I DID IT!! NaBloPoMo

I couldn't get to the "official" NaBloPoMo web page so as too post an official "I did it" image, so the title here will have to do. I posted every day!! for the entire month of November (smug smile). I will admit that not all of them are quality posts, but I did the best I could given what has been going on here. For example, I spent from 1:30 am this morning until 7 am at the Emergency Room of the local hospital with my daughter, who is doing much better now, especially since they did not have to admit her. Still, only about two hours of sleep in the last 24, YAWN.

Today we also took the pups to Petco for a sudsy groom, they now smell (you'll have to take my word on this) like gingerbread instead of...well. They were both tired pups by the time we got them home, here they are sacked out in the kitchen. Ordinarily, me kneeling down to take these would have brought them to tongue waving delight one inch from the camera lens, but today they could hardly muster a sleepy blink:





Maggie, the black and white Newf, is 5 months, and the black one, Raven, is 10 months old. They are best buddies, of course. Raven doesn't show the dirt like Maggie does, but both of them had burrs and tangles and mud ground into their coats, and now their coats feel lush and smooth, well worth the $$. We will give the local car-wash doggy washes a try this winter too, anything to avoid crouching over the bathtub for what feels like hours, and then having to clean the bathroom and wash doggy towels too.

Too tired to think of any other great news today, I won't need a sleepy pill tonight...

The image above is a photo of my dining room windows where all my plants reside. They looked so nice in the sun this morning, I couldn't resist showing them off. Several weeks ago I went through them all, pruning, dead heading, and repotting where needed, and I started using shultz' plant food, and they have just responded so well. There on the extreme right side, I think you can see the Christmas cactus in bloom.

So that's my contribution for today's post, only one more to go this month Hurray! for NaBloPoMo....

"things"

These are my show and tell for today. The drum/stick/shoes are ceramic, and I dry-brushed them to get this effect. They mostly sit in a cupboard. The big "milk-can" is also ceramic. I created the design on it and stenciled in on with underglazes, then fired, then overglazed in clear. I mostly use this to hold plastic bags for easy access. And the last photo of the plant, I macramed the hanger and the pot holder. It is a very intricate design and it took forever. To keep it white, it must hold an artificial plant, which is good because the cats (mostly) leave this alone, other than batting at the tail. I made a lot of these at one point, but gave them as gifts, and the only reason I have this one is because I gave it to my mom, and so got it back once she died. The other thing I was going to photograph is the log cabin quilt I made, but I must have carefully put it in some safe place, because now I can't find it. It's probably in the attic, but my resolve faltered at the thought of climbing up there, and so here you must use your imagination, and picture a large quilt, blues and grays and reversible.

I have also made things which were temporary, like bread, and cakes, and so forth. I have sewn a fair amount of clothes, mostly for my daughter when she was small, and for myself when I was small(er), and these have gone to that great closet in the sky, somewhere. I knitted one pair of mittens, and almost immediately lost them, oh well. And I knitted a nice baby afghan, but gave it away too, of course. I have made a few things recently on my knitting machine, but they aren't much to look at. And I have made lots and lots of photographs, and some of them published even, but then, eh....

I am having continuing problems posting this, it's either me and Mac, or it's blogger, who apparently didn't like uploading more than one photo at a time, and so before the entire thing crashes, I shall save and publish, hoping for the best...

Almost forgot

This has been one of those days when I pedaled as fast as I could just to stay in place.  When I got to bed, I looked through the newest Newsweek, and a mention of blogging reminded me that I hadn't blogged today, #27 for Na BloPoMo or whatever.  So! Here I am, grasping at straws to fill at least a paragraph or two.

I bought 2 new pairs of shoes today, one is a brown loafer and one is a black clog, so you don't need a photo, they look pretty much like you'd expect.  I went to Petco and while there made an appointment to bring Raven and Magpie in for grooming on Friday.  The groomer asked breed, and then I told her they were puppies, 5 mo. and 10 mo. old.  Some how I don't think it quite penetrated that their combined weight is 175 pounds.....  I will be sure to take photos, I'm even thinking about taking them for a portrait, if we can keep them clean long enough.

