Cut backs in pricing of typical household items...

Fixed incomes to the young must be somewhat confusing. But to the retired folks that have income from pensions, social security or even savings and investments that is what is meant by that. And if you are lucky enough to have all of those you are on a somewhat set/fixed income to survive the expenses that fluctuate throughout your golden years that makes your life one that your children would love to strive for. But the most horrid thing a retiree could possibly not have is enough to survive and sadly need help from their children and in this economy that has been the case for many… We are in the in-between group that were fortunate enough to scale down years ago from a big expensive home with much higher utility bills, taxes and all that goes with that lifestyle and so except for the things in life that no one has any idea that it will happen, like illness, we are doing okay! And thankfully, no, we have not had to ask our children for anything or them for anything from us, since they are very healthy financially too. But we would help if need be and they would too...or not...we would not ask ever I would hope to think. But not everyone can say that and I suppose we are very lucky in that respect and should remember that daily. That is not to say that we cannot tweak our living expenses even more…And I think I have found another way to; for eight years Hubby and I have had two cell phones with two numbers and over those years they have come in quite handy, especially when we would lose each other in malls or stores or since I have stopped driving for him to come and get me for my haircut when done or when he goes out to call me to see if we need anything else or me to call him that I forgot something and we also have no long distance on the house phone, only on them… and for those two phones and for all these years we felt we had a pretty good deal for around $65 a month for both including taxes etc. it breaks down to $49.99 for mine I initiated it, and $9.99 for his, plus taxes. You see, Hubby had to have one that was for his job as a deputy, but they decided that it could not be used for personal use, although, they all had to pay for any overage charges they made. They changed the policy just a couple of years before he retired for the whole department and so for a couple of years he had two of them one for business and one personal. And when he retired that is when he was glad he had the personal one still. And the price was discounted since he was a deputy, even as a retired one too and since. But with all those deals out there and our phones really rickety we decided this year for before our anniversary coming up soon we should look for one of those other deals that seem to be rampant in TV commercials… The funny things is we have thousands of rollover minutes that we never use and now this might sound odd to most of you but our use of our cells, we checked our bills is down to an average of about only fifty minutes a month! Now most would say do you really feel you need them and we both said an absolute yes, due to the weather situations here in our state if we ever had to evacuate… and of course for the other ones I sited. So we have been scanning the net and many seem to have better deals for more realistic minutes for our needs and the fraction of the cost and so over the next couple of weeks we will be checking into all the possibilities, some claim as low as $10 or $15 a month for two phones and some like ours initially offer free phones. We have a job ahead of us but really we waited this long so we are in no rush. I tease people when we say we have such old phones and I say yes, but BIG BROTHER cannot track us without any GPS in them, hmm? PS we do not text. Our phones have the capability to and to take pictures too, but we don’t use it, since we had them disconnect the ability to forward those particular apps. We felt we didn’t need them. They are both Nokias and in the day, they were really great. Our non-contract is with AT&T, but there are so many out there Consumer Cellular is one that looks pretty good for our needs, copy and paste to find out more: https://www.consumercellular.com , but we have also looked at the ones the brick and mortar stores have in their offerings too… All in all we are performing our idea of cutbacks, thus my tonight’s title, nickel and diming our own expenses, by trimming the fat. Okay, since my own fat trimming seems to be on hold, our financial one has more opening in that realm than I, ha; and so why not, hmm? More money to spend on things like next year’s insurance and tax raisings, right? On that note of a big truth, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share all those overages with you know who and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear? PS Oddly enough our home phone which is also the same company for our DSL, CenturyLink just raised their bill another ten bucks a month today! It could be a losing battle, but I will not ever give up when there is any hope of changing our fate… to a more manageable one.

No answers for the frustrated weary one, but a slight temporary fix.

