Progress has been made

I feel a little better, now that I've compiled a list of all of my plants

I've got:

In the large circular bed in the front yard:

Pink allium
Pink & white daffodils
White grape hyacinths
Pink & white striped creeping phlox
White foxglove
Pink bellflowers
A shepherd's hook with two baskets of pink flowered ivy geraniums

In the bed along the front walk:
White lamium
Pink, purple and white gladiolus
1 Josephine clematis
2 Black Knight butterfly bushes

In the bed against the front of the house:
4 pink azaleas
5 white lamium
3 lamb's ears
1 Crystal Fountain clematis
10 Dusty Miller

In the bed along the driveway:
Hidcote, Munstead & Lavender Lady lavender
5 baby lilac trees
Grape hyacinths
1 Black Knight butterfly bush

In the bed next to the street:
White gladiolus
1 baby Buckeye tree
3 baby Witch Hazel trees
1 Pam's Choice foxglove
Hanging planter with geranium, purple & pink petunias and silvery helichrysum

In pots:

1 Early Girl tomato
2 Big Beef tomato
1 huge spider plant
5 or 6 mock orange plants
4 sweet basil
1 English Ivy
1 burgundy Oxalis
2 green Oxalis
2 cyclamen
Lots of geraniums
2 jade plants
1 aloe plant

In the bed next to the turnaround and leading to the garage:

2 dill
1 Sweet Woodruff
2 Ajuga
1 white creeping phlox
8 Casablanca lilies
1 Josephine clematis
3 pink lamium

Along the back wall of the house:
Purple gladiolus
Bluebells
Morning glories
1 mock orange vine

In the bed in the middle of the back yard:
80 white gladiolus
18 blue & purple gladiolus
1 lavender tall phlox
1 Blue Light clematis
Daffodils
9 blue creeping phlox
1 iris
3 white butterfly bushes
1 Blue Muffin viburnum
1 Blue Billow hydrangea
1 pussywillow, standard
1 pussywillow with pink catkins
28 Dusty Miller
Daffodils
2 PeeGee hydrangea
2 dinner plate hibiscus in pink & white

In the bed in the way back:
Daffodils
7 lilies-of-the-valley
8 astilbe
English Ivy

In the bed on the side of the garage:
2 giant hostas
1 heuchera
1 japonica
1 Annabelle hydrangea

*whew*

I think I got everything listed! Bolded items are new this year. Dinner is going to be fresh mozzarella & grape tomatoes, wrapped up in giant basil leaves just picked from my plants.

I'm also feeling good because tonight I had a close look at a newly-fledged baby robin, trying to hide from me because he can't quite fly yet. Pictures soon.

*sigh*

Even though I used up fifty-four bags of mulch this month, I didn't get everything done that I wanted to. I didn't buy enough pea gravel, for one thing. Twenty-five fourteen pound bags sounds like a great deal, but it only covered one small area--I didn't get any of the pathways I wanted to create done. Three of my new lavender plants either didn't like my soil or just didn't like me and they've died. Stormy keeps piddling on one of the new lamium in the back, and it's not going to live much longer with that kind of treatment. The house is disgusting because I've spent all of my free time outside, and I'm roasting right now because I have a pact with myself not to turn the air-conditioning on until June.

Perhaps on a better day I will feel as if I accomplished a lot this weekend. Right now, I am just tired and sad about all that I didn't get done.

Bird brain

Robins have nested in the weeping cherry tree at the front of my house. It's a perfect nesting spot, as I've not trimmed the tree and you can't see inside it at all.

However, the male keeps seeing his reflection in the living room picture window and throwing himself at the glass to attack "the other robin." I spend my mornings listening to bonking noises as he hits the glass, falls to the ground and launches himself up to do it again.

You can see why "bird brain" isn't a compliment.

Moar mulch plz

I don't often speak in KSL, particularly not here, but that was the sentence that came to mind as I worked this morning. Of the forty bags of mulch I bought two weeks ago, I have used twenty-three, and have plans for another forty-two.

It's nice to look at the back yard and have a plan for what I want to do, and it's equally nice to be sure I am going to live long enough to do it. Some of it I should even have done this year, hopefully in time for JammiesFest. If I don't have all the plants I want, I will at least have the beds laid out for them.

Josh is going to kill me for making it impossible for him to do the back yard in straight lines, though. *impish grin*

Josh and the groundhog

The Queen's most recent blog entry reminded me of my friend Amy's husband Josh, he who cuts my grass. The first time I told Josh & Amy I had a resident groundhog, Josh told a story about one that was doing immense amounts of damage to his grandfather's plantings & plumbing. Josh apparently shot & killed the groundhog for his grandfather (NOT a course of action I will ever take, and Rooter is just fine).

The first time Josh told the story, the groundhog was twenty-five pounds, which is on the hefty side, but not totally unbelievable. Through successive re-tellings of the story, the groundhog grew to 40 pounds, then sixty, and two weeks ago, the groundhog was EIGHTY-FIVE pounds. Bigfoot, a malamute/German shepherd mix, is eighty-two pounds.

So yeah, I don't believe Josh's estimates much anymore. *grin*

Happy Saturday

My neighbors got the fallen tree chopped up & removed, I cleaned out the birdbath, planted two lamium, eight lavender, ten Dusty Miller, two dill, four sweet basil and one sweet woodruff and got the old wood off the Annabel hydrangea. Josh came over and did the lawn, and now it is raining softly, which all of my new plants needed.

Now that the tree is gone, I've no excuse to avoid getting mulch back into the farthest corner of the yard and creating the bed I've planned for back there. Most of the lilies-of-the-valley have come up, and I need to clean out all the weeds and get the mulch down. I keep telling myself that if I could use up fourteen bags of mulch and still make it to Mom's for lunch last Sunday, six bags of mulch and making it out there for dinner should be easy-peasy.

Dad's cousin and his wife are in town, and I love getting the chance to talk to them. Larry works for Associated Press and Ann for the Committee to Protect Journalists, and conversations with them range all over the place. They're both extremely bright, up on current events, and funny as all get out. Unfortunately, I don't get to see them more than once a year. I'm going to make sure everything I need to do here is done so that I can stay as late as possible.

Lucky me!

On Wednesday, I went out to take some pics of my lamium, just to make The Queen jealous. What I got was instant karma for being smug about my plants. One of my neighbor's trees had come crashing down into my yard and was resting on the corner of the garage.













I'm lucky because the tree didn't do any damage to the garage and because my neighbor is being very nice about the whole thing. He's coming over tomorrow morning with a friend and a chainsaw and they're going to get the tree out of my way. I might have lost a japonica bush, but I won't know until the tree is gone. It could have been much worse.

I did take some pictures of the lamium and some other garden pics:

I'm Carrot.

You scored as Carrot Ironfounderson.

You are Captain Carrot Ironfounderson of the City Watch in the greatest city on the Disc, Ankh-Morpork! A truly good natured, honest guy, who knows everyone, and is liked by all. Technically a dwarf, but only by adoption. You'd rather not be reminded that you are the true heir to the throne, but that does explain why people naturally follow your orders¦

Gytha (Nanny) Ogg 75%
Carrot Ironfounderson 75%
Esmerelda (Granny) Weatherwax 63%
Lord Havelock Vetinari 56%
Cohen The Barbarian 50%
Commander Samuel Vimes 50%
The Librarian 31%
Greebo 31%
Death 31%
Rincewind 19%


Which Discworld Character Are You?

