Betty
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Andy and I like white walls and ceilings. We’ve always lived in apartments, so we had no choice there — but we chose white for the inside of our house up in the mountains. We are no doubt in the minority, but we like it.
May 15, 2026
I wish them luck. We spent a lot of time thinking about colors for our house up on the land, and we decided on this color scheme for the outside.
The lighter color was for the walls, the terra cotta for the window frames, and the darker colors for the trim.
It was a bit of shock when we saw what the actual results were:
We have no idea how the walls ended up that color, but we decided to let it be.
Anyway, good luck Betty and Bub!
May 14, 2026
First an update on Betty:
A lot of little things have been needing my attention here, so I’ve been having a good chance to practice staying calm, centered, and patient. A lot of it has to do with having had to change my Amazon credit card number because of fraud. Changing the number on websites that are using the card for recurring payments is time consuming, but I’m being methodical.
Then Verizon suddenly increased our phone bill by $10 and when I talked to their AI chat it said it was because of data charges on one line. Both of our phones have data connection off. I spent about an hour and a half on it, but I finally got connected to an agent who took the $10 off and said it wouldn’t happen again. I had told the agent that in this day in age people need to know what their bill will be. Uncertainty erodes trust. She was friendly and helpful, so I took a screen shot of her answer. We’ll see if I ever need to use it.
The neat thing is Andy and I voted today! He hadn’t voted in years, so it was fun doing it together.
Enough for one day! Take care.
May 13, 2026
Betty
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These next two comics aren’t as upbeat.
BC
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But they are relevant.
May 12, 2026
It looks as if they will get that pool table after all?
Another surprise was our electricity going out at 9:40 last night. We have plenty of flashlights and batteries, but the things I liked best were two camping lanterns. I bought them last December after Sandra (MadSnapper) wrote about battery-powered lamps. Thanks, Sandra!
They were a lot better than flashlights, so I ordered two more today.
I also decided to check out our emergency radio. They kept telling us to have one to tune into the local county station in case of wildfire or other emergencies. Apparently blackouts don’t count, but it was a good idea to remember where the radio was and to try it. The station came in loud and clear and kept saying there was no emergency now.
The electricity came back at 11, which was another surprise. I expected a much longer blackout.
May 10, 2026
Bub is nicer than Betty sometimes is. She is lucky to have him.
Here Cosmo gets an aswer he wasn’t hoping for:
May 9, 2026
Betty
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I hope Bub doesn’t get upset because Betty is good at pool and he isn’t. He’s so sweet I want him to be happy. I’m amused I feel so protective of him.
On the other hand, I’ve been mentally celebrating all day. I’m chuffed because Andy’s flip phone is again connected to the internet up on the land. I set that up for him a long time ago, but recently it didn’t seem to be working. Sometimes we can connect by phone when he’s in the house, but sometimes we can’t.
Kaitlin and Torben have set up Starlink there, and that is working fine — so I used his phone down here to review how to connect to it again. I was so confident when I went up yesterday that it would be a piece of cake. But I was stopped for a minute when I looked at the keyboard.
I seldom send texts from the phone so even though I remembered how to type lower case letters, I couldn’t remember how to type the capital letters and symbols that passwords need. Arghh! But I sat there for a minute and it came back to me. Use the * button for symbols, the # button for caps. Then I fumbled a few times trying to get the password in because, of course, it wouldn’t tell me what I had already typed. I kept making mistakes. So I had to get pen and paper and methodically write down each individual character I put in, and that worked. So now Andy can do WiFi calling from the land again.
Ok, is that really profound enough for me to be chuffed all day? Yes! The other day a friend of mine — who knows I have trained myself not to get frustrated when problems come up — asked me how I do it. Answer: constant positive reinforcement. I celebrate every little thing I handle well, and if I don’t handle it well, I figure out how to “fine tune the system.” I cheerfully admit it sounds silly, but it works for me.
On the same note, when I was searching through old posts for a quotation I wanted, I came across this post from January, 2008: Are You Enjoying the Process? I had been trying to resolve a problem with health insurance for seven months and was starting to make progress. It was time to phone and try to move things along a little more.
That, of course, meant time-consuming interactions with automated voices asking for information, being put on hold for long periods, and dealing with agents who weren’t trained to deal with the problem in question. Patience with bureaucracy has never been my strong suit, so it was a great chance to devise a better method of dealing with it. And that was the key…focusing on my own performance rather than letting my mood depend on how this interaction turned out.
That was 18 years ago, and I do seem to be getting better at it. Sometimes silliness pays.
May 8, 2026
Betty
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But Andy and I can definitely relate to this comic:
Moderately Confused
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And this one is another reminder that we can’t believe everything we think. It’s best to check our assumptions.
May 6, 2026
