Hail Storms Across Texas

Texas has been getting plummeted by weather lately. Between floods and hail, insurance companies are bogged down with claims. Up until last Saturday we had a run of good luck avoiding damage.

Early Saturday morning my husband bolted from our bed. I could hear thunder and hail pounding our home. Then crashing and cracking noises filled my ears. It was evident when lightening lit up the sky, our home was suffering.

In the daylight we found both skylights cracked. Three sides of our vinyl siding destroyed. And the roofs on all three structures on our property are done for. All three cars got pelted and we lost two windshields.

The insurance adjuster came out yesterday. Homeowners does not cover the damage to the vehicles. Guess what? We just canceled the full coverage auto a few months ago. Go figure. 

Well, the next few weeks there's going to be a lot of construction activity around here. But that's okay because our home deserves to continue to look good. I just hope the contractor we hire does a good job.

Half Price Books: My Experience Selling

Yesterday, I went to Half Price Books to sell some books, CDs and electronics. I had some good stuff Suze Orman, Suzanne Summers, among others for books (about 10 of them). Some new-age talk tapes and lower ranking motivational books that I threw in the batch. I put about 20 pop, rock, and rap CDs in the mix (Brittney Spears, Kesha, and Coolio et. al.). And, Some great Leap Pad and Leapsters games and consoles that I even still had the boxes and paperwork for.

Everything was in better than good condition, most of it was "like new".

$10.50

Yep, that's it, ten dollars and 50 cents. I had decided before I went in, I was taking whatever they offered. Otherwise, the stuff was going to the Salvation Army.

My assumption about that place is they give you about 10% of what they are going to sell the stuff for. Had I the time, or want to, I would have sold the stuff on Ebay or had a garage sale.

But, it is what it is.

If you just want to get rid of your old books, you're only going to get pennies on the dollar and Half Price Books. If you want more, you're going to have to put some effort in it and sell the stuff yourself.

Piles of Paper

Spring cleaning continues in my world. How does one accumulate so much stuff? I think secretly I'm a pack rat.

This week I've been tackling paperwork. Since hubby had to do the taxes, I figured I'd do my part too. It's long overdue. What do you keep? Well, who knows? For instance, bank statements. Please don't ask me why we still get these, I've wanted to go paperless for years. Some say keep bank statements for three years. Some say one year. I decided to be safe and do three.

Tax returns seven years. Jeez that's a lot of paper to keep around for that long. When you're young, childless, and single you're looking at a couple of pieces of paper. When you grow a family you've got to keep seven book thick bundles of paper in your file cabinet.

Medical statements. Do you have to keep these? I've been holding on to stuff from twelve years back! Enough is enough, I decided to let them go. From now on I'm only going to keep medical stuff for one year to make sure insurance and payments are processed.

Mortgage statements. We've got a lot of those. Every single one from the first payment we made on the house. Plus, we've got another batch starting from a land purchase. We're keeping all those. Why? Because we heard a Clark Howard radio show saying you should. You must keep every single statement and payment receipt (stapled together) just in case. His theory: on the day you pay off your house, what if they come back and say you missed a payment? You'll have proof.

Funny how when you hear stuff like that you remember it forever.

Anyway, I'm off to the store. My paper shredder blew up.

 

Wow! I haven't seen This place in a while!

I started spring cleaning. I'm doing the usual, you know, cleaning. I've made it my mission to change a few things in the house and my life. Today I've been focusing on my computer stuff.

...Wait...

Let me catch you up. Here's the short list:

• Husband is fine now and back to work.
• The little one is growing up and in middle school now.
• I took a long break from any writing so I could get the youngest into and through elementary school; and, the oldest on to graduate not only high school but college too.

There it is, the short list. Now, one might ask, why did those things keep me from writing, releasing whatever I'm thinking about on paper, um, blogging, or whatever? I just found myself always having something else to do.

Well, everyone has to have an excuse. Back then, I found myself using this blog as more of a technical journal. Something to link everything else to. Anyone can see what was going on. I was writing on AC, Shared Reviews, Squidoo...Trying ever so hard to learn all the ropes about SEO, html, and such, I lost myself.

