How Many Spoons Do You Have Today?

Sometimes I think a friend or family member understands what it's like to live with pain all the time, and then they'll say or do something that reminds me they really don't "get it" at all.. 

When you're diagnosed with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and a thoracic neuralgia pain syndrome, it means two things:

1. You can't remember the last time you were totally pain free.
2. You never have enough energy to do what needs done every day.

Sometimes I'm not sure which is hardest to deal with, but the lack of energy certainly is frustrating!

A very good friend sent me a link to an article written by a woman with Lupus that explains what it's like to live with invisible diseases like lupus, fibro and chronic fatigue.  The name of her blog will resonate with anyone who has such problems:

But You Don't Look Sick!

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If you have had lupus, fibro or any of the so-called "invisible" illnesses, I'll bet you've heard it or it's corollary, "But you look good!" more times than you care to count!

This article is copyrighted, so I can't print it here... but go to this blog post and read

The Spoon Theory. 

I promise you, if you have any such health problems, you will be nodding your head and saying, 'YES, that's it!"

And if you don't, count your blessings, and read it anyway to help you understand someone who does.  Just trying to understand what someone else lives with can mean a great deal that friend or loved one.

Because we may not look sick... but we live with it just the same.

It's Autumn & Jesse's New Car

I say it's autumn, because for the first time this month, I started out the door in shorts and went, "Whoa!" ... and turned around and came back inside to put on long pants!!

Now, as for Jesse's new car.  I've been meaning to get pics up here for weeks.  I took these pictures August 19th, so I guess I'm almost a month behind.

At any rate, here's a look at Jess's new toy, baby, or whatever you want to call it!

It's a 2013 Hyundai Sonata.  A stark contrast to our last car when it comes to the bells and whistles.  Our last vehicle didn't even have a remote to lock and unlock the door.  This car has stuff to do about everything but dance.

Here's a look at it from the front:

Jess is convinced it's the prettiest car on the highway and everyone who drives by him is envious of his new car. ;-)

Here's a look inside at the dashboard and all those bells and whistles.

Even the mirror has electronic gadgets hooked up to it!

 Here's the fancy-schmancy back seat.  As you can see, it even has an armrest that can be pulled down and used for beverages.
 

It's also got one of those deals where you lay down 2/3rds or 1/3 of the seat, or the entire thing, and make more room to put something in the trunk.

Speaking of which, here is the trunk:

It's a lot roomier than the trunk in our old car.  In fact, everything is roomier.  I guess you'd call our old car a compact, and this one is mid-sized.

And here's the back end with the trunk closed!

I think that ought to about cover it... side, front, back, interior & trunk!

Hopefully, this car will last us a long, long time. 

Totaled

A little over 4 years ago, I wrote a post entitled, "Honey, I Wrecked The Car."  Soon after, I wrote another post about how the car was totaled.

Well, here we go again.

This time Jonathan answered the phone while I was out doing chores with Ellie, Richard and Chrystie.  He went to the rescue, and picked up Jess.

Fortunately, no person was hurt.  Can't say the same for the car. . .

It doesn't look so terrible... dented fender, headlight gone, hub broke... well, then again....

Jess had hopes it was fixable, but in Tennessee, the minute the repair bill hits a certain % of the value of the car, it's automatically considered totaled.

Unfortunately, that was the case.  A real shame, as the car was paid for, we had been careful about maintenance and the car was in good shape.

Of course, WAS is now the operative word.

Guess it's time to start hunting for a new vehicle!

Home Again After an Amish Country Vacation

We got home yesterday from our trek into Amish country in Ohio.  I don’t know about Jess or Dad, but I was flat out exhausted!

Here’s what our itinerary looked liked... it's long, so get ready to sit a spell while you read!

Monday, July 8^th: Drove to Mount Sterling, Kentucky, and stayed the night there.

Tuesday, July 9^th: Drove to Eureka, West Virginia, to pick up Dad.
                               Drove to Dover, Ohio

We ate supper at The Amish Door, which had fantastic food and great service!  The only problem is the restaurant was in Berlin, a little distance from where we were staying, and we had to drive through a BIG thunderstorm on the way there.  The rain was so heavy it was difficult to see the road, but there was no place to pull over, so Jess inched along until we finally got there!

Thankfully, the rain had pretty well stopped by the time we finished eating and had to make the trek back to the motel in Dover.

Wednesday, July 10^th:

1^st stop: Behalt, or the Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center in Berlin, Ohio.  They have a circular mural in the building, and a guide explains the painting as you go around it.  I learned a lot more about the history of the Amish and the Mennonites, and even Baptists! 

There’s also an Amish schoolhouse you can tour, and the Pioneer Barn with a Conestoga wagon.  Even if history isn’t your favorite subject, those three attractions make for an interesting tour through time.

2^nd stop: A hardware store that shall remain nameless.  Jess was hoping for lots of stuff like the Amish would use, but it didn’t look any different than any other hardware store, so we didn’t spend much time there.

3^rd stop: Schrock's Amish Farm and Village also in Berlin, Ohio.

This is advertised as “your place for Shopping, Fun and Amish Attractions”.  What it reminded us of was some of the tourist traps in Gatlinburg, TN, with a bit of an Amish twist.  It had a lot of shops.  There were buggy rides, but all I ever saw happen was a trip around the parking lots, though they may have went further than that.

