Good morning gals! Chilly here this morning and my IP is as slow as dial up. Jack needs to call them, but they outsource so you get an Indian you can't understand. My modem is blinking and we are to the point now where some webpages won't even load, like AOL. I fell asleep on Friday and didn't get to see Las Vegas so was going to watch it online and can't keep the video going. It will freeze then progress, freeze progress, then freeze up entirely. I know it isn't our computer because I have done everything from defragging, dumping temp internet files, running a virus scan, running an adware scan and even doing a disc clean. I am tired of it being this way and I am just not technically savvy enough to move around the interworkings of the computer when the tech says to do this or this so Jack is going to have to call.

Gloria: Nice to see you in here. The Hale Koa looks like a really nice hotel complex. We are not beachy people as I get sunburned even sitting in the shade sometimes so I am not sure we will ever choose Hawaii as a vacation destination, but the price is sure right. Jack (mine not yours) has been having a lot of trouble with his arthritis the last week or so because of cold temps. He has it bad in his knees and hip and I always know it is acting up when I see him gimping around. He never complains, bless him and if he says anything you can be sure it is to the point of agony. I have more hand issues and sometimes the knitting makes it worse. I am lucky with just a little swelling and tightness occasionally though as my father had rhumatoid arthritis and I believe it is an inherited disease. That poor man's hands would sometimes look like they were blown up balloons they were so swollen.

Jean: Ok, now I understand. The friends are the in-laws! Sounds like you had fun with the little ones. I bought stuff at the commissary for Thomas for Valentine's Day, a package of his favorite, Peeps in two pink hearts, a little m and m guy who's hat twirls around on top and a solid chocolate heart sucker that says "I Love You." The moron bagger put all the stuff in then shoved a box of dog treats on top and when I got home, the sucker was broken to bits. Jack said if we didn't live 35 miles away he would have taken it back and made them replace it. I also got him two games for the new computer his parents bought him. I got him the Monopoly game I have on my computer that he sits for hours and plays with when he comes here and a Game of Life. I also have a book for him that I bought from one of my favorite authors thinking it was adult, but he had written it for young readers. I don't know if he will like it as it is a mystery about a baseball team, but I am giving it to him anyway. I wanted to get the little guy something to eat, but since he is still total breast I gave that up. I am giving him two books I bought for him for Christmas from my book club that didn't get shipped in time and a little net bag of squishy tub toys, turtles and fishes.

I ran out of bags yesterday and haven't had a chance to get to Millington so Jack had called the lady on Friday and had her put back stuff so we decided to change things up and I hurriedly made a grocery list since that is where the base is and went and got ostomy supplies at the little drugstore then went to the commissary. It was practically empty. Maybe because it was between military paydays and the retired crowd don't get their retirement checks until next week as well as their SS. It was nice not having people crowding the aisles, though there was this one couple that were a pain. She had a partial list and basket and he had a list and basket and they went their separate ways except he kept yelling at her stuff like, "do you have such and such on your list?" He would put his basket smack in the middle of the aisle and walk off going to look for her. I bet I moved him 4-5 times. I kept trying to get ahead of him, but he kept showing up like a bad penny.

I think I am going to get into the recliner with the dog and go back to sleep for a bit. Either that or drag myself back upstairs to bed for awhile.

Have a good Sunday all!
Faye

Hi gma2one...I want to put your mind at rest,rhumatoid arthritis is not an inherited disease, it is caused by a virus, i know because all the doctors told us that, my grandmother had it so i know what your feeling. I also did research on it and it is for sure a virus. I hope this makes you feel better




Linda

Hi, Linda, Faye, and Jean! Didn't do anything interesting this weekend - laundry, housecleaning, grocery shopping. But there were some interesting movies on the Hallmark channel in the evening.

Faye, what kind of internet connection do you have? Some give you a speed, but that speed is shared by all who are on the connection (Cox does that here and so does Verizon). They then sell too many connections for that particular line and you get a real degredation in service.

