Good evening, on another windy day.

I am just marking my spot, as I had to get a new password, and I seem to have lost all the forums, I was in. So just checking in.

I was watching the TV, minding my own business, when the screen went black.  Probably blank, too.  Tom called from downstairs that he had lost power too.  It hadn't occurred to me that we lost power; I thought it was either the station or TV.  Tom found out a possible cause, which wasn't, and power was to be restored around 6 pm.  Since we have an electric range, we'd have to eat out, so we made arrangements to go to a certain place.  I think almost everyone who lost power was there, or a couple other places we checked.  We ended up in Rockford, north of where we live, and found a place to eat.  It was very noisy, but the food was good.

The reason for the outage was that a high voltage line had snapped.  We were not without power until 6 pm; it came on about 4:40 pm but we decided to eat out anyway.

And that is our excitement for the day.

Mary Ann

Hi everyone on a beautiful, cool and crisp  Tuesday morning.  This will be a laid back day with no need to rush to accomplish anything.  I may make a short trip to Walmart to pick up a prescription for Pat and get a couple of items but other than that plan on staying home.  I need to fix some coleslaw and perhaps a macaroni salad, neither of which is difficult to do.  Most of the morning chores are done except to water the flowers and Pat has had her breakfast.  I know that Pat is feeling a lot better as yesterday she did the washing and helped clean up the kitchen following supper last evening. 

deAngel, glad you were able to find us after getting your new password. 

Mary Ann, it is frustrating not knowing why the power is out and how long it will be until it comes back on.  Glad you found a place to eat. 

Its warming up now today. Not in the mood to stay home. So making choices. There are 2 movies on I want to see.  Birth of a Nation and The Girl on the train.
think will be Birth of a nation first.  And if still in the mood will pop into the next one The girl on the Train  Take a bottle water, Banana and candy Bar.  Dinner I have in the freezer.
I am so tired of the Politics on TV . Can't wait for it to be over. Never have I seen such goings on with picking a President ever since I came into the country.

I have never voted. Meant to on Clinton and then Obama. but still not registered and would not do it this year for sure.
Did I see a Priest on yesterday telling Catholics that if they did not feel right voting for Pres. Can just leave that spot blank. Vote for who they want in others running for office. Not to feel guilty.  Maybe they should allow the President now in to stay for awhile longer.  Doubt he wants to.  What must the rest of the world be thinking on this.?

Need to take my new glasses back also. Not working for me on the Reading part.

Thats my day.....

Mary.  I hope you knee Operation goes well.  Then I can let my daughter settle on a time and get hers done.  She keeps putting it off.

I am exhausted and exasperated!  For some time I've been trying to add minutes to my TracFone.  My phone is old and since I don't travel any more, it doesn't get used much - just to call Tom that my appointment is over and he can come to get me.  TracFone did not recognize my serial number or phone number.  I went to Chat and got a man who was absolutely no help at all.  He said he was sorry I was having the problem, then suggested I sign off, then sign on again.  When I left him, immediately there was a box asking how he did.  I did not give him a good review.  At that point, I decided to call the 800 number.  I got a woman with a Mexican accent who talked too fast for me.  I did ask her to slow down but her accent was bothering me too (and I was wearing my hearing aids, too).  I told her what I wanted and she said some words that I knew I was getting through to her.  I gave her my credit card info, we hung up and after a while I looked to see if I had the extra minutes and I did.  But it was tiring.

Later I called Dot and talked to her for a while.  She is doing well, but is limited in what she does because her back aches if she stands too long.  She helped out at our church's Second Best Sale doing sorting.  She also has been working with Terry's wife at Hospice doing office work but she said it is "up and down" work and again her back bothers her and she doesn't know how long she will be able to do that.

It's time for the cat and me to start for bed.  Treat first, then more food and fresh water.  Some time in the night he'll come in to check on me.  Tom said when I was in Indps the cat had quite a time, wondering where I was.  He was very vocal and that is not like him at all.

