Yeah, we are cooling off.    The whole week is supposed to be alternating days of dry and wet, but all cold.    Anything below 60 is too cool for me, but we are going to be near freezing on some days.     No matter.   The lawn is all brown and only the shrubs that are freeze proof are left.    I gave away my potted plants and told our yard man that he is welcome to all the pots that are behind the storage building.

I am going to the dentist tomorrow to have one tooth extracted and another prepped for a crown.    I have used up my insurance so all this will be out of pocket.   Ugh.   I hate to spend money on teeth.    I mean, I dislike having their hands in my mouth, gloves or not and then I have to pay them!!   But I am starting to have pain and so it is going to get done.   We can pay it off in payments if we want.  

I go see our primary care doctor on Friday.  My blood pressure is still pretty high and so is my blood sugar.    Plus all I want to do is sleep.    And my back is starting to act up really bad.    The list goes on.   

We had really good spaghetti and meat balls tonight.    I am not an Italian cook and so maybe most people might not like it.   But it is what we are used to.    I like the sauce to be really chunky and thick and I don't use any Italian seasonings.    I do put a bit of sugar in the sauce and we like the meat balls to be really small, each a bite really.   And don't laugh, but I like to put a couple of hard boiled eggs to cook in the sauce for a while too.     And of course, we use cheddar cheese on it too.      How's that for an odd recipe?    I bet Dee would have liked it.

I am still reeling from Bonnie's son.    I know she must be hurting so much.    I would call her, but all we would do is blubber on the phone.      I think I will wait a while on it. 

The death of Dee Churchill, the Coffee Bean Goddess was a shock and a shame and now Bonnie and Wil's son.   

It's a fact of life that the older we get, the more we have to deal with deaths of friends and family and in dealing with them, we are rocked to our very core when we realize how fragile life can be.        We can't do much but comfort the bereaved by praying for them.   We don't know what it's like and there is really no words to bring them comfort.   Sometimes just being there helps.     I have been distracted all day.  

My mind is wandering so I will close this and wish you all a good night.    

I feel as if my day went round and round, stopping here and there for errands, upset with failure to get one of my meds at Walgreen's, gassing up the car, grocery shopping, two Dollar Stores looking for sugar free candy, and of course, the everlovin post office.   And there were meals, lunch was leftovers from last night and all I cooked for supper was brown meat balls and blackeyed peas.    I had leftover rice.   

Starting the day being awakened by hubby saying he heard the garbage trucks coming and running out to put the container by the curb didn't help.     Naturally, it wasn't the garbage pickup he heard, but he had good intentions.   We did have trash pickup today too so all the plastic bags and trimmings are gone from the front yard.    I was glad to see that.   

As I was getting groceries out of the trunk, a van stopped and a black woman asked me if I knew someone in the neighborhood that needed a house cleaner or someone to sit with the elderly or sick.    Now as much as I would love for someone to clean house for me, I am leery of letting just anyone come into our home.    She had a sad tale to tell of no job, kids to feed, etc.   She said the local pantries were good for getting canned food, but once in a while, she would like to give her kids a little meat.   I gave her a $5 bill and told her to go buy some bologna for her kids.  

Actually, I think I would like to sell this house and buy a brand new clean one.    

Suffice to say I am about to hit the hay.    My back is giving me fits and I didn't get done nearly what I had in mind to do today.  But I baked a peach pie and cooked supper and did a load of wash.   Add in all the nitty little chores that one does every day and I suppose that is why I am so pooped.

I suppose my back pain is caused by bone spurs pushing on nerves.    It sure does hurt.   Darvocet numbs the pain some but if I am not careful about what I do, it is like an electrical shock to my spine.    

I really did think my body would hold together longer than this.

I like to look back, remember the "good ol days" and all, but lately I have been thinking more about the coming years and what they might hold for us.    Lordy mercy, it looks as if it will get tougher and tougher.    We hobble around here, both hurting and moaning like we were in our 90s, not our 70s.    Somewhere along the way, our bodies betrayed us, pulled us down and kept us back from what we wanted.      I think this stinks.  

