Waiting on the Workman…

Fridge still on the blink… Hubby called and the frigde guy was supposed to come after 1 pm YESTERDAY. I am still waiting. I called last night around 4:15 and they asked YET AGAIN, for the model number to check YET AGAIN, to see if they had the part in stock. Sorry for the yelling, it seems they are not listening to me. Hubby gave them the model number LAST THURSDAY and told them then it was the thermostat. So I have deep freezer that alternately cooks and freezes food.

So I wait on the workman to come by and put in the part. And waiting is not my strong suit. I hate waiting on workmen because it seems like the day you are waiting on them, a million things will come up that you need to do away from the house. And today is no different. So I have to call and confront the work people and then call and confront the doctors office and I HATE confrontation. So today isn’t looking like it’s going to be a good day.

So if anyone out there is waiting on a workman like me, pop in and comment. We’ll commiserate together.

My nemesis The Dust Bunny Strikes Again…

What is it about this house? I clean and dust all the time, but we are over run with dust bunnies. Our fridge has been on the blink and I swear the compressor hasn’t run all day. Took two days to get the delivery guy out here and all he did was clean the coils. Seems DUST BUNNIES were causing my fridge to overheat!

Does anyone else have these issues or am I the only woman in the world fighting this battle of good and evil against small brown bugs so small I can’t even see them until they turn into DUST?

Apparently I am not because there is actually a website called Dust Bunny Facts. I am serious. When your URL is dustbunnies.com, that says a lot about you. Just saying. But they are wrong. Dust bunnies do not prefer small hidden places. They prefer my large house. They are not hidden here. They are in plain site, everywhere. They are taking over every square inch of my universe…

Wikipedia claims they only form under areas that aren’t cleaned regularly. Well, that might be true if by regularly, they mean constantly. Because I vacuum my house every day. I sweep every day, and I mop at least once a week and I still have dust bunnies, what about you? Huh, do you resent that Wikipedia claims that you are unclean? I know I do.

But I think I may actually want to throw away good money on one of these.
Dustbunny Cleaner Even if it does look like one of those scary ferret toys they sell at Cracker Barrell Weazel Ball which by the way are far cheaper.

So for days now, I have been fall cleaning my house and today I get to the kitchen. If I had started there, I could have saved myself $52 and a day of sitting at home waiting on the repair guy. Lesson learned: If you don’t know what the problem is, see if there’s a dust bunny involved.

Feeling Better..

The bone doctor gave me a steroid and it has done it’s job. I feel like a new woman! It’s amazing! Now I see why athletes do these things. I will no longer judge. I swear. Of course, I have no idea if the ones I got as a prescription are the ones athletes do that get them in trouble with officials. But if they make them feel this good, I swear I will not judge. My muscles now move. Like a real person. You know up and down. I can lift arms without other arms having to help. I can bend over and tie my shoes. I can type my name.

So how did I celebrate? I added 20 minutes of treadmill time to my exercise regiment. LOL Now that I am not working, I don’t get as much exercise as I was at the Preschool. I don’t want to gain back the weight I had lost while I was working. It feels good to be able to move around. I don’t want to gain weight and not be able to do what my kids and grandkids do. So treadmill it is. (Yes, that is the steroid talking.)

Mom and I had breakfast together and had a great time. I took her to the library and she got her library card. Now she can check out books. She loves to read and had been buying books. This will save her a fortune! And it’s only about 8 miles from her house, so she can go anytime she wants. So she is now set.
Then we went to Walmart and then I went home and goofed off most of the day. Yes, I have goofed off for two days now. I have got to get a routine going now that I am at home. I need to find something to occupy my time or I am going to waste away to nothing. But I admit that wasting time was fun.

And then I got in my 20 minutes of Yoga, and 20 minutes of treadmill. The Yoga is working. Already I can tell in my stomach and it’s only been 4 days! Been giving Erin a hard time, but I am glad she started the challenge. Go see her and join us, it’s not too late to lose some weight or just tone up before Christmas and I promise she really isn’t trying to kill the entire internet, just me.

