New Year

2010 is basically over. The first part was pretty good but fall and winter kind of sucked. I'm glad to be rid of them.

This week I pretty much crashed. I still did all the things I needed to do- like go to work and hang out with family, but I was so exhausted. I wasn't very productive at work and I felt bad about it but I didn't have the wherewithall to do anything about it. Next week should be better.

DH's brother and his wife were here all week. We hung out with them practically every night. They live in North Carolina so we really miss them. They went home today.

Today I slept until 11-something. It was awesome and I feel much better. I need to make molasses crinkles, german chocolate cake, and potato soup. Dave and Froggi are coming over for dinner. Tomorrow I need to make cornbread and then the cornbread and the molasses crinkles and DH and I are going to visit my mom's side of the family. I don't know if anything is happening on Sunday.

Next week I visit the rheumatologist. I'm hoping to get a second opinion on the Hashimoto's along with his thoughts on the other possible autoimmune stuff. Perhaps he'll have some insight into why I'm so easily worn out.

This morning I made looseleaf tea with my new Perfectea Maker from Teavana. It brews the loose tea in the device, then strains it into your cup and you have no tea leaves in your cup! It is really awesome. Now I am eating hazelnuts. I have searched all season for them and just now found them. Yum!

I have seed catalogs to peruse and Christmas money to spend. What a chore! Lol!

I am baking. I am making peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin muffins, and a peanut butter pie. And I'm getting paid for them. I think I've decided I'm just not going to bake at Christmastime unless someone requests something. This is the time of year when all the little bakers come out of the woodwork and there are bags of puppy chow and chocolate covered pretzels as far as the eye can see. I am more than happy to sit back and enjoy their creations. And it's probably best if I don't learn how to make Oreo truffles. Those things are like crack.

Like most years, I am ready for Christmas to be over already. I didn't even bother to decorate. We didn't do very many presents. I'm just blah about it. Maybe its because I've had health issues this fall. I just want to hunker down and wait for spring.

The house is full of animals. The hissing has really diminished today and that is nice. Spike and Ripley and Kayla are staying under the bed for the most part. Millie(dog) just paces around and Ash is a chinchilla. He sleeps all day.

I need two ovens.

Work is still insane. We have 4 enormous mailers that have to drop by Friday. We have the first one ready to go, the second is done with the machine part of the inserting and is getting the rest inserted by hand, and then the third just started on the machine today. The second and third mailers have to be sealed after they are all stuffed and I was doing that at the end of the day. We brought down the metering machine because is is the fastest sealer we have. I got a rhythm going and I got about 50 trays sealed in an hour and a half. The metering machine hardly stopped the whole time. I got compliments from both bosses that were there and I even got an exploding fist bump from the President. Exploding fist bumps and "good job"s are about the highest praise you can get from him so I'm pleased.

Oh, and the 4th mailer? Yeah, we get to put stickers and address labels on magazines and sort them all wierd. That will hopefully start tomorrow. Then we have to finish up a really pain-in-the-butt book that we've been working on for like a week now. We've had help from the other stores working on that book so I'm not even sure what is going on with it. Oh, and we had 115 big posters that had to be done yesterday but it took like 4 days to print them all out. Other than that its just normal bindery stuff. In fact, other than all that, we're pretty slow right now!

Ok, I gotta go find a peanut butter pie recipe.

Bones and Lillibutt have been playing! He charmed his way into her evil little heart. We've had him out for the last couple of days and everything has been fine. Anytime Tuvok does something Bones doesn't like he lets him know and Tuvok backs off. Bones does about 3 things right now: play, sleep, and purr. He is incredibly cute. I need to give him a bath. Not sure how that's going to go over but he's got crusties from the infection and he stinks from being in the shelter.








Today I wrapped presents at the in-laws and then we went to the mall and Sam's and WalMart. We are POOPED! I hate the mall. I hate it even more at Christmastime. But we found a good parking spot and then we discovered our favorite winery has a booth there for the holidays. So DH got a Rose of Chambourcin and I got blackberry. Then we got 3 wrinkle free dress shirts from Jos A Bank for $90. So, for a holiday mall visit, it was pretty good!

Here in an hour or so we are going to get 3 more cats, another dog, and a chinchilla. Dave and Froggi are going skiing over Christmas and we are babysitting. The feeding will be quite an ordeal I'm thinking. Nobody ever wants to eat their own food. I don't know if I have enough rooms! LOL!

New Baby

Staying home Friday was very nice. I felt much better by the end of the day.

Saturday morning DH decided it was finally time for him to get a cat of his very own. So we took Froggi to the Animal Shelter. (Froggi is the vet/bff) We spent probably 2 hours in the different cat rooms. Froggi and I had to work really hard to pick cats that matched with DH and not ones we liked. All the calicos and torties and little girl tabbies were crawling up my legs but the big laid back males liked DH the best. He finally decided on a 9 week old orange tabby and we stood in line for like an hour to adopt him. The kitten spent half the time hanging out on DH's shoulder and half the time dozing in his arms.

We set up the upstairs bathroom for the kitten. I installed a cat door with power tools and the kitten didn't even flinch. I thought maybe he was deaf but he isn't. He's just that cool. He's cool with just about everything. We've been playing with him downstairs in the evenings and he is great with Tuvok. He's smaller than Tuvok's head but he's not intimidated and Tuvok is so gentle with him.

Froggi brought over some antibiotics to treat the infection from his neuter. She says in a few days he'll be strong enough that we can leave him out while we're not there. He should be more playful and less sleepy when he feels better but his personality shouldn't change. He's a really great cat. Froggi sees hundreds of cats all the time and she says he's one in a million. :-)

DH finally decided to name him Bones. All our pets have names from the Star Trek universe. This kitten is very observant and cool and Bones fits him pretty well.

Ok. I'm going to bed.

Brainsssss......

My body is making a valient effort in the fight against Zombie Flu. But I am exhausted. My muscles ache. I keep *almost* having severe mucous problems. My fever comes and goes. So today I decided to stay home. I had to get up to take DH in to work so I'm having some Earl Grey tea with Lavender before I go back to bed.

We did Christmas for under $400! That's 9 immediate family gifts and one entire extended family plus some random friend gifts.

I had a friend tell me that you can make new colors of Irises by planting two tubers right next to each other and the tubers grow together and make a new flower color. Is that true?

Ugh. Good night.

Zombie Flu

DH gave me his flu. I give myself a 25% chance of going to work tomorrow. So far I don't feel that bad but I've been getting steadily worse throughout the day. I took DayQuil and I'm steeping some Airborne. Also, I think I really hurt my thumb. Froggi said she can ultrasound it this weekend if it isn't better and I have an appointment with my doctor on the 20th anyway so I can get an x-ray if needed. The brace makes a big difference but it still hurts and I want to know why.

My brain has stopped. Stupid Zombie Flu.

New guy started yesterday. He did mailing lists for a year at another company. He said they pretty much stuck him in a cubicle with a computer and that was it. We really needed someone to help with the mailing lists. So he's supposedly half mailing, half bindery. The last two days he's been following me around learning bindery stuff. He's got a great attitude and wants to learn how it all works. He's got quite a ways to go; I had to teach him how to tape up a box. But I think he'll do well once he gets the hang of things. This afternoon he asked me about how the whole process of printing works. So I took him through typesetting and the plates and the presses and all of it. He didn't know how any of it happened. It makes me sad that some printing companies don't care if their employees know what they're doing or why they're doing it that way. When I train people I try to give them examples of why I do things the way I do. If they want to go about it differently and still achieve a quality result that's great. Maybe I can learn from them. And when I teach about ways to prevent mistakes I look for jobs in the shop to illustrate my point. Yesterday I was able to use a job we had in bindery to show him why it's so important to look all the way through the work order and not stop at the first page. If I stopped reading the work order at the first page I'd have missed half the stuff we were supposed to do to it.

