Good morning ladies,
Part 2 of the dentist went ok. I had to get up at 5am so I took a Benadryl at night so I could get to sleep. Woke up at 5 still groggy. Took a Valium at 7:30 a half hour before my appointment so by the time I got to the dentist I was sufficiently mellow. They worked on the upper canine teeth and did some extra work on the 3 left teeth they did the first appointment. My mouth was sore - still is a bit sore in spots. The next appointment on April 17 and 18 will be rougher - all 9 bottom teeth including removing a bridge that I think is literally set in concrete in my mouth and capping 3 more teeth. I will no doubt be in any shape to enjoy Easter dinner. Or my big 65th birthday the week afterwards. I told DH I was expecting something special for my big milestone birthday for ONCE in my life. But I am not expecting much of anything because if it doesn't have to do with turkeys or deer in the yard or photography, he is at a loss for what to do. I will no doubt be disappointed, hurt and upset and he will continue to live life in his little circle of man-ness and that's how things go.
I am trying to have more time to myself but the universe keeps tossing things my way. This week for example... The shelter got a grant for a nice sum of money for some reason and they are using it to create care packages for new adopters or families in need or something. Anyway it involves purchasing about $10,000 worth of supplies and meds and vet care. The shelter doesn't have a credit card - if they buy things it gets invoiced and for this project that won't work. I and my bingo partner/thrift shop manager have credit cards to purchase supplies for the shop. It's all the same organization so doesn't matter what we use it for as long as it's needed or pre-approved for large expenses. The $10,000 far exceeds the credit limit. They wanted me to give my card to the shelter to order supplies and I said no, I am not letting it out of my site since I am responsible for it. I agreed to sit down with someone at the shelter and go and order things. But first I had to get the credit line increased. The card was issued by our local bank in town. But THEY partner with another credit service who actually provides the card. So it was a day or phone calls to find out what I had to do in order to get the credit limit increased since we didn't want to place orders that got cancelled. The bank never got back to me as requested so I had to call them 2 days later - all was good, sorry we didn't let you know. Sorry, NOT SORRY.
Then I set up a day next week to go order the stuff. Get an email that she had an appointment, here's the stuff, can you just order from 3 places. Ok. She was picking from a catalog so I go online and can't find half the stuff she wants. So back and forth emails about what do you really want. And do you have the tax exempt certificate so we can skip the sales tax? I finally get everything straight and place the order but there is no place to ask for a tax exemption. So I get on online chat. Oh I have to email the tax exempt certificate. So I do that. Place the order with vendor number 1 and go get ready to go out to dinner with DH. By now this has taken all day from 10am to 4:30 pm, with a 45 minute break to go chase the cat who has a vet appointment and has figured out what's going down so she scooted under the bed the minute she saw the cat carrier... Getting ready to leave and my phone rings. It's the bank - I placed a $1200 order - is that legit? Yes it is. In fact I faxed you a letter 2 days ago describing what I was about to do and when I was going to do it and now I'm doing it so yes, it's legit. I am going to be placing 2 more orders this weekend so please make a note on the account if possible and thank you for checking... And we go off to dinner. Come home and I get an email from the vendor that he was going to apply our sales tax exemption and remove the tax charge and the order has BEEN DECLINED.
What?????????? So I call the credit card company. Nice guy says it's the fraud division that cancelled the order. But I sent in a letter to the credit card company explaining what I was going to do and I just talked to the fraud division 2 hours earlier and told them the purchase was ok. Nice guy apologizes and says - this is a quote - "the fraud division doesn't communicate with the credit department".
Please place your 27 item order AGAIN and it should go through. You account is flagged to place orders until Monday April 1 - then they will block orders again.
So I go back to respond to the vendor and it looks like my order is not cancelled but is marked at "in progress". I try to contact them but it's 7pm on a Friday night. No one is working, please contact us on Monday.
And I see one of the items - litter pans - I order 50, they have only 2 in stock, the rest are back ordered till who knows when... So I go to place the second order of dog and puppy food through Walmart. She wants 200 bags of adult food, 50 bags of puppy food. Well Walmart only lets you order a limit of 12 items at a time so what am I supposed to do about that, place 17 orders??? She is trying to find the cheapest prices to make the money stretch out, I get that BUT these places are not set up for bulk ordering in the way she needs it. Which becomes MY problem. Sigh... I can see this is going to take the bulk of my entire weekend to complete. 3 days. Yes 3 days.
And in the meantime I have 5 online classes to work on. DH at my request ordered me 3 more DVD classes I asked for and I have 3 library books to read - I have renewed them twice - they are due back on Wednesday and I haven't looked at them not once. The refrigerator bins I ordered to make my refrigerator a bit more accessible with jars and such are sitting on the counter taking up space - didn't get to that project. AND the big one - my new laptop has been sitting on the cabinet for 3 weeks now waiting for me to transfer everything from my computer to the new one. And the more I try to get away from volunteering - the more the seem to find new, innocent, oh this won't take much time, kinds of projects. I want to just hide.
