Rumors of My Death...

"The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated" -- Mark Twain

or

"I'm not dead yet!" -- Tammy Wynette

Ok.. that second one isn't really a quote from Tammy Wynette.. it was from a Saturday Night Live skit that always made me chuckle. Anyway, it has been two months since I've sat down to this blog. I know my millions of fans must be wondering as to my status. There's no way I can cover the time completely, but here's a glimpse of Rose's June and July, in no particular chronological order.

First, I turned 40 on July 22nd. Age is all in the mind, and I have a childlike mind, so this child did not have a problem turning 40. However, age also seems to be in the knees, and I definitely don't have the knees of a 40 year old. Possibly a 60 year old. My birthday started out with balloons, Star Wars thingees hanging over my desk and "Over the Hill" boppers for me to wear. Also, the people I work with brought in a veritable smorgasbord of goodies. Greg said that if entrance into Heaven depended on how much food is brought in for your birthday, that I was guaranteed entrance! A nice thought. :) Steve, was out of the office, but he emailed me that my gift would be delivered later in the day by "visitors." No, he wasn't predicting an alien invasion, his wife and twin toddlers brought me in my birthday loot. From Steve, a gift card to Absolute Beauty because I like to go there for pedicures because they have this sinful chair that you sit in whilst your tootsies are being pampered, and I love my tootsies. Oh, and from the girls, a pair of pink fuzzy bunny slippers. They are so soft and adorable. Gizmo attacked them when I was wearing them later that evening. I think it's because they have whiskers, fake though they may be. Sorry, I don't have a picture of the slippers. :)

Steve had a BIG arbitration the week before my birthday (actually it ran over into the week OF my birthday, too!), and the two weeks before that, I was working 60 hour weeks. The OT was very nice, especially since my car and renters insurance came due in August, but I was so tired when I got home at night, sometimes at 9pm, that I'd go straight to bed. I swear one night I came home and the cats acted like I was a stranger. Sort of hurt my feels... but then I was so tired, I didn't care all that much! Finally the OT was over and I was able to relax, and things started to return to normal for Rose when all of a sudden... you guessed it. I got sick. I shoveled down the echinacea and the Tylenol like it was going out of style, but today is day 12 and I'm just now to the point where I feel human.

Mixed into all of that time was a family reunion. I had a really good time. Me, my sister Haley and several of our cousins just sat around telling stories. The food was good and the weather could NOT have been better.

One Saturday I drove up to Terrible Haute and met Haley and her daughter, my niece, Hollian for lunch. We went to Moggers which was originally owned by Hollian's great, great something. After a wonderful burger, Hollian and I came back down to Eville. Actually I took Hollian to my parents house where she stayed for a few days to help them around the place. Hollian is an IU sophomore who has no clue what she wants to be when she grows up. I'm told that at one time I wanted to be a gas station attendant.. but then the self-serve gas station came along and spoiled my hopes and dreams. Sigh. After a couple of days working around the ol' homestead, Hollian came into the big city and stayed with me for a couple of nights. I have satellite and she only has two channels (Fox and PBS, I think) at her home, so she had fun watching the Colbert Report on Comedy Central and an I Love the '80's marathon on Vh-1. Poor child.

When the week was over, Mom, Hollian and I drove up to Haley's house partly to return the child home and partly to see her sister Brynn (high school senior, this fall) as the eponymous Fiddler in Shelby County Community Theatre's production of Fiddler on the Roof. Brynn did a marvelous job! We were very proud.

Again, this does not begin to cover my last two months... in there I've seen The Dark Knight three times (and am willing to go with anyone who hasn't been able to see it yet... :) and I saw Mamma Mia (thoroughly enjoyed it, despite Pierce Brosnan's NOT being a great singer) and I read the new Janet Evanovich book, Fearless Fourteen, along with several others. Oh, and I didn't even mention the Golden Poop that Haley got me for my birthday! Sigh.

Oh well, I'm back, baby! So everyone can relax. All is right with the world and Rose will continue to blog. Catch ya later!

Weekend Wrap-up

This has been a rough week and I'm glad it's over.

At work, I spent 95% of the week typing /summarizing medical records for one of Carrie's personal injury defense cases. The plaintiff who's records I was typing is in his 60's and when all was said and done, we had over 45 pages of typed notes summarizing all of his records. Oiy! And then as I'm just about finished with that project, Steve comes out and tells me that next week, we'll be knee-deep in preparing for his arbitration in July! I'm thinking I could have gladly NOT thought about that over the weekend.

