Thursday, again

[Harmony]

Hi everybody! bittersweet, I love that part of the Grinch. And so true.

I wouldn't be rushing to do so much if I wasn't having people here. I would be taking my time getting caught up. I must be careful what traditions I add in to my holiday routine, as I have troubles not doing them every year thereafter. One year I decided to make Christmas cookies. That was over 20 years ago. I'm still doing them. Not because I want to, but it's tradition...

10 years ago I started putting up a lighted christmas village and added a house every year for a few years. Now it's tradition...

Someone needs to knock some sense into me. When I leave something off I feel like it's not done properly. At least I have graduated to a small tree now, and this year I have managed to quell the voice in my head that keeps saying, "people are coming, put up the big heavy white tree which means you must move around all the furniture to make room..." It's all just insane!

Anyway, 4 cartloads of leaves dumped out of yard.
Sprayed down shower, scrubbing will be when I get in to clean myself too.
Turned on self-cleaning cycle in oven, opened couple windows here to let out the heat.
Trip out to pick up a door at door co. and stop at the tool place to buy DH's rebuild kits - so he can finish repairing his nail guns and get all his carp off my kitchen table!

Ok, getting back to it.

[Harriet]

helia, we have found the Dumor brand before and felt it was good. I really appreciate TS' big, easy-push carts, which allow me to buy 50-pound bags with confidence. But, like you, I wait for someone else to unload at home.

HRH's friend called and thanked for the flowers, saying, "I'm a little prejudiced but they are the prettiest ones." He is grieving, and therefore doing way too much, trying to touch base with everyone. I know he is exhausting himself, but probably just can't rest. I hope he can get some sleep before the funeral.

Half-hearted rant - Got dd25's Christmas card today - a photo card of the baby. The printed signature line is just two words, "The" and their last name, plural. And evidently I didn't get this boy educated as well as I thought I did because there is punctuation in it - an apostrophe. If he thinks I won't say anything, he doesn't know his mother. Both of them have a minimum of 2 years of college (more than me) , so WHAT are they thinking. If it's a mistake, don't pay for it. If you really are unsure and have no internet at your disposal (ha) then call SOMEBODY'S mother and ask. Don't allow a 50% spelling error on your Christmas cards.

I'm probably just in a bad mood. (Gee, ya think.)

At some point in the night, my ddad unplugged the tv and did something else to it so that now there is no picture or sounds. He went to the freezer and took out boxes of food including the nice turkey sausage and left them on the counter to ruin while we slept.

All but a few cards are off in the mail, it is a pretty day, and I noticed my recent tree place is using a tent this year so the trees won't have gotten wet yesterday anyway. So all signs point to a tree shopping trip after school run today.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Harriet I hope your tree shopping brings good feelings to you. For me, just the smell of the firs as I walk past them into a store makes me feel better.

I'm a slug today. This is unexpected in a way, but since I did so much yesterday, perhaps it shouldn't be. So far today I've got a load of laundry ready to start and cleaned the bathrooms. I also unloaded the dishwasher. And checked every CF lightbulb in the house since there is a recall in Canada. I have 4 of the brand/style but not the same date code. On the other hand, 2 of the three in my kitchen light were the bad brand and a bulb burned out (dramatically, they smoke and everything) in the past year in there which would explain why one bulb wasn't the same as the others. So I have a call into the recall hotline.

Of course, all they do is replace the bulbs which isn't a help since I'm slowly phasing out their use in my house because they make little sense from an environmental or money saving point of view. They've only been around about 10 years and I've had to replace 7 in that time. Hmmmmm, I have incandescent bulbs in my house that have never been changed since moving here 21 years ago and cost 1/10th or less what the CFLs cost. CFLs don't work well where lights are turned on and off frequently, like the hall ways or bathrooms, or in extreme cold, which accounts for about 70% of our light use. Lights I have on timers that come on every night are all CFL since that makes sense. Lights where I'd get too hot in the summer under them (i.e. the kitchen table) are now CFL in the summer and incandescent in the winter.

