Fix it, work it, fix it again...

Foreclosures are still way up there nationally and now the government is trying to rework loans along with encouraging financial institutions to reduce payments for people whose homes are worth less than what they initially owed, upside down, and paid for them, with throwing an additional 14B (billion) at them (the banks et all.) to do the right thing! I say… if only!

We all know how we got into this mess… greed from the banks and the people who refinanced at ridiculous amounts, when their homes were way over valued and now are literally just shells of their former selves, at pennies on the dollar.
Neighborhoods have turned into ghost towns all over the country.

At the time most took that extra money and bought themselves a piece of the pie, that is the lifestyle pie with either fixing their homes up or buying fancy cars, vacations or who knows what, but many were just trying to get lower payments when those interest rates had gone down, not those ARM’s rates of course since most adjustable rate mortgages that give you a low starting rate but then go sky high over the next few years with caps of almost twice what your initial payments were due to the interest going there too!

But we did the fixed rate 30 year reduction one at 5.12%, so we are still good, which we did do in 2003. And so far our home is still worth nearly twice what we paid for it; at least that is what zillow.com and our insurance company thinks, since they charged us higher premiums for more coverage for our homes value.

Most people were innocent to what they were getting themselves into in this foreclosure mess or lost their job through the bad economy and at no fault of their own, and I truly feel that we should take care of those brethren, but the greedy flippers, nah!
Those are the ones who bought a bunch of home on the cheap and thought they could get top rental price for those little muffins or sell quickly at a big profit, well surprise… no one could pay those premium prices and so they defaulted on their mortgages, which trickles down to the populous, and that means us of course!

“What a mess!” I think of Betty Davis, the actress, saying that line with one hand on her hip and the other in the air waving, but she was not referring to this mess… or was she?
She was a woman who went through, ‘the depression’; perhaps in those films those lines had subliminal or futuristic meanings; Hollywood in its hay day!

FDR did do a great job then, not unlike Obama in trying to do now, by taking the bull of misery by the horns and reacting in a positive way to ‘Change Things’. Tightening up our belts, learning again how to handle money, paying for what we need, not using credit unless you know you can pay all of it off at the end of the month! It’s simplicity at its finest; in other words using ‘common sense.’

We as a nation have to go back to basics, perhaps study the way our parents or grandparents lived and managed their monies, since they were the ones that knew how to save for a rainy day. Do we all really need immediate gratification? What happened to saving up for that special big ticket item?
Listen, America I do believe that we can all do it and we really have to learn to live on less and manage on that. As hopefully more jobs become available for the unemployed masses businesses won’t be able to pay those higher salaries and so we must learn to do as much as we can with less of that green stuff, called moola, money, cash or what-have- you we are an educable nation! And now we have the ability and absolute need to reeducate us all!

I have stepped away from my soapbox folks, and so good night to all and count those blessings and we will too!

The Dye Is Cast...

Hubby’s sweet old Mom was too determined to not let well enough alone, and so she called her one and only daughter and that she had said had tried to commit her, and we know from her neighbors and the banks and attorneys that dear child also tried to steal all her money!
In fact Mom spent most of the day with that darling child of hers.
Lovely sweet Sis took Mom to here and there and mostly to her banks, for what we do not know?

Unfortunately, Mom has taken advantage so much of the neighbor he too has had enough.
He says that she has been right behind him when he has arrived home from work with his key in the door and expects him to take her out to dinner nightly and then to take her into his home and give her wine also nightly.

She was trying not to be honest on where she had been all day since her neighbor called us stating that she left earlier in the day and that when he tried several times during today to call her, he could not reach her. By the time he called Hubby he was worried, but called back moments later saying that she was now home, and wouldn’t tell him where she had gone or with whom.
Hubby lost it! She did finally confess to Hubby that she had been out with her daughter and to the banks and other places. Hubby was upset and asked her point blank and so you want her to put you away and steal all your money again?
She said who said that she did that?
Why you did Mom, but so did your neighbors and the banks and the lawyers that did the dirty deed on her behalf, Hubby reiterated back to her.

She definitely needs medical help, especially in being diagnosed with the dementia she does have! We have spoken to the Alzheimer’s Association care givers and they agree that she has many signs and symptoms that need to be determined and appropriate action should be taken to get her to the neurologist she needs to see, but now it appears that she will either be neglected or put away!

To be fair Hubby did ask her if she was going to move to Florida, and she said, I don’t know.
Well, neither do we, so sorry!
Sis is closer and has the upper hand now with just that being a factor.

