Humor from my email

You may have seen these before, but they're worth laughing at again!

Mywife sat down on the couch next to me as I was flipping channels. She asked, 'What's on TV?' I said, 'Dust.'
And then the fight started.
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My wife and I were watching "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" while we were in bed. I turned to her and said, "Do you want to have sex?"
"No," she answered.
I then said, "Is that your final answer?"
She didn't even look at me this time, simply saying, "Yes."
So I said, "Then I'd like to phone a friend."
And then the fight started.
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Saturday morning I got up early, quietly dressed, made my lunch, grabbed the dog, and slipped quietly into the garage. I hooked up the boat up to the truck, and proceeded to back out into a torrential downpour. The wind was blowing 50 mph, so I pulled back into the garage, turned on the radio,and discovered that the weather would be bad all day.
I went back into the house, quietly undressed, and slipped back into bed. I cuddled up to my wife's back, now with a different anticipation, and whispered, "The weather out there is terrible."
My loving wife of 10 years replied, "Can you believe my stupid husband is out fishing in that?"
And then the fight started.
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My wife was hinting about what she wanted for our upcoming anniversary. She said, 'I want something shiny that goes from 0 to 150 in about 3 seconds.'
I bought her a shiney new bathroom scale.
And then the fight started.
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When I got home last night, my wife demanded that I take her someplace expensive. So, I took her to a gas station.
And then the fight started.
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After retiring, I went to the Social Security office to apply for Social Security. The woman behind the counter asked me for my driver's license to verify my age. I looked in my pockets and realized I had left my wallet at home. I told the woman that I was very sorry, but I would have to go home and come back later. The woman said, 'Unbutton your shirt'. So I opened my shirt revealing my curly silver hair. She said, 'That silver hair on your chest is proof enough for me' and she processed my Social Security application.
When I got home, I excitedly told my wife about my experience at the Social Security office. She said, 'You should have dropped your pants. You might have gotten disability, too.'
And then the fight started..
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My wife and I were sitting at a table at my high school reunion, and I kept staring at a drunken lady swigging her drink as she sat alone at a nearby table.
My wife asked, 'Do you know her?
'Yes,' I sighed, 'She's my old girlfriend. I understand she took to drinking right after we split up those many years ago, and I hear she hasn't been sober since.
''My God!' says my wife, 'who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?'
And then the fight started.
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My wife was standing nude, looking in the bedroom mirror. She is not happy with what she sees and says to me, 'I feel horrible; I look old, fat and ugly. I really need you to pay me a compliment.'
I replied, 'Your eyesight's damn near perfect.'
And then the fight started..

DASH Diet Recipes - Fish Chowder, Garlic Black Pepper Salad Dressing

(Don't panic - my daughter is typing this for me. I don't want to lose these recipes!)

Two great recipes for those on the DASH diet (low sodium, low fat, heart healthy)

CREAMY FISH CHOWDER

1 slice turkey bacon, diced
1 tsp salt-free butter
1 stalk celery, diced
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
8 ounces tilapia or cod fillets, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 med. potato, peeled and diced (about 2 cups)
1/4 tsp dried tyme
1/8 tsp dried dill
1 bay leaf
2/3 cup no-fat milk
1/2 can no sodium corn
1 tbsp water
2 tsp cornstarch
Ground black pepper to taste

Heat a large saucepan over medium heat. Add diced bacon and salt-free butter and cook, stirring often, until crisp. Remove bacon with slotted spoon and reserve.

Add onion, celery and garlic to bacon/butter drippings and cook until softened. Add chicken broth, fish, potatoes, thyme, dill, and bay leaf and bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce heat to maintain simmer, and cook until potatoes are tender (10-12 minutes). Discard bay leaf. Transfer about half of the fish/potatoes mixture to a bowl with slotted spoon, and mash mixture with potato masher. Return to pot and add milk and corn. Bring back to simmer.

Whisk water and cornstarch in a small container. When soup is simmering, gradually add the cornstarch and cook, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 1 minute. Season with pepper. Garnish with reserved bacon bits.

*Original recipe from LOW-SALT COOKBOOK: A COMPLETE GUIDE TO REDUCING SODIUM AND FAT IN YOUR DIET by American Heart Association; third edition.

CREAMY BLACK PEPPER AND GARLIC DRESSING

1/2 cup fat-free mayonnaise
1/2 cup fat-free milk
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 medium garlic clove, minced

Put all contents in a small jar and shake.

This is a tastey salad dressing, but we also use it as a sauce/flavor enhancer over chicken and fish and couscous!

OUCHies

I know I've not been posting much -- and even less on my precious Quilting on a Budget blog. I believe it will be six weeks or more before I can get back to posting on a regular basis.

One day Mr. B and I were in the car and he wanted a piece of gum. I fished around in my purse, got out the gum, and went to hand it to him -- he was sitting in his car seat in the middle of the back seat. I felt something "go" in my shoulder but didn't think much about it.

