Charmion, I once had a classic response to a futon sale on Craigslist - an email saying "please take down your ad, I'll send you a check. Would you send me the change" crap. Just to waste his time I pointed out he was emailing from a UK account and he wrote with a different one. I told him to get lost. There has been a delay in my BuyNothing transaction from last week, where the woman who wants my stock pot still hasn't been by. That isn't a problem - no cash is exchanging hands, she seems to have caught a virus, but thinks she'll pick up the pot (still on my porch) this evening, if the bug doesn't kill her. Shit happens, but when there is money involved, trust your gut.

Don, I do eat meat but I usually use it as part of a dish. If I bake a chicken breast I'll use part of it to put on salad, I'll cut some cubes and add them to a bowl of spaghetti or ravioli with sauce, etc. This morning I had scrambled eggs and I have a rotisserie chicken in the fridge so I'll probably use some of it for lunch and dinner. I need to make protein more of each meal if I'm going to use it in smaller amounts. I use a compounded HRT with E2, E3, and methyltestosterone for the reasons Charmion enumerated. Since a hysterectomy (adenocarcinoma) in my mid-40s caused early "surgical menopause" my doctor put me on HRT. I tried a number of commercial versions and was unhappy (they had too much testosterone and not enough estrogen) until we compounded one. That's the Rx I was fussing about for the last few weeks. E1 is most closely linked to breast cancer, hence the choice of the other two.

The gym has a stair climbing thing that I tried recently, mostly I use the recumbent bike (for cardio and get my knees a range of motion) and the treadmill (weight bearing and cardio). I'll add the stairs more often, thanks for that reminder. I'll be mowing the backyard this afternoon, so that counts for weight bearing exercise today.

I pulled up the home warranty plan, it covers stoppages only within the confines of the building. Darn. I know it's tree roots. I just called the plumber, and it seems the service call is less expensive when I can tell them it's the sewer line. No detective work, no ladders, no camera down the line, no digging to find a leak, and easy access to the cleanout.   

Last night I thawed several containers of mashed pumpkin and sweet potato and made a quadruple batch of my favorite pumpkin bread recipe (one time I was short on pumpkin and made up the difference with sweet potato - it was so much better I always make it that way now). One loaf is on the counter, several are in the freezer, and I delivered one next door earlier. She was waiting for her husband to return from blood work and physical before fixing breakfast - and he arrived as we talked. They are having coffee and slices of that bread this morning. Nice!