He's funny; it was about 3:30 or so and he had already had a sugar crash from not being used to the work. I don't think he'd ever crashed like that but he started feeling weird and dizzy so I gave him some cashews and had him sit down for a few minutes. Anyway, one of the pressmen comes up and asks for a favor: 10,000 sheets of paper for a job he has to run that just came out. No biggie for me but for the new guy it's like, 'whaaaaa?'. So I go and get the lift and get the skid of paper and it's almost a full skid still so it weighs probably... oh, 3000 pounds or so. I pull it out and start pushing it over to the cutter and he stops and goes, "You're a beast!!!" I had to stop and laugh because I feel so weak being around all the guys all the time. Sometimes my body weight just isn't enough to do my job efficiently.

I am still feeling a ton better. I've been working a lot- like gogogogogo hard work but I still feel good when I get home. I've baked for two nights in a row. I'm not going to bake tonight. I feel good enough to but I don't want to get all the boys spoiled. ;-) I think instead I might try to figure out Christmas gifts for my Dad's side. I'm thinking mason jars with my personal cornbread mix in them and maybe jars with mixed beans so they can make beans and cornbread for New Years or something like that. I could make cute tags with instructions. And that wouldn't take up too much time or money. Yup. That's what I'm going to do.

See ya later!

I ended up working for about 4 hours on Saturday. They're hiring a new person soon to help take the load off. That'll be nice. But until then I'm kind of enjoying the overtime. DH has a nasty cold. If I get it I'll need the built up time at work. I don't get sick leave. But also, I like being completely immersed in whatever I'm doing. All the extra time at work actually makes me feel more comfortable. I don't like flitting between different things. And at work I feel appreciated. Not only do they pay me for what I do, but they give me compliments and thanks. That makes me feel good and I want to do an even better job.

Tonight I made banana muffins for DH and I tried a new recipe for maple sugar cookies. They taste good. On some of them I dusted cinnamon, some got colored sugars, and some are plain. I think frosting would overpower the subtle maple flavor.

I was supposed to plant the rest of my bulbs this weekend but it was really cold. They'll wait. Today I slept a bunch and watched a bunch of tv. Since DH was sleeping all day I didn't even feel guilty about it. Ok maybe I felt a little guilty. There's lots of stuff that needs to be done. I did run the dishwasher so I wasn't completely useless. :-)

Ok, time to go take a shower and go to bed. I need to try to get to work early.

Today I left home at 6:15 and got back home at 7:45. I was at work from 6:30 to 7:30. I ate lunch for 39 minutes. That is a 12 1/2 hour day. And here's the kicker- I'm ok! My leg hurts a little. Last night I got a brace for my left thumb that's been hurting since I planted stuff last weekend. Today I wore both thumb braces most of the time. And it really helped. My thumbs barely hurt. Normally I would be crying from the pain after an afternoon working on the cutter. Oh, and my back is super tight but that's pretty much expected.

Also last night I burst a blood vessel in my eyeball so now I have a red blotch in my cornea. Between that and the two wrist braces I felt like some sort of zombie robot.

So the Amtrak is really neat. The seats are comfortable and the view is nice. The Texas Eagle even has a lounge car with huge windows and seats that face the windows. On the way down we had a delay because a freight train broke down and they had to get another freight train to push it out of the way. I wouldn't recommend it if you need to be somewhere on time!

While in Texas we went to Ikea! OMG!!!! It was awesome! And the prices are so low! I got lots of inspiration there.

That's all for tonight. I'm going to bed early.

Results

All my bloodwork was within normal ranges except for something indicating Sjogrens (SHOW-grens) disease. It is another autoimmune thing that attacks the salivary and mucous glands causing dryness. The doc doesn't think I have it but she's sending me to a rheumatologist so they can investigate further. My TSH and T3 were on the edge of normal. That actually means that they're not normal but I'm not a candidate for meds at this time.

But the vitamin D has made a huge difference. Even when I'm worn out from work I still feel better. DH can hear it in my voice he says.

I have more to say but I'm determined to be in bed by 9:00 since I haven't been sleeping well and work is super slammed and we have to get up really early in the morning and I just really like sleep. So there. :-)

Overdid it!

Monday was a bad day. I overdid it on Sunday. I went to the doctor and I even cried for her because I felt so bad and I'm just so frustrated. But she is awesome and doesn't think I'm making it up. She took 8 vials of blood to test for practically everything. We should get the results next week.

After work I just rested. Today was much better! I feel pretty good. I'm even BAKING!!! I'm making a double batch of pumpkin/chocolate chip muffins.

Tomorrow is going to be a really long day. I still feel guilty for being gone this coming weekend. DH has to go to work super early tomorrow anyway so I'll probably get to work about 6:00 and I'll probably stay late.

Bright (well, probably still dark)and early Thursday morning we're taking the train to visit my cousins in Texas. Should be fun. The train has free wifi!

All Hail Vitamin D

I feel awesome today!!

I stayed up until about midnight last night so I didn't get up until 11. We went to the inlaws for lunch and then I went in search of tulips, pansies and kale. I got tulips at TLC but they didn't have any kale and I wasn't impressed with the prices for the pansies. So since I got such awesome stuff at my Lowe's last night I went to their Lowes next. Nothing left. Nothing at Home Depot. So I found a corner lanscape/flower place and got pansies and a kale plant there. They only had giant kales so I only got one.

I planted 72 tulips, 12 pansies and a kale at their house, then came home and planted 87 pansies and 8 kale at my house. Plus I moved my big mat of blue spruce sedum.

I am tired now but its a good tired.

Gluten Loading!

So in order to prepare for my blood tests on monday I need to have gluten antibodies in my system, if there are going to be any. Which means I need to eat gluten. Hooray!! Yesterday I had CityBites for lunch. Razzmatazz and a pumpkin cookie. Oh it was yummy!

I felt horrible yesterday morning though. My back was killing me and my muscles didn't want to work. It felt a lot like before and I realized I accidentally had gluten in the crab sticks in my sushi. I was really worried but I figured since I needed to gluten load anyway it would be ok. Also, DH had given me a pretty deep back massage the night before which was why I was so sore. It was a two-Aleive kind of pain. Anyway, after I ate CityBites for lunch and my pain pills kicked in I felt a lot better, even though my brain wasn't up to par. We weren't very busy yesterday which is always a problem. When we aren't busy we don't have to stay focused as much and we make more stupid mistakes.

We had chinese delivery last night for dinner. This morning I'm making breakfast biscuits with sausage, eggs over medium and white cheddar cheese. I feel pretty good!

I sure hope I don't have any gluten problems. I love baking sooooo much! Could the vitamin D really make that much of a difference? I'm still more tired than I want to be but 3 days of wheat hasn't make a signifigant difference. But I was only off of it for 6 days too. I guess we'll see on Monday.
~~~~

I went shopping with Froggi. We went to Backwoods, Tuesday Morning, Michaels, Hobby Lobby Target, and Lowe's. And then we went to Santa Fe Cattle Co. for dinner. It was a good afternoon! I am feeling really good today!

Tomorrow I'm going to go plant tulips for my mother-in-law. I hope I feel as good tomorrow as I do today!

Day 6: Gluten Free

Yesterday I felt really good. Almost normal. Or at least what normal was before this last downturn. Today wasn't as good but still better than before the diet and vitamins.

THe cold front came through today. It is cold and blustery outside. If we had a fireplace I'd make a fire and sit and crochet in front of it.

Work looks to be busy for the next couple of weeks. We had several notoriously large and difficult jobs come in within an hour. All due by the end of the month. I predict a Saturday at work. At the very least there's going to be skids and skids of paper to cut. I suppose I should wait to make that decision until Friday.

We're going to Texas over Thanksgiving. We're riding the train. I'm really looking forward to it. I guess that's why I want to go in this Saturday- I won't be there Friday, Saturday, or Sunday after Thanksgiving when all the real work will be there.

Am I too invested in my job? I genuinly want to do my best and help them out as much as I can.

