I thought it was only a ::ahem:: fantasy this week but I actually won my game!!  woo hoo..but I lost the weeks game pickings to msmandylee’s husband, Marc and now owe him a diet coke – he deserves to win – he’s a Kansas City Chief’s fan for crying out loud…the Chief’s won and Marc won…I may even buy him a 2 liter bottle for that!

Couldn’t sleep last night – but once I did fall asleep the dreams were quite visual and real as they have been lately – maybe because there doesn’t seem to be any drama in my life right now – I have to get the excitement somewhere.  We are off to shop for yarn and wii….

Later…….

P>S> to msmandylee – be sure to let Marc read this one 🙂

It’s raining tonight in this part of Ohio.  Just a nice soothing rain.  He and I got up late – okay – nearly afternoon – Katy came home from work and spent about an hour with us before she had to head to Kent…We turned on Carmen the Garmin and headed for Cleveland – saw the Indians, Cavaliers and Brown’s stadiums…ate at Hard Rock and then we went on a hunt for a wii.  We hit most of the Game Stops in and around Cleveland and Akron – will hit a couple tomorrow in Cuyahoga Falls.  Apparently several places had wiis this weekend but sold out…I guess most of those were Best Buys grrrrrrr

I finally won a fantasy football game = finally!!!  We were talking about going to Pittsburg tomorrow to check out the Steeler’s stadium and just hang out but Kate wants us to come to the Montisorri preschool where she teaches at 1600…so will probably just shop tomorrow – I know there has to be a craft shop yelling my name.

That’s it for tonight…

Until next time….

Paul Newman died…. wow

Jenny’s first boyfriend died – he was only 27…He came from some major disfunction…dad was in prison several times – lots of drugs involved…makes me wonder what actually took him.  His obit picture certainly didn’t look like the cute little pudgy junior high kid that I remember.  he actually had a “spice” tat on the front of his neck.  Another jolt for life perspective.

Kim and Sarah came out this morning – Sarah is going to take care of the critters while we are gone…she had only met one of them…she’s a critter person too and thought the week would be wonderful – everyone made up to her really fast except Billy and he’s a little stand-off-ish about who he gives his love to 🙂  Sarah also used to take care of mom several years ago…shes in the process of taking her LPN boards and it will be nice to have her next door in case one of them needs the services of a nurse while we are gone.

I thought the debate last night was interesting.  I have no doubt that I will vote Obama…but I feel okay if McCain wins…okay probably isn’t the word but it is the only one I can come up with….just not totally freaked out like when the current moron was elected the first time and second time.  I have a lot of confidence in Obama – Biden is okay too in my book.  McCain has some positive things going for him but he doesn’t give me the the confidence that Obama gives me.  Palin…there are things that I like – there are things that I don’t like and her experience and the over-the-top “I’m in charge, that’s why” mentality kind of scares me.  We’ll see how it all comes out in the wash in November, I guess.

We are going to Cuyahoga Falls, OH – leaving Sunday – this is the Akron area – south of Cleveland.  We are going to have a couple of days to hangout while the kids are in school/work – any suggestions?  Last time we drove up to Niagara Falls…that was fun. Katy tells me we should sight see in Cleveland…any insight into this???  I figured cleveland was about as exciting as Des Moines except with a lake?  Am I wrong?

I have to take the laptop…we’ll be driving tomorrow during the games but thank goodness for sirius radio….

Until next time…

I took off my bandages last night – about 8 hours early – I’m such a rebel….

Feeling better every day – the knee still catches and I wouldn’t be too confident about walking a lot –

It’s the end of September and 81 degrees  –

We are going to Ohio on Sunday to visit the kids –

The surgery went well – I had not one but two torn meniscus…they were repaired…I had a spinal rather than general anesthesia so my chances were better of getting off the table alive.  The spinal is kind of like novacaine…you know it starts wearing off slowly and then by evening you have to take some ibuprofin or tylenol for some pain…..In this case, the spinal completely wore off while we were sitting in the Hyvee Deli waiting for my prescription to be filled at the Hyvee Drugstore…I flashed back to May 31st – the night of the tree-falling accident and my trip into Hyvee holding onto “him” because I couldn’t walk but was determined to get some donuts….

