Missing Books

I started looking at Amazon.com for the books in that series that I'm missing. It's going to cost me a fortune to replace them I think. I want good copies that aren't all bent and torn up. I'm going to wait until after the first of the year to buy them all over again. I have a couple of 5 day weekends coming up by the end of the year and I'll have more time to turn the house upside down looking for them. I really, really hate not being able to find these books. Here's a list of them. I'll probably put them in the side bar until I either find them or buy them again:

Enemy Mind by Maggie Shayne
The Player by Evelyn Vaughn
The Bluewater Affair by Cindy Gerard
Her Beautiful Assassin by Virginia Kantra
A Verdict of Love by Jenna Mills
The Billionaire Drifter by Beverly Bird
Fever by Linda Winstead Jones
Blind Attraction by Myrna Mackenzie
The Parker Project by Joan Elliott Pickart
The Insider by Ingrid Weaver
Check Mate by Beverly Barton

As near as I can remember, A Verdict of Love and the Parker Project aren't necessary to get the full story of the series/theme. There is another book in this series, but I have that one in my hands as we speak so I don't need to list it here.

Il Divo

I guess I'm supposed to know all of these 'popular' songs they are singing in foreign languages on this concert that's airing on PBS. But aside from "Unbreak my Heart", I haven't recognized any of these songs. They could have at least put the song titles at the bottom of the screen.

Really Irritated!

I have searched the house over three times now looking for a whole series of romance novels that I collected back in 2003/04. It's the Family Secrets series. I only have one of them out in the open and I must have put the rest away somewhere. Somewhere really safe and secure since I can't find them anywhere. I guess I'll have to try to find them on the web and replace them all. That's one sure way of finding my set - after I've bought another set of them.

Other things to report today - I'm completely pain free right now. Yay!!! I think my joint pain is pms related since it's gone now. I did have a really bad headache this morning, but after a nap and some snacking on chocolate frosting, the headache went away. I spent most of the day renewing my mcafee virus protection software. I don't know if I was supposed to download the whole thing after I renewed it, but I did.

Last night I spent an hour on the phone with the Tracfone customer support. They finally found out that the phone number they had in their computer for my phone is different from the number that is on my phone. So, they are sending me another sim card. Hopefully that will fix it. Reading up on the web about tracfone, it sounds like this is a very common problem - customers getting phones from retailers and the website that aren't programmed for their area. I missed the second hour of the Celtic Woman concert on PBS over this. At least the phone has the sudoku puzzle game on it even if I can't use it to make calls.

So Far, Saturday

Saturday has been a lazy day so far. I've read a couple of books, opened up my battery charger and have it charging some batteries, searched the web looking for info on my disabled tracfone, and put up my clean dishes from Thanksgiving Dinner. It's sunny out and is supposed to reach about 50 degrees today. Yay!

I felt kinda bad when I got up but the pain diminished quite a bit within a short amount of time.

A Good Book by Helen Brooks

I just read "The Billionaire Boss's Secretary Bride" and it's a very good book. A true romance story. What was the best thing about it? No explicit love scenes. I wish there were more of these kinds of books out there. The LoveInspired line doesn't appear to have any explicit scenes in those books, but you have to be preached to about God. I do have to say that there was a bit too much arguing in the Brooks book, but all in all it was a very nice read. One, I'll read again.

Black Friday

I went to walmart at around 6am this morning and virtually everything was gone, even the stuff that was supposed to be on sale through Saturday. Mom wanted to get a crosscut shredder and we thought since it was a Friday-Saturday sale item that she would be able to go anytime to get one. Well, when I was there early this morning, there were only about 8 left. So, I got one for her. I did manage to find an mp3 player with video capability. So, I bought that - now I have three mp3 players. LOL. I also bought some luggage, but not the set that was on sale. Apparently Walmart never had that in stock. I heard one of the workers telling a customer than no one was ever able to find it. Imagine that. And I bought one of those papasan chairs. I brought it home and set it up and PJ got into it the first thing. That was so cute, seeing her laying in it like a little princess with her front paws crossed.

I took all of that home, with the exception of mom's shredder and then went to mom and dad's and dropped off their shredder. I stayed there while they got ready and went to walmart for their look around. They didn't buy anything worth mentioning. I had to stay there just in case my tracfone was delivered because the fed ex driver required a signature for it. But it didn't come until later in the day. More on that later.

