It's A Mystery

So yesterday I mentioned that I can't get any emails on my desktop computer after August 2011. Very annoying and frustrating. However, I did discover that I can get all of my emails on my new laptop. So I was able to catch up with some yesterday morning at the shop. I'm not really understanding what's going on here, and I haven't had a chance to check and see if the other desktop computer has a similar problem or if it is just my own machine. I'm going to have to try and track this down, however, because I really need to access my emails on this computer too, not just my laptop.

All I want is to get my email cleanly and efficiently. I've had AOL as my
email carrier since 1996. Everything I have is linked to this, although I use
three different screen names. Changing to a different system is really NOT
appealing to me after all this time, and seems like far too much work. 

The laptop is settling in nicely, though. It's big - almost embarrassingly huge - but the screen is rather amazing and it seems to understand my inability to take full command of the Starship until I've settled through my learning curve. I suppose that's a positive thing.

I'm not quite ready for the Captain's chair on the bridge of my laptop,
but I'm trying my best to understand it and get it to do what I need done. 

On the personal side, my eye is still swollen but looking better. Today is the last day that I have to use the ointment three times, starting tomorrow I'll be able to just use it at bedtime for a week. I'll be so relieved when I don't have to use it at all and maybe can begin seeing without a curtain of goo in front of me. It's been a month of goo so far and I am a great fan of clarity. I'm hoping that soon this whole nightmare will be behind me.

A 17-pound turkey. What was he THINKING? 

I left DH clear instructions for his Thanksgiving shopping trip to the grocery. It was a list of pretty standard stuff - potatoes, corn, broccoli, and a 12 pound turkey. He wanted to get the bird on his own because he had it in his mind that he could get a better deal at Target than at our local grocer's. He was probably right. But he ended up with a 17 POUND TURKEY. For just the two of us. Oy! We'll be eating turkey leftovers until Christmas!

Happy Friday, everyone. Enjoy the end of your week :-)

Life's Little Vicissitudes

Smooth sailing is for other people.

I saw the eye doctor yesterday and good news - the swelling is down and the pain is minimal. Bad news - I need to have the cyst, for so it's been determined I have, drained which is eye surgery. It's an inpatient procedure done at the office, but it will involve needles for local anesthetic. I've had these before for eye surgery. The damned local anesthetic shots HURT A LOT. Once I get through that, the actual cut and drain should be a cakewalk. I can drive myself home if I sit in the waiting room for up to an hour until I am no longer tearing blood. Oh joy! That's scheduled for the 19th in the afternoon, so I have two weeks until DOOM strikes.

Doom will strike. Probably not this dramatically, though. I love this picture
of  Volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupting in south Iceland, May 2010

I've been working with the city to try and get a handle on the street parking in my area. We have a university across the street from us and students parking have been causing us all sorts of problems. The city finally put up some signage instructing "No Parking from 8:00 am until 6:00 pm" for most of the block, but they stopped right after my driveway. My DH wants the sign moved to our property line. He's been driving me crazy bitching and moaning about this stupid sign since they put them up on Friday night. If I have to listen to much more complaining, I might run into the street screaming, so I guess I'll have to phone the city today and see what I can do. One more thing on my agenda *sigh*.

I had wanted signs like this, but the city over-complicated things.
Now I have to call Duane and see if anything can be done.
A face-to-face meeting between him and DH might be for the best. 

I'm looking at my to-do list for the day and I can't even read my own writing. This isn't good. I know I have several errands that have to get done today. It would be helpful to be able to actually read them on the list. I'll be spending as much time as possible writing or working on my beadwork project. I should have 10,500 words in to my NaNo by the end of today, and I only have 7678 right now. So I have a bit more writing to do. I keep looking at what I'm writing and I'm so unsure about whether this is actually going to work or not, but I have a lot invested in the story, and if I have to delete a word, a sentence, a paragraph or entire pages in the editing process, so be it. It can't be edited if it hasn't already been written.

Most authors are familiar with the phrase "Kill your darlings". But is it
always a good idea? Check out this link for some different thoughts. 

Happy Wednesday to all of you. I hope you're happy with the results of your various elections from yesterday. I haven't checked the news yet, so I don't know who won in my area, but I'm sure DH will have something to complain about - LOL.

Back to the Eye Doctor and VOTE!

Today I have the followup appointment with my eye doctor to see what can be done about my inflamed eyelid. It's better since I first saw him three weeks ago, but it's still somewhat swollen and even though it doesn't hurt as much, it isn't cured. The doctor had me on a two-week course of antibiotics along with an antibacterial ointment to be applied twice daily. The ointment drives me crazy because everything is blurry, but I've been good and have been putting it into my eye regularly. Blurry or not, I need this infection conquered.

I'm really tired of the ointment and seeing blurry. *sigh*

So after I vote today, I'll head over to my eye doctor. My manager will come in on his day off to unlock the store and get the computers up and operational, and I'll be in as soon as I can to let him go and take over for him.

Get out there and VOTE!

Speaking of voting, if you are in the US, today is election day. I'm as tired of the vitriolic campaign commercials as any of you, but I won't miss this opportunity to cast my vote. Why? Because if you don't vote you truly are abrogating any right to attempt to change policy. Also, as a woman, I treasure the opportunity to cast my vote. Voting rights confer individual political rights, meaning that I am a person under the law, not just an extension of my father or my husband.

Women were beaten for demonstrating for the right to vote. Don't
ignore their sacrifices. 

The right to vote was fought for at the turn of the 1900's. That's not that long ago. Your great-grandmothers and great-great grandmothers fought with everything they had to obtain the right to vote. They were imprisoned, they were beaten, and some even died for this right. Don't ignore their sacrifices. Exercise your right to cast your ballot. Will you be voting with the same political pathway as I will? Maybe, or maybe not. But I will vote to zero out the votes of my darling husband, so all will be well with the world.

