Saturday At Last

I am so glad it's Saturday! I was so tired last night.  I had spent three hours scanning bar codes on books and my thumbs were just numb.  I am single handedly doing the inventory.  I know the library staff is delighted they don't have to do it.

I went to bed at 9:00 after managing to stay up to watch "The Goodbye Girl".  I had seen it several times but it's one of those "chick flicks" I enjoy.  I like movies that are entertaining. If I want to be afraid, I'll walk the streets at night.  (in fact, I'm very hard to frighten). But I see no good coming from violent films. In fact, I blame the media and TV and movies for the amount and level of violence we see anymore. Kids are very impressionable and they see so much violence in games, TV and movies that I believe they become sensitized to it. Just my opinion.

Another of my opinions is that pharmaceuticals should not be advertised on TV.  For one thing, the best answer to health problems is not always to dose the patient with some new and terribly expensive medicine with dozens of side effects.  Some of us just need to eat more healthily and get more exercise. There are only two countries that allow TV advertizing of pharmaceuticals....the USA and New Zealand.  Then we wonder why medicines are so expensive. We are paying for the TV advertising.

As you can see, I am full of opinions!

We may be going to breakfast this morning even though we are also going to Owasso for Olive Garden lunch.

More later....

Sure enough! We did have breakfast this morning and when I got home I vacuumed the apartment and dusted. I also got my car washed. It's not perfect but then do do it the way I like, I have to wash it myself out of a bucket of suds and later rinse with a hose. It's too chilly to do that.

Also, I went ahead and got my car filled with gas. It's up to $1.74.9 now but that's still a vast improvement over last year.

More even later....

I tried my best to stay up until 9:00 but could only make it until 8:30.

Friday At Last

I am so happy it's Friday. This morning we will go to exercise class and later I will fix the leftover roast in brown gravy and we will have it on potatoes. I will fix a veggie and we will have Bob's salad. That will be lunch.

Then I will go to work. Katie is probably going to be back today and I will be scanning bar codes for the inventory again.  My thumbs are still sore from Wednesday. Most of the bar codes are inside the front cover so that means I have to pull the book out with my left hand and push the button on the scanner with my right thumb.  Both thumbs get sore after that repeated action.

Later this morning, I need to get that book I sold on Amazon packaged so I can get it in the mail. 

Tomorrow Bob and Marilyn and I will go to Owasso while the weather is supposed to be mild.  We both have gift cards from Diana and Tony from Christmas. They are for Olive Garden. We love Olive Garden.  So we will have a fine dinner and good company. Marilyn is a wonderful person. She lost Jack, her long time husband, last year and is alone just like Bob and me.  So we are all three alone and look for opportunities to do things together.  It's supposed to be in the middle 50s tomorrow. Hooray!

I dread my electric bill this month. Last month it was over $165. and it was not near as cold in December as it has been in January. Last year I had one bill that was well over $280. That was a shock.

Yesterday Scott sent me a new photo of himself in his new suit. I am using it on my phone as wallpaper. It is such a good photo. I will ask him to send it to me in e-mail and I will print it off for a photo on my wall.

More later...

This afternoon was exhausting. Both my hands..especially my thumbs.. are very sore. The left one from pulling books out of the bookcase and the right one from pressing the button that does the scan.  I was just exhausted when I got home but I drank a couple of cups of Chi Latte and ate some yogurt and a piece of Bob's pumpkin bread. Now I feel a little better. I am going to soak in the tub in awhile and then I may take an Aleve. My back also is very sore from getting up and down on the ladder. I hope I can stay up until 9:00.

Thursday Again

Well the weekend is in sight now. Today and then tomorrow and we will have Saturday again.

I slept well last night and got up shortly before 5:00. I put away the dishes from the dishwasher and cut up the stew meat into two packages. Meat is so expensive nowadays....even more expensive then usual.  I get my ground beef from John and Leslie but have to buy anything else. I do use a lot of ground beef. I tend to alternate between ground beef, chicken and tuna dishes. Sometimes I buy pork cutlets or a roast. This week I even bought stew meat...another expensive commodity. I trimmed it and divided it between two freezer bags. That will give me two smaller batches of stew and we won't have so much waste.

We should have chicken today for lunch since we had roast yesterday. I will fix a chicken casserole with canned boned chicken.  Then we will have a veggie and Bob will bring a salad. I have his loaf of fancy bread for dessert. I am out of cookies.