I had an appointment with my dr this week. What with my high blood pressure and other ailments, she likes to see me every 4 months or so, so it was a usual thing. But the unusual thing was that this time I had news, I'd joined Curves and was regularly working out. I was SO excited to tell her. She comes in and first thing, she notices that my BP was down and mentions that. She asks if I've been doing anything different and I took my opening and told her I'd joined Curves. At this point, I expected even a half-hearted kudo, but no, her response is to ask me how many days I'm working out. I tell her 3-5 depending on my schedule, but usually at least 4. Again... kudos? No, then she says, well, on the days you aren't working out, you need to be taking at least hour long walks and watching what you eat. I'm like, wait a minute. Last time I was here, she was all but begging me to just do something! And now, she's wanting it all in a blink of the eye? So this basically just pisses me off and I don't even mention the laundry list of things I wanted to discuss with her... like this thing that has appeared in the last couple of weeks under my left eye, or the fact that I've been waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat off and on for the past couple months,.. or the unusal mood swings I've been having. No, I was in the middle of one such mood swing and unfortunately for my list it happened to be a pissy mood. Sigh. Oh, and did I mention that she was 45 minutes late for my 8:15 am appointment?? How do you get THAT far behind by 8:15?

So the next day, I'm in a better mood. I had an appointment with my hand dr. I've got Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and a worker's comp case over it, and yikes! Anyway, my CTS has been much better of late, and I truly believed that the doctor would agree and release me. And that's what he did. So now hopefully we can get the worker's comp case resolved and we can get all of that behind me. Of course, the next couple of days, my wrist was hurting as I was doing nothing but straight typing on those medical records, but that's not unusual.

So then the next day, Thursday, what I had been waiting to have happen, but as of Thursday was officially three weeks late, finally happened. And I felt HORRIBLE!! I could barely get out of bed. Before work, I hit a CVS to buy drugs and Ho-Ho's, and after taking said drugs and eating said Ho-Ho's and drinking a big ol' chug of Diet Mt. Dew, I was feeling more human. I ended up being late for work, but I was pretty sure that it would be forgiveable as they'd have had to shoot me and put me out of their (and my) misery otherwise.

Friday was the best day of the week. I was exhausted, but I finally finished the medical summary. I was back to my usual non-moody self, and even though there was the possibility that I might get called into work to help one of the attorneys on Saturday, I wasn't too concerned because I never end up getting OT when I'm told in advance to expect it. And as I'm sitting here at 2:37 pm on Saturday afternoon, that attorney hasn't called me to ask me to come in, so I'm good. I went and got the oil changed in my buggy this AM, after waking up at a leisurely 9am. I've cleaned the litter box, am in the process of doing laundry, and am shifting thru the apartment killing dust bunnies. Ok, not really killing them, but herding them into the trash can. Despite being 91 degrees outside, it is beautiful and the breeze is blowing.

There was one down moment. Mom called last night to let me know that my cousin, Sandy, had passed away yesterday evening. She'd been battling a brain tumor since October. It seems so short of a time. At the last family funeral in September, she was fine. My earliest memories of Sandy were when I was little and we'd go down to Granny Barger's to visit in Eddyville, Illinois. Sandy (who was very close in age to my parents) would drive me and my sisters in her car (in my memory it was a convertible or jeep or something) to Lake Glendale and we'd play on the beach there. The soundtrack that was playing was Three Dog Night - usually Shambala. That memory comes to me whenever I listen to Three Dog Night. Mom wasn't sure when the funeral would be, probably Monday or Tuesday, but I'll take off and go with mom and dad to say goodbye to Sandy.

Gary, I Love You

So first, while mom and I were in Fishers this past weekend (and my sister's house was hit by lightning?), I guess there was a bad storm here, too. And it knocked out my internet at home. I'm super concerned about my Webkinz and their garden. Sigh.. I couldn't call until I got to work on Monday and got on the internet at work and printed off my bill (since I have paperless bills) to get the customer service phone number and my account number.

After work Monday, I went to Curves and by the time I got home, I was exhausted, so I didn't call. I called Tuesday after work and Curves, and spoke with a very nice lady in the Phillippines, and after trying all sorts of things, she set me up for some test and told me that someone would call me back after the test to tell me if they figured it out. Didn't make sense to me, but again, I was tired and in a mood, so I didn't really care.

Tonight, Wednesday, after work and Curves, I got home to a message from my DSL company telling me that according to their diagnostic, my internet is working fine. I go in to check it, and it's still down. Sigh. So I called the Phillippines again. Well, I assume it was the Philippines. Anyway, this time I talked to Gary and we figured out that the storm had made my modem reset. So after walking me thru resetting it, I was up and running. Before hanging up, I told Gary that I loved him. He told me not to tell his wife, and I promised him that it was our secret. So if you're reading this, Gary's wife, I'm sorry you had to find out this way.

