July 2007

Against the wishes of everyone my mother-in-law decided to leave the nursing home and came home this past Saturday. She will be under the care of a home health agency and will also have someone visit her daily to check on her and help her with her daily activities.

I’ve offered to stay with her at night but she doesn’t want me to. She asked if I would visit her every Friday from now on so of course I said I would. I do hope she doesn’t ever have to go to the nursing home again. There is no such thing as a “good” nursing home. Nope.

Have you ever wanted to read the latest news but didn’t want to sift through stories you weren’t interested in? At Thoof you can have your personalized news delivered directly to your browser with stories and articles that are tailored to your individual taste.

Signing up and submitting a story is easy. Well, I should say submitting an article was easy the second time I tried it. I goofed with the first article I submitted and it didn’t go through completely. The article was there but it showed as submitted by “anonymous”. The sign-up isn’t as intuitive as I think it could be so I recommend that Thoof adds step-by-step instructions for new people signing up. (I know web savvy people shouldn’t need this but I guess I’m not as web savvy as I like to think, heh.)

At first glance I thought Thoof was like Digg, but actually, Thoof is very different. At Thoof you will see a personalized page with stories you will find interesting. After a while Thoof learns what you like and will only show you the articles they think you might be interested in, so each person that visits Thoof will see a different page. It really is a fun website and I had a good time clicking and reading the articles. Be careful though, I think Thoof can become addictive!

The social worker never did call me back so I threw a fit about that when I got to the hospital. I know I should not have done that but it really ticked me off.

It turned out that the Old Lady was able to go to Hawthorne after all and I didn’t have to transport her. I was shocked when we got to Hawthorne because the pictures on the internet looked so beautiful. My heart just sank when they took her into her room. It looked like an, um, nursing home. Yeah, I know that is what it is but dang.

I do feel for her and I’m sorry she has to go through it. It is only for rehab though and to help her get her strength back. I know I rant about her all the time but I don’t wish bad things to happen to her. I’ll do whatever I can to keep her from being institutionalized permanently, even if it breaks my spirit. And it will, there is no doubt about that. I took care of my mother in 2000 in my home when she was in the hospice program and I took care of my brother in my home in 2004 when he was in the hospice program. I know I should “be over it” by now but I’m not the same as I was before I was their caregiver and I don’t think I’ll ever be the same. (A good shrink would probably help but *insert any excuse here for the reason* I don’t go.)

My mother-in-law is not in the hospice program and has not been diagnosed as terminally ill, but she is almost 85 years old so that’s basically the same thing as far as I’m concerned. We are doing all the same things for her that I did for my mother and brother.

I’m beat and I must not be a “real” blogger or I’d relate the whole ordeal of this afternoon detail by detail. Instead, I’m turning off the internet for awhile. I’d rather read blogs than to write in them anyway.

My husband called me last night from the hospital when he was visiting his mother. He told me (which left me flabbergasted) that his mother had agreed to go to a facility for physical therapy for her back. He said she would be going to Hawthorne, which is a place she has been aware of for some time and decided if she ever needs to go then Hawthorne is her choice.

Hubby asked me if I would pick MIL up from the hospital, bring her home to get some clothes and tie up any loose ends and then take her to Hawthorne. Being the good daughter-in-law I am I said I would.

I started getting second thoughts this morning. If the Old Lady can’t even walk from her bed to the bathroom how in hades am I supposed to manage getting her into and out of the house and car, etc. etc etc.? Hubby was already at work so I called and ran that by him (and whined) but he said he can’t take today off. arrrrgh…

So… being the bad daughter-in-law I am I procrastinated all morning fooling around on the internet. (so what else is new?) Finally about 12:30 I decided I’d better find out what was going on at the hospital. I called the nurses station and the nurse said the Old Lady wasn’t being released today - that she was being sent to a “home”. I said “yes I know, she is going to Hawthorne” and the nurse said she wasn’t going to Hawthorne. The nurse said the social worker was working on “finding her a bed” wherever they could take her.

