Ended up hauling both cats in to the vet. First was Zoe, because it was time for a checkup anyway, plus the pee that was on the floor seemed stronger than Sable's would be. I know way more about this topic than I want to. She gets lots of tests, including her thyroid levels. Next day, vet calls back and says she's fine, although her thyroid levels needed to be tweaked, so upping dosage on that.

Purchase Feliway diffuser, hoping that someone's angry that we've been gone, and this may help calm them down even though we are clearly back home. Continue to clean up cat pee, blocking off area's not working, frustrating, why why WHY must I wake up every single day to this?

Next day, get appointment for Sable. She gets tests, with the note that because her urine's so dilute as the result of her CRF, it may be a couple of days before results come back because they'll probably need to culture it. I broke down and bought a small litter box to place in that area, hoping that this would help. Someone uses litter box, but there's also pee right beside it. At some point I notice Zoe squatting in box, her butt hanging over edge, and peeing on the floor because she's too big for the box. *sigh* Go buy slightly larger litter box, still one that's low enough for aging cats to step into, cross fingers.

Test results come back, Sable's fine. Fan-flippin'-tastic. It's great that she's also fine, but if that's true, then why is there still cat pee on the floor??? Why do they hate me?

Anyway, the two boxes there seems to have solved it, there's been no inappropriate elimination in a week now, although Ray's not happy because the extra boxes mean that's more cat litter in the house. (Which is why we only had one here; I knew it would make him mad) The area's still barricaded off, although since a week has passed we can probably take all of that down.

The area that Sable keeps to has gotten smaller, though. I haven't seen her go back into the bedroom in a while. The first few days after we got back, I also noticed that she hadn't been going to her food perch, she was just eating from Zoe's dish. They have totally different food, Sable's on some fancy kidney-support stuff, but at this point, it's just too hard to try to fight her on it. I did put down another dish of Sable's food near the water bowl, and someone's eating it, although it could be Zoe just as easily as Sable. Then the other day Sable surprised me and hopped back up on her food perch, so I put more food up there for her. Tricky kitty. But her keeping to a smaller area worries me...it really does seem like it's getting closer and closer to her time, which is still incredibly upsetting to me. Like, I can barely even think about it without bursting into full-on bawling. That's actually gotten a bit easier over the last week or so; I seem to be getting closer to accepting the idea. I know that I'll probably "know" when it's time for her to go, and I go back and forth about whether or not that's a good thing. Right now I'm just taking it day by day, I guess.

We are home again. Stop peeing on the floor.

I seem to have been quiet again.

Accounting is going/went well. Last day of class was yesterday, there's an option review session on Monday, and then Tuesday is the final. I should get an A, barring some complete meltdown on my part.

I've been running semi-regularly. In fact, I even did my first event last weekend - Bay to Breakers! For the record, I did not wear a costume, nor did I wear nothing. I finished in around 1:45, and I'm okay with that. I had to walk a lot of the course, more than I thought I would, because it was unusually hot in SF, and I just couldn't take it.

My hard drive died a couple of weeks ago, but we replaced it and so far my computer's working again. I still haven't gotten all of my data over here, but I've been working hard at accounting in the last couple of weeks, so perhaps after Tuesday I can buckle down on that.

Speaking of Tuesday, I have an appointment to get my hair cut. I am so very ready to just chop it all off.

If I make a playlist in iTunes, and I put things in a specific order, please import them to my iPod IN THAT ORDER. Even if they're podcasts. Don't decide for me that I want to listen to them LIFO. I'm trying to catch up on old ones, and you're not helping.

No love (none!!)-
me

After spinning yesterday, I had to go to my magical place to pick up something before settling in to watch an AWESOME basketball game. While there, I asked if I could plug in my cell phone for a couple of minutes because it was TOTALLY dead, and I wanted to see if I'd missed any messages during this time.

Then the yarn fumes got to me, and I forgot my phone. I realized it shortly after I got home, and the home phone rang. I went over to answer that, and as soon as I saw the caller ID, I knew what I'd done. So now I have to go back today to retrieve it. That's not a problem, I love seeing my friends any time I can. BUT...

- I have nothing in my house to sweeten my coffee, so I'm crabby
- my evil cousin mentioned pancakes, and now I want some
- I also have an test for which to study, so I can't really stay out long (I'm just not remembering this chapter's material for some reason)
- I haven't run much in the last couple of weeks, and I really need to get back into it
- Oh goodie, the cat's over on the couch and I just know she's going to throw up
- Also, I took a Benadryl last night to try to get to sleep at a reasonable hour, and I'm still a little groggy from that. Need coffee, and breakfast.
- And a shower. And to clean the cat box.

