What an interesting realization...

... ya know Hubby and I were counting down on all the places that we have lived over the years and we realized that where we live now in this "home" is the longest that we have lived anywhere!
We have been living in this home eighteen years this past New Year's Eve!
Born in Margaret Hague Hospital in Jersey City NJ for me while living in North Bergen NJ 1 1/2 years with mom and dad.
Then, me, moved to Paramus NJ for fourteen and half years with mom and dad.
Then Emerson NJ for four years till I was married, resided with mom and dad.
Next just short of two years in Oradell NJ with Hubby and baby number one son, until he was six and half months old.
Next Lakewood NJ for six years with Hubby and sons.
Next Lanoka Harbor while finishing building our Bamber Lake home in Lacey Township NJ for nearly seven  and half years lived there with Hubby and sons.
Then Ormond Beach FL two residences, nearly eight and a half years with Hubby and sons.
Then Punta Gorda FL for four years, and lastly here in Port Charlotte FL, forever, going on nineteen years in this home, both  in Charlotte County with Hubby!
Hubby cannot remember all his residences time lines, but is pretty sure that like me this is the longest he ever lived anywhere!
What this says about us I am not quite sure.
Might be interesting for you too do it, just for the fun of it!
A memory game of sorts too.

*Warning for accuracy you might want to tally those years, since when I did it I came out a few months older than I am, until I went back and tweaked my too much rounding off of the years, huh, and ha, but true!

Moving on...

Any-who, I finally got a hold of my bariatric doctor's nurse to get the answers to my three questions:
Can I eat spicy foods? Answer: whatever I can tolerate, but now is okay!
Can I have real coffee? I have to wait until five months after my surgery, and I am at three and half months.
Can I have a glass of wine? One year after surgery! They say I signed something stating that, but of course I forgot. So October 19, 2017 I will have some!
YAY! YAY! YAY!

Lastly, and not as exciting, but is about my vitamin D, I should increase it another 1600 IUs; I already have been taking 2400 for years, but my tests show that it is still at half of what is should be.
For muscle strength this is important. It is natural from the sun, but since my skin cancer I am sun-shy.
 
 On this note of games of a sort, allow me to be the very first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all of your blessings and share all of your overages with you know whom and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Ground Hog Day! Black History Month began yesterday!

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and so there will be six more weeks of winter, uh, what's that?
It was eighty here today! Yes, in dear sweet Florida!
Sorry about that to my northern bound folks... but did you know that that groundhog is only right 99% of the time?
Kidding, actually it's only 39% of the time he is right, since recorded history of the event; for over a hundred years. Trivia today question.
And why no Punxsutawney Phyllis?
I know why it must be because no woman in her right mind would get up at that hour if they didn't have to for her to freeze her furry little butt off!
Kapish?
Any-who, sometimes being all inclusive is not what we really want, ya know?

Moving on...

This whole month of February is always Black History month, as if you lived under a rock and did not know this, sorry for that! Anyway, that said if anyone would like to know more about Black History these three sites might be a beginning... for you...
To understand a brief history of this month long yearly event:http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-month
 http://www.africanamericanhistorymonth.gov/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_History_Month

Those above sites should be helpful.

Moving on again...

I had PT, physical therapy again today, I suggested renaming it coaching, since they do do that too, no takers though for the change; PT sounds so medicinal, ya know?

Today, I once again did 20 minutes at level four of the all body machine, I wanted to do more but they said we wouldn't have time for other things, aw shucks!
Next I did the arm pulley thingy again, sets of fifteen with fifteen pound weights, soon to get back those "guns", the only kind I feel good about carrying, arm guns! (Muscles, for those of you who might not have a clue to the jargon.)
I did the ball squeezy thingy, and ankles alternating up and down, as well as leg lifts all from the comfort of my own chair, the wheel variety.

I am happy to also announce that I lost two more pounds! And I do not want to look for where they went, yay!
I had been stuck on a weight loss of thirty six pounds for nearly a week plus a few days, upsetting but now, I am down a total of thirty-eight, two to go for forty and WOW!
Yay and yay again for good measure!

On that high note allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know whom and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Welcome to February!

