I have many positive things to say about friendships introduced and nurtured on the internet.  He and I spent the day with @Tracy yesterday.  I had mentioned to "him" that when we all got together in Chicago last month that we are just like "real" "normal" people together.  The fact that we only occasionally see each other face to face doesn't matter...we know each other.  He felt it yesterday too.  We would be discussing something and we had history like memory foam.  Oh ya..you did this or did that or said this or that...YA Xanga introductions! 

Many of the plans we made for yesterday were complicated...for instance..trying to sail with no wind.  A balloon championship spectacular over the lake with no freeking balloons.  We actually got to sail in the afternoon but didn't see a balloon although Tracy says she may have spotted one thru her adorable little minocular that she purchased at the Grand Canyon.  It was a wonderful, relaxing day just talking and eating...we introduced her to Dutch pastry's and watched each other sweat but when my head hit the pillow last night, I felt I had had a perfect day.

Until next time...

I feel like kind of a leader in this anti-boil corn revolution.  Just 5 minutes ago, peeps, I went to the kitchen and put an ear of corn in the microwave for only 3 minutes...yes...only 3 minutes and it was just like the ones from last night nuked for 4 minutes.  We can't tell if this makes the corn tougher or if it is just the type of corn...it is very deep, so it may be chewier anyway.  And you need to cut enough off the end to get rid of the taper to the end or the corn won't just fall out of the husk.

Tomorrow, I just may go for 2.5 minutes...

I've been sick this week...I'm a horrible sick ninny.  I hate being sick and I hate what I put Him thru when I'm sick.  Nuf said.

I stopped at one of our many parking lots with farmers selling corn last night.  If you aren't from a small town, (ours is 15,000), you don't know the joy of driving down the main street and many parking lots have farmers set up with their awnings with a pickup backed up selling sweet corn out of the back...anyway...I got me a baker's dozen of ears for 6 bucks...but the really exciting part of this story is:

We did the microwave trick that has been circulating on the internet...and it works...

Do nothing to the corn...except put it in the microwave...it is recommended 4 minutes per ear...I almost think 3 would have been sufficient because some of the ears were a little tough...although I like it that way...anyway.  After the 4 minutes - or 8 minutes for 2, you take them out...cut the bottom off making sure you get all of the stock and the corn just slides out from the tasseled end.  It is JUST CRAZY!  He and I were laughing...who knew...after all these years of sitting on the porch in the heat shucking corn.  We decided when the family comes, everyone can bring their own microwave and we can set them along the counters and everyone can do their own corn....CRAZY I tell you.

@Tracy is coming at the end of the week for business and has reserved Saturday for us.  Think we may go boating.  she said she hasn't been on a sailboat before...I assured her the only thing really different is the cussing.

Until next time....

Visited Trader Joes for the first time yesterday.  I liked it, although I must admit my eyes didn't glaze over like they would if it had been, say, a shoe store or antique store or Hobby Lobby.  I'm just not in the buying food place in my life anymore.  He does all of the cooking and grocery shopping and that is just fine with me...better than fine..

I'm not a huge kid person - never have been - as some of you know, especially babies..I do love kids when they near 1 year old and during the formative years before 4...but I think Henry will always have my eye.  He is the son of Kate and Luke's friends, Russ and Becky.  Henry is now two..just ask him...this kid can say Jethro's BBQ and Jambalaya ...when I asked him how old he was - he said two...he didn't show me his fingers.

  A year ago, Russ, Becky and Henry were here for Kate's birthday party and I taught him to throw his head back and laugh LOUD.  When I met Kate, Becky and Henry yesterday at the restaurant, Henry put his head back and laughed...LOUD...He's adorable!!!! 

Some time 24 to 26 years ago, my dad and Jenny buried a time capsule in the yard.  Jenny was 6 or 8.  Jenny can only recollect the basic area where it was buried...I know my dad wouldn't have buried it out in the middle of the yard and I'm sure he would have made some type of marking with rocks or something..but we have no idea.  He borrowed a metal detector from Bill at work hoping to get a hit...well, we did and were so excited...but it ended up just being a piece of metal.   Short of renting a back hoe and digging up a 20 square foot section of the back yard, I don't know how we are going to find it.  Dad buried it in a coffee can so we may have to find/rent a heavy duty metal detector...I assume that is possible.  I was pretty sad last night as we wandered around searching the ground but Kate said it wasn't over that we hadn't tried everything.  We were going to take the time capsule to Jenny's today and open it some time this week...One of them said we will just keep looking and it will be that much sweeter when we find it.

