Sep. 12 - Skipped Into Halloween Mode?

I've mentioned that I have totally lost my fall vibe because of everything disrupting my quiet, happy routine.  Well I've realized now that as things are starting to settle back down I seem to have jumped right into Halloween mode.  I even watched a good part of The Omen yesterday when I stumbled across it on TV.  I'm going to try and resist diving into pumpkin stuff and spooky movies, try to keep going with my 'early fall' season of apples and leaves and getting cozy.  But really, what kind of craziness is happening in my brain this year?

Yesterday was okay with my mom.  She came along shopping with me because she wanted to try for a hair cut again.  We go to the Cost Cutters that is pretty much next door to the grocery store.  Seems they are really pushing for making appointments now instead of just taking walk-ins.  One of the biggest reasons we've gone to this Cost Cutters all these many years is because they only did walk-ins, would not even take appointments.  That's changed now and you can book ahead of time online, which is fine, but now they seem to really really be pushing that way of doing it.  So once again, we didn't get haircuts yesterday because they claimed the wait would be nearly two hours.

Yeah, I gave in and made appointments for us.  We'll go back Friday morning since I have to go pick up prescriptions anyway.

Hubby and I watched a tiny bit of the Bills-Jets game last night, enough to see Aarogant Rodgers go down in the first series and go into drama diva mode.  Ha!  Predictable.  Yeah, yeah, reports are that it could be an achilles injury . . . 

It was gray, dreary, drizzly all day yesterday.  It wasn't even a cozy fall kind of day.  It was just, well, gray and dreary.  I think we're supposed to have sun but still be cool (60s, low 70s) the next several days.  Looking forward to it!  We don't have a lot of leaves changing color yet but there are more and more on the ground.  Okay, maybe my fall vibe is returning after all.

No real plans for today and that's totally okay with me!  I've been craving, hoping, wishing for the return of these boring days for how long now?!  Please please pleeeeease let the routine boredom return and stay for a while!

And with that, I'm off to catch up on some online things I've been missing.

Have a good one!

Sep. 11 - No Internet Again?!

Good thing I already had a post scheduled to go up on Friday because our internet was out again.  <insert much colorful language here>  I noticed it immediately when I got up that morning and was on my cellphone trying to get to live chat on the company's app at about 5:30am.  It took For.Ev.Er but finally a repair ticket was put in and the dude was supposed to be here "between 8:00am-5:00pm" that same day.  Within the hour I received a text saying it had been moved up/narrowed down to "between 8:45am-12-45pm."  Cool!

I was actually able to talk to the repair dude this time.  (Remember last time, I never even noticed when he'd come and gone.)  He explained he'd had to actually fix two problems, both of which were a couple miles down the road at one of the main control boxes.  He said it looked like either the county workers that mow the ditches or possibly a snow plow driver in the winter had hit and damaged the box to where it was not fully closed.  He said it looked like it had been that way for a while, so I guess stuff inside finally corroded enough from exposure to elements or something?  I feel vindicated in that because I have mentioned at different times to different people (even here on the blog, I think) that it often seemed that very dewy, foggy, wet weather would make our internet act up.  People always gave me the 'okay, crazy lady' sympathetic look, but HA!  Looks like I could have been right!  lol

Anyway, we had internet back by about noon.  I asked the guy how confident he was in this fix.  He said "About as confident as I can be."  And it's been great since then.  *KNOCK WOOD*  He also told me that all the work utility crews have been doing in ditches all around the area the past couple months is Spectrum preparing to lay fiber internet, and that it looks it will be coming down our boonies country road too!  I hesitate to get excited about it but oh my gosh if that's true.........  You have no idea how lacking our rural internet has been all these years!  Yes, we will pay whatever price this fiber internet will cost!  LOL

Oh, I forgot to mention that between the first internet repair on Tuesday and it finally going out again on Friday, it kept disconnecting every few minutes and was really slow and choppy when it managed to connect.  Since the Friday fix it's been about as good as this old DSL can get.

