Scams, feeling icky and painful movements

I am listening to the news about how the elderly are being taken by something for nothing schemes under the auspicious of being sweepstakes winners if they just send in the processing fees. Oh, come on our older and wiser generation, you should all know better most of you have been through hell and back during your lifetimes!
Why now forget that some are not so honest. Many of the ones in the news segment lost thousands of dollars for the so-called processing fees, and one lost as much as 70K. I suppose this horrible situation is a wake up call for all those seniors who forgot that some people are just not nice!
On a personal note we have been receiving this hogwash in e-mails as well, and up until recently I was forwarding them to our states attorney general’s office on fraud, which is what everyone should do, when they receive something that seems too good to be true and they ask you for money to process!

My day has been nasty since my stomach has been misbehaving and causing me grief. How can I put this nicely, whatever goes in has been coming out through different orifices, got that?

The pain situation has been unyielding and hard to deal with to get any relief too. I did try the usual for me extra strength Tylenol and moist heat, since I have so many other meds in my ingestion schedule. But not much compensation was allotted to me, and since the pain is continuing as I write this I will be cutting my Blog short tonight.

Sadly, last night we had a glitch with the computer and that when we had tried to fix it, it set our hits on this site back to zero when it was nearly up to 3500, what a disappointment having to start all over again. I sure wish I knew of a way to fix it?

Horrors at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. today with a security guard being killed by an eighty-eight year old white supremacist that was shot and is in critical condition; how could someone at that age be so full of hatred? How could anyone hate so much? And why, would be a better question…crazy I suspect! But if he pleads crazy he will go into a hospital instead of a prison… not fair, he should get his due, a death sentence appropriately, nah too easy for him.

On that horrible realization that our civilized world still has far to go...something to think about... and I will wish you all a good night and to all count those blessings and I will too!

PS seventy-two year old great grannies should listen to the law as everyone else should too! That is when they are trying to prevent you from getting hit by traffic!

The beginnings of the crops are already sprouting!

How many days has it actually been? We are now in the reality of crops sticking their tiny little heads from beneath the earth; at least the radishes and mixed lettuces are!
We are now farmers in the truest sense of all that entails, which is a huge responsibility!
Yes, we will be feeding ourselves and perhaps with our overabundances of veggies we may even feed a small portion of the masses, friends, relatives and neighbors; who knows. The possibilities are endless! At least I believe that it would be so nice to have enough to have it all spill over to be able to do that.

Any-who, we are not as generous as we once were. Perhaps over the years we have become jaded, due to people being people and not always doing what you expect them to do.

Years ago, about thirty odd, we offered our home to a homeless person, not a vagrant, a person my husband worked with and he was homeless due to a spousal fight, and he robbed us. I even offered my car to a neighbor that used it relentlessly and therefore I wasn’t able to when I needed it; I found myself negotiating my own use of my own car.

Too trusting we were, but we did stop for awhile but foolishly we forgot about those incidences and again did silly things in the name of generosity and trust in others good nature, but unfortunately again we were taken, and so even though we are not that old and have been volunteers for many organizations in a nearly over forty year period we are cautious who we allow to come into our sanctity and open bigheartedness. As my Dad always said I would rather believe in the goodness of mankind than to think that people are bad, and he would say that 99% were good. And so I too would like very much to think that way.

This veggie thing may turn into not much, but if it does I would like to think that sharing would be a large part of our agenda, better that than to let fresh food go bad. We used to share our fruit from our trees with the seniors that I taught Aquacize to, and my husband brought quite a bit to work, and even one of his co-workers had cattle that took the overripe fruits, but harvesting them became quite difficult as we got physically unable to. Due to the hurricane we don’t have nearly as much as we once had, we lost our orange tree and the grapefruit tree didn’t do too well, the lemon finally came back but our Key-lime is still not there. We replaced our orange with a tangelo, and we also put in a Crape Myrtle and Verbena, but they are not fruit trees, purposely, fruit trees are too much work. I have a new respect for migrant workers from all the harvesting we initially did when we had all those fruited ones.

Now on that enlightening note I will wish you all a good night and to all count those blessings and I will too!

Flying the chicken coop, more seeds and bumb meter sticks

Our eldest and the countrified son has done it again he is now a mini chicken farmer. It appears that he and his girlfriend have built a chicken coop to contain their newest additions to their family, four Rhode Island Red hens. He lives on a mere acre in the upper middle part of this state, but to him it’s the country since he works in Tampa about a half hour from his home, and how he does love it there. When he bought his home many years ago it did come with an entourage of feral cats and many loose chickens and a few roosters running loose all around. At the time it was not that great an idea for him personally to contain the wild and not so wildlife, and so unfortunately nature did what nature will do it devoured the freebies that were just left behind by the former owner’s son. But to be fair they all had been living free flowing for quite some time before our son took over the property; without shelter or fencing of any kind.
It seems that his friend, of the female persuasion has encouraged this behavior to have fresh eggs, thus the no rooster rule.
When he visited us he did seem to respect our return to the land with our new veggie gardens; perhaps he was inspired too?
He is a plant kind of guy; he grows fruit and bamboo of all different types on his land and even in his home itself.