I worked on my classmate list again this morning. One of my classmates notified me of another death from our class. I changed his status and added him to the deceased list. That required me to re-number the living classmates and also the deceased ones on my lists.  That took some time.

I just went to the market and bought a few more groceries. Now I can sit down a minute before I take the towels out of the dryer.  I did a load of laundry this morning.  Just the towels didn't get dry. I miss my old front loader washer and dryer. It took no longer then 30 minutes to dry a load of laundry even if that included towels.  I had to leave it with the house when I sold it. It's just as well since there are cabinets above this washer/dryer and mine was a stack unit.

I have about an hour before I have to put that casserole together. 

Later....

The casserole could have gone better. It called for biscuits on the top but the oven was to be 350 to finish baking the casserole. I should have increased the temp to 375. Only the tops of the biscuits were done. So we took off the biscuits and threw them away. The rest of the casserole was cooked done just fine. 

When I went to work, Katie was sick with a migraine headache and the scanner and tablet were locked in the safe so I did some cleaning, some putting away DVDs , some culling out old telephone books and binding them up, I filed some cases in the back that the DVDs had been lost. I even helped Elaine with one of her projects.  Somehow, I filled the day. I was very tired when I got home...I know that.

I sold one of Leslie's medical coding books on Amazon. I wasn't sure I could find it but it was right on top of the first box I opened. I will go to the dollar store when it opens to find and buy a book pack and then get it in the mail.

I took my bath and Missy and I watched some TV until nearly 9:00 when I finally played out.  Somehow, working at 79 is a lot harder then working at 77, which was the last time I worked.

Wednesday and Bob's Bartlesville Doctor Appointment

Bob has an early doctor's appointment this morning and I am going with him. There will be three pages of update on his medical records and he needs someone to write for him. He struggles with his essential tremor.  So the appointment is early...8:40, I think, and we will leave here about 7:30.  Bartlesville is an hour's drive away.

I put a roast in the slow cooker this morning and it should be done by lunch time. I will add the potatoes and carrots when we get back from Bartlesville.  Bob still has fresh salad in the frig so all we'll need is a dessert of some kind. I may just make pudding since I still have cookies.

I slept well last night. I went to bed at 9:00 since I kept falling asleep in the recliner while I tried to watch TV.  I woke up twice but got right back to sleep. I got up shortly before 5:00 AM.

More later....

I scanned an entire aisle (both sides) of books today at the library. It was an exhausting experience.  I got home about 5:15 and Bob had brought me over some banana nut bread. I had some of it with my chi latte this evening. 

I took my bath about 7:00 and Missy and I tried to watch TV but I kept falling asleep.  I wanted to watch the story on PBS about how the wolf was domesticated into the dog. I saw about half of it before I fell asleep in the recliner with that fat warm cat in my lap.  At 9:00, I went on to bed.

Tuesday and A Hair Appointment

This morning will be busy too. My hair appointment in Independence is at 9:00. I will take the cakes by the church before the appointment so I will need to leave here at 8:15.  Bobby brought Karan's by last evening.

I slept really well last night. I went to bed at 8:00 just exhausted. My right leg cramped all afternoon and I limped around the library.  I think it's all right today.  If it isn't, I will take an Aleve. Katie will be back today so I will probably go back to scanning book's bar codes.

I have to go to the market this morning when I get back from Independence. I need onions and a few other things. I  also need some AA batteries.  I received my sweater defuzzer in the mail yesterday.  It takes two AA batteries.  I want to defuzz my sweaters.  Many of them have pilled with age.

Tomorrow is the day my social security comes in and I am so glad. I need to pay my car insurance before the 17th.  My next paycheck from SER will go for an extra car payment.

More later.....

We had our lunch of swiss steak, mashed potatoes,  green beans, and salad. It was good. Bob had come over and done some laundry and came back for lunch and to fold his clothes.

I went on to work after he left. Sure enough,  I spent a half hour putting away DVDs and then repaired and cleaned some DVDs for a talking book. Then Katie came in and set me up scanning bar codes again. It went faster this time and about 4:00 I finished one side of an entire aisle.  Then I went back to putting away DVDs. I was still exhausted when I got home. I had a couple of cups of Chi Latte before eating anything for supper.

I will watch TV this evening if I can find anything on TV to watch.

