Difficulties

When it rains it pours.  Internet, TV and telephone are intermittent.
We are still trying to recuperate.  Two sickies with no TV to entertain them sucks.

I won't share what Far Guy wants to do to the provider of these services.
Far Side

Tuesday

Not much new here, same old same old. 

I am working on recipes, mostly I sit in the evenings and copy them off their scraps of paper and get them on proper recipes cards.  A few made it to the Ipad.

I have some more carvings to fine tune out in the woodshop if the weather ever gets warm again.  It will someday, but those beautiful summerlike days a few weeks ago spoiled us.

Lilies last summer.

I don’t see many signs of spring yet…patience.

Speaking of patience.

The Calendar Wars:  I try to keep “stuff” on the calendar so I know what is coming up or on what day we need to go to the clinic/hospital.  Someone just writes things down…in several different months on the same date but not the correct month. I shall prevail but it is a struggle. Perhaps I should hang up one month at a time instead of the whole freaking year.

Quiet

I am sometimes quiet, but not very often.  Sometimes when I am quiet I am just thinking, and sometimes I am just pissed.  Sometimes I just lose what little bit of tact that I have.

Some quiet things have been happening. Deaths, weddings and health concerns.

I hope when I croak that some people know about it before reading it on Facebook.  Social media is fine but how about an email to relatives first? Guess I better check my status every morning to make sure I am still alive.

Recently I was asked to keep quiet about some important things that concern me.  I have taken it under advisement but it would be totally out of character for me to shut up.

Recently Far Guy was shopping unaccompanied in a store, a lady blocked his path with her cart…he was trapped.  He said “Excuse me” several times…apparently she was deaf to all male voices.  She rammed him with her cart and his body was thrown into one of the shelves.  He was stunned that someone would intentionally try to hurt him…and he was quiet…I told him he should have fallen to the ground and screamed bloody murder.

Mums at the Trial Gardens in Grand Rapids Minnesota September 2014.

Refrigerator Drama

It is fixed, repaired.  Mr. Fixit came out right away Monday morning and after a diligent search through all the wires in the refrigerator found the problem and fixed it.  Yes his name is Mr. Fixit.

The problem was a coupler.  For some reason it went crazy arcing and eventually burned out or whatever and quit…which shut the entire fridge down.

It didn’t look bad from the outside, the men cut it apart to see what the problem was…$90 later it was replaced and everything is working all hunky dory.  The fridge may last another fifteen years…who knows.

I do know that everything in the refrigerator freezer barely fit in our chest freezer.  We have to use up some of that frozen food.  Two people shouldn’t have that much food hoarded in reserve.  Even if we do live in Minnesota and can get stormed in for a few days.  We have soup in the pantry…we won’t starve to death.

We did get the refrigerator freezer all defrosted and cleaned out!

Far Guy breathed a sigh of relief …he was not looking forward to shopping for a new refrigerator.  Neither was I.

Social Security is slow as molasses in the winter time…no calls were returned on Monday in regard to the Medicare problem.  Why am I not surprised? 

Impatience

The time for patience has come and gone.

The all elusive Medicare Card Far Guy has been waiting for is never coming in the mail.  It seems some supervisor of another supervisor has  stacked us into some kind of immovable spot.  Someone at Social Security has to look at our file and declare it OK and push some stupid key seven times.  I think it has to do with our change of address from last August..but I am told it has nothing to do with that whole situation.  Yes we have another call into SS…seems we call them once a week and nothing happens.  We were told by one worker that we have been high priority since December 23, 2014.  How’s that grab ya?

Begonias and New Guinea Impatiens

The refrigerator quit working.

New Guinea Impatiens

The refrigerator is an Amana and we have had it 15 1/2 years.  I am not certain it is worth repairing but we have a call into the repairman if it is just a relay switch it will probably be good to go for another few years.   The refrigerator just died whilst we were cooking supper.  Far Guy opened it once to get ice and when I opened it a minute later the lights were off…both of them and the compressor is not working.

What a way to start the week…they say troubles come in threes I wonder what will happen next?

Computer Cookbook Woes

I finally got my Laptop out of the repair shop.  The problem I was having is weird.  Nothing seemed to fix it.  The computer gurus were baffled.  Now it is partially fixed.  My laptop does not recognize SanDisk Flash Drives ( It used to…but not anymore)…only HP or PNY devices so far…recognizing something is an improvement!

The Virus Software (Avira) I was running was blocking updates and driver software and not doing what it was supposed to do.  Now I am back to AVG as a Virus Software.  That is what we have on the other computers.

