Ducks and geese like Impatiens to eat....

So far, I've enjoyed seeing the ducks and geese wandering around the yard, eating grass, clover, bugs, and other things that they find. But, today, I put some Impatiens into pots on our front porch, and found out that those busy little critters like to eat them! They also started to nibble on our hostas, so I got David to lure them to the back yard with a cupful of their corn feed. Guess I'll have to keep a closer eye on them now... or put my new plants on the deck where they can't get to them!

It's been a cloudy and rather humid couple of days since we had the big rain storm earlier. One good thing about the humidity...my hair has some body, but also has a 'mind of its own.' Mixed blessing, I guess.

I ran some errands yesterday and did the grocery shopping. By the time I got home, my ankles were screaming again. I know all that walking in the stores is good for me, but it is sure no fun when my body complains afterward. Who knew (as a young person) that one would have so much discomfort just doing what always has been done? 

Sent off birthday cards to my sister, Jean, and to our Alitza who both have birthdays next week. Jean is 91 and Alitza is 37 (how can that be?) Time just keeps marching on...

So, now I need to get going on the little cabinet in my art room. I finally got all the pieces of 'molding' removed that were holding the glass windows in place so I can use some paint remover and get the last of the varnish and old gunk off of the frames. I will still need to sand everything, and then I can paint the cupboard and get it installed on the wall for storage. Plenty of things to do...just don't have a lot of motivation so far.

I've starting going through my collection of knitting magazines, and the library will get a nice selection of them, once I'm done. I have tons of them, and decided I needed to cull them to just keep the ones with patterns I might actually use to make something.

Well, friends, it's time for me to think about calling it a day, and try to get to bed soon. I had another restless night last night. Slept pretty good for about four hours, and then my bursitis in my right shoulder started giving me trouble again (still!) so I was up and down and slept fitfully the rest of the night. Maybe tonight will be better, but don't count on it. The humidity also bothers my joints, and my shoulder joints are no exception. Oh, joy...

So, night everyone! 

Another warm day....but I got a lot of plants watered...

The plants we've put out this year need a lot of watering, but it looks as if that may change in the next couple of days. The forecast is for some serious weather tomorrow, and rain the rest of the week. I guess I won't be lugging the hose around the yard, if that happens.

Got a return call from a high school classmate. Several of us are going to get together for lunch in Toledo on the 26th. Should be fun, since most of these gals were in my group of close friends, and we have some 'history!'

David is busy taking down the lean-to behind the old garage/barn. He has it nearly done now, and then he'll start working on the garage itself. When that's down, there will be a good opening in the yard, and more room for David to use as garden. 

Today, he picked some of our strawberries, and we had them for supper. He picked enough that he could freeze some in quart bags. They will taste pretty good when winter comes, but right now, there is simply nothing quite like fresh berries!

I'm reading a book loaned to me by Madelyn's husband, George. He has elevated cholesterol and was trying to find a diet that would allow him to avoid taking statins or other cholesterol-lowering drugs. The book I'm reading now is titled 'The Grain Brain,' and puts all of our modern grains in a bad light. Most of them are so refined that they convert almost immediately to sugar in your system. The book suggests that eliminating all sugars from our diets would help many people lose weight and become much less likely to suffer from diabetes, heart disease, and Alzheimer's disease. I am thinking of trying to follow the diet he recommends, at least for a few weeks, to see if it can help me lose some weight. I also hope to re-start my tai chi practice, which should help with balance, energy, and muscle tone, if not make me thinner!

The geese and ducks don't seem to mind going into their little covered pen for the night. Of course, David fills their feed trough and watering jug just before he heads them into the enclosure, and they are always anxious to eat. It is fun to see them moving around in the yard, as they eat grass, clover, weeds and bugs. Tonight they all came up on the front stoop, and David asked me if he should let them in the house. (Well, only if he plans to clean up after them...they are very messy...)

So, I guess I'll go sit in my recliner and put my feet up, and watch the news and weather, read a bit more, and head to bed.

Night, all....

Just enjoying Iowa's beautiful summer weather...

We had dinner in CF last night, and then sat on the patio at the Hilton Garden Inn motel where David's two sisters and one brother-in-law were staying before they headed home today. Hilton Garden Inn has a huge fire pit surrounded by comfortable outside furniture, and we had the place all to ourselves since it was Sunday night. Friday night when we came up to CF to eat dinner with the Rueber siblings at the Hilton, there was a wedding party going on, so the fire pit area was full and so was the other outdoor seating area. But, last night it was very quiet, and after the storm on Saturday night, the breeze was cool and the humidity was way down. We sat around the fire and talked for a couple of hours, then David and I left for home. Everyone went home today (Joel had left Sunday earlier). It was nice to have some time to visit with all of them, and we both wondered how often the Ruebers will get together, now that Ann is gone. Probably won't be so often...

