I went without my oxygen this morning for a while, paid a bill online, and am now writing this as if I were a regular person! This is a big step for me. It still doesn’t take much to knock me flat, but I’m gaining on things.
What I wanted to stress today was how important you are. Yes. YOU.
I have always valued you, and spent quite a while each day collecting things that I think are wonderful to share with you. But I wanted you know know that since my husband and I got sick in February and our world was turned on its ear, the ‘valuing’ has become much more personal.
I thank you for the comments and messages. The welcome-backs. The honest concern. For checking on me. These are all priceless.
I hope that I will be able to write TWO posts tomorrow, and soon be back to holding myself to 4 blog posts a day one day soon. :0)
I have told you that our son lives across the world from us. We communicate daily via a chat program he set up for us, plus a conference call program. This allows me the illusion that he is NOT across the world from us, but only a message away. We chat daily – sometimes several times a day.
We’re setting up my new computer and I wanted to get the chat program on it. I had a real problem, though, in that my current computer gave me a message that the chat program wanted to “verify it’s you.” To do that, I was supposed to give it my username and password. I did, and it tried to send a confirmation email to the address – but that address is no longer active. I tried to change it, but it wouldn’t let me. AAAAAAACK!
I left a message for our son about the problem. Thankfully, he sent an email inviting me to sign up using the new computer. I used the new computer to follow the directions and finally got it working.
Our son helped me change the user name and password. He wanted me to display a picture with my account. We haven’t been able to move my pictures to the new computer yet, so I looked at what was available so far. In an old picture group, there was a picture of my husband and me, sharing a chair in my parent’s home back in the 60s when we were dating. I used that. Our son LOVED the pic. Apparently, he hadn’t seen that one before. He sent a smiling emoji and said he thought “we ought to go steady.” I replied, “we did, and over 55 years later….” It was a fun memory.
I then was able to move the program to the browser I use for that, so we’re all set. (We will tackle what we need to do to enable the conference calls later. We need to enable camera and microphone, and who knows how we do that.)
I am feeling triumphant that we were able to get this done this morning. Things are looking up.
I got a call a while ago from the tech, saying he was on his way… Fingers crossed about the ice maker.
If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I whine from time to time that my efforts to lose the lard and get stronger are frustrated.
I’m into a routine now.
I’m eating low carb and monitoring what I’m eating and drinking on MyFitnessPal.com. This is a wonderful site with a free part that allows you to (1) set your goals (2) plan what you’re going to eat and drink ahead of time BEFORE you mess up, and (3) chart your progress with exercising, measurements and weight logs.
Womens Health
In-between posts on the blog to you, I’m doing short sessions of exercises with 3-pound weights, several reps of lots of different moves – some to the beat of music videos of ladies doing ‘drumming exercises’- and then I go back and write another post. This takes the ‘curse’ off of things for me. I have the weights on my computer counter right next to me, so it’s easy to stop, do a session, and then get back to what I was doing. I end up doing 4 to 5 sessions daily.
The Indian Express
I try to get in a session of “old-lady-yoga-stretches” – 30 to 45 minutes – every afternoon. I do NOT fold myself up into a paper airplane shape and sail across the room. I’m concentrating on relaxing, stretching my poor, aching body as far as I can into each position and breathing into it. I’m making progress because I’m stretching farther and able to relax into it better than I could when I started. I’m getting more flexible, looser, and my balance is improving. I can relax – unless Monster Cat decides to jump onto my feet and bite them.
Getty Images – Health
If the weather permits, I try to take at least a couple of walks around our yard daily. At one point, I decided I would walk down and get our mail every day. Doesn’t sound like much, does it.
Well, we live on top of a ridge line in Arkansas. Our driveway is 650+ feet from the house down to the road that runs in front of our property. It is graveled and STEEP. I tried to do this, but almost fell on my head several times trying to walk down, and then, even stopping several times to bend over and try to catch my breath, it felt like Mt. Everest to this old lady. Once was enough.
Now I walk out to our shop, around it, past our old veggie garden area, back to the house, around it, and do the round again. If the weather is nice, I put my gardening gloves on and carry my pruning shears so I can stop and cut something down while I’m out. (The woods are continually trying to recapture the land we took when we built our home 37 years ago now.)
Deviant Art
Finally, just for giggles, my husband helped me get our old Wii Fit to work again after several years. I stopped using it years ago due to my general laziness and it’s predilection for snark when I got on to measure my weight and when I tried to do the activities. I’m ignoring that and talking back to it now. :0)
I whine because even with watching what I eat like a hawk and pushing myself to move the lard daily, I’m having trouble meeting my current interim goal. I just bobble with 2 to 3 pounds over and over rather than actually meeting my goal and being able to set a new one. It’s aggravating, to say the least.
I guess it’s also character-building, because I AM sticking to my eating and exercise plan and I WILL – EVENTUALLY – reach this interim goal of 45 pounds off from my heaviest. Right now the result is 44 pounds down and almost 44 inches less. I. AM. DETERMINED.
Sure, there are challenges – I have to remind my husband that I have the tractor guy on ‘speed dial,’ ready to dig a hole for me to throw him in when he is being particularly ornery, for example, but mostly all is good.
