Oh Goodie

It's going to get cold again today. Because we haven't had enough cold weather this winter. *rolls eyes*

I am sitting in front of a pile of bills about 2 inches high. TG they belong to clients and not me!

On a related note, we are re-doing / reorganizing our home office and I am so pleased with how it is shaping up! It's starting to look really nice! I am have been trying to get Tom on board with this reconfiguring project for the longest time. He started out just kind of reluctantly humoring me but now he is SO happy with the result. Which proves that he should always just do what I want right away.

Our 13 x 15 office suddenly looks HUGE and is a much nicer place to be stuck in for hours. The only thing I haven't figured out yet is what I want to replace the current ceiling light with. Desk lights and floor lamp are all figured out but the current ceiling light is just all wrong.

How To Entertain Your Spouse At Night

1. Pour her a small Bailey's

2. Walk through darkened living room in bare feet, exclaiming on how romantic everything looks by moonlight.

3. Unexpectedly find cold cat puke with your bare foot.

*rolls on floor*
*laughs*
*cries*
*pees pants*

How To Dress Your Man For A Walk In The Woods

...when it is -20 degrees below zero F. It's all about the layers.

You start with the basic gray boxer briefs and t-shirt.

Add two layers of socks - the first one a comfy wool blend and the second one some serious, heavy-duty knitted wool.

Then comes the jeans. The jeans must be heavy-duty flannel-lined jeans because the boys get cold in regular jeans.

Tuck in a heavy weight chamois shirt from Cabela's. I like the misty blue one with a herd of deer runnning across the chest. Or the one called "saddle blanket". Mmmm.

Lace on boots with 800 gms of genuine thinsulate.

Put a fleece-lined, neoprine "polar" balaclava hood over his head. Over that put on insulated ear covers (thinsulate value unknown) and add a stylin' wool cap so he looks less like a terrorist/cat burglar.

Put on a fleece-lined jacket from Land's End (thinsulate value unkown, but really high.) This jacket is red to make it easy to locate his body in the frozen wasteland known as 'My Street'.

Pull on nylon wrist guards that seal the chamois shirt to the body. Then pull on Merino wool glove liners topped with merino wool mittens. Add a Grabber brand ultra-heat patch to each mitten. Put on jersey-lined, wind-proof over-mittens. (DH has Renaud's Syndrome so he has to keep his hands really warm.)

Then wave bye-bye to husband at the door and go have a cup of cocoa by the fireplace. Because going for a walk when it's -20'F is just plain nuts!

Farewell, My Diet Soda

I read (yet) another article damning diet soda in my paper this morning so I think I need to give it up. But. I love diet soda!!! *sob* I have drunk little else for decades. Diet soda probably accounts for more than 90% of all the fluids I drink. Maybe 95%.

So what the heck can I drink? I don't like regular soda - it's like drinking pancake syrup to me. Milk is so, well, milky. I can drink ice water (not tepid or merely cold water) and of course coffee and tea. Ice water is just such an uninteresting beverage.

I refuse to buy bottled water regularly because (a) too much of it is fairly bogus in it's purity and (b) my private well goes directly into the Prairie du Chiens aquifer so I get unprocessed 10,000 year old water right from my home tap. (Most home wells are not so deep as mine is.)

What do you drink?

Renewal

Sometime on Friday my computer blew out it's internet card. No more internet :(

So Tom had to go buy a new card and install it over the weekend. Tom is a natural born numbers geek, but being the resident computer techie is something he has to work at. I am so glad that he can figure stuff like that out - I would have to just call someone.

Who is the designated computer geek in your household? I have a couple of friends who do not have a resident geek. When their 'puter has problems they are sometimes offline for a week or more because they have to take their machine into a geek shop somewhere.

Anyway, I'm back! The internet is bigger, brighter and faster with the new card. Colors look so vibrant! Fonts are bolder! Italics look prettier! Who knows? Maybe with the new card I too will be a new, improved Swami! A more intuitive, witty and a propos Swami than ever before! Oh... I can't wait!

Thanks, Lights!

Last night my supper was pulled from a "cold, clean, clear Canadian lake." It said so right on the package. Guess what it was!

