My mom went to the grocery store with her senior living group/bus on Tuesday morning. One of the things she put on her list is some hydrocortisone itch cream, as she has a rash on her arm. When she called me Tuesday afternoon she said "of course I forgot to get it while I was there!". So, I ordered her some from Amazon Prime. I was hoping since she's in such a metro area, it would get there in a day or two, but it's not showing up until tomorrow. I just got her a tube of Cortaid cream and hopefully that will help. She said she's had the rash before, but it's been awhile.
I'm not exactly sure what all she needed at the store, since DS went for her on Saturday, but in her usual fashion, I'm sure she just told him a couple things on her list, rather than all she needed. I know every time I or dd visited and would take her to the store she'd have a list but suddenly decide she's not going to take the time and was always like "oh, I'll just get the rest another time" LOL.
Tuesday afternoon/evening she was really having a hard time knowing what was going on with her bank accounts and retirement account. I think she called me 5 times with questions. She thought she was waiting for a check from her retirement account. I had to remind her that money was transferred directly to her checking account a couple of weeks ago and then I transferred part of it in her savings, rather than leaving it all in checking. See that savings balance listed below your checking balance? ya, that's that money, LOL. Then she's confused by her retirement accounts "cash balance". "Should I leave my money with them still?" (we've had this conversation a few times) I'm like yes....you (and dad) have used this broker for 25 some years now and he's done a great job with your investments. Let's just let him keep doing his job". Then I had to explain to her that that "cash balance" part of her retirement funds is just money he allocates between cash, stocks and bonds. He uses it to buy/sell when necessary, so that balance is always changing. Just leave it there as part of the investments. I also had to remind her she has another account with them, too. A money market savings type account that all her money went from the sale of her house.
It's payday today. So nice to have that extra $1000 from my side job! It's raining. It was almost 80 degrees out yesterday but got very cloudy by afternoon and dark clouds by evening. DH continued to work on the shed yesterday, putting up the sheets of plywood for the ceiling. I guess he's waiting on some batting type insulation from the lumber store, which won't be in until tomorrow. Then he can put that up and put the plywood sheeting up to cover the walls. He seems to be taking today off, so far, since it's raining (and he's tired).
DD's auto insurance company sent them a $50 refund check per vehicle, so they got $150. My insurance company is just doing 20% of April and May and still hasn't done it yet. So, I'm only going to see about $30 back, in total. She's been wanting a new kitchen sink and got one online at Lowe's. The description online said it has "cut outs" which they assumed meant what they needed for their set up (I guess like a vent type hole and something related to their dishwasher) but when they got it opened to look at, no cut outs, so she had to return it. She was very bummed. They went looking for something else at Lowes and Home Depot last night and found something, but of course it was quite a bit more money than she had originally planned. She wants a big single bowl stainless sink with a pull down faucet, like I have. They are also going to put in a garbage disposal, which she is excited about.
I didn't do any MTurks yesterday, since I was in taking care of my eye appointment and other errands yesterday and didn't get home and to work until after 11am. I did earn $29 the previous 3 days though.
I need to give our nearby meat/butcher place a call to see about ordering some meat for our freezer. I've never ordered from a butcher place before. I just want some ground beef and some steaks. I have newbie questions for them....like if I order 25# of ground beef, is it all in one chunk or do they package it up in individual sizes? Can I order thin steaks? I hate talking to people and asking questions....hence I haven't called yet, LOL.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Bizarroworld
It's bizarro world out there today ;)
First off I go to the bank to get that document notarized that allows me to have POA on my mom's retirement investment account. I have to go thru drivethru so she has me send it to her in the tube so she can look at it first (before I sign). She's gone like 5 minutes or more. Comes back and says apparently she has to have me read out the "oath" that is written on it, out loud to her, before she can notarize so she has me pull up by their back door and she comes out and I have to read the whole statement to her from the document! So weird (she thought it was weird too). I can't see anything in it that says she has to hear it verbally! so strange. I've never had anything like that with a notary in my life, LOL. Have you ever heard of that?
Then I pull into Walmart to get my order, pull up next to this big pickup with a lady in her 30's in it. She's waiting and has her phone and her drivers license in her hand and window rolled up (everyone else has theirs down or at least partway. I think well maybe she thinks she needs to show her license to prove it's her order (when they always have just come up and said "are you so and so?". So, out comes 3 people with carts stacked with bins and this huge order that is hers. The girl with the scanner thingy walks up to her door and she puts her license up to the window and is holding her phone up. Girl just nods and turns away and they get started putting stuff in bed of her (lifted) truck. She's still holding her license up and either recording them or taking pics. Strange. Then she's talking on her phone but still holding license in her hand and she keeps looking back as they are getting her stuff moved from bins to her truck. After a minute the girl walks back to her window (which she will not even crack an inch) and obviously wants to say something to the lady but the lady just pushes her license up to the window and holds it there. The girl says loudly - can you turn your engine off? (obviously don't want to breath fumes the whole time) so she nods and turns it off. Then they are still loading (so slow) and not even near her window or paying attention to her and suddenly she's holding her license up to the window again, looking back towards them as they are still loading into the bed of her truck. Why?? LOL. I'm just like what in the world is this lady's deal? Finally mine is loaded and as I'm backing out the girl at her truck is starting to go up to her window again, obviously needs to tell her something else, and she just puts her license up there again. LOL Bizarro! I can't imagine what that lady was doing or thinking!
My eye looked much better to the specialist. He said it still has some "old" scar type tissue on it (maybe from when I scratched it years ago?) and he said it will probably act up again at some point and if it does he recommends the eye surgery fix. He said probably next winter time, when we start having the heat on again in the house and the forced air dries out the eyes. He also said to continue to use the ointment and drops for the next few months, too.
I was watching something on tv last night where the guy said he was going into CVS or somewhere and there was a sign he had to have a mask on. I suddenly thought, I wonder if the eye doctor (or I was also going to go into Lowes) would require one? I looked on the eye dr website and at least they were up to date on their website and did in fact say a mask is required for anyone entering their building. Eek. We haven't gotten any yet. (no one in our county has even contracted the virus and now things are starting to open up again). I asked DH if he had any of those little white paper masks.. I know he used to have some for when he did aluminum polishing. He did have a couple, so I just wore that into the eye doctor. It fit terrible and kept fogging my glasses. I'm just going to find something online to order. I'll need one for when I go to my mom's.
First off I go to the bank to get that document notarized that allows me to have POA on my mom's retirement investment account. I have to go thru drivethru so she has me send it to her in the tube so she can look at it first (before I sign). She's gone like 5 minutes or more. Comes back and says apparently she has to have me read out the "oath" that is written on it, out loud to her, before she can notarize so she has me pull up by their back door and she comes out and I have to read the whole statement to her from the document! So weird (she thought it was weird too). I can't see anything in it that says she has to hear it verbally! so strange. I've never had anything like that with a notary in my life, LOL. Have you ever heard of that?
Then I pull into Walmart to get my order, pull up next to this big pickup with a lady in her 30's in it. She's waiting and has her phone and her drivers license in her hand and window rolled up (everyone else has theirs down or at least partway. I think well maybe she thinks she needs to show her license to prove it's her order (when they always have just come up and said "are you so and so?". So, out comes 3 people with carts stacked with bins and this huge order that is hers. The girl with the scanner thingy walks up to her door and she puts her license up to the window and is holding her phone up. Girl just nods and turns away and they get started putting stuff in bed of her (lifted) truck. She's still holding her license up and either recording them or taking pics. Strange. Then she's talking on her phone but still holding license in her hand and she keeps looking back as they are getting her stuff moved from bins to her truck. After a minute the girl walks back to her window (which she will not even crack an inch) and obviously wants to say something to the lady but the lady just pushes her license up to the window and holds it there. The girl says loudly - can you turn your engine off? (obviously don't want to breath fumes the whole time) so she nods and turns it off. Then they are still loading (so slow) and not even near her window or paying attention to her and suddenly she's holding her license up to the window again, looking back towards them as they are still loading into the bed of her truck. Why?? LOL. I'm just like what in the world is this lady's deal? Finally mine is loaded and as I'm backing out the girl at her truck is starting to go up to her window again, obviously needs to tell her something else, and she just puts her license up there again. LOL Bizarro! I can't imagine what that lady was doing or thinking!
My eye looked much better to the specialist. He said it still has some "old" scar type tissue on it (maybe from when I scratched it years ago?) and he said it will probably act up again at some point and if it does he recommends the eye surgery fix. He said probably next winter time, when we start having the heat on again in the house and the forced air dries out the eyes. He also said to continue to use the ointment and drops for the next few months, too.
I was watching something on tv last night where the guy said he was going into CVS or somewhere and there was a sign he had to have a mask on. I suddenly thought, I wonder if the eye doctor (or I was also going to go into Lowes) would require one? I looked on the eye dr website and at least they were up to date on their website and did in fact say a mask is required for anyone entering their building. Eek. We haven't gotten any yet. (no one in our county has even contracted the virus and now things are starting to open up again). I asked DH if he had any of those little white paper masks.. I know he used to have some for when he did aluminum polishing. He did have a couple, so I just wore that into the eye doctor. It fit terrible and kept fogging my glasses. I'm just going to find something online to order. I'll need one for when I go to my mom's.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Tackling Tuesday
I didn't end up talking to my mom until about 4:15 her time yesterday afternoon. I had called her an hour earlier and she said she was downstairs checking her mail and would call me back when she got back up to her apartment. She forgot. It sounds like maybe she wasn't feeling well again yesterday morning for a bit. She mentioned she wants to go to the store with the group/bus, this morning, as she still wants a few things and needs to get something for a rash on her arm. She said she's had this rash before, but it's been a long time since she last had it. Not sure what it might be. She said she only has lotion, so wanted to check at the store pharmacy for something else. I reminded her about "Cortaid" or hydrocortisone cream, so she wrote that down to look for. If for some reason she doesn't go or forgets to get some, I'll just try to order her some via Amazon and have it delivered. I would think there would be something with Prime delivery for that to get to her quickly. Or Walmart 2 day delivery. I did just look through her medication list with her health insurance and a couple years ago she did have a prescription for some hydrocortisone 2.5% cream for "red spots". Wonder if she still probably has the tube in her medicine cabinet. I wouldn't be surprised that she used it all before. Usually they always give you more than you end up using with that kind of stuff.
Tomorrow morning is my eye doctor appointment to recheck my eye with the specialist. So far, so good now for almost 2 weeks. If for some reason he does still recommend the eye surgery, as long as it's still not bothering me, I'm going to wait until after I get my mom moved over here. He had said it would take a week for most of the healing, but a good month for it to completely reheal after the surgery and I don't want to have to deal with it while driving over to get my mom moved, if I don't have to.
I also have to get that document notarized that my mom's retirement account broker mailed to me, so that they can finally get me on the account. I called my bank to see if I needed an appointment for that, since I'll be in the city tomorrow morning, but she said I can just do it through the drive thru. My eye appointment is 8:40 and I doubt it will take longer than a half hour. Then I will go to the bank. Then Lowe's is nearby and I'll stop and pick up some 55 gallon garbage sacks I ordered. Then I have my Walmart order set to pick up at 10am. Should all work out just about right, time wise. I keep checking back, until my order finalizes to see if I can get anything on my list that has been out of stock. Finally was able to add 4 boxes of elbow noodles.
DH is putting our house back together now, after having that insulation problem fixed. He's reinstalling all the soffit boards. No fun at all. It took him days to recover from taking them all out. Then he will have to fix the insides upstairs. One in a bedroom closet where he cut out the wall so the insulation guy could get back into the attic area. Fairly easy to fix/hide, since it's just in a closet. The other opening he had to cut out (where I shared that picture the other day) is in the hallway to the bonus room. Not as easy. I think he's just going to do a temporary fix until we can afford to either install a bookcase there or put in a door, to access that area and use it for storage closet.
Perfect weather day - sunny and 67. Tomorrow up to 76, but supposed to be cloudy all day.
Tomorrow morning is my eye doctor appointment to recheck my eye with the specialist. So far, so good now for almost 2 weeks. If for some reason he does still recommend the eye surgery, as long as it's still not bothering me, I'm going to wait until after I get my mom moved over here. He had said it would take a week for most of the healing, but a good month for it to completely reheal after the surgery and I don't want to have to deal with it while driving over to get my mom moved, if I don't have to.
I also have to get that document notarized that my mom's retirement account broker mailed to me, so that they can finally get me on the account. I called my bank to see if I needed an appointment for that, since I'll be in the city tomorrow morning, but she said I can just do it through the drive thru. My eye appointment is 8:40 and I doubt it will take longer than a half hour. Then I will go to the bank. Then Lowe's is nearby and I'll stop and pick up some 55 gallon garbage sacks I ordered. Then I have my Walmart order set to pick up at 10am. Should all work out just about right, time wise. I keep checking back, until my order finalizes to see if I can get anything on my list that has been out of stock. Finally was able to add 4 boxes of elbow noodles.
DH is putting our house back together now, after having that insulation problem fixed. He's reinstalling all the soffit boards. No fun at all. It took him days to recover from taking them all out. Then he will have to fix the insides upstairs. One in a bedroom closet where he cut out the wall so the insulation guy could get back into the attic area. Fairly easy to fix/hide, since it's just in a closet. The other opening he had to cut out (where I shared that picture the other day) is in the hallway to the bonus room. Not as easy. I think he's just going to do a temporary fix until we can afford to either install a bookcase there or put in a door, to access that area and use it for storage closet.
Perfect weather day - sunny and 67. Tomorrow up to 76, but supposed to be cloudy all day.
Monday, April 27, 2020
Let's do another week
It's payroll day today.....will this one finally be easy? LOL. One annoying part of our new system, is PTO requests sometimes get left in the systems as "pending" instead of getting approved by the manager, so I have to take time to track down whether they actually took/taking the time off. So, that's what's delaying me right now with it.
I'm still tweaking my Walmart pick up order. I did find some Libby and Great Value green beans, limit 4 of each, so I'm ordering both to try (usually get Del Monte). Worse comes to worse the dogs absolutely love green beans, so they can be their treats if we (and by "we" I mean DH, I really don't like any green beans, LOL) don't like them, for some reason. One thing I can't find either, is the Classico pizza sauce I like for my homemade pizza. Are there really that many people who are now making their own pizzas?
In the meantime of writing this (and putting it on hold to do actual work) payroll is done! No real issues and it's not even noon. Yay me!
Somehow in the last 2 hours I have pulled a muscle or something in my left calf. I didn't wake up with it, nor was I having any problems when I was outside with the dogs around 9:30am. I can't imagine what I could have done just sitting here at my desk. I could barely walk down the stairs with it. It seems to be loosening up a bit now, but weird.
I think our neighbor is enjoying her new Covid-19 work schedule. She works one week on and one week off and gets paid for the weeks off. She's outside today working in her yard, which she always seems to enjoy. And speaking of banks, I need to call my bank to set up an appointment for Wednesday morning, after my eye exam, so I can get the document my mom's retirement broker sent me, notarized and mailed back to them.
Taking a lunch break. Working on MTurks. Up to $4.55 so far today. This morning a little over $18 got transferred to my bank account, so I'm getting back on track now.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Weekend boring stuff
It's been a very relaxed and average weekend. Yesterday morning I just did my normal housecleaning stuff: dusted, vacuumed, cleaned the bathrooms, ran the dishwasher, etc. DH took the day and rested, for the most part. Just hung out on his computer. I got a good nap in, too. I managed to do about $8 in MTurks.
My mom had called in the morning saying she didn't feel very well, so ended up calling my son, who was supposed to take her to the grocery store, that she wasn't going to be able to go. He did some shopping for her and dropped it off. I could tell when she called she was a bit worried about the virus, but her issue seemed to be more with her stomach. After we chatted she took her temperature and called me back and it was normal. I suggested maybe something she ate just didn't agree with her, as she had mentioned the previous couple of nights she didn't think the dinners tasted too good. She did call DD in the afternoon and was doing fine and I talked to her this morning and she was all good, so that was a relief.
Around 4pm our retired friend from town stopped by for a visit for about an hour or so. After he left DH said "I had a feeling he'd stop by "(I think it's been 2 weeks, haha) and I said I figured he'd stop by tomorrow, since he usually comes on Sundays. DH says "isn't it Sunday today?!". No! LOL. Don't cheat me out of a day out of my weekend, LOL.
