The Chronicles of Nani - Creative Inspiration

Here's this weeks new vlog. It's a little artsier and a little more opinionated. Enjoy?

An Exciting Week Ahead

If you're one of the regulars at my “coffee shop in cyberspace” I have no doubt noticed some changes. The Chronicles of Nani is going video!

First off, I've mentioned it before, thanks to MS and what it's done to my body, not my brain, but definitely my body, I not only don't walk, but I don't write and I really can't even type. Last year in September my dad and I went to Cleveland Clinic to talk to a physical therapist about whether or not I had the ability to work at all and if I was qualified for any sort of disability income. After much testing and talking to the therapist he determined that I am really not able to do any kind of work for an income. What's even worse is I haven't been able to work in enough years that I am not qualified for any kind of disability. (I am going to talk to a disability attorney to see if there's any way that I can qualify. I waited until I had spent all of my investments and even cashed in my annuity for retirement and spent it all before I became desperate for something, anything.)

Matt, the therapist I saw, walked out to the door with my dad and me. He shook both of our hands and when he shook mine he said, in a truly less than happy tone, that he was sorry there was nothing he could do for me. My dad was quiet as we got back into the van and he climbed my wheelchair down to the floor before he got into the driver seat. He was truly surprised at the big smile on my face. While Matt was finalizing the paperwork I was becoming inspired. 

One of the many MS symptoms is insomnia. That's an interesting twist because severe fatigue and oversleeping is also an MS symptom. I'm a natural nocturne, since high school, so I'm up late anyway and on insomnia nights I'm sometimes still awake when the alarm for my 7 AM pills goes off. After I scrapbooked a lot during the day and even wrote in my personal journal and the journaling for the scrapbook pages (Keep in mind that when I say "write" I mean speech to text but then I have to go in and fix all the mistakes that the text part picked up wrong from my speech.) My hands and forearms are usually painfully numb. I am the watching a lot of late night TV. There's some decent comedy and a lot of interviews that are pretty interesting. One of the things I've noted in the shows that I've been watching is it there are a lot of people making decent money doing video blogs or as they're better known vlogs.

What inspired me was that, while I'm no longer able to pack up paperwork, snacks, etc., to continue as a self-help group leader for the MS Society, I still talk to a lot of people about MS. There are many different kinds of MS and even more symptoms of MS. I freely answer what it's like living with it. I am an optimist and I try to make the best of every new challenge the progressive disease gives me. But I still have plenty of bad days and I have to deal with those too. People make an actual living doing videos talking about hair and just their lives going to restaurants and out clubbing at night. I actually have important things I can talk about that can help people and there are plenty of medical suppliers and even drug companies that, if I have enough viewers, might be interested in advertising on my blog or YouTube page.

It's a small amount that you have to earn per year to count as income to be considered for disability. Once I have small earnings for a couple of years then suddenly everything that I had paid in since I was 16 becomes valid for my possibly being able to get a monthly disability check. It may not be a lot but it would help. I have insurance and a husband who handles the out-of-pocket expenses, but last year it still cost $800 for an MRI alone and that wasn't the only thing insurance covered but still had a big portion out of pocket left over. (And an MRI is an annual necessity with MS.)

I missed my first planned launch date because I wasn't quite ready on January 1. It wasn't long after that that through reading and a family member in Europe who had COVID-19, the coronavirus and the birth of a pandemic made me start to rethink my idea for a Vlog. People are getting sick and dying all over the world, is talking about how I'm dealing with MS a little less important? My doctor has had me in quarantine at home since the end of February. I've only been out of the house a few times and when I do go outside I'm not supposed to leave my driveway. And she still has me staying at home now.

The coronavirus and things we do and don't and didn't know, and things we were and weren't told in a timely manner that could've given us more of a chance to keep it from spreading so much in our country has just been insane. The discovery that wearing masks can protect other people so if everyone wears a mask and practices social distancing we protect each other is helpful but there are actually people who believe that wearing mask is against their first amendment rights and even some that don't believe there is a coronavirus/COVID-19. (It's a PANDEMIC, people have gotten the disease and died all over the world and all over our country. I kind of think it's real.) You don't even have to get off the couch and the Internet is huge. Read some reputable medical sources and not just memes on Facebook.

The one thing good about quarantine is that it's letting people realize prejudiced injustice is still real and we have murderers who are supposed to protect us. There is peaceful and safe with the virus that still surrounds us, protesting. One of the bad things is that there are those things to realize and it took a world pandemic for us to pay attention to them.

