Good morning to you all! It is still a bit brisk here this morning, but supposed to warm back up nicely. My deck keeps looking like a trash bin since I am getting boxes of stuff everyday. I am towards the end though so it should taper off. We don't have good closet space or storage so I am trying to get organized. I have a chest of drawers and an armoire with two drawers, but it doesn't hold everything. I have Jack's sweaters in one hall closet and mine in the other. These are supposed to be linen closets. I have clothes in Jack's closet in his office and all my shoes in the spare room closet. I ordered the special hangers that I hope will help make space in the closet, then space bags to switch out summer from winter sweaters and am going to put all the old scrapbooking stuff of Kelly's up in the attic for now to make room. I also bought 2 sets of handbag holders enough for 32 bags that I can hang on the back of the spare bedroom double doors and hang most of my handbags up which will free up the shelf about my hanging clothes. Anyway, the hangers are on back order and the space bags haven't been shipped yet. I am still waiting on the boys Christmas pjs that are backordered until tomorrow, a youngest son ornament for my sil because I ordered the wrong one for him, and this set of pads and pens that I am going to use as stocking stuffers. I also ordered two, two shelf cabinets from penneys with cushions for our tiny bathroom to store towels and am taking down the towel rack I have in the bathroom as the darn thing rusted at the bottom when water would splash out of the tub. I am rearranging the health supplies into the linen closet and putting the cleaning supplies under the sink where the health supplies were. I will then put the two cabinets where the cleaning supplies rolling cart was and put the cart out in the garage. I have a big list to work on. I may not get it all done before the kids get here, but I am going to try. They don't stay here, they stay at a hotel, that is what they prefer. The bedrooms in the condo, except for our bedroom are pretty small so will only accomodate a double bed. In this day and age, no one can sleep in a double bed anymore. Jay is so tall, he would be hanging off from his knees down.

Susan: You and I posted at the same time I bet. I was ragging about the preachers so it took time! lol

Maggie: We have some lovely friends who are a preacher and his wife and they never got rich either. Like I said, it is a life that chooses you, you don't choose it and it is one of servitude. It is not a life of glory, except when you get to heaven, but one of sorrow a lot of the time. Most preachers of regular sized congregations either stay at the middle class level or below a bit. These mega churches are the ones I was talking about. I guess it just gets my goat about the excessive money involved in it all.

Jean: Again, it is not the teacher's responsibility to speak spanish, but the child's to learn english. I have always maintained that it is the responsibility of the person in a foreign country to learn their language and not the countrymen's responsibility to learn the person's moving there. If you move to France, learn to speak french! It gauls me that Americans think other countries should accomodate us and gauls me that the spanish speaking especially think we all should speak spanish for their comfort level here in this country. Pretty arrogant to want the teachers to learn a language and pay for it themselves as well. I have often wondered about that language program, Rosetta Stone. I hear it is amazing. I know a bit of spanish and a bit of french and a bit of german. I took French in high school and in college and lived in spanish areas after we got married so picked some up there along with Sesame Street and my grandpa was german so learned some german that way. My arm got sore right away with my flu shot yesterday. I was surprised at the cost though, yowser! Last year, Jack got his at the drs so we paid nothing and I got mine while I was in the hospital after my first surgery so it was included in the hospital bill. We paid $10 apiece 2 years ago at the same Walgreens, because the health department were the ones doing it. This year, unbeknownst to me, Walgreens was doing it and they charged $25 apiece!!! I didn't have enough cash with me and had to put it on my credit card! Jack says his arm is bruised but doesn't hurt. They put it in my left arm and I am left handed so it is sore with the muscle movement. I wonder if she got a muscle when she injected it as like I said, it got sore right away. It isn't hot or swollen or even have a lump, but it sure is sore and achy!

I better get the laundry in the dryer and start the rest of the morning chores. You all have a good Thursday!
Faye

Good morning, ladies. Down in the low 40s this morning.

Nothing planned for this weekend, mostly working on the quilt for my Curves trainer. Her wedding is November 15 so time is running out!

Faye, I hope your arm is feeling better. You are always so organized. You'll have all that cleaning and rearranging done in no time.

When I started my computer, Weatherbug came up with an interesting article on DST. I thought I'd share it with you.


It's Time To Set Your Clocks Back!
October 29, 2008
By WeatherBug Meteorologists
This Sunday morning, November 2, clocks all across the U.S. will be turned back one hour as Daylight Saving Time comes to an end.


Clocks "fall back" later than usual, as Daylight Saving Time remains with us until the first Sunday of November. The reason for an extra week of Daylight Saving Time is the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which also added three weeks of DST in March.