I made steaks for dinner. I didn't realize there were 3 steaks in the pack I bought, so now I don't feel quite so bad about the price I spent on it. I finished a book last evening and watched a little tv. Then I had no books to read as none of my books on reserve had become available yet. This morning one of them became available so I downloaded it. It's a science fiction and book 1 of a series of 3 and right away I was enjoying it and knew I'd finish it fast, so got back online with library to reserve the other 2, in case there was a wait, but both were available now, so I should be good for this week, LOL.
This morning I spent some time getting another (smaller) walmart pick up order set up for when I have to go in Wednesday for my eye doctor appointment. I've also done about $4 in MTurks today, so not bad for a weekend. One thing I'm having trouble buying still is white rice, elbow noodles, and green beans, but I'll keep checking online, as I have until late Tues night to add/change my order.
I then made some more tapioca pudding. I can't seem to get enough of that stuff. I should just make a double batch, I eat it so quickly, but it uses so much milk that I haven't wanted to use up so much of my milk at one time. I also made up a fresh pitcher of OJ (from frozen can) and took out some chicken breast to thaw for dinner. I have one bag of white rice "boil in a bag" left, so I'll either make a chicken/rice/veggies casserole or maybe save the rice and make it with stove top stuffing instead.
DH decided to take a nap on the couch after lunch while I was reading. Then I got sleepy and took a nap on the bed for about an hour or so. Woke up when I heard him going outside, as he decided to mow the lawn again, since it's such a nice day and really growing. I'm still trying to wake up, I think. Can't seem to get my energy back, now.
My mom had called in the morning saying she didn't feel very well, so ended up calling my son, who was supposed to take her to the grocery store, that she wasn't going to be able to go. He did some shopping for her and dropped it off. I could tell when she called she was a bit worried about the virus, but her issue seemed to be more with her stomach. After we chatted she took her temperature and called me back and it was normal. I suggested maybe something she ate just didn't agree with her, as she had mentioned the previous couple of nights she didn't think the dinners tasted too good. She did call DD in the afternoon and was doing fine and I talked to her this morning and she was all good, so that was a relief.
Around 4pm our retired friend from town stopped by for a visit for about an hour or so. After he left DH said "I had a feeling he'd stop by "(I think it's been 2 weeks, haha) and I said I figured he'd stop by tomorrow, since he usually comes on Sundays. DH says "isn't it Sunday today?!". No! LOL. Don't cheat me out of a day out of my weekend, LOL.
I made steaks for dinner. I didn't realize there were 3 steaks in the pack I bought, so now I don't feel quite so bad about the price I spent on it. I finished a book last evening and watched a little tv. Then I had no books to read as none of my books on reserve had become available yet. This morning one of them became available so I downloaded it. It's a science fiction and book 1 of a series of 3 and right away I was enjoying it and knew I'd finish it fast, so got back online with library to reserve the other 2, in case there was a wait, but both were available now, so I should be good for this week, LOL.
This morning I spent some time getting another (smaller) walmart pick up order set up for when I have to go in Wednesday for my eye doctor appointment. I've also done about $4 in MTurks today, so not bad for a weekend. One thing I'm having trouble buying still is white rice, elbow noodles, and green beans, but I'll keep checking online, as I have until late Tues night to add/change my order.
I then made some more tapioca pudding. I can't seem to get enough of that stuff. I should just make a double batch, I eat it so quickly, but it uses so much milk that I haven't wanted to use up so much of my milk at one time. I also made up a fresh pitcher of OJ (from frozen can) and took out some chicken breast to thaw for dinner. I have one bag of white rice "boil in a bag" left, so I'll either make a chicken/rice/veggies casserole or maybe save the rice and make it with stove top stuffing instead.
DH decided to take a nap on the couch after lunch while I was reading. Then I got sleepy and took a nap on the bed for about an hour or so. Woke up when I heard him going outside, as he decided to mow the lawn again, since it's such a nice day and really growing. I'm still trying to wake up, I think. Can't seem to get my energy back, now.
Friday, April 24, 2020
TGIF quick part 2
I've been checking the IRS "get my payment" site just about every day since the 15th, only to get the "Payment Status Not Available" message day after day. Finally, today I got through and was able to put in our direct deposit info. Yay! Don't know how long it will still take to get the money, but at least I feel a step closer to getting it and should be faster than a paper check, at least.
I've started doing MTurks again today and am up to $10.90 so far, at early afternoon. Lots of coronavirus surveys, of course. It didn't seem too painful to get back into doing the survey's today. I just have to keep my self motivated each day now. Maybe with the weekend, and no work, I'll be a bit more motivated to do some more, even though weekends are typically much slower with hits available.
I see next Wednesday we are supposed to get to 75 degrees. That will be a nice day and really should get our grass seed popping.
It's now a little after 2pm and I'm hitting my sleepy afternoon phase. Ugh.
I've started doing MTurks again today and am up to $10.90 so far, at early afternoon. Lots of coronavirus surveys, of course. It didn't seem too painful to get back into doing the survey's today. I just have to keep my self motivated each day now. Maybe with the weekend, and no work, I'll be a bit more motivated to do some more, even though weekends are typically much slower with hits available.
I see next Wednesday we are supposed to get to 75 degrees. That will be a nice day and really should get our grass seed popping.
It's now a little after 2pm and I'm hitting my sleepy afternoon phase. Ugh.
It's TGIF again
The insulation guy got finished at like 9:15 last night. If he would have gotten here at 7:30 or 8 am, like he was supposed to he wouldn't have had to invade our whole evening. DH is pooped, because of course he spent the day as his helper. Helped lay down and attach all the visqueen, helped him maneuver the super long hose he uses to spray the foam, etc, helped clean up. When he had to come up inside our attic areas, they had to bring the hose in through our bonus room window and then run it down the hallway (floor covered in plastic). But, all those cracks to the outside are now filled in and the shed is insulated. DH can sleep in and rest today. But he does himself zero favors. The guy had his stuff put away and ready to leave probably around 9:30 or so, yet DH stands outside for 2 freaking hours chatting with him! Then complains to me he's in so much pain. Well, then you should have said goodbye at 9:30 and came in and rested.
My eye is still doing well. My dogs seem to be over their throwing up and diarrhea. Earlier this week I changed how I am feeding one of the dogs, the one who doesn't chew the food. I've been letting it soak in water for a bit, before I give it to him, so it softens up. He has not puked any back up since. When DH was down at our other neighbors, borrowing the radon tester, they said their dog has been picking up ticks, too. I asked DH if he asked them if/what they use for tick repellent, but of course he didn't think to ask. Like our other neighbors with the 4 dogs, obviously what they use doesn't work! The neighbor with the 4 dogs says she uses some natural type spray she gets at Walmart. I'm going to stick with my Pet Armor, it seems to do the job and no ticks on our dogs as far as we know and I have been using it since we moved to this state.
Does any one with a chest freezer have suggestions for organizing the food stored in it? I don't have a lot in it yet, but can see how it can easily become a buried mess, where I don't know what is underneath, once I start adding/stacking stuff. There are 2 trays on top that slide, but the rest is a big huge deep area, just ripe for disorganization.
DH's brother again with the snide comments. DH had posted a couple of pictures the other day, where he got to mow our lawn for the first time. One was a photo he took sitting on his lawn tractor looking out over the hood of it to our yard. Every other friends comments were "looks nice". His comment was "you rich folk sure know how to live". I wanted to comment "ummm...if we were rich, someone else would be mowing our lawn!".
My eye is still doing well. My dogs seem to be over their throwing up and diarrhea. Earlier this week I changed how I am feeding one of the dogs, the one who doesn't chew the food. I've been letting it soak in water for a bit, before I give it to him, so it softens up. He has not puked any back up since. When DH was down at our other neighbors, borrowing the radon tester, they said their dog has been picking up ticks, too. I asked DH if he asked them if/what they use for tick repellent, but of course he didn't think to ask. Like our other neighbors with the 4 dogs, obviously what they use doesn't work! The neighbor with the 4 dogs says she uses some natural type spray she gets at Walmart. I'm going to stick with my Pet Armor, it seems to do the job and no ticks on our dogs as far as we know and I have been using it since we moved to this state.
Does any one with a chest freezer have suggestions for organizing the food stored in it? I don't have a lot in it yet, but can see how it can easily become a buried mess, where I don't know what is underneath, once I start adding/stacking stuff. There are 2 trays on top that slide, but the rest is a big huge deep area, just ripe for disorganization.
DH's brother again with the snide comments. DH had posted a couple of pictures the other day, where he got to mow our lawn for the first time. One was a photo he took sitting on his lawn tractor looking out over the hood of it to our yard. Every other friends comments were "looks nice". His comment was "you rich folk sure know how to live". I wanted to comment "ummm...if we were rich, someone else would be mowing our lawn!".
Thursday, April 23, 2020
Trying to plan and trying to get things done
Gosh, I need to get back to doing MTurks. I have not done any for quite awhile. Pretty much since my eye started bothering me and the only computer work I was doing was the little bit of work I could do. Now that my eye is better, though, I haven't had the motivation yet to get back into it. I miss those deposits and addition to my bank account. Part of me was in the mindset of I have to take a break because of my eye and since I got that retro pay of $3000 and an additional $1000/mo from my side job, I can give myself a little break for a few weeks, while my eye recovers.
The insulation guy said they were coming at 7:30 this morning. So of course we get up, showered, dressed, breakfasted, etc so we are ready for them (they will be both inside and outside the house). They show up at 10:45......
Tentatively planning now to move my mom on 22nd of May. Get in/get out. I'm considering just renting a car to drive over there, so I don't have to put the miles on my car that now has 130,000 miles on it. I had hoped for maybe the weekend of the 15th, but DD has plans. I didn't ask what. I'm guessing maybe it has something to do with anniversary death of her SIL. Now that I think about it, she passed away around this time 2 years ago. Mom is going to check with her place to see what if any restrictions they plan to have after the state stay home order is lifted on May 4th, as far as us coming in there to get her things moved out. We also have to plan her 20 days notice of moving out. I guess if something happens after we give the notice and they don't want us in there to move her out, they either have to let us in to do that or let her stay, LOL.
I mailed a letter via usps priority mail yesterday. Says that's "2 day pm" so you'd think that means they would get it Friday, right? Tracking says they won't get it until Saturday. I should have just mailed regular mail, but I guess at least I get tracking for the extra money spent.
I'm guessing these insulation guys will be here thru our dinner time, since they got here so late, so I'm just planning on making us salads when DH is ready to eat. Oh wait, it's just insulation GUY. He told dh he was sending a helper with his regular guy. So, of course now DH has to help him, or at least feels like he does. I said what does he do at all the other jobs he goes to? you know damn well people aren't going to help him do his job!!
The sprinkler guy finally just called dh back. Still nothing from the mason, who was supposed to be here 2 weeks ago. Have I mentioned how much I detest contractors?
Oh and I guess we're also going to need to mitigate for radon at some point. When the mold guy was here on Monday he said he had to go to our neighbors down at the end of our street (they built at same time as us and also ended up having mold issues, so used the same guy) because they tested and had radon levels too high. Their house is slab on grade, so they never imagined they'd have an issue. Mold guys said check with them because they had a good little device to measure it, and maybe we could borrow it to check ours. DH went and talked to them yesterday and borrowed it. Our level showed at like 70 in the house letting it sit overnight. So, at some point in the near future we'll have to figure out what that is going to cost to fix and take care of. Not today though. I've got enough different stuff to deal with the next few weeks.
The insulation guy said they were coming at 7:30 this morning. So of course we get up, showered, dressed, breakfasted, etc so we are ready for them (they will be both inside and outside the house). They show up at 10:45......
Tentatively planning now to move my mom on 22nd of May. Get in/get out. I'm considering just renting a car to drive over there, so I don't have to put the miles on my car that now has 130,000 miles on it. I had hoped for maybe the weekend of the 15th, but DD has plans. I didn't ask what. I'm guessing maybe it has something to do with anniversary death of her SIL. Now that I think about it, she passed away around this time 2 years ago. Mom is going to check with her place to see what if any restrictions they plan to have after the state stay home order is lifted on May 4th, as far as us coming in there to get her things moved out. We also have to plan her 20 days notice of moving out. I guess if something happens after we give the notice and they don't want us in there to move her out, they either have to let us in to do that or let her stay, LOL.
I mailed a letter via usps priority mail yesterday. Says that's "2 day pm" so you'd think that means they would get it Friday, right? Tracking says they won't get it until Saturday. I should have just mailed regular mail, but I guess at least I get tracking for the extra money spent.
I'm guessing these insulation guys will be here thru our dinner time, since they got here so late, so I'm just planning on making us salads when DH is ready to eat. Oh wait, it's just insulation GUY. He told dh he was sending a helper with his regular guy. So, of course now DH has to help him, or at least feels like he does. I said what does he do at all the other jobs he goes to? you know damn well people aren't going to help him do his job!!
The sprinkler guy finally just called dh back. Still nothing from the mason, who was supposed to be here 2 weeks ago. Have I mentioned how much I detest contractors?
Oh and I guess we're also going to need to mitigate for radon at some point. When the mold guy was here on Monday he said he had to go to our neighbors down at the end of our street (they built at same time as us and also ended up having mold issues, so used the same guy) because they tested and had radon levels too high. Their house is slab on grade, so they never imagined they'd have an issue. Mold guys said check with them because they had a good little device to measure it, and maybe we could borrow it to check ours. DH went and talked to them yesterday and borrowed it. Our level showed at like 70 in the house letting it sit overnight. So, at some point in the near future we'll have to figure out what that is going to cost to fix and take care of. Not today though. I've got enough different stuff to deal with the next few weeks.
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
More food and more fixing stuff
No mason guy and no gutter guy, still. Apparently the mason guy took the week off to go "shed hunting". We're pretty sure the gutter guy is going to be a complete no show. DH can't even get a hold of him now. Apparently there are no gutter installation service companies in our nearby city! Crazy. The plastic sheeting that we had the mold guys leave up, so that the insulation guys won't have to spend time covering the siding and windows up so they don't get insulation spray on them, was having a hard time with all the wind we've been having. Ugh. We ended up taking one front one off and hopefully got the other 3 sections set so they will stay put until they get here.
DH mowed for the first time yesterday :) He hadn't used our Honda mower since we lived in town, but it started right up. He used it around the edges and small area and then got out his *new John Deere and mowed the rest. We are still hoping the seeded areas will fill in good, and soon.
DD's husband went back to work at his plant yesterday. The company put back into the facility a huge amount of workers. As he works directly in the plant, doing training, he can't work from home much. DD is still working from home, with her job.
My Walmart pick up order said I could make changes until 1:45am this morning, so yesterday throughout the day, I'd check stock and was able to add quite a few of the things that originally said out of stock. I took this morning off and went shopping. We need food besides soup and sandwiches. With the limits for Walmart and then an email that they were out of honey ham lunch meat, I already knew I was going to have to stop at at least one more store. I stopped at Target. Found the frozen salmon there we like, so I got 4 boxes. I got an extra box of Hostess cupcakes and some Charmin TP was in stock,but they were out of the bread we like. Then I went to another grocery store, where I found the bread and some thin ribeye steak. I only got one pack of 2 steaks, though. Too expensive. They also had Charmin TP, so I grabbed a pack there. We are good on TP now, until I can start finding the Quilted Northern we prefer, in stock again.
DH read a couple of articles that beer and soda may become a shortage as there is a carbonation shortage happening/coming. He's addicted to Mountain Dew and the limit with Walmart pick up was 2. But, I found a way around the limits on a few of my items. I just ordered different sizes LOL. So, I got 2 24 packs of the Dew and then 4 12 packs. He drinks 2-3 a day (ugh), so that's only a month or so supply. I had ordered some regular size cans of cream of chicken and mushroom soups. They substituted the huge family sized ones. Not sure how long that will keep in the fridge, as I won't need to use a full can. I only use the soups for casserole dishes I make.
And putting away all my food I just bought, it sure was nice to be able to put the extra freezer stuff in the new freezer, rather than trying to make it all fit in the fridge freezer! I have to go back in next Wednesday for my eye follow up visit (Day 7 with no issues now) so I am going to do another grocery pick up order. Then we will really be stocked up much better.
