A Cold Day

It's been cold today and Slinky has been in all day. I bake cookies for Leslie's cookie exchange tomorrow and then afterward I took Slinky for a walk. He needed a walk...cold or not...and Bob would not take him.

I just made peanut butter crisscrosses....nothing fancy for the cookie exchange tomorrow. I also have the light breakfast in the morning. I will bake a coffeecake, take chocolate milk and juice. It's only supposed to be a light breakfast.

We went over to the Country Time Music Theater after lunch and looked around. I want a booth in there but not a very big one because I don't want the expense of paying so much for a booth. The owner asked me if I would be interested in working there a few hours each week. I told her about twelve hours would be what I would be looking for. She took my name and telephone number. Maybe a part time job will come out of this. That would be nice.

Tired Friday

This has been a tiring day in many ways. I was up three times in the night letting Slinky out to go do his thing. Then after 3:30 I could not go back to sleep. Finally at 4:30, I just got up.

We went to Independence and bought our last three gifts. I had those gift wrapped. Then we went out to Four County to take our daughter to lunch. Cyndi came over today to bring us some spaghetti and some crab salad. That was sweet of her. She says she simply cannot cook for two. We had the spaghetti for dinner tonight. It was very good. I fixed some garlic bread to go with it and we finished up our coleslaw too. I ground up the rib meat from a couple of days ago and I will make sandwich spread out of it.

I am very tired tonight and I hope to be able to sleep tonight.

Gorgeous Thursday

The weather people tell us this will be the last of the lovely weather until well after Christmas. Today was lovely. Cyndi had to go to Wichita today to check with her orthopedic specialist about her foot. I went in to hear what the doctor had to say to Cyndi. She thought she would have to have surgery on it. It swells every night. and hurts her then too..

Instead, the doctor told her it was healed and all the infection was cleared up. Cyndi wanted to know why it still hurts at night and swells up. The doctor showed us both MRIs and showed us that the one from October still showed some infection and possibly just fluid. But the one from December 1st showed no sign of infection or fluid. She does have a small nick in her Achilles heel tendon which the doctor thinks will heal in time. There is no explanation for the swelling or the pain. The doctor told her to go back to wearing her support stockings and to start wearing shoes that are enclosed around the heel. Her New Balance shoes will be ideal. The heel needs support. They made her a small heel support to put in her shoes.

I think Cyndi was a little disappointed that she didn't have a problem and intends to stop taking her antibiotics now. The doctor said she could contact the doctor who prescribed them and make sure that was all right if she had any questions about it.

The doctor measured her ankle and foot circumference and said both feet were the same measurements.

I was glad I went in with her to hear what the doctor said. We got home about 5:30.

Beautiful Wednesday

It's a beautiful sunny day! that always makes me feel a lot better. I had my hair done and cut today too and it really needed it. I couldn't do a thing with it. It looks a lot better! I also paid my property taxes...or at least half of them. I didn't have enough money in my savings to pay them all. By the time I pay the house insurance next month the account will be empty. Being poor is no fun. But I couldn't afford to rent for what I pay in house payment and taxes and insurance.

I had breakfast with Juanita this morning. I took her some chocolate cake but she brought me our Christmas gifts. A dozen decorated Christmas cookies, some what appears to be banana nut bread. Also it appears to be a box of sugar free candy. It's wrapped but that's what it looks like.

All she wanted was some of my coffeecake...like I take to church when I have the breakfast...like I do this Sunday. So I will make her coffeecake next Tuesday and take it to her on Wednesday before Christmas.

We will go to the market this afternoon and get some contact cleaner, some toothpaste and some bread. I guess we will have some of the ham from Sunday for dinner this evening. I have some leftover friend potatoes and cranberry salad as well as some coleslaw we need to eat up.

I tried to watch "From Jesus to Christ" on PBS last night but just couldn't stay awake past 9:00 and it went until 10:00. The animals didn't get me up last night. Slinky woke me at 4:15 wanting to go do his thing outside but it was 18 degrees so he came in as soon as possible. Then we all went back to bed. I got up at 5:00. My appointment was at 7:15 in Independence.

