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!

My husband just took off to his grandmother's viewing in Richmond. He had on a suit and tie. I haven't seen him dressed like that in quite some time. I have to say he was absolutely smoking hot.

His latest incision is healing well. He had skin cancer on the back of his neck and instead of using the Mohs surgery, they just took a big chunk out of his neck. Evil black stitches about an inch and a half long. It's lumpy and crooked and promises to be a nice scar. I call it his zipper. I just got a call from his doctor to confirm his appt on Friday. They'll be taking out his stitches. I sure hope this is the end of it.

Marcella, my husband's grandmother, died this morning in her sleep. Her health had been declining ever since her son had a stroke. She developed alzheimers and seemed "stuck" in the time immediately following his stroke. She was under a great deal of stress with what seemed like the same day unfolding again and again. She had to sell her house and move into an assisted living residence. Even though she had friends who lived in the same building she rarely spent time with them since everything revolved around her stricken son. Later she was moved to a different community and hated every day of it. Everytime we visited she thought she had just moved there and that her son had had the stroke only a month or so before when in fact it had been years. Jim and Alex saw her at Christmas and she didn't know who they were. It must have been pure hell to be trapped in time like that. I hope she is at peace now.

Damn. I'm exhausted. I'm cranky. I'm paranoid. I feel like people are avoiding me. I can't take these pills anymore. I'd rather be lucid and in pain than bumping into the walls. I went out today. I wanted to go to the library to pick up a book I had on order. I had to pull over halfway there to make sure I was in the right gear. Seriously. I had to pull the manual out of the glove box and check. I've only been driving that truck for nine years or so. Then I nearly fell asleep on the way and got rather nauseated in the library. I can barely keep my eyes open now but I wanted to address my feelings. I don't know if I've said things to drive anyone away. I hope I didn't.

So, here I sit in front of my semi-trustworthy laptop with the space heater happily churning out blessed warmth around my ankles which are about the colour of toasted marshmallows right before they burst into flames. My tea is somewhat palatable for having been reheated in the microwave about three times already. And I've got a bar of soap tucked into my left sock.

WTF? you say. For real...tea isn't bad from the microwave. Not like coffee which tends to get a bit chewy after awhile. Or, maybe you meant the soap. My doctor mumbled something about it in passing the other day while pressing another prescription into my palm for symptoms relating to Restless Leg Syndrome. She also said Lupus several times but I'll go with the soap. I like the sound of it better. At first I was thinking "what a frikken wingnut" but then I decided to google it. I've heard of more bizarre old wives' tales and this one seemed pretty benign. The thing is to slip a bar of soap between your fitted sheet and mattress at the foot of your bed to quiet the urge to move your legs during sleep or while attempting to sleep. There were quite a few testimonials on it's efficacy.

The clonazepam that the doctor prescribed hasn't dulled the pain in my legs yet but it certainly has dulled my senses. I'm a drooling shadow of my former self. But now with the word IVORY imprinted on my calf...in mirror image of course. But hey. It's worth a shot. What's the worst that can happen? That I have a clean spot on my leg? That my husband makes fun of me for the rest of my life? If it stops the pain I'll Laugh aloud with him.

I am so disappointed in myself. Two years ago I started a project. I knew I could do it and I convinced my husband I could do it. And for the most part I did do it. But I ran out of steam and began to doubt my abilities.

The shower in the master bedroom was leaking when we bought the house. We did a quick "bandaid" type fix until I felt sufficiently well read on the subject. Demolition uncovered some questionable framing. I had to rebuild it from the subfloor on up....from scratch. I poured and presloped the concrete base. Installed the liner. Framed and built the curb, poured the floor, hung the concrete backerboard, taped and tiled the three walls within three courses of the ceiling, and tiled the shower floor. My measurements were precise and few cuts had to be made. I had three tiles that I wasn't able to cut myself since I only have a snap cutter. I started to tile the curb and that's when the doubt hit me. I was almost home! Three more courses of tile to the ceiling and completion of the curb. Cake and Pie. But what if I did it wrong? The impasse was huge! It loomed the height of the shower itself. It wasn't perfect. I couldn't go forward through the fear and doubt so the shower sat unfinished. No better than the previous shower since neither could be used.

Finally, in shame, I agreed to let my husband hire a professional tiler to finish the job. He's late again this morning...the fourth day of a two-day job which promises to stretch into next week as well. Not because my work was bad. It wasn't. You can tell where I stopped tiling and he started. He wasn't as careful with his lines as I was. He failed to check the surface plane as well. My bad. I should have done those last three courses. It would have taken no time at all. It was just hard work since it was way over my head and really put a strain on my back. The same with the curb. There were no fancy cuts there. I had already presloped the curb so the only thing left was to lay the tile.

The only thing left to do is to grout it and seal it. So, here I sit waiting for a contractor when I have the knowledge and ability to do it myself but lacked the confidence and therefore the motivation to finish it myself.