Jean, do you need someone to carry your luggage? I'm available.

Good morning to you all! Brother we fought with the internet connection issue all day yesterday and we still aren't sure what is going on. We had the tech guy on the phone for an hour doing speed checks and such and he ended up saying his best guess was our router. Well that's all fine and dandy, but Jack disconnected the modem from the router and connected the modem directly to the computer and we still get the same things. Our speed should be around 1600 and sometimes it is down to less than 200 and it vacillates to anything inbetween. Jack went out and bought a new cable thinking that might be it, but it didn't help. I sent them an email complaining about it, but I am sure that won't get anywhere. I think I am going to tell Jack to go and buy a router and bring it home and if that doesn't fix it, to take the new one back. I don't know. We thought it might be the modem, but Jack looked at it and it doesn't seem to be it either so we are at a loss. I am just sick of waiting for it to come up like slow dialup.

Susan: We have bellsouth which is ATT now and I have a sneaky suspicion it is because of the change We had massive internet wide problems recently that they had to fix. Jack called a guy he works with and ask him if his was wanky but the guy says he isn't sure because he only uses it late and night and it seems to be slow a little sometimes, but not like we experience.

Linda: Hello and thanks for the info.

Jean: I had two of those little old ladies in front of me at another grocery store on Thursday. They only had 4-5 items, but they were yakking and not paying attention and fooling with checkbook or the cash and the one right in front of me left her basket blocking the aisle so I had to push it through. When she was at the end of the aisle to walk away, she looked back at me and gave me a dirty look because I pushed her basket through!

I finished the baby's hat. Isn't it cute? It looks big but actually it is tiny for a newborn. I finished it last night. I hope I can post this as I had to clear out all my other attachments as I was at maximum.

Have a great Monday gals.
Faye

Good morning ladies!

Faye, what a cute hat! It will adorable on the baby. Hope your internet problems get solved soon. We use Cox at work (cable) and it was plenty fast when we signed up - now that there has been more houses built in the area, I can tell you when the kids get home from school - it slows down to a crawl. Supposedly they are going to rectify things soon. I use Verizon DSL at home and so far it works well. There is no more room to build near us so hopefully it will stay that way.

Have to go - more later!

Good morning to you all! I got the downstairs all finished along with one of the sleeves finally. I am going to sew the sleeve in before I start the next one. My cleaning project today though is shampooing the dining room that we didn't get to over the weekend. I only have to move the 4 chairs and dining table, which is a small farm table into the hallway and I can do that room. We have a very large self standing pantry, but we can't move that without help and completely emptying it out. Since it can't possibly get dirty underneath we never move it. So, I will do that later on today.

Susan: Yeah, we have our internet problem fixed. I can't believe this is isn't one of the things the guy told Jack to check when he was on the phone with him on Sunday. We have a wireless router because Jack has a laptop upstairs in his office. The settings internally have to be set disallowing anyone for lack of better words, to glom on to our internet service that has a laptop. In other words, we were sort of like a satellite for anyone in the neighborhood to use our internet service because it is wireless. When Jack put the block up, it instantly helped and we are whizzing right along now.

Jean: Our Walgreens here are outrageous with pricing, but anymore have little competition. The only other drugstore that can compete is CVS so they basically just fight each other. I get my latex gloves there as they are hard to find in quantity anywhere else. We had soup last night too. I made chili and corn bread. It was yummy as we haven't had it in quite awhile. I made it thinking it would be cold and it got nice and warm yesterday. So much so I had to turn the furnace way down and even opened the door and let in the fresh air.

We had a murder only a mile from here in the early hours of Monday morning I guess. Jack went to work and just a mile down the road where he gets onto the interstate, they had the street blocked. I never watch the depressing news here so we didn't know what it was. Jack said a guy at work heard about it on tv. I am going to check and see what the online newspaper and tv stations have to say. I am sure we will be on the tv show "The First 48." We are one of the more popular cities for that show. Sad that you gain notoriety by being on tv for murders in your city.

