Saturday, February 20, 2016

Saturday and Breakfast Out



Bob and I always go to breakfast at Sirloin Stockade every Saturday and we went this morning too. It is always good.

I slept pretty well last night. My nose stopped up again but that seems to be par for the course any more.

Yesterday I tried to blow the leaves in my east yard back to the alley and just could not get it done. I'll take a photo and show you why. They are 2 1/2 to 3 feet deep. Here I will post several to show you:


See what a mess that is? Betty, my landlady is going to send her nephew and his son over tomorrow to clean up this mess. We'll see what kind of job they do tomorrow.

In the meantime, my son posted this photo of his idea of a pool for the backyard at their new home that is being built now.

 

Isn't that unusual?

More later. I am getting ready to go to Bartlesville. Anything  to get out of town.

More later....

My son and daughter-in-law's house so far!




Neat, isn't it? This is the fireplace in the house.



I can hardly wait until it's finished! They are working on the soffits now and the shingles are stacked on the roof.



Bob and I went to Bartlesville this afternoon and walked the mall. He bought a sale shirt and I bought a sale top.  We ate at Garfield's and had a good lunch.  Then we cane back and I dropped him off at his building before coming on home. We came back by way of Highway 10 so we could see the remains of the fires that nearly got Wann, Oklahoma, yesterday.. It got very close. The firemen managed to keep it from taking the small town. Someone set that fire. I don't know why anyone in their right mind would set a fire that could have burned down a town. There are some sick people out there.

More even later...

He came back over at 5:00 and we watched the news and finally saw the last 30 minutes of  "A Time to Kill".  I had seen the movie on Friday evening but we watched the last 30 minutes anyhow. He left after that and I took my bath and watched TV with Missy in the recliner until we went to bed. 

Friday, February 19, 2016

Friday and Exercises

I didn't sleep all that well last night. When I woke up in the night, I found that my sinus had drained all night and my nostrils were stopped up. I got up and blew and blew and had a bloody nose.  I have been having that problem lately, Taking a Benedril tablet usually helps but it sure didn't last night.

Anyhow, this morning I will go to exercises again. They are boring but I need the flexibility. Today is also cinnamon roll day at Utopia. The class will go for coffee and cinnamon rolls after exercises.

For lunch we will have the homemade veggie soup Karan gave me. I will get some more cheese to eat with it.  I bought some whole wheat crackers this week and I like those better then saltine crackers. We will have some of those cookies I baked yesterday for dessert.

I don't have a plan for the afternoon.

More later...

After lunch I was going to take the blower and blow all those leaves away from the east side of the apartment. I worked on it for nearly an hour and didn't make a dent in it.  I was exhausted when I texted Betty about it. She is sending Justin and his son over Sunday afternoon to clean up that mess. I am so glad. I can no longer do that.

More even later...

After Bob left at 7:00, I turned over the channel and watched "A Time To Kill". I had seen it several times but it is a very good movie and Missy and I watched it again.  Then we went to bed at 10:00.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Thursday and Relaxation

Today I will do little but bake cookies this afternoon. It has been a busy week. In fact, Bob suggested we go to Independence and have lunch at their Eggberts. That would give me a break from cooking. Then Friday, after exercises, we will have some of Karan's homemade veggie soup. She sent that home for us yesterday when I took her the rest of our Chicken Pie.

I slept fitfully last night but finally got back to sleep. I got up about 5:00 AM.

It's unbelievable that Trump is still leading the pack of the Republican party. He is such a mess. It definitely is not a typical political season.  He would be a terrible embarrassment to the country if he were elected president. We have to remember that it is very difficult to have an poll that is accurate. Too many of us have cell phones and many of those people with land lines do not actually vote. Many voters, in fact, do not make up their minds until just before the election itself.

More later...     

Bob came over  at 9:00 this morning to do a small load of laundry. Over at his apartment they only have one size load and that is large. He is gone now to talk to his apartment manager.  His frig is leaking.  He wants her to get maintenance to work on it.

He will be back a little later to pick me up to go to Independence for lunch.

This is the idea my son and his wife plan for their front porch. I think that brick adds charm.

This is how they want their driveway to look.





We ate lunch in Independence at Eggberts. It wasn't much better then Coffeyville's Eggberts. The chicken fried chicken was good but the mashed potatoes were cold.

Now I'm going to make the cookies.

More later...

Well, the cookies are finished and I've had a couple before I put them away. It's 3:00 now and in an hour or so we will have a newspaper here in the fourplex.  I read it and then I do the crossword puzzle.

More even later...

I read all the rest of the afternoon and swept leaves away from my doorway. I did that four times yesterday and the winds just kept blowing them in over and over. Finally I bagged them. That won't be  a permanent fix  but at least the leaves I sweep today will not be the same ones. 

