Iced Tea Chat: I Win!

Come on in!  I'm longing to chat but keep putting it off for many reasons.  Things keep running through my mind and when I come to chat, those thoughts skitter away again.  Some are things I have been mulling but they aren't sorted properly yet.  Some of it is simply that in my 'hustle' I am tired at end of day when I allow myself to settle before the computer.  Nevertheless, we shall chatter and see what comes of it.



Yep it's still iced tea weather here.  Despite all the predictions of cooler weather we have had none of it, just days that remain stubbornly hot in the 90-95f range, which is ridiculous really, but it happens every few years or so.  I've seen Halloween's so miserably hot the children refused to wear their costumes.  Sure hope this year isn't one of those.

Speaking of chattering, there are squirrels all over the place this year.  I say little about them because they irritate John no end.  Yes, they can be terribly destructive but my goodness they are fun to watch!  I sat in my chair here in the living room the other day and watched as two played tagged in the pecan tree.  They flew about  from one side of the tree to the other, up and down the branches.  It was a joy to watch them as they played.   That day there were blue jays that visited the bird bath regularly and a mocking bird who played territorial with them..

I've noticed that these days when we come home there is usually a squirrel in the clearing just beyond the tree line in direct view of the pecan tree and garage.    Inevitably when this squirrel sees the car he begins to chatter and Maddie immediately goes after him, barking fiercely.

I spied a black fox squirrel this afternoon when we came home from church in the bottom.  All the squirrels are looking quite plump and healthy.  Is this some sort of sign of the winter to come?  I shall have to look that up.  My aunt spoke often of going squirrel hunting to make stew.  I think squirrels are cute, until you get up close and then they aren't.  I don't believe I want one fried, stewed or any other way!

Sam stopped in on Friday to get Oatmeal cookies.  I told him I hadn't seen the deer in a few weeks.  "They're down in the bottom at Uncle Tony's, eating acorns as they fall," he told me.  "The doe with the twin fawns is bedding down under the trampoline."  Well it's good to know.  It is my sincerest hopes that he can fill his freezer with deer meat this year.  I know the acorns are indeed falling because they sound like gun fire as they hit the tin roofs of the carports down there.  It makes quite a scary sounding 'pop' until you know what it is.   Still it's had to tell the acorn shots from real ones around here!  There's been plenty of dove hunts and quite a few who are sighting guns and target shooting getting ready for deer season at month's end.

Last week I returned to the ideal routine for me, of working on both a project area and doing cleaning by 'zones'.  As one of you noted, this is a Flylady trick.  When I first got computer service here along about 1999, I started my own newsletter, joined a homemaking group and found the Flylady's email group.  Her emails kept me on track and reminded me that doing a little in a moment or two could accomplish a bigger end goal.  I have long since given up getting those emails but I have never completely stopped following some of her methods.  It is because of her that I stopped being overwhelmed by the long view and got atop my home and the clutter within it.  Needless to say, I am deeply appreciative of what I learned and still see the value of it!  I read many and many books on housekeeping in general but I gained the most value from Flylady who broke housekeeping down into manageable zones and tasks.

I still see the value of the many frugal tricks I learned via Tracey McBride and Amy Dacyczyn.   While I often felt Amy's methods were stringent and helped me hone our budget, Tracey's filled my end need for beauty and luxury on a budget.  There were other budgeteers whom I followed and learned various tricks from, but these two have had the lasting value in my life.

As things have transpired this year, I have employed as much as I could of all these aforementioned mentors.   How we have managed with family needs, our own needs, increased costs of services, etc. is all because of the tithing and learning that has gone before.  I said two or three times this year  that it feels in many ways John and I have come full circle in our lives and it's true.  Here we are looking at retirement in the next year or two with  decreased income, as many needs as ever, and at times we look at each other and take a deep breath and say, "With God's help, we'll do this."   We just won't let our faith do more than stumble for a half second.  A stumble is not a fall.  It's a check on where we are in our head and heart.  I look at how well we managed this year and know without a doubt we shall manage in years to come.  Yes, lowered income is a little scary but we have always managed on less than many deem necessary.   God will help us determine just where we can trim and when.

One case in point has been our internet service.  We have an unlimited service plan and we pay a goodly sum each month for it, but less than we paid for limited satellite service.    There is actually a very real savings in our internet service compared to what we had previously.  Katie came in the other day and said "Just fyi...DON'T let go of your internet service.  You guys are grandfathered in, but they don't offer this plan anymore.  The company has discontinued it.  They said too many people took advantage of it!"    Well I am glad that we have it.  And while we're saving money with it, I hope it leads to a further savings.

