Toni L. Arends, Author

When we left off I was just boarding the train and had found out the "chatty" lady was going the same place I was.

As luck would have it for once, she boarded the train before me and so I was able to choose a seat behind her, which was also the very last seat in the car – my favorite. No one walks past you, ever, and you can set your bags behind the seats in the space between your seat and the wall of the train car.

When I went to settle in I noticed a coat in the seat, all kinds of luggage on the floor and a full 24 can box of pop under my seat. Shortly before the train left the station an older man came to claim his seat next to me, he must have been outside smoking as Ottumwa is a smoker stop. I guess I should have sat next to the chatty lady.

The very front seat on the left side was empty and so he decided to move all of his stuff up there, and thankfully I was left with 2 seats all to myself, although I was questioning if I looked odd and that’s why he moved. There was a person who I thought was a younger looking woman across from me in Superman PJ bottoms and a hoodie sweatshirt with her hood pulled up working on her laptop.

There is a very quiet older woman sitting across the aisle from the chatty woman who I have now learned is actually 82 because she is talking the ear off of her, the poor dear. There is a very old gentleman sitting across from smoker guy in the very front.

Behind him is a very tiny older lady and across from her is another older lady who is sleeping. Each of us has a double seat to relax in now, so we are all good. If no one else boards in the lower level it will be wonderful.

I decided to take my nap and when I woke a couple hours later, the young woman across from me turned out to be a very nice young man in Superman PJ’s. I really need to get new glasses! He was on the train to Denver and back to write some dissertation for his college doctorate or something very collegy sounding.

He was from Chicago, had twin 7 year olds and his wife had thought it was a great idea for him to take the Amtrak to Denver and back so he could work in quiet on his paper. I can’t imagine having the money just to ride Amtrak somewhere and back to work on my writing! What a great idea though.

I was not able to get a lot of sleep that night as I was exposed to about six strains of colds. It turned out all of the other passengers in our car except me and Mr Chicago were coughing all night, although one may have been a smokers cough.

The train was now running two hours behind and when I finally arrived in Denver Brad and Willie were there waiting at the curb for me, so no breakfast at the station. Oh well.

I had a great time in Denver celebrating Willie’s 9th birthday although it is always bitter sweet for me wishing that Torri was there too. Saturday flew by as I had to get back on the train Sunday evening so was only in Denver a day and a half!

Sunday Brad and Willie dropped me off at the station a few hours before the train was to arrive and later in typical Amtrak fashion, it was a half an hour late.

Willie and I always have very heartfelt and tearful goodbyes but we are both working on it and getting a little better each time, both of us trying to be brave. We really miss being with each other as we lived together for so long, its always hard to be apart. He looks just like his mom, Torri, and has her kind gentle heart. I always miss him so much and wish I could see him more often, my whole family does.

When I boarded the train I took a seat to myself in the very front and hoped no one else was getting on the lower level. For the upper deck they were assigning seats out on the platform before we boarded as the train was packed full. They rarely assign seats and its never a good sign. At least they don’t usually do that in the lower cars, as there are only four rows of double seats, sixteen passengers is the limit.

A mom and her teenage son boarded our car and wanted to sit together as she explained to the conductor, so I said I would move so they could. I took a seat behind them where there was luggage and belongings strung all over the seats and floor. I didn’t touch any of their stuff and tried to settle in.

This HUGE woman approached me and I stood up and let her into the seat next to me. I am not a small person by any means but she was at least twice my size and spilled over onto a fourth of my seat. She was grumbling and complaining from the get go and was saying how much she disliked children. Oh great. There were three young kids and their mom in the back two seats, the mother and her teenage son who I later found had a mild autism, and another mother with a young disabled child across from us.

When I got on the conductors were arguing with a white bearded "hippie" dude who looked to be about ten years older than me, telling him he had to go sit upstairs or get off the train. He had been sitting in the seat across from me and the huge woman and the woman with the disabled child had been sitting in the seat in front of him. He finally gave in and took his bag with him and went upstairs with a conductor following him. The lady with the disabled child moved their belongings into his seat across from us so she’d have a tray to set up her laptop so her little boy could watch movies. He was not happy, had been crying and the large lady next to me kept complaining about all the children. I didn’t connect the two things at the time, but this will make more sense later.

Now there was a seat available in the very front, which no one likes those seats as they don’t have any type of tray that comes down in front of them and no foot rests, but I figured it would be worth it not to have the woman next to me complaining and crushing me all night, so I grabbed my two bags and moved into it. This put me across from the lady and her teenage son who I had given up my seat for.

Almost all of the tickets above each person say CHI which means they are heading for Chicago which means I will be with them all the way to Ottumwa. Lucky me.

It looks as though no more passengers are boarding the train and yet we continue to sit still in the station. Nothing is being announced either. The large woman is now complaining about children crying as the little guy behind me is still not a happy camper and his poor mom is doing her best. I feel sorry for her and wish I could be helpful. I hear a movie start behind me and he quiets down, the large woman does not.

She pulls out her cell phone and we all get to hear her very loud conversation with someone about not buying candy for the boys and the boys drink all the milk so some little girl (her granddaughter?) never gets any and then all the things she needs that person to go buy before she gets home. Then she loudly talks about her being a city bus driver in Chicago for years and I shudder to think that she had a job around other people. Its why I don’t ride buses.

We are now over an hour late leaving the station when suddenly two policemen appear on the platform…

End of Part 2

Stay tuned for the third and final chapter coming soon!

Until next time…

Toni

It has been our family tradition of going to a Christmas tree farm and cutting down our own selected Christmas tree since the first year Jay and I were married 43 years ago.

Both of our families had artificial Christmas trees growing up (although my family may have had a few real trees growing up, my memory has faded) and I guess we both liked the idea of starting our own family tradition of a real pine tree.

Each year we would go to a tree farm, walk around the lot full of trees and choose the “perfect” Christmas tree that would hold all of our ornaments. Some years we got taller, fuller trees that sat on the floor and nearly touched the ceiling, other years we would get a shorter fatter tree that would sit on top of our coffee table. The size of the tree would also often reflect how good or bad of a financial year we were having, so every so often we would have a smaller than usual tree.

There were a few years when the tree farms would sell out early and we would have to send Jay to the local tree lots in town in front of some hardware store or flower shop to bring home an already cut tree, and I will admit those trees never seemed quite as special as the ones we picked out as a family and cut down ourselves. By "ourselves" I mean Jay laying on the ground sawing down the tree, but we were there cheering his efforts on.

There was one Christmas that we just used one of the many artificial trees that I have around the house for decorations as our main Christmas tree. It was the first Christmas after we lost our daughter Torri to cancer. We just didn’t have the heart that year to go hunting for a real tree. It was the saddest Christmas ever and the tree reflected that grief. We still miss her terribly, but in her memory we have worked hard to bring back the joys of her favorite holiday.

The weather is usually horrible on the day we pick to go tree shopping. It’s either snowing or blowing, freezing cold, or all three, but not this year. This year there was no snow on the ground and the temps were mild and getting warmer each day.

