Insanity and Ugliness

Yeah, I have been missing in action for a long time. However, I've good reasons: my Dad's Alzheimer's has advanced and the cretin he married stuffed him in a skilled nursing facility WITHOUT telling any of us five children for 3 weeks! Lovely woman. Ugh (3 of us kids were all on vacation when said cretin did this.)

He's not completely out there but he needs assistance she refuses to give. Her comment to me previously when his diagnosis was made was: "I didn't sign up for this shit." Stay classy, eh?

Dad spent the entire summer with me in Michigan, did well, was walking well, laughing and made great progress. Well, hell, I am a nurse and I've cared for many patients in his condition. Anyway when he returned home the cretin had locked him out of the house, told him to get he fuck away from her house, threatened my sister and lawyer husband and then called the cops. It was insane and has been so ever since.

So NOW that we all know where he is I drive every other week to Iowa to spend 3-4 days with him. Needless to say I'm less than thrilled with the cretin but as his oldest child I really have no legal rights to assist him---and THAT bites. I'm working on that too. So while I may not post as often I will try to throw some happier things up as I am able. Wish me luck and I promise to behave when seeing said cretin since jail would NOT be a good place for me! }: >~~~

Here, have a photo of Puerto Rico...which was where I began my vacation when the insanity began:

It's Crazy Here in the U.P. of Michigan

Well, yesterday it started snowing! yes, snowing! By morning we had 4 inches of new snow. BTW, it's STILL snowing! Absolutely crazy weather we get here!

The first photos were from 10 P.M. last night:


My poor plants!


Time to snow!


Won't be getting a tan here!

Now this is what I woke up to this morning!






Prior to all this happening I adopted some new fur babies! 2 black and white tuxedo female 7 month old kitties. Plus a 3 month old German Sheperd mix pup that had been abandoned in the woods! All came from the Humane shelter. They are awesome!


This is Baylee who was abandoned. What a time to see his first snow! In May!


This is Chiba. She's a lounge lizard!


This is Terra. She's a sweetie with a demonic look!

So, that's life here in Michigan for the moment. The snow will most likely be gone by Monday but good grief, how bizarre!

Testing

Testing. My patience that is. There are just some days when being so rural is not pleasant. Trying to get services from the so-called township that accompanies my mailing address or dealing with the phone company and satellite services can get beyond irritating.

First thing that happened was my HD Sat receiver for the t.v. died. So I call Dish Network, tell them it's dead and I need a new one. I said I thought it was pretty crappy to pay for this thing when it barely lasted 7 months. So they told me they'd UPS me a new one and I'd have to UPS the dead one back to them. I said "What!!!??? You're kidding." Then they said it would cost me $15 to UPS it back. Well, that was it. I said "NO, I won't pay that and here's why: it barely lasted 7 months and it's 60 miles one way to a UPS office that will accept this size package and the office is will call (meaning not just simply open regular hours)!" So then they said they would pay for the shipping and I had 10 days to return it and then they'd test it to make sure I didn't do anything to cause it to be defective. I laughed and said whatever. I got the thing in a couple days but the UPS man refused to drive down my driveway. He thought he'd get his truck stuck. I asked him why UPS, since they operate up here in the snow bound U.P., doesn't have vehicles to deal with that. I mean, sheesh, my driveway is completely plowed and no one else has gotten stuck at all. Again, whatever. I sent the bad receiver back with my husband to Chicago to be sent back because there is a UPS store close to our home there.

