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This happened some time ago, I had a friend who went car shopping and her hubby tagged along... the car salesman spoke mainly to the husband, yada, yada, yada... then looked at my friend, then back to her husband and asked "what color car would the little woman want?"..... my friend glared at him and said "well, sir, this little woman is paying for the car herself, and she's taking her business elsewhere" :)

I found one way to quickly stop a door-to-door salesman who is trying to sell new windows, roof, etc is to say "I don't own the house.... it's property managed".
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I was trying to find the phone number for DHEC and by the time I found their new phone number it was 5:01pm. Now I have to wait until tomorrow to complain to them.

My mother is in a nursing home for rehab. You would think they would have better rules for how they handle diabetics when it comes to meals and snacks. She asks for toast or something hot to drink like tea or hot chocolate but they do not have those items to give her. She asks for cake or ice cream and they give her both within half hour of each other. Did I say she is a DIABETIC. At each meal there is a dessert on the tray. I asked that it stop being put on the tray or put a piece of fruit in place of the dessert. My mother is a fruit and vegetable person, something that has been missing in her diet for a couple months now since she has been in hospitals and nursing homes. Anyway, the nursing home informed me they have to put the dessert on the tray...it is a DHEC rule. Is this world crazy or is it me? You have a diabetic and DHEC says you must put a sugar dessert on the tray? I have lost my mind. Please help me to understand the logic of this insane rule. I mean, all they have to do is increase her insulin if her sugar level increases right? So why should I be upset or worried. He!! give her a whole cake, pie or gallon of ice cream! What difference does it make.
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crooked people dont amuse me one bit . i ordered some custom cut limestone for my customer a few weeks ago and was quoted at 3 k . the sawing went better than expected and the end price was only 1100 bucks . i passed the new price right back to the customer and he reciprocated by giving me 200 bucks extra and paying my wages to haul it for him . i could have pocketed that 1900 bucks and been perfectly ethical in doing so but id prefer to be known as the sob who will not lie to you . im still working while most smash and grab contractors wiped out years ago . its a big deal to me , to be trusted ...
ill still make the 1900 bucks from the customer but he'll get more product from me later and ill be employed up to my eyeballs . its kinda like milking a job 'cept nobody gets cheated .
gonna get wicked cold for the next couple of nights . the renter left for a couple of nights with her son . seems she is out of good firewood but the thing is her two truckloads of firewood are already here on the property she just hasnt asked for them . she created a dilema instead just to get out for a couple of days . i made sure her son knew the firewood is here and she knew its here . pathological drama queen !! lying around me is likely to have blowback effects ..
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Well, I am happy to report that after getting that $1,700 quote for brake repairs on my truck, I promptly had it picked up by the tow service and carried somewhere else and the total of repairs, including a good oil change, is now $530. Yay me! that's an extra $1,170 we can surely use elsewhere...This guy is super nice and has really gone out of his way to help me, and at the same time make a good customer to boot...you're right captain..it pays all the way around to be honest...
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hope ,
it isnt just women who get ripped off . i had a pair of bike carbs hot tanked one time and some punk kid tossed two corroded needle valves on the counter and told me that was likely what was wrong . the carbs had new needle valves and seats in them , i just wanted the carbs properly , chemically cleaned . i just gave him the agreed upon 100 bucks and let it go . i had longer range ideas than standing at a counter arguing with a freakin kid . another example of " screams of no reply " i guess .
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ive been reading about seasonally affected disorder this evening . circadian rhythems , bla bla . to take the human factor out of the equation i always look at the wild animals . they arent out chirping it up , they are burrowed in deep somewhere and sleeping a lot . its almost like nature tries to give you a dose of depression because there isnt much to eat in the forest in the wintertime . if youre depressed your going to save energy and increase the chance of your stored food holding up till spring . it really makes sense when viewed in that light . depression trashes your appetite .
nature is pretty bitchin , its just " us " who dont get it ..
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fascinating perspective captain..I like it :)
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Capn, I never looked at it that way. Seems everyone always wants people to be up and doing. And if we're not, someone says maybe we need drugs or white light. You could be right. Maybe we're supposed to be more depressed in the cold months. I didn't go out today and was feeling down on myself. It was cold outside and I didn't want to go out. I didn't need anything, so why not stay inside and stay comfortable? Makes sense to me.
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Why do we do that Jessie??? I do that as well, don't need anything, don't want to go, but start getting a compelling feeling that I ought to go out...I have no idea why. I have begun to take naps now instead..when Mama's napping, it's the best chance I get to really get some good rest..at least for an hour or so...for some reason I sleep better then than I do at night
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I have started to post many things but simply deleted them... sigh