Bob came over at 5:00 to read the paper and watch the news.

My Cox Cable went up $5.00 this month and is now $83.00 a month. That includes $29.95 for my internet.  It just continues to keep going up. I called yesterday to get it back to basic and found I would only save $10.00 and would lose a lot of channels. You just can't win with cable.

After Bob left I took my bath and watched TV then at 9:30, Missy and I went to bed.

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Wednesday and Exercises

I will go back to exercises again today. I really need the exercise.

After that I will come back home and start lunch/dinner. I will have chicken pie. We will have broccoli and coleslaw with that. I still have pudding and cookies for dessert. I took the remaining casserole over to Karan and Bobby.

This afternoon, after lunch, I will go out to Asbury Village and play bunco there. Seniors are invited. Then Wednesday evening at 5:30, I have PINCH meeting. I will go early at 5:00 and help Marilyn with the coffee, etc. She is hosting the meeting again at the Presbyterian Church. It will be a busy day.

More later...

It was a busy afternoon. I played Bunco until almost 4:00. On my way home Karan texted me to say their car was ready and asked if I could run them to town to pick it up.  I was really near their corner so I just turned in and texted them that I was in the drive.  They had asked Bobby's son-in-law to take their car to be washed when they visited over the Valentine holiday. In doing that, he accidentally backed into a pole and damaged the rear. She had a hard time getting it in to be repaired. Bobby, if you recall, is battling a fatal brain tumor. He is very confused anymore and getting harder for her to manage. I finally followed them to the body shop on Monday and low and behold, the car was ready yesterday. They picked it up and it looked very good!

After that, I met Marilyn at the Presbyterian Church to help her get ready for the PINCH (People for Institutional and Community Harmony) meeting.  As a part of the meeting, they elected me chairperson for the next year.  One of the things I want to accomplish this year is to talk to the police chief about the son of one of our members.  The police stopped him last fall for speeding and gave him a ticket. He WAS speeding. Then they decided to search his car for drugs. (They claimed they could smell drugs). They brought in a police dog and they searched and searched the car but could find nothing. In the process, the dog scratched up the paint on the car. His father talked to the police chief about it and the chief apologized for that. But now, the young man sees the police following his car around town and feels harassed.

I don't think that is appropriate behavior for the police...especially in this volatile time in our history.  They have no reason to suspect he is doing anything unlawful outside of speeding that time.
I will write to the chief as chairperson of PINCH when I gather all the facts in the case. (the young man's mother is to get an estimate to repair the paint and I am waiting for that). I will suggest we meet and discuss the situation.  PINCH has been an advocate for the community's minorities.

While I was gone, Bob came over to read the papers and wait for me to get home. Unfortunately it was 7:00 when I finally got home and Bob had just left. I stayed to help Marilyn clean up after the meeting.

I watched TV until 9:00 and then Missy and  I went to bed.  


Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Tuesday and Hair Appointment

I am so glad to have my hair appointment today in Independence. Between the wind and the heavy growth of my hair, it is a mess. I will let Bob off at his sister, Betty's, home for a visit and then go on to the hair appointment.

After that, and after I pick Bob up, I will stop at the Merle Norman studio and get some make up base. Then on to their Walmart to return a single serving Keurig cup. It didn't work in my 2.0 Keurig although it said it would.

I need to run out to John and Leslie's home to take my great-granddaughter's birthday gift out to her.  She turns 4 today and is in pre-school. Leslie can take it to her.

Then I will go to wash my car and vacuum it out. After that, we will go to Big Cheese for our lunch. We get their mini pizza and a root beer every other week.  On the alternate weeks, we go to Great China for Chinese.

Then I will come on back home and drop Bob off at his apartment.

I will need to finish my dusting this afternoon. I still have the dining room and bedroom to do.

More later....

I got nearly everything done I had hoped to do today. I got my hair taken care of, Bob had his visit with his 91 year old sister, I took Cheyenne's gift out to Leslie's and bought my makeup. We even ate at Big Cheese. I did not get my dusting done this afternoon and I did not get the one cup of coffee Keurig container  returned to Walmart. I forgot the receipt.  I will take it out there tomorrow.

I learned today that John Whitmer Historical association's Spring meeting is the Friday before our World Conference on June 3rd. I registered to attend and then e-mailed Leslie about it. Big Mistake! She has her Relay for Life that Friday evening and so she can't go to Conference until Saturday morning.   I e-mailed Cheryle to see if she can refund my registration and she can. She will do that tomorrow. I hate missing the meeting but it can't be helped. I should have checked with Leslie first. She is driving.

