Saturday, January 19, 2013

Busy Saturday Again

At last this is the day of the Martin Luther King service and luncheon. I got up early this morning...not because I wanted to but because my cat climbed up on my pillow and touched my cheek. The first time she did that, I thought I was dreaming. But the second time, she woke me up. I didn't have a clue what she wanted at 3:00 in the morning but I got up to find out. After I took my meds, I followed her into the kitchen where she began to eat some of her cat food. I assumed she wanted out so I opened the door but she informed me in no uncertain terms that she did NOT want out. So I went back to bed. She then came back and climbed into bed again and went back to sleep on my feet.

But that was the end of my sleep. I lay there for an hour or so thinking about the coming day. Mostly I was thinking about the couple who were coming to look at my house again today. He has not seen it. She saw it yesterday and liked it. It occurred to me that all this non essential "stuff" I've been boxing up is going to have to be either thrown away, given away or sold. Even if I can sell this house and get into a duplex or even move in out at John and Leslie's until a duplex becomes available, there will not be any storage to put these boxes in. I had been just boxing up stuff I will need to get rid of. I need to start sorting through this stuff again and throw away old textbooks for old Temple School courses. No one else will want them and I will have no use for them. What a mess! I need to box up only what I can take to the duplex or to John and Leslie's. I will have to store my furniture if there is no place to move when the house sells. I will have thirty days to find something.

Another thing I thought of...I will have to sell my Dixon zero turning radius mower and the yard tools in the shed. I even have a sixteen foot extension ladder and several other ladders that I will have to sell. I can advertise them on Open Line 69 on KGGF and sell much of the bigger stuff. That's how I sold Bob's table saw. But I have a spin trimmer, rake, shovels, and all kinds of other tools to sell too. I will have no garage...just a carport.

I will probably need to get rid of my lovely Thomasville three piece wall unit. It's too large for an apartment or duplex. I told Billie Jo I would give her granddaughter, whose home burned to the ground at Christmastime, my second bedroom group. I hope to be able to use my living room furniture and bedroom furniture and even my dining room furniture. I even have a small ladies roll top desk I want to keep. All these pieces are small. I will keep my den furniture where I keep my computer armoir, the computers, a small bookcase and the daybed with the trundle beds if I can have a second bedroom. But if no duplex is available when the house finally sells, I will store all this furniture in storage units.

Anyhow, about 4:00 I finally got up. I knew I had a slow cooker full of chili to make, a cake to bake and the stew for Monday's dinner/lunch here at home since I had thawed the meat out. I got all that done. The cake is cooling here and I will ice it after I have breakfast with Bob. The chili is on "warm" and the stew is simmering in the electric skillet. Then I will need to change my clothes for the services.

I will pick Bob up and we will drop the DVD off at V & S Variety on the way to the church. We watched "Hope Springs" last evening. It was pretty good. I ordered "Phenomenon" this morning from Amazon. It's an old John Travolta movie. I am getting quite a collection of DVDs.

Friday, January 18, 2013

Hopeful Friday

I am hoping today will be a better day. My realtor is going to show my house today at 2:00. Bob and I will make ourselves scarce by going to Owasso to eat at Olive Garden. We had to postpone this trip last weekend because of the forecast for snow and ice.

Tomorrow I will read scripture at the Martin Luther King celebration. Then afterward we will serve chili and soup and cake to those who want to stay for lunch.

In about thirty minutes I will go to Independence for my hair appointment. After Bob gets finished with his exercise class at 10:00, he will come pick me up for our trip. In the meantime, I will make sure the house is neat.

More later....

I got my hair done and came home and did some more sprucing up around the house. Then Bob and I went to Owasso and had a fine lunch and browsed around the shopping center afterward.

Carla e-mailed me later this afternoon and said the woman liked the house and they would show her husband tomorrow sometime. I told Carla I would be gone between 10:15 and 2:00 tomorrow for the Martin Luther King service and luncheon or perhaps even later by the time we clean up the kitchen and all purpose room after the luncheon.

If they make an offer I will consider it but I am not going to GIVE away my house.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Thank God it's Thursday!

It's one of those days. When I picked up my car at the shop last night, the bill I thought was to be $100, turned out to be $400. My savings are fast disappearing. I hope this house sells soon. The realtor has not shown it since that first and only time on the 5th.

Oh well, I still have lots of blessings. One of them is my kids. Against my express wishes my eldest son and his wife continue to deposit some money in my checking account every time he gets paid. That has been a godsend. My daughter gives me an unlimited amount of meat for the dinner I cook every day. That's a huge grocery savings. My kids are great. Another blessing, much as I would like to give it up, is my job. It helps me to make my budget every month.

I got a $17 raise in my social security and the Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance went up over $20. So I actually lost money with that.

Today, I have to go uptown and pay my home insurance and car insurance. That's also a chunk of money.

Later this morning I will cook chicken tenders for dinner/lunch. We will have mashed potatoes and gravy and veggies and cottage cheese. I still have pudding and cookies for dessert. Then I will go to work.

Tonight we will watch another video. I will pick up Marley and Me again at the V & S Variety store. If the video I ordered from Amazon comes today, we will watch it tomorrow. There is simply nothing worth watching on cable TV except PBS. Everything else is nonsense...stupid unfunny comedy and reality shows. Who cares about those. I certainly don't. The networks have cancelled everything I was interested in like "Harry's Law". I am tired of reruns of Law and Order. The movie channels that come with my package run the same movies over and over again. So if I want to watch a movie, I just rent one for $1.39 at V & S Variety.

I know..I know..I am griping a lot today. It's just one of those days.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Wednesday Again

Today I take my car in to have the seat belts repaired. The red light has been on for over a month. Bob will come pick me up and take me home. I hope to get some housework and some more packing done while I am stuck at home. We will eat our leftovers for lunch today. Then Bob will take me to work at 1:00 and pick me up afterward.

