halt stop forget relax

It is so hard to believe that it is once again Christmas. I remember last year as if it was yesterday, I drove myself up to Anacortes to spend Christmas with my family; specifically, I stayed at my nieces because my brother was coming in from Japan to visit. I spent the night and came home the next day. It was a fun time, and I felt good being able to do it. This year my brother is visiting again, but I haven't heard from him so far. I just finished making a pear, kiwi, and raspberry salad to bring with me to my cousin's. I need to leave by three PM, and I still have to get dressed. just wanted to put up a post to wish you all a Merry Christmas, and for those of you who celebrate it, a Happy Hannukah. It's interesting that they overlap this year. Okay, be good. I'm on the naughty list this year, Ha, or so the button on my vest says. Good night, TTYL, and Be Well,

Happy Holidays is such a watered down way of wishing you a Merry Christmas, or a Happy Hannukah, don't you think? I remember, oh, so many years ago, when I was taking my Massage Licensing Course, that I wished a classmate Merry Christmas, and he said, "You know I'm Jewish, don't you?" Well, no, I didn't know that, so I wished him a Happy Hannukah instead. Then we had to laugh - because by that time, Hannukah was over. He never said anything about it, so how was I to know? Also, for our christmas party, he made the best (meaning strongest) eggnog I've ever had. I still have the recipe somewhere, it was complete with raw eggs and at least three different kinds of alcohol. Merry Christmas, indeed. For the last several years, we haven't done much to celebrate Christmas. I think we stopped putting up a tree when my parents died. They each took their downturn around the holidays, and died one in January, and the other in February three years later. That wa...

First of all, Joanna Jenkins is a having a give-away over at The Fifty Factor of one of Attila the Mom's exquisite ornaments and a cash card. Go check her out and see for yourself.  I already ordered three of these ornaments and they are quality pieces in a variety of colors. They would make nice gifts. This is the lovely silver one which I think would look just great dangling from some special spot well into the snowy Winter. ***** I have to go download a bunch of books from the library. I tried just before Thanksgiving, ad after spending a lot of time, I realized that I did it wrong, and now I have to do it over. I hate the whole close out of Linux, reboot into Windows, do the down loads, close out of Windows, boot back into Linux thing before I get the books. I guess this is why I save up and do 8 - 10  at a time. Sigh. ***** I had Thanksgiving at my cousin's house, and yesterday my brother came over and brought me leftovers!  Even half of a pumpkin pie. ...

Dare I say it? I actually kind of miss the dear little Vampire skull that has been looking at me from across the room for more than a year [or has it been two?]. The  mobile with skeletons tied onto a branch and dancing from its limbs is gone, as is the Spider Web mobile with pumpkins, ghosts, and a kitchen witch hanging from the center -- gone. All packed away, leaving my living room a bit sad and empty after all this time spent together. Will I want to see them again next year? Yeah. Probably.  Now on the door is a festive Fall/Winter wreathe made from twigs and little red berries. It looks lovely unadorned, yet lovely in its simplicity. My art supplies arrived! WooHoo! Three different sets of Sakura pens, including a Pigma Micron set, Micron colors, and set of Glaze pens which are really fun. I also got my new drawing pads and grid pad for my patterns. I am setting up a class with a CZT to take place in Tacoma the day after Thanksgiving. I have interested seven members fr...

Laura Harms of I am the Diva is having a giveaway to celebrate reaching the landmark of 200,000 visits! Also, each week she posts a challenge for those who do Zentangle. She certainly does her part to keep us challenged and interested in improvement. There are four opportunities to win one of four fabulous prizes! My fingers are crossed, and I'm humming "Maybe this time..." Good Night, TTYL and Be Well,

I suggested that the give-away that I linked to, A Compendium of Curiosities , sounded Halloween-ish. Well, it's not. What it is is a compendium of art materials that may be used in various media, like scrap-booking or journaling or what-have-you. I thought I would throw that in there, as the drawing is on Halloween. That's all I have to say. Except that I slept too well and too long last night, and now my leg is deciding to jump and make me unhappy. Good Night, TTYL and Be Well,

Surprise, I'm back. Something must be wrong with me that I am posting so much. Anyway, just stopped in to say that, in addition to reading your missives, I have been blog hopping and ran across this giveaway. I get an extra chance to win if I let you all know about it, which of course lessens my chances of winning but in the interest of paying it forward and all that, good luck to each of us.                                     Over at She who Stamps and Scraps, Marjie Kemper is having a giveaway  which looks like a Halloweenish kind of book.  I've entered to win, and thought you might want to as well. &&&&& Do any of you decorate for the holidays? It has become so difficult for me these days just to walk to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee that the very idea of decorating tires me out. But it is one of those things that I think aides and husbands woul...

