Good morning ladies,


Happy Sunday Funday. It's sunny but chilly out here. Frost on the deck. Woke up to snow the last 2 days. I'm not ready for snow. But it melted during the day. Won't be long before it sticks around. I can't wait until the election is over in 17 days. I live in crazy town here - very sad trumpie land. They are having a big parade (Covid give away ) on Halloween. The nut bags are fighting every single regulation that is passed by our poor governor and local authorities to control the virus outbreak. This constant lawsuit, pushback and repeal is why my state is number ONE in Covid outbreaks. I'm hoping this madness will end shortly. So I hang at home a lot. And I'm ok with that. Last week I was surprised to find the organic farm I got my tomatoes from still had a few more left. So I coaxed DH into a 2 and a half hour ride down to the middle of the state to go to their farm and get 30 pounds of tomatoes. I did share some with a friend but had enough for 8 more quarts of Italian tomato sauce. And I am trying a small batch of chili based sauce today. I have cranberries and apples to make into sauce also. Now I have to find room in the freezer for all of this... I just didn't feel like canning the lot. I need to redo my kitchen and get rid of the microwave over the stove and replace the cabinet with a large vent hood. My new stove sits higher and there is no really enough clearance for the hot canning pot of boiling water so canning right now is not an easy thing unless I do pint jars which is not worth the effort. Trying to decide if it's finally time to replace my washer and dryer or make one last service call under warranty and give it one more year. If I get rid of the high double dryer cabinet I have, I could renovate the laundry room and make it more useful. I am paralyzed by indecision lately. Went to the doctor on Friday. Got my flu shot, pneumonia shot and B12 shot. They did a boo boo and gave me a B12 shot and THEN drew my blood for lab tests. Which of course showed my B12 out the roof with excessively high levels when instead, it's probably super low. She said I hit my knee so hard that the top of it calcified which means the fluid and blood from the bruise on the top of my knee instead of draining / getting absorbed by the body instead turned to a hard, bony like material. I will permanently have a hard lump on my knee. And I smashed and destroyed the nerves on my shin which is why the skin along the knee and shin is more numb to the touch than the other leg that was operated on. When I do something, I do it well. So I will always be dealing with numbness, pain and occasional gimpy leg going forward. Certainly not enjoying my 60's I tell you. But we have taken some nice drives the last few weeks including the one to the farm last week. The central part of the state is very pretty with rolling hills, farm after farm and open skies and forests. So nice to be away from the city garbage.


Laura - I have never seen in my travels anything like the beautiful glowing colors of the yellow maples you have in your area. I used to pass by a grove on them on my way to work when I was driving to Northfield and they were just stunning. They also have a nice stand of them in the forest preserves by you. Even on an overcast day they were gorgeous. Bright, like highlighter colors. We have lots of yellows here and the evergreen style tamarack tree's needles go yellow gold in the fall but nothing like those beautiful maples. I miss them. No, I am still getting used to the bed. I really don't care for it to be honest, it's too cushy on the ends - like a big sponge and I find it sort of unstable when you try to get in or out of it. DH likes his though. Sigh... a terrible amount of money for something I don't like. Thank you for the compliments on DH's pictures. He loves to take them and the attention he gets from them. I think it makes up for how his dad was nasty to him as a little kid. He was running a camera club which he finally ended due to lack of interest. Some of the people got nasty about it but he was putting a lot of effort into it and barely anyone did the assignments or participated. I told him he should develop a course and teach at the local college although the classes now are online Zoom based and that takes a special skill to develop successfully. Especially when people have different kinds of cameras. I hope you can find some ambitious kid to rake your leaves. Do you mulch your garden beds with leaves for the winter? I smiled at your comments about Ethan Allen furniture - we had a lot of it - trying to remember what though... my dining room set for sure and possibly our bedroom set too. They made sturdy furniture so good for you on the find! Laughing about the springboard for the bed too I would probably jump, bounce off and fall on the floor and break something else


Annie - that really sucks about how people are ignoring you at work after all you have done. Sadly in my latter years in the corporate world I realized the same thing. You give your all and then some to the job and they don't really care. That's why I to Susie also when you are both overdoing it. Earn your paycheck for sure but it doesn't pay to compromise your personal life for the job. You don't get more if you give them more and you don't get chastised when you do less. It's sad, hate to be that way but "you made me be this way, I say". I hope you will be very happy in your new job. Perhaps they will be nicer as it's more family oriented in a small office like that and you are used to doing a whole lot of work anyway. I hope your health stays on the positive side for you and the family.


Hello to the rest of you ladies Hope all is going well in your lives. I guess I will get off the computer - time really flies when I'm sitting her much longer than I need to be. I have a ton of things to do today - handwash my cashmere sweaters, make some sauces as well as steak and peppers and do a few loads of laundry. And pick off the Asian beetles that are somehow getting into the house and crawling on the inside windows and driving the cats crazy. Last year we had them spray the house but they had to come back out 3 times and are not offering it this year so I think their natural sprays were no match for these nasty bugs. Anyway - stay safe and healthy ♥

LAURA...no, no time off between jobs. Last day is Friday here then start on Monday at new job. That's ok I am excited to get started. Still nothing from the branch manager on leaving which really makes me think I made a great decision for me.