So I called the Old Lady and asked how things were going and to let her know I’ll be there in just a little while. I asked her if she was sure she was going to Hawthorne and she said yes, she is sure. I believe there has been a miscommunication somewhere and the sparks and fur are really going to fly if she is placed somewhere besides Hawthorne. The social worker was at lunch so I left a message for her to call me. I’ll forward my calls to my cell phone and I’m out of here.

I knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but I didn’t know it was going to be like this. I hope I don’t have to fight with the social worker or the other hospital workers. I hate it hate it hate it but there are certain things I won’t put up with and having a hospital put my MIL into a home without her permission or her son’s permission is one of those things.

I had a good thing going here with my “Did You Pass Math” captcha plugin. I hardly ever found any spam in my Akismet moderation queue. Unfortunately, my spambot visitors got smarter and smarter until they could finally add simple numbers and my Akismet queue started filling up again.

I’ve changed to a graphic captcha, Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam Image Plugin, so let me see them try to read that! Actually this won’t be too far in the future because I read that some spammers are working on graphic readers to bypass graphic captcha programs so they can keep spamming. *sigh*

It has been ages since I sampled any discount fragrances but from what I recall I never really found one that could pass for the real thing. I prefer to purchase the original, even if I have to use it sparingly.

I wonder what the most popular womens fragrance would be? My favorite fragrance has only changed about 3 times in my life. When I was young my favorites were Chanel No. 5 and Chantilly. Does that date me? *grin* My favorite now is Estee Lauder “Knowing”. I bet that dates me too.

My telephone plus internet was out of service from Thursday until Sunday. Actually that wasn’t such a bad thing - I got caught up on a lot of chores I have been neglecting.

My computer is fried. I’m using a loaner computer which limits the things I can do online. I haven’t decided whether to try to have my computer repaired or whether to buy a new one. I’d like to do both. I could repair mine and put it at my mother-in-law’s house to use while I’m there and also buy a new one for my house.

My mother-in-law went to the emergency room Saturday evening at 6:30pm. Hubby and I didn’t get home until 4:30am Sunday. She really should NOT be living alone anymore. She vetoes any solution I come up with (fixing up her spare room for me and letting me sleep there at night) and I veto any solution she comes up with (I think she wants to come live with us). This situation is putting a lot of stress on our family life.

I probably won’t be around as much as I have been in the past until our home life settles back down.

Lightning struck my computer (yes, I have a surge protector) so my computer is broken. I have tried everything I can think of to get my husband’s computer connected to the internet but to no avail.

I had to use a library computer to tie up a few loose ends.

The Verizon Fios repairman is supposed to come tomorrow between 8am and 6pm. I sure hope I don’t hear a knock on my door at 8am!

At any rate, I’ll be out of commission for who knows how long.

Darn, I miss my spell checker! I’ll have to check this when I come back, hehe. I found out the definition of “lightening” though by checking Dictionary.com:

noun Medicine/Medical. the descent of the uterus into the pelvic cavity, occurring toward the end of pregnancy, changing the contour of the abdomen and facilitating breathing by lessening pressure under the diaphragm

That isn’t the type of “lightning” I was talking about, hehe.

Here is an online sweeptakes game with an interesting twist. To play Bid4Prizes all you need to do is get the lowest unique bid for the prize you choose to bid for and you win. The way it works is that the lowest bid for each prize starts off at one penny. Then, if more than one person bids a penny that penny is not the lowest unique bid and 2 cents is the new low bid and so on. A winning bid could be anything from a penny on up to, well, I guess the sky is the limit.

I bet you’re wondering how much this costs. Playing is free and regardless of the winning bid amount you pay absolutely nothing. This sounds like a fun way to get some free gifts and cash prizes.

This text based game is very user-friendly and easy to play. Think of it as a reverse auction type of game where the winner pays nothing but still gets to take home the prize.

Prizes change periodically so here is a list of come of the prizes that are currently up for bid at the time of this post.