Off to Jenny's for a few days..Phil has jail school until thursday so he and Lee (his brother) will be coming down thursday night.  So...

Until next time...

So I called Winstream last known as Iowa Telecom to drop my service....They at least have one service rep that understands good service and knows what he is getting paid for.  He saved a customer...seriously.  I also asked him to flag the call so his supervisor could hear how he handled the call - he was professional, empathetic, courteous and helpful.  I was impressed!  So...I dropped the internet - actually he encouraged me to put it on hold for a year at no charge so that hopefully they will have some equipment upgrades and I will be able to get better service...seriously... he also put me on a list of potential drop customers who will be contacted should this equipment upgrade occur earlier than a year.  Holy crap..yes...then he offered me a $20 plan for just phone service...no fluff...no long distance..yes..sounds like a plan.  I will still be paying less per month for better internet and still have phone service...we won't have caller ID so we probably won't be answering the calls or at the very least monitoring them thru voice mail because I refuse to take a survey or talk to recorded politicians.  Use our cell phones to call us or be sure to say it is you when you get to the voice mail part....

I mowed a bit this morning until the tire went flat again.  I will try to finish it when "he" gets home from work and repairs the tire.

Looking forward to the week.  Kate is coming tomorrow - then we are going to KC to see Jenny.

Oh...and I took my friend, Nancy, to get a tattoo yesterday..she was on the table for an hour...it is beautiful.

I decided to get one on my toe and take off my toe ring that I've worn for 10 years.  Holy Mother of God it was painful.

Until next time....

That popped into my head this morning...it was empowering.    I think I wasted too many years being the person that things happened to and I didn't think I had control to make changes. WOW.  The latest hate drama in my life is not a really big deal - say in 10 years...who will remember...who will care...you say you don't really care now..well, I totally understand that.  Instead of being reactive and letting things happen to me...I'm feeling some power and that I can be proactive  so that the same things don't continue happening.  I have choices.

US Bank crawled into my craw and sat their like a hemorrhoid for many years.  I bitched, moaned and put my propaganda out there then changed banks...

Nobel Ford just totally irritated me every which way...so I traded off the Fords and spoke up to anyone who would listen.

Windstream aka Iowa Telecom internet service and high phone bills has been eating at me for many years...slow  dial up - inability to get broadband for many years...breaking into the 21st century with broadband which drops several times a day. *hand on forehead...oh what to do.

Verizon!!  Went to Best Buy last night to see about getting a new wireless router since ours was very, very old..Best Buy talked us into getting a Verizon Hot Spot with 4G or 3G or even 2G which is a lot faster than Windstream...I'm having to change my email addresses all over the place today because Iowatelecom is going to be a bad memory...but it is worth it...also getting a little internet housecleaning done.  We will no longer have the philnina@iowatelecom.net email address...you can find me at ninasusanb@gmail.com which I've had for quite awhile..The Browns have also put life back into philninab@gmail.com.

Until next time...

I pay $77.34 a month for a telephone and high speed internet...actually 1.5mb internet because that is the fastest I can get out here in the country in Central Iowa.  My internet provider/phone company does offer me call waiting, caller ID and something else I've never used for this $77.34 fee...I cancelled long distance on the phone several years ago so I didn't have to pay the ridiculous jibberish fee for the privilage of dialing long distance.  I feel kind of bad complaining because I seem to complain a lot...but my high speed internet is not.  I have no other options other than a satellite company for internet.  I called Windstream which used to be Iowa Telecom which used to be United Telephone with maybe a company in between there...anyway...I asked them about dropping my landline service because I can just use our cellphones...but they told me that I have to have a phone line in order to get internet ... but they can give me a phone line with unlimited in calls - outcalls 10 cents a minute with no special features for $47.33.  For the last two days, I haven't had internet...well, I shouldn't say no internet...I could load the first half of most pages and I could eventually get email to download after about an hour...so that to me is NO INTERNET.  I could have written a letter, put it in an addressed envelope, driven it to it's destination and be back home before my email would load!!!! There was something wrong with something in a box up the road on some corner...and I'm back to the grand old 1.5 mb speed now. 

I'm irritated!!!

Until next time....

