Bye Bye!

There it goes! My gallbladder has been whisked out of me, though how they take it out through those tiny little slashes I can't figure out. I'm just glad it's gone. It was a quick stabbing pain on Sunday that first alerted me that something was wrong. I tried to blame food poisoning though the pain was high up where the ribs meet in the middle and a little to the right. I went to bed and in the morning thought I felt fine. Walked the dog, drank two cups of coffee, and jumped in the shower. An even worse attack ensued in the shower and I still had conditioner in my hair....I got all sweaty and thought I was going to pass out with that one; also very nauseous. Jumped out of the shower and puked in the porcelain bowl....all the while thinking....I can't die now! I still have conditioner in my hair. When I gathered enough oomph to get back in the shower and rinse out the conditioner, I quickly finished the shower, still thinking I was dying. Grabbed a towel and fell on the bed. I had to call work and tell them I wasn't going to make it in....apparently some sort of bug had a hold of me.

As I lay there, the stabbing sensation started to subside and was more tolerable. Still, I laid there, not daring to move. Then my mind started thinking of what it could be...I knew it wasn't my heart, not that kind of pain; I take Prilosec every day so it shouldn't be GERD; oh wait a minute, my mom and grandmother both had their gall bladders out so there's a family history....maybe that's it. Of course I had to get up and check out on the computer the symptoms. hmmmmm, sounds like it could be that. But then again, I've been grieving a lot lately. Sometimes grief finds your weak spots and acts upon them. Is this something I can just ride out?

I slept all day Monday except for taking the D dog out twice to relieve herself. I felt okay not putting anything in my belly, no food, not even water. J came home and brought ginger ale. I tried a couple of sips of that and was right back where I started with the stabbing pain again. I guess I can't have anything in my stomach. Go to sleep some more; slept all night too. Sheesh!

When morning came, of course I felt fine. Empty stomach. Need to take meds so I downed those with water and ate a piece of toast with jam on it, no fatty foods, just in case it's gall bladder. Seemed okay. Got to my T appointment and half way into it, the pain starts stabbing at me again. She notices I seem to be in considerable pain. Do I want to stop the session? God no! I have to pay for this hour, I'm not cutting it short!! She asks symptoms, thinks it's gall bladder, advises go to pcp. I go to work. Stubborn ass! I lasted about 2 hours at work with all this food around me. It was birthday celebration day at work where everyone brings in all this food that is not necessarily good for you but sure tastes just fine! I couldn't even look at it. I called my pcp. Got in almost immediately. Had another attack there while they are poking and prodding me and taking blood.

They send me for an ultrasound, also suspect gall bladder but may be pancreatitis, an ulcer, or a number of other things. The ultrasound was agony! Poking and prodding with that damn wand telling me, the kidneys look good, the liver looks good, oh, so does your abdominal aorta and pancreas. Marvelous! What about the friggin' gall bladder? Oh yeah, that's your culprit. It's full of stones and look at the size of that one!

PCP gets a wet read and sends me to the ED so the surgeon on call can consult and decide when to operate. Hey....this isn't what I set out to do today. I spent most of the evening in the ED on a very uncomfortable pad about two inches thick. My J, sweet daughter, comes to stay with me, waiting to hear what's going to happen. Surgeon wants to admit me but no beds at the moment. Give her demerol for the pain to help her out. Oh yeah, that helps just fine with the stabbing pain but my back and ass are not benefiting from it....they are killing me from this supposed bed. Around 11 a bed opens up. Someone left AMA. Oh yay! A real bed.

Being the poopaphobe that I am, lucky me gets a roommate who is prepping for a colonoscopy. She's crapping all over the place and keeps ringing the nurses to get her more disposable panties. They finally tell her to just stay on the commode because it will be hours before she is through.....hours? How am I going to sleep? And of course, telling her to stay on the commode just conjures up notions of that lady that was fused to the toilet seat in the news recently. Hoo boy! What a night.

So I wait and wait with no food no water no ice chips until the surgeon can fit me in; I'm an add-on but he doesn't want to send me home. I'm there, I'm prepped and can't eat without intense pain, let's take it out before it compromises her liver....yes, please do!

The wonderful folks I work with called me all during my day of waiting, letting me know they were thinking of me, offering words of encouragement, making me laugh. Thank you so much. It's nice to have a support group.

