Nothing spectacular. Certainly nothing that would cause me to break my blogger silence specifically. Not really noteworthy at all since it's already snowed here a couple of times this season. The cats don't like it, that's for sure. I'm sure my dd is excited by it. She's having a sleepover at her grandmommy's house. She would be more excited if a couple of feet of the stuff got dumped on us.

Quick update since August? Cancer gone. Mammo good. Uncle Nibble gone missing. Back on D Therapy. Dd loves her new school but has a 50 minute bus ride twice a day. I feel like I'm at death's door. I feel like the next step I take one of my leg bones is going to snap in two and the splintered end will rip through my skin. How's that for a visual? Beating my fists against my thighs used to help alleviate the pain but it doesn't anymore. I remember back in the 80s when I was tending bar or cocktail waitressing, the pain would be so intense at the end of a 10 hour shift. My boyfriend would massage my legs with a rapid karate chop motion that would drop the pain back to tolerable. 20 some years later and I still don't know what's causing it. My new doctors aren't likely to find the cause either. They couldn't even find my file the other day.

That's about it for the update. I donated to Locks of Love again a couple of weeks ago. Easy come, easy go. I'll be ready to donate again next year around this time. My hair grows incredibly fast. Which is not really that great when you consider that it grows incredibly fast everywhere.

So, there you go. Mundane, depressing, and way too graphic. Will try to be more upbeat next time. ;o)

Dh got his call from the doctor this morning. One of the three biopsies came back positive for basal cell carcinoma. His appointment is August 20th. I remember when my mom had a skin cancer removed from her face. It took a long time to heal. I guess I'm lucky I inherited my olive skin tone from my dad. Although he also had a skin cancer removed years ago. I really feel for dh. I know he's worried but he's being very cavalier about it.

I haven't heard from the imaging center about my mammogram so.... I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that.

I've got a mammogram scheduled for this afternoon. I'm not looking forward to it. Not the pain, nor the intense scrutiny. Last time I went they "found something". I explained what a mammogram was to dd and couldn't help elaborating a bit. I told her they would squish my boobs until they were like fruit rollups. Her eyes got so big. Oh, the things she has to look forward to.

And if the mammogram won't be painful enough I'm taking dd to get her hair cut short today. The kid looks like she got dreds the hard way. Impossible to comb.

Dh left me a grocery list a mile long with instructions to fill the gas tank AFTER I get them so we'll get the full discount. We finally got our $50 gas card from expedia and it'll expire in August.

Mom called yesterday. Apparently my brother pulled another fast one on her. He told his step-son it would be alright for him to live there on their property without consulting them at all. The guy just showed up and moved in. Mom and Dad had never met the guy. He came up from Florida with no money, no job. A total stranger. Nice. Meanwhile, the other brother turned the greenhouse into a lab and he's playing with hydrogen molecules. "Look Ma, I can blow shit up!" They're one step away from being "film at 11:00".

For the past few days I've become nauseated everytime I've eaten something. Dinner was lovely tonight. We had fried zucchini, sauteed noodle beans, jasmine rice and lemon/dill tuna. Now I feel like I'm going to spew. Yesterday we had fried yellow squash with onions and angel hair pasta with sausage and red wine sauce. I had to force down a few ginger snaps after a couple hours of breathing shallow and clenching my teeth. I hate to barf. It finally did the trick. I don't know what the hell my problem is. It would be nice if it resulted in some loss of poundage.

I made a couple loaves of banana bread the other day. They turned out great. I didn't have any applesauce so they had the full compliment of oil and seemed a bit on the heavy side but still tasty. I exchange one cup of flour (in a double recipe) with 1/2 cup wheat bran and 1/2 cup raw wheat germ. I exchange 1/2 of the oil with unsweetened applesauce. Great for breakfast. I usually cut the sugar by 1/2 cup as well. The secret is to let the bananas get absolutely black....almost liquid. I used to buy the freckled bananas just for making bread but now the store won't sell them to me. The guy at Kroger said it was against the law. I think he's full of shit. Maybe if I took him a loaf of my high fiber banana bread....