I've been open to the control of negativity for so long that I really should be an expert.  1/8th of a teaspoon by 1/8th of a teaspoon, I scooped and scooped just to get my head above it.  I read everything I could get my hands on to help me get out of the negative funk..I read, I believed and kept scooping.  You are what you think.  If you accept negative thinking, you will be negative..the more negativity that you take in the more control it has over your every thought.  If you really think about it...everyone's life drama is usually manifested in negative talk and behavior....I frequently think of cops and dispatchers - hammered with the public's negativity from the moment they start their patrol car or sit at the dispatch console.  These professions are a very fertile feeding ground for negativity.  Drama and negativity breed negativity. 

How do you stop the craziness - the ugliness penetrating your mind?  Don't know.  I've been trying self talk and it seems to be helping.  Like when someone pulls out in front of you at an intersection...instead of going bat-shit bonkers and initiate road rage...take a moment and think - have I ever turned out in front of someone, was their intention to piss me off, do they have something serious on their mind about the health of a loved one that is distracting them and most important...will it do me any good to freak out about something I really have no control to fix...who is it hurting...it is hurting me...so breath deep and get over it!    As far as my job is concerned, my personal mind control project is to try not to hate the ringing phone...I have a job...it is a good paying job, I have a lot of down time to make up for my moments filled with someones hysteria - whether justified hysteria or not...I have a choice..I can continue working here to support my life style or I can find another job.  It's simple..it seems to be working.  As far as personal negativity goes...if I cannot remove myself from it, I self talk myself into not getting emeshed in someone else's drama.  This still allows me to listen to them with compassion, empathize with them but I don't have to be them. 

Until next time....

...and another thing...if you haven't worked for government where your "boss" is elected or reelected every four years, you haven't been introduced to that workplace stress.  Elections this year will will bring forth the 4th sheriff I have worked under.  It's good and it is bad.  With my history, every change has been exceedingly better..that is the good part...I have always applauded the change ....but change is change...election year is upon us and the standard inheritance of the Chief deputy to the sheriff's position isn't a sure thing this year...the republican committee in Jasper County is throwing a contestant out there.  It's really no different that private employment where there is a job opening and several people want the job, therefore, go thru the interview process and someone wins.  But elections generally are uglier...I guess if you are not in a cave, you know how we dread election years...and the local county election isn't nearly that dirty and dramatic..but when it messes with my peace of mind...any turmoil affects my psyche and that of my co-workers.  I wish there were a better way to accomplish this nasty political process; but, for now, I guess it is what it is!

I have figured out what I believe spiritually.  Figuring it out has been a 50 year process.  I finally feel at peace with my beliefs.  My questioning process and listening to what others say is "the answer" is shutting down.  There is very little light still coming under the door.  I know what I believe and I don't really care if you agree with me or not...this is not anything I feel the need to talk about ....it's what I believe and I'm no longer accepting opinions.  This paragraph is intended as an informative paragraph for those I've talked to about religion.  But I would like to thank the Tea Party and the preaching by the hate mongers from the pulpit for my clarification!

I feel that June is going to be a good month...I'm excited about my tentative plans.  Tentative only because plans can change...I feel peaceful.

Until next time....

If you read last nights blog, You will be happy to know that I slept reasonably well ..I did have some right leg movement - which I get sometimes when I'm still.  It is a wierd feeling around the ankle on my right leg...the leg and ankle attached to the knee that I had surgery on a few years ago after tearing two miniscus running from a burning tree that I set on fire for entertainment purposes.  The inside of the ankle also has some wierd little veiny color to it which makes it look like it belongs to an 85 year old rather than a woman my age.

We have a Friday off together today...It's my last day off - I go back for the weekend...which is actually a good thing.  I love having my days off during the week when others are working...and I love working the weekend when the office is quiet and I'm not spending copious amounts of time transferring calls and weeding out calls for the sheriff and his second in command. 

He's in "his" computer room aka the craft room this morning doing his first on line chat with someone from Rozetta Stone. He asked me to please not scream at the cat if he starts scratching on the door.... I can barely hear him but he sounds reasonably spanish intelligent..but then what do I know.  I didn't make it past Lesson 2.  I may pickup on it later but right now it took way too much concentration for what I have left...especially when I have to vie for first place in the Angry Birds tournament with some co-workers, I have to worry about my position in Candy Crush and Words with Friends has me stressed out most days.

I have no idea what is on the agenda.  I would like to be on the sailboat but waiting to hear that the motor has been tweeked...He is afraid to take it out without the motor and try to sail ourselves back into the slip....and by golly, he IS the captain!

So...here's to a good day.

Until next time....