Last summer, in late June, my husband and I got a much newer car after getting a letter in the mail saying we had been pre-approved for a good sized car loan. Then, in early August, he was about to pull out of the driveway in front of our apartment to come pick me up from the office.

A woman who had been visiting the neighbor in the building across from ours had borrowed the neighbor's truck. She was backing out from the other side of the parking lot, and my husband laid on the horn, but she wasn't watching what she was doing. She smacked into the passenger side bumper...then had the nerve to pretend she didn't understand English...until a Spanish speaking police officer arrived to take a report. (And, of course, none of the neighbors who were out on the balcony in the other building saw a thing.) The woman had insurance as did we. (A day or two AFTER the accident our insurance was cancelled because of a missed payment that didn't arrive in the mail in time for the deadline, so we now have a different insurer.)

So...a few days pass and the investigator for the woman's insurance company comes. He listened to my husband's account of the situation, and said it was clearly the woman's fault, and his company would pay for repairing our car (which is a 2004, as opposed to the 1995 we traded in to buy it). He said he would process the paper work and the company would notify us when the check was ready. Then, the woman's insurance company claims adjuster said the incident was my husband's fault, and the company would not pay the claim for the repair because my husband was in the protection of a parking spot, and the whole thing was HIS fault. Bull. By now, both of us were upset. Our own insurance company sent the body shop a check for $600, which was the amount of the estimated cost of the repair work minus the $500 deductible (which we did not have then and don't have now in our tight budget. We eventually told the body shop to send that check back, since we couldn't afford to have the work done. So...now we have an almost new car with an unsightly dent in the passenger side rear bumper...and life goes on...but everytime I saw the damage, it made me upset to think that woman got off scot-free.

Then, on Wednesday of this week, the phone rang, and it was a man at the body shop my husband picked from the yellow pages. He told my husband to bring the car in so he could look at it...because he might be able to fix it without it costing us a dime. My husband did take the car over later that afternoon. Pretty soon, I got a call from the body shop. The man said my husband was there with him and he wanted the man to tell me what he'd told my husband. The man went on to say that it is his job to deal with insurance companies, and if we agreed, he would let my husband have a loaner vehicle while our car was being repaired. The man told me on the phone, "your car is beautiful, until you look at it from a certain angle, but we can restore it so that no one will ever know the fender was dented." He went on to say that often an insurance company does not pay directly to customers for repair work; too many customers take the money and run, I guess. But, if a body shop is on the phone, the insurance company then knows the customer is serious about having the repair work doen, and they will oftentimes pay up.

I have to admit, I was pretty skeptical...but I agreed, with the understanding that we do not have money for the repair bill, and no work would be done unless money was obtained from the insurance company. Jay drove me to work this morning, and I suggested he call the body shop to see what was happening.

Before he could do so, the body shop called him and said the car was fixed, and he could come pick it up this afternoon. My husband dropped off the loaner car and picked up our car just before he picked me up from the office tonight. The repair work was done so flawlessly it's impossible to tell the car was ever even damaged. The body shop used all new parts, and everything is as good as new.

So, yes...there are still wonders in the world! We are extremely happy with the work, and you can bet anyone needing body work done on a vehicle will be speedily referred to that body shop.

...and have fun doing so. I found a new online game that is a real challenge: Babble There is a free version and a Pro version (at only $9.95USD for a lifetime membership it's a real bargain), and there is a community of players who chat and offer not-so-easy clues at the same time if you happen to get stuck. Plus, there is a message board with lots of helpful resources. The rules are simple, but finding all of the words in a puzzle is no snap. If you enjoy a good, challenging word game, be sure to check it out.

The following is from an e mail I received today. Please feel free to pass it on; doing so could help save someone's life.

"During a BBQ a friend stumbled and took a little fall - she assured everyone that she was fine and had just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes. They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food - while she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening. Ingrid's husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital - (at 6:00pm, Ingrid passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ - had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke perhaps Ingrid would be with us today."

RECOGNIZING A STROKE

Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

1. *Ask the individual to SMILE.

2. *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.

3. *Ask the person to SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently) (i.e. . . It is
Sunny out today) If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks, call
9-1-1 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

After discovering that a group of non-medical volunteers could identify facial weakness, arm weakness and speech problems, researchers urged the general public to learn these three questions. A cardiologist says if everyone who recuves this email (or reads this post) sends it to 10 people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved.

