🙂 Looks like R finally got a job. He won’t tell E what he’s doing though.
🙂 After three years, E may finally get some child support!
🙂 Vacation this coming week! E has the next two weeks off from school. She & F are going camping for four days starting Monday, so I’ll have some quiet around here while they’re gone. Ahhhh…
The following week is also mostly off, except she will be working a couple mornings, so I’ll be babysitting still a bit.
I have so many things I’d like to do – working on some long-neglected projects, but also relaxing with some movies & more reading. I’m trying to be realistic about what I can reasonably get done, so I don’t end up disappointed at the end of the two weeks.
🙂 Very busy week with another one ahead. But it sure makes them go by fast.
🙂 Fall is coming.
🙂 Christmas is coming.
😦 Got a call from a reader yesterday, a disabled woman, who said she received a $1,300 “revised” bill from the city’s department of water & power. It’s more than her monthly income, she told me.
😦 This department has been the focus of ongoing complaints & efforts at reform, it’s a gigantic mess and billing issues are high on the list of what’s wrong (along with lavish salaries and pensions they have been doling out for decades).
Seems lots of customers now (I’m still waiting for mine) are receiving “revised” water bills since the department apparently hasn’t had enough meter readers to actually go out and accurately report usage. For 9 months in some cases the department has basically “guessed” at usage — and now is slamming everyone with super-high past bills, saying their previous bills were under-estimated.
As one customer wrote on a complaint website, “on what planet is this practice OK?”
😦 A friend told me her 20-something daughter is in line to get a customer service clerk’s job with that same department — a job that, interestingly, pays a good chunk more in annual salary than what I earn now after spending decades in journalism.
😦 No wonder they’re having the shake down disabled women on fixed incomes for all their money.
😦 Sometimes government is just so messed up, it makes you wonder … Grrr.
About four and a half years ago, we adopted five children, three of them at least, are autistic spectrum. While still considered foster children (the time before the adoption takes place) they had all sorts of resource places clamoring for them. That is supposed to continue once adopted. They wanted four year old in Head Start, speech therapy, occupational therapy, etc. We were assigned a service coordinator to keep things rolling. Head start did not work out. Occupational therapy, the therapist resigned. Since he was not in public school, the school notified us that the three would no longer be able to receive speech therapy at the school..The coordinator was supposed to step up and get that all put back in place. We know it is illegal for the school to not provide speech therapy but decided his tiny gains there were not worth the effort. She had decided he would never learn to communicate and needed a picture book to show people what he wanted. (He called the neighbor “grandma” this morning to ask her what time she wanted him over. He called at exactly ten o clock as he had been told. He did not use a picture book.) Anyway, after three years, the service coordinator told husband he could do the job himself if he received the training.
He immediately started the process and he is good at paperwork, having been in the military for twenty years, and doing lots of paperwork for a school district, the Olympics, and Major Events. It took him nearly a year to get it done, it is supposed to be a three month process but they were constantly sending him outdated forms that needed to be redone, they changed in the time he was training. Anyway, since being official, he has tried to set up several individuals who can help these children and get paid for it. At least their mileage. He had two of them to begin being paid in June. As of yesterday morning, they were not officially on the books. It seems the client has to see their hours to approve they actually did them. The clients are apparently: a sixteen year old autistic boy; a twelve year old autistic girl who was seriously medicated when she arrived, non verbal, and not expected to get beyond first grade; and an eight year old boy who was supposed to need a picture book to communicate. They are supposed to set themselves up on a government website to authorize minimum wage payments (about seven dollars per hour in Idaho) to two people in their sixties. What kind of process is that? “Well”, they told husband in an hour phone interview yesterday, “that is the way the system is set up.”
😦 Still waiting to hear about the job – I really want to do this, but not if God wants me elsewhere
🙂 😦 Beautiful funeral today for a lovely lady whom I did not have the opportunity to know very well, but her husband is my husband’s canoeing buddy. Salvation message given, wonderful worship in song and at the end there were balls of yarn in front of a few people in every row (she loved to crochet and knit) and whoever was closest to the ball of yarn had to hang on to the end and throw it. The person it landed near, grabbed on to the string and threw the ball again. Made quite the hilarious mess. This was planned by her children.