I don’t know or if anyone cares or remembers that I was going to ask my internist about the diet that was shown on Dr. Oz Show this past Monday, really a DETOX. She said that ordinarily with a young otherwise healthy obese woman she would say try it, but with me and all my problems and medications she said that I should also get input from my neuro. Just yesterday I had called her office, my neuro, and got my April appointment moved up to about three weeks from now, due to the nurse from Shared Solutions telling me that I should. You see, I have been having difficulty with some words, remembering what they are. I explain what they mean to Hubby and he tells me the actual word. I had called Shared Solutions since they are the support for my MS medication, Copaxone, and I had been forgetting to take it in a timely fashion… I have been taking it anywhere from late morning to nearly bed time, and this is not good. And so I called with the thought perhaps they could give me some ideas on how to remember it and after talking to Mandy the R.N. for quite some time she suggested seeing the doctor much sooner and that she would send me a box to carry my shots with me in here, and suggested an alarm clock, putting that box here and not writing my blog until my shot is done, little ideas like that. She said that perhaps I could go to speech therapy for memory and words…I had no idea that they taught how to remember there too. Back to what today’s internist/doctor came up with my questioning why my 50mcg dose of my thyroid medication was so low and she said with it I am in the normal range, but due to my continuing symptoms and perhaps an itty bitty boost that I should take one and half pills until my next blood work and we will see how that is; if I go hyperthyroid we will have to readjust but she felt we could try this. And so when I got home I cut up four of the pills with Skipper’s pill cuter and took the one half of the spare additional one left and placed the others all in my weekly container. We will see what we will see. Right now I am a bit tired and so allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask the rest of you to count all your blessings and kindly share your overages with you know who and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?! PS WOW on the stock market breaking 1400; first time since 2007!

Hind legs...

Have you ever wondered why some creatures do what they do? Why our pets, better said, our four-footed little loves, seem to understand instinctively when we are not feeling well or when we are sad? Mine too! That sixth sense thing seems inborn in them, but sadly not in all human beings; I’ll give us as mother’s it does seem most evident, but some others not emotionally involved, nope. Why then is this amazing ability given by some deity to just them, loving hairy/fury children and us female’s after delivering a child? When I had gotten home from a hospital visit back in April of 2009 having been on my first time doses of 1000 mg. of IV Steroids/Solu Medrol for an exacerbation of my MS and due to my inability to get out of bed while there, they installed a catheter too, which sadly gave me a tremendous bladder infection that was so severe I had to be put on high doses of Cipro 500MG. four times a day for gosh seven or ten days; I cannot remember right now but all I know is that I had a 102 temperature and my specimens showed such horrendous nasty stuff that both forms of fluids taken to determine such things were done twice to verify the findings! At that time we still had Casey, the cat, with our dear sweet Skipper, our loving Bichon and both knew something was up and took up the vigil of taking up either side of me on the bed while snuggling tucked in close to me, barely leaving my sides. Of course, Hubby did everything, as usual; since neither little loves felt the need to do such meager human tasks as fetch this or that; for they were the sentinels who maintained their patient’s care for warmth and loving need to be there for occasional stroking. Sadly, Casey, our beautiful long-haired orange Tabby died over two years ago from inoperable cancer and we cared for him like he for me, only wish that his outcome was the same as mine. Back to the title, lately our dear sweet Skipper has taken to standing quite often on his hind legs as if he is evolving, odd, hmm? We have always been dog and cat adoptive parents all during our over forty years of marriage and before that as children growing up, dogs were mostly what we had. Now, he’s not doing it to jump on people, he is doing it to see what we are doing, working on the kitchen counter, not always preparing food just writing a list, same on the kitchen table or just as I roll by he will stop and so will I and he stands up…As if he wants to tell me something I know it kills him that he can’t talk, but those eyes of his can say it all almost always; he speaks with them… Although, this new behavior is baffling me and his Dad, Hubby, could he be wondering why he cannot walk upright or why I do not? It was something that keeps reoccurring if it had happened only once or twice I wouldn’t have mentioned it… again I must grab the camera to show you what I mean…could he be the first sign…oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…Geez, I haven’t a clue that’s why I asked you? And yes, I will try to get a picture of that humanesque pose! On that bit of the ridiculous, but every word a truism, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask all of you to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?! PS: US peeps do your taxes, now is good, harder for identity theft if done early; whew we did ours yesterday with everything else, online and for free as usual… we broke even, again.

Why does one want to expose themselves to public scrutiny?