Oh and also sorry Erin, this post was supposed to publish YESTERDAY, but for some reason WordPress decided to make it a draft and not send it live. In which case you would have known I was only teasing you. Gotta love the bloggy software at times. I thought this post went live yesterday. Please accept my apologies. I still love you very much!

Brr, it’s cold…

It’s been in the 70s here lately and I have been doing some fall cleaning. You know window washing, pulling out furniture and cleaning behind it, etc. But got up this morning to take #3 to school, pulled back the covers, and pulled them right back. High today is supposed to be 57.

Then I remembered I have to take off my wedding ring. You see, my ring is actually a Mother’s Ring, that Hubby bought me about 8 years ago, when I was a little thinner than I am now, pre my dad dying of cancer, and it is a size 4. I have very tiny fingers. And on Friday I have to have an MRI, which means NO JEWELRY, so I decided this morning, when the swelling in the fingers is the lowest is the best time to get the ring off my size 5 knuckle. So I get out of bed, with no glasses, put lotion on my finger, hobble to the bathroom (more on that later), sit on the apparatus that is in there, and the phone rings. I forgot today was the day the guy was going to deliver the drier. SO I have delivery men on the way, a ring half on, half off my finger, I am not especially dressed for company, (hot flashes you see) and I can’t see two inches in front of my face, and I am moving at a snails pace.

So needless to say, ring is still on my finger. I will try again tomorrow.

So to why I can’t walk very fast. I have arthritis in my back bone. Been going to PT for it and yesterday had to go back to the bone doctor. Pain level when I first saw him was about a 4. My 4 is most people’s 8. Being used to daily migraines, I can tolerate a lot of pain. But after two weeks of PT, my pain level is now at a 7. Doctor seems to think that my muscles have decided to join the party and of course, he wants me to keep those exercises up. So I have joined Erin at She really wants to kill the ENTIRE INTERNET for a month of exercise. I am not doing the Shred though. My doctor wants me to do 20 minutes of PT exercises each day, and I am trying to also do 20 minutes of Wii fit Yoga each day. I do part in the morning and the other part in the evening after the drugs kick in. I am not opposed to stating I am now doing drugs. Yes, I am now a big fan of Aspirin and MethylPrednisolone. If you have issues with me, deal with it, I have to keep moving some how. I have an MRI scheduled for Friday to make sure no damage is done that isn’t showing on Xray. The doctor thinks it’s just me over doing it and I tend to concur. So today I am sitting on a heating pad, reading Mommy Blogs, and Face Book and trying to decide if I want Hubby to put in the new garbage disposal tonight or hang my curtains in the living room if he has time after he puts in the new drier. Hey a girls got to milk this for all it’s worth. Last night he folded a load of towels. Well, actually 1/3 a load of towels. We have a small 110 drier we bought years ago for emergencies, and it only holds 1/3 a load at a time. But a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do right? My muscles will adapt in a few more weeks the pain will go away and I will be back to doing my own laundry and curtain hanging. Heck, I’ll probably be the one to put in the garbage disposal too, if he waits long enough.

Was Genealogy Funner When You Could…

write letters, tramp through cemeteries, crank microfilm, or now when you type in a name and 40,000,000 hits come up?

Personally, at times, I miss the old days. I miss writing a letter and waiting so long for the reply that you forgot you’d sent it and one day you’d get a letter in the mail and it would be from some long lost cousin filled with FGS (Family Group Sheets) and you’d run to your copy of the FGSs and you’d compare notes and you’d write back and the process would begin again. In the interim, you’d race to the library and crank through hours and hours of microfilm to see if you could find that family group.

FLASH FORWARD:

Been corresponding with a fellow researcher who is bored with her lines (my words not hers) and she asked if I’d mind if she looked for Susan Markham for a while. Figuring that I’d looked every where and she might find something I’d overlooked, and even if she didn’t what could it hurt, it was her time and I know how much fun a new genealogy challenge can be, I sent her a few emails with what I knew about Susan. She asked about some census stuff. I sent her back (in seconds, mind you) a scanned image. She asked about death certificates, I told her I didn’t have a copy, but gave her a date from a death index. In 48 hours, we had corresponded over 15 times.

