Almost feel guilty for making this post...

In this part of West Texas, we have had absolutely wonderful weather almost Spring-like. Yesterday we had a high of 80 and today it got to 77 degrees Fahrenheit with sunny skies.  I know the rest of the nation is not as fortunate that is why in some small way I almost feel guilty for making this post.

I had to take advantage of the weather so did several loads. Unfortunately, I once again thru my back out and it is not like the laundry basket I was carrying was that heavy. I spent more energy trying to keep the cats from coming into the kitchen.

Talking about cats I have got to do something about Blanca (momma cat) she keeps on attacking her now grown brood and today she attacked the little kitty that has taken up residence here as well.  I had hoped that once I had her fixed she would mellow out but she has turned almost vicious.  If I yell or reprimand her she will hiss at me as well...talk about biting the hand that feeds you...grrrrrrrrr!!!

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Lazy Sunday

I forced myself to go to bed early last night (early for me) 3:30 a.m. woke up to the yapping of the neighbors two Chihuahua’s at 9:00 a.m.  Well at least they slept in because they usually start their barking much earlier during the workweek. Why do little dogs bark at nothing?

It was rather chilly this morning but needed to do laundry.  My room is a mess and mother “suggested” that it might need cleaning.  Lol, sometimes I feel like a teenager.  Actually the room is clean, what it needs is de-cluttering.
 

This is the smallest of the sheds they have at Home Depot



This would be the ideal size but it was locked and it did not have a price.

This month marks three years that they broke into my home in Houston.  They took everything of value and them some.  The sad part was that the original thieves took the things they could easily pawn…my computer, my LV purses and duffle bag, 15 cases of laminate flooring, and a lot of remodeling supplies that the person I hired never got around to installing.

My next door neighbor “the town crier” alerted the neighbors to the fact that my house had been burglarized and that it was now unlocked.  So it was open season at my house and they took everything else, towels, sheets, a folding table, bags of charcoal, a floor jack, my silverware, blender, the molcajete my grandmother had given dad, the food in the refrigerator and whatever else I had in the pantry.  Not to mention the neighbor kids that went in and stole trinkets, nail polish, perfume, costume jewelry, make-up, even my electric hair rollers!!

This is a good option as well, not so the price.

It has lots of room for my boxes but ofcourse the shelves are extra.

Since that time I have brought a lot of my files, important paperwork and clothes to Del Rio.  The problem is that mother’s house is small and the only place I can put my boxes is in my bedroom.  My bedroom also doubles as a guest room so if we have company, those boxes have to be moved or there isn’t sufficient space for them to maneuver around.  I have been looking for alternate solutions such as purchasing a storage shed, but the price has been the limiting factor, isn't it always?


In an ideal world and if I won the lottery, I would definitively consider this barn shed.



Though I must admit, it might be overkill.



No telling how long before I could not climb these stairs to the loft area

Today I only mustered the strength to move around a couple of boxes.  Like Scarlett O’Hara would say “tomorrow is another day”.

Hope you had a great weekend may your workweek be even better.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Joint Problem

To say that I got a good night sleep would be a lie.  Could not go to sleep no matter how hard I tried.  Finally got up at 7:30 a.m. and people in the blogsphere know that unless I am traveling or have some pressing business…this gal is NOT a morning person.

We had beautiful weather and a little bit of wind, which is conducive to doing laundry and actually getting it to dry (we don’t have a drier, we use a clothesline).  However I could not get my mind off of my shared bank account number with an absolute stranger.

Got the phone book out and looked up the gentlemen’s name and thank goodness he had an actually landline number listed.  Debated for a while whether to call him or not and inform him of the situation since I knew darn well IBC Bank was NOT going to do it.

At noon after weighing the pros and cons decided if the shoe was on the other foot, I would want to know about our joint problem.  I must say he was a very nice gentleman and just from talking to him I could tell he was a man of honor, and that was of great comfort to me.

