Have pliers, Will Travel

 

Every day at 10 a.m. I make a frozen blueberries, blackberries, cranberry juice and soy milk shake.

Silk soy is my least favorite, but sometimes its all they have. 

This box is not Senior Friendly! 

 Have pliers will travel comes from walking to the other room where the pliers live, back to the counter, and I have to do the HAI/grunt sound to turn the lid and then again when I Pry and think ugly words for the tab. The other two brands do not require pliers.

 

Senior Moment, Again

In 1990, Sears let Bob go after 18 years working there. They gave him a choice,  take a lump sum of 500.00 or a direct deposit of $90.16 per month until his death. We chose the monthly payment. Since then, on the 1st day of each month, that money direct deposits in a savings that is only for that money. The only thing we use it for is each November we PAY THE TAXES on our home. The money goes in, I get and email from bank stating it is in the account and the balance. the email comes on the 1st, and on the 6th while typing like I am now, I thought, its time for bob' check to go in and realized I did not get an email. Logging into the bank, I saw that his deposit had no gone in the account since Feb 1. FOUR months of no check deposit, which means I did not realize for FOUR months I did not get and email. I did NOT look at the Savings, I did not even realize it did not go in.

I have never contacted the Insurance company that deposits, and had no clue how. Dragging out the Box, i found a letter that notified us of when Sears went out of business, it was changed to a company I will not name... I called and got the nicest young man, he listened to bob say it was ok to talk to me, and told me someone had put the account on hold and forgot to take it off, and that the 4 months check would go in the account in 5 business days and it did on the 3rd day..

 How Could I Not realize I did not get the email. or check the account. MEMORY PROBLEMS!   The thing is the Joke was on Sears when they laid him off, because the money from that small amount has been 27,000 dollars instead of 500.00. It has covered every penny of our homeowners taxes for 34 years. I am thankful I remembered this month. I have learned my lesson. IF I don't forget.

The Senior and Her Moments! again

 

Last week, I took a couple of days off to work on 

My To DO list!

I knew what to do with my day and dreaded it, 

Put down the phone.

Stop Peering out the windows at the neighbors and their dogs.

Get it together.

Attack the #!@%$@$ computer.

It did not go well or quickly.

I spent FOUR HOURS updating a spread sheet, line by line and dealing with the 

craziness of someone selling my 401k account to another company.

Let's call them...

"#! FinancialCompany#!1" and 

" #! FinancialCompany#!2"

Hereafter referred to as, F-1 and F-2

This sounded simple, except step one was the information I needed to log into F-2 was trapped in F-1 because the account is PAPERLESS per them pestering me to do it and I HAD NO PAPER to get the info from.

As I fought through the old system finding what I needed, my mind kept losing focus while I pondered just what I would do if the power was out, the internet down or the computer had died.

First, I had to log on to F-1 to retrieve account information because I had gone paperless and 

: Senior Focus is not good, and stress makes it worse. the ability to put in a password correctly the first try has become impossible due to senior moments, assuming I can remember said password.

I spent 40 minutes finding and printing 2022 statements from F-1 for just in case I needed them to prove to F-2 I had the money in the account and to verify what F-2 has in their accounts, which turned out to be a waste of time because F-2 Had NOTHING BUT the Total.

Seems records will stay with F-1 and if I need anything in the future, before F-2 I have to log on to F-1 to get it and by the time I need it the password will not work because it has been to long since I logged on and I have do jump through Hoops. Sorry, my mind went down the Alice hole.

Logging into F-2 was a challenge because after hunting through the paper pages from F-1

to find the information to prove I was who I am, I found myself reading the instructions on how many letters and numbers and the length of the LOG IN should be. 

and drawing a BLANK because F-1 allowed log in ID to be easy peasy and was created before cyberbullies made everyone terrified.

oops there I go again.

then I was asked to create a new password, and each time I did, I got a red error,

not long enough, no capital, can't use those characters, and I estimate the time to create a new password at 30 minutes.

I must tell you I was prepared with log in ID and password, but In a note they advised I NOT use the log in password from F-1 which was my plan.

I ended up with an A Plus on password which meant the red turned green and said Excellent Strength.

I kid you not I wanted to cry by this time.

Next came the security questions which turned out to be SIX of them, I was warned to pick questions that I KNEW the answers and to pick something I could not forget.

To be sure make the answer was ONE WORD and something that could not have 2 answers. Also to pick harder questions so people who know me can't guess what I can't remember.

