Homeschooling Our Tourette's Kid

A JOYFUL Morning!

2010-04-04T11:35:00.003-05:00

It's a gorgeous morning!
We're listening to the birds through our open kitchen window.
The traditional Easter Morning coffee cake has been baked and eaten, accompanied by numerous cups of hot coffee.
The house is semi-clean.
The laundry is done.
I beat L at TWO games of Wii bowling!
WE are hosting Easter Dinner.
My Mom WON'T be making dessert!
Our pork loin is rubbed and awaiting the grill.
Life doesn't get any better than that!

HAPPY EASTER everyone!!

My Epitaph

2010-03-17T16:30:00.002-05:00

Ever since Junior High, I have had 3 best friends. We functioned well separately, but socially, we did everything together. The 4 of us were "close" friends with several other groups of "best friends" like us. None of us was the least bit "cliquey". We welcomed anyone to join us for conversation, giggles, or help with homework. In a class of 302, we were far from the "in" crowd, who openly mocked us. We all helped each other survive the cruelties of high school.

Several of our big group have re-established contact through FB. One of our friends, Sue, started a private Group page for us to privately chat about whatever is on our mind. We also have a monthly live chat. Sue named this group our Wine Club. Whenever Sue finds a female classmate on FB, she invites them to join our group. We're still not cliquey. My 3 best friends, and many of our "close" friends are members of the Wine Club. We also have several members who were casual friends.

One of our casual friends recently joined one of our ongoing discussions. This lady was quite shy in high school, but she always had a huge smile on her face. K frequently joined our group for conversation and giggles. Yesterday, K wrote her memories of all of us who were involved in this particular discussion.

Here's what she wrote about me:

"Your sense of humor, both verbal and non-verbal made Teen Years more comfortable. You never seemed to want to leave anyone out. You were approachable and when people left your company - they felt a little bit better about themselves and Life. You can be very animated in your own "Dry Humor Way."
Thank you for the smiles that lingered and brighten the day."

K's impression of the high school "me" brought tears to my eyes. The person she described, is the person I've always wanted to be. I guess I'm a success! I would be proud to have that paragraph as my epitaph.

Where Did February Go?!

2010-02-28T08:05:00.002-06:00

The battle to get a decent internet connection into our house continues. We had a week, this month, where we couldn't stay connected for longer than 5 minutes! Tech support remotely tested our modem and decided a new modem would fix our problem. It did...for 2 days. We are no longer losing connection, but our speed is rarely above dial-up speed. Every time we call tech support, the DSL speeds up. This is just like having your car quit making that funny noise the minute you pull it into your mechanic's garage.

Sooo, what have I been doing with the time that I normally spend blogging?

We've made 5 trips to the dentist, 2 for Z and 3 for me. I've been without my bottom partial since November, when the tooth that the partial connects to broke in half. This meant that I could only chew with my front teeth....all through the holiday season. We finally got in with a new dentist, after our dentist retired, but it took 2 months to get an appointment.

I made 2 trips to the doctor. One visit to our GP, and one visit to a bone specialist. My shoulders have really been bothering me this winter. I feared rotator cuff damage. I was diagnosed with bursitis, and got a regimen of exercises to strengthen my shoulder muscles. The specialist said that I will probably need shoulder surgery in the distant future. That ain't gonna happen! I can't afford to take 6 months off from work.

I've been playing with my new camera, trying to learn all the settings. No new photos worth posting though. I really want to get a decent hummingbird shot this summer!

I've been puttering with all the electronic gadgets we have, that I haven't quite mastered yet. I finally figured out the slide scanner that L got me for Christmas several years ago! I'll post more on that activity later. I still want to convert more of my vinyl to CDs, so I can rip some more music to my MP3 player. I like to listen to my music while I'm working on our outdoor projects. I also need to finish reading the manual for the new phone we bought 10 months ago! I still don't know how to clear missed calls, or retrieve the caller-ID information.

Re-establishing communications with my husband. We've spent so many years working opposing shifts, that we've become strangers. We forget to take time to have fun with each other. The past few years, we've spent all of our limited together time discussing chores, home-improvement projects, and family problems. We didn't realize what a drag that has been...time for some FUN!

My favorite cousin, J, came up with her son and his family for a vintage snowmobile event.
A friend, who now lives in CO, came home for a visit. We spent a whole afternoon catching up and viewing all the pictures she's taken in the past 2 years. She also shared her infant grandson with me. What FUN it was to play with a baby again!

Facebook; what a mixed blessing! I found that my high-school friends had FINALLY advanced to the social networking age. Not one of them was connected when I got my first FB page a couple of years ago. I'm now re-connected with my bestest friends for the first time in 5 years! We've spent a lot of time emailing to catch up with each other's lives. I found that I can keep up with most of my friends through my FB homepage. This means I only have to load one page with our slow connection. The downside is that I'll have to wait until our connection gets fixed before I can view any of their pictures. Pictures and videos take FOREVER to load!

Well, that's what I've been up to in February. I hope to get my sewing machine out in March, so I can sew the new kitchen curtains...and catch up on the mending. I'll try to catch up with all of your blogs during our short bursts of decent internet speed.

My New Toy!

2010-01-31T09:33:00.004-06:00

For the past 4 yrs, I've been squirreling away all the Christmas bonus tips I receive from my regular customers. I've been drooling over every DSLR camera I've seen. I frequently window-shop online, but the cameras have always been too expensive for our budget. So, I started saving my Christmas tips in the hope that SOMEDAY I'd have enough money to purchase the magical camera of my dreams.

Mid-January I counted up the money I'd saved. I was surprised at the total: $800. I knew that this still wasn't enough to buy a camera. The last time I priced DSLRs, a body was $350, a 55mm lens was $200, and a 200mm lens(my MUST have) was $1000. Keep saving TSHS.

Out of curiosity, I went online to price cameras. They have really come down this year! There were actually 2 cameras that fit my price range. I spent the afternoon weighing the pros and cons of both cameras and finally decided on this. I got the camera and BOTH lenses for $644(no tax) and $4.50 shipping! I still had money left to buy memory cards, rechargeable batteries, card reader, and a case.

When the camera arrived, I ran to town to buy an SDHC card. Then I started reading the 312 page manual. What a piece of equipment!! Once I had the batteries, memory card, and lens installed, I searched the house for photographic subjects. Hairry was my first thought. He's always up for posing for pictures. Not this time! As you can see, Hairry was in the middle of a nap and could care less that I got a new camera.

My next thought was our bird feeder. I watched that damned feeder for 20 minutes and not one bird showed up! So I strolled through the house, experimenting with the flash and exposure settings. By that time I wished that the Christmas decorations were still up.

The most interesting shot of the day was of L reading the camera manual. *yawn*

A couple days later we got freezing rain, followed by 8 inches of wet, heavy snow. That weather was a nightmare to drive through and grueling to clean up, BUT...it did make some beautiful scenery.

After the roads were cleared, I took a drive around the neighborhood. I stopped at my parents' house to show off my camera, and snap this picture of Shadow begging for peanuts.

For some reason, the apples didn't fall from my Boss's tree this year. The snow really highlights the red of the apples. I only wish the sun had been shining.

Wow, that anti-shake feature actually works! I snapped this picture of the snow on the restaurant roof after I'd been out in -20F temps without gloves. I was shivering and couldn't hold the camera still. I was amazed that the picture turned out.

We had a full moon this weekend! This is the first decent picture I've ever shot of the moon. I also took some shots of just the moon and sky. I want to experiment with layering those shots over other pictures.

The sunset setting on my camera was the perfect exposure to capture the blueness of the full moon at dusk!

The birds are back! I snapped these pics of Mr and Mrs Pine Grosbeak through the kitchen window. Mr G wasn't very cooperative. He wouldn't hold still. On the other hand, Mrs G posed quite well.

If you need to find me this winter, just drive through my neighborhood and look for the crazy lady with the camera around her neck, out in the cold at dusk and dawn, snapping pictures of inane objects

Haz Floor!!

2010-01-24T08:46:00.004-06:00

We put the finishing touches on our new kitchen floor right before Thanksgiving. We've been admiring our handiwork ever since. There were actually a couple of days that I got a stiff neck from looking down every time I was in the kitchen.

We bought the flooring last spring, when it went on sale for $.99/sq ft. This was a wise move as the price has been $1.29 and higher ever since. I also knew that if I didn't buy the flooring our kitchen floor would get put on hold for another year.

This is Tarkett flooring from the Boreal line, with a 25 yr wear warranty. We originally decided that we wanted oak-colored flooring, since we plan to stain our cupboard doors a darker shade. When Z and I went to buy the flooring we looked at the oak color, then we looked at each other and said in unison: "That looks like a gym floor." There just wasn't enough pattern or grain in the oak flooring, so we chose the walnut instead.

The reason we decided on laminate was because it's a "free-floating" floor. This means no glue or nails, and it can be installed over your existing flooring. When your floor wears out, you just dismantle it and install new flooring.

After watching many online videos and home-improvement shows, we thought that one person could lay this floor. After spending a Saturday prepping the room, we decided to start installing the flooring on Sunday. We then planned on individually working on the floor during the week, while the other one was at work. WRONG! This wasn't a tap together flooring. It was a new, "interlocking" flooring. Unfortunately, Tarkett enclosed instructions for the old-style, tap-in flooring.

We quickly discovered that the flooring strips had to be assembled, end-to-end, for the entire width of the room before the whole strip could be snapped into the previous row. We also learned that the ends have to be snapped together perfectly, or the strip wouldn't lay properly. This revelation destroyed our plans for a one person installation. There were places in our kitchen that required all 3 of us to snap a 15 ft strip of flooring into the previous row. Later in the week I went on Tarkett's website. The website has the correct installation instructions.
Note to Tarkett: You wanna try putting the correct instructions in the box of flooring?!

The first two pictures show our progress on that first Sunday. Our kitchen has a LOT of goofy angles to cut around which slowed us down considerably. The rest of the week we carefully walked around the flooring we had laid so we wouldn't chip the "interlocking" edge. The following weekend we put in 10 hr days and finished laying the 170 sq ft of new floor.

Because the floor is "free-floating", we had to leave a 1/4 inch gap around the entire floor to allow for expansion and contraction of the flooring to prevent buckling. I covered this gap with 3/4 inch cove molding. When I went shopping for the molding, I found solid mahogany molding that perfectly matched our flooring...AND it was cheaper than pine molding! This meant that I didn't have to stain the molding. All I had to do was apply 3 coats of floor polyurethane to the molding and I was done. It took me a week to cut the molding into all the goofy angles in our kitchen. Fortunately we have a compound miter saw, which is the BEST $69 investment we've ever made!

Here's a picture of Hairry with the finished product.
As we were laying the floor, we discovered that the flooring matched Hairry perfectly. Now we laughingly tell everybody that we bought the flooring to match the dog....doesn't everybody?

Lather, Rinse, Repeat.....

2010-01-10T14:06:00.003-06:00

No, these aren't repeat photos from last year. These are pics of our Christmas blizzard. We were only supposed to get 4-7 inches....we got 14-18 inches. The day after it quit snowing, the temps dipped to -35F for 10 days. So much for the forecasters predictions that we were going to have a dry, warm, winter.

We spent the last week trying to get the snow cleared from our roofs. I wrenched my shoulder clearing the roof vents, so now L and Z are trying to get the job finished. Temps are in the teens today, but it just started to snow again. It would be nice if we could break even for once!

My parents actually expressed their appreciation for us hosting all the Christmas festivities. Wonders never cease! We're hoping that we can continue cooking all the holiday and birthday meals. We really don't want to eat ANY meals over there. Z and I recently discovered that they're starting to store items in the cupboards that should be refrigerated.

I have several customers that are in the same condition as my parents. I'm half scared to drive anymore! One customer wore his winter jacket and gloves all summer. As soon as the weather reached -30F, he started wearing a sweatshirt jacket. This man's daughter has been trying to get him in assisted living, but her hands are tied up in legalities too.

We won't have any more days off until Memorial Day. I guess that's a good thing as we can't afford time off. Last week, business was fair at the restaurant. I don't expect this to continue. We have had many noon-hours where we only serve 4 people. A couple of times, in the past few months, Boss has had to cash in stocks to make payroll. Not good!

Now our electric, garbage, fuel, and water rates are going up. I also expect food prices to rise after all the cold weather down south. I don't know about you, but I could sure use some good news for a change!

We're taking down the Christmas decorations today. Christmas was the only thing I had to look forward to. Now it's over. I guess I'll keep myself busy de-cluttering and sewing for the rest of the winter to keep depression at bay.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

2009-12-24T07:09:00.003-06:00

Well, that explains that snowflake phenomenon. (SME, it was a bugger getting this package on the scanner!)

This year I'm once again sharing SME's hand-drawn wrapping paper with you. As promised in my Christmas post from last year, I bought her a new box of crayons last summer. She now has sharp crayons to create her amazing wrapping paper.

This adorable mouse is on Z's present. I know what he's getting and the picture matches his present perfectly.

L's package sports a "little" jab at his age from his daughter.

SME put a VERY pertinent message on her grandparents' gift. I hope the message isn't lost on them.

After work yesterday, Z and I stopped at my parents' house to pick up the turkey and other items they are providing for the Christmas Day meal we're preparing. Dad had chemo yesterday and they were both mentally muddled. I'm so grateful that they're allowing us to host Christmas dinner this year. Dad has to go to the hospital to have his chemo pump removed tomorrow. Between that and their mental states, dinner would have been a disaster!

Winter storm "Bertha"(When did they start naming winter storms?) is upon us. We're right on the edge of the storm, so we SHOULD get only 4-7 inches of snow. It's snowing pretty heavily right now, but so far there's no wind and the temps are mild (24F). I'm extremely grateful that my loved ones won't be traveling through this! However, L will have to blow snow before my parents arrive this afternoon.

It's now time for me to wake the guys. Then I will start cooking while the guys give the house a quick clean-up.

I wish all of my beloved blog-friends a very BLESSED CHRISTMAS with family and friends!

Christmas Spirits

2009-12-21T17:50:00.003-06:00

Entertaining friends and family is part of the fun of the Christmas season. Coffee, tea, and hot chocolate all go well with cookies, but there are times when we need a more "spirited" beverage. I like to whip up the following recipes and have them on hand through the holidays.

Hot Buttered Rum
1 C butter or margarine
1 1/2 C powdered sugar
1 C packed brown sugar
2 C softened vanilla ice cream

Cream butter and sugars. Add ice cream and mix well.
This mixture can be stored in the freezer almost indefinitely.
Stir 1 heaping tbs into 1 C boiling water and 1 shot of rum, brandy, or whiskey. Sprinkle with nutmeg or cinnamon if desired.

Vodka Slush (Makes 3 qts)
1-12 oz can frozen limeade
1-12 oz can frozen lemonade
2 cans water
2 cans vodka
2-12 oz cans lemon-lime soda
Mix well and freeze overnight. This recipe also keeps well in the freezer.
Spoon slush into wine glasses and top with hazelnuts (if desired)

Be careful with this recipe; it's pretty potent. One of these is all I can handle.
When Z read the slush recipe, he said: "Well, at least nobody will have to worry about scurvy."

These recipes are easy, delicious, economical(I got a 1 liter bottle of vodka for $6.39), and look fancy when served.

Circle of Friends Award.

2009-12-10T16:32:00.002-06:00

One of my best blogging (and real-life) friends, Vancouver Voyeur blessed me with this award. Before everybody gets all mushy, I'd like to point out that VV tagged me because she doesn't think I've been writing enough. She's right, of course. That's one of the things our true friends do...point out our shortcomings. Love ya VV!!

Now apparently the way this works is that I have to share five things that I like before passing the award on to five folks who fall into that Circle of Friends. I'd like to point out that I had a hard time finding 5 things that I simply "liked". This is the time of year that I LOVE most of what is going on around me. I'm a Christmas fanatic and I love all the baking, decorating, music, shopping, togetherness, and love that occurs in our home. So here goes....

5 Things I Like:

1) I like the way our kitchen is shaping up. I love the new floor and paint, and I will love the whole project once we re-stain the cupboard doors and I sew the new curtains.

2) I like winter...except for last winter....that was TOO much.

3) I like where we live, except it's damned near impossible to make a decent living here. Unfortunately this is true all across rural America.

4) I like my job. It's a challenge and I like interacting with 90% of the people I see every day.

5) I like having my freezer full. It's my safety net.

Now for the "lucky" recipients of... (cue ominous music)....the tag!

Cherie: I KNOW that her "likes" will brighten my day.
Wandering Coyote: Because she's my oldest(actually she's just a kid) blog-friend.
Tweets: It will give her something to do while her foot heals.
Courtney: Because she needs to stop playing games at Facebook long enough to post something on her BLOG!
SME: Because I said so!

YES!!

2009-11-30T18:29:00.002-06:00

Z and I went over to my parents' house this afternoon. We finally got some snow, so Z shoveled their sidewalk while I talked with my parents.

They had just got off the phone with the chemo dept of our hospital. They changed Dad's chemo schedule by 2 days on Christmas week. They'll be hooking up his chemo-pump on Wednesday instead of Friday. He'll still have to go into the hospital to have the pump removed on Friday, which is Christmas Day. I jumped right in with: "Why don't you let us cook Christmas dinner?" Mom instantly agreed, but Dad was a hard-sell: "We already bought the turkey." I told them that was no problem. We'll cook dinner, with their turkey at our house, and package up all the leftovers for them to take home. Case closed. High five!

BTW, I'll be making the dessert too. ;)

Sometimes Ya Just Gotta Laugh!

2009-11-27T07:37:00.002-06:00

A word of advice: Dementia and pie DON'T mix!

Our Thanksgiving dinner was "interesting" to say the least.

Traditionally, we host Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. My parents cook for Christmas Day and Easter. My Mom has always made the pies for Thanksgiving. This year we KNEW that my mother had failed to the point where pies would be a disaster....we were right.

Z and I TRIED to talk Mom into letting us bake the pies. My Dad has been doing all the cooking for the past couple of years, but Dad has NEVER baked! Dad was all for us baking the pies, but Mom insisted that it would be "No problem".

We knew we were in trouble the minute they walked through our door. Dad started ranting about how the crust "just wouldn't work right", and asked me what pie crust recipe I use. "I've always used Mom's recipe". Then Dad proceeded to make excuses for Mom by stating that a friend had stopped over with a deer heart and liver for their dog. OK, that story explains the burnt pumpkin pie in the top picture...BUT...WTF happened to the banana cream?! There's NO crust, the bananas are on top, and Mom obviously baked this whole mess, as the instant pudding is all cracked and shriveled and the bananas are gummy. Mom and Dad sampled a piece of pumpkin pie before they brought it over. They decided it would be OK to serve. Alrighty then...

Z took a peek at the pies when he put them in the fridge, and wisely opted out of dessert. L never has dessert right after dinner, but this year he foolishly decided to have his pie right away. As Mom was cutting the pumpkin pie, she asked us what kind we wanted. Dad and I said we wanted pumpkin, so Mom goes over and starts cutting the banana cream. "Ummm, Mom...the pumpkin pie is over there." "Oh, is it? OK."

Fortunately my parents don't hang around after dinner. (Long story. I'll explain it to you sometime.) It's a good thing they left because we all burst into laughter the minute they got in their car. Z immediately got his camera and took those pictures so he could email them to SME. We then called SME and Doug and we all laughed 'til our sides hurt. Laughter IS the best medicine! It beats the hell out of crying!

Our dinner conversation revolved around all the people who had died this past year. No matter how hard we tried to change the topic, my Mom kept changing it back to death. Z finally had enough and said: "Um Grandma...this isn't a real great subject for the Thanksgiving table." Mom smilingly agreed, then proceeded to tell us, for the 3rd time, about the phone call they received from a friend when their son died.

We had already discussed trying to talk my parents into letting us have Christmas dinner at our house. Meals have become "iffy" over there. Dad tries to cook, Mom gets in the way and then they start bickering! Portions have become increasingly skimpy and either over or under cooked. My parents expect us to go over there at noon and spend the whole day there. This year my Dad has an unreasonable aversion to putting up their Christmas decorations. Z says he refuses to spend Christmas Day listening to my folks' bickering and watching Grandpa nap, while FoxNews drones in the background, in an undecorated house. L and I agree.

Now we just need to diplomatically convince my parents that they would have a more relaxing Christmas Day at our house....wish us luck.

Thankful?

2009-11-26T09:21:00.003-06:00

I've spent this month trying to get into the holiday spirit. This is my favorite time of the year and I REFUSE to let our circumstances control my psyche! Easier said than done. A special THANK YOU to Cherie for her daily November posts. You've helped me more than you'll ever know!

Home projects, my husband's constant tinkering with this new computer, internet problems, getting used to trifocals, finding a new dentist and optometrist, and the constant, demeaning drama with my parents has prevented me from participating in the blog-world. I'll post about all of this later. Today is the time for me to count my blessings.

I'm thankful...

...that my kids are healthy, especially SME, who was strong enough to recently battle two bouts of the flu.

...that we have a warm home, food, clothing, and clean water.

...that we still have jobs.

...for the loving support of family and friends through the past year.

...for the skill, and tools, required to complete our recent home improvements.

...that we have been able to afford to repair, or replace, everything that has broken down this year.

...that MNCARE FINALLY(I've been jumping through their hoops all month) approved our re-enrollment for another year of health insurance.

...that I don't have to travel anywhere today.

I am praying for my cousin J, who is enduring her first holiday season, in almost 50 years, without her husband.

I wish a safe and fulfilling Thanksgiving to all my blog-friends who are celebrating today! I LOVE and appreciate ALL of you!

Question of the Day

2009-11-05T13:35:00.003-06:00

IF he really loved me, wouldn't he do everything in his power to give me the will to live beyond the age of 60?

Yes, he KNOWS what I need! We've discussed this hundreds of times over the past 30 yrs. It's a basic human need. In my mind it's rather a small issue, but has grown to gargantuan proportions with time. A year ago I laid all my cards on the table and pleaded with him to end the pain, emptiness and humiliation this issue is causing me.

He said he understood what I'm saying...he'd think about it and get back to me....that was a year ago...

October

2009-10-27T17:56:00.006-05:00

I can't believe that it's the end of October! Winter will soon be upon us and we've been hustling our butts trying to prepare for it. As you all know, this has been a miserable year for me. Lately I've been trying to make lemonade from all the lemons that have been hurled my way.

Z has been preparing for his future by learning to cook. He's been learning how to make all his favorite dishes. He even tackled turkey pie, including making the pie crust. Now he's learning to bake. The boy likes his sweets and knows that he'll never be able to afford store-bought baked goods when he's living on his own.

Z has overcome the panic attacks he was having about driving. Every day, after work, we've been honing his driving skills. He's doing quite well, but still has to work his way up to driving downtown.

Our October weather has been HORRIBLE! We've only had 2 sunny days all month. The rest of the days have been rain mixed with snow or day-long mists. We made the most of the 2 sunny days and got most of the winterizing done. I'd still like to get the outside of the windows washed, but that doesn't look too promising.

We got the snowblower out and the mowers, hose, and bike put away.
We got the AC unit tarped.
We moved and tarped the camper. During this process we discovered 2 cracks and a hole in the camper roof. We patched the holes, but didn't have time to check for damage in the ceiling. We're keeping our fingers crossed that we won't find much damage next spring.

Our internet service continues to alternate between extremely fast to extremely slow to nonexistent. The repair guys are starting to scratch their heads in consternation. We've become a quest to them. Why does this shit always happen to US?

L ordered a new, custom-built computer.(Sore subject. Don't ask!) While waiting for the new computer to arrive, our old computer acquired a trojan and had to be restored. Then our monitor died. We're now up and running again with a new computer and monitor. This means that I am now learning to handle a new operating system. Is it just me, or is Vista a gigantic step backwards? About the time I get used to Vista our free Windows 7 upgrade will arrive and then I'll be back to square one again. *Sigh*

Those last 2 paragraphs should explain why I haven't been online lately.

On the bright side, our garage has become super-organized. I designed a super-sturdy, 8 ft long x 3 ft high x 32 in deep workbench that the 3 of us built this month. I'll try to post pictures of it later this week.

THEN...Z and I utilized the new, organized workshop area of the garage and built a new computer desk for L and I. I designed the desk with a CD and DVD shelf in the back....
...and storage pockets on the sides. Look at all the CLEAR floor space beneath the desk! My design also included getting the miles of wires and cables off the floor and out of sight. L thinks I'm a genius.

For me, the best part of the desk is being able to push the chair under the desk. No more squeezing around the giant desk chair to get to the bathroom or put away laundry! $45 worth of lumber, screws, stain and poly produced a 49"wide x 37" deep x 27" tall computer desk that doesn't wobble when we touch it.

We WERE going to lay our new kitchen floor (that's been taking up space in our living room since May) last weekend. My back has been giving me problems for the past week(Yeah, it's stress related.), so we postponed that project until next weekend. Right now I'm working on polying the cove molding that will cover the 1/4" gap that's required on laminate flooring. Tomorrow I hope to start removing the existing molding. Then I'll start measuring to figure where to start with the first piece of flooring. We've got a LOT of weird angles and corners in our kitchen so this will be tricky.

All of this designing and creating has kept my mind off all the tragedies in my life. I'm hoping that I can keep this up until this year is finally over. I'm praying that 2010 will bring us more happiness than heartache.

STUNNED!

2009-10-06T19:49:00.002-05:00

I found out about this yesterday.

Pam and Allen were friends of mine. I'd been friends with Allen through his divorce from his first wife, over 25 years ago. Shortly after his divorce, Allen moved to the metro area to start a new life. That's where he met Pam and brought her home to meet everybody. I instantly liked Pam and hoped they would have a long, happy life together. As the years passed, I grew to like Pam more and more.

How could we have not recognized Allen as an abuser?! Allen loved to tease and joke around. We were always trading barbs with each other. I've known several abusive men and Allen just didn't fit the profile.

