computers and printers

This is my second post of the day. But I need to get this off my chest.

I got a new computer to replace one that went missing on me. I had nothing but problems with it from the time I took it out of the box so today I scheduled it to be taken back to the repair shop to be fixed. I had called Toshiba last week to get what they call a Depot order and was told that I needed to pay $24.99 for shipping before they would have UPS deliver a return box for me. I paid that and it was delivered to me on Tuesday. I packed the computer up and called UPS to have them come back and get the box. I was informed by the UPS person if I wanted to schedule someone to come and get the package I needed to pay and additional $9.28! WTH! It has now cost me over $35.00 to return a computer that didn't cost me anything to have shipped new from Wal-Mart. I don't have to pay to have it shipped back to me because I have already paid that thank goodness. I just hope they fix the problem and when I get it back in 7-10 BUSINESS days it works the way a new computer should. If I spent all that money for something that is a piece of crap I'm going to be real upset.

So that brings me to the business of this computer I'm using now. First of all the R key is missing. Then it must have a virus or something because it's slower than heck. I'm typing away and what I'm typing isn't showing up on the screen when I type it. I'm 4 words ahead of what's showing up. I went back to using my yahoo e-mail account becuse Charter.net wasn't working right anymore. Not that I liked it to start with but I switched to it because at the time Yahoo didn't support one of the programs I needed to open some e-mails. Everytime I tried to open something with flash player it crashed. I'm having that problem again but at least Yahoo has fixed the problem so I can open all my e-mails now. Flash Player still crashes but it doesn't interfer with me opening them.

Another problem with the computer I'm using now is the mouse pad is screwed up. I don't know why but the cursor jumps all over the place. I'll be typing away and move my hand and the cursor jumps back into the text I have just typed. So I have to keep fixing things. If I use an external mouse it doesn't happen but I have no where to put a mouse and mouse pad on my computer stand.

Also with this computer the printer doesn't want to print. I can set something up to print and it won't print till I turn the computer back on after a complete shut down. I have tried to uninstall and reinstall the software but it doesn't help. I even called the company that makes my printer and they say it's a firewall problem. I have tried to do what they say and it doesn't work. So I'm stuck without a printer till I get my new computer back and reinstall software on it. I need to be able to print coupons and I can't. It's going to make shopping harder without the coupons.

I hope I get my computer back fast and it works. Once I get it back I have to figure out how to download my stuff off the cloud drive so I have all my programs and features on the new computer that I had on the old one.

How things used to be

For what seems like a whole week now we have had rain. I know we need the rain but does it have to come every day? Yesterday was nice and it was hot so I guess today being rainy and cool would be a break. It's just Monday, Tuesday and Wendesday it rained most of the day.

My youngest son is at the Cape this week for his vacation with his dad. I hope he didn't have all the rain we had here. I know when I talked to him on Wednesday he said it hadn't rained there on that day but he did have rain on Monday and Tuesday. When you go to the Cape you want to go to the beach and if it's raining you can't go. He did say he went to the beach on Saturday and he said the water was warm. I'm so happy that he gets this chance to go there every year. I know when I was in my teens I had a lot of fun when we went camping down there. Of course when we went we camped in a tent trailer way out on the tip of the Cape so it's different from him staying in the time share mid-cape. I think we had more fun than he has because we made our own fun instead of going to the mall or mini-golf. We rode bikes, went hiking on the dunes and walked through downtown P-Town and watched everyone. We ate meals that we made ourselves on a camp stove or caught in the ocean and cooked. We had campfires and roasted marshmellows  till they were brown. (in my case burned black) We didn't look to our mother to entertain us we made our own fun.

If we wanted to talk to someone on the phone we walked to the campground store to use the pay phone and fed it change to get our call through. There were no cell phones to make calls on. We didn't have video games to take with us because that would mean bringing the TV and it was a big one and not easy to move around. Besides the reason for camping was to get away from all the comforts of home and have fun in the great outdoors. We had fun without the things our kids HAVE to have now a days. I don't think either of my boys could camp the way I did. I don't know because I don't have the opportunity to take them on the adventures I went on. Heck I'm not even sure if they can ride bikes. I learned on a very small 2 wheeler that had been passed down from my Aunt when she was little. I also don't think I can get my older son out of the house never mind out of a  trailer. And if I did get him to go camping I don't think he would camp in a pop up trailer like I did. He'd want a motor home because it has all the comforts of home. Kids today are spoiled and we did it to them. We gave them hand held gaming devices and cell phones. We gave them the X-Box's or Wii's or Play Staions. We spoiled our children into thinking they can't live without these things.

How I wish I could go back in time and say to my mother "Thank you for bringing me to such a wonderful place." I loved camping and wish I could have shared it with my children. It's a shame that they will never know how nice it is to hear the sound of the sea crashing on the beach or the peepers in the marshes at night. Now all they hear is the trucks going up and down the highway. There are times when you can't even hear the birds over the noise from the main street here where I live. I miss these things.

Whateva

Today started out well with me over sleeping so I kind of figured it was going to be "one of those days." Well it turned out it was.

I had to go see the pulmanologist today to have my twice yearly check that I'm compliant with my C-Pap machine. I had one a few years ago and they found me non-compliant and took it away and I fought hard to get it back. Well I got up, had 2 cups of coffee and got dressed in record breaking speed for me and was waiting outside for the cab to come get me. I even called the company to find out if the cab would be one time and they said yes he will be here at 8:45 which was my pick up time. Well after sitting on the steps where I could watch traffic to see the van for 10 minutes (without him showing up) I called the company again and was told the driver would be there to get me in 5 minutes. I had to tell the dispatcher that if the driver was following a GPS's directions it wouldn't bring him to my building and gave him the directions on how to find it. I sat there for another 7 minutes till I say the vehicle that I was told to look for and walked to the parking lot. Of course the driver went right past the entrance to the parking lot and I had to walk up and flag him down when he turned around. Why can't anyone realize that if the building is at the end of a parking lot they need to pull in and drive down towards the end of it. My building faces the main street up here where I live and I am always having to walk to the main street to get in. I don't walk to well and it's uphill to get there which makes it harder.

Well after getting in the cab (12 minutes late) we started up to Worcester. On a good day to get to the doctors it takes 20 minutes so we were going to be late to start with and this doctor tells people to be early so they can fill out paper work and go through the check in process. If one person is late it screws with the whole schedule. I was supposed to be the doctors second patient of the day today. We got almost into Worcester and the driver got a call and the next thing I knew he was getting off the next exit and going back the way we came on a surface road. I asked him what was going on and told him I was going to be late for my appointment and in typical Russian he said don't worry he just had to go a little way to pick up someone. Well after traveling the whole town of Auburn he managed to pick up the person he was sent back to get and guess what? I was late for my appointment. By the time he got me to my doctor's it was 15 minutes after my scheduled time. I decided to see if they would still take me anyway and stood in line to check in. The woman at the front desk was in a really good mood and after I explained that I knew I was late but was at the mercy of the cab company she went to the back to see if they would indeed see me today. When she came back she said they would but I would have to wait a while. I immediatly got on the phone to MART to let them know that 1) The driver was not only late picking me up but turned around when he was almost to my destination to go all the way across town to get someone else and 2) I wouldn't be out at my scheduled time as I was going to have to wait to be seen because of reason 1. The woman I spoke with is someone I have spoken with many times and when she hears my name I think she cringes. They have a complaint line set up for things like this and I use it when ever the cab companies screw my rides up. Some weeks when I have a lot of appointments I end up calling in on every one. Either the cab isn't there when they should be or they don't come back to pick me up. I don't usually call till I have called the company and been told a few times that the cab is on it's way. (Ufomism for we forgot you and I'm scrambling to find someone to get you and no one will be there for half an hour or more) If I'm told the cab is 5 minutes away I wait and as soon as 6 minutes has passed I'm on the phone to MART. Some times I make 3 or 4 phone calls to the complaint department because the cab doesn't show up.