My Bucket List

(And no – I haven’t seen the movie. It seems like a small screen kind of movie to me so I prolly won’t see it until it is out on DVD.)

1. Blow out at least 95 candles on my birthday cake

2. Ride a gorgeous Friesian stallion in the Rose Bowl Parade.

3. Road Trip! Drive completely around the continent of Australia, staying on ocean front roads as much as possible.

4. While I’m down under, spend a few weeks in Christchurch and take a series of comprehensive helicopter tours of New Zealand.

5. See whales, really really up close. Ideally, I could touch them.

6. Be there when Life is unequivocally acknowledged/discovered/whatever someplace other than planet earth.

7. Write a dynamite Thriller. Something that would let me hang with the big boys and girls.

8. Visit all the antiquities of Egypt – the pyramids, the Valley of the Kings, the many lesser known sites and all the sites forever buried beneath Lake Nasser. This tour would be conducted by that Egyptian Indiana Jones wannabe (I forget his name) who’s head of their national Antiquities Board and would also include everything I wanted to see which is not on public display. And? I would get to pick one necklace from that collection to take home as my very own!

9. I would like to see the human genome thoroughly decoded, with all the scientific wonders and medical breakthroughs that would entail.

10. I want the missing bloggers to show up again.

See. I’m not very unrealistic, am I?

I'm Here. (Well, Pretty Much.)

I am just busy wrestling conundrums. Those suckers are a real pain! Like, am I my sister's keeper? When she doesn't think she needs one? But is generally in total denial of reality? And belongs in an assisted living facility but would rather live like Mrs. Haversham in a pile of crap? Some of it quite literal?? And she lives so freaking far away (across an ocean) that I can't really keep tabs on her but someone has to? And I think she is having early signs of Altzheimer's which doesn't help at all?

I can't go there (again) to try and get her to help herself before it is too late. My oldest DD just went to try and help her and was appalled at her living conditions and the depths of her denial. Her friends of more than 30 years have started to avoid her. They still care for her but she is just too hard to be around so one day at a time they just avoid her. And still she doesn't (won't) get it. She needs help! I am starting to think the only solution is to call some form of Social Services down upon her. Sister would hate that! They might condemn her house! But she would be moved to a better, cleaner, safer environment. Even though she does not value cleaner and safer at this time. Jeesh.

She can't live with me. Tom would go nuts because she is a HUGE presence and (even more than most egoists) considers herself the center of all importance in the world. Plus, most days she can barely go up and down the stairs and my tubs and showers are all on the second floor - plus my house is one of those 70s multi-level, 'soft contemporaries' so there a few steps up and down even on the main level. She has trouble relating to my son with autism. (Well, everyone does, lol, that's the nature of autism. But this is his home and refuge and DH and I are his only champions. When she is here she unconsciously competes with son.)

DD considered having her come and live with her family but sister just walks all over her. I don't think this would work and I have major concerns for this DD and my grandson if this happens. (I grew up living with an Aunt who descended into Altzheimer's and made me miserable for the longest time - I don't want this for Grandson.) Sister treats her like a servant for Pete's sake.

I hate wrestling conundrums! (Oh yeah - this is not my Evil Sister. This is my 17 year older, formerly best-loved sister.)

I may regret this post and kill it in a few days...

Today I Am Taking Down My Tree.

Because yesterday was the 12th day of Christmas and now I am done.

MTW is right

I just bought my first ever bag of special Valentine's Day "pucker up" M&Ms. They do taste better than the regular ones! Why is that?

THE END.

Eventually I guess, everyone who takes part in this process has to stop showing up. It's their end time. Fini. No - not the blog, lol - today is the last day of my insurance-paid physical therapy. I am still not 100% happy with the new knee, but it will do and I am glad I had the surgery. Maybe in mid-February when the Resolution crowds have thinned out I will join a health club and find a trainer to help me work out the lingering knee issues. Until then I will just bumble around on my own.

We Need A New Sushi

The old one is getting kind of long in the tooth. Plus, s/he looks quite manly now and I like a more girly Sushi. Oh yes - Happy New Year!!!

Feeling a little hung over? Let me serve you a nice breakfast in bed.

Enjoy.