Lazy, lazy me!!

All my days are weekends now, but I have not forgotten how much I used to look forward to the weekends. Today is a lazy day consisting of nothing more than watering the yard!

Got myself a new Doc...

I have been battling gout in one big toe for several years. When it really flares up, it is so painful that not even a sheet can rest on my toe. That has only happened twice and it requires high powered pain meds. Recently, it has just been annoying and only slightly painful and will not bend. Sunday, when I could not wear the dress shoes I wanted to wear, I made the decision to do something about it. I knew there was a medicine to prevent it and make it go away, but no doctor ever treated the cause before....just the symptoms. This, in spite of the fact that my blood tests always showed elevated uric acid, which is the cause of gout. He immediately put me on a med to make it well and prevent it from coming back.

He is very thorough. He is scheduling a stress test (because all diabetics need one at least once a year), a bone density test (which I have never had), a mammogram (which is a year overdue), and who knows what else he will schedule after he gets those four vials of blood analyzed! After all his poking and prodding, I am in pretty good health....at least until the blood tests come back. Heart sounded good, lungs sounded good and I have lost no sensation in my feet due to diabetes. And on top of all that, he is some EYE CANDY!

Gardening again...

I went to Mom and Dad's today to see how my little fall garden was doing. Some of my collard greens bit the dust, so I planted some more. I have a couple of squash plants and some cucumbers along with some tomatoes ,onions and turnip greens. Yeah...I know...I am completely anal about digging in the dirt and growing
my own vegies, but I have a lot of lost time to make up!!

My dad has been feeling much better for the last two weeks. He is now completely off prednisone and some of his breathing meds. He even had something positive to say about his new hearing aid and he rarely ever says anything positive...... except about his children!!! :)

Election time in Louisiana

Being a new resident of the state and city makes it hard to be a good citizen and vote. I am going to vote, but only for the chief of police since he is the husband of the lady from whom I bought my house! At least I have met him. Oh, yeah and I have been invited to their home for a party Saturday after the polls close. That has to count for something!! Unfortunately, it appears that everybody running is a Democrat.

Feeling the LOVE...

Even I am watching the Saints and re-opening of the Super Dome. Louisiana is just "aflutter" tonight and rightfully so. I must say they did an awesome job with the pre-game festivities. It was all done with class. Good Going, Louisiana! At least with this one we weren't embarrassed to call Louisiana home. I just hope they don't stick a microphone in the governor's face. I may have to come back and edit this post because she would surely say something stupid and embarrass us all.

One year ago today!

One year ago today my town was virtually destroyed. Of course, most of the people were evacuated after having learned the lesson from Katrina. Many of the Katrina evacuees were evacuated to Orange, TX, which is where landfall was. Those poor souls had to evacuate once again. I was in North Louisiana taking care of Mom, who was recovering from triple bypass. Fortunately, my home was spared, but it was easy to make the decision to move closer to my parents. None of my friends were spared. Everyone had damage. I am now happily planted out of harm's way.

Scrapbooking

The wind is still so fierce that working (or doing anything else) outside is not an option. My motion light stayed on all night because of the wind. I don't know when it is going to end, but a cold front is supposed to arrive today......not soon enough for me!

Since I have been staying inside, yesterday I baked brownies (bad idea). Today I have been making scrapbook pages. Six more were completed today. This is my favorite one done today.

West Texas????

It sure feels like West Texas around here today. The wind is unbelievable. I had to close the garage door because of the majorly strong winds today....and they are HOT winds. This does not feel like the first day of fall. We have wind advisories today...WTF! To me, that means stay home and be a slug. I tried to water the yard, but the wind just blows it to the neighbor's yard. I'm not down with that! It's comical to watch the hummers try to fly and to hang on to the feeder as it blows in the wind.

Completely zonked!

Today was my day to take my mom and dad to appointments in Shreveport. Mom saw her cardiologist and got a good report. She doesn't have to go back for a year. I do not expect her to be able to go a year without a heart episode, but I can hope.