But stress and depression and even a major creative block from all the terrible things going on in the world that I'm not necessarily in, but still a part of, made me realize that I'm able to talk about my living with MS, but also living with MS and still being part of the world. I'm actually feeling even more inspired than I was almost a year ago. Now my new goal for getting my Vlog on the Internet is "before I turn 54.” I made that declaration at the beginning of last week but as I'm looking at it right now it means the first video will be up on YouTube by Tuesday because I'm only gonna be 53 until 7:45 AM on Wednesday.

Wish me luck.  I hope everyone who watches my videos will find some reason to smile and some tidbit to make them a little more understanding of people like me and people like everybody else.

Roses Are Red

I gotta be honest; I’m not going to miss January this year. I’d like to sing “Thank God and Greyhound She’s Gone” for her, but the bus is stuck in the snow! January may be gone, but it seems she left little sister, February, with her ugly weather. Like I asked Mother Nature in the letter I wrote her “Is it ‘that time’ of the century for you?” Holy PMS (Plethora of More Snow) Mother Nature needs a BIG Midol!
 
Weather aside, welcome to February, the month of love! We’ll see Hallmark ads that will move us on TV, best of music collections all about being in love, 10% sales on items with hearts and flowers; items that have been marked up %25 for Valentine’s Day to begin with and the biggest true love sign of all; pitchers and catchers report to Florida and Arizona!

I had a burning question this morning when I woke up. I’m prone to waking up with silly thoughts, questions or earworms that make me wonder what the heck I was dreaming about before I woke up. Today’s odd thought was about “Roses are red, violets are blue.” That verse had really become an example of trite expression but at some point it was new and sweet. There was a time when it was an actual profession of love or at least a verse in a greeting card that was sincere and not funny.

As recently as 1962, Bobby Vinton had a hit song and album titled “Roses are Red” which included the lyric “Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet my love, but not as sweet as you.” In the song it was a verse that signed a high school yearbook, but that verse would be a joke-verse in a high school yearbook now

I did some searching and found an interesting Wikipedia entry about it that traced “roses are red, violets are blue” back to a 1784 English nursery rhyme:

The rose is red, the violet's blue,
The honey's sweet, and so are you.
Thou are my love and I am thine;
I drew thee to my Valentine:
The lot was cast and then I drew,
And Fortune said it shou'd be you.

The Wikipedia article notes a form of that the verse in Les Miserables in 1862 that was more likely influenced by Sir Edmund Spenser’s stanza in The Faeire Queene in 1590.

It’s an interesting little pre-valentine look at the evolution of something that was once heartfelt and endearing that became:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Onions stink,
And so do you.

Okay so I gave you Bobby Vinton in 1962. When is the most recent time you heard or read about something that stared “roses are red,” that was sincere?

How Far Have We NOT Come?

I was incensed when I read this story this morning.

Some real Shock and Awe:
Racially profiled and cuffed in Detroit

Shoshana and I both live in Ohio and have similarities in backgrounds. Just the father I look like doesn’t frighten the childlike minds of the paranoid.

I don’t say that to insult children, most of whom are smarter than the prejudiced fools who base “suspicious behavior" on how a person looks. Idiot adults have to teach children to be stupid.

We have to beware of the terrorists from outside out country and just as aware of the small-minded terrorism inside our country that will point out someone based on appearance while they don’t even see someone who looks like them actually acting suspicious on the other side of where they are sitting and pointing. In many ways the terrorists who attacked us ten years ago have won as long as their accomplices in this country point their paranoid little fingers without actually seeing anything, our way of life is disrupted and our freedoms have changed, many of them gone.

Please read Shoshana’s story and share it wherever you can.

Sunday Ponderings

Just a few things that have been on my mind today, a little long, a little controversial too.


“Grow Up and Eat Your Vegetables!”


I love this time of year, veggies a plenty! Whether it’s a roadside stand, a farmers market or that friendly sign at Kroger or Giant Eagle telling me how they are supporting local farmers by carrying Ohio-grown produce whenever possible, the fruits and veggies are naturally ripe and fresh! Last weekend when Pop barbecued for my birthday, he also gave me my birthday present. My birthday presents from Pop are always awesome! I got a bag of cherries, a half dozen white peaches and a big bag of zucchini. Pop always picks up my favorites, down to choosing the white over yellow peaches. With him working in the produce department, he picked my goodies up after work Saturday morning. I couldn’t get fresher if I got them myself. But, I also get the “pick of the litter.” Pop knows what looks the best coming off the truck in the morning! I still have a couple of zucchini left, but the peaches were finished by mid-week and well, the cherries lasted through Sunday!

