Sudokuaholics Anonymous 10

Suzy, I don't want to take that bet because he has cancelled appointments in the past.

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.

- Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

June, sorry they postponed your test. I do hope you had not done any of the prep, that is the worse part.

Teresa, once every 10 years? they are wanting to do mine every 3 now, and I am not happy about that. I think once in 5 is good enough. Perhaps because they found a polyp? It was benigne, so I am not too concerned about it, might pot off the doc for a few years, mine would be due next year at every 3.

Happy for Alie that the singing at school went well for her. Kids being polite and listening is a good sign they are indeed very good.

YEAH for the milestones for your daughter Teresa, Know she is happy to be just a bit independent now.

Heidi, we have T storms still in our future, how did you fare? Yours over and gone? that storm system is at such a sharp diagonal, and it stretches almost from gulf to Canada. There are tornado watches and warnings in our state already, but further north than we are. We will get outs later, probably after dark, and I hate storms that come after dark.

Hi all. Home from school and house has survived a day alone with the beastie boys. Hubby had to work also, so they stayed with Harley. My parent's came in afternoon and took them out for lunch as a treat.

I think I scared all my friends away. I promise, I took a shower this morning and brushed my teeth. I smell pretty

Good mornng all.
Theresa - glad your D seems to be improving gradually.
Tami - there comes a time when we all have to leave our kids home alone and hope all goes well. My Grandson, 12, is starting to spend the odd hour or two alone while the rest of the family are doing other things (grocery shopping, college, swimming lessons, Cubs). All is going well so far.

Got my hubby home for the day today - not much doing at work so they've been giving them a day off here and there. After years of working for ourselves, it nice to know he can have a day off AND get paid - woohoo!!

Cyn, the boys have been staying home for a few years. This is the first time it was all day. Mitchell started walking home from school at 11 and Dylan started this year. They have a key. Dylan gets home first and is home for about 1.5 hours until Mitchell and/or I get home. They both enjoy the independence. At least when they are together, they have someone to play with.

T-storms almost here. I must close down the computer fore lightning gets here. I may not be back tonight.

Hugs to all, till tomorrow.

Alie spends some time home alone, though I don't think she's done a whole day yet. She tends to call me at least once - can I open some biscuits or some other excuse. She hasn't been alone at night yet. Maybe a couple more years for that one. Walking home from school has been done, though not often as it takes over an hour.

I just saw news reports of wind damage in the south, mostly Kentucky and Tennessee. I hope all is okay.

Tricia reporting in, no wind damage at my house. Lights flickered off, but right back on. Lots of rain, some lightning, some wind, and the temp dropped 30 degrees in about an hour. It is much cooler tonight and will not be as hot tomorrow.

Someone asked if my pain block is this week. Yep, it is day after tomorrow, Wednesday. I do hope I can get more done once I recover from that, every day I get further behind. More to do than day to so it in, what with work, rest, work a bit more, rest longer. I am tired of the clutter.

Off to bed, just wanted to let you know we survived the storms.

Hugs to each of you.

Seeing I missed out on one appointment today, I decided to get the other part of my body seen to, so I went and had a hair cut, and treatment.
Much more pleasant!
Every time I look at those eagles now I can almost smell the stench of the nest. A rabbit that has been there over a week with e temperatures now rising and flies in it's eyes. A large black bird has been there several days and now on top of those some type of ground animal with it's stomach distended from petrification. One hatch-ling is certainly more dominant then the other. Even tries to get out from under the adults feathers.

June, what a great idea! It's rare you have days 'off' so fitting in the cut and treatment was brilliant.

MizT, glad to hear you avoided any wind damage. It sounds like it was a scary storm... May the next 2 days until your pain block just fly by.

Morning all. Coffee will be ready in a minute.
Tricia, glad you did not suffer any wind damage.
June, hair cut and treatment sounds good. Glad you found some time for yourself and had fun.
Suzy, boys have stayed home at night so hubby and I could have date night but it will be a loooong time before they stay overnight without an adult.

