My father passed away this morning.
He was having difficulty breathing...but nothing terrible bad.
He told my mom, "I don't think I can do this much longer" and died within a half an hour.
I'll always miss him, but glad his revolving hospital door experience is over for him.

sleep. hospital. weather. real estate. I've got it all!

What a week!
I'm so tired. It seems I can never get enough sleep. I even fell asleep during 30Rock last night.

My dad is in the hospital...again. He's been in at least six times since Thanksgiving. This time he has an infection in his lungs. Last time it was in his arm, where they have the port for dialysis. Apparently it moved to his lungs. They expect him to be okay, but he has to stay in there on IV antibiotics until it's completely gone. I feel so badly for him...he hates all this attention. He hates that we take time out of our schedules to go visit him. But, on the good side, he loves the food at this particular hospital. Brags about it all the time.

Let's see, do I have anything else to report? Not really. It's starting to warm up a bit here. It's in the 60's today. It was two weekends ago too...but then dropped back down to the 30's. I'm anxious to get the yard cleaned up and looking nice.

I'm also trying to talk Keith into putting the house up for sale. He wants to "hold on for one more year". I'm sick of holding on. I want to live again. Although, I don't want to do all the painting/fixing up we'd have to do to have our house on the market. I've watched too many episodes of Designed to Sell to not do some things. Things that are perfectly fine for us to live with, but not for perspective buyers.

Isn't it ironic?

Sometimes the way businesses run just amaze me.
As I said, I sent out a bunch of letters regarding our mortgage. One of senators had me fill out a form saying they could contact Chase (the devil) on our behalf. We did that. They called the devil and sent them a letter, enclosing a copy of the letter I wrote.
I got a phone call yesterday from our contact at Chase. He said that they still couldn't do a loan modification for us, but they could do something. They said that if we pay only $x for the next three months ($400 short), at the end of the three month period they would reconsider and possibly we would qualify for the modification. I replied:
What about the balance for each of those months? (he said it would go into a suspended account)
Will Chase report the short payments to the credit bureau? (he said they're obligated to by law)
Will it negatively affect my credit rating? (he said of course)
Even though I'm paying the amount you're telling me to pay? (yes)
Can you assure me we'll get the modification? (no)
To sum it up, I said, you're giving me permission to short pay my mortgage, but you'll report the short payments, negatively affect our credit rating, and then MAYBE we'll get a lowered mortgage payment so we don't lose our house and ruin our credit? (yes)
I said, your bank has received over $25million in bail out money, yet you won't work with me unless I ruin my credit rating first? Even though the only thing I did wrong was get my mortgage through a crook who has been found guilty and is sitting in jail? He said, we have to make sure you're serious about this, not just looking for a lower payment.
I told him no thanks.

"Give me three steps..."

Last night, I got a phone call from my brother. He and his wife, my sister and a couple of her friends were at the legion. Come join them for a beer.
So, I ran up there and my cousin Kirk was there. He's my cousin third removed, or something like that. More like an uncle....a lot older than I am. Growing up, he and his wife lived right next door to my family.
Anyway....he was two sheets to the wind and telling stories about when we were younger. He was thrilled to see Afro, Susan and Me in the same place. So, he proceeds to tell this story of how he came home from work one day with a huge bag of peanuts and threw them all over the yard so us three would keep his very young son busy outside. "Ha ha," we laughed, now having kids of our own and knowing the feeling. He goes on to say that he was so horny, he wanted to "give it to" his wife. They couldn't even make it up the stairs, he said, he, and I quote, "nailed her on the third step."
How is that for a nice family visual.

"I am barely breathing...."

I'm still alive, but very, very busy. I haven't had time to post.
However, at the risk of completely jinxing it, I may have Saturday and Sunday completely to myself. Stay tuned for the update.

Once bitten, twice shy baby

My book group picked "Twilight" for this month's selection. I was a bit disappointed. I didn't want to read the teen vampire book.
I borrowed a copy and started it yesterday. I finished it yesterday. It was addicting. I want to meet an Edward. He's smart, funny, handsome and he can't have sex!