We have rain!

Brains are like rains… go with me here… sometimes they run dry, but than they trickle with ideas and sometimes they gush and won’t shut off!

Get it?

Now I do too.

We have been having the on again off again flushing of the impurities out of the air from our rain, which here in Florida, is not an issue, dirty smutch, not here at all, since our air is considered quite clear and clean all year long!

Actually, some of the cleanest and clearest in the whole country; I am proud to say!

Last night we had an incident, a flood in our laundry room, due to the hose from our washer bursting! Fortunately, that room butts up to the garage and the floor is slightly slanted downward towards the garage, but the door is very tight there and so until Hubby shut the main off and opened the door it did not flow down onto the garage floor instead of the foyer or living room, two of the rooms that surround it.

You see, that was originally an outside entry laundry from what was once our carport now our garage, for nearly fourteen years. In a way the fact that I asked Hubby to check the wall to verify it was not a load bearing one before he cut through it way back then.

He did make a lovely door directly across from our entrance adjacent to our foyer, at that time it was a wooden louver that would stay ajar for our cats Mandy and Casey get to their litter box that was in there. As long as we had cats we had litter boxes tucked away in our laundry rooms…Today, it has a lovely raised panel six light door with a brass handle that is closed all of the time since our last cat passed away sadly, in 2010.

Any-who, Hubby thankfully repaired the hose with another he just happened to have a spare, my darling pack-rat!

He used the wet dry vac to dry things up and bleach after to prevent mold and all is well once again, hooray!

I asked if this could have been a slow leak that we didn’t notice for that extra water use and he assured me no since we would have noticed it, the room is small with a stackable washer/dryer set and all the cabinets are set tightly around the whole shebang. When we had our loving four-footed fury felines we had a door that was circular built into the cabinet for the cats to enter their litter for odor control and privacy, ha! (That door too was replaced with a solid one after the kitties were all gone…)

Thankfully all floors are ceramic tile and so all that water did was make it nicely clean.

Moving on…

Today was gym/rehab day and yes the process has continued with my additional days, not additional reps yet.

I do believe that will eventually come to pass in the future.

Amazingly, I was able to go today, my back and hips and legs have been giving out on me all day long… in fact a few times I tried to get up to use my walker to move from here to there as I do at home…and I could not… but this was even before I left, but my determination caused me to go even so.

I tell you, when I set my mind to do something, as long as nothing gets in my way, I get it all done!

My two new blouses that I showed the other day were looking very large in that picture, but for me they were actually a size smaller than what I have been wearing and the heron one I wore today with my Kaki slacks and I felt oh so cute!

Who knows if I looked that way to others, but how you feel, exudes how you look to others I do believe, a matter of confidence, I think.

And it did prove to have people speak with us and we all seemed to be there for the good and one woman even said that “you are doing good”, to me and I said back to her, that we all are, since we are all here! With a great big smile! Why not they are usually contagious and that is the one thing we should all spread our happy faces!

On that note of some notation, 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 those overages with you know who and we will too!

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

Holiday long gone, until the next...

Have you ever wondered why the national Network TV stations allow other programming to take them over on the weekend?

We all know that ESPN has its own station, or do they?

Not having cable for over nineteen years now, I really don’t know for sure anymore.

I do recall in the old days that they did, but it appears they might need more room for their games, NASCAR to be shown to the masses? Since they are on all my stations! ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX.

At least it seems that way.

Don’t get me wrong, I too enjoy watching a game/auto race or two, but not when all my network programming, as well as the obscure channels too has games and NASCAR on!

Come on, is it too difficult to have some movies or I don’t know non-cable news on, I would prefer a great cable one though? I do watch some online.

It appears that on Saturday it is not only game face day, but repeat the shows day! And Sunday is only slightly better.

Are the networks losing that much money?

It does seem like it when they cannot afford to buy new stuff, PBS has fund raisers maybe they should too?

I’m not saying that I would donate; but I really thought they made most of their money from the advertisers paying them to run those commercials?

