Crocus

Crocus
Originally uploaded by junogle.

The weekend snow didn't get all my flowers!

Cranes

Cranes
Originally uploaded by junogle

This afternoon was like a sandhill crane superhighway — one big flock after another.

Good morning!

geese
Originally uploaded by junogle.

Saw these guys as I was leaving for work today. There's been a pair of geese that nest somewhere near my house ever since I bought it. Actually, it was seeing a pair of geese on the lawn when I first looked at the house that kinda had me sold on it. I like to think it's been the same pair every year, but who knows?

Green!

Green!
Originally uploaded by junogle.

Taken on my drive into work Tuesday morning (I know, I know. At least I don't text and drive.) See how the wheat is starting to green up!

Yardwork

Man, it's nice to be able to say "I'm doing yardwork" again. Today I've been cleaning up the flower beds.

Yes, I am wearing a tank top. I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt when I started out around 10 a.m., but had to change into something cooler within about a half hour!

Buster the cattle dog

Why he's my pet, and not a working dog:

Wow!

I swear this lamb's ear was not there yesterday when I was out looking around my garden. It couldn't have been this big for me to miss, anyway.

Spring!

Not sure
Originally uploaded by junogle.

Lookie what I found when I came home today!

From my mom

My mom started making some decorative windsocks recently. Here's what she left at home for me today:

And here's what she said about it:

Yellow is for a ray of sunshine that you are, daffodils in the spring, your yellow mums in the Fall, for a smiley face, laughter. It is a color that makes me think of you.

Here's a closeup of the beads:

Thanks, mom. I think you're pretty special, too.

Catching up

Wind farm
Originally uploaded by junogle.

I've been a little remiss in keep up with the year in pictures project, but I have been taking photos. So here's a few I've taken lately.

Jan. 28: The wind farm, above, is located in Lincoln and Ellsworth counties in central Kansas. I was driving home from Salina, where the night before I'd gone to see Second City with a friend.


Jan. 31: Buster tries to avoid detection after making a mess with his favorite toy: the newspaper.


Feb.1: And here, just outside the town where I live, is a whole train of brand-new shiny coal cars headed west.

Keep working it

Whoo-hoo! I finally got around to putting new batteries in the scale, and after two months of not being able to weigh myself, found I am just 1 pound above the weight goal I'd set last fall and had hoped to reach by my birthday at the end of the year! That means I also just squeak by into the healthy BMI range for my weight. That's been the real goal.

But it makes me feel pretty good, and I've even set a new weight-loss goal to put me more firmly in the healthy BMI range. I know I can do it, too.

Really, all I have been doing is making sure I get yoga in at least three times a week (following the Yogamazing podcasts, walking and playing with Buster whenever I can, and maybe getting in some walking at the mall when I'm there working and it's slow. I've also cut down on the junk/fast food and watch my portions. I really think it's the yoga, though, that's made the difference. With the podcasts, I can mix up the routines enough that it's not boring, and I can focus on one body area or get in an all-around workout. It does wonders for the attitude, too.

I would like to get in a bit more cardio, though, so I'm going to make an effort to get on the exercise bike a couple times a week, too.

So, yay, me. 2010's off to a great start.

Warm weather day

Warm weather day
Originally uploaded by junogle.

Temps in the 40s-50s today. Made for a busy car wash.

New 'do

haircut.jpg
Originally uploaded by junogle.

I was overdue for some fresh color and a cut, so took care of that today.

Cold!

weather.JPG
Originally uploaded by junogle.

Looking north from where I work. Dangerous wind chills expected through the night.

Workspace

Workspace
Originally uploaded by junogle.

Having a clean desk is so monumental, I had to take a picture of it.

Cold, what cold?

I'm tired of the cold & snow, but Buster doesn't seem to mind.

2010 in pictures

Some online friends last year did "year in pictures" blogs, and are doing it again this year. I thought it was an interesting idea, and since I got a digital camera for Christmas, something like that might help me learn to use it and see what I can do with it.

I thought I'd just use this blog rather than start a new one, and I'll tag everything "2010pix" for easy searching. I'll try not to make 99 percent of them pictures of Buster. Here's my first one (sorry it's so small — I took it with my camera):



This is my "on-the-go reporter/blogger" gear. Upper left is my new camera, a Canon PowerShot SD1200. Lower left is a memory card holder that has the adapter for my phone's micro card and a 1GB card for the camera (so far). Top center is my Olympus digital voice recorder (with a microphone for recording on the telephone just above it and a stereo microphone to its right), and below that is my USB card reader and flash drive. Bottom right, the green pouch came with a backpack I got years ago, and it's just the right size for the voice recorder and its accessories. Top right is a cool gear bag that originally held the heart rate monitor my brother gave me for Christmas a few years ago (yes, I'm kind of a packrat). I love it for my gear because it's got these little loops that are just perfect for holding the USB cables for everything, and everything else (except the voice recorder) fits into the pocket inside. If it had another pocket or a divider for the recorder, and if it maybe had a pocket on the outside for a pen and reporter's notebook, it'd be perfect (if anyone should know of something like that, leave me a link in the comments!)

Year's end

Here's how exciting my New Year's Eve is so far: I'm sitting here at 8:30 p.m. with the laptop watching "The Replacements" (for Keanu Reeves, of course, not the footbal) while Buster snores on his bed. Dinner was pretzles and a Pepsi and maybe later I'll make cookies. And then, if I can actually stay up to midnight, I might open up that little bottle of champagne I got at Day of Caring.


Wheee! OK, actually I'm not sulking over that or anything. Just in a mood for a quiet evening, really. Today was work at the paper, and tomorrow afternoon is work at the mall, so not a lot exciting going on anyway.

This week, though, I did get to visit with some people I haven't seen for awhile, which was cool. There was my friend who I had lunch with today. We used to work together, and she works for a paper in Indiana now, so it was nice catching up and talking shop (and about her upcoming marriage!). A friend I don't get to see too often and her husband took me out for a birthday dinner Wednesday. Nice to talk to her someplace besides online and get to know her husband a bit better. And while there, we ran into another former co-worker of mine and her husband back for a visit with family. Earlier that day, while stopping at the mall to visit with a friend I don't get to see often since she works days now, I ran into one of my favorite college professors and caught up with her. And earlier in the week, it was lunch with another friend from the mall who's moved to another town.

So a good week, overall. And I'm looking forward to 2010. This year hasn't been the best, but it wasn't the worst. But I think this coming year will be a good one, despite the uncertainties of the economy and what affect it might have on my job and all the other unknowns that are out there, but I'm going to do my best to make it a good one.

Happy New Year, all. You go out and make it a good one, too.

WORK FAIL

I am soooooo tired right now. I should be going to bed but I really do need to keep up with posting here, so excuse me while a depart from the merry holiday attitude and bitch a little.

I have a second, part-time job. I need this job, because I want to get some debts paid off in case the main job goes south. Which, considering I work for a newspaper, is not that far-fetched. So I work at the local mall as a janitor. We actually have more than one mall here, but it is actually called The Mall, and everybody knows what you're talking about when you say The Mall. The other mall you have to call by its name, which is really just the name of a nearby side street off the main drag. It's a small town, what can I say?

Soooo, anyway, Friday I go into work -- after putting in a full day at the main job -- and I'm scheduled for my regular hours, 6 to 11. Normally, I get done around 10 to 10:30, so it's not a big deal, but since I work in a different town than what I work in, it is a real drag to be away from my home for that long. Anyway, Friday was a pain because apparently it was "drop off your tweens and let them run amuck" night. Then, when stores finally started closing at 9 p.m., Penny's kept their doors open. I got most of the doors locked, then went by Penny's, and their doors were still open. I figured maybe they were staying open an extra hour. No big deal. I went to ask. "We're open til midnight." Holy crap. At least I got my Christmas cards done.

