WOMEN AGES 50+ FOR JUNE 2017

Becca – It is definitely too hot here for a fuchsia. I live in Zone 8; there are some plants in Zone 9 that we can grow but we have to ‘baby’ them. I’ve tried with ‘no success’ (other than my orchids which are on my glassed-in porch), some that can't take the heat of it in the afternoon; but this should change once we decide on how to 'heat' and 'cool' it. The A/C man says that the 'best' way is to run another vent (with another line going to it, rather than cutting it out where an inside vent is, which would take air from the room and then we'd be paying more for electricity.

We have orange trumpet flowers that usually grow wild, they are excellent hummingbird attractioners; but, they grow and are considered very invasive, like wisteria or honeysuckle.

Your request for prayer for your elderly neighbor is on my Prayer List; I’m sorry that she has started having some issues with her health.

Louise in Vegas – We have a Sam’s but not a Costco; and I am not a member because with just Louis and me we just don’t have enough storage room to warrant buying in bulk at Sam’. DDnL#1 is a member; and, I guess we could buy some things and split the cost and the items.

Toni in Tennessee – Some states are called ‘no-fault’ states where all you have to state is that the marriage is 'irretrievable broken' and can’t be saved and here is when you would probably add the name of the person who has caused the split. This is more directed to Allie. It would not affect what a woman could get in a settlement agreement; the person just needs to prove she is entitled to receive much more compensation because of one. But, someone having an affair [because of loss of consortium], an affair that is ‘proven’ sometimes will give her (or him) the upper hand when negotiating a settlement agreement. A picture with a time stamp showing her is going into her house; then, one with a time stamp showing when he comes out. Or one of them having a meal together, especially 'if' it is in another town - take a picture of the front of the restaurant and note how far away it is, especially if it is far enough away that an over-night stay would be probable. Don't know how many years she has been married but asking for 1/2 or a portion of any retirement he has, she'd probably get enough to invest, and then could invest it and either get the interest paid monthly or quarterly or have it rolled over.

Sometimes you can even ask that he keep an life insurance policy in a particular amount to pay you past the death of him (usually this is done when you have little children because a woman would lose her child support payments if she doesn't get the proceeds of a life insurance). Go for what will 'hurt him the most. Like the FL place. Allie could find a job down in FL; I think she said she worked for a dentist. If she has a retirement account there she might be able to receive it if she leaves their employment of her. Try getting the payment he is making for 'alimony' to be called a 'settlement'; so that he will have to pay the taxes rather than the person receiving it which would make it income for her. Ask for an amount that will cover having to pay taxes - 15% or more above the alimony amount, so you would clear a certain amount. It doesn’t mean they (she and T) have to have a sexual relationship, just a companionship. A lot of women don't have a sexual relationship with their husbands due to other issues that might be caused by a medical condition. She could ‘name’ the woman as a co-defendant in the case and state that ‘she’ broke up the marriage; (Tom might not want her name dragged into it), and might be willing to give up more if that is threatened or she is named. But, of course, filing the divorce action with her named will become ‘public record’. There are some people that enjoy going to the courthouse and reading all about it, normally to find out what one is receiving. One thing that really needs to be in the settlement agreement is what is called a 'hold harmless' clause which if either of you are supposed to pay certain bills [and don't, or files for bankruptcy] you won't be looked to in order for them to be paid. Otherwise, you might find yourself also having to file. Living in FL, they cannot take you home or car away from you - of course you would have to 'reaffirm' them if you are planning on keeping them. I think of Allie a lot and what she has struggled through (mainly because as a paralegal who say a lot of this type of divorce action). Hope she remains strong and won't allow T to 'try to weasel her out of filing - so that he has time to sign over property in order to get away with not having to give her much, if anything). Some courts would make he put it back into the property, if the think or can be shown that he has moved money to another bank and she isn't on the account, or signs the deed or title away to a friend to keep until the divorce is finalized. I'm not being mean, I have just seen it happen to people before.

Lanette – Where you on some sort of ‘tour bus’? Sounded like he was giving you a ‘tour’ that you did not expect. HA! HA!

I hope the miniature Schnauzer that he/she will work out for you. They are so cute; but, I hear that really have a mind of their own and can be rather stubborn. We’ve always had AKC dogs; but, after looking at the prices of a JRT, we decided to go to an Animal Shelter and see about adopting one. I saw Cracker and I knew I had found my dog. I adopted her and did so without checking with Louis first; but, she has been pulled in because of her personality. She has the legs of a Rat Terrier; and, the sweet face of a Jack Russell Terrier. When I take her to be ‘groomed’ I tell them to not cut her facial hair, instead start at the back of her ears.

Yes, we have honeysuckle in certain places … it is very invasive and I don’t even thing you could train it on a trestles unless you keep it cut back some. Because of the runners, that shoot down to the ground.