• $500 Cash
• All-inclusive Outdoor Widescreen Theatre System (8′)
• Dell Inspiron E1705 Computer
• Microsoft Xbox 360 & $300 Target Gift Card

Again, it is free to play and the prizes are really nice. If you like online games why not check out Bid4prizes.com.

Today is the last day of my subscription to World of Warcraft and I’ve been thinking about canceling again. If I want to cancel I need to do it ASAP because my credit card will be charged again tomorrow. I guess I’m not ready yet so I’m going to give it another month. I’ll just cut down and not play so much. Yeah. Really. That’s what I’m going to do. But seriously, I really have cut back on the time I spend in-game and the $15.00 isn’t going to break me.

I’ve blogged about credit cards a couple of times recently so I guess credit cards are on my mind. We used to have a ton (and when I say ton I mean ton! hehe) of credit cards but we took out a home equity loan a few years ago and paid them all off except one. Well, supposedly one because somehow, and I’m not quite sure how this happened but we’re up to three again.

Okay, I know how it happened. We kept one card for emergencies and this card has a pretty high credit limit. We also kept one card with a very small credit limit that is strictly used for internet purchases. Then I got a wild hair a few months ago because I didn’t have a credit card in my name only (which is important to me) so I accepted an offer from Amazon.com and applied for one of their cards. I really hate this card! The only thing I charged last month was the $14.99 for my World of Wacraft subscription and that credit card company had the unmitigated gall to charge me $2.00 interest on it. I always thought there would be no interest if I paid the full balance before the due date but it looks like I was wrong. If it happens again next month I’m going to transfer my WoW subscription to another card and not use the Amazon card anymore. I was even thinking about using the Amazon card for some 0% balance transfers but I’m not going to do that now.

I’m going to leave well enough alone and not apply for another credit card now but if I ever do I hope I have the good sense to compare credit cards.

I’ve been tagged by Alan of JAB- JustABout Everything. So here goes…

The Rules: “Each person posts the rules before their list, then they list 8 things about themselves. At the end of the post, that person tags and links to 8 other people and then visits those peoples’ sites and comments letting them know that they have been tagged, and to come read the post, so they know what they have to do.”

1. I don’t like to list 8 things about myself.

2. I used to play clarinet, tenor saxophone and guitar.

3. I can’t carry a tune.

4. I’ve been married 4 times.

5. I have one adult son.

6. I have 2 step-sons, one married with 2 children and in the war in Iraq. The other is in college.

7. I’ve been on the WWW since it was invented.

8. I think tagging people is a pain in the ass. hehe

I’m tagging these people. Hope I comment on them all. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if I missed one? heh

Tink K.
Crazy Howard
Elizabeth - Mom Reviews
Lisa Reviews
Nicole
Tiffany
Janna
Corrin Renee

Hooray! A thanks and a shoutout to John for prompting me to fix the font in the text area of the comment box! I myself was irritated by it but I tried several times to fix it but never could.

I finally went to the support forums for Brian’s Threaded Comments and found out that my problem was not in my styles.css or my commments.php. These were the two files I have been trying to edit forever!

Nope, the problem was in the plugin itself. I never would have figured that the plugin had a stylesheet inside it. This probably seems silly but I’m thrilled to no end to have that one little glitch taken care of.

I wrote about the PayJr Visa Card about a month ago and how I thought it was a good deal for parents and children alike. Here is some more good news - you don’t have to have an ugly card if you don’t want to. Not that I ever really paid attention to the looks of my credit cards but I know some people do, especially kids.

PAYjr Visa Buxx recently launched (July 11th) with their PAYjr Visa Buxx Competition card design contest. As part of the launch anyone and everyone is eligible to upload and design a card. The public will vote on the cards and prizes include MacBooks, Iods and even a Wii. I know a lot of teens that would love to own a Wii.

The best part of this contest is that you will be able to earn royalties if your card design is purchased so if you have any graphic design skills at all hop on over the the PAYjr Visa Buxx website and upload your entries (you can enter as many times as you like) into the contest.

