Monthly Archives: March 2019
Long but fun day.
Maggie and I had just finished our coffee when Rick got here and off we went on a drive through several small PA towns to a little bitty gun shop where we met a friend of Rick’s for me to transfer the last pistol away.
When we got back to the house I called G and she came over to go with us to Wegman’s, Giant, and then the farmers market.
Wegman’s knocked Maggie’s socks off. I only went there to get a flight of cheese for us for later. I’d had their European on last week so I got us the Italian one.
When we pulled into the Giant parking lot, I decided we needed to get some lunch so we went to Sumo for lunch.
Then we went to pick up my few items at Giant.
Final stop was the farmers market. This market is rather large and I think surprised Maggie with the variety and number of stands to drool over.
Once home, Maggie and I set about to get my bedroom, I haven’t slept in for two years, cleaned and ready for Lucy and I to enjoy sleeping in a real bed. The room was beyond neglected in the cleaning the last two years barely getting a look much less a god solid cleaning.
I’ve been overwhelmed with just keeping up with the downstairs and him.
Maggie worked even when I had to stop and take a break for my back.
All I need to do now is vacuum and put a few things away and we will have a bedroom ready for sleeping by Monday night.
I made her a cheese steak for her dinner and later we had some wine and cheese, good conversation, and some spoiling of Lucy. Who has once again taken over Brodie’s crate for the night.
I likes cheez, nice lady with two dogs one of whomz I stealz his crate to sleep in at night even though I have my own crate, a chair, or the couch with Mom.
Company!
Maggie arrived this evening with Sadie and Brodie. Lucy was so overexcited we had to crate her and cover the crate. What a nutball.
Brody barely knows she’s here, he’s blind and completely unconcerned.
Sadie let her lick her nose but goodness that sent Lucy of into even more tail wags and wild digging at Sadie’s crate.
Yep, she needed some crate time to calm down. After all it was past her bed time.
Maggie and I had an enjoyable dinner, lots of conversation, and plans were.made for tomorrow.
After Maggie and pups went upstairs to bed, Lucy took over Brodie’s crate and thoroughly enjoyed his comforter. I guess maybe she needs one of those.
Lucy is exhausted….
We were invited over to Rick and Sue’s for dinner tonight. Lucy was the perfect house guest. She was so well behaved, I was happily surprised.
She got a real kick out of their house where she could run a full circle from kitchen, dining room, living room, entryway, hall, and kitchen again. Wheeeeeee!
Lucy was fun to watch for all three of us.
She really loved up on Sue, but then Sue was doing the cooking and (ahem) “accidentally” dropped some grated cheddar cheese for her after already giving her a SLICE of cheese.
She was so busy she completely forgot about her Mean Kitty that I’d packed to take along. I’d also packed her dinner and she scarfed it down when it was served.
She kept asking Rick to take her out because he gave her a cookie upon return if she’d gone or not. I only give them when she goes. LOL After dessert, she passed out on the floor near us for a little while.
I left while it was still light, I didn’t want to take a wrong turn and get lost in the dark. As it was I made it home no problem. This is the second time my google maps didn’t talk me through the drive over. Last time it was when I was trying to find the Attorney’s office.
Going to have to get that straightened out before I do any more traveling.
Lucy didn’t last long after we got home. A quick pee, a greeting of the neighbor, and she passed out on the ottoman. She’s snoring her head off.
Ashes to ashes?
After not hearing a word from the funeral home about Jay’s cremains, I finally gave them a call today.
I told the gal, “look, I know he didn’t have a compass or GPS, and even with them he had a tendency to get lost in the woods, but isn’t he back there yet?”
After she stopped laughing she went to find out what the hold up was.
“You mean no one called you?”
“No one.”
“Well, he’s here. He’s been hanging out here for days.”
Rick picks him up tomorrow and takes him to his rock ASAP.
Glad I called them.
Ugh, we truly do need medicare for all.
So my other insurance company screwed me over and all I can hope for is that Medicare will cover both the eye doctor and my cardiologist.
In the two weeks after his death I was not covered. Silly isn’t it?
With Medicare for all I wouldn’t have to worry about a supplemental insurance who claimed to be my primary and then proceeded to basically say eff you Medicare is your primary. In the meantime I have two unpaid bills at the cardiologist and the eye doctor.
Both of which, if you want to takes bet on it, will hit me up at the same time without billing Medicare first.
Medicare for all folks…it’s what will keep most of us out of the poorhouse.
It is done…it is over…
I spent most of another day twiddling my thumbs waiting for them to show up and get the damned chimney done. Once they finally showed up, it seemed to take them forever. They finally finished after sunset.
When he came in for the check, he said he never wanted to see this house again…I told him I never wanted to see him again. I gave him a little Ty bull terrier toy for his daughter.
So now I have two sheets of paper with all the work that was done on them to pass along to the new home owner.
I also managed to pay off the home equity loan today. I still have to have access to our old account to pay that. Went in today and discovered there had been a deposit made–enough to pay off the loan in one shot. One less thing to worry about.
A WTF day.
So the chimney guys were here (LATE) and wanted to charge me to trim back some branches. Nope. Just do the chimney, get it done right and go away. I was up early, so wasn’t happy at the delay. Basically sat around most of the day twiddling my thumbs waiting for them to show. They are not getting any gold stars in my review.
