12 step program for pack rats

I suppose there is a support group for pack rats, heck why not there is one for everything else. As you have probably surmised we are in that stage of the move.

It starts out with "honey do you want to keep this?" to "are you sure you want to keep this?, to "No way you're not keeping that are you?". We are beginning to sound like the Bickersons. Having lived in this particular house near four years, I am totally in awe of what we have accumulated. Many items will be going to GoodWill, Salvation Army, the Church and Habitat for Humanity. I have turned over a new leaf and will no longer collect schtuff, WTH do we need it for. If you haven't touched it in a year, Good Lord man give it away to someone who can.

Here's the deal, what we are preparing for now and deciding what to keep and what to toss. After that decision is agreed upon then all will be packed up and moved to AZ where said schtuff we think we need will remain in storage till a house is built. And that house will be built in between many visits to CA for family fun and frolic. Several visits to Canada for friends and folic. And somewhere in there will be a trip to Alaska. I know what your thinking, Doodles in Alaska I'm not seeing it. Ya see I'm still trying to talk Mary into starting out on the trip with Norm and I'll pick it up half way thru. Don't think Mary's buying it, but she does like Alaska.

24 more sleeps till...stay tuna'd...

Might I bore you with this?!?

Ya see we have this house that we just got a contract on after a bazillion months of the blasted thing being on the market. And I'm really funny about count down clocks. I love doing that....maybe because Dick Clark, New Year's, I don't know.

So I'm gonna bore you to tears with my count down to closing on the house. BUT I am going to do it a bit differently. My friend, who happens to be on a driving adventure around the USA, told me of a clever countdown which she did for her trip countdown.

stay tuna'd ....................... 26 sleeps till the closing.

Washing D.C. must have a school for dopes

Go read my sister's blog of the men and women of the war and then tell me why.

The headline reads Army Probes Reports of Neglect at Walter Reed

I am becoming more dismayed (another word for totally pissed off) as the days go by. Tell me why we have to read and hear about the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed Outpatient Clinic. The Army is going to conduct an investigation because they read about this mess in the Washington Post. Good Lord man how can y'all look at yourselves in the mirror each morning. There was one dope (General) that said he jogs, jogs around this building just about everyday. Well good for you General because the majority of the patients in that building are amputees and can't jog. Ya never went inside?!?! We have a severe problem with our system folks and we just cannot allow this to continue...stay tuna'd...

Well hell I'm feeling a LOT better!!!

Norm and I finally have a solid contract of the sale of our house. There are many adjectives to describe how we feel BUT ecstatic certainly is one that comes to mind.

So now the real tombstone tumbleweed journey begins. I have a feeling that real retirement is just around the corner, if you call building a new house in an area that we have never lived in before. Well that's no exactly true Norm was based out of Tucson when in the USAF and I lived in Phoenix a gazillion years ago for about a year.

Actually we are going back to the scene of the crime so to speak, we were married thirty six years ago in Tombstone, AZ. Nothing conventional about us as you probably already know.

So get ready for a few travel blogs and travel photos because that is what we are going to do, bore y'all to tears with a travelouge.

But most of all I am happier than I can even imgaine to be moving closer to my sister and brother-in-law, my niece and newphew-in-law, my dear friend, Daddy's wife Mary. We have lived on opposite coasts for way too many years and it is with great delirious anticipation that we will be almost in the same time zone.

So as I have said from my very first blog, stay tuna'd...

and how smart are you???

This is exactly how I felt this morning when I woke to frost on the ground and I still feel like crap - damn sinus.

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Every dog deserves a loving home

How true that is. And that's what the Pedigree Dog Food Company says........while they put their money where their mouth is.

Go to their web site http://www.pedigree.com/home.asp make a donation to the American Humane Association and the Pedigree Company will match each donation. This is being done in conjunction with the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show taking place in New York City tonite and tomorrow nite.

Good Luck to all the dogs and their owners and handlers participating in this wonderful event.

MAX MULTY BUDDY

An omen of sorts...

Well this little guy greeted me this a.m. when going out to get the newspaper. I'm calling him my lucky frog cause our momma had lots of frogs scattered around her home and yes all of them were of the glass or ceramic variety.