Grump grump grump grump

Hmm...it seems that pictures (16GB) and music (25GB) take up more than half of the space on my hard drive. I've got ~3.5GB free on the hard drive, which is probably the source of at least some of the slowness of this thing. That, and it's several years old, which means the Internet is several years cooler than I am, and they show it. I'm constantly frustrated at how there's a YouTube video for everything, when video is mostly choppy for me. Blah.

The music would be difficult to move elsewhere, as iTunes might freak out when I try to sync an iPod. But the pictures might be easier to do, I think. (?) The question is...what do I do with them? Got any suggestions, oh wise ones?

I had no idea that this posted, nor did I know about the second one! Maybe I'll try editing it in Firefox, and see whether that is more successful.

My ears have been stopped up and ringing for about 3 weeks now. They don't hurt, they're just full.

I got my chapter 4 test back, and I got 100%. :)

I've been spinning yarn, and ought to take pictures but haven't yet bothered.

My original post had 3 things here, but I can't think of what the third one was. (Except then draiguisge commented, and I realized that it must have posted. So a bonus...) Um...I went to the dentist on Monday? My lower right molar (#31?) is a little sensitive (despite using the special toothpaste for sensitive teeth) so they prescribed some mega-special toothpaste. I'm not sure whether it's working yet, but at the same time, I probably shouldn't order a glass of lemonade to test it, either.

Because I can't think of anything else, how about a Friday Fill-In?

1. "In a hole in the ground there lived a worm."

2. "My feet are cold but that ain't no matter."

3. "After dark the rain began to fall again, flooding the streets."

4. "There was a rhythmic tapping coming from the hold of the Spanish galleon."

5. "There was a hand in the darkness, and then I woke up, hours later, lying on the ground."

6. "Accidents ambush the unsuspecting, every day of their lives."

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching the Carolina game, tomorrow my plans include ...well, no plans as yet and Sunday, I want to maybe go up to Oakland with some friends.

Caramia - Indigo Girls</lj>

Today's dictionary.com word of the day is "tetchy", defined as "peevish; testy; irritable". It stood out to me because that's how I'm feeling right this second. My ears have the stupid backup again, and have for several days, so I've got this constant buzzing sound going on, and last night and today it's REALLY DRIVING ME NUTS. I'm about out of Sudafed again, which is also annoying, because I'll have to go show my ID again to buy some more. I suppose that in the grand scheme of things, it's not that big a deal, but really it does grate on the nerves. Constant hum, no escape, and other noises get a bit distorted too. Believe me, you'd be tetchy too.

I wish I knew WHY my ears did this, and if there were a way to prevent it. :P

Blah blah blah, keep meaning to post but don't do it, not much going on, etc. Um...I'm taking an accounting class and I really like it so far, I knit a sample hat for my friend Margit, helped her set up her Stitches booth, have been at Stitches the last two days.

I've been running a lot, and I continue to be surprised at how much I enjoy it. I think the difference this time is that I started out really slowly with a couch to 5k program, where you're just running 60 second intervals the first week (with walking intervals in between), and then increase the running interval times each week. I'll admit, some of the awesomeness comes when I get home because woo hoo, I'm DONE, but at the same time, there's a pretty good amount of "OMG I can actually do this!" that keeps me going. Last Friday I ran 20 minutes consecutively, and if you'd told me a month ago that I would be able to do that, I wouldn't have believed you. But there it was, 20 minutes! This week the long run is 25 minutes, although I didn't get a chance to go out today, and might not tomorrow either. We'll see how it goes. If I make it, great; if not, that's okay too.

I have a bunch of accounting homework to do before Tuesday, which will be challenging due to all of the time at Stitches. Hopefully that will go okay. On the plus side there, we don't have a test on Tuesday. I got a 98 on the first one, and I feel pretty good about the second one too. There's one question that I'm probably going to get marked wrong, but I think it was poorly worded and I'm going to argue with her about it. We talked about it in class on Tuesday, and I'm definitely not the only one who was confused about that question. I'll ask her about it again when we get the tests back, we'll see what happens.

I think there was something else I was going to say, but I can't remember now. Perhaps next time, and hopefully that will be sooner rather than later.

So far, 2009 is starting out fairly well. New Year's Eve (hey, close enough) I was at one of the best places in the world and they had a drawing. I won TWICE! First time was a bag of sock yarn (yay!), and then a gift certificate (YAY!!). Excellent.

Then today, I'm going through email, and I see one from a name I don't recognize and the subject line is "Congrats Elizabeth!" Normally, I'd just delete this sort of thing without even bothering to look, but for some reason I opened it today...and it turns out it was a real congratulations, because I'd won a contest - a gift pack from The Body Shop! It was actually a forwarded email, I guess she sent it to me before but I must have just deleted it the first time...good thing I actually opened this one!

(Also, the Hokies won their bowl game!)

