Greys & Things

We awoke to snow this morning.  It’s not much, maybe an inch.  It’s still snowing, but it’s 34 degrees now, so it’s melting. 

Can you believe that even with an inch of snow my Internet satellite is not working?  I’m using my new Internet wireless card and it’s for reasons like today that I am switching.  I mean, an inch of snow and the satellite doesn’t work. . . it is so frustrating. Our satellite is on our garage roof.  In the winter I have to use a broom to sweep off the satellite.  This is not an easy task.  I have tried climbing on a ladder to reach the roof, but I have almost fallen a few times because the ladder slides in the ice and snow.  I have a broom that is extended by two other handles that are taped to the broom.  It’s still difficult to clean off the satellite, but that is the only way I can do it.  I won’t have to do it this year as long as my Internet wireless card holds out.

Jack and Scout played in the snow this morning.  They love to run in fresh snow. 

I thought we were going to stay in today, but my husband wants to run to town.  We have to buy a new ash bucket for the fireplace.  He ran over the old one last year.  We had it in the driveway cooling and he ran over it.  He said it scared him when he saw smoke coming up from under his car and then realize what he had done.  It sounds like something I would do.

Today was splitting wood day at our house.  We put in about 5.5 hours which I know is not a long day, but it’s very tiring.  We normally split and stack the wood in the same area, but due to getting the wood from a farm this year we couldn’t do it that way.  My husband and his stepfather have made four trips to this farm and brought the wood to our house and then dropped it off in our side yard.  Today, we started the splitting.  My husband split the wood with a wood splitter and then his step dad and I loaded it up on our four-wheeler and drove to a place to be stacked.  I hate stacking wood.  I’m not good at it for one thing.  I can’t seem to do it correctly. 

I don’t think the pictures really give you a true feeling as to how much work we did today.  Unfortunately, we still have two to three times this much wood to split.  I don’t even want to think about it.  We are taking tomorrow off and not doing anything.

How did you spend your Black Friday?  Did you stand in line for stores to open?  Did you go to the stores at all?

I went to Walmart this morning around 8 a.m.  They had bath towels on sale for $1.50 each.  I purchased 8 towels total.  I also purchased a pair of jeans for $8.00.  My Walmart is a Super-center, so I did a little grocery shopping. That part of the store was deserted. 

My cell phone died on Wednesday.  I went to the cell phone store and the clerk replaced the battery and also the sims card.  It still wouldn’t work, so he told me I could either drive about 30 miles and have it replaced today or return it by mail and then a replacement would be sent to me.  I opted to drive the 30 miles.  I couldn’t believe the line at the phone repair center.  There are a lot of people dependant upon their phones.  I’m really not that much of a phone user, but my cell phone is really my main phone.  The repair person gave me a refurbished phone, but now all my phone numbers are gone and so are my ring tones that I had downloaded.   I’m pretty sad over that, but at least my phone works now.

I stopped by my vets office because I need heart worm medicine for the dogs.  He was closed.  I will have to either go tomorrow or Monday.

I came home and started putting up the rest of my Christmas decorations.  I keep my tree decorated all year and just leave it in the “Christmas closet” in the basement.  The worst part is carrying it up the steps.  I’m taking a break before doing that.

Happy Black Friday!

 
Thanksgiving is finally here.  I’m sure around the country people are in their kitchens fixing their meals.  Some people are probably cussing and carrying on and others are singing as they cook.  Fixing a huge holiday meal can be very stressful.

I am in charge of the green bean casserole and corn.  Pretty easy.  I will make two dishes of the green bean casserole beginning at 10:30.  I need to leave the house no later than 11:45 a.m.  We will arrive at my sister-in-law’s house at approximately 12:30 and the scheduled time to eat will be 1:00 p.m.

There will be approximately 22 people at our Thanksgiving feast this year.  It will include my husband’s family along with my sister-in-law’s in-laws.  I think there will be 11 kids ranging in age from 10 to 18.

The weather today is predicted to be nice with a temperature in the 50’s.  It should be a very nice day.

We will come home tired and the dogs will be excited to see us.  They will smell the turkey on us and wonder where their share is.  I may bake a chicken this weekend to make up for their lack of poultry today.

Look who just showed up outside my window. I guess they didn’t get the memo that we eat them on Thanksgiving and not have them as guests.

I drove out to my old home town today.  It’s only about 30 minutes from my current home, but I don’t go out there that often. 

I decided to stop at the dollar store and pick up some flowers to put at my Dad’s grave.  I’m sure he would be fine with me being frugal with his flowers.  I thought about getting some other decorations for Christmas for his grave, but I could hear him telling me not to waste my money. 

After visiting several stores in town, I drove out to the cemetery.  The cemetery is less than a mile from my childhood home.  I lived there for 17 years.  I have such strong memories of that area.  When I lived there, the road was gravel and I knew everyone on the road.  In fact, it seems like I knew everyone in the area.  My grade school and church were just down the road from my house.  After I started high school, I rode the bus for 45 minutes each morning and night. I, of course, knew everyone on the route.

As I drove down the road towards my childhood home, I passed by the homes of my old neighbors.  Nearly every one of the homes of the people I knew has a spouse who has now passed on.  The road is now paved and two new subdivisions have been built on the road.  My old house no longer even resembles the house that I grew up in.  It was a bitter sweet visit.  I enjoy the memories of growing up there, but it is sad to know so many of my neighbors have died. 