J comes to stay with me after surgery, but they kick her out at 8:30. Visiting hours are over at 8. I get to have ice chips AND apple juice--a feast! I can't say enough for morphine either.

Did I mention my surgeon looks like he's about 16? Awesome doc and super reputation. Great bedside manner but I so wanted to ask him how old he was. C'mon he's gotta be late 30s, early 40s, but damn he looks 16, maybe 18. Doesn't matter. He did a good job and let me go home today cautioning to take it easy.

I think--this time--I will listen.

My Big Sister

Sometimes the best people are taken away before you have the chance to say goodbye properly. My beautiful sister, my hero died suddenly at home alone. Apparently, she knew she had some health issues but didn't share that knowledge with us; didn't want anyone to worry. The last time I saw her was at a niece's wedding in September. As always, I told her how much I loved her, that she was my hero and she just laughed. She didn't think she was unusual; she didn't realize that she was a special person to so many of us that knew her and loved her. Her blonde hair framed her beautiful face so well and her sparkling green eyes were always crinkled at the corners, her smile showing there as well.

She survived breast cancer and the senseless murder of one of her sons and she showed me the way to survive the sudden death of my own son. She always reached out and opened her heart and home to those who needed some help along their path. Always a smile on her face and a readiness to find humor in most anything difficult as a way to cope. It's better to laugh than to cry we said. She authored a few scholastic books and told me about the children she interviewed, some blind, some deaf, all with some lack of function that we all take for granted; she said THEY were the heroes, the ones that embraced life and didn't even realize that others might find them challenged.

We used to say that the sisters would all grow old together; we'd buy a house with a large porch and many rockers and we would sit in those chairs and rock together making each other laugh, remembering all the good times. I think she was the glue that held us together. I hope she's getting a house like that ready for all of us once we pass on and can join her again.

She's still my hero.

Chocolate!!!

We had an awesome time at the 19th Annual Chocolate Festival in North Conway last weekend! Couldn't have asked for a better day. Clean, crisp air with blue, blue skies and lots of sunshine. We ate a lumberjack type breakfast before heading to the trails. All that anticipated snowshoeing we figured we had better have some good food in our bellies before indulging in the chocolate frenzy.

The ski touring center was our first stop and they had two different chocolate stations set up there. One let you select either handmade chocolate covered almonds, or handmade chocolate malted milk balls. The other had a little tiny white box with two chocolate confections in it, from a place called The Chocolate Bean out of Epping, NH, or chocolate brownies, chocolate haystacks, or little wrapped chocolate squares with the name of the inn that provided them on its wrapper. Nice start!

We set out on our snowshoes with a bunch of other folks heading towards an inn and a b & b. By the time we got there I needed about a gallon of water and some good chocolate. They had a decadent chocolate bundt type cake with hand cranked vanilla ice cream and strawberries on top...super! They also had a few pitchers of water going around to slake our thirst. Across the road was an inn with a chocolate fondue going. They had pretzels, strawberries, bananas, cookies and apples to dip in the rich, Belgian chocolate. Yum!

We set out for the pink house which was a b & b in the process of renovations. Very gracious folks with fresh baked shortbread cookies drizzled with dark chocolate, turtle brownies and chocolate crinkle cookies. The kitchen had beautiful granite countertops and a smaller kitchen off the kitchen.....this lady planned on doing a lot of cooking and baking for her future guests. A piano in the front room and a roaring fireplace to toast your toes in front of with wing backed chairs to keep the heat around you...so cozy and welcoming.

We snowshoed around for about 2 1/2 hours before one of our party decided the snowshoes were too much; her heel was bothering her and she figureed walking would be easier. The trails were packed from all the snowshoers and x/c skiers using them so it was easy to walk on them. Next my hip started to feel the effects from walking with snowshoes so I decided to walk and carry my snowshoes until we got back to the car. Someone else's hip started aching and one of the others started falling down a lot, so the decision was made to drive to the last three stops in order to get through before the cutoff time, 4:00.

We had some incredible organic chocolate at our next to last stop at a natural foods market, called Aphrodite's almighty organic chocolate. A small portion, heart-shaped, but packed with intense chocolate. It was a perfect sized portion.

Hot cocoa, real hot cocoa made with milk, sugar and cocoa powder the old fashioned way awaited us at the last stop along with chocolate chip cookies and some organic chocolate bars. I ended up bringing several chocolate items home with me since I had more than enough chocolate that we had to eat at the places we stopped, it wasn't portable, the cake, the fondue, the melt in your mouth chocolate shell with raspberry gel mousse inside.

