I am not wishing my life away...

but I cannot wait to retire.

I SO enjoy not being at work! 3 day weekends are just glorious and vacations are even more so. I won't be able to retire for a long time, but I can sure dream about it.

This weekend was so relaxed. We just hung out at home. We watched movies, shows on Hulu, read and played on-line. Today, we ran a few errands and went to eat Mexican food. Yummy!

Hope everyone is having a safe Memorial Day and remember those who gave their all to preserve our freedom.

What will go out next?

Last evening, Hubby asked me if I had been in the kitchen. I told him he was the last one in there and asked him why he asked. He said that there was water on the floor. So I went and looked.

Darn if there wasn't. The first thing I thought of was the washer, but thank goodness it was not that.

It looked like the water was coming from under the fridge. I opened it. No water inside. I opened the freezer. LOTS of water inside. The ice bin was overflowing with water. Ugh!  I turned off the water that feeds to the ice maker and started cleaning up water. Hubby offered to, but I was already doing it, so said I would finish.

I replaced the ice maker valve a few months ago, so I don't even know what it might be, so for now the ice maker is off. I don't know if the valve is bad or if the feed into the ice maker is what is leaking. I will think of it another day. Hubby ran out and bought some ice trays and we are using those for now.

On a positive note, our kitchen floor is really clean again.

Post Honey Bunches of Oats Giveaway!

As a Purex Insider, I recently had the good fortune to receive a box of Post Honey Bunches of Oats to try. I  received the Honey Roasted, not the Fruit Blends, but plan to try that soon, too.

I have to admit, this was not my first time to eat Honey Bunches of Oats. Or my second. Nope.....I have eaten a LOT of this cereal. My family has enjoyed it for a long time. So, I was totally happy to indulge in another box. It is really delicious! I love the crispy flakes and the granola clusters are even yummier.

I really like that it has 10 grams of whole grain and only 6 grams of sugar. I feel like I am treating my body right when I eat this cereal.

And the good news for you all?? Post sent me some coupons for a free box of Post Honey Bunches of Oats to give away to my readers. Are you excited yet? This is a super easy giveaway. You can enter once a day just by leaving a comment about a favorite breakfast food. You can leave one extra entry if you follow my blog. That's it. See, told you it is easy!

The giveaway runs through Saturday, June 2. On Sunday, I will pick 3 random winners and send you each a coupon for a FREE box of Post Honey Bunches of Oats!

Good luck, all! Start entering.

27 pounds of blueberries....

Last week, I received an email from an orchard where we have picked blueberries in the past. It was opening for the season last Friday. I asked Hubby if he wanted to go pick berries and he said yes. He is a berry picking boy!

We got up Saturday morning and dropped Hubby's car at the tire place to have them repair a tire that had a slow leak, then headed out. The orchard is exactly and hour and a half away and it was a lovely drive. Hubby loves to drive anywhere and I love riding, so it was really nice. We chatted and listened to tunes all the way.

We got to the orchard a little before noon and headed out to pick. Yes...next time we will go earlier. It was a beautiful day and the sun was out.....and it was HOT. Hubby loves, loves, loves the heat. I do not. But, I asked Hubby to go pick, so I had to pick, too. LOL!

Blueberries are super easy to pick, so it went pretty quick. After about an hour and a half, we had a large bucket full and I needed a break. I went back and sat in the car that we had parked in the shade, drank some water and cooled off with a wet towel. I did NOT turn on the AC as I know it would feel good but would make it harder to go back out in the field. After 15 or 20 minutes, I headed back out, taking my wet towel with me. It was a little cooler with a wet towel around my neck.

I picked for another 1/2 hour, but then that was all I could take, so stopped around 2:30. Hubby never needed a break. He is a hardy boy. We had decided to head back by 3:00, to make sure we got to the tire place by 5 to pick up his car.

Hubby headed out of the field right at 3:00. We sat and visited with the lady that owns the orchard and she weighed our berries. We picked 27 lbs! We did GOOD! At $2/lb, they were quite a bargain, I think.

We headed back to town, picked up the car, picked up some dinner and headed home. It was a wonderful day trip for us and I now have a load of blueberries in the freezer. I am ready for jam making or baking or just eating. Yum!

Yesterday, I just cleaned and prepped berries for the freezer, ran some over to my bf's mom and ran a few errands. Today I have a day off, just because. I think we are going to go eat pizza buffet for lunch. I am having a great long weekend!