This evening we will watch PBS and watch Nature and Nova. Then tomorrow I will go back to V & S Variety and rent another DVD if none of my DVDs arrive in the mail.

I have the old "Cat Ballew" DVD on the way. It may come sometime this week.

I watched the PBS "Frontline" program on "Inside the Obama Presidency" last night after Bob left. He was not that interested. We watched "Pioneers of Television 'Funny Ladies'". Then we watched American Experience's part two of the "Abolitionists:...1838-1854" program. Both were very good. There is only one more segment of "Abolitionists" and it will air next Tuesday.

Tomorrow I need to pay my car and home insurance. That will really deplete my checking account. I already transferred the money from my money market account earlier this week. That account is half of what it was when Bob died over two years ago. That's why I am trying to sell my house. I simply can no longer afford to keep it.

More later....

I got some more packing up done today. Little by little.. one a day.. will be a huge help if and when the time comes. I am labeling each box so I will know where it came from and where it will go. I imagine even after I move into a duplex, I will have to pay for a storage unit for all the boxes I won't be able to find room for.

I will need to start putting together lunch in a little while. Then Bob will take me to work.

After work, I picked up my car. What I thought was going to cost $100, instead cost $400. I was very shocked. I had to transfer some more money to my checking account. I hope this house sells quickly. Between it and my car repairs, I am fast running out of money.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

A Busy Tuesday

This will be a pretty busy day and it has to be carefully coordinated. In a little bit I will put together my ham and potato bake and put it in the oven under time bake. At 9:00 I will go to town and pick up Bob's bracelet. I have had a new clasp put on it so I can wear it. It's a gold chain bracelet and I found it in a box in the closet. I must have put it away after he died.

Then I will leave for Independence. I have already put the cakes in the trunk of my car. I will unload them at the First Christian Church in Independence. Then at 10:00 I will go to my hair appointment, and afterward go to the post office to mail back a duplicate DVD and then when I get home I will fix the rest of my dinner. Before I go to work, I will drop the "Marley and Me" DVD off at V & S Variety. We didn't watch it after all. I received the "Paint Your Wagon" DVD in the mail and we had waited weeks for it to arrive so we watched it instead. It only cost me $1.39 to rent it so no great loss. I ordered another old DVD, "Cat Ballew" that I really enjoyed.

Tonight we will watch two or three good programs.. "Pioneers of Television..Funny Ladies" and PBS's American Experience. This will be the second in the series of "Abolitionists...Part Two 1838-1854" It is excellent. There is also a program at 9:30 on Frontline. It is Frontline's "Inside Obama's Presidency". I will watch that even if Bob goes home earlier.

As I said, this will have to be a carefully coordinated busy day.

Monday, January 14, 2013

A Busy Week

This will be a very busy week. The first thing this morning I will return the video I rented on Saturday. Then I had better go to the market and get a few things. I will make meatloaf for lunch and we will have it with potatoes, veggies cottage cheese and tea. I have pudding left from yesterday and I still have cookies. That will be lunch/dinner.

Sometime today before work, I need to bake my two cakes for tomorrow and take mine and four others in the morning when I go up there to have my hair done.

I packed up several boxes of "stuff" yesterday morning and put the boxes in the garage. I hope to be ahead of the game in case my house sells this winter. I have several boxes of rummage and will need to have a rummage sale before I move anywhere. When I was going through some boxes I had boxed up right after Bob died, I found his gold bracelet. It has a broken clasp and I want to take it up to Eislie's Jewelry Store and have a new clasp put on it. Then I will wear it.

Tomorrow will be busy. I will need to come up with a fast noon meal because my hair appointment is at 10:00.

Wednesday I will need to pay the insurance on my house and car. But first I need to take the car in to Gary's to have the seat belt's fixed....again. The Honda company sent out a recall about four years ago and we took the car down to Bartlesville to have that same repair done. It was done twice before the light stayed off. Now it is having the same problem. This time I will have to pay for the repair. There is no recall this time. Maybe I can wait to pay the insurances on Thursday.

Saturday is our Martin Luther King service at Trinity Unity Methodist Church. I have to fix a crock pot of chili for that and bake a cake for the dessert. The service is at 10:30 in the morning. The morning afterward, I am off work again for the holiday celebrating his life.

Sunday I have the sermon at church. I have it all finished but will need to go over it again before Sunday. I got it finished a week ago.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

No Church Sunday

Many of our people come to church from 30 miles away and the weather is very icy, so they cancelled church this morning. I am puttering and have done some cleaning. I'm kind of lost when we don't have church. Usually we cancel when there is a foot of snow. This time it's ice and 18 degree weather.

I will fix lunch for Bob and me. I have a creamed chicken and pea dish I will serve on biscuits. I fixed some pudding and I baked cookies yesterday so we should have a light dessert.

I don't know what we will do today. We may just stay in. It's very cold and may be even icier as the day progresses. I have fixed a pot of coffee and am enjoying that while I check the blogs and blog myself. Bob gave me this mocha coffee for Christmas and I have really enjoyed it. We don't have a video for tonight. We started to watch "The Descendents" last night and realized we had already seen it. It must have been one of the ones his daughter loaned us.

Howard and Judy will probably have the Living the Questions group tonight since we didn't get the inch of snow that had been forecast. I don't know how many will come out in such cold and icy weather.

We'll see. More later. ....

I spent a part of the afternoon after Bob left doing the letters I send out to each member each Sunday afternoon. He came back over after 5:00 and we watched America's Funniest Videos. There was a football game on channel 6 and Sixty Minutes was not going to be shown until 7:00. By that time we had gone to Howard and Judy's for our group meeting.