(Note: All Visitor Counters were reset in January 2009.)
October 31, 2005 - Monday
It's the last day of the month. It's Halloween. I've never really celebrated Halloween. As a child, in Rock Hall, we used to have a church party at a relatives farm. It was always good clean fun and kept all the church kids from going out trick or treating and/or getting into troubles. Plus, again, our church never really celebrated Halloween.
As a teenager, I always associated Halloween with my Mom's death. She died on October 29th, when kids were out trick or treating. Bad memories.
In later years, as a young married wife in a large apartment complex, we used to do a little decorating, just for the trick or treaters that came to the door. We used to get between 60-80 kids. Then our apartment building decided it was too expensive individually to handle so many trick or treaters, so we set up tables in the parking lot, blocked the door entrances, and basically all chipped in $10 and had a regular block party where the kids could come and get the candy etc.
When my own children came along, I took them just to the tables for a bit of the candy, but never made a big deal about Halloween even then.
When we moved to Westminster Md, the kids in the neighborhood would visit the houses just in our field, so I let the boys go with their friends. Usually, one of the neighbors would have a small party for the neighbor kids, so I allowed them to go to that also.
But I've never been a fan of Halloween. My sister-in-law died on November 1, right after Halloween, furthering my dislike of the holiday.
But barring Halloween and all the evil spirits that it stands for, I do LOVE this time of year. The air is clear and crisp, but still warm enough to do things outside without a coat. The trees are losing their leaves normally, actually this year they are just beginning to turn colors. The bees and spiders will all go away for a few months! I can breathe again without gasping and wheezing for every breath. The holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming. Yep. This is a GREAT time of year!!!
October 30, 2005 - Sunday
Ran to town for spray paint for the pole Jim set in cement on Friday. Still not feeling great. Ok until I eat, then I have to sleep. Nothing can stop me. It just has to be done.
I made a big slow cooker full of homemade vegetable beef soup this morning. It is really good! Ate it for lunch and supper. Guess what? I didn't have to sleep after I ate! What is with that?
October 29, 2005 - Sabbath
I didn't go. Really 3 reasons, poor excuses but logical none-the-less.
Reason 1: Still not feeling good. Doctor appointment is in 2 weeks. Believe my sugar is way up, but haven't let Jim test me. But I know the symptoms. Staying away from sugar for the next couple weeks, to see if that makes a difference.
Reason 2: Seth called and we talked for 2 ½ hours, until 2 AM. It was so great to hear from him, since I hadn't had a chance to talk with him all week! He was out camping and he was telling me all about it. Once during the conversation, he had to stop and put a couple logs on his fire to keep the coyotes from coming any closer. He had fixed a steak over the campfire and they could smell it.
Reason 3: Today, October 29th, was the 40th anniversary of Mom's death. Yeah, it was on a Friday night in 1965, but it was October 29th. It's always a real tough day for me, can't bear to hear music or be around anybody. Everything sets me off into tears, so I'm my own best company when I'm in misery!
October 28, 2005 - Friday
Not feeling too good today. Going to bed early, since it is my week at church. Don't know if I will make it, unless I get feeling better fast.
Jim set the pole into cement and it looks good. Waiting for the guys to come next week to finish the deed!!
October 27, 2005 - Thursday
Got Jimmy's car and it is still running a little rough. Jim says it may need a tuneup now. So we will check on it later if necessary.
Otherwise, all else is going well. We're very glad it wasn't something more serious with the car!
October 26, 2005 - Wednesday
I dreamed that I hit some deer driving Jimmy to class this morning. Glad that this dream didn't come true!!
I have about 7 deer that are coming into the back yard about 4 times a day now. I believe they are hanging close by just in the edge of the woods all the time. They must like the "scraps" that I toss out.
The car place called and said Jimmy's car needs a new timing belt and waterpump. So I gave them the go-ahead to fix it. Will be ready by 5 this evening, but we can't pickup until tomorrow.