As far as the farm part goes… really?  We saw one pen with a few sheep in it, and no way a person could get close to it.  That’s it.

To us, the place was by and large a disappointment, EXCEPT for the café at that location.  We ate lunch there, and the food was fabulous!  I had a chicken salad sandwich that was on Cranberry & Nut bread, and it was totally delicious.  All the food we got there was good.

By the time we finished lunch, it was mid-afternoon and everyone was tired so we decided to go back to the motel for a break.  Just as well we did, because a bad storm blew in, literally, and downed lots of trees.  We were sitting in our rooms without electricity for over 5 hours!

When the electric came back on after 8pm we zipped over to the nearby Bob Evans Restaurant to get something to eat.  Of course, it took them a while to get everything fired back up, but we all ordered breakfast food, so it wasn’t too long a wait.

Thursday, July 11^th

I consider this as one of our most fun days.  It was certainly one of the busiest!

We started out by driving north to Kidron, Ohio.  A lot of places were still without electricity, but some were using generators for their electric power, including our destination.

 

1^st stop: Lehman’s.  Advertised as “your shop for non-electric goods, oil lamp parts, glass oil lamps, fireplace stoves, food preservation, gas refrigerators, food processing, and Aladdin oil lamps” and “our 45,000 square foot retail store is the finest selection of non-electric technology you'll ever see.”

And I believe it.

There are more things than you can imagine in this place, and some you probably never imagined.  Though touted as the place for non-electric items, they have lots of stuff that uses electricity as well. 

Foods, beverage-making supplies, baking and cooking supplies. . . from ingredients to bowls to tableware to crocks to pots and pans. . . there are just too many things to list.  And they have the stoves and ovens, inside and outside varieties, needed to use for cooking and baking.

There are all kinds of household items, and all kinds of historical items on top shelves and hanging from the ceiling.  There are puzzles, clothing, toys, memorabilia, and just a huge assortment of stuff you would find in hardware or old-time country stores.  IT. IS. AWESOME!!!

It’s really just too much to take in at once. . . and we didn’t even make it across the street to their discount store!

2^nd stop: Mrs. Yoder’s Kitchen.  Located in Mt. Hope, from the number of people there it’s a very popular place!  We certainly enjoyed our lunch, and as usual the food was great!

3^rd stop: The Yoder’s Amish Home in Millersburg. 

At last!  A real look at an Amish homestead!  This one had more than a gift shop… there was actual Amish homes, with the rooms furnished just as Amish people would have them.  There was a huge barn with all kinds of animals, including my most favorite, the big draft horses.

 

There were tour guides for each part, and there were 3 young Amish ladies in the kitchen of one house baking cookies and canning applesauce.  Talk about good smells!  The cinnamon rolls are HUGE!  It all looked tempting, but having just eaten a big meal at Mrs. Yoder’s Kitchen, I didn’t try any of the goodies there.

We did go for buggy ride.  They have a little trail around a pasture.  It’s not a huge ride, but enough to get a feel for what riding in the buggies is like.

They also had a schoolhouse, and this one even had a “real” schoolteacher inside!  She was a very nice lady and answered all our questions.

All in all, it was well-worth the price of the tickets and a lot of fun.

After that we went back to the motels for a rest, but we weren’t finished!  We had one more thing to do . . .

4^th stop: Amish Country Theater in Walnut Creek.

I’m not sure what the real Amish think about this theater production, but it is really funny!  They have a class-act ventriloquist, and the bluegrass band is really good. 

 

My very favorite part was the “Jonas Brothers” when they became the “Beachy Brothers” and did a parody of Beach Boys songs by turning the lyrics into stuff about Amish life.  It was a hoot!

Friday, July 12^th: The Wilds in Cumberland, Ohio.

We checked out of our motel in Dover and headed to The Wilds to meet Scott and Maria.  Once everybody was present and accounted for, we took the two-hour-plus tour, riding in the open air bus.  We’d done this many years ago, but thought it worth another trip since it was so long ago.

It was interesting, but the animals didn’t cooperate as much as I’d hoped.  Most were very far away, and even when a telephoto lens, really too far off for good pictures.  We did have some giraffes come up to the vehicle, some camels were resting by the side of the road in another area, and there were some Persian Onagers and wild deer that were close enough to see well, but that’s about it.

 

They have a carnivore’s exhibit area with cheetahs, African wild dogs and Dholes, but there again, the animals were so far away it wasn’t much of a look.  And in fact, we never did see the wild dogs.

After we finished the tour, we decided to go out to eat and ended up at a Cracker Barrel in Cambridge.  As it turned out, our motel was practically next door, so we didn’t have far to go!  It was so late in the afternoon we didn’t do anything else that evening but go get supper.

Saturday, July 13^th: National Road / Zane Gray / Cambridge Glass Museums in Norwich, Ohio.

Dad has always been a big fan of Zane Gray, so we decided we’d go see this before heading back to West Virginia.  It was a nice surprise, and even better than we had hoped.

The National Road Museum is highly interesting with lots of exhibits depicting the progress of transportation and building roads as the pioneers moved westward.  There was a HUGE Conestoga wagon there, much bigger than the one we saw at Yoder’s Amish Farm, plus several old cars.

