Letting go

[coconuts]

Aww tech issues can be so frustrating especially when you are just trying to get things done. Then heap pain on top of it. No wonder the frustration felt overwhelming. So glad that you are starting to feel a bit better and things are starting to look up. It's always nice when you get our into your garden.

[honeybera]

Hey coconuts!!!!! YAY! So glad to see you!

Aww tech issues can be so frustrating especially when you are just trying to get things done.

Oh boy howdy!!! For the last two morning and some of the evenings, I've been offloading my WAY WAY WAY overloaded task bar, and now I'm finally seeing some results in speed and reliability. I'm supposed to hear from my internet provider today who wants to CHANGE a lot of things, but I think I'd rather just keep on clearing this task bar off first and see if that doesn't do the trick. It has in the past. I can see that I allow my task bar to get cluttered, too. As I research "cluttering", I can see that I'm not alone in this problem. Caused by MD? Probably. She was such a neatnik. I lived in a nearly pristine environment...except for the daily beatings and mind f--ks. But even if that's where it started, now is when I'm dealing with it and attempting to stop it...FINALLY. A lot of it is merely habit I'm finding. "Clean it up as you go" kind of thing. Don't leave a mess and there won't be one waiting for you when you return. And I want to do the de-cluttering of the task bar after dark tonight. I'm doing boxes today, both in my bedroom and in the front room. As long as my ankle and lower back hold.

And I'm making some progress there, too. Even with my aches and pains. And BLESSEDLY TODAY, my ankle and hand are improved!! Great news!! So I'm finally going to make that hamburger/cabbage/tomato/cheese casserole (like THIS MORNING) - before DS heads to the store for me. And the kitchen fridge needs a cleaning badly, so we'll see. SO MANY THINGS TO DO!! I can't complain of boredom, that's for sure!!!

Then heap pain on top of it. No wonder the frustration felt overwhelming.

Yes, that was definitely part of it. OMG! I just found that I MAY have lymphedema (NOT lymphoma which is cancer). Lymphedema is what MD had when in the nursing home! Then she got cellulitis! Once she had her stroke after my dad had passed, she stopped her maniacal housecleaning and constant moving around, yet she kept eating her candies that she loved. She gorged on these all the time, FULL sugar all the way! WOW! And now ME. I've had SO MANY SIGNS that this was the case with me, too. OH WAIT! It could also be diabetic neuropathy in my FEET! And LEGS, too! It's the description that best fits what I'm going through.

========================(next day - Monday)

No internet all day long. Phooey!

Did many chores. Got lots done. Feet have feeling. Slept well. Shutting down, going to bed now. Sleep schedule is really good ATM.

====================================(Wednesday)

My feet are becoming less swollen (thank heavens!), so I can slip on my gardening clogs with ease! YAYYYYY!! I am also becoming aware that one of my favorite things to do (grocery shopping) is a horror for DS to do. HE HATES IT. He doesn't mind a short, quick trip, but I was saving up HUGE long grocery lists and sending them to him via text, figuring that one trip was better than many. He doesn't see it that way. "Getting stuff for me" creates a pressure that he feels to do it right and perfectly, and he gets upset with the huge list idea. So I've promised him that I'll keep my lists for all stores (excluding Walmart) will be quick-in and quick-out, little lists for something I need ATM. I'm extremely agreeable with that option!

And I also came up with a "post-COVID" solution. I shop at Walmart grocery for some selected items, and I can make as long a list as I need to, order it online (when my internet is working), AND GO PICK IT UP MYSELF! DS trained me how to do it today. IT WAS SO EASY TO DO! I don't need to go anywhere near them! They'll put it into my trunk! I can call them on my cell phone, wait for a bit while they gather everything up, and they then bring it out to my car. WOW.

So now I've got everything I need for the holidays. I feel so blessed! We had a terribly hard time getting our HWC, BUT now have FIVE ½gallons and 2 quarts with a use-by date of Jan. 11!! I now feel safe again. Lots of heavy whipping cream is used by regular, normal folks during the holidays anyway, but this year (supply chains, etc) is especially nutty! Thanksgiving dinner for us: Smoked turkey breast slices in keto turkey gravy, mashed cauliflower, homemade sugar free cranberry sauce (easier to make than it sounds), and "pumpkin pie" something (cheesecake, pie, or pound cake) for dessert. And I'm getting a ham for Xmas (which we don't celebrate anyway).

======================(Thursday night)

Well...I'm sort of having the above meal for Thanksgiving, but when I ordered "smoked, fully cooked turkey" and "ham", they gave me the flippin' DELI SLICED! So then I ordered another turkey, a little 4 lb breast that I have to cook (no big whoop), got my head of cauliflower (for Faux-tatoes, cooked and mashed up and you can't tell the difference) and fresh cranberries, so I'm set. Whipped up some Collards and Ham Hocks in the old Instant Pot today, too. It came out really nice. Tomorrow I'll pack them up into these really cool 1 cup silicone freezer cubes (4 one-cup containers in each tray and I have 4 trays) and then, once frozen solid, I'll pop them into 1 gallon Ziploc containers, so I'll have a quick go-to soup over the holidays. I already have a few "soup cubes" in the freezer, Cream of Asparagus and Cheesy Cauliflower Bisque. Keeps me honest.

