Wednesday Optimism and clarity

[DeeClutter]

Sounds perfect, Elizabeth.

[Harmony]

My goodness, y'all sound so busy. LadyM, too bad about the plumbing. Elizabeth, too bad about your fawcett. We just fixed a fawcett in our kitchen today. I got out an sos pad and noticed the box was soggy on the bottom, so did some investigating. We knew the little small fawcett which gets us filtered water from the little ro system under the sink was failing. What we didn't know was that the water that was leaking onto the counter was also going down into the sink cabinet.

DH went to the big box store - 2 of them - and got another very nice fawcett, stainless steel finish matches our other fawcett and it was $50.00. Once we had new one he had nothing to lose so put a bit more umph into getting the old one apart and whoola - there was a failed o-ring. We had the right one and were able to fix it and get it reinstalled. $50.00 fawcett is going back. Elizabeth, I wish your fix was this easy! Dummies at the fawcett company had told DH oh, no you can't take it apart and rebuild it. Ha!

Twins and Dee, thank you for cyber soup. Smells delicious! However, I've had so much chicken soup this past week, I'm sending it all on to Sunny. Couple short texts with her tells me she is ill with the shingles thing and has been in bed 3 days. Poor dear.

(Kathryn) have a better evening I hope.

Folded LOL. Washed and hung another. Worked on a file. Fielded phone calls all afternoon. Loaded dishwasher. As my appetite comes back I'm having the weirdest cravings. Salt. More salt. Probably something I'm missing since I haven't been eating much.

Twins, I copied the hand file also. Gave to DH who says he's not doing them, he knows he has some sort of impingement in there and can't grip well anymore and his fingers lock up. Knows a dr. who does a procedure to fix this...how is he sure, don't know. Sigh..

Lucylee, you were very productive today.

Going to chill out the rest of the evening.

Had to come back and ask Nancy: what does Moose taste like?

[Nancy]

I cooked up a moose roast we were given in the crock pot sure smells yummy in the kitchen! Did play with some fiber today.

[BookSaver]

LEGO Club went well. We had 16 kids, which is a nice size group since there are only 2 of us volunteers. The age range was 4 to 14. 5 parents stayed in the room as well, which always helps.

(Library policy is any child under 8 must be accompanied by an adult guardian at all times. Therefore, some of the older kids came by themselves.)

BBL to cuop, must eat something.

[helia]

Hello everyone! I'm just peeking in. Dinner has been eaten and I need to finish cleaning it up now. Dd16 will help me. Dh is off to a church meeting.

((Kathryn))
I hope you're feeling better Harmony. Last time I looked in here, you were pretty sick.

With a meeting or two every morning and teaching every afternoon, I find I'm falling behind, partially b/c I'm not using the time between work and dinner well. I have about 1.5 hours then. I get home around 4:10 pm, and often dinner should be started around 5:30, depending on the meal. Today after work, I did wrap up dniece's larger t shirts, Cmas gifts that I exchanged, and went to the pack 'n mail place to put them in the mail and to buy stamps. Unfortunately, they were out of international stamps.

This morning, I met the band director + another parent at the high school at 9:30 to discuss organizing and storing the new marching uniforms that have just arrived! Exciting! Their arrival also means more work in a few weeks. That meeting ran late so I wasn't able to meet up with dfriend from moms group leadership team. We've punted that meeting to next Wed. or possibly a nice long phone call between now and then. I then made up a vocab review sheet and edited student journals and prepped for class today.

Sad news here is that our guinea pig Starby (Starburst) died this morning. She went peacefully in her cage. Taffy, her sister, was nearby. I felt a little sad but not hugely so. She was fairly old for a guinea pig, and I think we gave her a good life. At least she is no longer suffering from guinea pig cancer.

OK, back to real life. I need to get the table and kitchen cleaned up. Then, I need to make up a quiz for tomorrow and finalize plans for class tomorrow. I also need to pay some bills and prep some more New Year cards for the mail. . .

[lucylee]

Half a pizza and a small bag of chips and a small pkg of Oreo's and I'm revved up again.

