DEANIE, I have worried about ever having to have an MRI in a tube. I am very claustrophobic and I’m pretty certain I would panic. I also know when my back is hurting I find it very difficult, if not impossible, to stay still.

Morning

Between the melting snow and the hard rain we had this morning My yard is like a small creek. I had to follow behind the dogs with a mop to clean up their footprints. I was going to mop the floors but I think I need to wait until the yard dries up. Until it does, the dogs will be tracking mud in. I will just follow behind them to mop up their tracks. I think I will make a wooden walkway this spring so I won’t have to walk in the water. I also need to get new gravel for the driveway. The rain has washed not my gravel but has put a lot of dirt etc on the driveway so it is covering the gravel.

I do think the sun is coming out now. Too bad we are going to have two more days of rain then cold weather again. I bought a pizza yesterday on the way home to have this weekend. I won’t be driving in the rain. I did buy a pair of sun glasses and reading glasses to use until my eyes are healed and I can get new percription glasses. After I had the left eye done, there was no way I could use my regular glasses. I even Had a pair from 8 years ago and they still were too strong. I am reading my computer screen without any glasses on at all. I think by the time my eyes are healed, I will only need reading glasses for my stymatism. I have already picked out my new frames and made sure the lenses were big enough for no line bifocals. I will lose my glasses if I only get reading glasses.

DEANIE, I have worried about ever having to have an MRI in a tube. I am very claustrophobic and I’m pretty certain I would panic. I also know when my back is hurting I find it very difficult, if not impossible, to stay still.

I was trying to clean the house for the weekend but after sweeping, I am wore out. Even though getting my eyes done is not hard I think it does make me tired. It could be going to doctor the next day too. I think I will just rest and clean house when I have more energy. I was going to iron my clothes but I think they will have to wait too.

There is something wrong with the way the posts are submitting. I just came back here and found my post sitting in the box unsubmitted so I thought I had just wandered off and left it there so I clicked on submit and now I see it did post over an hour ago but also stayed in the comment window.

COOLG, our backyard is a huge muddy puddle. Right this moment THE SUN IS SHINING!!!!! I want to go outside and just drink it in. I am so glad your eyes are so much better this morning. That is very exciting. I can imagine how hard it would be to keep up with glasses if they were just for reading. Even if the distance part is clear prescription glass with no prescription in it you should be able to keep up with your glasses better if you can keep them on your face.

I don’t know what my problem is today, but I’m incurably bored and unwilling to work.

You are having a grad school flashback.

Snowy, snowy, snowy day. A few inches since yesterday and still coming down.

In my neck of the woods, just got dumped with 11 inches overnight and still going while I shoveled my way through the garage and front walks. Fun.

le flurk

Looks like 6-7 inches downtown and still snowing.

I have been out to the grocery and I wore my Birkenstock sandals and no coat. The sun is a bit watery looking right now but it is still sun and I am trying to take it in and enjoy it.

I haven’t decided on what I am doing for dinner yet. I do have some nice sliced portabello mushrooms so I may build a stirfry around them.

This is the week we usually had a big snow or ice storm when I was a child. We usually went back to school for one week after Christmas and then we had either a big snow mixed with ice or an ice storm. That does not appear to be in the cards for us. Last year we had two snows that did not last until 10 AM.

Most of our snow is gone with the hard rain we had. I leave the dogs in the mud room so they can dry before letting them in the rest of the house. They are not happy about that.

I have been watching Nascar testing at Daytona. They had a big wreck earlier. This was bad news since so many teams do not have the parts to repair the damage. With the new cars, parts are not abundant. It is on Speed Channel.

I got rid of java 2-months ago and there is no difference in what my laptop can do/does.

http://news.yahoo.com/government-warns-java-security-concerns-escalate-160640366—sector.html

Be advised though that a lot of computer games run on java.

Some weather forecasters are calling this storm an upside down snowstorm. The ski resorts
got a little more than 15"(38.1cm) at 10,000ft(3048M). A short distance away there was 45"
(1.14m) at 7700ft(2346.9m). We have about 10"(25.4cm) so far where I am so far and it is
still lightly snowing.

I am up early. My daughter got the keys to her house yesterday but too late to turn the water on. She should be here today to start moving her things to her new house. I don’t know what I will do with all the room left when she moves her things.

It is getting light outside. I think I need to empty the rest of her things out of my cabinets. There is not much left here. I cleaned most of her things out already. I hope it doesn’t rain much today.

I saw a brief attempt at snow when I arose this morning but there has been nothing since. The wind has shifted to the east which is not good if the weather over Europe is poor, my impression is that the prevailing wind seems to be from the west. There could be further attempts at snow this weekend according to the weather forecasters.

Earlier this month my DS treated me to a duck feather and down duvet to replace my hollow-fibre one. I have to report that it is much lighter in weight and deliciously snug and I seem to sleep more soundly.

I saw a very simple decorative garnish much favoured by the French on TV this morning. The chef had prepared a casserole of coq au vin and he edged his dish with attractive triangles of fried bread which had all had one of the short edges dipped in fresh finely-chopped parsley. The chef was Simon Hopkinson who has a book out entitled The Good Cook, (probably not good reading for people with heart disease).

Hey everyone, I posted this on FB (and will regularly for the next 5 months), but thought I’d post here, too. I’ve signed up to run in the Race For the Cure in my town in May. I’m running for my grandmother who beat breast cancer a few years ago and one of my best friends from high school who was diagnosed at 29 and is now in full remission!