Oh, here is a picture of Beans, the youngest of our cats, we've had her 2 years, so she is about 2.5 years old.

She is a small cat, but taking the picture butt-on makes her look bigger. This is taken with the camera on the MacBook, and thus is right-to-left reversed (mirror image), I'm too lazy to get up for the digital camera and then download the photos. My original plan for today was to take photos of "things I have made" but the time is ticking away here so maybe tomorrow. I know, you can hardly wait.

Fountain Pens

This fountain pen is the one that started it all for me.  I had always liked fountain pens.  I even took most of my college notes with one, a rapidograph pen that was (and still is) a colossal pain to use.  But this beauty:  a 14K gold plated Wahl-Eversharp Coronet, circa 1938 is hard to beat.  It's fully restored, working, no engraved name, none of the bakelite insets missing, and is worth around $850.  I bought it at a garage sale, not knowing what it was, exactly, only that it was lovely and I wanted it.  I looked it up on the internet that night.  I've been collecting pens, mostly Parkers, ever since.  I like that I can keep my entire collection in a shoe box. I like thinking about what this pen may have been used for (love letters?  foreclosure notices?) or who it may have belonged to (a banker? an attorney?).  I like holding it and thinking about how  each pen was handmade, and that this one is nearly 80 years old and still lovely.  Where has it been?  To war, to Paris, or just stuck in a drawer?

Oh, how much did I pay?  $9.

rubik's cube

Remember I mentioned that I am trying to sell a bunch (thousands) of our books before we have to build an addition just for books? Well, one of them I posted a couple of days ago was "the simple Solution to Rubik's cube" and originally sold for $1.95 in 1981, all 64 pages of it. When I listed it, I did a price comparison on it, and to my amazement, the cheapest one sold for $25. I priced mine at $20 and sold it the next day. Isn't that amazing? I know they still make the cubes, but I haven't seen a solution book in a long time, and I guess the cubes are still just a frustrating now as then. Weird.

Today is a home football game, WVU versus Connecticut. What this means to me, though, is that I am essentially a prisoner in my own house. This town, pop. 25,000 full-time residents, +25,000 students, welcomes, to varying degrees, an additional 60,000 people for the game. There is no place to park, no restaurant to eat at, no motel or hotel room within 50 miles. And if you should be so unfortunate as to try to drive in a direction different from the game-day press, you will sit a long time waiting for the nice officer to give you "the wave" that will get you out of automotive purgatory.

The football stadium was built directly next to the university hospital, an example of urban planning that leaves me breathless. If your loved one should be on death's doorstep while a patient at the university hospital, any family members planning an impassioned death bed scenario had better check on the football schedule; no unexpected visitors can park anywhere close to the hospital on game day, and even taxis will be held up at the barricades placed across the driveways to the hospital. After all, it's game day! Those spaces rent out at premium prices to the well-heeled athletic boosters!

Ah well, only one more game to go this year. My favorite local bumper sticker reads "Welcome to Morgantown. Now go home."

This what is left of the old barn, used now just as a windbreak/shelter when they're out in this field.

This is the new barn taken from where the old barn is. Can you see the wee tiny weathervane on top?



This gives a general idea of what the stall side of the barn looks like; three stalls, all open among the sides.



And this is Willie, looking for dinner. The electronic flash was quite exciting.

Whew, Turkey day has come and GONE. We did a pretty fair job at polishing off a lot of food, but I dare say there will be plenty tomorrow. Do you know the definition of an optimist? It's the guy who, the day after Thanksgiving, asks "What's for dinner?"

When I was a kid, the family Thanksgiving meal alternated between our home and my aunt's home. We lived about 6 blocks apart, they had no kids, and my aunt didn't work, so their home always felt like a department store display. You didn't feel like you could kick your shoes off and lie down on the carpet to watch the parade on TV. Our house, on the other hand would undergo this comprehensive scrub and wax before "company" came, and I hated it. I never noticed a lot of difference for all that effort, except the floors which would be waxed. Living in Miami, with all the sand to track in daily, vinyl floors didn't hold their shine for long after waxing. This, of course, was long before the "mop and glo" era. Here I am 45 years later, and I still hate (and don't do) "spring cleaning".



