Window Shopper

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Now there’s a title for you. I was thinking of the title Last Time I Saw Paris, the country not the woman. In August, I was so disgusted because I went into the hospital and could not really manage my droopy hair. It just went wild, stunk, was way too long for me, in short it was nasty. And I vowed then that I was going to get it cut before something else happens. After that, the first chance I got to go out, off came the hair. It’s incredibly short now and I love it. Why? Because I am sitting here with a leg problem again and I have SHORT HAIR!!! Not hard to take care of at all. HA!

While we were at the salon that day, a few very different people came in to get hair cuts and styles. One that struck me as strange was this one lady who got her hair coiled up in little ringlets. You know all those guys with comb overs? Very obvious try at faking out people as if you could not tel it was a comb over? Well, this lady and several others I have seen since have what I would call coilovers, there is nothing else I could call it. Little ringlets all over the head and then scraped over on one side. Very strange, very strange indeed. One would think that there are foreigners among us. And that, folks, was the last time I saw my hair.

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Despite my wonderful charm and influence, I found myself inside an ER again. And while I may be getting up in years to some, I am still a vital person. Unfortunately, I fell on my leg a week ago Saturday. It developed some SERIOUS pain and swelling. By Tuesday, I could hardly walk. Decision time. My experiences with hospitals in general and the ones around here have been like night and day, the ones here being the night side. This particular ER is new to me since we avoid places that used to be bandaid stations in the expectation that they still might be that. It was where the ambulance dropped me off.

The doc there was pretty good, seemed like a nice guy, seemed to have a clue what’s up. After the check in, I was treated to a few xrays to see if I had a broken leg. Nope. Then they wanted blood. Now I have to admit that my veins are a nightmare to some people. They roll, collapse and every other thing possible. It makes blood draws such a nice thing to go through. They tell me that this girl that looks like she belongs in high school applying acne care products instead of trying to start an IV in me is something of an expert at this. Wrong. She blew it. Someone finally started one in my left hand which, by the way, hurts a lot. Usually they don’t once they are in. So what I have is one on one side putting in an IV and the other side is someone taking blood. Nice.

They give me an IV of antibiotics because the doc says I have cellulitis which is an infection of the skin and muscle tissues. Then they give me a pain killer. Not bad. I was sort of out of it for a while. The doc finally comes in and lets me know he can’t justify me staying in the hospital even overnight. The agony of this infection is awesome. At home, I can hardly walk to the bathroom and back, at no time without help. And they want me to go home. The bed they put me in cannot go down enough for me to put my foot on the ground. When they get me up to shoo me away, I have to step down over a FOOT to the floor. The incompetence screams at me.

Eventually, we went to get the prescriptions at the local pharmacy to the hospital. We lived about 30-35 miles away and would not get home in time to get them filled there. While the doc wrote out a prescription we could not get, my husband was inside getting someone to call the doc back. Took 45 minutes. I was sitting in the car in shorts, tshirt and shoes. It was 40 degrees. Nice. Now I have a nurse coming out a couple times a week.

I cannot tell you how much I am beginning to hate living where I do. The reality is that I used to like it here when there were no medical issues. But now……….Just a small clue. Even if you do not have medical issues, check out what is around you. Make sure when the time comes, you have adequate and hopefully more than adequate medical care.

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Sometimes, older is better. I was pretty blessed in my teen years in that I didn’t have some of the things that others had. But I did feel the way most do. Parents are better left at home. Though we didn’t call them this, I didn’t have a lot of zits or other such problems either. My life wasn’t bad. The only thing that was a real problem was that my parents didn’t think I was mature and I did think so. When I got out on my own, I still thought so.

Over the years, I have grown up….some thought it took longer than necessary, but there ya go. And now in my more knowledgeable years, I see that some things never really change. Teens and young adults still see themselves as grown up when they are not. Have you been to a high school lately? You can still see the kids need to recognize that they are not grown ups and that they still need acne treatments until they get older. In my high school days, it was a horror. The doctors had little clue how to deal. Kids had to go to school with the problems. Anyone remember the big zit on Marsha Brady’s nose? That was in the 70s. And now, I guess it wouldn’t be the big deal it was then. What do you know.

