Isn't this wonderful?


Video from KarmaTube

I'm being courted. Well, sorta.

I'm having more frequent visits with my buddy, Fibro Myalgia. They are not serious ones, but they are certainly more frequent. Yesterday I felt as if I were half functioning most of the day. When I had a specific thing to do, I did well; for instance I had two interviews, and I had no trouble focusing on the person across from at any given time. But then when I turned to my desk, I couldn't put my head to work on the matters at hand. My desk is usually cluttered as I have several things going at once. While waiting for a call back on one task, I turn to another to fill the time, etc. Yesterday, the stack of four projects completely overwhelmed me. Then, when I tried to organize it and move stacks aside to unclutter my mind/focus, I couldn't string enough thoughts together to separate the papers!

I finally decided around 1:30 to go home. I was being ineffectual anyway, so why stay there? I went out the door, locking the door behind me, and reached for the key to lock the deadbolt. The keys were not in my purse! I also could not get into my truck because they were together. After a few minutes I remembered leaving them in the truck. It's a long story, and I won't bore you, but boy, did I feel dumb!

I borrowed a key from a coworker in another building so I could wait in my office while AAA came to my rescue. The rescue took nearly another hour, so while I waited, I managed to focus on one task that didn't require me to change my concentration, so it was a productive time. I ended up leaving only about 30 minutes before my usual 3:00!

Someone asked me about the safety of my driving, and I told them that when I feel this way, I sit for a few moments before hitting the road to allow myself to bring all my attention to the task at hand, concentrating on driving and only driving. Frankly, because of that pointed attention, my driving is possibly better than usual.

On the way home I stopped at a shop that makes some delicious soups and brought home several cups of warm comfort. I changed into snuggy soft clothes, spent the afternoon reading on the couch with my doggies snuggled around me, drinking warm tea and soup. It began raining shortly after I was home, and I loved hearing the pitter-patter, knowing the ground was greedily sucking up the moisture.

At about 8:30 I decided to go to bed and read, and I was asleep before 9:00! Zonked, out like a light! If I had not set my alarm for 6:00, I would probably have slept another hour or more, too! Fortunately I woke feeling very well this morning. Weird stuff, this FMS. Comes and goes like it owns me! Oh, yeah .... I guess it does.



I woke this morning to this ....

Yep, that rain turned to snow! I had to start the truck and let the defroster help me, because the rain had frozen under the snow, and it was really, really frozen! All the snow is gone now, melted during the day, as is fairly normal for this area.

And that weather change probably contributed to my fibro. I am so sensitive to the barometric changes. Thank goodness I'm feeling pretty normal today.




On the way home from work, I was pretty enchanted with the fog. The melting snow created a significant cover .....

Here is what roughly the same area looked like two days ago.....

Sorry for the glare; I took this through the windshield.

This is a picture taken as I neared my house this evening. See the sky way off there? Blue skies to the east, despite the clouds and fog here.









 OK, I need to stretch out and read for a while. Before I go, I have to show you Lolita the Vamp. 





Just look at this little hussy with hair vamping over one eye! tsk, tsk! Shameless!

Later, y'all!

Stieg Larsson Trilogy .... at last!

A long while ago I bought the Stieg Larsson Millennium trilogy. They’ve been sitting in my Kindle, unread because they sorta got lost in the 1000+ books there. On my flight to Colorado, I decided it was time to read them.

I read the first, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, on the trip, finishing it the weekend after I got home. I loved it, of course! A few days later I began the second, The Girl Who Played With Fire. I was 2/3 through it, and last night decided to finish it. I was reading voraciously and was nearly finished. I had decided to stay up until I completed it, but around 11:00, I dropped off to sleep several times, and knew that I needed to let the last couple chapters wait until this morning. After all, it was going to be Sunday, and what better thing to do but stay in bed with my carafe of coffee and a couple of ginger crisps, to complete the good read.

Side note: I had planned to go to spiritual services today, but a little mishap last night told me I was not going to do so. More on that in a bit. And TL, quit stewing, it was just a little thing.

