NYE

I received my mortgage escrow adjustment. My payment is going down $50 a month. It was from a combination of our property taxes going down a little bit and me shopping and finding cheaper insurance. A check for the $673 surplus is showing to arrive in my mail today.

We keep getting an inch or two of snow overnight. Just enough to keep dh busy for an hour or two to shovel and plow off. He's been trying to keep track of how much snow we've gotten in December - almost 40 inches, though of course a lot of that melted on those warmer days where it couldn't decide if it was going to snow or rain. He has been feeling really crummy the past few days with his muscles. His arms and hands are feeling the worse of it. Usually it's his legs. I did use a bit of my Christmas gift card money to order myself some new snow boots that should be here Monday. Mine are very old, not warm, and if it's wet the leak a bit. Last year I had gotten dd some winter boots from Amazon and she had them with her during their visit and said she really likes them. I found the boots I had ordered her via my Amazon account. They were now $67 (I paid $49 for her last year) but if I open a prime account they are $50. I don't think I've ever seen them price differently like that? So, I logged in with our shared Prime account and the boots were $50. Then I clicked on different colors they had available, just to see what they looked like and the beige colored ones were $42. I really don't care what color they are, LOL, so I ordered the $42 ones. 

As usual, no big NYE plans here. I'll be in bed at my usual 9:30, haha. 

While making the vet appointment for both pets procedures they offered me Monday the 17th. I couldn't remember for sure but thought that was dh's dr appt so I said lets do another day and got the 21st. Well, of course later yesterday I looked at it's the 19th, and 17th would have been better, because I also have the day off work and wouldn't need to take any time off. I tried to call this morning to see if she still had the 17th open but no answer. They must be closed today for NYE.

When I talked to my mom on Wednesday her concern was someone had been in her apartment while she was gone and she wanted me to look at her bank account to make sure it's ok. Yesterday she called and said she got a message on her phone that her bank account is low. I again assured her everything is fine and this is spam. Though how she got this message I'm not sure. I have texts turned off, not to mention if it was legit I don't have her phone number as the contact! When I look at her cell call/message log there is no call from a strange number and it doesn't show any texts received. She just said "I got the message on this thing I am talking to you on". I just kept assuring her that whatever it was, it was spam. Her bank account has plenty of money.

I'm going to work on putting away some more decorations today. I want to put away the loft tree and village. I might also get all the ornaments put away on the tree in the dining room. Save the big monster tree for last, haha. When at the grocery store yesterday I got the stuff to make pizza for dinner tonight. We haven't had that in quite awhile.

 

 

Vet visit

OHHHH MYYYY GODDDD! We took our dog to a vet in the city this morning. I had used them once before, 2-3 years ago, with my other dog's check up and then started using that mobile vet. They aren't letting anyone inside the office! Good grief - you can go inside regular doctors offices with masks on, keep distance and wash hands, etc. A vet cannot do this? 

You call when you pull up and let them know you are here. They send a vet tech out to chat with you. Sure....let's do this in 17 degree weather, not to mention it's snowing out. Of course she then forgot to tell the vet my questions/concerns about the adequan he is on for arthritis. So, they take pup inside while we have to wait out in the car. This isn't 2020 people. This is 2 years ago crap to deal with. Honestly, if I had known this is what we were going to have to do, I would have chosen a different vet. We waited about a half hour or so. They had to check his lumps and had to needle biopsy them. Two of the lumps are bad/most likely cancer, like the one on his chest had been, so we are going to have them removed. We will take kitty in at same time to get neutered, so they can both get their procedures done and we only have to wait once. The vet is the one who brought him back out to the car and she hadn't been told about the adequan, so I had to explain all that. I still have 2 more months of the shots, so I will get a refill from them when we go in for the surgery. They can't get them in until Jan 21, so a 3 weeks wait. To pay and make the next appointment I had to stand outside at a window....f'ing freezing cold and it's snowing. Just stupid.

We then stopped at the grocery store and we ran in and got a small amount of groceries. I had wanted to do a small Walmart pick up order, tried to order yesterday and they had zero times available until later afternoon. Odd, being a weekday. My guess is they don't have the staff to do it. We get home to the rest of my mom's prescription meds in my mail. Of course those couldn't have shown up yesterday, so I could have stopped at her apartment and filled them up in her med dispenser.

The roads were pretty snowy and icy getting to and from the city today. More snow is on the way. It was good to get out of the house for awhile though, anyway. Not sure what else I'm going to do today, but need to empty the dishwasher right now and get the dirty ones in the sink in the dishwasher.

I was just messaging with dd. They went out for a late breakfast this morning. She just messaged that her dh ordered a side of pancakes and said "your mom's are better". LOL. I made them pancakes for dinner that first evening they got here. I have a from scratch pancake recipe that they are so good. The batter recipe has melted butter and vanilla in it.

Thoughful gifts

I received some great gifts. I mentioned the neck traction device and the mug. From DD/SIL I also received a Kohl's gift card and and 2 additions to my Christmas village. DH is always very creative with gifts. He got me that dinner bell (pictured hanging out on the back patio post), a snow globe. He gets me one every year, they are fancy and nice ones. He got me a personalized front door mat and a personalized tree ornament. I gave him some "My Pillow" towels, a coffee table type book about bald eagles, a hat, and an organizer thing to put wrapping paper, bows, etc in. He'll have fun re-organizing it all.

With my gift cards (from bosses) and some money from my mom I now can't decide what to get. I keep going back and forth between a new cell phone or a new ipad. My cell is an Apple 6s, so old, LOL. My ipad mini is SOOO old. I can't update or load any new type apps on it at all. A regular ipad is now cheaper than a mini. I don't need the latest iphone, but something newer would be nice. I've had this 6 version 3 years now. I can't decide. Both seem stupid expensive to me and then I tell myself to use the gift cards and money on other stuff. I'll keep thinking and not make a decision yet. I'm also tempted to just go Android. DD and SIL use those. But, not sure how/if all my contacts, apps, etc would transfer over. For some reason I just can't get myself to pull the trigger on buying a new ipad or phone.

Yesterday we went out in the 16 degrees and took down all the inflatables. DH had to dig through a foot of snow to get to all the stakes in the grass. We took the smaller ones into the garage and inflated them to dry off and the 11ft Santa we put in the shop to dry off. Later dh stuffed them all back in the boxes they came in. Hopefully they will last quite a few years. I'm not sure how long the plug in fans they have are meant to last.

I got the coffee table cleared of the rest of the misc Christmas gift stuff. I put away the couple of Christmas decor items in the guest bath upstairs. This morning I put away the decorations in the kitchen. I figured doing some of this now, when I go to take down the trees and everything else, it won't seem like  Today I'm going to do the guest bed laundry and put away the Christmas decor in these 2 rooms. I always leave everything up until the 1st of January, or the weekend after (when I have time to put away) but for some reason this year I am ready to get it put away.

The friends wife who tasked dh last summer with finding that muscle car she gave her hubby for his birthday (and we delivered to Texas for the surprise birthday party)....she now wants her own muscle car - a 1966 something or other and asked dh to find her one in her price limit. He told her there is no way she is going to find anything decent for $35,000. The old muscle car prices, like housing prices, have gone insane. The ones people are selling for $35.000 are rusted out old pieces of junk, needing to be totally redone. She told him to keep looking anyway, LOL. Plus, this one isn't needed within a time limit, like the birthday surprise one was.

DH is having problems with his quad he uses to snow plow. Mostly it's with the winch and plow mechanisms. We have ordered new parts that shipped yesterday, so hopefully they aren't on the scenic route. Unfortunately they both shipped via USPS, so it's going to take twice as long as UPS or FedEx. Ugh. It was supposed to snow all last night and today and it hasn't, so that is good for now, until he can get these fixed. He had a chat the other day with our young neighbor down the street about plowing. Most often dh will go ahead and plow our street down to their house. It's like 6 total passes, but it's just wearing out our old (purchased used) quad to quickly. And it's not our responsibility anyway. DH told him sorry, but he can't do it anymore, it's too hard on our old quad/plow and we can't afford a new one right now - we had $25,000 in medical bills this year........

Back to normal

DD and SIL left about 10:45 yesterday morning. The road cameras for the passes didn't look too bad and hopefully everyone went home Sunday LOL. It actually snowed over Christmas at their house (very rare) so they had snow all the way from my house back to theirs, LOL. It did take them 9 hours to get home, so about an extra hour and a half, but they made it safe and sound. One of their neighbors even shoveled their driveway and walkway for them, which was very nice of them. DD said she'll make a plate of cookies to take over to them. Then it was quiet in the house after they left, haha. It's not so much them that are noisy (they are pretty relaxed and quiet) - their 2 dogs are the extra chaos, really.  Kitty was glad to have his house back to himself. Plus they always seem to have so much stuff with them, LOL. I don't have a ton of kitchen countertop space as it is, and when they are here it all just gets covered in their stuff. 

