March 2007

My step-son spent 7 months in Iraq from August ‘05 - March ‘06 and he is being deployed again tonight.

The Old Lady’s friend-across-the-street (Louise) told my husband that her church wants to send packages to some of our service men and women stationed in Iraq and asked my husband what kinds of things they should send. LOL, hubby told her the things they want most of all is cigarettes, M&M’s and porn! Do you think the church members know where to buy porn? I bet they do! haha

Seriously though, he did say that but he quickly amended the list to include things like socks, toiletries and snacks and a lot of other things I can’t think of right now. Our son hasn’t even left the country yet and my husband has his first care package packed and ready to send out. He taped up the box before I had a chance peek in. I wonder what he put in it.

It is true that I met my husband online but I didn’t meet him on the internet. Now how could that be? Well, I met him before the graphical interface known as the World Wide Web was invented. I used to run a dual node online BBS (Bulletin Board System) and my husband was one of my users. To make a long story short I needed a date for a friend’s birthday party/hog roast and had already met my husbands best friend. The best friend suggested I invite his best friend (my present husband) and the rest is history.

The online dating scene sure has changed since I was a single and looking. These days there are tons of websites devoted to dating and hooking up. Just for kicks and because my single step-son has been on the prowl lately I looked at some of the dating sites on the web now.

Two of the more prominent sites seem to be eHarmony and JustSayHi. The thing that stands out about JustSayHi is that JustSayHi is 100% free. The people at JustSayHi thought a real good free dating site needed to exist so they built it. When they say “free” they mean it and no credit card is required to join JustSayHi.

Like I said, I have already found my man so I’m not in the market for an online dating service. If you, however, are single and looking I recommend checking out JustSayHi. It can’t hurt to look, can it?

I’m not quite sure what made me do it but I recently reinstated my World of Warcraft account. *sigh*

If I follow the same behavior that I have followed in the past I’ll most likely let my blogging slide and play the game more and more and more. But I told myself it is going to be different this time! I’m going to continue blogging and continue doing all the other things I enjoy doing when I’m not subscribed to the game. But isn’t that what all addicts say?

Hard to believe it has almost been a month since I took the Old Lady to the heart doctor for her Protime test (the one where they stick her finger and test how fast her blood clots). She talked me into taking her to Wal-mart last time so it will be interesting to find out what she has up her sleeve for our next outing.

The reason I didn’t want to take her is because she honestly cannot walk more than a few steps at a time and I knew it would be a horrible experience for both of us. We don’t take her wheelchair because it is too difficult for me to get it in and out of the car and we can park at the door to the doctor’s office so she doesn’t have to walk very far with her walker. The only reason I agreed to take her to Wal-mart is that I saw a wheelchair parked near the Wal-mart doors the last time we went so I figured I’d just use one of theirs. Unfortunately there were no wheelchairs available when we got there but fortunately I talked the Old Lady into using one of those motorized scooters to ride around in. We’ll be using those from now on since it allows her the freedom to go where she wants to without having someone push her around. Plus it is a lot easier on me too.

We usually go on a Tuesday but she has hired a couple from England to do her house cleaning on Tuesday afternoons from now on. So I suppose we’ll go Monday or Wednesday instead. I dread it more than anyone could possibly know and I’ll be sure to give the report next week as to whether I had a horrible day or a good one.

Before I became so involved on the internet I used to read four of five books a week. I hesitate to admit this but it has been several years since I’ve read a book. Shame on me.

Truth be told, I really hadn’t been thinking about reading until I heard from a friend about The Capo’s Mistress by Richard Harris. I took a look Richard Harris’ (not to be confused with the actor) website myself to see what the book was about and if it might be one I’d like to read. What I see is a book that has it all - mystery, suspense, romance and humor! Set in the backdrop of Las Vegas and Virginia City, The Capo’s Mistress is the first book in the Mike Driscoll series.

An excerpt from the book, Mike’s first night, got my attention. If I told you I read that page twice would you call me a dirty old woman? *grin* I wouldn’t care what you called me, that page was a pretty good read.

Now here is Richard Harris’ crazy marketing plan. He is giving away a free MP3 download of this novel until the release date of April 27, 2007. After April 27th, the book can be purchased through Amazon for $18.96. Duh. You can pre-order The Capo’s Mistress at Amazon if you don’t want to download The Capo’s Mistress for free before April 27th but again I say, duh. Downloading the novel for free looks like a no-brainer to me. What say you?

I used to run a HTML Help forum. I was pretty darn good at HTML and helping others learn web design. I did most of my coding by hand and really enjoyed it. After a while I took several years off from web design because I found another hobby. (MMORPG’s FTW!)

