Well. New Years Eve is upon us again. Had a very busy day but didn't accomplish too much. We found an extendable closet pole out in the garage. I pilfered my linen closet and found the old white cafe curtains from one of the bedrooms. How about that, we found what we needed right here. No need to spend money for the curtains or the rod. We had toyed with the idea of using a rope or chain, but I think what we found will be adequate.

Oscar and Pepe spent the day at the doggie spa today. Oscar was really excited when he got to the store but was trying to escape when the gal took his leash and tried to get him into the bath area. Pepe thought if he just looked the other way, she'd maybe forget about him. He was shaking so bad, his tongue was flopping around. We went to Perkins for breakfest and the hit the Wally World. Both boys came home smelling nice and sweet sporting a Petsmart kerchief. Paul also bought a kitty harness for Snickers. We will be able to walk her also during the trip. This should be interesting. Just getting the harness on was pretty funny. Paul put in on backwards. He put her down so she could get used to walking with it on. Now, when I describe this I swear I am not making this up. Snickers gave a look at Paul and me, let out a plantive meow and then started walking....backwards! She backed up around the entire living room. It was hysterical. I almost wet my pants laughing so hard! Oscar got up after seeing this and started nudging her to move forward, but she still kept backing up. We laughed so hard. She finally laid down and started to make this gutteral sound. Paul picked her up and after looking at the picture on the halter packaging realized he had put it on wrong. So we fixed the halter and she finally started walking normally. She was really honked off. The look she shot Paul was priceless. Now if I had only gotten this on film I bet we would be the winners of the America's Funniest Home videos. I could use ten grand. Always think of this after the fact. Darn, it really was great too.

I made more chocolate chip cookies, some for Zack to take back to school, and some for the trip. I also made a banana bread from some utterly gross looking bananas. Paul made a great dinner. Tbones for Zack and Grandpa...petite filets for us. It was great.

As I write this it is a bit after 11 pm. I am sipping a chocolate martini. Goodness these things are good. Potent, but good. One does me in. Paul is falling asleep in the chair. What an exciting New Years Eve. Hmmm, hope we celebrate on board the ship. We had thought about going to the Elks Club, but I think the band was an old fart band. Most of the Elks here are old farts.

Tomorrow we will try to find an airbed on sale. The newspaper sale ads come out with the Sunday edition. Tomorrow I also hope to get all my clothes together. The Bears play about three so we have some time to get stuff done. Monday, Paul and Zack will finish moving stuff around in the garage. Grandpa will be able to park his car in there. All the Christmas stuff is now lining the garage walls. Geesh, I gotta get rid of some of this stuff. But I am a selfish person and want it all.

As the martini in the glass gets lower, my typing gets suckier. Giggle giggle. The buz from alcholol is just so fleeting after having gastric bypass LOL!

Well, I guess I better sign off for today.

Keep posting comments, I love reading them!

Happy New Year!

dennise

Friday, part two...

Went to my appointment with Attilia ...er, the physical therapist. All joking aside she was very nice and very attractive too. We worked on developing some exercises I can do while we are away. Gosh, my left knee/leg is very weak. Plus, I didn't know my bad hip would hurt so bad. Enough complaining already.

Trip plans are starting to get past the "just thinking about it" phase. Paul and I measured the inside front windshield area of the motorhome to see if we could get a tension rod across the front window or actually the windshield glass. The made-for-the-rig shades are fugly and it would be nice to block out nosy campground neighbors, but let in the sunshine/light. The measurement is 94 inches. Too big for a tension rod. So, I think that what we will do is put up two brackets similar to the thingys that a a ships rigging is lashed to or a roll up shade cord is wound around. We can then put a string or rope through the cafe curtains and get the same effect. Well, I hope it will work. We tested out the new icemaker, and it appears that it will fit our needs nicely. We can store it in the basement of the motorhome until we stop and then turn out enough ice for two days or so.

Tomorrow the boys(Oscar and Pepe) go to Petsmart for a beauty bath and trim. Paul and I are heading to Wally World to check out the cafe curtains for the front window. We also need an air mattress for Grandpa. The fold out couch is a real piece of garbage to sleep on. We will get one of the queen size types that are almost the height of a regular bed. If Grandpa would rather have the bedroom, then Paul and I can sleep on the air mattress in the main part of the motorhome. This way, Grandpa can go to bed whenever he wants and has access to the bathroom close by.

We are getting excited as the departure day grows closer. There are so many details we have to keep multiple lists! We have the cruise checklist, the motorhome check list, things to do before we leave checklist, grocery checklist and the list goes on and on! Well off to bed. Lots to do tomorrow.

dennise

Hey, I forgot to post yesterday...had a real busy day. Went to the orthopedic doc, Dr. Borowicki aka Mr. NoNonsense I Am A Doctor You Peasant. Oh well, they say he is very very good so I will go with what the in the know folks believe. Had to have my right hip x-rayed. When the doc looked at the x-rays, he said I am too young for a hip replacement. Whoa, who even was thinking this? Certainly not moi! He suggested a shot into the joint....oh, just kill me now! It is set up for Tuesday January 3rd. This means we will have to leave for Miami after this is done, sometime in the afternoon. That still gives us 6 days to get to Miami. Shouldn't pose a big problem. Now all I have to do is convince myself I can do this...Dr. Horvath gave me two hip shots and I didn't even feel them, so hopefully I can get over my thumb-sucking fear. A radiologist does the procedure while looking at a live picture of my hip joint. I just can't wait. However, doing this is better than surgery. I just hope it helps the terrible pain in my hip.

I am heading for an appointment at MOHA, the phyiscal therapy place to have my knees evaluated once again. I seem to have serious pain issues when I stand for more than 5 minutes.
Boy this should be a great post later.