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That sounded goofy, didn’t it. I tend to overlook the end of October’s obvious day and head straight for Thanksgiving. Our family, as much of it is in the neighborhood, always get together at my Mom’s house and celebrate the day. Three are currently away in other states. One of those will be home for the holiday. That will be the big meal. Christmas is usually more about having a good time and celebrating with the kids while they ooh and ahh about their presents. Regardless of the holiday, there is always dessert. Always. What’s a holiday without dessert?

Even now, I can taste Mom’s pumpkin pie, mincemeat pie and there will usually be cookies galore. Mom acts like the typical Grandma with all the kids, young and older. Inevitably, there will be an exchange of dessert recipes because I don’t have all of hers yet. See, I am more of a cook than a baker so my attempts at baking can be disastrous at times. Except for cookies, usually chocolate chip and oatmeal, I tend to leave the grand baking to Mom. The crusts on her pies are awesome. I don’t think I have ever had that type of flaky crust on any other pie but hers. So, do you see why I am skipping the one for the other? Besides, we do not recognize that day at the end of this month anyway. I am thinking of turkeys, dressing, salads, green bean casserole and so much more….and desserts!!! Can’t forget those.

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I can’t believe I wrote that title but it appears to be true, nevertheless. What I have found is that for those who own a Wii (you lucky dogs…well, I don’t believe in luck but..) getting fit is a whole lot easier. See, I am looking for Christmas presents and I ran across this thing. No one in our family has a Wii so it won’t work for us but I thought I would pass this along to someone who might just have one and want to get fit. It’s called a Wii Fit. Go figure. So, do your research here because this item is apparently in great demand. If you are going to get one for Christmas as a present, I would strongly suggest getting it now and before the supplies run out.

Now, what is it? I can best describe it as a platform that you stand on to play the games. I cannot tell you that the thing will make your breakfast for you but it sure does a whole lot of other things. You get to do aerobics, sports, muscle stretches and balance games. Uh, that one would be a problem for me but hey, I don’t have a Wii so no problem there. Now this is a list of the balance games available with this board: Soccer, Ski Slalom, Ski Jump, Table Tilt, Tightrope Walk, Balance Bubble, Penguin Slide, Snowboard Slalom and Lotus Focus. And the Wii Fit has the ability to keep track of your fitness progress. Not bad at all! I’d like to point out that for those who live in areas that see a lot of cold and snow or ice, this combined with the Nintendo Wii would make one heck of a good exercise program in the winter time.

The product description says this is great for the whole family. Looks to me like it would be a great way to have some quality family time together. I took a look at reviews on this product from some buyers. The over all ratings are good. One complaint I guess you would call it is that they stated that it is not really a game but a way to do your exercise. The thing does ask objectives and it would be unlikely that your child under the age of 11 or 12 would care about that part. However, it is still a fun way to lose weight plus the kids would still like the skiing and soccer, I am sure. Looks like fun to me.

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Thinking back, I have been wearing glasses for over 49 years now. Only once did I even begin to think that I wanted contact lenses. One of the big things in my life concerning my eyes is that they are very sensitive. Therefore, I did not believe that it was possible to have contacts with such eyes. So, I have never gotten them. That makes me old fashioned, I suppose. But living with a nearsightedness and then astigmatism as well, it has not been as easy as all that. For instance, right now I cannot see the screen as well as I used to be able to. I have to hold my glasses up to the bifocal part so that I can see the screen successfully. Actually, I have no idea whatsoever if having contacts would help or hurt that.

On the other hand, I have thought about the Lasik procedure since it seems to be ideal for so many people. Yet my age might be against me there. Of course, this would have to happen at a time when we don’t have the money for such procedures. That is not right now. But I do believe it would be the one way to deal successfully with my eye problems permanently.

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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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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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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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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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