So maybe this little guy will bring us good luck to our open house to be held today.

I had gone to the nursery to see what was available and I came upon this jade plant. Discovered when I got it home that I didn't have the proper soil to transplant it to a different pot suitable for hanging. So I just plopped it on the hook. Don't know if I brought the lucky little guy home or not..cause I am imagining driving and this frog jumping out from the plant and distracting me from my driving...holy crap. But maybe he is a local neighborhood frog and we just had yet to meet. If so how the hell did ya get up in that plant.

Just hope he dosen't attack any visitors today...stay tuna'd

Front page news...

So my sweet adorable husband is reading me the newspaper this a.m., the headline in particular. No It's not the senior discount it's the fact that Mr Bush is going to cut health AND education!!! In one fell swoop, the nerve of some peoples children, how dare he. What must he think when he lays his little pointy head down on his pillow at nite. And where oh where will it end???

Now I want y'all to know that the look on Buddy "the cat" face is one of disgust and annoyance OK!

Holy Colts!!!

Please do not say that Coach Tony Dungy, of the Indianapolis Colts, was the first African American to win the 2007 Super Bowl, please say that the coach with the most class won the Super Bowl. Cause it would be so very true.

How many Coaches do you know would stop in the midst of a media frenzy, in the rain, reomove his hat and stop to hug and kiss his wife.

Congratulations to the Colt's and all of their many fans. And to those who doubted Peyton Manning........nanananana!!!

Oh yeah, can ya just imagine how Archie Manning is feeling this morning, his son Peyton is going to DisneyWorld........in his new Cadillac that he won as the games MVP. note to GM as Peyton was the MVP winner, ya should have given him a Colts blue Cadillac instead of the red one!!!

Hoosier's Unite....

OK you don't have to be a Hoosier to be cheering for the Indianapolis Colt's to win the Super Bowl. BUT can you just imagine what it must be like in Indianapolis.

QB Manning will more than likely be going to the coveted football hall of fame, let's make sure he is wearing that SuperBowl ring when he arrives.

Coach Dungy on the other hand had a stellar career with among others, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Coach Dungy, then QB Dungy played on the same team as a friend of ours Gary Dunn. Gary is one of the sweetest "big guys" you have ever met. I have had the great pleasure of wearing his Super Bowl ring - my it's heavy and quite large - but a beauty none the less. However the one ring Gary prizes more than any would be his Championship ring when playing for the University of Miami. I digress.

So let the madness begin. The media will converge on Miami and bore us to tears by the end of the week and we will wish the damn game was over.......with the Colt's being the Super Bowl Champions of course............stay tuna'd!!!

Get ready...

now this is something I can wrap me leetle brain around.........

January 24th is National Belly Laugh Day.

I love to laugh, I find I laugh more when I am around seester Moon, but we laugh a lot even on the phone. Then when niece lil bird is joining us it can be pretty silly sometimes. We do tend to find humor in a lot a things.

Nothing is cuter to me than a bunch a kids laughing and giggling uncontrolably, cause it's so real.

We have all heard that laughing is healthy, so here's your perscription for the day Go have a good laugh and do it with a friend cause I think it's healthier that way. And we all could be a little healthier.

Do you have a cat?

Well we do, boy do we ever.

His name is Buddy the cat not to be confused with his cousin Buddy the dog. He is a handsome cat but he is a black cat and therefore does not photograph well. Actually his breed is called Havana Brown. Looks black but in the sun they have that very deep brown undercoat, he is handsome for a black cat.


Here's the story about Buddy, he likes/loves water. I know he's a cat but the damn cat grew up with water.

Buddy was found, when just a few hours old, in the mouth of a rotweiler dog. It is presumed that the dog disposed of any of the brothers or sisters and probably the momma. This was discovered by my friend Brigitta, who is the wife of a Vet. She plucked the teeny tiny kitty out of the mouth of the dog and took it inside. Brigitta to the rescue.