Wed Dec 28th 2005

Well, I did accomplish some things today. Put away Christmas stuff, everything is gone except the tree. It is too heavy for me to lift so I have to wait until Paul and Zack get it in the box. I had to take a lot of breaks...what should be an hour job took me 4 hours to complete. I have to sit every few minutes and rest. Fibromalgia is a very frustrating illness. Oh well. The tree is still quite pretty without the ornaments. Once the tree is down we can clean house.Paul will say, what is this WE stuff...he and Zack will have to do most of the cleaning. I, being Queen of course, shall direct their efforts. I hate leaving a dirty house when I go on vacation. I made up my check lists for the trip...me(clothes/meds/supplements) general stuff for the motorhome and things I gotta do right away. We will have to be careful of what we take in the motorhome as it will be sitting in the hot Miami sun while we are on the ship. No refridgerator so that limits what I will be taking with regarding food. We want to be economical and not eat out on the way down. Smaller quantities of perishables is the answer I guess. PB&J, small half and half for coffee, bottled water, etc. I better get going on this...time is slipping right away from me. Plus we have to take Snickers and Pepe to the vet for shots and to get their records. I would hate to find out too late that the vet is off on vacation...Paul doesn't think there will be a problem. We'll see.

I pulled out the video camera and we took it in to the battery place. We had three batteries and two are bad. I wish I had gotten the camera out sooner I could have been taking movies all along. How did I forget we had the darn thing?

Zack left for a three day Bible conference in Peoria today. I think he will be home by Saturday. I hope so as we have a ton of stuff to go back to the storage unit. We would also like to put Grandpa's car in the garage while we are gone. Major cleanout needed for that. Just when you need some brute strength to get the job done, Zack is nowhere to be found. There appears to be a pattern here I think.

I have a ortho doc appointment tomorrow morning to have this right hip checked out. It is really bothering me.

 

Tuesday, December 27th 2005

Well, I am still not making any progress in dismantling the Christmas stuff. Or packing the motorhome either... Woke up with a migrane and still have it. Went to PT at the FitClub and did my routine. Oh well, I didn't want to put the tree and stuff up and now I don't want to take it down!

I received good news today from our insurance company. They have approved my appeal to have a revision to my broken gastric bypass surgery. It will be sometime in late February I think. I will call the doc's office tomorrow when they open and get a real date.

I wanted to try and get some more pictures up...I signed up for this Google thing and it was supposed to be EASY to upload pix to my blog. Yeah right. I must be computer stoopid. I can't do it. I will try to post some pictures of the traveling menagerie but I am not promising anything right now.

Oscar the Black lab is almost 9 now. He is the sweetest dog in the world unless the UPS or mailman is at the door. Then he wants to eat the guy. The biggest problem traveling with him will be that he gets so excited when he sees bikes or go carts whiz by in the campgrounds.

Then there is Grandpa's little furball Pepe. He is supposed to be a
Chihuahua...well. He does have a Chihuahua's head, and a sweet little face...but that ends any semblence of Pepe being part of that breed. His fat little body weighs about 10 pounds, about 6 pounds more than most Chihuahuas. Then there is the tongue. This tongue must be the longest tongue on any dog anywhere. I am not making this up. It hangs out of the side of his mouth all the time. When he lays down on the floor, the tongue leaves a wet spot... But we love the little stinker. He and the kitty don't get along and she has to put him in his place every now and then with a couple of waps on the nose. Here he is... see the tongue?


Then last but not least is Miss Kitty, Snickers. She is almost 16 years old. She is really the queen of the house. She will nag and nag and nag some more until she gets what she wants. She wants to go out, then she wants to eat(and she likes to be PETTED) while she eats. She wants you to pet her, she wants some of your ice cream...its always something with the Queen. Here is a picture of Snickers....

This is an old picture...she is now blind in one eye and it is discolored. Doesn't stop her reign of terror at all...

Ok, I guess that's all I can think of to say tonight. Hopefully I will have made some progress by tomorrow on my list of stuff to do.

Monday, 26 December 2005

Well, all my plans for today were in the dumpster. Gene and I had a touch of stomach flu or something that made us both ill. So...the Christmas stuff is still up, I didn't start to pack, I didn't do much except drag myself from the bathroom to the bed and back again. It is now almost 8 PM and I am finally able to sit up for awhile. Not much going on here. Here is a picture of the boys on Christmas Eve.

They are a pair like dumb and dumber... but they are fun to have around sometimes.

I begin this blog on Christmas night 2005. Actually its about 2 am, so Christmas is officially over. I have over-indulged in sappy made-for-TV Christmas movies. Right now, flickering across the tv screen is Olivia Newton-John stranded with some goof in a snow storm.

I will begin to dismantle the Christmas decorations tomorrow. The plan is to be on the road by January 1st or 2nd. The departure date for the cruise to the Carribbean is January 9th. We are not sure of road conditions going south from Central Illinois, and we don't want to rush the driving, so we are allowing plenty of time for the journey south.

Christmas was a bit sad this year. Grandma Ziaja was missed. She loved Christmas almost as much as me, and that is saying a lot! We dug out all the various tapes from Christmases past, and I shed quite a few tears, not just for Catherine, but for the simple fact that my little guy Zack is now an adult, and worse, I am growing older. I look back at all those blurry and shakey images of Christmas pagents, Christmas mornings and family dinners, and the memories come flooding back. *Sigh*. Geesh, I sound like Scrooge after he meets his future! Enough already!

The picture above is of the tree that I took about 1 am Christmas morning...I'll be posting more pictures soon, I promise...

Well, I'm off to bed. More tomorrow