Thoroughly Thursday

First, let’s talk about the weather; BRRRR! It’s mostly in the 70s here and in July 80s is okay, really! There have been some hot days, but this is mostly a very mild summer so far. I hope it means there is a mild winter ahead again. I wouldn’t be happy if Global Climate Change ends up meaning Ohio Cooling Change. If we have the Polar Vortex winters every 4 or 5 years and very mild ones in between, that’d be fine. I can plan vacations accordingly.

Now for some snippets from Naniland as of late.

Yesterday I started my day in the arms of three firemen!

Boy, I wish that was as scandalous as it sounds! It would have been more fun. Lately it's been getting harder to get in and especially out of the bathroom. It’s the location of the counter, door and the turn I have to make in the morning to get to the stair-climber. Yesterday I failed. I was holding on to the counter and the walker just outside the bathroom and my balance gave out. I tried to lift upon the counter and David was trying to do what he could to help but finally my left leg was just to weak to keep supporting me and I told David it was no use; I was falling. The cool thing is it was almost a controlled fall, falling slowly so it lessened the impact. I landed on the floor but also hit my shoulder and head on the shower chair. After making sure nothing moved less than it already did, I managed to scoot out to the stairs, but there was no way I was getting up and we called 911.

Folks, if I weighed a hundred pounds I wouldn’t let David lift me on his own. 100 struggling or trying to be helpful pounds is a dangerous thing to lift on your own. I’m a little more /sarcasm than 100. The fire department dispatched three EMS guys. After a few tries at ways that would work, we got one with two of the guys behind me lifting and one in front steadying me and balancing me. I ended up hugging the guy in front and the other two hugging me from behind while I balanced. Then they got me in the stair lift chair and I got down and transferred to my power chair without further incident. It had been over a year and now my safety board goes back to 1.

Social Media

Well, a blog is social media, a personal blog is anyway, but I do some other social media things too. My latest big news on Facebook is my friends list. My 2 favorite teachers from high school sent me friend requests. How cool is that? When I was in high school I was a renegade. I was defiant and a had a huge wall in front of me to protect me from my own teenage insecurities. I wasn’t a troublemaker, not really, but I pushed established boundaries. There were two teachers who really saw through my teenage façade and pushed me to break past my own boundaries. They saw potential and nurtured it. I don’t know if they foresaw how truly influential and precious their influence on me would be for the rest of my life but when I got a friend invite from my broadcast teacher and then my French & humanities teacher those were acknowledgements and rekindled acquaintances that I treasure! Justin Verlander could follow me on Twitter and it wouldn’t mean as much. If you like how I turned out, thank my teachers, a couple of them especially.

Instagram; remember my plan for all coffee vignettes? Well, java_nani has become a bit more than that. I found a great Weight Watchers community there and one subset of that that I enjoy a “share the love” group with. We exchange support and monthly gifts in the mail with each other. The gifts include inspiring and supportive items and also an opportunity to share snacks and things that have been helpful to us. My partner’s box goes out tomorrow and it’s as exciting as Christmas!

I’ve also found a great MS support network there. I’m currently participating in a daily IG post meme leading up to World MS Trend Day, July 31. Here are a couple of the daily photo-posts I’ve done:

Prompt: Love

 

Prompt: Fun

 

Prompt: Sand

Short notes:

- My “training phone” died this week and I made the big leap to a phone that’s smarter than me! I have an iPhone that talks to my iPad and they talk about me in front of my chest (where the phone is clipped) That they share information is both cool and scary to me.

- As of this morning for the first time in 31 years I'm not a legal driver. My license expires next week so I went to the DMV to get a state ID. I seem to be the only one who thinks this is a good thing. I haven’t driven in 2 years and it disturbed me that legally I still could.

- On July 19 it was one month since the TV died. I don’t keep up with my baseball teams as well without the home team play by play. For instance it was three days before I read that Joey Votto reinjured his left quads. But other than the details I’m missing, our teams haven’t been doing well this year and maybe we don’t want to watch? Even the Tigers have been streaky. I still hope we have a TV by the playoffs!

- Tomorrow is Eye Exam day. My eye doc is next to Panera. You know what that means! Lunch tomorrow is a You Pick Two Bacon Turkey Bravo and something else with an apple and a latte! Then it’s come home with a new prescription and finally order sunglasses!

