10:30 pm and I'm awake...

Now for those of you who don't know my schedule, you're probably saying "so?". I get up everyday around 4:30 am, so by 6:30 pm (in the winter) ....I'm toast. I spent the afternoon shopping. It had been over a month since I had really shopped for anything and we were out of everything. One armed shopping and then loading the car is the pitts. Well, I came home and put most of it away. I will admit that I did not finish with the chore. I'll finish in the morning. I just got worn out. So....it was 6:30 and I was trying to stay awake. I managed to stay awake during the third mummy movie (not my favorite of the series) and then finally gave up and headed to bed to read at 8:30. I read for a while and then fell asleep.
10:00 or so in comes Will. He's doing his best to be quiet but I'm a very light sleeper. He bangs through and decides to take a shower. Great...now the running water has given me other "ideas" and he's in the bathroom. Now I'm really awake. As if that isn't enough.....I suddenly get a power surge (hot flash). Great, now I'm laying awake, wide awake and now I feel like my head is going to burn off. I give up...I decide to read more, that doesn't work because although I cannot sleep, I'm still too tired to read.

Will, bless his heart comes out and says, "did I wake you"? I know he didn't mean to, but at that point after all of this, I'm ready to throw a pillow at him. I calmly get up and come out to the living room, only to hear thump, oh, whine, whine. Great now what happened?

Will has hit his funny bone and it's not funny. But if I'm honest there was a teeny, tiny (did I mention tiny) part of me that says...Ha! Now neither of us is sleeping. Sorry Honey, now I have guilt (only a teeny, tiny bit of guilt).
He's sleeping and I'm awake and now the dog gave up and went back in to bed. The cat is sticking with me though.....us women have to stick together. Have a great Sunday.
dea

New CD

I talked to the company yesterday. The new CD is completed and was either going to ship out yesterday afternoon or this morning! Finally a 3 month project almost completed. I'm starting to feel like we accomplished something.

A new desk, taxes filed, CD completed, paperwork sorted .......I'm finally getting somewhere!

Have a great day.
dea

What is it with this old stuff?

Once again, someone was giving me a hard time about being old. Of course this one wasn't so bad since it was my father and we know who was the first one on the scene. Still he should be happy, I dye my hair so that he doesn't have a gray haired daughter.

I have been tortured lately with "seed catalogs". I'm not sure if they send them out to remind us that spring is coming and to give us hope, or if they send them out as a reminder that it's cold and to make our cabin fever worse. Some of the pictures on them make me really long for spring. Then I look outside at all of the snow on the ground and start counting the days again.

My hubby hooked up the computer in our room yesterday and did all of the uploads again. Another thing done on the "January goals list". I'm excited. Now onto the next thing, sorting all of the stuff that goes into it and placing the rest either in storage or sending it through the shredder. Then on to February's goals... which include painting both kids rooms and working on the living room remodel. New carpet and new sofa means new curtains the old ones really, really clashed. The hubby projects (although I haven't really mentioned them to him, sorry Boss) laying the carpet in the family bathroom and sorting tools and building materials. Not huge jobs, but they take planning. I would like to have everything ready and waiting when we start a project. No hunting and searching for supplies or tools. Now that is a concept!!!!! Of course the kids and I will need to help with that one because it's a huge job, but I think we can handle it.

I've been working on my list of jobs to do on the house and yard. Forget the jar for the honey do list. I don't have a big enough jar, but I do have a clipboard to put the list on and a pencil to attach to it. I'm gonna organize it by job, with a list of what materials are needed and where they are located, as we sort. It sounds like a really good plan, but this is me we are talking about here, so you never know what will happen. I'll probably loose the list.

Well, time to take the kids out to the bus. I know because the dog is staring at me telling me it's time. Then when we get outside he listens for the bus. We taught him that when the bus is here, he is supposed to sit down next to us and wait while the kids get on the bus and then he can get up when the bus drives away. We didn't want him to run out and get hit. So.... now as soon as he hears the bus, he just sits down, no matter where he is. We can tell when the bus is coming that way, because the dog is just sitting staring into the distance towards the south. It's really funny. He looks like the old sheep dog on the coyote and sheep cartoons from years ago, sitting by himself and staring out at his kingdom.