For us significant things have happened or are happening in this month.
I say significant, since not all were happy happenings.
Our youngest was born on the eleventh, happy, forty-one years ago this year, our estranged son, sad, our anniversary is on the fourteenth with our marriage occurring forty-six years ago this year, happy, but sadly the day after our eleventh anniversary on the fifteenth my mother died, very sad, thirty-five years ago on that date a week before what would have been her seventy-first birthday on the twenty-second.
Yes Mom was born on the same day as George Washington the father of our country, and when my grandpa, my Dad's Dad had no record of his birthday so he decided to choose to share my Mom's; the day, not the year, ha. He was born in the eighteen hundreds in eastern Europe, more unclear since we have been doing our genealogy on that side of the family, oddly enough. I had been told he was from Austria as a child, but these days it could have been Poland, Russia, or one of Czech states, etc...see confusing
That story always makes me smile, but totally true, that is the one about birthday sharing with his daughter-in-law, happy. Oh and the rest is true too.

Oh our son was born on Thomas Edison and Burt Reynolds birthday, happy, I like both those guys, and yeah that describes him, ha!

And yes, our anniversary date was either a  massacre, scary sad, or a day of love, happy, and yes that sounds like most marriages, kidding!

Any-who, it can be a busy month or sad month or what-have-you month like all other months I suppose.

Moving on...

Cleaning mode continues... a small dresser that I had chosen to move into our smaller bathroom, although with a bathtub etc. I had put a pedestal sink in leaving not much room to store things, but it started looking cluttered to me.
Our Number One Son had sold his home and returned many objects/furniture that we had in our home including a wonderful pine dresser so I had placed it in the guest room and was concerned its natural wood did not blend well with the white decoupage with tropical leaves dresser so I removed it into the white bathroom. This was after Hubby completed the wonderful roll in shower for me in HIS bathroom that we now share for bathing. Take that however you like and you might be wrong or not, let me leave it at that... anyway, since even though the full bath that was mine did sort of turn into a powder room, since no one was bathing there any longer... am I losing you, that's okay, I will wait for you to catch up... so I decided for some reason that today I would clean the clutter from the four drawer thin tropical dresser and ask Hubby to help me get it back under its wicker white mirror where I had placed the white cane backed chair with the striped seat that was my re-covered street find into the guest-room. Now with two empty drawers, the other two have clean bath towels, hand and washcloths too and the closet is organized with lotsa hangers making this room welcoming for anyone who wishes to stay for a while, or overnight.
The chair was moved to the other side of the bed and the dresser was placed back where it had been and this time it did not look cluttered to me, hmmm. I had cleared out the white shuttered typed shelving above the toilet  in the bathroom and condensed all necessities and voila, more turn around room and two full baths back to full capability of use once again!

That's all for tonight folks and so now enjoy this new month and with all the people who can do or are doing what they should to stop DJ from his misdeeds we must support the effort to change things any which way we can!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!




 
 

Well... so it goes like this...

I am definitely being refunded that $442.02 charge to my credit card and my medicine, Spiriva, is in transit to our home as I write this. I was told it was sent Friday, but... what will have to be done four times a year is for me to have the non-profit, the PAN foundation, pay for it is once I receive the invoice from Humana RX I will have to fill out a POE form from PAN, and send both back to them and voila I am fully covered. Now this is only because Humana RX, unlike their sister company Humana Specialty does not have that ability to charge back to a non-profit so they say, hmm... odd that their other part of them does, is able, without an issue, hmm?
Any-who, it is done, and done!

Meanwhile, I did receive three medications yesterday, one was the generic Spiriva from Global Pharmacy in Canada, that has a complexity to how I must prepare to take it, a capsule goes into a container with it plunged into an indentation that snaps it off to cause a mist to be inhaled through and tube! Sounds all spy-like to me...anyway I have a ninety day supply of that, my Anoro Ellipta was much easier, just push back the lid and inhale.
I hope the Spiriva that will be coming is more like the Anoro Ellipta than the generic one of it, gosh, Hubby had to read the instructions to explain it to me and then demonstrate, though without snapping it into the mist!
No one should have to jump through hoops to use their medication, especially asthma, no I still contend any medication!
Oh the other two medications were my Simvastatin and my Fenofibrate, cholesterol and triglyceride medications that co-pay of $41.56 for the two, doable, both are for ninety days each, domestic, from Humana.

Moving on...

I did have PT again today, this afternoon at 2:15 P.M., so errands were after, thus why this is late, again with my blog writing.
I was able to do twenty minutes on the all over body machine and used the weight pulleys  for the first time the perfect flabby arm reducer so I hope, and I did many contortions at double times of fifteen reps for each set using both arms simultaneously, knee with ball crunches etc. etc...
Today my PT person was Sarah and she has been there for all the twenty years that I have been going there.

