To anyone out there that has served in the military, to the family of those that have, to those who have a loved serving right now, and to those who had a loved one killed while serving our country:
Thank you so much for all that you have done for our country. If it were not for you I may not be able to enjoy the freedoms that I have today. Thank you.
I have been learning more about our friends "across the pond." And this entry is about something that I have just learned.
Stuart over at Specimen Days wrote recently about having black pudding for breakfast. I am reading that and thinking "what the heck is that?". And he was more than happy to tell me. And send a few pictures. This is what black pudding looks like:
Want to know what it is? This is what he wrote in a email to me: **don't read while eating**
Black Pudding, one of the great creations of civilised society, is essentially congealed pig's blood in a length of intestine. There are many variations; in England, the pudding is usually bound with rusk and has bits of fat in it. The French have their boudin noir with nowt but blood in the casing, the Germans blotwürst, the Spanish morcilla which is often bound with rice. Can there be a finer sight in a shop window than a freshly cooked black pudding, still steaming slightly, looking like... er... a slimy coil of warm intestine filled with congealed blood?
Sounds yummy. NOT. This is what he calls biscuits:
This is what we call biscuits: 
which looks like what he calls scones (which he says are sweet):
This is what Stuart thinks is a great breakfast:
This is what most of us would call a good breakfast:
Or maybe some pancakes: 
So there you have it folks. What one Scotsman calls breakfast and what this American calls breakfast. Which would you rather have?
I need your help. I was discussing breakfast with one of our journaler's from across the big pond. I want to do an entry on it. I have photos of what he believes is a good breakfast. ick is all I have to say. I need some pictures of a good old American breakfast -- eggs, bacon/sausage, grits/gravy/hashbrowns, biscuits/toast. Also of a biscuit with something on it, ie bacon biscuit, egg biscuit..... I think you get the idea. I guess I am looking in all the wrong places on the internet because I can't find a photo of an entire breakfast. Can anyone out there help me? Your picture will appear with Stuart's right here in this very journal. Thanks so much for your help.
Kathy
Ok, I am not entirely sure what "sod" means but I think it may be a good thing. Maybe. This little boy lives in England. And has started his very own journal. That's right folks Oscar may be our youngest AOL journaler yet. This is what he wrote in the about me section:
Welcome to my Journal...
My Name is Oscar and I was born on 19th December 2003 at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon, England...
I just couldn't wait to get into this world and meet everyone, so I only put my Mummy through a 2 hour labour... On arrival I weighed in at a healthy 6lb 8oz...
I will be keeping you up to date with my progress while I am growing up and all the things going on in my life...
With 3 entries under his belt already he is off to a great start. Even talks about trying to raise his parents properly.
To make up for all the alerts, would it help if I gave you the cutest picture of Sadie? Just got it back today.
Sadie really doesn't mind being "dressed". She didn't want to hold still for a picture though.
This is at the bottom of her "tree". I call it the "dog house". Oh, look, you can see that new floor I was talking about a few entries ago.
I know that you got a million alerts for the last entry and I am sorry. It kept throwing in the html code for everything for some reason. Then it changed not only the type of font, but the size of it. I finally gave up on fixing it. I think it is at least large enough to read. But it dropped the colors I was using to make the conversation I was having read easier. Sorry boys and girls.
today i was thinking about my grandmother. wondering what she would think of things had she still been alive. then i got to thinking of all the things that have happened in my lifetime. and then i got to feeling old but that is another story. in my lifetime i have known/seen the following:
records. honest to goodness vinyl records. Lp's, 45's and i have a faint memory of 78's
8 track tapes. they weren't around long but i do remember them.
cassette tapes. do they even make them anymore? can you buy music on cassette tapes?
telephones with dials. oh yeah, there was a time before push buttons. and the phones came in just a few rather ugly colors. black, brownish tan, blue, pink
telephones with cords attached to the handset. yeah, no cordless stuff when i was growing up. and i miss them too. hanging up on people have totally lost the "slam the phone down" hangup effect.
car phones. before cell phones was the car phone. they were really expensive. few people had them. they had to be installed into your car. then later you could take them in and out of your car. but you could only use them connected to your car.
hand held calculators. ok, i have no idea when they first came out, but i remember the local radio station having contest where you could win one, so it was a pretty big deal. i still have my first one. wherethe numbers light up on the screen looks totally different than they do today.
