Wow, it's been a really long time since I have been here,I guess that shows how absolutely boring my life is. Stuck in a house in a state I don't want to be in, a real estate market in the dumper and no improvement in sight. Christmas has come and gone and it was better because it was scaled down.  I want to scale down my life. The first thing I am going to do is put all my balances on one credit card and then I will send them all of my money every month until it is paid off. Of course, I have said this many times before.I have actually paid them all off before so I know I can do it.
My latest weird idea is to move to Costa Rica, Panama or Equador. I hear you can live life very well there for  under a k a month for 2 people. Too bad we are always going to be 3 people. If I can't go foreward with the big move, I guess I want to redo the laundry room and install a backsplash in the kitchen. Redoing the laundry room consists of 14 knobs for the cupboards there. The kitchen backsplash is simple, wash down the walls and use 4mm stone tiles  that are peel and stick, that can't be too hard, can it? Might as well make the place look decent just in case the real estate market comes back sometime this century!
I am tired of cold and rain, I was born to be in the sun,I am a freaking fire sign for Gods sake! Ok this is a good tho pathetic start to getting back to blogging.
Today we stopped by an Elk reserve on our way home from "the big city". We had a camera to take pictures if they were close. They were close alright, one stepped over the fence and was just waking along eating the grass, about 8 feet away from us. I decided the best thing to do was to hide in the car, so if he thought of charging I woud have metal between us. He must have weighed about 1000 pounds,so  he was pretty huge. I do not want a thing with giant pointy horns that weighs half a ton coming at me! Well that was my boring day in my boring life. I will try to think up a good story to tell soon.:)

Hey...

Happy New Year, everyone!

Back home

Well, Dave gave it a good shot, but he just wasn't able to function on his own. He needed move suppervision and I think he got lonely, so he asked to come back home. He got 3 months to test it out and did okay/not okay. He is gullible, he picks bad peope for friends, His credit card ( which he took without permission) was run up to almost 1200.00, his cable bill was 130.00 due to a guy buying porn, which he has no idea how to do, same as people going to the library and buying things he has no use for and didn't even know what it was used for ( a capo). A lot of the charges were his but not all, cab rides ( he has 150.00 a month free cab rides) He decided trhat he didn't like working late at night after some guys called him a "retard". So now he is back into the system, trying to go to work for a different place doing yardwork. They also have group homes, which he will hopefully get into, as he has lived in that situation before and done well...not so much mom and dad and enough supervision to stay out of trouble. It was a very nice break for us even though he spent most of his week here "visiting us".

The New Apartment Dweller

My baby has finally flown the coop, a major fete for him. We moved him into his own apartment on Sunday.  He is completely ecstatic. Now all he needs is to start working. He is going to work for a man that has jobs  all over town,mostly janitorial, which David has done before. He has contracts with the hospital, the Court, the library and also has contracts for cleaning apartments when people move out. He pays minimum wage, which most companies who hire the mentally disabled don't do. They do get a break from the government, at least that is how it worked when we  lived in California.
So David moved out on Sunday, then he invited us over for dinner on Monday night, he cooked us hamburgers and veggies. ( OK, so I did the veggies) it was tasty. This morning he got fancy and made himself home fried potatoes with bell peppers, onions and eggs with Italian seasoning. That was really good! He can cook a few things  and he will learn others as he goes along. Today I taught him how to make hard boiled eggs because he wanted them to put in tuna salad.
He had been on a list to move into a made over old hotel that has studio apartments that was about 2 miles from us, we all liked that idea because it is a secure building. Unfortunately, there is a very long waiting list so we looked around and found him a one bedroom ( better than anything I ever had starting out) The rent is affordable for him and he got cable t.v. hooked up yesterday, which was why we were there, so we could write the check.  last night I got a collect call from him because he said his cell phone wouldn't work, he kept saying it wouldn't charge. I had to take his dad to the oral surgeon this morning ,and David had an appointment with his state worker this afternoon so I parked at the dentist , left hunnyboy meting in the chair , he said the drug he took before he went in was about the equivalent of 4-5 scotches. Then I walked the block to the apartment and took looked at his phone, the screen was on but it said emergency calls only. What had happened was that he got a screen freeze and took the battery out and put it back in, but the sim card fell out and he put it back in backwards so the phone thought there wasn't one and so it would only allow  911 calls.He is also excited about getting a job soon... he hasn't worked since we moved and that has been 6 1/2 years ago. That is our fault because we live out of town and there is no bus service out here, but now if I have to, I will take him to work and pick him up, just so he can do it. The state is giving him $150.00 a month in cab fees, so he will have that option and he will be getting 20 hours a month of one on one  service thru another agency...they will take him shopping or to appointments if we arn not available, or just out for the day for a hike, go to the mall, etc.There is also limited in town bus lines which are cheap enough, and he used to ride the bus all over Southern Calif. so I know that is doable. Since he can't afford internet service and because he is afraid someone will break in and steal his laptop he has decided to leave it here with us and use it when he comes over. Since he is within walking distance of the library I will take him there and show him how to use their computers. That's all for now. I am sure exciting days are ahead, and I hope , rewarding for him.

Holding our collective breaths

Finally, our youngest son has been accepted into a program that will help him live a more independant life.He is now on a waiting list for his own little studio apartment. It is in a converted hotel and is a secure building. It is about 2 miles from where we live, and 1/2 mile to the mall, and grocery store.He will get bus passes and taxi vouchers, so he will have transportation, and since I don't work I am also available to take him places. He will also have a P.A., sort of an aid to help him do things, shop, cook, whatever he needs.This will be very interesting, D will be 40 on his birthday and has never been  able to live on his own before, not so sure that he will be abe to handle it, but he certainly deserves the chance to see if he is capible of it.. He has many meetings schedualed so that his case worker can get to know him well, and what level of help he will need, they will also help get him a job, so even if he doesn't move out right away he can at least get out of the house for part of the day. That is the ony problem with living in the boonies, nothing to do,nowhere to go, and no way to get there except for us. It is not an area condusive to him riding his bike, the roads are narrow and there are no bike paths it is also very hilly.
Anyway, we are all waiting with our fingers crossed, but with the budget problems in this country right now, we expect to have a  several month wait before he can move. At least we are in the system now!

Tsunami Alert

We have been under a tsunami alert since 3 a.m., no damage so far and probably won't be, but they have blocked all the roads with beach access, which kinda chaps my hide, because the one I wanted to go to has cliffs that are very far above the ocean, more than 50 feet at least. But since the waves won't be big enough, I guess that the photo op just isn't there. A friend of mine was called and told to stay home from work. Where she works is right on the water, it is a ship building/refitting business. She is hoping it's stil there tomorrow. Ah, life in the great north west!

Cats

I wonder why cats choose the places they like to sleep.This cat , Fuzzball, loves to sleep in the washing machine. I wonder if they just feel more secure that way, since they have something against their back, or if it just a leftover from kittenhood when they all slept together in a big furry pile?

This guy and the alpha male , love to sleep in our bed with us, but this one will go out about midnight and come back in in the morning around 6:30, he is one of 2 that really want to spend most of the time outside, the other 2 have decided that they are really house cats and go out, but come back in in a few minutes.   Every night,  or very early morning, the alpha male gets on my nightstand and starts pushing things off to the floor, then he starts playing with the lamp cord, and the controls to my electric blanket.  He used to play with the pull on chains to my lamp and turn it on in the middle of the night. He can't do it now because I have wrapped them around the  globes so he can't reach them . If I ignore him, he will start clawing on my sheets, anything he can do to make noise so I will get up and feed him, this is fine anytime after 5:30 a.m. but not appreciated at say, 3:30 a.m. Everyone says that is odd because they are both feral cats. I dunno, cats just always find me. We are down to 4 1/2 cats now. I say 1/2 because one comes around for a bite to eat, and craves massive amounts of pets. He belongs to the people next door, but I think he is lonely because he had a dog to play with his entire life, until a few months ago when they had him put down. All I know is that cat is craving attention and affection, good thing he gets along with all my cats!

oh well

forget the previous post, he has now decided that Las Vegas would be better. I told him I don't really care where we go because he is my home.

