Bound and determined

Next month will mark the 7 year anniversary of this blog. It amazes me that I could natter on and on (with so little to show for it) and with so little to really say :-} but I began to feel like it could all vanish with a server failure at blogspot, and so I got one of those online web sites to convert my posts into a pdf document which I then printed out and voila! I had it bound on Friday, all 243 pages. What, exactly, I plan to do with this is a puzzlement but at least I can use it as a doorstop if all else fails. My therapist calls it a memoir, but I'd like to think a real memoir would have a bit more substance to it. Ah well, that's why I call this random (unplanned) micro (very small) thoughts.

I had always planned to get both bedrooms that the kids use re-carpeted and re-painted once they moved out, but (ah hem) that doesn't seem to be a reality anytime soon, so we told them that they had to clear out everything, leaving only the main furniture, so the floors can be redone with wood laminate, and the wall paper stripped and the walls re-painted. They both keep very neat bedrooms, always have, but they were stuffed to the gills with books, computer games and consoles and CDs. So this weekend they have been sorting, tossing, donating and boxing everything up and what revelations they have made. R found shoes, still in the box, under her bed; C found a backgammon set, very nice, that none of us could identify as to origin. Long lost books were found, and I am the beneficiary of a bunch of unopened CDs that I think were mine to start with. Not that it matters, really, but still... Once C got his bookcases empty, he knocked them apart and threw them out the window in pieces, so much faster than carrying them all down the stairs and outside. It worked OK but seemed a little, um, bold, but they were in awful shape and his window faces the back of the house where only the horses and dogs can view the chaos and be offended.

I've been doing some bidding on ebay, it is an awful addiction of mine that I try to do conservatively. It must be working, or I've lost my touch, because the last several auctions I have been outbid in the final 15 seconds of the auction. I usually bid at 30 seconds to the end, but that apparently is not good enough to win. Just as well, the whole house would look like the kids' bedrooms and poof! there goes my image.

This post has been a little more random and tiny than usual, so I will leave with this bumper sticker: "Don't make me get out my red pen!"

Cruisin'

Here it is the 10th and I haven't posted in over a week. Just one of those times when there is more to do and less energy to do it with. We've been managing the battle with the cats' fleas, and I think we've finally gotten the upper hand. How they get fleas when they never go outside I can't figure out, but one of our cats is solid white and she is the bellwether for all of them. We have (wince) 7 cats indoors and now 3 outside barn cats that we feed regularly, plus visiting cats from the neighbors. Really, I'm not one of those crazy cat ladies, they were all legitimate cat rescues or the result of an ill-advised trip to the local pound. I have told N that he is to take the keys away if I ever suggest going to the pound again. So many lovely cats, and they euthanize 1 of every 2 cats. So heartbreaking.

The echo cardiogram went quickly and the tech said there wasn't anything she saw that was different from the original scan done before I started the chemo. A little leaky valve, but nothing serious. I am thinking about uncrossing my fingers any day now, I think.

I still haven't finished the mountainous task of organizing the photos, I am waiting for the storage boxes to arrive, then I will be able to sort better and to label the back of each photo as to who is who. The "when" will be the tricky part, trying to relate hair style and furniture and background, as well as how old the children look, to figure an approximate date. It was so nice when the film developers put dates on the back; now my camera will print the date on the front, not the date it is printed (like the old ones were) but the actual date it was taken. All these modern conveniences.


I want to sign up for another on line photo class, like the ones I did before, but the assignments every week can be labor intensive, and I'm not sure I can master the effort to do it justice. And I had a phone call from Holland America (cruise line) to ask about booking a cruise to Hawaii, but that can't happen unless I finish with the Herceptin therapy earlier than expected. The season ends in early April for those cruises, because of the weather. I'd like to do it in December or January, wouldn't it be heaven to leave a cold wet winter here for sun and surf in Hawaii? (Sigh). There is a live webcam at Turtle Bay resort on Oahu, the camera pans back and forth, aimed at the beach cove on the eastern side of the resort, and you can hear the surf, and see people walking along the shore. I visit there often. Here is the link if you are interested:

Turtle Bay web cam

I bet this resort costs and arm and a leg.

Bumper sticker for the day: "Optimism. Waiting for a ship to come in when you haven't sent one out."