I Really Procrastinated

 

Last Xmas my daughter got me an Ancestry DNA Kit. I am very paranoid of giving out personal info online and was not sure I should do that. 

Today I finally decided to, and got around to getting the sample and creating an account. I am sure they will hound me to death for more paid services in the very near future. Hopefully I don't have a big negative experience from it.

My Brother, cousins, and both daughters have already done this a few years ago. 

We all did learn of a new, before that unknown, paternal, first cousin. She is one year older than me, and also loves cats. She was my fave uncle's unknown about child, given up for adoption. She ended up growing up near his area in the same state, then moved near where my mother grew up, in another New England state.  It is such a small world! Now she is a family facebook friend. She feels she missed out on being one of us closer cousins growing up. But really, that has been no picnic, especially lately.  

My Fave paternal Uncle and Aunt (different mother) both passed away some years ago, so she never met them. My brother knew about her, but decided not to get to know or meet the new cousin before he passed away from cancer. 

My younger, fave cousin for years, my fave aunt and uncle's youngest, son passed away inexplicably a year ago last summer. This cousin only had one son, divorced his wife, and then lived with a new woman who has daughters, in another area of the country.  Most cousins never met his new love, except some who attended another one of my paternal uncle's funeral in 2017. I was there.

As a result of my cousin's death, his girlfriend had to petition as a common-law wife to an inheritance claim, and to social security to get anything of the estate, or the only son would get all of it.  She emailed cousins for help to file SS forms saying we knew she was considered family. Then three  cousins got angry with the girlfriend, deciding she didn't deserve any benefits due to not being really married. But there are common law rules in that state, they did share a home for years. 

I had been introduced to her, the opposed cousins had not. So they blocked her from their FB and from the family page! They posted what they thought on the family page, where the ex-wife is still a member. They had the nerve to order me not to do anything to help her! My cousin's son is inheriting millions, the haters don't even know about, and are calling the live-in girlfriend a money grubber for fighting to keep a roof over her daughter's heads by getting the minimal SS. 

I wonder what the discovered cousin thinks of this spat. My mother would roll over in her grave at my relatives' unchristian behavior. I am suddenly not wanting to be part of that cousin group anymore...

Orange You Glad It's Fall?

 

Here are some pretty leaves I collected from the trip last week-end. Playing with the images will have to wait awhile longer. At least I can find the pic later. Wish this input stuff wasn't so laborious.  Leaves here in SouthEaastern MA aren't changing much yet. Usually happens the first week of November. Many small trees, mostly Maple, have turned early, and colors are a bit muted, due to the prolonged drought here this year, despite recent rain. 

My next step with the pretty leaves is to send them USPS to the Nursing home of an old townee friend no longer local enough to visit. Nevermind that visiting wasn't even allowed during all of 2020 and most of '21... 

Last year I spent 2 long summer months calling and searching for him. His in-town facility was shut down in June 2021, and all the residents relocated elsewhere. I found out after the fact in the newspaper.  No one was ever contacted to say where he was going to. His only son contacted me via FB messenger in a panic because he couldn't find him! The only way to find out was to call all the facilities one by one. There are alot of them in Eastern MA. I have a good 10 pages of places to call listed my hand-written  notebook from many online searches. I ran out of listed places to call, and almost gave up. 

Then I spoke to my older daughter, who works desk at a Cape hospital, and she asked on one of her groups on FB if any nurses knew where he went. One got back to her, and had the name of a place I had called who had another unit I was never referred to. Some places on my list said I had to call and ask every floor separately. Many have several units.

So I found him, a few towns over, but they wouldn't let me speak to him! Well, mind you, he is 88 years old about to be 89 soon. Maybe he has trouble seeing and hearing, or communicating. He had just been cut off from everyone he knew for almost 2 years, and paraplegic. I ended up just writing him cards every few months, and a sent a few little presents, like a Dollar Tree solar Hula girl that danced. I know it made him smile. 

I have known this guy from the first week I moved here, back when I was married and pregnant with my first child. He and his wife were always good to me. They loved having dogs. We gave each other rides when the other had issues with vehicles. He did Blogger for awhile too.  His wife passed away too early, and we hung out at times throughout the years until his accident which got him into nursing care. I was so upset when I had lost track of him, and so relieved to find he survived the pandemic. Many in his place died from it. 

His Son finally got a phone and got to speak with him again. It is too bad he is inaccessible on public transit from here. Hope he smiles at the card full of leaves...

Hoist the Colors

 

What the pirates say when they are about to fight from the ship on TV. I do love the music by Hans Zimmer for Pirates of the Caribbean films.

Went leaf peeping on the long week-end, and these are all halfway decent, colorful phone pics from the trip. Definitely peak season there now. Not ready yet here. Probably ready for frost now though, getting chilly.

Will be going to the library soon to peruse very nifty good Cannon Cam photos I wish I could make my own postcards from... Or books, or calenders. 

I could use some free lance Xmas cash, if I can figure out what to do for that...

Still not great at figuring out new laptop editing, and I hate having to pay for cloud storage to save images. Also have to keep rushing my 1 hour of allotted computer time at the library for cam pic transfers.

