Jeepers

Hope you and your family are doing well. I know you were having a trying time with your dad over the holidays concerning his health. Just wanted you to know you are being thought about.

I know exactly what you are going through. Although I hate it for you, it sort of gives me comfort to know I'm not the only one. Misery loves company huh, sister.

Would love to see your pantry to get ideas. My pantry room is a total wreck. And I mean it. I can barely step foot in it. I just put things in there to get them carried in and also to keep them out of the garage. There is food in there, meds, crafts, paper products, office supplies and who knows what else. The other bedroom looks nearly as bad. Son just put stuff in there when he unloaded the trailer the last time. I don't blame him at all. It had to go someplace and he was just getting it in the house. But now I really have to get on it sorting it all out and organizing it. I think I have enough shelves now but to be honest, I don't think I have enough room in there to work on getting them set up. I want to get the craft stuff etc. out of the pantry room and into the spare bedroom. It really is awful. The hall closet isn't much better. When I'm over there I spend a lot of the evenings at sons house because the ask me for supper and during the day I'm working on making the rest of the house (that is actually seen) presentable. I can't wait to get moved over there. I want an orderly home.

She is always so thorough. I was thinking a little more low tech and smaller. Amazon.com: Kitchen Crop VKP Brands Fruit Saver Steam Canner, 7 Quart Jar Capacity, Silver : Home & Kitchen

I saw that word JN1. That's probably it. It's miserable but so far...I can manage. Nighttime is the worst.

I use my upright freezer for ready made meals too. I love it for that. Every time I go to Indy I start eating out of that freezer right away because I don't have any bread to make a sandwich. And I'm usually hungry by the time I get there. I have a lot of meals planned just no time over there to get them made. I looked at them in the stores for ideas too. But I do have tuna noodle casserole, chili and shepherds pie that I always eat. From freezer to microwave to table is about 10-12 minutes. By the time I get in the house, turn on the water, potty and get a drink, it is ready. I've been making lists all day while 'bedridden.' Got a canning list started and a freezer meal list started. I need a kitchen. And time. LOL I think 2024 is going to be my prep year. I hope!

Thank You Miki. I never even thought about that! I bought a small water bath canner for small batch jam canning that I could use that way.

Euphrasyne... Mine is finally breaking up. I had a big stack of fast food napkins that I save. They are all gone. I got the box of tissues from the Jeep and they are all gone. I've moved on to toilet paper now. Used mostly from sneezing and runny nose. Fortunately I have large amounts of paper products stashed everywhere. Even panty liners. TMI? They are very handy during coughing and sneezing spells especially in the middle of the night. Highly recommended unless you just like to do lots of laundry. I think a lot of the revulsion to the mucus issue is the sound. Coughing it up, spitting it out and gagging.

Coughing hard with bouts of sneezing fits setting off a very active case of diarrhea and you have an interesting night. All night. Sheesh. I'm thankful I have a bathroom with running water. So, it could be worse. What ever is going around shows no mercy. I'm planning to be all better by the 9th. so I can go to Indy for furniture delivery. That's the plan.

OH MY GOODNESS! Amber is gorgeous. She looks so soft! I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off of her. Those little feetz... Sigh. Yep, drooling is a sign of stress. Mine used to do during a thunder storm. Lots of lovin' and she will adjust. Ruby and Amber. Both of them 'gems'

I'd like to have a steam canner for pickles and jams too. Beats having to lift a big water bath canner plus energy saver. Size and weight are the reasons I went with a Presto instead of the All American. And now the cost of one is astronomical. I have two canners. One is a double stack pints because I do marathon canning sessions. I usually make big pots of food to can. I rarely do quarts so the pint non-stackable canner is a good size for me. I use the smaller one for smaller baches and for canning quarts. I don't think I'd ever stack quarts. I usually only can tomato sauce in quarts. The little one is handy during mega canning sessions when I have more than 16 pints to can too. My big canner is the size of the ForJars canner and I can handle it pretty well. I fill it with a pitcher of water so I don't have to do too many liftings. I was just lucky it fits under the microwave. I hope it does at the Ohio house too. Yikes. I do have an electric water bath canner though. I first saw it on the Kneady Homesteader's channel. It is really small but it has a spigot on the side where you can drain the water out in the sink without lifting the canner. Unfortunately, the house happened and I haven't used it. Not even sure where it is right now. I just looked it up on line. I can't believe the price now! More than doubled what I paid for mine!

I just saw where she is hosting 'Canuary' again this year.

