Random 5 for November 5, 2023 – Time change, deer, vaccines, projects, malls

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Food human! Where is breakfast!

Good morning sunshine! – This morning I woke up to two cats sitting on the bed staring at me. They didn’t get the time change memo. It was hard to explain but they were happy to get their Fancy Feast even if it was late by their clock!

A side effect of the time change – My Starbucks run for coffee is now an hour later which means it’s fully light. I drive through an area with a high deer population. It can get nerve wracking when they are strolling around. Now it’s lighter so less chance of deer interaction.

Another booster – Today is our appointment for the current covid booster. One more  vaccine and then we are good for the winter. I’m feeling like a 6-year-old before first grade!

It’s official – Yes, we are going to punish ourselves by doing another big project in 2024. We have started planning a master bath renovation. The old one isn’t as functional as it could be (and it’s outdated!). It will be a messy job as there are walls to remove and the entrance is through our bedroom. We will move to the upstairs guest bedroom for the project. We are dwindling down on projects (yay!).

A complete revamp – It’s not only my bathroom that’s getting revamped, but our local mall is also. We are getting a new food chain store and the entire mall will convert to a strip mall. (Strip malls have entrances to stores from the parking lot instead of an indoor walkway.) Personally, I like the inside walkway but that’s a thing of the past. In this area it can be downright cold to shop at a strip mall in the winter, running in and out of different stores. We are looking forward to the changes though. It will be healthy for the existing stores.

That’s a wrap for today! What’s going on in your life?

 

61 thoughts on “Random 5 for November 5, 2023 – Time change, deer, vaccines, projects, malls”

  2. I didn’t realize how early you made your daily pilgrimage to Starbucks. I am impressed that you can keep that priority going and make all the necessary time change shifts. I can’t relate to the need to watch out for deer. On one hand I would love their “company,” but you bring up a major reason why they’d be a concern.

    And I will definitely look forward to your bathroom remodel next year. More interesting contractor stories! 🙂

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  3. What a big undertaking. I love how you said, “Yes, we are going to punish ourselves ” – I get it. We have done renovations and although happy when they are done, I tread doing them.

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    • Everything takes so long these days too. A typical bathroom job takes 2 months. A neighbor up the street had it go on for 6 months while her contractor worked short days. This will certainly disrupt my harmony.

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  4. Kate, I am in awe of your resilience and determination. Truly over any house stuff after the roof. It is incredibly hard to find anybody that has a strong work ethic.
    Since Covid I can’t make myself go to a large indoor mall.
    I know this sounds strange, but I haven’t seen a deer since we moved from Missouri. When we lived rural, we were truly concerned about colliding with deer in the fall. Had some close calls but thanfully never had it happen.
    Going to be looking forward to your posts about the master bath. Wishing you the best of the best with this project.

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    • I’m not worthy of your awe. I’m already exhausted. I would prefer to not see deer on my daily trips as I worry about them. I drive slow but not everyone does.

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  5. I remember being quite young when shopping at our local mall meant dashing between stores in all sorts of weather. It was part of the fun, especially at Christmas time. I looked it up (thank you, Mr Google) and found it was enclosed in 1978, two years after the area’s second biggest mall and the only enclosed mall north of the river was opened. A sign of the times, I suppose but holiday shopping was always missing something after that. Now both malls are closed though the second is now pickleball courts and apartments?

    I hope the new reno project goes smoothly. I thought you had decided to never renovate again!

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    • I’d love to never renovate again. Maybe one of these days. This project and the front porch pavers and we should be set. When I was a kid we (the family) would drive from store to store. When the malls opened it was wonderful to park once and walk inside. At least with the “lifestyle malls” the stores are next to each other so you only park once but you freeze your butt off!

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  6. How I’d love to wake up to two cats staring at me. And I know deer tooling around can be a hazard to a driver, especially one who hasn’t had her coffee yet, but my Bambi fantasies never leave me.

    I love that you’re breaking ground on a new bathroom. You’re a creator Kate, across the board. 🙂

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    • Oh no it won’t. Probably won’t start for 6 months if we are lucky. I’ll dread every minute but afterward it’s all good. Love my kitchen and love my deck. Wouldn’t have done without.

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  8. Indoor malls are disappearing – the closest “former Mall” to us is not full of pickle ball courts. Another big project at home? EEEK! We have talked about renovating the master bath but the $$ involved in that kind of project has pushed any sort of start date into the next century (haha).

    Hugs, Pam

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    • I’m hoping that the cost will be on the sunny side of the kitchen project. I wish it were just a cosmetic update but we really need walls removed. Fortunately we are not moving any plumbing fixtures so there’s that. I am both looking forward to it and dreading it.