Of course, things must balance out...I've had multiple socks on the needles for a while now, and I really need to finish something, so I'm trying to focus on one thing at a time, finish it, move on to the next WIP and finish that. So I've got these Trekking socks (vanilla, no special pattern), started back in July. One notable thing about this pair is that I'd gotten into the foot part on the first one when I happened to look back on the cuff, and I saw a spot where I hadn't picked up all of the plies. ACK! This was like 6" back, really, and I debated for a while as to how much I cared, and I finally realized that it was important, I didn't want to risk that weak spot, so I laddered back down, through the heel (that's how I roll, baby!), corrected the error, and got back to where I needed to be. I'm still shocked that I found the correct column the first time, and the heel flap wasn't as scary as I thought it might be. Anyway, I'm working on the second sock now, and I've been fairly faithful to it. Just now, I tried it on, to confirm that it's about the right length, and as I pulled it over my foot, I felt a string over my toes. What's that? Is it the yarn end from the top of the cuff?

No, of course it isn't. Somewhere back on the gusset, I must have set the sock down and come back, and when I picked it up I didn't notice that the yarn had jumped across the round. *sigh* Oh well, I will finish this tomorrow, it'll all work out.

Still, overall, 2009 seems to be starting out nicely. I'll let you know how the lottery goes. ;-)

Man, I just did a little stash diving, and I'm pretty sure that 2009 needs to be the year of socks. I've got a lot of socks to knit. Dude.

In other news, I just did a load of laundry and there is no water on the floor. Mark the handyman is my new favorite guy. It's almost absurd how happy it will make me to spend the rest of the day doing laundry. :)

It all started a few weeks back, around Thanksgiving. (FTR no, this is not the story of the Alice's Restaurant Massacre *g*) I talked with my brother, who asked me where I would be for the holidays. I told him we were staying here, not traveling east, so he said he'd ship my present. Super!

Fast forward to December 20, the Saturday before Christmas. I had this vague thought that hey, John said he was sending me something, and I hadn't gotten it. Was it lost in the mail? Let me call him. Did that, we chatted, and he said he'd sent it on the 13th, a week before. He expressed concern about it, but I figured that they'd said it would be 7 - 10 days before it arrived, and we were certainly still in that window. Then I had a thought, and asked him if he knew to where he'd sent the box. He (read: his wife) couldn't remember, but after I gave them this street and my previous street name, she confirmed my suspicion that it had been sent to the old place. Oops. Then he got mad, and was convinced that the people who lived at that house would just steal it, that he should have just taken the money and tossed it out the car window. :P I told him I'd see what I could do.

So, I go to the old house, and knock on the door. The way the house is set up, the kitchen window looks out on the porch, so you can usually see who's at the door. Sure enough, an older woman's face appeared at the window, looked at me, and then she walked away. I figured that she was going to get someone else, and soon enough, another face showed up in the window. She looked at me oddly, as if she wondered what I was selling, and I said "I used to live here!" A moment later, she opened the door, baby in her arms.

I explained the situation, that someone had sent me a package and asked if she'd seen anything. She said she hadn't, but did recognize my name and said that when she got things, she just returned them to the post office. I asked her to call me if anything showed up, and gave her my card. Ray and John both are skeptical, thinking that I'm never going to hear from those folks again.

Christmas comes, and I haven't heard. Chatted with John again, he's still mad that he wasted his money, and he eventually told me what the present was (which I'll reveal to you shortly). I said that I was still optimistic, that it could still show up.

The next day, my cell phone rings with a number I don't recognize, and sure enough, it's the woman from my old house, and she said a box for me had arrived. Hooray! Ray and I go over there to pick it up (I sent John a text to let him know I'd gotten a package), wander around doing errands and whatnot, life is good. When we got home, I opened it, and sweet! There's a bike wheel! John and I had talked about this back in September, I mentioned that it would be cool if I had an extra set of wheels so that when I wanted to switch from road slicks to knobby tires, it wasn't such a royal PITA. I remembered him saying something about not being able to spring for the whole thing, which is fair, it can add up! So, for Christmas he'd bought me a rear wheel.

But...that's a little odd. I swore I remembered him telling me on the phone that he'd bought me a wheel *set*, which means front AND back, and not just the back one that I'd gotten. Again, it's still cool that he did that, I'm very grateful, but it didn't seem quite right. And of course, Mom had said she hadn't gotten around to sending presents yet, so maybe they'd bought the other wheel? I figured that perhaps it was something like this, and I'd just wait until I got something from Mom to say anything.

Then Saturday, the doorbell rings. Ugh, I don't want to buy anything. :P But it wasn't a solicitor, it was the mail carrier...with a box just like the other one, surprise! As I accepted it from him, I noticed two things...this one had "Box 1 of 2" written on it, and it had that distinctive yellow mail forwarding sticker over my address. There you go, mystery solved (mostly). The first one hadn't gotten forwarded, it just went to the old place (that's the only mystery, really - why DIDN'T it get forwarded?), and this one did, which explains why it took a little longer. And, of course, the mystery over what my brother had ACTUALLY gotten me for Christmas was solved; it WAS the wheel set!