I thought that using Firefox would be okay.  I found out that it would transfer all my “favorite places” and settings.  I had to delete it from my computer and then re-install it to get that to happen.  It worked great.  I was happy.  Then, my happiness ended.  I signed into my work at home job and the software was a mess.  It did not look like it should.  I made the fonts bigger and then smaller and that didn’t help.  I did everything I could to make the page look normal, but no luck.  I did some work, but it was very confusing since things were all re-arranged.  I needed Internet Explorer.

I knew there had to be a way to allow Internet Explorer to be used.  I finally found the solution after reading the help section of my new wireless card.  I followed the instructions and messed up my computer even more.  I ended up having to uinstall Firefox and then re-install it because it wouldn’t open at all.  I had not even touched that program, but I guess I changed a setting that affected it.  I decided to wait for my husband to help me.  My husband came home and I showed him the instructions.  Together, we were able to get Internet Explorer to work.  Can you believe that?  I am doing the happy dance here! LOL

The wireless card seems to work as well, if not better, than my satellite system.  I have 27 more days to test drive it before I am locked into my contract.

I really was dreading calling a technician this morning for help with my Internet wireless card.  It’s not that I have had issues with this company, but I have had bad experiences with my current Internet provider.  I have literally spent days trying to get problems solved.

I called up the new provider this morning after taking the dogs outside and also making a trip to the restroom myself.  I expected to be on the phone for hours.  The customer service representative looked at my account and immediately saw the problem.  My account was not set up properly on Saturday. That was it.  She set up it again and then I was able to cruise the Internet.  Do you believe that?  I was on the phone for maybe 10 minutes with her.  It was such a nice experience.  I give her credit for immediately noticing the problem.

I cannot open up Internet Explorer for some reason, so I’m switiching to Firefox.  I’m okay with that.  It will just take me a while to switch things over.  I also need to switch email services.  I always find that to be a pain.  I’m not doing that until we are sure that we are happy with our new provider.  We have 30 days to test drive it. 

Last night I purchased a wirless Internet card for my computer.  I cannot get it to work.  I have been trying for 12 hours.  I don’t give up easily.    I have Windows XP.  The error is Error 718: Timeout Waiting for Valid Response from PPP Server.  I have made sure that my personal firewall is okay with it.  I have un-installed the software - reinstalled it.  Un-installed the drivers - reinstalled the drivers.  I read on a forum that Windows Service Pack 3 is a problem for some.  I uninstalled that.  Don’t do that.  I thought I killed my computer. The computer booted up fine, but then wouldn’t do a thing.  I restarted it severals times and finally, I was able to restore the computer to a previous time.

Any suggestions?  Technicians are not available until tomorrow.  I hope they are able to give me an easy solution.  I’m hoping it’s just something wrong in the set up. 

The weekend before Thanksgiving always has a different feel for me.  I don’t know if it’s knowing that there are only three days to work next week or just the anticipation of the holiday.  It’s a happy feeling.  I love this time of year.

Scouting For Food is taking place today.  I don’t know for sure, but I imagine it’s a national thing with the Boy Scouts.  You place canned foods in a plastic bag that they left the week before and they pick it up and give it to the needy.  I placed several cans in the bag and set it out at the end of our driveway this morning.  Our driveway is kind of long, so I thought that would be easier for them.  I went outside this morning and I could hear boys laughing which is an unusual sound since there are no children in our  area.  I noticed saw a strange car parked down the road from my house.  I figured it had to be the Boy Scouts headed my way.  I was still outside when they stopped at my driveway. The boys were so excited when they saw my bag of food waiting for them.  It made me feel good that not only was I helping out people in need, but also bringing joy to some hard working Boy Scouts.  I wondered how long they would be excited about jumping in and out of the car.  It was only 10 a.m. when they stopped at my house.  I’m sure the excitement ends as the day draws long.  It’s only the second time that we have had bags left for us for Scouting For Food since moving here five years ago.

Today, my husband is cutting wood.  We have a fire going in the fire place and I have  chili simmering for lunch and dinner.  I love this time of year!

Do you belong to any forums?  If you do, then you probably know what it is like to become friends with people you have never met.  I joined a forum Childfree by Chance on AOL back in the 1990’s.  I couldn’t have children and after going through infertility treatments for several years, I found this group.  In the beginning, we helped each other though the pain of infertility.  It’s now been more than a decade and we have moved on from that pain to just daily life.  We share stories of our accomplishments, failures, families and just about everything.  We are no longer on AOL, but now we just email each other.

I am also on another forum, Greytalk.  It’s for people who have or want to have greyhounds.  It’s a forum that is a lot of fun as people share photos of their dogs doing cute things or just being silly.  I have learned so much about the health of greyhounds through this site and with that comes sadness.  We have lost so many of our members greyhounds to cancer and other illness.  I have been crying for the past few minutes over a dog that I have never met in person, but feel like I know him through his Mom’s posts and pictures of him.  He has had cancer for six months.  He is leaving for the rainbow bridge today.   I know how hard it is to send a pet to the bridge and my heart breaks for his family.