FOR TODAY:  May 21, 2013 

Outside my window... Dawn is coming. The light is crisp yet soft around the edges like an old photograph.

I am thinking...Why the hell my eyes popped open at 1:30am this morning, and I felt fully rested. Huh.

I am thankful...For genetic marker testing, drug trials, snuggly kitties, good books, my Kindle, long talks with mom.

In the kitchen...We're still eating the peanut chicken, the couscous, and the sambal.

I am wearing...Nothing new here: fuchsia nightgown with little yellow flowers, ankle-length, short sleeve, woven cotton. The old standby. It's like a mumu, honestly.

I am creating...I am going to be writing a synopsis to pitch a book project to the press I do work for. It's a really good book.

I am going...This week? New glasses. I am so stoked. Due to insurance requirements, we had to change doctors, so when I made the appointment I made sure to tell the gal about the choroidal melanoma in my left eye and subsequent blindness, "I don't know if glasses can even help", but I said if I needed to bring anything else in, just call me and let me know. I'm so tired of messing around with these glasses--on, off, on, off--can't see up close with glasses-take off; can't see far away without glass--put on. Back and forth UGH! I'm surprised they haven't just collapsed considering all the times I've pushed them onto my forehead. It will be so nice to see with glasses. *exhale* R is getting checked, too. He hasn't had a new pair for five years, I think. I also see the ear nose throat guy this week, just to follow up and see if there is no treatment for the ear problem/pain. This will probably be the last time I see him. Then I need to go and have a blood draw for an MRI I'm having next month of my abdomen to make sure the Ocular Melanoma (eye cancer) hasn't metastasized to my abdominal organs, usually the liver. This will be a lifetime thing from now on. For now, annually. After three years? We'll see. It may go up.

I am wondering...I'm not. Not really.

I am reading...Ben Aaronovitch's "Peter Grant" urban fantasy / detective series. Quite good, and set in London. I am enjoying visiting the city in my mind with Peter.

I am hoping...That something good will break for R.

I am looking forward to...The pool opens in two weeks. Yay!!!

I am learning...Tolerance, compassion, patience.

Around the house...Same old crap, although upstairs we have gotten both bedrooms squared away.

I am pondering...I can't say that I'm pondering anything, really. Nope.

A favorite quote for today...A poem...

A Blessing

James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

That we have come. They bow shyly as wet swans.

They love each other. There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more, They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me

And nuzzled my left hand. She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break Into blossom.

One of my favorite things...REVOLUTION on NBC, season finale was last night. I'm going to watch it shortly. *batedbreath* Tonight, the GRIMM season finale is on!! Such fun programs.

A few plans for the rest of the week: Writing, writing, writing, errands.

A peek into my day...Pascal, watching the sun go down last night from our bedroom upstairs.

With thanks to the Simple Woman's Daybook.

Couscous with salmon and asparagous

Peanut chicken I get it at the regular grocery. You get two packages for about $4.99. It's so worth it. You'll need a can of coconut milk (regular or light), too.

Thai cucumber salad aka a "sambal."

Fudgy brownies There is something off about the directions. In the ingredient list it says "1/3 cup of vegetable oil." Then in instructions, it says to add the 1/3 cup of oil. Then later on it says, "add the remaining 1/3 cup of oil." I thought that sounded like a lot of oil so I left it out. I haven't tried one yet, but like I said, they look off.

The peanut chicken was great--it's so easy to make and comes out every time. I grilled some onions and red bell pepper on the side--R won't eat them--to put on top for me. I add the noodles to the chicken and sauce, cilantro on top. Really delish.

The cucumber salad came out WAY better than I expected it to. Way better. And the odd thing about this? I normally hate cucumbers. Lately, I've found that I've been wanting cucumbers. I also used to love avocadoes...I would eat them with anything or just plain. But for the last year or so? Every time I look at one, my stomach says *uck*.  Weird. I wonder if this is a leftover from my ankle surgery last year when I lost my appetite for quite a while (even for coffee). Weird.

The couscous? Eh. It's ok. I think the amount of lemon juice was too much. It's hard to taste anything else in the salad. I didn't have enough salmon, but I made due with one sad 8 ounce filet that had been hanging out in the back of the freezer for months, and I used canned asparagus because it's just faster. I bought some fresh asparagus last week, didn't get to it, and had to throw them out when they turned slimey. What a waste. Note: OMG, I forgot to add the feta. LOL I'll revise my opinion once I've done that and had some. Doih.

