Pins & Needles

Facebook is apparently down!  What do I do with myself?  I wonder if it's tied in any way to their stock crashing after the market closed on news of their forecasted increased expenses for next year?  Are they trying to illustrate how integral the site is to people all over the world?

I always have plenty to do so there, Facebook!  A blog post instead!

I've been home a couple days with stomach issues.  I will spare you the details.  Things are improving and I hope to be at work tomorrow.  I actually must be at work tomorrow 'cuz I'm off a couple days next week and have a lot to do - now two days behind on things.

We've been on pins and needles awaiting news from B. - he finally texted J. to confirm that he made it into the unit he had to try out for this week.  We are so happy for him and so, so proud of him.  He shared a little with J. who shared a little with me and I'm so proud that he was his true self in the interview - instead of answering in the expected way, he stuck to his core self - and answered in a way that makes a parent proud.  Whatever else life is, you have to know who you are and stick to that - and he's doing that in a spectacular way.  We are so thrilled for him - and he's over the moon excited, too. Can't wait to see him next weekend and celebrate with him in person.

I bumped up against the Ninja blender blades as I was tidying up the kitchen yesterday and it sliced my finger!  It's still bleeding a day later and hurts like the dickens.  It's just an irritating cut in a bad place. That thing is uber sharp and makes me a bit afraid of it.  It's got to be cleaned but we are definitely going to just let it soak in the blender pitcher and/or run it through the dishwasher.  I might have to buy us safety gloves to put it in and take it out of the dishwasher. 

J. has been working on a variety of projects - he repainted the study closet (looks fantastic!) so we can work on putting things away this weekend.  (I miss having my car in the garage and as the mornings get colder, the frost on my window makes me crazy).  He's also been working on labeling and identifying slides for the party we're attending next weekend - and also just to have the slides on a computer instead of in boxes and bags.  Reliving a lot of memories in the process.  I used to look pretty good in a bikini.  

J. and I have decided to give each other the perfect Christmas gift:  updating the navigation systems on our cars with the latest maps.  It's probably a statement of where we are in life - we have no idea what to give each other for gifts these days - so updating software is the best we can do!  I've gotten lost a couple times in towns where the growth isn't in my map set from six years ago - so it will be nice to know where I'm going.  And J., bless his heart, has never updated his nav and his car is a decade old. It's time.  

Linguine and clams for dinner!  Yum!  (It will either kill me or cure me).  

Ninja!

Breakfast:  Handful of baby spinach; half a cucumber; half an avocado; handful of frozen pineapple chunks; one peeled Kiwi fruit; heaping tablespoon of hemp protein powder; almond milk; ice and a splash of orange juice for sweetness.

We bought a Nutra Ninja blending system - 'cuz juicing was working (my joints feel so much better!) but you lose a lot of the fiber in the juice process.  I started to feel guilty about the 'leavings' - even though we compost them.  But all that wasted fiber....

So we're trying the Nutra Ninja - this is the first morning I've done it 'cuz it's so loud, I can't do it until J. comes downstairs.  Patience as it winds down it's countdown - starting and stopping itself periodically to let the contents of the pitcher settle then whirring up again.  It really does a pretty great job of pulverizing everything in it's path  -and the smoothie is smooth and good.

It could use a little more sweetness but I try not to add too much fruit to keep the sugar down.

It's veggies for breakfast!  In a travel mug!

Tomorrow, I will add a small splash of honey - that should help.

Yesterday was a productive day and looking forward to another one - no meetings and I'm successfully cleaning my office up a bit.

J. is campaigning tonight (only two weeks until the election!) and I will enjoy a quiet evening in a clean house - cleaning crew arrives today to see the new floors for the first time.

I've provided lists of things for H. to do and offered incentives for him to work on them - cleaning every baseboard in the house and moving furniture and cleaning floors and baseboards behind things as well.  Construction dust is everywhere...Phase II is likely never happening 'cuz I don't want to do this again.  (Should have thought of that - could have scraped together enough money to just finish the house).

Swiffer

The inventor of Swiffer pads has my undying gratitude.  Once I gave up on using Windex and towels to dust and started using Swiffers, things went much more quickly.  And good thing, too, 'cuz we've been at it most of the afternoon and still have so much to do.

We have culled out two full boxes of carefully wrapped crystal and glassware.  As we put things back in the china hutch, we let things go that we seldom use and/or will never use.  It's nice to have things we really love displayed lovingly on the shelves instead of mixed among a bunch of seldom used pieces.  Still more to do but we're getting there.