I can tell I'm finally losing weight. Sometimes it's hard to just accept it and believe it. I started out this morning by having a significant, but highly unusual bout of vertigo! As I stood up, I became very dizzy and fell back onto my bed. I had to use two canes to make it into the bathroom! Barely made it! No way was I going to try to drive over to Walmart in that condition, so I sent DS (what would I do without him??!). But now (normally) if I have an order of $35 or more, I can hop in my car and go fetch it my own darned self! I LOVE IT!! As long as I can get "car-side delivery" by just pulling up to the business and letting them know I'm there, out comes my previously ordered and already-paid-for groceries. Heck yeah! Thank you, COVID-19!

So glad that you are starting to feel a bit better and things are starting to look up. It's always nice when you get our into your garden.

Yes, it is!

After the vertigo attack, I sat out in the garden with the violently barking Hell Hounds (neighbors are having work done on their house - seeing a workman walking on the neighbor's roof was all it took for an all-out attack on the fence! ). While out there, I placed all the surviving hummingbird plants up into the planters. Most of them can only survive in shade or semi-shade in the summertime's blistering heat, so now I'm shopping for more plants to replace the ones that did NOT make it and looking for "hot and dry" climate plants that flower and that hummers love for those spots along the back fence. It even gets too hot for tomatoes and squash back there, but not all plants. Native plants and even plants from desert areas, but with very lovely flowers that can take the heat. So I'm shopping tonight. Hope springs eternal! I'm getting all different colors and they're all perfect plants with lots of flowers for the hummers all year round. Still, I think I'll wait for a bit (like tomorrow) to see if that's what I really want -- I always do that.

For now, I'm off to bed. Getting a lot more sleep these days, and at a more decent time.

Honeybera

[honeybera]

I got a lot done today! Cutting up empty cardboard boxes, rearranging stuff, clearing clutter in the kitchen and prioritizing what goes where and what is to get organized first. It does put emphasis on how much too much I'm sitting and how little exercise I'm getting/needing! So I'll be doing more dishes, laundry, mopping, cutting up boxes, even playing with the pups in the backyard. They LOVE the attention! And there's always the garden and the garage. And also LOTS of recipes to cook/experiment with! And the cookbook to assemble! So no worries about having nothing to do.

Also, daily I'm beginning to really see just how UNFAIR my treatment in life, especially by MD, has been. I'm also seeing how my father could have stepped in, but perhaps at the risk of his marriage. Was I worth it? Apparently not. Did he love me? I think he did, but he was a weak man who didn't want to swap wives to save his daughter from abuse. So he became a passive abuser in his own right. His last words to me: "I love you, my name." It was nice to hear, but it was bittersweet, knowing how many times he heard my abuse, but chose not to intervene. So sad. AND he MADE SURE that she had stepped out of the room when he said his final goodbyes to me. When she swooped back in, he pulled his hand away from me like I was a hooker that had come and sat down asking him if he wanted favors!! But at least he tried to say a private goodbye to me. I'm grateful for that.

====================(later)

It's funny. Everyone was terrified of MD for one reason or another. Except me. I was ALWAYS defiant. ALWAYS! She couldn't win with me. She tried, but she couldn't hobble me or "break my spirit" as she liked to say. She told the story of me at a mere 1½ yrs. old when she made me mad (read infuriated!!!) and I stomped my little foot and yelled, "ME MAD PHEW!" because I knew that PHEW was a bad word. She would beat me sometimes and sit me on a chair in the corner...and I'd simply go to sleep! My God, that got to her! When I was a teenager myself, I'd stick my chin out with teeth clenched when I'd be getting my daily and very private face-slapping from her, and I'd taunt her, "IS THAT HOW YOU GET YOUR JOLLIES??!! HIT ME AGAIN!!!!" and she would, over and over again, getting more rapid until it became both forehand and backhand. My teeth would clench and my jaw would tighten, my eyes would narrow and I wouldn't shed a tear...until I left and went to my room. Then I'd bawl like a baby...quietly, so she wouldn't know that she'd really won, dammit.

Today this would be called child abuse and she would be in some serious trouble, but no one ever stopped her or even questioned her when they could clearly see and/or recognize what it was that she was doing to me. My Grandpa would "rescue" me from her when I was a toddler and MD hadn't had my father install a fence yet so I couldn't get away from her by running up the driveway to the safety of my grandparent's house. My God, I hated that fence!! She had me trapped and we both knew it.

But I never felt great fear from her. First, she was rather weak physically. As a teenager, I could take her anytime I wanted to, but she'd threaten me with my father. My father served as her stooge or minion. I know he didn't like that role, but she'd be insistent! But fear of HER? No.

But underneath it all, I did want her to love me. She never did. She wanted me to be something and someone I wasn't (male, "pretty" rather than "ugly", a "perfect" child, and so on, rather than the utter disappointment to her that I was), so she was cruel to me, and in me that created a lot of ANGER! As an adult, I slowly came to despise her as much as she despised me, and finally, after 70 long years of beating my head against a brick wall of her hostility and sly tricks, I SIMPLY GAVE UP. Just walked away. I did it while writing on here. It wasn't easy, but it was certainly NECESSARY for my own self worth. She "shoved me away" one last time, I believe, as I look back, by bragging on my DB and insisting that she follow his every whim. She did this with my dad, too. Or as she loved to put it, "He rules the roost, but I rule the ROOSTER!" And she sure did! That was a very accurate statement!

