Yawwwwwwwn! Steeeeeeeeeeethch! It's time to wake this place up!

The original Skeet's Stuff has been resting for a few months, but has somehow managed to nag me lately into paying some attention. It holds a soft spot in my heart, being my first-ever effort at blogging, so I've had to listen to what it wants.

Watch this space! I'm working on getting some redecorating done and will be adding new content even while the remodel is ongoing. I've learned a little about adding fetures since I was here last, so I hope I'll end up with a blog that is exciting and dynamic as well as offering worthy content. I hope you'll take the journey along with me!

What do you think of the new name?

Labels: blogging, blogs, just stuff, revival

I thought I was just having allergy problems because of my ti plants blooming. Sneezing, runny nose, watery eyes, puffy face & all that stuff. Got up this morning with all of that still going on plus & my chest is croupy & my head is aching & I think it will explode any minute now. Guess I'll have to abandon the benedryl & go get some real cold meds after I wake up a bit more.

I think I might make a big pot of chicken soup later today too. I've been making it for years, of course, but if you have a recipe you want to share I'd love to see it. Other home remedies for a cold? I usually try other stuff first & then end up resorting to Nyquil. It works but it's just so nasty & knocks me out. If you have a secret cure, now is the time to share.

Labels: health, just stuff

So the big changes rolled out at Payperpost overnight. I think it's all going to be good, but there is much confusion at this point, so it's really hard to tell. The advertisers now have a mechanism in place to rate the bloggers who write for them. That's good. It's will weed out those who find it perfectly acceptable to write rubbish around the required link(s) and call it a post. The door is open for bigger and better opportunities for the posties who work hard and creatively to give the advertisers what they need. The only thing that really bothers me at this point is the technology. Put this code into your blog's html and that on the sidebar & oh, look, google & alexa are messing with your page rank. I've done most of it wrong several times and there are still a couple of tasks I havent' even tackled yet.

Still, I think it's going to be good for all of us - advertisers and posties - in the end. I certainly hope so!

Labels: just stuff, payperpost, posties

I don't know a lot about English football. I know that it's not the football we watch religiously in the US. It's soccer, right? Anyway, a couple of years agao my son asked for a Manchester United jersey for Christmas. That was when I discovered he's been following the game for quite a few years. No, I'm not a terrible and neglectful mom (at least I hope I'm not!) My son lives thousands of miles away and the subjcet had never come up in our frequent phone conversations.

Today I found the Cristiano Ronaldo fansite and I'll have to admit I'm ... um ... interested. Cristiano is a Portugese fellow who plays for Manchester Limited. So, see, there's a connection already, because my son follows the team. That makes it okay for me to be interested in him, right? Nevermind that he's serious eye-candy. I'm gonna soak up everything about him because I owe it to my son to show an interest in his hobbies. Yeah, nothing to do with those abs. Nothing at all. ;0)

You can find out all about Cristiano Ronaldo by visiting his fansite. You'll find his biography and the latest news about him, plus some action-packed videoes that will show you why he's so popular. You know you want to, right? And it's got nothing to do with those pecs, hm? The Cristiano Ronaldo fansite sponsored this post so serious fans and silly old ladies could know everything they want to know.

Labels: just stuff, Manchester Limited, payperpost

I walked into my screened lanai last night (that's the room I showed under construction in my last post) and was overwhelmed with a cloying sweet fragrance. Within less than a minute my nose was running, my eyes were itching and I was sneezing. I did what I needed to do (the laundry is out there) and dashed back into the house, shutting the door between the house and the lanai. My allergy symptoms continued until bedtime. I know that benedryl will control this stuff, but I already have problems with extreme dry mouth from my tummy meds, so I decided to try to ride this one out. When I go up this morning I knew I'd made a mistake. My entire face was puffy, the area around my left eye disproportionately so. The sniffles and sneezeing started up again as soon as I walked into the front of the house. I've been taking benedryl all day. It makes me sleepy and saps my energy and there's the whole dry mouth thing also.




I've been assuming something was blooming in my neighbor's yard across the fence. I went outside a few minutes ago to see what it is that is making me so sick. Darn! Can't blame it on the neighbor. I usually trim the stalkes off of the top of my ti plants as soon as they appear. I found out my first year here that they attract massive quantities of bees. I'm allergic to bees, too, so I try to minimize the attraction. I hadn't been out in that yard in a while and the stalks had shot up and are covered with spikey purple balls. Little white blossoms open up when darkeness falls, which is why it was so strong last night. Unfortunately, darkness is falling now and it's a little late to start trimming. I'll have to take care of that when I finish work tomorrow.