And that’s another thing… PBS has commercials, contrary to what they say, not during the actual program, but between shows, hmm? So do rental movies too! Not just other movie trailers, selling other products too.

Can’t fool me!

Moving on…

Last night, I chose for us to watch our rental and Hubby agreed. The Impossible, I felt it apropos with all the horrid weather of killing tornadoes and yesterday being the beginning of our Hurricane Season and all. And yes, it did appear to be quite impossible and if it wasn’t a true story it would not be believable at all! Amazing and a wonderful life lesson for us to never ever give up, hope sometimes is all we have left and that alone can at times be all you need miraculously.

Uplifting and frightening, but useful to know the best way to handle adversity by helping others; as oddly enough I have said many a time.

All in all, a must see, for anyone going through a horrendous experience or just living life daily with its inevitable ups and downs.

We still have Life of Pi left that we have not watched yet; we are so bad about not watching them as often as we should and me complaining about programming. Well, Hubby doesn’t believe movies that we rent should be watched in the daytime or at least he always did before.

Although, on a rainy day, when the pickens have been slim he has acquiesced, and we have watched one or two in the past.

Seems silly to be discussing viewing pleasures, while I listen to the news on in the living room off to my left about the death toll rising due to those tornadoes and flooding in our heartland; shame on me!

Hate that theory of out of sight out of mind.

But mini mind vacations are good as a coping mechanism.

From the people who dealt with Hurricane Sandy, up and down the east coast, specifically NJ and NY, to Sandy Hook elementary those deaths of all those children to Boston’s bombing with more deaths and maiming, to the Moore OK devastation with more deaths to more recent tornadoes that have claimed more lives with flooding now too in all those states; Arkansas as well as Texas...

Life is overwhelming and the year isn’t even over yet…and our hearts and prayers are always with them all!

Too much and way too many suffering as always it happens, on and on, and on…

And so a fear comes over me, with the scary predictions that again seem to be our fate with our Hurricane Season now?

I sure hope not!

We must all figure out how to survive and never ever give up.

Illness is a daily fight and so is it to not give up on anything!

On that note with a bit more hope and love and concern for all who were mentioned and if I have forgotten anyone please forgive and allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly to 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 I hope that in days to come that you too can be only concerned with what is showing or not showing on your TV! And I pray that that should be your only worry!

First day of Hurricane Season....And about a month ago there was a problem, an anomaly with our city water system...

And due to us utilizing our minimal, but efficient rain barrels of 110 gallons that refill frequently not always due to rain, but humidity too, for our gardens; it was highly unlikely that we actually used nine thousand gallons in one month of the city water, since our usual usage is anywhere from 4-5K a month, without a leak or a bad meter or a theft!

The mystery, as of yet has not been resolved but Hubby has been keeping track this month, since with evaporation of the pool and even the pond they both need periodic filling for their filtering systems to work properly.

And rain water does have some imperfections that could not do well with the fish or the pool filters. But that is why Hubby this month checked the meter when he filled both and not even five hundred gallons were used, a fraction of that!

So now we are wondering where four thousand gallons could have gone…and of course we were charged for them and so I had called the Charlotte County Utilities when our bill went up over thirty-seven dollars in one month to over $129, when it has been around $92 a month with the clearly four or so more additional thousand adding up! And the $92 is for using five thousand, $82 is for four thousand and on and on …and it is also for our sewers, but ridiculous! We have two bathrooms and a kitchen too… and yes we wash dishes even with our dishwasher, but we would run out of dishes with just the two of us! Yes, we tried to use the dishwasher with just us, but without the boys here it never fills up and we ended up washing them anyway…Yes, Florida does have very high water charges, but in the good, we have lower home taxes than NJ.