Hey Will just took the kids out...what a guy! I can keep working in here while he freezes. I'll probably pay for it for a while though, those strings attached you know. He'll expect a hot cup of coffee when he gets back in and probably breakfast, but I'd do that for him anyway, so it works.

Have a great day!
dea

You know it's been cold when....

I realized the other day that it really must have been cold the last few weeks. Early this week the temperatures got up to 22 and sunny. It's been so cold and I am used to the colder temps, I must have been because without realizing it, I ran around in a tshirt and sweat coat all day outside and was very comfortable. I probably would have cooked in 40 degree weather. It just goes to show you what a body can get used to. As long as the sun is out, I do pretty good.

Went to therapy twice last week. It's surprising how worn out an arm can get just by repeating some of these very easy excercises. I can do the same thing with my good arm and it has no affect. I do it with the injured arm and it wears it out. Strange.

Good news is that my arm is back up to about 75%. From the 10% where it had been that's really good.

Better news..I'd lost another 6 pounds in the 10 days since I had seen the Doctor. That makes almost 9 in January. I'm on my way!

Wow, taxes are filed, weight is going down, paperwork is getting organized...I'm actually accomplishing something in January. What a strange concept. I may even have to sit back and reflect. Ha. ha.

Not so great news, my bosses neglected to pay me this last week until I got a little cranky. I kept it under control, but I was really, really ticked. There is nothing like working for weeks even though it really hurts to do so and have them not pay you. There were lots and lots of excuses, but the truth is when it all boiled down to it, was they waited until the last minute to find out how to do my pay and it was too late, so they just didn't do anything. After me getting very serious, they called enough people to figure it out supposedly and offered "so generously" (yes that was dripping with sarcasm), to pay me 65% of what I should have got and I will have to wait a month or 2 for the rest. I was not a happy camper. Sometimes, you just wonder about people. If I am in management ever again in my life, this is one of the things that I will file away to remember.

Now I have another 10 days of limited duty for the rest of my therapy to get done and I should be pretty close to 100% and I can go back to my route. Yahoo!!!!! I am not a good patient and I am running out of things to clean at work. I have washed all of the walls, all of the doors, all of the cases, all of the windows, cleaned the bathrooms, and now am working on one- handed mopping of every area, aside from putting labels on cases and reworking the whole system on 2 of the routes that the carriers are out and I have to help the subs. All of that would not have been possible without the injury, but man I sure will be glad to get back to the route and out into the sunshine.

2 months from now it will be March, almost April. On April 15th the redwinged blackbirds will be back. I cannot wait for spring.

By the way, I learned something really cool the other day. There is a wildlife refuge about 15-20 miles from here as the crow flies. They raise endangered Whooping Cranes. Each year the cranes are led by a light weight aircraft to Florida for the winter. I just found out that "our cranes" go and winter in Wakulla County where we used to live. Pretty cool huh? It's a small world some times.

Well, time for dishes. Have a great day.
dea

Do you smell smoke?

I got a wild hair yesterday to try something new........are you ready?

I FILED OUR TAXES ONLINE!!!!!

Are you impressed? I am. At one point in the middle I threw all the papers up in the air and said forget this....I'm an idiot. I did some laundry and then walked around pondering my dilema and praying. Suddenly......it came to me. I had everything I needed right there in the form of the last 5 years of tax papers. I used them as a cheat sheet and proceeded on in my quest.

You ask why? Well, we have this wonderful tax lady and she's very easy to work with, but because she's easy to work with, lots of people work with her. With my schedule like it is right now with medical etc., I could not find a time in the next month to deal with all of it and there were receipts etc all over the house spread out as I figured out totals. I keep everything and I mean everything. You never know when you will need a receipt etc., so I keep a paper trail. Habit from my days in banking and the medical offices. So in order to finally pack up the clutter and try to get on with this new year. I did it myself.

Hoo boy. I can see where filing easy form would be a cinch. Zip and you're done. I filed long form with deductions. Now there are probably many people that have done that for years and I aplaud them because it will wear out your brain. I'm sure mine was on fire at one point.

