Month: November 2013

Nothing better to do

…than to be up and not sleeping.

It is amazing how every sound, sometimes, can keep you from falling back to sleep.Them when you think you are falling back to sleep, every thought known to mankind decides to march through your head.A question I always ask myself is why does this happen when I am off the next day?

**sigh**

We are going to try to make it down to Undisclosed to check on the work and/or lack of work being done.If we stay or not depends if Jim wants to lug the generator out and put it on. I am always ready for the road trip,but sometimes a warm comfortable bed looks pretty darn good, especially if we have no heat and are going down to touch Undisclosed and then turn around.

Well, I am going to try to read and fall back to sleep, because if I don’t, it’s going to be a long, LONG day.

001

Advertisement

My Children with four paws…

..went out in the rain last night and this morning, returning with that drowned dog look on their faces, but hey, at least they got out. I know you guys who have two-legged children struggle to get them in snow suits and stuff, but this is just the actual art of getting them outside.

It figures a Nor’Easter would blow through for Thanksgiving, as if we needed any more drama going on.
If you are traveling, please be safe.The Shingleman family hope for a safe trip and a speedy return!

Tra-la-la-la -pbbbbt!**a gas and electric customer’s lament…

Our Undisclosed location got torn down in July.
JULY.

The Atlantic City Electric people NEVER came out with a utility pole so the workers could get stuff done: they had to resort to generators.

Now we are shoveling that under the rug because we are waiting and waiting for the electric service to get installed.Did I mention there is a Nor’Easter due today and tomorrow? And as far as the gas men go, well, we have a ton of flags on the site: if that means they’ve been there, sweet: if not, it’ll be time to play the waiting game yet again.

As Jim told the people at AC Electric…you’re making PECO look good.

20130704-075117.jpg

Sick Bay

Had to book a 6:30 am with the vet for our Zusher.

She was scratching her elbows so badly that they were actually bleeding and scaring me, to a point.
We couldn’t have her back on steroids because she is on arthritis medicine that is actually working,
so we are going to boost up the trans-fats in her diet to get some moisture in her.

The good news is her ticker is hale and hearty-words to warm any dog ma’s heart.

Happy Monday!

20130605-083814.jpg

Be careful what you wish for…

..for you will surely get it.

Well, I was smart enough to get some of our warm clothes out of the storage locker but I didn’t realize that the real feel temperatures today were going to be 15 degrees. I have resorted to layering, even though we have some heat on, but damn, this house gets drafty When my Mom was here and we were taking care of her, we had the windows covered with a heavy plastic to insulate them. Unfortunately we moved into here in June.

Wish I saved some of it!

The other Mrs. C.

My mother-in-law turned 95 yesterday.

Ninety-five.

I am jealous, although I am so happy for her, but it just makes me miss my Mom all that more.
She wouldn’t have liked to go out like my mother-in-law does, but just to see that smile and
and hear that voice would be so nice.

Sto lat, Mom C., and many more.God bless you and keep you safe.

Mom..I miss you every day.

20130703-085046.jpg

the right to be cranky

It’s a Friday and I am at work.

1. My Mother-in-law turns 95 so we have to stay in the city.
2. We have no electric down at Undisclosed.

The correct answer is 2.

It seems as though the “right person” at AC Electric is no longer the right person, or on sick or vacation leave or whatever.So between the two of us and our contractor, maybe, JUST MAYBE, we may get an answer today. If not…it’s gonna be a long weekend!

All those holding the short straw say “I”

003

…or else please stop feeling, as I do, that I have to put the finger in my eye.

My boss informed me she is out tomorrow, meaning today.

I come in today and the person due to man the front desk**can you feel what’s coming?”**
CALLED OUT SICK.

The second line supervisor asked if I would go out and take the front desk. I guess this
is one way to cut down on the noise factor.

We’ll see…..

Another day in Paradise**read heavy sarcasm**

So it’s Wednesday in a week that I have to stay up here in the city.

Bizarre.

Although I am taking advantage of being stuck up here on Saturday,so we both can get our eyes checked out. Outside of that, the gals will have to be walked ad nauseam so they will tire for us. We are going out to a birthday party Saturday night.

But it’s the office.

Normally this would be my Thursday…it’s not.

**sigh**

20130325-072500.jpg

Lifes’ Soundtrack

..for me right now is Beethoven’s 7th Symphony.

