Hello 2025

 Well, better late than never I guess. Happy New Year everyone!  January is half over and I was thinking of just giving this blogging thing up but decided to keep at it and give some more thought and time to it. The first weeks of January have been a mix of snow, cold, not much sun and not much working either.  I know things should get going more in a few weeks once folks decide to start on their medical care and using deductibles. As for the weather it's typical of January in Ohio except we've been spoiled the last couple of years with mild temps and not much snow.  Mother Nature has decided to up her game this year.  It's been a back and forth of bitter cold and snow.  The snow we have has thankfully came in small batches of only 2-3 inches at a time.  Makes it easier to keep up with the shoveling!  Next week we are expecting some bitter temps for Monday-Wednesday.   After that I'm thinking it will go into a more normal pattern of winter.  Thankfully, Annabelle likes the snow and doesn't seem to mind the very cold temps although I don't take her walking for very long periods of time.

I don't know if you can tell but I shovel out paths for Annabelle.  I call them her pee paths! Ha! They sort of look like crop circles in the yard.  Do you do things like that for your furbabies?  

Once all the Christmas decor is put away, I bring out the snowmen and even put some lighted flakes on the kitchen mantel.  I like to keep a bit of light up until February then I go for Valentine's stuff.  It helps to keep the winter bright!  

One thing that makes the winter brighter is watching my grandson play basketball! He's #14 in the red. They've had a good season and we were happy to watch them win this one and see Cameron score! 

Go #14!  

Last week we had a full moon.  This isn't the best shot but I liked the tree limbs in the shot.  The full moon made for nice lighted evenings and early mornings but also brought out some craziness at work.  Full moons make hospital employees nervous!  The next story here is maybe because of a full moon. It's one final thought for this first blog post of the year.  This is also a public warning.  This past week we,,,or I should say, me since I was the one who got involved, got scammed big time.  I got caught in a banking scam that makes me so mad and also feeling so stupid to have fallen for it.  Now to be honest the scammer was very good and even had the bank phone number he called me from to ask about a fraudulent charge on my account.  Turns out he was the fraudulent call.  I even called the number back to make sure it was from my bank, and it was.  A long story short and $8,700 later I finally went to the bank in person and found out it was a total scam. We did get it straightened out but what a pain.  We had to open new accounts, put in a dispute in hopes of recouping the money, change all our info to the places that we pay bills to or have automatically withdrawn funds from.  I know it happens a lot these days, but I still feel very violated and stupid.  Never deal with anyone on line or on a phone from a person saying they are the bank, or if you have a gut feeling something isn't right, just check it out in person.  Lesson learned for sure!  So, taking a deep breath and heading forward I will say, Hello 2025.  Let's do better from here on out!