🙂 Husband survived work last night and has just headed off for another night.
🙂 Beautiful weather for the last 2 weeks
🙂 My garden is just taking off – will have to make pickles tonight and figure out what to do with the green peppers, celery, cabbage and herbs I just harvested.
Sad, sad stories, Donna and Mumsee. Wish they were rare. Glad those children did better than some people ever expected.
🙂 We spent the last week with our 9 yr. old grandson. A year or so ago, he had made a small quilt top (which I made into a pillow) by hand sewing. This year he asked to make a quilt large enough to cover him. He picked some fabric from what I had. It always surprises me what he wants. This was a farm scene. He picked four almost solid fabrics for 4 patch squares to go with the farm scene. He did all the cutting (with a rotary cutter) piecing, sewing and tying. I did one section of blind stitching to close the edge (since we did not bind it, but sewed it pillow style) and top-stitched around the edge. He was so proud of it and we were blown away by what he was capable of and his determination to finish in the few days we had. It was a tiring, but enjoyable week for us all.
Interesting thing to have at a funeral, kare. One of the more interesting funerals that we attended had a partially quilted quilt draping the casket. The widow had been hand-quilting while the husband was going through his cancer. It was such a stark reminder of the sudden stopping of the human heart.
😦 I’m currently making a card for a woman younger than I am who probably won’t live to see it.
🙂 Absent from the body is present with the Lord, for those of us who know Him.
🙂 I’ve gotten some good photos today of goldfinches in flight, including a couple photos of two males fighting with a female looking on. (They weren’t fighting over her, but over the feeder. But she looked interested in what they were doing.)
😦 This week with the girls gone, my husband decided to get sick.
🙂 It was a whole lot better timing than getting sick last week, when his dad made two trips to the emergency room and we went to see him once, helped take him there once.
😦 We also lost a church member unexpectedly this week, a woman probably in her early 70s, retired from the local school district — she lost her husband maybe 5-6 years ago and that was a tough stretch for her, they were a very close couple. But she hadn’t been ill, looked good last time I chatted with her after church maybe 2 weeks ago.
🙂 Finished my errand, but it was lots of driving with a slow-downs in bumper-to-buper traffic. It’s very warm today, 88-95 or thereabouts, depending on what part of the area you’re in. Grateful for air-conditioning in the car.
😦 Our company is changing its policy whereby they reimbursed us each month for a portion of our cell phone bill. Instead, now they’re giving us all company-issued iPhones. It’s complicating a lot of things.
😦 Found out a couple weeks ago that a news source I talk to from time to time used to be a man. I knew she was gay and had a female partner. But I didn’t pick up on the sex change. I just thought she was very big-boned. 😉
😦 Obamacare! Our rates, deductible and copay all went up. We still haven’t figured out what we’re getting in return. So far maybe dental for the Kid.
😦 I still can’t find a job. The closest thing to an interview I’ve had was a guy taking a minute to look at my resume and tell me I was overqualified. I’m considering trying freelance writing again if I can convince the people I live with that sitting at a computer with headphones is the universal sign for “leave me alone”,
🙂 The Kid OTOH has been cutting grass for a neighbor and occasionally helping out my uncle across the street. He has been paying for is own indulgences (little Pixar cars and, in my opinion, an overprice bottle of hair conditioner) He really impressed the librarian when he paid his own late fee. She said she had never seen a kid do that.
🙂 Hubby’s hours are picking up a little and he has been given permission to freelance outside the company, Plus in October we can dump our phone plan for a cheaper one.
Wandering Views 
I’m teaching about Daniel in the lion’s den tomorrow.
It’s too early to start talking abut the Big Apple Festival, but just the same, all my family will be here. 🙂
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🙂 Looks like R finally got a job. He won’t tell E what he’s doing though.
🙂 After three years, E may finally get some child support!