With all that ongoing frustration, with that heatwave we'd had, with some other things going on, my anxiety or something has been acting up like crazy.  Yesterday, even though the biggest problems had settled down, I was so wound up I could barely function.  It was like I couldn't catch my breath, couldn't draw a deep breath, chest was so tight.  I couldn't focus on anything.  I just wanted to lay down and have a good cry.  I kept trying to do deep breathing exercises, which eventually seemed to help.  And then it was sitting down to watch football that finally relaxed me enough to where I was starting to feel better.  I'm feeling much better this morning.

Speaking of football, we couldn't even watch the Vikings game because it was on the channel that DirecTV is in dispute with.  I considered dashing to Walmart early yesterday morning to get one of those indoor antennas so we could pick up the channel locally, and I could also start watching Y&R again that way, but in the end decided not to go.  We did, however, watch the Packers game.  LOL!  Who would thought I'd gladly watch a Packers game?  As I've said, I'm okay with them now that a certain someone is gone.  I'm hoping Jordan Love does well.  We also don't have NFL Sunday Ticket this year because it moved to YouTube, so it was weird to be soooooo limited on games to watch.

I'm right back into the place where I can't find my happy place, can't settle down because something is always throwing off my routine.  I need routine.  I'd been in such a good, calm place back in May, and then my brother's death shook everything up.  I'd just been starting to feel like things were falling back into place a couple weeks ago and then all this internet crap started.  There are a few other things still going on that are sort of in the way of my routine and inner peace but I'm hoping it will start settling down this week.  First step is the usual Monday Morning - Go To Mom's.

And through all this, I've totally lost my fall vibe.  The weather the past several days has been gloriously fall-like, the leaves are starting to change a bit, I have my fall decor, am melting apple scented wax, but it all feels out of place.  I think part of it is because it took so long this spring to move into summer weather, and now it feels like it's too soon to be moving into fall.  I don't know, it's all weird this year.  Hopefully it all settles down and falls into place for me sooner rather than later!

I have to get going now.

Have a good one!

Melted - Sliced Apple and Cinnamon (BHG)

 

Sliced Apple & Cinnamon (Better Homes & Gardens) - 'Apple, pear, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove.'

This is such a classic fall scent to me.  I know a lot of people love this for the Christmas season too.  It's a little on the spicy side, so spice haters might want to skip it.  There is a nice, bright apple note sitting nicely behind the sort of dry spice notes.  This is not as warm and syrupy as the apple pie scents.  No, this is lighter, brighter, and a bit more 'dry,' perfect for early fall days before we're cooped up in our homes for winter.

I melted two cubes (about 0.8 oz. worth) in my tea light warmer and had medium-strong scent and throw.  I think it would be stronger in colder months when the furnace kicks on more and stirs up the air.

I've bought this scent for years in the fall and will continue to do so each year that I see it.

(This is a repost from last year because everything about it is still accurate to how I feel.)

Melted - Fresh Orchard Apples (Better Homes and Gardens)

 

 Fresh Orchard Apples - 'Apple, pear blossom, lemon, sugar & vanilla bean scent notes.'

As you know, I'm a seasonal melter when it comes to wax.  I tend to ease into the fall season with apple scents in September, or even late August.  This year I kicked off my fall melting season with Fresh Orchard Apples.  I'm not sure how many years this one has been around now but I know I've had it before.  Although the scent description mentions pear, lemon, vanilla, you'd probably never guess it was anything but sweet, juicy apple.  If you really stop and notice the scent you'll find there is a tiny hint of something floral or 'green,' but still, a great apple scent overall.  And great for early fall (or shall we say pre-fall, lol) when you might not yet want a lot of spice.

I melted two cubes (about 0.8 oz worth) in my tea light warmer and had medium-strong scent with good throw.

Because I don't see a lot of plain apple scents, I will continue to buy this one each year that it's around.

