New photos over on the photoblog.

http://carolesclutter-photos.blogspot.com

Isn't this the most precious thing you've ever seen???

Personal property of Carole Lee. May not be used without her permission.

I'm still here...

I'm having a little trouble getting back in the habit of posting on the blog since Granny's funeral. :-(

Everything is fine - other than my early mid-life crisis. LOL I have 30 more years to work before I can retire - what the heck do I want to do for 30 MORE years?! aaack! It's enough to make a girl hide under the bed and never come out.

As always, when stressed - I grab a camera. Some folks clean, or eat, or exercise - I eat and take pictures. :-) Chocolate chips are particularly good. lol I wonder if I could get a job taking pictures of chocolate? Wouldn't that be the best of all worlds! hahahahahahahahahaha

4:30 am and all's well?

Well, I suppose all is well. LOL My sleep schedule is so screwed up this week. I slept from midnight Sunday morning until 7 pm Sunday evening. I got up at 7:30 am, felt like crap and fell asleep on the couch. Woke up at noon, still cruddy, rolled over and slept until 2. Forced myself to get up at 2 pm and empty all the trash cans, in case something in there was setting off my allergies. Took 1 gm of Tylenol - didn't begin to touch my headache. Made a couple of sandwiches which settled the nausea but had my guts rumbling so loudly they could be heard in the next room. Gave up and went back to sleep. Woke up around 7 pm, finally feeling halfway normal - got overwhelmed by the amount of housework that I'm behind in, made something to eat, watched the 4400 and then sat down at the puter to catch up with some friends and write my resume. Forced myself to head to bed at 2:30. Up at 6am for work. Felt good when I got up, but about 6:30 (as I was walking out the door for work) the nausea struck again.

Workload on Monday was ridiculously low so negotiated with boss to leave at noon. Of course at noon, all hell broke loose and I didn't feel comfortable leaving my partner by herself. Not that I was much use to her, you understand, but at least I was capable of answering telephone and sorting paperwork. I FINALLY left at 5 pm, by which point I was having minor dizzy spells, the nausea was in full force, and my head was hurting like an SOB.

Got home, crawled BACK into bed from 6 - 9:15. Woke up, thought about the progression of all this crap and decided that there was a good chance it was all allergy related. I've been using my Flonase, but restarted my Allegra-D and went back to bed about 11. LOL I woke up at 3:30 (am that is)- what a surprise! I've gotten my 7.5 hrs and now I'm wide awake. *sigh*

The good news is - allegra seems to be doing the trick. My nose is running a bit, but finally the headache is gone, and now that the drainage is minimalized, so is the nausea. TG. I hate nausea and headaches together.

Sickness report is now ended. LOL

In other news - I submitted my resume bright and early this morning, only to discover that the nurse manager left on vacation today and won't be back until a week from this Wednesday. grrrrr.

It was in the 90's on Monday and sooooo humid. God, I just can't deal with that anymore - I got shaky just walking to my car after work. ICK. Hopefully the weather will go true to form for eastern TN and the humidity will break soon for a couple of days. I hope so - my grass is badly in need of a good mowing - more than a week overdue. I should've done it Sunday, but... oh well. It's not going anywhere. (except up.)

I had a good long chat with my friend from MI on Saturday and was pleased to hear some spirit back in her voice. She's had a rough couple of years. I also heard from another old friend via email - which was a bit of a surprise. A pleasant surprise, but a surprise.

Not much else going on - I'm trying to decide what to focus my energy on today - I can't get to everything that needs to be done, but I think I'll focus on finishing up the laundry and cleaning furniture. That should keep me busy most of the day. At some point I'm going to have to stop avoiding my kitchen too. *sigh* Where's a house elf when you need one, anyway?!

Hope everyone is having a great day -

Me on the Southern Belle

Personal property of Carole Lee. May not be used without her permission.

Strange experience

I had a very odd experience yesterday evening. Whle I was grocery shopping I found that the 2nd book of Nora Robert's new trilogy was out and (of course) was immediately obligated to buy and read it. LOL I finished my shopping, went to a nearby fast food restaurant, ordered my food through the drivethru and then parked my car at the side of their lot, ate my food and read the book. It was still light out, I was in a very visible area with my cell phone at hand and all the doors locked, so I felt pretty safe doing this. I had been reading for about an hour when suddenly I got an incredible sense that I was in danger and needed to leave NOW. The feeling was so strong that I had lain the book aside and had my hangs on the key in the ignition before I even realized what I was doing. I looked around and could see absolutely no reason why I suddenly felt that way. Nothing had changed, no one was nearby, but my fight or flight was in full gear and I KNEW I had to leave and leave NOW. Something was very very wrong. The further I got away from there, the feeling lightened, but it didn't entirely go away until I was nearly home.

It was a very odd experience. I wasn't panicking at all - in fact I felt very calm but I KNEW to the depths of my incredibly screwed up guts that I had to leave. I just checked the police blotter to see if anything happened there last night, so far, no news. Odd. I've had 'hunches' before and have learned to pay attention to them but never anything even remotely this strong.

Everything else!

LOL So many events to cover! I was sad to see them go, but my youngest brother and family have relocated to the Fort Worth, TX area. It was such a good move for them - Erin is in a wonderful day care, Dane's high school sounds 100% better than the one he left, Cindy has a job that she ENJOYS and Noel is working at a job where his skills are valued and respected. AND they have a new house! I am so happy for them and am very sure that I will be visiting TX sometime in the next year. If I can time it right, I might be able to visit Julie and Uncle Vernon too. That would be so cool, especially if I have time to go over my genealogy and go track down a few places. LOL And of course I need to go meet Swiper-kitty.