🙂 Vacation this coming week! E has the next two weeks off from school. She & F are going camping for four days starting Monday, so I’ll have some quiet around here while they’re gone. Ahhhh…
The following week is also mostly off, except she will be working a couple mornings, so I’ll be babysitting still a bit.
I have so many things I’d like to do – working on some long-neglected projects, but also relaxing with some movies & more reading. I’m trying to be realistic about what I can reasonably get done, so I don’t end up disappointed at the end of the two weeks.
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂 My son sent me a birthday card.
That reminded me. Tomorrow I will be 84!.
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Happy (early) Birthday, Chas!
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🙂 Saturday. Whew.
🙂 Very busy week with another one ahead. But it sure makes them go by fast.
🙂 Fall is coming.
🙂 Christmas is coming.
😦 Got a call from a reader yesterday, a disabled woman, who said she received a $1,300 “revised” bill from the city’s department of water & power. It’s more than her monthly income, she told me.
😦 This department has been the focus of ongoing complaints & efforts at reform, it’s a gigantic mess and billing issues are high on the list of what’s wrong (along with lavish salaries and pensions they have been doling out for decades).
Seems lots of customers now (I’m still waiting for mine) are receiving “revised” water bills since the department apparently hasn’t had enough meter readers to actually go out and accurately report usage. For 9 months in some cases the department has basically “guessed” at usage — and now is slamming everyone with super-high past bills, saying their previous bills were under-estimated.
As one customer wrote on a complaint website, “on what planet is this practice OK?”
😦 A friend told me her 20-something daughter is in line to get a customer service clerk’s job with that same department — a job that, interestingly, pays a good chunk more in annual salary than what I earn now after spending decades in journalism.
😦 No wonder they’re having the shake down disabled women on fixed incomes for all their money.
😦 Sometimes government is just so messed up, it makes you wonder … Grrr.
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Government? Messed up? What are you telling me??
About four and a half years ago, we adopted five children, three of them at least, are autistic spectrum. While still considered foster children (the time before the adoption takes place) they had all sorts of resource places clamoring for them. That is supposed to continue once adopted. They wanted four year old in Head Start, speech therapy, occupational therapy, etc. We were assigned a service coordinator to keep things rolling. Head start did not work out. Occupational therapy, the therapist resigned. Since he was not in public school, the school notified us that the three would no longer be able to receive speech therapy at the school..The coordinator was supposed to step up and get that all put back in place. We know it is illegal for the school to not provide speech therapy but decided his tiny gains there were not worth the effort. She had decided he would never learn to communicate and needed a picture book to show people what he wanted. (He called the neighbor “grandma” this morning to ask her what time she wanted him over. He called at exactly ten o clock as he had been told. He did not use a picture book.) Anyway, after three years, the service coordinator told husband he could do the job himself if he received the training.
He immediately started the process and he is good at paperwork, having been in the military for twenty years, and doing lots of paperwork for a school district, the Olympics, and Major Events. It took him nearly a year to get it done, it is supposed to be a three month process but they were constantly sending him outdated forms that needed to be redone, they changed in the time he was training. Anyway, since being official, he has tried to set up several individuals who can help these children and get paid for it. At least their mileage. He had two of them to begin being paid in June. As of yesterday morning, they were not officially on the books. It seems the client has to see their hours to approve they actually did them. The clients are apparently: a sixteen year old autistic boy; a twelve year old autistic girl who was seriously medicated when she arrived, non verbal, and not expected to get beyond first grade; and an eight year old boy who was supposed to need a picture book to communicate. They are supposed to set themselves up on a government website to authorize minimum wage payments (about seven dollars per hour in Idaho) to two people in their sixties. What kind of process is that? “Well”, they told husband in an hour phone interview yesterday, “that is the way the system is set up.”
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And there you go.
😦 😦
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🙂 if Christmas is coming, then furlough is coming! 🙂
🙂 and that means grandkids!!!!
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😦 Still waiting to hear about the job – I really want to do this, but not if God wants me elsewhere
🙂 😦 Beautiful funeral today for a lovely lady whom I did not have the opportunity to know very well, but her husband is my husband’s canoeing buddy. Salvation message given, wonderful worship in song and at the end there were balls of yarn in front of a few people in every row (she loved to crochet and knit) and whoever was closest to the ball of yarn had to hang on to the end and throw it. The person it landed near, grabbed on to the string and threw the ball again. Made quite the hilarious mess. This was planned by her children.