Happy Mother's Day!

After two hours in the garden this morning, I got cleaned up and went out to my parents' house. For Mother's Day, my mom cooked me lunch and gave me flowers.

Of course, I also took her a present--a pretty little metal flowerpot painted white and filled with Skindecent Blackberry Freesia goodies. I also took her a little hot pink azalea I'd rescued from the bargain basket at Marc's for twenty-five cents. She lost several plants to last winter's big storm, so I knew she was looking for azaleas, and I felt terrible for this little one where it had been left with no water at Eastertime. I got it on the road to recovery, and told it that it was going to azalea heaven, where Mom will take really good care of it. Hopefully, it will get all big and strong and survive next winter.

As I mentioned, Mom made lunch, and while we were all eating our quiche, I told Dad the story of last week's epic buying spree. Being my father, he had to make a comment about how putting the mulch (in bags, mind you) in the garage wasn't a good idea because it can attract rats. Eep. Hopefully, I'll use it up much too quickly for that to happen. I used four bags yesterday refreshing two of the beds in the front and fourteen in the middle back today. Yesterday, I planted three spotted lamium with pale pink flowers and two bugleweeds, then trucked all of the mulch for this morning out to the back. I believe I can use the rest up next weekend, before any rats find their way into the garage.

After lunch, Mom & I went out to her back yard and planted the azalea and dug up some lamium. I have lamium with purple flowers (Beacon Silver) in one spot in my yard, the new stuff with pink flowers (Pink Pewter) in another, but I have not been able to find the white-flowered plants anywhere. Fortunately, Mom's cranesbill hasn't quite forced out the lamium, so she dug up a bunch of healthy plants and I put them in the very front flowerbed as soon as I got home. After Mom had opened her present, we'd had lunch and dug up flowers, I admired everything in her garden and we actually sat down for ten minutes, as Mom said, "pretending we are ladies of leisure." The weather cooperated perfectly today, and it wound up being a wonderful Mother's Day.

If you listen...

you can hear the dainty hoofbeats as the Drama Llama makes his way around the internet.

It's not a full moon, so I'm a loss to explain The Drama that has arisen on not one but three message boards I frequent. One forum even has two separate dramas. People calling each other names, some apologizing, some not, people complaining about moderators doing or not doing their "jobs." Ack. Thank goodness I have my silly threads and my gardening and that I'm not floundering in drama llama poo.

Oof!

Today was a high-octane day. I had a 10% off coupon for Home Depot, so I made a list of everything I need for the summer season and headed off to the car with $300 and the coupon in my pocket. I bought 30 retaining wall stones, 5 bags of drainage rocks for the wet spots in the back yard, 25 bags of pea gravel for walkways, 2 ginormous bags of potting soil, mosquito dunkers, a white creeping phlox, 4 tomatoes, a concrete birdbath & pedestal, a light fixture for the kitchen and one for the hallway.

I had to make two trips in the car because the birdbath and the retaining wall stones were so heavy. I just pitched the stones into the front yard, unloaded the birdbath, light fixtures, plants and potting soil and went back for the pea gravel & drainage stones. After lunch, when I set the retaining stones around the bed in the front yard, I discovered I needed forty instead of thirty. The bed will look nice, but right now it looks unfinished.

Tonight, I was going to go out and use the little mower to get a couple of spots Josh keeps missing with the tractor, but I couldn't get the thing started. I don't know if it was all the work today or the fact that I haven't really exercised my upper arms since last summer, but I was pretty ticked at myself for not being able to start the thing.

Just as I had given up and retreated to the breezeway, Josh & Amy showed up. Apparently, it's supposed to rain tomorrow, so Josh wanted to do the lawn tonight. While he cut the grass, Amy & I went to Marc's and I bought forty bags of mulch. We had to make two trips, and the guy who helped us load the car said I won the prize for the most mulch purchased in one trip. The cashier's eyes about bugged out when I said I wanted forty bags. *grin*

So Amy and I got the mulch in the garage, which will motivate me to use it up so I can park my car in there again. We talked a bit, I paid Josh for the lawn and Amy for the help with the mulch, gave Amy some bath stuff from Skindecent, and they left.

Tomorrow, I've got to hit the ground running to get the cleaning done before I have lunch with my dragon buddy, Dranoel. I'm also organizing a surprise box for someone on the Lush forum who was the victim of a hate crime, and I haven't checked my personal messages there in a while.

I'm not doing that tonight, though. I just had a marvelous strawberry lemonade bath, and while I've got lots of new bruises and I'm sure I will creak in the morning, today was absolutely worth all the bother.

Happy moment

The incomparable Marliss at Skindecent has not only added my scent combo to the list of available scents, she has named it after me!

BOTANICAL

Treefrog Jammies (NEW)

(Medium Intensity) A special blend of fresh green notes balanced by relaxing lavender

Six degrees

This morning, I realized I'd forgotten the Wikipedia link for Edwards AFB in my earlier post. Since Bosstopus is at a meeting, I get to spend my lunchtime playing on the interwebbinet, and I figured I'd just edit the entry and add the link.

Howevah, when I read the whole Wiki entry, I realized there's something in there that links me to Sherri (and to Scott and Severina, but they're probably less willing than Sherri to admit it).

To make a long story short, my birthplace is also the birthplace of "Murphy's Law."

American Idyll

Recently, I read Jeannette Walls' "The Glass Castle." One of these days, I have to review it for Lists of Books, but until then, let me just say it reminded me how lucky I was. I was eighteen months old when my parents moved from Edwards AFB to Hudson, so I have no memories of my birthplace. What I do have is a lot of very happy memories of my childhood. The house my parents bought was a ranch built in 1957, on about two and a half acres of land, with only one neighbor.

My brothers and I had room to run, a dog to run around with, books to read, each other to play with, loving parents and a wonderful extended family which got together monthly to celebrate birthdays and holidays. Granted, junior high and high school were unutterably miserable for me, but I had an idyllic childhood. I remember things like the paths Dad used the lawnmower to cut for us through the meadows, making a life-size red-winged blackbird nest for a school project, hours and hours of playing with my brothers and a zillion stuffed animals, each of which had a name, a personality and a storyline.

Every year, there were two indicators that Christmas was coming. The first was the mouse on the clocktower, a simple teardrop of grey fabric with ears, whiskers and a plaid vest. A few years ago, people with no sense of history decided the mouse was too shabby for Hudson's precious image, and he was eviscerated, and a small portion of his fabric used to make the nose of a nauseating cartoon-like mouse. The second sign of Christmas approaching was the display at the Terex plant. Nine earth-movers would be lined up in front of a huge dump truck along the front of the plant property. The dump truck held a large Santa figure, and the earth-movers were painted to look from the side like reindeer, with the one at the front of the line having a red blinking light on its bucket to show it was Rudolph. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of the display, and I think Terex stopped doing it well before the plant closed in the '80s. I don't have any pictures of the old mouse, either, and I'd poke my eye out with a sharp stick rather than take a picture of the new one.