It was a great day with lots of girlie girl camaraderie, much needed with the work situation as it is. We stopped for some real food on the way back to our homes and decided that next year, we will try x/c skiing our way through the 20th Annual Chocolate Festival. Chocolate without guilt....gotta love it!

Work Woes

You think you have a pretty good spot in the work field. You enjoy MOST of the people you work with; your supervisor is the best boss you ever had, the people you see vary from day to day, making it interesting and unpredictable. Not bad. All of a sudden, a meeting is called and you are told your supervisor has been fired; fired and you are not going to be told the reasoning behind it. His supervisor says it was "sudden and unexpected." You know in your gut it's a crappy deal and he didn't deserve it. You know the subversive behavior he was dealing with from some of your co-workers and you know that has something to do with this decision. Scumbags! How can they mess with someone's livelihood like that and sit there smirking? WTF? Every other person he worked with in every department of our company thinks he was fantastic, a forward thinker, able to see the big picture, a humanist, a very caring individual who had more integrity than any of those scumbags have in their pinky fingers. WHY? It feels like a death and we are not being allowed to mourn the passing of this relationship we all had, well, most of us anyway, minus the scumbags. When one of us is brave enough to state that we believe the SB had something to do with this decision and it's very upsetting since there is no validity to it, only that they were not allowed to have their spoiled way in the workplace -- because they couldn't see the big picture -- that their requests were selfish and childish and wouldn't do a thing to help our clients and our revenue status; when that is stated we are told we can't be mad at those people; we have to be mad at HIS supervisor who canned him. Does anyone in upper management have a brain? You CAN'T tell someone who they have to be mad at. You can't say that you aren't entitled to be angry. You can't expect that anger to just go away if you ignore it. Anger is going to come out in some way, shape or form and I think those scumbags and the stupid supervisor had better watch out because they may get a whole lot more anger acted out than they bargained for. It doesn't help that you find things out slowly, like the supervisor's statement that it was sudden and unexpected is a total bald faced lie. She had every intention of firing him as her scapegoat. She has her pet scumbags that report to her every little thing that goes on in our place of business, of course, putting their nasty little spin on things to make everyone else look bad and themselves look good. It doesn't feel safe. It doesn't feel like you can trust upper management at all. When no reason is given, it makes you think maybe you will be the next to go, with no reason given. You find out that all of a sudden revenue is a huge issue; now everyone that is salaried has to increase their hours or decrease their pay. Everything we have worked for to establish our business as forward thinking, innovative and better than run of the mill similar practices is all shot to hell. We are going to be just like everyone else where the bottom line is the almighty dollar. To hell with the clients and their feelings, just run them through, collect their money and get on to the next one. HOW is that supposed to benefit the overall good of our organization? I came to this place because it was a caring, sensitive place that held clients in high regard, a place where management listened to each employee and valued their input and was willing to try their suggestions. Now it's just a scary place and I can't wait to get out. The resume is dusted off and the feelers are out there. I can't work for someone I can't trust in the least bit. The scumbags seem quite evil now instead of just annoyances. I suppose everything happens for a reason and something better is out there for me and also for my supervisor, the best boss I ever had.

Snowshoes!

I love my new snowshoes, built for women. On Sunday, Daisy and I took off through the woods for an adventure, she leaping and bounding like a reindeer, me trying out the snowshoes, taking baby steps so I could make a sort of trail for someone who might want to walk through the woods after us. Once we got to a snowmobile trail someone left, I was able to take normal steps. My hips hurt a bit at first but then everything quieted down and I was off and, well, not exactly running, but walking at a brisk pace, enjoying the cold, crisp air and the beautiful sunshiny day. I think snowshoeing through the woods in VT with my friend J would be a really nice adventure. I have to train for the Chocolate Festival up in North Conway at the end of February. Some of the women I work with and I are making a girls’ weekend and going up for an overnight at an inn and then snowshoeing through the Chocolate Festival. It’s the 19th annual CF so it must be pretty good. Hey, anything with chocolate has got to be good! One can either x/c ski or snowshoe around this 5 miles course which has stops at several inns and ski places along the way, each with their own special version of a chocolate treat….YUM! A wonderful guiltless way of enjoying chocolate and the outdoors. I only traveled about a mile today so I need to get more training in before the CF. I want to be able to snowshoe the whole way, though they do have a shuttle bus for those that can’t quite finish the journey. I think I can do it, if I can make stops along the way to rest and eat chocolate delicacies. That should spur me on to the next stop and the next and the next….

