I usually have my worst allergy symptoms in October.  This year, the weather was warm through October and November, with no freezes until early December.  The leaves were slow to fall, and my allergies waited for them.  Stan and I have both had really bad nasal congestion and coughing for a little over a week.  Yesterday, I refused to give in and did the grocery shopping. 

Our freezer went out last week, so I didn't have much backup.  We have decided to try to learn to live with just the rather large freezer compartment in our refrigerator.  It made shopping/planning a little different.  I am going to make cookies and fudge this week, but most of those ingredients aren't frozen.  I have a few physical challenges to work through in order to do that.

Last night, I almost had to go back to crutches.  My left foot will likely never be completely pain free again, but I couldn't put any weight on it without really bad pain last night.  I realized it was a full-blown RA attack when I started hurting all over, so I took aspirin and went to bed.  I also took cold medicine to try to clear the congestion.  I actually woke up a lot better today.  I'm hoping my recovery continues so I can get stuff done!

I have a few more presents to find and then a little more wrapping.  I am right on track as far as all that goes.  I need to make bows for the packages, but I do that after all the presents are wrapped.

Posted by stormi36 at 8:09 AM CST

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Saturday, a very large truck, probably exceeding the limits for our neighborhood, came down the street at about 40 mph and slammed into a tree branch.  The tree was properly trimmed and exceeded the required clearance per City of Watauga code.  The passenger got out and, per my request, at least got the limb out of the street.  Yesterday, Stan was out with the chainsaw making the mess go away.  Our street is two blocks long.  It is inconvenient to go down trying to get to anywhere else.  There is a through street two blocks south and another three blocks north.  None of the streets in this area have speed bumps.  Why these truck seem to need to come down our street is beyond me.  Well, it was a rental and now the offender will get to pay damages to the rental company. 

I've been pretty sick with a sinus infection that is trying to become bronchitis.  Stan has been so good at taking care of me.  I did go out and spot for him while he was on a ladder in the street.  The twins next door brought their markers over and colored on the one very large pumpkin and three small ones remaining from our fall decorations.  We hesitated to throw them away when putting up the Christmas things because they were still perfect.  We sent them home with the twins.

Our new neighbor across the street has moved in and even decorated!  While driving back from McDonalds late yesterday afternoon, I saw a house with nothing out except lights around the eves.  They were the old-fashioned multi-colored strings.  It looked so good, harking back to times before all the blow-up decorations and yard art.  If we ever decide to do eve lights again, I think that's what I want.

We mostly do ground elements.  We have a Christmas flag, a female elf in a ladder-back chair (chair courtesy of Shana Renz, former neighbor) an old sled (garage sale find) with a wreath and bells, one strand of blue lights across the front porch, and a Santa holding a light (another garage sale find).  None of that requires use of a ladder.

I have discovered I am more able to access my blog using Explorer rather than Chrome.  I'm not sure why, but today, I got an error message on Chrome and it opened right up on Explorer.  I will remember that in the future.

Posted by stormi36 at 9:48 AM CST

Updated: Monday, 4 December 2017 9:49 AM CST

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I keep having trouble accessing my blog to post.  Tripod always gets it up and running again within a day of two.  It is a little frustrating, however.

We've been enjoying the weather and getting ready for Christmas.  We've done some decorating inside and out and are probably done for this year.  We need to do some major organization of the seasonal decorations so I can get to everything all year long.

Posted by stormi36 at 11:33 AM CST

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I am thankful for my wonderful husband, Stan Hill, most of all.  He has been there through lots of health issues, the loss of loved ones and one particularly horrible boss.  I've tried to be there for him through several extended hospital stays, surgeries and his ongoing battle with asthma and COPD.  We are a good team.  We have the same general beliefs and goals in life. 

My sister is having Thanksgiving this year with her youngest son, then will have another dinner with her oldest next week when her grandchildren and great grandchildren are here.  My brother and sister-in-law are in Georgia with almost all their kids, grandkids, and great grandkids.  We are sharing this Thanksgiving with Billy and Jennifer Lea, my nephew and niece.  We are having Black Friday breakfast with my sister's oldest, DJ and his wife Robin.  It's a long-standing BF tradition made better now by not having to be at JC Penny at 4:00 a.m. for Disney snow globes.

I am very thankful that the only people who are a part of our lives now are truly good people.  Doing good things for the right reasons is its own reward.  You can't have a happy life if you let bad people and things in.

Enjoy the good people in your life.  You are lucky to have them. 

Posted by stormi36 at 7:08 AM CST

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On Sunday, we stayed at a hotel downtown for the annual Fort Worth Parade of Lights.  We had reserved seating in front of the court house, the starting point for the parade and where the announcers were describing the floats.  It was so much fun.  The weather was cold but no wind until near the end of the parade and then it was just a slight wind.  We were both dressed for the cold and had a throw to put over our legs.

I've been pretty limited for the past year due to the surgery on my left foot.  The implant has caused stiffness and a lot of pain.  I am both learning to deal with the pain and finding ways to function through it.  It was about a half mile from the hotel to our seats.  I managed to walk it both ways with very little trouble by wearing a compression sock and lace-up shoes.  My foot hurt quite a lot during the night, but I was able to walk OK Monday morning.

I have pain meds, but don't take them.  I have known too many people who got hooked on pain meds.  The body will tell you that there is still pain in order to get the drugs you are hooked on.  Most of the time it starts with a back problem and ends up an addiction.  I tend to rely on aspirin.  