Once mom and dad came back, I left and went to the bank, bought some things at Fruth's, stopped at Rite Aid and then ate lunch at the local Mexican restaurant. That was a nice change because usually I either finish up my shopping and am back home by 9am or I eat at Pizza Hut. After lunch I went to Family Dollar and bought a couple of things and then went back to Walmart for my regular grocery shopping. Some special things I bought there while shopping are a battery charger for AAA batteries (now that I have three mp3 players), some Lock & Lock storage containers, and the one year service cards for the Tracfones. I have two phones and I'm going to keep both active.

Now for the Tracfone story. I got it home and activated it. Or thought I had. I went onto the website to do it and once I thought I had activated it, I went back to the website and found that it said I had pending updates. So, I clicked on the link, ended up entering a code and got an Invalid Code message. The website kept telling me to reenter the code and after doing this three times, my service was disabled. So, I had to call customer service. They couldn't find the solution so they said to wait 24 hours and if the phone wasn't fully activated at that time, to call back and they gave me a call ticket number to use when I call back. It's a good thing I didn't transfer anything over to the new phone because I might be out two phones at this point.

As for Tracfone Customer Service, I could understand the guy very well, even though he had an accent, but it sounded like he was very far away from the phone. I ended up turning up the volume on my phone so I could hear him. Did they solve my problem? I won't know that for 24 hours. There is another number I can call if I wanted to go straight to the top, so to speak, but I thought I would try this number first. It's the direct sales number that was printed on my invoice. Not the number that you find plastered all over the website and in the tracfone info included in the package.

Turkey Day

Well, Thanksgiving Day dinner went very well. The turkey was moist, the noodles were good, the mashed potatoes were non-lumpy. Mom and dad came up just in time for dinner at 11am. They had planned to come earlier, but my uncle Charlie called them as they were getting ready. Mom said she told him that they were coming up here for dinner and he asked "Is she doing the cooking?" LOL ! Apparently, that was something unusual for him - offspring cooking for the parents. The cranberry sauce, the one dish I always ask Dad if it's good, was a little different this year. I added strawberries. Both mom and dad said it was good. The dogs were very, very happy to have company. Even Fritz jumped his front half up into mom's lap for petting and you could tell he was happy and smiling.

We watched the parade and the dog show, napped a little, had some dessert. It was a good day. And it was a warm, sunny day. I love sunny days.

The joint pain I've been experiencing is still there. I've been reading about joint pain on the web and it's apparently a symptom of just about every illness out there. Being active helps it so I've been doing pilates and yoga. And I've been soaking in epsom salt. I don't know if that's helping, but it's supposed to make my skin soft and stuff so I don't mind the soak.

Did I tell you I ordered a new tracfone from their website? I wanted to upgrade to a phone that doesn't have an antenna so I bought a new one. But after reading all of the horror stories about the Tracfone customer service, I don't know if I want to try to transfer my minutes over to the new phone. If the transfer goes okay, there's still a chance the phone will be bad and break. So, I might just activate it and keep both phones active. After a while, I could give the old one to Dad.

I'm planning to go shopping tomorrow. Not at 5am when the Walmart sale starts, but early. I need to go to the bank and do my regular grocery shopping anyway so I might as well see if there are any good buys still out there when I do go out. There isn't too much I'd be interested in buying this year from the ad. The Kitchenaid mixer is a good deal. The flash drives and SD cards are always good buys. I would like to get a Trivial Pursuit game but I don't want the 80s version and the others are too expensive for me to buy (ie don't throw money away on it because it isn't worth it). The 500 threadcount sheet set is a good buy, but I have sheets. I buy the high thread count sheets every year they are on sale. Someone on a website I visit claims the $249 Camcorder is a good sale, but it will probably be gone in less than a minute. The employees will probably take them all like they did the laptops last year. Having said all this, I'm not inspired at all to buy any of this stuff. So, we'll see what I actually come home with. I'd say the items at the top of the list will be Fish Oil supplements and BenGay ointment for my joint pain. LOL! My goal is still to avoid using my credit cards. I've read that the credit score likes it when you charge less than 30% of what you are able to charge and pay it all off at once. Well, I used my credit card back to back, two months in a row and paid it off in full each time so I decided to lay off the credit cards for as long as possible.

An Update

I just got an email from the folks who work with the museum of the Whydah Pirate Ship wreck. He said that they did recover and conserve "an usually fine teapot". Of course they can't say for sure that this is the teapot that Maria gave Black Sam but I would like to think so.

Don't you just love those sweet romance stories? Of course this would be a good feature film. Hugh Jackman would be a good Black Sam.