HAPPY...welp bout time to wrap you in bubble wrap. You have enough going on that you can't afford to hurt yourself any more. My coffee buddy did leave a couple of special types of coffee on my desk as a goodbye. Hope they are as good as they sound. Bee Coffee brand. Masha tasting notes: tangerine/lemon/honey. Also Sweet Blue chocolatey, nutty lingering body. Not sure on the chocolate as I am not a fan of chocolate, but will give it a whirl.

We are celebrating Jacob's 9th birthday this Saturday with all his favorite foods. Doritos, popcorn, chicken fingers, potato chips, chocolate chip cookie cake. Junk Junk and more junk food. He just wants giftcards for his xbox, play station. So he can purchase more games. Well ok then. Pretty easy.

That's about it for me. Have a great week!!

Happy Friday all.

Happy - Oh my, that’s a long drive for a lot of tomatoes!! Have you made your tomato sauce and chili sauce and all the other stuff out of the apples and cranberries? You must be busy, and I sure do hope you find room in the freezer to keep it all! Your other option is to share the wealth, lol. ==Sorry to hear that some of the damage to your leg from that fall is permanent. Just try to work around it and keep moving somehow. == Nice that you’ve been able to take nice drives and enjoy nature. We’ve had some great color this autumn, and even despite the gloom we’ve had a lot of this week, it’s so pretty. Yes, a lot of yellows around here with the maples and other varieties. Even though the burning bush isn’t native to our area and I’ve heard it’s considered invasive, I do love the color when it changes – such a vibrant red. Our pin oak leaves turn a rather boring brown, and our young tulip tree is still mostly green. It has a few splotches of yellow leaves, so maybe as it matures it’ll be a nice yellow all over. == Sorry you don’t like the new bed. Mattresses and pillows are hard things to select – you just never know if they’ll work out until you sleep on them at least a little bit. And mattresses…two people sharing one makes the choice even more difficult. We have an older sleep number bed and I’m glad it’s holding up because I sure don’t look forward to buying a new mattress. == Too bad dh’s photography class didn’t work out. Is nature your dh’s main photography interest, or does he also enjoy people/portraits and other things such as architecture?

Annie – Happy last day of your job! Hope they give you a nice sendoff instead of ignoring you like they’ve been doing. It’ll be nice to do something more enjoyable in this new job!!! === Wow, those coffee flavors sound interesting…as in a wild, lol. ! I bought some chai loose tea when I was in Galena and I’m disappointed with the flavor. But that’s the way it is with chai – it has a lot of different spices and too much or too little of something changes it. I’ll have to figure out how to doctor it up to make it more to my liking. But maybe it’s a good thing I wasn’t crazy about it - I’ll stick with my much less expensive Trader Joe’s chai tea bags, LOL. == Happy birthday to Jacob – 9 already!! Where did the time go?? Just reading all that junk food he wants makes me want some of that junk! Our junk food cabinet has been bare and I’ll probably have to shop for my mother this weekend and end up with my own shopping bag full of stuff I’ve been “deprived” of all week… I should be banned from doing my own shopping! Oh, wanted to tell you I was thinking of you when I made dinner the other night – it was that easy beef stroganoff recipe you shared a long time ago. Yum.

Hellos to Shad, Ceejay & Susie! Hope you all had a good week.
==
So it’s been a gloomy week and I’m working on some stuff at work that I’d rather not be, but oh well. I’ll get over it. Still slacking on the exercise. Yesterday it did warm up and clear up and I went for a walk after work. Nice to get out, even though it was a bit humid. On the way home, just down the block from the house, a family was walking their little German Shepherd puppy – so cute, still had that fuzzy fur. Adorable.

I made some banana nut bread last weekend. This weekend I might make some cookie dough for the freezer. And I’ve been jonesing for some brownies so I might make a batch of them. I want to see how they come out if I bake them in a muffin tin to get the chewy edges on all of them…

Plenty of cleanup around the house and yard to be done. It’s been rainy and it’ll probably be too wet and chilly for me to want to do anything outside. Guess that leaves the inside stuff. Perfect time to start tackling the “wreck” room in the basement. The guys who installed the new window well drain pipe a while back drilled into the concrete floor. They didn’t close off their work area to contain the concrete dust, so it’s just a mess in that room. I think I’ll be pulling things out of there one at a time and vacuuming, dusting, and wiping them down. I’ll have to wear a face mask for sure! But I guess it'll be a good opportunity to stage all the things I want to get rid of in one area.

Okay, nothing much else to report, so I’ll get this posted. Everyone stay safe and healthy!!

Signing out of this miserable place of employment for the last time. On to bigger and better! Pray for a peaceful landing at Ed Jones! Happy Weekend!

