Blog Archives

The Paypal debacle

 

      Well, I tried to open a Paypal account again.  I have one now but they don’t like my bank or something.  I’ve jumped through their hoops a few too many times and I refuse to leap another one.   Let’s just say I have a ‘minimal’ account with them and leave it at that.

     Automated teller machines hate me too.

     I do believe it is my bank’s fault.  They’ve never once in 37 years had the correct numbers on our checks.  We always have had a problem when someplace wants a routing number or other such thing.

     Once a year, at the very least, I have to call them and ask for the proper numbers. 

     How about you?  Did you jump through all their hoops?  Or, perhaps you are smarter than I am and you don’t deal with them.

What I’m watching

 

     Out of all the reality shows, most of which can go away–far, far away, I do enjoy The Voice.  I love the blind auditions and will be watching again tonight.

     After The Voice, I’ll be switching to the Sci Fi channel to watch Lost Girl.

     I didn’t watch the Super Bowl yesterday.  I haven’t watched one for 37 years–since I’ve been married.  I used to watch a lot of football when I lived at home.  With all daughters at least one of us managed to enjoy watching the games with our father.

     You all have a good one!

 

Updates

 

     The Curmudgeon had a strange day yesterday.  His balance sucked but he said he felt pretty darned good in spite of that.  Go figure.

     Gavin and Patty are full of energy and chase each other about every morning now.  I guess his UTI is getting better.

      The roof on the MIL’s garage is STILL not done.  The Curmudgeon talked to the roofer and got a few excuses.  We’ll see what happens.  If it doesn’t get finished soon he’ll have me to deal with and I’m never as easy to appease as The Curmudgeon.

     Writing is still eluding me.  Maybe once the house is finally on the market I’ll relax enough to work.

     You all have a good one!

 

Tight budget month

     Did you ever have one of those months where the money in the checking account seems to have disappeared into a black hole? 

     Yeah, that’s us this month.  The vet bills–many more than usual, the repair of the old desk top, The Curmudgeon’s new glasses–both pair,  bills, groceries…oops!  The balance got low faster than usual.  We’re going to have to budget carefully for the rest of the month.

     Makes me real glad I put the lap top purchase on the charge card.  I figure I can clear that charge in two or three payments.

     I’ll need to stay out of Amazon and keep The Curmudgeon away from all those catalogs.

     At least he’ll get his birthday present next week–they finally shipped his new cane.

When words fail, pictures work!

 

When does the energy return?

     I’m still waiting for my energy to come back.  I get tired all the time while doing much less than I did six months ago.  With amazing temperatures the last two days it really bothered me that I didn’t have all the energy I wanted to have.

     People keep telling me that it will come back and I’ll feel normal again.  However, after carrying in the groceries and large bag of dog food yesterday I truly wondered about it.  Once I put  the groceries away, I felt so exhausted that I asked The Curmudgeon if he minded if I ordered a pizza for dinner.  I absolutely did not have any energy left to cook.

     Before, I would’ve made a great dinner using ingredients I just bought.  My ass was dragging for sure because all I wanted to do was take a nap.  (I didn’t though.)   It’s a little hard to do that when you have two bullies telling you it is dinner time!  They aren’t subtle about it.

     You all have a good one!  I’m going to take it easy today…maybe.

It wasn’t a low cholesterol dinner…

     Every once in a while I do have to make The Curmudgeon something special for dinner.  I knew I wasn’t going to have time to get fancy last night because I had a dentist appointment in the afternoon. 

     My solution at 4:30 in the morning, was to slice some onions, toss them in the crock pot, put the frozen chuck roast on top of them, season it and pour a bottle of Guinness Stout over all.  I set the pot on low and went to bed.

     Right before I left for my 2:00 appointment, I dumped some baby carrots in the pot.  The roast smelled marvelous.

     Arriving home a little before four, I checked the roast.  The carrots were almost done–we’d eat at five.

     A quarter to five, I made mashed potatoes, pulled out the carrots and roast, and made gravy.  The Curmudgeon enjoyed his dinner.  I did too because this sort of meal is becoming scarce in this house.

     I’ll make up for it during the rest of the week.

