This was our fourth day back at the house and it felt like I was already a month behind. That may be partly due to the fact that the change of seasons seems to be delayed by that much here in southeast Michigan. But it mostly had to do with the notepad sitting to my right that is filling up with things to do much faster than I am getting them done. Although that is to be expected it is still a bit disheartening. Some of them are short, simple tasks, but even things like calling or e-mailing someone are often open-ended exchanges. Others are major projects that I will be working on, and writing about, well into the fall.
Today’s big errand was taking our two cats, Jasper and Juniper, to the veterinarian for checkups and shots. They were due for these in February, but we were in Florida at the time and so were the cats. They saw Dr. Carron from Plaza Veterinary today. He and his staff have seen to the health needs of all of our pets for the last 30+ years.
We have not changed any of our professional service providers since moving last year. Doctors, dentist, optometrist, and veterinarian are now all located 30 – 60 miles away, but we have used these providers for many years and are comfortable with them. Since we typically see them at most twice a year we do not mind the additional driving distance and time as long as we can schedule appointments for nice times of the year and at nice times of the day. Why drive in rush hour and/or bad (snowy) weather, after all, if we do not have to? And we do not have to.
We do most of our shopping in Brighton and Howell, except for items we can only get from Whole Foods Market, and are having our two Honda automobiles serviced locally by the dealership in Brighton. While automotive service facilities are not necessarily interchangeable we have found Honda service departments generally provide competent service wherever they are located.
On the way back from the veterinarian we took the new Latson Road exit off of I-96 and headed north a short way to the intersection with Grand River Avenue where Teeko’s Coffee is located in the strip mall on the NE corner. Jeff had roasted four pounds of coffee for us on Tuesday for pickup today. I chatted with him while he divided up the batches into 1/2 pound amounts and vacuum sealed them. We try to order the coffee a couple of days ahead so he can let it “out-gas” before bagging it. He plans to get bags with one-way valves, like you find most packaged coffee, and that will eliminate the need to wait a day or so for the out-gassing to subside.
Back at the house Linda dove in to organizing household paperwork while I made calls to various contractors and then worked on computer/e-mail/website tasks, including an RVillage quick start guide for Bus Conversion Magazine. After dinner I unloaded the car so Linda could take it to the bakery tomorrow. Our daughter still has Linda’s car from the winter and we will get it back (temporarily) when we see them on Saturday.