MUCH Easier Than a Full-Course Meal!

I was eating dinner out with the Commander last evening and as I sat there licking BBQ sauce off of my fingers, I said to him, "You know, THIS is why just eating dessert for your meal is SO much more efficient."

He stopped eating his chicken and shrimp and looked at me.

"I mean, just think about it.  It's the perfect meal.  There's usually only one dish, you can finish your meal in less than 20 minutes, and if it's something like a DQ Blizzard, you just throw the cup in the trash when you're done and there's no clean-up afterwards," I explained.

"Plus it's so easy to sit and read while you eat it," I continued.

He shook his head.

Some people get around this by just having "liquid" meals.  That's really not my style.  Why have a drink when you can have dessert?

And I'll be the first to admit that I enjoy eating.  I also enjoy things other than dessert, as long as it has cheese, butter, or something deep-fried associated with it.  I just don't enjoy taking time out of my creative meanderings during the day to stop and fix a complete meal.  For some reason, that creative flow keeps on flowing, though, when all I have to do is get in the car, drive several blocks to the local Dairy Queen, pull up to the drive-through window, pick up my Blizzard, drive home, plop down at the table, turn on my Kindle, and eat my Blizzard while I read for 15 minutes.  Once that Blizzard is history, a quick toss into the garbage can and I'm off and running again (or waddling, as the case may be).

I could see that I wasn't penetrating the Commander's protein-induced haze so I gave up and dunked a few more extra-crispy fries into the mayo and decided that this was a "different strokes for different folks" time, just as my mother used to say.  Or was that my college roommate?

Well, THAT'S my solution to simplifying the meal crises in America.  Forget full-course meals.  Just eat desserts.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get up from the computer and go plan supper.  I rest my case!

Enough, Already!

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head?  If you're like most people, you are all too familiar with the phenomenon.  Well, for the past few nights, I've heard Taylor Swift singing her song "Ours" in my head over and over.  I don't even care all that much for Taylor Swift and her songs.  Having it on endless loop in my head is even less appealing and waking up in the night to hear "Don't you worry your pretty little head....." is a downright nightmare.   Aaaargh!  So how in the world do you get a song unstuck?

One website suggested listening to the sound of your breathing.  I wear a CPAP at night.  Anything that can make it through the noise of that contraption from hell is NOT going to be deterred by the sound of my breathing.

Another suggestion is to start concentrating on a song that is even more annoying and "memorable."  Hey, do I REALLY want to replace Taylor with "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall?"  Not THIS pretty little head!

You can try turning down the volume in your head and see if that works.  Problem is that I was a drama major who enjoyed working in musical theatre, too.  I don't naturally sing softly.  I belt out songs.  I'm not sure I can do "soft."

Some suggest giving in to the "earworm" and singing the tune aloud.  I guess the theory is that you are getting it out of your system that way.  I just don't know.  I wake up a lot in the night and thus am "hearing" that darn song a lot.  If I start belting it out frequently in the wee hours, the Commander is apt to relegate me to the guestroom where I'll find myself singing the blues.

Sigh!  I guess it could be worse.  I could have a heavy metal song (now THERE'S an oxymoron) stuck in my head.  Looks like it makes sense to just relax and enjoy the concert while it lasts and maybe, in the meantime, I'll figure out what subliminal message this song is trying to send me.

On a completely different topic, I recently tried to update my Nook Color e-reader with the latest software version 1.4.2.  I was still on 1.3 and hadn't had any luck getting the update via the wireless so I decided to follow the instructions on the Barnes and Noble website and download the new update and manually install it.  This did NOT prove to be an easy task.

I tried twice and the Commander tried once and we just couldn't get it to install.  I decided to do a little online sleuthing to see if others were having the same problems.  Yup!  After reading a variety of suggestions, the common denominator seemed to be that you were more apt to have a successful experience if you downloaded the new update in Internet Explorer.  We had been trying it in Chrome.  However, even folks using Firefox were reporting lots of problems.

