Friday Morning

[Colliemom]

Good Morning. Cloudy here this morning, temp is 54°. 75 and scattered showers on forecast today. Hope so, as flowerbeds getting dry. I will probably water later on, rain or no rain. I pruned the petunias yesterday, as they were getting a little scraggly. And weeded the flagpole flowerbed. Found an interesting article on fertilizing gardens the other day. Thought I would share with the gardeners, both veggie and flowers on here. https://www.pressreader.com/usa/the-col ... 5389432158

Finally got rest of house cleaned yesterday. Vacuumed, dusted and rest of inside of Windows washed. Sometimes ya just gotta give things a really good gong over beyond the normal cleaning routine. Now to do some minor touchup painting on exterior door trim here and there, and finish up the deck. Looking at a stretch of nice weather to accomplish that next week.

Today is a hodgepodge of this and that. First thing is get the Chocolate Chip cookies made for tomorrows potluck. Got all the ingredients sitting on the counter. But first I want to take a shower and get my Salisbury steak fixings into the crock pot. Am hoping to plaint the base paver block my statue sits on and get that put back in the flowerbed. Won’t take long to paint. It’s in the garage, so doesn’t matter if it rains. Want to trace the flowerbed kids outfits out so I can get those cut out and painted. Be time to change them over in a couple weeks.

Went up to Alpenfest yesterday. Walked the Alpenstrasse (Main Street) where the crafter booths are. Nothing that interested me as a lot of them were jewelry and clothing and scented soaps, and candles, leather goods, signs, license plates hand crafted items etc. This is not a juried craft show, so I don’t think things are all handmade. Had lunch at Ethnic Alley (food vendors booths) and then headed to Home Depot for piece of plywood for the boys outfi and on home.

Time to get the steak stuff going. Have a nice day all.

[Cudedog]

Sue, glad to hear you are taking it easy.

Anne

[OregonLuvr]

Finished my second cup of coffee and had a shower so now getting ready to go to town. Have a couple of errands to complete. We are going to be hot today thru the weekend so minimal outdoor activity for this girl. Leftover meatloaf, green beans and mashed potatoes is on the menu. This meatloaf survived nicely ha ha

[BarbaraRose]

Slept good all night, about 9 hours.

Will be 116* today and tomorrow is now predicted to hit 121* Hope this excessive heat warning doesn't last too long or come back too soon! I put a big bowl of water out under my carport yesterday for the stray cats. I think I will go out and refill it with cold clean water. It was really windy overnight so it is probably dirty now.

Need to find my motivation today and finish up the bedroom.

Have a good day!

[MandysMom]

Karen! So glad to hear this meatloaf survived intact! Ha ha
Barbara if you sleep that many hours, are you still tired when you get up? If so, you might need a sleep study and possible Cpap for night. I was sleeping 9-12 hours and still tired, when had first sleep study, followed by Cpap since. It made a huge difference even with my ADHD!
Velda

[Bethers]

My rig got washed and waxed this morning. The areas I cleaned of the most oxidation look best. But I knew that and should have been working on it more. However this will help protect it for now. I'm going to be paying some of the landscape crew in the park to clean up some things in my site. There's an invasive plant trying to takeover and they'll get rid of that for me. I intended to do it but the price is right so I might have them trim a couple bushes, too.

[BarbaraRose]

I decided to work on my living room windows today.
I took down the long window scarf going across the back wall where I have floor to ceiling windows (5 skinny vertical ones, and 3 stained glass ones on the vaulted part). I put up 5 green shear valances in each of the 5 windows and that looks much better. Already did the 2 larger windows on the other wall last week. I took down some hardware I had up for the scarf and patched the screw holes for those. I finally decided to quit before starting on the plastic bubble wrap due to injuries. I went to put my foot on a folding step stool and it slid away and when my foot hit the side of it, the whole thing collapsed and actually broke into pieces! I got a small cut on the side of my ankle and one part of the stool smacked into my shin which really hurt! I laid down and put an ice pack on my shin for awhile but I can already see a bruise showing up. Then when I was putting up the valances, I dropped something on the top of my foot so now I have an ice pack on that! Geesh!!! So I decided that for my health and safety, it is time to quit for the day. I have a set of blinds to put up on one of the long skinny windows to replace one that broke awhile ago. Was gonna put that up, but maybe tomorrow... Still need to sand the hole patches a little and then pick up a sample of paint that matches the walls to cover over those. Then, other than cleaning up some misc little piles of leftover clutter, I will be done with the living room. Should look nice when potential buyers come in.

Still thinking about painting the wallpaper in the kitchen but with it being hot outside, I can't open the windows to air out the paint smell. Maybe if I do a little area at a time...hmmm.

