I am so slow with everything I do these days. Instead of pushing through, I'm pushing things back – one week, two weeks, three weeks. I do get around to things eventually. And it's not as if I get any praise or brownie points or anything if I stress out getting things done a day or two or even a week or two earlier. Hufflepuffhobbit doesn't care. And it's like I spent all the energy I had this year already back in June when we moved in.

Unfortunately there's still a ton to do... We still need to make an appointment to get our ceiling lights and "smart" radiator thermostats installed. We still need to get the rest of the kitchen painted, the door of the pantry lined with silicone, the unused exhaust duct in the kitchen stuffed and secured against critters making their way inside, the ventilation system in the pantry needs to be serviced and the filter needs to be replaced. The pantry still needs furniture, we desperately need a big closet/cabinet for the bathroom for assorted stuff piling up in other places, the basement needs furniture, and we need an outdoor utility box/cabinet for storing recycling and bags of soil for the potted plants and some car stuff as well... There's more, but I don't really make lists anymore. If I completely forget about something, it's simply not important enough to remember. If it's actually important, eventually I will remember and get around to doing it.

Last weekend we were invited by M., one of my oldest friends, to celebrate her 50th birthday on Saturday. We treated ourselves to a nice hotel and had a really lovely weekend. It was lovely to see M. again after many years when meeting up simply didn't work out because of kids and life and jobs and things. Maybe next year. It was also wonderful to see her brothers and her mother again. Some of my most treasured childhood memories are about spending time with M. and her family. They were my safe haven when times were rough in my family. So seeing them again was an incredibly emotional experience for me. On Sunday we went to see a brilliant new museum for the history of Bavaria, and then had a delicious lunch in a historical restaurant right on the river bank. The trip home was annoying/exhausting because the trains were so packed. And it's not even the holidays yet... Urgh.

Tomorrow I'm off to visit my Dad again. I need to set up Siri on his new iphone for him because the icons on the phone are too small for him to see and he can't remember how to get back to the home screen when he taps the wrong thing. The problem with all the accessibility tools on the iphone is that my Dad cannot SEE them much less understand them, so how is he supposed to use them? For example, the magnifying tool might do wonders for him, but he can't see the various buttons for how to use it. They are too small and there are too many of them. The other accessibility options? Well, I can see them, but honestly, I don't understand what most of them might do and if/how they might help my Dad use the phone. I wish there was some kind of service person for the handicapped that you could book an appointment with to look at all those accessibility options and set things up properly for someone with severe visual impairments and failing fine motor skills. But of course there is no such service. I will never understand why they removed the home button. That one little thing would make using the iphone so much easier for my Dad. At almost 84 his fine motor skills are not up to the fine gestures needed for using a modern smartphone. Of course he also absolutely hates all those new-fangled things, which makes everything ever so much harder. Looking at my Dad, I mostly see what I don't want to be like when I grow old, and that makes me so damn sad.

The cats and the gardens however are doing well. The hedgehogs seem to have hidden away for hibernation (as they ought to). I'm in the process of setting up new bird feeders. Another one of those things that I ended up postponing again and again. But today I've actually started painting the new feeders, so hopefully I'll be able to set them up this weekend. Just in time for the first of Advent. Hooray!