Good morning. It is going to get into mid 40’s today, but no rain until Sunday. Sunshine, I would love sunshine! Thank goodness it rarely snows here because that would be a whole different banana! We don’t have the equipment for it and they dry like nuts here on dry days.

Today is call Sleep Number to find out how to return a $65 pillow I bought that gives me a headache. I put a towel around it to keep from it getting soiled as it is not a regular pillow. I have slept on it three nights and it gives me a headache every night. I bought it hoping it would be the solution and it isn’t. I just hope I don’t have to jump through hoops to return it.

I need to dust today as I didn’t get to it yesterday. I am still fighting with my clinic’s billing department. They say I owe $102.60 on a bill from Sept. I finally got Tricare to email me the bill and they never even filed the claim with them. Medicare paid their part, but UT never filed with Tricare. I have contacted them at least 4 times. I sent them a letter with the email from Tricare saying they had no claim for that date. I hope they file it.

CeeJay: I hope it won’t be long until everybody starts warming up. I am concerned about the river though. It is up to nearly 41 feet with flood stage 34. It’s going to get messy before it gets better I am afraid. I saw my friends in IN are expecting another 3 inches this weekend. It is very cold everywhere too. My doctor likes the plate method. It is 1/4 protein, 1/4 carbs, 1/2 veg and then a serving of fruit. It’s difficult to follow simply because most of us don’t eat enough veg. I eat more than a lot of people because I grew up eating veg, but my husband didn’t so it can be hard fixing meals sometimes.

Garnet: You poor thing. I can’t imagine trying to get to work that way. When we lived in IN I used to ride the bus to work and hated winter weather because of walking to bus stop then standing out in cold and snow waiting for it. Having to walk that distance then work had to have been horrible. Hope that situation doesn’t repeat itself. As for your dog, if it is vomiting or has diarrhea, give it some canned pumpkin. It does the trick. I used to give it to my yorkie when he’d get sick.

Jean: Don’t know what was going on yesterday as I am signed in today. We tried going back to our original WM and found they finished it, rearranged stuff again, but the aisles are twice as wide now. Of course that doesn’t count the crap in the middle aisles. Divorce can really be destructive to the outer family. I wonder sometimes what people are thinking when they marry. I’ll say one thing about my parents, I didn’t know the true story behind their divorce until a long time after I was married. My dad never ever said a bad thing about my mother and he sure had the ammunition to do so.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Good Morning! It is spitting snow flakes and is 15 degrees heading to 30 according to the weatherman early this morning! I went to enter a debit amount in the checkbook late yesterday afternoon and couldn’t find the checkbook. I had written a check in the gift shop on Wednesday, had coffee with cash yesterday, then used my debit card at WM in the afternoon. Of course both the gift shop and coffee shop were closed by the time I discovered it was missing. So first thing this morning I stopped by both the coffee shop and gift shop, no luck at either place. I’m pretty sure if it fell out of my purse at WM, it wouldn’t be turned in. I stopped by the bank and the young goofus wasn’t sure what to do. He said we could wait and see if any other checks get written or he thought maybe open a new account. There are a few outstanding checks which I sure don’t want to stop payment on nor have checks bounce on a closed account. Then he asked if we had looked for it. Duh! Both Bob and I searched the house, my car, and his truck which I wasn’t in after I wrote the check. Bob had a client with him when I called him, so I went to have my nails filled then do my cat chores. I think we will go back to the bank after lunch and open a new account. I just hate to take a chance on losing the money in the account. Talk about being frustrated! I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about it and couldn’t go back to sleep.

”Gma,” I’m sorry about all the trouble to return the pillow. You would think a company that big would be more accommodating to their customers, at least those who spend a lot for a bed. Probably every time you call the clinic you get a different person and they just add it to a pile that never gets done. Sometimes I wonder if employees ever follow through after phone conversations, or they just tell a person what they want to hear then don’t do it. Maddening for sure. My dad had a sister who was always causing hard feelings in his side of the family. There was a divorce and my mom just always would say, there are two sides to every situation. Bob has a sister and brother who both were divorced. I said her ex was an a** from the beginning (I was right) and his ex still thinks she is part of our family showing up at all family functions. The brother and ex both have remarried; they stayed on friendly terms while co-parenting their kids when they were little. Funny thing is, sister has a divorced son, and brother has two divorced sons.

I need to get a load of laundry going and some idea for a quick lunch. Enjoy a fantastic Friday!

