Day 752

As much time and money hubby and I spend with doctor's appointments and tests and xrays and MRIs and prescription medications you'd think we'd give the cat the same treatment. But we have to fess up. We don't take the cat to the vet. We did when she was little but haven't had her back in years and years.

We know it's bad. We love her and feed her and brush her and play with her but we just haven't found our way to the vet's office. That changes next week when we finally get her there.

It's the getting there that has always been worrisome. Being that she never travels in the car I'm a bit concerned. Daughter and I bought a cat carrier this past week to give her a comfy place to hang out. Soft-sided, a long strap for me to carry it over my shoulder, a nice soft bed for kitty to rest on.

Trying to introduce her to the idea isn't going as well as I thought it would. Not that I haven't tried to get her interested! You can see the progress I've made.

Cat.

 Empty cat carrier.

At least I have until Monday to get it figured out. Might be time to pull out the treats.

Day 751

Last night my daughter asked me if I ever get tired of taking a picture every day.

Yep. A lot. Almost every day. So many days I just don't have anything exciting going on. Nothing exciting to see, nothing exciting to do. Just the same thing, just a different year. But then there are days where I get to do something a bit different than my normal schedule and get to see things in a different way.

Take Idaho's State Capitol building. Back on Day 170 , after over 30 years of living in Idaho, I first stepped into the building. Got a picture, even.

Then today I had another meeting right next to the Capitol. Seemed like a good day to take some additional pictures of the outside. How can I not feel important being able to see this before and after meetings?

Day 750

Still hanging out in Boise, keeping quiet. And organizing all that fabric from last week. Thanks to my mom and daughter and their help some is ready to head to eBay, some to Marsing, and some will stay put right here.

Day 749

Being that the rheumatologist's office is a lot closer to our place in Boise than our place in Marsing I'm hanging out in Boise for a couple days. Just in case. According to the nurse I could have a potentially life-threatening allergic reaction up to 48 hours after the infusion. Better safe than sorry!

It did give me a chance to get late afternoon pictures of the thunderstorm rolling through.

That's black sky behind the tree, not blue sky.

Day 748

I never blog at the exact moment something is happening but today is different.

First of all, I thought I'd be able to talk about my first training session - as an editor - on my uphill climb to being a narrator for the books for the blind. But the gal training me had to cancel so here I am writing about the next scheduled appointment of the day.

I sit in this room.

I sit here in this row of chairs.

Hooked up to this machine. Feet up, blanket covering me, blood pressure cuff on one arm, IV in the other.

Other than the nurse sitting at her computer and the folks, mostly staff members, walking by the room and glancing at with me with a look of pity and forced smiles on their faces, I'm alone. Yet it's not quiet. The noise of the machine pumping the multiple vials of medicine that was injected in the IV compete with the conversations of doctors and nurses and patients in the hallway.

I crossed one of those last lines I drew in the sand. I'm running out of options. I've crossed the steroid line, the chemotherapy line, the pre-filled syringe line, the measuring the medicine and then injecting myself line, the anti-malaria drug line.

Today I crossed the infusion line. I sit here with thousands of dollars entering my veins in the hope of gaining some relief in the rheumatoid arthritis battle. It's a battle I've been losing. But maybe, just maybe...

Day 747

It seemed exciting, it seemed a fun way to keep myself busy. Patterns, patterns, patterns. Except when I hit that imaginary wall today, that one caused by the chemotherapy drugs, it didn't seem so fun and exciting. Seemed like nothing but work. Time to refocus my mind, to concentrate on trying to find some energy. And time to organize patterns.

It will get better! (If I tell myself that enough it eventually will.) Just not today.

Day 746

I started out buying some cheap patterns to get an idea of styles. It's now turned into a little obsession.

Okay, big obsession.

Day 745

My question was going to be moth or butterfly?

I think the more fitting question should be are my blinds dusty or dust-free?

Day 744

My daughter gets on me a lot about her car. She has my old car but it seems every time I see it I keep referring to it as my car. So it was no surprise when I dropped her off that she made a remark about her car. I thought it was her attempt to remind of whose name is on the title.

Nope. It was an attempt to show me that someone else was trying to possess her car.

Day 743

Me + estate sale leftovers from a lady who sewed = the floor of my bedroom in Boise.

