 Hi there. Welcome to my channel. I am like so excited to share with you my weekly vlog. In this video, you'll get to know me a little bit better because I'm going to take you along with me on my week from dinner out with friends to buying a Sungross that was a huge, huge fail for me and to the emotional process of emptying out my mother's house. You know, just trying to get it ready for sale and going through all of those emotions. So I hope this gives you a little glimpses into my life and I certainly hope it inspires you to hopefully join my community. Make sure that you subscribe to the channel. Ring that bell and most importantly, sit back, relax and let's get started. So here we are doing another, what do you call it, Jay? M&J Adventure. But it's really a car vlog. So we were heading out to meet friends for dinner. We actually, it really got spoiled this week because we went to dinner last night too with Mike and Judy who are our camping buddies and we went to the place that we always kind of go to which is a Chinese food, Hawaiian Isles in Plastow and we just had a great time. I think we were there for almost an hour and a half or two hours. Yeah, we used to be there a couple hours. We had scorpion bowls. We had more than one too. We had more than one. Which we haven't done in a long time. We haven't done that in a long time, absolutely. So it's been it's been hectic. We're actually going up to a restaurant called Takaway Tavern and we're going early. We're going to meet our friends there at 4.30 because this place is so super busy. Even at 4.30 we'll probably have to wait to get in. But that's what we're doing. Yeah, we'll probably have to wait a half hour, I bet. Half hour wouldn't be bad. It's just a super popular restaurant. So we haven't gone in a couple of years to the restaurant mainly because you can never get in. But last time we did a car vlog, we were picking up, we had picked up mom's ashes. Can you believe it's been almost a month? Almost a month since mom passed. I still, you know, most of the time I know she's no longer here but then those little stupid moments like I go in a store the other day, you know, and I wanted to call her to see what she needed. And you went to Sam's Club yesterday and had the same reaction because you always called her and said, I'm at Sam's Club. What do you need? And so those habits, those things that you just do, you know, it's kind of like hard to break. But last time we did our car vlog, we had mom in the car and her ashes and we went down the coast and we had lobster and all that stuff. And since that time in reality, we have spent almost every spare moment when we weren't working down at my mom's house in Salem. And just I can't believe the yard. My dad. I love my dad dearly. But I think if you go through the war like my dad and mom did, I think you're afraid to throw anything out. I mean, there was pieces of string that was left over. Save string pieces of rubber, you know, that he might want to use someday down the road. And it was always something like, and it wasn't like it was placed really nice. It was just thrown out. And inside the house was the same thing. My mother saved garbage bags. She knocked up like tin foil, plastic bags. You know, if you bought a bag of bread and after you ate the bread, she'd save the bag. She'd clean it up and save that bag, that plastic bag. But I just think that was a byproduct of having lived through the war and having nothing in your life that you were afraid that you would have nothing against. So you saved everything you could. I just found a couple of boxes of empty glass jars. Glass jars. Yeah. She probably used it for canning, I'm sure. I think she probably did. So that's what we've been doing. And today's Saturday and Jay went down there twice today. I did not go down today because I needed to get some stuff done at home. It's really hard. Both of us still work. So it's really hard juggling work obligations and also trying to get the house cleaned out. And we really want to clean it out. I'd like to get it on the market. I wanted to get it on the market in May, but I think it's probably going to be June. And we have a camping trip coming up that we're not going to cancel. So going away. Memorial, is it Memorial Day weekend? Yeah. And we're going up to Bailey. So that'll be a lot of fun. But we've just had so much stuff that we've had to go through. And I think it kind of re-enerates to us the fact that we need to get rid of our stuff. So our kids never have to go through that because we're looking at stuff. And my sister and I don't even recognize some of the people in the photos. Or is this something good? Or is it what is this item? Because we don't know. It's so hard. But it meant something to my mother and father, obviously. Yeah, I didn't tell you, but I put him up on the dining table in one of the dressers downstairs that he had that was full of stuff. I found a whole bunch of letters that were written to your brother, Billy, thought he was in the service. Really? Are they still, like, readable? Okay, so you saved them? I figured you and your sister would want to go through them. Probably from when he was in the service. Yeah, he was one date in 1970. Wow, thank you for saving those. So it's been an emotional journey, not only for me and my sister, but it's been a super emotional journey for Jay, who, I don't know, for the last 30-some-odd years, you've been wrapped up with my parents and all the kids involved, too. For everybody, that new mom and dad, it's been really emotional. So today we watched the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. We watched that this morning really early, and then we caught some of the