Fast forward a couple a weeks, Brigitta comes to work, she worked for us in the busy shipping time. She walk thru the door, in her breast pocket of a shirt she had on was this rescued kitty orphan. Ugly, gray and wrinkly. She baby bottled fed him, we think, then took it to the sink and wrung it out so it would doo, doo it's business. Didn't know that could be done but learn sumpin new everyday.

Now here comes the love of water - Brigitta would wash him and fluff him up with a wash cloth, went to plug in the heating pad, put the kitty on the heating pad with his new friend, a stuffed
orangutan. This took place several times during the day. So water was this kittens friend.

Well the look on husbands face was priceless, he couldn't keep his hands off that kitten. That moment he fell in love with a cat. We have had a cat previously but Smokey was more of a barn cat and not a house cat, certainly not a cat to fall in love with.

Jump ahead another couple weeks, I invited Brigitta and her Dr. Doolittle husband over for dinner. Sure I said bring the orphan. See we were ganging up on husband to become the new proud daddy of this kitten. Suffice to say it worked like a charm.

Brigitta and the good Dr. walked in the door, she promptly went over, put the kitten in husbands lap, pleading a trip to the ladies room was necessary. There ya go, we had a cat!!!

Needless to say we were not skilled at keeping a teeny tiny orphan kitten alive so Brigitta took him home for another couple weeks. Wait, we did birth 7 baby bassett puppies and hand fed all the little demons, thanks to sister and momma. No matter but that sure could be another blog.

So rescued kitten gets a new home, and as many of you know any baby anything is cute, human or otherwise. This was one funny kitten, very adventurous and quite comical. But there were some things we didn't know such as he wants to get in the shower with you.Buddy loves water still to this day. Some days he gets more drenced than others, well not drenched but he does get we.

In the early years Buddy would not be kind to guests, he once tore up the legs of our next door neighbor, yep drew blood. Funny the neighbor was a cop and was going to arrest the damn cat.
You're right that's not funny at all, I hated having to put the cat on another patio when guests came but hey. The Dr. vet dude said when he tries that spray him with a water bottle. You must be joking he loves water, he would think he was being rewarded for god's sake.

Buddy will be twelve this 4th of July and to this day Buddy still takes a shower with husband, sometimes me but not often. Maybe I don't always find the humor in a cat running around the shower under foot. However I am happy to report that Buddy, the evil cat we used to call him, he is now calm and so very sweet and friendly.

What's up with that, but stay tuna'd because we are takling about Buddy the cat!

I do have a video that I am going to put up on You Tube.

Real Estate not Selling ??? Good Reason

Do ya spose.....I suggest we take our Federal Tax $$$ and send it to Tallahassee then we could self insure ourselves until the insurance companies can decide. Then maybe, just maybe the Fed would listen

Wait till ya here this, I had the "Audacity of Hope" to email Senator Obama, asking him please help with this horrible mess we are in regarding our insurance problems and I promise I will work my fanny off to help y'all get elected in the fine state. He Emailed back and said I'll have my people contact your people.

I am convinced that we will be in Florida for at least another year or so, sad but true, sorry seester. Sooooooo for sure stay tuna'd...........