Velda, I usually only sleep 7 hours per night. No matter what time I go to bed, I just wake up 7 hours later. I think I slept longer last night because I was still making up for not getting much sleep the night before. Too much on my mind lately so my mind starts racing at night and I can't get back to sleep for awhile.

I think I will go check on the water bowl outside after sunset and see if I need to refill it with cold water again. I might just fill it with ice cubes from the ice machine by the pool. I ended up putting the bowl in the gazebo out in the green space behind my house since that is where the cats hang out. There is a flowerbed around it and it is all dirt now for the summer so the cats lay on the dirt to stay cooler. A couple of the cats will go inside my neighbors house for awhile to cool off.

Have a good evening!

[MandysMom]

Barbara, I'm glad you were not more seriously injured! It's when I'm tired, at end of a task, that I'm more likely to hurt myself! You were good to quit when you did.
Velda

[JudyJB]

Barbie, I hope you have a sturdier ladder or at least can borrow one! You need to be more careful or at least use better equipment.

Drove to Michigan today. Being Friday, a lot of campers showed up, but then about 8 pm, a really heavy storm hit--really strong winds. I got up and started engine to put slides in, but I really should have done it earlier. I noticed that the two young men next door who helped me move my table had packed up and gone. They had told me it was the first time they had tried camping, and each had his own tent. Not a good introduction to camping!!! I am guessing some other tenters left also. Makes me glad to be in a motorhome.

Tomorrow, I am heading out to get some things I cannot buy other than in Michigan. Headed to a factory store which is the only place I can buy some good coffee cakes and cookies. Then on to Dearborn to pick up a couple of big trays of baklava--they sell multiple kinds, and I will keep one tray and split the other among some friends I am having dinner with on Sunday. Dearborn is the town where Ford Motor Company is located and where I worked for several years. It is also the second biggest collection of middle-Eastern people outside of the middle-East, so fantastic food. There are at least 300,000 people in the Detroit area whose native language is either Arabic or Persian. Persian-speaking countries are Iran and Afghanistan. Going to also pick up some Polish fresh kielbasa--not the smoked kind--yum!!

[Acadianmom]

Sue, I often wonder who buys all the craft type stuff that's for sale at the festivals with all the craft booths. Abbeville will have a farmers market some months and there are way more crafts for sale than produce. About the only thing I ever buy is jelly or food.

Barbie, glad you are putting out water for the cats. My vet said cats can have kidney problems from not drinking enough water. I have two buckets of water on the old carport, a bowl at the end of the old house and three bowls of water on the new carport. Be careful with the stools and ladders, I think they are out to get us.

There was a picture on Facebook of where the highway coming into Abbeville buckled yesterday afternoon. That's where I passed with the truck, trailer and mower about an hour or so before it happened. That is happening almost every week somewhere in the area with all this heat.

This morning I got out the 2021 tax papers and copied the part that the USDA wants and wrote them a letter. I will probably have to do the same thing for 2022 but I'll let them look at what I sent and see what else they want. Went to town and went to the bank, post office and deli to pick up a lunch. I decided to get the groceries I needed there so I didn't have to go to Walmart. Picked up two bags of cat food at the feed store. Hopefully I have everything I need to make the weekend.

Late yesterday afternoon I started mowing the yard and got about half of it mowed before it got too dark. I finished it this afternoon. The grass is growing so fast I will probably have to mow again in a couple of days.

Martha

[snowball]

I dead headed some of my plants today as well as pruned back a shrub that out grows it's boundary it will come back I have no fear
I was going to call and explain it all to whomever about the jury duty... but it took me awhile to find the paper and then when I found it read it several times... by then it was late enough in the day that I decided that perhaps I'd call on Monday it seemed in my mind that calling late in the day on a Friday was just asking not to be heard... Velda because I still maintain my SD address and will until I actually either have a permanent home either in AZ or Idaho I don't claim being here as permanent. So it's the county that my "address" is in that has notified me of being on potential jury... so to get from Jackson Wy to Sioux Falls SD it apox give or take 800 miles when I do talk with them I will tell them that I am the caregiver of a 97 year old women that I'm on oxygen although the altitude is low enough I might be ok...I was doing ok in Boise and it's higher than Sioux Falls is... it's the altitude thing... also will explain that due to my rv not being able to be on the road right now I'd need to stay there it's financially an issue as well not to mention the not knowing you call on Friday to see if you will be called to be a potential member of the jury that only gives you two days to make the trip besides taking care of mom ... if they would say you will possibly be in Jury duty between mon and Frid of this week be available one could see traveling to the city be there do the thing and be able to go but to be on call every day for a month makes it really hard to do
other than dead heading fixing supper and taking out the garbage I didn't do much... did pay for my books
guess that was something as well as crocheted on the scarf for a few rows...
you all have a great day
sheila

[BarbaraRose]

Sheila, I wouldn't go into too much detail when you call about jury duty. Just tell them that you are your mom's full time caregiver out of state right now and that you are also on oxygen full-time. No other information or details are needed. I read that South Dakota is getting fussy about RVer's who don't actually live in the state and they want to not allow them voting rights. So the less they know about your RV and living situation, the better. Here is an article about it...

https://www.rvtravel.com/law-south-dako ... rvt-1098b/

I put out 2 shoe box sized plastic bins full of ice and water for the cats for overnight in the gazebo.

