Of Internet Outages and Spotty Cell Service by Konnie Enos

Yesterday, I woke up fully realizing I had to write a post today, but figured it was something that could wait until after I did other necessary things, like balancing the checkbook. And I wasn’t going to do that until after I’d done my normal morning routine.

I was in the middle of said routine when my son came into my room, barely awake and grumbling.

What was he grumbling about?

The internet was down. Estimated repair time was a couple of hours. Okay, so I wait to do the finances. And while I could write my post with the internet down, I could not set it up while offline. So that was waiting too.

I then dilly-dallied around because I had nothing to do that didn’t require internet access.

At about the hour that it should have been repaired, my son returned grumbling to my room complaining that it’d been pushed back four hours. This repeated two more times until we are sitting at the dinner table wondering when we will have our internet service back.

At this point, my son was aggressively trying to figure out what was happening, repeatedly checking our internet provider’s site from his cellphone. This is when he noticed that our cellular service, which could give us mobile data, was being spotty. Spotty to the point, he wasn’t able to refresh the information he could access for any updates.

It got worse as the evening progressed and the internet was still down.

My son was panicking. Talking about if it was a cut line it could be days until the repaired it.

I was not far behind him.

I still had to balance the checkbooks, and I knew one account had the statement out for the month, so I’d need to reconcile that. Plus, you know, my post. Which I had not made any attempt to write yet. I actually had not come up with a topic yet.

Then my son came into my room and told me the newest estimate for repair wasn’t until this morning.

Okay, now I was in panic mode too.

It’s my turn to post. And if I had no internet connection in the morning I would not be able to do a thing about it.

Then my persnickety phone died.

This phone functions perfectly but recently it decided it must be completely turned off before I attach the charging cable for it to actually start charging. Even more annoying is it will not turn back on until it was at least 15% charged.

So, my internet is down for an unknown length of time which I do not trust to be anytime soon since it had been out all day. On top of that, my post is due and my phone is dead.

My one and only thought is that I cannot tell Bonnie what the problem is with my phone down too and at this point it’s late enough that calling her any later might wake her up. She is an hour ahead of us after all.

So, I tell my son to call his aunt. I know for a fact that Bonnie is his only aunt that he actually has a number for and talks to regularly. I did not ask my daughter to call her, because I wasn’t certain if she had Bonnie’s number or not and with mine off, I could not check the number for her.

Now mind you, our cell service is still spotty.

According to my son, as soon as Bonnie answered he spilled out the entire issue. No internet which meant I couldn’t post, and spotty cell service which meant the call could drop any second.

Anyway, it was sufficient information for her to figure out it was extremely important to let him know she got the message and understood the problems quickly. Beyond her initial hello, all she said was that she would cover the post.

Fortunately, the internet was restored sometime in the night.

I woke up this morning and after attending to the needs of our furry family members I opened my computer. Internet is functioning.

I check out blog sight. No post from Bonnie. I’ve even refreshed a couple of times.

Yes, I began typing way faster than I usually do.

Now it’s about the time this post should be written, edited and set up and I’m still typing. This is going to have to. At least the internet and cell service seem to be fine now.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

 

OOPS by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Okay, I think I lost a day somewhere. I didn’t realize it was Wednesday until Konnie called.

This week has been something else. But anyway, Memorial Day clearly threw me off.

Happy writing, everyone.

Of Phone Calls and Memories by Konnie Enos

 

My son called me out of the blue the other day to ask me a question.

The question is completely unimportant to the point of this post, mostly because I forgot what it was before we even hung up. I only remember two things. I could not give him an answer, and I thought his sister could, so I told him to ask her. (I have no idea if he followed through with that.)

What is important was the rest of our conversation.

Normally when he calls me we talk for a while. The subjects vary but I generally get an update on how he is doing and what he’s been up to, not only at work but outside of work. We can also ramble into memories from his growing up, though occasionally we will also talk about things from my growing up years.

Our conversations, like those with Bonnie, tend to be long and a bit rambling but enjoyable. Most importantly, not short.

This one ended, in my opinion, rather abruptly.

If you know me at all, you know I deal with the financial matters in my household. This means I regularly spend time updating checkbooks and balancing statements, not to mention paying bills. And yes, it is multiple accounts.