Pam was a tall, feisty, intelligent woman. She always managed to keep Allen on his toes with her wit. I never suspected that Pam would tolerate abuse from ANYONE! She just wasn't the type.

How could I have been so WRONG?! I can still hear their voices. This haunts me. When we lose friends to accident or disease, we have a hole in our lives. We fill this hole with happy memories of our time together. My memories of these friends will always be overshadowed by the reality of the hell Allen created for his family for over 20 years.

My heart aches for their son. I pray that he will get the counseling and love that he'll need to overcome this tragedy that has occupied so much of his life.

Giggles

2009-09-27T07:47:00.003-05:00

I ran across this article, by Stephen King, when I was reading the news online the other day.

These snippets made me LMAO;

Headline News Glenn Beck (Satan's mentally challenged younger brother)
Fox News Channel Bill O'Reilly (Satan's mentally challenged older brother)

Speed Grim-looking dude in a black T-shirt says, ''I ran into a little problem with the dash.'' Not to worry, he took it out through that big hole where sane people keep their windshields....

Thanks for the laughs Mr. King. The news has been so depressing and we all need a giggle-a-day.

Making SOME Progress

2009-09-20T08:48:00.004-05:00

Going...

Going....

Going....

And finally....ALMOST GONE!

As you may remember, our old porch has been sitting in our front yard for the past year. Last fall we ran out of time, before winter set in, and we were forced to leave the porch there for the winter.

This month L, with a little help from me, has been dismantling the porch. He's already hauled a truckload to the solid waste facility(SWF). A lot of the lumber has been recycled and is neatly stacked in our garage. We will use most of it to, hopefully, build the garage workbench this fall. L still needs to pull the nails out of the 4x4s that are usable. The rest of the debris in the bottom picture just needs to be cut into truck-sized pieces and hauled to the SWF. Those tasks will have to wait until next weekend though. L put his back out working on this project this week. He was barely able to make it through work all week, so I let him rest his back this weekend. Aren't I a kind little wife?

Our September weather has been a BUGGER! The temps have been in the mid-80s every day. The good news is that it's only rained a couple of days. The weather has slowed our progress on outdoor projects. We just can't work at full speed in the heat. I can't remember a September where we could leave all the windows wide open all night, every night!

L and I both muddled through a week of a weird stomach flu with accompanying high fever, chills, and severe joint pain.

I've spent the last 2 weeks trying to figure out where the slow leak under our kitchen sink was coming from. I finally figured it out when the spigot on the kitchen faucet came off in my hand. Easy fix-I just tightened up that connection. Now I have counter space again after putting everything back in that cupboard!

I've also been trying to figure out why our outdoor electrical outlets aren't working. One day they worked-the next day they didn't. This was a high-priority repair as I THOUGHT that the outlet our heat tape is plugged into was on the same circuit...it wasn't. After changing all the outlets in the circuit, with no results, I decided to disconnect and cap the wire to those outlets for the winter. Next summer, when we re-side the back of the house, I'll trace the wiring and try to find out WTF is wrong.

I also spent 6 hours on the phone with Sony and our DishNetwork service trying to find out why the closed-captioning keeps going out on our new TV. I accidentally found the solution to this problem on my own. BTW, Sony's tech support crew is condescending and RUDE! The past 2 months I've also spent a total of 2 hours on the phone with my phone company. I've been trying to get them to understand that I DIDN'T sign up for call forwarding and I want the $6 charge removed from my bill! Every month they assure me that they've removed this service, and every month it reappears on my phone bill. We'll see what happens this month.

So far, the word for the month of September has been FRUSTRATION!

We had another fire last night, and that helped soothe my frustrated psyche.

It's a Start!

2009-09-07T10:04:00.003-05:00

One of the first things we built, when we moved out here 23 yrs ago, was a permanent block fire-pit. Trimming back all the fast-growing brush on our property gives us a never-ending supply of firewood. We enjoyed this free activity, often accompanied by family and friends, for 20 yrs.

We had to dismantle our fire-pit, 3 yrs ago, to make room for our garage. We fully intended to re-build the fire-pit. Unfortunately we've had several home repairs, like digging in a new powerline to the house, which have torn up our yard. We've been slowly working at re-landscaping those areas and trying to find a new perfect place to build our fire-pit.

Yesterday I got sick of waiting. While on a supply run to Menards, I bought a 30 inch portable fire-pit. When I got home, I told the guys that I had a surprise in the back of the truck. They were THRILLED, and immediately assembled it. Last night, after dinner, we got a wheelbarrow full of wood from our woodpile, dusted off the lawn chairs, and enjoyed our first fire in over 3 yrs. This new, frivolous purchase lifted all of our spirits immensely! My guys say it's the best $100 I've ever spent.

STAGNANT

2009-09-05T07:22:00.002-05:00

I feel like one of those small ponds that you encounter in the woods. There's always a layer of green slime growing on top because nothing ever leaves or enters the pond, except when it rains. That's how my brain feels. I feel trapped, with no inlet or outlet for my feelings. This year, the only time anything fresh enters my brain is when another disaster hits us. Then, for a short time, my brain kicks into overdrive to solve the problem. After the crisis passes, my brain returns to stagnation.

Nothing flows easily from my brain anymore. I've just spent the last half hour writing ONE stinking paragraph. I have thousands of ideas flowing through my brain, but they just get trapped there. While I'm at work, a great idea for a post will pop into my head. I jot down some thoughts, fully intending to write a blog post when I get home. Then I get home, turn on the computer, hit the "New Post" button, and....NOTHING! The blank page before me somehow overwhelms me. This must stop!

Our internet service hasn't helped my writer's block either. We have very few high-speed DSL moments at our house. Most days we're either running at dial-up speed, or the service keeps kicking off and on repeatedly, or both. I've lost several blog posts this way. My phone company buddies and I have been s-l-o-w-l-y trying to fix the problem. This week they switched us over to a new line at the "junction shack" for our area. The service isn't kicking off as often, but we're still having speed problems. Personally, I think the problem is with the Siemans modem/wireless router the phone company uses. L had nothing but problems with his Siemans hearing aids. The guys, however, say that they haven't had any problems with the modem model we're using....time will tell.

I've spent the summer hiding in books and old movies. Sorta like comfort food for the brain... nothing nutritious, just empty calories. I think our shitty summer weather had a lot to do with this. I've been enjoying the cool temps, but the rain is something else. This week is the first rain-free week we've had all summer! Maybe the change in weather will loosen the sludge from my brain?

I've also spent a LOT of time in self-examination. My parents' descent into self-absorbed dementia has forced me to backtrack through my life's experiences to discover what makes me tick. I've made this journey with the help of my cousin J, our longtime(45 yrs) family friend Sandy, my 36-yr-old-son-I-didn't-give-birth-to Troy, and my loving daughter SME. It helps to bounce my thoughts off people who know my story from the beginning, especially J, who has known my parents longer than I have.

My journey of self-discovery has led me to the revelation that I NEED to re-invent myself. I NEED to find some joy in my life and stop surviving on the day-to-day drudgery of my existence. I NEED some FUN! How will I accomplish this? I'm not really sure. The one thing I do know is that I need to start writing here more often. I highly value my blog-friends' opinions and encouragement!!

I really think that the first thing I need to do is post the final installment of my ordeal with my Dad's colon surgery. This will bring everybody up to speed on what's happening in my life now. Posting that story should also help free my mind of a lot of the rubble that's been accumulating there...hopefully.

Once past that hurdle, I need to return to writing some more light-hearted posts. We actually do have a few GOOD things happening in our lives! I'd also like to share a ton of recipes and strategies for surviving on a dwindling budget in our economy.

I also have a lot of rants about the economy and work floating around in my brain. Writing about them is my therapy. On with the healing!!

The BEST Medicine!

2009-08-23T16:22:00.003-05:00

The best cure for the blues is the love of family and friends. I consider Wandering Coyote to be both. About a week ago I received this lovely postcard of WC's hometown, complete with a message of cheer from her "neck of the woods". That card made my week! The postcard will be hanging on my fridge for the next few months. Then it will join the rest of my postcard collection. You didn't know I collected postcards, did you WC?

I'm so sorry that you didn't receive the email I sent you the day the card arrived. I don't know if Hotmail or my intermittent internet service is to blame. I should've realized the message didn't go through when I didn't hear back from you. I feel like a heel! THANK YOU soooo much for brightening my day and for being such a wonderful friend and "extra daughter"!

Accentuate the Positive?

2009-08-15T07:52:00.003-05:00

Remember that old Bing Crosby song?

My son recently told me that I have to stop concentrating on all the bad things that have happened this year. I thought that's what I've been doing. Isn't that what my last post was about?

When I last posted, I didn't even mention that I had sprained my ankle on July 27th. I was actually thankful that I didn't miss any work. How's that for "accentuating the positive"?

Ever since the episode with my parents in Duluth, we've been doing a lot of soul-searching to try to get our life back on track. My guys have discovered that I have a victim mentality. Fair enough-I was raised that way-everything that went wrong was always, somehow, my fault. I carried this into my adult life by trying to fix any problem that my family encountered. I was always there to take up the slack. If I failed, I blamed myself for not trying hard enough.

Last summer we had our house re-roofed and a new porch built. L was in between cataract surgeries and couldn't see well enough to function. I took up the slack and emptied the old porch of 12 yrs worth of clutter. I spent the rest of my summer caulking, priming, and painting the new porch.

My ankle is still weak. I spend my afternoons reducing the swelling in my ankle so I can work the next day. I don't dare get on a ladder or walk over rough ground. It's the middle of August and the old porch is still gracing our front yard. The lawn hasn't been mowed in 2 weeks. The living room is knee-deep in clutter, and we can't even walk into our den! ENOUGH!

Last weekend I announced that I'm shedding my victim image. I started out by giving L some ultimatums about his passive-aggressive behavior. This weekend my guys will get an earful about taking up the slack for Mom. My guys are acting like my sprained ankle means a vacation from chores for them. NO MORE!

Remember Bambi? Thumper said that his Mama says:"If you can't say somethin' nice; don't say nothin' at all." That's bullshit! This year, if I wait to say something nice, I don't have anything to say....then I'm accused of making myself a victim. There's about to be a regime change-goodbye Ms Victim--hello Mrs. Bitch!

WEIRDO!

2009-08-01T09:27:00.003-05:00

My dear blogfriend, Vancouver Voyeur, has asked "Where you at?". VV would be proud to know that I have been enlisting a new therapy to conquer my blahs...I've been releasing my inner weirdo.

Our summer has been only marginally better than our horrendous winter. We have only had 6 or 7 days that it hasn't rained. Our non-rainy days have been spent mowing and trimming our huge lawn. L and Z mow the bulk of the yard with the regular mower. I mow the rough areas with the wheeled line-mower. This is where my weirdness starts to be revealed....

The last time I was mowing, I noticed motion in the grass ahead of me. I stopped the mower and discovered a frog. I tried to pick him up and move him to a safe spot behind our woodpile, but the long grass stymied my efforts. Sooo...I just kept shooing the frog toward safety. Along the way I discovered 2 more frogs. Now, I'm literally herding 3 frogs, 30 feet to safety. It's a good thing that my actions weren't visible from the road that runs past our house. Yeah, I'm a frog-herding weirdo!

This isn't the first time I've exhibited these behaviors. We used to have a HUGE(he weighed at least a pound) toad living in our yard. Before L could mow, I insisted on finding our toad and sitting with him while L mowed. My hours of "toad-sitting" were some of the most peaceful moments of my life. I was free to just soak up the nature surrounding me for a couple of hours every week. I admit it...I'm a weirdo!

We used to have a pair of Mallards that nested in our back yard. For some odd reason, the hen would always decide to move her brood across the busy road, and on to the river, when I was home. I would run out, usually barefoot, and stop traffic until the ducklings were safely across the road. The hen would usually get spooked by the cars and fly to safety, leaving me to herd her babies across the road. SME and L always questioned my sanity following this maneuver. I guess that makes me a weirdo with a death-wish. When driving, I've also stopped traffic to carry turtles to safety...one time on a 4-lane highway.

I suppose you're all wondering what I've been doing to occupy myself when it's raining? Our July has been the coldest on record since 1913. I hate heat, so our 60F temperatures haven't bothered me at ALL! I'd been spending my time creating all sorts of yummy comfort foods...not a good thing for my waistline! Sooo....I decided to revel in my weirdness and spend time soothing myself in my current favorite comfort zone...the garage. I've been cleaning, sorting, and organizing my way into a peaceful frame of mind. I have an old cassette boom-box in the garage. I crank up my music and slowly work my way toward creating the efficient, organized, work-space I want our garage to become. A couple of hours in the garage leaves me feeling like I've done something to bring order into my disaster-ridden year. In the garage, my creativity can run wild and I'm enjoying every minute I can sneak out there. My name is Tshs and I'm a WEIRDO!

Still Here

2009-07-18T10:49:00.002-05:00

2009 has taken a huge toll on my psyche. Daily disasters, family health issues, deaths, bad weather, and the economy have stomped the joyful part of my soul into the mud. I'm desperately trying to rebuild my optimistic outlook on life. This has been a hard journey when I constantly take one step forward and two steps back.

I always used to "count my blessings" when I felt down. This year my banes have started outnumbering my blessings. Trying to find blessings to count only deepened my despair, so I quit.

Nature has been my salvation. Fledgling birds at our feeder, hordes of dragonflies, hummingbirds with an attitude, 3 deer, and the beauty of bald eagles soaring against a bright blue sky have all been gently prying me out of my despair. I have been taking time every day to "stop and smell the roses". Now, I am trying to create NEW, but scaled down, blessings in my family's life.

I need to return to writing here on a regular basis. Writing my thoughts down helps to clear my mind. I need to release the thoughts that are swirling in my brain and muddling my thought processes. Organization has always been my forte, but lately I've just been struggling to make it through each day's essential chores. I really NEED to write the final chapter in my Duluth trip saga! I need to face what happened so I can start re-shaping my life into some semblance of fulfillment.

I have lost a lot of the love I thought I had in my life, but I am now building on the love I hope will be there for the future. If I've learned nothing else this year, I've learned that love does work in mysterious ways.

Slow But Sure

2009-07-04T10:58:00.004-05:00

I'm trying to cling to the warm/fuzzy feeling created by SME and Doug's glorious visit. We had a fantastic 4 days together even though the 3 of us had to work 2 days out of the 4. We laughed 'til our sides hurt and tears streamed down our cheeks. We hugged, and talked, and ate, and played, and shopped, and relaxed, and then hugged some more. Internet and phone communications are sadly lacking in the hug factor.
This was the first time that L, Z, and I had had FUN since Christmas! 2009 continues to be a year of tragedy for us. This week we lost 2 more friends, one of whom was like a member of our family. A 3rd friend(we grew up across the street from each other) is brain dead from a gunshot wound in the Twin Cities. Apparantly the perps meant to kill my friend's roommate. What are the odds that I have had 2 friends murdered this year?

June was an up and down month for my Dad. Biopsies taken during his colon surgery revealed that he has more cancer and will require chemotherapy. 2 weeks ago, Dad had a stent placed in one of the arteries of his heart. We're hoping that this procedure will give Dad more energy. On the bright side, Dad's latest PSA test was less than 1, .9 to be precise. Dad's urologist was thrilled that his treatments for prostate cancer are going so well. We're hoping that Dad will respond equally well to his chemo treatments, which start on Monday.

Z is now the morning dishwasher/cook's helper at the restaurant. He's doing a great job and Boss appreciates having reliable help for a change. His hours are 8 am-1 pm, Mon-Fri. His hours leave both of us free for homeschooling in the afternoons. This new routine has helped Z's sleep problems immensely. Z is responsibly putting away half of his paycheck every 2 weeks. This still leaves him $70/week to spend on himself, which makes him a very happy kid. I co-signed on a checking account for Z, which gives him a debit card. Now he can place his own online orders and start establishing a credit rating for himself. My baby is growing up way too fast.
I should really write a post about what happened to our former morning dishwasher; her stupidity defies belief.
Here are 2 drawings by my 2 favorite artists: SME and Doug. Doug drew the above picture of L in about 10 minutes. What a gift his talent is!
The bottom picture was doodled by SME. Her cartoons are always a treat to behold!
We're s-l-o-w-l-y troubleshooting the problems with our phone lines. Fortunately, I feed the phone company's repairmen breakfast every morning. We've become friends over the years and they are doing everything in their power to get our system running smoothly.

We were totally without any phone service for 2 days. The repairmen finally fixed that problem by switching "pairs" on our service. This re-instated phone service, but our phone lines still sounded slushy, and our 3meg DSL was running between 28k and 270k, but mostly in the 62k range. My repair guys admitted that this was unacceptable service. The next step was to replace our 2-month-old line filters with a new set of filters. (According to the repair guys, these filters are often faulty.) Changing the filters seemed to solve our problem....until yesterday. Now we're wondering if the phone company's Siemens wireless modem could be the problem. We already know that Siemens makes substandard hearing aids, so maybe...

Technical Difficulties

2009-06-14T09:21:00.002-05:00

Our internet service has been down more than its been on lately. Others have been having problems too.
We will finish installing our new phone wiring today. THEN, when the service goes down, we will raise some serious shit with Frontier!
This is inexcusable! My Boss couldn't get online this week to file her figures with the state. The state requires that she file electronically. If she files late, she gets fined. Thanks a lot Frontier!

Home Sweet Home?

2009-06-07T12:32:00.002-05:00

Thanks for bearing with me through this whole sordid mess! It's taken me a long time to document my experiences as it is such an emotionally draining task. This process has also been a liberating one. It seems that once I've written my memories down, my mind is free to move on.

Monday: It's been a week since Dad had his surgery. It feels like a MONTH!

When we got to the hospital, Dad was once again delusional, but not as bad as the previous days. It seems that Dad's latest dreams involved watching TV news stories on the uncontrollable violence in America. I'm not sure who the "enemy" is, but I think it's a combination of terrorists and drug dealers. Dad declared that he was going to start carrying a gun at all times....
Mom: "We live in a safe town. There's no need for that."
Dad: "How about when we travel?"
Mom: "We don't travel anymore."
Dad: "We go to Bemidji sometimes."
Me: "Yeah Dad, that's a real dangerous town." Even Mom giggled about the dangers in Bemidji, so Dad decided to drop that topic.

Then Dad started lecturing me on how I should be watching more news:
Dad: "You could've been watching the news with me last night instead of watching that damned movie you like 6 TIMES with the nurses last night!"
Me: "What movie?"
Dad: "That one with the yellow brick road."
Me: "I wasn't at the hospital and I didn't watch The Wizard of Oz last night."
Dad: "Hmph!"

At 10 am the GP and a Surgeon arrived at Dad's room for rounds. As far as they were concerned, Dad was cleared for release. Dad still needed to be released by a Cardiologist, but the GP didn't see any reason to keep him in the hospital. Dad's heart rhythm had remained normal and he was off oxygen. The GP said that the Cardiologist had made some notes about Dad having a stress test and an angiogram, but he couldn't have those tests until July, when he would be totally healed from the surgery. Both tests can be done at our home hospital.
Alrighty then, bring on the Cardiologist and let's get out of here!

The nurses assured us that the Cardiologist would be making rounds any time now...

By 1:30 pm I was getting restless. I knew that it would take another 2 hours for the nurses to process Dad for release after the Cardiologist signed off on him. They needed to disconnect his IVs, give us new prescriptions for his med changes, and give him the usual post-hospital instructions. On top of this, we still had a 3 hour drive ahead of us! I told my parents that if the Cardiologist hadn't arrived by 3 pm, I was gonna start raising a stink!
Dad: "That's my mouthpiece!" (Referring to me)

At 1:45 another Surgeon stopped in to check on Dad...
Surgeon: "I see you're all set to be released, so I guess my work here is done."
Me: "I know that you're the wrong department, but can you PLEASE help me find a Cardiologist? If the Cardiologist signed off on him right now, it would still be 8 pm before I'd get them settled in their house. We NEED to get out of here NOW! Can you just give me a phone number or something so I can talk to the Cardiologist?"
Surgeon: "Oh my! Haven't they been here yet? I WILL track someone down for you!"
Me: "Thank you soooo MUCH!"
Dad: "That's my mouthpiece!"

A short time later, I told my parents that SME was all ready to come down and help them out through Dad's recovery...
Parents: "WHY?!"
Me: "SME can help with the cooking, cleaning, and everyday chores so Mom can concentrate on helping you." (I didn't dare tell them that I didn't think they were capable of keeping Dad's meds straight. Dad also has to eat and take his insulin at certain times.)
Dad: "HAH, she's...a VEGETARIAN! We don't want her cooking for US!"
Me: "SME will cook whatever you want."
Parents: "No way! We'll be just fine!"
Me: "We'll see. Let's just keep it in mind."

At 4 pm, I went out to the truck to call home. When I came back, Dad was all dressed and handed me something...
Dad: "Throw this away."
Me: "I can't throw these needles away. They're still attached to the IV bags!"
Yup, Dad had pulled out his IVs and heart monitor and was ready to GO.

A Cardiologist's Assistant FINALLY arrived at 5 pm!
"OH! Ummm...I see you're all ready to go. I'm not sure the Cardiologist will agree with this. I'll have to go get him."
I waylaid the assistant in the hall: "We were told that there's no reason my Dad can't be released today. We don't have a motel room and it's too late for me to call into work to get off tomorrow. We're shorthanded at work and I don't know when I'll be able to come back and get my Dad. In addition, my Mom has undiagnosed dementia. She can't stay in Duluth by herself. My parents are so reliant on each other that I GUARANTEE YOU my Dad will go sour on you if my Mom isn't here to hold his hand!"

The Cardiologist arrived within 5 minutes.
Dr: "We would have liked to keep you here, but since you're determined to leave I guess I can release you."
Me: "I can check him into our hospital when we get home if you'd like."
Dr: "There's really no need for that."
Me: "Then why do you want him here?"
Dr: "We'd like to have a few days to go over his diet and exercise regimen with him."
Me: "OK, what's the diet and exercise?"
The Dr droned on and on.
Me: "The only difference between your instructions and how Dad's been living is that you want him to have less than 2 g of salt a day. He's been on a salt-free diet before. We can handle this."
Dr: "We'd also like him to have a stress test and an angiogram."
Me: "We were told that he couldn't have those tests until July."
Dr: "That's correct."
Me: "So you want him to stay here 'til July?"
Dr: "Well no...umm...but...."
Me: "Just sign the release so we can get out of here."

We FINALLY left the hospital at 7:15 pm! A list of Dad's meds had been faxed up to our clinic's pharmacy. We could pick them up after 10 am the next morning. In Dad's release papers I was relieved to find that the surgeon who had done Dad's surgery had restricted him from driving until the surgeon approved him to drive.

When I pulled up front to load Dad into the truck, I moved the passenger front seat all the way back. I had Mom sit in the back seat, behind me, so Dad would be able to fully recline his seat. The staples in Dad's abdomen prevented him from buckling his seatbelt.

We had barely left town when Dad reclined his seat and fell asleep. It had been a long, frustrating day for all of us. 15 minutes later, Dad jerked awake and reached for the DOOR HANDLE to pull himself upright! I was going 65mph and immediately slowed the truck and pulled onto the shoulder. Mom started screaming at Dad not to touch the door. By the time the truck had stopped, Dad had pulled himself up by the armrest and set his seat back up.
Dad: "Don't get excited. I only had 2 fingers on the door handle."
Me: "Dad, 2 fingers is enough to open the door and throw you out of the car when you're not wearing a seatbelt!"
I pulled back onto the highway and Dad pointed off in the distance...
Dad: "That's where they found those shells."
Me: "What shells?"
Dad: "The empty shells from that kid who got his head blown off. We saw it on the news this afternoon. It's way too dangerous out there anymore. We all need to start arming ourselves all the time."
Me: "Dad, we haven't watched TV in the hospital the entire time you've been there."
Dad: "Oh."

The rest of the trip home, we discussed the schedule for the next few days. In the morning my parents were supposed to make appointments with my Dad's GP and his surgeon. I told them that L would come to their house at 10 am to see if Dad's prescriptions were ready to pick up. Then L would deliver the meds to them and help them sort the meds if they needed help. I also told Mom that she could make a grocery list and I'd go to the store for them after I got off work. They hadn't cooked at home for a week, so I was certain that they'd need a few things. I also told them that I'd write down the times for Dad's doctor appointments when I got there. Then either L or I would take them to the clinic on that day. My parents were in total agreement with me about this schedule.

When we got to my parent's house, I opened the garage door and pulled my truck into the garage. I explained that I had told L to put their car in our garage when he picked it up from the hospital. It would be a shorter distance for Dad to walk to the house from inside their garage. It would also be handier for us to have their car at our house when we drove them wherever they needed to go.
Dad: "Is our car outside?"
Me: "Your car is in the garage. L's car is outside."
Dad: "OK."

From the moment my Mom got out of the truck, she was huffy. I was helping Dad through the garage. Mom pushed me aside and said: "WE can do it." Dad agreed.
I unloaded the truck and put everything into the den, where Dad wouldn't trip over it. By this time, Mom had Dad settled in his recliner and was sitting at his feet holding his hand. I told my parents where everything was and went home to get their dog.

By this time I was exhausted and close to losing my composure. I ran into our house, told L and Z I'd be right back, grabbed Shadow, and drove back to my parent's house. They were overjoyed to see their dog. I tried to hug my parents good-night, but the 3 of them were all huddled together by Dad's chair.
Me: "I forgot to grab Shadow's food dish. L can bring it in the morning. Umm...good-night...I love you....see you tomorrow."
Mom: "Where's Dad's release papers?"
Me: "In the den, in the blue plastic bag they gave you."
Mom: "OK."

L ran out to the truck as soon as I pulled into the driveway. We fell into each other's arms and L said: "I feel like I'm on an episode of Wife Swap where they come running together at the end!" All I could do was sob onto L's shoulder. It was 11 pm and I was FINALLY home!