Most years when I walk around the tree farm, I have this uncanny knack for tripping over the little tree stumps left by other trees that were cut down, or tripping over a dirt clod in the path. My fall is usually very slow and apparently hilarious to my children because it is always followed by me bouncing on the ground and all of them breaking into laughter. It has almost become as much of a family tradition as cutting down the tree.

We had to switch the tree farm we were first going to go to this year as they had closed already, no more trees left. We didn’t have everyone with us either, it’s hard to do now days with some living out of state and then there is the whole “whose weekend is it to have the kids” thing that seems to haunt our family.

Our youngest daughter Brittney and her two children were going to go with us, son Josh wasn’t able to and son Jason is in Missouri. I piled in the van with my daughter and kids and Jay drove his truck to use to haul our tree home. Off we went! We had a minor stop to coordinate the GPS’s and make sure we were indeed on the correct road, that confirmed, we continued on our quest for the perfect Christmas tree.

We got to the tree farm about an hour before they were to close. It was a cold clear late afternoon and we parked the vehicles at the sales shed and started walking down the dirt road and onto the paths in search of the “perfect” tree. Each of us pointing out the good qualities of this tree or that tree, but each tree falling just short of the perfect tree. We walked on and on going further and further back into the tree farm.

I carefully stepped over each little tree stump and focused on not falling down this year. We made it all the way to the back where the trees ended that were for sale. We had been told we could cut down any tree bearing a white tag on it, not any with bright pink reserved tags on them, nothing was said about no tag but we assumed those were the little ones that were not ready to go.

As we turned and headed back we noticed this beautiful almost 7 foot tall tree standing there like a shining beacon. It was almost perfectly rounded, no big bald spots, no wonky tree top – was this the perfect tree! My grandson ran up to it and declared it so and we all agreed! We had found the perfect tree!

We looked all over the tree to spot the white tag showing it was one of the trees for sale and was not a reserved tree. It was standing next to several others it’s height, although each were a bit flawed, but we could not find any white tag on it. There was no reserved tags either and nothing on the tree at all that said not to cut it. The tree had no tags that we could find.

Now we were faced with a real dilemma! We had found the perfect tree but there was no white tag on it. Being the critical thinkers that we are, we solved the problem by carefully removing the white tag from the tall tree next to it, so that we would be paying the correct price for the tree as they charge by the height of it, and placed it ever so carefully on our tree, the perfect tree. Problem solved.

Jay crawled under the tree and sawed it off and then hefted it over his shoulder, the tree saw in the other hand and we marched our way back down the path to the tree shed to pay for our perfect tree. We were singing praises to our tree along the way and the grand-kids were giddy with excitement to go home and decorate such a wonderful tree.

Tree paid for, hot chocolates all around, petting of the big yellow lab that was laying in the shed by the fireplace done. Time to get back into the vehicles and drive home and decorate the tree and cut out sugar cookies.

Jay had to make a stop in town first on his way home. The tree was laying in the back of his pickup and we were nervous some villain would snatch our perfect tree out of his truck while he was in the store, but I’m here to report both made it home safely.

I must say that our little bit of “larceny” has not taken away from the beauty and pleasure of this years Christmas tree at all! It stands tall and gracious in the living room, the ornaments hung and then re-hung after the grand-kids left (my OCD working overtime). It is another beautiful tree in a long line of traditional trees at our family

Christmas. Our dream has always been to buy a live tree that we could then plant on our farm after Christmas, but so far our dream of owning our own place is yet to be realized. Maybe someday. For now, I am enjoying the perfect tree.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanza, Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Until next time…

Toni

The older I get the less I like to drive at night, so the earlier I arrive at the train station during the Fall when the sun sets around 4 pm. It’s true I have driven to Ottumwa, IA several times to board the Amtrak train, but it’s also true that without my GPS Waze program aka Betty (the voice of a British female) I would get hopelessly lost. I know I take highway 21 south for most of the trip, after that, it’s a blur. Some parts of the trip look familiar to me as I’m driving along and other parts I feel like Betty is routing me in a new direction every time I drive there.

The train leaves Ottumwa for Denver, CO and other parts west of there at approximately 7:10 pm. At least that’s what Amtrak posts. The reality of the California Zephyr is that it is almost always late coming out of Chicago. I don’t know why, but I know that their 7:10 pm arrival time is pretty much a fantasy. Me being the ever hopeful optimist that I try to be, still arrive an hour or more earlier than the train is to arrive. In the Fall when the sun sets early, that means I usually arrive around 4 or 4:30 pm and sit in the train station and wait.

The day I was to depart for a quick trip to Denver and back to celebrate grandson Willie Jay’s 9th birthday, I was having packing problems. It seems that whenever I take a really short trip, the harder it is for me to pack. I didn’t want to take my usual suitcase on wheels which is great for going through train stations, but for this trip it felt like overkill for my few clothes. I have a gym bag (Torri’s old one, I’ve never owned one, in case that isn’t obvious) so I finally decided on that bag even though it meant I’d be carrying my bag everywhere. I was wishing I had one of those small under seat carry on

bags that are also on wheels, that would have been perfect.

I was leaving on Friday evening, arriving in Denver Saturday morning and heading back home Sunday night and arriving in Iowa Monday so I could babysit as Brittney had college classes, so I really didn’t need much for clothing, or at least that was the initial plan. Somehow I ended up stuffing that poor gym bag to the gills! Then there is the all important snack bag because it is a 12 hour train ride after all! Yes, there is a nice dining car and even a snack car but the prices are like those in movie theaters, $4.00 for a bottle of water, $3 for a small bag of chips, so its better to carry on your own food. I have a red bag that has been my "carry on" bag on my train trips for years, it is also my snack bag.

I had just purchased a new salad bowl from a company that makes lots of take along food savers and starts with a T, so I put in my salad, dressing and toppings in it and set my bowl on the table. I put 2 bananas in my snack bag, PB crackers, a few mini almond joy candies, bottles of water and to be safe, a chocolate cream filled cupcake, because, its cake.

While panic packing that morning I was also trying to get a few last minute household things taken care of and making sure I left a detailed note for Jay on the care and feeding of our two dogs. Ok mostly feeding instructions, he knows how to take care of them, but he doesn’t know who gets which bowl or which bag of dog food is which dogs. At this point both mentioned dogs are now underfoot following me all around the house and eyeing the gym bag and snack bag with suspicion. Kutter knows the signs of when I’m leaving, Jazzy is just starting to catch on.

I was doing all this on Friday morning before Brittney’s two little ones come here for me to babysit while she goes to her college classes. I should have done this the night before, but here I was, as usual. The plan was for me to leave here after babysitting around 1:00 – 1:15 pm at the latest, giving me plenty of time to drive to Ottumwa and beat the sunset. In reality I left at almost 2:00 pm which meant that I would just make it before the sun set at 4:48 pm that day, and yes, I had checked.

The drive itself down there was blessedly uneventful and it was a warm 40 F day after a blast of winter the week before. There was more traffic than I usually see on old highway 21, but I chalked that up to it being a Friday.

I hadn’t made myself lunch before I left and I should have, but I always think there will be some place to grab something along the way. You pass through several small towns, but the reality is your choice is either Caseys or Kwik Star and I was not in the mood for gas station food, I have my standards, some days at least.

