Up Early, and Take My Advice, Please

Sleep alludes me most nights. No matter what time I go to bed, I can't go to sleep until 2:30 or after. 
Going to bed is not easy for me. Before I turn in, I take a bunch of pills. 
With a heart condition and Diabetes I never miss my night time ritual. And, if I have been sitting for a long time, hours, I wake up with pain in my back, legs and feet. 

This morning, my diabetes sensor awakened me. It is incessant. I can't ignore it. When I checked, my reading was 69, too low. At the same time, I had sharp nerve pain in my feet. I had to get up, eat something with carbs, and take pain meds, stretch, and use heat and ice for my back and feet.

Although I didn't get enough sleep last night, I can take a nap today. No appointments on my calendar! 
Great. I will finish my Christmas Cards and get them in the mail today. Christmas is almost here.

Life is Good.

Even though I have frustration and problems every single day, I am grateful that I have a lovely home provided for me. I am so thankful to be living in the same house with two people I love who seem to want me here. And---they love Lexie, which makes all complete. 

She usually sleeps late and gets up when I do, so this morning, when I had to get up early, so did she. Now she is back asleep in a chair, one she has chosen to be her own, with her blanket. I love that little girl. 

Sleeping Beauty

Dealing with Customer Service drives me Nuts!

For weeks now I have spent hours and hours on the phone with employees of companies I used to use at my house in North Carolina, but no longer need. I realize I made a huge mistake many years ago when Barry and I signed with Frontier Communication for our landline telephone. We made the awful mistake of signing for the company to take our monthly fees directly from our checking account. 

It was a no worry answer to paying my bill on time each month. But all the worry has come now when I realized I have been paying this bill months after I called to cancel it and four months after I sold my house. I don't get a bill each month because I don't need to send in a payment. It comes up on my bank statement. For months I had overlooked the fact that Frontier was taking 80 plus dollars out of my bank account even though I had called and canceled the account. 

Then the problem began. I called Frontier, waited for a long time to talk to a human being who said my account had not been cancelled because I had not produced a PIN for that account. Believe me that was the first time I had heard anything about a PIN. The person on the phone could not help me. So I turned to my bank and found they are limited in stopping an automatic payment from my account. The best they could do was stop payment on the last month's withdrawal. Needless to say, my week has been spent mostly on struggling with Frontier personnel who all said the same thing. And here in December, they have taken another payment for a phone that I don't have from an address that has not been mine since September 4 when we closed on the sale of the house.

The good thing is Frontier has a record of my call to cancel back in May 2024. Finally, today, in desperation while dealing with yet another employee, who had me go to the computer to receive some information I had to complete, she said. But her email never came through.

 At that point I was tired and about to scream. But instead, I told this woman on the phone in a very angry tone, "I know it won't matter to you or change anything, but I have a heart condition and breast cancer which gives me lots of stress, and now Frontier is going to give me a stroke."

She was quiet for a minute. I said, "I am sure there is someone there who could take care of this problem."

"Hold on a minute. Let me talk to my supervisor." The line was quiet for awhile, then she came back on and said, "It's handled now. You will be refunded immediately for the past three months and then we will refund to your bank account the rest that is owed you."

Now, if they will do what they say, I will be most happy. But why didn't someone do this a week ago and before I spent hours on the phone with those who said they could do nothing to help me until I produced a PIN? Just speaking to her supervisor took care of it all, but no one, and I asked to speak to someone else, but not until I told them about my health issues did anybody care enough to help me.

It is this kind of frustration that drives me crazy. 

And I have run into more than one since making this move. My message to you is NEVER sign an automatic payment plan where they can take your money directly from your account. Sales people will push you to do that, but don't. 

I am a big fan of Clark Howard who has helped me with another fight with a big company, and he advises to never sign an automatic payment plan like I did. 

When others have heard about some of these problems with big companies that won't refund what is owed me, I have been told, "Well, that is too much trouble. I would just let it go. Forget about it."

But, I don't have an income where I can just give away over $500 to those who would take it from me.

Be safe out there, my friends. Hope you are having happy times during the holidays. 

Know who to trust.

