I guess we should start the thread over gals as we usually do every year. Can't believe another year is gone already. Just makes us all a year older I guess. Hopefully, this will be the year of the new grandbaby for me. I would love to get a call that my dil is pregnant.

Jean: Hope you don't mind me starting a new thread. They have been warning people for about a year at least about posting links to other sites on their posts, but obviously people aren't paying attention. It causes problems with spam, spyware and such I guess. We have crossed everything but two off our to do list and I am going to get out and get the leaves blown out today and then we are going to get stuff taken to Goodwill and we will have everything finished.

I LOVE this new warranty company. The old one we had must have been a slow or no payer because they would have trouble getting companies to come out and work on stuff. They are supposed to respond in 4 hours to a service request and it is supposed to be fulfilled within 24 hours and it took me 3 days to get a plumber in here. With this one, I put in a request on Sunday figuring they would be calling today, but someone was out yesterday and fixed the dishwasher and {{{sigh}}} so was the HVAC guy who told us what we suspected and that was we have to have a whole new furnace. We are supposed to all the company today about a new installation I guess. I looked at our home warranty contract really hard to see if we have to pay for the furnace, but we don't have any of the fancy ones like heat pumps and such so they are supposed to cover it. I sure hope so, because we surely don't have the $$$$ for a new furnace. Our dishwasher was an easy fix. We broke a glass in it about a year ago and cleaned up all we could, but some of the shards got down into the drain system and eventually blocked it up. We are assuming it was when Jack forgot to knock out the plug in the disposal unit and it probably backed up and compacted everything then. It is fine now and didn't take him long at all.

I guess I better get a move on with chores so I can get an early start on those leaves and get that done.

have a great day gals

Faye

Good morning ladies. I feel so small after reading Jean's post like I am typing without my glasses!

Jean: I can't believe you are already back to work. Short vacation! We are now just sitting and waiting to hear back from either the home warranty or the heating place. We called yesterday like we were supposed to and they said at noon they would contact the home warranty place and see what to do and that is where we are at, nowhere! Good thing it is plenty warm here I guess. We have a furnace/AC too and I hope the AC unit holds out for awhile as it is about as ancient as the furnace. Jack says he thinks the furnace is the ORIGINAL and this place was build in 1973 or so. I imagine the new ones don't last very long, nothing seems to anymore. You wonder if they could build them to last back then, why can't they build them to last now? Talking about old stuff, I watched one of the "Tammy" movies with Sandra Dee yesterday and an elderly friend of hers has to have heart surgery. The movie was made in 1963 and I told Jack it is almost frightening the archaic medical equipment used then compared to now. They showed her being operated on and the machinery used in that decade made me kind of shiver to think we allowed ourselves to go under the knife with what was available then! Her heart stops in the middle of the operation and they just stand there watching the blip to see if it starts back up, no intervention. My head kept saying, use the paddles, then realized none of that was available back then.

We got the deck all cleaned off now, but there is a huge pile of leaves for the landscapers to drag off. Since no one is living next door (their backyard looks like one of those trailers out in the desert you see on tv where all the old cars and chairs and appliances sit deserted,) anyway, we piled them all up on their side of the walkway because no one lives there. There is still a paper soft drink cup sitting in the upstairs window and the curtains are still hanging there. Their patio is full of broken toys, chairs, garbage cans, water hose and the like. I wonder what that is all about as I would think if she DID own the property she couldn't afford to keep paying two mortgages or a rent and mortgage (they used to go around to the neighbors and borrow money) and if she doesn't why the owners don't move someone else in there. I am NOT complaining about not having neighbors though, believe me.

I guess I should vamoose and start picking stuff up off the floors to mop this morning. One more honey do today and that is to take all the bags of stuff to Goodwill then the only thing I want to do is get our garage in good order. We just need to put up some sort of storage for paint supplies and the like. I was cleaning up a bit yesterday and noticed how much rat damage there is to the garage walls. They have chewed through the whole backside. No wonder the darn thing leaks. I need to find out who can come and repair all that before it falls down around our ears I guess.

