h20skibum

If you are putting it somewhere it is covered, make sure you have enough clearance for the cover lifter. I have heard stories of people preparing areas close to their house for a hot tub, only to find that when the cover lifter rotated the cover, it would hit the overhang, and they could not open it. That isn’t something everyone thinks about. Of course, the larger the hot tub, the more height needed to rotate the cover. If you look at the picture of Jim’s hot tub, just picture one half of that cover rotating up to open it up. If it was back in his covered portion, it would probably hit the ceiling.

Ours is a 4 person one that we have had for a little over a year. We both love it, and we use it almost every day, even in the cold winter up here. I don’t think we would like anything smaller. I did put a gazebo over ours, so we can use it rain, snow, or shine. For ours, I do our maintenance once a week, and it takes about an hour to pull the filters and clean them, test water and add chemicals. Every 4 months, I drain the tub, clean and refill. Test water, add chemicals and replace filters. It takes about a half day. This is the empty tub when I drained and cleaned it last week, and the hose was in to start the refill. For us, it is a great way to relax. Ours is a Coast Spa that we bought from our local Pool and Spa dealer.

Granddaughter still has a nasty, persistent cough, but at least her high fever is gone. She is still on antibiotics. Grandson also picked up a cough, but that was the extent for him. Between the two of them, and my daughter trying to limit contact with sickness because her immune system is weakened, that’s why we pared down our Thanksgiving this year. Thanks for your prayers for our daughter. That is great news, Sue. Google, or self diagnosis is the wort thing you can do. I know the kind of stress it can put on someone, so it is always best to trust your medical professional. We have been there, done that with the medical insurance hoops with our daughter. There needs to be a better way to do it. And congratulations on the weight loss.

Today would have been my Mother’s 94th birthday. We always celebrated her birthday during our family Thanksgiving celebration when all of our close and extended family would gather at our house. We had hoped to restart that extended family Thanksgiving this year, but circumstances have delayed that now for another year. Much like Susan’s mother hated celebrating her birthday, because it fell on 9/11, my mother hated that her’s fell on the anniversary of JFK’s assassinatIon. I still remember that date. That Friday, I was at afternoon recess when the news broke.

It was 16°, feels like 6° this morning when I got up. We may be lucky and see it up to 40° today. It has been cold enough that ice is starting to form. I think someone screwed up with the lighting pattern here.

We are in the Sub category here and the Pop category and the all important Yins category

We started watching it on Friday. Have watched two episodes already. A lot of symbols keep popping up, so it will be interesting to see where it goes.

My son, who lived in both Orchard Park and Williamsville, just sent me this. He says he is glad he no longer lives there. Susan and I made the drive to Erie, PA this morning. There is only about a foot of snow here, but the sun is shining. The next storm will start around 10 tonight.

I loved it. But maybe my experience was swayed, because we were sailing at about 1/3 capacity in October, 2021. A great 8 day itinerary. In case you missed it, this was my review from that sailing. It brings back good memories.

My day so far…. Up early, and we started like most days, with a soak in our hot tub. It was 29°, with a feels like 20°. It is nice that it is covered, and only about 5 steps from our family room patio door. I have the enclosure up, to keep the wind and snow out, and I am testing out a patio heater to see if it will warm the space more. Even without a heater, it isn’t bad. Then, we were off for a five mile walk in the cold. It was snowing a little by then, but not much was sticking. Found a lone, lost flip flop, but I hope they were not wearing it today. This afternoon, Susan took our daughter to her appointment with the surgeon. I am afraid she will have horrible, rush hour traffic on her way back. She hates driving in that. Me, I am running loads of laundry through at my daughter’s house, while they are away. Oh, and I have grandkid watching duty.

That is good. The first holidays are hard, so it is nice they have something like this.

I agree that summer is better. It is times like this when my son is glad he moved from Buffalo to California.