vcrs? there was a time that if you wanted to tape a television show you had to put a cassette player up next to the tv and hit record. you could tape sound but not picture. then came vcr's. but there were 2 kinds. the one that isn't here today is the beta one. don't know why it never took hold.
president Kennedy killed. i was really little so i really don't remember much about it.
president Nixon resigns. that was huge. i remember the headline on the newspaper. it was HUGE you have thought we had gone to war.
president Regan shot. that was totally wild. we didn't know at the time how close he came to dying.
president Clinton impeached. another wow. that makes 5 presidents on my list so far.
presidents Bush, and Bush. father & son's become president. can you believe all these things that happened with presidents of our country have happened in one lifetime?
the berlin wall in germay comes down. talk about living through history in the making.
life before seat belts. sure i guess cars have almost always had them, but who wore them? laws were passed before people really started wearing them.
a m radio. you could buy radios that only had a m no f m radio stations i guess. if you listened to radio it was a m stations.
life before cable tv. listen up you young things. when i was a kid we basically had 3 tv stations. ABC, CBS, and NBC and if you were really lucky it seems like you could get a channel on UHF. and there was no cable, you had rabbit ears or antenna on top of the house to try to get clear stations.
mtv "satan's channel". i remember everyone being up in arms when MTV first started. parents were talking about having cable disconnected. they had to come up with a way to block just that one channel or lose customers. it was a HUGE deal. and MTV was nothing like it is today.
computers -- before the internet. there was a time when a few people were able to have "personal computers" at home. when i went to community college we learned a little about computers but it was for computers used at work. the year after i graduated i went back to learn the latest technology -- word processing. i learned on the best at the time, the Wang Writer. ever hear of it? guess it went by the way pretty fast.
guess that is enough reminiscing for today. i am sure there are tons of other things i could add to this list. but i will save them for another time.
There is this lady at church that has been on the prayer list forever (or so it seems). By all rights she should be dead. I don't know all of what is wrong with her but listen to this:
As of this past Sunday she has not had any food, liquids, not even an IV. They have been giving her morphine to keep her comfortable. I am sure that when her family took out the IV's and all they thought she would soon pass. But she hasn't.
Of course I don't think she knows she is still in this world. But it is so weird. Everytime I would see Gary (my pastor) he would say that she would soon pass. Then when she didn't he would say that there was no way she would be here another day or two.
This lady just won't die. I don't mean that to sound mean or like I am making fun of her. It is just the truth. I wonder why she keeps hanging on. I have heard (on tv) that sometimes people that are dying will manage to hang on until their birthday, or someone else's big day or even until someone had a chance to get to town to say good bye.
I wonder if people can really hang on like that or if it is just a coindence? If some people can I wonder if that is what this lady is doing. Or maybe it is God waiting for something to happen?
artwork by Selina Fenech
www.selinafenech.com
I didn’t get my car back until Saturday, and yes they managed to find something else wrong. Oh well. My car is getting some age on her so things were bound to go wrong and start falling apart.
Had a great time at Sunday School this morning. My teacher is also the pastor of the church. He is cool. He is only 47 years old but he knows what he is talking about. I asked a question about what he thought heaven would be like and we (the class) got to talking and before you know it we didn’t have time to do the lesson. I felt bad about that but I learned a lot today.
My oldest niece went to court this past week to see if she could get her little boy back. She didn’t. I wonder what will happen to the baby that she is carrying. She is also upset because the boyfriend is in jail. I knew that was coming. His ex-wife (if they are divorced which I don’t think they are) had him arrested a few years back for hitting her. He never went to jail. But I looked up his name in the computer and it said he had “absconed” (spelling?), meaning that he didn’t show or that he broke parole. I told her that a while back and she said he had it all worked out and everything had been taken care of. Yeah, right. Now he claims that he didn’t know he had to go to court. Yeah, right.
I have been trying to find a easier way to surf for
Seems like other journalers really like the art work that I have been using (mostly in my other journal) of Jon Rattenbury. If you haven’t checked out his site you need to. I would love to own some of his work but I am afraid to ask what he charges. The paintings are too beautiful to be in my price range!
Nothing going on right now. I need to add to my other journals so I’m off to do that. Talk to ya laters.
Kathy
Yesterday was a really nice day. Today started that way. What happened? I went to get another color ink cartridge for my printer. I had been getting them at the Gateway store (they would give you $5 off if you brought in your old used one), but since they shut those stores down I went to Office Depot. They have a sign up saying they will give you a pack of paper if you bring in a ink cartridge for recycling. Well in small print they say they DON'T take epson cartridges. Guess what I got? Yea. The cashier asked if I just wanted her to throw away my old one (since they can't recyle it) I tell her no, maybe I can find a place that will take it. She asks me that same question 2 more times. I felt like asking her if she knew something I didn't, because I told her I was going to find a place to recycle it.
