"We'll Leave The Light On For You®"

Tom Bodett is gonna leave the light on for me!

Hagerstown, MD and Motel 6 (reservation has been made) is my target destination for the first leg of my Tennessee drive.

That's approximately 460ish miles into my 860ish mile trek and prolly a good stopping point for the night.

Honestly, there's no real rush, so don't want to push too hard.  Fingers crossed the weather behaves and I don't run into any snow or freezing rain conditions along the way.

Also, I'm a tad worried about how Ms. Trixie does in the car for this amount of time and distance.  However, I did reach out to her vet and picked up Gabapentin Suspension, which causes mild sedation, and Maropitant Citrate used for nausea and vomiting. Just want to make sure she's comfortable and doesn't stress.

T minus 6-days and counting...

Soon To Be Orphans...

Sadly, it's unlikely the plants below will not be making the trip to Tennessee, alas.

I need to take another look to see if perhaps I can securely box up some, like the Oxalis and Pothos, but unlikely the Aloe, Snake Plants and the Bamboo (not pictured), as they're just to bulky -

I may need to just start from scratch once in and settled in the new place.

When the Frost Is On The Punkin

Well, we're past Autumn and the frost on the punkin has now turned to ice - 

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock...

What A Drip!

Another unforeseen expense that crept up on me the past week or two - a replacement kitchen faucet, GRRR

The old faucet began leaking from around the collar when the water was running.  Not a bad leak but leaking nonetheless. The other day I had the darndest time turning the water off, as the lever was stuck.  I'm guessing the rubber or plastic parts within the collar wore out or started corroding and this was causing the issues.  I sprayed WD40 in and around the seal of the collar and that eventually allowed me to turn the water off and on, and to continue to use the faucet.

I installed the old faucet years ago, guessing in early 2000s, so I got my use out of it and more, so it was time.  I didn't feel right leaving this issue behind for the new owners, so I picked up a new faucet.

I had a fleeting thought that I would tackle this repair and easily install the new unit but thankfully I chose to have a plumber do it.  Turns out the old hardware, underneath the sink, was rusted and the plumber had a hard time trying to get things disconnected.  He ended up using a Dremel-like saw to cut the old rusted parts out. Of course he made easy work of it and with the right tools it was. I would still be under the sink, bloodied knuckles and cursing up a storm, all the while making zero progress.

Before -

After -

Sometimes it's a well worth while investment to pay someone to do such tasks - money well spent!

Safe and Secure

I secured a nice 5'x10' storage unit to house some of Emilie's belongs.

The premise, in my mind anyway and which I relayed to Emilie, is this is a temporary solution. With the fast approaching and hard deadline I'm faced with to vacate my house, we needed a quick solution for her belongs.

Hoping this will allow her more time to sort through her stuff.

A BIG THANKS to my neighbor and his two boys for lugging the furniture from my upstairs, into the trailer and then into the storage unit.  They made it look easy.

Rise And Shine!

Good Morning all!

It's cold here this morning with high winds expected today and a windchill in the single digits, so I won't be venturing out too far.

The sunrise was another beauty this AM -

Again, I'll miss this but looking forward to Tennessee sunrises and sunsets!

#Blessed

Blessings Are Coming...

This popped up today as a daily highlight posting from one of the social media groups I follow -

The Internet doesn't lie, and the group I follow doesn't use tags, so if it found me it was meant to be! Clearly, the stars have aligned...so I'm hoping there's some truth to all this.

Honestly, and at this point, I'll be happy and welcome any blessings that come my way.

Say Hello To Mr. Bailey

Meet Bailey!

No, he's not caged and behind bars here, just relaxing on the stairs at a good vantage point to take "it" all in.

He moved in with Stephanie and Audrey (from Audrey's moms apartment) and is living large now!

There is somewhat of a power struggle of sorts between Bailey and Ms. Nala, the queen (cat) of the castle but they're working it out.

He's a good boy and, from what I saw while visiting over Thanksgiving, the epitome of a "lap" dog.

One Mile At A Time

My Jetta hit the 65,000 mile mark this afternoon!

A nice round number to begin my upcoming drive to Tennessee!

Don't Ignore Me!

Oh my gawd!

I literally just had a two minute argument with my Amazon Alexa device, I kid you not! So, if you happened to be passing by and saw an animated Stephan with arms flailing and spittle a fly'n, that's what was going down -

I recently acquiesced and upgraded my Amazon devices to Alexa+

"Alexa+ is Amazon's next-generation, generative AI-powered voice assistant, designed to be far more conversational, proactive, and capable than the original Alexa, handling complex tasks, managing smart homes, understanding context, and offering personalized suggestions."