Today was normal with laundry to do. David worked on getting parts of the old lean-to torn down, and I put up my feed sacks that I designed for Cargill on the walls of my art room downstairs. I also hung a few other things, such as my framed Phi Kappa Phi certificate, and my Aunt Rachel's watercolor of a sailboat. Things are shaping up in my art room. Maybe some day, when I get everything put in place, I will feel more like working down there! I still have work to do on the little cabinet we brought from Kanawha. I have to remove the wooden strips that hold the glass in place on the three little doors. Then, I'll be able to get all of that ugly aluminum paint off of the glass, and out of the crevices around the window areas. Once that is all cleaned off, I will stain the oak parts of the cabinet, and paint the pine parts. I will reassemble the windows, and try to figure out where I'm going to hang it. We have more 'stuff' than we have wall space or room for, and it's getting hard to see a visually pleasing spot for some of these last things. I may have to move my feed sacks to make room for the cabinet. It needs to be hung on the wall, and the walls are nearly full of my art work. But, the feed sacks are hanging on removable hangers, so there are no holes in the walls behind them, and that makes them quite adjustable.

I still want to find some kind of hanging devices for the little wall cabinet I bought at Leah's garage sale. It is just the right size for my natural essences and oils, and would look quite nice hanging in the right spot. So, adjustments will have to be made before I can feel completely settled, and ready to start doing work in that room. I have plenty of scrapbooks that still need doing, and want to glean my knitting magazines out, keeping just the ones that have patterns I might actually make. The others will be donated to the Traer Public Library. So....I'm just getting started down there...

Tomorrow I go to the PA at the Grundy Center Unity Point Clinic. I am supposed to see someone there every six months because I am on blood pressure medications, and they want to make sure of my health condition before they agree to renew my prescription. I suppose that is fair, but it sure seems like I have begun to spend way too much time at doctor's offices. I have the appointment tomorrow, then next week I see an eye doctor, and take the dog for his second canine flu shot. The following week I see the dermatologist to plan the treatment of my skin 'issue.' 

Then, on the 26th, I meet some of my high school girl friends for lunch at the casino in Tama. Saturday I travel to Jordan, MN for the wedding of my great-nephew. David will stay home and mind the dog and the ducks/geese. I'll stay overnight and enjoy visiting with my Herman relatives.

On June 29th or 30th, after I'm back home and have my suitcase packed, I'll go up to Dave and Carol's and house-sit (and cat-sit) while they spend that week in Minnesota fishing. David will again stay at home with the dog and the ducks/geese! 

I just get back from Dave and Carol's on July 5th, and the following Friday, I go to Toledo for the all-school reunion. I will stay there two nights, and be back home on that Sunday. I'll be home overnight, and Monday will go down to Cedar Rapids and meet with my niece and grand-niece to visit my sister, Jean, and to have lunch with Janey and Brianna before they leave to go back to Maryland and New York. (Again, David will stay home and mind the dog and the ducks/geese! Having pets and livestock can have a serious effect on one's ability to travel!)

So, that is how summer is looking. I don't know how many treatments I'll have to have on my skin, but they will be worked in around all the other 'stuff,' I'm sure. I do have another dermatology appointment in August, and a visit to my endocrinologist in September, and then, hopefully, I can take a break from doctors for a while.... at least until my appointment with the dentist in mid-November.

I should be almost like new again, once all of these medical people are done with me... one would hope, but somehow I know there will still be issues that need dealing with...for the rest of my life...oh goody!

Later, folks....

Scary word....cancer.

I haven't posted on this page for a few days. It has been a little to 'real' for me lately. I got a report about the biopsy of the little bump on the side of my nose, and it was not a happy result. Apparently all those summers in the sun at Potato Lake were not kind to my northern European skin. So, now I get to go to the more 'serious' skin doctor who will give me directions on the path we will take to get rid of these errant skin cells that are lurking on my face. I will undergo a procedure where miniscule layers of skin will be shaved off, and checked individually to see if there are any cancer cells still embedded in each layer. When there are no longer malignant cells present, the surgeon will stop 'shaving.' Hopefully, that will be before I need a skin graft to heal the spot. I am fortunate that this is basal cell carcinoma, and not the more deadly melanoma. 

So, after mulling over the potential for disfigurement, I have come to terms with what I must do, and will keep my appointment, and forge ahead with the treatments. I am so grateful that this is where it can be easily accessed, and that this form of malignancy is common and most often easy to stop. But, nonetheless, it gives one pause, and makes you have thoughts of your mortality, and of the long list of things I still want to accomplish. I think I was quite lucky to have made the original appointment to have these little blemishes checked. 

