Earthmom's · Musings

About Life, the Universe and Everything
 


 

Formerly Katrina's Nonsoapy Journal

September 27, 2005

What a week it was after I last wrote!  Wow.

First, the appraisal lady, after doing a fine job last time (we thought) turned out to be a complete flake.  She called our broker person and told her that she would not be doing the appraisal since she did not feel she could bring in the value that she wrote up for us back in January and that it would be significantly lower.  Wha?  For one thing, when she was out here in January, our yard had 6' of snow in it with 10' drifts.  Evidently, because there were no sales going on up here at that time (most people do not wade through that much snow to buy a house), she went further out into the rich areas by the wineries and such to get her comps for the appraisal and no one questioned it.  This time, it's fall and there is still a lot of construction going on and we've had several home sales over the summer.  Because the lots are being divided out into 1/4 acre parcels and the worst contractors on earth are hired to throw up a house in 15 minutes using the cheapest of materials, the new houses are selling for less than our house, built in the early 70's and on almost 2 acres, is worth, so I guess that drags down our value.  We asked her to pull comps BEFORE she drove up here so we would know what we were looking at and I guess she didn't bother with that.  Therefore, I didn't bother with letting her check clear our account and put a stop payment on it.  That should get interesting.  The broker's appraiser said he could get us in at over our current appraisal value no problem, no I don't know what this lady was high on at the time.  Regardless, she's not getting my eeeked out pennies for not doing her job.

But that was a stressful moment.  We are also still waiting for the new credit score with the false "30 days late on mortgage" reported by Washington Mutual removed.  As soon as that comes through, the refi moves forward and we will be able to settle into a home loan that is much more manageable and reasonable.  Our broker has shown us several places where we seriously got screwed last time.  I'll be glad to be finished with this real estate stuff for a while.  One more appraisal to go (from the new guy) and then there should be nothing left by signing the big stack of papers.

My cold has finally slipped away, which is a major relief.  JoBu has been going 5-6 hours between feedings which lets me get more sleep at night.  I am eager to be sleeping in my own bed again and I think that will happen soon, likely this week if I can stay up, hit his last feeding around 11 and get up around 5-6 with Eric, then nap a bit through the day. 

Last night, after holding back the rains for a good month past the time they should have started, we got a really killer storm.  Lightening struck a generator, so we lost electricity at some point, around 8pm or so, I think.  Eric and I went out for a great ritual in the middle of the storm and while we were out there, he heard the puppygirls fussing and decided to move them out of their hole and into the dog house that is on our property.  He and Delena, with flashlights, trudged out into the woods and transferred all of them.  A few minutes later, they were REALLY going for it, so they went out to check and all four of them had left the dog house and were wandering around in the rain.  They grabbed them and returned them to their (getting muddy) hole.  I guess you just don't mess with nature.  They seem OK this morning.  Earlier in the day when the rain was only just starting, I went out to secure the lean to over their hole and I guess they were nervous from the thunder or something, because they started growling and barking at me.  It was really weird to see these almost 3 week old dogs barking their asses off at me.  Kinda freaked me out a bit. 

Yesterday morning, Delena got up with another toothache, so we ended up spending the day at the dentist office.  She has to have 2 root canals, but the dentist to which we were referred isn't doing root canals any more, so we have to change insurance companies and be referred to someone else.  One of the detriments to living in a smaller town is that the dentists don't always take your plan.  So I'm off to investigate different dental insurance providers.  Meanwhile, she's on amoxicillin and motrin.

I was very grateful that I got the last of the EOS postings done before the lights went out.  Yikes!

The weekend was totally consumed with grandchildren.  Josh and all three kids rode up the mountain with Eric on Friday evening and went home yesterday morning at o'dark thirty when he left out.  I will very much miss them when they move to Colorado next week, but I also am reminded that I am so grateful that my children are older.  Little ones are so time intensive and my kids, even Nathan who is 6 and Dylan who is 8, are so independent and involved in their own interests.  We are very close, don't get me wrong.  We share a lot of time in the day, but it is so great that I don't have to watch them every minute for fear that they are going to encounter some mortal danger.  As I was restoring my house to its "nonbabyproofed" state yesterday, I was feeling the life sink back into me again.  I want to be clear that it doesn't mean that I love my grandchildren any less, just that wow, little ones are very consuming and time intensive.  I adore my grandbabies, but I adore my life too.

