A Rainbow of Possibilities

Here's a quiz to find your true color aura.
My result came back Purple.
Who's a thunk it?

Go take it and tell me what color you got.

Sluggy

Your Aura is Purple!

Personality: Purples hold themselves to sky high standards, and are always very graceful. Purple is envied, idolized, and copied without even realizing it. They are an icon for those who know you. While it is hard to be a perfectionist, rest assured it’s paying off! Purple is the most down to earth aura, they are the typical guy or gal next door. Purples may think they are better than others but deep inside they know they are not. Purple is very practical. Other auras take a liking into purple. Idealistic and thoughtful, they have the mind and ideas to change the world. Purple has the charisma of a great leader. Purple always seems to know what to say or do in every situation they are confronted with. They exercise good judgment daily. They don’t agonize too much about their decisions, the right answer just seems to come to them. Purples have one of the most active imaginations, but tend to be more focused on what could be potentially possible than dreaming about the impossible. Purples live a well balanced life and prefer to stay as calm as possible.Having a personality color purple or violet as your favourite color means you are sensitive and compassionate, understanding and supportive, thinking of others before yourself. You are a gentle and free spirit. Purples feelings run deep and you can be quite sensitive to hurtful comments from others, although you would never show it. People are drawn to your charismatic and alluring energy. You are usually introverted rather than extroverted and may give the impression of being shy although this is not the case. You are creative and like to be individual in most of your endeavours, including your dress and home decoration - you love the unconventional. You are idealistic, and often impractical, with a great imagination, Purples tend to look at life through rose-colored glasses. People who don't understand you sometimes think you are eccentric because you spend so much time in your fantasy world. You inspire others with your creative thinking and your ability to deal positively with adversity. Purples are very intuitive and quite psychic. You are a generous giver, asking for little in return except friendship. You can be secretive, with even your closest friends not really knowing you well. You dislike responsibility and have difficulty dealing with real day-to-day problems. You dislike being part of the crowd. You don't like to copy others and you don't like them to copy you. You are a visionary, with high ambitions, dreams and desires, and a compulsion to help humanity and to improve the planet earth. You often hold positions of power because you are visionary, but you delegate to others all the minor details that you aren't interested in. You like to have the best of everything, so you aim high. Being the free spirit you are, you love to travel to experience different cultures and meet new people. You are a good judge of character and sum others up quite quickly and accurately, although you usually see the best in everybody. Time means little to you and you are often late for everything. You trust the flow of the Universe to take care of everything. You can sometimes appear arrogant and conceited if operating from a negative perspective. You can be selfish and self-indulgent as you don't like being imposed upon by others beliefs and regulations.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Love Life: You're very passionate but often too busy for love. You need a partner who sees your vision and adopts it as their own

Yellow: Way to immature to meet our standards!

 

Pink: If outgoingness is on our “Have to have list” pinks are also one of the top choices for Purples

Green: Greens are way too shy and may be overlooked

Blue: Blue is one of the others that may meet our standards. They are deep and Sincere and is an awesome mate!

Orange: Can be just a little bit more mature than Yellow, but nawh I think we’ll pass

White: Way deep inside purples may have this strange feeling for whites 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Perfect Color Love Match: Red is the perfect mate for a purple they meet every standard of ours.

Friendship Color: Blue is the perfect friend for a purple due to there introvert attitude

Color Opposite: Your color wheel opposite is Yellow. While yellow people may be wise, they lack the manners and class needed to impress you

 

Words that Describe Purple: Intuitive, Seeking, Creative, Kind, Self-Sacrificing. Growth Oriented, Strong, Very Wise, and Rare

 

Purpose of Life: Saying Truths That Other People Dare Not Say

The Great Summer Road Trip of 2013.....Day Seven

Subtitled......"Liquor, Indians but no Guns"

We hit the road early on Day Seven, leaving Nashville TN in the rear view mirror.

 

We passed this truck on the interstate later that morning and Hubs wished we had a hose so we could have tapped into that load!

 

 

We made a pit stop here, about half way to our first adventure of the day......

And later on, we made another pit stop here......Bootlegger's Liquor Store....which turned out to be an adventure in itself.

 

That liquor store was right next door to a motel....and it was an AWESOME one.  I think I have found our new "go to" motel when we are in this part of the world again.