I usually spend the morning writing posts for this blog and doing exercises with weights in-between posts. This way I don’t have to have a particular time designated for working out with the weights, and it doesn’t seem so bad when I can then enjoy writing another post.
I truly love spending time finding things I find wonderful to share with you. I’ve become friends with some of the readers of this blog – a thing I wouldn’t have had the opportunity for, otherwise. What a gift that is!
I escape from my ‘challenges’ by –
writing the posts or finding wonderful things to include later
listening to music – either upstairs in my art room, or finding new wonderful talent on YouTube
reading – I just can’t get enough of diving into an ‘old friend’ or discovering a new author, learning something new, and more.
playing in my art room – playing at being an ‘artist,’ trying new techniques, using new tools, or old tools in a new way, being inspired by things I see on Pinterest, Etsy, or other places that get my juices flowing.
gardening – spring is my favorite season, with perennials blooming from my efforts in the past, new things to plant, veggie gardens to plan, hacking down all the stuff that tries to recapture the wildness that was here before we came, and more. There are good things to do in ALL the seasons, though, and I love to spend time outside, pruners in my gloved hands, walking around.
My husband and I are reasonably healthy at this point, even though we’re older than dirt. He is still grumbling about turning 81 last month. “80 had panache” he said, but 81 is ‘just old.’ I’m trying to watch what he’s eating, though he thwarts my efforts when he can. He refuses to exercise, but that’s just him being ornery. He’s excited about his new welding table, but doesn’t have a new project yet.
He did say he was proud of me recently about my efforts to lose the lard and make what is left stronger. I’m still happy about his compliment.
So, I’m a happy, spoiled lady, and I love my life now. I’m hoping that Dr. Seuss’ words are true for a good, long time.
I’m of several minds about getting older. It may be ‘multiple personalities,’ or dementia, or a combination of both, but I’m split mentally and emotionally so many ways I feel I’m in a ‘sliced-and-diced’ commercial for fancy knives.
One big part of me – the part I’m encouraging – is embracing life, living life to the fullest, finding joy, taking my time to enjoy things, choosing to do things that bring me happiness and peace, learning new things, trying to develop new skills, trying to be as healthy as possible so that my life is the best quality possible.
Another part of me – one I’m kind of hiding from – is having to step up in areas where I feel totally inept, such as figuring out what is wrong with something and trying to fix it, programming new technical things, handling things my husband has always done, but needs help with or total takeover from now. I’m having to really PUSH myself since this is becoming the new normal – that I am an adult and supposedly able to handle much more than I ever have. My main goal at this point is to try to remain calm in each situation that comes up, figure out what I need to do, how to try to work with my husband, how to keep priorities straight, figure out who to call if things go south, etc. I want to cover up my head, escape, ignore – but that’s not possible.
SO – how to deal with my getting older, having changing needs, and helping my husband deal with HIS changing body, abilities, personality, and ego – how to go forward?
My dad told me something that he lived by and has helped me a lot – to try to stand back and see the humor in a given situation. Many times you have to work really hard to see it, but usually, it’s there. That helps in keeping your cool, keeping priorities straight, and taking things one step at a time.
Take a deep breath. And another one. Maybe take a walk around the yard, do a session of yoga stretches, use weights to bop around with some nice music and exercise videos.
Stay busy. Don’t let things overwhelm you. Have projects that will change your focus for a while, using your energies on something you can look at afterwards that makes you feel more in control.
Do things that bring you joy. For me, that’s spending time in my art room, listening to music, reading, writing this blog, searching for good things that make you smile, walking outside, getting a massage, visiting with a friend.
Try to be a good communicator. Letting others who care about you know how you feel and really listening to what they are saying, as well as to the person/people who may be a challenge.
We will all face this kind of thing at some point. What do YOU do to handle it?
We gathered our trash and drove it down to the bottom of our newly cleared NICE driveway this morning. My husband stopped the truck before we got to the bottom so that I could get out and get the trash can and drag it down to where we leave it for emptying right beside the street. I did NOT fall on my head, though I’m thinking of trying to have retractable cleats installed on the bottom of my sandals so I don’t slip and slide so much. I’m seriously considering getting several pallets to put across the ditch to the side of the driveway and leaving the trash can down there, rather than dragging it down and then back up every week.
We drove back up and noticed our elephant ear plants were drooping. We checked the watering units in the well house and they were wonky again. Apparently every time the power even blips, the control units lose their minds, not knowing what time it is or when or if they’re supposed to come on.
I managed to figure out how to run each unit manually and we had to tweak the water in several of the planters. Then I had to set the clocks again, and reprogram each unit to run automatically. I’ll set my alarm to go out at 3pm and check to make sure that each one runs as it is supposed to.
One of the units had switched which ‘station’ it was on, so when I got the manual setting to work, water whooshed out of a faucet that had nothing attached to it, drenching me from the waist down. Yeah. :0(
I went to check on my husband and found him trying to get up onto the edge of the nook planter (the one behind the house and beside the back porch.) I got him to wait until I could come heft him up and get him settled standing in the planter while he worked on a hose that wasn’t working right. He fixed that, and I helped him get out of there and back down to the ground without falling.