Working on getting all of this back on a good track. Mom is getting frail(er) ever single day, which makes it harder. Then again, it makes me that much more determined to give her all I have. Vicious a** circle if you ask me. Ying Yang/Push Pull. phhhhbbbbbtttttttt

Stupid commercial "A body in motion stays in motion". Guess that means a body at rest turns into a slug. Meh.
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if you google up one of those SAD articles it goes down a list of symptoms that hit home with you on each item . worthlessness , etc . and interestingly you can have depression alone as a SAD symptom or you can have depression with bipolar .
i feel simple stress , depression , and tension all
three . im gonna try to modify how i percieve my stressors . the stressors arent that big were just too cynical or overwhelmed to downplay them .
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Every morning I wake up trying to modify...Not all of this is SAD, although my first year here I wanted to die... Somehow though I keep failing, no, I do NOT fail my mother, I fail myself. We have had sunshine for several days so that's made me feel slightly better, but it doesn't help my mother.

Doesn't matter how much I try and distract myself, how much I say she will be happier, it cuts me to the core. God Dammit.
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fk i was just talking about SAD in general , jeanette . when your caregiving mix is added in there are bound to be many other emotional complicators . most carers on here are dealing with belligerance , confusion , etc . youre in the insanity zone and i wish you every good thing that can happen . they will be few .
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I know.

I remember when mom was belligerent... haha, I do believe I now miss those times. Least she was feisty!
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I'm really just disgusted at how badly I have let myself just go pfffft.....I have not necessarily been one to obsess about my looks, but I tried to look nice whenever I went anywhere...never cared for all the name brand junk, just had my own style and enjoyed looking nice...now it is almost like I could just care less...forget I have rollers in the top of my head, don't think about wearing makeup..while I honestly have not gained weight pound wise, everything has shifted around , like of like an amoeba....shape shifting...ugh....today I actually left the house on my errand and did not even comb my hair...this morning I had stuck some bobby pins in it here and there and put it in a ponytail while getting Mama ready for the day and I just left it like that and when I was headed home I looked in the rear view mirror and thought..Dear God what has happened to me.....and I actually stopped and went in a couple of places like that...I used to see people out and about who appeared to be worn out and tired and wondered what would possess them to go out in public like that...now i know...they were worn out and tired.....tonight one of my old class mates texted me and was telling me he and his wife had divorced and he was asking how we were doing...kind of semi mentioned getting together some time for coffee...felt like a foreign language to me....
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I took my car in for realignment. The customer service person asked me why I think I needed a realignment. I said that when the road is wet, and I'm turning, it's like struggling with the tires. The tires are not following the steering wheel. So, I need to realign the tires with the steering wheel. sigh... yes, to the male population who knows car, my 1 + 1 does not come out as 2. In my mind, it did.

She told me that that doesn't sound like a realignment problem but maybe my steering wheel needs oiling or something. The mechanic will check it. She comes back with a list of things wrong with my car. That estimate of $300 went up to $1300.00. I stood there shocked. I kept muttering, "OMG! What am I going to tell my sister?" (Sis says that mechanics like to cheat me since I'm a female and I always fall for whatever they tell me is 'wrong' with my car. I've been known to charge $1300, $1100 or $900 auto repairs to my credit card.)

This time, due to the poor economy, I have had a major pay cut and less hours when it's slow (without pay). I cannot pay $1300-some repair. So, I looked at the service customer and said, "Of all these repairs, which is a Necessity. That my car won't die out in traffic or I lose control and crash into someone else?" We narrowed down that $1300 to $800-some. But, when I went to pay it, the customer service person, took the invoice, went and adjusted it again, then came back with a $500-some repair.