Instead, I subscribe to the little-bit-all-the-time method of housekeeping, where I scrub the sinks in here today, dust in there tomorrow, and so on. it makes me feel a little like that little old guy in park with the spike on the stick, picking up trash. Except he gets more fresh air.


About to run out of MacBook juice, must post now...

Fall

This is the prettiest time of year, with all the fall colors. This was taken in Sept. at nearby Big Bear Lake, when the colors were at their peak. Most of the leaves are down now, but today the air was a cool 60, blue sky and snappy breeze, just perfect. Many days here are overcast, so blue sky is a treasure.

Hope all of you are ready for the big Bird day tomorrow. Pie baking commences here shortly...

Cats

Have I mentioned lately that I have cats? Or rather, they have me. There are five currently residing in the house, and they sleep in different rooms at night for reasons too banal and embarrassing to recount here. Suffice it to say that in my bedroom, my nightly companion is Cookie, a black and white female. Cookie was never of the warm fuzzy type; she still isn't, even after these years, and in particular she isn't very cozy with the other cats. Sleeping in my room means she must have a litter box, and in her case, the litter box is an extravagant electric affair costing, oh, about the annual income for a family of four in Cambodia. She is very possessive about her box, and will defend it vigorously from any encroachment. So I will admit to a certain gleeful temptation. Once in while I will lure one of the other cats downstairs and into the bathroom, to see if they will attempt to approach the Sacred Throne Box. And if they do, Cookie will materialize directly in front of them, POOF! like magic and wave her paws in their faces until retreat is called. What is funny is that outside of her room, Cookie is, well, a wuss. The slightest confrontation sends her fleeing to her sanctuary.

I have been pounding away on my computer today, trying to get even more books up on ABEbooks.com to sell. I am making headway, but slowly. I sell books everyday (so far) and have made some small amount of money, but as of tonight I only have 400 books listed, which doesn't even get all the ones in my bedroom. And let's not talk about the attic, where boxes of books have languished for the entire 27 years we have lived here, boxes that have never been unpacked. AND all the ones shoved up there over the years since. After I get them all in, I'm going to add up all that we have spent (that I can document) on books over the 37 years we have been married. I'm sure the words "Hawaiian cruise" will fit in there somewhere.

Windows. I watched an episode of "How its Made" today on windows. It showed a type of window being made that I have never seen. It wasn't a double hung, and it wasn't a slider, but instead it had panes of glass that cranked out along a vertical side. Reminded me of French Doors, one side opening, but using a handle. Weird. But then, in my birth home, our windows were jalousie (spelling?). That is, a whole tier of 4 inch deep slats of glass that could be cranked to open, sort of like louvers, or shut, when the slats overlapped. Even the doors had jalousie windows in them. I would guess they don't make those anymore, even in Florida, because the wind really whistled through them, even without hurricanes. We didn't have window shades either, but "venetian blinds" which is now just blinds, except ours had slats made of metal and were 4 inches in thickness, not the mini size you find now. And of course the house was cinder block, with aluminum storm shutters, and a cement tile roof. No garage, just a carport. So hmmm, windows are not the same, even nationally.

Anyway, I had made these great plans for getting things done today, like brush the dogs and clean at least one stall today, but instead I did errands. They take far too long to get done, don't you think? Even combining several destinations, you can count on having to backtrack at least once. And so little to show for all that time...

Time to turn in for tonight. Hope the thunderstorms miss us all tonight.

How Tacky

Today I got all the horse stuff out of the U-store place, and put it in the new, completed Tack Room of  The Barn.

TA DA!!

The barn has electricity, and its own electric meter. I can't quite figure out how the meter reader will get in to see it, given that the horses and/or the dogs will be loose in that area, but I guess we'll find out.

It has water plumbed into the frost-free hydrant in the main barn, and into the big sink in the tack room. The tack room, additionally, has HOT water. Hot damn!

There is an area just under the water hydrant where the cement has been jackhammered out. We will not comment further on this.

The horses are obviously pleased with their new quarters, and with being able to see each other all the time.  It has made them very easy to handle, feed, etc. without all the hysterical screaming of  "She's gone!!! The wild bears have eaten her!!! Run for your life!!!" all of which got really really old when the missing horse was tied just past their line of sight.