[Nancy]

Cookies are baked cooling and ready to frost at a
later time with older dgds.
Granny duty is under way dgd is in my lap gotta scoot time to fix lunch.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Ok, some real progress:

Tuesday weekly chores done (cleaning the kitchen.)
Decorated the kitchen table (we have plexiglass over it so I can put Christmas placemats down that won't get wrecked by food and wax from all my candles.)
Put out my winter/Christmas textiles.
Prepped a load of laundry to start at 7 p.m.

Dh wants to go for a walk. It will be dark soon, but I think we'll go anyway.

[Elizabeth]

I am 2/3 of the way through fixing my mistake. I am, however, missing a meeting to do it. It was a boneheaded error too. I had lunch with a friend, that was good. I am hoping to get my checkbook subtracted and balanced tonight. It depends on if I can go to XDH's house tonight. It is long overdue that we do the final separation of our finances. I need to call the church and tell them no more EFT from that account, it is going away.

I have no Christmas decorations up. XDH has all the Christmas things and I am going to be in Alabama during the holidays anyway. Doesn't seem like much point in buying a bunch of stuff and not be around to enjoy it.

[Harmony]

Oh, Harriet, I do wonder what your DDad is thinking when he does stuff like that.

I am making slow progress. Everything's been cleared out of the family room and floor's been mopped. I need to move some furniture back into place and then that room is ready to decorate.

Wow, three sentences and it took me 3 hours to do.

I hope I have the appostrophes in the right places!

[OKay]

<SKIPPABLE RANT....
i went back to Nov 4th post and looked up what happened that day.....

Bone density test was simple and quick. The payment took longer than the test did. When they called to schedule this appt they told me if I paid today I would get 20% off my portion of the bill. I told her I would pay today so I could get the discount and she told me it would be $107. However, when I went to pay the clerk told me it was $146. When i disagreed with the amount, then another lady was consulted and she said my portion was $189!!! I asked to speak to a supervisor and ended up paying the $107 amount that was first quoted me. I just wonder WHERE do they come up with all these different amounts for medical procedures?!

The rest of the story...
A little over a month later all the paperwork has arrived from the hospital, radiology and insurance. The final bill ended up being $135. Insurance paid all but $20.25 of it. Which means the hospital OVER charged me $86.75 I called today and asked for my money back and they said I should have it in two weeks. I asked them to refund the credit card that I paid with and they can't do that. They can only send it through their refund system and have a check sent to me.

Another dufus incident that I spent way too much time on today.....On a different bill and a different billing company (both medical related). DH had a procedure done in Sept. The insurance paid all but $8.75 of the bill. I sent a check Oct 7th paying the remaining amount and that check cleared the bank on Oct 17th. TWO months later they are still saying we haven't paid that bill and we are about to be sent to collections over it. I told them what day the check cleared and what the check # was but they still say we haven't paid the bill.

How crazy is this?

The medical billing/business office is totally out of control!!!
</rant over>

[OKay]

YEAH!! We are going to finish the antenna project this weekend!! This project has been inching forward, then coming to a standstill, then inching forward, repeat, repeat, repeat. What should have taken 1-2 days has been months in getting done at the rate we have worked at it. Everything is done except putting the top section onto the antenna base. Dh has contacted several people and companies but couldn't find anyone who would even take a look at it. Soooooo, he rented a piece of equipment for the weekend and will do it the safest way he knows how.

Wonder how much fun it will be to operate that thing? Too bad I've got a packed weekend planned or I might be tempted to use it for something else.

[Elizabeth]

Well, I have fixed my error in the document versions and the day is not over yet! I am going to XDH's to do checkbook duties. We are meeting for dinner first, with DD9, of course. I am getting out of the loop with DD, I don't even know if she was in school today or if it was a snow day.

Just got the nerve to check my MasterCard balance. What with travel and Christmas online ordering, it is higher than usual, but about what I expected. Also stopped an EFT to the church, because I am cancelling the account from which it is drawn. I will have to remember to put it back on the new account.