================================(even later)

Is despise the same as hate?
As verbs the difference between despise and hate is that despise is to regard with contempt or scorn while hate is to dislike intensely or greatly. - wikidiff dot com

To be viewed with contempt or scorn by your own mother is the worst of these two concepts. NO WONDER I had trouble with self esteem and self worth. Even my own mother despised me! She made it clear that she didn't blame me for any particular thing, rather she just couldn't stand me and felt only loathing and disgust as to who I was as a person. She'd rather I just fell off the face of the earth and be GONE! But she also couldn't just do that or SHE would be considered a "bad mother", which was equally unacceptable to her. So she was stuck, but only until I was 18. And forever after that, I had to contact her.

And she never called me nor did she speak to me, not even by phone, for the first six months after I got married. I was so ill prepared for life!! I used to say that it felt like huge iron doors slammed behind me as I left MD's home, isolating me, and I fight that feeling until this day. But as I look back and I study all of this and write it all out and ponder what had happened to me, I am STRUCK with both absolute horror and an acute understanding of the UNFAIRNESS of all of this. Who would hate a child so much for crying and having bodily excretions (normal for an infant) that they would forever describe them as faulty, ugly, and disgusting?! And she always took it a step or two farther by deliberately causing me mental, emotional, and physical harm in every conceivable way and method!!

========================(Sunday midday)

Just talked to cousin R (my fav by far). He told me of many WWII stories of his father, my Uncle B, a Marine who was of the first wave on Iwo Jima. Wow! Who knew?! To me he seemed to be a quiet man, yet a kind man. But the biggest shock was that cousin R told me that MD was raped by a neighbor when she was little. Did it happen? Who knows? My Aunt J lied nearly as much as MD herself. But it could be true. I also know that many of the stories of those 3 little sisters being bounced around to family members while being unprotected by their parents during the depths of The Depression have a lot to do with sexual abuse of those 3 children. I'm sure it's why MD was put into the orphanages in the first place and why she was so bent mentally with me later on. Makes sense. Still not right to have done to me, but it does make sense. And she was adopted by 6 yrs. old, married at 16, and had me at 17 while living with her husband in her adopted parents home! For 6 long years! When it was time for me to go, it was out the door and into marriage at 18, totally unprepared for life, for the first time ever on my own, AND I was abandoned on a permanent basis as the iron gates slammed shut behind me, so don't look back, and GOODBYE! So scary!

=============================(Monday evening)

So I sort of understand how this jigsaw puzzle came together, but it took a LOT of T on my part, decades of it, and lots of reading self-help books and trying to understand this incredible mess that I was innocently born into. Add into that my autism, albeit as a high functional and certainly a very verbal individual. It was a hard, steep climb out of the abyss. I'm only now giving myself the credit deserved for that climb. Thank God that she didn't "break my spirit". Thank God I ended up being as feisty as I am and as cussedly determined. She was strong, no doubt about that, but I was stronger! I always have been. It just took a lot of time to realize that.

I've also been reflecting on who was the stronger considering that she had all the money and I lived literally from hand to mouth until I took my bus driving job. I look at what I have gone through, much of it due to her, both during my early years and later on as a young adult and single mother on Welfare, and I am quite pleased with myself. I did good! I suffered many things that she never felt it necessary to live through, nor did she need to, but looking back, I grew from each trial, hard and bitter as they were to live through at the time.

I almost feel as if I'm about to shed this old burden of whatever this is (ruminating?), breathe a deep breath of fresh air into my lungs, and MOVE ON! I'm starting to see what blaming a dead woman is getting me: nothing! I may still write on here from time to time as things come up for me, but the overwhelming URGE TO TELL ON HER is fading. THANK HEAVENS!!! I'd rather my life not be wasted further on dwelling on all the ornery and contemptible nonsense that SHE DID TO ME instead of making my current life a nice, happy one.

Toward that end, I'm looking at some new "Birdies raised beds" (hot stuff in gardening!! Imported from Australia!) to replace my old crumbling 4'x4' cedar ones. Two are still functional (barely), but the other one is just falling apart. The new ones would be all galvanized steel, pricey, but durable! They look so nice, too! I think I'd like them in "mist green". First I'll get the one to replace my dilapidated 4ft x 4ft Raised Bed #1. I may even move the actual bed so it's more in the wintertime sun area for my winter garden. All the soil is still standing in there, so if we set the new bed in a new sunnier place we can just use the old soil. I can use my "gopher guard" from underneath, too. The new beds I'd get stand 30" high so I don't strain my back; makes gardening much easier doing it at that height. I may even get another one for the garden side and set it up as 8'6" long x 2' wide for all my tomatoes and peppers all along the garden length right in front of my WOW so I can SEE THEM. That may be my solution for remembering to water more frequently in July and August. AND to harvest, too.

==================(HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!)

Re: my Birdies raised beds - I figured out EXACTLY where I'd like to put my 3rd bed replacement! It would take into consideration my 2 fairly intact 4' x 4' x 24" high cedar beds. I would simply disassemble the crumbling #1RB and move it into the more sunny area by forming them all into a STRAIGHT line rather than the L shape they're in now: the 2 cedar beds staying right where they already are with the new Birdies attached to the end nearer to my WOW. The Birdies when built into a square shape (they are adjustable when assembling them) is slightly larger by 6" than my current beds, so, when centered, it would be a mere 3" wider on either side. DOABLE! And I could still lean in on either side to garden in the center of each RB (only a 2'3" reach to the center) -- AND the Birdies is already waist high (54" square & 30" tall - NICE!) so I don't break my back trying to reach the center of a bed.

