Frozen Falls

On this day in history in 1848, Niagara Falls stopped flowing for the first time in recorded history. An ice jam in the Niagara River stopped the water. I wish I could see something like that! I know that the Falls were turned off in 1969 for research, but I was only 4 years old at the time, so I don't remember that at all - but I was there when my parents went to see the event :)

My real-maple-syrup-covered pancakes were absolutely yummy this morning!

Yesterday, on my way to visit my Mom, I saw a lady walking down the street with curlers in her hair. People still wear curlers? They still make curlers? The first thing that popped into my mind was the old commercial for Dippity Do - "Curlers in your hair? Shame on you!". I couldn't find a link to that commercial anywhere on the internet :(

Sweet!

For those of you that have attended the Maple Weekends, you know how expensive maple syrup is. At least it is for me. I absolutely love real maple syrup, but it's just one of those luxuries that I have to live without.

Until today :)

I found out this week that a friend-of- a-friend taps trees and makes his own maple syrup. I was able to get the friend-of-a-friend discount and now have a whole quart of (affordable!) maple-y sweet goodness!

Homemade pancakes for me this weekend - Mmmmmmmm!

Pressure - Update

So just for the heck of it, while taking care of some errands, I stopped at a Rite Aid. Guess what? Sudafed was on the shelf. No license, no waiting - a minute and a half and I was all checked out and the box was $2 cheaper!

The pills haven't kicked in yet, but I'm confident I'll get a good night's sleep :)

Also, I thought of two look-alike celebrities for me: The Invisible Woman and the Headless (faceless) Horseman.

Pressure

OK, so am I the only person in the world that didn't know that you need a driver's license to buy Sudafed???? WTF???

My sinuses felt like Mount Redoubt was in there all day... I pretty much had all those awful symptoms they talk about in those TV commercials that sell pharmaceuticals where you don't feel sick until after you watch the ad. I don't like to take pills or medication unless I absolutely have to, so subsequently I don't have too much in my medicine cabinet. Some Nyquil, some Pepto Bismol and some ibuprofen, but that's about it. I am obviously not up-to-date on what's going on in the medicinal world.

So I decided to stop at Tops after work and pick up something to keep my head from exploding. After perusing the medicine aisle, I decided that Sudafed would be my best bet (I can't do nasal sprays - just the thought of them makes me ill). There was no Sudafed on the shelf, just hang tags that you were supposed to take to the pharmacy counter to get the stuff. Great. There were seven people in line already. I decided that it would be worth the wait to relieve the pressure in my head, so I waited in line. And waited. And waited. And waited. Just how long does it take to pick up a prescription??? It's never taken me more than 45 seconds. Finally, twenty minutes later I reach the counter. I see all the items that have hangy tags on a shelf behind the Counter Lady. Ah - relief is almost here! I exchange a pleasant greeting with Counter Lady, hand her the tag and she turns around and gets my box off the shelf. Yay - they didn't run out! "Can I see your driver's license?" she asks me. What? You need my driver's license? It didn't say anything on the tag that I needed a driver's license...

I don't carry a purse. I don't carry anything more than I need anywhere I go. When I go shopping, I bring enough money for what I need to buy, any coupons that I might use and that's it. I don't expect to need a driver's license for shopping.

I thought that they kept those certain medications behind the counter because of theft - you know, like cigarettes or lottery tickets. Nowhere was it posted that I needed a driver's license to buy hang tag items, so I pretty much stood in line for twenty minutes for absolutely nothing. Which, in case you can't tell, made me more miserable and cranky. At least for beer and cigarettes, there are signs posted letting the customer know that they need ID to prove you are old enough to buy them. Counter Lady couldn't even give me a reason why I needed my driver's license to buy medicine to keep my head from exploding. When I've picked up prescriptions which one would think would be far more dangerous to people, I've never needed my driver's license, so none of this makes any sense to me.

I am still really angry. Who comes up with this stuff??? Arrrrgh.

On another note, I've seen on quite a few blogs where people can find out who their celebrity look-alikes are. I wanted to try this out and well, evidently I don't have a celebrity look-alike because evidently I don't have a face. The program couldn't find a face in any of the pictures I uploaded. Pictures of just my face.

Meh.

Maple

While driving home from shopping tonight, I saw some signs up advertising the upcoming Maple Weekends. I don't know why, but I was thinking that the Maple Weekends were in February and that I had missed it this year.

I was disappointed to see that there is only one farm from Niagara County participating in the event. I think that there were three or four last year.

That being said, it looks like one of my neighbors is tapping his trees for sap. I don't remember seeing anyone around here doing that before, so if this is his first year, I wish him luck! The whole process is actually quite interesting. Maybe one day when I'm all caught up on the stuff that I *need* to do around the house, I might take the time to experiment on some tree tapping myself. I'll have to scout my property and see exactly what kind of trees I have...

I've still been feeling down, and it just seems like nothing is going right lately. I decided that I was going to try and lighten things up for myself by trying to make a crock pot dessert. I remember seeing some that looked yummy from the list I had posted a while back. I went to look up one of the recipes only to find that the site has been taken down. ~heavy sigh~

I couldn't find anything else online that seemed to pique my interest. Lesson learned: If you see a recipe that you think that you might want to try someday, write it down or print it out.

Miscellany Sunday

Some miscellany stuff today...


Thank you - First off, a big thank you is in order to Becky from Clarence Grad 72 for reminding me that we have a wonderful resource in Peter's Blogger Tips and Tricks blog - Thanks Becky!


