<p>Hi,TheAnalyst, Glad you enjoyed your cruise! Welcome back!</p>
<p>I will be in Dc in April and May.
Moda i do not think it is vain, you deserve to feel good.</p>
<p>TA glad you had fun.
Well he Patriots lost now perhaps can watch Downton Abbey???</p>
<p>SF winning - color me surprised by that ending. And sorry… I tried to root for NE, but Tom Brady looked like he was wearing Uggs. He will be very disappointed to watch game film if he even does.</p>
<p>TA - so glad you had a great time and the weather worked for you (unlike it worked for me this weekend).</p>
<p>I think we made a decision on the realtor. Going with the guy who sold us on how to enter the market and his experience in closing the deal… as well as his connections to where I’d like to move. While this isn’t typically his area of expertise, it was clear he did his homework and convinced us that the hard part isn’t necessarily in getting the offer, it’s in positioning against the competition and closing the sale. Plus, I didn’t like the other front runner’s option of increasing commission percentage to incentivize the buying agent, especially when the likelihood is that one of their agents would be that agent!</p>
<p>Sounds like a good plan, Moda. Glad you’ve got that part off your plate.</p>
<p>Welcome back, TA. Where did you cruise to? Despite a comparative dearth of normal levels of snow here, I have a hankering for a cruise. I think I’m getting cabin fever from having had the plague so long 
I think having the pool makes it worse, because I sit in the hot tub and look at the closed/covered pool and think jeez I wish it were summer again. I actually prefer my winters to have enough snow to do something, like snowshoeing. It is white again today, perhaps I should be careful what I ask for ;)</p>
<p>Shaw, sounds like it will be an exciting time for you with shawson. I know all about that “worry” when they have too much going on, but in my case, with good cause, because mcson engages in a certain amount of magic realism about deadlines. Despite shawson’s challenges, he seems to manage his load exceptionally well, so if the enthusiasm of the startup overtakes his grades for his last semester, well, he can probably afford it ;)</p>
<p>Mcson, on the other hand, is now running tech for a major play, which to my mind really interferes with producing his senior thesis, which at this point is an album of original scores, fully produced with interactive visuals. So, lots of studio time involved, which will compete with rehearsal time. Then again, who knows, in the secret guileless logic of mcson, perhaps his future self will somehow NEED all this theatre experience ;)</p>
<p>Am way behind on reading everybody’s news… </p>
<p>Drove 1,000 miles plus on Fri, Sat, Sun for both college kids to get them back.
No electricity when we got home last night, so instead of fussing around with the generator, cooked turkey burgers on charcoal grill & listened to football on radio. Went upstairs around 8:15 PM with the radio & dog started barking. H went downstairs to check it out, dog was barking because lights came back on (frig beeps, oven clock beeps) So we were able to watch Patriots-Ravens, which did not have outcome H had hoped for… (H has been a Patriots fan since they were called the Boston Patriots) So first “Empty Nest” night did not go according to plan! </p>
<p>S will give us a list of everything he forgot and we will go back down this coming weekend, which is probably the norm for him! Fortunately we did not have a problem with getting there & back with a home NE Patriots game. </p>
<p>Have a good week, everybody! :)</p>
<p>MRI was negative! Thanks for all of the good vibes.</p>
<p>Welcome back, analyst we missed you. Glad that you enjoyed the cruise.</p>
<p>Good luck with the house sale, moda.</p>
<p>Slumom- Did you have heat when your power was out? Can’t remember if you are in a colder part of the country. I know some of you here are in for some serious cold and I say that as one who grew up in Northern IL.</p>
<p>FallGirl, that is great news! What a relief.</p>
<p>Great news,FallGirl!</p>
<p>FallGirl, Im happy to hear your good news.</p>
<p>kmc, we went to the Bahamas out of Baltimore. It was great not to have to fly to the port, so I think we will cruise out of that city again. Nobody on this cruise appeared sick (no flu or norovirus outbreak as sometimes happens), but one 58 year old passenger who we had gotten to know well sadly died. Although he looked healthy and was very active with work, Scouts and so forth, he had recently been diagnosed with COPD, so he and his wife were going to quit smoking as soon as they got off the cruise. He already had the prescription filled to help. As he was coming back from an excursion on Friday, he began to have trouble breathing and went to the infirmary. The ship called an ambulance immediately, but it was slow in coming and he died en route to the hospital. Carnival had a crew member stay in the Bahamas with the wife to make sure she had all the support she needed and the body was released for return to the U.S. by late Saturday, so that at least was handled quickly. </p>
<p>S1 swam in a race over the week-end (in a river, not the ocean) and said he has signed up for a mini triathlon in April. He did swim team throughout high school and has always been a runner, but I dont think he has any real bicycling experience so that will be new. His gf friended me on Facebook so I could see the pictures from their vacation in Colombia, which was really nice. It sounds like they are dealing well with the distance issue so far.</p>
<p>Oh Fallgirl, that is terrific news!!</p>
<p>That’s pretty awful, TA.</p>
<p>Home for MLK holiday and am enjoying all the pomp and circumstance in DC!!</p>
<p>Yay, Fall Girl! Glad the mojo, prayers, et al worked ;)</p>
<p>TA, so sad for his family, but then again, if I were him, I might prefer to check-out toward the end of a nice cruise rather than a protracted battle with COPD. My girlfriend had a lung transplant a few years ago due to COPD complications and is on 30+ daily pharma substances to make it all work. She is a fair bit older than me, and had quit smoking in her early 50s. </p>
<p>These things are on my mind since H went to a doc today for the first time since an emerge clinic visit in 2000 and a prior 15 years without seeing his primary. Doc has now just sent him for a test for DVT. He is overweight and very sedentary, so perhaps we’ll BOTH be revisiting our lifestyle in the near future.</p>
<p>I managed to haul butt up the wicked back woods hill this a.m. in the 12-degree (-10 with windchill) snow so am still keeping my promise (to myself) in that regard despite environmental conditions I would love it if I could ever convince McH to join me. Maybe this is a sign he’s ready to consider the “move it or lose it” phenom called advancing age!</p>
<p>Great news FallGirl, about the MRI! :)</p>
<p>House was cold when we got home, did not have any idea how long power had been out.