Until 2006, Daylight Saving Time ended the last Sunday in October. Probably the most noticeable difference between now and then will be on Halloween, as skies remain lit an hour later than in the past.


What you may not be aware of, however, is how daylight saving originated and the connection it has to weather.


The main idea behind Daylight Saving Time (DST) is to allow people and businesses to utilize daylight more effectively. More specifically, turning the clocks back in the fall and ahead in the spring helps to conserve energy.


According to many historians, the original idea for DST originated with none other than Ben Franklin, who was known for his colorful and often practical ideas in the realms of science and public policy.


In 1784, as he approached the end of his term as an American delegate in Paris, Franklin penned "An Economical Project," a discourse on the merits of natural versus artificial lighting. He included several humorous laws or ideas that the city of Paris could enact to conserve energy and make better use of daylight.


Others adopted the idea in Britain and this was the first country to put DST into effect starting in 1840 with London railroads. By 1855 a large majority of Britain`s clocks were set to DST.


Much later, the U.S. government created a law putting daylight saving time in effect during World War I and World War II. Between 1945 and 1966, however, there was no U.S. law to enforce daylight saving time.


However, by 1966 daylight saving time was in use by more than 100 million Americans due to local laws and customs. Many of these individuals were farmers, who felt their productivity benefited from the extra daylight in the morning during the spring and summer.


In 1966, the Uniform Time Act was passed, setting up a system of uniform (within each time zone) Daylight Saving Time throughout the U.S. and its territories.


Mid-fall is a natural time to turn the clocks back in the U.S., since it is a time when home and business owners are switching from air conditioning to heat.


The specific "turn back the clock date" that saves the most energy year-to-year depends on weather conditions in a particular country. In the U.S. the clocks are always turned back in mid-autumn and turned forward in early spring.


However, daylight saving time is not used in the state of Arizona (aside from the Navajo Reservation), Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. In April 2006, the Eastern Time Zone of Indiana began to use DST after decades of not changing the clocks back and forth in spring and autumn.


Many other countries use daylight saving time as well, including all of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile, Israel and Egypt.


In the southern hemisphere countries like Australia, Brazil and Chile, the dates are reversed because their seasons are the opposite of the northern hemisphere. Thus clocks are turned back in March or April and forward in September or October.

Good morning to you all! Hope your day has started out well. Well, guess who lived in one of only a handful of counties that didn't change time? It was nuts when everyone else changed time and we didn't. In fact, until they decided to change it in 2006, Jay was in that mess and we could never remember whether he was on the same time as us or not. It gets really confusing. Now we know he is on Eastern time and an hour ahead of us all the time.

Susan: What colors are you using for your instructor's quilt? Are you doing something different or using the wedding ring pattern? My arm has a little knot on it when you rub it, it is sore, but it isn't sore otherwise. It was just weird because it didn't swell or get hot or anything, but right away it started to sort of ache, tingle, something and didn't go away until the next day!

Jean: I imagine the old guy has had to deal with the not so nice part of your hispanics and has developed prejudices from it. I know that my prejudices with regards to different races stem from things that have happened to me because of them. I feel many people's prejudices are like that. Some are just generations of hate, period, but others develop from actual events. It isn't right, but it is understandable. You can move somewhere that has a large group of some other race for example, and never have hard feelings about a certain race, then as you live there you are injured, taken advantage of, treated badly or whatever and the prejudices start layering. I know that is what happens down here with people from the north. People from the south just plain have prejudices between blacks and whites just because their ancestry did and it comes up through generations. I applaud those kids for being good citizens and registering to vote. Good for them. Our pickins' are small this voting year, but it is our obligation to vote.

We are going to Thomas's tonight and have dinner with them and then hand out candy while T goes and trick or treats. I will take him his little treats and his lighted up Halloween bag. This is something we do every year so it is always fun. Jack has a good time handing out the candy to the little kids.

I am finally getting to the bottom side of my packages. I am pretty irked about a backorder though. They went ahead and charged me for it and it has come through my credit card days ago, but they keep moving the date up. It started out Oct 25, then 30 now it is Nov. 9. It is holiday pjs for the two boys and if they keep moving it, they won't get here in time. I will be REALLY mad if that happens. The little seated shelves should be here tomorrow and the order for a couple more stocking stuffers says it is ready to ship but it takes them a week from that time to ship the darn stuff. I also have all those hangers on backorder. I have no idea when they will ship. You are supposed to be able to hang sweaters on them and they won't do the hunch back thing so I want to get them so I can get started rearranging stuff. You should see the extra bedroom. It looks like someone dynamited it. The bed is piled high with suitcases, organizational stuff and Christmas presents. My treadmill was the only place I had to put all the ornaments and stuff I bought so we can't use it for the time being. This condo was not made for people with "stuff." All the holiday stuff will go back into the big rubbermaid bins I bought for Christmas stuff, but I can't see dragging it out there then dragging it back in.

