Phone - After the beginning of this year, we decided to discontinue our telephone landline and depend entirely on our cell phones. This allowed me to upgrade our DSL service.
The only time I miss having the landline is when I must deal with automated answering devices with those infernal menus. Some menus are very long; some don’t repeat your options (my doctor’s office, for example). The menus are easier to deal with if the keypad is not on the receiver. We had two wired phones with the keypads on the bases instead of the receivers. The keypads on the base are also easier to use when refilling prescriptions by phone.
Another problem is changing your number with all the people that had our telephone number. It’s easy to forget to change the number at the pharmacy or the library.
The best result is that we no longer have to deal with telemarketers and charities asking for donations. It’s embarrassing not to be able to give as I used to.
My faster internet connection speed is not that much faster than our DSL Lite was and every week or so it begins to slow perceptively. I have to unplug the router for a few seconds; it seems to correct the problem. It’s just annoying.
Bathroom – I decided to use the bathroom downstairs rather than taking a chance on falling in the upstairs tub/shower combination. The downstairs has only a shower stall.
I bought new accessories and it looks nice, and I feel much safer.
The one problem is litter. One of Little Girl’s litter boxes is in that bathroom. She likes clay litter, but she tracks it out of the box. Stepping on those little clay particles with no shoes is uncomfortable to say the least. However, a little pain from stepping on litter is better than breaking something if I fell while getting out of the bathtub.
Kindle – I love my little tablet with the Kindle program. It’s so nice to be able to download a book in the middle of the night if I finish one book and need another one.
One of the things I don’t like about it is the amount of errors in the text, i.e spelling, spacing, missing pages. I’ve found mistakes in mainstream books as well as the self-published ones. There was one written by one of my favorite authors which was so flawed, I found it difficult to read. The author happens to be a college professor so I know he knows how to correctly paragraph dialog. I’ve never had that problems while reading his printed books. I spent half my time reading his Kindle edition book trying to decided who was talking. It was so aggravating. The one I was reading today skipped a page or two. I’ve noticed that the self-published ones have more spelling errors and typos than the mainstream books.
The other problem is that it’s just too easy to use. If I’m not careful, I could go WAY over budget each month. I buy an Amazon gift card with a set amount to keep myself in bounds.
Legislative leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, have called for Rep. Weiner (Dem. – NY) to resign his position because of the “scandalous” pictures he posted on line. Instead he is asking for leave to seek treatment. (It seems like now days if you’re caught being naughty all you have to do to redeem yourself is to enter some sort of rehab program. Is there a program for the terminally stupid?)
I don’t really care if he is posting childish, tasteless pictures on himself unless he was involved with minors. If he did include minors on his mailing list, he should be arrested and charged with any number of sexual offenses.
I think he should resign not because of the photos but because no one this stupid should be making monumental decisions affecting millions of US citizens.
Is the man so out of step with the real world that he didn’t know that whatever is out there on the worldwide web is there FOREVER? Has he never seen one episode of CSI or NCIS? Perhaps he was too busy taking tacky pictures of himself to watch television. He could learn something from Gibbs.
I would be very angry if my representative (even if I didn’t vote for him and don’t agree with his stance on most issues) did something this moronic.
Will elected officials, Democrats and Republicans, ever learn?
Mr./Ms. Politician, if you are doing sleazy, sordid acts, please learn to be more discrete. We have huge problems to solve without being sidetracked by your nasty, narcissistic peccadillos.
(And someone should take him to the woodshed for the hurt and embarrassment this must have caused his wife.)
Mr. Fixit and I have been working for a little over a week. My younger son is the quality control guy at his company, and they had an emergency with one of their customers. A lot of parts have to be inspected. There are thousands and thousands of hex nuts with tiny numbers that must be checked and culled. It’s boring but the extra money will be nice-- and the work is temporary.
What’s not so nice is the almost 1 hour drive (each way) to reach the company. It’s been 25 years since I have worked outside our home (I’ve done work at home though) and the organizational skills I had when I worked are sadly lacking. I had forgotten how hard it is to work and to take care of a home. We have been eating out every night.
Part of that is because it’s the end of school here, and we were invited to attend Noah’s graduation from fifth grade, and Owen’s Awards day. There also have been a ball game or two thrown in. We can’t miss those things no matter what. (I was so proud of both the boys. They both were on the A honor roll for the whole year.)
Another minor, but irritating problem cropped up. An advisory was issued saying that our water had to be boiled before ingesting. It lasted more than a day.
My insomnia has caused me a bit of a problem. I’ve been running on about 3 hours sleep a night with no opportunity to nap in the afternoons. It’s makes me grumpy, but I try to keep control of it. Every two or three nights I get 5 or 6 hours which helps a lot.
I’ve learned a few new things, too. First, it seems that all traffic laws are suspended during both the morning and afternoon rush hours. People are simply nuts!
The second thing I’ve learned is that I could never, NEVER!, work with Mr. Fixit for an extended time. By yesterday afternoon, he had changed from Mr. Fixit to Mr. Management. I was ready to call the union rep but, alas, this is South Carolina and there are no union reps. I called him on his attitude and his response was, “I was just a supervisor too long. I think like management.” Fine, manage someone else, but not me! So There!
The third thing I’ve learned is that working when you’re 65 years old is a helluva lot different than when you’re 35.
Next week I won’t be working much because Noah and Owen’s daycare provider doesn’t begin regular hours until the Monday after school is out. They will stay with me for at least three days. This weekend I’m going to do laundry to get our clothes ready (that means actually ironing more than one thing at the time like I usually do) and I’m going to do a little cooking and freezing a few dinners ahead. Maybe my organization skills will come back.
Surprisingly, it’s been nice change. I don’t mind the work at all, and the harrowing morning drive gets my adrenalin pumping.
