Jeepers

Thanks for sharing Euphrasyne and thank you to Uncle Hubert for your brave service.  

Miki, it sounds like you are having a great time with your family too! 

. HAPPY BIRTHDAY WORMIE  

          You are very much missed! 

I love boys. 

G-son just called me all by himself. Good thing we don't have to pay long distance phone calls now! Not sure his parents knew he was calling. Evidently I'm on a speed dial thing. Uh-oh. 

We talked about our favorite football teams. His is the Chiefs (super bowl) and mine is the Steelers. I think I can win him over though. We both kinda like the Bears too. 

Favorite basketball teams. His is the Lakers. I mentioned LeBron James which earned major grandma points. I was always a Piston and Celtic fan myself but I didn't mention that. 

Favorite baseball teams. We both like the Cubs. 

Favorite soccer teams. His is something about Barcelona. I only know Messi and Ronaldo so I'm sort of lost on that one. But assured him I'd root for which ever team he likes. He just joined a summer soccer league so he's pumped. 

He has a play date with Abby tomorrow (spring break). Legos and Raman noodles are planned. Abby's favorites. She sort of balances out all of his rowdy guy friends. Son said he plays differently with her. That's nice because he can really get wound up with his buds. 

Just thought I'd share my joy tonight.    

I was just looking up the difference between lima beans and butter beans this week. They say they are the same thing but my granny fixed them differently. I don't know how she did them. I don't think she added any meat unless it was bacon grease. But hers were creamy white and slightly falling apart with thick liquid in them. We ate them with corn bread for supper but as they were cooking, we would make an open face sandwich of regular bread with them for lunch. They were thick and and not a dry bean. Nothing like the green single lima beans. They were so good. 

I would love to can a few pints of 'butter beans'. 

. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  

For some reason the squatter issue has been recommended to me on YouTube a lot lately. So I've been made more aware of it. One woman was murdered and one woman was arrested in her own home when a squatter call the police on her after he broke her door down. It was all recorded. There is something called 'squatters rights' now. If they can show they have been in a home for 30 days then something or another. I can't remember the details. But...its getting more and more common. 

I have two people watching my house in Indy. One who always speaks to me when she walks by said she would keep an eye out for strangers. Another family lives across the street and up one house, went to school with DIL and he has her number and said he'd watch for anything suspicious and would call her. They are the ones I let park in my driveway when I'm not there. And now that spring is here, son's will be over there mowing. At least it's in the country so there isn't a lot of foot traffic wandering by. 

My sleep is getting much better. The ambien (Zolpidem) is working. Regardless of when I take it, I sleep about 8-9 hours straight and wake up refreshed. It's a good deep sleep. I just have to remember to take it. I have to put my heart monitor on the charger 2 hours before bedtime and that has been delaying me. I have to sleep with it on. I need to start charging it earlier. I'm afraid to take the ambien earlier because I'm afraid I'll fall asleep with the monitor still on the charger. He only gave me 5mg. But said he'd gradually increase it to 10mg if need be. I have to take random drug tests.      They tested for all kinds of drugs like fentynol, heroine, PCP, cocaine and a bunch of others including marijuana and alcohol. I got a print out from the lab. The first test I was ever able to ace. All negative. 

Glad you all made it home safe and sound. Smart move heading out before the storm!

Is your MIL house well secured? I've been seeing where squatters have become a real problem recently. Once they get in it's hard to get them out even legally. 

You have really had it with the snow this year Mt. Rider. It has snowed for the past 3 days here but it was the really fine stuff. Then it rained just enough to melt it. So far my snow plow guy has only plowed twice this year. I don't think we've had any zero days/ nights yet either. Maybe one or two nights in the teens. 

Our weather has been so mild the past year or two. Last summer we didn't get any 90 degree days and struggled to get into the 80's most of the time. This winter we've only got a couple of inches of snow accumulated at one time. I'm not complaining. It has been very nice and easy on the pocketbook. Especially for northeast Ohio. 

Come to think of it, our mild temps last summer might have had to do with the fires in Canada. We had weeks of smoke filled overcast days?

Have a good ride and hope your hubby feels better soon!. 

My D-ex has to do similar thing at the end of every year. If he doesn't take so much out, he gets heavily taxed on it. So he is gifting it every year to G-son in a college fund. 

You really have to know what you are doing to capitalize on your money. And the laws keep changing too. My D-ex has a Masters in business from Case Western so he's a good advisor. And free.  

The stock companies have until the end of February to send out their reports, so I usually can't get mine done until March. No choice. 

My taxes are complicated. This year will be even more so with a stock sell off. And some years there are spin offs. And some years there are buys. This year there was a sell off. It's hard to preplan when your financial portfolio changes every year. 