Now I go out to my car and I can't get it unlocked. After several attempts I go around to the passager side and unlock it. When I get home I can't get out of my car. I had locked in when I got in and now I had to unlock it to get out. I discover after messing with the door that I can unlock it only if I use my key to lock it. In other words don't use the electrical locks. I decide to just take it to the Ford place and get it fixed. On my way to the Ford place I try to lock the door (from the inside) and it won't lock -- in fact I heard a clunk when I tried it.
Get to the Ford place and he says it sounds like the electronic thing is just falling around inside the door somehow. It will take about $75 to take the door apart and look to see what is wrong. About $125 or less to look and fix it.
Then Drew (the Ford guy's name) asks is that all I want. Is that all? Ain't that enough? Then Drew goes "I smell the strong odor of burning anti-freeze. Lift the hood and guess what? Yep, the water pump is leaking or whatever. Ok, I guess we need to fix that. Drew "lets let this guy check other stuff to see if there is anything else wrong." So they take fluid sample. Need to flush the power steering fluid because it is way too dirty, ditto for the transmission fluid. Oh, yeah, while we are working on the water pump we really should go ahead and change the timing chain (which by the way is NOT a chain) because it needs to be changed every 60 thousand miles and you are coming up on that.
So we are talking upwards of $500 - $600? Drew "well, I hope not that high but yeah."
I go in because my door won't lock and end up having to flush some systems and replace the water pump and maybe even the timing chain (I did say that wasn't a chain right?)
It is a good thing to find out about the water pump before I break down somewhere or ruin my engine. So is that the bright side of my day? Is that the silver lining I kept finding in things yesterday?
Ok Vivian I am going to give the HTML tag thingy you gave me a try.
For those of you reading this, this is my attempt to create a hyper-link that opens up another window instead of just taking you to wherever. That's right, if this works you won't have to right click on a link to go to the link and still hold your place here.
This is a link to my other journal. Here goes nothing:
I was going to do a entry about how good life is. I feel really good today and it seemed like a good thing to talk about. But as I was also thinking about updating everyone on things going on around here I thought "well everyone else won't see life as being good in this stuff." But you know considering how bad it could be life is good.
Updates:
Aunt Betty does have a small spot on one of her lungs that is cancer. We are waiting for the doctor to decide when he can do the operation. Good: it is a small place and the doctor feels confident that he can get it.
Aunt M is doing better. She was in the hospital because of some blood clots. The doctor sent her home but she is either supposed to lay down or stand up, no sitting except to eat. Good: she is home from the hospital and Uncle N is having to wait on her for a change.
Dad had a head CT this past Monday and goes a week from Friday to some kind of specialist. Good: If the CT had showed something really bad then surely a doctor would call and get him in before next week.
My niece is pregnant, again. She is supposed to go one day this week to see if she can get her little boy back. They don't have money for the rent and may get evicted. Good: I hate to say it but since there is no income and maybe no place to live the little boy may not get to come home. He has really thrived since being taken away so maybe it is good that he may not get to come home. SS are watching my niece closely with her being pregnant again. This is good for her unborn baby.
Yeah, life is good. It could be worse. I feel good today. Lets celebrate life!
used with artist permission
www.rattenburyart.com
I recieved an email from Sarah today and several of you guys may have also. I won't put the email here but I will put a copy of my response to it and her next email to me here. I think it explains quite a bit.