Mary Ann

Mary Ann, sorry to hear you had problems with your TracFone account. I believe that if you only buy minutes for a set period of time and don't renew when it is up, you lose the minutes. Or at least that is how it used to be. I have always bought the one year service contract with minutes. As long as I renew just before the contract is up I would have lost my unused minutes. Now, I have an autopay contract which continues my contract every quarter and I get extra minutes too. I don't need the extra minutes because, like you, I don't use it very often so my minutes keep accumulating more than I can use them. My phone is also old. It does text and voice only. If I have to give the phone up, I will probably drop TracFone and ad a smartphone to my ATT home wireless service (or Comcast or FIOS if I decide to bundle my phone with one of those.

I guess you already know that TracFone is owned by the largest Telecom in Mexico, hence the likelyhood of getting an Hispanic accented CSR. They also own Net10 Wireless, Straight Talk, and SafeLink as well as several others.

BTW, I do all my updating, etc. online. It has gotten a little easier over the years now that I don't have to program all those code numbers in myself.

Good Morning Everyone,  from the
cool but sunny rocky coast of Maine. 
The weather here is seasonal,  and it will
not be long before all of our beautiful
foliage has fallen to the ground....  (So sad)

But soon the holidays will be upon us and
for a while that will be enough for most
of us to forget about the changing
weather and concentrate on peace and
good will towards man.   

  Opp's,  I forgot about the fact that
fortunately we now  have less the four
weeks before,  hopefully,  the US
Election will be  determined,  and OVER. 
And then we can get on to  concentrating
on "peace and good will towards mankind" ..

(I am trying here,  folks...    )

I am off this morning to spend some time
with my daughter Kelly.     She comes once
a week and helps me with grocery shopping and
any other errands that I might have.   
I really appreciate her  being able
to dedicate some time to me.    I am
very lucky to have both my gals close to me.

Have a good day,  Everyone !

Peace!
Sandy

Hi everyone.  Once again it is a beautiful, cool and crisp morning in my part of the world.  The painters are busy on the outside of the new house next door and know they appreciate the cooler weather.  There is no chance of rain in our forecast for today.  There are only two things on the schedule for today.  The first is Pat's chiropractic appointment at 4 pm and then I will meet Scott at the church for the Wednesday night dinner (Italian menu) and then we look forward to his spending a couple of hours with us afterwards.

Yesterday was a most enjoyable and laid back day.  We decided to go out for a late lunch and early dinner, which we did.  Prior to that I had the best afternoon nap I have had in a long time.  It was a very laid back day.

JeanneP, do hope you enjoyed the movie(s) yesterday.   My wife just read the book "The Girl on the Train" and said it was pretty good.  I agree with you on being tired of politics on TV.  I do vote in almost every election, especially the National and State elections. 

Mary Ann, glad you finally were able to get the minutes added to your phone.  Sad to read of the back problems Dot is experiencing but living with a wife with back problems makes me very appreciative of the fact I have never had such problem besides a few tweaks by turning wrong but they were OK in a day or so. 

MarsGal, for a number of years before we went on our Son's telephone account we used prepaid phone minutes and it worked very well.  I never came close to using up all of the prepaid minutes in a given time period.  I didn't know those companies were owned by a Mexican company. 

Sandy, the fall can be so pretty and it is sad when the leaves start to fall.  I think we are still several weeks away from that.  You are indeed fortunate to have your daughters both there close to you and that Kelly gives you one day a week to help you with your tasks. 

MarsGal, I also did not know TracFone was owned by a Mexican company.  I even thought I had a Philippino but your comment makes me think it was Mexican.  The next time I need to renew, I'll look into renewing for a year.  I now have 400+ airtime minutes which amounts to nearly seven hours.  I don't have enough appointments to use up seven hours in calling Tom to pick me up!  And that is the main use of the phone except when we lost power the other day, I almost had to use the phone.  I'll keep it.  Thanks for the information.

Today is our "family" lunch and I don't know if there will be three, five or six of us.  Dot has her book club this afternoon so won't make it. 

Mary Ann

It looks nice at Grand Haven and there are a lot of whitecaps.  There are several people surfing now because of the wave action.