This is getting a bit long, so I'll cut it off for now. Stay tuned for Part 4. The worst is yet to come.

Our Trip to Duluth

2009-05-31T12:05:00.001-05:00

Once again, I apologize for the length of this post. I could write a much more succinct rundown of these events, but I've been told to document these facts for future reference. This will all be explained in part 3.

Thursday: After Dad got loaded on the helicopter, I took Mom home and headed to the restaurant to talk to BS(Boss's son). Boss had left that afternoon on a 5-day vacation to Reno. There was nobody to replace me on Friday, but I was hoping he could figure a way to replace me on Saturday. The girl who works the evening shift said she'd work Saturday, so I was set to go after work on Friday.

Then I ran home, grabbed a suitcase for Mom(I didn't have time to try to find Mom's luggage in their garage attic), explained the situation to Z, and fed Shadow. I took Shadow and the suitcase over to my parent's house and gave Shadow her monthly heartworm meds. I explained to Mom that we would head for Duluth when I got off work at 1 p.m. on Friday. Mom kept insisting that she had to go to the bank to cash bonds for Dad's helicopter ride. ARRGHHH!!

I then ran back to town to pick up some pop for the trip and a box of wine for Mom. I hoped that the wine would settle Mom down for the night when we returned to the motel. The rest of the evening passed in a blur as I made motel reservations(not an easy thing to do in Duluth with less than 24 hrs notice on a weekend), packed, showered, and called SME, my cousin J, and a couple of close family friends who have been involved in this mess. Mom called me 4 times between 10:30 and midnight to tell me that Dad had called her from the hospital in Duluth. I later learned that she'd also called our close family friend, Sandy, twice during this time.

Friday: Mom called me twice during the night, looking for Dad. I got less than 4 hours of sleep before I went to work.

Mom called me twice at work telling me that Dad had called. Dad told Mom that we couldn't come to Duluth and that the ENTIRE hospital staff was picking on him. Dad called me immediately after each of Mom's calls. He was sobbing and insisting that we couldn't possibly come to Duluth...it was too dangerous. For some reason Dad didn't think it was safe for me to drive in downtown Duluth, even though I've been driving there since I was 19. He also insisted that something terrible would happen to Mom and I if we stayed in a downtown motel. He even threatened to cancel our reservations. I finally told Dad to put his oxygen mask back on and get some rest. "We're coming and that's FINAL! I know exactly where you are. I've been there with Z for his neurologist appointments. I even know which parking lot will fit our truck. If I don't bring Mom to see you, she'll take off walking to Duluth in the middle of the night."

During one of her calls Mom asked me if SME and M(my Dad's name) were alright...
Me: "It's SME and Doug, Mom."
Mom: "No it's not! It's SME and M! I have it written right here!"

While I was at work, Mom called our house 4 times. Twice looking for Dad and twice asking Z when I was coming to get her. She also called our friend Sandy. Sandy called me at work and asked if she should go stay with Mom until I got there. BLESS HER HEART!! Sandy later told me that she had no idea my Mom's dementia was that bad until she spent that morning with her.

Thankfully my replacement came to work early! I was able to go home and gather my thoughts while L loaded my luggage in the truck. I also called SME. She and Doug had said that SME would come down and help us if we needed her. I didn't know how long Dad would be in Duluth and I knew that it was too dangerous leaving Mom home alone. I asked SME to check on the fastest way to get here and be ready to come at a moment's notice.

Sandy had managed to calm my Mom down by the time I got to my parent's house. I told my Mom that I would take her to Duluth with ONE condition...."I'm in charge. I've handled all the arrangements. You just worry about taking care of Dad. I'll handle everything else for you." Mom immediately bristled at this(she and my Dad are HUGE control freaks). Sandy put her arm around Mom and said: "Let TSHS do this for you. It's the only thing that makes sense. You just worry about you and M. Let TSHS handle the details." Mom agreed and thanked me.

I told Mom to stay in the house with the dog while I loaded her luggage. Sandy helped me. When we turned around, there was Mom, putting her jacket and purse INTO SANDY'S CAR! Sandy later told me that she knew I was in trouble when Mom hadn't even followed the first request I'd asked of her. I got Mom in my truck, where she started looking for her purse, then I retrieved her purse and jacket from Sandy's car. I checked the house to make sure everything was turned off, locked up the house, and brought Shadow to the truck, while Sandy stayed with Mom. We dropped Shadow and her food dish off at our house and we were on our way.

We arrived at the hospital at 4:30. When we reached the Cardiac ICU, Mom ran to my Dad while I talked with the nurses. They were getting ready to move Dad down to the regular Cardiac Unit of the hospital, but they were waiting for us to arrive first. They had given Dad an ultrasound and a cat-scan(both tests could have been done at home), and they still weren't sure if Dad had had a heart attack or not. They were giving him IV heart meds and insulin, which seemed to be working. He had been eating solid food since Thursday night and his blood sugar was slowly coming down from the alarming 399 level. Dad always maintains his blood sugar between 110-120.

When I went to Dad's cubicle he was telling Mom the most bizarre stories of his stay in the ICU....
The EMTs abused him on his helicopter flight.

Thursday night the doctor said he could use the phone at 8:00 p.m. Dad noticed that the clock in his room was off by 3 minutes. ( I don't know how Dad supposedly knew this since he didn't have a watch.) The "dirty bastards" set the 2 ft diameter, battery-operated wall clock back half an hour so Dad would miss making his phone call. They then magically set the clock back to its original time, including the 3 minutes off. They did all this clock setting while Dad was sitting in a chair, 2 ft from the clock, and Dad didn't see them do it. At this point Dad apparently pitched a fit so they let him call home.

While Dad was being interviewed by the cardiologist on Thursday night, a large, rare moth(I can't remember what kind of moth Dad said it was) was fluttering by his divider curtains. Dad pointed the moth out to the doctor, who didn't see a moth. The moth eventually landed on Dad's big toe...right next to the doctor....who still didn't see a moth. The doctor wrote "delusional" on Dad's chart, which really set my Dad off. This was the beginning of the grand conspiracy against my Dad by the evil, "asshole/son-of-a-bitch" cardiologist, who wouldn't look my Dad in the eye or believe a word he said. Alrighty then...

All Thursday night, 10 "secretaries" (Dad kept calling the nurses secretaries or waittresses until Monday) loudly played cards at a table in the nurse's station. The game involved some sort of board on the table. The winner perched on the board and looked at everybody's cards when they won a hand. The "secretaries" also put bright lights with "wavery" beams on the table. These lights shone in Dad's eyes all night. The "secretaries" also burned some spaghetti sauce they were making during their card game. When Dad would push his call button the "secretaries" would say "Ignore it. It's just that crazy cracker from up-north." Keep in mind that Dad, supposedly, saw and heard all of this without his glasses or hearing aids, which were in my Mom's purse the entire time.

Dad got his dinner tray at 6:00 and we were told that they'd move him to the 6th floor after his dinner. At 6:30, Dad told us to go check into our motel and get something to eat. We told him that we'd see him in the morning and left for the motel. The nurse gave us his 6th floor room number and said that we could visit for as long as the hospital doors were unlocked, which was 7:30 a.m.-8:00 p.m. on weekends.

I left Mom in the motel room while I unloaded our luggage. By the time I returned to the room, Mom had unpacked EVERY item she had and spread her stuff onto both beds, both chairs, and the table. She then carefully re-packed everything. She wound up doing this EVERY time we returned to our motel room. SME said that this act must have been something that gave Mom comfort, as it was something she could control.

After Mom re-packed, we went out for a pizza. We returned to the room at 8:15. The message light on the phone was flashing. The front desk said that the hospital had called and gave me a number. I tried calling the number, but it was no longer in service. Within 15 minutes the phone rang. It was Dad, sobbing and raging about us "disappearing".
Dad: "Where the hell have you been? I've had hospital security and the police out looking for you!"
Me: "Umm, Dad..we checked into the motel and went out for dinner. It's only been 2 hrs since we left you."
Mom took the phone and calmed Dad down for the night.

Saturday: Mom tried to leave the room, in her nighty, twice during the night. The first time she was looking for Dad. The second time she said she was looking for the bathroom. She had already opened both security locks on the door. Since when does the bathroom have security locks? That was the end of me sleeping during our trip. Every time the sheets would rustle on Mom's bed, I was wide awake and ready to stop her from leaving the room.

By 7:15 a.m., Mom and I were dressed and had eaten our free continental breakfast in the motel's coffee room. Then Dad called:
Dad: "Where the HELL are you?"
Me: "We're just getting ready to come to the hospital."
Dad: "A lot of good that will do. Visiting hours are over in half an hour!"
Me: "They don't unlock the hospital doors until 7:30. We can stay until 8:00 p.m. Relax, we're on our way."

When we got to the hospital, Dad was confused, weepy, and belligerent. Mom sat on the edge of the bed and held his hand, which immediately calmed him down. He then demanded that I go to the window and look at the Duluth hillside.
Dad: "Do you see those helicopter rotors sticking up beside that white house?"
Me: "Ummm...no..."
Dad: "There was a fiery helicopter crash there last night...right after a plane crashed into the hillside. I'll bet the helicopter was sent to rescue the plane, but the helicopter crashed too."
Me: "Dad, there's no crash site out there."
Dad: "Now YOU think I'm crazy too, just like that god damned doctor! Where the hell have you been? It's been all over the TV news this morning!"
Me: "You don't have a TV in this room, Dad."
Dad: "I read it in the paper too!"
Me: "Show me the paper. You were having one of your nightmares Dad. There wasn't a crash."

Mom told Dad that she believed him, which settled him down for awhile. I took Mom aside and told her that she wasn't doing Dad any favors by agreeing with his delusions. She disagreed...until this happened...

Shortly after Dad calmed down about the helicopter/airplane crash, he started chewing us out for "disappearing" the previous night:
Dad: "Where the HELL were you last night?"
Me: "We checked into the motel and went out for a pizza."
Dad: "I saw you two right over there at the nurse's station last night...then you disappeared. Hospital security searched the entire hospital and couldn't find you. Then we called 911 and the police couldn't find you either!"
Mom: "We didn't come back to the hospital last night after you were moved to this floor. This is the first time we've been on the 6th floor."
Dad later said that 911 wouldn't work on his phone and that the nurses couldn't call 911 either, so I don't know how the police were out looking for us. Dad was in a rage about the nurses not being able to call 911. What if there was a fire? I'm positive that the nurses only told Dad that they couldn't call 911 because they knew he was being delusional. Either that or it was all part of the same dream.

My Dad has been having horrible, realistic nightmares for the last several years. The doctors think the nightmares are caused by one of his meds, maybe even his insulin. The doctors thought that it was a nightmare that knocked my Dad's heart out of rhythm on Wednesday night. When the doctor made rounds on Saturday morning, I asked him why Dad was now believing that his nightmares were reality. The doctor thought it could be the residual anesthetic and pain meds that were still in my Dad's body from his surgery on Monday. It could also be from the new heart meds they were giving Dad. Time would tell.

Dad got his catheter removed. His blood sugar was only about 50 points too high all day. He was seen by a General Practioner and a Surgeon during doctor's rounds. They both said he was recovering well from his surgery. Even though Dad was in the Cardiac Unit, he was never seen by a cardiologist over the weekend.

By noon, Dad had regained his lucidity and was joking around with us. He still believed that all his dreams had been real though. Dad had been eating solid food for 2 days and now needed to defecate regularly...this was a good sign. The bad news was that the hospital was so understaffed that there were no nurses available to help him. "Shit duty" became the responsibility of Mom and I for the rest of Dad's stay. Dad SHOULD have been up and walking too, but the hospital rules required 2 nurses to take him for a walk. Mom and I weren't allowed to take him out of the room without the nurses, so no walking for Dad.

Sunday: Mom only tried to leave the motel room once during the night.
When we got to the hospital, Dad had us pull his curtain and whispered his desperate "plan" to us. We were supposed to immediately go to the newspaper and report the abuse he'd been enduring. THEN, we needed to call Geraldo! That's the ONLY way he was EVER going to get out of the hospital. WTF? Dad HATES Geraldo! Dad insisted that the nurses had kept him up ALL night by poking unneccesary IV needles into his arms and hands. He then grabbed his IV tree and shook it, saying: "There's NO reason for all this shit! They only keep me on IVs to torture me. That god damned sneaky bastard doctor is behind all this! Look at that; EIGHT IV bags; that's BULLSHIT!!"

In reality, there were only 4 IV bags, connected to 2 needles in his shoulder. At one point, Dad had had 6 IV bags going into 4 needles in his hands and forearms, 2 in each arm. Dad had been fighting the IVs from the start and had broken several needles that needed to be re-inserted. They also had trouble finding his veins, and had made several attempts that hadn't worked. Dad's forearms and hands were a mess, with 30-some needle holes. It was very painful. During the doctor's rounds, we found out that Dad had developed a mild case of pneumonia. This is why they had to start another IV bag for antibiotics.

Dad's breakfast tray arrived at this time. Dad occassionally has an uncontrollable tremor in his right arm. Sunday morning his arm was shaking too badly for him to eat by himself, so I had to help Dad eat his breakfast. In the middle of breakfast, Dad looked around and said: "Where's your mother? You gotta go find Mom! She promised me she wouldn't leave the room without you!" I made a quick check of all the rooms on the floor...no Mom! When I went around the corner to the elevators, Mom was getting off the elevator with a nurse, who was guiding her back to the Cardiac Unit. Mom didn't know what floor or room number Dad was in. She only knew he was in the Cardiac Unit.
Me: "Where were you? Dad's worried sick about you."
Mom: "I can go for a walk anytime I want! You're not in charge of ME!"

When we got back to Dad's room, the doctors arrived on their rounds. The GP was an Indian(dot not feather, as Zombieslayer would say), who was accompanied by a surgeon. They both checked Dad's progress and said that he should be able to be released on Monday. We then decided that Mom and I would stay until Monday and bring Dad home with us. That would save us another round trip to Duluth.

When Dad's lunch tray arrived at noon, he whispered:
"A-ha, this all makes sense now. This is a MUSLIM hospital!"
Me: "What makes you think that?"
Dad: "You saw that MUSLIM doctor this morning. That's why the nurses won't bring me coffee when I ask for it in the morning."
Me: "Muslims drink coffee, Dad."
Dad: "Then why won't the nurses bring me coffee?"
Me: "Because they don't have time. Your coffee comes on your breakfast tray at 8:00."
Dad: "What about this food? It's all MUSLIM food!"
Me: "Dad, that's ground pork and gravy you're eating. Muslims don't eat pork."
Dad: "I still say this is a MUSLIM hospital. Be careful what you say. They're all spying on us! If we say the wrong thing, we'll all just disappear."

At this point, I said I needed to go out to the truck for a cigarette. Periodic trips to the truck during the weekend was the only thing that kept me from totally losing my grip. I'd sit in the truck with a can of pop and a cigarette and either listen to my music or call home. Z was my rock at this time. He HATES talking on the phone, but he would talk to me as long as I needed. L can't hear well enough to talk on the phone, so Z would fill him in on what was going on after I hung up. When I called this time, I told Z to call SME and give her my cell number. I don't have a long-distance card installed in our Tracfone, so I couldn't call SME, but she could still call me. With Mom's dementia and Dad's delusions, I knew they wouldn't be able to keep track of their meals and meds when they got home. I needed to know what SME had found out about coming home to help. I couldn't have my phone turned on in the Cardiac Unit, but I told Z to tell SME to keep trying. I would have the phone turned on when I wasn't in the hospital. SME finally reached me after we checked into the motel for the night. I filled her in on Mom and Dad's conditions. SME's travel agent said there would be no problem getting her a spur-of-the-moment flight home. SME would now wait by the phone for my call for help. God, I LOVE my family!!

Stay tuned for Part 3: Home Sweet Home

Where I've Been

2009-05-23T07:28:00.000-05:00

Feel free to skip this post; it will most likely be long-winded and disjointed. I'm only writing it for therapy for me and because Family Services says I need to document all the craziness. If the facts are written on my blog, I'm not likely to misplace them.

The past 2 weeks have been like a nightmare that I can't escape from! My life feels surreal, like I'm frozen in some bizarre time-warp. As you all know, my Dad had colon cancer surgery on Monday, May 11th. I guess the best way to tell this tale is to go day-by-day.

Monday: I took the day off so my Mom wouldn't be alone at the hospital. I took my parents to the hospital in their car at 7 a.m. Dad went into surgery at 10:30 a.m. Mom spent the entire 3 hours of the surgery sobbing and muttering:"He's my life. I can't live without him." Nothing I did would console her.

The surgery was a success, but we still don't know if Dad will need chemo.

Tuesday: My day began at 1:30 a.m., when Mom called me in a panic. She couldn't find my Dad. That effectively killed sleeping for me for the rest of the night. I didn't know if I should go to their house and spend the rest of the night with Mom, or just hope that she'd settle down and sleep the rest of the night.

The plan for Dad's post-op stay in the hospital was for L to pick up Mom and their dog at 7 a.m. He would take Mom to the hospital and bring the dog to our house. After work, I would spend a couple of hours at the hospital, run errands for me and my parents, pick Mom up at the hospital and bring her over to our house for dinner. After dinner, I would take Mom and Shadow home and make sure they got into the house safely.

Mom INSISTED on driving herself, and my Dad had no problem with that! Mom has undiagnosed Alzheimers (Dad's in denial). Dad has been doing ALL the driving and cooking for the past 2 years. While riding with me, Mom admitted that she couldn't remember where the liquor store was. She then insisted that a beauty parlor was the liquor store. The beauty parlor actually had been a liquor store....30 years ago!! We were terrified that Mom would take a wrong turn on her way to the hospital and keep driving 'til she ran out of gas.

Dad was still a bit confused from the anesthetic and pain killers.

Wednesday: Mom called me twice during the night looking for Dad.

At noon, I looked out the window at work and saw their car parked across the street and Mom staring at the restaurant with a panic-stricken look on her face. Now what?! When I went out to the car, Mom said she couldn't start the car.
Me: "You have to put the car in park."
Mom: "It IS in park!"
I reached across her and shifted the car into park. Mom immediately turned the key and said: "It must have sat long enough to start again."

I got Mom into the restaurant where she started crying and telling everyone what terrible shape my Dad was in. Boss told me to sit down with her and calm her down. When I started questioning Mom, I found out that they had removed Dad's stomach tube, taken him for 2 walks, and let him have a shower. I told Mom that that sounded like a lot of PROGRESS to me.
Mom: "But he's in so much pain!"
Me: "You've had abdominal surgery. You know there will be a lot of pain."
Mom: "I can't stand seeing him suffer!"
Me: "It wasn't easy for Dad to see you in pain when you had surgery. You have to be brave for Dad."
I tried to convince Mom to wait until my shift ended so I could drive her back to the hospital, but no deal.

Later, when I arrived at the hospital, I found the halls plastered with signs with my Dad's name and arrows pointing the way to his room. The nurses were on to Mom's dementia and asked me if there was any way I could keep her from driving. I told them that we had planned on driving Mom everywhere, but our plans had been thwarted. "Your Dad's been covering up for her, hasn't he?" Yup! "We see this happen all the time."

Dad was feeling a lot better, and had quit using his morphine drip. He was a bit confrontational with one of the nurses. He wanted to walk faster than his IV tubes would allow.

Thursday: Mom only called me once during the night. Before she could ask me where Dad was, she realized where he was. She apologized for waking me.

When I arrived at the hospital, Dad was wearing an oxygen mask. The nurse said that he'd had an "episode" with his heart during the night. He'd had a nightmare that knocked his heart out of rhythm. They'd given him a cat-scan, but they still didn't know if he'd had a heart attack or not. They put him on oxygen and heart meds, which returned his heart rhythm to normal. Why hadn't anyone, including my Mom, called me?

D, the hospital's Social Services Director, popped in to visit with us. At the end of her visit, she said that she'd like to discuss a few things with me. Unfortunately, my Mom followed us out of the room too. D took us to a small conference room where she explained Dad's condition and conversationally asked my Mom some questions:
D: "I hear your husband has been doing all the cooking for a couple of years."
Mom: "Yes. He loves to cook."
D: "And how old are you?" Mom tried several times, but never managed to come up with her correct age. At this point, I managed to get rid of Mom by telling her that Dad was probably out of ice chips.

D: "I'll bet you've been trying to get your Dad to have your Mom tested for Alzheimers, but he insists on covering up for her."
Me: "Exactly!"
D: "This is classic behavior. You're an only child and you're trying not to completely alienate your parents by insisting on a test, aren't you?"
Me: "That's the story. Friends and relatives have been noticing the change in Mom, but there's nothing any of us can do short of physically dragging her to the doctor."
D: "Would you like me to have a talk with your Dad in private tomorrow? I'll tell him that the nurses and I discovered the symptoms in your Mom. That way they can't hold any of this against you."
Me: "That would be the BEST possible solution. THANK YOU!!"

Shortly after I returned to Dad's room we got a visit from the on-call doctor, whom my parents hate. She said that the cardiologist in Duluth had looked at Dad's cat-scan and wanted to run some more tests on him. Our hospital doesn't have the equipment necessary for the tests or a cardiologist. They would have to Life-Flight my Dad to Duluth by helicopter, as they didn't have an available nurse to accompany him by ambulance. Dad wanted me to drive him, but I explained that he needed oxygen and IVs that I couldn't transport. We finally convinced my parents that Dad needed to transfer to Duluth to have those tests.

As soon as we were alone, Dad sat up, removed his oxygen mask, and tried to pull out his IV needles.
Me: "WHAT are you doing?"
Dad: "I have to go home and get ready to go to Duluth!"
Me: "Lay down. The nurses will get you ready. The helicopter picks you up HERE."
Dad: "I have to go home to get money to pay for the Life-Flight!"
Me: "We'll worry about that later. I'm sure your insurance will cover it."

Fortunately, Dad's nurse and D came into the room. The nurse settled Dad down, and D went to see if Dad's insurance covered the flight....it did. Within an hour, Dad was on his way to Duluth. The nurse gave me a piece of paper with Dad's cardiac ICU bed number in Duluth. D met me in the hall and gave me her card. She said to call her when Dad gets home and let her know when his next doctor appointment was. She would meet Dad at the doctor's office and explain Mom's condition to him. D also told me to feel free to call her anytime if I needed a shoulder to cry on. What an ANGEL!

By this time Mom was so upset that I easily convinced her to let me drive her home and leave their car at the hospital. I FINALLY got the car away from her!

Next episode: Our trip to Duluth

Good Morning?

2009-05-09T07:46:00.005-05:00

THIS is the scene that greeted me this morning. That's right, SNOW!

The frost in our yard has only gone down about a foot, so our yard is still sloppy and muddy. It has rained several times in the past 2 weeks, which only adds to the slop. The forecast for the next week calls for highs in the 50s...not enough to knock the frost out of the ground.

We finally got sick of our cable company's haphazard internet service and shoddy tv reception. We're now in the process of switching everything over to our phone company. They hooked up our DSL a week and a half ago.

We found out that free installation is worth exactly that...nothing! All the technician did was hook filters to our 2 phone lines and plugged in the wireless modem. Nothing worked after the technician left except the phones, which are static-filled. It took L and Z a week to get us running. The tech hadn't even left the codes to access our account! Our DSL is only running at 10% of what it should be. We're wondering if our 23-yr-old interior phone lines are to blame.

This week I bought new, heavier phone line to replace our old lines. L and Z were going to crawl under the house and replace the line today. L came down with stomach flu yesterday, so I suppose Z and I will now be crawling under the house. If the new phone line doesn't improve our service we'll start raising hell with the phone company.

We're still waiting for the satellite tv installer to show up. I can't wait to see what kind of screw-ups that will involve! IF we ever get the whole system up and running we'll be saving $50/month for the next 6 months, and $20/month for the following 18 months. With this package we'll be getting free, unlimited nationwide long-distance, caller ID, and call-waiting(which I don't want). We also got a free mini laptop out of the deal....SWEET!

Naturally, my kitchen painting project is going slower than I expected. It took me all last week to complete the south wall, which is pictured above. It takes 3 coats of primer to cover the pattern on the printed paneling, plus 2 coats of paint! The paint was supposed to be a deeper shade of gold, but we're still happy with the results. I only have one coat of paint left to apply to the north wall, then I'm on to the east, and final wall. The east wall contains our fridge and stove, so we'll be doing a LOT of appliance moving during this phase.

I've had several interruptions in my painting project. One evening I spent at a meeting that layed out our options for water-line replacement. I'll post more on this later.
Last week we had an overnight visit from a very close friend. This week my beloved cousin, who recently lost her husband, drove 6 hours for an overnight visit. Both of these visitors wanted to see my Dad before he has surgery on Monday.

I have no doubt that the surgery will cure my Dad's colon cancer. We're all worried about Dad surviving the surgery itself. My Dad is almost 80, and a diabetic. He's also been weakened by the treatment for his prostate cancer.

My Mom's dementia has worsened in the past 2 weeks. We're certain that this is caused by the stress of Dad's upcoming surgery. We don't want Mom driving alone, so L and I have planned out a schedule for getting her to the hospital to be with my Dad during the week he has to spend in the hospital. L will take Mom to the hospital in the morning and bring their dog to our house. I'll pick Mom up and feed her dinner at our house, then I'll take her and the dog home. We've had to explain this plan to Mom EVERY day for the past 2 weeks! I'm hoping that we'll be able to pull off our plan without confiscating her keys.

Oops..gotta run...the dish installer just called. He'll be here in 30 minutes. I'll keep you posted...

UPDATE: We just had the 2 sweetest guys install our satellite service! One guy played tug-of-war with Hairry, and the other took pictures of the snow to show his kids in Tucson. They explained, in detail, how to take down the dish when we re-side the house. They also got us free HBO and Starz for 3 months, even though it wasn't part of the package we'd signed up for! When I mentioned that we were running new phone lines under the house, they said to run lines to the converter boxes and we'll save $10/month off our dish bill. No problem!

