December 10 through 13
Dec. 14th, 2021 02:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chochiyo_samaI called my brother to see how he was doing. He has been sick with a bad cold, and 80% of the inmates at the prison where he works are infected with the new covid variant. He said he was not positive for Covid, and his cold was much better. We talked for quite a while, which is unusual. Usually talking for five minutes with him is average. He was doing some housework while we talked, and we said good-bye when he was about to vacuum. He has Fridays off, but my sister-in-law does not. She is still working from home, which is a good thing. They are saving a lot of money by her not needing to drive 40 minutes every day. Also, her vehicle was hit and damaged twice in her company’s parking lot while she has worked there. So, no more of that either.
I accomplished a few things today—I cleaned the litterboxes, opened a new box of litter—very difficult task, added fresh litter to the boxes that needed it, and brutally cleaned out the refrigerator. There were some things in there that were outdated in August! I filled the whole kitchen garbage can with old, yucky food. Then I reorganized the refrigerator so that I can actually see what I have.
We are expecting a serious winter storm today into tomorrow—the last I heard was that we could get up to 18” of snow. I texted the Schwan’s man and told him not to stop at my house due to the expected weather. I told him I hoped his route was cancelled, but if it wasn’t, he should do it as quickly as possible and get home safely. All the school districts in the area reported their closings last night.
Well, as usual, the weather did not come through as predicted. All the schools in my area could have been open all day as it never even started to snow until after 4 pm. Larry, the Schwan’s man, showed up, telling me that he had two items I had on back order and he was running his full route since the weather was fine. It had snowed some in the night, so my deck had about an inch of snow on the railing and the floor was wet. I asked Larry if he would put a handful of peanuts on the railing for my squirrel friends. He did, and before long, they had all been eaten or carried off. I think the squirrels and blue jays constantly watch my deck for treat placement. Ha.
Shortly after Larry left, Ross arrived with my grocery order. We had a little chat, and I told him how I had just cleaned out my fridge and discovered absolutely ancient food mouldering away in there. I laughed and said, “I just hope I can lift it up to get it into the bin outside!”
Sweet Ross said, “Oh, I can take that out for you!” He picked it up like it weighed a feather and dumped it into the bin. I was so thankful. Carrying kitchen garbage which is always heavy out to the bin is very hard for me and really affects my bad shoulder. I have to make him and the girls who work at the store a pan of bars or Scotcheroos or something to show them my appreciation.
By the time I got the groceries put away, I was exhausted and starving. I had two ham links left, so I warmed them up in the microwave and turned them into ham link sandwiches. I also sliced up one of the ripe pears delivered with my grocery order. That ended my work day. I was tired.
The snow started around 4:00, very fine and light but rapidly got heavier and thicker. Not too far north of us, thunder snow took place. Thunder snow is like a summer thunderstorm with thunder, lightning, and very heavy snowfall. It’s a pretty cool thing to witness. We, sadly, did not experience anything that dramatic here. We did end up with around 8” of snow. Just north of us, in Owatonna, they got around 11”. I don’t know if anyone got the 18” they were predicting.
I watched a couple of movies on TV—one of them was Twister. Made me sad about Bill Paxton. I liked him as an actor. He was only 61 when he died. I never did hear if his family won the wrongful death suit against the surgeon who fucked up his heart surgery. He had a great smile and a low-key humor that was fun.
The other movie I watched was Hondo with John Wayne. It is a cheesy western with much slaughtering of Native Americans—though they were at least portrayed as three dimensional human beings for the most part.
Saturday, December 11
I did very little today. I sorted and started my laundry and washed the sink full of dishes that I was too tired to wash yesterday. I had slept in pretty late today, and I spent most of the day watching old cowboy shows on TV and poking around on the internet.
I was pretty shocked to read that while I was watching Twister on TV last night, a massive F-4 or F-5 tornado tore through several states over 200 miles and killed dozens of people. Apparently over 70 people were killed in a candle factory in Kentucky alone. Ugh. Poor souls.
