October chit-chat

[Virginia]

Jingle, hang on to that lady you have coming every month. She sounds like a gem.

Agate, I pay $100.00 for my cleaners. They come two or three at the time, and stay one hour. I don't know what it averages out to. When I had Laura I paid her $25.00 an hour and she stayed 4 hours. I have always given anyone who works for me a really nice bonus. I gave Laura a couple of other bonuses throughout the year. I couldn't pay her more per hour because she worked for two other people that lived in the neighborhood and they didn't want me to pay more. They paid her $20.00 per hour. One lady has died, but the other one still lives here and I don't want to cause any problems with her. When Laura told her she needed $100.00 when she went to her house the lady told her she would pay her that but she would have to work an extra hour, so she is working 5 hours for that lady. Most people around here are paying more than $25.00 an hour, so if she would do her work and stay off the phone it would be worth it. I could still give her a bonus 2 or 3 times a year.

Tim, you said care workers in the UK are low paid. They are here too. Some of them who have degrees in healthcare do fair, but the rest are low pay.

[jingle]

Virginia, the young lady (and she is a lady) who cleans for me IS a gem. Because she just had her third baby, she has greatly reduced the number of people she will work for. I am very fortunate that she is staying with me! In this area $20 per hour is the usual pay for cleaners. I am so very happy to have her. You have made me wonder if I should increase her salary.

[agate]

Virginia, you mentioned a situation that has been on my mind whenever I've thought about hiring someone to help--the neighbors who are also hiring people to help who might really resent it if I paid more than they are paying people. But to get and keep good people, you do have to pay something substantial.

Then, too, I've heard of cases where someone has hired a good worker, and then a neighbor has lured that worker away by offering them more money.

Situations can get tricky. You seem to be adept at handling them and have a system that is working well for you.

You too, jingle! Hope you can keep your gem of a helper for a long time.

[jingle]

Good Wednesday, Oct. 16, morning. I hope everyone is well and WARM. It's so cold here in Missouri - 29* - this morning that I miss being hot. lol lol. Well, it was 29* this morning. Now it has warmed up to 52, but I'm still chilly. I whined and carried on about it being too hot and now I'm upset because it's cold. I have two nice batches of cookie dough in the refrigerator and I'll bake them this afternoon.
I sure hope that someone will "talk" on here.

[agate]

I whine about weather too. Not much anyone can do about it but as they used to say in Boston when I was there, "If you don't like the weathe rjust now, wait a couple of minutes and it will change."

One thing I don't miss about the Midwest is those oppressive hot spells that sometimes went on for weeks in summer. Each day it would be hotter and more humid, and when you'd reached a point where you were almost gasping for breath because that heat seemed to be just sitting there, a huge dark cloud would form, and it would sit there for entirely too long while that heat and humidity got to the point where you couldn't stand it, and then suddenly there would be a crashing storm.

Sometimes those storms were so welcome that you wanted to have a part in that movie "Singin' in the Rain." You got temporary cooling usually, and then along would come another hot spell but you might get a day of cooler weather.

OK, I've been rambling on. People haven't been thronging in here yet from that other MS message board that is closing today but maybe time has to pass before they start missing their message board.

[jingle]

I lived in North Dakota for so many years. That was really, really cold. A whole month would go by, and the temperature would never get near 32*. It was colder. I loved North Dakota but, oh, it was cold. Days and days would go by and never be above 0.

[agate]

That bitterly cold weather came to Chicago too but not that cold. I do recall walking to work, about a mile, when it was 19' below. I would wear a wool scarf wrapped around my face but even so I'd be numb after a while. I think I'd be staying indoors most of the winter in a place like North Dakota.

[Snuggles2]

Hi all,

Sorry to be MIA for so long.

My hubby and I are in the middle of another remodel project. We are having hardwood flooring installed in our 2nd floor bedrooms (2) and small hall and the hardwood steps to the 2nd floor refinished. We have been painting one of the bedrooms upstairs and the hallway. We have also been moving belongings to the downstairs bedrooms in anticipation of our master bedroom being out of commission for 3-4 weeks. We moved all the furniture into one bedroom. Next week the installers come to install the hardwood in the hallway and one of the bedrooms and refinish the hardwood on the steps to the 2nd floor. Then we have a week off to move all of the furniture from one bedroom to the other before they come and install the hardwood into the 2nd bedroom. When that is all done there is the hugh task of putting everything back in it's place and dusting/cleaning the first floor rooms that have gotten dusty during the sanding process. I hope the dust on the first floor is not too much. They assured me that will drape off the areas they are working on but dust has a way of creeping into every nook and cranny. I am covering the furniture in my living room and dining room with old sheets and blankets to keep them from getting too dusty. I hope everything goes smoothly since it was my idea to do this work and my hubby wasn't really on board!

I enjoyed the summer here. I do a lot of reading on my covered porch and it usually keeps the heat down with the breeze that usually blows through. We also kept busy babysitting our 3 grandchildren once week. I feel that keeps me young chasing around and entertaining a toddler, pre-schooler and first grader. Summer just seemed to fly by.