Dad had to pick up his new digital hearing aid, which I took him to get fitted for a couple of weeks ago. It's a tiny piece of equipment costing $1300, but he will do whatever it takes to be able to hear better. His old hearing aid just didn't work so good any more.

Days like this just totally zonk me out. I am exhausted!

Mom was right....as usual!

Western Pygmy Rattlesnake.......venomous, by the way....known around here as a ground rattler....yep, that's it. I looked it up and the pictures on the internet are closer than any other snake. I bet my brother won't be laughing so much now!!! It wasn't nearly as big as the one in the picture, so I'm thinking youngster with no rattles. None of them get very big.....duh, pygmy!!

My comedy of errors!

I bought this stuff. Apparently, it is just ground up moth balls. I put it all around the house outside. Now my whole house....inside and out.....smells of moth balls. I can't win. Now I am just hoping this stuff will dissipate soon. I'm not too fond of moth balls!!!

Varmit Update!!

My mom saw my snake this morning and she thinks it is a ground rattler. My brother hasn't seen it yet.

While mowing the yard this morning, I saw at least 3 of those green frogs jumping out of the way of the lawn mower. Never saw that before.

As I pulled the lawnmower out of its spot under the shed, something darted out from under it...too fast for me to see, but I'm thinking mouse!

My little bit of heaven is not quite as heavenly as I once thought!! I'm off to Lowe's to see what kind of varmit repellent I can find. :)

Total Traumatization

No ONE on this Earth is more afraid of snakes than I am, but as I walked out into my garage a little while ago this is what greeted me. Thank goodness the broom was not in its place, but was standing against the wall right there. I managed to get him under the broom head and stand on the broom and jump up and down. That did not faze that sucker. Then I managed to keep him under the broom even though he was crawling up into the broom straw until I could move with him across the garage where a hoe was hanging on the wall. That's when I finally slaughtered him. I haven't done the research to see what kind it is, but I can assure you that is next on my list. My brother spent our childhood and adulthood scaring me with snakes. He just told me recently that he was sort of afraid to do it any more because at my age, I might have a heart attack!! This snake is light gray with dark gray markings on it. It is about 12 inches long, which might just as well be 12 feet to me!! What is the deal with me and all my varmits??? Those frogs are starting to look good to me!! I prefer frogs to snakes! Geez....what a choice! And I am not even near any woods. I have a wide open field behind me, a house on one side, and a cleared site for another house on the other side of me.

My view on The View

I tuned in The View last week because at one time I used to like Rosie O'Donnell. My purpose was to see just how long it took her to throw in her political opinions. Not surprisingly, it only took one day before she started slinging her little digs in oposition to GWB or anything conservative. She really stepped in it Friday when she said "extremist Christians were just as bad as extremist muslims". What an idiotic statement!!! I despise her pseudo-scholarly rhetoric.They need someone like Michelle Malkin to be the other host to help out poor conservative Elizabeth Hasselback. Of course, Michelle has much too much class and intelligence to ever do a show like that. Rosie wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell in a debate with Michelle!!

I liked The View better with Star even with all her superiority (self-proscribed). Meredith Vierra kept the show on a sort of even keel, so it has been tanking, in my opinion, since she left.

Dum dum hummer....

Update: I just went out to check on him and he is not there unless he is dead somewhere and I didn't see him. I hope he is gone!


I have one dumb hummingbird in my garage. He has been there a long time now flying so near the ceiling that he cannot see the big huge opening that is the DOOR to the garage. I went out and tried to help him find his way out, but had no luck. And yes, it is a HE....judging by his ruby throated bright colors!!

Selling tickets to my spring yard...