Good morning ladies,

Well Annie I guess you have to put thing in perspective. When you were out of work, this "miserable place of employment" was once a beacon of light. Hopefully you will enjoy the new job and your efforts will be appreciated. This is why I'm glad I'm retired. I had my fill of the corporate world when I walked out for the last time 9 years ago. It had changed greatly. Probably the last time it was decent was sadly in the 80's. They got rid of middle management which was the sort of momma bear who lead the team with encouragement, nourishing and if needed, discipline. Momma Bear was killed off and replaced with Mr. Butt Kisser. Suddenly it wasn't what you knew but WHO you knew that made your place in society. Integrity and value for hard work was replaced with doing the dirty stuff to get your bonus. And if you weren't part of the crowd, you were out with your bare butt swinging in the wind. People who once learned from good managers before them became lost and some of them figured out how to advance themselves quickly by stepping on others. It has bled over to the sad, broken society we have now a days. Relationships have changed, not sure if we can ever go back to better times. I myself have pulled within and will probably stay that way. I see my friend at the thrift shop trying so hard to wrangle the group only to have them continue to do what they want to. With Covid so widespread here, I told her it's time to stop trying to be the hero and she needs to watch out for herself. You can't exist in a world of disorganized chaos, at least I can't. My trusted group of human friends has gotten quite small and I'm ok with that. As long as I can get DH out of the house occasionally and out of my hair

Sorry for the rant, I am so disappointed in how this world is today. Opposite of what I need so I have had to restructure my life and that's not easy. I do hope you will be very happy Annie with this new job. If there's only 3 of you in the office that may work out ok. Sometimes there is favoritism if there are too many family members and not enough outsiders but this doesn't seem to be the case. As long as you have enough and a little bit extra to get by, money isn't everything - a lot of money in a job you are miserable at just isn't worth it. I think I'd cry myself into a little ball if I had to go to work again. So thank you Jesus for having "enough" in my life.

DH wanted Salsbury Steaks the other night so he picked out a recipe and I made it. It's basically beef hamburgers with gravy. Yuk. Even though I made a good onion gravy, yuk. I told him he had to eat the other 2 leftover patties because he wanted it It's cold outside so it's time for comfort foods. The chili I made didn't come out too bad but stuff like that my stomach is not fond of. I did freeze 9 quarts of Italian Spaghetti sauce. Have one large bowl of tomatoes to finish off. Also have apples to get done this week. I need to go through my freezers and pitch some things. I was shocked to find some apple sauce frozen from 2013. Today is gather the garbage night so I am going to fill at least one bag of old stuff that is freezer burnt or just old boxes in the pantry. I stopped buying a lot of processed things about 3 years ago after I realized I didn't really use it but I always find something else to purge. I am trying to rethink my cabinets to also make more efficient use of them.

The leg is doing a bit better. Some days are good, some days are achy. I started doing a Zoom based exercise class last week from the Fitness Center I go to. It's a tough workout but something I need. Trying to do the pool once a week which is a challenge as it gets more frigid out and it's rather cool in the locker room. You don't really dry off as much as you need to but it's really good exercise for my leg and while I can do some of the exercises in the hot tub, it's only about half as I cannot for example do the marching, backwards and sideways walking moves in the hot tub. We had to cancel today as we needed to stay home to sign for delivery of a piece of camera equipment DH is eagerly awaiting. He rented this monster camera lens - I think he can see little green men on the moon with it! I will probably take a pass on swimming this week so he can make the most use of the lens for the week's rental he has it for. Why don't I drive myself to the gym? Well I could but it's a 2 lane - one in each direction, very windy road that people crawl up your butt to far exceed the speed limit. I'm not driving 70 mph in a windy road for some impatient idiot. There are only 2 places to pass so mostly you are getting tail gated. Many people have complained about that. We have far too many lead footed out of town speeders here. So I'm not really comfortable driving and there's only one road to get to the place unfortunately. And with the snow on the ground it's even more scary. As long as I take my pills (CBD oil and glucosamine), wear supportive shoes as much as possible and get some movement every day I can get by.

Laura - to your question DH prefers nature photography. He detests human photography, sometimes at Humane Society events we asked him to take pictures because the rest of us were busy and he takes awful, truly awful candid pictures. I don't know if this was planned but we stopped asking him. He won't take pictures of cats and dogs at the shelter either - admittedly cats don't pose and it takes some practice to get good dog portraits. So he prefers what's in the wild or flowers and landscapes. Anything you can't "pose" I guess is a good way to classify it. Gee it sure sounds like you have a big clean up job in the basement. Wreck room - LOL - that's a good way to put it. Now that I realized the lighting is too poor in the original hobby room, I am trying to figure out if I should make it a reading room or pantry. I have lots of nice cabinets in there so hate to give up the storage options and the basement is heated by expensive baseboard electric heat so it's not really practical to spend a lot of winter time down there. We looked into adding a pellet style wood burning stove but since our basement is deep and has window wells, they said it will not ventilate well all we could do would be an electric style heater stove, no different than the baseboard heaters we have already. They do make a lot of noise and are 20 years old so I'm sure if we replaced them, they would be more energy efficient. Always some project to do. Are you working from home through the winter? I would think with the rise in Covid cases that might be an option for you. Will be hard to go back to regular commuting one day.

Hello to the rest of you ladies. I need to go make some lunch and get off the computer and get something done around here. Hope you are all well and safe.