Today it is still overcast on the mountain, thinking about raining and making determinations for the day's weather.  I will spend the day cleaning.  Didn't get much recovery time yesterday by spending the day in town (house recovery, that is), so I'll be washing dishes, doing general cleaning and napping a bit.  Since I was in town Sunday to replenish the rapidly depleting grocery larders (those kids can EAT!) and then yesterday to take Delena to the dentist, it will be great to just be home today, watching my shows and enjoying my house and my world. 

K-mart had a massive sale this weekend and I actually got a swimsuit with underwires for $3.50, marked down from $37.99.  I didn't notice the underwires (which I hate) until I got home, but when I put it on, I couldn't even feel the wires and it made my boobies look wonderful!  Yayyy boobies!  So I was happy.  *sigh*

Time to get kids out to the bus.  I hope you have a glorious day.

Katrina

September 21, 2005

 

The appraisal went (and I only have my own feelings to go by since it takes 3 days for her to generate the thing) exceptionally well.  She was much friendlier this time, whether it was from receiving repeat business or from not having to trudge through six feet of snow to get here.  She kept remarking on how much different the place looked when it was not under snow and how nice it is.  She even liked the linoleum better than the old indoor outdoor carpeting I pulled up.  She got here at 10 past 10 (having called to tell me she was running a little behind) and was gone by 10:30.  She didn't even go upstairs.  I guess she had all she needed from her previous report.  Now, as with so many things in my life at this point, we wait.  We have to wait for the erroneous reporting of Washington Mutual (who said we were 30 days late on a mortgage payment when we were not and has finally sent updated info to the credit bureau as of last week) to fall off so we can get a higher credit score.  As soon as that happens, things move very fast and will finally be finished, resulting in anywhere from $200-500 a month less of a mortgage payment for us, depending on the interest rate we get.  It will be worth it in a lot of ways, but it's a pain now.  I am not sure why anything whatsoever having to do with real estate has to be such a headache.  We went into this very casually, investigating possibilities and checking into our credit report (which was a mess of inaccuracies) and now it has its little stressors sitting around everywhere like land mines.  In short, I will be glad when it's over.  For the time being, as far as I know, our part is done other than showing up and signing the mountain of papers when it's time.  My goal is to be finished by Oct 11. 

 

I'm off to town later today.  Got to ease it in between puppy feedings.  :)

 

Take care,

K

 

 

September 21, 2005

Good morning!  Today is the day!  I was very surprised when the appraiser called yesterday to say she could be up the mountain today at 10am, so the time is set.  For the most part, I am ready; tired, but ready.  I cleaned until late into the night.  While I realize that she is mostly looking at the bare bones of the house, I figure an overall sparkling house goes to the idea that we take care of what we have and sets the tone for the appraisal.  Also, it can't hurt to give energy into the house since it is going to be giving back to us above and beyond the wonderful shelter and protection it provides on a day to day basis.  The house is happy.  My back is not (when I said "it can't hurt," I was not entirely accurate because it actually hurts a LOT).  I spent a good bit of the day on my hands and knees Jasco'ing and scrub brushing the old linoleum that is down in the living room now.  Jasco removes adhesive (in theory), but I didn't have quite enough of it and it's an incredible chore to use.  It also causes chemical burns if even a little of it gets on your skin.  The worst parts are done, but I would have given anything for just another 1/4 cup of the stuff to do the final area.  Throw rungs strategically placed cover the very worst of it, but there is one area that I just couldn't tame with the resources I had.  That's when I have to just let it go.  I started using Mop and Glo on the floor until I realized that the parts I was mopping weren't glowing at all and pretty much looked exactly like the parts I hadn't mopped yet.  Away went the Mop and Glo.  From all of the bending and scrubbing, my back is screaming Ave Maria.

Eric did a marvelous job of finishing up the painting of the trim on the house and clearing away a lot of accumulated stuff we'd set aside for a dump run.  I didn't realize how big my side yard actually is.  :)  I also scrubbed the bathtub for me, for which I and my back are eternally grateful.