Dazed and Confused

2009-04-25T07:56:00.003-05:00

This has been the WORST winter of my life!!

This winter has officially been declared the snowiest AND coldest on record. This is highly unusual, as snowy winters are generally warmer. Our normally cozy winter days were consumed with moving snow in subzero temperatures...over and over and over....

I've lost 3 friends and 2 close relatives.

Last fall my Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Last week he was diagnosed with colon cancer. He's scheduled for surgery on May 11th. In addition, Dad's knees have deteriorated to the point that walking and driving have become extremely difficult for him. We've been taking up the slack with his home maintenance chores.

My Mom is showing more and more signs of dementia.

Our economy, which has been sliding into the shitter for the past 15 years, is worse than ever. Instead of desperately looking for jobs for our area, our county and city officials are suing each other over the placement of a stupid ROAD! Guess who's footing the bill for BOTH sides of this lawsuit?

Our beloved nephew has turned to alcohol and suicidal thoughts following a painful divorce. His brother, the blithering idiot, is awaiting trial for his SECOND DUI!

Z has been struggling with depression and sleep problems, on and off, throughout the winter.

Our area has lost hundreds of Red Polls, 20 cats, and several squirrels to salmonella.

Our half-wit, redneck neighbor is slowly encroaching onto our property. A fence, at least on that corner of our property, is becoming a necessity.

We discovered that L is passive-aggressive, and I have been enabling him for the past 30 years. You know what? Right now I'm too overwhelmed to work on this problem. I've had enough head-banging moments this winter.

Do you ever feel like you're spinning your wheels? Yeah, me too!

Remember when I tackled 3 yrs worth of mending in February? The picture above is the new stack of mending that has accumulated since then.

Our 5-yr-old refrigerator died in February. I'm now in the process of trying to get Sears to send us the $75 delivery charge rebate they owe us....VERY time consuming! My next step is to contact our State Attorney General's office.

I really need to start the process of getting us all border crossing cards, so we can get back into our own country when, and IF, we're able to visit SME. I really don't see how this will prevent terrorists from crossing the Canadian border when we have THOUSANDS of miles of unguarded border between our countries. To me, this is just another expense that we can ill afford.

So what am I doing to dispel the funk that surrounds us?

Monday, the day we found out my Dad has colon cancer, our pussy-willows popped out. I immediately grabbed my pruning shears and cut 2 bunches, one for us and one for my parents. This sign of re-birth is exactly what we needed.

Last week Z and I planted tomato and flower seeds. Thursday, sprouts of green in our pots brightened our day.

The past 3 yrs we've worked at the structural, and necessary, repairs to our home. This weekend we'll be starting a purely aesthetic project. That's right, in addition to spending our tax refund on replacing the siding on the back of our house, we'll be "prettifying" our kitchen. Fresh paint will be covering the outdated wallpaper that's visible behind the pussy-willows. Then we'll be laying a lovely new, wood-grained, laminate floor. Sometime, before next winter, I'll be sewing new curtains for our refurbished kitchen. Next summer we'll tackle re-staining the cabinets.

Hopefully the fumes of fresh paint will chase the funky black clouds from my head!

Spring Fever

2009-04-19T07:28:00.003-05:00

This is what 123 inches of melted snow looks like. The frost isn't out of the ground yet, so there it sits. It doesn't look like we'll be doing any yard work for, at least, another month. THIS is the part of spring I HATE! The days are warmer, so we feel like being outdoors. BUT, there's not a damned thing we can do out there! Our landscape is nothing but dreary, leafless, muddy, dirty SLOP! Cabin fever is at it's worst now.

Adding to our misery is the epidemic deaths of Red Polls in our county. Red Polls are tough, cheerful little birds that always brighten our winters. They are so tough that our area is their idea of flying south for the winter. They should have headed back to their Arctic Circle breeding grounds by now. I imagine our late spring has kept them here longer than usual.

The past 2 weeks I've picked up 5 Red Poll bodies from our back yard. I feared Bird Flu. This happened about 5 yrs ago with Pine Ciskins and Slate-Colored Juncoes being the victims. At that time, our local DNR office tested the bodies for disease, with no conclusive results. The DNR's theory was that there must have been some kind of fungus in the bird seed that everybody was feeding the birds.

This time one of our local vets tested the bodies and found a salmonella epidemic. Fortunately, we'd already moved Hairry to the front yard, and away from our birdfeeder, when our back yard flooded.

In an article in our local paper, our vet suggests that we all take down, and sterilize, our birdfeeders for the remainder of the spring bird migration. I really hate to do this as the influx of birds to our feeder is the bright spot of our spring. I also hate to deny food to our nesting chickadees. But if this is what it takes to help slow the spread of disease in our bird population, I guess we'll have to comply.

The good news is that our grill is now accessible. L will be grilling the first steaks of the season tonight!

4 Years

2009-04-09T16:39:00.005-05:00

Yesterday was the 4th anniversary of my blog. A LOT has happened in those 4 years!

The picture above is how Z looked 4 years ago. I started this blog 3 months after we started homeschooling. Z was halfway through 7th grade and failing all of his classes. Z's TS, along with co-morbid ADD, OCD, Executive Dysfunction, and dysgraphia, made it impossible for him to successfully learn in a classic high-school setting. At the time we didn't know how we were going to conquer his learning disabilities. All we knew was that we couldn't stand back and watch a kid with a 131+ IQ fall through the cracks of our public education system.

When we pulled Z out of school his self-esteem was shot. Frustration with his ADD and OCD caused him to overreact to his failures. Meltdowns and rages were common. Anxiety attacks and a nervous stomach, bordering on gastritis, further hindered his attention span. There were many times that Z's ever-changing tics prevented him from reading or holding a pencil. At this time learning was excruciatingly slow! Z required constant one-on-one supervision to keep him on task.

I had been constantly researching Z's conditions ever since he was diagnosed with TS in the 3rd grade. Homeschooling required even MORE research, both for learning materials and for methods to overcome his handicaps. We tried hundreds of learning methods. A few methods worked, most didn't.

2 yrs ago, I ordered a book on speed reading and a book on memory enhancement techniques. With all the reading that special-ed homeschooling required, I felt I needed a few time saving techniques. I never got the chance to read those 2 books....but Z did. While I was at work, Z read those books and discovered the breakthrough I'd been searching for.

Speed reading enabled Z to hyper-focus on his reading, which miraculously bypassed his ADD. Up to this point, the only books that Z had ever finished were the first 4 Harry Potter books. After completing his self-taught speed reading course, there was no stopping him. Z BECAME A VORACIOUS READER! The following 2 yrs found Z teaching himself history, science, and english. There was no stopping his quest for knowledge!

The next 2 yrs we will be concentrating on math and filling in a few gaps in his other subjects. We're all confident that Z will breeze through his GED when we finish those subjects.

This winter Z has been researching career choices. Z understands his strengths and weaknesses and is trying to find a good match for his future. Z knows that there are certain careers that he just wouldn't be good at. He also knows that it's hard to find a stable career in our current economy. Z's not alone in his search. It's extremely difficult for our youth to find a way to support themselves right now.
This is how Z looks today....a cocky, know-it-all, mouthy, thoughtful, loving teenager. Z will always have to deal with his disabilities, but I have no doubt that he'll continue to teach himself the best way to handle his life.

Welcome to Spring in Northern MN!

2009-04-01T17:09:00.003-05:00

The weekend following our blizzard, we had 4 days of +50F weather, followed by 2 inches of rain. The culverts are still frozen so the water had nowhere to go...except into our yards. The picture above shows the ditch water, level with our yard. Fortunately, it turned cold again so the ditches froze over.

The water on the other side of our driveway had current in it as it slowly drained into our neighbor's too low yard. It couldn't have happened to a better guy!

This is a picture of the standing water, on top of the ice, between our house and garage. All of this water has nowhere to go until the frost goes out of the ground. Many basements and garages were flooding last week.

SW of us, residents are still waiting for the Red River to crest. I can only imagine what a nightmare that is!

This week we got 5 more inches of heavy, wet snow. The forecast calls for snow for the next 5 out of 7 days.

Between our endless winter and the horrendous economy, my mood has been far from light-hearted. Coherent thought escapes me. I need a nap!

Rule Makers

2009-03-22T07:30:00.002-05:00

We had a visit from the state health inspector this week at work. Our reaction to his report always results in one of two things...rage, or giggles. This time we giggled, which is a good thing.

We run an extremely clean restaurant and have never had a food-born illness. Inspectors won't admit it, but we all know that they MUST find something wrong to write on their report. The cleaner your restaurant and the closer you follow food safety rules, the deeper the inspector has to dig to find an infraction. This year our infractions included:

We must have lids on employee's coffee mugs and water glasses. Whatever....we've always kept our personal drinks on a corner of the counter that's far removed from a food prep surface. We spill our drinks maybe once a year, and immediately clean up the spill with bleach water. Since the inspector's visit, Boss and I have been drinking out of narrow-bottomed, covered travel mugs...which we have spilled 3 times! Yes, liquid DOES spill out of that little drinking hole when you knock over a travel mug!

We didn't have an "Employee Illness Journal". Huh? Whenever an employee calls in sick, they must write about the nature of their illness in this journal upon their return to work. If the illness involved vomiting or diarrhea, the employee can't return to work until 3 days after their symptoms disappear. Yeah, like THAT'S gonna happen! IF the state is willing to pay me for those 3 additional days off, I'll comply. If not...screw you! We will comply with filling out the journal, so the inspector has something to read next time. We also plan on having a lot of fun describing our illnesses. Graphic snot and sputum descriptions will abound!

The inspector also "suggested" that Boss replace the kitchen wallcovering...
Boss: Are the walls clean?
Inspector: Yes.
Boss: Do the walls show any sign of wear? Is anything chipping of the wall onto a food prep surface?
Inspector: No, but we'd "like" to see stainless steel on all kitchen surfaces.
Boss: I installed the vinyl tileboard wallcovering 5 yrs ago, when you "suggested" that you didn't like our cleanly painted walls. We also installed rubber molding to replace the painted wood molding you didn't "like". The new cupboards we installed were also approved for restaurant use. I spent $50,000, 5 yrs ago, to follow your "suggestions"!
Inspector: I know, but....NOW, we like to see stainless steel.
Boss walks off on inspector.

I know that, somewhere in the metro area, there is a panel of Rule Makers. I'm also certain that these RMs make close to a 6-figure income. Job security demands that they change the rules often enough to make their jobs look important. I seriously doubt that ANY of the RMs have EVER worked in a restaurant! Here is a prime example of their ever-changing rules...

25 yrs ago, at the end of the day, we dumped leftover gravy, soups, etc. into gallon jugs. We immediately placed these jugs in the walk-in cooler, with the lids off. When the food cooled, we placed the lids on the jugs.

NEW RULE: EVERYTHING must be covered in the walk-in, including hot foods. OK, but your previous rule stated that hot foods must be cooled as quickly as possible.

Next visit from the inspector....NEW RULE: Hot foods must be placed in lidless containers on the kitchen counter until they have cooled enough to cover and place in the walk-in. Okey-dokey, whatever you say....

Next visit, another NEW RULE: Hot foods shall be cooled in their original vessels, in an ice bath, while being constantly stirred until the foods have reached the temperature of 45F. Then the food can be placed in a lidded container in the walk-in. This rule resulted in one of the few times Boss had a face-to-face argument with the inspector:

Boss: Just WHERE do you want me to put the ice for this ice bath?
Inspector: We suggest a stainless-steel kitchen sink.
Boss: You mean like the 3-section stainless-steel sink you made me remove from the kitchen LAST YEAR, to make room for the hand-washing sink you insisted upon?
Inspector: *nervous laughter* Yeah, I guess so.
Boss walks off on inspector.

Since we didn't have an ice machine at the time, Boss totally disregarded this New Rule. I seriously doubt that many restaurants followed this rule. Paying someone to stir the food in the ice bath is quite costly!

Next visit from the inspector...guess what?....NEW RULE: Please desist in cooling foods in an ice bath. We have found that water from the ice bath MIGHT contaminate the food. Please place hot food, uncovered, in your cooler, and cover when the temp has reached 45F. WTF?! Isn't that what we were doing to start with?

MN law states that restaurants shall be inspected on a yearly basis, preferably twice yearly. Guess what? We once went 5 YEARS without an inspection! We have also had many times when we haven't seen an inspector for 2 years at a time. The state's excuse for this is that they don't have the money to hire enough inspectors. I suggest that the state fire the overpaid Rule Makers and hire more inspectors. ESPECIALLY meat plant inspectors, since this is where most of the food-born illnesses originate!

Digging Out

2009-03-18T15:32:00.005-05:00

Vancouver Voyeur wanted pictures, so I felt obliged to snap a few photos on Saturday morning before the snow started melting.

Last Wednesday, we managed to clear our driveway in 2 hours by playing "tag-team snowblower". The wind was still blowing 25 mph, so we could only blow for 30 minutes before becoming walking snowmen. L went out first and made the first paths through the drifts. We couldn't believe that the snowblower went through the 4 ft bank, left by the snowplow, in just one pass!
The above picture shows how high the drifts were. You have to click on the picture, to make it bigger, to see the top of our grill sticking out of the bank.
Here's our front sidewalk after Z shoveled it. The snowbanks were up to Z's shoulders, so shoveling required a LOT of lifting.

Saturday's forecast called for temps in the 40s. L wanted to clear the path to our fuel-oil tank and birdfeeder before it settled into a solid block of ice. Since the snow was over the top of the snowblower, L had to knock the drifts down with a shovel before he could blow.

It's unbelievable how bi-polar our weather has been. Last Wednesday night, our low temp was -28F. Saturday thru Tuesday, we had highs in the mid 50s. Half of our snow has melted in the past 4 days! Our entire driveway is now snow and ice free for the first time since December. Spring has started, with all the accompanying mud and slop.

The seagulls arrived on Sunday. According to local legend, we always have 3 more snows after the seagulls return. Hopefully those snows won't be 19 inch blizzards!

Snow Day

2009-03-11T07:20:00.003-05:00

I'm writing this post while waiting for daylight. We got 18.8 inches of snow, accompanied by 35 mph winds, in the past 24 hours. Yesterday they said we would break the record for snow if we got 10 more inches. Looks like we broke that record.

Boss called last night and told me not to come in unless she calls me. We're supposed to cater a meeting today. The people attending the meeting are coming from all over the US and Canada. I have a feeling the meeting will be canceled. All of our restaurant supply trucks come from the western part of the state and have been canceled, so we'll be running a limited menu.

From what I can see by the light of our front porch light, we have a 4 ft high snowbank extending 6 ft into the mouth of our driveway from the snowplows. It's currently -6F with a -30F windchill. The forecast is calling for -25F tonight. You know you're in trouble when Jim Cantore is in your vicinity. Well...Jim is in Duluth and can't, or won't, make it any farther north....we're screwed! Our camper and BBQ grill have totally disappeared into the snow drifts. The drifts in the back yard are 6 inches higher than our 3 ft high steps. Hairry was up to his neck in snow when he went out this morning!

Warm temps the past few days have created a solid sheet of ice beneath the snow in our driveway. L got the car stuck on the ice trying to get to work yesterday. We had to hire someone to push it onto a spot where we could get traction enough to back it into the garage. It was snowing and blowing so hard that we had to blow out the driveway twice while waiting for our rescuers. The snowblower could barely blow the snow over the top of the banks surrounding our driveway. We're simply out of places to put the snow!

It will probably take us most of the day to clear the driveway. L and I will tag-team with the snowblower. One of us will blow snow until we're too snow encrusted to continue. While our snow suit and face mask are drying in the dryer, the other one will continue blowing snow. Z will be breaking apart the taller banks with the scoop shovel so the snowblower can get through.

Wish us luck!

Since My Last Post....

2009-02-27T15:05:00.002-06:00

We discovered that our friend was probably murdered.

I lost a classmate to cancer. I wasn't very close to this person, but I was good friends with her twin sister.

My cousin, whose husband is dying of lung cancer, broke her foot and is confined to a wheelchair. Last week she lost her aunt to Alzheimer's. I don't know how, but she still retains her upbeat attitude. You're my hero J!!

The 12-yr-old great-grandson of my parents' neighbor is in intensive care after rolling a snowmobile 6 times. His skull was crushed. The police report says that "speed was a factor". No shit Sherlock!! What were the parents thinking when they let a 12-yr-old drive a sled, capable of 100 mph speeds, unsupervised?

Our little town lost 40 jobs, that paid over minimum wage with benefits, last week. I imagine most of those people will leave town.

We got 9 more inches of snow on Monday and another inch yesterday. This morning it was -15F and it will remain below zero through the weekend. Starting Monday the forecast calls for warmer temps and 5 more days of SNOW!

I really NEEDED to accomplish something worthwhile, so I finally tackled the 2 overflowing baskets of mending I'd been ignoring for the past 3 years. I patched 15 pairs of jeans for me and 12 pairs for L. I also patched 6 insulated flannel shirts for L and fixed a seam on a sweatshirt I had forgotten I owned.

Now that the mending is out of the way, I bought material to sew desperately needed new curtains for the kitchen. The best part is I got the material for $3.99/yd! Now that we've chosen the color for the curtains, we can now pick a paint color for the kitchen. I brought paint color cards home from Menards yesterday. This weekend we'll make our final color choice. Once the painting is done, we'll be able to install new flooring. I also picked out the laminate flooring that we'll buy as soon as our tax refund arrives. Check out my post from May 23, 2007 for a picture of the sad state of our kitchen floor. It hasn't improved any in the past 2 years, trust me.

I'd like to refinish the kitchen cupboard doors this summer, but I don't think I'll have the time. We have to re-side, at least, the back of the house. We're hoping that the siding on the front and ends of the house will last until next summer. We also MUST build a new computer desk for ourselves...AND replace the front door....AND build a workbench for the garage since we already have the materials...time, and money, will tell....

A Tragic Waste!

2009-02-14T14:42:00.003-06:00

We just found out that a 36-yr-old friend killed himself on Wednesday.
The last we knew, he was managing the water rides at Disneyworld. He started working there by playing Goofy, which we always found appropriate.

I'll always remember how he'd patiently play with Z, when he was a toddler, for hours.
If it wasn't for Ed, we wouldn't know that it's illegal to pee in the Mall of America parking lot.

God bless you Ed-The-One-Man-Party!

Camping Out at Home

2009-02-11T17:50:00.002-06:00

Here's a picture of our current fridge. Why do I feel like we've been camping all week? Let's see, maybe it's because we lived without a furnace for 2 days and the fridge for 4 days.

The repairman came this morning and declared that the problem was in the "sealed system". So I got to go refrigerator shopping this afternoon. This activity really doesn't take very long, as we only have 2 places in town that sell appliances-Sears and Menards. There were only 3-18 cu ft models to choose from. One of them was $900, so that narrowed my choice to 2. I was ecstatic to find evaporator coils on the back of the model I chose! The salesman said that very few refrigerators are made with "sealed systems" now. Gee, I wonder why?

Delivery is set for 1:30 tomorrow afternoon, so today we get to move the furniture around to make a path for the new fridge. Tomorrow we'll need to remove 3 doors to squeeze a 30 inch fridge through a 32 inch door. The good news is that they're taking the old fridge with them AND we get a rebate for the whole delivery fee. YES!

Tomorrow night I'll be able to cook dinner without running out to the front porch umpteen times.

"Sealed System"=Planned Obsolescence

2009-02-10T17:41:00.004-06:00

Just a quick update on our gremlin situation.

The furnace conked out again on Sunday afternoon.
L was right. The furnace repairman didn't show until 11:30 Monday morning. The good news is that our problem was only a clogged orifice, which is the cheapest thing that could go wrong.

We had freezing rain from 6:30 a.m. until noon yesterday. Then it warmed up and just plain rained. What a MESS! Our newly roofed back porch is leaking like a sieve in the same spot it always has. WTF?! Boss decided to close early due to lack of business, so L didn't work yesterday. At least I got a full days pay.

Our refrigerator got progressively warmer until, by yesterday afternoon, the freezer compartment was 25F and the fridge was running at 45F. Our refrigeration is now being handled by coolers on the front porch.

L and I decided that since the fridge was empty, we'd thoroughly defrost it and let it dry, with the doors open, overnight. Maybe a little chunk of ice had lodged in a vent somewhere? L found some screws on the back of the fridge. He removed them and found a very dusty motor. Aha, maybe that's the problem? L cleaned up the motor. This morning I turned the fridge back on. By noon, the temp was reading 45F in the freezer and 55F in the fridge. SHIT!!!

A customer gave me a phone number for the only residential refrigerator repairman in town. I called him this afternoon. That call was quite an education! It seems that our lovely new refrigerators, that don't have coils to clean, are called a "sealed system". There are only a few repairmen in the state who will work on a "sealed system". The reason for this is that it is a VERY expensive procedure. It's usually cheaper to buy a new fridge. Just friggin' lovely!

I also learned that my relatively new AMANA refrigerator is made by MAYTAG. I love my Maytag dishwasher, but I won't be buying any more of their refrigerators!

The repairman asked me a few questions about how the fridge was operating. He didn't think that sounded like part of the "sealed system" package, but he wasn't certain. He apologetically said that he could take a look at it for $40, but he couldn't make any guarantees. With our luck, we'll probably have to replace our 5-yr-old fridge, but I have to give the repairman a shot first. We really can't afford a new fridge plus disposal fees for the not-so-old one right now.

With all the "green" movements right now, I'm surprised that someone hasn't jumped on refrigerator manufacturers for this blatant move toward planned obsolescence! If this keeps up, we'll soon be overrun by refrigerator junkyards.

SICK of It!

2009-02-08T10:40:00.002-06:00

Is anybody out there missing a gremlin? If so, PLEASE come and get him before I find him and wring his scrawny little neck!

The last couple of weeks our internet service has been horrible. It's either down or s-l-o-w. I mean dial-up slow! Arghh!! A couple of times the service outage was our fault. Z would disconnect and reconnect the cables and everything would work again. Friday night I found what was causing our loose cable problem. Hairry has started sleeping under our computer desk, curling up on top of all the cables. The new computer desk we're planning on building this summer should solve that problem, as the cords and modem will no longer be on the floor. The slow service I'm blaming on the new cable company which will take over in April. They said they would be switching our service to their system over this 3 month period. Once again....ARGHHH!!

Two weeks ago, I noticed that the food in the freezer section of our fridge wasn't as frozen as it normally is. I checked all the vents to make sure they weren't blocked, then I bought a fridge thermometer. The freezer was running at 15F and the fridge was running at 40F; acceptable, but not up to snuff. I turned the controls down with no result. Yesterday, the freezer section was running at 25F. SHIT! Our fridge is only 5 1/2 years old! I don't even know if there's still a residential refrigerator repairman in our town anymore. I'll start that quest tomorrow.

Yesterday, after I got home from work, we went over to my parents' house so Z could clear the snow off their screen house and shed. My Dad had hired someone to clear the snow off the house and garage. Dad built the shed and screen house, so he wasn't worried about the roofs collapsing under their 3 feet of snow. I've been reading up on snow weight. The 3 feet of snow on the roof weighs a bit over 15 lbs/sq ft. BUT-if you add 1/4 inch of rain to the snow, the load doubles. Freezing rain is forecast for Monday, so I thought those roofs should be cleared.

When we got home, our house felt a bit chilly. YUP, that's right, the furnace was OUT! We hit the reset button, which crumbled into a million pieces when I touched it. Next step--call a furnace repairman. We already knew that the 2 major furnace repair shops in town would NEVER come out on a weekend, so we called the new guy in town. I left a message at his home and on his cell phone. L chuckled as I left the messages: "You don't REALLY think that we'll hear from him before Monday, do you?" Well...it's almost noon on Sunday, so I guess not. Fortunately, we have 3 electric heaters, which kept the living spaces in the house at a toasty 73F. We were also lucky that the outside temperature was above 0, so our water lines, which run beside the heating ductwork, didn't freeze. At 1:30 a.m. the furnace mysteriously started working again, although it's also leaking small amounts of fuel oil right under the pump. I'm guessing that we'll need a new pump....IF the repairman ever gets back to us.

On the bright side, L fixed my garage door opener when it warmed up this week. He gave up trying to fix it when it was -40F, as his hands kept freezing. In the interim, L put the truck on his side of the garage so I wouldn't have to manually open and close the door. What a sweeheart!

It seems like we've been fixing one or 2 things/week ever since 2009 rolled around. I sure hope this trend doesn't continue all year!

It's the Simple Things...

2009-01-25T09:05:00.002-06:00

Late yesterday afternoon, L and I were having a heart-to-heart discussion at the kitchen table. L suddenly pointed at the window:"Quick! Look at the window!"

The moisture on our sun-warmed, south facing storm window had just reached the magical temperature to form a beautiful fan of frost. We sat in awe for the 5 seconds it took for our window to spiderweb into a work of art.

We have been privileged to witness this phenomenon several times, and it still takes our breath away.

I wonder if they sell a lot of this?

2009-01-22T18:29:00.000-06:00

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Turkey Enchiladas

2009-01-17T09:41:00.004-06:00

The cold spell is over....for now. Our 6 a.m. temp was a balmy +4F(-15C)! Unfortunately our warming trend was accompanied by 2 inches of snow, with an additional 2-4 inches expected this weekend.

The forecast says we can expect freezing drizzle on Tuesday. WTF?!! This is not even remotely fair after we just endured a week of -40F temps! Rain, on top of our 4 ft of snow, will be devastating to our area's wildlife! Hard-crusted snow allows the wolves to freely run on top of the snow, while the deer are forced to plunge through the drifts. Many birds, especially grouse, burrow into the soft snow to keep from freezing at night. A coating of ice on the snow causes the birds to suffocate while they sleep. If the weather turns cold again after the rain, the birds can't burrow into the snow and many will freeze to death. Nature is indeed cruel!

