Life in Weyers Cave

I can't use my new light because it has the wrong bulbs. We have the right bulbs now but David can't get the cover off and I can't reach. Soon? We have had lots and lots and lots of rain almost every day for well over a month. It is still very chilly in the evenings and we frequently are needing the air conditioner and heater the same day. The grass and fields are very green, but it is tough finding times to mow and plant. Then again, I don't mow or plant and I like the sound of rain, so all is good for me! I have a job on Monday at a Mexican grocery store changing out their computer. I don't think they speak English at all, so this promises to be interesting.

Seriously. David has been noticing for some time that often when I call him, the cell phone doesn't ring, but it will beep "one missed call." So the scientist in me went to work. The same scientist that figured out that if he so much as touches the SD card from his camera, he will erase the pictures on it. Same phenomenon. If the cell phone is on his belt, in the pocket of his shirt, or in his hand, it won't ring, but will show a missed call after the caller hangs up. But if it is on the table beside him, it rings just fine. Just for fun, we switched phones, and if he was touching MINE, it wouldn't work. But it has always worked fine for me. As a ham radio operator, he has been shocked a few times and subject to lots of strange magnetic fields. Also, he is the kind of person that can be blindfolded and spun around and he still knows which way is north. Internal magnetic fields? Go figure. I guess it is time for the magnetic personality puns.

He's been gone two weeks, and if you haven't seen his posts, there are lots of gorgeous pictures. Yesterday I got a new light up in the kitchen after cooking in the dark for two weeks. I found a great electrician to do it. It's always nice to have someone you can trust. So now I have a good electrician, painter, and general do-it-yourselfer. I need an appliance repairman, plumber, and dentist. (As in, one that actually believes me when I say I can still feel pain.) Yesterday my little friend Martha, as well as her mom and sister Clara, (lol) came to visit. We had a great time playing with hats and wigs. I was really grateful they came to brighten my day. Clara just turned one and they are all smily, fun children. Now David is home. He did notice the light in the kitchen, so kudos to him! He brought all kinds of stuff from Cathryn and Dianna to store. I will be going through old VCR tapes soon and getting rid of them. Kids, if you want any or all, I will save them. Otherwis...

Didja see this? http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=1345261 You can get a free copy of Office 2010 or Windows 7. Bryan let me know about this. He says "Free software - either a free version of Windows 7, or microsoft office 2010. . . ur choice. If you do both (which is an option) then you have to send in tax information because the value is more then 600 dollars. . . so I'd do one or the other. Last time I got both office2007 AND windows vista - business for free through this same thing. Read through the thread for details. "

It is hard to write about doing boring organizing and cleaning up around the house. I moved every three years pretty much for the first 36 years of my life. Now I have been here and not moved for a long time plus the kids pretty much grew up here, so I have all kinds of junk I need to organize or move on. All these 5 1/4" floppies. Dianna's Barbies (yes, you DID have Barbies, but Cathryn made fun of them so you didn't want to play with them), toys, clothes, knick-knacks from mom's store, cooking stuff, flower pots, painting materials, gardening, tools, camping equipment, archery stuff, skates, baskets, craft items, etc. Today, I spent a few hours on tools, nuts, bolts, screws, etc. Someone had sweetened a box with things thrown randomly in with an old root beer candy which had melted all over. Yum! (ptui) I sewed a patch on a jacket that had food in the pocket around a lab. I had to reconstruct the pocket as well. And the big project is paper. Organizing colored papers...

After his presidency, many people were upset with Thomas Jefferson because he didn't like the idea of a state supported church of Virginia and he didn't adhere to the churchs' creeds. He published a letter to settle the question. In it he said: " To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; & believing he never claimed any other." Of course, to this day there are many that contend he was not. I would like to clear up my political views. I am NOT a Republican, though I was most of my life. I adhere to NO political party at this time. I am disgusted with politicians in general and upset that they don't remain true to their values once they are elected. I don't believe many of them are very intelligent. I am sure there are m...

This morning I had a business meeting at 8:30, went to the bank, then Costco, had a meeting with Skyline Literacy at 1:00, a concert at the Bridgewater Retirement home at 2:00 and ran the concession stands tonight for the softball games from 6:00 on. Normally they are four people, but I was the only one for the first two hours. I was supposed to be at the Frontier Museum today but obviously had to cancel. Allen B and Tom T showed up later to help clean up. They are really wonderful guys and come in with these big smiles on their faces. My feet SHOULD be hurting, but I got some orthotic sandals and they really do help. I can stand for much longer periods of time. So all in all, a good day. Meanwhile, I have two computers I am redoing the operating systems on. I have four in my car to take to the recyclers but didn't make it today. Tomorrow doesn't look good either.

David is gone for two weeks so I am alone with the cat. I was supposed to go out to Salt Lake but they canceled the flight when it was only half full. I have stayed busy. It is always nice to check off things on a to do list!

I don't understand these things, but I think I am supposed to brag on them anyway. Allen got TWO medals: an Army Commendation Medal and a Joint Service Commendation Medal. To him it means he has to buy everyone a round of drinks. To me I think it means "Attaboy!" Proof he is working hard.

I drove up to DC Thursday evening. The plan was to meet Bryan, stay in his hotel in downtown DC, spend the day with him Friday, and come home. I'm not liking this driving to DC thing much anyway, but when Bryan texted me halfway there and said he was having a bigwig dinner and wouldn't be out til 9, I changed some plans. No way I'm walking around downtown DC late at night alone, plus I was worried about parking. And a bigwig dinner wouldn't necessarily end at 9 and I didn't want to put the pressure on Bryan to have to leave early to be with his mommy. So I called some friends, no answer. I found a hotel within walking distance of the Metro in oldtown Alexandria. Yes, a big snafu about Marriott reward points ensued since they said I could be put on David's account but he says I can't. David, of course, being in Dayton, Ohio at the hamfest (ham radio flea market) and my phone running low on minutes. I decided to scout out the place and find the Metro station. ...