 

What was I thinking?

Day 742

I could have kicked myself this morning for not taking a picture. There I was, driving down a busy Boise street on my way to a meeting and came to a dead stop for a couple crossing the road.

A couple of ducks, that it. A male and female, crossing five lanes of traffic at 8:30 in the morning. I should have grabbed my camera then. But the conscientious driver in me decided against it.

No worries, though. As soon as I got back to our house in Boise, guess who was walking down the middle of the street?

Day 741

This afternoon was too important not to get it right. This afternoon, next week, and the week after that and the week after that and the one after that and the one after that. Just too important. I want it too bad. That recording booth is calling my name and I'm going to have to work darn hard to get there.

When I was in elementary school I used to get to help at the school next door. This was when students with special needs were placed in a separate school. Me, the good ole' smart girl, the one who finished my work early - with few mistakes - and always needed more got to go next door to the school and work with deaf students and blind students. I learned sign language; I learned braille.

It was that experience that made me want to teach the deaf when I grew up.

I headed to college, took my undergraduate classes, took sign language classes, all the time knowing I would be a teacher of the deaf. I took a job teaching second grade, knowing someday I would be teaching the deaf. After several years I moved onto teaching fourth grade, knowing someday I would be teaching the deaf. I moved to a position outside the classroom, thinking someday I might teach the deaf.

And now here I am, forty years later since that first thought of what I wanted to be when I grew up and twenty years since I started teaching. I've just recently come to the realization that I won't be teaching the deaf.

But I found a way to bring things full circle and make sure I don't give up on my dream completely.

The Idaho Commission for the Libraries was looking for volunteers for their talking book program. This is a program where written materials are recorded and then distributed to the blind, kind of like a book on tape program.

So today I had my first interview. Being I'm totally inexperienced in a recording booth I'm going to be working my way up the ranks. I will start by editing the recorded materials for a few weeks (or months). Then I get to move up and work with the narrator, editing their spoken word as they go. And then, and only then - and after a voice "audition" - will I be in that booth. Alone in front of the microphone.

Narrating books for the blind.

It might not be teaching the deaf, but I can sure live with it. As close to a dream come true as I will probably ever get. Makes me want to work even harder to get to that booth!

Today's unrelated pic is another quilt top I'm working on for charity. (Obviously for a girl.)

Day 740

Gigante. Spanish for gigantic. Synonyms include giant, huge, enormous, colossal, gargantuan, titanic.

Or we could use my synonyms. Holy moley. Geez whiz. Oh my gosh.

Or as hubby discovered tonight, fork-bender.

The Gigante Burrito on Alejandra's menu. Just compare the size of that burrito to the regular-sized fork in the background. Such a big burrito stuffed full of ground beef, lettuce, tomatoes, beans and rice that the fork bent when hubby was tackling it.

Our second menu item was a freebie from the lunch menu, a cheese enchilada. How do you get a freebie from the lunch menu? It just so happens that Alejandra's has punch cards. Eat nine meals and you get a free item off the lunch menu. Yeah, we never have to pay for lunch menu items.

Day 739

Making a bit more progress on a charity quilt.

Day 738

Wanted: Cat who thinks she deserves to breathe the fresh air on the first day I opened a window.

CAUGHT!

Day 737

I feel a bit guilty that we haven't even started thinking about the garden. Haven't thought about pruning, haven't thought about planting. Haven't thought about the grass or the patio. Haven't even thought about starting to get things out of the shed.

It's a good thing, though. Otherwise the windstorm we had might have carried something high up into one of our trees. Kind of like the big blue tarp way up in the neighbor's tree.

Day 736

I'm typically a keep-it-neat person at work. My desk is organized, my files are color coded. But when I have a gazillion projects going on all at once, my desk reflects that.

Make that a gazillion plus one.

Day 735

I don't know why all the criss-crossing branches in our backyard tree struck my fancy today, but they did.

Day 734

Just when I thought all burritos looked alike and tasted alike, Alejandra's proved me wrong.

Their veggie burrito

Their beef fajita burrito

The combination of the two were as close to burrito heaven as I'll ever get.

Day 733

Why, oh, why do I shop on ebay? Because I can get great kids fabrics for a very cheap price. Just look at the batch that came in the mail today. Cost me less than a dollar a yard. Can't beat that!