I thought I was SO ORIGINAL with my "gopher guards" underneath these beds - come to find out that this is commonplace for gardening where there are gophers, moles, and even rats. I'm not so brilliant after all, but it came to me as I was driving the bus and sitting at all those stop lights. I am a day dreamer. Always have been. But solutions come to me in that relaxed state. The reason I got the L shape of my cedar raised beds in the first place was having N setting them up for me and his insistence of, "WHERE DO YOU WANT THEM??!! WHERE DO YOU WANT THEM??!!" When someone does that to me, when I feel that pressure, I answer with a resounding, "D-U-H." I am bright, but NOT quick. I ponder. I think. I turn it over and over and over in my mind, looking for that perfect answer that just snuggles in and relaxes with me, and I KNOW that it's the RIGHT answer. But if I'm not given the quiet time to think it over, if I'm pressured, I'll just try to say in the nicest way possible, "Uh, over there, I guess.", just to shut them up.

But today as I stood out there, I suddenly could SEE that new Birdies bed sitting right on the end of the other two, all in a row, plenty of room for everything, and opening up all of that area under my towering Fuji apple tree, and my problems were solved! I am such a VISUAL person. It's part of my autism. It's how I think. I even pictured that I can use most of the expensive potting soil from RB#1 by enriching it as I fill it up into the new Birdies bed with all those worm castings and peat moss and rice hulls in huge bags that I have stored in my front room (of all places). I can also see how much I actually LIKE the new Birdies bed. Maybe I won't, and they are mighty expensive. But this way, I won't be so into them financially with getting just the one at first. AND I'm getting the TALL ones (30" or 2½ ft. tall) which I don't think my dogs can leap straight up into and dig. They can get into the other beds, however, so we'll see. Agile little poops, they are! But if that's the case, a few heavy, smooth, and well placed river rocks that I already have can discourage that digging urge they have and add moisture control as well. That method already saved my new Rubinette apple tree and my Harrow pear trees. The dogs still dig, but not as much as they used to, but they'd dug down to the roots of the currently wine-barreled Rubinette. I really need to make up my mind as to how the yard should look, but deciding on the new Birdies was a huge step.

Next up: cozying up to my new, still-in-the-box chain saw. I NEED TO BEGIN PRUNING OUT THERE! But first, I need to really get trained on HOW TO USE a chain saw! Creeps me out, but it's a necessity. AND I need to figure out WHAT/HOW TO PRUNE! I never have before. So my trees are really showing it! On some I can just use my ratcheting loppers, but some are just too big and thick and overgrown. Moving that collapsing raised bed from underneath my HUGE Fuji apple is going to really help. I probably will need some help doing all of this, and I hope that DS can do whatever I cannot, but if not, someone else will simply have to do whatever is necessary. I'll do as much as I can by myself. I now know basically what I want and where I want it and I have all of the equipment necessary to get that done. Part of this is studying the youtube videos that I have already been squirreling away in my vast "gardening file". I just need to quit talking about it and studying it and just start DOING it!

Keith at the Birdies store is recommending hugelkultur (adding wood/lumber/wooden scraps/logs/cardboard in the bottom of raised beds to lessen the cost of filling the bed and as future compost as wood disintegrates). So as I trim and prune all the trees in my yard, I'll use the pruned wood to fill the new bed AND then pile the old potting soil from the old raised bed into the new one, mixing in all the fresh new goodies that are sitting in my front room in my way. It all works together!

I'm also studying housewifehowtos dot com website on cluttering and read this: "Don’t put down – put away" WOW! That should help! Plus I'm starting to finally make some of those yummy keto treats that I've been writing down on hard copy to take into the kitchen and use. Made some nice pumpkin bars today. There's so much I'm interested in and so much to do. I just need to organize while keeping up what I've already done. One of the ways I'm doing that is with this expression above - "Don't put down - put away!" Many times I need to find something a home, and that often takes a lot of time. And that flippin' rolltop desk is still in my way. I feel like taking an axe to it!! I have made some entry into the old Computer Room (soon to be The Storage Room). I'm making headway there, and there is a LOT more to do, but it doesn't look quite so overwhelming as it once did!

I'm going to send this now. DS is working and won't be home until about 1pm today...so I've been up all night again since he's been gone since shortly before midnight. Long shift.

=================(I changed my mind)

And I'm allowed to do that now. It's late Friday evening. I began to look at new Singer sewing machines over on Amazon just to see how much they're going for these days. I told you how MD just LOVED to humiliate me re: my lack of sewing skills - it made her feel "better than" me. She taught the twins, my childhood best friends, how to sew on my dress and shaming me as she did so (we were making 3 yellow gingham dresses that matched bought with material out of the money that I, and I alone, had made selling tomatoes from our garden to neighborhood housewives over the entire summer) and the twins went on to make ALL their own school clothes (and on past that, I'd wager). Me? She totally crippled me there. She WON that battle...and nearly the war!

But there I was tonight, pricing Singer sewing machines on Amazon! I suddenly stopped and began to realize just how rotten she was to me. But I also realized that NOW she is dead and gone, no longer capable of shaming me, of gaslighting me, and of mentally and emotionally torturing me. I HAVE MONEY, TOO, NOW, AND THE ABILITY TO GET WHATEVER IT IS THAT I WANT! I can still learn to sew IF I WANT TO!! I'm also studying "decluttering" and "how to clean" websites and studying Spanish on my cell phone. She hasn't won at all...as long as I continue to be good and kind to myself and do what pleases ME.