Gotcha. That stinks.  

Rob from the seniors who actually paid in to it.  

That's odd about your SS tax. If you are in Virginia, you shouldn't have to pay any tax on your social security. 

Granted, I don't know a lot about how it works but social security benefits in Indiana and Ohio are tax free. 

I need to get my taxes done too. HR Block keeps making appointments for me without my knowledge. I keep getting emails that they set another one up. Two days ago I got one that said I had an appointment at 8:45PM. Today I got one that said I have an appointment today at 11:03AM. It was already noon when I saw it. The nerve.

It's gonna hurt this year because one of my stocks had a sell off and I'm going to have to pay capital gains on it. I've got everything ready. I'll make an appointment when I'm ready. 

I got a message from my doctor today. My creatinine level has elevated again. Guess my kidneys aren't doing so well. He mentioned seeing a nephrolgist. I'm not doing that yet. I need to get the cardiologist taken care of first. Sheesh. Go see a kidney doctor with a heart monitor on. They'll think I'm a hypochondriac. 

I looked up how to lower the levels. It said among other things to avoid protein especially fish and beef and to cut back on alcohol and smoking. I don't drink and I don't smoke and I don't eat fish and only have a burger about twice a month. It said to eat blueberries and strawberries but last week I read where they are some of the dirtiest (chemical) foods there is. I bought some anyway. Thanks to the new icemaker, I am drinking more. If I was a horse they would have done shot me by now.  

Public Service Announcement:

I got some useless "window blinds" from Amazon the other day. They said they were the roller kind but they weren't. You had to Velcro the top of them to the window frame. Also cut the side of them off to the width you want. They came folded up. Basically a piece of folded plastic you velcroed to the top of your window frame. I should have known by the price. Too good to be true. I bought...8. 

Anyway, I've never returned anything to Amazon but I wasn't going to keep all 8 of them. I went on their site to see about returning them. Boy was it easy! I filled out a short form saying why i wanted to return them and they told me where I could go locally to return them. UPS store, Whole Foods, Kohls and some other place. Maybe Staples. UPS is right up the street. Amazon emailed me one of those q code things. I took the stuff to the UPS store and they scanned the code, gave me a receipt and that was it. Amazon emailed me back and said they received the notice from UPS and will refund my card as soon as it arrives to them. 

Just mentioning it incase anyone else gets a dud and wants to return something to Amazon. I thought I  would have to go to the post office and pay to send them back. Glad I wasn't stuck with them and glad it was so easy to return. I'm not big on returning stuff but there were 8 of them. 

Everyone else beside me probably already knew all of this.   

Darn you Midnightmom. I had to touch the screen to scroll up away from it. I almost had to touch that fish. The struggle is real girlfriend. The struggle is real. 

See. That there is why I used to lie and say I was allergic to fish. And yes I remember that terrifying commercial.

Thanks for the reminder.  

Moving on....

Don't feel bad Annarchy. I'm right there with you. I don't understand how this is being allowed to happen. I've seen the violence too. When they beat up the cops, and walked out of the jail laughing and giving the camera the finger, my head nearly exploded. And our food and med shortages is no mystery. Don't get me started...

I wondered what all you would see down there so close to the border. 

Necie, don't you dare feel bad about fish pictures! I love seeing your darling granddaughter out there fishing. I was thinking about how brave she is to actually....fish.      I can overlook a fish in the background. Close up...not so much. 

Nope, cooked fish don't bother me. Post away! Unless it still has the head on. People actually eat whole fish with heads and eyes and fins and skin and bones... I always wonder if they are even gutted.    It happened to me once in Taiwan a big flat kind if fish on a platter. Whole. Then they brought out a whole duck. Complete with head and feet. And there was the octopus with their little suction cup tentacles. Eel soup complete with the bones. Fifty years later I can still see it all. I was a guest so when in Rome. Had diarrhea for a week. Seriously. It was the Dragon Boat Festival. At least I didn't have to eat a dragon.  LOL. 

About once every 2-3 years I will actually eat a Long John Silvers fish smothered in ketchup. I try.  

We can still be buds. I just won't go fishing with ya. And I won't knock you over.    Sounds like you might have some sort of vertigo?

Finally, after two dropped calls and one call that they never answered, I got my cable TV cut off from ATT. Only took an hour. What a hassle. Then they want me to sign up for all kinds of stuff. I'm old, not stupid. No means no the first time. Crimony. I hate to feel badgered. Now all I have is internet that I still can't get connected to. I'd cancel that too except I expect to have to use it with selling the house transactions. Since I unbundled, the internet price dropped by $30.00. Odd. I still have to send in my cable boxes. I think I have three of them...somewhere. I wish I could just take them in to an ATT store. That would be too easy I guess. Free shipping to mail the units back but I'll have to scrounge up a box big enough. I'll work on the internet when I'm in a better frame of mind. I know it will involve another call to India for assistance. I can barely understand them. Last time they told me to "Try harder". I understood that.    