Then the accident happened--the wake-up call. You just never know when those life-changing events will occur. A moment in time that you get a notion you have so much on your plate that things better change or you brain is going to explode.

Then there's my beautiful little girl. I wanted to enjoy watching her grow up. I wanted to be the mommy helping at the class parties, going on field trips, and volunteering in the library.

We did all the cool stuff: aquariums, costumes, dollar summer movies, museums, and zoos! You name it, we probably did it.

All that kid stuff was a fun ride!

So, I'm back to where I started, spring cleaning...Yesterday I sorted through clothes, today I sorted through my blogs, tomorrow is another day. I'll let you know how it goes with my spring cleaning...

The Saga Continues...

It's been awhile since I've been here. I thought I better post a little update on my situation. My husband is still suffering from complications of his injuries. Surprisingly, the broken clavicle is healing swimmingly. Though the plate the surgeon installed has lifted.

The plate lifting was my husband's fault. He felt he was up to replacing the hubs on our truck. While working on the second hub, he lifted the tire too quickly, twisted, and felt a pop. The surgeon took Xrays and discovered the plate screw on the outer part of the clavicle pulled out some.

Of course the doctor scolded him. I also had a few choice words for him. The end result is the plate is still in, though not seated. At some point in the future he may have to have it removed. This is not causing him any pain.

On the other hand, his foot is giving him a lot of trouble. The ankle was getting better and suddenly it started swelling again. It is almost unbearable for him to walk on. Since he works on his feet all day, every day, he is having a lot of issues. I took him back to the doctor and they say the bone is fused and looks good. This does not go along with what he's feeling.

We are frustrated. We are looking at another doctor to check his foot out. On my last post, I received a comment from a fellow blogger about how they had to get operated on twice for their broken foot. I hope this is not the case for my husband.

At this point, he is missing about a day of work a week. Thankfully his employer is sympathetic and he has some vacation. He is thinking about getting a desk job...

The teen is a licensed driver now. We bought her a car, a Honda Accord, and she seems to be doing quite well. However, I only let her drive to and from school and on school related activities. She also must call me upon arrival and departure.

I cannot believe I survived teaching the teen to drive. My heart is doing well and my blood pressure is pretty much back to normal.

I really miss keeping my blog and reading all my favorites' posts. I hope to get back to normal after we see the new doctor.

I hope everyone is doing well. Take care!

My Crazy Life

I'm living a crazy life right now. Not only have I been dealing with teaching the teen how to drive, I'm stuck with a husband in a wheelchair.

In the early part of August my husband had an accident. He broke his clavicle in three places, his ankle in three places, and his big toe. He's in a wheelchair because you can't use crutches with a broken clavicle.


He's had two surgeries since. The first put his shoulder back together. The scar is nasty and big.

The second surgery put his foot back together. He was in a cast for the first two weeks but they decided to put him in a boot for the remainder of his healing. He hates the boot and never wears it unless we have to leave the house. He says it irritates him.

The Xrays are my husbands. The clavicle is pretty obvious, but I still really don't see what's up with the foot. I suppose the doctor knows what he's doing.

Anyhow, he's slowly recovering.

Needless to say, he is home from work. He can't do what he does for a living from a wheelchair. Between having him home and dealing with every aspect of home life and keeping it all together I'm going crazy.

The wheelchair will hopefully be traded for crutches in two weeks. Since this occurred, we discovered our home is NOT handicap accessible or friendly in any way, shape, or form. If anything were to happen to us in our golden years we would have to make some major changes around here or move.

Driving with a Teen

Saturday, July 18, marked the official end of class instructed Driver's Education for our teen. She scored an 86 in class. (Is that good enough? I am beginning to think: NO!) Now we have to complete the required 50 hours of her driving with us before she can get her license.

So far we have ticked off about 10 hours. In those 10 hours I think my heart has stopped at least twice. The first incident occurred turning off a major thorough fare onto a rural road. I told her way before the turn what she had to do: Slow down enough to execute the turn but do not stop unless there is oncoming traffic.

There was no oncoming traffic but there were vehicles coming up behind us. She took the left turn at about 40 mph. The truck almost flipped. My heart stopped beating for an instant.