Armed with my new information, the Commander followed the exact same steps we had followed on our earlier attempts but this time using IE and voila!  The update installed with no problems.  It's times like this when I REALLY appreciate the simplicity of Apple's iTunes store and their approach to software updates with my iPhone and iPad.  'Nuff said.

Haunted By a Wonder(ful) Dog

If you've been following my blog for awhile, you know that I frequently have mentioned Fresca the Wonder Dog.  Fresca was my "Velcro Puppy."  Fresca joined our family twelve years ago, shortly after our Shetland Sheepdog passed away.  She stuck so close to me that I often found myself tripping over her as I'd turn to go into another room.  She had appointed herself my personal bodyguard and she took her duties seriously.  To that end, she protected me from every person or car that went past our front yard as she darted from living room to guest bedroom, checking their progress through the windows as she tried to hurry them along with fierce barking.  Fresca was a dog with an attitude.  As one trainer told us, "If Fresca was human, she'd have pink hair, a nose ring, and a major attitude."  Yup!

Fresca was a bundle of energy.  She outlived four cats and one canine cousin.  But recently she was diagnosed with serious heart disease.  It was most likely congenital.  With her enlarged heart, it would press against her trachea and constrict her airway, causing her to do some horrible coughing.  Her diagnosis was made in early Spring and I became a regular at the only veterinary heart specialist in the area.  He put her on heart medication and told me that it was incurable but maybe we could slow things down.  We couldn't slow HER down, even with the coughing.

Last Thursday evening, I headed up the stairs to bed and noticed that she was doing more coughing than usual.  As I drifted off to sleep, I thought it was settling down.  It wasn't.  By morning, it was obvious that she was still struggling to breathe.  If I stroked her throat and massaged her neck, she would calm down for a bit but soon would start coughing again....those horrible, racking coughs.  It was time!  The Commander had to take her to the vet to be put to sleep.  I couldn't do it.  I was hysterical.  In fact, I cried so hard that it is only today that I don't feel like I have cracked ribs.

That first day without her, I couldn't even stand to look at any reminders.  I took all of her things and packed them up.  I could give most of them to my daughter for her dogs.  I only kept one thing.....a little stuffed cow toy that had been one of her favorites.  It's sitting in the guestroom on the dresser, looking out the window.

She's been gone for five days now but I still feel her presence everywhere.  When I drive up to the house, I glance at the windows expecting to see her peeking out at me.   If I get ready to go out on errands, I find myself whispering the usual litany under my breath , "I'll be right back.  You guard the house."

Whenever I go up or down stairs, I find myself moving to the side to make room for her.  She would always insist on streaking past me so she could beat me to the top or bottom of the steps.  When I sit in the recliner watching TV, I glance over toward the fireplace and expect to see her napping beside it. There are no more circle of dog toys left around my feet to try to entice me to stop knitting and play instead.  Today I caught myself dozing off and woke with a start, surprised that Fresca hadn't woken me by her usual whining when she'd notice that I'd fallen asleep.  I drop food as I cook and am surprised that now I have to clean the crumbs off the floor because she's not there to gobble things up.

I find myself getting up from the computer and starting to say, "It's ok...Mommy will be right back," but there is no Fresca there.  It's SO quiet.  No barking.  No clattering of nails on the flooring.  No staring at me as the clock gets close to mealtime.

I keep glancing out the kitchen window to see if she is waiting on the back step to come inside after a "potty break."  I make the bed in the mornings and have to catch myself to keep from patting the comforter to give her the signal that it's ok to jump up on the bed for her morning tummy rub.   I pulled off a clump of dog hair fluff from one of the chairs in the living room today and was reluctant to throw it in the trash.

 Last night I went around turning off the lights before heading upstairs to bed and again I found myself whispering to a ghost, "I'm going to bed now.  You have a good night."