I received in the mail today a catalog from this place along with a gift certificate for $125 from my cousin. Now I am going to get busy building more flower beds so I can fill them up with bulbs that will bloom in early spring before anything else does. I am going to be like a kid in a candy store buying these bulbs!! Unfortunately, I have already ordered some Daffodil bulbs and it's too late to cancel that order. I am going to have bulbs coming out my ears, but I can promise a show place on my street next March or April. There are thousands of choices in the catalog and I don't know where to begin, but it will be fun to try. I don't want to put them in the backyard because no one will see them, but I may have to put some there.

Wow! Just Wow!

I went to a choir concert tonight at my church. The music in the church was the drawing card for me and what impressed me most on my first visit there. The Passion Singers are a group of 11 that stand in front of the choir and are the main singers. They are just fabulous. One could not find a more professional sounding group in any city in the USA. It was a wonderful praise service! I will not miss another one of those services.

The Amazing Race!

I love this TV show. Tonight the muslim pair was the first to be eliminated. Ooops! I guess allah was too busy blowing up Christian churches to help those guys!!!

Lost my "get up and go" again!

Our wonderful week of cooler weather left us. Today it was 95 again, so I just stayed inside and watched football. One cannot be a resident of Louisiana and not know what's going on with LSU, so I watched the LSU/Auburn game. "We" lost! OK..I can be an LSU fan until they play Texas or A&M, then I have to stick to my loyalties. Most of the game I was sleeping in the recliner. Right now my Alma Mater (Louisiana Tech) is playing, but I don't have much interest in that now either. I just want my energy back and cool weather!!!

Long time friends....

My best friend from high school came by to visit today. She lives in Massachusettes, but has built an awesome plantation home not far from here on Caddo Lake. Unfortunately, the market is so bad where they live now that they can't sell their home there. This is her home waiting for her to move into here. Pretty awesome! She had her mother with her and they had been to see my mom and dad before coming here. WE roomed together when we first went to college, but due to my penchant for partying and her.......not so much.....we parted ways.
We went to dinner to pig out on some crawfish and shrimp . !

template change

Update: Now it's back to normal!


My template changed for no apparent reason. I checked another blog that uses the same template and it has changed too. I don't like it, but can't find out what happened! GRRRR!

I'm HOOKED yet again!

This time it's Survivor. I was on the phone long distance at straight up 7 P.M. when the first Survivor was coming on. I did not want to have to drop that phone and pretend I lost the connection, but I would have. I am going to have to program the VCR to record it in case that ever happens again. Unfortunately, I don't have DVR or TiVo yet! I have seen every season of this show and they keep getting better plus Jeff Probst is just HOT!

Today's project completed....

I have never cared about decorating outside until I got a house. Now I can't wait for Christmas! Since Christmas is slow in coming, I did a little fall decor today. Have a look! Pretty cute, huh!

Fall flowers

Yesterday I planted two flats of yellow snapdragons and 8 yellow mums in my little flower bed around the tree out front. Those flowers are really crammed in there, so when they are blooming, I hope it will be a show piece flower bed. I just love working in the yard. My hard work always manifests itself in my yard. I am so anal about having every thing just perfect.

My neighbor bought a pewter bird bath at the PX at Barksdale Air Force Base yesterday. We have been discussing birdbaths for a while. Hers is beautiful and she offered to go back and buy one for me (since I can't shop at the PX), but I had to decline because the damn thing has frogs on it. Have I mentioned lately that I don't like frogs? She thinks I'm nuts! Someone gave my mom a rain gauge that has a frog wrapped all around it. It's ugly. She knew I didn't want it, but she offered anyway!!!

Engine restarted.....

My engine, that is! The cool weather has me in Farmer Brown mode again. My neighbor came to get me this morning and we took our 1.2 mile walk. This walk is very different from 1.2 miles in my former neighborhood in Texas. I live in a very hilly area now, but in Texas where I came from there were NO hills. So it is a pretty good, beneficial walk.