The step stool I fell on was one of those small folding plastic ones that is only about a foot or so high. I have a metal one that is much better but I didn't need to get too high up to reach the top of the window. I will be using that one from now on tho. It is just 2 steps on it, so not very high but very sturdy (altho I can't say for sure how sturdy I am! ).

[Cudedog]

Holy smokes, Sheila, I looked up the rules that allow one to be excused from Jury Duty in South Dakota and they are incredibly restrictive! Not much wiggle room there at all.

California is a bit more liberal in that regard. For example, in California one can be permanently excused/removed from the juror rolls when one is age 70 or above.

In SD it is 80!!!

I agree with Barbie. Leave out the part about the 5th wheel, just say that you are not currently living in SD, but are living hundreds of miles away in Idaho (and have been living there for the last few year/s - be prepared to give some dates, maybe some Idaho receipts - do you have any kind of bills mailed to you there in Idaho? This might be good proof of where you currently live).

Also state that you are there as the sole live-in caregiver for your infirm 97-year-old mother. You also might mention that it would be an extreme financial hardship for you to come, and that you yourself are on oxygen (can you get a doctor's certification to this effect?).

If they give you any heat, let yourself get all weepy and confused, and wonder out loud how you would be able to change out your oxygen bottle (supply?) several times a day during the course of the trial (that should get their attention).

I live in California, and have served on Jury Duty several times and actually found it interesting each time, although time consuming.

One time I had just brought my infant daughter home, and received a jury summons. I lived in a rural area at that time (my nearest neighbor was about a half mile away) and didn't really know anyone willing or able to care for an infant for what could be an extended period of time. My (now ex) husband was also out of state on an extended business trip. I was alone at home with my baby.

I called the Jury Duty people and explained my situation. They refused me, told me that I could "just get a babysitter" or "let her stay with family" (all of my family was hundreds of miles away) and that I was required to appear. Or else.

At that time someone in Sacramento (I forget the details) had gone to jail for refusing Jury Duty (I forget the reason). It was kind of a big "to-do" in the local news cycle.

The first time I was called for the initial jury intake, I just brought my daughter with me (I really had no choice).

When I arrived with my daughter I was told that babies and children were NOT allowed, and that my daughter would need to be removed immediately. Face-to-face now (instead of over the telephone) I again explained my predicament. I was again told, in no uncertain terms, that I could not and would not be excused from Jury Duty for having the responsibility and need to care for my infant child.

I was told, point blank, that if I didn't comply, I would be sent to jail.

This all seemed really strange, and kind of obscene to me, (that the rights of an alleged murderer being prosecuted in a criminal trail, with all of the highly-paid lawyers and clip clap that goes along with it - took precedence over the rights and needs of an innocent mother and her innocent infant). But there you go.

I still think this kind of thing is weird and really messed up. I mean, who, exactly is the criminal, committing a crime here? Sounded to me like the criminal onus was being put on me, the Mom.

I was actually pretty frightened, but (after being silent a bit in order to think things over) I just stared back at the person and said something like, "Well, ok. When you come to arrest me, please have the Foster Care people standing by. I'll alert the media - it should make a good story for the Nightly News". I was not kidding. I was dead serious. And shaking in my boots.

The person I was speaking to seemed a bit nonplussed, and not a little perplexed. They walked away, spoke to someone else. When they came back I was told that I had been excused.

The entire experience was not at all fun.

Good luck, Sheila. Hope it all works out for you.

Anne

[OregonLuvr]

I agree with Anne on most parts but not the part of telling them you have been away for years.....red flag. As many RV'ers are registered up there but never go there except when they have to. Laws regarding a change of address within 30 days are on the books, some states give less time. I would just do the caregiver and oxygen story leave the rest out. Good luck

[Bethers]

Do not say you aren't living there. That's a disaster. I agree with Karen. Keep it simple. You are in Idaho at your mother's to take care of care of her. Heck I remember simply telling them I was across country and wasn't able to return. Don't go into any unnecessary details.