Same scenario, same series of events two weeks later. Same "ouchie" in my shoulder.

I started to notice I couldn't lay on my right side to sleep, because my shoulder hurt. Then it got worse and worse. I went to the doctor and, as is pretty standard with a primary physican these days, she did nothing, but sent me on to an orthoepedic specialist. It took me two weeks to get an appointment. Meanwhile, if I took my jacket off without thinking, or something fell and I went to grab it, more ouchies - only the ouchies were getting worse and more frequent. The Ortho specialist gave me a cortisone shot in my shoulder and a prescription for anti-inflammatory medicine. No results. I waited a week because someone told me to cortisone shot can take awhile to kick in. When I called in a week, it took me another two weeks to get an appointment. Meanwhile, every time I tried to wash windows or scrub tubs, the shoulder was hurting more.

Got into the ortho specialist last week, and he sent me for an MRI. Took me two days to get in there, and finally back to my ortho specialist today. I have torn a tendon in my rotator cuff. I'm off to physical thereapy three times a week for six weeks. Hopefully, no surgery.

At the moment, two things bother me the most. Sleeping and being on the computer. I'm lucky that sewing and quilting do not bother me, so I'm getting a lot of Christmas presents made!

But I'm here, I'm fine, I'm on the mend, but I really need to stay off the computer for a few weeks until my shoulder heals. I guess it's something about the positioning of the keyboard or the way my arm rests on the computer desk that aggravates the shoulder - but I really need to get this healed so I can get on with my life! I don't do pain well, believe me.

So Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, happy holidays, Merry Christmas --- and I hope to be back before the New Year. If you see me posting on here before that - swat me!!!

I Challenge You...

My last two posts have been about Reality entering our home without knocking and the realization how lucky we are that Jeff did not lose his job. This reality check made us both think of all the people who ARE out of a job, and the emotions and fears and hardships to families that come hand in hand with unemployment. It must be a horrendous feeling not to be able to provide for your family. Nevermind Christmas, weekly grocery shopping, medical bills, gas for the car -- all of these that many of us take for granted must be a trying time for folks who have lost their jobs.

Unemployment is no longer about those who are too lazy to work. Unemployment is now about being gainfully employed and having the job pulled out from under you without notice.

So I am putting out a challenge to all my Internet friends who are gainfully employed and able to put food on their table and gas in their cars. I challenge you to donate $25 to your closest food pantry. If you don't know where that is, simply google your town/city and the words "food pantry" and you'll find one.

After our recent scare, Jeff and I talked about what it felt like to face financial hardship, and how many others are going through what we were threatened with. Our reality didn't change, but our thoughts on other folks going through all this did. So we have agreed to make a serious effort to help others.

Think of the $4 cups of coffee you buy on a whim or the extra groceries you buy to simply stock your pantry, or the unnecessary trips in the car you take. $25.00 gets eaten up quickly by any of those.

So I challenge you to write a check today, and help someone else who wakes up every morning ready to go to work but not having a job to go to, wondering how they are going to live on unemployment and still maintain a family life. $25.00 sifts through our fingers without our even noticing -- but it could mean several meals to a family that is suffering during these tough economic times.

Test - - passed

Just a quick update.

All will be well. Jeff's boss may have had a bit of "chicken little" syndrome. It turns out, the sky wasn't falling after all. We are and will be fine. No early retirement, no financial distress, no job loss.

We learned an important lesson, and that's always good. We need to keep better track of our investments and know, at a glance, where we stand at all times. We need to think before creating new long-term financial obligations because "long term" has a totally new meaning when you're nearing retirement.

It's time to buckle down and save money in a liquid savings account - and not touch it. Yes, we have investments of various kinds, but if Jeff had gotten laid off, we did not have six months salary in a savings account (despite how we've advised our kids to do that!). We're going to work on that now.

This whole episode was a scare (albeit unnecessary), but that's fine, so long as we learned something from it. And we did. Retirement is coming fast. If we want to retire with no mortgage payment and without financial worries, we need to be more cognizant of where our money is going and why.We do not make major purchases lightly (or often) but we both are guilty of making many small purchases without thinking.

So all is well in our household, at least job wise.

Today is my oldest's 30th birthday. In some ways it seems like he was a little guy playing video games and wanting to blow things up just a few weeks ago, and yet sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago that I laid my eyes on that little baby boy and knew a love like I'd never even knew existed. He's a man now, with a nice home, great job, wonderful wife... and I'm so proud of him in every way. Happy Birthday, Jeffie. I miss you, and I love you, and I'm proud of you.

Mr. B is here for his 3rd day in a row. Sick again, but this time he has pneumonia. I think it's time to change pediatricians (but then, it's not my call) because it makes no sense to me that his doctor(s) do not think his getting sick every month is abnormal. He is forever on antibiotics and sometimes on steroids for his respiratory problems. Too much medicine and not enough diagnosis/testing in my book.