SO NUTS TO HER! (May she rest in peace.) She will NOT win this war she was so DARNED determined to wage with me!! (A Singer sewing machine! )

I needed to share that with you all. {{{{{ALL OF YOU!}}}}

Sorry this is so long...

Honeybera ♥♥♥

[Oceantide]

Hi Honeybera,

I'm Oceantide (we perhaps haven't "met" before). I read your post and feel I can relate to the intense challenges of letting go of MD, but you're doing it - congrats!!!! It sounds like you're really engaging in your own life. The Birdies, and decluttering, and even sewing! Hooray! Take good care, Oceantide

[honeybera]

I never dreamed in my wildest dreams that such a plot twist in my life would occur! MD is gone forever, a blessing to be sure (bless her), and I'm sure that she thought that DB and I would be divided by her forever without her even being here due to her making SURE that I never got a thing from her $700,000 estate while he got everything, supposedly causing me such jealousy that we'd never get over the unfairness of it, BUT...she never could understand how I think and how I'd react. She always did underestimate me.

During the week of Thanksgiving, my DB's entire family caught the COVID virus. They were all un-vaxxed except my SIL, the nurse. She is 53, has been put into the hospital with a COVID related blood clot in her aorta, been given strong blood thinners which caused internal bleeding (not stopped yet), acute kidney (needs dialysis now) and liver failure, they put her on a ventilator in a drug induced coma on life supports, and now have moved her to a larger and better equipped hospital. She even experienced a "code blue" (died) at one point! Relatives (both vaxxed and unvaxxed) are flying in from all over the US. DB and the girls are just barely over COVID (if even completely yet) and now they're going to have a house full of people? DB is also sick with worry over his wife, yet neither he nor anyone else can go in to see her while she's in the hospital. He said that he's so upset that his hands are constantly shaking and he can't think or sleep.

So in his upset, he's choosing to talk a great deal more to his only sibling, ME. What a plot twist. I told him that if he's up one night and no one else is around to talk to and he needs to talk, to call me, no matter what the hour. OMG. That really pleased him. He is about to face some things that he's never had to face before. MD and Dad are gone and SIL is hanging on by a thread. I hope and pray that she is alright and lives to come home and buffer some of these things that DB is facing, but her loss would be a real tragedy for him. I'm not particularly fond of her. She's an awful lot like MD. But my DB would be devastated with that sort of loss. And no matter how hard MD tried to pit us against each other, from childhood on up to now, it flat didn't work. I still want to see him happy...and yes, even my ornery SIL. I'm there for my DB.

I've been sick, too, both DS and I. But it's NOT COVID. I got a test kit and tested myself because all of the symptoms I have/had mimicked COVID. Plus I have a blood test for antibodies (to see if I've EVER had it), my 2nd such test, coming up on the 10th, just to make sure. I'm still keeping inside my home and sometimes out in the yard (when I'm feeling up to it, which isn't often), staying hydrated, taking aspirin, and getting plenty of rest. I'm just starting to feel a bit better. It comes and goes. But all of this will come to pass...eventually.

Off to bed now.

Honeybera

[coconuts]

So sorry to hear about sil. That's so hard. I do think that it's great that you and your brother can still be there for each other. I'm sure having you right now is a huge comfort.

Coconuts

[honeybera]

[Sent on 12-8-2021]
I'm so glad I have all of you on isurvive! It seems that DS and I are the only family members who have dodged the COVID virus!! My SIL is still touch and go in the hospital due to out-of-control COVID, especially the internal bleeding, and the ICU nurse is arranging for my SIL to have a Facetime visit with all the out-of-state relatives who have flown here (AND of course DB) since no one is allowed at the hospital. Oddly, I feel no glee because of this. I didn't even feel glee when MD passed, and that would have been understandable. But I can see that DB has never really felt grief or especially loss...not yet anyway. He's never even been lonely. And if my SIL makes it and beats this COVID threat, she'll be on dialysis at minimum and be very disabled (not known how much right now, but she will be to some measure), plus she'll have to retire as a nurse (permanent loss of or reduction of income). It'll never be the same with her...and without her it'll be even worse. And DB no longer has MD to prop him up, nor my father, either, no matter what the outcome of all of this is or what his needs are, emotionally, mentally, or financially. And there he sits with all that acreage of constantly needy and dependent trees, an entire 40+ acres of them, and him with failing health at the age of 65. If he knows it or not, he's in a pickle! I believe that that fact is slowly beginning to sink in for him...and I find no glee in that. That abyss can be mighty dark.

So I called my dear cousin R to cheer up...and HE has COVID, too!!! Four out of the nine that went on that deer hunting trip to CO came home with positive COVID tests, including my dear cousin R and his adult son, too! I also found out that both DB and cousin R have other illnesses in common, not something that makes me happy, believe me! My dear Grandma once said to me, "Honey, I know I'm getting old because all the others are gone." For me now, that's a riveting thought.

HOWEVER!! I just got my new EggPod (As Seen On TV ) so I can now make hard-boiled eggs with ease. I HATE HATE HATE peeling hard-boiled eggs!! But both DS and I L♥VE "egg boats" aka Deviled Eggs. I can even eat them when doing a fat fast made with my own homemade mayonnaise and a bit of French's mustard. YUM! So I'm happy. We even like hard-boiled eggs plain and I make a wicked egg salad! We're set! And to make more than 4 eggs at a time (or 8 egg boats) would be too many, so the capacity of 4 eggs is just perfect. I'm thrilled to pieces!

