Doggone it. I thought I had something to jot down quickly. I am tired, and I am having chocolate milk for dinner for the fourth time in the past ten days. My tonsils are still swollen, I just want to crawl into bed, but I need to take a shower! My tonsils were better this morning, but they start hurting more as the day goes on.
I REMEMBER! This morning I was driving to work and the sun was right in my eyes. I am RIGHT IN MY EYES: intense, bright and blinding. I was going through an area that is under construction, with the road winding and curving. The path changes every few days. Today I was blinded by the sun so badly that I ran over two road markers, they looked kind of like these except they were white with orange stripes. They were plastic and taller than my hood, but I ran them right over. Alarmed I came to a sudden stop and the cars behind me passed by me on the real path. I was embarrassed more than anything, but also grateful that I hadn't just ran over road markers into a giant hole in the road, or driven off a 1 foot dip or something worse.
Song of the Day: Face of the Earth by tobyMac (Portable Sounds, 2007)
BTW, I mainly got onto the computer to post my SOTD, since I did have one.
Until next time.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Embarrassing Driving Moments
Labels: Song of the Day
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Oh, The Things They Recycle
Labels: Sick, Song of the Day
From a recycling company in "the big city". A HUGE pile of toilet paper remnants.
My tonsils have been getting better, but I awoke at 1:30am and could not fall back to sleep again until it was time to wake up at 3:30. I snoozed until 4am, but had to eventually get up. I don't get sick time since I'm not full time and I only have eight hours comp time that I am saving for the last Monday of this month. So off to work I went. My tonsils are still hurting, the right tonsil is worse today. Not getting enough sleep last night did not help. It sure felt good to get home and gargle with salt/cayenne water. I should have brought some to work with me. As it turns out, once I finally got up, I was VERY hungry. So that is probably what kept me awake and I forgot to just get up and have a glass of milk or something quick.
I'm trying to get into bed early tonight.
Song of the Day: All In by tobyMac (Portable Sounds 2007)
Until next time.
Monday, March 12, 2007
More Electricity
Labels: Song of the Day, Things You Don't See In The City
Over the past two or three weeks, new electrical poles have gone up on the main highway in my area. A new subdivision is going up and they need more power! I drive to work in the dark, so I didn't notice the poles being put in place, but finally noticed when the wires were draped from one pole to the next. It was very interesting watching how the heavy wires are hung. They use several pullies on each pole. Today they were taking the pullies off each pole. I was able to pull over and snap a photo of the three linemen in a row.
Song of the Day: No Ordinary Love by tobyMac (Portable Sounds 2007)
Until next time.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Relapse
Labels: blah blah blah, goats, Home Improvement, knitting, My Faith, Sick, Song of the Day
I'm sick again!! I seem to recall at least two people telling me I should be extra careful with myself in couple of weeks after being sick because it would come back on me again. Well, on Thursday evening my throat started feeling sore, this time my tonsils felt swollen. I began taking my "get well" stuff, to include echinachea/goldenseal, vitamin C, vitamin B, cod liver oil, and whatever else seemed logical. I have also taken some L-Lysine because I know it helps with healing mucous membranes. Speaking of mucous... I've also had to take that Guaifenesin stuff. It's supposed to help the mucous thin out. I don't know if I'm having more trouble for having used this stuff, but it seems like I've needed it every day. I'm also fully on my asthma meds (Flovent *and* Albuterol).
But so many things have happened in the past week. First off, dh will be back home with us in two weeks, we are all so happy that he will be back with us. It is hard to fill the shoes of another person who does a major portion of the household, yard and critter responsibilities!
Our air conditioner stopped working about a month ago. I discovered we should have something called a low ambient cooling kit on our unit since we run it year round, no matter how cold it is outside. Dh has mentioned it is "hard" on the unit to run during the winter, but I don't remember him ever mentioning the low ambient kit as a solution... anyway... we finally got the house cleaned up enough to feel comfortable having a guy come out.
About that... the first guy I called verbally attacked me during the conversation. First off, he charges $85.00 for a checkup on the system, and $65 per pound of freon. I'd called another place a week earlier and they charge $55 and $12 per pound of freon. I knew the $65/# was very expensive. After I got the information I needed I said I'd have to give him a call back. He then says to me, "You've already called twice before, are you going to have me come out and fix your AC or not?" I was flabbergasted and responded with, "Excuse me?" As the conversation went on, he demanded to know if I was working with another shop. Finally he seemed satisfied that I wasn't someone out to get him and he said, "Okay, I just wanted to make sure you weren't doing recon for another company." Whew. It was so distressing to me once I got off the phone I started crying a little bit. Wishing we could just wait until dh gets back home so he could take care of this for us.