One dry day...we head north

Sunday was actually a very nice day, it was a little overcast and a bit foggy in the morning, but the sky was dry .We drove north to a little beach town called Yachats( yaa hotz) it is very small and the beaches are beautiful. However lately we have been talking about moving to Belize. Of course we would need to vacation there several times, in different areas and different seasons. Belize is a tiny country at the south eastern end of Mexico, next to Guatamala and north of Honduras. It was part of the British commonwealth and the official language is English, law is based on English law, so it wouldn't be such a huge transition as it would be moving to Costa Rica which was another place we thought of. Moving  there you fill out a form to move there as a retired person and you don't pay taxes , not even to import your things from the U.S. The rate of exchange is currently 2;1, so our money would go twice as far. It is also pretty close to the States, a couple of hours by air. I am having a great time researching this. If we move, I will demand a guest room so people can come and visit. We are pretty friendly, even if I am very shy, once I know you I get over it. I have had people from a chat room  come and stay with us before, and it worked out well. Just think, you could get free digs for vacation in a tropical paradise! I am not sure how far above the equator it is, I will put that in after I look it up.



looking at Yachats



driving back south



looking north to town



Damn you rainy weather!

I realise that rain is not neary as terrible as floods, hurricanes,blizzards,mudslides, earthquakes or tsunamis, but it certainly can ruin a day you are going out to shoot some scenery. Saturday morning we drove from our house all the way down to California, it rained every inch of the way, I took a grand total of 2 pictures, well the same picture twice, once in color and once in black and white . It makes me feel just like this:
click on picture to see  all of it.

some pictures

these are elks at the local elk preserve...I have only met the kind of elks that drink a lot before this.

 

                           

it is kinda cool to live in the forest, when you are only 5 or so minutes from the ocean.

just to prove that every once in a while we have actual blue in the sky!

this river was running really fast( it was very noisy,too)

                                    

Contgrats are in order...

...for my cousin Rachel, and her lady Katherine, who just got married!

But wait...

It isn't supposed to look like this at sea level, unless you are at some pole or another. It isn't even winter yet!

Happy Halloween

This picture is a little blurry, I guess the person taking the picture had had a couple of drinks too many? Mr. Punxxi has white hair because I sprayed it that color. Halloween is my favorite day. We had a party that worked out well, and was a lot of fun.Especially since it was kind of a last minute deal. Next year we will plan ahead then I will be able to get more decorations, I really want a fog machine!

What goes around comes around

Just when I got the new laptop all set up and  the old one packed and ready to mail off to Ms J, I was running an update on mr punxxis desktop and it crashed  and not a crash I can fix...well it has been behaving badly, I was going to run the BIOS update then check for virii and other crapola. It got to the part where it was going to  reboot, it just blacked out and wouldn't even POST. I spent the next several hours on the phone, first with the extended warranty people who have set up an inhome repair ( I hope) and then online with Dell, New Delhi division so that I could have a cd of the drivers sent to me since they don't ship them with new computers anymore .
The point is that how fun is a new,mega wonderful, amazing  and speedy laptop when you have to actually (gasp!) share it? All I can say is thank god we use carbonite to back all of  our files/pictures  etc . It made it so easy to transfer everything over here to the new kid . Don't worry, I share everything with mr.punxxi, even tho he lies and says oh i have to check my email or i have to do some banking, mostly he is playing hearts or slingo.  Me, I do important stuff, I read all of your blogs!

ya hoooooooeyyyyyyyyyyy

The new lappy will be here tomorrow...2 days early! I can't wait. Then the data transfer begins and when it is set up you will get to see it. The Amazing Gracealien. What? you don't name yer toys?

I have gone insane

Today I ordered a new laptop, and no one will know until it shows up.  But look at it, much better than this one memorywise...I will probably give this one to my grandaughter. She has just started college and if Mr. Punxxi  doesn't want this Toshiba, it's all hers ( she never asks for anything!!!) Here's what the new baby will have ( it is being built as I type, should be here on the 20th)

1 224-8107 Space Black - Anodized Aluminum 


1 317-5661 Intel Core i7 740QM Quad Core Processor, 1.73GHz (2.93GHz Turbo Mode, 6M Cache) $0.00

1 317-3664 6GB Memory (1x 2GB, 1x 4GB DDR3) $0.00

1 330-8812 Alienware M17x 150W A/C Adapter $0.00

1 320-8856 17-inch WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 RGB LED (1200p) $0.00

1 320-8987 1GB GDDR5 ATI Radeon Mobility HD 5870 $0.00

1 342-0671 256GB SSD - Samsung Solid State Drive $0.00

1 313-8796 AlienFX Color, Plasma Purple $0.00

1 421-2261 Alienware Command Center, M17x $0.00

1 421-1400 Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English $0.00

1 420-9691 DataSafe Local BackUp $0.00

1 420-6436 PC-Restore, Dim/Insp $0.00

1 410-1883 Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.0 Multi-Language $0.00

1 313-8569 Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BR-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW) $0.00

1 421-1304 CyberLink PowerDVD 8.0 Software $0.00

1 421-1305 Nero 9 Media Burning Software $0.00

1 313-8944 5.1 Channel Audio $0.00

1 430-3739 Intel Ultimate N WiFi Link 6300 a/g/n 3x3 MIMO Technology $0.00

1 330-6348 Automatic Updates: On $0.00

1 950-3337 1 Year Limited Warranty $0.00

1 908-2207 Dell Hardware Warranty Plus On-Site Service, Initial Year $0.00

1 922-3410 Third Party At Home Service, 24x7 Technical Support, Initial Year $0.00

1 950-9797 No Warranty, Year 2 and 3 $0.00

1 421-1721 Soft Contracts,Banktec Care,Alienware $0.00

1 994-3730 Warranty Support,Initial Year $0.00

1 330-0171 S and P Drop-in-Box Marcom forDHS Notebooks $0.00

1 421-1360 Steam and Portal Factory Installed $0.00

1 421-2611 AlienGUIse Theme Manager with Breed Theme $0.00

1 421-1573 Alienhead 3D $0.00

1 421-1591 Alienhead 3D $0.00

1 430-0628 Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR $0.00

1 330-6175 Standard Nameplate $0.00
 I honestly don't know why I bought it, I already have 2 pc's and a laptop and a netbook..I guess that is why I have an iPhone and an iTouch which is the same as the phone but no phone or camera ...of course the new ones will have the same camera dealie as the iPhone .Oh toys, how we all love them.wth he buys golf stuff i buy technology.

So long summer.

That means its time for boots again! Yay.It also means that I better clean my dusty bedroom now that the windows aren't open  24/7.  It has been raining all week, just the usual Oregon weather. Bah, as in humbug.

nice new shoes

This is what mr. punxxi bought me for our "original" anniversary...he said, they are so you!

Summer, finally

It has not rained for at least 2 weeks! I am stunned by this, last year it rained most of the summer and all my plants died, because it got too cold at night.
I just heard the most awful  noise outside the window, I thought that one of the cats had caught a bluejay, but when I turned around and looked out, I saw that it was a baby raccoon doing it's (very loud) distress call for it's mama. Mama was there in a couple of seconds. They are just starting to bring the babies out, they are so cute, and little enough that if they bite you they don't hurt because their mouths are too small. The last few years I have had babies eating out of my hand, a couple used to run up my arm, these are now the parents but are still wild animals so I am very careful with them..when they bite it hurts and breaks the skin . Since they are rabies carriers I try to be careful...so far I'm not rabid  :o)

Today

 feel pretty good, despite having  broken my left baby toe and having a nasty viral infection....I wonder if it's whooping cough, I just came back from California and they are having an epidemic  there. Of course being of the medical persuasion, I am , like many others of the same ilk, very non-compliant. I haven't even checked my blood sugar in a couple of months, didn't even take  my glucose meter to Cali with me.

why I miss California

Where else would you see a dog in pink goggles riding in a convertible Lexus?