This morning, I woke after sleeping till almost 8:00 (yippee!), made my coffee, and crawled back in bed with the pups, the coffee mug and carafe, and the Kindle. I read just a few paragraphs and was shocked into complete awakeness! (I know that’s not a real word, buzz off!)

I had figured out several of the twists and turns in the plot, who some of the characters were and their places in the scheme of the book, a few of the whodunnits, but not THAT!! If I’d stayed awake long enough to read the net few paragraphs, I would have been awake to finish the book last night, because I would have been immediately wide awake!! So THAT’S how he figured in the story!!! OMG!!

I’m not saying more, because if you haven’t read the book, I don’t want to take away your right to have the same Holy-Toledo-moment! WOW!! If you’ve read it, you know what I’m talking about, right?

I'm starting the third and, sadly, final book as soon as I sign off here. I can't wait, 'cause I'm kinda left dangling and very hungry!

Now, about the mishap; a bit hard to explain, but here goes ....
Last night I was playing with the dogs, a bit of scuffling on the floor. We were having a good time, I was throwing toys for them to chase and playing keep-away, too. At one point Max got a bit huffy. He hasn’t figured out the game of fetch and doesn’t play with toys, and that only adds to his frustration over the games I play with the others. When I do this I try to also play with him by rolling him end over end, catching his tail for a moment, as well as petting him a lot. He is SO jealous of the other, especially the boys, Sam and Joey.

I’m not exactly sure what happened. I think as I was holding a toy over Joey’s head, he stood on his hind legs trying to reach it, and when he lost balance, came down on Max. At any rate, Max tore into Joe, and I think as I drew my hand down, it was between the two boys. It was so fast, that is just my best guess. Max bit my wrist. I assume my own movement caused a “slashing” action, and there are several “cuts” on the top of my wrist. It’s not deep, but deep enough to bleed profusely for a few minutes. And it hurt like a sumbich!! There were definitely some bruising of muscles thrown in for good measure!

I cleaned the gashes and medicated them, then wrapped gauze around the wrist to keep the blood and medication contained. I hated to go into public this morning wearing a bandage that looks like I slashed my wrist last night!

I took some arthritis-strength Tylenol to ease the pain last night, probably one factor to falling asleep so early. This morning, there is some muscle soreness, but I can see that there is no serious damage. It’s sore, but that will subside soon. In fact, it is already much better than when I woke this morning.

I’d show you a picture of the gore (LOL!) but I’ve already rebandaged it, and I’m not going to undo it. No, it’s not gory, but just three or four nicks in my skin and one about 3/4” long. As I said, deep enough to bleed well, but that’s about it.

My life. Aren’t you jealous??? 

BWAAA ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

Fall is here, fer sher

There was frost on the pumpkin this morning. Well, there was frost on the big blue truck, anyway. It is starting to look like Winter, or at least, like serious Fall. The air smells awesome, that crisp Autumny smell. Mmmmmm.

I'm enjoying a cup of chai latte, sweet and creamy, along with some ginger crisps that I got at IKEA in Denver last week. Perfect for a fall evening while I'm tucked in with The Kids. This is one of the things I like about cooler weather, having a relaxing hot drink while I watch TV. Having a hot drink in the evening when the weather is hot just doesn't appeal to me.

The Kids - they are all doing well. The biggest and best news is this .... After I was back from my trip I got busy "fixing" the presumed escape path for Missy Jazmyn Jewel Houdini. I did a lot of thinking about this, and I finally came to the conclusion that she HAD to be climbing over the protective rabbit wire I had put up (remember the "whew" I sighed when I put it up because it was going to solve everything???).

Here is what it looks like ........

See the gap between the rabbit wire and the top railing? My theory is that Girlfriend was climbing up the wire, then hopping out through that gap to the ramp below it.

This is how I fixed it. I couldn't see how she could climb up and still manage to go over the rail (she would have to stretch up almost her full body length AND lean backward by about an inch; just didn't seem plausible for her to do so) nor would she have the strength and agility to rip and tear at the chicken wire while her paws are hanging onto the rabbit wire.