After we picked up odds and ends, and made it back in time for dinner with the rotisserie chicken we also picked up and all we had to do was make mashed potatoes and French string beans, done and delish! I was going to make Cole slaw  and potato salad but actually those would have taken longer.

On this note of fast food at home, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know whom and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

 

Oh where has sweet restful sleep gone?

Wondering for the last several days why my sleep deprivation has returned for I cannot come up with any logical reasoning for this unhealthful occurrence that periodically tortures me.
I have eaten light and well, and have had exercises to exhaust me and no nasty horrific or sad thoughts have awoken me from any mini short drifts into dreamland.
Why oh why do I have these things happening to me that cause me to stay awake for mostly all night?
I think I have gotten perhaps two to three hours of slumber in the last four nights.
Hot tea and my CPAP, breathing machine, have not been able to waylay this fleeting, thankfully,  disorder, and yes it has been known to come and go.
Who knows what causes it to return as a mean unwelcomed stranger for then I would be cured!
My best way to regain some resemblance of normalcy is to wait the aberration out... I have not-a-thing to expedite my sleeplessness to regain momentum in its peacefulness to return to an acceptable behavior!
Ah sleep, where is thee?
I am here waiting for your delicious return!

Moving on...

Today I visited my P.A., Adriana, in my bariatric doctor's office in Venice Florida for my check up.
I continue to do fine and according to acceptable weight loss for my particular procedure, the gastric sleeve. At just a relatively short time of three and a half months, I am stuck, for now, with a weight loss of thirty-six pounds, but counting down! (I hope so, anyway. Yep, of course I will!)
My only other competitor is my self, since at my age that is what one should do is be the best you can be, at any age really, and with my abilities or lack there of, after all I am NOT an Olympian!
Darn!
Kidding.

I neglected to ask about the important questions that boggle this gals concerns, like will caffeine and I every renew a happy energetic relationship? Is spice truly the variety in life we all desire, and can my tummy take it?
And lastly, most importantly, has wine become just another one of those things of loss I will find myself occasionally whining about or is there hope of a rewind/e, ha!? ( I will call tomorrow)

Now I will leave you all with those thoughts to ponder and I will forever more try hard not to fall asleep until it is a respectable time for that! Oh, I finished all nine seasons of the X-Files, and found a new show, but also with Gillian Anderson again as one of the stars, but now a blonde with a soft Irish accent, played well, a detective in Belfast Northern Ireland secreting out a serial murderer, riveting. Three seasons of The Fall.

Lastly allow me to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all your blessings and share of all your overages with you know whom and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!
 

2016 Taxes all done!

Nice feeling of taking care of that, and no worries about when we are to get a refund, because for the last several years we don't get one!
We also are qualified all these last several years for 'free file', with H & R Block.
But we take ours to the post office to mail in instead of filing online; this way we are assured of a hard copy and we make sure our signatures are on there too.
We had filed online for a couple of years, but it was iffy to say the least.
In the long ago old days we even had an accountant when we were in business, but of course, then went in person to H & R Block's offices when working and had more complicated forms to fill out.
One year there was a mistake that the IRS made that they owed us $500 in an overcharge by them, and another year they gave us five hundred too much by mistake and they made us, of course pay it back in interest and increments since at the time that was a lot of money for us! Still is.
Our relationship has been interesting having had three businesses over many years we had to pay quarterly for many of those, and it was a rarity to get anything back, but when we did work for others we would.
So now for these last several years with a pension and social security as our only income, our lives are much more simple!
The pension is taxable, but social security is not, and that is why we pay $0.00!

Oddly enough those government subsidies for solar power to qualify you have to have a minimum of 46k of taxable income, and we do not, since less than half our income is taxable.
So basically those subsidies to save on power are for people who do not need to save as much as we might, sorta like the Tesla, a battery powered car that doesn't need gas is priced for the rich too, oddities in life, hmm?

My question for years is should people with substantial incomes still collect social security at retirement, for argument's sake let's say 250K a year or more for two adults or allow the lower income people like us at around 50K give or take 25K more or less to benefit from their pay ins, or should they even pay in anymore?
A sticky wicket of choice, hmm.
Any-who, just a thought.
Inequities in life it would seem.

Moving on...