It’s Good To Be The Queen

Behind Orange Eyes
Sent from Mommy's iPad

Daddy has talked about getting me a cat-tower for a long time but he couldn’t find the right one. But now he did find one! It’s so cool! It’s tall like him with a throne on top that I can just disappear in when I’m sleepy. That’s important because I need my cute-rest and Marco always bugs me. If I’m hidden on the throne top of my tower I can’t see him so he doesn’t bug me so much.

This cool tower is made out of carpets so I can scratch and climb. It even has three seats so I can rest at whatever level I want. I let the other cats lay on the spots I’m not using. Sometimes they try to sit next to me and I have to set them straight. Carla’s only tried that a few times but Marco is always trying to make me move. As if! Why would I move on MY tower just because he says so? He’s a cute kid sometimes, but sometimes he needs to be set straight.

This is how it should be on MY tower!

My Graduation Present!

Behind Dark Eyes
sent from Daddy's laptop

It’s so neat and so unexpected! I thought you just got extra treats for graduation but I guess since I got an award for the best final project in the history of Acme Feline Obedience School Daddy went all out! Maybe it just proves I deserved my award!

 

this is my favorite seat! No one else

 sits here because I'M the graduate!

I got a tower with four different places to lie down and watch TV or watch Mommy. It’s got a rug all over it like the carpet scratching post in the living room and when I scratch on it no one says to stop like when we scratch on the carpet on the top step upstairs. That’s still confusing, but when I scratch on my tower Mommy even says “Good Carla!” I love that she thinks that!

I’m A Year Old!

Behind Stripes and Spots

Really I turned a year old last month but my birthday present camed a few weeks ago! Daddy bringed me home this cool tower to climb all over and watch the stuff on the porch-TV screens. It’s also comfy for sleeping on and it has guest places so my sisters can come out too. But sometimes they’re mean and I don’t want to share.

There's room for my sisters sometimes too.

I looked up that word in the dictionary. I hadda do it in a dog dictionary because I couldn’t find it in a real dictionary. It means to give something to a dog! “Share means to give something you have to another dog. It's fun and makes your humans happy.” I don’t get it and when I asked Carla she told me that I needa read better books. See if I let her sleep on my birthday present.

High-End Groceries

That heavenly salad was my lunch today made possible by a 9AM bus ride to the new high-class Kroger in Maumee. Oh, that’s not my snotty opinion about the newer Kroger being high-end, that’s Kroger’s stand. I got this knowledge from one of the workers at the store I usually go to and it all started with a coupon!

I had a coupon, actually 2, for Sargento Tastings. Tastings are small “tastes” of specialty or gourmet cheeses. They had the little Havarti right on the coupon; it was screaming for me to try! It was a Kroger coupon, specifically find this at Kroger. I’d tried several times to find out where in the store it was. The dairy sent me to the deli, the deli sent me to the dairy; I couldn’t find them anywhere. Finally David looked and couldn’t get a good location from asking either, and guys don’t like asking where things are. He wrote “where?” on the coupon he was holding and threw it on the customer service counter.

The last time I was shopping on my own there was someone stocking cheese in dairy. I needed help getting yogurt off the top shelf so when I went to ask him for help, I also asked him if he’d ever heard of the “Sargento pieces of cheese…” I couldn’t remember the name at the time. He finished the sentence, “Tastings, I know what they are, but we don’t carry them. They have them at the Maumee store.” Hmph. I asked why they only had them at one but not the other. That’s when I found out our nearest 2 Krogers were Kroger Value Stores and the new one in Maumee is a Kroger Specialty Store. Our nearest store concentrates on value and lower prices while the new store targets variety and harder to find items. I found the Sargento Tastings in Maumee and my favorite balsamic vinaigrette that they don’t carry at the Value store. I also took my bags over to the in-store Starbucks ad had a latte while I waited for my bus.

The bus drivers had been asking if I tried the new Kroger and I hadn’t because it wasn’t as close. Several have encouraged me because it’s the same $2 if I go a mile or 10. The prices are comparable for items both types of stores carry and the specialty items do have specialty pricing. I got all my veggies, some flavors of yogurt I can’t get at the other store and a bag of black beans for soup which was the same price either location. Still, I looked over the receipt while I sipped my Starbucks latte to figure out where I spent roughly $25 more than I usually do for my biweekly grocery trip. My conclusion is that I’ll shop my usual store twice for every once I shop at the specialty store. That puts the overage at roughly $8 and change per trip. Ah, but that piece of Sharp Wisconsin Cheddar with lunch was good!