Prayerfully, they will both be fine and not be rejected and then I will be on my way to obtaining one goal for 2009....organize my paperwork by the end of January and set up "MY" new desk.

With 2 kids and 2 parents that are all very active on computers, we have 3 computers in our house. Two of them are on this desk and one other is in the bedroom on another desk. I have decided to take over the bedroom desk as my desk. I can keep bills etc there and not have to put everything away each and every time. I can also leave something some where and hopefully it will still be there when I return. Right now, I set something down and it moves when someone else needs the computer. Somewhere to keep the incoming mail and my paperwork "to do file" sounds like heaven right now.

So Will is at work this weekend. Jessa is off to a cousin's house and the movies. The guys are coming to visit Jake, so I'll have people to help me move the heavy boxes as I sort out stuff for the desk and put away this last years receipts etc. I plan on finishing the paperwork mess that moving the desk contents and filing cabinets etc has created. I have a plan. I have a mission.....I have a bum arm and no energy....BUT I will prevail. It's either that or we move to another house and just leave everything here just as it is. Since I don't think that that is on the menu, I'm gonna succeed. I have to finish with January's goals because here comes February and it has it's own goals.

You only get one shot at this life and I plan on living as much as I can!

Organization seems to be the key both at home, work, church and Cranfest.

Have a great day!
dea

Did you ride dinosaurs to school?

There is nothing like a youth group to make you feel old. We were discussing how any of the kid's parents were at one time their age. They all looked at me like I was insane. I guess that parents are born old and just get older.
I started telling them what was popular when I was young. They of course jumped on that one....
Questions started:
Were you a hippy? (She had always wanted to see a hippy. Did I ever see one?)
Did you have microwaves?
Did you have cars that burned gas? (I'm not sure where that one came from)
Did you know anyone with an afro?
Did you ride dinosaurs to school?
Ok now they were just getting silly. No I was not a hippy. No I did not know any that I remember (hippies were a little before my time).
Yes, I knew people with afro's because half of my best friends were African American. That really amazed them. It just goes to show you how different areas of the US are. When I was growing up in this little podunk town I had never met a person of color (any color). We had lived in Georgia for a short time when I was 5 or so, so I had friends there, but here in this little town there seemed to be no one of any ethnic heritage other than Scandinavian or German decent. I suppose that most of that had to do with the fact that this is a small community area and most people were born here, raised here and died here, without venturing too far out of the area.
I remember moving to Florida when I was 12 and being amazed at all of the "different people" and lifestyles there. I ended up being in a great school with great kids and many friends of different ethnic backgrounds. Many of them were my "closest friends" due to band. We had a ball.
In fact one of our fondest memories concerning one of my oldest and dearest friends who was in the Air Force Thunderbirds, happened when my very "white" little children ages 3 and 7 went running over the landing field screaming "Uncle Rick, Uncle Rick" as they ran to this bald very dark skinned black man, who's smile was as big as the grand canyon when he saw them. Boy did some heads do a double take that day. It was great! Rick is one of the finest men I have ever known and it's an honor to be his friend (and considered his sister). His father is a great man too.

I digress.

The kids in my youth group, due to the innauguration, have taken notice of all of the different ethnic backgrounds, I think more than usual. It was interesting to see their wheels working out in thought process.

I tried not to take offense at the "back in ancient times when you were young" attitude. I remember doing the same thing to my parents and their peers. Then I was rewarded (sort of ) for my patience....I was told that although I am 44 I seem much younger and they all like me because I don't "act" old. I think it's a complement, but I'm not sure. Especially when they were in awe that someone was still alive that was born in 1964. They acted like that was the year of the fall of the Roman Empire. The twerps.

Oh well, at least I covered the gray hair again, so I maybe don't look quite my age. I think that I should probably be honored because the kids want to hang out with me and want me around. It could be worse....they could be rolling their eyes at me. Instead they are in awe of my ancient ways.......go figure.

Have a great day. And for those of you out there older than me.....just think how impressed they would be with you!!!!! Maybe you belong in the Smithsonian? Maybe you knew Jesus? Maybe you invented the wheel?

dea

Yesterday...