Then today, I was scheduled for 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Well, today is the day the mall started holiday hours -- 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. There are a lot of stores that don't have their own entrances, so employees have to use the mall entrances. Obviously, they can't do that if I'm not there to unlock the doors. So I went in a half hour before I was scheduled, and there were already a bunch of store employees waiting to get in. And they weren't happy. At least none of them took it out on me. But I knew I'd get home kinda late because there are I things I can't do, like dust-mop the hallways and clean the bathrooms, until we close. And it was really too busy to get the trash before we closed, so I had to do all that after 7 p.m. So with coming in a half-hour early and staying late, plus Friday, I've put in an extra almost 3 hours above my schedule, including a nearly 10-hour day today. That's a hell of a lot to ask a part-timer. Expecially one that makes less that $8 an hour.

There's a new motel being built in the little town I live in that's supposed to open in spring, by summer for sure. I think I might just go apply there when the time comes. It'd be nice to actually maybe have some dinner at home and see Buster before heading to a second job anyway, and not have to drive such a distance through crappy weather, too.

OK, bah humbug over. Back to merry. Maybe.

Will they finally be right?

So three times already in the last couple months we've been told THE BIG STORM IS COMING! MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR WINTER SAFETY KIT IN THE CAR! RUSH THE GROCERY STORE! BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES! IT'S THE STORM OF THE ... oh, you get the idea. And three times we got, at most, a dusting of the white stuff.

Yes, it's always a good idea to be prepared for a big winter storm, and I guess that's especially true for me since I have a 20 mile drive to my work. But I have to wonder if the TV news media doesn't make a bigger deal about it all than is really necessary. I mean, one of the local news stations even started off the 10 p.m. newscast with a story about how they make the same report about "the big storm" year after year after year after year.

So what's the deal? Is it all about ratings? Is everybody trying to be the Weather Channel, with their heroic, daring on-the-scene reporters? Probably. It just seems like everybody's trying to outdo each other on the local weather. I have to laugh when I watch one of the other Wichita stations and their weather guy is literally surrounded by a bank of monitors. None of which seem to actually be showing anything, by the way.

It's been snowing lightly most of the day, and, depending on where you look, we'll get anywhere from a trace to 12+ inches of snow by tomorrow night. Whatever.

Guess I'll go make sure I've got a blanket and stuff in the car. You never know, after all.

You want to rethink that?

I'm in a bit of shock after reading this article that says a government task force is recommending that women in their 40s do not need mammograms and that self-exams do no good.

... the government panel of doctors and scientists concluded that getting screened for breast cancer so early and so often leads to too many false alarms and unneeded biopsies without substantially improving women's odds of survival.

Bullshit.

I was 36 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was not found with a mammogram, but had I known that it was recommended to have a baseline mammogram between the ages of 35 and 40, maybe my cancer would have been found earlier. Maybe all I would have needed was a lumpectomy and radiation and not chemo. Maybe I wouldn't have had to deal with bone pain, nausea, hair loss and the fatigue that lasted nearly three years.

And self-exams do no good? I found my lump on my own. True, it was by accident, but I felt the thing. Had I been doing regular self-exams, I probably would have felt it even earlier. And that's why I tell every woman I know, especially those under 40, to do their exams.

This statement really pisses me off:

The task force advice is based on its conclusion that screening 1,300 women in their 50s to save one life is worth it, but that screening 1,900 women in their 40s to save a life is not, Brawley wrote.

Since when is one life, no matter the age, not worth saving?

Starting at age 40 would prevent one additional death but also lead to 470 false alarms for every 1,000 women screened.

So what? Does the risk of a false alarm outweigh the possibility of saving a life? Speaking from first-hand experience: Hell, no. Or, as Dr. Lillie Shockney said:

no doctor can predict ahead of time whether a breast cancer you might get at some future time will spread to other organs and take your life. If a woman is alerted by a mammogram that she has a small (4 millimeters across), invasive tumor that seems to have favorable prognostic factors, then she can probably be cautiously optimistic.

But if that woman never gets a mammogram and instead finds the lump herself later on--after it has ballooned to 2 centimeters (10 times its earlier size)--then we would have no way of knowing whether she is going to survive her diagnosis and treatment. All bets are off.

By the way, 2 centimeters was the size of my lump when I had my first sonogram. And by the way again, younger women tend to get more aggressive cancers. So for me, waiting until 40 ... well would I have even made it?

And when you consider that only a little over two months ago, in his address to Congress, President Obama said this:

"... insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies - because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse. That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives."

then the task force's recommendations are ill-advised. Preventive medicine is the best medicine, and our country's medical providers — and our government — should be doing more to encourage it. Getting people to get preventive screenings, eat better and exercise will go much further to reducing the nation's overall medical costs.

After ecstasy, the laundry

That comes from a Zen saying I found long ago, and it's a reminder of life's ups and downs. And it kinda fits how the weekend went.

This is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and locally there is a Day of Caring event each year. It's a brunch with a speaker and then a fashion show, with breast cancer survivors as models. There were 14 models this year, and it was the second for me.

Things actually got underway Friday night with the models' get-acquainted party. It was held at a local salon, and one of the owners is a mammogram tech with the local hospital. She donated the use of the salon, the services of her employees, some of the food and a T-shirt for each of us. That was pretty awesome. We had a great dinner made by the daughter of one of the models and had some fun getting to know one another -- including the first-ever male breast cancer survivor model!

Then, when the night was wrapping up, we got our gifts -- three more bags full of stuff!

The loot:

The big, pink sheep was not one of the things I got, but I did win it at Day of Caring three years ago. She's been named Hope and is the mascot of my support group.

A couple closer looks:




The T-shirt:


A hand-knitted scarf:


Everyone was pretty amazed at the amount of stuff we got.

The next day was just a lot of fun, and it was also very moving. The speaker was another local male breast cancer survivor, and it was interesting to hear a different perspective of dealing with the disease, especially since the guy, I was told, was very shy, so it took a lot of courage for him to speak in front of a crowd. Several times, he had to stop and keep his emotions under control to be able to keep going, and it had all us models in tears.

But he joined us in modeling, which was pretty cool, and both he and the other male model gave their roses to their wives after they got out on the runway, which was cool. Everybody, even the first-year models who were nervous, had a great time.

I modeled for the local Harley-Davidson dealer.





I spent the rest of Saturday afternoon scrubbing the black, sticky, smelly stuff from the bottom of the dishwasher, then had dinner with a friend at a Mexican place. Then just took it easy the rest of the night. So all in all, a pretty good day.

Then came today. This afternoon, I started in on cleaning the kitchen, loading up the de-yuckified dishwasher and washing some things by hand. And afterwards, I discovered all the water in the kitchen cabinet under the sink. At first, I was worried the dishwasher had leaked into the cabinet, but there would have been much more water. Then I discovered it was the supply line to the faucet that was leaking. Then, a bit later I discovered there's also a leak in the drain or the garbage disposal. And there might be a pipe connection or two that are also leaking. So basically, the sink is unusable. Hopefully, I can get someone in this week to take a look. In the meantime, I'll have to figure out how to eat without using the kitchen sink.

Sigh. After ecstasy ...

#Beatcancer

I'm helping to raise funds to
#beatcancer, by blogging, tweeting
and posting Facebook status
updates.

Click here to join me!

New glasses

They're finally here!

Another view:

And the side detail:

:

You try to be nice ...

I was out in the back yard, trimming a low branch of the tree, when I saw one of my neighbors' pups had gotten out of his kennel (and was playing with what was left of the injured dove I'd seen in their yard earlier). He's just a pup and probably doesn't know much about cars, and they weren't home, so I thought I'd be a good neighbor and put him back in his kennel. Thought it'd be easy, just pick him up and let him jump in. Ha. Ever try to pick up an unruly, energetic puppy?