So my house is a mess, my grandson is germifying my house, it's cold outside and our power went off this morning (temporarily), but you know what? It's a great day. My husband has a job, we're not in jeopardy of losing everything, my son is 30 years old and leading a good life, my daughter is recovering from her own bout of bronchitis, and it's a gorgeous sunny day. Some times you just need to stop and count your blessings... Mine are many.

The Ultimate Test in ... everything

My husband and I have been through bumps in life before. Big bumps. Life altering bumps, in fact. We've weathered them just fine, though while the bumps were actually happening, we'd collectively and individually wonder if we'd make it. But we did.

So now we face a new bump... hurdle... whatever you want to call it -- hopefully, not "brick wall".

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Well, look at this. I was going to write about what we (my husband and I) are going through right now, but I can't. First, my husband is a private person and doesn't like it when I write about him on my blog. Second, my husband works for a Fortune 500 company and he REALLY doesn't like it if I mention anything about his work.

Suffice to say, we are faced right now with a life-altering decision that may or may not be taken out of our hands and decided for us. Although it has come as quite a shock to us, it certainly could be worse. This could be a life-long dream realized, or it could be a financial nightmare. But it is nothing compared to people making little more than minimum wage, having small children to provide for, and getting laid off from their job. We, at least, have alternatives, retirement benefits, choices. More than ten percent of our country doesn't have that "cushion".

But let me add this. We were not as financially prepared as we thought we were. Yes, we've been saving money for a long time. We've lived a fairly frugal life on a paycheck that offers others luxurious vacations or 2nd homes. But when the offer of retirement actually knocked on the door? We realized we weren't ready. We have five more years on our mortage, and a small 2nd mortage to boot. We have two new cars in the garage with 3 and 4 more years of payments due. We enjoy our High Def TV's and our high speed internet and our cell phones (all of which I actually could give up if need be). And oh yes, we lost 9/10ths of our retirement savings investments when the stocks plummeted last year, of which we have regained only a small portion. That is definitely an OUCH factor.

So I'm here but I'm not here. My mind is racing with what my part (as the not-employed spouse) in all this is. Whatever my husband's decision, I will support him. I will go back to work parttime or fulltime or whatever he needs from me. Although he includes me in the decision process, I know the decision is his alone. I will back him in whatever decision he makes. I know he will keep me and the family uppermost in his mind during the decision process, because that's the man he is.

But think good thoughts for us. It's a tough time and an unsure outcome. We've weathered worse, and we will weather this - together.

A little freaked out by the H1N1 virus

I admit, I'm a little over-the-top freaked out about the H1N1 flu. It has most definitely reared it's ugly head in our geographic area, and every time I go grocery shopping or on errands and hear people hacking and sneezing, I run for my hand sanitizer and, to be perfectly honest, am considering wearing a mask when I go out. Of course, I'd use some pretty cotton quilt fabric so it would be a "designer" mask, but still...

I worry about Mr. B too. He has asthma, which automatically makes him a candidate for the vaccine. EXCEPT he's highly allergic to eggs -- which are used to "grow" the ingredients in the vaccine. Both Mary and I have called the health department to ask if they can obtain one of the few vaccines not "grown" with eggs, but no one ever calls back. His pediatrician simply tells us to contact the health department.

I may have gone overboard a bit. Last week Mr. B was pitching a fit for his mother because he couldn't find his "hanitizer" (hand sanitizer). I don't want to instill germaphobia in the poor little guy, but I also don't want him to catch this flu.

To be honest, I'm not terribly sure either of us would survive it. Literally. That's scarey stuff right there.

My doctor gave me a regular flu shot, and a new 7-year pneumonia vaccine (I had borderline pneumonia twice last year), and I'm on Lipitor which is now showing in studies to possibly fight off the H1N1 virus. But I still haven't gotten the H1N1 flu shot itself. Last week our health department had the vaccines in -- 3000 shots and more than 6000 people stood in line for two days for them. Six thousand people coughing and sneezing in my immediate vacinity... no thanks.

I picked my husband up at the airport the other day, and the first thing I did when he got in the car was hand him the hand sanitizer. Sanitize first, welcome back kiss second. I considered bringing Listerine with me as well, but managed to talk myself out of that one.

I have told my daughter that if Mr. B gets sick, he simply must go to the pediatrician and be "cleared" before he comes to my house. It seems he catches everything imaginable from his 3 days in daycare. It made me feel a little better when I picked him up at daycare the other day to see a large dispenser of hand sanitizer just inside her front door.

I found this interesting web site. If you have a cold or the flu, and wonder if it might just be H1N1, you can go to this web site, put in your symptoms, and it will tell you if you should hightail it to the doctor or not. It's provided by Emory University.