I Forgot the Noodles

I also make homemade egg noodles for the big family dinners. They are very good. Thick noodles in salty, thickened chicken broth. This year I bought a new stockpot to use for them. I usually borrow mom's stockpot because it's smaller than my very large stockpot I've had for a while. But this year, I bought a pretty, red, enamel coated one at walmart. It was expensive, but I figured the noodles wouldn't stick to the enamel.

Preparing for Dinner

I think I'm done with the grocery-buying for Thanksgiving Dinner. It's at my house this year and I'm doing the cooking. Today I bought the ingredients for Dad's cranberry sauce, the potatoes for mashed potatoes, and vanilla ice cream to go with the frozen chocolate cake I bought last week. Dad's cranberry sauce is homemade, of course. It's pretty easy to do. Mince up about a two cup bag of cranberries, a small can of mandarin oranges, and this year I'm throwing in some strawberries - not too many though. Pour some sugar on all of this (no, Poison didn't sing a cranberry sauce song), add a few drops of lemon juice, a little bit of vanilla, and let sit in the fridge overnight. Stir up and put back in the fridge until just before the big dinner, then serve. As you can tell, I make this the night before. A tip - you can freeze whole cranberries for up to one month. So, I buy two bags now and put one in the freezer to use for Christmas dinner.

The mashed potatoes are made from yukon golds. This is not in keeping with Alton Brown's belief that russets are the best. I was watching Food Network today and he was doing a Q&A on Thanksgiving Dinner and mentioned potatoes. I peel and boil them, then mash them using a Ricer. I hate lumps. Then I add butter and just enough milk to make them a little smooth. I hate runny mashed potatoes so I don't add a lot of liquid. Oh, and I salt them in the boiling stage and probably while I'm stirring them up. Taste as you go along.

The frozen chocolate cake is a Peppridge Farm multi-layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I'm adding the vanilla ice cream to balance out the chocolate. It make be a bit more expensive than making a box-mix chocolate cake with ready-made frosting, but this way I can control the portions. There won't be a lot left over.

I also bought some frozen hot roll dough. I first thought I was going to buy ready-made rolls, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought I could go ahead and bake some. I just hope they rise in this house. I'll have to turn up the thermostat.

Last week I bought the turkey, green beans, gravy, sweet potatoes. I might have to sneak and steal some bacon fat out of mom's larder when I go there tomorrow to put on the green beans. That's how dad likes them. I might have to buy some bacon bits to add to them, but I think I might have bacon bits in the fridge.

I've been having some knee pain lately and I think it's because I've been sitting with my legs crossed. They are usually crossed, either because I have my dinner on my lap or because I have a dog on my lap. And at work, I cross them without thinking about it. My left knee is feeling better, but the right one wasn't feeling good today. I used the heating pad today and will probably do so again before I go to bed.

I went to the store early this morning, as usual, and couldn't believe how cold it was. My hands were completely frozen, i.e. numb. Finally, on my way home, I looked down at my dashboard and saw the temperature outside. 15 degrees!!!!! No wonder I was so freakin' cold. I had the heat in the car turned up to 90. LOL.

I read a new to me Diana Palmer book last night - Rawhide and Lace. It was very good. I think I like Tyson Wade the best of all of her heros. Cash Grier would have to be second now, even though he fell for Tippy and I don't really like her.

I Need Some Help

I was watching National Geographic last night. It was a show about Black Sam Bellamy, a pirate whose ship went down in a storm off the coast of New England way back in the 1700s. As the story goes, Sam fell in love with a lady named Maria. Maria's folks thought he was nice enough but didn't think a sailor would make enough money to provide for Maria so Sam decided to go off to find his fortune. Before leaving for the Caribbean, Sam was given a teapot by Maria - it was a beloved family item. Sam goes off to the Caribbean and becomes a very successful pirate. He was also apparently a democratic leader of sorts and fair minded and didn't kill a bunch of people. When he seized the ship he ended up going down on, he traded his old ship to the newly uprooted crew and captain. That was nice of him. After capturing about 50 ships by the time he turned 29, Sam decided it was time to go home. Possibly to Maria. So, he and his crew makes the trip to New England and apparently ran into a storm which sank the ship and killed all but maybe two people of the crew.

Here's where I need help. I was watching this show and when it got to the point where they were going to talk about how he died, I decided I didn't want to get so depressed over it, so I went to bed. I have one question that never got answered. If anyone out there knows the answer to my question, please post a comment and let me know. My question is: Did they ever find the teapot?

