Monday, Feb 5th

[BirdbyBird]

Judy my issues three years ago were no where as involved as your sons but I was send home with one drainage tube which I dragged along with me day or night for another months at least. I also had my nasal tube feed running 24 hours hangin off the "pole." I was too miserable, in pain and too weak to do more than walk to the bathroom and back. The home health care nurse came once a week to take BP, ask questions and most importantly take blood to the lab so that doctors could evaluate if my liver and pancreas infections were coming under control. Through all that process it is a miracle that I didn't catch Covid but all this started November 2020 and lastrf through spring of 2021 so regulations were very tight. Other than the first trip to the ER by ambulance, Dennis never even came into the hospital with me when the times I was admitted or the many multiple trips back to run Cat scans or gastro procedures. He would drop me at the door and wait for a call or text to come pick me up. When I did start to try to sit up I couldn't manage more than 10 minutes at a time because I had lost so much weight and most all of what core muscles I might have had. Oh and was also sent home with a pic line so that I could get my antibiotics delivered by a bolus contraption three times a day for about a month...... I was miserable enough to just be numb..... My greatest fear was that with all the antibiotics they ran through me that I would end up with C-dif.......I have watch to many older family and friends lose their battle with that one...... WIsh strength for both your son, his wife and the two kids. The road to healing can be long....

[Acadianmom]

Since my internet is up and down I’ll type my post in notes and copy it to the forum if my internet comes up. It was up for 20 minutes and is down again.

I thought I had posted Saturday but don’t see that I did. I went to Lafayette to eat brunch with my friends at Cracker Barrel. It wasn’t very busy because it was raining. I brought two pancakes home. Because they are so big I have been having half of one with my egg in the morning. It had started raining some time in the night Friday and I ended up getting another 1 3/4 inches of rain.

Yesterday was mess around in the kitchen day. I decided to brown the chuck steak and put it in the slow cooker with gravy. It came out good but I had to cook it for 6 hours on low to get it tender. I had seen some frozen Empanada Dough Discs at the grocery store. I bought a package to see if I could make fried pies with them. They might make good meat pies but are too heavy for fruit pies. My grandmother was from North Texas and she made the best Apricot fried pies. Anytime I’m in Texas I am looking for fried pies. Here you can find Sweet Dough Pies. They are little half round pies made with sweet dough with a filling and baked. A friend told me she had baked frozen biscuits in her air fryer so I had to try that. I put one of the Red Lobster frozen biscuits in the air fryer for 10 minutes but that was too long and it was only half cooked. I should have cooked it 5 minutes and turned it over for 5 minutes.

Anne, I hope you have your power back. The first night of our freezes last month my power went off for 3 hours. I was getting ready to go out to the motorhome and start the generator when the power came back on. The weather was just showing pictures of the lake and spill way by you.

Yesterday and today it has gotten up to 64 so not too cold. It is really windy. When I opened the storm door the wind pulled me out on the porch. I didn’t want it to slam open so I was trying to hold on to it. My grass isn’t growing but I need to spray some weeds. I never think about spraying unless it’s so windy I can’t.

My electric bill was $169 and that included the week of freezes last month. My bill us usually around $100 except in July and August. I’m like BJ, our houses were alway cold when I was growing up. If I can afford it I’m not going to be cold. My thermostat is usually at 75 or 76 during the day. I turn it down to 74 when I go to bed. My house is a little over 1,400 sq feet. It’s a modular home which is basically a double wide trailer. It is much better insulated than a trailer. The walls are 6” thick and the windows have double panes. Harold had the bottom bricked in so I’m sure that helps and it’s on a slab instead of dirt. Some electric companies have gone crazy. I haven’t seen any Facebook posts about Entergy lately but their customers are mad. The were cutting people off all the time and want $500 to turn the power back on. If people can’t afford to pay the bill how are they going to afford to pay the connection fee. That’s a bit much when all they have to do is flip a switch. My company has added a Power Cost Adjustment which is almost as much as the electric used and fees for Hurricane damage.

Beth, hope they are right about your carpet being in. The latest on my lost gate is that it is coming Wednesday. Yea right, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Good grief Barbie, if they want you to fill out so many pages they should mail it to you.

Sue, sorry to hear about Molly’s eye. It’s so worrying when our pets are sick.

Tina, so glad you survived all you went thru.

Martha

[BarbaraRose]

Well, it took me 3 hours to print and fill out all the forms! One form wouldn't print out right so I just called to find out what to do about that. The gal then told me that since I filled out the information and questionnaires on line that I didn't need to print and fill out the other forms! UGHH!!! It said online that I needed to download, print and fill out the following forms, after I was done with everything online. Now I am depressed! What a waste of time and paper and ink! I printed out almost 50 pages! I have 3 sheets of paper left over.

No rain yet and looking at the radar, it looks like it is all moving more northerly now and probably gonna miss me completely. I think Los Angeles is getting the brunt of it all tho. They were still dealing with flooding issues from the storm a few days ago! Will have to watch the news tonight. I think San Diego got pretty much missed too.