The dogs, who now are near enough matched in size that they won't do any major damage to each other as they chase, attack, maul, drag, etc. each other, are enjoying sleeping in the barn on their big cozy blankets on top of the hay, and we enjoy having them not bark or whine all night long in the garage or crate.  The outdoor cats have now re-staked their claim on the garage, which is heated and has a kitty door they can use, now that the dogs are not poking their noses through it all the time.
 

The very first thing I put in the tack room was a mini-fridge and a six-pack of coke.

I used to be so compulsive about my horse care.  When I only had one, he was brushed every day, feet picked out, stall cleaned.  My first horse was a palomino (gold with white mane and tail--think Trigger) and I kept him show ring clean all the time.  People at the stables would laugh at me when I washed his mane and then used a blow-dryer.  I kept his ears, bridle path , and fetlocks all trimmed, and body clipped him in the winter.  Cheez, it was as bad as washing your car tires after each drive.  Now my three beasts are frizzy wild ponies by comparison, but I'm sure they're just as pleased not to be fussed over.  They still, of course, get their feet done, yearly shots, wormed every two months, and so on.   

[When we lived in San Fran, I boarded my horse at Golden Gate Park, and I felt pressured to keep him beautiful.  He was often photographed when we rode, or just when I had him in hand.  In fact, somewhere I have a clipping from the San Francisco Chronicle where he made the front page:  after a wind storm blew part of the barn down on top of him, he was unhurt, but trapped in a tiny area with his head held down to his knees.   The fire department had to free him with acetylene torches (one poor guy had to wrap a fire blanket around his butt to shield him), but thank god for calm quarter horses, after all that he only had scratches.  I guess that was my 15 minutes of horsey fame.... It nearly gave me a coronary, of course...]

The final cost of the barn was double the amount we planned to pay, and the whole project took three times as long.  We have far more sweat equity in this than expected, too.  We couldn't have done it all without #1 son help, and even so the DH worked his butt off, even when we hired a handyman to help.  DH only fell off the ladder backwards once (!) and only got shocked on the light switch once.   The son only lost one nail, when he smacked his thumb with a two pound sledge hammer.  The handyman only stepped through the tack room ceiling once.   And everyone in our family agrees--never again. 

Today the 17th

Today would be my parents' 62nd wedding anniversary. Mom died in 1999, and Dad in 2002, but we did have a really good time for their 50th anniversary. Just for past times and with a little sadness, here is what appeared in the local newspaper back in 1995:

Albert and Zelma Delore Shaw of Stonewood Forest celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on Nov. 17, with a dinner hosted by their family. They were married on Nov. 17, 1945, in Silver Spring, MD, by the Rev. John F. McClelland.

Zelma Delore is the daughter of the late Ernest I. and Nina Knight of Gassaway and is a retired head cashier for Food Fair Stores, Inc. of Miami.

Albert is the son of the late Floyd Ellsworth Shaw and Edith Moler Dixon. He is a retired transmitter engineer for WPBT Channel 2 in Miami.

They have two daughters and sons-in-law:_____ and ____ ____ of Babson Park, FL and ____ and _______ ________ of Morgantown; and two grandchildren: _____ and _____ _____ of Morgantown.



Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad...

Better

When I get headaches, I have to distinguish between a sinus headache and a migraine. I have this great med for migraines, I can't recall the name..Max something. Anyway, it only works on migraines; and it works fast - in 2-3 minutes - if you take it at the first sign of the migraine. If you wait, it may work but slowly; or it may not work at all. So, you'd think I would pop one at the first hint of either headache, right? It won't hurt if it's a sinus headache, it just wouldn't help. BUT -- and here's the catch -- the pills are $25 EACH. I get 9 in a prescription, and it costs $238. So, when I start in with the pain, I always try Excedrin first, maybe with an antihstamine. If that doesn't do, then I wait a while, and finally grudgingly take a Max pill. That's what I did last night, and although it took like 15-20 minutes, it did the trick. You can only take 2 maximum in a 24 hour period because it is a vasoconstrictor, and the risk is that one's blood prssure may shoot up and cause you to blow a gasket, or whatever. I've never taken but one in 24 hours because I'M TOO CHEAP. An then there is this head game involved; if I take the med at the first pain, and it goes away, who's to say that maybe it would have gone away anyway and saved me $25? Sigh. And I think, come ON, how could this tiny thing cost anything near $25 to produce? I understand about drug companies having to get enough money from a good product to pay for all the ones that didn't pan out, and to have money enough to keep doing research. I worked in research labs for 30 years, and I know first hand how expensive a lab can be, and how long it takes to get meaningful results. But one pill for $25? If they knew it was going to actually cost nearly this when in development, don't you think they would have pulled the plug on such an expensive line of research?

