Update

My husband (N) has had a stroke and is back in the hospital.  He is "very very sick" (doctor's words) and the next 48 hours are critical.  Please send positive thoughts our way, that we can get through this together.

No funny quotes, my heart is too heavy.

Well well well

N (husband) has been diagnosed "officially" with adenocarcinoma in his lung (hasn't smoked in 45 years) and metastases into his occipital lobe on either side of his spine.  He will be going  into chemo next week for one-out-of-three weeks, for series of at least 3 times.  He will also go under the gamma knife for the brain lesions as well.  None of this is fun and giggles, and there isn't anything I can do to make it better for him.   I am wrestling with my own cognition problems.  For example I wrote myself a note "Tile floors  1 cup vinegar plus 1 gal hot water, wash with soft brush."  OK so far, right?  then it goes:  "Add somewhat of dish soap than Coptich wited so into mail muscles, the more season"  Huh??  It gets worse the later the writings/typing I try to do.  So between the two of us, we will have one functioning brain, I guess.

If not for son C we would be so much worse.  He handles the feeding of the horses, the lawn work, the kitchen clean-up and laundry and so on.  It isn't any earth shattering tasks, but I couldn't manage it all on my best day.  All this in addition to driving N to all of his appointments. 

Daughter isn't doing her share, but that will change on Saturday.  I don't expect much from her after work (she gets home at 9 pm)  But she could do some smaller tasks before work and on weekends, something besides play that ridiculous on-line game.  Grocery shopping for one; kitty litter scooping for another.  We will see how it all shakes out.  I'm looking for a lot of flouncing around so we can see how she resents all this.

That's it for now.  Send me good thoughts to get me through the months ahead.

Thought for the day:  "It's scary when you start making the same noises as your coffee maker ."

You were always on my mind

Last week N (husband) had an MRI of his head and chest because he has been huffing and puffing and felt a pain in his neck. Two days ago he got the diagnosis.

He has cancer in the occipital lobe of his brain, metastatic into his neck as well.

 I don't know if N really knows what that means, but we see the oncologist later this morning (it is 3 am now) and he will be able to ask questions.  He is seeing the same oncologist that I did, and we have an idea of what the process is.  He has weakness in his hands that he cannot use the left one to grip at all, and little air for doing anything (the cancer pushes on one lung).  We each have long term care insurance, which is a comfort to me.  He has been the one to do the bills every month; I used to do it, so I guess I will learn the process again.  Our son will have to pick up the chores for the horses, and our daughter the household tasks.  I am pretty weak walking the grocery in the huge one we go to, my knees feel like they are on fire and I need to sit down RIGHT NOW.  I will figure out something I guess, someway to break the big push in the do-it-all-now to manage smaller trips.  Thank god for our son C who has been out of work since the aftermath of his shattered knee, he can do the basics at the barn and mowing, etc.  I don't care if he gets an offer for all the resumes he has sent out, I need him here.  N doesn't agree,but I am stymied for any alternative.  I wish we had two sons!

I'm going back to bed. 
Thought for the day:  "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power."

A few regrets

I was in a shop this morning and heard this song (an oldie from Frank Sinatra, "I did it my way") on the loudspeakers.  We don't do things "our way" in real life, do we?  And we end up with more than a few regrets, sad to say.  But if you lived your life with the ultimate goal of having no regrets at the end, you'd be stuck in the starting gate, so to speak.  No one has a handbook for an error-less passage through life, including those who claim the Bible is such a roadmap.

So much for philosophy.

I got up Sunday and thought how bright and sunny it looked outside, and then I lifted the window shade and THERE IT WAS!!  Snow! 4 inches on April 3rd !!  It didn't last too long, it was in the 50s the rest of the day, but it sure spoiled my morning.  It's spring, dammit.  The stink bugs got the memo, we killed 6 in the house yesterday, so at least some of them are out and about.  We have sealed every possible crack and still they find their way in.

