Filling up

 For the longest time I was driving into Ohio to get gas because it was so much cheaper. Then there was a stretch where the savings wasn't big and several weeks where Pennsylvania was cheaper than Ohio so I got in the habit of going locally.

Last Sunday I decided it was time to drive back to Ohio. 

This was Pennsylvania's price. $4.59 but with my club price I would pay the $4.46

I checked my app for the place in Ohio that I go to and this is what it was

$4.09 is the regular price but if you are signed up you get another .10 cents off a gallon so that means I paid $3.99. For that much of a savings I made the trip. It's just under 15 miles one way so not that far away.

Lunch

 Now that it's just me in the office I get help from out of town. My manager comes from Ridgeway Pa 2 days a week and the Division president usually comes a couple times a month. Whenever he comes he always buys lunch. 

He usually asks what I want for lunch. This last time I really didn't know and he asked if I knew of any good burger places that weren't fast food. I told him my son had mentioned Bro Man's Birria n' Burgers and said that they were really good. It's not too far away from the office so he said we would try it. 

He asked if I wanted fried which they called Brotatoes, and I said I was good with just the burger. He asked if I would split them with him if he ordered them and I said sure.

The potatoes were sort of a thick cut potato slice with seasoning on them and they were very tasty. 

If it weren't for bad luck

 Ide have no luck at all.

So to continue with that tire. I was filling it once a week when the low tire pressure light came on and it was only the back drivers side tire that needed filled.

Last Saturday I took it to Walmart auto center since the place I got the tires is only open Monday-Friday till 5:00

I was a walk in and they told me they would get to it as soon as possible.

I walked to the pharmacy to get my prescriptions

She told me they didn't have any ready. I told her I got the text saying they were ready. I pulled out my phone only to discover I never did the text ALL to have them filled. OOPS! She said it would be about 25 minutes. I told her no problem I'm also waiting on my car.

I sat on the bench and waited

When I finally got my prescriptions I went back to the auto center and waited some more.

Turns out I picked up a nail somewhere and it went in at an angle towards the outside wall of the tire so it couldn't be repaired. I had to buy a new tire. I asked if just one would be ok or if I needed to buy two. He assured me just one would be fine.

By the time I got home and forced myself to do some cleaning, I was done for the day. I never did finish everything I wanted to get done.

Rechargeable

Last winter there were several times my low tire pressure light had come on. The machines at the convenience stores didn't work well in the cold temperatures and I asked my son a few times to fill my tires for me. Later I was having a conversation with my daughter-in-law and she asked if a rechargeable tire inflator would be something I might like as an early Christmas gift. I told her I had been considering them and was looking at them on Amazon. She ordered one for me and believe it or not my tires didn't say low pressure again until this month.

This is the inflator that she got me. 

For size reference, here's one with my hand

It was very easy to use and filled the tires well. Turns out though that one of those new tires I bought in July had developed a slow leak. After a couple times filling tires this inflator needed charged and I couldn't get it to charge. Turns out I was plugging the USB cord in backwards. But I did discover that this can be used to charge a cell phone in an emergency. And thankfully this is again fully charge.

All of this leads up to tomorrow's post.

Fun with my drawings and AI

 Lately I seem to be much more noticeable, walking with my cane. First at a convenience store I was going out as someone was coming in. She saw me and turned around and held the door for me. Then at Walmart a man and a little boy stood back and waited while I went through the door. Third, I came home from Walmart with my groceries and the woman across the street came over with her two little boys and asked if they could help me carry my groceries. 

I used a picture of an old woman with a cane and asked AI to make me a comic strip using that picture to depict the three situations.

After this I went to Walmart another day and the man who walked in ahead of me grabbed a cart then he pulled out a second cart for me. I also got a text from the woman across the street saying they really did want to help and she offered to take my garbage can out for me and put it away every week.

Most of my life I have felt invisible but the amount of attention I've gotten just because I'm using a cane has been overwhelming. There may be a lot of bad going on in the world but there sure is a lot of good too.

Does anyone really know what time it is.

 I haven't taken a picture of the sun dial in my back yard in a long time. This was one of those things that I used to frequently take pictures of.

Wondering how accurate this was I looked at the time stamp on the photo. It was taken at 11:36am. It looks like 11:00 on the sundial but it may have been the angle that I was taking the picture from. I would say this is pretty accurate. Of course I'm not about to run to my back yard every time I want to check the time.

A village

 My first thought when seeing all the mushrooms that were growing was that it was like a whole village of mushroom houses. They were growing all around a couple of those trees.

There were bigger ones

And clusters of smaller ones

I had fun out there taking pictures of them all. 

Drawings year 3 week 11

 

Night drop

 After work I need to drive to one of the banks and do a night drop before heading home. On one night I got there and there was a guy at the ATM just in front of the night drop. He was out of his car and he was talking to the machine. I don't know who he was actually speaking to. There were still employees in the bank who hadn't left yet so maybe one of them was talking to him. Not sure but it was odd.

