LAST MONDAY OF SUMMER

[OKay]

Dee - I use Window 8 and Roku so ask away if you hit a snag in configuring either one of them. (((Hugs))) on all that you are juggling.

Crickets. Warning - this is gross - don't read if you are queasy or eating. There is no way to explain the amount of crickets we are experiencing at MPB and other local business. This is week 2 of continually being overwhelmed by them. It is gross.....to say the least. We have spent over $450 buying chemicals & equipment to enable DH to spray MPB twice daily. He is spending about 4 hours a day spraying/killing/blowing dead crickets, but they just keep coming. DH has encouraged me to stay away from MPB because of the crickets swarming (DH has to take off his shirt a couple times a hour because crickets get underneath shirt and won't come out). After spraying and the crickets die, then DH uses a blower to get the dead crickets away from main paths and areas customers stand. That creates mounds of dead crickets. Mounds of dead crickets STINK. We have hired a pumper crew to suck up the dead crickets from the pits (6' deep) and haul away. The crickets have attracted thousands of egrets (white birds). This morning DH said the 5 acres or so around MPB was just a sea of white birds as they ate crickets. You might think that is good......but birds poop. Bird poop everywhere......dead crickets mounded up....live crickets flying everywhere. Surely it can't get any more gross. On the bright side - at least we don't have swarming crickets at our home.

Time to get LO into bed. They are doing diebels testing this week. Even Kindergarten kids are tested!!!

[Harriet]

OKay, I guess you have already learned everything I would know about repelling crickets, but if you light the MPB at night, turn lights off during this cricket time, they attract crickets right to the lights. I hate to wish it on anyone, but if there is light at neighboring businesses and not yours, more crickets will go to them and less to you. Crickets would at least be less interested in "bug lights" or any orange toned lightbulb (like sold for halloween). So if you have to have some light for safety but could at least afford the experiment of changing bulbs, that might help. Also for next year, there are plants that will repel them from an area, if you have any planting spaces you could give over to that experiment. I'm so sorry.

[BookSaver]

Hello, villagers ~
For one reason after another, I didn't even turn on my computer until almost 6 tonight. That made my whole day seem off balance, since my normal routine is to wake up very early on Monday mornings and deal with Emails first thing, and then go on to update financial reports and read blogs. Nothing bad going on, just a weird day.

I'm probably going to be up very late tonight.

Lucylee ~ Something occurred to me as I was cuop about the situation with your DMom. One thing that has made a huge and unexpected difference to my own DMom's life has been joining a "senior center." I think she originally joined it because she decided to attend some exercise classes they offered. After she started going there, she realized how much she enjoys interacting with people her own age, and who are not at all involved with our family.

It's a way that DMom at 85 stays so independent and I think it helps her health. She has people to talk to and places to go, social stuff when she wants it, without depending on her children or grandchildren ... and if she doesn't feel like being social that day, she does what she wants in her apartment.

But it took a long time after DStepDad's death before she was able to try to go anywhere. Give your DMom time ... but start looking for places like a senior center or wherever you think might offer fun classes that she may eventually be interested in trying.

[Ivy]

Doing a quick CUOP:

Kathryn, Your counting socks reminded me of something I did.

I worked in a lingerie section of an up-scale dept. store for 18 months, got "hooked" onto lingerie, but especially bras. One day I counted my bras and I had something like 47! I had them crammed in my drawers, some in the hope chest and some in a basket on the floor of the walk-in closet. Since then, I've changed sizes down, so have only about 15 or so. I have different sizes, styles, etc.. because with rotator cuff surgery, I never can seem to wear the same bra (in comfort) more than 2 days in a row.

I was at my doctor's office for 2 hours, getting my physical, flu shot and then went to the lab for Hep "C" screening blood draw. The CDC is recommending that "Baby Boomers" get screened for Hep "C" because with the aging population, healthcare can be tailor-made to fit the needs of elders with Hep "C". My arm stings, it hurts, and my doctor said, "Tomorrow will be worst!" I'm healthy, my lab work was fantastic, and I had a great physical.

However, a new mole on my nose will be removed in a couple weeks, a biopsy will be made, and I'll have a little scar, but it's better to get this taken care of. There are 2 pigments in it and its shape looks like Melanoma when it starts out. I noticed it in May, but wasn't convinced it was new until I compared .JPG photos from last summer and this summer, which my grandsons had taken care of me that are on my computer. Evidence that it IS new! I'm so grateful they took those photos! ♥ ♥ My arm's hurting. Time to call it a night.

Have a nice Last Monday of Summer night!

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Ivy: glad you are doing your preventative maintenance, even if you are sore as a result.

I'm still up. I shouldn't be but I am.

I have one more email to send and then I'll head to bed. I'm actually in my bedroom. Haven't finished the clothes purging but I emptied out the sea chest and got the linens I need to keep there into it and took out a fair bit to give away or use as packing material. I also went through my purses and stored them slightly better. One of our weekend suitcases had a seam that's needed repairing for 15 years so I did that (took 10 minutes.) I didn't want to keep it with the ripped seam but I didn't want to get rid of the bag (it is 30 years old and is rare - it was a promo bag that dh and I each received at the launch of the computer we were working on. We're ready to give up the computers themselves (we have 2 in the basement storage room - they still boot up) so it would be nice to keep the suitcases.

Ds and I got distracted trying to date our globes. We have 3, 2 of which are older (we've narrowed the first down to 1950-53 (post Newfoundland joining Canada, pre-North Korea.) The second is harder because it doesn't have distinct countries marked (for instance, nowhere does it say United States but New Mexico and Arizona are distinct) and I'll have to go back and look at some city names like Istanbul. Or figure out when Arizona joined the Union.

[Lilac]

After 678 miles from Little Rock, AR, dh arrived home at 8:15. Yeah! Dsisil and I heard a motorcycle, she commented do you think it's him? I said yes, I would know the sound of his motorcycle anywhere. It looked like he would be riding in the rain today, but he said they occasionally were sprinkled on but no rain. His trip ended up being 4100 miles.

Today I hung all the stuff in the Raggedy Ann room. It looks cute and I am glad to have it finished.