While I was gone, DH had to cut a hole in the wall in our upstairs hallway so that the insulation guys can get back in there to fix the problem. Well, what do ya know? DH found the issue right away! They didn't spray enough foam insulation and there are gaps between the foam and the wall boards where you can literally see the daylight outside! No wonder we were having icicles last winter! It's exactly what DH figured was the problem and the insulation guy tried to tell him it was something else. Now....what to do with a hole in the wall?....Originally, during the build, we had thought of making it a small storage closet off the hallway to the bonus room (it's just attic space) but I didn't want another door. There's already a regular closet across the hall as well as a doorway to a bedroom. Too many doors! Plus, it wouldn't be a regular full sized door. It would be like a hobbit sized door. We've decided to put a built in bookcase there.
Daylight coming through at the bottom of that roof beam where it meets the wall. Ugh.
Dinner this evening is going to be salmon, green beans, watermelon pieces and french bread. The trip to the city tired me out, and now I'm trying to finish working the rest of the day. I wish I could take a nap!
DH mowed for the first time yesterday :) He hadn't used our Honda mower since we lived in town, but it started right up. He used it around the edges and small area and then got out his *new John Deere and mowed the rest. We are still hoping the seeded areas will fill in good, and soon.
DD's husband went back to work at his plant yesterday. The company put back into the facility a huge amount of workers. As he works directly in the plant, doing training, he can't work from home much. DD is still working from home, with her job.
My Walmart pick up order said I could make changes until 1:45am this morning, so yesterday throughout the day, I'd check stock and was able to add quite a few of the things that originally said out of stock. I took this morning off and went shopping. We need food besides soup and sandwiches. With the limits for Walmart and then an email that they were out of honey ham lunch meat, I already knew I was going to have to stop at at least one more store. I stopped at Target. Found the frozen salmon there we like, so I got 4 boxes. I got an extra box of Hostess cupcakes and some Charmin TP was in stock,but they were out of the bread we like. Then I went to another grocery store, where I found the bread and some thin ribeye steak. I only got one pack of 2 steaks, though. Too expensive. They also had Charmin TP, so I grabbed a pack there. We are good on TP now, until I can start finding the Quilted Northern we prefer, in stock again.
DH read a couple of articles that beer and soda may become a shortage as there is a carbonation shortage happening/coming. He's addicted to Mountain Dew and the limit with Walmart pick up was 2. But, I found a way around the limits on a few of my items. I just ordered different sizes LOL. So, I got 2 24 packs of the Dew and then 4 12 packs. He drinks 2-3 a day (ugh), so that's only a month or so supply. I had ordered some regular size cans of cream of chicken and mushroom soups. They substituted the huge family sized ones. Not sure how long that will keep in the fridge, as I won't need to use a full can. I only use the soups for casserole dishes I make.
And putting away all my food I just bought, it sure was nice to be able to put the extra freezer stuff in the new freezer, rather than trying to make it all fit in the fridge freezer! I have to go back in next Wednesday for my eye follow up visit (Day 7 with no issues now) so I am going to do another grocery pick up order. Then we will really be stocked up much better.
While I was gone, DH had to cut a hole in the wall in our upstairs hallway so that the insulation guys can get back in there to fix the problem. Well, what do ya know? DH found the issue right away! They didn't spray enough foam insulation and there are gaps between the foam and the wall boards where you can literally see the daylight outside! No wonder we were having icicles last winter! It's exactly what DH figured was the problem and the insulation guy tried to tell him it was something else. Now....what to do with a hole in the wall?....Originally, during the build, we had thought of making it a small storage closet off the hallway to the bonus room (it's just attic space) but I didn't want another door. There's already a regular closet across the hall as well as a doorway to a bedroom. Too many doors! Plus, it wouldn't be a regular full sized door. It would be like a hobbit sized door. We've decided to put a built in bookcase there.
Dinner this evening is going to be salmon, green beans, watermelon pieces and french bread. The trip to the city tired me out, and now I'm trying to finish working the rest of the day. I wish I could take a nap!
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Tuesday this and that
I just seriously hate contractors. We had 3 scheduled to come Monday. Finally one showed up like at 3:30. DH is still also waiting to hear from 2 others - the fencing guy and the sprinkler system guy. I'm sure a lot of it is the squeaky wheel gets the grease as to who they show up for. DH will not, for some reason, be a squeaky wheel (though he sure will with me!). I also do not understand why none of them can text or call and tell you they aren't coming! How hard is that to do? Of course this is all flashbacks of building our house, mental anguish which we had hoped was behind us.
The insulation guy (to fix our house issue and insulate the shed) are now supposed to come Thursday, but DH is expecting them to not show up, because now it's supposed to rain all day Thursday. DH had the mold mitigation guys just leave up the black plastic sheeting they put up to cover the sides of our house in the 4 area they had to spray up in the eaves. Our front and back laundry room (where the house angles to the garage) doors and siding are covered, our bedroom wall, looking out back is covered, and another one in front of the house, over the wall our bathroom looks out in front. Great, so every day that the insulation guys delay is another day we have to have that hanging there.
DH hasn't heard from his brother in over a week. After brother's episode #20 of "let's continue to bash on DH for wrecking (his own) his car or two when he was a teenager and DH just replying a one word answer, because what else is there to say and he's tired of it. It was 40 years ago. So, now DH is mad that he hasn't heard from him, LOL. Then I think they started messaging last night. Like I also told DH, your brother is an alcoholic, and while he says he's not drinking anymore, most likely the days where he doesn't hear from him, he probably is.
I use my Paypal credit card to earn cash back. Usually it's 2% on all purchases, but I forgot that this past month they had done an offer of 4%. I logged in today expecting my usually $30 or so and it was $93, which was a nice surprise.
I've been watching the new season of Bosch on Amazon Prime. I'm about halfway through the 10 episodes. I'm trying to take my time, LOL, and not watch it all in 2 days.
DD has an indoor cat, who never even tries to go outside. She said last night the cat bolted out the back sliding door when she had it open to let the dogs in. I said that cat is making a run for it - sick of having people constantly in her house! LOL.
My new chest freezer is supposed to deliver this morning between 9 and 11. She said we were the 2nd stop on the delivery route, so I'm guessing closer to 9am. Too bad Walmart is out of stock on half my order and almost anything frozen I tried to order.....I will also have to try to shop at another grocery store to get what I can't get at Walmart tomorrow. I had hoped to avoid going inside a store, but we are out of so much now.
Day 7 of the IRS Get My Payment still showing me Status Not Available and no way to enter my direct deposit info.
Well, into the shower so I am dressed and ready when the freezer shows up.
Also, another good night with my eye :)
The insulation guy (to fix our house issue and insulate the shed) are now supposed to come Thursday, but DH is expecting them to not show up, because now it's supposed to rain all day Thursday. DH had the mold mitigation guys just leave up the black plastic sheeting they put up to cover the sides of our house in the 4 area they had to spray up in the eaves. Our front and back laundry room (where the house angles to the garage) doors and siding are covered, our bedroom wall, looking out back is covered, and another one in front of the house, over the wall our bathroom looks out in front. Great, so every day that the insulation guys delay is another day we have to have that hanging there.
DH hasn't heard from his brother in over a week. After brother's episode #20 of "let's continue to bash on DH for wrecking (his own) his car or two when he was a teenager and DH just replying a one word answer, because what else is there to say and he's tired of it. It was 40 years ago. So, now DH is mad that he hasn't heard from him, LOL. Then I think they started messaging last night. Like I also told DH, your brother is an alcoholic, and while he says he's not drinking anymore, most likely the days where he doesn't hear from him, he probably is.
I use my Paypal credit card to earn cash back. Usually it's 2% on all purchases, but I forgot that this past month they had done an offer of 4%. I logged in today expecting my usually $30 or so and it was $93, which was a nice surprise.
I've been watching the new season of Bosch on Amazon Prime. I'm about halfway through the 10 episodes. I'm trying to take my time, LOL, and not watch it all in 2 days.
DD has an indoor cat, who never even tries to go outside. She said last night the cat bolted out the back sliding door when she had it open to let the dogs in. I said that cat is making a run for it - sick of having people constantly in her house! LOL.
My new chest freezer is supposed to deliver this morning between 9 and 11. She said we were the 2nd stop on the delivery route, so I'm guessing closer to 9am. Too bad Walmart is out of stock on half my order and almost anything frozen I tried to order.....I will also have to try to shop at another grocery store to get what I can't get at Walmart tomorrow. I had hoped to avoid going inside a store, but we are out of so much now.
Day 7 of the IRS Get My Payment still showing me Status Not Available and no way to enter my direct deposit info.
Well, into the shower so I am dressed and ready when the freezer shows up.
Also, another good night with my eye :)
Monday, April 20, 2020
Monday what not
DH spent the morning yesterday laying down these rock slabs to make a little pathway from our back laundry room door out to the chicken coop. Cute!
Today we are supposed to get the wire fencing for that open part of the coop. I'm not sure if DH has to go pick it up or they are delivering it. Still no word from the mason to do the stonework around the base of the shed. The gutter install guys are supposed to come today, as well as the freaking mold mitigators....(is that a word?) DH wants them to spray their solution up in the eaves where he took off the soffits as there is some mold, before the insulation guys come to re-do it. He did take a peak up in the soffits of the garage and all looked good there, so he was very relieved. Obviously they insulated that part right.
I was going to buy something on Kohl's online to use my $10 Kohl's cash but apparently the April card holder free shipping code isn't good for the whole month. I don't much see the point in spending $9 for shipping to save $10. And I really don't want to spend $75. There isn't really anything I can think of as a "need" right now. Bummer, because it also seems such a waste to not use that Kohl's cash.
I did just get a whopping check for $9.15 from our co-op telephone company. Their annual member distribution, but I know I didn't get one last year. I think so far I've only gotten one check the 3 years we've been with this telephone company. I'd rather they just put the money into improved internet, LOL. I had to buy a gallon of paint on Saturday for our house trim color. Dang - that stuff is expensive at $45 a gallon, but there is a $10 rebate so I mailed that in this morning.
So, I just placed my Walmart pick up order. I already had just about everything in the cart still, from trying last week. I updated a few items. There were time slots available all morning tomorrow. By the time I clicked on check out the daytime slots for tomorrow were gone and a bunch more of my items were out of stock. So, I am picking up Wednesday morning at 9am. I figured maybe a midweek morning slot might not be as long of a wait for them to actually bring out the groceries to my car. We'll see. With a good portion of the stuff out of stock, I guess I'm going to have to try Albertsons anyway to see if I can fill in the rest of the items.
OMG, I'm getting as forgetful as my mom! LOL. I am scheduling this mobile vet to come out and give the dogs exams and I had told him anytime next week. He emailed back how about Friday May 1 at 9am. I say great. Then my eye doctor specialist office just called. They need to reschedule my May 1st appointment to April 29th. Ok, no problem. I get off the phone and think oh geez - what time was that appointment originally on May 1st? Probably the same time I just scheduled the vet. Yep, it was. Well, whew - glad she called to reschedule the eye appointment LOL. Day 5 in a row of my eye still doing well.
I was going to buy something on Kohl's online to use my $10 Kohl's cash but apparently the April card holder free shipping code isn't good for the whole month. I don't much see the point in spending $9 for shipping to save $10. And I really don't want to spend $75. There isn't really anything I can think of as a "need" right now. Bummer, because it also seems such a waste to not use that Kohl's cash.
I did just get a whopping check for $9.15 from our co-op telephone company. Their annual member distribution, but I know I didn't get one last year. I think so far I've only gotten one check the 3 years we've been with this telephone company. I'd rather they just put the money into improved internet, LOL. I had to buy a gallon of paint on Saturday for our house trim color. Dang - that stuff is expensive at $45 a gallon, but there is a $10 rebate so I mailed that in this morning.
So, I just placed my Walmart pick up order. I already had just about everything in the cart still, from trying last week. I updated a few items. There were time slots available all morning tomorrow. By the time I clicked on check out the daytime slots for tomorrow were gone and a bunch more of my items were out of stock. So, I am picking up Wednesday morning at 9am. I figured maybe a midweek morning slot might not be as long of a wait for them to actually bring out the groceries to my car. We'll see. With a good portion of the stuff out of stock, I guess I'm going to have to try Albertsons anyway to see if I can fill in the rest of the items.
OMG, I'm getting as forgetful as my mom! LOL. I am scheduling this mobile vet to come out and give the dogs exams and I had told him anytime next week. He emailed back how about Friday May 1 at 9am. I say great. Then my eye doctor specialist office just called. They need to reschedule my May 1st appointment to April 29th. Ok, no problem. I get off the phone and think oh geez - what time was that appointment originally on May 1st? Probably the same time I just scheduled the vet. Yep, it was. Well, whew - glad she called to reschedule the eye appointment LOL. Day 5 in a row of my eye still doing well.
Sunday, April 19, 2020
Weekend activities
Yesterday was another work on the shed/coop day. Last weekend we had stained the concrete base around the chicken coop with the stain I used on the posts and we liked it, so we decided to stain all the visible concrete foundation. We have tons of this stain leftover from the house, so might as well use it. DH caulked all his nail holes everywhere and I touched up with the trim paint. Up and down ladders for several hours. Boy, my back felt it by afternoon/evening. All my muscles in my back pretty much seized up on me (reminded me of the first few years after my car accident).
We decided to plant some wild flowers in an area of our driveway island and some small areas in back. I found some online for $10 that will more than cover the area we want. They don't start shipping out until the week after this one. Our neighbors just planted two maple trees in their backyard, near their dog run. Hoping to provide shade for the dogs. I'm afraid they are probably going to have to wait a very long time before those will be big enough, LOL. She ordered some online from Home Depot and they are bareroot and only like 3 or 4 feet tall. DH wanted to know what they were and where they got them. We want to plant a couple of maples out front, but I think we'd be better off to spend the money on larger trees. But, just trying to figure out how to get home with them. We can't drive 80mph home on the freeway with them in the back of the pickup, LOL.
For dinner I made chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes and country gravy. I didn't really feel much like making a big meal, but I had already taken the cube steak out to thaw the day before and it needed to get used before it went bad. It was tasty and afterwards I went to lay on the bed, which always seems to help relax my back muscles. I eventually fell asleep and woke up at 7:20pm LOL.
Tomorrow the wire for the coop we had to order is supposed to be in. Our lumber store guy said he ran out quick, as it all of a sudden was chicken coop and baby pigs pen season (apparently for 4H kids) and he sold out.
My eye has been good now for 4 days, so I am thankful for that.
I see the natives are starting to get restless with quarantine life. It is time to start getting back to work and life, especially in areas, like here, where we have had zero people infected with it in our county and only 399 in the whole state. If staying home for over a month hasn't helped, well then nothing will. I was talking outside with my neighbors Saturday morning. They are in their late 60's. She works at a bank and her bank decided to put them in 2 groups, one week on and one week off, that way if one in a group gets it they will only have to have that group stay out of work and can have the other group back full time. She said she knows her age group is more susceptible, but her words were "if I get it, I get it. The country and the world shouldn't have to crash because of it". I said that's my thoughts exactly. We all can do what we can to try to protect ourselves and those most vulnerable to it, but to crash an entire economy is insane. This past month has been wise and prudent, but it's obviously not a sustainable solution for this country and for people to survive economically.
Our little town restaurant and cafe should be opened back up. I have been to that restaurant dozens of times and honestly, it was already doing social distancing, just out of the usual amount of customers they get and the size of the place. I'd say there are about 16 tables in there and other than a Saturday morning (which they could regulate # of guests allowed in at a time) there has never been more than 4-5 tables filled up at a time and of course, just out of people's natural tendency, everyone spreads out (it's a seat yourself place). They don't get a ton of business, but obviously it was enough to keep open all these years. There's no reason they can't be open now, practicing spacing out the dining guests and sanitation. Our little town is dead enough, as far as business go, we don't need to lose any more.
That Michigan governor (sorry Lucy!) is something else. And a friend in Washington shared a post of a "protest" in eastern WA, at a lake. Bunches of boats spaced out on the water, fishing. One sign said fish don't have covid. I have another friend with an ocean beach house. She can't even take a walk on the beach.
I've got $10 in Kohls' cash to find something to buy. DH was in need of a new pair of tennis shoes to rotate into his "good pair and work pair" cycle and I earned $10. I'm not even sure what to buy. Maybe a new summer t-shirt for me. At least there is a free shipping code for card holders.
