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      Monday, April 09, 2018


otherstuff
10:56 AM - 04/09/2018

The topic: The past couple of weeks have been action packed

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It started with a notice from the cable company, which also provides the service for our FAX line. A landline.

"Oh, hey, guess what? We're going all digital and need to come to your house and screw life as you know it!"

Okay, that's a small exaggeration, but as someone who does not have ANY local friends (by choice), no visitors at all, well, having a stranger in the house doing something that I do not want done (taking away the landline, which works without electricity), it doesn't only upset my apple cart, it also pours gasoline and throws a match on it.

I loathe change that is not of my doing, no matter how small.

So, he'll have to be in the office. Our office. The office that hasn't had a decent cleaning since before the catcam was taken down. A long time. Long. Really long. I need to clean.

Well, the weekend before the appointment was cold so I rescheduled the appointment. Deep cleaning needs open doors and windows. It just does. Cold weather needs the remote control and a blanket. Totally different ends of the spectrum. That Thursday, I started the cleaning. A little at a time. Marking cats create a lot of messes, for sure.

Things were going smoothly until I tripped over a cat bed outside and went down on Saturday. It wasn't really bad, the hurt usually doesn't hit right away and I took advantage of it. I didn't do as good of a cleaning as I'd planned on, but the floors were cleaned and the worst places that had been marked (but not easily accessible for a wash rag and cleaner) were taken care of. Anyway, the guy gets here late the following Tuesday, but finally gets the new line working.

The next day, my leg started to hurt. Ah, yeah, so dependable, this pain.

Last Thursday, I did the bank reconciliation for February. I finished quickly, then decided to pop the Turbo Tax disk into the computer.

That done, I figured I'd go ahead and get the taxes started. Just to see what I'd need to do to get them as low as possible.

The taxes were done by late afternoon. Wow! I was on a roll!

Friday morning, I printed them out. The printer puked back gibberish. Oh, not the whole thirty-six pages. But over half was garbage. Great. Just great. Wonderful. I tried a different printer. Same problem. I rebooted. Same problem. Wasting lots of paper (luckily, I started with the cheap crap we use for ourselves, but the shredder was runnin' hot).

I finally figured maybe it was the PDF software I was using. I've only used it for printing out the craft stuff, never any forms. I downloaded Adobe (free!), print out a copy of the forms and yay! Not gibberish!

And wouldn't you know it? The toner was low and a strip on each sheet of paper printed way too light. So, I pulled the printer out from its nook, removed the toner cartridge, did the back and forth thing with it to redistribute the toner, started the print again.

Damn it. I need to replace the toner. Shaking the cartridge did not work.

Cartridge replaced (I've learned when I get down to my last of anything, order more right then), I print out the tax forms. All I need now is money. They will go out next Tuesday.

So, my digestive system has been a little iffy. We have a love/hate relationship with food. I love to eat and it hates to digest properly at times, loves to punish me for years of bad eating habits. And this weekend was just full of punishment. Ever since I had my gallbladder out, the stomach acid has been a problem. Last month I took omeprazole every morning for two weeks. Life was great! Then I stopped. Because long term use of PPIs can make you stupid. I do not want to be stupid.

But stopping it can also make the situation worse. And guess what happened!  Go ahead! Guess!

Yeah, buddy, it got worse. Majorly worse. And it wasn't just the reflux, there were other things going on. Lots of gas. Maybe because of the fiber supplement Brian had been after me to take? Who knows. Not me.

Anyway, I spent the weekend down. On the sofa with a blanket. For some reason, I peed a lot. Well, I wasn't eating much (afraid) and drinking lots of water, trying to help flush whatever was happening in my internals down the toilet.

Sadly, I missed a nice lunch with the fam yesterday. Brian went without me, that's okay, I was the one in pain, not him. I'm sure if I'd asked him to stay home, he would have.

Today, I'm starting to feel a lot better.

And the taxes are done!

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craftstuff
10:07 AM - 04/09/2018

The topic: Love the hot air balloons

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I made one last month. I mentioned I found a spot for it, but after finishing it and hanging it, I moved it to an ever better spot!

And I'm gonna make more hot air balloons! Different sizes! And hang them all from the same area!

Okay, here's a picture of the balloon I made last month (I have many more to add, but that's another time, another entry):

The wood frame here is a little over six inches wide. I think it would be fun to make balloons of different sizes and hanging at different lengths. I think six inches will be wide enough to let me do that without them knocking into one another and I think it would be a fun entry into the house.  Since this across from the front door.

The top panels on the balloon above are nine inch pieces. I've measure paper and the largest I can make with 12" x 12" cardstock would have fifteen inch panels. With that many pieces, I'd most likely print out my own paper. Which I did with the balloon above. For long time fans of the lisaviolet website, there's a section that has some graphics that I designed for use as webpage backgrounds and this is where I got the one I used above. When I showed this piece to Brian's brother and said "I designed and printed the paper" his response was "that's PAPER?"

Right now, I'm working on one with two inch panels. My sausage fingers are having a time of it, it was difficult enough to put these Irish working hands into the larger balloon base. I think it's going to be some sort of miracle if I can get this one put together smoothly. I cut out a lot of pieces, just in case.

I think the overall effect when I'm done will be pretty cool.

photos    craftstuff    balloon   


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otherstuff
09:07 AM - 04/09/2018

The topic: I’ve been nagging for a while

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Our pool pump is old and NOT energy efficient. I've been on him a while to do something about it. More so since I've had access to our utility company's website. I could see exactly when the pool pump came on and when it went off by the energy use chart.

Earlier this year we went to the "time of use" option for getting charged for what we use and he started running the pool during the night. Then, last month, the flow valve or something, the thing he uses to backwash the filters, broke. It leaked, a lot, when the pump was running. The pool has been off for a month.

Our latest bill is down over a hundred dollars.

Anyway, he bought a new piece so it no longer leaked. The pool got less green (a month of not running kind of does nothing for the algae growth), but it's still bad. So, last week, after all these years, we finally ordered a newer pump. One that isn't as powerful as the other one (which was overkill for the size of our pool) and better at using energy efficiently. Brian found another pool vacuum, and that was ordered. We ordered new filters for the filter. Locally, those were over twenty-five bucks each and there are eight of them. We got a full set online for $140.00.

The pump got here Friday. The vacuum should be here today. The filters were ordered later and should be shipping tomorrow from back east. With any luck, they'll be here by the end of the week.

Next weekend, Brian is going to do something he's been talking about doing for a while now. Redoing the pool pump area. Moving the pump, rebuilding the deck it's on, a lot of work. But it's nice that he's finally getting around to it.

We had a little shouting match a little bit ago, not that we yell much, but my tolerance level for raised voices is lower than it's ever been right now, I've not been feeling well for a week or so and I yelled at him to "QUIT YELLING AT ME!"  when he moved mail in his inbox and doesn't know where he moved it. We all get frustrated, but if you want my help, don't effing yell at me.

So, I guess he had a question and he just emailed it to me (I'm at my workstation in the family room, doing a little gluing). I had to laugh.

Anyway, it will be nice when this is all done.

the yard   


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lisaviolet is seventy something, married with no kids, takes care of lots of cats, likes taking photographs, loves Southern California weather and spends altogether too much time avoiding her responsibilities.

In her spare time, she makes pretty things to sell in her store.

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