I got ahold of State Farm...finally. I can't believe he answered the phone today. They said they would look into extending me for another month. We'll see. That will give me time to get moved back in etc. I wasn't looking forward to moving while sick. I was only going to ask for two weeks. Either way I'm okay to move anytime. The house is livable. I've lived in it in worse conditions. But there would still be workmen in there and I wasn't looking forward to that either. Just looking around, there isn't as much in here as I thought there was. It's all doable. I just need to get all of those darn curtains ironed and see what is still useable. I might need to order more. I do need curtains up to the windows while I'm there though! Maybe some cheap blinds to pull down.

I'm sorry Euphrasyne. Tis the season, huh. Everyone seems to be getting it. Mine hasn't broken enough to drain yet. I think this crud is worse than covid. Army of slugs...

That sounds awesome, Littlesister! I hope to start up canning in January too. I have been scouring the internet for new (to me) recipes to can. I have a list going too. The best things for me to can are meals in a jar, like soups and stews, that I can just pop the lid and heat and eat. I was very happy with my canned frozen peas and corn I did in Indiana. So easy too. I want to do some green beans next. I couldn't find the longer ones but later saw them at Gordon's Food Supply. Next summer I want to buy some nice long green beans and French them and add some mushrooms and onions to the jar and can them. I think I'm going to do some rebel type canning. I want some green beans cooked in bacon grease to can. Probably make up a big pot of them and can them that way. Not sure yet. I saw some dry canned potatoes coated with butter that looked heavenly when fried. Reminded me of the old Boston Market potatoes. I know it's not approved but darn, they looked good.

Sheesh, lots of us are sick right now. I don't feel too horrible during the day but come nighttime, I'm miserable. The worst is the cough. It comes from my throat area and causes a gagging feeling. It compels me to cough but it is totally unproductive and makes my throat sore to cough. Of course the usual sneezing, fever, chills, aches, eyes hurt, runny nose, headache and just plain tired. There is a really nasty virus going round up here and if had to bet, I'd bet that's what I have. It's actually pretty nasty but I'm on day 3 so I should be feeling better soon. I checked for the next available doctor appointment and it isn't until Jan. 8th. The day of my ENT appointment. I probably could go to the clinic but I'm avoiding that place as much as possible (ear place). All they would probably tell me to do is go home and rest and drink plenty of fluids. I'm just keeping an eye on it incase of bronchitis. Still no call back from the insurance company for an extension. I hate those people. So, I'm slowly packing up some stuff to move. I have plenty of bags to pack in but could use a couple of small boxes but I'm not buying any more. Bags are light weight anyway.

I am logging off. My head and eyes hurt now along with some fever and chills. Nose stuffy on one side and running on the other and the cough is getting old too. Will try Advil heating pad and sleep. Crimony.

Housekeeping was today so I took one small load over to the house. I always leave when they come. Nothing else has been done since the walkthrough last week. I know my Project Manager is on vacation the rest of the year but I figured the worker bees would still be on the job. Day 4 that ins. never called back for an extension. I don't really care this time. The house is livable. I won't be out there on the street and it's warm and dry. Plus I can start working on it. I guess. I might have the covid after all. I feel feverish and have a headache now. Sometimes I don't know if it's a hot flash or a fever. They feel the same. Son called and said he has made arrangements to get the furniture out of the Indy house that I am giving them, on Friday. Then I got an email a little later saying my new furniture will be completed on Jan. 2nd. Pretty good timing. I'll wait until my sickness is gone before I go over though. And I have more doctor appointments on the 8th. and 15th. Those appointments are always holding me up from going over there. Will probably go on the 9th. and have delivery on the 10th. DIL would do it but I still owe money on it so I need to be there with my charge card. They would only take a down payment to order it. I have accrued quite a tidy sum over the past 9 months on those cards. Between furniture for me, furniture for sons, appliances, Christmas, regular bills, gas, food etc. etc. I've 'made' $1,050. I plan to keep letting it add up and use it to replace all of my window screens at the Indy house this summer. I can do those myself. Just buy the material. Every single one has a hole of some kind on them. I plan to use the open windows instead of air conditioning this summer. If the temps cooperate. I love my Ohio bank HATE my Indiana bank.