If there can be extreme beauty makeovers, why not body makeovers.    I don't mean exercise and diet, but a real makeover, replacing worn out parts and giving us a strong immune system.   I am not worried about wrinkles and sagging skin, I want a strong body that can last at least till I am a hundred.   ~smile~   Well, maybe not a hundred, but near it.   

I have always maintained that age is just a number and I still stand by that.   It's not the numbers that bother me, it's the sad state of my health.    I know there are people who are seriously ill, really at death's door, and I know there are many who will think it's a silly notion to get a complete overhaul, like when you take a broken down old clunker in and they replace key parts to get it running again.

My blood sugar and blood pressure are presently out of whack and I suppose I will have to see the doctor about it.    I am averse to taking insulin.   I take an oral med for my diabetes and also for my blood pressure.    The pills I take every day would cost a small fortune if not for our insurance.    I'm thankful for that.  I just wish the pills would do a better job.  

You know what?    I am babbling a stream of conciousness post that is sure to bore any reader to tears.   So, I am going to stop and go to bed.  

Stay with me, friends.    I am sure one of these days I will write something worth reading.  

OK.   We have had our freezing spell, water gets turned off, and faucet is left running.   So far no broken pipes.    And now comes the next chapter, warming trend and lots of rain.   I don't know what comes after that. 

The last couple of days have been carbon copies of the day before.    And while I am thinking of it, there are many young people who don't know exactly what a carbon copy is.  Remember how messy they could get when you were trying desperately to type something  neatly?

Tonight we had shrimp etouffee.    So good.   For those of you who might not know, etouffee is shrimp cooked in a wonderful buttery sauce with lots of celery, onion, bell pepper and garlic.    We eat it over white rice with lots of crusty garlic bread.   I had some avocado with mine and Gordon ate tomatoes.   

I had my cap put on today.   It didn't amount to very much and I was out in jig time.   That dentist sure does a good business.    I am putting off any other dental work for a while so we can pay our house and car insurance.    Not a fun way to spend money for sure.    I would much rather spend some money on the house, if only hiring someone to come in and clean it really well.  

When I was a kid, say from about 11 till I was 18, we lived in a house that my dad and his brothers built for us.     One of my best friends built a house across the street and we could walk to St. James School every day.    The best part about the house was the back room which we called a sunporch.   There were windows on three sides and a window seat on the end opposite the back door.   My school desk was against the inside wall between two doors, one to the kitchen and one to our bedroom.  All told there were three doors and about 8 windows in the room.   We had linoleum on the floor and the furniture was what was called ranch style, varnished wooden arms and frame with cushions that Mama had covered in green plastic.  

It was our hang out place.   Daddy painted a checkerboard on a small table so we could play there or bring out the monopoly game.   We played thousands of gamed of canasta there and most of the time there was a jigsaw puzzle there where we all took turns trying to complete.    There was no TV of course but I seem to remember a small radio on my desk.   I am all for bringing back sun porches but I suppose today the video games and computer stuff wouldn't fit in that primitive setting.   It was all about interacting, talking, singing, and playing games.    We only had one phone and it was on a little shelf in the hall by the living room.   That's where the TV went too when we got one, in the living room.

You know I really do like to look back at all of our old fashioned customs back in the 40s and 50s and I guess it's because it seems to me to be such a simple time.  Did we think it was simple back then?    I don't think we gave a moment's thought about simplicity or anything else like that.    We just lived.   We didn't have live war pictures on TV, or talking heads beating a dead horse on every subject under the sun.   No matter what, the news hounds love news even if they have to make it up.  All this endless talking just complicates things and frankly causes me to turn off the set.   

I prefer to concentrate on living every day as if it were my last, hoping that I am doing at least a few things right.    How about you?    Do you long for the "good ol days"?    Don't forget, if you had to go back to those good old days, you would have to give up a lot of time savers, electronic toys and labor saving devices.  

I'll take today and live it to my best.   

Ya'll take care, sleep well and tell someone you love them.