Creating my future, one miracle at a time

Exercised! My PT Connie was sick, so I worked with someone named Callie, who has a daughter named Poppy. I didn’t mention my cat and dog from the past. She showed me three machines, all working on the legs. I’m stronger than I thought. After a half hour and dozens of reps, she put me in the hydro massager for ten minutes and went on her way. I LOVE the hydro massager.

Afterward I felt pretty good, so I went to Michael’s and got the lime green yarn I need and some stocking stuffers and tissue paper. It was empty there. Mainly just employees, rearranging and getting ready for what will be, I’m sure, a killer weekend. I was having so much fun (and the checkout was needlessly slowed by someone cheerfully “helping” me) that I was almost late to my doctor’s appt. I saw NP Kristen. She’s new. She doesn’t think the pain is IBS related, although she did give me a “foods to avoid” list to help with that. When I described where it was and that it was a shooting pain that went down to my knee, she thought it sounded like a nerve. She gave me a steroid shot to help with inflammation and will schedule me appointments with at PT and an Ortho.

I came home and was still productive!
Supper was a new great meal that Thomas and I picked up at Walmart the other day on a whim. It was frozen precooked meat for fajitas. We bought pico de gallo, had sour cream and grated cheese, and bought onions and three colors of bell peppers. We just stir fried the veggies and steak and warmed some tortillas to put them on and made wonderful fajitas. Mark was very enthused. I’m happy to have added a new meal to our menu.

Friday of last week Thomas and I got into the car to go to the bank, but first we had to search the whole car for the GPS. Then we got in and started backwards, coming to an ugly abrupt stop when the open back car door (his side) hit the edge of the garage. The door is ruined and will have to be replaced. We managed to jam it shut, but it's bent badly enough I'm worried about rain getting in. I have a $1000 deductible on stuff like that, and it'll probably be about that much. Maybe more. If it's a lot more than my deductible, I'll turn it in and let StateFarm pay, but whichever way, it'll cost me the thousand. so there went the "extra" (Ha!) money I was going to spend at a friend moving sale. I really had my eye on her practically new front-loading washer/dryer combo and matching pedestals.

I don't know why I woke up at 5:45 and couldn't get back to sleep. It might have been those really loud, happy birds in my yard. I've had the quiet, empty house all to myself for almost two hours. That's another mystery. I can't believe I'm awake and Mark's still asleep. He got up and went to the couch in the middle of the night, so he's out in the living room, right by the kitchen. I'm trying not to wake him up, but I'm running out of quiet things to do. I sent a tweet and I downloaded two apps for my iPhone before it began to whine about low battery. I've checked and read my email, and logged in to Facebook, and I'm starting to get really hungry.

Yesterday went well, once I finally got in gear. I slept until 10:30, and only woke up then because Thomas started playing piano to wake me up. But after some fumbling around and making tea, I began working on stuff for Elance. I'm trying to put together things for our portfolio. I was having good ideas and making some progress when bedtime came around. I had trouble getting to sleep and trouble staying asleep, which is probably why I'm up now--too many ideas going 'round in my head.

So, I’m not getting in writing every day. But I’m getting most days, and I’m not going to beat myself up about missing a day. Some are just too full and tiring, and I’m asleep before I can write anything. Yesterday was one of those. Maybe I should write in the morning, when I’m fresh, about the day before.

Today was just slow and stay home. Slight headache, not much accomplished, except I did take an Elance test and rank in the top 5% in English Word Usage.

Monday I got right up and got on over to Ann’s pretty early, after only taking care of a few duties at home and making sure Thomas had a list for the day.
I caught her out in the yard. She offered to stop with the landscaping and go on in, but I told her I thought she ought to take advantage of the slightly cooler temps and the nice breeze we were having, and she agreed. So we spent a couple of hours outside, and I ended up helping her move a shrub from one spot to another. We both worked up an impressive sweat. There are pictures. I’ve got to remember to ask her for copies, so maybe I can add them here.
We had lunch together, and then started on another wedding project. We were cutting tulle lengths and sorting them out for use in making chair decorations. We got a little over half done. We’ll probably work on that some more tomorrow. Thomas and I both will be going over for some more wedding prep fun. At some point Bethany and another woman, Inez, showed up with the dress. It looks incredible on Bethany, better than the pictures in the catalog. It was fun spending time with women, chatting and keeping our hands busy.

What a busy but good weekend. 

I've spent most of it with my good friend Ann, whom I really haven't been able to spend time with much the last year, and her daughter Bethany, the bride-to-be.  Yes, the same Bethany that comes every other week and helps with the cleaning.  Or, some weeks, does what little cleaning gets done around here.  I love to spend time with Ann, and I hate that we go so long sometimes without seeing each other.  But she has a grandchild she takes care of and I have trips to hospitals to make.

The wedding is the 18th, and Ann and Bethany are trying to do too much all by themselves.  The bridesmaids and cousins and so on that usually help with this sort of stuff are out of town or busy, and Bethany doesn't have any sisters.  So I'm pitching in as the Crazy ole Aunt, and Thomas is helping because he doesn't have aything else pressing right now, and he also has a small stake in the wedding.  Well, maybe bigger than small.  He's the musician.  He'll be playing the piano during the ceremony, for the prelude hymn, procession, etc. and during the reception he's going to play violin music.  I'm hoping word gets around and he gets more "gigs" that might actually pay.  He's doing this one as a gift to Bethany and also Ann.  She's been really good to him over the years, and a happy, positive force in his life.