New Tires

I need new tires for my car. I barely made it through last winter with these crappy tires I have that are GREAT in rain but so lousy in snow. I have no traction in the snow, just slip slide my way through, hoping no one makes me stop because I'll never get going again. I've gotten expert at steering out of slides though.

My mechanic gave me a price of $127 per tire to replace the crappy tires with just decent all season tires, nothing special, just decent. Yikes! He says that includes mounting and balancing. Big whoop. He would charge me every time he had to rotate them, every second oil change. So I figure I should go to someplace that specializes in tires that does free rotation for the life of the tires. I shop online just to get an idea of how much or how little I can get away with since I have to replace the crap tires sooner or later, even if I make it through this winter with them. The cheapest price I find is $82.50 a tire including mounting, balancing and free rotation. That's still a lotta clams to shell out! J's tires were only about $50 a tire for decent ones. Why do mine have to be so expensive?

I'm so tired of worrying about money all the time. I owe, I owe, I owe. I think I need to play the lottery or something. I would love to pay everything off and start fresh with just utility bills and a mortgage. Ah, life would be much easier....

Survival of the Second Year

Yesterday was the second year anniversary of my son's body being discovered frozen in Colorado. It doesn't seem to be any easier to get through the day. I am still surprised by emotional upheavals from time to time, the kind where it sneaks up on you and you can't control it in any way. I get the feeling sometimes that people think I should be over it and moving on, but I don't think that will happen. I will never be "over it." I can intellectualize all day long about it, but my heart still aches. The day before I spent the day agonizing over my daughter's surgery. I went with her to help her get through it, but also, somehow, I felt that if I was close by, then nothing bad would happen to her. I know she will recover from this and be all the better for it, but I wish she didn't have pain. If I could take her pain away, I would. The day surgery staff were so good to us. They took really good care of her and when it came time to leave, after getting J in the car and buckled in, I closed the door and turned to the nurse who wheeled her out and said "thank you so much for taking such good care of my daughter." The tears started to flow and I knew I had to stop them quickly so that I could drive her home. This time of year isn't a whole lot of fun for me now, but I put on the happy face for the grandkids. I want the holidays to be fun and enjoyable for them. Tomorrow they are going to decorate the tree with us. I will be my best self for them. Life is for the living.

Halloween?

Okay, what happened to Halloween? The night before, we got two little trick or treaters. On Halloween night, no one. Is it really that bad out there that we can't have kids going door to door? We have at least a dozen or so kids here in the condo complex. I thought we would at least have those kids knocking on the door. I hope the kids at least got to go to a party or two if they didn't get to trick or treat.

I'm still waiting for photos of R and K in their Halloween outfits. I didn't even get a visit from them! I feel gypped!

Reiki

I can't believe I forgot to mention Reiki as part of my summer adventures. I had my first Reiki attunement at the beginning of August. I have been working on myself, my husband and my daughter ever since. It's been wonderful. I also do some Reiki on the grandkids when I get a chance, and on my dog, when she is laying close to me. I've had two experiences with my daughter's PC where I used every trick in my computer skills to try to fix problems and couldn't get it to work. So I tried Reiki as a last resort and lo and behold, it fixed the problems! No other explanation for it. I had chronic wrist pain and was getting acupuncture treatments for it. I started doing the self Reiki treatments daily and before I knew it, the wrist pain was gone. I wasn't even thinking about my wrists, just doing the daily Reiki as my Reiki master told me to. She says Reiki goes where it is most needed. I guess she's right. The more I practice and the more I read about it, the better I seem to be able to act as a channel for Reiki energy. It's so awesome.