Hopefully, the rest of our day will be QUIET. PLEASE.
I just went out to the well house to see when our two irrigation system water timers are set to begin today so I can monitor the watering.
We have two different models of the same brand, so the directions on creating the settings are different. I couldn’t tell when they were set to start, so I came back in, got the the directions for each, plus my glasses, and went out again.
I saw that the two units had two different ‘current times’ on them, so I tackled that first. I looked at the new system, trying to scroll through the different settings, and that was confusing. I then noticed that by scrolling through, some of the settings had changed, so I started over.
I now THINK I have the new system for the back set to start at 3pm. I THINK I have the system in the front set to start at 3:20pm, each of them running for 10 minutes automatically, every day.
I now have an alarm set so I’ll go out to check the watering starting at 3pm. WHEW!
I feel lazy because I have always depended on my husband to install and program stuff around here. Our situation has changed now. He installed the new system yesterday for the back, but didn’t think to check the batteries in the old system. It turns out that the old system was fine and just needed new batteries. So that’s the first lesson for me – check to see if there ARE batteries and see if changing them causes the system to work again.
We put the old unit in the well house on the shelf as a back up if we need it.
If I haven’t programmed the systems right, I’ll find out at 3pm and I can try again. If they DO work, I’ll monitor to make sure the water is going to the right places with no kinks in the hoses, breaks in the system, etc.
I’m feeling humble and stupid because what should probably be intuitive – (our son can look at something and start ‘messing’ with it, figuring how to program it faster than I can find the directions in the file cabinet) – ISN’T intuitive for ME. I have to read the directions carefully, taking them out there with me (remembering my glasses) and then painfully work my way through the settings.
I’m getting quite a few character-building exercises on how to be a functioning adult these past few days. I’m working on my attitude about it, trying to find a ‘can-do’ person in there somewhere, and the determination to make this work as it should. Fingers crossed!
I’ve been logging in at MyFitnessPal.com daily for 40 days, trying to be more mindful of what I’m eating, my exercise, my water drinking, etc. I’ve been following the keto eating plan for approximately half that time.
I’ve decided to make myself accountable once a month to keep my head on straight and stay on my way to many goals. I don’t have any particular goals on weight and measurements. I need to lose my lard – a lot of it – but I’m making mini-goals in 5-pound-increments to keep it doable in my mind. I’m trying to practice my yoga daily for half an hour, adding working in the yard outside, or heavy days of cleaning inside, lately, or future plans of using my elliptical machine in the garage when I can, or adding exercises with dumbbells to add strength, all in an effort to be stronger, more flexible, with better balance, less apt to fall.
Toward these goals, I am down 23 pounds since my heaviest. I have two pounds to go to meet my latest 5-pounds-lard-off goal.
February yoga practiceMarch yoga practice
Today I measured, since I have finished a full month of daily yoga in March plus another several days starting in February. (Can you tell that the sparkly stars on my calendar are a big motivator for me?)
Measuring shows a loss of .3 inches from my hips and a loss 1.5 inches from my waist.
So, bit by bit I’m making some slow progress. (I have to tell you that last night my husband and I were so grateful that we were still alive, relatively in one piece, and relatively healthy that we ‘celebrated’ with a dish of no- sugar-added vanilla ice cream. My husband added some fruit to his and I added some chocolate syrup to mine. This will be the last celebration for the foreseeable future. :0) )
I am now promising myself (and you) that I will report progress – I hope – again at the end of April.
I want you to know that I’m not as dumb as I look! I figured out TWO things recently that I’ve been TRYING to do it seems like forever –
THING ONE – I used to add captions and credits to pictures on my blog with no problem. Then – the people who get paid to keep the website up to date, make it easy to navigate, and on the cutting edge, came in and ‘improved’ WordPress (this host) and disappeared my ability to caption or credit the way I used to. I tried and tried, and finally gave up, just putting the credit on the next line as close to the picture as I could. Suddenly, in the middle of nothing, I right-clicked ON a picture instead of elsewhere, and a box for caption and credit popped up! Yureka!!!!! I am newly ‘en-franchised’ now. :0)
THING TWO – I told you that I have been working to improve my Etsy site. I have fought with making and installing a banner across the top, have made and installed a new logo, and have mostly finished describing my products in a different way that SEEMS to be slowly increasing my “traffic” (visits to the site).
I’ve been unhappy with the names of my product sections for a long time. I have also been upset that I couldn’t reorganize the categories in a different order on the page. I fought and fought this morning, after having added two of my new wood-burned earrings to the site, trying to change the name of the earring section and also to figure out a way to have the three types of earrings I offer to be listed as sections one after the other to the left of the page, instead of having people have to scroll down to SEE I make stud and clip earrings, as well as dangles. I FINALLY found a place that allowed me to change the names of the sections and reorder them! HOORAAAAAAY! :0)
I’m not as dumb as I look, nor am I dead yet!!!!!!!! There is still life in the old girl!
Now that I’ve done that, I need to take a gazillion pics after putting the hardware on the rest of the earrings I wood-burned and add them to the site. I hope to be able to finish that today.
It feels so GOOOOOD to have finally made some progress.
