Window Shopper

Yesterday, I was at the doctor for a follow up check up. Because of what I thought was a sort of minor problem, I might have forgotten to tell him or just didn’t think it was worthy of his notice. In this case, it was a bite from a brown recluse spider or so he says. He wasn’t sure about it but thought so. Since it had not occurred to me that the small, insignificant thing I told him about was all that big a deal, I might have risked losing part of me or worse.

Some things truly are insignificant but you cannot always tell that yourself. I do realize that doctors hear about the most trivial things at times but would you actually risk your life or a limb to keep something like that a secret? Hey, I know that people lie or exclude small or sometimes larger details when talking to the doctor. I have done that myself. The question is…what are you risking by doing that? Actually, I have no idea what I have risked in the past when doing that. Now, I see what that little practice can cost.

I am to go back to the doctor today so that he can see what effect some antibiotics had on my spider bite. Frankly, I doubt that it has done much because what I now know is an infection and a rampant one at that, is going to probably put me into the hospital. IF I had only gone to the doctor on the day it was discovered instead of waiting several days until a regular appointment, I probably could have saved myself some serious aggravation.

So, I would recommend that when you go to the doctor, please tell him or her everything regardless of how insignificant YOU might think it is. Sometimes, it could save you aggravation or even your life. By the way, do you tell the doctor what all you take for medications? Okay, you’re thinking the same thing I did, that he already knows everything you take because he or she prescribed it, right? Uh Uh. How about vitamins and minerals? Did you tell the doc about that? How about over-the-counter things? I take OT Prilosec but for the longest time, my doctor did not know that. He should. She should. They do need to know all things about you.

The day was non-remarkable. We had to go to the store and some other errands. Because of where we live, the travel needs to be as short as possible. I wanted to go to several stores so that I could get all the food products we needed. We stopped at the first store and that is when the whole thing started.

Out of the car and walking into the store, I reached up to scratch an itch on my brow. It was right there….a ZIT! At my age! A zit, mind you. Of course, when I was a teen they did not call it that. It was simple acne and nothing more. All of a sudden I thought I needed a hat, a mirror and whatever else it took to get rid of the doggone thing before I went into the store. It was a nightmare!!!!

That was what went through my mind in the seconds after I felt it. And then it dawned on me. Why should I care? Nobody gives a hoot about zits these days anyway. Ah well. Some acne cream and it goes away. Poof. Problem solved.

With all the prices rising faster than you can catch a paycheck, shopping is becoming a nightmare. I am willing to bet that you have the same problem. You walk into the same store you visited a few days ago. The prices on several of those “have to have” items are now higher, blowing any shot of you keeping to your budget this month. I had that same problem just a few days ago. The worst part is that those were the items that had not changed prices in many months.

The truth is that most of the rules about shopping are going out the window. Price hikes are frequent and sometimes debilitating to the budget. Regardless of what you previously knew about shopping, it is now time to click into survival mode. Most of the time your budget will be trashed until you can get a handle on all this. It worked that way with us and we were practically doing all that anyway. Those little extras have to wait or have to go bye bye.

The reality is that you have to save where you can, pinch the pennies just as hard as they can be pinched, get the best deals in the closest places to save gas. For years, we have gone 50 miles north to a store that had much better prices for the things we bought. In fact, they have a number of items we cannot get anywhere else. If we can still afford it, we will still go there. It will be a stretch. I do not intend to give that up easily. If you have such a store, calculate the cost of the gas into your budget and decide if it costs too much to do that. If so, then you will have to find a good store closer to your home. We do not have that option at this time. We are hopeful that the company will build one of their stores near us.

We have found that it is very important to limit trips anywhere. We now do all of our shopping along with doctor trips, visits to family and so on. I know that some people didn’t see the need for that before. Since we live in a rural area, everything is a long way away, several miles in fact. We stay at home a whole lot now, only venturing out when necessary. Yes, shopping is turning into a nightmare but you and I can survive if we simply do those things that will compact everything into a few trips instead of a trip at a time. That saves gas too.