Good morning everyone! Gonna be cool but at least dry today. We have to go to Fresh Market to get meat and produce and will probably just get a bite to eat while we’re out. Depends on what Jack wants for linner (we call it that because it’s a combo of lunch and dinner.)

Tomorrow I am going to finish cleaning downstairs. Jack says he’ll vacuum and clean the kitchen counters and small appliances so I am definitely gonna let him. I’ll get some more work done on the afghan too.

CeeJay: They won’t take the pillow back, says it is policy that I had to agree too, which I never did. She said she would make an exception, but charged me $30 to send it back. I was mad the whole day yesterday as I called as soon as they opened the phone lines. Ruined a perfectly good day. I was a grump the whole day. I know you are excited about a new baby. My cursor bounded around this morning too. It does it sometimes here.

Jean: Oh brother, what a mess! I don’t envy you trying to get it cleared up. I rarely write checks except when I have to, like for our HOA fees and I don’t even carry my checkbook anymore in my handbag because I use my bank card when I am away from the house. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a mess nowadays. I sure hope it turns up. Sounds like you, CeeJay, and Garnet still have some bitter weather to look forward to. I don’t envy any of you. Good ole groundhog screwed up I think. He must have seen somebody elses shadow.

Everybody have a nice Saturday.

Good Afternoon! The sun is shining, 20 mph wind is blowing, -6 but feels like -32 outside. A beautiful winter day to stay inside! We are working on some cleaning to get ready for card clubs in a couple weeks. Bob took the fireplace window off to clean out the cobwebs. I’m not sure how they get in there since it is supposed to be sealed and we don’t use it. I found some 2018 credit card papers to shred and some other old clippings I thought I might eventually refer back to and they are now gone! I don’t know why I save articles since I end up pitching them anyway.

“Gma,” I did find my checkbook! Evidently my post didn’t show when you posted last. Needless to say I/we were very relieved! Hope you accomplished the cleaning you wanted to do. I am convinced dusting is a waste of time!

Ceejay, do you have the bank pay credit card bills? I do write checks for those because I like to make sure the charges are mine. Bob has a separate business account so we rarely used the same card. I have a debit card but he doesn’t, he really prefers to use cash when he can. I have been known to leave food out on the counter, forgetting to put it in the refrigerator. I would hate to admit how much food I throw out, usually leftovers. I also have been known to overindulge in salty snacks and pay for it the next day. You will have the extra two pounds gone with a visit to the gym. I have enjoyed seeing the pictures you have shared. I hope that peoples’ homes are not close to the river.

Garnet, I understand about older people wanting to work and not being able to get hired. The problem around here are jobs that are available, the younger generation being hired, then not happy because they are expected to actually work. *gasp* They just don’t show up. There were two gals hired at WM, clocked in then left and came back to clock out at the end of their shift. Needless to say they got caught and fired on the spot. I admire you for walking to work when the buses didn’t run. I know I couldn’t have done that. The pillow issue belongs to “Gma.” I don’t blame her for being upset, I would be too. on another pound gone! I’m sure the walking has to help, but I don’t blame you for not walking home after dark. I don’t go anywhere in this town, alone, after dark! I like your sign! How old is your son with the allergies?

Not much newsy from Iowa today and I need to get back to my sorting and pitching. Hope you are enjoying a warm sunny day!

Good morning girls! It is here today, but at least no rain that can freeze. We are in 20’s with single digit wind chill. Very unusual for us. Where oh where is spring?

I folded a load of clothes, put one in washer then into dryer, unloaded dishwasher, cleaned all my stainless appliances, clean my ceramic top stove and when I get done here will finish the kitchen up. Then get the other load folded and done for today. I put a pot roast, new potatoes and carrots in the crockpot for dinner so that was easy peasy. I use stock in it so makes it easy to make gravy when it’s done.

We had hard rain, tornado watches, and power outages yesterday so I got nothing done. We went out to dinner last night and it was nuts!!! The lobby was full of people. There was a party of 20, one of 14, 2 of 8 and one of 6. Took us about 25 minutes to get a table, but our gal was great and our food came pretty quickly. We go to this restaurant 2-3 times a year for their prime rib. They have the best salad. It is greens, hard boiled egg, potato sticks, tomatoes, bacon and has a small croissant that has some kind of honey stuff on it. I bypass that, but the salad is yummy. We had to yell at each other to converse and it was kind of funny. They have a bunch of tvs like a sports bar does, so we gave up talking and watched baseball.