We decided to plant some wild flowers in an area of our driveway island and some small areas in back. I found some online for $10 that will more than cover the area we want. They don't start shipping out until the week after this one. Our neighbors just planted two maple trees in their backyard, near their dog run. Hoping to provide shade for the dogs. I'm afraid they are probably going to have to wait a very long time before those will be big enough, LOL. She ordered some online from Home Depot and they are bareroot and only like 3 or 4 feet tall. DH wanted to know what they were and where they got them. We want to plant a couple of maples out front, but I think we'd be better off to spend the money on larger trees. But, just trying to figure out how to get home with them. We can't drive 80mph home on the freeway with them in the back of the pickup, LOL.
For dinner I made chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes and country gravy. I didn't really feel much like making a big meal, but I had already taken the cube steak out to thaw the day before and it needed to get used before it went bad. It was tasty and afterwards I went to lay on the bed, which always seems to help relax my back muscles. I eventually fell asleep and woke up at 7:20pm LOL.
Tomorrow the wire for the coop we had to order is supposed to be in. Our lumber store guy said he ran out quick, as it all of a sudden was chicken coop and baby pigs pen season (apparently for 4H kids) and he sold out.
My eye has been good now for 4 days, so I am thankful for that.
I see the natives are starting to get restless with quarantine life. It is time to start getting back to work and life, especially in areas, like here, where we have had zero people infected with it in our county and only 399 in the whole state. If staying home for over a month hasn't helped, well then nothing will. I was talking outside with my neighbors Saturday morning. They are in their late 60's. She works at a bank and her bank decided to put them in 2 groups, one week on and one week off, that way if one in a group gets it they will only have to have that group stay out of work and can have the other group back full time. She said she knows her age group is more susceptible, but her words were "if I get it, I get it. The country and the world shouldn't have to crash because of it". I said that's my thoughts exactly. We all can do what we can to try to protect ourselves and those most vulnerable to it, but to crash an entire economy is insane. This past month has been wise and prudent, but it's obviously not a sustainable solution for this country and for people to survive economically.
Our little town restaurant and cafe should be opened back up. I have been to that restaurant dozens of times and honestly, it was already doing social distancing, just out of the usual amount of customers they get and the size of the place. I'd say there are about 16 tables in there and other than a Saturday morning (which they could regulate # of guests allowed in at a time) there has never been more than 4-5 tables filled up at a time and of course, just out of people's natural tendency, everyone spreads out (it's a seat yourself place). They don't get a ton of business, but obviously it was enough to keep open all these years. There's no reason they can't be open now, practicing spacing out the dining guests and sanitation. Our little town is dead enough, as far as business go, we don't need to lose any more.
That Michigan governor (sorry Lucy!) is something else. And a friend in Washington shared a post of a "protest" in eastern WA, at a lake. Bunches of boats spaced out on the water, fishing. One sign said fish don't have covid. I have another friend with an ocean beach house. She can't even take a walk on the beach.
I've got $10 in Kohls' cash to find something to buy. DH was in need of a new pair of tennis shoes to rotate into his "good pair and work pair" cycle and I earned $10. I'm not even sure what to buy. Maybe a new summer t-shirt for me. At least there is a free shipping code for card holders.
Friday, April 17, 2020
It's Friday again, already?
My claims with my insurance company for my eye doctor visits are confusing me. I submitted 3 claims. One for the first eye doctor visit. One for the second eye doctor visit and then one for when I went back and he charged me for the "therapeutic lens" he put on. Yesterday I got an email that I had a message from my insurance company. I logged in and it said your claim has an invalid diagnosis code, but I couldn't tell which of the 3 claims it was, because I couldn't click on any of my claims to see the details. I called and she told me it was the claim for the second doctor visit (though when I look up that code online it appears to be valid "recurrent erosion of the cornea" or something like that. So, I told her I'd have to call him the next morning as he's only in his office mornings now. This morning I get a bunch of emails that I have new messages, so I log in again. Now, it looks like all 3 of my claims have been processed, but I don't understand what/if I'm getting paid back. The 2 office visits they show processed says member responsibility $0 but doesn't show them reimbursing me anything. There is nothing under "insurance paid". The visit for the lens shows that $45 is all my responsibility. So, now do they still need the dx code on the one that now shows as processed? Guess I'll have to call again.
I had to run to town yesterday to get dh more saw blades, so I went to the grocery store to tide us over a bit longer than having to go into the city, though I will have to do that soon, probably some time next week. The egg prices were insane. $5.69 for 18 large eggs. They seemed fairly well stocked with most stuff, other than still no TP and low/out on a lot of soups. They had a bunch of Kraft mac and cheese, so I got 4 boxes of that. Makes me wonder what some of the people that live in town, and only are able to shop there and not in the city are doing to get TP. Our town is majority older, retired people on very low incomes, so a lot of them probably can't get to the city. I did read on a Facebook page that a couple of young local gals were shopping for people that can't get out, so maybe they are helping with that situation. My dd and boss said TP seems to be pretty well back in stock in their area.
I think there's just been too much info coming at my mom this week. Hard for her to process and remember it all. I've mentioned before she writes notes on little scraps of paper and then will have dozens of them paper clipped together in her desk drawer. When I was there in December, while she and DD were off to take stuff to Goodwill and sat and went through those notes. 90% of them have such little info that who knows what they were about or even how long ago they were written, and she's certainly not going to remember now, so I threw away a good portion of them. But of course she has new one's she's accumulated. She called me yesterday afternoon to have me help her go through them to see if she could throw some away. I think she had like 15 and I got her to throw away like 14 of them. Some of them I had no idea what they were about, there was such little info to go off of. I'm pretty sure one of the notes was from like almost a year ago, LOL.
DH is still working on the shed/coop, but he spent most of yesterday taking out the tongue and groove soffits on 4 areas on our house ugh. Mold up there, because it was not insulated right. So, back to having the mold mitigation guy come out to fix. He can't come until Monday, which now will have to delay the insulation guys who were supposed to come Monday to fix. After he got all those taken out (and hopefully in this nice weather we have now, it can dry out up there) he worked on the shed some more finishing up the siding on one end. I helped a bit off and on, holding the tape measure on one end and helping him hold up the siding (long boards) while he got them nailed on.
Still a no show with the mason guy. Week 2 now.
at least it's Friday and my eye was good again last night and the blurriness is better today.
I had to run to town yesterday to get dh more saw blades, so I went to the grocery store to tide us over a bit longer than having to go into the city, though I will have to do that soon, probably some time next week. The egg prices were insane. $5.69 for 18 large eggs. They seemed fairly well stocked with most stuff, other than still no TP and low/out on a lot of soups. They had a bunch of Kraft mac and cheese, so I got 4 boxes of that. Makes me wonder what some of the people that live in town, and only are able to shop there and not in the city are doing to get TP. Our town is majority older, retired people on very low incomes, so a lot of them probably can't get to the city. I did read on a Facebook page that a couple of young local gals were shopping for people that can't get out, so maybe they are helping with that situation. My dd and boss said TP seems to be pretty well back in stock in their area.
I think there's just been too much info coming at my mom this week. Hard for her to process and remember it all. I've mentioned before she writes notes on little scraps of paper and then will have dozens of them paper clipped together in her desk drawer. When I was there in December, while she and DD were off to take stuff to Goodwill and sat and went through those notes. 90% of them have such little info that who knows what they were about or even how long ago they were written, and she's certainly not going to remember now, so I threw away a good portion of them. But of course she has new one's she's accumulated. She called me yesterday afternoon to have me help her go through them to see if she could throw some away. I think she had like 15 and I got her to throw away like 14 of them. Some of them I had no idea what they were about, there was such little info to go off of. I'm pretty sure one of the notes was from like almost a year ago, LOL.
DH is still working on the shed/coop, but he spent most of yesterday taking out the tongue and groove soffits on 4 areas on our house ugh. Mold up there, because it was not insulated right. So, back to having the mold mitigation guy come out to fix. He can't come until Monday, which now will have to delay the insulation guys who were supposed to come Monday to fix. After he got all those taken out (and hopefully in this nice weather we have now, it can dry out up there) he worked on the shed some more finishing up the siding on one end. I helped a bit off and on, holding the tape measure on one end and helping him hold up the siding (long boards) while he got them nailed on.
Still a no show with the mason guy. Week 2 now.
at least it's Friday and my eye was good again last night and the blurriness is better today.
Thursday, April 16, 2020
Thursday what not
Two mornings this week my mom has apparently gotten phone calls (she only has a cell phone) that wake her up. Tuesday was a little after 8am and yesterday was at 7:40 am. I don't think she usually gets up until around 9am. No wonder she's been confused. It turns out the one at 7:40am was from her brokers assistant. Who calls someone at 7:40am? I'm guessing she just called to tell my mom the money got transferred, which then led to mom calling DD asking what this was about and so on. She also doesn't seem to know that when her phone shows missed call she can view the ph#, so when she gets these calls, that she ends up not answering because she didn't get woke up in time, she will call me to ask if I just tried to call her. I'll tell her no, it wasn't me, I don't like to call you that early. Then from her call log I see she will try my uncle, most likely to see if it was him that called.And there is no way to leave a voicemail on her phone. Haven't been able to for a couple of years. We just get a message that says her voicemail is full. DD tried to figure out out and I tried to figure it out on my last visit to her.
I had talked to her yesterday afternoon and she seemed good and chatty. But then in the early evening she called DD again, about her banking/money. We're not sure why she keeps calling DD on it now. DD said she just said to her "oh, mom was handling that for you" and then my mom said oh right, I guess I should call her. Which then she did. She was trying to update her checkbook register and was confused by the money going in and out yesterday, that is showing online. I had to explain again that the deposit was the transfer from her retirement account and the withdrawal was then putting most of that money into her savings account, rather than leaving it sit in her checking for months. Then she said she saw now that the savings balance has that. I totally understand that she might forget/be confused as to what is going on with it, but not sure why she is calling DD. That is new. The only thing I can think of is I asked DD to start calling her a couple times a week (to help since she can't socialize where she lives now) so maybe she's got dd more on her mind, LOL.
My dog is feeling much better today, so that is a relief. He didn't even want to eat anything yesterday and he always wants to eat. I only gave him half his food this morning, to make sure he can keep it down. So far so good. I will give him some more mid day. After dinner yesterday I mopped the laundry room floor up good, where he had thrown up during the night, and while I wiped it up with paper towels (at 4am) and sprayed some floor cleaner down and wiped, I wanted to do a thorough cleaning of the floor. Then I decided to give dog a bath in the dog shower. It must have made him feel a little better because after he shook off and I dried him as much as I could he walked over to his food bowl, where a little kibble had been sitting for quite awhile and ate it. The dog shower is nice to have in the laundry room. But one of these days I'm going to see if DH can install a different spray thing that has a button to stop the water coming out, so I can set it down for a minute, without having to completely turn the faucet off.
So, this IRS stimulus check. It's a mystery when/if we will receive ours, LOL. Due to my side/self employment job, I always owe some taxes every years, so I don't have my direct deposit info on file with the IRS. Ok, so paper check.....at some point. Then they just yesterday said they added a portal where people like me can add their banking info. But every time I try to access it, either via my or DH's ss#, I'm getting the message "payment status not available". Apparently lots and lots of people are also getting this and they do not understand why either. So far, no real explanation as to what this exactly means, from the IRS. I'm assuming we are getting $1200 each. While I made more than $75,000 as an individual, we file married/jointly and DH makes nothing, so our combined married/filing jointly income is less than $150,000. At least that's how I am reading if we are eligible or not. At a minimum I would think DH should get the $1200. Just frustrating that I can't go online and put in my banking info so it can be direct deposited.
Well, I need to run into town to mail something for my side job that needs to go out today and my mail already got picked up. So, I'm going to stop at the grocery store and do a bit of shopping to tide us over. I want more apples, grapes, english muffins.
And my 18 roll pack of Charmin arrived today. Better than gold now, eh?!
I had talked to her yesterday afternoon and she seemed good and chatty. But then in the early evening she called DD again, about her banking/money. We're not sure why she keeps calling DD on it now. DD said she just said to her "oh, mom was handling that for you" and then my mom said oh right, I guess I should call her. Which then she did. She was trying to update her checkbook register and was confused by the money going in and out yesterday, that is showing online. I had to explain again that the deposit was the transfer from her retirement account and the withdrawal was then putting most of that money into her savings account, rather than leaving it sit in her checking for months. Then she said she saw now that the savings balance has that. I totally understand that she might forget/be confused as to what is going on with it, but not sure why she is calling DD. That is new. The only thing I can think of is I asked DD to start calling her a couple times a week (to help since she can't socialize where she lives now) so maybe she's got dd more on her mind, LOL.
My dog is feeling much better today, so that is a relief. He didn't even want to eat anything yesterday and he always wants to eat. I only gave him half his food this morning, to make sure he can keep it down. So far so good. I will give him some more mid day. After dinner yesterday I mopped the laundry room floor up good, where he had thrown up during the night, and while I wiped it up with paper towels (at 4am) and sprayed some floor cleaner down and wiped, I wanted to do a thorough cleaning of the floor. Then I decided to give dog a bath in the dog shower. It must have made him feel a little better because after he shook off and I dried him as much as I could he walked over to his food bowl, where a little kibble had been sitting for quite awhile and ate it. The dog shower is nice to have in the laundry room. But one of these days I'm going to see if DH can install a different spray thing that has a button to stop the water coming out, so I can set it down for a minute, without having to completely turn the faucet off.
So, this IRS stimulus check. It's a mystery when/if we will receive ours, LOL. Due to my side/self employment job, I always owe some taxes every years, so I don't have my direct deposit info on file with the IRS. Ok, so paper check.....at some point. Then they just yesterday said they added a portal where people like me can add their banking info. But every time I try to access it, either via my or DH's ss#, I'm getting the message "payment status not available". Apparently lots and lots of people are also getting this and they do not understand why either. So far, no real explanation as to what this exactly means, from the IRS. I'm assuming we are getting $1200 each. While I made more than $75,000 as an individual, we file married/jointly and DH makes nothing, so our combined married/filing jointly income is less than $150,000. At least that's how I am reading if we are eligible or not. At a minimum I would think DH should get the $1200. Just frustrating that I can't go online and put in my banking info so it can be direct deposited.
Well, I need to run into town to mail something for my side job that needs to go out today and my mail already got picked up. So, I'm going to stop at the grocery store and do a bit of shopping to tide us over. I want more apples, grapes, english muffins.
And my 18 roll pack of Charmin arrived today. Better than gold now, eh?!
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Trying to grocery shop
In fixing our insulation problem, unfortunately DH is going to have to take out some of the soffit boards. He's not to happy that he has to do this, but he knows there's no way to get our builder back here (not without a huge fight and then it would probably be months before he'd send someone out) and do it and it's not the insulation guys responsibility for that part of the problem, I guess. Anyhow, DH decided buying a tool (some kind of saw) would save him tons of time and still be cheaper than hiring someone (ya, good luck with that) to do it or help him with it.
So, he decided to go into the city to Lowes and pick it up. Since he had to drive in, we figured we'd wait until I got off work and also pick up a grocery order at Walmart. This was decided in the morning, this morning. I got online with Walmart grocery to get my items ordered.
Oh geez. I'll bet at least a 1/4 of the regular stuff I buy isn't available and a good portion of what they do have in stock they are putting limits of like 1 or 2 on most things. So, I can buy 2 whole loaves of bread. No crescent rolls, no rice, no pasta noodles, no cheese slices, the list goes on. So, I get everything ordered I can, substitute where I can and go to check out to pick out a pick up time later afternoon/early evening. Nope. Not until FRIDAY. Cannot get groceries for 2 days! This is insane. And if I tried to go shop inside the store I'd most likely have to stand in line outside to wait my turn to get in. But I guess it's worse for trying to do grocery pick up where I used to live. My friends are saying they have to order a week in advance.
We try to stay out of the stores, trying to just eat up what we have, so we aren't contributing to the demand that's been going on, but at some point we need some food and paper products! And if they've been limiting how much people can buy at a time, then why isn't there plenty available now?
We have been wanting to buy a chest freezer to put out in the garage, but DH put a hold on it awhile back, because he was still trying to decide if he was going to be able to do an epoxy coating on the floor, like he did in the shop and he didn't want to have to unplug a freezer and move it. But, this morning we decided to get a freezer. We had looked at one at Lowes back then that is a decent size, like 15 cubic feet. It was showing on sale (in store purchase only) at our Lowes for $512 and free shipping on appliance purchases over $399, so I called. He said they have it in stock and it is free delivery, even out to where we are, and I could order it over the phone. And the price was $499, so saved even a bit more. It is supposed to be delivered next Tuesday. We'll probably see about buying some meat from the local meat place. I just don't want to buy like a 1/8 or 1/4 of beef. We only have a few types of meats we like/use. Thin cut ribeye steak and hamburger meat. So, I think I'll just buy what we use, even though it's probably pricier, it would be a waste to have all these other cuts we don't eat.