I have used up 2 camera cards already, mostly due to my short movie pans. Tough to hold steady, but getting better at it. These are secondary pic choices from the cell phone cam, not already posted on FB, same locations.

Umbagog Lake State Park. Still need to figure out the name of that big mountain there, unknown. Maybe can Google it. 

The mountains looked like fuzzy , plush , rolling hills. My big Sis and bbf rented a car, and drove us from Maine to New Hampshire, around the mountain roads, and cliffs . Definitely worth the trip. 

May take time to get to use those awesome Cannon pics and videos. I would so rather play with this stuff than research forms and stuff I need to do...

Same Week Pic from ESR 2013

 

First week October 2022:

This whole week so far has been a washout with Hurricane Ian rains coming in from the SouthEast, an opposite direction than usual. Still, it has been cool here, 40's and 50's F. Been hugging hot water bottles to stay warm. 

I need to take the ac box out of the window, and close it. Heat isn't on yet. It is not my house, I rent just a bedroom now. Maybe I can get stuff  to storage soon. Things have been difficult to do without a car, and seem to drag on forever as I need other people to have time. 

Life has become so inconvenient, and I need to jump through hoops to get my expired drivers license back, and not enough dough for a car anyway at these prices. I have a friend with money who went to get a new one, and they have to wait a  month anyhow! On back-order... 

I shlepp about on the local little buses these days. That was not fun to do blind...

Minimum wage has gone up to $14.25 in this state, so costs in most cases have at least doubled including rents. No, those wages are still very ineffective at getting ahead! My kids are earning about $10 /hr more than me, after all that hard work. I stayed at the same place too long.

So I decided to stop killing myself at that horrible, underpaid, and very physical night job, and see about getting something better, plus I am old enough to get Soc. Security, though it isn't enough to live on by itself. I could just retire . I have heard horror stories about waiting 8 months to get approved, so we shall see. 

 Not as easy as I would like it to be to wake up early yet. Still up all night, sleeping alot after many years of sleep deprivation. It is the best time at this house to cook and shower overnight with all these people and only 1 bathroom. 

First time-waster, I was forced to buy a new phone. The pre-paid plan I had already wouldn't be on the network for 2 weeks, while I waited for the new cell, and couldn't make any calls. They could have told me weeks earlier I would need a new one, but no. I wasted time and money. At least I could text, but put off finding work right away. Got so much to catch up on and exhausted as well.

 I still can't do some things on the new phone thing, like voicemail. Was on the line with the techs for hours and it still wouldn't work, according to instructions I was given. Ugh. I gave up! 

Then I decided to get a new laptop, due to my Chromebook no longer being update  supported. So I am having fun getting pissed at my new Thinkpad due to the way they want you to set it up, and run.  It interrupts me every step of the way to sign up and pay for things like Office, and Word. And I keep saying no, and no  to giving my location and syncing everything, due to being paraniod of crappy wifi here. 

Don't want my stuff hijacked. Especially my bank card number again. Once having all my bank funds stolen on the day my tax refund went in was enough, a few years back. I ended up having to move across town due to that. Still don't know what transaction did me in, just stopped using bank card and switched to cash. I am sick of getting ripped off.

I just hate the way this tech stuff is going. Stinks being old, and not trusting what everyone else does without a thought. I have been screwed over a few too many times... 

So maybe I have a road trip coming up with my Big Sis, and a possible home move. It is all up in the air for now, but I am changing things to attempt to be happier with what I get to do. 

I want to get back into making some art, and would like to practice guitar again. Here I don't have any privacy and can't make noise at night. I haven't been  in a good mood at this place since I got here, 7 years ago. 

But the down side to moving will be missing the dogs and cats I can't bring with me. Also I still won't get to move my stuff out of storage, still have to pay for it and to clean it out someday, trash fees have gone way up so it will cost me to throw the dusty stuff I don't want anymore out. That figures. Pay to keep it, and more not too. Yikes!

At least I had a little saved up, just don't want to deplete it too fast. Even though I have more time, I am still over-tired and now chilly. I don't feel motivated to be in a hurry. Hope all this stuff works out soon, because I really want to get back to feeling like me, and stop getting forced to do all this other stuff due to bossy people...  and greedy companies.

Me Altered 2012

 

My image may be altered, but the real me is just older looking and not chemically challenged...

I am looking at life with new, acrylic lenses.

Fave pic of 2009

 

Pic taken driving through LH golf course. 

I had a whole bunch of the best sunset photos ever taken back on my old cam from between 2013 and '15. Somehow, they were all accidentally erased one day taking pics outside, when I was pressing buttons unable to read what it said without reading glasses. Some were on my PC hard drive, just a few due to always being low on memory and time for transferring.

Then the computer ALU fried, and I lost those too. I lost all my daughter's wedding photos with it. It was a small and private ceremony, and the only other photos belonged to her best friend who passed away the year I moved here, now only existing on FB. Kinda how I ended up on FB, after kids got me a small Andriod tablet. I resisted the non-anonymity of that FB platform for a long time. 

The old hard drive got some  files transferred off it, but still never got back some of the best pics I could ever hope to take at my old location.  

Now I am going nuts blogging without being able to alter the pics I took. I will have to deal with it awhile longer... Old pics from ESR here we come!