I guess I better get on the stick as my mom used to say. Time is a wastin.'
Faye

Good evening, ladies.

Trick or Treat is over - I had 12. Glad I didn't plan on a lot more. A lot of schools and churchs have parties for the kids now.

I spent the day cleaning house. Tomorrow is laundry. I think I'll go to bed early tonight, I'm tired.

Faye, I'm just making a scrap quilt - all different colors. Each block has a white center that someone has signed. I had asked her favorite color and she said she doesn't have one.

Jean, I don't think the kids dressed up for Halloween at school here either. I saw them getting off the buses and it looked like their regular clothes.

Have a good night.

Good morning to you all. We were up early to go get haircuts so I didn't get in here at the usual early bird time.

Alicia sent pics of Jackson. Hold on to you hat. He has grown a lot! I bought him the little jacket in a 2t and it barely fits him and won't for long. Glad I bought 3T stuff for him for Christmas!

Susan: We always go to Thomas's and pass out candy while they go trick or treating and it was quiet until around 7:30 then the cars started showing up with gaggles of kids. You knew they didn't live in the area and some of them were teenagers, but you dare not refuse them or you don't know what will happen. We gave out a good percentage of Kelly's candy and I swiped several green apple twizzlers! lol

Jean: Thomas's costume looked really cute and dumb grandparents forgot our camera. He had a good time and got lots of junk. Hope Bob's combine troubles have been straightened out. We watched a Halloween program last night and one of the segments was about this huge and I mean huge corn maze. It is a pumpkin farm that about 3 years ago started the maze. This guy is talented as they are plowed out into a shape and they are amazing when viewed from the air. This year it was a wagon full of pumpkins, last year was a pumpkin face and the year before that I can't remember. It is amazing to see the skill doing something like that. Some people get lost for a whole day in the thing. It would creep me out to go in there. I would end up having to go to the bathroom or something and not be able to find my way out. Knowing me, I would have some rodent pope out of the corn and chase me around!

I am doing mopping today and going to the store and get some stuff for dinner in a bit. We are going to make the trek out to the commissary tomorrow.

One of my dd's friend's husband died very suddenly night before last. He was 20 years older than she, was retired military and retired from the post office. She had never paid their bills and knew not where anything was or how to go about anything. She called last night while Kelly was out and talked to Jack and she was seriously looped! She said she had been drinking all day and was sorry. I emailed Kelly all the info I had on reporting his death to SS, the DFAS for his military retirement check, how to get medical benefits if the ones she has are cancelled, stuff like that. I have it all in a folder for the kids if something happens to us, so it was easy to just send her the info, links, numbers and such. I told her to make sure she got lots of death certificates as she needed them for almost everything. They have a 19 year old son that lives and home and is in college and it is going to be a hard financial road for them as they opted out of the survivors plan for his military check. We don't have it either because it is a rip off. You have to pay into it every month then I would only get a portion of his current pension. I thought it would end up costing us more that it would be worth. I would just have me to worry about and with his life insurance and getting out and getting a job and his city pension I could make it.

Well, I need to get floors mopped.
Faye

Good morning to you all. It is cool this morning but supposed to warm up nicely into the 70's.

I got my two little shelving units with the bench tops and cushions and they are very nice. I think they will do fine up in the bathroom. I have left them in the dining room until I do the big rearrange. I am waiting for those durn hangers to get shipped so I can do it all. I do think I am going to start putting stuff in space bags tomorrow to help start the clear out. I may store them under the guest bed and ours.

Today is the trudge to the commissary. I noticed our gas is now $2.03 a gallon, whooppeee. I doubt the present administration will get any credit for that, but they sure got the criticism. We shall see what happens Tuesday I guess but I noticed the ugly religious side of the democratic opponent's religion has reared its ugly head in posts and such on political things. Some of them are pretty ugly and making assumptions as to what he will do with white people when he becomes president. All we can do is pray that God will lead people to make the right decision about voting.

Jean: I ordered those hangers from HSN. They are super thin, wide, flocked so any size clothing won't slip off and the ones I ordered come with the clips to extend the hangers downward so you can hang stuff vertically to make more space too. I included a picture of them for you. They are supposed to really give your closet extra space. I ordered the 100 hangers plus the hooks kit so I will have plenty. The color choices are endless that you can coordinate with your bedroom, but they seel out completely or are on backorder whenever they come up for sale. I ordered a beautiful nautical blue so they are dark blue. Oh and they are guaranteed not to stain the clothing since you can buy them in colors.