I was on vicodin x2 every 6 hours.  in the afternoon I fudged and took 2 after 5 hours….I really didn’t feel good…and they told me to start my leg exercises right away – ya…in your dreams.  Today I was a little better – my knee didn’t hurt while I was sitting just when I would try to get up and walk….

This morning I broke the toilet upstairs – there isn’t a whole bunch of room between the front of the toilet and the closest ahead of it – so I would grab onto the wall ahead of me and push against the tank of the toilet in order to get up…well, this morning – water started spurting out from under the tank…it could have been the gettin-up or the falling down onto it….so…stop reading now if my tales of truth are usually too much for you  in the form of TMI….

Now I’m hovering.  I figured I could lift up the seat and lean over and kind of hover instead of totally sitting down…the only fear I have is Benny….he sits on the magazine rack and watches me and, quite frankly, it makes me uncomfortable… for you that don’t know – Benny is my cat – not my husband…

So…all is well – this will probably be my last night on vicodin…which is kind of unfortunate…it really relaxes me – and I seem to really enjoy things a lot more – I’m telling you…pizza has never tasted as good as it did last night…I savored every bite…the taste, the texture – so you can imagine how ecstatic I was when he brought me a piece of desert pizza

Until next time….

I’ve been on a mission for several years to change the things I don’t like about myself.  In my opinion, I’ve made some pretty fair headway…I have come a long way and am not sure how far I have to go.  One of my big things in life (no pun intended) is my weight..I’ve always been on the chunky side of normal but never where I am today.  I had an ah ha moment with Oprah several years ago when I learned that it’s not what I’m eating but whats eating me.  Lately I have been reading the Good Earth and the huge little ah ha I’ve gotten out of it so far is to live in the moment.  Crap in the past – crap in the future doesn’t matter…it is what is going on right this moment.  I’ve been mentally trying to talk myself through things using this formula.  Stop…what is going on right at this moment that is causing you stress – Oh..something you are dreading…well, is that going on right now or is it in the future.  Then, I’ve heard Cesar Milan say many times that animals live in the moment..that one of the problems we have is treating dogs like humans instead of dogs and dogs don’t worry about tomorrow – they live in the moment.  This is good stuff….I see how living in the moment certainly takes the sting out of life – this is not to say you shouldn’t think about or plan for the future…but actually life is right now.

Right now this morning came from an email from Jeff aka ghog…he said he thought he should tell me that Brent had a cancerous tumor removed from his colon and will be undergoing chemo.  I felt like someone had kicked me in the gut.  Even though I haven’t seen Brent very much over the years…I’ve known him since I was 5.  He was my first love although he probably doesn’t know it…we never had any type of adult relationship but he lived across the street from me during my growing up years… I knew his family, played with his sisters, spent a lot of Friday nights at his house watching scary movies and I always figured we would end up together.  We did have a little “thing” (for the lack of a better word) many years ago.  His brother had moved into a downstairs apt and Brent was there helping him move.  He stopped up to see me and there was a little rapid heart beat moment and he said he would meet me in the bar later.  At the time, I had another heart throb and didn’t give him any attention at the bar.  The next time I saw him was a visit to my former church  in Des Moines.  We passed in the hallway and greeted each other and then emailed a couple of times to catch up with each other’s lives.  Now he has had a cancerous tumor removed from his colon.  I don’t know any particulars, I just know that I put life into perspective this morning.  Life is here and then it isn’t…don’t waste it…live and love and everything else will fall into place….

Please lift Brent up in your prayers….

Until next time……

All of my furry children are getting along well now…the felines were playing and chasing each other around the house today.  By the way…did anyone catch the “Dog Whisperer” 100 episode?  I love that Cesar is so emotional!!!  Probably why he understands dogs so well.

Baxter gets snipped today…I hate to have to take him in and leave him so soon…I don’t want to scare him or let him think he is being abandoned again.    The Baroness_fritinanci goes under the knife today too…good thoughts going her way….