Then I called the other guy who advertises in our local newspaper. He said he charges $59.95 and $28/# for freon. He was much nicer. We were still going to try to wait until dh got home, but then it got up into the high eighties and was nearly 90°F in the house. It was making all of us cranky, especially ds2. So I talked him into calling the guy out on Friday morning. He came out, and he was a really nice person. We ended up talking a bit, and come to find out his wife leads a church in town. We want to start attending church, and we might try this one out. We went by the church on Friday late afternoon and the daughter was there. She is probably 18 or 19 and getting ready to attend college. So back to the AC. It was kind of weird because he didn't actually fix the unit. I'd mentioned that dh can repair AC units, but he doesn't have the gauges, etc. So this guy says he would be happy to let dh use his tools. Dh doesn't understand why the guy would do that... but I think he was just trying to be nice and give us a break. So he ended up putting FIVE pounds of freon into our unit. From what I understand... if you need less than a pound in a year's time, that's almost normal. But five pounds? That means you have a leak. The guy told me there were two ways to find the leak, but it was expensive. So I guess because I didn't say "find the leak" he didn't want to charge us as much money as it would cost. He also thinks it still might be the inside coil is dirty, deep down in the coils and he told me about a cleaning solution that I could get from Home Depot, which he says is about $4.00 a can. But he charges $120 to do the cleaning, so he told me how to do it. It ended up being $8.xx per can, and he said to buy one for each side of the coil. We haven't tried cleaning it yet.
What was happening with our unit is the inside coils were freezing over, which was in turn causing the unit to run and run and run and run and in spite of running constantly the temperature in the house was staying the same. That's a very bad sign. Air conditioners are very costly, running into the thousands to replace. Most people don't understand all the care that goes into them and wonder why they break so often. It's because air conditioners need regular attention. We have been using these cheapy filters and I wanted to buy something that was washable and found these on the Internet. When I first saw them, they were $70 each and they recommend you buy two. I asked dh about it, and I'm glad I waited! Sheesh!! I was looking around at Walmart yesterday and found they have washable, reusable filters for under $4.00!!!! I bought two, so we can let one soak and be thoroughly cleaned and have a clean, dry one to put in.
Ds2 asked me when I was going to start doing a "Song of the Day". I guess I will start, but his SOTD is one for every single day that he posts. I don't see being able to keep up with one song every single day. So today's "Song of the Day" is tobyMac's Lose My Soul from the Portable Sounds album.
As a surprise for me on Wednesday, ds2 switched out my toilet for my new one. Unfortunately, it is flushing veeerrrryyyyy slowly. You can see here in the photo to the left how very close the water is rising to the top of the rim. We have done a bit of troubleshooting, but this might be one of those things that wait until dh returns. It could be a number of things wrong. Ds2 says the back part of the toilet foot is sitting on carpet, which could cause the carpet to be unbalanced, which could cause a slow flush. Or there could be something in the toilet pipes, which is causing a bit of a clog. The holes under the rim could be clogged, although I poked through each and every one of them with a nail. Anyway, lots of things we could try, but we haven't had the time or energy.
Ds2 has been cooking like a mad fiend all week long. He made himself a daily menu and stuck to it, really liked the idea and the ease - no stress each day "What's for dinner?" so he's asked me to generate a meal plan each week. AGH. Like I need one more thing to do. I figure if we have four week's worth of meal plans we can just do them over and over and over again. Right?