I was told to call the company 5 minutes before the appointment ends and they would send someone right away to get me. Well who of us knows how long your going to be in with the doctor or what the doctor may want you to do after he (or she) sees you. I have waited hours to see a doctor and had him come in and 2 minutes later the appointment is over. I ended up calling the cab when I was waiting in line to check out and got a voice mail so I left a message with my cell number asking them to call me to tell me when the cab would be there to get me. Then I headed down the hall to the bathroom. I got a call back from the dispatcher saying it would be 5-10 minutes before the driver would be there so I headed outside after my bathroom break. There wasn't anywhere to sit outside so I gingerly lowered myself onto the curb to smoke a butt and wait. I also had a book I was reading so I dug that out. Before I finished my cigarette this car came whipping into the parking lot and this guy hangs his head out the window asking if I was waiting for transportation. I noticed on his back window it was the name of the company I was waiting for and said yes but also asked him if he was taking me back to Oxford. He said he was the driver and as I put my butt out  and pulled myself up off the curb (not an easy thing to do for someone who has bad knees and back mind you) he says I didn't have to butt the cigarette as he and the other passenger were smoking as well but I'd have to use the front window to flick the ashes out of.

I had to get in the backseat of this little car and that's not easy either. Thank goodness the driver didn't have the front seat back any further than it was or I never would have been able to get in but I had to get in on the drivers side and that for some reason is hard for me. I don't know if it's because I carry my pocketbook on the right side and the cane on the left and I'm off balance when I try and get in the left side of a car or what. The passenger was someone coming from the methadone clinic so all he was thinking about was getting home and keeping his buzz going so he wasn't going to give up the passengers seat. What a jerk. At least when I told the driver where I lived he knew it and even got off the right exit. The trip home was great but the rest of the day was tainted by what happened first thing in the morning.

I think I will go to bed now and see what happens tomorrow. I'm going to sleep in to 7am and hope it's a better day. Good night all.

Me and smoking

Today, yet again, I am trying to quit smoking. I have been down this road to many times to count and every time I say it's going to work but then I end up smoking again. I'm not going to say I will do this and I am never going to smoke again because I think saying that will set me up for disappointment if for some reason I start again. I always feel real bad that I start again.

I was doing good while I was at my sister's in Ohio then she started getting on my nerves and I bought a pack of cigarettes. I only had 2 a day for a few days then went to see my nephew in Indiana and he smokes so I was smoking more there. When I got home it got totally out of control and I found myself up to a pack a day again. I am on Chantix which helps to cut down the cravings by getting rid of the nicotine receptors in the brain. It makes it easier to do without on days that I don't have any butts but the habit is still there. I find myself wondering what to do with my hands and mouth. There is and oral fixation there that I need to get rid of or I'll end up over 300 lbs before the summer is over.

Now I'm not blaming my nephew for me starting smoking again. I already had the butts on me. He just made it easier to smoke more because he let me smoke in the house and let me smoke as much as I wanted. That was all I needed to smoke. If he had asked me to smoke outside I would have thought twice about if I wanted to go up and down the stairs and probably wouldn't have smoked as much as I did. His stairs are almost vertical and the treads are higher than normal stairs so it would have been harder for me to go up and down them so I think I probably wouldn't have wanted to do them to often. When I was at my sisters she wouldn't let me smoke on her property so I had to walk around the corner to sit on the church steps to smoke or go out in the back and lean on the car to do it. Since I've been home I haven't been out of the house much and definitely haven't gone out to smoke. I have signs on my doors saying this is a smoke free zone and smoking isn't allowed in here but I've been doing it anyway. I almost took the signs down the other day but I didn't. Now I just have to let my friends who smoke know that the signs are true and there won't be any more smoking in here. At least I hope that I can keep this up.

I want to do this very badly and hope and pray that I can do this. It's going to take a lot of will power and I'm not sure if I have it. It's real hard to quit something you have been doing for most of your life. I started smoking when I was 9 years old as a way to get in the "in crowd" in the neighborhood we had just moved into. My mother had remarried just after I turned 9 and moved us from Conniticut to Mass. It was a total shock to me to move from my grandparents house to the house in Ashland. I didn't make friends to easily as it was and one of the ways I thought I'd fit in was to smoke. It seemed that all the kids my age or older were doing it. Heck I even went to the store to buy butts for my step-father so it wasn't to hard to buy some for myself. I couldn't remember sometimes when I went to get myself a pack if it was Winston's or Marlboro's that I liked. So for the first year half the time I didn't get the right ones. It was Marlboro's that I liked and after that first year I started inhaling. I hadn't done that for the first year. After that it was down hill. I stopped doing things that I had liked to do like running and playing sports like hockey. I started isolating more and I also started smoking pot and drinking. When I was messed up on either the drugs or drinking I came out of my shell more and was a totally different person. It seemed like I was looking at myself from the outside. I went real wild especially after my step-father died and my mother kind of turned her back on us kids. I guess you could say I was a wild child but not as bad as one of my sisters. I did things I'm not proud of and still think things would have been better for us kids if our mother wouldn't have married the second time. Of course if she hadn't I wouldn't be the person I am now.

So for 42 years I have been smoking. That's a lot of years and a lot of nicotine receptors. I need to keep taking the Chantix and keep trying every day not to light up. For right now I need to get the ashtray out from under the couch and empty it, wash it and put it away so I'm not tempted to light up in the house if I do have a slip. And I know I will have slips, I just have to get passed them and keep reminding myself that I can do this. I don't want to end up with lung cancer or some other form of cancer even though the odds are against me that I won't end up with some form of cancer. I just have to work hard and am going to ask people who read this to pray that I can do it. Thank you.

No luck

I swear if it wasn't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all.

I just got this new computer on Saturday and am already having to send it back. I have problems a piece of hardware on the computer which makes it so the mouse pointer jumps all over the place and I have to use an external mouse which is a pain in the butt. The reason it's a pain is I use the laptop on a computer stand that I have in front of the couch and in order to use the mouse I have to have it on the right side of the computer which is on a slant. So the mouse keeps sliding off the table. I have no room on the flat part of the table on the left as that is where I have whatever I'm drinking and assorted other things that I feel I need to have near me. I have a candle and my nail clippers on it with a pair of needlepoint scissors and pens or pencils. On the part of the table that tips I also have pens, lighters, a nail file and when I'm crocheting the needle that I'm working with. There isn't a lot of room for the computer or the mouse pad but I make it work. I know that I need to get rid of some of the stuff I have on the table but when I put it somewhere else I find I need it and it ends up back on the computer table. I'm kind of a hoarder and have to have a lot of stuff I need near me. Like right now I have the other cushion on the couch covered with the afghan that I'm working on. If anyone comes I'm going to have to move everything so they can sit down next to me.