In the world of trying to make less of me, I tried Nutrisystem. It’s a good program if you can afford it and if you have a modest amount to lose. For me it was a good jump start. I dropped 40 pounds after a slow start. Their counselors on the phone are great. I switched a few things around and changed my dairy or protein add-ins to mostly protein instead of dairy and then I started losing better. Well, the start of the year I quit losing, even gained a little. Mostly due to stress as I was going along on the journey to the ultimate MS diagnosis.

Unfortunately, while the switching out most of the dairy worked for getting the weight loss going, lowered Vitamin D goes with MS and my blood work said my Vitamin D levels were DRASTICALLY low. That’s not Nutrisystem’s fault or the fault of the counselors. I didn’t even know I had MS when that “fix” was made in my diet. A year later the only “good riddance” feelings I have is to the prepackaged food. The diet plan is sound but the food as a whole isn’t so great.

So, I did some doctoring with the food, adding spices to save the flavor. Some of it was beyond help. Those things were mostly the dinner entrées, which are usually just swimming in not-so-good to gross gravies. I do still have a few breakfasts left that I will miss when they are gone.

Visiting the community message boards there was a shock! I was hoping that someone had already called counseling and gotten an “Okay” to dump most of those gravies or at least had some good ideas for fixing the flavor. What I found was a lot of very unsupportive people insisting you had to “do it MY way” because they were “experts.” It only takes losing some successfully and posting a lot to be an “expert.” Oh jeez, I can’t stand uncredentialed experts. The board bullies were brutal to people and probably lose Nutrisystem as many customers as they help.

The one thing the board bullies had in common was that they HATED vegetables. Oh, GROW UP! I’m thinking that’s maybe why they ended up there in the first place! For me it was mostly the nuts. I discovered my greatest nemesis in the weight gain world was the portion sizes of nuts, pumpkin seeds and the like. Maybe that explains the cholesterol issues for me? I got my fat servings under control and not only did I drop some weight, but I got my cholesterol levels down too. Of course, I didn’t get the adults who don’t eat vegetables. I mean, they hate ALL vegetables? What are teaching their kids?

I’ve always eaten a lot of vegetables, often raw and when they are cooked I only seldom add any more than a little spice or a touch of butter. The bully experts told me I had to eat all the gravy because it was important for "the stats." They all seemed to agree that the answer to the gravy issue was to steam large amount of vegetables and pour the gravy over them because it made it easier to eat the vegetables. What? After already saying that I ate lots of veggies raw or naked and liked them they tell me to put the gravy I don’t like on my veggies? My answer was that I quit ordering the stuff with gravy. That made the selection very limited.

So, I switched to Weight Watchers when I found out how bad my Vitamin D level was. Like I said, not at all blaming Nutrisystem for it, but I’m eating lots of dairy now and losing again. I’m also not bored at all and no gravy baths for anything because I cook it and my veggies-a-plenty are raw or un-gravied too! I’m diet-wise in a better place.


Stem Cells


I’ve always thought that stem cell research was a good idea. The results there have been in tests are near miraculous, but I’ve never climbed on the soap box and supported it because it didn’t promise a benefit to ME, so I hadn't researched a lot. My bad on that one. You never know when something that’s a good idea for “other people” may end up being an idea you want more done about for YOU! That’s kind of where I am now. There is a lot of research being done on the results of stem cell treatments for MS patients. So now I’m stepping up on my soap box in support of it. It was a great idea before, but when it became personal, my eyes opened wide enough to see my empty soap box.

The political world is quite threatening. I am not a registered anything but a registered voter. As far as party goes, I’m American. But I’m a disabled American now and I’m starting to see myself leaning left enough that I could totally walk away from the Republican party members because they have become quite anti-people. If that party has its way, the healthcare reform that was passed will be revoked. In addition to healthcare for people who can’t afford it, it also means that if my husband were to change jobs, I’d be uninsured with a life-long debilitating disease. That reform includes the end of “pre-existing conditions” as a reason for an insurance provider to refuse to cover someone. In the end, money is SO much more important than care, right?

Also, greatly influenced by the religious anti-choice nuts, the Republican party is really paying at least lip service to cutting funding and halting stem-cell research, because I guess research to save lives encourages abortions.

Don’t misunderstand me on this one. Anti-choice is a carefully chosen term. As an American I am pro choice. I don’t understand how anyone can not be. Personally, I would never have an abortion or encourage anyone close to me to have one. I also personally don’t condone use of fertility clinics. My personal thought is that there is a reason for unplanned pregnancies and a reason some who want babies can’t have them. It’s my spiritual beliefs that say if you are pregnant, didn’t plan to be and don’t want a baby, DO NOT KILL IT. Have the baby and give it up so the parents who want a child can adopt it.