Geez, you would think I was some kind of Hitler or something after the comment I got a few minutes ago…

I like comments, I like the “do-follow” movement and I’m happy to help people improve their PR and traffic by putting their website URL into the URL field of the comments section… That’s what the “do-follow” movement is all about from my understanding… maybe I’m wrong though and I’m asking for guidance here…

I do have one pet peeve and that is people that do not use a name, handle or alias in the name field but instead put the name of their website there, for example “FOO ACME PRODUCTS ONLINE ORDER TODAY!”… I just hate that and if that makes me some kind of bad person then so be it. bah humbug to the lot of ya! hehe

Now I want to know, am I really being unreasonable by asking people to use a name instead of a website name in the name field? Hell, I don’t care if it is your real name or not, but FFS how about having some common courtesy and decency when you visit a personal blog…? this is not a FFA links page ya know…

Please tell me, am I out of line here? I can take gentle corrections but if you think I’m being an a-hole go ahead and tell me, I really want to know…

Edit: The bad outweighed the good. I removed the “do-follow” plugin. *sigh*

Maybe there is hope for me after all with the help of graphic organisers to get my thoughts (and bookmarks!) in order.

Way back in the dark ages when I worked for my local civil government I attended several seminars regarding organization not only for work but for my personal life as well. Several of the concepts I learned in my seminars are now being shown over at Graphic.org.

Something that has stuck with me that I learned in one of the seminars is the value of brainstorming. Brainstorming is described as “creative thinking by a group of people designed to generate a number of ideas to solve a given problem”.

Now if I can figure out a mind map to organize my bookmarks I’ll have it made.

I think I still have just about every bookmark for every page I’ve saved the last 5 years. I’m at the point now that I may as well have no bookmarks at all because when I decide to go back to a page I’ve saved I cannot find it for the life of me! I suppose I’ll have to buckle down and go through and start deleting some of them.

I’d really like an online bookmark manager but I don’t know of any that fit my specifications. I tried del.icio.us but it was more complex than I wanted plus I really don’t care to know what the whole world is bookmarking. I can barely keep up with my own.

I tried FURL and don’t remember why I stopped using it. I think I just got tired of logging in or maybe it was that I was required to add yet another toolbar to my browser. On an side note that’s why I don’t use StumbleUpon. If I’m required to install a toolbar to use a service then I just don’t use it.

Now, where is that site I know I bookmarked last night! arrrrrghhhh…..

I’m not kidding. I just ran across Western Culinary on Myspace. So now I guess I’ve seen everything - a Cordon Bleu Program with their own Myspace page.

Not only do they have a Myspace page but I can say with some authority that it is one of the nicest Myspace pages I’ve seen in a long, long time. I honestly enjoyed looking around at the page and you can’t say that about many Myspace pages.

They have the beginnings of a blog going on but so far I only see one recipe listed. Not Your Mama’s Meatloaf is made with Stovetop Stuffing, ground beef and Italian sausage and it looks delicious. I’m going to have to try that recipe. I hope they put up some more recipes too! Of course if they did that nobody would have to go to school. *grin*

It has been awhile since I wrote about the fine dining here in the trailer park so I thought I’d share with you what I had for lunch today.

Todays menu consisted of a few slices of cheese cut from a block of sharp cheddar (Publix brand) and some pepperoni that I stole from my husband’s stash of pizza fixings and some Premium Saltine crackers on the side. My beverage was Seven-up on ice. Yum yum.

I bet I have more tools in my house then most people have in their garage. Maybe that’s because we don’t have a garage. We do, however, have a shed but whenever I tell my husband to “get that stuff out of my house” he always says “there is no room in the shed!” I’m getting pretty tired of it.

I believe that just about anything that can be stored in a garage could be stored in our shed and I found some really nifty items for garage storage over at Car Guy Garage.com.

I’m wouldn’t mind having these 16 mixed storage bins with shelving for our shed. I know what would happen though. He’d fill it up and then say “there is no room in the shed!”