highlights. What did you think of that? I mean, it's all history. It is all history. And for the English, I guess it's pretty cool, but I had to laugh on Instagram. There was some parts of Scotland where they were just in a soccer game, and they were all yelling, you know, bashing the coronation. Oh, yeah? There were people in, I think, where it was in London area, where they were bashing the coronation, too, as they can just... Yeah, there's anti-monarchy around different groups and all that. I really, really liked it, and there were many times that I talked to my mother about things like that, because my mother absolutely loved the Royals, and she loved watching that. She often told me how she watched Queen Elizabeth's and her coronation, and she remembered when Queen Elizabeth's brother, King Edward, abdicated from the throne, and then Queen Elizabeth's father, George, then became the king because his brother gave up the throne for that American divorcee. And she remembered all that. She remembered watching Grace Kelly get married, you know, over there in Monaco, and, you know, all the other royal stuff. My mother was really into that. So when I watched this today, I thought of my mother, and, you know, the fact that she had seen a few coronations, I can't even say the word, and how cool that was, you know, for her to be able to see that, and then I felt sad that she wasn't able to see this one, you know. It's life, I guess, right? So anyways, I don't know what else I'm going to add to this. Other probably Gabby stuff during the week, but I've got a few things coming in and then different things that we're doing, and I'll probably put in some video clips. I'll show some little clips of the house that we're trying to get ready. And tonight is dinner out with Brad and Liz. So we get there and our friends are waiting for us, and they said, we put our name in, but it's an hour and a half wait, at 4.30 in the afternoon. It's an hour and a half wait. So we decided we were going to go to Telly's and Effing, so we're going to another place that I think we can get into fairly reasonable. Figures, huh? Oh, wow. I tell you, it's been, it was crazy. I'm so happy we went out Saturday night because we really had a great time with our friends, and we hadn't seen them in a long time. Actually, last time we saw them was at my brother's funeral service, but we used to get together with them all the time, but we haven't really had a social event like this in a long time. We just sat at that restaurant and chatted and chatted and chatted. So it was really nice that we did that, and because Friday night we went out too. We don't normally, I don't know about you guys, but we don't normally go out to dinner two nights a week, but this was just one of those special things. So you know, I like to go out maybe one night, and most of the places we go to are pretty moderately priced, but everything's expensive nowadays. You know, it's like, it's crazy. So Sunday, I was down in my mom's house all day going through all sorts of different things. It was unbelievable. I found boxes and boxes of old black and white photos. I'm going to put some in here because this one really cracks me up. We're in front of a ship. I think it was probably 19, I don't know, maybe 59 or something or 58. I'm not too sure what year it was. And I'm pretty sure it was in Massachusetts, and we were in front of a car, and it was my dad, my brother, my mother, me, and a good close friend. I'm waiting for that good close friend to log in and take a look at pictures, and then she'll be able to tell us where that was. But I believe it was in Massachusetts. I'm just not too sure on the year. So, oh my gosh, memories, memories, memories. And I found boxes of letters, like there's a whole box of letters that my brother wrote when he was in Vietnam to my mom and dad. I'm like going, you know, what am I going to do with them? I want to read them all before I make any kind of a decision, but I can't keep them all. And the photos I want to hire, I want to send them to a place where you can scan them all in, like they'll do groups of photos. For me to do it one at a time on my phone is crazy, but I'd like to digitally preserve all those family memories, those old black and white photos, even though there's a lot of people I don't even recognize in the photos. So that was my weekend. Worked at my mom's house, really wanted to get it on. Jay did a drone, some drone footage. Maybe I'll include the drone footage, so you can see, but he's getting a little better with it, but he did the drone footage and it was really kind of cool to see the roof of the house, the road. He went all the way down the back through the fields, through the river, and all that. When I was a kid, I used to swim in that river. We had it cleaned out. There was a nice beach area. Now it's all overgrown, but it was a nice little beach area. And we just had blast down on the river. And now there's housing developed way in the back, so progress, right? I mean, things change. So anyways, it's Monday. I am going to be teaching today. I'll get a class that's going to start shortly. And I don't know if I'm going to go down to my mother's house later tonight or not, or if I'm just going to take some time off on that today. You know, it was a tough weekend. So anyways, that's it for me right now. I just finished teaching a class and it's like, it was like, it was brain dead. I have to go. I wanted to record all weekend. I never did. I have to go down to my mother's tomorrow, Saturday's, Mother's Day weekend, and between work and everything else. I've just been, I've just been crazy, crazy busy, but I did get a couple of things. I had, I ordered a sundress