Imagine my shock that I’m NOT aging gracefully. I’m doing it with some resentment, dragging my feet, gritching, and gnashing my teeth. Changes bother me more and more. I’m tired of ‘rolling with it,’ ‘adapting,’ etc. My latest gripe is companies that are changing the way they are paid.
One example is our water bill. It used to be that I wrote and mailed a check. I did this with everything else, so that was fine. Then I was paying everything online through my bank EXCEPT the water bill, for which I wrote almost the ONLY check I wrote each month. They are finally allowing online payments, but they must be done through their payment thingie, which charges you an extra $2.25 to use the service and you have to enter all your information each time, like you never used it before. UGH.
I was cleaning out my gmail this morning and ‘newly’ discovered some emails saying my insurance bills are due. (They sent these in November and the bills aren’t due until the middle of December.) We always get a slew of bills from our company in December, putting me off my Christmas spirit a bit, but I’ve gotten used to it. When I saw them, though, and we haven’t received the paper bills yet, it got my attention.
Maybe they won’t send the paper bills this time. They’re due the 12th, and I haven’t gotten anything in the mail. I went online to check, but then had trouble (imagine that) getting logged on. I went through my notes and was reminded that I had to sign up for a ‘new’ account with new agent in our regular company, and so had a different user name and password now. I logged in and discovered that they were now doing everything online.
To make a long rant a bit shorter, I went ahead and paid the premiums, and then had to go looking for the paperwork that should accompany the bills for our records. I found and printed them. I’ve never met the new agent and now the company seems to have gone all digital, so I may NEVER meet him.
Now that I’ve overcome yet another change, I’ll probably get the paper bills in the coming week…
Did you hear me yelling yesterday? I’m still gritting my teeth though my husband heard me loud and clear.
He let Amber out yesterday. I was working in the house and all of a sudden I heard Amber bark – to get IN. I found my husband in the office at his computer with his headphones on.
Amber had pulled out another stitch while she was out unsupervised. She hadn’t lost the cone. We had discussed the fact that I thought we should take her out on the leash until she was healed and the cone was gone. My husband scoffed, and I pressed the point that she could run through the tall stuff on our property and irritate her wounds, if not pull out stitches.
When I confronted him yesterday, he said that he hadn’t agreed with me and thought the supervision was unnecessary. THAT’s when the yelling started.
The end result is that my husband was unimpressed, I was livid, and Amber is all right. She isn’t bleeding and the wound seems to be un-irritated and still healing. I tried to bandage and wrap it again yesterday, but the wound is right at her ‘elbow’ and it wouldn’t hold. (The wrap the VET put on it didn’t hold, either.) So I guess we’ll just hope for the best.
This morning my husband had taken Amber out – on the leash – and she had taken care of her business without incident.
Sometimes the idea of a hole dug for my husband in the back yard sounds awfully good…
We go for our 6-month teeth cleaning this morning. I’ve always been afraid to go to the dentist. This fear intensified when my my mom was diagnosed with oral cancer and died of it.
Each time before we go I have a recurring nightmare about our driving in the Vette, going to the dentist. (My husband puts on the gas when I would put on the brake in any given situation. The Vette makes this tendency worse.)
In the nightmare, my husband has another stroke while driving. I’m trying to steer the car to the side of the busy traffic and get it stopped while he is fighting me, but steering the wrong way and putting his foot on the gas harder and harder. Then I’m trying to get us help – and having to drive the Vette to follow the ambulance.
The fact that I’m an adult seems to have no bearing on my fear of the dentist. I tell myself I’m a wuss and should be able to get over this doesn’t stop the nightmare the night before or the tension of having to ride in the Vette to Ft. Smith. Should I enter a contest for Drama Queen?
This is one of the two receivers that go with our new driveway detector that my husband installed yesterday. The system is solar-powered. The detector is along the driveway and both of the receivers go off when someone drives up. They make a very pleasant noise, but one that gets your attention. (I heard the one in the office even though I had headphones on, listening to YouTube when our plumber drove up.) We really like to be warned when someone is coming up, rather than just having someone ringing the doorbell or knocking on the garage people door, so this is a really nice problem my husband solved.
Rheem Tankless Water Heater
THING TWO:
Our plumber’s assistant came about a week ago and tried to light the pilot light on our regular backup hot water tank when our tankless system was showing ’13’. He was able to light it, but it wouldn’t STAY lit. He turned it off, so we were safe, but we were without hot water.
A person our plumber knows and trusts who works on tankless water heater systems came to look at ours. He cleaned contact points, and tested, and then was able to start the system. It worked for a minute or so and then the dreaded “13” displayed again. He said that the system needed to be flushed out. He called our plumber and told him what he had found.
Our plumber came yesterday and flushed out the system. He got the system to work, but told us it looked like things were on their last legs. He puts in a system that he trusts and says it’s the best one he’s ever found. So now we are contracted for him to order and install a new system for us in two weeks or so. Meanwhile, WE HAVE HOT WATER for the first time in a week! No more cold washcloth ‘baths.’ No more cold hair washes in the kitchen sink. I smiled and sank all the way through my gloriously hot shower and hair wash this morning. :0)
When I got to my computer and phone this morning, the first thing I did was text our plumber, thanking him for providing us with hot water and wishing him the best day ever.