While we were in Tennessee, Hubs "discovered" a love for whiskey.  He has had bourbon before but he was able to get his hands on TN whiskey, which is different and not widely sold outside of the state. 
All bourbon is whiskey but not all whiskey is bourbon.  Here's a Maker's Mark Bourbon info graphic HERE that explains it more fully.
Tennessee whiskey(spelled with an e)is a different animal from what most people call whisky.  It is made in smaller batches and not much available outside of the state.
At Bootlegger's Hubs discovered his special purpose in life......to be a drinker of DICKEL, George Dickel Whiskey.


They are the unknown cousin of Jack Daniel's.  Their motto is, "If you know Jack, you don't know Dickel."
Hubs stocked himself up on a bottle of each variety of George's elixir.
I also bought a bottle of something you can't get other places.....a bottle of this.....

Collier and McKeel White Dog.
Basically, white dog is the closest you can get to drinking moonshine(aka corn likker)without knowing some hillbilly making and running "shine" out of some back holler.  It's moonshine that revenoor taxes have been paid on.

White Dog is the nickname for any corn mash whiskey BEFORE it has been aged into what most people call whiskey or whisky.  It's "young whiskey" and can be quite "rough".

But enough of our whiskey lesson for today, let's move on, shall we?

More shots from the road as we got further east......

 

 

And if anyone had any doubts, KUDZU is alive and doing quite well, thank you!, in eastern Tennessee.....

Can't see the trees for the vines.....

And somewhere near Knoxville, we finally arrived at our adventure for the day......the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum.....

You can go read about Sequoyah HERE.

  The Museum is owned and run by the Cherokee Nation(Eastern Band).

It contains Cherokee artifacts, artwork(like this carved walking stick), films and dioramas on the lands and peoples of this area through the ages and also the history of the "Principal People" as the Cherokee call themselves, along with the history of Sequoyah himself and his great Cherokee Syllabary.

Many people call Sequoyah's invention an alphabet but it isn't.  Instead of 26 characters, there are 85 and each character isn't a letter, but a symbol representing each sound of the Cherokee language.

It takes longer to memorize 85 symbols/sounds than our English 26 letter alphabet, but once mastered, the learner can begin to read and write immediately, unlike an English alphabet learner, who must then learn how to put the letters/sounds together to make words.
It's an ingenious device if you think about it!  Sequoyah worked fulltime on this Syllabary for a year.  His neighbors thought he had gone mad as he neglected his garden and his wife thought it was witchcraft and burned some of his work.

After it's development, Sequoyah spent 12 years promoting his invention among his people.  Once Sequoyah won over various bands of his Cherokee peoples, and the nation embraced his writing system as it's own, it put the myth about the uneducated, godless savage to an end once and for all.  Knowledge is power and it helped to put the Principal People on equal footing with all those European and English people who were slowly taking over their lands....at least for a little while.

There are also displays in he Museum about the interaction of the "white man" with the native peoples and once you get into the 1800's the history gets quite depressing.....all that "You help me, then I stab you in the back(sometimes literally), and I push you off your land and take over".....and we all know how "things" turned out for the Native Americans.

Sequoyah was a very interesting, multifaceted man and he treasured the great honors bestowed upon him for his Syllabary invention.  He is said to have worn a silver medal awarded to him by the Cherokee Nation always, even after his death.

He was instrumental in the 1st bi-lingual newspaper in the US, the "Cherokee Phoenix", which began publishing in 1828 until 1834.

Sequoyah was a successful blacksmith too.  Here is a recreation of his shop on the Museum grounds.....

And a typical Meeting Place(without the covering over it).  It's not quite as large as they believe these actually were back in the day.  These structures were communal gathering and marketplaces for Cherokee band members and could hold about a 100 people.  (They served the purpose of our churches, theatres, community centers and shopping malls of today.)

Hubs with the Cherokee Basketwork design Bear....

After we bid adieu to Sequoyah, we had to find some place for lunch as it was already after 3pm.
We stopped at this place in Vonore that we had passed on the way to the Museum.......

 

You know it's a good BBQ joint when they have a roll of paper towels on the table! 

There was a nice view out the back windows but THIS is the view I wanted to see........

I got brisket, pork, coleslaw and pintos.  I used my grilled toast & coleslaw to make a barbecued pulled pork sammie.