This socialism like life sure is fun, isn't it?
So, he decided to go into the city to Lowes and pick it up. Since he had to drive in, we figured we'd wait until I got off work and also pick up a grocery order at Walmart. This was decided in the morning, this morning. I got online with Walmart grocery to get my items ordered.
Oh geez. I'll bet at least a 1/4 of the regular stuff I buy isn't available and a good portion of what they do have in stock they are putting limits of like 1 or 2 on most things. So, I can buy 2 whole loaves of bread. No crescent rolls, no rice, no pasta noodles, no cheese slices, the list goes on. So, I get everything ordered I can, substitute where I can and go to check out to pick out a pick up time later afternoon/early evening. Nope. Not until FRIDAY. Cannot get groceries for 2 days! This is insane. And if I tried to go shop inside the store I'd most likely have to stand in line outside to wait my turn to get in. But I guess it's worse for trying to do grocery pick up where I used to live. My friends are saying they have to order a week in advance.
We try to stay out of the stores, trying to just eat up what we have, so we aren't contributing to the demand that's been going on, but at some point we need some food and paper products! And if they've been limiting how much people can buy at a time, then why isn't there plenty available now?
We have been wanting to buy a chest freezer to put out in the garage, but DH put a hold on it awhile back, because he was still trying to decide if he was going to be able to do an epoxy coating on the floor, like he did in the shop and he didn't want to have to unplug a freezer and move it. But, this morning we decided to get a freezer. We had looked at one at Lowes back then that is a decent size, like 15 cubic feet. It was showing on sale (in store purchase only) at our Lowes for $512 and free shipping on appliance purchases over $399, so I called. He said they have it in stock and it is free delivery, even out to where we are, and I could order it over the phone. And the price was $499, so saved even a bit more. It is supposed to be delivered next Tuesday. We'll probably see about buying some meat from the local meat place. I just don't want to buy like a 1/8 or 1/4 of beef. We only have a few types of meats we like/use. Thin cut ribeye steak and hamburger meat. So, I think I'll just buy what we use, even though it's probably pricier, it would be a waste to have all these other cuts we don't eat.
This socialism like life sure is fun, isn't it?
Well this day isn't starting out good
After leaving a message Monday afternoon with my mom's broker account assistant person and no call back the next morning. I called again. Finally got to talk to her and get some answers as to what is going on. Apparently, in addition to having the new DPOA on file, the brokerage firm also needs to have THEIR POA paperwork filled out and signed, so that they can change the person authorized to act on her account from SB to me. Supposedly, she called my mom awhile back to ask her if she wanted her to mail her the paperwork to do this and my mom apparently said "oh, let's just wait. I'm not ready yet. I can just do it after I move". I'm guessing my mom didn't even really understanding what was being asked of her. My mom doesn't remember this at all, of course. His assistant said the broker was planning to call her yesterday, anyway, to just touch base with her on her account, so she'll tell him to talk to her about sending the paperwork and transferring the money.
So, I called my mom back and told her this. I had her write down 2 things she needed to remember to tell him when he calls: 1) tell him to send their POA paperwork so she can remove SB and put me on and 2) tell him to transfer $X of dollars to your BofA checking. I thought for sure by the time she got done talking to him she was going to be totally overwhelmed with everything.
But, he apparently called her not too long after I talked to his assistant and mom called me back and sounded good and said he's mailing her the paperwork and transferring the money. I log in to her checking this morning and the money is there.
Then this morning at around 8:15 her time (usually she's not even up by then or just getting up) she calls up DD. DD said it sounded like she just woke up and tells her there is $18k in her checking account she doesn't know what it is. Luckily, since I chat with DD all day, she knew what it was about so she told grandma it's money transferred from your retirement account to your checking. So, I called up my mom to talk to her and make sure she's ok and understands. She doesn't seem to yet remember all this from yesterday. Ugh. Then she said ok, I just didn't know why we needed to transfer. I said because you were down to like $2000 in your checking/savings and you need some money in there to cover your rent and expenses. She just said she's glad I'm keeping on top of all this and thanked me. I just don't think she was even really awake enough yet, so probably still confused, especially to call dd and not me about it, though DD said she did seem to know she was talking to her and not me. I'll give her a call after lunch and see how she's doing/remembering.
The insulation guy called DH back - he's only been trying to get a hold of him for months. Monday DH was at his wits end about it and (I guess his text to the guy was basically like I need to know if you are going to come out and fix this or if you want me to call someone else) was like when he finally calls I'm going to give him a piece of my mind. We spent $50k insulating our house - he damn well better fix this and soon! Well, of course once he was on the phone with him DH didn't say any of that or even act like he's mad that the guy has left us hanging for 6 months now, since DH first told him about the issue.
And my eye was bad again last night - 2 times and blurry again this morning. So frustrating. And one of our dogs has been throwing up during the night and a little this morning and doesn't want to eat anything. I'm pretty sure he ate a bunch of deer poop the evening before, but I've also tried to really check him over well for a tick. He gets flea and tick med and I can't find anything on him, but it's about impossible to check him with his long flat coated retriever fur.
So, I called my mom back and told her this. I had her write down 2 things she needed to remember to tell him when he calls: 1) tell him to send their POA paperwork so she can remove SB and put me on and 2) tell him to transfer $X of dollars to your BofA checking. I thought for sure by the time she got done talking to him she was going to be totally overwhelmed with everything.
But, he apparently called her not too long after I talked to his assistant and mom called me back and sounded good and said he's mailing her the paperwork and transferring the money. I log in to her checking this morning and the money is there.
Then this morning at around 8:15 her time (usually she's not even up by then or just getting up) she calls up DD. DD said it sounded like she just woke up and tells her there is $18k in her checking account she doesn't know what it is. Luckily, since I chat with DD all day, she knew what it was about so she told grandma it's money transferred from your retirement account to your checking. So, I called up my mom to talk to her and make sure she's ok and understands. She doesn't seem to yet remember all this from yesterday. Ugh. Then she said ok, I just didn't know why we needed to transfer. I said because you were down to like $2000 in your checking/savings and you need some money in there to cover your rent and expenses. She just said she's glad I'm keeping on top of all this and thanked me. I just don't think she was even really awake enough yet, so probably still confused, especially to call dd and not me about it, though DD said she did seem to know she was talking to her and not me. I'll give her a call after lunch and see how she's doing/remembering.
The insulation guy called DH back - he's only been trying to get a hold of him for months. Monday DH was at his wits end about it and (I guess his text to the guy was basically like I need to know if you are going to come out and fix this or if you want me to call someone else) was like when he finally calls I'm going to give him a piece of my mind. We spent $50k insulating our house - he damn well better fix this and soon! Well, of course once he was on the phone with him DH didn't say any of that or even act like he's mad that the guy has left us hanging for 6 months now, since DH first told him about the issue.
And my eye was bad again last night - 2 times and blurry again this morning. So frustrating. And one of our dogs has been throwing up during the night and a little this morning and doesn't want to eat anything. I'm pretty sure he ate a bunch of deer poop the evening before, but I've also tried to really check him over well for a tick. He gets flea and tick med and I can't find anything on him, but it's about impossible to check him with his long flat coated retriever fur.
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Annoying people
Oh good grief. I submitted the payroll for my side job first thing yesterday morning. I was actually an hour or two earlier than I usually submit it. About a half hour later I get a text from my side job lady asking if I reported hours yet. I said yes, about half hour ago, does something need to be changed or added? No, her hubby (president of company) got an email from someone at the payroll company asking for the payroll. I said weird, since I actually submitted it early. So, I email the lady at the payroll co to make sure she got my submission, because the president said someone was upset it wasn't done yet. She said she got it, she was just asking him if there were no "other" hours (sick and vacation) reported, because it came in with none. Well, geez.....ya - email the president of the company to ask about payroll submission details......don't email the person that actually does the payroll submission! Are people that stupid?
And then my mom's investment account broker. What in the hell do I have to do to get them to remove my SB from her account and put me on it?!! It's been months now of trying to get this done. Months ago I sent an email to him (cc'd mom in it) and explained that her DPOA has now been changed, attached a copy of it and copy of revocation sent to SB, gave my contact info, etc. A month or so later I try to log into her account and with their added layer of signing in with a temp pin code that is texted, it was still set up with his ph#. I email again a couple of times (I think I called once and got voicemail). Then the phone numbers got changed to me, but the next month, in looking around her online account, I saw SB's email was still attached, not mine. So, I email again. He has his assistant (who seems to do most of the work) call my mom and say she needs to send that in writing. So, early March is when DD had my mom sign the letter and she mailed it. I log into her account last week, just to do my normal monthly check on it and it's still his email! I emailed AGAIN. No reply back, but when I tried logging in a few days later I see it was changed. How about a quick email that you got it taken care of? Yesterday I logged in because it's time to transfer some money from her investment savings account to her regular checking account (which is set up linked to transfer). But, of course they have an extra layer of security where I need to put in a PIN # she was apparently mailed, (probably year(s) ago), which of course I know she would not know or know where she put it. So, there is a toll free # to call to reset the PIN, so I call it. The guy tells me I'm not authorized to take care of her account. my SB still is the one listed. OMG! I am beyond sick of this. I called the broker and left a voicemail that I have been trying for months to get this taken care of and to please call me back. I called mom and let her know what is going on, because I wanted to let her know I haven't been able to transfer the money yet. She's not very happy about it. She said didn't we tell them this got changed a long time ago. I said yes, several times. She's ready to put her money someplace else. I really don't want to deal with that right now. The guy/company has done well with investing her money all these years, but geez - how hard is it to change this? I'm sure they didn't have any problem when they added SB to it all............
What is it with people who always have to feel superior or feel like they have to criticize or have an opinion about everything someone else does? Always have to "put you in your place" and make sure they are better than you are, that you are always a step or two below them on the ladder. And why in the world do these people seem to attract to my DH like a moth to a flame??!!
My DH is not like that, at all. I guess I could see someone "reciprocating" if that's how he treated them, but he doesn't treat people like that. We just get rid of toxic woodworker guy out of his life and now it's his older brother he's been keeping in pretty much constant contact with. I said well, maybe it's a "big brother thing" - your poor younger brother has 2 big brothers!" But, like DH said, he never treated his younger brother that way at all. Good point. So, as I always knew, big brother is just an ass, and still is.
But, what makes people like that? DH likes to post and share pictures on his Facebook page. No matter what he posts, big bro has to try to either "one up" him, or try to make him look stupid, with a snarky joke. It's usually one or the other. Like on Saturday DH posted a couple of pictures of all the snow we got (DH LOVES snow). Big bro has to comment with a pic of his daughter and granddaughter (who live in Alaska) of their snow, with a comment "well, they got ya beat." Well, no *&#^, it's Alaska - and they're standing at a glacier! Pretty sure there is always snow on it, LOL. Not once that I know of has he actually posted a positive comment (like most normal people do) on anything DH posts. And it isn't just Facebook. They communicate frequently via messenger or texting and it's the same thing. Dh told him about his "new" John Deere lawn tractor. Nope, what he uses to mow lawns is better. They both like older muscle cars, so will talk about those or share links to ones they like or something. DH crashed a few cars when he was a dumb irresponsible teenager. Every other comment is "well, you'd just crash it" or something along those lines. He did that on a facebook comment recently, so I went in to DH's post and commented "well, good thing he hasn't crashed anything in over 35 years, I think it's safe to say he outgrew that phase ;)".
DH plays along with it all, but after awhile it gets old. He's like I'm 55 years old. My life hasn't been about crashing cars. Not to mention it's not like he's an idiot who doesn't know anything. He's a pretty smart guy. He's pretty good at getting projects organized and accomplished (ie this house). He's great at landscaping. Like I said, he totally outgrew his stupid teenager stuff a LONG time ago. He takes care of everything he owns better than 99% of people I know. I say to him they why do you even bother talking to him? I think half the problem is DH.....he feels like he needs everyone to like him, so puts up with crappy people in his life, I guess.
Masonry guy still has not shown up. DH has numerous calls into each: the fence guy, the insulation guy (who, for the past 6 months is supposed to fix a problem the messed up on insulation in our attic area next to bonus room), and the sprinkler system guy. The local gutters guy finally texted him back and said his boss sold the gutter machine, so they aren't doing gutters anymore. No one else will returns his calls and texts. We're tired of looking at all the little flags all over our yard. Get back out here and finish the sprinkler system. But of course, DH paid him in FULL last fall, so what incentive does he have now to come out and finish? But, you know...DH wanted the guy (an old school friend growing up) to like him.......
On good news, 3rd night in a row with my eye doing good and my 2nd cousin replied to my message and it is her. We caught up a bit and she said finding my message to reconnect made her day ;)
And then my mom's investment account broker. What in the hell do I have to do to get them to remove my SB from her account and put me on it?!! It's been months now of trying to get this done. Months ago I sent an email to him (cc'd mom in it) and explained that her DPOA has now been changed, attached a copy of it and copy of revocation sent to SB, gave my contact info, etc. A month or so later I try to log into her account and with their added layer of signing in with a temp pin code that is texted, it was still set up with his ph#. I email again a couple of times (I think I called once and got voicemail). Then the phone numbers got changed to me, but the next month, in looking around her online account, I saw SB's email was still attached, not mine. So, I email again. He has his assistant (who seems to do most of the work) call my mom and say she needs to send that in writing. So, early March is when DD had my mom sign the letter and she mailed it. I log into her account last week, just to do my normal monthly check on it and it's still his email! I emailed AGAIN. No reply back, but when I tried logging in a few days later I see it was changed. How about a quick email that you got it taken care of? Yesterday I logged in because it's time to transfer some money from her investment savings account to her regular checking account (which is set up linked to transfer). But, of course they have an extra layer of security where I need to put in a PIN # she was apparently mailed, (probably year(s) ago), which of course I know she would not know or know where she put it. So, there is a toll free # to call to reset the PIN, so I call it. The guy tells me I'm not authorized to take care of her account. my SB still is the one listed. OMG! I am beyond sick of this. I called the broker and left a voicemail that I have been trying for months to get this taken care of and to please call me back. I called mom and let her know what is going on, because I wanted to let her know I haven't been able to transfer the money yet. She's not very happy about it. She said didn't we tell them this got changed a long time ago. I said yes, several times. She's ready to put her money someplace else. I really don't want to deal with that right now. The guy/company has done well with investing her money all these years, but geez - how hard is it to change this? I'm sure they didn't have any problem when they added SB to it all............
What is it with people who always have to feel superior or feel like they have to criticize or have an opinion about everything someone else does? Always have to "put you in your place" and make sure they are better than you are, that you are always a step or two below them on the ladder. And why in the world do these people seem to attract to my DH like a moth to a flame??!!
My DH is not like that, at all. I guess I could see someone "reciprocating" if that's how he treated them, but he doesn't treat people like that. We just get rid of toxic woodworker guy out of his life and now it's his older brother he's been keeping in pretty much constant contact with. I said well, maybe it's a "big brother thing" - your poor younger brother has 2 big brothers!" But, like DH said, he never treated his younger brother that way at all. Good point. So, as I always knew, big brother is just an ass, and still is.
But, what makes people like that? DH likes to post and share pictures on his Facebook page. No matter what he posts, big bro has to try to either "one up" him, or try to make him look stupid, with a snarky joke. It's usually one or the other. Like on Saturday DH posted a couple of pictures of all the snow we got (DH LOVES snow). Big bro has to comment with a pic of his daughter and granddaughter (who live in Alaska) of their snow, with a comment "well, they got ya beat." Well, no *&#^, it's Alaska - and they're standing at a glacier! Pretty sure there is always snow on it, LOL. Not once that I know of has he actually posted a positive comment (like most normal people do) on anything DH posts. And it isn't just Facebook. They communicate frequently via messenger or texting and it's the same thing. Dh told him about his "new" John Deere lawn tractor. Nope, what he uses to mow lawns is better. They both like older muscle cars, so will talk about those or share links to ones they like or something. DH crashed a few cars when he was a dumb irresponsible teenager. Every other comment is "well, you'd just crash it" or something along those lines. He did that on a facebook comment recently, so I went in to DH's post and commented "well, good thing he hasn't crashed anything in over 35 years, I think it's safe to say he outgrew that phase ;)".