I see my doctor tomorrow, where we can discuss my so-called positive urine test for pot.  It is impossible to prove a negative.  I can swear up and down I don't do pot, but doctor B would have to take it on faith, and he doesn't know me.  And users can be most convincing liars and pot is available everywhere, I guess.  I don't know how I would find some, but wouldn't it be nice if it were legal?  I don't have a problem now, but boy I wish I had some MJ back when I had chemotherapy.  I had drugs that vanquished the pain, but the nausea was grim, even using phenergan.  And with all of that, I still didn't lose weight.  Sigh.  Anyway, I plan on telling Dr.B that if he won't give me opioids when my test/tests are positive, then don't.  I would rather manage my knee and shoulder pain with OTC drugs than having to pee in a cup every time I see him.

AND I am so glad, once again, that I am not working, or trying for a new job, or dependent on one doctor for all my meds.  I have read some sad tales of people losing their job, home, children, everything, from a positive test.

Thought for the day:  "Why would I want to delete cookies?!"

Apologies

I have been neglecting my blog for the last month, and mainly writing email to special friends.  I find emails and blog posts are better off when not co-mingled.  So, one or the other are up-to-date, and the other is lame.  Multitasking anyone?

I went to see yet another family doctor 2 weeks ago, following the three visit doctor who moved away just as I was feeling comfortable with him.  He asked about drug testing. and I was a little taken aback,  this on the first visit, but I said "sure".  Urine specimen, on my way out, and guess what? It came back positive for THC (pot) and benzodiazapine (Xanax).  Xanax is fine, I have a script for years and years (anti anxiety and help sleeping) but the pot screen!  I haven't smoked a joint in 40 years (San Francisco days).  Back home and onto the net, and lo, it turns out naproxen (Aleve) cross reacts to the THC test.  I have a scrip for naproxen,(it is there on my drug list, twice a day each day) so I got a script for testing at the hospital (vs. doctor office dip stick) from my psyc. doctor (she says she never tests her patients, they are taking this and that and the tests are always positive) , and meanwhile I am taking no Aleve.  I feel it, tylenol just doesn't cut it for knee pain; my knees pain me awake or asleep, I even dream about knee pain.   The new regs for pain meds leave legitimate patients like me bearing the brunt of the results.  Do you know, the street price of Oxycontin is so high that people are switching to heroin because it is cheaper?  Crazy world.  It is only sparingly used for post-surgical pain, because it is "redirected" to the black market it is so pricey.  No knee surgery for me anytime soon.

I finished the income taxes for us and our two kids today , don't get me started on THAT.

This isn't very long of a post, but it is 4 am and I am back to bed. 

Motto for today "  Everything we have is taxed - even our patience."


 

Leaping lizards!

OK, I have tried to think about what to write here, and for now I am stuck (writer's block) so ah ha! I have figured out how to get my keyboard to sing, and that is to have this itty bitty post as a place holder.  Once I can come up with topics, anything, I will append it here.  I mean, how many times will I get to say "Happy New Leap Day."  I want to do something, write something, special.  Bye for now...

I went to see my new family doctor and and went over all the stuff in my file.  I am really
tired of having to dredge up the dates and who and what they were.  My memory wasn't very cooperative today and I felt like I needed remedial memory retrieve work.  But maybe getting my meds straightened out will point us in the right direction, I hope.  Meanwhile when my family asks me questions  I can say I don't remember.  Period..    Sometimes I remember the answer the next day, oh well. I resolve to beat myself up before going and writing details, and take it with me so I won't feel so scatter brained.  After all, I have 9 doctors, from B to W, And I don't see some of them more than once a year.) 

 

When making out your tax return , it's better to give than to deceive.

You would think that after 12 or 15 years of doing the income taxes I would be able to whiz right through them.  But our elected representatives in their infinite wisdom have in a major way amended the tax laws again, boo hiss.  Sigh.  Too bad bitching doesn't burn calories.

The temp hereabout has slowly crept up, but my enjoyment of it is blunted because the stinkbugs have slowly crept up too.  Horrible icky bugs, which are at least slow and they like to climb the walls which makes them easy to see.  If only they didn't fly (poorly) we could leave them to the cats, who occasionally get one on the floor what great fun.  The smell doesn't seem to faze them.