After getting "cue happy" we hit the road again.
We had, what turned out to be a 5 hour drive up I-81 from Knoxville, TN to Wytheville, VA.
We hit rush hour somewhere, stopped at another liquor store before leaving TN and a potty break somewhere in there too.
It was dark once we got to Wytheville and tried to exit the Interstate to our motel for the night.
I said "tried" to exit the Interstate because this exit was temporarily closed in both directions going south or north.
VA DOT was going some highway repairs that evening and had closed the exits we needed to get off of until morning.
So we drove up to the next exit, straight up into the mountains about 10 miles....into the middle of nowhere.  No civilization, no lights and spotty cell phone reception.
Hubs parked off the exit and tried to call the motel to get directions to get there without using the interstate.

In between the dead spots, standing outside the car with your right arm up in the air and holding the phone in your left hand, while balancing on your left leg, the motel clerk actually told Hubs that she didn't know how to give him directions from anywhere but from the Interstate to that particular exit.

Really?!?
Another low point and milestone in civilization has been reached.
People can longer function without GPSs.
No one can has a sense of direction and can navigate in their heads.
Note to motel owners--Do not hire idiots who can't read a map or have no clue about the area in which they live!
You KNOW this moron lives in this town or nearby if they have a JOB there, and you KNOW they have to DRIVE ON THE ROADS to get to said job, but they have no CLUE about the names of the roads and how said roads hook up into each other?!
Really!!???

So we found a road heading south....which was the general direction we needed to be heading.....and we drove, and drove, and drove some more down a long windy, foggy(in the mountains at night, remember?)2 lane country road with no signs or markings except for a.....

 

Or a....

Ever so often.
We finally saw a light, the sign for a convenience store, so we pulled in, got some directions from the clerk....FINALLY!, someone who actually KNEW the names of the roads and where they led!!
Praise the Lord!

We found the motel shortly thereafter and rolled in about 9:30 at night.
We were both hungry but not starving since lunch had been so late.
And it's a good thing since the little town here rolls up the sidewalks at night evidently, as everything was closed except that convenience store we found.

Luckily, I still had a bag of food Sonya Ann had sent us off with on Friday....summer sausage slices, cheese, celery and cherry tomatoes.  I think there were crackers too.

So here's my dinner.....

Ok, I had some cheese too.
And I washed it down with this.....

Cinerator Cinnamon Whiskey.
Same guys as Evan Williams.....you hear that JAY?! ;-)

I fell(literally, I got dizzy after 2 shots of this stuff!)into bed to sleep the evening away.
Thus ends Day 7 of the Great Summer Road Trip of 2013.

Next time, Day 8..... wherein we eat local, dig some more roots, go back in time, up a mountain, and hit another of my "pleasure centers".

Sluggy

 

 

TW3

TW3?
It's short for "That Was The Week That Was"........TWTWTW........TW cubed......get it? lol
TW3 was a satirical series from England in the early 1960's that spawned an American TV version couple of years later.

So here is  the TW3 report for Sluggy--

SUNDAY-got the storage emptied and cleaned.  Shoved more stuff into the garage, after transferring 90% of it to tubs out of cardboard boxes.  Disposed of the cardboard a la fire!  Feeling like something got accomplished.
Make a proper Sunday dinner of Pork Chops, Stuffing and Rot Kraut Mit Apfeln(otherwise known as Red Cabbage with Apples).   Hubs had eaten this Kraut dish in Pittsburgh at the Hofbrau Haus on our trip there and loved it so I tried my hand at it, successfully!

 It did take longer to cook than the recipe said.  If you like sweet and sour type dishes, you will enjoy this.

The recipe can be found HERE .  This recipe is from the Luchow's cookbook.  Luchow's was a landmark NYC German restaurant back in the day so this version should be pretty authentic.

MONDAY-I spent more time in the garage(as the weather was a bit milder that day), organizing all those now full tubs of stuff from storage, so we can locate things out there and aren't tripping over other things.  I cleaned up the kitchen that day as well....living the dream folks, living the dream!!! lolz

TUESDAY-Wrote the 1st installment of our Pittsburgh Christmas Trip and posted it.  Vacuumed the rug in the living room as the beagle has claimed it as her napping spot on sunny days, so she leaves tuffs of herself behind on it.  Between the dog hair and the vacuum not wanting to "roll" on that rug, I got my aerobic workout for the day.  ;-)

WEDNESDAY-Spent lovely hours on the phone sorting out our new medical coverage.  In the end not much was accomplished besides the acquisition of a nice headache and an elevated blood pressure.
Channeled my anger into ruthless cleaning of the desk and immediate area.