If you take this asthma med you might want to check into it. If it were me, I'd try out new meds to see how well they work now (if you can get them) before this one is no longer available. Article says the new replacement is the same thing. We all know that isn't true for some people. Read why it is being discontinued. $$$ Sorry it's long. I didn't write it. Bolding is mine. If you find it distracting PLEASE let me know so I won't do it again! No problem. ‘A huge shock to the system’: Doctors warn about asthma inhaler switch coming in January December 28, 2023 at 10:20 AM Starting January 1, a drug that thousands of patients depend on to help them breathe will disappear from pharmacy shelves, and doctors are concerned patients may have delays switching to alternatives and getting them covered by insurance. Manufacturer GSK has said it’s discontinuing the branded asthma inhaler Flovent, and instead is making an “authorized generic” version, which is identical but without the same branding. Physicians who treat patients with asthma say the authorized generic will work just as well as the branded drug, but it doesn’t appear to be covered as widely by insurers. That may mean patients will have to obtain new prescriptions and sort out coverage hurdles at the height of respiratory virus season. “This medication has been the most commonly used inhaled medication for the past 25 or 30 years,” said Dr. Robyn Cohen, a pediatric pulmonologist at Boston Medical Center. “It’s the one that, overwhelmingly, pediatricians reach for when they decide that their patient needs a daily preventive medication. … The fact that it’s being discontinued is going to be a huge shock to the system for patients, for families and for doctors.” Doctors are urging patients to take action now to ensure they’ve got their medicine heading into the new year and advocacy groups have been trying to get the word out. But the story of why Flovent is disappearing, and the lack of insurance coverage for its ostensibly identical replacement, touches on some of the most complex facets of American health care and drug pricing. Major change to Medicaid’s drug program A spokeswoman for GSK said the company is making the change “as part of our commitment to be ambitious for patients.” She noted the company introduced the authorized generics of Flovent HFA, an inhalation aerosol, and Flovent Diskus, an inhalation powder, in May 2022 and October 2023, and that, subsequently, it would discontinue manufacturing the branded versions in the United States on January 1, 2024. The authorized generics, she said, “will provide patients in the US with potentially lower cost alternatives of these medically important products.” Experts who follow the industry both on Wall Street and in academia, though, point out GSK is making the switch at precisely the time a change in Medicaid rebates could cause the company to have to pay large penalties because of price increases on Flovent over a number of years. The legal change coming into effect on the first of the year removes a cap on Medicaid rebates that companies are required to pay if they raise the price of medicines more than inflation. “Flovent Diskus has been on the market since 2000 and Flovent HFA since 2004, and GSK has hiked the price on both products numerous times since their launch,” Dr. William Feldman, an associate physician in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital who studies asthma drugs, told CNN. “These are precisely the sort of drugs that will be affected by the new policy eliminating the Medicaid rebate cap.” Until now, the rebates were capped at the total price of a drug, so manufacturers would never pay more than a drug costs back to Medicaid. But under a provision in the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, that limit was removed, and starting January 1, 2024, drugs that have been subject to large price increases over time could end up incurring rebates to Medicaid that are greater than their price — meaning pharmaceutical companies would sell those drugs to Medicaid at a loss. “Obviously pharma doesn’t want to be selling at a loss on anything in its portfolio,” said Andrew Baum, an analyst who covers the stock of GSK and other pharmaceutical companies for the financial firm Citi. “So it seeks to evade impact by, one: discontinuation; two: authorized generic.” An authorized generic, Baum told CNN, is viewed as a separate product, “but still enables pharma to collect some of the economics.” Or, put another way, it’s the same product without the branding and also without the history of price increases that would leave the medicine vulnerable to such large rebates to Medicaid. According to data from GoodRx, the price of branded Flovent has gone up about 47% since 2014. Other drugmakers have made changes ahead of the January 1 rebate cap removal as well; makers of insulin this year announced major price cuts — of 70% or more — on their products, a move analysts estimate will save them hundreds of millions of dollars a year. The authorized generic strategy GSK is employing “is a way, broadly speaking, to maximize the profitability of the product in question,” said David Amsellem, a financial analyst who covers the industry at investment firm Piper Sandler. He noted there are currently no other generic versions of Flovent approved by the FDA. GSK did price the authorized generic lower than branded Flovent; one package of Flovent HFA in the 110 microgram dose, for example, costs $273.83, about 50% more than the $177.99 wholesale acquisition cost of its authorized generic counterpart, according to prices the company shared with CNN. The wholesale acquisition cost is the price before insurance and rebates. But CVS Caremark, a major pharmacy benefit manager that determines which medicines are covered by insurance for its members, is giving preferential placement to another branded inhaler, Pulmicort, on its formulary, instead of the authorized generic versions of Flovent. “In this case, the authorized generics were more expensive than the brand name medications,” a CVS spokesman told CNN. He noted that’s based on net prices, rather than the wholesale acquisition cost, meaning Pulmicort could be less expensive because of rebates its manufacturer, AstraZeneca, pays to obtain better insurance coverage. ‘The worst possible time of year’ The fact that insurance plans aren’t broadly covering the authorized generic of Flovent, said BMC’s Cohen, “means that patients are going to need to get a brand new prescription for a completely different medication in the middle of the worst possible time of year, which is the winter respiratory virus season.” For patients with persistent asthma, Cohen said, Flovent has been the most commonly used daily preventive anti-inflammatory medication for decades. It shrinks swelling in the airways and reduces the body’s exaggerated response to triggers that make it hard to breathe. During cold and flu season, she said, it becomes even more crucial to have that daily medicine. “Flu, Covid, RSV — all these circulating viruses that are going around right now — are one of the biggest, if not the biggest, triggers for asthma attacks in kids,” Cohen said. “This is what leads to kids being in the emergency room.” Cohen said she’s concerned that patients, as well as physicians and pharmacists, don’t know this change with Flovent is coming, and they need to act now to work out alternatives and determine insurance coverage. For some groups, the alternatives are more limited. For patients with a more rare inflammatory condition, called eosinophilic esophagitis, Flovent HFA is one of the most commonly prescribed topical steroids, and other medicines don’t have as much data supporting their use in the condition, said Dr. Erin Syverson, an attending physician in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at Boston Children’s Hospital. As EoE affects the esophagus, patients swallow the medicine instead of breathing it in, and it can tame the inflammation that can cause pain with swallowing or food getting stuck, requiring procedures to remove it. In kids, Syverson said, EoE can lead to recurrent vomiting, heartburn, belly aches, and trouble making progress starting solid foods, and Flovent can help keep the condition under control. “With the discontinuation coming up, I worry it’s going to just be one more hurdle for this patient population that already has very limited medications available to them,” Syverson told CNN. “I don’t know what January is going to be like, but I’m worried.” ‘A huge shock to the system’: Doctors warn about asthma inhaler switch coming in January (aol.com)