Other than the appraisal, which in my experience is fast, professional and to the point, I have little going on today, which is a massive relief.  After two days of power cleaning, I can definitely use a down day.  Not sure what I'll do today (napping is definitely in order), but it won't involve manual labor unless I can absolutely avoid it.  Divas need maids and servants in a big way.  *cry*

Well, it's time to make lunches and launches (as is propelling the kids out the door to the bus).  After that, I sit with some hot tea and let it dissolve the Motrin that should take away some of the ache.  My heading pad is commandeered by the puppy at the moment, who is rather attached to it, but I might enjoy a jacuzzi soak.  Puppy's eyes opened today and now it's easy for him to climb out of the laundry basket that has been his home.  He's been upgraded to a Rubbermaid bin until he's ready to roam free.  He's turning into quite a little character.  I was torn on names, but JoBu won out (watch the movie "Major League").  It was going to be Boris because he ate off the tip of his own tail (the Oroborus is the self-consuming snake/dragon), but JoBu could not be denied.

Kids out the door!  Take care!~

Katrina

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September 19, 2005

Again, it feels like a long time since I journaled.  I dropped bits and pieces into my Live Journal, but nothing particularly cohesive.  Midweek last week, I developed a pretty nasty head cold and I am still not over it.  My sinuses are pretty much on fire and I sneeze and blow my nose all the time, in addition to feeling really tired all of the time, partly from the cold and partly from still getting up 3-4 times a night to feed the puppy.

He is doing very well, as nearly as I can tell. He is two weeks old on Wednesday, so his eyes should open this week.  I got him started on a baby bottle, which has made feedings much, much easier for both of us.  The other four in the hole are doing exceptionally well.  I am still worried about them for the coming rains, but Eric is really pushing the "nature knows what it's doing" approach.  As a Pagan, I can fully embrace that thought and as a Virgo, I have a hard time thinking anything or anyone can get by without my interference, so it's a battle.  He points out that Belle has been an exceptionally good mother and that she'll know what to do and when to do it.  I'm leaning toward trusting that, but damn.  And boy do we need the rains.

The weekend was fairly uneventful.  I went to Sacramento with Delena on Saturday and had lunch with Dave, then took pizza over to Josh and Valerie.  They will be visiting us with their three kids all this coming weekend, then moving to Colorado the following weekend.  Afterwards, Delena and I went to the thrift store (no major finds there) and on to get her some shoes.  She was going to get her hair cut, but declined at the last minute.  We scuttled back up the mountain and did little for the evening.  Sunday, Jennifer came up for Mabon, the second harvest ritual.  We had a great visit, great ritual, then it was time to sleep. 

On Thursday, I was able to correct (sort of) some ongoing computer problems.  I started by switching over to sbcyahoo as an internet service provider instead of earthlink.  That allowed me to connect on dial up at a few kbps faster, which I greatly appreciate.  I also got a new hard drive.  I've had store credit at Office Depot for months for a chair I bought from them that screwed up about a month after I got it.  The store credit let me get the hard drive for just a few bucks extra, so I had Eric toss it in the computer, moved all of my stuff I needed to say over to the new drive, wiped the old D drive with a d:format and although it is completely blank, my computer still believes I have two installations of Windows XP installed on my drives and prompts me to choose which one.  By going into my systemini file, I was able to at least name the c drive, which DOES have the windows installation on it, as the default, but I can't get it to stop prompting me to choose an installation.  I did find a program called TweakUI that will fix your registry and rebuild icons and such.  It got my computer running like a champ, so I'm all kinds of happy (except for that whole having to choose an installation at start up thing).  Georgia says I have to tweak my cmos, but I haven't figured out how to get into it yet.  Hitting delete during set up doesn't do it.  I'll keep playing until I find it.

Fall has come so quickly on the mountain.  Even though the leaves have not yet turned up here (they have just a mile down the mountain, however), the air is really crisp and I have been having a fire in the woodstove at night.  I'm really grateful to Eric for stocking up on wood and getting most of it all chopped up over the summer.  There is something so comforting about the warmth of a wood fire that feels some much more radiant and natural than central heat.  It's a pain to wade out in a few feet of snow to get wood, but I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

Exercise or sleep... exercise or sleep?  The hedon in me is screaming that I should just crawl into bed and get all caught up, but I promised myself that this is the week I would start exercising again.  I have been keeping my calories, with the exception of Saturday, which was one brilliant eatfest, under 1800 every day for a couple of weeks now and this is the time that I have to amplify that with exercise.  I was doing great with exercise until I went to the GH Fan Weekend in July and after I came back from that, it just all petered out.  Now I have to get back on it again and make it work.  I am not expecting miracles right away, but I at least need to get started.  I'll be using the gazelle because it is what I resent least and is an easy starting point. 

