Monday 37/42 KWH
Shingles and body aches are really keeping me up this morning. Normally I can sit up in the recliner which takes the pressure off my torso and sleep soundly. Not so today with the added discomfort of the shingles. About 2AM I decided to take a hot bath to sooth my irritated skin. Sure enough, about a half hour later I managed to get to sleep. I woke about 5 and went back to bed.
Woke again at 9:30 which is 2Hrs later than I should have taken my Shingles pill.
But alas, I am a little uncomfortable but not in any real pain. I didn’t get onto the Waterway Net with the HAM guys this morning. I did eat a bowl of non-GMO bran flakes this morning about 3AM. It as just as good as the Kellogg’s Bran Flakes with Sun Maid raisins. I finished off the Blueberry Mini Wheats, we have one box of strawberry mini wheats left. *All three of these cereals are so expensive!
She made a good grocery list this morning without my help.
Salmon for din din, 14Oz, $18 each. (We only ate one of them.)
Veggies and quinoa round out our dinner today.
Went over the meals for tomorrow and Wednesday. She had burrito’s for tomorrow and spaghetti for Wednesday. We probably should eat the leftover salmon tomorrow instead. Our coffee basket in the coffee machine was falling apart and we had one spare. I ordered a replacement today from Amazon.
Watched Hudson & Rex on Faith & Family until we retired.
Tuesday
We’re up at 3AM having a bowl of cereal and coffee. Getting ready to go to Wally World and get our weekly groceries. It’s windy and overcast, but very nice temperatures. Shopping went quite well, and we got home in record time. I baked two sweet potatoes in the microwave for lunch and then our conversation got lost. There’s Salmon in refrigerator along with vegetables, the sweet potatoes are just the starch for our lunch. She hasn’t started making lunch even though she’s hungry and the sweet potatoes are getting cold.
It was a NICE day today to work on the garage door. The roller for the lift springs was worn out and needed to be replaced. I bought a new one a couple days ago and the weather was too warm to stand in the sun. Replacing it was just one bolt and I could use a step stool to get up there. What I found out later was that the bolt holding up the door at the front of the garage had fallen off. With the additional stress of the spring, it had bent the support brace until it almost fell off. (There was nothing holding up the garage door on that side!) An hour later I had straightened the brace and reattached the garage door. A small adjustment to the spring was necessary and I was done. If the door had gotten stuck closed, there was no access to the garage from the inside to repair the door.
Watched Hudson & Rex on Faith & Family until we retired.
Wednesday
Slept in until 8AM, checked in with the HAMs on Waterway Net and got ready to take her to the dentist for a cleaning. We went to Braces Now to pay our payment and found out that the braces contract only had a small amount left to be paid. That’s a $6K contract behind us, Yea!
Lunch was a spaghetti Mediterranean dish, tasty but it wasn’t very filling.
Took a LONG nap, it was so long that my CPAP ran out of water. Read the scriptures for tonight and I am headed for a shower. It warmed up more than I expected, and I left the dashcam in the car. Oops. No letters from our sponsored children.
Church services went well, and we got home in a reasonable amount of time.
The neighbor put a very bright porch light on the front door today.
Bedtime after putting on my breath right strip and filling my CPAP.
Thursday
Woke up this morning about 7AM and had to make another pot of coffee. She made one very early this morning and the coffee pot had turned itself off by 6AM. Talked to the HAM guys, I was the first one on their log this morning. Spent the next two hours taking care of my Perineum rash.
When things get crazy at my age pills are hard to keep track of. Especially when they are not at specific times. (Like Once a day.) Pills that are every 8 hours are just difficult to take on time.
My son sent me these pill timers long ago and they are perfect for the old people like me. They used to be available on Amazon, the only place I found them was on Patient Sleep Supplies. TimerCap for $6 each and $10 shipping. They come in their own bottles (Left/Red) and they also fit on a standard pill bottle (Right/Green). They start counting time when they are closed so you know the last time you took a pill. Amazon has a similar product for $50 that sounds an alarm to take the pill. (BUT $50!! for something that might cost $1`.00 to make)
Don’t tell anyone, but with all the increases on our bills I have to make a budget! (The house taxes went up $1300 this year alone.)
Our storage for the church’s equipment has doubled since I got it 2 years ago.
The $3,500 tax bill kinda threw a wrench in our budget, it’s due in Oct.
Dinner was difficult, the vegetable was peas and rice was the starch. She forgot to wipe down the kitchen table and the placemats before putting the flatware on it. The chicken was overcooked and cold since the thin slices were put on a large serving platter. The peas were a little warm, but they were in an uninsulated bowl. We have two insulated bowls that she always forgets to use. (Like every time) Dinner was with two disgruntled adults that cannot come to a mutual agreement. We eventually cooled down and took a good long nap.
She’s been super hungry ALL day today. She ate soup two hours early and drank several boost drinks today. *That probably goes along with her being irritable.
Time for supper, a warm bowl of soup and crackers while watching TV. We spent some time working on preparation of our dinner every day. (Trying to remember to use the insulated bowls for one thing.) I found out when asking about the meal for tomorrow that none of the meat made it to the refrigerator after getting groceries. I looked down at the floor and sure enough the grocery bag with all the meat had never been put away on Tuesday. I tossed the meat we bought on Tuesday in the trash can and washed the insulated grocery bag.