Of course, I realize my belief that it’s killing a baby is religious. In a country where we have the freedom to choose, or not choose at all, a religion that’s right for each individual, we cannot make laws that prefer one religion to any other. If there are religions that do not hold that a fetus is a human life until birth, how can we as Americans govern when the fetus is a life?

The mini-abortion rant does go back to stem cells, really. There are two things the Republicans that are sleeping with the church ladies need to consider. The first is that not all stem cell research is embryonic stem cells. There is a hospital I was reading about, not in the US, because the treatment isn’t approved here, that uses your own stem cells, drawn from fat cells that are processed and reinjected. There have been good reviews from MS patients who have the courage and money to try it out. Last I checked the most obese country in the world has plenty of fat to donate to that cause.

The second thing, while they are kissing butt for the anti-choice religions, is MY religious beliefs. Who do I have to cozy up with for my religious convictions to be a political star? I don’t know if someone is going to Hell for having an abortion. As a ‘lil old human, I’m, not qualified to say “God says….” Best I can do is say “I feel like what I am doing will or won’t please God.” But let me ask this of those church ladies. If it’s a baby before it’s born and it’s killed. Does it go to Hell too? My belief here, it would be un-American to choose a religious influence to create a law, my spiritual beliefs find some solace in that the stem cells from aborted fetuses can be instruments to save people that are already living with diseases. The anti-choice church ladies may be seeking to strip those lives of their purpose.

Ah but, these are the same people who throw their own children in front of cars to keep people from going in to a family planning clinic. People or a soul’s purpose have little meaning to them compared to their own agenda and being right at any cost.

If you have an opportunity to talk to a candidate or your legislators, ask them where they stand on stem cell research and if they’re against it, WHY?


Feline World


David and I are thinking of expanding out family again. It’ll be a while yet. We didn’t want to run out and adopt another cat right away, part because we wanted to honor Baggle’s memory and let Kaline and Carla get used to each other without him. Yeah, they are a little different together than they were. Kaline and Baggle were that way after we lost Chester too. But the other part was that we do a lot of weekenders in the summer and have vacation plans coming up too. It wouldn’t be fair to introduce a new cat and then leave. All three of them needed us there as they got used to Carla being in the family. There are definitely things we could have done better with introducing Carla and I’d like to make sure we do them better with the next new cat. So, we’re probably looking at mid to late fall, like we did with Carla.

We do have a name picked out, Joe or Jo Morgan, Joe for a boy and Jo for a girl. I think we’ll probably use the middle name, but as David says, “it depends on the cat.” I guess I gotta agree with that. The reason for the choice was that we have a Red Sox cat and a Tigers cat. We give bonus cat treats when all three of our teams, Tigers, Red Sox and Reds win. I thought we ought to have a cat named for a Reds Hall of Famer. But David thought it was a little unfair to have two cats named for my teams and only one for his. Joe Morgan is the name of the Hall of Fame member of the Big Red Machine, 1972-79, and also the name of the Boston Red Sox manager, 1988-1991. No, not the same guy. Their playing careers overlapped just briefly at the end of the Red Sox manager’s career and the beginning of the Big Red Machine member’s. It’s a puurrfect name for our third baseball kitty!

In The News Editorials

There have been a few notable things in the news lately and of course, I have opinions. I read national news daily through my Google home page and the local news through the Toledo Blade’s website.

Fatal Fall in Texas

Yesterday in the second inning of the game between the Oakland As and Texas Rangers at Texas. Josh Hamilton threw a foul ball up to a father and his young son in the front row. The father reached over the get the ball and lost his balance, falling over the rail, 20 feet down behind a scoreboard.

The 39-year-old man died while paramedics did everything they could to save him. His 6-year old son was in the front seat of the ambulance.

I watched the footage, a few times. So sad. So shocking.

There is talk of changes needing to be made. But what kind of changes?

Players won’t be allowed to throw balls in the stands anymore? I’m sure an understandably distraught Josh Hamilton, who didn’t throw balls into the stands often, won’t be doing it again anytime soon. I suppose hitters will be fined if they hit a home run too.

Raising the already waist-high railings would change the game, put balls back in play that would have been home runs or fouled out of play. That could actually make it dangerous for players, having more opportunity for those leaping catches.

The Rangers have started a fund for the family. My thought would be first to make sure there is counseling available for the son, who witnessed his father’s deadly fall. The first empathetic pain I felt was for “Dad’s catching me a ball…” He’s going to need someone to talk to who can help him understand, and not feel responsible.

