Maybe we should have stayed on vacation...

We just got home yesterday from almost a week in Pigeon Forge. I'm beginning to think maybe we would have been better off staying there.

There were bad storms around the country yesterday, and the Canadian contingent was flying home. Bad combination. Evidently a big storm in Chicago messed everything up and their flight from Knoxville left about an hour & a half late.

Worse, when they got to Chicago their flight to Fargo had been flat-out cancelled! They ended up having to fly out on another airline, and instead of going to Fargo where their car is parked, they had to fly to Winnipeg instead. So after a little over 12 hours of trying to get home, now at some point they'll have to spend even more time and make a trip to Fargo to get their car!

Now unlike the Canadian contingent, the actual trip home went fine for us. Jonathan did the driving, and we only made a couple of stops along the way. No, our problems began when we got home.

First off, when we drove up Jess noticed the feed room door was hanging open and the feed bucket and the llama's food bowl were sitting in the yard. Why???

It's like this, I pay what I think is a pretty good sum to have the animals looked after. I left a short checklist of what needed done for use as a quick reference each day, AND then a detailed explanation of everything WITH PICTURES to be sure everything was clear. And yet, there were things that were NOT done that were very clearly written on the list, such as:

• * getting our mail out of the box at the end of the driveway and putting it in a bin on the back porch,
• * feeding the dogs 2 eggs each every day,
• * keeping one of Toby's food bowls full of food,
• * giving the peachicks a sack of greens every day.

I'd put stuff on a table on the back porch. I worked hard before we left to chop up enough greens to place a couple of cups full in each of the paper lunch bags, so each day the peachicks would have some, and they didn't get any!

And as I said, I left pretty clear instructions. I was disappointed since in times past one of the kids from this same family had done the chores and did an excellent job. When it's plain so many things were NOT done, it makes you wonder what other things didn't get done that you can't tell anything about.

Well, once we unloaded everything from the car, Jess and I headed towards Huntsville to pick up the parrot. We got her home and eventually realized that all the flight feathers are gone from one side. No wonder she took a nose dive to the floor when she tried to fly from the top of her cage to the den!

I haven't been able to stretch out her wing yet to see if they were clipped or she pulled them out. I think it's a distinct possibility that they were clipping her beak and toenails, and most of the time people also ask to have the flight feathers clipped on their bird. Maybe they got started and realized they weren't supposed to do it, then quit. But it doesn't make any sense to do just one side, even if they weren't supposed to do it at all. Once one side was done, might as well make it even and clip the other side, too.

And coming back from the bird vet's office we had to drive through heavy rain and lots of wind, and tornado sirens going off in north Alabama. Good grief!

And even more stuff... We put some special air cleaners out in the house before we left, and it did smell better when we came back so I was all excited about that. However, I'm not so sure we've solved the problem, because once we got the air conditioner going again, it seems to me there was more smell. I don't think that problem is conquered. Bummer.

Because of the air cleaning, I'd placed a towel over the turtle tank to prevent any of the chemicals getting in there. When I took that off, the smell was awful. Upon closer investigation I discovered some of the food from the automatic dispenser had fallen in a floating decoration, made a stagnant, yucky soup, and there were little larva that looked like mosquito wrigglers in there. Considering the abundance of little black gnat/flies I'm sure that's what was breeding. I put on plastic gloves and cleaned up that mess, so hopefully that's the end of that!

Further, once we got home I found out about a family situation that I think is a train wreck in the making, but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. The person is an adult, can do what they want, and I really don't have any say about it. Unfortunately, there's little doubt that at some point I'll have to deal with the consequences from this situation.

All that was yesterday evening. But it wasn't the end of unwanted problems.

Today I spent time searching for another avian vet. There isn't any unless we drive an hour away. So I called and asked about the missing feathers, very polite like, just to see what they'd say. The vet insists he didn't trim her feathers, that she must have pulled them out. Anything is possible. I've never seen her do it before, but it does stress her to board at the vets, so who knows? I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and presume she did it herself.

I also mailed a payment to my farm-critter-sitter today, along with a note about being disappointed because all the chores weren't done, and high-lighted the parts of the chore list that were missed so it's plain. Maybe the next job for whoever, it will prompt a little more care?

And then I went down in the basement to do laundry and discovered yet another unwelcome surprise. We have glue boards down there to catch cave-crickets and spiders that wander in, but one glue board had an extra critter on it... a little snake. A little *live* snake. (I won't creep you out with a picture... but there will likely be one tomorrow on the farm blog!)

Are we having fun yet?

Okay, I'm ready for things to settle down to some semblance of normal, or at least just toodling along with no unwelcome surprises. So excuse me now while I go down and put more laundry in the washer and dryer... if you hear me scream, you'll know there was something else down there I didn't want to see!

Looking for boring. . .

Three is NOT charming!

Okay, I know the old saying, "Three's a charm." but I've got to tell you, today I am not finding the number 3 charming. Not. at. all.

#1 Uncharming incident was getting up and try to check my email, and once again, NO internet service. I called customer support. Let me say here and now, I have a love/hate relationship with Mediacom Internet. When it's working, of course it's wonderful. But when it's not and you have to contact them, it is most decidedly BAD NEWS.

I have called them many, many times over the years. The first thing the system does is ask for your phone number and checks to see if there is an outage in the area. I think MAYBE that one out of 25 times it will actually tell me that yes, there is an outage in this area and that's the end of that because then I know they'll have someone out to work on it.

But usually I get the "There is no reported outage in your area" and shunted over to a different automated system.

This one has an oh-so-cheery female voice that is going to help me figure out what is wrong. She asks a zillion questions, but the bottom line is a) unplug your modem, and b) wait a few seconds then plug it back in, and c) oops, it STILL ISN'T WORKING and she doesn't know what to do so sends your information to a LIVE tech. (About time!)

Of course, all that rigamarole takes about 20 minutes, and is insulting because anyone who has had a problem with their internet going out, after the first go round already KNOWS to unplug the modem so it will reset.

So after maybe half an hour I finally got to talk to a real person, repeated all my information, and was told, "Oh, there's an outage in your area."

#$%@% No kidding!

I told him very politely what I thought of their automated system, and how ridiculous it is, and how it wasted at least 30 minutes of my time to tell me what I already knew! He agreed, but do you think anything will ever be done?

No, it will not. Because Mediacom thinks that stupid automated system is saving them money, because they sure wouldn't want to have to pay another tech. Never mind how much we're all paying them every month for internet service, and do you think we get a refund when it doesn't work? No, we do NOT!

But I mentioned 3 things didn't I?

#2) I work online. I have several blogs. I was trying to do something with one of them I've done many, many times before, but two accounts have crossed wires on one of the wordpress.com systems, and it won't work. I have an email into support, but so far, the problem hasn't been resolved. In the mean time, that blog is sitting there with no spam protection and is not collecting stats. I'm sure it will eventually get worked out. I hope.

