Category: Daily Life

I hate to admit it, but I’m starting to enjoy Twitter almost more than blogging. If it let you include photos, I’d be in heaven.

For those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter, here’s what’s happened since I last posted:

I took Velcro to the vet. There’s nothing they can do about her hearing, but she seems otherwise healthy. They did a needle aspiration biopsy of a lumpy area on her chest because of her history of cancer, but the doctor is inclined to think that it’s nothing serious.

My niece and I went to Disney on Ice Princess Wishes. When my sister brought her over, she didn’t know where we were going. When I told her, her reaction was forced and polite, which made me realize that she really is a getting a little old for stuff like that. Oops.

I took her out for dinner and then we went to the arena. Our seats were excellent and it ended up being more fun than either of us had expected. Leave it to Disney to understand how to put on a spectacle. My main source of entertainment was waiting to see if any of the ice skaters would fall down. Aladdin came close, as did Snow White and her prince, but we had to wait for the final number before Prince Charming bit it.

One impression: pair skating means that the princes were often manhandling the princesses in rather inappropriate ways. I’m just saying…

On Sunday, I got up early to bake Italian bread and make the baked ziti for Easter supper. I’d accidentally bought fat-free mozzarella for the pasta, but fortunately I found a grocery store that was open. There ended up being eleven people at my sister’s for the meal, so I was glad I’d chosen a dish that makes a ton of food. Even so, there were no leftovers.

I don’t know what I did to myself yesterday (carrying the giant sack of food? carrying a big bag of kitty litter?), but my neck and back are aching and spasming fiercely today. There’s no point in my wearing perfume today because you wouldn’t be able to smell it in competition with the Flexall. Other than that, I’m feeling optimistic about the day. How about you?

I’m up early today, so it seemed logical for me to get some things done around the house. I started with the kitchen, which is a major target since I signed up for the Kitchn Cure yesterday. I don’t live in an apartment, but my kitchen is cluttered and disorganized just the same. Now that it’s light outside, I need to take all of my "before" pictures and post them on Flickr.

After that, my goal is to clean out one pair of cupboards. I think I can fit that in before I have to take Velcro to the vet at 10.

I’m also working to get caught up on laundry. While I was folding clothes from the dryer a few minutes ago, it occurred to me that there are two really stupid things going on with my laundry system that could be easily remedied. First of all, I am still using a top-loading washing machine that deposits noticeable clumps of lint over all of my dark clothes. I’ve been trying to hold out until the machine dies, but that really makes no sense. It’s time for an upgrade.

My second and even more easily fixed laundry issue: I buy the store brand dryer sheets that don’t really smell that good. How cheap am I? (Don’t answer that.)

I was planning on being home most of the day today, but I ended up scheduling a bunch of stuff after all. I’m going to volunteer with an animal rescue organization for a while this afternoon, and my Disney Princesses on Ice tickets got switched to tonight after they cancelled Sunday’s 6 o’clock show. I guess I’ll be making all of my Easter dishes tomorrow morning.

Next on my agenda: sweeping up around the cat boxes in the basement. Don’t you wish you were me?

After waking myself up coughing yesterday, I went ahead and called my doctor and got an appointment over my lunch break. Turns out I have bronchitis now.

I started a ten-day course of antibiotics yesterday and also bought a new bottle of Vick’s Formula 44 cough medicine, which is the cheapest cough medicine on the shelf for some reason. The doctor had offered me some codeine cough syrup, but I have a hard enough time waking up in the morning as it is, so I declined.

After work, I finally went to the chiropractor after weeks of delay. I told her that my left ankle had been bothering me for no reason I could fathom and she said she’d been seeing a lot of ankle and foot pain in people who’d had the flu. How weird is that?

She worked the reflexology points in that foot in the most painful manner imaginable. I told her she was in danger of taking the title of "Most Excruciating Therapeutic Treatment" away from my deep-tissue massage therapist. Strangely enough, the other foot was fine, as was my neck and shoulder area, which is usually extremely tight and painful. I guess this flu really does do weird things to your body.

Later on, I made it through last night’s band practice with a dose of cough syrup, lots of water, and a slug of honey. I’m feeling optimistic that my singing voice will be more or less back to normal by our next practice.

Words can’t convey how tired I am of being sick. I really hope this last batch of medicine is going to do the trick.

It’s been a long ride, but it’s time I admitted that it’s over.

I bought my husband a TiVo for Christmas in 1999. It was one of the first ones on the market and we were delighted to suddenly have the freedom to record our favorite shows and watch them whenever we got around to it.