He has not one but several accounts at IBC and informed me that the one we have in common is not a checking account but a CD account.  That is the reason why no money was actually commingled or compromised in our duplicate account. 

Around 3:58 p.m. I got a hysterical call from the little boy who had unsuccessfully tried to help me at the bank yesterday but did not have the cojones to go up to the manager in charge and interrupt his dual conversation on his cell phone and regular phone nor his immediate supervisor who was engaged in a very loud personal conversation with one of his “boyfriends”.

Did he really think I was going to leave it at “Believe me you have nothing to worry about.  If I thought your account would be compromised in anyway, I would be the first person telling you to close it.”  He obviously does not know me…

He wanted to know HOW I had been able to locate Mr.____  I told him “ how do you think?  The phone book of course” his next question was “what did you tell him?”  My answer “why don’t you tell ME what YOU are doing about my problem?”  His reply “I told you your account was not being compromised”. 

Well this little boy better be trembling in his boots (even though he was wearing shoes) because my account may be a little measly one which they can easily afford to lose but I don’t think they want to lose this gentleman’s business.  He must have scared him silly for him to have called me in such a panic :D

This afternoon a man from my mom’s congregation came by because “he had noticed her grass was tall”.  I had not seen him in four years and though I cannot prove it, I think his son had something to do with the disappearance of my beloved 14-year-old cat that mysteriously vanished the last time he mowed her yard. 

Of course mother hired him on the spot.  I would not have a problem with it if it weren’t for the fact that he never quite completes the job.  He will mow one day and then show up two or three weeks later to “finish the job”.  There is nothing I hate more than people who do not honor their word or lack a work ethic, to me they are BUMS.  However, I cannot say anything bad about him or my mother takes it as a personal attack on her friends.  It was hard to keep my mouth shut but I know deep down inside that he is NOT going to show up tomorrow.  Oh well, it is her money not mine.

I would like to welcome the Foot family (Big Foot, Little Foot and Underfoot) for signing on as followers.  Thank you.

If you passed away, would someone notice?

A while back Ben InTexas posed a hypothetical question “what if one of us bloggers died in our home and no one knew.”  Since he is a daily blogger with updates throughout the day…well we would certainly take note that something was out of place if he did not do his daily post. http://benntexas.blogspot.com/  But how about those people who do not go online or who for that matter do not even have friends or relatives living close by? Worst yet if they happen to be elderly and living by themselves and whose families do not even care about their well-being?

This is a topic that perhaps very few of us care to discuss but one that perhaps deserves our attention.  I was going to post about this two weeks ago when the death of an elderly gentlemen touched me.  He lived alone and apparently did not have family. The only reason they found him was because the mailman reported that there was a foul odor emitting from the residence.  When the police entered his home they found his body in an advance state of decomposition.  They performed an autopsy and ruled he died from natural causes.

I was reading the free online page of the Del Rio News Herald and I was literally shocked to find that three more have died in the same fashion.  Del Rio is not a very big town.  We have just shy of 50,000 residents and in the past two weeks we have had four deaths of senior citizens in their residences.   The common factor is that they all lived alone. http://delrionewsherald.com/news/article_fceb2238-2b31-11e1-8d4f-0019bb2963f4.html

Do you keep in touch with your elderly relatives or neighbors?  If you live alone whether you are elderly or not, is there a person you are in contact with that would take note if they did not hear from you?  Do you have a trusted friend that has a key to your house and that could get access to your home just in case?  Do your friends have a way of contacting your family in case you became ill or had to be hospitalized?

Food for thought….

On a much happier note, it turned out to be a beautiful day. Since there is rain and a cold front in the forecast decided to take advantage while I could and did two loads of laundry.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
He's making a list
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out Who's naughty and nice
Santa Claus is coming to town
He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!
O! You better watch out!
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
Santa Claus is coming to town

Oh wait, I think I got that wrong….Billy Bob is coming to town :D

He was at Judge Roy Bean’s place yesterday http://billybobsplace.blogspot.com/2011/11/where-i-at.html since Langtry is a stones throw to Del Rio,  I bet he is already sipping a cup in beautiful San Pedro Campgrounds on Lake Amistad.

