Is This the Dental Era?

 Finally figured out how to recover my account. Actually, I am not sure what I did, but here we are.

New laptop. Seems like it was only a couple of months ago when I had a new laptop. I did not really like it. The keys were hard to see, and I had trouble navigating from site to site. Then it started giving me that blue screen of disaster. Despite my son's efforts, it was still suddenly closing down while I was using it. So, I had a birthday, and my sweet husband bought a new laptop more to my liking.

The keys are larger and backlit and easier to use. Next, I will try to download pictures. Maybe not today. Us old folks can only take so much excitement! You may all rest assured that I read your posts and even crafted some witty comments. Some of them even published. Most of them fell by the wayside when the computer decided to cut me off.

Taking advantage of not being able to spend too much time on my computer, I got a lot done in my upstairs garden. No more grass to mow up there! All covered in cardboard and mulch, with the exception of the walking path. Since we already have a ton of white rock left over from a parkin g solution, I decided to just use it. 

The rain that falls daily has kept us from getting the rock up the driveway. We have one load up there awaiting my attention. The man with the shovel loaded my dump wagon and pulled it up there with the riding mower. Before he could get it up there, I had a little event.

I was dragging the last bags of mulch to spread. The cardboard was wet, and I slipped and fell. I was alone, of course. My left foot slipped and then twisted behind me. I landed with force on my knee and then managed to yank my leg back around. I sat there for some time before trying to put any weight on my leg. The knee was fine; my ankle was very tender.

I was more annoyed with myself than hurt. I finally got up on my feet and hobbled down the drive to show my boo-boo to the man of the house. This earned me a lecture about being careful and after I showered, I limped to the sofa with an ice pack. This was early last week. The bruise has finally appeared, and my ankle is still swollen. I was only down for one day. That being said, I have not ventured back up the drive. I did mow the patches of grass down by the house and puttered in my garden. Still sore, I have spent more time inside. The heat also had a lot to do with that.

We went out to eat last night and it was so humid and hot. The air was thick. We eat early and there was still a lot of daylight left when we got home. It felt a good 15 degrees cooler here on the mountainside. This prompted us to get the mowing out of the way. 

I always pull weeds and grass up before I mow and I was doing just that around the grapevine when I happened to look upwards and saw all the green grapes!! I was wondering when the vine would produce. This was a nice surprise.

The cat population continues to increase here at the Carport Cat Diner. Garfield, the yellow tomcat, is becoming quite docile. The rest are still skittish. There is a small black female, painfully skinny who will accompany me at a good distance. I discovered that two of the kittens belong to her. I only know this because they both tried to nurse. The trio will make themselves visible to me, but I can't approach too close. I named the pretty little kittens Ethyl and Lucy. The black mama cat has not inspired me to name her .... yet.

The biggest news is that our newer fridge stopped working. We use that one on the porch (could not get the old one out to put this one in the house) for cold beverages and the freezer for meat. Everything was still good and cold in the freezer but thawed.

None of my neighbors were in residence to offer the perfectly good meat to and it made me sick to think about tossing it all out. The man in charge (I am loathe to disavow him of this notion, would harm his tender ego, you know) was dragging a trash bin over to throw the meat out.

I had a better idea! He was instructed to get the smoker going and we smoked all the meat. Some of the chicken that was questionable and the ground beef that was very thawed was tossed. We ended up with one T-bone steak and a dozen or more pork steaks and chops, two pork loin roasts and enough chicken wings for two meals for us in the smoker. So much meat he had to cook it in two sessions.

We will be having pork loin tonight. I am really tired of smoked pork at this point. The fridge was purchased in 2023, so not very old. I distinctly remember purchasing the extended warranty .....

Neither the manufacturer, nor LOWES can locate our warranty. Now I will have to go out to the shed that has the file cabinet in it and hunt the paper copy down. This is the same store the infamous stove was purchased. I do not think this repair will be easy to come by.

To add insult to injury, Monday afternoon will find us back in Tennessee with the oral surgeon, this time I am not the patient, my husband broke a tooth and will have the one above cut out at the same time. We seem to have entered the dental era in our lives!