and I'm going to return it. I'm not even going to show it because I don't do fashion shows, but I ordered a sundress off of Amazon that I thought would be really pretty, even though the colors are a little bold for me. I tried it on and it looked horrible. So I'm going to return it, but I got, I had placed an order from Timeless. I use a number of different vitamin C's. I keep trying with vitamin C's, but I always go back to Timeless because for me, it works best under my makeup, under my sunblock, just for me. I know everyone's skin is different, but look what I got. I'll show you. Oh my gosh. So I was so excited when this came in, you know, Timeless does these big sales just a couple of times a year. And I ordered two of this vitamin C. I ordered one of the Metrixl Sync 6. I really like this Sarah. And I will probably, I'll put one of these, I'll put one of these in the freezer. So I love buying this with, when they have their sale because it's, it becomes way more affordable. This probably lasts me a year or longer. So yeah, one of these is going in the refrigerator. And I, you know, Jay and I are trying to, I'm trying to get more on a budget and really can, you know, control myself when it comes to what I buy and all that stuff. So I was like, holy camoli, have to buy this because it was a perfect sale. And this is the, I really love this color. I really did. I thought this color was so, I thought it was so, such a pretty design, but I tried it on. The material is perfect, light and airy. I'll enclose a picture, but, and I didn't even mind the color. It just looked really horrible on me. So it was like super bummed when I tried that on the dress on, because I thought the material was really cool. And I'm looking for something I can wear in the summertime, right? And so we're going to be, we're going to be doing a little bit of a snow birding, you know, like when, when, uh, when you go to Florida and you spend some time down there or whatever. So I thought it would be nice to have like a sundress, something that was pretty, you know, um, the little jacket over it. So when we go out to dinner, I just felt like having a sundress was so disappointed. So I was, I was like really, you know, it was really bummed that that dress looks so horrible on me. I'm just not like, I just don't have a body for it, I guess. And, and I really wanted to have a sundress or something because we were going to be going to some warmer climate, um, you know, we have some, some plans. And so I was just trying to look for something that I could wear that is summery, but I just don't, I don't have the body for it. And I probably never will have the body for it. So anyways, I am going to be going to the surgeon this week, while by the time you see it, I should be, I say next week, but I'm on the 18th. So this is going to be published this weekend, Happy Mother's Day. And then I'm going to be going to the surgeon on the 18th for, they're going to, you know, schedule the lumpectomy that I'm going to have. And I'm trying to be, I'm trying not to be nervous about it, you know, but, but to be honest, I'm very nervous about it. But I'm trying not to be nervous about it. I've been through it before. I know, and many of you have gone through much worse situations than that, but I'm still, I'm still nervous. So my house is a disaster. I have stuff all over the place. We are trying to prepare my mother's house for sale. So I've been taken out stuff and bringing it home so I can go sort through. And I think I mentioned previously that I have found so many photos, old black and white photos, photos of my mother and father when they were young and dating and stuff, pictures I've never even seen. I just like, I can't believe it. I can't believe some of the pictures. And then I found like four or five pictures of my brother and me as little kids that I never, I've never, one I saw before, but the others I've never seen before. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is me and Billy when we were little. It's like, they were in a box, right? They were just in a box. So I've been sorting through boxes. I have piles here. I have to, I have to go through the probate process. I only have to go through the probate process for the car because the house and everything was in trust, but I have to probate the car because that was the asset that was not in the trust. So I have to go through that process, which is not going to be fun or easy. But anyways, so I probably, you know, not, I probably don't have a whole bunch of wonderful things to say. I probably, blah, blah, blah, blah. I, Jay brought our motorhome over to be to have its annual checkup. So we delivered that yesterday. And they, hopefully that'll be done. They're going to be doing it on Monday. So hopefully it'll be done on Tuesday or Wednesday. We'll pick it up. But then we have a, I'm having like a yard sale down in my mother's house that weekend, but from Memorial Day weekend, we're going camping. So I said to Jay, and I said to my sister, I said, I don't care what's going on. I need to have some downtime. So we're going to go camping Memorial Day weekend and we'll probably bring our bikes and we're going to be going up to Old Orchard Beach in Maine and staying in a campground that we really like up there. So I'm so looking forward to that downtime. And then we just have so many different things going on. Work has been nutty. I'm sure you all encourage, you know, and encounter work issues, but work has been absolutely nutty. It's been busy. I've been teaching today. I taught and just why I look so frumpy. But my everyday look, my frumpy everyday look. Whoa, what can I say? But anyways, we, I think, you know, having