Help, I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up

Unfortunately, that is a true statement. I fell last night when I was getting ready for bed, about 1:00 a.m. It was colossal. I am in dire pain today, my left leg got the worst of it. I'm limping when I walk but now the right leg is starting to hurt from the pressure on it. It's best if I just stay sitting. However, there is a little white pill I have to take in the mornings that keeps me visiting the loo. Oy vey. I'm a mess. Not a hot mess, cuz I'm always cold!

Since this blog is to talk about "old age" I have some pearls of wisdom for you so you will know things before you start to age. No one told me all this "stuff" would happen because my parents died young.

💗 This one is mostly for women. Don't go to the loo with your cell phone in your pocket. 

💗 Don't use an outhouse with your cell phone in your pocket. Ugh. 

💗 Buy toilet seat covers for those times when the public rest room has none. I order them by the 100, 10 to a package, from Amazon. You can put a packet of 10 in your purse for such occasions. They are not too expensive, and they are actually a better quality than those offered in public restrooms. 

Moving along, I discovered a website called Letters Against Isolation. It was founded by two teenage girls during the pandemic. They were sending their grandmother letters to cheer her up. That segued into an organization to send letters to care homes that sign up. An individual or a group can join. The care homes, rest homes, Meals on Wheels, etc., sign up and individuals or groups write letters to the residents or patients. You don't send to a specific person due to privacy laws, you mail said letter to the facility and they hand them out to the patients. This is right up my alley and I've sent four so far. There are things not to write about: politics and religion are two of them. You can write a bunch of letters to one facility or choose others to send one at a time to various facilities.. I have decided to send a letter to every state. You can sign up to send oversea also. If you are interested, let me know by making a comment. I moderate the comments and only publish afterwards or not at all if you prefer. (The letters are to be handwritten and at least 5 lines long. You can send word games or other things, too.)

Have a great weekend. 

 

Darn It!

I just saw two sets of dentures on Temu for $8.64! Why didn't I think to look for my new teeth there? If you take the decimal point off their price and add a zero after the four, it still would be less than what I paid for my teeth! 

Just an add on - go below for the latest post.

Sticky Business

As you know, I do a lot of crafts. I have always used Elmers glue sticks but now and then I try a different brand. Dollar Tree: no. Walmart: no. I always go back to Elmers glue sticks.

Now about glue. I do not like Elmers bottle glue; it is too runny and takes longer to dry. Instead, I've always used Aleene's Tacky Glue, and I like it. However, there is a lot of waste with it because it dries up. I think I have 5 different bottles of it! I store them upside down, so I don't have to wait to get the glue to come out. I've used both the white and the clear and am pretty happy with it.

That is, until I needed to buy PVA, PH Neutral glue for an application of a certain kind of craft. It was not easy to find, and it costs more, $9.99 for 4 ounces on Amazon. I started making some Scrabble Tile words with magnets on the back and used the PVA glue. Wow! It goes on smoothly, and it dries quickly but holds great. I believe it is my new "go-to" glue. I recommend it. The label says it is archival adhesive, dries quickly and remains flexible. Ideal for bookbinding and paper projects. (No, I don't get paid for recommending it.)

I guess while I'm pitching products, I will tell you about the best hand lotion. I have really dry skin, and psoriatic arthritis. I have so many bottles of lotion it's ridiculous. I do not like Bath and Body Works foamy soap, it leaves my hands so dry it's bothersome. I bought some (body) lotion that I'll keep on buying. I have a tube of it in practically every room in the house and in my purse. It does not have a fragrance, if you prefer that.  I get it on Amazon, too. I don't do the shopping for us, Hubby does. I order online; you may find this in the stores, I don't know. 

Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Body Lotion, Gentle Lotion Nourishes Dry Skin With Moisture, Soothing Prebiotic Oat, Fragrance-Free, Non-Comedogenic, Travel-Size, Pack of Three, 3 x 2.5 fl. Oz

That's it for today. Have a good week.

Beachin'

We are in Lincoln City, Oregon, "at the beach." We came to celebrate our 56th wedding anniversary, which was Monday. We'll leave for home tomorrow. We've had a good time. I don't have to do anything but look at the ocean to have a good time. Hubby plays casino at Chinook Winds, where we are staying. I don't like to lose, and I never win so I've pretty much quit going to the casino. (Not because I'm a poor loser, I just never win. I will only spend $20 and that can be gone in about a minute!) 