 Now we are really actively discussing giving up our satellite service.  What's done it for John?  The realization that this year he was unable to view his favored college team's games without paying an extra $14 a month on top of what we already pay for service.  He's discovered that there are other options than satellite tv.  When our TV was struck by lightning in August we replaced it with a smart TV.  We often watch programming that is free with our Amazon prime membership, which we have because we save loads in free shipping.  Having Prime video is just a bonus to that

John's realized more and more that we watch about five channels out of the hundreds available to us.   I told  him most of those five are also available online...for FREE.  We can access them on our computer.  When I pointed out that cutting out satellite TV, which seems to increase every four or six months, would cover the cost of our annual car insurance fee, he really started paying attention to my talk.

Another change we've determined to carry out is to make quarterly payments for our house insurance.  When I determined to make our payments annually, I was getting quite a substantial savings.  Now, by paying quarterly, we pay $1.25 per month more than we're paying now.  Yes, its $16 a year we might save, but we can also tuck that annual amount into the bank that actually pays a better rate of savings and earn that and a little more back.  We're definitely not going to get rich from it, but it will mean we have a more stable balance overall and we are making our money work for us.  

I was rather tickled this week when John mentioned we might just save the property tax and what else we can from the tax refund this year.  I told him we could indeed, but I'd been using the overtime and smaller refunds we receive to frontload those accounts for the past three years.  He looked a little surprised.  When he retires we shall use windfalls and refunds to feed those annual accounts so that we do not have to pull it from our savings, because there will be no overtime available to us.

I've been hearing trickles of information about the oncoming tropical storm for about two weeks now.  I have paid attention but not really taken time to absorb all the information coming out.  This morning, after Lana's comment of yesterday, I decided I'd best get informed of what lies ahead.  It appears, from all the information I can gather that we might expect wind and a bit of rain here but the brunt of the worst of this storm will hit about two counties below us. Our local weather service which is remarkably good at forecasts, assures us that we shall be asleep for the worst of the storm and that for us, it will be a Tropical Storm and not a hurricane when it reaches us.   Nevertheless I am heeding the warnings and will be sure to draw up some water.  We've plenty of candles, matches and propane gas. I think we are pretty well stocked for groceries, but I  picked up some eggs and bread and fruit while out.  Maddie will reign in her dog house. Rufus and Misu now have a place to shelter. Beyond those things there is not a whole lot to be done really except pray for everyone in the path of this storm.

We had Josh and Isaac for one afternoon and early evening.   I realized something that is very dear to me about Josh.  He looks at me and sees me as capable as he is in movement.  I discovered this when we were playing at rolling a ball to each other and he copied movements I made in throwing and rolling the ball and later when we were walking a new path his dad has made up to Granny's fence and he suggested, "Let's race!"  I told him I couldn't run, but I'd go just as fast as I could.  Well, I won by default.  He came around the house to look for me on the front porch and ran back to the back yard again calling "Where are you?"  I called back, "I'm on the front porch...I've won!" which delighted him no end.  I had taken a short cut and really had beat him to the front porch!  He laughed and laughed over my beating him.  What a good sport he is!

He recited the pledge of allegiance and sang "Every letter makes a sound..." and we talked of spelling and what letter everyone's name began with and made the sound of that first letter.  Oddly, he said "John" when speaking of Grampa but when I said my name started with a 'T' because I was Terri, he said , "No you're not!  You're Gramma!"   I can only assume it's because Sam refers to John as John about half the time and Dad the other half.

Isaac is not quite as much in need of attention as Josh always has been.  He prefers to toddle about and pull things out of the plastics drawer or out of the toy box or any drawer or cupboard he can when none is watching him closely enough.  He never fusses when Josh takes away a toy but simply picks up another and goes off to play.  He loves to play with two wooden boxes that John's dad used to hold his tools.  He took my hand and held onto me as he stepped neatly into the box and sat down.  Now mind you the box is nowhere big enough to hold himself, but he is sure he can fit in either of the two of them and tries to shut the lid on himself to no avail.  I'm just happy he can't climb in the toy box!

John had promised Josh a pancake supper and  that little boy did it justice.  He ate four slices of bacon, four pancakes and two servings of eggs.   Isaac ate just one of the eggs and pancakes and then he was ready to get down.  Once he'd eaten he went to fetch his shoes and handed me one.  He sat down, held up his foot and said "Dadoo", which is what he calls his daddy.  Apparently supper indicated it was time to head home!  I told him he was staying just a little longer, but I noted that as he played about he kept yawning.  He was content to sit next to his dad on the swing as we talked with Sam, while Josh was out running around and around the yard.  I don't doubt but what both boys slept as well as I did last night.

