11:11 What is with that number? I made a blog entry about this awhile ago. I just noticed the entry was made on 11/11/2007. heh.

So, the other day I was surfing. I was supposed to be writing but surfing is much easier. Maybe I should start from the beginning....

I'm a member of a board called Morning Coach. It's a personal development/motivation-type forum. I like the daily 15 minute podcasts by JB. Somedays I feel like it's just so much sunshine being blown up my skirt but sometimes the topic is spot on. I guess it all depends on my mood. Anyway, I guess one of the podcasts was on social networking sites like facebook and twitter. I decided to give it a shot and signed up for an account.

From Facebook I was reconnected with a friend from highschool, lo, those many, many years ago. She happened to have just had a poem published on an online magazine. The site was all about Synchronicity or coincidence. I checked out the site and watched a segment of a presentation made about synchronicity and destiny. The subject of numbers came up...11:11, 2:22, numbers which occurred repetitively and were believed to hold a message, like an omen I suppose. I remembered writing a blog entry about that very subject. It always seemed a bit weird to me that I would see so many coincidental groupings of these numbers. My interest was piqued.

I decided to google the numbers and see what came up. On the first page of results was a heading "11:11". I followed the link to a blog. The word "synchronicity" leapt from the page. What the hell? I glanced at the banner at the top of the page. It was a personal development blog by Steve Pavlina. That name sounded really familiar to me. Then it occurred to me...I heard his name mentioned in one of JB's podcasts. I'm almost positive! This was all beginning to seem a little bit bizarre to me.

I went to Morning Coach to confirm. I logged on to the forums, typed Pavlina into the search box and a handful of results popped up. Damn! I scrolled down. One reference was posted on 11/11/2008. It was about one's life purpose....something I had been struggling with lately. I read the entry and followed the link within the post to another personal development site which in turn linked back to Steve Pavlina's blog. That entry was entitled, How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes.

Huh. So here I sit in front of my computer at 11:55 pm on 2/22/09 scratching my head over this perfect string of coincidences that led me to my ultimate question: What is my purpose? Strange doesn't begin to describe it.

I took two antihistamines on top of half an ambien last night and slept a solid six hours last night. Went back to sleep after getting a drink and slept another four with minimal interruption. My head is clearer, my body aches have nearly subsided, my teeth aren't nearly as painful but I still have the lead weight behind my nose. A good ground shaking sneeze would take care of that.

It looks like the husband has it now. He probably won't take off work tomorrow either. This is his busy time. The change of assessment notices went out and he's getting a lot of calls from property owners. Lots of values dropped but people are still complaining. If comparable houses in your community consistently sell above assessed value then logic dictates that your house is just as valuable and therefore is not assessed at market value and needs to be raised per state law. I sure am glad I'm not working in that field anymore. As an assessment clerk I would always take the brunt of the ire becasue I was their initial contact. I hated that job.

Now my job is to make sure that my family is comfortable. It's not glamorous but it has its perks. ;o) I was hoping that I'd be able to sell some advertising banners to some locals on Square Peg to add a little something to the family income but that's not going to happen. Not unless, by some miracle, some people migrate to the board and actually start posting. No content = no interest. All the marketing tips and tricks in the world won't do a thing if there's nothing to market.

Looks like I threw out my resistance to germs during the "big chuck". Woke up this morning feeling slightly sniffly and now, just a few hours later, I'm in a full-blown cold & flu stupor. My head aches, my teeth hurt, my nose is runny, I have a 13 pound piece of lead lodged in my sinuses....feels like it...and if I sneeze, which would probably feel great, I think my face would tear apart like a popped paper bag.

My old standby, Alka Seltzer Plus, isn't doing its job this time. I usually take it at the first hint of a symptom and it knocks it out right away. Whenever I get that "chlorinated pool" feeling...ugh. My head from my eyebrows to my upper lip feels like it's in a vise. I guess my body was spending too much of its resources fighting the infection in my wound that it didn't have anything left over for a cold. I better get dinner cooked early so the fam can reheat to eat. I know I'm not going to want to cook later. All I want to do is take a hot shower, put on my snuggies, and sit by the fire for a bit. Maybe watch a Bruce Willis movie and take a snooze in the lazyboy.

Grendal just climbed up on my lap. He's such a sweetie.

It's cold again. I mean really cold. I finally had to break down and do some laundry. I was waiting for a warm sunny day so I could hang it out on the clothesline but dd has run out of clean clothes. The dryer works....half-assed.
Damn, no wonder it's cold in here. I forgot I turned off the heat to this room. To keep the house cold during the day I only heat the office. The baseboard in the sunroom is on Low just to keep my plants from freezing. I turn the hallway baseboard on and that keeps the heat pump from kicking on and heating the entire house.

I went on a cleaning binge yesterday. Got rid of the insulating blanket of dust on everything. That's probably why it's so cold in here! Some days I'd like to back the truck up to the front door and just load everything into the back of it. Start over from scratch. Dh would love it. This house is too small for all the crap that's in it. I have crap in the garage, too. Old crap. Some shabby chic furniture, exercise equipment, books, aquariums....stuff I won't use, stuff I won't fix, stuff I won't read. Why do I keep it??? Certainly not sentimental value. I guess I'm just a packrat like my parents. I really need to change that.

I have clothes from well over ten years ago. I haven't been able to wear them since I had dd. My hips will NEVER let me wear them again. But you know, some day....riiiiiight. They need to go. That pretty little pair of linen shorts that I bought back in the day. Did I ever wear them? I don't think so. Will I ever wear them? Doubtful even if they still fit. Why do I keep them? Why did I buy them in the first place? They are so not me and yet I've had them for over ten years. It doesn't make sense.