 

 

The Zane Gray Museum had lots of posters and memorabilia from his books and the movies made from those books. There was a replica of his study, some of his fishing paraphernalia, and all kinds of exhibits pertaining to his life.

 

We ran out of time and energy, so didn’t visit the glass museum, but definitely got our money’s worth out of the other two anyway!

We headed for Maria & Scott’s house, had a nice lunch there, and before we knew it, it was was time to say good-bye!  Maria was taking Caleb to pick up his car from the garage, and taking Dad home after that, and we headed out to start the trip home.

We ended up spending the night in a little town west of Lexington, before getting to the Bluegrass Parkway.

Sunday, July 14^th: HOME!!!

We were both dragging by the time we made it home, but it’s always nice to make it back to your own place.  To see all our critters and sleep in our own bed again.  We got all unpacked and that’s about all we had energy for!

And now we’re back into the routine, and trying to catch up on our neglected garden and other chores!  Whew!

Jess's New Office

There's been lots going on here, with a trip to Oklahoma, a visit from Randy, and other stuff going on around the farm... but right now I'm just going to focus on Jess's new office.

 He had to move to a new one because the guy had to shut down the company where he was previously working, so no office available there anymore!

 He had at least 3 options for new office space, but in the end he chose to set up an office in B* r e l a n d Company's building on Clinton Avenue in Huntsville. (& yes, I left spaces in there on purpose... this is a well-known company and I'd rather not have this post come up in search results for the company name.)

It's a 7-story building.  He's in a conference room on the second floor (a bank is on the 1st floor). When you walk into his new space, here's what you see:

 


That's his drafting table, and his new computer monitor. Some time ago he got a monitor at Walmart, but the wide-screen didn't work right with his Agtek system software. The circles came out as an ellipse instead of round, and that was a problem.

After some research I saw the best bet was to get a monitor that still had the same aspect ratio as CRT monitors, and ordered it online, crossing my fingers hoping I was correct and it would work like it should.  Fortunately, it works just fine. He now sees round circles again instead of ovals. :-)




Unfortunately, at the same time his printer also decided to go wonky, so he needed a new printer as well.  That's it setting on top of the black filing cabinet.  The tall white boxes are partitioned for holding blueprints, and as you can see, the tables give him someplace to roll them out and look at them.

His picture wall was decimated when he moved as well, as many of them were just printed on paper and taped up to the wall.  Having been there for such a long time, they didn't come off very well and got torn up.  So we are in the process of getting him some new pictures.




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This is the entry (and exit!) door to his office space.  He can see outside if he wants to look through there and the windows in the offices across the hall.

One other really good thing about his office is that he has good cell phone reception.  His previous office space was in a metal building, and he had to keep his cell phone in just the right place or it dropped the signal.

One not so good thing is that the move didn't cut down on his travel time to and from work as much as he had hoped.  Since this office building is located in downtown Huntsville, there is a lot of school and work traffic, so it slows things down.

All in all though, I think he is happy in his new space.  He got a warm welcome, and is all set up with his own key card and stuff, so he's good to go!

And that's just what he's doing... he's already quite busy with work!

Second Cousins

Ellie's Daddy Richard and Bryce's Daddy John are cousins, so I reckon that makes them second cousins!  When Becky sent me the picture of Bryce, I immediately thought of the picture I had of Ellie that was similar, and wanted to put them side by side.

Click on the picture and view it full size to get a good look. . .

Cute kids if I do say so myself! ;-)

Perception vs. Reality

Sometimes what you think and what is real are not the same thing.  Okay, maybe a lot of the time, but here are a couple of instances that happened to me recently.

Mirror, Mirror, Is That All?

We bought Jonathan a mirror for his birthday.  Sounds pretty chintzy, doesn't it?

Well, it was a mirror for his car, as the one on the passenger side got busted.  He looked around at junkyards for a replacement, but his Kia is too new.  None in the junkyards.  So then he checked online and found the best deal.

Let's just say it was over $50.  Me being ignorant, my perception was that price was for the whole assembly... the mirror and that domed metal part it sets in.

When it arrived and Jonathan opened the bigger box, then brought out THIS box:

It became obvious to me very quickly that no way that held the whole assembly.  (Yeah, I know, I'm a real genius sometimes.)


No indeed, THIS is what we got Jonathan for his birthday:

 

 

Doesn't look like much, does it?

However, Jonathan informed me it's more than just a mirror, and has some stuff on the back. . .

And that includes parts to allow the mirror to be moved 'remotely' and such.

Obviously, my perception and the reality were not even close.  Jonathan chided me that I was thinking in terms of prices at junkyards, that no way you could buy the entire thing that "cheaply".

Okay, I'm behind the times.  I just never expected that little bit of glass to cost so  much.

You Can't Get There From Here. . .

Or, Another mistaken perception of mine tied in with a birthday.

Today is Ellie's 8th birthday.  Just amazes me that she is 8 years old already!

I sent her a birthday card with some $$ to go toy shopping, but I was afraid it wouldn't get to her in time.  So when I sent it, instead of sending her the entire amount of $$ I was going to spend on her birthday, I held some back.