After the bathroom do over, I should tell you about some of the things that need to get a major change in the rest of the house. Our house is not what you would call spacious. We have a small, compact, very full house. When we moved in some years ago, we believed that we had some space. Not so. Within a very few years, we have more than filled it to capacity. And in that filling, we have lost some things due to crappy lighting. We can’t SEE it, whatever IT is. That’s why it’s lost. See?

The problem is that we have dark paneling on the walls. Because of that, the house seems quite dark. Then you add that the only indoor lighting is hanging from a ceiling fan, it just isn’t giving the light needed for the livingroom. So, what we needed to do was get a floor lamp. On a side note, my husband tried that once. What a disaster. We have laughed about it since. He bought a lamp that had to be shipped. When we got it, the thing was nothing like he thought. But it was hilarious. Looked like an octopus, a really short octopus. LOL! Yes, it went back.

Frankly, I wish we could just get rid of the paneling. It belongs in the house of the 80’s, that’s true, but I would love to modernize our house a bit. That means tearing out the paneling and paint the walls a nice soft tone, maybe blue. I cannot tell you all those colors of blue. Blue it is. Of course, this means getting new furniture. Definitely, we need that. Right now, our furniture is early garage sale. All in all, we could use a lot of change. One thing at a time.

I have to admit that bathrooms are not my first thought when I think of remodeling. Of course not. The first thing I think of is the livingroom and the kitchen. Those are the rooms I see each day and are the first things visitors see as well. However, I probably should change my mind about this since visitors almost always see the bathroom too. That’s because….well, never mind. You get the idea.

But we need a bathroom do over. You might call it a remodel. I like “do over”. Something about that phrase sounds good. And our bathroom certainly needs it badly. Because of a leaky hot water heater from several years ago, our floor in the bathroom is getting difficult to navigate. The floor is starting to give way. Small spots which had been wet from that leak are actually cracking and breaking. Okay, since the house, and therefore the fixtures in the bathroom, was built in the early 80’s, I think maybe it’s about time to change lots of things.

The floor has the most hideous carpet. It has to go. Ditto, the bathtub. That’s one of those molded things that looks like the house was built around it. And the sink is looking a bit ancient too. I did say “do over”, didn’t I. If I were going to pick right now, the carpet would be something that looks right at home in the bathroom. Some really do not. Now I happen to like deep pile carpet but I doubt that would work in the bathroom when the floor gets wet. But that’s what I would like. It’s fun to run your feet through that.

We have no problem whatsoever putting in a large shower instead of the tub. If it was the size of the tub, there would be lots of room. I like that idea. It could be tiled in a minty green, a soft cool color just perfect for showers. The sink needs a complete overhaul too. Maybe it would be good to have Danze faucets instead of the really boring and gunky faucets currently in use. Of course, I would love to put some room stretcher into the room and make it about twice as big too. Now that is not likely to happen. Limited space to work with. Ah well.

Earlier this year, the experts told us not to eat tomatoes because they caused people to get sick from salmonella. So many of us stopped eating tomatoes just like we stopped eating spinach when it was the cause of people getting sick from e-coli. Now, the experts said that it isn’t tomatoes at all. We could have been eating the things all this time. Instead, it’s jalapeno peppers. This time they have actually found the disease in the peppers.

Okay, I understand that we do not want to eat those peppers and we do not want to eat freshly prepared salsa that has the peppers in it. And for once, they appear to actually have a real reason to say this. But I have a real problem with all these stories coming out about this. First they do not want you to eat it. The sales on those products goes down, down, down. People stop eating that because of fear that they will get sick. Sometimes, like with the spinach scare, you never see that product as it was sold previously ever again.

I think we should take extreme care in what is put on the table, yes. I believe we should protect our families in this. However, we cannot run our lives on fear. That is exactly what’s happening with all these announcements. They said the tomatoes were bad. We don’t eat them. They say…OOPS! We made a mistake. In all that time we could have been eating the tomatoes that are really good for you.

