Oreo’s saga Part 1

Oreo is staying with us for a while.  His people are on a mission trip.  This blog post is from his point of view...or at least my interpretation of what his view might be.

 

Day one of my imprisonment…

Well at least I recognize this place.  I’ve been here two times before.  I STILL can’t figure out WHAT I did to deserve this banishment though.  No matter how much I whine and howl, my people ignore me…and the warden here either laughs at me or tells me to “Hush!”

Day two of my imprisonment…

The people here are idiots!  No matter how much I try they REFUSE to give me treats or human food.  They can tell I haven’t been eating my food.  The warden tried giving me some of this other dog’s food, but it is just kibble.  I can’t believe she willingly eats that crap!  Not only does she eat it…she went and gobbled up my kibble too!  What an idiot…she can have it!  Whining doesn’t help me at all.  Sigh!

Day three of my imprisonment…

Today was somewhat better.  But the warden still is refusing to give me any treats or human food.  I guess I better eat this kibble as it is all they’ll give me.  They have to hide my kibble from the dog who lives here, so they’re putting it in my bed…hummm breakfast in bed.  I could get used to this!  The humans have moved all the furniture around and it smells a bit weird in here.  The walls are turning funny colors.  The humans keep yelling at the other dog…she keeps getting in their way while they color on the walls.

Day four of my imprisonment…

The humans left this morning so they gave me a treat…YAY!  FINALLY!  But I got locked up…phoey!  Why do I fall for that trick every time?  The man came back after forever and let me out so I could go bark.  Later the warden came back.  The humans moved all the furniture back and made a lot of racket with that loud machine…then the warden made them stop …said her head was hurting.  Later the warden made the house smell REALLY GOOD!  So good my tummy was rumbling.  But the people ate almost all the yummy smelling stuff in another room.  THE NERVE!  But forever they gave me some…oh man that was good, I kept looking for more.  So I went and ate some of my kibble because my tummy was still rumbling.

Crazy Day!

This has been one crazy day so far and it is LONG from being over.

We start off with me waking up in pain...ugh!  So I just stayed up since I had scheduled a car appointment.  Ooops!  I should back up... YESTERDAY Darly left for her mission trip and we took in Oreo the dog of one of the chaperones going on the trip.
Actually they didn't leave for their trip until this morning at 5am, but since I didn't want to get up that early AND I was baby sitting the dog...we arranged a swap Kid for Dog last night.  So I woke up in pain and worried about my baby being on the road and to a whiny dog who misses his family.

Then I flip on the radio and hear that they are praying for Colorado...so I quickly go to a news website and see that some idiot shot a bunch of people in a movie theater.  I'm so sad, angry, confused about this.  I really hope that they come up with a better motive than what is leaking out that the idiot said "I'm the Joker."

Sigh

Yesterday a friend asked to borrow my ice cream maker.  So I ran that to another friend's house this morning so that friend one could pick it up.  Friend two was having a garage sale today and I found out that 3 people had stole items from her...one woman stole all the jewelry that they had for sale.  What is with people???

now for the car service rant...

I went online to my car's dealer's website to set up the appointment.  But I never received any confirmation of my appointment.  So I called the dealer this morning and he said that they weren't busy so I should bring my car in... he didn't bother setting me up with an appointment (even though I "had" one!)
So I get there and guess what?  They're busy now!  The service guy tells me that it is going to take about 45 minutes for my oil change.  (that I expected!)

After waiting for an hour and 15 min, I go find my service advisor (yeah, that's what they call them!) and he apologizes and says they're running behind, but he'll call back there in a few minutes to see how much longer it will be.  hummm why not call NOW?
I wait another half an hour and he comes to get me that they're done... no car wash... no vacuuming out my car.  Charged me $3.50 for telling them that my check tires light was on and miss-charged me for the base price on my oil change.  Oh and then I find out that my $10 rebate for this service will be in the form of a gift card.
Guess who WON'T EVER go back there again??? 

Needless to say that after all of that, I wasn't the best driver on the roads.  :p  I can't wait to get that service survey.

Glad to be home now, fed and caffeinated.

they're tyring to get more of my money

I recently saw an ad for this new Finish Power Up Booster Agent.  And it got me to thinking...  remember the good old days when all you had to put in your dishwasher to get nice clean dishes was regular old dishwasher detergent powder?  What ever happened there?
I mean somewhere along the way we had to start adding in rinse agent...and dishwashers started coming with a special place to put the rinse agent (btw: vinegar works just as well!)  But before we didn't need that and the dishes came out clean.
and now we have to add this new stuff too?  I mean in the one ad the woman complains about the spots on her dishes and the dishwasher repair guy says it is food that didn't get washed off!  WHAT?  Why isn't the detergent doing it's job?