Have a good day girls

Faye

Good morning gals! Hope you are having a good day!

Jean: You misunderstood my lame joke about the small print and glasses. I was talking about your bigger print and I wouldn't have to wear glasses to read it compared to when I was typing. It was a stupid joke. I know how to enlarge the font sizes, I was just being silly and it backfired! Wonder why the 21 year old is still sticking it out in school if he doesn't want to learn and get his diploma? Sounds like you have a lovely spring semester ahead of you! I have never seen a rat in the garage just droppings and the fact that the back wall of the garage at the bottom is chewed to heck and I don't think it is squirrels. I did see a rat several months back go through a hole it had chewed through the concrete, under my fence and into the neighbors yard. I called the management company and they supposedly came out, but I didn't ever hear from them so I doubt they ever did. We can't put out traps or bait or whatnot in the garage or back yard because of the dog possibly getting to it. We haven't seen any evidence of it for a long long time so maybe that was the last of them after the building across the street was finished and occupied etc.

We got one load to the Goodwill (just the trunk filled with bags) and Jack was through. I said something to him something like, "That was easy, you want to bring the rest of the stuff or wait?" and of course he said wait. DUMB ME! Why do I give a husband an option? I should have just demanded we bring it all and let him be peeved at me for awhile. Now it will probably take another two days to get all the bags over there. It is only about 3 miles max to the Goodwill dropoff store but you would think we were going to outer Mongolia. Men are such lazys sometimes.

What an awful night I had last night. First the meatloaf didn't sit well and I had acid reflux, then I fell asleep and a little while later awoke to my bed soaked as well as my pillow (a huge night sweat) then I went to the bathroom and came back and was cramping so I took some aspirin and went and got a small fan and turned it on the bed, had trouble falling back to sleep and tossed and turned for probably three more hours until I had to go to the bathroom again then Jack came upstairs by that time. He babied me a little and I finally fell asleep, but was still uncomfortable as I didn't want to turn the fan on and freeze him to death so I just suffered. He offered to sleep downstairs in the recliner but I said NO!

You all have a great day

Faye

Good extremely early morning girls. I woke up to go to the bathroom then started sneezing and after I blew my nose, then started coughing and couldn't stop so I just came downstairs for awhile and hopefully can go back up to bed in a few minutes and go back to sleep. I always feel like a cat with a hairball when I start coughing like that! I suspect it is similar considering I think the cat is what the sneezing and coughing is about anyway.

One more small load and we are done with all the Goodwill stuff. I will then be able to get my garage in order once and for all. I am such a neat freak that the mess out there drove me nuts. I knew I couldn't get it done all by myself though. The landscapers came yesterday and sucked up all my leaves so my walkway is now all nice and clean too, which is nice. We couldn't bag stuff up because I didn't have any bags and I knew the landscapers had to be coming soon as they come about every other week and I hadn't seen or heard them since before Christmas.

We had Chinese buffet for lunch yesterday as a treat (it is right across the street from the Goodwill center how convenient... ) and our two fortunes were, a financial investment will yield returns beyond your hopes and the other one was luck is coming your way. I told Jack to play the powerball on Sat with the two sets of #'s on the fortunes as they surely had to be lucky!

We got the good and bad news on the furnace. The home warranty company called yesterday and said they were authorizing the replacement, but there were charges not covered and he started telling us all the things not covered, ductwork, drainwork, permit stuff and on and on until it racked up to $650, which was the "bad" part. But....all things considered, that is much much better than 3-5 thousand $$, which is what it will cost more than likely. They are coming a week from today to install it. I imagine we are going to have to take down all the pictures up the stairs, all the stuff in the entranceway etc so they can get the new one up the stairs and the old one down. Hope it all fits some way or another. I imagine my house is going to be in an uproar the whole day. I may make an appt for Fortune to go to the groomers that day. Poor B is going to have to be trapped in the spare room the whole time because he tries to go up into the attic when we pull down the steps.