Last night, Mom did ask for Hubby to come up to help her with picking out her items to move with, but he said that he cannot afford for him to go up there twice, and that he couldn’t leave me twice, due to my limitations (she never accepts anyone else’s physical problems even in her younger years, she just seems to have never had any compassion), and so this is probably why she did this!
To be fair she thought that if she wrote a check it would make it all better, but Hubby explained that he can come up only once, on our own monies by the way, after she settles in down here which he wants to help her with, and then he would go up there to make the arrangements for everything else to come down and to be put into storage so she could go through it all at her leisure. All said for the nth time!

Her neighbor and his younger girlfriend were going to help Mom pack the few items she would need to take and that would be here on her arrival.
All I have to say is too bad…
Too many people involved in this woman’s life who think they each mean well…meanwhile she was having a ball doing her old fashion manipulation, sorry but its’ true! I hate to be a bearer of reality but this meek old lady was a whopper of a manipulator from the onset, and I have know her since 1968 (Why that was forty-two years ago and she was only 47 then!), when I met her, and to each one of her child’s intended from our weddings and births of her grandchildren etc. Each one of the children left the nest as quickly as possible due to her being a wee bit overbearing. Hubby’s father was not allowed to attend our wedding or she wouldn’t come. Even at Sis’s he wasn’t allowed; Hubby gave his own sister away! She wanted to disown our first born if he was not brought up in her faith, but I soothed her after six months of her not speaking to us, and ever since I have never let her get away with anything with me! Now her behaviors have been significantly amplified, in that negative way unfortunately.

Sadly, Hubby has had it with her due to this contact with the enemy, her worst enemy so she told us, her daughter! And so now he feels it is over, and he can’t do anything, and Mom will be probably committed by his Sis, and she and his older brother who we have not heard from since he knew she was here for those eight days.
And who Hubby thinks is in cahoots with Sis, since he felt it necessary to let my Hubby know that he was executor of her will, and Hubby said she turned that over to him. He snidely mentioned that he has no mortgage and that we do, since Mom had given him property and he had sold it and paid it off and that it was out west, and I told him that Mom had offered it to us first years ago and that we had said to give it to him (brother), because he was closer to it! Then he shut up.

I suppose this was airing the dirty laundry night oh well as the world knows there are two sides to every story and I do believe this saga is still not completely over, but who really knows for sure…

Good night peeps, and count those blessings and we will too! :-[

Dial 'M'

For Mom, but of course!

I spent most of the afternoon trying to find services that would assist us in helping Mom get down here for her new wonderful life with as little discomfort and anxiety as possible.
She has become overwhelmed with not understanding she has minimal stuff to pack as if she was going on an extended vacation and only a few pieces of furniture to be marked for the move with masking tape we suggested.

Hubby was up to his wazoo getting the yard in order mowing and trimming the grass and blowing the pathways. Fortunately, he has all the proper tools for all that.

I started the process of getting the two page list of numbers by calling our local dial-a- nurse explaining the situation with Mom and her health issues and so she was extremely helpful and was the main reason for the laundry list of available services, which led to additional contact numbers that we have been consistently utilizing to find our way to resolving all of Mom’s issues! More fun tomorrow since we exhausted the calling by running into the evening hours when they close.

Another issue that reared its ugly head was that while we had a short break form this difficult exhausting effort our across the canal neighbor rang our bell and delivered a flier from the memorial that had our demised neighbors picture on the front with his dates of born and death and a very inappropriate poem on the inside. Let me try to paraphrase it, since I ripped the thing to shreds in anger, but Hubby pieced it back to read it too oh ok, basically it said when we die we either go to heaven or hell and good people will go to heaven and the bad people go to hell with all of their friends, huh? (Author unknown; I don’t blame them for not wanting to take credit for that!) Before I read the ‘thing’, I did invite our neighbor in but oddly enough he said he had to go before I read it, odd and sub sequentially causing me to become extremely upset when I did read it!
So upset that I called them to express my feelings which were very acidy with anger at the ludicrous poem of insult to all who believe anything opposite.
Well, maybe the daughter of the man who died and actually did distribute it at the memorial thought it was light and funny, but I still believe as Hubby does that it was way over the top in inappropriateness.

There go some more acquaintances. I say that because they never did quite make it to friends, neighbors yes, friends no.

Tensions are high in this household, and aren’t looking good to change anywhere in the near future. And so reuniting a way to cope in our own little world is what we have to do.

On that decisive conclusion I will bid you all a good night and to all count those blessings and we will too!

The boardwalk is complete!

Yes, in spite of visitors, doctor appointments, grocery shopping, tour guiding, entertaining etc., etc. the BOARDWALK is fini! I gave it a test drive today and it works well even with me in my mobility scooter could not crack or destroy the cedar fencing that was a gift from our neighbor before he left his home to turn it over to the bank.