I had the bright idea that my back-up plan would be to send her a gift card for some apps for her iPad, and that I would just pop online on her birthday and buy the card, and they'd deliver it electronically like it works at Amazon.

Yeah, right.

After searching around for awhile trying to find where the gift cards were, I finally Skyped Richard and asked him if he knew.  Turns out it was well that I did, because you have to buy the gift card through the Canadian Apple store for it to be used in Canada.

So I signed up for the Canadian Apple / iTunes store, used the link Richard sent me to get the right gift card, and was going through the check-out procedure when I hit the first glitch there... they didn't like the street address I gave them.  Asked Richard and turns out they are no longer living on an Avenue, but it got changed to Street, so yeah, use the address they suggested.

Then I put in the postal code (that's equivalent to our zip code to U.S. readers who might not know), and it didn't like that either.  What???

Turns out I'd been using the wrong zip code.  After checking with Richard to see what was the right code, it became obvious that at some point in time I miscopied a G as a 6.  (It's going to be interesting to see if Ellie gets her mail any faster once I start using the correct STREET and postal code!)

Okay, got that fixed and I finally had Ellie's address completely entered and all the info was finally accepted.  Time to move on to the billing address.

Well, like I said, you can't get there from here.  It wanted a province and postal code for info, and all I had was a state and zip code.

I got hold of a customer representative and asked if there was any way for a U.S. person to buy a Canadian person a gift card.  The answer, in a word, was: NO. 

I can't buy a card in the U.S. store and send that to her because it wouldn't work in her "Canadian" iPad.  I can't buy a card in the Canadian store because it won't take my U.S. address and credit card.

Finally my Canadian Ambassador (aka Richard) said to just send him the $$ and he'd buy the card.  Only when he went online to buy it, he discovered that someone has to be home to sign for the card when it's delivered!!!

They sure don't make it easy to buy anything.

Bottom line... he's going to the grocery store and buy one there.  At this point, she DID get her card on time, so this will be for her "2nd birthday" when they have a party during their spring break.

So my naive perception of getting online on Ellie's birthday and sending her a gift card for her iPad was totally blown out of the water when reality smacked me in the face.  I spent a couple of hours trying to do something that it ends up there was no way to do.

Perception vs. Reality.  Sure wish mine matched more often!

Dancing With THe Stars Needs This Kid!

A couple of different friends had this on their Facebook page, and I must say, it is priceless!  

 
With a cute 2-year-old dancing and Elvis Presley singing "Jailhouse Rock"... how could you got go wrong?

This kid gets my vote for the Mirror Ball Trophy even if he's not on the show!

Children's Christmas Programs

I'm a little puzzled.

I just discovered that two churches I know of don't have kids Christmas programs anymore. And that astounds me.

More to the point, I just don't get it. As in, I don't get WHY a church would no longer have a Christmas program for kids to participate in.

When I was a kid, we loved being in the Christmas program.

When my boys were little, it was fun to see them take part in a Christmas program. It's so cute to see little kids acting out the Christmas story. Yeah, they goof now and then, but that's part of what makes it fun and doesn't detract from the story.

So. What's the deal? Can someone please explain to me the rationale of no longer having a Christmas program at church that kids take part in?

I mean, it seems to me it's bad enough that more and more schools won't allow it, but church?

What am I missing? There must be a reason that I'm not seeing, cause I sure don't understand it.

Seems kind of sad to me.

I'm living in a country song...

You've heard that joke, "What do you get when you play a country song backwards?"

You get your dog back.  You get your truck back.  You get your wife back....

I wish I could play the country song backwards that I've been living in the last few weeks.  Only mine would look more like this...

You get your dog back.  You get your train trip back.  You get your health back. . .

First the dog.  We knew this was going to happen, and I guess it's amazing it didn't happen sooner, but our beloved LGD (livestock guardian dog) died Wednesday.  We got her as a little pup, and she's been on the job here for over 12 years.

She was bonded entirely to her livestock - definitely not a pet.  She only tolerated one person to handle her, and that was me.  But we understood one another, and it tore a large hole in my heart to lose her.

Then there was the train trip.  We were supposed to have left Friday the 26th of October to travel to West Virginia.  We were meeting up with Maria, Scott & Dad, and going to visit Heritage Farm on Saturday.  Then Sunday, Dad, Jess & I were going on the New River Train.

Well, that didn't happen.

Thursday night everything went haywire.  I felt a thump in my chest, and started having chills and nausea, and didn't sleep the entire night.  So instead of being on the road to West Virginia Friday, we were sitting in the waiting room at an Urgent Care facility.  I wanted to be sure of two things before we traveled:

1. I wasn't contagious.
2. It wasn't any kind of heart problem.

I've got to say, the "urgent" part of their name is a massive joke.  They had 3 people working: receptionist, nurse and doctor.  We were there about 3 hours before I had an exam, chest x-ray, flu test, bloodwork, EKG, and urinalysis done. 

I asked the doctor if I was contagious, and told the doctor I was supposed to be on the way to West Virginia.  He informed me that "YES, you are contagious, and you are too sick to go anywhere."

Great.  No trip to West Virginia and no train trip, and the money spent on those tickets, "Pouf!" They don't give refunds.