Well ladies, I am going to try and go back to bed and hopefully won't start coughing again. Ummm, the nice warm electric blanket. Sounds wonderful!

Faye

Good Afternoon! Overcast here but no snow or rain at least so far.
Faye: I was up at the same time as you but here it was to get DH to the hospital by 6AM for 8AM arthroscopic surgery on his knee. He was done by 9AM and the DR came out by 9:15 to say all went well and there were no complications re anesthesia and his heart problems. He has a rather rough tear in the miniscus and he has extensive arthritis...bone to bone in some spots. He said he should be better with what was done but if it did not work well enough the next thing would be a knee replacement. DH is home now and sitting in the recliner like a King on his Throne. No pain so far but tonight the novacain should be wearing off and he does have pain med to take.

I love the photo of T....he is so cute.

Jean: I would say you have every excuse to be 'testy'! If they know how to read and write and don't....they get to sympathy from me.

I am so tired I think I will take a nap and make up for lost sleep.

Gloria in MA

Good morning girls! A little chilly here but otherwise ok! It should heat back up by tomorrow though.

Gloria: I think he is a cutey too! That pic was one Jack took when he was at our house in his pjs and my dd let him open his presents from my son and dil. That striped thing around his neck is a fleece monkey they bought him. Both my kids had one when they were younger. It was really big back then. Hope your dh is going to be up and around soon and that he won't have to have the whole knee replaced. That is so much harder to bounce back from.

Jean: Woe is you! Sounds like the little monsters are back in fine form already. Hope you got a spiffy new tv that you will enjoy. We hope to get a spiffy furnace to enjoy. It is cold in the house this morning! My biggest concern is that the new furnace will be too much for the old AC and then it will go out on us. They are separate units, but the fan in the furnace runs the ac in the house or whatever. Yeah, I saw that guy on an internet article and he didn't look too "poor" to me. I am surprised with the bankruptcy laws he was even able to file. I agree with you though, hope they all descend on him like a plague of flies. He made some comment about "I plan on contacting my creditors to make arrangement for a repayment plan." Why does he need a plan? He took like a $60 mil payout so he should be able to just write a check to each one and pay them off. Jack and I have often talked about lottery winners and how they go nuts building or buying several million $$ on a new home etc. We were watching a vacation home program yesterday and this guys VACATION home was $13 million dollars. Jack says, why does someone need some place with 30 bedrooms? I told him, "Yeah, 'cause I would have to clean them!" I can't see myself having a housekeeper. I did have one that came once a week when we lived in Indiana and she was super and cheap too, but she was also a friend from church who needed the money so that is why I even had one. I would be thrilled just to do some remodeling on the condo (new floors and such), buying a second car, and having some vacation money. If I had a gazillion, my family would all get a certain amount depending on who they were, ie my kids would each get a certain amount apiece, the grandbaby would have a trust, a trust for future grandkids, then the siblings, my 3 and his one would each get a certain amount and we would tell them that it was a one time thing. I have heard all these stories about people coming out of the woodwork when you win a lot of money. I can see some of my relatives wanting money over and over and over again. I have one who would be so jealous she couldn't stand it. She always wants what someone else has. Never satisfied with where she is in life. What a rotten way to live, isn't it? This same person didn't think twice when we were living on $11 an hour and barely keeping our heads above water, but now she whines constantly because we have money to do things. She hints around about giving her money all the time and it is sad really. It is a long story about them, but suffice it to say, they can't deny themselves and have backed themselves into a corner because of it.

Well, gals, I am going to scrounge around for some breakfast. My tummy is growling.

Have a good weekend.

Faye

Jean

Good morning girls! We are warming right up here. It was even pretty nice yesterday once the sun was up and out. We finished the Goodwill and the got the garage in pretty good shape now I can find things if I need them. It doesn't look like a tornado tore through so much anymore.

Jean: You would think the laws or regs would "grandfather" older more experienced teachers who have been on the job and teaching for a long time. Politicians could care less as long as their fat behinds are kept in their congressional seats. I have long thought that mixing normal intelligent behavioural kids with kids who have real intellectual problems is a HUGE mistake. The brats don't care and it sure can't help the kids who want to learn but just have a real hard time of it. Hope your bell program goes well this morning.

