The last few days I have been trying to help Ron as he took drywall and cabinets down to move the wall between the bathrooms. I am terribly bruised and Ron wants me to tell everyone that may see them that he did not cause them. He is worried that if my doctors see all these bruises, marks, and cuts that they will ask me the question we were required to keep asking in the hospital … do you feel safe at home? He is terrified that one of my providers will suspect him of abusing me. No it is that my health is so fragile that I bruise easily and helping him as best I can leave me marked.
Today Ron slept until 8:30 am. I had made it a thing that if the shopping included more than 5 items we went together. Since we both had to shower, it was late when we got to it. So we did a quick shop and tomorrow will be the big shop at multiple stores which will exhaust me. Ron wanted to me to make a spaghetti red sauce so he could use the ravioli he bought and eat up the leftover pasta. But at the same time due to the work on the house, normal chores that wear me out such as laundry which I am trying to do, and I am going to be too tired to really post. I am struggling to finish this. I will be able to click and paste, I will be able to watch videos, but serious thinking, answering comments I will try but doubt I will make much head way. Best wishes for all, loves and hugs for those that wish it. I am almost too tired to eat and I have not eaten yet today. Hugs
Scottie's Playtime 
Hi, Scottie! This doesn’t sound really good. You need to eat regularely and to take the time you need for rest. Best wishes, Michael
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Hi Michael. Please be assured I am OK. Just tired. I think I got a small cold or other issue. I am just really tired. But we took someone’s suggestion and did the stores in small batches. As for eating unless I am on steroids I just don’t get hungry. For example I had a taco for breakfast and I am still not hungry. Last night for supper I had 10 slices of hard cheese on ten saltine crackers. Ron was upset because he felt I should have more, but it was ok. I weight 175 pounds which is a good weight for me but does make me fat on the tables. I would like to get to 150 pounds. Hope you are well and having a great weekend. Hugs
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Thanks for the reply, Scottie! Good to hear that you are feeling good, as possible. So i haven’t to have too much concerns. Thanks for the wishes i want to repeat honored! xx Michael
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Hi, Scottie! I sure am worried about you. Wishing you the best, my friend. 🌺
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Hi Kymber. Thank you. I will be OK. I think two things hit at once. I think I over did and I also caught a small cold. So I felt crappy and tired. But we did break out our shopping out over three days than try one big day which neither of us could do. BTW Kymber did you send me a Skype / Team request? I recently got on from someone named Kimberly but they did not say anything other than hi. I tend to ignore requests that don’t say anything more than hi. If someone tells me they saw my name on my blog or such I respond. Anyway if it was you I will accept it. If not it will stay blocked. Hope you are well. Hugs
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Thank you for asking. I did not send you a Skype/Team Request. I don’t really use Skype.
I hope you are better. Sending hugs to you!
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Hi, Scottie! I sure am worried about you. Wishing you the best, my friend. 🌺
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You can’t share if you don’t fill your cup first. Take good care. Maybe turn the big shop into a couple of not-as-big shops. I remember you’ve written about you guys’s shopping routine before, but change is not always a bad thing!
Also, do your stores offer a pickup option, where their trained personnel shop for you after you make the list online, then you go pick up at the time you set up? Could be a thing to consider. I use that service at my store, and it’s saved me countless minutes and stress. Some people feel like they don’t want others picking out or touching their groceries, but those shoppers are trained, and they shop as if it’s for themselves. The only thing is, you miss out on the “ugly produce”, and what I call the “Christmas shelf,” which is stuff the store has that is really marked down because it needs to be sold. It’s not the day-old stuff; much of it isn’t even on the shelves, but comes from other stores to see if it will sell. Some of it is nearing its expiration, too. I call it the “Christmas shelf” because I was there with another friend whose husband was waiting. He and my husband were joking about it, and the other husband said, “Yeah, every day is Christmas over here!” But I don’t even know if your stores do such things. Anyway, sometimes, pickup is a real life-saver. Just a thought!
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That’s not a bad idea, if you can do it, especially when a project takes up your energy and time.