I've not spent too much time with her since the upgrade other than the typical requests I ask, e.g. "what's the temperature outside?", "how do you spell acquiessed?", "turn on the bedroom light.", "what was the score of the Boston Bruins game last night?", "set an alarm for 5:00AM", etc., but will tell you that she is still "learning" according to our argument this AM and is slower at waking and responding than her predecessor and this is frustrating.

So, I gave her the "what for" and instructed her to respond quicker in the future. We'll see if that carries any weight or if I just pissed her off, alas.

Here's what happened first thing this morning and what lead to our argument -

At 5:00AMish I was awakened to the oh-so-familiar sound of Ms. Trixie "heaving". So, I shot up out of bed, a tad still half asleep, and yelled, "Alexa turn on the bedroom light!" but nothing happened!  No light turned on, seems she was "processing", that bitch! In the urgency, I screamed the command again and after a couple seconds pause the light came on, which was an eternity at that point and the difference between cleaning vomit from the bedroom carpet versus the bathroom floor.

In the couple of seconds it took for the light to come on I noticed two things; 1 - where Trixie was in the room and 2 - even in the darkness, I could see my breath! Man-o-man the homeowner is a miser and needs to turn up the heat, BRR 🥶

Good news, I was able to scoop up Ms. Trixie, rush her to the bathroom AND believe it or not, I held her over the toilet bowl where she completed her vial trajectory vomiting!  The only clean up required was a tissue paper dabbing around Trixie's mouth.

NOT the preferred way of waking up that's for sure!

Well, I'm wide awake now...

I Doubled My Investment

"Winner winner, chicken dinner!"

Ok, so I (sadly) didn't win the BIG Powerball jackpot last night, but then again no one did.  However, I did match one number plus the powerball number and that my friends is a $4.00 WINNER, which doubles my investment, CHA-CHING!

The 12/10/2025 jackpot is expected to climb to $930 million dollars!

So, in the words of the Lloyd Christmas (1994's Dumb and Dumber movie) - "So you're telling me there's a chance"...

I think I'm gonna take a chance and go ALL in with my $4.00 winner and purchase two tickets for tomorrows drawing 🤞

The Boy Scout Motto

While at The Home Depot to pick up new smoke alarms, I also bought myself an 1800 lumen Husky flashlight.  It cost more than I wanted to spend but I thought it was a good investment and good idea to have a solid working and bright flashlight for my upcoming solo drive to Tennessee!

You know, just in case -

"Be "Prepared"

Where There's Smoke...

The Franklin Fire Department was out this morning to test my fire and CO2 alarms, which is a requirement in order to close and sell on a house here in Massachusetts -

CO2 alarms passed with flying colors!

However, the (4) hardwired smoke detectors did not pass, UGH.

They failed because they're older ionization-type alarms, which are no longer supported, GRRR.

So, I ran out to The Home Depot and picked up the below Kidde (4) pack of photoelectric alarms. Another hidden expense of selling a home -

I removed the old ionized alarms - 

And installed the new photoelectric alarms -

The vaulted ceilings in the living room were a bit more challenging and required the use of my long extension ladder -

The new alarms all tested fine!

Now it's just a matter of having the Franklin Fire Department come back out to reinspect and issue their passed certificate, so the closing can be completed.

I Need A Time Machine!

Always but especially around the holidays...

What “Tine” is it?!

Wanted a snaky last night, Trixie too, so I made a bowl of cereal.

One problem, I completely forgot that I had boxed up all the spoons earlier in the day, OMG DUH!

Now what to do? The milk was poured and the cereal was getting soggy, alas. So, I MacGyver’d it and used the only utensil I had, a fork!

Scoop and slurp, scoop and slurp…

OMG, This Is Me!

Those Are NOT Christmas Lights A Glow!

A bit of excitement in front of my house last night -

Around 8PMish I heard an awful loud crash and bang, which got my attention.  I opened the front door to have a look but all I saw was a lone car with it's emergency flashers.  A couple cars passed by, slowed but kept going, so I assumed everything was alright.

Twenty minutes or so later my neighbor called to tell me what a truck jump the granite curbing in front of his house, took out his granite mailbox post and all and careened into a deep, open pit.  This open pit leads to a culvert that runs under the street to drain water into the wetlands on the opposite side, so when I say "open pit", believe me it's BIG and DEEP - why the town never had a guardrail installed is beyond me.

While on the call with him four police cruisers, the town ambulance, and two fire trucks arrived on scene, see pic above -

I did watch a bit from my living room, and although other curious neighbors made their way out to see what all the commotion was, it was too cold me so I stayed put.

I've not yet heard an update, so not sure how someone could loose control in that stretch of road, jump the curb and veer down in the pit, but hoping everyone was okay.

**** UPDATE ****

Seems the under aged driver was DRUNK!  He blew somewhere in the 0.2xx on the field breathalyzer!

