LIES

I love cereal.

This LOOKS like a nice bowl of cereal.

and while this IS a bowl of cereal...it's a bowl of SEVERAL servings.
Bummer. Who knew!

I need these bowls...

400th POST

Wow.
So, here's what has been going on besides my battle with my Internet provider and getting my wireless and then losing it, getting it back again and flickering off...and a few rants from me and finally everything is up and working. Sigh. What a headache.
But something else has been going on.
I have been exhausted. Everyday. My joints, everything aches.
I'm so tired that I felt dizzy.
And kinda nauseous, like heartburn?
So I start Googling and I find that it's pretty common to have these symptoms as a side effect for the statin that I'm on.
The statin to lower my bad cholesterol. And then I hear on TV that it can also cause Dementia.
and then Davy Jones dies. From a heart attack. and he always seemed very peppy and active...and not at all FAT.

and then Dr. Oz

is talking about drinking Metamucil with Psyllium 3 times a day

 to lower cholesterol

and it's like BAM!
I have to stop eating this junk and start exercising or I could die.
Or worse, have a stroke and not be able to take care of myself.
So I went and had blood tests done.
Pre-diabetic.
I mean really, should I be surprised? What did I expect?
So I went to the Doctors and talked about the statin and apparently it's the one with the worse track record for side effects.
I'm off of them now and they are looking into something else for me to try for 3 months. Something more homeopathic I think.
I'm not too worried about it because something has CLICKED and I'm done.
Done with emotional eating, mindless eating, eating out of boredom or habit.
Done.
I went and bought some nice tennis shoes with gels in them...
OK, my FEET are now killing me but
I don't want my obit to read - Death by Donuts.
Good-bye Sunday morning Cherry Fritters!

and Davy Jones?

The Monkees were a big bright spot in my sometimes not so shiny childhood.
Not to be a whiny baby and cry about the icky stuff, if I were to allow myself to remember from those years but....
I LOVED the MONKEES!

The one program that the whole neighborhood of girls would crowd into a living-room and watch.
and then later we would play "stints".
Did you do that when you were kids?
Make up little plays and act them out in the backyards of your friends.
I never got to have "Davy" as my boyfriend. One of the more popular girls always got him.
I was usually stuck with Mickey....

and to tell you the truth, he and I would have been the right fit.
He always was the funniest one. I loved his wise-cracks.
But the thought that Davy Jones is gone...only 66.

Yeah, back in the day that's older than what the Beatles sang about.
But suddenly I can see it flickering down the road, closer to me than 40...which I thought I was just a couple of years ago.
Wow, that zoomed by.
Yeah, if I want to live as long as Beatrice Wood and be as happy and mobile as her....
No more Chocolate Chip cookies for dinner.
But hey, I've dusted off my George Foreman grill and I've got my microwave and I see that they have these "Steamable" things full of vegetables that you just toss in the microwave for 4 minutes!
I read that frozen is actually better than what you buy fresh in the store.
But of course home grown or farmers market is even better.
Hmmm...maybe I will be planting more than just flowers this year!
So that's how I marking my 400th post.
Sadness in the passing of a teenage idol.
and
Happiness in the fact that I woke up before it was too late.

COULD YOU LIVE NEXT TO A CEMETERY?

I'm not moving.

But I look at houses all the time on-line.

I'd love to have a "breezeway".

I found one house that is all on one level. It doesn't have exactly a breezeway but the garage is a few steps from the house and it's all under one roof.

A small house but big enough for me and the critters.

It has a nice level backyard that backed up to the cemetery.

It has a cute screened porch on the back which you could walk out onto through French doors.

I envisioned walking out with my morning coffee and letting the dogs romp out in the yard. There was a wobbly wire fence that would need to be replaced with something sturdy, and no border trees to shield the view of the old cemetery. But that didn't bother me.

At least not until I went with my sister and my nieces to that cemetery to take photos at night on the Day of the Dead:
http://oldblackcatboo.blogspot.com/2011/11/i-am-not-going-back.html

But what did bother me was that it was in the part of town where 2 blocks East is nice neighborhoods and yet 2 blocks West is not a safe area.

So, scratch THAT house.

Not that I'm moving anyway.

There are many houses bordering that cemetery. Mostly very nice neighborhoods.