Another icon of my youth is being disassembled even now. In 1978, the old oatmeal mills were revamped into a hotel and shopping center called Quaker Square. All but three of the shops and two restaurants are gone now, replaced with offices and a conference center. What is now the conference center used to be an Italian restaurant called the REA (Railway Express Association, I think), where I had my first taste of freshly made Italian salad dressing loaded with herbs and olive oil. Upstairs from the restaurant, for a small fee, you could visit a huge room filled with model trains, all running through the room in landscapes containing every accessory a train fanatic could ask for.

*sigh*

When the restaurant folded and the building was "re-purposed," the model trains were put into storage. Now, the owner of Quaker Square has decided to sell them all off. What used to be the little newsstand is being renovated and stuffed with trains, tracks, houses, stations, absolutely everything, and will open sometime in the next month. Every morning and evening, I walk past the shop, seeing a bit of my childhood on shelves with price tags on it.

Growing old is better than the alternative, but I wish the reminders weren't quite so painful.

Various sorts of fun

Yesterday, I went to the airport to pick up Pantsless & BaggieWoman. When we got back to their house, Mom & I dropped Dad off for a nap, and headed out to Gabriel Brothers. They were having a sidewalk sale, so we loaded up on $1 and $2 t-shirts and such, then stashed the bags in the car and had dinner at Mariachi Coco. After dinner, we went back to Gabe's and hit the inside of the store. Among other things, Mom found a drop-dead gorgeous shrug in aqua & lavender silk, and I splurged on a sexy nightie, some more casual sleepwear, five pairs of shorts, seven pairs of pants, several pretty tops and more. Between us, we spent about $300, and oddly for us, only bought one present each.

Two notable events happened at Gabes. First, I looked at one nightie that would have fit last year, but now was much too large for me. Second, a not unattractive man started chatting me up in Housewares. *grin* Good for the ego, that.

After we'd ravaged Gabes, Mom loaded our bags into the car, and I stopped briefly at Big Lots for a plant stand, since the one I have my second-biggest geranium in lost a wheel and is propped up against two other plants. I really want to go back there, as they have a wicker-look resin sofa for only $80, but there was no way to fit it into the Passat. On the way home, Mom said to me how much fun she always has shopping with Aunt Turkey and with me. I agreed, and thought to myself how amazing it is that we got out of the period of estrangement we had twelve years ago, and how much stronger our relationship has gotten since.

This morning, I got out early and planted my new lilac trees & new viburnum. I also put down eighty pounds of topsoil in the new flowerbed, and dumped two plantersful of played-out potting soil into the flowerbed by the driveway. I still need to buy one more trellis so I can get my last clematis in, take pictures of the white grape hyacinths before they disappear, and start buying mulch.

Right now, I have grass stains on my ass, topsoil under my fingernails, mulch in my socks and am about as blissful as I can possibly be.

Wow

On Tuesday, my order from Jung Seeds arrived. The gladiolus bulbs in blue & purple were planted in the back yard, along with the white butterfly bushes. The "Blue Light" clematis went in that flower bed, and the "Crystal Fountain" clematis was planted next to the house. I haven't decide where I'm going to put the "Josephine" clematis, but I will have it planted by Sunday, along with the "Blue Muffin" viburnum and the dwarf lilacs.

I was staggered by the size of the candy-striped phlox. For not much more than I have paid in the past, I got six giant plants. Each one of these beauties is easily the size of a dinner plate! Those went in the front circular bed. Sadly, while the pink campanula grew, many of my grape hyacinths and all three of my "Pam's Choice" foxglove failed to survive the winter. I filled in the bed along the street with white gladiolus, and being stubborn, will probably buy more grape hyacinths to plant next fall.

Since I have to pick the folks up at the airport tomorrow, I won't be planting until Sunday morning, at which time I have to take some pics of the white grape hyacinths and the bluebells.

These are some pictures from last year, and hopefully the garden will be even prettier this year!

I can't WAIT until July!

When I got home from work, a big BOX from Jung Seed Co. was waiting for me. In it were six pink & white candy-striped phlox, ten white and three pink lilies-of-the-valley, three white butterfly bushes, twenty-four purple & blue gladiolus bulbs and three clematis. The potted plants have all had a good drench, and the bare-root plants are soaking. Tomorrow when I get home from work, I can go out and plant things!

ByJuly, but the glads will be up and hopefully flowering profusely, all the new plants should have taken root and some of them might bloom this year, last year's new plants will be in bloom, and the plants that were here when I bought the house should also be in bloom. I am looking forward both to enjoying the garden myself and showing it off to Sherri, Jay and Alessia when they come for JammiesFest.

Brass balls

This morning, I planted a pink butterfly bush, a white bleeding heart, six blue double columbines, six blue creeping phlox and thirty-six gladiolus bulbs. Then I spent the afternoon getting out trellises and shepherd's hooks and re-connecting garden hoses and turning the outside water on. Josh & Amy came over, and Josh cut the grass while Amy & I chatted.

This evening, I was sitting on the breezeway enjoying the look of the yard, the scent of new-mown grass and the sound of my fountain, when one of my neighbors stopped by. I've given up caring if anyone catches me in my grubbies--all the vital bits were covered, and if he doesn't understand what a Sunday working in the yard is like, pffft.

Anyway, turns out Dave, who lives two doors down, is on a mission to convince the next three houses down (including me) to sell our properties to a real estate agent for a strip mall.

Erm, no. Not only no but Hell NO. I love this house. I told him how I dreamed of this house for years before I was able to buy it, and I've put hours of sweat equity into it, plus money for renovations and flowers. Then he asked if he could have the chestnuts from the tree at the back of the yard.

I really don't handle that kind of cheekiness well. I said yes, providing he left some for the groundhog, when what I wanted to say was "Bite me, bite me, bite me, bite me Mr. Brass-Balled Man."

*sigh*

Not selling my house, though. Nope.

Parents

Yes, Appalled Kitty is relevant. I took my parents to the airport today so they can go visit the Mathgeek-Crossword family. Since I had to stop at the post office first, I allowed extra time, and got to the folks' house about 20 minutes early. I pulled into the driveway, parked, and as I was walking toward the house, the garage door went up. I figured either Mom or Dad had been watching for me. Turns out Dad was in the garage tanking up on nicotine for the coming flight, but I didn't notice the cigarette so much as I noticed the lack of pants.

Dad was impeccably groomed from the waist up, but not wearing any trousers. He explained that Mom was on the phone when he went to ask her which pants to wear, so he just came down to the garage for a smoke.

When I went in the house, Mom was off the phone, so Dad got pants and we started loading the car. While we were doing this, Mom showed me some of the contents of her purse. Her glasses case is a small plastic baggie, her cosmetics case a slightly larger baggie.

When did my parents turn into rednecks?

Putting the MS in MSN

For those of you that have MSN instant messenger, you can now select an organization which will donate a portion of the ad revenues to the National MS Society. Go here for directions, and thank you.

Reviews

Alessia Brio, writer and editor, was kind enough to include my story "Sock Love" in Coming Together Volume 2. The anthology was reviewed by Mrs. Giggles, and I am miffed. I didn't get nearly the amount of vitriol other authors got, and frankly, I feel slighted. I'm pretty proud of that story, and I'd like to think it deserves more than a dismissive comment about "shagging laundry." Hmpf. If you can't say something nice, Mrs. Giggles, then at least say something creative. *grin*

On the other hand, I've added a page of reviews to the Cockamamie Soaps website, and just re-reading those as I posted them made me feel warm and fuzzy. I've sold sixteen soaps so far, and made back about half of my startup costs. Although Mom mocked me for doing market research for a home-based small business, I'm proud of being businesslike and sensible about the whole thing. If I haven't at least broken even by the end of the year, I'll let the domain name expire and call it a learning experience. Until then, I'm having fun with my silly soaps.