As you know I read romance novels. And the romantic reader in me wants the finders of the wreck to have found Maria's teapot.

Ouch

I woke up at 4am this morning needing to go to the bathroom and found that my ankles hurt, my knees hurt, my arms hurt. I can't believe that all of that was due to the time I spent on the treadmill last night. On the off-chance that I might have been poisoning myself with the poison I had hanging up to kill the moths, I decided to throw the poison out. It's double-bagged in plastic and on its way to be safely disposed of.

We had solid ice on the roads this morning thanks to some snow that fell overnight. The road crews apparently wanted to sleep in or something. I slid a little pulling out onto the road but drove slow and didn't have any other trouble. I was driving the LaCrosse and it didn't have studded tires. My Lumina will be road ready when I get the rear view mirror glued back on the window. The glue I have says it needs to be used in temperatures of 50 degrees to 75. It's quite a bit colder than that right now.

I had a headache slowly getting worse all day today and I finally took some Theraflu around 7pm. I wanted to get rid of the headache.

It's supposed to be pretty cold tonight. I hope my water doesn't freeze. Dad usually stuffs towels and stuff under my garage door when it gets cold, but he hasn't done that.

Update

A quick internet search claims that the oldest known iguana lived 29 years.

Re-reading Merline Lovelace Books

This week I have re-read the Codename Danger Series written by Merline Lovelace. I'm missing the first two books of the series, but put them on my Christmas Wish List. Maybe I'll get lucky and get them for Christmas. Anyway, there are a couple of things that bother me about the series: 1. While the books mention Adam and Maggie often, virtually nothing is said about Paige and David after Maggie's book. I would like to know what happened to them and it would be nice to see them re-appear in another book. A big question is why didn't they have any children other than Nick? 2. I'm having a hard time reconciling the time difference in the books. Elizabeth was old when the books began but she's still the secretary more than 26 years later. And Nick's age doesn't really appear to add up when you try to figure out when Maggie's kids were born. I'm trying to suspend disbelief on that one because you can't let a little thing like that get in the way of a good story. I hope there's going to be more to this series. The latest book, Undercover Wife, suggests that Nick will step down as director of Omega. I hope that doesn't mean the end of the series.

And I need to research iguanas. Can they really live more than 26 years?

Yay it's Friday!!!!

I'm so glad it's Friday. These last couple of days I've been suffering with pulled muscles and I don't know how some of them got that way. The only ones I can account for are the neck muscle and my mouse/telephone elbow pain. The neck I hurt by sleeping wrong on my pillow and the mouse/telephone elbow pain comes from reaching for the computer mouse and holding the phone while I'm talking to mom. The rest of the muscle pain is a mystery. I hope it goes away though.

I have been doing well watching what I'm eating these last three days. I bought that half priced halloween candy on Friday I think and I still have most of my share. I haven't eaten it all yet. And Wednesday evening I even got on the treadmill despite the killer headache I had. I didn't work out last night or tonight because of these pulled muscles. Hopefully I can get back to the treadmill this weekend. My new mp3 player helps a bit.

As you all might know, I've been attempting to follow the I Can Make You Thin plan developed by Paul McKenna. His US website has been offering a message board free to everyone, but on December 1st, people will have to pay and join a club to read and post messages there. Some people who post on that board regularly are a bit upset by this change, but I can see why McKenna would want to start charging the fee. I received an email from his website today explaining what the fee would include and pointing out that some other weightloss websites charge higher fees. If you join Jenny Craig, you pay a fee, if you do the Nutrisystem thing you pay for the food. I think the $14.95 month by month fee isn't a bad deal if they can get the website programming all worked out. I think I read that some people are experience glitches. I don't think I would be joining the 'club' but that doesn't mean that I think it's a bad idea all around. Just not the right thing for me to spend money on.

The moth infestation is, hopefully, gone. I found one dead moth this morning on my dining room hutch. I haven't seen any living ones for a couple of days. I am very happy about that.

I haven't thought about what I might do with my weekend. I have three new books I haven't read yet and I'm re-reading Merline Lovelace books. We're going to start getting snow starting on Sunday. Yuck. I hope there's no accumulation. I don't want to have to start driving my Lumina again, although it's a good car.

Gas prices have fallen to $1.98 a gallon here in my part of WV. It's probably less in other states because WV likes to tax it a lot.