 - but I'm surely not the only one; not only did I subscribe to O, the Oprah Magazine today, which is not necessarily a bad thing, and, at $12, is certainly a good deal along with getting a large tote bag - (and especially of I win one of the 15 Kindles they are giving away - send out good thoughts to the Universe on my behalf, okay?) which I will be using for my art supplies, which are both adding up and dwindling simultaneously, to wit my Strathmore art pad has just two pages left, and my gridded pad for new zentangles is now full, so... ... I ordered from DickBlick just a few minutes ago. Art materials -- yep, three Strathmore drawing pads (a 4x6, a 9x13, and a ridiculously cheap 18x24 for $5). Plus pens - an 8-pack of black Sakura pigma microns, a 6-pack of color 01 Sakura microns, and a 10-pack of Sakura Glaze gelly roll pens. $75 total!!!  What was I thinking?  Damn but I love art supplies.  It's sort of like I like browsing in book stores almost more t...

For a few days, at least. It's tiring scrolling through photos and trying them out to see how they will work tiled this way or that. So you have flowers for awhile. I did have a tree tiled and liked that, so I might change back. We'll see. Last night I finished The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht , which I enjoyed very much even though there was a lot of it I don't think I understood very well. It seemed a tad too allegorical to me, and I wanted some Cliff's notes to refer to at times (MS brain issues no doubt), but the stories some of the characters told were so mesmerizing, I could have listened for hours. It is set in Bosnia, and spans several lives, especially in one family, and the secrets many of them have kept over many years. Even though the book contains scenes of violence, I would recommend it. Before that, I read The Good Son by Michael Gruber. It was told in three narratives - A Pakistani-American son, his Jungian psychologist Mother who is kidnapped ...

And for some reason I am still wide awake. I finally found some Autumn leaves to put on my blog for a proper seasonal change. No doubt more tweaking will be wanted. We'll see. I still haven't scanned any of my zentangle work. This laptop that I thought was so light weight when I got it five years ago [has it really been that long?] seems much too heavy for me to carry across the room now. Another sign of my MS progression. But one of these days I will post something for you. This will be a short one, as I have gone blank. I thought there was something to post, but alas it is gone for now. Perhaps tomorrow. Good Night, TTYL, and Be Well,

Ok, I am trying to post this YouTube video. I have embedded the code. So now I publish, right? I heard Lisa Hannigan two weeks ago on Carson Daly, and I really like her. Thought I'd share. And by golly, without all of your help, I probably would never have figured it out. So, thanks. Good Night, ttyl, and be well.

Okay all of you readers who are more savvy in all things Blogger and computer than me. I have a question for you. How do you put up an actual You Tube video, and not just the link to it? I need instructions. Please? Anyone? I am still tweaking the look of the blog for the change of seasons. I need to find some foliage. In the meantime. Good Night, TTYL, and Be Well,

Yesterday was the first day of Autumn, and a very fine first day it was. In my  neighborhood it was 76 degrees with a slight breeze that had that "Fall crispness" to it; and it was slightly humid, so it was quite comfortable for a stroll in the neighborhood. This time I decided to go all the way to the Starbuck's on 56th. Knowing that a curb cut on one end of a block does not mean there is another curb cut at the opposite end, I tended to stay in the street. There's not a lot of traffic, so I felt safe. Still, one driver stopped and commented, "You sure are brave!"  "What do you mean?" I replied. "You should get a flag or something... so drivers will see you."  "But you saw me, right?"  "Yeah, but you're lower than all the cars."  We laughed, and I assured her I would be careful, and continued on my way. It took me about ten minutes to get there, and yes, the Starbuck's is accessible, if you consider pulli...

