Welcome to my life...

Experimenting

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 16:21:38 GMT

After surfing around LJ and finding all the gorgeous food pics taken by a_muffin_story and her friends, I was inspired to play with taking some food pics of my own. As I was making breakfast this morning, I brought out my camera and did something my mother always told me not to do...I played with my food. Here are the results. Tell me what you think - but please remember this is my first attempt at photographing food and I haven't played with my digital camera very much yet. I need to figure out how to use the manual focus.

vision problems

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 16:19:19 GMT

I finally got fed up with seeing everything a little out of focus and called the eye doctor on Wednesday to make an appointment. They had just had someone else cancel an appointment so I got in the next day. I went in only to find out that my prescription needs to be changed again. Age is not treating me kindly. I wore the same prescription for over fifteen years when I was younger. Then I had another prescription for about 6 yrs, but this last one has only been a year and a half! *GASP*

In addition to that, I not only need the transition lenses in bifocals, but doc also strongly recommended the crizal anti-glare treatment to improve my night vision and light sensitivity problems. RESULT: a pair of glasses that cost $435!!! *GASP* *CHOKE* *GASP* My insurance only covers up to $200, so I had to pay the remaining $235 in advance! Apparently my insurance coverage which switched to a new processing company in January, has been extremely slow in paying claims and the doctor's office has to pay their vendor when the glasses are received. AND prices are going up since the lenses are plastic which is a petroleum based product and we all know what's happening with the oil industry. Damn Bush anyway!

This situation may result in yet another whole set of fees, because I am going to have a stress related heart attack!

Progress

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 02:35:56 GMT

Things seem to have slowed down again, at least I hope that is the case. I got a lot of personnel paperwork off my desk today but still have a lot more to do. I have also managed to scan in and reformat seven more pages for the cookbook in the last two days. I feel great about this progress. However, the weather changes are causing back and shoulder issues again, so I am quitting early this evening and going to bed.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho ...

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 12:47:09 GMT

This past several days have been very busy with helping friends, visiting with family, working, and as the King would say "Etcetera, Etcetera, Etcetera." I feel like I'm constantly running from one place to another and staying up late to make up for the things I still need to accomplish for myself. Call me the white rabbit cause "I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date.." seems to be running through my head constantly for the past 4 or 5 days. I have managed to squeeze in 3 more pages in the cookbook since last Monday, so I am still making some progress on that project. However, I haven't managed to pick up any sewing, so there's no progress with my granddaughter's sundresses.

...and it's time again for the white rabbit, with the seven dwarfs in the chorus singing "Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's off to work I go". (I seem to have major Disney tunes stuck in my head...maybe I can learn to be like the Cheshire cat and disappear...)

Road trip plans

Sun, 18 Mar 2007 02:37:52 GMT

When I was a child, the only family vacation that I remember is going to Branson, Missouri when I was about 11 years old. We all went down and stayed at a campsite in a rented tent. The day after we arrived, my youngest brother got very sick. So my mother stayed in the tent with Tim, while my dad took the rest of us out to see Silver Dollar City and the surrounding sites. About the only thing my mother saw was the campground.

Last year my hubby and I went to Branson with a lifelong friend, we all had a blast. The only plan we had made ahead of time was to visit Silver Dollar City. The rest of the trip was whatever suited our fancy at the time. Hubby and I decided to go back again at a later date and this year we bought season passes for all the parks in Branson.

My mother's birthday is coming up at the end of this month. I decided as a birthday gift to take her to Branson with me. My dad's health does not allow him to travel much and I figured this might be the last time she will have a chance to see what she missed over 35 years ago. I have finalized our hotel and trip plans. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we will have a perfect trip. And.. since it is just us girls, we can stop at the craft shops, quilt shops, etc. that I spied during my last visit but wouldn't dare suggest in the company of two men. I would have gotten lynched. This should be fun.

Spring ...Hooray! (Atchoo..atchoo...atchoo)

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:08:09 GMT

I love spring. I love the end of the really cold dreary weather and welcome the warmth of the sun on my face. In my case, unfortunately, this also means saying hello to my allergies again. I am allergic to several types of pollen, dust, and mold. The warmer weather outside has prompted the plants and trees to start budding again, so of course, I'm sneezing...again...and again...and again. I don't know why but my sneezes generally come in sets of three. Anyway, time to dig out the allergy medications again and go out and enjoy the sunshine. I want to smell the flowers, even if I can't see them through my watery, itchy, blurry eyes.

