Saturday, February 26, 2011

A Better Day

Today was a better day. About 10:30 this morning I left for Chanute to have lunch with Gay. I had to cancel on Thursday because of bad weather. Today was somewhat better. I met her at 11:30 at Opie's. That was a great restaurant. They had a lovely salad bar, pizza and boasted chicken. It was all very good and then they had some good soft serve for dessert.

We ate a little bit of everything. Then we walked around town and looked in the stores.

About 2:45, she needed to leave for her haircut appointment.

I came back home then and stopped at Wal Mart to buy cat food and some cleaning supplies. While there I called Gene. His wife, Carletta, is dying. She's only 65 and has an untreatable form of cancer of the bone. Hospice has been called in. I asked how the food was holding up. I was going to fix some stew to take out there but Gene said the neighbors were keeping them stocked and they had plenty.

Slinky was ready to come in when I got home. It's 40 degrees out but he wanted in the kitchen. I fed him and then left him out for awhile. About 6:00 I let him in and he went to bed after awhile. He goes to bed about 5:30.

I will watch TV tonight. I missed Harry's Law on Monday so I will watch it tonight. It's a pretty good show. After that, an old movie that I like is supposed to be on. It' "When Harry Met Sally". I've seen it a couple of times before but I like it so I'll watch it again.

Hopefully, I can stay awake for it. I woke up at 2:30 to let Missy out this morning and again at 4:30 to let Slinky out. Then I got up at 4:45 and made my bed and dressed. After Slinky took his nap, I went in and made up my face.

Frustrating Day

Yesterday was an extremely frustrating day. I spent the morning trying to reach Herald House, the publishing arm of our church. I called several times, only to be put on "hold" and after twenty minutes or so I would hang up and try again to get through. Finally, I left them a message to call me back so I could give them the church's credit card number. I had finally sent them my order with e-mail. I waited an hour but they never called back.

Finally, I logged on the church's web page and asked the administrator there what was going on with Herald House. She said headquarters and Herald House were closed because of inclimate weather. After spending the morning trying to get past the automated answering machine, I finally learned why they were not answering me. I had missed seeing Phyllis and Gerry and still had the church to clean.

After I got Leslie's e-mail telling me to just do it online, I did try to do that. While filling out their form online, I put the credit card number in and it let me check over my order for accuracy . I noticed I had misspelled the word "Crossroads" in the church's name and went back to correct my error. Then they wanted me to put the credit card number in again. I was afraid they would double my order and charge me again if I did that so I just closed the window, I will wait for them to contact me on Monday...hopefully not while I'm at work on Monday morning.

So it was 1:30 before I could go see Phyllis and Gerry. I finally got to leave for church at 2:00. I finished out there at 3:30 and then Bob came out there to see how bad the ceiling looked. Finally I came back home to let Slinky back in the kitchen. It was 30 degrees at 4:00 when I got home and he was very cold out there for three hours.

I fed him about 4:30 and he soon went to bed.

Then I came in to watch the news. That's when I noticed the captioning. So I called Cox and they tried to walk me through the process of finding the closed captioning area so I could turn it off. Then they discovered they had no closed captioning on their programming. I hadn't done it with the TV because I no longer had a remote for the TV. It was a fluke. When I got their remote, I had taken the batteries out of the one I had been using and put it away. The TV would not go to channel 4. The one they have their program set up for. It would skip channel 4. Cox said I would have to put the batteries back in my old remote for the remote to change to channel 4 before I could receive a signal again. Long ago Bob had thrown away the remote that came with the TV. He said it was too big and ungainly. So I would have to re-program the universal remote he had bought to take it's place.

I looked for batteries and found I only had one. I needed two. I took the batteries out of my camera and put them in the TV remote. The instructions are printed in 6 pt type so I had to find a magnifying glass to read them. Leslie called back about then to say Jeff was coming over to help me. Just before he got here, I had the remote re-programed and the TV turned to channel 4. Just as he walked in I was attempting to turn the converter box on. I couldn't get it to work so he took the remote and finally got it turned on.

The entire day was a frustrating mess! The TV mess just topped it off.

Maybe today will be a better day. I am going up to Chanute at noon to finally have lunch with Gay. Hopefully it will be warmer for Slinky to be outside. It's supposed to be but then it was supposed to have warmed up yesterday too but never got above 32.