I guess we read the fortune cookies wrong because we aren't rich, but we only spent a couple bucks so we aren't gonna lose the house or anything. I couldn't even match enough to win the $2 thingy!!!

I am going to stick a roast in the oven today for dinner and just hang out at the house and veg I think. Jack is going to put the very last layer on the ceiling repair (he has to put one more layer of popcorn ceiling on) then that will be finished and all the jobs we had scheduled for him will be done. That isn't to say we don't have a lot more stuff that needs to be fixed or whatever, but this was stuff I had been wanting to get done for months.

Everyone have a good afternoon and evening today and I will talk with you tomorrow.

Faye

Good morning gals! It is a balmy 66 degrees this morning. I guess we are stealing all of Jean's warm good weather. I looked at the temp in the house and it was near 70 this morning. I roasted last night and had a fan blowing on me all night. It is supposed to cool off today though instead of warm up.

It is **** week here (Elvi's birthday was yesterday.) We have every kind of kook in the world showing up here. You have never seen so many Elvis impersonators in your life except on the date of his death. They had a BIRTHDAY PARTY for him yesterday and even gave him presents I guess, {{{UGH}}} People need to grow up!

Jean: Actually, they predict that Jesus was about 2 by the time the "wise men" found him and that it is unknown how many there were, but they assume a small number because of Herod's spies trying to find where the "king" was born. You have an unusual service doing Christmas things after Christmas but whatever rocks their boat I guess. Thomas called me last night to tell me I didn't have to "take his Gamecube Donkey Konga game back" because Santa brought him a Game Cube. He then launched into everything Santa brought him including what his mother and dad got! I told him I was having trouble hearing him because their was a lot of noise on the phone like static. Little bugger started making static noises into the phone! I THOUGHT I was done with the outdoor cleaning, but we had a gusty day yesterday and I had two boxes of styrofoam peanuts to throw out and they are now all over my deck and flower bed! {{{SIGH}}}

I guess I better get started on that backyard cleanup before we have more of a mess. Think I will put them in the garage until the trash pickup on Wed.

Faye

I think we are having the January 'thaw' a week early. It has been mild and acutally was sunny this afternoon. It was 50 about 3PM.

It has been a busy week but I didn't do anything. I think it was just having DH sitting around all day make it so different. He is doing extremely well and still has had no pain at all! Sunday the bandages came off and all he has is two small pin hole marks in his knee and OH YES.....he has the word "YES" in magic marker on the top of his right knee. They told him everyone in the OR would ask him which knee was being done many times and he would get sick of answering but better to answer many times than to have the wrong knee cut. I'll bet he will be back driving by Friday or Saturday, the latest.

Faye: Your heat must be part of that January thaw but since you are warmer naturally your thaw means a heat wave. Those 'peanuts' are the worst things to pick up. I'm glad that a lot of companies are substituting the little air filled plastic 'pillows'. Much neater.

Jean: How strange it must seem to be singing Carols after Christmas. Sorry you are having so much trouble with your new TV. Sometimes you just get a lemon. Hope you can return it and get another one that will work better.

Did some work for DD#1 this afternoon. She was doing a mailing and needed me to 'stuff' envelopes. She works for a mortgage company and she had the Celtics and Bruins (basketball and hockey clubs) schedules made up on a calendar with a magnetic top to which she attached her business card. Perfect for hanging on the refrigerator as a reference for the sports minded. She also included a flyer with notes about the 'no call' information re: cell phones and a few words about the higher minimum payments on credit cards and lastly a reminder that postage was increasing by 2 cents this month. She also included 5 2 cent stamps to help her client who had old postage stamps left over. She is some smart cookie. She put out a similar mailing with the Red Sox calendar, in the Spring, and then one with the Patriots calendar, in the Fall. I was happy to be of help as it was a rather easy task and freed her up for other work.

Gloria in MA....Have a great balance of the week.