Christmas morning SIL had taken a picture on his phone from standing up in our loft and emailed it to their good friend, B. We have not met B yet. He was sick during their small wedding and wasn't able to attend. Anyway, the 3 of them have a group text they do all the time. B is also going through a divorce and now living at his parents temporarily, until he gets his half of the money from his house sale and finds a new house to purchase for himself. After SIL sent him the picture he said "WOW! Do your parents want to adopt me?!". DD read the text message he sent to me and I laughed and said "tell him we happen to have an opening for a son! LOL". She told him what I said and I guess later in the day when they were texting he started calling DD "sis". Then we were telling dh about the "adoption" and he's like "heck ya - does he like ladders?" 

After we dropped my mom off we stopped at the grocery store for a few things. They wanted me to try this Mexican hot cocoa mix - Abuelita's - that they really like (It's delicious!) so I got 2 boxes, one to send home with them. As we were home putting the few groceries away dd was telling me that their friend B's parents are super cheap about everything. They won't buy anything brand name - all store brand or generic foods. Which is fine for some things, but some things just taste better with the brand name and when B (who has a good job and can certainly afford a few "luxuries", such as a brand name food item, tries to buy his own food to have at his parents house, they chastise him for buying "expensive" stuff. He loves this hot cocoa mix so bought it and keeps it at DD's/SIL's house, LOL. I picked up the extra box of Abuelita's off the counter and said "here, give this to B and tell him his adopted mom will buy it for him!" haha.

We have lots of snow and this week is supposed to get very cold, down to zero. DH has been keeping very busy shoveling and plowing. Today we plan to take down the inflatable outdoor Christmas decorations. Time for 11 ft Santa to go back in the box.

You should see the pile of misc electronics and cords sitting on my desk I confiscated from mom's place!  I don't even know what a couple of the cords go to, but I think I managed to match up the cord that goes with her "emergency call button" the apartment gave her when she moved in. That she wouldn't use and of course now would have no idea or remember to use it even if she needed to. I will hold on to it to return when she has to move out at some point. I have an old tv remote, an old cordless phone (just the phone, not the base), and that old digital camera she found and was carrying in her pocket last week, thinking it was her cell phone. Oh, and an old gate opener. Assuming it's for the gate to the gated community she lived in for years, before she sold her place. I thought I had thrown out all old medicines (OTC) but still finding some coming out of the woodwork. This time it was a box of cough drops - expired in 2013. And laying next to her medication dispenser she had this blister pack of tablets for dry mouth. I think my dad used to have to take those, so they are at least a dozen years old. My guess is when her dispenser the past couple of weeks was giving the message on the screen that one of her meds was getting low, she went in search of meds to refill? Apparently, she thought maybe these were it. Who knows. They are in my garbage can now. Oh, and I found at least 5 slips of paper where she wrote down what day and time I was picking her up. And while looking for her missing wallet cards, I was looking in one of her bedroom closets and there was the bag of laundry I did for her over Thanksgiving. It had been emptied - except for all the underwear and a towel! Like a dozen pair of underwear. She just stuck the bag on the floor in her closet. So strange. So, this time I emptied out the bag I brought back  and put most of it away. She kept saying "oh, I can put those away", but I did most of it and left some on her bed. Some tops to hang up. I took the empty bag with me. I also brought black electrical tape with me again and taped the cord that plugs into the back of her digital calendar/clock, so hopefully that "guy" can't just walk into her apartment and walk off with it again...wink wink ;) 

One of my best gifts was from dd/sil. One of those chiropractic neck traction things you put around your neck and pump up with air to stretch the neck for about 10 minutes. Already is helping my neck feel better. My chiropractor used to use one on me sometimes and it was helpful.

One of the cute things dh got me was a "dinner bell" to hang outside. Very cute. DH loved his 2 pound salted nut roll I gave him with his stocking stuffers, LOL.

With changing my mom's health insurance mail to come to my address I learned something I didn't know. Her medicare advantage plan offers a benefit of $25 per quarter for OTC supplies. A catalog for 2022 came in the mail. I logged into her account and she had the whole $100 to still use up for 2021! I got online and ordered a bunch of stuff to use up the $100. It's mostly all generic brands, but ok with me. I ordered tylenol, multivitamins, vitamin d, anti itch cream and neosporin and a couple other misc items. I'll have to remember to use it for 2022. If you don't use it, it rolls over to add to the next quarter, but expires at the end of the year, so I'm glad I caught it. I think I'll wait until there is enough in there next year to get a blood pressure cuff monitor. Would be handy to have.

I have all this week off and I can already tell it's going to go by too fast. Sunday night we watched the new Matrix movie that is just out in theaters and also streaming on HBO Max. It was so funny. SIL really wanted to see the movie and the Matrix movies are one of dh's favorites. So, SIL was saying to dd they should subscribe to HBO Max. She was like we already have 3 other streaming things we subscribe to! He was like but this one streams some new movies out in theaters! She sorta said ok. Then Sunday evening I said lets watch a movie on tv and SIL said ya, lets do that Matrix movie and DD said something about ok, go get signed up for the HBO Max and SIL says "um...I kind a already did yesterday". LOL! Anyway, I keep getting the benefit of their signing up for extra streaming because they give me a log in too :) The only one I'm mad about is Paramount +. It will not stream for me without buffering so it's too hard to watch (trying to watch 1883). Every other streaming service works fine on my tv.

It's a Christmas wrap

We had a really nice Christmas Day. A light breakfast of blueberry muffin and scrambled eggs. Then I got the turkey in the oven. It was a Norbest brand. I was happy to see it had one of those pop up temperature thingys that tell you when the turkey is done. Then we opened our stockings with our candy and fun little gifts. I kept teasing dd because she had 2 stockings. Her one we have always had since she was a baby (my mom made it) and then they brought their stockings. 

Kitty decided first thing in the morning he was done hiding up in my office and said to heck with those dogs. He was coming downstairs, LOL.

It had snowed a couple inches the night before and was snowing all morning, so dh shoveled and plowed. At 3 we had dinner and it was really good. I changed my normal routine and made the stuffing while the turkey was cooling down. It was more moist and tasted not so dry to me.

We had commented to each other all day how well mom was doing. Not asking the same questions over and over. It was much more pleasant. By 5 pm we were all in the living room in a turkey coma falling asleep, except mom. DH was asleep in the recliner. DD had just fallen asleep leaned on the arm of the loveseat. SIL was about to fall asleep and I was super tired. I got up to go lay down in my bedroom. Mom was doing crossword puzzle book. About 50 minutes later I got up. Everyone had just woken up. Mom had turned confused. She asked what time it was. 6 o'clock. Morning or night? oh oh. 

I have this big farmhouse clock on the wall you can see from the sofa. She kept looking at it and having trouble reading what time it was. 6:30, 7:00, 7:25. She kept saying oh I guess its time for bed. I said no it's only 6:30, it's only 7.... "Oh - I guess I'm reading that wrong". She was just fixated on that clock every 15 minutes or so. We were all chatting about various things. DH said we love our house and living here. Then she said it's too bad you can't live here full time. What?? I said we do live here full time. Then a few minutes later she said it again. I said no, we live here all the time. We can't afford 2 houses! LOL. Finally at 8pm I turned the tv on and the movie My Cousin Vinny was on for another hour. I was hoping that might distract her from the clock on the wall and it did.

The only thing she had seemed to be having trouble remembering all day was that she had already given us checks as a gift. I kept having to remind her she already wrote checks.

We knew it was going to be a bad night for awhile when she went to bed at 9. She had trouble finding the stairs (it's all open and the stairs are right there) and then she got up stairs and said "now what room number am I in? I went up with there and tried to settle her in. DD and I stayed up stairs in the loft sitting area for awhile to make sure she turned the bedroom light off. Finally she did and we went downstairs. I had left my sweater upstairs and went to get it about 15 minutes later. I could see the bedroom light on coming from under the shut door. Damn. DD came up. We waited a bit to see if she turned it back off. I quietly went and stood by the door to see if I could hear her doing anything. I was hearing this "tick" "tick" noise. She was messing with the alarm clock. I knocked and went in. Sure enough she was trying to set the alarm and was changing the time. oh, we are not going through that again. I set the time and again said there is no set time to get up in the morning. We are in no hurry. Ok ok. About half hour or so later dd went upstairs for something and it appeared she had the bedside lamp on now. Faint light coming under the door. Damn. 

Back upstairs I went. Tapped on the door and started to open it, and she had the nightstand blocking the door! When I bumped the door into it I said "mom...." she was like oh, just a minute, hold on and she moved the night stand over. I said why do you have this blocking the door? she said she didn't want anyone to get in. I said well, you are in my home and no one is going to get in or go in your room. It's just us here and it's safe. Apparently she thought we were at a hotel. I talked to her for awhile and after that she slept the rest of the night. I wonder why it's always the 2nd night that she has this problem. 

When she got up SIL was in the bathroom (down the hall from her room) and I guess she knocked on the door. He had just gone in to take a shower but came out to let her use it. She had carried her purse with her and left it on the floor outside the bathroom door. When she was done and going back into her room I had just come up to check on her and she was still confused. Thought we were staying in a hotel. I said let's go downstairs and have some coffee and breakfast and then you can take a shower after. She asked me where she should leave her purse. I said just on the dresser or your bed. She said she didn't any one to take it. I said you are here at my home, mom, no one is going to take your purse. She said oh, I thought we were staying someplace else.

