Hand Sanitizers....

Mornin, Mornin... I am procrastinating here this morning... I SHOULD be doing something else, but I struggled throughout the afternoon and evening with it yesterday, so I'm trying to build up my courage to tackle it again (scanning receipts and 3 months of bank reconciliations for two bank accounts... YUCK)....

A few years, Desiree got into this kick of hand sanitizers and at first, drove me nuts about the whole topic...  Then I started paying attention to where everyone's hands go, how much we'd get sick in the fall and winter, etc. and she got me hooked on the idea...

After getting through a winter without me catching anyone else's ugly mugglies, I realized Des was onto something here and I became much more committed to the constant use of hand sanitizers... 

Threw out the sponges that winter at the kitchen sink after reading about the number of germies that hang out in there... Major YUCK~!!!

I got some micro-fiber cloths accidentally at the store one day and I was totally hooked on using them instead of the terry cloth cloths I had been using for years and years!!!... Cleans faster and less elbow-grease, you can almost dry any surface once you have gotten them wet and they are much more absorbent than paper towels any time... Easily thrown in the wash, I am on my second giant-size package of them now... Eventually they do wear out and don't clean or absorb as well as they did initially, but only after a ton of use... I'm sold on them... And use them for just about any kind of chore that needs to be done...

And along the way of life and every day conversations, Desiree inserts ideas about this and that regarding the use of hand sanitizer... Now she has me using it on the faucets and door knobs around the house... Periodically, I pick up my purse and wipe the bottom of that down after the news report on how many germs hang out on the bottom of your purse... And I also wipe down my computer keyboard with the stuff after reading about how many germies live on your desk and keyboard... LOL...

I believe (???) I am a scrubber by nature... When I pay attention to this fact, it seems I must be cleaning and scrubbing something at least 10 times a day... Maybe it is just my kitchen counter, but I am mentally better when things are cleaned up and put away... I can handle chaos when I'm in the middle of a project, but as I'm pushing to the close of my day, a messy kitchen counter is an ABSOLUTE given irritant to my 'pleasing personality'... :)...

A few months ago, I got a BAD 'paper cut' on my hand and it took forever to heal... My doc had told me years ago that with the high level of blood thinners I am on, I can count on it taking three times the length of time for me to heal than a normal person... So I decided to test out that fact and actually marked down the date of the cut and when it was finally healed and no longer kept breaking open again... It was on a joint and it took 19 days...

Hmmmm....

I debated about that fact inside my head for awhile... If I am being so extra careful about the amount of germs that my hands are in, why does it take so long to heal even with the blood thinners?... At first, I bought a box of those disposable gloves that everyone uses in the doctors offices... They didn't work that well because if I was actually scrubbing something, at times the water would drain into and inside the top of the gloves...

I was watching a show from the 60s on the History Channel one day and it showed a lady in her apron, pulling on her "Playtex Living Gloves" before she got ready to do her dishes... I had actually forgotten about them and wondered if they were even still made...I had never really used them, but had seen old TV shows where the woman of the house faithfully put on her gloves before she was scrubbing or doing dishes...

The next trip to the grocery store, I picked up a pair and once home, I was surprised at how easy it was to work in them... They really do fit well (I use the mediums in purple - the knock off gloves are garbage and really don't work that well as I learned eventually)...

The hardest part was to retrain myself to put them on before I stuck my hands in water, detergents, etc... I have to admit - this was pretty tough and probably the hardest part of all of this...

I noticed that cuts healed up faster once I got really good about teaching myself this new habit... And then that got me to wondering how many germies I was putting inside of myself prior to the habit... Could this explain some of the days when you just feel like yuck and wonder if you are coming down with something ~~~ could you be fighting off mild infections you yourself accidentally infected yourself with through a cut on your hands, even with a Band-aid?

I actually like this gloves better than my gardening gloves... I find that I am more efficient at some many things if I have them on - I HATE dirt and yuck underneath my fingernails and am probably a bit compulsive about it occurring...

This morning, Desiree and I were talking about the hand sanitizer topic and my habit of wiping down faucet handles with the stuff periodically... She admits to me that she probably is a bit obsessive compulsive about all of this... Now she tells me~~!!!!...

Should I admit that before I take off my Playtex Living Gloves after a chore, I use the hand santitizer stuff on them to keep germies from growing on them?... Naw, don't think I will do that... ...

As Always,

The Lady

Look, Mom... an alien has invaded our backyard!