Sep. 6 - Too Much Heat, Not Enough Internet

Well, hello.  I did not plan on this latest break from blogging.  Our internet went out Friday morning and we didn't get it back until yesterday afternoon.  Doh!  At first I thought our modem/router had finally died.  It's one we bought on our own, so of course our provider won't service it.  And of course this had to happen at the start of a long holiday weekend.  I tried everything I could think of then decided to just order a new one from Amazon.  None of the stores around here carry the outdated kind of modem we need, one for DSL with a phone cord connection instead of coax cable.  So I found one on Amazon and even paid the extra to have it delivered the next day.  It was also a refurbished one from the same company as our provider so I thought aha, they'll service this!

The new modem showed up late Saturday afternoon and I immediately got to work hooking it up and trying to get it going.  It's very different than the old one I'm used to so I wasn't getting anywhere.  Boychild1 and his friend, Adopted3rdSon, stopped by on their way home from something they'd been doing.  Boychild1 hopped on the computer to see if he could get the new modem set up.  We couldn't get it to connect or to recognize it.  The limited paperwork that had come with it said that with most providers it would automatically do all that setup.  Hmmm.

The boys had to get going because they'd only meant to drop something off, and had food in the truck, so I continued trying after they'd gone.  I was on my cellphone trying to use the company's app but of course that was just a frustrating and complicated mess.  I eventually gave up, thinking I'd try again in the morning.

In the middle of the night, still thinking about it all, I decided in the morning I'd try hooking up the modem on Hubby's computer instead, and see if it worked that way.  Maybe there was a problem with my computer, like maybe the connection plug or something.  In the morning, before I did anything, I decided to check our landline phone.  Aha!  It was also dead.  I knew right then that the problem was not ours, but something outside.  Several years ago something similar had happened and it turned out that mice had been in the main supply box (power box?  whatever box?) on the power pole just down the road from us.  They'd chewed wires and built nests, which disrupted service.  I figured it was something like that again.

I spent another chunk of time trying to get the company's live chat to work on my cellphone, and eventually was able to convince the agent to put in a repair ticket.  Of course, no one could come until Tuesday, after the holiday.  Well, okay, at least we knew then that someone would be coming and that it was not a problem on our end.  Hubby and I settled in for a very boring rest of our holiday weekend.

It's amazing how much you rely on the internet for without realizing it.  I mean, yeah, I had my cellphone but I don't do most things like email or business on that.  I usually just browse Facebook and Instagram when I'm bored.  So anyway, we hauled out coloring books for Hubby and some paper craft pieces for me to color.  We finally started watching His Dark Materials and got through about the first season and a half.  We'd already seen the first two seasons but it had been a long while, so it was like a refresher to watch them again.

And we greatly mourned out lost UO play time.

The service dude did his thing yesterday (Tuesday) and we finally had internet and phone back by 2pm.  I don't know what the problem was.  I never saw him or heard him outside, never saw his truck.  I had insisted the chat agent note the thing about mice in the box in the repair ticket info, so maybe the service guy just went directly to the main box.  I was a little irked that no one contacted me to let me know it was fixed.  I mean, maybe it was done already at like 10am?  I just happened to notice a new light on the modem as I walked by in the afternoon and decided to check the phone.  But whatever, it was working again!  And of course I flew to our game to tend my dying virtual plants.  LOL

Along with all that, the stupid heatwave has completely killed my fall vibe.  I had decorated for fall Friday morning before all this started.  I had been sooooo excited for September 1st, to kick off all the fall things.  Even just decorating felt a little odd though because it was so warm, and just got warmer as the weekend went on.  I think Sunday was the hottest, hitting 94 or so.  At that point, with no AC, just lounging around with every fan on, trying to watch TV, all the fall decor looked so out of place.  I quit melting apple scented wax because I just wasn't feeling it and I didn't want to waste precious fall scents.  It was a pretty boring and miserable weekend!

Things should be turning around now though.  That heatwave has moved on, and our temps will be dropping into lower 70s and even some 60s.  We should be getting some rain in coming days.  Our internet is working.  And I need to get caught up on some things so I can get back to playing UO!