I arrived in Ottumwa at about 4:30 pm, the 2 1/2 hours that my GPS Betty had predicted. Good job Betty. I was certain I would arrive a little sooner as I averaged at least 5-7 miles an hour over the posted speed limit, but no luck. Somehow my GPS must factor this all in.

Food was now my first priority since I had skipped lunch, so I headed to the area of town where I knew there were some fast food places and it wasn’t far from the train station. I entered Arby’s into my GPS and Betty asked me if I wanted to go there now? Yes ma’am!

The sun was setting as I drove over there and I was greeted by an Arby’s, KFC, Burger King and a couple others in the area but decided to stay with my first choice as I was feeling pre-Thanksgiving and wanted a turkey sandwich.

If you’ve been following my posts at all, you know two things about this: how I usually have problems with my Turkey Bacon Ranch sandwiches at Arbys, and you also know that I now have a very serious acid re-flux problem, so no spicy foods, tomatoes (ew anyway) onions, etc. I ordered it my usual way, no tomatoes, no cheese with an order of their curly fries and the new cinnamuffin for breakfast tomorrow morning on the train.

I drove over to the train station and parked on the nice parking lot side of it which for some reason you can’t leave your car overnight when you take the train. You have to park on the other side way down the tracks from the station building behind a sketchy looking apartment building on some gravel near the tracks and walk back down a sidewalk to the station. I always feel like I’m going to be attacked when I park there at night.

I had plenty of time to move my car, it was just 5:00 pm. I walked up to the doors of the building expecting them to be open, and they were locked. I walked around to the other side, and those were locked also. You are told by Amtrak to arrive an hour early before the train is to arrive, granted I was very early but I didn’t think the building would be locked. Guess I was eating in my car.

I popped a couple of curly fries into my mouth and immediately regretted my choice. I had forgotten that they are spicy and I started getting a bad reaction to them. Great, another food to cross off my ever increasing list. Then I took a bite of my sandwich, perfectly made for once I might add and realized my error there too. I had forgotten to say no onions, so had to pick those all off and the bacon is a pepper bacon, pepper being one of the main spices that sets off my re-flux! Curses! So basically I was now eating a turkey and lettuce sandwich with bottled water to drink for my lunch-supper (lunper?) I could have made this at home and saved myself some money.

I chatted on the phone a while and then at 6:15 I drove around to the creepy side of the building where you are allowed to park overnight. I had decided to dig out an extra pair of shoes I had packed in my gym bag realizing that I didn’t need 2 pairs of shoes along for basically a day and a half. I also tossed out a pair of leggings and a top. The bag zipped easier now. I had to leave my salad behind because it was too big to fit into my already overstuffed bags. I should have just eaten that for supper instead of getting a sandwich. I layered on my light fall coat over my zip up sweater as I had no clue what to take along for a coat.

I hefted the gym bag on my shoulder first along with my regular purse which I’d mostly emptied out for the trip although it still weighed a ton. Next came the snack bag. It was hard to keep all the straps on my shoulders due to the multi clothing layers. I was really regretting my decision not to use my suitcase on wheels.

The doors to the station were now open and the station master, do they still call them that, was a bored looking middle aged man reading a book behind an old wooden desk. There was a lady sitting in the uncomfortable wooden chairs that line the walls who I guessed to be just a few years older than me, later I’d learn she was 82, I never would have guessed that!

We started talking and I helped her figure out how to mute the sound of her games on her phone (the volume button) after the station master had told her she needed to turn down the volume. She then proceeded to chat my ears off and normally I am happy to engage in friendly conversation with total strangers but I’d only gotten a couple of hours of sleep the night before and had been looking forward to some quiet time followed by a long nap on the train.

Right before the train pulled into the station I learned she was also going to Denver and lucky me, she was also riding in the lower level. I figured then I’d probably end up with her as a seat mate, ending my dream of a quiet nap.

End of Part 1…

Until next time…

Toni

(From "Nama TT’s Corner" blog post)

11-1-2012

I love Pinterest! I can sit and look at all of these wonderful recipes that I will never ever make and pin them onto my boards that I will probably never look at again. It’s wonderful! Recently I had seen several pins for a Wendy’s Frosty knock off recipe and had saved a few of the pins myself. While in town running errands I decided to get the ingredients to try to make one of them, being the "Betty Crocker" type person that I am. It was

only about 40 F out and the wind was cold, but for me, it’s never too cold out for a Wendy’s Frosty. Before I continue, let me point out to those of you who are "city dwellers" and may be unaware, that when you live in the country there is no walking to the local grocery. I don’t even know anyone nearby with the stamina to venture in to town by bicycle to shop! We must drive there by car or truck, (some may go by tractor), it just makes sense, especially since most of us live on gravel roads.

Everything you need involves "going to town" – never city, we just never say city, unless you mean Chicago or New York – it’s always town – no matter the size – trust me. "Town" might be 3-5 miles away, or 15-30 miles, depending on where you live. It may be more for you but this is about me and where I live.

It will also depend on what you need as to which "town" you are driving to. For instance, if I just need to go to the Post Office, I drive the 3 miles into my local town, just making sure that it is not between 11-1 because I think that is when they are closed. If I need gas, same thing goes, plus that is usually about as far as I can make first anyway because my gas gauge is constantly pointing below empty. If I need anything else, then it is the 15-20 mile trip into the larger "towns" that contain the many grocery stores, shopping malls, etc. that one may need. My local town no longer has a grocery store, most small towns don’t now days, we have a gas station with a few over-priced groceries in it. So while running my errands I wanted to make sure I had all the right stuff to make a Wendy’s Frosty, which are without a doubt my favorite chocolate "ice cream" drink. They are not too dark chocolate, or too light, or too sweet, or too creamy – they are perfect! I actually met a woman while running errands that had NEVER had a Frosty! She looked to be a few years older than me, so of course I instructed her to "get thyself to a Wendy’s lady!" Don’t even ask why I was talking about Frosty’s – it just happened. I was also SO proud of myself for getting on my phone (which I might point out was actually working- again another story, another day) looked up a couple of the pins and checked out the recipes so that I was sure I had all of the ingredients. I know, right? I ended up with a "few" more groceries than I had needed, but then who doesn’t and headed for home. The recipe was really quite simple, Chocolate Milk, Cool Whip, Sweetened Condensed Milk. Got it! Then a thought occurred to me as I was nearing the edge of town, how was one to really know it was "just like Wendy’s" as all the various pinners claimed if one did not have a real Frosty to compare it with? So in the interest of true science, I made a quick pit stop at Wendy’s drive through and got a chocolate Frosty. Now off to home, ready to do this thing the right way! After putting away all the grocery items I didn’t need, I pulled up the recipe for the knock off Frosty. After several sips of the true Wendy’s Frosty I was ready to begin! I started to read all the recipes instructions so that I would dump things together in the right order – which normally I don’t do. I usually just start opening and dumping and then read – often seeing that I did something wrong! But this was a FROSTY! I was taking extra care to do this recipe right so that I might be rewarded with a home made version! A;so I didn’t have enough gas left for another trip into town should this fail. Things were looking good until I came to about the middle of the recipe, the part that said "pour cooled mixture into your ice cream machine"! WHAT???!!! It requires an ice cream machine!! I pause for a moment to reflect here: WHY I didn’t think it may require an ice cream machine and that you could simply pour 3 ingredients into a bowl, whip it a bit with a mixer and end up with a Frosty is beyond even me, but there you have it. Yes, we do own an ice cream machine, but that is my husbands area of expertise. I don’t even know where it is, let alone have I ever used it. So there it was, no frosty recipe trials for me. Sadly I put all the ingredients away, there would be other uses for them. I could make something from Pinterest with the sweetened condensed milk, Cool Whip is great in my hot chocolate and some pinners suggest you freeze it into little dollups just for that purpose, and I love milk, any kind. Of course, I could go buy some Schwans vanilla ice cream and make my chocolate Frosty the way I always do anyway – several scoops of Schwans vanilla ice cream into a glass and yes, I have tried several other ice creams and Schwans is the ONLY one that tastes like it! Pour in chocolate milk, my favorite is any milk by Anderson Erikson. Stir until it looks like a Frosty, enjoy! There you have it. Oh wait, no gas… So, as I sat eating the rest of my purchased Frosty I realized there were two things I had learned that day; 1) It’s always good to buy the real chocolate Frosty just in case you need a back up 2) Sometimes it doesn’t matter if you do have all the right stuff, if you don’t have all the right equipment…