While I was out there I realized I've been horribly neglecting my herb garden. The birds have planted wild tomato plants again, the sort that make little tiny, bitter tomatoes. My Dad liked them on his salad, but I don't at all. I guess I need to spend a few hours out there tomorrow. I pulled a few small ones the last time I was out there. Today I discovered one growing into my rosemary bush. It's large enough to already have little pea-sized green tomatoes showing. If I can just stop sneezing long enough & open my eyes fully behind the puffiness I'll take care of all that.

No, I didn't get a new camera yet. I have possession of the homeowner's association camera for a few days. Maybe I can sqeeze in some time tomorrow to stock up on fresh photos for my blog!

Labels: gardening, just stuff, life in Hawaii, photos

That last post has me thinking about chocolate and candymaking. I don't do as much now as I did when my son was little and we lived near plenty of family to share with. Every now and then, though, I want homemade candy, and I always turn to my old reliable Karo Cook Book on those occasions. Here's one I've made many times.

Quick Chocolate Fudge

1/4 cup margarine
3 squares (1 oz each) un-sweetened chocolate
1/2 cup Karo light corn syrup
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 package (16 oz) confectioners sugar
1/2 cup chopped nuts or 1 cup miniature marshmallows

Grease 8 x 8 x 2-inch baking pan. In 2-quart saucepan melt margarine and chocolate over low heat. Stir in corn syrup, water and vanilla. Remove from heat. Add confectioners sugar and nuts. Stir until mixture is smooth. Turn into prepared pan. Cool. Cut into squares. Makes 1 3/4 pounds.

Quick Brown Sugar Fudge: Follow recipe for Quick Chocolate Fudge. Omit chocolate and water. Melt 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar with margarine. Use dark corn syrup.

It's quick, easy and tasty, and the kids can help! Enjoy!

Labels: just stuff, Karo Corn Syrup, recipes

I survived.

A while back I spent a little too much money on my home remodel project and found myself unable to meet my tax obligation at the end of the year. I tried very hard to get caught up, but the real estate market took a dive, which means I was getting much less business than in the past. Last week I got a letter from Uncle Sam saying time was running out and they wanted to take my house. As you know from a previous post, I succeeded in finding a lender who agreed to help me refinance my home. Uncle Sam will be paid off tomorrow.

Big siiiiiiiiiiigh of relief here! Mahalo for all of your kind thoughts when you knew I was facing a problem.

Labels: just stuff

So everyone who has read my blog lately knows that I've been thinking about taking out a loan, right? I've finally taken the leap. I found a great loan broker (no, this isn't a paid post) and he hit the ground running. My original mortgage has a high interest rate, so we've decided that re-financing is the way to go. Dealing with money (especially big money) makes me nervous. When he asked when I wanted all of this to happen I said I'd like to just do it and get it over with. That was this afternoon. This guy is some kind of a miracle worker, because he opened escrow for me already, and I just got a call from the appraiser who wants to come tomorrow. Wow! I'm impressed, but when I said "do it now" I thought I'd have at least the weekend to get ready. You know the clutter problem that I've gone on and on about? I'd like to crawl in a hole right about now. I guess I'll just do what I can between now and ten-thirty tomorrow and then put on some bronzer so he won't see me blushing in embarrassment. What else can I do?

Labels: clutter, finance, home, just stuff

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop on a really bad situation that can only get worse. Is the waiting harder than just getting it over with? Right now I think so, but maybe I'll long for this horrible slow crawl of time soon. The difference between hurricanes and earthquakes, I guess. Hurricanes give you warning, those terrible days of anticipation. Earthquakes blindside you, leveling everything in their path with no warning. I'm waiting for the hurricane when I'd rather have an earthquake, please.

Labels: just stuff

Sure, I told you quite recently that I wasn't in the dating game. I'm old and I'm tired and men can be such high-maintenance pets to keep. I can barely keep up with the care and feeding of my furkids, so my thinking was that I just don't have the energy to keep up yet another constant distraction sucking away my time and patience. If there was a way to get around all of that, sure, I'd love to have another companion who would adore me the way the boys do. Who wouldn't? That was the gist of my reasoning a month ago.

Things change.