We had really wanted to get her back to her place later morning but it was snowing pretty hard all morning. Finally at 11am it stopped. We had lunch just before noon and SIL drove again and we left a little after noon. The highway wasn't bad at all, just the side roads. We got her back home, got her tv working, her medication dispenser filled up, some of her clothes put away. The whole drive there she kept saying she should have bought us lunch. I kept having to say we already had lunch before we left. She also kept saying I want to pay for them to fill up their tank with gas. Finally I just told her we'd take care of it after we dropped her off.

While it was hard seeing her so confused again that night, it wasn't near as bad as Thanksgiving night. Probably because I knew to expect it and try to avert it as much as possible.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas all. I'm sitting here with my cup of coffee (in my new mug with a cute cat and saying on it, LOL) before everyone else wakes up.

Yesterday was very nice but sure challenging the first half of the day. 7 calls from mom (a new record). We got there at 1:30 (just like I told her 50 times). The roads were a bit snowy (or so dh thought) but hardly, but DSIL drove me and dd. We all 3 went up to her apartment. And started the search for the stolen, I mean hidden/moved treasures. First up dd found the clock/calendar laying on top of her microwave - with some odd old cord plugged into it. The search for the missing wallet cards was way more challenging. We looked everywhere. Finally dd was looking through the stuff in her suitcase and found a book with some misc slips of paper, a book of stamps and her health insurance card between the pages. She said Oh, I think we're getting close! but nope. Then as we are still searching dd and mom were in her bedroom, I was in the kitchen/living room and mom somehow fell. DD's not quite sure what she did but apparently went to turn around and her foot tripped on the carpet. DD was right next to her and caught most of the fall, but mom said her left arm hurt. It's better now so we think maybe just where dd tried to grab her as she was falling. But, of course at the time the whole thing was super upsetting. We had looked everywhere and while she was sitting in her chair drinking some water and resting, we kept looking. DD had already looked through her purse and her wallet. But I picked up her wallet and started looking in the various "pockets" where the folds are. BINGO! all the cards were put in one of those folds! Now I just don't know what the heck to do with them - leave them for her to keep doing this or take them for safekeeping and have her keep thinking someone stole them because she won't remember I have them. I'll be thinking on this to figure out.

The rest of the day and evening at our house went fine and the bedtime/sleeping was normal, so one night down. I did go upstairs when she was getting ready for bed. Pulled the blinds down, chatted with her some to help keep her calm. I also told the guys to keep their talking voices down low so as not to wake her up, which I think probably helped a lot. I stayed up another hour just to make sure she was still sleeping and never saw her bedroom light come on under her door.

We opened gifts last night, as usual. We always hand out all the gifts and then take turns opening one by one, but mom couldn't remember we were doing that so she just kept opening hers :) 

Well, I hear the house stirring. Time to go.

A full house

All went well yesterday. The kids made it here in 7 1/2 hours driving over 3 snowy passes and didn't have any problems. They had decided to leave their house at 8am and got here at 4:30 (hour time diff) so it was nice to have them here for the whole evening. I just made pancakes and sausages for dinner.

Mom only called once yesterday morning to see when/time I was coming. Then just before 8pm I realized she still had not taken her evening pill. I was just about to call her and my phone rang and it was my uncle. She told him someone just stole her credit cards! Oh goodness.....so I called her and she's convinced someone took them. I'm sure, if they aren't in her wallet, she decided to hide them somewhere, so now we have those to look for. It appears to be her credit card, debit card and her ID.

Then she called me this morning about a half hour ago and wanted to know again what time, because her tummy wasn't feeling well. She decided she still had plenty of time to get better. She just called again about what she should wear, so she must be feeling fine now, LOL.

It snowed a bit last night, but I think dd is going to drive their pickup and she and I will just go get mom, rather than having dh drive. I'm sure in a few more hours, with no snow expected, the roads will be even better than the highway cams looked first thing this morning.

I just came upstairs to mobile deposit my bonus check. My boss sent it UPS and it came yesterday along with a $100 visa gift card from my boss. Very nice. We're just taking it easy this morning. Coffee, showers, some help yourself breakfast (dd brought bagels). DH is out plowing the 2-3 inches we got over night. We're not leaving until 12:30 to go get mom.

Keep your fingers crossed I 1)find the missing clock 2)find the missing credit cards and 3)that she does ok here 2 nights. I didn't sleep very good last night worrying about all this.

Christmas eve eve

It was after lunch yesterday when I finally got my questions answered for my side job. Took quite a bit of nudging on my end and I finally said that I'm going to be away from my desk this afternoon, so here's what I have to give you, with the exception of these 3 items/$ amounts, as I haven't received the info yet. Shortly after I got what I needed, updated the report and sent it off again. I should be done with them for the remainder of the holiday time off. 

I only got one call in the morning from my mom yesterday! Yay! Of course it was to ask me what day I am coming and what time, haha. I am so anxious to get there and see where she put that digital calendar/clock, LOL. It's probably just laying right there somewhere on her desk or tv stand. Because boy, I do not want to have to see which "someone" came in and walked out with it and took it to their apartment, because they must have needed one, haha. :)

I got all the vacuuming done upstairs and down yesterday. The up is the hardest with all being carpet but after doing that my back still actually felt ok, so I continued on the main floor. For like the first time ever, in years, my back didn't hurt very much. I wonder why. The upstairs bath is clean and rooms are ready for guests. Notice kitty in both pictures, LOL.

Today I need to mop and make rosette cookies. That's about it, really. DD and SIL are leaving about 8 (their time) this morning. I'm glad they are getting out earlier as the mountain passes are not looking good. Originally they weren't going to leave until like 11:30, but her dh decided to skip going in to work for a half day (he starts early) so they could get on the road and hopefully get over here before it gets dark. I'm sure it's going to take them quite a bit of extra time as it's snowing and messy on all 3 passes right now. Ugh. They do have a 4 wheel drive pickup, and chains with them if needed and her dh is a good driver and uses his head and is very cautious, but I'll breathe a sigh of relief when they pull in the driveway.

I called that country vets office yesterday to cancel the pets appointment on the 30th. I only got their voicemail because they are only open Tues and Thurs, so I left a message that now that we have 2 pets and with the distance we have decided to go back to a vet in the city, where it's closer to us and more convenient and thanked them for their care of our pets.

DH worked on a project he's had on the books for a long time, just no space to do it. On our old t-bird the power windows wouldn't roll up and down anymore. He had to take the door panels off to get to the part on each door. They didn't need replacing, I guess just cleaned up and greased and work again now. He had also gotten some new fuel line to fix the leak, but that didn't fix it. Now he thinks it's a brass fitting with tiny crack. He went to our town auto parts store yesterday to get one. As usual, in the last year or more, this store has NOTHING in stock. Anything you need they say "we can have that in for you tomorrow". Infuriates dh, especially when it's regular everyday stuff an auto parts store should be stocking and have on hand! Can't even get oil or filters. He said this fitting is a standard part every fulel injected (which is like every car nowadays) car has. It's a 20 mile round trip to town, so add on another trip the next day and 40 miles. Finally yesterday he just told them no thanks, I'll get it somewhere else and ordered it on amazon. He said he's done buying parts there, he'll just start ordering online and it'll be here in a couple/few days. 

While dh was out in the shop working all evening I sat and watched funny instagram videos of this dog and his parents. Check out Tatum Talks. Apparently they have been doing these videos quite awhile and I sat and scrolled through them for like an hour and a half and still didn't see them all.

I haven't received my bonus check yet. Boss said she was putting it in the mail on Monday (along with something from her, which she always sends me a gift card) and it's not showing up in my informed delivery yet. I'm sure it's just an envelope, which seem to be taking normal 3-4 days to get here. Packages on the other hand - ridiculous that almost any package (and most are sent "priority") is now taking 10 days to get here. I guess the definition of priority has changed. I won't even mail packages through them anymore. I have a UPS account online and just create a label and pay for it and our ups guy picks it up. 

Oh, and I almost forgot to take the turkey out of the freezer! Yikes. It's in the fridge now, since later morning yesterday. It should be ready by Saturday, it's not quite 17 lbs, so should thaw out by then. If not I'll soak in water for awhile Saturday morning. My side job boss was just saying yesterday how it's too many things to do and remember this time of year and I agree. 

DD made her 2 kinds of cookies yesterday and is bringing them with her. She had a dr appt early afternoon and then had the rest of the afternoon off so she got them made, rather than trying to do it here, which I didn't think we'd have much time for, since we have to go get my mom tomorrow.

Well, off to eat breakfast, shower and get busy.