Most don’t. But I have found some warm fuzzy feelings in reading about others who have had similar experiences as me. And tonight, as usual I will be sharing way too much or as we used to say 'TMI', but I digress… For the last two days I have been in numerical wars with different financial systems, got that? Not literally at war, with killing beings, oh no, not that, just trying hard to make sense of all the craziness of increased homeowner, Citizen’s Insurance, taxes and insurance as well as flood insurance via FEMA. Our homeowner’s was exonerated somewhat when a few months ago we had the house re-inspected and Hubby through my determination of insistence had the second inspector go out into the garage and see our hurricane straps from that area's rafters into our roof… You see, not only don’t we have a basement here, but that is generally rare here in Florida anyway, but we do not have an attic which we have had in our other two homes in Florida, and the first inspector insisted that we had no access to our attic, how odd, we told him we had no attic, but he refused to go into the garage where he could have seen the strappings there, metal attachments to theoretically prevent the roof from flying off in fierce winds! The new inspector listened and we were finally refunded a whopping $575 to our escrow, since our bank already paid the larger amount the month before… and for that new adjustment, instead of our monthly payments going up $112 a month they would now only be going up $74 a month, whew, how to bite the bullet, a figure of speech again, not really and not literal, okay? But wait there’s more…that was homeowner’s not including our flood insurance which of course is a separate entity and that we found was not readjusted with our homeowner’s its coverage being $11,800 more. One phone call to our insurance agent and voila and $68 a year saved… I know, BIG Deal, but every penny counts, and we should all be more diligent in watching where it all goes. Lastly is the last straw is a refinance no points, no down expenses what so ever its with the same bank, Bank of America, who we are with now and for years, nearly two percentage points lower, fixed rate, but a few months shorter payoff wise, too good to be true…NAH! HARP it is called, when your home is worth less than what you owe by a minimum of 80% and sadly ours met the criteria. This time though it is processed slower and so for three months we will have to pay the higher monthly amount, that is the $74 more not the $112 more… Our credit rating miraculously has been maintained in the excellent range in spite of all our near financial disasters over these last several years. Paying bills on time, not over spending has its rewards I suspect, no I knew that. Taxes are unshakable as we all know so I attacked these increases where I thought we might have some wiggle room and so far it looks as if it will work, within the next three months our payment will only be going up about three and half bucks a month, and so the seventy-four dollars will be nothing but a not so fond memory when all is said and done and that is with all the new increases too! Negotiations, wow what an exhilarating feeling, sure it ain’t millions but who cares, I helped us, Hubby and I to live a bit of a more manageable life, financially speaking… too bad we can’t tweak our medical insurances a bit, but they appear to be written in stone, at least mine does, United Healthcare PPO. Hubby did meet with someone offering a better deal, but when we did the pros and cons of the two policies, his won hands down, Universal Healthcare HMO. On that note of I do hope some noteworthy info got out there, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share your overages with you know who and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?! PS Our loan officer David is wonderful, I would adopt him, but he’s already a grown man married with two children…darn! Always could use a spare, kidding!

Down under?

