The progress on de-flooding continues... or is that de-wetting?

Hubby has been at it all day long with fans, bleach, moving things in and out trying to dry out whatever got watered on.
Amazingly the water shot across the garage and hit heavy duty card board that he uses for templates to create other things. I had forgotten to mention that all the cabinets had to be removed from the laundry room due to them being saturated too, and also to get the new water heater in its location.
Hubby’s pal put the old one nearby our garbage cans on the side courtyard of our home, and Hubby moved it by hand-truck to the curb and called Waste Management to pick it up and they said that they would come as soon as one to five days.
Well, this afternoon I had to call them back since some Junker people threw it in the back of their mini van and it is now gone!

I have a feeling this is going to be cut short tonight we have a very nasty storm coming through that is producing heavy thunder and lightening and I may have to shut down!
Or it may do it for me.

New topic… may I be so bold to tell all those newlyweds or about to be newly weds out there if they want to wait until their late thirties to start a family…DON’T!
You see, my Mom was thirty-nine and my Dad was forty-three when I was born and by the time I was in my thirties, thirty one and thirty five they had passed away!
Consequently, leaving their grandsons without them!

Just my two cents here, to be fair it was both their second marriages and I did have a half brother but he was nineteen years older than me!
PS My Mom and Dad were married for nearly forty-one years before their demises on their second times around.

The rain seems to be passing gently away from us…

But lightening is clattering harshly and scaring the bejeebers out of me!

Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you all I got my confirmation that I was approved by NORD for my Copaxone by mail today! Yippee!

On that pleasant hopeful note we will wish you all a very good night and to all count your blessings and we will too!

Yikes! Flooding! But under control...

I received a lovely note with three CD’s and beautiful cut flowers from an old friend and her new friend. The reason I am mentioning the note is because there have been unfortunate periods in my life where I felt like it was all my fault when bad things happened and that I could possibly be a jinx?
Basically what my psychic friend stated on the envelope that made me smile with relief was that I am not a Jinx that I am instead a Blessing?
Wow, what a short term relief.
Hmmm, love you dear old friend but today I proved to myself once again that I am not such a great blessing to Hubby anyway, since when I went to put the laundry into my washing machine this morning it sounded like it was already on!
Ghostly intervention and perhaps those spirits knew I was coming to do what I planned to do, laundry?
Nah, not at all it was… not even the washer… for it was the HOT WATER HEATER and it was leaking all over the inside of laundry-room cabinets and out through its pipes to our garage!

Hubby had installed it way back in 2001 and apparently they don’t last as long as they used to, twenty years comes to mind when I was a kid.
No, this modern necessity had a life expectancy of only six years, would you believe? And so I suppose ours was an elderly terminal unit for three years and we never knew it.
I guess it’s sort of like when people die of old age, and their obit says: Mary Jones died of old age at the incredible milestone of one hundred and one… Who in their right mind would argue with that diagnosis?

Sadly, that’s me comparing inanimate objects to human beings, but I still hope the analogy was not lost on your logic? LOL
You got to love the world for when you are down they always some how come around, not always right away but usually in the long run…
Now Hubby as I said many times before has a bad back and I worry he was sixty many moons ago and to lift anything as heavy as a water heater since our is one of those stubby kind that fits up on a shelf behind a door in the laundry, any-who he and I decided he should ask our always go-to neighbor who is big and strong like an ox and about twenty years my Hubby’s junior.
And big burly guy who works in construction for Habit for Humanity said sure and the two men made a trade off.
He just had a similar plumbing issue in his bathroom where he will need help with retiling and Hubby can do that and very well plus we have a tile cutter!
Aint neighbors great, if you let them be.