#3) Tracphone. Ohhhhhh, tracphone. The airtime on the one Jonathan uses was due to expire today. I always go online, put in my user name and password, and add airtime.

Well, not today.

First off, the system wouldn't accept the user name and password. Here again, this is something I've done many, many times. The information hasn't changed. I thought maybe they had a system-wide glitch and tried to enter the user name and password for my phone. That went right through. So I tried to get a new password for Jonathan's phone. The system informed me that email was not in their records and contact customer support.

So I did.

Trying to get a straight answer as to why I suddenly can't get into my account never happened. I spent well over an hour on this. When it became obvious I wasn't going to get an answer, I was going to let them put the airtime on.

So the first person tried it, and said the system wouldn't take my credit card. What??? I tried to give her a different one then, and she needed to send me to someone else. (It's called passing the buck, ha!)

I explained my situation again, and this guy told me I could go online and put airtime on the phone without actually logging into my account. So I tried it.

It didn't work.

Then he tried it with two different credit cards, both of which I KNOW are in excellent standing. It didn't matter. The system wouldn't take it.

I asked him if this had anything to do with the fact somebody used my name and address and stolen credit card number to buy a bunch of stuff from Tracphone a few months ago. He didn't think so. Okay, then what IS the problem? He didn't know.

The bottom line with this one is that I have a ticket number, and am supposed to call back in 24 hours to see if they know what the problem is, but he also said they'd know in 24 to 48 hours. So I might call and they still won't have an answer.

By the time I hung up, it was getting dark and we needed to go out and do chores. My lady llama was as crabby as me and tried to spit on me. That's unusual. She usually spits at Jess, not me.

When we came back in I sat down and looked at my email.... and saw THREE transaction alerts from the credit card company for charges from TracPhone! Considering someone has stolen my credit card information twice, and NO, not from on-line..... well, I'm more than a little paranoid about my credit cards!

So I called TracPhone back. As I suspected, those charges are from when they tried to put airtime on my phone, but should go OFF the credit card because their system didn't accept my account getting new airtime.

We shall see. You can bet I'll be keeping my eyes open on this one. If I see those charges pop up on my account, there will be a lot more phone calling happening!

In the meantime, I'm hoping the rest of this day is QUIET. Boring. Serene. Peaceful. Nice. No glitches.

I can dream, can't I?

Life Is A Roller Coaster

Saying life has its ups and downs may sound pretty trite, but the fact remains, it happens to be true. Just looking at my last few posts, I see in one I'm discouraged, then I'm encouraged, then I'm discouraged, then . . . you get the drift.

And here I am this morning, at 11a.m., just now FINALLY in here to sit down at my computer and get to work. But first I need to decompress a little, vent, and get a little more "zen" in my thinking. Ready to focus. Because right now I'm anything but. I'm frustrated and discouraged. It's the middle of the day almost, and I haven't even started work.

Oh, it's not that I haven't been working. So far today I've:

• Fixed Jess's lunch for him to take to work,
• Baked some pepperoni mini-calzones for Jonathan to put in his lunch,
• Fed the turtle and bird on the inside,
• Put feed out on the front porch for the cat,
• Fixed feed for the chicks in the birdcage on the back porch,
• Put feed in the peafowl and rooster pens,
• Threw out feed for the chickens and guineas,
• And gave both dogs some treat bones.

But that didn't finish my outside chores. The good news is that it's beautiful outside today and we finally have sunshine. The bad news is after all that rain numerous buckets and the three wading pools holding water for the animals were full not only of water, but leaves. It is FALL after all.

The critters aren't that fond of leaf tea. I needed to dump those buckets and pools and refill them with fresh, clean water. Well, dumping full pools is hard work for me. Yeah, okay, I'm a wuss. But here I was hoping to have a less painful week since it's not supposed to rain, making it easier to focus on internet work, but dumping pools and dragging hoses means at some point there will be a payback. I'm gonna hurt.

I try to remember to use my left side as much as possible, but I'm right handed, and sometimes I forget and find myself dragging hoses with my right arm/hand. Not good. And I had to do a lot of hose dragging this morning because the hose to the sheep pen and for the birdbath in the front yard was busted. That meant I needed to haul it in and roll it up out of the way, and get another hose hooked up and pulled out where I needed it. And the hose I found was too short, so I had to move the concrete birdbath so it would reach it. . .

Then also some time during this morning, I was on the phone with Jess, trying to figure out how to email files from Microsoft Project. I didn't do very well at that, and that also is frustrating. We never did get it to work, and the only thing I could think to do was tell him to bring the program disks and manual home, and I'll install it on my desktop and check it out.

Poor Richard. How many zillion times have I asked him for tech support long distance? I know it's tough when you can't SEE the problem.

We were also having troubles with the phones. That's what I get for buying the cheapest cordless phones I could find. They kept going dead, so I'd have to switch phones, and Jess had to call back about three times.

Have I mentioned it's been a frustrating morning???

I had big expectations of really being able to charge into my internet work this week, but there are so many other things every day that I have to do first. And of course Mondays seem to be the worst, with getting things set up, like the week's humor mailings, and getting one done and mailed out.

Working at home may sound cool, but it's difficult. There are so many distractions, with things all around that need done, and nobody's there to do them but you. And a lot of people don't "get" the fact you are working. You're at home after all! You can do what you want! And you don't get away from the office. . . with all the interruptions it usually means you're working in the evenings too, trying to make up for lost time.

But having said all that, I still prefer working at home to going to an office. Which is just as well, because I can't survive in an office environment any more. No way I could sit at a desk 8 hours at a stretch. That's why the laptop is such a big help, because I can change my seating arrangements and give my body a little bit of a break.

And speaking of breaks, I've had mine now, so it's time to get to "work work" and see how much I can accomplish. It's not going to do itself, and nobody is going to help me, sooooo... time to woman up and get 'er done!

Downright Discouraged

Most days I might rant and rave about something, but I keep a pretty optimistic attitude for all that. But once in a while, I get more than a little overwhelmed and downright discouraged.

Today is such a day.

I’m behind on everything. The corollary is I can’t keep up with anything! The house is a disaster. It needs a good cleaning in the worst way. A really deep cleaning, clearing out a whole bunch of stuff cleaning.

With that in mind, I got the bright idea I’d kill two birds with one stone and be clearing stuff out of the basement and pod, and be selling the decent stuff and thus making some extra money to use to pay off my computer.

It’s a good plan, except for one thing. It takes time. Today drove that point home.

I’d advertised a nice wooden futon frame we aren’t using, and agreed to meet the people who wanted it in a nearby church parking lot. Jonathan was going to help me load it into the back of the truck, but first we had to get it out of the pod.

When we did, we discovered there must be a leak allowing some moisture in there, because the wood was coated with a powdery mold/mildew. So I needed to clean that off. Once again. . . it took time.