*sigh*

It's liable to be a few days before Mom knows if her professor friends at Virginia Tech are all okay. In the mean time, our idiot President makes remarks about supporting the right to bear arms, and posters on at least two message boards make remarks about how the students & faculty should have "done more" or "been more agressive" to stop the shooter.

I don't even know where to begin to address this, other than to say it's just plain wrong to blame the victims. A man in his seventies barricaded the door to his classroom with his body to protect his students and died in the attack, yet somehow, all of those academics just waking up and starting their days should have reacted like trained police officers, but without the Kevlar and guns.

*sigh*

Take THAT, Lamisil!

My dog-sitter and friend extraordinaire, Amy, was married in October of 2005. At her wedding shower in mid-September, I wore open-toed sandals, and was horrified to notice that the nail on my little toe was gross. I tried some anti-fungal nail polish treatment, but all it did was turn bright yellow on the nail. I wonder if Mike would still have been my date for the wedding if he'd known about my disgusting toenail?

Because fall and winter don't call for open-toed shoes, I kind of put it out of my mind, sort of promising myself I'd deal with it in the spring. In April of 2006, when I had to see my doctor anyway, I mentioned the toenail problem and asked for Lamisil, since I'd seen nine thousand commercials and print ads. He told me that A. Lamisil screws up your liver function and B. It only works if you catch the fungus in the first six weeks. Oops. He also said that the only thing to do was keep everything incredibly clean, and possibly remove the toenail. Ewww.

One of our wards has a nurse's aide who does his finger- and toenails because he's diabetic. She recommended trying an OTC anti-fungal cream applied directly to the nail once or twice daily. I've been doing that since May of last year, and while it took forever and a tube and a half of cream, by golly it worked. Cost me about $10 and an extra two minutes in my morning routine, but this summer, I can wear sandals and toenail polish, and not be the object of scorn.

"My mind is a junkyard"

That quote always comforts me. Not because of its meaning, but because no matter what I lose in the piles of rusted-out ideas, broken dreams and assorted bits of thought, I always remember that quote, that it's a Robert Heinlein quote, and if I think about it for a bit, I will remember that it's from Citizen of the Galaxy.

Junkyards can be vexatious--it's easy to lose stuff in the mess. On the other hand, it is all in there somewhere, it's just a matter of finding it. Unfortunately, I have a lot of moments when I am looking for the old chair that is the rules for closing a guardianship and instead I find the broken toaster which is the list of forms needed for opening a land sale.

I can't blame the MS for my mental deficiences. I've always been sort of scatter-brained and deficient in the area of attention span (and no, I am not going to make the "Look! Something shiny!" joke here now. It's been done.) and it hasn't gotten noticeably worse. I do sometimes worry that I'm less mentally acute, but if I am rational about it, I have to admit that whatever lesions I have aren't really affecting my mental functions. Physically, I still have to deal with the neuropathy, which has gotten a bit worse since I went off the copaxone, and I still have occasional olfactory hallucinations.

That last one weirded out Nurse Tardy when I mentioned it two years ago, so I didn't mention it to the new nurse practitioner when I went in for my annual in January. I know I'm not alone--my interwebbinet friend Crimmie has them too, although her neuro issues stem from a car accident rather than MS. One of these days, I'll stop by Jooly's and see if anybody else smells things that aren't there.

Of course, that assumes that I can remember what I wanted to ask everyone after we've gone through the obligatory round of greetings and reminding folks who I am since I'm not a terribly regular visitor.

Barenaked Ladies - Get In Line

Barenaked Ladies - Get In Line

This is my favorite BNL song (although I love most of their stuff because both the music and the lyrics are clever and good).

I was thrilled to find out that the song was written for "King of the Hill," a television show I watched for an awfully long time for a commitmentphobe.

Although I can no longer volunteer to have Steve Page's babies, I'd still enjoy a weekend of sweaty fun in the rumpled bed of a not-quite-sleazy motel.

Yay me!

Not only have I gotten through the last two days without killing one of several Clientzillas, I've sold ten soaps so far.

Sadly, that's the closest I come to excitement these days. Ah well. Into each life a measure of tedium must fall, I guess.

Loss

In 2000, when I first started surfing the 'net, I found a message board called "Cafe Dartre." I met a number of really neat people there, including a sweet, funny, thoughtful guy named rbrown. For the last seven years, I have been reading his posts, first on CD, then on the Cyber Soap Box. He passed away recently, and not only his family but his online friends have suffered a loss. In seven years, I never saw him resort to name-calling or getting involved in any sort of drama. He was a kind and caring man, a talented photographer, a hockey fan, a besotted dog owner, and his death diminishes us all.

Flab!

My self-control has gotten weak and flabby from lack of exercise.

Last night, I placed a large order from Skindecent, because Marliss was doing an unbelievable giveaway (a scented sugar scrub with every $20 purchase!), and this morning, I bought flowers.

There's snow all over the ground, and yet I bought a bleeding heart for the way back yard, a pink butterfly bush for the pink & white bed in the front yard, and a really pathetic azalea with hot pink flowers that was marked down to 25 cents because of its neglected condition. That one is not a problem, because it's safely in a pot. The other two, however, are bare root plants, and now I will have to excavate a pot from the mess that is my garage, and put them in there with a bit of soil to keep them safe until I can get them in the ground.

Oh, and I spent $200 on bulbs & plants from Jung's and Spring Hill.

Starting tomorrow, I vow I will put my self-control on a strict exercise regimen.













Plus, I'm broke now. ;-)

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I would not have used that word, but I JUST GOT MY FIRST ORDER!!!

This is just so freaking exciting! Now I want to go make the soaps right now, even if it is 9:45 p.m. *giggle*

A friend smoothed out the html for the Paypal buttons, and when I offered her a Wet Willy, she said, "I'd love one. Will code for soap." *grin*

Tomorrow, I get to stay home from work and babysit the four year old nephew. I have Chicken Run on DVD, place cards to decorate for Easter dinner, and Easter cards to decorate for family. Plus, of course, there are the dogs to be petted and spoiled, so I think five hours should pass fairly easily. Yesterday, on the phone, Alabaster piped up with "I love you, Aunt Jammies," and my heart just melted.

Just another manic Sunday

It's not a good sign when my first waking thought is, "Drat. I've got 23.5 hours left in my weekend." Still, today was a pretty good day. I got the scent list & shipping costs posted on the website, and I'm just waiting on Paypal for my shopping cart. I got my hair colored and the bathroom scrubbed out, and the laundry mostly done. I also started taking the hormone replacements, because waking up in the middle of the night with hot flashes was getting to me. When I expressed my concerns about the treatment of the horses used to make Premarin, my doc gave me a prescription for Cenesten, which he says is entirely lab-grown. The price isn't too bad, $52 for three months with no medical insurance.