Thanks for reading my blast from the past!

Until next time… Toni

Sometimes Facebook can surprise you with memories you may have forgotten about. I must admit I am often surprised! The older I get, the more of the past I seem to have forgotten. Last night, well technically this morning about 2 a.m. I was looking at the memories from November 1st on Facebook, and in those beside all the ones about NaNoWriMo, (yes, I am torturing myself again this year) was a long forgotten "gem" from 2012! An old blog I had completely forgotten about! I wonder now how many other blogs are out there that I no longer remember doing? So for your entertainment (and mostly mine) I’m going to re-publish those old blog posts under this blog. I will edit them a bit, but I’ll leave them mostly the way I originally published them. So here is the first installment from what was:

"Nama TT’s Corner"

About the author:

My name is Toni, my grandson Willie calls me "nama" and my two granddaughters Charlie & Evie call me "grandma TT" I am rushing toward 60, live in the Heartland on a farm acreage and am now semi-retired. I write children’s books for a hobby and maybe one day will get to see them published.

Christmas Time is Near….

10-30-2012

Looking Forward to Christmas!! If you happen to follow me on Pinterest you will notice a trend lately – Christmas pins!! I LOVE Christmas and everything about it!! Here it is almost the end of October and while everyone else is plotting tomorrows plans for Trick or Treat night tomorrow – I am dreaming of a white Christmas! I am not a big fan of Halloween – no reason, it just always seemed like a lot of work to me! My poor kids only actually carved a pumpkin once that I can remember, and after that – it was paint a face on the pumpkin with magic markers!! Their costumes were always pretty lame too! Their dad’s plaid shirt, blue jeans = I’m a farmer! White sheet = ghost, black material and mask = I’m a ninja! Living in the Midwest (Iowa) it never fails to be crummy weather, cold, rainy, icy, or snow. I’ve been through it all with my kids. Seldom have I seen the end of October be a nice calm warm evening. The funny thing is, today all my kids love Halloween and go to great lengths to celebrate with fun costumes, carving pumpkins with their children, etc. I guess they didn’t suffer too much by my lack of enthusiasm. I don’t know if the fact that I was born in the winter – Jan 2nd – (if you want a bit of history factoid – first baby born in 1955 in Denison, IA (Crawford County). Yup, that was me! Same town Donna Reed was from – for those of you over 50!)

Anyway – I have always had a love affair with winter, snow and cold weather! The more it snows the happier I get! Although I will confess that now that I am racing headlong into 60 – the arthritis in my left knee is getting very annoying on cold damp days! So that is hampering my love affair with winter just a tad. But Christmas is the best of the best!! Christmas has always been a wonderful holiday to me and no I am never going to wish anyone "Happy Holidays!" – it is "Merry Christmas!!" – the birth of Christ Jesus. Own it, be proud of it, celebrate it!! If I know what holiday you celebrate then I will greet you appropriately, for me it’s Christmas, I mean no offense.

Christmas warms my heart – so I start thinking about it as soon as there is even a hint of cooler temperatures in the air. I have even been known to sing Christmas Carols all year long… This year for Christmas my kids are going to do all handmade gifts to each other. I think that is a wonderful idea! The economy has not been good for most of them, so in order to make Christmas less stressful and less about the money, they are going to paint, make, bake, re-purpose gifts this year! I want to make some gifts to give each "family" too – but am still searching for that right one.

Of course Santa will bring them all their gifts from the lists they create, can’t break all the traditions, but I want to do a little something extra. I won’t be able to tell you what crafts/things I come up with ahead of time, because that will take all the surprise out of it! But you can keep an eye on my "Christmas and Other Holidays" board* and you will see the ideas I am looking into! I will keep you up to date on my recipes and new ones I try from Pinterest. If you want to follow me or see my Pinterest boards*, I pasted in the link below. So for now, Merry Christmas everyone!! (* – note: no longer a public board)

End Notes:

I don’t remember what I made for each family, but I hope it was something nice – I want to say I baked each family a variety of Christmas cookies? My apologies to my children about the costumes. 🙂

Until next time….Toni

I’ve been dormant for over a year on my blog posts. Shocking but true. Many might wonder where I was. What was I doing that I couldn’t tap a few computer keys and write a few interesting lines.

Life has a way of tripping you up every once in a while and by tripping you up I mean knocking you down, dragging you along and beating you senseless. At least that has been what life does to me.

It starts out with small things, then in my experience it rolls that snowball into an avalanche that comes crashing down on top of you leaving you breathless and struggling to free yourself from it’s crushing weight.

I won’t go into all the details, but know that I have been trying to dig myself out from under this last avalanche with a plastic teaspoon all while it’s continuing to snow on me. It’s exhausting and to have to sit at a computer keyboard and try to be creative at the same time was just more than my brain cells could accomplish.

So what’s changed? Not much on the "life under an avalanche" side of things, but several friends and people in my life have reminded me of God’s promises and encouraged me to keep scooping away. A recent post by dear friends reminded me that if small children can overcome life threatening surgeries and live through pain and struggles I can’t even fathom, (JL) then I can pull up my big girl panties and get myself back on the planet. Bless the little children, for reminding me I need to be pro-active in my life and get my passions back in order.

"Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

I am passionate about protecting those who can’t protect themselves; children, animals, victims, elderly. It makes no sense to me that in today’s world we aren’t all passionate about these same things.

For instance, why do we allow domestic violence victims to continue to be overlooked in our courts and for judges to hand over their innocent children to the same man who abused them all?

Why do we continue to allow large "animal rescue leagues"

to make millions of dollars on the lies they tell while hiding victimized animals in the back rooms? Why do we continue to allow the elderly to suffer abuse and poor health care and basic living needs?