CeeJay: The darn pillow was $65 so I wasn’t happy they didn’t take returns. She did take it back, but like I said, charged me $30 to do so. Better $30 than keeping it at $65. My best friend was 62 when her husband passed and she had to go back to work. Like you, she applied everywhere, grocery stores, retail, you name it. She has bookkeeping experience but they weren’t looking for someone her age I think. She ended up having to take the penalty and draw her SS and she got a part time job at Marshalls. Poor thing works in the fitting rooms and ends up lugging heavy clothes around. They also put her in the back unpacking boxes and tagging and such. She hates it, but she has to have the money. We lived that for over 30 yrs so when my husband got this job and our income has quadrupled, I swore I was going to give back. People really don’t understand struggling when you do work, but it just doesn’t go far enough. I have to say being able to pay all my bills on time now probably makes me the happiest. I could care less about other stuff if we have food on the table and gas in the car, etc. I will pray for you that things greatly improve for you, maybe they at least take you on part time as a regular employee. You are a courageous lady!!!

CeeJay: We still are river rising here. They said next week it should start to recede. We shall see. I hate it when I take stuff out of the freezer and forget it. I have to say though, we bought a Food Saver vacuum sealer and boy does it save the $$ on not having to toss stuff out. I like to make smothered pork chops. Seems like they break down nicely that way.

Jean: Yay!!! Glad you figured out where it was. We must have been posting at the same time. My fireplace is a nuisance in my opinion. I hate the darn thing and get really nervous when I small wood burning here as I know they don’t pay to have their chimneys cleaned and I am always afriad of one of them catching fire. They still haven’t cleaned up that garbage. If it’s not gone by Friday, I am gonna rip into the manager. Yesterday, across from our garage they had two cars parked working on them. We couldn’t get into ours when came back from dinner. I am so sick and tired of this stuff. Those of us that own our condos take care of them, the investors that rent could care less, which is stupid because every time someone moves out they have to spend money on repairs, painting and such.

Everyone have a good week!!! Off to finish my chores.

Good Afternoon! The sun is shining, wind is blowing, and it has warmed up to 5 degrees from -13 early this morning. I stayed up too late last night reading a Nora Roberts book. Part way through I realized I have read it before but have forgotten how it ended so will finish it. The church office was super cold this morning and my hands were cold the whole time I was there. I was wishing I had taken coffee in an insulated cup. We balanced on the first try and the bank agreed with our figures. I was done and on my way before the secretary showed up; at that point she was 20 minutes late. I stopped by the bank to deposit the gift shop money and the hospital to drop off checks. Our P.E.O. meeting is tonight at the assisted living place where several of our members live. I much prefer day time meetings but we do this once a year. Hopefully it will be short and sweet tonight.

Ceejay, Bob just used hot water and a soft rag on the fireplace glass. It comes off so he laid it on an old bath towel on the counter. It is gas and we don’t use it so it was just dusty and cobwebby. I would call somplace that sells wood burners to ask what cleaner to use. How long did you cook your pot chops, and did you add any liquid? I’ve never done them in the crock pot. I must admit I don’t use my crock pot very often.

”Gma,” I think it is cold all over. It will be interesting to see if we even have a spring or what the summer weather will be. It seems like there are more tornadoes than ever before, and in places where they don’t often happen. I hate noisy restaurants where you have to yell to have a conversation. Our so called water park/resort attraction just remodeled their restaurant. The chairs are cheap plastic and uncomfortable, they took our the carpet so it is super noisy now, and they cut way back on the menu which wasn’t that great to begin with. We retirees go there once a month and I keep hoping someone will suggest going somewhere else. Your neighbors sound like the new ones we have, the weekenders during the nice weather and the woman with a fish house, two pickups, and a utility trailer parked in her driveway. I can hardly wait to see what riffraff moves in next door.

I have towels in the dryer to fold and put away. Then I need to figure out what I am wearing tonight. Enjoy the rest of a marvelous Monday!

Good Morning! The sun is shining, the wind continues to blow, but the temperature is above 0; 7 degrees! We are going to Sioux City after lunch to look for new lamp shades, may end up with new lamps. We replaced the light bulbs with LED bulbs and they made me realize how old the lamps are! They are still “dim” because of the shades. I am working on my cleaning list so need to get busy. Hope you all enjoy a terrific Tuesday!