Some improvement and a 180

DH seems to be feeling a little bit better. He made it all night with no pain pill and got up when I did and took some regular tylenol, instead (and then went back to bed). He said his pain level right now is about a 2 (it was an 8 when we were at the ER). Trying to figure out bland foods (and he's always hungry LOL) has been hard. For dinner last night I made scrambled eggs and toast. Seemed filling, yet bland, I guess. 

He got the other lawn mower (we have a lawn tractor and a regular Honda push mower) serviced for the end of the year and put away, so that is all taken care of. A week or two ago he put the plow on the    side x side, but that isn't too hard. It's all hydraulics and then click in some parts (I can't remember what they are called now) that keep it securely hooked up.

I didn't do much at all. I was remembering that come Jan/Feb I will have to file my mom's 2024 tax return, (she passed 9 days into the year) and the week before she passed I had taken out the first half of her IRA distribution for the year. I did an estimate on what her taxable income for the year will be and looks like the refund between Fed and State will be almost half of what was withheld, so that's good. At least nothing owed. That tax return and her final social security payment are the 2 last things I am having to take care of.

I don't know if I'm imagining or what, but it seemed like I used to be able to order food items from Walmart to be shipped to me, things in cans or boxes, etc. Now everything is only in store. Or if it does ship, it's from some 3rd party seller who wants 4x the normal price. In the past, sometimes when I needed to add things to get to the $35 shipping threshold, I would add food items, but now nothing much seems available with Walmart. And since if I can't make the $35 shipping, then I just order my item from Amazon, so I don't have to find things to add to the order. I just checked Target and am having a bit better luck, so at least they still seem to be shipping a lot of food items. I see Target carries their own brand of protein powder, so I'm ordering the vanilla this time, to try. A couple of the reviews said this brand tastes just like Premier. I ordered Premier from Amazon that I am using right now, but if this Target kind is good, it's cheaper and has more servings per container.

DD reminded me of that funny show Ghosts we had started watching awhile back and then I forgot about it, so last night I picked up where I left on on season 2. Still funny. 

There's a gentle breeze going on outside and it's playing a pretty tune on my big Corinthian Bells wind chime, that is near my office window. I just love these wind chimes. They have the prettiest sound. Very relaxing.

I think I may have finally turned the corner with this damn coughing. I hardly coughed at all yesterday and this morning so far so good. I still feel like I need to clear my throat off and on, but hardly any coughing. I haven't noticed dh coughing as much either. I haven't gotten very good sleep, though, since dh started feeling bad on Monday night. While he was out in the shop yesterday afternoon, I managed to get in a really good 2 hour nap. I must have needed it. 

He came inside just after I got up and I asked "it took you 2 hours to do the lawn mower?" He said no, he ended up standing at the fence chatting with Mr. Neighbor for awhile. I guess we are not the only Republican voters in this state, not very happy with our Republican choice for Governor and US Senator. DH and I thought long and hard about it the past month or so and for the first time ever, in almost 40 years of voting, we voted Democrat, for the state Governor and US Senate seat. Mr said he and Mrs are feeling the exact same way, but couldn't bring themselves to actually vote Democrat, but ended up leaving those 2 votes blank, not giving their votes to the Republicans running, either. We thought of doing that, but in the end decided to vote for the D candidates. I have a feeling a lot of Republicans are feeling a bit like this, in our state. We watched the recent debate between our current governor and the other candidate and after watching that I feel ok with voting for the guy running against our current governor. He impressed me and I felt like he won the debate and came across well. I'm to the point that no matter which side, almost all of them are corrupt, liars and in it to enrich themselves and those that pull their puppet strings because they bought them their elections.

Another friend, down the road a ways (a rancher) who much more leans much more Democrat over Republican is having a similar issue with voting for Harris for president. He said he can't vote for her, so went with one of the 3rd party candidates. It seems for some, no matter which side we are on, a lot of people don't like the choices we are given to vote for. We do mail in voting, but dh always drops our ballots off himself, at the county courthouse in town. We are so sick of the handful of political mailings we get every day. But, nowadays it seems the "election season" is every year, doesn't it? At least we will get a break from the mail and tv ads for awhile, pretty soon.

Well, it's time to go down to the kitchen and make myself some breakfast and get on with my day. I need to clean out the chicken coop :)