Ghoullog at Cranmore

Halloween --- time for scary stuff! Four of us from work decided to try this scare fest at Cranmore Mountain this year since another fellow worker's family created it and worked on it for months. We bought our tickets online and all traveled together in D's Hummer (cool ride!)up to North Conway. We stopped to eat at the Muddy Moose restaurant, complete with dead animal heads and such on the walls....kind of Bugaboo Creek-ish. Good food though. When we got to Cranmore it was pitch dark except for the glorious star-strung sky. It's so clear and beautiful in the mountains. They had changed the resort's pub name for the event to the Boo-bonic Pub and it was appropriately decorated. The actors stayed in character the entire time and it had a Nazi Germany flavor to it (thus Ghoullog). They shouted out commands and strutted around the pub where we were all waiting in line for our chairlift ride to the top of the mountain where part of the ghoul fest took place. I made the mistake of mimicking one of the Nazi ghouls, with blood dripping from his sooty eyes and ears as he pushed his way through our cluster. I didn't realize he had overheard me and he whirled around, yelled "Silence!" at me then shot me with his gun! It was so loud and so sudden, I screamed along with about half the rest of the crowd and trembled while waiting for my hearing to return. THAT will teach me to be a smart ass! They did such an awesome job on this scary adventure---it was well worth the trip and we completely enjoyed being scared. The only part that totally freaked me out was the part where one of the Nazi soldiers started shouting at me "Go to the left! Go to the left! " and then proceeded to shove me against the wall. The wall started to give and I was getting pushed from behind, while I thought I was going to be smothered by these strange rubbery walls. I managed to finally push my way through , screaming all the way, to the other side where walls of cockroaches waited for us, along with more cockroaches littering the floor while a strobe light made it feel like the room was moving around us and the floor was swaying. It was so freaky! Of course, the rest of the women got to go home and sleep with their husbands for the most part. I got to go home to an empty house except for my dog, who loves me to pieces but I doubt she would do much to save me. She would probably cower behind me. You know once your imagination is stimulated like that, you're bound to have vivid dreams and nightmares. I highly recommend this good scare for jump starting your adrenalin -- no kids under 10, no pregnant women -- sorry JG, maybe next year!

Gray Hair

It hardly seems fair that I have to color my hair to cover the gray. I used to color it just because I was trying to darken it and stop the red highlights from showing....they show through anyway. Now I realize there is a whole lot of gray hairs coming in. When did that happen? Should I let it grow in or should I continue to color? I don't feel old enough to be gray. Will it make me look a lot older? Should I do this gracefully or go into grayness kicking and screaming all the way?

Summer Gone

The whole summer has gone by and I haven't written anything since June 7. Shame on me! It's been a busy summer. Lots of hiking and letterboxing, some walks at the beach, but no swimming this year. Next year I will have to carve out time to spend lolling on the beaches. Have hiked on Mt. Aggie, Parker Mountain, trails around Pickering Pond, Mt. Isinglas, Vaughan Woods, Bauneg Beg, the Urban Forestry, the Wm. Champlain Forest, Odiorne Point and other nice places. Got to kayak with my co-workers in lieu of the Christmas party we never had last December. I vote for kayaking again instead of a stuffy indoor party during the already busy holidays. We had a beautiful day and lots of fun in spite of fighting the ocean currents. Then we got to eat seafood afterwards....life is good! J and I had a nice long weekend in September at the Cape for my niece's wedding. It was a beautiful wedding, a fun-filled weekend and lots of decadent food! It was so nice to see my niece and her husband so thoroughly enjoying themselves. That's the way to have a wedding. They invited everyone to the rehearsal dinner the night before and then hosted a farewell breakfast the morning after, before they headed to Bermuda. Must have cost a fortune but everyone had such a great time. I'm really glad we were able to be there for it all. I finally got to see the Blue Man Group last weekend. J promised to take me 7 years ago when we were first dating.....somehow the years went by without it happening. So, when the hospital sponsored a trip to BMG via bus, I jumped on the chance to go. J couldn't go, worked the night before and had to work that night, so I went with a friend/co-worker and we had a blast. Sat in the second row with ponchos on in case of big splashes. It's so interactive and so intense! The little kid in me came out and I found I was quite intimidated by the Blue Man on the left. He looked so stern and I didn't know what to expect, knowing it was an interactive show. I was trying not to stand out in the crowd so as not to be selected for on-stage performance. Still, I ended up with a Blue Man on my head.....the very same stern one who intimidated me. He jumped into the crowd and was staring L right in the eye while I cringed in the next seat. Next thing I knew, he was using my head to push himself off onto the next row and crawled his way through the audience that way, stepping on the chair arms and using people's heads for balance. Yikes! At least I wasn't the guy that got zipped into a coverall, strung up by his feet and painted blue all over and then swung to hit up against a canvas and make "art", or the poor girl who had to sit on stage while they learned how to open and eat a Twinkie with her teaching them how. Anyway, awesome drumming and entertainment. Loved the show. Would go again with J so he can see them. So now Fall is here and I'm thinking of my Massachusetts good friend J and hoping we can have a weekend together at her sister's place. Perfect time of year for it and I miss her. It's too long in between visits with me here and her in western Mass. Apple picking was good this year. Took my stepdaughter with me this time and we sampled our way through the orchards deciding which variety of apple was the best. She chose the Honey Crisp and I chose the Cortland, though the Honey Crisps were a close second. I think I might go back for the Northern Spys when they are ready, pretty soon. We could probably get a pumpkin at the same time.