You know,the one where in the King’s Speech,where Colin Firth is giving the wartime speech and
they go with this Beethoven’s 7th.

It fits the malaise of the office, the week before a holiday where everyone is making pretenses
about working. Kind of almost funeral dirge music.

I love my iPhone and Itunes. I get to put music on there reflecting my states of mind and, even
if you don’t catch it again, it’s there.

Think I am going to download some tunes to get me through this day, and yeah, maybe even a
book or 2 to occupy my mind when going home.

Apple? A tip o’ the hat to you, late Steve Jobs….you’re saving my day!

Ah, the noise….

There’s one thing I am quite looking forward to …. a decrease of the noise in my life.

Here in the city, it seems the term “fish mongers wife” never died because that’s all I seem
to be hearing here lately.Doesn’t anyone speak in an inside voice anymore?

I get on public transportation with school teens and my head is splitting before my day starts
and the headache just lingers and lingers.

The only peace my head gets is at Undisclosed location.

It’ll be nice not to where earphones and take medication for headaches and just be able to go out
and sit and listen to nature and the watch the stars.

**sigh**

006

It was 20 years ago today….

with apologies to the Beatles….

I had my first cancer diagnosis 20 years ago today.

I thank God, Charles Dunton, M.D.,currently of Lankenau Hospital, and his protocol
for starters: they got me through it-the chemo, radiation, radiation implant,and
surgeries.The nursing staff of the oncology floor of Jefferson Hospital were also
awesome.Top it off with a supportive family, and I am still here today.

Thanks, God.

015

Long Weekend…

There is nothing like a weekend when you and your spouse are ill.

You never knew that you could possibly sleep as long as you do, and yet, you are literally down for the count, as it were. Then you have the question of what to eat. Our friend recommended more chicken soup, which there for a while, was a question if we ate it, could we keep it…hah, as if…

Our four-legged children are quite understanding getting out whenever we can get them out, and sleeping when we seem to either go down or nap.

The doctor’s office informed us that the waiting room was full of lower gastrointestinal and upper respiratory bugged folks.They kindly reinforced what we officially should do….

..if we only didn’t feel as though we were hit by a truck.

Yes, We have no bananas…

We haven’t been feeling well.

Our pantry shows it.

It is funny how you manage to find things that you have purchased not
that long ago, and figure, ok, it’s for a rainy day.

Uh, surprise! That rainy day is here.

It is a question of what we can eat, because the G.I. bug has stuck us
hard.Fortunately we had staples in the house, helped by my last day out,
when I bought ginger ale and saltines.We tried Chinese(bland) last night,
and it worked for me, but not so much Jim.

I’ll be glad when we are better!

Sick Bay

The bug has made its’ way here.

Not for the four-legged members, but for us..**sigh**

It has been a really long week-long enough that if I am not feeling better, I
might have to sit home this weekend, eating jello and saltines.I know we promised
to share, in a matter of speaking, when we got married, but hey now…

Hell of a diet, eh?

lol018

Excursions

021

I have to leave the realm of canter city and go out to a suburban hospital.

Of course,I would only have a 22 degree day to go out into the wilds for. I
need to go because it’s a yearly visit , so there’s no excuse for not going.
My excitement just got wetted because it is the first time I’ll be on a bus
with THREE digits( meaning suburbia)

It’s the little things…..lol

Le pauvre travailleur sans son téléphone portable

or, as I would say it: the poor worker without her cell phone.

Jim came down with too much raking,too damp weather, and as a man with a soon
to be 95-year-old Mom would call it….”grippe.”

You should take something, I say knowing downright what the answer will be.
However, even though I thought he should stay home today, he went to work.
As I came into work, I scoured all available sources for Lipton chicken
noodle in a red box-no such luck.

Stay tuned tomorrow and let’s hope Shingles don’t make a reappearance,

It’s Veterans’ Day

…and although I have no immediate member in the family who serves, there are plenty
of guys I know, who are basically sons of friends of mine.I also had my grandfather,
my Dad and uncles who have served. To those of you still serving, thank you for the
security and safety you give us and I keep you all in my prayers. To those in the
heavenly corps. I salute you.

…and it’s also my nephew Matt’s birthday. It seems as though it was only yesterday
I went with him and his dad and Zush for road trips out to Millersville for Zush to
get some serious squirrel chasing in.Now he’s got a good woman by his side, a decent
job, and hopes for a great future.Happy birthday Matthias. I have never been so proud
of you.