Now to expand on the health part... over the last week, I've had 3 different doctors give me six different diagnoses:

• Bronchitis
• Sinusitis
• Costal Chondritis
• Urinary Tract Infection
• Gastritis
• Possible Hiatal Hernia.

On the bright side, the doc in the box found no pneumonia, flu or heart problems.  He told me about the first 3 diagnosis, and gave me an antibiotic, steroid, and also prescriptions for a flu med and cough syrup.  The latter two made no sense as I did NOT have the flu, and I was NOT coughing.

At the pharmacy they said that flu med was no longer available and that they had called the doctor to get a different prescription.  I told them to forget it, because I didn't need it.

But then Sunday, a different doctor called from Urgent Care, asking me why I wanted the flu med when I didn't have the flu.  I told him I didn't want it and that I wasn't the one who prescribed it for someone who did NOT have the flu. 

Then I asked him if he had my chart in front of him, and could he tell me what all that bloodwork was they did on Friday.

He never did get specific, but just said it was negative, that the only positive labwork was the urinalysis showing I had a urinary tract infection.  Really?  The first doctor never mentioned THAT!  However, the antibiotic I was on should take care of it....

Four diagnoses down.  But though the meds did help the pain in the chest wall, the pain under my sternum was still there, along with the nausea.

So yesterday I went to see my usual doctor.  Good news is bronchitis is gone.  Bad news is the pain in my gut is gastritis.  And the "thump" I felt in my chest is likely to be a hiatal hernia, and what I felt was when part of my stomach slid through the diaphragm and up into my chest.  To get a definitive diagnosis on that would take an endoscopy, and we both agreed to skip that at present.

In the meantime, there's another medicine prescribed, and a "wait and see" on if it helps.

 

The last half of October has been a total washout for getting any work done, both online and on the house.  I'm hoping I feel well enough next week to at least get back online and start rebuilding my business.

I'm really tired of living in a country song. 

Evaluate Your Life Day

Today is "Evaluate Your Life Day."

Of course, it's also,

• National Seafood Bisque Day 
• National Seafood Month (October) 
• National Sarcastic Month (October)

I got an email from Richard after he read that with what I consider a brilliant one-liner ....

 

Well clearly I need to spend more of my life eating seafood.

That one made me laugh.  He very succinctly managed to roll all those holidays into one sentence.  Awesome!

 

But back to evaluating your life day.  Or in this case, I'm evaluating MY life.  The days of which seem to be whizzing by at an alarming rate at this point.  As Jean-Luc Picard said in the Star Trek movie, "Generations"...

 

I've become aware that there are fewer days ahead than there are behind.

Time, time, I'm running out of time!!!  There are so many things I would have liked to have done, and not likely to have time to do them all now. 

So it's TIME to pick and choose.  Some of the choices are made for me, as time flows by and things change.  For instance, if I EVALUATE my business, it's in need of a major overhaul.  This year has been a disaster business-wise.

Some of that is my own fault, for making what turned out to be the wrong decision.  I went into business with someone, and that business sucked up just about all my time the first half of the year, and it turned out to be a bad move.  That business is now defunct, and the time spent on it a waste.

Well, maybe not entirely a waste.  I have learned I'm better off working on my own, no matter how much the gurus may tout the wonders of partnerships and mastermind groups.

I have also learned I'm better off trusting my own instincts than listening to most of the stuff those very same gurus spout. 

Further, I have learned that most of what they teach is how to make a quick buck, but not necessarily how to build a long-term business.

So in my evaluating the business part of my life, I have decided I would rather build for the long-term.  I'm in the process of changing my priorities and what I work on.  Briefly, that means I'm paring down the number of websites I have so I can focus on certain subjects.  I am moving more into Kindle books.  I'm adding Squidoo and Pinterest to the mix, and looking for ways to get traffic without relying on Google, the killer of small business sites.

As for the rest of my life, I'm evaluating it too, but I don't want a novella here.  Let's just say of all the things I've done, I'm not sure how many were really worthwhile.  But at least I have two good sons on the credit leger:

 And one really cute granddaughter:

 

Now I've got some other really awesome grandchildren, but I can't take any credit for them!  Ellie is the only one with any of my genes (poor girl!).

But enough of this somewhat public evaulation.... I'm off to do some more evaluating of my life and what to do now on my own! 

Time to see if I can take some of these lemons and make lemonade!

 

 

 

Solitary Misfit

I love my family.  Both sides of my family.  But I don't really fit into the family anywhere.  I'm a solitary misfit.

There are a lot of reasons for that.  Some from outside influences, some from my own personal preferences.

I've been a bit of a loner all my life.  When I was a kid, I was happiest out roaming over our farm, doing things like playing in the creek, riding horses, hunting for fossils, writing poetry or reading a book.  All solitary activities.

We didn't have any really close neighbors where I was constantly playing with other kids, and so for example, never got into playing a neighborhood game of ball.  Not once.  Maybe that's one of the reasons I never got interested in sports, which is another one of the reasons I'm a total misfit in my family.

As I got older I did more in school, at church, and at work, so was fairly active outside the home for some time.  But in the last few years Regional Pain Syndrome and Fibromyalgia put a stop to a lot of that.  And not entirely for physical reasons.  It just got so it wasn't worth the emotional/mental stress of dealing with people who don't understand living with an invisible, long-term illness.