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  9. I just read another post where Shelley said her cats woke her up for breakfast – I think she said 2:30 a.m. She gets up early anyway, but that’s really too early. I only changed the alarm clocks for now – the landline takes a day to roll over unless someone calls in the meantime. The stove clocks and the rest of them can wait. I was walking trying to eke out as many miles as I can before the snow flies. I never go out once I’m back home, so the time change works for me as I can go out earlier in the morning. Today, however, we had fog, so I had to wait until 10:00 a.m. to leave … if it was a work day it would have been a lot cause. I don’t envy you on the remodeling job.

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    • Most of our clocks are atomic (meaning they change automatically) but the appliances have to be manually changed. At least they made the car clock easier to change. It’s just a click rather than running through the numbers.

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      • I’ve never seen one of those atomic clocks, but heard about them. I still haven’t changed all of the clocks. My landline time display rolls over to the new time after the first phone call, then automatically sets itself. The generator self-test that fires up and runs every Tuesday at 1:00 will fire up at 12:00 for the next six months as the generator doesn’t recognize the time change . The clock in the car is off three hours, not four now. 🙂 I have to make myself a cheat sheet. I usually wear a watch except on weekends – I’m not a slave to the time then.

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  10. There must be lots of animals that don’t understand the time change and don’t want to change their ways. I have a couple of clocks that are in the perfect position for being seen, but that means I have to climb on a stool with one foot on the window sill to get it down. I believe in doing things the natural way. Keep us on standard time.

    University Village, which is a large outdoor mall in the Seattle area, calls itself an outdoor lifestyle shopping center, maybe because it has lots of aisles instead of a strip down the middle. It’s beautiful but cold.

    Interestingly, the most US deaths related to wild animals are caused by deer. 2. hornets, bees, and wasps 3. dogs. Sharks come in at #10.

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  15. We are a couple of weeks ahead both with our covid booster and our hour change. Thanks for explaining what a strip mall is. I always sort it was something seedy.

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  16. Imagine that . . . the cats didn’t get the time change memo, causing them to greet you bedside to remind you it’s breakfast time!

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  17. I learned something with Ally’s comment about ‘lifestyle centers.’ Hmm. I am not a time change fan. I would legislate to pick one or the other and be done with it. Major reno to look forward to – brave souls. 🙂 Hope you have all the latest aging in place ideas, not that you need them just that it’s always a good investment. 🙂 Shots and more shots. We had our Covid on Friday and before that the flu, rsv, and two shingles. I’m hoping I’m done for a while.

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    • Not at all brave. Originally, this was to be done this year but we needed to recuperate from the kitchen and deck jobs. I get tired of contractors underfoot all the time. We will work in as much aging stuff as we can. We can’t do a not curb shower but we’ll have grab bars and good storage. We had covid today. Only RSV left, yay! The new food store coming is one of those that people have been asking for. Looking forward to seeing if it can live up to the hype.

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  19. Around here strip centers are now referred to as “lifestyle centers” and are slowly taking the place of all smaller malls. Only one mall with upscale stores and major department store anchors remains.

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    • That’s right, lifestyle centers! There is one upscale one locally that I light except in the middle of winter when I’m walking from store to store in the cold. We had a Williams Sonoma there but it closed.

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  21. We’re hoping to renovate the kitchen in 2024. Not looking forward to doing it, but it will be nice to have a dishwasher finally! Tired of hand washing dishes.

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    • OMG, washing dishes by hand? With all the cat dishes I have (more than people dishes) I would not want to do by hand. Good luck with that. You have done nice things to your house going back to the outside paint. You bathroom is lovely. I’m hoping I can get mine done in 1 to 2 months. We have some wall demolition which will make it take longer. The woman up the street had a contractor with issues. It took 6 months and then he didn’t put the shower door in because there was a squabble about the price. Yes, she had a signed contract but….

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  22. It was a shock for me to move to SoCal and see mostly strip malls after all the indoor malls on the East Coast. But it makes sense with the mostly sunny weather out here. There is one enormous indoor mall near me, and it’s been converting to more outdoor areas with fountains, etc. Not sure what they’re going to do with the huge, now defunct Sears buildings, though. Glad you can breathe easier while driving through deer country!

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    • I dread the deer road part of my Starbucks trip every morning. I drive slowly and often see them cavorting. They don’t look before they cross the road. Didn’t their mamas teach them that? As for “lifestyle” malls, they are becoming more popular here despite the freezing weather. Not a huge fan but it is what it is. If you are lucky, you might get a parking spot in front of the store you are visiting.

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