Fast forward to today. Now in addition to HTML we have CSS and PHP and heaven knows what else and I am totally lost with some of it. If the world would have just been satisfied with HTML I’d still be sailing along smoothly now. I guess a little frustration is worth it for the reward so I’ll just keep plugging along and goofing up until I can get it right.

I knew what was up when I saw him reaching for his keys on a Saturday night. “I have to go out for an emergency run”, he says, “maybe I’ll get some ice cream while I’m there”.

I say “if you love me you’ll get a flavor I like… but if you REALLY love me you’ll buy ice cream with peanut butter in it”… (I hate peanut butter ice cream and won’t eat that flavor and don’t really need to be eating sweets on Saturday night anyway. I’m trying to watch my weight, “trying” being the key word here)

He brought home chocolate. I think he loves me. I guess he doesn’t REALLY love me, or does he? hehe… yum yum… Breyers Chocolate…

I am so freeking sick and tired of Google Adsense. I guess I’m not smart enough to figure out how people make money from it because I have never made one thin dime. I think I’m going to take it off of all my sites and just forget about it. blah!

I never thought it would happen to me, but I am actually making money by blogging.

I have been paid $10.00 for 2 blog posts that I made on my original personal blog and I have 4 posts on another blog approved for $5.00 each (for a total of $20.00) and I’ve been tasked to write a post tomorrow for $10.00. None of these posts were made on this blog, of course, as it is too new to submit to any blog ad networks yet. That’s $40.00 for the month of March so far, woo hoo!

I’m very happy about it. The only problem at the moment is that the blog I’m writing paid posts on has a very narrow niche so there aren’t that many tasks I can take yet.

P.S. If you are wondering if you too can make money by blogging please feel free to check out my affiliates. They are listed on my sidebar under, er, “Affiliates”. heh

I realize my posts are disjointed and sometimes don’t make total sense, but it will just have to be that way until I finally recover (if I ever do) from whatever ailment it is that makes it hard for me to communicate sometimes. All in all, I’m sure the services of a good therapist would help the process, but how does an agoraphobic get themselves to the therapist in the first place? That’s one thing I’ve always wanted to know. LOL

She took her walker outside to plant a potato (yeah, you read it right, heh) and to weed her flower beds. She said she fell foward and couldn’t get up. She yelled but nobody could hear her. Finally one of her neighbors heard her and went to get Louise but they couldn’t get the Old Lady into her house. They had to go get a young man to help get her in the house. (The young man who the Old Lady didn’t even know lived with the neighbor and looked like he was in his early 20’s and was clean cut and he said he was a physical therapist.)

They finally got her into her house and into her recliner. She said she was not hurt and had no pain anywhere. She also said Louise gave her a pain pill.

I know she should not be living alone and I know this blog makes my husband and I look like complete asses for allowing her to live alone. There is a lot more to it than I have written so far. I’m not sure why I’m writing about her in this blog. Maybe it is to explain myself. I have some guilt inside and maybe I’ll be able to purge it here. Or maybe not. It might make it worse. (which is has so far.)

My job is to call the Old Lady every day to make sure she is still alive. I usually call her at 11:00am every day. I tried to call her today but her line was busy and was busy for a few hours. I finally called her on her cell phone and asked her if she was on the phone or if one of her phones was off the hook. (She has at least 4 phones in her house.) Well, she said she wasn’t on the phone so I told her to go check to see if one was off the hook. She called me back to let me know the pink phone in her bedroom was indeed off the hook.

Louise is the neighbor that checks on the Old Lady every day to make sure she is alive. She is about 74 and still active. She is a good-hearted lady and as far as I can tell would never hurt a fly. But my MIL is so bitter and unhappy and jealous that she makes fun of, gossips and makes snide remarks about everybody she knows. That’s why I keep my distance from her. No point in giving her more to be nasty about.

Here is the conversation:

Old Lady: You can’t tell by looking at the pink phone in my bedroom but if it gets bumped a little it is off the hook but it doesn’t look like it. (repeated several times)

Me: Okay, I was starting to worry about you.

Old Lady: Well Louise is not home. She went to get her nails done. Her fingernails and her toenails. Like anybody cares! *snide chuckle* Poor thing. Nobody cares about her.

Me: I think that’s wonderful. If it makes her feel good that’s all that really matters.

Old Lady: She is going to see Humperdink tonight. I saw him before in Punta Gorda. I used to have all his records but I gave them away in a garage sale. I don’t know why she got her nails done, nobody cares about her, poor thing.

Me: (exasperated) I don’t think she is “poor thing” for doing something that makes herself feel good.

Old Lady: Well, I have to hang up now.

Me: Okay, have a nice day.

All in all, the conversation wasn’t that bad, especially after typing it out. It is just the nasty way she has of saying snide things about anyone and everyone, and Louise is a person that cares enough about her to check on her and run her errands sometimes.

There. Maybe I can stop being annoyed now.