Home Sweet Home is where I hang my hat

Back from the city tonight. It is always good to get back home, isn't it? Even though I love my little apartment with Gay and Stu, it was good to turn into my driveway, open my door to the warm and cozy cabin where I spent so many happy years with Barry - and with Kodi and with Rocky, my canine family members.

As I get used to my second home, will I feel the same way each time I leave it and return? Having been gone so long, I was concerned about the heat, the water and the entire house. But no need to worry. My gas heat had kept the house warm enough to protect the water pipes. If the power went off during the big snowstorm while I was gone, I haven't seen any signs so far.

I will miss hearing Gay's voice, "Glenda! Are you up yet?" as she came downstairs in the mornings. She is a morning person unlike me. She wakes up ready to go. I don't want to talk to anyone until I have had my breakfast. My brother, Ray, was the same way. He just would not talk to anyone first thing in the morning. We all learned not to try to engage him until he had finished breakfast and indicated he was ready to talk.

At some time in utero, my time clock got mixed up. Even as a child I could not go to sleep until the wee hours of the morning. That was why I hated going to school. I had to get up after a few hours of sleep and Mother insisted I eat although I was not hungry at 6:30 in the morning. I was tired and sleepy when the bus arrived at seven o'clock. Over the years I have suffered insomnia which made it difficult for me to get up and get to a job on time. In college, by two or three in the afternoon, I had to go to sleep. Others did not understand why I "slept so much." But I was just not getting enough sleep at night. 

I begin to feel energized around 5:00 PM. That is why I can sit up until three a.m. working on my writing or anything that I am interested in while the rest of the world sleeps. Don't expect me to be lively before noon. In recent years, my sleep time has become 3:00 AM until around noon or even later. I don't choose that schedule. It has chosen me. However, one of the good things about being a "senior adult" or "mature adult", I make my own schedule. 

Sometimes I have to agree to a morning appointment with a doctor, but I insist it not be before 11:00 o'clock. I just tell the person who is scheduling appointments that I don't do mornings. "I am not a morning person," I tell them and they make the effort to accommodate me. 

This doesn't mean I have never seen a sunrise. I have seen many beautiful ones because I never went to sleep before dawn. I vividly remember going outside and sitting on the front porch steps when I was a young girl. Remember, I lived on a farm and there were no cars going by, no people anywhere near our house. It was so still that every sound was from nature; birds singing, frogs croaking out their good mornings, maybe a horse or cow munching on the grass they had bitten off. Crickets sang their songs also.

The sky to the east would begin to lighten. Rays would streak the darkness like the spires of a church. Soon the pastel colors appeared as though painted by a giant hand -- pink, yellow, pale blue, lavender, all blended on a huge canvas that mesmerized me, a skinny kid in her nightgown sitting on a cold concrete step watching the world wake up. 

I have seen a few sunrises here in the mountains, but I see more sunsets and they are also beautiful. 

Barry made many photographs of the mountain sunsets. We shared those joys together as we sat on our upper deck among the treetops. In the early days here, we had a gorgeous view of Lake Chatuge and beyond. Past our view of the lake are the Georgia Appalachian mountains. Brasstown Bald, the highest peak in the state of Georgia, sits directly south of us and on the other side of Lake Chatuge. 

In the city, I don't have that view, although I do have a small lake down the hill. Wild animals frequent the lake and the wooded property that belongs to my brother-in-law and my sister. Deer pass by often, herons and mallards spend much time there. A giant owl visited one afternoon and sat on the lower deck for a long time. 

In the spring I plan to put out bird feeders, especially hummingbird feeders. 

I also want to plant flowers that attract butterflies. I get excited just thinking about it.

Yes, even though it is quite cold here now, spring is just around the corner waiting to declare its glory. Gardeners will swarm all over the nurseries and bring home their favorites. I will look first for my red geraniums which grow so well on my deck here in the mountains. I have no place to winter my flowers so I treat my geraniums as annuals.

I will also plant the New Guinea impatiens which seem to like my shady yard.

As you can tell, I am looking forward to spring and planting my deck gardens, one in the mountains and one in the city. 

I am optimistic about spring 2022, and I hope it will be healthy for all of us.  Let me hear from you.

What do you like about spring and what are your plans?