Saturday chores

We managed to get a pretty productive day out of yesterday. We were trying to wait for the sun to come out so it would be a little warmer, but finally gave up waiting. While the big garbage can was empty, it wasn't when we got done. DH took down the 4 hanging baskets at the front entry and I dumped the dead flowers and dirt into the wheelbarrow. He replaced the hooks with something he liked better. He didn't like the looks of the metal/stainless steel, so he ordered some black ones to replace. It was chilly out so I ended up going back inside for a knit cap. Then I went around to all the whiskey barrel planters and my planters on the back patio and pulled out all the annuals and dh brought the wheel barrow around to each. By the time all that was dumped in the garbage can it was almost full. Just enough room left for me to clean out the chicken coop and dh dumped that in there, too. We have another fairly large can (not part of our garbage pickup service) with a liner bag in it, that we put kitchen/house garbage into and then dh takes the liner bag and puts in the big one, when it gets full. So, we still have room this week to take out our garbage until the big one gets emptied by the garbage truck on Thursday morning.

We came inside to have lunch and my back did it's normal hurting/seizing up. Usually a lay down for about 20 minutes resolves it, which it did, but then of course I get sleepy and take a nap, LOL. And of course the sun came all out and blue sky right then. DH went back out to his shop to work on it some more. After my nap I went to see what he was up to. Ended up helping him for an hour or so. He wasn't able throw much away, with the can full, but did get a few small things thrown in his shop garbage can and something he got emptied out with junk, he was then able to store some stuff he wants to keep inside that, leaving some more extra space now.

In the evening we got caught up watching Young Sheldon and then just watched a movie. Somehow earlier I had missed (I don't think I got?) a notification my mom had yet again unplugged her medication dispenser, so I couldn't tell if she took her evening pill or not. It was about 8:30 when I called her. She plugged it back in, thought she had taken her med "Oh, I'm sure I did". Well, not it if it was unplugged, you didn't....."so, it just needs to stay plugged in all the time?" YES! She had not taken the medication she was supposed to at 6pm

I'm going to see her this afternoon. Bringing tape with me to tape the damn plugin to the wall. I had thought about putting a note right above it on the wall, but she just does not seem to see notes at all anymore. I've tried that with other things. I have noticed the mail that she gets/builds up is way down now that I redirected most of it to my address. Most of the mail she would get and not throw out is the explanation of of benefits - each month for each prescription, and then inside the mail order prescriptions are a bunch of paperwork for each bottle. She just doesn't understand what this paperwork is anymore and to just throw it out.

I forgot to look for the Lowes gift card at our little town store when we stopped there Thursday on our way home from the vet visit, so I will have to stop in Lowes before I go to mom's. DH also asked me to stop at the drive through car wash and get the car washed. And mom has a few things she wants from the store. She was giving me her list, which always includes Honey Nut Cheerios. She was having a hard time reading her writing on her list and after the Cheerios she said "real honey". I also need some wrapping paper. I'm like hmm...she's never ever bought honey before. Then she realized she wrote down "Honey Nut Cheerios made with real honey". LOL. Gotta be specific, I guess, haha. I also just remembered I need to get my mom to either send dd a check with a birthday card, or pick up a gift card for her to put in the envelope. I think I'll just have her write out a check for her while I'm there and sign the card. I had bought a box of miscellaneous birthday cards awhile back, so she can just use one of those. I'll just put the card w/check in with the package I mail dd for her birthday.

My mom (and grandma) used to be so good about remembering everyone's birthdays. Both of them always took their calendar at the beginning of the year and wrote everyone's birthdays on it. My grandma even usually bought all her cards at once, each year. I didn't inherit that organized trait, LOL. 

It's cold out this morning, down in the 20's. Today's high is only supposed to be 45, but once this fog burns off it's supposed to be a sunny day.

My last comment is burning your household garbage waste outside is disgusting! Wood and yard debris, no problem. Even cardboard, but even that isn't ideal. DH doesn't like to do cardboard because so much of it floats off as ash pieces, so doesn't stay contained to our fire pit/property. But household food, plastics and what not? The smell is awful. Here's what I found googling the dangers/harm is causes (from Wisconsin.gov website). 

Backyard trash burning is especially harmful because it releases chemicals that are persistent in the environment, polluting our air, food, lakes and streams. A recent study found that residential trash burning from a single home could release more dioxin into the air than an industrial incinerator.

But, I guess if you won't spend the $40 a month for garbage pick up like the rest of us on our street does, what are you going to do with it? Apparently it used to get dumped at their employer's big container in town, but that business closed.....and burning it at the crack of dawn doesn't lessen the smell any.....at least when I got up yesterday and saw it being burned, the wind was kindly heading the opposite direction.

Groceries and things

So nice to be Saturday. I slept in about a half hour. Sitting here at my desk upstairs I left the door open a bit and kitty decided to go do something else besides walk back and forth on my desk in front of me. I didn't hear anything being knocked down, so I let him be. He was apparently downstairs, as I eventually went out to check on him and he was coming up the stairs.

The early morning fog is burning off and I'm waiting to see the sun today. We've had rain and clouds for several days. Today will be the day to get all the dead annual flowers pulled out of the whiskey barrels and throw out the hanging baskets, as well as trim down the rest of the iris. I'm also going to get the chicken coop cleaned. I haven't gotten any eggs at all the past 2-3 days. So, now the chickens look great and full of feathers, but stopped laying. If it's not one thing, it's another. I had to add eggs to my grocery order for tomorrow, LOL.

Speaking of grocery orders. Good grief, things are getting expensive. I hardly even have much in my cart. No cases of water, soda, or any meats. My total is almost $200. I've been reading how expensive a turkey dinner is going to be this Thanksgiving.

The people who bought the 2 lots next to us must be back at their house in town, but not sure why they keep pulling in, turning around and leaving. I could see getting out to spend some time at their new property or taking some measurements, etc. I guess they just want to make sure it's still all there ;)

We just received our property tax bill. I was very surprised to see that our annual tax went down about $165 for the year, even though our property value went up some. I think I had calculated, based on the increased property value, for it to go up about $120 a year. My escrow account does it's annual calculation in December, so between that and my homeowners insurance being much less, my payment should go down about $88 a month.

I received my new bench/shoe storage for the laundry room last night. Our UPS guy didn't even get here until like 8pm. At least dh didn't have to put it together. Now I feel like I need a picture of something on the wall above it, LOL.

Not sure why the picture quality is so bad and blurry looking. I took like 3 pictures and they all turned out like that. DH and I were saying we're not going to get each other Christmas gifts this year, but I'm thinking maybe our gifts should be new cell phones. Both of ours are maxed out on memory and mine is an iphone6 and his is a 7. I would definitely buy the phones with the higher memory storage. I don't think I even ever realized there were different amounts available. Maybe there will be some good Black Friday deal I can find for new phones. That's how I got the one I have, which I think was 3 years ago now. Might even be 4 years old. I don't need the newest lastest greatest, but probably time for something a little newer.

DH put the live skunk trap out yesterday with some cat food in it. I haven't looked out to see if the door is down on it or not. He put it next to the chicken coop.

I've finished my coffee and heading back downstairs for some breakfast food and then a shower. Or maybe I should wait and shower after I clean out the chicken coop.

 

 

Another week almost in the books

Took kitty to the vet yesterday afternoon. It's official. He is a boy, LOL. The vet estimated his age to be about 3 1/2 months, so he was only about 2 months old when we found him. She gave him a couple shots and dewormer and go back in a month for the next shots. He did great riding in the carrier the hour drive there and back. Barely a peep out of him. Plus, we took our dog with us. The dog seems to be his protector, or at least kitty thinks so, LOL.

The vets office was running about a half hour late, I think due to a lady who had come in before me and needed her very old dog put to sleep. Poor old pup. They were apologizing for being behind schedule, but I assured them no worries, we were in that same position not that long ago with our old dog. The vet also said she had a long haired yellow kitty she was trying to find a home for....I said um...I think this one I have is plenty LOL.

On the way home we stopped in town at the store for bananas and decided to get their baked chicken from the deli to try for dinner. It was really good, too, and probably better for dh's stomach then fried, I'm sure.

The live skunk trap dh had me order arrived yesterday afternoon. Dh didn't get it set up. We ate our dinner when we got home and then he took a nap.

I got another billing in the mail from our local hospital, thinking it was finally for the providers charges during his hospital stay. Nope. It appears to be for just one of the provider charges during the stay and also the follow up visit he had at the clinic the week after. Based on my insurance explanation of benefits claims processed, I owe them around $1000 for the doctors seeing him. Beats me! I'm sure they'll get around to billing us at some point. 

I got a call from the investment guy's assistant lady yesterday. She wanted to tell me she got the savings account $ transferred and the account closed out. I've never really figured out why this account (opened by step brother when mom sold her home) was opened in the first place. She already had 2 savings accounts, one with her Bank of America, attached to her checking, and another with her credit union she's been with for ever. Why not just put the money in one of those accounts? This was earning .01% interest, which ya, I get, her other savings aren't going to earn much more, BUT, they also don't cost a $175 yearly fee! She also said the paperwork on the beneficiaries form will be mailed out soon. 