"Look, Mom... it is an alien who has come to visit us...."  Naw... it is really Princess trying to kiss the camera...

But the tree is gone - or at least most of it is... LOL... Paul got his chainsaw back from the shop and without any prodding from me the other night, asked if I wanted to 'cut some wood'...
(which really means he cut down the trunk as I cleaned up the small branches, raked, swept up the twigs, etc....)  :)   Works for me!

I have a pile of sawdust around the base of it the dogs are loving to dig through and Paul's chainsaw is back to the shop for they put on the wrong chain (OMG)... Don't ask me how he managed to get it all down with the wrong chain, but he did!... And there must be 1/4 of a cord of wood piled up for burning later in the fireplace as well!... What a deal!

Paul was up on that huge ladder (the same one we used to paint the outside of the house with) and 'topped' all the large branches off of it until we had just the main trunk left behind...  By that point, both of us were already bushed~!!!... That was a LOT of work already... Between his chainsaw and my 'handy-dandy' Black & Decker portable saw, we had already cleaned up all the branches and had a second recycle barrel full of stuff that couldn't easily been burnt!

I love this photo - it's that look of 'Sooo... now what do I do' that I know so well from Paul... LOL... I have seen it hundreds of times in almost 13 years as I've drawn him into some of my projects~!!!...

Once he finally figured out what he was going to do next, he got on it and the sawdust was REALLY flying~!!!













And I love this photo too... I can just hear Paul saying, "ENOUGH already" - one of his common expressions!... I think (?) by this time he was already annoyed by the number of photos I was taking, but this is recording our own personal history, ya know?

Once he really got after it, the tree was truly dead all the way down through the trunk (so I feel redeemed on my judgment call about the project... WHEW~!!!)...  For once one of my hair-brained ideas and projects didn't blow up on my face!

And, by this time of the evening, I had to switch on the camera flash to take a photo... So you can tell just how long it took both of us to get this tree down to the ground and cleaned up...

Yesterday morning, it was a reality check when I went outside for the first time... It truly is like when you first get a new, radical haircut and pass by a mirror accidentially... The visual makes you do a double take and then you realize that you got a haircut, ya know?... The backyard looked a bit naked and exposed to be truthful...

But, I already had another umbrella bought and sitting on the patio table along with the umbrella stand in the floor of my truck, so I was prepared...

A few years ago, the city removed a HUGE tree from the street below and that provided a lot of shade to the back yard along with the shade this apricot tree provided when it was still alive... Between the two of them, we never had a lot of thick grass below and around the apricot tree, but we always had a lot of shade... Once the city tree came down, I immediately noticed how much the back of the house 'baked' in the hot afternoon sun... And as the number of apricot leaves diminished each year, the back yard continued to bake even more...

However, I do love umbrellas... The nice big, wide ones about 7' or more across... I can control the amount of sun an area gets (or not) even if it means keeping tabs on how much wind we have on any given day... I tend to do that anyway because I really try to avoid turning on the AC all the time to keep the bills down... And where the house sits on the side of the ridge, if I am paying attention and opening and closing the right windows, doors, etc. I can get a great breeze moving throughout the house on practically 90% of the time in hot weather...

I tend to take my breaks throughout the day in the backyard - it has become my sanctuary of sorts... Especially as the evening winds down, the dogs engage in a game of 'catch me' and I enjoy this part of my life immensely... My only regret (and it is a VERY small one) is that when I went from the laptop to the desktop computer, I lost the freedom of working out back there... But this is indeed a small price to pay for a huge amount of serenity IMHO...

Anyway, I guess we could be singing, "Ding... dong... the tree is down... The dead tree, the dead tree is down" now... It was an amazing amount of hard work and months of me thinking about this needing to be done... Now to work on getting a thick lawn of great grass to enjoy in its place!

As Always,
The Lady

Cajun Red *ss Over Telemarketers.... gRRRRRRR

Mornin, Mornin... I am not someone that you want to step on my last nerve... I have the patience of Job in most cases, but even I have my limits... One of the few benefits we have noticed since the bundling of stuff with Time Warner is caller ID on the phone... And after almost breaking my neck several times to catch the phone, I have just about had it with the telemarketers!

In March, some of the calls started with, "Hello, this is Janey and President Obama's..."... I dutifully listened to the end to see if there was a 'press 1 to remove yourself from our list' and there wasn't... Eventually I would wait until the end then leave a hateful message on their system, telling them I wanted OFF their automated calling system... 

