RIP WHM

The concept of reacting to death seems to be different in my life - as are many of my emotional reactions. My belief system has been fragmented together based on practicality and the things I know. I don't believe something easily because I feel the need to be educated about it. Although I feel I'm less logical than frog, for example, I feel that logic plays a large role in my beliefs and emotional reactions. (If you ask my husband, though, he will tell you that I commonly have emotional outbursts above and beyond my logical capabilities.) WHY is a big deal for me. WHY do we celebrate this particular soandso? WHY did people feel the need to do this?

Following this pattern of thought, I grieve differently than anyone I know...or, let's say, I grieve differently than anyone I have SEEN grieving. And I imagine that this is because my brain processes the information in such a way that it is logical to me. If you look up the word 'death' in the dictionary, you will find a definition similar to this: the total and permanent cessation of all of the vital functions of an organism. That means the body has stopped functioning. Nearly every faith on the planet, though, has a belief system for what happens to the spirit after the body stops working. It isn't foreign to us, as faith-based organisms, to have an answer, whether logical or not, to the big "what happens next" question. In keeping with this, my first reaction has typically been: Ok. There's nothing else I can do about it now.

Part of me feels that this is a cold response - heartless maybe. However, the rest of me feels that my loved one has moved beyond their body and onto something different. Maybe reincarnation. Maybe kicking back on a cloud for a few hundred years. Maybe they're just not so damn tired anymore, and they can see the big, whole picture...in which case, I'm not sad that they have moved on. I'm pretty happy for them, as a matter of fact. Sure, I recognize the loss in my own life - I will miss this person now that my life has been altered by his / her absence - but I can't say that I'm sad they have died. Shocked? Sure. Uncertain? Absolutely.

My uncle died on Monday. He was the youngest child of my mother's mother. He is survived by two children, one boy and one girl. The circumstances of his death were shocking, tragic really. I can't say that I knew him tremendously well, but I did spend a lot of time with him when I was growing up. It is unfortunate to me that I won't be able to connect with him further throughout my life, but maybe he's less aggravated now. I have decided not to attend the funeral for a myriad of reasons (for example, he will be buried in the mountains, in the middle of winter, and in the middle of an ice storm), and I feel that I've made my peace with his passing. The logical part of me has processed all of the information that I have, and I'm keeping on with keeping on. I feel the need to say, though, that at the very least, I will miss knowing that he's out there holding down the forest.

1/27/09

My bath tub faucet that no longer leaks (WOO!) but so obviously needs to be cleaned... >.<

Happy Feet

Today's photo: A layout. :)

Holy Freaking Cow

I am officially freaking out.

It will cost almost $20,000 to go back to school and get my nursing certification.

Holy freaking tuition, batman.

1/25/09

Ok, so, it's been a week...a bah-humbug, blah-ness type of week. I HAVE taken my photo every day, but I haven't been online at home (until right now) to post them. And I'm not going to post five days' worth of photos right now. I have them, I kept up, that's enough for now. :) Barring catastrophe, I'll start posting photos again regularly tomorrow.

Bruce

So, this is Bruce. I took a picture of him today because I was going to do "other pet day" to prove that we do have pets other than Epona. Unfortunately, we don't SEE any of the other pets during the day. Thus, you get one wee little picture of Bruce. He is so named because of the five goldfish Hub brought home, he was the only one to survive. He is DIE HARD goldfish...aka Bruce. :)

Playing Catch-Up

I have a few days' worth of photos to share; so, this post might get a little long. First, Friday:

This is my boss' dog, Chica. I came back to my desk to find her sitting in my chair. *LOL*

Saturday:

This is Penny. I found out about Project 365 from her blog. :)

Today:

Hub and I went to see "My Bloody Valentine" at the movies. It is a 3-D movie, and this was us in our super-keen 3-D glasses. Hub had kind of a Buddy Holly thing going on. :)

OMG! and SNUGGIE!

Just so you know, it was THIS FREAKING COLD here today:

Also, Hub can, quite frequently, be awfully sweet and remember things I don't even remember I've told him. Have you seen the TV commercials for the Snuggie? The blanket with arms? It is a terribly corny commercial, but the Snuggie itself looked surprisingly nifty. I toyed with the idea of making one because it is just a blanket with arms, really, but I didn't get around to it before Hub decided to be lovey-dovey. He ordered me an extra-large, extra-heavy Snuggie! SNUGGIE!

