Ready for reading

 I want to get back to the novel I have about half read, but it seems that after dinner and exercises I am too sleepy to concentrate on the written words.  I keep having to flip backwards to remind me who is who, the last book I tackled Her Last Breath kept switching every chapter to another character, I hate when they do that.  

I forget what the plot was in the above book, but the one I am reading now is called Moonlight Child and it moves along at a fair clip so I can soon look for another.  The thing is, although these two books are both 5 star ratings, one is OK and the other is best forgotten.  Or as my son says, a good review does not guarantee a good book. Maybe the author just has a lot of friends.

My new glucose meter is not a home run at this point.  It is supposed to contact via my meter with my readings but it won't do that because the error code says there is no connection (T Mobile).  When I called the trouble number the man says I will need to drive to another place where the signal is stronger.  (?)

The number of SPAM calls is amazing.  Yesterday I had 5 calls in 20 minutes all at 8 am, then we took the phone off the hook for the rest of the day.  I am telling people I am dead, then they say "sorry" and quit asking for me.  If they ask for N I say they will need a Ouija board, and that confuses them long enough for me to hang up.  A little humor there. 

 

 As long as I don't try to reverse I seem to do OK with this font/size.  Touch wood.  If one

Yesterday the order I returned should have been delivered.  This order was for Bed Scrunchies, and I thought it would work to tighten the fitted sheet to preclude wrinkles.  But what I thought it was for, the actual purpose was to make a flat sheet into a fitted one, tightening the corners with a bungee type cord.  So back it went, $99 to the good, minus shipping of course.  

I have been looking at purses on Amazon and on eBay, but I can't find any for the criteria I want.  I need a reasonable minimum to maximum, not to have oodles of space taken up with dividers, but 5" wide at the bottom.  I prefer no zipper closure on top, they always seem to catch on whatever is inside the bag, and need two hands to fasten, so toggle closure.  Leather.  Big enough to hold my wallet and my organizer without stacking them up in a narrow bag.  Color of pretty much anything.  Price of anything less than $200, if all else is OK.  Not necessarily a high end designer.  Used but still OK.  Doesn't sound like impossible features, does it?  I used to rely on Aigner bags, but they seem to have gone out of business except for eBay. If I could work on my purses in the closet I could probably find what I want. Maybe tomorrow.

We finally got the electric meters read a second time.  They have been using a pair of binoculars and standing outside the fence line.  But I called and got them to emphasize that all the horses and all the dogs are gone, so walk right up to the meter.  I have hope that I will get a lower bill.  And I saw them at the barn meter, Update: this time ; the original bill was $150 and this last bill is $50.  We also found the second key of the safe deposit.  And best of all C found my diamond ring. ( I am glowing thanks to an old tooth brush).  Don't plan on warm temps until the sun of the spring comes along.

I keep looking at the space all the jewelry boxes occupy, knowing once the area is clean I will fill it with more stuff, net change Zero.

Back to bed.  Later. 

farmhouse

The photo on the top is the family farmhouse in Braxton County, West Virginia.  The people in the photo are my great grandfather and wife, my great uncle, my grandfather, and one of the grand sisters.  The photo was taken in front of their just built home, ca. 1904.

The photo on the bottom is the farmhouse ca. 2004, and now, in 2021 it has collapsed.  I took the photo on the bottom, and by accident I took one from the very same location as the photo from 1904.  I will never go back to the farm, it was sold in 1970-ish over the strenuous objections of the entire family; I remember it from the 1960s.  It is now a testament to the ravages of time.

It makes me sad.  There is only myself and my sister-in-law (cousin) that survive,  to remember, and I am 70 and she is 73.  There are kids from both of us, but they don't care, never having seen it in a living state.  My family went to the farmhouse every summer for 3 weeks, and SIL was there for the entire summer, helping with cooking and canning.  The last time I was there, to get the mirror in the living room, there was a tree growing inside the house, deer in the yard, snake skins in the bathroom, stripped of anything usable.  I don't know why the mirror was left, or why the owners let it all fall to ruin. I guess they only wanted the land.  They are all gone now too; don't know who pays the taxes.

 

fire place

 I should explain the photo on the post below.  Every time I try to add a footnote the rest of the posts are hidden and I am now too anxious to try just anything, for fear of deleting all the entire posts.  I did this once and I have learned not to mess with published posts.  So just pop down and I will write the caption here.

The photo is of our fireplace in "my" room, but the stuff on top isn't as cluttered that it would seem.  The US flag is the one given to me at N's informal get together at the funeral home.  I finally got it into the triangle box made for this (well, C did while I looked on ).  Still to come is the little brass label with N's name and dates engraved.  The frame is resting on the lovely wooden box containing the cremains.  I haven't figured out what to do with the flag and ashes, I will probably just leave them for the "kids" to handle.   Then there is the spider plant (faux) that hides a damaged part of the brick; brass candle sticks and a candle; a hurricane oil lamp; and a jar containing one dollar coins,( I haven't seen one used in years).  Just  efore N died he said he wanted to have his ashes buried in the veteran's cemetery in Prunytown (spelling?) but that was news to me.  I don't want to do it, so there they sit on the mantle for the last 5 years.  The black silhouette of a horse hangs over all of it.  Underneath it all is the mirror from the farmhouse fireplace, I like the idea that I look in the mirror that my great-grandmother used herself. Although she would be appalled at what the home is now.