More later...

I had an e-mail from Cheryle again and she will refund my registration on Wednesday.

I was invited to Church Historian, Mark Scherer's book party on Wednesday evening. It was a personal invitation. He and I have been friends for years.  I asked if Leslie could come too and he extended the invitation to her too. This is a private party and I feel honored to be included. He will personally sign the third volume of his new church history which I will buy at Conference.

Bob came over around 5:00 this evening and stayed until almost 7:00. When he left I took my bath and watched a program on PBS about the Black Panthers. Our government really went over the line with them. This was during a very difficult time during the Vietnam war. The main culprits were Nixon and the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover. They were both a couple of crooks that undermined our Democracy.

I went to bed at 10:00.

Monday, February 15, 2016

Monday Exercise and House Cleaning

I slept really well last night with only one problem. My allergies are going wild and my nose stops up from sinus drainage. I blow and blow every time I wake up. It never clears for long though.

I've got my roast and an onion in the slow cooker. Later I will add potatoes and carrots. Bob is bringing coleslaw. We will have pudding and cookies for dessert. The table is already set.

I will try to go to exercise class again today. I want to clean the kitchen and bathroom floors before I leave and all I'll have to do is vacuum and dust. I checked my filter in the furnace last night and it needs to be changed again. I changed it only a couple of months ago but have noticed an inordinate amount of dust on the furniture. An electric furnace is usually a lot cleaner. Sure enough..the filter needs to be changed again. I will need to go to Ace Hardware when it's open and buy one or two. My filter is an odd size and it can't be found just anywhere. I try to keep one ahead.

More later....

I got the new filter in and that should help. I bought two since they are a hard size to find.

I also went to exercise class. Afterward I came home and put the potatoes and carrots in the slow cooker and continued to cook the roast.  It was very good  and I sent the remainder home with Bob for his supper.

Then I read all afternoon and finished my "Lincoln Street" book. It was pretty good.

I also got the living room dusted.  I cleaned up the pots and pans I had left in the sink and put them away.

More even later...

Bob came over to watch  the news and he went home after that...about 7:00. I took my bath and Missy and I sat in the recliner and watched TV until 9:00. I took a Benedril for my terrible allergies and draining sinus' and hope to sleep better. 

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Sunday and Church

Today I will be presiding at church. Karan is to bring the message. I hope she is able to get Bobby moving. It's been a struggle lately. I may end up giving her message.

We may go back to "Just Us" for lunch today. John and Leslie have taken the last puppy to Texas to meet Esther's daughter to deliver it to her. They don't like to go to "Just Us".  I haven't discussed this with Bob yet and he is driving. We will see.

Yesterday morning Supreme Court  Justice Antonin Scalia was found unresponsive in his room in Texas where he had gone to go hunting.  I have had problems with many of his decisions.  He was very conservative.


5 things you probably didn't know about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia



Scalia’s conservatism was more than simple political leaning. He championed a constitutional philosophy known as originalism. He believed and taught that the 226-year-old Constitution must be read exactly as written, that its words should be interpreted as an ordinary person would have understood them at the time of its ratification. He had no patience for its liberal reading as a living document that breathes and grows with changing times and values. And that’s what is at stake in the choice of the next justice: whether the court will retain its originalist majority for another generation or return to the living, breathing spirit that dominated for generations before Scalia joined in 1986.


The best-known case, of course, was the notorious Bush v. Gore, in which the five conservative justices took it upon themselves to choose the nation’s president by arbitrarily halting the recount of Florida votes that was required by Florida law. The decision was such a shameless overreach that the justices themselves took the unprecedented step of specifying in their own ruling that it should not be taken as constituting legal precedent, which is what Supreme Court rulings are supposed to do by definition. They weren’t exactly ruling on what the Constitution required. They were simply choosing the president they preferred.

That's just one of many reasons I disagreed with him and the rest of the ultra conservative  members of the court.  They had no business interfering with the vote counting process and choosing our president. Furthermore that kind of philosophy has been a hindrance to bringing the constitution into the 21st century. 


Another example is the 2nd amendment.  The amendment reads:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.


It's obvious that the amendment was appropriate for the time in which it was written but we no longer have a militia since we have a standing army and also a national guard. Therefore, the amendment should be read with the culture and time in which it is presently set in. 


More later...
 
We did go back to "Just Us" for lunch. There were ten of us. We had a great time and some good food.

Afterward, I came home and did my newsletters and then read the rest of the afternoon. I went to Country Mart and bought a few things and also to Braum's for ice. 

Bob came over later and stayed until almost 7:00 and then after my bath, Missy and I watched "The Seventies" on CNN.  We went to bed about 9:30.