And one thing I have learned, if you aren't active, it doesn't matter how much you did before, you're soon forgotten.

So I just got tired and withdrew from the fray.  Socializing is too difficult.  Communication too one-sided.  Why, for instance, write on this blog when no one reads it?  So for a long time I didn't bother.  Why I am doing so now, I'm not sure, except that it's 2:30am and I can't sleep, and maybe it's good therapy.

Why send cards, letters, or emails to people who aren't really interested?  A waste of my time and theirs.  No need to make people feel obligated to send back a little thank you or whatever so they do 'the right thing.'

And what to write or talk about anyway?  Nope, I don't fit in there either.  Not conversant in sports speak.  Not fond of talking politics, because really people, it usually just causes hard feelings, and no one is going to convince someone on the other side of the fence to change their mind anyway.  Same thing with religion. 

I used to think my x-mother-in-law was a little extreme because she outlawed talk of religion and politics at family gatherings, but more and more I see the merit of her position.

So who in my close or extended family would be interested in talking about being an online entrepreneur, and understand what I was talking about if I discussed SEO, Google algorithms, and the latest Panda or Penguin update?  Or backlinking, the best traffic sources, how to find good outsourcers, optimizing Wordpress, tweaking php files, long tail keywords, the best affiliate programs, webinars, cloaked links, page rank, security plugins, or any of a hundred other things I deal with on a regular basis?

No one, that's who.  It's just not something anyone else cares about or understands.

Well then, how about if we talked about science?  Maybe how SPECT imaging is moving forward the science of explaining how even small damage to your brain can change your behavior, and ways people like Dr. Daniel Amen are finding that will help repair the damage.  Or how a SPECT image relates to the field of neurotheology, and understanding the relationship between spirituality and the brain?

No? Maybe the science behind energy healing?  Or how about the role of supplements in healing/wellness or the latest research on health foods and organic foods?

Something totally different then... Farming? Raising peafowl, turkeys? Caring for a parrot? 

Okay, how about the merits of Kindle publishing vs. Create Space vs PubIt!?  How about the KDP program? 

I could go on and on, but the point should be plain by now.  The stuff I find interesting just isn't the same stuff the rest of my family finds interesting.  Our interests don't mesh, so  I don't fit in.  Not in the slightest.

Solitary.  Misfit.   That's me.

Down on the Farm

It's been a few months since I put anything on here, and no way I can catch up on all that's beeen going on, so I'll just jump in and talk about today!

It's a bit chillier today, and seems more like a fall day.  I guess since it's October, that's to be expected.  But I'm sure we'll have some nice warm days yet.

Earlier in the week a dead tree fell over in the back yard.  I heard a loud thump and at first wondered what it was.  Earthquake? Gunshot? Explosion?  But when I looked out the dining room window, it was immediately obvious what had happened!

It's been dead for some time, and in fact, Jess previously cut part of the top down that looked in danger of falling off.

Today he cut it in big sections.

He picked up some of the smaller pieces, but the big sections are still too big to be moved far.  AT some point he'll have to cut it into smaller ones before he can hope to get it moved out of the yard.

However, that didn't stop him from burning what he *is* able to move.

But then, he always has been a bit of a firebug.

In the meantime, I'm working inside.  About to finish up a bucket of apples I've been slowly getting peeled, cut-up and frozen.

During the week, we all stay busy with other work.  Jess has been swamped with people wanting him to do estimating for them, and I have plenty to do, and even Jonathan is working a lot of hours.

One thing we never have to worry about is time to get bored.

The Boggs have had Better Days!

Yesterday wasn't one of the better days for the Boggs boys and mom.

It started out with an early morning phone call from the guy working on my laptop.  Who assured me earlier that many times on other computers he had gotten rid of the same trojan/virus that slipped past my anti-virus defenses and did wacky, not-so-wonderful things to my computer. 

First it popped up a screen from a so-called trail version of program that fixed computer hard drives.  Saying it had scanned mine and found 7 critical or dangerous problems, and my computer was unstable. Asked me to send $85 to get the full version of the program to get it fixed.  Fortunately, I was a little leery since I did NOT remember having such a program on my computer, and they did NOT get my credit card information.

Then my computer became possessed and had voices muttering sporadically behind the blue screen of death. 

But no worries, says the computer doc, he's been fixing a lot of computers with this problem.  Yeah, well that was before he started actually working on MY laptop.

Now he's not so sanguine about it.  Says it's the nastiest variant of this problem he's ever seen.  My computer has the dubious distinction of being the 'fastest & worstest infected' he's seen with this.  Tells me it's burrowed into the worst place possible, the master boot record.  He keeps trying to fix it, and it keeps throwing up blue screens of death.  But he'll keep trying!

Then Jonathan needed to go have his brakes checked.  Been a little squeaky, soft, whatever.  On the way to the shop, he had a flat tire.  He put on the spare and drove on.  Once he got there, and the guys got to working on the car, they told him they hated to be bearers of bad news, but his spare tire was now flat too.

Oh, and by the way, you need to replace everything to do with brakes, and we want a huge hunk of money to do it.  Then after that, you can go somewhere else and get your tire repaired.

By the time the brakes were done, and the tire repaired, he got home in enough time to take a shower and get ready for an evening shift at work.