I logged on, and sure enough, my garden was dead. It looked like a weird version of the elephant burial ground scene in the The Lion King, only instead of elephant skeletons, there were skeleton-esque pumpkins and tomato plants. I did have a cabbage to pick. Snuffles was very happy to see me.

I'm logging off to go to bed. As I fall asleep, I'll be thinking of Gary. :)

Natalie - Who Knew Ya Had it in You? :)

So this past weekend was my niece Natalie's graduation from high school. Mom and I drove up to witness the blessed event. Dad wasn't feeling too great and travel just exhausts him, so he and the gnomes stayed home.

Now, Natalie is a sweetheart, but from what I've gathered, her studying skills leave something to be desired. And there was some question of whether or not she'd missed too many days of school this year to actually graduate. But nevertheless, like hopeful pilgrams, we trotted out to the Pepsi Collesium at the State Fair Grounds to be there, just in case. :)

No, she graduated and we were very proud. I took pics, but due to the size of the place they are rather dark. After the ceremony her father and I trotted out to find her in the melee and grab her before she turned her gown in for her actual diploma. But wouldn't you know it, the turd already had dumped it. So I didn't get a pic of her in the gown, but we do have some pics in the hat and holding onto the blessed piece of paper.

I don't recall my high school graduation very well. (That being SO many years ago and all.) But this one was very nice. The speeches weren't as boring as they could have been. And considering there were like 500 kids graduating, it didn't take THAT long to shuffle them through. I did take a book however, so after the B's were over, I read until I started hearing W's and then I put my book away.

One really good thing came out of it, though. The very last person in line was someone named Nargis (yes, that was her first name!) And when I heard that, I thought, what a wonderful gnome-gname! And since part of my graduation gift to Nat was a gnome of her very own that she could take to Purdue with her (assuming they'll still take her despite her grades.) Uh.. lost my train of thought there.. oh, yeah, so it was a perfect name. After Nat opened the bag with the gnome in it, I told her she'd need to name it and then humbly suggested Gnargis. Everyone agreed that it was a fine name.

Back to Holly's house which, BTW, had been hit by lightning the previous night (almost made me wee in my nephews bed!) and had the AC, the hot tub, and the stove knocked out. We survived, but as a part of the soiree in celebration of Nat's graduation, Holly was making ribs, and that required an oven. Now, we could've just gone and picked up a bucket of fried chicken, but Ho's ribs are really pretty stinkin' good! So she packed up the ribs and the "Uncle Ben's Special Mop Sauce" that she'd made (and that's our Uncle Ben, not the rice guy) and trotted it all over to Haley's house and Ha babysat the ribs under Ho's specific guidance. And they were MARVELOUS. The only downside is that I didn't smuggle any back home with me in my bag. Sigh..

Indy Jones is Back!

After almost 20 years, the new, long-awaited Indiana Jones movie came out last weekend – Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. To be honest, I went into this movie not expecting it to be as good as the originals. And in some ways, I wasn’t disappointed. I seem to recall the older movies having more humor in them and the Nazis always made such good bad guys, but then the flaws of the older movies may have been forgotten in the distance of time.

The action started out quickly when, in the very first scene, the bad guys broke into the infamous Area 51 in Nevada, with Indiana Jones tied up in the trunk of their car, to steal an artifact. The viewer’s first glimpse of our hero is, after he is dragged out of the trunk, his shadow as he puts “the hat” back on his head in that oh-so familiar way. Very thrilling!

In this movie, Indiana Jones, like his portrayer, Harrison Ford, is older. The year is 1957 and instead of the Nazi’s, the baddies are Russian Commies! The head bad guy is, in fact, a woman, played by Cate Blanchett. As a bad guy, she was pretty good, even though she sort of reminded me of Natasha (as in Boris and Natasha from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle shows) only with shorter hair. She dressed more like Fearless Leader, though. But I digress. Anyway, she is roaming around the world searching for artifacts with paranormal qualities.

Jones quickly meets “Mutt” Williams, played by Shia LaBeouf (you might remember him from the movies Transformers or Holes), who’s character may or may not be Indy’s son with former love Marion Ravenwood from Raiders of the Lost Ark. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will say.. DUH! :)
The ultimate quest for the movie is this crystal skull that needs to be found and returned to its rightful owners. They find the skull pretty quickly, but then the Russians find them and so begins the fun of trying to outwit the Russians while keeping the skull in their possession, and finding the place to return it – all of which is done in true Indy style.