Happy Monday, all! Oh, and today is my parents' 56th anniversary! Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad!

I have the cleanest kitchen floor in town.

I thought I would start on a positive note.

Why, you ask, do I have a clean kitchen floor?

Because, our washing machine leaked yesterday. We were not in the kitchen, so didn’t know it was leaking until the entire kitchen floor was covered in at least an inch of water. It may have been deeper… I didn’t measure it. We cleaned up the water, using every towel we own except one, plus a blanket. I called the emergency maintenance number and when I talked to the maintenance guy, he said since we cleaned up the water, he would just come look at the washer today. I explained that water went under the dryer and stove and we did not get that water up and he said not to worry about it. Ummmmm…okay. I guess he did not want to come out yesterday.

Hubby saw our downstairs neighbor, who is really nice, and told her what happened in case they had water leaking. The maintenance guy was telling me something about the water going down the wall but not going into the downstairs apartment. I did not get it, but maybe it works that way. Whatever. The apartments will have to fix whatever happens. I LOVE renting!

So, we have a super clean kitchen floor now.

Did you have a good Mother’s Day?

Mine was good, except that I did not hear from any of my kids. Not one of them. Not even a Facebook message. Bob is mad. I am resigned. I am not their mom. They took HER out to eat for Mother’s Day on Saturday. I guess they only have room for one mom. Oh well.

I still enjoyed the day. I relaxed, watched tv/movies and ate. Hubby cooked breakfast (bacon, eggs, biscuits) and dinner (roast and veggies) for me and they were both yummy. Lunch was leftovers from the day before. We took Hubby’s mom to a local BBQ place. There is one in New Braunfels that is her fave BBQ place ever and now there is one about a half hour away from us. We didn’t tell her where we were going and she was surprised and thrilled. It was delish and we brought home leftovers. It was really good BBQ, but a little pricey. It was worth it though for Mother’s Day.

The maintenance man came today. A hose came loose on the washer. Don't blame us, dude, YOU installed it. He clamped the hose. (Shouldn't you have clamped it the first time?) Hubby did laundry all day today. 

I have a Hulu Plus Referral Code

I signed up for Hulu Plus and love it. Want to check out Hulu Plus? You can use my referral link and  get a 2 week FREE trial instead of the usual 1 week trial. http://hulu.com/r/J7x7Sw

(Yes, regular readers, I am shamelessly plugging my referral code.)

Yes, Mark, some cars have cabin air filters.

I did not know this for years. Then I got an email from a local dealer offering to change the cabin air filter for "only" $174. I thought, "what the heck is that?" and "I wonder if I can change it myself.

I did some on-line research, and found out that both of our Hondas have them and I COULD change them. So, I ordered the filters and printed out instructions. It took me 3 hours to change the one in Hubby's Accord. I will NEVER do that again. Mine took about an hour to do.

Since my mechanic only changed $23 labor to change it, I let them do it.

I could write up all about cabin air filters, but found a pretty good article here, so decided to share:

Description: A filter used to clean incoming air for the car's HVAC system. Introduced in European vehicles, cabin air filters are now becoming common on more domestic and Asian makes and models. Some examples include the Ford Taurus, Contour, Windstar and Ford trucks; the Chevrolet Impala, Monte Carlo, Suburban, Tahoe and Silverado; and the Lincoln Navigator. Japanese cars such as the Honda Accord and Odyssey, and the Acura RL and TL use cabin filters. To date, approximately 40% of cars have cabin air filters, but the number grows each year.

Purpose: The cabin air filter helps trap pollen, bacteria, dust, and exhaust gases that may find their way into a vehicle's ventilation system, making the interior of the car a healthier place.

Maintenance Tips/Suggestions: Cabin air filters should be replaced according to owners' manual guidelines, usually every 15,000 miles. It's not uncommon, however, for cabin air filter replacement to be overlooked in the owner's manual.

Do not try to clean this filter and reinstall it. For best results, consult filter manufacturer application charts to see if your car is listed. Most filters are accessible through an access panel in the HVAC housing, which may be under the hood or in the interior of the car. Some filters require basic hand tools to remove and install the filter; others just require your hands. If neglected, a restricted cabin air filter can impair airflow in the HVAC system, possibly causing interior heating and cooling problems.

