Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

I just want to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday! xoxo

 

Lessons learned

Jellogirli threw down the gauntlet. Who am I to refuse a challenge?

2004 ... lessons learnt

 

1. What did you do in 2004 that you'd never done before?

That list is longer than I want to get into here! But I did face some fears and drive over a very scary bridge to Canada alone. I volunteered to teach computer classes to senior citizens.
2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don't make resolutions at New Year's Day. I try to keep a running list.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No.
4. Did anyone close to you die?

A first cousin.

5. What countries did you visit?

Canada.
6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?

My yardwork all done.
7. What dates from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

July 13.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

That damned bridge! I did it twice.
 9. What was your biggest failure?

Failure?
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I do not get sick. No major injury, either. I did get an interesting swelling over my left eye a few weeks ago, does that count?
11. What was the best thing you bought?

My daughter's Christmas present.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My sweetie. We celebrate every time we get together.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Can't think of any, not counting national figures.
14. Where did most of your money go?

Most of my money goes into my white elephant of a house. I didn't do anything major to it this year, it's just the regular maintenance costs of living in a big home.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

The trips I took this year.
16. What song will always remind you of 2004?

An old song by Moev.
17. Compared to this time last year, you are:

Happier.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Oh, well, uhm. Hm. You know.Working out, too.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Waiting for people.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?

Home with my daughter and her boyfriend, maybe visiting around after they leave.

21. How would you rather be spending Christmas?

See #18.
22. Did you fall in love in 2004?

Maybe.
23. How many one-night stands?

Zero. Ick.
24. What was your favorite TV program?

Six Feet Under is the only program I watched on televison all year.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

I don't hate anyone.
26. What was the best book you read?

I read hundreds of books. They were all great!
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

I enjoy hip hop, but I didn't discover it.
28. What did you want and get?

I got what I wanted. I pretty much have everything I want.
29. What did you want and not get?

I wanted to go on a cruise again this year.
30. What was your favorite film of this year?

I only saw a few this year, even though I usually see many. I don't recall any standing out.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I went out with my daughter and her boyfriend and almost got in a bar fight. I am 55. Yeah, I am old.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Unlimitedfunds? A live-in housekeeper? A cruise? Finding a new dog sitter for when I travel?
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?

Hm. This year I was into black slacks and tight tops in bright colors. I let my hair get long again. I wore girlie things and added my little Prada bag.
34. What kept you sane?

Unbridled lust.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Hm. I liked watching LL Cool J do his video for "Headsprung." Go figure.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?

I don't do politics, but global warming concerns me.
37. Who did you miss?

Many of my friends live in other states now, and I don't get to see them often enough. I miss them.
38. Who was the best new person you met?

My students in my computer classes. They are awesome and learn so fast!
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004:

I reinforced an old lesson. Never pass up a chance to pee. (No, I did not have an accident, lol.)

Shall we cook?

It's four days until Christmas and not a single email or phone call from my family regarding dinner on Christmas. I have spent every holiday with them for a few years now. We didn't for many years, due to some issues that seemed to be resolved. I have been spending every holiday at one home or another.

Oops. I guess I am cooking for my daughter and her boyfriend on Christmas. It's not that I don't want to. Actually I am good with the idea of not having to drive around on a major holiday. I wasn't prepared for the idea and had just gone to the grocery store yesterday. Living alone, I didn't see any reason to buy a turkey. My tree is not up and wasn't going to go up. Now it will.

Add in the slight stress that my daughter's boyfriend owns a nice restaurant and is an excellent cook. They won't be here all day, since there are other places they need to go, so I will be home alone for a lot of the day. Just like I was for years. Sigh. At least I am not on call on holidays for children's protective services any more and won't get called out to see any sexually abused babies or little children with broken arms.

On the bright side, I can make whatever I want for dinner instead of cooking some dishes and then coming home empty handed. I will have some leftovers this time.

Chewy is back

At the moment my life is pretty dull. I am once again dogsitting for my niece's beagle/golden. He was no longer invited to his last home away from home after he ate the bedding in one of the bedrooms. He has serious separation anxiety due to having been originally raised by an unstable alcoholic. I thought Molly, my beagle, had separation anxiety. Wooo, not compared to this sweet beast.

