And The Beat Goes On

The high temperature today was:  82 degrees

The humidity today was:   62%

Muggy/rain/sun/rain/muggy

The air conditioner was turned on at 7:00 tonight!

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If one doesn't get to sleep until 5:30 a.m., and one awakes at 10:30 a.m., that doesn't count as sleeping in!!

I was so hyper last night.  Like a little kid, overexcited from a party, I could not sleep.  I hope tonight is better, because I have to get up at 8:00 to make it to church by 10:15.

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When I went to get the mail today, in the box was a smallish envelope.  The return address was from my BFF's younger sister, Patty.  When I opened the package and saw her note, I gasped.  Her handwriting looks exactly like Arlene's.  Inside, was a small yellow book, full of photos from when our band went to Bob-Lo Island (near Detroit.)

Also, three loose photos.  I especially loved this one.

Just as we did when we were little, here we are playing in the water

40 years later!!  At her cottage.

My wedding day

My 25th anniversary day

(I can see the reflection of my husband in the sliding door.)

Her surprise 40th birthday party.  Me, welcoming her 

into her OWN house!!!

Such a treasure these pictures are for me.  Her family is getting the house cleaned out and are having an estate sale in a couple of weeks--19th-23rd.  I will go and try and see if I can find something personal of hers to buy--a small ring or something I remember and meant something to both of us.  I met her the first day of Kindergarten.  We double dated all through high school.  We lived 3 miles from each other.  She had a girl and two boys. I had a boy and two girls (and then Jen, who Arlene baby sat with a lot.)  We took camping trips and vacations together.  Our kids all grew up together.  When she got her cancer diagnosis, she called me to tell me before she told her sisters or her kids. She asked me to notify our friends a couple days later, because she just couldn't tell them.    

What really tears me up.  When we both went through menopause, we both had hemorrhaging problems.  I didn't have health insurance, so my doc put me on iron pills and I lived with it for three years.  She did have insurance, so she asked her doc for a hysterectomy.  He refused.  She tried another doc, he too refused.  She died of ovarian cancer 20 years later.  IF she had the hysterectomy, she never would have had the cancer.  There is no cancer in her family.  That is what made me mad at the time of the diagnosis and still makes me mad!!!!!   

She died March 28, 2012 and I have missed her every day since.

I love you, Wienie!!!!!

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Today, I decided to try out my oven to see if it still worked.  I haven't baked in almost two years.  I had the ingredients for Chocolate Chip Cookies, so..................I did buy a new small box of baking soda, because I wasn't sure how old the box in my cupboard was.

The nice big "grandma" bib apron my sister made for me.

Gathering together of our tools

The recipe--no I don't bake by throwing things together.
I need precise instructions.

Beat the butter and sugars together--add 2 eggs.
(you have no idea how long it took me to save money
for this fixed head mixer.  I've had it about 20 years and
love it fiercely!!

Add the dry ingredients, chips and walnuts

I always use a smallish melon scoop to scoop the right amount of dough for each cookie

Ready to go..........

....into a 350 oven for exactly 12 minutes

Take out, let set on sheet for 2 minutes

I use paper bags to cool the cookies on.  This must be an old one.
I know we went shopping at a Food Lion when we were on the Outer Banks
Is no Food Lion in this part of the world

What I am going to do with 6 dozen +3 cookies is beyond me.
I ate six and froze the rest.

The cookies were good.  The oven did not explode and the smoke alarm did not go off.  I consider that a SUCCESS!!

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Balisha posted on her blog about trying to find silence in our lives.  I am in great need of silence right now.  My sister likes noise--I like quiet.  I should trade places with her, LOL. 

There is never a time of complete silence around here.  I have gone out on my porch to sit at two in the morning, and yet I hear the occasional traffic on the Inter-State, three miles away. 

I have everything turned off in this house, right now--seeking total quiet, and still--there is the whirr of the refrigerator, the klump of the ice maker, the hum of the computer.  Complete silence is impossible.  

Neighbor Tami, lives so close and she is very noisy.  She never gets in or out of her car without slamming the car door--I mean, SLAM!  When she closes her kitchen cupboard doors, she doesn't shut them, she slams them.  Sometimes, it sounds like she is moving furniture over there, or hanging a few pictures on the wall--drives me nuts.

The same with light.  I like it totally dark when I go to bed. There is a Mercury light at the end of the street--50 feet away. Oh by the way--they hum too.  Tami, on the bedroom side, has a motion detector light on her front porch. If a car drives by on the street or an animal walks across her lawn, that dang thing turns on and seems to never go off!  She lives so close and she is very noisy.  

PLUS--and this is the kicker--I have had Tinnitus since 1995.  I don't have ringing in my ears--I have a high pitched sound.  So it is never completely quiet in my head/ears.

Tomorrow--after church--seeking some SPACE around me AND more quiet, I am driving up to The Farm.   At least, I can walk in the woods for a bit and hear nothing--except the Cicadas (Tinnitus) that sound in my head/ears.  I can sit out on their front porch and hear only the breeze in the high maple tree branches.  The drive there and back will be peaceful.  I need it a lot, right now.

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I am going to take a couple "ZZZ Quil" and go to bed.  I hope I can get more then 5 hours sleep tonight!!!  No wonder my eyes are always red and I look like death warmed over.

Oh, by the way...Monday I am calling around to find a doc who does eye lid lifts.  I was suppose to have my lids done four years ago--they interfere with my seeing, so now---IT IS TIME!!! I'm scared, but maybe with that, it will help make my face look a bit more awake.  BETHIE--I checked.  Life Style Lift costs on average, $7,500.

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Later--Jude