Supper was a Schwan’s microwave lasagna meal. It was just a large slice of lasagna—no other side dishes. It was good, but not as good as homemade lasagna. I am trying to use up the Schwan’s foods in my freezer.
That’s about it.
Sunday, December 12
I ended up being up till 2 am last night as I was watching another old John Wayne movie—The Angel and the Badman. It was one of his older ones—black and white and he was much younger. So, I ended up only getting a few hours of sleep. Ugh. Dumb.
I managed to do my morning routine and fill my pill caddy as I do every Sunday morning. Before getting on the computer for my weekly Zoom with DeAnn, I also bagged up my bedroom and living room garbage and took it to the breezeway and grabbed an apple fritter for breakfast.
DeAnn and I had our Zoom meeting till about 2:30. During this week’s session we each set up three goals for the coming week—one creative, one household, and one personal.
My Creative Goal: Get things in order to write a photo Christmas story using some of my LeeAnn dolls which I will post to one of my doll groups on FaceBook.
· Clear a space to do the work
· Choose 3-4 dolls to use in the story
· Dress them in winter/Christmas clothes
· Assemble and prepare the other materials for the story (the 18” Christmas tree, small ornaments to decorate it with, and so on)
· Do a portrait photo of each of the dolls and write a little “background” paragraph about each of them as an introduction to the characters.
My Household Goal: Thoroughly clean the bathroom (which is truly filthy)
· Scrub the toilet
· Wash the rugs
· Scrub the sink
· Polish the sink’s wood cabinet
· Clean the mirror
· Sweep and scrub the floor
· Take out the garbage
· Wipe down the soap dish, tooth brush holder, and other “sit around” things.
My Personal Goal: Call the mortgage company to set up automatic payments for my refinanced mortgage and call the contractor to hound him to finish redoing the downspouts before the weather gets worse.
It was a sunny day, and the snow was beautiful, glistening in the sun.
At 7 pm, DeAnn, Sue, Tammy, Nancy, Donna (mother in law to Sue’s son), and I had a “ladies’ meeting” on Zoom. We are all fairly isolated due to the Covid crap, and most of us have little contact with other intelligent adult women, so we have these meetings every few weeks to catch up with each other and clutch our pearls over the continuing rape of the nation by the trumplicans. Ha. I have never met Donna before, but she seemed like a decent person. We laughed a lot and snorted in disgust a lot too.
Our meeting went about two hours and we vowed to meet again soon. When it was over, I watched the new episode of Yellowstone and was a bit shocked to witness one of the characters harvesting semen from a stallion. Now, I have known for years that these things are done, but I just never expected to see it graphically presented on television. Whoa.
Monday, December 13
Lily stopped over on her way home from Owatonna. She believes she had a bladder infection and had to run in for lab work. She found Diet Coke on sale and bought me a few six-packs. She also bought me a carton of egg nog, a loaf of French bread, and my mail. She also brought me three blueberry muffins she had baked yesterday.
She was worrying about her plants as she will soon be going to Texas and my cousins will only be watering her plants once a month. So, I went on Amazon and looked for an automatic plant watering device for her. We found one that looked like it would work well, so I ordered it for her. She was going to my mother’s house to deliver her mail. I sent the three boxes of Keurig pods that Mom had asked me to order for her.
Lily is also back to planning to sell her home and move into the senior living center, so I have been saving boxes for her from my Amazon/other deliveries, so she took a few of them with her when she left as well. We had a nice chat about random things. I hate that she is going back to Texas where about 90% of the population appears to be clinically insane, but I have no power to stop her.
I had written and texted a message to the contractor about the downspouts, and received a reply saying he would call the guy responsible for that again. I thanked him. Hopefully this will set the job in motion again.
I started working on the bathroom today too—I scrubbed the toilet within an inch of its life. It was horribly grungy, but now it looks sparkling clean and smells fresh. I took the rugs out to wash and moved a bunch of stuff out of the way so I could clean more easily. I swept the bathroom floor too.