Frankly, most of what we read or see on the news is one type of fear tactic or another. I do believe we must protect ourselves but we have to have some sense about this too. Please just take care. Buy what you know is right for your family. But for heaven’s sake, do not live in fear!

Did you ever just take a minute and look at those people getting to the checkout at a busy store? I have. Some look okay. They have nowhere to go and all day to get there. Not bad. There are those who look like the sky is falling if they do not get out of there RIGHT NOW! Then some people look like they forgot everything on their lists. Of course, there are people who look like they swallowed an entire lemon. Those are the ones that are worth watching. The first thing I think is that they need a colon cleanser. Stopped up, are ya bud?

The worst case scenario has the harried mom and a few kids in a long line. The kids are finding new treasures everywhere. While the one kid asks if he can have something off that shelf, the other two are grabbing several things from the next shelf. Beware the kid with octopus arms! The poor mom ends up buying six things she didn’t want because she was unloading the cart while the juniors were loading it up again.

Yes, I admit it. I watch Texas Holdem on television. Frankly, I love the strategy of the professional players. This is high stakes poker since many of the tournaments have over a million dollars as prize money. They start out with 2000 players and narrow it down to the last nine. Then they take it to a final table. The play is fantastic. I love it.

When you see these men and women dueling it out for the top prize, it gets exciting. And the thing is, they hold these tournaments in all sorts of casinos with all the glitz like all those las vegas hotels. I saw a tournament recently where the last man standing (yes, man since a woman has yet to get to the top prize. They have made it to the final table though.) won a cool 12 million. That’s a lot of chips!

I asked myself what would I do with 12 million dollars. Easy, give a lot to the ministries that feed the hungry, then buy a house and new car. Very necessary right now. Share with my extended family. Invest so that my dollar can work for me. And last but not least, have some fun. I think that would work nicely.

As I mentioned some time ago, we got a new puppy. That puppy is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. She is a mixture of lab and german shepherd so she shows a few of those traits. A lab is a happy dog. They will be very playful. She is that even at strange times of the night. We have heard her squeaky toys for long periods of time. Argh. She also has some great shepherd traits…only she does them backwards. When someone comes to the door, she hides. Isn’t that great? She only barks when she knows its us. Ahem. That needs work.

Because of the way she’s growing, we are in the market for a collar every few weeks. I have to admit that Wally World is a disappointment there. In our area, there really are not too many options for buying things for her. We have to find online pet supplies so that we get what we really want. And at the moment, I just know that if we don’t get her more chew sticks, she is going to be chewing the house next though. ACK!

Social network sites like Facebook and MySpace are great places to meet people and play games. They are also a great place for thieves to mine personal information for identity theft. One of the cardinal rules on the net is to not give out your social security number unless the place is fully secure and you know the website. Social security numbers are key to several things like your driver’s license, passports, banking and school records.

If you follow some precautions, you can have a great time and still keep your identity safe.

1) Don’t click on links coming from popups. Usually, they will have a form to fill out so that you can receive something for free. But there is a slight sting attached. Sometimes these forms are applications for credit to buy things like cars, laptops, desktop computers and many more things. You only get the free item when the application goes through. Of course by then, you now have a new loan or mortgage. They will ask for your social security number and a lot of personal info.

2) The quizzes will mine information out of you. If you play several of them, they can take all info and compile it into one. Marketers are looking for such information. So are the phishers.

3) If you post your phone number, someone can backtrack to get your street address.

4) When posting a photo of you, do not have anything in the pic that can show where you live such as street addresses behind you, some type of background or tshirt that shows anything about where you live.

5) You might not want friend requests from people you do not know. They can get your information easily.

6) Don’t tell people when you are going out of town or leaving home for any length of time. If they have your address, your house could be broken into and robbed.

Protect your identity! Do not allow others access to your personal info even if you think you know someone. If you met them on the net, you do not know them. Period. Chatting for hours is not knowledge of anyone. People will say anything sitting in front of a monitor. Just protect yourself!