I am so sorry for anything that I may have said about your journal. If you had been around I think you would have realized why people were so up in arms about the editors picks that week. Only one of the picks met the editor's criteria for being in that spot. The other 4 ALL mentioned Jean Chatsky and her book in the few entries they had in their journalsThen I received this from Sarah:
Kathy, Thanks so much for your note! I feel a lot better. It was just so bizarre, I hadn't looked at my journal in a few weeks actually, I've been so swamped, and there were all these derisive notes and even a parody!!! I don't know much about the community of people who do journals, and how the journal pick works, so that's part of the problem too. I do accept your apology. What happened, if you and others want to know the background, is that I have a friend who works for AOL and she was finding AOL users around NYC to participate in the video with Jean. They asked us what our financial questions were and then they videotaped us with Jean. It was very helpful since we did get to ask our own personal questions, even though of course they were using it also as a promotional tool. They tried to pick a variety of people for the taping so that the problems would apply to a wide range of users. Then, they asked us to do a journal, which I guess now they did so that they could use them as the picks of the week to promote the bill pay and other services. That's why it looked so weird that we all mentioned Jean Chatsky! But none of us were AOL employees, in fact we are just a bunch of random AOL users, and all of our info was for real. Now you know the real truth! If anyone wants to know you can certainly pass it along. :) SarahI have never been able to use the Outlook Express mail thing on my computer. Call me dumb, but it just ain't working. I keep getting this message:
The host 'POP3' could not be found. Please verify that you have entered the server name correctly. Account: 'POP3', Server: 'POP3', Protocol: SMTP, Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Socket Error: 11001, Error Number: 0x800CCC0D
I have no idea what that means, how to fix it, where to go to get help or anything. If anyone knows what is going on please email me or leave a comment here. I think it is finally time for me to figure out what is wrong and get it fixed.
Thanks.
Kathy
For whatever reason I decided to go look at the site for missing children. Click here to go there. I was looking through the children missing from North Carolina because I live in North Carolina. Some of these children have been missing for years. Then I saw where a dead child had been found and they still don't know who she is. That must be horrible. Surely someone loved her enough to miss her. Anyways, I decided to every so often put one of the missing pictures here. Even though you don't live in NC that doesn't mean that you won't recongize some of these kids. They could be in another state by now.
This is her picture, it is a from a computer assisted composite. She had been dead up to a month before she was found.
I am going to urge everyone to visit the missing children site, look up your state or a near by state and see if you have seen any of the missing kids. Maybe even add a picture of one that is missing in your journal from time to time. You never know who may see it.
Kathy
used with artist permission
www.pinuptoons.com
Because Sadie is the sweetest little thing and doesn't mind me putting a harness on her I decided to see if she would let me dress her up. I know that is so mean to do to a cat. But hey, I made this cute bow to put around her neck and she just didn't care.
I had the bow on her when I took her in to see Dr B today. He thought it was cute also and said that maybe I could work on an outfit and enter her in the halloween thing this radio station has every year. Hmm.....
Thanks to the high calorie food Sadie is back up to 3.7 pounds. Ideally she should be around 6 pounds, but as long as she isn't losing we are happy. Oh, last week I talked Dr B into giving Sadie something for acid reflux. And it is working. Her tummy doesn't rumble like it did, and she has quit smacking her lips the way she was doing.
Don't you love the above picture? I don't know that she has a name but I have decided to call it "Angry Punk Girl." LOL
Really short entry here. I have been emailing with Stuart over at Specimen Days and he has shared a link to an AOL International site. We all know that I have a heck of a time getting my links to AOL sites to work so I am just going to put it here and if it doesn't work just do the copy/paste thing.
aol://4344:3025.intltst.18560007.687685194
I also happened on to an AOL International Message board site. Go here: (you may have to do the copy/paste thing sorry)
aol://4344:2530.globbrd2.26877851.733213488
Stuart tells me that AOL Canada has journaling also. I haven't found a way to local their journals as of yet. If any of you know please pass it along.
update: I think I may have the links working right this time, try to click on these if you don't want to copy/paste the above:
There are times that I have been known to put my foot in my mouth, to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, but I have NEVER set out to say something to hurt someone on purpose.
I had breakfast this past week at this little diner that I like. It's just a little neighborhood diner but it gets a lot of men that are out doing construction, road work, etc. During the week it is usually the same people. And that usually means 2 or three black men on occasion. On Saturdays more blacks seem to visit the place, and they are usually part of a couple. Why am I telling you this? I just want to set up my story a little. The fact is that it is a mostly white diner. It was not designed to be that way but it is.
On the Saturday I was there there were 2 black couples having breakfast. One couple at a table and the other at the counter.
This was the day this old white guy -- who is there practacially every time I go in there -- decides to talk LOUDLY to someone at another table. He talks about the fact that his family had owned slaves. That was not enough, he told how much one the females sold for and that this little town was named for her.
I wanted to crawl in a hole. Just wanted to die. I could not believe he was saying the things he did. Now granted he didn't use the N word or talk badly about blacks, but come on, he had to know that it would be hurtful to those couples that were in there.
I told you that there aren't many blacks that come in the place to say that he had to have noticed them. I mean face it. It is a small diner -- maybe 15 tables? -- so it wasn't like he didn't see them. This is why I felt that he chose that day to tell his story. He wanted to make sure a black person heard his story. Why else would he have talked so loud to another table that was well within ear shot of that black couple?
