March 31, 2010 by kim.

This is it! The final installment of weird and/or unusual holidays!

MONTH
National Pecan Month -
http://www.ilovepecans.org/pecanmonth.html

Stress Awareness Month - http://www.speakersfornurses.com/planning/Stress.htm

WEEK
April 18-24 – Sky Awareness Week –
http://www.weatherworks.com/events/skyawareness/main.html

DAYS
April 3 – Happy Tweed Day – http://www.hartford.com/event-detail.php?id=582

April 5 (First Monday after Easter) – Dyngus Day – http://www.dyngusdaybuffalo.com/

April 5 – National Deep Dish Pizza Day –
http://www.pizzamarketplace.com/article.php?na=1&id=17809

April 11 – Barbershop Quartet Day – http://www.hartford.com/event-detail.php?id=598

April 15 – That Sucks Day – http://www.thatsucks.net/

April 15 (3rd Thursday) – National High Five Day –
http://www.nationalhighfiveday.com/featured/the-origin-of-the-high-five/

April 17 – Record Store Day – http://www.recordstoreday.com/CustomPage/614

April 25 – Pet Parent’s Day – http://www.petparentsday.com/

Whew!

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March 28, 2010 by kim.

I am a big fan of percentages. Whenever I talk about my health and how I feel, it is always in percentages. Today, I feel that I am at about 97% of my normal, healthy, happy self! Hooray!

The 3% of my body that is holding out has some mild tingling/numbness, spasticity, and double vision. Nothing that I can’t handle, and if I stop thinking about it, those issues will go away soon enough.

Because I was feeling so good, we decided to take a little day trip and visit our old neighborhood of Fort Washington to wander around in Fort Tryon Park.

We looked at the flowers in bloom,

went to the Cloisters,

saw the Easter Bunny,

and happened upon the severed head of Spider-man.

Then we went to lunch at a new Mexican restaurant,

and headed back home where I had Chris take a picture of me and where I’m at now:

Looking pretty good, if I do say so myself!

Next weekend I plan to take the final step on my road to healing and travel into the city on the subway. The dirty, grimy, smelly, beautiful, full of character, can’t get enough of it … subway.

I can’t wait!!

Posted in Celebrate, Happy | No Comments »

March 25, 2010 by kim.

You know, as if walls moving in a rainstorm wasn’t bad enough, a couple of weeks ago we got socked with multiple leaks in this … this … apartment.

This building has such issues, I’m amazed we live here at all. I think we have a knack for picking crummy dwellings. Not all of them are bad – just this one and the one with leaking in the bedroom which caused the carpeting to smell like dirty sweat-socks and the closet to smell like cat urine. Oh, and then there was the apartment which ended up having 40 building violations including rats crawling in the lobby and the parking area which made it smell like a barn since they mainly made their homes in there …

Yeah – we can pick ‘em!

So, when we had a big Nor’easter two weekends ago, we started to see major leaks primarily in our office area. Major leaks. We had actually seen leaks start in the area about a month before and told the building manager about it, but it didn’t seem like much could be done about it at the time. Then, when we had the big rain and the 40-70mph winds, that’s when the leaks really let their presence be known.

Here’s a beautiful water filled bubble:

Here’s the bubble with the water running down the wall to completely soak the carpeting underneath:

A snippet from our windowsill in the office area:

Here is what the area looked like the next day after maintenance came and peeled back the carpet:

Track marks from dried icky water:

We were informed that the water had run in-between the wall from the roof (we’re on the top floor) and they’d have to take part of it apart, as well as replace the carpet after the roof itself has been fixed. Great. I did hear that some apartments below us had it worse, and another person’s window actually blew in from the wind, so I would say we got pretty lucky.

Sigh.

Meanwhile, we can’t use that area now so my computer and desk have been moved into the bedroom making a small space even smaller. The good thing is that I get a lot of natural light pouring in from the balcony door/window/wall of glass, so it’s nice and bright.

Silver lining …

Posted in Annoyance | No Comments »

March 19, 2010 by kim.