Ok, I just looked at her regular bank savings account rate. It's 1.05% per year. Over 10x the rate this investment "savings" account was earning. So, we are going from this savings money costing her about $168 a year to sit in the account, to her now earning $725 a year (and no fee). A total increase of almost $900 per year. A big no brainer.  CORRECTION: her savings account rate is .02%. I totally read what I was looking at on her account wrong. Well, still better than PAYING to have the savings account.

I am glad it's almost the weekend. I need to figure out which day I'm going to go see my mom. I think I'll do it Sunday afternoon. That give me more time, without her needing to go down for lunch. I can get a load of laundry done while plugging in/explaining her new landline telephone and visiting. We can even run to a store if she needs some things. Then I can stop at Walmart and pickup a grocery order.

Pulled the trigger

Just as SAM commented on my previous post about sending a reply text back, dh was discussing if he should and if so, what to say. So, he typed up something and had me read it. I gave one little tweak and he sent it.

Here is what dh sent (and this included our neighbor down the street, since it was a group text)

don't feel the need to keep apologizing and asking forgiveness before during or after they visit. They have shown this is a place of convenience and a place to let it all out and get it out of their system. That's what humans do and even Montana is not immune from the mindset. We will continue with our quest for peace and privacy in a home we built on the property we pay taxes on, but you'll get no more complaints from the residents at (he inserted our address) Ln. Have a great day

I just had him tweak it by adding the word "keep" to emphasize this is happening repeatedly. I know it's all bothering dh immensely, but I told him I do not care anymore what they think about it or us. They have not shown us any respect for weeks out of every year.  So far this year, alone, it has been over 6 weeks of time that they have spent here, acting like that, in addition to having their dogs for a month or two. If they are offended, I could care less anymore. They have made it completely clear that they would rather just "apologize" and let us get over it, every time, rather than tell their son and his family that they should have some respect and consideration for them and their neighbors while they are visiting. I'm sure dh will also come up with variations he will have wished he sent, LOL.

And I also made the observation to dh, that of course neighbors down at the end aren't going to make any waves or complaints about anything - they don't want any of us complaining that their garage and shop have remained unfinished and un-sided for almost a year now. Basically they have been in "building mode" for 3 years now, with nothing finished. While of course there is a legitimate length of time it takes to get something built around here, this is going beyond what it should, for sure. While the covenants do come out and specifically say how long you should take to build, it does say you can only live in a camper on site during building for 6 months (we all knew that was too short of time for builders around here) and also says something to the effect that everything must match and look presentable type of wording. We're just glad we can't see them from our house and only have to look at it, when we drive by out on the main road. 

Obviously our response is not going to change a thing or make anything better, but nothing was going to get changed by them anyway, so we might as well let them know where we stand on this. They can continue doing what they've always been doing when their rude family visits and we can now know we got our message across about it. And the next time bikes and helmets and toys get left at our entrance gates, I'm just going to pick them right up and dump them back at the entrance to their driveway.

Thursday this and that

 I did an Amazon search for "gardening gifts" and saw something like this for dd

I wasn't sure if she has anything like this, so I messaged my son in law and he said no she doesn't. I said she gave me an idea of "gardening stuff" so I was trying to figure out something. He said she hasn't mentioned anything she wants to him and it seems like now if she wants something she just goes and buys it, LOL. I said I know! This is the first year I can't come up with ideas for her. I'm also going to get her a Lowe's gift card. Our little town store now has a gift card section, so I'll look there tomorrow and see if they have one. If not, I'll be in the city this coming weekend to see my mom and can pick one up then. We got some new store owners a year or so ago and they have done a really good job to update the store and get things in, like the gift cards.

Yesterday afternoon the medication app said my mom unplugged her machine again. I decided to wait a couple hours to call her, if it was still unplugged. Went straight to voicemail, so then I assumed maybe she unplugged it to plug in her phone charger. Who knows. I never could get through to her, but at 6pm, when it was time for her evening pill, it showed she plugged it back in and took the pill. I tried calling her a couple more times, but still went straight to voicemail.Then when I went to bed at 9 it showed she unplugged it again. Why why why? LOL. It's still unplugged this morning. I'm going to go see her either Saturday or Sunday. Hopefully between me taping the dang plug in to the wall (with a note not to unplug and installing her new landline phone, we'll take care of these issues. What's next? LOL.

The investment assistant lady did get that savings money transferred over to my mom's local regular account yesterday. I'm hoping she got the paperwork for the beneficiary change in the mail as well and hopefully it will be at my mom's when I go there this weekend and she can get it signed and I'll mail back in. I'm going to of course make a copy of it, to put with my mom's will copy. If she mailed it Tuesday it probably won't get over here until Friday or Saturday and my mom's mail doesn't come until early afternoons. I'll check with her tomorrow (provided her cell phone is working!) afternoon and see if it's come in the mail. If not, I'll wait and go see her on Sunday, hoping it shows up in Saturday's mail.

I know it was driving dh nuts not to respond to Mr.'s text yesterday afternoon. He's also the type that will just let it smooth over......until the next time and then he's ranting and raving and I have to text them to complain. I told him if he decides he all good with this BS apology and is ok with just going on with them like we are great friendly neighbors and they did not treat us with complete disrespect while his son was here for almost 3 weeks, then the next time (and there will be MANY next times with this same exact thing) he wants the complaining done, HE will have to do it.

Our new neighbors-to-be must be back in town. We saw their truck pull in to the neighborhood for a quick couple of minutes and then leave. DH was sitting at his desk, which the window to his den faces out front and saw him stop his pickup in front of our gate for a bit, as they were leaving. Not sure if he was hoping dh would see and go out to talk to him or what. DH wasn't in the mood and is too tired to stand there for an extended period, while he's still recovering from surgery. I'm sure they'll be around sometime in the next few days. 

I emailed my boss yesterday about 2 things I've come across that might either save our company money or bring some extra money in. Maybe one of the 2 will pan out and score me some brownie points. She's going to check with our CPA.

It's only Thursday and feels like it should be Friday already. This afternoon we have our trip up to the vets for the kitty to get his first shots and checkup.

Whatever.........

So, the nightmares next door went home. This is the group text we and our neighbors down at the end of our street (who might hear the dogs barking some, but nothing like we experience with it all) just received from Mr. Neighbor:

Dear Neighbors, apologies galore for the excessive dog barking, screaming, clutter, food ALL OVER, kid fighting, Legos on the floor, toys....over the last 3 weeks. We ask forgiveness and please know we are sorry and exhausted.

Neither dh and I have even bothered to respond. It's the same thing every time. How about take care off all that with them and some rules, on the first day they arrive? Their text and apology mean nothing after 3 years of this. They didn't bother to reply to my text where I had to feel like shit and be the complainer (again) of their dogs barking for 4 straight hours. I'm not bothering to reply to their "big apology". Maybe they'll get the hint that we're tired and fed up with it. We are exhausted from it, too. Enough is enough.

The long awaited day

My side job company changed the company they have processing their twice monthly payroll. Good lord, trying to get info on the new process has been like trying to pull teeth. I have asked my side job boss lady a couple of times. It appears she is in over her head with this project of switching to the new company. I finally just emailed the person at the payroll company directly myself, to find out what exactly is my role now, and what they need from me to process payroll. I think I am now set up with the info I need. Just basic stuff, like what day do you process payroll, so what day do you need the adjustments (like sick and vacation taken). 

Supposedly it is illegal to dump carcasses after harvesting the meat off (it's hunting season). That doesn't usually stop hunters from going on the forest service road on the other side of the main road out in front of our house and dumping. Then we get the ravens and vultures (and other wildlife) circling overhead for days. A simple 5 minute drive a little farther up into the draw would put the carcass out of right next to our neighborhood.

So, I get up yesterday morning and go outside to give my chickens their morning bread treat. I can hear ravens crowing like absolutely crazy somewhere sounded like other side of neighbors house/property. I'm thinking there must be a dead animal nearby. When dh got up he realized where it's coming from and what it must be from....Mr Neighbor and his son apparently just dumped their deer carcass not too far away. The ravens were just over on the edge of his first lot. Are they just that stupid or lazy or ? There's a damn big huge dumpster set up near town, just for this purpose. Or put it in your pickup bed, drive up the draw 5 minutes and get it out where there aren't any homes nearby. I'm not talking a few ravens squawking. I'm talking like a hundred of them over there. Just stupid. Stop being so lazy. And the dogs were baking a whole bunch again yesterday, most likely because the ravens were annoying them. Neighbors need to wake up and realize they have neighbors in their neighborhood now and just can't do whatever whenever like they did for 10 years, but apparently they are not going to. Mrs was even home from work yesterday, so no excuse for barking dogs. Awhile back when Mrs Neighbor said she is retiring next May, I thought oh good, she'll be home all the time then and won't let the dogs bark. But, who am I kidding. She won't be home all the time. She'll still be gone all day out doing something, because they aren't the type to hang around home and since their dogs have a kennel run and a doggy door to go in and out, they don't care if they leave their dogs alone for 12 hours a day.

