Mixed Blessings...

 Trying to stay in the tranquility tonight.

 And trying to understand the human condition, I guess. Or the conditions of some humans.  And stay grounded enough to not get lost in the what ifs and the omg's !!  The long and short of it is that as of this morning, my visits to MissB's are finished.  I was called down early and told that she was put in a nursing home.  Then I was paid and asked to deliver a suitcase to the place. Don't ask me why I did it.  The place is a hellhole, it stinks to high heaven and I couldn't get out of there fast enough.  I learned later that the niece didn't even take her there herself--"she just couldn't".  So, she hasn't even seen her all day. And the worst part is that she isn't telling the truth about any of it. This has been an ongoing part of this madness from the beginning...for some reason , this person compulsively lies about everything, even things that don't matter, and tells a different story to everyone and gets lost in the untruths.   It's pathetic (not to mention annoying).

  I guess the worst part of it (for me) is that she did all this without even a hint as to what was going on, though we were figuring it out. And she had always said she would never put her in a nursing home.  She made me drive all the way down there 40 miles RT, to get paid. (She lives in the same town as me). Just kind of blindsided all of us with the events of the day. No notice, no chance to try to arrange for anything to take the place of it--nothing.

   It is a mixed blessing.  On the one hand, I won't have to deal with it anymore. On the other hand, the extra deniros were sure nice.

  SO it goes.  Trusting that there is a plan afoot....

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  ON a lighter note, I made some kick ass giant banana/toasted pecan muffins this morning. I always put over-ripe bananas in the freezer in a ziplock bag for just this kind of thing. And they were great.  Had a bit of company at 9 AM and we had coffee and muffins. It was fun.  I even got up early and got my house cleaned up a little.  Guess I'll have plenty of time to be getting that taken care of now.  And--it will be great to have more time for gardening and canning this summer, assuming something else doesn't fall in my lap in the meantime....

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  I have had a terrible stiff neck for the past  week and a half or more...so bad that I've been using IcyHot every night on it. Guess what??  This morning at 4 AM I woke up from a dead sleep and got up to use the toilet.  I remember thinking--thank God--my neck is finally loosening up! I have barely been able to turn my head.  Watching the news tonight, I see that there were 2 earthquakes this morning on the New Madrid fault, down by Sikeston, MO.  That's about 3 hours from here.  The one at 4 AM was a 4.0  quake with several aftershocks later of around 2.5 magnitudes.  So--there ya go. There was a bit of cracked roads and foundations and ceilings, but no significant damage.

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   It was about 53 degrees here today, but got a little cool and windy as the day went on. Pretty nice for February.  Tomorrow and Thursday are supposed to be almost 60, then a cool down. To 45. HA ! It is still getting chilly at night though, in the high 20's.

   I sure wish this darn cough would go away. I'm tired of it !!   And naturally it gets worse in the cool of the evening and so I slather Vicks on my chest and throat and so I can at least sleep at night.  I know I shouldn't complain, since really, the cough is all that's left of it.  I know a lot of people in these parts who just keep having all the symptoms over and over again. 

  I'm thinking I might go to the gym tomorrow and sit in the jacuzzi for--oh, I don't know-- 5 or 6 hours.  lol  My bones hurt.  My sister wants me to come down and see her new little Yorkie that she got and fell in love with.  Maybe I will...and have lunch with her. Or something.

  The neighbor of MissB who gave me all the clear plastic sauerkraut gallon jars last fall flagged me down yesterday and gave me another 4 cases of them. I use them in my pantry for storage of dry goods--beans, rice, flour, sugar, oats, quinoa... my back seat is full right now, so I guess I'll get those out and maybe take the time tomorrow to clean my car too.  It's disgusting. I usually keep it pretty clean, but this winter it went to hell. Everything needs cleaning, from the Roxie snot prints on the window and mudprints on the door  to the dusty dirty dash and littered floors. Hopefully it'll be warm enough to get that done easily.

  Okay. I'm doing a pretty good job of getting to bed at a decent time and tonight I've missed my 12:30 deadline.  Good grief. How did it get to be 1 o'clock already????

  Good night, fellow travelers.

Namaste.