Why must victims continue to suffer in our failed court systems while criminals get more rights? Why must our veterans continue to be lost victims of a failed health care system? Why? Why? Why?

For most of these it’s the "almighty dollar". Those who have the money and the means often don’t use it to help those who do not. Those who have the money continue to victimize those who can’t afford to fight against these injustices. Our court systems are corrupt,broken and costly, our health care system is a joke, our animal welfare often suffers at hands of those who abuse it, victims are ignored and unheard.

Too often if it doesn’t directly affect us, we chose to pretend we don’t know it exists. I call it the "ostrich syndrome" – hiding our head in the sand. The trouble is the problem is still there and the sand is hard to get out of your ears.

What can we do? We can speak out and speak up! We can pick something that speaks to us, to our passions and fight to right the wrongs. I’m working with my youngest daughter to change Iowa’s child custody laws to keep domestic violence victims and their often abused children safe from the abusers. #SafeChildAct

Whatever your passion, I hope you will write to your legislators, governors, whoever and do whatever you need to do to help those who cannot speak up for themselves. It’s time that we baby boomers showed the world the stuff we are made of! We did great things in our youth, lets go out with a bang! Peace!

Until next time…Toni

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(This was from last September! I feel like I fell off the blog wagon, and I apologize to those few faithful readers who enjoy my tales. I debated if I should publish this one, and thought why not? I hope you find a bit of humor in it and may it brighten your day. By the way – this year so far, I am well. -Toni)

Not feeling well is something everyone can relate to. I would even hazard a guess that it is most people’s least favorite thing. I loathe being ill. Whether it’s a cold, a flu, a headache, whatever the ailment, I’m against it one hundred percent.

Some people rarely get ill. I’m not a fan of them either. Sorry, just being honest here. My husband of forty-two years is one of those people. I think in his lifetime he has only missed work or school due to illness once. Once! Who is this guy?

When our children were small I recall one Christmas we were all ill with a nasty flu bug and it was the only time in my life I’ve seen my husband sick other than a bad cold. Each of us sat around on Christmas morning with our

and could have cared less about opening presents, even the ones from Santa.

* A “puke buddy pail” is an empty plastic ice cream bucket, usually from Schwan’s in our house. I sometimes drew a smiley face on it, I have a weird sense of humor.

I, on the other hand, have always been the one who catches every single germ floating anywhere near me. I also don’t seem to outgrow childhood illnesses. Well into my forties, fifties and beyond I have turned a cold or sinus infection into tonsillitis. Yup, that’s the kind of fun I have. I become almost hermit-like over the winter cold season to avoid germs.

I take my daily vitamins, get my flu shot every year like a champ and had a pneumonia shot that’s still effective, or so they tell me. Recently I became very ill with lower abdominal pain and a bad stomach ache. I was worried I may have some food poisoning from the pepperoni I had used on a pizza. I felt off the entire next day and the following day I could tell as the day wore on it was only getting worse.

I hadn’t been able to eat either day but was trying to keep water down. As the hours ticked slowly by my body was telling me things were not right. Let’s just say there were fluids escaping my body that shouldn’t be and in a manner that was not normal. Later that second day I gave in and realized I may need to see a doctor. This was at ten o’clock at night, I didn’t say anything about making quick decisive decisions, in case you were wondering.

I decided to go to my local small county hospital rather than one of the several larger ones in the nearby cities. Good choice. Not only did I get excellent care, I’m pretty sure I was the only one in the ER the entire couple of hours I was there. They were very attentive, happy to have someone to use their skills on. I felt miserable, so I was happy to give them all the blood they needed and didn’t balk at the IV port in one arm or the blood taken out of the other hand when they couldn’t get a good vein. Normally these things concern me. I am a chicken through and through and am happy to admit it.

They sent me home after pronouncing it was not my gall bladder, thanks to a scan, but was colitis, which the very handsome nurse practitioner said was like having a really bad flu. After finishing up giving me fluids and several pills and prescriptions for more, I got to go home. Two antibiotics they said should do the trick, take them all.

At home I spent the next six days taking my pills as prescribed, drinking lots of water, drinking broth first then working my way up to the B.R.A.T. diet (bananas, white rice, applesauce, white toast) all the things they normally tell you not to eat are apparently the only things you can eat when ill. Caffeine is a no go, so decaf coffee is now making it’s way onto my slowly increasing diet. It’s still mostly bland foods and I’m craving tacos for some reason.

For you females, you will understand and sympathize with me here. Antibiotics are wonderful drugs that help our bodies heal, however, if you are a female they do not play nice with the good bacteria in your female system and you have a good chance of getting a yeast infection. I was well prepared for this and had been eating yogurt and drinking tons of water, however, I did not manage to avoid that inevitable outcome because I don’t have that kind of luck.

The second thing that happened to me while recovering was that the nasty cold my husband recently got, now landed on me. It started with two days of constant sneezing which I was very thankful had not occurred earlier in the week when my lower GI was doing flip flops. Yesterday the sneezing was replaced with a stuffy nose and today I have a full-blown sinus cold with sneezing, stuffy sinuses, watery eyes. Hurray for me! Too bad antibiotics still can’t kill the common cold!

At this moment in time I can say with some amount of confidence that only my pinky fingers don’t hurt but give it time. Tomorrow I plan on doing nothing. I’d like to tell you that I’m going to spend the day reading or catching up on some TV shows I’ve missed, but that hurts my watery eyes so that’s all a no. I’d like to think I’ll rest but my sinuses are painful and draining, so that doesn’t sound promising either. I’d also like to tell you that a day of doing nothing is hard for me, being such a workaholic and all, it’s not and I’m not.

There is a ray of sunshine in all this. Tomorrow we are getting homemade pies. A friend goes and gets pies every once in a while, and I happen to know Jay ordered two, peach for him, apple for me. I’m going to expand my bland diet tomorrow to include a larger piece of apple pie. See, there was a happy ending after all.

Until next time…Toni

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Ok, I’m veering off the tracks a bit today. I had a blog all ready to post, about my high school teachers and what a great influence they had on me, I’ll post that later. This topic is near and dear to my heart, I hope you’ll have a listen.

I realized tomorrow is #projectiamnotashamed day. People with mental health diseases are to stand in their community between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm with a sign that tells the type of mental health illness you or a loved one has and to open communications about it.

The point is to stop the stigma people have with mental illness. It’s a “hidden” disease if you will, you can’t "see" it. You probably know people right now who are struggling with it, but you may not realize they are. It’s not like having a cast on a broken leg or arm that people can see and identify easily with. Most people who have some type of depression are also pretty good at hiding it, often until it’s too late. We only take notice when bad things happen to celebrities like Robin Williams and Kate Spade.

I wanted to be out there with my sign, just like I wanted to go to recent events and hang out, but my anxiety stops me. It’s something I struggle hard with every day. PTSD and anxiety attacks keep me at home and missing many things. Often the mental anguish of anxiety is overwhelming and it’s just easier to stay home. I realize if you’ve never had any mental disease you have no idea what it’s like. Be very thankful.