Anyhow, at least their wonderful and considerate guests are supposed to be leaving today..........we also always wait with baited breath to see if they take their dogs home with them, as it's usually about a 50/50 chance they will leave them for several months.

So far, so good, with mom taking her meds, since she lost the cup Sunday. She varies on the actual times, quite often, but as long as she gets them that's all I care about. It's usually not more than a half hour either way, but I also find it interesting on the times I see she's taken it a little early, before the machine reminds her. That tells me she obviously still has memory that she's supposed to take pills around that time. She's also going downstairs for breakfast most days now, which is very good, too. And since she is going down in the morning and (usually) takes her meds after eating, it seems to have helped that I changed her settings to remind her for 30 minutes after 8:30, instead of only 15 minutes, since she's not usually back up to her room until about 8:50.

Dh got the big lawn tractor all serviced yesterday. He said he put almost 80 hours on it this year, mowing. Then our retired friend, from town, texted him asking if he was up for a visitor, so he stopped by and visited with dh awhile. He's supposed to be retired, LOL. He's in his mid 70's, but is always doing part time jobs around town. Now he's been driving one of the school buses most days, because they can't find drivers. Like dh said, for only $16/hr why take that job and it's responsibility when McDonalds, 35 miles away is offering $16/hr. DH was watching our recent weekly county council meeting online the other day. Every week the sheriff comes in and says another jail guard or dispatcher they just hired quit already. Those positions only pay like $13/hr. Ridiculous. Yet the school superintendent guy makes over $100k a year.

Tomorrow afternoon we take the kitty in for his vet visit. I hope they can give me an idea of how old he is. Just curious. I have no idea how I am going to decorate for Christmas this year. He's into everything. He might just have to live in my office for the month, and be banned from the rest of the house, haha.

Ok, I really really need to figure out what I am getting dd for her birthday next month. She did give me a few idea, so that helps. She and her dh just had their yard completely redone by a landscaper. It looks so nice. Super super expensive to do. I could never have spent that much, LOL. 

Hmmm...we hired this new employee about a month or less ago. He works remotely from another state clear across the country and already has taken 2 sick days. Wonder how he is going to work out for long.

My desk has become a mess with papers again. I also need to call the town hospital, I guess, and find out why I haven't received a bill for the doctors that saw him. His insurance processed those claims at the same time they processed the hospital claim for room and services and we were billed by the hospital for those already. Also he was seen at the hospital clinic 2 months for a follow up appt and not been billed for that yet, but the claim has been processed.

Rain and sleep

The rain off and on the past couple of days had somewhat quieted down the annoyances coming from next door. They aren't playing outside quite as much. 3 more days, LOL. I cannot imagine having 6 people (let alone 4 of them screaming banshees) and 2 dogs stay at my house for almost 3 weeks. Probably just the introvert and hermit in me, but I couldn't do it. I'm worn out just after having anyone stay here a few days.

DH thought maybe they went home yesterday as their big SUV left yesterday morning and didn't return. I told dh I doubt it, they probably just went somewhere for the day and they did. Over the weekend Mr and his son were gone both days as hunting season started. They apparently got a deer late on Sunday and were in their garage getting it all taken care of, as the garage door was open for quite awhile into the evening. At 8:30 I was sitting in our living room, reading, and could hear the kids outside screaming their heads off .

DH has a bunch of used (and some new, I think) big semi truck type tire chains in buckets. He messaged a local friend who has equipment and asked if he'd like them, for free. He said yes, so I imagine he'll be stopping by sometime soon to pick them up. More stuff out of the shop! He really is making some progress.

I overslept a little this morning. Just getting woken up too many times a night by dh lately. He's taking Tylenol/acetaminophen off and on. While most of us know and just call it Tylenol (old habit) he cannot seem to understand it's the same thing. I usually buy generic OTC, so of course the big bottle doesn't say Tylenol. I've told him this for years. And then he wakes me up in the middle of the night to ask if he can take some Tylenol. Again - yes...if it's been 4 hours since you last took it. I don't know what is so hard about this concept. And most of the time he'll walk to the cupboard where it's kept and say "which one is it?". It all really doesn't need to be this difficult.

Neither does a simple request at work, for a billing company name and address! OMG. I've lost track of how many emails this stupid order has become. "Can you invoice this for service work we did". Sure...I just need the billing company name and address. "Ok, let me find out". Then a phone call to me. Ok, I just need the name and address we are billing. Then another email included the person at the mystery company we are billing. Her email organization name doesn't match her signature line company name. And it's also highly possible it could be something totally different I'm supposed to bill. The email asked for her billing address. I replied all "and I need your company billing name, also". Her reply back she didn't reply all, so I didn't get it. I get a ping from our guy asking if I could get this invoice done now that she sent the email. I said I didn't get an email? He forwards it to me. Ok, got the address but no company name. I email him back and then I emailed directly the lady who supplied the address that I am trying to do the invoice for her, but I need the company name we are billing. Still no reply. Are people just that stupid and incompetent? Why yes, yes they are!

Ok, another morning and mom took her meds ok. She didn't take until almost 9am, because she must have went downstairs for breakfast. When I set up the time I asked her what time she's back from breakfast and she said "oh I hardly ever go down, I usually just have cereal or oatmeal in my room" (which was true, she was always having me buy cereal, oatmeal and milk). Ok, so I set it for 8:30. Well, she's been going downstairs to eat now, most days (which is a good thing!) but then of course she is not back up in her room until almost 9. I had set the machine to remind her every 5 minutes for 15 minutes, so until 8:45, but if she doesn't get back until after that, the reminders have stopped. So, the other day I changed it to remind for 30 minutes, so that must have worked.

DH wears through shoes faster than anyone I know LOL For indoor shoes he wears a Skechers Go walk slip on type. He kind of has flat arches or something so maybe that is why. It's been less than a year and I just had to order him another pair. For outside he wears New Balance tennis shoes. Those last a bit longer, but I think it's because he has 2 pairs. A nicer pair when going somewhere and an older pair for doing yardwork, etc.

On a roll this morning

I'm getting things done/checked off this morning, at least. 

1. Call mom after the app shows she took this mornings meds (she did) to make sure she put the cup back (she did). She said, but I don't think it's the original cup. I said no, it's not, you lost that one yesterday. She then did remember the lady from the front desk downstairs helped figure out this fake cup and she even said she should make some more to have on hand. I said that's probably a good idea.

2. Get a program I use at work working again. It's been popping up for months every time I log in that it needs to do an update. I've been telling our IT company for months. Finally, apparently reached the limits of notifications. Well, then to update it they had to log everyone working out of the server to do the update. They should have listened to me all along and should have scheduled it to be done after hours.

3. Cancel dh's surgery follow up appt for tomorrow. He's doing ok (not great) but better than last weeks unscheduled visit, so really no need for this appt tomorrow. Good, because I have to do payroll tomorrow. When I logged into his mychart it wasn't showing the appt tomorrow, so I called and she said they had already canceled it. Well...they weren't supposed to, in case he was still feeling bad, but anyway, it all worked out.

4. Finally called my mom's financial advisors office back. Talked to his assistant. I just told her that in our conversation with her boss he said she was required to leave 50% to her step children, so we had a meeting with the attorney who did her will and he said that is completely not true and that they are not legally entitled to claim any of her money, so please do up the new beneficiary form as instructed. She kind of tried to say that since she wasn't part of our conversation with him, she's not exactly sure what he meant, but she thought he was just trying to let her know what could happen if she changes it. I said, well and that is why we consulted the attorney, so we know for sure. Then she commented something like maybe he thought changing the beneficiaries could cause the problem and I said well, the attorney told me she has the right to change/update her beneficiaries at any time and she said, yes you are right. And then I told her we're closing out that separate savings type account this is costing her $175 a year. She is going to just EFT transfer it, once she figures out the little bit of extra interest is owed on it (like pennies, LOL) and then close it out. For now, I'm going to leave her money with them, but if something like this happens again, I'll be looking to transfer it all to someone local. Right now I just don't have the energy to take care of all that would entail. The investment guy just needs to do his job, invest her money well, and stay out of what she does with her money. Hopefully the fact that they now know I contacted her attorney about what she can and can't do, rather than take his "advice" (and canceling that stupid account that is costing her money every year) sends the message I'm not stupid or a pushover. 

