Monday, December 28, 2009

A Busy Week Ahead (not garden related)

I will not be visiting blogs as much as usual this week. Our daughter got the keys to a different apartment today, because the utilities at the place she moved into a year ago are too high. She and I looked at a bunch of places a week ago, and this one was the largest and nicest for the amount of rent. They are giving her the rest of December free, but she will still have to pay the rent for where she is living now, so we are helping her with the current rent for her February birthday gift. I will be helping her pack and move this week. I also hope to get rid of some clutter around home.

We took a bunch of photos and she was very careful about writing things down on the inspection form she has to turn in in order to get her deposit back when she moves. The place she lived in previous to the one she is moving out of was sold, and when she moved out the new owner was not going to give any of it back, until she found a phone number for him, which turned out to be his mother. After several calls to her, one from Larry, he finally gave her less than a fourth of what the deposit was, even though we left it cleaner and in better repair than when she moved in.

Even though I will be busy, I am not committing myself to a blogging break. I don't know if I can do that. If I don't make all the rounds, I'll tell you now, have a happy and safe New Year celebration. Larry and I usually stay home and watch a movie. We still have root beer floats like we did when the kids were growing up. When Ashley was in the 6th grade, she spent the night with a friend. At one point, she asked her when they were going to have floats. She thought everyone did that. Trevor said he hadn't realized it was our own family tradition until then, either.

So, here is Ashley, thinking about what she is going to put where:



Larry wasn't aware that I took his photo. Ashley and I asked him to buy some shelf paper and put it in. I didn't know if he'd be willing to, but it was a great help to us that he did. There were stains and such that didn't come up when we cleaned. We love the kitchen, though. It's big enough to eat in, has a dishwasher, plenty of electric outlets, and lots of cupboards and counter space. We had fun testing things out. They must have an instant hot water tank, because the water comes out hot as soon as the faucet is put to that side. The refrigerator looks like it's new. The stove isn't, though. We forgot to see if the burners and oven work. We'll have to do that before she turns the paper in.


8 comments:

  1. Have a fun time setting up your daughter's new place.

    Have a wonderful 2010.

    FlowerLady

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  2. Alot of work, but fun! Hope all goes well for Ashley..

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  3. Hello Sue.

    It seemed more appropriate to come here to reply to your question about food intolerance than to add more in Frugilegus' comments. Hope that's the right thing to do.

    It is not my skin but my stomach which rebels against wheat and gluten. If I eat either, nothing happens that day or the next, but the day after that I get a tremendous pain in the left hand side of my face and for three days I vomit. (Not very savoury but you did ask! You might like to delete what I say here after you have read it, I won't be in the least bit offended.)

    For a long time I didn't realise what the problem was. I spent a lot of time being ill and got thinner and thinner. My husband persuaded me to try a wheat and gluten free diet. I resisted it for a long time - saying it was trendy nonsense but as soon as I cut them out of my diet I stopped being sick. I am now embarrassed about the way I previously thought people who claimed to have food intolerances were simply being fussy.

    The hospital says it is a food induced migraine. I hadn't previously realised one can have a migraine in one's face - I thought it belonged only to the head and I had already had teeth extracted because I thought maybe there was something wrong with them which was causing the pain - so I now have unsightly and un-necessary gaps!

    The trouble is, it didn't stop at wheat and gluten. As time has gone by I find I can no longer eat nuts, dried fruit (though fresh is ok - fortunately) chocoalte (chocolate!) sesame, marmite . . . all sorts of things. It's a sort of creeping intolerance and the list keeps growing - which is a bit alarming! I also have to be careful about gluten in surprising places - malt vinegar, for example, and anything with monosodium glutemate in. Mustard often contains wheat too. So, if I go out to eat, I even have to avoid salad dressings unless I want to quiz the cook on the recipe.

    I saw a dietician at the hospital too. She says I may grow out of it (!) and, once every so often, I should try one of these foods to see if I can eat them again but the results if I do are so dire I daren't do it. Sometimes I eat one of them inadvertantly and that's enough testing for me!

    The delay between eating one of these foods and the body reacting indicates an intolerance rather than an allergy - which is an immediate and life threateing response. (People use the word 'allergy' loosely to include intolerance but this confuses things if you talk to a doctor - there again, the terminology may be slightly different in the U.S.A. I don't know.)

    I don't know if this is much use to your daughter - except to suggest that cutting things out of one's diet is annoying but preferable to being ill and, I would suggest, to a lifetime of cortisone injections. I really don't think they are very good for one long term. It's annoying at first but you get used to it. I'd be as likely to eat a sandwich as a chair now - it no longer figures as 'food' in my thinking.

    There are other garden bloggers who suffer from wheat and gluten intolerance. Dee at Red Dirt Ramblings is one. (You can find her through Blotanical if you don't already know her. She might have something more useful to say than me if you were to ask her.

    Best wishes to you and your daughter for the rest of the Christmas season and 2010. Hope the move goes well!

    I don't suppose I can be of much help / use but if you would like to be in touch by email, my address is

    estherinthegarden@googlemail.com

    and you can always contact me through my blog.

    Esther

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  4. OOOH, moving is so much nicer when it's someone else and you're just doing the helping! Here's hoping the rest of the holidays go well for you and your family.

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  5. Love your family tradition of root beer floats for New Year's Eve. Happy New Year!

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  6. Moving in the cold and snow is never an easy task. I hope it went well and that she'll be happy in her new place.

    Root beer floats on New Years Eve...what a neat tradition. My husband and I still have our big heavy glass A & W root beer mugs from the 1960's. Our grandson uses them now.

    Happy New Year to you, Sue. You are such a good blogger friend.

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  7. Sounds like you are going to be very busy....the place looks nice and it looks like you have good help....
    GOD BLESS YOUR NEW YEAR !!!
    Prayers, Bo

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