Date: May 10, 2009 -- Sunday, 11:35 a Subject: Mother's Day Security: Public Mood: sore

So I called Mom for Mother's Day and after talking for about 45-50 minutes, I had walked into the kitchen to put some water on to boil. Still talking to Mom at this point, but I ended up screaming in her ear when I learned the hard way that I had turned on the wrong burner. I touched one that I thought was off. I burned the tips of 3 fingers on my left hand. It wasn't severe, but WOW. I had forgotten how much getting burned hurts!

I still had some painkillers from the knee surgery last year. It hurt enough that I took two which was a mistake. I forgot that I need to only take one because taking two makes me dizzy and nauseous. Woops.

Date: November 24, 2008 -- Monday, 3:33 p Subject: my Dad passed away Security: Public Mood: sad

As many of you already know, my Dad had been a heavy smoker his entire adult life and the last few years had continually lost weight. After his 9th time of falling down, he was found the next morning to be not very coherent. He was taken to the hospital where they found that his left hip was fractured. (He only weighed 101 pounds at this point.) The other problem was that his lungs were finally starting to give out -- breathing in – was bringing in the oxygen, but his lungs were weak/damaged enough that when he breathed out – it was not exhaling the carbon dioxide. I don't know if the hip injury triggered something in his body to start shutting down faster, or if that was a coincidence. His funeral will be on Friday November 28 -- the day after Thanksgiving.

Date: November 14, 2008 -- Friday, 3:31 p Subject: Family and a horse Security: Public

I went to visit family on Saturday November 1st. I was later than intended as usual. Grandma came over, along with Barb (my sister) and Deanna (Barb's oldest daughter) and we all had pizza. I played cards (rummy) with Barb, Deanna and my mom. First to 500 wins -- Barb beat us all pretty badly. Then I went next door and played Rummy-o (similar to the card game, but played with tiles instead) and Grandma creamed me. She went out on me 4 times in a row. Then I back back and played a few hands of rummy with Dad but we didn't really keep score that time.

When I left their house, I stopped at Barb's with the apples for the horse. Dad had said there was an apple tree there... I diddn't realize that the apple tree was INSIDE the field with the horse (Pearl) so the horse could literally get them whenever she wanted. So when I gave Pearl the apples, she had absolutely NO interest in them what-so-ever. In my defense, Deanna said the horse had not been given dinner yet and knew she'd be getting a cup of oats and some alfalfa.

Date: September 15, 2008 -- Monday, 3:21 p Subject: (no subject) Security: Public Mood: worried

My Dad's health has been declining for the past few years. He now weighs 111 pounds and is on oxygen at all times. He has fallen multiple times but luckily so far just scrapes and bruises, no broken bones. Day before yesterday though, he had tripped and fallen against the toilet and it ended up having a big crack in it. I believe they had to replace it but luckily again, he did not have any broken bones.

Date: April 3, 2008 -- Thursday, 12:07 a Subject: KNEE SURGERY Security: Public Mood: crappy

In January 2008, I slipped in the snow and injured my left knee. After a painful couple of months, I ended up having surgery on it. I even had a temporary placard for handicap parking from the DMV.

I had to be there at 6:30 in the morning ("there" being the Slocum Center on Coburg Road near where the Goodwill used to be.) Surgery was at 7:30 and whatever they gave me to put me out took effect very fast. It was much easier to wake up after this than it was when I had my wisdom teeth out.

I woke up with ace bandages wrapped around both legs. It's especially tight on the injured leg. I am supposed to keep them on til I go back for a follow-up appointment on Friday morning and I am already anxious to get them off.

No significant pain yet. They said lots of people experience virtually no pain on the 2nd day but then lots on the 3rd day because they over-do on the 2nd day think they are better than they are. I haven't seen the knee yet so I don't know if it was 2 cuts or 3, just that they were small ones instead of one long one. They removed 15% of cartilage and 5% of the ACL ligament.