I guess we just did not want to bother with generator and it was only the two of us!
The kids can be wimpy & want heat, TV, internet etc. because they are so spoiled of course! Sometimes it just seems like you get the generator up & running and the power comes back on. H & I just kept our coats on & drank beer & wine & had our charcoal broiled burgers! I did forget about the Invisible Fence though, I kept letting the dog out, but he never challenges his boundaries & no one told him the electricity was out!</p>
<p>So glad to hear your good news, FG. I’ve been in that waiting game, and know how relieved you must feel!</p>
<p>TA, I’m sorry to hear about the new acquaintance’s death. How awful for his wife and such a relatively young man.</p>
<p>kmc, Encouragement to you for keeping up with your resolution. I hope you can convince your DH to get moving with you. My H, who’s made such huge changes and improvements in his own health, often says he wishes he had acted sooner and avoided the consequences of what seems to be inherited heart disease. I’m his biggest cheerleader these days.</p>
<p>TA, My kids cruised out of Baltimore to the Bahamas last January.It was a Christmas present to them . It was great being able to drive to the port. H and I have cruised from Baltimore as well. Very sad about the passenger that died. Not at all unusual for someone to die on a cruise ship but that must have been upsetting for you to have actually met him. My late dad had COPD. He was not on oxygen but was probably headed in that direction when he died somewhat unexpectedly from complications from pneumonia. COPD is rough.</p>
<p>Re: Checking out-We were visiting the Bedford Springs Resort(a very nice place) and were near the golf course just sitting on a bench. Someone had collapsed on the 18th hole. They were still doing CPR when the ambulance arrived. We left (felt strange looking on even though it was from a distance) but have a feeling he didn’t make it but probably went out doing something he really enjoyed.</p>
<p>kmcmom. Hope your husband’s test turns out okay.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone, I am much relieved.</p>
<p>Analyst, so sorry to hear about that man’s death. How awful for his wife.</p>
<p>Kmc hope your H is OK. I can relate as my own H is working on eating healthier. He has upcoming knee surgery so working out isn’t possible for him now, but he is really trying. It’s hard.</p>
<p>Got a lot done this AM and am now taking a break with the inauguration on tv. H is working and S is studying for finals this week.</p>
<p>Super news FallGirl! So happy and hope you will celebrate.</p>
<p>What cruise lines do you recommend? You have given me an idea. D wants to go somewhere with me either in March or in June. This might be interesting. If we went in June H and BF would also go. </p>
<p>Still blue skies but cold. I’ll take it.</p>
<p>Great news, FallGirl.</p>
<p>sevmom and TA, death is a hard thing to fathom. We are fortunate that both my mother and ShawWife’s mother are healthy, completely cogent, and completely functional. We lost both fathers over a decade ago. Each had about a year from problems starting to death. Each said, in different ways, that he had lived a full life and once it was clear that things were not fixable (or even extendable for a long period of time) that it was time to go and not to try to keep him alive. Each died at home with their families. While it wasn’t playing golf, both they and their families had time to prepare (except perhaps my mother who was in the hospital during with Guillan-Barre syndrome the last several months of his life and the first few after his death). I’d guess that kind of departure is probably better than a long painful decline (a la ALS) or an abrupt departure that doesn’t give others the ability to prepare psychologically, but who knows.</p>
<p>shawbridge, Both grandfathers died fairly quickly (coincidentally within months of each other). I think a long drawn out decline would have been very rough for them. The grandmothers both died about a decade later (also coincidentally within months of each other-MIL was last and just a few months ago at 91). Both grandmothers had long, terrible declines that were very painful to watch,particularly my MIL. There was relief,to be honest, for my MIL when she died (and we drove for hours and got to her bedside 3 hours before she died). She was a very proud, intelligent, gracious ,educated woman who spent her last years in a locked memory unit. I dread that kind of end for myself ,especially for my children’s sake.</p>
<p>I wonder if MissyPie’s father’s funeral is today – I think she mentioned something about her daughter needing to miss it because of a cheer competition that is today. Sad whenever you lose a parent, however it happens. </p>
<p>D called to chat over the weekend – turns out that our failure to teach her about football had the side consequence of her not being too interested in attending football games, and thus not recognizing the BMOC who called out a compliment on her glasses. Her friends seem to be ribbing her about that one. Thesis is progressing, but she’s in waiting mode on some data and it is making her antsy. I think it is going to be pretty crazy between now and mid-March when it is all due, and not much for the rest of the semester. Learned something new: apparently on-line journals now have a “cite me” button or option that generates the cite. Remembering the pain of trying to help her figure out the APA citations for History Day, that has got to be a huge improvement, especially with all the dynamically delivered web pages that don’t have easy-to-find static links.</p>