Just had some spaghetti for lunch. My agent just emailed me the new contract to sign so will do that now. He and a photographer are coming over on Friday to check out the house and take new photos. He is not happy about the 9 month rule.

[Cudedog]

Anne, I hope you have your power back. The first night of our freezes last month my power went off for 3 hours. I was getting ready to go out to the motorhome and start the generator when the power came back on. The weather was just showing pictures of the lake and spill way by you.
Martha

Thanks, Martha. Power went out last night about 6:00 p.m. or so, it came back on about 9:00 a.m. this morning. Luckily, everything in my freezer was still frozen solid. Slept well under a mountain of blankets, with a nice warm dog tucked in against me.

LOL - as for the lake and spill way photos - I try not to look at them when we are having a series of heavy rain storms. It just makes me worry. And I worry about Oroville Dam enough as it is.

Just checked the river levels online (LOL - couldn't help myself!) - no where near flood stage, thank goodness!! Current lake levels are at about 840 feet - "full pool" is 900 feet, so we are still looking good there, too. I hope.

Tina. . . I had no idea you had had such a terrible time of it. I can't imagine how you managed. So very happy that you are again up and around - and posting! I do love reading your posts.

Judy. . . Your report doesn't sound so good - at least to me. Is this how hospitals do it these days? Sounds. . . scary. I hope it all works out. . .

Anne

[JudyJB]

Anne, I know my son is very anxious to get home, and they are sending a nurse every couple of days, plus my DIL was trained in changing all those bags of stuff, but I agree that they seem to be tossing people out who really should be getting professional people taking care of those things. It has been 27 days since his surgery, and he has been in and out three times!! Hope this is the last time.

On a positive note, his surgery incision is healed. A negative is that he still has some leakage of stomach or pancreatic fluids, hence the drains. Not much draining right now, at least.

The other big thing that is apparently a side effect of this surgery is that his stomach seems to be very slow at "waking up." In other words, it is not doing much of a job of digesting food, hence his still being on very limited amounts of clear liquids. This is supposed to be a common complication and to get better after 4-12 weeks. He is a high school biology teacher, so is going to have to be able to stand and walk around easily, plus he will have to eat very small meals often, so the school may have to make some accommodations for him for a while. Dealing with 30+ teenagers at a time is not an easy office job.

[snowball]

I hope that they say come mom as they may not need you for the kids but thinking the wife might need your help Judy... good that he has gone home and hopefully not too soon...
I'd get lost in all that paper work Barbie hopefully it will give them the info they need... good idea to use the patches .... here is hoping that the new realtor will have good ideas as to what to do to sell your house... in part it's probably the economy there is a house a block from my mom's house that was put up for sale I'd say a good two years ago ... after they had a inspection found lots of to do's major actually back on the market for I bet a good year and it's still has a sign in the front yard.. it's a manufactured home if I'm correct
was talking to dd today and she was telling me about her electric bill not a good one she lives in basically a single wide it's a single wide manufactured home I would assume that the insulation isn't good at all and am betting the windows are bad too... she says she can fill gaps in various areas.... last year her first year there she used the fire place for heat but she didn't get the chimney cleaned and so was concerned about using it... she was at therapy and one of her "trigger's " for depression and or anxiety is financial worries... she can't get over time right now so is getting stressed... her therapist asked permission to talk to her husband about the electrical bill he is either a chimney sweep or knows how to do it so he is going to come and do that .... we had thought given the way my mom was when I moved in that I'd been either in Q or at my dd's if so then I would be helping in some ways need to figure out if I can help in anyway...
I finally watered the plants and vacuumed the floor...
as well as watched the video on joining two strands of yarn did that and it worked!!!! so happy so back to working on the shrug...
I want to get the afghan done that I'm working on for granddaughter and take it to her when I go to her sister's wedding that is the 1st of March have 45 more rows to go and trimming the fringe that is 23 days if I do 2 rows a day I will get through on the 26th maybe.. going down to Utah on Thurs of that week I may get it done by the skiff of my teeth maybe
oh and we got SNOW!!! don't know how much but a lot
you all have a great day
sheila

[BarbaraRose]

I have thought about putting the dark film on my windows. If I am still here for the summer, I will do that.

Judy, I used to tell my brother that instead of asking my dad if he needed help with something (he always said no), that he should just go over and help him anyways. Maybe you could consider flying back for awhile to help out even tho she said she doesn't need you to.

No rain yet, but they keep saying we are still supposed to get heavy rain here, over night now. I will believe it when I see it. The putting tournament has been moved to next Tuesday, so if we play tomorrow it will just be regular putting. The PGA tournament in Pebble Beach ended on Saturday since the course was way too wet and soggy to be played on, on Sunday, so the guy who was in the lead on Saturday was declared the winner. They had thought they could maybe wait until Monday to finish but decided against it and just ended it early. (FYI: Professional golfers play 18 holes per day for four days, Thursday thru Sunday, before determining a winner of the tournament).

Need to get to sleep...have a good night