I like to think she's up in doggy heaven chasing her cousin, Kaiser and annoying him to no end by squeezing into places that he's way too big to get into.  Or maybe she's gone slumming and located her furry feline siblings...Pug, Miss Daisy, Sgt. Streak, and Smokey.  If so, they're all probably enjoying a rambunctious game of tag right now.

Gosh, I miss her.  She may have been a handful but she was a good and faithful dog.  I'll leave you with several of my favorite blog posts of her antics.  For all of you dog lovers, enjoy! And give your furry ones an extra hug today in memory of Fresca.

Fresca the Wonder Dog Strikes Again

Mush, You Varmints, Mush!

Fresca the Wonder Dog

We had to put our beautiful Fresca, the Wonder Dog to sleep yesterday.  The pain is still too much to blog about it yet.  However, here are a few of her everyday moments captured on YouTube.

We brought my mother home from the nursing home for the day several years ago and Fresca's reaction was   exuberant, to say the least.

Fresca would usually follow me from the dining room table into the kitchen after meals, walking on her hind legs and hoping that I'd drop some food so she'd get a bite.

George was much better at getting her to balance a treat on her nose before eating it.

Painless Veggies and Knitting, Too

I just finished another sweater.  This one is called the Artichoke Sweater designed by Marly Bird.  It was a fun sweater to knit up, basically knit in the round from the bottom up so that there are no side seams or shoulder seams to sew up to finish the sweater.  Those are MY kind of sweaters.

The pattern called for Light weight yarn but I decided to go with Cascade 220 yarn, which is worsted weight.  I'm always cold so I figure if I'm going to knit up a sweater, it might as well be one that will keep me toasty.  However, since I made the substitution to worsted, that meant that I had to make a few modifications.  I was getting gauge horizontally but not vertically.  In cases like that, I think you have to decide if you want to keep tinkering with things to get it as "spot-on" as possible or if you are going to go more with finding the "fabric" that you will be pleased with.  I decided to go for the latter.  Plus I think it is easier to make adjustments vertically when measurements are given along the way (and this pattern provides plenty of those as you knit along so that you can double-check yourself) than it is to revise your knitting for width.  All that to say, I switched to a Size 7 needle, cast on, and started merrily off.

Now I had started this sweater as part of a class offered at my local knitting shop.  Our instructor had us do the sleeves first.  Then we went back to following the pattern as the designer had it laid out, casting on for the body of the sweater.  If you look carefully at the picture above, you'll see that the border of the body of my sweater (at the left of the picture) is not the same as the cable border of the sleeve (at the right of the picture).  There is an extra "bar" between each cable on the sweater border.  Quite a few of us in our class made this mistake, including our instructor.  I THINK now that you are supposed to work the sleeve border using the 8-stitch repeat all around the sleeve as it shows in the chart.  Frankly, I don't know WHAT you're supposed to do with the bottom of the sweater.  If you look at the picture in the pattern, it does NOT have the rows of stockinette stitch between each twisted cable.  It looks just like the cabling pattern of the sleeves.  But if I read the chart, it sure looks like those extra rows would be in there.  I guess to make it look like the pattern picture, start the beginning of your row with the K2, P2 pattern on the right side (and conversely the P2, K2 on the wrong side) and then go into your 8-stitch cable pattern which is designated the "8-st repeat" - Sleeve" and repeat that part all the way across until you get to the last 4 stitches and then do your normal ending to keep it in pattern.

The pattern called for you to work the body even in stockinette stitch until it measured a certain length.  I shortened that length (this is where I made one of my vertical adjustments) and only knit it to 14 inches before dividing for the armholes.  I was able to check the length of my sleeves as I went along and didn't have to make any adjustments for those.  When we got to the yoke, I made another vertical adjustment and worked the stockinette stitch one less inch that my size called for before starting the yoke chart.  Since my gauge was fewer stitches per inch vertically, my yoke was longer top to bottom than the sweater in the pattern picture but I was not unhappy with the look.  If I had wanted to shorten it, I could have left off some of the bottom rows of the chart, prior to the first twist in the cabling and perhaps done less ribbing at the top of the yoke.  Either way, it certainly is a beautiful yoke, isn't it?

