Peppers

My iPod died so while I was preparing peppers for the freezer, I sat tethered to my laptop listening to an audible book.  It wasn't awful, but I guess I'll have to get another one. I ended up with two quarts of diced peppers, mixed hot and sweet. I went through three pairs of disposable gloves while doing the peppers.

Finally Rain

It is usually hot and dry in the summer here. By the time school starts I'm wondering if I couldn't find a place with better weather. Before we chose this place, I checked out a precipitation map. It said this area gets between 48 and 52 inches per year. I wish I'd checked it out by the month. The map I looked at didn't indicate that most of the rain would happen all at once! But it is finally raining today.

Audible Problem

I've been trying desperately to control my data usage so I downloaded four audible books using free wifi at the hospital and my laptop. Then when I got home I tried to transfer the books manually. It looked like it worked, but when I synced my iPod, it said it hadn't transferred those four. I don't know what I didn't do right. It should have worked.

Gloves

Thursday is the day a volunteer is supposed to make sure all the patient's rooms have disposable gloves available. But Wednesday the nurse who usually talks to me about supplies commented that the rooms need medium gloves. I put gloves out sometimes even though I'm not here on Thursday. I said I hadn't realized the gloves came in different sizes. So I went to the supply room and looked at the gloves. They really do come in various sizes. Duh. Maybe I'll pass that info on to the Thursday volunteer.

Round Up

Larry sprayed our asparagus plants with round up while trying to get rid of nearby weeds. It takes three years to get to eat any. This year was the year we could harvest for one month. Next year was going to be the year we could eat all we wanted:(

Insensitive Clod

I've had people try to explain politically correct language. I don't hurt people's feelings on purpose, but basically, things make me cringe that other people don't notice...and the opposite is apparently also true.
I was watching a show called 70 Something years ago. I was carried away with it and told all my friends they should look at it because it was hysterically funny. After the second friend told me it wasn't supposed to be funny, I didn't watch the show anymore. So a lot of stuff that bothers people strikes me as funny. People trying to turn me into a sensitive person are really taking on a Herculean task. So pointing out that a politician is vulgar or insensitive doesn't bother me except the people aren't addressing the issues involved, just the manner in which those issues are discussed.
One problem people who want to be politically correct do not see is that they show their soft spots. That offends you? Well, make sure I don't want to offend you on purpose, because I know how thanks to your whining.
Another thing, if a word is bad if I use it but all right if you use it, you're just nuts. I did mention that I'm insensitive.
The ACLU is an attempt to make the tail wag the dog. If burning the American flag is freedom of speech but displaying the Confederate flag is hate speech, the minority they are attempting to represent is hateful to some of us. What, morons don't have freedom of speech? Since when?

Too Much Diversity

I was listening to a volunteer chaplain who complained we have too much diversity in this country. He had worked at missions in Asia for a long time and decided that since their societies are so homogeneous, they are easier to deal with.  Well, who knew?

Scents of the Beach

I found a liquid soap for the bathroom lavatory that is coconut and warm ginger. Every time I wash my hands it reminds me of the beach. I enjoy my short trips to the beach....frequently.

Penny-Wise, Pound-Foolish

My internet connection is through Verizon. It seems to me that Verizon is whizzing though data without a lot of cooperation from me. In an attempt to halt this flow, I bought a small laptop/tablet that I planned to use at the hospital using free wifi for downloading audible books and blogging. But the cool little laptop/tablet wasn't working well. So I took it back to Best Buy who cheerfully refunded my money.
I kept trying to decide whether spending money on a laptop to avoid spending money on a data package upgrade was foolish. I finally decided it was since I have a compaq presario laptop that is old but does what I want it to do...it's just old and heavier.
I have the old laptop here and it is working great. It is windows xp so I didn't know if it was going to take the new audible update. It did.
So, one more thing in my life is old but still works. I'm going to have to continue taking stuff off of this one to free up space.

Religion and Politics

When I was growing up, the rule was nobody was supposed to discuss religion or politics at the table if we had company. I asked why and was told it was to prevent shouting at  the table.

Rain Dance

It is supposed to rain today, but we've had so many promises of rain that didn't pan out, I dragged the hose up and watered my roses yesterday. The only other thing I could think of to  encourage it to  rain was to wash my car. That didn't happen:)

lenovo

My new "laptop" is a lenovo. It has a touchscreen option or a keyboard option. Neither is particularly responsive. If either one worked reliably I would be very pleased with it. When using the touch screen, it stopped accepting input. When using the keyboard, I have to pay attention to make sure it is putting spaces in and hasn't put the last few letters in some random part of previous words.

Listening to Books

Reading books I don't have the same problems as listening provides. The problems aren't awful, more funny, I guess. The "big Asgardian" becomes "big-assed guardian" at first thought. Resting his forearms on the table becomes resting his four arms on the table in my mind.

You Look Good!

It was good to hear the dermatologist say that. My schedule is back to once a year, finally.

They are using iPads with a lot of boxes to check to identify their findings. So now they have the old notes that are pre-iPod as well as the iPod notes. Comparing spots to see if they've grown requires the old and new records.

Instead of finding the notes, I point to the scar and tell them what they said it was. I'm OK with that if they are.

The "looking good" part was what I wanted to hear. Larry has to go back at the end of the month.

not kidnapped

I bought a little laptop and I'm trying to get the hang of it. The spacebar doesn't want to work with the right thumb. Delete doesn't get rid of a mistake, but backspace does. So far I am not happy. Maybe later.

Locked Out

Today when I got home from volunteering, the doors were closed and locked which meant Larry was inside asleep. I got out my house key and tried all three doors, multiple times. I couldn't get my key to open any of the doors. I was locked out for a little over two hours.
A neighbor stopped by and gave me a status report on his wife who is in the hospital. He asked why all my stuff was outside on the porch. I said my keys weren't working or Larry had changed the locks as soon as I left this morning.
I asked him to call to see if the phone might wake him up. No. It rang until it went to voice mail.
When Larry finally woke up and opened the doors, I asked him to try my keys. One worked as smooth as soft butter. He was very triumphant about showing me how easy it was to open the door.
When he tried the next door, it didn't work for him either. After trying it several times, he got his key out. It didn't work, either.
My thought is that if it doesn't work for me, it doesn't work. Locks don't have likes and dislikes. Something is wrong and it isn't me.

Playing with my Food

I decided I would try making a cool drink with my afternoon coffee. I had some snow ice cream I'd made with Splenda, vanilla and half and half and stored in small containers. So I added a couple of those to my dark roast coffee. It wasn't great. It looked right but the snow cream melted and left scummy wads on top that didn't taste great. Maybe I'll try it again with Carb-Smart vanilla ice cream from the store.