Just got a suspicious text, supposedly from my credit union, about a charge at Delta Airlines. I say suspicious because of the way the text was worded and the last line saying “Standard & Data Rate May Apply” - capitalized just like that. And it says a representative will contact me shortly.
When the Fraud Dept has contacted me previously, the format was different, the wording was different, and it always mentioned Fraud Alert. Plus this area code was Tennessee - the credit union is in Florida and the VISA comes out of North Carolina. And they always call before they text.
I just now got a call back and I didn’t answer it. We’ll see if they leave a voice mail. But it’s just a tad hinky.
Oh, a second call from the same area code but a different number, and no voice mail. Definitely hinky…
My mother eventually had forced-hot-water heat installed, but always kept a supply of wood laid by just in case. The ice storm of ‘98 knocked our power out for several days, and the same trees also blocked all of the roads out so we were very happy to have an alternate heat (and cooking) source.
Afternoon all. The morning rounds went just about perfectly, made 4 stops at banks, grocery, and Jersey Mike’s and never had to wait more than 40 seconds for service and all the transactions were processed quickly. So have sammich’ed and am now slothing until I go to do the daily gym stuff. I think I will try to cut back to about 800-1,000 calories burned, I find that if I overdo it I end up eating more snacks to ‘replace’ all those excess calories burned. We’ll see how it goes.
FCM, was jesting of course, know you would protect you hands doing any type of work like that. But yeah, the Otis effect will be interesting to diagnose. And I’d be suspicious too regarding the charge.
doggio, sounds like it was a “load 16 tons” type day. And enjoy the cheese.
My parents’ house had a wood burning fireplace, which I enjoyed. So did the cats. When they remodeled, they removed it. At one point, they had an anthracite burning stove. Warm, but dusty.
One apartment I lived in was heated only by a freestanding wood stove plus a gas heater off the oven. Third floor walk-up, so getting a face cord of firewood up was a challenge.
My previous house had a wood burning fireplace, but the firebox wasn’t positioned well. Still good enough when there were electrical outages.
My current house has a gas fireplace. Ugly, but heats well and works in an outage. We run it most mornings to take the chill off that floor.
I deeply enjoy looking at the fire. Gas is efficient, but wood is more aesthetically pleasing, and I like the smell.
Howdy Y’all! I am postin’ on my shiny new cheaper intartoobz that has zoomies. OK, so far I don’t see any difference. Mayhaps I shall when I download or stream sump’n. We had two people show up. One to install and the other to tell us all about what it can do. It does what we want, but allegedly faster, is what I got outta that. The installation guy was here for three and a half hours to do his thing. He made sure all devices recognized the router, or is that the other way around, before he left. Naturally we were exhausted after all that and needed nappage. I shall play with it for a while. We’ll leave around four to go setup for men’s night.
I was seven years old when the Interstate Highway was built in our city. One loop cam right through our neighborhood, right next door to my elementary school. There were miles of empty houses in the construction area all being bulldozed down as the road got longer. We had a great time during this.
One house had a wood burning fireplace. We lit a fire with the remaining firewood and then started breaking up the left behind furniture. We had a pretty good blaze going when the streetlights came on, signaling that it was time to go home.
The next day that house was a pile of smoking rubble …
This is a timely thread. I made my first fire of the season in the wood burner last night. I’d caught a chill and it was so nice. I didn’t strictly need one, because it is unseasonably warm here just now, but the wood burner likes a gradual break-in for the season. Being cold was all the excuse I needed.
I’ve enjoyed fires my whole life. Campfires, bonfires, beach fires, home fires. I’ve had fireplaces/wood burners in most of the homes I’ve lived in, by happenstance or choice. Used them all a lot. I find relaxing in front of a fire to be one of life’s great pleasures. It is cozy, warm and soothing.
Where I live now, it’s also a necessity. When overnight temperatures fall to around 35F, the heat pump loses its efficiency. To be comfortable, I must supplement with the wood burner. During a power outage, it does all the work both as a home and water heater. It was the first thing we installed (as an insert to a poorly-designed fireplace) after we took possession. It heats my mid-sized home very well with wood harvested from the property. I always keep several cords on hand at the ready.
I get lost watching fires, so it’s definitely something I’ve always done.
Hapy Moanday! I have dogs here, so this might be postius interruptus. My son dropped off their two dogs this morning, the shiny-coated smart dog whose on constant DEFCON 1 Squirrel Alert and the fluffy smooth-brained border collie. He had to go to Seattle for a neurologist appointment, so I’m dog-sitting. The fluffy one is napping at my feet. The shiny one is on my bed, where she can watch for squirrels, cats, Amazon drivers, and other enemies of the state.
I’m making progress on the Medicare Part D stuff. The SHIBA (WA version of SHIP) volunteer finally called me back. She wasn’t super-knowledgeable, but she was very nice and did answer some of my questions.
I’ve been summoned for jury duty in December. I don’t mind. Dad was a judge and hammered the importance of juries into our fuzzy little heads, plus I’m retired, so I figured it’s easier for me than people who have to work or have small kids. Dad always said he’d like to be on a jury so he’d know what it’s like on that side, but of course, he couldn’t.
We had a plaster mantle with a fake fireplace when I was a kid. It had bas relief flowers on either side. My imaginary friends lived in them. My now-ex and I had a wonderful art deco gas fireplace in our first house, but we very seldom used it because he said it was too expensive to run. Our next two houses had wood stoves, or Ben Franklins, as my MIL used to call them.
swampy, I didn’t know you’d built your house. How old is it? It precedes OYKW, right?
MetalMouse, I thought of you the other day when I read that Oscar Mayer sandwich spread was basically ground bologna with mayo and pickle relish. I loved that stuff and had it every day but Friday in my school lunches. The reason I thought of you is that the sandwich spread came in the same type of tube as OM’s braunschweiger. Do you still go for braunschweiger runs?