We watched TV for a little while and headed to bed.
Friday
Cereal and a cup of coffee at 2AM this morning.
Our neighbor that installed this A/C unit asked to do a service call. It’s not been seen since it was installed in 2020, we’ve been very happy with it.
Off to the gym this morning. I’m driving cuz she hurt her ankle last week and we need to replace all the meat we left on the floor on Tuesday. I went to THD and looked for filters, they had them on sale for 7 dollars each. But I had a washable filter that cost $80, why would I go out and buy four disposable filters. I abandoned that idea and decided to go to Publix to get the replacements for Tuesday’s debacle. I put all the meat in two insulated bags to keep them cold until we got home. Yes, we put these in the refrigerator this time!
I decided to put the reusable filter back into the air handler even though it is more restrictive. The idea is that the system is a closed loop, it will automatically compensate for the filter. I should not need the 10% cooling that I may lose with the new filter since it’s September.
Turkey chili for dinner, it was pretty good actually. Nap Time.
I woke up to an open sore on my hand and a rash.
I’ve been dealing with an infection of my perineum which has happened a couple of times in my past. (My dad could not wear underwear.) I nicked my hand on the garage door on Monday, it appears that it is infected by the large red area on my hand. We drove to a doc-in-a-box, and they gave me an antibiotic prescription for the hand. They also gave me Clotrimazole and Betamethasone cream that I can apply directly to the Perineum. The doctor thinks it is NOT a Yeast type of infection, which is what the previous medicine targeted. I forgot to take my pills last night, my first indication was my BP was 139/80. The second indication was the upset stomach without the Nexium relief yesterday. I’ll have to start reading my own writing! (I darted out the door this morning to take her to the gym and to replace the meat that was spoiled.)
We had a good day today even with the trips to the gym, groceries and doctor.
Watched Hudson & Rex on Faith & Family until we retired.
Saturday
Watched Starliner return safely to earth on NASA feeds. Had some sweet pickle chips and now headed back to bed, well almost! We had another shooting last night a little after 1AM.
These shootings are continuing on the hill three houses down from us.
I was up at 1AM when this shooting happened, it’s hard to sleep with these idiots shooting on our street. We looked all over for the brass after they arrived. It was actually just in back of the car on the right just outside this picture. (When I looked at the video this morning, the shooting happened just before our neighbor’s garbage cans.) I need to setup a VPN on a Tablet so that we can look at the videos on the DVR with a little bit larger screen.
Gwinnett’s finest arrived and his partner too.
It took two hours to pull the videos off the cameras and upload them to Gwinnett County evidence website. The officer was surprised at the large number of Gwinnett County police business cards from these shootings. I need to take a trip to Gwinnett County police station and get these police reports.
I was still exhausted at 7 this morning when she woke me up complaining about chest pain. That’s happened about three times over the last three weeks. I will chase her to make sure she writes down when these events are happening. (They used to be very infrequent.) A/C camera is down
Paul’s travels to Vancouver on Monday, boat leaves to HI on Tuesday, sails for 6 days, Stays in HI 5 days, sails back for 6 days. Flies to Portland, Chicago then home.
I moved the wires from the side of the home to reduce the number of wires the squirrel can grab to get onto the roof. He/She’s been jumping from the fence onto the roof which yielded a nest of eggs a while back. But there’s nothing to eat on the roof and I could not find an entry into the attic. I may end up putting a camera on that corner of the house so I can get to the bottom of this. The squirrel is damaging the camera wires and moving the IR illuminator.
Our serving pot arrived today, we’ll put the dinner into the pot to keep it warm.
Watched Hudson & Rex on Faith & Family until her back started hurting. She ended up being awake most of the night until she took a Benadryl. I did manage to get some rest in, but I forgot to put water in my CPAP machine. (I woke up with a rapid heartbeat and my ears were ringing like I was low oxygen.)
Sunday
We’re up after a restless night, our CPAP machines were a bit distracting. I let mine run out of water and her mask started to whistle at 4 in the morning. That almost worked out since I had a pill to take at 5AM. We cured the whistle by drawing a fingernail across the vent hole on her mask.
I did manage to check-in with the guys on my HF radio this morning and drink one cup of coffee. Church service was virtual today. Got a call from Steve today about someone needing a car. We’ve got three cars, and we cannot afford to keep all of them. Blue has a problem with the antilock brakes, and we’ve had them completely fail while driving it. But it has a brand-new battery and four good tires. Silver is our everyday vehicle. It gets great gas mileage and is economical to maintain. The van has none of the good things about the silver Focus but, it’s a great vehicle to take on trips. *We can (and have) pull over and take a nap on a mattress in the van. Giving the van away is easiest, but it’s the most expensive vehicle for someone to take over. (It’s also the newest vehicle we have if we decide to drop down to one vehicle.)
Current plan is to repair Blue and shed both Ford Focus vehicles before our insurance renews. Step one is to make sure she can drive the van!
Time wise, we have a LOT of issues that are coming to a head in 4 weeks and our house is in disarray.
The crock pot (Serving Pot) worked great today. It draws a measly 46W on “Keep Warm”, 105W on “Low” and 133W on “High”. The “Lunch Pot” draws about 50W.
The temperature is a perfect 132 degrees on the “Low” setting,
Mowed the lawn today, well 2/3rds of it.