~~~~

I took a test on Facebook a while back for the Autism Quotient. It was not really a diagnostic test, just giving an idea of where you score related to Aspies that also took the test. Just now I took it again on another website. I didn't remember my answers to the questions from before but I got the same score: 39 out of 50. Most people without any Aspergers or anything (normal people) score a 16. Most people with Aspergers score about a 32. most people with high functioning Autism score a 44.

Yup. Explains some things.

It doesn't really change anything about my life if I have it or if I don't. I just like knowing more about myself. Understanding myself and how I am the same as and different from others. I've always liked personality tests and "what kind of _____ are you" quizzes. I'm a Rottweiler, btw. I am friendly and loyal but if you mess with my family or friends you're gonna hear from me and it won't be pretty.

When I find out something new about myself it makes me happy. I feel like I'm a puzzle. It is taking my whole life to fit all the pieces of me together. Just recently I put lots of new pieces in at once and it changed the whole image. It was exciting and satisfying and terrifying all at once.

Recently I have put in some pieces about how I relate to other people who claim to be my friends. Did you know that some people can be nice to you while you're there and then not even acknowledge you in another group? I am the same person no matter where I am or who I'm with. I feel the same way about you whether you're there or not. I thought two faced people were the exception but now it seems they may be the rule. How do I tell who is my friend for real and who is lying to me? If you think less of me because of my poor family or my manual labor job or my 35 year old house or my beat up hands, well, I don't want to be friendly to you at all. You aren't worth my time. But no one says those things to my face. People are always friendly to your face. Am I supposed to sleuth around and ask others what you're saying about me behind my back? Am I supposed to trust everyone and just get hurt occasionally? Am I supposed to assume everyone is lying and make them prove their honest intentions before I'm their friend?

I am from the lower class. The working poor. I am in the middle class now but I don't know if I look like it. I don't know how I'm viewed by the upper and middle classes. I don't know if people can tell my status just by looking. Is it because my hands are calloused and my nails aren't pretty? Is it because I don't really bother with makeup unless it's a special occasion? Is it because the clothes I wear? Is it the way I carry myself? Do they have x-ray vision and can tell my legs are white and hairy? Is it my crooked teeth and acne scarred skin? I was taught that people are created equal and I took it at face value. But it seems that others were taught differently.

If I go to a restaraunt and a rich person I know is there, should I say hello or duck my head and ignore them? Would it be an embarrasment to their friends if I tried to act the same way at the restaraunt as I do at work?

My brain is worn out. I'm going to bed.

Day 4: Gluten Free

I upped a bunch of my pills this weekend. More fish oil and multivitamins and calcium. Today I added a vitamin D supplement. I am torn between my scientific background and my desire to feel better already. I should only be adding or removing one thing at a time but I am so desperate.

So either the relatively slow work day, the vitamin D, or the new diet is helping me to feel slightly better today.

Froggi and I went to the health food store yesterday after DH and I went to Sam's and Walmart. I was so depressed. I was fighting off tears all day. Froggi noticed and so when we went over for dinner she had made me gluten free biscuits and nobake cookies, in addition to red beans and rice. Froggi and I don't hug much but she got a hug for that. Chocolate and friends are powerful things.

I got some gluten free baking mix and tonight I made banana muffins. They are pretty good. I am pleasently suprised.

I have been eating things that might have traces of wheat in them, like soy sauce and oatmeal. Really sensitive people can't do that. I should be avoiding those things but I'm not sure I can at this point. I have an appointment with Dr. K (pcp) on the 22nd so either I feel better by then or she can test for antibodies to confirm the gluten sensitivity.

DH came through his surgery just fine. He thinks he's a little nearsighted, on top of his 20/200 noncorrectable vision. So now his glasses will have a prescription in them, instead of being purely for protection. He says everything is much brighter and the milky/hazy sensation is gone.

My parents are coming down today to help me get my landscaping under control. If we had a neighborhood association we'd be kicked out by now. DH has a list and I have a list. We're going to have to work out priorities. :-)

DH bought me a book. Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms (when all my lab tests are normal) I'm in chapter 4 and so far it is very interesting and promising. The whole point of the book is that doctors typically only test TSH and that doesn't give the whole picture on thyroid function. Especially with Hashimoto's. Also, he's done a lot of research and discovered that treating Hashimoto's as a thyroid disorder doesn't fix the problem. You have to fix the immune system. Recommendation #1: do a two week gluten-free trial. I started that yesterday. Supposedly gluten intolerance is a huge deal among Hashimotos patients. The immune system has a hard time telling the difference between a gluten molecule and a thyroid molecule. So if the immune system is already attacking gluten, from your gluten intolerance, then it'll eventually discover this huge wad of "gluten" up in your neck where your thyroid used to be. So the first thing you do to get your immune system off red alert is to remove as much of the offending substance as possible. After that there's a bunch of specific blood tests to figure out which way the immune system is out of balance and restore the balance. Something about T-helper cells and TH-cytokines and stuff. It's all very technical.

So anyway, this is Day2 gluten free. I feel about the same. I have all the brain and emotional motivation to get up and do lots of stuff but my body says NO. It takes a hurculean effort to get off my butt and walk somewhere. The walking is fine- just the getting up part is too much. We have to clean the kitchen when I'm done blogging. The thought of it makes me want to curl up and cry. And then we have a whole work day planned. I am so sick of feeling this way.

I am really glad I went in to work on Saturday. Monday was insane. Today was better. My back is really tight. It doesn't actually hurt, but it isn't comfortable either. I put my corn bag on it last night and it didn't seem to make much of a difference. The only muscle relaxer I know of that isn't prescription is alcohol. Alcohol makes me dizzy. Being dizzy makes me throw up. So that's not really any better than a prescription muscle relaxer. One half of a Flexeril puts me out of commission for at least 18 hours. I should send the dog to massage school.

My two bindery coworkers and I had a little brainstorming session today about how to make bindery run better. Since no one is in charge, some things have been falling through the cracks. I don't know that we came to any conclusions but at least we're communicating about it. We all like the idea of having meeting-ettes 2-3 times a day to make sure everyone is on track and all the jobs are going like they're supposed to. The production manager comes back from vacation tomorrow so that should help a little. He knows about all the jobs and what happens to them and when they're due and whether they mail or what not. The only problem is he doesn't always tell us. So I'm hoping that if we're more on the ball we'll know what questions to ask him so we can do the jobs quickly and correctly. That's the plan anyway.

I hate standard time. It was dark when I got home from work. The dog wants a walk but it is dark. I can't give him a rawhide because of his allergy food trial. DH is trying to cuddle him. He is not a happy dog. He's about to be less happy when I give him his bath later. I was supposed to do that this weekend, and then yesterday. Tonight he will be washed!

DH's cataract surgery is Thursday. I'm taking off all day. He'll probably be in the hospital most of the day since they're doing general anaesthesia. I need to find things to keep me busy in a waiting room and a recovery room for 12 hours or so. I'm pretty sure the hospital will have wi-fi, so that's good. Maybe I can find some old plant catalogs and plan the work flowerbeds more. The lady that's doing them with me and the CEO both want the beds to look awesome but they have no knowledge of names or care of plants so I can't really have a meaningful discussion with them without a picture of the plant in question. Maybe I can make a notebook or something.

I have several little crochet projects I can work on. Hats and booties and mittens and the like. I just have to get all the projects organized so I take the right yarn.

I can make a list of landscape projects that need to be done for when my family comes to help.

Or maybe I'll take a nap.

Today we got the rest of the front flowerbeds cleaned up. They are ready for mulch. I think next weekend my parents are coming down to help with landscaping. We requested they give us that for Christmas instead of a traditional gift. They were more than happy with it.