BE A FRIEND AND SHARE THIS ARTICLE WITH AS MANY FRIENDS AS POSSIBLE, you could save their lives.

...Christmas around our house. We finally got rid of all traces of the phone books; now there are paychecks pending, and those should arrive early this week. Jay and I did some work on our indoor decorating last night, and even if I do say so myself, the results are impressive. I have a good tip. I figured this out last night when we were putting ornaments on our tree. The hooks for the ornaments were in packaging, but they were all tangled together. I separated them, and put them on a plastic drinking straw by crimping one end of the hooks closed over the straw, making sure the other end of the hooks faced the same direction. They slide easily off the ends of the straw, but now, no more mess. I put the drinking straw with the hooks on it in a ziplock bag, and put the bag inside a small metal canister with a cover so that they can be stored with the rest of our decorations when we take everything down for storage. We also do use original packaging for most of the ornaments, and put everying into large plastic storage containers with tight fitting covers for extra protection.

I've planned our Christmas dinner menu, and have a shopping list for the meal and a small one for gifts. All in all, not too bad. although the phone book venture put us easily a couple of weeks behind schedule. Jay says he wants to put up our outdoor decorations today.

If we do the phone books again next year we will know better what to expect, and will plan accordingly. Jay did manage to complete 7 routes, and Lauren did three. She and Keith are excited; they will be moving (with Dylan, of course) into a two bedroom duplex right after Christmas. Lauren told me her maternal grandfather (a licensed minister) may perform their wedding ceremony. I like that much better than a justice of the peace.

In the coming year, I am going to make a concerted effort to write in my blogs every day. By the end of the year, I want to have a sort of snapshot of the events of the year, both personal events and notable ones from the news.

It's been a while. I gave a passing thought to deleting my blogs since I've been too exhausted or too pressed for time to post in a while. But, I don't have the heart to delete them, and I will pick up again as a routine when the holidays are over.

Since my last post, I've been working at my regular job and I've been helping my husband with what has turned out to be a mega-project to earn some money for the holidays and our household.

He's been delivering telephone directories. That's right: phone books. I've been helping unwrap the bundles (8 white pages directories to a pack, 4 yellow pages directories to a pack) and putting the books into plastic bags. If I never see another phone book again, I will be thrilled. It isn't that I mind the work, it's just that the yellow pages are huge. They are heavy, bulky and difficult to lift, especially since I've had to do it with one hand when Jay's been out running his routes. I finally managed to roll them across the floor, which is no mean feat. I'm a mass of aching muscles, to say the least. We've had phone books stacked, in their bags and in bundles, from wall to wall in three rooms of our apartment at various times. It will end, I am promised, by next Monday.

We've also been preparing for Christmas: The tree is mostly decorated at long last, and some of the interior decorations are up. I'm not sure we're going to be entertaining many guests for Christmas, so we haven't done a lot of planning for menus, cooking and baking. That is unusual for me, but the phone books have zapped my time and sapped my energy. I don't know if I'm up for this again.

Never again will I take for it for granted when a new phone book appears on my doorstep. Now, I know what it takes for it to get there, you see...

Jay and I spent Thusday night (Thanksgiving) in the kitchen after I got off work, then picked up where we left off on Friday morning. We prepared our traditional Thanksgiving feast, and both of my children, Lauren and Adam, were here, plus Dylan and his dad (Keith, Lauren's fiance) and a friend of Lauren's were here to share with us. Everyone ate as much as they wanted, and we have plenty of leftovers, so we won't have to cook again for a while. Lauren has her engagement ring, and is going to be married soon. She's not chosen a wedding, so will likely go to a Justice of the Peace. We'll see.

The menu was fully traditional, using my grandmother's recipes, plus some of my own. We had turkey and stuffing (a triple recipe of stuffing, part of which went into the turkey and the majority of which was baked in a separate disposable foil pan), mashed potaotes, candied yams, asparagus, green bean casserole, giblet gravy, cranberry sauce, black olives, dinner rolls, devilled eggs, sour cream and garlic chip dip, and desserts (lemon merengue pie, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, toll house cookies, banana bread). It truly was worth every minute of the time we spent putting it together. Jay and I also enjoy leftovers, and will be putting some into the freezer most likely.

We took a lesson from my grandmother (she never owned a dishwasher in her life) and cleaned up as we went along, so we've run the dishwasher numerous times during the preparation and clean up. We only had two loads of dishes left for this morning, which isn't bad at all. One of those loads will be the roasting pan, which is big enough to fill the dishwasher by itself.