Oh I know why... They're just after more of my money!  SIGH!

Whatever happened to the days when manufacturers put out a good product and stood behind it?  Now days you have to buy insurance (aka extended warranties) that the darned thing won't break in the first 3 years...and note: that's a limited warranty.

I know what happened... They're just after more of my money!

I saw in the news where retailers have won a lawsuit against the credit card companies that they can now charge the consumers the bank fees retailers pay for processing credit card payments.  In case anyone wasn't paying attention...consumers HAVE been PAYING these fees all along in increased prices for the items.  Now it looks like folks who pay cash are supposed to get a discount...we'll see how long that lasts.  Especially if folks stop paying with plastic and start running on the banks for their cash (oh wait...bank fees there too!)

Speaking of the bank...every time I go in there they're trying to sell me something.  Hubby got talked into opening an account for Darly...the joke is on the bank though because that account still has just the $20 that was required to open it.  Instead of seeing my picture ID the bank wants to see my bank issued credit card as proof of my account???  What if someone had stolen my wallet?  How does a credit card prove who a person is?  Oh wait, they want me to use that card to buy stuff and not pay for it so they can charge me interest. 

Why is it that in this country it seems to be crime to keep any of the money you earn?  Yes, I get that everyone is trying to earn a buck...but it seems that there are way too many folks who are earning it by cheating someone else out of that buck.  Is anyone out there still being honest? 

Random - I guess

I haven't posted cuz there hasn't been a whole lot going on here.

Slowly the roofs are getting replaced in our neighborhood.  Right after the storm there was a bunch of houses that got new roofs right away, but things have slowed up a lot.  There is one roofer who got contracts for most of the houses in our neighborhood...about 10 or so I would guess.

One of the other roofers actually came up to me and asked why all the houses were being done by this roofer and why we weren't having ours done by that roofer.  That was funny...he was on his fancy phone looking this other guy up and couldn't find him.

Well Mr.Roofer who has all the contracts has had shingles delivered to 3 houses so far...but hasn't started the work on any of them yet.  I'm confused.  I am assuming that he is waiting to do the work until all the other houses are ready to go, but I don't know what the hold up might be.  I sure hope that he gets out there and does all those houses soon as I don't want to be woken up every morning to the sound of pounding for the rest of the summer.  :p

We're getting Darly ready for her mission trip.  Yesterday they asked Darly to come and help with the make up class for 3 of the kids who had to miss the first two training sessions.  Darly is concerned with the youngest member of the team.  She says he has a short temper and gets frustrated easily.  I am hoping that his outbursts were just because his older sister was there at the training also.  They'll be working on different teams for the trip so hopefully he'll calm down as I found him to be a really good kid when I taught him a few years ago.  fingers crossed!

Darly has also taken up a new hobby/craft.  Card making.  She uses supplies found in the scrapbooking section of the store to make cards.  She is really good at it, so I'm encouraging her.  We've been blessed by several people who have given her a lot of supplies for her new endeavor.   She has been designing our Christmas Card fronts for years now, so this is really an extension of that.

We tried to have a garage sale a few weeks ago.  That was really a bust.  It was part of a community garage sale that our HOA did a terribly poor job of advertising.  Luckily several other communities were also doing a sale that weekend...however, with so much to choose from and the heat potential buyers were reluctant to leave the comforts of their cars to see what all we had for sale.  If they didn't see anything they wanted from the car...they just kept going.  And it also didn't help that hubby expected to make good money for our stuff...several people walked away upon hearing the prices hubby wanted.  I managed to sell quite a bit of stuff, but hubby balked at the very low price I got.  I didn't care as we have been putting this same stuff out at every garage sale for the past 5 to 10 years.  I just want it all gone!  Hubby now has most of it listed on craigslist hoping that someone will want to pay for this stuff.

That's about it.  sigh...terribly exciting summer so far.

TMD Ponderings

Temporomandibular disorders (TMD) occur as a result of problems with the jaw, jaw joint and surrounding facial muscles that control chewing and moving the jaw. These disorders are often incorrectly called TMJ, which stands for  temporomandibular joint.

What Is the Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ)?

