Hammock House

UNCLE!!!

Get comfy folks, this is gonna be a long one…

Scratch that, I just deleted everything that I had written up, cuz even for me, it was long. Too long.

I’ll sum it all up real quick… you ready?

Here we go…

Since July 3rd - Grandma Ginny has passed away, Pappap’s mental faculties have pretty much gone on vacation, and Jimmy James got married! Shadow has to tinkle ALL the time, Aunt Polly kept passing out, everything keeps breaking in the house, and out.

Momma has been gone (to take care of Pappap) since beginning of July, Shadow has bladder stones, I’ve only been able to get to grocery store 3 times since July, and the truck had to be worked on, again. Claire fell off ladder and hurt herself, Carye, Lilbit and Katiebug all got the H1N1 flu virus - scared the crud out of us - they are better, thank you God!! Momma has been sick while trying to take care of Pappap, who is giving those with ‘oldtimer’s disease’ a run for their money.

In the last 2 weeks - Aunt Sara passed away, red ants swarmed our house, inside, twice. Someone tried to hack into my FTP account and my hosting company locked it until I change all the passwords. (I’ve just been too tired to fix while sick, so no pics to post right now.) Aunt Polly had to have a pacemaker put in, got the Property Tax bills- one for land down in Miami - only gonna be close to $19.00. Yeah right… make that $19,000.00. And here I thought the one for our house here was bad at $1500.00. (Please, please, please, let us win the lottery!!) Shadow had to have emergency surgery to remove the bladder stones that didn’t pass, which were 12 - they took out 28 more. :o( I finally got out (while Shadow was in hospital) to go to pet store and other errands, just in time to catch someones crud they so kindly shared. I swear someone is using my ribs as punching bags, front and back every time I cough, not to mention whoever it was who is trying to rip my throat out when I cough. Thank goodness the elephant that had propped itself on top of my chest, finally moved yesterday, now it is just a rhino sitting in its place, so I can at least breathe, just not deeply. Now, if that bullfrog that has lodged itself in my throat would move right along, that would be nice. Mornings are better, nights suck.

I’ll quit complaining, you see, I’m not the only who is sick, I had called Momma at 5:30 in the morning when Shadow passed the 12 stones, waiting for vet to open. She drove up and went to stores with me (the next day)… yup, she’s in the same sick boat. Only her boat went back down south, not too long after Claire fell again, but just in time to give the crud to her!

Now for some good news - because I am sick as a dog, and the actual dog is sick as a human?, we didn’t drive south to have Thanksgiving. We were here alone, well, along with the little dog and our rabbit, and the stray cat who comes here every day. No, that’s not the good news, the good news is… someone rang the door bell, the afternoon of Thanksgiving, and lo and behold there stands our neighbor and her daughter-in-law with 2 plates. She knew I wouldn’t go over and join them, so without asking she brought me a plate of dinner and a plate of dessert. Talk about sweet. It was unexpected, I had planned on having soup for dinner. It was just a lovely surprise.

Haven’t repaid her yet, she’ll just tell me I don’t need to, and I know I don’t, but I want to. Didn’t really want to do to much while sick in case my germies get all over everything, but I was looking through my pantry for ideas. You tell me… we could make banana nut bread, a small carrot or spice cake, or should I be practical and dehydrate some stuff and give that?

Speaking of dehydrating! Did you know, that roughly 6 pounds of corn kernels will dehydrate down to fit into a quart jar? No, you didn’t? Well, now you do. Did you know that roughly 5 pounds of carrots will also dehydrate down to fit into a quart jar! Amazing! I have to be honest, that one is the one that absolutely got me, 5 pounds of carrots into a quart jar. Unbelievable! Wish I could say that I haven’t dehydrated while I’ve been sick, and I hadn’t up until tonight. Went out to freezer to grab a fruit pop for my throat when I had to move a bag of french fries out of the way. Now, we haven’t bought bags of french fries in probably 6 years, but I had heard you could dehydrate them, so I bought a bag to try. Only I was going to do it when I was better. Unfortunately the bag had other ideas, it was open at the seam about 4 inches long.

So, now the house smells like.. I dunno, I’m trying to cough up a lung tonight no matter how much I gargle with lemon and water, with salt and water, drink honey, use cough drops… whatever. For some reason tonight it is just not working, not even pretending to work. Someone keeps pounding that sledgehammer into my ribs and that stupid rhino just will not let me get a deep enough breath.

However, I did a little sewing this morning, and I hope to use it soon (every time I tried to this afternoon when I wanted to curl up and veg out, Shadow had to go potty - yes, she came through surgery okay, she will be getting the top layer of stitches out this coming week. I swear it looks like the same metal used for stitches that they use on braces for teeth. Only thinner. Even though surgery went well, everything stretched out because of the stones, and until they shrink back to normal size she is still tinkling, tinkling, tinkling.). I took a kitchen towel (pure cotton), folded it right sides together and sewed all the way around except for a small space about 2 inches long. Then I resewed it all over again… this would need to be heavy-duty for what I had in mind. Then I turned it right side out, using my canning funnel in the slot, I dumped in about 6 cups of rice and 2 bay leaves. Then I sewed up the open slot, backtracking to make sure it was not going to be the weak link. After that, I took a clean, old cotton sock, filled it also with rice, and tied it off in a knot.

I haven’t been able to use it for long, as I said, Shadow kept having to go outside, but I did test it and it blessedly works. All you do is put the ‘rice bags’ into the microwave and heat for a few minutes. The sock bag only takes about 1 1/2 minutes, 2 max. The towel bag takes about 5 minutes. Be careful, because they are warm to hot. The towel bag is for my ribs and the sock bag molds nicely along my neck so that hopefully whoever has been trying to rip it out will cease. At least for a few minutes, or until the heat subsides, which seams to be a little while. So, there you go…. now scoot, go make your own bags, these bags have my aches written all over them!

Haven’t had a coughing jag for 10 minutes now, think I might try and finally get some sleep. Even going to try it in my bed tonight, am tired of sleeping sitting up in the recliner chair so that elephant didn’t kill me. Crap, coughing fit. You know, know matter how much I try not to… it still comes out.

Sure that is a lot of stuff, but, it’s not even all of, that’s just the major stuff. But, now you know why I have been absent and haven’t been posting except once in blue moon. It’s not because I haven’t wanted to, just… who has had the time or energy? Not me.

And yes, this, is the short version!

G’nite peeps, or should I say g’morning.