Mostly, I'm just checking in.  Not too much to report, really. We are working on refinancing our house again.  Our agent was able to help us get a ton of things cleared up on our credit report that were reported incorrectly, which will give us a much higher credit score and a much lower interest rate.  Those few dollars a month will really help.  Say a little prayer that it all works out if you get a minute.  It would surely be a blessing. 

Take care and have a wonderful week (sleep or exercise?),

Katrina

 

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September 13, 2005

The dimming of the day.

It feels like a long time. 

The party on Sunday was a success.  We had about 6-7 kids show up, some siblings of those invited.  Parents stayed, which I've never had happen, but which was very nice.  They were great company; really good folks from what I could tell.  The cord of the piņata kept breaking, so Eric, being a He-Man, held the piņata while the kids whacked at it.  Sadly, not everyone got to give it a whack before the cardboard/crepe paper Spiderman broke apart. 

The kids played well together on the playground while the adults laughed and talked.  David showed up after a while and spent time with us and with the kids. 

I went into the party a little furrowed.  One of the parents kind of hit me the wrong way when she called to confirm for the party that morning.  After the info exchange, the conversation went like this:

"My name is Denise, by the way."

"I'm Katrina."

"Did you say 'Katrina?'"

"Yes, I did."

"Well, I sure don't like that name very much right now!"

"Hmm.  I'm sorry to hear that."

"I mean, with the hurricane and all."

"Well, it's my name."

"I was just talking to someone the other day whose name sounded sort of like Katrina and I told my  husband that I was sure glad it wasn't Katrina!"

"Well, I guess you struck out this time."

Everyone thinks they are the first one say something about the hurricane and me sharing the name. She was a nice enough person as it turned out, but her son did ask me at the party:

"Is your name really Katrina?"

"Yes, it is."

"Like the hurricane?"

"Yes."

"Did they name you after the hurricane?"

"No, baby, they named the hurricane after me."

Puppies are all doing well.  Belle has been spending less time in the hole and more time in our yard, but the puppies are big and healthy.  In fact, while we were at the party, Delena sort of freaked out that Belle was not spending much time with the babies and brought the babies inside the house.  When Eric was taking them back, he was able to notice that they were all girls (ours in a boy) and that they are considerably heavier and sturdier than the one I am feeding.  Good ol' breast milk, I guess.  Yesterday, the puppy was trying to nurse my pinkie and I realized that my pinkie is not much smaller than the nipple of a baby bottle.  I remembered that Valerie'd left one of Aiden's baby bottles here on a visit and I have been using that to feed the baby with much greater success than I had with the syringe.  It takes about 10% of the time as it did with the syringe and he sleeps a lot longer.  He totally rejects any formula that is not warm and sleeps for 3-4 hours if I keep the room super warm and only an hour and a half if he get cool at all.  He's on a heating pad on low, but unfortunately, it has an automatic shut off.  Almost to the second that it shuts off, he'll start to fuss. 

Eric didn't get to built the lean to over the hole yet, but I managed to push off the threat of rain (I am the Weather Witch Mastah!).  When we moved here, there was a dog kennel, nice sized fence with a big dog house inside, on the property.  I'm thinking of putting an old blanket in the dog house and moving the babies in there where they will be safe from the rain when it comes.  As it stands now, they are going to be in a big, muddy, washed out hole.  I hope Belle will continue to take care of them if I move them and show her where they are.  I can also put her food in the kennel fence and leave the fence open so she can come and go as she needs to.  It's just a thought at this point, but it's a thought that is currently beating out the lean to idea.

Tomorrow, I am having lunch with my friend, Melissa, who I haven't seen in months, so that will be nice.  I have to get Eric a new percolator.  I have so little counter space that I have to put his percolator on a back burner of the stove to do it's thing.  You can imagine how that went.  I've done it for over a year and a half, but for reasons unknown, I turned on the wrong burner. 