Honestly, the more I think about it, he's had over12 years to tell her that's what he thought she was supposed to do with her beneficiaries. I'd like to think that up until a few years ago, she would have done what I did, and consulted her will/estate attorney, but it almost makes me feel like he was trying to tell her this now, because he knows she's easily convinced about things. (my guess is he also represents one of her step children's investments). This change in beneficiaries really has nothing to do with the step children (in fact they are now getting more %). It has everything to do with getting her elderly brother off as such a huge inheritance amount. Everything I have researched on it, and everyone I have talked to about it says it's not smart to leave a large inheritance to another elderly person, unless of course, it's your spouse.

Forgot to add 5.) I called the radiology provider who was billing the wrong insurance company, so hopefully it is corrected now and they will get the claim processed and I'll owe less than $765 on it.

Just give me a break please!

I give up. I could deal with mom unplugging the machine. It notifies me, so I can call her and tell her to plug it back in. But, this evening she calls and she can't dispense her pill because she can't find the cup that has to go underneath where it dispenses. It's set up to sense that the cup is there, otherwise it will not dispense. The whole reason I put tape right above it and wrote "RETURN CUP BELOW". 

What in the hell? The cup has to be there! I kept describing it to her and she kept saying, well, I have this small cup, but it won't fit under there. I finally called the front desk where she lives and the kind lady went up to look for it. She couldn't find it, but took a styrofoam cup and cut it down to fit under there and that worked with the sensors to think "the" cup was there and let her dispense her med. 

But, I'm sure she's going to lose or throw that one away, too. The cup is there now, so should be ok for in the morning. I wish this machine notified me if the cup isn't returned. I asked their online customer service about that and was told that is something they are working on adding to the app program. I will call her in the morning, after I know she took her morning dose and make sure the cup is put back.        

Obviously, if she can't even do this simple machine to take her meds, she either needs hired help to come in to give them to her or I need to move her to where they have someone that does it.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Success Saturday

Yesterday morning, after I wrote up my blog post, I logged into work for a bit. I just wanted to get through a bunch of old emails piling up the past couple of weeks of being out so much. Emails with invoices to pay that weren't "urgent" so I just skipped past them for now until I had time to get back to them. I started winding my way back through them at the end of the work day on Friday. Getting the invoices posted in our accounting system/ready to pay. Some of them are orders we, in turn, need to pass on the cost to our customers, so then I also have to create an invoice to bill our customer. I decided to work on that a bit again yesterday morning. It felt good to get a little more caught up with that end of things.

Other than my mom accidentally dialing me last evening, when she thought she was calling her guy friend down the hall, LOL, I'd say yesterday was a successful uneventful day. Yay.

I washed sheets, remade the bed (with the kitty's help), vacuumed and mopped part of the downstairs. By then my back was tightening up, so it was time to take a break. Kitty and I took a good nap on the freshly made bed. He even stayed when the dog came up and joined us, haha. DH got the smaller gas/push mower serviced and put away. Though I doubt he should have lifted that lawmower up onto his workbench. His incisions (or "ports" as the surgeon called them) look to be healing well, though with 4 of them across his belly, dh says he looks like he spent a weekend in Detroit and got caught up in a driveby shooting.

We decided to go into town and pick up some chicken from the store deli. Got some more bananas and milk and a bag of Halloween candy, because little neighbor boy is supposed to come over to trick or treat this year. Dinner was good, though next time we both decided we're going to try their new baked chicken. It also looked really good. It was nice to get out of the house, even if it was for just a 10 minute drive each way.

I decided to let kitty try out not being put in the crate last night and just sleep wherever he wanted in my office. After I turned the lights out and shut the door, he spent about a half hour playing. My office is above our bedroom. He sounds like a herd of elephants up there when he's playing. But then he was quiet the rest of the night until just before 7am this morning. Then he got busy playing again.

We've had a skunk around the past month or so, at night. It's driving dh nuts, because usually before he goes to bed, when it's very dark out, of course, he and our dog will go outside so dh can lock up the shop and pup can have a last pee. Twice now almost ran smack into the skunk. At first we'd smell him sometimes when we'd go outside in the mornings, but we haven't smelled him for awhile. While they are great to eat mice and pack rats, dh is worried he and/or the dog are going to get sprayed one of these nights. He's looking into live traps made especially for skunks. Maybe catch him and drop him off somewhere else, rather than taking up permanent residence at our house. The traps are kind of a narrow tube and apparently once they are inside they don't have room to lift their tails so they can't spray. Just not sure how to let him go, without potentially getting sprayed. DH is still researching.

Today I'm going to finish mopping the floors. Other than that I really don't have much plans. I read an ok book (science fiction type) and then realized it's a series of 4 books, so now I'm on the 2nd one. Reading those should keep me busy for a couple weeks. I was going to finish taking all the annual flowers that are pretty much done in all the planters, out and throw away this weekend, but dh filled the garbage can up with stuff from his shop. I told him to leave me room in it for next weekend. Plus, it's not supposed to be raining next weekend,

With everything going on with dh (and my mom) I almost forgot dd's birthday is coming up next month. I need to figure out something to get/send her. Usually I don't have trouble figuring something out for her, but I have no idea. I need to get it figured out soon, so I have time to make sure whatever it is, has time to get to her. She's going to be 26. Holy Moly.

Maybe today

I'm getting frustrated with one of the medical bills from dh's hospital stay in August. It's for a radiology service for $765. No claim is showing received by his insurance. When I got the bill last month I called and she said they denied the claim as ineligible for date of service. I said that's wrong. He was eligible and all his other claims have been processed, no problem. She said they'll submit it again. I have been watching his claims online and still not showing they have received a claim from this provider. I just now received another statement from them for the same amount of $765. Again, there is no claim recorded from the provider on his insurance. I tried to call, but they aren't open Friday afternoons. Obviously they are billing the wrong company or have the subscriber ID number wrong, or something.

I can't remember why it flashed through my mind, but when getting my mom's new cell phone, showing her how to use, etc. I got the feeling she hadn't been using "contacts" to call me or uncle. I remember thinking to myself - hmm. I wonder if she is just typing our numbers in? She has our numbers written down at her desk. Well, I think that is what is happening because I was just looking at her cell phone call log and one day, a few days ago, she dialed a number one off from my number......5 times! oh that poor person she kept calling! I am really hoping she just starts using the landline once I get it to her. She's also constantly opening her cell phone and somehow accidentally calling me or uncle (mostly me). He said his phone rang at 6:30 the other morning from her number, but she wasn't there. I said she must have opened her phone, fiddling with it. Almost daily she will call me, because she sees the last call and doesn't know if she called me back or we talked or not. I'm guessing in the future this cell phone needs to go.......just like her car did, LOL. Like one of these days I'll have to tell her I'm taking it to get fixed or something and then eventually she will forget about it.

When dh came to bed (at like 1am) he always has to wake me up (annoying!) this time to say he wanted to get up early (for him, I'm already up by then) and go into town and get some donuts. Ya...that isn't happening LOL. Our little store has fresh donuts daily, but you have to get there pretty early to get any, haha. Usually before 9 and even then sometimes that is too late, especially to find any maple bars left,  which is what dh wants. I guess there's always tomorrow to try for, haha.

He did work out in the shop for a little yesterday afternoon, throwing out some more junk. This time he finally parted with the hundreds of planting pots he's kept over the years. Who knows why he kept, but even stacked all inside each other, they took up space. He also has a box of fencing parts to get rid of, and I think he's decided just to throw out. He thought about putting on marketplace for free, but I said is it worth it to deal with all the stupid messages people send and then don't follow up on and so he decided next week, once the garbage can is empty again, he'll just throw away. He said it was from when we put up our fence at our old house many years ago. And then our good neighbor took down part of his wood fence between us and gave dh some of the brakets, etc. Which of course dh has never needed to use.

I haven't gotten one day of no problems yet. Maybe today? Yesterday afternoon my mom unplugged her medication dispenser again. I really can't believe that before this machine, she was missing doses instead of doubling up on doses. Especially for the evening pill, she takes it and then calls me like a half hour later because she's not sure if she took it or not. Plus, apparently the way this machine works is if she is ready or wants to take the pills a little earlier than when it's set to notify her, she can press it and it will dispense, which several times she has done. I know this because it tells me what time she dispensed them. She doesn't usually do this with the morning pills, but this morning I see she took them at 8:07 and it's set to notify her at 8:30. This is not a problem....other than she just doesn't seem to remember she already has taken her daily dose. Which is really why I'm now surprised she wasn't over taking her meds. Thankfully, once she's dispensed her dose for the day, it will not let her do it again. She seems worse this past week, memory wise, but I have a feeling it's just this new machine throwing her for a loop, just like the week or so after she got her new cell phone.  

The neighbors DIL is just strange. It's like 50 degrees outside. She has on a puffy down jacket (rightly so). Yet she walks around outside in bare feet. She's walking around their backyard, which is just rough natural type grasses. Or out on our street that is dirty (and full of big worms after it rains!). Weird. Her little ones are playing out in shorts, no shirts or shoes, at 50 degrees out. Whenever we see her outside with the boys, she has her face in her phone or she's got the ear buds in and holding her phone. She doesn't play with them. If the dad is out there, he usually will at least play with them a bit.