Monday and Everything's Better

It all worked out...I should have known it would. I called the office supply store after they opened.  Rick was supposed to have called me back when he came in so I took my own car and went on to exercise class.  He didn't call so I called the office again. I convinced the clerk to call him again and explain to him that I needed him to meet me at the church to figure out why the cartridge would not work. Finally he came. He took one look and told me the drum was missing. It had come out with the old cartridge and I had bagged it up with the old cartridge and it was supposed to be recycled. As soon as he realized what had happened, he went  back to his store and retrieved the drum and put it in the machine and then installed the cartridge.  I thought that was a really big cartridge but never dreamt it included our drum. All I knew was it was leaking black toner and so I had put it in a small white trash bag and took it to the store that way. Debbie, the clerk, said if she had opened that sack and seen that drum, she would have known what happened.  It's fixed now though. Rick said if we had lost that drum, it would have cost $200 to replace it. Whew!

We had our leftover sloppy joes for lunch with french fries and coke.  Bob came over this afternoon and brought his cake and also did his laundry.  Missy probably enjoyed that. She gets so lonely when I'm gone.

When I got up this morning, I baked my cake and when it cooled, I iced it. That was one less job to worry about.  Tonight, I ate the leftover potato soup from the other day's lunch for my supper. Tomorrow I plan to have swiss steak, fried potatoes, green beans and salad for lunch or if I run late, I will pick up a Big Cheese pizza.

When I went to work, Katie was off for the day. There were tons of DVDs to unpack and store in the machines and tons of cases to file. It took me all afternoon to get them all put away. I also cleaned and repaired a stack of damaged DVDs.  I didn't do any scanning at all. In fact, no one knew what Katie had done with the scanner and tablet and the records of where I had left off. So, I just did what I could.

Sunday Morning and a Challenge

The funeral yesterday was done in a way I do not appreciate. The minister spoke mostly about his own experience and not about the deceased much at all.  Furthermore, he read his sermon and didn't look up at the congregation. I much prefer a celebration of the life of the deceased. Oh well....if Joyce was happy with it, who am I to complain?

This morning when we go to church, I will have to figure out how to install that cartridge for the copier. I think I know where the instructions are and they may even be on the box.  I will figure it out though.  Phyllis will need to use it to print off the bulletins this morning.

I had the best night's sleep I'd had in weeks. I didn't wake up until quarter till 5:00. Missy must have slept well too. She was not feeling well yesterday. She threw up in three places on the floor....two of them on the carpet. I cleaned it up, of course, and used some carpet cleaner I keep on hand.  She seems fine this morning.  I am hoping it wasn't her new cat food. I can no longer find the senior Iams I have fed her for years. The vet had recommended it.  So this time I bought Science Diet. She seems to like it fine. I was afraid she wouldn't appreciate having her food changed but she seems to actually prefer it.

We will be eating out today after church...I don't know where....probably El Pueblo.  That seems to be a favorite.  Then I will come home and get the letters ready. We will be baking cakes this week for the first time in several weeks. I will take them up to Independence when I go up Tuesday to have my hair done.

More later....

It turned out to be a very frustrating Sunday morning. I tried to get the print cartridge installed in the copier/printer at church and it simply would not seat and I kept getting an error message or a paper jam. Leslie tried it too and so did Bill but none of us could get it to snap in there.  So we had no bulletins and we had to postpone the budget business meeting because we could not make copies of the material. 

So...I will have to contact the manager/owner of the office supply store and try to get him to go out to church and show me what the problem is. The copier kept showing an error message saying a little blue lock would snap it in and lock it into place but none of us could see a little blue lock.  We also couldn't see it in the bottom of the copier just in case it had broken off.  I have a limited amount of time to take care of this. I have exercise class (which I will not attend this morning because of this problem) and also have lunch to fix before I go to work at 1:00.  I also have a cake to make today for the Christian Church for their dinner tomorrow.  I woke up at 3:30 with all this on my mind.

One of the reasons I gave up being pastor was that I had too much in my life that affected my sleep. We have three pastors now and they all have demanding full time jobs.  None of them have the time to deal with this.

Bob came over last night and watched the football game with me and also 60 Minutes. 60 Minutes is not the program it used to be. When he left, I took my bath and put my PJs on and stayed up until 9:00 and then Missy and I went to bed.