Woohoo they are finally shipping my new electric skillet. I ordered a skillet about 3 months ago from JC Penney online as I had a free shipping coupon and they had a big sale and I got it half off. It just shipped last night. I have had the current one for more than 15 years. The nonstick has kind of worn off, but it still works great. The problem is one of the plastic legs split where it screws into metal of the pan so it doesn't stand still very well. I am hoping this one is as large and works as well.

I seem to have spells of lots of shipping. I am waiting on books from my book club so I have stuff to take to the hospital, the games and stuff I bought for T for Valentine's day from Amazon and another order from Penneys. I bought Jack's sister a lovely sort of pear green mock turtleneck short sleeved sweater with a matching large colored cardigan and a beautiful sterling and platinum pendant with her initial to wear with it. She has almost black hair it is so dark and the color choices were the green, pink, baby blue, dark brown and black in her size. She definitely can't wear the pastels, except I thought the green would be ok and didn't want to get icky black or brown.

Well, I am just yammering when I should be sewing.

Have a wonderful Tuesday.
Faye

Good morning, ladies! 43 degrees and drizzle this morning.

Jean, Walgreen's is one of my least favorite stores - high prices, don't have enough of the advertised specials, and cluttered aisles. Even their sale prices are usually higher than what I pay for the same thing at Walmart. We have Rite-Aid as their biggest competition.

Faye, hope you like your new electric skillet. I had one we got for a wedding present in 1972 until last year. The leg split and I replaced it with a wooden thread spool. It was still working when I got a new one because the nonstick coating was pretty much gone.

The nurse took the wound vac off my husband last night and didn't put it back on because his skin is so raw from the adhesives. They put a piece about 8x10 because it has to keep it dry. Every time it is changed, it pulls the top layer of skin off. It's starting to look better today. She put a wet dressing on and will speak with the doctor today. The good news is the wound is now 8 cm x 1 cm so doing very well. Through trial and error, I think I have found why his blood pressures drops so drastically during dialysis. They are taking off too much water. By tracking his incoming and departing weights I can see how much they take off. They are not supposed to take off more than 4 kilos (about 9 pounds). They have taken off as much as 7. I know he gets a lot of water retention when he is in the hospital and has to have IVs. I have a call in to neph's office to see what's going on.

Good morning to you all! We are freezing here as we have no furnace. We had heavy rain and very strong wind all day yesterday into last night. Our power didn't go out downstairs at all, but when Jack came home at 3:30 and went upstairs to change, we had no lights upstairs. All the outlets work though. He crawled up into the attic, and saw the breaker to the furnace was tripped and reset it, but nothing. He couldn't see very well because that light is connected to the rest upstairs. He checked the voltage in the inside breakers and the outside and we called MLGW just to be sure, who came out and said there was power into the house. We called our home warranty company and said it was an emergency, but I guess you have to suffer because she put in the request but told us we had to call the electric company direct and the guy won't come out until this morning. It is barely 60 in the house and my hands are so cold I can barely type, but I couldn't go back to sleep. I may have to force myself just to get under the warm covers. It hasn't been cold enough yet to put on the electric blanket for the year, but with last night getting around 30 we just stuck it over the top of the comforter and turned it on.

Susan: They used a wound gel and a wound spray on my incision that really healed things up. One of the things recommended to heal my skin around my stoma was Nexcare liquid bandage. All the ostomy patients swear by it. If you ever have to change his bandages out, you might want to try it. They said you could get it at Walmart, but I couldn't find it. I haven't looked at Walgreens or a drugstore for it.