It's come to my attention that I may have been hasty in my judgement. Suppose I've been looking at this the wrong way around. What if I could find someone who had the wherewithal to make me a woman of leisure? Without the distraction of a nine-to-five grind, perhaps I'd be able to devote myself to someone? Let's further suppose that my prospective Prince Charming had enough of the green stuff that he, too, had the time and leisure to spend his days seeing to my every need, romancing me, making my pleasure the central focus in his life? Suppose I could find a way to meet Millionaire Singles, who could certainly meet the above qualifications. Could I change my whole perspective on this thing if I had a way to meet a single man with the means to treat me like royalty? Do you think that under those circumstances, it might be appropriate for me to start dating again.




Could be. ;0)

Now that I've explored their site, I'm glad that Date a Millionaire sponsored this post and gave me the opportunity to consider relationships from another perspective.

Labels: dating, just stuff, payperpost

I've been on the board for our homeowners' association for ten years now. A few weeks after I bought my house, a stranger came to my door to tell me that the annual meeting would be starting shortly. As a brand new resident, I wasn't even on anyone's mailing list yet, so I hadn't known about the meeting until that moment. I walked down the street to our little park, expecting a crowd. There are sixty homes in our community, but the meeting was attended by only about half-a-dozen of them. I was asked to fill a position on the board of directors. I explained that I didn't even know how to own a house, much less how to help run a community association. The existing board explained that if all positions weren't filled, another annual meeting would have to be called, at great expense. I caved in and was elected, the board having collected enough proxy votes to represent a quorum of homeowners. I served as a director that year, and was named vice-president the following year. During year three our president retired from the military and moved to the mainland. I was named president.

We've done some good things in the last ten years. No one had overseen maintenance fee collections for many years and a number of residents took advantage of that. Now we have only one or two who are allowing their neighbors to carry their financial burden for them, and we have a system in place to deal with them. We installed new streetlights throughout the community and repaved our streets. Our park has safe playground equipment with a protective fall surface underneath, and we have a gazebo with picnic tables and benches. Almost everyone in the neighborhood has been persuaded to maintain their homes and keep their properties clean, though there is one who seems to obsessively collect junk cars and rats. Almost everyone has replaced their old shake roof with something more fireproof. All homeowner have seen a significant rise in the value of their property.

I'm tired and I'm frustrated with the way things have gone for the last two years. The board has turned into a committee that talks about and studies many issues, but never accomplishes anything. We've been trying to get potholes filled and the pavement re-topped on our streets for almost a year. The rainy season is on top of us. The potholes will be beyond patching after a few months of monsoon-like rains & we'll face a cost of $50-80,000 to re-do the entire job. The fence that keeps kids in the playground from tumbling into the stream was supposed to be replaced this year, but the contract bids languish while board members bicker. The list goes on and on. Whenever the board does anything concerning house rule enforcement, my home is vandalized and I recieve threatening notes in my mail box. My dogs no longer have access to my front yard because strange foods were thrown over my front fence and I feared they would be poisoned. The board feels that these are "my" problems and has allowed it to continue and escalate.

So I'm tired and frustrated and buned out. I told our property manager today that I want to step down at our annual meeting next month. He was quite alarmed at this. "But you're the only one who does anything." Um, yeah ... that's the problem. I'm done.

Labels: homeowners association, homes, just stuff

I kinda resent y'all trying to steal my thunder. I posted below about decluttering & you each seem to think that you are better than me at burying yourself in detritus. Ah, you are so ill-informed. I was going through my photo files and look what I found! The above is dated June 30, 2005. That's the work table in my office, where I do my books, sort files, pay bills and such. Well, I used to. I haven't actually seen enough space for most of those activities in quite a while. See the large stack of files to the left? There is an almost identical stack in the same place today, just slightly larger. The heap of clutter to the right of the TV? Oh, I wish my camera worked so I could show you that today it's actually two fallen-over heaps supporting each other. That slick-looking roll of something under the left rear corner of the table? That's a large laminated poster called "Bad Bugs" that should be on my wall. It shows identification photos of the more common wood destroying insects, along with damage typical of each species. I love that poster. I really should put it on the wall. Today it's in the back of the supply closet. It's behind the old phones I want to give to the shelter for abused women, and the reams and reams of different colored paper I use when I print notices for the homeowner's association. It's not likely I could get close enough to the wall to hang my poster anyway, so I guess I'll leave it where it is for now. I don't know what the rest of the stuff under the table is. Hey, give me a break! It was almost two years ago. My industry magazines are in racks behind the stack of files, and I see pink receivables binder beside them. My purple binder for my service account log is on the front/center of the table under a single file. Maybe I actually logged that file the day I did the work. That used to happen. I probably thought about turning to my right and taking a picture of my cluttery desk that day, too. And I probably concuded that it was so embarrassingly messy that I didn't want to record it for posterity. Which, of course, means it was much messier than the work table. This was near the launch of an effort back then to tackle my messes and clean them up. It didn't work, as verifiable to anyone who should see that picture and also get a look at the same view today.