The construction dust is unbelievably thick and I'm so glad Swiffers are picking it up quickly and easily.  We've dry mopped the dining room floor again and are working on getting up some glue smears before H. and J. move the table back in.  Then the sideboard.  Hoping to have a clear living room floor before the cleaning crew arrives Tuesday.

I took H. to WalMart with me yesterday - he needed pants and some socks.  He also hit me up for a PS3 game but I was OK with buying it - anything to keep him busy is something I'm in favor of.  He also found a blanket for his bed - what would have been a quick trip for some additional Swiffer stuff turned into a shopping spree!  Oh well - it was nice to have him out and about with me - and to his credit, he kept insisting 'no' to my frequent 'do you want to try this?' as we took at trip through the frozen food section attempting to find things he might want to eat.

He found a gym that was less than $20 a month (with initiation) - but $199 if you paid for a full year in advance - so we paid for him.  He is allowed to bring a guest every time he goes so he can take B. with him when he's home over Christmas.  $200 a year is far less than the $1260 we were paying for the old gym.  No swimming pools, etc. at the new gym but plenty of cardio machines and weight training which is what the boys do most, anyway.

J. went to the nearby grocery (as opposed to across town to Winco) to get a few things for dinner and for our morning smoothies.  We bought a Ninja blender and while it sounds like a jet taking off, it works well and provides way more fiber than just juicing.  Though the texture is interesting and a little hard to get used to - but I will.  Still plan to juice as well but will try to do a healthy veggie-based smoothie most mornings.

This week, J. will track down the paint for the wood trim in the house and hire a painter to work on painting the stair risers and touching up other wood trim throughout the house.  I think we could do it ourselves but the trim work on the stairs is going to be tricky.  I want to use an easy to clean, durable paint since the scuff marks on the white risers is really hard to handle - already.  I'm glad they're white 'cuz at least the scuff marks show - but it's going to be a real PITA to keep them clean.

A busy work week ahead.  Big report looming and I'm out of the office for a few days for our trip to Phoenix - so I've got to get going - I'm aiming for earlier arrivals and later departures vs. any weekends. I'm really trying hard to avoid weekends and haven't worked one since June!

Yes, that feels pretty awesome!

Adoption

Our local paper posted a "Pet of the Week" about a little dachshund puppy available for adoption. It is so rare to find a dachshund up for adoption - she is 4 months old and was dropped off at a shelter suffering from parvo.  The shelter vet saved her life and she's healthy and ready to go to a new home. And I want her.  I really do.

J. said '$8,000 in brand new floors and now you want another puppy?'

I started to fill out the application - that's the first step.  And keep in mind that I'm sure there will be many people putting in to adopt her and with the application process (including a home visit), we may not get her.

But during the filling out the application part, I came to my senses.  All the things about puppies - potty training; obedience training; where do we leave her/them when we're not home...all those things that are hard with one dog would be doubly hard with two.  And a young dog may live 14-16 years more and we don't want to have to board and worry about a pet when we travel - which we hope to do a lot more of in the not too distant future.  So getting another family pet now?  Doesn't make sense.

Jim is right. So no Emmy.  No.

Chloe knows our routines....right down to putting herself in her kennel whenever we brush our teeth - 'cuz that's the last thing we do before we're heading out the door.  She even does it on weekends when we're not going anywhere...she patters over to her kennel as soon as the toothbrushes are in the mouth.

There is no stealth mode with these floors....the constant pattering of her nails against the floors takes some getting used to - but it's OK.

Speaking of Chloe, this was her shortly after arriving home yesterday:

There's nothing like sleeping in your own bed after you've been away from home!

Looking forward to a great weekend of putting the house back together and culling out more for donation before the end of the year. And looking forward to sleeping in - indulging myself in going back to sleep over and over in the morning - other than a hair appointment at 10:15, I've got nowhere to go.

Floors!

With little to no furniture around, the new floors feel a lot like our own private bowling alley!  I am Swiffering my little heart out to get up the massive amount of construction dust from the floors. Then they need a really good cleaning - which can only be done with the laminate flooring cleaner and mop. We bought a kit so we're all set but we are already identifying other products that might help.  I want a lot of the microfiber mop heads we can use to do dust mopping daily and then just toss them in the washer to clean them.

Had a meeting at the county office of ed first thing this morning.  Then met with the finance department at the county to review some assumptions for our district attendance rates.  Lunch in Brentwood with a good friend - and took the back roads that wound through the delta including going over three bridges.  I survived, sweaty palms and all.  Draw bridges in particular sort of freak me out but it was OK.