Friday was the Block Party. Froggi got my hair to curl! My hair doesn't like to curl so we were both pretty impressed. I didn't have time to do the legos on the shawl but it was ok. The party was pretty fun. My coworkers didn't recognize me at first which is my goal. I don't look like a girl most of the time.




Saturday I went to work for about 6 hours. Hopefully I made Monday a little easier. Then I took a nap and then we went to dinner with DH's parents.

We're having Dave and Froggi over for pork stew tonight. I used potato flakes to thicken the broth. It was my first time to try it and I like it. It doesn't clump. I need to make cornbread here in a minute and then maybe some brownies.

I was hoping to get some houseplant seeds planted this weekend but I'm not sure it's going to happen. I still need to wash the dog this evening.

DH and I had another argument about my energy level. He had wanted to get 3 hours of outside work done this weekend but I petered out after one hour. I think I might try the doctor one more time. I did a thyroid test this week and it was normal. Maybe my primary doctor has some ideas. She's been spot on with everything else. She caught my mono and my hyperthyroid spell. She's always been really receptive to my emotional needs and is really supportive of me- more than doctors usually are. Maybe we can work together to figure out what's going on. I just hope it is something fixable and not chronic fatigue or something nebulous like that.

I got an adapter for the upstairs sink today and now I have the hose attached to it and can water the plants in the plant room. It doesn't quite reach all the way across the room but that's ok. I have a watering can I can fill for the little bit it doesn't get to. I should take a picture of the room. It is kind of comical.

Hey, hey, two in one day!

After spending a few hours shopping around in Michael's and Tuesday Morning and WalMart I got an idea. I'm going to make a stole from Vanna's Choice fancy shiny yarn in black. I'll use a ripple pattern and make it fairly open and lacy. Then I'll do a picot edging around it. On each of the points of the ripple, I'll crochet in one of those necklace clasps. That way I can add and change out charms and beads as I want. The thing on Friday is for Toyscape, which does things with Legos. The fashion show part is all stuff inspired by legos. So I'm going to get some of the thin 1x3 legos and drill the circle out of one end and put them on as charms. The clasps will be great because otherwise I wouldn't be able to do such an esoteric thing.

I did my first attempt at smokey eyes this evening. I think with another practice session or two I will be ready. I really don't like eyeliner pencils but that's what came with the kit. I like the liquid better but I only have that in brown. Oh well.


Here are some of us at work dressed up for halloween



I tried to get more photos but I can't figure out how to get them from my phone to my computer. It's late. I'll try again later.

It appears as though life is settling down a little. I have never had an October like that one! Usually October is one of my favorite times of the year but I am ready to be rid of this one.

Almost all my houseplants are inside for the winter. We got the upstairs room cleaned out. It has a large west window so it's the perfect place to keep my plants. Last year I had no trouble finding room downstairs for my plants but I had a windfall.

My interests go in spurts. I'm doing less with the plants now and more crocheting. I found patterns I like for a baby winter gear set. There are two babies showing up soon. One is a girl but the other is unknown. They thought it would be a nice suprise. But how am I supposed to know what color yarn to use?! Well I have an idea. I'm making the main color of the hat, mittens, and booties in cream, then once the kid is born I can make the embellishments in the appropriate color. The mitts and booties have ties that I can add afterwards and I figure I can just make a single crochet rim around the bottom of the hat. It has flaps and ties so I'll... well I can't really explain it well with words so I'll just post a picture when it is done. It looks good in my head so hopefully it'll work in real life.

I'm working on an adult beret/slouchy hat right now. I'm thinking about making hats for Christmas presents for my Dad's side of the family. I've made one hat from this pattern before but I don't know where it went so I'm doing this one. If I like it, and I don't find another pattern I like better, I'll make it for the women. However, I did find another pattern for a hat that isn't slouchy and has a cuffed brim thing. I can switch out yarn to an eyelash or something for the brim and it might be a nice hat too. It'll be an easier pattern and take less yarn. I don't know. And then there's the guys. Men are hard to make things for. I found a cool pattern but I'd have to pay for it. I'm not sure I want to pay for it.

Last night I took some fuzzy yarn and some silver shiny yarn and made a scarf. I was trying to make a stole but I decided a couple of rows in that it wasn't going to look right. So it became a scarf. But then I ran out of silver yarn about a foot from the end. I'm not sure if it's going to be a problem or not. I might just rip it out and make the scarf a little shorter so I'll have enough. It turned out a little curly which looks cool.

So I need to get some black yarn to make a stole. I have a fancy fundraiser thingy to go to this Friday and I don't have a nice over-thing. It will probably be too cool to have my shoulders bare.

I'm taking DH to work here in a few minutes (he has a trial to get ready for) and then I'll go to Michael's to find some yarn, and then to WalMart to find some evening makeup. I have everyday/Sunday type makeup but I want to do smokey eyes. I also need nail polish to go with my shoes. Red shoes are fun! Sometimes it's fun to dress up like a girl. I'm sure glad I don't have to do this very often. It would get real old real quick! I am such a tomboy but sometimes I like to be a girl.

Right now I have black nail polish on because I thought it would be fun for Haloween. I forget how much I hate nail polish! It makes my fingers feel heavy and the pigment scratches off onto paper at work so I can't grab things normally. Blech! I was complaining about it to Mark at work on Friday and he was laughing at me. He has a very girly wife and daughter so he's not used to those complaints I guess.

Today I need to get all the dead plant material out of the front beds, figure out a watering system for the upstairs plants, do a little repotting of things, and maybe plant some seeds. I have been gathering seeds for a few weeks. When we visited Froggi's parents a few weeks ago I got bitten by the bonsai bug. Her dad has been doing bonsai for about 15 years. He's got some really amazing specimins. Now I want to bonsai everything! LOL! I figure this winter I can start some of these ornamental plant seeds I got. During the winter I get really antsy and want to start things from seed waaay to early for planting outdoors. Maybe this way I can keep that urge in check. It may not work out too well for the plants but the seeds are free.

I need to make some banana muffins today and maybe something else. There's still a lot of candy at work though, so perhaps I'll wait. I'm really trying to watch what I eat so that when I do have to splurge during the holidays it won't be so bad. It is so difficult to maintain a decent weight during the normal times and holidays are so much worse! I am about 25-30 pounds heavier than I want to be. I'll lose about 10 pounds and then get tired of being hungry and gain it all back. So frustrating! When I was younger I told myself I'd never let my weight get out of control so I wouldn't have to go through the torture of dieting but then I got on Zoloft and it made me really hungry and I gained about 20 pounds in a year without realizing it. I had never been the type to overeat. I just eat when I get hungry, but the meds made me really hungry. Grr...

So anyway, I'm taking DH to work now.

There have been things going on that I don't really want to put on the internet. But I think they're about over. I learned some valuable lessons: Coworkers and friends are two different things and stupid people don't learn lessons.

We got a new guy in bindery. He spent the last 30 years running a print shop in Los Angeles. But his shop didn't do the bindery so he's learning lots of new things. His goals in life are to spend quality time with his family and get money for retirement. I think he'll do pretty well.

I am tired this evening. We're careening toward the end of the month so business is picking up. Tomorrow looks crazy and Friday is sure to be crazy too.

There's a frost forecasted for tonight so I have to bring plants in.

Oh, and I made some baby booties. I found an easy pattern on ravelry.com.

So that's about it. I'm really tired tonight!

Tomorrow is boss's day. So I'm baking. I seem to only blog when I'm baking. I guess that's the time when I need to wait around near the oven and have nothing better to do.

Also tomorrow is my supervisor's last day. He's going to be hospice for his brother who's dying of Hepatitis C. He got it at 18 after a blood transfusion from a motorcycle wreck and it went undiagnosed until last year. He's got 3-6 months. That kind of thing makes me angry. He went through countless doctors and none of them checked his liver. Ever. Grr.