Off work! (sort of)

What a day for work yesterday. Lots to cram into a day. I'm glad I started at least somewhat on payroll the day before. Something is always a challenge with it. Every. Single. Time. I'm so tired of it. I specifically emailed the payroll person Monday morning to make sure we had it set up in the system so that I could transmit payroll on Tuesday, earlier than scheduled. Tuesday morning I go to create the payroll batch and get an error message. Have to email her (thank God, she is good though, she responds right away, not like the previous lady who would take 6 hours to reply to an email about payroll...on the day you are trying to process payroll). She fixes it. Then I'm ready to submit it and my boss says "ummm...when will the employees actually be able to see this info showing they got a bonus check?"....because some haven't gotten theirs yet and don't know about it.  I ask the payroll lady when will they see this if they log into their payroll account? She doesn't answer me when, she just says to put those checks into a separate batch and release it later. Ok...but then we find out we'd have to re-enter each of those checks. We already spent a couple hours doing this last week. Not going through it again! Just tell the managers that haven't handed out their bonus checks yet to get on the damn ball and take care of it! GEEZ LOUISE!!

My mom called at 9:30am yesterday. No memory of wanting to put a hold on her money or her camera she found. She just wanted to know what day and time I am coming to get her......I told dd I can deal with answering that daily, just not 3 times during EACH call and then 6 times a day. I then told her I was super busy with a work project today so if she tries to call again I probably won't be able to answer. Not that she would probably remember, but, hey, worth a shot! I also checked her phone log again and no more calling that phone number over and over. She did not call me until like 4:30, so it was a good break for the day from it.

While waiting on payroll answers I did the side job payroll. They have a new company processing, too. They are using their CPA office, who uses some payroll processing company I've never heard of. I have been doing their payroll (like 20 employees) for over 10 years and even when I had to enter the sick and vacation in the system (which is how I did it until just recently) now I just send the list of sick and vacation days to a lady at the CPA office. Last payroll period there were no sick or vacation adjustments and when I emailed her that she commented that's good, it's so time consuming to enter those. What?? what in hell type of payroll system are you using? I have used 3 different ones over the years and for 20 employees and typically about 6 or 7 of them to put in sick or vacation for each payroll, it literally takes like 5 minutes.  Everyone is salaried, so unless they have an adjustment there is very little to actually have to enter. Weird. I looked up this payroll system they are using, online, and it specifically says "do payroll in minutes". It appears to be a similar as others. Just pop in some hours into the sick and vacation fields, if there are any, hit process, LOL.  Not to mention I send her the list in alphabetical order, so should be even quicker. Their payroll is the easiest I have ever done in my life (and has been for 11 years or more now).

I got the state business tax return done and submitted. Then I got the bills due before I return to work paid. I got the bank balance set to what it needs to be to cover payroll and other things coming out automatically for the next 10 days. Then I was finally able to submit payroll and all is good to go. With 2 hours left in the work day to spare. So, nothing was rushed to get done at the last minute, which was really nice.

And then right after 4:30 my side job CPA emails that he wants November financial report. Well, dang. I usually can't get it done until almost the end of the next month, because I am using reports that come in from their manufacturers as to commissions earned in November, but not paid until Dec or later. But, I'm close enough, so I spent an extra time trying to finish that up (and told them I'd had it to them in the morning). So, this morning I am waiting on a couple of questions to be answered and then I really will be done working, LOL.

I was messaging with dd last night and told her I'm just making more rosettes (gave them all away) for us to have and not making the sugar cookies. They never turn out and take so much time. She said maybe she'll make some kind of cookie and then sent me screenshot of 2 cookies she said she wanted to make - snickerdoodles and some other kind of drop cookie. I said yummm. I love snickerdoodles and make sure you have cream of tartar to make them. She said do you have any? Oh - you want to make them here? LOL. Yes, I have some. I'm not sure when she thinks she's going to have much time to make them but we'll see, haha. Maybe Friday morning before we got pick up mom.

So, as soon as I get my side job stuff completed this morning, I can get started on my to do list to get ready for company staying. It's after 8am at side job - hopefully they will get to it soon, so I can finish up. I think I'll do upstairs cleaning today and downstairs tomorrow. Dh did clean our masterbath toilet the other day for me. No clue what got into him there. Until he had his shop toilet he probably never cleaned a toilet in his life, haha. I won't clean it and he does a good job cleaning it now so I guess he decided he could handle the house toilet cleaning.

I might go to the store in town today or tomorrow. I want a couple of things and also want egg nog, if they have any. I keep forgetting to get some. If they don't I'll get the stuff to make my own. I might even have it, come to think of it, I have some cream frozen in the freezer. I should take it out to thaw and see if it would be any good to use anyway.

 

A 6 call day

I talked to my mom 3 times yesterday before lunch. 3 times after. Or rather 2 times. The last call was 6:40pm and my phone rang. I started to pick it up to answer and it stopped ringing. Then several seconds later a voicemail from her that she thinks I might need to put a hold on where she has her money....in case "they" get more information? I called her right back. No answer. Called her landline, no answer. Hmm. what the heck? LOL. I could only come up with her cell ringer was off again and she was at her guy friends apartment, so didn't know her landline was ringing. 

That afternoon I was looking at her cell call log and some number had called her like 5 or 6 times, every couple of minutes early yesterday afternoon and again after dinner. I don't know if she answered or not. Each call shows a minute and like every 2 minutes. Well, I just now realized it was HER calling that number, not an incoming call. I just called it to see what it was. Obviously some spam thing. It was a recording that was in English but could barely understand the accent. Something like thank you for calling, we'll connect you now to something I couldn't understand. I cannot see that the number ever called her first, so how in the world did she get this number and why did she keep calling every minute or two? I think she was probably trying to call me and somehow kept hitting send on this number in her phone. But not sure how that led to her thinking her money is in trouble. Maybe no relation to each other.

Every time she asks me what day/time I'm picking her up and says "ok, I'm writing it down". She must have half a dozen or more notes on her desk by now, LOL. She's apparently getting a bit delusional or hallucinating. She brought up her clock/calendar missing again. She said "I was sitting there and I guess my door was open and someone walked in and took the clock and walked out. It happened so fast I didn't see who it was!". I said boy, that's surprising since you always keep your door locked! I said when I come on Friday I'll look for it. "well, how will you do that? I don't know who took it and we can't search everyone's apartments!" haha. I said no, I'll just look through your apartment and see if it got misplaced and if we can't find it I'll order you a new one. I said so far, everything you though was lost or taken we have found in your apartment (except that cup to the medication dispenser! I'm guessing she threw away) Again I tried to describe the clock to her. She says "you mean this big white thing on my desk?". I'm like no...that's a telephone..(that you are talking to me with right now). Oh my. I have a feeling this isn't going to be a very good stay here, either. Probably will be worse than Thanksgiving. I do plan to spend a bit of time with her in her bedroom when she goes up to bed. Make sure she's comfortable and has all her worries answered, see if that helps. Her 3rd call was about this Olympus digital camera. She said she got back from lunch and this was in her pocket and she doesn't know where it came from, if she accidentally picked it up downstairs. I said no, this is an old digital camera you've have from years ago that was in one of your drawers and you must have come across it yesterday and was thinking it was your cell phone. I tried to get her to just put it right back in the drawer, but she just does what she always does and says she is or will.  I've added this to my list of things to take care of Friday. Find this camera and get rid of it!

Dh's mechanic friend got here around 2:30 with dh's rebuilt transmission and got it put back on the truck. I think he left around 5 or 5:30, heading to his cabin. He's still working on finishing the cabin and had a stove with him to install and had brought a friend with him. DH needs to get all his fluids added back in today. Then cross fingers and hope everything works right again.

I have no idea where kitty slept last night. Usually he will come to bed when dh does and then annoy us and finally go to sleep. Or keep annoying us and I take him upstairs to his crate. Last night he pounced around a little then jumped down and left. I fell back asleep. Kitty showed back up one minute before my time to get up, LOL. At least he didn't come wake me up early :)

It snowed all day yesterday. I think dh plowed 2 times and shoveled the walk areas 3 times. This morning lots of traffic on our normally quiet road out in front of us. I guess there are 3 accidents out on the highway this morning and one is sadly fatal.  

We had some visitors out front yesterday, then they ran off because dh's friend was pulling into our street right then. I don't know if I can load a video, but I'll try:

Well, I have tons to do for work today, so I can be done and on vacation. Payroll due today (for both main job and side job) and I have to file the monthly state tax return and just get everything finished up, bills paid before end of year, etc. I'm hoping it's a quiet day with my mom. I may just have to tell her sorry, I'm not going to be available much today, until I'm done working.

Sunday stuggles

Goodness, my mom had a bad day yesterday. She called me about 9:30 in the morning and was like "oh, I wasn't sure if I pressed the right buttons to get you". We chatted a few seconds and she says "well, you're working, so I won't keep you" I said no, it's Sunday. Then she said "oh right - I don't see the day anymore because "someone" took my clock thing" What? I don't think anyone would take that from you. Are you sure it's not just laying face down or something on your cabinet? (she has a filing cabinet that sits in between her small desk and tv stand). It looks like a wood picture frame. Then she looks and says "oh it's down here". Of course it was now unplugged. She couldn't figure out how/where to plug it in. I said just ask someone there where you live, they can get it plugged back in for you. She said she'd ask her guy friend. I never thought to tape that thing's plug in's too!

30 minutes later she calls me with her usual question about her medication dispenser. I bring up the clock thing and she had ZERO memory of any of what we talked about 30 minutes before and now she can't find it at all! Someone must have taken it. I said you just had it 30 minutes ago, so it's there somewhere.......Who knows what she did with it. She's back to "someone" took it. I told her I'll find it Friday when I come get her. I think she ended up calling me like 7 times yesterday. 