I truly love all people and respect their ideas of who they are and why they believe what they do believe. But I don’t have to agree with what they believe in, do I? Today, well, really late this afternoon I was having a back and forth messaging with a Facebook friend in Australia, a woman, one of my first boyfriends, at the my age of fifteen, he was eighteen, was from there, Sydney, if I recall. He turned out to be a little off, odd, not right with this world, scary since he was in pharmaceutical school at the time. And I do believe that is his vocation today, and yep it is, I Google him with his unusual name it was an exact science. Where was I? Oh, the young woman who proclaims to be a woman of science, a nurse, recommended I try a metaphysical site to help myself with wellness. I suppose she does mean well and is still speaking to me while I write this. But I am definitely fearful of all charlatans and have been warned heartedly often by others who had the sad experience of being taken! Try this, try that, unfortunately we all know that common sense must prevail. And back to my experience with that fellow from Sydney, he met a wealthier than me gal, and he was a waiter at the Catskill hotel we were staying at and my father was a businessman who sent his wife and daughter to go there while he worked. This guy met a gal who was a brunette and chubby and he remade her into my image, blonde and svelte and married her! Yes, when I was introduced to her she told me. Apparently, her parents were much better off financially than mine. He also knew when Hubby and I were engaged and asked me out on a date and this was after he was married! Of course I did not go. Any-who, I friended a gal from New Zealand a couple of years ago who ended up calling me here in Florida, I thought that was nice at first, but she did it few times and it just got weird. Then she told me fantastical stories about herself and then I felt the need to unfriend her and so I did, and blocked her and whatever else it took to prevent her from speaking to me! Also way off, she had been hospitalized for her mental illness many times. Down under? Under where? A rock? I think as much as my boyfriend from Sydney looked like a Beatle and spoke like one too; who at fifteen could tell the difference between a British accent and an Ausie one, truly? I will always have a soft spot in my heart for all those who live down where the criminals were kept, but somehow knew a way to change it all into an area marvelous movie filming sites for Americans and all others to use! Nature, they know how to do it with style! Not to mention quite a few excellent singers and actors etc… and of course Ellen’s spouse Portia all from there! Even one of our country singing guys Keith Urban and his wife that everyone knows better as Nicole Kidman and lest us not forget, Russell Crowe, one of my all time favs Hugh Jackman...and many, many more...Olivia Newton John...! What a place! Saw Nikki, Kidman that is, when she was just dating a kid named Tom Cruise back over twenty years ago in Daytona at a bagel and yogurt shop; they were filming Days of Thunder there at the time! On that pleasant note, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?! PS thanks to my old crush from elementary school messaging me while writing this too that he just went past my old house in Paramus and had memories of those days…he didn’t say bad or good…facetiously I gave him my other addresses to go past where I have lived since then… haven’t heard back from him since; he might have not realized how my sense of humor has graduated into a bit darker side over the many years? Or he could be doing what I asked and hasn’t had time yet to let me know? LOL!

A diet to try with a doctor's approval...

Oprah Winfrey must be so proud that her protégés are continuing in the genre of the entertainment/education venue all of this time that she began them in, years ago, for the offshoot of her production company. Only dear Nate’s didn’t work out on network TV, but Dr. Phil continues on. I have not had the inclination to watch Dr. Oz’s show previously, but his promo today was too much for me to resist. It was a promise to lose weight without having to exercise. A manageable amount, of a mere ten pounds a month, which is not too extreme to make you believe it could work. And the guru of this ‘diet’, which is really a DETOX, is a famous doctor, whom I never heard of, Alejandro Yunger, M.D. a cardiologist, who is quite well known, but not by me, for his literary contribution of the wonder-book entitled, ‘CLEAN’. Of course my ears perked up when I heard that no drugs were involved or exercise and that you could eat healthy and still manage to lose weight…a dream too good to be true? We all know that Dr. Oz has an excellent reputation and always wants the best for people to live happier and healthier lives. His daughter, Daphne, who is on the show, ‘The Chew’, is a perfect example of what her Dad lives by and what she apparently grew up on, since she consistently promotes healthy suggestions into the recipes of the other chefs designs. To be fair, her educational background is in nutrition and she too has authored a book on the topic; I do believe… and we do watch that! Below are my notes on what I did ascertain from the short segment with this fascinating Dr. Detox guest: Detox Program by Alejandro Junger M.D. cardiologist RE: Book ‘Clean’ On this afternoon, Dr. Oz Show 3P.M. on NBC on 1-28-13 Clean foods to eat 1. Green leafy vegetables, cruciferous vegetables 2. Cold water fish 3. Chicken, no hormones 4. All berries 5. Apple cider vinegar 6. Lemon water 7. Herbal teas 8. Unsweet coconut milk 9. Coconut oil 10. Protein powder Foods to be eliminated 1. No dairy including eggs 2. No gluten products 3. No processed sugar 4. No coffee, soda or alcohol 5. No beef or pork 6. No creamed vegetables 7. No peanuts Following this diet and you can lose up to 10 lbs a month without needing to exercise. I would definitely buy or borrow the book, Clean, to verify how to proceed with the recipes using the appropriate ingredients from above and how long you can do this diet and if under a doctor’s care to bring it into him/her as I will be doing at the end of this week; before beginning! Oddly enough, I had just called my new GP just this morning to ask if perhaps with all my meds we could figure out how to help me lose some weight when half of my medications have the side effect of causing my weight gain! Good luck to you if you dare to try it, but ask your physician first and I will too. On that idea for the masses to be better than we were before, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!?