Maggie: I love the colors of fall, but I like warmer weather and I hate all the leaf clean up. My deck is a mess right now and needs to be tackled. We have so much to do on the weekends before Thanksgiving I imagine I am going to have to try and do it myself and it make take quite a bit of time with the way I have the backaches and such since the surgery.

Gals, I need to run. I have to type up my grocery list, change out my handbag and get a shower and get dressed. I need to do morning chores before I go to so I better scoot.
Faye

Good morning to you all. I need your input about something. As you know, our son and dil are coming at Thanksgiving. It is Jay's very favorite holiday for some reason. Last year, we had a smoked turkey we bought prepared from the bbq place, a precooked ham from a ham place, mashed potatoes from those frozen containers, corn from the little baggies that go in the micro, get my drift? In other words, I had been out the hospital two weeks and I just couldn't cook. Everyone enjoyed it I thought. Now I know that my dd hates ham. She always has. Come to find out, Tom hates turkey (guess it is good thing I had both) Anyway, all the background is to let you know that last year was not a "mom's cookin'" year and Jay still enjoyed it all. When he is not down here and we don't go up there, we go out to eat! Anyway, I am still having backaches when I stand for long periods along with that cramping so I can't stand and cook for hours or in this case the problem is really the clean up. When I clean up after a meal for just Jack and I, I always have a backache and some cramping until I sit down. On top of that, Kelly has had some kind of gastro issue for the last year, messed up her knee a couple months back and thinks she has stress fractures in her foot again (same one as the knee.) She may be in a boot for Thanksgiving or even have had surgery if the gastro stuff warrants, which would mean she couldn't help much, my dil doesn't help and the man of the hour NEVER helps. Jack and Tom pitch in though as does Kel. On Halloween, we discussed going out to dinner for Thanksgiving someplace, Jack said he would pay no matter where we chose, then have crudites, relishes, sweets and pies and stuff along with either a sit down of something that could go in the crockpot or at least something very easy to clean up without a bunch of leftovers. If Jay were your kid and was so adament about having Thanksgiving at home, how would you put the screws to him? I mean, Jack is planning to call him and discuss this with him and try and get him to see reason. We don't want to ruin the holiday for him as it is his favorite, but we really need to just make other arrangements for this year. I value all your opinions, though I imagine you will all tell me the same thing! lol

Maggie: Sounds like you have a lot of work ahead for Thanksgiving. I used to enjoy the cooking so much, but it really has become hard on me now and very uncomfortable. I still plan on making fudge, which is a lot of standing, but I bring my computer chair to the stove and pump it up as high as it will go and sit to stir as much as I can. I am also making kieflies, but I can sit to do those. Most stuff I can sit to do and I am ordering pies this year instead of making my own.

Jean: Glad you got back in. It drives me mad when that happens at a site and doesn't seem to be your computer or the site, but as you said, gremlins. Hope you got your early evening. We almost didn't make it out to the commissary yesterday. We had set the clocks back at home, but not our watches or the car clock. We went to breakfast at Cracker Barrel out by Kelly's as it is sort of on the way. We thought it was 11 instead of 10 when we went into breakfast, then it was 1 instead of 12 when we finished. Jack had forgotten his wallet so we had to trek all the way back home and almost decided to forget it until Wednesday and we would go after Jack got off work. They are closed on Mondays and with election day, I wasn't sure how long we would have to stand in line on Tuesday so we nixed that. Anyway, when we discovered our booboo, we ran home and picked up the wallet and went ahead and went. Boy, what a mess. There were people everywhere and the meat counter was practically empty. Somehow I got what I needed, but I don't know how. I didn't get a beef roast though because they didn't have the kind I liked. I will have to pick one up somewhere else. It was just all the paydays, military, retirement and ss all came together so it was packed. I got an email from HSN and the hangers won't ship until the first part of December! Ahh, well, I will get most of the other stuff done, I guess. I jumped up at 5 and did my daily cleaning chores except for the dusting I didn't get done yesterday and plan on getting the wrapping paper cleaned up and into the storage things I bought and hang my handbag hangers and transfer my bags today.

With all that being said, I guess I better get the laundry in the dryer and the dusting done so I can take a breather before tackling what I want to start upstairs.
Faye

Good morning, ladies. Nippy 60 degrees at noon.

Faye, I'd tell him you can't do it and if he wants Thanksgiving at home he needs to get there in time to do it and you'll sit and tell him how. That is very unreasonable to insist when you aren't physically able to do it. And tell you DIL to get off her rump and help. Kids!

Jean, hope you get acclimated to the time change quickly.

Maggie, it sounds like a great Thanksgiving at your house. People are lucky to have you.

Have a good day.