Sunday Morning 8/9/2020: Walk, Walk, Walk

Wednesday, between storms

Monday

It was usually raining at sunset, but we still caught a couple of good ones this past week.

Good morning!

It’s been another wacky weather week on the south shore of Kaua’i – every morning we’ve awoken up to clouds, and it’s rained off and on most of the week making it a crapshoot every day whether we would get to walk or not (we did). Even if things looked good, as we headed to the park we knew there was often a strong chance of getting rained out once we were there. This morning is more of the same. This is so not the summer I imagined, but on the plus side the temperatures have stayed lower than usual and the humidity hasn’t been bad at all. Our apartment stays nice and cool from the breezes that blow through all day, and sleeping weather at night has been ideal. I’m just to a point that I’d rather it would just rain if it’s going to rain rather than this off-and-on, will-it-won’t-it? we’ve been experiencing. I’d also love to get back to the beach one of these days as well.

We continue to self-isolate as much as possible, but there have been triple-digit increases in the number of cases the past few weeks over on Oahu, and the governor has hinted that he may order another state-wide shutdown to get things under control again. Oahu parks and beaches will close again this coming week, and the inter-island 14-day quarantine will also be reinstated. We have sadly seen up close this past week the effects of the shutdowns and the quarantine as our upstairs neighbors have gone back to the mainland in order to find work, and the couple that lives on the other side of the building is hurting as well. They ran a big garage sale this past weekend, and when I asked them how they did the answer was “pretty good, but not enough to buy groceries.” I’m not sure what’s going to happen with them, but they have lived on Kaua’i for many years and have many friends and connections so know they will stay on the island. The husband also frequently goes fishing so that will help as well. Even our landlord has said he’s worried about losing his position, although he continues to generates income for the resort and hopes that keeps him safe.

The moving company still hasn’t located our missing box, and we pretty much think at this point they won’t. We’re going to give it another two to three weeks and will file a claim after that if the box doesn’t show up. It won’t come close to replacing what was lost, but it’s all we can do. 

This morning I am:

• Reading: I am almost finished with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; it’s been another fun book to reread, and I have only two more to go in the series to complete my goal. I gave up on The Vapors – it got less and less interesting as I went along and I began to dread picking it up which is when it’s time to let a book go in my opinion. I postponed getting They Were Her Property from the library, so I’m going to read Kevin Kwan’s Sex and Vanity next.
• Listening to: The weather is nice enough this morning that we can open the French doors, and I can listen to the breeze and the birds while I write and drink my coffee. Last night though the wind was howling as a big storm blew through – we have a big tree near our bedroom and it got noisy as the wind blew through the yard. It’s all quiet inside this morning though – YaYu is still sleeping, and Brett is reading
• Watching: Brett and I are still watching and enjoying Silent Witness – each episode has two parts – but we finished up A Confession, which was excellent, with an outstanding cast. We’ve now started watching a British comedy call Mum, about a widow and her ditzy family. It’s very gentle though (like the mum) and enjoyable. The newest season of Endeavour starts tonight on PBS, but since we don’t have cable we’ll have to wait and watch it online tomorrow.
• Cooking/baking: We’ll be putting more meals together from the freezer and pantry this week – the only shopping will be our weekly trip to the farmers’ market. We still have leftovers to deal with as well this week. Tonight I’m going to fix a zucchini frittata to go with grilled Italian sausages, and other meals this week will be Mississippi Pot Roast along with roasted vegetables; French dip sandwiches using leftover roast; mabo nasu; Japanese-style chicken and vegetable curry; and leftovers on a couple of nights. This week’s cake (to be baked on Wednesday probably) will be a plain yellow cake with vanilla buttercream – simple and delicious.
  

  Starting point: Kealia Beach Park

  

  Heading south into the Dead Zone (breeze is blocked)

  

  Looking north toward Kealia

  

  Lots of big waves and rough surf

  

  Looking to Lihue in the south

  

  The turn-around point

  

  The sky was fairly clear to the east

  

  Winds from the north east caused heavy waves.

An eastside beach path walk never disappoints. Heavy clouds to the south and the west created lots of humidity, but thankfully it didn’t rain while we walked. There was a strong breeze from the northeast for most of the walk.