Many of you have been wondering what we do to amuse ourselves in the cold. The answer is COOK, of course! I always try to save oven meals and soups for the coldest days of the week. The extra heat in the kitchen helps us forget the frigid outdoor temps.

I've recently been gathering economical recipes to post here. I like to have an accompanying photo of the finished product. Z is becoming annoyed with the dinnertime photography. As you can see in the photo above, Z is no longer waiting for me to take pictures of our meal before he digs in..."I'm starving Mom!" Needless to say, this is one of Z's favorite recipes.

Turkey Enchiladas
4 Cups diced leftover turkey or chicken
8 flour tortillas
8 oz grated cheddar cheese
2 large onions, chopped
2 large green peppers, chopped

ENCHILADA SAUCE:
2-15 oz cans tomato sauce
1 Tbs chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
3/4 tsp garlic salt
2 Tbs sugar
Mix together and simmer 30 minutes

Fry onion and peppers in your favorite oil until tender.
Lay out the tortillas and place 1/2 Cup turkey in a line down the center of each tortilla.
Divide the onion/pepper mixture on top of the turkey, and top with grated cheese.
Roll up the tortillas and place in a greased 9x13 cake pan.
Pour the enchilada sauce evenly over the rolled up tortillas.
Bake @ 350 15-20 minutes, or until sauce is bubbly and glazed.

Served with salad or a veggie, this makes a great low-carb, lowfat, economical meal that easily feeds a family of 4. I can only eat 1 enchilada, so we usually have leftovers. Leftover enchiladas can be individually wrapped in plastic wrap and frozen.

MORE Fun....

2009-01-14T19:12:00.002-06:00

It was -42F last night, with a high of -11F today.

I was interviewed by NPR over the phone at work. I went to their website but I didn't see any quotes from me. They wanted to know if people were "moving around out in the cold". How did they think I got to work? DUH! They were amazed that I was feeding a group of ice fishermen who would soon be out on the ice. The Travel Channel will have a film crew here this weekend. Too bad they'll miss the worst of the cold....mwahahaha.

The cold has created some amazing sunrises!

Weather Update

2009-01-13T18:05:00.002-06:00

It actually got to -40F last night. I just discovered that -40F is the same as -40C, but that doesn't make it feel any warmer.

We set a new record for cold...oh goody!

We were supposed to get 20-30 mph winds between midnight and 9 a.m. Fortunately we didn't get ANY wind...for that I am thankful.

No Wii for Mii!

2009-01-12T18:43:00.003-06:00

Z has been sticking to his Wii Fit workouts every morning while I'm at work. He said that my Mii has been falling asleep when he starts up the Wii. I guess that's what happens when you don't use Wii Fit for over a week. I wish there was some way to tell my Mii to hang in there. I haven't been slacking on my workouts. I just have a different workout venue right now....SNOW!

It snowed 48 inches here from the middle of December through the first weekend in January. I've cleared the house roof twice, and the garage and metal shed roofs once. According to my calculations this means that I've roof-raked over 4.5 tons of snow in the past week. Last wednesday every single joint in my upper body, from my fingers to my shoulders, was throbbing in agony.

Can you see that little bit of brown tarp sticking out of the snowbank in the center of the picture? That's our camper. Z has cleared the snow off it twice. If we get more snow, Z will have to shovel down the bank surrounding the camper so L can snowblow it somewhere else. We're not too sure where that will be. We have a huge yard and we're running out of places to put the snow!
Here's our fuel oil tank after I dug it out after I buried it with the snow from the roof.

The good news is we probably won't be getting any more snow this week. The bad news is that our temperatures will be -25F to -30F for the next 4 nights. I have one word for this winter...GRUELING!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GORGEOUS!!

2009-01-04T07:39:00.005-06:00

You've always been our beautiful baby! I guess that's because you came from good stock...

Cute parents...CHECK...

FINE-looking grandparents and great-grandparents...CHECK!

We all age pretty well...especially YOU!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SME!! We're all so proud of the beautiful woman you've become, both inside and out.

Of course, it's up to you how you choose to use your beauty...

LOVE YOU!
Mom, Dad, Z-kid, and Hairry

The Party's Over

2009-01-01T09:22:00.003-06:00

I'm taking it slow, settling into the new year, after enjoying one of the most fulfilling Christmases EVER! We scaled Christmas back a bit this year and enjoyed it even more...who'da thunk it?

L totally surprised me with a Wii Fit! I really wanted one to help with my back problems, but I refused to pay scalper's prices of $129 and up. L actually found a Wii Fit for $10 over list price.

My Mii is now slightly pudgier, and I've discovered that I'm 8% "unbalanced". My Wii Fit age is only 3 years older than my actual age, so I guess I'm not doing too bad for an old broad. I've only been working with yoga, balance, and aerobics. I'll leave strength training for when I re-gain my "balance". I've already noticed an improvement in my back muscles, so I'd say my Wii Fit experience is a huge success!

Does anybody else have a hard time discerning the panda heads from the soccer balls in the Soccer Heading game? I'm also a total klutz at the Basic Step game. I just can't feel the rythm and must watch the other Mii's feet rather than the diagram. I'm always half a step behind. On the bright side, I'm great at the Hula Hoop and Ski-Jump games!

Z is totally thrilled with his Rock Band game for the Wii! What really amazed me is how much Z has gotten into Wii Fit! At first, Z sneered at the thought of a video game as a fitness aid. Now, he actually complains about sore muscles after he has a Strength Training workout, AND Z has a new-found respect for Yoga! Z's participation in the Wii Fit keeps both of us motivated...we simply MUST beat each other's high scores. Now if we can only get L to enroll in Wii Fit...

L has been happily saving the world with Lara Croft, and his spiffy new controller, in his new Tomb Raider game.

My parents' favorite gift was the 4-20 oz packages of arrowroot I ordered online for them. Arrowroot is a carb-free thickening agent that is highly recommended for diabetics. Nobody in our town sells arrowroot, so my Dad had eliminated meals that require thickening from his diet. In the past week, my parents have made both gravy and chow mein with the arrowroot...they're thrilled with the results!

Last night we pigged out with an amazing dinner of munchies...spinach dip, shrimp cocktail(Shrimp was on sale for $3.33/14 oz bag!), bacon-wrapped smokies, cheese, summer sausage, crackers and chips. L and I were asleep by 10:00, while Z brought in the New Year with his online buddies.

Today, L and I are enjoying our final day off until Memorial Day. We're ignoring chores while enjoying the afterglow of the holidays. We'll make up for our laziness this weekend, when we clear the roofs AGAIN! According to Wednesday's paper, this December has been the 3rd snowiest, and 9th coldest on record. Uffda!

Wishing You a JOYOUS Christmas!!

2008-12-24T08:25:00.003-06:00

I thought I'd share a bit of SME's fabulous artwork. These pictures were scanned from our Christmas gifts from SME and Doug. We always look forward to seeing SME's hand-decorated wrapping paper! The drawing above adorns L's and my Christmas gift. Note the glasses on L's pea.

Z's present bears a bit of twisted humor-quite appropriate for him. Z got quite a chuckle out of this drawing!

I'm off to the kitchen to begin creating our annual Christmas Eve fare. I LOVE holiday cooking!

May the PEACE of Christmas descend upon all of my beloved blog-friends!

Music to Soothe the Soul

2008-12-20T06:40:00.004-06:00

This year I've had a hard time maintaining my Christmas spirit. When I flipped the calendar page to December, I vowed to cut myself off from the news for the month. I can't handle hearing about all the home foreclosures, unemployment figures, and bailouts. Now I listen to the weather channel, instead of the news, while I'm getting ready for work. I haven't even been reading our local paper this month, except for the grocery ads. There will be plenty of time to catch up with the bad news after the first of the year.

It's easy to keep the magical glow of Christmas alight in my heart when I'm home. I'm actually grateful for the shorter daylight hours, so I can close the drapes and light our tree, Christmas villages, and candles, and let the warm light bathe me in serenity. Our collection of Christmas videos, together with month-long marathons of Christmas programming on a couple of TV channels have prevented me from sneaking a peak at the news. Peace on Earth reigns in our home.

Work is another story. In the past, my Boss has managed to ruin several Christmases for me. Boss NEVER plans ahead for Christmas and rarely decorates her home. Everything about Christmas is an odious chore for her. Appearance is everything to Boss, and if she can't buy the most extravagant gifts and display new, designer, color-coordinated decorations every year, she won't do anything. From Thanksgiving on, Boss rants daily about how she can't wait for the season to be OVER!

How do I combat the Srooginess of my workplace? With Christmas music, of course! This year I put a Christmas CD in my truck the week before Thanksgiving. Listening to my Christmas music on the short drive to work helps me steel myself for the day. When Boss starts ranting, I go to the back room and start humming Christmas tunes as I work.

Today, I thought I'd share some of my favorite Christmas music. When I was growing up, our home was always filled with books and music. Starting on Thanksgiving Day, my parents would haul out their collection of Christmas albums and fill the house with classic Christmas sounds. Naturally, these albums have become my favorites. With the advent of CDs, many of my parents' albums have been re-released on CD over the years. I'm thrilled that I now have a complete collection of my childhood favorites.

No Christmas season was complete without watching the Andy Williams Christmas special. Weren't those Osmond Brothers just the cutest little tots? One of my favorite songs is It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, and this song MUST be sung by Andy Williams.

I was totally stoked to find this particular Perry Como album on Amazon a couple of years ago. This album includes music surrounding the Nativity story, which was always part of Perry's Christmas special on TV. To me, nobody can sing There's No Place Like Home For the Holidays like Perry Como.

I bought this Burl Ives album when I was a teen. Christmas just isn't right without Burl singing Have a Holly Jolly Christmas. Now, I just need to burn this album to CD, so I can listen to it in the truck.

I'm sure that everyone will agree that no Christmas music collection is complete without Bing Crosby's version of White Christmas, or Nat King Cole's version of The Christmas Song(Chestnuts Roasting On an Open Fire).

Now we move on to Christmas music that has become a tradition in our household. My kids' favorite Christmas album is John Denver and the Muppets. This is another album that I need to burn to CD. I bought SME the CD version of this album and The Nutcracker when she left home. Those albums became the "oldies" foundation of her Christmas music collection.
What Christmas music is part of your holiday traditions?

BLIZZARD!

2008-12-15T17:23:00.003-06:00

Up to this weekend, we only had about 4 inches of snow on the ground. Yesterday we got 14 inches of snow and -9F temps combined with 35 mph winds! I really shouldn't have been bragging about the mild winter we'd been having so far. Tonight the temp is supposed to dip to -30F, but the wind is supposed to let up.

This is the drift that greeted me this morning. Needless to say, I used the big garage door this morning instead of the entrance door. I was soooo thankful for our garage and our 4x4 truck this morning!!

There's been a nasty stomach flu circulating through our town. My Boss got it a week ago, her son got it Wednesday, her grandkids and I got it Friday, and Z and L got it yesterday. We're all feeling much better today, but we didn't have the stamina to do a very good job of snow removal. L managed to blow out the driveway, but it will probably take us the rest of the week to clear roofs, widen the driveway, and blow paths to the sheds.

Yesterday Z managed to find the bright spot to our situation: "At least we all got sick BEFORE Christmas!"

Front of the Class

2008-12-09T15:48:00.002-06:00

Brad Cohen has been an inspiration in our house for the past 3 years! We have all read his book and were so impressed by his philosophy of not letting Tourettes win.

I've been in contact with several adults with TS since I've started this blog. Most of them are on disability. They let TS win. We were quite disheartened by this until we read Mr. Cohen's book. Front of the Class came out at just the right time for us. Z was at the peak of his tics and he often worried about what life held in store for him. After reading the book, Z was more confident that he could lead a normal, productive life in spite of his disabilities.

At the time his book came out, Z and I saw Mr. Cohen on Oprah. Z was a bit horrified that Mr. Cohen still had relatively severe tics. At that point in his life, we were all hoping that Z's tics would slide back into a less noticeable state. After witnessing Mr. Cohen's enthusiasm for life, Z felt better about the prospect of living with severe tics for the rest of his life.

Thankfully, Z's tics have slid back to a more manageable level over the past year. Where he is now is probably how he'll be for life. Z's lucky; his current vocal tics aren't loud enough to disturb others in a movie theater or concert. Mr. Cohen's vocal tics resemble a barking dog, Z's resemble a whining puppy. Z's motor tics have also settled down to where they don't interfere with his functioning.

We are also lucky that Z was correctly diagnosed with TS right from the start. Mr. Cohen's mother had to research and diagnose her son all by herself! This is the biggest thing that Brad and Z have in common...a pitbull of a mother who refused to let her son be marginalized by his disability. I'd love to meet Brad's mother!

Sunday night Hallmark Hall of Fame dramatized Brad Cohen's story. I am extremely grateful to Hallmark for choosing this topic. All the people who watched this show now have a realistic idea of how TS affects children's lives. I'm hoping that national exposure like this will prevent even a few people from glaring, staring, or ridiculing people like my son when they encounter them in public.

Heirloom Cookies

2008-12-06T15:41:00.002-06:00

This is what my guys are doing as I post. I bake 'em; they decorate 'em...and eat 'em as they toil. Good thing I always bake a double batch!

I've been baking this same sugar cookie recipe since I was a small child. Family traditions are one of my favorite parts of the Christmas season. What's more traditional than a cookie recipe that's been handed down from mother to daughter for three generations?

Cut-Out Sugar Cookies (yields 7 dozen)

1/2 Cup shortening
1/2 Cup butter or margarine
2 Cups sugar
2 eggs
1 Cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla
5 Cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt

Cream shortening, butter, and sugar.
Beat in eggs and vanilla.
Beat in sour cream
Add flour, baking powder, soda, and salt. Mix until well blended

Roll 1/2 dough at a time to 1/4 inch thickness(We like a chewy cookie. Roll thinner if you want a crispy cookie) on a floured board or pastry cloth. Cut out cookies with your favorite cookie cutters. If you don't want to frost your cookies, sprinkle them with colored sugar before you put them in the oven.
Bake@375 for 8-10 minutes.

Cool cookies, then frost with your favorite icing.

Now it's time for me to freeze the cookies and clean up the mess.

Shopping

2008-12-02T17:54:00.001-06:00

I just finished my Christmas shopping!

The only shopping I had left to do was for L. Z also needed to finalize his decisions on what he was getting his Dad, grandparents, and girlfriend. Mission accomplished. Z and I found all the items we wanted at Amazon. Now we just need to sit back and wait for our final gifts to arrive. Then we can have a marathon wrapping spree. In the meantime, we'll bake some goodies.

Birthday and Christmas gifts for SME's family were shipped off last Monday. I hope they'll get there on time with the partial postal strike in Canada.

Today I thought I'd share some of my favorite gifts to give, along with several of my favorite online shopping places.

For me, little kids are the easiest to shop for. When our kids were little, we always bought educational toys or toys that inspired imagination. Books, games, craft sets, educational software, action figures, legos and other building sets were always a hit at our house.

Senior citizens are the toughest to shop for. They've already got everything they need, and don't need any more useless knick-knacks cluttering up their lives. If you pay attention and listen, you can often come up with creative gifts for parents and grandparents. One year, we bought my Mom a new toilet for her birthday. She hated the way their old toilet sweated, so we got her a sweat-free toilet. With tight budgets, many seniors don't buy frivolous foodstuffs. Several times I've bought my Dad a box of frozen walleye fillets....he was thrilled. Lately, my parents have been into reading, listening to THEIR music, and watching old movies. Amazon is a treasure trove when it comes to these items. Last year I bought my Dad a CD of Teresa Brewer's greatest hits, and my Mom a CD of Al Martino's greatest hits. This year I ordered them a DVD set of James Stewart movies. Classic music and movies are often bargain priced at Amazon.

Games are one of my favorite gifts to give. Playing games together as a family not only sharpens our minds, but it brings us closer together. My favorite spot to buy games is AreYouGame. This store has something for everybody from toddlers to grandparents. I've bought several of these, for the brain-teaser lovers on my list.

My guys are total computer geeks. ThinkGeek has countless clever geeky items for the technology buff on your list.

My entire family loves the products at CafePress. Any sentiment can be expressed on their shirts, bumper stickers, magnets, mugs, and many other products.

Living in a small town, internet shopping has been our salvation. However, I always shop locally when I can.

MY Time of Year!

2008-11-30T08:22:00.005-06:00

It's officially the Christmas season at our house!

The love, and well-being of Thanksgiving led to a 2-day flurry of Christmas decorating. The weather even cooperated by giving us a 2 inch cover of snow on Thanksgiving Day. Last night we sat in the glow of candlelight and Christmas lights in our living room. Peace on Earth reigns in our home, if nowhere else. Isn't that what home should be, a refuge from the rest of the world?

This season I will be sharing recipes, craftiness, and gift ideas that have always made our Christmases special.

The above picture is of a decoration that Z made in 2nd grade. Z's 2nd grade teacher was a crafting genius. Many of our favorite decorations were lovingly crafted by Z under this teacher's tutelage. Thank you Mrs. M! If you're wondering what the small children in your life can give to their parents or grandparents, this reindeer is a sure hit.

Memory Reindeer:
Trace your child's stockinged foot on a piece of stiff brown paper(If you don't have construction paper, a brown-paper shopping bag will work)

Have your child trace each of their hands onto the same kind of paper.

Cut out the shapes, and glue the hand "antlers" to the foot-shaped head.

Glue, or draw, a face on the reindeer.

Voila! You now have a keepsake Christmas decoration made from your child's foot and handprints....so PRECIOUS!

Make sure to have your child sign and date the back of their reindeer.

I don't know about your families, but my family LOVES leftover turkey! I always buy the biggest bird I can find, just so we have tons of luscious leftovers. This year, with our questionable economy, I also bought a second turkey when the price dropped to $.67/lb. If we run out of turkey leftovers this winter, I will roast this turkey. If not, I'll smoke it on the grill this spring.
Here's a quick, and nutritious, leftover turkey recipe:

Turkey Stir-Fry(Serves 4)
2 C leftover turkey, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1-2 C leftover gravy(just enough to lightly coat the veggies)
4-5 C of your favorite stir-fry veggies:broccoli, cauliflower, celery, zucchini, mushrooms, onion, julienned carrots, pea pods, asparagus, bok-choy, spinach...whatever your family likes, or you have laying around.
fresh garlic, or garlic powder, to taste
a few squirts of soy sauce

Stir-fry the veggies in your favorite oil with fresh garlic, or a few sprinkles of garlic powder.(Don't use garlic salt in this recipe, unless you like a lot of saltiness.)
When the veggies are tender, but still crisp, add the gravy and turkey.
Stir constantly, until gravy is hot, and the mixture is evenly coated with gravy.
Add a few squirts of soy sauce to taste.

Serve over rice.

Tater Tot Hotdish

2008-11-23T09:37:00.002-06:00

1 lb hamburger (I use ground turkey. It's cheaper and has no fat to soak into the tater tots.)
2 lb bag tater tots (I use generic.)
onion salt (Or whatever spice you like.)
1 can cream of celery soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup (Generic, of course.)

You could probably use 2 cans of ANY cream soup for a variety.

Pat burger, in an even layer, into bottom of greased 9x13 cake pan.
Sprinkle burger with onion salt.
Arrange frozen tater tots, in rows, on top of meat.
Evenly spread soups on top of tater tots.
Bake @ 375 for 30-45 minutes(or until the top is skinned over and lightly browned) on the bottom oven rack.
Cut in squares and serve.

Served with salad or vegetables, this recipe makes a quick and easy meal. This is one of the first recipes my kids learned to prepare on their own. I think Z was 5 when he cooked this the first time.

This hotdish easily feeds a family of 4. It also freezes quite well. Just wrap leftover squares in plastic wrap, freeze, and re-heat in the microwave for a quick lunch.

My cost for this meal:
turkey burger-$1.79
tater tots-$1.18
soups-$1.60

Moving Right Along....

2008-11-17T16:15:00.002-06:00

Everybody has now seen what a cynical bitch I have become. I guess it's time for an attitude adjustment!

The first thing I must do is stay away from the news for awhile. I'm so tired of hearing about our tax dollars being used to bail out the results of greed and gross mismanagement while the unemployment rate rises daily. My Boss is no different. Over the years, she has let her personal spending habits ruin her credit and endanger her business. This scares me!

What I really, really need to do is concentrate on the upcoming holiday season. Thanksgiving and Christmas are the bright spots of my year. Fortunately, we are already equipped with everything we need for a joyous holiday season. 20 years ago I started putting money away, every week, for Christmas. This year I put $15 in an envelope EVERY week. We now have $780 of Christmas money. This year we won't be able to spend all of this money on gifts. We'll need to put some of the money away to make up for the payless days off we have coming up. This shouldn't be a problem, as I've already bought several gifts, on sale, throughout the year.

Our Christmas package to SME's family must be mailed by Dec 1st, in order for it to arrive before Christmas. I bought everything I could locally, then I ordered the rest of their gifts online. My orders should arrive any day. Then I just have to wrap and mail them. Yesterday I lightened my mood by ordering almost all of the rest of my gifts. I got some incredible deals! This week I'll be starting a couple of homemade gifts.

I've also been stocking up on holiday baking supplies(all on sale) over the past couple of months. All I have left to buy are fresh items, like eggs and sour cream. Tomorrow I will buy the final item for our Thanksgiving feast...the turkey! Turkey went on sale today for $.67/lb. YES!!

The day after Thanksgiving we will start decorating our home with the 13 boxes of Christmas decorations that we have accumulated over the years. I even have a couple of extra strings of lights squirreled away...just in case.

This year we will have to stick to a stricter budget for our holiday celebrations. Thanks to a bit of forethought, we'll hardly notice the change. Christmas lights and the aroma of fresh-baked goodies will do a lot to lift my mood!

Sympathy?

2008-11-16T09:01:00.002-06:00

Is it just me, or is anyone else having a hard time working up sympathy for the uber-rich folks who are losing their houses to the California fires?

In my mind, you can't really call their houses homes. I seriously doubt if any of those home-owners have ever even pounded in a nail to hang a picture, much less hung sheetrock. Did these folks decorate their own homes, or did they hire an interior designer to deck their houses in the latest style? Do these folks feel the pride that comes from choosing and laying their own flooring, or do they just aim to make their friends jealous of their doo-dads? Have they ever dug a hole to plant a tree or plant, or did they hire a landscape designer to plant a yard that will require poisons and sprinkler systems to survive? Do they care that they've squandered the water in their ecosystem on their lawns and pools, and don't have enough water to fight the fires?

Are these people hurriedly packing up family photos and other precious family memories to save them from the fire? I doubt it. Most of those houses are nothing but a residence. Their owners reside in the house when they happen to be in California. Insurance will cover their losses, and they'll be able to build bigger and better.

I feel a lot more sympathy for the people who have recently lost their jobs and are a house payment away from homelessness!

This is the season to look around and be grateful for what we have. I'm grateful that we have a pieced together, self-decorated, energy efficient, memory filled, loving HOME!

More Progress, Despite the Hindrances

2008-11-08T07:38:00.003-06:00

VOILA! Here's my newly completed valences. The drapes washed out a bit in this picture, but the detail of the valence material came out great. The material has a leafy/woodsy pattern to it; perfect for our decorating scheme.

After they turned the water off on Monday, L and I went to the fabric store. I took along the new drapes and the arm cover from the couch to match the fabric. We found the perfect fabric that is the exact color of the couch, yet blends well with the green stripes in the drapes. The total price for the valences was $19.30, including thread. Total savings: $160-$19.30=$140.70!

It took me most of the day to shorten and hang the new drapes, and sew the new valences. The money we saved was well worth my time!

Here's a picture of our worn-out drapes that had been hanging for the past 23 years. Putting up the new drapes was a necessity, as I don't think the old drapes would have survived another washing.

I'm a firm believer in insulated drapes! No matter how good your windows are, you will still have cold reflecting off the windows, into your room, at night. Our living room drapes are store-bought, foam backed drapes. The rest of the curtains in the house, I sewed, using quilted fabric. The other money-saving bonus of our window coverings is they are all machine-washable/dryable.

Money saving sewing hint:
I used a dried out soap sliver to mark my fabric. Ever wonder what to do with all the little slivers of bar soap in your soapdish? Save a few of them for marking fabric. This works much better than those expensive little chalk pencils you can buy. Plus, the soap washes out of your fabric without leaving a trace.

This has been a week full of utility problems. Monday, we had a scheduled, day-long water shutoff. Tuesday morning, we had an hour-long water shutoff due to "debris" that got in the water line the day before. Thursday night, we were without power for 7 hours. A transformer had exploded and burned down the power pole it was attached to. Fortunately it was a warm night, so we didn't have to hook up the generator to run our furnace.

The last 2 days we got over 3 inches of rain. Today it's snowing. What a mess! BUT, when I look at the weather in South Dakota, I realize we have nothing to complain about.
I'm just grateful that we finished all the winterizing last weekend!

Hunkering Down

2008-11-03T07:11:00.002-06:00

L and I have a bonus day off today, without pay of course. Our water will be turned off for, at least, 9 hours today. There's no way a restaurant can run that long without water, so here we are.

Our village finally bit the bullet and decided to replace the 360 feet of water line that has been giving us problems this fall. Today is the day they will hook the new line into the system, hence the extended shut down. The new line is 12 inches and the old line is 8 inches. I'm worried that the crumbling old line won't be able to handle the new water pressure, and will rupture further down the line. Time will tell...

I had to work Saturday, so yesterday we did all the chores that required water. I think we're finally ready for winter.
The new porch is caulked, primed, and has one coat of paint.
The porch floor has a protective coat of deck stain.
New lights have been wired both inside and outside of the porch.
The sidewalk is moved to its new location.
The outside windows are washed.
The oil has been changed in the generator, just in case...
4, 5 gal emergency gas cans have been filled. Hooray for $2.39/gal gas!
The lawn mower and rototiller have been replaced by the snowblower.
The garden hose has been drained and stored for the winter.
The AC has been tarped.
The camper has been moved and tarped.
A new dog tie-out post has been cemented into the back yard.
The new cd/dvd shelf unit is finished and installed.