But, a bit of time, and some beautiful weather, plus the necessity of getting ready for a party, and the joy of spending time with family...makes all the black thoughts seem less threatening. Plus, after sharing my situation with a couple of family members, I found out that two of them have had similar issues, and they are still healthy and thinking of future trips, gatherings and enjoyable times. I tend to get easily depressed, and it sometimes takes me awhile to get a better perspective on the true situation. It's just some sun damage, and not an aggressive form, at that. So...on with the necessary steps, and doing what needs to be done. (You can be sure that I will be wearing sunblock in the future!)

I am just vain enough to be concerned that I will be slightly disfigured when I have a wedding and an all-school reunion to attend. But, I guess those who value me for reasons other than how 'lovely' I look will not mind if I sport a bandage on my face, and those who base their attachments on looks will just gossip a bit and go on with their less-than-happy lives. Or, perhaps I will be lucky and the wound will heal quickly enough to be easily concealed. (How terribly self-important I am...and it's not a very nice feeling. What must it be like to have a limb missing or have your face burned terribly? This is such a minor thing in comparison. Please, let me think in gratitude for all the goodness I do have in my life!)

So, after a stormy, restless night...thinking about the safety of our ducks and geese in their new pen, outside of the safety of the garage, I am determined to make every effort to maintain a positive attitude. Life is way too valuable to waste a single moment wallowing in self-pity over a small, 'fixable' thing....

On a much brighter note, we have our deck stained, and I have planters filled with beautiful flowers decorating it. So, the only big project outside we still are waiting to get done is the patio, which will be completed in July. Life is so good, so much of the time...

Later, folks...

New plants/flowers....it all looks so pretty!

When I was grocery shopping on Monday, I bought more flowers to put in pots and planters for the deck. Today I got them planted, and tomorrow will put them out on the newly painted deck. Getting ready for the weekend visit from some of David's siblings for dinner Saturday. 

I still have two terracotta planters that would look great planted with impatiens. Our front stoop is in the shade nearly all the time from a huge honey locust tree and an equally large pine tree in front of the house. Impatiens will look nice, and should enjoy the shade.

I also have a couple of holders for those fiber 'bowl' planters that are for hanging. Since our deck has a pergola, it would be nice to have some flowers hanging from that, but I'll have to find plants that can take strong winds. I probably can't have fushia or anything delicate. I'll see what is still available, and then I think I'm done for this year. I'll try to get a photo of the deck with all of its flowers once we have a still day and sunshine. Won't be long and you may find me in my reclining chair, with a cool lemonade or ice tea, and a sun hat on my head...just reading my latest book! There are a couple of electric outlets out there, so I can even take music with me.... And, the deck is partially shaded some of the day, so I don't have to worry about getting a sunburn.

Ah, summer!

New deck stain! It looks wonderful!

This morning, after a rather restless night (serious leg cramps), I got up and had breakfast around 8 a.m. Since the weather was predicted to be nice today, we decided it was time to stain the deck.

Huge project! I worked steadily from about 9 a.m. until 2 p.m., and then wore out. My ankles were screaming, and my back was sore from being bent over to stain the spindles all around the railings of the deck. So, I headed into the house, took off my stained clothes, took off my splattered glasses, and used David's 'goop' to get the stain off of my face, out of my hair, and off of my bra (yes, the stain soaked through my t-shirt and got my bra all 'charcoal' colored...mostly just in one spot, but ugly nonetheless! 

The stain came off, and I used mineral spirits to get specks off of my glasses, which seem none the worse for the wear...

I even put the goop on my bra, and it looks like most of the stain came out. That goop is good stuff! This is oil-based stain and was very drippy. I even was able to get the stuff off of my old loafers that I was wearing. The t-shirt and jeans are probably going to become the 'paint outfit,' but that's okay.... I needed one of those anyway!

So, I quit working, and my very industrious husband just kept on (and is still out there now, and it's 7:30 p.m. He even had to go up and get another gallon of stain at Menard's in the midst of all of this...) 

I did fix him a sandwich and a glass of milk for lunch when I stopped working, but he hasn't come in yet for dinner. We like the charcoal color, and will enjoy the new 'look,' but what a job! Hope we don't have to do this again for several years. By then, maybe David will have caught up to me with aches and pains and will agree to hire someone to do it!

Once the deck gets dry, and I get my flowers out there, I'll take a photo and put it into this blog... I know I'm going to love it. But, tonight, I am feeling every fiber in my body, and they are all telling me that I'm really too old to be working that hard. 

That's probably one reason I like using my computer...nothing hurts afterward, unless it is my eyes when I stay up too late playing my games!

So, come on rain, we are ready for ya! 

Another day is done, and we did get a huge job completed...hooray!

So....I'll be getting a new printer.....