The price on the medication was so reasonable that I treated myself to two hyacinths, a bag of white gladiolus bulb, two cyclamen and two trellises. Thank goodness for discount stores--all of that cost me $26.

Yesterday, I worked outside. I give myself bonus points for not killing my next-door neighbor, who came and stood over me to talk to me while I cleaned up the trash that fell out of his trash cans three weeks ago. Fortunately, I got away from him when I had cleaned up that corner of the yard and moved down the ditch. When the trash was cleaned up, I got the wheelbarrow and started playing pickupsticks. In the front yard alone, I picked up enough downed wood to fill a large lawn & leaf debris bag and part of another. Now I just have to remember to take the bag out to the curb Thursday night!

After the cleanup work, I strolled around the back yard, admiring spring. The yellow and white daffs are all up and open (the pink & white in the front yard are just starting to bud) and it looks as if my hydrangeas and hibiscus survived the winter. I'm not sure yet about the mock orange and the pussywillow, but I remain hopeful. The soft ground around the daffodils was imprinted with hoofprints, and I had a smug chuckle for frustrating the deer. The bluebells along the back of the house have leafed, and it looks as if they've multiplied. I can't believe I didn't even know they were there until last summer.

Because all the co-pays from my surgery are arriving thick and fast, I won't be buying a new water softener with my tax refund. However, there might be enough left over for a teeny bit of ordering from garden catalogs. This year, I have much more energy, thanks to the weight loss, and I'm really looking forward to a spring and summer spent working in the garden.

It's ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!

Cockamamie Soaps now has a website. Neither the scent list nor the shopping cart are up yet because I went cross-eyed getting as much done as I did. Nonetheless, the site is up!

Sherri has already copped the prize for World's Cutest Shoes and World's Second Cutest Shoes so I'll have to be happy with the World's Third Cutest Shoes. It's sort of like winning an Oscar for best knick-knacks in a living room scene, but it's what's left, so I'll take it.

Behold, my adorable new summer sandals:

Wednesday night was a girlie night. I had my hair cut and styled, then went to the shoe store, the craft store, and the bookstore. Thursday, I wore my adorable new sandals with my pretty navy sundress printed with pink roses and the pink cardigan with ribbon roses on it.

All very good for morale, or at least that is how I justified the expense to myself.

BFF

Say it with me..."AWWWWWWWWWWW!"

Retail Therapy

So it started out as an awful Monday. Miserable things just kept happening, and while some of the weepiness was my own fault, some of the lousy things were external.

Fortunately, I got a PM that my Lush Easter Egg was at the home of my group leader and on its way to me, an e-mail that my latest Skindecent order (all loaded with birthday, Easter, secret swap and just because presents) should be here on Thursday, and when I got home from the dentist, my order of sample tarts from Soy Simple was here. After letting the dogs out, I opened the package and sniffed everything, set some things aside for presents, and sorted the rest to be stored according to fragrance. I do that with bath products, too. I've come to the conclusion that I'm just geeky that way, and it's not going to change.

I shouldn't have taken a nap, but I did, and had another weird dream, this one about tornadoes. Given that I'm reading a very gripping book about very bad vampires, I'm grateful I dreamt about weather and not blood. I'm also grateful that I got something to kick me out of the Monday blues.

Weird dream

As a rule, I don't remember my dreams. When I do, it's most often because the dream was bizarre. Today's nap dream was no exception.

I was in a wedding party. The bride's father was a dirty old man who kept hitting on the youngest and blondest bridesmaid, the one who worked at Sephora. There were seven or eight bridesmaids, all young and blonde, except for me and the matron of honor. As matron of honor, Sherri wore a sleeveless mauve satin dress, and her light red hair was all styled so it tumbled to her waist in these beautiful curls. As we dressed for the wedding, Sherri and the bride, Sabrina (wearing ivory satin brocade) expressed shock and horror at the volume of grey in my hair, and planned to dye it, with me still in my bridesmaid's dress, when we got to the dressing rooms in the church. They saw no difficulty with time or the fact that I was wearing a fancy dress, what they argued about was what color my hair should be. Then Bigfoot stuck his cold wet nose in my face and woke me up so I could serve his dinner.

Odd, that.

A Perfect Day

The sun is shining, it's warm enough to have windows open, the house is almost completely clean, the laundry is done and put away, I've got a pink carnation wax tart from Beaded Hemp melting on the breezeway, an Emerald City Cake tart from Whiff & Sniff candles melting in the study, there are clean sheets on the bed and most, if not all, of the new daffodils I planted are sprouting. I'm especially excited to see all of the pink & white daffs coming up in the circular bed I started in the front yard.

Plus, Amy came over this morning, and I got to get her started on tarts. I sent her home with a tart burner and samples of all of my tarts from Beaded Hemp, Yankee Candle and Skindecent, plus some perfume samples from BH and some bath truffles from Skindecent. She gave me $40 worth of Border's gift cards, and my Amazon order arrived yesterday, so the library is now up to 1,752 books with more on the way when I get a chance to spend the cards.

In my near future, I see a strawberry-lemonade bath and an afternoon nap on clean sheets scented with lavender, while the windows are open and the curtains flutter in the breeze. Then when I wake up, there will be a hot cup of coffee and an evening spent sorting gifts for my secret swappee from the Lush message board, and a surprise or two for friends.

*sigh of absolute contentment*

Busted!

Somehow, Mallie found my American Idol audition pics on I Can Has Cheezburger.

A Healthy Attitude

"A Fat Rant" from Joy Nash

Oh, my aching butt!

I need to rebuild my tuchis calluses. After four weeks off work, I'm no longer suited to sitting in a semi-comfortable office chair for eight hours at a stretch. Granted, I'm never actually in the chair for more than thirty minutes before I have to get up and make a copy, dig something out of a file or go help Bosstopus discover the wonders of her hard drive, but it's still pretty much sitting.

Yesterday and today were pretty much a matter of jumping right in to the deep end of the pool. We have three accountings to finish up, two Medicaid applications in progress, one estate to start, two JWROS affidavits to complete and file, and a domestic clients clamoring for attention.

Two of the accountings are sorted, but I have to go through two fat files and find one lone bank statement for the third, and we are still waiting on evaluations by doctors for annual guardian's reports. Sadly, most doctors who accept Medicaid compensate for the ridiculously small amount of money they receive per patient by increasing the number of patients they have, and so detail stuff, like annual evaluations, goes by the wayside.

Even though my butt and my brain are both sore from the unaccustomed exercise, I'm glad to be back, and Bosstopus is glad to have me back. I think Vegan Lawyer & Goldilocks are too. :-)

Nausea-inducing

Arguing tends to make me sick to my stomach, even when I am arguing about something in which I believe strongly. This is probably because, as a friend pointed out to me, I want people to like me. There's a thread I'm going to have to avoid from now on, because despite what I thought were fairly calm, coherent posts on my part, I've failed to convince anyone that my argument has any merit. That said, there's another thing that makes me sick, and I'm going to vent about it here.

There are a couple of tv shows and a website which exist to entrap "sexual predators" by having decoys enter chat rooms and pose as underage teenagers, then lure chatters into meeting them. If they show up for the meeting, they are arrested. This subject has actually come up on two different message boards. At the first, I stayed out of the discussion, but on the second, I participated and wound up nauseous and frustrated.