The evening started with an hour and a half of rather intense muscle spasms, then the clonus started, so, before I get a small dish of butter pecan ice cream,  I have a question ... How many calories does mm. spasms + clonus burn? Inquiring minds want to know. All this annoyance must be worth something. Good Night, TTTL, and Be Well

Last Thursday was fun. At my sorority meeting we started with a "surprise dinner" as a way to reconnect after the Summer. It was a hoot. Everyone had to be seated by 5:30. There was a sheet of paper at each place setting. On it were the rules: don't bother the waitress or try to chat her up, tips are acceptable especially if they are generous,, your dinner partner sits across from you - so chat with the person next to you. Select from this list and place four items in each of three columns below it. Each number must be used. Next there was a list of 12 items with names like Manner's love, catch of the day, butcher's delight, mud slide, and bovine by-product. You get the point - it was difficult to figure out what might go with what. Then they collected the sheets, and began serving our meal in three courses. My first course was salad, garlic bread, an Andes mint, and water.  My second course was spaghetti with marinara sauce, parmesan cheese, and a knife. La...

It was cath change day today, which is usually no big deal. So, when am I going to learn to speak the hell up when something doesn't feel right? Like today, it didn't feel right when she (the nurse whose name I don't know) inserted the cath and was inflating the balloon, it felt cold. It usually feels like ... nothing. I did mention it, but she claimed to see return in the tube, which means  all is OK, so I didn't pursue it. But when I got to the car I kept feeling like I had to pee. That was my big clue that something was wrong , and I should have gone right back up to the office to figure it out. Or at the very least, to the bathroom to conduct my own personal inspection. As it is, it wasn't until we made it to Trader Joe's and I was getting out of the car that I realized that what I thought was happening, happened. I had wet my pants. It wasn't until I got home and was in the shower cleaning up that I felt the damned balloon outside my body. I know!...

Yesterday I took my inaugural ride around the neighborhood on my new-to-me scooter. The great outdoors is now mine to have. The scooter takes bumps and gravel alleys well, and as it didn't even occur to me to take along my cell phone, DH was home worryin' and frettin' about his long lost wife who was gone SO LONG she must be in trouble somewhere. Note: he wasn't concerned enough to get his butt in the car and canvas the neighborhood, however, so I take all his protests with a very  large grain of salt. Seriously. So, I was gone about 90 minutes or two hours or so. Just tooling up one block here, down one alley there, going South to 72nd and over as far as Clement and as far North as far as 62nd. I chatted with one neighbor who I know, and met a new one who has lived in her house for 50 years. Her house looks a helluva lot better than mine, though they are both small and the same shade of yellow. I have determined that my front yard is the worst in the entire neighbo...

Yeah. I'm a procrastinator. And I've put off something that MUST be done tonight before bed. I have to make a batch of Orchid's Tangy Noodles which should be made at least the night before serving, for the flavors to meld, then adjusted before I leave tomorrow. [note: I finished them at 1 AM] I am leaving at 1 PM tomorrow to go to a sorority BBQ, and this is what I'm taking as my side dish. It'll be worth it, though, as they are a favorite of the hostess who is providing SALMON, which was caught by her husband last week. I love me some Salmon, probably more than she loves my noodles. Earlier this evening I chose to make chai instead, as the French Press was empty of coffee. So now I am all set for chai,, which will probably disappear sooner that you would think as I made it more like DH likes it - milkier and spicier. I may take some of it with me to the BBQ as well. (At least that assures me of getting some!) ***** Last weekend I drove to Long Beach to our St...

"... Happy birthday to meeee." It's official: I'm older than dirt. Fifty-six today, Sunday. At least it's going to be warm again, though it sure didn't feel very warm Saturday. News said it was 80, but it wasn't no 80 degrees in my back yard. No way. I put on cropped pants and nearly froze to death. Okay, so I exaggerate. Sue me. Tomorrow I am planning to make potato salad to have with dinner, which I expect will be BBQ'd veggie burgers. Yummm. Can you tell I am tired of frozen entrees? I also have to make a trip up to Starbuck's to get my free birthday beverage. Last year I kept putting it off and missed out. What's the point of registering your S'buck's card of you're not going to take advantage of its benefits? I also have to make some banana bread as the bananas that I bought green ripened faster than I thought they would. So I put them in the fridge hoping they will hold until Monday. Actually I'll probably make muf...