Now, onto the indoor chores!

Today, the guys will wash the inside windows while I hang the new living room drapes. The new drapes have been sitting in the closet for the past 3 years. Why, you ask? Because I was too cheap to spend $80/window on valences. I KNOW that I can find a solid-color material that will go with the drapes. Valences are easy to sew. So WHY haven't I sewed them already? Because once I have the sewing machine set up, I know that I'll have to tackle the 2 HUGE baskets of mending I've been neglecting for the past 3 years, that's why!

Money

2008-10-26T07:57:00.001-05:00

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul." -George Bernard Shaw

With all the economic problems our country is facing, I'm amazed that most people still don't GET it! People believe that their presidential candidate will magically turn everything around, when they're elected, by implementing the programs they have promised in their campaigns. Umm...where will the new regime get the MONEY to make good on their campaign promises? We need to pull ourselves out of the hole we're in before we take on any new programs!

Our local elections are no different. The candidates for school board promise to push for a referendum for new schools if they're elected. HELLO!! Declining enrollment has forced us to close, and sell, two of our school buildings in the last 5 years. We need to worry about getting jobs here to keep young people, and their school-aged children, in our area. Our school system can't afford necessary items like special ed and textbooks. Do our candidates honestly believe that the majority of voters, who are senior citizens and working poor, will vote to have their taxes raised for buildings which will soon be empty?

Our current school board recently voted to fund a study on a "Safe Route to School". This study came about as a result of our school system deciding to eliminate many in-town school bus routes to save money. Students, who live a mile or less from school, will now have to walk to school. Oh no, not THAT! Whatever will our school board do with all the money they're saving? Pay a firm to study where the students will walk on their way to school, of course! WTF?! Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but shouldn't the PARENTS be responsible for teaching their kids the safest route to school?

Another MN election issue is the amendment we'll be voting on. This amendment will raise our sales tax by 3/8% to fund nature projects and the arts. I'm all for funding both of those projects, but...what happened to all the lottery money that was earmarked to preserve our "natural heritage"? Our politicians appropriated(stole) the lottery money to finance their own pet projects, like professional sports stadiums. I don't trust our politicians to keep their sticky fingers off the money this amendment will create, so I will be voting NO on this amendment.

On a personal level, I've often heard the teens that work in the restaurant discussing their finances. Many times the phrase, "It's only $100.", has come up in their conversations. ONLY?! $100 will feed my family for 2 weeks! I'm afraid these kids have a rude awakening coming their way.

I don't know about you, but I discovered that the price of turkey burger rose $.20, and cheese rose $.50 in just one week. A 5# bag of whole wheat flour is almost $5 now. Yet I still see most people's shopping carts full of pre-fab meals and snacks. Individual servings of pudding and jello, for pity's sake!! Who can't add 2C of boiling water to a package of jello, AND throw in some fruit for some nutritional value? There are a LOT of spoiled, clueless people who have no idea how to feed their family for less than $200/week. It will be interesting to see how buying habits change in the coming years. Will the majority of our citizens ever get a clue?

BTW, does anybody believe that oil prices won't rise following the election? I'm grateful that I'm not heating a 4000 sq ft house, how about you?

"school refuses tourette services"

2008-10-19T12:48:00.002-05:00

To the person who arrived at my blog via the Google search: school refuses tourette services...

I don't know if you'll come back here, but don't let the school get away with that bullshit! Tourette's Syndrome is a recognized disability under the Americans With Disabilities Act. The school is required, BY LAW, to cooperate with the special services your child requires.

I realize that this is easier said than done. We know that our small, local school system simply doesn't have the resources to provide our son the help he requires. That's one of the reasons why we homeschool him. You may live in a bigger area with more choices. Large cities usually have professional advocates(usually a lawyer), who will attend IEP meetings with you. Click on the TSA link in my sidebar to see if there is help in your area.

Good luck!

The View

2008-10-16T18:13:00.002-05:00

It's been raining here all week, so we haven't been able to get any of our outdoor chores done. I grabbed the camera and ventured outside when I tired of indoor chores. The picture above is the view we get from the kitchen window over our sink.

This is the view from our bathroom window. The reddish bushes on the left surround our back yard. They make a lovely, impenetrable screen all summer long. In the spring, the bushes grow bunches of delicate white flowers that develop into white berries. The birds, deer, and squirrels love to eat the berries! My Dad says they're bayberry bushes. I should really look that up one of these days.

Here's the silver maples in our back yard.

For Cherie: Here's a picture of the baby birch that sprouted up in our front yard. We discovered it last year, after we trimmed the brush around our shed.

Here's a shot of our own, personal aspens. In MN, we call them poplars. They're pretty much "junk" trees up here, but they sure are pretty in the fall. You'll notice that our ash trees have already lost their leaves. By this weekend, most of the rest of the trees will be bare too. Fall color is such a short-lived treat. *sigh*

The Music Meme

2008-10-11T09:51:00.003-05:00

I found this fun meme over at Suldog's blog. I thought it was time to lighten the mood around here, so here goes....

The rules:

A) Go to Music Outfitters.

B) In the search function, enter the year you graduated from high school. Get the list of the 100 most popular songs of that year.

C) Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you hate, and underline or italicize your favorite. Do nothing to those you don’t remember or don’t care about.(I don't do HTML, so the songs I hate will be in red. My comments follow the song titles in parenthesis.)

THE TOP 100 OF 1974
1. The Way We Were, Barbra Streisand(Meh. I've never been a big Babs fan.)
2. Seasons in the Sun, Terry Jacks(Wishy-washy and repetitive.)
3. Love's Theme, Love Unlimited Orchestra(Love of WHAT?!)
4. Come and Get Your Love, Redbone(This one was OK, but I'd never buy it.)
5. Dancing Machine, Jackson 5(One of their better songs, but that's not saying much)
6. The Loco-Motion, Grand Funk Railroad(I've played this so much over the years that my kids hate it.)
7. TSOP, MFSB(HUH?)
8. The Streak, Ray Stevens(Ya gotta love a little silliness. "Don't look Ethel!")
9. Bennie and the Jets, Elton John(My boyfriend and I wore this song out on the jukebox at our Community College)
10. One Hell Of A Woman, Mac Davis(Not a country fan.)
11. Until You Come Back To Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do), Aretha Franklin
12. Jungle Boogie, Kool and The Gang(Didn't do a thing for me.)
13. Midnight at the Oasis, Maria Muldaur(I don't understand how this made it to the top 100. Everyone I know HATES this song!)
14. You Make Me Feel Brand New, Stylistics(More wishy-washy pablum!)
15. Show and Tell, Al Wilson(Keep it to yourself Al!)
16. Spiders and Snakes, Jim Stafford (I LOVE 90% of Jim's songs!)
17. Rock On, David Essex
18. Sunshine On My Shoulder, John Denver(I LOVE my John, especially the early stuff!)
19. Sideshow, Blue Magic(No clue.)
20. Hooked On a Feeling, Blue Swede(Beats the hell out of the B.J. Thomas version!)
21. Billy Don't Be a Hero, Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods(The rhythm of this song sets my teeth on edge!)
22. Band On the Run, Paul McCartney and Wings(I love the bridge in this one!)
23. The Most Beautiful Girl, Charlie Rich(Makes me retch!)
24. Time in a Bottle, Jim Croce(I'm a HUGE Croce fan, and this one's my favorite!)
25. Annie's Song, John Denver(One of my favorites!)
26. Let Me Be There, Olivia Newton-John(The only Olivia fans I knew were guys, and I don't think they liked her for her music.)
27. Sundown, Gordon Lightfoot(I like a couple of Gord's songs, but this ain't one of 'em.)
28. (You're) Having My Baby, Paul Anka(Nice sentiment, but overplayed!)
29. Rock Me Gently, Andy Kim(Yet another repetitive, overplayed song!)
30. Boogie Down, Eddie Kendricks
31. You're Sixteen, Ringo Starr(Stick to your drums Ringo!)
32. If You Love Me (Let Me Know), Olivia Newton-John(See above.)
33. Dark Lady, Cher(Cher is my 2nd favorite female singer.)
34. Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me, Gladys Knight and The Pips(I like some of their stuff, but not this one.)
35. Feel Like Makin' Love, Roberta Flack(Killing Me Softly is the only one of her songs that I like.)
36. Just Dont Want To Be Lonely, Main Ingredient
37. Nothing From Nothing, Billy Preston(Blech!!)
38. Rock Your Baby, George McCrae(Double blech!!)
39. Top Of The World, Carpenters(The only Carpenters song I liked was Close to You, and that was because of the hot, blue-eyed boyfriend I had at the time.)
40. The Joker, Steve Miller Band(How can you go wrong with a line like:"Really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree."?)
41. I've Got to Use My Imagination, Gladys Knight and The Pips
42. The Show Must Go On, Three Dog Night(I was a huge 3DN fan, but hated this song.)
43. Rock the Boat, Hues Corporation(More wishy-washy drivel! Where's all the GOOD songs from '74?)
44.Smokin' In the Boys Room, Brownsville Station (This song won by a landslide as our class song, but the school admin wouldn't let us play it at graduation. What a bunch of stick-in-the-muds!)
45. Living For The City, Stevie Wonder (I'm not really a fan of Wonder)
46. The Night Chicago Died, Paper Lace (This one ranks right up there with Billy Don't Be a Hero!)
47. Then Came You, Dionne Warwick and The Spinners (Pretty sappy.)
48. The Entertainer, Marvin Hamlisch(Don't shoot me, but I actually own the soundtrack from The Sting. I'd never listened to ragtime before and found that I enjoyed some of it.)
49. Waterloo, Abba(No Abba; NO WAY!)
50. The Air That I Breathe, Hollies(It's OK, but I'd never buy it.)
51. Rikki Don't Lose That Number, Steely Dan(I like Steely Dan, but not this one.)
52. Mockingbird, Carly Simon(Carly Simon is my favorite female singer! However, this song will never be found on my MP3 player.)
53. Help Me, Joni Mitchell(I can't stand Joni Mitchell!)
54. You Won't See Me, Anne Murray(My Dad likes Anne Murray...'nuff said.)
55. Never, Never Gonna Give You Up, Barry White(I realize that Barry White albums are supposed to be an aphrodisiac, but he never had that effect on me.)
56. Tell Me Something Good, Rufus(Meh!)
57. You And Me Against The World, Helen Reddy(She fits into my Anne Murray category.)
58. Rock And Roll Heaven, Righteous Brothers(I like their old stuff better)
59. Hollywood Swinging, Kool and The Gang
60. Be Thankful For What You Got, William Devaughn(Never heard of him, or #61 and #62!)
61. Hang On In There Baby, Johnny Bristol
62. Eres Tu (Touch The Wind), Mocedades
63. Taking Care of Business, Bachman-Turner Overdrive(LOVE BTO! Let It Ride is my favorite.)
64. Radar Love, Golden Earring(Yeah!)
65. Please Come To Boston, Dave Loggins
66. Keep On Smilin', Wet Willie(Who?)
67. Lookin' For Love, Bobby Womack
68. Put Your Hands Together, O'Jays
69. On And On, Gladys Knight and The Pips
70. Oh Very Young, Cat Stevens (I LOVED Cat Stevens right up 'til the time he became Josef Islam.)
71. Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress), Helen Reddy
72. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John(I'm a HUGE Elton fan, especially his older stuff!)
73. I've Been Searchin' So Long, Chicago(The only Chicago song I like is If You Leave Me Now.)
74. Oh My My, Ringo Starr(Give it up already!)
75. For The Love Of Money, O'Jays
76. I Shot The Sheriff, Eric Clapton(Yeah, yeah. I know Marley did it better, but I like Clapton.)
77. Jet, Paul McCartney and Wings
78. Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me, Elton John(My least favorite Elton song.)
79. Tubular Bells, Mike Oldfield(Nope!)
80. Love Song, Anne Murray(I LOVE this song when it's sung by Loggins and Messina!)
81. I'm Leaving It All Up to You, Donny and Marie Osmond(Pardon me while I puke!)
82. Hello, It's Me, Todd Rundgren(Too whiny!)
83. I Love, Tom T. Hall(This song makes a better poem than a song.)
84. Clap For The Wolfman, The Guess Who(This song was claptrap from a GREAT group.)
85. I'll Have To Say I Love You In a Song, Jim Croce
85. The Lord's Prayer, Sister Janet Mead(I liked Desiderata better.)
87. Trying To Hold On To My Woman, Lamont Dozier(Who?)
88. Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing, Stevie Wonder
89. A Very Special Love Song, Charlie Rich
90. My Girl Bill, Jim Stafford(A cute play on words.)
91. My Mistake Was To Love You, Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye
91. Helen Wheels, Paul McCartney and Wings(Catchy, but not one of my favorites.)
93. Wildwood Weed, Jim Stafford(I'm just "wanderin' around behind the little animals".)
94. Beach Baby, First Class(Pure drivel!)
95. Me And Baby Brother, War
96. Rockin' Roll Baby, Stylistics
97. I Honestly Love You, Olivia Newton-John
98. Call On Me, Chicago
99. Wild Thing, Fancy(Is this the same Wild Thing the Troggs recorded? I don't think you can beat the Troggs' version. Am I right Pam?*giggle*)
100. Mighty Love, Pt. 1, Spinners

This was FUN! Like Suldog, I found that most of my favorite songs from my era were recorded before '74. I don't think the top 100 of '74 was too representative of what our generation listened to. I'd rather be known as the generation of Led Zeppelin and Steppenwolf!

Lubrication For the Economy

2008-10-05T07:01:00.003-05:00

"Lubrication for the economy"; that's what the news media is calling the bailout. An alternate title for this post is: Bend Over and Smile Taxpayers!
All I have to say on this matter is: it's a sad reflection on our gov't when they unconstitutionally use taxpayer's hard-earned money to reward irresponsible behavior!

I have ZERO faith in the greed-driven, fantasy world of Wall Street, along with their lackeys on Madison Avenue. MARK MY WORDS, this bailout will fix nothing for "We the People" of this country. To the thousands and thousands of you that contacted your Senators and Representatives about not voting for the bailout; stick to your threat! Don't vote for these people ever again! The next politician that screams "socialism", when referring to exempting the insurance industry from our health care system, is likely to wind up with my foot down his/her throat!

Nothing will change after the presidential election, no matter who is elected! Our next president will be unable to implement his plans, because there won't be any money for them. Our tax dollars are tied up paying for wars and corporate bailouts.

I've got news for our politicians. Rural America is WAY past recession. We're quickly falling into depression! Property values, in our county, fell 20-25% this year. Our local banks are solvent, because they didn't jump on the sub-prime bandwagon. Will they be rewarded for acting responsibly? I doubt it. We live in the forgotten netherlands of "outstate". Our citizens struggle to pay their bills, while all our tax dollars go to big city development.

We no longer have a retirement fund. We had to cash it in, 2 years ago, in order to stay eligible for our state's health insurance. Next year we'll probably have to cash in our whole life insurance policies in order to be eligible. We TRIED to be responsible by living within our means and stashing away a minuscule nest egg over the last 30 years. Were we rewarded for this behavior? Nope; we were penalized! We re-invested our money in the only place we could: our home. Did this raise the value of our property? Nope; the value dropped 20%!

In the last year, my tips have dropped by 25%, while our cost of living has risen by 15-20%. L's hours will more than likely be cut by 30%, or more, for the winter. Our roof/porch project wound up costing us $2800 more than we planned. L lost 2 weeks and I lost 3 days of pay to get L's eyes fixed. On the bright side, we're debt free, with the exception of the $3700 left on our garage loan.

So what's my plan for surviving the winter? Pare down our budget...again! When L's place of employment closed 6 years ago, the first thing I did was knock down our budget. The first thing to go was the cell phone. Next, I didn't renew any of our magazine subscriptions. Then I reduced our cable and phone bills by $20/month apiece. We struggled through the following year with L working a series of part-time jobs, while collecting reduced unemployment benefits. When L landed a full-time job, it was still 25% less than he had been making at his former job. BUT, during this time we managed to keep paying our bills, and finished paying off our home and truck! That freed up $800/month from our budget, which became our salvation.

The following 5 years have found our small-town economy sliding further into the shitter, so we've been forced to make further cuts in our spending. The last vacation we took was 4 1/2 years ago. Last year we cut out the 6-10 meals/year that we ate out. We also cut the 2-3 movies/year that we watched at the movie theater. This year we cut all travel, including the 300 mile trip to visit relatives and weekend camping trips. Now we try to limit our 2 mile trips to town to one/week.

Next month, I won't be renewing our $125/year subscription to our local paper. I will buy the Monday paper for the grocery ads and read the news on the paper's website. We have limited our remaining home projects, for the season, to the materials we have on hand. This means that our old porch will remain in our yard until next spring, when we can afford the dumping fees. I will make it through the winter with my 6-yr-old jacket and 4-yr-old boots. We just turned our furnace on, for the night, this week, when our temps dipped into the 20F range. We will try to keep our furnace set at 65F until the weather dips below zero. We will be eating more pork and chicken, and less beef. Turkey burger casseroles and homemade soups will be our mainstay. I'll be cruising the internet for inexpensive, tasty, new recipes. The 2 light fixtures we use the most have been switched to fluorescent bulbs, and the rest of the lights will be OFF as much as possible.

We'll survive the winter with what we already have. Board games, reading, photography, and creative cooking will be our entertainment. We have food, shelter, water, and LOVE. What more could we ask for? We are truly blessed.

Virtual Barber

2008-10-01T18:01:00.000-05:00

Z made me try this out. This led him to look up the auditory functions of the brain. Fun AND educational, you can't beat that!
Click HERE to try this out.
Be sure to wear headphones.

Tiny Steps

2008-09-27T08:21:00.003-05:00

Tiny steps are my back's salvation...and totally frustrating. I spend half my time talking myself into relaxing. It's hard to relax when I know that we have 4 weeks(if we're lucky) to complete our scaled down project list. This little voice in the back of my head keeps whispering, "Winter is coming, winter IS coming, winter IS COMING, WINTER IS COMING!" I silence this voice by going outside and inhaling the heady scents of FALL...breathe deeply, relax, enjoy.

The glitches continue...
Wednesday, I donned my MP3 player and caulked the last 2 walls of the new porch. Z and I were prepared to prime the porch on Thursday. THEN, our water was turned off on Thursday afternoon! The water has been off 3 times in the past week! If you'll recall, the same thing happened last fall. Don't bother telling me that I could've painted without water. I'm NOT a neat painter. I need water.

Our water lines are disintegrating faster than they can be repaired. For the past 10 yrs, we've all been paying $25/quarter into an escrow fund to replace the lines. Last year the village said that we had enough money to start replacing the lines. Did they start replacing the lines? NOPE! They continued to patch the lines as they broke. NOW, the village decided to pay a firm $200,000 to STUDY the problem. WHAT?! You KNOW where all the lines are. Start digging them up and replacing them...one step at a time! IDIOTS!

Friday it rained, as expected. No painting for us!

What have I been doing to relax?
My back prevents me from staying in one position for long. Sitting, and standing in one place are the hardest on me. After work, I've been laying down for an hour. Then I get up and tackle small tasks, with Z's assistance. When I feel a strain on my back, I sit down and read for 15 minutes, which is all the longer I can sit. It takes forever to accomplish anything, but I'm learning patience with myself.

The most relaxing, and enjoyable project I'm doing is cooking. We bought Jessica Seinfeld's book, and have started applying her techniques into our menus. So far Z and I have pureed, portioned, and frozen, spinach and carrots. This week we'll add squash, green beans, and beets to our supplies. Z has been very creative with his ideas on which veggies to add to our regular recipes. Last week we added the spinach to meatloaf. Z was amazed that it didn't change the flavor, or texture, of the meatloaf. Z giggled when his Dad(L hates spinach) ate spinach without realizing it. Z can't wait to try Jessica's recipe for chocolate cake, which includes both spinach and beets.

Today is clear and cool; a perfect day to move the sidewalk. No, I won't be lifting the sidewalk blocks. My part of the project involves measuring, and running the rototiller to level off the area where the blocks will be laid. Then my guys can start moving the blocks. It's supposed to rain again tomorrow, so wish us luck!

Aggravations

2008-09-13T10:07:00.002-05:00

Thanks everyone! Your prayers, hugs, and moral support meant a lot to me!

The last time I posted, I was controlled by frustration and self-pity. Half-finished projects and the payless days L and I accrued this summer were causing muscle-tightening stress in my back. I realized that eliminating this stress was the only way my back would heal. Prayer and self-assessment led me to forgive myself for not living up to my self-imposed "superwoman" status. I re-prioritized our projects and accepted the fact that some of our projects would have to wait until next summer. *sigh* I also looked back on what we DID accomplish this summer, and gave us a much-deserved pat on the back.

Staying calm amidst the continuing glitches in our life has been quite a challenge, but well worth the effort. My back has improved to the point where I can put my shoes and socks on, and drive. These improvements made it possible for me to return to work this week, which alleviated my stress over money. My after work activities have been limited to resting up my back for the next day's work, while trying not to dwell on the unfinished chores that are stacking up around us. If I stay on track with my exercises and relaxation techniques, I should be back to normal within a month.

My return to work was plagued with aggravations; 50 of them to be precise. The small resort in our neighborhood booked a packaged 3-day fishing trip for the white-collar employees of a Wisconsin company. This resort has no kitchen facilities, so we were contracted to provide meals for the group. I could rant forever on the snafus we encountered, but I won't. Let's just say that it was no picnic waiting on 50 immature "boys", ranging in age from 25-60, who instantly reverted to incredibly LOUD and obscene misogynistic rednecks when they arrived in our northwoods environment. Every single one of these "boys" arrived for breakfast grossly hungover or still drunk from their post-fishing drinking binges. Judging from the smell, NONE of them remembered to pack their toothbrushes!

Another of my aggravations is....
Whose bright idea was it to make kitchen counters a workable 36 inch height, and bathroom counters a back-breaking 32 inch height? My spitting skills have greatly improved over the past 2 weeks. I can now spit toothpaste into the sink EVERY time from a standing position.

I can only sit for short periods at a time, so my visits to your blogs will be sporadic. BUT, I want you ALL to know how much your friendship means to me. THANK YOU!!!

Life's a Glitch....

2008-09-04T07:57:00.002-05:00

Just when things were starting to settle down here, misfortune struck again!

My favorite cousin's husband was diagnosed with lung cancer.
My Dad had a prostate biopsy yesterday. The doctor is 50% certain it's cancer.
I put my back out Tuesday, for the 1st time in 17 yrs.

Stress is my back's worst enemy. I'm trying to conquer my anger at my situation, so my back will heal faster. I'm also s-l-o-w-l-y doing the back exercises that I SHOULD have been doing all along. Sleep deprivation, frustration, and boredom are ruling my life at the moment. ARGHHHH!!

Glitches Galore!

2008-09-01T10:57:00.004-05:00

My life has been ruled by glitches the past 2 weeks!
Our internet provider is updating their service, so we have been without internet access numerous times. Z's computer died, causing us to share 1 computer between the 3 of us. L ordered US a new computer, then decided that we should put the new computer in Z's room. This situation caused a round of musical computers resulting in me not knowing which computer contained my bookmarks, email, and photo programs.

Before we put the new computer in Z's room, Z and I built a sturdy new computer desk in his room(pictured above). We built 2 cd/dvd shelf units into the desk for tons of new storage. Z sanded, stained, and polyurethaned his desk and is quite proud of the results.

THEN, just when L had everything installed on our computer, we got a virus Saturday afternoon and L had to restore this computer! L did a quickie job of restoring so we could webcam with SME and Doug on Saturday night. We had 6 members of L's family here for the long weekend who hadn't seen SME for 8 yrs. Unfortunately, SME's webcam was broadcasting intermittently, so we didn't see as much of them as they saw of all of us.

Yesterday morning our cable box quit transmitting a picture to our tv. The cable company tried re-setting the box remotely twice, but nothing happened. We've had this box for 6 yrs, so I guess we're due for a new one.

Here's 5 out of 6 of the wild bunch that shared our home this weekend. I'll be posting more about them later. Right now I'm too worn out from our marathon Wii bowling tournaments that lasted 'til the wee hours of the morning.

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming...

2008-08-16T08:14:00.002-05:00

GREAT NEWS...L is balanced...at least vision-wise. L's 2nd surgery is another success. Yesterday, at his post-op appointment, the surgeon released some fluid from L's eyeball as his eye pressure was too high. Other than that, the situation is looking up! L's distance vision is amazing, AND after 17 days he's now able to read again with the aid of dollar store reading glasses. He still needs to wait another 4 weeks before he can order new glasses, but he should be able to return to work on Monday....WHEW.

Here are the pictures of our new project...
The top picture shows our new porch compared to the old porch in the background. It also shows the lovely 3 inch overhang we gained with the new roofing. Wednesday, we all ran out in the rain to watch the water running off the roof WITHOUT hitting our siding or windows....YAY!! Next summer we'll be able to re-side the house without worrying about the siding getting ruined by roof runoff.

This picture shows our project for this weekend...moving the sidewalk and leveling the steps. With the new porch roof slant, there wasn't enough room to install the door on the front. The new door faces the garage and driveway. We don't have a problem with that.

Here's a picture of the new roof doo-dads that were installed. Our bathroom fans now have flappers that will prevent our heated air from escaping. In addition, all the vent pipes now have leakproof rubber boots around them.

Here's what we were working on while the contractor was doing our roof...a new, larger, birdfeeder mounted on squirrel-proof(hopefully) pvc sewer pipe. We built this whole project with scraps from other projects. The only thing we bought was 2 pvc connectors for $5 total.

I realize that most people would've tackled the sidewalk project before building a new birdfeeder. Our birds, especially the hummingbirds, were having such a fit from the moment the contractor took down the old feeder to make room for his scaffolding, that this became our top priority.