Then I stopped at the doctor's office to get my Hepatitis A shot (to complete the immunization process started when we went to Europe) and a flu shot - so here I sit with a left arm so sore, I can barely move.  And actually not feeling all that well - but that's likely more related needing sleep vs. any cause for alarm.

My sweet hubby has supervised two to three workmen in a super noisy, dirty environment for the last three days and then today, helped our gardener replant all the front beds.  He looked so tired when I got home - poor guy.  He's a trooper.

I got a call from my styling salon that my stylist has left her job and moved back home to Wisconsin. 'Family stuff'.  The person phoning said she made a recommendation for a new stylist so I have an appointment with her on Saturday.  I sure hope my former stylist is OK - she was living with her boyfriend and I sort of wonder if that relationship ended - so she went back home.  She moved out here for him...so that seems the most likely.

25 years ago tonight, my husband asked me to be his wife.  I said yes.  I gave him an early gift on his birthday - a sign that says 'You are my happily ever after' - with our names and our anniversary date. We put it over the door here in the study so we see it all the time.  It's a perfect reminder that we both said yes and we say yes to our commitment every day.

I love him.  He is my rock.

Monday

Monday

My desk is a shambles; the house is a wreck

Anyone who speaks to me, I’m giving them heck

I’m tired and cranky and in a bad mood

And nothing you say will lighten my ‘tude

So please don’t try; it’s really OK

Tomorrow will be another (better) day

For now, I need sustenance, amusement and rest
Thank you for your patience; y'all are the best!

Author:  Majah

That was an ode to yesterday but today is the new (better, hopefully) day referenced above so let's get to it!

The floors look lovely but oh my, the dust!  And the house echos so much with no carpet to buffer sounds.  So glad we took Chloe to the puppy spa 'cuz there's no way she could be here whilst all the demo and construction is going on.  Just replacing the floors is approaching putting me over the edge so my plan to someday knock out the wall between the kitchen and the dining room and make one huge 'great room' with a true walk-in pantry is something I can't conceive of.  That level of chaos isn't something I'm anxious to jump into - yet.

But redoing the floors sure opens up the mind to all the amazing possibilities about this house - which we adore and which we would be quite happy living in until the take us out in boxes.  So we'll see.  I do covet a walk in pantry.

Board meeting day so it's a very long day ahead.  J. plans to canvas - getting in as much as he can before the election.  That will be post running a bunch of errands whilst hanging around the homestead to supervise the work.  Today, the stairs and study will start and those two areas are the trickiest - many angles and cuts to be made.  It's going to be so pretty, though - can't wait.  We are already scheming to think of doing Phase II of the floors - upstairs landing up to each bedroom door and the family room, kitchen (maybe) and the hallway between the garage and the family room.  We both agree that we want carpet in the bedrooms - though I love the idea of laminate with rugs for coziness in the winter - but we're a long way from Phase II being a reality so we'll worry about that some other time.

The stock market is doing a huge correction and even though I don't worry, I'm worried.  Yikes.  It's been due to correct for some time and we're buying low(er) now so that's not a bad thing.  Still, it's scary to watch the number that is our future decline day after day.  And especially on the (relatively speaking) eve of our first official retirement withdrawal.  Glad we can postpone that for a bit longer 'cuz we don't want to sell low - at least not this low. 

OK - 2nd cup of coffee to brew then hop in the shower and get going.  Seems I'm ready to go in early usually on the days when I have to stay late - why is that?  But time to get back to a routine of getting there 7ish - sets the tone for the day for my team.  Let's them know we're getting down to it today - just like everyday.  Only Majah in the house early means a busy day awaits.  

Let it begin!

Six Months

This time six months ago, we were at Tracy Hospital watching H. be Medivac'd to Doctors Hospital. Today is the six month anniversary of the day the wheels flew off our bus and splattered all over the place along the route to our new normal.

Is it normal?  No, not yet.  Some days feel relatively normal.  The first month or two felt pretty intense and some days, there is an overwhelming sense of 'Holy Crap' to it all.  Many days now pass pretty normally - H. is doing well post-chemo and post-radiation.  He's bored out of his mind and not entirely motivated to do anything to resolve the boredom except 'chill-ax' with friends.  He sleeps a lot (which may or may not be radiation recovery related).

We've had many moments that he makes my heart sing.  He has an amazing mind and his thoughts and the places he goes in his head and has shared more of lately (such severe boredom that he's actually talking to his parents) are wondrous and magical at times.  He's funny and witty (always has been) and beguiling and sweet (also always has been).  He is also sometimes exasperating and challenging - and he's always been those things, too.