October 25, 2005 - Tuesday
I spoke too soon. I had run out to the store after Jimmy left for class and was just pulling into a parking space when Jimmy called on the cell. His car had died. He was about 15 miles up the road from our house, so I ran back to our local garage, but they couldn't help him until mid-November. So I went home, Jim was in class off base, so unreachable. I called the place where we bought his car, since they have a service department. They were so nice! He gave me the number for the towing company they use and I called and the man said that it would be several hours before he could get to us but that he would get there. He was very nice and called us several times to make sure we were doing ok and that he would be there soon. We did have to wait almost 5 hours to get towed, but it doesn't matter, when they were so nice about it all.
They will look at his car tomorrow and let us know what the problem is.
October 24, 2005 - Monday
So Jimmy had a dentist appointment today and we thought it would be a good opportunity to go get that other new tire, since the man was going to give us a good deal.
I met Jimmy at noon and we drove both cars to the tire place at the other end of town. Turned in the car and tried to explain that we wanted one new tire and together with the one we got last week, have the two new ones moved to the front and the two oldest tires put on the rear. His car is front wheel drive and during the winter it is advantageous to have the best tires on the front. Also helps on our steep lane in the winter!
First off, they couldn't understand that we wanted the two new tires on the front. They didn't want to do that, said it was better to have them on the back. I finally insisted that this is what we wanted.
Secondly, they said they wouldn't touch one of the tires it was so worn. So we had to buy a 2nd tire (3rd in a week). OK, I looked at it, and it was definitely getting pretty bald.
Thirdly, when I came back to pay, he hadn't given me any cuts or breaks in the price. It was exactly double what I had paid for one tire last week. And of course, he wasn't there when we got back. So I told the man helping us the situation and what the other guy had promised. Well, long story short, he cut about $15 off the final total. I was, if not happy, at least somewhat appeased that they were trying to keep a customer happy. So I paid the bill and we left.
Of course I have left out the part where they wrote on the bill that Jimmy's car needs about $1300 worth of work done on it in the next couple of months. I also left out the part where the dentist wants another $500 to do a couple small cavities.
Well, it will all work out, and at least Jimmy has his car on the road again!!
October 17, 2005 - Monday
What a day we had today!!! Got a phone call about 8:10 am from Jimmy on his cell. He had a flat tire. Well, there's more to the story. Let's see if I can get all the details.
He was driving to school in a line of cars. He saw some deer coming out onto the road and began to brake. The car in front of him didn't see the deer until it was too late. That car swerved left into the line of oncoming traffic, and so to avoid hitting head-on swerved back to his lane in front of Jimmy. The car in front of him got a deer and part of his headlight and part of the deer bounced off Jimmy's windshield. The oncoming cars began to swerve, clipping some deer, killing others. Jimmy was swerving left and right to avoid all the cars and deer. Fortunately, he didn't get hit by any of the cars or hit any of the deer himself. However, some debris from the vehicles and deer got him. He went just a short distance up the road and his car was smoking. He had a flat tire. And when I say flat, I mean it was completely disintegrated!
So he managed to get into a driveway, changed his tire and still made it to class. But this is not the end of the story. I went in at noon to meet him and take his tire to get a replacement. We did this and then just shopped and met Jim for a late lunch to burn up some time before he had to go back to class. When we got back to the college and tried to put his new tire on, it was the wrong tire. Which meant that someone else got Jimmy's rim and new tire. So Jim and I threw the tire in the back of the truck and drove to the other end of Fredericksburg, again, to try and retrieve Jimmy's tire.
The tire store, which will remain unnamed for now, was extremely apologetic and very nice about it. They did get Jimmy's rim and new tire, for which we were really grateful. Told us they would give us a special deal on the next time we come in and gave us a card etc. So we shall see.
All told from the incident with the deer, 3-4 cars totalled or disabled and 5 deer dead, several injured. Jimmy said there was about 15 deer that ran out onto the highway in front of all the cars.
It's that time of year, deer are on the move. Drivers Beware!!