We finally painted the walls in the hallway. We've only applied one coat and I know I'll have to throw on another. I'm considering a colourwash with another colour but haven't convinced myself that the walls are "too" chrome yellow yet. I like yellow. I wanted a butter yellow but got margarine yellow instead. It still looks infinitely better than it did before.

Did a lot of work in the garden this morning. I planted a big block of mesclun and lettuce and put one of the chicken runs over it so the girls wouldn't destroy the bed. They were practically salivaing, if a chicken can salivate, over the fine tilth of the soil. Got up this morning and saw the ass end of the dog sticking out from under one of my hosta plants. He can have the bamboo bed. He can't destroy that. The craters in there are huge already. But no. He wants everywhere else, too.

More later. Gotta go figure out what to do with the squash tonight...

I'm still peeling from the sunburn I got on my chest while in Williamsburg last week. I've gone from a D cup to a B cup. Pretty soon I'll be down to my shoulder blades.

That was Monday. Dh had his doctor's appt and came home bleeding copiously from one of the biopsy sites. He is afraid of needles. Afraid of razors. Probably just plain afraid of pain. Not a good day for dh.

The doctor originally said they would do the pathology labs there in the office and would call him the next day. Dh called and was told that they decided to ship them off to a different lab and they'd get the results back in two weeks. Not a good day for dh.

Yesterday the water heater thermostat started to fail. Hot water was practically boiling at the tap. Let's just say that dh doesn't handle stress very well. He was rude to a telemarketer who had the misfortune to call while he was contemplating the cost of a new heater. He's never rude to telemarketers. Won't even hang up on them. He definitely snapped at her. It was surreal. Not a good day for dh.

I went to Lowes today for the lower thermostat replacement. Picked up the upper one as well. Picked up a can of paint while there, too. There were two cans of unmarked mistints. I took them to the counter where 3 clerks were milling around. I just needed the tops popped off but I had left my opener at home. They took the lady with the two kids and the "if Martha can do it so can I" look in her eyes first. She wanted 3 cans of paint mixed but wasn't quite sure on the 3rd colour. I figured one of the other clerks could pop the cans for me. Uh...no. It takes two people to mix a can of paint apparently. The big guy, who wouldn't have looked any stranger if he had an axe wedged into his frontal lobe, was there to provide the muscle. I guess.

The 3rd clerk was some chick with black fingernail polish. She opened the lids just enough to get some paint to dab on the lid. She practically huddled over it so I couldn't see the contents. The first can was "cookie crumb". I figured it would be tan, or taupy or butterscotch. Something cookie-ish. It was white. Some mistint.

The second can was violet something or other. I decided to take it for dd's room. A $31 can of paint for $8. What the hell, right? She put it in the shaker for me. While I was waiting on this $8 mistint, the lady with the 3 cans of paint finished, a woman requesting 2 samples mixed was taken care of, an old geezer got his can of paint mixed and shaken and decided to get a couple cans of primer, too, and a guy came in with a 1x2 piece of trim and wanted a colour match. He got a little testy with her because she didn't quite understand what he wanted. The other two clerks had bugged out. Maybe they didn't like the look of his stick.

The chick went to shake someone else's paint and discovered my can of mistint in the machine. She hauled it out and said, "Sorry. I forgot about you." Lovely. "Yeah", I replied, probably about as testy as the guy with the stick. Of course, when I went thru checkout it rang up as $31 and I had to wait for a manager to come override the register.

When I got home I threw myself into one of my new lawn chairs on my work-in-progress stone patio only to discover that one of my underwires had snaked itself out from under my boob and was poking out of the top of my shirt like a cobra. You'd think I'd notice something like that. The list to the right should have given it away. Not a good day for me.

It looks like I'm back to my 5 hour nights even though I'm taking Ambien. I'm really tired. I met Kira and fam (fellow Pegger) at Rockwood park this morning and we walked the mile and quarter trail by the nature center before it got too hot to move.