Well, I went to physical therapy. My new therapist is a very nice guy who really paid attention to what was going on in my shoulder. My appointment was supposed to last and hour, but it ended up being almost 1 hour and 40 minutes. You know it's kind of depressing when a person walks into the room and can tell that you are hurt just by the way you are sitting and then there are the hmmmms. He did that stuff that doctors do on tv:

Touch one portion of your shoulder...hmm. Touch another place...hmm. Touch another place....ahhhh....

He said that you could feel my injury. Now that, I never would have expected. From what he could tell when I moved wrong it popped the joint just enough to over extend all the muscles around my shoulder, causing bleeding inside the joint, causing swelling inside the joint, causing the joint to not work right, the muscles to stiffen up in cramps and the nerves to be under pressure because of swelling. I thought it hurt before, now that I know what it is, it doesn't hurt more, but it sure helps me understand why there was no "exact" place that hurt.

So I get to do therapy for a couple of weeks. Yesterday I got to get electrocuted. That was interesting. He hooked me up to one of those brain wave things on my shoulder and cranked up the juice. Felt kind of good in some places and felt not good in others. Nothing painful, just tingling. The funny thing is that after that for a couple of hours if I moved my arm just right the muscles in it would jump. There were all these little jumps like when you have a muscle tick in your eye, except it happened all over my shoulder. Weird.

Prognosis: I should be at about 90% in a couple of weeks. I can deal with that. He said it's slow going, but unless I do not respond right to therapy, no surgery. Good deal.

Busy day today. Work, home for paperwork, pick up Jessa and her cousin at 4:45 and then church at 7:00. Wednesdays are always busy.

Still dealing with LP gas company. Since I check my tank regularly (about every week or two) I can estimate about how much gas was lost due to the leak. Between 100 gallons and 125 gallons. Not good. We are still trying to come up with a credit figure after all, it's not our fault the tank leaked and we shouldn't have to pay for the gas that leaked out of a tank that they own and we just rent. We'll see what happens there. Could be interesting.

Time to get busy with the kids and get them off to school. They stayed up late for the last 2 nights, so they are not in the mood to get moving. I think I need to hook them up to that electrocuter from yesterday. That would get them moving.

Have a great day.
dea

My day off...

Do you want to know what I did?

Not much....I did about 9 loads of laundry, dishes twice, puttered with paperwork and paid some bills. Other than that, I caught up on emails, talked Cranfest on the phone and basically did piddly things.

Are you proud of me? I'm not. I had too much to do and not enough time to do it in and I feel like I wasted it, but you never know, I might get it all done tomorrow after work and physical therapy.

Off to bed soon after typing Cranfest minutes.

Have a great day tomorrow.
dea

I've got the house to myself..and the whole day off!

So what will I do???

Clean.
Do our tax paperwork.
shovel the driveway with one hand.

There's something wrong with this picture! When you get a day off aren't you supposed to go and pamper yourself? I should be putting my feet up, eating chocolates and reading a book right? Yeah, sure. This is me. First of all I'm not really fond of most chocolates (english toffee is another story), second of all, I cannot just sit in a chair for very long, it makes my bones hurt (I'm old remember) and third....There's too much to be done around here.
I think I will spend the first hour or two catching up on things and then take a quick break. The cat and the dog are thrilled that I am not getting dressed to go out the door. The cat is on the desk sitting next to me giving me moral support as I write this entry. The dog is on the floor at my feet and every once in a while he sighs with contentment.

The kids are off to school. Will is at work. I have the whole day to really tear into things and get things done...the problem is...I don't know where to start. Well, I suppose I better get going doing something....the dishes and laundry are calling my name....can you hear them "Hey dummie!!!!!" I know they are laughing at me behind my back "she should have run while she had the chance" Ha.ha.ha.ha.

sigh. off to work I go...divide and conquer and all that jazz.

Have a great day!
dea

We made it through (most of it)

Well, it looks like things will get warmer starting tomorrow morning. It's supposed to be 20 tomorrow and sunny. Much better than today. I'm glad. They had even called off school for the last 2 days due to the cold.

I have a terrible headache right now (sinus) due to the cold hitting my glasses. The dog didn't even want to go out and smell the air. That's his favorite thing. Poor thing. He's cold (and he wears a fur coat!)