So, the next time, when my car's air con broke down, my BIL made the call to the mechanic, spoke to them, and then drove my car there. I only paid $255.00 for it. Darn! I have never paid an air con repair for that low! I think the lowest I ever paid was $800-some. Moral of the story - have a male go with you when it comes to auto repairs. (My niece brought her car in, they quoted her a $1300-some repair job. She called her ex-boyfriend to tell him the cost. He said it doesn't cost that much. He went down to the shop and blasted them. They lowered the price - below $1000.00.!!!)
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this automotive talk has me thinking about my youngest kid whos still building engines . hes young and attentive to details . i pick his brain every time we get together now and he realizes hes being picked .
betsys son has a couple years of tech school in automotive repair and is working in a chevy dealership .
both young men are still rather lightweights but if they ever learn one scrap about engine controls ill screw the top of their heads off , get what i want , then screw their scalp back on .
real cold morning here . the wind chill is fixin to drop 9 degrees in the next hour . the woodstove is sittin over there glowing at me . makes me glad we reworked it a year or so ago .
so really , nothing to whine about this am .
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Mom asked me if I thought her a.m. caregiver was nuts (yeah, she kinda is). She was talking down to mom and mom said to her "no sh*t, Dick Tracy!" I love my mom.
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Hope, I'm in a bit of a funk in the "making an effort to look nice" department too. I'm pretty good at exercising/diet, but the other stuff...pffft! My job has a "business casual" dress code, which most of us take some liberties with. What I SHOULD wear is something like slacks, a blouse or sweater, and business-y shoes of some sort (pumps, loafers, flats). I work on site (many people work from home), but have very little supervision, and lately I've been taking advantage by wearing jeans and tennis shoes every day, and on Fridays I'll just throw on a t shirt instead of something maybe a notch more professional. If I put a blazer on, it would look more decent, but I'll just grab a sweatjacket instead. And my hair -- I just stick it in a ponytail most days. One of my daily duties is to take my dog for a decent walk every morning before work, and so I just don't want to do that in "business" clothes, and I don't feel like changing, so....I look rather frumpy, but no one seems to notice, so who cares.
If I worked from home, I'd probably slide even more. Brush my hair?? Why??? LOL!!
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I'm right there with Hope....I'm not sure what I did yesterday, but today I feel like a bloated blob and even my fingers feel fat. Blech. Clothes are tight and I feel like there's just too much of me to be comfortable in any position. Probably not enough water intake yesterday, and my edema is raging out of control. Upping the water intake today and took my "pee pill" as Mom calls it - so pretty soon I'll be sprinting to the bathroom every 15 minutes. Should be better tomorrow.

Looloo - I work from home and make an effort every day, even if I don't feel like it - but I tell you, some days, like today, it's *really* an effort. LOL I don't dress up, but I get up, shower, brush my hair, make breakfast for Mom and I, etc - otherwise, I'd just be a mess all day.

I'm going to get up and do some housework and laundry - sitting here just makes me feel worse. Need to move. I think it's time to set my old timer app back up again on my computer or my phone. It reminds me to get up and move for 10 minutes every hour. Working from home and being busy as I am, it's so easy to just sit here for hours on end - and then I wonder why I'm bloated and my legs swell! Sheesh.
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I walk out of the house every morning with wet hair. Even when it's -8 degrees outside, like today. Hey, I'm lucky I got IN the shower and washed my hair. As my mom used to say, if people don't like they way I look they can look away.
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Anyone ever heard of Geocaching? I'm thinking about doing it... it will give me something to do while taking the dog out and when I did it years YEARS ago it was fun.
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Jeanette, is that anything like cloning??? I don't need any more of me running around.....hey wait...maybe I do!!
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I have just been notified my truck is ready to roll..now how to get there to roll it...wow, now I really do know just how out of luck I am..not one living soul here to run me 11 miles down the road...used to be I could have closed my eyes and picked any number and someone would come running..now they all ran away..and I can't even find a cab service. I could drive over there to get it, but then I would have to tow one of them home...I did "dress up" today. I have on mascara...and a pink floyd tshirt.....watch out...I'm ready for my closeup
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People hid what I refer to as a treasure box full of neat little stuff. They upload the coordinates and you use a GPS to locate it, leave a little surprise and take one from the cache. They also have what's called "hitchhikers" located in some of them, those are little figures/coins what have you... that hitchhike all around the world. Me and the ex did it many moons ago.... just something to do to keep my mind off the inevitable.