Anyway, that's my rant at the drug companies. I make it a point to collect as many free drug rep goodies as I can, pens and mugs and clocks and tape dispensers and anything else. I've paid for it all, one way or the other.

Migraine-y-mania

If I'd done this post when I first thought of it, I'd be in bed by now. But, nooooo, let's wait until we feel really sh**ty and THEN try to make coherent sentences that don't go on and on, and all the while we're thinking about oblivion via a pharmeceutical remedy, and trying to remember what the real subject of this post was supposed to be, and if it was such a good subject why I can't remember it now, and look here I've gone on and on and what was the topic here, stop me please, good night!

Random

I've done this blogging thing for just over three years, and I admit that as time goes by, I am ambivalent about it, why I started it in the first place, why I continue. I have a lot of things I used to do for fun: photography, horses, ceramics and pottery, needlework, genealogy to name a few. I've run hot and cold on all of them over the years, never giving any of them up completely. I think this blog started on a whim. Are you familar with the signs of depression? One of them is "Loss of interest in normal daily activities. You lose interest in or pleasure from activities that you used to enjoy." to quote directly. And I found that fitted me too well, it was a major factor in my depression, that I would look at things that used to make me enthusiastic, and think, "can't be bothered". When I began to feel better/worse/better I wanted to distract myself with something new, and although keeping a journal was always a sometime thing, I started to think that maybe an online journal of sorts would do. Much like with photography, when I'd get a really good image, look at it, and then it would go in a box. Then I began taking photo classes, with the opportunity to show what I had done to others, to have them comment on it, it was far more satisfying. I've heard that that is the difference between a talented amateur and a true artist -- an artist would create even if no one ever saw their work. So that puts me in the amateur rank for sure. All of my life I have searched for "pats" ; when my kids were small we called them warm fuzzies, you know, at-a-girls. Sometimes I would volunteer to do really difficult and time consuming work, just for the kudos after it was done. Petty, isn't it? As time goes by, and I understand more of what motivates me to do the things I do, I'm finding that my feet of clay go 'way past the knee....

When I originally set up this blog, I put the category as "humor" but rapidly realized I wasn't anywhere near funny enough to pull that off, and changed it to "personal journal". And initially I told no one at all about it. I was surprised when a site counter told me that people were actually reading it (for at least 30 seconds, thanks to blog explosion), but I've found that thinking I would gain an "explosion" of traffic was a trifle optomistic on my part. And so I told my husband, my best friend, and my therapist how to find my site. I'm not sure any of them actually made any more than a token effort to read here, and I (mostly) don't mind. So what about now, when I can read back over my "compositions" and make the dispassionate assessment that I'm a pretty poor writer? Do I continue? I'm still thinking about it.

But meanwhile, I've still got half of November to go for NaMoBloPo....

Day 13 -- Insomnia

My mom died in 1999, after a long illness. Thinking back, the last couple of years of her life, one of her main complaints was about insomnia. She would get up at night for hours, and fall asleep in her chair in the daytime. The only time she seemed to sleep well was after she was at my house for the day, which I attributed to exhaustion from all the commotion here. My sympathies for her, though, were not very compelling, because I had never had a problem with getting to sleep; on the contrary, it was getting up that was the problem.

Little did I know.

I am now a master at insomnia and the treatment for it. And I have time to relate all of this to you because I can't sleep.

My problems started out pretty much the time my mom died. I went to my doctor, and said I couldn't get to sleep, couldn't stay asleep, and didn't get any benefit from what sleep I did get. So, over these last 7 years, here's what I have taken (NOT all at the same time, thank you!)