On Sunday I was leaving the house for about four hours in the morning and early afternoon. It seemed like the perfect time to test the fix. Daylight is much safer for her if she did manage to escape. So off I went. When I returned, to my enormous relief, GF was still on the deck!

Yesterday we gave it another try while I worked (8:30 to 2:30), and HUZZAH!!!! She was on the deck when I came home!!


Today was my day to work from 1:00 to 7:00. More scary, because it meant that if she ferreted a way out, she could be out in Coyote Country in the twilight. But I braved it, and once again, five dogs in the safety zone upon my return!! Hurray, Huzzah and Yippee-Skippee!!!! I believe  (knock, knock, knock on wood) that we have achieved the goal. Once again I utter the scary word .... whew.

Speaking of IKEA, that was an experience. I'd not been to an IKEA store. Lawdy mercy, we walked and walked and walked, and it often felt as if we were simply walking in circles. Even with a map and directional signs everywhere, we often did loop ourselves. That wouldn't have been bad, except for the fact that the furniture styles don't appeal to any of the three of us. However, I could go back and spent a couple hours in the kitchen area. I love, love, love looking at plates and silverware and pots and pans and kitchen doo-dads and glasses and cups and cooking utensils and coffee/tea makers and .... well, you get the idea. That is my nirvana!

I bought a French coffee press. I have a great coffee maker that grinds the beans and makes the coffee, but my dilemma is that if I make a full pot (8-10 cups) I drink it all, not a good thing. If I make a small pot 4-5 cups, it doesn't taste as good. I know, I know. It is probably in my head but that's how I feel. The French press makes four cups! It's actually about 2.5 mugs of coffee, perfect for my morning jump-start, and the java is very good. I'm happy.

And if you go to IKEA, be sure to get a box of the ginger crisps. They are the best I've ever tasted, and several who have tried them agree. Yummy!!

I'll tell more about the second part of my trip soon. It was not as exciting, but I have some nice picture to share. I haven't uploaded them to a viewer yet, but I will soon.

Later!

My trip

I'm about halfway through the trip. Time to report in, right?

The trip here was uneventful, but loooong. I drove three hours to Albuquerque, waited almost two hours, then flew about 1.5 hours to Salt Lake City. After a half-hour or so on the ground, there was another 1.5 hour flight to Denver. Caroline and Dede were there to pick me up, and we claimed my bag, then drove to dinner at Elways. OK, hard for a die-hard KC Chiefs fan to admit, but the food was very good! We had a calamari appetizer, then I had Alaskan halibut. It was excellent! I also had a couple glasses of wine, and the two hour drive to their house just about put me to sleep.  I didn't sleep, however, because we talked the whole way!

Saturday was the day for setting up Dede's computer network. It was disconnected when her house was painted, and she admits that her knowledge of computers basically stops at the keyboard. So Caroline and I crawled around on the floor, untangled cables and cords, matched cables and cords to machines, relocated some of them, and finally got it all hooked up again. Now she can use her printers, scanners, and the iMac desktop once again. Whew!

While doing all of this, I sipped on my coffee. I had several cups, and as we neared the end of the reconstruction, I began to feel light-headed and as if my body was racing. I decided I'd had too much caffeine and should quit and rest a while. But over the next few minutes, it kept getting worse, and it was now accompanied by some nausea. All this was coming and going in waves, increasing in intensity, and I was beginning to feel awful! And Caroline said, "You're having altitude sickness!" She went through the very same thing, sans the coffee when she first moved here, and she knew exactly what those symptoms meant!

Lucky for me, they have an oxygen concentrator as Dede has some sleep apnea, so they found an unused cannula and got me on oxygen right away. In about thirty minutes, I was feeling much better! I stayed on the O2 for the next 24 hours+, and after that I was alright. Weird! I've been at high altitude before, I live in high altitude, so I didn't expect any adjustment problems. Well, I shouldn't have been so casual about it! It's all good now, but it was definitely an experience!

Sunday Caroline took me for a tour of the area. that's where the pictures in the previous post came from. It was a nice ride, and I was stirred with memories of living just about 60 miles south of there in Salida when I was in 2nd and 3rd grade. We had a nice ride, got lots of beautiful pictures, had a yummy lunch of gyros, and returned to the house where Dede had been busy preparing our dinner, turkey and trimmings! We decided that since it was the weekend for the Canadian Thanksgiving, we were honoring our northern neighbors with the meal!

