Fri-yay

ei34

Very SSDD over here.  My knee feels a lot better- going to make H deal with the kids again today for more rest.
Hope everyone's work day goes quick and your weekends are enjoyable!

climbingsingle

So very happy it's Friday! 

Fuckface was served yesterday. I'm just happy for another step forward. Wednesday night, I went out for a drive and when I came home, he was drunk and yelling at me. He apparently misplaced some book and accused me of stealing it. Thankfully since then he hasn't been sleeping here. 

Not much else going on. I believe he's going to be gone all weekend, so I think I'm going to have to the house to myself. 

banana468

Good Morning!

I need today to be Friday.   It's been a busy week!

@climbingwife I hope you get some QT to yourself that's FFF (Fuckface Free).   Brings new meaning to the Flame Free Friday!

I don't work in the midwest but have coworkers in MPLS and am thinking about them.   I haven't heard how they're doing and know that this situation is terrible, the cop is a murderer and we need to have everyone that was involved arrested. 

On a first world problem note -  DH and I are now thinking about our upcoming vacation plans.   We had Disney rebooked for August.   We have reservations in a Disney hotel and park tickets for 5 days.   In April when they came to those of us who were affected by the cancellation they offered discounts for the summer plus free dining.   We rebooked understanding that this was contingent upon the state of the world, we'd be wearing masks and then promptly booked our dining (done 180 days in advance during standard times).   They issued their reopening plans this week noting limited park hours, a reservation based system and that capacity would be limited along with any crowd drawing events would be cancelled.   That included but was not limited to parades and fireworks.   Parks would close approximately two hours early.  Last night they announced that:
-Dining reservations that did exist are now cancelled. 
-The dining plan that we had is now rescinded. 
-One cannot add a dining plan until Sept 2021
-They have not advised when the resort we would be staying in is scheduled to open.   

I GET it.   They are operating in unprecedented times, have to rework who is booked to eat in restaurants when capacity is going to be severely limited and have not stated if all restaurants can open.   They haven't run through a pandemic like this before and changes need to be made.   But now DH and I are starting to really reconsider the idea of going when we're now going to be in the parks for fewer hours with more restrictions and our out of pocket cost is now easily an additional $1000 minimum all in Florida heat while wearing face mask (which we SHOULD be wearing).  

I hear rumor that they will be offering those in our affected group a hotel discount of 35% to rebook.   What I am wondering is how that discount compared to what we were planning to pay (what was the discount we were offered for August) and what will our options be in the spring?     

Disney is going to have to make changes.  I do think that they are going to have to do some serious apologizing knowing that they did take away a serious benefit to their customers at a time that they were using said benefit to entice them to come to their parks.   It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out.   I'm sure we'll go eventually and know that so much of this is going to be about keeping people safe.   They have to do this.   For DH and me the thing that will come up is how much is it worth for us to spend this summer for now such a limited experience? 

On a good news front - Dad comes home tomorrow!

missJeanLouise

@climbingwife is his brother still there? 

@banana468 I don't blame you for reconsidering, having to figure out food every day, multiple times a day on vacation is not fun. YAY for Dad though! How is he feeling?

I spent too much money on quilting supplies today, basically because all of the other things I ordered have taken so long to get here that my brain has moved on to other projects. Half of what I spent was on backing fabric to finish my most recent quilt but I could have figured out a much cheaper way to finish it if I hadn't already been shopping. 

banana468

If we are still able to go we *can* make dining reservations theoretically 60 days in advance and do quick service for the balance.

However Disney DID just increase our vacation expense in their announcement last night.   They took their gift back while adding restrictions.   I get it.   They have a business to run and need to do it safely.  But when it adds up I'm more reluctant to go when we're now going to pay MORE out of pocket than we previously thought a month ago for a more limited experience.   I am anxious to see how this shakes out because they have great PR and respect their customers so they're going to make this right.   The question is going to be what course of action they take to get there. 

Dad needs to work on motor control of his arm which is also his dominant side.   He can walk and his cognition and memory have improved.   I talked to my mom yesterday and advised that if we think he shouldn't be driving we need to get that from the physicians or it's going to be a big fight and that's going to be a problem. He will respect physicans more than he respects my mom. 

climbingsingle

@missJeanLouise YES, his brother is still here. 

ei34

Omg @climbingwife I don't know how you're doing it.  I'm glad there's at least some FF-free time.
@banana468 I understand and agree with Disney's restrictions - safety first - but don't think I'd go in August.  More for wanting a fuller experience than safety.  I know it's hard though, because the kids are only that magical age for so long.  I'd actually been planning for a few years now that my family's Disney trip would be over Easter break 2021, and now I'm toying with pushing it to 2022, just to try and let things really get back to normal.  It's a tough call.  Yay for your father coming home - hoping it's a smooth transition!

banana468

ei34 said:

Omg @climbingwife I don't know how you're doing it.  I'm glad there's at least some FF-free time.
@banana468 I understand and agree with Disney's restrictions - safety first - but don't think I'd go in August.  More for wanting a fuller experience than safety.  I know it's hard though, because the kids are only that magical age for so long.  I'd actually been planning for a few years now that my family's Disney trip would be over Easter break 2021, and now I'm toying with pushing it to 2022, just to try and let things really get back to normal.  It's a tough call.  Yay for your father coming home - hoping it's a smooth transition!

