Going forward with curiosity and a optimism Sunday

[blessedw2]

D Harriet.

We all have a tendency to get into those ruts and miss the way out for a while.

so true. Sometimes we don't know we are in a rut until a bit later. (ruts are sneaky like that!).
your Church was happy. how wonderful

Back home, a true hoss of a black snake had entered the henhouse, wow.

wow is right

electric car display at IKEA - how interesting d kathryn! yay on getting chair pads for your ds house warming gift. how lovely.

have a great evening everyone.

[Elizabeth]

Hi everyone! I am not by nature an optimist, but with my debt down to $0.00 (except the house), life is better. DD17's life is NOT better, as it is finals week. She called her dad yesterday because she was upset about her internet connectivity. When he doesn't want to deal with someone in a bad mood, he simply hangs up on them. I asked him not to do that because it is teaching her bad manners, but got snarked at for my troubles. When he is an old man and not always in the best of moods, he will regret teaching her his method of "dealing", but that's his problem not mine. DD wants me to buy his camper because it has great memories for her. The x wants to get another because the other woman is tired of setting up the camper in the rain. I told DD I might be tired of the same.

Saturday, we did the awards banquet. I thought DD was getting an award and I was a guest, turns out we both did! After she made some progress on studies, I helped her with a crochet project. I also did some planning on one I want to do. Today, we had church and I went on a "spending spree". That means I bought socks, space heater, trash can, and groceries. A fellow animal org volunteer dropped off Briggs at my house while I was out. DD apologized that the house was so cold, explaining our lack of heater. Well, guess who was a retired HVAC technician! He could not fix it and confirmed what I thought - I need a professional. He said that it is very unlikely I would even be able to obtain the relevant parts without proper licensing and certifications.

We still don't know which cat is bleeding, but Briggs had bloodwork which may tell us if it is him. He also has an appointment for a dental. No crisis, just time.

Today, I found the factory code for the combination lock on my new car and set a new one. It is a sticker buried in an electrical panel. The Ford website had instructions on recovering the combo if you have both keys (I do), but I could not make it work. Dealers will charge you a fair sum to recover the info. Dr. Google recommended looking under the panel.

I have no more tax chores or car buying chores. That means there is no excuse for my house to look like it does. Maybe time for some FlyLady crisis cleaning.

Blessedw2 could try an electric blanket for the old dog. It might relieve some stiffness. Best of all, guaranteed to have no side effects.

[LadyMaverick]

I got to play in the dirt & spend time in bright sunshine so I'm feeling relaxed and refreshed. I planted 7 more seedlings (2 kinds of tomato, cucumber, begonia, and 3 marigolds). I am about out of pots but still have many seedlings to plant so I decided to order some more fabric pots. I like the 3-gallon fabric pots for flowers and 5 gallons fabric pots for vegetables. Last year I used the 7 gallon fabric pot and like them but I'm growing weary of mixing the soil so I am wanting to use as small of pots that will get the job done. This will be my first year using the smaller fabric pots. I hope I don't regret it when the hot summer weather happens.

DD is working tonight and has decided to leave DGD7 overnight with the guy she is living with. I hope and pray he is an honorable man.

Dinner will be leftovers. DH brought several kinds of pancakes home that didn't get eaten this morning at church. The guys were getting quite creative in adding ingredients to the pancakes they were cooking. I saw pancakes containing Blueberries, Pecans, Cheese, Bacon, and Jalapeno (not all together). When I saw the Jalapeno pancakes I immediately thought NO WAY, but I was challenged to give it a try so I did. I was pleasantly surprised by how good it tasted. I think it is because of the contrast between spicy pepper & sweet syrup.

[CathyS]

Elizabeth what did you get an award for???

Supper has been eaten with more than 50% of it going for leftover status for tomorrow night. It was good, but dh is still sick.

Dishwasher is going.

All clean laundry is away.

[Harriet]

Ds had been impressed with the phenomenon of having this ordinary black snake actually rattle its tail at him when he let it go in the woods. He asked me at the time if this could be true or was he imagining things. I thought I'd heard it from my ddad years (probably YEARS and years) ago. Sure enough, I came upon that obscure fact on the net and was able to send him the tidbit of info. When really mad at you, you'll get a rattle. Strange. But I'm glad to know we made a big impression, too - don't want it to forget we're not its favorites. I guess it's the snake's way of prancing along, saying, "We bad. We bad." Like Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in the movie Stir Crazy.

Visited HRH's dear uncle and cousin, meeting another cousin's two grandchildren. I enjoyed talking to the two boys - very bright children. Went to the study at church, too.

[CathyS]

Kathryn if this thunderstorm heads your way, it's a doozy! I've got the lightning map on another screen and we're getting it straight up from Lake Erie and across to Toronto.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Dinner is done and so am I. We watched the last two episodes of the first season of Broadchurch and I found it very intense. I feel wrung out.

I have a load of laundry on.

I'm tired of feeling unwell. I suppose this is official 7 days of being unwell since I started to feel dodgy in the evening last Sunday night. I'm convinced this is still a cold and nothing more serious. Everyone at dd's has it now including dgdJ0. Dd said that dgsM2 sounds more miserable than dgd, though. He's still too little to describe what is bothering him so the other day he was nursed at nap/quiet time (normally he only nurses at night) and then he snuggled on his mommy's lap for 3 hours, dozing in and out but too congested to lie down.

Dsil posted a picture of dgd sitting up at the table with a plate in front of her with some pizza on it. She looks so totally pleased it is adorable. Apparently she looked from person to person, beaming at them while they ate. The pizza in front of her was a family in-joke. The book they got to prepare dgs for the arrival of the baby was titled, "Babies don't eat pizza."

I'm going to try and do one month of data entry for the 24 I should do before starting the taxes. The other accounts I was reconciling were just a few entries a month and either buy/sell/dividend/pay fees. This one is much more complicated and runs a few pages of entries per month. Hence, the one month goal before bed.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Three months were done (21 to go!)

I'm having real finger problems with the software, and for some entries it takes 2 - 4 tries to get the entry in properly so I'm heading to bed now. For one entry I did it wrong, I corrected it, then it was wrong in another way showing I received 25 shares for each share I had in a stock split and I couldn't figure out how to make it right so I deleted the transaction. The same transaction was recorded in another account (we hold the shares in more than one account) so I entered it exactly the same way as the successful entry and still had the error. Finally I deleted it, check the number of shares I'm showing for every stock to make sure that was the only error, then made the entry again and this time it shows the correct number. Honestly, I don't know if that's the software not working right or me but it feels like the software.

I keep talking about getting rid of this software but there's nothing else on the market that comes close, especially since I own this version of the software, not renting and it doesn't require me to put everything on the cloud. My data can't be transferred to a new product anyway so I'm stuck with this for now, but never quite trusting the numbers because of weird mistakes like tonight.