I'm so ready...

...to go to Southern California, where there will be warm air...it won't be all that sunny because June is the month of gloom in SoCal. It has to do with temperatures in the desert and by the coast. I don't care tho, it is not wet or cold!  It is raining again today...I don't think it will ever stop, we have not had a real spring again this year, we are going from winter to winter it looks like. I will be glad to go down to see the oldest kid and a couple of grandkids, the youngest is graduating from high school, but she has already given out all her tickets so we won't be attending that, but we will take her out on the weekend for fun shopping...that is a tradition :o)
Now, I am trying to get some color on me so I don't look like a ghost, I have a few more days to work on it and then work on it down there. I have never been this white in my entire life. I have always been a beach baby and a fool for the sun. We are going to look at a few properties  while we are down there, just for future reference. Can't move if we can't sell this house, and it's been on the market for over 2 years. We don't have to move so we don't do dramatic price drops like some people have had to do. We did drop down 25k after a year and a half, but that is as far as we are going, anyone can make any offer that they want, because we do have a bottom line that is considerably lower.
If nothing else, it makes me keep the house neater than I would otherwise. If I think I have to stay here a few more years, I am gonna demand either new carpeting or  new laminate floors ( that is my choice...the carpet needed to be replaced when we moved in)
I went up to Seattle, Washington a couple of weeks ago, to hook up with  a couple of girls I used to work with. One of them was up there taking classes for her job as a nurse, she specializes in ortho. The other was a lady I worked with in Respiratory Care, but who has retired and just went along to see Seattle. That was the first time that I have gone somewhere by myself in about 20 years....it was fun and a much needed break from my son who is mentally disabled and sometimes a real pain in the arse. The older he gets, the harder it is to deal with him. He will be 39 next month but is mentally about 8 and has Schizophrenia on top of that. We are now looking into getting him back into group or semi independant living and getting him back to working. He has been on vacation for the past 5 1/2 years because they don't have the resources here that they do in a large city. It will take at least 90 days before we find out if he will be accepted into the program,  because they have to get information from every agency that he dealt with in Cali. Anyway I think he needs to be on at least one more medication, he is so angry and bitter all the time. That is because he is smart enough to know he isn't just like everyone else and he hates it. We are thinking we all need a break from each other, maybe that will help...I know it will help us. Between Mr. Punxxi's mom and punxxikid we are surrounded by   demands and anger and nasty words , we need a break! That is why Cali is looking so good, they will both still be here, she lives in a retirement home and he will be staying with a couple of different friends since he decided that he didn't want to go with us. We were going to make him because we know that he would have a good time once he was there, but he was being so nasty that we made arrangements  and then told him that he wasn't going.  I know it sounds mean, but Mr. Punxxi and I are thrilled to have no tension for a couple of weeks!

Happy Mothers Day

Here in the states it is mothers day today. My  youngest son and husband bought me an iphone, which I got last week, so far I'm lovin' it even though I don't know how to do much with it yet. I  will print out a users manual next week, then I will study it. A few years ago I had a Blackberry with online access  etc. But then times called for austerity so I told him I would give all the online stuff up with the stipulation that when I started getting Social Security that I was buying an iphone and would pay the extra 30 bucks a month for being online . He said that is fair, so that's how it was . Now I haven't gotten a SS check yet, and he bought the phone for me. I will pay for  the online stuff tho when I do.I don't care, I am a freak about tech stuff, whether or not I know much about it. That is why in a house with 3 people living in it there are 4 computers, I am the one that sets them all up, installs and removes things, and listens to Mr. Punxxi whine when things don't work the way he wants them to. It is very funny to me because I never had a computer until 1996. Never worked with them which he had done for several years. Everything I know( not too much) I learned by playing with my first computer. It was a fun hobby, AOL had just gone to unlimited access, so I would spend all night online, talking to a group of people that went to a political humor board...the board is long gone, but now we are all on facebook together, we have met in person several times( in Las Vegas, mostly) The people I meet online are my best friends. I am somewhat afflicted with social anxiety, so it is perfect for me, I feel more confident online, maybe because I can edit my mouth, can't do that in public, yanno.  Anyway as you have noticed by now, this posts isn't really about mothers. Maybe that is because mine never was much of one, but she has been dead for 9 years  or so. I wasn't much of a mother myself, but I did do what I thought was the best thing for my boys when I divorced their father...I gave him custody and he raised them. 20 years later we got remarried and it is sooo much better this time around. We have a lot of fun this time. I guess getting married at 18 and pregnant puts a lot of stress on you. Anyway, I wish all the great moms out there happy mothers day, even to my honey, cos he was a great mother to my kids!
Oh yeah, the reason that I stayed up all night yakking is because I worked 12 hour night shifts at the time and always stayed on my same schedual on my days off, much easier on the body not to try and go back and forth.

OOPS

Well d/l movies online didn't last long as I was notified by Verizon that I was in violation of blah blah blah. Yeah well that is true, it is called stealing , so everything is deleted now and hopefully they won't have to give my info to the movie company, cos a 250000 fine is more than I can afford. I wonder how everyone else gets away with this stuff? I kept the movie that I paid for tho. Also, the rental house is rented, and to a stable type person at that, she is an Oncology nurse at the local hospital and all of her info is perfect. We checked her job and her previous rental and they were impeccable. Yay, no stress. Now if only we could sell our house( or find a handyman to take care of it cheaply). Everyone is sick here, the guys have a nasty cold, courtesy of the evil M-I-L) I must have an ear infection, because I get dizzy whenever I bend over or turn over in bed, things spin around. If it does't stop by Monday I guess I may actually go to the doc, maybe not. That is a  bad habit of most people that work or have worked in the medical field, you either become a hypochondriac or totally non compliant( that's where I am, I am the fool that treats myself) At least it gives me an excuse for being lazy for  a couple of days, falling over in public looks suspicious, yo know? The weather is still nasty and cold, rainy and overcast when it isn't raining, ah, spring in the Pacific Northwest, makes me miss the spring in the Pacific Southwest more everyday.

Day of Rest

Even tho we just put the rental in the paper we are on an overnighter, DaPunx can tell them to call back on Wednesday.Unfortunately, the spa is not open until Wednesday...no biggie I still have 90 minutes @ the spa at home. So where am I? I am currently sitting in my beautiful  hotel room at a casino while the guys play golf. You can see what I am doing,typing this! I am also burning DVD's, cos ya know I am a major multi-tasker! I have 2 more to  burn, then I will look for some more..I am happy that I have had Avatar since Feburary,  and I haven't even finished watching it yet. I guess it goes on sale in a few days, the 22nd, I think. I burned Sherlock Homes last night, I will see if I can find Alice In Wonderland after this. Kick Ass isn't available just yet, but I am sure it will be soon enough. If anyone has any movie suggestions, send them along. Well off to read all you lovely people that I read, almost everyday.
xx
punx

One more day

I should be through cleaning the rental house by tomorrow. I am very happy to have that out of the way. If the real estate market were better we would sell it and buy another one to flip, but it isn't, so we won't yet. I think that  the last renter used it for a meth house, but I don't know for sure. I do know she was raising marijuana, because you can legally do that here if you have a medical marijuana card, which she did. You are only allowed to grow 6 plants, but according to one room mate she had the entire garage full of plants...This is a weird state, you can carry a concealed weapon and grow dope. I have a permit to carry a gun, but don't. I don't grow pot either, but know a lot of people that I can get it from, if I want. The law says you can grow and use it for medical purposes, but that if you work somewhere that has a no drug policy, even if you have a card you can be fired if you fail a u.a.. I will be glad when the place is rented out and I can go get a massage;I got  a certificate for one for my birthday but haven't been able to schedual it yet.