Thank you again - Next is a big thanks to Peter for answering my questions so I could get rid of those stupid error messages - Thanks Peter!


Taken Aback - I don't know what rock I've been hiding under, but I don't know how I missed the fact that the extra $13 a week we are getting in our paychecks as part of the 'stimulus' package is only a result of an adjustment of our Federal withholding. Basically, the money that we are getting in our checks now will be that much less that we will be getting back in the form of our Federal tax refund next year. I'm pretty sure that most people don't realize this and we are going to hear a lot about it during next year's filing season when everyone is upset over their smaller refunds. This sucks for me in the fact that I count on that refund every year to pay for my car insurance. Now I have to make sure that I am saving that $13 a week so I won't fall short next year. Some stimulus plan, huh?

*Update* - After some thinking, I figured out what I'm going to do... I'm going to increase my Federal withholding so that I won't have to worry about next year.


Haunting - My sister thinks that my Dad is haunting her house. Over the past week she has had a few unexplained things happen. Yesterday we had the final service for my Dad. We'll see if he's still going to visit her :)


Nesting - The stupid starlings are trying to nest in my dryer vent again. I think I came up with a better solution than I did last year, so hopefully this battle is over before it begins. And speaking of birds, I saw my first robin yesterday. Hopefully that means spring isn't too far away - it may have looked nice outside today, but it was still cold!


More Bad News - I found out that a friend of mine has stage 3 lung cancer. He doesn't smoke and is barely out of his 30's. I hate this helpless feeling. All I can do is pray for Erwin and his family.

Blogger Woes

Okay, my truck is back from the shop and my face is finally un-numb from the dentist. Nowhere to go but up from here, right?

I wish that Blogger would fix whatever is going on at their end. It's been quite a while now - and it's getting annoying now - I can't edit my HTML. Whenever I try, I get error messages telling me that they are "unable to complete my request". I don't even get far enough where I can even see the HTML. The Blogger Help Groups aren't very helpful.

I want to change some stuff up, but I can't. I want to tinker, but I'm afraid of losing everything. Is it possible to lose all my back blogs? Is there a way to back up everything? I'll have to do some more research... Or maybe I'll get brave and just experiment. If I disappear one day, we'll all know why!

A lot of people like WordPress, but I don't really want to go that route... I like it here :)

Gratefulness

It's been a long hard few days.

I am so grateful for all the people who came to see or contacted me and my family. While everything was going on, I didn't real feel much, but looking back I am so glad all those people were there.

Someone told me that I would be surprised at the people that I would see at the wake and funeral, and he was right.

But maybe it's because I am still an emotional wreck. Or maybe it's because I am so tired. But I am feeling very hurt by the people that I didn't see. There were a few people who I really thought were my friends whom I notified about my Dad, and I haven't heard anything from them. People I've supported and/or been there during their hard times.

I'm sure that it won't bother me so much in a week or so, when I'm caught up on my sleep and back into my routine - but right now I am feeling very hurt.

I am also feeling that much more grateful for the people who did take the time to contact me one way or another. Thank you so much - it meant more than you could ever realize.

A Better Place

My Dad passed away yesterday morning.

I'm sure he's in a better place now.

Done

So there - my taxes are done. Filled out and filed. One more item off my list of things-to-do in my life.

To follow up on what happened the first time I tried to do my taxes this year, I used FreeTaxUSA this time instead of TaxAct.

This was a much better experience. There were no advertisements every other screen that were trying to get me to buy things I didn't want. As a matter-of-fact, there was no advertising at all that I can remember - except at the very beginning. While filling in the screens, it was nice to have enough characters allotted in the boxes so that I could fill in whole addresses without having to abbreviate. And the cost for filing my State taxes was cheaper.

My Federal return turned out about the same as it did the first time with TaxAct, but with my State return, I ended up getting a small refund. Very small mind you, but I didn't have to pay. So I don't know what TaxAct was trying to pull, but I won't be using that program ever again.

Trying Again

As I've mentioned before, I decided that I am going to get chickens again. Yesterday I ordered them, and I am so excited! They won't be arriving until the middle of May - that seems so far away...

Because the minimum order for chicks is 25, I went in with a few other people so we would have enough for the order. This is going to be an interesting process - there are a lot of pros and cons to ordering chickens as opposed to the free ones I got before:

Pros -

• I got to pick out the breed of chickens that I really want
• I'm pretty much guaranteed that all the chickens will be hens
• Baby chicks are soooooo cute
  

Cons -

• They aren't free
• I'm going to have to double check, but I don't think that the chicks come tagged, so I'm going to have to figure out which chicks are which breed - I'm the one that will be receiving the order :)
  

This is going to be a whole different ball game raising these chicks. Last time I had Mama Chicken doing all the work. This time I'm going to have to be Mama Chicken. I'm still looking forward to it tho' :)

I ordered 6 chicks:

Two Buff Cochins - I couldn't find a good hen picture, but this is what the roosters look like... the hens just have a smaller tail and smaller comb and wattle (are these cool or what?) :


Two New Hamphire Reds - I think that my Brown Chicken was a NHR and I really liked her, so that's why I ordered these:





And I ordered two Red Stars - they are supposed to be prolific layers of brown eggs, so I thought I'd give them a try:



And then to round out the bunch, I'm taking a rooster from my sister. It's one of the chickens that I had given her and therefore survived The Disaster. She won't let me have Mr. Rooster back - Mr. Rooster is a lot more handsome than his son. You'll see what I mean when I get a picture of him.

Right now I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas - May won't get here fast enough!