In the meantime, I saw on Facebook where Richard and Chrystie came home to a partially flooded basement.  No, that is definitely NOT a good thing either.  Having dealt with that more times than I care to remember, it is not fun at all.

And the day wasn't done with Jonathan either.  When he got home from work and walked in the basement door, there was a baby snake hissing at him.  Creepy!  (Time for new weather stripping to seal the door from air, snakes & spiders!)

As for my sick laptop, I got another phone call this morning.  It seems like my laptop is going to have to be reborn.  Wiped clean.  Start over.  Rise like a Phoenix from the ashes.  Why?  Because he can't get rid of all the little bits and pieces of virus hiding there, so he's got to put the master boot record back to factory newness... and no programs left behind.

Makes me want to cry when I think how much work it's going to be to get all my business documents and programs back on there.

The ironic thing about all this is that last week I was looking at external disk drives thinking to get one to use for a backup of all the stuff on my laptop, since it's my work computer.  But we're going to be gone, and I decided I'd do it when we got back from the beach so it wouldn't be delivered while we are gone.

Gotta love that irony stuff.

Okay, better days are coming.  Visiting the Canadian Clan.  Sand castles on the beach!  Good food!  Good times!

Ah, next week... life's a real beach.

I met Bear Bryant at church yesterday. . .

It's true! I met Bear Bryant at church yesterday. He was quite a nice guy even if he wasn't wearing a houndstooth cap.

Now as Paul Harvey would say, "here's the rest of the story."

This started with a phone call. The guy told me he had a shipment for me, and could I tell him how to get to our address. Fortunately, he delivers to the area regularly, so he knew several things close by.

Then he mentioned he was driving an 18-wheeler.

Uh-oh.

I told him no way he was going to be able to get that rig down our road. It's narrow, a dead-end, and there is a very sharp curve into our driveway. The guy who came to clean the ductwork had a van and trailer, and he had a heck of a time getting back out of our driveway!

Well, probably less than a mile from us there is a Church of God ... so we agreed to meet there and he would put the shipment into the back of the pick-up.

As we were working on the bill of lading and laughing over the fact that all it said was "bird" we got to discussing names and that's when I found out his ... Bear Bryant.

So see, I really DID talk to Bear Bryant at church yesterday, even if it was in the parking lot, and not quite the Bear Bryant of AL football fame!

Why I Don't Answer the Phone. . .

I'm not big on talking on the phone. One of my quirks I guess. I much prefer email and snail mail. Positively medieval, I know.

But there's more than one reason why I don't answer the phone, and why we have caller ID. First, let me say if you're family or friends and I recognize the phone number, I DO answer the phone. But otherwise... nope.

Why? Well, here's a list of my reasons not to answer the phone.

1. Solicitations. We're supposed to be on the "do not call registry." But there is a loophole you know, and supposedly a company can call if you have made contact with them. I seem to have made contact with more companies than I remember. Guess it's that Old-Timer's Disease kicking in.

2. Medicare. What's medicare got to do with our phone calls? Well, evidently Jess's previous wife would have been 65 years old this year, and the calls just keep coming and coming, wanting to sign her up for some Medicare supplement plan. I have been very tempted to fill out one of the forms that come in the mail, and put down a cemetery as an address but with my luck some bureaucrat would fail to see the humor and I'd end up in jail.

3. Political calls. I do not want to attend a town hall meeting or listen to the latest spiel. I suppose this is only going to get worse as the presidential elections get closer. Ugh.

4. Wrong numbers. We get a surprising number of them.

Sometimes I'm the one that calls a wrong number. I punched one button wrong last week when I tried to call Jess on my old cell phone and got some guy that I have no idea who it was. I apologized and told him I was sorry for calling the wrong number.

So what happens? About 5 minutes later there's a buzz from my phone for a text message (I can receive them, just can't send any.) I looked to see what it was - it's almost always the phone company - and here there was a message from the dude I'd mis-called. He was wondering where I lived.

Shortly thereafter, a second message arrived from him, wanting to know if I'd like to get together with him. Dude! How desperate are you??? I mean, calling up a totally unknown chick who dialed your number by mistake??? With no idea of how old she is or what she looks like??

I guess there's another reason not to answer the phone any more.

The Impossible Dream

I love Andy Griffith reruns. And if you've ever watched them, you are familiar with Gomer Pyle. Then there was the spin-off of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Always lots of humor there with Gomer driving his drill instructor, Sargeant Carter, round the bend.

But what REALLY amazed me was when this guy who talked like such a hick would open his mouth to sing.... and this incredible voice comes out. Who would have believed such a glorious voice would emerge!?

Here's Gomer (Jim Nabors) in one episode singing "To Dream The Impossible Dream" . .




Of course, Jim Nabors also did a fair number of recordings, many of which were old-fashioned gospel songs. Here's one of my favorites, "Take My Hand". . .



I'm not ready for the Lord to take me home yet, but I sure hope He keeps hold of my hand. Some days you really need to hang on tight!

Rejuvenation and Recuperation

We were on vacation last week. It was a time of rejuvenation. Now I know rejuvenation is defined as:

"the phenomenon of vitality and freshness being restored "

And while physical vitality and freshness might not have been restored, the vacation was a good rejuvenation of the heart and spirit. It was time off from working online, and great fun to visit with the kids and grandkid.