Not much on tap for today. Just some normal housecleaning. Dh said he'll probably work on his annual lawn mower maintenance. He buys a kit to replace oil, blades, etc.

 

Finally Friday edition

I keep meaning to say how impressed I have been with almost all of the healthcare providers and staff who we have dealt with the past few months. Other than a couple of instances (and the GI office being impossible to get through to a live person, even the front desk) everyone is so friendly and seems to really pay attention to details, right down to they know we live almost an hour away and without us even saying anything, they are trying to accommodate the distance. They will suggest when he can have tests done here in our town hospital. The surgeon yesterday said since we are in the city, he was calling the GI dr to see if they wanted him to have an MRI, while we were there, rather than come back another day. All the front desk staffs, everyone at the pre-op and post op in day surgery, etc, are all always so friendly and do a great job of making patients feel welcome and calm.

I don't ever remember feeling like that with doctors and hospitals where we lived for all the years before. Always felt like we were just someone they needed to rush through to the next patient. DH was seen quite a few times at a major medical university hospital years ago. We HATED going there. No one was friendly and the doctor acted like we were wasting her time, every time. A pain specialist we got referred to later on was awful. A neurologist he first saw near where we lived was the same way. 

I have not encountered one doctor, whether it was the several I talked to during dh's 9 day stay at our town hospital or the doctors he's now seen in the city, that hasn't been extremely nice and makes you feel like they are listening and have time for you. I was also very impressed that this surgeon called on his own the other day, after hearing from the nurse that we had called in when he wasn't feeling well. He even called the next morning early, before his appt., to see how his night went.

Ever since we've moved here, I've always noticed that about people here, even in stores and fast food drive throughs. Just super friendly. I can remember so many times, going through the fast food drive throughs, near where we lived before, and them handing out the food and not even saying thank you. Maybe people are just happier living here. We sure are.

oh, and the real estate pricing craziness continues. A house a mile from us just listed. For just short of a million dollars! OMG! It's insane. It's a 2 bedroom small log home. Nothing even remotely fancy or upscale about it. In fact, from pics you can tell it's getting run down. No landscaping whatsoever. Weeds in the driveway area in front of the garage. On 10 acres, but it's all on a hillside. This place should be $400k max. But, while everyone around here is listing for ridiculous amounts, most are not selling. Our hvac guy, who listed his place for 2.1 million is not sold, after 7 month or so on the market. Another local couple put their place for 1.7 million, still for sale. I'm seeing lots of "price drops" recently. Dh's very wealthy friend, who listed his very nice place for like 4 million has not sold and it's been (or was) for sale for like a year.

The landline corded telephone I ordered for my mom arrived and I got the batteries installed and mine and uncle's ph#'s programmed in. I tried it out plugged into my phone jack. She just has to push the button next to our name and it dials. Plus, the fact that I will be able to call it, if/when her cell phone isn't charged/ringer turned off/lost. DH and I are supposed to go into the city next Tuesday for his "2 week" post surgery follow up, so if we do, I stop in and plug in the phone for her. If dh is feeling ok, the Dr. said just call and cancel that morning, don't bother making the drive, since he just saw dh this week. Otherwise, I'll try to wait until the next weekend to make the trip to visit mom. I was messaging with dd and sent her a picture of the new landline phone, with just mine and uncle's names on it. She says "hey! what about me?". I said grandma rarely calls you (dd doesn't call her very often either!) and mostly she's still probably just going to use her cell phone to make calls and your in there. I was just trying to keep the amount of names next to the buttons to a minimum. She said "put me on there!". ok.....LOL.

The upholstered bench I have been wanting for our laundry room is finally back in stock. I had put my email in to be alerted when it was back. I had checked last week and it said not until December, so I was happy this morning to see it's available now. Well, let's hope - I ordered it and am half expecting to get an email saying your order is delayed, we are out of stock.

My Canadian living half sister got the other part of the stimulus money in the mail yesterday, so a total of $3200, plus she got $32 in interest added to this last check (from the 2020 payouts). Plus with the exchange rate, when she deposited, she got more. She is going to use it for new furniture for her new house.

 

This that and the other

It's supposed to be rainy the next week - maybe that will keep the annoyances next door down to a minimum if they are all indoors for the next week that they still have left to be here.

Right around 6pm last evening, when my mom was supposed to be taking her evening pill, I get a notification that she unplugged it again. I waited about 15 or 20 minutes, to see if she would possibly get it plugged back in and medication taken on her own, but no such luck. She doesn't know why she unplugged it, again. But, I'm just thankful this machine is smart enough to tell me this. Because of it I know she has not missed one dose since I installed it last Saturday morning. It even tells me exactly what time she dispensed the meds. Next visit I'm going to have to tape a note next to her plug in that says "leave all plugged in". She's also confused by the "PUSH" note I taped onto the unlabeled button to dispense the medication. When I'm on the phone with her, when she has problems, she says "it says to PUSH". I'm like that's just on there so you know which button...what does the SCREEN say to do". LOL.

DH came to bed last night and said he was doing better. Then he sneezed...and thought his stomach came apart. Oh poor Dh. I just felt his pain when he sneezed.

My half sis in Canada (a US citizen) got a check for the 3rd stimulus, $1400, that was paid during 2021. That means the IRS must have received her tax returns I did for her to get her caught up and the $1800 she is still owed, showing as a refund due on her 2020 tax return, should also be sent to her soon. She was so happy to get that check. She and her boyfriend are moving into their new home soon and of course she has lots of things she wants to get for it. 

I'm still feeling wiped out and tired. Hopefully dh is heading in the right direction now and I can get my energy caught back up. I'm really glad lawn mowing season is over and he's not trying to do that while he doesn't feel well. 

The fall colors here are pretty right now. While were mostly surrounded by evergreens here in the mountains there are larch spread out in between and there are some leafy trees along the river and also lots of oak and maple trees lining the streets in town.

I was cleaning out the cat litter box last night and then refilling the febreeze bottle with some refill I bought and accidentally spilled some on the blanket in his crate as I didn't get the lid on right. wooo! too smelly. I took out the blanket and put a different one in. I didn't want to take the offending blanket downstairs as I knew dh would totally smell the strong smell. As it was, he still smelled it. I ended up leaving the air purifier on in my office all night and then put the smelly blanket in a bag and tied it up. I'll get it washed today.

I would just like a day where nothing happens. Nothing annoying, nothing healthwise, nothing with my mom. Is that too much to ask? Just one day, please.

Let's flush

Dh's labs and xray looked great, so nothing serious is going on, says the surgeon. He thinks it's constipation still going on and/or possibly that there is a big bruise on his stomach at the biggest incision port at the same area he's having pain. Could be nerve pain from it. We did also bring up that the GI dr, when he did the endoscopy, says the tail of his pancreas still looks a bit "off" and he wants to do an MRI on it to check on it a little bit down the road, which is not for a few more weeks. Since the tail of the pancreas is also right where dh is having pain, the surgeon decided to try to get a hold of the GI doctor to see if he thought, with the pain now going on, if the MRI should be done today, since we were already in the city. He said "well, I'm going to try to get a hold of him/his office, they are impossible to get a hold of".  I said yes, I know!  He finally got through to someone there and found dh's GI dr is on vacation but he consulted with their GI team covering for him and they said since his labs are all good, they don't think it's causing this. Surgeon said start taking Miralax and lots of it. Thinks he just needs a good "flush out". He said if this were something serious, he'd be having lots more signs the past couple/few days, that he's having none of, in conjunction with the labs being perfect. So, while they don't know exactly what is causing this extra pain, he said we can rule out anything bad/serious. He also said, give his office a call Monday to tell them how dh is doing. If he's feeling better, we can skip the appt for next Tuesday that was supposed to be his 2 week follow up. So, keeping fingers crossed he'll start feeling better from here on out.

The Hero medication dispenser (when it's plugged in!) is really a godsend to me. Unfortunately with her memory she's taking the meds (daily and at the right times now) but 20 or 30 minutes later she can't remember she took them, so she goes to the machine and presses the button I taped "push" on, trying to take her meds. It (thankfully) then displays to her she has to contact her caregiver, because she's not authorized to dispense more. Then she calls me (not every time) to tell me she's trying to take her meds and it's telling her she's not authorized/call caregiver. I tell her it notified me she already took them. "oh I did?". Now, before this machine I KNOW she was not doubling up on her meds - she's always had more than she's supposed to left over by the time the next refill is done, or pills left in her pillbox when I'd visit, so isn't it strange that now she's trying to over take them? All's I can say is I love this machine. It tells me she took them and exactly what time. She still thinks it's noisy when the pills are dispensing and thinks the whole apartment can hear it. It literally lasts like 10 seconds of a whirring noise as it cycles through each med and drops each one down in the cup. I told her tough on if anyone can hear it - it works and only lasts a few seconds, LOL.

