Today, Monday, I have to take the boy with the problem for a follow up appointment. It was supposed to be Thursday but the people we are seeing have some other thing suddenly happening that day so it got moved.

Today is a federal holiday [...]]]> Let me tell you about my plans for this week

Today, Monday, I have to take the boy with the problem for a follow up appointment. It was supposed to be Thursday but the people we are seeing have some other thing suddenly happening that day so it got moved.

Today is a federal holiday & the kids have the day off. So I have to take both boys with me.

*sigh*

You have no idea how bad of an idea this is. First there is the hour plus drive to the appointment during which they will verbally poke & prod one another until I am driven to that most stereotypical of parental responses “Don’t make me pull this car over!!!” or make them put their heads in their laps until I say different, which I have been known to push for as long as humanly possible just to enjoy the silence.

Then we get to the office, where, with a 3pm appointment it is exceedingly unlikely we will be seeing anyone before 4. Allowing the entire waiting room to experience what I did on the drive down. By the time problem boy is interacting with the docs, non problem boy is totally over all this sitting around and bouncing off the walls, distracting his brother & it’s not like I can take him out of the room for the duration as my input is needed with the docs as well.

And did I mention it snowed here last night?

Tomorrow I get to see the chiropractor for an evaluation and general spine cracking. Then I get to argue with my insurance about how many times they will allow me to see him on their dime. Possibly this will lead to another visit to my PCP for a letter recommending I see the chiropractor, even though she already said that the last time I saw her. I don’t know if she forgets these things or wants to talk to me about it some more or wants the billable hours, but somehow if I don’t leave her office with a signed note at the time I cannot just call up a week later and ask for a fax to be sent saying what I was already told.

Wednesday is a horrible, no good, very bad day & just thinking about it gives me the heebie jeebies.

I have to go to the dentist.

Part of my back molar broke off. No doubt weakened by years of grinding my teeth and a somewhat whacked filling job a couple decades ago. The thing is, that filling covers most of my molar, except that corner that broke off, and I am terrified they are going to say they can’t just replace the filling but I need a crown. I don’t know what horrifies me more, the whole distressing  experience of getting the crown or the truly appalling experience of paying for it all out of pocket.

So much for paying for a mud room with our tax refund money.

Should there be a dime left of that refund I will be using it Thursday when I take my car to the shop for it’s oil change & regular maintenance. I’m getting the transmission flushed. This will be at least $179, with a possible additional $129 for a new filter if necessary.

Any odds on whether that filter will be necessary?

Friday so far is open. No doubt the fall out from my various activities earlier in the week will take up Friday.

On the upside, sorta, the tower has been cranked back down.  After a prolonged conversation with the ISP a week or so ago that more or less ended with “Whatever. You can’t make it any worse; we consider that tower a loss.” we adjusted the tower and set some 50lb bags of sand on the top & middle sections to encourage the bend to straighten out. It worked for the top section! But the middle has bends going in more than one direction & we couldn’t figure out how lay it down to set counter pressure one way without making the bend worse in another way. So we decided to crank the whole thing down into the bottom section, which is straight. The hope is that,sandwiched between the straight bottom section and mostly straight top section, the equal pressure on all sides will help straighten the middle section.

Plus if it can all be collapsed into the bottom section, it can be set up again & re-erected.

But unfortunately the bends were such that it could not be cranked down with the tower crank. DH had to use a ‘come along’ winch to fore the middle section into the bottom section & there is no way to apply force to get it back out if the tower is upright.

So we are waiting a week or two to let the heat of the sun on the metal & the pressure of the top & bottom sections hopefully at least somewhat straighten the middle enough that it will slide out properly..

If we can set it up and the middle section will go up, then the ISP will come out with a new receiver & redo the whole install. I told them if that happens they have to bring much longer ground ties as that is what gave way, causing the collapse.

DH said he’ll just go to Lowes and buy them.