I am still shocked just thinking about it. I wanted so bad to go up to the people and apologize for what was being said. Am I wrong to think he did this on purpose? Wrong to think that it had to make those couples feel not only out of place but just bad all over?
While at a MSN group that I am a member of I saw a comment left by someone that had seen the video of the American Nick Berg being beheaded in Iraq.
Is this something that I want to see? Why would I want to see it? What good would it do? Would I have nightmares for years to come from seeing it?
What do you think? Have you seen the video? Do you want to see it? Why would you want to see it? If you have seen it how did you cope with what you saw?
I don't want to get into a political debate about the war. I just want to know your feelings about seeing THIS video. Have you seen it? Do you want to see it? Why?
I could be totally wrong -- and I feel that if I am someone will tell me -- but I think the whole UK Journals are a fairly new thing. Anyways, for those of you that are interested here are some more links to UK journals for you to try:
**For those of you that are lost, UK journals are journals written by people that live in the United Kingdom such as in England. Sure their journals look like ours, but they are different in the fact that they are living in another country and that their slang is different. These are just opening a doorway into another part of the world.**
For whatever reason the link I gave to get to the UK message board wasn't working. You will just have to copy/paste this address into your address bar.
Sorry everyone, I always have trouble with message board links for some reason. I always try to give them as a hyperlink but it never works for me.
If you don't know how to copy/paste here are instructions:
1 highlight the area you want to copy
2 hold down your "CTRL" key and hit your "C" key
3 move your curser to where you want to put whatever you just copied, in this instance it would be where you normally key in your journal addresses.
4 hold down your "CTRL" key and hit your "v" key
What you hightlighted should now be where you put your curser last.
Note: you must hold down the "CTRL" key at the same time you key in the "C" or the "V" or it will not work.
artwork used with the artist permission
www.metalandmagic.com
John's assignment this week is great. I can't wait to see who people have met or maybe even know! WOO HOO As for me:
Way back when, then President Ford came to town and I got to shake his hand. I was, how was I? I was young.
I saw Ronald Regan while he was in town BEFORE he became president.
I don't know where it is, but I once got a postcard from Gary Burgoff -- Radar from M*A*S*H.
When I was younger there was a telathon in town and I got to get autographs from Soupy Sales, Randy Mantooth, Kevin Tige.
At a golf celebrity tournament I got autographs from:
Jimmy Dean, Claude Akins, Efrem Zimberlist Jr, McLean Stevenson, Chad Everett (he is sooooo handsome), and Leslie Neilson
Through the mail I have gotten:
a postcard from Socks the first White House cat
actor Robert Davi from the tv show Profiler, and some movies
James Doohan -- Scotty from Star Trek I went to a Star Trek convention and he was supposed to be there but he didn't show. I had to get the autographed picture sent to me by mail. Total bummer.
All of my brushes with fame happened when I was somewhere in my early to middle teenage years. And thanks to moving several times I have lost some of the best things, the postcard from Radar, a note (form letter type thing) from ex-president Carter, ect...
I am sure that everyone has better brushes and I can't wait to read all about them.
oops, forgot about my first celebrity crush. Sadly I have to remind you that I was crazy for Buck Owens when I was small. But the first real big, put posters on my wall, can't live without crush, was Donny Osmond. Hey, I was a little girl and "bubble gum" music was HUGE way back then! Quit laughing already! Now I won't even tell you that I was a basket case for the Bay City Rollers! So there! LOL
used with artist permission
www.metalandmagic.com
I have recently discovered another world of AOL Journals out there. Yep. Some of you may have already known about this but I am always a little slow on such. There are AOL journals in the United Kingdom. Silly me thought AOL = America On Line meant just that America. But there is an AOL UK. Who knew?
They even have a different message board than us! Here is a link for it: Writing A Journal If you are not AOL then the link probably won't work.
By surfing around on that message board you can find links to their journals. Here are a few to get you started:
Be warned that their slang is quite a bit different than ours. In a chat rocketman mentioned that he just "had a fag". You can picture my face at that! But Dave (world of sod) said it was slang for cigerette. Whew! And even though Dave tried to explain what "sod" meant I still don't know that I quite got it.
Anyway, run to the board and find more journals! Make some new friends! If you read something you don't quite understand or you may think is offensive (like the slang for cigerette) don't jump to conclusions. Just ask them what it means to them. You may be surprised!
