Sunday, January 30, 2005

Sunday Morning, Coming Down...

I'm working myself up to making a meaningful entry...I've been doing fluff for so long, I don't know if I can remember how to do anything else...but I'm working up to it.
It's unfortunate that the first time I've been clear-headed since Thursday has to be at 3:21 a.m. on a Sunday morning.  Well, I'm not really clear-headed, since I'm actually still kind of stopped up, but at least my nose isn't running and I'm not in a medicated fog (that Tylenol Nighttime Flu medicine packs quite a punch!).
I was still the walking dead Friday night...fell asleep on the couch...I had to wake up, give my daughter her medicine, tuck her in bed, fell back asleep, woke up Saturday morning with my daughter complaining she was sick...me thinking, "I know that, you've been sick for months"...and then she threw up in the bathroom..."Oh, that kind of sick."
So all day my poor baby ran a fever and had nausea...and then, about six p.m., it's like a switch turned off and she started feeling better. I don't know what it was, but thank goodness it's over.  
We went to my aunt's birthday party today at my grandma's house...which my daughter missed all of as she went upstairs to 'her' room as soon as we got there and slept the whole time.  It was a great party, for once...no family arguments, no one got mad at anyone else and left...no one made anyone else cry.  It was great!  Probably I enjoyed it so much because I wasn't actually there, I spent most of the time upstairs watching my daughter sleep, because the minute I tried to leave 'her' room she would wake up and say, "Mommy? Where are you?"  LOL It's like she knew I was trying to go and get some birthday cake!
My dad bought me a new scanner for Christmas, and I finally opened the box tonight...I think I might hook it up tomorrow. It's actually a scanner/printer/copier, so, last weekend, I set up my daughter's computer in her room, and hooked up my old printer in there.  I think I've mentioned before, she is ARTSY, you should see what she's creating in paint and printing out!  I tried to tell her, print cartridges are expensive...(sigh)...I guess I know who's going to buy the new cartridges...I'll tell my boyfriend to get right on that! LOL!
Friday night, I was sooo sick and miserable, and D came in and brought us supper, and he had bought me a bouquet of flowers...red roses and yellow and pink and purple flowers (I don't know what the other ones were)...but they were oh so pretty and so unexpected!
I couldn't even smell their pretty fragrance, because, you know, I couldn't breathe, but it was so sweet...
I'm going to try and go to sleep, now...
Good night.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Remembering...



Apollo 1
Challenger
Columbia


Aches, pains...

...stuffy head, runny nose, headache, did I mention runny nose?
I'm miserable.  I'd cry but it would only make my nose run more.  I guess it's a sinus infection, as I've had this pressing pain behind my eye and buzzing in my ears for about a week...I knew this was coming.
:(
I have to go feel sorry for myself some more...

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

The story...