After a talk with a friend, I am somewhat less upset about the entrapment portion of the problem. From what little I have seen, the decoys are (generally) not the ones initiating the sexual portion of the chat, which does put the adult subjects in the wrong.

The things which bother me have to do with pandering to society's lowest common denominator, news organizations forgetting what they are supposed to be doing, misleading and inflammatory information and vigilantism.

These shows are selling fear and violence to make a profit, and America, at least, is buying it. The tv shows which run these "stings" are successful in terms of viewers and advertisers, or there wouldn't be more shows made. The Romans had their circuses, and now we have "To Catch a Predator" or whatever. I'm sure that if the subject showed up at a house and was greeted with a hungry lion, the ratings would shoot through the roof. Yes, there are plenty of people out there who get their kicks sitting in their nice, comfy living room saying, "Wow, he really deserved to have six cops tackle him. I'd like five minutes alone with that guy." We don't need to feed those kicks.

Second, news organizations are supposed to report the news in an objective fashion, not create it. Why don't we send Stone Phillips out with a pocket full of Molotov cocktails and addresses for every single person who's done something the viewers can agree is "bad." That'll make some news and some great ratings!

Third, in the thread I am not permitting myself to post in any longer, one of the posters who is a big fan and proponent of these shows stated as a fact that "there are millions of predators on the Internet." Erm. There may be. I'm sure there are millions of people with internet access, and some percentage of them are probably potential or actual predators. But children and teens are still at more risk from someone they know face-to-face. Stirring up hysteria with stories about epidemics of sexual predation is irresponsible.

Finally, while one of these shows (the only one I've seen--watched half of an episode, turned it off and threw up) utilizes the police, the website and possibly other shows use decoys who are strictly "concerned citizens." Yes, it's such a good idea to add vigilantes to our circuses. We ought to be all out there, prepared to trap and expose others' misdeeds instead of working to improve ourselves and have a positive impact on the people around us.

If the police feel that this is a decent use of their time and resources, so be it. I see no need to dramatize and televise it.

Ugh, I'm still sick.

Sponge Bob, I hate you.

Because of the bariatric surgery, I am supposed to take a sugar-free chewable vitamin daily. Chewable vitamins, of course, are marketed almost entirely for children, so I have bought Scooby Doo and Winnie The Pooh vitamins, making my decision solely on what's available and sugar-free on a given trip to the pharmacy. The 'fruity' flavors were a big chalky, but nothing I couldn't live with.

Then I got the bright idea of buying the big bottle of Centrum Sponge Bob sugar-free chewables at the warehouse store. For $13, I got a six-month supply, instead of paying $6 for a two-month supply. Great deal, right? Erk. Now I'm stuck with 173 of the worst-tasting vitamins I have ever run across. Most of them appear to be grape, which is a flavor I have always hated. None of the flavors are bad at first(except the grape), but they leave an incredibly bitter aftertaste. Each morning when I crunch one of these suckers, I pat myself on the back for doing it, and try not to think about the fact that I'll be doing this daily until next September. Bleah.

Don't like Ohio weather?

Wait five minutes, it'll change.

Last night, when I couldn't sleep, I sat on the breezeway and watched the thunderstorm for a while. It was quite satisfactorily flashy and noisy, and I enjoyed it very much. I entertained myself by thinking of songs that mention rain, then tried to remember exactly how Terry Pratchett described Sam Vimes' childhood imaginings about raindrops as soldiers.

Littlefoot was less delighted by the storm than I was, and kept trying to plaster himself up against me. The accepted wisdom is to ignore the fear, because when you pet & reassure the dog, it reinforces the thought that there is something to be afraid of, and reinforces the needy behavior as well. Cruel pack leader that I am, I ruffled his ears and wouldn't let him crawl under the covers with me when I finally went back to bed.

This morning when I woke, it was snowing. The snow continued long enough to coat everything, including the daffodils & grape hyacinths that are just starting to sprout. Even though I know this happens frequently, and that the plants will be fine, I still feel sorry for them, getting snowed on when they are just babies.

The snow also highlights all the downed tree limbs in the yard, and now that I am permitted to lift up to twenty-five pounds, I may go out this weekend and drag a few of them up to the driveway so I can break them up and stuff them in a bag. I think one of the reasons I've been sleeping poorly is that I haven't been active enough to get tired. If I spent Saturday out in the yard, I have all day Sunday to recover so that I can go back to work on Monday.

The Bath

At last, I may have proper tub baths, with no worries about evisceration or other untoward consequences. All afternoon I pondered which scent I should use for my first (approved) post-surgical bath. I decided on carnation, so I started with a Holiday bar, a limited-edition Christmas product from Lush, which I've been hoarding. I added half a bath truffle (fizzie) in Pink Carnation from Skindecent, and washed with Pink Carnation foaming bath butter, also from Skindecent. Afterwards, I used Pink Carnation whipped moisture cream from Skindecent and just for me, a dab of Flirt perfume from Lucky.

I am one happy Jammies, floating around on my spicy floral cloud. However, I will still have to choose what type of bath to have tomorrow night. Hmmmm...

Spring has sproinged

It doesn't matter what the calendar says.

It doesn't matter that there are still heaps of old snow at various points in my yard.

It doesn't matter that the weather is grey and damp.

Rooter is awake, so spring is here!

Yes, when I got up this morning, Littlefoot ran to the breezeway door and stared very hard at the farthest point back in the yard, and there was my resident groundhog, galumphing from one side of the yard to the other. If Punxatawney Phil can indicate how much more winter we're going to have, then Rooter can damn well indicate that it's over. She looks good, a bit on the skinny side, but good. The minute the doctor says it's okay, I'll be out in the yard cleaning up downed limbs and mulching flower beds.

I'm also planning some flower orders for the spring, and I can't wait to get out there and get my paws muddy. I have a list of things I am going to ask Hot Doctor if I can do when I see him on Monday, including drive my car, take a tub bath, resume riding my exercise bike, vacuuming and lifting heavy things. I am not going to ask him about going back to work, I'm just starting back part-time on Monday. I know that Bosstopus will be understanding if I say I'm hurting and need to go home, I know that I will pay attention to what my body is telling me, and I absolutely know that if I wait another week, I will die on my first day back, probably from an avalache of piled-up paperwork on my desk.

The Heather sent me a get-well box, filled with deep dark chocolate, Lush bath products, a trashy novel, a frog note holder, a journal, a bathtub rubber froggie which squeaks, and froggie socks. I am forever spoiled for ordinary chocolate, I had to hide the squeakyfroggie from the puppymonsters, and I can't wait to take a bath and wear my socks. Erm, not at the same time, of course.

The Evil Alpaca sent me an otter t-shirt to go with the plushy otters he, Sherri and Capt. Spaulding have sent me. Despite the fact that I have now lost 110 pounds, I have not yet lost any weight in the boobage, so the picture sort of looks like otter porn. *blush*

All in all, there is a pretty happy Jammies looking forward to spring this year.