The hot water heater is in place and thanks to Hubby working as an apprentice plumber while going to college it won’t be long until we have hot water once again, YIPEE!
File this under funny I did go into the pool today and did do my exercise while all this havoc was abounding around me as most know it does have a calming stress reliever affect on most people me included and so I did indulge and Hubby understood.
He said he adjust the water so that I could use the cold water and so when I got out of the pool and went to take my customary shower I did soap up first including using the shampoo for my hair thinking it will be cold but should work for cleansing the chlorine off of me… and…. NO WATER CAME OUT OF THE SHOWER FAUCET!
LOL
And so as I usually do I had placed my bathing suit in cold water soaking in Woolite in the bathroom sink with the thought as always of rinsing and hanging to dry after my shower when I got out and now I had to rinse it as quickly as possible since my idea of getting me out of this miniscule dilemma was to put it back on and rinse my soap laden body off in the chlorinated swimming pool, sounds counterproductive, huh?
Oddly enough it worked!
Didn’t even need my conditioner on my hair, how about that folks?
It really feels quite soft and silky, how odd?
And the pool was up in temperature, so it was tepid so much nicer than a cold shower!

On that bizarre note of lunacy I will wish you all …welcome to my world…
And good night to all and to all count those blessings and I know I can find ours somewhere, even this JINX can have some hope!

Good late evening folks!

While I sit here with my glass of Chardonnay I feel very happy since Hubby and me in spite of a nasty downpour and heat indexes climbing into the triple digits we had what most would consider a more than lovely evening.
Why you ask? Well you know me I will definitely tell you and try hard to not leave anything out!
Being somewhat of a shut in but I do get out when Hubby takes me, really whether he wants to or not some days…
Having old friends over are a true delight, a highlight and a wonderful causal affect from having good choices made with my decisions on who to have as company creating happiness!
What did I say?
Any-who I do enjoy seeing people that I have not seen in quite some time, now, does that make sense?
Catching up and meeting one new person in the small select group was very enlightening and proved to be a great idea in the long run.
Since over the past few years and months I must admit not all of mine have worked out as well as this did I think, but I could be bias.
Hubby surprised me with an early birthday cake and all did appear to like it.
Dinner too had been planned by me but executed by him, and I must add down to perfection without so much as a glitch that I noticed.
But then again I was being in my glory of animated conversation and not watching him going through all the motions of working hard to create his effortless performance of waiting on us all and serving the food too. What a guy… do I appreciate him enough; I guess I really should tell him more often. How dare I gush… after all he may get conceited, they do have that ability more so than us of the female persuasion… We never ever seem to have their confidence at least…me.

These gals were all on the top of their games too.
Marvelous interesting tidbits of stories from their past and present lives…
Gosh I need to do a lot more living! What an inspiration.
It’s so nice to see the good side of people and for them to blatantly expel it in my presence!
Not only did they have amusing anecdotal tales to tell they even helped Hubby with everything!
Boy, did I step in it, as they say… what fun people with good hearts also.
Two of the women are currently involved in working with people less fortunate than themselves.
One as a caregiver although just recuperating from her own serious back surgery and the other feeds the poor through all her church work in a few different branches of her ministries.
Nice to know, that even with many problems of their own physical and emotional in some cases, actually we all suffer from different ranges of the blues, but with all that’s going on in the world let’s face it who doesn’t?
All of us tried hard from the beginning to keep the conversations upbeat and on the whole I think we all pretty much succeeded.
We served ribs and chicken, roasted potatoes and salad and my birthday cake!
And they all brought music, flowers, nuts, wine and their wide open hearts.
They came by twos and left the same way, but somehow I think we each touched each other in a way that none of us had had in quite some time, with the commonality of acceptance and understanding, and hopefully with that a bit of each of us, a piece of our souls went home with the other.

None of you know this but the joy you brought to our home even if you never return was more than any of you will ever know.
But please come back and each time I promise to be just as thrilled with every time upon each new arrival.
Not Skipper crazy happy but very welcoming and just plain good old fashioned happy to see you!

And so on that shameless desire for more company I will bid you all a very good night and to all count those blessing and we will too!

The question on the table from our local news station was...