Afternoon all. Stopping work to clear my head of a month-end PITA accounting issue.

Happy Election Day to us here in the US. I did a mail ballot and dropped it off into the ballot drop box at our village hall last week. BF finally voted early this morning. He’d gone to village hall - our early voting site – a few times but found the lines too long. I’m glad that our part is done, but I’m afraid we’ve got a lot more election angst ahead of us… Well, at least the tv and radio ads will be done, right?

I hope everyone had a nice Halloween. We had a nice day for it – mild and sunny…but also very windy. But at least it wasn’t the usual horrible cold and rain we always seem to get here on Halloween. Our village had trick-or-treating hours from 2-7 pm. We got some kids, not a ton, but some and I was glad those that wanted to come around had a nice day to do so. We bagged a couple pieces of candy each in small zip-lock baggies and put the sealed baggies out in a bowl on a tray table set up with a Halloween themed tablecloth right by the sidewalk. At least the candy itself wasn’t pawed through by multiple goblins.

The past couple days have been chilly and breezy, but bright and sunny at least. Starting today we’ll have several mild days (60’s!!) and it’ll be great to have that before late fall and winter weather settle in for good. Too bad DST ended on Sunday – I would have liked having some daylight after work to get out and enjoy the mild temps. I’ll have to get out at lunchtime I guess. I scheduled a vacation day for Friday. I also have one for Monday.

Annie – How goes the new job? I hope it’s been a positive experience now that you’ve got a week+ under your belt.

Happy – Every “employee engagement” survey I complete (just did one last week), I comment that managers/supervisors should be trained in people management skills. My boss is sorely lacking in those – I think he really wishes he could just manage himself and no one else, but alas, he has three other people to deal with. == I know what you mean by being disappointed with the way things are in this world today. The mix of COVID, racial, and political tensions is so stressful. I really have trouble watching the news these days. == Comfort food = yum. I had the Pioneer Woman on tv a couple weekends ago and she was making loaf pan lasagna and I think I’ll assemble my lasagna in loaf pans next time I make some because there’s only two of us to serve, and it’s also a better size to pass along to each of our moms. I’ll get some of the disposable foil pans for that. BF made a batch of chili and I’ve got to portion some out for the freezer. BF makes it in a big stockpot and then he stores it in the basement fridge – out of site, out of mind. And he’s one of those people that doesn’t want to eat it more than a couple times a week…best to just freeze some of it for later. == How is the virtual exercise class? I want to do some sort of class – I’ll have to check into it. == As to DH’s human photography skills – maybe he deliberately took bad photos because he detests doing it!! Anyway, tell him again that I enjoy looking at his nature pics and to keep ‘em coming. == Yes, I’m working through the winter (at least) from home. Our annual fundraiser is going on right now and we’ve had the challenge of making the activities work in a remote/virtual way. I say “we”, but I haven’t gotten involved in the events this year except as an observer.

Hellos to the rest of you! Hope you’re all doing well and staying healthy. My sister was exposed to COVID a couple Thursdays ago and self-quarantined for two weeks. She felt fine. One of bf’s mom’s oldest friends passed away recently from COVID. She was very vulnerable yet attended a party given by her idiot daughter (who reportedly loved to throw big parties). She got very sick, ended up in a coma and never recovered. Both the daughter and son ended up in the hospital with bad cases as well. How will that daughter ever live with herself??!!

Okay, I’ll move on. Well, that said...nothing much else to report. I’m going to get this posted and get a quick lunch. TTFN!!

Hey ladies. LOVE LOVE LOVE it here so far. My boss, um leader as they call bosses here, is the best. I really like him. Everything is user friendly and plenty of help out there to get it. Don't miss WF at all. Finally got a text from someone there asking how I like it here. Of course I bragged. What a wonderful world.

HAPPY,,,you are right, WF was, WAS, by beacon of light. I do think if not for working there and getting experience in the advisor world that Ed Jones would not have been possible. Altho they hire those w/o experience in the field too. So God knew what he ws doing when he put me back at WF. One for the experience and two for the step towards EJ. For that I am grateful. THis sure proved to me that it is all in his timing.

LAURA..time here flies at Ed Jones. I guess because I am in training plus doing the things so far that come along. I mean, it is already Wednesday.

Samantha's bd is tomorrow the 5th, she will be 35. How is that possible as I am only 39. hahaha. I paid to have her car oil changed for her birthday so now she will get a card and dinner out. Good enough. I asked Royce what he and Jacob should get her and he said an orange hoodie. Well that was random. Made me laugh.

Cindy, my SIL, with all the medical stuff is in the hospital with what they think is Covid. Initial test indicated negative but she has had all the symptoms. Fever, can't breath, headache etc. They did another test for antibodies to see if she had it but the results won't be back until Friday. She is doing better today and can now breath better. Her lungs have "shredded glass" looking in them. This is a sure sign of covid. Poor thing what the heck else. Don't want to know.

Hello to the rest of youse! I do like my new job a lot.

OMG - I can't believe I did a paste instead of a copy and lost my entire post that I have worked on for the last 45 minutes. Grrr.

Abbreviated version...