Insurance Remedies May Have Unintended Results
By KEVIN BEGOS The Tampa TribunePublished: Jan 18, 2007
TALLAHASSEE - Florida politicians are considering radical changes to the property insurance business. Whether the fixes will work - and whether they're even legal - is another matter."I think it's excellent what Florida is trying to do; I think it will be unsuccessful," said Tom Baker, director of the Insurance Law Center at the University of Connecticut.He was referring to legislation that would put pressure on companies that refuse to write homeowners policies in Florida, as well as allow regulators to consider the profits of national parent companies when setting rates. Those moves could ease the crisis in homeowners insurance, lawmakers say."There would be no legal reason why the Florida insurance department couldn't do that," said Baker, noting a long history of other states looking at the market in a broad way.However, the effect might not be what politicians intend, he said. For although the state could compel insurers to offer homeowners insurance when it is equipped to do so, a company could decide to pull out of the state entirely rather than comply with the new rules.That's just one of many potential problems, said Robert Hartwig, president of the industry-sponsored Insurance Information Institute."Some of these provisions threaten to legislate insurers out of existence in Florida. They are anticompetitive. They will drive capital away from the state," he said.Hartwig also thinks that forcing insurers to write multiple lines and considering the profits of national affiliates is flat-out illegal. That interferes with interstate commerce, he said, suggesting that a federal court would strike down such laws."You cannot compel an insurer to sell any particular type of insurance," he said.Some past disputes on insurance issues have gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress, Baker said.The battle over hurricane insurance also has parallels with the way fire insurance evolved.The U.S. Government Accountability Office noted in a report that "as the 19th century progressed, and the power and profitability of the fire insurance industry grew, state governments began taxing fire insurance companies, as a means of obtaining revenue, and enacting laws requiring deposits from out-of-state insurers and imposing heavy taxes on their local operations, as a means of protecting local insurers."Partly as a result of such disputes, Congress exempted the insurance industry from interstate commerce laws and allowed states to handle regulation."The insurance industry is really the last big industry that is primarily regulated by the states," said Robert Jerry, dean of the University of Florida Law School and an expert on insurance law.During the past decade, though, there have been increasing calls to federalize parts of insurance regulation, he said, noting "that discussion has probably been as intense as any time in the last 30 years."At a meeting of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs in the summer, representatives of state insurance commissioners called for keeping the current system, but some leading industry voices supported a move toward national regulation.Some are waiting to see the final legislation in Florida before passing judgment.Adam Shores, a spokesman for Allstate Floridian in St. Petersburg, said the process of refining legislation could take months, even if the main bills are passed this week."We're talking about a fundamental restructuring of how insurance operates in this state," he said.Shores praised the concept of the state providing reinsurance to companies such as Allstate. That could be "a strong step in the right direction" that lowers rates for consumers, he said, although Allstate is concerned about other attempts to punish the industry.Reporter Kevin Begos can be reached at (850) 222-8382 or http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/mailto:kbegos@tampatrib.com.

Florida can't pick up Calif.'s citrus slack

Well it's not like they aren't trying, but that sound you hear are the prices going up for citrus