Cookbook update

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 18:02:08 GMT

Last night after working on my grandmother's recipes project, I felt really good about the progress I had made. In 8 days time, I have managed to put 14 pages of this book back together, which is much more than the 1 or 2 recipes a day goal I set for myself. I have also managed to get some housecleaning done, my laundry taken care of, and copied some more of my patterns to make clothes for my granddaughters. I even managed to spend a couple of hours sitting on my deck and reading. If I can keep this up, I'll be making major progress on several things instead of accomplishing finishing one project to the exclusion of all others.

The grass isn't always greener...

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 13:14:50 GMT

Last week my boss went on a trip to Nevada as part of a group evaluating the Biochemistry Department of their university. He walked in this morning, looked at all of us in the office and said "All I can say is THANK YOU."

He then went on to explain that this other department had MAJOR problems. No one got along with anyone else, the office employees were fighting among themselves, the professors were fighting, and even the Dean's offices did not agree with anyone on how to do things, so basically nothing was getting done and no one wanted to accept the blame. Apparently, it was bad enough that even their paychecks were not issued on time on a regular basis.

He said that interviewing these people made him really appreciate the fact that we have a really good team of people in our department. Our personnel believe that it is much easier to own up to making a mistake and then fix it, than try to sweep the problem under the rug. We also pitch in and help each other when it is needed. We were informed last year by our dean's office that our department (with only 13 professors) continually brings in more grant money then any other department in the college of Arts and Sciences, even though several of those departments are much larger than we are. I chalk it up to teamwork. We all have our differences but still work together to make sure everything is done professionally and in a timely manner. This is why I like my job so much.

However, sometimes it takes seeing how bad the grass is on the other side to really make you appreciate how good you have it on your side of the fence.

Road trip!!

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 05:45:27 GMT

I received a special offer flyer in the mail from the wonderful folks at Silver Dollar City this week. Three of us spent 4 days in Branson last fall and we had a blast! After much discussion with the significant other, we have decided to go back to Branson at least once if not a couple of times this year. I went ahead and bought 3 park all season passes at the sale price. So now I have leverage to really get hubby back down there...we already have money invested...and we simply can't waste that... (Yippee! Doing major happy dance!!)

The Pack Rat

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 02:48:29 GMT

My husband is a pack rat. After being married for most of the past 30 years, I have long since accepted that fact. We agreed he could use the second guest room for "his" room so he could work on building model cars and that sort of thing. Instead of doing this, he has been steadily squirreling away his "found" treasures. I have even watched him earn lots of money by pulling things out of dumpsters, trash cans, etc. Most of what he finds is useful in some way and may only need minor repairs. The fact that my parents manage a storage facility makes their dumpster prime foraging grounds. He usually brings home old army gear, old TV's, VCR's and that type of thing. This week he filled the back of the pick-up with old cookbooks, touch lights, a wooden rocker with a broken leg spindle, some tires, and one item that just cracked me up. Among all of his found treasures was a miniature ancient roman soldier's helmet. It appears to be a poured metal mold that was welded together in the middle. It is only 8" tall and has been painted green and then sprayed with water to give the paint a dappled look. What the hell are we going to do with this?

Messed up week

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 05:59:09 GMT

This has been a very messed up week. Last Saturday was good. Had craft day with 12stargazers and Crafti at my house. Siliverdragon didn't make it because she had to work & help her mother with an open house party. 12stargazers had been fighting a cold and had been up most of the night before and was hilarious most of the day. The self-editing function kept getting turned on and off and on and off. One minute she was talking normally using normal substitutions for bad language (ie: darn, danged, etc.), and the next minute she was cussing like a mechanic having trouble fixing a car. Crafti started commenting every time the change was made, "The editing function has been turned off again" and "the editing function is back on again". I had never really heard 12stargazers cut loose like that before. It was so out of character that I was laughing so hard I was crying at one point. Sleep deprivation and cold medications in combination do strange things to people. I did manage to get some summer dresses cut out for my granddaughters.

Sunday, I spent most of the day running around and didn't get much accomplished. Crafti and I went to breakfast at Radina's coffee house and then in to work long enough for her to fix some code for me in the document tracking system she wrote for me. I went to my tanning session, then out to lunch with the hubby. I had a patty melt from Early Edition. First the waitress brought me the wrong meal. I'm not sure how anyone can confuse a patty melt on marbled rye with a mushroom and swiss burger on a sourdough bun, but she did. Then she brought me the right meal and the burger was a little undercooked. It definitely wasn't up to Early Edition's normal standards. It just wrote it off as an off day. Then as we were leaving, I noticed my front driver's side tire was a little low. We stopped at the gas station to air it up and hubby informs me that we were going to Wal-mart because I had a nail in my tire. Great! Just what I needed! We went to Wal-mart and they were very busy so it took them over an hour to repair the tire. By the time we got home, I was tired and had no energy. I watched a couple of tv shows and went to bed.