Our local store does that. I haven’t done it for a while but I can say that you have to read the items carefully. A few times I got stuff I would not use. My fault, I just looked at the picture and didn’t read the description.
They also do substitutions if they can’t find what you requested. They might not be what you would substitute, but 1) you can ask for no substitutions and 2) if you allow substitutions you can reject what they choose for you by item.
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Hi MDavis. Thanks for the suggestion. Ali also thinks it is a good idea for us. I am trying to get Ron into it. Today when I brought it up he said OK. So now I have to figure it all out. I was worried there would be a big cost but Ali said her store only charged 4.65 which is very reasonable and as I told Ron we can afford that and save our bodies, our time, and our frustration will be less. And maybe I will feel less tired. Hugs
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I have learned that different outlets of the same store can have different policies so your stores may be different. So check out what the fees and processes are at the stores you use.
Having in store shoppers is something that was rolled out during the pandemic, the COVID one, so they have had some time to work out the system. You can end up with a lot of shopping bags. It’s in the nature of shopping for multiple people at once.
And if you like it but they charge there may be a membership card that covers the costs.
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Hi MDavis. The extra plastic bags are not a problem. We use them. We have one cat that is diabetic and drinks a bowl after bowl of liquid which I understand as I do the same thing. Not bowls but I have liter glasses. But his urine is not like our other cat, a nice small ball he tries to bury. No this cat pees a lake and we have to shape the litter in the three boxes as he doesn’t stand to do it, he lays down and pees. He is very over weight but even young and thin he never covered his stuff. So if we don’t bank the litter it runs back around his feet and belly. That leads to us having to put him on the sink counter to wash him and pull the packed in urine litter clumps out of between his toes. Not something he enjoys. So we who have two cats who poop and pee inside we go through a lot of plastic bags. Thank you for the idea of the membership card. Our local store keeps trying to get us to give them our phone number, I have resisted but to qualify for this program I might have to. Hugs
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Those cards can save you a few bucks or more a month. I got one early on and years ago; I was worried about privacy, but needed the savings at the time, so I sucked it up. I don’t have a problem with ads, etc., and the coupons I receive are for things I use, and are extra good dollar-wise.
They would want your phone number to advise you about substitutions, and that your order is ready for pickup. I get nothing from our store (or any of its family of stores) but notices regarding orders I’ve placed. I think you’ll be pleased once you decide to take the step! 🙂
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Hello Ali. Maybe turn the big shop into a couple of not-as-big shops. I remember you’ve written about you guys’s shopping routine before, but change is not always a bad thing! We did what you suggested. We broke the shopping into three different days. We did one day just driving to all the local Publix to get as many of the hard to find soda that is the only one right now I can really drink and tastes good. The stores stock them randomly and it is hard to get them so when we find them we take them all. Which may be between 2 and 8 at any store. We have four of them in a 20 mile radius. The next day we went to a different large store. The second day we did a larger store for meats. Then on Friday we went to Walmart. All three days I got Ron up at 6 which he struggles with but today when he could sleep in he got up at 6. We get out on the road by 8 so we can get shopping done before the crowds.
On the store pickup option I would love to do it, but Ron refuses. Ali do they have a fee? He uses “do they have a fee” as an excuse but the truth is he feels they will give him bad vegetables and stuff. I have not looked into it. But I think it is something we need to do.
On the ugly vegetable thing Ron just realized that our local store has a lower rack of those and he found out as he was going to pick out onions and peppers but a store person was kneeling taking a bunch of onions / peppers out of the bottom bin. The guy apologized and said he would be out of Ron’s way in a second, that the store uses the “ugly” stuff in the deli / bakery and he was told to get the stuff … Ron talked to him about why he was doing those and he told them that it was the discount ugly stuff. Sadly he took them all but now Ron knows. With prices going up we need to save any pennies we can. I do worry about the lack of food safety inspectors which Elon Musks doge (I call it doggie) but what can we do.