Continuing Progress...
[x] continue washing all bedding
[x] 15-30+ min * at least * focus in master bedroom, including vacuuming mattress
[x] 15-30+ min * at least * focus in master bath
[ ] 15 min * at least * focus in den
[ ] pictures downloaded/uploaded/etc from camera and phone to computer & Walmart
[ ] complete the rest of the laundry
[/] WHB vacuuming
[ ] water plants (which I didn't do on Sunday)
[ ] s/s toilets * daily stuff I haven't got to yet
[x] clean dh's shower
[x] Clipped out an article from paper earlier this week -- Sharron Randall's column re: being on "Nana Watch," dfriend's obituary, and an advertisement for new restaurant dh & I want to try. Put obituary in stack of future scrapbook/need to keep items
[x] Read local paper
[x] Checked local ads for land/acreage prices
There are only three advertisements currently in the paper, but judging from these, land around here is going for anywhere from $3500-$5700 per acre. DH thinks dbil is hoping to get more like $6700 for his. He keeps saying he wants to get back what he's paid in taxes all these years plus what he & dfil paid for the land itself about 10 years ago. DS and I were talking about this yesterday, and it occured to me that all these other people selling land have most likely also been paying property taxes, too, don't you think? * sheesh * dbil * sheesh *

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Won't share my day (still can't say anything nice) but I will share that dfs just called to say he's been offered a job with the Canadian Navy and leaves for basic training in 2 weeks. That's 12 weeks, the 5 weeks of fleet school, then 9 weeks of training for his position and then he'll get his final posting which will either be Nova Scotia or British Columbia. I'm hoping for NS so we can see him if he's in port when we are there.

He says his wife is fully supportive. His parents are too.

At least now I know where ds's increased interest in the military is coming from - he knew that dfs applied last October (dfs was actually in for an interview the day of the shooting downtown and was evacuated out of the building about 30 minutes after the shooting, in view of the scene.) I'm not happy that dfs has gone this route but it doesn't surprise me. I'd be even less happy is ds joins his foster brother but there's no way I can stop him.

So I'm still not a happy camper.

[DeeClutter]

fingers lock up. Knows a dr. who does a procedure to fix this...

Yes, and that would probably be surgery. Not on my watch, if I can help it. Dh has a lot of trouble with his 'locking up' too. I will at least try the exercises, Twins, and show them to dh as well. Trick is to get him to do them. His fingers are really pretty bad at this point.

DD has been fighting nervousness with thoughts of 'what's next for gd16". She is absolutely adamant that 'coming home' is not an option. GD's pattern seems to be 6-7 months in any facility or home setting. Then she becomes bored and very disruptive. Next few weeks should be telling factors.

[Harriet]

((the helia family and Taffy)) helia, this was really very quick. That is best. I'm sure your family will be giving Taffy some extra attention for a while.

Harmony, thank you for letting us know about Sunny, who is missed. I hope you and Mr. Harmony are better.

Kathryn, your thoughts on men the other day were interesting. I reread that.

Nancy, you might miss that Harmony came back in to ask you how moose tastes.

BookSaver, the Lego club sounds like a success this time.

lucylee, that's a good report on conquering shower.

Trash truck was driving up as I put last 2 bags in cans this morning. Driver was kinda nutty - rather than simply waiting, he drove out and around me and stopped diagonally across the road. Then the mechanical arm couldn't pick up the cans efficiently at that angle and it took several tries and he dropped one backward while setting it back. Why not just wait a matter of seconds for me to close the lid and get out of the way? Hasn't he ever seen one of his customers at their cans before? I got there first. Get over it.

So far this week, I have put in four 15s in the bathrooms for Focus cleaning (4 to go) and three 15s in office (5 to go), for decluttering. There is enough change and progress to keep me reaching for the timer.

There has been a load of laundry done here every day since Jan 1.

[lucylee]

Yes, meant to send (((HUGS))) to helia and family also... loss of any pet is sad.

And I am so glad the crud is finally letting up a little w/Harmony and dh, and some others here, but ooohhh... I bet Sunny would rather have crud than shingles!
(((Sunny)))

Hmmm... thinking about moose... and I would think it would be somewhere on the lines of deer? Maybe?
But y'all, guess what I've been doing? Looking at recipe books!
Dmil used to make a chicken pie that was nothing but crust and chicken -- no vegetables, etc. She told me "Just boil your chicken and pick it off the bone, and then you make a dough with your flour... " etc etc... no measurements... nothing. I sent a message to dniece, b/c I knew she had gotten dmil to teach her to make this and I figured dniece wrote it down (she's the one who plans to go to medical school.) Well, she probably DID write it down at the time, but she can't find it.
Guess where I found a recipe that using nothing but these same ingredients? Aunt Bee's Mayberry Cookbook!!! The recipe is submitted by a lady in Asheboro, NC, Harriet!
However -- I have a question -- This recipe calls for 2.5 cups chicken broth. Do I have to use chicken w/bones to get broth? I can't remember what I did for my chicken and dressing last year. It also calls for 1 batch biscuit dough, but dmom has already told me I can use canned biscuits and that ought to do just as well.
The reason Nancy's moose made me think of this -- and I'm sorry, Nancy, LOL -- but a few pages over, there are recipes like "Ernest T.'s Possum & Sweet Taters" and "Old Man Kelsey's Barbecued Raccoon." Now y'all... I'm not being a snob or anything, but I just can't go there... I've tried alligator (once) and rabbit (when I was little, at my grandparents' house -- and I think my dgm prepared squirrel in her lifetime, but I don't recall trying that) but... possum and raccoon. Hmmm.... no.
But I have been feeling a maternal homemaker-ish instinct to try some of dmil's recipes, and I told dh we'd celebrate after he has his doctor's appt next week and I'd try to make this.