***if the Writing A Journal link doesn't work just copy/paste this into your address bar: aol://5863:126/mB:542064 I always have trouble getting message board links to work:(
used with artist permission
www.metalandmagic.com
I am so bummed that the alerts aren't working yet. I don't have some of the addresses to all of the journals I read because I have been relying on those alerts. Guess I am going to have to do something about that because I know that I am missing some great entries.
Something sticky is on my new floor. I don't have any idea how it got there. I don't remember spilling anything. T told me not to use anything but water and vinegar on this type of flooring. I guess he knows what he is talking about. Hope so. Just in case I am trying it on a small spot just to make sure it doesn't mess up the floor.
Sadie is feeling really good. She just climbed up the back of my chair and attacked my ponytail. She hasn't done that in a while. And she is eating me out of house and home. The new food she is on is over $1 a can, and it is considered prescription some how. My vet was sold out so I went to another one and they wouldn't sell it to me until they called Dr B to make sure it was ok. They said it was because it was a prescription. Gee. Now I can understand if I went in looking for pills, or liquid meds or something like that. I am sure if I were a druggie there would be plenty of stuff I would like to get my hands on, but cat food? It's not liquid. It is canned cat food. Canned cat food! And I had to get the ok to buy it. What is the world coming to? And to top it off they were about 50 cent more a can than my regular vet!
My aunt M just got out of the hospital. She has some blood clots. I don't understand it totally. She lives about 5 hours away and I was getting the news second hand from my dad and he never gets things right. Aunt M is somewhere around 76 or 77 years old. I haven't seen her in a while because of the distance. I need to get off my hiney and send her a card.
Wish I had some great things to talk about but I don't. I did get permission from another artist to use their work here in my journal. There are some really talented people out there. Wish I was one of them.
Took a couple of quizzes today.
What sign of affection are you?
cuddle and a kiss on the forehead - you like to be
close to your special someone and feel warm,
comfortable, and needed
What Sign of Affection Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
And
what is your animal personality?
What Is Your Animal Personality?
brought to you by Quizilla
Take the quizzes and let me know what you are!!
I don't know about everyone else but my alerts just are not working right. I noticed yesterday that I wasn't getting any but I thought that it was mother's day so no one was doing any journaling. Today I got like 2 alerts which I know can't be right. So I have gone to "manage your alerts" and they are all on, but I checked them off and hit "turn on" to make sure. Haven't gotten a single alert yet. Guess I will have to wait to see what happens. Anyone else having problems?
I am in such a good mood. I know you are thinking "well, it is about time!"
Sadie, while far from not being sick, is doing better. Friday I talked to Dr Mac about Sadie having thrown up several times the day before. Seems the meds she was on could be doing that and I should take her off it for a while to see what happens. So I did and that combined with a few other things and she (Sadie NOT Dr Mac) seems to be doing better. Sadie finished her treatment for lungworms (thought we still don't know if she had them), took her off the icky antibotics, and started her on some high calorie cat food. One of those, or maybe a combination of something, got her to feeling quite a bit better. Now we both are sleeping better.
used with artist permission
www.members.aol.com/artycat
What else? Gee I don't know. I am just in a really good mood. I know that you are thinking that "gee, she really is hung up on her cats", but you have to remember I have no life. I am single, not dating, live alone, and not working. My life is visiting my parents, and going to church. That is about it.
My parents live right around the corner from me. Really, you go to the end of my street turn left go two houses and bam -- you are at my folks house. Why did I buy a house so close to them? I have no idea. It has turned out to be a good thing. When I was sick a couple years ago I had to stay with them for about 3 months so mom had to make visits to my house to feed and water my cats. Dad mows my yard also.
Why don't I work? The depression/bipolar thing has really done a number on me. I am not in as bad of shape as some I know but I am just not able to keep a job so my doctor has me written out.
used with artist permission
http://members.aol.com/dikawolf/
Isn't the above picture beautiful? Look closely at her reflection in the water.
I had to take Sadie back to the vet Thursday. He kept her for a few hours and did this upper GI series on her. They found out that something is wrong with her esophagus. It is bigger (the way I understand what they were telling me and showing me on the xrays) than it should be and it is pressing on one of her lungs causing it not to inflate the way it should which makes her breathing hard. And the harder she breathes the more calories she uses just for breathing so she is losing weight.