The diet is going exceptionally well.  Every day, I've eaten comfortably and happily and come in at under my 1800 calorie limit, usually by several hundred calories.  Today, I was about 800 below, so I got to treat myself to a late night bowl of cornflakes!  I will start exercising again soon.  2.4 pounds down this week.

This weekend, I get to take the shed apart and find the canopy to use for the Harvest Moon Festival the 8-9th of October.  Of course, it's in the very back of the shed behind every box and piece of crap I've ever known.  So I'll have to move boxes and pieces of crap for a long while, drag it out and then return every box and piece of crap back into the Box and Piece of Crap Shed again.  Fortunately, Eric has volunteered to help me.

I drove past the turn off to Joe's old apartment today.  Made me sad.  I really miss him.

Kids are quiet, the night is dark and rich.  I think it's time for me to blend into it and get some rest.  Clean tomorrow.  Go to town, have fun, call it a day.  :)

Hope you have a wonderful night,

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September 10, 2005

Why I love my life:

    I was sitting here posting some new columns to EOS and I popped on my MP3 playlist (called "stuff").  It crossed my mind to wonder how the 4 13-year-old girls behind me playing "Simpson's Clue" would do with the country music that's on it.  Would they roll their eyes, scoff and talk about Dee's uncool mom?  Nope, they're singing along with Faith Hill doing "Cry."  I wub dem.

* * ** * ** * *

    Uh oh.  Clouds just obscured the sun.  Either God hates Faith Hill (a distinct possibility) or we're thinking about getting rain.  NOOOOOO! Rain be gone rain be gone!  I can't have the puppy hole/nursery fill up with water!  I'm going to make Eric build a lean to over the hole.  That's all there is to it. 

* * ** * ** * *

   I'm pretty mad at Oprah right now for killing my self-esteem.  This is beyond the Why Oprah Bugs the Crap Out of Me column that I did a while back.  Because so many of my friends view her as a mentor and shining star for us wimmin, I started not immediately covering myself with calamine and changing the channel (douche optional) when her show barreled in after Dr Phil's and actually waited to see what she was up to.  I caught the show a while back where the woman looked all sorts of successful and normal on the outside but had a totally filthy house with dog poo in the shower and animal urine on the mattress and several years of dirty dishes in her kitchen and such.  Then I caught the follow up where they went in an rechecked to see if she was staying all tidy (well sorta kinda she was) and found a garage and office she hadn't shown them before.  Then recently,  I watched the show with the girls from "What Not to Wear" who did surprise makeovers on unsuspecting people (I am trying to pretend they were not shills planted by the show).  It was a decent enough show and the people did look remarkably different, making me salivate ever so heavily for an image makeover. 

  In that vein, I decided to head their advice and go out into yonder Walmart in search of some new clothes for my birthday, in possession of their sage advice for how to dress if you have giant, pendulous breasts (forget the pencil test, I can likely hold a small Toyota vehicle under my boobs and not drop it) and a tremendously fat ass.  The basic idea was to get a sleek outer line with a touch of color at the chest and some nice cleavage, plus the ominous warning that "no one can wear tapered legged pants and look good."  After a careful exploration of the wares in both K-mart and Walmart, I have determined that in Fat Woman World (which the What Not to Wear ladies have obviously not explored all that well) there are two kinds of pants:  Elephant legs and tapered.  There is no midline.   I looked over every pair of pants, from jeans to polyester to my personal favorite, microfiber, to cotton.  I examined every puff sleeve, cabbage rose, Eeyore bearing, too short, too wide, too stiff fat woman's shirt they offered.  Everything there either had a twin in my closet, a place on my "hate it" list or a "created especially by thin people who really hate fat people" label inside it.  Also mentioned was that if you have giant, pendulous breast, you simply must wear underwires or risk being the eternally unforgiven.  I bought 3 underwire bras, 2 body slimmers and 2 high waisted slimming briefs.  The only thing that fit when I got home was the $3 underwire bra on the clearance rack and I ended up wanting to tear it off halfway through my trip to town the first time I wore it.  Also the last time I wore it, which were the same time. 