Exactly.

I completely understand that Disney has to take away reservations knowing that they can't guarantee that the restaurants will be open.

It's just hard to swallow the idea of having a vacation now costing more AND offering less.   It's in the best interest of safety and at this time because we aren't frequent guests of the park we are going to question if this August is the time to go or if we postpone.  

MyNameIsNot

Very happy for Friday, very happy for the weekend. It should be a low key one here. Our dining room table came in this week, so tomorrow we're going to start working on assembly. I think it's going to be a huge project. Saturday night H's brother is going to join our online trivia group. I really love that BIL and SIL, and hate that we only get to see them once or twice a year.

Then on Sunday we're going to go to my parents for a socially distant gathering in their backyard. I'm hoping to catch up on sleep and get some organizing done this weekend too. I wish it were another 3 days. Maybe I'll take another vacation day next Friday. 

kerbohl

Huzzah for Friday!  I got a landscaping estimate yesterday, so I'm going to do some stuff to prepare my lawn this weekend for when they come to make it prettier.  It's really just going to be weed control, but I'm just so tired of all the weeds and can't wait for them to be gone.

Social distancing planned for tomorrow at my parents' farm.  I'm going to check on the current bush I gave them to see how it is doing.  Other than that, don't know what I'll get up to.  I have book club over Zoom on Sunday for a book called The Rosie Project.  My book club usually reads these fairly sad and somber books, but this one was nice and funny.  I feel like we could use that.

The feud hubby is having with his friend is continuing.  This guy knows how to needle from a distance.  Trying to distract hubby as much as I can, but he does need to learn some better coping mechanisms.  I wish my standard "life sucks so I'm going to go stare at bunnies and feel better" would work on him.  

CharmedPam

Ugh @climbingwife what a mess. So glad he had the insight to sleep elsewhere at least. Do you get along with his bro?  Can’t wait for this to be behind you, as I’m sure you are too.
@banana468, I would move the dates to 2021 too, although the kids will be older, yeah.  To spend more and get less doesn’t make sense.  Disney is expensive enough as it is!

cool weekend and I like it that way! My friend had some good things happen to her this week and I told her she was on a lucky streak and should play that 336 Mil lottery.  I asked if PA could play online like IL and she said she didn’t know but she had to get out and mail her mortgage anyway so she’d find out.

::play skipped record player sound::

people are still mailing in their mortgages?!?

edit: illinois is supposed to reopen and enter phase 3 today.  I called ulta to make an appt (for the 6th) to get my extensions back in but they don’t have an open date yet!  Hoping for mid June she told me.

you’re not open then, Illinois.  You’re not open. 

charlotte989875

Well my company is not returning until after Labor Day and evening then it will be a reduced capacity. I’m glad they finally made the decision and told us. I have a few things in the office I need to get but it’s good to know I officially won’t be going back until after my maternity leave. 

Pretty quiet weekend planned; H is going to camp for the weekend so I’ll be here trying to finish up painting and relaxing. 

STARMOON44

banana468 said:

Good Morning!

I need today to be Friday.   It's been a busy week!

@climbingwife I hope you get some QT to yourself that's FFF (Fuckface Free).   Brings new meaning to the Flame Free Friday!

I don't work in the midwest but have coworkers in MPLS and am thinking about them.   I haven't heard how they're doing and know that this situation is terrible, the cop is a murderer and we need to have everyone that was involved arrested. 

On a first world problem note -  DH and I are now thinking about our upcoming vacation plans.   We had Disney rebooked for August.   We have reservations in a Disney hotel and park tickets for 5 days.   In April when they came to those of us who were affected by the cancellation they offered discounts for the summer plus free dining.   We rebooked understanding that this was contingent upon the state of the world, we'd be wearing masks and then promptly booked our dining (done 180 days in advance during standard times).   They issued their reopening plans this week noting limited park hours, a reservation based system and that capacity would be limited along with any crowd drawing events would be cancelled.   That included but was not limited to parades and fireworks.   Parks would close approximately two hours early.  Last night they announced that:
-Dining reservations that did exist are now cancelled. 
-The dining plan that we had is now rescinded. 
-One cannot add a dining plan until Sept 2021
-They have not advised when the resort we would be staying in is scheduled to open.   