Monday morning I got up a little late, still made it to work on time but wasn't feeling all that great. I figured it was just achiness that would wear off after I was up and moving. Wrong! I left work at 9:30 am with a low fever and a worsening headache. I figured I was coming down with the flu my hubby had had the week before. Spent two days down with a reoccurring fever that would break and come back, break and come back. I did sleep most of those two days. By Wednesday, I was noticing darker cloudy urine and knew I had a urinary track infection so it was off to the doctor for me. Got an antibiotic, picked up some cranberry juice, went home and slept most of the day again.

Was woken up by the phone at 5 am on Thursday. Hubby got called in to work early to clean snow from sidewalks and parking lots again. The weird part was it was 70 degrees the day before. Welcome to Kansas! Spent a good share of the evening listening to weather reports regarding severe thunderstorms and tornadoes south east of here, only to wake up to snow the next morning. After cleaning 4 inches of snow off the car, went to work, but still wasn't feeling the best. I managed to make it through the day and went to bed by 9 pm. I was exhausted.

Felt much better today. Went to work and out to lunch with the coworkers. It was very cold outside because the wind was blowing up to 40 miles an hour directly from the north. I listened to President Clinton's Landon lecture this afternoon via the live web cast while I was working. I was very impressed by his speech. He was talking about how we all need to think globally regarding hunger, education, health care, our oil use and renewable green energy, etc. It really wasn't what I had anticipated and made me think. He never once put in a plug for Hillary running for president, which impressed me even more. Still didn't have much energy tonight so have been watching several episodes of Dark Shadows, the original series, as I worked on the computer this evening. I still like that show and eerily still remember a good share of the plot, even though I haven't seen this program in almost 30 yrs.

I guess that sums up my week. I didn't accomplish much this week, but hope to get some things done this weekend.

CABIN FEVER!!!

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:10:03 GMT

This week has been both wonderful and frustrating. The weather outside has been in the mid fifties with the sun shining and no breeze. After spending several weeks of little sun and or sub zero wind chills, THE SUN IS SHINING AND IT IS WARM!!! I've had a very hard time concentrating on work instead of daydreaming of being outside.

I started tanning sessions a couple of weeks ago based on my dermatologists advice in attempting to deal with on-going troublesome skin issues. I have come to the conclusion that I suffer from seasonal affective disorder. Once I started the sessions, my mood lifted and I generally felt much better. I wasn't nearly as achy or as grumpy as I had been before the treatments. The treatments also seem to be making a big difference in my skin problems too. YEAH!!! BIG HAPPY DANCE!!!

Is there such a thing as a sun-a-holic? I need serious doses of sunshine!! (and I need it now!!!)

feeling groovy

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 04:15:55 GMT

It's been a very good weekend! I have been very busy. We babysat for the grand kids on Saturday for a while. A (the 4 yr old) was being pretty good for a change. He actually voluntarily gave a couple of his cars to his baby sister to play with. This is a major accomplishment for the kid who never wants to share. B is now crawling and trying to pull herself into a standing position. YEAH! I feel kinda bad because her daddy is serving our country in Iraq and is missing so much right now.

I also spent some time cleaning house, managed to make back-up copies of several new CD's I bought, finished working on a couple of job descriptions rewrites that were overdue, and even got some sewing done.

I had taken today (Monday) off from work and the weather was wonderful. After a week of temps not getting over 20 degrees and below zero wind chills, today it was in the mid 50's. Glorious!! I spent a while sitting outside on the deck just enjoying the sunshine. Why can't everyday be this good?

Feeling good!

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 04:42:36 GMT

It is only Wednesday, but it has been a very long week already. Work has been very hectic again. The past few days I haven't gotten much accomplished because I have had lots of walk-in traffic with everyone needing something right now. I swear I'm going to mount one of those "Take a Number" dispensers on the outside of my door. When this happens work tends to start piling up and I begin to feel very grumpy. Today it finally stopped and I was able to get several projects finished up and off my desk. I like those days! I need a few more like this one so I can get completely caught up.