After seeing the video, it was an accident, a horrible accident. My skin will crawl if there’s a lawsuit, especially when the Rangers are already taking steps to help the family.

Today, for a while, please keep that little boy, Josh Hamilton, the Rangers organization and soul of that loving dad, in your thoughts and prayers.



Jobs Figures

The job figures are dropping again. That’s bad news, especially personally as I’m hoping to be back in the market in the next year!

Washington Politicos, this isn’t a Republic back scratchers and Democrat back scratchers thing. It’s an US thing. It makes me dizzy how many times a way to get jobs back runs around in my head as I try to articulate one more time to the customer service rep in India what’s wrong with my Japanese made electronics or my Mexican built car. If the item is assembled in another country and the customer service is in another country, then part of the product is foreign and subject to the percentage of it that is in import tax. If the jobs don’t come back, companies that deny the American workforce a livelihood will at least be paying for the extended unemployment or welfare necessary to keep Americans alive.

Henry Ford had the right idea when he planned to pay and price his people and products so that his employees, all of them, could afford to drive a Ford. Now it’s all some CEO’s third wife wants a fourth house. So you raise the prices and cut the staff, but expect the same output. That’s not America. That’s a two-class society with a lower class sweat shop.


Caylee’s Law

I am among the many people who was shocked to find that there are not laws that require a parent or guardian to report a missing or dead child in a set minimum time. A child doesn’t have to be missing long at all to report it to police, but it never occurred to me that there wasn’t a maximum. That Caylee Anthony was missing for a MONTH before it was reported and the defense could even think of using a weak story of, “Oh, it wasn’t like that at all, she died in a pool a month ago,” was just appauling.

Just like it takes a deadly accident to get a traffic light at a dangerous intersection, it takes a suspiciously dead toddler to wake up lawmakers to needed legislation.

From the parts of the trial I watched, what angered me most was the right not to testify as a defendant. Testifying doesn’t incriminate you. It may confirm that your deeds incriminated you, but the deeds are already done. If I’d been on that jury, I’d likely have voted the same way they did. There just wasn’t enough hard evidence for the stronger charges. I suspect, Casey Anthony testifying would have supplied either total reasonable doubt or unquestionably reasonable undoubt.

This was a huge trail that left a lot of people feeling “dirty” about our judicial system. We do have the ability to make right some wrongs in our laws. I’m sure no one ever imagined that it was necessary, I sure didn’t, but there are sick people in this world who would not bother reporting their child missing. It should be a law that if broken, makes your children wards of the court and gives them a better future than a parent or parents that care that little.

It’s not a law to be made because this injustice happened. The injustice happened because the law wasn’t made.



Commercial Break…

Okay, commercial commentary break. Not that I’m a huge fan of Miller anyway, but what’s with the un-delivery guy, the one who steals bad beer from events that are to classy for bad beer, insulting our troops? Iraq is NOT pronounced /EYE-rack/ I would think, I’d hope, that our defenders fighting in a war there have at least heard the name of the country they’re in enough to have heard it pronounced /EE-rock/. Anyway, EE-rock is the closest American English pronunciation to the proper Arabic. EYE-rack is the closest to American Redneck, and not the “LOL Redneck” ala Jeff Foxworthy.

I’m just saying, for the probable paycheck a regular commercial image makes, it’s no wonder the rest of the world thinks were rich, stupid and arrogant.


Toledo Weather:

Boy it was hot today!


In Sports…

Red Sox and Tigers both won their games in the daily “bonus cat treats” qualifier games. With the Reds up 2 by going into the bottom of the ninth, Carla came up on the table and cried her plaintive meow in concern when she realized that Francisco Cordero was on the mound. I tell the TV over and over that anything less than a 4-run lead is not safe to have Cordero pitching.

After walking the leadoff batter, he got usual Reds-killer, Ricky Weeks out. There was hope. Then a wild pitch puts the runner in scoring position, followed by a triple. The second out came on an incredible play by Ryan Hannigan, blocking the plate and taking a hit as the runner from third tried to go through him.

Then there was another walk, then a soft hit. Bases loaded. Mark Kotsay at the plate. All it took was a single with two runners in scoring position to render Hannigan’s heroics non-existent and two of the sweetest baseball kitties running off their frustrated energy on the stairs…and in the kitchen. I need to see what they knocked over.

Cordero is a cat-hater.

That’s the news. Good night and have a better tomorrow!

Prettier Than Pink

Pink has a new song that’s getting air play now, Perfect. I love the song, it makes me think about Tori and Rina and I remember the awkward self-image that I had, that most teens have. I wanted to use part of the lyrics in a scrapbook page of the girls, so I looked up the lyrics to get the proper words to quote it.

