Today was a Mr Blue Sky day!

Crazy question Meme

Click on image to enlarge
I found this over at my friend Poodles Place and decided to tag myself...

Here are the rules:
1. Respond and rework; answer the questions on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your invention, add one more question of your own. (I didn’t replace any questions, but added one of my own.)

2. Tag other people. Sounds simple enough, right?

What is your current obsession?
Blogging

What are you wearing today?
jeans, blouse and my New Balance gym shoes

What’s for dinner?
left over spaghetti and salad

What would you eat for your last meal?
Portillo's beef and cheddar croissant and a chocolate cake shake

What are you listening to right now?
Jon flipping channels in the livingroom

Which language do you want to learn?
I have been trying to master Spanish for the past several years.

What do you love most about where you currently live?
My house, the walking trails and library

What style is your current home decorated in?
Contemporary, medium wood

If you were a time traveler what era would you live in?
Sometime in the future, to see what advances have been made.

What is your favorite color?
Blue

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe?
jeans

What were you doing ten years ago?
Finishing my Masters degree and working full time.

If you had $300 now, what would you spend it on?
A little trip away for hubby and me.

When was the last time you cried?
At a funeral on Saturday.

What are your favorite films?
Caddyshack, Animal House, Mad House, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Summer Place, Giant, Inherit the Wind, too many to list . . .

Your favorite books?
Doris Lessing's Mara and Dann and most of her other books, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, House of Seven Gables by Nathanial Hawthorne, White Noise By Don Delillo, stories by Dorothy Parker...more listed in my profile.

Do you collect anything?
Porcelain mice, books, stamps, postcards, bookmarks, pens

What makes you follow a blog?
Personable, informative, intelligently written.

What was the most enjoyable thing you did today?
Gave my husband a big hug and kiss when he got home after a long day at work.

Ann’s Question: What makes you comment on a blog?
If I feel I have something worthwhile to contribute, funny or serious. I never troll.

Amy’s Question: What is your favorite thing to do when you have some free time?
Read, write letters to my many penfriends, talk on the phone to close friend or my mom.

Tonya’s Question: What is a talent you wished you had?
Ice skate.

Kyooty’s Question: If you could be any other animal other then Human, what would you be?
A dolpin swimming free in the ocean.

Carrin’s Question: Rush just told me that by 2042, white people will be the minority. Do you believe that? Would that be a big deal to you?
I agree that Rush is an idiot. His brain is so fried on drugs what the heck does he know!

Melissa’s Question: Would you want your blog to be as popular as Dooce? What would be some of the pros and cons?
No, I spend way too much time on here as it is. Pros would be if I get some kind of money for it, cons would be all the asshats that would come by to troll and also all the time it would suck up.

Unknown Mami’s Question: What do you admire most about yourself? Don’t be modest.
I have a quick wit and consider myself to be a good writer.

Traci's Question: If you could be anyone else, who would you be?
I would not want to be anyone else.

Poodle's Question: Dogs or cats?
Dogs, cats are evil (sorry my cat-loving friends and family members)

My Question: Where is your favorite vacation place/places?

As far as tagging goes, whoever wants to waste time doing this ! Please let me know if you play along!

Drying clothes outdoors

I love how clothes smell after being allowed to air-dry outdoors in the wind and sunshine. I have a drying rack similar to the one shown here, and I have a lot of clothes that I don't like to dry in the dryer. But our town has a no-clothesline ordinance, which I think is really foo-foo stupid. Yuppies say that clotheslines are an "eyesore". I don't think so. Clotheslines never bother me any. And it's not like people hang their clothes up and leave them there forever. In a couple hours they are dry and we bring them in and put them away.

I get around this clothesline rule with my clothes-drying rack. I set it up on the deck and let nature do the drying for me and then bring them in to fold them and put it all away.

I did this with my bedding yesterday and it all smelled so nice and fresh. It brings back memories of when I was a kid and all of our clothes were dried this way in the summertime. It's a nice, fresh feeling to climb between crisp, freshly-washed, natured dried sheets. Thanks mom for those memories...I love you.

Brain scan results

The results of my brain scan came back already and nothing serious. . . and yes Jon, they could see that no my head is not empty, Mr Funnyman! It appears that my lingering headache was just one long, very stubborn migraine. Possibly made worse by the Estradiol I was on, as we assumed. So, no more estrogen replacements. I have some pills to help ward off a headache when they first start, and if that doesn't work and it gets bad again, I just go in for a shot of Toradol. Hopefully I won't get any more bad ones that last for days and days. That was awful.
(Sorry Mom that I didn't call to let you know I was having the test done and you had to read about it on here.)

Goodbye pool :-(

Sadly, after about twenty six years of having a swimming pool, we are taking it down and giving it away to a friend of our son's. It was getting too much to take care of and no one else had the time or interest to help clean it. It takes a lot of work to manage the chemicals so it doesn't "go green" and look like the swamp monster lives in it. And another thing was that no one used it. We would get it all cleaned out and running and we had to run it daily and put chemicals in daily. Last year I think Jon and I used it twice, at most. No one else had the time or desire to. So, it's coming down, and will be a lot of work to take it down, fill in the huge hole and grow grass there, put additional railing on the lower deck. But once that is done, no more work except cutting some extra grass.