The NEXT problem is the failing air pump on our mattress. My husband is handling that one, so I’m trying to be patient and keep my mouth shut….
Right now it feels as if my husband and I are in the middle of this with dominoes falling in front of us, ready to knock us over, and the speed is increasing.
It started with our Sleep-Number-bed-competitor air pump beginning to fail. We have now submitted our paperwork to see if we’re still under warranty for help. Of COURSE, they are not making the bed we bought anymore, and we’re not sure if replacement parts are available.
Following this closely, my cordless vacuum is no longer charging. I keep it on the charging station, but it only works a minute or so and then quits. We THINK we found a compatible replacement battery, and we’re supposed to get that tomorrow.
Various fluorescent lights aren’t coming on when we flip the switch. Sometimes they’ll come on if we flip the switch several times. Sometimes the lights will come on LATER. We’ll be sitting there and the light just comes on after not working for half an hour or more.
We had no hot water this morning. We have a tankless water system. My husband checked the read-out downstairs and it said ’13.’ We have no clue what that means. He reset the system and we’re hoping that solves the problem.
Two of the six veggie planter boxes we built several years ago are failing. The bottom actually fell out of one of them, dumping the soil alternative on the ground. The other one is sagging visibly, ready to fall in at a moment’s notice. I’ve removed the Mel’s Mix from one of the planters, and will tackle the 2nd one probably tomorrow.
These are just the things that come to mind as I type. I’m sure others will occur to me after I finish this. I wish I could just hit the ‘off’ button as I do when I’ve chosen a movie on TV that turns out to be a real loser, or the ‘delete’ button when a Kindle book is appallingly bad. Sadly, real life is a series of character-building exercises, and I feel I should have had at least a class or two in how to handle it better.
I made it through the day yesterday without stuffing my face the way I have been. I’ll try to do it again today.
Another arrow in my quiver – I’m NOT going to loosen the fastening on my jeans to make myself more comfortable during the day. I’m going to keep them fastened, reminding myself that my overeating has CAUSED this discomfort, and that acting ‘maturely’ might relieve that if I keep it up.
I’m in this fight by myself, since my husband insisted we stock up on a bunch of assorted chips. Maybe a bit of frustration and anger will help me in my goal…
Each person makes a decision – or a series of them – when he or she wants to change, in the effort to STOP a bad habit or START a good one. I’m trying to look at all the excuses for what they are – smoke.
TODAY I will eat healthy meals and try not to eat anything in-between. I will drink a bottle of water if I get hungry, and I will do a good session of yoga this afternoon. Maybe I can earn another small pat. :0)
My husband is working on all of our computers, trying to get them to “see” each other, share files, etc. This is causing daily changes to my computer and is quite a challenge for me, since I’m am almost a technophobe.
Today the type on this page is humongous, rather than the almost-too-small-to-work-with type I’ve been working with. I have no clue how to change it. Also, the way I find and save and use images here is completely different. When I ask my husband about it, he says he hasn’t done anything to change those.
So the sweet gif I found of a cat massaging a dog’s head that I wanted to use for this post to talk about the massage I’m getting this morning is saved somewhere not to be found. I thought maybe it was because it was a gif rather than a jpg extension, so tried to save a jpg. That didn’t work, either. My images aren’t all showing in the list and aren’t in alphabetical order, so trying to use anything is a real challenge.
He will be working on my computer again today, so I’m hoping things will eventually straighten out. I may also end up bald from tearing my hair out…
My husband suggested that we might leave our 96-gallon trash can toward the bottom of the driveway, putting our bags of trash in the back of the truck as we have always done and putting them into the can and wheeling the can down to the street before pickup each week. Right before lunch we drove down to get the can. We wheeled it up to ‘behind the robot’ and I used a LONG bungie cord to secure it to the welded edge of a pole so it shouldn’t blow away in the gusty winds we sometimes have.
Since we’ve had some washing rains lately, my husband put a flat-bottomed shovel in the back of the truck so we could move some of the gravel ‘chat’ off the street and back onto the driveway. We discovered that a little of THAT activity goes a long, long way. We took turns, and it was really hard going, using the shovel to break up the chat and then move it onto the driveway. We lasted about half an hour before pooping out. This will take SEVERAL sessions when the weather is cooperative to complete.
We inadvertently paid Hot Rod Magazine twice answering renewal notices. Last month we got TWO copies of the same magazine. I asked my husband to see what he could do. I discovered today, when we got yet another notice that our subscription was about to end, that he had done nothing. Thankfully, he still had the two magazines. I got online and contacted their customer service people via the ‘leave a message’ thingie on their website. I gave all the info on the two subscriptions, as them to merge the two into one so he got only one copy each month, email him with a new subscription expiration date, and STOP sending us more notices to pay our bill. I thought it might be like throwing a bottle in the ocean, but he just told me he got an email from them saying they are ‘looking into it!’ Hooray!
Pollster: a person who conducts or analyzes opinion polls.
Talking heads: people who appear in television discussion programs and interviews to give their opinions about a topic.