So that brings me back to luck. I think my bad luck is rubbing off on my oldest son as well. This past week his father collapsed at work. He has a history of heart problems and had some sort of seizure at work. It was heart related and they kept him in the hospital in CT for about 5 days then sent him to a local hospital near where we live. He was supposed to have an angioplasty but they found there wasn't anything that they could do as far as that went. He had had a triple bypass some years ago and they found that 2 of the 3 bypasses they did failed. He has heart damage from having heart attacks and is now a candidate for a pacemaker/defibrillator implant. He has to go back to see the heart doctor in 3 weeks to find out when they want to do that. So in the mean time he isn't allowed to drive alone or bathe alone. He really shouldn't be home alone but my son wants to spend time here this summer so when my son is here his father will be alone. My son has been told his visitation is staying on the school schedule which is he's here only on weekends. He's kind of upset but what can we do. His father needs him and I think that this is the way things have to be for a while. I'm going to teach him how to cook some basic dinners so the weight will be off his father's shoulders for cooking some meals. My son is 17 and needs to learn how to cook anyway.

My son is also upset that he won't have a computer to use till this one gets fixed. I'm upset about it as well. There isn't a damn thing either one of us can do about it. I have been told it will take 7-10 business days for it to get repaired and that's after they receive it. So I think I'm going to be without a computer for a month at least. So if you don't see any posts from me for that amount of time that's the reason. I feel lucky over the fact that someone I know owed me money (that I forgot she owed me) paid me so all I have to do is put the money on my credit card then I can schedule a pickup of the computer by UPS. That will be done tomorrow afternoon and the computer probably won't get picked up till Monday. At least that's what I hope. If I have to figure out how to get to the UPS store it may take longer to send it out. I have no idea where the closest UPS store is.

Wish me luck on things. Please pray for my oldest sons father that things get better for him. Thank you.

My new computer is here

I have been using a friends laptop for a while now as my was lost on the trip home. Well Saturday I was on the phone with my local cable company trying to figure out why my security software wasn't working when the apartment buzzer rang and it was FedEx with my new computer. I wasn't expecting it till Wednesday of this week so it was a welcome surprise. I up graded to a Toshiba with windows 7 on it. Now I have to get used to a new operating system with different features. I no longer have Microsoft word, I have Microsoft Works. I have to figure out how to transfer the files I have on the old computer onto the new one. I want to transfer my journal onto the new computer but I need to find my flash drive and I'm not sure where it is. The last time I saw it it was on the computer table but now it's gone. I'm not sure if the cat got a hold of it or if my oldest son moved it and it fell onto the floor and got lost under the couch. So while my HHA is here I'm going to move the couch out and look under it and get rid of all the junk that has accumulated around it. I noticed that there a lot of stuff that needs to get thrown out and it hasn't been. I'm also going to pull the liner off the bottom in a spot and clean under the couch as well. Maybe that will help get rid of the ants that I can't seem to get rid of.

Speaking of ants, does anyone know how to get rid of them for good. I have tried ant bait and ant cups plus a home remedy my grandfather told me of mixing borax soap and table sugar but I still have ants. They are now all over the window sill because the return bucket had a bunch of stuff in there that hadn't been rinsed before it was put in there. I'm still mad over some of things that were done while I wasn't here but there isn't anything I can do about it now so I have to let it go. I love my friend that stayed here and I know that he just didn't think about things and that's why they didn't get done the way I would have done them. Everyone does things differently and his way of doing things is vastly different from the way I do things. I would never had left his apartment in the condition that mine was left in. He just couldn't keep up with things and my son was no help while he was here. My son isn't any help when he's here with me so what makes me think he'd do it while I'm gone.

So here it is Monday and now I have to call Charter and have them walk me through downloading the cloud drive and security suite again so my computer will be covered. I'm paying for it so I might as well get it on this computer as well. First thing I have to do though is uninstall the Norton security that they put on the computer. I keep getting a message to activate it as I have a free 30 day trial but I don't want it. I should have called Charter yesterday and had them walk me through what I needed to do but I wasn't in the mood to deal with them. So today I HAVE to do it. Wish me luck that I get someone who I can understand and speaks good English. That's a pet peeve of mine, calling somewhere and getting someone who's first language isn't English. They don't understand what your saying and you don't understand what they are saying. In the end I end up frustrated and nothing gets accomplished. I end up just giving up and trying to do it myself.

All in all although I had a pretty good weekend. I had Andrew on Saturday and even over the noise it was nice to see him. He did go outside to play with someone and he took the Nerf gun out with him. He had a lot of fun running around outside and then he came in to finish his homework on the computer. Well that's when we found out that when I changed to Charter's modum/router it didn't let my printer work. I tried everything I could to get the printer to work and in the end it never did. Now with the new computer I had to download new software to get it to work. It's working fine now. I may have to change the color cartridges in it again but it's working fine otherwise.

Sunday I was up, dressed and had had my 2 giant cups of coffee before my ride got here to take me to church. I really enjoy going and I love the people there. I ended up sitting in the lobby for the sermon again because my back was bothering me from sitting on the chair's in the sanctuary so most Sunday's I end up sitting in the lobby. They have 2 recliners out there in a seating group which looks at the pulpit. If you sit in one chair you can see the pastor no matter where he walks on the stage and that's where I usually sit. I love to hear our pastor preach. He always seems to have something good to say that's relivent to what's going on in my live at that time. Yesterday was no exception. Plus it was Father's day so he had a lot to say about that as well. I have to admit I was a little teary eyed because I was missing my Dad even more.

Today is a grey day outside but the bird are singing and that is nice. I love to sit here and listen to them. So people open your windows if you can and just listen to what's happening outside. Try and block out whatever street noises there are and enjoy the birds. Have a great day.

Video games and noise

What is it with video games and boys that they have to play them at the highest volume possible? No matter how many times I ask my youngest son today to turn it down it always ends up back at an ear splitting volume. It's not like he's able to go online to talk to his friends and needs it loud to hear them (although how either boy can hear what their friends say over the volume of the TV is beyond me) as the oldest one took the memory card of the youngest one home and that has his profile on it. Without the memory card the youngest one can't use X-box live to talk to anyone. That's fine with me but why does he have to have the volume so loud I can hear it over the music I'm blasting in my I-Pod? I use the I-Pod to block out the noise of the TV when the boys are here. Sometimes I use the music program, Pandora, on the Nook to drowned out the noise of the video games. They say they can't hear it but if I'm talking on the phone in a very quiet voice (whispering) they can hear every word I say and comment on it. I don't do that to them when they are talking to their friends on line. (at least not much)

One of my best friends is here. He's sleeping, although I don't know how through all this noise. He came down yesterday and brought lobster's for dinner. That was nice. We try to do that once a year. When ever the lobsters are on sale either near where he lives or here at Market Basket down the street.