On Monday we got up and were out of the house rather early, so we could scoot down the mountain to Denver. Saw more pretty scenery on the road.

Once we got to Denver, our first stop was here ....

Here I bought some ginger crisps, very thin ginger snaps that are the best I've even tasted. A coworker brought some back just before I came on this trip, and I fell in love! I immediately sent a text to Caroline saying I "needed" to go to IKEA! I also bought a French coffee press, something I've wanted for a while.

IKEA is interesting. The furniture leaves me completely cold. Absolutely not my style. But the department with kitchen things rocks! I could spend a couple hours looking at those things, drooling, and making a wish list as long as my arm!

Next we were off for lunch. Caroline has been wanting to go to Casa Bonita for a long time and today was the day. I was there around 35 years ago when my kids were small, and it was fun. As I recalled the food was decent, and the entertainment fun. the whole interior of the restaurant was done to fascinate kids .... OK, and adults found it entertaining, too!

It was not the same experience this go-round. It is rundown to a degree, the food was merely passable (and the margarita I ordered was the absolute worst I've ever had; I sent it back), the entertainment was very hokey and the better parts were limited (the "Acapulco style diver" made just 2 dives!) It was disappointing. Caroline said she is glad she finally got to see it, but she won't return. Yep.

We took time before leaving to visit Black Bart's Den. 

I took some photos of the "entertainment" and the decor inside the restaurant, but the lighting was horrible and nothing turned out. Sorry. But here is one that turned out well ....

Caroline and me!

Caroline and Dede drove me to my brother's house which is northeast of Denver, in the flatlands. I'll fill you in on that in another post.

Later, gators!

Leadville, etc.

Beautiful Colorado ......

We took a little scenic drive this morning, and you get to enjoy the fruits of my "labor."

Isn't life beautiful??

Are you missing post updates?

Several people have commented that they are not seeing my blog posts showing up in their blog rolls. I found that I was having the same trouble, and I tried something which seems to have worked. If you want to try a simple procedure, here it is.

I went to my blog roll, clicked on the blog name which was not showing up in the automatic blog roll. That showed me all the posts from that particular blog. Then I "refreshed" the page, clicked on "All Blogs" which shows all the recent posts in chronological order, and the posts from the "missing" blog are now showing up in my blog roll.

Now if I just knew which others I'm missing!!

Storms, stress and calm, all rolled ito one

We're having a stormy night here. It has been overcast and drizzly off and on all day, with a few short periods of rain. In fact, when I ran an errand around 4:00, the sky was all covered except for this one little spot of blue. See the little patch just above the tree branches?

Then around 5:00, it broke loose! I was still at work, as this is my late night, and it poured! I could barely see across the parking lot, which is very small, holding just 10-12 cars. I'm guessing visibility was about 25 feet for a while. Unbelievable!

No one showed up for my group, and with the rain continuing steadily, although not as blinding as I described above, I knew why. I left early, and as I was driving home, I was captivated by the fog in the valleys between peaks.

There are mountains behind those clouds/fog.

This is extremely blurry, but you can see how low and thick the clouds are.

This shot is close to home. There is fog in almost every valley. It was so pretty!

Kind of a long range picture. There is another ridge of mountains behind that bank of clouds.

I'm almost home. That is my roof between the two power lines.

Since I got home, it hasn't rained very hard, but it has been pretty steady. I'm very glad it is; the pines are stressed, especially the gorgeous Ponderosa pines. We've had rain off and on for the last couple months. Some of it has been hard and did a lot of good, but there was too much damage caused by the drought. We need more. So, yes, it is good to be having this good soaking rain. I'm enjoying the pitter-patter and the occasional thunder, with a cup of tea and my pups.

Even Jazi seems to be less worried about the thunder than usual. When I got home, she was glad to see me, but wasn't a quivering bowl of Jell-o like usual. Maybe she's getting over her fear? Well, I'm not holding my breath, but I'm hoping so.