Watching Hurricane Wilma. Record year. Twenty-four storms, 21 named, 13 major hurricanes. Amazing! If we get anymore storms, we will be starting the Greek Alphabet -- Alpha, Beta and so on. Visit my N4KUP Webpages and click on "Weather", then "Hurricanes" to see all the neat statistics I have collected on Hurricanes.
October 15, 2005 - Sabbath
Jim was going to go to church today, but after getting ready, just didn't feel good enough to make the drive. I didn't feel great either, but I'm still not as sick as he has been. Hopefully I'm actually starting to get more energy back. Whatever it is, it completely zaps your energy. Makes you want to sleep 24 hours a day. Earlier this week, on a bad day, after getting about 10 hours of sleep, came downstairs and took my am meds and sat down on sofa and slept for 2 more hours. Hated that. And again after lunch another 2 hours and after supper, another hour. What is with THIS? But thankfully, much better today. I slept a good 9 hours last night and only took a half hour "nap" this morning, none this afternoon. YEAH!
Jimmy is at his tournament for Yu-Gi-Oh this afternoon. He did excellent on his exams on Friday at school!
October 14, 2005 - Friday
Today's story is on my "Beefs" page under Beef #7 - Customer Service. Read it if you dare.
Jim worked today but still not feeling very good. I'm not as bad as him, but still not up to par!
October 13, 2005 - Thursday
I ran to town yesterday to pick up a couple prescriptions and a couple odds 'n ends. Tired me out. Just having trouble shaking this, whatever it is. Jim has missed two days from work, unusual for him to miss any time for being sick. His blood sugar is totally messed up from being sick also (this is a normal occurence in most diabetics during illnesses). I think he is feeling a little better however, this evening.
Jimmy and Seth are both doing well, which is so wonderful. We are so very proud of both of them! What can I say? I could brag on both of them forever!
I've updated a few more stats on some of the hurricane pages. Managed to locate some damage and death tolls on about 10 hurricanes since 1983. For example, Hurricane Isabel in 2003 had a death toll of 55 persons.
October 12, 2005 - Wednesday
Haven't been doing as much online. Jim and I have both been sick with just a mild virus/cold. I just can't get enough sleep. Seems like I need about 12 hours of sleep! Like last night I went to bed by 11 pm, got up 6 am just to make sure Jimmy was awake for school, which he was already, I laid back down and slept until 9 am. Oh, well, hopefully, this too shall pass.
I did clean out my email inbox, saw emails that I had missed months ago. So hopefully, I will get around to all of the genealogy ones eventually. This winter I hope to start updating the Urie Family website with some of the new data I have collected over the last several years.
It's been raining or drizzling for several days now. Had about another tenth of an inch this morning. Still thinking about a good way to display weather stuff on a webpage...Any suggestions?
October 10, 2005 - Monday
Today is Columbus Day in honor of Christopher Columbus. Do you think any of the students today even know who he was? I wonder.
I've added to my Beefs page. Topics now include: Liberals, For English Press 1, FEMA, Emotional Vampires, Gouging the Government, Congress & Retirement, Customer Service, Telemarketers, Recorded Telephone Trees and more to come! Hey, I've got to complain somewhere...I might explode if I don't!!! The injustice, the stupidity, the pain... I have to let it all out.
I've been thinking about doing a daily weather report for Jersey Va on my webpages. Can't quite come up with the format that I want. Also would be nice to have a weather station setup that logged the daily highs and lows, rainfall, snowfall amounts or whatever. I currently just have my eyes and an outdoor thermometer, raingauge which half works and indoor barometer. Well, something for someday. It's definitely on my ever-growing "to-do list".
October 9, 2005 - Sunday
Feels like I didn't accomplish much today. Yes, I finished working on the Kay Urie and N4KUP websites to redirect all URLs and that was a tremendous undertaking, seamless, hopefully, to the outside world, but necessary for future growth of the webpages. I also updated Hurricanes for 2005, adding in Philippe, Rita, Stan and Tammy. Busy year. By NOAA's standards, 23 storms. Yes, I know the news media is calling it 20 storms - though they aren't counting the tropical depresssions that have been active this year also. NOAA does count them, so that is what I am going by.
