Window Shopper

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This is going to be short. Around here, you would think that in Podunk, there would be some people who would cut the grass pretty cheaply. Well, you would think so anyway. This year has been bad for us for several reasons. One is that there is no one in the family capable of cutting my Mom’s grass. It got to be pretty tall over the spring and early summer. Frankly, you could lose the cats and dogs in it there for a while. My mother called someone to mow the lawn. Now, I do have to say that her yard is about an acre of ground since she is on a farm. However, that acre is quite easy to mow. A few trees, a house and that’s about it. No one would have a lot of trouble doing the work.

Here is the shame of the thing. She hired these two guys that, when we showed up one day so we saw this, were just sitting around not doing much of anything. At the time, it really did not look like they had done much. I should mention here that they had been there for a few hours already. We were visiting in the afternoon. No one was feeling well that day so they weren’t paying a whole lot of attention to these guys. By the time they left, they had spent all day on the grass. It had in actual time, probably taken them a couple of hours to do the work. After all, they were using a bush hog. Any one that knows what they are knows that they cover a lot of ground in a short time.

At the end of the day, she handed them over $400 to do what they did. They had charged her while they were sitting and doing nothing. She was paying them by the hour. I was shocked. Recently, she hired someone else to do the same work for about $150. Actually, I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked when it costs us $60 for our little lot but it still does.

The moral of this story is this. Check out who you are hiring to do work at your home. Be certain that they are reputable and will do the work you hired them to do. Be sure that these people are not spending the time sitting around if you are paying them by the hour. Do not leave while they work. Have someone on hand to oversee what’s going on. These people prey on those who are unaware and it costs them dearly. Guess this wasn’t as short as I thought it would be.

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I had to ask that question. Our old VCR served us well until one night there was a huge lightning show outside. Normally, I like to watch those since they are usually so spectacular and sometimes pretty. All of a sudden, pop…crack….and it was gone. Just like that. Our television set, DVD player and VCR are all supposedly protected by a power strip. That night, everything was fine except for the VCR. It was dead. And since we were running everything through the VCR, it was all dead. The fear was that we had lost all three to the storm. No. Only the VCR.

Prior to this, I had already had a couple of VCRs repaired. The tape drives, if that’s what you call the thing that drives the tape through the VCR, are the first things to go in those since that is about all that it has. It has to be cleaned and so on. Yet, when those are done, they are most certainly done. Now, what I want to know is…what happened to the VCRs for sale in this country? Have they all disappeared off the shelves never to be seen again? I do realize this dates me a bit but the fact is, we have an enormous number of vhs tapes that we will want to watch and with no VCR, it would be like having obsolete items that we could no longer use. Now, I am talking about over 300 movies on vhs tape. Useless if we do not get another VCR.

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Our car has electric windows. I thought I would mention that first since it was vital to the story. We were blessed when the remnants of Hurricane Ike came calling in that we only got a few hours of wind and some rain. Our house is on the side of a hill, the north side, so it was with a great deal of surprise that we found some damage from the storm. And that was the weirdest part. The only damage that happened from that storm was the passenger side window in our car. It has blown out. We are still not sure how this came about considering the car was in the carport, parked back pretty far. the wind would have to have come through a lot of trees, past a house on one side and our house on the other. The wind would have to be coming from the east.

It was broken all right. I guess the worst part is that where we live, you cannot simply put plastic up on the window and go on. Authorities do not appreciate that anymore. It had to be fixed relatively soon since the cooler weather is about to happen here. We do have a few weeks, maybe, but we did not want to take that chance. That meant buying something that we had not budgeted within the Checking Account at all. Oh no. We are not set up to deal with emergencies after all the emergencies we have already had.

Yet, we did go get the window fixed. Actually, I expected it to cost us a good deal more than it did. Of course, I had hoped it wouldn’t cost us anything but our insurance did not cover this particular problem in an older car. Biting the bullet, we paid out less than $160 for an electric window. Now, I know that takes some effort to get into a door with that type of workings but they did it in a little under an hour. Hats off to the folks at the glass company! I was very impressed. So, if you’re looking for advice on replacing car windows, especially if they happen to be electric, go to an expert. Do NOT allow the man of the house do the work unless he already knows how to do it. If he is just trying to save a buck, save the buck by finding the cheapest professional to do the work. It pays off in the end. (BTW, my husband is such a blessing. He knows how rough it is to replace that type of window. There was no problem at all.)

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For years, we had the two cats and a dog. The eldest was our 13 year old doggie who passed away in Feb. Our next oldest was our 9 year old cat, appropriately named Kitty. We called her that so she would come to her name. Yes, I know. Very corny but it did work. I said “was” because we lost her to an unexpected heart problem last December. The subject of this post are the two cats. Our boy cat, Gizmo, is still around though he tends to be very lonely now. They were best friends, playing at times during the day, everywhere and racing around the house after each other.