Gotta run to Menards for Quikrete and caulk. See ya later!

No More Blurry Food

2008-08-13T16:37:00.002-05:00

Just a quick update before we take off for L's 2nd surgery tomorrow morning. We'll be leaving at 6 a.m., so we can get there for L's 9 a.m. surgery. We need to spend the night so that L can go to his post-op appointment on Friday morning. Since this is the closest thing we'll get to a vacation this year, we plan on enjoying our trip with a little shopping and dinner out.

We now have a magnificent new roof and front porch. I'll try to find time to take some pictures this weekend.

L is sick to death of eating blurry food! Hopefully dollar store glasses will cure this problem after the 2nd surgery.

Yesterday was a KILLER!! Work was a zoo, Boss was a bitch, I had to work over an hour late. Then I tracked down a package at the post office that was mis-labeled as undeliverable. Then, I had to take the truck to our sweetheart of a mechanic to have a nail removed from the tire and a plug installed. He didn't even charge me for it! One of life's blessings is having a trustworthy mechanic. I ADORE ours! Then I had to stand in line to get L's second round of overpriced antibiotic eye drops. I didn't get home and out of my work clothes until 5 p.m.!

For some reason, L didn't want me to cut his hair yesterday, after the day I'd had. I wonder why?

Now I need to pack a few things for our trip and try to switch myself out of hyperdrive. Right now a 4-day weekend sounds heavenly, even if we have to spend some of it in a hospital!

Update

2008-08-02T08:39:00.003-05:00

L's first cataract surgery went off without a hitch! During his post-op appointment, the surgeon said that his vision had improved MORE than she had hoped.

L actually cried with joy when his "new" eye stopped fluctuating long enough for him to see clearly. When he covers his left eye, L can actually see the branches on the trees in our back yard... without glasses! For the past 50 yrs, all he has been able to see without his glasses were colored swirls. Anything further than 5 ft away is crystal clear with his new eye! His close-up vision will be corrected when he is able to get his new glasses. Unfortunately, that won't happen for another 6 weeks.

Wednesday afternoon we experimented with every combination possible that would help L see enough to function until his 2nd surgery. The first thing we tried was taking the right lens out of his glasses. This resulted in double vision. Then I covered the right side of his glasses with black electrical tape. This eliminated the double vision, but he got woozy from the lack of depth perception. The taped-up glasses enable L to read, but only for a couple of minutes at a time as his left eye quickly blurs from the strain that's been put on it.

L returned to work on Thursday, armed with his taped-up glasses hung around his neck for close-up work. He never realized how much close-up work he does with all the prep work involved with cooking, and reading the waitresses tickets. Working with the grill and fryer was a whole other problem. L said he would do just fine, IF he had 5 ft long grill tools. He wound up cooking burgers and steaks purely by feel. Thursday was a slow day so L managed to finish his shift.

Friday was another story...
The restaurant was busy and L's left eye quickly blurred from the strain. This meant that the only things he could see, had to be farther than 5 ft away from him. L had to return home, in defeat, within 2 hrs of starting his shift.

L's 2nd surgery is scheduled for August 26th, which is the next time his surgeon will be here. The surgeon told L that if he couldn't function, she would do his left eye on August 14th, if we could travel to her location. Soooo....it looks like we'll be making the 2 hr trip to the surgeon on August 14-15.

We have been telling our Boss, since May, that both L's optometrist AND his surgeon didn't think he'd be able to function between his surgeries. Did she listen? Nope. She gave her son this coming week off, to travel to Missouri on vacation! Her son is the only other person who is trained to cook the afternoon/evening shift. Will she cancel her son's vacation? Probably not. She'll probably decide to work the double shift herself. This will make her a total bitch to work with during my morning shift with her. Will the fun never end?

The hard part will be keeping L from going stir-crazy for the next 12 days. He can't see well enough to do yard work, housework, read, or run the computer. The only thing he CAN do is watch movies, IF he sits about 6 ft from the TV so he can read the subtitles. (He can't hear well enough to hear the TV.)

The ONLY other thing L can do is have conversations with Z and I. This could be a good thing....but not THIS weekend! Our contractor will be starting our roof and porch construction on Monday. This means that Z and I have to empty out our porches before Monday AND get the lawn mowed before the lawn is occupied by scaffolding and construction equipment.

We'll make it, with our sanity intact, if we ALL keep looking at the big picture. 2 weeks from now L's vision should be good enough for him to function(with the aid of dollar store reading glasses), and we'll have a new roof and porches on our house. Surviving the next 2 weeks will be the KILLER!

The EYES Have It!

2008-07-27T08:08:00.002-05:00

We have a busy week ahead of us. L goes in for his first cataract surgery on Tuesday morning. Tuesday is also Z's 16th birthday, so this will be a FULL day for us!

My Dad will be driving L to and from his surgery and his follow-up appointment Wednesday morning. We can't afford for me to take any more time off right now. I had to take Thursday off to drive L the 100 miles to his surgeon's office to get his eyes measured for the new lenses that will be inserted into his eyes. Thursday's jaunt cost me a day's wages, plus about $100 in tips, and $45 for gas. Fortunately, we were able to get L home in time for him to go to work.

Now, we're worrying about L's ability to work over the next month. L has strange vision problems and the surgeon doesn't think that his eyes will balance until he gets the cataracts removed from his 2nd eye. The surgeon only comes up here every 4 weeks, but she said she can do the 2nd surgery sooner if we drive the 100 miles to her location. This would involve me taking 2 more days off work plus gas, motel, and meals. However, this would mean that L would only be off work for the 1-2 weeks between surgeries, instead of waiting 4 weeks for the surgeon to come up here. We'll just have to wait and see what happens when L has his follow-up appointment on Wednesday.

Then we have the problem of not being able to get a new prescription for glasses until, at least, 4 weeks after the 2nd surgery. Now add in another 1-2 weeks for the new glasses to arrive, plus the 2-4 weeks between surgeries, and we have a grand total of, at least, 8 weeks that L won't be able to drive. L runs a lot of our errands in the mornings while I'm at work, so those chores will now fall to me. We're hoping that after the 2nd surgery we'll be able to get L a pair of reading glasses from K-Mart that will enable him to read and cook at work until his new glasses arrive.

On Friday we had another monetary low blow. The surgeon gave L a prescription for antibiotic eye drops that he needs to start taking on Monday. When we took the prescription to our pharmacy, the pharmacist told us that it wasn't covered by our insurance, AND the drops are $76.50. HUH? The pharmacist said that very few insurance plans cover the cost of the eye drops. OK...a necessary, sight restoring surgery is covered, BUT a mandatory part of the surgery, the eye drops, AREN'T COVERED?! And WHY does 5ml of eye drops cost almost $80?! Just another fine example of our screwed up health system! Now we can't wait to see what our co-pay will be on the surgery. Plus, if L's total medical bills go over $10,000 for the year, we have to pay the difference. He already has $2,500 on his account for new hearing aids, so things don't look too good in this department. Seeing and hearing are mandatory for L's employment, so I guess we don't have a choice. He has to keep working, so we can keep paying our health insurance premiums. Kind of a vicious cycle, isn't it?

The other bad news is they discovered that L has macular degeneration. 40 years ago, L developed a blind spot dead center in his field of vision in both eyes. At the time they didn't know what to call his condition, so they labeled it "macleopia". L was legally blind until he took classes at the Mpls. School For The Blind, which taught him to use his peripheral vision to see around the blind spots. This therapy enabled L to live a normal life, including reading and driving. The good news is that L's eyes haven't deteriorated any further since his first bout with macular degeneration 40 years ago. We pray that this trend continues!

The next 8 weeks will be trying ones for us. We just pray that the cataract surgery will correct the double vision and zero night vision that L has been experiencing. Time will tell...

Project du Jour

2008-07-19T08:46:00.004-05:00

This week our contractor finally showed up to take measurements for our roof replacement! This means we'd better get crackin' on trimming our maple tree where it hangs over our roof.

We planted this maple as a 5 ft sapling, 17 years ago. At the time, we didn't know if the tree would survive. It was the last tree left at K-Mart and looked rather bedraggled. However, we couldn't resist the 75% off price tag on this tree. A little TLC and look at it now!

The weather continues to be bi-polar: 90F one day, 60F the next. It also continues to rain at least 4 days out of 7. The only thing this weather has been good for is mosquitoes and grass. Our lawn looks like a patchwork quilt most days. We mow different areas as they dry out. Z and I finally got the lawn mowed to one length last night. A couple of areas were a foot high!

This is what we've been doing when it rains. 2 weeks ago, L and I built the CD/DVD shelf unit for our living room. Now, I just need to sand, stain, and poly the unit. After we built the unit, I discovered that my electric sander won't fit between the CD shelves, so it looks like I'll be doing a bit of hand sanding. Have I ever told you how much I HATE hand sanding? *sigh*

This is the first of 2-12ft shelves that Z and I are installing on the side walls of the garage. This will be where we store the heavy stuff that we don't need to access all the time.

The picture is of the shelf brackets my Dad welded out of re-rod for us. The bracket is 18 inches deep, super heavy duty, and inexpensive to make. You can't buy brackets like that! Now everyone knows where I get my inventiveness and frugal ways. Thanks Dad!

Pilfered from Dirtcrashr

2008-07-12T17:56:00.000-05:00

Only ONE word can be used in your answer and it can NOT be used twice.

1. Where is your cell phone? purse
2. Your significant other? husband
3. Your hair? thick
4. Your mother? unforgiving
5. Your father? inventive
6. Your favorite time of day? dawn
7. Your dream last night? dunno
8. Your favorite drink? coffee
9. Your dream goal? clutterless
10. The room you're in? bedroom
11. Your ex? nonexistent
12. Your fear? unemployment
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? here
14. What you are not? quiet
15. Your Favorite meal? dinner
16. One of your wish list items? camera
17. The last thing you did? talked
18. Where you grew up? didn't
19. What are you wearing? jeans
20. Your TV is? off
21. Your pets? Hairry
22. Your computer? Alienware
23. Your life? simple
24. Your mood? thoughtful
25. Missing someone? SME
26. Your car? TRUCK
27. Something you're not wearing? glasses
28. Favorite store? Menards
29. Your summer? wet
30. Your favorite color? Green
31. When is the last time you laughed? noon
32. When is the last time you cried? June
33. Your health? fine
34. Your children? two
35. Your future? bleak
36. Your beliefs? different
37. Young or old? both
38. Your image? competent
39. Your appearance? casual
40. Would you live your life over again knowing what you know? mostly

MUST Have!

2008-07-09T18:44:00.003-05:00

Jessica Seinfeld, wife of Jerry, was on Oprah yesterday. This lady has 3 kids, a job, and a husband who is part of the Hollywood "elite", yet SHE cooks healthy meals for her family. I'm impressed!

Jessica tired of trying to get her kids to eat vegetables at every meal, so she developed low-fat recipes for all their favorite foods using pureed vegetables. She even puts veggies into all of her baked goods. BRILLIANT!

As the mother of a son with an overactive gag reflex, I've come up with a few things that are similar to her ideas. Homemade spinach or carrot pasta is always a hit here. Plus, I've been putting ground zucchini in my cakes for years. Lately, I've been adding flax seed to most of my baked goods. Jessica expands on my piddly recipes to the nth degree.

Z has always been receptive to trying different vegetables, but most of them don't make it down his throat. Lately, he's expressed the desire to find new ways for him to eat veggies. Voila, along comes Deceptively Delicious! You can bet that this book will be in my next Amazon order! Thanks Jessica!

My Candidate

2008-07-04T08:27:00.005-05:00

On this July 4th, I feel it's my duty to share MY candidate for president with you.

In my opinion, NEITHER of our candidates will work with "we the people" to institute the changes we want. The parties have spent two years, and billions of dollars, on this interminable process and THESE candidates are the hope for our future?! Both McCain and Obama are already too entrenched in the corrupt 2 party system of our government. They care more about their party, and corporate donations, than they care about their constituents.

I want a candidate who will respect the Constitution of the United States! I want a candidate who will enforce our immigration laws out of respect for our ancestors who jumped through all the hoops to become LEGAL citizens! I want a candidate who will put the needs of "we the people" before the wants of our mega-corporations! I want a candidate who will build a platform and STICK to it, not waver with every new public opinion poll. Do our candidates really BELIEVE in the words they're spewing? NO, they're only reading words, written by a legion of speech-writers, trying to grab votes from target demographics.

This November, I will be writing in the candidate of MY choice! I don't know who that will be. If all else fails, I'll vote for "None of the Above". Will my candidate win? Of course not. But, if enough of us vote our conscience and refuse to vote for "the lesser of 2 evils", maybe the 2 party system will wake up and realize that "we the people" are sick of their corrupt manipulations.

Don't bother telling me that my vote will be wasted. The media keeps talking about "voter apathy". We're not apathetic, we're sick and tired of not having a decent candidate to vote for. SO....GET OUT THERE AND VOTE! If you truly believe in McCain or Obama, VOTE for them; you have my blessing. If, like me, you're sick of the feeble excuses for candidates we've been given lately....VOTE YOUR CONSCIENCE!

Happy INDEPENDENCE Day everyone!
Please take some time today to read our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
232 years later, this is still relevant reading material!

A Bit of Progress

2008-06-27T18:09:00.000-05:00

This is how our back yard looked a month ago. There were no leaves, and Z was weed-eating the rough section we are working on.

This is how that area looks now, after I've rototilled it twice. It rained for 2 weeks steady after the first time I tilled the yard. This week it finally dried enough to till the yard a second time. The chunks of sod sprouted more grass, so Z had to weed-eat the area again before I could till it.
This is how us "poor folks" landscape our yards. Each time, after I finish tilling, I shovel dirt from the high areas to the low areas. Then I let the newly turned soil dry out before I till, and shovel, again. Eventually, the whole area will consist of loose, rakeable soil that can be sloped to drain properly. Then we'll be able to seed the area and tamp down the soil. We don't have a lawn roller, so we tamp the newly seeded soil by walking on scraps of plywood.

We've always had kids, dogs, and a variety of wildlife in our yard, so we never use poisons. The only fertilizer we use is compost. We have never watered our lawn, except for newly seeded areas. For these conditions, we choose grass seed that's a mix of perennial ryegrass and clover. Within a couple of years, native grasses usually take over the seeded areas. That's fine with us. We're not "lawn Nazi's", who have to have a pedigreed lawn. If it's green and comes back every summer, we're happy. We just endured a 3 year drought, and our lawn was always green, even though we didn't water it. An added bonus is the bunnies and bees love the clover in our lawn. With bees on the decline, this is a huge plus!

We also never worry about dandelions. Our summers are too short to spend them poisoning or digging up every dandelion that pops up. What I find really amusing is that our lawn has fewer dandelions than the lawns of all the people that are fighting them. Relax, and enjoy the cheery yellow. Besides, with our economy, we all might be eating dandelion green salads, and drinking dandelion wine before long.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this lovely cartload of compost. What a load of loamy lusciousness!

Bad Blogger!

2008-06-16T17:42:00.003-05:00

SME and Doug are safely back home following their wonderful 3-day visit with us. The love, laughs, and hugs we shared will have to hold us until we can all be together again. *sigh*

I had SME and Z, begrudgingly, pose for pictures while they were here. The last picture we have of just the 2 of them was taken when Z was 4. I took a lot of shots, but the picture above is the one we all liked best. We're going to frame an 8x10 of this picture for my Mom's birthday. Now, I just need to get Z to pose for some semi-formal solo shots. The picture of him, that the whole family has framed and carries in their wallets, was taken when Z was in the 6th grade! I definitely think that we'd all appreciate an updated picture to display.

I also tried to get a decent picture of SME and Z with our 3rd "kid", Hairry. Unfortunately, Hairry just wanted to play, and wouldn't hold still for a picture. The above picture is the only shot I got of Hairry holding still. The kids look great, but this is the worst picture I've ever seen of Hairry! SME says that Hairry looks like he's drunk.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to get back into blogging regularly again. The last couple of months, we've been trying to get our household semi-organized again. We've actually been "semi" successful at this endeavor.

A Joyous Reunion!

2008-06-01T08:57:00.003-05:00

Last weekend we interrupted our outdoor chores for a most joyous reunion. Our goddaughter(SB) stopped by for a visit with her 2 1/2 yr old son! My post of 9/15/05 explains the circumstances of Thor's birth. A LOT has happened to SB since the birth of her son.

As I expected, SB called us when Thor was 6-months-old. Thor's first few days on earth were spent wired to machines in the neonatal intensive care unit. SB spent every minute she could beside her newborn, willing him to live. Thor gave SB the focus she needed in her life. From the moment he was born, Thor's life became SB's #1 priority.

Throughout the following 2 yrs, SB would call me every couple of months with news of Thor's progress. During this time, SB sought help for her bipolar disorder, with devastating results. SB is SEVERELY bipolar, with accompanying psychosis. The only meds that worked for her had extreme side affects. The meds she was taking had a chance of destroying her organs. Every 2 weeks, SB had to have a needle biopsy of her liver. The doctors warned SB that she shouldn't get pregnant again, as she would have to quit the meds. Without her meds she would more than likely have to be institutionalized for her own safety.

A couple months later, SB called to say that she had moved 3 hrs away from her BF. BF had told her that she wasn't the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, but she was welcome to live with him until "someone better comes along". SB said "No thanks!", and moved in with her aunt and uncle in Duluth. Within a month, BF was literally on his knees, begging her to come back to him. Their relationship is still rocky, but BF is a devoted father.

A year ago, SB called with more bad news. Thor's development didn't seem right to her, so she scheduled him for a complete battery of tests. Thor is "marginally" autistic. SB immediately enrolled Thor in a daycare program for autistic children. She and BF have taken all the classes available that help them work with Thor at home. Despite her dyslexia, SB has read everything she can find on autism. We are soooo proud of the way SB is working to give her son the best life he can achieve! Early intervention will make all the difference in this little boy's development!

During one of our chats, I convinced SB to contact her Grandma(my Boss). Boss eventually persuaded SB to re-establish her relationship with her Dad and BF's Mom. Last month Thor's grandparents got to meet him for the first time. This led to SB and Thor making the trip up here with her Dad and BF's Mom. All of us are ecstatic to have the family reunited! BF still refuses to communicate with his Mom, but we're all hoping that he will come around eventually.

I, too, have extensively read up on autism, so I didn't know what to expect from Thor. Imagine my amazement when SB walked in the door, with Thor in her arms, and Thor immediately smiled and reached his arms out to me!! Tears of joy ran down my cheeks as Thor wrapped his little arms around my neck in a hug!

The hug didn't last long as Thor wanted to get down and explore our house. Thor doesn't talk much, but he is addicted to Old McDonald. Eyi-eyi-oooo, is his mantra! Thor is a highly intelligent child that loves to draw and will sit quietly paging through books and magazines. He has autistic "meltdowns", but SB handles this with patient efficiency. We're all sooo proud of the magnificent mother she has become, and the amazing difference she has made in her precious son's life!

Circular Notions

2008-05-24T08:03:00.005-05:00

Sorry I haven't been around much the last couple of weeks, but I've been busy chasing my tail. It seems that every task I try to start results in a circular series of events. I'll TRY to lucidly explain my recent frustrations.

Our first obstacle has been this crazy spring weather. We're just now getting tiny leaves on the willow and poplar trees here. When it isn't raining or snowing, we've had days with 50 mph winds. We haven't had a single day that it's been dry or windless enough to rake our yard. Grass is now sprouting haphazardly amongst the leaves....*sigh*. I guess we'll just have to mow through this mess, THEN run the dethatcher blade over the lawn. Bassackwards all the way this year!

The picture above was taken 2 yrs ago. This is the area of our back yard where we tie out the dog. This has always been the low spot of our yard that flooded with every heavy rain. We had our contractor dump the soil he dug up for our garage into this area. We WERE going to immediately remove the rocks in the soil, rototill, rake, and seed this area.....

Two years later, this spot is overgrown with grass and weeds that can only be cut with a hand-held weedeater. This area is now the high point of the back yard that cuts off the drainage for the rest of the back yard. NOW, the rest of the back yard floods when it rains. Sooo....first priority--LANDSCAPE THE BACK YARD!

First step, put away the snowblower, and bring out the rototiller and lawn mower. Umm...yeah...the side yard is too wet to move this heavy equipment without seriously rutting up the side yard....SHIT! No problem...Z and I installed fluorescent shop lights and a wall shelf in the garage. NOW we can get the summer equipment ready to roll...except the rototiller won't roll ANYWHERE....busted belt....SHIT! L spends 2 mornings, before work, removing the old belt and running all over town shopping for a new belt. Then he discovers that he needs 4 more hands to install the new belt. Sooo, instead of tilling the yard last weekend, we spent an entire afternoon getting the new belt on the rototiller....DAMMIT!

The rest of the week we managed to untarp the camper, declutter the small shed, and fill in the ruts in the driveway. We have a 3-day weekend this weekend. According to the forecast, today will be the only rain-free day we have to: turn the compost pile, weed-eat, till, and mow. But first we have to dig the hose-reel out of the generator shed, so we can hose off the tiller tines between rounds. Hopefully it will now stay warm enough that the hose won't freeze up anymore. CRAP..we need to put air in the wheelbarrow tire...now WHERE did we store that inflater for the winter? At least I know where we put our leather work gloves....they're in the wheelbarrow. That reminds me...I need to bring out the rubber boots. As long as the boot box is open, I should put away the winter boots. Oh yeah...as long as I have these boxes down, I might as well put away the winter coats I've washed. Yup, there goes ANOTHER hour down the drain. *sigh*
Maybe tomorrow and Monday we can build the CD/DVD storage unit for our living room. The completed plans are above(Yeah, I know my drawing is crude, but I'm the only one that needs to interpret the plans.) The wood, screws, sandpaper, stain, and polyurethane are purchased and waiting.... Oh wait...first we have to sweep the winter's accumulation of sand out of the garage, before I can stain and polyurethane....then we have to dig the sawhorses out of the big shed....
Aww CRAP! WHY can't anything be simple? I'm getting dizzy!

My First Mother's Day

2008-05-11T06:44:00.002-05:00

May, 1978. We were living in my mother-in-law's duplex in Minneapolis. L was in the middle of a 15-month Business Management course at the Minnesota School of Business, while working nights microfilming traveler's checks. I was baby-sitting our 13-month-old nephew for $1/hr. I also did all the sewing and mending for the entire family, in exchange for car repairs and other traded services. I also sewed all SME's clothes to supplement her wardrobe of hand-me-downs. L and I did all the yard and maintenance work on Ma's dilapidated duplex, in exchange for rent. We were living on less than $500/month, but we were ecstatically happy with our newly formed little family.

SME was 4-months-old and had just popped her first tooth on May 4th. Teething was an ordeal with SME. Each new tooth was accompanied by 104 degree fevers and severe diarrhea, which resulted in nasty diaper rash. By Mother's Day, SME had recovered from her first bout with teething and was a bundle of cooing, smiling, beautiful baby! Motherhood has always been my proudest accomplishment, and I was bursting with pride, and love, on my first Mother's Day.

My sister-in-laws planned Mother's Day. Since it was the first time in years that all 3 brothers and their families lived in the same city, we would make Mother's Day special for my MIL. That sounded like a lovely idea to me. Dinner would be a potluck. My contribution would be potato salad and my homemade baked beans. No problem! My MIL's contribution would be paper plates and silverware. Her boyfriend supplied a case of Fox Deluxe beer at $3.33/case, which I was in charge of chilling.

Mother's Day dawned beautiful, clear.....and HOT! I awoke early to turn on the crockpot full of beans that had been soaking all night. Then I peeled the potatoes I had boiled the night before, while boiling the eggs for the potato salad. Our east-facing kitchen quickly became an oven!

By noon, I had 2 gallons of potato salad chilling in the fridge, a crockpot full of beans simmering, the prepratory dishes washed, and a baby fed, bathed, and put down for a nap. L followed his normal Sunday routine by sleeping in, followed by coffee and the Sunday paper.

The festivities began at 3 p.m. We crammed 7 kids and 8 adults into Ma's tiny apartment. It was then that I discovered what my sister-in-laws contributed to our dinner. One brought a tray of cold cuts and buns. The other brought a store-bought cake and packets of Kool-Aid, which I had to mix up. Not much effort involved on their part, was there? I spent the rest of the afternoon running up and down the 2 flights of stairs to our apartment hauling beer, food, and Kool-Aid. The rest of the time I was trying to keep rowdy nieces and nephews from destroying the house, or running out in traffic, while their parents totally ignored them.

By 6 p.m. I was hot, exhausted, and more than a little miffed that L hadn't acknowledged my first Mother's Day AT ALL! It was then that the final blow fell. My in-laws decided that it would be a lovely idea to chill out in a nice, air-conditioned movie theater. Ummm....yeah.....but....what are we gonna do with the 7 kids? "No problem! You're so good with the kids, that I'm sure you wouldn't mind watching them while we go out for the evening." RIGHT; I wouldn't mind watching my 4-month-old, PLUS a 7-month, 13-month, 2-yr, 5-yr, 8-yr, and 11-yr(mentally challenged pervert). in our 3 room oven of an apartment, while you sashay off to the air-conditioned movie theater! NOT!!

I was STUNNED! I didn't say a word as I retrieved our dirty dishes and SME, and retreated to our apartment, locking the door behind me. I was sitting in front of the open kitchen window, bathing SME in my tears as I nursed her, when L appeared half an hour later:
L: What's up? You locked the door and the kids can't get in. We're gonna be late for the movie.
Me: WE?!
L: Well....yeah...there's no point in BOTH of us staying here. Why are you crying?
Me: How about it's my FIRST Mother's Day and you haven't even said "Happy Mother's Day"!
L: You're not MY mother.
I'll spare you the rest of this conversation, but suffice it to say that NOBODY went to the movies that night! I'm also happy to say that my Mother's Days have significantly improved over the years.