After we got it loaded, I had about 45 minutes until I needed to drive to the church. Not long enough to do anything much really, but too long to sit around and do nothing. Anyway, the point is that by the time we got this thing out, cleaned, loaded, and delivered, my morning was pretty well shot.

I am behind on doing snail mail this week. Same thing with humor mailings. I need to WORK. Online sort of work that is. I’m way behind there too. I just have many, many things to do, and can't seem to find enough time to get them all done. Worse is so many hours are lost to the chronic pain/ fibromyalgia/ chronic fatigue problems.

Like today for instance. I’ve been recuperating from a 4+ hour trip to Marietta, Georgia, and another 4+ hours back. While at the clinic yesterday I got an IV full of anti-viral stuff, and it’s knocked me on my can. The doctor warned me that might happen. Nothing like feeling like you’ve got the flu to help you get better, right?

She had another blood test result back, too. More discouraging news, but not surprising since it just went along with the other lab results. This was a special blood test to see if the body is fighting infection, and it was ten times higher than it ought to be. That means I need to take an oral anti-viral medication now, plus shots every two weeks. I am sooooo thrilled (read that with lots and LOTS of sarcasm).

And while I’m being so thrilled (NOT!), the doc also told me next visit it will be time to start work on clearing the fibrin out of my blood vessels. Previous tests showed that a likely problem. The short explanation is this fibrin coating on the inside of the blood vessels traps the viruses and bacteria, trying to protect the body. However, at the same time it slows down the oxygen diffusion out to the cells, contributing to the fatigue.

To correct the problem and get rid of the fibrin, thus allowing oxygen to get through easier, means those trapped bacteria, viruses and toxins will also be released. And apparently THAT means an average of two months of feeling WORSE before slowly getting better over the next 6 or 7 months.

Well now, that’s really thrilling. (That's more sarcasm in case you're wondering.)

Have I mentioned I feel downright discouraged today?

45 Day Purgatory

It's raining here. Somehow, that seems appropriate.

The Mediacom Cable tech just left. Since the internent is presently working, there wasn't much he could do. The signal is strong right now. (Naturally - it's kind of like having a toothache and you get to the dentist and it doesn't hurt any more.)

However, he did give me some ideas, and some things to note should we have any more problems, as they would help him, or whatever tech comes out, to know where to look. He gave me a great Modem Info 101 lesson, and what the modem is doing as each light comes on.

He was very nice, checked out what he could, and offered some theories as to the problems. Unfortunately, some of these problems can be hard to track down. For instance, equipment can be stressed by lightning or something, and at just the right temperature and/or humidity, quit working. Get away from that, and it works again. Yeah, we've been there before.

And yes, the tv will still be working, but the internet go down.

It's also apparent that I was correct about one thing anyway, that at some point last Friday they messed up my connection from *their* end, because that's the ONLY way you see the installation screen asking for an account number.

As for the "45 Day Purgatory" title, the mail ran while he was here, and I received a letter from the credit card company. Just let me quote part of it:

"We credited your account... UNLESS the merchant resubmits the charge within 45 days, we will consider the case closed. If this occurs, we'll notify you and will re-bill your account for the amount of the credit."

Great. So there's a 45 day Purgatory, while you're waiting to see if you're granted grace, or you have to pay for someone else's sins. You know, purgatory, as in the definition: "any condition or place of temporary punishment, suffering, expiation, or the like."

So by the end of 45 days I will either be free of this mess, or back in hot water, having to pay for merchandise someone else is enjoying.

Yeah, like THAT's fair. What happened to "Zero Fraud Liability"?

Enough Already!

So Jess was watching the news tonight, and hollers in from the den, "Guess what? Colonial Bank has failed."

I'll give you ONE guess who's got an account at Colonial Bank. The way my luck's been going lately, you shouldn't need but that one guess.

But just in case, here's a hint. We have two checking accounts. Jess has one that's NOT at Colonial.

So where do you suppose MY account is?

Oh yeah, it's at Colonial.

(Does anyone have a target removal kit I can use?)

The Hits Just Keep Coming

I am working on such a seriously GINORMOUS ulcer.

After my last post, I called LetsTalk.com. Our talk wasn't very fun, but it was informative. It seems this person used MY name all the way this time, and that creates a problem. Because Tina, or whoever it really is, used my name and correct home address and phone number, they wouldn't take off the charge. In fact, she had stuff mailed to MY name at:

4505 Treehouse Lane, Apt. 8C
Tamarac, FL 33319

Looking at Google, that's in the Fort Lauderdale area. Further research shows it's supposedly owned by one Akiba Reid (as of October 2007). Who knows if that's still correct or if they have anything to do with this. (But if I can find all this stuff, surely the fraud people can too?)

Anyway, from LetsTalk this person ordered:

• Samsung Memory T-Mobile Phone
• Blackberry Curve 800 T-Mobile Phone
• Bluetooth In Car Speaker
• T-Mobile My Fave Family Plan 700

She (he?) also made themselves an email address using my name in it. All too thorough.

So after talking to LetsTalk, I called Capital One again. They told me there should be a message in my "in box" on the online account site. It contained a fraud form I had to fill out and send in. I immediately did so, and by the end of the day Thursday, there were adjustments showing up on my account for all three fraudulent charges. What a relief! (Or at least I thought it was.)

Would that were the end of the story. But let's keep things in chronological order, shall we?

Yesterday (Friday if you're reading this later), I woke up to a notice in my email account that one of my websites was over bandwidth. ??? That didn't make sense to me, because it happens to be a site that got goobered up on the transition from GoDaddy to HostGator, and was pretty much just sitting there doing nothing for a long time. I finally got it to show up correctly a couple weeks ago but had done nothing to get traffic to the site so no way it should be over bandwidth.

Have you guessed what's coming? Yep, when I went to the site, there staring me in the face again was that obnoxious webpage from S*n*i*p*e*r of B*a*g*h*d*a*d. He'd hacked another one of my sites. I hadn't moved fast enough to get security up on all of them.

So yesterday I spent the entire day, and I do mean the ENTIRE day, working on security. I went down my alphabetical list of domains that have active sites, and for each site:

1. I upgraded to the latest version of Wordpress 2.8.4, because in the words of the Wordpress developers "... a vulnerability was discovered: a specially crafted URL could be requested that would allow an attacker to bypass a security check to verify a user requested password reset."
2. Once the new Wordpress was installed, I downloaded the wp-config.php file to my computer, added the four new security keys (which have over 60 characters each), and uploaded them back to the site.
3. I doublechecked that I did not have any users still named "admin" (the default WP comes with), cause that makes hacking easier.
4. And finally, I installed another plugin, WordPress Guard, which pops up another security window asking for a user name and password BEFORE you get to the log-in window for the Wordpress administration.

Of course, what this means is that now for every single site, I have different user names and passwords for:

• Cpanel (server side admin)
• each database
• php admin
• Wordpress Admin
• Wordpress Guard security
• and lastly, for each email associated with that site.