My husband and I each have our own personal checking and savings accounts, plus we have a household checking and savings account. When my children were minors I also kept on top of all their checking and savings accounts.

There was a time when it literally took me several days to deal with our finances at the beginning of the month partly because of the sheer volume of accounts I was attempting to keep balanced.

The volume has significantly decreased since my children are all adults and I expect them to be able to keep their financial records up to date and balanced. I’m not completely sure if they are all handling that effectively but I refuse to adult for them.

Well, except for my youngest. He refuses to accept that he is old enough to handle setting doctors appointments and demands I still deal with those for him.

We have gone rounds about this. He actually insisted I did not stop doing this for his siblings when they turned 18. His siblings told him point blank, nope, she totally did.

Since he still demands I be in on such conversations with him, I am assuming this has more to do with his autistic traits than his actual ability to adult. I don’t think he even realizes that he has set his own appointments without any help from me.

Anyway, back to the recent phone call from his brother.

At the moment he called it was edging toward dinner time on the very last day of the month. I was also smack dab in the middle of balancing my checkbook. The one account that has the most activity each month because my daughter and I use it to keep our household supplied with necessities. That’s at least 2 different stores most weekends, plus gas and whatever I order online because we can’t find those products locally. Most of those products are because my daughter has such a long list of allergies and she has to eat.

As you can probably imagine, checking off each item that has cleared the statement takes a great deal of time and attention.

I did not have the bandwidth to focus on a conversation with him while I was I making sure there were no discrepancies. For this reason, after he asked his question and before we moved on to additional chitchat, I told him I did not have time to talk for the very reason that I was in the middle of balancing a bank statement.

Folks, my wonderful son immediately apologized. He told me he was sorry, but he hadn’t realized until that very moment that this week, being the first week of the month, meant I would be busy.

Anyway, we quickly said our goodbyes and hung up. Probably the shortest conversation I’ve ever had with him.

Not long after that I had a conversation with Bonnie in which she pointed out that it was my turn to post and that it had to be up on the second. She then got to her point that our baby brother’s birthday is the third.

We then talked about our memories of that day, with her telling me I should write about that. But I already have, starting with my post September 2017 “Of Holidays and Other Memories”. And yes, I have never forgotten that morning and how Dad woke me up.

Remembering that is easy. Realizing just how old my brothers are now is not.

Anyway, happy birthday, Dan.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Rest In Peace by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

Yesterday this world suffered a terrible loss; one I know will be felt profoundly not just by her family but her fans too.

We have lost a great lady and heaven has gained an angel. A real angel.

This woman started her life out dirt poor, but she used her talent and pure determination to drag her entire family out of that hole, and once she managed that, she turned to helping others.

I first learned about her charitable works some years ago when my niece had only one daughter. My niece (Konnie's oldest) told me about the monthly book club her then very young daughter was part of. A club where each month she received age-appropriate books to keep. My niece mentioned how grateful she was for the help to build a children’s library which would hopefully one day rival the library my niece already had.

And she told me who started and backed that club free of charge to the recipients.

I thought that was cool.

But not too long ago I saw another side of her.

It was a post online about the recent devastating fire in California, and she came on saying she was doing all she could to help the victims of this fire, but that there were so many who lost everything, and the need was enormous even for her. She said every little bit helps.

This big-time celebrity went on social media and humbly asked for help for the wildfire victims. She was sincere and forthright. She didn’t brag about how much she gave; she said she couldn’t do it alone and needed our help.

She talked about sending supplies, not just money. And talked about how it is our duty to help our fellow man in times of need.

And I watched, scanning her face, thinking about how young she looked, yet I knew she was way older than me. I have no clear memory of when she first hit the charts, so I had to be quite young. She’s been around for a long time. And as I listened to her plead the cause of the newly destitute, I had a sinking feeling this would be the last time I ever saw her anywhere.

I just knew we were about to lose an angel, and that sad news came out yesterday. She’s gone.

We can’t have her back, but we do have what she left behind: her music and her compassion for her fellow man.