And then later, another surprise from "Santa" - a gift certificate to the bike shop, to buy the rear cassette, and anything else I might need. Santa suggested tires, but I've got those, and tubes...so perhaps I can get some cycling tights, and once we get all of these assembled, I can go for a ride on a chilly day, on whichever wheels I choose. :)

I'm sure every single one of you has been holding your breath for weeks now...but my mammogram came back normal. :)

Apparently I'm running in Bay to Breakers on May 17th, 2009.

I need to get to work - I haven't actually run since October or so, and I got peer-pressured into signing up in the "C" group, which is like a 12-minute-mile pace. Oy.

So, what feels like forever ago, I found this Hundred Push-ups web site, which has a 6-week training program to get you to complete 100 consecutive push-ups. I've posted about this before. Last night, I officially made it further than I did the first go-round, because I logged my "Week 2 Day 2" workout. Hooray!

And then, after resting a bit, and sort of remembering something I'd read somewhere, I thought I'd try regular push-ups. After all, my whole total last night was ~75 (not all in a row, there were 5 sets with breaks in between), so maybe I actually could do at least one regular one, right? I think the thing I read said that if you can do 25 or 30 modified ones, you could switch. I've never been able to do those...but last night, I DID! That, my friends, is pretty exciting for this girl who always got 0 seconds in that flex-arm hang for the fitness tests in school. :)

I like to think this is true of me. I do have a lot of people who tell me that I don't look my age, and occasionally they persist in this even after I've whipped out my driver's license. As if I'd fake it at this point. Heh. I get it for racing up to 21, but 40? Really? Anyway, with the aging, you get to go through certain rituals, a lot of them medical, I think. The latest? I had a mammogram yesterday. I had an appointment at the doctor's office, and the receptionist noted that I was due for one, and asked if I wanted to schedule it. Little did I know that there would be an opening for 2 hours later! So, I went. It really wasn't as bad as everyone seems to make it out to be. Or maybe I'm just weird that way; I had the same reaction to having a root canal. After that procedure, I bought a milkshake for lunch (no chewing due to numb mouth), and went to work. :-) Yesterday, I'd cleverly brought some knitting with me, and kept myself occupied in the waiting room during that extra hour. The nurse or whatever-she-is-who-took-my-films was pleasant and pretty funny, and really, it wasn't a big deal. First funny moment: they use a marker to note where your nipple is located, and did this with small bandages that have a metal bead in the middle. I noted that no one told me that I'd come away from this with jewelry, and she laughed. Second funny moment: with one breast compressed between the plates, she asks me if that feels okay, I say no problem, and she says "good, I'll give ya a little more" and turns the knob a bit. Heh. Still, really, not painful, and if you're 40 and female, you should do this. 'k?

Dear Dude Who Mows the Grass,

Why are you here? Didn't you see the rain? Can't you feel it now? Why are you mowing the grass while it's so wet out there?

Love,
Me

P.S. I'm not opening the gate, because I might melt, so you'll have to wait until next week to do the back.

Sometimes I get an idea in my head, and I’m all excited about it because it seems so cool or productive or something, and I start out with good intentions, but OMG SHINY turns quickly to FAIL.

A few weeks ago, I had one of my bright ideas when I heard about this program to work up to 100 push-ups.I confess that I can’t remember where I first came across this, could have been one of you lovely people, or maybe somewhere else entirely. Anyway, I started, got to the 2nd week, and then something came up, and I wasn’t able to do anything for a short bit. So, fail. :(

But I started again today, back at square one. When I did the initial exhaustion test, back on Oct 27, I got to 19 push-ups. (I feel that it's important for me to note that these are modified/girly push-ups; I can’t even do 1 full one. Hence the need to build upper body strength.) This time, I went ahead and just used that as my start figure again, so I’m doing the program that you see in the 3rd column here. And hey, on my last set, where you go to exhaustion, I was able to do one more than I had back in October. It might not mean anything, but then again, maybe it does.

I think about sharing something when I'm unable to do it (like say, in the shower), and then by the time I could post, I've forgotten. Or, there's not been much happening, just daily stuff, which doesn't seem to be interesting enough to write out, so I don't. But today, I found a dollar bill on the sidewalk, and that seems interesting, so there you go. I found a dollar! :)

And now I'll try to take cymraeg's lead, and post 3 sentences with some sort of regularity.

Well, you have to go to Purlescence to see it in person, because I didn't actually take any pictures of it. :-) Nathania did get a couple of shots of me wearing it while I was there, so maybe one of those will show up on their blog soon or something. It's super-soft and fabulous, and you should totally knit one. You know, if you're into that sort of thing.