Around 4 PM yesterday afternoon my oldest son called and said he wasn't coming over. Apparently his father had an incident at work with is heart. I just talked to him and his sister told me he would be home either today or tomorrow so I guess what happened wasn't that bad. His father has had to have 2 angioplasty and a multiple bypass surgery. He has a history of heart problems and I guess yesterday he passed out and they had to give him his nitroglycerin to help bring him around. By the time the ambulance got there he was doing much better but they still took him to the hospital and admitted him. He works in Connecticut now so they took him to a hospital near his work down there. I was afraid for him because he isn't always forthcoming about how bad things are and even though my son had said his dad called and said it wasn't bad I was worried that he was again down playing how bad things were. The last time he was hospitalized it wasn't till I talked to his doctor before I found out how bad things were. There was a one in three chance he could have died. I'm happy that things aren't that bad and he'll be home soon. That means though he's probably going to be out of work for a while and that's going to put a financial strain on him. He was just now getting things back in order financially. When his youngest daughter and her ex-husband left the house they lived in together they left him in a bad state financially. They hadn't been paying their part of the bills for quite a while and my son's father was trying to do it all himself. Now he's going to be back in that boat again because he can't work. I wish there was something I could do for him but he won't let me.

I asked my youngest son to turn the TV down 5 minutes ago and then watched him turn it back up one minute later. I know he doesn't have a hearing loss. It must be selective hearing. All kid's between the age of 7 and 19 have it. Most adults have it as well. They only hear what they want to. That's fine as long as it doesn't desturb the people around them like the TV is doing now for me. I have turned the volume up as loud as I can stand on my I-Pod. If I turn it up any louder I'm going to blow my ear drums out. That may be a way to get out of hearing the TV when the kids are playing so maybe I'll do that. It would mean though that I won't be able to hear my TV shows so there are drawbacks to doing that. I don't know what to do.
Any suggestions?

Daddy

Last night on Face Book there was a post about my dad. One of my cousins had made a post of a picture montage set to music. It had pictures of my dad I had never seen set to music and the music it was set to was one that my dad would have loved. It was an old time country song and it and the pictures made me cry. I couldn't help myself and watched it over and over and every time I saw it it made me cry more and more.

So today I'm sitting here missing my dad even more. I didn't sleep to well last night because I had dreams of my dad. We were in TX and I was chasing him to talk to him but the more I ran towards him the further away he got. I'm thinking now that it was his way of saying maybe I need to let go and let him go to his final reward. I truly feel he has gone to heaven to be with his mother, father and young son that died way to early in his life. I also believe he's there with my youngest sister's baby that died at 6 weeks.

So Dad here is me trying to let go. I'm going to say good bye for the last time today. I will never forget you even though I hadn't seen you in about 6 years. There was a time I hadn't seen you since I was 6 and then saw you when I was 24. Then again I didn't see you for a few years until I moved to Florida to stay with you. Then there was another gap of over 20 years neither one of us was in touch either because I didn't have your number or you didn't have mine. But in the past few years we had kept in touch by calling every week. I may not have know what was going on day by day but I felt I knew you very well. You had a quirkey sense of humor that a lot of people didn't get. Lord knows some of our family didn't. But it made me love you more. You could always find humor in what ever situation you got into. I remember getting off the phone sometimes a just laughing till I cried. Most of the stuff you told me that was funny I ended up passing on to my friends. I especially liked what you said you wanted done when you died. Even though one of my sisters told me never to repeat that I told people about it and it did help me to think about that when you passed.

Today is a busy day so I'm going to stop now. I don't want to be crying when I go grocery shopping. I will always remember you and never stop loving you. Your stories will keep me going for now. I'm trying to get others who knew you better to send me some of their favorite stories of you so I can put together a memory book of you to pass on to my kids. I think it will help them understand where I got my sense of humor from.

So in closing Dad. I love you and miss you. I hope your not mad at me for not calling that last month that you were alive. I was just so wrapped up in dealing with my sister that it never crossed my mind that I may never talk to you again. I'm so sorry for that. Be in peace and take care of others that are there with you. Bye.

Shopping

I HATE SHOPPING. and if you didn't hear this then I HATE SHOPPING.

I had to go shopping today and have to go tomorrow. It doesn't matter if it's cloths shopping or food shopping I hate to do it. If I could get everything I needed shipped to my house by going on the internet to do it I would. That is the only way I can tolerate any kind of shopping. I guess it's because I can take my time and check out different sites to see where I can get the best price for things.

I needed to get water for the month today so that meant a trip to Auburn and the BJ's up there. I also had a check that I wanted cashed so I thought I'd go to Market Basket to do that. Well I got to Market Basket only to be told that they don't cash the type of check I had. So that meant a trip to Wally world because I knew that for a small fee I could cash it there. I was already planning on cashing 2 other checks I had gotten as rebates for lost money in the washer there so I decided to just bite the bullet and go today. (of course what happens? I get another check today that I have to cash) When I get to Wally World of course there is only one person working at the service desk and a line of 3 people ahead of me. Not only was this poor woman doing returns but she was answering phones and cashing checks plus what ever else needed to be done at the service desk. It was well before noon and the other person who was supposed to be there was at lunch. I feel sorry for the poor person who was waiting for someone at the Site Pick-up desk because even after a supervisor called no one showed up there. I was in line for 30 minutes to do what I had to do and when I was done the woman in line behind me got passed over because some young snot nosed yuppy had to jump the line to try and get out faster than anyone else. As I was leaving I said to the woman working the service desk "By the way, this woman was next in line" and got a dirty look from a few people over that. The woman in line behind me was actually beside me as she needed to hold onto something. She wasn't any spring chicken and to top it all off she was legally blind. Guess everyone thought she was standing there for her health.

I finally ended up at BJ's to shop but before I got there I stopped at McDonald's to get something to eat. I had my friend with me and I think he really wanted to go inside and sit down to eat but I was in a time crunch because I had spent 30 minutes at Wal-Mart waiting on getting waited on. I had told my parapaligic friend who's van I had borrowed that I would only be and hour and a half and it was getting down to the wire with time so I did the drive thru to try and save some time. Well that didn't work to well either. I ended up going inside because they didn't get my order right. It's a good thing I looked at it before I left the parking lot or I may have not had lunch. I was so hungry that in the time it took me to get about a mile and a half down the road through 2 lights I had my burger done. I ended up eating the fries after I got done in BJ's.

So that brings me to BJ's. I had brought back 6 empty 5 gallon jugs. I needed to get 6, 5 gallon jugs full of water. Now if you don't know about BJ's it's a wholesale club like Costco and Sam's club. It's huge. Of course what I needed were on opposite sides of the store. The water is in the back on one side and the artificial sugar I wanted is in the middle on the other side of the store. I had asked when I came in to have someone meet me near the water to put it in the carrige for me and after waiting for 10 minutes and not having anyone show up I asked another customer to help me. He was real nice. I've found that it's easier to ask another customer to help rather than wait for someone to show up to help. So here I go pushing a loaded cart from one side of the store to the other. Now in the front of the store is the candy, nuts and baked goods. All impulse buys and I'm kicking myself now for not getting muffins. Then there's the check out. I got lucky and the supervisor was talking to the check out girl when I got in line and there was no one behind me so she asked the girl if she thought she could move the water jugs and would she mind doing it for me. The girl said she would help and now I'm wondering if maybe I should have given her a tip for helping me. I got the water in then it was off to Oxford

I had one more stop and that was the pharmacy in Oxford. I had a script I had dropped off before going to Wal-Mart and another one that I had called in earlier in the week. So after getting the green dot moneypac to reload my pre-paid credit card and telling the girl I had 2 prescriptions she located one then looked again for the second one not only once but twice in the bin then went to the computer to look me up to make sure I had 2 prescriptions. I guess the computer said that there were 2 filled and waiting for me to pick up so it was back to the bin for the third time where she found the script IN THE FRONT. Then it was time to pay for everything. I wanted to put $333.00 on my credit card so with the fee I gave her $338.00. She acted like a monkey doing math trying to figure out if 1-$100.00 bill, 2-$50.00 bills, 6-$20.00 bills and 8-$1.00 bills added up to $338.00. She added it up twice then asked someone else in the back to add it up as well. This is what not only graduated from high school but also from Pharmacy Tech school and she can't add?