Sto Lat!
Bog Zaplac!

It ain’t over…

…until it’s over.

Well, we thought we were done with picking out things needed for the construction of
of the house.

HAH!

It seems we forgot tile for the bottom of the shower-silly us! So on the way down
today, we have to stop yet again and pick out tile so the shower, I guess, can actually get started. Never mind the fact that we have no heat or electric yet…but there will be tile!

Oh, did I mention I’ll be getting the gray hair from this covered this Saturday?

Just thought I’d throw that in under the paint category…lol.

Quiet Time

My girls gently woke me this morning: one with her pants, and the other with her paws.

I respect leaky plumbing…lol

As Jim is the one they normally would go to, I figured it was my turn to get them out.
It is a breezy late evening, with a wind blowing through the trees. I have a beautiful
Japanese Maple in the front of the house, and even in the darkness, the color of the
leaves are brilliant.I think it is one of the reasons my father liked this house.

When we get down to the new house we’ll have a front lawn to landscape.As we both are
lovers of trees, I am sure that they will a major part of the front lawn. We often
drive in the area and take in what we like and don’t care for in front of other
homes.Ideally, I hope to convey the same sense of quiet and color that I get on this
front lawn.

A piece of it will surely reflect my folks influence on my gardening tastes:of that,
you can be sure.

dad's tree

It’s Electric!

**taken from “The electric Slide”.

Well, after Jim went down and dealt with ACElectric, today is the day where the electric
gets cut in.Allegedly this is nothing to get my knickers in a twist, as this action only
lets us know that they can come out in 5-7 days to actually lay the lines. From Campground
in July, to something of a building in October,….let’s see if Edison will pay us a
visit and get the electrical power going

We have had the most benevolent neighbors who threw their power cord over the fence for
us plus our infamous generator…I’ll be happy as a clam in Pismo Beach if the electric gets
done soon.

Wired

Part of the current lagging in the new Undisclosed Location Deux are wires.

The builder went and threw up the electric lines right to the peak on the
front of the house, which had been looking attractive with all those scallops.
When we pulled up, we were ticked off.You couldn’t call and ask us what our
opinion was?

Long story short,we are in contract with Atlantic City Electric and Comcast,
thanks to Jim, to put our wires underground.Jim made a road trip yesterday
and met with a human at ACElectric, and away he went.

We’ll see how long this is going to take.

Stay tuned.

The Iggles

…is how we in Eastern Pennsylvania call our football team, the Philadelphia
Eagles.

We came up early from the campground and oh my goodness what a game! It was as
if someone kidnapped the existing team and placed a different one in its’
place.

The last few weeks the team has not been scoring, really. The old coach is
coaching Kansas City and is Undefeated. How bittersweet is that? Well,
yesterday’s game helped take a little of that away…

E-A-G-L-E-S!!!!!!

Work is never done…

Sunday morning at the ” Campground”,and we have plenty to do.

Jim is out taking the trash to the recycle yard. Once he comes back with
the rake, I get to go raking leaves, as we are fortunate enough to have
the township collect them curbside.We need a few walk-throughs in the
new house and walks with the girls.

It’ll be a busy Sunday. Enjoy yours!

It’s an Omen…..

We picked out colors for the house.

A plum color for the bathrooms, a green/tan mix( hard to actually describe)
for the guest bedrooms, a teal for our bedroom, and….golden retriever
for the kitchen and rest of the house.

We had rich colors in our last home; it was a Victorian and the colors
suited it. This being our, hopefully, last, easy house, well, we felt
the gold was a warm color to welcome folks in and keep our earthy colors.

Plus, the fact that it was “golden retriever”, well…it had me agreeing
with it-no problem!

November is here…

…and the weather outside, color on leaves not withstanding, is more reminiscent of
March.

Go figure!

A busy morning on tap for us gals, both my four=legged and me, so we can do our
household chores and go down to Undisclosed Location II with Jim.

Uh, let me rephrase that…

We’ll, no doubt, spend time in the tile store, major box hardware stores, in’
addition to trying to kick back and relax over the weekend. We’ll see how
far things have hopefully progressed and what decisions need to be finalized
and put to bed.Jim,from the beginning, has said, once we make the decision
on x, y, or z, we have made it and that’s that.I have to keep that in my
mind constantly because it has been a seemingly long process.

Enjoy your Friday!