There seemed to be a lot of confusion on the Errata for Row 25 of the Yoke pattern among the knitters working on the sweater up on Ravelry.  I found this post from the designer to be the most helpful to me:

Row 25 (decrease row): Start the row as established thus far…DecC3F, DecC3B; rep from to last 3 sts, p1, k2.

DecC3F: slip 2 sts to cn hold in front; p1 from LHN; ssk from cn. 
DecC3B: slip 1 st to cn, hold in back; k2tog from LHN; p1 from cn 

However, remember that for me, I started my rows with a k2, p2 and ended them with a p2, k2 so in the helpful post above, I would repeat to the last 4 stitches and then p2, k2.

Oh yes, here's a little tip for the Sleeves:

When you get to the finishing section and join your underarm seams (I used a 3-needle bind off), I think you'll find that you will have two holes (one on each side of the underarm seam).  Everyone in our class ended up with these holes (the sizes of the holes varied).  I left a long tail of yarn when I finished the seaming and basically "darned" the hole shut.  On the other side, where I didn't have any tail of yarn, I grabbed some spare yarn and worked it in, weaving it back and forth among the stitches on both sides of the hole to close it up and then weaved it in a little more to hide the loose ends.

The final order of business was to pick up stitches and knit a button band and a buttonhole band.  The designer mentioned up on Ravelry that her original design did NOT have these bands but the magazine folks added it to the design when they published the pattern.  I found (and again, perhaps this was because of my different vertical gauge) that because they have you placing the actual yarnovers for the buttonholes in the first row of the band and then working seven rows after this, that it put the buttonholes way over to the left of my button band.  I would definitely wait until Row 3 of the Button Band to do the hole placement next time.

For now, I just left it as was and am considering it a "Design Element" otherwise known as a "quirk."

All in all, it was a fun project to do and resulted in a comfy sweater that is perfect for cool Spring evenings and will be one of my "go-to" sweaters for Fall.

Curing the Winter Blues

You would not believe how glad I am that Spring is just around the corner here in my little neck of the woods.  I'm one of those people that has SAD, also known as Seasonal Affective Disorder.  It makes you feel rather down in the dumps when the days are short and sunlight is scarce.  In my own experience, I almost feel like I'm going into hibernation.  I avoid going out unless I absolutely have to.  I don't have a lot of energy.  I feel morose and find myself thinking things like "No wonder the Icelandic people wrote such violent sagas.  That's what cold and living in darkness for months at a time will do to you."

 However, once the days start to lengthen and the sun is out more and more, I can feel myself opening up like a morning glory basking in the early morning sunlight.  I feel almost giddy.

If you're a SAD sufferer, I wish you could have a day like I'm having.  It doesn't get much better than driving through the suburbs or countryside, temps in the 70's,  looking at the flowers and the trees budding, with the car windows down and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Call Me the Breeze" blasting from my stereo.  The only thing that's keeping me from hugging perfect strangers is my seatbelt.  Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Excuse Me, Aren't You Overlooking Something?

I was reading the paper today and noticed this picture attached to an article about high school students being trained to work in health occupations.  I'm just showing you a portion of the picture but if you zoomed out, you'd see a young lady happily folding a sheet or pillowcase while these two "pretend" nursing home residents are seated at the table next to her.

Um, call me crazy but there's a bit of a problem here.  The one guy's head is on BACKWARDS!  His wrist isn't looking too healthy either.  It could be fractured.  It's certainly at an angle that doesn't come naturally.  Yet this student is folding linen.  Hello!  What are they teaching the kids in this Vo-Tech school?