Then I realized if I said a curse word in my message, it immediately disconnected... If someone had me on video, running for the phone from the backyard after turning off the hose, picking up the phone and saying "*&$% +&^", it might not be that lady-like but probably humorous to see (except I didn't think it was very funny)... 

This morning I opened caller ID and wrote down all the names, phone numbers and dates of calls since 3/11... Then I used phoneowner.info to see if others had complained (and added a few of my own too!)...

We've been on the 'Do Not Call' list since it was announced years ago... So the more I read this morning, the more annoyed I got... 

Took some time out of my day, but I spent the time to file complaints on all of the telemarketers that have been calling us since the middle of March (when we switched over to Time Warner incidentally!... Ironic, huh?.... )... You can file complaints online at the Federal Communications Commission website HERE...

Needless to say, I have the sheet of the phone call numbers I have logged and printed out my complaints from the FCC... Just what I need... Another piece of paper and file folder... Geesh!

Switching gears somewhat - right around my birthday in February, Paul and I switched out duties... He's been paying the bills and I've done the year-end taxes which has been a MAJOR PITA for a few years now... 

How he does things and how I do them (paperwork wise is as different as water and ice)... Every tax time has been at least a week of questions, irritation, annoyances and discord... So this year I suggested I take over paying the bills and he take over a few of my 'mundane chores'... Namely, laundry of the 'flats' (blankees from adoption), mowing the yard and picking up the doggie poop... At the time, I figured it was a pretty fair exchange... 

And so did Paul... Until he started doing just the flats laundry... Forget about the other two... Even though it is 'not my job,' if I see something is falling behind, I'll get some of it done just so it is not piled up on someone else...

So for about 6 weeks now, I've been handling the incoming mail, paying the bills, balancing bank statements (OMG - what a concept!), etc... And I have a small, crappy shredder by my desk... When we redid Paul's office, he got a new shredder that stands on the floor... And because he makes me paranoid about identity theft, I have been trucking back to his office several times a day, shredding up paper and mail... 

Two days ago, I started going through a stack of papers that had been sitting in a box and realized most of them could now be shredded up... After a few trips to his shredder, I said "Forget this" and rolled his shredder into the kitchen where I shredded (and emptied the bin 6 times!!!)... 

I asked Paul that night why he had such a big and nice shredder when he no longer handles all of this incoming paper and I have such a crappy one... He said there wasn't any specific reason and that if I wanted to swap out, it was OK with him - that I could keep the new one... LOL... I don't think he expected me to immediately agree from the look on his face... Normally everyone around here is used to me just 'making do' with things, but once he offered, it didn't take me but a second to warm up to the idea!... ... He might need to start thinking before he speaks now... Who knows what else I might ask for!

I'm still in my 'spring clean-up and out' mode... Every day I hammer away at getting rid of this and that... Cleaning stuff out, organizing it, throwing crap away, etc... Sans the dead apricot tree from last Sunday (which is totally coming down this Sunday come heck or high water!)... I keep chipping away at stuff... Where does it all come from?... Just not the daily incoming paper and mail, but all of the rest of the crap?...

For a few weeks now I have seriously been considering going and getting a document scanner and start moving this paper and files into digital storage... We have a 4-drawer lateral file that I have to clean out periodically and with the rescue now, it seems that paper and files are like bunnies - they keep breeding more of themselves!

So much for the paperless environment the computer people promised us, huh?...

Yeah, right....


As Always,
The Lady

Why do I continue to write?

Afternoon... First chance I've had to actually sit and think without headed in a gazillon directions today...

Now just WHERE did I sit that roll of tickets down?... I've been looking for them most of the day off and on!... LOL...)... I had an unopened roll of tickets yesterday as I was cleaning things out around the house... I remember having them in my hands and then something happened (can't remember what) and I got distracted taking care of that... I know I just sat them down somewhere, but I can't find them for the life of me... Geesh!

I KNOW I didn't 'put them away' because I would have made a mental note of where I put them... It is SO easy to get distracted around here some days - a barking dog, the phone rings, have a load of laundry to change, you name it!

I used to do it to my glasses, but eventually got tired of hunting them down!

Some days I wonder why I bother to keep writing the Press... It is the same as talking to an unknown and faceless therapist, more or less... My husband says he is more aware of what is going on inside me just by reading the Press... He might learn even more by not having on that damned TV... LOL.... 