Picture from Hometown
Yesterday was ENT day! My daughter wasn’t miraculously healed that day, unfortunately, but the doctor we saw was still wonderful and I left there feeling better about things. She put my daughter on a different medicine and we have to go back in two weeks. It sounds a lot like what we have been doing the last couple months! But this time, it’s not the same old doctor going, "I think this and I think that"…at least this doctor KNOWS what’s going on and what to do next. THANK GOODNESS!
I’ve seriously slacked in my journal lately, and so, I thought I’d write this:
This is what I do:
  1. I’m a single mom, to a beautiful 12-year old daughter. I don’t usually talk much, unless someone asks about her, and then it’s like a fountain (you know, PLEASE shut me up!)…so that everyone who knows me knows everything about her…
  2. I work full-time…Monday – Friday, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (or 9:15 to 5:45, really just when I happen to manage to make it in)…in the international brokerage accounting department of a really big package delivery service.
  3. I’m a perpetual student…I’m taking one class this semester, ‘Radical Fiction’, with a bunch of really young, good-looking kids…I don’t know when I started getting older than my classmates...It’s a little depressing…
  4. I’m an Awana leader Sunday nights…I love it…
  5. Okay, now I’m bored, I was going to go on about the nights I work out at the Y, and being D’s girlfriend, and a ‘Cats fan, and a reader…I also apparently have a short attention span because I just can’t stick with this list anymore!
So, what to do, when you’re inspired to write an entry, and then get bored with it? It reminds me of when I saw Metallica in concert a few years ago…they started singing "Shortest Straw" and were at least a third of the way through the song when James Hetfield just stopped and said…"I’m bored."
Did I have a point? I think we’re back to that attention span thing again…
And so now, because I really miss writing here but I can’t get my mind to focus on a proper entry, here is the list of paperbacks I have in the little bookcase by my bed (how many bookshelves and bookcases do I have? I can’t count them all…this little one is the smallest and cutest…):
Okay, there a few videotapes in the shelf, too, because they are conveniently almost the same size as paperbacks, yay! We’ve got:
  1. 11 recorded videotapes worth of ‘Angel’, season 5…(I’ve got to hang on to them until it comes out on DVD J …)
  2. UK v. U of L December 2004 (college basketball for those not in the know…I record most games, and keep them forever and ever if they turn out as wonderful as this one did…)
  3. Movies: For Love of the Game, Reality Bites, Dazed and Confused…
Books:
(Not all, but certainly a lot of my favorite books are on this bookshelf, which is why it’s close to my bed…)
  • Ender’s Game
  • by Orson Scott Card (The BEST BOOK EVER always goes to the top of the list…)
  • Ender’s Shadow
  • by Orson Scott Card
  • Shadow of the Hegemon
  • by Orson Scott Card
  • Shadow Puppets
  • by Orson Scott Card
  • Speaker for the Dead
  • by Orson Scott Card
  • Xenocide
  • by Orson Scott Card
  • Children of the Mind
  • by Orson Scott Card
  • Seventh Son
  • , Red Prophet, Prentice Alvin, Alvin Journeyman, Heartfire, and Crystal City by Orson Scott Card
  • The Memory of Earth
  • , The Call of Earth, The Ships of Earth, Earthfall, and Earthborn, by Orson Scott Card
  • The Abyss
  • by Orson Scott Card
  • The Worthing Saga
  • by Orson Scott Card
  • Pastwatch: The Redemption of Chistopher Columbus
  • by Orson Scott Card (OKAY, the advertisement for OSC is over now, back to regularly scheduled programming…)
  • God Game
  • by Andrew M. Greeley
  • For the Roses
  • by Julie Garwood (I'm pretty sure this is the best historical romance novel I've ever read. And trust me, I've read...um...most of them!)
  • Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
  • by Rebecca Wells
  • Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married
  • by Marian Keyes
  • Watermelon
  • , Rachel’s Holiday, and Angels by Marian Keyes
  • The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
  • , Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Horse and His Boy, The Magician’s Nephew, and The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis
  • Good Omens
  • by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
  • Neverwhere
  • by Neil Gaiman
  • Stardust
  • by Neil Gaiman (Okay, another commercial, this one for Neil Gaiman…all of his other books, as well as the Sandman graphic novels, are in hardback on another bookshelf…)
  • The Prophet
  • by Kahlil Gibran
  • Persuasion
  • by Jane Austen
  • The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook
  • by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht
  • Ultimate Pocket World Factfile
  • The Declaration of Independence
  • The Constitution of the United States of America
  • The Hobbit
  • , The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien
  • Webster’s New World Dictionary
  • Cassell’s New Compact German Dictionary
  • Harper Collins Spanish Dictionary
  • The Natural Remedy Bible
  • by John Lust, N.D. and Michael Tierra, C.A., O.M.D.
  • Laura: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder
  • by Donald Zochert (Laura’s actual books are on a different bookshelf…but this is a great biography of her life from an outsider’s view. I’m going to write sometime of my visit in June 2000 to De Smet, SD, and Walnut Grove, MN, where she grew up…it was a dream come true for me!)
  • Leap of Faith: An Astronaut’s Journey Into the Unknown
  • by Gordon Cooper
  • Apollo 13
  • by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger
  • Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8
  • by Robert Zimmerman
  • The Steel Albatross
  • by Scott Carpenter
  • Jupiter
  • by Ben Bova
  • Moonwar
  • by Ben Bova
  • All Quiet on the Western Front
  • by Erich Maria Remarque
  • Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
  • Earthlight
  • by Arthur C. Clarke
  • Dolphin Island
  • by Arthur C. Clarke
  • Our Town
  • by Thornton Wilder
  • The Outsiders
  • by S.E. Hinton
    Okay!  Now that I've had my fun, I have to go put some eardrops in my daughter's ear now.  Story of my life...
    Good night.