Note to my kids:  If the time ever comes when I have to go into a nursing home, do NOT send me to any place that employs staff that have been trained at this institution.  If you do, dire things could happen.  They might come to change my bed sheets and end up diapering my head and feeding my backside.  I shall come back to haunt you if this happens.  Consider yourself warned!

Pass the Syrup

What a great start to my day!  I was able to enjoy a lovely breakfast of French Toast and sausages with a good friend of mine this morning along with some fine conversation.......all with the sun shining through the windows.  To make matters even better, the waitress brought me a full pitcher of maple syrup for my French Toast.

So often I have to make a point of asking for more syrup when I dine out for breakfast.  The wait staff always look at me like I'm nuts.  One even went so far as to tell me that "the syrup containers hold a lot of syrup."  It has gotten to the point where I just ask outright from the start "Do you bring maple syrup in pitchers or in those little individual packets?"

If they answer that they use the packets, I tell them to bring me at least three or four of them and then, when they look at me in disbelief, I tell them, "Look, I like to drown my pancakes/French Toast in syrup.  What can I say?"

I have the same quirk when it comes to hash-browns.  I remember years ago when I was in the Navy, a friend asked me why I never ate the hash-browns in the mess hall.  We'd often stop over there for breakfast after working an all-night shift down in the Communication vans.  Well, it was because they didn't serve the RIGHT kind of hash-browns.

Nowadays, if I order a breakfast meal and it includes hash-browns, I always ask the waiters, "Are your hash-browns the little cubed kind or the shredded kind?"

If they answer "cubed," then I tell them to just leave them off my plate.  I'm not interested.  However, if they are the shredded kind, heap them on and make sure they are extra-crispy.  You see, the cubed potatoes are never served hot enough and butter doesn't melt on them.  All you get is that "starchy" flavor.  What I want is "buttery crunchiness."  The shredded hash-browns tend to retain the heat better when they are brought out from the kitchen and thus, I can melt pats of butter on them just the way I enjoy it.

I've actually given a lot of thought to all of this.  I DON'T have to give a thought to the fact that I am LOVING the warm weather we are currently enjoying in south-central PA.  It has been in the 70's here the last few days AND is expected to climb into the high 70's and possible 80's here today.  My daffodils have been blooming for the past week and my hyacinth plants are starting to bloom.  I am noticing more and more green starting to show on the trees.  There's nothing like warm weather to put a BIG smile on my face.

ENOUGH with the Studies!

Just when I thought I'd read enough bad news about recent medical studies, out comes another one.  Yes, today's paper had another dose of sunshine for all of you meat-eaters out there.  In case you didn't see it, this latest study that was published on Monday looked at eating habits of adults (over 100,000 of them) over a period of twenty years.

Here's the bad news:  Those who ate just a tiny 3-oz. serving of red meat had a 13% greater risk of dying over the course of the study.  If you have the misfortune to be a big bacon, sausage, or kielbasa fan (or fan of any processed meat, for that matter), your chances of dying increased to 20% higher than those who weren't eating that stuff.

That may be bad news for all of you meat-lovers but it isn't such bad news for me.  Apparently I've had the right idea all along.  You see, my philosophy has been to skip the meat whenever possible and just stick with desserts, although I DO have a weakness for extra-crispy bacon.

Guess I'll go bake some cookies and eat a dozen or two to help increase my projected lifespan....at least until the next report is published.  Prost!

So THAT'S My Excuse!

There I was yesterday, happily reading the paper when I stumbled across an article that has particular significance to me.  It seems that a recent medical study was done on women who had been treated with chemotherapy for breast cancer using the typical 3-drug regimen.  These women had undergone chemotherapy on average about 21 years ago.  Now this is where it gets really interesting.  They were tested against a control group of women who had never had chemotherapy.  The results?  The women who had received chemotherapy scored SIGNIFICANTLY worse in cognitive tests, memory functions, and other tests related to the brain's functioning.

