Willow Weekend Getaway

By now you all know that we go on little mini vacations each month. This is kind of a requirement for our mental health, but also just a fun way to get out and see more of our home state. I try to pick places we’ve not been to yet for most of our summer getaways, sticking closer to home in the winter months.

It started out as a winter thing: he likes to go skiing but didn’t want to leave me behind for a weekend, so I went with him and just hung out at the hotel or wherever. Eventually, we started renting from AirB&B or VRBO so that we had our own kitchen. And that soon turned into a Once-A-Month thing.

We have gotten quite good at preparing for these mini vacations: I have a generic list of things to remember to bring with us, a generic proposed menu, and several totes filled with various items we may or may not need, depending on where we’re going. For example, one tote has our monitor, a portable DVD player, a set of speakers, and all the cords you could ever possibly need to hook everything up. I just pick out a handful of movies, grab that tote, and we’re good to go!

Meals are always a priority (of course) and we have several staple recipes to choose from: Brussel Sprout Hash or Baked Oatmeal for breakfast, Steak & Mushrooms or Spaghetti for dinner, that sort of thing. Once we decide on the menu, then we have to pack the ingredients together – one tote with dry goods, the other tote with items that need to be kept cold. On very rare occasions we have to make sure to bring that special pot or pan required to cook the meal: either that or just plan on making do with whatever we find at the place we’re renting that time.  

This weekend we ended up out in Willow, about 26 miles north of us and a good 15 degrees colder. Our hosts run a team of dogs, have a little café/coffee shop, and offer up this sweet spot for tourists (and locals) to hang their hat for a while. They were very accommodating, making sure we had everything we might need up to and including tons of firewood for the woodstove! We were very toasty warm – almost a little too warm sometimes!

They also let me bring the kittens with us, which made me very happy. I love having them around as I tend to worry too much about them if they have to be left behind. They travel quite well and seem to enjoy exploring the new places we go, and I always try to remember to bring some toys and a scratching post for them along with their blankets, their litter box, and some special treats for them to eat.

This was a holiday weekend, so we extended our stay an extra day – we arrived on Friday and didn’t have to leave until Monday! Plenty of time to work on the projects we brought with us: card making for me, computer work for him.

A Halloween to Remember (NOT)

One of the advantages of being a writer is that you get to choose which reality you write about, in effect changing history! I am claiming that right at this time, because I simply do not want to remember the horrible events that took place this year – and choose rather to focus on the tiny bit of happy events instead. Suffice to say that we may not ever have Halloween at our house again.

It started out quite well. He got full-size candy bars to hand out to the kids. We got pumpkins carved to put out on the front porch. Mother even helped sort out the seeds so that I could roast them (let's be honest: he roasted them for me).

And this is where I’m going to stop. It just went downhill from here on out, so I choose to edit that part out.

*Edit to Add: a person with Dementia/Alzheimer's needs an environment that is calm and routine. The excitement of having over 100 strangers ringing our doorbell that night was too much for Mother to handle. She had a very bad episode. We will not be putting her through that again, ever.

Soft Water

We have had issues with the water in this place since we moved in here back in 2018. We’re on City Water, which apparently is what you’d call “Hard Water,” meaning that it leaves a coating of calcium on everything it touches. Over time this builds up to the point where either it flakes off in big chunks or it clogs up the appliances so bad that you eventually have to buy a new one. We are currently on our third dishwasher and our second fridge.

We finally threw the towel in, however, after having both our Fridge and our dishwasher brake down on us at the same time. A quick call to Paragon Mechanical got us on their books to install a new Water Softener! This is not a cheap fix, by any means – but hopefully it will be money well spent if we never have to buy another dishwasher again! After replacing this broken one, of course.

You might recall that we had a new water heater installed a few years back (July of 2022 to be exact) which required that the two old ones be removed. One of those old hot water tanks was in our Laundry Room and the other one was down in the crawl space; both were replaced by one new one in the garage. The space left behind in the Laundry Room was supposed to be filled with shelving for my canning supplies, but it turns out that THAT is the optimal place to put a Water Softener system, so I no longer get to have new shelving.

Paragon Mechanical is very good at what they do: the two guys working on our little project were very professional and efficient, also both were very polite and considerate of Mother who “supervised” their every move. I have to admit, however, that what really endeared them to me was that they truly loved my Viktor – who absolutely LOVES to do “Guy Stuff” and helped out all day long.

So now we have this spiffy new water softener system and are finally going to replace our broken appliances, using the Black Friday sales event coming soon. Honestly, I just want the spending to stop for a while. Please! We’ve spent so much money on this place…