I've been doing this kind of 'auto-writing' since I was a teenager... I like to go back periodically and read some of the OLD journals... I had some wild and crazy thoughts back then... I am amazed at some of the TRIVIAL things I felt were so important... And I get saddened by the realization that in some cases, not much in this world had changed... 

And there is something about writing down things you have been feeling and thinking about... My foster mom used to always say that once you wrote it down, you took it off of the 'brain list' you were consistently compiling inside of your head... She's probably very right for there were few things ever that she was wrong about!

Some days I get on a tangent and can't seem to shake off a topic or pattern of thoughts... Yesterday, I put in a call to a friend of mine I mentioned a few weeks back - she's got various forms of cancer going on, and she pops into my thoughts a lot...

And I am always running against the clock... 'Gotta get this done today'... 'Gotta make sure I call so-and-so'... I turn around, the day is halfway over and I am still only 25% down my today's list!... Geezie, peezie.... Does that darn clock speed up on me some days?

I tend to look more closely at life and people in my life for some reason... I'm not so sure that I am objective observer, but I sure do seem to think some very strange thoughts some days... And some of the thoughts are VERY intense... I don't just worry about this or that... I WORRY~!!!... I don't seem to have the capacity to love just a little bit, but all-encompassing, deep, intense love... Same goes for hate and irritation as well... sigh...

But at least when I auto-write it is a one-way thing... For the most part... Some people are pretty good about writing back to me, especially when I hit a nerve on a particular topic...  I know that I will not use the proper grammar or tense in sentences, so I'm always a bit taken back by people who continue to read my rambles... But at least I feel a bit of a release by putting it into text and out of me!...

Off to continue to look for that roll of tickets~!!!

As Always,
The Lady

"I'm 63 and I'm tired" by Robert A. Hall

This was sent to me in an email and after reading through it, I could not have said it any better!

"I'm 63 and I'm Tired" (by Robert A. Hall - read his blog HERE)

I'm 63.   Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce, and a six-month period when I was between jobs (but job-hunting every day), I've worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years.  I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am.  Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired.  Very tired.

I'm tired of  being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic.  I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I'm tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to "keep people in their homes."  Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I'm willing to help.  But if they bought McMansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the left-wing Congress-critters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble, help them with their own money.

I'm tired of being told how bad America is by left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers.  In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have the  economy of Zimbabwe , the freedom of the press of China , the  crime and violence of Mexico , the tolerance for Christian people of Iran , and the freedom of speech of Venezuela.

I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives  and daughters for their family "honor;" of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers;" of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery;" of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls, all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Shari'a law tells them to.

I think it's very cool that we have a black president, and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation.  I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual, and less arrogantly of an all-knowing government.
 
I'm tired of a news media that thinks Bush's fundraising and inaugural expenses were obscene, but that thinks Obama's, at triple the cost, were wonderful; that thinks Bush exercising daily was a waste of presidential time, but Obama exercising is a great example for the public to control weight and stress; that picked over every line of Bush's military records, but never demanded that Kerry release his; that slammed Palin, with two years as governor, for being too inexperienced for VP, but touted Obama, with three years as senator, as potentially the best president ever.  Wonder why people are dropping their subscriptions or switching to Fox News? Get a clue.  I didn't vote for Bush in 2000, but the media and Kerry drove me to his camp in 2004.

I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures," we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and madrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America , while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.
 
I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.  My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs.  We also own a three-bedroom condo, where our daughter and granddaughter live.  Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore's, and if you're greener than Gore, you're green enough.

I'm tired of illegal aliens being called "undocumented workers," especially the ones who aren't working, but are living on welfare or crime.  What's next?  Calling drug dealers "Undocumented Pharmacists?"  And, no, I'm not against Hispanics.  Most of them are Catholic, and it's been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion.  I'm willing to fast-track for citizenship any Hispanic person who can speak English, doesn't have a criminal record, and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military.  Those are the citizens we need.
 
I'm tired of latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station, trashing our military.  They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life and death circumstances, and bad-mouth better people than themselves. Do bad things happen in war? You bet.  Do our troops sometimes misbehave?  Sure.  Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years and still are? Not even close.  So here's the deal.  I'll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, and the critics can let themselves be subject to captivity by the Muslims, who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq,or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia,because the girls were Christian.  Then we'll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear.