After we returned, I went to Mom and Dad's to check on them. Dad said he is feeling better, but he just looks bad to me. I cleaned out the rose garden and threw all the old, dead rose bushes away. My brother came over and tilled the area that I cleaned and we got it all ready to plant collard greens and turnip greens. Yeah! Good soul food for the winter!!

To die for ice cream...

Since I was so good all day and only ate some blackened talapia and broccoli, this is dinner!!!! Go directly to your store right now and get you some of this!! You earned it and you deserve it.

It's over!

Big Brother All Stars is over. I am sort of glad because I have been so glued to this show to the point that I wouldn't answer the phone while it was on. Of course, I would check the caller ID to make sure it wasn't someone important.

My neighbor came over while I was mowing the yard today and made me quit and come to her house for some iced tea. She saw how red my face was and was ready to call the paramedics. I was fine...just hot! I made the mistake of telling her I mapped out a 1.2 mile walk from my house and back and started walking it this morning. Now she wants to go with me. I like to walk alone and listen to my Ipod! Oh, well. I'll just go again some other time and listen to my Ipod;that way I get in two walks, double benefits, and get to listen to my Ipod. I just about had a stroke when I got on the scales this morning and there were two more pounds there that weren't there yesterday! WTF! I guess I was deriving considerable benefits from the stairs in my previous home and my 3 to 4 times a week at the Wellness Center in Beaumont. I miss that facility a lot!

Never FORGET!

Don't miss this!

Bulletin: You still have a chance to see Glenn Beck's show on CNNHN tonight. Central time final broadcast is 11:00. This is one of the most powerful shows I have ever seen. It's different and very moving. Don't miss this.....Use your Tivo or whatever device you have, but do not miss this show.

5 years ago today...

I was in my classroom just beginning second period when my principal came to my door and told me that some a-hole (Yes, he did use that terminology) had flown a plane into the WTC. Lots of things went through my mind, none of which were terrorism. I thought of the time just a couple of years prior that I had stood on top of one the WTC buildings and looked in awe at New York City. I thought of my friend who lived there on 86th, but I knew that the WTC was on the opposite end of Manhattan from his apartment. I thought of my cousin's daughter who is a flight attendant for American and flies out of Logan Airport in Boston. School was basically done for that day as no more teaching went on, but lots of TV's were on all day. It didn't take me long to find out that my flight attendant relative was out of the country and my friend in New York was safe.

La-la Land kind of day!

I took one half of a 150MG Deseryl (Trazadone) to help me sleep last night. Not only did I sleep last night, but pretty much all day as well. I have been totally worthless. The yard needs to be mowed, but I am trying to wait until the impending "cold" front comes through tonight and tomorrow. Thursday morning the low is supposed to be 60, so I am waiting for that.

Frogs, Frogs, Frogs....

Since I have turned off the porch light, the frogs have moved to my kitchen window. Now I guess I'll have to turn off kitchen lights as well. When I lived in Texas, I used to get the occasional lizard in my apartment. I finally learned that I could spray wasp spray on the lizard from a long distance and the lizard would die. I tried that on the frogs and they just think they are in the spa getting a good shower. It doesn't faze them. They don't even move!!! What to do!

My dad is not well.......

and he is tired of feeling so bad for no apparent reason. His digestion has basically shut down; he is just pitiful.

I don't like these....

and they are getting on my nerves around my front door. I have killed two today, but two more got away. There was also one in each of my hose boxes where I wind the water hoses up in a box. To me, these don't have any useful purpose. I don't care if they eat bugs. I would rather have the bugs. My front porch light was set to come on at dark, so I guess they were eating bugs all night. I have turned the light off so there won't be any bugs there. Fortunately, I haven't seen even one lizard, which I really hate more than frogs. I'm sure my day is coming when they will find my new home.

While I am on the subject of animals, I have some birds that are pissing me off, too. They are eating from my hummingbird feeder and while they are there, the hummers won't come. I don't understand how any bird, but a hummer could eat through those little holes. These birds have beaks! It's some type of finch just like the picture. I have to run them off so my hummers can feed! I know my hummers are about to embark on a long journey and they need to be tanking up.