Yesterday Ronnie and Pam came to see us. We had lunch at the restaurant by the hotels - great food! Good company! Lots of laughs! 

It rained a little bit but for the most part, the weather has been about 49-50 degrees. 

No complaints, glad to be here and yet, glad to be going home. I think I miss my craft room! I've been knitting and reading while here and watched some Hallmark movies. 

Hope all is well in your world. 

Snow White

We have snow. It snowed earlier in the week, then another day it got a bit warm and some of it melted. Then it snowed again yesterday. We have a few inches, but Sister Patti says they have a foot of snow at their house in Lostine, Oregon. No thank you! We are watching the weather reports to see if it is safe for us to travel. When I opened the blinds in my craft room yesterday morning, I saw tracks. I didn't know what kind of animal made them, so I asked Hubby. He gave me a lesson on tracks, cats, claws, etc. Those I saw are from domestic cats. The tracks are gone this morning since it snowed and covered them up. 

This is on the front of a journal Sister Edie
gave me for Christmas. She knows me well!

We don't have any pets, but there are neighborhood cats who wander thru our yard daily. One of them climbs up the fence behind a bird feeder and walks gingerly on the fence before jumping down to the yards behind ours. I name the cats, of course. Since I name cars, my mannequins, etc. Curly Tail has been here since we moved in about 5-1/2 years ago. Recently an all-black cat wanders thru. We are glad to have them to keep the mouse population at bay, but we don't like it when they sit under a bush and watch the other bird feeder. We will scare them away because we don't want them to eat our birds. Boots hasn't been around in a while. Butterscotch was a mess of scruffy looking fur when we moved in and wasn't here long. 

Squirrels are here several times a day. They run along the power lines and the top of our fence. They are entertaining. 

 

Lazy Post

Happy Valentines Day! Hope you did something fun and romantic. 

Here's the lazy part of the post. 
 

Reminiscing

If you haven't been reading Jerry's blog, it is full of wonderful photos and details of their travels. The link is over on the right side of this blog, called "Where Are We Now?"

We'll be going to the beach again soon, to celebrate our 56th wedding anniversary. I can hardly believe so many years have gone by. And we still like each other! (Love, too, of course!)

It was minus 11 degrees Fahrenheit last night here in Kennewick. I'm glad I was asleep in my nice warm bed with my electric blanket. My side of the electric blanket is always in use, even in summer. Vic doesn't even have his side plugged in. He keeps the temperature in the house an even 72 degrees but it's too cold for me. I wear sweaters and warm pjs and use throws when I watch TV. Right now, we are watching "Monarch of the Glen." I had never heard of it, and we happened upon it one night when we were traveling around in Prime Video Land. It's pretty good. It's actually pretty funny in parts, some of the things they say are hilarious. It is not like Downton Abbey, more like Sandford and Son in Scotland, i.e., the castle is falling apart, the furnishings are ragged. Some of the woodwork is still beautiful. It is seven seasons long, so I'll be watching it a while. 

When we watch TV together, we're both yelling stuff at the people, especially cop shows. Him having been a deputy in our early marriage, he is always telling the screen that they are being stupid. One thing that annoys us is when the police yell at the perp and he/she is a block away, so they have to chase. Silly old people are we! 

I've been doing the LetterMo Challenge, sending a piece of mail each day in February. So far I've received only one postcard! The people I send to are supposed to return a postcard or letter to me so maybe I'll get a pile of mail one of these days. 

Earlier today I was thinking of clotheslines and beating the dust out of rugs on them. Add that to the list of things today's kids will never know about, clotheslines. I always enjoyed hanging stuff outside and then taking it down. It always smelled so clean and fresh. When I was growing up it was DIAPERS on the clotheslines. Oh, add that to the list, too - real cloth diapers! We didn't use Pampers or Huggies with our kids until Zach came along. We did use cloth diapers on him for a while. He was 9 and a half years younger than Matt.  Things changed a lot in 10 years.

And in 56 years. 

Time for a Rant

Why does the news media refer to our President as "Mr. Trump" or "Trump" and not "President Trump?" Whether you like it or not, he is our President and should respectfully be addressed as such.

Why is Taylor Swift yakked about every single time I open the "news" reports? Why do they have to draw attention to the cost of her apparel? Who cares. I consider it conspicuous consumerism. Sorry. And no, I'm not jealous. Ridiculous. And the football player boyfriend is mentioned almost as often as she is. 