Now I am not complaining. What would have taken years in the past, we were able to do via email and with electronic online databases in mere seconds. I told her where the family was in 1870, she wrote back mere hours later “Yes, I have found them there- but WHERE did they go?” Meaning where did they go after 1870-the same question I’d ask her in an earlier email. We are having fun with the chase. At least I am and I assume she is since she told me not to change my email address so she’d be able to find me in case she ever found them. I think I have her as intrigued as this family has me. She need not worry about me disappearing, since I run the county genealogy rootsweb list and cemetery website, but if she’ll help me figure out Susan Markham, I’ll stay in touch hourly. LOL

There are things about the old ways I don’t miss that’s for certain for you new genealogists who never researched the old way. The dust in courthouses gave me terrible sinus headaches. Watching images scroll by on microfilm made me terribly carsick, and would set off migraines. Twisted my ankle more than once running from snakes in cemeteries. Not to mention chiggers. Does any state besides Tennessee have chiggers? And don’t forget the cost of postage. My goodness, for every 50 letters you’d send out only one would be returned answered. But there was the thrill of the chase.

So T. If you are reading this. Thanks for all the help the last few days. I greatly appreciate you. I am not going anywhere, unless looking for Susan kills me.

Will The Entertainment Center Fit on That Wall?

It was a simple statement really. You see, if you are new, we don’t have cable. We only get four channels, so we don’t watch a lot of TV. We’ve lived here almost 15 years. We put our entertainment center on the most inconvenient wall of the living room 15 years ago, because that is where the builder (a man with no decorating sense at all) had put the cable outlets. So for 15 years we had stared into the sun to watch the TV, because on both sides of the TV were two floor to ceiling windows…

So since we aren’t attached to cable outlets anymore and I was wanting to move everything around to make room for the Christmas tree, and a recliner we have moved in for Mom, I wanted to FINALLY move the entertainment center to the wall where I wanted it 15 years ago. Hubby said No. Fine. I know what the Bible says about submission and so I decided that No it was. The Bible says nothing about pouting…

So On Saturday, Hubby decided that the entertainment center could be moved to the other wall. Man, does he ever have a way of making a woman wish she hadn’t pouted…I just want my living room back. You see we bought our electronics in the 80s when BIG was in. Big hair, big houses, big cars, big TVs, big speakers. Bigger was better. Our TV weights 200 lbs. I am not joking. It seriously weights 200 lbs. It only gets four channels. That’s 50 lbs a channel…

So he moved the entertainment center, and all the video equipment all day Saturday and all day Sunday and now it is my job to…

CLEAN UP FIFTEEN YEARS OF…

Yes, you guessed it DUST BUNNIES… LOL

But now that all the furniture is back in it’s rightful place only facing the other direction for a change. I like it alot. In fact, I am convinced the room is larger. Much larger in fact. I am wondering what happened. Did he throw out some of my furniture when he was tossing video equipment that didn’t work any longer? Did a plant or two go when he tossed the VHS tapes (Why did they get rid of Beta by the way?)? So now our entire family of six can watch TV all at the same time. As LONG AS>>>>no one moves. Yes, you read that right. Seems the reason he told me NO was that the antenna that brings in the four channels is on the roof. And it comes down the front wall of the house. You know the wall the entertainment center was on. Now the couch and recliner are on that wall. So if you move, you block the antenna, which means Oprah gets all squiggly, which frankly was kinda entertaining, except for I did want to hear what Sarah Palin had to say today. So as long as we watch TV like couch potatoes, we are fine. But if we try and get in a little leg lifts at the same time, well, the reception, goes well, out the floor to ceiling windows…

In genealogy news, I was able to do a little census work last night. Didn’t really find anyone new, just finding brothers and sisters of people already in my database. Sometimes you get lucky and find a parent living with someone or find out that a great uncle is married to a great aunt on another branch that way. Didn’t find much new like that last night. Mainly just discovered that with Footnotes census search and Heritage Quests Online Census if you have access to the HQ stuff through your library card, you can use Footnote indexing to tell you what page and you don’t need to know the exact spelling for the HQ census. Which is a boon for families like mine that never spelled a name the same way twice. You don’t even need a Footnote subscription. The free Footnote census search tells you the Civil District and Page number. So you can browse the HQ census and find the right page. Not as fast as you can with a subscription of course, but a lot cheaper. If you are just using it for census work it’s a good way to save money.