Pretty much all day Saturday I spent with them, forgetting entirely that Thomas had a Pizza party to go to and I was in the only car he likes to drive.  By the time he called and asked where was I it was too late to get home and him get to the party even reasonably late.  I felt so bad I took him to Ruby Tuesdays and We had their fabulous, cooked to order burger.  They will actually cook you an almost rare burger, the way I like them.  Thomas likes Medium rare, and that's not as easy to get as you think it is.  Nobody wants the liability of serving you meat that might still be pink.  But at Ruby Tuesdays' they let you be a grown-up and make your own decisions about meat. Then, as we were moaning about how good the food was, I sprung it on him that it was also a little bit of a bribe, and that I wanted him to come back to Ann's with me on Sunday to help with things like putting together favors and painting latticework for a backdrop, etc.  He didn't really need a bribe, he loves Ann too, and doesn't mind being helpful, but it was fun to go eat our bribes!

Sunday we did just that.  We spent the morning running around my house cleaning and doing laundry and the afternoon sorting flowers and putting together fru-frus and nailing and painting old lattice work (well, Bruce, Ann's husband, did most of the actual painting with a giant paint sprayer, but Thomas did lifting and toting and nailing and moving and such).  But we also had cake, left over from the bridal shower.  And Thomas left for a couple of hours to go practice at the Fret Shop with his medieval music group (Consort a L'Ancienne). So it wasn't only work.

Today for a while we're going back and helping cut and tie tulle for chair decorations, etc. When I say they were doing it all by themselves, I meant ALL.  They do have a caterer, and a cake person, and a florist for the live flowers, but most of the flower decorations are being put together right there at Ann's.  And thy bought a wedding gown, and bridesmaid gowns, but Ann is doing the alterations on the bridesmaid gowns, and sewing the flower girl dress.  I'm preaching at her about being able to delegate a little better, but it's too late now! So, once again, I'm glad I only have boys.

I know it’s petty. Compared to how bad things were, complaining about today’s migraine is like someone who’s jst spent months with broken legs up in traction then complaining about a sprained ankle. But still, a sprain can leave you unable to walk. And today has been one of those migraine days where none of the various drugs or combinations has completely done the job. I keep trying to focus on the fact that this will be an isolated incident, as opposed to a four-days-a-week affair. I just hate that I’ve wasted most of a day not being able to think clearly.

I started reading Freakonomics today. It’s immediately interesting. Both of my boys have read it and raved about it. But it keeps being loaned to someone else before I can catch it. So I had to order it on PaperBackSwap. Which is okay, I have a lot of credits to use. I’ve been letting Mat order books, and he’s managed to order 17-18, but that still leaves me about 15-16 credits.

Speaking of PBS.com, I got an App for it. (I love my new iPhone toy.) Now instead of logging onto the site and entering the 10-digit ISBN, I just aim my phone at the bar code, and it beeps and the book is listed! It is entirely too cool. I threatened to scan every book in my house, but I don’t want to swap most of them. I wonder if there’s a app for just scanning them into a spreadsheet or database?

Thomas and I also spent some time calming down Bethany. She’s getting married in a couple of weeks, and she’s about ready to turn into Bridezilla. Thomas is the wedding musician. He’s playing piano before and during the wedding, then playing violin during the reception. He played a few things for her today, and reassured her that at least the music would be beautiful.

ETA: There is a book database app, called iBook!  Scanning as we speak.

I'm going to write something every day.  Warning, those of you who read this, I'm sure that will guarantee at least some really bad entries.  Similar to this one.

Sometimes I don't write, because I think, "Who cares? No one wants to read that, or will."  Sometimes I don't write because I'm afraid someone might read it.  Maybe in both cases I'm just lazy and rationalizing.

Rook wrote me a story.  I gave her a plot bunny, basically the song, "Behind Blue Eyes" by the Who, especially the line, "My love is vengeance, that's never free."  She wrote a perfect Henry/Christina story from it.  I'm savoring it just to myself now, but I'll probably let her publish it somewhere too.

We (Thomas and I) just got back from Atlas Shrugged part 1. It was definitely worth seeing. It's condensed, you don't get much of the interesting side stories, (like WIllie is a more major charcter in the book) and back story (the three of the, Dagney, Frisco, and WIllie as little kids) so it feels a little rushed. But. I still liked it. I hear it's getting awful reviews. Everyone should see it to judge for themselves. The horror of the down-slide of society builds more slowly in the book. As one reviewer says, "The book boils the frog slowly while the movie throws the frog in the boiling water." But that's the usual nature of long book versus movie version.

Notes
You probably don't care about any of this stuff, but...
This algorithm is slightly less than perfect. To even out the quiz results I'm assuming the short phases (full/new moon, quarters) last just as long as the transitional phases (waning crescent). I mean come on how many times have you looked up at a full moon and wondered if it was really only 98% illuminated?

In addition, if you were born in between phases it might be a bit off because it doesn't consider the location, time of day, or timezone you were born in. If you care deeply there are more accurate ways to get this information (like this).

Also, my algorithm does not take into consideration the fact that the sun's gravity sometimes makes the moon's orbit more or less eccentric, changing the length of a synodic month by nearly 13 hours. So while the algorithm is good if you were born in recent history, it may drift off if you're a vampire or something, so you should consult NASA's tables of moon cycles covering the last 6000 years.

Final note: the personality descriptions are based on astrology, which is not really scientific. But you probably know that.