When I grew up in Miami FL I had a horror of cockroaches.  Palmetto bugs some people call them, because if you peel back a layer of a coconut palm tree you will find a nest of them, too gross to even think about.  They can grow to several inches in length, and are also half of that in width, and are flyers.  At night I could hear if there were one in the bedroom, their legs making clicker sounds, and I had to get up right then turn on the lights and search it out.  When N and I shared a bedroom at Mom's house (after our marriage, I hasten to add) I shrieked when I saw one in our suitcase.  N said (a little condescendingly, I thought) "I'll take care of it".  And when he lifted the top piece of clothing, there it was.  He let out a shriek to match mine, jumped back and dropped the clothing back into the suitcase, and said "THAT'S a roach??!!"  And I split before it could get between me and the door, and let N take care of it.  I've never seen a roach here in WV in the house, and very few outside as well.  But just because you don't see them, doesn't mean they aren't there...

This blog post is not the interesting and cheerful one I like to think I mostly make.  I read an article in BlogHer.com that lists suggested topics when the old brain stalls, and it was all either things I am not qualified to comment on (like,bragging on your beautiful granddaughter) or there are the ever-present  memes, the motivational ones that are less than "cool and empowering" and more like "condescending and trite" particularly the ones aimed at readers who are struggling with depression, etc.  So I will end this for today, wishing all of you an enjoyable day.

Bumpersticker for the day:  "Life is short.  Smile while you still have teeth."

Valentine's day

Yum!  I got three hearts filled with candy, and 3 Dozen roses (red, yellow and pink) And they are very fresh and have some fragrance. The cats have been very well behaved and leave the roses alone.  I have given up trying to get Family Tree Maker to work on the MacBook Air, I am not sure why it doesn't work; it is the way I set up FTM on the MacBook all those years ago, but not currently.  I can't run the FTM for MAC, because the version of the OS (El Capitan) is not functional, the blurbs on the box notwithstanding. And the partition for Windows seems to come and go.  Ah well, not a terrible crisis.

We got 8 inches of snow last week, I am so tired of winter.  I haven't been out of the house since my doctor's appointment last Monday.  Partly it is due to the ice on the driveway, and partly due to my nerves once we are underway.  If you try and leave space between yourself and the car ahead of you, another car will zip past us and get between in the "buffer" space.  I've got 4 wheel drive, and snow tires, so I can zoom along as if there were dry pavement, right?  Mutter mutter.

Old barn + old horse

Tonight the temp was 2 degrees, and I want to see that end too.  I love love the heated tack room in the barn, so the water is still liquid, and the hose works too.  Back when we had the old barn, we had to haul buckets of water from the bathroom.  Sometimes we had to fill each one twice, because they would drink the first bucket dry immediately.  And the stalls were open at the front, brrrr.  The new barn is pretty good looking, even from the road.

new barn

Time for bed again.
Bumper sticker:  "The last time I reached for the stars I pulled a muscle"

Winter moving into spring

Well. Old man winter has paid us another visit.  It is about 8 inches of snow as near as we can tell.  I hope this is the last of the snow, the state plows usually come through once maybe tomorrow.  I have been extra careful when I come and go in the Highlander.  Last year I fell and slid under the car which was running at the time and this winter I have practiced getting in and out.  I hate this toyota I didn't want it then and I sure do not want it now.  N asked if I liked it, there on lot.  I said "no"  and he went ahead and and bought it,  I have driven it once.  For 16 years I had my own car,  well, 3 Miatas:   a 1996, a 1999, and a 2002.  But once I retired the 2002 sat in the garage and any time I wanted to take it, the battery was dead.  Finally we sold it for a not-too-great amount, I couldn't stand to watch the guy drive away.  We still have the pickup truck, it probably gets driven about 7 times a year and it needs to be jumped every time too; why not trade it in instead of the Miata?

I've got to admit the Highlander goes better in the snow.  We can't drive a little bitty Miata,when the snow is higher than the car,  Not to mention it is rear wheel drive.

I watched the DVD for "Riddick" this afternoon which is pretty dated, but I liked it.  I couldn't get it to run on my computer (not a Blu Ray), It would play on the gigantic TV, but if a movie is gory, it is a lot easier to look away and turn the sound down when the screen is 7".  I know I am a wuss when it comes to decapitation, sharp machete and so on, but I just look away.  In the end I watched it on my little MacBook Air, now that I got a CD/DVD player for it.  One for Mac, 0 for PC.