The young fellow who unfortunately lost his home but gave us the fence before the bank took it over was thanking Hubby for helping him get his captain’s license and all the freebies Hubby did for him when he was learning to navigate the local waters. The most important one is docking the large fishing schooner that he had gotten the job to remove from the harbor, at about sixty-five feet long the ship was and Hubby took over the wheel for him to set in its permanent location on the islands. It became his business and career.

I had also given him my workbook for a while on Grant Writing, a CEU course I had, had as a volunteer, and so in his generosity he had given me an enormous conch shell as a gift too.
I do hope that he is doing well since he moved out of the county. For a while we would hear from him fairly regularly, but not lately, no news is good news, right?
He was a nice young man, younger than our sons, and that fence of his has gone a long way in its reuse around here! Besides the privacy fence on the empty lot side, the boardwalk of recent, it was responsible for Hubby making the wood valances in our sunroom, but I painted them! We even have my sign that I made that says relax, which oddly enough we try not to do! I suppose I do relax more than Hubby. But honestly I would prefer to be busy so I do comb the paper, magazines and listen well to the news to find out what is going on, plus watching those how-to shows to get additional ideas.

We found out that our elderly neighbor will be given a memorial tomorrow, ten days after he died, at the local Eagle’s building where he was a member. In lieu of flowers his family has requested a donation to them, which I mailed out today, not a lot but what we could afford since we are not wealthy, wish it could be more.

Hubby and I discussed going but decided not to, since we rarely do go to funerals, and it’s mostly people we don’t know going to this one, and too much food, and never knowing if it’s a happy go lucky remembering the good times in the dearly departed’s life or a boo hoo in the beer sort of thing.

Sadly, these things are more for the left behind family not as much to remember the family member who has just passed that has unfortunately been my experience. Don’t get me wrong the survivors do need bucking up at this time, but if the person who passed was older or even younger and suffering severely don’t they believe that the almighty had a hand in taking the pain away from that loved one’s misery?
Does that sound cold?
I just know that if I become the shell of myself, literally like this very wonderful gentleman did with failing kidneys, congestive heart failure several times in the last year and stroke to boot, even in my early eighties I would be ready to say goodbye!
Enough is enough, don’t you all think? How much can a body take?
What a difficult topic, death and illness, and this is a person who had insurance and had been hospitalized, not much they could do anymore I imagine and so to him I wish him a peaceful transition into whatever he believes in after life, enjoy the trip friend and neighbor you will sorely be missed…farewell!

Good night to all and to all count those blessings and we will too!

Richness is a state of mind

As we enter a new debate on the healthcare reform bill for ‘the who knows’ how many times, it looks as if it will be signed this week since the votes were enough to pass it in the house.
Although now nine states’ attorney generals seem to feel it is unconstitutional and are proposing a law suit; we will see how that turns out… and aren’t there fifty states? (Are they going to use their own monies to file the suit or ours, the tax payers?)
I am confused, so I ask you America, and then why did just nine state’s attorneys find this horrendous injustice and no one else?
The lessons in government bureaucracy continue folks… the saga goes on…good luck PRES! I am on your side, which is really my own side since you seem to want to help me!

Another, confusion for me is that originally I thought that coverage for pre-existing disease adults wouldn’t kick in until 2014, but on the news just a short while ago they stated that it will be only a three months wait. Hope they are right, I could sure use it!
(Update: Apparently the report was not specific or accurate and it is the one for children that will go into effect in three months, adults will still be in 2014.)


Anywho, I just received an email from an older cousin, he’s in his late 70’s and who has raised 7 brilliant beautiful Ivey League college grads, and has a bushel of grandkids and a few greats to boot. Now he feels we are spending too much and the picture he sent was of a toddler female cutey with a pacifier in her mouth wearing a sign that says that she is already in over thirty thousand dollars in debt and all she owns is a doll house! Well, she should have mentioned it to Bush, I think; he got us into this mess! Mr. Obama inherited it too!
How soon we all forget!

Not having a plan in life is why so many are in debt plus living above their means.
Medical issues even with insurances have monetary caps, or am I the only one who knows that?
Why just the other day I heard of a person who needs a transplant for their child, and has insurance with a cap of eighty thousand dollars although the actually cost of the transplant is one million dollars! Now who in their right mind prepares for the likes of that, especially for a young child?
Come on America this Healthcare Reform Bill was a necessary necessity to stop the over billing and ridiculous cantankerous idiots who are putting good people into financial ruin only because they had the bad judgment to get sick! Good grief if we all knew that would happen we would have had better prevention care? Oh no, none of the insurance companies really believe in that, too expensive for all those tests and education!