My next contact with Dish was to arrange for moving the HD t.v. satellite and the Wild Blue Satellite up to the new main house. Well, the 1st woman I had to talk with refused to allow me to make this arrangement telling me that my husband was prime on the account. I asked her" Do you not see my name there?" She said he'd have to be on the phone at the time...3-way call... to get this done. I told her we dealt with this account crapola last year with Dish and I am authorized to make these decisions and let me talk to her supervisor. Well, after waiting 25 minutes on hold I hung up. Oh and they also told me I needed to change my address. I said it's going to be moved ON THE SAME PROPERTY, SO THE ADDRESS IS THE SAME!!! They said well then we can't move it because, blah, blah, blah. WTF! I called back, explained the issue to another woman. She got it all arranged (address issue is that same address will be used but will say house 1 on it. I mean come on WTF) and couldn't understand why the other woman said what she did. Again, whatever. So they'll come out to disconnect my Internet and then I have to call them and make arrangements for the move. Now is that a screwed up way to do service or what? TESTING!

So earlier that day I had spent 45 minutes on the phone changing our long distance package for the 2 phone lines here. Paying 12 cents a minute doesn't cut it! We're stuck with ATT here so I opted for the all distance package and then merged our cell phone service billing...since we use ATT for cell and it took $20 a month off the bill I said fine do it. O.K. so the woman says the new long distance service will kick in on March 10th but I needed to call a separate number to disconnect the old service on March 10. So I did that. Later that day I pick up the phone to call my husband and inform him of all these things and WHAM no long distance service. AT ALL! So I call ATT and ask WTF happened? ATT says whoops yes, the order says disconnect on March 10 but someone screwed up so we feel bad...here's a $15 rebate for the 2 days you'll have no LD service. If they had re-connected the old LD service it would have canceled the new service I had spent time arranging that morning! Now how screwed up is that!!?? So until Wednesday I can't call out and no one can even call in long distance. TESTING!!

You know, there are days when I hate technology, the people hired that seem to have no clue and the absolute bullshit excuses some companies make for their screw ups. I swear it's just a massive test on my sanity.

So, that's been the fun of the last few days. It's getting warmer here and the snowmobile cones have been taken off the lake meaning stay the hell off it because we can't guarantee the safety of the ice. But the deer still walk on it and so can we because a snowmobile is a lot heavier than us! It was actually 50 degrees here yesterday. It's supposed to be in the 40's all week. I have to leash the dogs now because I don't want them running on the lake and possibly hit a soft spot.

Well, time to trek up to the main house and start on more cleaning...as if THAT doesn't test me! Here's a calming picture...at least for me!

Making Some Headway

The whole time I've been here I've been preparing the main house. It is a huge job. I have nearly 4000 sq. ft. of 30+ years of stuff to clean out...Oh. My. God. LOL So everyday I walk up the short road from our guest house to the main house and swear there are days I just want to cry. It CAN be overwhelming. There's so much to just throw away but even that's not easy. See, up here in the remote U.P. there is no garbage pickup, no matter the outrageous out-of-state taxes we pay. No, you have to load everything up and drive it to the dump and pay a fee. Pain in the ass to say the least.

There's lots of stuff that's serviceable though. Kitchen tools and pots and pan, glassware and at least 2 full size beds that include headboard, foot board and all good mattresses. There's end tables and a coffee table and a complete dining room set that includes a big hutch, table with 3 leaves, 6 chairs and a matching sideboard. I've asked around town if anyone needs these things they can have them...they just have to come get them. So far, no one has called which amazes me since I know damn well this entire area is not healthy economically. I'm going to wait another week and then call the churches, again, and then goodwill. Problem is Goodwill is 60 miles away. Just unbelievable.

So anyway, I did get the ugly butt 30 year old carpet removed and replaced with a new floor on the main level.


So here's a shot of 1/2 of the living room area with the new floor.


Here's the dining room area (with hutch I want to get rid of)and Bob, the installer from Eagle River Flooring. He did a marvelous job!

Now when I decided on the floor I knew I wanted bird's eye maple but then the decision was real wood or laminate. Well, because we have a lake, sand, dogs, cats, gravel and everything else that gets dragged in from the woods, we decided on laminate. I'll tell you, you just can not tell that this floor is laminate. The improvements in these types of floors has been amazing. It's the most practical. It's easy to clean and lightens up the entire main floor main rooms.