We are having an incredible week of totally unseasonable warm weather. Using it to clean out the hot tub, replace a heater in the man cave, clean out a few boxes of stuff and just enjoy some warm sunshine on our faces. Glad the election is over, hoping for calm and stability. Covid cases are rising in our town, much in part because of the political resistance to masks (see happy note that election is over). More and more people are just outright refusing to wear masks as our cases rise. Even our schools which were once pretty clean - there are positive cases at all 3 levels of school. People stupidly say because it's a virus and will spread but the truth is, we are spreading it among ourselves. As a result, we are really hunkering down and keeping pretty much to ourselves. Our social contacts are via phone conversations.

Annie - I am so very, very VERY happy you are happy in your new job and like the people in the office. That means so much. Hope you were not offended my my comment - didn't mean to be negative. It's just that sometimes in life things are not always as they appear and bad is good and then good is bad. As you say - all in HIS plan and sometimes the bad bricks pave the way for happier times. That's how I felt about landing the job in Memphis. I hated to leave, eventually came to hate the job and could not escape fast enough. But it made it easier to land here and up until this year, I loved this place we are at. I have seen ugly politics here from people I never expected it from and so much of that is tied to the scoffing of the virus that makes it even worse. These people want to make my life miserable and I never did anything to them. I have gone from a social butterfly to a hermit but that's ok. Anyway - I think they will come to find that hiring you was the best thing they could have ever done. I'm glad you have the experience and confidence to be an asset to them and satisfied in your job. Happy birthday Sam! Are you making a special dinner as always? I'm so sorry to hear about Cindy - she certainly has had too many medical challenges. Hoping and praying for a quick recovery. Especially scary times when someone is medically compromised -- I wish people would "GET" that. Sigh.

Laura - hope you got your accounting issue resolved. Thanks for the tip on the lasagna. I am not a fan though DH loves it. This would allow me to make a batch for him to enjoy with no waste. Yes, you have to watch for the things that get lost in the back of the refrigerator. I lost 2 containers of tomato sauce and a big pan of roasted tomatoes to things that spoiled very quickly so I must have had something odd in them. Fortunately I got a second chance and got the replacements into the freezer right after I made them. We had no Halloween kids as we never do. They might have done something in town, not sure. I think it's time to rethink Halloween. The kids don't need scads or candy and we don't need big bags of leftovers to munch on. I would rather a community haunted house / Halloween party with food and a reasonable size bag of treats afterwards. I'd chip in for that. So is downtown kind of quiet with many people working from home? Several people I know who work in offices are scheduled to remain WFH for the near future. I wonder if that is having a detrimental effect on public transportation also?

DH has to go around and get some parts to replace the heater in the man cave. He asked if I wanted to trot along but I said no, I want to get the hot tub cleaned and refilled today and take advantage of cleaning a few more garage boxes out. So, going to attempt to post this again and go get busy.

Hope you are all healthy and keeping safe and a good busy in your lives.

Hello ladies,


Well for us goodbye nice weather, hello winter again. We got snow overnight - only about 3 inches. Not as bad as they said it could be. I guess the roads were pretty bad yesterday as the front moved in. We got some freezing rain for a bit - DH said to be careful going out on the deck but I ran out on Monday and stocked up on groceries and took care of errands yesterday before the snow headed in so there is no reason for me to leave the house until my B12 shot on Friday and that's just down the road.


We had an adventure. Sunday when I went to bed to wash up I noticed the water was barely warm. I checked downstairs for a possible leak - nothing appeared off. I figured the 20 year old water heater had died. Told DH about it first thing in the morning. He called one plumber (so the adventure begins...). No one answered the phone the first hour. Then some guy answered it, said he would check to see if he could get a replacement water heater and call us back. He didn't. We have propane gas here instead of natural gas so the heater needs a modification and I guess we have a different exhaust venting system too. DH got back in touch with him around 2 pm and he said he'd order a tank but it wouldn't be here until at the very earliest Friday. (This was Monday). Meanwhile I am boiling water on the stove for washing. I said we could go to the gym and take a shower. He called another plumber - no response. Then I suggested a third place. People grumble they are expensive (people up here don't like to waste their money on plumbing, would rather save it for beer, cigarettes and drugs ) The guy was responsive said it might just be a part and he'd have someone out late that afternoon. We waited until 5pm - no tech. DH calls and they apologize, the guy is still out on a call but someone will be there Tuesday between 8:30 and 9am. Sure enough at 9 young guy shows up. He takes a look, a valve got clogged and a part was loose. He tightened and cleaned and violla - hot water again Such a simple fix. This is the second time this happened chasing people when instead this business came through for us. So I told DH going forward to ALWAYS call them first. Life is better with hot water. And a shower. Now I have to tackle a real mountain of dirty laundry. I did not want to have to haul it to the laundromat in the snow.