Spring Cleaning

Today we are cleaning out the guest room, getting it ready for our son, Dapunx, to switch bedrooms because that room has a closet twice the size of his present room. We installed blackout curtins, moved all the furniture out and shampooed the carpet. That is because of one of the problems with feral cats is that they will always mark their territory. I try very hard to keep things as clean as possible, but they are kinda sneaky about it at times. So, first I vacuumed the $#!& out of the carpet, then got on my hands and knees and scrubbed down all the baseboards with vinegar and water to make sure there is no kitty odor in the room, spot treated all the spots on the carpet and then MrPunxxi shampooed it. In the interim, we indulged me in my favorite sport...throwing stuff out and rearranging the left over stuff. I have in the past 2 weeks donated 3 extra large (50 gallon) trash bags of stuff out of my closet...not all clothing mind you, but I had a lot of stuff in my closet because I took the clothes hanging bar out of it last year and put in 5 rows of shelves. But I decided it looked messy all the time and since we will never take out house off the market, you just never know when someone might pop in to preview the house. A strange thing is that most people would like to hang their clothes in the bedroom closet, but I turned another bedroom into a closet/workout room, it  even has a t.v. by the treadmill(aka clothes hanger). Anyway the satillite dish guy will be out to install the cable in the back bedroom so that  DaPunx can watch t.v. in there. So out went all but 2 of the shelves we installed, I moved the top  one up as far as I could and put the bar adaptors on and hung a new bar in there so it looks like a real closet, again.
MrPunxxi is sort of a pack rat type, so I have been making him watch the programs about hoarders . He is not that bad, because that is an actual mental illness, but I think my kids might be, but DaPunx can't do it since he lives here with us . I would like him to go back to a group home situation, but we haven't really checked into it up here. He awlays says he wants to save up his money and move to an apartment by himself, but having the mentality of an 8 year old makes it impossible.
Well that's all I'm doing for today because it's my birthday and I try to sluff off as much as possible on it!  Besides, tomorrow I have to start all over on the room he is moving out of, the new guest room.

it's ba-aa-a-aakkkk

Well, the Verizon guy came and went and confirmed what I already knew, that my dsl modem was dead. I told mr.punxxi that was the reason we couldn't get online, but as usual he decided that I am only a blonde chick, and therefore could not be right( naw, he just wanted them to check it out 1st) So I called mr punxxi up and told him and that I was going to get a new one. Since he was nearby, he asked were I was going, so I told him Staples, he says,"I'll meet you there". As soon as I walk into the store he is standing there holding just the one I wanted, and for a very good price,too. He tells me that the store guy says this is what you want. I told him that as long as it was compatible with Verizon, it would be fine. I had just looked up this particular combo modem/wifi, it was
$155.00 @ the Netgear online store but 99.00 @ Staples  . This was the first time that he has ever taken the initiative to try to buy something "tech" and at least he paid for it which is a 1st too! But no, he didn't try to install it, but that was easy. Now my next project is to switch the printer over to wifi!

Whine whine whine...

... yep, I'm all about the whines today, I will be offline for all practical purposes until Verizon decides to come and fix my DSL line. I haven't been on dial-up since 1996, it is intolerable!!!!!
xx
see ya all later

Happy Paddy's Day, saint or not

Well, last week we went to look at a new house, and even tho it had been listed at a million and a half when it originally went on the market, the bank is now selling it for a mere $543,000.00, It sits on top of a hill and has an ocean view, it is about 4500 sq. ft. but you  know what?  I could have drawn a better layout with my eyes shut!  Oh, it had a couple of nice features, and the possibility of a large profit down the road, but it just wasn't worth it to us. We are seriously going to try to sell the present rental we own, and look for another, to rehab and flip. We still have our house on the market, for the 2nd year, but since we don't have to sell it, it doesn't matter . Next month we will start doing serious open house days, and if we sell it we will have to find somewhere to move(yay), but we will still have to stay here in the bay area, until his mother joins his dad. Because of the economy, we aren't sure if we really want to move back to California or not,they have raised the sales tax down there to almost 10%, which is ridiculous. Anyway, so far the plan is to move to town to a house that needs little maintainance on the outside.
Mr. Punxxi is so very tired of rain, but who wouldn't be when you have 30 to 40 days in a row? Rain doesn't bother me much because I rarely go outside , but he being a maniac golfer, wants to golf in the sunshine for some reason...dunno why, he isn't gonna rust or anything :o)

oopsy

We are evicting our tenants, well actually we only want one of them to leave. The other says he wants to rent the house himself, and can afford the rent. The female that was there with the other two original tenants is a flake and has borrowed a lot of money from "new guy". According to him, she has had lots of family there ,loud parties, there are holes in the walls and she is a slob.  This is pretty much what I expect out of renters, but as long as the house is paying for itself, I don't care too much. It ultimately will be sold. Tomorrow we are going to look at a fantasy house up the hill from here. Fantasy because I know we will never buy it, unless I have won the lottery today ( I haven't looked yet). It looked pretty good looking in the windows, but tomorrow a realtor is going to let us in to look at it. It has views of the bay and the ocean it is on 3.19 acres and is a bit larger than this house. Since I have nothing to do anyway, I would have time to clean it. It is about 4600 sq ft, 4 car garage, nice deck, a kitchen to die for.I will take pictures of it tomorrow . It's fun to look even if it isn't feasible to even think we can swing a deal for it, but in this economy, who knows?

Feburary, where'd ya go???

Wow! This month is almost over , which is good because now we are past the anniversary and  St. Valentines day, the 11th and 14th respectively. We went up to Portland for a couple of days, had the car parked and never took it out again until we left.That is something we like, being able to walk all over the place and stop when and where we want, look at whatever strikes our fancy.  I don't usually drink at all because I am not overly fond of the taste of most alcohol, and having alcoholics on both sides of my family makes me somewhat careful with it.  But since it was anniversary night we had a bottle (2) of champagne. We were going to go out to a fancy steak house for dinner, but we did something so much more fun... we got sandwhiches and chips(crisps) from an Italian deli and had a picnic in our room, along with the champagne. Now that may seem weird to most people, but the fact is there are no Italian deli's in this part of the state, not even any within a 2-3 hour radius... you have no idea how much that sucks!!!! Just to order coldcuts, like coppacolio, would cost about 75-100 dollars, it's expensive stuff, but the shipping cost is the killer. We stock up when we go back to California, but it only lasts for so long. Did I mention that where we live, out here in the sticks, the biggest store we have is a Walmart Super center?  I don't care if nobody else likes to shop there, I love it! When you can save a couple of bucks per item, it is worth shopping there. It is also the largest employer in the area, since all those happy assed green people have killed off the logging and fishing industries. This place is where all the people that ran away to Canada in order to avoid the Viet Nam war came when Carter gave them all amnesty.. I will have to start taking pictures of all the ancient hippies up here. It is unfortunate that the whole town is pretty much dying, all the kids that go away for college, are not coming back here, there is nothing for them to do. They either leave the state, or move  up to Portland, as half the states population lives there. We have about 9000 people here, but I am interested to see what it is after they do the census. actually there are 200 people where I live, but we are pretty spread out.
I think we will be a little busier this year, we went to Portland, in May we are meeting a couple of my friends up in Seattle as they have to go to a nursing convention and then are spending a few days to look around after that. In June my youngest grandkid will be graduating from high school, so we will go down to California for that...and then the best part, in August we will go to Ann Arbor to visit the cool people( unless I can talk them into coming here) Oh yeah, next month is my birthday AND in May I will get my first social security check ..wheeeeeeeeeeeeee play money!!

