use google flights and kayak and travelocity and expedia.  I feel like I'm doing all the things.  Which is probably partly why I'm feeling crazy.
But these kinds of searches are all just into/out of London. Should I be flying into London but out of someplace else?  Is flying into London a bad idea (price-wise)?
My knowledge of European geography is bad so I'm not able to easily think about flying into someplace because it's close to someplace else.  So you can add staring at maps to the list of things I'm doing to try to figure this trip out.

I've basically been googling flights every single day during my lunch break and in the evening. Flights have gone up a bit and then down a bit but always in the 1200-1500 range.  That is so much freaking money!  And I'll be in a middle seat for 10 hours overnight? ugh.

Anyway, I'll update when I actually bit the bullet and get a flight.  Whatever happens, I'll be so excited to see Austin and Katy! (That's what I really care about)

Rug shopping

I have taken too many pictures of my front room.

I have shopped online for rugs for too much time.

I have even gone to a few local stores (though not many due to *the foot*)

I cannot pick a rug.

First, buying a rug online is a big commitment! You don't really know what the color is. Sure it looks ok online but what about IRL?  And then if you don't like it...what? You have to ship it back?? That sounds awful. And expensive.

I'm not looking at high end rugs. I just don't have the cash for that. So it's not like I'm buying something that I expect to have forever. But still, spending up to $300 for something is a big deal in my world.

I have found that some websites allow you to sort of digitally put the rug in your space.  I like this feature a lot.  But I still just don't know what to get.  I'm not super rushed. I'm ok with waiting for the right  rug.  I'm just a little worried that I will never find it.

So if anyone reading this wants to help me out, here are some pictures of rugs in the space from different websites. Help!

First, here's a closeup of my curtain fabric:

I like this rug but haven't found a website that lets me see it "in the room"

I'm also considering this one for the entryway, which is connected to the living room, so it needs to have similar colors and go well with the buffet in the entryway.

Here's the entryway:

Some other views of rugs in the room:

Also, I know I need artwork and stuff but seems like I should pick the rug first? Right?

I really don't know what I'm doing...

It's all in your mind

Several months ago I decided to grow out my grey hair.

This decision took me a long time to make for some reason (maybe it's about accepting that I'm getting older?...I don't know why exactly).  I have a couple of friends who have gone grey and I think they look great but they have all silver/grey hair and I know that my hair is only partially grey. I wasn't sure how it would look.  I'm almost all grey at the temples and front of my head but mostly still brown in the back.  Somehow in my mind, having grey hair at the temples has always looked manly to me.

*And, yes, I spell grey with an "e". I can't seem to accept the spelling gray.*

But guess what? turns out that I don't mind my grey hair so far.

At first, my hairdresser put some highlights in so that when my grey started growing in, it wouldn't be so noticeable. Blondes are definitely luckier when it comes to this.  Grey hair really stands out against dark brown hair.

For years now, whenever my roots started growing in, I would be somewhere between annoyed and horrified. OH NO! Must get to the salon!  I look awful! I look old! etc etc etc

But since I decided to let the grey hair be grey hair...it doesn't bother me a bit.

It was all in my head. (ha!)  But seriously, I thought it looked awful or manly or whatever because I didn't want it there not because it actually looked awful or manly. Now that I've decided it's supposed to be there, well, it's just hair now.

It isn't all grown in by a long shot so I might change my mind about it at some point (which I totally give myself the right to do) but I'm actually kind of digging it right now.   My hair has a lot of different colors going on: darker brown, lighter brown, darker grey, lighter grey and even some that might be called white.  It's kind of cool.

I wonder what other things in my life are the way they are simply because of my attitude?

Engaged!

Carter got engaged to Harley Thorpe!

They have been dating pretty much since we moved here so they've been together a long time.
It's funny because we knew it was coming (he's had the ring for some time now) and he had told me that it would happen over spring break.

So once he did finally propose, in our minds it was like, "yep, they're engaged officially" but it's not like it was a big shock or anything.
We've just been waiting for it to be official.
So it didn't really occur to me to call anyone or text anyone when it happened.
I didn't want to post on facebook or anything until they had announced it themselves. I don't want to steal their thunder, ya know.

They called the parents that night and told us, which was fun! And they did put it on facebook. And Carter personally texted or told his brothers and maybe his grandparents (haha not actually sure about that).

Then, people in our neighborhood started coming up to us all excited "CARTER'S ENGAGED!" and we are like "Oh yeah, he is!" They sometimes seem surprised that we aren't going around announcing it and freaking out.

We even went to a family party and Carter asked me if I had told everyone. I told him that I assumed they had learned on Facebook but that it was possible that some people still didn't know. Oops!

I realized it was because in our minds, he's been engaged for awhile! Haha it just wasn't known to the whole world until this week.

We are excited and happy for them. They are a cute couple!

We don't know Harley's family well yet, but we really love Harley. (Her family raised a great girl and they love my son, so I am pretty sure they are awesome) I think our house is pretty boring compared to hers...she's still got siblings at home plus an adorable nephew...but she still comes over and we play cards and eat dinner or whatever. She's easy going and handles Carter's joking quite well! Being able to handle the Hill sense of humor is important if you're going to marry in.