I had some residue in the water after I drained, cleaned and refilled the hot tub. Took a ride to the hot tub place and they said it was likely either mold or scale build up in the pipes. Got a cleaner, ran the tub for 8 hours and drained and again refilled the tub. When we first got the tub, DH was doing the chemicals but he doesn't really use it - maybe only once a year. So he left the maintenance part up to me. Except I was never really trained properly and I didn't know what I was doing. A chance conversation with they guy I did bingo with made me question what I was doing. So I called the hot tub place and had a nice conversation. I was doing things all wrong all along. I usually drain and replace the water every 6 months. Mostly because winter here is 5 months long at least and it's not easy to run a hose over the deck and down the driveway to drain the hot tub when there's 2 feet of snow outside and freezing temperatures. But the thing that keeps the water the cleanest only lasts 4 months. You're supposed to drain the tub and replace the water every 4 months. My water was never dirty or cloudy - it's was just towards the end of 6 months it felt like you were taking a chemical bath and you could smell the chemicals and it had a feeling on your skin that needed to be showered off. That's why DH did not like the tub - having to shower afterwards. But that was because I was adding chemicals that were building up and not really beneficial to the water. Also you can adjust the flow of the water coming out of the jets - I have a fancy therapeutic hot tub - it has a million jets and 5 stations for various massages on different parts of the body. You can adjust the intensity of the jets and some were too strong so shut them off or turned them way down. This allowed scale to build up in the pipes. So once a week I have to run the tub will all jets fully opened and a scale cleaner to keep things sparkling. I'm ok with this as long as I know what I'm doing and what affects what. I'm glad I learned this lesson - I will enjoy the tub more now. A hot tub is a whole lot more work than a pool is because of the warm water you have to do more to keep bacteria from growing - especially with it being covered most of the time. Still it does help me with aches and pains and I am able to stretch the tight knees in the warm water. Getting my socks on is becoming a more difficult task.


I got a bargain subscription on an online craft website that has tons of cooking classes. I watched a few and learned several things in just 2 hours of classes. So I'm excited for that. I helped DH get the old heater down in the mancave and the new heater positioned for him to install it. I went through a few boxes in the garage but DH set them all along the wall and then put his tools and the ATV and mower in front of them so I could not get to anything. He was busy so I didn't want to bother him to move things so my cleaning effort got sidelined. We have large trapezoid windows on the south side of the house. In the spring the male cardinal sees his reflection in the windows and constantly bangs into the window to drive off the "intruder". It drives the cats nuts. I am also fearful of the bird hurting himself because he really bangs the window. He perches on the chimney and flies into the window. In the spring we had to get some helium balloons from the party store and put them in the window. The air waving them was enough to deter him. I can understand them doing this in the spring because they are guarding their nests for the first time ever, he is doing it now. He will also attack any car mirror sitting out in the driveway including the mirrors of the repair folks vans. I guess DH is going to have to make a trip to the dollar store and get 2 more balloons as it's sunny out now which makes the reflections even worse.


I'm going to have to schedule an appointment with the dentist. My teeth feel a bit weird. I am hoping that there is not a problem with the stability of the bone holding the implant posts in. I don't eat / bite anything that requires a lot of force to bite and pull such as corn on the cob or apples so trying not to stress the front teeth. They are not wobbly, just don't feel secure. It might be because of the way they had to do the implants with the posts in my 2 front teeth rather than the 2 teeth adjacent to them. If that's the way it is, I am ok with that, just want some reassurance or if it's a problem to stay on top of it. I am glad I did all my teeth at once. A lot of people my age and older are having to deal with expensive dental repairs including the guy I did bingo with. He also had his 4 upper front teeth replaced and showed them to me the other day. He didn't pay anywhere near what I did - he went with the bargain plan and I have to control my reaction when he smiled at me. The teeth are overly big, not sized properly as I think they were trying to cover a natural gap in his teeth. Also there was a definite mix of colors between the new teeth - a lighter color - and the rest of the teeth that naturally stain and darken over the years thanks to tea, coffee, berry, wine and other stains. So it was a hodge podge. I guess you really are better off with full on dentures or replacing them all as I did.


The video card is dying in my current laptop. Time to dust off the new laptop I bought last year and never transferred over to. Now I need to do that soon as the monitor blacks out and it goes into sleep mode. Need to do that before I lose the ability to do things. So that and laundry are my tasks for the day.


Hope all is going well with you guys. Sorry nothing interesting to report. Hope you all stay healthy and safe.

Does anyone feel lonely and sad about not having a second half?

Evening all. TGIF. And it was payday, so that's always a good thing. You may have heard that there are a lot of fraudulent unemployment benefits filings being made (using personal information gleaned from previous data breaches). My employer sent out a warning and told us to check our bank accounts regularly as those filings could leave us open to more ID theft. Always something...

Hi majaar - We're talking about a better second half of the year, and thankfully all of us are still here for it!