I found out what I love and what I want to buy is the radio version. The lyrics I found are the same song with the f-bomb thrown around flagrantly, in the hook of the song. Not only does it not seem to fit the meter of the song, it makes a beautiful song that a mother would dedicate to her daughter, a raunchy song a mother wouldn’t want her daughter, or son, to even listen to. It changes a plea to realize “you’re nothing less than perfect to me,” to a middle finger to everything, “I don’t care,” attitude.

Pink is 31 years old and pregnant with her first child. I would think young enough to remember the need for some compassion at that time in her life and old enough to really be thinking about that child in the future instead of just the “here and now.” Ah well, maybe that’s me another decade+ older than that with very special teenage girls in my life. I’m still going to use the words from the radio version on a scrapbook page and I’m still going to but a copy of the radio version for my iPod.

By the way, I don’t have the iPod yet! I have a few new songs that I’ve bought and put away on my hard drive for it, but the iPod comes when I’ve lost 50 pounds! I had gained a little over the holidays and then plateaued. Officially today that plateau finally broke and I’m losing again. Whew! I look at the numbers and I’m proud of the 40, but I’m itching for the iPod now! While I’m goals updating, I have my consultation with the neurosurgeon scheduled, so that’s moving now. The reclaiming the office and train room is not so moving because of the weather. We have some drafts in our sweet 50’s house and it’s chilly in the rooms we use less often. R2D2, my office space heater, lives in the master bedroom right now and I like him there for sleeping. I really don’t have the free mobility to move it back and forth, so for now, I’m not doing a lot in the upstairs rooms, a little here and there, but the big effort will come later. Now, remember the “this or something better” with all my wishes and goals. If I need surgery and the recovery keeps the man cave/woman cave behind schedule, I’ll consider recovery the “something better” that will allow me to work faster and better in those rooms.

Now it’s sleepy time. After a few errands in beginning of the day and the rest of the day will belong to XML class. Maybe Sunday I’ll get a scrapbooking break before the Super Bowl!

Big Blue Radio Buh-Bye!

The Big Blue Radio is the 57” widescreen projection TV that was in our living room. My Mom bought it in late spring 2003. She only got to enjoy her huge TV for a few months before she passed in September, but she loved that TV!

I inherited the TV and it came to Toledo with me in March 2007. David and I enjoyed the picture that was really too big for the room it was in, but we watched many baseball and football games on it, including the Red Sox winning the World Series in 07 and the Giants and Patriots in the Super Bowl in 2008. Then the blue lines started to appear, a prelude to the picture tube dying. After the tube died, the audio was great, but it was just a blank blue screen, thus the Big Blue Radio.

The Big Blue Radio took a huge truck to get it to Ohio and three men to get it into the house. David and me getting it out of our home on our own wasn’t going to happen. Even with help moving it, it wasn’t going to get anywhere strapped to the roof of a Camaro! Even David’s sport utility didn’t have the room to transport it.

So, it sat there. We had a small TV on my cedar chest hooked up to the cable and the Big Blue Radio stood next to it collecting dust. We had no idea how to get rid of it. It was over the weight limit for garbage pick-up for a TV and it would have been very expensive to rent a truck to take it somewhere. It was a huge, non-functioning, piece of furniture taking up space in our living room.

Last night, after a last call to the city to try to get it removed if we could wheel it out, David suggested putting it on Craig’s List. “Free to a good home.” Well, free to ANY home!

I posted it in the Toledo free section this morning and had an email box with about 8 offers to come and get the TV. The first email was from someone hoping there was some kind of working picture on the TV but the second email was from someone who works with TVs, broken ones that need work. He came over this evening, around 8:30. David helped him get the Big Blue Radio out of the house and into his waiting van. The he helped David bring the TV that we brought from Grandma’s out of his SUV and into the house. Very cool reciprocal aid!

Gotta love the Internet for this. Yes, this type of transaction must be done with care! I used my “extra” email address in my ad and didn’t offer a phone number until a few emails were exchanged and I was sure the move was going to happen. It turned out that the man and his wife who claimed the TV were very kind and also grateful for the free TV. We were equally grateful for free removal of it!

In the end, our east side of town neighbor got a TV to fix up and sell, and the Big Blue Radio is still worth some money as a working TV if he has any luck with fixing it. We finally get the broken TV that was too big for the room out of our living room without having to pay movers or disposal fees. And we got the new TV moved into the house for free!

The Internet rocks!