The wedding won't be for about a year so don't go asking me about details yet! Lots of time to plan. (Not that I will be planning much...my job as mother of the groom is, I believe, to shut up and show up. Ha!)

Carter is a romantic at heart and he had a pretty big plan for proposing. They actually took a spring break trip to Europe and he proposed in Paris with the Eiffel tower in the background!  He had it all worked out to meet Austin and Katy in Paris and they all spent time together. Austin was on hand to catch a picture of the big moment.

When the proposal is big like that, I don't know how you deal with the honeymoon or anniversaries afterwards! haha He's setting a pretty high bar.

Congratulations Carter and Harley!

To Eternity and Beyond!

There's a first time for everything

Today, for the first time in my life, I paid someone to clean my house.
It's been 12 days since my foot surgery and I am still quite useless. I spend the majority of my day on the couch with my foot up on pillow, often with ice packs as well.
Frank has done a good job keeping up with food and dishes and laundry. But there's been no vacuuming and no one has touched the bathrooms either.
He has a stressful job and I just can't bring myself to tell him at the end of a long day when all he wants to do is watch a show and eat some dinner that he really needs to scrub the toilets.
And so I hired someone.
Two very nice women came cleaned my bathrooms and kitchen. They mopped (I really don't do that often enough), swept, dusted and vacuumed. The house looks awfully nice.
I felt weird sitting on the couch while they worked but at least I have a good excuse, what with the ace bandages and scooter and whatnot.
It's obvious that I'm not just being lazy.
If it weren't so expensive it would be tempting to have someone else do all those things I don't really enjoy doing. But I think this will likely be a one-off unless my recovery is much slower than I'm hoping.
It's funny how you notice things when 1-you have guests coming or 2-someone is coming to clean.
Suddenly you see how dusty everything is. You notice your gross microwave. You realize you don't mop often enough.
When it's guests, you get to work so as not to embarrass yourself.
When someone is coming to clean for you, you still want to tidy up for them, but it doesn't make a lot of sense. Since I was basically incapable of tidying up, it wasn't that hard for me. But Frank did find himself putting things away and emptying trash cans before they were supposed to show up.
That made me laugh, I gotta admit!

Foot surgery

Yes, I am having foot surgery in a couple of weeks. March 1st to be exact.
I'm nervous about the recovery and how I will manage my life while not being able to walk normally. When I met with the surgeon he spent a lot of time discussing the possible scarring I will have and I just kept thinking "who cares about that?!" It's my foot, not my face.  What I want to know is, will my foot stop hurting? Will I be able to walk and run? How long til I can walk normally again?

So, this all started years ago.  I remember going to a podiatrist with foot pain back in Massachusetts (so at least 5 years ago) and he told me I had sesamoiditis. Like tendonitis by my sesamoid bones (bottom of the foot, if you don't know). He gave me some shoe inserts and offered me a steroid injection which I declined.

Over the years this sesamoiditis has flared up occasionally. Whenever I get serious about working out, it comes right back and I end up on the couch where I really want to be anyway. I figured I knew what it was so I never went to the doctor.

But the pain finally got to be too much for me so I went to an orthopedic foot specialist. He x-rayed my foot and found that I have not only sesamoiditis but also two fractures. One in the sesamoid bone and one in the bone that goes to the big toe. Hmmm no wonder my foot hurts!

We did some things to keep the foot stable in the hopes of having some healing and he sent to me physical therapy. The pain never got any better.  So we followed up with an MRI.

Turns out that somewhere along the way, the blood supply to that little sesamoid bone was disrupted and now that bone has died.  Did you know a bone could just die? The tendons are inflamed and one is slightly torn.

So the treatment for this situation (called osteonecrosis) is to remove the bone. Apparently this little bone can be removed and there is not much of a problem. I don't totally believe this but that's what they say.  If the other sesamoid bone dies (there are two) then I will have a bit more of a problem since they act as levers for the big toe.  So, once I recover from surgery I have to wear inserts to take some of the pressure off of those bones for the foreseeable future. I have high arches and very tight calves which contribute to me putting more than the normal amount of pressure on my sesamoid bones.  Who knew?

Because of my painful foot, I have been altering my gait without realizing it and I have developed pain in that knee as well as pain and tendonitis in that hip.  I am a mess, I tell you!  The physical therapist says that being in a boot will likely exacerbate those conditions.  So by the time my foot is improving, I will likely have some work to do to get my knee and hip feeling better too.

I'm just dreading the whole thing!  But my foot hurts enough that I'm willing to go through it.

It makes me feel old.  And it makes me wonder if I should just accept being a pudgy middle aged woman rather than imagining myself becoming an athlete again.  I swear it wasn't that long ago that I could do stuff...bike, swim, run, lift weights etc.  That's not how it is right now and it sucks.

But also, I love being a couch potato.  It's a conundrum.