So in the process, he knocked my glasses off. I might have stepped on them, or they hit something hard, because the right earpiece thing was all bent out of shape. And when I got back in the house and tried to get them to some shape I could wear them, that popped the lens out. And of course, who has a tiny screwdriver handy for fixing frames? Not me. I ended up using Superglue to get them wearable again. Of course, that got Superglue all over the lens. (Nail polish remover does work, though!)

I've been meaning to get new glasses anyway, so I called the eye doctor I'd last seen, oh about seven years ago, and they actually had an opening this afternoon. So I got my eyes checked -- the prescription has changed just a little, for close-up reading, but otherwise my eyes are OK. The doc did say, though, that probably next time I come in (which should be two years), it might be time to consider bifocals. Sigh.

But I do have some pretty cool new glasses on the way. Should be about two weeks. I'll just try not to be nice to other people's dogs, I guess.

One last time

Yesterday, I was working away at the paper, putting Sunday's paper together when our press foreman walked by. We chatted for a minute and then he said "it's your last Saturday working with us."

Wham.

I hadn't realized it until he said that. The next Saturday I work, there will be no mailroom manager hanging over us wanting to know when the press will run. When I'm done, I'm done. No rumbling of the press rolling late at night.

It really hit me this morning, of all times, as I was on my way into town to work at the mall for the day. I don't know why, but it did, so my day got off to kind of a downer start.

And then the work day ended with some punk-ass-emo-skateboard kids trying to give me a hard time. I guess they think they're pretty important and that I should care what they think. Guess what? They're wrong.

Other than Designstar and Mad Men, that's my day. Exciting stuff, huh?

The beginning of the end

That's a what friend said after hearing the news that came to us at work earlier this week.

The newspaper where I work, a nearly 80-year-old institution in the town, will shut down its press at the end of September and be printed by one of our sister papers in a town 90 miles away. All the county weeklies we print will go to. Four or five full-timers, some of whom have been there for years, and a handfull of part-timers will lose their jobs. It's already in the works to consolidate the circulation and business departments of the papers owned by our parent company, and probably several more from our paper will lose their jobs by year's end.

This is it. There's no light at the end of the tunnel, and I anticipate the same kind of thing will eventually happen to my job. It wouldn't be tough. If gas prices spike up around $4 a gallon ever again, the company would say driving back and forth five days a week to pick up papers is costing too much, so my paper cuts its publication frequency, and then they say they don't need two full-time page designers. The best I could hope for would be that they consolidate copy desks of the papers and my job transfers to another town.

So now I'm trying to figure out what to do. Looking for another job is an option, although I don't relish the idea of trying to sell my house at this point. I've been thinking for some time about going for a master's with the idea of teaching journalism, maybe at a small university or community college. I'd hoped to make that happen this year, but didn't get to a more financially stable place. So now I'm thinking maybe spring. I'm going to try and get my car paid off early -- December or January -- and I'll have a credit card paid off shortly afterwards, if all goes well. I wouldn't be debt-free, but I would be a lot more stable. I'm sure my employer would be willing to work with me on the schedule (I had actually talked with my boss about it once before), but I would certainly keep my eyes open for anything local that would work too.

Because the one thing I do know is, I can't just sit around now and think it's not going happen. My job's expendable. And the days are numbered.

Rain barrel update

The rain barrels got a good tryout within a few days of being put up. I was working at the mall that night, so didn't get to see the magic happen, though.

After I got home and greeted Buster, I went out to check on them. The one by the northeast corner of the house had been blown over in the storm, so nothing there. I went to the one by the garage (pictured in the previous post) and it was FULL! I was pretty giddy about that (that probably makes me some kind of eco-geek, doesn't it?)

They do both have leaks around the spigot, but they're not big ones, and really, over time, they stopped ... at least until I did use the backyard barrel the other day. Attaching the hose was enough to start it up again, but it's a pretty slow drip anyway. I set the hose up because it had been pretty hot, windy and dry, and my salvia were looking droopy. So I thought I'd put some water on them. Only once the barrel started draining, I got distracted on the computer and so the salvia got almost an entire barrel of water! They did look much perkier that afternoon.

And now it's rained again this morning and BOTH barrels are nearly full.

I would like to put up more next year, and am already making plans, at least in my head, of how to do it.

It was a pretty good rain this morning, and we were under a warning for awhile. I'm off today, so when I woke up and heard some thunder, I thought I'd sleep in while it rained. Buster was already a little anxious, so I got him to jump in bed with me and we snuggled for awhile. He's not a snuggly dog, unless he's afraid, so it was nice to cuddle with him this morning. He's better now, but it's still drizzling a bit, so no walk yet. Hope it clears up, because he's got all that anxious energy to work off! Maybe I should teach him to do yoga with me.

Rain barrel

Rain barrel
Originally uploaded by junogle.

I'm just a little ticked that it's been an unusually rainy July, and I missed out on a lot of rain. But two barrels wouldn't have held that much compared to what we got, anyway.

Isn't supposed to rain for a couple more days, so we'll see what happens. Next time, I think I have a better idea of what all I need to do. Two down, three to go. And then I can start connecting overflow barrels!

I've also added a few garden photos to my Flickr account, and there's a set to go with my new blog I started at the newspaper, "Live in yourTown." Check 'em out.

Let it rain

I finally have rain barrels! Two of them. I just need to let the cement around the where the spigots are to dry for a day or so, and they'll be good to go! So, let in rain, but in a day or two. The forecast for around here is calling for hot and dry, although there's a lot of thunderheads building up and a couple overhead are looking dark.

I do still have to get the cinder blocks set up for the one at the northeast corner of the house, but it's still kinda hot out, so I might get to that later this evening. The blocks at the northeast corner of the garage are all set up, and the flexible downspout attachment is on, so it's good to go as soon as the adhesive is dry. It's nice to have a couple done, as I've been wanting to this for, well, since I bought the house, really. I should probably thank my friend Karen, who put together her own rain barrels earlier this year, for getting me going on mine (not to mention bringing me those excellent 50-gallon barrels to use!).

While working out there this morning, I was a bit startled by a snake in an adjacent flower bed. I think it was either a Kansas glossy snake or a Great Plains rat snake. It didn't rattle at me, at least. It was probably just getting some sun and didn't like all my activity. It crawled into a hole and went under the garage. So mom, if you come over to pull weeds some morning, take a good look around first! And don't kill it. I haven't noticed any signs of mice in the garage for quite some time!

There IS a lot of wasp activity in and around the garage, however. I'm all for "live and let live," and a few I could deal with, but there were so many they were starting to get aggressive with each other, and that's probably not a good thing for a bystander human or dog. So it was off to the store this afternoon for some wasp spray. I found a few nests in the garage and gave them a quick spray awhile ago, so maybe it'll start working quick enough I could enjoy an evening out in the yard later.

The other day, I also found a little lizard in the container I use to catch drips from the faucet on the back patio. He was a cute little thing, really, but I haven't been able to find any pictures online of anything like it. It was about 6 inches long, half of that its tail, and gray-ish with several alternating black and greenish-yellow stripes running from behind its eyes along its sides to the tail. I let it loose in the garden under the tree in the back yard. I saw a similar lizard (or maybe the same one?) later this the morning in the same garden where the snake was. It ran into the same hole the snake went into. Oops.

Add to that a turtle discovered the log in the creek along my property for sunning itself, and the mallard hen with her ducklings, and it's been a wildlife-filled day.

Relay for Life

DSCN0583.JPG
Originally uploaded by junogle.

Survivor lap at 2009 Relay For Life of Ellis County.

My first all-nighter at Relay For Life tonight. It's 3:30 in the morning. We've still got about three and a half hours to go, not including the cleanup. I get quiet when I get tired. Others are getting loopy. Others were loopy to start with. So it's an interesting mix right about now.

