Frozen with Fear

 We did one chore today and quit! On the interstate it was raining hard. Then, there was only a wall of rain, blinding and terrifying. I quit breathing and said, "Oh, Tommy!" as we were faced with zero visibility. He said, "I am getting off!" As soon as we turned onto the ramp and off the interstate, not one drop fell on us. Since I had not managed to sleep one minute on Monday night, this was too much for me. 

We were picking up food for the family with five little girls, so this was an unnecessary trip for us. We had taken a chance and it was a fail. I called the guy to pick up the food, and he apologized for not being able to come. It seems he was on his way to ER and expected to be admitted.  He apologized profusely. 

I was so tired that I cancelled the rest of our day. Tommy was exhausted from working in heat and humidity. We did not get ads or bread, slaw mix, or pimientos. They can wait. I can wait. We did not get to the market for tomatoes. I will miss those and the market is not open until next Tuesday. 

I am completely free of needing the walker. Last week, I figured out why my R knee was hurting. When I sleep, I sleep on my L side, always. I have a little travel pillow I pull my R knee forward and rest on the pillow after I have mushed and folded the pillow. Well, I washed it and did not use it for three days, wanting to make sure it was completely dry.

When I went to bed that first night, I needed something to rest my knee. I grabbed a jacket made from sweat suit material and sort of rolled/folded it to support my knee and relieve my back. That is when my R knee started hurting the next morning, and putting my R foot on the floor caused pain in my R knee. It took a week of finally using the little pillow again to stop the pain. I won't make that mistake again. 

The thing is that there are two more of the travel pillows in the living room, one for each of us. Plus, there is one or two in the car. I think I slightly pivoted on my R knee one day. The doctor told me after the operation to never pivot on that foot in the least. I look pretty silly and incapacitated when I try to turn and not pivoting on that foot. But, I am back to my same condition as two weeks ago. I can walk without pain in knee and without walker! 

I did make several calls about the dogs next door. The best I got was someone would email the dog catcher. He will do something Wednesday morning. I called about my phone and was told I had never made the call I did two weeks ago. The guy did not call back like he said he would. So it goes. The cleaner did not return my call. We will give the food to someone else.

That was my Monday.

Have the heavy rains frightened you while driving? 

Is there one thing you can do to your body, something simple that will cause you pain and inability to function?

Storing Eggs

 When I cannot sleep, I watch videos. I have never seen eggs stored this way. Plus, the eggs I have heard of storing had lots of vinegar. The utensil used to seal the jars is new to me. You will see lots of chickens. This maybe be the video with rabbits and ducks, and one cat. Have you ever seen eggs stored like this? Have you ever seen the utensil that seals the jars? Click HERE This video is from Azerbaijan.

Wednesday, because of my right knee hurting me, I cannot walk without walker. Even then, touching my foot to floor is excruciating! Plus, the trip down and then up the ramp was worse than walking on a flat surface. Walking on a slope, like a slight hill has hurt me since knee surgery. I just hope I don't fall before it gets better since my knee won't hold me. 

Today, going to get ads and gas was our trip out of the house. I knew when Tommy was pumping gas, he was fiddling around longer. As it turns out, he could only pump $10 of gas. He pulled out the receipt. Somehow, someone used a prepaid card, and then never pumped gas. It turned out he paid only $38 for gas and got $10 'free.' 

The only thing preplanned for the 4th is potato salad for me and baked beans for Tommy. He cannot find the hamburgers at this point, so maybe just the chicken for the 4th.

Are you aware of this method of storing eggs? 

Exasperated

 

Okay, tonight, I cannot get rid of this picture above. But, you can see what ribbon candy mix looks like. the stripes are ribbon candy.

After Tommy brushed my body last night, I yawned for hours. Then, when I went to sleep at four am, I slept soundly until 1:30 pm. I was shocked because my feet were almost back down to normal size. Then, a few hours later, only then did my feet swell much at all. So, brushing is a part of his life whether he likes it or not. 

This brushing calls for a natural hair brush moved lightly over the body, all in the direction of the heart.=. I avoid brushes on my body and any animal hair on bare skin. So, I used a soft brush I use for washing my feet. I wrapped a softer washcloth around that and securing it with a hair claw. I had to keep telling him 'not so hard.' He got it done. Boy, that puts me in mood to sleep. I have known about this for years, but he always said no.

Plus, I forgot to take diuretic, and my feet still did not swell. Maybe brushing could take the place of a pill. I will discuss this with my doctor. Or, maybe I will experiment on myself. lol

The rest of the day was wasted because of his vile temper. 

Yesterday, I put out a new candy box, a crystal Christmas ornament. Inside I put colored balls for the tree. It looks festive and will not tempt me to eat it. 

