dang it

 It was an interesting and exciting season

    I did not expect the Bears to make it to the playoffs, but once they got there I did not think they would lose.  Every game seemed to have some magic in the fourth quarter.

    And they almost won tonight.

    But almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

    This was a big family weekend!

    We Faced Timed with meh nephew and his wife  in Switzerland for a while this morning.  We con't talk as often as we should, and Face Time really makes it easy to communicate.  But the time zones make it hard for me to remember to call.  I don't want to call at 4 p.m. because that is 10 in Switzerland.  And I forget to call earlier.

    I visited my sister-in-law Friday in Byron,  today my other sister -in-law,  our niece,  her daughter, Julia, Emily, Jackie and I all enjoyed some family time and food at our house.

    My niece brought a pasta dish we all shared and it was nice visiting with everyone.  Then nephew Jason stopped over tonight to watch the Bears, visit, and spend the night.  He has been visiting his mom in Byron and taking care of arrangements for a move, possibly by the end of this week.  Tomorrow he heads back east.

    I hope to get Jackie up to Byron to visit sometime this week, otherwise she might not have a chance to say goodbye.

    This business of aging is not all it is cracked up to be.

    Sure we get discounts at stores, but when the body starts to decline, all sorts of issues arrive.    

    But enough of that.

    I do want Cubs fans to know that pitchers and catchers report Wednesday, Feb. 11. just a little over 3 weeks from now.

    That always makes the winter seem short.

Peace and Love

a diller, a dollar

 Today was kind of a miserable day

    Cold.  Snowy.  Not much done.

    One year ago this date Emily and I got off an airplane in Key West and started sweating and eating Key Lime pie.  That was a great time.

    Our cuckoo clock stopped working last week.  Today I took it down and remounted it on the wall.

    I think the nail just worked loose, causing the clock to tilt.  I put a drywall anchor in, inserted a screw, and put the clock back .

    That was 6 hours ago and it seems to be working fine..

    Go figure.

    I also learned a new word:  Bastide.  Now there are words that sound like it, but are not.  Bastide describes a new fortified town in the hill countries of France and some other European countries.  By "new" they mean formed in the 12th or 13th century, you know, when I was a kid.

    I was reading a FB page about  a beautiful French village, and the Bastide word was used to describe the town.    It is one of those places I would love to visit.

    Maybe after we take over Greenland I will have to.

    Jackie was watching a home show where people who come into money buy their dream home.

    I was not watching, but with a couple of minutes left I stopped to see what they bought.

    I think their budget for the Costa Rican property was $5 million.

    They did not find anything they liked, so they built a house at a cost of about $5.5 million.  It has an open layout and it looked like marble floors throughout.  It was 9,000 square feet, with 7 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms.

    It was huge.  There was an infinity pool and when you sat in it you watch the ocean.

    Then they said the words that frosted my cake.

    "This will be a great place for us to go when we want to get away."

    It's not even their primary residence!!!

    A $5.5 million get away with 7 bedrooms?

    My choice would be a 2 bedroom house on a lake.  2 bedrooms so I don't get a lot of company when I want to get away.

    And I think Jackie said they made their money the old fashioned way...... they inherited $4 million of it.

    Oh, if we all had rich relatives leaving us dough...that would be nice.

    Not looking so good for the 49ers........at the half they are down a lot.  I was hoping Brock Purdy would win.  I was also hoping Josh Allen and Buffalo would win.  No go there either.

    I won't put the jinx on the Bears.

Peace and Love

Now you know

 The world is filled with oddities

    There is a fat man's soccer league in Texas.

    Seriously.  It's for fat guys.

    In order to join you must be over 18 and have a body mass index of 21.5.  And pay$99 a month.

    The teams have punny names, like Fat Man City,  Mission Slimpossible, Butterball World...to name a few.

    I thought it sounded pretty weird, but some of the men have had amazing results.  One guy said he lost 70 pounds over the couple of years he has been playing.  Others reported 30 and 40 pound loses.

    And you don't have to leave the league if you lose a lot of weight.

    They don't play on a regulation size pitch, and the ball can be played if it hits the wall around the playing field.

    A benefit beyond weight loss is the friendships that have been formed.

    It just seemed a weird, but  effective, program.

    We have people come in the morning too help.  Usually they get Jackie dressed.  Sometimes I opt out the clothes, other times they choose the outfit.

    Jackie got dressed and was sitting at the breakfast nook table.  I went in and showered and got dressed.

    I walked out and heard, "Oh my gosh, you guys are wins!"

    Sure enough.  I put on a dark green top, the same shade and design she had.

    I got dressed today and put on another green top, just a shade lighter.  

    I went to visit my sister in law and my nephew is there wearing a shirt the same color as mine!

    I went home and told Jackie that I got my new shirt in the mail and I can add a lighter color to my shirt choice.

    I opened the package and ..... it's olive green!

    I now have 5 long sleeve shirts  one shade of green or another.

    Kermit was wrong!  It is easy being green!

    Note to self:   No more green shirts!!

Peace and Love

another car?

 The topic of buying a second car has come up

    I don't like driving the mini van.  We need that so I can have the front seat that swivels out.  That seat does not fit in most cars.

    The girls suggested I get another car to drive around town.

    Something small and fun, like a Fiat, or Smart car, or an electric vehicle.

    I see many problems with that.

    First, I would have to pay insurance on the vehicle.  Plus pay for the vehicle. And maintenance.  And all the other stuff that comes with owning a car.

    Second:  Where would I put it?

    I can barely get the van in our 3 car garage as it is!

    Yes, things could be stacked and arranged differently to create more space.  Just not enough  to store a second car.