    Sunday, January 23, 2005

    The time has come...


    And I never thought I would say it, but…I need to get a second phone line. My daughter has morphed into a teenager-type person, seemingly overnight. She and her little giggly friends are on the phone with each other for HOURS and HOURS, talking about who-knows-what…
    I can’t even get online until after she goes to bed, and my journaling has been severely affected by this!
    I’m just so happy that she finally has a group of friends to talk to, that’s why I’m willing to just let her talk, it’s wonderful to see her so happy!
    Oh, and the time has also come…
    For the ENT appointment! Yay! Tomorrow, we FINALLY go to the new ENT and will find out (hopefully?!) exactly what is going on with her ear and what to do next… (The latest update: Last week, the doctor took her off the eardrops, thinking that maybe there was some kind of fungal thing causing it to not heal, as she had regressed and her ear was just as swollen and draining as it was a month ago…so he put her on an oral steroid and an oral anti-fungal medicine, she also is taking Tylenol with codeine at night for the pain.)
    (sigh)
    I had a little meltdown the other night, as I was tucking her into bed and thinking that her ear was never ever going to get better…I know that is not true, but in the middle of the night when you’re alone and stressed, your mind does bad things to you sometimes…my family was asleep and I desperately needed someone to talk to…and I remembered that I had the most wonderful friends online who are always there for me…Thank You to all my dear friends who think about and pray for us and send healing thoughts our way, and thank you especially, Julie, Angel, and Anna, you really, really helped me this week when I needed it, I love you all.

    Monday, January 17, 2005

    January 17...


    "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere…" – Martin Luther King, Jr.
    When I was younger, I was convinced that he was one of the best men who ever lived...right up there with Jesus, and my grandpa. :)
    Now that I'm older, I don't just believe it, I KNOW it.
    Sometimes I try to figure out what things would be like today if he had never been...or if any other person has ever had such an impact on the course of a nation...but mostly, I'm just grateful...humbled...and always inspired.

    Saturday, January 15, 2005

    Just taking up space...

    I cleaned my desk off...(HUGE MOMENTOUS EVENT)...it looks really pretty...it's been a long time since I've seen the surface of it, you know? 
    I actually did a sort-of overhaul to try to make room for more books in here...It didn't really work.  I have limited space (a VERY small house) so I'm constantly trying to weed out my books to make room for new ones.  The problem is, I usually don't buy a book unless it's something I plan on keeping, so, invariably, more comes in than goes out.
    The class I'm taking this semester (Radical Fiction) is taught by the same guy I had last year...and the first two books he's having us read are the same ones he made us read last time: Jack London's The Iron Heel (great book, I kept this one) and Emma Goldman's Anarchism and Other Essays.  I'm not an Emma Goldman fan, so she was in the Salvation Army bag ready to go when I first went to the class this week...thank goodness they hadn't picked up yet, I saved $$$...the moral is you should keep ALL books and just rent a warehouse to keep the excess.  Wouldn't that be awesome?
    Update on daughter's ear:  Went to the doctor this week and he took the wick out with a skinny tweezer type thing...my daughter was very VERY nervous and scared, and this nurse didn't help: "Why are you here today?", and then, "Oh my goodness, that is terrible, I've never heard of this happening!"  What kind of nurse says something alarming like this in front of a child?
    Doctor said to keep giving her the antibiotic eardrops until they're gone, as ear is still not better...her ear has gotten more and more swollen every day this week...I'm going to stop now because it's depressing me even more to write about this...I've latched on to January 24th as THE DAY that all of our problems will be solved!
    Here's my results to this quiz, I thought it was pretty funny and accurate:
    Picture from Hometown
    What box do you get put in? brought to you by Quizilla

    Monday, January 10, 2005

    A week?


