The River and the Highway

I don't know what that means.  They're both highways of sorts.  Not in a mood much to interact with the world, but, to a certain extent, I must.  Nothing is wrong, but there's an undercurrent flowing right now that just doesn't feel comfortable.  Despite that downer sounding opening, it's been a pretty good week.

The Good Stuff:

• I seem to have isolated the noise problem on my recumbent bike to the right pedal crank.  It was self-loosening.  I added a star washer and tightened it down.  So far, so good, and it's nice to be riding again.
• We went to Waco to run errands on Thursday, and Mr. L got new batteries for his man lift, and I got a Fitbit One.  I've been using an Omron pedometer for years, and it works marvelously.  Every six months or so, I replace the CR2032 battery, and it continues to count steps like clockwork.  But I'm kind of geeky, and since I've been using Lose It!, they have a capability to link with techie things.  I wanted a way to get my steps recorded automatically, and Fitbit is one of those things that will sync with Lose It!.
• One of the other things I noticed in the article about experimenting one's way to weight loss was the sleep monitoring app. I didn't want to use the app he recommended in the article, but it did prompt me to consider such a thing. (Experimenting my way to weight loss?  Maybe!)  Fitbit, if worn on your wrist while you sleep and activated (press it's button until the stopwatch function kicks in) will track how long it takes you to go to sleep, when you're restless, and when you wake up at night.  And the really cool thing?  It seems to do a good job of doing just that.  I can check the chart it's already uploaded in the morning and find out how much time I was trying to sleep (when I activated and deactivated the timer) with how much actual sleep I got and when it was.  Kind of an added bonus to the pedometer function.  Another nifty feature is it tracks when I walk up stairs.  It seems to count my back steps into the house as a flight of stairs (about six steps), but that's also kind of cool.  It's a hundred dollar "toy" but it's a pretty cool one.   
• Mooch is back to hanging around the house a little bit.  I still don't know where he goes when he's not here.
• I brought the furnace filters downstairs in preparation for changing them.
• We went to a sort of local swap meet this morning (Giddings, TX), and we're leaning strongly to setting up there next year to try to re-home some car parts and stuff.

Not So Good Stuff:

• I didn't change the filters yet
• When Mr. L installed his new batteries and when to complete the circuit, he gets a spark, and he doesn't think that's supposed to happen.  So, much to his chagrin, he still needs to drag the machine out and take it in to Equipment Depot for them to inspect it.  To make matters worse, we suspect this problem may have been there when we bought it, because it never performed the way we expected it should, implying something was wrong in the circuitry.  I just hope it's not outrageously expensive to repair.
• Some family challenges that I have been anticipating came up this week, and we're working them out. Nothing terrible, just not appropriate for a public forum.  Only mentioning it, because it is probably contributing to my feelings of discomfort mentioned above.  Pretty sure everything will work out just fine.  One of those things.
• No progress on PBOTL this week.
• The joint at the base of my left thumb is driving me bonkers. It "catches" on a regular basis, which means I get the equivalent of an electric shock in the joint every time I get it moving again.  It's apparently partially attributable to carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis.  I have the beginnings of it in my right hand, but my left hand is my dominant hand, so I see it there first.

 The Week Ahead:

• Take four cats and head to San Antonio on Tuesday to carry out watering and various other sundry chores.  Return to Central TX on Saturday. (This plan leaves Mr. L with Rossie and three others in an attempt to continue to draw Rossie out of her reclusiveness.)  Ruby is also more outgoing with me down there, so I'll work with her.
• Go to Books-A-Million in San Antonio (the one in Waco closed!) -- I need more of the cheapie cloth bound little notebooks that they carry.  The ones at Barnes and Noble are $15.95, and the similar things without the name brand are $5.95 at BAM.  I still have several, but I need to stock up on some colors.
• Go to Social Security Administration office in SA and make sure they have correct address and contact info for me.
• Dare I say it?  Work on PBOTL.
• Oh, yes.  Actually change the furnace filters.