DH plays along with it all, but after awhile it gets old. He's like I'm 55 years old. My life hasn't been about crashing cars. Not to mention it's not like he's an idiot who doesn't know anything. He's a pretty smart guy. He's pretty good at getting projects organized and accomplished (ie this house). He's great at landscaping. Like I said, he totally outgrew his stupid teenager stuff a LONG time ago. He takes care of everything he owns better than 99% of people I know. I say to him they why do you even bother talking to him? I think half the problem is DH.....he feels like he needs everyone to like him, so puts up with crappy people in his life, I guess.
Masonry guy still has not shown up. DH has numerous calls into each: the fence guy, the insulation guy (who, for the past 6 months is supposed to fix a problem the messed up on insulation in our attic area next to bonus room), and the sprinkler system guy. The local gutters guy finally texted him back and said his boss sold the gutter machine, so they aren't doing gutters anymore. No one else will returns his calls and texts. We're tired of looking at all the little flags all over our yard. Get back out here and finish the sprinkler system. But of course, DH paid him in FULL last fall, so what incentive does he have now to come out and finish? But, you know...DH wanted the guy (an old school friend growing up) to like him.......
On good news, 3rd night in a row with my eye doing good and my 2nd cousin replied to my message and it is her. We caught up a bit and she said finding my message to reconnect made her day ;)
Monday, April 13, 2020
Ancestry detective
I don't know a whole lot about my paternal grandparents history. I didn't even know them until I was 10 years old. My grandpa died when I was 12 and grandma when I was 18. I visited them (then just her) for a couple of weeks each summer for about 4 or 5 years. I know my grandpa came from Scotland with his parents when he was 4 and he lived the rest of his life in the same place. Until a few days ago I didn't even for sure know my grandma's maiden name. I knew her sister's first name and she lived in Minnesota. I found my grandma's maiden name (finally my grandparents marriage license showed up as a hint) and that opened up a whole bunch more info and family history to me.
My grandma and her family is from Minnesota. That led me to wonder how in the world my grandparents even met, because the little I know about my grandpa he's the type that probably never ventured more than 50 miles from his home town his whole life, LOL. They lived 2 states apart. I discovered my grandma's mother's maiden name: McPhee. That sounded like a name I had heard mentioned by my grandma. I did some more searching and found some McPhee's in my grandparents small town. I connected the dots and my grandma's Uncle, Aunt and cousins McPhee all lived where my grandpa lived his whole life. I am guessing that as a young lady my grandma must have went to visit or stay with her uncle and aunt and then met my grandpa.
I also recall, during my summer visits, when on Saturday's we'd go into town (they lived on a ranch 30 miles from town) for groceries, Saturday mass, etc. and we'd always stop in and visit a lady, named Mary, who I thought grandma had said was a cousin. We'd sit at her kitchen table and visit and she always had a plate of the best homemade sugar cookies I have ever tasted. Sure enough, Mary's maiden name is McPhee. So, I think I maybe solved the question of how my grandparents met. At least that's my theory.
My grandma and her family is from Minnesota. That led me to wonder how in the world my grandparents even met, because the little I know about my grandpa he's the type that probably never ventured more than 50 miles from his home town his whole life, LOL. They lived 2 states apart. I discovered my grandma's mother's maiden name: McPhee. That sounded like a name I had heard mentioned by my grandma. I did some more searching and found some McPhee's in my grandparents small town. I connected the dots and my grandma's Uncle, Aunt and cousins McPhee all lived where my grandpa lived his whole life. I am guessing that as a young lady my grandma must have went to visit or stay with her uncle and aunt and then met my grandpa.
I also recall, during my summer visits, when on Saturday's we'd go into town (they lived on a ranch 30 miles from town) for groceries, Saturday mass, etc. and we'd always stop in and visit a lady, named Mary, who I thought grandma had said was a cousin. We'd sit at her kitchen table and visit and she always had a plate of the best homemade sugar cookies I have ever tasted. Sure enough, Mary's maiden name is McPhee. So, I think I maybe solved the question of how my grandparents met. At least that's my theory.
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Happy Easter
Happy Easter. If we had little ones, we'd be hunting eggs in the snow, LOL. We went from Thursday and Friday being lovely 70 degrees to snow and a high today of 42.
I was so tired of not getting more than 2 to 2 1/2 hours sleep because I was setting my phone alarm so I could put drops in my eyes. Not to mention, I was having pain anyway. So Friday night I just decided I'd put the ointment in when I went to bed (as usual) and just sleep until I wake up. I naturally woke up 2-3 times and added drops but it was much better (though I did get a pain episode at 5am, darn). I could tell I at least felt much better rested yesterday. I did same last night. Got 3 straight hours sleep, then 4, then 3. And no pain last night. I know it will most likely come back, but at least sleeping better is a big help.
I decided to use my free day Friday and sign up for one month of Ancestry. I knew I'd get hooked again! It's all so interesting and so much information to find. I hadn't done anything more with it for a few years, so lots of new hints and found some things I just could not find before. Mainly my biological father's mothers info. Finally. Before I couldn't even find her and my grandpa's marriage info. I didn't know her maiden name and now I do and found their marriage license/certificate. Now I am able to find our more about her family. I also am trying to reconnect with a 2nd cousin, who's grandmother and my grandmother are sisters. We met when we were both 14 and my grandma took me back to Minnesota to visit her sister and family. We wrote letters and kept in contact into our early adulthood and then lost touch. I remembered her married name, kids names, etc, but could not find her on Facebook, before. In Ancestry, when I was looking for hints I found her daughter had a family tree, so I now had her daughter's married name. Looked her up on Facebook. Some sleuthing and I'm pretty sure I found my cousin, so I sent her a Facebook message. Haven't heard back yet, but I'm pretty sure it is her.
The other person I am finding lots more info on his my great grandmother on my mom's side. My grandpa's mom. I knew her name and birth date (my mom had that info). All's I knew is she left my grandpa and his 2 brothers when they were kids and their dad raised them. And that they had a half sister, but I had always assumed she was younger. That their mom left, remarried and had another child, but no, she is older, so this great grandma was married before she married my great grandfather. I'm finding lots more info on her and I think I found her first husbands name. I can't find info on either divorce, but it appears after she divorced my g.grandfather she took back her previous married last name. That is the name on the obituary in a newspaper I found. That had quite a bit of info. Listed all her kids and her siblings names. No mention of a husband still alive or preceding her death. Her family name goes WAY back. That will keep me busy forever, LOL. One of the hints for my 9x great grandfather shows an article that says he was an accuser in the Salem Witch Trials. That will require some more reading! I was on my phone app, so too small to read it all, but I will look into it, for sure.
Still no luck on my father's dad's side of the family, who came from Scotland. Still a dead end after his grandparents. And still a dead end on my grandpa's dad, who went back to Denmark just before WWII and then they never heard from him again, though I was able to find out who his siblings were and starting to get some info on them.
I was so tired of not getting more than 2 to 2 1/2 hours sleep because I was setting my phone alarm so I could put drops in my eyes. Not to mention, I was having pain anyway. So Friday night I just decided I'd put the ointment in when I went to bed (as usual) and just sleep until I wake up. I naturally woke up 2-3 times and added drops but it was much better (though I did get a pain episode at 5am, darn). I could tell I at least felt much better rested yesterday. I did same last night. Got 3 straight hours sleep, then 4, then 3. And no pain last night. I know it will most likely come back, but at least sleeping better is a big help.
I decided to use my free day Friday and sign up for one month of Ancestry. I knew I'd get hooked again! It's all so interesting and so much information to find. I hadn't done anything more with it for a few years, so lots of new hints and found some things I just could not find before. Mainly my biological father's mothers info. Finally. Before I couldn't even find her and my grandpa's marriage info. I didn't know her maiden name and now I do and found their marriage license/certificate. Now I am able to find our more about her family. I also am trying to reconnect with a 2nd cousin, who's grandmother and my grandmother are sisters. We met when we were both 14 and my grandma took me back to Minnesota to visit her sister and family. We wrote letters and kept in contact into our early adulthood and then lost touch. I remembered her married name, kids names, etc, but could not find her on Facebook, before. In Ancestry, when I was looking for hints I found her daughter had a family tree, so I now had her daughter's married name. Looked her up on Facebook. Some sleuthing and I'm pretty sure I found my cousin, so I sent her a Facebook message. Haven't heard back yet, but I'm pretty sure it is her.
The other person I am finding lots more info on his my great grandmother on my mom's side. My grandpa's mom. I knew her name and birth date (my mom had that info). All's I knew is she left my grandpa and his 2 brothers when they were kids and their dad raised them. And that they had a half sister, but I had always assumed she was younger. That their mom left, remarried and had another child, but no, she is older, so this great grandma was married before she married my great grandfather. I'm finding lots more info on her and I think I found her first husbands name. I can't find info on either divorce, but it appears after she divorced my g.grandfather she took back her previous married last name. That is the name on the obituary in a newspaper I found. That had quite a bit of info. Listed all her kids and her siblings names. No mention of a husband still alive or preceding her death. Her family name goes WAY back. That will keep me busy forever, LOL. One of the hints for my 9x great grandfather shows an article that says he was an accuser in the Salem Witch Trials. That will require some more reading! I was on my phone app, so too small to read it all, but I will look into it, for sure.
Still no luck on my father's dad's side of the family, who came from Scotland. Still a dead end after his grandparents. And still a dead end on my grandpa's dad, who went back to Denmark just before WWII and then they never heard from him again, though I was able to find out who his siblings were and starting to get some info on them.
Friday, April 10, 2020
Frustrating day
Well, for $&^% sake! This payroll processing is just a joke. I again, spent all day yesterday waiting, trying to get it submitted. Every step, some different issue comes up. I email her at 9:45 am with 2 questions/issues. 2 hours later she responds with some explanation as to what caused it, that makes no sense, but she fixed it, so I should be good to go now. I promptly reprocessed the batch and then have 3 new issues come up. I emailed her back with in 3 minutes of her reply, listing out my 3 issues. An hour and 40 minutes later she replies back, but only answering one of my issues, which was half answered and I replied right back..........nothing back from her.
I don't know about most people, but if I'm in the middle of emailing back and forth with someone to resolve a problem, I email them right back and get it all taken care of. I don't let them sit there for hours waiting for my reply.
Finally, at 2:45 I tried to call her. As always I get a recording saying she's not available, so I chose the option to leave a voicemail. As has been happening the last 2-3 months of trying to call her, I don't get her voicemail, I get a busy signal.
Now it's 3 pm and she finally responds. I run the payroll register, so my boss can review it and we notice that two of the employees my boss thought she had processed terminations for were still showing as active and would get paid. She's 99% positive she termed them in the system. So, she goes in and terms them and I start over (again) and sure enough these 2 termed employees show up with an error message that they have hours this cycle (even though term date is 3/31), so now I'm back to emailing our payroll person, so she can fix those, the same way she however fixed the 3 earlier.
Seriously, all these fixes and back and forth literally could have been resolved over like 15 minutes of time, max. We didn't need to spend 6 hours waiting for replies to fix it and get it processed. Just dumb.
I had texted my boss a funny picture of one of my dogs laying next to my desk chair, looking like he's just had it with the day. I said Max has had it with payroll today, too! LOL. I then told her the most frustrating part of all this is the fact that it take usually 2 hours between each email trying to resolve these little issues with our payroll coordinator. I said calling is useless, as she is never available, and usually I can't leave a message, anyway. If she would just address the issue and stay with it for like 10-15 minutes she'd be done with me and we'd have payroll done and on it's way to processing. It's extremely frustrating. My boss keep saying she's going to address it, but that never gets done. First it was we were being audited the first couple months of the year, so (which I understand) all her time was consumed with that. Then she was busy trying to move our 401k from one company to another. Then this virus crap hit. Now she says "when we are back to normal, we'll get this payroll issue worked out". Ugh. Now seems to be a great time to deal with it - not as much else going on and time to address it.......
My eye seems to be either two steps forward and one step back or one step forward and two steps back. Last night was a two step back night. And when the eye started hurting, instead of it being for like 5-10 minutes, like it has at least been lately, it was back to an hour or more, which then seems to also mean it's worse and I wake up with blurrier vision again. I'm so glad I have today off. I'm trying a new tactic tonight. If I'm going to have pain anyway, might as well see if I can get more sleep in one shot than 2 hours. I'm just going to put the ointment in when I go to bed and see how long I can sleep before it might start hurting. Maybe I'll make it several hours. Last night it was actually the alarm going off and me opening my eyes because of it, that scraped off the healing, again (twice, though first time was minimal pain).
Our mason guy didn't show up yesterday and no call until this morning. I guess he's doing a chimney that he thought would take a day and a half to do and he's on his 3rd day, so now he's not coming until next week. So, dh is going to work on putting up the shakes on the gables, then. Then the gutter guy dh had left a message with called. His boss sold their gutter machine, so they aren't doing them anymore. He's going to get a hold of the new guy but he doesn't remember what the brown gutter color is called.
It doesn't seem people is our little small neck of the woods are staying home completely. Weekend before last our older retired friend that usually stops by every few Sundays, had to stop by, LOL. I was wondering how he was managing all this - he is such a social guy! Then yesterday, right as I was about to make dinner, someone pulls up in a motorcycle. It was one of dh's friends (he had gotten to know him well when he did all our rockery work) out for a ride and decided to stop and say hello. It was such a nice 70 degree day that he thought we'd all be ok visiting outside, LOL.
I had thought about maybe using my free day today to start on Ancestry for a month, but with the vision, I'm not going to do it yet. I'll just nap and watch some Netflix today, I guess.
I don't know about most people, but if I'm in the middle of emailing back and forth with someone to resolve a problem, I email them right back and get it all taken care of. I don't let them sit there for hours waiting for my reply.
Finally, at 2:45 I tried to call her. As always I get a recording saying she's not available, so I chose the option to leave a voicemail. As has been happening the last 2-3 months of trying to call her, I don't get her voicemail, I get a busy signal.
Now it's 3 pm and she finally responds. I run the payroll register, so my boss can review it and we notice that two of the employees my boss thought she had processed terminations for were still showing as active and would get paid. She's 99% positive she termed them in the system. So, she goes in and terms them and I start over (again) and sure enough these 2 termed employees show up with an error message that they have hours this cycle (even though term date is 3/31), so now I'm back to emailing our payroll person, so she can fix those, the same way she however fixed the 3 earlier.
Seriously, all these fixes and back and forth literally could have been resolved over like 15 minutes of time, max. We didn't need to spend 6 hours waiting for replies to fix it and get it processed. Just dumb.
I had texted my boss a funny picture of one of my dogs laying next to my desk chair, looking like he's just had it with the day. I said Max has had it with payroll today, too! LOL. I then told her the most frustrating part of all this is the fact that it take usually 2 hours between each email trying to resolve these little issues with our payroll coordinator. I said calling is useless, as she is never available, and usually I can't leave a message, anyway. If she would just address the issue and stay with it for like 10-15 minutes she'd be done with me and we'd have payroll done and on it's way to processing. It's extremely frustrating. My boss keep saying she's going to address it, but that never gets done. First it was we were being audited the first couple months of the year, so (which I understand) all her time was consumed with that. Then she was busy trying to move our 401k from one company to another. Then this virus crap hit. Now she says "when we are back to normal, we'll get this payroll issue worked out". Ugh. Now seems to be a great time to deal with it - not as much else going on and time to address it.......
My eye seems to be either two steps forward and one step back or one step forward and two steps back. Last night was a two step back night. And when the eye started hurting, instead of it being for like 5-10 minutes, like it has at least been lately, it was back to an hour or more, which then seems to also mean it's worse and I wake up with blurrier vision again. I'm so glad I have today off. I'm trying a new tactic tonight. If I'm going to have pain anyway, might as well see if I can get more sleep in one shot than 2 hours. I'm just going to put the ointment in when I go to bed and see how long I can sleep before it might start hurting. Maybe I'll make it several hours. Last night it was actually the alarm going off and me opening my eyes because of it, that scraped off the healing, again (twice, though first time was minimal pain).
Our mason guy didn't show up yesterday and no call until this morning. I guess he's doing a chimney that he thought would take a day and a half to do and he's on his 3rd day, so now he's not coming until next week. So, dh is going to work on putting up the shakes on the gables, then. Then the gutter guy dh had left a message with called. His boss sold their gutter machine, so they aren't doing them anymore. He's going to get a hold of the new guy but he doesn't remember what the brown gutter color is called.