She had talent and a voice that will never be forgotten. And below (thanks to Google) I have assembled a list of her songs. Here they are:

Joleen

9 to 5

I Will Always Love You

Islands in the Stream with Kenny Rogers

Coat of Many Colors

Here You Come Again

Two Doors Down

Rose Garden, and

What’s Up

Others include:

Dumb Blonde (1967)

The Bargain Store (1975)

Applejack (1977) and

Tennessee Homesick Blues (1984)

But I am sure she will be missed most by her family, who loved her dearly, and all the people she helped with her charitable donations.

I repeat, we lost an angel; Heaven gained one.

Rest in Peace, Dolly Parton; you are a lovely, great lady. We already miss you so much! And my condolences to the grieving family you left behind; may they find comfort in knowing you have earned your reward.

I don’t think I can say anything more, so I’ll end here, hoping my next post will be on a happier note.

Happy writing, everyone.

Of Appliance Sagas and Memories by Konnie Enos

It’s been nearly a month since I posted about our appliance revolt. I thought some of you might want to know how that is going.

First of all, my son who had offered to help with getting a new stove has not been able to assist with it yet because of some issues he’s been having on his end. It seems every single week he has an issue with his paycheck, his job, or this week, his bank. All different reasons but all of them affecting how much money he has available. I’m thinking some of the issues might be connected to his ADHD but not all of them are.

This week, his bank froze his card for possible fraud all because he used a vending machine that he isn’t around very often. In fact, he is only near it when he is taking one of his apprenticeship classes. Classes he is only taking a few times a year, so it’s been at least four months since the last time he was near that machine.

Not a good thing to find out when you’re gas tank is near empty and you have places to be like work or school. Yes, he did call his bank as soon as he found out about it, but it still takes a bit of time to get the card back up and working. Fortunately for him, I could manage getting him enough money to cover his shortfall until he can use his card again.

Anyway, back at the homefront, we were getting pretty tired of not being able to use our oven. The one glaring shortfall with our other appliances is we had nothing that could cook a pizza, and my son really likes having his pizza.

I have thought about getting a backyard outdoor kitchen setup with a pizza oven, but that is, predictably a pipedream since we never have the funds to even consider such an upgrade to our backyard. I mean just landscaping the still just dirt back yard has been beyond our means, and we’ve lived here for over 20 years.

Now, while all of this is going on, my daughter, who moved across the country for education and medical care, finally got SSI. Finally, with proper diagnosis, and competent help and support from state agencies, she was able to convince the Social Security department that she is indeed disabled.

Great news for her and good news for us because now she no longer needs the monthly allowance we’ve been sending her so she could cover some of her expenses. Yes, what we sent her wasn’t much, certainly not covering rent, but it helped her out. Now adding that amount back into our coffers helped me scrounge together enough to cover a new stove.

So, at the beginning of this month, I told my daughter, the one still living here, to look for a stove in our price range that met all our requirements. She checked both Home Depot and Costco. Home Depot's listed prices were at least $100 less than the prices at Costco so we were going to go with those options. Then she actually looked at ordering one.

Then she discovered that things like delivery and installation, plus haul away and all the parts to connect, were extra. As in enough extra to make a new large appliance from them way more than we could afford. In fact, it added up to more than the base price of stoves from Costco.

So, she checked out how much Costco would add on to get the stove to us.

The answer is not one penny beyond taxes. Yes, it cost a bit more than I was hoping to spend, but it was less than the full cost of getting it from Home Depot, plus appliances from Costco have an amazing warranty. And we know this because we’ve had to use it when we had issues with our dishwasher and that light broke in our fridge.

So, yes, we finally have a functioning oven again. And, I’ve already decided any freezer we get will be coming from Costco. Also, any other appliance that needs replaced will eventually come from them too. Getting that membership was the best investment we’ve ever made.

Finally, Monday morning I was looking at something online. I don’t remember what exactly it was, but something in it reminded me of the date. Monday, August 17^th.

I stopped. I remembered.

First my brother-in-law (Bonnie’s husband). Born August 17^th, 1958. Gone way too soon.

Then I remembered the oldest of our brothers. He as also born August 17^th, but in 1963. Also gone too soon.

So, I paused a moment to reflect on both men on what was their birthday.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.