I was sitting at my computer yesterday trying to do whatever it is I do on the computer, when my screen went all nutty:

I couldn’t figure out what was going on! The computer decided to re-size every window that I had open, and whenever I would try to click on one to close it, they would all move around like crazy. I was close to throwing my computer off the balcony when I finally figured out that the problem was actually the mouse. My deduction was based on the whirring, clicking sound I would hear coming from it whenever the windows on my screen would bounce around.

This is (was) the mouse:

My beautiful, infrared mouse that I loved because I could actually control it. Now I’m back to using my old mouse which I don’t like as much because it is so loosey-goosey that it makes my cursor jump all over the place:

Still, it beats using the laptop “mouse” which, in my opinion, is a complete joke and impossible to control:

I think the best solution would be for me to get a whole new computer. Am I right? I’m right.

Right?

Posted in Annoyance | 1 Comment »

March 14, 2010 by kim.

You know things are getting better when I’m able to make the mile trek to the Original Pancake House:

Nothing says incentive like hearty bacon and pancakes that taste like beer. Yummy!

Maybe it’s the yeast or something that makes them taste that way. Whatever it is – I like it. I found this PDF that explains everything you ever wanted to know about their pancakes – Pancake info

After breakfast, we wandered over to Borders to pick up a couple of books:

Chris has been reading the Dark Tower series by Stephen King (my FAVORITE author). I own the whole series (as well as every other book he wrote), but books six and seven are so heavy that we decided to pick up the paperback versions so Chris didn’t break his back carting them around the city. So much easier to read on the train this way.

Then, on a whim, we picked up these:

Remember Little Golden Books? How fun!

After shopping, we went to Starbucks for coffee and just relaxed before our walk back home.

Oh, what a beautiful morning … !

Posted in Fun, Shopping, Food | No Comments »

March 10, 2010 by kim.

As promised, here are some pictures of Matilda …

Here she is waiting for Chris to come home. She sat here looking at the door for five minutes before he walked through it. Not sure how she knew, other than my telling her he was on his way. Maybe I gave off some vibes that she sensed.

On this day, Matilda posed for me. Well, I don’t know if she was consciously posing for me or if she just was just so comfortable that she didn’t run away. I prefer to think she wanted her turn at modeling.

Posing

Facing forward

Right Profile

Left Profile

Eyes closed

Paw model

Sunlight effect

Closeup

Wow … I’m really reaching for material to blog about …

I need to get out of the house more … and soon!

Posted in Animals | No Comments »

March 7, 2010 by kim.

On a normal day (well, on a really fabulous day) I look like this:

One day, I woke up, tried to look to the right, and looked like this (Week One: picture taken 2/2/10):

A number of days later, I ended up in the hospital because I looked like this (Week 3: picture taken 2/14/10):

I’m not trying to grimace … I’m trying to smile. Yeah, that’s not working out so well. See how the right side of my face doesn’t want to work? See my greasy, slicked back hair? That’s what you get when you’re stuck with sponge baths instead of showers. I wasn’t steady enough to stand on my own, so I didn’t get to take a shower and wash my hair for something like five days. Ewwww!

Here is a picture I took with my iPhone while in the hospital. I don’t know how my thumb got in the way, but I know that it cracked me up whenever I looked at it:

I am so easily entertained!

I finally escaped after six nights and went home to recover from my stay. After about a week, I was looking like this (Week 4: pictures taken 2/20/10):

Here I am without the patch:

Now, about six weeks after the flare began, I look like this (Week 6: picture taken 3/6/10):

Look how my smile came back! My right eye is still wonky, but it is getting better and better. I can now get it to move a little past center to the right. My body still has tightness, but it’s manageable. I’m on my way!

Here is a video Chris and I put together about this flare and my MS journey:

Thanks to all my friends and family for their well wishes and support!

Next up – pictures of kitty!

You know you want it …

Posted in Video, Observation | 1 Comment »

March 4, 2010 by kim.