Mary – Epson Salt so cheap that I will sometimes use ½ of the package, if it is not really big. I usually buy mine in a quart sized (milk container type of packaging).

Rori – Because Cracker was ‘hit’ by my DYS when she was just out here playing (she probably suffered from a stress break; and, then because she has had 3 other foot issues; her nails on her left nail grow funny. The vet says that even if he pulled them (declawed her) it would affect things like her balance because they grow upside down and towards the next pad; the two outside grow up. He says it hurts because it is like she is walking on the quick of them; they grown 'sideways'. The two middle toes is what she puts her main weight on. He says that she might always ‘favor’ that paw; but, that has not slowed her down. She can ‘walk’ on it; but, it sounds like she is beating a drum with it when she does put it down much harder than her right paw. Usually, she favors it when there is someone ‘new’ in the house. She runs on it when she is inside; but, favors it when she is outside. But, it has not slowed her down. I need to take her to get her rattlesnake booster since she likes to get in the woods and sniff around. Need to take Tux to get his rabies shot. Seems like I am going into Albany almost every day.

Sue – I will fill a pot about the size of a pressure cooker or bigger, I wash them, pull off the stems if I am make preserves, and immediately put them in the pot and that is ‘all’ the water I put in it. Then I pour sugar over the top; I really don’t know how much I put, I go by the sound of it – maybe 2 cups or more. I squeeze a whole lemon in it and then cut it in thin slices; then I turn it on ‘low’ on top of the stove. I cook them several hours, stirring them (basically ‘folding’ them over so they will all get ‘cooked’. They are ready to be put in canning jar when the syrup that is made from the melted sugar ‘drips’ off (not runny) slowly. While I am cooking them I prepare my jar (always used ‘new’ seals) which you can buy separated from the rings. I put mine in the dishwasher; and they are usually still ‘hot’ when I take them out. I pour enough figs and syrup all the way up to the rim and put the seals and rings on them and tighten them closed. Before I put the seals on I wipe off the tops of the jars, and stick my finger in a kitchen dish towel I have dampened and wipe around down to the rim of the glass; and, the outside. Then I will put them in water over the tops and let the water come to a ‘rolling boil’, take them out and tighten the ringThen I push down the center of the seal and wait to hear them ‘pop’ so I know they are sealed. It is a ‘ping’ and the top will be flat. Then I tighten them more; about another half turn (or a little more). To help keep the birds away from them, you’ll probably have to go out there and pick them in the morning to find ones that have not been pecked or eaten. I generally throw these away when I am washing them. It might take 3 days to pick enough to cook depending on how many figs the tree produces. My DMnL used to make ‘candied’ figs; but, I want to say she puts the sugar on them and leaves them overnight. She leaves the stems on them, and, then cooks them on low until the syrup is thick and the figs are soft and translucent. That is what I do when I make pear conserve. You can get a net to throw over the tree; but, you will need to tie rocks to one end then have 2 people to throw it over the tree, provided your tree is not a tall one; or tie a sting to the other end and when the rock hits the ground a 3rd person can help pull it over. It’s possible that ‘if’ you put it over the tree when it sheds its leaves your fig tree might still produce figs … I say this because I have never seen a blossom like on some trees before they produce fruit.

I hate auto correct unless I know I have misspelled something. Mind doesn’t auto correct unless it had only missed one letter. But, it puts a red line under the world; then I can read the post and manually correct it. It puts a blue line under it is you have too many spaces or if you use a comma instead of a period; but, if you put ‘why’, what’, ‘when, or ‘how’ … you have to make sure it doesn’t try to put a question mark instead of an exclamation point if you are not asking a real question. When I come up with a word that I don’t know ‘how’ to spell; I will use my Cortana, which is one thing that Windows has at the lower left hand corner on the taskbar; and, it will give me the correct spelling if I spell it phonetically.

One of my biggest problems is that I will drop the 'r' of a word like your. So, unless the post is one of my 'novels' I will proof-read it. But, if it is a 'novel' I don't and 'hope' that the person interprets it correctly. LOL!


Lenora

Good morning!
I went to the doctor yesterday and I have a virus but on the down hill side. My doctor gave me a prescription for Sudafed which I had to hand-deliver the prescription to the pharmacy just because the federal regulations now. In this country they passed laws where we now have to buy over the counter drugs through the pharmacist because of all the meth heads use the drugs in it to make meth. But anyway I took one this morning since they are 12-hour release caplets. The funny thing was they came in a box of 10 and they only had two boxes and my prescription was for 30 so they didn't run it through my insurance because the insurance would only pay for 30 so I paid cash amount of $12 and Friday I can pick up the other box for $6
otherwise if I ran it through the insurance it would've been $18 yesterday at $18 on Friday isn't that ridiculous?