In the afternoon she called and said she couldn't find her phone charger. I don't think she even knew what it looked like. She also knew something else was missing, but couldn't remember it's the clock. "but someone is taking my stuff". I told her to go look in her dresser drawers for the charger - thinking she'd just walk into her bedroom with cell phone still at her ear and keep talking while looking. No - complete silence. Finally she comes back on the phone and says "sorry, I had to set my phone down because of the cord plugged into it"....UMMMM...ok, then that's your phone charger plugged in!! OMG. Then it was 5 minutes of her telling me there was no plug in end to it, just a big black thing. Then she tried to tell me besides charging her phone, she uses that plug in for other things, too, but she doesn't know what. (she doesn't LOL) Finally, again, I told her I'll find it Friday when I come get her. At one point I think she was looking in her desk drawers and must have found her old digital camera or it's cord because she says "well, there's this thing that says Olympus on it".

Then there was a call shortly after that, I guess she was just seeing if her cell phone still worked. I said well if the battery dies you have your white phone on your desk you can use to call me. "what phone?" the big white phone sitting on the corner of your desk. "There is no phone there - well, someone took it then". I said, did it maybe get moved to the top of your file cabinet (that's about as far as it could get moved)? No, it's not there. I said hang up and I'm going to call that phone and see if you hear it ringing. Of course she answers it, right in front of her! She says oh, I guess it is here.

DD said when it's time to get her moved, she and her dh will drive over both of their vehicles (pick up with canopy) and an SUV type. They and my dh can get her moved the 2 blocks, while I just take her back here to my house for the day and have her stay over night. They get her new place all set up and we just take her there when it's ready the next day. Sounds like a good plan.

Then when she mentioned something else is missing, but she can't remember what it is, I said it's the clock/calendar. I had to describe it again. Looks like a picture frame, Wood frame. Well, someone took it. I said you found it this morning when we talked and then half hour later it was missing again. No one had been in your apartment. She is starting to not even be able to recognize what things are anymore. When we were talking on her landline phone, I said this is the phone you can use if your cell phone isn't working or lost. She said "oh do I have my "other" phone? Then she says oh it's here in my pocket. It says "Olympus" on it. I said, that's a camera, not your cell phone. You just had your cell phone a couple minutes ago when you called me from it. Then she saw it was sitting on the table next to her chair. So, now she's carrying around a digital camera thinking it's her cell phone??

I'll bet today I'll call her and she will be fine. Most days it's like 50 First Dates movie and her brain just resets and forgets the problems she was having the day before. It also seems to be a common thing on Sundays. I don't know if it's because her place doesn't do any of the daily activities, like it does all the other days of the week, so she doesn't know what to do with herself or what.

I don't know whether to just start calling her on the landline phone only so she gets more used to that or still call her on her cell phone, so she's still having some memory of how to use it? Gosh, I'd love to just get rid of that cell phone. But I know if I lost it for her, she'd be upset for quite awhile, trying to find it, thinking someone took it, etc. 

In between all the phone calls I managed to get done what I wanted yesterday. I got all the presents wrapped. The kitty was a comical help and luckily it ended up being a time in between mom calls, so I wasn't interrupted. I got the chicken cooped cleaned out, too. Around 1pm I texted neighbor down the street to see if they were home and I could stop by and drop off my Christmas goodies sometime that afternoon. She replied back that baby was napping, but afterwards they could stop by as she also needed to give us and other neighbors her goodies and go pick up her mail at the mailbox from the day before. Then I called Mr and Mrs Neighbor and she said they had company coming any minute, so I said no worries, I'll get it over to them another time. I then texted young neighbor back that the other neighbors had company and she said thanks for the intel, LOL. A couple hours later she stopped by with the kids and we traded goodies.

Then, around 4pm or so I noticed Mr and Mrs Neighbors guests were gone, so I walked over there and dropped off the goodies and chatted with them a bit. I didn't realize Mrs. just turned 72. We thought she was 70 now. Dang. She's still working full time and driving almost 50 miles to work each way. But, she is retiring in May, finally. She doesn't seem 72. Mr. just turned 67. 

The little gift boxes I used for the treats had a clear opening in the top and both neighbors saw the rosettes and said "oh! are those rosettes? I haven't had those in years!"

After dinner we tried to watch the new show "1883" on Paramount +. That was a big old bust. It was taking forever to log into the app (I have a Firestick for streaming). It finally did and still was just taking forever to load the show. Then it froze up. I couldn't do anything with the remote. I knew there was a way to restart Firestick with the remote by pressing a couple of the buttons at the same time, but it had been so long since I needed to do that, I couldn't remember which 2 buttons. I googled it from my phone and kept coming up with this long procedure that press these 3 buttons for 12 seconds, blah blah. I'm like what happened to just pushing the 2 buttons at same time? Finally, dh got up and unplugged the firestick from the back of the tv and plugged it back in. The remote still would not work at all. OMG. I'm like ok, did the batteries just die? I replaced the batteries.  DH got up in a huff and went to his den. I googled how to reset the remote, which again was this long procedure of pushing buttons, unplugging the firestick, taking the batteries out of the remote, plugging back in, etc. Only the plug in behind the tv (which is up high above the fireplace) is right in the middle behind the tv and my arm isn't long enough to reach the plug in, so I had to have dh do it. Finally, it started working and I got the show (slowly) on except it was buffering every 5 seconds. So annoying. Then I reset my Firestick again, deleted some unused apps, re installed Paramount + and started the show. All was good for about 10 or 15 minutes. Then it started buffering again. I gave up. I know it's not my Firestick that has the issue. I can stream YouTubeTV, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc with zero issues. I went to their Facebook page and lots of people complaining about the same issue. Glad I didn't pay for the service! DD said it was a good show, though.

I tried to reply to the comments I had on yesterday's post, but for some reason Blogger won't let me add comments. 

Sunday to do's

A fairly productive day yesterday. We left the house at 10am and it had just started snowing, but it ended up just being a tiny bit and after about 8 miles from our house the roads were bare and good. We went to Albertson's first and they had a pretty good selection of frozen turkey's in various sizes, so I got a 17 lb one. We also picked up the Gatorade zero dh likes, as there was probably a good chance Walmart would out it on me. We were walking past the bakery items and dh goes..oh a cake...we could use a cake...they were Christmas decorated, but then he said "or you could just make that funfetti cake, that's my favorite." Next to the turkeys was frozen rings of shrimp, which dh loves, so he grabbed one of those.

Getting in the car I got an email from Walmart that only 2 items were substituted and nothing outed. As we were about to turn into Walmart I got a text the order was ready and it was 10 minutes early. We were the only car waiting for groceries - on a Saturday at 11am. I have never ever had it like that. We were out of there by 11 and stopped at Wendys for lunch to take with us. DH was "better" and only got a single cheeseburger, rather than his usual double. I got their grilled chicken sandwich.

After getting home and groceries unloaded and put away, I made a half batch of rosette cookies, but now I think I should have made a full batch. More of them fit into my little Christmas gift boxes than I thought would and then dh said he wanted to take a box over to where the snow plow guys (and our friend) work out of, just down the road a bit. Nothing has been delivered yet to anyone. I'll probably give my neighbors a call or text this afternoon and see if they are home to deliver the boxes. And dh's mechanic friend is supposed to be coming tomorrow to put his transmission back in his pickup. I want to give him a box of goodies, too.

After making the rosettes, I went and took a short nap. I was feeling tired but really couldn't sleep. The kitty, on the other hand, had no problem, LOL

I got back up and got the funfetti cake made. Around 4pm or so dh started eating his shrimp. As I had hoped (when I pointed out the shrimp rings to him in the store) that ended up being his dinner and I didn't have to make anything (my plan, haha!). Later in the evening I made us some grilled cheese sandwiches.

I started reading a book, rather than watching tv last night. I couldn't really find anything on live tv to watch and didn't feel like searching for a movie. I was definitely ready for bed. At 8:45 I was so tired and about to fall asleep in the chair. Finally, I made myself get up at went to bed, but after walking around up and downstairs turning off all the Christmas lights I wasn't quite so sleepy. Must've been the grilled cheese that made me so sleepy.

We were supposed to get a bunch of snow yesterday and through the weekend. Nope. Nothing. And now it's warmed up so much that if it does it will probably be rainy snow. Well, as I type this it has started snowing so we'll see how much and if it decides to stick. It was so cold the prior 2 days that yesterday morning the river started to get ice chunks floating down. That's my favorite way to see the river, but by the time we got home from groceries it had warmed up and the ice chunks were gone.

On today's agenda is to get all my gifts wrapped! DH is total opposite me. He wraps everything right away, as it arrives and puts them under the tree. I always wait and do most of it at one time. He sets up a "wrapping station" up in the bonus room. DD sent me a picture of this gift wrap organizer box she just got and I said "oh dad would like that!" so I ordered him one. He will have fun putting it all away in his new storage, haha.

I think I will make more rosettes and a small batch of the white chocolate bark, to use up the leftover ingredients.