Let's see what else I can rant about.  Here's a big one: I can't afford Mounjaro or Trulicity, which my doctor has prescribed several times. It would cost me over $600 a month after my prescription insurance company pays their share. I checked into getting it for less with a grant or coupon but we make too much money? Huh? Both prescriptions were put back on the shelf. 

Something good and not rant-able: I had my nephrologist appointment today and don't have to go back for six months! The steps we are taking are working-blood pressure is under control. He reminded me not to use salt, not to take ibuprofen, etc. I already cut back on those before I started seeing him. One thing, though, is to cut back on dairy products.

We had snow the last two nights but it happened while we were sleeping. It was sunny today so a lot of it melted. Mother Nature, I don't like snow for safety reasons, but I do love watching it snow. You deprived me of that pleasure! 

Rant over. 

The Nose Knows

For some time now I have been checking out peoples' noses. Why? I have no idea. I look at them from the front, and from the side. I look at the size of their nostrils. I've seen some pretty big noses in my day. There are all kinds of noses: aquiline, hawk, straight, flat, button, snub, upturned, bumpy, fleshy, and more.

There are different names for a nose, too. Schnozzle, schnoz, honker, bugle, preager, snout, muzzle, proboscis, beak, snoot and others. (I cheated, preager means a nose-picker.) (How funny they have a name for nose pickers!) 

A fleshy nose is the most common and is referred to as the Einstein nose because of his fleshy nose. Twenty-five percent of the world's population have the fleshy honker.

My nose is not the same as when I was born. Well, of course not! I grew up. Anyway, after the year 2000 my nose is not the same because it had cancer on it and it was removed by the Mohs surgery. The cancer was removed and they used flesh from behind my ear to graft to my nose. Then in the year 2010, another skin cancer in the same place. Another graft. (And while we're at it, you'd be interested to know I had skin cancer in my left ear. It did not get a graft but healed on its own.) So my nose has a little dent, vertically. Sometimes it is pinker than my skin. 

A couple of old time Hollywood actors had quite large proboscises: Jimmy Durante and W. C. Fields. I read an article about modern-day actors and actresses with big snouts. Some did not look like the nose was large at all. 

I once worked with a man who had a VERY large nose and it was red. All the time. I would get a nose job. I didn't tell him that. I'm sometimes blunt to the point of rudeness but I'd never say that to a person. I must say that I don't intend to be rude, but sometimes don't you wish you could just eat your words? 

Another type of nose that I did not mention above is nubian. Isn't that a breed of goats? 

With this chart you will be able to look at peoples' noses and name them. Have fun. 

Jimmy Durante

 

Scam, Spam

I'm laughing. I got an e-mail in my spam folder telling me "they" (whoever they are) have received 48 complaints about my e-mail. I didn't open it, that is what I can see without opening it. And I get calls starting as early as 5 pm some days, "Potential Spam", but sometimes they are not marked. I just don't answer if I don't recognize the number. If I know who it is, their name will pop up.  

Oh, bother. With that and all the junk mail I get, "they" waste a lot of my time. 

Tulips and Tiles

Did you know that tulips continue to grow after they are cut and put in water? We should have taken them out of the water and cut the stems again but it was so fun to watch them creeping all over the place. They are very pretty and my favorite color. Thank you, Katie. 

Pretty tulips. Before.

After. 

They even grew out more. This was a couple of days ago. I'll cut them tomorrow. 

Another mention when you get old: your skin gets thinner and the slightest knick will cause a bit of blood. I always have tiny spots of red on my hands. I guess if you don't use your hands much you can prevent this! Haha. Another little thing of note: it is hard to open things. It doesn't matter what it is, what it's made of, I struggle to open things. I use scissors a lot but you can't use them on everything. I keep a pocketknife in my purse. And I have a handy husband, too! 

LetterMo Challenge: I've got letters and post cards ready to mail out, just one each day of February when there is mail. That means no Sundays and not on Presidents' Day. Getting a little jump on it will be good if I get sick and can't do much but sleep. It happens. 

I've been making Scrabble tile magnets. Words such as Hope, Love, Joy, Faith, and some of the kids' names. And a bad word...no, not that one. It starts with a B. And I made one that reads "Jesus." It's pretty fun making them. I'm thinking of other words to make more. Some letters are few, like H and J. Tons of Is and As. What am I going to do with the magnets? Maybe sell them at a bazaar in the fall. My sisters and I are making stuff and hope to all get a table at one or more bazaars. Edie had the idea. She's been making some awesome crafts. I don't know about Patti and Kritter. Actually, we four are pretty creative.

Ta ta for now.