Hubby having worked as a apprentice plumber while going through college, in all our forty-two years of marriage have never had to call a plumber, why he even installed several new and renovated bathrooms over the years, one of his many jobs, but he checked for leaks from our outdoor faucet’s as well as our bathrooms and even our meter itself, but to this day, a month later, it remains a mystery! Although, my paranoia has told me some one stole the gallons when we went out! And sure it is possible; some have had to put locks on their outdoor faucets!

And PS last month’s use was for 30 days and this month is for thirty too, according to when they read, not the days in the month, okay and he checked since the number is on the bills and of course on the meter too and this month, as before, it shows that we used just between four and five thousand gallons!

So of course I called when we received the bill last month, and tried to explain to the woman, Sue, that we have never used that much water in one month, but at that time she was adamant and I was too, and so we butted heads. I suggested that they were gouging us and that we have lived in this home for nearly fifteen years and we know how much just the two of us use!

Sprint ahead to this past week, I was still thinking about the ridiculousness of the whole thing that if I didn’t follow-up they would get away with just thinking we accepted the wrong amount being billed, (although I had paid it since it was due then), to us for WE DID NOT USE THOSE NINE THOUSAND GALLONS, perhaps half, more than likely, but not all of them!

And we pay our bills like clockwork so it was not two months of bills put together. The month before was for the half of that amount of usage! I do keep very good records.

This time I told her immediately who I was and asked her nicely to bring up our account and she did and saw that in fact we had never used that much! AHA! The most was once around six, I thought maybe that was when we filled the pool, the date was right.

And so she agreed that we could fill out a form online that I did to dispute the amount, an ‘owner adjustment request’ form. And it was mailed out Friday, since our conversation transpired on Thursday.

We should be entitled to a bit of a refund she suggested… we will see what we will see.

Moving on…

Today, is the first day of our Hurricane Season 2013, which as you all know, runs from June first through to November thirtieth.

The names will be: Andrea, Barry, Chantal, Dorian, Erin, Fernand, Gabrielle, Humberto, Ingrid, Jerry, Karen, Lorenzo, Melissa, Nestor, Olga, Pablo, Rebekah, Sebastien, Tanya, Van and Wendy.

“For the six-month hurricane season, which begins June 1, NOAA’s Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook says there is a 70 percent likelihood of 13 to 20 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher), of which 7 to 11 could become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), including 3 to 6 major hurricanes (Category 3, 4 or 5; winds of 111 mph or higher).

These ranges are well above the seasonal average of 12 named storms, 6 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes.”

Thanks to NOAA: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2013/20130523_hurricaneoutlook_atlantic.html

Scary!

 But we are prepared, as prepared as any of us can be… and so PRAY!

On that note of some 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!

Guy Harvey, repeat how sweet, and tailored to suite you...

I will explain the one in the middle first, since it is oh so simple… my gym/rehab day went as it should with my sweet repeats of the reps that I am doing.

Lastly, the tailored to suite our guest-room full sized bed, it has the white tailored skirt that I had so had wanted to go with its white bedding ensemble, light weight scalloped Matelasse coverlet and shams that I put on not too long ago for the summery look from Bed Bath and Beyond with my 20% off quite some time ago. Their bed skirt, at the time, I do believe was more than I wanted to spend… and when I went back online I didn’t see it there; and so I Googled it and to my surprise Target had the exact one I imagined, actually shown in the picture with the coverlet, but at all different price points from wicked cheap to more expensive and all on sale, mine was only $14.23, including tax!

Then we caught another quickie lunch at the Food Court, since we were heading to Beall’s for me to spend the rest of my gift card and they had 30% off today too. This time we ate at Subway, I had a salad and Hubby had a cheese steak, both happy with our waters with us.

Since I had determined three slacks at this size were plenty for working out, black, navy and Kaki. I have decided to mix it up with blouses, and I have gotten them from all different locales and price points, even from the thrift store, but mostly the Beall’s Outlet but now a total of three from Beall’s with my gift card, two just today which polished it off although they were very good blouses at $32 each, my out of pocket was $11.29.