Strange "thinks" aka part 5

As I have been writing down memories of childhood,  I am forced to admit I am missing years . I have been aware for many years that I do not remember anything about the years of 23-26. But going back further, I can see long periods of time that I have no recollection of at all. I don't know if it is from disassociation or just supressed. Then there are other times that I recall but that don't seem real at all, sort of pushed by the wayside. One of those is when I married a psychopath/wifebeater/bordeline personality putz. I must have been at a very low point then. But I barely recall that 10 year span, I guess that is a good thing. Two things I remember are when he fragmented my nose. You have mostly cartilage in your nose, but at the very top is a little bone that protrudes slightly , that is what he fragmented, he broke it in 5 pieces, oh well, I always wanted a nose job anyway, and since I worked in a hospital, our insurance covered 80% because it wasn't considered cosmetic, then the plastic surgeon said if I would do it at the primary hospital he worked at, he would give me even more of a discount( you usually get a "proffessional courtesy" discount). I had no problem with that and ended up with a 3800.00 nose job for 83.00!!! That was pretty cool. The second thing that I very clearly remember is  lying on the floor of the kitchen and him beating my head on the floor. He was using my hair to pound my head, and he was pulling out tons of hair. When I swept it up later it filled a shopping bag, of course if it had been compacted in there it wouldn't look like so much. I used to have very thick hair, even tho it is baby fine. Now it's about half as thick. I supported this jerk for the entire 10 years we were married..he would get a job and it might last the day. He did have one job that lasted a year, but he got fired and the excuse was that he had lied about his criminal record. Well that is neither here nor there, but once I decided that I would no longer support him, it pretty  much went downhill from there ( major sarcastic tone). I did two things for him that he should be very grateful for, I got him  enough information that he was able to get his Marine Corps discharge changed from dishonorable to general, which meant that he could go to school and collect money on the G. I. Bill.  Since he already knew how to weld, he took welding classes to get a certification and the government paid for it. Of course he decided that isn't what he wanted to do. He decided that he wanted to be a truck driver like his dad. I was checking out different programs that the state offered. One is a rehabilitation program that anyone in the state could use. They had a truck driving program and then they let you use their truck to take the diving test in.The fact that he already knew how to drive a truck( his dad taught him when he was a kid)made the program a piece of cake. He finally got a job driving cross country and also picked up a girl whose father owned a truck stop in New Mexico. I should look her up and send her a thank you note, she is welcome to him and all his b.s.
This lack of memory goes back pretty far, I remember  the first school that I went to, but all I remember is that we had little cots to "nap" on, so that we didn't have to sleep  on the floor, and that there was a fireplace in the room. Thats all I remember about the 1st year.I have one vague memory of the 3rd grade, neither here nor there, I remember the 4th  grade because the teacher was a cool guy, even if he did believe in corporal punishments.  His name was Mr. Morita and he was from Hawaii. We learned a whole lot about Hawaii, he even told us about the bombing of Pearl Harbor because he lived there and was 7 years old at the time. That is pretty detailed memory.I don't remember grades 5,6,or most of 7th. 8th I remember because that was the very first time I went to the same school for the whole year. High school I vaguely remember, but it's pretty fuzzy. I remember the day JFK got shot, I was at school and heard  a radio talking about him getting shot, it must have just happened. So I went into my next class and told everyone that the president had been shot. I was a class clown type so people didn't believe me, until about 2 minutes later when the announcement came over the P.A. It really  kind of annoys me to not have clear memories of growing up, since I can remember earlier things so well.Not enough to go back to therapy tho :o)  !

part 4

Since  we were allowed to wander at will, we played in the avocado groves most of the time. The only bad part is that people used to dump junk in there, and it was soon covered with leaves. Our grove and everybody elses ran together, there were no real demarcation lines.Anyway, I was playing in the next door grove, with the cult kids, barefoot as usual, and I jumped on a pile of leaves and landed on some shutters with nails in them, of course being the graceful little gazelle that I was, I managed to land on the nails, 5 rusty nails, 4 in one foot and 1 in the other. I was about 3 1/2 @ the time. I was afraid to tell anyone because I thought I would get in trouble because I had taken my shoes off. A couple of days later my mom was giving me a bath and she saw my feet and freaked out. I was in the Doctors office the next day, getting a tetanus shot...I was NOT happy about that!
After that we went back and got the shutters and pulled all the nails out and waxed the heck out of one side of the shutters and used them to "sled" down the tiers, so it had a good outcome. We also used to play in the oil fields because my grandpa worked there, they had lots of horses wandering around on the property, which of course made it thrilling to any little kid. My grandpa worked there because his cousin owned the fields, now here is the weirdest true thing  about my family I can tell you, at least that isn't a rather negative thing. His cousin was named Getty, as in J. Paul Getty,  rich guy extrordinaire. I never met any of them so it is only like a little footnote in my history. This guy looked just like my grandpa, their mothers we sisters. He owned a castle in England, it had been Anne Boleyns  home at one time, the cheap guy installed a pay phome because too many people came and made long distance calls from his house. Now if I were a multi-billionaire, I woulda let that slide, I think.
Here is something weird that I remember,when we lived in this house, I use to have hallucinations, there were always people running around the ceiling in the bedroom. Now most people will say, " no that was your over active imagination, it was just a dream". I will disagree with them forever, I was wide awake , I could be in or out of bed and still see and talk to them.
Why the hell would a laxative company make their product to look just like a Hershey bar( at least to a little kid)? Yep, that was me, the kid that ate an entire package of ExLax, becase it was a "candy bar".Anyway  the adults noticed that I had some chocolate on my face and asked me about and I told them that I ate the candy bar they "hid" in the bathroom. Mom says, show me and I did. They freaked and called the doc, who said just watch her. If that had happened today, I would have ended up in the hospital on an IV. I am surprised that I didn't die from that, since it would throw off the electrolytes and dehydrate you  terribly. I really don't know how I survived my childhood, I was a fearless in all things, except for being around people I didn't know, pretty much still very shy with strangers, but I am better now because I usually answer the phone or the door now, which I didn't for many years.  I find that I have different "me's", not that I am saying I am MPD( multiple personality disorder) but when I worked, I worked in jobs that I had to constantly interact with strangers and had no problem doing so, but as soon as I was in a different environment, I retreated to my other, painfully shy self. It was that way in school, I once walked out of a class because the teacher wanted me to stand in front of the class and speak for 2 minutes...couldn't do it, left school over it, that was my 1st year of high school.. aw, I digress yet again!  Well, now we are all bored, so I will go clean house, and watch the guys undecorate the outside of the house before it rains( a daily occurance here in the winter, at least it hasn't snowed here (yet) . I feel so sorry for you in Europe and the east coast here!
ttfn

hey!

HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL!

part 3

Ahhh, Christmas is over,now things can get back to their usual abnormality. Anyway  I was still living in the avocado grove, which was really a fab place to play, all the trees  were planted on tiers, it was a great forest of trees, about 3 acres worth and we were allowed to play in there to our hearts content. The garage backed up to the grove and we used to climb up and play on the roof, no one ever stopped us from playing anywhere. I don't think I would have let my 3 year old play on the roof, climb trees or wander around unsupervised, but times were different then. We used to see movies all the time and they influenced the games we played..yeah, people had to use their imaginations back then. Anyway this house had what you call a daylight basement in it, that means half was underground and the front was open to the yard, My grandpa had huge woodworking shop down there, and my grandma had a room she put all the food she canned  down there. She always had huge bags of old clothes that we used to costume ourselves in. Here is somethng I just thought of that happened in that house, and it illustrates what a hard headed kid I was. Gran had new wallpaper installed in her bedroom, I remember what it looked like to this day, it was darkish green with big pink flowers on it, very late 40's early 50's looking stuff . She had a dressing table in that room that she had make up on, lipstick, cream rouge, cold cream and  whatever other greasy stuff they used in 1951. I promptly decorated the new paper with it. My mother broke a wooden coat hanger over my butt. That pissed me off, so brainy me does it again for revenge, she breaks hanger number 2 over my arse.One more time, we both repeated our actions. I decided that wasn't the way to get revenge, so I climbed up in the bed with my favorite tool, a pair of scissors, and made cut outs of the sheets and blankets...that was a habit I had according to my mother. All I know is that I had 3 wooden coat hangers busted on me in one day.
I used to cut my hair off, if I ever  saw any scissors laying around, eventually they learned to put that stuff away. The first time I did that was before we moved out of the city and I was 2, I remember this stuff, I had long finger curls( which I hated)  So I was taking a nap ( ha! I rarely slept then or now)my gran had been embroidering something  but went outside to hang up the wash...DAA-DAH, I cut all my hair off, my mother took me to the barber shop and got me a boys haircut...I loved it, everyone thought I was my brothers twin, which to my 2 year old mind was a fabulous thing. Funny thing is everyone always thought my brother was such a beautiful baby girl, even in boys clothing and boy haircuts...damn, people are so dumb! Of course he was very pretty, I, on the other hand, honestly looked as if I were a Downs Syndrome kid. Last time I made that remark, people got very upset, but I have seen my baby pictures. 
Hey, I hope you all have a fabby New Year...I will have to wake up "grandpa" at midnight ,'cos he is such a day guy... but I will be awake and have a wee drinkie, my annual taste!

part 2

I guess if I start at the beginning, the first things I can remember is wearing a diaper(nappy) and my dad's cowboy boots and "playing" his guitar. I was pretty young less than 2 because my parents got divorced when I was 2. We went to live in a boarding house for awhile,the man was a proffessional fisherman, his wife stayed home and did boarding house stuff. My mom got a job and then we moved to an apartment, what I remember about that place was that it had a very old time  gas stove in it, you had to light it with a match, and it stood on tall skinny legs, it was pale yellow and light green, I have looked for a picture of one, but so far no luck. Then we moved in with my mothers parents so that my gram could watch us while mom worked, that was the house down the block from the other grandparents.I remember that house,better than the one I lived in, but I remember them both somewhat. My mother went to work before we got up and usually got home after we went to bed, so we spent all most all of our time with grandparents, as my father was pretty much absent from our lives. I wonder if he is alive sometimes, if he is, he is going to be 82 in March, his birthday is a week before mine. I know  he moved to Georgia 41 years ago, that was the last we heard from him, but it was not a big deal, I guess because he never showed any interest in his 1st 2 children..he had to replacements with his second wife, so those were the ones he cared for. Anyway, he is pretty immaterial in my lifescheme.
While we still lived with our grandparents in the city, I got a little black puppy, a Cocker Spaniel, named it Candy, have no idea why. I think she was a 3rd birthday present. I really loved that dog, but had a bad habit of using it's drinking water to make mud "pies"They kept telling me not to do it, but I was always hardheaded. One day the dog was gone and I was told she had run away because I was bad and always left her without water to drink.  I found out when I was about 10 that my grandfather had taken her to work with him and gave her to someone. I never forgot or forgave that, I think if they had told me the truth, that I was too young for a dog and that they sent it to live with someone I would have gotten over that. My grandfather was one of those old guys that thought that my brother walked on water, I was always told well J can do it because he's a boy or because he was older (25 months older, bfd!!!)
My brother was an interesting subject, he was a couple of years older, but he used to send me in to turn on the lights when it was dark, he also slept with his eyes open, I remember socking him in the head because I would talk to him and he wouldn't answer. Hey, a 3 year old doesn't know you can sleep with your eyes open, I just thought he was not answering to be mean. Shortly after I turned 3 my moms parents had a house built on their avocado ranch, so we moved out to the country with them. Of course since my mother worked in the city and we lived out there, we basically just saw her on the weekends.  more to follow... disjointed as this is, it is just how my brain works...I have been so hyper this week it is hard to sit here this long ttfn!

Wandering through my mind

I was reading Diana's blog, where she was talking about how the past has shaped her, she was remembering old boyfriends. I don't have that many interesting people that I know, at least not in real life.But blog friends are great and so much more interesting, maybe it's because they are mostly writing to amuse themselves, or at the very least people they don't know irl, or family. My family is/was very strange, I know my mother is dead, she died in 2001, I read it online, honestly I was playing around on a social security page and just typed in her name for giggles, and there it was, she had been dead for 4 or 5 years( closeknit lot, weren't we?)  It felt weird to read that,not sad or anything, it wasn't like she was much of a mother, I hadn't lived at home since I was 15, as I went out on a date and didn't come home for 3 days, she decided that I should continue my date from then on, and put my clothes on the porch so I would get the hint.Not that big a deal, really. It was an exciting life, drugs, rock and roll, burglaries and robberies to pay for life, That culminated in a fistfight with a cop, as they thought we had kidnapped a guy, but in reality we were just keeping him from walking out into the traffic in a stupor.That landed me in the youth authority, a step up( down?) from juvenile hall. I had been there, off and on from the age of 12, mostly as a chronic runaway and petty thief...nobody hires 12 year olds. That is all neither here nor there, just a thought that popped in to visit.
The runaway thing is what I have done since the age of 2 years old, not sure why, maybe always looking for the "greener grass". I seriously ran away every other day or so, starting at age 2, we lived with my maternal grandparents, and the paternal ones lived  halfway down the block. Everyday I would sneak out and hop on my trusty tricycle ( after stripping off every stitch of clothing,....such a rebel !) and peddle down to the other grams house. She would always ask if they knew I was there and of course I lied and said yes. She would then phone down the block and tell them I was there again.I out grew that wandering when we moved out to the "country", when I was about 3 1/2,( the naked wandering , not wandering) where my grandfather owned an avocado ranch.There were only 3 houses in the vacinity, and my brother and I would wander all over the hills to our hearts content, no one else was around most of the time. There were religious fanatics that lived down the hill from us...seriously cultish types, I still remember going to their house and we had to read out of the bible,(I could read by age 2 , all of my mothers children could) they did it daily and more than once.I quite liked their dog, a big English Springer Spaniel, named Malley..weird the stuff you can remember so many years later. I remember the kids that lived there, but not too well, there was a boy and girl that were both older than my brother and I , he being a little closer to their ages.Everyday that stupid cult kid would mouth off until my brother beat the crap out of him ...they must have been 6 or 7 at that time.I don't remember the girl just that she was there, don't know any of the names, except the dogs. Down across the street were a couple more kids, pretty old to us, probably 10 or 12. Their father was an undertaker, that's all I remember about them. The best part of living there was almost total freedom to come and go as I pleased, and this could be miles, no one bothered us.Dunno why, but wandering is ingrained in me, don't know what the hell I'm looking for, just adventure, probably, or to get away from me( that is highly likely) Okay ,that is enough disjointed rambling for today...I think I will write more stuff tomorrow, or not, I am a person of good intentions, not schedules!

I have this thing for shoes...

and I love high topped tennis shoes(aka trainers) So you know I couldn't resist these bad babies! They are kinda wide in the body so you can tuck jeans in them, plus there is an unzipped zipper in the back, 'cos you know I am much to lazy to lace, unlace, relace .I wonder why they didn't think to use speed laces like my lumberjack boots have?

Stormy Weather

I love the ocean when it is stormy weather...it is the only thing I will miss if we move away from here. This past weekend. waves were hitting 30+feet. It is actually hard to get a perspective from these pictures, but believe me, they were totally awesome! A couple of hours north of us they had a tornado, a category 1 to be sure as the winds weren't all that devastating, but they did do some damage.We frequently get winds here that gust up to 100 miles an hour, it is scary to watch the trees blowing around then, and wondering when one will come through the roof. Anyway, these are some storm pictures...sorry about the rain drops on the camera!