Our first place in San Bernardino CA had a fireplace. We used it a handful of times but thought it was too much bother so bought a porch fire pit instead. I do like spending long evenings sitting out by the fire.
Fireplaces are pretty popular in AZ as well, but we just bought another porch fire pit for our burning pleasure. For the longest time, Phx had no burn days (too much pollution and still air) and would fine people if they saw smoke coming out of a chimney.
There are lots of fire places and wood burning stoves out here and folks use them in the winter. When trees fall on the road, the street crews will chop them into usable pieces and just leave them on the side of the road for people to pick up and take home.
Our fire pit didn’t make the move and I’ve been missing it, I should start looking for a replacement. I really want a Chiminea, but they look like a bother to clean.
So today I filed three food stamp applications and printed them out. It was pretty upsetting tbh, I was practicing over the weekend using my data and of course the system didn’t recognize me. When I started using data the system knew, it was verifying everything as I worked. I was able to view and print the letters requesting info and citizenship wasn’t needed. All three of my clients were on SS or SSI so income verification wasn’t needed. This whole thing just sucks for everyone involved. Except for the people who vote for cruelty, they are definitely getting what they wanted.
After I was done at the library, we finally got around to going to the restaurant at the Chief Logan lodge. We tried last summer, but when we got there we saw four school buses and heard kids as soon as we opened the door…so we fled and just never got around to going back.
It was a nice room, with great forest views. The stand ‘merican restaurant offerings were well cooked and the drinks were good. Cloth napkins and two forks. My fish and shrimp basket came with fries and a salad. All of the condiments came in pull tab plastic tubs like you get at a fast food place. We were entertained.
I wanted to get my Secret Santa a state park calendar but they weren’t out yet. I did score an official WV highway map, accordion folds and all. I’d been wanting one for a while, but they don’t sell them at gas stations anymore.
Afterwards we went to the butcher for bacon and butter. It was a nice drive and we saw folks out in their yards, putting up their xmas displays before the next snow.
Oopsie!
I remember those! We’d buy them when we went “camping”.
Have you tried it yet? The last hunk I bought had an off smell. So I ate it really fast before it got moldy.
Mom used to be sure that we had one every year. Lately, I’ve been the one making sure that she has one (we actually get matching ones so we both open the same door and get the same treat every time.)
I’ve been flipping houses on the side and have noticed that most places with chimneys have stove inserts in their fireplaces. Or they don’t have fireplaces at all, just the stove. Folks still burn a lot of wood for heat out here.
Supper was meatloaf, air-fried Yukon gold wedges, and cauliflower parmesan, but with cheddar instead of parm. Still good.
It appears after ignoring two follow-up calls from my “credit union” that left no voicemails, I think I missed my opportunity to talk to scammers. I scrolled thru my phone and saw that when my credit union fraud folks call, it’s from a toll-free number. I’m guessing if I had talked to these folks, they’d have wanted my CC number, and expiration, and the magical code. Too bad so sad for them.
Wait? What’s that? I think it’s my recliner calling…
When I visited relatives in Poland during summers as a kid, there were definitely bonfires out in the countryside - many city folks spent their vacations in little rural cabins.
At the time, marshmallows were utterly unknown over there.
What we DID roast, however, was kielbasa sausages onnastick, plus toasting slices of good, crusty bread directly over the flames. Absolutely delishush.
Howdy Y’all! Home from men’s night. A smaller crowd on hand but nevertheless a good time. As usual, we solved all the world’s problems, but no one listens to us. I feel a little wired for some reason, so guess I will find out how zoomie the fancy new intartoobz are.
Nellie I moved into da cave at the end of January 1996. I am soooooo old! I was with someone else then, but the place was in my name. He left a few years later for what he thought was greener pastures, i.e. someone he thought had money. Someone didn’t. HAH! OYKW and I started to see each other around 2003. He had a house. This went on for several years until we decided we might as well live in the same house. He sold his because da cave is bigger. His name was added to da cave and we paid it off. We did a civil hitchin’ and decided a few years later to have it blessed by the church. Thus is our tale. I have not talked about it much, but there it is.
Hippie young me would have loved that day. OK, old me would love it as well.
JtC good on you. You deserve ! Glad you enjoyed the restaurant. Bus loads of crumb snatchers would be a biiiiiig no from me.
shoe roastin’ kielbasas over an open flame sounds awesomely YUM!
Really depressed right now. Rainy icky weather, financial woes, and apparently Princess Allie isn’t going to be with us much longer. No appetite or energy (not even interested in nip), and incredibly frail now.
A minor plus: a few weeks ago, a stray kitten started trying to claim us. Apparently, the UCDS has at least some knowledge of the near future.
I’m so sorry. For such small beings, they take up a big place in our hearts.
Thanks, but I’m still cranky about it. So very unnecessary.
The restaurant is in the main lodge of a very large and well maintained state park which also has educational stuff for the crumb snatchers. It was nice weather so we thought that maybe all of the little ones would be hiking, otherwise we wouldn’t have even gone in.
That is seriously motivating me to get going on the porch fire pit. I like eating burnt food onna stick.
So tomorrow we are going back to the distillery. Mom suddenly sounded interested in getting a flight of moonshine so I need to get that in the mail this week. I also need to finish shopping for my secret santa, so hopefully I’ll be able to get that mailed out at the same time.
I’ve got some Grand Canyon Harley Davidson long sleeved t-shirts on the way for Hubs and am thinking about getting a new tree for the fuzzbutts…but that would be more because the ones they have are so ratty looking, not because they need one.
Other than that, I’m pretty much done with xmas besides the baking. That’s my favorite part though, I don’t rush it.
!