It doesn't seem people is our little small neck of the woods are staying home completely. Weekend before last our older retired friend that usually stops by every few Sundays, had to stop by, LOL. I was wondering how he was managing all this - he is such a social guy! Then yesterday, right as I was about to make dinner, someone pulls up in a motorcycle. It was one of dh's friends (he had gotten to know him well when he did all our rockery work) out for a ride and decided to stop and say hello. It was such a nice 70 degree day that he thought we'd all be ok visiting outside, LOL.
I had thought about maybe using my free day today to start on Ancestry for a month, but with the vision, I'm not going to do it yet. I'll just nap and watch some Netflix today, I guess.
Thursday, April 9, 2020
TGIF a day early
Oh poor mom. Usually when she's doesn't remember something I don't really let her know. I just act like it's the first time she told or asked me. But, when I called her yesterday afternoon she says "oh, I got an email with a video about my new apartment". I said yes, they sent it yesterday and I called you so you could watch it. She didn't remember. I figured if I tried to jog her memory by reminding her we had to figure out how to turn her volume up on her computer speakers, she might remember. Then she said "oh yeah, I guess I do remember that". Then her concern, after watching it, was that her apartment is too close to the elevator and she doesn't think she'll like that if she can hear it all the time.
Then about 10 minutes later she called me back, all serious and says "I know I didn't watch that video yesterday". Oh geez. I should have just said oh, ok. But, I just (in my cheeriest voice) said oh, ya, you must not remember it right now, but I was on the phone with you and you watched it. So, she says "well, then why didn't I say something then about the elevator?" I said well maybe you just didn't catch it that first time as we were talking while you were watching it.
So, I emailed the gal at the senior living place to express mom's concerns about having an apartment that close to the elevator. She said it's kind of kitty corner across the hall and she won't hear it. The person that lived there before lived there for 18 years and never heard the elevator or complained of noise from it. She then went and took a picture to show me the distance from the elevator door to her apartment door. She said she also went and asked a couple of the other's in nearby apartments if they ever hear it and they told her no, they don't. And she said their apt doors are thick fire doors, so they deaden sound pretty well, too. So, I think mom's mind is at ease now. We'll see.......she might not remember it tomorrow....
I also went and paid her credit card bill out of her checking yesterday, rather than wait for it to auto pay on the 19th. That way the balance won't be showing anymore when she logs into her bank online and she won't have to keep asking me what that large charge is for on her credit card.
DD tries to give grandma a call about once a week (sometimes less), but yesterday I asked her if she could maybe try to call her a couple times a week. Since she can't go down for meals and socialize, she's not getting anything much, other than our calls. She called her last evening and they chatted for about a half hour, so that was good. I know I call her every day and my uncle calls her about every other day, but I'm sure it will help if DD calls every so often, too.
The owners of the company I work for have decided to give us all Friday off for Good Friday. Usually we do close a little earlier that day, mostly because many of the manuf. we rep are east coast and it's common for them to close for the day. Anyhow, it will be nice to have the day off. Or maybe most of the day. It's payroll processing day and with our weird set up, I can't do it a day early, unless they change something on their end. I emailed my payroll support person to see what she can do, so I can do payroll today, instead. Or maybe I can just do it Monday. I haven't heard back from her yet. I'm guessing she's just going to tell me I can do it on Monday, which will be fine, too.
My eye was not for a good night last night. I had 2 good nights prior. I had decided to try to go 3 hours before my first alarm for more drops, instead of my usual 2 1/2. I didn't even make it 2 hours before I had a pain episode! Then it did it again at 1:30am. So frustrating. I just want some damn sleep.
DH is coming along with the shed. Lots of measuring and board cutting, which takes time, especially for the angles up in the gables. He put on what are called "belly bands" at each gable end. Long boards, so I had to help him hold it up on one end so he could get it placed before he nailed it in. Then he did get started on putting some shakes up on the gable end, above the belly band. This morning he is waiting for the mason guy to get here.
When he went into the town lumber store yesterday to order the extra siding he needs the owner had a box with a security camera sitting on his counter. DH said, tell me that's not for here? Owner said yep, been having theft and trying to break into our trucks. Good grief. This is a town of like 650 people. I guess they did catch some recently. There is an alley behind the lumber store and some houses on the other side. One of the houses is a state trooper. His wife happened to be up late with their new baby and heard/saw stuff going on and woke up her husband who went and caught them. It was a local guy, but he had 2 guys from out of state with him. Like dh told owner, 3 years ago, when we moved here and I came to rent the forklift, you were able to just say, "it's out back - keys are in it". Sad.
I see my health insurance processed my claim from my specialist visit last week (I have $20 copay) so maybe they will have my claims I submitted processed next week and reimburse me soon.
I'm out of sugar! I thought I had a partial bag behind my containers, but nope. I have maybe 1/3 of a cup left. But, I have lots of powdered sugar (which I don't use too often, just if a recipe calls for it). Maybe I can just use up some of this powdered sugar in place of granulated sugar (mostly in my morning coffee!). I'll have to try that.
Then about 10 minutes later she called me back, all serious and says "I know I didn't watch that video yesterday". Oh geez. I should have just said oh, ok. But, I just (in my cheeriest voice) said oh, ya, you must not remember it right now, but I was on the phone with you and you watched it. So, she says "well, then why didn't I say something then about the elevator?" I said well maybe you just didn't catch it that first time as we were talking while you were watching it.
So, I emailed the gal at the senior living place to express mom's concerns about having an apartment that close to the elevator. She said it's kind of kitty corner across the hall and she won't hear it. The person that lived there before lived there for 18 years and never heard the elevator or complained of noise from it. She then went and took a picture to show me the distance from the elevator door to her apartment door. She said she also went and asked a couple of the other's in nearby apartments if they ever hear it and they told her no, they don't. And she said their apt doors are thick fire doors, so they deaden sound pretty well, too. So, I think mom's mind is at ease now. We'll see.......she might not remember it tomorrow....
I also went and paid her credit card bill out of her checking yesterday, rather than wait for it to auto pay on the 19th. That way the balance won't be showing anymore when she logs into her bank online and she won't have to keep asking me what that large charge is for on her credit card.
DD tries to give grandma a call about once a week (sometimes less), but yesterday I asked her if she could maybe try to call her a couple times a week. Since she can't go down for meals and socialize, she's not getting anything much, other than our calls. She called her last evening and they chatted for about a half hour, so that was good. I know I call her every day and my uncle calls her about every other day, but I'm sure it will help if DD calls every so often, too.
The owners of the company I work for have decided to give us all Friday off for Good Friday. Usually we do close a little earlier that day, mostly because many of the manuf. we rep are east coast and it's common for them to close for the day. Anyhow, it will be nice to have the day off. Or maybe most of the day. It's payroll processing day and with our weird set up, I can't do it a day early, unless they change something on their end. I emailed my payroll support person to see what she can do, so I can do payroll today, instead. Or maybe I can just do it Monday. I haven't heard back from her yet. I'm guessing she's just going to tell me I can do it on Monday, which will be fine, too.
My eye was not for a good night last night. I had 2 good nights prior. I had decided to try to go 3 hours before my first alarm for more drops, instead of my usual 2 1/2. I didn't even make it 2 hours before I had a pain episode! Then it did it again at 1:30am. So frustrating. I just want some damn sleep.
DH is coming along with the shed. Lots of measuring and board cutting, which takes time, especially for the angles up in the gables. He put on what are called "belly bands" at each gable end. Long boards, so I had to help him hold it up on one end so he could get it placed before he nailed it in. Then he did get started on putting some shakes up on the gable end, above the belly band. This morning he is waiting for the mason guy to get here.
When he went into the town lumber store yesterday to order the extra siding he needs the owner had a box with a security camera sitting on his counter. DH said, tell me that's not for here? Owner said yep, been having theft and trying to break into our trucks. Good grief. This is a town of like 650 people. I guess they did catch some recently. There is an alley behind the lumber store and some houses on the other side. One of the houses is a state trooper. His wife happened to be up late with their new baby and heard/saw stuff going on and woke up her husband who went and caught them. It was a local guy, but he had 2 guys from out of state with him. Like dh told owner, 3 years ago, when we moved here and I came to rent the forklift, you were able to just say, "it's out back - keys are in it". Sad.
I see my health insurance processed my claim from my specialist visit last week (I have $20 copay) so maybe they will have my claims I submitted processed next week and reimburse me soon.
I'm out of sugar! I thought I had a partial bag behind my containers, but nope. I have maybe 1/3 of a cup left. But, I have lots of powdered sugar (which I don't use too often, just if a recipe calls for it). Maybe I can just use up some of this powdered sugar in place of granulated sugar (mostly in my morning coffee!). I'll have to try that.
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
A nice welcome and other stuff
Awww....my mom's new retirement apartment put together a cute welcome video for her and emailed it. Showed her around the place a bit and showed her apartment. Really personalized it. She loved it! (once I told her how to view it and get her speakers turned up, haha!). I hope we can get her moved there soon. I think she's really going to like it. They seem to pay a lot of attention to the residents, where I don't think her current place does as much. You are kind of on your own, if you want to join in fine, if not, they don't seem to encourage it much, that I have been able to tell.
My DD follows my half sister's DD on Instagram. She's about 30 years old now. She posted a pic of when she was a teenager and my dd thought it looked so much like me when I was a teen, that my dd said send me a picture of when you were a teenager. So, I found her a couple. Yes, you sure can tell we are related, LOL.
I had another good night with no pain in my eye last night. I'll be so glad when I don't have to keep waking up every couple of hours to put in drops. I can't remember what it's like to sleep the whole night through anymore.
DH continues to work on the shed. Yesterday he got the siding started. We don't have quite enough left over from our house build, so he's going to have to go buy several more boards of it. Most likely something our local lumber store will have to order in, so he's going to go in this morning and see about that. I think the mason guy is coming tomorrow to do the stonework. It will be nice to see him and DH will really enjoy spending some time with him again. Plus, I love his southern accent and he usually brings one of his bird dogs with him to work.
Last week I had supposedly been able to order some cheap Great Value TP from Walmart. That was on the 2nd. Of course today, like a week later, they send me an email it was canceled. Hey, how about just not have it available to add to the cart, if it's not available to ship?! Novel concept. I'm quite sure my find of a case of Charmin online with them yesterday will suffer the same fate.
Yesterday morning I wasn't able to log into our work VPN until a half hour after I usually start as they were doing some server updates. Well, whatever it was it changed something for the better with the VPN. Previously, if I'm logged into my work VPN and then I log into my side job's VPN, it will disconnect me from my work VPN for a few seconds, and then it reconnects. Now, it doesn't disconnect me anymore. Just nice not to have that annoying little thing happen anymore.
It's foggy this morning, but it's burning off and looks like it's going to be a beautiful day and 62 degrees by this afternoon. I see the lawn where it's all sod is starting to get greener a little more each day. It's going to look so nice once it's all looking like it's supposed to. I don't know when the sprinkler guys are coming back to finish up from last Fall with the sprinkler system. Soon, I think. Will be nice to get rid of all those little flags everywhere.
My DD follows my half sister's DD on Instagram. She's about 30 years old now. She posted a pic of when she was a teenager and my dd thought it looked so much like me when I was a teen, that my dd said send me a picture of when you were a teenager. So, I found her a couple. Yes, you sure can tell we are related, LOL.
I had another good night with no pain in my eye last night. I'll be so glad when I don't have to keep waking up every couple of hours to put in drops. I can't remember what it's like to sleep the whole night through anymore.
DH continues to work on the shed. Yesterday he got the siding started. We don't have quite enough left over from our house build, so he's going to have to go buy several more boards of it. Most likely something our local lumber store will have to order in, so he's going to go in this morning and see about that. I think the mason guy is coming tomorrow to do the stonework. It will be nice to see him and DH will really enjoy spending some time with him again. Plus, I love his southern accent and he usually brings one of his bird dogs with him to work.
Last week I had supposedly been able to order some cheap Great Value TP from Walmart. That was on the 2nd. Of course today, like a week later, they send me an email it was canceled. Hey, how about just not have it available to add to the cart, if it's not available to ship?! Novel concept. I'm quite sure my find of a case of Charmin online with them yesterday will suffer the same fate.
Yesterday morning I wasn't able to log into our work VPN until a half hour after I usually start as they were doing some server updates. Well, whatever it was it changed something for the better with the VPN. Previously, if I'm logged into my work VPN and then I log into my side job's VPN, it will disconnect me from my work VPN for a few seconds, and then it reconnects. Now, it doesn't disconnect me anymore. Just nice not to have that annoying little thing happen anymore.
It's foggy this morning, but it's burning off and looks like it's going to be a beautiful day and 62 degrees by this afternoon. I see the lawn where it's all sod is starting to get greener a little more each day. It's going to look so nice once it's all looking like it's supposed to. I don't know when the sprinkler guys are coming back to finish up from last Fall with the sprinkler system. Soon, I think. Will be nice to get rid of all those little flags everywhere.
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
Rent, flowers and TP
This morning I emailed the gal at my mom's new apartment senior living place. Since we aren't going to be able to move my mom later this month, as planned, I told her that my mom is stressing out a bit over having to pay rent on 2 places starting May. Boy, if I had known that a week after I signed her rent agreement that all this craziness was going to happen we sure would have waited it out. Would it maybe be possible to defer her rent for now?
She replied back that she is sure they can do something for that. She will talk to her boss this week and get back to me. She also asked if my mom does email, as they have video tour introduction they can send her and she said she could also send my mom a video of her apartment to show her. I said that would be great! She does do email, though I might have to help her with accessing the video and I mentioned how I can remote into her computer to help her and what a godsend that has been. She replied back asking what the name of the program is, she thinks that would be a great tool to recommend to families of their residents.
As expected, I did have an episode of pain with my eye again last night. Since I scratched it again yesterday morning, I figured it would do it again, but at least it was short lived pain again (as usual, seems to most often happen around 4:30 am). The vision in the eye is fairly good, still, so at least that didn't get worse.
DH worked on the shed/coop all day yesterday. The lumber he still needed got delivered yesterday, by the owner himself. He's a nice guy and dh brought him in to show him the inside of our house. DH had added some nails and stuff to the order so it needed to be paid and then either he forgot a box of nails or something, so DH had me drive back into town behind him, so I could pay for the rest of it and pick up the box of nails. I said I'd been wanting to go to town and get a few groceries anyway, so all good.
The little grocery store is doing a good job with the cleaning and social distancing. They have wipes just inside the door. Signs on the floor and plexiglass shields now installed at the registers. The checker would ring up the customer and then wipe down her station, even the conveyor belt and then the next person can set out their groceries on it and get rung up. While I was waiting for her to ring my stuff up I noticed some cut flowers for sale. So pretty and I decided they were a necessity!
I was able to get some bananas, apples and grapes. I also was able to get a can of each of the different beans I need for my taco soup, so I am going to make that for dinner tonight and several nights of future meals as I can freeze some of it, too.
I'm thinking as a little "treat" to myself with my raise and retro pay I would sign up again for a month or two of Ancestry.com. I really enjoyed it when I did it several years ago and would love to work on it some more. But, I want to wait and make sure my eye is better because I know if I start on it, I'll end up gluing myself to the computer. Between work and that I'll probably over do the screen time, so I'm impatiently trying to wait a bit and see if my eye starts improving some more. But, I think with a month service, I could get a lot more done with the research and enjoy it.
I've been watching/refreshing my screen on Walmart online for days now, with it set at "toilet paper for home delivery." Every so often something will pop up, but dang - you gotta be fast! By the time I get it in my cart or try to add it - it's gone! But, I think this morning I maybe managed to snag a 12 pack of Charmin Mega rolls. Wooo! Let's see if it actually ships or end up canceling on me. Any bets?
She replied back that she is sure they can do something for that. She will talk to her boss this week and get back to me. She also asked if my mom does email, as they have video tour introduction they can send her and she said she could also send my mom a video of her apartment to show her. I said that would be great! She does do email, though I might have to help her with accessing the video and I mentioned how I can remote into her computer to help her and what a godsend that has been. She replied back asking what the name of the program is, she thinks that would be a great tool to recommend to families of their residents.
