My Friend Dewey

I don't know if any of you will be interested in this little story or not. It's about my friend Dewey, who dropped by to see me yesterday. He was here waiting for me when I got home, reading my mail. A little impertinent, don't you think?



























No! I will not order you a pizza, Dewey!



Dewey said he would like to sit on the front porch for a while and enjoy the late afternoon sun for a minute. Nice view of the street from here, he said.




























It is nice, but I have things to do, Dewey. Let's go inside. C'mon.

I had some housework to take care of before I could pay much attention to Dewey. See how shiny everything is in the bathroom?













































How do you like my shower curtain and pretty yellow towels?




























I told you, everything sparkles. I'm planning to put a shelf here to hold stuff.








































Here's one of my many quilts. It was really nice to sleep under this one last night.



























Sometimes I like to turn on my side and look out the windows.



























Uh-oh! Dewey! Watch out! There's a madwoman and she has a knife! OH NO MR. BILL!




























What's this? Heh. BUBBLE WRAP!





























But the real treasure inside is ....
MURDER BY DEWEY. (decimal -- get it?)

Progress Report!

This will seem backwards, with this update on top of the original post(below). I have not yet earned the right to open my brown cardboard mailer because I still haven't put clean sheets on the bed. That'll be coming up next.

However, I can report that I am now the owner of the cleanest bathroom in this house. Perhaps even on this block! It gleams. It glistens. It sparkles and shines! The floor? Cleaned by hand with a rag and a sink full of Pinesol water. Clean, clean, clean! No doubt my nails will hate me tomorrow, but hey, floor --> clean! Clean also are the tub, toilet and sink. Scrubbed white as snow, each of them, inside and out. Even the mirror sparkles like sunlight off of ice crystals on a winter snow. That's sparkly!

This is the kind of clean I wish I'd had the time to do when I moved in. It's positively glamorous!

Top it off with a cute shower curtain and new towels and it looks fit for royalty!

The rug is still in the washer or I'd show you pictures... maybe later. On to the sheets now!

(Brief pause here for our sponsors' message...)

OK, clean sheets and quilt are on the bed. A nice, clean, safe place for me to fall asleep after a long Monday. Maybe I'll save the book to open tomorrow. I hope you don't mind, Tech, if I wait to savor it just a few hours longer?

What We'll Do for a Book

I came home today and could see that my mailbox was overflowing before I even turned the corner onto my street. I could see a bright orange card peeking over the box, but I also saw something brown behind it.

A magazine? Maybe a manilla envelope? I couldn't tell until I pulled into the drive ... a smallish brown mailing box. Hmm?

OH! I know! It's a BOOK!!! And not just any book nosiree. This has to be my copy of "Murder by Dewey Decimal" by Tech himself. AKA Stephen B. Bagley.

So I made a bargain with myself. I can open the mailer only when I finish cleaning the bathroom and change the sheets on my bed. All that's left in the bathroom is to mop the floor and hang my pretty new towels. I've scrubbed everything down and even hung a new shower curtain (on semi-permanent loan from my best friend Anne, who may have it back if she asks for it. That was the deal.) Then the changing of the sheets, which may take 5 minutes.

Here's the secondary catch: I can't start reading it until I also do some work on the living room. I can look at the cover, but NO READING until I can walk through the living room without having to turn sideways along the way.

Back later to report on progress!

Shopping: So unlike me

I seem to be on a shopping binge lately. Then again, it has been a long time, and ta-da, I am now a smaller size.

Officially I have dropped 20 pounds from my starting weight when we started at The Great Slim Down in January 2006. I've also lost 6 pounds since my defining moment with my doctor earlier this month.

The weight loss puts me in a whole different category of clothing -- one I haven't seen for a while. It's a nice change, don't get me wrong, but it messes with my head. Usually when I hit this place, the weight loss comes more quickly and I run down through several sizes pretty fast. At least that is my history. And I no sooner get used to saying "I wear a size __" than I have to move down again. Boy, does that make it hard to keep a wardrobe! And I just did a couple of smaller shopping trips over the past couple of months, so changes are happening fast!

Anyway, I did go on a bit of a spree today: Two pairs of smaller jeans NOT from the women's department; a cozy hoody; a couple of tops that are NOT XL; three new corduroy blazers from the PETITES department, a pair of slacks from the PETITES department, a baby blue sweater NOT from the women's department. Oh and a dressier blazer from the PETITES department!

Most of the pieces will transition me through the fall and probably most of the winter. Considering that everything I bought was on sale, plus I got a couple of $$ off coupons at Penney's, I "saved" more on my purchases than I spent. (If that's true, where did all my money go?)

The clothes are kind of a metaphor for this period of my life. It's another transition period -- one where I stay ready to keep moving on and not sit too long and get comfortable. I don't see my current job or location being long-term at this point, but I have to stay in place long enough to make a plan for what may come next.

At least I have the clothes for it now... for a little while!

It came a'rainin' today

It was a downpour. A gulley-washer. A toad strangler.

It rained cats and dogs.

Yup, it was wet all right. Clear up to my knees while I was crossing the street after a meeting at city hall. Shoes soaked. Pants drenched.

I had a new pair of house slippers in the trunk of the car. I broke those puppies out at the office after stripping off water-logged shoes and socks. Ah, so dry and comfy!
I've decided to leave that pair at the office for such bad-weather days (and will stash a pair of jeans in my desk as well, so I can be less miserable should this happen again!)

Always be prepared. Wish I had a cute pair of galoshes today!