As I said, I didn’t go into this movie expecting it to be the best, but it was very enjoyable. My favorite is still the 3rd movie, The Last Crusade, but this one is certainly better than Temple of Doom and will have a spot waiting for it on my DVD shelf when it comes out.
Two thumbs up!

Happy Memorial Day

As I sit here with bags of frozen veggie on my shoulders trying to cool down the sunburn I got on Saturday, I thought I should share about my Memorial Day weekend. For someone who originally had no specific plans for the weekend, I've been busy.

Saturday, I headed out to Wadesville. I'd been told that the yard really didn't need mowing, but that there were plenty of other things to do. We put newspaper and straw around the tomato, pepper and cucumber plants in the garden. Then I pounded stakes into the ground and we put cages around the plants. That of course has a two-fold purpose: 1) to help the plants grow upwards, and 2) to keep the cats from laying all over the plants because for some reason they think the plants are put there for them. A third, and more important purpose, as far as I'm concerned, is that by doing so, I earn a summer long supply of cukes and tomatos! So after that, I pruned and deheaded the snowball bushes and the forsethia (sp?) bush. Finally, we decided that since we won't be in town next weekend for me to mow, if I didn't mow this weekend, we'd need one of those big knives (whose name escapes me), you know the ones they use to whack their way thru the jungle in movies... anyway, we'd need one of those to get to the mailbox, so I mowed the lawn. Needless to say, I was TIRED by the time all of this was over, and I was sunburnt. I'm very fair skinned, and I know all about sunscreen, but I grew up in the 70's when the perfect female as blond and suntanned Farah Fawcett, so I want a tan. Stupid, yes, but... I have this desire to be tan. DON'T JUDGE ME! :)

So Sunday, after church, I went and bought some Solarcane (or CVS's version of it) and Mom, Dad and I went to go see Iron Man. Haley was right, it was a very good movie. And Robert Downey Jr. is hot. Machete! That's the big knife I was thinking of... Anyway, Iron Man was good and we went out for ice cream afterwards. I wanted to dunk my shoulders in said ice cream, but forced myself to withstand the temptation.

Today, I slept in until about 8. Not sure why, but Sophie allowed me to sleep in, maybe she realized it was a holiday. We had plans to go out to lunch, my Aunt Marilee and Uncle Doug were taking the 'Rents out for a belated anniversary present, and then we were all going to go see the Indiana Jones movie. Until it was time for them to pick me up, I sifted the litter box and took out the collective trash. Then I made a very momentous phone call.. See I have Dish Network, and I get their "Top 100" channels. But every month they give a couple three free channels to try to encourage you to upgrade to the next level. Well, one of May's free channels has been the Turner Classic Movie channel, and I've taped all the Saint movies, a bunch of cowboy movies for dad, a bunch of Alfie Hitchcock movies, and a variety of stuff for mom. We discussed it and figured we should investigate what the difference is between what I currently have and what I'd have to get to get TCM for good. So I called and the difference wasn't that big, and now I get several other new good looking channels, too. But the part that really wigs me out is WHILE I'M ON THE PHONE, she turns a switch, and I turn on the tv and I have all those new channels. How freakin' cool!

So then we had lunch at Red Lobster and then went and saw our movie (more on that later) and now I'm back here with quickly thawing veggies on my shoulders, and I'm it's time to decide what to have for dinner! :)

Hope all had a Happy Memorial Day.

TGIF! (or, Stop the World, I Need a Nap!)

I am SO sore and tired this morning. Remember, now, part of why I joined Curves was to NOT feel like an old woman as I tromp thru my daily life. And remember that I sort of took it easy last week due to the sore joints/cholesterol medicine thing. Well, both last night and Tuesday night, I worked out back at my usual pace, and both this morning and Wednesday morning, it was all I could do to get out of bed. Working out is supposed to make me feel great and peppy, right? Well, there was no pep in me this morning when I was crying while the alarm went off. Although I did have a slight smile when I turned it off and realized that I could turn the alarm off entirely until Monday night.

Anyway, in honor of the holiday weekend, Curves is closed until Tuesday, so I can't work out Saturday (like I normally would) or Monday (like I normally would), so I'm thinking I might as well just take the week off next week since after a long weekend of no exercise (well, no organized exercise, I'll still mow the lawn), when I start back on Tuesday, I'll be half dead . Was that all one sentence? Hmm.

But on Wednesday of next week, it'll be my one-month weight/measure day... and we'll find out just how much/little effect all this has had.