What do you think about the discontinuation of the monies for people out of work not being extended? That was the news casters question put out there on Facebook.
And of course I put my two cents in saying in a normal economy I would say people should not have the extension, but since so many families are hurting it should be continued.
We must all have compassion and understanding in these hard times, and if we can help the rest of the world why can’t we help our own?
Saying that… if not for the grace of G-d goes I, and that family could be mine and that could be me.
That’s exactly what compassion is putting yourself in the other persons place.
One man actually suggested that people were being lazy and that there were plenty of jobs out there for the ones who want to work.
Perhaps, there are but most get a percentage of they’re previous salary that may be more than a new job could pay, and these people have children to feed, rent or mortgages to pay, utility bills ect., just like this man who was so quick to judge!
Sadly, people who have never been there don’t understand and don’t seem to want to.

On a brighter note: today after a short swim in the pool we went out to the stores to prepare for our get together tomorrow evening by going to the warehouse store to purchase larger than normal quantities at good prices of meat. We had fun and then went to our normal grocery for smaller amounts for items that we did not need in large quantities, got that?
Before we left I had a nasty spill I in my bathroom.
I have that squirt shampoo, conditioner and liquid bath soap dispenser that Hubby bought me when I dropped a large economy sized shampoo on my foot and I think broke a small bone in it, well that’s when we decided that this would be a better option and safer.

This just in: the first tropical depression has just formed as TD 1, six P.M.!

Well, any-who the whole thing slips out to refill, and so it was very low and I did take it out after I was dressed from my shower.
But when I went to put it back I lost my balance, what a surprise!
And knocked it to the floor of the tub with my shower chair as well and my bathing suit too as I fell on both of my knees hard on the tile floor and got my side hit hard on the sliding glass doors which fortunately did not break!
As if I needed this, and now, Hubby heard me and came in and made me get into the bed to rest while he tended to my small disaster of dumping half of what I filled into the tub onto my new bathing suit!
Fortunately, believe it or not I didn’t break the dispenser or the chair or my bathing suit. I eventually put the suit into the washing machine on cold/ cold since trying to get all those soaps out in the sink was futile.
Far as my body goes I did take some aspirin and it looks like I may have quite a few bruises of black and blue, but it doesn’t appear at this time that I broke anything!
Amazing, yea it seems that way to me too! We will see what tomorrow will bring…

I did get a scolding from Hubby though and him repeating that I should have had him do it by telling him what I was doing.
Falling is a big problem with MS mostly because of the balance issue too.

These last two nights I have not been too funny, but I will see what I will have for tomorrow. Hopefully with our barbecue with good company I will have somewhat of a lighthearted look at the evening!

I will wish you all a very good night tonight and ask you politely to count those blessings that at times are difficult to find and we will do our best to find ours too!

We are capped again!

But according to the powers that be it will be doing some hard work for a while until the relief wells will be completed in August they are saying, but who really knows….

Claims offices are popping up all over our state; in case you have lost track I am in Florida.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being spent in our area for a tourism campaign showing how pristine our beaches are here in southwest Florida, since everyone is hurting due to national miss-information abounding!

If I wasn’t living here I too might be confused just where the oil globs were washing up onshore.
I don’t know how the national news could be so inaccurate, or horribly not knowledgeable?
Or maybe people are just geographically challenged?

Here it is still just beautiful far as oil slick goes, there is none!
I spent a good part of the afternoon in our pool, and the earlier morning weeding some of the gardens before Hubby awoke, cooler then, mid seventies.
He mowed our lawn earlier than usual due to this horrendous heat we have been having.
And so I actually went into the pool late for me after lunch until one thirty.
Then showered and changed being still rather cool from the pool then the shower and my hair still wet from shampooing.
That’s why I must admit that when Hubby came inside and asked me what was wrong with the air-conditioner I was surprised to learn that it had gotten up to eighty-eight in the house!
Yikes! That is so unlike me, I’m usually way too hot except when in the pool or in air-conditioning set on or around seventy-seven or eight degrees.
For some reason I didn’t feel that hot, must have been my wet head?
But I don’t really know.