I've been uploading photos to Flickr throughout the evening, since it turns out I can find a barely there Wi-Fi signal. The weather turned out OK, although we started out with a t-storm watch early in the evening. It's been breezy and the luminarias didn't get lit until well after dark, but it's been a good evening.

Plan for the day

Since I'm carless, I guess I'll stick with the cleaning plan for today. I'll finish up the kitchen/dining area (which turned into kind of an impromptu home improvement project. I now have a nicer workspace for my computer. More on that later). Of course, I woke up this morning to find SOMEONE had tracked muddy pawprints from the back door all the way into the living room. Wonder who that could be, Buster?

I decided not to move my dining table back into the dining area. It's just not that big a space and the table was just becoming a collection site for junk anyway. Having a work space is more important to me, really. So now Buster has plenty of room to get his food and water dishes without having to maneuver around my chair if I'm working on the computer. And I moved my little beverage fridge in there from the utility room, where it will be handier to get to.

So I'l finish up cleaning in here, maybe get the countertops all nice and clean, too, and then start on the utility room. Mainly that's just going to be getting the junk off the top of the dryer to wherever it should go, but I should probably give the dryer a good cleaning too, get all the lint out of it.

Once that's done, I'll get started on the other bedroom, so my brother will have a nice, clean room to stay in while he's here next week. Maybe a little weeding in the yard if it's not too hot, and that should about cover my day.

Good thing I didn't plan anything

I'm finally taking some vacation time from the paper. You know it's been a long time since you've taken vacation when your co-workers' response is "I never thought I'd see the day." Jeez.

Anyway, can't afford to go anywhere, so I just planned to make it a spring-cleaning and fix-up time around the house, and also see if I couldn't get the car in for what I was sure would be a much-needed tune-up. I was right about that.

I'm still working at the mall while on my vacation, and just as I was pulling out of the garage to go to work last night, boom, everything shut down -- engine, electrical, everything. The ignition would crank, but it wouldn't turn over. So mom let me borrow her truck to get to work, and then today a friend came over to take a look at mine. We replaced the spark plugs and the cords, but no luck. And turns out the mechanic I've been to here couldn't do much more. There's another mechanic in town, but we haven't had the best experience with them. So I had to call a tow service and to have it taken to a mechanic in the city that I've worked with before. So I could be carless until after the holiday, if it's something big. (Thanks for the help, Max!)

Other than that, vacation's going OK. I just gave the kitchen floors a good cleaning and am sitting on the porch in the cool night air while they dry. Buster is snoozing on the sidewalk. Hope no one's going for late-night walk. And the bugs are really being drawn to my laptop screen, so it might be about time to go in.

I guess tomorrow, I'll tackle more of the cleaning. I was going to try to shampoo my carpets before the weekend, but I had hoped to spend today vacuuming. So maybe I'll do that tomorrow and see if I can get a shampooer on Sunday, since I work at the mall again Saturday. Otherwise, I guess it'll wait until Tuesday. I'm off from the mall Sunday through Wednesday, so that gives me time. And then my brother will be here for the rest of the week, so even with the car problems, it should be a decent time off.

I did pick up a few books at the library too. Current read is Zen and Now: On the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" years ago, and can't say I remember much about it. But reading this one is bringing some of it back, and it's interesting to see through Richardson's book how much has changed since Pirsig's trip, and how much hasn't really. I may have to go find a copy of the original, too, for a re-read.

Flocking myself

Trying out the new social media browser Flock.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

I have nothing to do

Wow. I really don't. I don't need to do laundry, I ran the dishwasher earlier tonight and got the dishes in the sink washed.

OK, I could be organizing some files, or sorting through the piles on my table/work area, or cleaning the bathroom, but if I don't get those done tonight, it's not like it'll be the end of the world.

I actually have (including tonight) three whole nights in row off. So I can kind of take it easy tonight. Maybe tomorrow I'll get some other things done, like make a dish or two for some dinners/lunches I can take to work later on. And maybe Thursday I'll get some housecleaning done.

But for now, it's just nice to sit back and relax.

Done

Morning:
√Breakfast
√ Clothesline put out
√ 1 load of laundry washed & hung out to dry.
√ Home Depot shopping done (new hedge trimmer!)
Afternoon:
√ Lunch
√ Trash taken out.
√ Dog walked.
√ 2nd load of laundry washed & hung out to dry
√ Pampas grass cut down & taken down to creek compost pile
√ Lawnmower drained of old gas & oil, carb cleaned.
√ Lawnmower STARTS (I rock!)
√ Recycling sorted & taken to drop-off site
√ 3rd load of laundry washed & hung out to dry
√ put up the garden edging I bought for the flowerbed by garage
Evening:
√ dinner (brought by mom)
√ plant the lantanas mom bought for the front yard
√ plant the flowers I bought for the front yard (spent a lot at Home Depot today!)
√ yoga
√ hot shower
√ 3 loads of laundry put away
√ snack

√ lunch for tomorrow
Man, I'm tired. But it was a good day.

Well, hello there

Yes, it's been awhile.

Today's has been kind of a crappy day. I woke up around 7 a.m. with a headache. Took some painkiller and put some food in Buster's dish, went back to bed and finally got up around 10 a.m. Poor Buster is so patient. I think maybe he's learning to tell when I don't feel good and wasn't too pushy about trying to get me to get out of bed.

My headache hadn't gone away though, so I just kind of moped around for the day, read the paper, watched some TV, took a nap. Finally around 1:30 I got up to take Buster for a walk. It's kind of sunny and warm, but windy again (probably what brought on the headache), but getting out did make me feel somewhat better.

When we got back I took a look at my lawnmower. I couldn't remember if I'd winterized it last fall, and guess what. I didn't. So it needs a little work. I'm off all day tomorrow, so I might see what I can do with it, and if I can't, give the service guys a call.

I did put a couple new plants in the ground. I got them about a week ago on a trip to Home Depot. Yes, it was all impulse. I got a mexican fern and an azalea. I was thinking of putting the azalea out front, but I think it might get too much sun there, so I put both of them under the tree out back. I think the fern will look good with the hosta (which look like they're going to BIG this year). It's supposed to be a perennial, so that'd be nice. The azalea will have red flowers and is supposed to bloom around mid-May. It's also kind of an evergreen.

I should be cleaning up the kitchen, but I do have to get ready before too long to go in to work at the mall. I wasn't scheduled for today, but when they made up the schedule, they forgot about the local public TV station's art auction fundraiser that they televise from one of the empty storefronts after displaying some of the stuff for auction for a couple weeks. It goes on until 10, and there's usually only one person working Sundays, and that would be an awful long day, so I said I'd go in at 6 and stick around until they're done, which should be about 10:30 or so. The mall will be closed, so I don't really have to do anything. Maybe I'll go finish my grocery shopping. Plus, I got to trade tonight for Tuesday night, so now I don't go in again until Thursday.

Women's History Month

Today marks the beginning of Women's History Month. As my "Getting in Touch with Your Inner Bitch" desk calendar says:

Don't you wonder what all those notable bitches were doing the rest of the year?

But still, at least we have something. For this month, my favorite quote of the day, on the right sidebar, will feature a great quote from a great woman. They are women I've admired for various reasons. I don't necessarily agree 100 percent with their ideologies, but I admire them for what they've accomplished. And not just as women, but as people. If you can't understand that, open your mind a little.

The quote for the first of the month

Well-behaved women seldom make history.

is one I've heard only recently, but was coined some 30 years ago by historian and author Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, according to this article. The original quote comes from a paper she wrote in the beginning of her career:

"Cotton Mather called them 'the hidden ones.' They never preached or sat in a deacon's bench. Nor did they vote or attend Harvard. Neither, because they were virtuous women, did they question God or the magistrates. They prayed secretly, read the Bible through at least once a year, and went to hear the minister preach even when it snowed. Hoping for an eternal crown, they never asked to be remembered on earth. And they haven't been. Well-behaved women seldom make history."