I went straight home and started watering the garden....hauling buckets after buckets of water from the rain barrels to the garden. Dd pitched in unexpectedly. The plants sure were thirsty. Pulled some weeds, tried to divert the cucumbers from taking over the stringbean teepee, and harvested a handful of lemon cukes which were quite tasty at lunch.

After I couldn't haul anymore water I went inside and baked two loaves of zucchini bread. They turned out perfect! Then I went back outside to help dh set the patio stones. I decided to fill in the craters that the dog had dug around my peonies. I dug up one of the peonies as it had become entwined with a bamboo root and Tuco had pretty much dug all the dirt from the roots anyway. I doubt it'll live. It didn't bloom this year anyway. Then I mulched the filled holes and laid stone around them. And then to really seal the deal and totally piss off the dog I rolled chicken wire over the area and held it down with bricks. Tuco stayed away. However, the chickens thought it was an open invitation. Apparently. I wonder where I can get some cheap razor wire?

Then it rained. I filled every bucket I could find from the rain barrels hoping to make room for the runoff. I got soaked. Unfortunately the rain barrels didn't get filled again. Dh and I sat under the beach umbrella and discussed the patio and various other things while it rained.

I came in, took a shower, cooked dinner, helped dd with her bath, found the ICY HOT for my decrepit husband, and ironed some shirts. I watched a little tv with dh and then Toast started yelling from the other end of the house. He wanted to play. He had his pumpkin but didn't have anyone to throw it for him. He's such a cute cat. Cute, heavy, long haired, with an impeccable sense of poor timing. Good boy.

Ambien still isn't kicking in. What the hell? I need to sleep at least 10 hours solid I think. I've got way too much to do. Dh has a list for tomorrow. *sigh*

Today started out nicely enough. I woke up and just lay in the bed feeling the smooth sheets and the springy soft pad beneath. Grendal decided to join me for a cuddle. Then Smudge came in and started shifting things around. When that happens it's time to get up.

Dh & I decided to install a stone patio in the shade under the maple tree. We bought $80 worth of field and flagstone slabs. Not enough for the job but a start. Came home and proceded to take up the sod in the area. Not too difficult since it was mostly dirt and scrawny half dead grass anyway. It went pretty quickly. Chickens thought it was great. Dog thought it was "instant hole". There he is writhing in wild anticipation. We had to call it quits at this point because it was time to get ready for our "counseling" session with dh's parents. Dh begged me to go with him so I did. I will support my husband at any cost. This time it was my reputation.

We drove up to Ashland somewhere to try and reconcile our differences. FIL's accusations were really "out there".

He didn't like how dh ate his dinner in his room....20 years ago.

He said we stole a bottle of booze from him. He said he saw a liter of bourbon with a LV tax stamp on it in one of the bedrooms and just knew it was his. (We do not keep our alcohol in the bedroom nor do we drink bourbon.) But he just admitted to poking around in another part of the house when he said he was going to the bathroom. (Actually he refused to say that we stole it. Just that "someone stole it and it ended up at your house".

He said I hacked his computer and messed up his stock portfolio.

He said I stole his pennies.

He said that dh kicked him out of the stock club that the family used to run. (He probably changed his email address and didn't tell us.) He thinks that Greg, his wife's brother, was making fun of him on it.

We were at the top of the list of suspects in the theft of $10,000 that was taken from his house. The maid did it and was arrested. He says he didn't "accuse" us of that but he did think of us.

He says we took his old computer and gleaned all of his stock information off of the harddrive and that would give us access to his stock accounts online. (He gave us the monitor only.)

This is all from a man whose own family won't have anything to do with him. Dh is just his step-son. I told him I was there to support my husband and Kathy because that's what families do...they support each other. But that he wasn't family and he practically yelled "You got that right! I'm not family!"

He mentioned Dh's cousin Christie. Apparently she didn't speak to fil at the last family party. He took great offense at that. He said "Well, I was standing right there and she spent five minutes talking to her granddad!" Well Hell's Bells! How dare she talk to her actual grandfather and not blow him off to talk to....um....her aunt's husband?