I have severe rheumatoid arthritis.  I continued working, much to my Rheumatologist's surprise.   I even went back to school and got my Masters in Public Administration with a 4.0 GPA, working through the pain and many days the extreme difficulty even walking.  I was diagnosed with follicular non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 2003 and given two years to live.  I kept working and stayed in school.  I am definitely not a quitter and very proud of it.

Posted by stormi36 at 2:12 AM CST

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Our irrigation system is digital, fancy, phone accessible and all that other techie stuff.  I would have thought it was smart enough to know when the time changes.  Guess the manufacturer didn't think of everything or maybe we need to download the software to our phones so that it is a little smarter.  It is supposed to come on at 1:00 a.m. on Saturday.  I woke up at 12:45 p.m. and thought it was raining.  Ah, technology.

We are going to make our Texas experiences map today.  We are mounting a map of Texas on foam board and will mark the things we do in Texas.  Later we will do a US map to pin the places we go.  We are in disagreement about the type of travel trailer we want, so that is pretty much on hold until we do a lot of looking and exploring.  I don't want to buy something only to not be happy with it.  He wants big, I want small.  We will be in mostly national parks that have really nice facilities, so we don't need as much as we would if we were camping in total wilderness.  (We are a little old for that.)  These are "vacation" trips, so I don't plan to cook and clean, etc.  If I can't make it in a microwave, we will be eating out.

Posted by stormi36 at 7:26 AM CST

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I made a large bag of Grands Southern Style biscuits and a raspberry scone mix (Great Value) this morning.  I don't remember ever having scones - maybe once at a tea at Montgomery Street Antique Mall.   I wanted to try a mix before I attempt to make them from scratch.  I liked them a little more than Stan did.  He was a little happier after I put strawberry jelly and whipped cream on it.  He still doesn't really care for them.  He does like the biscuits.

I finished my pom-pom snowman today, adding felt eyes, nose and buttons.  It actually doesn't look quite so much like a sheep dog now but does seem to resemble some fluffy bird.  I was going to make a garland of snowmen but really don't like the finished product.

We are going to Jennifer's for Thanksgiving.  She is one of my "lost" nieces.  She wasn't really lost, just "misplaced" after a divorce.  She and my nephew Billy and niece Kathy are three of the nicest people one could ever hope to know.  We are so glad to have them back in our life.

It is a windows open kind of day.  We take every opportunity to open the windows and get fresh air.  We waited as late as possible to close the house for A/C this spring.  I gave up around 85 degrees.  We close most of the windows at night right now but leave one cracked in the bedroom.  It's nice to hear the sounds of the world.

Bailey, one of our neighbors, brought her new daughter home yesterday.  Savannah weighs just a fraction over five pounds.  She was born with a full head of dark hair.  Armando, another neighbor, is in the hospital with an as yet undiagnosed ailment - high fever and disorientation.  Shana and Jeff's former house is probably now rented to a lady in her 30s or 40s with boy and girl ten year-old twins.  Jennifer's former house is for rent again.  The first occupant was there a couple of months before he purchased a home in Roanoak. 

I really, really need to make a more serious effort to get back on schedule.  I am going to do the meal plans today and get the shopping list ready for tomorrow.  I have been letting my foot (still recovering from surgery) and my RA limit me, which is something I never used to do.  I don't need to get up and get dressed for work every morning, so I tend to be here, in our home office, on Facebook, Pinterest, etc.  That's too much idle computer time when I have stuff I really need to do when I'm working in the office,  I have thousands of photos (probably not an exaggeration) to scan, hundreds (exaggeration) of web pages to get done in the photo album section, tons of crafts I want to do and lots of lifestyle planning.  I did manage to do a backup to my Seagate yesterday.  It doesn't stay plugged into the computer so it's a pretty safe place to store my files.

Well, off to other things for today.

Posted by stormi36 at 10:12 AM CST

Updated: Thursday, 16 November 2017 10:16 AM CST

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Loved it!  I've seen Albert Finney 1974, David Suchet 2010, and now Kenneth Branagh 2017.  The Finney character is a little too robust for me.  Until today, I preferred David Suchet, probably from years of watching him do Poirot on PBS.  Kenneth Branaugh nails the need for perfection and balance and adds humor and a lot more humanity to the role. 

In the first scene, set in Jerusalem, Poirot sticks his cane in the wailing wall.  Just as Shakespeare used witches to signal a play was a tragedy, the cane later (at least to me) indicates that a little comedy may follow.  Indeed, comedy does follow.  There are humorous insults by Peroit and almost everyone in the audience laughed - not something that happened with the other two versions.  In the Finney version, there is a reference to a jury of twelve men that I thought wasn't going to be made.  When it finally is, it's a not done with words but art.  I think I was the only one laughing at the Leonardo sight gag.  Maybe the rest of the audience didn't get it or didn't think it right to laugh at the image.  I thought it was both campy and amusing.  (I am easily amused.)

There were moments where I was almost in tears (I cry easily also).  The other versions didn't make the death of Daisy Armstrong so heart wrenching.  There was real anguish from the actors.

The scenery is digital but amazing.  I don't know if it was because the A/C was working overtime in the theater or because the cold on the screen was so realistic, but I wish I'd worn a sweater.

Posted by stormi36 at 6:11 PM CST

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