Not that I think it makes much difference at this point since I have very few visitors to my new blog “A Geek Mom’s Net Journey“, but I am having a dickens of a time finding and settling on a Wordpress theme.

I found a really neat plugin called Admin Theme Preview that is a great help to me in my time of need. With this plugin I can preview a theme without having to enable it first. This makes sorting through different themes a whole lot easier.

The only problem I have with it is there doesn’t seem to be any way to turn it off except for disabling the plugin in the admin section. That’s not such a big deal though.

Here is a great way to spice up any part of your home with one of your own original photos. At PhotoFiddle.com you can turn your photos into a work of art.

Instead of using tired old prints and canvases I think it is a much cooler idea to use my own photos for home decorating. I signed up for the service and tried it out myself. LOL, I’ve spent a couple of hours on their site just uploading my photos and creating masterpieces from them.

The services at PhotoFiddle seem reasonably priced to me and the service is as easy to use as 1, 2, 3. All you have to do is upload your picture, crop the part you want to use and then apply your design. There are tons of designs to choose from from oil paintings to comic strips to collages to pencil drawings to, well, you name it and I bet PhotoFiddle has it.

Here is an example of a finished product.

I’ve sort of lost interested in my “Bloggers for Dollars” (make money online) blog and don’t really feel like using that domain for a blog anymore. I will be replacing “Bloggers for Dollars” with my new blog “A Geek Mom’s Net Journey“.

Now I have to decide what to do with the domain. I can sell it or use it for a different type of site. I’ll probably just let it sit there and collect dust.

Well just have to see how it goes.

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So what did we do on our vacation? Nothing. That’s about it! hehe

I just didn’t have the heart to nag my husband to take care of his “honey do” list. I kept to myself at my computer most of the time (so what else is new) while he caught up on all the television shows he had recorded but hadn’t had a chance to watch yet.

Maybe one day we will actually get up off our butts and travel somewhere exotic like Brazil. I’ve heard there are plenty of cheap hotels in Rio. Cheap hotels are right up our alley - it would have to be cheap or we wouldn’t be able to go in the first place.

Every time I think about Brazil that old Barry Manilow song “Copacabana” gets into my head and won’t get out.

At the Copa (CO!), Copacabana (Copacabana)
The hottest spot north of Havana (here)
At the Copa (CO!), Copacabana
Music and passion were always the fashion
At the Copa….don’t fall in love

(Copa) don’t fall in love
Copacabana
Copacabana

Now aren’t you glad you visited here today? *wicked evil grin*

But seriously, Ipanema and Copacabana Beach really are places I’d like to see in person one day. I just have to figure out a way to get my husband out of his chair.

Hubby has been on vacation all week and we’ve just been cooling it. There is a ton of stuff we need to do but he is stressed with work and taking care of his mother so I’m not pressing him to do anything but relax. We had a nice dinner at the Old Lady’s house on the 4th and as simple as it was I don’t think it would have been any better if it had been prepared by a graduate of the Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts (http://www.twincitiesculinary.com/).

Our dinner was very simple. The main course was a 2.5 chuck roast slow cooked in the oven with onions and carrots. My husband fixed mashed potatoes, I fixed cole slaw, the Old Lady cooked the roast and a few other side dishes. The roast was especially good. We have been buying our meat at Apollo Meats for a few years now after getting some bad ground beef at Publix so many weeks in a row. bleh. When we complained to the manager at Publix he said that ground beef is “supposed to be brown in the middle”. Maybe he should tell that specification to the meat markets in the area because we have never gotten ground beef that is brown in the middle from the butcher shop. heh

Sometimes I think I live in the stone age. For example, I never even had a PayPal account until a few months ago. If I couldn’t purchase with a credit card online, I just didn’t purchase. Another thing I’ve never owned is a camcorder. I was thinking about this yesterday while watching the news on TV featuring some of the Fourth of July celebrations that were going on around town. It seemed like everywhere I looked there were camcorders out and people were having fun video taping everything. I wonder if they plan to put their videos on YouTube, hehe.