He got pissed a year or so ago because one of Dottie's kids didn't speak to him either. Kathy had to go to Dottie and tell her that her husband felt disrespected by her boys (who are grown up and out of college now) and Dottie had to get the boys to speak to him. Robby, the fil, expects everyone else to make the first move. If you don't approach him and engage him in conversation he'll pout in the corner and then bitch at Kathy on the way home about what assholes there are in her family.

And in order for this to be resolved and to have us and dd back into their lives as a family, all we have to do is....

wait for it

Apologize to him! Half the accusations he flung at us today we'd never even heard about. The stock market game hasn't been running for quite a few years. But he's pissed because he was taken off of it through his own actions. The computer gift really threw me. He never gave it to us. I didn't know anything about it. That was supposedly 9 years ago I guess.

He said we used his AOL account and ran up over a $1,000 in overtime charges.

He said his new ISP says someone else is using his account, too. According to him. The counselour suggested that they have a computer specialist come out to OUR HOUSE and search MY COMPUTER for any of his files. Dh agreed since we have nothing to hide. I refused. I don't like the fact that they think they can invade my home and paw thru my private files and that I'm supposed to allow it in order to defend myself for something I didn't do just to appease that asshole. No way in hell.

I left the room, picked dd up in the front room where she was quietly reading her book, and we left. We walked down to biglots. Dd wants to know what was going on but it's hard to know how to handle this. The meeting broke up at an impass and dh found me in no time. We came home and I made zucchini latkes for supper. They were pretty tasty.

And now my ambien has settled around my ears and I need to go to bed.

I guess I really am the Master of Chaos.

This little guy paid a visit to the catfood bowl on the front porch one evening. Either he was really hungry or the catfood is just that yummy because several of the cats were sitting around watching him. He wasn't too interested in me either. He ran to the edge of the woods (i.e. front yard) once but came right back.

I usually see opossum out there so this was a treat for me. He hasn't been back though. I guess that's good. We really don't need Cujo the 'coon hanging around.

Today I got a free pickup load of wood chips from a listing on Craig's List. It was a humongous pile and we barely made a dent in it. The guy told us to come back for more if we wanted it. I unloaded it and filled the walkways in the garden. It looks great! I also mulched part of the area around the fishpond (and finally planted one of the dianthus flowers there).

It was Skippy's birthday today....Friday the 13th. How appropriate. He's 37 years old. He's catching up to me. Yesterday I was 9 years older than him. Now I'm only 8. ;o) I got him a book on the history of the Tour de France from 1903-2003. He loves that stuff and can rattle off all sorts of trivial stats on it. I can remember the highlights but really only watched it because of Lance Armstrong.

Had some drama with the neighbour who accused dd of tearing up his garden. She wouldn't. I'm not one of those parents who think that their little Throckmorten can do no wrong. She's capable of doing bad things and lying. This time I think she's covering for the guy's granddaughter who is a spiteful little kindergartener.

Today was also the last day of school. Dd is officially a 3rd grader now. The husband and I were playing a joke on her about her report card, telling her she didn't pass and will be stuck in 2nd again and she burst into tears. "I was really looking forward to going to Winterpock with Ben!" she cried, tears rolling down her sweaty little dirt streaked cheeks. Geez.

I went on a tear today. Mopped the bathroom and kitchen floors. Scratched out some grout. Vacuumed the rug so much it kinda sorta melted a big patch out of it. Seriously. I've had that rug for a long long time and I love it. I can't even turn it to hide the burn. *sigh* I wiped down some of the woodwork. I rearranged the sewing room and can't understand why I didn't arrange it like that a long time ago. It looks so much better and bigger. :scratches head: I washed all the dishes. Dusted. I fried up a mess of cabbage for dinner. I answered my emails. I filled out some paperwork.

I'm really tired.