Bye, Bye pear preserves!

Mom burned one whole dishpan full of pears. She was sitting right there in the kitchen with them and still let them burn. It is not uncommon for her to go off on another tangent and leave something on the stove, but sitting right there in the room with them is highly unusual.
She also found a filled prescription of Xanax in her purse that Dad is supposed to be taking and two prescriptions that had never been filled! This is a woman who used to never forget anything and had more intelligence than all the rest of us put together! This pains me more than anything to see her losing it mentally!!

More of the same...

Yesterday I went to Mom and Dad's to see how Dad was. He just does not feel well....in fact, he didn't even go to church on Sunday. When I went to my brother's for Sunday lunch, Dad was there, but he could not eat and he just had tears in his eyes. We still don't know what is wrong, but he is slowly being weaned off the last medicine that the doc thinks could be causing him to feel so bad....prednisone. Dad told my mom that he was just in the way and couldn't do anything any more. He soooooo does not want to be a burden to his children. That will never happen. He will have our devotion until the end. It's only fitting after all that man has done for us. Not all fathers deserve that devotion, but this one does. Dad's truck wouldn't start, so Stewart came to see about it, then went to buy a new battery for Dad.

I found Mom up to her eyeballs in pears. She wanted to make some pear preserves, but the pears were so hard, that her apple pealer/corer thingy would not peal them. She was trying to do it by hand with her arthritic hands. She is the type of person that would have tried until midnight if that's what it took to not give up. I pealed all her pears for her and got them cut up so she can make the preserves. That will be the easy part.

Incompetence personified!

Yesterday I went to Dillard's specifically to get my mom and myself some make-up. I have been using Princess Borghese Hydro Minerali Natural Finish for at least 20 years. Now my mom uses it as well. I took the old bottle and specifically told her to make sure it was the correct one because the containers all look the same. When I got home, I looked in the bag and mine was the right kind, but my mom's wasn't. That is $70 worth of make-up and a 60 mile round trip. I took it back today and the lady was very apologetic and gave me a container of their foot cream to help placate me. I told her that I was not a happy camper, so she tried to make me happy. I'm good now!!

Racking up points :)

I went to Mom and Dad's and mowed their yard this morning. It took all morning to do that and I was covered in dirt. The yard is so dry that I had to cover my face and nose with a bandana, looking for all the world like a bandit in the old West. My nose was full of dirt, my hair was full of dirt, and my ears were full of dirt. I just hope I got it all clean.

This afternoon I was on another mission. I needed a hair cut badly, so I went to the mall and waited an hour at Master Cuts before giving up and leaving. As I was going home, I saw a Super Cuts store, so I swung in there and got a hair cut. It is harder to find a new hair dresser that I like than it is to find a doctor. Of course, I haven't found one of those yet, either. Fortunately, I haven't needed one, yet.

Lazy kind of day.....sort of!

Yesterday, I spent the better part of the day taking Mom and Dad to Shreveport for him to see about getting a new hearing aid. Mom forgot her walking cane, so I had to hang on to her any time she had to walk. Fortunately, Dad's appointment went well and he has a new digital hearing aid ordered. That put him in a better mood so he wasn't so hard to be around. Still, it just drains me emotionally to spend a day like that.

So.....today I just chilled. I went downtown and ate lunch at the Blue Moon Java, a unique little coffee house. After lunch I walked down Main Street. It is such a neat little downtown with great potential for unique little shops, but few people are capitalizing on it. The streets are brick and back when all the stores were occupied, my family used to go every Christmas after the stores were closed and window shop because they always had great Christmas decorations in the glassed showcases. The showcased windows are still there....but the stores aren't.

Tonight my brother and sister-in-law dropped by to visit. It's so nice to be close enough for them to do that now. Have I mentioned lately how much I love this place?

My sentiments exactly!!!