So anyway. Work is changing a little. It'll just be two of us in bindery. Robbie and I work really efficiently together so I'm not worried. My supervisor and I have been having trouble getting along lately. I think this is for the best.

This last weekend we went camping with Dave and Froggi. We went to Fort Smith- like the army fort historic site thing. We also went to Pea Ridge and Wilson's Creek battlefields. All of the state parks were full so we camped in the Ozark National Forest the first night. I cooked a pork chop on a stick. It was really funny cause I kept dropping it in the fire. The next two nights we camped in Froggi's parents' backyard. Dave taught me some nuances of building a fire. DH learned a lot about general camping. We want to practice before winter so we're going to my parents' house this weekend. There's a creek on the property so we'll find a spot there. It should be fun.

That is all. :-)

This has been a lazy weekend. I sure needed it! I feel like I'm getting some spoons built back up. Friday night we went to Ted's for yummy Mexican with Dave and Froggi and Froggi's mom, then we all came back and hung out at our place until about 9:00. Then we were all old and tired so they left and we went to sleep. That's a crazy Friday night when you're old!

Saturday I got up about 10:30 and lazed about all day. I didn't leave the house until the evening when I went to the pharmacy and to Braum's. Today I got out of bed about 12:30. DH had to go to work to work on a trial he's doing next week. I went and got some supplies at Wal Mart and made some sugar cookie dough. Now I'm eating some ravioli. Next I'm going to work on the front flowerbeds a little and then I'm going to bake the cookies. I'll type more then.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wish gardening didn't make me itchy.

DH is upset about his trial this week. He says there isn't very much evidence in his favor. I don't know if that's all he's upset about or not. He won't talk about it. He's been having so much trouble lately. I wish I could help but I don't know how. I can't read his mind and he won't talk to me. Or anyone else. I'm worried about him.

We've got a frost advisory tonight so I brought in all my plants. There are plants EVERYWHERE. The dining room table is completely full. I was doing well with my plants until I got that huge donation from the vet college and then I got overwhelmed. When I get overwhelmed I stick my head in the sand. My plants have suffered neglect because I can't handle overwhelming things. I wish I wasn't like that. It would make life much easier for me and the people around me. And my poor plants.

I guess I should go to bed now.

I'm baking again. Last Saturday I made a cookie cake for one of my coworkers because his kid is doing so well in school after having a really tough year last year. Kevin (coworker) had never managed to get one of my baked goods home. He'd take cookies for his family but he'd always eat them before he got home. So his family apparently decided they liked the cookie cake because I'm making two more for them tonight. One is for the game (OU-Texas weekend) and one is a birthday cake for their friend. The thing I'm most proud of is that I got the crimson color right! I tried for the other cake but it was a disaster. It was red, and then I added some yellow and then it was Texas orange. So I added more colors and made it brown. Brown is better than Texas orange!

But this time I did some looking around on the internet and discovered the secret is adding a little cocoa powder. I got a really nice crimson this time. Maybe not quite red enough but close.

Work is still insane. I hurt all over. I'm going to shower and go to bed now. DH is going to give me a backrub because he's the bestest!

Baking Again

I am making chocolate chip cookies. I haven't had the energy for baking in a while. Work has been really hard on me. But tonight I'm making brownies for home and cookies for work! People have been hinting a lot lately. Hehe! It feels good to be appreciated like this.

However, I have toyed with the idea of teaching others to bake like me. Like little one on one classes. I think good food should be shared with everyone but I don't have what it takes to run a bakery. So maybe if I shared the skill with others they could share with more people than I can on my own. It makes me sad when I try biscuits or cookies that someone has made and they made some very common mistakes. They think it tastes fine but I want to share with them how wonderful things can taste.

Anyway. Enough of tooting my own horn.

I think I'm about to start another crochet cycle. I made a baby hat for a baby shower I went to on Saturday. It got the itch going again. That, plus the cooler weather, well, yeah. Also, I joined Ravelry.com. That's where I found the hat pattern. It has earflaps and tie strings to hold it on the kid's head. You know how they are about pulling stuff off their heads and feet and what-not. So I think maybe I'll make some of those mittens on a string and some booties. Then the baby will have matching cold weather gear. Everyone will coo and smile. There will be sunshine and rainbows and bunnies.

Maybe I'll find patterns to make hats and mittens for all the kiddos I know. I am an honorary aunt to the kids in my boss's family. They'll need Christmas presents.

Did I talk about that yet? I work for a family-run company. One of my bosses has a two year old girl, Paisley, that thinks if you give her something, then you're an aunt or uncle. The whole family thinks it's cute and now I'm an aunt to her and to her cousin, even though Maggie can't even talk yet. But I am really happy that my bosses think highly enough of me to perpetuate the aunt thing. They could have just laughed nervously, like I did, and let it go. And since I'm not going to be a biological aunt for at least a few more years, this is good practice. I see the girls for maybe 10 minutes at a time every month or so.

I already talked about all the things that aren't work. Work isn't bad, just lots to do all the time. I'm starting to take on some more responsibilities. By choice, not by request. The production center doesn't communicate well with the stores. I'm not really sure why either. So I'm starting to call the stores on my own to ask questions. Today I saved some butts because an email didn't go through and everyone was waiting on everyone else but no one was calling anyone. The sender of the email should have done one of those things where it lets her know when the message was read. And then called when it hadn't been read in a couple of hours. She's on a really tight deadline. And as it is, she's not getting her job tonight like she wanted. She's getting it Thursday. To make it worse, it's one of those annoying jobs that is on funky paper that we have to special order, then the press doesn't like it and the ink won't stick. Also, it's for a really special event with lots of high paying donors.

There's a law that the more complicated and rushed a job is, the more things are going to go wrong. And guess what! We specialize in rush jobs! Yay! At least we're a small enough shop that I can be aware of things that are happening all over the place and try to stop problems as they come up. That's kind of a daunting thought. Maybe I'll just try to fix the problems that cross my path, like I have been doing.

I ate too much cookie dough and now my stomach hurts. Ugh.

Spoons

A few months ago I read a wonderful explanation about chronic illness. You can read the Spoon Theory here: http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory-written-by-christine-miserandino/

I don't have lupus or fibromyalgia or anything like that. I do not live with chronic pain and I am very thankful. But I have lived with depression my whole life. If you don't understand how depression can be a physical illness then I am very happy for you because it means you've never been depressed. Depression affects the body as well as the mind.

But anyway, the spoon theory is applicable to me. Even on meds I still have bad days, or bad weeks. And even when I feel good I still don't think I have the stamina of a fully healthy person. The stamina issue really started when I got mono. Mono is very damaging to the body. I'm not sure why, but I can't push myself the way I used to. In short, I have a limited number of spoons.

The last few weeks at work have been very very busy. I have been borrowing spoons and I feel like I'm a week behind. Froggi was wonderful and gave me a great massage on Friday night. We also forked over a bunch of money at Ideal Feet and got me some really great supports and new work shoes. I am really excited about my new shoes/supports. I stand straighter, I feel aligned. Walking takes much less effort. It is actually uncomfortable to slouch. I'm expecting more spoons out of this!

I think this is turning into a complain-type post and I'm sorry. The therapist costs money. Blogging doesn't.

My back hurts. I know I don't have chronic pain but for the last few weeks my back, my leg and my thumb have all been hurting more and more. These are all overuse injuries from the past that are flaring up. Froggi's massage made it to where there were points of pain instead of one giant bone between my shoulders. She worked on some spots I didn't even know were messed up. But she said they were swollen and my skin had a rash. Froggi is the best friend ever. She had to take anatomy for her degree and since she works as a vet, she uses the basic mammalian structure info on a daily basis. She knows where the muscles attach to the spine and what nerves are attached there. She know were my shoulder blades are supposed to be and that the bulges next to them aren't supposed to be there! She knows about lactic acid and that the tingling and burning halfway through means my muscles are finally relaxing enough to give up the extra acid. And all she wants in return is a german chocolate cake. BFF!@!!

