Thursday, June 12, 2008
Photo of the Day
Written at 8:40 PM by Highlandgal.
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Going to the Beach
That's what this was all about. She had everything laid out and ready.


Riding the dolphin.


Napping on her soft towel.


Going nuts.


A little too much to drink?

Written at 8:38 PM by Highlandgal.
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Hide and seek
Someday it won't be this easy.


Written at 8:08 PM by Highlandgal.
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M's Garden
Most everything is in the ground now. This evening he put down freshly mowed grass on the walking paths. He mulched around most of his plants while we were gone over the weekend. This year we'll have three kinds of pumpkins, a couple of sunflowers, morning flowers, three kinds of peppers, watermelon, horseradish and gladiolas.

You can see the steel post reinforcements of the fence. We're praying that will keep the cows out this year.


Written at 8:01 PM by Highlandgal.
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Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Progress report
I went for another follow-up on my foot this morning. When I left I didn't know whether to throw up or cry...

Here's how I got to this point. 5-7 years ago I had a planter's wart. I tried to make it go away with a salicylic acid pad. I was not successful. Once I got down so far and the skin was raw and bloody I quit. It healed over, leaving scar tissue. Every year or so I'd try again, same thing. I never got to the "seed" and the pain would get so bad I'd quit. So by last month I had this giant knot of scar tissue a centimeter wide with, I assumed, a planter's wart buried way beneath.

When the doc reamed out the hole he said it showed no sign of a wart. He suspected I'd gotten something in there along the way and the tissue was building up around it to protect my body from the foreign object. Whatever. He cut away all the suspect tissue and left me with a hole larger than a centimeter. It couldn't be stitched. It needed to slowly heal closed. Fine.

Cut to a week later, it's still bleeding and oozing but that's what it's supposed to be doing. The big risk is getting a nasty bacteria in there, but I've been very careful keeping it cleaned and swamped in bacitracin. Today I go in for my appointment expecting him to pronounce decent progress.

He looks at it and says he's not sure that "it's" not coming back. I assume he means the scarry tissue or the wart. Then he starts saying that if his surgery didn't fix the problem he'd need to refer me to a podiatrist or a plastic surgeon because I'd need to have a bigger chunk taken out of my foot. He thought it might need to be biopsied. Then he started rambling on about the different kinds of cancer... He stopped to confirm it's been there for 5-7 years. Yes, so probably not cancer. Still, even though I know he was thinking aloud, he rattled the hell out of me.

The whole point in getting this done now was so that I could heal up and enjoy my summer. Now he's talking about sending me for more painful, debilitating surgery and a more protracted recovery period. And think of the cost! I hobbled out of the appointment thoroughly shaken.

I moped around all morning. Finally at lunchtime M gave me a pep talk. His point was that if the thing heals and doesn't hurt me then I shouldn't feel the need to rush to the next round of surgery. Even if it needs to be done, if there's no immediate pain then there's no immediate rush. He advocating letting the healing process complete and then seeing where we are. Very sensible.

So now I'm less panicked than before, but still regretting the whole deal. I never expected it to end up such a mess.
Written at 6:53 PM by Highlandgal.
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I'm a stock market wizard
If by wizard you mean someone who can turn something into nothing. Ta da!

My first foray into the stock market was a dismal failure. How dismal? Well, three years ago I bought my first stock. I bought 100 shares of LBTS at 1.89 a share. Over three years I watched it plummet to 14 cents. Oh yeah. That's the last time I listen to someone who's taking a stock idea from Discover magazine.

Today I sold the stock and emptied my Scottrade account. The nice lady on the phone persuaded me to keep the account. I told her she was right, I should keep it in case I might feel stupid someday and want to try again.

Now I'm buying an IRA. Guaranteed growth, right? They don't go backwards, do they?
Written at 5:03 PM by Highlandgal.
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Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Mommies can bend space and time
Yesterday in the car Emma asked me when her birthday would be. I told her it would be in October. That this was June and we had to go through July, August, and September first. Then I added that before her birthday we'd celebrate Popi's, Noni's, J's and C's birthdays. That upset her. She wanted her birthday to be first. She asked me ten times if her birthday could be first, each time with increasing urgency. I finally told her I'd see what I could do.

Nothing is my guess.
Written at 6:12 PM by Highlandgal.
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Conspirators
That's who I live with. Those two can drag out Emma's bedtime until it's almost my bedtime. When Emma was younger I prided myself on the fact that she was in bed by 8:00 p.m. and I had a nice block of time in the evening to relax and decompress. Slowly M and Emma pushed the time further and further back. They'd stretched it out until I'm lucky if she's in bed by 9:15 or so. Now, they've added pool time to the evening. Last night lights out was shortly after 10:00 p.m. I hate to be a spoil sport when they're having such fun together, but damn!
Written at 5:53 PM by Highlandgal.
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Sesame street in IN
Emma has finally developed an appreciation for Sesame Street. It actually makes sense. I think she's the age they're specifically targeting right now. I'm glad because it's something we'll have in common. We were both raised on Sesame Street.
Written at 5:50 PM by Highlandgal.
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Tuesday news
Actually, there is no news. But it's past time for an update. Sorry about that.

My foot is healing, but it has a ways to go. It's still bleeding and oozing (sorry, TMI). I'm very tired of having to walk funny. My hips and low back aren't too keen on it either. I made it the whole day with no pain meds yesterday, then just a while ago I had to take one again. Blah. I have an appointment tomorrow morning so the doc can check my progress. I think he'll be pleased, but like I said before, there's still a good ways to go before the hole closes.

We had a very nice weekend at Noni and Popi's. Noni took extra good care of us. We had the rare opportunity to see my cousin and his son. They stayed at Noni's the night between two different football skills camps at two different universities. It would be nice if my cousin's son went to the university in Noni's town. We'd get to see more of them all.

I got shopping chores done. I just didn't have my usual stamina. I finally broke down and bought new car seats for Emma. I ordered this one from Target on May 30th. They've delayed shipping twice now. Asshats. I bought this one for M's car while I was at the store Saturday. My little girl is growing up. Sniff.

I was also able to do some shopping for Father's Day and Popi's birthday. We'll be celebrating those this weekend.
Written at 5:36 PM by Highlandgal.
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