To avoid the inevitable headaches of trying to do anything on the 14th, my hubby and I went out for a V-day dinner last night at a new restaurant here in town. This is our second time there. Houlihan's has moved in where the Gold Fork used to be located. It is definitely an improvement. The food, although a little pricey, was absolutely wonderful!!! We will definitely be going back - again and again and again....

I'm also glad we did this last night. It has turned frigid in this part of the country. We had temps in the teens and below zero wind chills today. Tomorrow's not supposed to be any warmer, but by Monday it's supposed to be in the 50's again. The students will be walking around campus in shorts and flip flops. As a whole they don't seem to be very smart when it comes to dressing for the weather. I actually saw someone walking around in a t-shirt and those thin knit pants that look like pajamas today. If that girl doesn't catch pneumonia it will be a miracle.

Another weekend gone

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 02:49:06 GMT

I really wish weekends wouldn't disappear so quickly. It seems like they just get started and then POOF they're over. And once again I didn't manage to get done half of what I had planned. I didn't get any house work done except laundry. I have come to the conclusion that Super Mom's don't exist. It is totally impossible to have it all at the same time. If you spend lots of time keeping your house clean, you don't have time to craft. If you craft, you don't have time to read. If you read, you don't have time to spend with family and friends. It becomes a vicious circle that makes you feel guilty no matter what you do. I have to find ways to make this easier. I would like to simplify things somehow but I'm not sure where to start. I'll have to think about it for a few days. Right now, I think I'll just go to bed.

freaky day

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 03:44:49 GMT

Today was not a good day. I knew when I went to bed late last night it was going to be a problem. I started off the morning by literally having to drag my butt out of bed this morning. I seriously considered using toothpicks to pry open the eyes, but ultimately decided against it. Anyway once I got moving, I was running late. I went to transfer the contents of my hip pack that I took to the game back into my purse. I pulled out the receipt for our dinner last night and started to log it into my checkbook (which I had left at home) so I wouldn't forget to later. When I looked at the amount I about had a heart attack! I knew my dinner bill was only $20 and change, but the receipt I was looking at was for $97!!! I was instantly furious!!! I couldn't believe this restaurant would overcharge by that much and I was stupid enough not to look at the total when I signed the receipt. I was going to have to call the bank, call the restaurant and fight a battle to get this charge reversed. I shoved the receipt into my purse and headed for work. I pulled out the receipt again a little after 8 am when I was going to call the bank to see if I could dispute payment. I had actually dialed the half the number when I realized the date on the receipt was 2/7/2006 not 2/7/2007! The receipt had apparently had been in my hip pack for a year! The company name that should have been on the top of the receipt was ripped off and I had just assumed the receipt was from the restaurant. I then found the correct receipt and felt like a total idiot. I had completely worked myself up over nothing. It was just a really weird coincidence.

Then, I had brought in a batch of brownies for my assistant's birthday. I kept these back for after lunch so it would be separate from the potluck itself. But then two other people brought in brownies for the potluck. We were up to our ears in brownies! Wait that sounds like some really kinky food fantasy dream...up to our ears in chocolate and nuts...maybe that's not such a bad thing.

But between the potluck, the brownies, and the lack of sleep I was falling asleep at my computer this afternoon. I did make it through the rest of the day, and am going to bed early. I don't want another day like this one anytime soon. I blame the sleep deprivation for the majority of the problems. Tomorrow's Friday so it's got to be better.

another idea to use up my time...

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 06:42:29 GMT

I decided this evening to enter the world of live journal because I wanted to post a comment to a friend of mine. I have been keeping up with her life by reading her journal because she moved out of state and I no longer get to see or visit with her on a daily basis, but I still like to know what's going on in her life. I have never been much of a writer so this could be an interesting journey. We'll see how things go.

This could also help me keep track of where some of my time seems to disappear to...it seems to be vanishing at a much faster speed than it ever has in the past - or possibly I'm just becoming more forgetful as I get older - hmmm.

Today has been a very busy day. After work we went out to eat and then went to the KSU Women's basketball game. I'm not a major sports fan, but my hubby was given free tickets so we went. It started out as a pretty good game for a while, but we fell behind and were never able to catch up again. Oh well. Life goes on.

After the game I came home and cooked chicken for a potluck lunch tomorrow at work, cleaned up my kitchen, and set up my new account on LJ. I just now looked at the time and realized it was after midnight. I won't be functioning well at all tomorrow without my 8 hours sleep. I'll be a zombie.