Thanks for all your suggestions. And Ali thank you for caring. I sadly am very tired right now. I may have had a cold I am getting over or something. It is a struggle to get through the day. It means at lot to me that you care and offer ways to make it better. I love all you do for the channel and I was glad I could take a few days off and not feel that the blog would suffer. I feel very lucky you took me up on my offer to be an author. Hugs
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They do have a fee. My store’s is 4.65. However, the fee is waived if the order is 35.00 or more. They have also waived the fee when the order was over 35.00, but they’d run out of an item that made the total lower. They also tend to, when they must substitute an item, adjust down if the sub is cheaper, but not adjust up if the sub is higher priced. You can work out substitutions as MDavis noted above. All the shoppers here shop as if it’s for their own mothers. I’d bet it’s like that in most stores all over.
You still have to go in for the Christmas shelf stuff and the ugly produce, though. Just wash it well, and cook it well! And follow regular known kitchen safety precautions. People got sick from salmonella in peanut butter during the Bush admin, and doggies died because of melamine in some dog foods from China that the FDA probably could have prevented, but Republicans are so libertarian about such things, you know. Same now as it ever was as to this.
No thanks necessary, Scottie. Better that you feel lucky than sorry, so thanks for that!😄🫶😄
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Scottie, please take care of yourself and Ron first.
We’ll still be here when you are ready to return.
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Hi MDavis. Thank you very much. I think one reason I was so tired was I had a small cold or something. But Ron and I followed the advice of the people here. We did smaller shops with saving our big Walmart shop for one morning by itself. But it does frustrate me that I now have to do so much more and it takes me so much longer to do things. Friend I have slowed down. Even reading since I had my stroke is so much slower, and it takes me longer to comprehend when I do read stuff. My biggest frustration over having real life intrude on my blogging time is my love of the comments. I have 208 tabs of comments saved back 6 months because I love each one and want to really read and answer each one. I have a goal. I either need to find a way to budget a new I pad to answer the comments on when I can not be at the desk, when I have to go lay down, or a small laptop to do the same. I am leaning toward a cheap laptop … If there is such a thing. Again thanks for being here and for caring. It means a lot to me. Hugs
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I so want to make suggestions on computers although you probably know more than I do.
I’m doing it – check out Chromebooks for budget pricing. Look into what gets dumped when the laptop is turned off as this may not make it workable for what you want it for.
If you’re brave, you could also look into refurbished. Someone on MPS suggested I try Swappa and similar for a phone. If you look, it will give you ideas.
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Hi MDavis. Thank you for thinking of me. This is the third time I am trying to write this as each time the computer simply wipes out all text. I have gone through all the setting on the keyboard and the browser settings but I can’t figure out what key combination I hit that is doing it.
So I thank you for thinking of my computer needs. Sadly the computers I use requires a higher performance than Chromebook even thought they are more affordable for my limited budget. But my needs for a computer is higher draining.
I have two computers, one bought in 2016 which is an I7-6700 which I bought with 16 GB of ram. The second one was bought in 2017 which is an I7-7700 again bought with 16 GB of Ram. The problem is the newer faster computer can not be increased in its ram, while the slightly slower computer could and I took it up to 64 GB. What I found out is that the more ram works so much better for me.
The faster computer by just a stressed with three open windows and playing YouTube despite the video is being processed by the 4 GB video card I installed. The processor often runs hot.
The slightly smaller computer with the 64 GB of Ram is running 9 windows with over 400 open tabs and it runs cool with only 102 temp from the processor, the CPU is running between 4 and 20 % draw, and the memory is only 19%. Far better than the other computer which runs with a processor drain of upper 30s to higher as it is used and the memory is running at 64 %. There are 3 open windows but only one has any pages on it and that is YouTube. Again it has a 4gb graphic processing the video. That teaches me ram matters more than processor speed. Which is the opposite than was taught to me in the computer advanced repair course I took. But that was in 2000. Clearly things have changed in the architecture of the boards and how they shift information. I first studied computers in the early 1990s in the military. They were so simple compared to today’s machines.
So while I really want a couple new Windows 11 computers they are not in the budget. See we are remodeling two bathrooms and it is expensive even when doing it ourselves. So I must make these two run and work as long as possible. Thanks again for thinking of me. Hugs
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