Apparently this is the first study to suggest that "chemo brain" might actually persist permanently after treatment.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term "chemo brain", let me give you an example.  When I was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, my aunt from Wisconsin came out to Pennsylvania to stay with us for a week's visit.  Months later, after I'd finished my treatments and was doing some scrapbooking, I was astonished to come across pictures of this aunt and me at our house.  I had NO recollection of her coming out for a visit.  Chemotherapy can make you feel like you are in a mental fog or it can leave you with whole gaps in your memory.  It's a weird sensation but one that I certainly never thought would be branding you long after treatments were completed.  Previous medical thinking was that this "chemo brain" phenomenon might last as long as five years but not longer.  This new study shakes up this thinking AND has  relevance to a lot of people. More and more women are surviving and thriving long past the five-year point after chemotherapy, thank the dear Lord!

"Well, that explains a lot," I told the Commander.  "Now we know why I've had problems over the past years with memorizing things and why my reasoning skills have become so convoluted."

"That might explain things for you," he replied, "But what about me?  Why do I have problems remembering things?"

"Oh, that's easy," I said.  "You're old.  I just have chemo brain."

I laughed (well, actually I cackled but let's not get nasty about it, eh?).

Later, I was telling all this to my daughter during our weekly phone call.

"Just think what a genius I could have been all these years if I hadn't had that chemo," I told her.  "Instead I've had to settle for just being brilliant."

"Jeez, Mom, you're not too conceited, are you," she laughed.

"Nope, just realistic," I replied.

 Of course, I might have been in a fog at the time brought on by prolapsed chemo brain, which shall now be my excuse of choice for every stupid thing I do in the future.  And that, my friends, only goes to show that there is a silver lining to everything if you use your cognitive skills to find it, reduced though they may be.

What a Relief!

Well, my dental surgery #1 is over and I survived.  Even though I'm looking like old Marley the Ghost in this post-operative picture (and no, that isn't a flokati rug on my lap; it's Fresca the Wonder Dog), I feel pretty darn good.

Yesterday came way too early when I got up at 6 a.m. to take the Valium pill that the oral surgeon had prescribed to calm me down prior to the surgery.  Oh, he had also given me one to take the evening before.  Wouldn't you know, it got stuck in my throat so its effects were VERY slow in taking over.  Since my throat opening is so tiny, I often have that happen where a pill will get stuck in my windpipe and usually I just eat a small cube of bread or a cracker and that helps wash it down the rest of the way.  This time, I couldn't eat anything since I was having the surgery early the next morning so I was as stuck with the situation as the pill.

Anyway, back to the saga.  The morning of the surgery, the pill went down fine.  Hooray!  However, I had so much fear adrenalin pumping that I didn't really feel calm at all when we headed over to the surgical center.  I was NOT happy.

When the nurse called my name and we started down the hall, she asked me, "How are you doing today?"

I must have given her quite the look as I replied, "I'm terrified,"  because she said "Oooh, well let's see what we can do to help you feel better."

Pretty soon the doctor popped in along with the anesthesiologist, who looked like he had just graduated from high school.  The anesthesiologist quickly assessed the situation and, realizing that my fear of the IV insertion was the main problem, decided to put me under with the mask. Then he'd put in that IV without me having to even know what was happening.  I don't know what they gave me but he told me it would smell like markers and just to breathe in and out.  I remember asking him if I should breathe through my mouth or my nose and he said it didn't matter.  I took 2 or 3 breaths, he told me I was doing great, and then the nurse was asking me if I could stand up to transfer over to the little bed in the recovery area.  Now THAT'S how to have a tooth pulled.

I was in at 8 a.m. and out and home by 10:15.  Once home, I dutifully iced the area 30 minutes on and 30 minutes off until I went to bed.  This kept the swelling down so that I looked fairly normal by late afternoon (well, as normal as one can look without makeup and having ice-pack hair).  The Commander was a perfect nurse, taking the ice pack, bringing me a refreshed one, bringing me soda pop, and keeping track of my medicine schedule.