Sorry, but it has gotten my juices flowing people, I am upset with people who will not leave well enough alone.
Sure the bill might need some tweaking but shouldn’t the grownups sit in a room together and discuss it civilized?

On that note of discontent I will wish you all a goodnight, at least try, and count your blessings and we will too!

Rewind...

Welcome to the second day of spring! I forgot to say something yesterday! Why shame on me for not remembering, but I was in no condition, if you recall, anywho my bad.

Rain, rain go away, come again another day…but you put out our FIRE DANGER… so I guess you should stay a while longer to be sure, but not too!

Our rain gage says we received only one point two inches but our pool belies that.

We had a very moist day today it was the type of day one might think of as a reading, napping, baking (although no longer in our house),soup making, sort of day.

The rain cooled us to a brisk sixty-nine degrees at this just before six P.M. hour, brrr oh my!

Perhaps my regression into depression yesterday was foretelling of the gloom that would be our today’s damp atmosphere, as we all know our bones tell no lies when we get the creaks from our old ones…Why that is where the word decrepit came from folks! And dark skies make one’s sadness emanate; both are known physiological changes that we have very little control over.

Atmospherically it is the barometric pressure that really causes our body changes, so I was told by a legit rheumatologist once. The lower it goes the more we react negatively.

I suppose you could call this day another rest on your laurels day of nothing needing to be done or cared for. That’s not entirely true, I did dust and do some laundry, our bedding to be exact but those mundane tasks hardly count for anything in the larger picture of things.

I did have another short email message return message conversation with another young newsy from our local affiliate NBC station in Fort Myers, who I asked about the new people I saw last night on the TV doing the weather and sports, since I thought they looked familiar but I couldn’t place them. It was something interesting to do, talking to people in the business I worked only in the periphery of years ago while in the promotion field. Not the same old same old, I suppose that could be part of my problem…I am in a rut and haven’t seemed to be able to figure how to get out?
Any suggestions would be more than welcomed?
Nah, I never seem to hear from any of you, but I can dream can’t I?

Rut is an interesting term or word let’s take a closer look at the true meaning of it, a usual or fixed practice especially, a monotonous routine, a furrow in the ground, a track worn by a wheel, now that explains a lot!
But we all knew that!
I bet you didn’t know this definition…it also means an annually recurrent state of sexual excitement in the male deer, broadly sexual excitement in a mammal especially when periodic…whoa!
I don’t think that explains my rut! YEP I know it doesn’t, no sir no ma’am, no how…
Mine is the very first one’s definition LOL for sure.
Who would have thunk it?
I suppose finding new things that interests one’s self is a beginning…words and their genesis I have always found fascinating.

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

PS It looks as if the health reform bill will pass tonight!

Frustration is mounting...

Feelings are going so strange…
Tonight I suppose you can say I am having the blues.
My heart aches.
Desire to be me again is faltering.
I do know my limitations, and they are many.
And on goes my hearts desires thinking of when in my past that was so colorful and rich with things to do and friends to do them with; I so long for the yesterdays.

So many of my regrets of my mistakes of choosing friends has happened too many times in my history; ones that weren’t true as they should be to be considered friends; for where are they now? Run for the hills comes to mind; she needs you now!

Any relationship is comprised of give and take, but now I am unable to give wholeheartedly or even physically and that is why I have been tossed aside on the periphery of the remainder of my life by many and sadly I mourn for what was.
Uselessness is truly unrelenting and causes great emotional pain.
I know I can do so much more than scores of other people but I still know it is not enough.
Funny, my possessions are more than enough, but I am not.

Dancing with my imagery of what was saddens one’s soul to the nth degree.
We can never ever return to what was and that truth can be devastating to anyone who had hoped to.

I have been back to myself so many limitless times in my own true past it would amaze you…truly myself included in that amazement, since it is factual.

We as a family have been down to the bottom of the barrel in misery but have managed to pull ourselves up and return to some semblance of normalcy with health and wealth included in that comeback.
But it appears to be no more for me that is…
I am out of my cat-like lives.
What you see now is what you get.
Clichés be damned give me one more chance to be me, the slim trim healthy and happy one who helped others without fear or pain!
This me is not the one I so desire; what shall I do?

I so want to change back…

On this weird note of uncertainty I will bid you all a good night and ask you to count your blessings and I will begin again to look for mine…

PS Again my sleeplessness has come back, perhaps that explains this ranting of mine, so sorry folks!

PSS I did receive a reply to the question about meteorologists vs. weather people last night and yes it definitely does have to do with degrees!