Copied from the Herald Tribune dated January 17, 2007

DESOTO COUNTY — Sure, Florida can take up some of the slack for the ravaged California citrus crop, but that doesn’t mean it is going to be easy.Florida does not grow much supermarket-style fruit for one thing. It is more of an afterthought for most growers. Ninety percent of Florida oranges make their way to big juicers like Bradenton’s Tropicana Products Inc.The second complication is that because of the citrus canker disease that has devastated a good portion of Florida’s crop, growers here cannot ship fresh fruit to California or any of 10 other citrus-producing states, such as Texas or Arizona.For any of Florida’s fresh orange providers to meet the demand left behind by California’s freeze, they would have to ship directly to the customers in other states, bypassing California.And Florida and California oranges are quite different.The Sunshine State’s fruit has thinner skins and is more prone to wind scars and other blemishes that make it unsuitable for table fruit. The trade-off is that Florida has sub-tropical weather conditions that make most orange varieties grown here much more juice-filled than the Golden State variety.Despite any complications, Southwest Florida growers remain optimistic that they will reap something positive from California’s painful winter freeze.Last year, they did not think they would not have much of a market at all for their fresh citrus because of canker.“Anyone who has fresh oranges will certainly be filling the void caused by the California freeze,” said Barbara Carlton, executive director of the Peace River Valley Citrus Growers Association, which counts about 300 growers in Southwest Florida among its members.“This could be a very good thing for those who have fresh fruit. That’s agriculture: One man’s problem is another man’s benefit.”Tom Spreen, one of the state’s top citrus economists, shared Carlton’s optimism.“I see a big jump in the fresh citrus price,” said Spreen, the chairman of the Food and Resource Economics Department at the University of Florida in Gainesville.Spreen predicted the California freeze would push fresh orange prices at least another 15 percent higher. “That’s not a bad price,” said Richard Kinney, the chief executive of Florida Citrus Packers in Lakeland, the industry’s trade group. “This will help us increase our margins.”Joshua Citrus, a DeSoto County gift fruit shipper operating a grove off of U.S. 31 near Arcadia, already is seeing the price for wholesale “table fruit” rising because of California’s icicles.“It will affect our wholesale business because the price has gone up due to the shortage of California navels,” said Lynn Shelfer, co-owner of the business with her husband, Kevin. “It’s very unfortunate for them, but the price has gone up already.“It’s a terrible thing, and I feel very sorry for those people. We might be next: The winter’s not over yet.”Ripple effectThe weather in California is even affecting businesses in DeSoto County that don’t grow citrus but feed the people who do.When Martha Clement was opening her Arcadia restaurant, Slim’s Bar-B-Q & Grill, on Wednesday morning, her produce supplier had some bad news: the price of a 200-count box of limes was going to double, from about $20 to about $40.“We can’t adjust our prices that fast so we’ll just bite the bullet. We’re already going into the mode that some items will be unavailable.” Clement said.“What wasn’t impacted, those prices have skyrocketed. We are already in the mode of ‘prep only what you’ll need.’”If the California freeze has any effect on juice processing, it will occur when processors and packinghouses start competing for late-season Valencia oranges, which are not harvested until March. By the time the freeze hit, California growers had picked 25 percent to 30 percent of its early season navel orange crop, said Duke Chadwell, the manager of the Citrus Administrative Committee in Lakeland. Because California Valencias were still on the tree when the freeze hit, they probably incurred the biggest losses, Spreen said. Before the freeze, the USDA estimated at the California Valencia crop at 13 million boxes. Florida processors were offering about $13.50 on tree for Valencia oranges before the freeze, he said, and even at the price, not many growers were selling.The on-tree price represents the price growers get from the packinghouse after deducting harvesting, transportation and packing costs. It does not account for the grower’s caretaking and other production expenses. Growers got an average $6.47 per box on tree for juice Valencias and $5 a box for fresh Valencias in the 2005-06 season, according to preliminary USDA statistics. Processors pay more for Valencias because it’s used in most not-from-concentrate, or NFC, juice products, the most widely sold type of orange juice. So processors and packinghouses could get into a real bidding war over the Florida Valencia crop, estimated at just 65 million boxes this season, Spreen said. That, in turn, will drive the retail prices for NFC orange juice and fresh Valencia oranges even higher, he said. “It’s going to be pretty expensive (for the consumer) this year,” he said. The good news for Florida processors and packinghouses is that on-tree prices probably won’t double, Spreen said, but that’s only because they began at a much higher level this season. Even with more Florida oranges going into the fresh market instead of the juice side, the effect will amount to a “minor negative” for OJ production, Spreen said.It might mean another 1 million orange boxes going fresh. “One million boxes is not that much fruit relative to the processing industry. It’s only a few million gallons.”

Evacuation help is here

I know, I know it's a tad early to start thinking about evacuations, hurricanes and the like.

It's a wonderful thing when you come upon something so very worthwhile and ya found the dern site strictly by accident.

Well maybe it wasn't a fluke, maybe I was meant to find this site http://EvacuationHelp.com

Glad I did, so please help me spread the word. Go to Evacuation Help read how to get involved, it's really quite simple. It could save someones life. All I can think of is the look on some of those folks during Katrina, not just New Orleans all over the Gulf Coast states. A whisper and it would have been right here in dear old Florida.

Their goal is to mobilize fellow Americans to build Pre-Disaster Relationships (PDR) across the country in the hopes to get everybody out of harms way ahead of time, in turn saving lives and helping each other to maintain a quality of life and preserve our integrity and pride.

So please, spend some time read the site and if you are in a position to volunteer it would be appreciated. They have a great contact, just email them if you have any questions. If not tell someone about Evacuation Help.

And yes I signed up.

stay tuna'd cause I bet there's more from this group on the horizon.

why???

Read THIS once again and tell me why do we want to send 20 thousand more troops to Iraq.

Just think about the latest, for lack of a better word, SCREW UP! If they cannot hang a man correctly, my God is there such a thing as that!!! Why do we want to send more men and women to this country and jepordize their lives.