He howled and whined and cried and paced for hours yesterday. He ignored the beagles, who wanted to play with him. He should be in dog heaven, two hot little ladies chasing him around. But he was wallowing in misery, missing his family. Poor guy. They will be back late tomorrow night. We will all be glad to see them! I can't leave the house while he is here, so I am stuck inside from yesterday afternoon to late tomorrow night. In other words, the entire weekend. Sigh.

In return for giving up my weekend and the current comforter on my bed that now has a fist-sized hole in it, my nephew is installing an ironing board for me. It is built into the wall, like a cabinet. You open the door, the board comes down, and there is an outlet inside to plug the iron into. I want it right next to my walk in closet, so I can iron without running through the house every morning. We had a communication malfunction and he put it at 36 inches instead of 32 inches. OK, I can deal with that. However, he ran into some difficulties with the wiring and it isn't hooked up yet. I keep glancing at those wires, thinking, "I can do this." So far, I haven't tried. I don't have any end caps.

I hope he does it soon, because I am really looking forward to having this. For some reason, I find ironing to be a calming chore, compared to most household chores, so I don't mind doing it or the laundry.

Sure, go ahead. Send me your laundry. I will get to it some day.

Christmas song

You will need to cut and paste the link. It's pretty funny.

 

http://www.playingsafely.co.uk/12stisofchristmas/12-STIs.html

All dressed up

I found a good deal on a Coach pilot bag a few months ago after my suitcase turned up with a broken leg, um, wheel. It has a nice leather front on it. I am sitting here fondling that soft leather, nostalgically thinking about the trips I have been on since July. I went out of town every month from July through November.

No one will feel sorry for me, but I haven't been any place for more than a whole month now. My last trip was only an overnighter, and had it not involved flying across the country it would hardly count. I am all dressed up with no place to go. My family all lives here except one nephew, who lives in Phoenix. I think he is going to be here for Christmas anyway.

There is a slim chance I will be going for a short trip the end of January. There is also a slim chance I might find a new dog sitter who will deal not only with two spoiled rotten beagles. but also a 17 year old cat who screams at night. Her hearing is going, and she seems to need to vocalize at night. It sounds like screaming to me. It sounded like screaming to my other nephew who does not want to dog sit again because of the cat. 

Maybe Santa will take me along for part of his ride, although I am not sure that sleigh of his is heated adequately.

Those of you who know me know I will not be rushing to France to drive on their new bridge that is now the highest in the world. Just the thought gives me the willies! It looks pretty. From a distance.

Do I have to show bum cleavage?

My main bathroom tub has a shower also. There is a spigot to turn to cause the water to come out the spout or the showerhead. I can no longer turn this spigot, handle, whatever it is called. It has been getting harder to turn for years, and yesterday it just said no.

Using logic, since it refused to move, I used some sewing machine oil on it. No luck. I think the almost 30 year old faucet assembly needs to be replaced.

I want to learn to do this myself. I want a new one that I can set the temperature and just turn it off and on, without having to try to find the right temperature every night for my bath.

How ever did we manage to clean bathtubs without using a showerhead on a flexible hose to rinse them? I tried to dig back in to the dark ages of my mind, but it just seems like a very hard way to keep a tub clean.

Once I expand my skill set to replacing bathtub faucets, I want to learn to install windows. Why not? How hard can it be? men do it.

Jumbled thoughts, but all of mine are

Did I say all the bee things were sleeping? If you ever wondered where they go in the winter, I can tell you. They are all in my grill outside on the patio. I remembered that they were flying around the grill in the summer, and I made a mental note to throw the thing out. I lifted the lid off the grill before cleaning the doorwall glass, and found a billion of them in there. At least, it looked like a billion. I wanted to take a picture but didn't want to hang around. They were moving, but only a little. A bunch of them were just cuddled up, outside the nest. Brrr. Gave me the shivers, but they stayed in there.

After the required acrobatics to finish the windows, I was happy that today is massage day. I was given a new student today, much to my dismay. The girl I had last week was incredibly good. This time they gave me a guy. I hoped for at least strong hands.