Extended Stimulus: $6,500 Tax Credit

This is cool information to have if you are looking into or are in the process of moving and I know I’ve been reading blogs that tell of people moving. The US government’s tax credit for first-time homebuyers that was scheduled to expire in November 2009 has been extended!

In the extension, the 2010 Tax Buyer Credits, which go until April 30, 2010, with a closing by June 30, 2010, first-time homebuyers are eligible for an $8,000 credit. First-time homebuyers are defined as anyone who has not owned a home in the past three years. But there’s more, more of us included in the tax credits! If you are a current homeowner, you may qualify for a $6,500 Tax Credit. To qualify for the “move-up” credit, you must have lived in your home for five of the past 8 years.

The income limitation to be eligible for the credit is $125,000 a year for an individual and $225,000 annually for a family. The new home you’re purchasing must be valued below $800,000. It’s a pretty large sphere of eligibility.

According to information I read at the Coldwell Banker site, buying a new home not only helps in creating new jobs or at least creating some job security for people, but one new home purchase adds up to $60,000 to the local economy. Just in case buying a new home and the tax credit isn’t enough to make you feel good!

So, if you’re moving into a new home soon or thinking about making a switch, click that link above and check it out! A little credit never hurts!

How Did My Wheat Field Do?

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Wheat Food Council. All opinions are 100% mine.

I’m taking advantage of a minute to check back in and tell you about my wheat field!

Remember in December when I told you about How Wheat Works, a great interactive opportunity to learn abut one of the most important crops in America? Well, indeed I did plant a cyber wheat crop and I kept with it after telling you about it.

How Wheat Works is from the Wheat Foods Counciland it’s a neat way to learn a thing or two. Whit all the wheat fields David and I see when we photograph trains, it was very cool to see my bowl of cereal grow up!

It’s a terrific learning tool for kids who will get to choose what kind of wheat they grow by what kind of end product they want. I can also suspect from the number of adults who have Facebook farms, it’s fun for grownups too. I had fun with it! I grew soft wheat to make breakfast cereal. Seeing my products in the cyber store also included some valuable hints for reading the labels and how to know the difference between grain and whole grain products

Now when I eat my Malt-O-Meal hot cereal, I can add to the warmth inside knowing that I’m helping others too. Having completed my journey from the farm to the fork at How Wheat Works, there has been 2 pounds of wheat flour donated to Operation Homefront, a nonprofit organization that assists needy US Troops’ families. ADM and ConAgra foods, two of the world’s largest millers and grain cars we’ve seen on trains that roll by those wheat fields, make the donation to Operation Homefront possible.

Is a New Place Part of Your New Year?

With a new year comes a lot of new choices. As the temperatures are down like the economy all over the country we all find ourselves trying to shovel out. Whether it’s snow places that just don’t see snow, or a pile of debt and rejection letters from resumes sent, part of that shoveling out, your fresh start, could mean moving.

I absolutely adore my current housemate and plan to remain bunking with him for a long time, but I hated moving in with him! That’s the time old truth that you have to be prepared to move! Whether you’re looking for an apartment or house, you can find many choices of homes for rentat Move.com. It’s an excellent first stop!

I’ve talked before about the heartbreak of reading about and seeing pets that can’t stay with the people they love because moving to an apartment meant NO PETS. What about a woman living alone moving for that first job after college? Someone looking for a short lease taking a temporary job in another state? Mve.com serves all those instances and then some!

Move.com gives you the opportunity to search for the area, type of living facilities, price and amenities for the right place for you. But you get more than that, there are great links for moving tips, getting your credit score, even how to decorate to give the illusion of more space and still be able to get you security deposit back when you leave.

I wish I’d have had the time and presence of mind to get some of their checklists for moving. There are things that stayed in Michigan that I swore I put in the box to come to Ohio. I even had to rescue my glass pates from my Dad and Aunt’s place. I saw them displayed like they were crystal on my Aunt’s hutch. A little bit of a snicker for me, because they were dollar store plates, but they sure did look good there! My Aunt was great about wrapping them up for me to take home. Can you imagine if she hadn’t liked them? IF I ever saw them again, I’d have had to buy them back from the Salvation Army Store!

Some day David and I will move. I’m not hoping it’s soon, but when we do, I want to take advantage of being able to move the organized way. Move.com offers the tools to find the place that’s right for you to live and tips for making it the smoothest transition possible!

If you’re even thinking about a move, it’s definitely worth a click!

End of The Naughties?

I just read on a friend’s Facebook page that “The Naughties,” as in 20-naught-whatever number ends the year, is the phrase the illustrious media has coined to call the decade we are leaving behind. Well, I never used the 20-naught phrase for the years anyway, it was two-thousand, two-thousand-one, etcetera to the year that ends tonight, two-thousand-nine, but I love the double-meaning of “the Naughties.” Okay, maybe I’m the only one who rode the coattails of Santa’s recent visit with that one. There have definitely been some things to award some major world figures a permanent place on the Naughty list!