My right thigh hurts. It started at my current job (the back spasms started at my desk job). I was talking to my aunt about it who went to college for personal training. She feels that I have a torn muscle. She told me what to do for it and you know what? It comepletely slipped my mind until just now! I missed a great opportunity for two days of intensive healing because my brain is so full of other stuff. Grr..

My thumb started acting up because of repeatedly lifting large stacks of paper. I have tendonitis in my thumb. I have a brace I wear when it hurts but it gets in the way of doing my job. You know, the job that caused the injury. *eye roll*

I'm depressing myself.

My dog is awesome!!! He is so wonderful and loving and cuddly! He makes me smile.

DH has a cataract in his only eye. He needs surgery but it will be much more difficult and risky than a regular surgery because of the damage the cancer did to his eye. We went in and met with the surgeon last week and got some measurements. The cornea machine couldn't recognize his cornea because it's shaped funny. We have to go back in for a laser machine to measure his cornea. Then the surgeon has to sit down and look at all the info and see if she really wants to do the surgery. There's a significant risk of blindness or death. But he's going to go blind from the cataract if he does nothing. Needless to say, DH has had a bad week. He is really depressed and I don't know what to do for him. You'd think my experiences would help me but his case is so different from mine. I don't know what to do. I think getting him outside for a walk would help and also some temporary meds but I don't have what it takes to get him to do stuff he doesn't want to do.

I also love my cat!

Sigh...

I'm going to put heat on my thigh and go to bed.

Hello, Autumn!

The highs are down in the low 90's now and since it's the middle of September, I can say that Fall is here. I am ready. I like living in a continental climate. I like the seasons. And I am always ready when the next one arrives.

This week I had the opportunity to see Temple Grandin speak at OSU. It was awesome!! If you don't know who she is, google her. She's the best. I drove up with one of my friends from the zoo and we had a great time! She has land and gardens and animals and I'm going to go visit her soon. I sent her home with a bunch of seeds and my Seed To Seed book since she's all into that and doesn't have the book.

Speaking of, I've decided to scale down next year. The outdoor gardens are going to be much less. The vegetable garden in the back is going away. Like, it'll be lawn again. The long bed beside the driveway will be filled to the brim with sweet potatoes, which is the only thing I've found to keep out weeds. And then you get sweet potatoes! That only leaves the two beds by the house for weeding and other maintenance. I think that'll be much easier on me. I just have too many other interests to keep up with the gardens.

When I went up to OSU this week I also recieved a garden spider. One of Mom's coworkers brought it in for me. I've missed having garden spiders around. They named her Charlotte. I brought her home and released her outside my kitchen window. She made a web there and so when it got dark I would turn on the light above the sink to attract bugs. Yesterday when my family was here they got to see her with a moth. Mom was really happy that she was doing so well. This morning I looked out the window and there was no spider!! So I went outside and looked all over. No Charlotte, but there is an egg sac in the corner of the window! I need to do some research and see what I'm supposed to do to keep the sac protected. Probably nothing. But I want to make sure.

Today I'm going to go to the state fair and also make a red velvet cake from scratch. I also hope to take pictures of all my new plants. That's probably enough, don't you think?

It sure has been a while since I blogged. Let's see...

August 20th was the Relay For Life in Stillwater. My family is a team. We all really enjoy doing the Relay each year. But this year we had a squall line come through about 11:00 so we all had to pack up and go home. Phooey. (For those of you not in the midwest and/or not an amateur meteorologist, a squall line is a line of thunderstorms.)

The end of August was filled with work, ...aaaand heat. It was hot. I continued to be tired and lethargic. One day while walking through Home Depot, DH thought maybe his bad reaction to my Hashimoto's diagnosis could be fueling my funk. I figured it was a pretty good theory and he stopped being so upset about my fatigue and viola! I stopped having so much fatigue. Funny how that works.

So far September has been a pretty good month. It is much cooler. We are getting lots of rain. Work is good. I almost feel like baking again! I haven't felt like baking in weeks. That alone makes me depressed!



Labor Day weekend helped to get my energy level back up.

Thursday DH and I went up to Stillwater to hear one of my old high school friends play. He's a very accomplished pianist and it was his junior recital. I am so glad I went! He was amazing in high school but he is phenomenal now!

Friday afternoon DH had an emergency appointment with his opthamologist (eye cancer doctor) because people had noticed his vision getting worse. He was really scared that his cancer had come back but it turned out to just be a big nasty cataract. It had been there for a long time but was too small to mess with. Now it is operable so we meet with the surgeon on the 21st. DH is worried because he doesn't want to lose his only eye. This is one of the best surgeons around and I am confident that she'll do fine, but it's not my one and only eye that's going under the knife. Friday night we sat on the couch and watched TV. DH was still reeling from the stress.

Saturday we got up early-ish and moved some friends to their new house. They had already moved the kitchen so the hard part was done and DH and I and the DH of that family were able to get the rest of the house moved in a few hours. The physical labor was good for me and helping others always makes me feel better. Saturday evening DH and I painted his new office. It has windows!!

Sunday we went to Perkins and visited my family. I helped settle a "dispute" between my mom and brother. My family's disputes are very, very mild. Mom wants to paint the house and she picked out a pre-done color palette. My brother didn't like any of the colors for his room. Mom wants the house to all go together. I told Mom, "He's 22. By this time most guys have a bachelor pad of their own. Let him have his room like he wants and you can just shut the door when you want the whole house to match." I guess she hadn't thought of it that way. By the way, my brother isn't really a bum or anything. He has 2 jobs and is very responsible. Technically Mom and Dad were supposed to move out and leave him the house but that didn't work out. They're kind of in limbo until Dad finds a job back near home and then I think they might try to build a little cottage/cabin on the family land or something.

Sunday evening was my 10 year high school reunion. It was interesting. I was barely recognized, which was my goal. Perhaps I can find a picture of me then and now so you can see. I was a really funny looking kid.

Monday DH and Froggi and I finished painting the office, and then Froggi and I went to Stillwater to repot the Toxic Plant collection at the Vet College. It was Froggi's project when she was in vet school and nobody had really messed with it in 5 or so years. So we worked on that. I brought home sooooo much plant stuff! I'm going to try to rehabilitate some of the plants and take them back to OSU, and some are just extra from 5 years of growing.

So from Thursday to Monday I didn't get to bed before midnight even once. This last week was kind of difficult! But this weekend DH let me sleep in as late as I wanted and I feel much better now.

Yesterday we went back up to Stillwater for the football game and we also checked on the plants and brought up some more that they needed. Again, not to bed until late. Blah.

Here in a little bit Froggi and I are going to the museum to check out the chocolate exhibit.

Also, the iPhones are totally awesome!!! This little gadget takes the place of so many other things and I can do a ton of stuff on the go and it's just great! I think it can do even more than I have figured out but the things I'm doing with it now are already so cool! Anyone thinking about getting one should totally get one. Unless you don't have good cell service or 3G in your area. Then it might not be so useful. But in populated areas- totally awesome!!!

For the past couple of weeks I have been very tired. I've been sleeping the whole weekend and stuff like that. I thought maybe it was my thyroid acting up already but the test results came back normal so it's just a funk of some sort. Maybe the heat, or the lack of vitamin D due to me not getting any sunlight because of the heat. The good news it that it's supposed to cool down next week so maybe I can get my levels back up and feel better.

There haven't been very many interesting things going on lately. We got iPhones this week. That has been fun. It was pretty easy to learn to use it. The hardest thing to figure out so far is how to make a phone call (you have to tap the phone number). We've given ourselves $10 a month for songs and apps. DH has used his up already and I haven't spent a dime! But that's usually the way it is with us. DH can't keep cash in his pocket and I hoard it until I find something I really want.