You see, they were Guy Harvey’s painted blouses: And with your purchase a donation is made to the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation (GHOF) with every Guy Harvey sportswear item. Each year more than $200,000 is collected for the GHOF to support marine research efforts.

http://www.natureartists.com/artists/artist_biography.asp?ArtistID=511

And when I lose the weight I do believe they will make gorgeous pillows!

And my designs are one of fish and the other of herons as you see above, in spite of herons eating and trying again and again to eat our pond fish, we have replaced them several times… I do love them. Why we have one in our dinette a mural by the Robins

and two in the etched glass in our kitchen cabinets

as well as one on our back door! 

And oh yes, even a statue one on top of our breakfront/entertainment center in the living- room.

On that note of once again that a picture is worth a thousand words or in my case, at least five hundred... 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 those overages with you know who and we will too!

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

PS If you look through the back door you will also notice in our backyard the dual herons holding up our bird bath, a gift from number one son about fourteen years ago, Geez, I almost forgot! Actually I did!

"Sharing little joys offers great hope to others."

Who guessed that came out of a fortune cookie?

If you did, you would be right!

But wait there’s more… “Everyday in your life is a special occasion.” And more… “On attachment: The tighter you squeeze, the less you have.”

When I return to this planet after, I want to comeback as a fortune cookie saying worker or Confucius, and where is he these days?

Do you remember when it always started with “Confucius says:”?

They are always so positive and know just what is right to say for anyone, amazing!

Yes, Hubby and I cheated again on a so-called homemade meal and went with comfort food, Jewish joke, for us of that persuasion; we do consider it just that!

The first message is so sweet and sincere and should be how it should be, can’t touch those thoughts and who would want to, really?

Same for the second, wow, could we be looking at a trifecta?

Nah, oh well, number three message is more complicated to make sense of for my simple brain, and yes, they gave us three again and we only ordered two meals and one small soup to share, egg-drop!

Any-who, now if that last one was talking about toothpaste it would make sense to me, or even with those Tiger Moms and attachment, although I do believe attachment had to do with nursing your child too long or some such thing, like to ten years old or something…, you see, is it just me again or are you confused on this one too?

If it is just me, don’t bother saying it, but if you too are confused too, by all means go on ahead! I’m waiting… I can’t hear you?

Oh well, since the people writing these things are usually so happy-go-lucky, let’s try to come up with some positive motivation for those words of wisdom, gotta be, they always are, right?

The toothpaste idea of mine does work, but could be considered ridiculous to some, but logical to me…failure to be wise though, hmm, mysterious…

How about, bathing suits?

You know with the season here, could it just mean that if you should happen to get all of you in a smaller suit than the LESS YOU HAVE!

Now it makes sense, wow, I figured it out, it had to do with bathing out on the beach, how thoughtful of them to come up with that generous concept, sort of like Spanx, sure doesn’t it make sense to you too?

TA DA!

There goes my deductive reasoning working full force, thanks Sherlock!

Having been a voracious reader of Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories of that truly amazing sleuth I might have picked up some ideas from the master, hmm?

Plus I must admit I am junkie of every movie about the guy from Basil Rathbone to Robert Downey Jr. and even the fellow that plays him in the TV series we like to watch weekly, called Elementary with Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes, and very well changing our minds about Dr. Watson persona, with modernizing it with a Ms. Watson, but former doctor played by Lucy Liu, both actors making the show surprisingly well done; intelligent and tantalizing.

On those notes of some upbeat ones I hope, 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 of your overages with you know who and we will too!

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

PS I did my free weights again today, but this time twenty-five in each direction, moving up!

PS why do they call them free weights, they cost something when I bought those years ago, but I don’t recall, now how much… LOL! (Hush, I do know because they are not attached to anything and they are free!)Wow, could this be those un-attachments that when you use them you get smaller? Dang! I could have something here! Never mind… JUST KIDDING!

Back in the saddle again, yippee!

Nothing earth shattering, but it’s nice to know that I know my own body and what it needs when it needs it, TA DA!