Next came furniture. We needed a new, king sized bed, couch, chairs, area rug and end tables. So off we went to Northwoods Furniture Gallery in Eagle River, WI. They have amazing furniture and the owners are the nicest folks you ever want to meet. So was the salesman that helped us. I will definitely be back there. Oh, their delivery guys were just the best!


The new couch. It's so comfortable!


The 2 new recliners (made in the USA...Indiana) separated by new hickory twig table. The couch has new twig tables on each end also. I just love them. They're not overly kitschy nor are they too large.


The new area rug. I love the colors and it will be easy to clean.

Now the bedroom photo. Since we bought a king size bed we had to order the headboard. It will be here in about 3 weeks. It's pretty darn cool...light wood with pine tree cutouts. At first I thought the bed would take up a lot of space but the master bedroom we have is absolutely HUGE. BTW, that ugly orange lamp will be gone shortly! LOL



So that's part of the main floor almost done. There are 2 more bedrooms, a walk-in closet, 2 baths and a kitchen yet to tackle. There's also the downstairs. If I showed you a photo of what that looks like now you'd die. Probably from laughing to death asking "where the hell did all that STUFF come from and what the hell are you going to do with it!"

Yes, the walkout basement (which is the same size as the main floor, meaning huge) with another huge stone fireplace like upstairs, another table, hutch, chairs and sideboard to get rid of, a laundry room and 60, I mean 60 cabinets filled with STUFF! Arghhhhhh. BTW, these are not small cabinets. They go floor to ceiling (the ceiling is nearly 12 feet high throughout the basement) in 3 rows on 2 walls. Just kill me now! LOL

Quick Post: Aggravation

Yes, here I am in the woods and aggravation is the word for the day.

We arrived on Thursday afternoon and it was beautiful here and we got right to work. The whole weekend was beautiful...until. Until I turned on our tv and discovered that someone at Dish Network screwed up our account and did not connect all the channels we pay for! So I called them. What a royal pain that turned out to be. You see, I'm having Wild Blue satellite broadband connected up here because this dial up that I'm using right now SUCKS! 26.4k SUCKS! lol Anyway because we are getting wild blue through Dish they told me I could only get the tv mess fixed if I canceled the wild blue date for connection! WTF!!!?? I said you've got to be kidding. They weren't. So, in order to get tv we canceled. Dish network's jackassery policy and inability to have an open work order and fix a problem THEY created ticked me off royally. So I yelled and told them that was insane but that they'd better fix the tv situation. Well, they fixed it. I have all the tv we pay for and got HBO and Showtime and TMC for free for 3 months and Cinemax for 1 cent per month for 12 months. Heh. Then they connected me to the Wild Blue rep and now I have to wait until Saturday for them to come out and connect my broadband. Grrrr, but worked out in the end.

Next bit of insanity was that I ordered a new washer and dryer for the house here---just like the set I recently purchased for the IL. home and it got delivered today. Of course we discovered a problem when I tried to do one last load of wash with the old set---The sump pump died! Arghhhhh. So that led to a mad dash--a 45 minute one-way dash-- on a holiday weekend to the nearest town to get the parts we needed. Geezez. Ok, new sump installed and working. So today when they delivered the new machines we discover the door to the dryer is F'd up. Geezez! Anyway, we got it to function but now there is a service order in for a new door on a brand new machine! Can we say AGGRAVATION!!?? LMAO

The third bit of just shoot me nonsense was the boat battery. Brand new battery...the second one mind you...dead as a door nail and with a bad cell and won't charge. So now we have to buy a new battery. We got the shore station in the water but have to wait until next week to launch the boat. AGGRAVATION! LMFAO

Other than all that insanity all is well. I already caught 2 bass off the dock but tossed them back because they were just under 15 inches. I got all my plants and seeds in the square foot gardens and all looks good. Today it's raining a bit but that's ok because I need a day of rest from all the AGGRAVATION!

I'll post again after I get the broadband connected since it was a real pain to even post this at 26.4k.

Take care all.