Consider writing the President and all the good folks in Congress, see what we can do. There really is such a thing as power to the people. At least try!

When I wrote to the President concerning my thoughts of the Iraq debacle, my sister wrote as well, read her blog about the situation http://frenchbenefits.blogspot.com/ Anyway she got a response from the White House, however it being a form letter but a response none the less. I got nothing. I felt like maybe I was on a list of some kind until yesterday, I got the same stupid form email.

Some ask could it get worse I say stay tuna'd....

no labels here

Many of you have heard me speak of a market I frequent called PUBLIX. It's a chain of many stores, that is employee owned, throughout Florida, Georgia and a few in South Carolina I think.

To bring attention to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day today Publix put a full page ad in the newspaper that nearly blew me away.

Picture several tin cans without labels on a grocery shelf, and the statement underneath...

In honor of a man who didn't believe in labels.

Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 1.15.07

My patience is just about over

I went to bed last nite somewhat afraid of the consequences that are going to come from the speech of the President along with the gazillion talking heads that had to join in.

A few things that bother me and I'm sure that list will grow as all of this mess esculates.

One is when they were interviewing the reporters on the White House lawn you could hear demonstrators in the background. Oh my God! Not that I don't want people to demonstrate I do, I just have these horrible flashbacks of the 60's.

Another worriesome item is he kept mentioning the region Iran and Syria. Oh my God! Seems to me that Iraq will implode and poor Turkey who is tring to mind their own business and happens to border on Iraq with Syria to their south. Oh lord there is gonna be a huge civil war over there.

I woke up to my bunky saying some pretty radical things about the President and this mess he has got us into. Now those of you that know my husband know he is not the least bit radical or horribly outspoken on the President, the Government or anything else for that matter. Yep he spent 4 years in the U S Air Force, as a Canadian resident I am reminding you. And yes he was in Vietnam more than once , so what, so were a lot of other very brave folk. But he's having flashbacks of more boots on the ground rhetoric and it's not looking good.

I do not see any good to come out of this what so ever, ever, ever. BUT stay tuna'd...let's see if this new Congress has any balls.

Happy Birthday Elvis and Jeff

A friend told me today was her husbands birthday, Happy Birthday Jeff.
Then she reminded me it was also the birthday of Elvis. OK!!!

Not that I have ever celebrated Elvis Presley's birthday BUT I do have a few memories of Elvis. So when my friend mentioned this event, a couple of Elvis memories immediately came to mind.

One of which was WAAAAAAY back when he first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show. We lived in Indiana, had a black & white television, beautiful piece of furniture, blond wood, anyway the tuner was broke and to keep it on the station you wanted to watch you had to hold the tuner. I sat inches away from the TV for the whole time while old Elvis swiveled his hips and sang to the world. I even remember the two sofas we had in the living room were quite stylish of black and white tweedy material and very modern. Long time ago.

Now I was never ever an Elvis screamer but I had his records and saw his insipid movies cause I thought he was rather handsome.

Now fast forward many years to being married and living in Connecticut. Sometime in the spring or early summer of 1977 I hear that Elvis is coming to Hartford. I mention this to my dear husband, says sure let's get ticket for his concert in August. I toddle on up to Hartford when the tickets go on sale, wait in line, get really good seats for his show on August 18th.

Well do ya see where I'm going with this??? Tragically Elvis departed this world on August 16, 1977. Not only did I not get to see him which I would have enjoyed BUT husband, without my knowledge, took the tickets back and got a refund. Then went and bought me an Elvis album.
The dear sweet soul came home and handed me this album, I say what the hell is this? as I am such an ungrate person aren't I. Well he says since you didn't get to see Elvis and I know how disappointed you were I thought I would get you his album. How sweet I say but DO YOU KNOW HOW VALUABLE THOSE TICKETS WOULD BE IF YOU KEPT THEM!!!

Actually the thought never crossed husbands mind because he doesn't think like that. And I apologized for being so ungrateful and to tell ya the truth I don't know now if the tickets would be of any value. But let me tell you when the name Elvis comes up husband usually will tell someone about the returned tickets. My man is a keeper.