Lanette Before we got our dog dolly we had to make a big decision whether to get a dog or not because she was a puppy and they can live 13 to 15 years. I'm 68 and my husband is 67 so we were kind of worried that if/when we "check out" one day, is Dolly going to be left by herself. So, I had to make sure that one of my kids could take her because I would just feel so bad if she had to go back to the pound again.
Maybe that's why ancient people had their pets buried with them nobody would take him them!! It's a thought, a morbid thought!

GarnetAnn Pretty dog you have!
I had a Australian Shepherd when I lived in Colorado. He got into it with a skunk at close range. I was taking a shower and I started smelling a strong chemical smell not like skunk at all. When I got out of the shower I went to see where that smell was coming from. I saw Eddie the dog on the deck by the French doors and it was getting stronger and stronger then I open the door and Eddie tried the dash in and I slammed the door shut on him because he was sprayed by a skunk!! His whole face and head was wet looking and he had his eyes were closed and he was just so pitiful but I couldn't let him in the house even though he wanted to so bad. So, my DH went out and put him on a leash and tried washing him with tomato juice but that didn't work. Then we tried shampoo but that didn't work so we ended up taking him to a groomer and she washed them real good with Dawn solution. It worked pretty good! If you smelled him up close you could still smell it but it wasn't too bad at least we could let him in the house. Poor dog!
I feel so sorry for that dog! When I moved to Texas I had to give them away and it broke my heart but sometimes you got to do what you got to do!

C'ya later!
Dana in Arkansas
Picture of yesterday's lunch: chicken salad w/feta. Pesto/mozzarella pizza.

grandmallie wrote: »

afternoon ladies~ well he is a texting fool... wants to talk to me.. nothing much to say ,I told him I have been with you for 20 + years. taken care of you, and your family and have been verbally and emotionally abused, so if you want to talk, you can speak with my attorney.

Stay strong Allie! He probably has a hint of what you are up to and wanted to make sure that he gets his ducks in a row before you notice that he has been shifting money and selling off property without telling you. Did you have your attorney put a hold on all bank accounts and transactions? As a paralegal I would definitely listen to Lenora at least read her advice.



Mary from Minnesota

Dana – One of my medications is ‘over-the-counter’ at ½ strength and would not be covered by insurance; so I get the full MG strength of it from my mail-in pharmacy for only $10. It’s a ‘no-brainer’. Far more expensive than over-the-counter. I know one medication is probably over-the-counter; but, pharmacist assigns it a RX # and I will pay anything he charges to get it paid by insurance company. The other day I spent $57 for vitamins and supplements; then, when GYN got my cholesterol numbers he wanted to put me on Crestor, he’s tried that before and after a week of getting worse and worse, he has taken me off that and Simvastatin. Now, he is trying something else, never heard of it; but, called PsycheMD to make sure it would not interfere with my bipolar meds.

Then he added 2 more vitamins/supplements to it – Vitamin D and Calcium. There goes another $40 - $50. And that is for one month. YE-GAGS!!!!!

Our smaller dogs have had a longer life-expectancy than the lab we had; but, she wasn’t very smart; ran off when she got out of her pen and ran 4 blocks to the highway and got struck by a car and killed. Shorty, out JRT was 16 years old when she died; she was blind and deaf; but, she wasn’t in any kind of pain. But, we did have to put her in the pen that last month because she was ‘so bad’ about barking at anything she could ‘smell’ coming through the property and we were afraid the coyotes might get her.

We’ve only given one dog away; that was our second beagle, full blooded; but, not trained to show like our first one. This one was trained to hunt, so his constant day and night baying had to go to someone who either lived in the country or needed a good dog for ‘coon hunting’.

I wouldn’t want Cracker to have to go back to the pound either. I’m sure that Trey will take her; but, she might be relegated to the yard with Luna; but, I’ll be dead and it won’t matter to me. I won’t say that she is my last dog; because I think I will always have a cat and a dog as long as I can.

Becca – Your neighbor is ‘blessed’ to have you as her neighbor. I’m sure you’ll be a big help to her and maybe things will improve. Does she have any near-by family? It sad when someone lives a long life and they are far away from family.

My ‘ex-sister-in-law’ will ALWAYS be my DSnL; her present husband who treats her like a princess is someone I refer to as ‘brother’. My BnL (her ‘ex’) regrets NOW how he treated her like a piece of discarded property. He was so verbally abusive to her that when he was stationed in Turkey she filed for a divorce and had him served by the JAG Office there. Then, she and her new husband got married and transferred for 4 years to Japan before Mike got back from Turkey. Then they got stationed here in Albany and I talked her into letting me be the ‘go between’ so that his children who were still fairly young at the time could reconnect with their Dad. She reluctantly agreed; Mike was blind-sighted with it, it took him a few times of getting with them to finally realize that he had been such a Jack@$$ and it was NOT the boys fault. I know he is glad that he did. He’s got 5 grandchildren now between the two of them; and, their youngest son died at the age of 40 from cancer. It hit both of them really hard; one reason I think it him maybe harder was he died on what would have been their 49th wedding anniversary. His granddaughter really takes a lot of time with him. Did when they were still living here. She and her husband are now living in Gainesville, FL while he is in med school. My DOS asked him the other day why he did not just go down there [move] and help them out, either by buying a duplex and letting them live there for a lower rent than they are paying now; ... but, all he does is ‘grumble’.