At least one woman died in prison while being force fed
while on a hunger strike for the right to vote. Voting is
an honor and a civic responsibility. 

Have a great Tuesday, and get out there and VOTE!

What Goes Around...

Today is my day off and I start off with a bang. I phoned my eye doctor yesterday requesting an appointment for my eye and they didn't have an opening until October 28th! After telling them that was remarkably unhelpful, I disconnected and continued on with my relatively busy day. Around 4:00 pm I got a phone call from the receptionist at my eye doctor's clinic saying they had an opening at their Bloomington branch today at 8:30 am with a doctor who did some eye surgery for me in the past. I grabbed it. So instead of a somewhat relaxing morning, I'll be fighting rush hour traffic to get across town. But it will be worth it.

I'm off to see the eye doctor. At this point I don't care what he might
have to do. I need the swelling to go down and my eye to feel good
once more. 

Thanks to all of you for your helpful suggestions. I've been hot packing my eye when possible and it has been helping, but I will still feel better when a professional has a chance for a look. I'm hoping some antibiotics will nail this to the wall and I'll just look back at this as one icky episode in a usually lovely life.

Two days in a row off! It's such a rare thing for me. I brought all of my
card makings home with me last night and I'm ready to continue
working on them. I can hardly wait! 

I'm off from work today - my usual day - but I'm also taking tomorrow off as a vacation day. I want to sit down with creative projects for an extended time period over the next two days. I won't be writing, but I'll be beading and working on my solstice cards and I'll be as happy as can be. I'll plug in my ear buds, either listen to albums or Sirius, and boogie down while indulging myself in some creative activities. I can't wait!

Today will be more normal - laundry, grocery shopping, cooking dinner, etc. I'll get some creative work done this afternoon, but it will really be tomorrow when I pull out the big guns. I want to get things much farther along before I start NaNoWriMo in November.

I'll have to read about how to play before I link
up with her. It's been a long time since I played
Scrabble and I'm not sure what the colored
tiles mean or do. 

A casual friend invited me to play "Words with Friends" yesterday. This on-line scrabble-type game is played on my phone. I downloaded the app yesterday, but haven't yet linked it to my FB account. When I do, I'll do a call-out to her and start playing. Do any of you play this one? I only know it from the "Big Bang Theory" where Sheldon plays with Stephen Hawking. It has the potential to interest me - I enjoy word games sometimes. I'll at least give it a go.

My muse and her companion are shopping for a new fall
wardrobe, They don't seem to care that I miss them and would like
them to return. 

I haven't been writing over the past three weeks. I just haven't felt up to it and I've been rather "meh" about it in general. I suspect that my muse is just gathering her fall wardrobe and that when she returns from her shopping trip, she'll hit me upside the head with a vengeance and the words will flow like crazy. But in the meanwhile, I'm just trying to post my daily blog and catch up with friends' comments.

Have a great Wednesday - hopefully without traffic issues - and I'll be back tomorrow.

Back to the Grind and Ouch!

Sunday was really nice. I took DH out for breakfast then we dropped by the hardware store to pick up light bulbs for the shop. It was the first time that Minion had to carry these eight-foot-long bulbs, but it was accomplished with a minimum of fuss. Once again Minion was a trooper and a success. Yes - I chose the right car for me (dancing the happy dance).

I've had Minion now for 3-1/2 months and I'm still really happy with the car.
It has turned into the perfect car for me. 

After dropping the light bulbs off at the shop, we returned home and DH settled down to watch his football game. My team was also playing, but it wasn't broadcast in my area, so I had to keep track of the score via my phone while working on other things such as dinner. End result ... DH's team lost resoundingly, and my team won resoundingly. San Diego also won their game so they lead their division, but my Broncos are 2nd with a 4-1 record. His Vikings, however, are at the bottom of the NFC North with a 2-4 record. Really pathetic.

The Vikings game was really pathetic. We don't have a good
quarterback and our top running back is also out. Pathetic. 

I had four little lobster tails defrosting for dinner. (A sale on lobster is a wonderful thing.) I prefer to grill my lobsters on the outdoor charcoal grill and since it's October, it was probably the last time I'd grill this year. I wanted a bit more to go with the lobster, though, so a quick run to the store resulted in green beans, pasta and two small sirloin steaks to go with the tails. I couldn't get the coals quite as hot as I needed, and since I had DH doing the side dishes and he was impatient, I didn't cook everything the additional 2-3 minutes that I should have. They were still tasty, though, although DH did microwave his for an additional small amount to make sure everything was cooked properly. Time to clean out the grill and start with new coals next year (and a hotter fire). It was all very tasty, though.

Except for pasta instead of the potato, this could have been last
night's meal. So good! 

I've got some kind of eye infection that just isn't going away. On Saturday morning I noticed that the corner of my eye was in pain, and it's badly swollen now, although it doesn't hurt and the actual eye doesn't seem affected. I'll drop by my eye doctor's on Wednesday and see if they can squeeze me in for a quick look-see and maybe a prescription. I'd like to stop looking like a witch before Halloween - LOL.

I'm sure we'll be looking at a lot of Lake Superior Agates. They are quite
beautiful, but I love the jaspers - so many varieties and so colorful. 

This weekend we have our annual small Gem and Mineral Show to go to. I hope the weather holds, it would be wonderful to not freeze while looking at the outdoor exhibits. I usually run into friends and relations at the show, and always have a good time. I guess I'm already looking forward to it even though a lot of week has to come between here and there.

Sometimes things happen. Hopefully they'll happen to other people today
and your day will be smooth and untroubled. 

Have a good Monday and a productive one. May everything go smoothly for you today.