We've been looking at the latest catalog for nursery plants.  How do they always arrive on a dreary snowy day?  So for we have narrowed a tree down to either a weeping cherry or one other whose name escapes me.  I will plant this in honor of Suzanne, who died last fall.  She always loved the blooms on everything,  When I was down in FL the last time, she showed me a night blooming cercus that only blooms at night with a fragrant bloom which dies in the morning. I miss her .

Bumper Sticker for the day:  "Honk if you love Jesus.  Text if you want to meet him."

Not very cold here

...But we got 20 inches of snow.  It is hard to know where to measure, with drifted and scoured snow, but checking here and there that is the estimate for this storm.  Luckily the follow-up rain hasn't materialized yet, making everything not completely clear into ice.

I am feeling a little cabin fever-ish right now, but I got some new yarn yesterday in the mail from Turkey, a dark heather gray color, to make a scarf along with a lacey pattern in cameo pink on the reverse side.  I finally gave up on the decorated hat, it was too complicated for me at this stage of my knitting ability.  The pink and the gray should make the pattern stand out on both sides.

The colic-y horse Willie is back on regular rations and seems all over his colic .  The farrier came yesterday and said his hooves look great, even, uncracked, and he was not even sore on the right hind leg (the horse, not the shoer) which he sometimes resists having it picked up.  Usually that is really the left hind that is sore (and has to take all the weight when the right side is picked up) but either way the bute (horse aspirin) given the day before seems to do the trick.  Both horses got wormed (ick) as they do every 8 weeks when the shoer comes, and though the winter blankets and winter coats make them look like Mongolian ponies, they are warm and, under the blankets, clean.  My very first horse, all those years and years ago, was a palomino, and I kept him clean and groomed every day.  I boarded for a while at the stables in Golden Gate Park, and when I washed his white mane, and dried it with a blow dryer,we never failed to attract a crowd.  Old times.  He was 22 when he died.  I miss Poco still.

 Thought for the day:  "Lottery:  A tax on people who are bad at math."

Poco

 

 

 

 

 

Blizzard?

Well,the forecast is for 8 to 12 inches of new snow beginning this afternoon; and every function in the area for this weekend has been canceled.  I wonder what a wedding scheduled for the weekend will do?  And I can't help remembering the time when John Rockefeller was governor here in WV and a huge snowfall was predicted.  He called for the National Guard, canceled all the state and university activities, and we got zip.  After that, snow could be 4 feet drifted and he wouldn't call anything off.  Once bitten...

DH was at the grocery store yesterday to pick up 2 items, and never thought to get milk or orange juice (a vital necessity) and thus he went out this morning.  They were restocking the milk when he got there, the crowds he dreaded were nowhere to be seen, the shelves were pretty depleted and all the snow shovels had been sold out.  I think we should buy milk every time we are in the store, we will never run out!  The other big item everyone stocks before a storm is, you guessed it, bathroom paper.  We are fortunately OK there, as it was sold out except for weird brands and single Scott rolls.

Best of all, both DD and DS have today off, as the storm should be OK to go to work, but a mess to get home.  We even got a call from the pharmacy to make sure all our (many) scripts are filled in case the roads are impassable.  Do you think they would refill my hydrocodone pills?  No, I don't think so either.

I am doing the never ending task of laundry today, hoping we don't lose the power.  I was in the shower one evening and the power went out.  It is dark in there!  And my hair was all soapy so I couldn't just step out.  I keep a flashlight nearby now, just in case history repeats itself.

My birthday is soon, I got my driver's license renewed last week, and I don't even recognize myself in the photo.  I forgot to tip my glasses up and so my eyes look like Orphan Annie from the flash making a white spot on the lenses.  My jacket hood is visible on one side, and makes me look hunchbacked.  And worst of all, my double chin shows!  Sigh...

Thought for the day:  " Who needs a spring chicken when you can have a well-seasoned bird?"

This is your brain on chocolate

 

  All the Christmas candy is GONE!  Even the fruitcake! Who could have eaten it all? (Burp).

I was sure that I had written another post in January, but it only seems to reside in my brain, and not here.  So I will get something down today before all you lovely people will be reduced to reading cereal boxes (my nearest competitor).