I don't know who set the dates for Mother's and Father's Days, but I'm certain that it was a woman. My first Mother's Day taught me to celebrate Father's Day in the same manner that Mother's Day is celebrated in our household. What goes around, comes around....mwahahaha...

What Tulips?

2008-04-26T08:08:00.003-05:00

This was the view that greeted me when I opened the kitchen curtains this morning.

Then Hairry insisted on going out.

Then I decided to brave the elements to take this picture of the 4 inches of snow on our AC cover.

It's supposed to keep snowing for the next 30 hours, with a predicted total of 6-12 inches of snow. Our back yard was already flooded from the 2 inches of rain we got on Thursday. This weather is NOT helping to melt the frost from the soil!

Last weekend I made a to-do list for this weekend. I wrote this list while L was grilling our delicious steaks in 60F weather. Included on my list were these items:

Wash and put away winter coats
Dry and put away winter boots
Move snowblower to shed
Change lawnmower oil

I'm sooo glad that we didn't do these chores last weekend!

Deficit Spending

2008-04-20T08:59:00.000-05:00

The snow has almost disappeared from our yard, leaving several ponds in its wake. Now we're waiting for the 4 feet of frost to melt out of the ground, so this water can soak into the soil. The snow's disappearance meant we had grilled steak for dinner last night. Ambrosia!!

We normally go out for a char-broiled steak dinner a couple of times each winter. This winter, we couldn't afford any meals out....not even Hardees or Subway. Every restaurant in our small town is feeling the squeeze of our faltering economy, including the one we work at. Eating out is the first thing to go when budgets are tight.

We've been squeaking by with $300-$400 days at our restaurant. My Boss needs $500 days to show any kind of profit. That's right; we've been struggling to break even all winter! My shift generates over 2/3 of the days' sales. My tips run between 15-20% of our sales. This means that I've been bringing home $30-$50 in tips every day this winter. Our paychecks cover the $1250/month we pay for property taxes, utilities, garage loan, and insurance. My tips pay for food, clothing, vehicle maintenance, gas, and anything else that comes up. Our tax refund is always earmarked for home repairs. This summer we MUST replace the roof on our house!

This winter our insulated garage has paid for itself. We haven't had to warm up our vehicles once, not even on -30F days! We've managed to get by on 1/4 tank of gas, every 2 weeks. We used to burn a 1/4 tank every week during the winter. We've also saved on our electric bill by not having to plug in our vehicle's block heaters.

Now that spring has arrived, new necessities are popping up. Z can't continue wearing his winter boots outside, so he obviously needs a larger pair of shoes than he was wearing last fall. He also needs a new windbreaker for rainy days. Fortunately, his sweatshirt jacket still fits.

Last Monday, I made $34 in tips. My Avon order also arrived that day...$20 worth of sunscreen, deodorant, and the only hand/body lotion I'm not allergic to. Then, my fund-raising order from the local 4-H Club arrived...$15 was the lowest priced item. Profit for the day $-1.

Tuesday, Hairry had his annual heartworm appointment at the vet's office....$80 for the test and 6 months worth of heartworm meds. I made $40 in tips that day. There's another $40 in the hole!

Both of our vehicles are 2 months overdue for oil changes. In addition, L's car is leaking antifreeze.

Fortunately, I save up $700-$1000 each summer to cover my reduced tips in the winter. With the rising cost of groceries, that fund is down to $100 now. $50 of that will pay the co-pay on glasses for Z and I tomorrow.

It looks like L will be having his cataract surgery in June. His optometrist thinks they will have to operate on both his eyes at once. L has weird eyesight, which probably won't balance correctly if they operate on one eye at a time. I'm certain that this will involve time off from work. We're hoping that the eye surgeon that travels here will schedule the surgery here, so that I won't have to take a day off to drive L 100 miles to the surgeon.

Thank God we're debt free, other than the $6000 remaining on our garage loan! We do have savings put away, but I hate to dip into that fund. Our small town economy doesn't show any signs of improving in the near future, so I'd like to leave our savings intact.

Summers are usually a busier time of year here. However, tourism is dying. In the 26 yrs my Boss has owned the restaurant, tourism has declined a little more each year. People just don't take family fishing vacations anymore.

Business picks up a bit when the snowbirds return. I wish they'd stay home and support OUR economy in the winter! Rather than tourists, we now have a group of summer residents from the Twin Cities, Chicago, and other areas. These people have artificially driven up the price of lake property so that locals can no longer afford a home on the lake. Oh well, at least the summer residents can afford to eat out once in awhile. With the high price of gas, we're not expecting a very busy summer season.

Don't Bother

2008-04-13T07:53:00.004-05:00

I don't normally do movie reviews. SME and Wandering Coyote do a much better job reviewing movies than I ever could. After watching this film last night, I felt compelled to warn my friends.

The title of this post just about sums up my opinion of this movie. This film starts out s-l-o-w and STAYS s-l-o-w throughout its entire 158 minute running time. That's 2 1/2 hours of my life that I'll never get back. I didn't totally waste my time, as I cooked dinner through the first hour of the movie.

The plot line, the oil wars of the early 1900s, had potential. Unfortunately, the producers of this film chose their idea of artsy-fartsy, rather than developing an informational plot that would hold the viewers attention.

I should have known better. The only Daniel Day-Lewis film I've ever enjoyed was Gangs of New York. Could anybody please tell me WHY Lewis won an Oscar for this role? Lewis spent most of the film staring sullenly into the camera. I guess his portrayal of a maniacal drunk, at the end of the film, is what the Academy based their nomination on.

Was this the worst film I've ever seen? Nah, but it's found a place in my top ten.

April Showers?

2008-04-12T08:22:00.005-05:00

I took this picture of our back yard on Thursday, before we got 3 more inches of snow yesterday. Starting Monday, we're supposed to have temps in the 50s all week. That will be a refreshing change, but I'm dreading all the resulting slop the warm weather will bring.

If you click on the picture you can see my neighbor's ramshackle garage expansion project along with some of the crap that overwhelms their yard.

My mood has been strange ever since the time changed to DST. I go through my daily routine, accomplishing all the necessary chores, but my body feels like it's going in slow motion. My brain, on the other hand, is in overdrive. A myriad of half-formed ideas are whizzing through my head. Plans for home improvement and landscape projects, blog posts, political rants, homeschool lessons, photography projects, and new recipes are all vying for my attention. Unfortunately, none of these ideas are making it to paper, or computer. My sluggish body just doesn't seem capable of keeping up with my head right now.

I hope that this is all a result of spring fever. Maybe next week's warm weather will unite my mind and body?

Spring Fever

2008-03-30T05:47:00.003-05:00

I took this picture of our grill on the first day of spring. This view still hasn't changed much. We've had a few warm days, but they're usually followed by cold, snowy days. We haven't had steak since October. I'm really, really craving a nice grilled steak! I've already bought a lovely package of steaks that taunts me every time I open the freezer. I also bought a couple of slabs of salmon during the Lenten fish sales. I'm ready for spring activities, but all I can do is watch the snow s-l-o-w-l-y recede.

In the meantime, my brain has been working overtime trying to re-organize our schedule to fit our upcoming warm weather projects.

Last week Z and I went to the optometrist for much needed new glasses. On Friday I went to the doctor to have the 10-yr-old wart removed from the ball of my foot. I've been trying, all week, to contact Z's driver's training instructor to set up a time for his 6 hrs of behind the wheel training. L will, hopefully, have cataract surgery in April. Now, I just need to make a vet appointment for Hairry to start his heartworm meds for the summer.

Designs for CD/DVD storage, new desks for Z's computer and ours, and a workbench for the garage have been swirling around in my overcrowded brain. We hope that we can build these items before our contractor starts re-roofing our house.

Then, we'll have the rest of the summer to landscape our back yard and repair the electrical trench damage in the front yard. We'd also LOVE to fence the corner of our back yard to block out the view of our neighbor's junk.

Ideas are pouring from my head non-stop. WHEN will the weather warm up enough to put my thoughts into action?!

Happy Easter!

2008-03-23T12:31:00.001-05:00

Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty, and then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office.

He never owned a home. He never set foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He had no credentials but Himself.

While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against Him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves.

His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth while He was dying -- and that was His coat. When He was dead, He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today He is the centerpiece of the human race and the leader of progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever were built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as that One Solitary Life.

by James A. Francis

If This is Tuesday, It Must Be Hualien!

2008-03-19T19:51:00.003-05:00

Photos courtesy of Google Image
SME and Doug are on an 8-day driving tour of Taiwan with Paul and Juliet. They've cruised the coast, driven above the clouds in the mountains, and soaked in the hot springs. They're having an amazing time!

Doug is suffering a bit of culture-shock with the food. Paul is quite good at picking out safe Mom & Pop cafes. The only problem is that these cafes have "garbage bag tablecloths, Kool-Aid in plastic pitchers, herbs drying in cardboard boxes, and styrofoam menus". I think visiting the open-air markets on their first day, put Doug off the local cuisine. He was a bit freaked out by the sale of snake venom....fresh from a live snake, fly infested food-on-a-stick, and hemorrhoid cures(with graphic pictures), all being sold next to dining customers. He's been whining for pizza for the last couple of days.

In all fairness, SME said that some of the food CAN be a bit "iffy". The dishes that aren't overwhelmed by garlic, smell suspiciously like "...a cross between herbal medicine and compost".

Yesterday, they visited this Buddhist cave temple, called Eight Fairy Cave. There's a lot of ancient history in Taiwan, in addition to the natural beauty. We've been researching all the places SME and Doug have mentioned in their emails. This has been a great way of sharing their vacation, without the expense and "iffy" food.

I'm certain that SME will fill us in on all the details on her blog when she returns.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2008-03-17T14:22:00.002-05:00

I got this in an email from a friend. It puts a whole new slant on the holiday! ENJOY!

WHY ST. PATRICK'S DAY IS CELEBRATED EACH YEAR IN AMERICA

The reason the Irish celebrate St. Patrick's Day is because

this is when St. Patrick drove the Norwegians out of Ireland.

It seems that some centuries ago, many Norwegians came to

Ireland to escape the bitterness of the Norwegian winter. Ireland was

having a famine at the time, and food was scarce. The Norwegians were

eating almost all the fish caught in the area, leaving the Irish with

nothing to eat but potatoes. St. Patrick, taking matters into his own

hands, as most Irishmen do, decided the Norwegians had to go.

Secretly, he organized the Irish IRATRION (Irish Republican Army to

Rid Ireland of Norwegians)

Irish members of IRATRION passed a law in Ireland that

prohibited merchants from selling ice boxes or ice to the Norwegians, in

hopes that their fish would spoil. This would force the Norwegians to

flee to a colder climate where their fish would keep. Well, the fish

spoiled, all right, but the Norwegians, as every one knows today, thrive

on spoiled fish. So, faced with failure, the desparate Irishmen

sneaked into the Norwegian fish storage caves in the dead of night and

sprinkled the rotten fish with lye, hoping to poison the Norwegian

invaders.

But, as everyone knows, the Norwegians thought this only

added to the flavor of the fish, and they liked it so much they decided

to call it "lutefisk", which is Norwegian for "lucious fish".

Matters became even worse for the Irishmen when the Norwegians started

taking over the Irish potato crop and making something called

"lefse". Poor St. Patrick was at his wit's end, and finally on March

17th, he blew his top and told all the Norwegians to "GO TO HELL".

So they all got in their boats and emigrated to Minnesota or the Dakotas

---- the only other paradise on earth where smelly fish, old potatoes

and plenty of cold weather can be found in abundance.

The End.

SME's Adventure

2008-03-15T08:03:00.002-05:00

SME and Doug arrived safely in Kaohsiung(Gow-shung), Taiwan. They will be spending the next 3 weeks in Taiwan, visiting Doug's son, Paul and his wife Juliet. SME got a bit airsick, from the turbulence, toward the end of their 12 hr flight, but she's feeling fine now. Doug is loving the 80F, with 83% humidity weather. He's not as thrilled with the pollution though.

Paul met SME and Doug at the Taipei airport. They then took this 180 mph railway to the south of Taiwan. I haven't heard if they enjoyed this part of the journey.

Z and I have been using SME's adventure as a homeschool lesson. Yesterday, we learned that Taiwan is 1/6th the size of MN, but has 6X the population. The time in Taiwan is 13 hrs ahead of us, so it will soon be Sunday morning there.

SME said that Paul and Jules live in a beautiful apartment complex, complete with waterfall, pool, palm trees and pineapple plants. She was a bit overwhelmed by the millions of scooters on the streets, and the obscene "Engrish" t-shirts worn by the teenaged girls: "Fuck One and Get One Free", "Gooey Tart", and "Take Your Top Off!" SME hopes the girls don't understand the meaning of the messages on their shirts.

Paul has a ton of neat activities planned, including a camping trip in the mountains. Paul's passion is scuba diving, and he has sent us many gorgeous pictures of his underwater adventures. Now, he plans on taking his Dad for a short dive, while SME and Jules lounge on the beach. Last night Paul planned a tour of the city after he finished teaching his evening class. The food should be a vegetarian delight for SME.

I can't wait to see the pictures and videos of their adventures!

Two Down, Two to GO!

2008-03-09T09:47:00.004-05:00

He DID it! Z passed the written driver's test and is now the proud owner of a MN learner's permit! Now, he just needs to complete 6 hrs of behind-the-wheel training and practice driving for 6 months before he can take the driving test to get his license.

It's been a busy week, here in the snowbound north. Driver's tests are only given on Tuesdays here, so Z and I spent Tuesday afternoon taking his written test, then going to the License Bureau to file the paperwork for his permit.

Wednesday, we went to town for groceries. After we put the groceries away, I decided it was a good day for Z to learn some driving skills. At +30F, it was the first above zero, sunny day we have had for awhile. We ventured over to the empty parking lot of the neighborhood bar to learn a few moves. He did quite well for his first time behind the wheel! He practiced left and right circles and learned how to pick a spot and back up into it.

It's totally foreign to me having a 15-yr-old son who has NEVER driven before. Being an old farm girl, I have been driving since I was 8-yrs-old. My first driving experience was pulling the plow behind our old Cub tractor. Our family often camped in remote areas, so my Dad always made sure that I knew how to safely drive every vehicle we owned. You never know when tragedy would strike and I would need to drive back to civilization on my own. Nowadays, there isn't an uninhabited place where a young child can learn to drive.

After learning how to steer in the parking lot, we took the plunge and crossed the highway to take the back road to my parents' house. Z was a nervous wreck, but performed admirably! The only glitch was when Z activated the windshield washers the first time he used the turn signal.

I was impressed with Z's maturity when he got out of the truck: "Are people serious when they tell me that a year from now, kids my age will actually attempt to drink and drive? There's WAY too much stuff to keep track of while driving. WHY would someone muddle their senses by drinking before driving?" I pray that he remembers this statement in the future!

The Other Side of the Coin

2008-02-28T16:45:00.003-06:00

My previous post got me to thinking about other "hot" musicians from the '70s. Peter Frampton immediately came to mind. The album cover above is from the late '70s.
THIS is how Peter Frampton looks today. Do the words "rode hard and put away wet" come to mind while viewing this photo? In addition, Frampton is a year younger than Rick Springfield.

Still HOT!

2008-02-26T18:13:00.002-06:00

I've had a crush on Rick Springfield since I bought his first album, Beginnings, in 1972. I bought the album for the song Speak to the Sky. I had no idea how good-looking Rick was until I purchased the album (pictured above).

I was ecstatic when Rick's career REALLY took off in 1981 with the release of his album, Working Class Dog. The 80s was Rick's decade, and I happily snapped up all of his albums. L even bought me a copy of his movie, Hard to Hold.
Today, Rick was a guest on Oprah. I can't believe how well he's aged! It's just not right that a 58-yr-old man should still look this HOT!

I wonder if those glasses are bifocals?

2008-02-24T12:19:00.002-06:00

"Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish."
"Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it."

"Therefore, it seems to me that everything that exists is good--death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly. Everything is necessary, everything needs only my agreement, my assent, my loving understanding; then all is well with me and nothing can harm me. I learned through my body and soul that it was necessary for me to sin, that I needed lust, that I had to strive for property and experience nausea and the depths of despair in order to learn not to resist them, in order to learn to love the world, and no longer compare it with some kind of desired imaginary world, some imaginary vision of perfection, but to leave it as it is, to love it and be glad to belong to it."

Hermann Hesse, from Siddhartha

Google Me Baby!

2008-02-17T09:44:00.003-06:00

Please don't put tampons in the toilet poem (Have you checked Wordsworth or Tennyson?)

eating uncooked ramen (Yes, my grandson has weird eating habits!)

give hot hairry (From Bangalore, India. Move on pervert!)

can the lego studios camera be used as a webcam (Yes.)

can sniff novocaine (From the UK. Wouldn't it be easier to score some Whiteout or model cement?)

tantrum menopause (From the Antilles. Isn't it comforting to know that this is a worldwide problem?)

its cdo not ocd (Somebody agrees with Courtney!)

eve angel reformatory pics (From Italy. WHY did this search arrive HERE?)

kucinich ufo planet ashtar (More "federation" crazies!)

scrapbooking obituaries (My cousin kept my Grandma's collection. We used to make fun of Grandma's book, but it's been an invaluable tool for researching our family tree.)

elizabeth kucinich ascended masters (Again with the crazies!)

menards theme song (You gotta be kidding me! I've had several people searching for this.)

daddys men mature aged (Italians do some WEIRD searches!)

tom and val gonser (WHO?)

site to check your hours at menards employee (They're on your time card brainiac!)

irish lefse (Really? Do you know anything about this Jeannie?)

15-yr voyeur (Happy Anniversary!)

talk funny norwegian (NO, I don't have a MN accent!)

"who would buy that?" (What were they hoping to find with this search? At my blog they found dog poo ornaments.)

minnesota mom (That would be me....and Pam.)

lumber yard door shop hanging (Huh?)

"ate too many slim jims (Glutton!)

sananda and the galactic fleet (....and MORE crazies!)

head is fuzzy recovering from pneumonia (And your point is....?)

hairry mom (Hairry gets so many hits that I'm considering giving him his own blog!)

mendards (From Winnipeg. Is this the Canadian spelling of Menards?)

voyer hairry (From Czechoslovakia. Hairry has a pretty widespread fan base.)

demi's creations (Be careful what you wish for!)

wc huge turds voyeur (I understand how this search arrived here, but WHY are they searching for this?!)

voyeurs boy 5-15 age photo (From Amman, Jordan. Stay on your own side of the pond you friggin' pervert!)

sme pizza (OK, I HAD to Google this one for myself. Yes, there is such a franchise. Maybe you should sue them for royalties SME?)

on what page is cower written in the great gatsby (Apparently a clever teacher has found a way to make sure the kids actually READ the book. Nice try kid; now go read the book!)

cherie's blog (Did this guy from Argentina find you Cherie?)

chocolate dog turd candy (That would be a unique alternative to our ornaments.)

extremely hairry (From Portugal. Yes, he is!)

creaplu (Netherlands. No clue!)

longshoreman walk the plank blogspot (Estonia. I swear like one at times.)

star fleet galactic federation 2012 (Dec 21st to be exact. Why don't you camp out at one of the landing spots? It's never too early to stake out a front row seat!)

mud wrestling vancouver (Come spring you can use my front yard.)

"unix performs better" (Zombieslayer and my son think so.)

"payback's a bitch acronym (That might come in handy.)

fun stuff to do in menards (I dunno....smell the cedar boards?)

belle starr ancestors (I seem to recall that one of my readers IS a descendant. GWB maybe?)

Braindump

2008-02-14T15:02:00.001-06:00

Just a few things that have been perplexing me lately:

Why are men's underwear sized to match their pants size, but women's underwear comes in size 5-10?

Why are adult socks one-size-fits-all? My Dad wears a size 13 shoe, L wears a 7, yet they wear the same size sock. L is comfortable in socks; my Dad can't wait to remove his, as they squeeze his feet.

Why is D-width in men's shoes standard, but D-width in women's shoes is wide?

Why do companies keep changing their packaging? I don't care that Pepsi now comes in a "cool" graffiti-look can! All that matters is the product inside the package.

Why do they make snowmobiles that go 100mph? For that matter, why do they make cars that go over 80mph?

Why don't they make a men's cologne that smells like sawdust? To me, there's nothing sexier than the smell of a man that's been working with wood!

Why is curb appeal and paint color so important when buying a home? These items are easy to change, and give a home your own style. Doesn't anybody worry about structure, windows, water heaters and furnaces anymore?

Freaking Out!

2008-02-10T06:04:00.000-06:00

I didn't realize how smoothly our homeschool learning system was working...until Thursday.

When I got home from work, Z was freaking out. He was certain that he'd never be able to pass his Driver's Ed class. He was struggling with coming up with 4 questions, that weren't in the book's quiz, about the chapter he was reading. This required Z's brain to be in 3 places at once; reading the material, remembering the book's questions, and trying to find new questions about the chapter. Z's ADD kicked in, and he was totally frustrated.

We have spent the last 3 years of homeschooling getting Z to concentrate on ONE thing at a time. ADD requires this. He needs to home in on the single task at hand or his attention span flies out the window. This is a skill Z acquired in the past 6 months. It's a new skill that hasn't quite become 2nd nature to Z yet. Re-entering a classroom setting, where the class jumps all over in the material, does NOT work for Z. His brain NEEDS to complete an idea, before it jumps to the next. He can't return to the original idea and complete it later.

In addition, the teacher covers some of the chapters in class by having the kids read the chapters aloud. Z was appalled at how poorly a lot of the kids read. It was painful! While these kids are haltingly reading the material, Z's ADD brain focuses on their mistakes, not the content of the material.

I also have the feeling that Z is inhibiting his tics while in class. I realize that he has a natural desire to be like everybody else, and fears ridicule. BUT, inhibiting tics requires a lot of his attention. ADD doesn't give Z much attention to spare.

Z has always had a hard time picking out the important facts in his reading assignments. He needs to take in the assignment as a whole Only then can his brain process the information and arrive at a logical conclusion. This may be an OCD trait, rather than ADD, but it's still the only way he can function for now.

Z also has dysgraphia, a common TS/ADD trait. Handwriting is painfully slow for him. By the time a thought has traveled from his brain to his hand, another thought has popped into his overactive brain. At home, we have conquered this problem with keyboarding. Z's typing skills are amazing, and allow him to quickly get his thoughts on paper. Dysgraphia makes it almost impossible for Z to answer essay questions. Even single word answers are difficult for him. He has no problem with true/false or multiple choice questions. I don't foresee Z having ANY problem passing our state's written driver's exam, as the questions are all true/false and multiple choice. His Driver's Ed class is another story. The teacher uses ALL essay or written answer questions. Z got 8/10 correct on his last quiz. I think this is quite good for him. The teacher says this is a failing grade. WHAT?! Since when is 80% a failing grade?!

All of these minor problems, added together, tend to send Z into panic mode. When Z's stress level spikes, memory and attention span fly out the window! Z NEEDS to remain calm and focused, despite the distractions of a classroom setting.

Together, we have developed a plan. Z will work ahead of his class at home, where he can concentrate. His classroom instruction will only serve as a review of the material he has already learned. I told Z to remain calm and do his best on the quizzes. If he continues to score 80%, I WON'T let the teacher fail him. The law says that Z needs to complete 30 hours of classroom instruction and pass the state's written driver's exam in order to get his learner's permit. The law says NOTHING about passing classroom quizzes. Z is putting in his time and has learned the material in the book. If necessary, I will demand another quiz format for Z. I hope it doesn't come to this as Z says I tend to piss off teachers. It's not that I'm confrontational. It's that our teachers don't like to think outside the box, or admit that parents may know more about their kid's abilities than they do. It's a power trip thing, and I DON'T DO power trips!

Homeschooling has taught Z something that the other kids don't do...Z learns from his mistakes! When Z answers a question wrong on his quizzes, he goes back to the book and learns why he got the question wrong. He won't make the same mistake twice! Believe me, Z won't be getting behind the wheel until L and I are convinced that he understands the rules of the road and safe driving practices. WE are Z's final exam!

The one good thing that has come from this experience is Z's response: "This is the 2nd most important time that I've been soooo grateful to be homeschooled! Thanks for doing this for me Mom and Dad!"

Homeschooling Our Tourette's Kid

A JOYFUL Morning!

My Epitaph

Where Did February Go?!

My New Toy!

Haz Floor!!

Lather, Rinse, Repeat.....

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Christmas Spirits

Circle of Friends Award.

YES!!

Sometimes Ya Just Gotta Laugh!

Thankful?

Question of the Day

October

STUNNED!

Giggles

Making SOME Progress

It's a Start!

STAGNANT

The BEST Medicine!

Accentuate the Positive?

WEIRDO!

Still Here

Slow But Sure

Technical Difficulties

Home Sweet Home?

Our Trip to Duluth

Where I've Been

Good Morning?

Dazed and Confused

Spring Fever

4 Years

Welcome to Spring in Northern MN!

Rule Makers

Digging Out

Snow Day

Since My Last Post....

A Tragic Waste!

Camping Out at Home

"Sealed System"=Planned Obsolescence

SICK of It!

It's the Simple Things...

I wonder if they sell a lot of this?

Passive-aggressive

Turkey Enchiladas

MORE Fun....

Weather Update

No Wii for Mii!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GORGEOUS!!

The Party's Over

Wishing You a JOYOUS Christmas!!

Music to Soothe the Soul

BLIZZARD!

Front of the Class

Heirloom Cookies

Shopping

MY Time of Year!

Tater Tot Hotdish

Moving Right Along....

Sympathy?

More Progress, Despite the Hindrances

Hunkering Down

Money

"school refuses tourette services"

The View

The Music Meme

Lubrication For the Economy

Virtual Barber

Tiny Steps

Aggravations

Life's a Glitch....

Glitches Galore!

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming...

No More Blurry Food

Update

The EYES Have It!

Project du Jour

Pilfered from Dirtcrashr

MUST Have!