What a day!

Friday, February 25, 2011

Friday Again

It's a Friday again and I have only a couple of things on the agenda. One: go to breakfast with my brother-in-law, Two: go see my sister and Gerry. I am saving newspapers for Gerry.

I will wait until 10:30 to go see Phyllis.

I have sent out the announcement for Coffeyville Ministerial Alliance. So far I only have six who are coming but it's early. Many of the ministers wait until after the weekend to send me their reservations. They really cannot know this far ahead of time if they will be free or not.

We are preparing for the Lenten Luncheons. These luncheons are sponsored by the alliance. We provide a master of ceremonies and a speaker and the various churches bring the lunch. They provide a variety of lunches. The luncheons are $3.00 each. The fellowship is very good there. Usually about 100 people come for them. They end the two weeks before Easter. They do not plan one the week before Easter because so many of the pastors are involved in special Easter services.

More later....

I was going to see Phyllis this morning but I spent the morning trying to reach my church's publishing house to order some materials. I simply could not get through. Finally, I logged on to their website and asked the administrator what was going on....4 inches of snow and they closed headquarters down..including the publishing house.

Then after I had a light lunch, I went to see Phyllis and Gerry. After that I went out to clean the church.

Stopped at Braums on the way home and bought yogurt...and a small chocolate chip milk shake. I am addicted to ice cream. I hate to admit it. :)

I'm up to twelve on the ministerial Alliance.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Lunch Today

Do you want to see something funny? Missy hates Slinky but not enough not to share his bed.

Today I will go to Chanute (about 50 miles) to have lunch with Gay and her mother. They have invited me up for that. I don't know when I will be able to take off and do this again unless Gay can wait to eat until 1:00 or so.

I will start my job training on Monday. I am dreading it. It's only half a day but I still dread it. The office room is very small and it's crammed full of the supervisor's desk and three or four file cabinets. I do not know where I would sit to work. If I am only a file clerk I will be on my feet all morning and with this left foot that gets sore with a bunion, I don't know if I can handle that or not. If it doesn't work out, I can ask Aime for another assignment, I guess.

I enjoyed my trip to Tulsa with Leslie yesterday afternoon. I think she's making a big mistake by going to this diet doctor though. He's actually a chiropractor and he has given her liquid vitamins and no diet pills but the worst thing is the diet itself. It's 500 calories a day. I have dieted before myself with the aid and supervision of a doctor and they say always eat at least 1,000 calories a day. And this doctor doesn't want her to eat breakfast either and that is unhealthy in itself. She paid almost $200 for the vitamins and a small recipe book. It's still going to take massive willpower to not eat more then 500 calories a day without an appetite suppressant. Oh well, it's her business. We went to a restaurant afterward and had a salad and iced tea.

Then we went to Garden Ridge and looked for table decorations for a banquet John's company is giving for farmers on Saturday. We bought some small buckets and she will fill them with candy and set them on checkered kitchen towels. That should be cute.

By the way, I didn't go to Chanute. It was raining too hard and I didn't want to deal with it. It hailed early morning and I did not want to get my car dented. That happened to my Toyota in 2003.

We'll try again later.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Tulsa Trip

I will be going to Tulsa with my daughter this afternoon. She has a doctor's appointment there. This morning I want to get my hair done and after that, go see my sister. I never made it over there yesterday. I made a trip to Bartlesville instead.

When I got home last evening from the commission meeting, it was chilly and rainy. After I went to bed, I got back up and brought Slinky in from the patio. He was chilled. He went right to bed in the utility area and slept through the night until almost 5:00 AM. I was awake then so I got up and came in to let him out to do his thing. Then he came back in and had oatmeal with me. He is lying here at my feet now licking his feet. I have been giving him Benadril to help with his allergies. That is one thing about Shar Peis, they have a lot of skin allergies and dig at their itchy skin. It has helped a lot to give him Benadril. It makes him sleepy but what else does he have to do but sleep anyhow...at his age. Maybe I can work in a walk if it clears up today. He absolutely loves his walk and we both need it.

Yesterday I downloaded Skype so I could visit with Scott and see him too. But he was in a really bad mood and I did not want to hear it the way he was expressing himself so I told him I wanted to go. Later in the afternoon, Ashley, his daughter paged me and we visited for almost an hour. It was really good to see her and visit with her again. She even showed me her apartment with the webcam.

