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So many people battling cancer

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It seems like I keep hearing about cancer almost every single day. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if researchers finally found a cure for all cancers?


A long time neighbor of ours just died of cancer last week. He’d been sick for some time, but I was still sad to hear that he’d passed away.

I also keep hearing about stars and even political figures who have cancer. The star of one of my favorite shows “Dexter” is fighting cancer right now, and I just got an email from our local Member of Parliament, Jack Layton, stating that he’s got prostate cancer. At this point I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that someone I know if fighting the rare cancer mesothelioma although I certainly hope that I don’t hear anymore news of cancer striking friends or family.

Do you find that you’re hearing about more friends, family or even your favorite television or movie stars having cancer?

I hate getting stuck in slow lines

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Don’t you hate when you go out shopping and you get stuck in the slow line at the cash?

That happened to me earlier today. I went out this afternoon to do some shopping and after I’d picked out my items at the store I got in line to pay for my items. There was only one person ahead of me so I thought I’d get out of the store quickly. Boy was I wrong!

It’s not that the person ahead of my was slow – counting pennies or anything like that. No. You see the cashier was trying out a new bar code scanner … a Symbol LS2208 or something like that, and the manager was with her as she tested out the new equipment.

From what I could tell the scanner was working fine, but the manager kept making her use it over and over again, redoing the person ahead of me’s bill etc. Before I knew it I had a line of complaining people behind me who were also tired of waiting in line.

It would have been nice if the manager picked a quieter time in the store to test out the new scanner.

All the time I was standing in that line I kept worrying that my parking meter’s time was going to run out. It would figure I’d get a ticket … luckily that didn’t happen though. I made it back to the car just two minutes before the meter ran out.

Time to use the steam cleaner in the bathroom

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In early January I bought a general purpose steam cleaner. It’s a Shark model. I’ve only had a chance to use it once so far and the results weren’t quite as good as I was expecting.

One my first attempt using the steam cleaner I went after the backsplash tiles in the kitchen, the stove and the fridge. The cleaner worked great on the stove and the fridge. It really got the grime out of the corners and crevices on both appliances.

The backsplash tiles in the kitchen were another matter. I used the scrubbing attachment on the steamer to try to clean the grout area between the tiles and while the grout did look cleaner where I worked at it they didn’t look anywhere near as clean as I’d hoped.

I guess I was hoping that using the steamer once on the tiles would remove years of grime that had built up on the grout. I guess I’m going to have to get some kind of grout cleaner to clean the grout between the backsplash tiles and then I can use the Shark Steamer to maintain the clean look.

One my next attempt to use the Shark steamer I’m going to tackle the bathroom. The grout in the bathroom isn’t that bad, but it could use a good cleaning. What I really want to clean in there is the silicone seal between the tub and the shower wall tiles. It looks like it has mildew in some areas and the steamer should at least help kill the mildew … and hopefully remove it too.

Actually almost all of our upstairs bathroom is tile of some kind or another. The tub/shower area is tiles up to the ceiling and then the walls have tile that goes from the ground up to about 4.5 feet in height. (our Kitchen is like that too .. I guess the former home owners really liked tile?). The bathroom floor has those tiny square floor tiles and yes, the grout between those tiles could use a very good cleaning too.

Hopefully I’ll find the time this weekend to get the steam cleaner out and try it out in the bathroom. It’s a shame that I’ve only used it once since I bought it.

Do you have a general purpose steamer that you use to clean the bathroom, tiles, appliance and perhaps even the floor? If so, what kind do you have and are you happy with it’s performance?

Trying to decide if we should hook up an iPod to our home theater system

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My husband and I decided to buy a new TV … oh about three weeks ago. Since that time we’ve been waiting for our new Plasma to come into the store. Sad that you have to wait so long for a new TV these days isn’t it?

We bought a new TV because our 2004 DLP TV seems to be dying. We think there might be something wrong with the DMD board as the picture just freezes and goes black and white every now and then (about once a week). We know our DLP’s days are numbered!

We decided to replace the DLP rather than repair it because in the 6 years that we’ve owned it we’ve had to replace the light bulbs two or three times, had to replace the color wheel – at a total cost for all of these items of about one thousand dollars! Fixing the DMD board would cost approximate 800 to 1000 dollars … we just can’t see pouring more money into this TV. So we’ll put it in the basement and use it occasionally until it finally dies.

So … while we’re waiting for our new TV to come in (the store says it will be in on Friday!) we bought and hooked up a new home theater system. Lets just say that hooking up the new home theater system to the DLP wasn’t a piece of cake! It took hours and hours! Tested our marriage a bit too. LOL

Anyway …now the system is working and when we get the new TV we should only have to move a few wires (components) from one TV to the other and hopefully everything will work just fine.

One nice thing about the new home theater receiver is that we can hook up a special iPod dock to it and play music from the iPod through the receiver. We do have a 200 disk carousel CD player hooked up to the receiver but it’s old and I’m sure we’d get better sound if we used an iPod … or rather my husband is sure of that.

Of course … we don’t have an iPod (or the accessory docking station) so I spent a little bit of time earlier today looking at the various versions of ipods. I think if we’re going to buy one I’d get a classic iPod that has 160 GB of storage. We have a LOT of music on the computer and on CD’s – enough that we’d probably come close to filling up a classic iPod.

So before we go out and spend another $350 to $400 getting an iPod and the special docking station that works with our Yamaha receiver let me ask you a question – Have any of you run your iPod through your Home theater system? If you have, how is the sound?

The reason I’m asking is, if it’s not going to make a huge sound difference we might as well keep using our 200 disk CD carousel until it dies on us too. However, if there’s a major sound improvement (like full true 5.1 sound) we might go ahead and splurge to make our sound system complete.

Thinking of ways to make extra money – maybe a second job?

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I know that the economy is supposed to be getting better, but we’re still feeling the crunch here.

I’ve been off work, on medical leave, for over five years now. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long, but my Crohn’s disease just won’t settle down. I wish it would! I’m an ER nurse and believe it or not, I love my job.

My husband also works in the hospital. He’s an OR day surgery attendant. Unfortunately … the hospital is over budget this year and my husband has to go through 3 sets of rolling layoffs. He’s already had his first two weeks off do to these lay offs and he’s going to have to be off work for two weeks in March and June.

That’s going to hit us hard.

I do make some money via the internet as I have a number of blogs and websites and I allow advertising on them, so it’s not like I’m not bringing in any income while I’m on medical leave, but we need my husbands salary to round out things and keep us afloat.

I’m sure we’re not the only ones in this position.

My husband has started to think about trying to find a job that he can do on the weekends or evenings. Many many years ago he used to work part time for catering companies – as a bartender and or waiter. He made pretty good money doing that and the tips were great so he might look into getting back into that – especially for the four weeks that he’s going to be laid off in the coming months.

He also has been a guitar player since he was nine. He’s very good and he also plays 13 other instruments. He’s often thought about teaching others to play guitar so he’s trying to find a way to get some students.

Are times tough in your area? Have you been thinking of ways to make some extra money? Perhaps you’re working two or more jobs?

I’d love to hear how you’re getting by in this tough economy.

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