Ah. The guy had a slight European accent, and true to form, I got him talking away. He is from Romania, and came over in the lottery. There is a diversity visa and his family was lucky. He was a physical therapist in Transylvania, having completed a 4-year university program. He would have to take classes here to get licensed, so he is starting with massage therapy, much to my good luck. I told him I have bursitis in my shoulders, and he worked on them. I never had so much pleasure with my pants on before. He also got all the kinks out from stretching to do windows and from carrying my heavy ladder.

I had asked for the same girl as last week for next week, but that was before the vampire worked on me. Now I am having trouble deciding between them. Sigh. Both have great hands.

The ladder to success

You normal heighted people don't know what we shorter people have to go through sometimes! I confess, I ride on an airplane more comfortably than most passengers. But sometimes, I have to get creative.

My windows are dirty. I can't remember the last time I washed the outsides of them. Maybe 5-7 years ago. Maybe even more. Maybe a bit less. But since I can't remember, it has been a long time. I had told myself I was getting new windows, so I kept putting the cleaning off. My weird house is a quad-level home. That means windows on 3 floors and a few basement windows. I cannot get to the highest floor. But they don't get that dirty, not much splashes on them. I get them professionally cleaned every now and then.

The ground floor I can get to. Those aren't too bad if I stand on the stoop to the door and hang one hand on the doorknob; then I can get to most of the glass. I only have to jump a little to get the very tops of some of them. Some require me to use a ladder. That is where the difficulty comes in.

The windows for the laundry room and kitchen are hard for me to get at. There really isn't a place for the ladder on the tiny porch for the laundry room door to outside. I stand on something small on the porch for most of them. To do the inside of the storm door, I have to put a ladder near the porch, put one foot on the step stool and one foot on a step of the ladder and stretch. It is a Kodak moment. The laundry room windows are just plain nasty to clean. They are on an inside corner of the dog run, and nasty stuff gets on the legs of the ladder and my shoes. Ick. The dirt there is very soft and uneven.

I can never forget when I am doing windows that once my mom, who was even shorter than I am, used a folding chair once to do her big windows in the front. From her I learned to stand on anything that works. She fell, broke a few ribs. My brother was home and was able to get help. I live alone. If I fall, no one might find me for a while. Hm, I think I will put the cell phone in my pocket when I do the back windows! Ladder placement out there is dicey too. At least the bee things are all asleep this time of year.

My mom used to do all windows, inside and out, every week, all year around. I don't get it.

Weird weather

When I got up this morning for my 9 am class it was ugly outside. The ground was wet and foggy, it was raining, and the dogs refused to put their little tooties out on the grass for their morning constitutional. Sigh. It was bad enough that Baby refused to go out last night. Instead I turned my back on her and she peed on my bed, which I found at 2 am when I went to bed. I had to strip the bed. Luckily, I keep two waterproof mattress pads around. Grrr.

So I bundled up into a rain jacket with a hood on it and took off for class. I was pleased with the gray, wet, crappy weather. It meant I could go shopping without crowds. We always have some seriously lousy weather days before Christmas and I take advantage of them. Usually it's a snow storm, but a heavy rain works too.

I went to the local mall, Target, TJ Maxx, PetSuppliesPlus (looking for boots and raincoats for the stubborn beagles), Val's Pet Supplies (so far no boots or raincoats for dogs), and a few other stops. No one was out and I got everything taken care of. However, a weird thing happened between the two pet stores.

The sun came out. We had a predicted high of 51 degrees, which is very warm for MI in December. Right now it's 57 degrees. The sky is clear, and it's sunny. I came home to feed the dogs, clean up after them, and get back out.

There were no surprises in the house, other than the fact that Baby held her water, so to speak. No little poopies on the bathroom rug. Why she can't hold it when I am gone 20 minutes but held it for 6 hours today is beyond my understanding. Molly was, as always, the perfect little lady. She is now snoring on the sofa. But I am out of here again, even though the crowds will now be out also. Shop steady!

