Testing

Changed background, I hope!

As If!

No, thank you, I don't think I need life advice from unemployed twenty-somethings who live at home with Mommy and Daddy and spend their days texting, tweeting and updating Facebook from the smart phones their grandparents gave them for Christmas last year. Nor am I about to copy and paste their status to my own page, and I don't care if that "means" I don't believe in Jesus, I'm not a true American or that I don't love my deceased mother, the daughter I never had, or the brother who hasn't spoken to me in thirty years because he had the misfortune of marrying a self-centered bitch. *pause to take a breath*

Why doesn't anyone recognize that whether it's a chain letter, e-mail spam or some other internet "pass this on the everyone you know," it's all garbage?

Spinorting

My girlfriend Jeanie came over yesterday and we did the girly thing. First we colored my hair--trying to keep it the same color as it is naturally but covering up the gray. We missed on the color, so it's a little lighter and redder than it was before, but it looks natural enough with my uber-light complexion. Then she baked a pan and a half of lasagne, which I LOVE, and she and I and Bill ate it.

Then we went spinorting. My family has always used this term for wandering around in stores with no clear objective in mind. We chose a store called Merchandise Outlet. It's a small chain and mostly sells cheap junk. Both Jeanie and I had our minds in the gutter, and I'm a little surprised we didn't get kicked out of the store. I guess I "won" when I held up a Christmas stocking that was at least a yard long and maybe half as wide. I held it with the top just below my waist and called to Jeanie, and she shrieked with laughter!

To add to the sport, the after-affects of Thanksgiving Dinner hit my tummy just as we began shopping. I crop-dusted the whole store, finally giving up after over an hour and asking a clerk if I could use a restroom. Then when my tummy was settled down, Jeanie's started up. She spent the evening lying on the bed in my office, cuddling Cooper, and farting with her ass aimed at the crack between the edge of the bed and the wall. Oh well, as long as Cooper didn't mind!

Getting back to Merchandise Outlet, it's a good place to spinort. They had a lot of Christmas-themed things, tarps, basic tools, hats, gloves, sunglasses, some food items, some pet items, some kitchen utensils, gift wrap and some party supplies, even some clothing items. On the plus side, the aisles were spaced wide enough that I could get down each of them with my rolling walker. The staff is helpful and friendly, and if I have occasion to go spinorting more often, I will return again.

Well I tried

When I first started blogging, I was practicing for a time when I might "go public" and having something worth sharing. But I'm rather enjoying having a place to just vent random thoughts, not all of them negative. So any plans of this project ever being productive have been scrapped. Sorry Mollie Katie!

Vigorous Exercise

I hate when smug people tell me how much better my life would be if only I'd get off my duff and gets some vigorous exercise! There's only so much arm-flapping a person can do, and it doesn't improve my life one iota! Get me an indoor pool and you can revel in your own hot air to your heart's content and there'll be no complaint from me!

Support Group

I find these days that I am a one-person support group. It appears that strangers find me on the internet and tell me the stories of their chronic illnesses. I just don't know what to do sometimes. I have my own demons to battle and it doesn't help ME to listen to them complain, but as a person of multiple chronic conditions, it's hard for me to turn my back on people who just need someone to talk to.

I have a young male friend in northern Michigan who has lupus and fibromyalgia.  He has always been a rough-and-tumble kind of farm boy, loves to go fast and go 4-wheeling and hunt, fish, all the outdoor stuff. Now everything hurts. Heat hurts, cold hurts, pressure hurts, lifting his son hurts, riding over bumps on the road hurts...you get the picture. His family doesn't believe there's anything wrong with him, and treat him like dirt. He had to give up working at his job and all of his outdoor hobbies.He lives is a small town and his doctor doesn't believe him either, so he's having a hard time getting disability. There's no money so he and his wife and son are living with his parents. His dad was just fired a few days ago. My friend is only 23. Now how am I supposed to tell him to shut up and go away?

I also have my friend Jeanie who was recently diagnosed with diabetes, probably type 2. She has crappy insurance through her husband's job, and it doesn't cover diabetes education. She knows I've been a diabetic for over 40 years so she asks me a lot of questions I don't feel qualified to answer. Her husband and family are totally unsupportive, probably because she doesn't LOOK sick. She's also bi-polar and recently lost the companionship of her old dog and desperately wants a new one. I know everything she's going through except the part about having bratty kids. She's always been very supportive of me, so naturally I want to return the favor.

But some days I have problems of my own I need to work on before I can be "there" for my friends. We need a bigger group, so we can tag-team!

Approach, please! Part deux.