So, anyway, no more of this stuff where you come here & whine that your stuff is messier then my stuff. This is one crown I've earned for myself and you're not going to take it away. I am the champion ... when it comes to clutter!

Labels: clutter, just stuff

I haven't blogged about the clutter problems in a while because it would be too embarrassing to say how little I had been doing. I've been working on it the last few days. I won't claim to have made up for lost time. Years upon years of slothful behavior can not be wiped away in mere days. However:

The guest room is clean. That nice queen-sized bed is such a convenient place to pile stuff that I've bought "for later." Also a wonderful place to spread things out when wrapping gifts. We're not talking Christmas here, folks. There was gift wrap I used last summer on that bed. The gift wrap and clutter have been put in their proper places. BONUS: I have scissors! I have tape!

Need to strip the bed & launder the linens in the next few days so it will be fresh and ready in case I ever get guests.

My office is not clean, but:
All reports are in properly labeled folders.
The reports were properly date-ordered and entered into the books.
The reports then properly alpha-ordered for filing.
Filing is still months behind.
All invoices and check receipts for the last month or so were then put into the books and filed away.
New checks opened, entered into accounts and collections.
New checks stamped, added up on deposit slip and ready to deposit.
Supplies for accomplishig all of the above are properly in their place so I don't have to search under and around months of back-filing to find the stapler & the check-endorsement stamp next time.

Okay, even listed item by item it doesn't sound like much, but you should have seen how disorganized my office was. Actually, I'm glad you didn't! I'll try to finish up in here tomorrow, then will have two rooms (guest & office) completely clutter-free. That would be a good thing!

Labels: business, clutter, just stuff

The fire is out! We had really high winds most of the day, the kind that knock down termite-eaten power poles and make your car rock as you drive, but they've died down some now. Cute weather guy says they'll move away from the islands over the weekend. IT'S RAINING! Not a heavy downpour, but enough to soak things down pretty well. Hopefully things will be damp long enough for kids to finish up their left-over fireworks.

I got my Christmas box from my son yesterday. His habit procrastination is part of his heritage, derived directly from my ability to delay everything until the last possible moment, or sometimes beyond. Which, coincidentally, reminds me that I've been carrying my water bill around for a week. (Mental note: pay water bill tomorrow.) His talent for packing wonderful boxes full of just the right gifts came from somewhere else. Maybe his dad's family actually had a few good traits that I was never aware of? Doubtful, but I suppose it could be so.

Lancie the beagle is pawing at my feet,telling me it's midnight & I've kept him up past his bedtime once again.

Aloha ahiahi, my friends.

Labels: family, fire, just stuff

I don't have any work on my schedule today. You'd think I'd be working on all the clutter around here, right? WRONG!

I've been clicking all around the internet today looking for puzzle pieces. How sad is that, when I'm so far behind everyone else that I'll never find all thirty pieces, lol!

Labels: just stuff

Does anyone else hate those built-in zippers that are inside so many food packages these days? You know, you cut along a dotted line above the zipper. After you remove a portion of the product, you should be able to zip the bag closed to preserve what's left, right? The Tupperware that's never the right size or shape stays stored away but you've got a sealed-tight container to keep your goodies fresh. That's the principal of course. Have you ever gotten one to work? Is it just me?

There's a large bag of dog biscuits sitting in my pantry. Very large, and it's still got too many biscuits in it to fit in any of my Tupperware. So it's sitting in there, gaping, and probably letting weevils come in and out so they can get in everything nearby (because I always seem to bring home dog biscuits that look perfect in the store but start crawling within twenty-four hours of being stored near my cereal and pasta.)

This evening I opened a brand new five-pound bag of rice. It's got the zipper in its side, about two inches from the top seam of the bag. The only way to zip it is to lay it on the counter, flatten it around the zipper, being very careful not to let a single grain of rice or even a tiny speck of rice dust get in the zip area, and run a finger along the outside of the bag. Can you do that? I fooled with that blasted thing until I had to stop so the feds wouldn't think I'd destroyed my fingerprints on purpose. It is now duct-taped closed. Tomorrow I'll get in the storage area beneath the lanai steps and see if I can find Tupperware that is properly configured to hold five pounds of rice without taking up half of the space in my pantry.

You know, if they can put a man on the moon ...

Labels: just stuff