I explained to her what she did wrong. Do you know how annoying it is to hear "I know, MOM, you don't have to tell me!" I try to give her constructive criticism and I get that. All along, I am sitting in the passenger seat wondering if I wet my pants and checking to see if my heart started beating again. Well, at least she knows what she is doing, yeah right.

In the same driving session, we arrived at our destination. I told her to park. Her first attempt failed. She was over the line and crooked. I let her do it her way that time. I told her to back out and try my way.

I explained, for a straight in spot you should pull out a bit left or right then swing in between the lines using the center of the hood and the lines as your guide. Sure enough she did it my way and parked just fine. Then she proceeded to accelerate rather than brake and drove up over the curb and almost into a light post.

This was the last straw for me. I took over the wheel and vowed my husband would ride shotgun for the remainder of her hours with us.

Stay tuned for my next installment: Driving on the highway

Driver's Education

My teen has begun driver's education. Woe is me. We were going to do self-taught but decided to put her in the school classes at the last minute. We found out that insurance companies offer discounts to teen drivers that take the classes.

Having a kid in these classes ride in a car with you is trying on your patients. The other day she was telling me about her friend taking her driving test, which she failed the first go around. She said one thing she did not do is signal when she turned into a parking space.

My lovely teen pointed out to me I do not signal when I park. I said, "I do when there is a car behind me." Her response, "NO, you don't ever signal in a parking lot! You're supposed to." I told her again that I do, but she must not have seen me or noticed.

Now she watches every move I make when I am driving. Considering this, I am doing everything from signaling when there is not another car in sight, stopping completely at every stop sign, and putting my hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel.

For the last year or so, I have been enlightening her on specific traffic laws. For instance, there is a little known law that requires you to have your headlights on if your windshield wipers are on. I did not know about the law until I heard it on the radio. Apparently, the DJ was pulled over and got a ticket for it. So, I guess it's a good thing to know.

I hope I can survive driver's education. We are coming to the end of the second week with two more to go. She is getting her learner's permit next week. God, help me!

Dealing with High Blood Pressure: The Continuing Saga

A few posts back I mentioned I have high blood pressure. On Tuesday afternoon I went for a follow up and got my blood test results. The doctor was impressed with how healthy I am. He said, "I wish my blood looked like yours".

He thought my tests would come back indicating I have high cholesterol. Nope, don't have it. Both my good and bad cholesterols are perfect. I don't have diabetes or anything wrong with my kidneys, liver, and (get this) my thyroid is perfectly within normal range. So, there you have it, I'm as healthy as a horse.

This is mind boggling information. "How come my blood pressure is off the charts"? I asked him. He said he did not have a clue.

I'm beginning to think I might be a freak of nature.

I'm working on losing the weight he wants me to drop because that's all there is left to do. I'm not that over weight. Sure, I'm not within those chart guidelines. But, I'm not 20 years old and I've had two kids.

Then we started going through the changes he wanted to make in my medications. He's taking me off the Procardia and increasing the dosage on the Prinzide. While he was writing this up, I asked him if he could prescribe a new inhaler for my asthma. I had a horrible attack over the weekend and no inhaler (long story, I won't go into it here).

He asked me what I had been doing since my inhaler ran out. "Oh, I've been taking Primatene", I said. "I need something faster acting though. The pills are not cutting it".

He about fell out of his chair.

Primatene has Ephedrine in it. Ephedrine makes your blood pressure go up. Well, of course I knew this. However, I never considered it a contributing factor to my high blood pressure since I only take it when I need it.

He cursed Primatene and stated he cannot believe it is still being sold. He said it is the worst drug ever!

When I got home I threw the Primatene in the trash.

I'm to continue monitoring my blood pressure at home. He wants to see me again in a month. The way I see it, the Primatene is the culprit of my high blood pressure.

The moral of the high blood pressure story: Tell your doctor everything. You never know if one small thing you are doing is causing your body harm. Given my background, one would think I should know this. I guess not. Live and learn...

If There's a Matchstick, I'll Trip Over It

Yesterday I lost my footing and tripped. I felt my ankle go and I went down to the ground to pull off my shoe. The pain radiated up my leg to my hip. I began to cry. I rarely cry.