Also emptied 2 tubs of fabric and wrestled with it all to get it laid out for photographs. 

In addition, I hit the grocery store, as Wednesday is my usual shopping day.  Spent a whole $25.57 for the week(no more grocery/toiletries shopping this week).  Got some ramen for #2 Son, lunchmeat, OJ, strawberries and a 10lb. turkey breast(I'll cook this Sunday and have leftovers for next week).

THURSDAY-Wrote another installment of the Summer Road Trip saga(to post later today).  Went out for a free Birthday meal at local Italian restaurant.  Also had a gift certificate for a medium pizza so Hubs and #2 son split that, which made for a cheap meal out. 

Spent the evening assisting #2 Son organizing the getting of letters of recommendation Funfest he gets to perform on Friday(and Monday).  Being a music candidate not only does he have auditions to prepare for and participate in before he finds out what schools he is accepted into, he needs recs from music persons as well as the usual academic recs to file....and these have to be either on file or in hand at the audition dates.  He has NOT been successful pinning down these teachers/instructors so far and his 1st audition is Feb. 1 at Temple(big school in Philly), followed by Feb. 3 at Mansfield U(state school in the boonies), Feb. 15 at VCU(out of state school in Richmond, VA)and Feb. 21 at Marywood U(private local college).
He hadn't even printed out the forms some of them require recs to fill out!  So we got that all done and I addressed envelopes and stamped them all so the rec person just has to fill out a form(or write a letter on school letterhead), drop it into an envie, seal it up and drop it into the mail.  I told him to make it as easy as possible for them since they probably have been pestered by leagues of students for the exact same item.

I really don't know why schools insist that artistic types jump through so many more hoops and keep it all straight when it comes to getting into college......come on!  These are for the most part scatterbrained individuals due to their being right-side brain dominant plus they are all suffering from TEEN BRAIN so it's like nailing down Jello to get them organized. lolz
All this bureaucratic folderal for the great honor of overpaying for a musical degree which will leave the majority of them mostly unemployable at a living wage upon graduation because you KNOW who much our culture values the Arts, don't you?
Good times!

FRIDAY-First thing, I got to deal with an angry eBay customers in the UK.  She's not happy about the import duty her government charged her for the toy I sent to her.  I don't falsify customs forms like some do on eBay and if she wanted me to lie then she should have asked for me to do so, so I could have cancelled the transaction then and there.  Don't blame me because you live in a country with protectionist rules....
Who needs this crap?!

Packed up and put in the mailbox an Etsy order.
Speaking of Etsy, I also sort of made about 40 new listings there for items to sell this week.  They are in draft still since the PO rates are going up a week from this coming Monday, so I'll wait until then to launch them with the new rates.  Better to wait than to launch them now and then have to go back into them and edit all the rates on the 26th.....less work this way.

I might work on my genealogy stuff today as I got an inquiry this week from someone who just got their DNA matches on FamilyTreeDNA this week, and I match some of their genetic material.  Now we get the great fun of figuring out HOW we are related! 8-)

So that's the highlights(or lowlights)of my week.
What's happening in your world and what's on tap for today?

Sluggy

Aggravated Cleaning

Do you know the best time to clean is?
When you are aggravated by the US insurance/medical complex.

Obamacare or not, it's no wonder we overpay for health care in this country?!?!
Too many freaking LAYERS of bureaucrats!
So ok....let's now let the government stick their grubby hands into the mess because we all know just how EFFICIENT with management they are!!!
Aaaaaaaargh

I am about to choke on my own tongue.......

So I channeled all that hostile energy and attacked my desk drawers a little while ago(I only have 3 small drawers)but I also attacked the lawyer's bookcase standing next to my desk, where I store stuff that won't fit into my desk.
It's all cleaned out now.

I also pitched a bunch of paperwork and took all my hand-scribbled bits of paper/figures and typed up documents in my computer and pitched the scraps of paper.
I've got a pile of papers to file upstairs and get outta the way so I can start digging out the tax stuff.....oh, the fun just NEVER ends around here, does it?!  ;-)

This cleaning jag is just a continuation from this past weekend.

Remember this.......my storage unit?
This is the shot as of a few weeks ago.......

 

 

As of Sunday it now looks like this......

 

 

Of course before you oooh and aaah at me, my garage now looks like this......

