Last Thursday night at 2:30 am someone tried to break in to my house. I heard the outer (screen) door and my cats freaked and ran upstairs. While creeping around peeking out windows I saw him with his hand on my doorknob, then he walked into the backyard. I’m so glad I stay awake all night. The cops were here in less than 5 minutes. They could see where he’d walked across the neighbors yard and went into my backyard and out the other side. Because he was on foot they said he was probably looking for a bike. Huh? At a house with the lights on, when my garage is in the back? A bike would logically be in the garage. My therapist thinks he was a potential rapist, especially since once it got light out I realized I could see out the side door window where he was standing. With the light on in here he had to have seen me and he tried getting in anyway. I also heard a door the night before. He was testing to see if he could find an unlocked door.

So when morning came I emailed this NRA instructor and asked if he still had handgun classes open for Saturday. Signed up for basic handguns Saturday and home protection Sunday. Half the day was classroom and second half firing at the range. I used a .357. that’s a revolver. I wasn’t strong enough to slide the slide on the automatics. I feel a bit safer with a revolver, they don’t jam, you can’t accidentally leave a bullet in the chamber and they have a hard trigger pull so aren’t likely to go off accidentally. I think I have only shot a handgun once in my life. Surprisingly, even though I haven’t shot a gun in probably 30 years, I am still a damn good shot (I was the best in my company with an m16 in the army). These are now hanging on my side door window where I saw the creep.

I also ordered door alarms and will attempt to install them on the screen doors, since I don’t intend for any intruder to make it inside.

Then there’s my not so secret weapon…

I got him at animal control and learned quickly on the ride home what a good watchdog he was going to be. He barked and growled at every pedestrian he saw. He was perfectly friendly at the shelter and I thought he wouldn’t be much of a deterrent but I’ve changed my mind. He doesn’t have many manners yet, but we have mastered sit in less than a day. Heel works somewhat as long as there is nothing too interesting going on. I dared take him for a walk today and 2 guys were coming off their porch, he was on his hind legs, lunging and growling. They didn’t act like they believed me when I said he was fine

Hopefully I won’t be messed with again anytime soon and hopefully he trains fast because this is exhausting.

Fireworks may be used only between 5 p.m. and two hours after dusk (approximately 11 p.m.) from June 29 – July 3 and July 5 – 9. On the day before Memorial Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, the day before Labor Day and Labor Day, the hours are extended from 10 a.m. – to midnight. For New Year’s Eve, the hours are 10 a.m. Dec. 31 until 1 a.m., Jan. 1. Anyone with a fireworks-related complaint is to call the Police Department.

The only actual part of this law that my neighbors follow is the part that says it’s legal for them to use them. What’s frustrating is as a homeowner I pay property taxes to be annoyed by the renters in the neighborhood whose idea of a good time is spending hundreds of dollars on fireworks instead of something to better their situation. The cops must have been pretty overwhelmed with all the calls of people going over the time limit. What a waste of our police force.

I sent this to the local paper: “This firework law is terrible. When the freedom to set off fireworks infringes on my freedom to a reasonable amount of peace and quiet, to not having my house smell like it’s burning down, to not having to go out and pick up the debris that landed in my yard from my neighbors fireworks, to not having my poor pets cowering for hours wondering how they ended up in a war zone, it’s gone too far. Did the brilliant people who passed this law ever venture down into a neighborhood like mine where many people on the block think this is just the best kind of entertainment…for hours on end? It’s not even one or two days a year, it’s all bloody summer. And apparently my neighbors live in a different timezone than me because it doesn’t stop at midnight. Even if it did, that is just wrong on so many levels. You lawmakers should mosey on down here for a visit, or I could record it and bring it to a city council meeting and let you listen to all the hours of it I had to. Get out of your pretty little burbs and see what it’s like like down here where houses are a yard apart.”

I don’t think I was abusive to anyone (except perhaps our lawmakers), I thought I stated my point pretty clearly. I expected to get some responses, I didn’t expect the nastiness of them. Like: “I never knew there were so many people here with sticks up their A S S E S. You old fogeys should really get a life.”, “I think you all need to get off your high horses and lighten up a little! Fireworks can be used safely, by responsible adults and people only have a litmited time to set them off during the year! This is a free country after all, why not act like it every once in a while instead of being fuddy duds and uptight narrow minded people and for the sake of this forum, I have used nice language.”, “Hate fireworks? Then don’t watch them or shoot them off. Geriatric loser.” Trust me buddy, I neither watched them or set them off but that didn’t stop me from being forced to listen to them. I have enjoyed going to firework displays over the years, that seems like the appropriate venue for that. Not to mention the at home playthings are little more than a lot of noise.

And then there were the political ones: “You liberals always want the government to hold your hand and impose on your freedoms. Sad”, “You’re right about what liberals do…..they take away our freedoms and tell us how to live. Those idiots don’t have a chance of getting into office here. You should move to California. Plenty of liberals there (although the libs bankrupted the state).”, “Liberals don’t like freedoms. They’re kind of dense.” To these folks, feel free to come clean up the mess in my yard.

I am not a liberal, in fact. What I am is a person who was raised with respect for everyone’s freedom, not just my selfish own. When they infringe on my own freedom, on my own property and in my own home, there is something wrong here. Feel free to set your fireworks off all you want, all day and night, just have enough respect for your neighbors to do it far away. If more people had been raised with that attitude we would need far fewer laws.

I suppose it was silly that the responses depressed and saddened me. That would be my BPD kicking in, me feeling invalidated. Well, I clearly was, but that doesn’t mean I deserved it.

Never in a million years would you get me at the edge of a cliff, looking down!