No, I don't like "procedures." For you youngsters out there, that is when the doctors run "tests" which hurt, cost a lot of money, and generally verify that you have been healthy all along. Occasionally, they come back negative and then you get to pay more money to doctors to prove you are really okay, and meanwhile you get to worry a lot. Oh, no! Now I am sounding like David! Yesterday, David had a procedure done. We have now learned something, though. He is allergic to xylocaine. Poor guy. His face was all swollen and bloated and he could barely open his eyes. We also learned that Versed makes him talk, ramble, semi-coherently, non-stop. It was really, really funny. The nurse asked if she could make another appointment for him on the 15th. He spent twenty minutes going over his schedule for the next three months, telling her exactly where he will be and what he will be doing on every day. He occasionally stopped so that he could start over or correct himself. ...

I love a piece of music named "Candide". Where can I get a copy on the internet? My cell phone sound was so bad I was looking at replacing the internal sound speaker. Then I was blowing a computer out with air and thought "Why not?" Works great! I never thought that you should blow the dust out of cell phone before. Check out paypalsucks.com. Be careful! Scare stuff. I use Paypal but will be very careful and will not get in too deep with them.

“A mother is usually only as happy as her least happy child.” I guess that makes me, for the most part, a pretty blissful mom!

I got up early, took David to graduation, worked the chicken barbecue, took Martha to graduation (you DON'T want to drive in Harrisonburg today), sold more chicken, picked them up and came home. I was supposed to go to a church meeting this afternoon. But I realized I would be going more for others than myself and I already had enough time for others under my belt. So I ... took a nap! I've also been cleaning, laundry, vacuuming, and preparing for church tomorrow. Chicken barbecues are a major Shenandoah Valley tradition. My Ruritan (civic) club has been doing it since the 40s at least. They start cooking at 5 and there is a beautiful custom pit and custom racks for it. We cook 1000 chicken halves. I help with the sales and wrapping. Halves sell for three dollars a piece and they were gone by noon. People watch for them -- they are pretty much every week during the spring, summer and fall. There are several distinct barbecue sauce recipes, mostly vinegar-based. ****************...

Last Saturday night at the Ruritan birthday party dinner, I made a special point of going over to say hi to a special 83 woman. I told her she is my hero and I want to be like her when I grow up, if I grow up. 83 going on 40. One of my customers, she uses the internet all the time and the week before I had made a special trip to her house because she was having trouble setting up tables for 100 people for a flower show weekend for five meals. Different people at all the meals and a head table and trying to seat everyone where they will be happy! Last night I got a phone call from another customer, one she had recommended, but I waited to return it since it was very late. I knew they needed help setting up their broadband. The second lady told me the first one was gone - heart attack. It was very quick. I am heartbroken. She was 83, but she wasn't "old" and the only health problem she had was arthritis. She was due for a new knee on the 21st of this month. She was positive...

I keep AOL because of the seniors I teach that shouldn't have to switch. But it is a pain in the neck. Two nights ago, the program quit communicating with the internet. I did the "chat" thing to get help and had to repeat myself five times. You would think since I am TYPING the answer to him he would check it before he asked me again and again. He would type a question, then wait for two minutes before he typed in another, obviously trying to help several people at the same time. At one point, he called me Nanette. Finally, I complained about the lag, he typed in 20 directions cutting and pasting every two seconds so I couldn't scroll to read them, asked if I needed anything else and immediately signed off. Of course it didn't work. At this point, I've done all I can and have to assume that, yet again, they have a bad version out there that is simply incompatible with something here. In the meantime, I got Carbonite which keeps turning off so it is also incom...

Yes, this is the saddest thing ever. Go get the Kleenex before you read on. Seriously. Hershey's *sniff, sniff* has taken the cocoa butter out of a Hershey bar and put *sniff* ... vegetable oil. That's right. It's no longer legally considered to be milk chocolate. I'm sorry. I just can't continue this conversation.

I had to lie low for the winter months at the museum, but am now back in full regalia as the pictures on David's blog show. I worked for First Friday for three hours and then yesterday for May Days for seven hours, so I have really been on my feet a lot! The cow has her baby bull and the two stay within ten feet of each other at all times. There are now 13 chickens. One of them, Greta, is sitting on eggs. I worked with a new youth volunteer who is 12 named Jane who was a joy to be around! There aren't a lot of changes, of course. I worked around an older employee I hadn't worked with before. She heard me say that the life expectancy was 50 so there weren't many older people. She corrected me and said the average person died at 50 so for every person who died at three there had to be someone who lived to 97. This doesn't make any sense at all to me. I checked with the first guy who had told me life expectancy was 50 and he stood by his story. He said it was a hard li...

Yup, May 1st is official Law Day. I'm not making this up. It was started by Eisenhower and President Obama officially is recognizing it . I love the Constitution. I believe it is divinely inspired, and that a nation can get closer to Utopia by abiding by its law than any other way. I wish there were a viable political party that believed in it as strongly as I do. The Constitution does not have a right to privacy, freedom from offense, freedom from religion, free health care, retirement benefits, food, housing, education, etc. It does not give the government the right to redistribute wealth, help the poor, buy up failing businesses, decide on moral issues such as abortion or homosexual "marriage", pay illegal aliens to live here, or give money to entities such as ACORN, Planned Parenthood or the ACLU. There is no separation of church and state. Our President, who TAUGHT Constitutional law, and our Congress, pay no more than lip service to it. When Americans learn and stu...