A New Direction....

That's all I have to say for now...  Stay tuned.

Insurance and Injustice

Elliott gets his "license" soon (he will be able to drive alone during daylight hours) so I thought I would check insurance rates.  I went online and submitted my info to a site that sends it out to a few companies and they come back with a price.  Oddly enough, my own company came back with a rate about half of what I am already paying them!   I called them up and sure enough, they said I could cancel my current policy with them and get another for hundreds less!  Turns out it is up to the insured to monitor their rates and shop around - every 6 months to a year is recommended!  So for who knows how long I have been paying for nothing!  Grrrrrr

Meanwhile my battle with Sony continues over the blue line that has appeared in my 36 month old big screen TV.  Not much of a battle actually when the other side has the upper hand and doesn't want to fight.  I paid $50 to their local repair guy to tell me that it will cost $682 MORE than I paid for it to repair it!  Sony Customer Relations listened patiently and so graciously offered to sell me a discontinued TV for a mere $900.  Thanks for nothing.  Why would I would I buy another TV from them when they won't stand behind the first one?!  So I sent a letter (an actual letter on paper in an envelope with a stamp on it!) to their HQ pleading my case.  Not holding my breath....

Last week we went to meet Ashleigh at the Baltimore Humane Society Dogfest.  Started off rough - we got off to a late start and someone stole Ashleigh's expensive North Face jacket while she was volunteering there.  Then there was a 1.5 mile backup to get near the place.  We wound up just pulling off the road and walking (like many people).  Mocha was terrible on the walk there - pulling and lunging.  Took everything, and I mean everything, in me to hold her back.  Of course the Humane Society is not the place to be disciplining your dog...  But once we got in she was her usual big fluffy self and everyone loved her.  It was a huge field with lots to see.  Turned out OK.  One of the vendors had a water bowl out that Mocha claimed as her own (see bottom photo).

The other night I was walking the dogs before supper and when I came back with them the whole kitchen had a smoky haze.  I asked Lucie what she was burning, uh, cooking for supper.  Turns out she put the Costco chicken, plastic boat tray, cover and all, in the oven to warm up and the plastic melted.  The top clear part shrink-wrapped over the top of the chicken and the black bottom melted thru the rack to the bottom of the oven.  But it cooled quickly and peeled right off beautiful.  Didn't taste bad.  I told Lucie the rice could use a little more plastic though...

Flat Lining

While we were at Newfie Fun Days, the hard drive in Lucie's laptop died.  Fine in the morning, dead a few hours later.  When we got back I went to our usual computer place but they wanted $150 for a replacement drive!  For $400 I can get a whole new laptop.  So a friend recommended a used computer parts store and I got a bigger drive for $25.  I "Ghost" our computers monthly (take an image of the entire drive) and do weekly data back ups so I just had to slap the replacement drive in, put the image from other drive back and copy in the latest backup and she was up and running.

That was an easy fix.  This one, not so much:  my beautiful 52-inch Sony TV has a line running down it.  Argh!  About 4 inches in from the right - top to bottom.  Very thin but it looks like a dang highway to me.  For now, it fades away after about 15 minutes.  But research says soon it will stay.  So I have called and emailed Sony and their oh-so-helpful response has been to just get it fixed.  Um, getting it fixed means replacing the entire screen!  That's not helpful.  It is just over 3 years old and out of warranty of course...

Meanwhile I shut the pool down.  Always a sad time of the year.  I got a Shiatsu foot massager to try and help with the bone spurs and pain.  I ice my feet first, then put them on the massager for 15 minutes.  Pretty painful actually but seems to be helping.  Last night I watched a video of an athletic trainer taping someone's foot.  I tried it and it feels good.

Today Elliott and I are going to an ING DIRECT sponsored car show (free tickets).  That is always interesting.  Gotta mow the yard too.  Not many more times this year for that...

Dog Gone It

It's all about the dogs - or so it seems the past week.  First, we took Mocha up to Eliot, Maine for two days of Newfie Fun Days.  And fun days they were!  She traveled up the 8.5 hours with no problems and was very well behaved the whole time we were there.  Kind of crazy to see her, all 127 pounds of her, compared to bigger Newfs.  There was carting classes, water rescue demonstrations, stuff to buy, grooming classes and so on.  What was amazing was how all of the dogs got along and there was not a bark to be heard.  My mother won two of the raffles and was kind enough to give us a big, wooden, handmade/hand painted bench with a scene of a Newfoundland looking over the water.  We only had a couple of days but got to get in some quality time with friends and family and stayed one last time in the Cafe.  It was at the Cafe where we met Newfie Captain Oliver - the dog that inspired us to get a Newfoundland.  He and Mocha got to play and visit every day.  At night we brought food home and Mocha just socialized and went to bed in our room.  She loved swimming in the cold waters of the ocean and walking along the beach at night and in the morning.  It was tighter quarters for Mocha coming home (with the bench) but she did great and we made the trip in record time of 7 hours.