    My phone line has been messed up for a couple of weeks now.
    And it wouldn’t matter at all, at all, to those of us who hate talking on the phone…
    Except that I still connect to AOL by modem…and it takes me at least five tries to get connected…and I haven’t been able to stay online long enough to get through my emails without getting kicked off…and I’ve pretty much given up visiting any journals until my phone line is fixed, because by the time I’ve pulled up a page, the line has kicked me off again.
    I’m writing this offline and then I’m going to try to post it QUICK, just in and out!, so we’ll see if it works…
    The phone company, whom we called way back before the new year (!) started, is supposed to come out tomorrow and fix it.
    Today was first day of classes at U of L…and by some miracle, I managed to get my stuff together and make the right phone calls and get the right info and actually get registered, as opposed to last semester!
    So, I took the day off from work to get all this stuff done. The last thing to do was my daughter’s doctor appointment at 4:00 p.m. The plan was to leave the doctor, go on down to U of L, and my mom would meet me down there so she could get my daughter, since my class started at 5:30 p.m. and I wouldn’t have time to take C anywhere else.
    Except that my mom got caught in traffic and couldn’t meet me after all. I had to take my 12-year old with me on my first day of school.
    LOL! You had to be there…I sat her down in the study area right outside my class, with a Happy Meal for supper, her GameBoy for entertainment, and my cell phone in case she got nervous.
    On the walk back to the car after class was over, she had lots of questions about college and what kind of classes you could take. I told her that she could take whatever she wanted within the requirements of the major that she chose…she immediately said, "Well, MY major is going to be ART."
    ::groan::
    Even though I cringed, I didn’t say a word about Art degrees and the possibilities for gainful employment…after all, who am I to talk, with the degree I already have in Philosophy (and no philosophical jobs to be found!)? J
    All in all, though I was a little apprehensive about taking her with me, it turned out to be a fine evening!
    P.s. Ear update: the ear wick worked great for a few days but then didn’t fall out, instead it slipped down inside her ear and now is blocking the medicine from going on. She’s back to itching and pain and yet another doctor appointment tomorrow. That ENT appointment on the 24th can’t come fast enough!
    P.p.s My dad called me this evening…he has a house up in Southern Indiana on the White River where all the terrible flooding was…I felt really bad after I talked to him because I WONDERED why he hadn’t called me…turns out he had gone up there to check on the house then got trapped by the rising water all around the area and was stuck through the weekend until some people on a boat came and picked him up and took him to dry land. It’s a house on stilts (well, not really on stilts, but you know what I mean, built up real high) because it’s on the river, and the water STILL came up three feet into the first floor of the house. I’m so thankful he made it home okay!
    Dad took this picture from the roof area of the house:
    Picture from Hometown

    Sunday, January 2, 2005

    New year, same story...

    Well, I had a whole entry written and then AOL kicked me off, so now I'm rewriting this and not in nearly as good a mood as I was in...I knew I should have written it offline and copied and pasted...

    Here's the update on my daughter's ear...by Thursday night it was completely swollen again, so the eardrops wouldn't go in at all...I took her to the doctor Friday morning and he was very concerned, to say the least.  This is the first time we've seen her regular doctor in a while, because every time we went back the last few times we had to see the on-call doctors and he wasn't there...

    Anyway, it was great to see him, it just made me feel better knowing how concerned he was about her.  He put a 'wick' in her ear...it looks exactly like what it sounds like, a candle wick...so that the eardrops can actually make it inside her ear by traveling through the wick...it's supposed to fall out within the week.  He also prescribed her new, different antibiotic eardrops.

    (I've lost count of the total doctor visits and different prescriptions this has come to so far.  My insurance is good, but I still have to pay co-payments: $15 for each office visit, and $25 for each RX.  $$$!  But I would pay anything if she would only get better...)

    He also wants her to see her ENT when this clears up, because this has dragged on so long, something definitely isn't right.  I was so happy to say, yay, I finally did something right, because I already scheduled the appointment with the ENT for January 24th.  SURELY this will be cleared up by then?!

    I'm feeling very hopeful now, for the first time in a while, because her ear is much less swollen now than it was on Friday.  Also, the draining has stopped, thank goodness!  (Some draining is good...except her ear was draining going on three weeks without stopping...causing an oozing sore on the outside of her ear where it was draining...).  She's still having some itching but on the whole things are looking better...cautiously optimistic here...this newfangled wick thing seems to be working...