I paid attention to the Atlantic wave action and it is much different than what I see on Lake Michigan.  But we still cannot see across the lake from Grand Haven. 
And you can't see across the ocean!

Mary Ann

MaryAnn and MarsGal, I also have had a TracPone, I buy one year card and put it on through the computer. I have used it very few times, just carry it with me when I go out.  I have nearly 6000 hours, I will never live so long

Gosh. they said nice and sunny but I hear the rain on my windows.  Weather men...

.I don't think they know any more than we do.
Did you see where Donald Trump told people to make sure that they went out and voted NOVEMBER 28.  should have said the 8th.  Now the TV making fun of that.

Can't make up my mind what to do today. For sure not housework. I thought that it wasn't going  to warm out but not bad. Talked my Yard grass cutting man into cutting down the big Hosta's. They really need thinning out although they do fill up the whole area in Summer.
I know I need to take some DVD back to the library. I have gotten into the habit again now of going out to see movies on the Big screen. And boy are they big. We have some big movie Theatres here in town. Each showing about 10 different one . Seat so large and Plush. Some serving beer and wine and snacks now. I sneak my own in in my purse.  I go to the 1:30pm shows and usually just about 8 people in the whole place.
I saw "Bridget Jones Baby" last week so cute.  This week so far I have been to "Birth of A nation" About the slave uprising of Matt Turner.  True Story. Read the book of about 20 years ago its good. I enjoyed the movie but it is showing the cruelty back then.   Still want to see "The Girl on the Train". Sort of a strange Book. Want to see what the movie like.


Went and changed those new glasses I got last week.  I just use for reading but Doctor gave me a new prescription to  add a little to distance for driving.  Not ever kept glasses on only when reading. I didn't like the ones last week so they are making a new pair a little different.  Will give them a try. This time just a Bifocal not the 3 way.

I am trying to set up the Texting on my mobile phone also. I don't even want to use it but seems soon one will have to have it on as now seems its all businesses and everything else are saying. We will text you. And you have to have a 5 digit to allow this.  I also did not have my Voice mail set up right. Got to work on this.
Now it is really storming so looks like will be stuck in the house anyway. so can play

Our family today amounted to six, only Dot was missing.  We went to the Olive Garden and I know Dot hated miss that because we go to some places that aren't as nice.  I had Grilled Chicken on Flatbread and it was good.  Salad and bread sticks were included for us all so I ended up bring half of my lunch home.  The server placed my lunch in a box and I really appreciate them doing that; I have had some heavy large plates that I had to "dump" my food into the box.  Sometimes I have help, other times no help. 

We are expecting rain this afternoon, but so far no rain has showed up. 

Gloria D, I am glad I don't have 6000 minutes on my TracFone; I will not live that long.  Buying a year card will suit me fine.

Mary Ann

Wow, Lindancer, you beat me by almost 3000.

MaryAnn, I got my phone, about 10 years ago, when my husband was not well.  When I went out, I could call and check on him, or he could call me.  I used in when I was in the hospital, and rehab for 4 weeks. Thats about it, now I just carry it with me. Just in case.  By the way, to day would have been our 71st. anniversary.  I was lucky i had him 62 years.

I have just had great good news: my beloved son in law Greg had quadruple by-pass surgery today, and it was a success and his heart is beating much stronger and he is now resting quietly.  My daughter Anne and the 3 granddaughters (grown women, and one a cardiac nurse), Tracy, Paige & Melissa, who have been there all day, will be able to see him in about an hour.  He  will not be awake, but they just want reassurance.

I have used two Tracfone's for years. I do not like the year deal as you lose the minutes, text, etc. when it switches over to a new year. At least it does here.I have two phones that set up triple time and triple minutes so every three months or so, I pay 19.99 per phone and get triple minutes and triple time added to my subscription.

Since almost every service call I make requires periods of being on hold, I use lots of minutes. Each phone has a little over 2000 minutes kept up regularly and  my subscription ends on each phone in early 2018. One stays in my purse and one stays by the couch so I am covered.