Life goes on. I'm starting to have cabin fever. I have so much that I want to get done this spring. Next month I'm going to start planting my garden. That will help. I'll plant them in the sun porch and they will be ready to go as soon as it gets warm. I know I'm not supposed to plant them until March, but I run out of time, so if I plan to start them in Feb. I might get them planted by March. See? I do have a plan!

Today was one of those days for me that you start to realize that the things that you thought were important, really are not. The things that mean a lot to you, suddenly get pulled out from under you and you are sad but you realize that you will not die from it.

I have a feeling that my life is going to change from today on and there's nothing I can do about it, but ride the tide and see what happens. It's a good thing God is in control isn't it? I sure have no control and even if I did, I'd mess it up. I've got a pretty good record that way.

So......here's to tomorrow, whatever it brings. Life's a box of chocolates and all that. I'm just glad God let's me supply some laughs for others sometimes...at least all is not in vain.

From a little gerbil spinning on the great wheel of life yelling at the top of her lungs """"where do I get off?""""""

Have a great day.
dea

Update on things....

It's cold here. Of course that usually is true in January in Wisconsin. The first year after Will and I moved up here the temperature for 2 weeks solid was under -15 every day. Nights were -30. It was cold! Thankfully at that time Jake was a year old, so we all fit in a cozy little 1 bedroom apartment that was easy to heat. Not so now. It takes a lot of gas to heat this huge house. Especially with the concrete floors which although are wonderful in the summer and really keep the house cool, are a bugger in the winter and suck the heat out of the room quickly. Thankfully most of the walls in the place are at least 12" thick.

Will and I are really looking into getting radiant floor heating. You can get some that can be installed right on top of an existing concrete floor. It adds less than 1" of extra floor height to your floors. That's no big deal because we have higher ceilings anyway. According to the research that I have been looking at, to heat just one of our family rooms it would cost 30 cents for 24 hours and would really cut down on LP costs which at this time is $2.73 a gallon AND THE FLOORS WOULD BE WARM. Sounds like a win, win situation for us. Our dream is to put hardwood and tile/stone floors throughout most of the house and then just use area rugs for color. We have not done this yet mostly because of the carpet being warmer during winter and easier on our feet. We're wimps, I know.

I went to the Doctor yesterday and had a check up on this aggrivating arm thing. From what we can tell (without an MRI which is expensive and I am claustrophobic) I have damaged the inside of the joint. It is like the bones coming to my shoulder from my spine are the axles and "a arms" that go into a tire, my shoulder being the tire. Where they go into the tire is damaged somehow. He took this tuning fork thing and made it vibrate and then put it on my collar bone on the right side. No big deal, felt kind of funny. He did the same thing on my left and OH My I felt that. He said that in order to find hair line fractures of the collar bone, that works better than xrays because small fractures inside a joint are very difficult to read and often missed, but when you use vibrations...watch out. So...... end of the long story. I'm still on light duty although I am allowed to move my arm some and able to lift under 10 lbs. with it, but no reaching frequently or pinching my fingers together frequently as there seems to be nerve involvement. I start physical therapy twice a week for three weeks and go back to see him in 10 days. The good news, at least I'm not limited as much and I can type. The pain is not as bad and I am sleeping better. Much better off today than last week. Thankfully I'm right handed. It's all good.

Still trying to get the artwork for the CD cover to work with the CD makers. My brother is a wonderful graphic artist and what it all boils down to is that the CD place has inferior equipment to the state of the art stuff that David has and they are a pain to work with trying to get it fixed. It's one of those, the only one that can help you is.... and he's on the phone.... he's with another customer....you need to do this.... you need to do that. All hurry up and wait. We hope to get it fixed today and get the stupid things ordered. So much for being ready for Christmas.

Will's parents bought him a new chain saw! It's wonderful. He had it out the other day cutting wood. I guess it worked pretty great because I now have a nice stack of wood, drying out in the sun porch (it snowed right after he cut it, so we put it in there to melt the snow). I have a work crew of 3 -5 teenagers that is going to go out and help us cut wood and bring it home as soon as the weather breaks. You can go to certain places and cut downed trees up and bring them home for a very small fee. With this great crew of kids, it really, really goes quickly. I feed them and they do odd jobs for me. Great kids.