We got the pool in 1983 when the kids were all little and we lived in a different town at the time. They all learned to swim in this pool. I remember when our middle son wanted to just stand on the stairs with a mask on and didn't want to get splashed. He would just block the ladder and scream and yell if he got the slightest bit wet...except for his feet which were in the water. Eventually, he became the crazy one to jump in and do all kinds of stunts.

We literally lived in the pool all summer, all of us getting nice and tanned from the sun's rays. When we moved to this town, we took the pool down, brought it here and dug a hole and went through the ordeal of setting it up. Only at this house, instead of flat across, we dug it out to nearly six feet in the middle and got an expandable liner. The kids loved jumping into it and doing all kinds of tricks. Jon would jump in, too in those days. I think now if he jumped into it all the water would come out or the sides would collapse! Shhhhh...don't tell him I said that!

I will miss the pool, but we are getting older and have to just admit and accept there are things we just can't or don't want to do anymore. We will just buy a membership at the Y or alumni membership at the university I went to. We can still enjoy swimming, but leave the maintenance to someone else.

Brain scan

I've been getting these terrible migraines . . . this last one has been with me for seven days. Though the pain is quite decreased because of Ultram, it's still there, a dull ache. I went to the doctor for an injection of Toradol last night and that helped quite a bit. But by six a.m. it had totally worn off and the head pain started again. I took two Ultram as directed and it eased off again, so have been taking that every six hours to keep it at bay. The doctor sent me for a brain scan. Jon, being the wiseguy that he is, Mr. Funnyman...said "well, did they find one in there?" hahaha
:P

It's probably just a stubborn migraine. I was on Estradiol (estrogen) and know those can cause some nasty headaches, and can also make migraines worse. The doctor wanted me to have the brain scan to make sure it's not something more serious. Lupus can also cause terrible headaches because of the inflammation it may cause. The brain scan would also show if the Lupus is causing fluid build-up in the covering of the brain, or inflammation in the vessels, etc. It's great we have the technology today to be able to catch things early if that's the problem. But right now, doctor thinks it's just a stubborn migraine.

Blast from the Past

Joe Cocker, Leon Russell...Cry Me a River! Jon and I loved Leon Russell and Joe Cocker...listened to all their stuff again and again. This sure brings back memories. Look how young they are, and we were still teenagers when this was made. Crazy.

In Memoriam

So sad we have to say goodbye to those we love. Grandma K wasn't a blood relative, but she was Jon's second mom. She had taken care of him starting when he was only six-years-old while his mother was working and he just started hanging out with the K family, going on family vacations with them, being there for holidays and special activities. He did everything with this family. When his real mom died when he was only 17, and he had no close blood relatives left (his half brother is 21 years older and lives far away), she and her family "adopted" Jon and all of us and treated us just like family all these years. Grandma and Grandpa K were the only paternal grandparents our kids have known. She bought them gifts, invited us for dinner, remembered their birthdays just like her own blood grandkids. We have spent every Christmas Eve with her and her family and they were all kind enough to share with us.

The wake is Friday, the funeral Saturday. It's going to be so extremely sad. But she lived a good, long life (until she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's a few years ago and had other problems as she got older). She was 86.

Migaloo - Albino Humpback Whale on The Great Barrier Reef

What a sight this must have been to see for real.

Invasion

I suspect it may have been raccoons that got into our trash can and made an incredible mess all over the driveway and grass this morning. Since the garbage guys seem to have done something with our lid, we were taking a chance leaving the bags just stacked in the open can, but so far we had been lucky . . . till today. It was totally disgusting.

The "invaders" could have been a pack of coyotes since the meat packages were all half-eaten. Coyotes have been coming into the neighborhood in search of food since more and more of their land is being taken up with subdivisions of houses.

I don't think it could have been a deer. Deer have been wandering around, too. But they don't usually attack the meat wrappers and don't usually dig so nice and neatly. I don't think the coyotes would be so careful as to leave the can standing, either. Had to have been those crafty raccoons and their opposable thumbs.

Whoever the culprits were, they really made a mess and wasn't a pleasant thing to wake up to at all.

Stavros Flatley - Britain's Got Talent

This is a riot! The first guy has Michael Flatley's moves and mannerisms perfectly! Great spoof.

Hot Time Summer in the City

For all that hot weather we are having.
Lovin' Spoonful - another blast from my past. 1966, I was 12.

Happy 55th Mom and Dad!

Hi Mom and Dad, Happy Anniversary tomorrow! Hope you have a good day! Seems like we just celebrated your 50th not that long ago. The time is rolling by too quickly.

Enjoy your day, will see you soon to bring you your present.
Love you guys very much.