I do not like to spend time on the phone and I have both my cell phone answering machine and text set up for use. I call for taxis and text for everything else. Doctor, dental and eye doctors text for appointment reminders or for other info. The state and local offices text information and the majority of my friends' text if not using email.

Today has been horrible. First, a notice that the entire building is to be sprayed and they left a paper on what to do that only raises more questions. I will have to get back with the manager. For example, I have over a thousand paperbacks in books as well as large paintings, furniture, It says to vacuum thoroughly. I do not own a vacuum, nor do most folks here.

Also, where does the food, dishes, etc. go? My balcony isn't that large. I seriously need a ringleader or a voice of authority. So far everyone seems to know nothing and there is no date given other than each floor is on a list. and mini small tables plus other items such as food, two computers, a printer, and so on need places to go.   Last time it was second-hand furniture from the dump and cockroaches with just two first floor apartments. This sounds a lot more serious.AARRGGGHHH!

Then I got locked out of my apartment doing laundry which is a 25.00 charge. When I went back, the washer had stopped without washing the clothes. I called maintenance, one hour wait, and they got it going. So I am in a highly combustible mood tonight


MaryPage, that is good news! I know you as well as the whole family has been worried!.

Gloria d, I wouldn't be surprised if my TracFone is 25 years old.  It is a Nokia and does not fold as newer phones do.

MaryPage, what good news about Greg.

Patricia, such a day is frustrating.  I hope you are able to find more about the spraying before it actually takes place.  I don't think I have ever let my phone run out of the yearly deal, renewing before the time expired. 

Mary Ann

Mary Page, great news about your SIL.  I hope he has a speedy recovery.

Hi everyone on a 56 degree morning with no chance of rain today. Nothing unexpected occurred yesterday so it was another pretty restful day. Today will be my typical Thursday with the exception that I will not pickup my friend for coffee. There is a special meeting at his retirement home that he will attend today so can't go to coffee. I am going for my social time with my friends and then to the Church for the Wisdom group. Pat has her final chiropractic appointment for this week late this afternoon. I plan on getting some cooking done today, hopefully before I go to coffee.

Pat Halbach posted in the Christian Photographers discussion that Jeanne Lee was back in the hospital. No other details available.

MaryPage,  good news concerning Greg's heart surgery. He will likely be surprised at how much better he feels once he recovers.  I hope he did not have a heart attack as recovery is much quicker.  It has been many years since I had the two heart surgeries so expect there are new procedures that will hasten recovery. I certainly wish him a speedy and full recovery.

Patricia, I remember what Stacey went through numerous times at the first apartment building when they sprayed. Hopefully they now have spray without that bad smell. I hope this isn't too upsetting for Farrah.

Sorry to hear that abut Jeanne, but thanks for the info LARRY

Angel.  That sound awful on the spraying. Did they say what they were going to use.  I would have a awful time with some sprays. Can you put lots of things like flour,sugar. Etc into you fridge. all veg.  Can't they just set the bomb type off. Wouldn't want them coming into each appt.
Here they have stopped people from bringing into any kind of Senior housing things they buy used. They were buying mattresses. Furniture etc. 3 places got Bed bugs and had to be closed down for about 30 days. Roaches seem to be a problem here now in even the Regular Appt. Building. Lots of people moving in from Mexico and places they say causing that. Even the Bug Laundry and dry cleaning place my friend owns (Has millions invested in it). Got a roach problem.

I just saw JeanneLee posting at 11am today. I also read in one forum that she was back in the Hospital.  Hope all is well with her.
Not yet learned how to play the "Mexican Train" No one around me plays games. I played the regular dominoes years ago and also brought back from UK last trip the "Tri-ominoes. My family use those. Maybe take a set of Mexican train over next time if they don't have them there.  Shame that people don't play games anymore like they use to. Not even children.