Spending Way Too Much Money

That's me. This Christmas. Actually, it doesn't have to be Christmas related. I just ordered some books from Harlequin for myself and then from Amazon for myself. The other Christmas orders I had planned for. All I wanted was the Johnny Miller autobiography but I ended up with two or three other books to get the free shipping at Amazon.

Mom and Dad made it back from Indiana today. They are tired.

I gave Winnie and PJ a bath today. I'm going to have to get one now that I smell like a wet dog. I have a headache right now that I would love to get rid of. I took some tylenol earlier but it didn't do any good.

I've put some music on my laptop and then downloaded it to my new mp3 player. I hate the time it takes to do that.

Another Day Off

This is the last of my four days off in a row for this week. Yep, I get Veterans Day off so I took Monday off too. I had to go out yesterday to go to the bank thanks to the bank reducing the hours its lobby is open. I finished up my Christmas shopping yesterday and ate too much while I was out. I bought another little MP3 player and I'm planning to put some music on the laptop so I can eventually put them on the MP3 player.

Mom and Dad went out to Indiana yesterday. My uncle Harold, dad's brother, is in the hospital and it isn't looking good for him. Whenever I go on a trip, I always call home to let them know I made it to my destination okay. Mom and Dad? No calls. I tried calling her cell phone and got voicemail. And she says she keeps her phone on. They are planning on coming back today.

Love, Love, Love the Days Off

Another day off today - that was five in a row in case anyone is counting. I need to find a way to keep this going for good.

What did I do today? I vacuumed a bit to get some dog hair out of here. I did some laundry. Dad came up and put the studded tires on my Lumina. He also found out that the rear view mirror fell off the window in the Lumina. I have to get some really strong glue for it. I did the Christmas Shopping for my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew. All of the gifts are going to be wrapped and shipped by the online merchant so I don't have to worry about wrapping anything or going to the post office. I also wrapped the presents I had bought for Mom and Dad. I have a couple more things to get for Dad.

Yesterday I read three romance novels. So, I'm almost caught up on those. I have a few that I bought a while ago and never did read. I might have to get them out of storage and read them.

I still haven't balanced my checkbook yet. It's amazing how I can always find something to do to put off the checkbook.

A Warm Sunday

Today has been very warm for a November day. Over 70 degrees. I went out and walked for about an hour I think. That was after I went to bed for an hour trying to get rid of a headache. I had taken two tylenol at Mom and Dad's then took two more a couple hours later along with otc sinus medication and a headache pill that had caffeine in it. I went to bed where it was dark and covered up my head. Keeping my head warm seems to help sometimes. So, within about an hour, I had gotten rid of the headache. Yay!!

I was thinking about getting an Ipod but only if I could put video on it - like golf that I record from tv. Well, I played around with my laptop and found out that I can't copy dvds on the laptop. So, there's no reason to get the Ipod now. I don't need to carry around music to listen to. In order to use my laptop I would have to get some kind of decoder or something and even if I get that, it still might not work. So, I'm not going to worry about it. I don't need to spend money on that stuff anyway.

I still have moths. I hope they aren't coming from inside the ceiling because there's no way I can get rid of them if they are. I would just have to keep killing them when I see them. I'm not calling an exterminator.

Dad put air in my car tires today. They are supposed to have 32 pounds in them and he filled them to about 36 to 37. The car drove a bit differently with all of that air in them. They did have about 25 to 26 in them.

It looks like it's going to be another warm day tomorrow. Hopefully, I will be able to spend some time outside. Hopefully I won't get another headache.

My Thumb Hurts

Dad and I put plastic over my house windows today to prepare for the cold winter temperatures. We use thumbtacks to tack the plastic up inside the family room. Well, my thumb really, really hurts now because of having to push the tacks into the walls. It's so bad that I can barely use my tv remote. It really sucks that something is interfering with my tv viewing.

I washed some of the walls and cabinets today with some spicNspan. I have a moth infestation in the house and I figured if I washed the walls and cabinets I might get rid of some of them. Hopefully that works because I'm really tired and sore now from all of that work. I also dusted my dining room chairs today. I was going to do the buffet and hutch but I quit. I walked down to the mailbox to get my mail and after that I was done. I think I might be done for the rest of my little vacation. Laundry and dishes might be the only other work I do.

I made some brownies this morning. I tried a box mix by that Ghirardelli Chocolate company. It's so rich it made me sick. I gave the rest of the brownies to Mom and Dad.

I'm being reminded everywhere to turn my clocks back. I hope I remember.

The dogs were very happy to see Dad today. They all climbed on him and kissed him. He needs to come up more often. They miss him.