I'm tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue, and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers; bums are bipartisan.  And I'm tired of people telling me we need bipartisanship.  I live in Illinois , where the "Illinois Combine" of Democrats has worked to loot the public for years.  Not to mention the tax cheats in Obama's Cabinet.

I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught.  I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.
 
Speaking of poor, I'm tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor.  The majority of Americans didn't have that in 1970, but we didn't know we were "poor."  The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing.
 
I'm real tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions.  I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.
 
Yes, I'm damn tired.  But I'm also glad to be 63.  Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making.  I'm just sorry for my granddaughter.

Thinking always gets me into trouble... LOL

Mornin, Mornin... I was thinking again the past few days... Ut oh... That can be dangerous~!!!... They have caulking that goes from pink to white when it is ready - why can't they do the same thing to hair dye?... 

Think about it... Us old ladies need to wear our glasses to see if it is ready to be washed out and yet?   That means you either have to look through the glasses folded up or take a chance of ruining your eye pieces from the hair dye if you actually put them on~!!!... 

Ya know?  If they can get a stick thingie to pop out of a turkey when it is done and caulking to change color, then the manufacturers can come up with a better way of letting you know the hair dye is done too!..

IMHO it just makes sense... LOL...

And why do they name things so oddly?... Take for example toilet paper and paper towels - you know what they are just by the pure name they give it... But how much plastic is in plastic surgery?... Ever wondered that?... Granted, some people do look like they have had plastic inserted into their skin after wards, but I mean - REALLY~~~!!!... Name something as it really is... Instead of something odd that a person who has English as their second language can understand!

I went shopping for under britches last week... Desiree's generation now calls them 'granny panties'... Has anyone strolled down the woman's under britches aisle lately?... I thought more than once when the package I picked out was called "briefs"... Brief I don't need - coverage I do!... I have bought three packages in the past few months that once I got home and tried them on, I threw out because they didn't fit on me like they looked on the model on the front of the package...

Give me a break~!!!... I'd rather see reality in packaging and then I know what I am going to be buying... Is it a conspiracy?... Sell me something you think I will like after you've doctored up the packaging, but put something entirely different inside?...

And talking about under britches - let's talk about the men's side of this... Since when are boxer shorts really shorts a boxer will wear any more?... Has anyone seen the boxers on TV recently?... Those things look more like culottes now that anything else!... If you want me to sit and watch two men brutalizing each other, give me some thigh skin, people... Not droopy drawers like the basketball players wear now...

Men's shorts have been going downhill for quite some time... I remember my first husband looked REALLY good in his shorts for it showed off his thigh and calf... Most men have good looking thighs and if the shorts drop below their knees in length, it is like eating cake without the icing~!!!.... Not good... LOL...

I realize the older we get, the more we have to fight gravity, but please~!!!... Paul has a great set of legs but because he's not a very tall man, most shorts on him drop below the knee (and he does wear them on his hips like you are supposed to)... Put the same shorts on a man who wears them below his hips (like the fashion is now) and I am SO tempted to go up to the guy, grab a hunk of material on each side and just PULL DOWN~!!!

I think when I am old enough the judge would feel sorry for me, I might just try this one day and hope I don't go to jail... Think it would work???...

As Always,

The Lady

(hope I put a smile on your face today!) 

Fundraising effort: Chi-Weaters

I wanted to announce a fundraiser for the rescue - Chi-Weaters - for those of us who love this breed and have a difficult time finding the proper fitting sweater for them... 100% of the profits of this endeavor go directly to the saving of dogs dying in our local shelter... We volunteers not only donate our time to knit these Chi-Weaters, but the yarn as well~!!!

The idea was born after trying to find sweaters that would fit Abby after she became a tri-pede... Every commercially made T-shirt and sweater simply slid right off her shoulders, so we went 'to the needles' to come up with the perfect pattern... After MANY attempts and numerous pieces that were pulled apart, we finally found the right way to make sweaters for Chihuahuas that would fit their wide chests but still be small enough at the neckline... 

I'm lucky to have such willing models to show off our Chi-Weaters... Each one is made individually and by hand, one Chi-Weater at a time - so they are unique and different for those who want their Chihuahuas to strut and be individualized among the many!

Please forward this link around and network... We continue to add items to the website as each new one is made!  Thank you!

P.S. Scudderbutts allows us to do basically anything to him!  He was a banana for Halloween, Santa for Christmas, etc... I couldn't resist this photo of him as I was sliding the Chi-Weater over his head!   What a ham!