    I'm going to close this with a quiz I found in Angel's journal...I love these wonderful quizzes, because 1) they can help you think about where you are and what you're doing with your life, and 2) well, no explanation needed, the best kind... :) :

    THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:

    1. Michelle
    2. Mommy
    3. Hey! (That's my boyfriend's specialty LOL!)
    THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:
    I can't answer this one, I've only had one screen name the whole time I've been on AOL...
    THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
    1. I like that I learned how to play piano.
    2. I like that books are my friends.
    3. I like that sometimes I'm a little funny.
    THREE THINGS YOU HATE ABOUT YOURSELF:
    1. I hate that sometimes I let things slip away...there it goes...bye...
    2. I hate that sometimes I have trouble getting started...getting moving...getting motivated...
    3. I hate that I forget things...all the time...what? when?
    THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:
    1. Scottish
    2. Irish
    3. Cherokee
    (in other words: that of anyone with ancestors from the Appalachian mountains)
    THREE THINGS YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND:
    1. The stock market
    2. Mechanics
    3. Did I mention the stock market?
    THREE THINGS THAT ANNOY YOU:
    1. Having to talk on the telephone when I'm at home.
    2. People that come over, unannounced.3. People that say they're leaving and then stand at the door for another hour.
    THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
    1. Tornados
    2. World War II / The Holocaust
    3. Windows at night that don't have curtains


    THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
    1. Diet Pepsi
    2. Chocolate
    3. A hug from my daughter


    THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
    1. Gray sweat pants
    2. Blue t-shirt
    3. Hair clip
    THREE THINGS ON YOUR DESK:

    1. Trivial Pursuit electronic game
    2. My daughter's mood ring (she discovered tonight that it turned her finger green so she left it on MY desk. Then she debated wearing it on her thumb so she could have a 'GREEN thumb.' LOL! She cracks me up...)
    3. Gus Grissom Memorial Brochure (in Spring Mill State Park, Mitchell, Indiana)
    THREE THINGS YOU SAY THE MOST:
    1. Wow...
    2. Cool...
    3. Hmmm... (insert proper vagueness in there, so the person talking is never sure if I'm listening or if I'm in Michelle-fantasy-land...with my daughter, she never doubts that I'm listening, she's a narcissistic twelve-year old! With my boyfriend, he's pretty sure I'm NOT listening, even if Iam, so he'll repeat everything twice...)
    THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS AT THE MOMENT:
    1. The Beatles
    2. U2
    3. Metallica
    (I know, I'm not exactly in the moment here...)
    THREE OF YOUR FAVORITES SONGS AT THE MOMENT:
    1. Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell
    2. Out of this World - Bush
    3. Ain't No Sunshine - Bill Withers
     

    THREE PEOPLE YOU SPEND THE MOST TIME WITH:
    1. My daughter  
    2. My boyfriend
    3. My mom

    THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOUR CLOSE FRIENDS:
    1. They know me. I can relax.
    2. I know them. They can relax.
    3. We make each other laugh.
    THREE THINGS YOU WOULD WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP:1. Love
    2. Trust
    3. Respect

    THREE THINGS ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU:
    1. Humor
    2. Honesty
    3. Intelligence

    THREE THINGS YOU CAN'T DO:
    1. Can't... figure out what I'm doing wrong here...2. Can't... seem to get this desk cleaned up once and for all...
    3. Can't... get up in the morning for work if I don't go to bed soon...

    THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:
    1. Reading
    2. Playing piano
    3. Hmmm...what do I put for this third one...whitewater rafting?...memorizing things?...learning new languages?...(or rather, attempting to learn new languages)...or the really embarrassing one, going to the Y and working out?

    THREE THINGS YOU WANT REALLY BAD RIGHT NOW:
    1. Solutions and an end to the suffering over there.
    2. My daughter's ear to be all better.
    3. Sleep.

    THREE CAREERS YOU'VE CONSIDERED:1. You name it...
    2. I considered it...
    3. That's why it took me nine years to graduate from college.
    THREE PLACES YOU WOULD GO ON VACATION:
    1. The Arctic Circle
    2. Scotland
    3. Peru
    THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
    1. Maybe possibly get married. Maybe.

    2. See my daughter grow up into a beautiful young woman.
    3. I would really, really like to see a human land on Mars.