  So as nearly as I can tell, I am doomed to wear my white, old lady granny panties, my no-under-wire-having (the bane of my Energy Medicine practice anyway) bras and my soft clothes, most of which have tapered legs.  The only other time I ever employed any kind of system or premise to clothes shopping was about 4 years ago when I never bought an article of clothing without first considering, "Can I sleep in this?"  Most of my clothes are still from that era.  I tend to go less for chic and more for comfort, never suffering pain for class or style.  I'd like to be a person who does, but it just isn't in me.  Maybe when I'm thinner I can think about it more.

  When I was going through clothing angst (good thing I couldn't find anything and what I could find didn't fit because I ended up needing the money for the budget big time!), I saw another woman, slightly smaller than I am, carefully unfolding each pair of jeans, looking at the legs and refolding them.  In my newfound effort to be more social, I drifted over and said, "Did you watch Oprah yesterday?"  She looked at me like I was a crazy, whack-job stalker person and said, "Um, no."  I said, "What not to wear ladies?  You're looking at the tapered legs, aren't you?"  She laughed and said she was and we had a good conversation lamenting the shitty styles of fat women clothes.  Placerville is fresh out of Lane Bryant and I am fresh out of Lane Bryant money.  After spending 99% of my life buying all of my clothes in thrift stores (and still loving to when I can), it's a rarity and a luxury to buy clothes that someone else hasn't already worn a few hundred times.  I tell myself they're nicely broken in and much softer, but I do like new things once in a while.  More motivation to weight loss, I guess, which is still going well.  Ate Mexican food with Eric last night after saving up calories all day and still come in a few hundred calories under my allowance.  Yayyyy me!

   Wish me luck with the dual birthday party tomorrow.  Two kids have RSVP'd out of thirty-four, so we could have none, we could have two or we could have thirty-four if these mountain people think "RSVP" means "call if you have questions."  I am loaded down with the Spiderman piņata, hats and the blowy things.  I'm only doing punch, cake and little prepackaged sundaes, so not much mess and not much to carry.  Beyond that, they can play on the playground and mingle. 

   It's almost noon, so I should go wake up the mister and get him busy on the doggy shelter. 

    Have a great weekend!


   I was trying to find a nice webset and I realized that all of the pretty ones have a horribly long load time, so I decided to go simple.  This is the design that is used on my LiveJournal and I kind of like it, so I'm going to move it over here for a while, plus, it has a really fast load, which is always nice.

    I am just wickedly tired and unlike yesterday, really am going to take a nap as soon as I finish writing this.  Laundry is underway, puppy is fed and seems to be sleeping (for once, he sure wasn't last night) and the kids are home early today at 1:30 instead of 3:45. 

    All four of the outside puppies are doing well and we have a couple of people who have offered to adopt 2 of them when it's time.  Belle seems to be doing a wonderful job as a mommy.  She still bolts when we get near (that is one huge hole!), but doesn't go far and is right back there as soon as we're gone.  The babies look easily as healthy as the one I am handfeeding, so I am very pleased. 

    This weekend is the boys' birthday party, but so far, I've only had one RSVP, which was from a Jehovah's Witness mom who seemed offended that her kids were invited, as if I am supposed to know.  She said, "well, we have a lot of new families this year."  I told her we were here all of last year and she sort of "pfft'd" me.  I hope people show up.  We invited all the kids in both classes and so far, nada.  Delena is having friends over this weekend as well, but her friends are always exceptionally well behaved and a joy to have around.  We're just glad she has good friends.  She really loves living here, unlike when we first got here from Sacramento and she was vowing to move back to the city the millisecond she turned 18.  It's a pity we're still dry enough for a burn ban because the weather is so perfect for a bonfire.

    The diet is going well.  Not really enough to get into the Fatastic Journal, although I will hold to my promise to do so once I hit the 10 pound loss mark.  I have been using fitday.com for PC, a $20 download that has a huge database of food values, charts your daily progress, monitors your daily intake and generates all kinds of reports on your overall progress.  It has been well worth the $20 I invested a while back in one of my earlier attempts.  Carolyn was kind enough to send me her Weight Watchers information, so I have been looking that over as well.  The interesting thing is that I worked out some of the points on the past few days of fitday.com tracking and I've consistently been right at the correct points value, so that's really good.  I have lost 1.6 pounds this week and I'm (again) giving it my best shot. 