He's a wonder - and every time I look at him - every time, really - I think 'he is a miracle.  Everyday with him is a miracle'.  And I will always feel that way.  He's had so many miracles in the last six months.  

We had H.'s appointment last week to go over his most recent scan.  The doctor was running significantly behind that day.  Our 10:30 appointment stretched to 11:00 then 11:30.  We finally saw the doctor about 11:40.  He had a reception room full of patients and it was clear he was trying to catch up in time for his staff to be not too late to lunch.  He glossed over questions - I was asking 'is the mass gone?' over and over.  'We'll watch him for a long time; there's still swelling but that could be radiation'.  Then we looked at the scans which we think looked better than the scans in the first few months?  But we're not radiologists and honestly, 3-D CT scans look like just a lot of varying shades of gray that mean something if you're trained to read them.  To us, not much made sense.

We left sort of frustrated and I was definitely on edge.  Thinking that we should insist on a second opinion and then realizing that because Blue Cross hasn't negotiated an agreement with Stanford, we currently can't go there - it won't be covered.  UCSF seemed the most likely.

My always patient husband requested copies of every single scan H. has had - 40+ pages - and read them all.  My simple explanation is this:

The 'mass' the ER doctor referred to six months ago tonight isn't really a tumor.  It's not something that can be removed or eradicated.  The 'mass' was huge amounts of swelling of virtually every type of tissue in H.'s chest.  The swelling wove itself into his vascular system and wrapped itself around his windpipe.  Narrowed his windpipe in a couple of places and moved it off center by a couple of inches.  It was pervasive, life-threatening swelling - and that is caused by the disease.  You can't remove that kind of mass - it just has to be shrunk and reduced and 'dissolved' - and hopefully doesn't reoccur once the lymphoma is eliminated.  The lymphoma is the 'mass' - it caused his tissues to go crazy for a long time.

There is still swelling - and it's hard to know what's causing that.  It is likely (fingers and toes crossed) caused by the radiation.  Blasting it with 3000 degrees centigrade over and over and over for three weeks in a row will do that to tissue.  But we won't really know for [insert unknown time frame].

So we wait.  PET scan (full body scan) scheduled for December and our next appointment with the oncologist is scheduled for 12/23.

Behold....Quiet

J. is out campaigning.  Walking neighborhoods, knocking on doors and asking people to vote for the candidate.  J. enjoys it and is good at it - though in this town, I feel worried about him constantly. We swing a little (way) more left than 99% of the people in our town....and I always worry about him walking around knocking on doors of people who swing way, way right - and have guns.

But he enjoys it, it's contributing to our party and our town and region - so yeah, J. .  Keep on keeping on.,  Just be careful.

H. is somewhere.  No idea where.

There's so much happening at work that I wish I could write about but I won't.  I'm sure I could craft it all in a way that would protect the innocent - and I sure would like to just get it all out on paper....'cuz writing has always helped me sort through a bunch of stuff.  I did seize the moment after a meeting my boss and I were both attending - and as the meeting cleared, I brought up a subject I've been concerned about for a bit.  Was grateful it was a good conversation and he listened and I think 'got' what I was saying.  He reassured 'we'll get there'.  As in the collective 'we' (district).  I hope so. It's a long, hard road these days.

I often think if I were in my 30's, I'd be totally up for it all.  But I'm in my mid-50's and I'm just not. But I need to work so nose to the grindstone; get through it and do what needs doing.

I was working on depreciation today for our audit and my boss said 'what are you depreciating?'.  I said 'everything we own - land/buildings/equipment.  Decades of data.  I did finally have a wonderful friend at the County Office assist me in re-tooling the spreadsheet.  It had so many formulas and it would recalc each cell after every single entry/action.  We've got it only recalculating the current year's info and striking a balance for the current year we need to report.  Saves tons of times - data entry is a gazillion times faster than it was in the old spreadsheet.  My boss seemed surprised that was part of my job - guess he thought the auditors do it.  They don't.

B. isn't coming home - no road trip.  Guess their six week excursion that ended up being only three weeks wasn't enough for two weeks off.  They all got a four day pass...so not enough time to take 2 days each way to/from.  We will see him in Phoenix in November and can't wait!

The floors will be another 10 days away from being installed.  The custom risers are on order and take a long time to get here.  H. moved the study closet stuff out into the garage - so I'm back to parking outside again for a couple weeks.

Very much looking forward to the weekend.