Then there's another cemetery in town situated in the best of areas.

I happened upon an older small brick home, one level with a detached garage that I also found on-line. I tried to visualize exactly where it was located. I knew by the address that it was a very nice neighborhood. This home also backed up to a cemetery. From the photos, I could see a structure or a statue behind the tall Poplars trees planted along the back border of the yard.

This house also had an enclosed screen porch.

The basement was finished in funky light paneling and very retro tile but...

I was kinda loving THAT.

Immediately I could imagine my dogs romping around in the basement. I could put a couple of big comfy sofas and TV down there. It showed a little paneled bar area. I could stock a refrig with beverages and put dog food under the bar. PERFECT.

I adored the idea of the possibility of not having all my life activity to be right when you walk in the front door like it is now.

Meaning, I could have the symbolic look of a neat tidy home and have the chaos of everyday life, out of the way - downstairs.

So one day while driving back from somewhere with my sister, I asked her to turn down a street as we came up the hill. I told her to take a right and she did.

"What are we looking at?" she asked.

I told her I had seen a house on-line. I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm kinda nuts since I have no cash to fund a move and my own house needs many things done before I could sell but that day she indulged me.

So, she took a right and then another and then a left.

"OH!" she said. "This is NICE, kinda tucked back away".

I told her "I KNOW! I'd be off a busy street!" I pointed up to the right and said to slow down.

"Hmm" she said. " the garage needs painting" and I replied that it was just one story and small. Small enough for me to paint myself.

She slowed to almost a stop, the car was just barely rolling. "What's back there behind it?"

I told her it was the cemetery. She laughed and said that al least those neighbors won't bother you.

We rolled by and I commented how the front and back yards were all level. "It would be so nice to just zip, zip a lawn-mover over that".

I told her there was a screened porch on the back and she said that sounded nice.

She looked back to the street as we were almost past and I leaned forward and looked at it from that angle.

Suddenly I sat back up straight and said "FORGET IT!"

She stopped the car and looked at me.

"Why?" she asked.

Then she leaned forward to see what I had seen. She looked at me and I looked at her and then we both laughed.

Only she and I would have understood why and it might seem morbid to others.

Then I said, "Yeah, I don't really want to go out to my back porch every morning and raise my cup of coffee and say

"Good Morning Mom! Morning Dad!"

The structure that stood behind the trees was the big mausoleum that our parents are entombed in.

Guess I should have used the Satellite feature on Google before getting all excited about that house.

So, could you live next to a cemetery?
I mean, if your deceased parents aren't almost in your backyard?

ALWAYS MODERATE YOUR COMMENTS!

OK. I have no idea what is going on!
I just came home from work and the green light on my modem is flickering and the phone has a dial tone! I ran to the computer and YES!  I have Internet!
The guy is coming tomorrow to disconnect my phone and set up the line for "wireless without a phone". When the guy came out to my house on Monday he said that there was NOT a problem with the line OUTSIDE (which would have been free to fix), so it had to be INSIDE, which would mean that I would be charged $110.00.
Luckily I wasn't home for him to get inside.
Whew! Dodged that bill!
So that's what got me thinking about possibly going with cable. But first I decided to call the telephone company and she waived the INSIDE inspection charge and new hook-up charge and I would start getting wireless for $10 a month less than I HAD been paying. Such a deal!
Today we are having 50 mile an hour winds...and everything is working (for now anyway.)
The phone line goes from the house and up through my weeping willow tree and across the backyard to the giant power pole at the corner of the yard.
Me thinks it was OUTSIDE!
SCAMMERS! Grrrr, Spit, Phew!
At least the customer service woman on the phone was nice.
So, now on to moderating comments.
I just posted Robin's question on the last post about "word verification" and I will answer her here:
Go to your Dashboard page, then to "Settings", then under "Comments" scroll done to "show word verification" and click on NO instead of YES.
BUT make sure you have checked ALWAYS under "comment verification"...
WHY?
because as SOON as I took word verification off the comments I had a bunch of comments waiting in my email to be moderated from Anonymous and they were links to Porn, Body-Part Enlargements and Viagra......one of them had maybe 25 links attached to it! Luckily I had the ability to delete them all.
So there ya go! I'm going to go read some other emails now before the wind blows the line around and disconnects me again!