So that’s about all I did today. I was very much in a do nothing sort of mood. I could have napped all day long. Think I am going to go to bed early tonight. Stayed up way too late last night.

Just a Mom Living a Life of Momdom…

Yup, that’s me…Just a regular mom living a life of Momdom, which according to my spellchecker is not a word, yet all you mom’s know what I mean. I spend most of my day doing the following:

Carpool
Laundry
Dishes
Laundry
Wishing I could nap
Laundry
Lunch
Laundry

When what I wish my life was more like that of a soap opera mom where I’d have time to run a big corporation in heels, have children that somehow I don’t remember giving birth to, always have perfect nail polish on, not a hair out of place, and my kids would disappear and not show up to give me trouble again until they were 17 yet somehow able to live on their own, something about trust funds…

Yeah, I would have loved to have had labor where I didn’t remember the 9 months of being pregnant, child birth, nursing, or the terrible twos. All while staying a perfect size two. Yeah, because that’s so real life. In my real life, morning sickness lasted 14 weeks, then toxemia kicked in long enough for me to triple my body weight before the kid was a year old. (Oh wait, the kid is supposed to triple his body weight by his first birthday not the mother. Why didn’t any body tell me that?)

So yes, my life is is boringly normal at times. But you know, I am glad. I am glad that I am not so popular that people have created blogs to discuss how bad they hate me. I feel for families like the Duggars where there are not one, but several message boards where people just discuss how they hate them. I mean seriously, if you hate them that much, watch something else. You have cable, isn’t there anything else on? I know I don’t have cable and I only have 4 channels to choose from unless it’s windy, then we get 2 or 5 depending on the direction of the wind, but seriously, if you have cable you should have a selection. Change the channel and grow over yourself already.

Most of my day is spent doing genealogy. I look for women who died 50-100 years ago, who yes, spent their days doing laundry, dishes, lunch, wishing they had time for a nap. Like me they tripled their body weight by the time their first born was a year old as well. I have pictures to prove it. It’s just our genetic code to be thin until that first child is born. Don’t tell my reed thin girls that. Let them enjoy being thin and eating everything in sight a little longer. Besides I’d like to be a grandmother someday.
Those women, like me, just spent their days making sure kids were fed, washed, clothed, educated, and bed. That was their entire existence. They did not strive to be a famous mommy blogger or to be the first president of the United States. They just wanted to raise good children who would continue on their hopes and dreams. Their belief system. That’s me. Just a Mom. Raising three kids who will carry on my hopes and dreams. My belief system. And hopefully someday, make me a grandmother. Just not anytime soon. In the meantime if you hate me, that’s fine, there are at least three other channels out there, unless the wind is good then you might find 4.

Can We Keep Him?…

Okay, maybe I underestimated how much Hubby and the kids were missing the dog…

Our screened in porch has three sides that are the outside of the house. The fourth wall is screen that Hubby covers in heavy plastic in winter to make a snug warm house for our one remaining kitty. Occasionally she gets visitors, you know, other cats that come and eat the free food.

Last night, the kids wanted to know if he could stay…

In fact, the question was asked, “Can we keep him?”

Okay, so those of you out there who are praying for me, remember, Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away, my MIL is a cat woman, my Hubby and kids are now wanting to adopt something that ugly and name it. I need all the help I can get. I tell you that ferret is looking better all the time…

And yes, his eyes were glowing in real life…

Someone Tell Me It’s Not Just Me…

Okay, so we get ready to make Ginger Bread Houses. All you have to do is take 1 TSP of water and put it with the pre-measured icing mix, put it in a mixing bowl and then put it on the pre-made Ginger Bread houses. How hard could this be, right…

Well, first off, where is my mixing bowl? Most likely in the old dog pen. #3’s job was to feed the dog and she was constantly getting in trouble for using my good dishes for doing so, like apparently my Pyrex mixing bowl that I paid a pretty penny for and now that it’s Christmas and I will want to do some baking, I can’t seem to find anywhere. It apparently is in the backyard somewhere.