DH's best friend (the one we visited in Texas) sent dh some M&M's yesterday. I said too bad you can't have any yet! He scowled at me. The day surgery staff, who took care of dh while there, sends out a thank you card they all signed. Nice touch.

Back for the afternoon and need to work, but what I really want is a nap.

More tests and follow up

The surgeon's nurse didn't call me back until almost noon. She seemed to think it was probably from the gas used in surgery. Try some gas-x otc med. About that time dh got up and was feeling mostly better.  He had some cereal with banana. About an hour later he says call the vet and see if you can keep that appointment. I'm like no, I already rescheduled it and it's almost the appt time anyway, even if it was still open, it takes us an hour to get there. Plus I was exhausted after less than 4 hours sleep and now that the nurse called back, I could lay down for a nap.

Then at 3pm the surgeon himself called and asked dh some questions. He was concerned because the pain is on his left side and if he was to have any, it should be on the right side (gallbladder side). So, he said he wanted dh to go into our local hospital for labs and an x-ray. His office called in the orders and we went over there. In and out in like 10 or 15 minutes. (they know us by now, ha!) His office scheduled dh to see the surgeon at 10:30 this morning.

As the evening/night went on dh started feeling the more of the same as the night before. Not quite as bad, but similar. The dr called already this morning and said for him not to eat or drink anything before he comes in this morning to see him. Now dh thinks that meant he saw something in the xray or labs and might need to do surgery or a procedure? I said I don't think so, he asked me if we got in yesterday afternoon and got those done, so he didn't have that info yet.

So, we leave here in a little over in an hour for his appt. Hopefully have an answer as to what is going on. Obviously something not right. The x-ray tech at the hospital said it was an x-ray to look for air/gas, so hopefully that's all it is. Dh said when he had the pancreas pain (on left side) it was high up in his stomach. This pain is even higher up, in his chest and behind shoulder blade.

My mom is very concerned with this new medication dispenser and said she should have made a list of her medications.  She is worried how "she"' will know when it's time to refill and how many are left when she can't see them. I explained that her mail order pharmacy always sends me a reminder email when it's getting close to the 90 days refill time and also, this dispenser keeps track of how many are left and will let us know. She called me 2 or 3 times last night in about an hour or so's time to ask this (forgetting she already asked). She said "oh, I guess I'll get used to it". Yes you will!! Because frankly, it's a godsend to me!

I'm working what I can this morning, then hopefully we'll be back here by noon or so and I can work the rest of the afternoon.

Set back

DH had a really bad night last night. Throughout the evening he just kept saying he didn't feel very good. About 10 or 10:30 (I can't remember what time, I had already been asleep) he went outside to lock up the shop. It's cold out and he only had on a t-shirt. He came into the bedroom saying he couldn't stop shivering and was in more pain than earlier in the evening. Just pain all over he said. I had him get in bed with his heating pad and he took one of the pain meds. A bit later he had to cough and said it felt like pain all thru his heart with it. Then he was up walking around, sitting at his desk chair, back and forth.

Possibly he had done too much walking yesterday, so soon after surgery. Maybe just too strenuous right now. Or maybe it's his diet. He's supposed to be on a very bland diet and he just keeps eating more normal type foods. The last 2 days he's had a lunch meat and cheese sandwich for lunch. He's been eating a bunch of sunflower seeds. Cheese and crackers. That type of stuff. Drinking his daily mountain dew. He doesn't listen to me when I try to tell him what he should and shouldn't be doing, of course.

A lot of the pain was on the side he had the pancreas pain, but a bit higher up. I know he was worrying it was that again. During our consult with the surgeon he had said sometimes the tube to the pancreas still has "stuff in it" and can still cause problems, because that part is not removed when they take out the bladder. So, I know dh was worried it was that. He didn't know if he should go into ER and if so, which ER? Drive the short distance to town where they don't have as much skill and medical equipment, or drive in the middle of the night to the city. I called the ER dept at the city hospital (where the surgery was done). The ER nurse there advised to call his surgeons office and talk to the on call doctor. He called back about 15 minutes later, around 1am and I think that helped calm dh down. I had dh talk to him, rather than me trying to explain how he felt, and I'm glad I did. He didn't have a lot of answers, other than if he really felt worse and needed to go to ER, he'd recommend the city, as if he goes to our town they can't transfer him because they are considered "full" but if he goes straight to the city ER, they would admit him, if needed. 

A little before 4am dh agreed to take 2 of the pain pills (the instructions say 1-2 pills as needed every 4 hours for the first few days and might need to take at night for up to 2 weeks). He slept the next 4 hours until I got up at just before 8am. So, that's about all the sleep I got was the 4 hours.

Part of the discharge and surgery pamphlet we got about the surgery said that the gas they use can cause pain after, especially in the shoulder area. I then researched some more and it said this pain from the gas they put in him to do the surgery can be there for up to a week. Right now his pain is up  higher than the pancreas pain was. It's up behind his shoulder blade and in front of his left side chest.

I have a call into the surgeons office again this morning and a nurse is going to call me back. I want to know if they think this pain he's experiencing since last night could be from the gas used or what. Up until then the only pain he was having was at his incisions areas and then mostly from moving around. He wasn't in pain to lay or sit, so hasn't been needing the pain meds, though taking some tylenol at times.

I called and canceled the vet appointment for the cat we had this afternoon. I got that rescheduled for later next week. 

Lately, it seems to be always something to deal with.

Rudeness continues

This is what we had to put up with today - a helmet and 2 bikes laying in front of our front fence/gate. It's kind of hard to see as I tried to zoom in but there is a bike and a helmet laying out there. There was also another bike out in front of our main gate, to the right of this picture. Two of the boys just left them there and went back to play at grandma and grandpa's house. While that was going on their 2 dogs were with them, so of course the dogs came through onto our property again and back to our back patio doors again. The kids are running around in shorts, no shirts or shoes (typical kids, of course) but the mom finally walked one of the boys down to get the big bike (he left it there because it's an adult bike and way too big for him to ride, so if he has to stop he can't get back up and get going) and she's walking around outside in her socks. 

And it's not like it's even getting close for them to leave and return home. They'll be here until the 27th. Oh yay. If we had guests who left crap laying out in front of their house, Mrs. Neighbor would be furious!

Lack of respect

When we moved here, other than of course the noise and disturbance of building, we have not once been a nuisance to our neighbors. We do not make noise (other than mowing and snow plowing, which we all have to do). We do not let our dog(s) make noise. We do not let our dog go on to their property. If we walk to the mailboxes, and he starts to stray onto their area, we call him back (and he listens). We have never ever let our dogs bark non stop, other than a few barks to announce someone is here. 

We are super quiet and we keep our property/yard immaculate. I don't know how we could be better neighbors. We knew Mr and Mrs neighbor had this whole area to themselves as the only house, for 10 years, before us and lot 7 built. Mr and Mrs own lots 1 and 2. We are lot 3. Lots 4, 5 and 6 are not built on, and lot 7 is the younger neighbors. 2 acre lots, so we are close to each other. We built and have been extremely considerate that we tried not to change the quality of Mr and Mrs neighbors lives, now that they have neighbors. But, obviously they were used to no one being around for a mile so it didn't matter that their dogs barked all day while they are at work, or whenever they were gone.

It's obviously not going to get better. If 3 years of complaints hasn't fixed the issue, more complaints and discussions isn't going to. Not sure what to do, now. I'm sure it's only going to get worse, actually. Their son and his family will be moving over here and building a house. Supposedly his job over here (still with military) would start next May. Most likely they will all live with Mr and Mrs while building (and we all know how long that takes around here!) or at a minimum they will be dumping their dogs to stay during the build, if they decide to live somewhere else.

To give some context of our 2 acre lots here. They are actually about 1.2 acre lots. The rest of each lot is steep high bank down to the river/unusable. There are 7 lots and each is narrow and long. Most likely set up that way in order to get as many lots as possible "on the river". So being on narrow lots, we are close to each other. 

And then yesterday afternoon, of course when dh tried to take a nap again, they started up riding Mr.'s quad up and down the street in front of our house. To give more context of our area, across the main road is a forest service dirt road....it literally goes for miles up into the mountains and perfect for quad riding and not disturbing a soul.

I told dh I am done being neighborly and friendly with them. D.O.N.E. When that asshole son is gone, we aren't going back to waves hello, friendly fence visits and friendly neighborhood text messages. We go out of our way to make sure nothing we do would ever annoy them or infringe on their property or peace and quiet. It's 100% apparent that there is zero mutual respect and consideration coming from them. All of it is totally disrespectful, but the fact that they know dh just had surgery and is trying to recuperate and they pull this is beyond disrespectful, in my opinion.