Not much else going on today. I made a Schwan’s frozen spaghetti pod for my supper. Again, it was okay but no where near as good as homemade spaghetti. I was going to roast the beef roast with potatoes, carrots, onions, and cabbage today, but I did not get it done. Maybe tomorrow. I am looking forward to something really tasty because it is homemade.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-15 12:00 pm (UTC)I am determined that if I am ever allowed to remodel my parent's house, I am going to install a counter depth refrigerator so that things cannot hide way in the back. It's actually an incentive to reinstall those original kitchen cabinets too as I think the uppers are shallower than what you find now. I know the ones I have in my 1949 remodeled kitchen have quite shallow uppers and the lowers are shallow enough that I had to cut through the wall so my dishwasher could extend into the area between the studs in order to fit into the lower cabinet. And I'm fine with that. Then stuff can be reached and can't hide in the back where it expired three years ago. I've already looked at cabinet pulls and there are some nice ones that will update the cheap awful hammered copper ones.
I'll bet you are glad you got the siding and stuff done before these storms. You must be very cosy and warm in your house.
I set up the monthly payments to pay off Diana's vet bill. I have a year but $30 a month will pay it off faster. I want to make sure I don't miss a payment.
It's nice you have a "hen" group to shoot the bull with.
It's the middle of December, Omicron is raging and Lily is still going to Texas? Seriously, she need to sell that camper and move into that senior center. Then she'll have friends and hopefully never be going to Texas any more.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-19 02:26 am (UTC)She claims she is going so she can go through all her stuff and sell the trailer, but she doesn't intend to even start trying to sell it until March so she can enjoy the time in Texas.
Also, she has apparently forgotten all about the shitty power grid that caused the deaths of several Texans last winter. As far as I know, the dipshit Texas government has done nothing to insure that it will not happen again.
I would not go to Texas for all the money in the state. All those lunatics in Dallas still waiting for JFK and JFK Jr. to rise from the dead and join tRUMP to seize the presidency and establish himself as "president for life." Too many lunatics in Texas for me.
I think your plans for remodeling sound great. They should do it as it would vastly improve the value of the home.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-19 03:17 am (UTC)My brother won't care as long as it doesn't cost him anything. He certainly wouldn't put any money toward improvements and would likely squawk at repairs and maintenance.
My sister would be against anything to do with changing a thing. At least that was her position before Mr Petty died. Now, she might want to wash her hands of the entire house. She certainly wouldn't live in it. She won't go in that room. Or she might want it all to stick Holiday Inn in it and be rid of him for good, figuring he has a house with no mortgage. He might be able to survive on his part time janitor job to cover utilities and food. Of course, she would expect the three of us to pay property taxes and insurance since we three would own the house. At which I would insist that Holiday Inn pay full market value price to RENT that house. Which he can't afford.
No matter what happens, it is a family feud in the making.
Then there is Dolly. I'm taking her no matter where I end up living. Yeah, my plans would increase the property values immensely. And I have plans where to put ALL of my furniture if I moved in, plus bring over the vintage light fixtures and all of my garden art. I could move stuff over slowly as renovations took place. Live in one part while other parts were undergoing construction.
I want that huge, expensive and hard to fine O'Keefe and Merritt Town and Country range, restore those cabinets and add more, that counter depth refrigerator, that combined master en suite in the front and move that toile and bathroom stuff up to the bedroom up there and add showers to that room and the two downstairs bathrooms as well as a decent adult soaking tub to my new bathroom. With the old kitchen cabinets gone from the hobby room a closet could be added to make it a bedroom but I would still put my old living room set and a TV up there to make it a media room. Downstairs I would put all of my sewing machines in the sewing room but still might use it as an art studio. I basically want the entire downstairs to live in and the upstairs for guests. The only thing I'd do is cover all of the paneling with dry wall compound or replace it with dry wall. All of the carpets would go downstairs to be replaced with more hardwood. It would cost $200,000 or more but would increase the property value likely double that by updating it.
But....it's not going to happen unless I own the house outright and I won't be able to afford to buy my brother and sister out. Even if I could with some inheritance, I would have to sell my house to pay for the renovations and I really want to keep my house, even if I only use it as rental property.