After we were home for a few days, Britni the beagle's right eye suddenly clouded over and looked like she had an eye infection.  Very lethargic.  So Lucie took her to the vet and they gave us the bad news that she had sudden onset of glaucoma.  The right eye pressure was at 98 and she was blind in it.  The left eye was at 28 (normal is 10-15) and she would probably go blind in that one soon.  The pressure was putting her in terrible, migraine like pain and we were going to have to make a decision about eye removal and possibly putting her down.  Shocking how quickly it happened...  After an emotional night and day, we took her to a doggie opthamologist who examined her and said she could probably save the eye and treat the other one.  So we went ahead with the procedure and sure enough, the next day the pressure in both eyes was down to 10!  She doesn't have full vision in the right eye but it looks normal now and she is back to her old self.  We have to put drops in her eyes the rest of her life to control the pressure but she is home.  What a relief!

The Crack of Dusk

The Great Earthquake of 2011 and Hurricane Irene came and went without much excitement.  I was on vacation that week (good choice!) and on the day of the earthquake I had taken Mocha for a walk at a new place (a fish hatchery area out in the middle of the woods - kind of lonely but interesting).  We got back and Britni was in a chair by the pool while I brushed out Mocha.  Next thing I know, Elliott is asking me if I felt anything because the whole house just shook.  Nope - didn't feel a thing.  And the dogs didn't do anything weird like you sometimes read about.  The hurricane caused a little more excitement - lots of branches and leaves down, strong winds, had to pump the pool out two times and we lost power for 9 hours.  But no damage and no flooding in our immediate area.

The hurricane did knock out my dusk to dawn outdoor motion light though.  It has a setting where, at dusk, it will come on at about 50% power. That acts as a sort of night light without blinding the neighbors all night.  Once it detects motion, it goes full power for 5 minutes, then dims again.  The wind and rain must have somehow gotten to it because it wouldn't work during the hurricane and after.  It was getting power - if I put it to "test' it would come on and the red LED would light up when it detected motion but it just wouldn't light up at all like it should.  I planned to replace it on Friday but Thursday night it came back to life.  Strange.  Works fine now.

The other day a rock nailed me on the way to work on 95.  When I left, I found this nice crack.  I will wait until after we return from our trip to Maine to replace it.  I think this will be the third one...

Ashleigh Is In College Now

Today was the day.  Last night Lucie and Ashleigh and Nathan and Elliott packed up Ashleigh and got her stuff loaded in two cars.  (I made supper and stayed out of the way.)  All 5 of us headed down a little after 9 AM.  Great weather - sunny and windy.  It is just over an hour ride (1 hour and 12 minutes to be exact) and we got there fine.  Today they let the Honors Program Freshmen move in first so there were hardly any people there.  Got everything up to her 4th floor room in just two trips and were all unpacked by noon.  The school bought us pizza for lunch and then we headed out to pick up some odds and ends and books.  I did all of the IT stuff - got her online and downloaded Office 2010 and so forth.  She has one roommate and two suite-mates - they live in another adjoining room.  All four share a bathroom, two sinks, shower, fridge, microwave, phone, etc.  Pretty nice.  Ashleigh has been emailing the other girls so they sort of knew each other.  This dorm is brand new - Ashleigh and the others are the first to live in it.  Around 4 they fed us again (hors d' oeuvres) and at 6 Ashleigh had an introductory meeting with some of her instructors.  We packed up and left at 5:45 PM so she could go to her meeting.  Tomorrow the other freshmen move in.  Ashleigh has a full day of a ropes course and other get-to-know-you team building things.  Pretty hard to pull away but fortunately she is not far away and we will see her often.  When we got home, one of her school books arrived in the mail - I wanted to go back and bring it to her!

Feets and Toes

The Hales are a bit gimpy around here.  Lucie had minor toe surgery last week to get a toe bone shaved down.  Outpatient but they still knocked her out.  Seemed like she was out for all of ten seconds.  Went fine.  She has her foot in a bootie thing but can get around fine.  Only hurts when she stubs it.  Which of course now happens all the time...  Coming out of the anesthesia was probably worse than the operation itself. 

Meanwhile, my third cortisone shot seems to have taken.  I am aggressively icing my feet every night (that is a party!), wearing my brace and keeping the inserts in my shoes.  For the first time in a LONG time, this Friday morning after Thursday night basketball I was able to get out of bed and walk across the room without an electric scooter.  (The mornings are the worst - the Achilles tendon is inflamed because of bone spurs in my heels and the first stretch of the day is a killer.)  I am on vacation this week so I can wear real comfy walking shoes and maybe I can finally put this all behind me.  Or under me...