Happy - Now's a pretty good time to be a hermit, so you're preventing COVID and avoiding all the unpleasant political/election ugliness to boot. === I've been working from home since March, so I have no idea what it's like in downtown Chicago these days - and I don't miss it much at all. I'd like to retrieve some personal items from my cubicle, but that won't happen any time soon. I believe Chicago might be shutting down starting Monday, so I won't ask for approval to go to the office any time soon. Well, I suppose I could probably get approval to go in on a weekend day but it would involve driving downtown and getting my bf to drive with me so he could stay with the car so I wouldn't have to find/pay for parking. I doubt he'd go for that just so I can pick up some shoes and some other items. === I'm glad you didn't have to replace your water heater! And hopefully you've found a good plumber you can turn to in the future. === Well, sounds like more work doing one extra drain/refill of the hot tub each year, but it'll be much nicer for you. It must be nice to have that available to warm up and ease your aches and pains. And yours sounds like a fancy one - nice! === Have you gotten everything transferred to your new laptop yet? Sounds like a big job. We're contemplating switching internet and cable service and have to figure out how to back up our email...ugh. Just the thought of switching email addresses sounds horrible.

Annie - Glad you're loving your new job so far. At least you can have a good feeling that your experience from WF helped you obtain this job. So you don't have a boss, you have a leader...makes me think "Take me to your leader." (use your alien voice) LOL. === How is Cindy doing? Keeping her in my thoughts.

Hellos to the rest of you!! Hope you're all staying healthy and out of trouble.

Nothing much to report on my end. Our company's fundraiser finale was yesterday and it was enjoyable. I learned this afternoon that I won a prize in one of the raffles for which I bought tickets. I won a spa gift card. I don't recall if it was from a chain or SpaFinder or what, and I don't recall the $$ amount either. I didn't want to ask...so I guess I'll just have to be patient and wait for it to arrive in the mail.

I have a hair appointment tomorrow, and I'll be grocery shopping for my mom. That's about it, other than the usual housework and slothery. I got a red underline for that last word, so I guess I made that up...

Everyone have a good weekend.

Hello Everyone! I am sorry to have been MIA. I would think of you all and plan to come post and then read the post and not come back and the next thing I knew days had gone by.


Annie: I am thrilled to read that you are loving your job and excited to learn new things. God always gives us what we need when we need it. I hope Cindy is feeling better. What did she find out about the antibodies? My brother has them. He was sick last January before it all became such a big deal here in the States and felt really badly for 2 weeks and was being seen by his doctor but they didn't really do much testing then. So when he could get the test, he went because he wanted to know, and it showed he had them.


Laura: I have been working from home since March as well. I really don't mind it, especially if I keep my boundaries in place. i am refering to not looking at work stuff when I'm not on my regular working hours and not doing personal things during my work time. It is a struggle for me to not blend the two at times, but I work hard at not allowing that to happen.


Happy: I hate dealing with water heater issues...they always seem to be hard to get someone to come take care of it.

I am glad to hear you had a easy fix and hopefully this company will stay around and be reliable for a long time.


I seem to find good people and then after a year or two, they are no longer doing that work,


DH and I are doing pretty well being home together every single minute of the day and night,,,,,ok...maybe I could use a break now and then! lol. He went to watch one of our nieces in a scrimmage game today, she plays basket ball. I am picking up the house and catching up with all of you.


I really shouldn't complain. He has been great at doing most of the house work, and grocery shopping. He looks for things to do, he isn't used to not working. He told me that he hopes by next spring to be able to find a part-time job.


Right now we don't want to mess up his unemployment by getting a part-time job and I really felt he needed time off from all that he went through with that company he worked for especially the last 2 yrs.


We have used the time to get a lot of things medically caught up for him, especially with his feet and legs. They are a mess from working on concrete for 40 hrs a day over 30 yrs. He has seen a podiatrist and a vein specialist and has had a lot of progress and feeling better that way.


My shoulder is staying stable and the shot I got about 6 weeks ago where he put it the front of the shoulder in the AC joint (and used an live X-ray to do it, has given me a good deal of relief. I still have mild pain across the top of the bursa but that will have to taken care of with surgery, due to having to remove the bone spurs there and arthritis that is causing the tendons under the scapula to rub against the scapula.


The plan is I will see him the surgeon the end of January and go from there. I did not want to go have surgery at this time and I am hoping things will improve with the world and Covid-19 as we move into Jan and Feb.


Speaking of Covid, we had a little brush with that about 2 weeks ago. We were with a family member who 3 days after we had been with them, came down with symptoms and tested positive. It was my brother-in-love James' niece who had it and we were at their home having dinner and visiting with everyone. on a Saturday and Tuesday she let him know that she woke up not feeling well and went and had a test (she is a nurse at Children's Hospital in Columbus and they get their tests back fast as they test in their own labs.) and tested positive. We were all tested and all tested negative.


I plan to check in more.....I have missed everyone.

Good morning ladies,


Nice to see some of you back again. Get tired of talking to myself.