I’ve had clinical depression since my mid twenties. I’ve been on and off medications. Some worked, some did not. I’ve been thru multiple therapies, same thing. I believe strongly in taking care of your mental health and seeking counseling for it. Mental health care is a process, a trial and error often. Don’t give up, and don’t suffer through it alone. Having a good support system is often key.

After the death of my oldest daughter Torri from cervical cancer and all that followed, I developed PTSD and anxiety attacks. My faith has helped carry me along the way, but I’ll admit, there are many days I don’t want to face the world. I just want to stay home, isolated, alone, just trying to make it to the next day. I’m thankful for God watching over me, only His love is truly unconditional and I’ve put Him to the test many times.

The combination of all of these is often very debilitating. It is difficult just to go to town to do simple tasks like buying groceries. People will mistakenly think I’m either shy or stuck up, or anti-social, or rude because I don’t show up for social things or cancel plans. I know my excuses are lame, but that’s part of the stigma association.

The truth is, my depression has gotten the better of me that day. I’m stuck in my house wishing I could go, hating that I can’t, trying to cope. Would anyone guess that I had any of these, probably not.

When I must be out and about, I dig deep to pull out all the stops. The “mask” comes on and you’d think I was the most social person around. I’m outgoing, often witty, maybe even charming. I’m laughing, making others laugh and have a good time, that is my specialty. You’d enjoy being around me as I often use humor and charm to mask my depression. But inside, there is a whole other world going on, one that no one else is allowed to see.

Why can’t I just do that all the time you may ask, just dig deep, put on the "mask". Wouldn’t that make me "normal"? It’s exhausting. It takes a toll on you mentally and physically. Do I wish I could be "normal" all the time, you better believe it. I didn’t choose this any more than someone with a physical illness chooses that. It’s not a character flaw or weakness. It’s an illness. Would you ask someone with a broken arm to just "get over it"?

My anxieties won’t allow me to be standing outside with my sign, so I decided to put my discussion here on my blog, at home, behind my computer, safe. Yet, also very dangerous I know. Depression has a HUGE stigma attached, that’s what we are all trying to break. Mental Illness Awareness Week takes place from Oct. 7–13 this year. The theme is "Cure Stigma", very fitting.

People look at you differently when they know you have depression. They often give you that “look” – the one that says, “I’m so sorry, are you ok sweetie?” I hate that look. It’s why I usually don’t share my disease.

They also start treating you differently, like you are a small child who needs to be gently guided along, or like you are made out of glass and must be carefully attended to so you don’t break. It’s happened to me so many times. Stop it.

I’m just like you, only my brain has some chemical imbalances that cause it to veer off on occasion. I don’t want you to treat me any differently than anyone else. I can handle it, if I can’t I’ll tell you or I won’t come to whatever social event I’m invited to. If I go into a crisis mode, then there are signs, learn them, but don’t treat me differently.

This is my sign for tomorrow, for #projectiamnotashamed. I hope you’ll ask me about depression, I’ll share my story. It often runs in families and recent studies have shown depression, anxiety and OCD, may share some genetic risk factors.

My dad had it, though I don’t think it was ever diagnosed, I have children who have it. I’ve had depression for decades. Some of it is new, and some I’ve worn like a pair of old shoes. I don’t like it, but I can’t throw it out either. It’s part of who I am, part of my DNA.

Mental illness, depression is a disease. It is no different than having any other disease and people should not be looked down on because of it.

If you give me pity, sympathy or “the look”, you will not be doing me a service, you’ll be insulting me. I will probably distance myself from you.

I just want you to know, it’s something I struggle with every day, and I’m not being a jerk when I cancel things, I’m trying to deal with my disorder. Honor me with patience and understanding, not pity and sympathetic gestures.

Until next time…Toni

http://projectiamnotashamed.com

https://www.nami.org/Get-Involved/Awareness-Events/Mental-Illness-Awareness-Week

http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/recognizing-warning-signs

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org 📞 800-273-TALK (8255)

I will be the first to admit I have never been keen on class reunions. I’m reasonably certain I have attended at least one of my class reunions, but other than that, I don’t think I usually go. You are probably wondering why, since I’m so “witty and charming” and I still live within three miles of my high school and the town it’s located.

Spoiler alert:

First, I was never the most popular girl or the most beautiful girl in my class. If you were one of those girls (you know who you are) you almost have an obligation to show up at all the class reunions, so everyone can see if you’ve changed, in other words, gained weight or gotten less beautiful. Trust me, both are the hope of every other girl that was in high school with you.

It has been my experience however, that neither of those things happen to any of these girls, at least not to the ones that were in my class, at either school.

Let me explain that last sentence which is also my next reason for not attending. I have always felt torn between two schools, and not really belonging to either one. I attended Cedar Falls schools from kindergarten to ninth grade, then my family moved to Dike just three years before I graduated.

So which school or schools am I an alumni of? Cedar Falls or Dike or both? I’m never sure. I attended the Cedar Falls schools the longest, however never attended the high school there. I graduated from Dike high school, however, only attended there from half of ninth grade through twelfth. Do you see my dilemma?

Cedar Falls class of ’73 had their 45th class reunion during Sturgis Falls Days. I probably could have gone over and said hello, but I didn’t because I never know if I fit in since I didn’t attend the high school there, and that after all is what class reunions focus on, high school stuff.

My Dike high school 45th class reunion is coming up during Dike’s Watermelon days. I’m really torn about going or not going. I haven’t aged that well. I’m not the thinner person I was in high school, I’ve gained a second me who is attached to my middle and hip areas. I’ve tried to shake her off, but she refuses to leave.

I’ve gotten arthritis in my knees and hands and don’t jump like I did when I was a cheerleader. I do still have a loud voice, although I can’t hear well now so I probably talk too loud most of the time. In other words, I have not aged particularly well.

A lot of my classmates, ok the majority, look just like they did back in high school with maybe a little greyer hair and a few tiny wrinkles here and there, but for the most part, they look great. Me, not so much. I’m that person people will look at and wonder “what on earth happened to her?” A lot has happened, but that’s another story.

There is also the fact that they all went to school from Kindergarten through graduation and I only joined them mid-ninth grade year. They have a long history, they know each other well. I only knew them for the three years I spent with them in high school. Many of them are relatives as well, so they have that bond. I was not related to any of them.

I was the stranger who moved in and then had the audacity to marry one of their own. I was the lucky one in that regard.

Another consideration for me is the whole parade thing. When I was in high school I marched in many school parades as one of the drummers. My class will have a float in the parade and with my arthritic body I worry that I’ll be the one who can’t get up onto the wagon without causing a scene or bodily injury to myself or others. So, do I just duck the parade and save myself the embarrassment?

Clothing, there is another dilemma for me. Is it just me or do all people go through this? What to wear that won’t make you look too fat, too old, too poor, too frumpy, too dated, too casual, etc, etc. The list is endless. I never seem to be able to choose the right outfit to wear. Some people just slap on anything and look wonderful, I am not one of those people.