October 8, 2005 - Sabbath
We got 2.5" of rain last night through this morning. We didn't have church this week, since most werre going up to the DC Festival. Then we got a phone call that due to the rain, the group wasn't going and were going to have a get together at the pastor's home. We weren't able to go, but we sure appreciated the call. I always love it when we get to fellowship with all of our group at the Pastor's or wherever they meet. I always feel so uplifted when I go. Wish we lived closer so it would be more convenient.
October 6, 2005 - Thursday
My Kay Urie website has been modified, files shifted and uploaded, pages reloaded, all a seamless process, so that others never saw a break in the pages. It was time consuming on this end, but worth it for future expansion of the pages!
This weekend I will work on the other pages. The slowest part was getting all the clipart, photos and mp3s reloaded online. Since that part is now completed, the only thing I have to do to the other pages is redirect the URLs for cliparts, photos, mp3s and miscellaneous stuff I have included on each page, then re-upload each page. Simple. Time consuming somewhat still but simple!
I'm going to add my "Beefs" page on the n4kup site. I've put in about 6 or 7 "beefs" that I have with life and miscellaneous. Nothing personal, just things that make me ask, "Where's the Beef?" Also have begun work on my Quilting pages and Canning pages with more to come on most pages. I just work on them a little each day as I can. Eventually they will get done!
October 5, 2005 - Wednesday
Don't know why I'm so tired. Been dragging all week. Trying to cut out most of my meds, tired of taking them, tired of paying for them. Yeah, I know there are some that I will have to take the rest of my life, allergy, asthma, thyroid. But I'm trying to kick all the Naproxin and Tylenol for the aches and pains, so that is probably why I'm having a tougher week. Though really the only thing I have completely dropped are all the supplements that I was taking, Vitamins, Minerals and various herbal "remedies" that really weren't fixing anything. So why pay the money and risk messing with my chemistry. I've been foolish enough to take some of these supplements for about 10 years, so this above all is why I'm so tired out this week, I'm sure!
My projects this week are to try and go through all my material and quilting stuff and organize it better so I can begin working on some of those incompleted quilts and projects started long ago. I have 3 rubbermaid tubs of material and stuff to go through and see what is still good or not. I'm looking forward to the winter and maybe getting to work on a quilt or so this season.
The thingy on the middle post of my washer "exploded" into 3 pieces today while I was doing laundry. I noticed last week it had a crack in it so figured it would go one of these days. It is the thing that holds softener or whatever. The bleach thingy broke earlier. Never had a washer that would break apart. Good thing we bought the super-glue the other day!
October 4, 2005 - Tuesday
Doesn't it seem boring to others when I say, well today I did more housework and laundry? Actually, it's not boring to me. I'm doing exactly what I always wanted to do. Housewife and mother, homemaker whatever. Maybe I'm not the best housekeeper, it's true. Maybe I'm not the best wife and mother, definitely. But this is what I wanted to do, and honestly, I do my best, for the most part. Oh, there are days that I don't want to do some things, like cook or clean toilets. Yeah, OK, most days I don't want to do those things. But my point is, and I DO have a point, well, I'm exactly where I want to be for the most part.
Yes, I'd like to be thin again, and younger, but only if I can take back the lessons learned in this mythical time travel. There are things I would do differently, mistakes I would avoid, things I wouldn't or would do. People that I would treat better, regardless of how they treated me. But as they say "hindsight is 20/20" and it is so very true.
I'm still working on the reorganizing of the webpages. I've actually got some of the folders sorted, renamed and unloaded, but won't upload the actual webpages until I have all the files renamed on the pages and the pointers going to the correct folders. Time consuming, but necessary for future growth of the pages.
October 3, 2005 - Monday
Today was laundry and more routine housework. I'm watching Tropical Storm Stan which looks like it will go into Mexico and not affect the lower 48. Also they are watching another spot that could later become Tammy. After that we only have "V" and "W". Then we would start Alpha Beta Delta etc. Wonder if that has ever happened since we've been using the full alphabet? I don't think it has, since 1995 was one of our more recent years of so many storms. We got through "Tanya" that year. Well, it will be interesting, especially since we still have two months of hurricane season, officially.