Yesterday I told the hubby again about the approach problem. And to my amazement, he told the contractor that This Will Not Do! So amazingly, the Humphreys crew was back at it at 8:00 am with their little dozer!  I can't believe that my shy, non-confrontational hubby went to bat for me like that! Normally he leaves that kind of "dirty work" to me!

But wait, there's more! Yesterday he placed flat paving stones under the doggy escape-gate and at the foot of the back steps so Jerry, our evil Kraut-dog can't dig holes anymore. AND, when he came home from hunting and found me on the phone cheering up a friend who was feeling down, he started cooking dinner himself without my asking!

Now I'm not so egocentric that I think every day should be all about me. But a day like this every now and then, or a little tiny bit of this attitude showing through every day--maybe not even the actions, sometimes the attitude is enough!--and it would make all the difference in the WORLD to me!

One small step for man, one giant leap for gimps!

What a Cool Uncle!

So this guy I know who is really close to my age is taking his young, slightly "off" nephew out deer hunting this morning. Uncle always makes a big production out of making sure the whole world know what a Great Guy he is. Mention is made on Facebook.

Later I see that Uncle got a 7-point buck. Not the nephew, the uncle. Nephew's mom is pissed, and I would be too. But I am not surprised by this at all.

This same guy used to race lawnmowers with Wild Bill, as did two of his kids. Daddy always had the Good machines, the best parts, etc, and the kids always ran the Crap machines. What a shiddoobee.

Approach, please!

The floor of the garage has been poured, but not the approach. I doubt now that I'll get my approach before winter, so that means I'll still have the struggle between the end of my wheelchair ramp to the garage door. But at least I won't have to scrape and defrost my car every time I need to get out, and for that I am grateful. But still, $30k on this project and I'm still struggling?

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...

Our property is so flat, our driveway was the low spot of the entire parcel. This led to the creation on "Lake Campbell" every time we had a good rain. Winter and clearing the snow from the drive was horrendous for Bill, snowblowing water and chunks of ice. We agreed early on to have the driveway filled in and graveled, and asked Hanner to do it for us. We talked to him in March about it. Later he told us it might be July before he could get to it. July came and went, no Hanner. Finally in October he started moving his equipment out here: excavator, bulldozer and dump truck; he parked his trailer over at Henry Excavating, the next property over.

Somehow the simple driveway plan turned into a garage, having the electric and cable buried underground and removing a utility pole, the clearing of a LOT of trees, and rerouting the gas line. I was surprised that first the driveway had to have the black dirt scraped off before it could be filled with the sand and gravel. Actually I was surprised there was that much black dirt! Hanner dumped a lot of it in the front yard, to be seeded with grass seed later. I think we'll end up with a lovely front yard! The lilac tree that was at the end of my wheelchair ramp was pulled up and replanted in the middle of the front yard. A nearly-dead pine tree was pulled up from the back yard and dumped back in the woods. Gravel was dug up from out back and spread on our driveway.

And all the measuring! The garage floor has to be higher than the driveway or it won't drain properly. The driveway has to be higher than the rest of the yard or it will collect puddles again. For three weeks it seemed like a constant "beep! beep! beep!" was coming from the yard!

And of course everything that COULD go wrong with the utilities did. First the AT&T lines underground were dug up, but that was no biggie--we will never go back to using that company for a landline again. Then the power company wanted to charge us an extra $400 some-odd dollars to pull out the utility pole and dispose of it.  We keep telling them no, we'll take care of it--what's one more log added to the pile of trees out back? But they keep wanting to do it. Then they cut through my gas line while they were trenching for the new buried line, so the gas company had to come out. The power company didn't even tell me--I didn't find out until the gas company guy rang the doorbell to come in and re-light all my pilot lights!

While he was here, the gas company guy noticed that the approach apron to my garage will go a few feet over the gas line, so he got the idea into his head that the gas line had to be moved all around the outside of the garage and a new meter put up. I said why don't we just re-route it between the house and garage and leave the meter where it is, and of course he had all these dumb-ass excuses why that just wouldn't do. Fortunately Hanner came back and set the guy straight. I have to say, I'm glad Bill and I are using Hanner more or less as a project co-ordinator! He knows who to hire for what job, and who to call if things aren't going the way they should, and everyone knows him and acknowledges he knows what he's talking about. I think I must come off as being retarded because EVERYONE wants to put one over on me, I swear!

The driveway is done and it's great. Now we are waiting for Humphries to come pour the cement floor for the garage. I hope this project is wrapped up before winter! It would be so great to have friends and family over for holiday gatherings without the mud, and a new beautiful front yard to welcome them with!