My hair style or rather lack of one, is another thing I stress over. Shoes, what about shoes! I’m stressing out right now just thinking about all of this. There was a day when I wore all the cutest shoes and clothing, had long dark hair, didn’t stress about any of it, but, I was a size 5 back then. I haven’t seen that size in thirty-five years at least.

There is also the obligatory get together, there’s always a meal. Confession time, I hate to eat around others. One, because of that whole mental judging thing I envision because of my size now. Two, because I’ve also always been a klutz, so I always end up spilling on myself, it’s almost legendary. Three, I am quite possibly the slowest eater on the planet, ask anyone who has dined out with me on those rare occasions.

While I have an outgoing type of personality, and I’m not shy around strangers, I am also horribly socially awkward because of the above reasons. You won’t find me at any parties laughing it up with people while deftly juggling my paper plate of food in one hand and glass of pop in the other, au contraire. I prefer my little bit of acreage with my hammock and dog. I’m social on paper.

So here I am. The confused alumnus who is socially awkward, who has probably changed the most out of everyone in not one, but two school systems and has nothing to wear. My confusion is no fault of my classmates of either school, it’s a product of what happens when you get moved so late in the game. You lose that longevity and familiarity whether good or bad. You become the kid with no place/class to truly call your own.

To the class of 1973, know that in my heart I hold you all dear. Whether I went to school with you for ten years in Cedar Falls or for three years in Dike, I wish you all well. I’m not the thin kid with the dark hair and green eyes you may recall. I’m old, greying, my eyesight is worse, my waist went from thin to extra-large, I limp when I walk, and my hands hurt most of the time. I’m the kid that didn’t age well. The forty-five years since we walked out of high school with our diplomas in hand have not always been the kindest to me. I hope most of you have fared much better.

If I don’t join you, have fun, enjoy your memories. Maybe I’ll see you at our 50th.

Until next time…Toni

This morning there was a small thunderstorm in my area. No big deal, it happens all the time in Iowa. Lightning strikes were close, and we lost power for less than five minutes. Seemingly not a problem, however, that was just enough time to mess up my electronically controlled house.

I love technology, and always have. Most of the time it works great. I love that I can control the lights in my house with an app or by telling my Echo dot to turn something off or on. It fits my nature, I like to be in charge. I’m a Capricorn, it’s in the stars. Granted it is only electronic gadgets I oversee, but power is power after all.

The downside of technology is when your electricity goes out, even for five minutes. Philips Hue lights are built with an emergency setting so that if you lose power, when the power is restored all your Hue lights will turn on. Apparently, this is for my own good, so I can see in case of an emergency.

I wish they would allow you to set up a time limit on the power outage. For instance, if my power is out less than ten minutes, do NOT turn on all the lights when power is restored. This would save me a lot of bright blinding lights waking me up when our power briefly goes out due to a summer thunderstorm at 2:00 a.m. Perhaps I need to bring this to their attention.

The second thing that happened this morning is that the brief lightning strike, also fried my internet hub. I did all the normal things, unplug stuff for thirty seconds, plug it back in. Nothing. I called it in and sure enough, we were not on their “grid”. You never, ever want to hear you are “not on the grid” technology-wise.

I am now trying to figure out how to turn off all my Hue lights without internet service. I know what you are thinking, but that’s so un-technological.

So far, the information I could pull up on my phone, which thank goodness I can still connect to the outside world without the internet working in my home, says that I can. Nothing has worked so far.

The tech can’t come here until Monday between 12:30 and 4:30, so it will probably be around 5:00 p.m. when they arrive. I guess I am stuck doing it the old-fashioned way, the on/off switch on each light. It feels so antiquated.

When the lights went out I was also just beginning to watch Thor: Ragnarok on Netflix using my Roku. Yes, it was just after 7:00 am, but what else is there to do, I’d already loaded the dishwasher, so my conscious was clear. Another 21st C problem, no internet, no Roku. No Roku, no Netflix. No Netflix, no Thor. (big sighs)

So how did we get here to all these wonderful technological problems after all? Let’s go back a few years (cough cough) and reminisce about how some of this began. I have no internet after all so I’m not going anywhere else cyber-wise.

I’m part of the Baby Boom Generation. “Boomers” were born roughly between 1943-1960 (there are differing opinions on those years) when the world felt safe again after world wars and people had jobs and started having babies, apparently a lot of us. We are now over fifty (in my case over sixty) and we have seen a lot of changes over the decades.

Warning: Younger adults may have to Google many of the following references.

Two big things happened in 1955, the year I was born. Disneyland and McDonalds. I’ve never been to Disneyland, but sadly, I have been to McDonalds too many times! I have learned from my mistakes.

I know what you’re thinking and yes, there were many other things happening that year also like the Salk’s Polio vaccine was approved, and birth control pills. The Micky Mouse Club debuted, and Elvis Presley was a big hit along with Rock & Roll. Rosa Parks made her famous stand and the Vietnam war began and would end the year we graduated high school in 1973.

Actor James Dean died that year, so did physicist and Nobel winner Albert Einstein, you may have heard of him. Some people born that year were Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, coincidence?

Speaking of computers, the computer would be going from the size of a room to us literally wearing one on our wrist today like the old Dick Tracy* comic of yesteryear. Isn’t modern technology awesome! (*Google alert for you young ones)

We started out with a newer thing called television and were thrilled to be able to watch shows in black and white. Then came color! Wow, did that open a whole new horizon. I remember on Sunday nights my family used to drive over to my aunt and uncles house for supper and then we’d all sit and watch Bonanza on their new color TV.

We still had black and white at home and Bonanza just wasn’t the same once you’d seen it in color. (Michael Landon was even dreamer in color!) Later, as an young adult I owned a portable TV which I could watch my favorite shows (on all four channels) while sitting outside. Imagine that, I felt so empowered! Now it’s on my cell phone, all 250 channels.

Gadgets have always been my favorite things, like that newfangled spellcheck and dictionary from long, long ago. Then came more little information gadgets and soon you were able to buy a computer for your home!

The early version of internet meant waiting forever while your computer dialed it up through your land line telephone and there were a lot of pings and buzzes involved. It opened a whole new horizon; the world was literally now at your fingertips.

I used to go on the internet just to look up photos of other parts of the world, places I’d never be able to travel to. Being able to instantly access information was so fascinating to me and still is. My grand-kids think nothing of being able to type in a few words and pull up information in the blink of an eye, but back in the beginning it seemed so futuristic.

With all this wonderful technology that we enjoy today there are also some problems that go with it, or as the kids like to refer to it as, 21st century problems. Unlike the old land line phones that only went out when either a telephone pole was down due to a storm, or you neglected to pay "Ma Bell" your phone bill, (remember long distance bills?) cell phones come with their own problems. Today, cell phones can go down for many reasons, solar flashes, no tower service, tower site down, battery died, the unpaid bill is still one of them unfortunately, and my personal favorite, dropped calls.

Ah, 21st Century problems, that brings me back to this mornings thunderstorm.

I love all the new devices that can turn your ordinary house into a “smart home”. My oldest son Jason got me hooked on the Hue lights as he has them throughout his home. I love the way you can control your lighting from your phone or your voice if you add another invention, that being some type of voice-controlled speaker, think Dot or Google or Siri. My son had an extra Hue light hub, so he sent one home with me and I quickly went out and purchased some smart light bulbs.

