Grow

There's a new Grow game! I've been trying to figure it out for about an hour now, and think I'm getting close. Of course, I've thought that for about half an hour now.

Hi there

I know it's been awhile since I posted, and I even have some things to talk about.

This past week I had my last three-month checkup with my oncologist, with bloodwork and a chest X-ray a few days beforehand. All were OK! I will see her next in December. The six-month checkups will continue for three years, I think -- until I am five years out -- and then it will just be once a year until I reach 10 years out. I still have a mammogram coming up Tuesday and then a visit with my surgeon the week after that. My oncologist did recommend I get an MRI in conjunction with mammograms from now on, as new research recommends for women with a high risk of breast cancer. I plan to ask my surgeon about this, but I can probably guess what she will say, since she and my oncologist work pretty closely. I'll have to go to Wichita to get it done, because there are some requirements for that they can't meet here.

Anyway, not much more than that has really been going on. Today I kind of wasted much of the day playing a new game I found, Bowmaster, kind of a defend your castle/capture the flag type game. I got to level 20, and it's not real fast-paced game, so you can guess how much time I wasted. But I redeemed myself somewhat, when during a break from the game, I saw on a local Web site that the local Habitat for Humanity was having regular build days for the house they're building here for a family on Fridays and Saturdays. It's the group's first house, and they've had some trouble getting the volunteer work going. There was just a small crew there -- the husband/father of the family getting the house, a married couple and then an older guy. They were all pretty nice, and I got to pound a few nails, help put together a corner piece for the framing, and help put up a couple pieces of framing for the garage. It was kind of fun, and a good way to spend the afternoon. My wrist can really feel the effects of the pounding, though.

Tomorrow will probably be some mowing, and more reading. Yesterday, I finished up The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon. I liked it OK enough, but it took awhile to get into. I didn't know before reading it that it takes place in an alternate reality, so I spent the first couple of chapters wondering what the heck was going on. Then it took a few chapters to get my mind wrapped around that concept. But once I settled in, it was OK, if not maybe a bit too long.

Now I'm reading something a bit lighter, a mystery ba David Rosenfelt called Play Dead. I passed it over once or twice already at the library, because I wasn't sure how I'd handle a story involving dogs, but I'm enjoying it, really.

It's getting late, and I've already spent more than enough time on the computer today, so time to say goodnight.

Gamey weekend

The weather has been pretty nice lately; spring is definately on its way! The ducks and geese are visiting our part of the creek nearly every day and once in a while come up to the feeder just outside the backyard fence. It's an interesting site to see waterfoul dining next to squirrels.

Things are turning green as well. We have, so far, one blooming crocus, but many others are sprouting, along with daffodils, hyacinths, and I think even tulips! My mini-irises were the first to bloom, actually. I got a garden catalog a week or so ago that has a $25 coupon, so I think I might get a couple things to start a foundation garden between the porch and the garage. I was thinking a hydrangea bush, maybe white, and something tall and spikey like lupines or foxglove to get it started. Then we can get some landscape timber and gravel to make it match the bed where the yews are on the other side of the porch, and fill in with other plants we find at local stores. I'd love to be cleaning out my flower beds, but I don't want to get to it too early in case we get a late cold snap or snow.

This weekend has pretty much been a lazy one. We were going to take the Christmas lights down, but neither one of us felt up to it, and today it's gray and rainey, so I guess that will have to wait awhile longer. I've gotten most of my laundry done, started reading the latest Tony HIllerman mystery, and also playing some point-and-click puzzle games. The latest ones I've played and liked are Sprout where you're a little seed that has to get across the landscape to its own kind; Sphere, a room-escape game with great graphics; and Tork, where you have to figure out the local language and customs of a planet you crash-landed on. And then there's this site, with logic puzzles -- you know, where you have to figure out which person has which pet and lives in which house on which street or some such thing? Only this site has interactive grids to help you sort it out. I'll admit to using cheats and walkthroughs on the other games, but the logic puzzles I can always work out on my own.

Well, gotta get another load of laundry in. Later