YEAH!! Just talked to Seth on the phone. He will be able to come home for Christmas for about 4-5 days! We're all looking forward to that!!!!!
I'm in the process of re-organizing the new web pages that I've been working on. The files are getting too huge, with all the clipart and photos. So Jim explained to me how I can separate things into separate folders and have all of my web pages draw from the same folders. Currently, I was putting all the clipart and photos that I might need to use, into each domain folder. This was getting out of hand, cause if I made a change in one folder I had to go to each folder and make the changes, then to each webpage that may have that file. You can see that with all the pages I have done, that it would be overwhelming very quickly to make just one simple change. So now, unfortunately, I will have to go to all my pages and re-route the clipart and photos to the new folders. But once that huge project is completed, the additional pages that I make will be much simpler. Similar to a CSS format in a way.
So for the next week or so, some links may not work temporarily on some pages, some cliparts may not show up, backgrounds and photos may disappear for awhile, but eventually I will have it all up online again, and HOPEFULLY, it will work 100% better! Just try the page again a few days later.
October 2, 2005 - Sunday
We haven't been to town for quite some time to shop, so today, Jim & I went, really just to pick up a long pipe. Well, we went to several stores, but never made it to Lowe's for the pipe. We got some wood putty to fix the rails that either ants or mold got into somehow, and of course, super-glue, which always comes in handy for things that are broken. I got a replacement clock to put above my sewing desk, so as not to lose track of time while having "fun". And we needed to get some ink pens, since I run out writing lists all the time! Little items like that. I am saving for a bookcase for my music room and hope to have enough in the next couple weeks to get one. I have tossed alot of books, but have many more that I'm keeping that need a place to reside. Lots of music books and hobby type books, nature, disaster, weather etc. I found the bookcase that I want, so hopefully in another couple of weeks I'll be able to get it.
Talked with Seth over the weekend and sounds like things are going real good. Sure miss seeing him, but know he's enjoying his time in New Mexico. Hopefully he will be able to visit over the holidays!
Well, don't think I will exclude the meat part of "Daniel's Diet" for this week, since I had already done grocery shopping last week before I heard about this. But next time I do any shopping for groceries, will try to get more on the veggie side so we can participate. However, the sugar part we're going to do. It's really surprising how many things have sugar added and often as one of the first ingredients (which is supposed to be listed according to amount in the product!) No wonder we have trouble keeping our sugar levels under control, when there is so much hidden sugar! Well, we shall see how we do in the next couple weeks.
Well, though I didn't accomplish as much around the house today that I wanted to, for some reason I am very tired tonight so am headed to bed.
October 1, 2005 - Sabbath
In the fall of 1980, when I was pregnant with Seth, my oldest son, I took an evening class in art, just for fun. Since I've been doing these web pages, I wanted to scan some of the things we drew in class, on my artwork pages, with the paintings I did back in the 70's. I knew the large tablet had to be around somewhere, remember packing it years ago, but couldn't find it anywhere. Well, last week, I finally found it in one of the basement rubbermaid tubs. So will scan some of the drawings this week to include on my artwork pages.
I LOVE this time of year, cooler during the day, crisp in the morning and evenings, leaves starting to finally turn a little and drop. Can't wait till my woods is bare! Love looking thru the woods in the winter. You can see the deer better, squirrels start getting needy for food and almost tame if you feed them faithfully. I can't wait! Plus we get to see family more in the winter than in the summer. Bridge traffic in summer is horrendous. And the holidays. Not a big fan of Halloween, but love Thanksgiving and Christmas. Always used to make pumpkin and apple pies from my own garden stuff. September was always my busiest tomato sauces canning, always did my jellies in September and fruit juices, as well as apples for pies, yes, canned also. It was always very busy, but so rewarding later to use what I had worked on so hard. In October, we would start using some of the produce that we had grown. It was GREAT!! Miss that time.