 

And that was after we transferred almost everything from a cardboard box into all the now empty plastic tubs I had after purging bunches of stuff in 2013.  The stack of cardboard boxes on the right in the photo are all empty....spares in case I need to ship something for sale on eBay or Etsy.  There are still about 10 tubs in the house(from what I had listed on eBay in December and things I need to still take pictures of to get them listed) but now my "life" fits into the garage.....ok, and the fabric in the spare bedroom upstairs too.  8-)

So this is most of what I had to deal with once I got everything hauled home and transferred into tubs on Sunday.....

 I would have waited for you Tanner to come over, but I needed these GONE so I did this without you......sorry.....but I feel cleansed......

Another Winter bonfire...woohoo!

Nasty boxes gone, storage empty, garage (sort of)organized.
I am Sluggy, here me roar......

I WILL say that I am going to miss my storage unit.
Why?
Because it was somewhere I could go, to be alone and get away from the kids and dogs and Hubs and just sit among my stuff.
Yah, I could SO easily become one of those crazy hoarder people....I like sitting alone surrounded by my things.
What I won't miss is that storage payment each month.

So you see, angry and aggravation CAN be productive.
Maybe if I keep myself stirred up long enough, I'll actually get this house sparkling clean!

On second thought......ain't gonna happen..... 8-))

Sluggy

Insurance....Better Than a 3 Ring Circus!

After last week's "OMG! The Prescription costs HOW much?!?!" Moment I sat down to take on the onerous chore of figuring out the who's and what's of our new medical coverage.

Since I am a "frequent flyer" maintenance medical coverage user with various doctors, tests, medications and appointments throughout the year, changing our medical coverage because of our children has given me the added pleasure of having to try to sort out what the new coverage actually covers as far as me.  Now we have an "in network/out of network" situation so I have to find out which of my doctors I can still keep, without having to pay an arm and a leg for the great pleasure. 

I also have to find out if the lab where I have my frequent coagulation tests done is in-network or not.
This was jolly good fun this morning attempting to get this settled.  Seems the new insurance has 2 national lab chains I can use that charge $2.85 per for this PROtime test I need done.  Of course both locations are in cities nearby but there is no facility local to me.
Great.
So after 30 min. on the phone with the insurance CS person, wherein she called the hospital who bills for the facility I use, and the actual lab/clinic as well, to see if this lab is in the network, and after 2 different calls it's as clear as MUD.....nobody would answer this question directly, they just danced around it, so we still don't know if I will have to pay 10% or 30% OOP.  And in addition I get to call the hospital's billing dept. to see what they actually charge for this test.  I predict I will end up in a phone tree hell for my trouble.

The alternative is to go to one of the labs the insurance wants me to use.....except that to do this and have this test(which I need next Tuesday), I first would have to make an appointment with my primary physician, see him and get an order for this test, then call the insurance endorsed lab and make an appointment and take the new order to the lab whenever the appt. it made for and pay them $2.85.
That doesn't count the $128 dr. visit fee I would incur to get the order for the test, so it would probably more expensive than just going to the lab I do now.
At least for this one time.
I have a standing dr. office visit in Feb. so I'll get any orders and such I need then.  No point paying $128 now and then another $128(or more)next month, right?

And then we got to go through all this again concerning the Durable Medical Goods company I get my BiPAP machine from.  The new insurance has a "Sleep Management" Team and I have to be preauthorized in order for them to pay for any of the DMGs I use.  So now I get to go collect the original  Dr's orders and the sleep study and dump it off for them to go over and see if they will cover me.  Meanwhile I will have to pay OOP for DMGs beginning Jan.1st to the supplier I was using/am using now since they can't bill my old insurance carrier after Dec. 31st.
Good times.

I will also be transferring ALL of my prescriptions to Walmart, as all of them, except for that one "gold level" $291 drug are $4 per fill there.  And I'll talk to the dr. next month about how I am not made of money and can I go back on the old medication that was $4 a fill instead of this "make the pharmaceutical bosses rich" drug he put me on.  That $4 med has the same effect/used to treat the same illness as the fancy pants drug anyway.
Sorry Rite-Aid......I just can't stomach paying through the nose for these drugs if I don't have to!

I need to go take something for a headache now and stop thinking about this crap before my blood pressure shoots up again.

Dealing with the insurance and medical systems long enough is likely to kill a person!
Or at least drive you crazy.....but wait!, you'll need a preauthorization for that!!

Sluggy