Another birthday

The birthdays are the hardest. Holidays aren't great either but when you wake up with tears already forming, you know it's going to be tough to get through it. We headed for the beach fairly early.

It was beautiful weather for walking on the beach. Daisy thoroughly enjoys herself. Watching her THINK she could catch a bird, racing into the water, forgetting how far out she was going, with waves slapping at her, then scooting back out and continuing to try to follow the flight of this bird, was comical. She may not be a hunting dog, but she thought she was a bird dog today.

J and I found several nice pieces of sea glass, some quite tiny, but others were decent sized. Sea glass is the object I covet this year. We had the year of the starfish, the year of shells and a couple of years of rocks. This year will be sea glass.

I thought about spreading his ashes on the beach to mix with the ocean, but I'm not yet ready to part with them, maybe I'll never be ready. Time will tell.

Letterboxing

Have any of you heard of letterboxing? It's all over the US and England and who knows where else. I first heard of it when R was about a year old. I mentioned it to J because I thought it sounded like a cool way to get out and about with the kid, getting fresh air and exercise. J pooh-poohed the idea at that time. Now R is 9 and started letterboxing with his Cub Scout troup. Now it's a cool thing to do. To be fair, J and B do a lot of hiking and have brought the kids along on the easier hikes, so it's not like they don't get out a lot. But this way, it's more like a treasure hunt and the kids get to stamp their stamps into the logbooks of the letterboxes they find and also stamp the ones they find into their own logbooks. Anyway---we've all carved our own rubber stamps (see my butterfly?) and picked our "trail names" and made log books for our letterbox finds. I managed to get JH to go letterboxing with me. He started out grumbling about it, not wanting any part of it and now, he wants to plant a letterbox or two of his own. He likes figuring out the clues and using the compass and all that good stuff. I think he should carve his own stamp and make his own log book. We go out each weekend and find a letterbox or two--there are lots right in our own area! We get our exercise and fresh air and Daisy has fun romping through the woods we usually find ourselves in. When JH and I go to the Cape in September, we're going to check out some letterbox clues down in that area and see how many we can find during our 3 day stay. Maybe by then, he'll have his own carved stamp to make his mark in the letterboxing world.

Channel F

I've gone all fall and winter without catching the dreaded cold viruses going around, up until now. I've been taking astragulus root capsules, (recommended by the physican I work for) and it has helped me get this far. Unfortunately, my co-worker ended up with a huge, ugly cold and apparently passed it along to me! I avoided all those cold germs from the patients, from other coworkers, from grandkids, from my stepdaughter and my husband, but this last one apparently got through. I'm probably not as bad off as I would be if I weren't taking the astragulus, but still, I hate cold symptoms. I slept a lot yesterday and still went to bed early and kept the thought in my mind that I would not have trouble breathing while I slept. I hate mouth breathing. So, in and out of sleep all night, waking myself up with noisy snoring and snorting and finding one nostril blocked. Each time I woke up I went through this thing in my head -- gotta keep Channel F open for breathing. I would then either sniff in really hard or get a kleenex and blow out really hard and open up the offending nostril, aka Channel F, then go back to sleep. It was like I was at the center of the command post and needed to keep an eye on all Channels. OMG, where the heck did that come from? Whatever, I guess it worked enough for me to get some sleep, though I still feel pretty tired today. If I'm lucky, just a couple more days and I'll be back to normal and won't have to patrol Channel F any more.