Repeat that over 14 times, and you're starting to understand why I have pages and pages of Excel spreadsheets with user names and passwords.

As for the site the jerk hacked, I never did get it working correctly again. I'll go back to it when I'm ready to do a complete update. And I didn't get through all 14 working sites. Nope, I got down to the number 11, which had a really old version of Wordpress on it, thus requiring a manual upgrade instead of an automatic one, and had just deleted the old files off the server . . . when the internet went out.

That meant talking to Mediacom again. I really wish I knew if the newer Fayetteville cable service was any more reliable. It's such a hassle to change, and I'd hate to do it and find out the new service wasn't any better, or the way things have been going lately, even worse.

At any rate, the first call got me nowhere. They couldn't figure out the problem, and scheduled a maintenance call at supposedly the first available time - Monday. (I guess their service department doesn't work weekends?)

In the meantime, I started getting a screen for "Mediacom activation", wanting my account number and a code to register. So I called Mediacom back. Supposedly they tried doing it from their end. Without success. It took a third call with the guy telling ME what to fill in, before the internet service came back.

But once again, to my desktop only. I can't get the new router to work. sigh. . .

NOW we come to this morning, and we're back to the credit card debacle. In my last post I said the last pending charge had showed up on my old credit card. Well, I guess I was right about that, but this morning I got an email saying "we are notifying you that on AUG 15, 09 at 5:38am, $848.76 was charged to your account."

Not to my old account, mind you. No, the last four digits were the ones for my new account. You know, the one I don't even have the card yet, could no way have activated, and why did they put a charge on that account!??????

Another phone call. Another, "we can't do anything on the weekend" sort of deal. I'm supposed to call the fraud department on Monday and ask them what the deal is. That's the same amount that was charged to Dell using my OLD credit card account, which was then credited back, and now why is it showing up on the NEW account????

And if you think it took you a long time to READ this post, just think how long it's been taking me to DO all this stuff. None of which I would have to do if there weren't so many cyber crooks and cyber vandals in the world, creating trouble and work for other people.

I need a break before I break down.

Cyber Crooks And Vandals

Okay, so do I have a target tattooed on my forehead? Or maybe my computer is sending out bad vibes? Perhaps the planets are misaligned preventing my good fortune?

Whatever the reason, I'm working on an ulcer. Seriously.

I'm still trying to straighten out the credit card mess. The last pending charge finally showed up today, so I guess I have to call that company and fight it out. THEN I have to fill a "dispute the charge" form at the credit card company.

What gets me is these charges show up on your account AFTER you've already canceled your credit card. I got an email this morning that the new one has been mailed to me. Unfortunately, I'm still dealing with the fall-out from the old one.

I have a name for the cyber crook. Tina Furetado. I'm not sure of the spelling of that last name though. I was having a hard time understanding the guy who called this morning from Dell's fraud department.

It seems that Tina (and I'm guessing that's not her real name anyway), well, she had a yen for MP3 players. Three MP3 players. And she wanted them shipped to the above name in Florida somewhere.

Sorry, Tina, but you're not getting your MP3 players. Your order has been put on hold, and I hope they nail your sorry hide to the wall somewhere, whoever you really are. I don't hold out much hope for it, but at least your spending spree has been cut short. I'm guessing you got a phone from TracPhone, and minutes from LetsTalk.com, which is who I need to call now to dispute the $200 you charged on there. Gee, thanks. (Read that with LOTS of sarcasm. I mean LOTS.)

But wait folks, we're not done yet! Oh no, not only does some cyber crook in the states decide to have a go at me, but the so-called self-important Sniper of B*a*g*h*d*a*d hacked one of my sites. Again.

Yes, this is the second time this cyber vandal hacked this particular site. I changed passwords and thought I'd beefed up security after the last time. Obviously it wasn't enough. He managed to change my user name AND password, and if I hadn't known enough to get into the MySQL database and fix the user info, I would have been up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

Once I could finally get into the administration side, I had to find where he'd put his code in, erase it and replace it with the correct code. The only good thing about this being the second time around is that I knew where to look.

I am not amused.

So now I'm spending my time looking for better ways to secure the admin sections on my sites. I tried one highly recommended Wordpress plugin, but unfortunately after running tests, the software informed me it wouldn't work with the servers.

I installed another, but I can't tell if it's doing any good. It's supposed to bring up a password protection screen before you ever get to the one for Wordpress, but I don't see it. So I need to keep looking and see what I can do to prevent this.

I can see the cyber crooks having a go at trying to use your credit card and buying stuff. I have more trouble trying to see what thrill these cyber vandals get from hacking your site and putting up their obnoxious webpage - graphics, music, foul language and all.

Maybe they don't have anything better to do, but I sure do. I'm tired of wasting MY time cleaning up after THEIR messes.

I still have Excedrin headache #666, because I'm having a devil of a time.

On top of that, I'm sure I'm getting an ulcer. The butterflies in my tummy are getting HUGE.

Credit Card Induced Stress

No, it's not the size of my credit card bills that is inducing stress. Well, not exactly.

See, we have a strict rule. . . all credit card bills are paid off monthly. They are used for convenience and to collect air miles for trips to Florida and Canada. No carrying a balance, no incurring interest, just pay off the bill.

Now sometimes my groceries seem to run up a big bill, and it's always seemed weird to me to use a credit card to buy groceries anyway, but see paragraph two - they help to accumulate air miles, no interest involved.

So why the stress?

Well, I do all my credit card stuff online, and I had my account set to send an email for a "high transaction alert" for anything over $200. Just in case.

So my "just in case" happened over the weekend. All of a sudden I get an email saying a transaction has posted for $295.44 to TracPhone. Say what???

At first I thought it was a phishing email. You know, someone trying to get me to click on the link and get my information. But no, it was sent to the correct email, and ONLY my email, and the last 4 digits of my credit card were included in the email, and they were correct.

Hmmmm, well, the transaction hadn't posted to my account yet, so I wasn't sure what to think. I sent a secure email to the credit card company from their site, and got back pretty much a canned response.

Today it HAD posted, so I called TracPhone to dispute the charge. I mean, we DO use TracPhone, but NO WAY had I ever spent that kind of money, and certainly not this weekend. Even with MY less than perfect memory, I do believe I'd remember having spent that much on a phone service just a couple days back.

Folks, I spent over an hour trying to get this straightened out, and although they finally did say I'd get a refund on my account sometime today, I have NO idea if that will actually come through.

So I went back onto my credit card online account again, and reset my transaction alert to the lowest possible setting, $20, cause I wanted to keep track of what was going on.

Good thing. In a little while I got another email saying another charge was pending to LETSTALK.COM for $194.93. Okay, I'd never even heard of that company, so I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that was BOGUS, and someone had my credit card information.

I'd went round and round with Tracphone about that very thing. She said someone had to not only have my account number and address, but the security number off the back of my card. She insisted someone had to SEE my card. I couldn't imagine who. I use it at Walmart and Publix, and those places you slide the card through yourself, and the cashier never sees it.