This is starting out as a Monday, that's for sure. The phone app I have for my mom's medication dispenser is showing she unplugged it...................I just tried to all her (almost 8am) and she didn't answer. Who knows. My only guess is she unplugged it to plug in her phone charger.  I've been trying to call her for the last 20 minutes and it just rings and rings and then goes to her voicemail, so at least I know her phone is charged, but why isn't she answering. maybe she was able to go downstairs for breakfast and just can't hear it ringing.

 

The barking dogs rerun

Dh is starting to feel a little better, though as I told him last night - he's not going to feel back to normal 2 days after surgery! He's just been taking Tylenol since Friday evening. Getting off the narcotic pain med also helped get over the constipation they cause. He's eating a little more regular type foods. He said it's pretty painful to move, but if he's just sitting or laying down he's not in pain.

He actually took a nap yesterday afternoon, which I was glad to see him doing. The more rest and sleep the faster he will heal.........until we had to start listening to 5 dogs barking for 4 hours (actually I typed "5 f---ing dogs", but I'm trying to be polite LOL). So, there went the good nap he was in the middle of. At first we thought someone was home over there. One of their garage doors was open. But after 2 hours of it, we realized they were all gone and had just left it open (they do that sometimes). Did I mention that son, wife, 4 kids and 2 dogs were actually staying almost 3 weeks, not 2 that Mr. said. They do not leave until the 27th. After 2 hours of listening to it I texted Mr - "hi, are you guys home? The dogs have been barking non stop for 2 hours and sorry, but this is not allowing dh to rest and recover". No reply. Finally after a little over another 2 hours they all got back. So then we listened to slamming car doors for 10 minutes (seriously, the car has 4 passenger doors and 1 back end door, how many times do you need to close the doors? along with the 4 kids screaming, as always.

We are at our wits end with this situation. It's 1/4th to 1/3 of every year spent dealing with them and their chaos. It's either them dumping off their dogs for months, and/or them spending weeks here. It wasn't too long ago that their DIL and 4 kids and 2 dogs spent 2 weeks, then son showed up for another week. We are sick and tired of them invading our space and peace and quiet. We do not need their dogs over here scratching up my patio doors and windows. We do not need them and their kids using our 2 driveway entrances on/in front of my house/property as their playground to ride bikes. I do not need to listen to 5 dogs barking or 4 kids screaming for days.

We would never ever have chosen to live next door to his son and family, yet here we are, a good portion of every year we have been here so far, basically living next to them. We would never ever let a dog bark for hours, let alone let FIVE dogs bark. We would never ever let any guest (even our dd and kids, if she had any) go play in front of their house/driveway. We would never ever let kids just scream every time they were outside. We'd tell our dd and her kids, hey, no screaming outside - we have neighbors. We'd make sure they stayed on our 2 acres and weren't obnoxious. They have 4 acres, let alone on the other side of that is 20 acres of free to play on state land. Why do they choose right in front our our gates? and why do that literally 2 minutes after I just told you your dogs were scratching my patio doors/windows?

The thought of having to move again is exhausting just to even contemplate. We built our dream home. We shouldn't have to listen to dogs barking so often.

What really makes me mad is THEY ALL KNOW that they cannot leave their son's big dog out if they leave. We've already been through this every damm time he dumps his dogs off to stay for months. Mr and Mrs leave for work and we listen to him bark all day, which then of course gets all the other 4 dogs barking. We complain, they either use bark collars or put sons dogs inside in a crate. They know that leaving the house and leaving all the dogs free to go inside and out, they are going to be barking. It infuriates me that they don't care. If you met them you would not think that they would be that type of people, at all.

And we are SO tired of complaining about it. That is not the type of neighbors we want to be. It's been over 3 years dealing with this now. We shouldn't have to keep complaining. They are all just f----ing rude.

So, I set my phone alarm to remind me to call my mom just before 6:30 last night, when it would be time to take her eve med. I wanted to be on the phone with her, in case she had any questions. I call her up and it goes straight to voicemail. Try again a minute later. Same thing. Then it's after 6:30 and the medication app on my phone is still showing she has not taken it. OMG. I give up! Most likely her phone died and she couldn't remember where I plugged in her charger (I had to move it because of plugging in her dispenser and her microwave was in the other slot). If she hadn't taken it by 6:45 it was supposed to notify me (not that it would have done any good, as I couldn't call her!). About 6:50 the app showed she did take her pill. I think there must be a bit of delay in notifying me. It's almost 8:30 am this morning so we'll see how it goes. I'll try to give her a call later this morning and see if she answers. I did order another landline phone, but it won't be here until next week.

I brought all her extra meds home with me. She has lots of extras, but that is from probably a couple years of missing doses here and there. She started a new med around first week of July and with what is left from that and it's been about 100 days since filled, it appears she missed about 20 doses in 100 days. This new system should take care of that problem.

Ok, yes! it's 8:35 and the app just updated that she took her meds. Yay! success so far.

 

Busy Saturday morning

I left the house at 9am this morning to go see my mom and take her the new medication dispensing machine. I talked to her on the phone before I left and told her not to take her morning meds as I will have them dispense her dosage for this morning so she can see how it works. 

First I had to find her wi-fi password, LOL. I knew it was on the back of her modem and I didn't think I had changed it from that and I didn't. Then I loaded the rest of her pills and her vitamin and asked her what time she usually takes her morning and evening. She's not really sure...(which is part of the problem!). We decided on 8:30am and 6:30pm. She kept being concerned "what if I'm not in my apartment at that time? I'm like well, you have to be in your apartment at some time every morning and every evening to take your pills, no matter what. If we find those times aren't working for you, I can adjust the times from my phone. Then she was concerned about the noise it makes when pulling out each pill before it dispenses. It's really not that loud and only lasts maybe 20 seconds. She's worried it's going to bother the neighbors. I told her this kitchen wall is next to a storage room and then the elevator on the other side. There is no one that it will bother. Then she's worried if she's not there and it chimes it'll bother someone. I said its no louder than your phone or tv on.

I'm sure she'll get used to it. I'm going to call her this evening just before the 6:30 time so I can be on the phone with her when it notifies her it's time to take. It was a relief to leave there for about the first time and know she's now going to be getting her meds every day. She has missed quite a few and I'm guessing her telling me some Sundays that she filled her pill box, she really hadn't. 

I didn't stay long after that. I had groceries to pick up and didn't want to leave dh alone too long. Though he is starting to feel better today and hasn't taken the strong pain med since yesterday afternoon. Still pretty darn sore, from 4 incisions, of course, but manageable pain.

It was the fastest grocery pick up in a very long time. They were on time (usually 10 min before the hour), nothing was out of stock, and the app worked again to check in and after I checked in I only waited a couple minutes. I was home before noon.

So, keep your fingers crossed for me and mom that this new med system works.

Surgery done

Dh's gallbladder is out and no complications. The surgeon said (when he called me after he was done with the surgery) it had lots of stones in it, so it's good he had it out. But, what a damn long day it was.

We had to be there at 10:30, so left our house at 9:30. Checked in and waited about 25 minutes to be called back. Then it was a half hour of checking him in back there, getting the iv in and then injecting him with some kind of green dye through the iv. The nurse said that needed to be done like an hour or hour and half (I can't remember which it was now) before surgery. This was at 11:30 and then we just sat there until almost 1pm. His surgery was supposed to be at 12:30. Finally the surgeon and then the anesthesiologist came back to see him before the surgery. It was 1:15 when then wheeled him back. They had told us the surgery would be 2 hours, then about an hour in post op and then they'd move him to recovery area, where I could come back. So, like a good 3 hours before I could see him. Then I asked about how long he might be in the last recovery part and she said could be up to several hours, depending on how he's doing. Dh and I decided I'd better just go back home so I could let our dog out, otherwise he might be stuck in the house for 9 or 10 hours. I figured I had plenty of time, since it's 45 minutes home and back each, plus a quick stop at a store.

So, I headed home. My original plan was to just stay in the city and run over to a grocery store for a few things, so instead I drove past our house and the 10 miles into our town store. Stopped and filled back up with gas, ran into the grocery store for just a few things and drove home. I was pulling into our driveway at 2:45, 90 minutes from when dh was wheeled back to OR and the surgeon was calling to say he was done. I literally had a few minutes to let the dog out (he did have to go!), go to the bathroom myself, put the milk in the fridge, grab a box of crackers, because I had only had a granola bar at 12:30, and get back in my car and head back. I got back up to the waiting room and had only sat down less then 5 minutes when a nurse came out to get me to take me back to his recovery area. 

From 4pm to 6:45 we waited for him to be ok enough to leave. The day before, whoever called had said to use the hospital pharmacy for his meds he will be prescribed as by the time he gets out and we got home our town pharmacy would be closed. When the surgeon was seeing him prior, I asked if I could fill this prescription while he was in recovery and was told no. Well, by the time he was able to get out of there and they gave me the prescription the hospital pharmacy downstairs was closed! So, in order to get this prescription we'd have to go find a Walgreens or something. Great. It was already almost dark, a long drive home and neither of us wanted to delay getting home another half hour or more. DH has all the pain meds he got prescribed from when he went home from his pancreatitis stay, so we decided he would just take those until this morning. They were basically the same thing. We got home at 7:30pm.