Letter to Me

Dear Me,

Remember when you managed to write pages upon pages in your books every day?  What happened?  You really need to figure out the whats and whys, kick them in the ass, and get back to work.  This is taking too long and it is too important to keep screwing up.

Sure, many things have happened this past year.  In fact,  for several years you’ve had a number of life changing events happen.  Don’t take them for granted, use them.

Your Father, Mother, sisters and parents in law are gone, use all that sorrow, hurt, pain, and emotion in your writing.  Stop bottling it all up inside and set it free in your writing.

Your Husband, Aunts, Cousins, and friends love you.  Embrace that love and bring that joy back into your writing.

All my love,

Me

 

New alarm clock

     Gavin has either taken it upon himself to be my alarm clock, or he’s decided that he wants some private Mommy time.  Lately, I’ve heard him wandering down the hallway and flopping down in front of my bedroom door a little before I would be getting up.

     Yesterday, The Curmudgeon remembered how I’ve often asked him to not let me sleep too late, and he came to wake me.  Gavin followed, squeezed in the door past his Daddy, and piled on the bed with me.  He was ready to settle in for a good snuggle when Patty decided to join us.

     The disgust on his face proved to me that he’d wanted me all to himself.  He got up, left the bed, and went back downstairs.  He was NOT happy.  Poor Gavin.

     Patty, on the other hand, was happy.  She got to bounce on the bed, make him leave, and then chase him downstairs.

     I think that when I hear him flop down outside my door tomorrow and let loose with his usual sigh, I’ll let him in and close the door so Patty can’t ruin his cuddle.  Sometimes he just needs some alone time with me.

Just another day in in Paradise.

 

     I was happy as a pig in a mud puddle when I got up yesterday and heard that The Curmudgeon had gone to the drug store to get the dogs’ allergy medications. 

     I was almost ecstatic to find out he’d also gone to the computer shop and picked up my desk top.  Almost, because I had a question about my lap top that I’d planned to ask my computer Guru.  Now I’d have to make a trip over there another day since he’d have to see the computer to answer the question.

     The Guru had loaded the desk top into The Curmudgeon’s truck and it was my job to get it out, bring it in, and hook it up.  The Curmudgeon can’t haul heavy stuff, he has no idea how to hook up a computer, and it was getting close to his nap time.

     To my surprise he’d bought a wireless mouse–um, didn’t I just order one the other day?  Well, it hadn’t arrived yet.  Okay, two computers & two wireless mice, that works, no complaints from me.  By that time my grin had grown.

     He tells me he’s going up for a nap.  Oh, joy!  I can work on my computer in peace.  Working away getting things set up the way I wanted them when I heard The Curmudgeon coming down the stairs and cussing on his way down.  This didn’t bode well.

     He’d broken his new glasses and practically dragged me out the door to run to the shop so they could fix them.  Even though the sign on the front of the shop said ‘open’  the posted hours for the day said ‘closed’ and so did the locked door.

     Arriving back at the house, we found all the other things we’d ordered last week, crammed between the doors, except for the carrying case for the lap top….  Monday is looking good for that.

On the road back to writing well

 

     I can pick up my desk top computer today.  Yay!  I hope he has good news to tell me about my data.  I am glad we purchased the lap top even though it will take a little while to pay off that once clear charge. It did come in handy for the time it took to fix my old faithful desk top.

     I will set the desk top up on my desk in the living room and take my lap top up to my bedroom.  I’ll have a place I can escape to where I can write in peace once again.   The antique desk from the MIL’s house is in the bedroom which will make it a decent writer’s retreat. 

     It will be nice to have the lap top to take with me when I find a new I-need-to-get-out-of-the-house place to write this summer.  I used to go to our local Borders but now that is closed and I really do need to find a new place.  The B&Ns here have tiny cafes and they aren’t very friendly to anyone who wants to sit there for more than a few minutes.

     I am scoping out a small coffee shop that might allow long-term seating with coffee purchases.  It isn’t far from the house and their coffee is wonderful.

Yippee! New faucet!

Old chrome faucet, leaky and full of hard water stains.

Lasted about 15 years.

Took longer to remove this than to put in the new one below.

New faucet, stainless steel and no leaks!

Maybe this one will last 20 years?

Thanks to Barry for removing the old one and installing this in an hour.

The Curmudgeon says that he knows it would’ve taken him two days.