The fudgy brownies? The batter was very good, but they came out...weird. I haven't tried one yet. They look...goopy. I cooked them an additional 35 minutes and they still look goopy. So, yeah.***UPDATE*** 12:09pm. So, yeah. I took the brownies at the recommended 35-40 minute mark, going for the 40 because our oven is not quite calibrated, and when I pulled them out....it's hard to describe....but the sides had pulled down to the bottom of the pan, leaving the part that stuck to the side walls still attached *weird*, and was only about 1/4 inch high, and although crusty on top, was goopy and oily looking underneath. I put it back in for 15 minutes. No change. 15 more minutes. No change. So I said to hell with it and took them out. I let them cool and then tried to cut them to try one. Uh..yeah...no. It came out of the pan like one big ass chocolate matzo cracker--hard as a rock. Straight to the bin. I don't know if I'm brave enough to make this again. Not with our already wonky oven. Like I need brownies anyway. :-P ***

So I was in the kitchen about two hours. I brought my laptop in and put it on the bar and watched FRIENDS WITH KIDS streaming from Amazon Prime. Funny and sweet film. Perfect to watch while cooking.

When I came out of the kitchen, finally, I was sweaty, my back hurt, and I was pooped. I still have to clean up the mess, but, as my grandmother used to say, "In 100 years no one is going to know you went to bed without doing the dishes. Or care." Heh.

So there's lots to eat, right now, prepared and in the fridge. When my husband is hungry it's like watching a wild bear forage for food--don't get in his way; you could lose a hand or worse. :-P Just step away. So now I can just either point or hand him a container of food to microwave.

So I think I was over-ambitious, but just the same, I did enjoy all that chopping, measuring, and mixing. But next time? In our sailboat-galley-sized kitchen? I think I'll just stick to one or two things. This old girl just can't take it.

I read through a bunch of the posts, went back a few years, re-read, looked at pictures, and I was kind of shocked at the amount of stuff I don't remember living through let alone writing about. Gah, my memory is really bad.

But the one thing I noticed a lot was the amount of whining. I whine a lot. On the blog. I hope I don't whine this much in real life, my g*d, how annoying!

When blogging was first all the rage, I tried to monetize my blog like so many did, but I failed at it because I'm not a great marketer, and my posts are just not that interesting. And then it finally dawned on me:  Duh. I blog for me.  This is my outlet, this is my whining board, where I say things I may not normally say, or where I write to work things out in my own mind. I write because I like doing it. Sometimes before I have to start a writing project, I'll come here and write or vent about something, and I feel like I'm all warmed up to start a work-related project.

It's so odd for me because when I was in public school, I hated writing so much, even though my teachers were always encouraging. It wasn't until my third year of college (after I went back in 94, so my second attempt at college. *smile*), that I finally "got it." I was a writer.

I also know that while I enjoy writing, I'm not the best writer out there. That does not deter me. I write to enjoy and to improve my writing. I write because I have to. Words gather and fester in my brain and I have to let them out. I write because it's part of who I am.

So while there are a few friends and family members who read my blog because they know they can sorta' keep up with my life here, or just to be nice, or to be supportive, or whatever, the primary reason I blog is for me. I have no interest in being a professional blogger. I like that I have this space where I can just do whatever the hell I want in pictures, words, lists, and so on. And for $5- a month that's a bargain.

So no, not closing this blog. Not now, anyway. Not while I am still getting something out of it.

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Should You Respond to Internet Trolls?

A friend and I had a conversation back and forth via text about my thoughts on the tumor were. I told her I was pretty sure it was malignant (because at first we didn't know). She wrote back, "but I feel like you're going to be okay, and my feelings are always right." So far she has been right.

She also scoured the Internet for other Ocular Melanoma--for that's what I have--survivors, and she found this awesome blog called Love X Infinity 2 [squared]. And it was an awesome blog, not just the writing, but how the author, Sarah Elizabeth, detailed her experiences with Ocular Melanoma and then metastatic Ocular Melanoma which invaded her liver, but she had some awesome referrals to other cancer resources that I found helpful, as I'm sure many did.

I reached out to her and we talked on the phone a few times. We even discussed the possiblity of turning her blog into an E-book. Both I and the company I do work for were all on board with volunteering to donate our time, i.e., not be paid, for our work, because we felt it was important to publish her story, not just for the very rare, 6 in a million annual  OM cases, but for all cancer patients, and all people who seek to overcome difficult diagnoses. She said she would think about it.

