I think this has been the busiest October in the past 20 years! Mother and I have the usual standing appointments at the salon. We go to exercise three mornings a week, shop for groceries at least twice a week, visit the library, the bank, and the post office. We’re normally pretty busy, and that doesn’t take into account the office work I do.
October is one of the busiest birthday months for my family. Dear Husband and I both have birthdays in October, as well as one of my sisters, his brother, and a slew of nieces and nephews.
We traveled to Indiana to see one of my nieces compete in Marching Band. Elegante Mother and I watched one of her great grandsons act a role in a “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” We visited the Farmer’s Market, and ate out five or six times. We traveled to the far North side of Chicago to have dinner with one of my nieces and her husband last night.
We’ve shopped, and gardened. I shared my quilts with the ladies of My-Sister-The-Nurse’s church, and the Empty Nester’s from EM’s church came for their monthly visit. We visited with a church member who is going to machine quilt four quilts that we’ve made for the church bazaar.
We’ve enjoyed amazingly warm weather for most of the month and we’re hoping it lasts through tomorrow night, when kids will be out celebrating Halloween. We don’t expect to have visitors, but we’re prepared, just in case they should come. Our drive is too long, and too dark to make it profitable for kids to trick or treat at our house, but a lot of visitors would bring this month to an appropriate end.
I enjoyed everything we did, but I could use one day of calm a week. It would be nice to be able to build up reserves so that I could go full tilt the rest of the week. Oddly, Tuesday seems to be the only candidate at the moment, and it looks like it could be swallowed up, too!
We’re just busy people!
Monthly Archives: October 2007
Hearing, or Not…
It appears that hearing is becoming an issue for more than just Elegante Mother. Now, if I want to talk with Dear Husband, I need his attention. I’d LIKE to say that I’m fine, but it’s possible that I’ve lost some of my hearing as well.
It occurred to me that we should be learning sign language. (To Dear Husband: NO, not THAT kind of sign language!) If our hearing continues to deteriorate, we may need to be able to sign to communicate.
I hear a high pitched electrical white noise, especially when the house is quiet, or when I’m drifting off to sleep. At one time in my life, I was a grade school band director, so I’m not surprised to find that I may be loosing my hearing. Dear Husband has worked on construction sites for most of his life, around all sorts of saws and mixers. I’m sure the noise has hurt his hearing.
It’s time we both had our hearing tested.
Then, when he leads me astray, and I ask,”What!?” I can smack him for his awful puns!
HOLY COW!!
In yesterday’s mail, we received a Notice of General Assessment. The Township Assessor and the Supervisor of Assessments have declared that our house has increased in value $80,000 in just one year! And that was in a year where economically things have been slow. We have not changed our house in any way. It’s a year older, and needs some maintenance. There have been no changes to the area around us, that would make our house more valuable. The township simply wants to be able to charge more in taxes.
Our present manner of funding for education is going to drive the average homeowner right out of their houses and into the streets. We’ll see tent cities like those in the depression, or homes where both husband and wife work will see third and fourth jobs becoming common.
Our General Assembly refuses to consider the people who elect them, and THEIR needs. Instead, they play political games which keep them from signing off on a balanced budget, and then they have the gall to complain that they are not paid a large enough per diem for the “overtime!” Meanwhile, our Governor takes pots shots at the General Assembly, trying to set himself up for re-election, and he’s not doing anything for us, either!
Our taxes have increased a horrendous amount each year at a time when we are trying to save for retirement. Just who is going to support us when the money we’ve saved runs out? What is going to happen to people who are so strapped by the taxes that they can’t save?
We’ve been paying into Social Security our entire lives. Unfortunately, by the time we reach the age when the Federal Government allows us to draw on Social Security, I doubt there will be a cent left, due to mismanagement by the government. Add the cost of medical care, and the war, and things look pretty grim.
I’m not a happy camper today. I doubt I’ll be a happy camper until SOMEONE turns our government around.
I read somewhere that a quarter or more of the population of the United States works in some governmental capacity: township, city, county, state, federal, the judicial system, the military, the CIA, the FBI, the CDC, Homeland Security……it’s endless. We give money away to other countries, when we are so strapped that we can’t provide decent health care to our uninsured.
Nope…..I’m not a happy camper. I’m ready for change!
Settling In
It’s likely that it will take me a while to find my way around the new version of Movable Type, and ~T~ is still doing some tweaking of the program for us. Each new function brings a few new problems, so pardon our dust as we get settled in again.
~T~, this time the program won’t let me publish a comment. *G* When you find the time, smack it for me, won’t you??
Roberta, thanks for your kind comment about my description of Fall. You have a wonderful way with words, so your compliment means a lot.
I have to go bind a quilt. I have an entire entry I want to do about binding, but I have a personal showing of my quilts tomorrow night, so I’ll have to wait until I have more time.
Fall Color
We’ve had the most unusual fall! Our color change didn’t begin until a week ago, and we are still not at the peak of color. We haven’t had a frost yet, and usually our first hard frost comes early in October. We had a week with days in the 80s and days in the 60s.
We’re beginning to see the red colors creep out in trees and shrubs. We have a fair amount of yellow, a bit of red, but still an unusual amount of green for so late in the season.