No pressure whatsoever, but feel free to make a donation and spread the word!

http://midks.info-komen.org/site/TR/RacefortheCure/WCT_Mid-KansasAffiliate?px=13948934&pg=personal&fr_id=3145

It seems I just signed up for Skype. I received an email saying that my messenger and Skype were combining together. So I followed the directions and I guess I am now signed up. The only problem is everything I click on wants me to sign up for something that will cost me. I don’t know if I will ever get to the free part. I have to buy myself a webcam before I can use it. My headphones work ok.

It automatically put my windows messenger contacts in but most of you all are on yahoo messenger. I guess I will figure it all out sometime. I had to look everywhere for my head phones. That tells you how long it has been since I used Yahoo to talk with one of you.

…………and today it is back to torrential rain! I am glad I got to be out in the sun so much yesterday.

Work was really busy today, but it was my ideal kind of day. Lots and lots to do, under a fair amount of pressure, but I was left alone to get on with it. No managers panicking or breathing down my neck. And I got it all done.

Today’s tea was chicken breasts, stuffed with a mix of cream cheese, garlic, chilli and sun dried tomatoes. Topped with fresh tomatoes, drizzled with olive oil and served with green salad leaves. Yummy.

LEW, I havn’t seen that on FB. Will go and have a look. And well done you!

Coolg, I hope the move goes well for your daughter. My love to you for when she is gone. xx

Why has it become the norm for books to be in series and always end with cliff hangers? I know. I know. The cliff hanger sells the next book when, in truth, a series is just one enormous book chopped into parts, a book too long to publish as one piece. HARRY was a series, of course, but each book had a beginning, middle and an end, even though there were story elements that arched through the entire series and built on themselves. Still, each book had it’s own build up, climax and denouement. When you finished an HP book you had finished a story arch. Most of the YA stuff and some of the adult books I read now end with everyone jumping off the cliff where they just hang until the next book comes out a year or even years later.

Obviously, I just finished a book that didn’t really end. It is just hanging there for who knows how long. I just closed the cover on Laini Taylor’s DAYS OF BLOOD AND TWILIGHT.

I don’t really know how many books I have that are just hanging there, way too many.

ASTI, your dinner sounds delicious. Did you have nice bread or crackers to serve with the salad?

COOLG, all I know is I am signed up for Skype. I have managed to send a IM message but I have no idea how to make a computer to computer call.

GRAYMAYNE, I don’t believe anything I cook ever sees a garnish unless the garnish is an essential component of the flavor and texture of the dish. I never seem to remember to use a garnish that is primarily for presentation purposes. I have a new cotton blanket and a new bamboo blanket. The bamboo blanket is extremely soft and cuddly, not something I would have expected from a bamboo blanket.

Lady Hawke, I am waiting for that to be released in paperback. I want it as a real book, on my bookcase.
Yes, we had ciabatta bread with our meal. And a dressing of olive oil and white wine vinegar to soak into it.
I have to admit, I havn’t looked into it very much so far, but Skype is a huge mystery to me.

ASTI, do try to figure it out. If you do they we could talk in real life whenever we want.

I just finished book 5 of the Modern Witch Series by Debora Geary. They are very good to cry with. Or maybe that’s just me. I have read better written books but she does have a way of getting her characters to feel real. It is a series, but each book can stand alone. Well, after the first one.

Book 5 refers back to actions that happened in the first one, but you can really read it without having read book one. These are not about big issues. There is not a “bad guy” at all. They are more about relationships and acceptance. The main character in each book is different, and each book is about that characters journey. Book 5 centers on a woman who has aspergers and some of the other characters journey to understand how the world works for her. The descriptions of her world are very insightful. Either she knows someone with Aspergers very well or she did a lot of research.

This is only a recommendation if you want a fairly easy read and a some rather fun effects. It hints at sex, but so far there was only one scene that was semi-sexual and that was a mind leak from someone else, not the character visualizing it. ;)

OH, and DAYS OF BLOOD AND STARLIGHT (not Twilight) was well worth reading except that I almost wish now I had discovered them when they were all finished. It took me a bit to read it through lack of motivation to get to the end. I already knew the book wasn’t going to have a proper finish, that there would be another book. So, it wasn’t as if I was anxious to find out what happened, the end, because I knew there would be no actual end. The best you can say at this point is all chaos has broken loose and the characters are sucking in a breath of air before they jump headlong back into the chaos, sort of as if HPaTDH book had been in two parts and the first part had concluded just as Harry realized he had to walk into the forest but before he did so.

DEANIE, I looked at the author’s note on Goodreads. She specifies you should read the first book before book five. Is the non-conventional paired couple the main theme of the book?

I am not a big fan of garnish. If it is presented I intend to eat it.

I wonder how this is going to develop. It is 9:38 PM and it is 70F (21C) right now. Our low for tonight is meant to be 28F (-2.22C). Tomorrow our high is meant to be 34F (1.11C.) We are expected to have precipitation continuing through the night and tomorrow it is now saying there will be snow with a low of 30F (-1.11C).

I wonder exactly when we are meant to drop 42 degrees on the F scale or 23.2 degrees on the C scale.

sneaks into the Great Hall via the secret tunnel

?goes all Tom Cruise on PB’s couch"""

yells :

Wotcher Y’all

had to buy a new computer – got it 2 days ago.

so have I missed anything important? how y’all doing?

What kind did you get?