When I rolled over my CD I told the banker that I was not interested in a financial advisor. I'm doing just fine. I don't want to be bothered. I don't need them. Both of my dollars are safe thank you very much.    So guess who called today? I was rude to him. Don't care. Every time I do inside banking or do a money withdrawal from my stock company, I get calls wanting to delve into my money and offers that I don't want. I tell them no one time. If they persist, I become very rude. Don't care. P*sses me off to no end when they ask why. None of their business. And I tell them so. "None. Of. Your. Business." *crickets*.  I get questioned about why I have this amount in this account and why I have that amount in that account and why don't WE roll it it over to whatever. I have zero interest in bonds or treasury notes and I really have no interest in a meet up. I probably should make an appointment with them just to waste their time after I've already told them no. 

I'm really grumpy today. Bet my heart monitor is really going off. And that's another thing, they call me every day just to tell me what day I'm on. Today is day 3. Yeah me. Only 27 more phone calls from them. 

A prescription is due to be picked up. I'm laying low though. I'm not fit to be in public today. Maybe tomorrow after I get my heart monitor robo call. Or maybe early in the morning before some other poor soul crosses my path. 

I'm carbing out in a huge plate of spaghetti for supper.  Don't care. 

Thanks for the info. I had to look it up.

AKA Mucinex. 

27 minutes ago, Annarchy said:

Safe in TX. Amen.

I didn't really realize just how big this place was until it got emptied out. A family of 6 could easily manage it here. 

I think you are right about people seeing their things in the space. I always heard you should remove anything personal such as photos and collectibles etc. so people could imagine their family in the house. No problem here. I've got nothing. 

You should have seen some of the houses we went through when we were looking at this one. Some were hoarded, some were filthy and some had dirty laundry all over the house. Some we couldn't even really see beyond the mess. I remember one still had standing water in one room and the tiles on the floor were all buckled and one had so much water in the basement we couldn't go down there. That was 35 years ago and I still remember them. 

One house had wallpaper in every single room. Some of it was big plaid and some was little rosebuds. One house had big tin soldier wallpaper on the dinningroom and kitchen walls.

To keep each house straight in our mind, we named them. The water house, the Chinese house, the dirty house, the laundry house, the cat house... I suppose mine will be the empty house. 

And some people just stayed in the house while we were looking making it awkward. 

That was before computers and Zillow. We were out of state with limited time and saw a lot of houses in a short amount of time. 

I'm not having it staged. It would be too expensive for the amount they would have to do. 

I can't even imagine how much a moving van would have cost me. Son came twice and I know he saved me a lot of money. He will have to come one more time with his trailer.  If I didn't have his help I would have probably used a POD or two. I would load it up and they would deliver it. That wouldn't be cheap either.

It cost me over $1,700 just to get rid of my old furniture and stove and refrigerator for 1-800-Got-Junk. Nothing is cheap that's for sure. 

I watched the video but missed that part.    

Guess I can forget making my fortune developing that software. 

I love HGTV but it is a reality show. They have crews working for them with mega budgets. The house I bought in Indy showed on zillow with furniture. When we looked at it, it was empty. I think it was the furnishings that belonged to the family. It was drastically cleared out though. Hardly anything on countertops etc.  If I could post pictures...

One of the differences in my case, is most all of my furniture was damaged so it had to be removed. It isn't like I was living in a furnished house where it could easily be updated. It had to be pretty much gutted. What little bit that was left was very old and ratty looking. I didn't want it so while the junk guys were here they took it away for me. 

What little I had, that I wanted to keep, needed to be removed (by my son) because of the demolition and to keep it safe. And that was only a couple of bookcases and two end tables etc. 

Other than the diningroom table and twin bed, there is nothing in this house. Everything would have to be brought in. Not worth the money in this case with such a big house. 

I'm not allergic to fish. They just freak me out. I used to lie and say I was allergic to avoid confrontation and explanations. But I grew up and now I just admit I'm afraid of them. I don’t mind being teased about it. It is ridiculous. But I didn't want anyone to know in case they thought it would be fun to tease me with a real or fake fish. 

So telling a fib was easier...and safer. 

I can enjoy an aquarium though. But if someone (G-son or son) touches the water then they have to scrub their hands before I'll even talk with them. Just incase they forget to wash their hands and touch me. 

To me a cooked fish smells like a live fish. Ugh. 

But other than that, I'm fairly sane.