Jess and I walked on the beach a little. Ellie and I dug in the sand and made holes and built sand castles. And at times another little girl joined Ellie in her sand castle building.


We ate out every evening, and enjoyed lots of good seafood.

Jess and I also had a couple of day outings. One morning we went to the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola. The Blue Angles have practice sessions there on some Tuesdays and/or Wednesdays, and one was scheduled for 8:30am.

There was a HUGE crowd there, and we had to stand the whole time, but it was really, really cool to watch these aircraft put through their paces by ace pilots. It's amazing how precise their maneuvers are!

Another day we were headed to Fort Pickens to look around, but Jess was hungry for Zaxby's Chicken. That was in the other direction, and after we ate we ended up looking around at stuff in that area instead of going back to Fort Pickens.

It was a great week and it's always sad when it's time to say good-bye. Richard, Chrystie and Ellie were headed to Minneapolis for the weekend, and Jesse was headed to Tuscaloosa for a men's conference. He drove from Pensacola Beach to the hotel south of Tuscaloosa and met up with some of the other guys from church.

I punched in our home address and Miss Garmin and I headed north. By the time I made it home, we'd been 9 hours on the road, and somewhere between 3 and 3 1/2 of those I was driving. For most people that's not a big deal, and at one time it wouldn't have been for me either. Now it's a different story. Holding my right arm up to the steering wheel and moving it back and forth for 3 hours is bad news.

That's where the recuperation phase comes in. I drove home Friday. Here it is Monday and I'm just now starting to get back to normal pain levels. And the chronic fatigue syndrome doesn't like such shenanigans either. I've had very little energy to do anything for the last few days.

Hopefully tomorrow that will all change and I'll be able to get more work done!

A Clean Sweep

I'm not finished, but getting close.
Finished what?
CLEANING!!!!

I'm trying to get the house back together after we moved stuff around for the air ducts to be cleaned. Jonathan got his stuff back together Friday, but there was considerably more to be done upstairs.

First off, Jess picked up a new air filter yesterday, and we took off the louvered vent in front of it so I could scrub it clean before putting it back.

With furniture moved out of corners, I scrubbed the floors before the furniture was moved back. In the den I also had 3 throw rugs that got washed and put back before two sets of shelves and the rocking chair resumed their rightful places.

Since the ductwork to the den presents the biggest problems, being exposed in a crawlspace under the house, I also covered the two registers in there with a fine wire mesh so no mouse of any size could make it into the house through them. They may chew their way into those two ducts again, but each end is now blocked to prevent them from going any further.

Perhaps the house can "breathe" easier without stuff clogging up the ducts, clean registers, and duct tape applied to ductwork tears. (Actually using duct tape for ducts!)

The floors have been cleaned and registers put back at the top of the ductwork in the kitchen and dining area as well. Rugs were washed in bathrooms, floors cleaned, registers cleaned and replaced...

I have the covers washed and replaced in the living room, but one corner in there still needs vacuumed and furniture needs scooted back in position.

Once that's done, my cleaning spree is over for the moment. My body is not happy with me, and I need time to recuperate before we go on vacation next Friday!

It may not be a totally clean sweep in the house, but it's a lot cleaner than it was!

About that dirty ductwork. . .

A day late and $10 more.

We were supposed to have the ductwork cleaned yesterday, but at 7am the phone rang and this cheery voice said, "Mrs. King, would you mind if we postponed your job?" Before I could struggle to form a coherent thought (I am NOT a morning person anymore), she rushed on to inform me that a lady with FIVE kids had called and asked for a rush job because the ductwork in the house seemed to be clogged up and they had no air conditioning.

Well, what am I going to say to that? "Sorry, I'm a mean witch, and I want you to get your sorry posteriors here TODAY as scheduled?"

So because we had to move stuff away from vents so they could get to them to do the cleaning, our furniture was left sitting in the middle of a lot of rooms for an extra day.

They got here at about 9am today. Two people worked steadily from about 5 hours to hook stuff up to the vents, blow air through, run brushes through, and otherwise clear all the junk out of the vents.

Now I am in the process of soaking the registers from each vent in a solution of soap and bleach, then scrubbing them with brushes (I'm using Jess's toothbrush for the fine cleaning... think he'll notice???), cleaning the floor that was under the register, and putting them back. It is tedious, hurtful work.

The vents were such a mess they had to take both ends off instead of just one, and push stuff through. I don't know if they got any live mice sucked up, but they did find at least one decaying corpse hanging onto the edge of one vent. (Yuck!)

AND he did remember to put the wire mesh barrier up to try and prevent any new incursions of mice.

So a day late, but their part of the job is done. As for the $10, that's for the vent I forgot down in the basement that wasn't included on the estimate.

Now to finish cleaning and putting everything back together. Jonathan is working on the basement, running the sweeper, and taping up the one duct the mice had chewed through, and putting the ceiling fabric back in place.

Tomorrow I'll try to finish the rest of the cleaning and get the rest of the registers back and let the guys help me move the furniture back in place.

and I hope it is a LONG time ... how about NEVER... before we have such a mess again.

I hate mice!