    I've been thinking about some of the products I've been using lately and the good:bad ratio.  Nutra Nail Triple Power, which is a nail strengthener, seems to work really, really well.  It's a blend of acrylic polymer, protein complex and calcium complex that you use like or under polish (I am a "like" at this point).  Gives it a nice healthy shine and seems to make them really strong.

    I have long been a fan of Mr Clean Magic Erasers (all hail!), but lately, since they came out with the blue backed ones, they don't seem to work as well for me, either in blue back or all white.  It's as though they fall apart a lot faster and don't clean as well.  Still, if they came out today as they are now, I would be impressed, but I don't think they are as good as they used to be.

    Cottonelle toilet tissue leaves little TP pills on your butthole.  Ew.  I'm sold on Northern and Charmin forever now.  I will never cheat again.

    I still use the cheapest laundry detergent I can find (liquid) and I swear, it gets the clothes just as clean as the expensive stuff.

    New Sprite Zero gets my hearty endorsement.

    Easy Off Bam isn't really all that.  Just cleaner.  Not super duper cleaner.  Just cleaner. 

    The Mr Clean extender thing that you use to clean your bathtub is OK, but the extending handle tends to collapse in on itself.

    (Hurray!  An RSVP for the party!)

    Netflix is still the best place on earth to be, even though I am running out of movies to put on my list.

    I still believe that Pine Sol cleans my floors better than anything.

    I never thought that having the ice maker in my refrigerator (not on the door) would mean much to me, but oh my lord, I love this thing.  We had the refrigerator for about four years before it was hooked up and Eric recently did the deed.  I am completely impressed.

    Vitamin B-12 = Happy Mommy Pills.  Time released, cheap, gooood stuff.  Trust me.

    The Gazelle is still the best aerobic exercise machine I've ever used and I used to go to Air Force gyms with top of the line stuff.  I'm completely impressed and it is the best $100 I ever spent.

    Still love ebay, half.com and amazon.com marketplace.  It's like the world's biggest garage sale. 

    While we're on the subject of websites, if you go to www.google.com and click the "images" tab, you can enter any name or word in the space and get pictures of it.  Ditto on Yahoo, but I like Google better.  I can't even say why, I just do.  Another tip is that if you are searching for a phrase or specific name on Yahoo, Google or another search engine, if you just enter the name David Allan Roetts, for instance, you will get every entry that mentions the name David, the name Allan and/or the name Roetts.  If you put the name in quotation marks, "David Allan Roetts," you will only find entries that list the name together in that order.  This is great for finding the title and artist of a song if you only caught a bit of the lyrics.  "Our love is a chain that binds me and breaks my bones to bits," for instance, would likely take you right to the song itself (which does not exist, I made that up).  If you don't have it in quotes, the search engine will find any document with all of those words in it.

    Something that a surprising number of people do not yet know about is Craig's list, www.craigslist.org.  This is an amazing online classifieds site that is divided into many different areas of the US.  I love to go to the "free" section and see what people are giving away.

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    Can you believe we are already so far into September?  It has been getting COLD at night here, but it's just glorious during the day.  The scents outside are so pungent and delicious.  No matter what is going on, I can step outside, feel the light sun on my face and breathe deeply and I'm in heaven again. I haven't hardly even used incense lately.  I just open a window. 

    I learned last night that my son Joshua, his wife and their children are all moving to Colorado the beginning of next month.  I have mixed feeling about this for a lot of different reasons and I am really praying for this young family.  They are facing some real challenges and I love them so very much.  There are so many pitfalls out there in the world and they seem to have hit every single one.  I will miss the kids and my grandkids a lot.  I don't know when I will get to see them again, but I am going to trust that Goddess will take care of them and give them all they need.  What they need most right now is a fresh start and they feel this is what is going to do it for them.  So all I can do is wish them peace, love, happiness and success on their way.  I love you, kids and I will miss you very, very much.

    Ooops!  Puppy is awake and wants his syringe of milk and egg.  He's not very good at it and each feeding is a struggle.  We've had a couple of good ones, but that was the exception rather than the rule.  Feed puppy then power sleep for an hour before the kids are here.

    Have a brilliant weekend and get outside a bit if you can.  Rest.  Revitalize and feel who you are again.

    Much love,
   

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