    So I will continue driving the van until we can find a suitable alternative.

    Getting Jackie into and out of the van is so much easier with the chair that comes out, turns, a d goes down.  It is a back saver for me.

    On to another topic.

    I have been working on a book since ....gosh, I don't know how long.

    Anyway, it is done.  I have read it, reread it, edited it, added to it, deleted stuff from it and I thought I was finished.

    Then I sat down to read it.  Again.  Fourth time.

    Jimminy Cricket, there are a lot of mistakes!  Not major ones, but fog instead of frog, or pence instead of fence.

    Spell checker doesn't pick those up because they are words spelled correctly.

    Thus...one more time through it.  One more time correcting it.  One more time thinking I am finished.

    Then what?

    Time will tell.

Peace and Love

home again, home again

I took Julia home tonight 

    She has been with us since last Thursday, when she had a hernia repaired.

    At first she was going home by herself, but Jackie insisted she stay with us for at least one night.   That was a good move by wifey.

    Getting up from a chair or sitting position was hard for Julia.  Too much strain on her incision.

    So she slept in our recliner a lot and I tried to take care of her needs.

    Of course Beth loved it!  Her Julia was back!

    When Julia would walk around the house, Beth would follow her, just a few steps behind.  It was kind of funny to watch the two of them parade around.

    Anyway, just the 2 of us now.  Well, 3 counting Beth.

    I am slowly finishing up Christmas stuff.  I have gathered a lot of it in spots, now I have to clean up the spots.  Luckily none of the stuff is exposed to the elements.

    I learned something yesterday.

    The county sheriff has put up FLOCK cameras at various intersections around town.

    First off, I had no idea what a FLOCK camera was.  (You could say I was thinking what the FLOCK?) Basically, it reads license plate numbers.

    I am not sure how to take that.

    It does not seem the readers are for traffic enforcement, as such.  

    I don't believe they will tag you for speeding, or running a light, but I am not sure.

    What they seem to do is allow police to track a license plate number.

    Say someone commits a crime in Florida.  They then flee to Illinois.  A FLOCK camera near the crime scene reads  numbers and enters them into a computer.  A FLOCK camera in Rockford reads the plate number, matches it to one in Florida,  and bingo, bad guy captured.

    That is the benefit.

    But.....they could be used to track your movements too.  Even if you did not commit a crime, your plate can be read and authorities can track you.

    It's kind of Big Brothers to me.

    Yes, I do know the same thing can be accomplished on your cell hone.  But that seems Boig Brpotherish too.

    It concerns me.

    Say I go to the No Kings Rally this month.  My plate could be tracked, and I could be targeted for my political views.

    So. tell me, am I being paranoid to the extreme?

    Or is there a Big Brother?

    Let me know.

Peace and Love

Sorry

 I apologize for yesterday's misleading wording

    I believe that is called "click bait" or something like that.

    I like WW II history.  I was watching a video on something when about 2 minutes in a young woman appears on the screen and starts talking about having great sex with her 52 year old husband!  It was x-rated!! And yes, I did hit the skip ad option and went back to WW II.  but holy cow, that surprised me!

    I found out where my flashing goes....above the patio doors up about 15 feet.  I have called someone and they may come this week, weather permitting.

    I went to mail something at the post office.  There is construction going on in the alley where the letter box is.  I had to get out of my car to put the letter in the box.

    One of the guys working there said, "Hey, it's my job!  I have to be doing this.  I'm sorry."

    I just laughed and said it was no big deal and he was lucky it was Jan. 13 and 40 degrees.  My guess is some people have complained and he was being proactive.

    Ran into someone at the store and I remembered his name.

    But I am not sure he remembered mine.  He called me Buddy three times.  

    I guess I am not the only one with name recognition issues.

    And I called my congressional rep's office with a litany of complaints.  I was not done when the staffer abruptly  said, "I will pass your concerns on to the congressman," and he hung up.

    I don't want to be political here, so I won't mention anything else except I wrote a letter to the editor too.

    No matter where you live, you have to call them and tell them how to improve life in the gold old US of A.  And write letters to the editor.  And VOTE!!

    Peace and Love

Crash

 I admit, I cut the corner too close

    I was not paying attention.

    There was a crash.  People yelling.

    A man  called out, 'You didn't do this, did you?"

    A woman answered, "It's not my fault this time."

    I fessed up:  "I cut the corner too short.  It's my fault"

    We stood among a debris field of breadsticks, now scattered over 2 aisles in the grocery store.

    The display boxes stuck out just a couple of inches past the end row, and I hit the first one.

    Which hit the second one.

    Which hit the third one.

    Packages of breadsticks everywhere.  It was a horror show.

    I started to pick them up and the man helped, telling me his wife had done t his before.

    We laughed about it.  We just piled the packages in the display rack willy nilly.  If they had been organized by flavor, they weren't now.

    No blood, no foul.  I am just glad they weren't pickles in glass jars.

    But my guess is some of the breadsticks may be in pieces....buyer beware, eh?

    And of course, I was looking for one particular item.  $82 later, I packed the car and went home.  When I walked in the door Julia said, "Did you find the paper hand towels you wanted?"

    Hell no!  I forgot to look! But I bought $82 worth of other stuff!

    That is the problem when I don't make a list.

    A couple of nights ago I posted a picture of a Bears electronic sign on a house near us.  I noticed today the sign is gone.

    I hope they  took it down and that some idiot did not steal it or damage it.  

    Speaking of damage, Julia pointed out a piece of aluminum sheathing that has the same color as our house........except it was in the bushes.

    So tomorrow I will walk around trying to figure out where it came from and if I can put it back in the right spot.

    Until tomorrow....

Peace and Love