First, I was wearing shoes. I think this was a mistake on my part since I usually wear sandals. In fact, I always wear sandals. I just happened to put on my shoes so I could help my husband cut down a dead tree. I will never wear shoes again.

My husband proceeded to help me into the house. He was asking me what happened and I could not really say anything except there may have been a matchstick in the driveway that tripped me.

He wanted to take me to the emergency room. I hate going to the emergency room, especially on the weekend, I refused.

This morning my ankle is three times it's normal size and black. I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I crawled because I could not stand the pain when I walked. This morning I slid down the stairs on my rump because stairs and a hurt ankle don't mix. I wish I could crawl around downstairs but the wood floors hurt my knees.

I broke my ankle marching in the Battle of Flowers Parade when I was a teenager. I think tripped on one of those round yellow bump things in the road. All I can really remember was tripping. I marched the rest of the parade in pain. When I got home my father saw my ankle and rushed me to the emergency room.

My ankle looks pretty much the way it did back then. However, this time I hope it's only a sprain.

I'm waiting here for the clinic to open so I can get an X-ray done...


UPDATE: We went to the clinic. The doctor was more concerned about my blood pressure than my ankle! I do have high blood pressure. She said this was too high: 245/180. I explained to her I was, and have been, in an incredible amount of pain. She said she would give me a point or two for pain but not this much.

They gave me a dose of Clonidine to lower my BP. I was told at this point they would not release me until my BP went down.

Then she looked at my foot. She said, "Ouch, that looks painful!" Then she started pushing on it! I about jumped out of the chair.

She then told me it looks broken but they would take X-rays to be sure. I had to wait for X-ray because there were two ahead of me. It didn't matter much since I could not leave anyway.

I sat and waited, and waited, and waited. Finally the nurse came back to take my BP. 193/130. The doctor made me take another dose of Clonidine.

X-ray came to take pictures of my ankle. I was returned to my cubical to wait. My husband and little girl joined me there. Why should I have to sit there by myself? The little one was not too pleased to be there. In the waiting room there was toys to play with.

My husband was upset about my BP being so high. He wanted to know why I hadn't gone to see the family doctor to refill my BP meds. Well I have a reason, it may not be good for some but I have one, he retired.

The doctor came back with good news about my ankle, it's only a sprain. This was a relief. I could not imagine wearing a cast for weeks on end.

I still had to wait for the second dose of Clonidine to take effect and have my BP checked before I could leave. The nurse came back with a pair of crutches and a splint for my ankle. After he got me fitted and braced I was told I had to wait a bit longer, 20 minutes.

In a small cubical, with an impatient child, and a worried husband, 20 minutes is like an eternity...

The nurse came back and took my BP. 166/113. He left.

The doctor said since there was improvement, I could go. She prescribed Procardia, which I had been taking before my doctor retired. Really, I wanted a new doctor closer to home anyway. She referred me to another doctor up the road. She warned me I could have a stroke or heart attack with BP that high.

I realize my heath is important. I take pretty good care of myself. I take vitamins, exercise, and eat right (for the most part). I don't understand the high BP. I guess it's not for me to understand. I just have to take care of it.

Before I get chastized for not going to the doctor for the BP, I have been feeling pretty good. I monitor it at home and it's been high but not like what it was at the clinic.

Perhaps the sprained ankle was a warning sign. Thanks to it I'll be heading to another doctor for a follow-up...

Here's my poor ankle, this is after three days of ice and elevation. Granted it is a lot better than it was.

Here you can see the difference in size, still three days. I wish it would just go away.

Do it Right, Or Don't Do it at All

It's just about lunch time so I'm going to make this quick, or so I say.

Last weekend I helped my husband change the rear brake shoes and drums on the Ranger. It was not the cleanest job in the world. The guy at Auto Zone said, "You're going to need some brake cleaner to do the job." My husband looked a the cost of the stuff and bypassed it--he's cheap like me--he figured we could use the compressor to spray the brake dust off. Plus, we already spent a small fortune on the parts and the spring tools to do them right.