Finally, I have knee surgery tomorrow (Tues)…I’m looking forward to it being over…

We saw Kate and Luke today (Sun) for like 5 minutes.  They drove from OH to NB for a wedding…they stayed with Ryan and Jenny Friday night and stopped at our house on their way thru this morning.  She took her electric piano with her…that was a pleasant surprise…opened up the space for a table for scrapbooking..he does his fly-tying on the desk I was going to use – but this will actually work better.

Fantasy Football sucks 🙂  Lots of surprises in the NFL today.  msmandylee’s husband and I have a little contest we started this week – we make our picks for the games and whoever is right the most gets a 20 oz pop.  I’m very pleased to tell you, I can’t play fantasy football worth the “s” word but guess who got the free pop when she got to work tonight.  The Monday night game doesn’t matter because we both picked the Jets to win. 

This is my last night for a few.  I’m off Mon,Tues,Wed nights for the surgery and the good drugs…then my 3 days off…then I took an additional 5 nights off – go back for 1 and have my regular 3 days off.  It’s a tough life 🙂  We would like to go to OH to see Kate and Luke the week that I’m off but have no idea what to expect for the knee and doc appointments – we all decided to just play it by the moment. 

Summer has been okay – Hello Autumn…lets watch mother nature show her stuff!

Until next time….

Everyone:  Please welcome Baxter.

Pre-surgery appointment this morning – My dignity has been totally stripped, I had to be weighed and repeat my weight all in one day…blood drawn, pre-surgery consultation at the OR.  I’ve never had to go thru all of this before prior to surgery…then they tell me the doc has ordered only a spinal and some drugs to make me sleepy…hmmmm.  If my knee wasn’t as screwed up as it is, I might even back out of this but I can’t imagine living the rest of my life with the ache and the damn knee not working….Even the doc patted my shoulder today and said we’ll get this done so you can get back to living……

Drugtown which is affiliated with the Hyvee chain of grocery stores in Iowa (actually it is now called Hyvee Drugstore) is closing their pharmacy store and moving the pharmacy part to the new pharmacy at the new Hyvee.  O that was clear, Edith….anyway…the store is chocked full of all kinds of stuff – well, liquor for one but also candles and figurines and all kinds of girl-stuff.  I always like to shop there around the holidays because they have wonderful decorations/gifts.  I’ll miss it when Christmas rolls around.  Today all of the candles and house decorations and all Hallmark stuff was 50% off.  I spent $156 and saved $154.  I got so many deals it made me giddy…like Happy Birthday and other decorative napkins.  I got my perfume – Lovely – the Sarah Jessica Parker perfume for 50% off – I actually bought a $60 and a $35 bottle each 1/2 off that price.  Wow was it fun.

Now to the mud…I cleaned the carpet in the computer room tonight…probably the first time since Kate graduated in 2005…the bottom of the reservoir was thick with mud.  Yes…I understand the mud was made by mixing water with dirt but holy hoover, batman….THAT MUCH DIRT?   

I’m staying up tonight because I have to go back to work tomorrow night – ya…back on a Friday night after 12 days off – I’ll either be cool as a cucumber or totally bonkers dealing with the Friday night freaks.  There is a race this weekend at the Iowa Speedway also…hopefully all will be pretty much cleaned up by the time I get to work…

Well, I have today’s episode of Young and Restless to watch and an old recorded episode of Dog the Bounty Hunter…

So, until next time……

Wednesday was such a productive day!!!  I gave Devil Dog – the black lab mix – a shower…she wasn’t happy but I was…I don’t know what her problem is – I was as wet as she was and I had to do all of the work.  I watched a lot and cleaned a lot of recorded shows off the DVR.  The best part is while I was “listening” to the TV…I completely cleaned my livingroom including shampooing the carpets and area rugs…made some minor furniture changes, did some laundry and did some bill paying on the computer.  I need to shampoo the carpet in the “green” room otherwise known as the computer room sometime tomorrow.  It could be a control issue – you know when you are feeling out of control so you clean and sort…but who cares what the label is – it is done!!!!

Until next time….