What to do about it? Don't know. Dr B is supposed to get with Dr Mack and see what would be best. He would love to wait and see if it get better the older she gets but I don't know if that is the best thing yet. Surgery? Dr B said it isn't really the type of surgery they do. To me that means it is real expensive, and maybe a lot to put a kitten through also. I will just have to wait and see.
I talked to Dr Mack today and got some high calorie cat food in the hopes that even if Sadie doesn't gain any weight maybe she will get enough calories so she won't lose any more weight. You should see how skinny the poor thing is. Every time I pet her I feel like crying because I can feel all her bones.
Ok, I have seen this in other journals and thought I would give it a try. I make no promises however.
Three Questions
I want everyone who reads this to ask me 3 questions, no more no less. Ask me anything you want and I will answer it by email. Then, I want you to go to your journal, copy and paste this allowing your friends (including myself) to ask you anything.
It is almost 6:30 pm and today has been problem free!!!! Yes, and WOO HOO!!!!!
I gave Sadie her 2nd (of 3) dose of the deworm stuff and 1 of the 2 antibiotic doses she gets. She hates it. This is supposed to taste like cherry or something and she hates it. The really awlful tasting stuff she took better than this. For this I have to wrap her up in a towel before I shove it into her mouth.
Sadie is sleeping a lot today but that is ok. I am hoping that the meds will get her to feeling better soon. I don't even want to think about all the bad stuff that could be wrong with her.
Got my hair cut and it went fine. It really has been a nice day. Thankfully. I needed it. I get stressed way to easily.
Other stuff......I am thinking of closing down my MSN graphics group. Few signed up and hardly anyone is posting graphics to share. I thought there would be more interest but guess I was wrong. That's ok though, at least I know now.
I have started another journal and sent out a few invites. If you didn't get one don't be mad. It is a public journal but has a very limited topic so I invited those that I felt certain would like it. But you can check it out also by clicking here. This is a place just for me to actively do my Bible Study. I have been really slack in that area so I thought I would be more disciplined if I did it in a journal form on line. So if you aren't into such you may not want to go there. If you are check it out, leave a comment so I will know you have been by.
Lets see any thing else.....Oh, I forgot to tell you what my Sadie did yesterday. I HATE having to put my cats in those carrier things so I thought I would train Sadie differently. A while back I got her a little kitty harness and lease. She really doesn't mind having the harness put on her at all. But if you think you can actually walk a cat you will be sadly mistaken. But this is good for her, when we get to the vets I can put her in the floor while waiting and she can walk around a little.
Yesterday she sat close to the door while I was paying, when I finished I thought let's see what she does. I opened the door and she walked out just like she knew what she was doing and where she was going. It was sort of slow going and I had to keep her going in the right direction, but she walked all the way to the car on her lease! People were staring. It was so cute and I was like a proud mommy.
I hate to write entries where all I do is complain, complain, and complain. But that is what you are going to get today. Sorry.
Today was going good. Then I had to take Sadie back for a re-check. It has been down hill ever since.
Dr B was in surgery so we got Dr Mac. She is my 2nd favorite vet at the hospital. Sadie was breathing funny so Dr Mac wanted to do a chest x-ray. Good news, bad news. All the films looked ok, 'cept for one that she didn't quite understand, and even popped into the operating room to ask Dr B his opinion.
What should be a lung on one xray didn't really look like a lung. What is it then? She didn't know. Could be a lung but it didn't show up that way on the xray taken on the other side. So Dr Mac tells me all the bad things it could be. Great. That is the LAST thing I needed to hear. But it may not be any of the bad stuff.
Sadie had lost weight again. From an all time high of 4 pounds she has dropped to 3.2 pounds. Why? Don't know. Maybe she is working so hard on her breathing, says Dr Mac. I don't know that I believe that but there it is.
Possible Sadie could have lung worms. I have never heard of such but I will give her the meds for it.
Oh, during the exam Dr Mac goes "did you know she had bad knees?" Say what? "I just felt her kneecap pop into place and back out again." Great, what else? "As a kitten it will probably keep going back into place on it's on". And oh, here is another kind of antibiotic to give her twice a day.
Sadie feels lousy and so do I. To you know where with my diet, I go get some comfort food from Wendys. I get back home (with almost raw french fries thank you very much) just in time to see Sadie throw up on my new $80 rug. Went to get some paper towels out of the kitchen and slipped on the rug in the hallway.
What else? Oh, didn't understand my AOL bill. Everytime I try to go to "live chat" it switches me to another screen. They wouldn't help me through e-mails so I finally called them. After punching endless numbers on endless menus I finally get "your wait time will be greater than 10 minutes." Wonderful.