Last week we had a new crisis.  C went out to feed the horses and came running back to the house to tell us Willie (24 year old gelding) was colic-ing.  He was cast in his stall (laying so close to the wall that he couldn't get his legs under him to stand up).  We un-cast him ( a simple (!!) matter of flipping him upside down) but he had sweated so much his blanket literally dripped.  We stripped that off and put on a dry one, and began the tedious business of walking him round and round to keep him on his feet.  I had some injectable smooth muscle relaxing med to keep him comfortable (well...) and we dosed him with mineral oil to ease things along, so to speak, until the vet came.  The vet gave him several different meds and listened to his gut sounds until he could hear normal rumbles.  He was here around an hour, and the bill was $$$, but the alternative was a horse that rolled until his gut twisted, and that equals a dead horse.  Post treatment he has recovered well, although he is on a no-grain regimen.  Horses are really poorly engineered, one whose only defense is to run away, and to have no way to vomit or even burp, so everything has to exit at the rear of the bus.  We will never know the cause of this - did the casting come before or after the colic?  I really don't think he has ever done this before, and since he was born here I have a pretty good handle on his medical history.  We'll just have to keep an eye on him closely until springtime.  Don't you wish you had horses?

We have been having snow showers the last few days, and it is snowing now.  I have a different attitude about snow than I did when I was a teenager growing up in Miami FL.  All I wanted was to be able to play in it, and when I was in college in SC that is what we did.  Now, though, I understand what people meant when they said, you haven't driven in it.  I am a total chicken, and not having to work means we can postpone appt and non-critical trips indefinitely.  And of course there is worrying about R and C having to drive in it.  I should be glad that this little snow is the most we have had so far this winter.  All the trees and flowers are confused, and several have started to bloom (forsythia, cherry, and the hosta is starting too) so I don't know if they will bloom again in the spring, or is this it for the year?

Thought for the day:  "Oh, no!  Not ANOTHER  learning experience!"

Afters

We had a very nice Christmas, not because of the gifts, but for the peace of having all four of us sit down to a great meal, with no one rushing off to do something else.  Yesterday it was back to work (for son and daughter) and back to the routine of laundry, grocery shopping, etc. for us.  I have been playing with my toy, a KitchenAid mixer, I have ordered a cookbook (which I really don't need) that uses the mixer, which apparently can do anything except get up and dance, I guess.  It is (of course) bright red.  And very heavy.

I did finally get the cards done, on Christmas day in fact.  Anyone who knows me would be unsurprised I am sure.  Meanwhile we received 2 cards, not counting those from politicians.  I guess few people do the Christmas card thing anymore.  It's OK.

We lost one of our barn cats today, she was around 17, and died in her sleep right where she always lies.  It wasn't unexpected, she had been ranging around the neighborhood for the last weeks or so, totally unlike her usual habit of staying right in the garage or the barn (less so).  I was afraid she would just disappear and we would never find her, but this is better.  Her name was White.

We didn't have any snow for the holiday, but last night there was a rip-snorting wind storm.  The house cats all hid (in their usual places) until things quieted down around midnight.   I'm not so brave in a windstorm myself; a holdover from growing up in Hurricane Alley.  In the morning we can see a ton of branches down that will have to be piled up for the next brushy fire.  Some of the neighbors were out with their chain saws, do you suppose they were Christmas gifts? 

Back to dinner prep, hope everyone out there has a safe holiday Thursday night.
Thought for the day:  "I suffer from Compulsive Indecisive Disorder.  I don't know what I want but I know that I want it now!"

Almost there

All of the gifts have arrived (the ones I and DH bought) and they are wrapped even and then under the tree.  It looks very festive.  The only gift that has not come yet is an office chair for our son.  If it comes before the projected delivery date of Dec. 28th I will be very happy, but if not, then so be it, we can get it later.

We also gave folding green to various people and to the red kettle ringers.  We donate it all at once instead of a dollar here, and fiver there, etc.  There aren't as many kettles this year, fewer volunteers I guess.

We have received no Christmas cards yet, unless you count the one from Rosalyn and Jimmie Carter. I think it was seeking donations to Habitat for Humanity, but there are far more good organizations (and I include this) than there is money to spread around.  I'll work on sending our cards out this weekend, all 8 of them.  I write notes in all of them, which is why it takes a fairly long time.