Let's see, he's made Shrimp and Sausage Gumbo ala Alton Brown. He also made my version of Posole, made with chicken instead of beef. The first time we had it was with a good friend, 
I believe it was her birthday and her neighbor made the dish for her, which was one of her favorites. That version was made with beef, but I prefer mine made with chicken breasts He's also made a very expensive, rich, but tasty Salmon with Cream Cheese Dip. Pineapple Upside Down Muffins, which brings me to another thing that happened this week. Ds2 cut his thumb pretty bad. I'll spare you the closeup, gory pics he took with the cut laid wide open. You can trust me, it was GROSS looking. He cut it with a serrated-edged knife whilst trying to open a jar of maraschino cherries. I was out milking and I heard this, "Raaahhhh!" sound from the porch. I thought... "Is he trying to scare me? What was that about?" He disappeared right away, and I put the girl away I was done milking and got the next one out. Then he comes to the porch again and yells, "Come see all the blood!" GREAT! I left the goat on the stand and went inside to see what was going on. He tells me he cut his thumb to the bone. He was letting it just bleed all over the place, so I asked him to rinse it so I could see how bad it was. I really don't think they do stitches in fingers or thumbs, so I told him I didn't think a visit to the ER was necessary. I had him rinse it, checked it out and then had him hold a paper towel to it. He said he wasn't feeling so good, so I had him sit down so he wouldn't faint on me. He was pale looking by that time. We got the bleeding to stop and I went back out and finished milking. When I came back in, I immersed the bucket of milk into the chilling bucket and did a bit of Internet research. I then took a trip to town for butterfly bandages, steri-strips and other assorted bandaging items, plus some finger cots (a small condom-type covering to place on your finger if you need to wash dishes and don't want the cut to get wet or exposed to bacteria while cooking).
I got my sister's birthday gift sent off to her in time to reach her on her birthday! I took a clock and made a new face for it, using a picture of her children when they were younger. A picture from four years ago. She loved it, and she cried when she saw it. She has it in her kitchen. I'm so happy she likes her gift.
On the knitting front... I've actually made a bit of progress on the newest baby sweater. I started out last week with a goal to knit for 30 minutes each evening, but that was really far too much relaxation time spent on knitting, for it was cutting into sleep time after all the chores were completed. I did get another few inches completed though. It takes me about 15 minutes to complete one inch. So it will be slow going on this one, but at least I'm staying with it. I have felt so crappy I haven't even had the strength to knit. Ugh.
I heard that a young lady who helps with blood draws for goats was in town yesterday. I asked to see if she could squeeze me in. Thank God, she never called. I do want to get all the goats tested again for CAE. The only little girl that we sold last year has come up positive for CAE. But the gal who owns her, had a lot of babies from that time period show positive for CAE. She called to let me know, and ask me if I wanted the little girl back. I told her we didn't. It is too hard to deal with. I'm pretty sure our herd is negative, as we keep a closed herd and the only doe we've brought in from was a CAE-free herd. However, we haven't tested for 2-3 years now. And this disease can pop up unexpectedly. Your does might be clean one year and positive the next, simply because immune systems are weaker and they succumb to the virus. At least, this is what I've heard.
On the FlyLady front. I've done NOTHING. I have been too tired, and sick. I have not even shined my sink in probably two weeks now. I have continued keeping ds1's room clean, and today is the day we clean his room again. I still feel tired this morning, and don't want to get any worse so I am not sure what all I'll get done today. Ds2 asked me yesterday, "Why do you put so much pressure on yourself to get things done? Why not take it easy?" Well, easy to say my dear son. He knows how much work it takes to keep this place going.
Let's see, anything else... oh yes. Yesterday I went to a rummage sale. I got a few things there.
Coffeemaker for dh. It's a Black and Decker Spacesaver model, $5. Hope it works! His old one leaks and make a black mess on the counter. There are eight of the glasses, $2.00 for the set. The Crockette was $1.00. The two necklaces and two bracelets were a quarter each. Both necklaces look well made and ds2 saw 14kt on the serpentine necklace. (I wonder if they are worth anything!?) There is a 14kt on the heart necklace, that one cost $0.75. There is a pair of hoop earrings that look like 14kt. I've been wanting a pair of hoops, but haven't wanted to pay the price for them. These were $1.00. My ears will be able to tell, since I can't wear anything less than 14kt or my ears start itching and turning red. A brand new, never been used Windows keyboard for $2. Always good to have a spare on hand. Two Reader's Digest magazines for ds2 which the lady let me have for free. I spent $16, or maybe $14... what else did I get? Hmmm... I think a couple of things were left out in the car.
Well, I think that about catches me up for now. So many more things happened, like on Friday it was so hot that the critters drank up all their water and when we got home after being gone for six hours their buckets were turned over and bone dry. Now we have to get either more water buckets in the pens or start filling them every single day. And now it's time to throw hay.
Until next time.