The line took on a life of its own, and still appears today on T-shirts, mugs, etc. Ulrich even wrote a book with the title, examining the appeal of the slogan and looking at feminism through the ages. Might be a good one to put on your reading list this month.

While you're remembering this month the notable women in history, remember one more. I never met Jana Mackey, even though she was from where I live now. I am inspired by her story, however. She worked for women's rights and counseled victims of domestic abuse. She was a law student at the University of Kansas when, at age 25 in July 2007 she was murdered by an ex-boyfriend. Who knows what she might have accomplished had she lived? Eleven hundred people attended her funeral, and her family and friends formed Eleven Hundred Torches, an organization to encourage others to carry on her work. March 8, International Women's Day, has been declared Jana Mackey Day in Kansas to encourage others to use some time that day in service to others. It is something we should do everyday.

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily difference we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee. -- Marian Wright Edelman

You can make a difference in the world with something as small as holding a door open for another person, helping a neighbor who might have difficulties with tasks around the house, helping a co-worker with a task instead of making fun of him behind his back ...

Whatever you do need not be big, because even something small might make one person's day better. And that can't be a bad thing at all.

I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble. -- Helen Keller

A busy week

I'm starting to feel like I have a life or something. There's so much to get done and not enough time to do it. Of course, if I'd quit goofing around on Twitter, I'd probably have a lot more time!

Actually, it was kind of a hectic week last week. Mom had some health problems, which meant not one but two trips to Hutchinson, where her doctor practices. She's OK, and actually impressed her doctor with how well she's doing.

In the meantime, I've been dealing with back and hip pain for about three weeks. I probably should have gone to the doctor a couple weeks ago, when the pain was almost unbearable at times, but I'm kind of stubborn. I've always had back problems and had to deal with some bad pain from time to time if I've lifted too much or moved the wrong way, but I'm used to getting over it in about a week or so. So as the pain went on, and since it was also in the hip, I decided I'd better get to the doc. X-rays showed no fracture, and nothing else that shouldn't be there, but there is some arthritis in the backbone.

So now I'm getting some physical therapy for my back. I've had one appointment so far and was given some exercises to do at home. They're not all that different from the yoga I (try) to do a few times a week. And the PT said I have a slight curve in my spine, and that's causing the joint between my backbone and my hip to be out of whack. So the therapy is supposed to put them back in alignment. It does feel better. I don't want to cry after I've been sitting for awhile now.

On top of all that, my boss' wife had a health crisis, too, so he was out of the office most of the week. That kind of put a burden on my-coworker, as he had to take on a lot of the extra work with me being gone too. Things are settling down now, though.

Unfortunately, I haven't had as much time for the Relay for Life Web site and newsletter. So I'll have to carve out some time for that this week. Hopefully the other committee members and team captains will get me more stuff to put in it!

Back to blogging

It's been almost a month since I've posted anything here. This time, it means I've actually been busy, not just lazy or avoiding it.

I've gotten caught up in Twitter, which is a lot of fun. There's a lot of times I just have something not real big I want to say, and the blog doesn't seem the place for that. Twitter's perfect. I've actually got two accounts -- a personal one (that's fed onto the sidebar here) and one for work (HDN_Juno), where I follow and tweet to others in the media. I even attended a webinar by Poynter's NewsU on using Twitter for journalism last week. It was very basic, and a lot of it I already knew, but I did some things about using Twitter. What was real interesting about the webinar was also following the tweets of the people who were attending. Lots of communication going on in ways that even just a few years ago would have been mind-boggling. So now my newspaper also has a Twitter account, NorthWestKansas, that I post to. I've invited other editors in the newsroom to join in, but so far no takers.

I was also busy putting together an in-house wiki for the newsroom. It's our stylebook, our reference guide, our place to share information that can help each other. Again, not everyone's as enthusiastic about it as I am, but one of these days, something's going to happen and they'll see the value in it.

I've also been writing a bit more for the newspaper. Not a lot, just an article once in while, when something interests me. But that takes time, too.

I've also been putting together the Web site for the local Relay for Life. That's all set up now, but I'm also supposed to be doing the newsletter, and that's been tough to find time for since I don't have good layout software on my home computer. I do like to get away from the computer at work once in awhile, so I'm kind of behind on that project. But it'll get done.

Just kind of seems like my life has taken on a lot more stuff in the last few months, and it's been hard to balance it all out. Something new to work on, I guess.

Speaking of things to work on, I kind of neglected my February resolution. I was going to make it eat more fruit & veggies, which I've kind of been doing, so maybe I'll stick with that. March can be for my spring cleaning/organizing, I think.

And how'd I do last month? My resolution was to eat out less. Looking at my Quicken account, I have 10 purchases listed under "dining," and I know there was once I paid cash while working at the mall, so that makes 11. In October, I ate out 14 times, November 9 times, and December 9 times. So I guess I didn't do so hot, although I did spend about $20 buck less than I averaged for dining out October through December, so that's something. And I probably made some better choices about what I was eating. At least some of the time.

Resolution update

I did only so-so last week on my resolution not to eat fast food. I got a bit down in the dumps about mid-week and didn't feel like making meals to take with me. Which was bad, because Wednesday and Thursday were also the days I worked the second job and so had to worry about two meals away from home. So I ended up eating out Wednesday through Friday's lunch.

I didn't do that bad, really. Wednesday's lunch was salad, soup and some fruit off the grocery store salad bar, and Thursday's was a turkey flatbread Sammie with soup from Quizno's. Dinner was another matter, though. Wedneseday, I had Chinese again from the place in the mall, and Thursday was KFC. And Friday, I really did bad with a chicken sandwich and fries from Wendy's.

But I did take dinner to work at the mall last night -- a baked potato with cheese sauce and shredded chicken for toppings, and I added a salad from the grocery store salad bar. So that's some redemption, right?

Happiness

Saturday afternoon, I took Buster on a walk along our usual route -- over the bridge just to the west of my house, south down the dirt road, back east over another bridge and then back towards home.

Going over that second bridge, I noticed some blue-colored birds flitting back and forth between the branches of a tree that had fallen into the creek and trees on the bank. I figured they were bluejays, because we have plenty of them around here, although it seems during winter they usually take off for other parts. There was one thing a I noted a lack of, however, and that was noise. Bluejays are pretty vocal birds, especially when disturbed, and I should have been able to hear them even with my headphones on.

Then I noticed little flashes of orange as they flew. They weren't bluejays, these were bluebirds! I don't recall ever seeing bluebirds before around here, although where I live is included in their range.

Bluebirds are supposedly the bird of happiness, so maybe seeing them now, just after the beginning of the year, is a good sign of things to come! OK, maybe I'm reading too much into that, but I'm a creative person -- symbolism means a lot.

There's more interesting ideas about bluebirds here and here.

Doing good

Forgot about updating, for those of you not following the tweets. Both checkups went well. Some of the numbers on my bloodwork were a bit lower than normal; the doc said those numbers usually indicate an allergy and viruses. She's going to have me go back in about a month for another blood test just to make sure. I have felt like I've been fighting something lately, waking up with a dry, scratchy throat, so maybe that's it.

Otherwise things are a-OK. And both the surgeon and oncologist said I don't need to go get another MRI. That was good news, because I don't want to go through that mess again.

So far, so good

Six days into the new year, and I've eaten out only once! And it was sorta healthy. Chinese food. I mean, there were lots of vegetables. OK, I didn't eat all the vegetables. But it wasn't a greasy burger or corndog, after all.

Tomorrow and Thursday are my three-and-half year checkups with the surgeon and oncologist. Feeling good, so everything should go well. Send some positive vibes, though. Every bit helps.