It's been a rather stressful week, computer-wise. First, my printer would not print in black. I did not realize at that time that this condition is rather common. It is a Hewlett Packard printer, and I was not only having trouble with printing, but other things were going wrong, too. So, I contacted the Hewlett Packard tech support. While 'Tina' in India was diagnosing my problem, she found what she described as a vulnerability on my computer. She suggested that some kind of file had been downloaded, and malware had 'hitch-hiked' into my hard drive and was causing all kinds of problems. She remotely worked with my computer, and asked me if I cared if she called in a third party to help me get it cleaned up. Since I had contacted HP, and this gal worked for them, I was not worried especially about them working on it, but when she quoted me the price of nearly $400.00 to get things fixed, and to provide me with 1 year of protection against future attacks, I balked! I emailed my computer-savy daughter and son, and asked them what they thought. Both of them felt that the quoted price was too high. 

So, David stopped at the computer store in our nearest city and asked them if their techs could fix it. They offered a plan that fixed the computer and gave it protection for 2 years for about half the price quoted by HP. Well, that would have been okay, but my printer was the reason I first contacted HP in the first place, and the computer geeks at the computer store might not be able to solve that problem anyway.

We had a good friend here on Saturday, and he spent part of the afternoon doing what he could do to get it working properly, and he installed some adware and malware protection. But, my printer still would not print correctly. So, Sunday I contacted Hewlett Packard once again. I had tried to clean off the print heads with alcohol as was suggested, and it did clean off a lot of black ink. I also watched several online videos that offered ways to clean the print heads, and even on some machines told how to remove the print cartridge carriage so you could rinse out the screens the ink goes through, which can get plugged. But, nothing I did worked, and my printer did not have a removable cartridge carriage. 

Back to HP's tech support I went. I contacted them by email, and got someone to call me. They did a similar search of my computer remotely, and told me there was still a threat from malware on it. Then, that gal gave me a quote of $99.00 to install a program so their tech team could clean up the computer. She also quoted me a price of $149.00 for them to do the complete cleaning and give me a 1 year protection coverage. She assured me that they would remove the bad files that remained and would make my computer safe from any future attacks, plus I would have 1 year of tech support. So, I decided I needed to do that, and bought their plan. It took them a long time to get my computer cleaned because the Internet connection kept getting interrupted. But, finally they did get it all done, and everything was cleaned of the 32,000 files and problems they found (yes, I saw the list!) 

The computer was running well, but I still could not print in black! So, this morning I contacted Hewlett Packard again, and had them check my printer remotely. Their diagnosis was that the printer needed to be replaced since it is out of warranty. They offered a 'reconditioned' printer similar to my machine, and quoted a price of $65.00 plus tax. They also offered a 2-year extended warranty for another $19.00 plus tax, which would give me 3 years of guaranteed support. I decided that with all the printing I do in making photos from scrapbooks, I really need a good, reliable printer. So, I made the deal. The new printer will arrive in a few days, they will send a mailing label so I can send them my old printer, and I will be back in business. 

So, I've ended up spending just about as much as HP first suggested, and I guess I'm not too upset. David and I agreed that I need my computer and my printer, and would not be happy without them. I got emails with all the important information about the plan I bought, and my printer will be coming shortly. 

Since neither David nor I are very good at solving our own computer problems, and my kids who might be able to help are either too far away, or too busy to spend hours and hours messing around with my computer issues, we decided this is the best solution. 

I did some grocery shopping today, and I had a coupon for $50 from an office chair I had bought in Waterloo which broke so that I could not use it any longer (that chair has since been replaced). I used the coupon to get myself an ergonomic keyboard because the flat, cheap one that came with my computer had lost the print off of the keys so it was hard to tell which key represented which letter (unless you took time to think of the qwerty arrangement...) and the keys had always been very hard to push down, so that they often actually got 'stuck' and then the wrong key often was struck...  I spent 30 years typing at a newspaper office, so that kind of poor response to my fingers absolutely drove me nuts.

Now, I have a very nice, comfortable and responsive keyboard in front of me, and I'm becoming accustomed to the different way my hands sit while typing on it. The keys do not stick, and I think I'm really going to like this keyboard. Plus, it was less than $40.00, so I still have a $10 coupon to use at the store!

I am ready to move on with my life...and hope that once my printer arrives I can get back to regular work on the computer, and other activities in my life! 

A little less cash in the bank, but a much more reliable office set-up. And...a much more relaxed and happy lady at our house!

Tomorrow we may be out in the nice weather, brushing a new coat of stain on our deck. I will be very glad to have that job done. I have several planters that will fasten onto the deck railing that are filled with pretty flowers, and I bought some more flowers today (HyVee had a special that if you spent $25 on flowers, they gave you a six pack of A & W rootbeer...so we've got that in the little beverage fridge downstairs...and will enjoy having them this weekend when David's siblings are here for dinner.) 

So, folks, stay calm, and carry on!