I’m feeling quite hostile toward pollsters and talking heads right now. The polls I heard about, and the ‘experts’ to whom I listened, led me to believe/hope/expect what DIDN’T come to be. Not only were they wrong. They were dead wrong. They should be hanging their heads in shame.
I don’t know what their methods are, but they definitely need to go back to the drawing board and remain silent until further notice.
MOST people fight over money, kids – important things. My husband and I have discussions over ‘trash’ and when to put it out – laughable to most sane folks, but an ongoing issue for us.
“I” want to put it out either the night before or first thing in the morning of trash day. My husband says, “They won’t pick it up until mid afternoon or later, so we can wait until we’re leaving to run errands.”
Last week he was right. We left it when we went for errands about 9:30 or so, and the can was still there, full, when we came back after 2pm. THIS week when we had left it and started to town, I noticed that the other trashcans on the way were empty, with the lids open. We missed them.
When we finished our errands, we stopped at the bottom of the driveway and put the full can back into the bed of the truck to put back in the garage until NEXT week.
The reason that this is a larger deal now than it used to be is that the trash company gave us a can they want us to use. Their truck guy can pick it up and empty it into his truck without leaving the truck. This saves the company having to pay two men to ride on the back of a trash truck, picking up bags of trash or emptying non-regulation cans by hand while a third man drives the truck.
I would just handle this myself, but I cannot get the empty, much less full, trash can into or out of the truck alone without hurting myself. I found that out the hard way the first time we tried to use the can, two weeks ago. We got it into the truck together, but my husband waited while I got it out at the bottom of the drive. I strained my back somehow and am still working on getting it straightened out. We agreed that this will be a two-person job from now on, and he actually got out and put the can in place this morning.
NOW, since we’re living with our trash another week, he has agreed that we’ll put it out when we first wake up next week. HOPEFULLY that will be early enough.
We started our day off at around 1:30 a.m. this morning when Amber started barking. She did this two or three times before she finally settled down for the rest of the night. The next thing we knew, our driveway pad alarm went off several times in succession early this morning, usually indicating a vehicle. We got up and dressed, but when we checked outside on the garage pad and then at the front door, there was nothing.
CuriOdyssey
We tried, but failed, to catch raccoon #8 overnight. That was probably what had Amber barking. The trap had been triggered. The seed was all gone, but no one was inside the humane trap. So we’ll set it again tonight and hope for the best.
There was a wildfire between Fort Chaffee and one of Greenwood’s neighborhoods north of us yesterday. Fire departments from several surrounding towns helped to try to contain the blaze. About 35 homes were evacuated. The fire is about 80%+ contained this morning. No damage to houses. No people hurt that we know about. Scary.
The Christian Index
I’ve had TWO character-building exercises over which I have been victorious so far this morning –
I was trying to call in a refill for one of my husband’s medicines, but the pharmacy was having some kind of a phone problem, then I got a recording, and FINALLY reached a real person and was able to request our refill. Only took about 5 calls over 90 minutes, but I prevailed. :0)
I was attempting to pay some bills online yesterday. When I tried to log in, I was told my username or password was “incorrect.” I fought with it several times, finally deciding to give it up until today. Sometimes these things heal miraculously, and so I had hope. No such luck. They still didn’t like me this morning. I finally went through the process of saying I ‘forgot’ my password, jumped through several hoops on proving I was who I was, including a text sent to my phone, and was finally put onto a page where I could change my password. THEN I fought with all the requirements they had on a new password. I finally passed muster, was let into my account, and was able to pay the bills. WHEW!
We’ll do errands in awhile, but nothing exciting going on today – I HOPE. I’ll be very happy if I can do what I’d like to do with no drama. I would LIKE to continue painting my Christmas presents for friends, do some vacuuming, and read my current book….
We are cornering the market on character-building lately. This time it’s trying to get a phone line rehung that fell down into the yard during the last storm.
After the storm we initially called our electric company, Arkansas Valley Electric Co-Operative, because we weren’t absolutely sure whether we needed help with electrical lines or phone lines. The company sent a service man right over. We couldn’t have asked for better response time. He confirmed that the lines were phone lines, and told us the phone company would need to come out and fix them.
It took us forever (3 or 4 days) of talking to person after person at our current phone company, AT&T, before someone mentioned that the two phone lines we have now were actually installed years ago by CenturyLink.
My husband got mad at this point and was up on a two-story ladder propped up against a telephone pole, trying to rehang the line. He finally gave up on one of the lines because even with that ladder, he couldn’t get up high enough. That didn’t stop him from trying to rehang the 2ND phone line. He had to cut down the branches of a tree in order to get access to the line and managed, after getting bitten by the tree several times, scratching up his arm badly, to get the line hung.
I spent another day trying to contact CenturyLink. This was iffy, since we are no longer their customer. They finally gave me a repair ticket number. Nothing happened, so I contacted them again and they said they had no record of the ticket number. They finally found it, and told us the technician would be out to the house yesterday between 8 and 5. We had to stay home to be sure we were here to receive him.
A little before 5, I contacted them again. The lady said to give the tech until 7pm. We did, but no action.
My husband stayed home from Lunch Bunch and errands this morning so he would be here if the tech showed up. He didn’t.