Thought for the day:  "Merry Christmas!"

P.S.  It's snowing...

Hello Santa

Well, not entirely, yet, but I am getting there.  If UPS and FedEx come through for me, we have all the shopping done.  Today we went by Belk's (Large-ish department store) to get electric blankets for R and C, but they only had them in queen and King sizes, no Twin ones at all.  So I came home and ordered them on-line.  I'm willing to support local (sort of) merchants, but if they can't restock quickly at this time of year, it is no wonder that people resort to online buying.  I wish I could have felt the ones I ended up ordering, but I just ordered a well known brand, and hope for the best.

It was 71 here today before the rain started, this on Dec. 14th!  Will we have a winter at all this year? I guess if I had my druthers it would be for snow on Dec 24th and gone by Dec 26th.  Just enough to have a white Christmas.  But we shall see.

I am writing this on my MacBook Air, and the keys are really small.  But that is no excuse for this to auto-correct my spelling every other word.  I liked it better when the questionable words were underscored and then you corrected them after you were done with the paper.  It is especially annoying when it wants (if you can say an inanimate object wants anything) to change the word entirely to another word.  I can remember when (here we go...) cash registers just added up the total, whereas now they calculate the amount of change to give back too.  This is because the checkers couldn't count from the amount due how much change was due.  Like, the total came to 16.50 and they handed you a $20, you would count, here are two quarters, that's $17, and then 3 singles, and that equals $20.  Hand the customer $3.50 and you were done.  Now the registers show the change due, and what with coupons, specials, credit cards, and so on, is it any wonder the checkers have job related stress?  When I manned a register, we had to make up any shortfall out of our own money, which certainly gave us the incentive to get it right.  Granted, it isn't rocket science, but now we have self-checkout lines at the grocery store, so checkers aren't needed at all.  I never use the self-serve, I feel like I am cheating someone out of a job.

Enough grimness.

The house cats have been amazingly well behaved with the decorations, etc.  not even a single ornament batted off the tree.  So far.  No one felt much like doing the decorating, but we all  plugged at it a bit at a time until it was done.  Now it looks quite festive.  Only 11 more days.

I will be 65 in January, and thus obligated to begin Medicare.  I have gotten a ton of mail offering medigap insurance, which I don't need or want.  Straight into the trash.  Sometimes I wish for a trashcan right at the curb, to save having to carry it inside and fill up the trash can in  here.  I really don't need the daily reminders of my "coming of age" this time, either.

Thought for the day:  "Support the economy -- buy a congressman!"

It's beginning to look like a lot like....

Christmas.  I enjoy the day itself, seeing how much everyone is pleased with what I picked out, eating lots of yummy foods.  What I hate is shopping for Christmas, even when done on-line.  I depend on catalogs, mostly, and ask the family to pick out something they would like.  This is not foolproof; last year I bought DD a cute cat hoodie and a poncho, neither of which have seen the light of day since, but she picked them out, so I am not at fault...

We re-arranged the living and dining rooms, moved big stuff to the storage room, and now have a nicer place for our tree.  Also I bought five new house plants, about 10 of mine have died over the last 2 years, and the plant stands were looking mighty bare.  I got young, small, plants that I am familiar with, so hopefully that will mitigate the fact that they are starting in the late fall instead of the spring. I'll post a photo when I get the camera out, in the daylight (it is now nearly dark).  I'd like to do a "before" and an "after" of the dining room, once the plants have matured somewhat.

I have been using the MacBook 13.3 that is being replaced by this MacBook Air.  I try to ignore the horrible smell that it has, popularly known as bad BO.  There are pages of sites on line discussing the cause, how to fix, how NOT to fix, and general support for those of us who have these smelly items.  It is the keyboard that stinks, and not the battery or the case.  If I used it in a public place I am sure I would be asked to leave.  Either that, or prominently display a sign that says "IT ISN'T ME!"  My husband walked past me while I was typing and said how he just took a shower but now he stinks.  I told him it is the MacBook, and he just rolled his eyes.

The temp here is in the 30s, the horses are in the barn, mainly because the recent rains have made the outside footing too slippery for these geriatric beasts.  No blankets yet, it is still too warm for heavy blankies.  Maybe next week.