I have a house full of kids almost every weekend and on about every school holiday. I love it and so do they. They have an entire room to themselves and during the spring fall and summer they all pile into the apartment and live there for days. They come out to eat, swim, bike ride and do chores, but then they play video games, board games and listen to music. No fighting, no carrying on, just good clean fun. I think they enjoy it as much as I enjoy the peace and watching them have fun.

(******another random political/commentary post on Dea's corner..read it if you dare.**********)

Well, time to finish getting kids off to school. Have a great day.
dea

BRRRRRR!!!!!!

Below I've copied and pasted our forcast. Notice the "low" temps. Especially Wednesday night and Thursday night!

Monday Night: Areas of blowing snow and a chance of snow before midnight. Cloudy during the early evening, then gradual clearing, with a low around -10. Wind chill values as low as -30. North wind between 15 and 21 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible.

Tuesday: Sunny and cold, with a high near 0. Northwest wind between 12 and 15 mph becoming light.

Tuesday Night: A 50 percent chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low around -7.

Wednesday: A 40 percent chance of snow. Partly sunny and cold, with a high near 5.

Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around -17.

Thursday: Sunny and cold, with a high near -2.

Thursday Night: Clear, with a low around -24.

Friday: Mostly sunny and cold, with a high near 4.

Friday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around -6.

Have I ever mentioned that I used to live in Florida? (insert wistful sigh here) This would be the time of year my parents call to "complain" (brag) about how cold it is in Tallahassee Fl. I usually do the same for them in August... but a low temp of -24??? Yuck!! I can't wait til later in the week when they'll let us know what the wind chill is for that...Okay, so Monday I'm cutting more wood for the fireplace...

God Bless and pass the blankets and Hot Chocolate!
Will

Frustrating.....

Do you know how long it takes you to do anything one handed?????? I can do a few things things using my left as long as I don't lift my arm up. I can bend at the elbow and do stuff, but what a pain! Dishes take 3 times as long. Typing I now can do sitting on a higher chair so that it does not move the shoulder just the elbow. Getting dressed is ridiculous. This is crazy. You really have to be creative to get things done.

Then there is work.....I'm on limited duty, no moving the arm. ok fine. Now what do I do? I pick up stuff and put it away, but there is only so much of that to do each day. I have to do HOURS worth. I need to do something... this is a bad situation in the first place. I did not get hurt on purpose and they didn't want me to get hurt. All of that aside, if I'm getting paid, I want to be working. It would not be fair to them for me to just sit there and them pay me. So I cleaned the women's bathroom...oh great, now I'm a Mom at work too. Today, I'll clean it again and probably dust. That should be fun. I think I can wipe down counters all over too. I prayerfully will only be doing this until next Tuesday. Then I am praying that the arm will be better enough that I can get back onto my route.

This not being able to do things is hard. I have a new appreciation for people that get injured and have to deal with a disability for the rest of their lives. I'm praying that my shoulder will be better and NO SURGERY. I need to get back to my life.

Will just came in to kiss me goodbye and we had to perform our new ritual. It cracks me up. The static electricty in the house is really bad. Actually it is all over due to dryness caused by furnaces. So if you are not careful when you touch someone you get an electrical shock. It's really bad when you kiss someone without touching them first...ELECTRICAL SHOCK ON THE LIPS (and it's not the fun, feel good, hearing bells kind of shock). So now when Will and I go to kiss before we do we pat each other down to make sure we won't shock each other. We look like we are patting each other for weapons. It's funny. We end up laughing each time. What a hoot.

Well, time to get busy on my one handed dishes....
Silver lining: I am appreciating more and more being able to do the everyday stuff quickly. Maybe it will not be such a chore now.(Well,at least for a while).

Have a great day.
dea

The ice strikes again, but I'm not giving up!

