6 Jan 2023

This morning I am counting my blessings. I found a hint that tells me my ancestry goes back to France to the Loire Valley. It is fascinating.  How did I get to this point in my life?

When I first went to the university I was told that I could not be an archaeologist or an anthropologist because I was a female, because there are no jobs in the future in that field.  That was not true. I was told I could be either a nurse or school teacher. I wasn’t fond of the ideas that I understood about nursing. Like blood? I then decided to be a teacher. This was after spending one year at Ranger Junior College where I majored in music because I had a band scholarship.  That was a blessing. I was only 16 and it was not likely that we had enough money for me to go to a university education. My family moved from Brady to Austin, Texas, and - oh my, maybe that’s not correct. Oh, they moved to Killeen, Texas, because of my father’s work at what was then called Camp Hood. I found a way to get there from Ranger, Texas, by bus, because I was very homesick and eventually I transferred to the University of Texas. It was there that I was told I would have to learn to play the oboe all over again because I had been doing it wrong.  I changed my major and started my long career as a teacher.  Elementary education was a wonderful field for me because I loved children. 

I taught in El Paso for many years before moving to San Antonio where I also taught elementary school and middle school before I became a counselor for disadvantaged students at San Antonio  College. 

(This story is to be continued as the days succeed one another while that aggression against Ukraine continues and threatens our very existence with the possibilities of escalation.)

8 January 2023

It is still going on.  That war next door to us.  The duplicity and aggressiveness endanger the whole world and at the same time destroy the country that used to be Russia with ambitions to be a part of the free world, maybe even a member nation of Europe.  That desire is lost to many generations to come as it now stands.  It was Peter the Great as I recall that had the desire to be in good relationship - that at the very least.  I could look it up but...

This Sunday morning I am in good progress with my usual never to be delayed chores and waiting to show Eugeniu the picture online of the kind of bacon I would like for him to get when he goes to Metro today to buy tires for the car.  He told me that the ones we have now are 8 years old!  My how time goes by so quickly that things grow and become older in what seems such a short time!

I have this chore today to communicate with BlueCross/Blue Shield again.  Since November they have totally ruined my account with them.  Now they are sending my payment to an address that is a mystery to me because I cannot even see it much less change it to the correct address so that they will not mail checks to some "mystery to me place."  I do NOT know how to do what must be done and they have locked me out and combined my account with that of a stranger named John MAC who has had a prostate problem.  I would laugh at that if it were not a seemingly unsolvable problem.

10 January 2023

Watching out the window for Sameday to bring my most recent order.  Shopping online is such a convenience for me especially now that driving is not especially safe for me to do.  Jerky motions notwithstanding, vision is getting blurry and my not wishing to have to dodge the reckless drivers!

Yesterday was a full and busy day that ended in another long distance call to BC/BS.  I finally got to speak with a person who paid attention to the problem without brushing me off to wait on Hold for 15 minutes or saying that this is not in their realm of possibilities.  Blessings are wished on that one who did pay attention and who finally got to the person who can try to figure it out.  After waiting for a call basck, I got an email telling me that they would try to sort it out and find out what happened and fix it.  I have high hopes that at least they can see my correct address and that the message about my payment means that the check being mailed will get here rather than to some strange place I have never lived.  Modern technology is amazing now that I can do all these things online or through calls on my iPhone.  The fact that I can deposit the checks via my app on the phone is absolutely astonishing!   

I slept until 10 a.m. this morning - which is a thing I have not done since my early years of not being a morning person to now when I am usually more morning than evening!

Oh! yesterday I spent my energy cooking.  I made snack muffins which really needed a mini muffin pan which is now on my list to order.  Then I made a special tomato sauce recipe for dipping.  Both are tasty!  There are a few more recipes to make from that list that I get from Nicole whose cookbooks are online and very tempting to use.  Mostly I am not successful with them as the ingredients here are enough different to make the outcome unreliable.  My recipe for our morning biscuits is still the best GF recipe that I have.

Now trying to sort out the changes these programs make by saving everything to Google Drive????  Why? To make money?  To waste my time???  I am happy at the advances, but despair of the changes they make without asking me...