Now, in order to play Kitty/Gizmo style, one of them had to choose from an assortment of cat trees or high places in our home. Usually, it was a chair or a window sill. Whatever the tree place, the other would get under to “surprise” the one on the top of the “tree”. This game could go on for hours. After that game was over, they each would act like they could care less about the other one. It was apparently not dignified to admit that they wanted to play together. We found that to be hilarious.

When their play ended, they usually wanted some type of treats which we kept in a plastic bag. The bag would rustle and they would show up so fast that you would expect to see a mouse parade. You know, cats..mice. Uh huh. If you want to keep your cats happy, they need the high places to go, some type of goody or cat treats and the right type of cat food just for them. No “people food” for the pets. Not good for them. Finding the right food or treats for your cat is extremely important. It makes for a happy cat.

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A few months ago, we acquired a new puppy. She was about 5 weeks old at the time and very active. As little as she was, she got into everything we left out. One day a couple of months later, we went out to go to the store. It took quite a while since we had several stops to make. And when we came home, there were things torn up all over the floor including a few things from the trash. Nothing seemed to be wrong so we cleaned up the trash and torn up things around the floor. Our puppy looked none the worse for wear. Our cat appeared to be nervous around the pup though. At this point, the cat was now smaller than the pup so it was no wonder the cat had gotten worried about our puppy.

Later that evening, I noticed some small bits of something that were about the same color as the carpet strewn around the floor. My memory clicked in to the fact that I had picked up a medicine bottle that she had chewed but I thought it was the one I had thrown away the day before. The small bits were actually a cholesterol med that I am taking. She had evidently chewed on several before we found the pills. We could not account for 7 of them. She was none the worse for wear but it could have been quite dangerous for her.

My advice is when you have medications, vitamins, diet pills or anything like that, put them up high so that a pet cannot get to them. See, we had been used to an older dog that knew better than to get into such things. The meds were in what we thought was a safe place. However, this puppy could go places you would not dream she could get to. We had to do some changing in our thinking. It would be no different than if you had a new baby in the house. When they get mobile, or even before they do, put meds in a place where they cannot be reached. I saw a blog today that suggested putting meds, OTC meds too, under lock and key. I agree even with pets. Do yourself, your family, your children and your pets a favor and put such items out of reach of little fingers and teeth.

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In the process of looking for a camcorder, we noticed that it is very important to find out if the item is good for just television or it will also hook up to a computer. That’s really important to us. Some folks will want theirs to simply be available to see the latest family vacation but in our case, the camcorder is needed for uploading videos online. We like to put ours on a couple of places that have video capabilities. My husband found out about this distinction at a camera counter when he asked a few questions.

You will want to know, then, if it works on both or just the television. How much charge does the battery hold? How long will it record before it runs down? How much memory does the camera have? How long will it record before it is full? Unlike regular cameras that have a certain video function, camcorders record for a lot longer. Ours works for 90 minutes before it needs to have the content downloaded. In addition, we purchased a 4 gig. memory card. This was recommended.

If you have experience in videos, it’s likely that you know these things already. We have no experience. This is all new to us. We did notice one glaring thing about recording videos. You will need to have something that steadies your hand since the slightest movement of your hand will show up on the video looking like the earth is shaking. For that, we spent a bit more money and bought a tripod that is going to save our recordings for certain. Buying a tripod is well worth the few dollars if you are serious about doing good videos.

These are just a few things to look for. Do your research!!! Don’t just run out and buy the first thing you see. For us, that would have cost us almost $50 more than we paid. Also, sometimes it’s a blessing when one company or store does not have the item you’re looking for. A well known, worldwide discount store did not have what we wanted. I searched online. My husband searched as well. We found what we wanted only to see that it was not available just yet. Out of stock. Seemed discouraging at first. Then, we found the identical item for about $20 cheaper at another well known online store and a bonus too, free shipping!!! All in all, we saved almost $70 just by doing the research, knowing what we wanted and then watching the prices to get the best all around price and free shipping.ey

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For a while now, I have had a nurse visiting our home and taking vitals on me. Doctor’s orders required that they do a personal visit to see that I was doing all right. As you may or may not remember, I was in the hospital for a blood clot. And right afer I got home, they started visiting me. I found that to be fantastic. And I want to tell you that those ladies have been wonderful. Unless you have been in that type of situation, you cannot know how much of a relief it is to have a health care professional checking up on you to make sure that you are all right.

Every time they were here, they took the vitals like blood pressure and listening to my heart. Included in that was taking my pulse with what I now know was a pulse oximeter. That is one handy little device. It gives a reading for your pulse and your blood oxygen content at the same time. Honestly, I wish my Mom had one of those little devices since she has COPD and must medicate for her breathing.

In addition to doing the vitals, they wanted to know how I was feeling, if there were any other problems or symptoms or anything that might be different. All the information was then given to my doctor for evaluation. At times, I did get a call from the doctor’s office concerning one thing or another. The best part was that if I needed anything or was having a problem, I could call them 24/7. That was so comforting to me in a time when I had no idea what could happen. See, I did not get much information concerning the DVT (blood clot). Those at the hospital did not tell me much. I got more information from the nurses than anywhere else throughout the problem.