Also, I've made a resolution...notion...decision? this year to NOT delete pictures that aren't fuzzy. (There's no use to keeping the fuzzy ones, really.) So, in keeping with that, I've saved a BUNCH of photos already from this year due to my Project 365. I'm finding that I don't mind photos of myself as much as I once did. I'm also capturing some funny photos of Hub (i.e. when he falls asleep sitting up). Here's one that I thought turned out super-cute tonight:


Am I not the most adorable thing ever?

Apple Crisp!

Look what I did! From scratch even!

1/14/09

We are one month and counting down to the Luv Day. :) Just a random bit of random.

I realized last night that since I've been working on Project 365, I haven't actually WRITTEN much of an update. Most of my posts lately are centered around the picture I'm posting for the day. Even though a picture may say a thousand words, I thought a few extra words would be nice. So, I'm going to try to post an actual update, and I will post today's photo later. (Side note: I'm on my second cup of coffee this morning; I might jump around a bit.)

So, what's new? I am teaching Epona self control, which means I'm teaching her to not take treats automatically but to wait for permission. She's doing really well with this, surprisingly. I'm also teaching her to watch me in preparation for the coming spring when I will take her out for walks and have to come between her and other dogs. *flex* We still haven't found a toy that she can't destroy, but I did replace her lost kong with a regular dog kong; so, maybe this one will last a little bit longer.

In the medical arena, I recently had a f/u w/ Penmatcha, and we're fine tuning my treatment plan. I'm weaning off the prednisone now because I can't be on it long term. The downside to this is that my pain may go up with the absence of the steroid. In about a month, I will go back for another f/u; and at that time, we'll check my PPD and review the chest XR I'm going to have to have to determine if we want to start methotrexate. I'm not super thrilled about beginning methotrexate; but if it is necessary, I will try it. I DID make sure to talk to her about other possibilities, though, and she told me that there is a wide variety of stuff we can try if this current route doesn't work. I am going today to have retinal photos and visual acuity tests because of the Plaquenil; and once these tests are done (chest XR, PPD, and eye tests), I will start maintenance, which will mean fewer visits to the damn doctor...I hope. I also did the smart thing and scheduled a therapy appointment so I can learn some coping skills. I'm going back to see the therapist from Iowa City because I had really good outcomes with her, she knows me already, and I trust her; so, it is worth it to me to make that drive for those appointments.

The downside of the eyeball appointment today is that I have to have my pupils dilated a-freaking-gain. *SIGH*

I can't think of anything else right now...More later. :)

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday's view from my back porch at 5:15 PM (it's a little fuzzy):

Today's adventure: MASSAGE!

RN Fish

I have decided that I'm going back to school for nursing. :) I've met with an advisor, and I've started the process. The next steps are for me to apply for financial aid and begin classes in May. :) Woo hoo!

Livres!

These are three of the plethora of books I have at my house waiting to be read:

Did I totally go to the library anyways and get more?
Why yes, I did.

Friday Night with Momma

Who loves her girl?

Happy Joe's

Today's adventure was Happy Joe's Pizza. We decided to order lunch in so that we wouldn't have to go out in the cold. The consensus was pasta, and it was decided upon Happy Joe's. The last time I had that pasta, though, I went into a carb coma; so, I opted for a pizza. Since I feel my tastebuds are changing, I even ventured into unknown territory. Lately, I've been craving food with more flavor. I don't really know what that means or why it has been happening, but there we go. So, today, I ordered a Garden Plus Little Joe (Happy Joe's version of the personal pan pizza). The Garden Plus comes with pepperoni, ham, sausage, green olives, black olives, green peppers, mushrooms, and onions. I ordered mine without green peppers or onions because I wasn't sure I could handle the hot-ness. Afterwards, though, I felt I could have handled the onions. (I'm not a pepper fan.) The green and black olives were nice, but I didn't feel the mushrooms added anything to the flavor. They didn't taste like anything. I was pleased with myself for branching out, though.

By the way, everyone looked at me like I was crazy when I took a picture of my pizza...

DUCKIE!

If you've read me for longer than five minutes, you've probably figured out by now that there isn't much going on here during the week. I go to work, come home, play with the dog, and go to bed...pretty much the same thing every day. Epona keeps me entertained, and I think she keeps me from being more depressed than I normally would be in the winter. Today's adventure was DUCKIE! Frog's cats had a duckie, and I think it is cross-generational or whatever because Epona loves some duckie.