Then a bit later today I discovered the Bissell Crosswave Wet/Dry Floor Cleaner! OMG!!! I absolutely HATE to mop the floor. Well, not the mopping per se, but the pre-sweep, the toting of buckets of hot sudsy water, pulling and scooting said buckets across the floor bit by bit, slopping the water everywhere, waiting patiently for it to dry, and then dumping the heavy bucket of water out in the toilet. <groan!!> Quite a while ago, I got a Dyson CORDLESS Stick Vacuum for my room and had an electrician set up a charging station in my closet...AND I LOVE IT!!! I used it all the time on my carpets until Spot and the pups decided that this was a "hot spot" (pun intended) to MARK their territory. If I use my Dyson cordless on wet dog pee, I can't clean it. Eww!! My 20 yr. old carpet now is a series of dried pee spots. UGH! I want to pull all carpets out of this house (except for the Storage Room) and lay down vinyl planks. My linoleum is nearly pristine, so it stays, but I do hate "to mop". Plus I'd also have area rugs in some areas: HOW TO CLEAN THEM??

ENTER THE CROSSWAVE!! OMG!! With all the sadness all around me, I almost feel guilty feeling this good about a floor cleaner...emphasis on the word "almost". AND IT'S CORDLESS!! That means that once I get the kitchen, hobby room, and both bathrooms (all linoleum now) and the family room (already vinyl planks) really clean (which should take a bit of time because the tanks are small-ish), I can just grab the CORDLESS mop (yes, I also HATE cords, too) and give the floor a quick mop. Even RIGHT NOW! The CrossWave is ideal for me! I can even "mop" my tile foyer. All my floors are filthy. On the myriad of demos/reviews online, they showed very clean looking floors being "mopped" with this machine and then showed the nasty, murky DIRTY dark water afterwards as they dutifully poured it down the sink.

This will really help me to keep my home CLEAN! I rarely have shoes on inside anymore, and neither does DS. It's actually important to have clean, non-greasy, non-sticky, non-dog-peed-on floors for our bare-footed comfort. This easily accessed machine should really do the trick. It's even self-cleaning with a little tray for afterwards! Amazing!

It even does the area rugs AND will do carpets, too. My new (cheap) Hoover carpet shampooer is ok I guess, but it has a cord that gets right in my way and it's "water tanks" are even smaller than the Bissell! I'll use it (or at least try to), but I'm also ordering the CrossWave and using it in addition to my corded Steam Mop (which I've never used). My feet will be so happy!!

===========================(Tuesday night)

Tragic and life changing news today. Got a call at just after 9am from DB. Yes, that dreaded call. After a very encouraging report of my SIL "stabilizing" and being on the mend, she suddenly passed away at 4am this morning. The constantly forming blood clots from the COVID vaccine finally overwhelmed her. My brother is devastated! He was 11 yrs. her senior and shared with me that he truly believed that she'd be there for him in his old age. I called him back this evening and recommended Grief Counseling and he said he'd already thought of that and is taking his two daughters along as a family group. I wholeheartedly agree! He's really doing ok...considering. I believe that he'll do alright...eventually, but it's going to be a bumpy road. I offered to talk to him whenever he needed it, especially once the crowds of mourners go away and he is alone. He thanked me and said that he'll definitely do just that.

I was never that fond of my SIL nor she of me. Whenever I speak to DB, I listen mostly and try to be supportive AND make SURE that I don't say anything negative about SIL. But one thing is for sure now: neither MD nor my SIL could do enough rotten stuff to DB and me that would keep us apart and living separate lives forever. I never in my wildest dreams ever thought that I'd have a relationship with my brother again! I did pray for SIL's return to good health and to her home with DB, more for his sake than for hers, but I never EVER prayed for this! I honestly wished (and prayed) for life to return to normal, for her to recover, and for me to return to the abject isolation and unwarranted rejection that I've experienced all my life. That wasn't in the cards, I guess. However, in his loss, DB now does NOT have his former support group: MD, our father, and my SIL. He's going to be alone (especially once his two daughters move away for whatever reason, one 19 and the other 20). He's feeling grief for the first time in his life (@ 65!) - even he said so.

Due to MD's conniving ways, he now OWNS the entire ranch and his childhood home that sits on it plusthe orchard next door AND his 3-bay HUGE car garage (steel barn?) complete with horseshoe driveway that he built for his vintage cars, all paid for with MD's money, so memories are ALL OVER that house!! "I see her [SIL] everywhere!" I'll bet he does. They were married for about 20 yrs. - and it was MD's house before that. They moved there when he was only 8. And he has it all...but it's not worth a dime without his wife. Oh my. I actually pity him for what he's about to go through for the first time ever. I've been through it MANY times!!

So sorry to hear about sil. That's so hard. I do think that it's great that you and your brother can still be there for each other. I'm sure having you right now is a huge comfort.

Thanks coconuts. I know that this was written before this current news, but it sadly sort of fits anyways.

I'm going from here writing this to ordering a new office chair and then the new Bissell wet/dry vac. I can get both on Pay Pal, which I love to do.

====================(wee hours just before dawn on Wed.)

I need to shut down my computer -- and start it up again. A trick DS has taught me well. It fixes darned near everything.