Speaking of meds, I've been following the schedule religiously.  I alternate Vicodin with Advil.  I restarted my antibiotic after getting some perogies down last night.  Today I'm trying to reintroduce my regular medications, being ever mindful that I don't want to get an upset stomach.

I can see that I DID have an IV but there is no pain at the site and almost no bruising.  Fantastic.  I also haven't seen any bruising on my face yet either.  Oh yes, after I was semi-coherent in the recovery room and getting my instructions from the nurse, I discovered that they didn't have to do the sinus lift.  That was good news because it meant there would be less swelling and/or bruising, amongst other things.

I've been keeping myself entertained with my iPhone, the iPad, and my Kindle and also watching lots of cable TV.  I watched several movies yesterday including one about the origins of the X-Men (I enjoyed it) and The Black Swan (I did NOT enjoy that movie).  I also started watching the episodes of Detroit 1-3-7.  It's been cancelled after one season but I'm really enjoying it.  My brother lives right outside of Detroit and I can recognize some of the landmarks.  Plus it stars one of my favorite actors, Michael Imperioli.

All in all, I had a lot of people praying for me and I think that really made a difference.  God is good!  I'm certainly not as anxious now about the second surgery but that won't be for another three months.  If any of you are facing oral surgery for implants and are like me (a big chicken), I can now tell you that it wasn't bad, especially being put to sleep before the IV.  Whew!  Now if you'll excuse me, this chicken is going to go roost in a recliner.

The Cheap Girl's Version of Album Embossing

I've really been trying to distract myself from this upcoming dental surgery so I decided to go through all my scrapbook albums and reorganize them.  I had, at one time, tried to put them into some semblance of chronological order but had found it challenging to keep album sizes fairly standard.  Some ended up quite thick while others were sparse.  Then there was the problem of the children's pictures.  Did I include them in the general yearly pics or try to put them in separate albums dedicated just to the children?

I finally decided to pull out all of my Thanksgiving and Christmas pictures and put those in separate scrapbooks.  I also did separate albums for each child but kept general pictures with the kids in them in the yearly albums unless it was a significant event, such as a high school graduation.  Those pics went in their own albums.  Finally I created specialty albums such as wedding albums and heritage albums.

Well, now that I had those all reorganized, I decided to just start filling up the yearly albums and when one got to a good bulk, I'd switch to the next album, whether it meant combining years or not.  I figured I'd identify these by embossing the spines, giving the date range.  I was going to use Creative Memories' embossing service.  In fact, I still had the box I had originally purchased years ago to send the album spines and/or covers off.  Now I was finally going to do it.  I pulled off all the spine covers and decided what I wanted to label them and then went online to see what the charge was going to be.  Horror of horrors!  I hadn't realized that they were only going to imprint the older-sized albums until the end of January 2012.  All of my albums that needed imprinted were in this category and we were now into March.  My window of opportunity was closed.

Well, I could have stopped right there and decided I would just forget embossing them.  Or I could have decided to find a place in the area or on the Web that could do it for me, instead of Creative Memories. But in a moment of inspiration (some might call it insanity), I decided to label the albums myself.  I grabbed some old pamphlets that I had about lettering, gathered some of my calligraphy pens, found a measuring tool and improvised for things to hold the spine covers flat.

I decided that I wanted all of my "labeling" to be at about the same height on the spine so that it would look nice and uniform when my albums were on the shelves.  Another challenge was that I have different colored albums.  One color of pen might not look so great or show up well on another color of album.  I settled on a metallic silver pen for my main labeling.

I kept it pretty simple.  I guess I could have stenciled the labels but frankly, I think the hand-done look adds to the charm and reflects the personality of the album maker.  As I finished each spine, I stacked them on nearby surfaces and let them dry overnight.