They have stopped coming now. However, I was told I could have them back anytime I felt a need. I find that comforting, too, in an area where we have little medical coverage. Our hospital, if you could call it that, is over 60 miles away. That’s if you want to go to that one. Otherwise, there’s one about 70 miles away in either of two directions. We have an urgent care clinic here but it closes at 11pm. I have no clue what is expected after that unless you make the long trek to the hospital. So, I am grateful to the nurses of the home health care services.

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Time and time again, I love thinking about Christmas…until I have to think about presents for people in the family. That part is not on my list of fun things to do when the cash is short. On the other hand, I do love to get presents for the family. That part IS fun. And I just started thinking that particular time of year is coming around again. Really, the only reason I brought it up in the first place is that usually at Christmas is when we all get a load of new DVDs and television shows that we always wanted to watch. That part is very good.

When that happens, we have a mountain of new movies and television shows to watch. I remember one year, someone got Quantum Leap for a present. And over the years, they received all five seasons of the series. So, we decided to borrow it. This is something we do, all of us. When everyone wants to see a certain movie or series, we loan or borrow as needed. I like that. That way, we do not all have to own it. We borrowed the series. Thing is, we sat and watched episode after episode. Of course, in our limited way, we had our home theater seating in the livingroom, otherwise known as the couch and recliner. I cannot recall how long it took to see what we did watch but it was quite a while. And at the end, we wished there were more episodes. On a side note here, we decided that they did not end that series the right way. That just wasn’t right.

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Now, to most people this is not a big deal. They can afford to buy such things and have been able to for years. Some people even told me that they didn’t see the problem with buying such things. Well, when you are on a seriously strained budget, it is a really hard thing to accomplish. However, we dug into some money we were saving for something else and bit the bullet.

One of the things we have realized over the last year is that more and more, people and companies are heading toward videos for advertising instead of using the same old pictures or simple text on a page. Since we do accept paid blogging as part of our income, it was not a stretch to see that we would have to head into the twenty first century with everyone else. It was a reluctant step in many ways since we certainly could have used that money for other things. After all, we have had some serious outlay in the last three months due to hospital and doctor visits.

I have been wanting a camcorder since the old, heavy camcorders were out on the market. You know what I’m talking about, right? They were heavy, used video tape and took two hands to hold it in order to video something. The tape was standard size and when you were finished, you simply took it out of the camcorder and put it into the vhs player to watch. Very nice…for that time. I missed that whole era since the only one of those available to me was something my father had years ago and was actually unavailable since it was broken or had been sold in a yard sale years ago. I have no idea which was the case. The end result was that I did not have a camcorder to use.

It was always a wish to have such a piece of equipment and got even more so as two of our beloved pets died before we could record them in any way except a few pictures off and on over the years. Even our digital camera failed us since it was so cheap that it would not take good pictures in a slightly dark room. No light means no picture, period.

Now we have a very small, hand held camcorder since that is the way they come these days. You can hold it in one hand, if you don’t shake. I do so we also obtained a tripod which I am certain we will use abundantly. Our plan is to get as many pictures and videos of people and things we treasure as possible. That means that we will have large numbers of videos of our cat, I imagine. Funny but true. But it also means that we will be able to look back and see some of the times that we love too. It is a shame that we could not have done this a couple of years ago. It would have been so much better for the two we lost.

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We have a problem. My laptop has a key that has no cap on it. That happened a couple of weeks or so ago. My husband tried really hard to put it back on but it just would not go. Apparently, the clip that holds it on broke. At this point, I am typing with all the keys but the B key with caps. The B key has a small cone on it that is really soft so it doesn’t hurt to type with it. However, at some point, I am certain that it will get shorter and shorter as time goes on.

My husband did try to order the key cap and clip. And once again, there is a however. And that is why I am writing this post. Apparently, the key caps for this particular laptop cost dearly especially if you have no clue which key cap clip to buy. There are four. If you do not get the right one, you have a problem. So, he thought about buying them all and finding the right one. Ah no. That didn’t work just as soon as he noticed how much each key cap clip would cost. The fact is, he went on eBay to find these things. And here is the incredible part. In buying for this particular laptop, it actually costs more for ONE key cap and clip (if you buy all four because you don’t know which one) than it costs to actually replace the keyboard itself.

Okay, that made no sense whatsoever. However, it is true that the keys, individually, are going to cost more. Got that. But they should not cost that much more but they do. In effect, it would have cost him over $24 to replace ONE key cap and buy FOUR clips to get the right one. It did cost him $20 to buy a complete replacement keyboard. That is ridiculous but true.

So, if you have problems with your laptop keyboard and you want to replace any portion of it, make sure to check the prices of the keys individually and compare that to a complete replacement of the keyboard. Now, if anyone has a clue how to install the keyboard, I could sure use the tips.

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