Dave and Froggi went on vacation for a couple of weeks and we kept their animals. We had 2 dogs, 4 cats and 2 chinchillas in the house for 2 weeks. It was exciting! And then as soon as they got home their air conditioner blew a fuse so we added 2 more humans to the mix for a couple of days. But they did the same for us during the ice storm and we're glad to be able to help them out whenever we can. DH and I both feel like they do more for us than we do for them so we were happy to be able to help them out.

Tuvok has accidentally had a couple of opportunities to prove his trustworthiness outside of his box during the workday. So for the last couple of days we've left him out intentionally and he has been perfect. Nothing messed up or eaten. No poo or pee anywhere. He doesn't even set off the motion detectors. My baby is growing up!

That's about it. I like my boring life!

So, did you know that when you freeze egg yolks they get all frozen and then you can't use them until they thaw? And you can't thaw them in the microwave like chicken or something. Epic fail.

I'm making a cheesecake for my friend's birthday. I'm tired and grumpy and I don't really want to right now. But this is the only time I have to do it and Todd deserves an awesome cheesecake because he's an awesome dude. (Ladies, he is really sweet and thoughtful and smart and single!) So right now the cream cheese is sitting and warming up on the counter.

Today was a month end Friday. I don't care for Fridays much and month end Fridays are especially annoying. Everyone has to have their job before the end of the month so it can get billed. What usually happens is that we have nothing to do all week and then Friday about 3:00 everyone comes up with these problem jobs that they need right now before everyone else's rush problem job. And they are mostly mailers. We only have one cutter and one mailer. So we get a job at 3:00 that needs to be at the post office by 5:00. It has to wait in line to be cut, then it probably has to be folded or something, then it needs to be tabbed, or stamped, or both like the one today. So at 3:30 we get the job on the mailer, tab it, then we set it up to be stamped and addressed. Well the tabber isn't behaving. Of course. So they address it and we get to stamp it by hand. About 4000 of them. By 5:00. And then people wonder why I hate Fridays and why I'm grumpy today.

Most of the time I really like my job. Some days I love my job. But today I didn't like my job very much. And it wasn't the actual work. I like working on the mailer a lot. But today was just one of those days. And it's over now. :-)

The cheesecake is in the oven. DH's movie is about over I think. I can watch yesterday's dance show when he's done. Also, I ought to make nobake cookies for tomorrow.

I'm going to visit my family tomorrow. I like visiting my family. We sit and talk and work on our respective crafts. This is my mom and her sisters and that side of the family. We have aunts and cousins visiting from Texas right now so that is cool.

But before that I'm going in to work for a while. Not all of the mailers got out today so a few of us are going in to finish them up. If I'm lucky I might get leftover breakfast goodies from the managers' meeting they're having.

I think DH's movie will be done soon. I'm going to go work on my knitting for a while. I have been trying to learn to knit for forever and I keep giving up. This time I'm using a book that Froggi learned on. So far I've knitted 3 rows and I haven't exploded. I think the trick this time is I'm not trying to learn to purl at the same time. Purl is hard for me. So I'm going to knit for a long time and get comfortable with it before I try the purl again.

This week was pretty busy. On Tuesday I had the ultrasound for the spot they found with the MRI. They're pretty sure it isn't cancer. When I go back in January for my mammogram they'll do another MRI and ultrasound to see if it has changed any. On Wednesday I went to the endocrinologist. He believes I have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis; an autoimmune disease where my immune system attacks and kills my thyroid. The hyperthyroid spell I had last summer was the beginning of it. He did an ultrasound and saw more differentiation in the tissue than normal and also it is enlarged a little. My levels are still normal and I am not showing symptoms at this point. But it is only a matter of time before my thyroid is unable to produce enough hormones. Then they'll supplement with meds from that point on. The bad part is that during the time that the thyroid is dying, it is constanly producing different levels so keeping the meds right will be a constant battle. I won't feel good a lot of the time. I don't know if that will happen soon or several years from now. It just depends on how fast the disease progresses.

Today I went to see my family. It was a lot of fun. We all hung out at my cousin's new house that they just moved into. I got a little work done on the afghan that I've had in progress for forever.

I'm tired. Maybe I'll write more tomorrow. I have to make an apple pie and maybe some cookies so I'll have a little computer time.

Doldrums

The excessive rain has left us and been replaced with excessive heat. You know it's gonna be bad when the low is 81 and you already have an excessive heat warning because the humidity is so high.

My vegetable garden has exploded again. The crabgrass (or something) took over while it was flooding every day. It exploded last year too but I still got some produce out of it. So I'm going to wait until it stops being productive and then take strong measures against next year's weeeds. First I will Roundup a couple of times. Then I will cover the whole thing in either weed fabric or plastic. Then I will cover that with 2-3 layers of cardboard, staggering the seams. Finally, I will mulch the whole thing. Maybe next year I can stay ahead of the weeds a little better.

The front beds aren't quite as bad. I am going to go out there and weed as soon as I finish my tea. The pattypan squash are in the front and so far I am winning the war against the squash vine borers. I have to imphale them with a bamboo skewer. I'm having trouble with some of my flowers not blooming. I have two plants of cosmos and one has flowers all over it and there are none on the other. THey are right next to each other. My tithonia isn't blooming and it's 6 feet tall. I have one volunteer marigold that has produced one bloom the whole summer. Not sure what's going on there. Maybe too much nitrogen in the soil? None of my beans are doing anything either. At least my houseplants are doing well. LOL!

This week I had some doctor appointments. I tend to cluster all my appointments for some reason. This week was Dr. K, the primary care. She's awesome! She gave me some stuff to help my skin behave better. It has been acting weird lately. I always have trouble with acne but this stuff lately is different than usual. Hopefully the meds will take care of it. She took blood too. My cholesterol has always been borderline so she likes to keep an eye on it. Same with the thyroid. It does wacky things now and then.

After Dr. K was my boob MRI. Since I have a 41% risk of breast cancer they do mammograms in January and MRI's in July. THis was my first MRI. It was mostly non-painful. The IV stung a little but that's to be expected. I go back on Tuesday for them to ultrasound a spot. I'm not worried though. They ultrasounded a couple of spots after the mammogram and they were fine. They're just getting a baseline. It's kind of funny. Most people freak out about cancer, I suppose with good reason. But in my family we have a lot of cancer and we don't die from it normally so it has become not a big deal anymore. The doctors at the Breast Imaging Center like to ask me what my concern level is on a scale of 1-10. In January it was a 1. I made it a .5 this time. Then they ask me what I think my chances of getting cancer are. That's still 80%. But I'm really not concerned about it at all. If I do have cancer, I get a lumpectomy, they put in a little radiation bag, radiate me for 5 days, and I have restricted lifting for a few weeks. Done. Maybe 2 weeks off work for the whole thing. And only that because the radiation makes you tired.

Thyroid cancer is pretty much the same. They take the thyroid out, radiate you, and you take a pill for the rest of your life. Done. Since I'm being watched so closely the chances of a later stage cancer are very slim. You don't get chemo for Stage 1 and 2 cancers normally. I think most peoples' fears are from not knowing what's going to happen. I've seen it so many times that it's old hat to me now.

Work is still fairly steady. Lots of days we're standing around or doing a few little jobs and waiting for some big job to get printed so we can work on it. Usually in the summer we go for weeks with hardly anything to do. So this is good. We've been having some fun too. Rubber band wars make the day go by a little faster! I've also been organizing under the counters in my down time. It's amazing how chaotic they are under there. When we're busy we just throw stuff under the cabinets and then we're moving stuff around to try and find what we need. It's a mess.

Today DH and I are going to the mall to get the first of his suits re-tailored. He lost 35 pounds on hcg! We're in the maintenance phase now. We are both happy to have more menu options!

Ok. Out to the garden! The thermometer says 84 but I'm sure it feels much hotter out there.

