I've been busy and sidetracked

I've been away. Sorry for the long delay, but I have a good reason.

My deck roof is being replaced, thank goodness. But let me tell you the weird thing about it. As you recall, I came home from work on Monday to discover that most of the roof of my deck was MIA. Apparently a wind, likely a microburst, had lifted it up and laid it back over the top of the roof of the house. I did all the things necessary, calling the insurance company and all that.

On Thursday, I came home from work and walked up on the deck, and after I stepped up from the last step and closed the gate, I suddenly realized that .... my deck roof was back in place!!! I'm not kidding, it was withing a couple inches of being right in place! I was amazed! I guess we had another burst of wind!

I have a neighbor that does handiwork. I contacted him, and we came to an agreement on the work. Since the wind did me a favor in replacing the roof, the labor was going to be less intensive, so it is costing me less than I'm getting from the insurance company, so I talked to him about refinishing and weatherproofing the deck, so I'm getting both done. There are a couple other small tasks that I am having him do, also, saving me a lot of trouble and energy. NICE!

And today Bill began the process of replacing and securing the roof. As I said, he had to do a bit of jockeying to it into the right place. He is also putting it back together "right." Whoever built it didn't do several things the way they should have been done, so he is making adjustments so it will be more solid and secure. I hope so. This would probably never happen again, but his work is assuring me of that. It is back in the right place, and is secured for the evening. He will be back tomorrow to finish up.

I've also been concerned with securing Miss Jazmyn Jewel. She continued to find new and rather astounding ways to get out of the fenced yard, but by Wednesday, I finally found the last [knock, knock] and secured it. Since then she has been yard-bound. Thank goodness.

Today Bill and I went to the Mercantile and got several things needed to finish the deck, and I bought a bunch of very strong wire fencing to replace the chicken wire on the deck. This evening I replaced the section that she had "dug" through last week, and I will replace sections as we go along this next week. I feel so much better, knowing she is contained.

Now that she is contained, however, she has begun a new and obnoxious thing. When I'm gone, she climbs onto the entertainment center, from there, gets onto the kitchen counter top and makes a mess of the counter! Today while we were gone, she knocked off several of my wood carvings, and now a piece is missing. On top of that, she knocked off a beautiful handmade bowl that I had used for lunch, and it shattered. Damn. Well, I think I've blocked her from that, but I'm back to considering putting her in the crate when I leave the house, for her safety and my sanity. I just don't know what is going on with her!!

Yesterday, Friday, I drove to Alamogordo to have my eyes checked. All is well. I have some enlargement or irritation where the optic nerve connects in the back of the eyes, an indicator of possible glaucoma. The pressure is fine for now, but she wants to watch the back of the eye, just in case. I'll be going back in 4-6 months for another test on that. Oh, and I have tiny cataracts, too, just the beginnings. I'm probably OK on that for several years, she said.

When I left her office, it was hotter than Hades in Alamogordo. And the sun was unbearably bright. I had sunglasses, and I put see through shades on all the windows I could to minimize the glare, but it was terribly painful. I started home, and I found that looking to the side, like at the mirrors, was not good. It was nauseating me. 

About halfway home, it began to rain. The clouds were horribly dark and ominous as far up and down the range as I could see, a very good thing! It was easier for me to see, and without the sun glare, it relieved my eye strain, however .... HOWEVER, cars I was meeting had their headlights on, and the starbursts from those headlights was difficult to look into and was exacerbating the headache that had already begun with the glare from the sun earlier.

I'd planned to go to the office for a while after I got back and work, but I stopped and said I was going on home. I was near vomiting at this point and my head was splitting. A trip that took me about 1.5 hour felt like it was a 3-4 hour torture. I was SO glad to be home. I spent time with the pups, then napped off and on for a couple hours. I felt much better by about 7:00, but it was a harrowing day!

Needless to say I've been sidetracked with everything for several days. I promise to get back to the quinceanera and the whole celebration in Mexico very soon.