• Happy I accomplished this past week: Brett and I walked all seven days this past week, over 17 miles, although we got rained out at two-thirds of the way on Tuesday. We saw rainbows almost every day when we were at the park too thanks to the rain and clouds. We developed a long-term walking plan for the next two years, to increase our distance and endurance, and started that this week. I finally got my hair trimmed up yesterday  – two weeks ago it was still too short and I had the appointment postponed to this past weekend. Otherwise nothing major was accomplished, just the usual daily chores.
• Looking forward to next week: Once again, better weather? The missing box? Possibly a beach day or two?

  

• Thinking of good things that happened: Litchis finally showed up at the farmers’ market! Yesterday we were up in Kapaa for my haircut so we walked the beach path again for a change of pace. Kapaa was very hot and humid compared to our area, but as long as we could catch the breeze we did OK. I love that my hair is short-short again – so comfortable and easy to take care of. My daughter-in-law sent a boatload of photos from their recent vacation in Nagano, which is located in the mountains on the west side, and was home to the 1998 Winter Olympics.
  

  Can’t believe how big he’s getting

  

  She’s getting big too!
• Thinking of frugal things we did: The only spending we did this past week was at the farmers’ market. We put $2 into the change/$1 bill jar. I earned 977 Swagbucks this past week as I’ve added an additional 30 minutes of searching or doing a survey in the mornings. I discovered I can earn Delta Airlines gift cards as well as Southwest ones at Swagbucks, so after I finish with my Southwest cards goal I’ll move over to earning Delta cards. We did a pretty good job of eating leftovers this past week, but there were an awful lot of them and we still have plenty to get through. Thankfully we didn’t have to throw out any food. I always remind myself that the most expensive food we buy is the food we throw away, and that keeps me motivated to find ways to finish things up.
• Grateful for: We’re feeling especially thankful now that we have a steady, dependable retirement income. It isn’t a huge amount, and our budget is pushed to the limit right now because of YaYu’s college expenses, but at least we know we will get paid and when, and that it won’t be reduced.
• Bonus question: Are you having issues with slow mail delivery? Oh my goodness, yes. And, it’s getting worse. I used to get my prescription-by-mail orders in five days; they now take nearly three weeks to arrive (all of our prescriptions are by mail only too). Thank goodness both Brett and I have enough back-up that we can get through another couple of months – hopefully we’ll get our refills before then. My primary ballot has never arrived, and we’re all waiting on a bunch of other stuff as well. Our address is at a small local post office, but this has been going on all over the country, it’s getting worse by the week, and most upsetting of all is that this is being done deliberately, to mess with the election and mail-in and absentee ballots. Rural residents are especially having a rough time of it, as are veterans waiting on their by-mail-only prescriptions, but I heard today from someone who lives in a big city, and she hasn’t received any mail for a week, so the problems are everywhere.

The walking plan Brett and I have developed to increase our distance and endurance over the next two years is very simple. Since we have almost two years to get ready, we want to take it slowly and build ourselves up gradually (and avoid aggravating my bursitis). Basically, we will add 10-15 minutes to our daily walk (currently around 45-50 minutes, averaging around 2.5 miles) starting with one day a week. The following week we will walk two days with the additional time, the third week three days, and so forth until we are walking the new time and distance every day. We’ll do that for two or three weeks or so and then start the process over again, adding 10-15 minutes to our new route. We think we can work up to around five miles per day walking at the park, but after that we’ll have to branch out to other trails around the island. Anyway, we’re hoping that by taking it slowly and patiently we can get ourselves conditioned for long distances by the time we head over to England without adding any trauma to our bodies. I’ve also been investigating long walks we can do when we’re in Tokyo when we’re there next. We generally walk about four miles per day when we’re there, but want to increase that and do at least one long walk per week while we’re there to stay in shape.

Pale yellow

Ruffly pink

Sunrise colors

A house located next to the beach path in Kapaa had some beautiful hibiscus.

YaYu’s laptop died on Friday afternoon. Because she just finished paying her tuition bill she has very little left in her account for anything new, but she’s hoping it’s only a dead battery. We have nothing left for her either as we had just given her what we had to help with the tuition and for her flights. The little we do have left will go toward her flight back to Pennsylvania in January and spring tuition. She is currently communicating with her dean to see if she can borrow a laptop from the school until she can (hopefully) replace the battery in hers. She hates to spend her money on anything though so this is like a major trauma for her. 2020: It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Anyway, that’s a wrap for this week! Some ups, some downs, but overall it was another good one and we’re looking forward to the week coming up. It’s almost hard to believe but YaYu only has two and a half weeks left here before heading back to college – really, where has the time gone? I hope it was a good week for everyone, and that you’re looking forward to the week coming up.