I remember coming to the US and had one trunk that had nothing but hats and gloves and purses. Always matched to clothes when buying. Even a simple dress.  I still have 4 hats but never, other than weddings do I wear one. Just the sun hats. Only own one pair of white gloves.  I miss seeing men in their Trilby hats also.  How they use to remove them when you met or got into a lift . Hate seeing them in the Ball cap hats. Never take them off even in restaurants. No wonder so many men bald. Air never gets to their heads.

Only 60 deg. here today. Saying will be in the 80s over the weekend. Some trees turning but not many. This weather can stay for me. They do say will have a cold winter. Not heavy snows though. Time will tell.

JeanneP, I know nothing more than that the whole building will be sprayed. I have so much to move and don't have a timetable for it. Also, what will I do with Farrah, not only during the initial spray but also afterwards while I wash things down or if I can? Also, it says to ventilate fo 30 minutes to one hour before re-entry....how to do that without entering? We have to strip bedding, clothes, towels, etc. so my balcony will be full.

We only have roaches if someone moves with them in boxes or military families. We had roaches before from a mentally challenged person bringing stuff in from the dump which is against the lease. And then they only sprayed two apartments. I don't know what it could be to cause all five floors to be sprayed? Not knowing anything leaves much to be desired.  This is a nice building normally.

Patricia - What  a dilemma!  I can't imagine what you could do with Farrah, that wouldn't be very traumatic for her?  If I had to face something like that with Winnie, I would have to take him to my daughter's apartment.  My son and all of my friends have pets, so they would be unable to have him there.  He would have to be transported in the car, in a cat carrier, to daughters, and then in an elevator to the third floor, etc. etc.  It would be an exhausting experience for everyone! The best option for me  would most likely be to pay for a day of boarding at the vet. Maybe you could consider that, if it isn't too expensive?

Bed Bugs across the USA:
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/bedbugs-15-worst-cities/17/

Marilyne, I am on SS and get paid at the end of each month. Rent and the Internet and a few others are on autopay, so I have no money for a couple of weeks. Not only a place for her to stay, and remember her past was one of abuse, but also what if I miss something while cleaning, some dab of poison? Someone today was saying it must be bedbugs as the military bases have severe issues with them but who knows, we don't even know when they will spray.

Also, I cannot move anything on the higher shelves, china, and glass, nor a closet full of paperback and hardbacks on wire shelves. I am physically disabled and will the books be ruined? I have 23 large paintings I've collected, and those will have to go out on the balcony along with everything else.

I'm going to call the main office in Anchorage with my concerns.

Sandy, reading about new clothing from the mall and quarantining your bags, packs and purses is both scary and an eye opener. And I don't even know if it is bedbugs! Another place I looked on the web says to clean your mattresses & pillows, and then use those zip up plastic or vinyl mattress covers.

A steam cleaner will kill bed bugs as will a mixture of 1 part water to three parts rubbing alcohol, at least until it dries. I also read that they love paper products, your books, magazines, paper towels or toilet paper. And I have hundreds of books! They also love all the curlicues on picture frames. If it is bedbugs, just washing the clothes in hot water twice and then drying them in a hot dryer will be expensive as I have not only a closet full, but sheets, blankets, towels, etc.

The rumors here are flying and I really hope it IS NOT bedbugs!!

Angel.  People aught to get together in your Condo Building. Find out why all this has to be done. Never heard of a whole building have to be done.  That is unbelievable. If one has to remove everything like sheets,towels. then how about your couches, chairs if it affects some things it would affect all.  Have a meeting with the Manager of the place if there is one.  For one thing Expenses if they come should be at the cost to the company not you.   Is it like some here. Government Owned?  That sounds like it would even bother people with Asthma. COPD etc.

Something strange going on. Did you get a letter or just word of mouth?.
REMEMBER IT IS HALLOWEEN TIME. Someone not playing a trick.

That's terrible, Angel. I hope you can get answers and help soon.

One of the local libraries discovered bed bugs on a book shelf a year or so ago. They closed the library and fumigated the place.

If you have to evacuate while they are doing this, then I wonder if they are using something like a "bug bomb" like I had to use years ago in my house for an infestation of fleas. We had to give the cats a flea bath and stay out of the house for at least 8 hours as I recall.