After I'd do the initial labeling in the silver, I'd outline the letters in a fine-point permanent marker.  Then I added a few little embellishments to finish the look.

For my holiday albums, I got a little more creative and drew a Christmas tree on the Christmas album and a pumpkin on the Thanksgiving album.

The end result?  Well, I think they'll do just fine and even if they aren't as polished-looking as if they were done professionally, I can console myself with the fact that I saved myself about $14 an album......and that's a lot of consoling.

Now, I still have fifteen hours until my dental surgery.  What can I get into next?

WHY Did I Read That Pamphlet?

I think there should be a rule that people who suffer from General Anxiety Disorder should NEVER be allowed to read those post-operative handouts that doctors give you.  Just when I thought I was managing to calm myself down about my upcoming dental surgery, I made the mistake of deciding to read the Post-Operative Instructions that my surgeon gave me.  Big mistake!  Now I'm beyond scared.  I'm frantic!  Here are some of the things I discovered:

1.  I can expect SIGNIFICANT swelling.  Notice I didn't say "may".  Oh no!  The handout lays it right out there on the line and says "you WILL...."  Gulp!  Is this going to be like "tie a string around my neck and call my head a balloon" swelling?  Or "if Quasimodo's hump was his head, that's what my face will look like" swelling?  Add in the expected bruising and I think we could be talking a mixture of "Swamp Creature" and "Bride of Frankenstein."

2.  Because I'm also getting a bone graft, I will most likely be spitting out bits of bone for several days AND now, apparently, I might feel bone fragments through my nose.  News flash!  As big as my sinuses are and as small as my nose openings are, there isn't much room to play around in there.  What the heck, guys?

3.  Don't blow your nose!  Excuse me?  I have chronic sinusitis.  If I don't blow my nose, I don't breathe.  I'd consider breathing through my mouth but apparently I'm going to have bone fragments swimming around in there PLUS I'm supposed to be biting down on hunks of gauze for 30 minutes at a time.  Let's see.....bone fragments, hunks of gauze.....Why don't we invite the whole freakin' neighborhood, shall we?  I have a TINY mouth.  There's no room for all this stuff.

4.  Take a decongestant to dry up your sinuses so you don't have to blow your nose.  Okey dokey!  There's only one problem with that.  They make my nose run.  Guess I'll just lean over and let my nose drip onto a spare gauze pad or two.  Oh wait.....I'm supposed to remain vertical if at all possible.

5.  Avoid hot food or drink for 3-4 days after surgery.   I didn't think this would be a hardship.  After all, there's always Dairy Queen.  But wait.....I'd forgotten that dairy food is a no-no after you've had general anesthesia.  Until it is out of your system, dairy products can make you violently nauseous.  Oh joy!  Jello, anyone?


On top of all this, well-meaning friends, when they discover that I'm going to have a sinus lift in addition to the dental extraction/bone graft, have been telling me how dangerous sinus surgery can be.  Apparently if the doctor slips and nicks you in the wrong spot, fluid can leak into your brain cavity (or something like that) and you can die.  Um, that's so NOT what I need to hear right now, guys!

6.  No drinking liquids through straws.  OK, how about just chugging straight from the bottle?

6.  Be sure to take the prescribed pain medications BEFORE you start experiencing bad pain.  What was it that The Monkees used to sing?  "I'm a Believer?"  You don't have to tell me this twice.  I just want to know who is going to change those gauze pads for me.  After all, I couldn't even do it for my own son when he had his wisdom teeth out.  How in blazes am I going to be able to do it for myself?

To think that the dental surgeon told me that it wasn't going to be a bad surgery.  If I'd read the pamphlet before I'd heard that, I swear I would have leaned over and gotten right up in his face and said, "What planet are you from if you think THIS isn't bad?  Are you a masochist?"

To paraphrase our old preacher from back home, "It's Friday, but Wednesday's comin'."  Lord, help me!