The first thing this morning I tried taking my glucose reading with the meter that we had purchased since I had been told to take it all week when I get up to keep track of the numbers for my doctors office visit on Friday to determine whether or not I should get that glucose tolerance test. But I had been taking it periodically just to keep an eye on it and even took it yesterday without any problems, but this morning I had nothing but trouble!

I had to go into the new box of strips and when placed in the meter they consistently came up with the symbol for not enough blood on the strip or that the strip had been used previously! Well, after several tries and sore fingertips that had been stabbed numerous times, so many that I must have caused anemia to myself since I take aspirin regularly and blood coming out has never been an issue with me, thank you very much!

Any-who I asked my hubby to help when I abruptly awoke him a half hour earlier than he usually arises. He basically was my validity that it was the strips not me. And so we called the toll free number and complained and they at first were insistent that it was the way I was doing it and walked me through the process on the phone, which I did arguing all the way and again it did not work! My husband was put through to, I suspect their supervisor because he, the new person changed his tack and went with our reasoning that it was the strips and he seemed sympathetic. We did call the pharmacy where we got them and they were willing to take them back, return them, give us different ones that I tried right there in the pharmacy, and they worked! The company strip person also called us back and offered free strips to be mailed to me, and I said yes.

After the pharmacy stop we went for gas at our warehouse store where their prices are usually several pennies cheaper than the others, and theirs was.
Our last stop was to the home store for a few more seed packets and we are now the proud awaiting parents of twelve different crops, eleven which are seedlings.

On that scrumptious future concept I will say to all good night and to all count those blessings and I will too!

And the rain continues...

Nasty and wet is the way it seems to remain here in the, hah, dare I say the Sunshine State. Well, we are definitely not living on a desert; don’t we all need this moisture to make our plantings thrive? And so I will thank the rainmakers of the world for their generosity of this dampness and politely accept this as nature’s gift.

Today was one of quiet non creativity physically but in a learning mode type of day and therefore the lessons were erudite from the PBS station’s programming of how-to shows, which I readily enjoy on a weekly basis. Although, I did find myself deviating from that realm for a few hours to watch a surprising movie called, ‘Return to Me’, circa 2000, about a widower who by accident falls for a woman who just so happens to be the recipient of his dead wife’s heart. The cast was all stars, with, David Duchovny as the widower, and Minnie Driver as the heart transplant woman, Carroll O’Connor as her grandfather with David Alan Grier as the widower’s friend, Bonnie Hunt and Jim Belushi in the supporting cast. I was enjoying the film until our TV told me that it no longer was receiving a signal, huh? This is what DTV is all about? It has happened frequently, mostly on the PBS stations though. Our state went digital in February on the original date that had been established. I know the rest of you are switching on the 12th of this month, good luck with that! Consequently, I sadly missed the end of the movie, but I do think it had a happy ending, or not?

Any-who, we did get reception on our local CBS station which had our adopted child, Tiger Woods winning his 67th tournament in Dublin Ohio, how we love to watch him play the game! He is something else.

Oh, the adopted child thing, let me explain, you see the phenom is two months older than our youngest son, who is also a phenom in our eyes. Excellent student in school and also in sports, and so we would tease him why he wasn’t bringing home the seven digit paychecks like our adopted son at the ripe old age of twenty-one. We also teased our eldest son about Shaquille O’Neill, another adopted child figuratively of ours, who is his similar age twin, and super child and salary star as well!
Just good harmless fun, we have since, in recent years, have called a meteorologist, a young woman who impressed us too as an adopted sibling to the others, our weird sense of humors I suspect. Don’t worry we are the only ones beside our children that know of this appreciation of amazing children and that wouldn’t it be great if they were all ours too?
Of course I am kidding, unless they wanted to support us in our old age, still kidding!

On that ridiculous note I will bid you all a good night and to all count those blessings and I will too!

Life goes to the animals!

After our morning storms that trailed off around 11:A.M. we went out to our predesigned designation for the day, Fisherman’s Village in River City, Punta Gorda. Most weekends they have something going on, but today it was something near and dear to us a Wildlife/Animal Awareness Expo and mobile display from Mote Marine Laboratory.
The wildlife on display was indigenous to Florida, a panther and a young alligator about two months old. Mote Marine had water life displays in a tank, everything from sharks to crustaceans in celebration of Charlotte Harbor National Estuaries Day.

More importantly some of the other aspects of the displays were adoptable pet type animals, which consisted of everything from dogs to parrots that had been saved from some disastrous negative untimely outcome.