Sounds like Allie ‘finally’ went through with filing for a divorce … YEAH!!!! Hope she will be able to realize that she probably should have done it a year ago.

Lenora

Tough day, I'm going to go to bed early and try to heal while I sleep!! And peace to everyone facing challenges.

NYKAREN

Lenora -thank you so much for the fig recipe. It sounds just like my mama made her fig preserves. She lived in MS on the gulf coast. We tried a net but it didn't stop the birds just got tangled up In the weed eater. DH was not happy. I have all the jars so must get new sealer rims.
Allie-thinking of you today.
I have been retired 19 years and enjoying the good life. Actually, I loved our life as an Air Force family too.
Missing Re and Kim in N CA. Any news from them?
Have to go finish dinner.
SueBDew in TX

Rimmy - I drink tea when I get a craving for something sweet. There are lots of flavoured herbal teas that have no calories, no carbs, no fats. I don't use sugar or milk. It works for me.

Allie - stay strong and stay safe.

Hugs everyone. Takes care of yourselves. My darling little dog is barking his fool head off cause he wants to go outside.

Paula Y.

Alison - so very very proud of you! You go girl

Jess called. She has a mass on her uterus. She went to the MD today and they want to take the mass out. Guess the good news is that she won't lose her uterus. I know she was concerned about that. But...she needs someone to drive her home from the hosp. Guess it looks like "mom to the rescue".

Went to ACMoore tonight. Before someone has been able to help me with the crocheting. but the lady who helped me the most left. When I got there I got a lot of "I can't help you". It seems more like a coffee klatch. I really need someone to help me. I was getting really frustrated with one lady who was "helping" me. I must have corrected her two or three times. Then she was telling me to do something that I knew was wrong. I just got so frustrated, I left. I did it my way and I'm going to ask someone else to look at it. Something just doesn't look right, but I can't put my finger on it.

Lenora - we're members at Sam's. I very seldom buy food there. However, we have a membership mainly so that we can get the discount on the gas. In the end, the amount we save offsets the membership fee.

Tracy - welcome!

dana - your meals rival Becca's

Volunteered at the Green Room then figured I'd stop at this one grocery store that's going out of business. Honestly, I didn't expect much. However, when I went in, most of the frozen foods were 50% off, some things were 75% off. Others were only 40% off (those I didn't even look at). I did buy things, spent something like $148 but saved something like $254.

Kerry - welcome to a great group of ladies. There are quite a few gals on here who have had WLS so you'll get lots of support and advice

Becca - Prudence sure is lucky to have you. Hope I have someone as great as you when I'm her age

Lanette - of course you couldn't resist...who could???? Rosie is adorable.

Michele in NC

Michele- sorry to hear about Jess. You're an awesome Mom!



Mary from Minnesota

Call me crazy but I love to see other people happy and succeeding .

Good Evening My Dear Friends,

I just sat down to read posts but checked my email first. I had some sad news that a dear friend of 47 years passed away this morning. She was my next door neighbor in Milwaukee when we lived there years ago and we have kept in touch over the years. She has had a 9 year battle with cancer. It makes me very sad and I can’t even read posts right now but wanted to share with you as my dear friends. I’ll try to catch up tomorrow.


DJ
Myrtle Beach, SC

Hello ladies: Welcome to the newbies, keep coming back. My dog is going nuts because we have two young deer out in our riding arena. She is running from one part of the house to another looking out the windows and barking.

I hate scans especially when they find something extra that is unrelated. I had a routine chest CT scan to assess where I am with the sarcoidosis and they found my aorta is enlarged. Talked to my primary and she says it is probably nothing to worry about, it frequently happens with age, but it is possible it can get larger and become an aneurysm. Yuck! Don't know whether to go to a cardiologist or not. Primary said she will refer me if I want. Pulmonary says he thinks sarcoidosis is active again and wants me to come in and discuss a plan. He wants me to go on methotrexate and I really don't want to. I stress out about having to make decisions like these.

Lanette - Rosie is a cutie. Congratulations.

Joyce - Glad the two kitties are getting along.

Michele - It is awesome you are able to help DD. If we lived close I would love to try to help you with your crochet. Sorry you are having problems.

Heather - Love that view.

Becca - Prudence is one lucky woman to have you as her friend.

Take care all, Sue in WA