So, there I was in the hospital. My bed was at least close to the window, so I could sort of look out at the world:

Cat that I named Maowser and balloon from Chris; flowers from Mom, Dad, Kari, and Tiffany

Everything was pretty standard – bed, table, chairs, bathroom, I.V,. All the comforts of … a hospital. At first, I had the double room to myself. Then, a roommate moved in. Because of my hearing, I thought it was a man, based on the voice. What did I know? I couldn’t see very well and there was a curtain dividing us. I asked Chris about the guy next to me, and he told me it was a woman.

Really?

Not only that, but it was a 97-year-old woman named Mary. Chris had struck up a conversation with her and her 76-year-old daughter Joan (wow – good genes!) and they were rather delightful. In fact, when Chris went home, Mary and I chatted for a few hours before bedtime. She was in for a gallbladder issue, and wasn’t sure if she would need surgery the next day or not (she didn’t). She also suffered from macular degeneration. She was pretty much half blind and I was half deaf, so together we made quite a pair!

Mary

Mary left the next day, and I was once again alone. That lasted all of a night. Then, I got another roommate. A very quiet woman named Sarah. Well, quiet for the most part, but a moaner, according to Chris. Again – I was half deaf, so it didn’t bother me. Poor thing also happened to have some bathroom issues, so it was a crap-shoot (ba-dum-bum!) as to whether or not the bathroom would be usable. During the day, Chris had to have someone come and clean it a number of times. One night the nurse got lazy about having it cleaned and made me use a commode next to my bed instead.

Nice. Way to make an effort.

Other than that and one nighttime orderly who wouldn’t let me see the nurse even though I was nauseous, everyone was really great. Even when the nurses would come in the room and flick on the light in the middle of the night interrupting my sleep, they were, for the most part, pleasant.

Then, there was the food.

I was having trouble swallowing (good GRIEF! – could it get any worse?), so I was stuck eating pureed food for a few days. I even had to go through a couple days of sucking on a washcloth dipped in water to wet my mouth, because I wasn’t allowed to drink anything for fear that I would choke. Lovely.

Surprisingly, the food tasted pretty darn good. Even the purees, with the exception of strained carrots (yuck). Pureed meat was an interesting item. It came as a little square brick and looked rather unappetizing, but it wasn’t. One of my dinners included a green tuna/vegetable concoction that I didn’t eat much of, but do you blame me? A green brick of pureed meat? No thanks. I should have taken a picture of it, but was too sick to think of it at the time. I did take a picture of this one, though:

Mmmmm!

Eventually, I was able to move back into real food and liquids, and was allowed to place actual orders. That really just meant picking from a list of two or three items. Still, it felt nice to have a choice! This was one of the best dinners I had:

Chicken, potatoes, green beans … YUM! I even had beef barley soup and pudding. Heaven!

This was my final meal (lunch) on the day I was released:

Lo Mein

I had ordered chicken pot pie for dinner, but I wasn’t going to stick around just for that.

I always thought hospital food was supposed to suck, but they have evidently stepped up to the plate to make at least one aspect of a hospital stay somewhat enjoyable.

Thank goodness!

Posted in Observation | No Comments »

March 1, 2010 by kim.

MONTH
National Craft Month - http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/workshop/4307857.html

National Peanut Month - http://www.peanutbutterlovers.com/loversmonth/index.html

WEEK
National Bubble Week - March 20-26 (2009) - http://bubbleblowers.com/bub-week.html

DAYS
March 9 - Panic Day - http://www.imgag.com/product/full/ap/3032689/

March 14 - National Potato Chip Day - http://bmchips.com/national-potato-chip-day.aspx

March 14 - National Pi Day - http://www.piday.org/

March 23 - Near Miss Day - http://www.goatview.com/march23.htm

March 27 - National “Joe” Day -
http://www.ehow.com/how_2125970_celebrate-national-joe-day.html

March 31 - Bunsen Burner Day - http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-bunsen-burner-day.htm

Posted in Holiday | No Comments »