Dogs, lights and gifts

Our neighbors left for their trip to see their son and family and will be back Sunday. They decided to board the new dog, since he will just bark when they aren't home. Hopefully the other 3 will do ok while gone. They get to go in and out whenever they want and a friend of theirs comes to feed them 2 times a day. So far today, the other 3 have been fine. They didn't even bark at me and my dogs when they saw us walking to the mailboxes.

We are going to have to have our electrician figure out why our great room lights flicker of and on every so often. It was mentioned to them by DH when they installed all the lighting (before we moved in) and DH noticed it. They made various "reasons" it might be doing it. A bad bulb in one of the light fixtures (hanging from ceiling) or a surge from our electric company. Then it was mentioned to them again that it happens every so often and when our head electrician was here to fix the fire detectors we mentioned it. Basically, they just kinda shrug their shoulders and don't say/do anything.

For the most part, while sitting watching tv in the evenings we only have one floor/table lamp on. It doesn't blink, nor does the tv plugged in above the fireplace). But if we turn any of the overhead or wall sconces on, they blink every so often. Now we have the tree plugged in and it does the same thing. So, last night we actually watched and timed to see if it was regular or radom. Yep, about every 9 minutes it will blink on and off once. The weird thing is the floor lamp will not do it, but the table lamp, plugged the outlet on the floor next to it, does. This is the only room in the house that does it and now that we've had tree and other decorations plugged in and it keeps blinking on and off once, every 9 minutes, it's annoying! Whatever it is, they need to fix it. We paid a buttload of money to this electrician and obviously something is wrong, If it was a power surge from our electric company wouldn't the whole house do it? not just one room? If it was a bad bulb in one of the hanging light fixtures, why do the other fixtures blink, when those fixtures are off. So, I just left him a message about it.

Mom continues to sound good each day, so that is encouraging. She hasn't had any days she wakes up not feeling well, since last Thursday. She does keep saying she thinks she needs to move closer to DD, maybe next spring, so I sent out a few emails to the places in DD's area. One just emailed me a brochure, but no pricing. That's all I heard from so far. I did also email one here near me, in the city, just to see. They emailed right back and sent pricing. Actually a little more than she is paying now, for independent living. Another place in my area did have their starting pricing online, for independent living and it was about $600 less a month than she's paying now.

I just ordered a gift for DD...or maybe I'll give it to her DH as a gift, since I still want to have a few things for him to open (even though we are chipping in on a big gift with DD). One of those Facebook ads got me, LOL. It was personalized stone/farmhouse style coasters. It has their last name initial, with some floral leaves type on each side and then their full name in cursive on the bottom. It reminded me of their wedding announcement. $23, which I tried to see if somewhere else was cheaper, but no. But when I personalized it and clicked it to my cart it went down to $16.99. Then I googled a coupon code and found one for 20% off. I did have to pay shipping of $6.99 but it all still only came to $19. Is coasters a good "guy gift"? LOL