Start of the weekend

I know I still have gifts I ordered still coming. I really need to figure out what is still left and if they are going to make it here in time. Frustrating as some of it I ordered in plenty of time - like the first week of December.

DH has never been much of a cat lover. He'll tolerate them, but not enjoy them. He's really enjoying this kitty, LOL. He gives us lots of laughs and is starting to have his routines with dh and since he's a friendly cat, he'll give dh some loving whether he wants it or not, haha.

After our company meeting yesterday afternoon they did end up closing for the day. Ok, so it was almost 3pm my time and I had already worked over 7 hours, LOL, so it wasn't much of a break for me. I finally figured out how to add my own background to the Teams meeting view. Most of the employees were in the office, but our satellite office in the other side of the state and the other handful of us that work remote all the time were watching via Teams. Mostly it was the not good news that this year pretty much was a crapper again, and lets go get 2022. One of the managers who spoke said she doesn't ever want to hear the word Covid again and when everyone comes back to the office (everyone gets to work remote until after the first of Jan) there will be no Covid. The president made a comment that he never wants to have to write another "policy" email about Covid again and isn't going to. Since I'm not in the office to get the vibe going on on a daily basis, I'm not really sure what their real meaning is, or maybe I'm just reading more into it. But, it gave me the impression that they are sick of anything to do with it - especially as it's never going to end, so let's get on with life and work.

DD messaged me last night (we "chat" all throughout the day, every day) that they were out running some Christmas shopping errands and went to this coffee stand a couple friend they have likes, so they were buying a gift card for them. They noticed a cop car pull in behind them with it appeared the cop had his young daughter in the passenger seat with him. They paid for their order. Very sweet. 

Our friends who live in Texas sent us some nice gifts. DH got a little buffalo metal art and a buffalo canvas print. I got a cute rooster cup holder you hang on the wall.........only I already have the same one! DH got it for me when he went to Texas 5 years ago. I can't tell them I already have it, so will just thank them, of course. The one I already have is hanging in my kitchen with 4 coffee cups. I'm trying to figure out something/somewhere else to use this 2nd one. Maybe when we get our closets done I can hang it on the wall in there to hang jackets on. I'll figure out something. There isn't really anything I can think of of to hang it in the chicken coop for. I don't have anything for the chickens that needs hanging on hooks.

I'm hoping my grocery order goes smoothly today and that I find a turkey, LOL. Walmart is still showing all their frozen turkeys out of stock. I find that really hard to believe. Hopefully Albertsons has some. If not, I guess I get dd to pick one up (she has oodles of grocery stores near her) and bring it with them on Thursday.

Happy Friday

As always, with me being the payroll person, I know ahead of time about bonus's LOL. So, it's always a joke with my boss "surprise - you are getting a bonus" LOL. Though one time, last year, she truly did manage to surprise me, when she hand wrote out a check for $5000 as a bonus for the good IRS audit we went through, and then after I got it in the mail I had to record it in our accounting books, LOL.

Anyhow, for this year I am getting a $3000 bonus. Can't complain about that, considering. Sure, it would be nice to get our full 10% bonus for the year, but that hasn't happened now in a couple years. These bonus's were also not to each employee, only about half of us are getting one, and not the same amounts, so I'm grateful to be one of them (and one of the higher amounts).

All week long (my procrastinating taking over) I've been going to call a vet in the city to get dog scheduled in to have his 2 new and growing lumps checked out. There was a vet I had taken our other dog to, once, back in between the first vet office I didn't really like and then finding that mobile vet. I don't know why I wasn't going to call them, I was going to try another one in same area. So, this morning that vet office calls. Says it's been awhile since they've seen our other dog (like at least a couple years lol), would I like to schedule him for a check up? Well....what good timing you called! Unfortunately that dog passed away last spring, but I do need to get our other dog in to have some lumps checked out. I explained we had used a vet about an hour north, but that is getting inconvenient with the drive, having to wait hours, if procedure done, and nothing to do up there, etc. So, I have pup scheduled in for the 30th to get checked out and I'm going to cancel the one up north at the country vet. 

I need lots of groceries. Time for a trip in to pick up a big order at Walmart. The town grocery store doesn't have everything I like to buy and just too expensive to shop there for everything. So, I just put in an order to pick up tomorrow at Walmart at 11am. Since it's been snowy, dh will drive me. Most likely I'm going to regret that, but nothing can do about it. He will find something to complain about the whole drive there, usually before we even get on the freeway. I also need to pick up a turkey for dinner on Christmas. Walmart is showing they are out of all the frozen turkeys? I doubt it. So, we'll have to swing into Albertson's and see what they have and hopefully get a turkey. We pick up around 11 so after can stop at Wendy's or McD's and get some lunch on the way home - that usually puts him in a better mood.

It was 7 degrees this morning. Brrrr! We had a little snow last evening and dh shoveled and plowed this morning. It wasn't too much, so didn't take him too long, but he had to wear his insulated overalls, LOL.

Today is our year end company meeting at noon to 1:30. Usually we close at noon and no working after the meeting, but I guess that isn't happening this year. I was hoping it would, so I could get started on some weekend tasks a bit early. Or heck, even a nap. Oh well. Next week I am only working 2 days and then off until after the New Year. Looking forward to it!

Hump day slump

I had a busy work day yesterday. In the afternoon I got super tired and a headache coming on. I didn't sleep that great the night before, which is probably why I was so tired. I did power through my project yesterday and made my goal to get it done and to my boss and I even got it to her at 2pm, her time zone. She and I did have a phone chat in morning about a few things, one of them being payroll and changing the time frame we process it in. She want to keep the same dates of 15th and last day of the month, but change pay periods to like 25th - 10th (paid on 15th) and 11th, though 24th, to get paid on the 31st. So, we'll have to figure out the logistics, if we decide to do that. She also mentioned that "some bonus's are getting paid" and she'll have those decided today during a meeting with management. I have no idea who is getting any, or if I might be included. Since it wasn't run through payroll and she said it will be company checks she does up for them (and then it will get adjusted through payroll), but apparently this late in the decision, there's not time to get the payroll checks here. I'm guessing either everyone is getting a little something and it will be announced at our company meeting on Friday, or maybe not. Maybe there is just a small list (like last year) and a small group of checks to cut.I guess I'll know today sometime, as I will be the one to enter the checks in our accounting system, so she can print them out.  My side job boss said they are giving their employees a $200 gift card and she is sending me one, so that is nice. She emailed me with the option to either send me a gift card or I could just write myself a grossed up check (for taxes) for a net amount of $200. I told her just send the gift card - less cost for the company and I get the same amount.

That bad sleep night, had to get up at like 12:30am to put the cat upstairs. Then woke up when I heard dh come to bed a little later. Then shortly after that dog sounded like he was going to throw up, so I got up and let him outside, but then he was fine. Then at some point before having to get up, my eye started hurting again. It's still an issue every so often, but rarely. I probably need to get more drops in it regularly than I have been. And I spent a lot of time Tuesday doing some work on the computer without much break. I put drops in all day yesterday. Last night I did the ointment again, though I have been putting that in pretty often at night, so I was a bit surprised to have it act up again, as I had put some in last night before bed. Last night was no issues, so that is good. I was so tired after dinner. Dh fell asleep on the sofa and I was starting to fall asleep in the recliner at 6:30pm, so I got up and went and took a nap on the bed and didn't wake up until 7:45.

I also skipped calling my mom yesterday. I don't do that very often, but by the time I had time to call her in the afternoon I just did not feel like like it at all. She's fine for one day to not talk to me and sad to say she doesn't remember if I missed a call. Some days she acts like she only talks to me every so often, LOL, when in fact half the time it's more than once a day!

I slept good last night and didn't hear dh get up at 7am until I heard him filling the dog food bowl. I thought maybe it snowed last night and he was up to plow but opened my eyes to look out the french doors to the patio and nope. Then I remembered he has the Christmas gift for the garbage man to give and he comes between 7 and 8 Thursday mornings. This year we managed to get all the gifts to the our regular delivery peoples. Even worked out great for the mail carrier. She had a few packages that wouldn't fit in our mailbox so when she came to the gate, dh ran in and grabbed her gift (chocolates).

Tuesday night we got caught up on watching Yellowstone, as we were 2 episodes behind. We want to see that new spin off show from it, that will be on Paramount + soon. Would be worth subscribing to for a month or so to watch it. I think it's about $6 for a month. Pretty much anything with Sam Elliott is good, right? LOL.

DD and SIL will be here next Thursday evening and stay until the 27th. I think the plan for my mom will be to go pick her up after lunch on Christmas Eve and take her home on the 26th. She called the other evening (because now the daily calls are asking what is going on for Christmas) and seemed a bit confused about who is coming here and "if you don't have enough room for me,  you can just pick me up Christmas day and take me home later that day". I'm like it's just you and DD/SIL, as always. I have plenty of room. (Not to mention I am NOT spending Christmas day in the car driving for 3+ hours LOL). She now seems to be starting to forget who dd is. She just keeps saying "the kids" because she can't remember her and SIL's names it appears. When I told her, then she said "oh it will be nice to see them, I can't remember how long it's been? last year?" I said no, they were just here last month for Thanksgiving.