Or do you make excuses? When was the last time you picked a piece of trash off the ground that wasn't yours? I admit that I've been rather lax about trash pickup in my sub. Let's face it...some of my neighbours are pigs and it's easy to succumb to feelings of futility when I clean up the ditch in front of the same house over and over again. I mean, why bust my ass using a RAKE in order to make my carbon footprint smaller when everyone around me is filling the air with noise pollution and greasy clouds of burning oil from their leaf blowers? Why bust my ass lugging buckets of captured rain water to the garden when the neighbour is "powerwashing" the grassclippings from his front yard during a severe drought? Not a single soul in my subdivision dries their laundry on a clothesline except me. Don't they realize that solar power is free? That sunshine actually kills germs and will make their whites whiter? According to Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin in their book True Green, an electric clothes dryer generates more than 6.5 pounds of greenhouse gases per load.

I know I'm standing on a soapbox and beating my chest but people have to start making their own micro efforts because big business sure as hell ain't gonna do it until the government forces them. And the government isn't likely to force the issues if those in power are making money while raping Mother Earth.

Please do what you can.

How about 'ugh'. Took the kidlet to a roller skating party today. It's blistering outside. It's got to be about 100. Drop dd off and go to Kohls to return a skirt I got yesterday that was too big. (Yay! I'm losing weight!) Anyway, the place is packed but nice and cool. We return the skirt and once again hit the blistering parking lot. On to Lowes. I like Lowes. I'd go there everyday if I didn't care what people would think. Dh decides to turn the a/c on in the truck. The truck drops to a crawl. Very sluggish. It feels like a shopping cart with a wonky wheel. I hop out to see if we have a flat. Everything looked ok. Dh pulled out onto the main drag and the truck kept jerking to the right. WTF? We pull off the road again and there's smoke pouring out from behind the front right wheel. It smells like burning tires. Dh drives it across the parking lot and it seems ok. We decide to try to get to the Firestone place down the road. We get out into traffic and crack! Something went south. We limped to Ukrops so we could use their phone book. We usually keep one in the car and the truck but dh must have taken it out recently.

Long story short. Our truck was broken down. Dd was still at the skating party. We needed to get the truck towed and get home to our other vehicle all in an hour. There are no cabs down here. No public transportation. The birthday boy's mom called us on the cell but we didn't hear it ringing because the towtruck guy, Jimmy, had country music blasting thru the speakers. Dh tried to call her back but couldn't get thru. Once we got the truck towed I called the skating rink and got a bunch of shit from whoever answered the phone. Finally the boy's mom got on the line and I could barely hear her. She was very nice about all of it. Jimmy was ready to take us home at that point so I told her we'd be there in a few minutes.

We got home with about 15 minutes to spare. Dh picked up the kid and called from the grocery store. There's no telling how much today is going to end up costing us. Probably about $65 for the half mile tow alone. 'ugh'

Check it out. It's a game at the bottom of this page. Scroll down and have fun.

That's what I'm doing right now. It's my specialty. Later on I'm going to put off the dusting.

That's about it. I'm a bit depressed and not really into talking to myself today.

Just took half a happy pill so maybe I'll get something done today instead of blithering around, starting 100 things and finishing nothing as usual. Not much to do in the garden. Dh put wire around one of the raised beds so it is chicken-free. Maybe the cabbage will stand a chance. Unless the pretty little white butterflies lead to their destruction. I relocated the volunteer zinnias to one side and planted the rest of the bed in peppers I grew from seed. They are super tiny. I don't know what happened this year but they just stopped growing in the cells. Very little root development and barely anything past the first set of true leaves. I may have to hoick them up and replace them with hybrids from the store. Gadzooks.