Almost Halloween( yay!!!!)

I can't believe it has been over a month since I posted a blog, but things are just busy right now, with constant house cleaning on the of chance that someone will come by and want to look at it or maybe even,"gasp" want to buy it! Things were going along swimmingly until last Thursday, and my least favorite person in the world came over for dinner, as everyone does on a typical Thursday night, and tripped over her feet and broke her hip...almost 6 years to the day her late husband did the same thing. Except he wasn't trying to be cute and sucking down the Drambuie when he fell.He didn't make it through the night when he had his surgery...she had hers Saturday and the surgery went well, except that she is not doing so well, last night they wanted to put her on a ventilator but we said no, but did let them give her a vasopressor to kick up her blood pressure.Then, today they gave her 2 units of blood to also help it up. She is a full no code, she knows what that is and has expressed her desire for no heroics.My husband told them today, no more stuff, just make her comfortable. She has been mostly incoherent and not waking up much and we are not sure how with it she is when she does. She is 95, has a pacemaker that needs to be replaced,but the docs won't do it because chances are she will not make it thru that. a knee that was replaced 20+ years ago that was supposed to last for 10 years...it is also the same leg where she just had the ball joint replaced. Her heart only works to a 15% capacity without the pacemaker and she has been trying to die since 1975...it's time to let her go! She had a very major heart attack in '75 and they didn't think she would make it, then about 18 years ago she was in a head on collision, with her side of the car taking the major hit. They didn't think she would make it thru that one, either. She can't hear very well, even with her hearing aid, can barely see, and after this she won't be able to indulge in her favorite pastime...shopping. My husband is her only child and he has a hard time understanding why people can't fathom that he has no problem with her just going to sleep. He says it's a good time, since she is not concious of what is going on, last time she was in the hospital she was terrified she was going to die...

Happy Humpday!

Well here we are, back from California and the great WARMTH....I really miss those nice hot days with unlimited sunshine! we got to meet our 22 year old grandson, visit with our 17 year old granddaughter, go to dinner at our favorite Italian resturant( the only one we actually ever go to)Went to a surprise birthday party for an 80 year old lady...she is so fun!That was a short trip, 4 days . The best part was I got to surprise my bestest best friend, Robin. I am so surprised that she never found out we were coming down, the look on her face when we drove up was worth the price of the trip! Of course I came home buggy, as I always seem to do.The sore throat and hacking are gone, but I still get tired kind of easily. I hope everyone is doing the very best they can.

This week...

Is mr. punxxi's real birthday,on Tuesday, meaning that our original anniversary is on Thursday....this is good because we will be in So. California on that day.It won't be raining or cold or foggy which it has been up here. We are also going to meet our grandson for the first time( he's 22 years old), so that should be an interesting trip. It is also going to be a fast trip because we will be coming home on Sunday. The actual reason we are going down is because a good friend of ours invited us to a surprise party for her mom, who will be turning 80 on Saturday.She is a sweet lady and doesn't look or act her age a all, she is so much fun...wish my M-I-L was that cool. It will be good to take a fast trip, we went for 3 weeks last time and were exhausted when we came back, there are so many people to visit . I told mr punxxi after that, that the big mistake is that we never scheduled any "me time", it was crammmed with visiting everyone and no rest at all. I told him in the future that is what we have to do. It's hard because after you have lived and worked some where for your entire adult life you know so many people that you want to catch up with...well he does because he is such a social butterfly,and has friends that he has known since he started primary school, me, i'm more uh,um, antisocial( not really, it's hard to explain without sounding like a total biotch).
tata and have a great weekend!

all done

Okay, the diet is done, I lost 10 pounds, I don't think Mr. Punxxi or Thing 2 lost that much but at least we are started on a healthier lifestyle. All I can say was that was the most boring diet I have ever been on and if I have to eat soup again anytime soon I will scream! Much to my happiness, Mr. Punxxi has agreed to eat vegetarian at least 3 days a week...I will cook on those days.It works out well since those are days that he golfs. He cooks all the regular food, but I have always cooked the "different" stuff, mainly vegetarian and North African, which we all love and has many vegetarian recipes. It is not for ethical reasons that I want to do the vegetarian food, but since we all love veggies it is a good thing to do, is quite healthy and we will save a fortune on meats. I may post some of our meals, but then again, I am a lazy git!

We will see...

Yesterday, we all started a new diet, it is only for a week so it should be doable, even though i would do it for a month. It is called the Sacred Heart Medical Diet, you can google it. It claims if you don't cheat, you can lose 10-17 pounds a week.This diet was developed for very obese heart patients that need to lose a lot of weight fast, before they can have open heart surgery. My sons doctor gave it to him, He is 6'2" and weighs 266, that is him in the picture in the post below this one. He was pretty thin until he had to start taking anti-psychotic medications for his schizophrenia. This is a side effect of many drugs of this nature, it makes you want to eat, they give it to anoxerics, also. We are all somewhat overweight because we eat like little piggies, and of course i have a sweet tooth that is in overdrive 24/7 =O! Yesterday we could only eat soup and fruit, today it is soup and veggies only....but we actually get to eat a baked potato with butter on it for dinner.Tomorrow we get to eat all the soup, veggies and fruit we want, the next day we have to eat at least 3 bananas and drink skim milk, so I am putting all that in the blender so we can just drink it.So far I have lost 2 pounds since starting yesterday. According to several people that have either been on it or had a parent or other relative on it, they did not gain the weight back as soon as they went back to normal eating.My hope is that we will all be in the mood to eat much less and much healthier, altho we do eat reasonably good food, just waaaaay too much of it...Cheetos and fritos are good food, right? The only drawback for mr. punxxi and thing 2 is that you are not allowed to drink any alcohol on this diet and have to wait 14 hours after you finish before you can resume drinking. I have no problem with that since I drink 1 or 2 drinks a year, but they like to have a couple every afternoon, before dinner. I want to see if they can really last 7 days!
I'll let you all know how this diet works.and if i really stay on it for a month, I really could stand to lose 40 pounds!

I just love summer sooooo much!

Summertime at the beach...can you believe this is the middle of July, already?

Is someone trying to tell me something???

I hate today, but i will be over that very soon. Today I gave my Jeep a nasty bump on the right front fender...it will need to be replaced :o( . Shortly after that mr punxxi called and said to meet him at the mall so i could pick up a chest his mother had put on hold. I get there and just finished calling to tell him i was there, in the store, his eta was about a minute. just then a man walked up to me and asked if i owned a white jeep i said yes and he says "I just backed into it" the left back fender is now totaled out. I am very grateful to him for being honest and comming and finding me in the store, his insurance has already given me a claim number and i can get his part fixed, and i will find out if i m using my insurance to fix my booboo or not.
I am not driving tomorrow!

Silliness

Today, I decided to buy my husband a new computer for his birthday. He says he doesn't need a new one, but he is very wrong since every single day i hear him in the office rumbling and swearing at it and asking it wtf wrong with you, usually followed by punxxiiiiiii come and fix this. I am as unsavvy as the next little old retired lady so it is quite funny that he, a man who had computers at work for years before i ever had one to play on,can't figure out a single thing. I mean,, he can't clear his cache, run a defrag or anything. Just last week i set him up an itunes account and after i explained it 3 times he finally has that down ( which means he can make his own cd's instead of making me do it on my itunes account. Anyway the one i want to buy him has the cpu built into the monitor, the speakers are built in there, too and a card reader , it is touch screen . this will free up a lot of space, it is a dell so it will be ok...my first 3 pcs were dells and i still have one in the back as a guest computer, that will give me 3 pc's and 2 laptops...i think i have a geekstreak. the best part is that it will be new, nothing d/l on it that is from unknown sources and it should run pretty good for a while...altho he did mention something about golf clubs, but he should know i can't fix those...