I just watched this TED talk about consciousness which was interesting in and of itself, but what I found most interesting was the last five minutes - after his talk. Imagine if they could implant electrodes inside our damaged MS brains and let us strap on a receiver so we all could walk normally once again. Unfortunately, our world is still too greedy for this to happen - at least in my lifetime. What a long way we still need to go before we can consider ourselves evolved. Interesting, too, that he talked about brain plasticity. That, in a nutshell, means that nothing is absolute where brain injury is concerned, and that we, as people with MS, should never give up hope. ~~~~~~~~~~~~  Lessee - about my MRI   -  No new lesions, no new activity, a couple old T2,T3 lesions - so no steroids are called for.  if I want to go back on the C I need to give Shared Solutions a call, and they will arrange it for me, and tell me if it's okay to use what I have in the fridg...

... when Blogger is just all fucked to hell and back. After I spent so much time a few weeks ago getting things looking the way I like them, I decided to make a tweak today to a font. As far as I can tell it's all messed up again - meaning what shows up in their preview screen is not what you get to read here. I'll have to leave it for the time being because I'm just not in the mood to fuss when fussing likely won't work anyway. At least you can read it. I  have been tangling some large 8 1/2x11" pieces, and I actually have one that I like! But I haven't taken it to the other room to scan it into the other computer and send it to my laptop yet. I think that's what I have to do. I probably have to put it into some sort of program so I can resize the huge image as well. And then I have to save my tweaked image into my pictures folder so I can add it from there. Does that all sound about right to you computer savvy folks? Jan? Sherri? (is she still out of co...

First, let me tell you about a fantastic giveaway over at Joanna's blog   to win:   $25 FANDANGO GIFT CARD GIVEAWAY! Just leave a comment below telling me your favorite Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks or Nia Vardalos movie to win a $25 Fandango Gift Card!   Go visit and enter to win. **** Okay, that's done.  I'm tired, it's 8 AM and I wanna go to bed, but first I wanted to say that I had my MRI on Monday, and it went well. It didn't seem like the one I had about ten years ago, but who can remember details that far back? HA certainly not me. It took an hour and 20 minutes to do the first one, then they had to inject the gadolinium - but of    course I have these baby veins and it was cold in there so the veins went hiding, and they didn't have any warm packs nearby, and blah, blah, blah, and finally someone from a different department came in and warmed me up and it was back in the tube for another half hour or so. I got a copy of the pictures on a CD,...

I have been seeing images of swiss cheese  lately. Pictures of small cubes of cheese with holes in it on a platter, photos of sandwiches with the edges of slices in them sticking out, picture of a tee shirt with a block of swiss cheese on it and a mouse eying it closely. I don't even like swiss cheese that much. It has a nice kind of nutty  flavor, but it smells like feet to me. My mind has been working like it's made of swiss cheese lately. I sit down to write something, either for my blog or something in preparation for my meeting Thursday evening, and once I boot up the ole' laptop and get settled with my coffee I've forgotten all about those things I wanted to do. I think it might help if I turned off all extra noise in the house that just serve as distractors; and I can't even blame DH for the noise, because lately he has been reading a book on his computer, and not playing constant television shows. Oh MS is playing its part in this, I'm sure, and I...

I tried to like the red background, but it just wasn't doing it for me, so I changed it again, this time with a tweaked version of Watermark, one of Blogger's stock templates. If you find the font too difficult to read, let me know. I  just think it looks fun. We finally had a day in the 70's yesterday! Could Summer be too far ahead? Well, today is to be a repeat of yesterday, and then the clouds will roll back in tomorrow. The extended forecast is for nice weather next week. I'll believe it when it happens. Finished one more book: Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man by Bill Clegg. It was okay, but I much preferred A Million Little Pieces by Jonathon Franzen, whether he fictionalized a few parts of it or not - it was still a fantastically good read. It was basically the same subject matter, only handled a little differently. Okay, its time to tangle. I'd show them to you, but I'm not sure of the best way to do that. Suggestions welcome. Good Day, TTYL...

For some reason, whenever I think if writing an entry all of my witty ideas and pithy remarks leave my brain for parts unknown. Trust me, I haven't forgotten about you - I've just, well, forgotten. So what's new with me? The weekend of the 20-23rd of May was our State Convention. I was going to room with a sister, but as fate would have it, her husband flew down to Arizona to interview for a job, and he got it. No waiting for two weeks, no checking other candidates, just a "when can you start?" His main purpose for interviewing in Arizona was to be close to his Mom, who was very ill with cancer; So he sets up the interview, flies down for it, stops in to see his Mom, comes back  home, gets the job, and they have to move right away so they're busy packing etc., and he gets a call from his brother telling him that Mom has taken a turn for the worse. Turns out that she died three hours before they got there. Sucks for them. Sucks for me, too,  because now I h...