At Christmas, I always put ribbon candy into a covered candy dish. I hate the stuff, but it is pretty and Christmas festive. It is always given away sometime in the spring. One year, a young guy was helping me move something. I offered him all of that candy he wanted. He was polite and would only take two pieces. The dish was six inches across and candy was three inches deep. Finally, I said, "Wait." I took a quart storage bag, dumped the candy as well as I could because it had stuck together. He was shaking with happiness as he stuffed it into a pocket with much work. It was June, time to get rid of all of it. 

I am telling you, I won't eat that stuff as it is too sweet. If I wanted to gain weight, I would eat chocolate. There were days I was desperate for a sweet, but I never touched it. The ribbon candy always had round pieces that were pure sugar, too. 

Tonight, I was desperate for an apple. I depend on fiber and apple fiber works best. I had not had an apple on Sunday. We went after dark to Publix. Someone brought me a cart. It stopped at the seam of the ramp to Publix. It stopped when the front wheel touched the threshold. It stopped when the back wheel touched the threshold! Inside the store, it never went over 6 feet while I moved about. Often, it only moved six inches or less and stopped with a lurch to my neck. 

Finally, it stopped as I was turning from a main aisle to the aisle across the front of the store, and would not go again. I was blocking people who wanted to go across the front of the store and down the one aisle. There was quite a bottleneck. I was so disgusted! I finally got the attention of an employee who was going to try and make it go. NO! It was on and charged. I asked fobnanar another cart. That cart was set where my knees hit the basket. So, I had him get another. 

I watched as the Public employee took the cart back where it belonged. It did not stop once!!! grrr

Bananas, apples and bread is all I needed. But, it took me almost an hour to collect what I wanted. I did find the Ziploc pint freezer bags that were bogo. My raincheck had almost expired, only 4 days left. Bread was bogo, at least. The use by date is December 21. I wonder how much preservative it contains. 

I rehurt my knee trying to get into the electric cart. It was recovering from the fall. The cart was so tight, my left knee would not go in. I had gotten into the cart with right foot first. When I tried to get out, the knee would not slide out as usual. I had to try to raise myself enough to get past a center part that supported the cart. I hope I never, ever get that cart again.

About two weeks ago, I used Elmer's school glue. Saturday, I found it. I had not missed it, yet. It was open in the chair I sit in and had oozed out an area about six inches in diameter. So, Tommy washed it for me tonight.  If I did not keep this chair covered with a quilt, it would be nasty, sticky, disgusting. 

No decorating done today.

In a bit, I will get brushed again. I am looking forward to improving my health and sleeping. 

Do you ever use brushing skin to achieve better health? 

If you ride electric carts in the store, are you sometimes exasperated by their eccentricities?

Tommy had never heard of ribbon candy. Do you like it?

Tidbits

Meal moths
They are back after the cold winter in lesser numbers, but into my arsenal has come a cordless vac. These critters cannot fly well, so they fly erratically, making it hard to swat or clap my hands upon them. Hopefully, the vac will just suck them up. Yeah, good idea, but the vac has a handle on the end, making it unwieldy to handle...gone back to store, unused. Thankfully, almost all my food is now in Tupperware or half-gallon Ball jars. The rubber canning seal protects from an invasion of even the smallest of pests. I just screw the lid on very tightly.

Celery
The celery now has 5 stalks. The taller of the two original stalks grew 3/4 of an inch in two days. Indeed, it does taste like celery. I ate a leaf. now, there are now two 5-inch stalks, up from 4-inches when I first wrote about them.

Hen security
Two people donated to their security. Thank you. I still have a long way to go to protect them from predator raccoons.

My health
Knee (L) has tear in meniscus and will need surgery. An open MRI has been scheduled for my shoulder. The doctor also believes it could be a torn rotator cuff.  I cannot go into the hospital for the knee until the chickens have a secure place because I won't be able to get them into my house each night. I had knee surgery on the right knee a few years ago and know exactly what I face.

Egg production
I now regularly get three eggs each day once again. Now that winter is over and the days are long, the hens are all back in business. The hens were two years old around March 21. They are doing well.

Raccoon attack
Did I tell you that one morning I awoke, fuzzy about the dream I may have had? A squirrel had been caught in the live trap. Was it a dream? I went to the trap and there was a squirrel head. Raccoons pull their victims though the bars, ripping them into pieces in the process.  No, I did not mean to leave the squirrel to die. But, its demise just proves that at least one raccoon is still around here, a threat to my hens. Since there are woods nearby, there will always be raccoons....sigh.


Birthday
My son turned 43 yesterday, April 16, 2011. How did he get so old, so fast? I have vivid memories of him as an infant, a toddler, schoolboy, young man, student. Now, he is married to a very lovely young woman and father to a six-year-old son and four-year-old daughter. He was seven in this picture.