Jean: Now I know where our bad weather came from! Hope you aren't snowed in too badly. I would hate for you to miss school.... I don't know what holding the kids accomplishes. I don't suppose the idiot administrator thought of the fact that he or she might have trouble getting home by waiting. The boob would deserve getting snowed into the school and not be able to get home.

I had leftover yarn from the yellow sweater and decided to use it up. Here is the beginning of a carseat blanket for my dil's sister. I had a bit of trouble getting started as I made a couple mistakes and had to rip it out a couple times, but I slowed down and am doing ok with it now. Only problem is, I am not sure I have enough yellow now so I may have to go and see if I can find some. Thank goodness this yarn doesn't have a dye lot.

Well, I am going to go into the garage and see if I can find the little space heater so I can sit and knit and stay halfway warm.

Have a good Wednesday everyone!
Faye

Good morning to you all! We have sleet mixed with rain, mixed with ice this morning, but the temps are a few degrees above freezing so I imagine it won't last long. Thank goodness I didn't need the car today but tomorrow. It should all be gone by then. I hate driving in this town in bad weather. They are such idiots.

We now have all the electricals ok. The wind and rain storm was just coincidence I guess. The morons who wired the new furnace in 2 years ago first off wired the old stuff into a new box and left the old stuff wired to the old box then on top of that, didn't tightened down the wiring enough so I guess it was doing what Jack called arcing and would burn a little everytime it did and finally burned clear through the wires. That caused a power surge through the house and we had a wire loose in our upstairs bedroom light and it caused it to short out everything lightwise. The electrician said the condo is wired weirdly anyway. Poor man was here from 9 am until almost 1 o'clock, mostly trying to find the source of the light problem. I told Jack what I thought it was and when the guy came down and told Jack I said, "See, why don't husband's listen to their wives?" The reason why I thought it had to do with our bedroom light is that when Jack went up to change he blew both bulbs in the bedroom when he turned on the switch and then the rest of the upstairs quit working. It is only common sense to start there, but Jack never told the electrician that.

Jean: Sounds like you have some really bad weather your way. We talked to our son last night and they have very frigid temps and blowing snow and such. He was babysitting last night because Alicia is working nights this week to cover for someone. He told me that Jackson's favorite toy is the train I bought him for Christmas (I could hear him "talking" in the background playing with it) and he said they bought extra animals that you can get for the train, but they can't find extra cars and so some of the animals have to stay at the zoo. He excused himself a moment and yelled at one of the dogs and came back and said, "Ahhh, the house is completely silent. I love being able to do that." He went on to tell me he always thought dad was a jerk for saying it was his house, his rules, etc, but he loved having that power now and started laughing. I told him to wait about 12 years and his son would think he was a jerk too. I guess Jackson now has 2 uppers and 2 lowers and Jay said he looks like a rabbit. I pity poor Alicia now who is still breastfeeding!
The blanket is what they call a half or carseat blanket. It is as wide as a carseat and will be long enough to go from the bottom of the carseat to over the top so if she wishes she can cover the baby, tuck it in and carry him or her to the car and then just fold it down to keep them warm. I only have about 4 sections to go and I am finished but I ran out of yarn so have to see if Hobby Lobby has some either this afternoon if the weather clears or tomorrow as I am keeping the car to take Fortune to the groomers.

I have morning chores and they just don't seem to do themselves.

Have a great Thursday, keep warm, dry and see you tomorrow.
Faye

Good morning, ladies! Only 38 degrees today (was 64 yesterday), but the sun is shining and it makes me feel good.

Faye, I love the blanket, what a good idea! Men - don't ask for directions or give any info that isn't dug out of them.

Jean, I hope the weather has settled down and the roads are clear. No fun driving when you can't see.

This week has gone by quickly. I've been really busy at work. And here we are with a whole month of 2008 gone...time goes so quickly. Another month and I'll be packing up sweaters and heavy pants. I've got to make a dreaded trip to the attic and see what is in those boxes - probably clothes that are too big or too small...more for the thrift store.