I can't get my DB's new marital status off my mind. This was the first night that he was aware of just how alone he is now. I am his only living family ATM except for his two daughters. I remember just how awful a feeling it is. I hope he grows from all this pain. But I've experienced loss before and know that it's just so hard to cope with and I feel so sorry for him. He has the money, he has the land, but his wife is gone and will never come back home. I wonder how that fact is hitting him tonight as he lays there trying to sleep? I would never wish this on him. It's just too cruel a fate. The Golden Child just isn't used to it, and there's no one there to make it all better for him. I can't even go see him because his entire household still has COVID, as does my SIL's DB since he and his family came out from the East coast to see my SIL, and COVID lingers on for all of them, but I've never had COVID (nor do I want it after this!!). And I am a prime target for it: elderly (75), obese, with diabetes (albeit more pre-diabetes, but still - why risk it?). So I'm staying home. I do have telephone contact available to me. So there you go.

I'd better shut this thing down before it blows up. "Just turn it off and on again." Works nearly every time.

Honeybera

[honeybera]

I can't begin to share just how much I appreciate this outlet. It's always there for me whenever I need it. And right now I really need it. ♥You are the closest friends I have.♥ No, make that the ONLY friends I have. I'm realizing that I've been on "lock down" and severe isolation for most of my life...so far. It doesn't have to continue to be that way.

I did order the Bissell Crosswave wet/dry vacuum. It's "on its way". I even got a nice 10% discount on it + a bunch (or they said "a bundle") of cleaning products with it at no extra cost. After my many years on welfare, getting a savings that big will be satisfying every time I use this vacuum - which I'm planning to do daily or at least every other day. It's cordless like my Dyson stick vacuum and it's even self-cleaning via a little tray after each use [aka a Docking Station that also keeps it charged up - somebody put a lot of thought and consumer-based engineering into this little item]. I just need to adore picking it up, all nicely charged up, and using it on my linoleum and vinyl plank floors for whatever mess there is. It apparently handles them all quite nicely. We'll see. In this case, to be handy is king!! For my Dyson cordless stick vacuum, I even had an electrician come out and install in my walk-in closet an additional wall plug where only a light switch existed before, set up my "docking station" for my Dyson (so neat and tidy), and now I just grab it and vacuum. I love it!!

(MD had my father install a vacuuming system at the ranch that consisted of just the hose and a power head that she'd plug into the wall with outlets in every room and the vacuum unit was housed out in the garage. She also had motorized drapes that closed with the touch of a button, reverse osmosis well water, and anything else she could think up and considered "elegant". )

It's sort of been hard to enjoy my own home, cleanliness and such, because MD was such a stickler for "clean" (read: uncomfortably fastidious!!). I never lived at the ranch. Once I married (at 18), they then began to shop for a ranch. Dad gave up his TV repair business and became a farmer, probably at MD's insistence. DB has taken the ranch to even greater heights with his love of cars, a love he shared with our father, and he built the professional looking 3-bay garage + large side room + horse shoe driveway, built adjacent to the house. (Because of being farmers, they also installed a VERY large gasoline tank underground complete with a gasoline pump above ground "to fill up their farm vehicles". BTW, they included every vehicle they ever owned as a "farm vehicle", including my DB's Z-28 that they'd bought him! AND they got the gasoline delivered to the house in big tanker trucks and at HUGELY discounted prices...they were farmers...tax deductible. But it was ONLY for THEM, not even a partial fill up for me to drive the 100 miles back to my home. This gasoline write-off/discount continues to this day.)

I was bouncing around on Welfare at this time, even becoming homeless with my two (at that time) kids, going to college (graduated with honors as a nursing major with an AA and went on to University, not easy to do while on Welfare as a single parent!), eventually and gratefully finding my way into the inexpensive, BUT FRIGHTENING, Section 8 Project apartment I lived in for the next 20+ yrs., and eventually getting ♥my unionized bus driver's job♥. I really had to CLAW my way out of the Welfare abyss! In the meantime, my parents found a nice 2nd ranch they were considering buying, but instead bought it for DB...when he was just 19 YRS. OLD! They even had to go over and "pull hoses" (irrigate) to save his trees once because he took off in the blistering summer heat with his friends to party in the hot rod Z-28 that they'd bought him. But all was forgiven. After all, it was HIM and NOT ME. And all of this just served to embolden MD and her "I'm better than you" life philosophy with me and anyone else in her orbit.

Well crap. I've fallen back into that old and worn out "MD ruminations" rut. Let me get back to MY home and MY cleaning and MY improvements! Nuts to her!! But it has made it much more difficult for me to figure out who I am and what do I want out of this life? Answer: I want a clean house. I want to be/feel proud of my home. I want it to be organized, but not uncomfortably so. So today I got a Swiffer Heavy Duty Super Extended Duster...and TWO extra boxes of refills of 11 each! I also got rid of ALL the cobwebs in my room, the hallway, and the Hobby Room! I did all the doors, walls, drapes, and my bed's headboard, too, since they were dusty as well and this Swiffer makes it really easy to do. I am PLEASED with myself! And even DS dusted his room, a good idea with his allergies and electronic equipment in there. That's where two of my original fluffy dusters went. So gray that there was no longer any yellow left! Into the trash with them! BUH-BYE!

And now my new Crosswave is "on the way". YAY!!! Until it arrives, I think I'll really start cleaning out my closet, scour out the stove, microwave, and both fridges, and begin on the front room, too. I'm keeping some boxes (not cutting them up) to donate the TON of clothes in my closet in all sizes (aka a Jackie Gleason wardrobe). In the front room, I have a TON of "under-the-bed" storage containers to store all the things I wish to keep...sort of a "medium" urgent storage. AND it'll serve to keep the dogs out from under my bed! Two birds, one stone. AND (once the funeral is over and all the house guests have gone home) I'm thinking of asking my DB to come over and help us move that freakin' rolltop desk OUT OF THERE and into the front of the house FOR SALE! GONE! HALLELUJAH!! He was the one who moved it in there. Between him and DS, it should be no problem. I will clear the hallway COMPLETELY and shampoo the carpet before he gets here. Then it shouldn't be any problem and I can really get to SORTING THIS PLACE OUT!