In looking at the past decade there has been plenty of bad and good, maybe a little more bad on a world and economic scale and maybe more opportunities than rewards on a personal level, but the outlook going into the 20-teens is good. I am a decade older and hopefully that means a decade wiser. I’m definitely a decade richer in the things that are truly important. A decade ago my sweet little nieces were 5 and dealing with the child’s struggle of divorce. They lost their Mom only a few months into the decade and now, with the support and love from all of us, they are well-adjusted and incredibly wise young women. Deaths and births are a normal part of the balance of life. Part of healing from loss is realizing that what you have is still really weighted on the joy side and not the sadness side. I’ve dealt with the pain of losing some very dear people in the past decade, including too many people this year. But I am ever warmed by the great memories of them I hold and I’ve welcomed new friends into my family and new life into the families in my world, including my wonderful husband and a new baby in my family of friends scheduled for the beginning of the year!

As I get ready to turn off the computer for the last time this decade, I remember all that is so wonderful in my world and pray for those less fortunate to find the comfort and security they seek. As I said in a comment on Edna’s blog, we can sometimes hear the wind chimes gently ring in our bedroom because there is a small draft. That’s why I bunker into extra blankets, but we have a ceiling to hang wind chimes from in the bedroom. There are so many around us who don’t have that.

In a year that David and I felt pain reading articles of people who’ve had to take their beloved pets to shelters because they lost their homes and had to move to apartments that don’t accept pets or who just couldn’t afford to care for them, we were able to open our home to another furbaby and donate a little money and time at the shelter events.

In a holiday season when I’ve seen parents with pained faces saying “no” to their kids, I was able to take Tori and Rina out for lunch yesterday. I also got to hear 15 years of wisdom tell me how important the time we spend together is to them and that lunch and coffee at Starbucks was one of the best presents they had this year. What a small price to pay for such an awesome gift for me!!

So yes, 2009 was a year of many challenges and lows but one of so many high points too. My brother’s wedding and my own reception were definite high points, as were the two weeks out west for our honeymoon that David and I shared. As I mentioned in the yearly letter I sent with the Christmas Cards this year, the low points have really let the strength in our marriage shine and left me feeling more secure and in love than I could have imagined I’d feel a year ago.

Now, going into 2010, a new decade, I look forward to the relationships with not just David, but my family of fiends getting deeper and warmer, finishing school and my network certification testing and being able to increase our household income and security and Kaline is finally coming to terms with Carla and even playing with her a bit. The future looks good.

I want to wish everyone a 2010 that brings you more of everything that was good this year and less of anything that as bad and may you find the strength in yourself to find that good and help it grow.

Happy New Year!!

I'm Growing My Own Cereal

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Wheat Food Council. All opinions are 100% mine.

One of the cool things David and I get as an added bonus of railfanning is seeing lots of great American agriculture. We see the plants sprout and grow and watch the harvests. It’s very cool! I just checked out a site called How Wheat Works where anyone can visit and learn about those amber waves of grain.

The site gives you a “Farm to Fork” lesson about wheat through an interactive wheat field you grow. Harvest and make food with. Through the program, the Wheat Foods Council not only teaches about their very versatile food staple, but the give back. For every person who signs up and grows a virtual field of wheat, they’ll donate a real 2 pounds of wheat flour to OperationHomefront.net, which provides assistance to US Troops and their families in need.

As a virtual wheat farmer, you’ll get to choose wheat to grow and harvest. There are 6 basic types of wheat. I didn’t know that! I just thought, wheat is wheat, ya know? I’m growing soft red winter wheat with the plan to make cereal in my virtual what field! My soft wheat is also used to make pita bread and of course, that means pita chips to go with my red pepper hummus! It’s such a Nani crop! If you are growing one of those Facebook farms, how can you resist this? It’s an opportunity to farm, learn and give back!

Keeping an Eye on the Market

You know this is such a tough economy to live in for all of us. The job market is so dismally connected to that. That’s why I’m back in school and why so many people find themselves relocating to go to where the jobs are!

If you’re moving or uprooting your family, no doubt you’re keeping an eye on today's mortgage rates. Mortgage rates have everything to do with you buying a new house and someone else being able to buy your old one! It’s good to have someplace where you can monitor the pulse on an important factor in keeping afloat today! Being prepared will help to ease the stress of taking that large step into the hopefully brighter unknown!