Glad your DH is getting his ears seen to. For both of your sakes! I've called 2 days in a row about another hotel extension. No call backs again. I don't really NEED one but 2 weeks more would have been nice. Just to give me a little more time to pack up. Also to avoid some workmen still at the house. But that is a luxury and not a need. I think the house is 98% done now. There is everything there that I have here. Running water, bathroom, microwave etc. I'm not sure about the fridge yet and the stove isn't mounted in. Even though this next move is small, I still have a lot in this room. I sort of didn't know how much, but it's been my home for nearly a year so I guess it's to be expected. Two people working together could make quick work of it. One sick old woman...not so much. I'm already tired. I had a rough night with coughing. It kept me awake a lot. Today it's that and sneezing and runny nose. Ugh. Nothing stomach/intestinal so I'm grateful for that. I got up early and started packing in earnest. I'm glad I'm close enough to the house that I can make 3-4 trips. One of my dear cousins called me last night. We couldn't get in contact with each other for the longest so she called my son and gave him her cell number for me to call. It was so nice. We took up right where we left off. Talked for nearly 2 hours. I think I'm all caught up on all of the family gossip now. LOL I've really missed my family. Well, most of them. One lives in Arizona and distance helps, but it didn't make the heart grow fonder. Know what I mean. There are/were about 30 of us so those odds aren't so bad I guess. Then there is one with bi-polar. She is like a box of chocolates...you never know what you're gonna get. Gump-ism. But I love her.

Oh, were you talking about the amount of Prednisone I am taking at one time? Six pills all at once? I thought you were responding to the other ladies talking about the medical situation we are in now and rationing the pills. Not me specifically. Never mind. I get it now.

I don't think I've been out of the room for three days. No where to go and nothing to do when I get there. I haven't even been motivated to go to the house. I have to go someplace tomorrow just so I can start the Jeep up. I'm getting a cold or something. Sneezing a lot with a stuffy nose and a dry cough often. It's either a cold or bronchitis. Suppose I should look up the symptoms for the newest Covid strain. So far the Prednisone hasn't bothered me. I've only taken four doses though. Littlesister was right, I'm starting to graze.

What are we supposed to look up? I looked up 'sucker punch' and it was a product for removing suckers from plants. I don't think I was on the 'wight twail while hunting the waskally wabbit Doc.'

I knew it.