Early summer I was also concerned about my middle son's health (the one with the 3 kids). In middle/late May he started having severe pain along his temple, ear, jaw and neck. I read about Trigeminal Neuralgia which is a severely painful symptom of MS. I was so worried he has developed MS. After several doctor visits, a dentist visit and an ER visit it was determined he had Ramsay Hunt Syndrome which is not related to MS but to Shingles. It is Shingles in a major facial nerve. He was very sensitive to noise, had severe pain and the right side of his face started getting paralyzed before they knew what it was. (Just a side note: Justin Beiber had this a few years ago and it took him 8-9 months to recover fully.) My son's eyelid wouldn't close, his lip wouldn't move on that side. I was beside myself. They treated him with anti-virals, steroids and gabapentin for the nerve pain. It has been a slow road but the pain has been eliminated, noise sensitivity eliminated but the facial paralysis is still there but a little improved. The facial paralysis doctor told him he had to be patient and she was right. It has been 5 months and the facial paralysis still isn't gone. The eyelid still doesn't shut but it is closing more and his lip moves a touch. He still has to use eyedrops throughout the day and wears a patch on his eye at night to keep it moist. I am just happy to see some improvement since not all patients recover fully!

Sorry I wrote such a long post above! I have been very busy but have tried to keep up reading everyone's posts but not posting myself. I will try to do better in the future.

Enjoy your day!

[jingle]

Snuggles2, good to hear from you. It certainly sounds like you have had a very busy time. Wishing you the best for all of it.

[agate]

Here you are, Snuggles! We get concerned around here when people aren't heard from but some people definitely do not welcome concern. So we try not to worry.

It sounds as if you're in the midst of a major "challenge" in planning, coordination, and physical effort! I hope that a good vacuum will be at the ready for the dust. Maybe it won't be as bad as imagined.

If this were my project (and I'm VERY glad it isn't), I might find I'd get so tired from all of the furniture-moving that I wouldn't be any mood to tackle the cleanup process afterwards. If I had any sense (which I usually don't), I'd try to make that furniture-moving as easy as possible, even if it means asking others for help. Or paying them for help.

I'm glad your son seems to be getting over the Ramsay Hunt syndrome. I don't know much about it but it sometimes does take months to recover from. Some of these neurological horrors take time and more time.

Hope you'll let people here know how the remodeling project is going. Hardwood floors sound nice. It's been a while since I've had them but recall that they're not hard to maintain?

[Virginia]

Hi Jingle, Agate and Snuggles! It is so good to hear from Snuggles. I was getting concerned about you. It does sound like you have a lot going on. I am sure you will enjoy your new hardwoods. Will they be able to completely match the ones in the dining room that you had put in last year. Are the same people doing the work.

I had something similar to your son quite a number of years ago. Now, I am wondering if it was the same thing and I was misdiagnosed. I had Bell's Palsy and my eye didn't close good. I used drops and then was given an ortiment to use at night. When I would sleep and then wake up it would tear my cornea. Tears would just run down my face. Finally, I went to see my ophthalmologist. When he couldn't seem to get it stopped he sent me to Duke eye clinic. The head of the cornea department saw me and tried some experimental drops. They helped for awhile but finally I started back using an ortiment at night It was a long drawn out process. I hope it is soon over for your son.

Jingle, I don't think I could take North Dakota. I am very cold natured. It has been very cool here also.

I went out Monday and did a couple of errands and then went to the grocery store. Of course there was the usual ordeal of getting the groceries from the car and up the stairs. I haven't felt well since. I think I am beginning to come back. It used to take me a day to get over it, then it started being two days and now it is three. I hate MS!!!!

[Prot]

I flipped out big time re the pain I was experiencing last Friday. That got my sister concerned who also has had post operative complications re her hip replacement. My sister has said

Also please check you don't have a subluxation / dislocation tendency - our joints are a bit different in our family

She's mentioned ehlers danlos syndrome. Thinks xrays etc need to be done.

[Virginia]

Tim, sorry you are having such a hard time. Your sister may just be on to something. Do you think you and your daughter might just wrangle some x-rays. It might show something like your sister says. I heard someone a long time ago on here mention ehlers danlos syndrome, but I never knew what it was.

[agate]

Tim, it sounds almost like a family curse--having "different" joints. Being different makes a person special, unique, but also maybe harder to diagnose and treat from a medical standpoint. I suspect that by now you just want the pain to go away, and you're not so concerned about the fine points about genetics and rare disorders unless that information can help you to feel better.

Virginia, how many stairs are you trundling the groceries up? Are you carrying shopping bags by hand or is there a shopping cart you can pull up the stairs?

School is in session but maybe there's a neighborhood youngster you could offer to pay to help you just by being there when you arrive with the groceries and carrying them up for you? Children seem to be eager to earn a little money of their own. Maybe that has changed now and they just want (and get) credit cards....

[Prot]

Tim, it sounds almost like a family curse--having "different" joints. Being different makes a person special, unique, but also maybe harder to diagnose and treat from a medical standpoint. I suspect that by now you just want the pain to go away, and you're not so concerned about the fine points about genetics and rare disorders unless that information can help you to feel better.
.

The genetics interests me, but given no more pain vs more info about the genetics - less/no more pain is my preferred choice. Due to bad back ache,COVID, and the falls I've not been outside much,apart from hospital appointments in the last 5 years or so. My family were going to take me out more this summer, but the weather wasn't that great.

According to Copilot:

did it rain a lot in wiltshire this summer?



Copilot

Yes, it did1! Summer 2024 in Wiltshire saw more ra infall than usual1. July, in particular, had persi stent low-pressure systems that brought several bands of rai n1. Southern England, including Wiltshire, experie nced about 129% of the average July rainfall1. September was also notably wet, with 233% of the average rainfall for the month2.
It seems like it was a pretty soggy summer overall ! Did the extra rain affect any plans you had?

I'm very much an indoors kind of person, but at least had the choice as to whether I went out or not. I used to go out once a week or so to have a cooked breakfast. Something like this