DJ, DJ, DJ!
Doesn't he know our governmental laws or rights of written into our constitution? Or has he read the Statue of Liberty?

https://www.howtallisthestatueofliberty.org/what-is-the-quote-on-the-statue-of-liberty/

 

There are several phrases associated with the Statue of Liberty, but the most recognizable is “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” This quote comes from Emma Lazarus’ sonnet, New Colossus, which she wrote for a fundraiser auction to raise money for the pedestal upon which the Statue of Liberty now sits. The poem did not receive much recognition and was quite forgotten after the auction.
In the early 1900s and after Lazarus’ death, one of her friends began a campaign to memorialize Lazarus and her New Colossus sonnet. The effort was a success, and a plaque with the poem’s text was mounted inside the pedestal of the statute.

Statue of Liberty Poem

Also known as the Statue of Liberty poem, New Colossus and its famous last lines have become part of American history. Here is the sonnet in its entirety:
New Colossus

"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

He is full of it!
And as the expression goes he is cutting off his nose to spite his face!
Thankfully common sense is prevailing with those stop gap measures of people who do know and understand the laws and yes they can stop him!


 

"Go above and beyond your duty. You will benefit from it."

Okay, now the title one is not right in my opinion, not all good actions created personal benefit, as sadly not all bad actions don't, as our new president DJ is already horrifically proving. Do good things to do good things not for any other reason.

"If you chase two rabbits, both will escape." Logical, they are living creatures and most likely will not follow the same path, they are rabbits not sheep after all!

"Follow your instincts when making decisions." I am one that does take to this belief, and some times I am wrong, but I own it!

Only the title one was in any order, and it was mine.

Hubby chose to give me all three fortunes, while he ate his dinner, oh he did get all of  the cookies!

"Comme ci, comme ça is a French phrase that literally means like this, like that. In conversation it means so-so, or neither good, nor bad. It is pronounced /kôm ˈsē kômˈsä/ (come see come saw). It should be used with the comma separating the two phrases. Sometimes the phrase is spelled comme ci, comme ca, where the cedilla mark is omitted; however, this is incorrect. Perhaps it will become commonplace as facade did, but for now, keep the cedilla in place."

 

 

Thanks to:

http://grammarist.com/french/comme-ci-comme-ca/

 

And yes it is Chinese New Year and no we are not Chinese, but chose to eat Chinese food tonight anyway! Our usual China City restaurant, and the order was one Pu Pu Platter, small boneless ribs, and crab Rangoon side order, and yes the Pu Pu Platter does come with regular ribs and crab Rangoon but only two of each, anyway our small village is slowly gaining a smorgasbord!

Oh if anyone out there is celebrating the holiday tonight Happy Chinese New Year to you!

 

Moving on...

 

To another Humana RX bad mistake!

Yesterday, I called there three times trying to find out what the nominal fee of $41.56 was a charge for.

You see, they are supposed to send me an email telling me which medications they are sending, I had straightened all that out over a week ago, complaining they just sent numbers, not even the RX numbers just unrelated ones and so with me having quite a few with them I wanted them to write which ones by name and for that they needed my permission and I gave it to them, and a while back I also allowed them to charge my Visa.

 

A BIG MISTAKE I found out today when I checked my account and there was a $442.02 charge from them on it, pending, but billed yesterday! After I had been on the phone with them three times!

I told them that my doctor, my pulmonologist's nurse had faxed over my new asthma medicine and that the co-pay would be underwritten by the non-profit organization called PAN, Patient Access Network Foundation, www.PANfoundation.org, or call: 1-866-316-7263, who had a grant to help people pay high co-pays like mine for all types of medications including cancer drugs. And I was put on hold and they were to get my PAN account info, but never did, after I waited quite some time so I hung up and they always say they will call back, but they never do!

 

Any-who, when I saw the enormous unapproved charge on my account I went ballistic, but that was this morning, Saturday, their billing isn't opened Saturday, and it was a pending charge to my Visa!

And so I told them I no longer wanted them to access to my card and to ask me each and every time whether I approve of the item being sent and then I will say yay or nay, okay?

And I told them that I was calling my bank to tell them that this was a fraudulent charge, but in reality it was just a do not listen to your customer/ client/ patient charge!

    

The bank will be removing the charge, which is not even an early charge or anything charge, because PAN is paying the CO-PAY!

And yep, I have to call back Monday both Humana and the bank.

Geez, I sure wish someone would pay me for doing all their work!

Oh wait I did get paid, $442.02 every three months due to my persistent unrelenting doggedness in not wanting to be screwed by BIG PHARMA on needed American medications, Spiriva inhaler for my asthma! Still do not have my Canadian generic of that, waiting... soon will run out! Hey, that's what that title means!

So many good people are out there to help, just try and keep going until you find the one that helps you! 

 

On this note of I hope that was of some help, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know whom and we will too!

 

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!