I was mighty tired yesterday after we took the boys home.  No, the walking about the 'secret trail' as Josh called it did not do me in.  It was a pleasant walk and the ground not too uneven, but you see, we began yesterday by skipping breakfast and heading over to Katie's to cut out the vastly overgrown shrubbery.  We placed it curbside and I told John I've no idea where we can put the rest that needs to be trimmed because we piled it high.  I picked up and hauled to roadside while he cut.  That was about an hour and a half of work.  Back home, I showered, ate a piece of peanut butter toast while we did two loads of laundry and I started our dinner.  I started a load of dishes and sat down to finish picking over the chicken bones I'd cooked in the crockpot on Sunday night and had a text from Katie asking if I'd go with her to drop off her car and pick up the rental car.

I looked at the clock and it was almost 12N by then and I'd been going since daylight, but I told her 'Yes, but I needed to be back home by 2:30."  Well driving hard didn't get us back by then because we had to wait around here and wait around there and so we were 3pm getting in.  Our plan had included stopping at a drive thru but the roadway we ended up on, took us beyond any fast food places or even convenience stores.  We drove home and ate a sandwich when we got here.  I unloaded the dishwasher, John had brought clothes in off the line and folded most of them.  I folded the sheets and put those away and then the little boys were up from their naps and eager to walk to Gramma's to visit and there began that whirlwind four hours.   I was pooped last night.  

I had the oddest dream the other night.  I was on a property with a lot of houses and only a few were in use.  I thought immediately of an older house I knew to be on the property and was thinking of visiting to borrow furnishings from it to use in the other houses.  Immediately a man told me "That house is in disrepair.  Don't go there."  Each time that thought of going to sort through the furnishings occurred, the man would come to me and say, "No.  The house is in ill repair.  It's dangerous.  It needs to be torn down."  I won't tell you he changed my mind, but I remained too busy throughout the dream to ever go to that particular place.

When I woke however, I realized that the man had warned me three times to let the house go and as I thought over the dream, I realized that I've spent the majority of my adult life being very self-analytical, trying to determine why I do and think as I do.  This often involves revisiting my past and has led to a lot of prayer and seeking forgiveness for my own actions and asking that I forgive others their actions.  Sometimes I've had to do this repeatedly.  In the past 10 years I'd say I've devoted a great deal of time to this task.  I can't help but feel that this dream was a message that I'd done enough in that area of my life.  That it was literally time to let go of the constant digging about and unearthing of past hurts and testing to see how far I'd come in forgiving.  It's time to focus on the present days.   I sat down that morning with my journal and did a visual aid of drawing a simple tombstone and dating it 1960-October 3, 2018.   The first the year date of my earliest memory and the last this month's date.  All around that large tombstone, I drew smaller ones and beside each I listed something that I knew I'd revisited many times over and was ready to put to rest.

I'd love to say that the exercise was so cathartic I felt an immediate release from all anxiety.  The truth is I spent the next three days feeling as tightly wound as an overworked spring and as much anxiety as I've felt all summer long...but I did not give in to the desire to take more medication, nor did I resort to giving in to the anxiety and falling to pieces.  And when that storm of anxiety was over, I felt refreshed.  Lighter.  Not free of fear perhaps but free of a burden of things I've been hauling about behind me.  I've become very conscious of what I'm speaking about certain situations or people and about my tone and overall feeling when I speak.  Sometimes I quickly self-correct and say "But I'm done with that," and I move on to something that isn't an emotional trigger.  Sometimes, I think before I speak and I see that R.I.P. and I can easily move on.

I don't doubt that I'll find moments worthy of anguish or hurt or fear at times.  That too is as much a part of life as any other emotion we might feel but squandering my time in thinking far back over the past to other incidents or similar episodes is done.  I'll travel lighter through the rest of this journey I think and with perhaps a good bit less grief than I have in the days behind me.

Today was another long day.  Up early with John, trying to write a bit before I left, taking Katie with me to Mama's.  We had dinner out and then ran into the grocery for ourselves and Mama.  I filled Mama's car with gasoline and we carted out her trash to the curb for pick up tomorrow.  And then the drive home.  I looked at the clock and told Katie, "I have about 30 minutes and then I'll be hitting the wall..." and she told me when she came out of the store at the station, "I can see it on your face...You've tired.  Let's go home."  I wish I had been done when I got home, but there were business calls to make, the checkbook to tot up, a bit of securing things in the yard and considering possible needs and finally time to sit down and watch the weather as I ate my supper.  It's been a long week already and we're only three days in.

I am enjoying these days with Katie before she begins her new job next week.  I shall missing seeing her.  I quite like my girl and enjoy her company.

Now it is time for me to close this out.  I started my chatter early this morning.  I've run well into the evening with it.  Bed seems quite a good idea at the moment, though it is early yet.