I'm also not one of those people who thinks their dog's mouth is gross. Epona wallers on me, gives me kisses, licks my fingers, all of that. I've bit her, kissed her, wrestled with her...I also play the tug-me game with my teeth, on occasion. :) It's all in the name of luv, baby.

Sugar Doo Learns to Wait

(This was yesterday's photo.)

So, my super-hero dog, Epona, AKA Sugar Doo or Tater Doo (don't ask me why), has learned to wait! She can now sit ("get ready"), lie down, shake, come, and wait. :)

Doot doot doo doo! (She totally has a theme song.)

Yesterday

I wasn't online at home; so, I didn't post...but I DID take my photo for the day.

*FLEX*

No Words Necessary

(Doesn't the date stamp on my chin look weird?)

January Scrap Challenge

The theme for this month's scrap challenge was "Believe." My layout is very simple, as they usually are, but I really like the way the text turned out. The journaling, which you can't really see in the photo of the layout, says: "You make every day better." The photo was from last month when Epona met Santa! :)

The Great Bean

A while back, Hub bought me this exercise thing, and I got the notion in my head today that I was going to open it and check it out. Today was a day full of random notions, but this one took the cake. The exercise jobby is called the "Bean." It's like a chair thing that you sort of rock on, and it is supposed to make abdominal exercises easier and help decrease back pain. I'm all for decreasing back pain. So, we got it out of the box and blew it up. It is called the bean, I assume, because it looks like a giant kidney bean. This was my first use of the bean:

It makes a fantastic footstool, really. Epona was GREAT about leaving it alone...until I got on it to check it out.



We spent about 20 minutes on the bean...me on the bean, Epona on me, and Hub laughing his ass off. She thought it was great fun. *LOL* When I could finally get Epona to get off of me, I did check out the bean further, and it DID help my back pain a bit. If you flip it one way, it kind of rocks like a chair; and if you flip it the other way, you lie over the hump it creates, which pushes out the lower back (felt niiice). Somehow, I have the feeling that this will be used more for comfort and less for exercise. :)

Holiday Hooties!

Today, Hub and I went to Wal-Mart to pick up some groceries. While we were there, we decided to browse the holiday clearance section. They had the cutest little gift box / ornament things with hooties and socks inside! They were marked down 75%; so, I got holiday hooties for $1.25!

After the holiday hootie excursion, I had to come home and try on my nifty knee socks! I heart me some knee socks, really.

Yay for holiday socks and hooties!

1/2/09

This is one of today's photos, and I'm going to talk about this one because these are the coat hooks from hell. We got FIVE of them today at work, and I had to put them all together. TINIEST SCREWS EVER!

This is the mini-book I mentioned a few posts ago. I made it for frog, and I think it turned out super cute. :) She liked it, too.

1/1/09

So, I was thinking to myself: What could I possibly do to launch my Project 365? The errands I ran today were droll, and I (quite frankly) didn't feel like voyaging further out into the world than absolutely necessary. I went to Wal-Mart to pick up some photos, and I returned some movies to Family Video. Woo-hoo.

But then it struck me: SUPPER!

I know, it seems silly, but I really enjoy cooking. And I had to feed the Bear. So, I started up my suppertime routine. What did we have?

PASKETTI!

Is that not the perfect pot of boiling pasta? Loverly. Also, I made my spaghetti sauce FROM SCRATCH! That's right! Over the summer, we had a really nice garden, and my MIL helped me can our tomato bunch. (Notice the lack of plural tomato. Damn the e.) So, I make my spaghetti sauce from scratch! This is only the second time I've made it from scratch all by myself, and it turned out pretty well! It isn't great yet, but it is definately coming along. :)

Project 365

So, I totally stole this idea from Penny, but I really think it is a fun notion. I'm going to try my darnedest to do Project 365 this year. I probably won't POST my photos every day, but I'm going to be posting photos more frequently. (I still can't post my mini-book photos because I haven't given that gift yet!) For those of you lurkers who wan't to know what I'm talking about go here.

I do have to go out into the world later today to pick up some photos; so, I am going to try to snap something for today while I'm out. Who knows, you may get a photo yet today!