One of the friends I sent the Corinthian Bells wind chimes to just received hers and messaged us that she loves them. I had a feeling they are something she would enjoy. She likes to sit out on her deck and has it decorated really cute and comfy.

Winter wonderland

We've been getting lots of snow. Dh LOVES snow, so it was a good distraction for him yesterday to be outside plowing. He seems pretty good with everything, though I'm sure he'd just like to know the plan going forward, instead of sitting here wondering for over a month. With the cancer being at such a low level/small area, I'm sure it will all be ok.

The night before and yesterday afternoon he got his drone out to take some pictures. When he started to make the comment yesterday morning "when I had my drone out at midnight last night.." I said midnight? how could you see anything with it in the dark? Oh.......ya....we're kinda lit up here, LOL.

Yesterday afternoon he got some really nice pictures. In these drone, up in the air type, it sure can look like we live alone out here, nestled in the mountains, LOL. 

I think this one above might have to be our Christmas card next year :)

Just as dh was finishing up his plowing yesterday, Mr was doing his driveway. He had his dogs out, so of course they had to go tear around at our property, then take off down to the neighbors at the end of the street, so Mr went to chase after them. Dh had just finished plowing. Mr Neighbor came out of his driveway with his plow down, going down the street after the dogs, so of course just leaves a berm of snow right across where our driveway meets the street. Really? When the temps drop that little berm just freezes and turns into a hard pile of ice/snow that we would have to drive across. If dh doesn't get it knocked down before that, then we either have to drive over it or if he tries to push it out with his plow, after freezing, it's just a small hill of ice that the plow of course doesn't want to push through. So, dh went back to the garage and got out his snow shovel and got rid of it.

A little later they were chatting at the fence. DH has hardly talked to him since his son and family were here. He was telling dh about some local politics with the sheriff, then he says is your email still the same? dh says yep. He says well, I've been sending my emails, like usual, but they are bouncing back to me? dh says oh, come to think of it I haven't seen any emails lately from you. We don't know what would be causing that. Dh has had the same email address for years LOL and he's getting other emails.

The long outdoor extension cords dh ordered came and he got the gate opener all plugged in and said it worked great, so it looks to be it was that the solar system isn't enough power, even in the middle of summer. Not surprised. We haven't been impressed with anything solar, that we have. I bought a very expensive landscape type solar light to light up our manger scene. It's a pathetic little bit of light.

The weather report is saying snow all day today, but it's not coming down yet. I just went to the mailbox to drop off my Christmas cards and a couple other things to go out. Nice peaceful walk. Looks like at a minimum dh will be plowing again after he gets up.

 

 

Medical update

Dh's biopsy result is in and his doctor called to let him know it is prostate cancer. It's a low grade "6" (3/3 Gleason score, whatever that is) and a small spot, so I guess that's the good news of it, if there is any. He told dh it's not anything immediately urgent, but does want him to come in to discuss options/treatment. Of course their next available appointment isn't until mid January, which of course does nothing to quell dh's fears and doomsday thoughts about it all. They have put him on the wait list if there is a cancellation to get him in earlier, and she said they have cancelled appointments all the time, so it's likely he'll be able to be seen earlier.

From what I've been reading up on it, there are 3 common treatments. For low grade cancer/small tumors, because prostate cancer typically grows very slowly, there is a wait and see and keep being watched, approach. There is also removal of the prostate, radiation and chemo. My boss told me 2 of her close friends have it. One has been on the wait and watch plan, for quite a few years now, with no change. The other had a low dose chemo and is cured and fine now. Overall, it sounds like a very treatable, curable cancer, for the most part and especially where his is minimal right now. I guess we'll find out more at the appointment and see what the doctor recommends.

Of course, I was really hoping he'd be in the 75% chance that it wasn't cancer. He's hard enough to keep in good spirits, without adding this onto his plate. But, this does appear to be one of the most treatable cancers. Still, having to go through whatever treatment won't be enjoyable for him. 

It sucks getting old!

Grandma would be proud

I did my trial run of making rosette cookies yesterday. My grandma would have been proud! Since I don't have an electric skillet where I can dial into the 375 degrees, I had to test and adjust a bit. The first several I made, the oil was too hot. After a few tweaks I got it to just the right temp. It would go faster to have more than one iron, but they were fun to make. I much more enjoyed making these than sugar cookies, which never turn out for me. The sugar cookies always just flatten out and don't keep the cookie cutter shape. While they taste fine, they just end up looking like a blob of sort of a tree or a snowman.

The sad part with my mom's memory is that she has also lost most of her long term memories. I was talking to her on the phone telling her I was making these rosette cookies that grandma used to make and she had no idea what they were or remembered she used to make them. I so wish I had my grandma's rosette iron set. At the time my grandma was going into nursing home care and my mom was getting rid/selling her things, I just didn't think of some things I now wish I had, like her recipe box and rosette irons. I was just too busy and had too much going on at the time, to remember some of these things. I used to have a flour sifter but not sure what happened to it over the years. It would have been good to have one to sift the powdered sugar a little finer over the cookies. I think I'll order one from Walmart or Target. These light and flaky pastry type cookies are delicious and melt in your mouth. I don't plan to give my neighbor gifts until next weekend, so I will make another batch (or even half batch) next weekend, so they are fresh as can be.

The white chocolate bark is yummy too. That is kept refrigerated, so it should be good next weekend, still. If not, I have enough ingredients left to make a small batch that would be enough to put in the 2 boxes. I plan to put together a box for our retired friend, too. He's been busy now snowplowing the roads, but when he is plowing he goes by our house later afternoon/early eve to start his shift and dh can text him to stop so he can take him out the box of goodies. He always honks when he goes by, LOL.

One of our projects still to do on this house is our master bedroom closets. At first dh was going to do them. He kept putting it off. (mostly because he really doesn't know how to do it). And we want them to look nice and not cheap. Then lumber prices went through the roof. We put it off. So, we sat down yesterday afternoon and designed out what we would want on this closet system website. ok........that's not going to happen any time soon. It was almost $10,000 to do both closets! I was thinking about half that and then we'd only do one closet at a time, LOL. Now, I can do half of one closet, haha.

It pretty much snowed all day yesterday, but just warm enough that it was very wet and never stuck to the pavement. Then it cooled down some overnight and we got a couple inches that stuck. DH just went out to plow and it started snowing again. The temps are supposed to get to 37 today, so seems like he should just let it melt on it's own, but he won't, LOL. Oh well, gives him something to do and get a little exercise.

Mr. Neighbor used to always get out and plow very early, so his wife would have a plowed driveway to get out of on her way to work. So, far this winter he has not done that, LOL. No news on our new neighbors to be. Haven't seen them out here in a couple weeks. Their house in their other state is still for sale, almost 3 months now. Might be priced a bit too high, is my guess. It's also in a rural low populated part of the state, so probably typically takes longer to sell homes there.

DH took the batteries off the gate and took them in the shop to recharge and then leave overnight and see if they lost power overnight (which is what seems to happen when they are out at the gate). They stayed charged, so he doesn't think it's the batteries causing the issue. One of the extra long extension cords he ordered arrives today, but the other one (he needs 2) is still in transit. He can't try out having the gate operate on electricity until he gets both extension cords. If they work, he's just going to run them along the base of the fence line and then over to the side of the house, where there is an outlet he can plug into.

Called it!

I did get the white chocolate bark made yesterday. Really easy with only 3 ingredients. The time consuming part was cutting up the pistachios, but at least I bought a package already shelled. It's just white chocolate, dried cranberries and pistachios. Tastes yummy and looks festive with the red and green on the white bark.

I did not attempt to make the rosettes yet. At noon dh decided that was a good time to drive into town to get our grocery shopping done. He was a total grouchy ass all day yesterday and by the time we got back and I was yelled at because I was putting the groceries away too slow as he was bringing in the bags from the car/garage - and OMG - the counter was full of the bags he already brought in, plus I had my baking stuff out (I had just started chopping the nuts when he wanted to leave). I said just set the last 3 bags down on the floor, I'll get to them. Oh no, can't do that! I said I'm sorry, I'm basically working with one arm here (and my left one at that) so I'm a little slow. My elbow has been bothering me again the past few days.

So, I wasn't in the mood to try to make rosettes. The rosettes are a good memory of my grandma. I didn't feel like being grumpy while making them. I got the chocolate bark finished up and chilled and then broken into pieces and back in the fridge. And then I went and took a nap.

Kitty was on full on energy mode last night. Usually he will go to bed with me and settle down after a few minutes. Not last night and all of a sudden he jumped up on the bed flying over me at full speed and I hear a huge crash. He ran right across the bed and onto dh's nightstand at full speed. Knocked off the lamp and clock. I can't believe the lamp didn't break. It's large and a glass base. So, kitty ended up staying upstairs in his crate the rest of the night.

Last evening I watched a Christmas movie. One of those cheesy Hallmark type that are all the same and are all good, LOL. In between listening to dh bitch about everything under the sun, including the fact that the temp had warmed up to just above freezing so now the snow was rain. Seriously - bitch about something you can control. 