I was so upset, by this time when it asked me to set up double authentication, I had to go get the phone to look up the phone number.

I finally was In and the only thing I could prove was the total amount. 

Plus, an hour of what I want to see or not to see, MAKE IT ALL PAPERLESS, had to pick each thing click yes/no OV VEY!

When I retired in 2006 I could have done this with one arm tied behind me. Now it is like my brain is tied behind my head. I said to Bob, it's a good thing I am not still working because I could not do the job I did then and who knows what that has changed too.

PS.... I wrote all this to make you as frustrated as I was, assuming you made it to the end.

Super Senior Moments Continue

Searching for Pantene repair Conditioner, I could not find the bottle that looked like the one I use.

A few bottles to the left I found one that said  Pantene, Repair Conditioner.

which is what the other bottle said.

Grabbing it, I bought it and sat it in the shower, after fighting to get the TOP to unscrew no matter which way I turned the top and at the same time venting out loud about idiots that put PUMP tops on bottles. I hate pump tops.

Next shower came, I used it on my hair and rinsed and went into coughing mode while drying with the towel, coughing, clearing my throat and choking.

These symptoms are my life now that in My OLD Age, I have scent allergies to anything that has a scent. I sat it aside to decide what to do with it, since Bob can't use scents because that chokes me also.

a few days later....

Bob used the last of his lotion that sits on his sink, and since he has no clue how to open the closet and get a new bottle out and sit it on his sink, when he yelled 

I AM OUT OF LOTION

I YELLED

I DID BUY new lotion, got up off sofa and removed from closet and sat on his sink.

Fresh out of the shower, he smears the lotion all over arms and legs and down the hall, while sitting on the sofa, I start to choke and cough.

What are you doing? I yelled down the hall

He returned the yell down the hall, I am Using the new lotion you put in here, it smells good.

I race to see what he has while holding my breathe and choking/coughing/eyes running, to behold he is covered in

HAIR CONDITIONER (requiring another shower)

While gasping for air 

I grabbed the offending Bottle and looked on the back

thus discovering 

a small thing on the back with photos of flowers and berries stating what the scent is.

The other bottle I have used for YEARS that they did not have, had no scent.

I was so angry with myself for not reading the back, I tossed it in the garbage and

later realized I could have offered it to Jackie for her family, but by then the fresh

scent was ruined by the smell in the trash can.

(evidently, I can't open the closet and get the lotion and put it on the sink either)

OY VEH!

Over It! Senior moment 1002

 

The fact my brain just doesn't function well anymore just makes me crazier by the day and I am truly Over It.

It all started when a piece of fish fell off the pan down into the drip pan under the burner. I could not fish it out because the burner was to hot. 😍

Finished with the eating and clean up, I walked away and forgot the fish until I sat the teakettle on the burner at bed time to brew my night time Peppermint Tea.

Again with The Smell, the fish that I did not fish out was burning yet again.

Not only did I forget to remove it, I even forgot it was there until is burned again.

I stuck the pink thing above on the counter, sat the bottle of Krud Kutter  to remind me when I got up to fish out the fish and clean the drip pan.

3:30 am, I see the kettle, the Krud Kutter and the Pink slip and lift the burner out.

SHOCKED TO THE BOTTOM OF MY BARE FEET

I find the drip pan is full of holes, rusted out.

I start removing all the other burners and am muttering and fussing and Bob says, you are going to clean the stove at 3;30 in the morning?
YES! I can not go back to bed and drink coffee thinking about this mess.

I clean everything, put it back together and decide I need to buy porcelain drip pans to replace the metal ones, I mean who puts metal on a stove?

I eat breakfast, walk the dog, and at 7:30 race to Walmart to beat the rush our traffic.

Run in the door, list of 4 things, and of course I cant remember what they were to tell you. Grab the items, race home and put the first two on and love them, I yank the cover off the second set 

and BEHOLD they are Size A and Size B is what fits.

Be glad there is no video. For some reason when I do stupid stuff it makes me so MAD.

I gather up the keys and my phone, make sure I have my wrist wallet because last week I went to Publix to pick up RX and did not take the wallet.

Bob says with aggravation in his voice, where are you going?

I snidely say "were you EVEN LISTENING to what I was saying?

There is more with no need to repeat

I return the A and Grab the B and even though when I went home The First Time, I told Bob I found a something I want and he said We do not NEED a...

To be Continued.