I GET it.   They are operating in unprecedented times, have to rework who is booked to eat in restaurants when capacity is going to be severely limited and have not stated if all restaurants can open.   They haven't run through a pandemic like this before and changes need to be made.   But now DH and I are starting to really reconsider the idea of going when we're now going to be in the parks for fewer hours with more restrictions and our out of pocket cost is now easily an additional $1000 minimum all in Florida heat while wearing face mask (which we SHOULD be wearing).  

I hear rumor that they will be offering those in our affected group a hotel discount of 35% to rebook.   What I am wondering is how that discount compared to what we were planning to pay (what was the discount we were offered for August) and what will our options be in the spring?     

Disney is going to have to make changes.  I do think that they are going to have to do some serious apologizing knowing that they did take away a serious benefit to their customers at a time that they were using said benefit to entice them to come to their parks.   It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out.   I'm sure we'll go eventually and know that so much of this is going to be about keeping people safe.   They have to do this.   For DH and me the thing that will come up is how much is it worth for us to spend this summer for now such a limited experience? 

On a good news front - Dad comes home tomorrow!

I can’t imagine going to Disney this summer. Aside from the threat of getting the virus it just doesn’t sound terribly fun at the moment with all the restrictions (which I agree are necessary!). 

kvruns

Yea for freetime without FF @climbingwife I had a similar incident with mine this weekend so I empathize with that situation

@banana468 that doesn't seem very Disney-like to rescind the offer like that. Like you said I get that they have to rework things, but for customers who trusted them enough to rebook while things were still uncertain and then take away a big perk like that doesn't seem right. 

levioosa

I’m glad you’re getting the house (mostly) to yourself this weekend @climbingwife. Sorry it has to be shared with BIL though. 

@ei34 I’m glad your knee is feeling better! 

@banana468 that’s great news about your dad! I’m sorry Disney isn’t turning out how you wanted. Dining out and not worrying about meal planning is also half the fun of vacations. Or it is for me at least. 

My manager brought in gourmet donuts this morning. So my fast and abstinence from sugar has already been broken before 9 am lol. But I only took half of a donut so at least I semi-behaved. Not too much planned for the weekend. This week felt really long for some reason. 

Just look at these donuts. How was I supposed to say no? (Sorry if the pics are huge)

banana468

@STARMOON44 we were originally in the "Let's see if this works" especially since they were discussing the limited park capacity which would help with social distancing and crowds.   That part to me is a benefit and we would be driving so there wouldn't be an issue in the airports.  That said, this seems to be adding a lot more cost to us than it is worth. 

I am really curious to see what the podcasts and press releases state as a result.   

short+sassy

@CharmedPam, people are still mailing anything? lol.  I'm kinda joking.  Though I've mailed so few things in the last 10ish years, I can actually tell you what they are.  The thank-you notes for my wedding presents (my mom mailed the invitations).  And rental receipts to a former tenant whose only nod to technology was texting.  Yes, she mailed me money orders for her rent also.  Which was a huge PITA for me.  After a few months, I told her I'd e-mail her the receipts.  I know she rarely used her e-mail but, if she wanted the receipt, she could get it there.

Work was so funny today.  It started out really hectic, because the main engineer I work with had a big ask.  I even asked the Big Boss if I could work a few hours of OT but, instead, he told me I could send out my main weekly report on Monday so I could devote my time today to this other task.  But as it turns out, once I got started on the task, I saw it had been misfiled and was already done, lol.  It took me some time to fix it and I had other dangling ends, so I still didn't have time to do my weekly report.  But it really opened up and de-stressed my day, lol.  I'm even leaving on time today, now that I've moved my weekly report to Mon.  Woo-hoo!

Not much going on this weekend.  I need to go to the bank and might pick up a few things at the grocery store.  They're also giving out free masks on Sat. at a Goodwill store that is just a few minutes away from both my grocery store and bank.  It would be great to knock all that out in one short trip!  I'm a little worried about lines for the masks, but at least it will be easy to swing by and then I can leave if it looks like it will be too long.

Kinda crazy to do at this time, IMHO, but there is actually a new restaurant that is going to be opening up in my neighborhood.  They had the sign up for the first time when I drove past it on my way to work.  Under the name, it said "Wings and Seafood".  The building it's in is set up more for a casual take-out place, though previous businesses also had counter seating and a few tables.  But still, just seems like a really bad time to be dipping one's toes into the food industry.