I have Mystery Boxes and laundry baskets (crumbling from age) still sitting on my bedroom closet floor that have been stacked there for the last 20 yrs. without moving! I have no idea what they contain. It's about time I got to know them again! They came straight from my welfare apartment, thrown in whatever box rapidly, taken to a black widow infested storage facility in this area over several weeks time, and once my house was built, brought directly here. Some into my closet, some into the garage: "WHERE DO YOU WANT THIS?!" I can still hear that being screamed at me. I had no answer for them. I didn't know. And then I had to go right back to work!! And then the driving!! 10 hrs. in the seat on a straight run and then the three hour round trip back and forth from home, 5-7 days a week, just barely enough time to sleep/get food (shop/cook)/do up the dishes if possible -- and NO time to unpack and settle in. And it's still a jumbled mess!

So now is the time. And I can see that it will take time to complete. But it can be done. Even at 75. Even with intense pain sometimes. I'm having a gout flare right now, but I took lots of tart cherry juice and tablets plus celery seed tablets and aspirin and it seems to be easing a bit. Not quickly, but this too shall pass. It always does. I can also go through paperwork and shred the junk while sitting, and sort a big pile of clothing placed on my bed while sitting in my recliner with a big open cardboard box marked DAV (donate) to toss them into. That works for me! And catch up on some 4 star movies I've stored on my DVR. And Harry Potter, too. (Big fan!) Standing for long periods at this point isn't good for me and it hurts, too, so I'm hoping for some let up on this pain before the Crosswave gets here. We'll see. I do know that the gout pain isn't as bad this time, and for that I'm grateful!

BTW, I got my Egg Pod to make hard boiled eggs in...and I LOVE it! I made some of those Egg Boats I've been talking about and they were GOOD! DS got 4 and I got 4, so ASAP I'm going to make some more. We love to eat them and they are ZERO carbs and filling! For me, it's considered a free food (not fat free, by any means!) and so is an avocado and so are the collard greens in ham hock bone broth that I make in the Instant Pot. All are my favorites.

So with all this upset and heartache blowing around outside of our little home here, DS and I are doing fine. I wish everyone else the very best during this holiday season, but we are blessedly doing just fine. Not gloating. Just feeling blessed. ♥♥♥

Honeybera

[honeybera]

Today (Monday Dec. 13) my SIL is having her funeral. OMG! It's like it's not true, that I'm going to wake up and it's all a bad dream. She was only 53, vaccinated, healthy, just a few months younger than my older son. I wasn't close to her, and she really was a fly in my ointment. She never invited me or DS to Thanksgiving or Xmas or even a BBQ which they had all the time - DS and I were literally family outcasts. (Thanks MD! ) But no matter what kind of relationship my SIL and I had, what this is doing to my DB is heartbreaking to watch.

I'm not going to the funeral. Not out of disrespect, but I'm unvaxxed, 75, obese (morbidly so?), and have T2D (albeit mild) and an enlarged heart and a heart murmur. I don't dare go! DB says that is fine. He's got so many people coming already that he's rented a hall for the wake (?) after the funeral and is having it catered. The nightmarish aspect of it is what's bothering me the most. This came up on us so unexpectedly. And I almost have survivor's guilt. The tsunami that has rocked my DB's world forever has only gently rocked my boat at secure anchor. Same thing with the pandemic. Yet all of them are COVID positive or are in the midst of recovery right now. I have no business there.

I'm also acutely aware of how all of MD's devious and conniving plans for how things would go after her passing are just completely destroyed by this unexpected loss of my SIL. I neither win nor do I lose anything, but my DB's life's plans are totally destroyed. And I feel sad for that. But it really makes it plainly clear how fragile life is and how the loss of one person can change the lives of those closest to them. MD pushed him incessantly to "find someone, settle down, and they can take care of you when you're old and your father and I are gone". Well, so much for that!

Got my new Bissell Crosswave today. It's not set up yet. But it will be soon. I have my carpet shampooer and it's set up and so I'll use that first on my dog-pee-and-poop fouled bedroom/hall carpets. Got my Swiffer dusters, too. Very happy with them. They work great, but this house needs a good scouring. I'm not too sure I can do it all - in fact, I know I can't. And DS tries, but he's no powerhouse either, although he has volunteered to do the heavy lifting. But the clutter has to go first...and it will. I've nearly got enough for another DAV (disabled veterans) pickup. It's slow, but steady, and so it is getting done. I'm pleased with the results. As soon as it quits raining (not complaining - we really need it!!!!), I'm taking my weedeater to the front (and eventually back, but first the front) yard plus I've still got the 30% vinegar (+ Epsom salts + Dawn dish soap) solution to make for the weeds. I need to go fetch more straw to spread around in the backyard, too, especially near ♥♥ the a/c ♥♥.

But for now, dinner and a good night's sleep will do.

Honeybera

[Progress]

Honeybera,
I am so motivated by your posts! You accomplish so much. You have a can-do attitude when you want to get things done. I admire that and wish I had more of it!
Take good care!
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