I finally got home and then it was time to get what I had bought into the house. Thank goodness for another resident up here. He's a real sweetheart. I had taken in 2 jugs of water and one bag of groceries and saw him and asked him if he would help bring the rest in. He got the rest of the water in for me and the 2 bags of groceries as well. He even waited while I took what was on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator out to fix the shelf and put the stuff back on it to make sure I got a jug of water on the cooler.

By the way did I mention I HATE SHOPPING?

Tuesday

Boy am I messed up today. I have an appointment with my PCP this morning and had gotten up to go to the bathroom and looked at my watch. At that time I realized (I thought) I needed to get dressed and go outside to wait for the ride to come. So I hurried up and got dressed and was getting my bag together to head out the door when the phone rang. It was the driver for the company that was coming to pick me up. I told him I was going and that I was heading out the door now and would be outside waiting for him. Well he was quiet for a minute and then said that I wasn't scheduled to be picked up for an hour or so. So here I sit with time on my hands that I didn't think I'd have. It feels nice.

I have a monthly appointment with my PCP. I go to be checked out and to make sure that I don't end up not having the medications that I need to go through my day. Today I have to remember to ask for a prescription for the medication I take for my Reflux. I have to have a Prior Authorization for this medication. I don't know why. It's gone to a genaric form now so it costs about 1/5 of what it did so there shouldn't be any reason for the insurance company not wanting to pay for it. The insurance company would rather pay for other name brands out there that cost even more that the brand name of the med I take. I have been on all of the heartburn medications out there but the only one that works is the one I take. It's getting so bad with insurance not wanting to pay for something because they want you to pay twice as much for over the counter medication that half the time doesn't work. I need something that I know will work and that is why I take the med I take.

I like to go see my PCP. She is about my age, maybe a little younger and has 2 girls around the ages of my boys. Maybe the oldest one is a little younger than my oldest son. It's nice to talk to her about things going on in my life and see how things are going with her and her kids. It's going to be hard to get an appointment with her in the next couple of months because she cuts back her hours even more during the summer as her kids are home. She only works 30 hours a week as it is but I'm glad I can get appointments when I need them. I always book a new appointment when I see her. So when I see her today I'll book my next appointment. I may see if I can go all the way to August this time. I just miss seeing her even though I know I'm not really a friend to her and if I saw her outside her office she couldn't admit that she even knows me.
I would love to have her as a friend and at time have thought about changing PCP's so that I could pursue a friendship with her. But I decided that having her for a doctor out weights having her for a friend.

There was a posting on Face Book yesterday about my Dad. It was an Obit and I'm not sure if it was printed in the paper or not. One of my cousins in Waco had posted it on FB. There were a few things I didn't know about my dad in there and then there were the things that were wrong. Like my name and the spelling of one of my sister's last name. Come on folks, I have had the same last name for the past 5 years and have sent Christmas cards to the person who gave the information for the obit. And as for my other sisters last name if the sister who gave the information for the obit had even bothered to look on FB she would have seen how to spell her last name. In fact if that sister had gone on FB and looked me up she would have seen what my last name is. It's been the same as my dad for 5 years at least. I went to a lot of trouble to change it back and know that I let everyone in my family up here know that I had changed it. There is no reason to get it wrong. I'm so pissed about it it's not funny. It shows her lack of intrest in her sisters. How is that for family. I love her and would give her the shirt off my back if she needed it but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't do the same for me. In the past when I have needed help she was the last (or never even bothered) to give me a hand. If I could disown her as a sister at times I would. I do have to say I am happy that she is doing what she's doing now to help settle my Dad's estate but I don't think I'm going to get whatever my Dad may have left me. I know the woman that was living with our dad took things out of his house after he died and that may be a reason I don't get anything. We don't know what she took and unfortunatly there is no way to find out what was there that may be missing. So it's gone for go.

I have to get off these tangents so I'm going to stop for now.

Is it morning yet?

I know it is morning but I'm wishing I was still in bed. My home health aide will be here in about 10 minutes or so and I need to think about what I want to have her do. I know I need laundry and of course the dishes because there are 2 days worth and I can't do them myself today. What else needs to be done? I want to take a shower today as well but I don't know if I'm awake enough for that. I'm still having problems keeping my eyes open and the coffee isn't doing a darn thing to help. I've almost finished one cup and have another waiting for me in the coffee maker. My arms feel like rubber and my head has so many cobwebs in it you could make a silk shirt out of it. Guess that's what I get for smoking a little smoke last night. Yeah that's right I smoked a little last night. It helps with the pain I have and in MA all I'll get is a fine if I'm found with it. I never buy to much, no more than a gram and it lasts me the whole month. That's how much I smoke. Or how little. Up to three hits is all I need but I'll tell you even with that little I still get a crazy case of the munchies. I think I must have eaten just about every piece of junk food in the house. And then some. I know I had at least 4 mini bagels and other stuff I brought home from church yesterday. Today I have to eat some of the fruit I brought home. I don't want it to go to waste.

I have some sewing to do today. I want to get it done but I'm not sure that I will get it done. Most of the time I'm a safety pin type of girl. If I can fix it with a safety pin then it's good to go. The problem with that is I don't have any safety pins. Or at least I'm not sure where they are. If I do any sewing I'm not dragging out the machine, I'll do it by hand. I can do that pretty well. I only have to find needle and thread. That may be a problem as well. I haven't tried to sew anything since I've been down here in the apartment and am not really sure where my sewing stuff is. Even my machine. I imagine it's in the bedroom closet. At least that's where it's supposed to be.

I'm a little worried about one of my good friends. He has been sleeping a lot. Not just 8-10 hours a night but all day as well. I don't know what's going on with him. I don't know what to do about it. I know that realistically there isn't a thing I can do. He will do what he wants to do and I can't stop him from doing it. I just wish he could listen that maybe he has a problem. Now I'm being bossy like my sister in Ohio. I did find out before I went out there that I'm more like her than I thought I was. I didn't know I was that bossy until I started talking about her and my friends told me it sounded like me. I'm trying to stop that behavior. I don't want people to think I'm real bossy. I also don't want to be like my sister and always have a frown on my face. I've been doing my best to smile all day no matter how bad I feel and no matter what bad stuff happens to me. So far it's been a struggle but I'm working on it.

I had read a study that said 100 people were asked to tell the age of some one. First they looked at people who had a neutral look on their faces. Just about all of them guess the peoples age to the year. Then they asked them to look at people who were frowning or showing a mad face and they guessed the ages of the subjects was older. Some of them up to 10 years older. Then they asked them to tell the age of the people who were smiling and guess what? They all said that the people were years younger than their actual age. Again some of them looked up to 10 years younger. So that means I'm going to smile a lot more. I want to look younger than I do. I have been told (despite the fact that I frown sometimes) that I don't look younger than I do anyway so if I can find a way to take more years off I will.