I told Leslie about it and she may hook up a webcam and download Skype too.

More later...

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Cold Night

Last night was cold so I let Slinky in for the night. He woke up at 3:30 and needed to get out. When he came back in, he thought he should have his breakfast. I disagreed. I scolded him and went back to bed. He slept off and on until 4:45 and then started barking again. I ignored him as long as possible. I will be so glad when it gets warm nights again. I imagine I will be tired this evening. I did not get enough sleep last night.

I watched that MSNBC special on Bill Clinton last night. It was quite good and it was good to see that he was doing some really important work in his retirement years. He says he is happy doing this work. He still has the highest approval rates of any past president. In fact, when he left office, his approval rate was over 60%.

Today, I want to go see Phyllis. I will probably go about 10:30. She's usually brighter by that time of the morning if she's going to be bright at all.

Tonight I will give the invocation at the city commission meeting. That will be a zoo. One commissioner is determined to be a pain in the neck. He's against everything the others are for. I have written my prayer so I will not show my annoyance for him.

More later...

Monday, February 21, 2011

Quiet Monday

Today I will do some vacuuming. It is dreary and drizzly outside. I wanted to work in the yard today. I still have two flowerbeds in the back to clean up and one in the front. I also have those leaves I raked into piles to get bagged. But it is too wet today to do it. Maybe it will be better tomorrow. I see the leaves have blown onto the patio again. If it warms up some later I'll go sweep them up again and get them bagged. I raked a couple of days ago and my right arm is sore. I took some Aleve that evening but it's still sore.

I let Slinky in the house this morning and I made him some oatmeal. He loves oatmeal and it has been several days since he's had any. He has been staying outside the past few nights since it had warmed up. I have slept later too. I didn't wake up until after 6:00 this morning.

Slinky is sitting here next to me now. He enjoys being in the kitchen...at least until he gets bored with it.

I am thinking of going to Bartlesville later today. I may do that if it warms up. I could use a few new knit shirts or blouses for work. And the long sleeved ones would be on sale in February. I think I have plenty of slacks. That's what they wear there at Senior Services.

More later...

My daughter e-mailed me mid morning that one of our parishioners who has a fatal cancer of the bone marrow is now on oxygen. Her daughter, my doctor, says she only has a few days to live. The family is gathering so my daughter went in to Wal Mart on her lunch hour and bought the 52 piece of fried chicken to take out there to help feed them. I went to the market and bought some beans and made up some baked beans and I also made some coleslaw and took some tea out for them to drink. It is very sad. She is 65 and has always has been a barrel of energy.

When I got home, I just called everyone in our congregation to alert them then I read the rest of the afternoon.

Slinky is back in the house (the kitchen) because it is a little over 20 degrees out there on the patio.

My daughter got the job she interviewed for last Friday. That will give her quite a bit more money and she can buy a new car. Her car is 10 years old and has nearly 200,000 miles on it. I am very happy with her getting that new job.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Cloudy Sunday

This is a cloudy windy day. I don't like the wind. It gets my allergies going. We had church this morning and Sue delivered a fine sermon. Afterward we went to El Publieto to eat out together..at least seven of us did. It was good and we enjoyed the fellowship.

Then I came home and did my letters and made my coleslaw. I will have Living the Questions tonight at Basham's in Cherryvale after a light supper. I will drive over to Maritt's and we will car pool over there. It's about 20 miles. I really don't like to go there. It's too far for an evening meeting. It's in the country too. I imagine the roads will be muddy.

I got the job..actually, it's a training position. I will be expected to look for work constantly. If I get hired, then the training position will be terminated. I got an e-mail from Aime last night telling me. I hope it works out. It's not much of an office. The room is about 12 X 12 and most of the room is taken up by a large desk, belonging to my supervisor and three or four file cabinets. I imagine I will be expected to work on my feet for my four hours. Mainly I am to be a file clerk. I start the 28th.

More later...

I went with Judy and Howard to Cherryvale for Living the Questions last night. We had dinner before viewing the video. Then we had discussion. It was o.k. I just prefer not to go to Cherryvale. I got home at 9:30, watched the last half of a TV show and went to bed at 10:00. I slept really well.