Why does This Always Happen?

You know how you see something and think, "this is a good idea, I want to try it out?" But you very foolishly don't purchase said good item right then and there because you're either broke at the moment or want to check it out further. It is apparently a law of nature that said good thing will no longer be available and you have to figure out something else to take it's place. I hate that. For some unknown reason, also known as yet again I have lost my mind, I decided that I want to plant watermelons( already did, actually)Since I have no actual place to plant them I want to make a raised bed and plant them where we took out a couple of large plants . They will be hidden from the street, but I will be able to see them right outside the deck fence. Now all I need is to buy some wood, and the said good idea that is now impossible to find outside of catalog ordering. Freakin' little goodies that you slide the boards into to make corners and connect all the wood to make a box. I know I could nail boards together, but I am an Aries, we never do things in a very practical manner...also known as we are great starters, but lousy finishers. So having things you can just slide boards into will work very well because it will take me 2 minutes to build my bed, another 5 to mix the feed, potting soil, and other sutff in the dirt and transplant my little watermelons before they decide to grow and then roll down the hill. I have 2 reasons for this, deer and raccoons. Those guys will eat anything you don't cage up. I also want to plant a couple of pumpkins for the fall. You have no idea how funny this is unless you know that I have the touch of death to plants. The only thing i have ever grown successfully are tomatoes, cucumbers and catnip. Well, there were some years that I grew some really healthy pot plants, but that is a whole 'nother story.

So this is summer????

Yanno, I wish I had studied computer stuff, I guess I still can, just have to figure out where to start, it would only be for me, I will teach me photoshop and a couple of other things..i can make a myspace page but i can't make my own blogger page...yet. but i am determined to do it. it is a lot of trial and error if you aren't computer savvy,but eventually one of two things happens, 1. you start to get it 2. you lose interest( that is more my style).
It is still raining here! the weather is crap and has been since last year, where is all the global warming ? hah! maybe if they called it global wetting i would agree with them. of course when things are based on faulty data, you get false results. Somebody tell algore that, wouldja?
happy fathers day to all you fathers out there. at least so far it isn't supposed to rain tomorrow, so we can barbeque ...well, actually we will do it if it rains or not.

HI THERE!

this is just temporary until i get what i want!

Yesterday....

...was a great day,we rented out the rental house, the first people flaked out on us so it was good to get it rented so fast. Then, we have really been missing my 4x4 truck since i traded it for my little fun, but useless sports car. We had been looking for a truck to cart stuff around for the rental and all but never quite found one that we actually wanted to buy. Mr Punxxi had gone up to a local dealer and was trying to make a trade for my car but he got nowhere...he used to negotiate for a living, so we were bummed out. I told him I am going to go back by the Jeep dealer and trade them for the Commander up there, he said, okay and you can add 1500.00 to the car to make the trade. So off I went the next day while he was out playing golf, I know he never thought that I would actually do it. So, I drove in, parked next to what I wanted to buy and told the salesman,"I'll trade you this for that". He said well maybe they will do that. Of course I expected them to come and try to sell me a bunch of other stuff too, but they didn't. It still has a year left on the warrenty so that was good,usually they try to sell you an extended warrenty but they didn't. So anyway Mr. Salesman goes off upstairs to talk to the owner and came back in a few minutes and says congrats you just made a trade. I am happy, they are happy.. my car only had 1810 miles on it after a year of owning it, the Jeep has less than 20k on it and is a year older...but it is 4x4 which you need here, has 3 rows of seats, 2 of which you can put down flat so you can haul stuff around...the sportscar did not have a trunk that you could even fit a bag of groceries in, so it was win win as far as i am concerned and they are picking up all the registration fees etc.Since I drive so little every year I don't really care what the price of fuel is....but Jeep also runs on ethenol if i want to use that, WHICH I WON'T SINCE YOU GET CRAP MILAGE WITH IT!One other cool thing about it is that the person driving it the past 2 years is a state senator, who along with her husband, owns the dealership.

_@#*($)*U%#)($*&*(W#E^!!!!! RAIN!

Wouldn't you know just when we get full possession of our rental house it has been raining and raining! How are we supposed to do things like cut the grass,paint the trim,weed the flower beds and build a cement step for the back door? It is even impeding a few things inside,like some of the painting. One of the bedrooms had windows that would not stay up, so we took them to a glass company to see what parts were missing, none actually are, it's just that they installed windows that should slide side to side as up and down windows DOHHHHH!!! So far I have gotten the bathroom and kitchen cleaned, now i am ready to paint the cupboard insides, mr. punxxi has all the doors off as he needs to trim them so that they actually shut all the way, he has replaced the pipes in the kitchen and the faucet, so things are going fairly fast, we had one tree removed from the front yard and the other 3 trimmed (A LOT) so that they are out of the utility wires.Tomorrow, the tree( and other stuff) guys are comming back to trim the h out of some plants on the side of the yard and remove trash and a metal shed and a burned out burn barrel, Wednesday an electrician is comming to replace the electric panel and ground the house, a carpenter will be over after that to put drywall in one of the rooms that had shite looking dark wood paneling in it, we took it all down Underneath it was all plywood but peeping out from the bottom of that was some really old wallpaper....there is also some linolium in the bottom of a storage closet, that has to be original to the house ( built in 1948) so I am going to clean it up( it's glued down) and leave it as a little memento of the era the house was built. Friday a guy is comming over to regrade the driveway, put in a drain so the garage stays dry and then tarps and gravels it. I have only taken one new picture and that was of the trees being trimmed. I will take pictures as progress is made and completed , mainly to keep as proof of how the house looks before we rent it out. Still, I wish it would stop raining so they can a least mow the lawn, it's about 9 inches tall already.
So, what are you all doing this week?

Finally!

Monday escrow closes and we will be offical slumlords! Yay!!!!!( no it really isn't a slum and we will be doing a lot of fixing up as our eventual goal is resale)

DOH!!!!

As usual, we have gone on an overnight excursion and my wonderful camera is sitting home on my dresser. Now that it has decided to be sunny for more than 1 day in a row, we can get in some hiking and I will take my camera then ( i hope)
Now I have to go check out and program the gps so I can find Mr. P at the golf resort all the guys went to earlier, but more importantly, I have to shop for quinoa, it's hard to come by at a decent price at home......oh yeah, I won a hundred dollars on a slot machine and it was with the casinos money because you get 5 bucks free play when you get a card...so i gave em back 40 and kept the rest for today...shopping, not gambling.I used to love to gamble, but now i am old and cheap hehehehehe
exes and oooohs to you all.

post easter sugar overload...

...that has to be the reason i feel like crap today, isn't it? i rarely eat sugar or very little if i do, but i can feel the results of lots of it yesterday....yuck it's worse than a hangover! things are moving along with the rental house, they want to close escrow by the end of the month, then we can get in there and make it habitable, install a stove and refrigerator, new carpeting and paint..the first and most important thing is changing out the electric box, the one in there is bad, they have been known to cause fires and also the house isn't even grounded!i suspect that we should have that taken care of also as the actual goal in buying this rental is to resell when the market comes back, we should be able to double our money.that is mr p's law, if democrats are in, you buy property, if republicans are in you buy stocks.i'll go along with that, he does have a degree in economics, after all, and it has worked so far.since we are both retired we need to protect our money as well as we can, either that or i'm going to go get a job at the evil empire for the rest of the year, by the end of that i will be getting my money back from the government!
So how was everyone else's easter?

random stuff

Here is the
new toy mr. punxxi got for my birthday, my weird cat, who just knows there's turkey in there somewhere, and the rental house we are buying (pending inspection)