So people out there SMILE.

Sunday

There is a country song I want to quote but I can't remember all the words so I won't till I do remember the words. Any way now that we are past that, once I remember I'll post it.

I had no problem getting up this morning (at the unGodly hour of 6:15 which I choose to get up at for some strange reason) and getting going to church. Once there a lot of people offered their condolances for the loss of my Dad. It was so nice to get the support there. Everyday without him is getting better and better. I can deal with a lot more now and am not relying on the Xanax to numb me into oblivion. In fact I haven't taken and extra one in 3 days now.

We had a wonderful service today celebrating our recient grads and the teachers in our church. There were gifts for the High School and College grads and all of the kids who particapate or even come to church were brought up to preform in front of the church. Some of the kids go to a program on Wednesday night as well as Sunday School and they did something as well. It was a very uplifting service but as things go as soon as the Pastor was to start his sermon I had to go to the bathroom. I have no idea why this happens to me every time I go to church but I've started to anticipate it and get out before the Pastor starts the reading. Today I missed the reading but did hear the sermon which was wonderful. I usually sit in the lobby after I go to the bathroom and today was no different but when I sat down one of the women from the church came up from lower part of the church with her (now) 2 year old son. Where has the time gone? It seems like last week he was a little baby. After church we had a contental breakfast which was nice as well. It got real loud when the kids started running around and yelling because we were in what is the gym of the church school (it's also where the kids eat lunch during school) but it was still nice. I'm glad I stayed. I ended up coming home with a big bag of mini bagels and a big bag of mixed melons. My oldest was up when I got home and took the bag of fruit and started picking out of it and eating it. I'm glad I brought it home. Now I have fruit for the week. And bagels. I'm going to freeze some of those in a little bit to take out later as I want them.

I have a bone to pick with whom ever will listen. If I was to send you to the store for large lawn and leaf bags would you come back with the big black or green plastic bags or big paper bags that you use to compost? I sent my HHA to get me lawn and leaf bags to pack up my cloths that I can't or don't wear anymore and she came back with big paper bags that you use to compost. I didn't want that type but didn't say I wanted the plastic ones so I guess I got what I asked for. I've asked a few people which ones they would get and they all say plastic ones so what is the reason she got the paper ones? Maybe because I recycle but there isn't any place to compost here and I'm not going to compost my old cloths which she knew I wanted the bags for. It's OK because I'm going to the store tomorrow to exchange them for the plastic ones. I have a few errands I have to run tomorrow and one of them is the bags.

I talked to my brother today and learned a few things about my Dad I didn't know. It was nice to talk to him but the reason I called him was my oldest sister had posted a pic on FB of her with a black eye and wanted to know how it happened. Turns out no one punched her like I thought, she tripped or something and fell into a fence. She had fallen at the beginning of the week and cut her chin on the same fence. My brother said she has turned into some sort of klutz while she has been there. I used to hold that title. I'm glad to pass it on. There was a time it was said of me that I had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Glad most of those days are over. I only trip and fall once a day now. (it's getting to hard to get off the floor and I hate calling someone to help me get up)

Well now the house is quiet as both boys are gone. One for a week and the other for 2 weeks. I'm going to try and see if the youngest ones father will start to let him stay overnight soon. Maybe when the new school year starts I'll ask him. I don't want to pay a lawyer to fight this in court. I also want to see if I can get him to bring him on the Fridays I'm supposed to see him but that I think I'm going to have to fight in court for. I miss the noise and confusion that the boys bring with them when they are here. I do cherish the quiet during the week but love it when the boys are here. I miss them when they go home. So for the rest of the day I'm here by myself and am trying to stay awake. I did go in to take a nap for a while but got woke up when the oldest boy came in to get his stuff and look for his earphones in the bed. So I didn't take a long nap and now I'm tired and all I can think of is climbing back into bed but it's to late in the day for that. I have to push myself to stay awake till 10 PM. Then get up at the unGodly hour of 6:15 tomorrow morning. And don't ask me why I get up that early because I don't have an answer for it. It's just the time I set the alarm for.

Friday

Yes it's Friday again. Happens once a week so why am I so obsessed with this day? Well not only is it the beginning of the weekend but it's the day that my oldest son comes and the day before (every other week) that my youngest son comes for his visitation. My youngest son will be visiting this weekend for the second weekend in a row. It's only because I had missed my visitation while I was in Ohio that I ended up having him come this past weekend. This weekend is my scheduled weekend so I have him 2 weekends in a row. Happy Me. I could sing and dance because I truly missed both of the boys but the youngest on the most because I don't see him as often. I love them both equilly but I let the youngest get away with more because I feel guilty that I'm not able to see him more often. I'm supposed to get him on Friday on the weekends his father doesn't bring him to me but because I don't have a vehicle I can't go and get him. So I have to rely on his father to bring him to me. At least I get him for 8 hours now which is a lot more than I had him 3 years ago. The only drawback is I have to be up at 6:40 to let him in and sometimes I want to sleep in on the weekends. I usually get up to let him in and then sometimes I go back to bed after he is in and playing on the X-box.

The grounds keepers are here today. Now I'm not saying that the grass doesn't need to be cut but why do they have to do it so early in the morning. Used to be they didn't come around to cut till the afternoon and that was fine with me. I'm still trying to wake up and the last thing I need is extra noise. My head hurts and I'm ready to fall back to sleep but the noise is keeping me awake. It going to take them hours to do the grass around my building and the building next to mine and that sucks. When I lived in the other apartment I only had to deal with the noise for about 30 minutes while they did the courtyard and the side yard. Now I have to deal with the noise for a couple of hours which sucks. They are out there now using the string trimmer around the septic tanks and edge of the building and they keep starting and stopping. I wish they would just get it over with.

I have to have the windows closed for now because if the noise. I had wanted to have the windows open for the day to air the house out but because they are mowing and there is a lot of noise I shut the windows. I have to spray the carpets and air so it doesn't smell like smoke in here as well. I think I'm going to have my therapy appointment outside today so my therapist doesn't smell the cigarette smoke in the carpet and air. It had finally started to smell good in here then I screwed it up and started smoking in here again. Dumb Me.

That is a subject for another blog post so I'm going to end it now.

Here I go again

I am sitting here for the second day in a row in my pajama's. I don't want to get dressed and if I don't have to I'm not going to. If I could I'd go to my appointment's in my PJ's. I just don't think my doctor's would like it to much if I showed up that way even though I see other people walking around in PJ's all the time. I hate cloths and when I have to get dressed as soon as I get back home I change back into my PJ's as soon as possible. It was hard when I was in Ohio with my sister to get dressed every day. I put it off for as long as I could every day and most times I didn't get dressed till my sister told me that we were going out some where. Maybe that's why we went out ever day. Just to get me dressed. Thanks sis. Maybe if I had a car here I'd get dressed every day but not having a car to go anywhere and having to beg or borrow a ride when I want to go somewhere means I have a lot of days to sit at home. I'm trying now to find a way to get to BJ's wholesale club to get water. I need to call my friend up here where I live and see if I can use his van to go in the next few days. Even if I only get two 5 gallon jugs of water at least I'll have some. Right now I have a 2 gallon in the refrigerator that I be done with later today. I drink a lot of water and need to get some for the water cooler.