Ok, that settles it. I'm going on a grand slam purge. Watch out! If it's not nailed down, it's history!

I don't think I'd know how to handle a good day if one were to land on my doorstep by accident.

Without going into great detail...the incision on my back is infected.

The incision on my neck is iffy...swollen but no suppuration. It itches like crazy. The irritation from the bandage adhesive is nearly gone though...thank goodness!

I failed to mention that the shower had been completed, the trim installed and a new shower head put on. The first night Iused it there seemed to be quite a difference in water pressure from the other shower. We went to Lowes and got a different shower head, one that had two settings....water saver and one that added pressure. Dh switched it out and there was no difference between the settings but there seemed to be better pressure than the night before.

I sent dh under the house to make sure that the shower liner I installed wasn't leaking anywhere. It was fine. However, the hot water pipe that the plumber installed was leaking like a sieve. Go figure. I'm so tired of contractors. Dh called the guy and he's coming out sometime on Monday. So now we're going to have to cut into the wall in the master bath to fix the leak and I'll have to patch drywall, prime and repaint the bathroom wall. It's going to be very very tough trying to match the paint since the wall is colourwashed. There's no way in hell this guy is taking down my tiled wall. No freaking way. The tile is discontinued and I don't have any left. NO WAY!

The brakes are starting to go on the car. Another expense we don't need right now. GAH!

Nothing but bad cess.

I've got a gargantuan bandage on the side of my neck and it itches like crazy! Ditto for the one on my back. Yesterday was quite interesting.

I went to see a cosmetic dentist. I have two teeth that are badly stained. While I said I wanted nothing invasive, that's where the money is apparently. They even wanted to put a crown on a perfectly good white tooth just to match the other crowns they were going to put on. Uhh....no. I swear, if I wanted crowns I would have gone to my regular dentist. He's $500 cheaper per tooth. Their first big sell was a device called a http://www.snaponsmile.com/. Kinda cool but kinda creepy. My first thought was Halloween vampire teeth. And the price quoted was $2,500 just for the uppers. We finally got down to the bottom rung of their price ladder. Bonding. $600 per tooth. They didn't really put a hard sell on that.

They never mentioned bleaching. Go figure. By the time I got out of there they had me feeling like a troll. The kind that lives under the bridge. Here I was thinking that those two dark teeth were my only problem.

Next stop was James River Surgical. I had a couple cysts removed. It took a long time to dig out the one on my back. The surgeon said it went much deeper than she had initially thought. It hurts now. I asked her if she saw any teeth or hair in it....being my evil twin. I guess you have to be a Stephen King fan for something like that. We joked around through most of the procedure. At one point she had to administer more -caine and that hurt like a bitch but other than that it was ok. It felt weird....the tugging and final removal. It felt like she pulled a golf ball out of my back. The one in my neck wasn't so bad. The needles for numbing were the worst part. So far. I imagine the removal of the bandage is going to be a real treat. Like waxing...on steroids.

It's hell getting old.

I don't think the clonazepam is working. For the past few nights I've woken up with excruciating leg cramps. Sometimes I feel like someone has beaten the bottom of my feet with a broomstick. I wish I knew what the hell was going on. The soap in a sock doesn't seem to be working its magic either.

Today the dh and I took a walk around the block to pick up trash. I ran out of room in the bag at about halfway round. I was grossed out by these people. I mean, who the hell leaves garbage laying in their front yard for three freaking weeks? At least I didn't run across any used condoms this time. Although, the guy has been rather nice about putting them in a ziplock baggie before jettisoning them out on the street the past couple times. So, there's something positive about the experience. I just wish these people would get a clue. There's no reason for our neighbourhood to look like that.

There's one spot in particular where a lot of crap is strewn....right before the stop sign where people turn left to go into the new sub with the bigger and more expensive houses. I guess they know that old adage...you don't shit where you eat.

Maybe so, but is it really that frugal to eat Ramen noodles when you have to eat something else right after just to get the taste out of your mouth?

Marcella's funeral was on Wednesday. Catholic, Latin, Communion, the whole nine yards. It was cold and rainy and totally fitting for a funeral. I wore a dark suit with some vintage pantyhose from my working days and as expected they gave out at the graveside service. I wore low heels but even then, combined with the cold and the damp, my legs began screaming in pain. That night I could barely sleep.

Thursday was my birthday. Uneventful for me. However, my friend, Jen, had surgery to remove her gallbladder since she had stones that were morphing to monstrous proportions. She's home now and popping vicodin like Greg House. ;o)

Jim, the husband, took Friday off (as his flex day I assume). He had a 4:15 appt to have his stitches removed. He also chose to trounce all over my feelings. My legs were still very painful. I'd had heat on them for hours but thought that if they were rubbed it may help. So I asked him to rub one leg. The calf. Just for a little bit. He said he didn't want to. huh. It didn't stop him from asking me to put ointment on his scar or to help him get the bandage residue off his neck. I declined.

Saturday morning, in what I assume was an attempt to get back on my good side, Jim grabbed my leg and thought he'd give me a little massage. He started squeezing my calf like it was a roll of playdoh. The pain was excrutiating. It was not a good day.

Sunday was brilliant. I worked in the garden for a bit. Got a lovely dose of vitamin D. Sat outside in the sunshine, drank my tea and read a book. Grendal crawled up on my lap and had a snooze. Very pleasant. And then the kidlet brought the neighbour kid over and all hell broke loose. She chased the chickens and tore through my landscaped planting beds like a bull moose. Blondie wouldn't stop barking at her.

And today is Monday. Blessed quiet Monday. The kid is at school. The husband is at work. The cats are asleep. The dogs are snoozing in their solarium. The house is so quiet! My legs are feeling much better. The day has infinite possibilities!