I contacted CenturyLink again. She told me the ticket was marked, “completed.” My husband went outside to double check, and the line was still down. I told the lady that and she has now generated ANOTHER repair ticket with a “commitment date of 4/23.”
And so we wait again…. I wonder if ‘character’ SHOWS, like building muscles….
My husband decided he HAD to have a new computer – to upgrade a bit, to switch to Windows 11. I told him to go ahead, as long as he opted for the offer to pay a bit more and have nerds put the computer together for him with Windows 11 already installed, compatible parts already installed so that he would just have to change out the hard drives, etc.
Since then we’ve been in ‘computer Hell.’ There is no nicer way to say it.
It started with UPS ‘delivering’ the humongous, HEAVY (75 pounds +) box by simply leaving it at the bottom of our STEEP, graveled, 650+ foot driveway. We practically killed ourselves getting the box INTO the back of the truck, THEN unpacking as much as possible, having to remove two dog gates in order to get it into the house and into the office. (We asked for, and received a refund for the extra we paid for expedited delivery.)
The computer was as my husband ordered, so mostly he has been fighting with software. Right now, the fight is to get an email program that will work the way he wants it to.
Since my husband and I are both older-than-dirt, changes and technical stuff are becoming much more difficult. An added problem is that my husband had a couple of strokes in the past two years, and he has more trouble, though he has mostly bounced back. He has been reduced to asking ME – the woefully incompetent tech person of our duo – for help. This is a lose/lose situation for me. If I can’t help, he gets more frustrated and angry – a really uncomfortable situation. If I CAN help, then he’s upset because I could do it, and he couldn’t, making him depressed.
A real character-building exercise for both of us.
So, the NEXT time he wants to get a new computer, I’ve told you my answer at the top.
We have vines stretching all the way to the driveway to the left of this picture. My husband has been trying for years to have BLOOMS all the way across. We’re making progress on it each year.
Yesterday I ate right, stayed under my calorie total for the day, stayed under my carb total for the day, exercised with weights, did my yoga, cooked for an hour, cleaned, etc., and guess what – I GAINED .2 lbs. Bummer. This is a character-building exercise for sure. I’ll simply keep on keepin’ on and hope for the best.
aramananatural.es
I’ve been making phone calls most of the morning, following up on things, confirming others, asking questions, etc. The thing I’m coming away with is that you MUST be your own advocate. Everyone is in their own personal world, worried about their own problems, understandably. These DON’T include whatever they told you would happen, wouldn’t happen, shouldn’t happen, etc. Unless you make notes and follow up, it simply DOESN’T happen/or DOES – whichever is worse. You can’t depend on other people. You MUST do it yourself, and KEEP after it until whatever it is is done. Sometimes I would definitely trade my ‘adult’ hat for a happy, carefree ‘child’ hat from my past.
I’ll make sure to get outside for part of the afternoon. It’s going to be in the 60s and there is lots of sunshine to play in. Will you get outside, too?
I am continuing to tweak my eating habits in my determination to lose the lard. This has become a “character-building exercise” and SHOULD be listed on the list of exercises you can log each day on cronometer.com.
I had already switched my mid afternoon snack to raw veggies and a bit of dip. Now I’ll try cutting back the AMOUNT of that. I’ve been eating some no-added-sugar ice cream (a small amount while my husband has more with strawberries.) I’ll try to not have that.
Now that the weather is cooler, I’ll try to get started again on my elliptical trainer in the garage, doing a session before lunch.
Hopefully, the tweaking and moving more will get my body’s attention…
I’ve been working steadily all day trying to reach my friends to give them the new email address. Then I started on all the websites that have the old address. What a headache!
One good thing – I’ve talked to people who mean a lot to me today – via the new email and my phone. That’s a good thing despite the frustrating reason for it.
I’m going to take a break, get outside and prune my rose bushes. Then I’ll do another session.
I just LOVE the painting by Victoria Coleman above. It really captures exhaustion well, doesn’t it.
I wrote a quick note to you yesterday telling you my email was hacked. THEN I found out, from phone calls from loved ones, that emails were being sent out saying I needed help and to send $500 asap. (As if I would DO that…)
So, with hostility and frustration, with visions of boiling whoever is behind this in oil, I have closed my email account, opened a new one, and am writing or calling everyone I can think of to let them know my new address.
Truly a character-building exercise, and NOT how I wanted to spend the day. Sigh.
I was going to get a big list done today, but my plans went awry.
I was getting ready to go out to the garage to put in my 35 minutes on my elliptical trainer. My husband wanted us to go to Walmart and get some glue, so I switched gears, grabbed our Walmart list and we headed for town. We DID manage to leave our trash at the bottom of the driveway and get our mail on the way. We got what we needed at Walmart, even though my husband was in the mood to wander around. Since we get very little entertainment these days, I tried to be patient.
By the time we got home, it was time to fix lunch, so I did that. Then I started getting ready to go to Rags & Roses to change out my products and rearrange the booth. My husband got a reminder on his computer that he was supposed to check the oil in the generator, so he went out to do that. Just as I was getting ready to go out the door, he came in, saying that we needed to get another battery for the generator. He insisted we go back to Walmart.
