I had a bit of a shopping spree this past week. I bought a set of outdoor chaise lounges for our back courtyard. (I'm thinking it will be lovely to lay out and look at the stars since there is somewhat less light pollution where we are now). We also had to replace our electric kettle, so we opted for a slightly higher end one. (Our old one was very cool, but the switch to turn it on broke and broke again after it was repaired.) Aside from those two larger expenses, I ordered some relatively expensive persimmon soap from a Japanese company.
Why persimmon soap? I was reading a subReddit about the dreaded "old people smell" and how to combat it. Turns out that characteristic odor is caused by a substance called nonenal that increases as people age. Two things reliably help to combat smelling like an old person: Green tea and persimmons. Japanese discovered that there's an enzyme in persimmons that counteracts the substance that people recognize as "old people smell" and they added it to this soap that supposedly works wonders. So of course I ordered some (and some laundry pre-soak and a body wash because paranoia had something to say). (No, I'm not technically an old person, but this increase in nonenal starts at around age 40 and I'm definitely older than that.) One sample sized bar of persimmon soap arrived today after I had already showered, so I'll try it tomorrow. Of course I don't think I smell bad, but no one who smells bad ever thinks they smell bad, do they? And women in perimenopause definitely notice that they start to smell differently and some say they dislike the new way they smell.
Anyway, I'll see how this stuff works.
Aside from spending money online, we've been trying to spend a bit of time every day outdoors. I'd gotten out of the habit of outdoor time because the summer was so godawful hot that I could not spend more than a few minutes at a time outside. Even when the temperature dropped a bit in the evening, there were the flies (our neighbors have horses). As summer progressed, my allergies got worse and worse so I just started staying inside all day long. Blah. But recently we've had some lovely fall weather--even a bit of rain yesterday--so the outdoors is appealing again.
I was telling Dave that when we first moved in here, we had dinner--well, every meal actually--outside. Of course when we first moved in we didn't have a dining room table or any indoor table or even a sofa and coffee table to sit at. All we had was Dave's mother's old outdoor table on the patio, so we just carried our meals out there. But it's been almost a year since we did that. Now that we have a dining room table and chairs, it's just easier to eat inside. We've had a few outdoor meals when others come for lunch, but that's it. I'd like to change that up a bit.
We've been eating a lot of traditional fall foods, too. I made a vegetarian version of carne adovada with red chile and Quorn (we call it Quorn-e adovada) and mayocoba beans. We had that with calabacitas and tortillas. Last night I made green chile stew. We're out of tortillas or else I would probably have made quesadillas, but instead we had it with tortilla chips. (Of course, all that makes so much that we have leftovers for days.)
Today we got a grocery delivery from Whole Foods. We were running low on some basic things and I recently came across a couple of recipes that I want to try, one of them for onion bhaji, an Indian dish made with spiced garbanzo bean flour and lots of lots of onions.
What else? Gray Kitty had an appointment today to have his blood drawn to test his thyroid levels. He's on thyroid medication twice a day. Chance will go to see the vet soon, too. His hips and hind legs are very weak and painful with arthritis these days and the vet thinks some physical therapy and other treatment will help with some of it. We've increased the medication that is supposed to help with pain, but I'm sure it's not a magical pain eraser.
Like Chance, I also have arthritis, it's mainly in my neck, spine and shoulders. Changing hormones make it worse sometimes and there was a day and a half this week where I felt smashed. All the bones and joints in my body felt like they were made of dry, crumbly chalk. Everything hurt. Even the bones in my feet hurt. That subsided a bit and then the hot flashes started. Those have been going on for days.
Getting older is fun.
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