Morning all. Got up late. Gotta run. Thanks for the coffee, Tami.

Enjoy the coffee everyone. Have to go. One week until big state test and students are getting nervous.

Agree with the overnight thing Tami, and even longer here since we only have one now..

I feel so sad, I just read p4 Easy that Karen has lost her baby. We knew she had had trouble over the weekend. I'm sad for her and, as Gail said and as we discussed here once, many of us, including me, have been through it. She seems to be trying to be positive, which is a good thing. But it's amazing how soon we get attached to that little thing growing inside us. I guess that's the essence of the maternal instinct, isn't it?

On a brighter note, and thinking of kids being home alone. My kids, as they got older had to walk home and let theselves in until I got home from work. By High School, Karin spent the school holidays at home alone while Col, Andrew and I were at work - when her busy social calendar allowed! One Christmas, she offered to make rum balls for me. I gave her the recipe, told her to make double quantities and also to double the amount of rum in the recipe. Col and I got home from work to find a very drunk girl (she was about 15) who had eaten far too much of the mixture as she rolled the rum balls. Funny now - but not at the time, I was mortified. I felt like the worst mother in the world. She got grounded when she sobered up!

And I had to make another batch - there wasn't enough!

IH didn't pay the phone bill again, and I've been without computer, phone and TV for 24 hours!!! And the moron doesn't understand why I'm mad!!!!

I was beginning to wonder about you, Heidi. I knew you hadn't been feeling well. Maybe you could forget to buy groceries for him ....

D2 stayed home alone at age 10. I was single at the time, I worked, and had to leave an hour before she had to catch the bus. I arranged for a neighbor to babysit, so daughter had to be dressed and ready when I left, and walked across street to neighbors house. It was only 2 days a week, but she hated having to get up so early and then go sit and wait. She thought she was old enough to get herself ready to go to school after I left. So, I made a tape recording, telling her what she should be doing, how long to finish it, playing music between my "announcements". She kept the recording with her and got herself dressed, breakfast, got her key and her books, and walked to the bus stop. Same neighbor saw her walking to bus, kept an eye on her, while she washed her dishes, and was available to drive her to school in case D2 missed the bus. It was a kinder and genteeler time then, and we were in a neighborhood where everyone knew everyone else, knew the children, and would help. Not sure I would do it today.

Another funny about leaving children at home. there were 10 years difference between D1 and D2. first time after D2 was born when my Ex and I were going out at night, we got his sister, who was 17, to come stay with the children. It was soo funny. the sister did not know how to change a diaper, or how to feed an infant, but D1 sure did. D1 tended the baby, the sister was there in case of emergency, and to satisfy child services, because you know if anything happened with a 10 year old in charge, we would become delinquent parents.

Heidi, I was wondering if the storm took out your phone lines. Glad you are back up and here with us again. I can imagine the withdrawal symptoms were not pleasant. And with that storm that went through, would be nice to know what was going on. We sat and watched that storm coming at us, in real time, on the internet.

I was so frustrated at not being able to at least see the radar during that storm. Or get any notice of warnings or watches. It WAS nasty, but I haven't found any serious damage yet.
I missed a late evening vigil at the owl cam, since Billy was expected to fledge (leave the nest for the first time) but it looks like he/ she decided to wait for me.
I also missed the NCAA National Championship basketball game. I really wanted to watch it!

I need to get some breakfast, get dressed then go get some concrete so I can put Robert to work. A dangerous hole had eroded in front of the cattle loading ramp, and IH's idea of fixing it was to set some old boards over the hole. The boards rotted. So I set Robert to work cleaning IH's debris out of the hole, frame it with 2x6's partially fill the hole with gravel, and now today we're putting a concrete slab there. I need to load out some cattle in 2 days. I'll be taking George's steers to the processors to be turned into beef for his family.