Susie - glad you are getting some relief with your shoulder. I'm thinking as the Covid numbers rise they will probably defer elective surgeries anyway so at least you can manage the discomfort for the time being. Might not be able to do anything until summer rolls back around. I surely hope they can get a handle on controlling the outbreak of cases. My heart breaks when I see the nurses and doctors on TV who are beyond exhaustion. I wish people would take that into account when they are poo pooing the whole virus thing. It's sort of disrespectful. Kind of like tossing a lit cigarette in a dry forest and shrugging and saying "oh well there are fireman who will put out the blaze and it's good for trees to have a fire once in a while". If I was DH I would just keep a mild eye out for something that might come along that will interest him. I don't know what the job situation is by you but he has the definite advantage of time on his side to casually look and at least see what's out there. I'm not sure if Covid has cut back on things like it has affected so many other items. It's good that you have a proper health insurance plan so you both are covered and can take care of whatever needs doing at the moment. That means so much. My husband has a bad back and always has issues when we go shopping for too long at a place like Sam's Club that has concrete floors. Now that my knees are bad I understand what he is talking about. They were also talking on the news about the ballot counters / poll workers who are standing on concrete floors. Never realized how taxing that is on the body. Good to hear he can get some relief back but oh my... Glad you are adjusting to working from home. I am hoping they don't pile you under with thousands of tasks to handle as they did while you are in the office. Will be interesting to see what the future of corporate America looks like now that so many people are not in expensive office space any more. I'll bet the whole work scenario changes. That is scary about the family member. We are experiencing the same scenario here as the virus spreads. More incentive to keep to ourselves as much as we can.


Laura - I hope you can entice the BF to run you into downtown to pick up your office things. But then again, you've gone so long without them what's a little longer? After all the building is not going anywhere I'm sure downtown is a ghost town and maybe a bit scary even with being more deserted.


Ok, my video card is dying on my laptop - I NEED to switch computers. My screen goes black and it goes into sleep mode so I'm going to post this before I lose it. Take care everyone.

Good lord, I seem to be getting worse and worse about getting on here and chatting to you lot. The first sentence of Susie's post absolutely applies to me.

So what's been going on? Well not a lot in fact however the weather seems to have forgotten about spring and gone straight to summer and so the heat and humidity, not to mention the flies and the bugs are a constant annoyance. I did get cabin fever one weekend and went to Gold Coast hinterland to see some things that I haven't seen before despite having lived here all these years. Also since we have been on travel restrictions, and business' have been closed it was nice that some of them are allowed to reopen. So that is why I went to the smaller places where you don't get 500 shoe shops and coffee bars and too many people being their normal stupid selves. I spent cash in the out of way places and helped a few businesses to survive maybe.
I went to Springbook, Beechmont, and Advancetown where at this time last year those horrendous fires went through wiping out all sorts of treasures and wildlife. I bought handmade cards, relishes, chutney and jams, as well as some craft work for presents for Christmas etc. No one is getting a lot of expensive presents from me this year.

The garden is in the process of being put to bed for the summer. Sounds ridiculous but it really is better to grow vegetables in the winter when you live in the tropics. Our temperatures rarely get below 20C (about 60C) in the winter and our normal is around 24-25C (75F) in the winter although the nights can be a bit cool. I still have some carrots, cauliflower lettuce and tomatoes and I see today that one of the original lettuces must have gone to seed and there are now about 100 little lettuces growing. Guess I won't be short of a salad for a while.

I was going to go to Adelaide for Christmas however with the current restrictions between States here, I won't be going. I don't fancy paying out up to 3K to stay in some hotel under quarantine for 3 weeks, then having a few days with the family and then more quarantine when I get home. The restrictions had been taken off but someone from overseas came into South Australia with it and managed to give it to the security guard who managed to spread it to 17 people, so the borders were closed again. So it will be another Skype/ Messenger conversation again. Another reason why I am not upset about not going is that the family down there will be shifting into their new house eta 15th December, which is also M's birthday. I don't think I could take the excitement, OCD and outbursts that will come with that.

I was losing weight quite nicely there for a while. However after that bout of sinus that I had (and still have more or less) the doctor put me on prednisone after the antibiotics. Well that managed to put 4kilos on me that I had painstakingly lost (apparently prednisone is good at it) and I am having the devils own job to get back off again. I've cut the food right back, but it doesn't seem to be making much difference and I am up and down a kilo every week. Bah humbug, not happy

Apart from the garden, I have been puddling around the house fixing little things and sorting out this Probus Club (which is beginning to annoy me more and more) and I still have a long list of bits and pieces that need attention. Never ends around here.

I'm hoping to be able to take up some water aerobics after Christmas - really need to get more exercise in, seems that walking the dog and shovelling gravel is not cutting it anymore. Water might be cooler as well.
Okay, that's me done. Sorry that I have been missing so long, reach out and give me a kick in the butt if I don't come back during the week will you.
I won't do personals because I have to go back so far. I'll catch you all later.
Take care, sanitise, wear a mask, stay away from large groups of people. You already have the distinction of having COVID kill off the most people, I don't need the next ones to be one of you.

Good afternoon ladies, I am looking up some old stuff - I realize I have pretty much documented my life in these posts the last 16 years. Anyway, in time for Thanksgiving if you are interested, I am reposting Annie's recipe for hash brown casserole from 2017.

Cracker Barrel’s Hash Browns Casserole

2 lbs of frozen hash browns.
½ cup of melted margarine or butter.
1 (10 ¼ ounce) can cream of chicken soup.
1 Pint of sour cream.
½ cup of peeled and chopped onion.
2 cups of grated cheddar cheese.
1 tsp of salt.

I also added mushrooms.

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl then transfer to a sprayed 11×14 baking dish.
In a preheated oven to 350° bake for 45 minutes.