Hubby was quick to diagnose the problem as a relay on the outside part of the unit, but we still had to call a professional and so he called the ones who gave us the free check up/out this past February.
We always inquire on price and he did this time as well, it was ninety dollars for the house-call plus parts; thank heavens for our small emergency fund that seems monthly to get even smaller, since the final bill when all was said and done and fixed, by the way, was one hundred and ninety dollars! Yep, that relay was one hundred bucks! PS it was a very reputable air-conditioning company, who is nationally known.

Timing is everything, and wouldn’t you know that this weekend is the first time in like six months that we are having company coming over for a barbecue, and of course the weather report is for possible showers and heat out the wazoo! So not having air-conditioning would have just added to the ambiance in a very negative way! Could you imagine? And I think in this state, the state of FLORIDA, I think it’s against the LAW not to have air-conditioning in your home! (Wink, but really it should be!)
Any-who, your body temperature when you have MS, is very sensitive to any slight fluctuations too, and that’s why I am still baffled why I didn’t react to our home’s heat, that’s so unlike me?
But lately I have been running cooler and I also have no idea why that is either.
Could be hormonal?
But isn’t that usually hotter?

Well, that’s going to make me worry again, and you know me that’s not a good thing and badger you all with my assuming this or that.
Now I think would be a good time to say good night to you all and to all count those blessings and we will too!

PS So sorry if my graphic thoughts on what the oil globules look like to me insulted anyone’s sensibilities!
PSS please excuse my redundancy!

Silent minority and top hat didn't do any hat trick!

I would be amiss not to mention that the oil leak in the Gulf took a very hard ‘BIG BAD’ negative turn today the thingy that they put on it to slow its expulsion and allow some of the crude to be burned off or recaptured has failed and the damn thing is pushing oil that dark yucky stuff at an unheard of rate all over the place! I think they said millions of gallons or I could be wrong I have been wrong before. Apparently, the robot failed to do what it was supposed to and now this blood clotty like substance, which if you noticed no one has said it does resemble that or even my take on what it looks like to me, dare I say… after birth, is escaping by millions of gallons for now over six hours just today’s!
Sorry folks if that was too graphic for your delicate brains, but accurate in my book and when it comes out of woman after delivery it is a marvel or miracle we all think it's just ducky…NOT THIS MY FRIENDS! This is just way too disgusting! (Now you all were thinking it but had a filter on to not say it, you know that!)
And it is flowing all over the northern Gulf coast, but still not here, yep we are OK!
My current fear is what they have been saying is that this could be the next dead sea, no really.
You know, we even have a little wave, starting up in the Caribbean that could be our first named storm that they can’t tell which part of the Gulf it will be going to or if at all.
And no one knows if it does head straight for the oil leak if it would be a good thing or a really bad one.
Gosh I suspect that me being a college drop out doesn’t mean that much anymore, since most of who we are relying on for our lifelines have doctorates, ironic, huh?
To be fair, I did go back to college twice.
And I still have no idea what to do about any of this!
So there you go.
Maybe simplistic or dumb could work, because so far this over thinking it has not helped or worked!
I try daily to come up with my end of all this, and I am sure you are all doing the same, right?
Well, if not; they could use your input I am pretty certain.
Since whatever they have been trying hasn’t worked this sixty-fifth day or our own personal disaster movie!
It is soooo obscene to think in a country this large with this many people that NO ONE knows what to do!
This reminds me of so many of those blonde jokes (being a blonde I can say that without offending too many people, they wouldn’t know or care anyway. I wouldn’t want to hurt the feelings of a minority like an Elephant or something since they more than likely in this day age have their own anti-defamation league, doesn’t everyone? … But I bet you know most of them too so I will refrain from quoting any.