(((Dee & family))) Especially (((DD)))... Nope, I would not let dgd come "home," either. She has tried that. She has to prove herself elsewhere now. Oh me... I know that is sooo much easier for me to say than it is for y'all to live with. Praying for ALL of you, including the guardian family.

(((Kathryn)))

Speaking of my shower triumph -- did I mention that it only takes about 5 minutes to do the one side & floor each week? It is so amazing.

We have a leaky faucet in my bathtub. It is really bad, but plumber said he would have to cut a hole in the sheetrock to fix it, and dh doesn't want to do that. My bathbub is on the wall of dh's bathroom, but instead of putting a cabinet or closet or something there, it is just a plain (wallpapered) sheetrock wall. So, it's going to be a major mess to get everything back to normal in there once we get started. Also, dh's shower is the one that ddad made emergency repairs to YEARS ago, but I don't think the entire problem was solved. It is obvious that the floor is damaged around dh's shower, and I have no doubt at all that one day the whole shower unit is going to fall through the floor. I mean, seriously. Ddad said this had happened to people before. So -- either we will get enough cash from estate that dh will be ready to redo his bathroom AND my tub, or we'll just wait till he falls onto the dirt foundation. * sigh *

Continuing Progress...
[x] all bedding washed/dried/bed made up
* CAN'T WAIT TO GET IN IT TONIGHT!!! LOVE IT WHEN EVERYTHING IS SO FRESH AND CLEAN!!! *
[x] 15-30+ min * at least * focus in master bedroom, including vacuuming mattress
[x] 15-30+ min * at least * focus in master bath
[x] complete the rest of the laundry
* still some t-shirts & socks on my bed to fold and put away *
[x] WHB vacuuming
[x] clean dh's shower
[x] clipped out an article from paper earlier this week
[x] read local paper
[x] checked local ads for land/acreage prices
[x] messaged w/my mentoree student from church, wrote a check for her to support her mission trip to Peru this summer

NOT DONE:
[ ] 15 min * at least * focus in den
[ ] pictures downloaded/uploaded/etc from camera and phone to computer & Walmart
[ ] water plants
[ ] s/s toilets

Editing at 12:45 a.m. CST...

Finished vacuuming, and everything is clean except what I am wearing and one pair of black pants. (What I'm wearing can be washed with them tomorrow.)

I made a LOT of progress in the bathroom w/my desk/vanity area. I consolidated two of my journals, into the one I'm currently going through, to make sure there is nothing too shocking, should dh or ds or ddil read it in the event of my death. Or just a burglary or nosey grandson, once he starts to read. I am slowly, slowly, working on this project.
A shelf won't work there; my jewelry holder is too low to the cabinet top. But I did clear off more "work space."
Put my check list on a clipboard, so I could stand it up.
Put a bunch of magazine articles in a binder, another bunch of church notes/religious readings/etc in a zip lock bag. I can't zip it, LOL, but it holds them all together and prevents a lot of dust-catching.
Same w/the Christmas receipts & my final shopping list I still have not organized & put away. I save all my Christmas shopping lists, so I can look back next year and see what I got someone, so I don't get them a white shirt 3 years in a row.
I still have a bunch of books and now two binders, plus the two zip lock bags and the journal to work through but ooohhh my... it is sooo much cleaner looking in there now.

I think our ice maker is broken. It has made NO ice in the last three hours. (Guess that's a pretty good clue, huh?) Plus, we have a lot of water build-up in the refrigerator. It collects at the bottom, under the produce drawers. * sigh * May have to call the man. DH will be so aggravated.

Good night all!

PS -- Vacuuming makes my back and hips hurt. I don't think I will EVER find a vacuum cleaner I really like. I don't like uprights, HATED the Kirby, but ds is right, dragging this canister around is awkward, too... it always runs into doors, and the attachments keep falling off the handle where they're supposed to stay stuck. I've lost the crevice tool, but since it was only about 4" long, it was fairly useless anyway. * sigh *
I'm worn out. I won't be worth killing tomorrow.