Today I found a small tick on Benny, thankfully it was on the top of his fur. That was enough to send me into a frenzy washing all the fabric in the house. Yes, I just did it last week after my cold, but we’re only talking maybe 20 towels, sheets, blankets and pillow cases. I don’t have fabric furniture and the floors are vinyl tile.  I flea comb Benny when he comes in from woods walking. I put Frontline Plus on the kitties every 3 weeks during warm weather and monthly when it’s cool.  I keep food grade diatomacous earth swept into the corners and baseboards in the summertime.  I seldom have fleas or insects of any kind.   For 30 years I was using local Vegas pest control services, now I do it myself using Ortho’s Home Defense Max, which is safe for the cats.  That’s why I fly immediately into action when I see a flea or a tick.  We are a pest free zone and I intend to keep it that way.  Even when Benny doesn’t do his part.

I wrote in I love workworking projects that I’d gone to Home Depot yesterday for a sheet of plywood and I’d already spent lots of time figuring where I wanted the cuts made.  As you can see in the center left of the diagram, I made a math error as 24.5 plus 32 do not add up to 48 — the width of the board — it totals 54.5. That meant I needed 4 pieces of wood a specific size and, due to my miscalculation, I only got 2 of them. Yes, I could have recut from the top right piece (shown empty above), but by the time I caught my error, I’d already cut that for another project.  I think it’s interesting that 3 guys saw my plan for cutting the plywood, including the guy who cut the plywood. No one checked my figures to see I had the middle measurement wrong.  I see now I can swap places with the center pieces of wood, having the 32 wide by 26 tall piece to the left, and the 24.5 wide by 26 tall piece to the right.  It will be easier to piece together the missing 8″ in the corner right where no one will be stepping. The cut outs are for air duct and plumbing.  The diagonal cut is the doorway. Continue reading →

Some friends will have surprise guests at their Halloween party this weekend. They posted on Facebook about it, which let their spouse know where to locate them to have child support papers served. What is it with not paying child support and hooking up with new families? Have some respect. And have sense. While you’re busy letting your stoner friends know where to find you to party down this weekend, you’re also letting the wife and kids you left know. And what’s the BFD about leaving honorably anyway? You’re mature enough to spawn children, learn to have civil honest conversations with the other parent. And if you’ve got cash for alcohol, pot, tattooes and fancy wheels, you can pay your child support.

A busy morning! Went over project plans with the man, an hour of bookkeeping then bank, post office, Office Depot to get art scanned, Home Depot to get plywood cut, Publix for bananas they didn’t have and home to sketch out my template in pencil on the plywood pieces. I am a cautious cutter. I measure and eyeball it about a hundred times before I make a cut. I want to honor each piece of wood I own by using it to full advantage and wasting nothing. Is that scarcity consciousness or prudent thinking? The bigger piece I have left over, the more of another project I can do. I might do this next.

I shared a post on Facebook about how drinking a glass of water before bedtime prevents heart attacks and commented: “Since I wake up every couple of hours anyway, I keep two bottles of water next to the bed and drink half a bottle each time I wake up all night long.”  The article has since been debunked, however I know how important hydration is to the cells of our body.  That might also be why at 62 I have zero elimination problems. A 44 year old  friend is chronically constipated, drinks coffee, cola, beer and wine and very little water.  She smokes cigarettes and takes ZZZquil each night to sleep, she eats fast food and junk food.  All these things suck the moisture out of your system, leaving a dry passage for elimination. To my spidey sense, when I encounter someone with the condition, it feels like the food in their digestion system is a slow moving train stuck in a tunnel.  Six to eight hours after eating, after your meal passes through your stomach and small intestine, it enters your large intestine/your colon for further digestion and absorption of water.  This is a big reason to drink water if you are constipated. You will eliminate that meal anywhere between 24-72 hours after eating it. Hydration is good for your system, the cells of your body love it.

Best laxative: Mix 2 oz of milk of magnesia into 4 ounces of warmed prune juice. Nurses call this “a black and white.” Follow with 8 oz warm water (essential to success). Expect a bowel movement within 30 minutes to 6 hours. Milk of Magnesia is a saline laxative which means it acts by drawing water into the intestine to help gently pass the bowel movement.

RELATED: A bowel movement should not take 45 minutes
How long from the time you eat food until you excrete it?
Healthy Poop color chart

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I rinse my paint brushes well after each session, and frequently as I paint. I don’t always remember, though, to clean them in soapy water afterward. I seldom have an official “end” to a session, I tend to think I’ll come back and finish up a few more things first.  At 3:00am this morning, I discovered that paint had built up in my favorite No. 8 chisel blender.  I used to toss them when that happened, but discovered an easy fix and some helpful links are below. Basically, after each session I clean the brushes in soapy water. If paint is built up, I can soak them a few hours in either Murphy’s Oil Soap or hand sanitizer, then rinse well.

Helpful links:
How to Get Dried and Hardened Paint Out of your Brushes
How to remove dried acrylic and oil paint from brushes
Clean Stubborn Acrylic Paint out of your Paint Brushes

A friend complained she had been “trying to discover who she was” but kept getting knocked off her spiritual path by well meaning family and friends who won’t leave her alone.  “How can I discover who I am when they keep bothering me?” I had to smile because that’s HOW we discover who we are, by how we interact with those closest to us.  Especially those who rub us the wrong way. That IS our spiritual path.

RELATED: When we fail to recognize who our spiritual family is

A friend emailed me and told me when she went to one of my websites, she got this warning: “Malicious Web Site Blocked!  This is a known malicious web site. It is recommended that you do NOT visit this site. For your protection, this web site has been blocked. Visit Symantec to learn more about phishing and internet security. ” I just discovered that –> Norton/Symantec is notorious for false positives. What I’d do is not continue on to the site at this time, but come back to it later when the warning hoax has moved on to another random page.
I had my hosting company check the server and they reported back: “We couldn’t find any issues from our end. We checked your domain “horizonsmagazine.com” in chrome, firefox, IE . The domain was loading without any warning.”

Ch-ch-changes! We don’t always think change is good but we can be pleasantly surprised.  In a recent reading, Domino lamented there’s no passion in her relationship.  She loves her husband of three years, but they don’t share the same interests and seem to be roommates more than anything.  They don’t fight and, while they do laugh together, each does their own thing, has their own job and keeps to themselves after work, he in his workshop and she in the den.  Neither is particularly interested in what the other is involved with.  There is no physical or emotional intimacy, they don’t even share meals.  She doesn’t want a divorce and she doesn’t want to date or seek a new man, but she misses having an intense interest in — anything.  Oh, she has her hobbies, she crafts and paints, but she hasn’t even felt like creating art the past year.  She feels if he showed an interest in her work, she’d be more encouraged and feel he was a part of it.  But she shows little interest in his work and when she does, he’s not into discussing it.  She doesn’t feel she has any friends.  She’s not a computer person, so she doesn’t do Facebook or belong to any forums that might help her feel supported.  Continue reading →