We had our own pup in tow; he was not on his best behavior at first. He tugged and created havoc with my hubby’s patience with his high pitched barks and pulling lunacy. My husband was ready to quit and leave, but I insisted it was his first time out in such a long time he needed his socialization to continue. I really thought after a while he might calm down, and he did. We had all his necessities with us his full water bottle, a towel, his spray medicine for his irritated skin if need be. Along the center of the village besides all the other things I mentioned were veterinarians, including his who was giving $15 chip inserts for your pets. My hubby thinks it is harmful, and so to this day we still have not had it for either Skipper our Bichon Frise or Casey our Cat, I personally don’t feel that way, but there is no reasoning with him. Any-who they were also people hawking their all natural pet food products and doling out samples of such, we politely took them.
We ate al fresco at one of the many café type restaurants there, Skipper is always a welcomed guest as all doggies are, previously they have brought him water and on occasion a food snack, but today we had both already with us.

When we got home I was extremely tired and so I took an hour long nap my first in quite some time, and of course Skippy was right along side of me.
After I awoke my husband was drawing a sketch of our prepared gardens and along side of that were the packets of seeds. He said he was waiting for me to help decide where to put them in the plan, and so we began deciding, and he soon took them all out and planted each and every one of them including the onion, garlic cloves and piece of potato that had some roots on it.

The third leg of the Triple Crown just ran at 141st Belmont Stakes in New York and Summer Bird was the winner who is the other bird from the same sire as Mine That Bird.

On that surprising note I will wish you all a good night and to all count those blessings and I will too!

Rain, rain go away but come back when we need you, OK?

We had a bit of rain today, most of today.
But its days like this that I try to remember when we were all doing rain dances because it was so, so dry and we had a severe drought, wow; wasn't that only a month or so ago?
How soon we forget.

In spite of the weather my husband performed his mix-ology of the soil sweeteners/amenities by pouring them, then using a pitch fork to blend them in and last raking it all together to make it smooth; he had taken many breaks in between. Hubby had decided that whenever the sun would go behind a cloud that he would go to the side garden where this all is, and accomplish the merge of Pete moss, topsoil, and high test famous maker (what the heck, Miracle-Gro), pre-fertilized veggie-flower soil.
His next step of the project is to install the watering system (update, completed), fortunately, the second rain-barrel was hooked up to the original one for overflow purposes before this last rain fall, and so both have filled now, a total of 104 gallons, wow! The compost container’s top was removed for nature to water it down as well.

I imagine that the seed planting is not that far away, within days I suspect.
Sounds like we are not far off from picking those veggie bounties; our grape vine on our other trellis to our other side courtyard is blossoming with an overabundance of fruit; viniculture may also be in our future?

Update: on my FEDEX delivery…when I still heard nothing back from them I went online with my tracking number and found out, much to my surprise that my package had been delivered, again, this morning, but to where? Not here! And so my darling called and when all was said and done apparently someone misinterpreted the street number to one around the other side of our block, and so my husband went over there and although two vehicles were in the driveway no one answered the doorbell.
Now FEDEX will have to retrieve the mistake, and we have been told they will by tomorrow? Huh, this didn’t seem that difficult a task. If all else fails I can always call the store I ordered from and tell them and then they will cancel the order and re-order my order and resend! Geez, is it really worth it? Annoying and aggravating, should have wasted the gas and gone and picked it up!

On that slightly frustrating note I bid you all a good night and to all count those blessings and I will too!


Addendum, update on FEDEX package: Neighbor around the corner just delivered it, and you know what? The label was just fine and readable, what a shame that a reliable company like FEDEX has liars in their workforce!

Back to basics...

Today, things slowed down to a snail’s pace again. But that is not to say that we did not accomplish, we did. We left early to go grocery shopping and yes this time I did go.
And we were back before eleven A.M., but apparently not soon enough for our FEDEX delivery; although online it stated that they delivered my package at 11:38 A.M. (two front opening bras, I am no longer able to try them on in the stores and the front ones I was hoping will be easier to put on, due to my shoulders I have not been able to do my back closure ones, and I am too fat these days to really go without) to our front door.

Odd, there was nothing there. Right away I thought I knew what happened, you see we live on a circle street named with a ‘P’ name and the adjacent street has another similar ‘P’, named street and those people with the same house number as ours over the years have received our new computer, and one day someone tried to deliver their reupholstered chair to us, but I told the driver where to take it. Unfortunately, they did not with our computer and we had to wait for the delivery truck to bring it back to us! For some reason they don’t think that it’s necessary or neighborly to take our misdirected items back to us, which I think is truly rude. Every time we get something or someone has tried to deliver their property to us I set them straight and redirect them to the right address, to me it is just proper etiquette.

Any-who, this time it appears that I may have been wrong since my hubby went to their home to check, and nothing, was on their porch and when he rang their bell and no one appeared to be home. (But them being like they are they could have been there and pretended they weren’t there, who knows.)

And so this time my hubby did the follow-up with FEDEX by calling their 800# to let them know. They were apologetic and said they would look into it and get back to him and took his phone number. But by nearly six P.M. we still had no word, and so I called again and got an update. They had put a trace on it, they gave me that number and they said they were now in the wait mode to hear back from the driver, and we should know something in twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Now we wait. I am happy that it is not a serious life and death situation, but I really do not think people would have those items delivered that way.

I will now bid you all a good night and to all count those blessings and wish our Pres. a productive visit to the middle-east, I know I will. And I will count those blessings too!