Saturday I went with a sorority sister to see a talk given by a long lost dear friend of mine. She has followed her bliss and is making a living from it: She grows ferns-- from spore. She has become quite the expert in her field. I know! Back when I first met her I was still in high school; I babysat her firstborn, and second born, but not the third; I house-sat for her, and watered her many plants, both inside and out. Yet when I saw her and called her name, she looked at me and said "Gee, you look really familiar..." Of course, she remembered me once I refreshed her memory, but to say that I was a little disappointed would be an understatement. To be fair, it has been 23 years since I've seen her, but I don't think I look any more different than she does, which is to say, a little grayer and a few more wrinkles. And, big clue, I chose to use the wheelchair today, and she knew all about that era of my life.  Oh well, it was still good to hear of her. And she told...

Oh yeah, one more lovely thing happened, or almost happened, as I was driving home from my meeting Thursday night. I made a left turn on a green light in front of oncoming traffic. Yeah. I came this close to getting my car smashed at 40 MPH. I was apparently on automatic pilot and just turned when the light changed. It was a good thing I had enough time to step on the brakes, and the other car had enough time to react and swerve and miss me, and the second much bigger car could pass me on the other side as there was nobody else on the street. It was, after all, nearly 10 PM. The street gets fairly well used during the daytime... not so much at night. My excuse: inattention- pure and simple. I was paying attention to the light and not to the oncoming cars, who weren't there one minute, and were the next.  Apparently because I had just slowed for what had been a red light, and they were already going 40 MPH so they reached the intersection much faster. As I said, I wasn't pa...

Some days you just have to suck it up, ya' know? Last Thursday, I woke up in an adrenaline rush from a nightmare. I was dreaming that I was living with my parents and my brother in Seattle and someone knocked at the front door at two in the morning. Odd, no? My Dad answered the door, being most imposing, and stepped out onto the porch. Then a young couple rushed in, the teen boy pointing a gun at me, and the girl looking around the house anxiously. I yelled "They have a gun, Mom! Stay put" and "WAKE UP. HELP!" to my sleeping brother, whom I could hear snoring upstairs. I had my arms folded around my head until I realized that was no way to identify the intruders, so I looked at them and was amazed at how young they were. The girl ran into our kitchen and turned on all the gas burners on the stove, then blew out the flames. Then I started yelling at the obviously frighted boy, and I don't know exactly what happened, but he told me to get on the floor, an...

Since I have just noticed that I have hit two blog milestones I feel that I must write a post, even though I don't much feel like it. Okay, just kidding about that; I appreciate you all for stopping by, wasting spending your free time with me, and I feel somewhat compelled to make it worth your while. So what milestones? you ask. Well, I have just noticed that there have been 7000 hits to my blog in the past two years. (I know, my expectations are low. Whatever.) AAand, I have finally crossed over the magic number of 50 readers! Ami, reader #51, and to Lauren #50 and KPF #49, who also have joined recently. Stick around. Occasionally I might entertain you. SO ..... I made an Amazon order last week. I bought three Zentangle books - Yoga for the Brain, Time to Tangle with Colors, and Zentangle 3. The last one was a gift for a friend who uses a lot of rubber stamps and makes cards. When she saw my Totally Tangled book she seemed intrigued by it, so I got this one for her birthd...

This is the funniest thing I've watched in the past week. It's why I warn my dog not to be too friendly with the girl cats. Girls don't like to be goosed. Just sayin'. Good Night, TTYL, and Be Well, Webster

According to the calendar it's Spring. When I take a look outside I see shoots coming up in the garden through the weeds. Our few daffodils are blooming. But one thing is missing -- some heat. I swear, this is the coldest Spring I can remember. It's rainy, breezy, and chilly even when we have had a sunny day. I haven't even been tempted to sit outside, even with a coat and hat on. So, with that in mind, I am having some serious doubts about whether I want to go to the MS Walk on Saturday morning or not. Keep in mind that I would be using my wheelchair, and probably being pushed most of the time; if it does start to rain, I'll be a sitting duck! [amended 4/5: I ended up not going to the walk, but meeting some of my friends afterward for lunch. By then it had stopped raining.] Had one hell of a time getting there, though. It was not a "good" day. I decided to not take my purse, and just take my coin purse and small wallet with my  driver's license. I walk ...