Overdoing has its price

I'm pretty sore today, owing to multiple trips to the basement Sunday and yesterday. Then yesterday afternoon, Doc came and took me shopping. We hit Yankee candle, where I bought a huge stash of tarts and tealights, and then to BJ's Wholesale, followed by a quick trip to Giant Eagle. I was not impressed with Giant Eagle, which took over Tops last year. Poor selection in some important (to me) areas. If you want to carry only two kinds of cleanser, fine, but one of 'em better be my brand, and it wasn't. *grump*

On a more serious note, I have been pondering since I got yesterday's mail. In the mail was a note from a friend. She's a "work friend" rather than a close friend, and I was very surprised when she confided in me that she got divorced last August, and hasn't told anyone but a counselor. I've been writing and re-writing my return letter in my head, trying to get it just right. It may take a while.

Here's what I have so far. Comments & suggestions are welcome.

Dear X, Thank you, both for the compliment about my bravery, and for your
trust in confiding in me. I am honored beyond saying that you would share this
news with me, and of course I will respect your privacy. However, I want to make
sure you know that I am here any time you need someone to talk to. We could even
stick with written correspondence, and you'd never have to discuss anything.

Although my relationship with [Fartface Ex] was nowhere near as long as
yours with [former Mr. X], I do know the heartbreak which comes from one person
refusing to admit that there are problems in a relationship. That kind of
blindness is extremely destructive, and while I don't know all the details, I
think you did the right thing. I wish this hadn't happened to you, and I
certainly hope that your life moves upward from here.

If you would like me to tell [mutual friend I thought she was closer to
than me] what happened, I will do so, otherwise, I will not say anything to
anyone. I am tremendously complimented by your trust in me, and will not breach
it. If you need anything, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Sincerely,

Cocktailing

I am usually disparaging of the practice of turning nouns into verbs. However, I will make an occasional exception when the word so used describes a process either not yet described by common vocabulary, or when such a word fills a creative need. The term "cocktailing," which I learned at the Lush forum, is one such word. It means combining bath products in different scents to create a custom bath, and it is something to which I have taken like an otter to water.

Not only do I cocktail my bath products, but I have discovered the joys of combining a tealight in one scent with a wax tart in another scent. So far, in both bath products and home scent, I have tried strawberry/lemon; lemon/orange; chocolate/mint; sugar/cinnamon and lemon/grapefruit. The last one smells rather like dishwashing liquid, probably because that seems to be the top note on the wax melt. Eww. Not doing that again. The strawberry/lemon combo has worked out so well that I have requested custom bath products in that scent combo from my new obsession, Skindecent.

Skindecent, which is a one-woman operation, has basically replaced my Lush addiction. There are more scents, more products, and most of the scents come in all the products, which allows for layering. The Pink Carnation scent is probably my favorite, followed by Tropical Rainforest and the combination of Fresh Squeezed Lemonade/Strawberry Fields. I hadn't realized how much I missed being able to use soap or scrub, lotion and solid perfume in the same scent until I got mad at Lush and went looking for alternatives. *grin*

And yes, I am going to try to be good and just take showers until I see the doc again next Monday. *sigh*

Obsessed

I want a bath.

I desperately crave a bath.

I need a bath.

I am horribly nauseous, and a bath with peppermint/spearmint bubble bath is exactly the solution to my troubles.

Two more weeks until Bath Day.

I may not live that long...aargh.

A bored Jammies is a dangerous Jammies

Yes, boredom has set in, along with its buddy, cabin fever. This morning, even though I'm not supposed to drive, I got in the car and made the ten-minute jaunt to Taco Bell. Once there, I couldn't make up my mind, so I got a number of different things, most of which are now in my refrigerator, mocking me for buying them. I actually ate a chicken soft taco (too many onions) and a grilled steak taquito (cute commercials, but the product is just the steak soft taco with a new name) and feel guilty for the steak quesadillas and the rest of the taquitos sitting in my refrigerator. I wonder if I would have made the suicidal fast-food run if the UPS guy had been a little faster? You see, when I got home, there was A Box waiting for me. A Box from Sherri, sent before she left for Tahoe. There were five Charlaine Harris books on loan, bunny barrettes, bunny socks, a bunny pen, a frog notepad, a grow your own voodoo doll, a grow your own prince, and two bottles of Dr. Bronner's soap. This is amazing stuff--the label reads like a schizophrenic's wet dream and the soap is so pure that I'm not kidding when I say I'm so clean I squeak. I'm going to save the peppermint for when I need to WAKE UP, because when I tried the lavender, the scent was so strong it knocked me down and sat on me! :-O It's the truest, cleanest, strongest lavender scent I've run across in a lifetime of trying bath products, and right now, I am squeaky-clean, warm, utterly boneless and sleepy.

Even if I'm not supposed to drive, shop, or take baths, at least I'm allowed to nap.

Good news/bad news

The good news is that I'm healing as expected, my staples are out and I can sleep on my stomach now.

The bad news is that it's a minimum of two more weeks before I can go back to work and three more weeks before I can have a tub bath.

*sigh*

Maybe it's the drugs

but I don't feel the elation I should feel upon knowing that since July 6, 2006, I've lost 102 pounds.

I just feel discouraged. I've lost a small person, and I'm still fat.

*sigh*

A Flash of Fang

While I do appreciate all the offers of help while I am home, I am going to very quietly bitch here. When I say, "Thanks, but I'm fine," I mean it. When I am sick or in pain, it is wisest to think of me as a large, cranky, messy-haired forest critter. I prefer to hide in my den, emerging on occasion for medical treatment or for sympathy and fussing, but generally, I like to spend my healing time alone. Anyone who attempts to reach into the den will see a flash of fang and hear a long growl.

My mother, bless her heart, understands this about me. She will ask how I'm doing, provide sympathy if I mention pain or sickness, and then leave me alone. My father, on the other hand, would have made an excellent 1950s movie-type nurse. He wants to fuss and provide remedies and pat hands and all that jazz.

As long as I have my pain pills and an adequate supply of food & coffee, I don't need much beyond a "poor baby" or two. Now I have to go call a friend and thank her for her offer to come over with movies I don't want and try not to growl at her.

Girl gross stuff, Part II

I do not want to be one of those people who inflicts their medical details on anyone who can't get away from them fast enough. I am going to briefly describe the weird thing that apparently happened on Monday, and then not talk about it again. I went to the hospital at noon on Monday, and went through the same crap I always do where several people tried and failed to start an IV on me because they couldn't find a vein. Eventually, someone did, and I went off to sleepyland before they even got me into the OR. When I woke up Monday afternoon, I was in the recovery room and in tons of pain. Fortunately, unlike last time, nobody shushed me when I moaned and cried. The nurses just told me they'd get me some meds. They did, and I next woke up in my hospital room. Mom stopped in and dropped off my overnight bag, then took my car keys and left. She couldn't stay long, because Dad and my nephews were waiting in the parking lot. That was okay, though, because I was right back out of it fairly soon.

Tuesday morning was more pain, a fierce sore & dry throat, and lots of nausea. I ate a lot of ice, dry-heaved a few times (which hurt like hell) and talked with my doc when he made his morning rounds. I had no idea that ovaries could grow back, but apparently, after the surgery in 2002, my right one did just that. He actually asked me if he took that one in the previous surgery, and all I could answer was that I was told that he did! He also found a fair number of endometrial adhesions, so there's very little wiggle room for my insurance to refuse to pay for the surgery. This time, he took everything, so nothing can grow back. I had no idea that human reproductive organs were that stubborn--kinda gives you the feeling that we're only here to make more of us.