Sooooo, however it was done, it was obvious someone was using my credit card information. Next I called the credit card company to dispute the claims and cancel the card. There went another hour! First she put me on hold to file the disputes, then I had to insist she cancel the credit card, and put on hold again, and by the time she came back on the phone again, another transaction alert had been emailed to me for $848.76 from DELL SM BUSINESS.

If I wasn't steamed before, I sure was then. Cause, that meant . . .
SOMEBODY ELSE IS USING MY FREAKING CREDIT CARD TO BUY A COMPUTER WHEN I CAN'T AFFORD TO BUY A NEW ONE FOR MYSELF!!!!!

Yeah, that bums me all right.

Bottom line - the credit card is canceled. I've filed disputes on the charges that have already posted, and have to wait and see if the rest go ahead and post. If they do, I have to call back and file disputes on those also.

What disturbs me is wondering HOW someone got this info. I mean, come on folks, I'm pretty much a homebody. I use PayPal whenever possible online, and when not, make sure it's a secure connection where they're scrambling your info. In the real world, I haven't been anywhere lately where anyone would have been handling my credit card.

However, looking back at my credit card use, there is a possiblity. I called a florist in Huntsville last week to order a floral arrangement for a funeral, and had to give them my name, address, credit card number and security code. Yep, they had all the info. So did somebody there use it??? A delivery person? Someone went through their trash?

I guess I won't use my credit card over the phone again. What a pain.

The Difference Between A Gift And A Challenge

My daughter of the heart, Chrystie, wrote an interesting post on her blog concerning a conversation she had with a friend who works as a cancer care nurse. Chrystie was complementing her friend on being gifted to do a job Chrystie couldn't manage, not enjoying biology or feeling like she could handle dealing with cancer patients day after day.

Her friend responded by saying, "Well, I feel the same way about YOU. There’s no way I could raise a special needs child. You’re obviously gifted in that area and God knew that.”

Well, Chrystie's post was all about how she felt she is NOT gifted to do that. And I agree with her. From what she says, that's not her gift.

Now before you start accusing me of being an awful person for talking like that about the wife of my oldest son, and mother of one of my grandchildren, just know that I love her very much, and read on about WHY I agree with her.

You see, I believe most people do not think about or understand the difference between a GIFT and a CHALLENGE.

Chrystie's friend has a GIFT. She enjoys what she is doing. Most importantly, she chose what she is doing. Chrystie and I may not understand how she manages working as a cancer care nurse because it’s not our thing. We just don't have that gift.

And yes, I was trained as an RN, but trust me, it was not my calling. It was more what some of my family thought I should do, because "if you're a nurse, you can always find work." They didn't take into account that while I might have the brains to become a nurse, I didn't have the temperament to stay a nurse. Cause while I was actually quite good at it, I was not perfect. And any nurse who tells you he/she always makes the right decisions is a lair. Nobody is perfect, and all medical personnel will at some time or other either omit to do the right thing, or flat out do the wrong thing, and a patient will suffer for it.

I couldn't deal with that. I have a hard enough time dealing with making a mistake caring for one of my animals. It haunts me. So imagine how it haunts me to mess up the care of a PERSON. You have to be able to focus on how you are doing a good job helping people the majority of the time, not focus on when you mess up. I couldn’t do that.

But I digress.

The point I am trying to make is that while being a cancer care nurse like Chrystie’s friend is an admirable calling, it really isn't any different than other occupations I do not have a gift for and can not understand how someone could do day after day.

For instance, I don't know how Richard sits and writes programs all day, or Jess doing estimating, because I do NOT have the necessary gifts, and it would make my brain hurt to even try it. I wouldn’t want to be a research scientist, a physical therapist, a minister, a fireman, a full-time farmer, or any one of hundreds of much needed occupations, but obviously there are some people who do.

They choose to use their gifts in their occupation, and for the most part, enjoy it.

Being challenged is different. You don’t choose a challenge. No one says, “I want to give birth to a baby with special needs.” No one says, “I’d like to live a life of pain.” No one says, “I want to be diabetic.” No one says. . . well, you get the idea.

And when someone says "I don't know how you do that; I could never do it,” they really aren’t thinking about what they’re saying. I understand what they’re trying to convey, that they realize you’re dealing with a hard thing and they don’t think they could deal with it. And maybe they’re even trying to compliment you on how well YOU deal with it.

But the fact is, they WOULD deal with it, because if it happened to them, then they wouldn't have any choice. That’s the key difference between having a gift and dealing with a challenge, a matter of choice.

Oh, I suppose you could chose to abandon a special needs child, for instance. Or commit suicide to put an end to dealing with a health problem. Those are pretty drastic choices, however, so let's say you don't have much reasonable choice but to go ahead and deal with a challenge.

I think the biggest part of the time, most people do not have the natural gifts to deal with a challenge. (Otherwise, it wouldn't be much of a challenge, right?) Chrystie says she was never big on taking care of kids, let alone one with special needs. I can remember even as a teenager, when I’d read or hear about people dealing with pain, I’d think, “I couldn’t do that. I don’t have the courage.”

Life is full of ironies.

It seems like our challenges are growing experiences, where we learn to do things we would never have tried otherwise. We may even become so proficient dealing with a challenge that people think we have a gift. But anything you learn to do in order to deal with a challenge is not the same thing as having a natural gift you enjoy and choose to use voluntarily.

So yeah, I agree with Chrystie. She's no more gifted for raising a special needs child than I am gifted to deal with pain. Instead, I think she's tackling a challenge she would never have chosen to do, that really wasn't her thing, because she loves her child and wants the best for her.

I admire people who enjoy and choose to use their gifts. But even more, I admire people like Richard and Chrystie who rise to meet a challenge, who are doing something that is almost an ANTI-gift, because it’s the opposite of anything they were interested in or would have chosen to do. They’re taking the lemons life has handed them and instead of making a sour face, they’re making lemonade.

And that's the best any of us can do.

De Pain, De Pain!

Anybody remember the old tv show, "Fantasy Island", with Ricardo Montalban? (Gotta love that guy; what an actor! He did such a good Khan.) If you remember the show, remember the little guy running around the island at the beginning of the show hollering, ‘De plane! De plane!” as all the guests get shuttled in for their fantasy filled island retreat. He’s running around in my head these days shouting “De pain, de pain!” but this ain’t no fantasy I’m living, and it ain’t no retreat.

Nope. This is real life. And anyone who has lived very long has met up with pain of some sort somewhere along the way. If not, they are either very lucky or living a very shallow life.

I should be doing all kinds of things right now. I need to get some snail mail done. I need to do laundry. I need to think about what all needs to be taken care of before we go on a trip next week and get that done too. I have all kinds of online work I could be doing.