Oh hey, I did get a rototiller yesterday, kind of awesome how it all happened. I was doing the circle of 3 stores comparing prices/machines... actually looking for a nice li'l electric one. Stopped by the last store and saw the man who used to do moms hair. Him and his wife own a salon here and once upon a time i'd take her for a special day, the wife did my hair, he did moms. Now this is a big stocky muscly guy... he would flirt with mom and have her grinning from ear to ear, hehe, mom always conned him into giving her a glass of wine while getting her hair done.... anywho, Spencer walks out of the store, he asks about mom and eventually we start talking about tillers... gas vs electric, yada yada... well, he had one that he used once (something about clearing a patch for the wild turkeys) and it's been in his shed for a year... it's gas driven, weighs about 10 lbs, weeds n tills and is a very spendy tiller. He sold it to me for mere dollars of what it's worth. Brought it to the house for us, gave me the gas can for it full of gas and a tutorial (plus the owners manual) This is one of the reasons I love a small town. Virtual strangers are more loving/caring than your own siblings ... he also got a toofless smile out of mom again.

Over the past 2 years I have been slowly buying every thing needed to do everything myself without asking for help. Chainsaw, battery charger, small compressor, shop vac, pressure washer, portable A/C unit, ladders, rug cleaner... things that I can handle on my own to do what needs done. Without paying or relying on someone. Craigslist is wonderful in that area... also our small town has a FB page where people can list items needed or for sale. All I need is my indoor swimming pool :D

I could care less right now what I look like!! LOL!! Like most of us, by the time we take care of everyone else we are too tired to make much of an effort to pretty ourselves up. I was kind of ashamed to see the salon guy yesterday though... stress has frizzy fried my hair. Oh well. Pony tails and t-shirts are a girls best friend.
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I have heard of it Jeanette - at the time I said "geo what?" - from a lovely couple, not in the first flush of youth, who were setting off for a day of it and seemed to be full of the joys. Go to it, have fun!
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If you look good, you feel good :)

My boss dresses to the nines every day at the office. Dark suit, four pointed handkerchief in top pocket of his suit jacket, pressed shirt, smart looking tie, polished shoes, not one hair out of place, etc.....

Therefore I feel I have to also look the part. But at my age I had to pass on wearing heels, thus with the what I call "nun shoes" those shoes don't look good with skirts, so I wear trousers.

At home, forgetaboutit, jeans and t-shirts.
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For me it is the reverse these days FF...if I feel good I look good..and these days I never feel good....

Today has been exasperating...can't find anyone to take me and get my truck...so i guess if he wants his money he will find a way to bring it here (which my hospice informs me she knows he could do if he wanted to) otherwise it will have to stay there until I grab one of my pop in people and put them to work...

Mama has picked up a stomach bug and so it has been laundry day all day long...throw up after throw up after throw up...and even though I keep those disposable pads handy, she always seems to manage to do it where it hits a spot where it is not....I am kind of undone....she was running a slight fever this am, so I guess it was a bug after all.......I am not feeling that great myself by now....
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Jeanette..you have put me in the mood to buy a rototiller now..I have been threatening to get one forever..this is the year I think....it is a beautiful sunny day here, but man is it cold..and we are getting a hard freeze warning for tonight..chilll factor MINUS 10....yes, now that is cold for the south.... brrrrrr we did get to enjoy some pretty snow falling for a while...it even stayed for a while...
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I am horrible..but I am kind of counting on the car repairman to decide he wants his money badly enough to bring his friend with him and bring my truck to me....please oh pretty please ....
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