So I get down another bowl that will do. Then I begin to look for my nice set of measuring spoons. You know the nice red set I bought to match my kitchen from Kitchenaide when I repainted last year. I looked and looked. No measuring spoons. Seems she may have needed those to dig a hole when she and the dog were playing King of the Mountain last summer. Seriously? (This child is twelve in case you are wondering, and no we do not have a sand box.)

So I finally get a bowl that will do, a tablespoon that might be the right size and get out my mixer and in the middle of mixing the batter, my mixer dies. Both beaters fall completely out of the mixer in a trail of smoke. I am not kidding. I look at #3 with smoke in my eyes. She says, “Don’t look at me, Daddy’s the one that mixed the mortar mix.” Seriously…. With my mixer.

No wonder I don’t cook for these people. They don’t appreciate a fine kitchen or good food. Throw some chicken nuggets at them from a drive through window and they are happy. Try and whip up a three coarse meal and you will pull your hair out trying to find where they have hidden all the dishes and appliances. I don’t even want to know why I can’t find the bread maker…

What Have I Been Doing…

Hunting Rabbits…

Well, really bunny, dust bunnies… When our puppy got so sick, we kept him in the house 24/7. He was shedding terribly, because his yeast had gone into over drive and he was scratching all the time and so our house was full of fur when we had him put down. I cleaned house, but it seems that fur has a way of getting behind and under things and well, I read online that dust bunnies (which are apparently alive by the way) eat their own poop, and so they had been accumulating and so now that I am home, I have been taking one room at a time, and cleaning under and behind things.

When I pull out things I don’t find those swirling flying dust bunnies you are accustomed too either, but rather, rugs of fur and dust. Yes, you read that right, rugs of fur and dust. This dog was losing mountains of fur each day. Now I am not a big fan of animals in the house anymore. After years of two cats in the house and now a dog. I am so done. We have hardwoods, and so every speck of dust shows up. I am tired of cleaning it up. Hopefully this will be my last time… I mean the rugs, I realize the swirls will always be with us.

Which leaves me to why I am sharing…

My Hubby is not done and his mom is a cat lady. You know, the sweet little old ladies who never met a cat that she didn’t need. The one who always has a kitten in need of a home and can only part from it IF and ONLY IF you will give it a good home. And we are scheduled to visit her in 312 hours. I have that long to brain wash him into understanding that though we have a near perfect marriage of 24 years and I love him beyond life itself and I could forgive him almost anything, if he brings home something with fur, I think it just might be grounds for divorce in this state.

I am serious here. I do not want to litter box train another animal. I do not want to bottle feed it. I do not want to buy new curtains because it’s tiny claws tore up the ones I have. I like the ones I have. I do not want to smell urine on my towels if the kids forget to hang them up to dry. (Pet or human for that matter). I do not want to have to own a lint brush for my car, for my purse… I do not want people to say, “Oh I see you have a cat…” when I am at the grocery store, not because I am buying cat food, or litter, but because I have food or litter on my being… Yes, people I am done with pet ownership. I have owned, since I got married, 2 cats, 3 dogs-don’t even get me started on the inbred springer spaniels, 5 birds, too many hamsters to enumerate, several hundred guppies (part of a science project gone bad) which also then came with a sucker fish (don’t even know what it was called) named Lolly that got as big as a new born that you could not kill, because she ate bacteria off the bottom of the tank-the dirtier the tank, the bigger Lolly got, a frog-also a school science project gone bad-it died 14 times before I finally flushed it, gerbils-can people really tell the difference in them and hamsters… I did tell #3 she could have a pet if she wanted another now that the dog is gone. A small caged, non-smelly another. She wanted a feret. I drew the line because I can’t get past Ricky Tikki Tavi, though I don’t think he was a ferret, but rather a mongoose, but is there really a difference when they are in your living room? I mean seriously. I just remember that movie from second grade and it being really violent. Don’t have a clue what the plot was about. Maybe I need to read it again. LOL

So anyway, that is what I have been doing. Killing sweet innocent bunnies… You?