Got to work the yesterday feeling fine. A little bummed because of the ice, but ok we'll deal with it. I went out to clean off my jeep, which is much taller than me. Reached up to scrape ice off above my head.....hurt my shoulder. I felt something snap. I told my co-worker Kim, ok I won't do that again, that hurt. I switched arms. I thought it was one of those moments where you move wrong and your joint snaps and hurts, but then it's fine. It ached during the day, but since I didn't lift it above my head again, I didn't worry about it.
Got home and was dealing with some Cranfest paperwork, again not lifting it over my head. Went to bed and could not sleep because of the pain. Nothing touched the pain, ibuprofen, tylenol, bengay, nothing. great....no sleep. Finally fell asleep and had crazy dreams about my arms hurting as I hung off cliffs etc.
Got up and although it still ached, it was better. I thought ok, it's rested a little, it will be fine. Went to work after messing around. The whole morning did not lift my arm above shoulder height. Got to work, sorted mail and then tried to put some of the mail in a slot over my head.....oh my....wrong thing to do. Tried again. Still wrong. Told my boss, I have to go to the Dr.

Mom drove me.....damaged rotator cuff. I cannot use it for at least a week. What a bummer. I am a terrible patient and DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS!!!!!! I have to use a sling, because I keep forgetting and then I use it. Just what I need. Anyone ever tried to type on a blog with one hand? Let me tell you it ain't easy.

Hope you all think of me as you tie your shoes or even put your shoes on. This is a pain in the butticus.....

How depressing...
Have a great day!
dea

Help I've fallen and I can't get up!!

We had an ice storm here last night. Everyone is safe, but the roads and the deep snow are now covered in a 1 inch thick ice crust. We still have power etc. Time to just hunker down and let the road crews work. Later, I will take out ashes and put them down on the ice in the driveway etc. It works better than salt on glare ice.

The reason for the title is that my poor, poor dog ran out into the field to potty and fell through. He had to slip slide to get out there in the first place and he finally reached his goal and crash he went through. It sounded like a building had fallen. I was checking out the roads so I wasn't looking at him. When I turned around there he stood belly/shoulder deep in the snow looking at me like "What do I do now?". I had to go over and help him get up on top of the crust again. Then he slipped and slid his way back in to the house over the snow and the very slick driveway. When we got to the door, he shook his whole body off and sighed as if to say "That was an adventure". It must have been he came in and played with Will for a minute and when Will said "That's enough, go to bed" - he did.

I'm just glad it happened today and not tomorrow when Will and I both have to go back to work. Now at least there is time to get it all salted and sanded.

We called off church today. You cannot have it when everyone is in seperate ditches.

Have a great day!
dea

From quiet to WILD!

As I said we spent New Year's Day with lots of quiet....Not yesterday. Remember the stupid things rule? Here's how my day went....

5:00 am- woke up on the WRONG side of the bed. Ok, so I know that I get out of the bed every morning on the same side, but yesterday I was grumpy from the "get go". Don't ask me why, but I was. I knew it, I told Will I was. I prayed for an attitude change. So, I ended up grumpy, knowing I was grumpy and being amused by my grumpiness, BUT I WAS STILL GRUMPY.

7:00 am- look for my purse and realize it's at Mom's. Ok no big deal, I'm just not sure if my phone is in it or not. So now I have to stop and get it. Not a big deal most days but remember I'm grumpy. Then after that everything I needed to do before I left for work required something out of my purse. Grumpy is not getting happier.

8:00 am- go out to get in my car to leave for work. Car won't start. Happy really ain't anywhere around now. Come in and calmly tell my Hubby, who is now Mr. Frustration who's wife is still grumpy. Not a pretty picture when there are two adults standing in the cold freezing and right then wishing they had some type of dynomite. At least it wouldn't be cold any more. I finally end up taking Will's truck which means Will could not do the things he needed to do, guess who does?

8:45 am- arrive at work to find out the machines are broken...no mail for a while. Fine....now I'm frustrated and grumpy. Not a good combination when you are in my working situation.... With so many carriers out, I spend the next two hours while waiting for my mail helping subs and trying to keep their spirits up....not an easy task when you would rather, stomp your feet and pout like any normal two year old.

12:00- I am finally out on the route, when I should have left at 10:10. Great now I'm grumpy, late, frustrated and I'll have to try to deal with customers who think that mail should be exactly the same time every day...no matter if it's the day after the holidays, in the middle of an ice storm, or 70 mph winds, or it's just snowed 2 feet and the plows are not done yet. Now I get to try to be happy when they yell because their weekly garage sale and car ad free advertiser is not in their mail yet. Now not only do I have to deliver it at the right time, evidentally I need to call the companies and make sure they mail it too.....good grief. I manage to make it through most of the day....

until...........