Any-who, this is where we all stand to date with the oil leak in the Gulf, yes it is going ashore in the way northern panhandle of Florida but the rest of our state is … NOW HEAR ME WORLD,WE ARE OIL FREE IN 99% OF OUR STATE! SO PLEASE COME ON DOWN WE NEED THE REVENUE BADLY!

Now onto the other part of my title, the first, I do things backwards since my sign is Cancer the crab,… the silent minority…today I found out that I do have another follower of this drivel, a cousin and since she has told me but its just between us, like my other one who during my campaign for followers did answer me on my Face book account telling me she is listening but just quiet, and my old toddler hood friend, why that makes three!
But does it count if they just want to stay anonymous? Only one has actually put her reputation, life and limb on the line admitting that she may on occasions catch this blabbering of nonsensical debating with myself… but at this point what can one do?
I’ll take it!

Just another footnote by me, my short circuiting in grammar, spelling, homonyms, prepositions what have you continue to baffle me and I am sure you too, but please forgive all you editor like types out there I am sure it is just the multiple sclerosis doing what it does, and not that I am as stupid as some may think, at least I hope not!
Disclaimer I do use the spell and grammar checker but it is in my word program and doesn’t seem to always have the right answer or the one I like. So I do my own thing! LOL

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

Have you ever felt invisible?

Provocative question and rather self centered in these hard times we are all living in, don’t you think?
Any-who, I wonder with all this turmoil, natural disasters, manmade ones too, the economy, the job losses, the foreclosures and everything else I bet many of us feel that no one is listening!
It’s only natural.
Crime is up; the people are restless and bored without a purpose in life.
You never could turn on the news without hearing how bad things were/are but that’s the news, right?
Dog bites man no story, now if man bites dog… there you go, that’s news!
Now no one has to look for news, since we the people are making it nightly!
And it does run the gamut, age, race and gender no longer influence who is doing it the wrong or illegal way they all seem to be!
I feel a wee bit sorry for those criminal profilers there seems to be no rhyme or reason for any of what anyone is doing, as if there is something toxic in the air…
Now before you Florida haters jump on that let me just say…NO THERE IS NOTHING TOXIC IN OUR AIR HERE, at least I don’t think so…

People are doing depressing stories on how obese Americans are; well who wouldn’t be if you were out of work, homeless and the only solace you have is the one legal drug to make you have comfort….FOOD!
But illegal ones are rising in popularity too, it seems weekly our small burg has an arrest at another ‘grow house’ usually within blocks or houses away from ours, with confiscation of pounds of this or that, grown right under the noses of innocent neighbors who are oh so surprised to hear that, since they were such very nice quiet people. Yes, they were busy getting high folks! That will keep you happy and to yourself.

Getting lost in the shuffle somehow seems today like perhaps a good thing, being ignored for lack of a better idea of how you fit into the greater scheme of things…
We can look at it this way… they missed my house during the drive by, they skipped us for the burglary, no peepers here, no tornadic wind sheer action here since our roof is still on, gosh we haven’t had one barking dog or any domestic disputes either …and that’s a good day, but it probably won’t make the news today or ever; too boring.
But little do they notice how ghost-town like most of our current neighborhood's are, and that alone could explain much of it…sadly!
Although, those same empty residences have been know to house those suspicious substances for manufacturing and warehousing, and prostitution brothels, homeless too… who knows what lurks behind those neglected looking vacant homes; a perfect camouflage?

And so that brings me back to my somewhat innocent question, oh yea, I almost forgot what it was; have you ever felt invisible?
Sure, hasn’t everyone!
So friends don’t dismay we are all feeling human beings with not that dissimilar emotions and sensitivities that create our own little depressing wars within, but you know something and this will help I really think so… nothing is new on this front either and for small awareness that we are truly NOT ALONE!
Always remember that the commonality of men and women are not something too far stretching to reach and for you as one person alone to absorb.

On that note of total confusion, I will wish you all a very good night and to all count those blessings and we will too!