I'm so disappointed.

*That was written a couple of days ago. The job was finished today. There are a few places I need to touch up on the grout but otherwise it is done. All that is left is for me to spackle the ceiling, prime it and paint it, attach the fixtures in the shower stall, and add some trim around the outside course of tile to hide the cut edges. After that I'll need to tile the floor, tile the countertop, and paint the walls. I promise you it will not take two flipping years!
A photo will be added later.

Today is a perfect day for perusing cook books and heating the kitchen from the warmth of the oven. It's cold out. Freezing. I mixed up two batches of cookie dough yesterday and they have chilled sufficiantly. The first batch is pfeffernuesse made with Brer Rabbit real-honest-to-goodness blackstrap molasses and freshly ground black pepper. I imagine they'll turn out to be real gobstoppers but they'll be tasty.

The other batch is lemon-poppy seed melts except I used orange zest instead of lemon. I tend to use orange zest in just about everything I bake. I even use it in the soap that I make. What can I say? I like oranges. I have a pan bubbling away on the back burner right now with dried orange and tangerine peels, a crushed cinnamon stick, and a pinch of nutmeg. I keep adding water to it throughout the day and the aroma permeates the house. It smells absolutely wonderful. Makes me think of Christmas year round. *sigh*

Tomorrow is my dd's birthday. She'll be all of nine years old but is so much wiser than her years (cough cough). We already had an over-frosted birthday cake at the party at Brunetti's on Sunday so I'm going to make her some super sticky cinnamon rolls. I made them once before when she was about four years old and she still remembers them. So, of course, I was making my way through my cookbooks trying to find the recipe and got lost in thought. You know how it is. You pause to read a recipe and think "Oooo, that sounds good!" French Baguettes, Pane Casereccio, Pizza Quattro Formaggi. Mmmmmm.... All except the Pizza Quattro Stagioni. Nuh. I had that in Florence. Not good. Definitely not a fan of the artichoke. I'm the same with seed catalogues....so easily distracted.

The cinnamon orange concoction on the stove has me incredibly hungry. The cookbooks added to that as well. There's only one thing to do. Bake!

How did that happen? What a serendipitous series of events! The neighbour decided not to take his grandchild to the store so my kid is over there playing with her and won't be home until dark. Dh just left for a football party at his friend's house and won't be home until late. I won't need to cook supper tonight. It'll just be me and the kidlet and the wonderful leftovers from last night's stirfry.

I've got cookie dough all chilled and ready to slice and bake. I've got a nice pot of tea brewing. The cats are asleep and not fighting. The washing machine is winding down on the spin cycle. Now all I hear is the hum of the space heater at my feet. Pinch me! This can't be Saturday! I won't have to listen to sports on the tv all night. I won't have a ton of dishes to wash. Maybe when my hellion daughter gets home we'll build her gingerbread house. Or have some hot chocolate and watch The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. A girls' night in. She'll love it.

After she goes to bed I can curl up in front of the fireplace and read some of Kathy Reichs' novel, Deadly Decisions. I had planned on doing more laundry but serenity like this must not be squandered. Who knows when I'll have this kind of quiet bliss again? Tomorrow I will be hip deep in dh's family. His mom got everyone in the family tickets for a play at Barksdale Theater to be followed by dinner at Brunetti's. A little voice in the back of my brain is screaming INTERVENTION for some bizarre reason. I can feel myself tensing up already. By tomorrow noon I'll be a full body white knuckle. But tonight, ahhh tonight....

While waiting for the schoolbus this morning, my daughter and I spied a couple of squirrels in a tree. One ran down a limb and deftly jumped to the other tree, snagging a tiny twig, and continuing on as though it hadn't risked it's life in that leap.

I nudged my daughter and said, "Here comes the other one". The other squirrel hopped along the limb gracefully but stopped to break off a twig. It then turned around and carried the twig back up the tree to a crook in the trunk. It tried to weave the twig into the chaotic mass that was already there but only succeeded in causing a handful to rain down to the ground. Half of it's work was now in a heap at the base of the tree. The squirrel hopped off a few feet, paused to scratch the back of it's arm, and then began worrying another twig.

I wondered if the squirrel felt any frustration when the nest collapsed. It certainly didn't wallow in it's failure. It simply got back to work. I waved to my daughter as her bus pulled out of sight down the block and walked back home thinking about the squirrel. Why couldn't I just let the twigs fall and get back to work? Why does everything need to be perfect and why do I take it so personally when I fail? A simple tile job takes two years because I'm afraid I may have made a mistake? My paintings remain unfinished because I'm afraid I'll ruin them? My website is a hopeless jumble of links that don't work, mismatched colours, and dreary content...

I just need to sit back, scratch a bit, and then get on with it. Let the twigs fall where they may!

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".