We just got back from Edinburgh last weekend. I would not get cash out at the airport. We found that we didn't need it-- every place in Edinburgh took cards. Be sure to use a card that doesn't charge an international fee each time you use it. If you do need it, you can get some cash out from an ATM in the city. My guess is that ATMs in the airport charge higher fees.
I have a Verizon plan that gives me a international travel pass each month, so I used that. My H downloaded an eSIM before we left. We both have WhatsApp on our phones, so he could call me using that. That's what we have done whenever we travel to Europe, and it's worked perfectly.
Be sure to pack a good raincoat and umbrella.
Have a great time! We can't wait to go back and see all that we missed.
We have the CS preferred card and love it. I just transferred some of our points to British Airways for a ticket for my husband to the UK. The transfer process was simple and the points were in his BA account immediately.
We replaced our powder room toilet when we replaced the first floor floors before we moved in. Our contractor suggested this and said it was the model that could flush a dozen golf balls without any issues. We got it and haven't had any issues. We're going to replace the rest of our toilets with them too.
When we sold our house in GA, we didn't need the fridge so we offered it to the buyers. They didn't want it so I had to make arrangements to donate it. When we bought our house in MD, the fridge (and washer/dryer) conveyed but we didn't want it. We replaced it before we moved in.
Philip and Elizabeth were damn lucky to live as long as they did because they didn’t have serious health issues. The vast majority of people are taken out by cancer, stroke, heart attack, etc. if you can avoid that, it seems living to nearly a century is easy.
Charles’s grandfather, George VI, died in his 50s due to his incessant smoking. The Queen mother was 101, I think.
There's been speculation that the Queen died of bone cancer and that the Queen Mother was also battling cancer when she died. But they wanted it kept private so it wasn't disclosed publicly or even on their death certificates.
I read that Harry is flying to the UK to see his dad. Given everything that has gone on in the royal family, hearing this makes me wonder if it's fairly serious. I do wonder if Charles will expand the senior working royals to include Beatrice and Eugenie.
Thanks melissa and lessel. We caught it early and he has a good prognosis. We're being seen by Hopkins for this, and his transplant surgeon has done more than 500 liver transplants.
womet , my fingers are crossed that your husband can exercise his reasonable accommodation to avoid going in the office. I am not looking forward to April. Your agency seems to be handling things much better.
I'm fairly certain he'll be allowed to continue working from home. He was just diagnosed with liver cancer and will be having a transplant later this year. So he'll be on immunosuppressants for life. Limiting his exposure to sick people and to old, dirty buildings for prolonged periods of time will be really important.
Hmmm, interesting about SSA. My H works there and never wants to go back into the office again. We'll likely exercise his reasonable accommodation, if needed, to keep him working at home full time for as long as possible.
The telework/remote work isn't done the same across all parts of my agency. In my part, we're all given the option of being remote. So even though I live 25 minutes from the office, I work from home full time. We're even giving up our office space in March since there are only 10 or so people who go into our office building regularly.
We have. My parents paid for my undergrad (except housing in the last 2 years that I paid for by being an RA). I took out loans for my graduate schooling and living expenses. Those were just discharged under PSLF recently. My parents also contributed a set amount of money towards our wedding. They gave me a car to drive when I was 16. That I promptly got into an accident with-- it was totaled, not my fault, and they let me have all of the money from the lawsuit against the driver.
My husband has benefitted to, although most is recently. His parents helped him out with a car when he was younger. And on multiple occasions when he needed some more help financially. His dad died 18 months ago, and we've benefitted from that. H inherited half of his dad's IRA, which we used towards our downpayment on our house. And we are about to close on his dad's house, so my H will get some more money then (some will be reimbursement for paying all of the bills for the estate and some will be H's portion of the proceeds from the sale of the house).
I adore my island with nothing on it-- no sink or stove. Just like lessel said. It's perfect for entertaining (I have 2 bar stools at mine) and ideal for serving food from (we put our Christmas food on it and we each made our plate there. Then we had more space at the dining room table.
We have a butler's pantry that is devoted to drinks. We've got our nespresso stuff there, a nugget ice maker, drink syrups (for coffee or water), and a drink fridge. It has helped us keep our main fridge more organized and not waste food as much since we can see it easier. One thing we may add to that space is running a waterline to the icemaker so we don't have to fill it using a pitcher. But that will be easy for us to add down the line.
I want to retrofit some rev-a-shelf drawers in some of our lower cabinets where we keep our pots/pans to make it easier to get them. In my ideal kitchen, I would include drawer inserts that fit perfectly inside the drawers for things like our utensils and other items so they stay organized. I have some now but they don't take up the drawer space fully, so I have some empty space.
I would never get a pot filler, but I love the idea of a hot water dispenser built into the sink. simpsongal, when we replaced our countertops, we got 1 large sink. I'm so glad we did. I absolutely love it. I love that I can lay a half sheet pan down flat in it to wash.
Must have: a pantry. When we were looking to buy, I can't tell you how many houses had no pantry. So food items would need to take up cabinet space. I love my somewhat shallow but wide pantry, but would be just as happy with a deeper pantry that has pull out drawers.
When we got our dog, we introduced him immediately but on leash. But we made sure that there were places the cat could go and hide if needed. We never really needed it. They weren't best buds, but our dog maintained a healthy "fear" of the cat so he never tried to go after him. Our girl cat was never really a fan of the dog, so she wouldn't get near him. Our current boy cat loved the dog more than the dog ever loved him. We let the cat out of the cat carrier on day 1 and he walked straight over to the dog and hugged his face. If the dog would have let him, our boy cat would have snuggled with the dog.