NO INTERNET and NO WORD VERIFICATION

OK, yes. I DID say that I wanted to back away a bit from the computer...
but THIS is ridiculous!
My phone line AND my wireless are DOWN.
I'm posting this from work, WHILE ON MY LUNCH BREAK (in case some one from work actually reads my blog).
SO - I am getting rid of that OLD landline (only telemarketers called me on that anyway) and getting just wireless. Unfortunately they can't come to install it until Thursday.
:(
but there is GOOD news. 
I've gotten rid of my "word verification" thingie!
So now people won't have to jump through hoops (while squinting) to leave me a comment!
:)
Hope to see ya back here on Thursday night!
XOXO - Cindi

CAN YOU LOVE AN INANIMATE OBJECT?

is it possible?
It isn't living, breathing...there's no soul.
But...
My sister and her family have several cars and one of them was an OLD Toyota van.
The van was almost to 300 thousand miles.
300,000
They have driven that thing EVERYWHERE!
They would pack it up and go to Wisconsin, to the lake.
They drove it to Chicago for weekend visits when the older girls were in college.
They drove it in the dead of winter through the snow when other cars would have gotten stuck.
They would drive over to get me and we would all sit bundled up in the back as we rumbled out into the country for Christmas Eve at our Step-Mother's.
They would load their dogs up in it for a trip to the vet or a hike in the park.
We used it to load it up with great steals at Estate Sales and Fabulous Finds along the road.
We carted bags of mulch and trays of flowers.
They could pack it up with metal stuff to the scrap yard and with papers,cardboard and plastics to the Recycling Center.
And worn out and damaged junk to the Dump.
It would be vacuumed and cleaned out for the annual Spring trip to Washington D.C. to see cherry blossoms.
It became the school car for the girls to drive and then their work car.

So my youngest niece, Lily had been driving it. She just got her license this year.
They had that van since she was a little toddler and she had been there when the radiator had it's problems and when it had a flat but she always felt safe inside and now while driving it.
So this winter we all gave her many driving tips. She was driving it to her very first "real" job and had to travel the Interstate.
My sister told her if she ever hit a slick spot not to jerk the wheel or it might cause a rollover.
This winter hasn't had a lot of snow but one day there was freezing rain and then it stopped.
In town the roads didn't appear bad and she decided to travel out to get her paycheck.
She hit an icy patch.
She didn't jerk the wheel but the van spun out, hit the guard rail, whipped around and landed backwards in a ditch.
Other motorists called the State Police.
She was OK. Frightened and crying but fine.
My sister told me about it on the phone. Her voice cracked as she told me how the old van's airbag had inflated and protected her.
In my mind I could visualize the old van reaching out and wrapping it's arms around Lily keeping her safe from harm.
The van was badly damaged so it was towed to the car-scrap yard.
My sister went down to settle things, and to make sure it really was beyond repair and sell it for scrap.
She called to tell me that she didn't know why but she just had to turn the key one more time...
and it started right up.
She went home and told her husband about it that night.
He said they couldn't just LEAVE it there.
She told him that it was just a van and that it had to be.
But I think the thought of her old friend and protector of her children sitting abandoned in that yard...broke her heart a little bit.

JUST DROPPING IN...

...for a moment!

I've made a small dent in my "stuff I need to get done" list.
I've done some writing!
A little bit of doodling...
Yep, I have actually gotten a lot accomplished by staying off the computer
OK, I haven't been completely OFF. I've checked email and Facebook.
Lately I am really hating Facebook.
If I read an article on Yahoo, they post that I read it. What's up with that?
Now everyone knows I had to stop and watch Taylor Swift's spooky video.
And these "friends" that I KNOW on Facebook are bugging me.
One of them posted this very NOT politically correct poster about learning Chinese.
It wasn't funny. They probably don't realize that my nieces are 1/4 Chinese. (My brother-in-law is half.)

Now the dilemma, do I ignore it or do I make a comment that I find it offense? This is someone I have to deal with in my work life.
Then I have several people preaching their religion to me and others their politics.
It drives me crazy. I know what I believe and who I will probably vote for.

Sigh, I suppose many of my "friends" are wishing that I'd stop with all the cute dog/cat stuff.

Anyway, I'm thinking of staying off Facebook for a while too. (email me if you need me!)
XOXO - Cindi