But right now my body isn’t cooperating too well, and my brain isn’t focusing. Instead, there are thoughts and emotions swirling around in there like debris in a hurricane. Getting blown around, sometimes violently, sometimes a little calm in the eye of the storm, then right back to wildly whipping in the wind. It’s bad weather inside there folks.

I’m tired. Pain is fatiguing for one thing. But I suspect even if I were healthy, it would still be a battle right now to try to do everything I’m doing. I’m in transition. I’m trying to hang on. I’m looking and looking, trying to see that light at the end of the tunnel.

I know I’ve got more things to do than I can possibly get done. Too bad. They need done anyway. "Pare down your responsibilities," you say? Sounds like good advice, now just tell me what in Hades I can stop doing?

The farm chores? I’m hanging in there until such time as Jess can retire. Oh, he could retire now, but neither one of us are too eager to live on social security. Which brings up the internet work. The more I learn, the more there is to do. At some point I can outsource some of the work, but for now, it’s just me having to do it all.

Quitting just is not an option. This is the only way I can see of earning a living.

Now there are all kinds of ways to make money on the internet. And there are also many ways to lose your shirt to scammers or just not knowing or understanding what you are doing. Some ways of earning money fit my personality better than others and it’s taken time to figure out what those are. All of this takes time, both to learn how to do things and for a business to grow and make money. I am fitting more and more pieces together and feel the scales should tip in the next few months, maybe even weeks.

But again, it takes time. Time, it’s always a factor!

Maybe as much or even more than time itself is being able to USE the time. Being able to focus, to work without fatigue or pain clouding your brain.

But in the meantime, I am working as hard as I can. You can’t see the effects, unless you count the fact the animals haven’t keeled over and died from starvation, or we aren’t running around naked because I do eventually get around to washing clothes, or. . well, just don’t look at the house. There really is a limit to how much I can manage.

Time, time and money. One can always use more of both.

I’m spending money to go to the Fibro Clinic again. I need to be able to work longer hours. I need to banish the fatigue more often so I can get more work done and be able to exercise. I need to have my thyroid hormones regulated and other body functions put back to rights as much as possible. Until this happens, the fatigue prevents me from getting anyways near as much done as I would like or need to do. And it messes with my metabolism, making it nigh impossible to lose weight.

It’s all depressing too. I really don’t eat that much junk. Ice cream on Friday nights. I buy a big bar of dark chocolate as my main treat, and it usually lasts for two weeks. But the weight just keeps hanging on and I need to do something about that too. So it’s off to the Fibro/Fatigue Clinic, and hope they can help me get my body working as near optimum as possible.

Regular doctors can't take the time and/or don't have the specific knowledge to deal with the whole spectrum of problems that can be mixed in with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, not to mention an obscure problem like thoracic neuralgia. Insurance won't compensate them for the time they'd have to take with one patient to deal with it all and really understand and listen. Would government run health care be better? Not bloody likely. I have a friend in the UK who has fibromyalgia and can't get the health care she needs, and waits months to get in to see specialists.

No, I'm thinking it wouldn't matter. For such specialized health care, you're going to pay out of your pocket no matter what kind of health system is in place. But I need to function better, to be able to do more. So there we are.

Time and money. Never enough of both, ha!

I just have too many things in flux right now. I’m working on my health, I’m working on a new career, I’m working on just hanging on until I can get to the next level in so many different areas in my life. I’m looking forward to a housekeeper, and paying someone else to do the drudge work like directory submissions and other stuff needed to keep websites running and building traffic.

For now the guys are both working at their own full time jobs. (I think I’m working at 2 or 3.) But they are away from home, and I am here.

I hope I survive.

Almost Half A Year Gone

All right people, you do realize that we're already close to half way through 2009 don't you? I mean, what happened to the past 5 months? How did we get to the end of May already???

One thing we don't seem to have to worry about around here is getting bored. There's always something going on! Just consider, in the last 5 months. . .

• I didn't exactly remodel my office, but completely rearranged and reorganized it. Having such a good place to work is great!
• Kelley turned 15.
• Jess got through his therapy needed after having both knees replaced. And this is hard for me to believe, but in just about another week, Jess will have had his new bionic knees for 6 months!
• Jess went back to work.
• Lee turned 21.
• We had visitors from Canada!
• Jonathan had a birthday (as did his cousin, Bobbi, born the same year!)
• Jonathan got a job.
• Ellie turned 4 years old.
• We had a visitor from eastern Tennessee (Hi, Phantom Son!)!
• Chrystie had a birthday!
• Ryan graduated from high school!

Of course, it's not all fun stuff. There's also the fact that. . .

• We had to go to the funeral home for a former pastor and friend, who was only about 46 years old.
• Our first llama baby ever on the farm was stillborn.
• Jess had a wreck and totaled our Ford Focus (on the good side, he wasn't hurt!).
• I made my first trip back to the Fibromyalgia/Chronic Fatigue Clinic in over a year (that's not bad, but it's not exactly fun stuff either - I've still got bruises slowly fading from all those needle sticks).

Of course, those are just the highlights, and don't include the day to day stuff everyone does at home, and on the farm, and at work. However you look at it, lots of milestones with birthdays, lots has happened, and five months have sped by!

I hope the next few months go by a little more slowly, but I'm sure not going to hold my breath on that one, ha!

CARnage

CARnage (noun) - Massive slaughter, as in war; a massacre.

Yep, that's it all right. My nerves have been massacred. For that matter, so have Jess's. And all that CARnage is caused by a CAR. Or right now, the lack of a car. Even more precisely, the hunting of a car.

Now some people enjoy hunting for a car. I am not one of them. Jess is not one of them. But that's just what we did yesterday, browsing the car lots to check out their Memorial Day sales.

We visited four different lots. We saw some possibilities, but nothing really grabbed us that was in the budget we'd set for ourselves.

After we got back home and rested a little, I went online and checked out what was available within a 50 mile radius. Then we went back out AGAIN and looked at a specific car we thought sounded interesting.

The outcome of all this CARnage is yet to be determined. We decided to buy the car and applied for a loan, but in these economic times and with Jess being self-employed, approval of the loan may not be forthcoming. We'll just have to see.

In the meantime, it's definite CARnage with massacred nerves.

The Search Begins

We've looked online at some different makes and models of cars. We're comparing gas mileage and all that sort of stuff. There are so many choices out there.

I positively HATE looking for new cars. It might be fun if you could go look at cars and choose whatever you want, and not have to worry about the price or car payments.

Anyway, the insurance has told us what they'll give us for our old car. It's already gone; hauled off to the salvage yard.

Jess asked yesterday about taking the new tires off the car. I mean, they were put on the car Tuesday. The car was wrecked Friday. $450 worth of tires used 3 days.

Well, it's a no-no to take anything off the car. However, the insurance people said to fax the receipts for the tires to them. That sounded good. I was all excited thinking they'd reimburse us for the tires. Ha! Today they told Jess he'll get $81 for the tires.

What a joke! Why did they bother asking for all the paperwork for a measly $81??? All you can say is it's better than nothing.