I get out of the jeep at one of my last stops and catch my jeans pocket on the latch for the door as I slip on a patch of ice that no one has taken care of yet....and just to add to my blessings...rip my jeans from the front to the back. Now I'm grumpy, frustrated, cold and am showing my drawers to the world...
It can only get better right??????

Wrong! I head back to the office and one of the bosses says a customer called to complain because I did not take his package back to his house, past the hole where his van was stuck for two days, through the multi vehicles parked all over, through the one rut pseudo plowed drive to do a million point turn around and pray that I get out....only to have my boss agree with him...this all after the big "talk" we had last week saying it was our judgement call on whether we take a package to a person's door, when it's a safety issue. Add to this that my former bosses told me that I was not to attempt any packages there because the former carrier had gotten stuck too many times there summer and winter. Just what I needed.

I ended up picking up Jake and his cousin from Skylar's house where they had been together since Wednesday. Called Will and he picked up Jessica to come stay with Jessalyn. We have a house full of cousins now. Then my cousin Kris came over for supper and talking. The house was full of people and it was very nice, so it finally turned my grumpy around. You should have heard all the laughing around here. We adults had great conversation in the family room while the kids played video games in the living room. Then to make matters even better....

Lo and behold....the kids turned off the computers and video games, pulled out the Monopoly game and started playing. They played for over 3 hours, just having a great time. Who would'a thunk it???
It ended up being a great evening and ended the day in the right frame of mind, but man what a day.

I'm hoping that's all the crap I have to deal with for a while and the next few days can be joyous. I know at least this morning...I'm not grumpy. Of course, it's just me and the cat out here right now. It's hard to be grumpy with fires in both fireplaces, a good cup of coffee and a nice warm cat sitting on your lap purring....right now, life is really good. Let's hope I can remember that while I get ready for work again.

dea

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!

Well, it looks like Will and I are getting a taste of the years to come. We celebrate today....together, but alone. Jacob is off partying with his friends and Jessalyn went to her Grandparents house to help Gramma do something. It feels kind of strange, but you know I think I like an "empty nest" every once in a while. Will is my best friend and we have a great time together so I'm not lonely at all. Although cleaning is not what we really planned on spending New Year's Day doing. We are going to stop at noon whether we are done or not and spend the rest of the day goofing off.

Everyone worked hard yesterday. I went to the post office and did my route on unplowed roads. Will and the kids went in and helped my folks dig out after the last couple of bouts of snow. Dad bought a snowblower and we are all using it now, but Dad has been soooooo sick that he had only done what he had to do to get by. Jake helped him shovel the roof, Jessalyn cleaned his wrap around porch off and Will snowblowed everything else. Then they came home and worked on it around here. We gave the kids today off for good behavior.

Last night we had a gospel sing at church and goodies afterwards. It was a good time and we got home so late (almost 10) that I thought I might just be able to make it to be awake at midnight. Not a chance....Aside from the dog and cat both telling me it was time for bed, I couldn't do it. I tried. I made it until 11:00 but that was all she wrote. Boy am I a wimp. I remember just leaving to go out at 11:00. Now I'm half done with my day at 11:00 am. Getting up really early sure makes it hard to stay awake late. Will and I could stay in bed this morning and sleep as long as we wanted. I made it until about 4:30 and Will woke up about 4:45. What a waste of a good sleep in morning.

I wanted to buy a roast for today, but they were almost $5 a pound. I decided to buy a whole brisket for $1.86 a pound. Will accused me of bringing home a "body" when I had him lift out this 11lb. slab of meat. It's been roasting now for a couple of hours and boy does it smell good. When the teenage crowd hits later, they will be really, really happy. Let me tell you they can put away some food. I love it!

Well, time to get back to after Christmas clean up. I hope and pray that you all have a Blessed 2009 and that if you do not know Jesus you will in this year. There could be no greater joy for Will and I than to know that all our friends will be with us in heaven. Happy 2009.
dea