All I can say is, it would really make this nasty, miserable week so very much better if, on Saturday we could turn that crank & have the tower slide out.

Sad but true. And Marvin now has far more of my sympathy that he ever did before

(Marvin is a depressed & rather whiny robot in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, for those who have not read it. You *should* read it though, it’s good stuff)

The [...]]]> in all the diodes down my left side.

Sad but true. And Marvin now has far more of my sympathy that he ever did before

(Marvin is a depressed & rather whiny robot in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, for those who have not read it. You *should* read it though, it’s good stuff)

The pain starts at my left ear, works its way down my neck, shoulder and left arm before picking back up around my left ovary, occasionally hitting the sciatic nerve & oh yes, there is a huge bruise on my left calf from where I banged it this weekend trying to move that damn collapsed tower.

Temporomandibular joint disorder is what they suspect is causing the ear pain, since there is nothing actually wrong with my ear itself. They merely suspect because they wouldn’t want to do anything so drastic as to say, oh I don’t know…xray the area, just yet. First I must try taking mega doses of ibuprophen to bring down the inflammation, which I will admit is something of an issue for me. First it can play merry hell with my stomach and second I don’t always remember to take the pills. 

Also I have to stop resting my chin in my left hand while I am on the computer. It’s probably responsible for the TMJD and the pain in my neck, shoulder & elbow.

I found this on Pinterest & made it my background as a reminder

Unfortunately all the reminders in the world don’t actually stop me doing it. I’ve probably inflamed everything from my ear to my elbow time & again with this one gesture.

Staying off the computer is the only thing that really prevents it, so between that & the whole tower fiasco I have been limiting my screen time. Moving my laptop off my desk & into my lap in another location is not really an option because then I end up stressing out my right arm for some reason.

I apologize if I have been neglecting comments lately. It’s probably not going to get any better for a couple of weeks while I force myself to find other things to do with spare time.

My latest cross stitch project is coming along nicely. I’m caught up with the second season of Downton Abbey and am on disc 3 of the Borgias.  I’d had hopes of streaming Dr Horrible’s Sing a Long but that ended with the tower collapse. I have reread 12 or so of Carola Dunn’s books, all 3 Marshall Karps books and both books by Deborah Coontz as well as 4 new books.  I’m knocking out a book a day on average.

But I’d rather be online. Things are happening on the internet without me!

layin on ur drawrz

Nefertiti is our oldest cat. She is 15.5 years old. She spends most of her days laying on top of the dresser in our room, under the lamp where it is warm.

At least, it’s warm now that I bought some more incandescent bulbs for that [...]]]> Iz in ur drawrz

layin on ur drawrz

Nefertiti is our oldest cat. She is 15.5 years old. She spends most of her days laying on top of the dresser in our room, under the lamp where it is warm.

At least, it’s warm now that I bought some more incandescent bulbs for that lamp.

Florescent bulbs don’t give off heat & therefore do not keep old cats warm.

Which makes old cats cranky & inclined to hiss and snarl at the young whippersnapper cats that seem to infest her house these days.

So now I have a small stack of incandescent bulbs just for this one lamp.

It’s a small price to pay for peace in the home.

The weather hates me too.

30MPH winds Saturday afternoon caused this to happen.

You can see how bent the tower is.

It’s unlikely they will be able to straighten it enough to set it back up.

*sob*

I’ve got two layouts to share this week.

You can find credits for them at my Sweet Shoppe Designs gallery

Link up your layouts here.

Thanks for joining me!

View from my kitchen most days.

This new batch of chickens are far more interested in what goes on in the house than the previous bunch. I don’t think the previous bunch ever paid much attention to the door, though they did peck around in the sage off the right of it.

This flock [...]]]>

View from my kitchen most days.

This new batch of chickens are far more interested in what goes on in the house than the previous bunch. I don’t think the previous bunch ever paid much attention to the door, though they did peck around in the sage off the right of it.