Then last fall she left a message on my land line:

"The cancer has spread...pancreas, lungs, maybe stomache...I don't know how long I have to live. I expect I'll be dead by the end of the year...call me if you want..." I cried my eyes out. We'd never met, but I felt that someone very important was going to be lost to me and the world.

The last time I talked to her she was at the doctor's office. I told her "Forget the book, I just want to talk to you and see how you are." She said "me too" and that she'd call back. When she didn't, I felt that she needed the space to deal with what was coming for her and her significant other and I quietly stepped away.

So I read her blog, followed her on Facebook and Twitter, and tried to keep up. She quit writing about the cancer so I didn't really know what was going on. A few days ago, I checked her blog--it's gone. It's been taken down. Her Facebook page and Twitter accounts, also.

I don't know what that means, but I think it means the very worst outcome possible.

I only talked with her by phone a couple of times, and exchanged a handful of e-mails, but what contact I had with her was meaningful to me, a newly diagnosed cancer patient talking to someone who had fought it and won for a lot of years.

I don't know exactly what is going on now, but I do know that a world without her in it is a little less wonderful.

I'm going to email her.

***

24 hours later, and no response to the email. Gah.

***

UPDATE: 5/21/13

OK, I was a bit premature (and Thank G*d!). I told the friend who'd steered me to the blog about the disappearance of an Internet presence for Love X Infinity [2], and my concern. She did some deeper digging, and discovered that due to some hostility and verbal attacks by some Internet Trolls on a cancer group site, blogger and OMF patient, Sarah, decided to withdraw and focus on her health. I can't say that I blame her. She's also involved in a drug trial. Considering that it's May and she didn't know if she would make it to the end of 2012? I'd say it's a good thing. *exhale

I went to bed at a relatively early 1 am yesterday morning. But I couldn't sleep. I laid there in that semi-fugue state where you're neither asleep nor awake but you're convinced time has stopped. I tossed, I turned, I let the cats walk and then lay on me. My legs started aching. I thought replacing the two broken slats and adding about 2 inches under the bottom of the mattress would help with that. It's helped with the daily backaches, but not the nightime leg aching. (Our bedroom, in fact, I think the whole unit slants to the west. The bedroom door won't stay open without a door stop, the refrigerator door closes on it's own, and so on. I would not buy this unit if I were looking to buy, especially with the electrical problems here. Ugh.)

So the project I have been working on involves sending it back and forth to different people. So it's a lot of hurry up and wait, and then hurry up and make the changes, like... we needed it yesterday!! And so I stayed up a few nights until dawn trying to get everything done as quickly as possible. I took a nap after one late night on Wednesday morning, and that may have contributd to my insomnia. But really, this happens every year when it starts to warm up and when it's hot.

Around 7am, the sun was up, so I surrendered and took a pain pill. It helped with the leg pain and I got to sleep. But I need to have a conversation with my doctor about insomnia, all the different things I've tried, what works, what doesn't, and why I shouldn't have to resort to prescription pain meds to get some effing sleep. (Angry much, Jules? Heh.)

I'm not angry, I'm just tired and frustrated. I slept until 9:30. PM. I slept a whole day away. And now that I'm awake at 1:30am after sleeping all day, I won't be able to go back to bed any time soon. It's a vicious cycle. I don't know how to break it. I've tried staying up all night and going to bed at say, 6pm, but I can't make it that far, so I go to bed at lunchtime and wake at 2am. UGH!! I'm so frustrated.

I woke up today thinking it was Friday, then Saturday. R looked at me like I was crazy, and maybe I was, just a little bit. It's not easy to keep track of days when they all blur together.

Hmmm...I just remembered getting up at 11am due to a low blood glucose crash. I came downstairs and had a bowl of raisin bran and then went back to bed. When I woke up at 9:30pm, I was starving. I had a slice of my weekly quiche (spinach & veggie bacon), an apple (Fuji), and four cups of coffee. I'm still hungry. :-P

I wish I knew the answers, what is right for me, what I need, how to fix this. But I don't. So I write here in hopes that my brain will transmit some sort of insight through my hands, to the keyboard, and into words. So far all I'm getting is "Get a grip!" but that hasn't really worked up to this point.

Time for a doctor appointment? I think so.