Re: dog poop. We had a container that we kept in the garage that housed the poop bags. It was like a diaper genie, but for dog poop. It helped some but didn't eliminate the poop smell from our garage completely. Depending on your front yard, you might be able to put one in front of your door behind a plant or something.
We fed our dog in the morning and at dinner time. He got walked before work, right after work, and before bed.
Can you switch to French press for your coffee, and your H can make his coffee from the coffee maker in his office? We have the Mueller electric kettle and have been happy with it. But I would look into finding somewhere other than by the sink for it to sit.
My mom just had surgery to fix this-- uterine, bladder, and rectal prolapse. I don't think she had mesh for hers, but I think they used other tissue to hold things up. Her doctor described it to her as putting in a stitch or two at the top and "hoisting" things back up. She had to have a catheter for 2 weeks (may have been longer than needed since this was around the holidays). She's doing well now. She only needed tylenol afterwards, but it was really important for her to take senekot and colase. And to be sure to drink enough water.
I had a mirena inserted after having extremely heavy bleeding that put me in the ER. IIRC, I'd been prescribed progesterone in the ER to stop the bleeding. And then had the mirena inserted. I don't recall having any bleeding after a few weeks.
A woman who works for me almost always uses approach B when messaging me on teams. I ignore until there is an actual request. And I've told her that if she needs something from me, approach A is better. But she hasn't gotten the message. I've thought that it's an age thing-- she's older than me, so the way she messages on teams feels like an old person. Someone who didn't use IM when they were younger. But then I realize that she's the only person who does this, and I work with a bunch of people who are older than her and they don't do this.
We love Blue Ridge. We love going to Mercier Orchards-- for hard cider, homemade desserts, and you pick (not sure what will be in season during spring break though). There's the Blue Ridge scenic railway that goes from Blue Ridge to McCaysville from mid-March to the end of December. And that area has a ton of outdoor activities-- hiking, fishing, horseback riding.
For sleep, I find some people can sleep on planes and some can’t. My older son and I cannot. My younger son and DH get a solid 4-5 hours on overnight flights. When going to Europe - so landing in the morning after an overnight flight - I just set expectations that the first day sucks. Everyone is tired. You often have to kill time while waiting to check in so you can’t nap etc. But then you sleep that night and all is good after that. Just don’t plan anything big for the first day. It will be great!
This. I can only take a brief nap, so I have headphones so I can watch movies. I also make sure I have movies downloaded to my phone/Kindle in case there isn't anything playing that I want to watch. I also found that I had zero jet lag on our trip to Munich by drinking a packet of liquid IV before and on the plane. Bringing some additional snacks is nice too (esp if you or your child might not like all of the options offered).
When we arrive, we plan on something to do that will keep us awake. Our goal is to keep awake and moving until 8pm. We did a walking tour on our first day in Amsterdam. We saw family friends and went grocery shopping when we arrived in Munich.
Actually I read an article (it may be covered in the one you posted too, I didn’t read that one) where one of the dems who voted to keep him spoke up. He said he voted the way did because the ethics investigation hasn’t been completed and he hasn’t been convicted and voting to remove him without either of those things sets a dangerous precedent of just removing people Willy nilly. So while I do think santos should be removed, without a completed investigation he does make a valid point.
Yeah, I think it was Jamie Raskin, or else he made a similar point. Of the handful of people who have been removed from Congress, 2-3 literally left to join the Confederate Army and the others were already convicted of crimes prior to removal.
It is gorgeous today! We went out to Western Maryland for the day, went to a yarn/fiber festival and now I’m sitting outside waiting for my sandwich in the sunshine before we do some walking around.
We did the opposite. We’re in St. Michael’s for the Oysterfest. H has had some oysters on the half shell, so he’s a happy camper.
I went to the doctor on Wednesday because I was afraid my cold was turning into a sinus infection. She was not convinced and wanted me to give it a few more days of self care, which is fine. But she said she would send over a script for antibiotics, but I got a good talking to about waiting til the weekend to pick them up, and only if needed. Fine. So I’m waiting. But dude, the frigging pharmacy hasn’t even filled it yet. Last time I needed a refill, it took over a week and three trips to the pharmacy (because they won’t answer the phone). And I’m just sitting here thinking what if I actually needed something now. WTH?!
And with that, I’m officially looking for a new pharmacy. I’ve heard good things about the Costco pharmacy. I liked I could walk to this one, but I just can’t deal with it. And yes, I knows it’s not the pharmacist’s fault. It’s corporate killing them.
If the pharmacy is a CVS down the street from the high school and next to the recently renovated Starbucks, they have gone down hill. We used to get our prescriptions there and switched. They would text us saying our Rx was ready but when we showed up to get it, they made us wait while they filled it. The worst was when we'd waited in the drive thru line only to be told to come back in 20 minutes.
Add me to the list of people who didn't sleep well last night. I woke up at 1:53 and didn't fall back asleep until 4:30 or so. I'm probably going to take the afternoon off so I can take a nap.
We are going to Germany/Austria on Friday and part of the trip will be a Sound of Music tour in Salzburg. I have never seen the whole movie (I know, I know) so I’m watching it today. I have one billion other things to be doing but it seems like this is important to understand the tour.
Have a great time! We took the tour a week ago and it was great!
These episodes by McConnell look a lot like the absence seizures H had years ago. He would be in the middle of saying something, would stare off into space, and would "come back" when I called his name repeatedly (or snapped in his face). He never remembered it happening or even a minute or two beforehand. He had a ton of memory problems outside of that, so my guess is Mitch is too. I hope he's being seen and treated by a neurologist and retires.