Melatonin
Benadryl
Ambien
Sonata
Rozerem
Lunesta
Restoril
Dalmane
Xanax
Trazadone

Additionally, I have made my bedroom a quiet relaxing place, I use the bed strictly for horizontal things ;-> and not TV, Etc. My room is cool, and dark.
I take calcium at night, because it seems to make me drowsy and keep me from having restless legs. I don't nap during the day. I meditate at night before I get in bed. I don't use alcohol at all, and caffeine only before noon, and some days not at all. I don't smoke. I try to keep a regular schedule, at least for going to bed. I don't exercise or eat a big meal just before bed. You see? I've tried it all.

Last night I got 3 hours of sleep. I am being treated for long term major depression, and while everyone agrees insomnia is connected to depression, no one can say whether it is a cause or a result of depression.

Reading back over this now, I can see that it is deadly dull to read. So if you've made it this far, I think I can safely assume that you too are an insomniac, yes? all together now...ZZZZZzzzzzzzzz.

Passwords - 12th post this month!

I hate passwords. I especially hate to change them. When I worked, we were required to change passwords every 90 days or be locked out of our accounts. They had to be at least 8 characters long and have three out of the following four items:
1. Lower case letters
2. Upper case letters
3. Numbers
4. Symbols (!$%~)*&

Not too difficult, right?

And then they upped the ante.

New passwords had to contain all FOUR of the above categories.

So I did what everyone else did; i wrote it down. And because a co-worker may well need to access files on my computer when I was not there, I had to put the written-down password where it could be found.

Like pasted to the side of the computer on a post-it.

I think that is the real reason that post-its were invented.

Now that I no longer have that cross to bear, I am occasionally prompted at various sites (like the bank) to change passwords, so I have a total of three passwords that mean something to me, so I can remember them. And this means that on any site, I have three tries to get the password, and three passwords which I use, so see how it works out?

And now they're upped the ante.

Now I have to use a new password that HASN'T BEEN USED on that account before.

I've floundered around for months trying to make passwords I can remember. Sometimes I can't even remember them long enough to write them down, so I've learned to write them down FIRST and then use them. And finally I have hit on a theme. No, I won't tell you my theme. But I'll give an example.

Everyone knows you shouldn't use the word "password" or "123456" or the names of your children, and so forth, and anyway, they generally don't have all of the four (or even three) types of characters.

So one theme would be dates. For example, a password I put in today could be "Nov12*007" And everytime I had to change it, I'd use the same format, but pick a different date: not a birthdate, but some date I'd know: my parents' anniversary, the date of the SanFrancisco quake, the date the team won their last game. That's a theme.

Another theme could just be keystrokes. You see how the keys on the four rows of your keyboard line up? So how about a password of xdr54esz? See how those are a pattern?

Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth on passwords.

(But just to be safe, I write it down too.)

Roundabout Way

When my daughter and I were in Delaware last month, we encountered a traffic situation I had never seen before. They whimsically call this a "roundabout". Here's what the Delaware department of transportation says about them:

A roadway "Roundabout" is a circular intersection that moves traffic counterclockwise around a central island. Often confused with traditional "traffic circles", roundabouts differ in that they feature traffic calming qualities that encourage drivers to reduce their speed through the intersection. The design of a roundabout also reduces the need for direct left turns, which are the major reason for intersection crashes, thereby increasing the overall safety aspect of the intersection.




And this is what I have to say about them:

WTF???

There we are, navigating in a strange place at night, and the sign above appears, followed immediately by another sign:




It was one of these, I swear. Anyway, it said, "Traffic in roundabout has right-of-way" . Only, by the time you see this sign, you're already in the roundabout, so??? Anyway, the first time through one friendly Delawarian tooted her horn and gave us a wave (three fingered) so I guess we did it wrong. As if one doesn't already have to have eyes on swivel brackets to look for pedestians, cyclists, pets, AND a roadsign to get where you're going, they put this in to simplify an intersection?

So to all the flatlanders out there, good luck with that. And thank god they'll never put one hereabouts. The folks in this town haven't even mastered 4-way stops yet.