As expected, I did have an episode of pain with my eye again last night. Since I scratched it again yesterday morning, I figured it would do it again, but at least it was short lived pain again (as usual, seems to most often happen around 4:30 am). The vision in the eye is fairly good, still, so at least that didn't get worse.
DH worked on the shed/coop all day yesterday. The lumber he still needed got delivered yesterday, by the owner himself. He's a nice guy and dh brought him in to show him the inside of our house. DH had added some nails and stuff to the order so it needed to be paid and then either he forgot a box of nails or something, so DH had me drive back into town behind him, so I could pay for the rest of it and pick up the box of nails. I said I'd been wanting to go to town and get a few groceries anyway, so all good.
The little grocery store is doing a good job with the cleaning and social distancing. They have wipes just inside the door. Signs on the floor and plexiglass shields now installed at the registers. The checker would ring up the customer and then wipe down her station, even the conveyor belt and then the next person can set out their groceries on it and get rung up. While I was waiting for her to ring my stuff up I noticed some cut flowers for sale. So pretty and I decided they were a necessity!
I'm thinking as a little "treat" to myself with my raise and retro pay I would sign up again for a month or two of Ancestry.com. I really enjoyed it when I did it several years ago and would love to work on it some more. But, I want to wait and make sure my eye is better because I know if I start on it, I'll end up gluing myself to the computer. Between work and that I'll probably over do the screen time, so I'm impatiently trying to wait a bit and see if my eye starts improving some more. But, I think with a month service, I could get a lot more done with the research and enjoy it.
I've been watching/refreshing my screen on Walmart online for days now, with it set at "toilet paper for home delivery." Every so often something will pop up, but dang - you gotta be fast! By the time I get it in my cart or try to add it - it's gone! But, I think this morning I maybe managed to snag a 12 pack of Charmin Mega rolls. Wooo! Let's see if it actually ships or end up canceling on me. Any bets?
Monday, April 6, 2020
I can't believe I did that!
I was drying off from taking a shower. Kinda had my head bent down and pulling the towel up to dry my hair...........and scraped my eye with the towel! OMG! I am so mad at myself. Probably just put myself back to square one with this stupid eye problem.
Starting the week out good
Last night was the first night I made it through the night without any eye pain. Yay! Let's hope it continues to improve. At some point I'd like not to have wake up every 2 hours to put in drops. But, for now, I'll definitely take the no pain night. My eye is still a bit blurry, though, but at least I can manage working now.
Yesterday DH had me stain the beams that are in the chicken coop part of the shed. We had almost a whole 5 gallon of stain left. Not sure why our painter lady bought so much (which we of course had to pay for), but at least we were able to use a little bit of it up. I rolled it on with a little roller brush and it all only took me an hour to do. He spent his time figuring out where he will be putting some lights and outlets.
The town lumber store is supposed to deliver some boards and stuff they were out of last week, when DH went in. I'm sure he'll be sitting here all day and they won't end up coming until afternoon, haha. He needs to get the first row of siding put on. Then below that the mason guy can start his part. He keeps bugging DH to come out and do it. Funny, how when those subs need the work they are bugging you, but when they are busy you never know when they are going to show up. I think the plan is for him to come on Wednesday. I doubt it will take him much more than a day. There's really only 2 sides and a little bit on the front (most of the front will be a door to the garden shed).
Saturday I did finally get my eye doctor claims submitted to my health insurance online. It was fairly easy (now that my vision isn't so blurry and I could read all the instructions) and I just scanned my claim forms supplied by the eye doctor office. They also had an option to get the reimbursement direct deposited, rather than a check, so I went with that option. Hopefully, it all doesn't take too long, or they don't deny it for some reason.
I think we are finally past it snowing every night now. I'll bet, in total, we got a foot of snow last week, with it snowing a few inches every night. This week is supposed to be temps in the high 50's and even low 60's later this week. I am ready to start seeing some more green and having our lawn get green (the sod is sort of a yellow green right now) and see how well our seeded areas fill in from all the seed put down late last fall.
Well, I'll be trying to put in a full day of work, but may take a bit longer lunch. I don't want to over strain my eye, just when it seems to be doing better. Yesterday I said to DH it doesn't even seem like Sunday. I don't know what what it feels like. It doesn't feel like any certain day. Some kind of new "day" of the week "coronaday" I guess :(
Yesterday DH had me stain the beams that are in the chicken coop part of the shed. We had almost a whole 5 gallon of stain left. Not sure why our painter lady bought so much (which we of course had to pay for), but at least we were able to use a little bit of it up. I rolled it on with a little roller brush and it all only took me an hour to do. He spent his time figuring out where he will be putting some lights and outlets.
The town lumber store is supposed to deliver some boards and stuff they were out of last week, when DH went in. I'm sure he'll be sitting here all day and they won't end up coming until afternoon, haha. He needs to get the first row of siding put on. Then below that the mason guy can start his part. He keeps bugging DH to come out and do it. Funny, how when those subs need the work they are bugging you, but when they are busy you never know when they are going to show up. I think the plan is for him to come on Wednesday. I doubt it will take him much more than a day. There's really only 2 sides and a little bit on the front (most of the front will be a door to the garden shed).
Saturday I did finally get my eye doctor claims submitted to my health insurance online. It was fairly easy (now that my vision isn't so blurry and I could read all the instructions) and I just scanned my claim forms supplied by the eye doctor office. They also had an option to get the reimbursement direct deposited, rather than a check, so I went with that option. Hopefully, it all doesn't take too long, or they don't deny it for some reason.
I think we are finally past it snowing every night now. I'll bet, in total, we got a foot of snow last week, with it snowing a few inches every night. This week is supposed to be temps in the high 50's and even low 60's later this week. I am ready to start seeing some more green and having our lawn get green (the sod is sort of a yellow green right now) and see how well our seeded areas fill in from all the seed put down late last fall.
Well, I'll be trying to put in a full day of work, but may take a bit longer lunch. I don't want to over strain my eye, just when it seems to be doing better. Yesterday I said to DH it doesn't even seem like Sunday. I don't know what what it feels like. It doesn't feel like any certain day. Some kind of new "day" of the week "coronaday" I guess :(
Sunday, April 5, 2020
Remote access
One of the best things I did was put "Team Viewer" on my mom's computer. It has saved me hours of frustration, trying to help her with things on her computer. We've had to use it twice in the last week or so. She had Norton Anti-virus on her computer past several years, that she pays for. I think it's like $100 a year (not exactly sure how much). She had asked me awhile back if she should keep that. Since she was moving here, basically uses her computer for email and playing solitaire, I told her let's not renew/pay for it. Once she gets moved over here I can put something on her computer to help protect it, that is free. So, we (mostly me) have been deleting all the emails she kept getting reminding her it was due to renew. I kept deleting the emails as fast as possible, otherwise she'd keep asking me, because she forgets we decided not to renew.
Pretty much everything about the computer confuses her. I was telling her where to find the "ESC" button, I kept saying up on the top left of your keyboard.....finally I realized she didn't know what the keyboard meant. I said the part where you type! It's very hard for her to communicate to me what is going on with her computer when she doesn't know what's what with it and what words are used for it's parts.
Last week, when she turned on her computer (she always keeps it turned off when not in use) Norton messages were popping up, because it has expired. I didn't think of that happening. I got on Team Viewer and removed the program from her computer. Yesterday afternoon she called me because she couldn't get logged into her bank account. I'm not really sure what she was doing, as I had set it up so she didn't have to enter her password every time. But, I also have that happen to me sometimes. Saved passwords just don't fill in. Supposedly she was entering the password correctly, but hard to say. She's very confusing to talk to when she's trying to say what is on her screen. I got her to close it all out and open Team Viewer and I got on. First off, there was another pop up and icon for Norton. What the heck. I went and uninstalled again. Maybe a part I missed the first time, I guess. Then opened her Firefox and banking tab and both her user id and password were auto filled in, so I'm not sure what happened.
While on, it was a good time to "do some banking" for her. She told me her balance in her checkbook. I knew her rent check has not cleared yet, but still didn't match taking that into account. Then she said she had already written her social security deposit in her checkbook, even though it won't go in her bank until next Wednesday. Ok, good. Then we match. She also has her credit card bill (with same bank) due on the 19th, that she is going to need more money in her account to cover (it was her rent/move in fee for her new apartment charged it it). So, while we were online together I transferred most of her savings balance over to checking. I told her next week, we'll have to do a big transfer from her retirement account to get her regular savings and checking back up, so she at least has like 6 months living expenses in there and not have to keep transferring money. She understood.
I logged into her email this morning to get rid of the spam stuff and see last evening she must have tried to log into her retirement account and didn't do that right, as she got an email that she was locked out. I'm guessing since it was like 8:30 my time, she didn't want to bother me again with it. I'm not sure how to make these log in's any easier for her to figure out. The retirement account one is tricky now, because they have recently added another layer, where they will text or call you a passcode. I'm sure that one threw her for a loop. I'm not sure now she will ever remember/figure out how to log into that now.
And speaking of her dang retirement account. Almost a month ago they said she had to send in writing to get the phone number contacts changed on the online part. That was the weekend DD went and visited, had her sign it, and DD mailed it. This isn't an account we need to watch all the time (like her checking). I just like to log in like once a month and see how it's doing. I went to log in last week and the dang phone numbers are still my step brothers. Even though they changed the email contact from him to me. I emailed again, saying the letter they requested to change to my phone numbers was mailed on March 9th. Has that been received? Please let us know if there is anything else we need to to do get these phone numbers changed, so that I can access her account online. It does me no good to log in, then they want to choose one of the phone numbers from the list to text or call. It's too much of a hassle to have to then call my mom and tell her to then hang back up. Her phone is going to ring, with a recording giving her a passcode, write it down. Then call me back. You get the picture! It just needs to also have my phone number! Geez, how hard is it to change?! I got no reply back Thursday afternoon or Friday. But, Saturday morning I decided to check and they did change them to my cell and home # now. How hard would it have been to send a quick email back stating this got done? Kind of ticks me off. But, anyway her accounts look good, all things considered with the stock market. I'm sure he has most of her money in lower risk things, at her age.
I'm sure when I talk to her today, I'll be using it again, to help her log into her retirement account. At least one of the things SB did while he was in charge was set it up so she could transfer money from that savings account to her regular checking. Before, my mom would always have to call them to do a transfer.
Pretty much everything about the computer confuses her. I was telling her where to find the "ESC" button, I kept saying up on the top left of your keyboard.....finally I realized she didn't know what the keyboard meant. I said the part where you type! It's very hard for her to communicate to me what is going on with her computer when she doesn't know what's what with it and what words are used for it's parts.
Last week, when she turned on her computer (she always keeps it turned off when not in use) Norton messages were popping up, because it has expired. I didn't think of that happening. I got on Team Viewer and removed the program from her computer. Yesterday afternoon she called me because she couldn't get logged into her bank account. I'm not really sure what she was doing, as I had set it up so she didn't have to enter her password every time. But, I also have that happen to me sometimes. Saved passwords just don't fill in. Supposedly she was entering the password correctly, but hard to say. She's very confusing to talk to when she's trying to say what is on her screen. I got her to close it all out and open Team Viewer and I got on. First off, there was another pop up and icon for Norton. What the heck. I went and uninstalled again. Maybe a part I missed the first time, I guess. Then opened her Firefox and banking tab and both her user id and password were auto filled in, so I'm not sure what happened.
While on, it was a good time to "do some banking" for her. She told me her balance in her checkbook. I knew her rent check has not cleared yet, but still didn't match taking that into account. Then she said she had already written her social security deposit in her checkbook, even though it won't go in her bank until next Wednesday. Ok, good. Then we match. She also has her credit card bill (with same bank) due on the 19th, that she is going to need more money in her account to cover (it was her rent/move in fee for her new apartment charged it it). So, while we were online together I transferred most of her savings balance over to checking. I told her next week, we'll have to do a big transfer from her retirement account to get her regular savings and checking back up, so she at least has like 6 months living expenses in there and not have to keep transferring money. She understood.
I logged into her email this morning to get rid of the spam stuff and see last evening she must have tried to log into her retirement account and didn't do that right, as she got an email that she was locked out. I'm guessing since it was like 8:30 my time, she didn't want to bother me again with it. I'm not sure how to make these log in's any easier for her to figure out. The retirement account one is tricky now, because they have recently added another layer, where they will text or call you a passcode. I'm sure that one threw her for a loop. I'm not sure now she will ever remember/figure out how to log into that now.
And speaking of her dang retirement account. Almost a month ago they said she had to send in writing to get the phone number contacts changed on the online part. That was the weekend DD went and visited, had her sign it, and DD mailed it. This isn't an account we need to watch all the time (like her checking). I just like to log in like once a month and see how it's doing. I went to log in last week and the dang phone numbers are still my step brothers. Even though they changed the email contact from him to me. I emailed again, saying the letter they requested to change to my phone numbers was mailed on March 9th. Has that been received? Please let us know if there is anything else we need to to do get these phone numbers changed, so that I can access her account online. It does me no good to log in, then they want to choose one of the phone numbers from the list to text or call. It's too much of a hassle to have to then call my mom and tell her to then hang back up. Her phone is going to ring, with a recording giving her a passcode, write it down. Then call me back. You get the picture! It just needs to also have my phone number! Geez, how hard is it to change?! I got no reply back Thursday afternoon or Friday. But, Saturday morning I decided to check and they did change them to my cell and home # now. How hard would it have been to send a quick email back stating this got done? Kind of ticks me off. But, anyway her accounts look good, all things considered with the stock market. I'm sure he has most of her money in lower risk things, at her age.
I'm sure when I talk to her today, I'll be using it again, to help her log into her retirement account. At least one of the things SB did while he was in charge was set it up so she could transfer money from that savings account to her regular checking. Before, my mom would always have to call them to do a transfer.
Saturday, April 4, 2020
Saturday inspiration
Woke up to another 3 inches of snow on the ground and woke up to almost normal vision in my bad eye. The snow will be melted by afternoon, hopefully my vision will stay. It was a little different with my eye last night. Just before bed I felt a couple of little tiny twinges of pain and though oh great, it's definitely going to hurt tonight again. I put the ointment in, went to bed (9pm - because I'm so tired from all the interrupted sleep every single night) and at 10:30 my eye started hurting. Crap. But, the pain went away very quickly and I just put a couple drops of thera-tears in it, rather than more ointment. Kept my alarm for 11:30 on and throughout the rest of the night just kept adding some thera tears, instead of ointment. I didn't have any more problems and was happy to see my vision is much better this morning. I also woke up with a headache, but hopefully I can shake that quickly.
I also managed to get back in doing some MTurks yesterday after about 2 weeks off and was able to do $8.75 pretty quickly and easily.
I just walked to our mailbox this morning and took this picture
It will be almost 50 degrees by this afternoon and look like spring again, LOL.
I need to do some of my laundry today, as well as do some housecleaning, since I haven't felt much like it the past week or two, with my eye bothering me so much (and the prior 2 Saturday mornings were spent driving into the eye doctor). DH spent most of the day yesterday out in the garage cutting up boards for the shed soffit. He's still waiting on nails and some other supplies from our lumber store as they were out. They are supposed to deliver those and a couple more boards he needs on Monday.
Last weekend my DD made a really cute shelf for her kitchen window. She had an old shelf (from her bedroom growing up) and she spray painted it brown. She took some twine type string and hung it up in her window from hooks up on top of the sill, and is going to grow some pots of herbs there. It looks so cute. Kind of hard to see in the picture because of all the light coming in.
She also wanted it high and hanging like this as her cat eats or chews up just about everything, so this way she can't get up to the herbs she will have up there.
I also managed to get back in doing some MTurks yesterday after about 2 weeks off and was able to do $8.75 pretty quickly and easily.
I just walked to our mailbox this morning and took this picture
I need to do some of my laundry today, as well as do some housecleaning, since I haven't felt much like it the past week or two, with my eye bothering me so much (and the prior 2 Saturday mornings were spent driving into the eye doctor). DH spent most of the day yesterday out in the garage cutting up boards for the shed soffit. He's still waiting on nails and some other supplies from our lumber store as they were out. They are supposed to deliver those and a couple more boards he needs on Monday.
Last weekend my DD made a really cute shelf for her kitchen window. She had an old shelf (from her bedroom growing up) and she spray painted it brown. She took some twine type string and hung it up in her window from hooks up on top of the sill, and is going to grow some pots of herbs there. It looks so cute. Kind of hard to see in the picture because of all the light coming in.
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