Busy Tuesday

This may be a busy day. I will go to my sister's to stay as usual. Then I told my daughter that I would check on some cd rates at various banks for her. A member of our church left the church $5,000 in his will and that money came last week. We want to put it in a cd if we can find one that pays anything at all. I have my tiny nest egg in an IRA at 3.1%. I will check with my bank first since that's where we have the church's checking account. But then I will try several others too.

Last night, after our company left, I went over to Phyllis F.'s home and tried to install that AVG 9.0 from the cd they had sent her. Her drive would not recognize it so I contacted the company for a refund for her and started downloading Avast! for virus protection. She has a dial up so it took over four hours. Then she called me back because she wasn't sure that it completed the download and she wasn't sure how to install it. I went back over for another hour and a half and we got it done and registered. Then it ran over her drive and found 54 spyware, worms and trojan horses. It deleted all of them and we rebooted her computer. It seems to be running just fine now and she has protection. I have used Avast! for some time and it seems to be a good free program.

Update!

Late yesterday afternoon the doorbell rang and the florist delivered a huge poinsettia from Phyllis F. Wasn't that sweet of her? It had a note on it about how much she appreciated my help..

Laid Back Monday

After several days of being very busy, I have one day to be rather laid back. I will fix chili for some friends for lunch in a little while but I had dessert left from last night's Living the Questions group so I will not need to bake again.

Tony and Gay are old friends from my youth...at least Gay is. I have known her since we were 14 and 17. Over the years, we have found one another several times. She was my best friend (and still is) for years and years.

We used to be the same size and wore one another's clothing when we lived close by one another. She went to camp with me years ago and brought several children she was babysitting at the time too besides her own three. We had a great time.

So they will be here for chili at lunchtime.

Another friend just called and wants me to run over there and help her with her computer after they leave this afternoon. I hope I know enough to help her. She is trying to install an AVG paid virus protection from a CD and it is taking forever. She wants me to come check it out for her. I will go after 2:30. I think Gay and Tony need to be back to Chanute by 3:30 to be there when the children get out of school. They work as volunteers at an after school children's program there.

Very Busy Sunday

This will be an even busier Sunday then I thought. I don't have to fix the Holiday dinner at church but I am speaking. I had a queasy stomach all day yesterday from the beans we ate the night before. Sometimes beans just don't agree with me.

Then I volunteered to have the Living the Questions group so we could watch "Peter and Paul" on PBS tonight and have a surprise birthday card party for Judy. Richard and Mona live in the country and cannot get PBS. Mona was going to bake the cake but she was so stressed out that I volunteered to do that too. When I awoke this morning and logged online, she had taken me up on my offer and will not be coming with the child.

There's a possibility that Jack may come if the child will not be here. The last time we met at Bobby's and Karan's home, the child was sick with an earache but they brought him anyhow. He whined all evening. Jack has just been released from the hospital with pneumonia and has a serious lung disease and does not need to get sick...especially under those circumstances.

I didn't get much cleaning done yesterday either since we ended up going to Bartlesville so I could finish our Christmas shopping. Then last evening, I wrapped everything and worked on the Christmas cards. I got them pretty much finished.

So, now this afternoon, after we get back home from the dinner, I will need to run by the market to get the cake mix and get the cake in the oven. While that is baking I will do some cleaning in the bathrooms and pick up the house and run the duster. We don't need to vacuum. We did that a couple of days ago.

I hope it's nice enough that Slinky can be outside. I would rather he was not in the kitchen this evening.

So it should be a huge day.

Update:

So far so good. The dinner was very good although we lacked six having our dinner paid for. Some who said they would be there didn't make it after all. The congregation will pick up the bill for them.

The cake is now out of the oven and I am waiting for it to cool so I can ice it. It's three thirty and I am ahead of schedule. I have run the duster and still have to clean the bathrooms. The house is neat right now.