I was going to tell you about the new cat-tower David got for the kids but Marco is yanking on my arm because he want to tell about it. So stay tuned!

Book Review: Real Vampires Have Curves by Gerry Bartlett

Finished July 14, 2014

Synopsis at Good Reads

Gloriana St. Clair is an eternally "full-figured" vampire-she just happened to be bloating when a sexy Scotsman sank his teeth into her. She and said Scot- Angus Jeremiah Campbell III, aka Jeremy Blade-have been on and off again for centuries, currently off. A couple hundred years has taught them how to press each other's buttons-in good ways and bad.

Glory's headed for Austin and a new business venture: Vintage Vamp's Emporium. After all, she loves clothes, and she is an antique. Only problem is, there's a billionaire techno-freak vampire hunter on the loose. Blade's in total he- vampire mode, and wants Glory to move in with him so he can "protect" her. But it's time for this vamp to explore her own powers.


My review at Good Reads

3.5 of 5 stars

This is not my usual kind of book but it sounded interesting, it sounded fun. And it was fun! It's very light reading. But the characters are developed well and you do feel like you know them, all 400+ years of them. It also does a wonderful job of making bad guy about as bad as bad gets.

Vampires are portrayed as sexy or sexual beings, maybe more than was necessary. But the story was fun, at times intense and the people in the story we developed well enough to make you wonder, "maybe."

All in all for light reading I thought it was a good book. At the end of the book includes a sample chapter from the next book and it's possible somewhere down the road I may pick that one up too. If you like vampire stories, a decent amount of sex, and characters you might even want to hang out with as long as you're wearing a turtleneck, pick up Real Vampires Have Curves it's a fun quick read.

Happy Fourth!

Happy Independence Day!

Holiday Time!

I hope everyone had a great Canada Day yesterday! As a border-baby, born just 5 minutes away from Canada, Canada Day has always been the start of a month of celebration for me ending with my Birthday Festival. When I was a kid the Freedom Festival was a festival in Detroit and Windsor celebrating both Canada Day and Independence Day with carnivals and a huge fireworks display from a boat in the Detroit River. Of course it was an open border and no one ever needed a passport to cross from one side of the festival to the other. It’s not so difficult to get to Canada now, but needing a passport to cross the border is sad. It’s kinda like having to get someone’s permission to see your sister.


Yesterday was also my brother-in-law, Ben’s, birthday. David’s baby brother turned the same age my baby brother will be in September. It’s mean how they keep getting older and force us to stay ahead. ;)

We’re enjoying a holiday weekend starting today since people who work in media don’t get regular holidays. David will be working Saturday. We toyed with thoughts of going out of town for three days but ended up opting for sleeping in this morning. Sleeping in here means we woke up when my third snooze on the alarm went off at 7:20. If you’d have told me that would ever be “sleeping in” when I was 17, I’d have called you crazy!

I sent David out to photograph some local trains while I continue to recover from physical therapy yesterday. I was just stiff yesterday. The therapist I was working with noted that and asked if I was affected by the weather. Well, duh! I always remember that AFTER I say “what is wrong with me today?” I usually ask that question on the cloudy, rainy days or when the humidity is still up after a heavy rain. So today I’m just a little sore and slow, but when I’m sitting I don’t really feel pain, but the mild stretching at home reminds me of the pain. The steroid shot didn’t make the pain go away but it does seem that it helped and it may be time to think about doing it again. I didn’t really notice that the second one was a huge difference at the beginning of the year, although the first one was noticeable, so maybe 2 a year 6 months apart is what I need. I’ll have to give the pain doc a call next week.

Today is the first day of the 27th week of 2014, or the half-way point. I know this well because in my Random 2014 project I keep my notes in weekly files and then sort those files into quarters so I can access them if I need to. I’m a little OCD like that. But one of the plusses of condensing and organizing all of my files is that it takes less time and less scrolling to find things which takes it easier on my hands.

Now, in a 365 day year today is the top of the hill and there have been 182 days of 2014 before today and 182 to go. I’ve been thinking about doing a full 2-page spread for today and starting the rest of the weeks with Thursdays. That OCD sides doesn’t like that at all because it makes the first and second halves of the same year different. But then what do I do with the extra day? Put it in the extra box in Week 52? But what if I want to do a special section for goals for 2015 or a wrap-up of 2014 in that section?

Wednesday is still the first day of the weeks of 2014. I’d confuse myself if I changed it.