Other things. Hmm. Well almost two weeks ago Midas got bored and decided that the pkg of 2 C cell batteries I had on the counter looked like an appealing chewie. His burns are nearly healed - he has one small one on the top of his tongue and I discovered the other day that he managed to burn the underside pretty well. Half the underside of his tongue is healing. *sigh* He scared me so badly! I didn't know how severe the burns were or if he'd ingested any of the battery fluid and he obviously was not feeling well. He's back to his normal pestiferous self, so all's well.

I discovered that I had a serious termite issue - and the house has now been treated. It took 2 men nearly 4 hours working non-stop. That was horrifying news to hear. The house will soon have a new chainlink fence around the back yard - the survey showed that my property line extends 7-8 feet beyond my current fence line - which I've always been sure of since I bought the house. It was nice to have that knowledge validated and will be VERY nice to have my larger yard, gates that I can actually walk through, and fencing I'm not afraid will collapse every time Midas jumps on it. I am psyched!

I am also broke, but that's an entirely different matter. LOL It's a 'good' broke so I can deal with it.

It's been so long

Gosh folks, it's been so long since I've updated my blog. My apologies to everyone - it seems like everything happened at once. Since my last entry I've made two trips to FL, had a death in the family, had my property surveyed, dealt with a suicidal dog, been de-termite-ed (like my new word?), had my parents for a holiday visit, installed my new surround sound system, bought a new sofa (well new to me), got a new (to me) dresser and nightstands and am now in the midst of trying to get the guys out here to install my new fence!

Let's start at the top of that list. April started with a bang. I went down to FL the first time for my nephew's 16th birthday. I also went because my father had hernia surgery that day AND because I was very concerned about my grandmother. She had been an in-home hospice patient for several months, but had recently taken a turn for the (much) worse and I wanted to see her. I also wanted to give my aunts a break if I could - taking care of Granny was a full time job and at times like that, I always feel guilty for not living closer. This was the first time since I reached adulthood that she a) didn't know me and b) didn't ask when I was going to get married. I was able to stay with her long enough for my aunt and uncle to be able to go try out her new golf clubs at a nearby course, though I'm not sure how much of a mental break I gave them as she and my other aunt took turns calling me to see how Granny was and if I was ok. LOL Then my aunt came home and immediately found the pill that Granny had spit out when I wasn't looking. *sigh* Some super nurse I am, huh?

I came home after that weekend and spent every spare second playing in my yard (gardening - lol) and getting ready for the Sux fest I was going to host Mother's Day weekend. 8 days before the fest took place I got a phone call that Granny was at the hospital and was going to be admitted to the hospice facility.
When my aunt realized that there truly was very little they could do for her, she wanted to take her home but Granny refused. She was comfortable where she was, and she wanted to stay. In an amazing cycle - one of the LPN's (Dena)_ who worked there, and took care of her - in fact was there when she died - had been a new nurse at the end of my Granny's nursing career nearly 30 years ago, and knew her then. It helped a lot to know that she also looked at Granny and remember who she was - the strong, caring, opinionated woman who LOVED being a nurse, a wife, a mom and a Granny, turned her yard into an ice sculpture every winter as soon as the night time temps went below freezing, had stuff growing EVERYWHERE, and would give up almost any other activity for a chance to go fishing. Man she loved to fish! To Dena, as to the family, Granny was more than what the heart disease, diabetes, strokes, and brittle old age had made her.

To my eternal relief Granny's passing was as peaceful as PawPaw's was tortuous. I'm sure she was eager to go find Lloyd (PawPaw) and see what he'd been up to in her absense. I'm sure she had a huge crowd of loved ones waiting for her arrival, with PawPaw and Uncle Delvin leading the crowd. If heaven is a place where you do what you want, she and Uncle Delvin are probably out fishing. LOL

As at my grandfather's death, I got to know some of my relatives better. This time, for the first time since I was a teenager, I spent some time with my cousins Teresa and Tim, as well as Dan's daughter, Amanda. This was the first time I'd spent time with Amanda since she'd been a very small child - and she's grown into a lovely woman. This was the first time that I'd spent time with cousins Teresa and Tim since _I_ was an adult, and I really enjoyed it! 5 or 6 years age difference doesn't sound like much, but when you're 12 and they're 17/18 it's a huge gulf. For the first time since I was very young, all eleven of the grandchildren were together. That doesn't sound like it should be so difficult, but ... my grandparents had four children. Their two sons were career Army men, and their daughters married career Navy and career Air Force men. The 11 of us grew up all over the world! Of the 11, one married military, and one, my youngest brother, went into the Air Force - the rest of us decided a civilian lifestyle looked very appealing. LOL

One very interesting note - after the funeral home visitation, my aunt Libby and her children were outside the funeral home and Granny's niece Nita Rae took a family snapshot of them. When NitaRae developed the film the next day, all the photos came out fine except for that one. There were either three or four people in the photo, with my cousin Dwayne in the middle. Directly over where Dwayne was in the photo was a long thin splash of light - covering his face and most of his body. Unlike a normal light leak it did not go from one side of the photo to the other but was centered directly over him.

Given the fact that two of the biggest disappointments in Granny's life were the facts that neither Dwayne nor I have married, I'm fairly certain that was her way of letting Dwayne know she was keeping an eye on him. To my mind, that's a good thing; maybe she'll be too busy keeping up with him to worry with me overmuch. :-D

This is getting ridiculously long, so I'll stop now and address other events in another entry.