He's got 4 incisions and surgeon said the biggest one on the left will be the most painful, probably for quite awhile. He's still in quite a bit of pain, he says. I'm leaving in about a half hour to go get the new prescribed meds, which also had acetaminophen in it, to get there when the pharmacy opens at 9. I also have to get something called colace for him.

We didn't get to talk to the surgeon after the surgery. DH is wondering why stones in his gallbadder did not show up in any of the ct scans, the ultrasound, endoscopy, blood work markers (I thought one of the dr. who saw him in the hospital for pancreatitis had said it also shows up as a blood work marker and so did dh). So, that is a question he is wondering right now and I guess we'll have to wait to get answer to in his follow up appointment in 2 weeks.

I'm now wishing I would have also just taken today off, but oh well. I'll make it through. Plus my boss had to take today off for something, so best I am available today, since she is not.

Mid week ramblings

I felt a weight lift off my shoulders after talking to the attorney yesterday. But, now I still now have to contact the investment guy back to tell him to proceed with the beneficiaries changes. Well, typically that is handled through his assistant lady, which is how I started to do that and she was like no problem, I'll get those changes typed up on a new form and get sent to your mom to sign. Then she scheduled our quarterly update with him and that's when he butted in with his false information. Usually when you call his office she is the one who answers and takes care of most things. I hate confrontation. I might just call and tell her hey, my mom and I consulted with her estate attorney and he advised us that your boss was  full of shit, I mean completely wrong, and my mom does not need to leave 50% to her stepchilren, nor do they have any rights or claims to her money. Please send her the form, as we discussed. My mom also has a small (well, in comparison to her main IRA investment account) savings account with them. I'm also going to tell her I'm transferring out all that balance to her regular bank account and tell her to close that account. It's ridiculous to pay $175 fee per year to earn $14 a year in interest. Best just to get it done and not procrastinate any more days (though the procrastinator in me just wants to wait until after dh's surgery)

I received a $50 Amazon gift card yesterday from one of the manufacturers my company does business with. We met a sales goal and this is what they sent each employee. Very nice.

It got down to 19 degrees last night. I had to turn the chickens water heater base on a couple days ago.

DH's covid test yesterday of course came back negative, so surgery is on for tomorrow. After that I'm sure we will both be relieved. Just praying this fixes his issue.

I think I mentioned our neighbors son and family and 2 dogs are visiting for 2 weeks? oh yay....yesterday the son and kids and their 2 dogs were outside playing. Of course they don't care that their dogs left their property and came over (they can get around the fence down at the edge of the bank to the river, or there is a walk through opening on each side of our main gate. Next thing we know their big (and I mean big) dog is at our back patio door barking, startling our dog. Then their little dog is up on his hind legs scratching at our patio door/window. I went outside and shooed them back to the small gate we have between our properties and just said to the dad - your dogs were scratching at our patio doors "oh, they were? sorry". And then literally 2 minutes later he had the 4 kids right out front at our 2 gates with their bikes and whatnot (2 are too little to ride themselves) using our driveway entrances (our gates are set back a ways) to turn around in. GO F'ING play in front of your house on your 4 acres of property!! Not to mention on the other side of their 4 acres is 20 acres of state land. I would never have guests with children and just let them play out in front of any of our neighbors homes. I've got enough going on this week, to not need to deal with them and their constant chaos invading our lives, too. It will be interesting to see, once they get their house built and live about 90 minutes away if their visits will be more or less. They might visit more often, but obviously won't need to stay overnight. And maybe Mr and Mrs Neighbor will visit them rather than them coming here all the time. 

I got an email last night that the landline telephone order I placed with Walmart was being canceled because it was out of stock. Well, guess I won't have one here by Friday to take to her when I visit this weekend. Oh well. I need to either find it to order someplace else or find a different similar one.

I probably won't post until after his surgery is done tomorrow, so might not be back on until Friday. We'll see how he's doing. I may find time later tomorrow to get back to my computer.

Confirmation

The phone call with the estate/will attorney is completed. It's exactly as I thought. It's her money and completely her decision what she wants to do with it, who she wants to leave any of it to. Her step children have zero rights to it. Once my step dad passed away it became her money and they have no rights to it. I brought up her memory and explained she has short term memory loss now. She doesn't remember conversations or she will ask something she just asked, but that she still understands what she is doing. He said there is a basic "testamentary capacity" rule they follow to determine if someone capable of making the decisions: does she know who she is? yes, she does. Does she know what she owns? yes, I asked her this morning if she knows how much money she has. She said well, I don't know the exact amount, but around a million dollars. And does she know what she wants to do with it? Yes, she does. He suggested she just write out a statement that she plans to change her retirement funds beneficiaries and she has been thinking about it for awhile now and sign it and just keep it with her copy of her will. Not to mention he and his witnesses just did a will for her and found her to have the capacity to update her will.

I am very relieved to have this figured out and not be stressing about it anymore. Though I have to say it still galls me that her investment guy would have the nerve to tell us something like this. My boss just keeps saying "I can't believe he would try to tell her "who" she should leave it to.  At the maximum, if he had any concerns on if her step children could contest, he should have just said I really recommend you consult an attorney to make sure".

I called the company she has her cable tv and internet through to set up adding a landline telephone. I'm so happy that I don't have to be there (and take time off work) for a service call. The modem she has just required them turning on the service on their end. Now, I just need to get her a phone and plug it into the back of the modem. I ordered a phone online from Walmart. I'm hoping it arrives to my house by Friday and I can take it with me on Saturday, but if not, it can wait until the next visit. It's not an urgent problem. But it will be nice to have a back up phone. I also made sure I didn't order a cordless phone, LOL. That's the last thing we need, a handset she can misplace! The phone service will be an extra $13 a month on her bill. She tried to sell me their cell service (it is cheaper per month) but she would be required to use one of their smart phones, she couldn't bring her own flip phone, so I had to say a big nope to that.

Maxing out

My head is hurting trying to figure out how this deductible, co insurance, and max out of pocket works. Not to mention reviewing all these EOB's (explanation of benefits). We've never ever had to meet our deductible or max out of pocket before, so this is new to me to figure out. Yesterday I got a call from the surgeons office letting me know what the charge will be for the surgeon himself. Apparently she had already gotten the info from his insurance on how much his deductible has been met so far. She said $5402 (from his endoscopy and dr visits). His deductible with this ACA Bronze plan I started on 9/1 is $8500 and his out of pocket max is $8550. 

With this surgeon office lady telling me how much deductible and out of pocket max he's met so far, she said something I didn't know! The deductible applies towards the out of pocket max! I thought they were 2 separate amounts. I thought he had to pay out his deductible of $8500 and then pay out another $8550 for the out of pocket max, but its a max for the year of $8550, including the deductible. Boy, that sure made me happy to hear (and I verified that's how it works online). Whew!.

So, the most this surgery is going to cost is the remaining amount left in the out of pocket max to meet, which is $3148. The hospital mychart has this "estimate" feature. For the endoscopy they just did it automatically and put it in a mychart message. I haven't seen one yet for the surgery, but I was able to get one online myself and the hospital charge will be about $13,000. The surgeon office lady said the surgeon's fee will be a little over $1000, so $14,000 total. But we will only owe the $3148, because he will have met his out of pocket max for the year. Any doctors or medical bills after this $8550 is supposed to be paid in full by the insurance for the rest of the year.

At least I think that's how I'm understanding it all now! So, then I was like hey, if the deductible is part of the "out of pocket max" - why didn't it work the same way with his previous short term insurance? But, apparently they worded it different in that it's a deductible and a "co-insurance" out of pocket max, so that in this case they really are 2 separate amounts to deal with to meet the max for each. Bummer, but that's what I have been expecting all along, so at least it wasn't a bad surprise. The new insurance info was a good surprise.

I wanted to get online with his new insurance company to view claims, but apparently needed an activation code to create the account. I could not find one in any of the paperwork they had sent so far. I called and, of course, since the insurance is in dh's name and they didn't have me on file to talk to, they couldn't give it to me. And, of course, right when I called dh was outside using the leaf blower, so I said I'd call back later. Once he came back inside I called and he authorized them to talk to me today for the activation code and she also emailed me the form so I can permanently be on file to talk with them about his benefits and claims. He certainly won't want to do it, nor understand how any of it is supposed to work.

I then activate his insurance account and get online and see they have processed 2 claims so far and 2 others are still being processed. They have processed the hospital and dr charges for the endoscopy. One of the ones pending processing is from our local town hospital. That must be for the blood work he had to go back for. The other is for the anesthesiologist with the endoscopy. It is strange that a claim from the urologist office visit isn't showing. You'd think they would have submitted their claim by now (appt was from mid Sept).

Dh is off to drive back into the city for his 3rd Covid brain stab. I'm staying home. It's payroll processing day.