We took the old battery in and left it in a receptacle at the customer service desk where indicated, found a replacement battery and brought it home. We had a bit of trouble getting the new one in, but finally managed to get it hooked up and tested. Then we ran a quick test on the generator and it was good.
My husband went to put a tool back in the well house and decided he wanted to start the propane-powered gas heater in the well house to keep our pipes from freezing. (We have a small electric heater that turns itself on when it gets too cold in there, and it was on. ) He had a bit of trouble getting the pilot light lit and the heater on, but we finally prevailed.
On the way back to the house, we saw that the new pvc pipe we use on our irrigation system on one of the planters was broken in two. We thought about tackling replacing that, but we were just too tired at that point to care much.
Both of us fell asleep in our chairs.
Now it’s too late to go to the booth in town, too late to do my elliptical trainer in the garage, and too late to do my yoga practice.
SO –
I will write this day off as far as trying to get my list done and hope for more success tomorrow.
Well, yesterday I called and told my friend Kay that my husband and I had decided that we would stop going to Lunch Bunch on Fridays until the coronavirus pandemic calmed down. We are in the high risk group for the virus, so we’re trying to limit contact as much as possible. This was a really hard decision because Linda, Kay, and I (plus various others) have met for lunch every Friday for almost 19 years now.
This morning I discovered that the governor of Arkansas has ordered all restaurants, bars, and gyms in Arkansas closed until further notice. (Restaurants can offer take out.) Schools will remain closed through April 17th. I also learned that we have to make an appointment if we want to enter the lobby of our bank, though the drive-thrus and ATMs will be functional. City Hall and the Police Department buildings are closed to the public, too.
I have to tell you that – as worried as I am about the virus – I’m MORE worried about the economic effects of all this, and the changes that are being made in the power of the government as we try to get through this. I hope that we are able to get a handle on testing, possible medicines and equipment that help people suffering with the illness, and protect those trying to help the ill as soon as possible.
This being said, here are things that are NOT being cancelled –
This shows you the piece of pipe that the plumber cut from about 2 feet or so down. It was pretty heavy PVC pipe and was squashed under the weight of a pretty big rock. The plumber said he thought the pipe just finally ‘gave up.’
The is the yard mostly put back together now. We will add some bags of potting soil to the hole when things dry a bit and then spring, warm temperatures, and sunshine will do the rest of the repair.
The rock doesn’t look very large in the photo, but it’s at least 18 inches long about about 12″ wide. It is so heavy it will take my husband and I to roll it, end-over-end until we can roll it off the civilized portion of our front yard.
We will find out tomorrow what kind of ‘adjustment’ the water department lady can make. I hope it isn’t so much we have a real problem paying it.
When we got up this morning, I thought it would be a quiet day.
It’s cold, gray, and rainy today, so I have to fight wanting to curl up under my throw in my recliner and nap the day away.
We had our quarterly bug spray at noon. If you’re looking for a dependable, wonderful group of people to handle all your bug spraying needs, try Tri-Hill Pest Control in Fort Smith, AR. Their phone number is (479) 782-2847. They come treat our home quarterly. At one point, we had lots of scorpions. YES! It was really awful. They got them under control for us. Now supposedly spiders are overrunning everyone, but we haven’t seen even one – and NO scorpions. Since it’s rainy. our wonderful sprayer said he would schedule a return visit in a day or two to treat the outside.
Before he arrived, I got a call from our water department. We had gotten several bills lately that were higher than usual. We thought it was probably leftover charges from when our son was home (our bill usually doubles) – and then we had a leak in our well house that our plumber came and fixed, so we thought it might be leftover from that. I just paid the last bill, so I was surprised when the lady at the water department called me, saying from our usage, we must have a leak somewhere. She said the company had been trying to find the source and that something ‘pinged’ when they passed our house. She suggested that we contact a plumber.
I called Travis Hawkins, our long-time wonderful plumber. (479) 461-8347. I actually got to speak with him directly, rather than having to leave a message. He is so good that he stays quite busy. He told me that as soon as the rain stopped, he would be over and try to find the source of the leak. I just noticed the rain had stopped – at least for awhile – and Travis was driving up the driveway. Have I told you that I think he is worth his weight in gold?
My husband showed him a place in the front yard where we had standing water. The whole yard is wet, but this was almost like a shallow lake in comparison. We now have a big hole in our front yard. Travis actually found the source of the leak – a big PVC pipe that runs across our front yard. There was a humongous rock or boulder between the soil and the pipe. He has gone to the hardware store to get the supplies he needs to fix where we can SEE the pipe just caved in on itself. (Apparently, this is another perk from living in one place for over 30 years. – they use different, stronger stuff now.)
The lady at the water department said that when the leak is fixed. we should bring the repair receipt in to her office and she will adjust our bill. I’m not sure what that actually MEANS, but we will be grateful for whatever help she can give us.
Otherwise, I hard-boiled some eggs and made a keto sausage/eggs/cheese back for our dinner tonight. I also did a Windows 10 update on my computer, then FINALLY figured out how to do a backup of the operating system with the recent changes, then backed up my data.
It’s not even mid-afternoon yet and I’m exhausted.
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