After we got into the job he realized we needed the $8 spray. We live about 40 miles from Auto Zone so we did without...

The job took just about all afternoon to accomplish. The mess on the garage floor was extensive. The spring puzzle those Rangers have connecting everything together gave me a headache and a broken nail. I think part of the headache might have come from inhaling brake dust too. However, in the end (and two aspirin later), the brakes work great.

I learned a lesson doing the brakes. You must have the proper tools to get the job done right.

Speaking of proper tools, I've been building a lot of lenses. I decided to build a lens about the tools, information, and references I use to build my lenses. I actually have a lot of other tools bookmarked here and there but this is what I have gathered so far:

• My Squidoo Cheat-Sheet

I'm learning so much building these lenses. All of the marketing and promotion stuff I talked about here months ago applies to the lenses too...I have to go back and change some things on the lenses after revisiting some of my old posts. I'll get it right in the end.

Stuck Nowhere

Yesterday my little one said, "Mommy, where's nowhere?" I was driving at the time and abruptly answered, "Nowhere is nowhere. It's no place anywhere." Of course she persisted, "But Mommy, nowhere is somewhere, so where is it"? This went on for the entire trip...

I was beginning to feel as if I were stuck in some Abbot and Costello flick.

Working on the Home-front, Updates, and Plans

What a time this has been. My husband is still laid up with his leg. I've been busy tending to home matters. With all that's going on, the teen is coping an attitude.

I woke up early this morning to update my eBay pages, myspace, and I wanted to make sure to post something here. I'm really having a tough time keeping up the momentum I had prior to the holidays.

Surely things will get back to normal around here soon. I have some plans I'd like to put into action. I want to get a move on them before the end of the month.

I've been working on a series of articles for my work at Associated Content. I almost have that wrapped up. Once all the articles are submitted and published, I want to build a Squidoo lens for promotion. So far the articles are getting pretty good views on their own, but I've learned that Google loves Squidoo and articles promoted on Squidoo rank higher. Ranking higher increases page views. Increased page views means better pay. Sounds kind like the snowball effect, but whatever works.

I'm finding inspiration sitting here writing this. I know now things are not as bad as I thought. I'm inspired by all I got done this morning. I will strive to do it again tomorrow.

When All Else Fails: Restore

I had some problems with logging in to Blogger. I went to the help center and tried every tip they had listed. Nothing worked!

After a great deal of frustration, coffee, and hair pulling, I finally decided to restore. That did the trick. Okay that must be obvious because I am posting.

Earlier in the week I had some issues with the next blog feature. I only started blogging recently and I had never noticed the button. I clicked and to my surprise porn stared me in the face.

Don't get me wrong. I am not a prude. I tried to get out, as I have two kids and I don't want them to see that kind of stuff; I could not next blog, flag, or return to my dashboard because their navbar was not there. The back button would not work and only refreshed the page. I finally clicked the home button to my home page.

I did a bit of looking around and found how to disable my navbar. I learned how, did it, and a fellow Associated Content writer told me doing that may be against the Blogger TOS. I put the bar back up because it is.

Now I know there are a lot of people who like porn. I don't care either way. I just don't want my children, my reader's children, or any reader's who might be offended to be subjected to it if they don't want to be.

Today I will be looking more into this navbar situation, TOS, and something about FTP servers and not having the navbar if you are on an FTP. I have found that I rather enjoy this blog and I want to continue to use it; however I can't share it if the risk of viewing porn rears it's head when you hit next blog.

On Cloud 9

The editor accepted and paid for my articles! I posted (and here) about my dismay and I thought I better update. I knew just a little re-framing would do the trick.

When ever you are faced with opposition you should counteract not react. I'm glad I have this blog for the reacting part. Murphy's law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Or something to that effect.

I should have re-framed the article I posted for PVs only a couple of weeks ago. Well, I've since learned that there are ways around the system. I don't want to beat the system. I just want to get my just dessert. I want to have my cake and eat it too!

I'm finding that writing is coming a bit easier for me. Not that I can crank out 30 articles a day like some; but I can write more concisely in a shorter time frame, opposed to the first articles I published.

Today's inspiration: give them what they want and you will be rewarded.