They still aren’t done and have to return tomorrow all this extra work because the idiot husband put it off so long is going to cost me an added $551.00, so much for the guns covering the bill. They found two (correction-3!) almost complete blockages and had to breech the outside wall 5 times to clear it and place the liner. (I’d only paid for 1 breech of the outside wall.)
I am so over this house. Hell, I’ve been over this house for 46 years.
Looks as though I may need to do at least 3 yard sales as soon as the weather gets warm enough. So much stuff to unload already and I’ve barely scratched the surface.
I’ve decided to part ways with 98% of my Halloween props, keeping only 2 to move with me.
I’ve decided that the only way my large garden gargoyle will stay here is if I get a fantastic offer on him. He’s not a Halloween prop he’s a garden statue. I will move him. I do have other garden statuary I will sell off.
At least Lucy had a good afternoon and evening when the chimney guy’s wife showed up with their daughter with dinner for him and his helper . Lucy enjoyed both his wife and daughter’s visit–we went inside and she made herself a lifelong friend.
Cute kid. They ended up staying and visiting with me until he was done for the evening. He’ll be back to finish tomorrow–then I write him a check for the overage.
A new beginning?
The chimney cleaning didn’t happen today–death in the family of two of the guys who were to work here. Doesn’t pay to have brothers work for you on the same project.
They will work on it on Sunday instead.
So, while looking at houses, on Trulia and Zillow, in Georgia, I decided to e-mail the mayor and police chief in one town and the police chief in another to ask them what they could tell me about their town.
I look forward to hearing back from them.
Let’s see where this path takes me…
Day 30
Began the day with Lucy’s new daily routine. While I drink my coffee and get things done on the computer, she keeps bringing me stuffies to throw. I swear if I didn’t break her cookies into tiny pieces she’d be a sausage by now. Every time she brings me one and drops it at my feet, I have her sit and give me a paw, I then place the cookie piece on the floor. This gives me time to pick up the stuffie safely. LOL, she’s a bullie she gets over enthusiastic and will grab for it without the established routine.
Ran the checks over to the bank to deposit them today. Feels good to know that even without the life insurance checks getting here I do have a small cushion.
After the bank, G and I stopped at Target to dump the 6 old cell phones I found into their cell phone recycling bin.
From there we went to Wegman’s where I splurged on a small cheese and meat tray to take home for lunch. We were mainly there for G to get a few things, but I couldn’t resist the cheese.
Next we stopped at Giant to get needed groceries. She can’t get her cat food cheaper anywhere else and it’s the only place that stocks my coffee in large boxes.
Our final stop was the farmers market where we got a great deal on a box of plums (for a buck) which we split up later. I picked up a Greek pizza at the Mediterranean stand for my dinner and an individual cake (a Bailey’s chocolate cheesecake) for me for my birthday, since no one got me one, I treated myself.
And there you have it, pulling one’s life together in the first month after the death of a spouse.
I miss him, I really do, but it’s one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward for me. Dwelling on would’ve, could’ve, and should’ve never did anyone any good.
Day 29
Managed to sell off enough firearms to mostly cover the chimney repair bill. The repairs begin on Saturday.
He always did say if anything happened to him the guns would help a lot. Yep, now that money is in the bank waiting to pay for the chimney repair he kept putting off for no reason I can fathom. It must be fixed, it has reached hazardous to human life levels. As it stands, I should probably not be in the house until they finish.
However, I’ve been here this long, I figure a few more days won’t hurt.
Would’ve been a lot nicer to not have to pay out for repairs and save the money for a new place.
Lucy was delighted to have her Uncle Rick stop by and pay her a visit. She thinks he stopped by just to see her not to go digging through the attic to find all the gun boxes. 🙂 We won’t tell her different.
Day 28
G took me out for lunch for my birthday. We went to one of our favorite places.
On the way there we stopped at CVS because I’d had an early morning ‘your drugs are ready’ call from them. I was worried about if I had drug coverage or not. I went prepared to tell them to put them back on the shelf depending on the cost.
Fortunately, it seems I still have some coverage, at least for now. Good thing too, seems Big Pharma charges a fortune for the drug that helps me breathe. Yeah, without it I can’t move any air. Non-covered it would cost a whopping $369.99 every month.
Yeah, and these days the idiot in the White House and his cronies are making sure we get less and less coverage. What they want is to turn the middle class and the poor into slave labor for them (the rich and powerful, the 1%) and as for those of us who are too old or ill…well, they’d rather see us dead.
Need a certain drug to survive? Hey, tough shit. We want to make billions sucking you dry. So either hurry and die or pay our price.
Day 27
Life insurance gal was here again. This time for us to make changes to my policies. Still no sign of any checks from them. She’s looking into it tomorrow.
Rick stopped by and Lucy got to love on him for a while.
I swear from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. she’s the Energizer bunny. She had stuffies strewn from the front door to the kitchen again. This has turned into a daily routine.
I put them all in her toy box before I go to bed at night and she drags them all out in the morning.
I cleared out more stuff from the kitchen hutch. I can’t understand some of the things he hung onto like old cell phones and other junk. I’ve found six old cell phones so far.
I came across his old digital camera too. I’m hoping I can get that up and running. I’d love to work with it.
Managed to get some things changed at Verizon. I’ll be sending them two set top boxes. Once they are returned, my bill will drop about 60 bucks a month. I have no need of a TV in the bedrooms. I changed the channel package too.
Oh, and my other charge card arrived via UPS.
Doggonedmysteries 