First snow

We had Shanna's kids all day and night due to their parents being sick. When I first turned on the Jacuzzi, Tess recoiled in terror and demanded to be let out. After sitting on the tub's side for 15 minutes, Oliver promised that if she came in, he would make sure she would be safe. She ended up enjoying it.

How to amuse the kids: light shows. I turned off the lights and had the rotating snowflake projector on. Oliver spent a lot of time earlier playing around with my falling leaf projector

This is where my succulents and some of the orchids are hanging out for the winter. I did bring in some stock, still in bloom, that smells like cloves

the hibiscus is huge. It has about 10 blossoms on it today. I guess it likes its winter home in our breakfast nook

The part of November I hate has begun: the cold, wind, and snow after a week culminating Friday with temps in the  70s. My last long bike ride was on that day. Usually on Sunday I am out there but not with wind chills  around 15 degrees.

I spent some time out in the snow yesterday digging up my dahlia tubers. I can't find some of them but the ones I dug up are much bigger than what I put in. Maybe more dahlias next year. I still have to figure out how to store them. Sitting in my garage, which is at least 15  degrees warmer than outside are the glads, tuberous begonias, and now the dahlias. I forgot to save the calla lilies until now. Hopefully it is not too late.

Shanna and Ramy both have the flu with Ramy getting the worst of it turning into pneumonia. Thus we had the kids (and the laundry as their dryer broke). How to entertain 3 kids when you can't send them outside? Well we do have the basement playroom where they spent some time but they were thrilled to see that some of their favorites are on Netflix. I am afraid that they went way over their screen time limits though as Tess points out, she didn't get any screen time. But they behaved themselves so that was good. and they really liked the Jacuzzi and all of my fancy lights. I did have some projects that I wanted them to do but I forgot about them. Next time. They did not want to sleep alone so I put them all in a queensize bed. If I were real nice, they could have gone in our King but they didn't complain.

We had our Chosen Sisters night Friday which was fun and entertaining as usual. I limited myself to the one glass of wine. I also had to start all these silly limitations for the colonoscopy scheduled tomorrow: no seeds, corn, nuts. celery. Now I am in the no solid food phase though I can drink clear liquids. Then in a few hours, I will have to drink a half gallon of some 'cleansing' solution they provided and then get up at 5 am to drink another half gallon. Can't wait. But by this time tomorrow, all should be over. Today will be no fun though.

I have scheduled several of these things in the past but always at the last minute I got cancelled. The very first time, I was sent the wrong prep by my doctor so they wouldn't go through it. Another time, it was scheduled the same day as my cancer surgery. I didn't reschedule for awhile.  The last time, a few years ago, I got a call saying that I needed to bring $3500 to the appointment in case they needed to do a rescan. Not how I want to spend my money. As it is, every time my screening mammogram (allegedly for free) needs to be redone, it is then called a diagnostic mammogram and then costs in the thousands. This happened again this year. So with that and a lot assorted medical expenses due to the accident and some left over from my surgery, I am way over the deductible so even if they have to do a rescan, it should be covered. And who knows with the dismantling of the ACA if this will be covered in the future. So this will be it. I am not at any particular risk for colon cancer so once should be enough. Meanwhile, today will suck.