Lazy, hazy days...OF WINTER!

Today, I must admit that this bum without a paying job for years, bummed out artistically… well, not really artsy-like, I did do a load of wash and consequently drying, bedding. Any-who, I slept in late, till after eight, and whew that is way later than I like to, half the day appears, in my mind, to be wasted by then. That is an odd statement when I did not do that many accomplishments today! I was hopeful that perhaps we could find a happening to attend for the day, but after a careful search of newspapers included this time, we did not see anything momentous for us to decide to take day’s journey. So the plan was a decent breakfast, and relaxing day, hanging around the homestead, type of day. For some reason my mind seemed to wander way too easily, that is more than usual and although, I did remember to take all my medications by mouth my Copaxone shot was forgotten about that is until late this afternoon, nearly dinner time, really! So I Googled it to see if my mistakes of late, of taking my injection at all different times was a bad thing to do and nothing was that scolding of my actions or lack there of. It only said that it was preferable to maintain taking the shot at the same time daily…oops! Gosh, you would think after nearly three years that I would have known that one, hmm? I have been taking this shot thingy religiously, which personally I hate, but know that without it my MS would exacerbate severely and it has kept it at bay, since June of 2011. So dutifully I have been continuing. I seem these days to be too easily distracted. They say this occurs when we older adults are either depressed or have too much on our plates, which right now I don’t believe I have either. Sure, I have slowed way down physically, but I would like to think that most of the time, my mind, is not totally gone yet! This thing I do nightly is a wonderful exercise for one’s brain to be utilized I would think…I think? I used to say that when I was a gym rat that I would have many friends from all my extra curricular things I enjoyed, from groups, and organizations included and write too, etc. But these days my body ain’t what it used to be and to prevent that sadness for overwhelming me I do try to do what I know I can do, such as: ideas for crafts, recipes concepts, and here too and enjoy the one computer game that I do well at, on occasion, dominoes. Body, mind and soul are what most everyone tries to maintain…and that makes most of us human beings happy and healthy. Did you know that you do not have to go to a house of worship to believe and pray? Sure you did. My Dad who would have been 106 years young today, but passed away on May 11th 1986, Mother's Day that year, at the ripe old age, too young to me now, of 79. He thanked G-d every single night for his life and he was the most grateful man I knew who was never jealous by comparing his life to anyone else’s and never ever said a bad word about anyone and so it was not any question that he died with no regrets and yes, I was with him on his passing in the hospital after suffering a brainstem thrombosis that most would have been gone in twenty-four to forty-eight hours but he hung in there for five and half weeks remarkably to his medical teams surprise and for that he was written up in a medical journal. That was my Dad… beyond the usual he too lived a quite remarkable life… written about in my homage to him a few Father’s Days ago. He was as sharp as a tack too even with his stroke, we played sports trivia while he resided in his hospital bed. The stroke was odd that it affected his stomach and thus he needed a feeding tube, gastronomy tube I believe was the correct name, he even got to go to physical therapy while there he asked me to buy him sneakers and I did. I also maintained his handsome baldy head with cutting his remaining locks via permission from the hospital, big deal apparently. At that time I used to cut all four men in my life’s hair our sons and Hubby’s and of course dear ole Dad’s. Ah memories… I hope that I don’t lose too many. I took a short test online, so who knows how accurate it was that said I did have cognitive problems that could be attributed to the Multiple Sclerosis or heaven forbid Alzheimer’s early it indicated, my Mom’s sister had it…can’t think about that! If that doesn’t make one realize that writing a diary of any form anywhere should be done, video is wonderful for your kids to have when you are long gone…maudlin, no realistic… we all will die eventually. My betimes stories from my Dad were his memories…and that is priceless. On that note of love never ending, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all you blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!? Good night Dad!