Does Your Vehicle Have a Cabin Filter?
(F/W 2005)
They continue to add filters to new vehicles. As it stands today, you could have:
1. One and maybe two fuel filters,
2. An engine oil filter,
3. An air filter,
4. A crankcase filter,
5. A transmission filter,
6. A coolant filter (in most diesels),
7. A Canister filter,
8. A Breather filter, and
9. A Cabin filter.The cabin filter is the newest filter and it's job is to filter the air that is either sucked or pushed inside your car before your breathe it.

Like many homes in the USA, your home may have air conditioning, swamp coolers or simply fresh air circulation. Your car has the same three modes. Air conditioning is where you re-circulate the air inside your house. INSIDE air is sucked through a filter, over some cold coils and sent back into the living quarters of your home. Your car does the same thing, re-circulate the air INSIDE your car and that's called MAX A/C or Recir A/C for recirculation.
Swamp coolers or just wet pad coolers cool your house in a slightly different fashion. Coolers take OUTSIDE air, cool it and send it into the house. If the house were air tight, the cooler would be trying to blow cool air into a pop bottle, so to speak, which all of us know is difficult, at best. So as most folks know, you have to open a window or two to get proper circulation when using a cooler or bringing in outside air. Your car does the same thing. It brings outside air through a cabin filter over cold coils and then blows it into the car. That's called NORM A/C or Outside Air.

Of course, fresh air circulation mandates you have a window open to benefit from that mode. And this air also goes past a cabin filter before it enters your car.

The cabin filter works in either mode, re-circulatory or outside air and we've been changing quite a few of them lately. I even changed mine in my truck that travels back and forth to the ranch and I found a ton of dirt, mold, grass, twigs, leaves, animal hair and fur and even a plastic bag in and on my cabin filter. Some of the ones we've replaced make vacuum cleaner bags look clean.

So if I were driving my truck and my brother was sitting in the passenger seat and we just got done working cows and he was a stinkin', I would turn the air on, use outside air and open his window a tad. That way as air entered the truck cab, it would sweep by him and out his window. This works if your passenger is smoking or your dog is wet.

If your vehicle is model year 2000 or newer, there's a good chance it is equipped with a cabin air filter. You will pay about $95 to replace it, which includes the labor, depending on your make model and

Good news!

I stopped by our mechanic this morning, on the way to work, and told the manager what happened and asked if they would check it out. He, as always, was willing to assist. I left my warranty paperwork with him in case it was something bad and went to work.


He called me around lunchtime, with not so bad news. My battery was kaput. It is only 4 years old and is supposedly a 100 month battery, but it was dead. He said that in Texas batteries only last 3 or 4 years, no matter what they say. So, I told him to go ahead and replace it.

 He mentioned that my serpentine belt was wearing and starting to crack and I know that I have to replace it by 60,000 miles to keep the warranty in place. So, I told him to go ahead and replace that. (I am at 56,000 miles.) He is also going to replace my air filter and cabin air filter. Oh, and running some kind of diagnostic. $368 total. I thing that is a good price for all they are doing.

Sure, I could replace the air filter and cabin filter myself, but their labor on both was really low and I decided my time is valuable, so had them do it.

We went by and picked up my car and it runs just like it did before. LOL! I love my mechanic!

Oh, and Mark, I never think anything or anyone is against me. I am just too happy-go-lucky for that kind of thinking.



Bob says we need to go to the casino to win some more money. J

Thank goodness we brought money back from the casino!

We thought we were such hot stuff, putting that money back in the bank.

Then last week, Hubby's car engine light came on, so we took it to the mechanic. The computer was fried. Ugh! The cost...$785. Hubby was in shock when he called me. I didn't think that sounded too high to replace the computer, but suggested Hubby call the Honda service department to see what they would charge.

He called back in a much better frame of mind after finding out that Honda would charge $1285 to do the same work.

We had our mechanic do it. Hubby still didn't like spending the money, but that is all that needed to be done to the car. We have 101,000 miles on it and have had very little done to it in a while,

Then today on the way home from work, I stopped by the pet store and when I came out, my car would not start. I called our motor club for a jump, but thought it might be something other than the battery, since I was only in the store for about 5 minutes.

It started with the jump and I headed home, but on the way, several dashboard lights flashed that I have never seen before, so I drove right to our mechanic and parked it out front. I called Hubby to come get me and I will go by tomorrow morning to tell them what happened. If whatever is wrong is covered by the warranty, it may have to go to Honda to be fixed, but then Honda will have to pay for the tow.

Wish us luck.