I will have to go pay him a visit once he gets settled down and has caught a couple fish (so he will be in a good mood)….shhhh don’t tell him I said that or Santa Claus is NOT going to come visit YOU.

Good thing is the biggest internet provider in the US does not have a cell tower in Del Rio, Texas so he can not read anything I write until he leaves town and can finally catch a signal about 100 miles from here la,la,la,la…hey that’s kind of a catchy tune!!

Nothing new on this front, except doing more laundry. watering all of mother’s trees and plants, and finally washing the cars.  By washing cars I mean using a hose with a spray nozzle to rinse of the dust. Don’t by any stretch of the imagination think I actually washed them with soap and water and scrubbed the tires and carefully detailed the inside, that is too much work.  I wonder if Billy Bob’s mentality is catching?

Was reading Shoeless Joe’s blog http://travlinwithjohn.blogspot.com/2011/11/i-ran-out.html   and from the comments I found that there are other people  besides myself that don’t much care to do laundry so a light went on, hey I’m open to barter. I will do your laundry if you mow my lawn…any takers?  Will throw in mesquite wood, just bring your chainsaw and cut your own.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Beautiful Tuesday

These past two days I have been busy doing laundry, a chore I have really never liked to do until I had to take up doing yard work.  In comparison doing laundry is a breeze.  Speaking of breezes the strong winds of days past are long gone.  While it has been a little cold in the morning, the sun has been abundant and the temperatures perked right up by mid morning.

Can you believe we still have mosquitoes?  I do not know how they did not freeze to death on Sunday night.  They are alive and well and have an affinity for my blood.

Drove into town to pick up the mail from the P.O. Box, went to the bank, and picked up a couple of items at HEB.  I was pleasantly surprised that there were hardly any people out and about.  Took advantage of that and decided to buy stamps as there were only two people in line and I know in December this place will be very busy.

While I don’t get to go online daily, on those days that I can, I am going to be changing the header picture to show some of the shots that I took this year at the Chili Cook-off.

Have a good night and may you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Wasted Month

I feel like I wasted the whole month of September.  It came and went so fast and having to sandwich in two trips to Houston did not help any.  One of the main reasons for going besides getting my home security system fixed was to go get forms and instructions at the local IRS office.

I was lucky at that since I figured I had to go downtown but found one close to my house.  For the past twenty or so years I have been having my taxes prepared by a CPA and paying a pretty price for it.  Sure his report is pretty and all that but now I need to cut down on unnecessary expenses, so this year I will prepare them myself.

You are probably wondering, weren’t taxes due back on the 15^th of April?  Well, technically yes as well as your payment if you owed taxes but if you filed an extension like I have done practically all my working life you have until October 15^th.  Since it falls on Saturday this year I guess I only have till the 14^th of October.

To make matters worst I have no idea in which of my zillions of boxes I have my tax information.  Guess I will be going through a lot of boxes L

I am trying to catch up on all the laundry as well.  It would go much faster if I could go to the Laundromat but my mother insists on having the clothes dried on the solar dryer (clothesline).

I think I had mentioned before that I did not know if I had lost my camera or left it in Houston.  For a while there I could not find it in Houston either until I went to the garage and found it on top of my clothes dryer.  Figured it was fried after all it only spent the hottest months in terrible heat but after I changed the batteries I got it to work.  Only problem is that the date got messed up and it now thinks its April.  Well Belinda why don’t you read your manual?  As you might guess, it is also in one of my zillion of boxes…

Yesterday I spent a good deal of the afternoon clearing weeds and trying to remove baby mesquite trees which unfortunately have a very deep root system.  Billy Bob if you are reading this THE HULLA HOE DID NOT WORK.  That thing is useless.  Finally got a square shovel and used it to remove the weeds with less effort on my part and most importantly less stress on my back.

Hope you all have a good Sunday.  Twenty-nine days to Terlingua :D