In case you're wondering: In Massachusetts, the legal limit for intoxication on a breathalyzer is 0.08% Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) for drivers 21 and over, but it's 0.02% for drivers under 21

A couple pictures of the vehicle from the Franklin PD -

What a clown!

Better Late Than Never

Although, a tad late, my Thanksgiving cactus is loaded with buds and those buds are beginning to open -

I bought this dude as a marked down item for a couple bucks back in the spring.  It was touch and go for a while and I didn't think it was going to make it but WAHLA!

Perhaps, the flowers are a goodbye gesture, as we'll be parting ways very soon...

In The Midst Of Chaos!

Well, there's NO turning back now!

The clock is ticking and I am tweaking!

Yes, I've made progress, however, it still seems like there's SO much left to do, UGH!

I've been in purge mode and making some tougher decisions on what comes and what goes.

I'm thinking some of all this is a life lesson and karma; karma for not understanding and having SO MUCH MORE compassion and patients for my dad when he was faced with the same scenario - shame on me!  Being in the midst of all this, I now see how incredibly difficult to take 60+ years of belongs and memories and history, and need to make the decision on whether to take or toss.  Doing it all alone makes it that much harder, and for me, that much more emotional.

Egg Glazed Koulouria! The BEST!

While in Chicago and before the storm on Saturday really got going Stephanie, Audrey and I headed out to run some errands.  We had an Amazon package to return, dry cleaning to pick up and the most important, picking out their Christmas tree.

While Stephanie and I were in the UPS store taking care of the package return, Audrey ventured into a new Greek store in the same plaza and what a find it was!  Looky at what Audrey bought, Koulouria, OMG!

Clearly and obviously NOT my mothers but man-o-man these sure brought back some wonderful memories and were quite tasty -

One of these days I'd like to try my hand at making these Greek cookies using my mother's recipe.  However, like most old-school cooks their secrets lie in what's NOT listed in the recipe but rather how they "ad-lib" on the fly.

Time will tell and we'll never know until we try.  Stay tuned...

SO Much To Do, SO Little Time

I had to run some errands yesterday, one in particularly that took me back to Walpole and then over to Westwood, my hometown, the town I grew up in.

My visit to Westwood was to pop-in to see a couple different folks and drop off some items but to be honest the main reason was to visit my folks gravesite one last time before embarking on my new adventure (yeah, adventure is what we're calling it.  Hoping it starts to feel that way soon, alas).

Each visit is tough but they also bring with it a rush of wonderful memories too and I cherish each one as it comes.  However, this visit was an emotional one 😢, more so than usual. Although, I'm guilty of perhaps not visiting more often as I should have over the years, my abilities to pop-in on a whim will soon be over, which made this visit special and more emotional -

Yesterday ended with this stunning sunset off my back deck, which are sadly coming to an end soon too.  Brought a smile to my face, as I assumed it was my folks sending me a message to hang in there and stay positive -

It's difficult closing a chapter, even if the next one looks promising.

#Blessed

Why?

What A Score!

Stephanie & Audrey surprised me with tickets to the Chicago Blackhawks vs Anaheim Ducks hockey game at the United Center on Sunday afternoon.

2025-2026 is the 100th season in the NHL for he Blackhawks, so they were in centennial celebration mode.

We stopped in at The Barn Hockey Bar before the game for a couple cold beers and an appetizer -

A pretty cool emblem of the original six teams on the floor of the bar -

One of my all time favorite goalies, Tony Esposito -

Centennial photo op signage -

The Ducks scored two goals, literally, before the first minute of the game. Sadly, it looked as though the hawks were gonna get routed. However, the hawks scored 5 unanswered goals -

And won the game -

We even “scored” an Alex Vlasic memorial pin upon entering the United Center -

After the game we stopped in at Morrison Roadhouse Tavern for dinner, which was delicious!

I had a fantastic time!

#Blessed

Snow, Shopping & Superdawgs

Currently under a winter storm warning here in Chicago, with ~12” of snow predicted! There were over 600 flight cancellations out of O’Hare this morning-

It’s starting to accumulate-

But that didn’t stop us from venturing out to run a few errands this morning, one being Christmas tree shopping, which was a success -

We stopped at Superdawgs, a Chicago landmark restaurant since 1948, to pick up lunch! Three loaded with all the fix’ns superdawgs and a superchickenmidgee -

Oh boy, SO SO delicious!

Chicago Thanksgiving Blessings

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Mine was perfect - A brisk turkey trot in Edison Park to kick off the day, family, football, food all in a warm and inviting home -

The food was delicious and of course we all ate WAY too much, which is what you’re supposed to do, right -

Where we enjoyed our scrumptious meal -

#Blessed