When I read on here yesterday, that Buffalo was supposed to get a couple feet of snow, I decided it was time to service my snow blower to be ready for winter. So that was one of my tasks yesterday. Now it is ready, but I hope I don’t have to use it this winter. I did see, on the news this morning, that Buffalo is now expecting 3 to 6 feet of lake effect snow. Erie, PA, where we are likely headed this weekend, is only supposed to get a foot of snow. Can’t believe it went from 70’s last week to this. 🥶

I was also sorry to read this.

It was news to me too, since I have been out of the cruising loop for a couple months. I looked at some of those menus, and it looks like they have pared down the number of choices, not only on entrees, but on deserts. Susan would get the apple blossom for desert almost every night, and now it looks like it is only offered one night. That is disappointing.

Well, granddaughter is home, but her diagnosis was pneumonia. Susan and I have a somewhat free day, so we are running all over western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. An early morning stop was at Christmas Land. Somehow, this is how I envision Greg’s house. Even the dogs would feel right at home. I did find Santa and, fortunately my name was on the good list. I can’t imagine how long it takes to put together a display like this. IMG_6249.MOV or, how much is invested in it. IMG_6250.MOV

Practicing our own method of de-stressing, we headed out for a walk at dusk last night. A little cool out, but we did see this group in the field. Yes, there were 10 of them.

Sorry to hear about your grandson. Hopefully he is out of the hospital and doing better now. So sorry to read about the loss of your cat. Congratulations on your new granddaughter. That is some happy news. Congratulations on making Pinnacle. That is one club I will probably never make, but who knows. Some coming your way from here. I hate stress! Congratulations to your granddaughter. What a great achievement.

I know I have been missing here for about a week, and I am about 40 pages behind. Sometimes, life just gets in the way. This week is shaping up to be much the same, with just a new set of problems. We are just talking them a day at a time. This morning, I am at the hospital with my daughter, and my granddaughter is in another hospital about 90 miles away. So I would rather talk about good stuff. This weekend, we put up our Christmas tree. One of the things I like, are some of the special ornaments. We have had several pieces of the grandkid’s artwork made into Christmas ornaments. Granddaughter painted this one on a mini canvas, when she was 4. Her brother painted a similar one, and he would have been 7 at the time. A few of the others they did since then, had rather abstract forms. Even my grandson in California had his unique self portrait one. I don’t think anyone will recognize him from it though. And, lastly, although not an ornament, this elf is something I cut from scrap wood, when my kids were little. They took turns painting each section, and they always still look for the elf climbing the tree. I know I have probably missed a lot here, but I hope all of you are well.

Who doesn’t love juggling remotes. So when we went in to change some things on our cable bill, one of the things they told us was we could use a Roku with the Spectrum app, and get rid of our cable box. We bought a new Roku this weekend, and I set it up this morning. The Roku pays for itself in less than two months, compared to that box rental. I have used a Harmony universal remote for years. So the remote on the right replaces all the other remotes. (Apple TV, Roku, TV, Surround sound, DVD, and cable box). It turns on the seven speaker surround sound system, tv, and other devices, and switches to the correct inputs. My weekend project will be to go into the Harmony remote software program, and clean out some devices we no longer use. My wife has loved that she only ever has to use the one remote.

How I started my day. I was #85 at our polling place, and Susan was #89 because she stopped to talk to an old coworker. For those in the US, I hope this is part of your plan for the day. That is, unless you mailed one in. We always vote in person.

Yesterday was a long day for us. That’s why it was nice that Susan made us a nice filet, bacon ranch potatoes, and baked corn supper. Cooking for us and my daughter’s family. Grandson loves those filets. Up early this morning to watch the eclipse. Perfect clear sky to view it. I still haven’t figured out how to get a clear shot with my iPhone. This is the best I could do.

Hopefully they can do something for you before it gets too bad.

Great review. Have safe travels home today.

Oh, for those meals with meat and potatoes!!! Had one of those meat and potatoes meals at Cracker Barrel today, after we ran to Sam’s Club and Target. Of course, we had to bring this home from CB, for a healthy dinner. That is their cinnamon roll pie. Oh, so good