I was mistaken about wind damage. None on my property that I have seen, but when I walked out this morning, I saw a tree down in neighbors yard. It missed their deck by a few feet, they were lucky. I qas told it came down before the storm came through, just from the high winds we have had. Broke near the ground, it must have been diseased to break like that.

Heidi, that sounds like a big project, but a permanent fix for the problem at the cattle loading ramp. You are such a good neighbor, doing many helpful things for them.

Timer going off, I have a Mexican pot pie in the oven. ground meat, onions, peppers, tomatoes, corn and beans with a cornbread crust, it smells yummy. Made a whole lot of it, I shall have to freeze some. but will be something to eat when I get home tomorrow night.

Good Morning my friends.
MizT, good luck with the procedure tomorrow.
Have almost blown my allowance watching the Eagles.
Hope everyone is well.

Oh No! one of the eaglets is out of the nest again.

Phew!, drama over. What a brave little fella, he made it back all by him/herself!

When we moved here, we were blessed with two of the best neighbors a new farmer could dream of. IH bought the cheapest tractor he could find, and it rarely ever runs, so neighbors frequently did the hay feeding for us, as well as a lot of other stuff like hauling cattle.... at no charge. I made it my goal to follow their examples and be that kind of a neighbor myself. I'm very flattered that when people around here need a hand, they turn to me. They know I'm honest and dependable. Nobody EVER asks IH for help. Unless they want something destroyed.

I have not watched the eagle cam. I did watch the clip on YouTube showing the new hatchling. It was a 7 minute clip, and I was soo impatient to get to the showing of the eaglet. I found out, no way could I sit and watch waiting to maybe see something. I am really glad you are enjoying watching, and I enjoy hearing about them, but just too impatient to sit and watch. Bad Tricia!!

Tricia, I have been lucky to log on most times when something is happening. Bob who is looking after the cam has been doing a lot of close ups and panning around the country side,

Two more hours and I'm free for the day (except for my own chores). I can tell I will have to spend some quality time with the heating pad tonight.

This Sunday is my in-laws 60th wedding anniversary. We will be having a pot luck family dinner.

We didn't get any concrete poured today.... just finished the framing and got some gravel down. We're gonna start early-ish tomorrow and and do all the concrete ( 20 - 22 bags weighing 80 lb / 36.29 k each). We HAVE to have it down by tomorrow evening.

I'm being bad yet again. I've just committed to buy 2 Fischer's Lovebirds. One is a medium dilute mutation and one is a heavy dilute mutation. Here are links to pictures of the actual birds I get to choose from. They won't be shipped for about 3 weeks yet.

http://www.lovebirdfarm.com/available/heavydilute1.jpg
http://www.lovebirdfarm.com/available/mdilute1.jpg

Heidi, it sounds more like revenge on IH for forgetting the phone bill. I was wondering where you were and also thought the storm might have been to blame.

Morning all,
Lets see if I can get through this post without losing it. I was using the laptop keyboard and it seems to have shortcuts to things like refresh that I don't know and manage to hit frequently. I've plugged in my other keyboard now so things might be good.

MizT, I always manage to visit the eagles when nothing is happening. I plan to spend some quality time with youtube sometime in the near future! I'm so glad the tree missed your neighbour's patio! That would have been scary.

The tape recording for you D was a fantastic idea! I bet she is a wonderfully independent young woman now.

I love the sound of your mexican pot pie - I think I will write down your recipe and see if I can do it.

Theresa, In Oz you would probably qualify for a carer's allowance and benefits - possibly someone to help in your home. You have to know the lurks though to get that kind of help. I hope the heating pad does it's job.

When I had my stroke hubby couldn't take carer's leave while I was in hospital, only when I was at home. He took annual leave instead. Luckily he is owed weeks and weeks of that!

Heidi, can you intercept the mail? Forward it all to a PO box or something? I guess that would mean you got to pay all of the bills though...

Broni, I hope that little incident is on youtube so I can see it! Sounds so cute. But like June says, I'm glad it's not smell-o-vision!