This, that, and comments...

The country road by our home...

It has been three weeks since I've been away from home.  In that time, I "celebrated" my birthday (on the sofa) and anniversary (on the sofa).  It has been one of those times that try men's souls... and women's... but this shall pass.

Yes, it is the vertigo that comes and goes. Praying it just goes. But as I remind my melancholic husband (who tends to grumble and complain at such things), I have a very nice sofa with books and DVDs and lovely tea and the occasional Diet Sierra Mist.

My mother would get vertigo once in awhile and when I've had it before, it was always with an ear infection.  My doctor said he thinks this time it was brought on by a "bad allergy year".  I am on Benedryl again since that helped earlier to dry up the inner ear... or whatever.

There has been one huge answer to prayer as I had been called up for jury duty and just KNEW I couldn't handle it right now.  The case was settled out of court so I didn't have to show up.  Yeah!!!  I take any answers to prayer.

I hardly ever get a chance to respond to comments so I thought I would today, since it is something I can do as the room is spinning.

1)  I got such a laugh at Vee's comment on Saturday's post.  The one where she nodded off when reading it earlier.  Umm... there is a reason for that tendency.  You see, that Saturday post is what you would get all the time if I didn't go back and make a post easier to read.

I'm a lazy reader of blogs, I want it to be easy so I usually write for you the way I like to read.  That is with as few sentences as possible to communicate (which usually has me going back and deleting a lot of needless repetition!) and I like lots of paragraphs with few sentences in each.

Just so much easier to absorb what is being written.

But I had a time deadline on Saturday to publish my own Pantry Post and get the Mom Heart post ready in draft.  So I did just a quick proof read for my own blog and spent the time tweaking the Mom Heart blog so it sounded as good as possible.  Purely a pride thing since I write with so many women I admire on Mom Heart.  You all would understand...

Having said all of that, this post is rather rambling, too.

2)  I do have lots more books and many more authors that I didn't mention.  The post was long enough already and adding more would have to be divided into Sunday - Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - well, you get the idea.

3)  I do have the Recommendations List started in draft.  I was hoping to work on it last week.  Another goal put back weeks due to the vertigo.  :(  But it WILL be here!

4)  I'm considering a Pantry Post this Saturday on how to stock up when you don't use a lot of canned goods, etc.  If I can just settle my head long enough...

5)  Regarding understanding English accents on DVDs, my daughter suggested to me years ago that I turn on the subtitles when they were offered.  I hadn't thought of it since I speak English... but American English and not the King's English.   Having a Midwestern accent, one may argue American English!

However, I now quite often turn on the English subtitles on DVDs or the "CC" on the TV when it is available.  Older British shows do not always have that option but almost all newer shows do.  Believe it or not, it has helped a great deal!  Especially with a show like Last of the Summer Wine where the conversation can be fast.  I don't know why I didn't think of it but I guess that is what children are for.

6)  So, that flower was Phlox?  It is only a weed in that my definition is "a weed is anything growing that I did not plant in my yard".

7)  Sorry about the word verification, I have to go through it a few times on blog's, too.  However I went from having at least 300 spam comments to three or four every week show up for moderation.

8)  I keep tea long after an expiration date.  To me tea is like spices, the taste will tell me when they aren't good and not a date on the box.   But even I don't use tea that expired in 2009.  Yikes!

Oh, I could have put the tea on the compost but I forgot.  Since it was herbal tea, I couldn't really use it to tea stain anything.  I do have a box of really old Lipton black tea in with my craft supplies for that purpose which is probably from the Bush administration... that being Daddy Bush.

9)  I was surprised there were coyotes with so many houses around but we do live at the edge of a forest.  This entire area is heavily forested and my backyard tells me the forest is trying to make a comeback all the time.  We are always digging up baby trees!

So far I haven't heard that the coyotes have bothered any pets but then again... I don't know any coyote that would want to come up against my neighbor's dog!

10)  Thank you for all the birthday greetings.  Yes!  As I reminded my husband again this morning, sometimes all we can give God in return for His Grace is our attitude.