Beautiful isn’t it?

And this is too!

Not sure what the story with this guy is but he makes a great mural

I think I want one of these in my backyard!

My baby in a hidey-hole….or something

I am officially a member of Clan Stewart now. I’m not sure how meaningful that is since they don’t actually make you prove you are descended from the house of Stewart.

What I’d like to know is how do they decide what tartan to wear when they are the Fort Wayne Police dept?
[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

This band I found someone I know in Fort Wayne, my furnace/ac repair guy. Who knew? My daughter says I should snatch him up, what more could you want than a kilt wearing, bagpipe playing, fellow who knows how to fix things?

In all my years of going to Highland Games, this is the first time I have ever seen a pitchfork throw. Who thought of that? Is it a Hoosier thing?

Hey, don’t be thinking this is what it actually looks like, here you can pretend to be a mighty log thrower!

I wanted to buy a couple of t-shirts but instead I stuck with this little souvenir…

It’s been a while since I’ve been to one of these and this was mighty small and hot but it was still a fun time

After researching live traps, which it’s hard to catch groundhogs, and then do you know in some places you have to have permission to let them loose on peoples property (like out in the country) and a lot of places you can’t loose them on state property. So, being that I don’t want him as a pet, then I read about poison pellets and decided that was the way to go. Only when I got to the hardware store they didn’t have anything except rat poison, which might work. But who wants to risk killing neighborhood cats and dogs wandering about? So he told me this Fox Urine Granules is all I need. I hope he’s right. If it works I might not even have to share my corn with the raccoons this year or the beets with the rabbits.

I hope everything grows fabulously this year. I saw on CNN about a fellow who started a website to list food pantries all over the country that will take fresh produce. I’m hoping I’ll have enough to share.

I can’t wait for zucchini, I just love that stuff. This year I am feeling 100% better than I was last year at this time so I am ready to deal with the garden and even the critters.

A couple of years ago when I was having equilibrium problems I went to an ENT Dr. After all kinds of bizarre tests they said I had inner ear damage due to my migraines. They suggested trying preventive meds, which really run the gamut. A lot of them are antidepressants, such as Effexor, which I gave a try or antipsychotic, antiseizure, betablockers and many more. During my very long depression I have been on multitudes of antidepressents, antipsychotics and yes, even antiseizures. They never did a thing for my depression and I refuse to take them anymore, I’m tired of the side effects and them not helping anyway. So I’ve been relying on Maxalt, a migraine med that really works for me. The trouble is 6 of them were costing me $42 and I was getting at least two migraines a week. I have been puzzled why I get them so often now when I didn’t in my younger years.

When I was in my 20′s I started having heart palpitations that were very scary. I was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome and put on a betablocker. I took it daily for years and it worked like a charm. The only issue being that it made my already low blood pressure even lower. The last few years I hadn’t been having the arrhythmias so I gradually had quit taking it. Recently I’ve been having problems with them again so I started back on my Tenormin, a betablocker. Wow, guess what? My migraines have really decreased in quantity!

Another nice plus is after telling my dr how I used to get 16 Maxalts with my prescription, she apparently wrote it for more. So the last one I got 12. My cost? $42! I feel like I’ve been getting totally ripped off for years. Of the 12 I bought a couple of weeks ago I have only used one. What a difference it makes to your life to not suffer days long headaches. I don’t even care that my last doctor visit it took 4 tries to find my bloodpressure and it was a whopping 54/40.

When Melissa saw this, she said “and that’s when I knew I loved Ireland.”

This last one I loved so much I turned it into her blog header. Gorgeous world there isn’t it?

To prove this was a literary trip Melissa is weeping over Yeats. How could you think that is a smile on her face!? No way!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KCg_QEHtkY

Last night as I went to bed I suddenly heard this sound like water running, in my right ear only (my shunt runs right behind my ear on the right). It lasted only a couple of minutes. I have tinnitus already, quite a bit worse the last few months but it completely drowned that out. Then there are the horrendous headaches and recurring equilibrium problem, which was my only indication that I had a brain tumor. I am wondering if my shunt is malfunctioning.

The question is…do I still need a shunt? Because they removed enough of my tumor that it no longer blocks my third ventricle. They did however tell me that I might be dependent on the shunt. My yearly MRIs show the size of the tumor and I assume they show whether I have hydrocephalus but I don’t know how you check the functioning of a shunt (I missed my MRI last year). So as I was lying there listening to that, my thought was what if that bugger sucks me poor old brain dry?

Some of the problems that can cause a shunt malfunction are:

• Infection
• Blockage
• Calcification or breakage of the catheters
• Separation (catheters may disconnect from the valve and reservoir unit)
• Valve is broken or stuck
• Wrong pressure valve (usually found in a fixed shunt)
• Catheter needs lengthening
• Over-drainage or under-drainage

See? there it is right on the list; over drainage! I wonder what that does to your brain? I’m not gung-ho on the idea of anymore surgeries in this lifetime or having my shunt removed only to find out I need it. I hate that thing though, I feel it when I lay in bed at night because I’m a skinny wench and my bed is hard. Oh and the lifetime of a shunt is 8-10 years. Mine was installed in 1999. Maybe I need a valve job

Playing for Change is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music. The idea for this project arose from a common belief that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people. No matter whether people come from different geographic, political, economic, spiritual or ideological backgrounds, music has the universal power to transcend and unite us as one human race. And with this truth firmly fixed in our minds, we set out to share it with the world. ~http://www.playingforchange.com/

I saw this on Facebook months ago and in fact reposted it there twice because it’s so awesome. Go here to read about the Playing for Change movement. Truly inspiring!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g7QTr1rzBk