Speaking of odd. We have lots of people in the area where I work who stand on corners with signs asking for help. One day I spotted one of them walking down the street carrying some kind of junk.

There is a dumpster at the convenience store right past where he was in this picture and he threw whatever it was in there and kept on walking.

Last week

 Last week we had some pretty bad storms that went through the area. Here at home there were severe thunderstorms. Lots of thunder and lightning that shook the house.

In Erie, where I work there was lots of damage with trees uprooted. It looked like a tornado had gone through but apparently it was straight line winds that were up to 70 miles per hour.

Last Thursday I got to work and there was no phone or internet. I sent a text to my manager and the big boss. They passed the text on to the appropriate departments. I got text messages from a person who was in touch with our IT department. Several options were given, none of which I could do. It all involved going into this mess in the back room where our modem, router and server are located

 Off to the left where you see all the cords coming out of that one box, there is an outlet behind that. For whatever reason in this building, almost all of the outlets are up near the ceiling.

They finally sent an IT person but I went from 8:30 till 3:30 before I could do any actual work. I sat and read my kindle and played games on my phone all day.

September Happy Mail

 This month I went with a very simple design but I loved this paper.

The inside was also very simple yet what more could I say

Drawings year 3 week 10

 

Happy Labor Day

Labor Day today. A quiet, simple day off, and I’m taking it for what it is. It marks the end of summer and a little pause before everything ramps up again. Nothing big planned — just enjoying the break and the slower pace.

Summer fades in gentle sway, 

September light begins to play. 

Work steps back for just a day— 

We breathe, and call it Labor Day.

Honk Honk

Recently the two little boys across the street were standing at the end of their driveway, pumping their arms up and down at passing cars, hoping for a honk. No luck that day.

But Friday evening (8/28) they were out there again, this time with a few of the other neighbor kids. Whenever a car came down the road, they all rushed to the end of the driveway and pumped their arms as fast as they could. Car after car honked for them.

I sat inside watching TV, smiling every time I heard a honk. I think I was just as thrilled as they were. It took me right back to riding in the back seat of my parents’ car, trying to get truckers to honk at us.

Fortune cookie

Even though I'm the only one in the office now, I'm not totally alone every day. Two days a week my manager comes from out of town and is there. Some weeks the division president also comes to spend part of the day. When he comes he always buys lunch. He usually asks what I want and some days I suggest things and other days I let him pick. The last visit he asked what I wanted for lunch and I said it didn't matter. He asked if I liked Chinese and I said yes. I gave him a menu that we had just gotten in the mail a few days earlier that was supposedly a new place. 

No idea what he ordered but I got sweet and sour chicken with fried rice. The chicken had NO sauce on it at all. It was tasty but not the sweet and sour chicken I'm used to. 

Any way, each meal came with a fortune cookie. I opened mine up and didn't realize it had something on both sides. At first I thought this was my fortune. I thought maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket.

Later I noticed this on the other side.

Hmm, I wonder what goal or dream I should go for. The only thing I can think of right now is to get my doctor to give me answers about my MRI.

My fall look

 I just love those things on Facebook where you can put your face into a picture. They had one that was called a caricature. To me it looks a little too realistic to be a caricature but I loved it. This is my new fall look. I want to be sitting on that porch with my cup of coffee. 

For whatever reason my comments won't publish on your blogs today. If you don't get a comment from me, it's not that I didn't try. 

Birds of a feather

 We have lots of seagulls flying overhead where I work. There have been mornings where the parking lot is loaded with feathers and it looks like there was a mid air attack.

One morning I got to work and spotted a larger feather on the sidewalk. I had to take a picture of it just because I might need it for a blog post.

Assorted stuff

 While scrolling through my phone, I found a picture of a t-shirt that I sent to Amanda.

I told her that would make a good a good Christmas present for her husband. Now I need to get a t-shirt and find an image of a pointing hand that I can use on it.

Saw this one on Facebook and thought it was funny

Kind of makes me happy I don't have to worry about things like this anymore.

Hello September

 The Brrr months have officially started.

I just hope that the snowy weather doesn't start too soon. We need to be able to fully enjoy fall for a bit.

September whispers through the trees, 

 A chill that hums with memories. 

 The “brrr” months tiptoe in with grace, 

 Warm mugs and scarves take their place.

Bad momma

Gibbs here:

I just want you all to know that I have the worst mom ever. She never remembers my birthday. Blog friend Donna remembered it though. She sent me a really nice card in the mail. If I were to tell the whole truth, my mom can't even remember my exact age. She "thinks" I was born in 2013 but without looking at papers she really doesn't know.

She tried to take a picture of me for this post but I wouldn't look at her

She was relentless in her attempts so I finally gave in but I let her know I was not happy.

She's just lucky that I don't hold a Grudge. By the time this publishes I may be done being mad at her. Especially if she supplies me with extra treats.

Drawings year 3 week 9