So we've browsed in a couple of car lots and are starting the search. Jess is leaving tomorrow for Florida, and we've got to go to Atlanta next Tuesday night, so probably won't do much more looking until after we get back home Wednesday.

Fortunately, he has a rental car, so we've got a little leeway. But we'll have to get serious about looking after these 2 trips coming up are over.

A car, a car, we need a car!

TOTAL

And the word of the day is.... TOTAL.

We sheared sheep today. There are only 4 now, but it was TOTAL frustration. We're not exactly the best shearers in the world and bending over to do the job is a killer on your back.

We didn't do the llamas. We were all pretty done in by the time we finished the sheep. In fact, my body is a TOTAL wreck. After we finished with the sheep about 1p.m., I came inside and crashed. I managed a shower and lunch and then I laid on the couch the rest of the afternoon.

Jess went up to the body shop to take them the new rims for the car. Well, as it turns out, the car won't be needing the rims. The guy there told Jess the insurance says they're going to TOTAL the car.

Jess hasn't talked to the insurance people yet, but it looks like our next chore is going to be looking for a new vehicle. Not exactly in our plans, and rather a TOTAL bummer that all of a sudden we've got to be worrying about getting a new car.

And there's new tires on the wrecked car, barely used - what a TOTAL waste.

Although Jess was surprised there was that much damage, I wasn't quite so much. I've been a little concerned all along what damage they might find when they looked underneath the car, especially after Jess told me about his bumpy ride over the curb and into the ditch. It doesn't take long for damages to add up far enough to TOTAL a car - a quarter panel, a bumper, air conditioner - I don't remember what all, but it was enough to make up over 2/3rds the value of the car.

TOTAL chaos around here, as usual.

Honey, I Wrecked The Car

This hasn't been one of our better weeks. We lost a llama baby we waited a year for, and now today... well, here's the story.

This afternoon about 4:30pm the phone rang. We have Caller ID, so I could see the number was Jess's cell phone. But when I answered, I just heard a lot of noise, but nothing from Jess. The line went dead and I hung up.

The phone rang again. Same deal. Okay, this time I called HIM to ask what was going on. That's when I heard...

"Honey, I wrecked the car."

There are just some phone calls you don't want to get. Kind of like another call I got, along the lines of, "Hi Mom, I wrecked the car and I was hanging upside down and the car was on fire." (Not to name names, but the guilty party's initials are R.A.B.)

Now granted, if the people concerned are making the calls, then you at least have the comfort of knowing that they probably are not seriously hurt.

Thankfully, that was the case here also. Jess wasn't hurt, just flustered and upset. Which was why the phone calls weren't going through - he'd forgot his blue tooth was in his pocket, and the phone was still connected to it.

Anyway, here's my Reader's Digest Condensed version of the story - if you want the long version, call Jess.

It seems he was coming off I-565 onto the Parkway and was going to change lanes. He saw one dumptruck in his rearview mirror. Only trouble was, there was another big dumptruck he didn't see (blind spot in mirror sort of deal) and he turned right into it.

The truck spun the car around and dumped it in a ditch. Fortunately, they were only going 10-15 miles an hour, or as the driver of the dumptruck told Jess, "I'd probably have turned your car upside down and ran over it."

Nice thought.

Jess doesn't think there is major damage, but you can't really tell what's went on under the car. He knows one of the new tires is flat (yes, just last week we had to get four new tires... sigh...). There's a dent in the left rear quarter panel behind the door.

Jess informs me that "it was kind of bumpy ride going up over the curb and down into the ditch." I'll just bet it was!

The car has been towed to a wrecker service yard, and will later be taken to a shop in Fayetteville for repair as the insurance people instructed. Jess should get a rental car, but we'll have to go down to Huntsville to pick it up.

I asked Jess if he had anything to add to my facts here, and he said "No, except it's just a real bummer."

Yeah, he was so excited after getting new tires and how smooth the car was riding now. So much for that, ha!

Well, it's may sound trite or corny, but the fact is the car can be fixed, no one was hurt, and bottom line is that's what matters.

Oh, and the silver lining to this particular cloud is since he wrecked right close to Red Lobster, we had dinner there before coming home. At least that part was nice!

Monday Madness

Fortunately, I felt better today. The weather was nasty, often spitting rain. I suspect I got a double whammy yesterday with nerve pain from partying Saturday, and fibromyalgia pain from the coming rain.

Today I tried to make up for lost time. Besides the usual chores, I had some little trees to plant. Dad likes to donate to the Arbor Day Foundation, but doesn't need the trees, so he has them sent them to me. I'd put them in water to soak the roots, and needed to get them in pots today.

In the midst of working with that, Jonathan was trying to get ready for work. There was no hot water. Cold showers in cold weather aren't the best.

Fortunately, it was a quick to fix, and he had breakfast while waiting for the water to heat up. I correctly surmised that one of the breakers didn't get flipped back after our mad flipping of switches Saturday, trying to figure out what was wrong with the washing machine.

Oh yes, the washing machine. It's broke. I discovered this Saturday, after sorting out two weeks worth of laundry and ready to "get 'er done!" Wouldn't you know it!?!

At first I thought it wasn't working at all, and that's when we went crazy flipping the breakers trying to find the one for the washing machine. Then I figured out it wasn't the lack of electricity, that the washing machine just wouldn't spin out. It would come back on if I moved the dial to a part of the cycle it "agitated" then go off again when it got to the spin cycle.

Mr. Fix-It can fix a lot of things, but washing machines aren't on his list, so I had to wait until today to call the repair man. Of course, he was busy and said he probably wouldn't make it until tomorrow. As it turns out, he got done on one job a little sooner than he expected, and about noon he stopped by here.

He fixed the no spin-out problem. There was a switch that went bad. Unfortunately, he found there were a couple of other major things that went bad. Like the pump had a leak. And the agitator wasn't really agitating. It was moving back and forth, but not really moving the clothes around in the tub properly ("not ratcheting" was his term). sigh....

I said, "Are you trying to tell me I have a dead washing machine?"
"Noooooooo... fix this stuff and it'll be good to go."
"How much?"

Well, never mind how much. Let's just say enough to make me seriously consider getting a new washing machine, but not quite enough to tip the scales and actually do it. The next washing machine I get I'm holding out for one of the nicer kinds that are sort of up on a pedestal, and you don't have to bend over so much and drag stuff up and out of the washing machine. That would be sooooo much easier on my nerve pain!

Anyway, the repair guy left with the pump to do some work in his shop and is supposed to come back tomorrow morning and hopefully get the washing machine in working order.

While he had it apart, I cleaned the mess under the rim and the sides.

I also needed to cook some ground beef. I buy big packages of it, cook it and freeze it to use it as needed. I used part of it first to make a salsa meat loaf for supper tonight.

Then of course, the kitchen needed cleaned, and... well, as I told Jess, if I don't hurt tomorrow after shoveling dirt, bailing water, scrubbing washing machine parts and so on... it won't be because I didn't exert myself!