The IV in my left hand infiltrated on Tuesday, and I was left with a fat paw about three times the size of my right hand. I promised to be very good and drink all my water, so the nurse got the doc on call to agree not to put in a new IV. I even managed to eat a few bites of scrambled egg for lunch and a few bites of turkey for dinner. I was a model patient, up and walking when they told me to, etc., and my reward for being good was getting to come home Wednesday morning. At 7:00, the doc on duty said I could go home, at 8:00 the floor nurse said I was official, and at 9:00, the nurse in charge of discharges scolded me for not checking with her first, as I couldn't possibly leave until she'd taken care of all my paperwork, and I should not have listened to the doctor and the other nurse and arranged a ride for 9:15.

I'm really torn about that last bit. Thanks to Snicker, I have even more appreciation for the crap nurses get put through. On the other hand, I did what I was told I could do, and if she had a problem with the other nurse & the doc, she should have told them, not taken it out on me. I'm not such a veteran of hospital stays that I know all the protocol, and I didn't deserve the snotty remarks.

At any rate, it was good to get out of there. Amy brought me home, and stayed and yakked with me a bit, then headed off for her morning dog-letting-out rounds. Mom dropped by later, having picked up my Percocet at the pharmacy, and stayed long enough to give me a hug and tell me I looked pretty good. She also brought a whole bag of Lush goodies she got in Dallas (and me not able to take tub baths until my staples are out) and a really cute card from Marcia. The flowers Mallie sent are blooming, and they are not tulips, but very pretty crocuses--white with purple marbling. This is exciting not only because I have flowers in the house, but because crocuses are not deersnackies, and I can plant them in the yard come fall, and have these pretty little flowers again next spring!

I'm wondering if it will be safe to sleep in my bed any time soon. My lower back has been screaming at me since I woke up from the surgery, and catnapping in the recliner doesn't do much for real rest. I'm super grateful for the DVD player Mallie & The Scarecrow gave me for Christmas. So far, I've read two Terry Pratchett books and watched "Madagascar" and at least six episodes of "The Dog Whisperer." I can't wait until the pain is gone and I can go back to work. I know, I'm all weird and stuff.

Time to go take another Percoset and have another yummy cup of non-hospital coffee.

Surgery day

Today at 1:00 p.m., I am finally having my surgery. Yaaaay! I'll be working until 11:30, then heading to the hospital to check in. Mom & Dad are babysitting Chip & Dip, so I limited the number of people I asked Mom to call. Sherri's going to comment here after Mom calls her. The house is clean, if still slightly untidy, the instructions to Amy have been written, and all I need to do is shower and get dressed and go kill a few hours. :-)

But I'm too young!

I've heard that the older you get, the more you turn into your mother. I always thought that happened much later--you know, in your seventies or something.

At least, that's what I thought until last week.

Back in January, when the Valentine's day stuff first came out, I was at Marc's (a local discount store), and saw these pretty, heart-shaped, red glass vases. I thought, "Oooh, instead of candy for the other women in the office, I'll buy these and fill them with roses!" So I bought four (one for me, too) and set them in the guest room until they were needed.

On Monday, Mom comes in a bit later than usual, carrying a dozen roses. She asks me to come help her, and when I walk into her office, she pulls two pretty, heart-shaped, red glass vases out of her bag and tells me to fill them with water.

Not only did we have the very same idea independent of one another, she beat me to the punch by bringing her flowers in two days early!

What are the odds?

Thank you!

I got a beautiful wire & raffia basket today from 1-800-FLOWERS, with spring bulbs inside and no card. I'd love to know who sent them to me...

Pretty please?

Edited to say that I spent half an hour on hold with 1-800-FLOWERS (presumably while they dealt with all the people whose Valentine's flowers got held up by the big snow) and they read me the card they forgot to put on the package.

Thank you, Sherri, they're beautiful! *hugs*

SNOW!!!

Big snowstorm here in NE Ohio (lots of other places, too, I'm not being insular). This is what my driveway and back yard looked like at 4:30 yesterday when I got home from work:

This is from 7:00 this morning, after Josh had come over and plowed the driveway:

I can always tell when Amy has ridden shotgun with him--she shovels part of the sidewalk and up to the breezeway door while Josh plows. She is such a sweetie!

All of the county offices were closed today, along with many businesses and pretty much all of the schools. The courts and the post office were open, and so was our office. Goldilocks didn't make it in, but the rest of us did, and we had a quiet and fairly productive day. Of course, I wanted to be home, maybe to play outside with the puppymonsters and then come inside to a roaring fire and some hot chocolate, but nooooo, I had to work. Bleah. Hopefully the snow will still be in playable condition this weekend. Next week, once I'm home from the hospital, it won't matter one tiny little bit how much it snows, so it probably won't snow at all.

Happy Birthday to Mom, Heather & Mallie!

Happy early birthday to three ladies I admire and adore.



The hardest part was packing Mallie's box.


I started with the box in which she sent my Christmas pressies:

Then, I tempted the present over to the box:

Finally, I added Mallie's birthday present:

I'm a bit worried that it hasn't gotten to Floridoom yet. I hope the airholes were big enough...

Best of...?

In the most recent issue of Northern Ohio Live, the new food columnist bemoaned the fact that Clevelanders and other residents of NE Ohio are not yet ready for whole pigs' heads and similar delicacies. I personally am not ready to eat a pig's head or its feet, but I did notice that an earlier issue of NOL, devoted to the "Best of..." had in its restaurant category a huge number of chain eateries.

While I find it a bit irritating to be lumped in with the residents of Cleveland, which frequently happens to those of us who live in the area but outside of the city, what I really find irritating is that the folks who responded to the initial survey ignored many of our exceptional local restaurants. With places like Crave, LeFever's, Moe's, Mariachi Loco and others available, it is incomprehensible to me that Panera, Damon's and Olive Garden made the list.

C'mon, Buckeyes, even if we're not ready for pig heads, let's at least support some of our wonderful local restaurants!

'Twas a long week

So I'm weird--I get a huge rush when a difficult accounting balances. For those of you not familiar with the process, the Summit County Probate Court (and all Ohio probate courts) requires an annual itemization of every penny received and spent and every penny remaining for guardianship accounts.

This week, with the help of Bosstopus and the clients, I balanced two tough accountings, and helped another client finish off an easy one and get ready to close the money-managing guardianship. It took a few long and late days, but it was worth it. I love the wiggly feeling of elation when everything is perfect and the only thing left to do is type the data onto the Adobe forms and print it out.

*grin*

We always do court pleadings and accountings on 20lb bond paper. When our client took her completed accounting to court on Friday, the clerk helping her touched the original and said, "Only one attorney uses such nice paper--are you one of Bosstopus' clients?" When the client told me about that, I passed it on to Bosstopus, who'd been stuck down in Steubenville for most of the day. She laughed and wondered if that was a good thing to be known for at court. I said, "It's better than your previous reputation for using yukky paper clips." I've tried to fix that since I first heard about it, and I save the rusty, old, bent or otherwise bad paperclips for the bank. Key Bank is a huge corporation, but if you give their tellers a deposit with a paperclip, they will keep it. For the fees they charge, they can buy their own!

When not working this week, I've been making soap. More about that in a later post, when I get the pictures off my camera. Yesterday, I took the parental units to the airport to catch a flight to Dallas, then shopped for more soap supplies.