Day 5-CDC recommends all J&J patients get a booster after 2 months

The first AND last day of my book club…

10/25/21. Monday

 6:00 – L. leaves for Otis.  The garage door wakes me up.  I play an  Organize 365 podcast and go back to sleep. 

8:00 – I wake up again, but replay an Organize 365 podcast and go back to sleep. 

9:30 – 10:00 - Awake and I go downstairs to say good morning to the dog. It’s raining today, which means she pooped in the house, next to the front door. I clean it up then cue her to go outside. She grabs her tennis ball and outside we go – she pees in the red rock flower bed, maybe because it’s not saturated like the rest of the yard. Return inside and cheese for her, while I make a cup of coffee for myself. 

-B. and I are scheduled to go on a hike tomorrow, at Griffith Park Observatory, BUT the forecast is for rain. I call Bikes and Hikes and leave a message, asking to reschedule for next week. 

-I call Castro Concepts, a new Home Security Alarm vendor whom B. found for me online, and schedule an appointment so they can fix my home alarm as L. and I have not been able to set it for several weeks. 

10:00-10:30 – I talk to B. and tell him I rescheduled our hike for next week. 

10:30-11:30 – I log onto Canvas and review the Module for my class this afternoon, even though I already updated the course content last night. I make a few adjustments and tweek the Discussion Board, then take the time to catch up on a little news and listen to The Daily – The Sunday – “Who is the Bad Art Friend?”

-I send a follow-up email to Bikes and Hikes about rescheduling our hike in case they didn’t get my voicemail message. The hike cost $50 and I definitely don’t want to forfeit that money. 

11:30-12:30 – Shower. Lotion. I put on jeans and a sweater. 

12:30-1:00 – I pack my Beets speaker and netbook in my school bag, and load it and my FiloFlex in my car. I slice apples and add them to my lunch bag, along with some hummus and my leftover egg sandwich from Café Nouveau on Saturday. I put my lunch bag in the car, too. 

1:00-1:15 – I check email at College No. 1 to see if anyone is opting out of the F2F class this afternoon - a few students will be attending the online section today. 

1:15-2:00 – I heat up my egg sandwich and leave.

Driving and I finish my egg sandwich. I’m in the midst of a torrential downpour and stuck on the 14 due to a accident. I am not going to make it to class on time, if at all, so I send an email blast to my F2F students telling them to convert to online instruction today.  I don’t have to notify my online students because it’s business as usual. 

2:00-2:30 – I’m finally able to exit the freeway.  I grab the next on ramp and am en route back to my house. 

2:30-3:00 – Yet another accident going the opposite way. I’m stuck in traffic again so I take this time to log into Canvas and publish course content for all students. while I’m in gridlock. Class is in session. I’m in my car. 

3:00-3:30 – Traffic starts moving again. Driving. 

3:30-5:00 – Home and I log into class and monitor the students’ progress, especially the F2F students who are not used to working online. The students seem to be faring well so I take this opportunity to start hammering up the fake ivy on the main wall, inside the garage. This is a tough job.  The ivy comes in 12”x12” panels and each square must be hammered into the wall – I am constantly up and down on the ladder. I periodically check in on the students while I work and field a few emails.  I listen to Citations Needed.

5:00 –6:00 -  Class dismissed. Due to the fact that I wasn’t able to attend class this afternoon, I’ll be able to make the 6:00 book club meeting at my local library.  

Driving to the library and I eat a pear on the way and put on my make-up. 

5:45 – I’m early so I sit in the parking lot and highlight pertinent material in YNAB [You Need a Budget] 

6:00-6:30 – I check in at the library and am told which conference room we’ll be meeting in, but when I enter the room, nobody is there. “Leslie”, a 30-something librarian, enters the room and informs me that this is only the second meeting of the self-help book club.  We’re both masked. Apparently, there was one woman in attendance last week, as well. Leslie created the Betterment Through Books book club, along with three other themed book clubs, and is pretty jazzed about this one, although she confessed that her superiors were skeptical about the longevity of her book club(s) as there didn’t seem to be enough interest.  

Both of us read YNAB and we discussed it at length. I recommend Leslie listen to the By The Book podcast [one of my faves] and also referred her to Your Money or Your Life, a book that largely changed my financial life.  In turn, Leslie said she swears by Boundaries which is on the calendar for next month’s book club. I like Leslie and we have a good discussion about YNAB, segueing into other topics along the way. I spend a half hour talking about the book, then call it and decide to leave, telling Leslie I will definitely be back next month to discuss Boundaries. It was a great conversation! and I look forward to talking about books with her next month. 

Spoiler Alert: I never see Leslie again. Although I do read Boundaries, there is a scheduling conflict next month [November] when the book club is put on calendar on the very day I am teaching. I’m unable to attend on Monday, 11/22/21, but when I check the date for December’s meeting, which will fall during my winter break, I note that the Betterment Through Books book club was inexplicably removed from all subsequent months without explanation. The only remaining book club left on calendar is…[drum roll please]…The Romance book club. and I don’t like romance novels. BUT… I won’t know any of this until December… 

6:30-7:00 – Driving

7:00-10:00 – Home and I turn on all of the Halloween decorations then resume hammering the panels of fake ivy into the garage wall. I listen to Full Body Chills. 

10:00-12:00 – L. returns from Otis and actually asks me if I need help! Yes – of course I do and I never turn down an offer. L. helps me nail up a few of the panels and then removes the pieces of the drafting table we ordered from the box and sets them out. Her Dad is in town and he will be assembling the drafting table in the coming days. I continue going up and down the ladder, nailing panel after panel of ivy to the wall, while L. breaks down the cardboard box that held the drafting table. Unfortunately, I’m short on ivy panels and cannot complete the project, which is a real bummer. I need to place an order for more plastic ivy panels. 

Spoiler Alert: although I will place the order tomorrow, I will inadvertently order the wrong Model No. and the panels that arrive will be drastically different from the panels I have already hammered into the wall. When I contact tablecloths.com to start processing the return, I will be informed that I’m responsible for returning the shipment and that this return will cost me $45 out-of-pocket, in addition to ordering the correct ivy panels all over again. It will be weeks before I’m finally able to finish this project along with the aforementioned $45 hit..

 I assemble another storage unit on wheels for L.’s art studio/garage. 

12:30-1:00 – I read Ladyparts.

1:30-2:30 – I take a short nap. 

2:45-3:30 – I do a 30-minute Insanity Max-Tabata Strength workout. 

3:30-4:30 – Bullet journal. 

4:30-5:00 – Nighttime routine. Bed.