Tax Season

I hate tax season. I was really thinking this year would be different since J and I got married last year and bought a condo so we'd have a tax break. Well, I guess that would have been true had I not gotten a disability settlement from 2001--the one we bought cabinets, countertops, lighting and a dishwasher for the kitchen with. That made enough of a difference in our tax bracket to give us the tiniest of refunds. I guess we should be grateful we didn't end up paying. Now we will have to save up to buy the materials to install the new kitchen floor I thought we would do with our tax refund...ha! Don't count your chickens before they're hatched---why haven't I learned that yet? We're trying to save for a vacation in St Kitts next January. We'll only have to pay for airfare, food and entertainment since we are staying at J's sister's time share that sleeps 8. We may be scrimping and saving all year between the flooring and the vacation, but I am determined to have that vacation in the tropics! This winter has been exceptionally blue for me.

Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking

Mom was rushed to the ER because she "fainted" while grocery shopping. What happened was her heart stopped beating and then started up again, several times. The grocery store personnel had to go out to the car to get my dad. He was reading a magazine, letting her do the "woman's work." UGH! She ended up being airflighted by helicopter to a cardiac hospital where they wanted to do a cardiac cath to see what was going on. Her kidneys weren't up to the amount of dye necessary to explore so they installed a pacemaker until they could try again on Monday. I went away for the weekend to visit a dear friend 175 miles away and called my dad while on the road, hoping to get a number at the hospital so I could talk with my mom. Had to leave a message since he didn't answer and he never called me back all weekend. Through sibling emails today, I was able to obtain a phone number and immediately called her to see how she was feeling. She said they put a stent into the main artery into her heart since it was blocked -- yeah, just a fainting spell mom -- and she was feeling much better in that department. But what was most impressive to her was her helicopter ride to the cardiac hospital! She loved it! She thought it was very exciting and would like to do it again, except she says, it's probably too expensive. That's what I like best about my mom -- she always finds something good in whatever is happening to her....takes a licking and keeps on ticking, now with a little help from some spare parts. I'm just glad she's still looking forward to adventures.

9 Years Old How Did That Happen?

I can't believe R is 9 years old today. It just isn't possible. I called to wish him a happy birthday even though we celebrated it early on Sunday. I was slightly crushed when he acted annoyed that he had to talk with me. Tore my heart out -- that's what he did!! After a few minutes talking with J, she handed the phone back to him and all of a sudden he was animated and telling me all about his new Lego sets and what we were going to do when I babysit him and K this weekend....phew! I thought I'd lost touch with him already and wasn't ready to let go of our closeness. I guess I just caught him at a bad moment.

1999 Saab 

In memory of my 1999 Saab

That dratted hailstorm on July 11 ruined so many vehicles; my Saab was one of them. The damage from the hail was more to repair than for the insurance company to total and offer me a settlement. Turns out NH has a stupid salvage law on the books that says if a person buys their car back with a salvage title on it, they have to have EVERYTHING repaired that is listed on the insurance estimate before they can put the car back on the road. So....if you have a loan on the car, and the amount of money you have to buy the car back with exceeds the amount they offer as a total loss, you are screwed! I have a loan of $6200 left; they want me to pay them $2400 to buy the car back and are only totaling it for $8100. After all that, I would STILL have to repair everything to drive the car again.....they estimated the repairs to be over $6500. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. I loved my car, probably too much. Now, replacing it, I will make every effort not to love another car too much. Obviously there's no guarantee that the curse of hail won't rain down on us again and we'll have to go through all of this nuisance again. I loved my Saab. I waited so long to have one. I chose her carefully from about 50 Saabs that I researched and investigated. I only had her for a year and four months before the hail came along. She was such a pleasure to look at and to drive around in. She kept my butt warm in the winter and cool in the summer. She had such great pick up and traction control and kept me safely on the road even while I was lead-footing it. I felt SO safe inside her and confident that we operated as well together as any human/machine combination could. I have to let them take her away now because she is dented all over with lights broken. I still love her even though she has lost her beauty but it's time to say goodbye. I will miss her greatly and think of her fondly. I found a new Saab with almost as many bells and whistles as my old Saab. It is a year newer and cost me less money so in the long run, I guess I am better off. It's an automatic instead of a 5 speed so I compromised there. It doesn't have a 6 CD changer, just a plain old CD player, another compromise. But it has power everything like the old one, a sun/moon roof and leather seats with the woodgrain dashboard and almost as much pick up as the old one, and it's dark blue with tan leather interior...so no more complaining, just get on with life. I'll get the new car soon and recycle all the 95 Carfax reports I used for research before buying. Oh I think I need a new printer cartridge too!