The temporomandibular joint (TMJ) is the hinge joint that connects the lower jaw (mandible) to the temporal bone of the skull, which is immediately in front of the ear on each side of your head. The joints are flexible, allowing the jaw to move smoothly up and down and side to side and enabling you to talk, chew, and yawn. Muscles attached to and surrounding the jaw joint control the position and movement of the jaw.
http://www.webmd.com/oral-health/guide/temporomandibular-disorders

I've suffered from TMD since I for nearly 30 years now.  And I've researched and tried a few things to try to help...

I believe that the beginning of my problems began when I got braces on my teeth.  I had some pretty weird stuff going on in my mouth and my mom wanted my smile fixed.  She shopped around for a while to find an orthodontist who was willing to even try to fix my mouth because I was too young.  See back then they normally didn't start orthodontia until a kid was in their teens and I was only 9.  Part of my messed up mouth was that I had buck teeth and a pretty bad overbite.  So bad in fact that my lower teeth when my jaw was closed lined up with the back of my upper pallet.  So for the first part of my treatment, the doctor wired all my upper teeth together and fit my back teeth with bands that would hold a neck gear.  This in part took care of my buck teeth (I had some other stuff done too, including oral surgery), but it didn't really line up my bite the way the orthodontist wanted.  So he decided to fit me with a mouth appliance that he came up with himself.  To make this appliance he had me hold a pencil in my mouth straight upward...so my lower jaw was pulled forward in front of my upper teeth.  I had to wear this thing at night with a head gear.  And yes, I drooled all over the place!  Luckily I only was tortured by this for about 6 months or so.  I am still not sure if this was because I was done with treatment or because my parents ran out of money to pay for it.

Fast forward to 17 years old.  And I wake up my jaw locked.  It won't open, it won't close.  Luckily my jaw eventually popped and worked so that I could eat and stuff.  But now I began my journey with a lovely popping jaw that still plagues me to this day.  My mother finds another orthodontist who says I have TMJ (what they called it at the time) and he decides that the best way to fix my jaw is to push my lower jaw back to it's original position.  He fits me with a mouth piece (that he made out of red plastic that they normally use to make retainers with) that has dents in it that match my lower teeth...to push my lower jaw back.  (I looked like I was constantly sucking on a red Jolly Rancher candy!)  My second bite plate I begged for clear plastic instead...and for that one he had me hold a pencil in my teeth pointing down!  After my jaw had supposedly been fixed (it still popped, but it didn't lock up anymore) the orthodontist wanted to fit my mouth with full braces and pull my lower jaw back forward to line up my bite again.  Since I was almost 18 and almost not covered my my parents insurance anymore AND the entire treatment made no sense to me, I declined to have it done.

Now we go to when I'm 27, I went into the doctor because I was having severe ear pain and thought that I might have an ear infection...even though I did not have any kind of fever.  Seeing no fever the doctor puts his fingers in my jaw joints and asks me to open my mouth...POP!  He diagnoses me with TMJ and sends me to see an oral surgeon.  This doctor decides to treat me with "muscle relaxers" at night to keep me from grinding my teeth and during the day I was supposed to do "biofeedback exercises" to make my body aware of my clenching.  My treatments went until my doctor was sent to a new base...and we were soon sent to another base right afterward.

A few months ago I noticed that my TMD was bothering me and that my jaw's alignment was such that I couldn't close my jaws together to eat properly.  It was fun eating soft foods so that I didn't choke on anything.  I started researching to see what the current treatments are as I knew that some treatments in the past for TMD had been utter failures.  I also did a quick check of my insurance coverage...guess what, neither our medical or dental insurance will cover ANY kind of treatment for TMD at all.  WHY?  Because doctors are still baffled as to how to treat TMD so insurance doesn't want to pay for any experiments.  Hummm they should look at my history. :p

I'm writing this because two days ago my right eye started twitching...it was becoming very bothersome and I couldn't figure out the cause.  I was talking with some friends and mentioned that the last time this happened it was when I was getting treated for my TMD with medication.  I thought the twitching was a side effect of the medication, even though my doctor said that eye twitching wasn't a side effect listed for that medication.  I haven't been on that medication since 1996, so I knew it wasn't the medication causing the eye twitches this time.  Then I went to rub my jaw and noticed the pain in my joint... ut oh!

Last night after having jaw pain and eye twitches for the past few days I decided to try taking a muscle relaxer.  (I have some left over from another problem)  I took just half a pill as a whole one will knock me on my butt pretty hard.  And that took care of the eye twitch...but I have been awake for 7 hours now and I'm still hung over from this stuff.  So I don't think that will be an effective treatment for me.  Bummer.

time for more research!