We decided to sleep in this morning. At some point today or tomorrow, we will begin planning Christmas decorating. We just need to keep in mind that Dylan is almost two, and into everything...

No, not the kind computer users get nervous about. I'm talking about the real deal: Toll House Cookies, made from scratch. I've just made a batch, and they are all ready for company on Thanksgiving. I'm going to freeze them until the day before our feast. I'm giving a dozen as part of a holiday gift exchange at the office in the first week of December, but they will easily store in the freezer for up to eight weeks. I used the recipe from the back of the bag of chocolate morsels, but if you don't have one, you can see the recipe at the Nestle's site.

Next up: homemade banana bread. It will also go into the freezer, and all I have left to bake (for now) is a cake and two pies.

This is one of my all time favorite times of the year. Unlike some people I know, I love cooking for holidays, and the more elaborate the menu, the better I like it. It's the ultimate in creativity.

It was a bittersweet day. Yesterday, November 4, was our seventh wedding anniversary. I had to work my normal 8 hour shift during the day, but did not have to work late. I was working, and got thinking about the wedding. That led to thinking about the videotape of the wedding that we have. And that led to tears. My late grandmother stood in for Jay's mother (who couldn't be here from West Virginia) to light the candle for Jay that his mother would have lit. My mother lit the other one for me. Thinking about my grandmother made me cry, because November 4 is also the third anniversary of her funeral. Fortunately, the tears didn't last too long, so I was able to keep working.

Since money is really tight, I didn't expect material presents. Jay had some plans I didn't know about, though. He sent me an e card of a kitten (his nickname for me) holding a rose, and wrote, "I'm hoping for seven more (decades, that is." Also we got cute e cards from his mom and sister.

We planned to go out for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. While I was in the shower, Jay went to call another restaurant to ask some questons, and seemed to take a while doing so, but I didn't think much of it. When we were ready to leave, we found that a neighbor had left his vehicle blocking the end of the ramp to the parking lot, so Jay finally went in search of someone to move the vehicle, and we were on our way. When we arrived at the restaurant, we had to wait for someone to move a van so we could park. Finally, we made it into the restaurant. I'm looking forward to a nice dinner for two...and Lauren, Dylan and Keith (Lauren's fiance and Dylan's dad) walked in! They had dinner with us, which was great fun. Dylan enjoyed fingerpainting with the cheese dip, and even ate a few chips and some of my dinner as well. And, Dylan really can sign "please" and "thank you". He wore his halloween costume into the restaurant, since we hadn't seen it yet, but it was quickly removed because it was too warrm.

At the end of the meal, all of the waiters came to our table with dessert, and announced to everyone that it was our anniversary, which was a surprise that Jay arranged. They even used chocolate syrup to spell "Happy Anniversary" on the rim of the dessert plate.

The part I appreciate most is Jay's thoughtfulness in doing these things. He told Lauren I had been a little sad because of my grandmother, and seeing her and Dylan and Keith would help me feel better, which it certainly did. None of the things he thought of past dinner, which we'd already planned for anyway, cost anything, which only made them more meaningful. I truly did feel loved, cherished and valued.

Then, after dinner, it was home to spend some quiet romantic time; we even had champagne. I don't think I could have asked for a better anniversary, on balance.

Welcome to November. Already we're beginning to plan for Thanksgiving. Menus to plan, shopping to do, baking...it's one of my favorite times of the year. This year as we've done for the last couple of years, we will have our holiday dinner not on Thanksgiving itself, but the day after. I have to work on Thanksgiving Day, but I have an earlier shift than usual, so when I get home, there will be time to do last minute prep for the next day. I am so looking forward to having family here. Lauren, her fiance Keith, and Dylan will be here, and Adam may get to come if he has time off. My parents will be invited also. Jay's family is in West Virginia, but they will be here in spirit, I'm sure. I'm thinking of doing extra baking, for Christmas gifts. By the end of the month, we'll be planning our Chistmas decorating. The girls (Duchess and Darla) have been really good about not wrecking the decorations; a well placed spray bottle helps curb their tendency to poke their noses into everything and wreak havoc in the process.

I finally did get one pesky post completed for another blog. I'd been struggling with it for two weeks. Most of my posts are much easier to write than that. I will likely be reformatting my hard drive before the end of the month.