High maintenance

I do not think of myself as being high maintenance, but days like today make me wonder. I first had to go to the dentist to have some fillings replaced in my front teeth and then to the medical clinic for a mammogram. Sounds like a fun day, doesn't it? I prefer massage day.

There is only one thing that gets me to the dentist for fillings or any other serious work. Repeat after me. Nitrous oxide. That has to be the greatest drug in the world. All he has to do is put it on, leave the room for a minute, come back, and he can do anything to me he wants. I think I am sensitive to it or something. I actually passed out once on my old dentist. He was considerate enough to give me the shots before he woke me up. I always ask for the highest dose he can give me. My teeth are ultra-sensitive, so he complies. Sometimes I need 6-7 shots to stave off the pain. Sometimes I still have tears running down my face while he drills. Most of the time, like today, he succeeds in numbing me. If he didn't use the gas, I wouldn't go.

The mammogram is also just one of those maintenance things we have to do. My clinic uses some very stylish 3-armholed gowns. They are a lovely shade of dull gray. They offer a modicum of privacy, but they make the work harder for the tech. She pulled off the first arm, and did my right breast. She went for the second armhole, and it was awkward. I finally just took off the gown to make it easier for her to just get it done.

She thanked me. The clinic does not allow the techs to suggest that it might be easier if the gowns are removed for the exam. I never really thought about it before, but I can see that it eliminates a lot of fumbling and fooling around with the gown.

Ladies, if you are comfy with the idea, see if your tech would find she can do a better job in less time without the gown. Fellas, what can I say. Do you wear some cute little special gowns for your prostate exams? You do get them as needed, right?

New massage therapist

Thursday I had a new massage therapist. I am the lucky one who lives close to a massage therapy school and gets a free massage every week. It's kind of like living close to the zip code for heaven.

This one is young, female, and has a very perky personality. She also has great, if cold, hands. I have a hard time believing she is new at massages, so perhaps she just needs the certificate. I have had some expensive massages in the past at some nice spas, but she probably has the best hands I have run across. I am always a sucker for the ones who do a nice scalp massage anyway.

After the massage she did the usual new student routine and offered me some exercises. She showed me a lower back exercise of sitting on the floor and streching palms to the floor. I looked at her, and said I was pretty sure my palms reach the floor when I sit. She seemed a little confused, so I sat down on the floor, legs straight out in front, and put my palms on the floor with no stretching at all. She still looked confused. It is supposed to be a stretch, and my elbows weren't even tight.

There was another student and the head instructor watching. Both looked at each other, said they weren't sure, and sat down too. All four of us were then sitting on the floor. Two of us were able to put our palms down, but my arms were the knuckle-draggers of the group. Height had nothing to do with it, as the head instructor, at 5'11" was the other one who could do it. I am 5'. I looked at them sitting on the floor comparing arm lengths, and got up and left.

I like doing field research.

I bet you got down and tried it out before you got to this point, right?

Nightmare Update

While going through my divorce, I had the most vivid dreams of my life. I used to joke that they were all movies, but without the credits. One night I actually had the credits appear. I thought it was pretty funny. Of course, the nightmares at that time were very intense and also way too real.

Last night I started to have a nightmare, then somehow woke myself out of it. I woke up with a start, thinking, "No more nightmares!" I had no idea such a thing was possible.

I always say that I never get sick, and I don't. Maybe I have also convinced myself to have no more nightmares. If so, I will get to work on this damn insomnia thing!

Repeat after me, I do not have a sleep problem.....

Nightmare Hero

I am very prone to nightmares. It isn't a sleep aid for my insomnia, either. I have had so many, and so very intense nightmares that I can wake up from one and go back to sleep without a sound. As far as I know I never cry or scream in my sleep. I have been told my Lovecraftian dreams do not disturb others.

They have been with me since childhood. I have no idea why. Sometimes they are more frequent than others. I can have several in one night. Sometimes they go on all night. I had one last week.

This one was different. For one thing, it happened during the day, during a quiet nap one afternoon. Someone came and saved me. The bad situation had already occurred, but someone came and got me, took me away from the situation, made me feel safe.

I haven't had a nightmare since. Do I dare hope?