Healthier 2009

So it's the new year, and I've been thinking about resolutions, as everyone does. How can you help it with all the diet/exercise product infomercials and organization stuff in the stores?

One thing I want to do, as I've said every year, is to get healthier. It means a lot more now than it did, say, five years ago, though. And I have done better, at least somewhat. I eat a little better and exercise more. But I never seemed to be able to lose much weight. Until this year. Once it warmed up this spring to where Buster and I could walk everyday, I lost about 15 pounds without even realizing it! That's the difference, I guess, of walking with an elderly dog vs. walking with a 1-year-old dog.

Really, I'm not that bad off. According to this site, I have a BMI of 26, which is just over the limit of being "overweight." According to that site, I could get down to 100 pounds and be considered normal weight. Yikes. I look of pictures of myself from right after college, when I was about 110, and that just looks too skinny (although it probably didn't help I always wore baggy clothes). I'd be happy with about 130-135, so I don't have far to go.

Anyway, back to resolutions. I've tried lots of different methods of keeping them, and it never really seems to work. So instead of saying "Lose weight" or even more specifically, "Lose 10 pounds," I'm going to go with small steps. So first step for January: Cutting fast food from the diet. This one should be easy, because I've already done a lot of that. I quit eating at McDonald's about a year or so ago after they ripped me off on my change in the drive-through and the manager was a jerk about it, and I lost about five pounds in the two months after that.

I go to Sonic once in a while (OK, more often than I should) for a corndog and tater tots (they probably start fixing them when they see me drive up now). Chicken (popcorn chicken, nuggets, KFC) is my downfall. But I hardly ever eat fast-food hamburgers anymore. And there are healthy options at fast food places. Wendy's (which is one of the best places for lunch here, service-wise) has chili, baked potatoes, salads, etc. There's a Quizno's near where I work, and I'm taking my lunch/dinner to work a lot more often now. So if I can just control the corndog/chicken nugget cravings, this one should be a smooth way to start.

I'll be working on some exercise goals this month, too, but I'm really going to focus on success on one goal each month.

On turning 40

Today I turned 40. Five years ago, I would have said I dreaded that thought. But then, three and a half years ago, something happened. I found a lump in my left breast. It was cancer.

There are cancer survivors who say getting cancer was a blessing. Not to belittle anyone's beliefs, but I think they're crazy. It was hell. And not just for me. My family, my friends, my co-workers all also carried a part of what I went through.

But I got through it. Hell, I kicked its ass.

This year, I've come to realize just how lucky I really was. Lucky I found it when I did, because I never did regular self-exams and didn't think I'd need to go for a mammogram for a few more years. Lucky I'm in a place with a great cancer center and doctors. And lucky I have so many great people around me. It is in, in part, because of them I am here, celebrating 40 years.

So to my family and friends, thank you. Even if you couldn't be here while I was going through my treatment, I felt your support and good thoughts and prayers. And your e-mails and cards got me through some tough days. And to my co-workers who stepped up when I couldn't quite keep up the normal work load or just gave me an ear or even a shoulder to cry on.

And of course, to Nipper, my buddy, who didn't understand what was going on, but was always ready to curl up with me and comfort me.

This year, I have felt better than I have in years -- even before the cancer. The fatigue is gone, the chemo brain is gone. And it's not just a physical difference. It just feels like there are a whole lot of possibilities out there within my reach and all I need to do is grab them. And I will.

Cancer was not a blessing. But it did open my eyes to a lot of things over the last few years. One of those is that there are a lot of great people in my life, and that no matter what I might face in the years ahead, they'll be there to support me. I hope I can be as much to them as they have been to me.

Thanks, all. Here's to the next 40!

Long live journalism?

The Detroit Media Partnership, which publishes the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News, announced big changes are coming in how it publishes. Next spring, the newspapers will deliver print editions to homes only on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, their biggest advertising days. They will still print daily, but the remaining days of the week, the size of the print edition will be drastically reduced and will only be available at newsstands. The papers will push online delivery of the news over print.

I can't say that I'm shocked to see this coming, but it makes me pretty sad. However, I think it could well be the most workable business model for newspapers to come along. It certainly makes more sense than cutting your staffs to nothing and cutting budgets so that the reporters and photographers who remain can barely leave the building to cover the news.

Fact is, this writing has been on the wall for a long time; newspapers just refused to believe it. Or maybe averted their eyes. Yes, there is still an audience for print — and I think to some extent there always will be — but it is literally dying. I think that those who are in the early 20s and teens now are likely going to be the last generation to see print newspapers have much of a role in society. There will always be those small-town or neighborhood weeklies and specialty publications, I think, but the bigger papers (even ones like the small daily I work for) have to face that in order to survive, they've got to emphasize online. Home delivery of a print newspaper will, for them, become something "extra," an offering to those who can afford the luxury of sitting at home in their pjs reading the paper while the rest of us rush around with a job or two, or kids to rush to school, or whatever we do to get by while we hear the news on radio or browse on PDAs or cell phones or whatever we'll have in the future.

Our product has never been a piece of paper. It has been delivery of information, wether it be in advertising, articles or opinion. That can be done in many different media. Few papers took broadcasting seriously as competition, fewer still looked at the Internet that way. A very few did, and even embraced that competition. What the Freep is doing is quite likely the next step we have to take to keep delivering our true product.

Lights!

I've got the outdoor Christmas lights on finally. I put them up a week ago, I think, and just now got around to getting them plugged in. Because you know, you have to do it strategically ... what gets plugged into what outlet and so on. I didn't put up as much as I have in the past. I have enough lights to line the front of the roof and around the porch, but the lights I got a few years back, which I really REALLY loved, they, of course, do not make any more. So replacing them is the pits. And it's a lot of work to put them up.

But last year, on the after Christmas sale, I got some blue net lights for the shrubs next to the porch and a couple red rope lights. I debated about winding them up the porch poles, but hated to think about how to plug everything in. So I wound them around the split-rail fence next to the driveway, and I think it looks OK. I put up the cheap, plastic red ribbons on the fence posts. I have plenty of those so if the weather trashes them, I can replace them pretty easy. I might buy more of the rope lights after Christmas again this year and eventually wind it all the way down the fence ... which is actually quite a ways.

I might get to the tree later tonight. It's just a fake tree, and we'd always kept the lights on it when we put it away so every year we just had to straighten it out and put the decorations on it. But I also need to do some housecleaning and some laundry, so we'll see. Plus, I had a pretty busy day, so it'd be nice to just crash for a bit, too.

Talking to the future

Today I talked with a beginning newswriting class at the local university. It's taught by a professor I had when I was there, although I had that class before she started there. She has her class submit stories to the newspaper I work for as part of their assignments and I had edited some of their stories for us to use, so I offered to give them some feedback. I was able to take about an hour to talk to them -- all four of them.

A couple of the students were late, and so was the prof, so I chatted with one of the students while we waited. And when I did start talking to the class, I gave them he basic rundown of my job and offered some feedback to a couple of the students' stories, explaining why we made the kinds of changes we did.

They had some good questions, too, asking about the paper, the kinds of things I thought they should be learning considering the kinds of changes going on journalism, etc. It was kinda fun, really, and it's nice to know there are some younger people still interested in what makes journalism good and not just getting their name and their friends' names in the paper.

You were looking for what?

It always amuses me to check out my blog stats. Yes, I have a counter, and I like checking out how people find my blog. A lot are from friends and family, since I used it to keep people updated on how I was doing during my cancer treatment. But I also get a lot of hits from people who must just be ... weird.

It seems like the current most popular search terms people hit on my site with have to do with this entry, about finding out how I could easily finish my bachelor's degree after 21 years by taking two classes. People are seriously searching for "how to get a bachelor's degree in ..." two days, a week, a month, six months, you name it.