I spent about ten hours in the gardens and working on the grounds this past weekend. I had intended to start putting the gardens to bed, but everything is still growing or blooming! I cut back the spent flower heads on the garlic chives. In the past, I’ve left them, thinking that the animals would eat them, but it seems that nobody wants the seeds, and they lodge in crevices in and around the herb garden, and make more work. I’ll have to take a shovel or spade to take out a few pods that are growing in inappropriate places.
I cut back the lemon verbena, which grows as an annual in Zone 5. I save the dried leaves for potpourri, and to give the house a lemony scent. I have one very large cookie sheet mounded with the leaves, and about as many more to strip from the plants. It’s a shame we can’t winter over lemon verbena.
I started cleaning out some of the container garden pots. Dear Husband made a huge “sieve” which sits over the wheelbarrow. I empty the pots into the sieve, and then separate the soil from the roots. The soil drops down into the wheelbarrow, and the screening catches things like plastic peanuts, or clay shards or glass pebbles. I began cleaning up the pots in the garage, and trying to reorganize the gardening tools, so that there would be more room for the over-sized containers when we finally get a frost.
I weeded the gardens along the front sidewalk, and cut back some of the iris leaves. We had such a bounty of volunteer plants this year that the iris were short on sunlight for part of the summer. They are fairly hardy plants and will enjoy the sunlight that will get to them for the next six weeks or so. The poison ivy…..yes…the plants that I was supposed to rip out this summer, have turned red. It should make them easier to remove, IF I can get enough time in the gardens this fall.
I started cutting back volunteer shrubs and trees in the gardens and around the house. I still need to use the brush-hogger to clear out two flower beds and an area on the west side of the house, but family obligations kept me from working all through the afternoon both days. It’s probably just as well. My back has been crabby, and 16 hours in one weekend would have been a bad choice if I hope to get back into the gardens again, soon.
Soooooooo….we’re enjoying the vagaries of fall, the whimsy of the weather, and the capriciousness of Mother Nature. Somewhere, those words must define the word “fall,” don’t you think?
Happy Autumn!
Yahoooooooooo!!!!
Or maybe that should be Mooooooooovable Tyyyyyype! Our host at RedEagleSpirit has upgraded our Movable Type program. I can blog again, but it’s going to take some time to find all the parts to the program. For now, I’m happy to be able to post.
…And There was LIGHT!
Dear Husband took 30 minutes today and repaired the light in our clothes closet. He tells me that it was a ballast problem. The bulbs that were installed 17 years ago are still functional.
Ahhhhhhhh, LIGHT!!! *G* It almost made me want to go in and change over our wardrobes for the winter. Instead, I cleaned out parts of my quilting stash, and began making a list of quilts to take to show the ladies at My-Sister-The-Nurse’s church at the end of the month. In two weeks, I’ll have three more full size quilts bound!
Sadness Abounds
We’re home from Indiana. We had hoped to be doing a victory dance for the fourth time in a row, but it isn’t to be. I’d like to think that I am not prejudiced in favor of my niece’s band. I watched from the top of the stands as seventeen bands performed. I rooted for them all, but more for K’s band. I marked my program with the five I thought would go on to state. I was confident that her band would be one of the five. While they received a gold for performance, they weren’t selected for State.
This is the time when they begin building for next year. The band will go to Indianapolis next Saturday and watch the performances of the ten bands which will compete in their class. They’ll come home to pizza and a party to end the marching year, and immediately, work will begin on the program for the next year.
To K…..Sweetie, to go three years in a row, and rate as high as your band did, is an amazing record. You’ve had an incredible experience over these four years that will travel with you all your life. I’m very proud of you for going the distance, and you did a fine job. Be proud of your achievements!
New Game
I have a new game for you all. It’s called “Choosing Clothing by Flashlight.” The winner is the one who is able to best dress herself despite being unable to see most of her clothing choices in the dark.
First you need a walk-in clothing closet, which has no windows. Rules allow for lights and/or skylights in the adjacent room. You get extra points for dressing correctly on an overcast day, and more points if you dress before the sun comes up. You loose points if you end up mixing navy blue and black.
The light bulbs in my closet have been flickering and failing to light for weeks. Every couple of days, I talk with Dear Husband about the difficulty of choosing clothes in the dark. My youngest sister, bless her heart, came to his aid and suggested I take a flashlight into the closet with me. (sigh)
We’ve been in the house 17 years. It’s more than possible we just need to change the light bulbs. My friend, Midnight, tells me that it could also be as simple as a starter needing to be replaced. He described it for me, and I’ll try to see if that could be the problem. Failing that, the ballast has gone out. DH tells me we have a spare ballast ……somewhere…..
Midnight has been counseling me to do the repair on my own, coaching me on what to look for, and telling me how easy it is to replace. I think he’s planning to become a marriage counselor in another life. Personally, I think this is a GUY thing…..one of the few indoor things that shouldn’t be my responsibility!
Sign up for the game in the comments, and I’ll get back to you on a start time.
WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!
The quilters called! My quilts have been put in the mail, and I should see them early next week!
I’ll be able to get them bound and take them for a show and tell at the end of the month!
Yippeeeeeeeeeee!!