There I go off on a tangent. I can't seem to get my thoughts together to write something substantial. Sorry. I am still trying to process my Dad's death. I haven't had anyone to really talk to about it. My therapist will be here this Friday so I'll have time to talk about it then. It's tough not having a good support system. I have friends but I don't feel comfortable talking to them about this. My sister's haven't been to open to talking about it and when we do talk about him we have different views of what he was like. It's hard to picture my dad the way one of my sisters describes him as. I saw a different side of him. He had changed a lot as he got older or maybe since he moved back to Corpus Christy. I don't know. I didn't see him the way my sister in Ohio did. Of course I had a big case of hero worship going on with Dad. I liked his sense of humor and she didn't. Sometimes I think she lost her sense of humor somewhere. There were things my Dad said or did that would piss her off but I thought were funny. Go figure.

Well that's all I can say today as I'm starting to cry again.

Time to wake up and smell the coffee

I have been sitting here for about an hour and a half and still can't seem to wake up. I've gone through one cup of coffee and am ready to get my next cup but it doesn't seem to be doing any good. I don't know why coffee doesn't have the "wake up" effect on me that it does on most people but it's been that way for as long as I can remember. I can drink a whole pot of coffee before I go to bed and sleep like a baby. (or a rock as the case may be) Just once I'd like to drink a cup of coffee and have it wake me up.

Middy is in an especially lovey mood today. She had been all over me and I love it. She doesn't often want to sit with me or be all over me so when she does want to lay on me or give me some love I drink it in. Of course first she had to attack my bag that I have yarn in and I've been chasing skeins of yarn this morning. I don't like to do that but Middy looks so darn cute that I'm not stopping her from doing it.

I'm making an afghan for my friend Rich. Today I have to lay out the squares and see how many more I need to make to finish it. I must have at least 100 already made and I have to make sure that I have enough for a king size bed. I want it to hang over each side and also at the bottom when it's pulled all the way at the top. My hands actually hurt from doing all the crocheting but I'm bound and determined to finish this before the month is out. That's my goal for this month. I hope that I can meet it. If not I'll be working on it during some of the hottest part of the summer and I don't want to have a heavy afghan sitting on my lap while it real hot out. So wish me luck.

My HHA is here now. I love her and her work ethic. She does everything I need to have done the way I want it done. Her name is Monica. It's not her real name but it's the name she goes by. I guess it's because her real name is hard to pronounce. She is not originally from the US and has a real strong Latino accent. No matter where she's from I love her and am so happy that now that I'm home from Ohio I have her back. It worried me that maybe when I got back I wouldn't be able to get her to work for me again. There is a high demand for Home Health Aides and sometimes there aren't enough to go around in an agency. I got lucky she didn't fill my slot on the days that I had before. She is here Monday for 3 hours, Wednesday for 3 hours and Friday she's supposed to be here for 4 hours. It works out that she doesn't spend the 4 hours on Friday and now I want to see if I can switch the 4 hours on Friday to Monday when I do need her longer. There is usually a lot more to do on Monday's than there is on Friday. On Monday there is stuff to clean up after the boys have been here over the weekend plus at least 2 if not 3 loads of laundry to do and if the washers and dryers are on the fritz (like this past Monday) then it takes longer to get laundry done.

Dumkupf scared me this morning. When I got up he was laying on the bottom corner (on the other side of the bed) of the bed. He wasn't moving and after I had gotten the alarm shut off that's when I saw him yawn. Up to that point he hadn't even opened his eyes or moved. He's getting slower moving in the morning. Maybe he's decided that he's not a morning person either. Lord knows I'm not anymore. About the only time you can get him to move fast is when you put food in his dishes to feed him. I still have to find a dish to feed him the reduced amount of food for his diet. I also have to find a dish to feed Middy in. And remember to fill it every day. I have to feed her up where Dumkupf won't be able to get to the food for her. That means anywhere off the floor. Now I'm not saying Dumkupf is fat but the fact that he can only get up on the couch, bed and a chair when it's pulled out means a lot. (actually he is fat and that's why I'm putting him on a diet) I have to make sure I don't let him lose weight to fast because that wouldn't be good for him. About 1/2 a pound a month should be good. If he lost a pound a month that would be fine as well. No more than that though. He has about 15 pounds to lost. The last time I was able to hold him and get on a scale he was over 30 lbs so he defiantly needs to lost weight. I'd like to get him to play with a toy or the laser light but he wants it to come to him so he doesn't have to move. I can't get him to chase it like I can get Middy to do. I guess I'm lucky because a friend of a friend has a cat that can't move at all. In fact I've been told that they just fill the food dish and put it in front of the cat because the cat is so fat it can't walk to the dish. At least I don't have to worry about that with Dumkupf.

Dumkupf is sacked out in front of the back door right now. He's actually sleeping on the charger for the computer. The transformer gets warm and that's what he's sleeping on. He likes things that are warm. He likes to get back into bed on my side when it's still warm. Of course that is after he checks out the fresh food in his dish.

Well I have things to do (like starting putting together) so I have to go.

Just another Manic Monday

I was listening to that song earlier today and realized how appropriate it is for today. My home health aide was here for the first time since the beginning of May and it was a manic day trying to get things done that needed to be done. One of them was laundry. And of course one washer and one dryer weren't working and no one had called the company that services them to let them know. I seem to be the only person in this building that does call to get the machines fixed. Of course it's only after I lose money in the machines so I have to call to get that back. It's not like the company isn't there all the time. They have a 24 hour hot line to report machines that are broken. But no one takes the time to call. The least they could do is put an OUT OF ORDER sign on the machine so people don't lose money in them. I always do that so some poor sap after me doesn't lose money in the machine. Have a little consideration for others here folks.

It's a rainy day here now. It started out just gray but now it's raining big time. Of course it has to rain today when I need to walk my rent check up to pay my rent for this month. I was going to have my HHA do it for me but I forgot to have her do it. I may wait to see if the rain stops tomorrow and do it then when I go out for my doctors appointment. I don't want to go to that but I have to. It's my surgeon that I'm going to see. I don't heal well and I'm still not healed up from my surgery back in February. I'm hoping that it heals up soon but I'm not holding my breath.

Every time I think I've gotten past Dad's death it hits me all over again. I start crying like a little baby. It's happened to me twice today. I see something or hear something and it brings on the water works. Guess it's good for me but I don't want to be crying all the time. I know it will take time to get over this. I just miss him so badly. I keep picking up the phone to call him. I don't know if my brother is still using it or not so I guess I should find out about that as well.

I brushed my big cat Dumkupf today and got enough hair off him to make another cat. Now you have to understand that he weights in around 30 lbs so he's a REAL BIG boy. He hates everything and sometimes only tolerates me. We call him my Bi-Polar kitty. His moods change faster than mine. Right now he's sacked out against the back door but in a little while he'll be back on my bed trying to get on the sheets. That's his favorite thing to sleep on. My bed has Egyptian Cotton sheets on it and they are sooooooo soft. I love them and so does Dumkupf. He'd sleep on them all day if he could. If I put his food in the bedroom he'd never have to get up off them. He likes to sleep sitting up as well. He sits against the door or the pillow on the bed just like a human sits on a chair. It's so funny to see him sit like that. I think he does that so he can breath easier. He's so fat I worry about him getting diabetes having heart problems. I'm going to put him on a diet as soon as the food I have now is gone. I have less than half a bag left. I need to get another food dish to feed him in so I can portion control his food. Sometimes it's not just a matter of cutting back the amount I feed him, it's what I feed him as well. I got Iams this time and it's the weight smart so I hope it helps.