These bulbs are not cheap, just for “ordinary” white light it is around $15 a bulb. But, they can be dimmed and controlled, without touching your lamp, which most ordinary light bulbs cannot. My strong will for wanting to stay as stationary as possible makes these devices even more appealing to me. I was so awed by their performance I saved up and purchased a color bulb. I say saved up because those run about $50 a bulb.

The range of colors and things you can do with these bulbs is worth the money in my humble opinion. My goal is to eventually replace all my white light smart bulbs with the colored ones in my living room for that true color experience. You can make it look like a sunset or a desert savanna (I’m trusting them on this one) for example. Who doesn’t want that? I wonder if I can set up a “donation” account to help me buy more colored bulbs?

The small voice-controlled speakers of today are also part of my home and something I love. I have three of the Dot’s in my house and use them frequently. One is in my bedroom, one in the living room and one in the kitchen. The one in the kitchen gets the most use. While I’m cooking I can use it to set timers and add items to my shopping list, then pull up that list on my smartphone later when at the store.

No more forgotten or lost lists, no more trying to remember what it was I was out of. No more forgetting to write it down on my list only to forget to take my list along with me later. I love the immediacy of the whole system. My brain can relax too. My brain thanks me.

As I mentioned in the beginning, there is a downside to this technology. If you ever lose electricity for even a second or two, when it comes back on, FLASH, so does every single Hue bulb in your house including the bedroom ceiling lights.

After being blinded into wakefulness you reach over for your iPad or cell phone and manually turn off each room of lights, or you tell Alexa or Google to do it for you, at least that’s how it normally goes. Not this morning. As I mentioned it also killed my internet hub. No Internet, no controlled devices. Rats, my Capricornian power control foiled again.

I am glad I have been a part of this technical revolution and have seen all the advances since the mid-fifties. For the most part I love technology and the great things it can do for us. There are definitely some problems with it and some things that need to be tweaked and overhauled. I wonder what the next big thing to come out will be?

My smartwatch is telling me I need to get more steps in for the day and that I have ten unread emails. The weather map on the front is showing me rain has cleared out of my area for now with temperatures up into the eighties. Looks like another day inside with the air conditioning on for me, which is another of my all-time favorite inventions.

“Alexa add laundry soap to my shopping list”. Oh right, no internet. Now where did I put a pen?

Until next time…Toni

From 1955: (Just for fun)

Average Cost of new house – $10.950.00 Average Monthly Rent – $87.00 Average Yearly Wages – $4.130.00 Minimum Hourly Rate – $1.00 Average Cost of a new car – $1,900.00 Cost of a gallon of Gas – .23 cents Black and White TV – $99.95

Update:

I managed to make it through the next few days and over the weekend before our technical support could come fix our internet on “Monday between noon and four.” I had to manually turn on and off my lights and my fan until then. How 20th century!

I placed a call in to our internet provider Monday morning to make sure I was still on the list for a repair visit that afternoon, and was assured I was. I sat waiting all Monday afternoon for the tech person to arrive and when five-thirty rolled around and still no word, I called in to the company to find out what happened.

The overly cheerful young man in customer support was also perplexed as he noted I was indeed on the repair list for the day but then had been removed. This is another thing you don’t want to hear. He needed to put me on hold while he checked with his supervisor.

I never got a good answer other than the job prior to mine had taken longer and I would need to call back in the morning and reschedule another appointment. I politely told him I did not think this was a proper way to handle your customers and suggested that they may want to consider letting the customer know if another job is taking longer and then reschedule the customer that got bumped for the next morning.

I told him I didn’t feel like them not calling or showing up was my responsibility or that I should be required to call in to make another appointment. I felt that putting me back on the two-day waiting list was not a good way to handle things. He thanked me for my advice and we hung up.

About a half an hour later my phone rang, and it was an automated voice from my internet provider telling me that our repair tech would be arriving within the next hour. This was a shock to me. That would also put them at our house between six-thirty and seven, not the ideal time of day to have a repair tech in your house.

While we were finishing up supper I noticed a white van pull into our driveway and I went and put Kutter into the bedroom because most repair people don’t like having a pit bull staring at them while they work on your stuff. Kutter is a gentle soul and would only lick people, but his bark and stare can be intimidating.

I was waiting to answer the front door when my phone rang again. It was the tech guy out in his truck, in our driveway. He was asking me if he was at our house by describing my house to me and the vehicles parked in front of it. I wanted to walk outside and lead him by the hand up to my front door, but I resisted and told him yes, he was at my house.

I could tell immediately that he was in a very foul mood. I’m guessing some supervisor told him he had to get to our house tonight! I had never said that to the customer service guy earlier and had left it that I would reschedule my appointment for another day.

He was a young man, early twenties, scowl on his face, no polite chit chat at all. He went up on the roof to make sure the dish was still pointing toward the tower in Dike, then came in the house and got on our computer. Then he was out in his truck and back and forth a few times.

Each time he came in or out he left our front door open, so I’d have to get up and go around and shut it, as the air conditioning was on. Him not being able to shut doors would come into play later. Karma is real too, just like Capricorns.

After about a half an hour he managed to get it repaired and told us we had internet again. I thanked him as he walked out the door, again no word from him at all. I was going to tell him that I appreciated his coming so late but as I said he was in a crabby mood and just walked out the door.

A few minutes later I was surprised when he was back at our front door knocking on it again. Apparently, he is also unfamiliar with doorbells. He asked me if we had any fly spray because his truck had flies in it and a hornet. I didn’t correct him that more than likely it was a mud wasp.

He said he had left his truck door open the entire time he was here, see what I mean about leaving doors open? I did politely tell him that it was never a good idea to leave a door or window open when out on a farm location. It’s summer, there are flies.

I looked around the house and all I could find was a small can of mosquito spray which I said he could try and just keep the can. He didn’t return so I can only wonder at the outcome.

To thank us he left his pile of cigarette butts in my back yard, so my dog could eat them later. Luckily, I saw them first and cleaned up after the guy. How many could one guy smoke? Perhaps I should have told him about the downfalls of smoking too?

It was a delightful experience all around. If you are wondering if I’m going to call my internet provider this morning and let them know what a wonderful experience we had, oh most definitely yes I am.

I was happy later when I could tell Alexa to add sweet and sour sauce to my shopping list and I watched my living room lights slowly dim on their time schedule and then turn off.

The 21st C had been restored to my home and I could once again rest well knowing that technology was up and working for me once again. The joy of power was again surging through my veins.

Epilogue:

Since writing this blog, there was an EF3 tornado that hit Marshalltown, Iowa, among other towns. At first, other than my deep concern for the people who lived there and the businesses that were destroyed and my fear of Zeno’s pizza being gone, I did not feel it had affected me much personally. This proved to be a false statement as I quickly learned that my internet provider was heavily damaged in this same tornado and we would be a week without internet service.

Being without the internet is a very, very small thing compared to people who lost homes, jobs, businesses, and other belongings. My heart goes out to them all.