*sigh*

Chris Christie, your WLS journey is only beginning. When this fails, and it will, everyone I know who's had lap-band did not reach their goal and/or gained the weight back. It is not a long-term solution for the chronically obese. So Mr. Christie, you'll be looking at the other four types of WLS to continue your weight loss journey.

For those playing at home, they are:

• Roux-en-Y
• Duodenal Switch
• Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy
• VBG, vertical banded gastroplasty

My story, in short, was that in 2006, after fighting my insurance for 18 months, I was finally approved for the Roux-en-Y, what is usually called "the gold standard" in WLS simply because it's been around the longest.

Watching friends, acquaintences, and others have this surgery, I know most of them get about 50 pounds from goal, not losing all the weight they want or need to. In essence, they hit a permanent stall.

Four days before my scheduled surgery, it was canceled by the head of my medical group because I hadn't taken "weight loss classes." Except that I had, just not through his office. I appealed and won the appeal. It was re-scheduled, but my insurance, who I had been paying $400- a month via COBRA while not working and going to school, canceled it for missing the payment due date--which they changed every month--by one day. When I filed a complaint with the state, they told me to sue. *sigh*

By that time, I had had more time to research the other options, and decided that as a Type II diabetic, the duodenal switch has the best long-term statistics for remission of diabetes than any of the other surgeries. It is a very drastic surgery, but one that works. It can start reversing diabetes before leaving the hospital after surgery. So that's the one I've been interested since. My husband's insurance through work last year explicitly excluded any coverage for any weight loss related classes, therapy, surgery, you name it, so I couldn't even start the process.

But I haven't given up. I'm still trying to get that Duodenal Switch. I may die trying, but I will keep trying.

So although I'm glad for Chris Christie that he made this difficult but positive choice to take charge of his weight--and in a public arena that's got to be difficult--but I'm so disappointed he chose lap band. We'll see how it goes, but I don't think it's going to work as well as he thinks it will.

This is just my opinion based on observation and articles I've read. Every person considering WLS needs to weigh out the different choices and what is best for them and their life. And now, there are a lot of options.Do your research and if you are considering WLS pick the right one for you. Don't let your friends, TV, celebrities, or even your doctor tell you what is best. You decide based on the evidence and your lifestyle and habits.

I also highly recommend visiting and joining obesityhelp.com. Everything you wanted to know about WLS is there, and you'll meet some cool people, too.

The color is called majestic yellow. I have always liked my kitchens to be yellow--reminiscent of sunshine, light, and lazy summer days. It's my thing.

I'm almost finished with a project that is going to pay me, well, it's the biggest project I've ever worked on. It will be in four figures. And I can afford to buy one of these when it's done and I'm paid.

But the truth is, I don't really need one. I've been struggling with want vs. need since my husband got laid off last June. We just don't buy stuff we don't need. We can't. It would bust our very precarious budget that has very little room for error. Basics are covered, and the food stamps helped (and for which we're no longer eligible...long story, although if the 17.7% unemployment sequester cuts take effect shortly, we will. And why are people receiving unemployment being crapped on in this way??), but it doesn't leave really anything leftover.

My 30-month old, Black Friday sale, cheapie Mallwart HP Laptop is being a shit. She's slowed down, she overheats (I broke my cooling mat so I need to replace that *see note on budget.), so what I really need to do is 1. fix her or 2. buy a new laptop. I need it for work. I don't get paid regularly, but when I do, we need every penny and I can't work without my computer.

So instead of a KitchenAid which I want, nay, covet, I will be fixing this computer. I don't feel like dealing with Windows 8 yet. I have some other software programs that I want to learn and this old dog (me) can only learn one new thing at a time.

But it's hard to want something for six years. I don't even know how often I would really use it if I did own one. LOL.

We've spent a lot of time the last year going through our belongings and paring down, getting rid of the shit we just don't need, don't use, or hell, it's broke anyway. We're trying to be simpler about our lives, less materialistic, less want-based, and more minimalist. It's a process. It doesn't happen overnight.

One of these days I'll buy me one of those KitchenAids or hell, I may win one online--hey, anything could happen! :D It would be nice (and fun) to have one, but I don't need one. What I do need right now is a fully functioning computer. So, priorities man. Computer first.

When I was fourteen, I was tested for glasses and promptly got a pair. What a difference. I could see leaves on trees and I quit stumbling off curbs. I had been diagnosed with nearsightedness (see well up close).

