45 Things About Me

My sister sent me this in an email. One is supposed to pass it on, but I decided to post it here instead.

1. Do you like blue cheese salad dressing? No
2. Have you ever smoked heroin? NO
3. Do you own a gun? No, because I'm too likely to use it.
4. What's your favorite drink at Starbucks or other specialty coffee. In the winter, Double Decaf Mocha; in the summer, Strawberries & Cream
5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments? Sometimes
6. What do you think of hot dogs? Good in Mac & Cheese
7. Favorite Christmas song? "St. Stephen's Day Murders"
8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Decaf Mocha
9. Can you do push ups? Um, that would be NO
10. What's your favorite piece of jewelry? My wedding band (my DP has its mate)
11. Favorite hobby? Knitting, Quilting, Crocheting, Cross-stitch, Beadwork, Embroidery. (do you sense a theme here?)
12. Do you have A.D.H.D? Quite possibly -- what was the question again?
13. What's one trait that you hate about yourself? I'm too willing to please other people before myself, but I'm working on that.
14. Middle name? Suzanne
15. Name three things you're thinking right now? I want to resume my current stitching project, I'm probably going to post this to my blog instead of sending out email, why isn't my satellite working today?
16. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink? Water, Milk, Decaf coffee
17. The friend you had the longest? Julie, since 1998
18. Current hate right now? Hearing the English language mangled by people who should know better
19. Favorite place to be? In my sunny window, playing with fabric (or yarn, or beads, etc)
20. How did you bring in the New Year? Honey and I watched old movies until we fell asleep
21. Do you like to travel? Yes, but it's such a hassle these days.
22. Name three people who will complete this: It depends on who reads my blog post
23. Do you own slippers? Yes
24. What color shirt are you wearing? Purple
25. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? I've never tried it.
26. Can you whistle? Not really, but that doesn't stop me
27. Favorite color? Rainbow
28. Would you be a pirate? That depends; can I be Will Turner?
29. What songs do you sing in the shower? Random bits of stuff
30. Favorite girl's name? Ariana
31. Favorite boy's name? Geoffrey
32. What's in your pocket right now? A patch
33. What is the last thing that made you laugh? An e-mail about an elderly Wal-Mart applicant.
34. Best bed sheets as a child? Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how long ago that was?
35. Worst injury you've ever had? I broke my ankle skiing, at the beginning of the best snow season ever. I was in a cast until spring.
36. Do you love where you live? I like it better than the last place I lived; it's a walkable neighborhood, and I have no upstairs neighbors
37. How many TVs do you have in your house? Three
38. Who is your loudest friend? Julie
39. How many pets do you have? Four cats
41. What is your favorite book? "This Alien Shore", by C.S. Friedman
42. What is your favorite candy? 80% cacao dark chocolate
43. Favorite Sports Team? PITTSBURGH STEELERS!
44. What were you doing 12 AM last night? Sleeping
45. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? Mmmm, Saturday (roll back over)

Tell me 45 things about you.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I know it's been way too long since I've posted here. I'll try to do better going forward.

Meanwhile, the highlights of life since my last post:

• Honey wants me to side with her in "encouraging" my daughter to get a job and move out. Yes, I want my house back, but no, I don't want to throw my daughter out to get it.
• Honey has been having episodes of dementia; the most recent one lasted almost four days, ending late Monday night. I'm getting worried, because Alzheimer's does run in her family. I wasn't expecting to have to start looking for assisted living for her for at least a few more years, but I may have to move that up.
• On the plus side, I started WeightWatchers Online this week; I need to get rid of this excess I've been carrying around.

Mother-Daughter Bonding

I love my daughter; I always have, although the whole mother-child thing was hard for us. Well, mainly it was hard for me. I've never really been the "mommy" type, but I did my best to give her the tools she'd need to function in the world, and I do seem to have done so.

Now that she's 21 (as of about a month ago) and officially an adult, we're free to just be the friends we've always been, and we like it that way. Instead of me telling her what to do, we can ask and offer advice of each other, and enjoy our common interests. This past Friday, we went to a local pub, for what we thought would be drinks and bar food. It's the first time I've been to this particular place, even though it's only a block away, but it won't be the last. It turns out to be a pretty good German restaurant, which carries imported German and Czech beers. So, it wasn't the outing we were expecting to have, but it was a nice dinner, and we had a good time. We'll do drinks and bar food some other time.

1 More Day!

One more day until my daughter gets here. At least, that's the last I heard from her. She called last weekend to tell us that her flight is tomorrow morning, and she's scheduled to land at about 10am our time. I should be doing housework, but I'm playing with fabric instead.

Rats!

Friday turned out not to be the day, after all. See, Honey has epilepsy, although it's been mostly dormant for several years. Anyway, Friday afternoon she started having seizures - with convulsions and all. Needless to say, I called up to cancel the procedure, and to make some arrangement for getting her prescriptions. Sadly, that's not quite what happened. Her pain doctor fired her - something about going against his beliefs.

On Monday, we'll be talking with the doctor whose office he uses, both to get her prescriptions and to get a referral (we hope) to a pain clinic that's closer to home.

Wish us luck.

Today's the day!

Honey's going in for the nerve-block procedure later this afternoon. She had it done last summer, and it knocked her pain levels way down. That pain stayed gone for over two months. We're hoping that this time it will work even better and longer. I'll post later to tell you how it went.

Guess who I heard from last night!

My daughter (who'll be 21 this summer) called me last night, for the first time in about six months. The last time we had talked, I got angry with her because it seemed that she only called to ask for money. Since I was trying to fend off eviction and still cover Honey's medical expenses, I didn't have it to spare, so I told her to call me back when she had something to talk about besides asking for money. That was it; I didn't hear another peep from her until last night. I had snippets about her by way of one of her local friends, but only scraps.

I'm not going to tell you all of what's happening in her life right now, except that she's finally becoming an adult and getting a handle on her life. I'm so glad that although she's made many of the same mistakes I did (isn't that traditional?), she also learned from my example how to correct them. I was never very good at the whole mommy thing, but I did try to teach her how to be a decent, responsible person. I'm glad to see that at least some of it took.

Anyway, you can go to her MySpace page to see what she's willing to tell about her life.