Yesterday was my birthday and it was the best birthday I've had in a long time. I'm pretty sure it's because my perspective on things has changed recently. I am now able to feel appreciation when people show love toward me. Before, I tried to shove it off because I felt so uncomfortable and undeserving.

I think that life doesn't change. The circumstances we're presented with may change but life itself does not. The rules of life only seem to change when we ourselves change; either from a paradigm shift like I've recently experienced or from a change in our status of being in or out of love or depression. Being depressed and being in love are two things that change the shape of our brain (not physically) and cause us to experience the world very differently than before. Neurochemicals are powerful things. I wonder what the world would be like if all humans who were dissatisfied with their life attempted to change themselves instead of changing their circumstances or those around them. Think about it. I haven't thought about it yet because it just popped out of my fingers. I will mull it over and I want you to as well and let me know what you think.

Many people who want to change something in the world actually want to change other people. But if those other people also became something better, their actions would also be different. Would they no longer need to be changed (attacked) by others? So many things are connected.

Anyway, back to real life. Mark (well, his wife Suzanne) made me a flourless chocolate cake. I had asked Mark last week to make me the cake he made for Suzanne for her birthday back in February. It was the best thing I have ever tasted. When I bake for others' birthdays I want them to have their favorite thing. So I asked for my favorite thing. (Change #1: before I wouldn't have asked anyone for a cake and just been suprised with any cake I got, if I got one at all)

Mark had an early flight so he dropped it off at work early. Suzanne used a different recipe but it was just as good! From about 9:30 on I was on a caffeine high from my tea plus the cake plus the coffee I decided to drink. Whee! I slipsheeted most of the morning, which I enjoy doing, then I did posters. I enjoy posters too. I went to sushi for lunch and 3 other people came along. We had a nice time! There were so many posters on Friday that I worked on them for most of the afternoon too. One of the stores made me a birthday card! It was sweet!

Toward the end of the day I saw people talking to each other in groups that normally don't interact much. Hmmm... Then a little later Matt gave me a $50 gift mastercard!! The people in the shop love me $50 worth!!! I was blown away! I didn't realize I was that important or well liked! Most people don't get money for their birthdays. Most people get a baked good of their choice. I guess everyone felt the need to give me something even though Mark/Suzanne took care of the baked good part. I feel very appreciated!! I made a thank you note and put it up by the time clock.

And to top it all off, I got to go home at 4:00! DH and I hung out for a while and I took Tuvk for a walk and then we went to the inlaws for dinner. FIL made me a filet on the grill and a baked sweet potato. They got my favorite kind of chocolate cake from the bakery (not homemade but the best they can do). I got a very generous check from them as well!

With the money that DH and I got for our birthdays (his was the 5th) we ordered SureFit slipcovers for the couch and the loveseat so Tuvok's nails don't tear up the fabric any more. We each have $100 to play with after that. Well, I have $150 because my coworkers are so generous. I don't think DH has decided what he's doing yet, except $10 went to a Netflix subscription. I'm spending $100 on two new pairs of earrings.

A couple of years ago I stretched my ear holes to 12ga to accomodate some beautiful earrings I found. 12ga is still small enough that when I take out my earrings, my holes look normal; also I can wear normal earrings should I so choose (which I haven't). But I also can wear some really beautiful and unique pieces of jewelry in my ears.

Here are my Shortys:


Here are the Ichthys I bought:



And these are made from abalone shell. I thought they were gorgeous! I've been wanting jewelry by this company ever since I began stretching.



Ok, the links didn't work so I just put the pictures in.

So to recap: AWESOME BIRTHDAY!!!

11th Annual 3rd of July Party

Here are some fireworks pictures from the 3rd of July party that my production manager puts on every year. This is the 11th year. We almost got rained out because of the hurricane but it cleared up just enough to have the party. Turnout was low- only about 200 people showed up. But we still had a good time. I made 4 batches of cookies and they were all gone by the end of the night.

This is my first attempt at shooting fireworks. Well, actually it's my second. But the first time was many years ago. I found an article explaining what settings work best and it gave me pretty good results. There's quite a bit of experimentation and I am really glad I have a digital camera with instant feedback.

Opening these photos in a bigger window will increase viewing pleasure.

I think things may be slowing down again. Hooray! Work is much slower, except for yesterday when we stayed until 6:45. But that's just Friday at the print shop.

DH's work is very slow for the whole summer. So that means he's bored. Which, in turn, means he's looking for things to worry about, like our finances. The boy needs a hobby! He's going to set up the fish tank soon- after some loans are paid off. But for now his hobby is worrying about stuff. Oh! And he's doing the hcg diet and it is really working! Twenty days ago he weighed 237 and this morning he was 216. He has 20 more days of the hormone therapy part and then he does 6 weeks of maintenance to ease back into a more normal diet without his hypothalamus going bonkers. This hcg thing is really awesome. If I needed to lose more than the 20 or so pounds I need to lose, I would do it too. But one of the side effects is that I am also losing weight. Since I eat what he eats for dinner instead of fast food or biscuits and gravy like before I have lost about 6 pounds in the 20 days, which is a healthy rate for someone not on the hcg diet. I'v been a little worried about getting enough good fats though. THis phase does not allow any fats or starches whatsoever and I don't want to tempt the poor guy so I don't eat that stuff either. Today I added some olive oil to my grilled chicken and spinach salad though. I do take fish oil every day. Perhaps I should do an evaluation of my average daily diet and see...

The garden has entered the summer phase, which means the tomatoes are not setting any more fruit, the beans are climbing like mad, and I am doing daily battle with the squash vine borers. Oh, they make me so angry! I hate them and wish they all would die. I tried a blocking technique this spring but is isn't working. So now I go out there with a bamboo skewer and impale the little buggers. It is disturbingly satisfying. But I want to eat squash! The flowers are doing well. The Gazanias are blooming really well, the morning glories and the moonflower are taking over the front bed, the orange mint is turning into a ground cover (anybody want some orange mint?) the cosmos and the tithonias are just staring the blooming and the daisies have hit their peak. The daisies are so floppy that I had to tie them up. They look funny.

Here's my front Rose of Sharon. I like it a lot. It has pure white flowers.

And my weedy front bed

The potted plants are doing awesome. The hoyas are vining and blooming and being happy. The Ficus is super happy and so is the Monstera. It is trading season at the Hoya Forum on Garden Web so I just got 4 amazing cuttings and I had to set up a new rooting aquarium to hold everything. I'm expecting a couple more cuttings in the next week or so and I'm setting up a few more trades. I'm not even trying to trade this much, but other people need things I have and then they want to give me something and who am I to refuse?! Ha! Oh, and the Viresia splendens pups are growing too.

The Monstera is the big thing in the front, the amaryllises are behind it. On the birdbath are 2 varieties of sanseveria (Mother-in-law's Tounge), an ivy, and my Ficus

The new rooting aquarium

Baby amaryllises that I hybridized myself!

Viresea pups


I made some chocolate shortbread earlier. DH hates the stuff. He calls it drywall! But I like it just fine and so I can have shortbread in the house without tempting him. It is still pretty warm and it just melts in my mouth. Mmmmmm! I used the extra dark cocoa in it too. Oh, it is heaven! I have to control myself or I'll eat the whole pan (I made a half batch) and that won't be good for losing weight. It may be worth it though...

I wish I had a pool in the backyard. I would go out there and just soak. It is unusually hot this June and the heat and humidity is very oppressive. Makes me glad I'm not working outdoors anymore.

The second half of the Canada pictures:

This is a momma duck and her babies. So cute!



Here's a nice looking couple


THis is the view into Lake Stanzichimi(sp?) from River Irene


Here is the waterfall at the top of River Irene. Irene is my favorite river, partly because it is really beautiful and partly because my grandmother's name was Irene. Reenie would have loved this river.