Then there's the recent hit on "how to buy a giant pink Serta sheep." You gotta earn one of those, pal. Buy a mattress in October and you'll get a small one.

I've recently seen searches for "Christina Applegate nude naked porn" lately. Get a life and get out of your parents' basement, OK?

Occasionally, I get hits from people searching for something about Mark Harmon's hairy chest. Only thing I can think of is that this entry about TV and this one — both from the same month — are drawing them in. I'm sure people have been quite disappointed it was my own hairy chest I was talking about.

There is a more serious side. This one, where I talk about the side effects of Novelbine, one of the chemo drugs I had, gets a lot of hits. That was a nasty time, and I'm glad it didn't have to last long. Hope that what I wrote in there might help someone else with their treatment.

Long overdue update

Can't believe it's been almost a month and a half since I posted. There's been lots going on, really.

Being a journalist, I guess I'll start with the biggest news. Mom has moved out of the house. It had been frustrating lately, probably for both of us, and after she returned from her last trip, she moved into the house she bought for my dad to live in when I was starting my cancer treatment. I guess they figured since they didn't kill each other on that trip, they'd be OK. And I'm getting along OK, finding a groove to get into to keep things running smoothly. I hate leaving Buster alone so much, but Mom still goes over to do her laundry and such, so he gets some playtime with her.

The other big news would be that I finally found a second part-time job. It's at the local mall, on the mall maintenance staff. It's a pretty easy job, mainly because it's not that big of a mall. Although we'll see what I think after working by myself tonight, "Black Friday." The Penney's store is staying open until 11 p.m.!

What else? Oh, yeah, I was a model in the Day of Caring back in October:

I don't get all made up ... uh, ever, so this is a rare sight. I ended up buying the outfit, except for the boots, which cost almost as much as the rest of it put together. And in the goodie bag I got for modeling was a little stuffed Serta sheep. Buster stole it out of the bag and made it his. I had to cut the eyeballs off so he wouldn't and choke on them.

That's about it for now. I'll do more later, but I've got to head to work soon, and while writing this I'm also chatting with a friend. Talk about multitasking!

Rain, rain, go away

We've had more than four inches of rain since Saturday. For this area, that's a lot. I mean a LOT. I came home to discover the roof had been leaking in the kitchen. Not too much, but it was still a mess to clean up. It's been dripping off and on all evening.

Poor Buster didn't get his walk today, and he probably didn't go out much during the day since it just POURED much of the day. We roughhoused on the floor for awhile, and played with his favorite squeaky toy, a turkey. It's actually the only toy of his I can find anymore. He's sort of buried it in the back yard a few times over the last couple weeks, and I have no idea where his other squeaky toy, a shoe, is. Probably in the same place where his Kong is. We haven't seen that since shortly after he got it at Christmas.

Buster's not a snuggly dog like Nipper was, but he has his times when he wants to be close. I'm learning to "read" when he wants that. He'll kind of bug me if I'm lying on my couch, but he's not interested in playing. So when I scoot over and pat the couch, he'll hop up next to me and curl up for a nap. He doesn't put his head on my lap or anything, but once he's up there, he relaxes. He still sleeps out in the living room when it's time to go to bed, though.

Other than the rain, there's not a heck of a lot going on. So here's hoping we dry out the rest of the week.

Busterversary

Today marked one year since Buster came home. We had a pretty good day. In the morning I finished up some yardwork that I started last night but had to quit since it's getting dark earlier. I wanted to get that out of the way, because a friend of mine -- the one whose wedding I went to a couple weeks ago -- was in town and came over for awhile, and plus I wanted the afternoon to do something special with Buster.

So Karen and I had a good time visiting and catching up, and Buster was a pretty good boy. He got a bit overexcited a few times and nipped at her -- playfully, but I still don't like when he does that. But overall he behaved. Then in the afternoon, I took Buster into town and we spent about an hour walking through the big park. I think he had fun, even though it was pretty cool and kind of rainy. He's sure tired out tonight, so we're just hanging out at home with the TV, some popcorn and brownies.

Some busy weekends are coming up, though. Next Saturday is the Day of Caring, a brunch and fashion show for breast cancer awareness. All the models are breast cancer survivors. And yes, this year I'll be modeling. I was a bit nervous because the store they picked for me is a western wear store, and I am NOT into the cowgirl thing. But I did find some cool stuff, and I hope to have some pix to post here afterwards.

The weekend after that is a copy editing conference in Wichita -- yes, back to Wichita. I've been there more in the last year than I have in my whole life. But I'm looking forward to it. It'll be nice to be around people who actually think copy editing is still important to newspapers.

Lookee what the mailman brung ...

OK, you'll have to wait to look, since I don't have a digital camera with me, but when I got home today, there was a big express mail envelope in the mailbox, with a return address from the local university. And when I opened it up, inside was ... my Bachelor of General Studies diploma! And a tassel! They even spelled my name right!

It's a little more awesome than I woulda thunk.

Good weekend

Buster and I are both back home after our weekend. Buster had a good report from his vet's visit, except for his weight. He's about 15 pounds over what he should be, the vet said. She said I could cut down on the amount of food I give him, so he's gradually going on smaller rations today. And maybe we'll go for a bit longer walk every day. Buster seems to be happy to be home. I'm glad he's home, too.

My weekend was pretty good. I survived driving through Wichita traffic -- not a bad feat for a small-town girl. Although we did get to know the Oliver loop to Kellogg pretty well. Seems we kept taking the wrong turn onto Kellogg, but with all that construction going on, it was hard navigate. We got lost only once, on the way to the reception, and were about an hour late, but there was still plenty of food. And we weren't the only ones who had a hard time finding the place downtown. But it was worth it to be able to see Karen & Eric get to celebrate and how happy they were.

And Vanessa Peters was great Friday night. Not too many of the people there were there specifically to see her -- and it was Oktoberfest -- so the crowd was a bit rowdy. A fight even broke out at one point, but overall it was enjoyable. I got to talk to her and her guitarist, Manuel, before the show and during a break, and during another break she sat and talked with a group of college kids (mostly Chinese students) who seemed to be there more for the music than the booze, which was cool. She's got some albums available on iTunes, if you're interested.

Back to work tomorrow. Hopefully, it won't be as tough a week as the last one.

Dogless

That's what I am until Sunday evening. I'm heading to Wichita tomorrow morning with a co-worker for a friend's wedding, and we're staying overnight Saturday, so Buster is staying in a "cabin" at his vet's for the weekend. I can go pick him up Sunday evening, so depending on what time we get back, Sunday will be a quiet day.

Tonight, I'll have something to distract me for awhile. I'm heading into town to see Vanessa Peters and one of her bandmates perform at the local brewpub. I've been bored with commercial radio, and got tired of hearing the same old stuff on my iPod, so I started searching for different music. I checked out the Web sites of the local venues one day, and found she was coming here, listened to stuff on her MySpace page, and kinda got hooked. And then I thought it might be fun to write about some of the music going on around here and pitched the idea to my boss. He was less than enthusiastic about it, but I went ahead and did an article on Peters anyway for our arts page this week. I'd like to do more, especially on the local acts. We'll see how it works out time-wise with all the other crap that gets heaped on me at work now. I'm kind of hoping to maybe branch out into some freelance writing with some of this, too.

On my way to the show, I need to drop off Hope, my support group's giant pink Serta sheep mascot, at the home of one of the members so she can ride on the Homecoming parade float tomorrow. I'm kind of sorry I'll be missing that, because it's always a great experience. I've done it twice now, and each time, got a little choked up when people stand and applaud us as we go by. All we did was survive. It was all the scientists, doctors, nurses and caretakers who made that possible. They're really the ones who deserve the applause. So if you're involved at all in cancer research, oncologoy or are helping a loved one through treatment, know that applause is really for YOU.

