Archive | April, 2018

This Old House

27 Apr

I read an article a day or so back, listing things that made a house seem dated. Paneling, wallpaper, brass chandeliers, pull shades, and drapes with tie backs.

Well, there you go, folks.  When we moved in, every single room on the ground floor was paneled. I felt as if I was living in a coffin! Not only that, but the paneling in the bathroom splintered when it got wet! Who thought that was a good idea? We did get that covered over – with wallpaper – about ten years after we moved in, but it took me for-bloody-ever to convince The Squire we needed to Do Something with the living room. Even at that, I had to agree to leave the fireplace wall uncovered, although the dear man did finally admit we should have done it years ago.  The chandeliers in the dining room are brass, and it is both wainscoted and papered. We have pull shades in the bedrooms; light and airy doesn’t cut it if you want to sleep past 4 AM around here.  As a matter of fact, we also have pull shades in the living room, but they are all the way up out of sight. We only use them when we have company spend the night.

The problem is that my taste in decorating pretty much begins and ends with Federal style furniture. Williamsburg is my ideal. The guest room, which we redid in the spring of 2016, is more-or-less “country” style but other than the kitchen, that’s the most modern room in the house. I do draw the line at cooking with a wood stove.

So – it’s dated.  Nothing in the house is orange or avocado, we don’t have any shag rugs, and I don’t have a slew of magnets on the fridge.

Deal with it.

 

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Pushing Up Daisies

25 Apr

“This is Brianna”, she said.

“I’m calling from the mortgage company”, she said.

“I need a copy of your husband’s death certificate”, she said.

We won’t go into what I said, thank you very much. Apparently the dear man has been dead and gone since October of 2015. And the rat didn’t even tell me!  Yeesh.

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We Shall See

24 Apr

Yesterday I hauled myself out of bed at 5 AM to begin putting drops in my eyes in preparation for cataract surgery.  Every ten minutes, for two hours! In between, I fed the critters, inside and out, and took a shower.  I was NPO, but I woke The Squire at 6:00 so he, at least, could get some breakfast. One of us needed to be civil, and it obviously wasn’t going to be me.

We got to the Eye Center in plenty of time, and sat around for half an hour. Why don’t they schedule things more realistically? Then we discovered I’d handed the receptionist the wrong insurance card and she wanted $$300-some dollars.  We’d been issued new insurance cards the first of the year, but they are not dated, which explained why I was still carrying the old one; luckily The Squire had his card in his wallet, so that was settled without bloodshed.

The getting-ready was about as easy as anything I’ve ever done. Take off my blouse and lay down. They told me I didn’t even have to take off my shoes, but I’m already done so. I explained to the anesthesiologist about my problem with anything over my face, and she promised me they’d take care of that before I awakened. The surgeon came in and spoke to me and then drew a circle above my left eye – “So we do the correct one”.

I don’t remember anything else until I woke up in the recovery area – with my legs trying to run away without me.  Every other time I’ve ever had any sort of surgery I not only didn’t have Restless Leg Syndrome but I didn’t need any medication for a night or two afterward.  This time – boy, howdy!  They strongly recommended I take my anticonvulsant before I come in next time, NPO or not.

I was a bit disappointed when we removed the bandages that my vision was so blurry. The Squire was upset that I couldn’t see as well as he could right off the bat. I feel as if I’m looking in a foggy mirror after having gotten out of the shower. This is normal, and it is already getting better. By Thursday or Friday I should be good to go. And then, they want to do the right eye! I didn’t realize it was bad enough to need correcting, but the doctor told me that was only because it looked good compared to how bad this eye was. Once I see clearly with my left eye, I’ll know how bad the right one is. Makes sense.

The business with the shoes was that I am not supposed to bend over or do anything strenuous for the next three days. The Squire had to help me get dressed this morning. He also had to feed all of the critters and lug the bread machine out of the cupboard. I was able to set the table all by myself.

However, I’m not allowed to run the vacuum or unload the dishwasher. Oh, such a pity!

 

 

 

 

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Lost in Translation

2 Apr

I am fairly well-known for being OCD – or, in my case, CDO as the letters must be in order.  I’m a nut about making sure the hymnals and prayer books are neatly place in the racks (I’ve been known to “tidy up” the pews when I visit another church.)  Light switches must all be facing one direction – all up, or all down.  My spices are in alphabetical order, and all of the girls names begin with the same letter and the oldest has four letters in her name, the middle girl was five letters, and the youngest has six. However, that was entirely accidental.

Our friend Mac speaks English as if it was a second language (it isn’t) and his wife is not much better.

This evening as we were leaving the parish hall after our knitting group, I walked out of the hall in the dark, so I could get all of the light switches in order. Mrs. Mac laughed at me, and remarked that I was “just too, too AC/DC.”

I should hope not!

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Holy Smoke!

1 Apr

About halfway through the service this morning some one came into church and asked if  The Squire would come help with a problem. The smoke alarm in the kitchen was going off and nobody could get it to quit.

Lovely.

By the time the service was over the alarm was still going full tilt.  The Squire tried calling the phone number above the above the alarm panel, but the service has been changed and that was the number for the old company, not the new one. Not only could we not get it to turn off, but the alarm system had already called the fire department. The neighbours were treated not only to a non-stop claxon, but the bells and whistles of the local VFD. fire truck

The firemen were no luckier than we were with getting the alarm to stop. One fellow even climbed up on the countertop to reach the box, but even after he removed the battery the fool thing kept on blaring.

AHA!

In the midst of all this commotion, The Squire realized the noise was not coming from above the door but nearer the stove. On Thursday, somebody had pulled the Carbon Monoxide detector out of the electric outlet to plug in a crock pot for the weekly soup supper, and forgot to plug it back in, which means it was running on batteries. When the battery went dead, the alarm started. And kept on and on and on.

There is peace in the valley once again. Whoosh!

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