Middy is the other cat I have. She is a little thing. One third the size of Dumkupf. If she weights 7 lbs that's a good day. Funny how that works out. I had wanted a big cat and a little cat and that's what I got. I didn't think I actually have 2 cats when I got Dumkupf but my neighbor had Middy and didn't want her any more because she cried a lot. I looked at her and fell in love and took her on the spot. I found the reason she was crying was she was lonely. Once she met Dumkupf she stopped crying all the time. In fact now you barely hear her cry now. It's more of a squeak when she cries. So I call her Squeak most of the time now. She hides when most people are in the apartment and today is no different. I haven't seen her since I got up this morning and may not see her till tonight. She is my scardy-kitty. She's afraid of her own shadow. But I love her a lot. I love both of my kitties a lot. They are like my second round of children. I have more pictures of them than I have of my real kids. Go figure.

Well I have to go figure out if I can unpack my last suitcase and find room for what I brought back with me. I also have to put the laundry away. I'm not real good about getting cloths put away right after laundry is done and I need to work on that. So I'm off to do something even if it's wrong.

Sunday

Today is the day my oldest sister flies to TX to take care of my dad's cremation. I don't envy her that task. As much as I don't get along with her she is probably the only one of us girls that had the means and want to take care of this. I'm glad that one of my dad's daughters will be there with him to say good bye.

On to other things.

My oldest son has decided that he wants to get black contacts that cover his whole eye. That includes the whites. He (and I) have seen this before on the program Supernatural. The demons in the show look at you with normal eyes then blink and their whole eye is black. I guess that he wants to be some sort of demon. He would like to have the contacts before he goes back to school in September so on the first day of school he can stand outside the school and tell the freshmen coming into the High School for the first day "Welcome to Hell". His words not mine. He was talking to a friend last night after I went to be telling them that he was also thinking of tattooing his whole eye black. Not a good idea if you ever want to have a decent job in your life. At least with contacts you can take them out and have a normal work life. I probably should be going along with getting him the contacts but hey they are cool and would look cool. I just have to come up with the money to pay for them. I'll only do it once that's for sure. If, after they wear out, my son wants new ones he's on his own.

He also mentioned he wants to get his canine teeth lengthened like a vampire's but I told him it would take quite a bit of money to do that. He also said something about getting his tongue split in half and when I said that I didn't think any doctor would do that he informed me that some tattoo places will do it but they have to be careful because there is a major blood vessel running through the tongue and if they even nick that it's bye-bye for life. I am trying to talk him out of having that done. As hard as I can I'm trying to talk him out of that.

My youngest son was here yesterday as well as the oldest. One of them was on my computer the whole time the youngest was here and at some point during the day one of them (the oldest blames the youngest) broke off the R key. I can still use the R but their is no flat spot. Now there is this pointy soft plastic piece where the key should be and it's driving me crazy. I'm actually using a friends laptop as mine was stolen on the train ride home so I guess I have to pay to replace the keyboard. I hope it won't cost me to much money to do it. There is a very good computer repair place in the center of town so I guess I had better take it down there and see how much it will cost me to fix this. My computer was about 4 years old and I had the keyboard, hard drive and mouse pad replaced on it. I paid half as much for the repairs as I did for the computer. Go figure. For what I paid to have my computer fixed I could have probably gotten an inexpensive replacement. Now I have to get a new computer and I'm not sure how or where I'm coming up with the money for that. I may not pay my cable bill next month so I'll have the money for it. Thank goodness for renter's insurance because they are paying a portion for it as well. Once I get one then I can submit the receipt and get some more money back, then I can pay the cable bill.

Well all is quiet here now that the kids are gone. I'm looking forward to getting back into my normal routine. I may even be having my home health aide here tomorrow. That will be nice as there are a lot of things I can't do like vacuuming. I'm going to do most of the dishes later today so when my HHA comes tomorrow there won't be 2 dish drainer full of dishes to do. I have to re-wash the dishes in the drainer now so they don't feel so greasy. I love Mike but he can't wash dishes to my standard. They are pretty high so I don't think to many people can wash them to my standards. Sorry Mike. Just getting home was great but getting back to doing the things I normally do day to day will be a plus. I have a lot of things to do tonight so I had better get started.

Another Friday almost done

Yes it's Friday again. It comes once a week and usually I look forward to them because I get to see the boys. This week I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm glad that it's here so I'll see the boys but on the other hand maybe I needed to be by myself to do some grieving. Dad's death is still so fresh. I have to start processing what happened and put it in a box. I don't want to forget my Dad but I don't want to dwell on it either. So that brings me back to It's Friday Again.

There are some people out there that don't know what my dad was like. They see him do or say something and think "REDNECK". Well dad was one but unlike most rednecks he had a lot of compassion for everyone. Yes he called them names that people up here object to but where he lives is perfectly acceptable. I think we "Northerners" need to loosen up a little. There are a lot of words that they don't understand in the south and we flaunt our superiority over the southern's by using them. But there are a lot of people in the south that are smart as well they just don't show it because they don't want people to think they ARE smart. My dad was one of those people. He was a lot smarter than people gave him credit for and showed it in so many ways.

I'm willing to bet no one knew till yesterday he talked to the daughter of a friend from the service. She helped him get a full disability from the V.A. They talked every week and he never told anyone. I talked to her and she is a wonderful woman. I'm going to call her back when I feel like I can talk about Dad and hear some stories she has of him. I also talked to one of my cousins in Waco, TX. I hadn't talked to her in 25 years and the last time I talked to her it wasn't very pleasant. I had gone camping with her, her mother and a few others. I ended up getting real sunburned because I thought I was better than them and didn't want to spend time with them. So I floated out in the middle of Lake Waco covered in baby oil and toasted myself. I peeled 3 times and it was a week before I could lay down without hurting. All my dad did was laugh at me. He said "What ya do something dumb like that for?" And it was dumb. I know that but back then I thought I knew it all and was better than my Texas cousins because I was from the North. What the hell did I know. Sometimes I think they are smarter. They didn't move hundreds of miles away from family just so they had an excuse not to see them. We up here did. I truly wish my family was closer but if we were would we be happy. I know that some of the girls in my family moved because of a spouses work or their work but we don't keep in touch unless something bad happens. Like now. I'll hear from the 2 sisters I don't usually hear from (maybe) at some point in the next couple of days.

 Sorry about that. Went off on a rant. So to get back to things, today is Friday and the weekend is going to be crappy. That means I had better plan on doing things inside. I'm going to catch up on some reading I guess. I know that the boys will have both the computer and be playing a video game so I won't be able to watch TV. I had 2 books given to me while I was in Ohio, one of which I'm almost done with and the other I can't wait to start. One is fiction the other non-fiction. The fiction is totally funny and I started reading it on the train home and was almost peeing my pants laughing. So that's what's going on for me. Hope you have a good weekend.