As I got older, my vision self-corrected somewhat by becoming more farsighted; however, my near vision diminished and in my 30s I found myself with progressive bifocals (no line). That's what I have now.

So my vision has never been that great, well, at least not since 1976. I frequently take my glasses off and hold a book (or Kindle) up to my nose to read. That gets lots of laughs. Ha. Ha. Huh. Uh. Oh.

So with the discovery last year of a malignant tumor in my left eye and subsequent radiation therapy to kill said tumor, my retinologist told me I would lose vision in that eye. But it was slow to go. Very gradual. The first thing to go was my night driving. I really cannot see that well, and when I say "see" I mean everything looks one-dimensional, I have no depth perception, and my brain is slow to process what I'm looking at. That's how I have ended up on the wrong side of the road several times when driving alone at night. R and I decided "that's it. No more night driving."

When I saw the retinologist in January, he showed me the area around the tumor where the radiation hit the eye in an effort to get "clean margins" around the cancer. "You will be losing a lot more vision."

OK, I thought. Yeah, I get it.

Uh, no. No I did not.

It's started getting much, much, much worse. Part of it is that I need new glasses. We'll both, R and I, be going to the optician next week for new refractions and glasses. That will help a lot for my right, good, eye, but I'm not sure if there is any help for the left eye.

My eyes get tired much, much easier. I cannot edit or read a document eight, nine, or ten hours at a time like I used to do. The eyes get tired, vision starts tunneling, things get blurry and bleed together. Also, they both will ache when tired. And then I have to stop what I'm doing. That's it until the next day.

The vision is so distorted in the left eye that I often work with it closed (like now), or with a patch, or a post-it note, or a Kleenex shoved under the lens of my glasses on that side. The problem with not using that eye, is that it does not give the right eye more opportunity to "pick up the slack", as the eye and brain will do when the vision in one eye is lost.

So the vision is not completely lost--but it's pretty worthless. Toward my nose it is extremely blurry, like a big smudge on your glasses that won't wipe off. Towards the outer edge, left, it's blurry, even with glasses. And as I mentioned earlier, no depth perception. Considering that I also broke my ankle last year and it's full of metal and not 100% still, I am the poster child for falling down, tripping, stumbling. I try very hard not to fall down. So far I haven't *fingerscrossed* but that means I also go slow, look down a lot, and hold onto anything I can when walking.

So how do I feel about this? Well, it sucks. It sucks A LOT. And yes, I do see the irony of a devoted reader and professional editor losing vision in one eye. *sigh*

Could it be worse? Yeah, it could and can be a lot worse. In fact I'm having an abdominal MRI next month to make sure the tumor hasn't metastasized to the liver (where this cancer generally goes to) or any other abdominal organs. I'll be doing that yearly, or more often depending, for the rest of my life. So yeah. Cancer is a mutherfucker. No doubt.

So I didn't have to have chemo, which is both good and bad. Good as in no side effects or hair loss; bad in that if it comes back anywhere in my body, chemo won't work. There's no treatment except surgery, and that is only temporary until it comes back again. So yeah, there's that.

I go days and days...weeks, without thinking about being a cancer patient. Well, I was, until the vision started really getting bad in the last month. I also get these nasty, gunky, mucous-like strings--I don't know what else to call them--that float across my eyeball. They can block out vision completely. Sometimes I can't get them out and it's like a rock in there rolling around. And then sometimes I wake up with the eye crusted shut. It's not like chemo brain or losing your hair, but it's not a lot of fun, either. Or dying. It's not like dying.

So I'm dealing with it the best that I can. What else is there to do? There are no options. Hell, I'm lucky I got to keep my eye. Twenty years ago treatment for ocular melanoma was removal of the eye. Ugh, right?

So that's where I am. I hate it, but I'm trying a little every day to deal with it. That's all I can do. I'm looking forward to those new glasses, though. I've had these three years (and I can't believe it!).

The school district called R on Friday and said they didn't have "enough qualified applicants" to hold interviews. I guess they want to do them all in one day. Since their town has around 2,000 residents, they ought to be glad anyone is willing to come out to interview. :-P I am relieved because I wasn't really up for another long road trip.

Fortunately, I was able to cancel our hotel room with no penalty (booked through AARP/Expedia), although I had to call someone in India to do that (and for which I have a great resentment over as one of my past jobs was shipped to India, and also considering that this country is still in a recession and jobs are hard to come by). But whatever. It was canceled.

