Christmas Letter...sort of...

This is a picture of our department's Holiday Wreath that came in FOURTH place.  Well.  Thought we were being clever by making ourselves are part of the ornaments.  Okay, medium to clever idea, execution....meh.

Now on to the rest of the year in summary:

I seem to have blogged approximately 50 or so entries mostly consisting of recipes old and new; Tamale pie, various kinds of dressings, one Turkey.  Ate out at our favorite Italian place a couple of time simply for the New York Steak with Gorgonzola sauce.

I posted lots of pictures of the hospital build.  Grand opening was in April and the move was killer.  Personnel wise our then manager left in February as well as another associate who should never work for a living unless the fellow associates understand her extreme devotion to time off.  Replacements were two ladies from a temp agency and one transcriptionist I tracked down when everyone went on vacation and I was the only pumpkin on the vine obviously doing only priority stuff for an entire endless week. Ultimately one of the temp ladies moved to Bend and we were able to finally offer probational to permanent status to two of hour associates and part time clerical work to our long time guy who schleps stuff from hospital to various clinics.  (My memory is going to Heck in a Hand basket - I find myself using substitute phrases to describe things such as expediter...no that's not the right word..oh well it will come to me.)

We haven't traveled much unless it is routine shopping in Coos Bay mostly due to gas prices.  Gas finally settled into the $3.25 per gallon range a couple of weeks ago.  I did take one mini vacation in that I spent the weekend in Roseburg with a friend and we went shopping at the mall, the cheapie mall and Costo.  That was fun.
We down the freeway to spend a couple hours at the Casino and for once I left TWENTY CENTS to the good. 

My book collection grows.  I am at 3000 books and counting.  Carla drove down to bring me Mom's quilt that Grandma Lattimer pieced for her for her birthday 09-07-26, I had ordered a special acid proof box and and acid free paper to preserve the textiles and it will wait to be owned by a descent who loves quilts.   Carla also brought several boxes of beautiful books that mostly sit on the old school bench that Mom kept her African Violets on for years.

This summer was a financial adventure..sort of.  Husband insisted that we get the mortgage refinanced from 7% to 3. what ever.  I agreed somewhat reluctantly because I felt that if the fiscal cliff resulted in the loss of the deduction for mortgage interest we were pretty much doomed.   So away we went to visit the bank and go through the application process, signed tons of paper work and waited for the assessor to come inspect and make recommendations. And the bank lady calculated we would have a mortgage about 92K at 3. sumpin sumpin.  Depressing.

In the mean time we had contacted a contractor to come fix the sun room and paint the house.  Um, I had withdrawn an amount from savings that very closely matched their quote for work and away we went.  Very nice crew, they demolished the rotten bits, hammered and sawed the replacement bits, painted the rest of the house in what turned out to be a BLINDING WHITE.  I made sandwiches for the crew every day they were there. I must say the Italian meatball subs were wonderful. 

While all of this was going on, we developed a leak in the plumbing.  It was not a fill the basement type leak but it was significant.  So several plumbers came out to assess and we wound up being without water for about a week, we actually stayed in a local no tell motel a couple of nights.  Running water is one of my favorite modern conveniences.    Plumbers replaced the interior major pipes and stacks and told us to flush very carefully and that they would send another crew with heavy equipment to dig up the outside the house connection to the sewer main in the street.  Really??  Yeah.  That took a couple more days with gigantic hole in lawn and street. 

THEN, we got up one morning and the hot water wasn't.  Great neither one of wanted to mess with changing elements on a ten year old water heater so we called the family plumber to come replace the thing.

Also I would get the occasional phone call from the bank wanting to know when were going to finish the repairs called for by the inspector person who had recommended that we do ANOTHER THIRTY THOUSAND dollars worth of work; windows, and so on. I told the nice lady how much we had spent so far and she gulped sympathetically and allowed that the bank could not finance that much the house didn't have that much equity or what ever magic financial calculation determines those kinds of decisions. Bye! Bye!

So I told the nice lady at the bank, thanks but no thanks, we cannot afford to refinance.  Yah! That means that we will either live here forever, sell it as is or will it to my descendants who will STILL have trouble selling a house built in 1929.  Oy.

We maxed out the plastic to pay the various bills for services rendered.  That stung. 

And one last build item...the gutters...a nice outfit came and replaced the current gutters and added gutters to the front porch for under a two hundred dollar bill.

Oh wait I am not quite finished.  My friend came to visit and I had to back out for her to follow me to work because it was dark and she is direction challenged.  I backed out right into my neighbors very large black truck and scraped and dented the back panel. Safeco stepped in to tune of 650 bucks and fixed it.   I am getting dangerous and spendy.

One last comment on Senior Moments.  Husband and I were shopping at Freddy's and he was trying to remember a specific product.

"What is the same of that stuff you told me your sister uses?"

"What stuff?"

"Oh that stuff you take in a capsule that regulates your bowels."

"Oh jeez I don't remember, maybe we should get some of that memory stuff, too."

A nearby shopper then muttered, "That doesn't work".

Giggle.

"Oh you mean probiotics!"

"Yeah, here's a bunch but they don't have it in capsules, like I want."

"Well you can always order on Drugstore.com"

"Yeah, lets go to lunch."


Merry Christmas every body!  I am truly thankful for the good stuff that happened this year.