Finally got everything straighten out. Then Chris wants to transfer me somewhere for some promotion or another. Ok. I get transfered to some dude that wants me to get a cell phone, blah, blah. Are you interested? No. He hung up. No goodbye, know thank you, no nothing, just a dial tone.
Sadie is still laying on the couch in the other room. I need to be with her.
Tomorrow I get my hair cut. Hopefully it will turn out ok. Hopefully Sadie will get to feeling better before I take her back to the vet for a check up in about a week. If she doesn't they will run some sort of GI test on her. I love her, really I do, and I will do whatever to get her to feeling better. Today cost $130.00. I still owe $100 on my credit card from when Dallas got sick.
I need mega comfort food and my cats to curl up with.
Life stinks.
used with artist permission
www.pinuptoons.com
Today has been lousy. I guess it could have been worse but right at the moment I don't know how.
Went to the doctor today. Oh, I am fine but today he mentioned -- for the first time -- my weight. Ok, so I knew I need to drop some weight. But I didn't know exactly how much weight I should drop. I know now! I just don't see all that much extra weight in the mirror, so either I have been fooling myself or I carry it well. LOL
So that really bummed me out. I go to Wendys and get a baked potato and a biggie Cheerwine to drink. Come home and do a little computing. Something weird happens and it shuts itself down. I get this error message from Microsoft that I don't understand. It doesn't look like I have lost anything ('cept my mind) so I try to let it go. I do zip off a e-mail to someone in hopes he can explain it.
Next, I am sitting here trying to catch up on all those journal alerts and Sadie comes up and sits on my shoulder. But she is making these noises and I know that something just isn't right. I sit her into the floor seconds before she pukes. Great timing huh?
The day will get better. I will find some sort of way to lose some weight. Ok, a little more than a little. grrrrr
I love the artwork of Rion Vernon (see girl above). Check out his stuff, warning some of his work has some partial nudity.
art work used by the artist permission
www.rattenburyart.com
I have been searching the web for different types of art work. I have found some great sites. I have also discovered that if you e-mail the artist and ask nicely that chances are good they will let you use thier work in your journals. WOO HOO. So if you are thinking of "borrowing" any thing that I use were I say I have the artist permission, SHAME ON YOU. Go to the site and get your own permission!
Even though today has been raining it has been a pretty good day. My anexity kicks in every Sunday morning so getting to Sunday School can be a real chore. But I made it and had a great lesson.
I hope everyone has been having a great weekend. The most work I have done all weekend is getting Sadie's pills in her! Thank goodness that this coming Tuesday will be the last one. And I hope she will be trouble free for awhile. (Sounds like I am talking about a car or something doesn't it? Trouble free?)
I go to the doctor tomorrow for my regular visit. Hope he doesn't want blood because I plan on eatting before I go. I don't want to be weighed either.....
When I first read John's weekend assignment all I could do is think "worse advice"? Now I know that something may have came right to everyone but nothing jumped at me. I am not saying that I have never been given, or gave any bad advice but I just can't think of anything right now.
I start reading everyone's journals and whoa there has been some really bad advice given and taken out there! I just feel for some of you!
John over at Sharing wants us to fess up to 10 regrets in our life. Sorry but I just can't do that either. Oh, I have a couple regrets but they are nothing that I want to share. Sorry again.
But I do have 1 regret that I will share. And in sharing it I hope it will become some of the BEST advice you have ever received.
When I was 23 years old my grandmother -- whom I called granny -- went into the hospital. She wasn't real bad sick and the doctor even said she was getting better and would be able to leave the hospital in a day or two.
Since granny was getting better and me being the young thing with tons of stuff to do I decided to wait until the next day to go visit her. I was busy, and the doctor said she was doing fine.
Sometime during that night mom got a call from the hospital. The nurse said that granny had taken a turn for the worse and we should come to the hospital. When we got there we "discovered" what "turn for the worse" meant. Granny had died. The nurse checked on her during her nightly rounds and found her dead.
Now, all these years later I still remember that. I remember how I felt by not seeing my granny one last time. I still get that pain in my heart. The pain isn't as bad as it used to be as that was some years ago, but I will never forget.
The best advice I can give anyone: If some one you love is in the hospital for ANY reason, go see them! Don't put it off. If anyone you love is sick go see them, call them, don't let the same thing happen to you. Never ever miss a chance to tell someone that you love them. You may not ever get a second chance to tell them.
Kathy