I wanted the Flash Drive to work so I could copy the cookbook I have been working on and give it to cousin Kathy so she could print it out to proof read it.  Instead I ended up emailing copies and three of us proof read it.  Talk about time consuming.  The corrections have been made but now I am waiting for a gluten free section to be added.  Just when you think a project can be put behind you…it stalls.

The Cousins would like to print out the cookbook and sell it for a nominal fee next summer.  I have spent many hours on the project.  I am tired of it and I just want it to be over. Good thing I like to read recipes or it could drive you to drink.

Connie's Vodka Slush

7 Cups of Water

2 cups of Sugar

Cook until sugar is dissolved

Cool. Put it in an ice cream pail.

Add:

4 Cups Vodka

12 ounce can of Frozen Lemonade

12 ounce can of Frozen Orange Juice

Stir Well and Freeze.

Mix equal parts of slush and 7UP for a slushy summer drink.

Recently I was told by one of my children that this is great straight out of the freezer…they just needed to remember to grab a spoon.

Pain in the neck

My sleep is all messed up.  My dreams are strange: In one I bought a new house on the lake and the neighbors wouldn’t get off MY dock… I had to kick them off the dock and sit there so they wouldn’t come back and I was getting hungry and tired and I didn’t have my camera.  In another I wandered around picking up dog poop.  In another I had so many ottomans/footstools in the house that I had them in every room..oh maybe I already do…but I had more and some were really ugly. 

We washed some windows yesterday.  Someone wanted to just wash the paw prints off the outsides.  Someone else wanted them squeaky clean for winter…like clean the tracks out with Q Tips and everything. 

I had an encounter where someone was not very nice to me…in fact they were downright mean.   I was still polite.  Just because someone else is mean, I don’t have to be mean in return.  However it was a struggle for me.  I wanted to be like my Aunt Marie and just verbally castrate them.

The Post Office in Ponsford was closed yesterday.  Not sure why..perhaps it was closed permanently.  I hope not as it is my favorite Post Office.  There were no signs on the door, the doors were just locked.  Strange.

We drove out to Shell Lake.

Parts of the lake had ice.  There were a bunch of ducks swimming and flying around.  Do you see that dark area off to the right?  That would be a Wild Rice bed.

  I am not positive what kind of duck…possibly a Bufflehead.

The daylight ends before I am ready.  The dog is still confused.  It gets dark at 5 PM.

Yup that is ice alright.   It was wonderful to see the sun.  These dreary November days are mainly cloudy and grey…so a day of sunshine should be celebrated.  One day of sunshine for every five days of dreary.

Tension…stress…who knows but I have a pain in my neck that settles down under my left shoulder blade. By evening I am shot. Maybe it was the raking, or maybe I slept wrong. The cold weather seems to agitate it further. Maybe it is still the Lymes settling into a different area of my body. Maybe it is the freaking flu shot. Maybe I am just O.L.D. Whatever it is I wish it would go away.

Far Guy is still recovering from his oral surgery.  He lost all the sutures. He wanted me to look at the big gaping hole in his mouth, I said “No Thanks.”  He swishes with salt water many times a day.  He still has pain but little by little he is recovering:) 

December First

I do declare that the Christmas Season has begun..but only because the calendar says so.. the stores began their Christmas season in August..they better dust off that stuff they have been trying to sell since August.. either that or put it on sale. Who wants to buy dusty old crap anyway.


I would just as soon hibernate until New Years Eve.. that's right I could sleep from the night before Thanksgiving until the eve of the New Year no problem. If I didn't have children, that have children I would totally "ignore the hype" that goes with these holidays.

I just want an old fashioned Christmas, all homemade gifts, someone playing the piano and singing, stringing popcorn and cranberries to put on the tree, reading the Christmas Story out of the Bible by candlelight, going for a sleigh ride. I know, I know I was born 100 years too late. It kind of sucks, everyone else loves these holidays, I am the odd person out, my girls are quite used to my complaining, they tune me out over the holidays... Far Guy too. Yup, I must be related to Scrooge.. I must be his sister.

I believe that my girls always say "Mom and Dad are having Christmas" because they know that if it is at their house I won't drag out even one decoration. Don't mind me..I will plug along through the holidays..I will entertain you with some stories..I will show you some of my Christmas tree ornament collection, it is way to large to be shown in one year...last year I just scratched the surface. I will slowly decorate for the Christmas Holiday. With the emphasis on slowly..


So are you brave enough to meander along with this blog for the next 24 days? Misery loves company.. To my youngest daughter..who will call every day until the tree is up..cause "You know you have to get that tree up before we get there." It is only December first..I still have time:)