Last words (for today):  "If God had wanted me to touch my toes, He would have put them on my thighs."

Almost Christmas

I would like to say that I am ready for the big day; or at least some percentage done, but the truth is that I have yet to buy the first present, and no idea what I will get when I finally shop.  Last year I did everything on-line, but I don't have a clue for that either.  Hopefully the children (now in their 30s) will give us a list soon.  They both say they don't want anything.

The main distraction from Christmas tasks is that we have been feeling less than festive, what with the funerals these last 10 weeks.  I haven't even managed to update my new Mac Air, and I had planned to take it to my uncle's house the next time we visited, (to look through the genealogy file) too late now.  The only thing I did right is that the last time we visited I took (candid) photos of both of them, almost the only pictures of my uncle, who had an aversion to being photographed.  I love them both, there is a hollow space in my heart from their loss.

We rented a storage site, to help with sorting our possessions into "keep"  ("donate" and "pitch").  The pitch ones are in the garage right now, they will go into the truck for a trip (or trips) to the landfill.  I feel bad, but there is so much that is far outdated.  All the computers and peripherals will go to a reclamation site for recycling, but the rest will just be pitched.  When we stripped out the old barn when the new barn was finished, we rented a dumpster for a month.  When they came to pick it up, the contents were above the top and had to be-positioned before they would take it away.  Where does this all come from??!!  Of course, we buy it, and then don't throw out the earlier version.

Thought for the day :  "I can't be over the hill, I'm too tired to climb up."

Nancy

This morning, early, my Aunt Nancy passed.  It was not unexpected, she has been very ill for several months, still, it is a grief time again.

This has been a lousy month.

Thought for the day:  "Win, lose or draw, we'll always be your number one fan."

A tweak here, assorted changes, bet you can't tell...

I changed the font here, from gray to black, and from 14 to 12 in size.  I have been finding it difficult to read what I write, and this should help.  I wanted a certain font that I saw on Word, but it wasn't on the roster of fonts, so no go there.  Hope this all makes it easier to read for all of you visitors too.

When I got my new computer (HP) it came with a keyboard, but I continued to use the old one.  BUT, the old one had a now-you-see-it, now-you-don't for the space bar (why not for the "Q" key?) so I switched out for the new keyboard.  It is much shorter than the one it replaced, which gives me more space on my desktop.

I have been struggling with my MacBook Air, and although I called Small Dog Electronics (where I bought the Mac from, last week!), they apparently don't do gratis troubleshooting over the phone; they charge $50 for every half hour.  No thank you.  I got in a terrible mess for passwords on iCloud and start-up passwords, I changed my password dozens of times, apparently successfully, and yet each time I tried to log on, it wanted me to "confirm my identity" over and over.  I ran out of passwords after about 12 changes, because it wouldn't allow any password that has been used in the last year -- sheesh!  Finally in desperation I re-formatted the flash drive, and carefully selected a total of 3 passwords for all the various steps in the software.  Even if I mess up again, there are only 3; I know one of three will be the right one.  And yes, I wrote them down.  Does anyone really attempt to remember all the passwords at all the sites?

We finally heard from Cousin Airhead, who referred to himself as a knucklehead, so I wasn't far off.  My aunt (his mother) is in fact at home, and we will go to see her next weekend, before winter makes problems somewhere along the trip.  I'm not sure if she will remember us, but this visit is more for us, I'm not sure she will last through the winter, and I want to say goodbye.  A little morbid.  It will be rough, the first time since my uncle passed that he won't be at the door to welcome us.  I doubt if we continue bringing flowers (silk) to the graves of my parents, aunt, and sister, it is a long way to go just to change the arrangements.  Maybe once a year?

 It is 4:30 here and I am back to bed.  Goodnight to all.

Thought for the day:  "Young at heart; slightly older in other places."

Better late than never

I did a big splurge and bought a MacBook Air, looking to replace the 10-year-old macbook Pro.  I got a refurbished one, to hold the price down.  When I bought the macbook 10 years ago I did the same, and the only reason for replacing it now is that new releases of software refuse to work with such an old OS.  I have fiddled with this long enough that I can safely say it isn't a do-it-yourself project.  Maybe the next blogpost will be from there.  Whoa!  Crisis!  Back here in bit.