This flock though seems to spend a rather inordinate amount of time just standing there, in a group, right in front of the door, watching me cook.

This is extremely disconcerting when I have to crack eggs.

I feel like I have to stand sideways to island & block their view of my hands while I am doing it or I’m going to have an angry mob of chickens kicking in the door.

They block access both in & out standing there. You have to knock them out of the way if you want to use the door.

They bang their beaks on it sometimes, which sounds like someone knocking. If I am in another room I get a bit weirded out hearing it because I didn’t hear a car in the driveway & cannot imagine why anyone would walk all the way down my driveway if they didn’t have some sort of ill intent.

I’m not entirely sure the chickens don’t have any ill intent.

They know I have their eggs.

My Blight on the Landscape™ is back!

And the man from my ISP managed to get it up with only minimum pulling on my part.

It’s so hard to do these pole & tower related posts with out using words that will attract the less desirable elements of the internet.

So I [...]]]> ere.ction!!!

My Blight on the Landscape™ is back!

And the man from my ISP managed to get it up with only minimum pulling on my part.

It’s so hard to do these pole & tower related posts with out using words that will attract the less desirable elements of the internet.

So I just embrace it.

Because actually, it was also minimum scre.wing on my part.

I held in place & then tightened guide wire bolts when his partner in crime was called away to an emergency repair on a signal tower & I had a choice of waiting until they could get around to me later or helping out.

Naturally I said “Well if it’s help achieving ere.ction I‘m your girl! I’ve had lots of practice over the years.”

Because I’ve been helping these guys get their poles up in my yard since 2007.

Now that my landscape has been re-blighted my internet has improved exponentially.

That big dish at the top is the second most powerful receiver they have.

I used to download stuff at a max speed of maybe 70kbs, on a good day, around 10am, Tuesday mornings, when the wind is from the south & I am the only person using that signal tower. Lately it had been more like 38kbs, with frequent lows of down near 5kbs.

I haven’t watched a non buffered You Tube clip in a year or more.  I‘ve heard of this thing called ‘streaming video’ but never experienced it in my own home. If the video doesn’t buffer, I can’t watch it.

But now! Now I’m downloading at anywhere from 400-550kbs! 

I watched Downton Abby on pbs.com with no pauses yesterday!

Graphics load instantly!

I uploaded 11months worth of 2011’s edited photos to Smug Mug in less time than it took me to upload a single month’s worth a week ago.

Yay for faster internet!

And yay for my ISP returning my Blight on the Landscape™ to me!

They really are good guys, despite my sometimes frustrated comments about them.

I’ve only completed a couple layouts recently.

I did this two page one for the 2011 photo book I am trying to put together

and I did this About Me one

You can find [...]]]> Welcome to Scrapbook Saturday!  I hope you all will join me and link up your layout posts.

I’ve only completed a couple layouts recently.

I did this two page one for the 2011 photo book I am trying to put together

and I did this About Me one

You can find credits for them at my Sweet Shoppe Designs gallery

Link up your layouts here!

I’ve got 24 photos edited for January

It’s Photo a Day project, not Editing a Day project. Though actually I may do that the second half of the year.

My P365 began on my birthday back in July & runs until then this year.

It’s playing merry hell with my 2011 photo book [...]]]>

I’ve got 24 photos edited for January

It’s Photo a Day project, not Editing a Day project. Though actually I may do that the second half of the year.

My P365 began on my birthday back in July & runs until then this year.

It’s playing merry hell with my 2011 photo book project.

Normally by now I have not only completed my photo book, but ordered it and had it delivered but this year so far I haven’t even begun assembling it. I have 7 months of some random photos and 5 months of 365 plus many more random ones. I took 15 photos last February. All on one occasion. I took 135 photos on at least 8 occasions in October.

Balance is a challenge.

It’s just so much easier with a photo a day.

Remind me never to skip a year again.