I also wasted 2 days trying to figure out the insurance options for Medicare - boy what a pain. My private insurance ends on Monday, Medicare kicks in (on the first day of the month in which you turn 65). It means my prescription coverage ends too and wouldn't you know it, my thyroid medication, the ONLY prescription med I take is due for renewal on April 6. So I will be on the hook for the full price of that. I am not paying $60 a month for a drug plan when I only take one prescription. And they make you carry a prescription plan or you get fined. So that is a big giant hassle too. I have to move my computer back upstairs again. Right now DH has his second computer (for working on projects) 8 feet away from where I am sitting. He keeps interrupting me CONSTANTLY talking about his stuff and then when I talk about mine, he stops listening to me and tells me he is trying to concentrate.
I am about to pop him. I finally had to tell him he needed to be quiet as I could not focus and he got all pouty. Gads, old people!!! And then there is my Mom who is so amazing about completely ignoring anything you tell her. Yesterday she was going on and on about how her knees hurt from arthritis. I know - there is something about Chicago that makes pain worse. So I suggested that she use this "bean" my sister bought her. You plug it in and it warms up - it's a soft plush pillow like thing that has warming beads in it that stay warm for about 45 minutes. It's made for arthritis. Every time I bring it up she doesn't acknowledge that I even said anything at all. So again she is complaining about her knees. I bring up the bean, she said the neighbor girl bought her this gel filled pillow that you can warm up. Well then USE IT MOM. Oh, I don't know where I put it. Geez my knees sure do hurt, I cant sleep at night. ARGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH! Won't do anything to make herself feel better.
So that's why I'm not posting. What a frustrating week that zoomed by in a flash. I also had a big plant in the living room I've had for years. For some reason Bimmie has decided she wants to crawl in it and make a mess of dirt all over the rug. DH finally took it out today and will trash it. I feel badly killing a living thing, even if it's a plant but she is making a total mess and I'm tired of cleaning it up. I have to say the wall looks better without that big plant there. If I wasn't spending so much money on my teeth, I would look to change out some of the furniture in here.
But... this too shall pass, right? Sorry to be ranting... On a good note, I finally got the hot tub in balance with the water and chemicals so I can use it again. Oh and my sister recommended this wonderful book by Cook's Illustrated about Vegetables. It's got 700 recipes in it and it shows you how to prep and cook every vegetable imaginable. It's a fabulous book. It's
Vegetables Illustrated: An Inspiring Guide with 700+ Kitchen-Tested Recipes from America's Test Kitchen. I got it at Amazon.
Laura - bummer on the train accident. There's too much of that going on.
That's nice that you are helping out BF's Mom with a ride to the baby shower. I hope you have a nice time. DId you get the radio working in your car again? That BOSU trainer - is that the half circle thing that's supposed to strengthen your ankles and legs because it's unsteady? Probably not a bad thing to develop as we get older and more wobbly. Just DON'T fall down
I had to smile a bit about your comment about BF and the basement. Perhaps it's the season of men annoying us women.
I did like your comment - take your dog for a walk even if you don't have one. That reminds me. We are supposed to go to a 2 day trip to some tulip festival in the early part of May and I need to strengthen my legs so I can walk around. I even purchase a big eraseable calendar I mounted on the wall so I could keep track of using the NuStep. I am a total failure... All you guys are exercising and being good. I'm sorry your project meeting did not go well. I hope it's a temporary blip.
Susie - wow 6 pounds in one week. That is amazing. How did you do it? Congratulations as I'm sure you worked hard for it. Any tips to share? Ugh on the washer breaking down. I have to look to replace mine also this year. Same thing with the bearings. I have one more repair on the warranty so I hope it will hold up until fall. Have you had your eye on anything special or did this take you by surprise? My sister got a new washer - she really likes it and she is a OCD nutball when it comes to laundry so I can pass a recommendation if you like. So DH is one of those March Madness kinds of guys?
At least it keeps them out of your hair when you have other stuff to get done.
Ceejay - glad your friend is gone. Remember that for the future. Maybe her niece was grumpy picking her up because she was hoping she'd stay longer.
Good for you for getting a walk in. It seems funny to hear you talk about a garden. Our ground is still too frozen to even think of planting. We are getting a slow melt (good) but lots of standing water because the ground is not thawed enough to absorb it yet. I hope you can find something fun to occupy your time. People at the Senior Center really enjoy card games, dominoes / Mexican train and Friday casual bingo. The card players - some are fun, others are very serious. They play bridge, cribbage and rummy on different days. There is one group of ladies who is rather mean - they are always yelling at the office people if oh my - they are actually talking conducting business.
Hello Annie
Well DH went to the shelter to help them with some computer stuff. I am going to get off the computer myself. First I need to go vacuum the mess the cat made with the plant. then I am going to tackle 3 other projects and not let anything get in my way. So hope you all have a good weekend!