Several months ago we went to a community meeting about a possible new (volunteer) fire station being added, about 5 miles past us. We are serviced by the town's volunteer fire dept, which is 10 miles out. This new station would only serve homes within a 5 mile driving distance of it and due to the fact that most of the property in this 5 mile area is farmland, it's not going to serve a whole lot of people. There was a lot of conditions that had to be met for them to create a new fire station. One of them being 40% of the property owners in the 5 mile area had to vote and agree on it. We were just a tad outside their 5 mile driving distance, but within 5 mile radius. So, the 3 of on our street went to the meeting to see what's up. The stupid part was the 3 of us homeowners were pretty much the only property owners at this meeting! The rest were people on the town volunteer fire dept. There were 3 property owners there who live within this 5 mile area and one of them is the district fire warden for the whole area, LOL. So, ya of course she is behind all this.

From the get go dh was convinced the only reason they are pushing for this is because they want to start subdividing some of all this pasture land. This one family owns the most of it, spread out between the mom and her 2 sons. Another owner is this uber rich guy with some 15,000 sf house back up as you start up the mountains, who doesn't even live there most of the time. Just has a full time caretaker. Apparently there is a rule/law that they can't subdivide any property in this county unless it's within like 5 or 10 miles of a fire station..........

But at the meeting, of course they tried to sell it as it's a benefit, blah blah. It's going to raise our property taxes at least $100 a year to fund this. It's all volunteer, obviously would be volunteers from those that live with in this 5 mile area...who??!! 80% of the owners are older/retired types. The younger owners all work. Well, we have so and so to be the "chief" or whatever he would be. And we need people to sign up to be volunteers. And the town fire dept would of course also be dispatched out to a fire to help. Oh...ok...this guy has a full time job OUTSIDE of our county, so as long as we have a fire happen at night or on the weekends they'd be available to put it out.

After the meeting we were chatting with the lady that owns most of the land. DH brought up his concern that this was really for property owners so they could start subdividing. She was like oh no. We have no intention of subdividing. I remember what went through my mind at the time (while I'm smiling and nodding at her) was sure... you don't today, or even tomorrow, but you probably do 6 months from now. DH expressed his concerns to our other 2 neighbors (who were all for this) that we're going to be paying for service we aren't really going to get and that he felt the only reason they wanted this was so they could subdivide. Oh no, that's not it!

DH watches our our weekly county council meetings online. Guess what one of the topics was last week? This lady had gone to court and got a court order bypassing the county rule/law and the judge agreed she could subdivide her property. Yep, dh usually reads stuff pretty well. Well, hopefully, that put to rest the fire dept plan. I really don't need my already super high property taxes even higher just so they can subdivide their property! Basically our position is we don't support adding a volunteer fire dept that is going to do us no good and have to pay for it at the same time.

Paychecks and cookies

Yesterday turned into one of those hassle payroll days. I couldn't figure out why one of our salaried employees was showing 40 hours of Reg pay and 48 hours of PTO, but when I created the batch for this payroll his was showing as 48 hour Reg and 48 hours PTO. I was also having a similar issue with a couple of hourly employees, where the batch was showing more hours than they worked. I was on the phone quite a while with our new payroll advisor girl. She is good. And I finally realized her voice sounds exactly like J-Lo! LOL. Anyhow, it's all caused by the stupid way we pay.

We pay twice monthly on the 15th and last day, BUT, for example, the 15th payday is paying from the 1st-15th, AND we have to submit 4 days before the 15, so those last 4 days are "estimated" hours. It's just creating issues, especially when people are showing PTO for those estimated days that haven't happened yet. The best solution would be to do like most all companies do - if you are paying for the time period 1st-15th you get your paycheck on the 20th of each month. Seems like a simple solution. Just change our pay days to the 20th and 5th of each month. But apparently (and I'm sure she's right) my boss thinks people will have a fit because for that first paycheck of the change, they will have to wait an extra 5 days for their paycheck. We are trying to think of how best to handle this issue. Any suggestions? My suggestion is to give them 3 months notice this is going to happen on such and such paycheck, so you have 3 months to get ready financially to wait an extra 5 days for your paycheck (1 time!). Suck it up! Or if waiting still makes you in such a financial bind, we could give an advance that they pay back split up over several paychecks.

It's snowing again this morning. I told dh I needed to go into town for some groceries and he thought I meant the 45 mile drive to the city. He wasn't keen on that as the hwy is having icey conditions. I said no, just into town grocery store and I'll get what I need (10 minute drive).

I want to try to make the Rosette cookies today. Heat oil to 375. Ohhhh...ya, now I remember. My grandma had one of those electric skillet things you could set the dial to the desired temp. Ya, I don't have one of those. Might have to wing it on the stove top, I guess, and find the right temp. Might have to get myself one of those. That probably would have been really handy to have when we were living in the shop with no kitchen.

An ad for our local feed supply store (where I get chicken feed, etc) was on my Facebook feed last night. They have lots of stuff, clothes, tools, etc. Anyway, they were advertising snacks and a 2 lb Salted Nut roll! LOL. DH loves those little salted nut roll candy bars. I ordered a 2lb one for his stocking. Shipping was a flat $7, so I added some BBQ rubs for my son in law.

I also woke up this morning and remembered I need to get our 2 gifts for our out of state friends ordered. I wanted to give them each one of those lovely Corinthian Bells wind chimes. I got those ordered and thankfully they had a "gift" option when shipping and should be delivered to them by the end of next week.

I got my Christmas stamps in the mail yesterday, so now my cards - all 6 of them LOL - are ready to mail. DD was messaging me the other day and showed a pic of envelopes ready to mail out and said she was doing Christmas cards for the first time - all 6 of them LOL! I said I was too and only had 6, haha and that I was waiting on the stamps. She hadn't put stamps on hers yet and decided she should get Christmas stamps too. She joked "do I need to send my parents one? that says see you at Christmas?" I said yes you do, I am sending them one. 

So, yesterday morning Mr Neighbor did not plow his driveway before he and Mrs went to work. When he plows he plows his driveway and our street that is in front of his property. DH plows our street that is in front of our property. So, being nice, dh went ahead and plowed the street in front of Mr and Mrs Neighbors property. The street looking all nice and smooth. Mr. gets home that afternoon and plows out his driveway and what does he do? leaves the berm across the road between our properties. I don't get it. Why would he think we (and neighbors down at the end) would want to drive over that?! DH and I joke if we ever win the lottery we are moving where there are no neighbors.

 

Winter is here

Woohoo! it's Friday! Got some snow last night. Dh has been out shoveling and plowing this morning.

 

 

The minions needed a little assistance this morning, LOL

 

 

It's payroll day, so that will take up half my work day.  I just need to get a Lowe's gift card for one of son in law's gifts and I think I am done shopping. I was deleting a bunch of emails (tons of junk and shipping confirmations, etc) and almost deleted a Kohl's email. Apparently, I had earned another $20 in Kohl's cash I didn't know I earned. Thankfully there is free shipping for card holders right now. I jumped online this morning and ordered a winter knitted headband and a couple washcloths. Mine are starting to get worn down, so a couple of new ones will be nice. It all cost me about $3.

 

My plans tomorrow are to bake. Rosettes and white chocolate bark. 80% chance of snow starting again tomorrow morning. I also need a few things from the grocery store, so will ask dh if he wants to run to town this afternoon or just wait until tomorrow. If there's even a bit of snow on the roads he thinks I can't drive, though when we lived in town I drove no problem. It all gets plowed and sanded and it's all flat.

 

My boss must be in a long meeting this morning. I'm still waiting for her to answer some payroll questions before I can even really get started processing it. Ugh. Good grief. One of our sales people emailed to pay for this vendor booth at a trade show. Link to pay attached in email. I log in to take care of it and there's like 10 questions he needs to answer about his booth, LOL. So, I had to email him back and type of out all these questions to him. Just put the damn payment on your credit card and submit it on your expense report! I'm not your secretary! (noo, I didn't say that. I did it all and with a smile, LOL) Ok, rant over. Boss just messaged, so she must be out of her meeting. Next Friday we have our year end company meeting. Not expecting any good news, like yearly bonus or anything :(

DH annoyed me yesterday. He's the one who always wants to give UPS, FedEx, garbage and mail carrier a Christmas gift. Of course it's up to me to figure out what and get it. Every year we wait too long and before Christmas the UPS and FedEx end up being different fill in drivers as they add to the route and we don't see our regulars until after. Then the garbage guy always takes vacation then. So, this year I got on the ball and got the gifts ordered first week of December. They got here this week. I wrapped up the UPS guy gift (a more expensive gift cuz he's the best) yesterday since I knew he was delivering and told dh it was on the counter. He's like it's too early to give it to him! I'm like NO, it's not! (not to mention just a few days ago dh asked me if I had the gifts!). We always end up not being able to give to them. He's like fine, I'll give it to him 3 weeks before Christmas! I said Christmas Eve is 2 weeks from tomorrow! Just give him the damn gift!

 

I think while I'm baking tomorrow I'll put a Christmas Hallmark type movie on the ipad and watch while I'm baking.