🙂 Husband survived work last night and has just headed off for another night.
🙂 Beautiful weather for the last 2 weeks
🙂 My garden is just taking off – will have to make pickles tonight and figure out what to do with the green peppers, celery, cabbage and herbs I just harvested.
LikeLike
Sad, sad stories, Donna and Mumsee. Wish they were rare. Glad those children did better than some people ever expected.
🙂 We spent the last week with our 9 yr. old grandson. A year or so ago, he had made a small quilt top (which I made into a pillow) by hand sewing. This year he asked to make a quilt large enough to cover him. He picked some fabric from what I had. It always surprises me what he wants. This was a farm scene. He picked four almost solid fabrics for 4 patch squares to go with the farm scene. He did all the cutting (with a rotary cutter) piecing, sewing and tying. I did one section of blind stitching to close the edge (since we did not bind it, but sewed it pillow style) and top-stitched around the edge. He was so proud of it and we were blown away by what he was capable of and his determination to finish in the few days we had. It was a tiring, but enjoyable week for us all.
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Interesting thing to have at a funeral, kare. One of the more interesting funerals that we attended had a partially quilted quilt draping the casket. The widow had been hand-quilting while the husband was going through his cancer. It was such a stark reminder of the sudden stopping of the human heart.
LikeLike
😦 I’m currently making a card for a woman younger than I am who probably won’t live to see it.
🙂 Absent from the body is present with the Lord, for those of us who know Him.
🙂 I’ve gotten some good photos today of goldfinches in flight, including a couple photos of two males fighting with a female looking on. (They weren’t fighting over her, but over the feeder. But she looked interested in what they were doing.)
😦 This week with the girls gone, my husband decided to get sick.
🙂 It was a whole lot better timing than getting sick last week, when his dad made two trips to the emergency room and we went to see him once, helped take him there once.
LikeLike
😦 We also lost a church member unexpectedly this week, a woman probably in her early 70s, retired from the local school district — she lost her husband maybe 5-6 years ago and that was a tough stretch for her, they were a very close couple. But she hadn’t been ill, looked good last time I chatted with her after church maybe 2 weeks ago.
🙂 Finished my errand, but it was lots of driving with a slow-downs in bumper-to-buper traffic. It’s very warm today, 88-95 or thereabouts, depending on what part of the area you’re in. Grateful for air-conditioning in the car.
😦 Our company is changing its policy whereby they reimbursed us each month for a portion of our cell phone bill. Instead, now they’re giving us all company-issued iPhones. It’s complicating a lot of things.
😦 Found out a couple weeks ago that a news source I talk to from time to time used to be a man. I knew she was gay and had a female partner. But I didn’t pick up on the sex change. I just thought she was very big-boned. 😉
LikeLike
😦 Obamacare! Our rates, deductible and copay all went up. We still haven’t figured out what we’re getting in return. So far maybe dental for the Kid.
😦 I still can’t find a job. The closest thing to an interview I’ve had was a guy taking a minute to look at my resume and tell me I was overqualified. I’m considering trying freelance writing again if I can convince the people I live with that sitting at a computer with headphones is the universal sign for “leave me alone”,
🙂 The Kid OTOH has been cutting grass for a neighbor and occasionally helping out my uncle across the street. He has been paying for is own indulgences (little Pixar cars and, in my opinion, an overprice bottle of hair conditioner) He really impressed the librarian when he paid his own late fee. She said she had never seen a kid do that.
🙂 Hubby’s hours are picking up a little and he has been given permission to freelance outside the company, Plus in October we can dump our phone plan for a cheaper one.
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Good to see you on here, Kbells, we don’t see you enough.
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Kbells – Look into Christian Healthcare Ministries.
chministries.org
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😦 Robin Williams’ suicide, & all the other people who are so despondent & hopeless that they take their own lives.
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