The Principe Borghese tomatoes had the same sluggish beginning. They look sturdy enough now but are way behind. Even the volunteers that survived the chickens and the cultivation and the raking are bigger and fuller. That's not supposed to happen. Thank goodness I tend to grow only heirloom plants or I would have nothing in the garden. Next year I think I'll just scatter the damned seeds in the fall and wait to see what happens. It couldn't turn out any worse! Of course, this fall I'll be building a really nice cold frame using the old windows I've saved up and hopefully I'll be able to extend the season a bit. I plan on putting the tunnel ribs back up for a winter salad garden as well. Plus, we'll have kale which is always tasty fried with garlic and onions and served with pasta. Haven't had that in a long while since the store has such poor quality. I refuse to pay a premium for limp kale with thick, heavy stalks that end up in the compost heap. Worse yet is when it is sold by the bunch and you have little choice.

I have some pinks to plant, some roses to move, some bamboo to eradicate, and some horse biscuits to spread around today (Preferrably AFTER I make some more bread) so I better get moving. Another hour of sleep would feel so good though....

Summer vacation is almost here. So far nothing has panned out. The engineering class that was oh so convenient and something the kid was really interested in has been cancelled. The timeshare exchange has gone bellyup like dd's sunset platy last week. The only thing available is in Hawaii the week after school lets out. WTH can afford plane tickets for that?

Ugh. I just fired down an underripe nectarine, drawn up and sour as hell. I have a sneaking suspicion that thing will be barrelling through my colon like an El Camino full of rednecks juiced up on Pony Millers. Good thing I've got nowhere to go for the next few hours. Hell, I've got nowhere to go for the next couple of days.

Today was the last day of the great Ukrops Coffee Social for Square Peggers. That's all I'm going to say about that.

So far I've come up with the following LOOSE itinerary:

JUNE: DC, Zoo, Maymont
JULY: Williamsburg, Shirley Plantation, Monticello
AUGUST: Beach (if anything comes available. We were shooting for Hilton Head Island but I think that's a crapshoot.), Jr. Adventurers at Pocahontas State Park for the kid, and possibly Berkeley Plantation.

So much hinges on when we'll get the beach vacation squared away. If. I see a lot of rollerskating and matinees in my immediate future.

I noticed yesterday that the lemon cucumbers have germinated. No sign of any squash yet though. Looks like I may have basil, too. Still don't know what's up with the purple sage. If I didn't know better I'd think it was getting sun scald. Maybe the chickens are fertilizing it and burning it. Chicken poo is famous for that. I just saw Pichu down there munching on the cabbage. All the cabbages are ragged on one side...whatever the chickens can reach thru the wire cage. They're almost too big for it. I don't have anything else to protect them. Sure would be nice to actually be able to eat cabbage this year. I really need to put a fence up. *sigh* Another expense. I need to make some choices. And soon.

It's raining again. How unusual. I didn't get to plant anything in the garden yesterday but I did do a lot of weeding. I've got a bunch of volunteer flowers coming up. Hope they turn out to be something interesting because it looks like they are the only things that are going to mature.
I had to stake a couple of the foxglove plants. The rain has made them so heavy. Every time I turn around the planter in the fish pond has capsized. Still no sign of the cardinal flower (lobelia cardinalis). I guess I'll have to write that off again. Supposedly an easy plant to grow. right. The astrantia failed to return as well. And the allysum (all) that I planted this spring are history. Coleus, too. They were all impulse buys anyway. Except the cardinal. I went looking for that last year.
The peonies are gorgeous. I've got a ring around them so they aren't being pummelled by the rain. The bamboo is outstanding this year. I'd like to get a few different types but it sure is expensive. Besides, I think my neighbour would have a stroke if I introduced any more invasive plants to my garden.

In other news:
Went to another podiatrist yesterday. His diagnosis was completely different from the first podiatrist but ended the same. "Bring back a couple pair of shoes and we'll fit you with custom inserts". And, of course, that'll cost another $40 just to walk in the door. No thanks. I don't know who the hell to believe. Oh, and of course, the referral confirmation from my GP wasn't there. Typical.
What else? I'm down to my pre-wedding weight. Not due to anything I did myself unfortunately. My foot has limited me greatly so I should be gaining instead. 'course, everything I do seems to have the opposite effect than what's "normal". That's the whole bizarro thing at work again.