I have SO much to do before I leave on Friday. I will get it done, but the thought of it all is not fun. It doesn't help when I do things that cause myself extra work. I had to go to the bank to get a replacement debit card this morning, and the 45 minutes or so could have been used otherwise. A few days ago I got a new credit card, so I activated it, then took the old one to the shredder. I didn't realize for several days that what I shredded was not the old credit card, but my ATM card! Duh! Oh, well, I'll get to Albuquerque, on the plan and to Denver some way or another, and it will all be good!

Then another hitch in my time .... this morning I had to replace several batteries in devices around the house. Some shouldn't have needed it, as they were replaced not that long ago, but they did. A friend at work told me there was a huge solar flare, and that could have done it. Whatever, it took me about an hour to replace all of them. Good grief!

I'm feeling very peaceful tonight. Thank goodness! And I've decided to take advantage of the calm in my heart to chill for a while. The packing and cleaning will get done. Or not!!

My life

I must have lost my mind. Seriously. I'm going on a trip to visit Caroline, and this is the weather where she lives ....

Pay particular attention to the 7th through the 10th. That's when I'll be at her house. Correct that statement. That's when I'll be IN her house!!!

Holy shilosky, Batman!!!

I've said before that I like cold weather, but I'm not quite ready for it to be that cold! I'd like to ease into winter, please! Caroline, you'd better get the fact that I love you!!


Last week Little Snot Jazmyn got out again. I came home once more to find her sitting in the ditch out front waiting for me. I was totally dismayed, because this meant she was now getting out of the back yard, the last bastion of security. I got her into the truck and drove up the driveway to the house. That's when I saw that all three of the boys on the deck, a place that it was impossible to be, due to the major security I've put on the front dog door! And I said out loud, "WTF????" Well, I said the words, not the letters.





When I got to the deck, I discovered the screen on the window from the living room to the deck had been popped out. Clearly the determined, formidable and totally exasperating Miss Houdini Jazi had put her tiny but mighty little body to work and  got'er done. She is determined, crafty, exasperating .... and totally loved, in spite of my yammering.

The good part of this is that I can easily lower the windows to the lowest notch, and she can't escape. Thank goodness this happened late in the year when the weather has cooled enough that the house won't overheat. I lower the blinds on the west side of the house to block the sun, and it remains very comfortable in the house. The bad part is that with me going out of town and leaving the pups with the sitter, I'm going to have a degree of unease while I'm gone. Dang it. I'll be having a very serious talk with the sitter tomorrow or Tuesday. We already talked briefly at a social event on Thursday, but we will cover it in serious, eye-to-eye, swear-on-the-Bible kind of way.

I had a little scare with the furnace this morning. No, not that kind of scare, no gas escaping, but a scare that seemed to have dollar signs all over it. When I bumped up the heat early this morning so I could stand to disrobe and hop in the shower, it didn't come on. I checked it and the pilot light was out. I got all the necessary things to relight it and got on the floor. Now understand .... this thing is a booger to light. When I put the match in the hole, the drafts inside tend to blow out the match about four out of five times. It's a royal pain in the butt. After several tries I got it lit. Hurray!!

But then the furnace wouldn't come on. I turned the thermostat to 85° and nothing happened. I was distraught! I'm getting ready to go out of town, and I could hardly leave the sitter here with a non-working furnace. Even if he said he didn't need it, a totally possible thing, I would want it checked for safety before going. The thought of what a repair or, god forbid, a replacement would cost, and especially the timing, had my stomach in a twist.

I sat for several minutes, considering what to do. Then I went back to the furnace and checked it again. The pilot light was still on. As I sat on the floor staring at it, I noticed that I had forgotten the final step .... I didn't move the lever from "Pilot" back to "On." As simple as that!! I switched it, waited about four seconds and heard "whoosh" as the burners ignited!! Woohoooooooo!!!!!! Saved at the flippin' 11th hour!!!

I live such a crazy life. Not much in it is earth-shattering, but it is often unpredictable and .... exciting. I could do with less, uhmmm, excitement, to be honest. I really could.

Really.