Not to mention...and I know every community has a few!...this location has always been a "black hole" for restaurants.  It was a Church's Chicken forever.  Then Katrina wiped it out and it sat abandoned for years.  It came back into use a few years ago, but has had 3-4 restaurants come and go in about as many years!  It's like no sooner does a place open up and then it's closed again in months.

Short story, long.  I'm always a little excited when a new food place opens up near me.  Because I'm always hopeful it will be my new fave and super convenient, lol.

VarunaTT

I'm here, mostly lurking.  I wasn't at work yesterday and my life is a bit of a mess right now.  I'm glad it's the weekend and I think there's a lot of baths in my future.

mrsconn23

Yeah, the travel industry is really having an issue with scrambling on changing timelines, guidelines, and trying to be accommodating but also stay in business.  Disney's so high profile that they're going to get a ton of flack for this, but it's happening all over.  I don't think we're going to see any sort of recovery to the industry until at least 2022.  It's going to be slow the rest of this year and next.  I also think the resort business may never fully recover.  People are going to opt to do vacation homes because they can keep their group and interactions small and still be on vacation.  There's a few DVC agents in my mom group and this is a mess for them.  They have said a lot of people are just scrapping this year altogether and moving their plans to 2021. 

YAY for dad going home. Yay for fuckface free time!  

Our leave company has really dicked around with my claim and tried to deny it.  My therapist is on it, but it's seriously taken until today, my last day of leave, to be fully resolved.  I've been so stressed out all week (the opposite of what I should be, considering my why I'm on leave in the first place) about it all. My therapist is my rockstar.  She even told me she'd approve me for another week.  But at this moment, I feel OK about going back to work Monday.  

I took DefConn to get a haircut today.  The salon policy was only the client even if they are a minor and masks and whatnot.  Thankfully, we're really close with our stylist (we've followed her from her old salon) and DefConn loves her.  Also he's 9 and knows what he wants, so I had no concerns he'd get the cut he wanted.  I would not have been cool with it if our stylist isn't who she is and we hadn't been seeing her for so long. 

This weekend will be low-key.  It isn't supposed to rain and will be in the 60's-70's.  It's not going to be warm enough to boat, but maybe we'll go find a park or something to explore.  

short+sassy

levioosa said:

I’m glad you’re getting the house (mostly) to yourself this weekend @climbingwife. Sorry it has to be shared with BIL though. 

@ei34 I’m glad your knee is feeling better! 

@banana468 that’s great news about your dad! I’m sorry Disney isn’t turning out how you wanted. Dining out and not worrying about meal planning is also half the fun of vacations. Or it is for me at least. 

My manager brought in gourmet donuts this morning. So my fast and abstinence from sugar has already been broken before 9 am lol. But I only took half of a donut so at least I semi-behaved. Not too much planned for the weekend. This week felt really long for some reason. 

Just look at these donuts. How was I supposed to say no? (Sorry if the pics are huge)

Oh yeah!  There is an awesome donut store in my neighborhood that is renowned for putting bacon on maple bars.  I love that combination.  This was the only place I'd ever seen them at, so it's nice to see other places have discovered that goodness, lol.

A funny thing I've found about NOLA is, despite being really hard-charging with ALL the fried foods lol, we do NOT do doughnuts well and they are hardly any doughnut shops as compared to our population.  And most of them suck and totally lack variety, like they'll only have about 3-5 kinds.

Here are my examples.  NOLA has a population of about 300K people.  The place with the bacon maple bars is the only acceptable doughnut shop in all of city as far as I'm concerned, lol.  We don't have any chain doughnut stores.  The next town over (the suburbs) has 140K people.  As for chains, there is one Krispy Kreme and one Dunkin' Doughnuts.  That's it, lol.

Now, I know Boston is the epicenter of Dunkin'.  But still.  There were TWO within walking distance of my Airbnb, lol.  Me and my H every morning on our trip, "Hmmm, do we want to go to the Dunkin' by the beach?  Or the one that is slightly closer on the main road?"

OliveOilsMom

Didn't get a chance to pop in yesterday.  

Climbing - I'm glad that FF was served and that he is gone for even a short bit from the house.  

Banana - I would be skipping Disney, discounts or not this year.  

ETA:  I have a Target run to do later this afternoon.  Tomorrow we have my BFF's son's birthday parade.  At some time, we will finish fixing the drawer box and face plates to the two drawers we are replacing - more exciting homeowner stuff!

VarunaTT

I just booked a vanity appointment for tomorrow.  Getting my eyebrows threaded, "laminated", tinted, and my eyelashes lifted and tinted.  They've got a special going on, b/c my place had just moved before everything was closed down, they all wear masks and sanitize in between each client and we're all in individual rooms.  I'm excited.