Whew, a pretty lengthy footnote.

It is almost time for the manicure lady to come, so I will stop here for now.

I will try to find the photos of the farmhouse, one is from 1904 and one from 2004.  I have too many photos but the thought of sorting through them makes me tired before I begin.  

here I go again

 Well, I fell last night, around 4 am.  I was on my way to the bathroom when my crappy knee buckled and down I went with my walker on top of me.  I had my cell phone on the walker and called, sigh, C.  The only good part was that we got me up, no EMS needed, and to the bathroom and back in bed.  Never got back to sleep, it figures.  This is so tiresome, there isn't a day goes by that I don't feel regret for having my knee "fixed".  The ortho doctor says fusion of my knee is my only possible cure for falling, but I will go to a wheelchair full time first.  No more surgery.  No more "fixing".

I am reading a new book, Her Last Breath by Hilary Davidson.  It is a little slow, but I am only on page 50.  My next book will probably be The Midnight Child by Karen Mc question.  Both are Amazon books with 5 stars.  Although they are paperbacks, the first one is 8" by 5.5" , and 284 pages, large for a paperback.  I have two of my 4 Kindles charged up, far easier on the wrists to read; I have several Kindle unread books on them, but the charging is always lagging it seems.  

Yesterday I got a diabetic box with meter, lances, charging cord, reaction sticks, all the mod cons.  This came courtesy of the Fed BC/BS.  The last meter and such were from years ago and became a way station for ants, ugh, right in the trash it went.  At least I will know if I am pre-diabetic, I never know what to say when asked if I am diabetic.  For certain I don't use injectable insulin, and for now I don't use oral meds either.

Elmer

 I can't remember if I ever related the time of Elmer the goat.  Feel free to search it out if I did, there are only 900 posts to wade through.  I have a hard copy of all the posts (except the last dozen or so) but they aren't any easier to check.  So, here is the tale of Elmer.

When we first bought this place, all the acres were a tangled mess of thorny vines, grape vines, and of course the ever present poison ivy.  Every weekend we would spend thrashing through the brush and the weeds, cutting out and burning what we could tear loose.  Bob, a friend from work, advised that we should get a goat, as they are brushy eaters and not grass, and he would help us get one. So one weekend we all went to the livestock auction and Bob picked out a young goat, pretty tame and able to be handled easily.  Bob said that no one with any gumption would keep a billy goat (male) and so we made a detour to Bob's barn and he made short work of Elmer's package.  He was now a wether goat (in horses you'd call a male horse a gelding) and off we went to home. 

We bought a stout chain, about 15 feet long, and every morning we would stake the chain in a different spot, with a bucket of water at the very end where Elmer could reach it and not (in theory) tip it over.  At the end of the day we would put him in his pen/stall with more water and grain.  He was a four legged wonder, the way he would mow down the vines and such, and what he didn't eat got cleared by the chain going over it.  However not all was roses on the place.  Goats are amazingly strong, and he routinely pulled loose his chain, until we figured out that fastening the chain around a tree was way more secure.

But there were other problems.  When I would put him in his stall, I had to be really quick to get him most of the way into it, unsnap the chain, and knee him far enough to shut the door.  But he would thwart me, turning around so fast and heading out of his stall.  Then he would head for the electric fence and scoot right under the strand.  If I were still hanging on to his chain, I would get the electric shock right across my face.  And Elmer, free from clean water and a bucket of grain, would jump on top of the car in the driveway(tappet scrape) , and if he was still attached to the chain, he would trail it across the car too (scrape scrape)  I did not know, in the beginning, that goats loved to climb up to the highest point they could reach. But I learned, too late to save the car paint job.  Our dog learned too--sometimes Elmer would head for the old dog on the porch and start humping her.  She would give me the most pained expression, like "get this thing off of me!"  And a wether is not supposed to have urges like this. Once the brush was gone Elmer went back to the live stock auction.  N would say, " what if the buyer mistreates him?" To which I replied, "too bad", knowing most any situation Elmer would rise to (and N never did the unchaining and electric fence zapping).  At the auction the animals would be ushered through the in door where the auctioneer was, then bids, then ushered through the exit door on the right.  And every time the entrance door opened for the next animal I could see Elmer in the holding pen, humping away.

He sold for $11.

I fell again last night, right on the craft table.  Fire and EMS called to hoist me back on my feet.  It must have been a slow night, there were 5 of them.  Two is all that is needed, one on each side.  Today I am sore all over and took an Ultram around 3 in the morning so I could get some rest.  

Bye!