Best. Compliment. Ever

I was sitting at my desk this morning, when Joe, one of our ad sales people who's around my age, passed by. Pointing at his thinning hair, he said to me "If I had hair, that's exactly what I'd want it to look like."

Awesome.

More on Christina Applegate

Christina Applegate, who was diagnosed recently with breast cancer after an MRI, talked more about her diagnosis and treatment yesterday on Good Morning America (you can watch the whole interview with another BC survivor, Robin Roberts here)

She opted to have both breasts removed -- no doubt a difficult decision, especially considering Hollywood's fixation on how people look -- after testing positive for the BRCA1 gene. Fortunately, I tested negative for mutation on both the BRCA1 and BRCA 2 genes, but when my oncologist first discussed the testing with me, she said if I tested positive, she would likely recommend removal of the breasts as well as my uterus and ovaries as prevention against any more cancer. So, a tough decision, but what do you do when it's your life you're talking about?

I really applaud her desire to help other women pay for MRIs and the genetic testing. The MRI is recommended for women at high risk, but not all insurance companies cover it yet. And the gene testing costs about $3,000. A co-worker of mine who's in her 20 or 30s has a big family history of BC, and while the insurance company will pay for her annual mammograms, they won't pay for the gene test unless she or one of her sisters is diagnosed with cancer. That's just nuts.

And big applause to Applegate for going on TV and talking about her cancer, only three weeks after her surgery. At times, she appeared pretty emotional, and I'm sure she's still trying to sort things out in her own head. Having to do that on national TV couldn't have made it any easier. She's a good representative for what many women with breast cancer have had to face.

All clear

The scoping went well. There's a just some diverticulitis, but no polyps, no tumors, no nothing. He didn't even take any samples. So whoo-hoo!

And it wasn't all that bad. I was out within a few minutes of the IV starting and don't remember a thing until I woke up in the recovery area. I did get to see the few pictures he took. The nurse in the recovery room was pretty funny, too. During the colonoscopy, the doc fills you up with air, so you have to pass that before they let you go. So as I let one rip, the nurse said "Good! That's what we like to hear .... nurses are kind of gross."

After Mom and I left the surgical center, we got a big lunch and got home around 1 p.m. I slept until nearly 5 p.m. I'm still kind of groggy and just hanging out on the couch with the laptop, much to Buster's disappointment. Poor guy didn't get his walk this morning, and all I've done while here has been to sleep. Maybe later this evening I'll feel up to playing with him and take him for a walk if it's not too warm. Until then, I'm not going far from the couch.

So hungry

So tomorrow is the colonoscopy. That means tonight, no food, other than Jell-O. And nothing red or purple, because that can apparantly cause some discoleration in your innerds. I was allowed to eat a light breakfast, but nothing but liquids and Jell-O after that. I did OK, really, until this afternoon, when I had to put together the food page for the paper. And then a co-worker came in and starting munching on the Chees-its she keeps in her desk and another came in with Chinese take-out.

Now I'm just sitting here on the couch waiting for the colon cleanser to start working. It's not going to be a fun evening. Maybe by the time the doc lets me go tomorrow, I'll feel good enough for a big BIG lunch somewhere.

Oops. I think the stuff is starting to work. It's about time for the first of many trips to the bathroom.

Hmmm, what's been happening?

Gee not much lately. Except ... I GOT MY PORT OUT!

It was last Tuesday. I guess I've been too psyched about it to write about it here, but the port-a-cath is now gone, just shy of three years to the day I got it put in. It's a pretty awesome feeling. I think it's the first time I looked forward to going to the hospital.

It was done with just a local anaesthetic in the afternoon, but you know, my boss didn't need to know that, so I took the whole day off! And that was after having Monday off for working Saturday, so I had a bit of a mini-vacation.

Anyway, there is a bit of a scar, but that will fade with time, just like the first one did. It hurt for only a day or so, and I feel a pull once in a while, but it's getting better. It just feels great to have it gone. It is, as one of my support group members said last night about getting hers out, like a graduation. I graduated from cancer!

On the bitter side of things, though, the second job is gone, thanks to the Legislature not providing the money for social services that everyone was counting on. The hotline has been automated, and the three of us working it got laid off. There's been some other people who got laid off too, from what I understand, and they've had to make a lot of other budget cuts. It's pretty sad, really, because the organization does a lot of good for people who need some help.

Anyway, that's the big news. Later.

Christina Applegate

She's been diagnosed with breast cancer. She's 36, the same age I was when I was diagnosed. Her mother is a two-time BC survivor, so it seems Applegate's been taking the advised precautions of mammograms and sonograms for early detection. And that says a lot — doesn't matter if you've got a family history or not, women should be doing whatever they can. I didn't, and it really scares me to think what might have happened if I hadn't accidentally felt that lump when I did.

So, no matter your age, do a self-exam monthly. If you're between 35 and 40, get a mammogram — this can be used as a baseline to compare your future mammograms to, which you should have every year once you're 40. If you're at high risk, talk to your doctor about also getting sonograms or an MRI, too.

I had it pretty "easy" with my treatment, in part because it was found fairly early. But I've seen what this disease can do, and it doesn't care how old you are, if you have children, if you're married or not, or what you've accomplished — or could yet do — with your life. Since I joined my support group, we've lost 4 members to cancer, and another is fighting for her life. So don't screw around with your chances.

I love it

Before:

And after:

Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch, a terminally ill professor whose earnest farewell lecture at Carnegie Mellon University became an Internet phenomenon and bestselling book that turned him into a symbol for living and dying well, died Friday. He was 47

Roadshow pic

Finally, here's our pic from the Antiques Roadshow (I think they caught me before I was really ready):

A nice end to the day

Man, I'm stuffed. Mom & I are back from having dinner at Stroud's, not too far from the campground. They're known for their pan-fried chicken, and man, was it good. I ate way too much, though, and feel like I can't move.

The afternoon was pretty rainy, so we kind of waited it out until about 3:30, then went to Botanica, which has about two dozen different gardens. It was really pretty amazing. They didn't have their fountains going because Wichita is having some kind of water problem, but the grounds are really beautiful. They seem to really like lantana, which Mom does too. She has several in the front garden at home along the sidewalk. It was neat to pick up some ideas of what else I could plant at home, too. We got rained on a bit, but it also was nice and cool to stroll the gardens.

We'll head home sometime in the morning. It's been a nice break from the routine.

That was fast

Well, our "Antiques Roadshow" experience is over. It's really pretty fast and efficient the way they have it set up. Our ticket entry time was 8 a.m., although we went early, getting to there about 7:15 (in the pouring rain) or so, and we were done by 8:30. I imagine that later in the day, you probably end up waiting a lot more, though, as they had the place set up so lines could wind around and around and around before you get to the actual appraisal area.

I took the sketchbook of the African safari, and the appraiser was real interested in it, but she also had a time making out the artist's signature. She had a laptop to look up information, and found someone who might be the artist, but that's not 100 percent certain, since she couldn't compare the signatures on the computer images too well with what was on the book. But she liked the detail of the work in the book, and appraised it at a decent number. Not enough to quit my job, or even pay off the car if I wanted to sell it (which I don't), but it gives me an idea.

She also looked at Mom's watercolor painting, and she really liked that. She conferred with another appraiser, and for a moment I thought they might want to put her TV with it, but it didn't turn out that way. Mom also had some family jewelry looked at, and that turned out about the way she thought, she said. So no big surprise treasures for us, but we had a good time.

The local PBS station was there, and we had our photo taken. They'll have that available for download late next week, so check back Thursday or Friday to see! And I won an Antiques Roadshow tour T-shirt!

Afterwards, we walked around Wichita's Old Town for awhile and had breakfast at a little soda fountain/cafe that's been there since the early 30s. It's ironic we have to go east to Wichita to find a good dish with New Mexico green chiles. Now we're just crashing in the camper and maybe we'll do something later on.