Condo girl takes a break

So........ what makes condo girl take a break you ask???? Dental work. When I was in South Carolina I broke a tooth. I was lucky it didn't crack down to the nerve. (thank you Jesus). So I dodged the bullet of the 'root canal'. But today was step 1 in getting a crown. My poor little tooth has been ground upon, the gum tissue all around it is very sad and sore. I loved the nitrous oxide. Its a relaxing little trip while you're under. Too bad you can't take a tank home until the tylenol kicks in. All the funny things you think to say you can't because the dentist is working in your mouth.

So...... tonight I created a new recipe and added it to 'sparkpeople'. I got a bunch of great emails and pictures from Ha-Min. It looks like they came on Sunday - not sure why I didn't see them. Oh well, she sure seems like a happy girl. I can't wait to meet her in person.

Today as I was driving to the dentist I realized how smart it was and how much more relaxing to allow time for the drive. When I scheduled the appointment in my work calendar I gave myself driving time. I always cut it too close - but today I didn't. It was so much less stressful. Then when I came home and my tooth hurt, even though I kind of thought I should go out and do more weeding, I took a nap to let my mouth get unnumb and let the tylenol kick in because my poor tooth was throbbing. Then I made dinner and continued with laundry. How much less stressful then working outside until 9, making dinner and doing laundry afterwards. Then I realized - who asks all these things of me. Okay - that'd be 'ME'! So........ the weeds will be there tomorrow.

Condo girl

Ok, I really think I should live in a condominium. A little outdoor work is enjoyable; even therapeutic. But gosh, yesterday I mowed grass from 3:30 - 7:30 and today I've been weeding around the house and digging up mounds of dirt for 3 hours and I feel like there's no end in sight. I want to enjoy life and not spend every minute away from work - working. There's got to be more......... I think I need to go on a trip. OK - so...... rather then complain about it, I decided to ask Rich to help me. I know he's been working on the remodeling, but its going to rain tomorrow and he has more muscles then me. So I continued weeding by my hosta and he and David started digging dirt and moving it. So now, its 7:00 pm and I'm going to get cleaned up and make supper, do laundry and bills. Things will get better. Its just a busy time right now because of spring - cleanup the beds after winter.

Sunday Sermon

The sermon at church this morning was awesome. Being a Christian should be enough. You know what salvation is, you know that all things on earth are temporal, and still the world can drag you down. Today at church it was a great refresher on how to have a happy spirit. The reminder was that today we celebrated 'Pentecost'. What enables you to have a free spirit??? The Holy Spirit. How do you strengthen that spirit within you? Read your Bible, go to bible study and church. The more you strengthen that spirit the more readily you can pull yourself out of the dolldrums of life. Well, have a good day. This one is starting off great. Thanks Pastor Schulz :)

Learn to laugh at yourself

How do you teach someone to laugh at themselves? I think it makes for a happier person if you know how to do this.

Richard bought some strawberries because he loves strawberry shortcake. I just got back from South Carolina on business and had a lot of catching up to do this week at home and at work, so, since he's now the stay at home, everyday before I went into work I'd say, "you'd better wash those strawberries or they'll start going moldy". Well finally he washed them. Cut them, and............when he asked me what I did with them after that I told him I usually put splenda or sugar on them. Well, today we decided to have strawberry shortcake. I assembled the desserts with cool whip and these little cakes he bought. I bit into it and my mind right away was trying to figure out what was wrong. Too much baking soda in the cakes? A dirty dish with leftover dishwasher liquid? A dirty spoon? Then all of a sudden it hit me. Rich used salt instead of sugar. I was lmao. Needless to say, Richard was not. I hope he learns to one day. It makes life so much more fun.

Guess what? He proceeded to eat all 3 servings (after adding sugar). David and I had ice cream.

Not as bad as it seems...

Nothing is ever as bad as it seems at the time. Sorry I was such a downer in yesterday's blog. The computer issue kept me up until 3:00 AM just because I'm a bit obsessive. Bottom line is I am grateful that I have the knowledge to work things like this out and I'm not at the mercy of the Geek Squad at Best Buy everytime I have computer issues. I reinstalled Windows, reinstalled all the patches, SP2 etc., and then my McAfee wouldn't reinstall. In the back of my mind I knew I had firewire on my laptop but the cables didn't match. So....today I called Best Buy and they had a 4pin to 4pin cable for my firewire. So I'm going to use my laptop to make the DVD. Then.......since my X2 machine (built by Dad and me) really needs to be reformatted I'm going to go that route, but now I have a little time. so......nothings ever really as bad as it seems. And I got the poster done for Mr. Towne's door. Not my best work, but in 2.5 hrs - acceptable. Movin' on...... or should I say, keepin' on keepin' on. See ya'

Cancer free

Well Rich finally went to the doctor for his cancer follow up. He missed the appointment by 2 months and he's supposed to go every 3 months for a check up. He was busy with the remodeling, and he refuses to keep a calendar or 'to do' list so he missed the appointment. He finally made another one when I asked him how he'd feel about telling his son that he was dying of a cancer that could have been avoided with close observation. Well, that did it. He made the appointment. So anyway, the doctor didn't see any more tumors in his bladder so now he only has to go every 6 months. Looks like the tuberculosis treatment worked and slowed the growth of tumors.

(history: Rich was diagnosed with bladder cancer 2.5 years ago. He had that large tumor removed but then 2 more came back. So then he had the TB treatment and he hasn't had any since. The deal with this cancer is that we've been told that it is a cancer that originates in the bladder. It is not a cancer due to spread of cancer in the body. If you keep an eye on the cancer and remove the tumors before they penetrate the bladder wall, supposedly there is no risk of the cancer spreading. Of course we blame Dow Chemical and their bucket chemistry for his cancer. Both Richard and I worked at Dow in Research and Development. We literally did bucket chemistry (measured chemicals into open buckets and poured them into reactors). Of course the carcinogens were all in solid pipe, but we had to wear gas masks and open up the reactor covers and do things like climb into the reactor and bust all the built up chemicals off the inside of the walls. While doing so we would hit pockets of unreacted chemicals. Ever wear a gas mask over your face when you wear a pair of glasses? You don't get a great seal around your face. Well, enough reminiscing about that. Jobs like that make me appreciate my current job even more. Actually I worked as a research operator for only 6 years. It was really hard physical mans work. Moving 600 lb drums, working with pipe wrenchs that were 3 ft long, it was what Ko would call a 3D job - Dirty, Dangerous and Difficult. )

Life is learning

Don't you wish there were a way to help your kids avoid all the mistakes you made when you were a kid? As a parent I see that as much as I try to explain things in hopes that my child won't make the same mistakes, many things will only really be learned by living the experiences.

Life is full of choices. Some of them turn out bad. Some of them turn out with lots and lots of happiness and some sadness mixed in. I think what everyone needs is to feel acceptance and love. Who have you loved today????

I ditched MySpace so I'm back in the blogger world. I was drawn into MySpace because it was a way to communicate with Ko and his friends and stay in touch with what was going on. Now that Ko is gone and he is not even going to myspace and especially now that someone sabotaged my account and posted obscene bulletins under my name, I cancelled that account. So..... I hope that some of you folks who love me and used to visit - come back!!!!!!!!!!!!