Banish Birthdays!

Next year I’m not going to bother with a birthday. Oh, I know that 365 days from this past one I’ll be another year older; that’s just the way it is. But as for celebrating a birthday, well, forget it. What’s to celebrate? It’s just another day. Maybe a couple of people send an email or call with birthday wishes, and a couple of business’s send birthday cards, but mostly, it’s a non-event. So I repeat, why bother?

And this birthday was worse than most. I managed to do chores and clean the kitchen today, and that’s about all I managed. I slept more today than I usually do at nights. My head hurts. My stomach is queasy. The pain is bothering me. One way to escape is to sleep. Feeling depressed? Sleep will evade that as well.

It didn’t help that when I went out to do evening chores, 5 of the peafowl were out where they didn’t belong, and when I opened their gate to shoo them back in, guineas and roosters got in their pen as well. Then I had to chase them out while keeping the peacocks in. I ended up with some stinking muck splattered on me from their wild flapping around.

By the time Jess and Jonathan came home, I was in no shape to go out to eat. I told them to feel free to go on by themselves if they wanted to. I went to bed.

I could go on about the misdeeds and not-done-deeds of the day, but that's enough to give you the idea.

Happy Birthday? I don’t think so.

Whine Alert!

It’s Scrooge again. I know, I know, “Tis the season to be jolly.” Well, I may be fat, but I’m not Santa Claus; I’m not even Mrs. Claus. And it’s a sure bet I’m not jolly. As a matter of fact, I’m decidedly UNjolly. Depressed even. Seems like there’s more hassle than happiness this December. So here’s my top seven whines, in no particular order of their ability to induce the blues:

1. Cold Weather. Okay, northern neighbors can ignore this. I know the Canadian contingent, for example, is snowed under with below zero temps. But us southern folk don’t take well to even double digit freezing temperatures. It’s supposed to be warm in the south, thank you very much! My fibromyalgia and other chronic pain doesn’t like being chilled to the bone, so somebody turn up the heat! (P.S. I reserve the right to whine about it being TOO hot come summer.)

2. Early Medical Appointments. Who makes appointments for therapy at 7:45am? That’s fine for early birds who actually LIKE to get up early, but for those of us that prefer to greet the day a little later, it stinks. But be that as it may, tomorrow morning we’ll be up early to take Jess to his first outpatient physical therapy session.

3. Housework. If you do it, nobody notices. If it doesn’t get done, everyone notices. Especially the dirty dishes and dirty clothes and cooking meals parts. A never ending, thankless task. Cleaning is mindless work, but meal prep is mind boggling with always trying to think up something to fix. Day after day, what to fix to eat!?!

4. My Office. Jonathan and I rearranged the furniture before Jess had surgery. We thought and thought about the possible arrangements, and thought we chose the best one. And maybe we did, but I don’t like it. In fact, when I walk around to my computer I’m thinking, “I hate this.” Trouble is, I can’t think of a better way to do it. With 2 windows, a closet, vent, and door to work around, the options are limited.

5. When doing something nice turns into an obligation. Ever have this happen? You do something for someone on a fairly regular basis, not because you have to, but just because you’re trying to do something nice, and somehow, it ends up becoming an expected obligation. Then it doesn’t matter how busy you are or what you might have going on in your life, you’re expected to continue with whatever it was.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy doing things for other people. But sometimes it gets rather depressing when everyone else is expecting you to do for them, and almost nobody ever volunteers to do something for YOU, especially when you've got some heavy duty stuff going on. What’s with that? (I could write a really lengthy post on this one, but for now, ‘nuff said.)

6. Creeping Bills. Bet you’ve got some of these. Bills like the phone bill and cable bill and other stuff that is supposed to be the same price, but somehow they keep finding things to tack onto the bills so they slowly creep up and get more and more expensive. Then of course, there’s the utilities and groceries and other bills that are also creeping up in cost, so you’re paying more and more for the same thing. As the saying goes, "Just when I think I can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends!"

7. Health Insurance. A creeping bill in a class by itself. Sure, we have Medicare. But it's not like Medicare is free. It's just a government funded insurance, and they take a chunk out of your social security every month to pay for it. And since Medicare doesn’t begin to cover everything, you also need to get supplemental insurance. And of course, the better the insurance, the more it costs, so somewhere along the line you have to make a decision of how much you can afford to pay every month versus what kind of coverage you’re going to get.

Obviously, unless you’re really well-off, you’re not going to have insurance that pays for everything. For instance, for Jess's knee surgery there was a hefty co-pay up front for the hospital, and the same again for the rehab center. What worries me is what other bills they'll send us.

For example, Jess was checking our insurance manual today to see how much they pay for blood transfusions. Well, guess what? They don’t pay ANYTHING until you’ve already had THREE units of blood. That’s right, until you get to unit 4, you’re on your own. So we pay for three units, the insurance pays for only one unit. Not much you can do about it, right? Who’s going to say, "Oh well, guess I’ll just bleed to death, cause I sure can’t afford to pay for blood."

Fortunately, we're not forced to choose between paying for health care or paying for utilities or buying food. I’m sure we’re better off than a lot of people, but there must be a way to make health care more affordable.

And there you have it, my top seven whines of the moment. I could think of several minor irritations, but enough is enough! And yes, I know I'm blessed and lots of people have it worse than me, but that doesn't change the fact that right now, I've got the blues.

Workplace Warfare

On the subject of plans gone awry…

Jonathan had planned to work through December at Toys R Us, when they’re really busy and he always got a lot of hours. Then in January he wanted to get his dental work finished while he still had insurance through Toys R Us, but work hours were really cut back. At the same time, he planned to start looking for a better job during his off hours.

As plans go, it was a pretty good one. But they went sadly awry when he got a new boss.

This boss worked at a different company before he came here. The company he worked for has been cutting back and closing lots of their stores. That retail store certainly didn’t see near the volume of business around Christmas that Toys R Us gets.

Once they got into the Christmas selling season in November, one of the first things that happened is this new boss wrote everyone up in Jonathan’s department for not “producing” enough.

Several other things happened, but the end game came when the Friday after Thanksgiving Jonathan was sick and unable to go to work. That’s not allowed. You can’t be sick. Automatic “write-up.”

After a meeting with boss and his cohorts, the bottom line was, “Resign and keep your vacation time and a good reference, or stay and we’ll watch for the slightest problem, and fire you. Vacation time gone, comp time gone, bad reference.”

Never mind he worked there for two years and got nothing but good evaluations, at least until this latest boss came on board. All that went down the toilet.

Not much a person can do in those circumstances but what Jonathan did… resign. Sometimes you just can't win in workplace warfare.

I'm praying he finds a new job he can enjoy and do a good job for his employers, so it's a win-win situation! He's got one resume in to a place in California, but who knows how many others do also. Please keep him in your prayers as he searches for a new job!