lost my mother on Easter Sunday and just trying to go through and get everything done, everything, everything looks so different. I don't know how to describe that. Everything still looks so different. And I love the messages I've gotten from you saying, oh, we're going to get easier. And I know it'll get easier, but everything still looks so different and feels so different to me. So I hurt my hand when I was working on my mother's house and I still haven't, it hasn't healed. So instead of me going on and on and on at this point, I think I'm going to end this vlog. I know it's short, doesn't really say a whole lot. But, you know, I was excited about the timeless. I was bummed about my dress, which that had looked good on me. I can't believe how gross I looked in it. That was such a bummer. But maybe I'll go, I have a 30% off coupon. I think it's still good. Oh no, it expired. I guess I don't have a 30% off coupon and expired. I was going to say maybe I'll go to Kohl's and see what I can find because I definitely want to get something that I could wear going out, you know, in a warm climate, maybe just have a little white sweater on or something like that or a little black sweater on. You know, I can't wear sleeveless. My arms are too flubbery and fat. They look gross. So I can't really wear anything short sleeves. And I don't mind off the shoulders a little bit, but Kohl's shoulders don't look good on me either. You know, when you have the, I have a number of Kohl's shoulder tops. I don't wear them that often because they just, I don't, they don't look good on me. So, and I am not wanting to buy any, I keep looking over there and I look over here. I'm sorry, I'm not used to filming on my phone. I keep, I keep saying I'm on a no buy. I don't want to buy anything. Of course, and I bought those three big bottles of the timeless, but like I said to Jay, skincare is probably, I don't spend that much on makeup. You know, I go to the hairdresser once every six weeks and, but skincare is probably the most expensive item that I have. And even though I get sent products to review, like I, I was sent a bottle of, I should get it. And again, I apologize for the mess my house is in, but I was sent this to review and it's actually called Rejuvalift, Rejuvalift 4D, Rejuvalift 4D. So I sent this to review. I haven't tried it yet. It just, it just came in. I'm glad I didn't break it when it fell. But it's a serum. What does it say? It says hyaluronic acid, three types of hyaluronic acid, super hydrating serum. I like hydrating serums. So I'm going to give this a try. So this was sent to me complimentary for review. I haven't tried it yet, but anyways, probably skincare is probably what I spent my most money on. Yeah. And go to the hairdressers. Like I said, my hair is a mess right now, but I love my haircut. I love, I love my haircut. And I'll tell you, my hair fallout has dramatically improved. I know I mentioned that in my other video. I keep pinching myself going really, you know, but it has, I don't know whether it's just a freaky thing or what, but that prescription, and I have to get it renewed, right? Because I think I had three months and maybe I'm on my last one. So I have to get it renewed, but man, that's made a difference in my, because this is all my bio hair that's made a difference. And I do have a topper that was sent to me, but the top is darker. So I have to review it. And it's kind of funny because I wanted to pick a certain color and the person that sent it to me picked a different color. And the color they sent me is just, there's no way I can make it blend. It's just way too dark. So anyways, I can go on and on and on, but I'm not going to end this here. And I will share, I don't, you know, I will, I mean, I'll share some more stuff at my mother's house. I'll probably, depending on how long this is, I'll show a little drone footage that Jay did. I think I would have included that in here, but that drone footage, I think he did really good. And I think the house will sell quick. So my goal is to put it on the market by June 1st. So yeah, anyways, you know, I wish you all a happy, happy Mother's Day. Those of you that have a mother, those of you that are mothers, those of you that are dads that do mother duties or, or people that are adopted or, you know, adopted mother mothers that have adopted children or, you know, just people that act and act like mothers to others, mothers to others. You know, happy, happy Mother's Day. I so wish I could say that to my mother. Now instead, I have along my mother's belongings all open my house right now, and I have to get it organized, but I hope you have a great weekend. And this is mom and dad. And this is a picture of myself and my mother in Salem, New Hampshire. And this is when we came over, I think 1959 in Boston, my brother and my cousin. And these are some pictures I've never seen before. It's me and my brother. It's me and my brother. Oh my gosh, it just cracked up when I saw these pictures. Look at us. These were all taken in Germany. And I've never, I'd not seen them before at all. This is my brother on his little scooter in Germany and me in Germany. This one I've seen. And this is a picture of my mom and dad. I'd not seen this before. And this is my mom and my brother in Germany. And this is when we went to Germany when I was 12. That's me in the suit. Imagine having to wear a suit to fly and a picture of my mom. My sister has that picture behind her and mom and dad and my brother, Billy. And me, look at me pouting. I have no idea what was going on. And this is me and mom. So many memories, boxes and boxes of old photos of photos in some cases I've never seen before. It's unbelievable.