Windows

After 22 years of living in this house, it's time to replace the windows. Not something we want to spend our money on, but one of those home maintenance things that must be done. We put in wood windows when we first built the house, and they were the windows the construction company stipulated we have. And now we are having to replace them.

So, hubby orders all 16 windows at the same time and plans to install them all on his upcoming scheduled vacation time. I would rather have gone to the Bahamas or somewhere exotic with the money, but like I said, this must be done. So, the windows were all delivered on Saturday, all but the one window we really need first. Jon called to find out where the heck it was, and they said they didn't know. So, the next day no phone call so he called again. No one knew anything. They said it would probably be on the truck yesterday, and it wasn't so they said it probably would be in today. Then they called him back today and said they forgot to make the friggin' window! Now, why did it take nearly a week to find that out?

So, now he is going over there to where we bought them from after work and I am not going with because when he gets pissed off it makes me nervous. He will not be nice, he's been nice for a whole week, so it's built up for a bit. But he's in the right for being upset. Just that one window was more than $600...why wasn't it made? Why did it take so long for them to find out it wasn't made? If they had investigated properly, the thing could be being made at this moment instead of just starting the process of making a new one.

It's like this with everything nowadays. The new generation of workers just don't care.

Tom Terrific!

I used to watch this all the time when I was a kid!

Dog attacking his own leg

This dog is really, really stupid!

Hot and humid...blah!

Thank goodness for air conditioning. But we are going to have an enormous bill if this heat keeps up. It's incredibly hot and humid here, and I can't imagine being without a/c like my poor sister and her hubby. Their a/c unit caught fire a couple days ago and they have had repairmen working on it for two days. My Mom and Dad's a/c also went out yesterday and fortunately theirs was able to be repaired in one evening. Otherwise they would have had to go stay with my brother with their little dog till it was fixed. This is the kind of weather where the cooling centers are full of over-heated people and pets.

Hard to believe that just a couple weeks ago people were complaining that it was so cold and wondering when the summer weather was going to arrive. Well, now here it is. I had a hunch that we were going to get hit with extreme heat after freezing for so long.

My flowers are loving it. I bought some hens and chicks to plant yesterday and still haven't done so yet. Something is happening to me now that I am older. I love to plant stuff and I actually can cook. Guess I am getting to that "grandma" stage, but only need the grandbabies to make it all complete. Hear me Jeff and Whitney??? ;-) (wink)

More foot crap

Going today to have plaster molds made of my feet to have new inserts made for my shoes so hopefully that will stop the incredible pain I have when I walk. I will be so glad to get rid of the big robotic-looking boot that is so hot to wear in this weather.

I have had plasters made before, and custom inserts made for the plantar fascitis and they helped tremendously, so hopefully they will help again this time and prevent another operation. If this doesn't work, it's back to surgery to release the plantar tendon and nerve that is pinched...and to remove the bone spur. I am going to try all possible things to avoid having to go through that again. If I end up back on crutches or in a wheel chair again I will go crazy! I am sure Jon will too, because being caretaker for all this time is really getting to him. I am just starting to be able to do normal things again and while he is a good husband and will take care of me, it is wearing on him. He has his own problems with sciatica and joint stuff that he complains little about. He always puts me first.

So, let's hope this does the trick!

Give me my senior citizen discounts!

At first I was resistant to the AARP card and admitting that I was now getting into the senior citizen "age range" and kept ignoring the advertisements and invitations to join AARP after my 50th birthday a few years ago. But then I needed new glasses and when they tallied up the tab for that I was like EEEEGHADS! $430 for new lineless bifocals. Well, the girl at the eye place said that if I had an AARP card I could get 20-30% off, so I went home and signed up online. I went back to the eye place and ordered my new glasses for only $320. Still a lot, but much better than before. A big savings.

Now I am paying attention to what I can get for merely being old. LOL! I can soon get the Senior menu prices at Denny's for just being 55 (which happens in a couple of months! yay!) and I can get free coffee at different restaurants and shops. I can get 10% off at certain stores on certain days. Kohl's has senior citizen day on Wednesday (or is it Tuesday?) where older people get 20% off.

Aging has its advantages. :-)

Father's Day

Father's day at Mom and Dad's looks pretty much like the little cartoon here. It's getting to be more like "open house" for occasions anymore, though. People coming and going since there are so many of us now and the grandkids are getting all grown up and girlfriends, boyfriends, children of their own.

Mom made a big pot of spaghetti and a nice salad and for dessert she made her own homemade chocolate cake. Her cakes are the best. (Thanks Mom for the nice meal.)

So, while we were there my sister arrived (her hubby is sick, poor guy), my two nephews came by, one with his girlfriend, the other nephew's girlfriend had to work or something. And one of my brothers came over and his wife, and then Jon and I. My other brother and his family had been their earlier. He works midnights so had to get back to take a nap before work.

But it was another nice get-together, as usual.

Dad, hope you had a real good day and hope you enjoy the movies we got you and the Beethoven CD. :-)