When I got home, I lost power for about an hour. And I had to really dig in to unpacking all the soaked boxes on the screen porch. What a mess. Progress has been made, but that does not mean things have been put up. Just means they are out of the boxes on the porch and mostly stacked up inside the house. Oh woe is me! Will I ever, EVER be settled in this little house? Not by the looks of my garage, where I've tossed all the wet boxes.

All told I think we got 3.15 inches before the lines of storms moved on past us. Pretty good amount for a one-day October storm! I'm definitely throwing another quilt on the bed tonight, because the rain has really washed the warmth out of the air and my feet are still chilled from being so wet today.

So how's the weather out there where you are?

At home, sick, today

Yes, that is correct. I am taking a day off. A Tuesday. And yes, I really am sick. I was sick through the night so add exhaustion on top of sick. And as it happens, Tuesday is the day we have to turn in time cards. I had to send my info through e-mail. Even taking today off, I had 44 hours in this week. I think I can afford to miss today, don't you?

I know I'll be back at work tomorrow. And there's delicious evil in spending the day in my new nightgown and robe, which I coincidentally bought last night. Not really in preparation for today, but perhaps for when I go visit my aunt and uncle, either this weekend or next.

There may be a non-strenuous chore or two that I could get done today, but I won't be able to get much done physically. I'm not up to it. I even scared off the Jehovah's Witnesses.

I thought someone was knocking on the front door at 3 a.m. When I woke up enough to realize what it was, I discovered it was my stomach. Yikes!

I also learned it's about time to get someone to light the floor furnace or put another blanket on the bed, because it was just a might cold last night!

Homecoming Parade ... (Or, You Might Live in a Small Town If...)

Last night was the homecoming parade and pep rally at the high school.

You Might Live in a Small Town If...

You can stand in the middle of a major 4-lane street waiting for the parade to come to you...















You get a lump in your throat seeing the high school band kids march in their uniforms...
















The drums make your heart beat stronger ...















The Steppers ride on a flatbed truck ...
















One of the school mascots is part of the sophomore class float ...
































The junior class float includes more kids than actually worked on it...





















The Senior Class float includes a guy with a whip, and he's really not all that kinky...
















You can smell the testosterone rolling off the star football players standing like gods on a truck churning its way to the school...
















The FFA girls wrap their horses' legs in school colors and tie spirit ribbons in their horses' tails ...
















Cheerleaders, the band and proud parents worship at the feet of the players ...















Players take their place of glory at the top of the hill ...


















And the Four Tubas of the Apocolypse cast a mighty shadow ....















A mascot strikes a pose ...

































One of the football players will dance with any old woman with a camera ...






























The drummers steal the show with their Coyote Ugly drumstick acrobatics...


















































And even a spotted pup is welcome!

Quick post-and-run

I've been rather overwhelmed, but I'm taking a minute to post for my own sanity. I worked 52 hours last week. There are a couple of us in the office who have been really buried like this ever since I've been here. Two main reporters, and a couple of people who do the fluff and don't really help us carry the heavy load. I know, everyone's in the same boat, but it's wearing thin.

Yesterday I had a 7 a.m. appointment at the hospital with the diabetes educator. I learned how to use my meter to test my blood sugar, as well as the "stick yourself until you bleed!" tool. It's all going to be OK. The tool of bleeding is not a big deal. Just a little stick, as a nurse would say, and it's done so quickly you can't get all jittery about it. I'll be testing again in a few minutes -- just one test a day, and I'll be moving through the different test times to get a daily average. My number yesterday was much better than the horrible number from the doctor's office, so I have already made some major progress. (It was 178, down from something like 289 previously for fasting blood sugar).

I have lost two pounds, lost 2 percent body fat, increased body water by 2 percent. These are the good twos, not the terrible twos!

I am a little overwhelmed by the schedule of the diabetes education classes which I must attend. 9 am to noon on Wednesdays, for four weeks, beginning Oct. 31. Ye gads, that is a lot of missed work, right up to the day before Thanksgiving!

My first class is this Friday. Terrible timing. I have two other demands for my time then. I'm not sure how I'm going to juggle all this. GAH!

I did get a minute of puppy therapy yesterday. A woman who used to work in this office brought her puppy by to visit and I got a minute to play with her. She has grown quite a bit since I saw her a few weeks back. She's more the playing puppy now instead of the sleepy puppy who cuddled so nicely.

Oh, and I bought a dishwasher last night which will be delivered this afternoon. It's a portable that can be built in later when I have time to mess with getting new cabinets in my little kitchen. I don't know how we'll get it through all the clutter, but we will! I will have clean dishes again!

Scary Update

I had a follow-up doctor's visit today to deal with my diabetes diagnosis. For those who also blog at The Great Slim Down this is a cross post. I couldn't think of another way of saying this stuff so I'm just copying it.

The doctor's visit was not easy. In fact, it was very, very difficult. We went over lab tests from the last visit. To quote the doctor, loosely, death is reaching out to grab me. My liver is affected. My kidneys are affected.

She's added two more new medications to my routine for now and referred me to a diabetes educator. She's urged (demanded) that I start journaling. She's urged (demanded) that I find a support system of some sort.

And, what surprised me most, is she urged me to check out the principles of 12-step programs. Yes, she sees poor eating habits as an addiction and said I need to get sober.

She said I literally am in a fight for my life right now. That's a sobering thought.

She said that I need to journal and plan and pray each day to do my best, and then turn it over to God.

I could use your help with that part, please.

Oh, she also demanded that I start using my C-Pap machine again while I sleep, since I have sleep apnea. And we all know how I love that machine! (NOT)