April 15, 2007
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Healing?
I woke up this morning around 4am and found out I could get carefully out of bed without a pang from my right hip, which has been bothering me for seveal days to the point of incapacitating me. Of course, I kept waking up during the night (I retired at 9pm) to make sure I had the pillow placed between my knees at a proper angle to alleviate any possible stress on that hip. This was the second night and it has apparantly had it’s affect. *Grin* I will go carefully but gratefully forward, I hope.
Our next door neighbor, a gorgeous 24 year old blonde country girl, came over bearing more gifts for the hubby. He’s taken to mowing her lawn when he does ours and she is grateful because I don’t think her boyfriend likes her riding lawn mower. When he DOES come over and do it, he always brings his dog with him and two puppy chocolate labs are a real handful, trust me.
The neighbors dog is a chewer, unfortunately. He was allowed to roam outside while she worked and he had food, water and shade available underneath her deck in back. He seemed to prefer OUR deck, however. And he also liked to dig so we would end up with holes that collected water (and kept the ground soaking) underneath it. Not a problem unless you needed to go into the crawl space for some reason. It’s country out here and you can hear cows moo-ing at night. There aren’t more than a dozen houses for about a mile around us. Shouldn’t be a problem with a young dog, right?
When we came up this time, we found our neighbor had constructed a pen for the dog. She no longer let him roam because some of the few neighbors we DO have started complaining about their garbage being strewn about and pointed right at HIM as the culprit. So, she being young and sensitive, builds a nice enclosure off the side of her deck to leave the dog in during the day while she works. However…..you knew there was going to be a *however*, right?…..the garbage is STILL being scattered so I don’t think it was her lab doing it at all. We have some hellacious raccoons hereabouts and I think they are the true villains.
Since the lab was in the habit of chewing the ropes we had used to help stake our young trees, we DO know who was responsible for that. We had to adopt a different approach of support for the trees…..tall stakes and green tape.
When we moved up here on a permanent basis a few weeks back, we called to have a land line telephone installed and, guess what we found??? Yep….both our SATELLITE and TELEPHONE lines to the house had been chewed. At least the installers never heard or saw the dog so we didn’t get any static about their having to replace them. And they both now have nice metal covers over them to protect them from any future gnawing. HA ! HA !I have been UNpacking the boxes I packed from our Florida house, slowly but surely. I thought I had done a good job of paring down on the stuff I really had a LOT of, like linens and towels. We knew we had our furniture down to the basics but I forgot just how much I had until I spent time organizing everything. WOW !!!
I have now compiled a box of stuff I am sending up to my daughter-in-law when my son and grandkids come down next weekend. When our kids were growing up, I never had enough towels (especially not when all four kids were teenagers). My boys were both as bad as the girls were, too, don’t believe any different. They just couldn’t seem to get the idea that a towel could be used more than once since it dried off a CLEAN body. I DID send the kids off (once they left home) with their own personal comforters and things but I guess I never got over the idea of having plenty of towels and blankets around. I’m sending about five comforters home with my son and grandkids. I think there are about 10 towel sets also. It’s almost embarrassing. With just two of us in the house, what the heck was I thinking???? Even if we have company, we will still have plenty to go around. I’m even sending home four sheet sets (each with four matching pillow cases). I could send more but I have to wean myself away from having a big variety for every season (laughing like a loon).
My sister hurt herself the other day and was bleeding uncontrollably. She didn’t have any real first aid things around so ended up having to use good old faithful duct tape and folded up tissue. She’s been taking a lot of aspirin lately so she knew it was why she wasn’t clotting like she would normally and it made me go and check my own first aid supplies. PHEW!!! I have plenty, thank goodness because *I* have been taking a lot of aspirin lately, too. And I am a klutz that often doesn’t notice I’ve hurt myself if I happen to be busy when it happens. BTW…..I found out that the new Shout will even remove OLD blood if you work at it a little bit. I recovered two of my good (Egyptian cotton) sheet sets that my hubby had bled all over. He takes an aspirin every day as part of his post stroke medication and is very thin skinned. He bleeds at the thought, I swear.
Families can be strange when it comes to things like antiques and collectibles. My hubby’s family, well, two of the four kids, are in a battle right now and it all boils down to his sister being such a yuppy. She has NO children. She is now actually past the age when she could have them, I believe. They sold their nice ranch and bought a house that is INCREDIBLY huge!! I would have blanched at it when my kids were young. It’s like five bedrooms and three baths. I think it’s even three stories. The taxes on it alone are $10K a year.
Now she CLAIMED when she bought it, she did so because the first floor would be perfect for her mother to live on.
They usually are traveling or some such thing every time they turn around. The first floor has a master bedroom (so does the top floor), a kitchen, a living room and a *den* they planned on putting a tv in for her. That was almost two years ago. How they could afford the house was anyone’s guess since neither of them makes the kind of money that I think they would need to in order to pay $10K in taxes alone. But I digress…….Two years later, the mother is now living with the daughter (a story in itself). Now the sister/daughter suddenly believes that EVERYTHING that is at the brother’s house that she wants should be hers. Not out of any sentimental reason but so she can SELL THEM ON EBAY !!! Is that incredible or what???
There are things that the family inherited from the grandfather. A Victrola thingy with horn to amplify the sound (I kid you not) and some records that were from the early 1900′s. Several black powder guns. We have one that belonged to an officer/relative from the civil war but we were given it years ago. We display it proudly but we also happen to like black powder guns and rifles. We own a couple of them and used to shoot them at ranges near our homes. My mother-in-law also had a collection of dishes that you display. Unusual ones like from Russian fairy tales and such. She gave me a set a few years back and gave the ones currently at my brother-in-laws home to his wife a couple years ago. I know she did because she told me so herself.
These are all part of the things the sister wants to claim now to sell on Ebay. She couldn’t wait to get her hands on the mother’s checking account. The brother, with some foresight, had changed the locks on his doors before he left to come and visit us. Talk about pissed off!!!! The sister was beside herself because she could have gone in and taken all she wanted while they were gone. Instead, now they are in the midst of a battle. The hubby’s family is notorious for long-lasting feuds, too. This is not going to be fun for anyone.
Oh, my FIL was a very, very talented craftsman at anything he put his hand to and he actually built a grandfather clock. He gave it to my husband five years ago before he died but my hubby told him, I can wait for it. What he didn’t realize is that the sound makes my hubby nuts and he’s never been able to sleep through one chiming. He never had ANY intention of removing it from his brothers care and keeping. The sister, however, is insisting that it was HER clock. *sigh* I told hubby…..don’t get involved in this. Let the two of them battle it out. The brother wants to keep the stuff, not sell it. The sister just wants the money she thinks she can get from it all. It will become apparant to the people SHE is trying to impress just who is in the right here.
So, love your family while you may, forgive them their tresspasses when possible and have a great day!