So R's folks canceled, too. I sent a Mother's Day card to my MIL, but not gift because we thought we'd be seeing her today and we would buy her lunch or dinner or get some flowers or something. Nada. Nope. So now I need to punt. I'll send her something...that we can afford. I sent my own mom a box of chocolates and a big purple card--that made her happy. So grateful for this second chance to have a relationship with her.

R has another interview on Thursday in California in a completely different direction, in a much bigger city. He's going to see if he can do a phone interview--these trips out of town, even turnaround trips cost about $300- each trip, most of it in gas (nearly $4.00 a gallon. *gulp*), and we just don't have that kind of dough. He thinks that 3 days before the start of the school district, one of these districts is going to call him, desperate for a science and math teacher and offer him a job after none of their perfect, stellar, teacher-of-the-year applicants, who can get better offers, and who I doubt wanted to work in some dinky, dusty backwater town. Just bein' real. It's happened twice before, so it is not unheard of.

Anyway. I have work to do and I farted around too much today and now I'm behind (on my own schedule).

My next blog post is going to be ... Some Thoughts About Going Blind.

See you then.

Outside my window...It's dark, but the sun is preparing to rise. I know this because Paige, one of my kitties, is awake and walking on me in the hopes that I'll let her out. As if.

We've had rain--and some thunder--all week. That is SO unusual here. Usually it doesn't rain more than 5 minutes at a time. It's rained for days. Today no rain, but overcast skies and cool temps. I'm good with it.

I am thinking...About a huge project I am close to finishing. So. Close. What a great experience it has been. I've learned SO much.

I am thankful...that I still have some pain medication left over from both my broken ankle and my eye surgery last June. My back is killing me. Advil did nothing, absolutely nothing. It was like just drinking a glass of water. BenGay has helped, but I can't reach vast swaths of my back and R is asleep.

In the kitchen...A couple hours ago I threw together some spaghetti pasta with pesto (from a jar but it's good), Italian sausage crumbles, a roasted red pepper left over from taco night on Tuesday, some green beans (I love green beans), and a little parmesean on top. Deelish. Very satisfying. I followed that up with an apple. MMmmm.

I am wearing...Some light grey pajama-type sweats, and a dark grey long-sleeved cotton shirt. Very comfortable, nice and warm, and almost acceptable to go outside and retrieve the mail. Ahem.

I am creating...The book project I've been working on is so many levels beyond anything else I've done before. I'm very proud of how it's turning out.

I am going...With R. next week on a job interview in California. It will be his third in less than two weeks. It's an interesting place, and his parents are going to meet us there. We haven't seen them since last July. This way, they can see their son and vice versa, and the a-hole brother and his weird-ass girlfriend won't be around. Win/win.

I am wondering...What the hell is wrong with my back? And why do my armpits and my boobs hurt, too? WTF?

I am reading...I just finished a memoir written by a POW from the Korean (police action) War. It was rivetting and extremely compelling. It's timely, too, considering we're still dealing with the craziness from that part of the world. Oy vay. I'm hoping he'll let me turn it into an e-book for him. *fingerscrossed*

I am hoping...I have so many hopes that it's hard to pick just one. How about an easy one? I am hoping that when I wake up tomorrow (today), that my back isn't hurting.

I am looking forward to...Doing a little bit of touristy stuff next week.

I am learning...That I am still capable of learning.

Around the house...We have pared down, way, way down on our stuff, and when we move? It will not be as bad as last time. And if we get a place with a garage (please!), then we won't need a storage. Mostly I have plastic tubs full of books, both read and TBR.

I am pondering...Still thinking about moving. We'd have done it already if we had the dough. But now that R is interviewing again, maybe he'll actually get a position and we'll move there, wherever it is. Just so over the itty bitty kitchen here. *sigh*

A favorite quote for today...To be alive at all is to have scars.--John Steinbeck, The Winter of our Discontent.

One of my favorite things...Right now I'm hooked on the shows REVOLUTION and Grimm. They both started out a little cheesy, but with the last two installments, they've really amped up the suspense. I am liking them even more.

A few plans for the rest of the week: Finish book project; get a Mother's Day card and gift and get it in the mail; color my hair (OMG I have SO much grey!!! It's wild!); take photos of some stuff I want to put on eBay.

A peek into my day...

The tree by our mailbox and from which my new banner photo was created.

With thanks to the Simple Woman's Daybook.