G-d that sounds a bit narcissistic, but when it comes to health it is an absolute to know what works for you.

And some, not unlike me, have to learn by trial and error, hmm?

Not that much fun, but a necessary way to find out how to handle the ups and downs of life with Multiple Sclerosis.

Some people like to share what works for them and that is fine…and on occasion it can work for you too, but not always and that is when with your own personal experience you learn from your own tried and true methods of dealing with pseudo exacerbations or just the illness itself doing what it so rudely does daily to all of us with it…

This is an elongated way to say that I was well enough to continue my gym workout today and I did! You see, my lying horizontal for a few hours did work last night, with of course my medications prescribed by my docs! I did not cut back at all on what I was doing previously and maintained my reps utilizing both machines and realizing that I have exceeded my expectations for myself to this point of working out for over a half an hour and with the ambition to do this for the three day a week commitment for as long as it takes and beyond!

Of course, I will try in my near future to go longer with reps and time on both pieces and eventually try other equipment that appears to meet the criteria that my neuro set and recommended of not injuring my neck or back. I enjoy what I am doing and Hubby does enjoy the time we actually spend together, although, I am trying to goad him into joining me in the effort to feel better. So far no dice, but we will see what we will see… and that is one of the best parts even if for any horrendous reason my left eye were to go too, you don’t need sight to do this just an assist and a trainer like my Hubby!

I swore when I lost the weight in a year or two at this rate, ha, I would rejoin a regular gym that is my goal…do you know here they are less expensive than where I go?

Crazy! Only ten dollars for a month’s membership and even this is el cheapo too, at fifteen dollars for fifteen days!

I hope if any of you couch potatoes are still sitting around out there, don’t, if a half blind gal in a wheelchair can go do, so can you!

Repeat after me, “can go do, so can you!”

Or not…

But wouldn’t it be something an older aged person with some inconvenient issues shamed the couch people off their couches into the gyms?

If I could only do that…wouldn’t life be worth living, oh no, shame on me!

No one should shame another into doing anything, bad Tobi!

Even if it is to make them healthy and change their life for the better?

NO!

People have to do things because they want to…but showing them that sad sacks like myself even, “can go do, so can you!” Ain’t such a bad refrain, but some may think it a bit lame, nah too tame…just the same…

On that note of no more rhyming notes, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and to ask you to kindly count all of your blessings and share all of your overages with you know who and we will too!

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

Bloated?

Pacing, yourself much?

Eating is one thing we should all manage better.

Not unlike, our energy levels.

Healthy or ill we all must know when enough is enough, age be damned if you are in great condition than go for it, but not so much if not...

Unhealthy recently or in wonderful blissful denial look out!

That is why we in the chronic disorder groups know go for it by finding your own specific pace, and listen to your body for G-d’s sake!

The old expression, of ‘no pain no gain’ is utterly ridiculous and DANGEROUS!

And oddly enough, here I sit with my cervical collar back on with no exercise today or yesterday due to the holiday and they of course were closed and I am planning on going tomorrow as usual and Friday as my also new usual... guess I will see how things go now… but as always I am hopeful and determined, since things change frequently with this thing called Multiple Sclerosis…

Agony ensued about a half an hour ago with my back giving out as well, make that sick not well, and my neck too, and so as much as I love this time together with my best position being probably not vertical, but horizontal right now… and so I will make this quick since I just gotta…

As my arms and legs get those darn numbies, that nothing seems to help and in spite of my Baclofen and Gabapentin just taken a half an hour ago after dinner with my Nexium at the usual time, second doses for those two anti-spasmodic meds, up to the fifty MG. of Baclofen, two more tens to go and 1200 MG. of my Gabapentin one more six hundred to go of that; both at bedtime. My spasms are in a crescendo and my pain level has been in trills of staccatos so let me just say…  I am OK!

But not how I want to be.

With that said, I do believe it is time to head for an early to bed thingy and so allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and to ask you kindly to 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!