I also purchased a lifetime subscription to the service at the time, which of course refers to the lifetime of the box. The $250 cost of service back then compared to the current yearly fee shows we’ve basically been getting free service since about 2001.

Our TiVo has a small hard drive, can only record one thing at a time, and has gotten rather slow over the years. Still, we were determined to milk it for every ounce of value. That was all well and good until about three weeks ago when there was an apparent software upgrade that screwed everything up.

The first thing we noticed was that the display at the bottom of the screen looked different. The second thing we observed was that the TiVo seemed suddenly incapable of changing channels on its own to record. It thought it was changing channels, but it would just record the requested time slot on whatever channel it happened to be on at the time.

We did everything we could think of to fix it: rebooting, re-selecting our cable provider’s schedule from the list, etc. Sadly, nothing helped. A peek at the TiVo support forums shows that this is not an uncommon problem (in fact, it’s a recurring issue), but doesn’t provide any useful suggestions.

Today’s the day I give up and call to get a DVR from our cable company. We’ve long since gotten our money’s worth out of the original box and as much as I hate to give up the prepaid service, I think it’s time.

Maybe someday we’ll even venture into HD…but not until our ancient projection TV gives up the ghost!

My company allows each employee 16 hours of volunteer time per year. Thus, several co-workers and I spent our lunch breaks yesterday volunteering at an animal shelter called Wayside Waifs (can you guess that it was founded in the 1940s?) "socializing" the cats.

I drove us there in one of our company vans and before we went in, I decided to leave my coat in the van. (Foreshadowing!)

We had a great time with the kitties and of course I found one I liked best and really wanted to take home. It’s hard to remember my pledge to stick with three cats sometimes.

When we got back to the office, I gave the keys to the person who’d reserved the van and went about my day. In the late afternoon, I received a new laptop and the switch from PC to Mac took me until after 6 o’clock, which is well after most people leave.

It was probably 6:30 p.m. before I started to wonder if I’d taken my coat out of the van. I hadn’t.

It wasn’t that cold outside, but my coat was important in a whole different way: it had my car keys in the pocket.

I ended up having to have my boss run me home – luckily he was still around. This morning, my husband begrudgingly got out of bed at 7 o’clock to run me early to Coffee Morning. I’m typing this at the coffee shop with a delicious egg sandwich and a chamomile tea sitting on either side of the laptop.

So that’s my story of scatterbrainedness for the week. Let’s hope it’s the only one.

Too bad it’s supposed to snow on Saturday.

Here’s some stuff that makes me laugh:

• Bob, the Angry Flower – Grammar tips and other advice for life from an irate daisy.
• I Am Bossy – Her site cracks me up, I was delighted to get to meet her at BlogHer last year, and I can’t wait for her stop in K.C. this April on Bossy’s Excellent Road Trip.
• It you’re a "Lost" fan and you’re not reading the recaps from ack-attack, you’re really missing out.
• I’m probably the millionth person to link to this, but I’m enjoying Stuff White People Like. The Bottles of Water and T-Shirts posts hit close to home.

That’s it for today. Enjoy!

Average Jane gets home from work and prepares to lie down for a bit.

Husband: We need to call a plumber.

AJ (listening for water spurting from a burst pipe): Why?

Husband: Because the toilet’s stopped up.

AJ: Well, use the plunger!

Husband: What plunger?

AJ: THE plunger. (Retrieves plunger from tricksy hiding place in the cabinet under the bathroom sink, hands it to husband and lies down in bedroom.)

SFX: Tentative squooshing sounds.

AJ (from bed): You need to be a little more energetic about your plunging.

SFX: Successful flushing noise.

AJ (finally setting down for nap): You’re welcome. I just saved you $100.

I’m going back to work today even though I’m still very, very tired. I understand this tiredness could drag on for a couple of weeks, and I intend to be as inactive as necessary until it goes away. For a woman whose family motto is, "Never stand if you can sit; never sit if you can lie down," this shouldn’t be a problem.

Yesterday I actually managed to run a few errands. I went to the drug store, got some groceries, made a Target run, and finally bought furnace filters at Lowe’s, although they didn’t have one of my sizes. In the evening, I cooked hamburgers on the grill (it was relatively warm out) and we had a brief band practice wherein I wailed like a wounded banshee between coughing fits. Good times.

Aside from feeling as though I could immediately take a three-hour nap if given the opportunity, I’m much better off than I was last week. If I can just avoid getting one of those secondary infections (bronchitis or pneumonia) that the doctor was warning me about, I think I’ll be back to normal in a week or so. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

As if being sicker each day weren’t enough reason for me to take to my bed and stay there, this is happening:

I have nothing more to say.