Hopefully fall has gotten off to a better start for you!

Sep. 1 - "It's the Most Wonderful Time..."

 

Yay!  September 1!  I was so crazy excited about this yesterday, about decorating and the opening of this greatest season.  Boychild2 stopped by for a moment yesterday and I reminded him that on Sep.1 you can 'legally start consuming pumpkin spice everything.'  LOL  He wasn't as amused as me.  I even had a thought during the day, that not only is today the unofficial but still official start of fall, it's the start of a much larger season where there are four months of decorations and themes and holidays.

I. Love. It!

So ha, yeah, why did I wake up so crabby this morning?  I'm trying to shake it and get my excited fall mojo back but things aren't cooperating.  The cat is being super pesty this morning, super picky about his food.  My computer or the internet is super slow and finicky again.  I'm thinking of all the things I need to do today.  Bah!  Just get it done and let this season begin!

I did not get to mow the lawn yesterday.  I did go out and start the lawnmower but it would die when I put it into gear, and then very loudly backfire just to prove a point.  Well alrighty then!  It turned out to be a simple fix but by the time hubby got home and quickly figured it out, it was already late enough in the day that I said no, I'll mow tomorrow (today).

Thanks to those who have already started following me on Instagram.  Heh, I have a bigger following over there without even having posted yet than I do here in a year of struggling.  I will be posting there today, and hopefully keep posting there.  I need to learn some things about it all though.  For anyone who is interested, I am 'debsmad' over there.

Ok, going to post this and get going on switching things over to fall mode.  YAY!!!!!!  Oh yeah, I don't dive in with pumpkin everything yet.  In September I stick with more of an apples, leaves, crows theme.  I will start nibbling some pumpkin spice treats, sure, but I don't decorate with pumpkins until October.  So ok, having said that, let's go do this!

Are you decorating today?  Or do you just sort of slowly ease into it?

Have a good one!

Aug. 31 - Only Hours Away Now

Ooooooh, August 31!  Who's excited for tomorrow???  I certainly am!  It's like all the fall lovers are pressed up against the gate, all the disciplined fall lovers anyway, just waiting for September 1 so the fall fun can 'more acceptably' begin.  I can't wait to decorate and switch to fall colored clothes and start nibbling fall treats and all the fun fall things.

*sound of needle scratching across vinyl record*

And then this weekend we have temps back in the 90s.  What??  Nooooooo!  Please let that be the last of it, Mother Nature.  It's 44 degrees right now, and we like it like that.

Oh yeah, also tomorrow, that Etsy shop that I ordered pumpkin scent body wash from last year will be releasing her fall scents for this year.  I'm hoping to get a couple bottles again, maybe a scrub too.

I'm also hoping to blow the dust off my Instagram account tomorrow.  I've used IG for years but mainly just as a viewer.  I do have a few pics up from my momentary attempts at becoming more active there over the years, and now I'm going to try again.  I'm not guaranteeing anything but if you're interested, I am debsmad over there.

Boychild2 stopped over for laundry yesterday.  We got to talking about artistic woes, the urge to create but being stumped on what to do or how to get started.  He wants to get into digital sketching, or whatever it would be called.  He wants a tablet thing for Christmas, has a 'pen' and you draw on it.  And I have a mess of paper craft supplies on a folding table in the living room that I sit and stare at and don't know where to start.  lol  We're both telling each other, "Just pick something and start."

I really need to get the lawn mowed today.  I've just gotten so lazy and uncaring about outdoor things this summer.  I'm still loving playing UO but I'm also starting to get disgusted with myself for letting other things become neglected.  "Do what brings you joy!" is not always the best advice.  And I need to get it mowed before this next heatwave gets here.  Bleah.

So with that said, I need to get some morning things done, then play UO a bit while the morning dew on the grass has time to dry up.  

Are you excited for September 1?  Or have you already jumped the gate and got your fall freak on?

Have a good one!