Date: November 18, 2007 -- Sunday, 6:02 p Subject: testifying in Canadian court Security: Public Mood: relieved

I think anyone who takes the time to read this will already know that I work at a security company and frequently send police when a business or home has their burglary alarm go off. Back in January or February 2006 something I had sent the police on resulted in the arrest of 3 people. Two of these people plead guilty but the 3rd person said he was not there. They wanted me to testify to what I heard over the speaker. Of course that long ago I had no idea, luckily it was logged on the account and once I read it, it did refresh my memory. Anyway they wanted me to testify but the court was up in Canada so we were going to it by video conferencing and it turned out to be a bit of a pain.

I went with the vice president of my company (Tim) to a building that is part of the UofO but not actually on campus. He had been under the impression that it would start at 09:30 and last about ten minutes. Which was perfect because I was due to take my kitten (Phoebe) to the vet for booster shots at 10:40.

But noooooo... apparently when video conferencing, they have to make practice phone calls to other people, to make sure that they can connect to the person they have an appointment with to call. I guess we were set up for the Canada side to do a practice call at 9:30 and the real call at 10:00 (we didn't find this out til 9:45) anyway, they never called for the practice call... turns out the defendant never showed up and they never bothered to tell us, so we were sitting there twiddling our thumbs not knowing what was going on.

Finally around 10:25 they connect with us and tell us that the defendant never showed up and if he didn't show within 5 minutes they were going to issue a warrant for his arrest. Within seconds of the judge agreeing to do that, the defense lawyer realized he had a voicemail. Just in case it was related to this case, he steps out of the room to listen to it. Of course it turns out that his receptionist had left him a message ten minutes earlier that the defendant called and said that he had overslept and would be there as soon as he could.

The video conferencing room was reserved til Noon and since we didn't know how far away the defendant was coming from, they let us return to Sonitrol and would call us if the guy showed up quickly then we would drive back over. So I ended up hanging around the office for about an hour on Wednesday. He had not shown up by noon and we didn't have the room reserved anymore, so I was free to go home so I got paid for 3 hours of my time when I didn't do anything.

Unfortunately I had to cancel my vet appointment (for the 2nd time -- Phoebe was missing during the 1st one). I was really nervous about it right before and during all the waiting, it was making me sick to my stomach. The next day Tim sent me an email saying that the guy finally did show up that day for court and changed his mind -- he plead guilty so now I don't have to go back. YEA!!

Date: November 10, 2007 -- Saturday, 4:41 p Subject: Phoebe was missing Security: Public Mood: relieved

It all started on a Wednesday night, the early morning hours of November 8, so it was technically Thursday morning. I had let two of the cats outside and only one of them came back in. It was Phoebe, the kitten; she did not come back. I called for her repeatedly and went out with a flashlight looking for her. Of course I couldn’t call out too loudly because it was around 4:00 in the morning by then.

Mom came up to help me look for her. I ended up having to cancel the vet appointment she had the next day when she still hadn't returned. She was only around 6 months old. I kept thinking she could be outside injured, trapped somewhere, cold and scared. It made me unable to eat because I felt like I should be out looking for her more, but I didn't know where. I was beginning to think I would never see her again, but she finally came home after two and a half days. When I let her inside, she ate some food but she was not as starved as I would have thought she would be. She was more interested in getting some affection, which I was more than happy to provide. :)

Date: February 23, 2007 -- Friday, 1:26 p Subject: death of a cell phone Security: Public Location: home Mood: grumpy

I just washed my cell phone. Yes, through a full cycle in the washing machine. I had come home and changed clothes, adding the clothes I had been wearing to the basket before heading off to the laundry room -- totally having forgotten that my phone was in my pants pocket. I forgot that was paying extra each month for insurance, I have to pay a $50 deductible but they will send me a new phone. Don't know why the store couldn't just give me one, but whatever...

Date: January 10, 2007 -- Wednesday, 5:30 a Subject: burglary Security: Public Mood: indescribable

OK, I’ve been putting this off long enough. What I'm about to post about happened on January 10 but today is actually January 31. The bad news I mentioned to some of you is that my apartment was burglarized. It happened around 5:30 a.m. on a Wednesday morning. I never thought to lock the doors while I was home. I guess that comes from growing up in the country.

I had been sleeping in the recliner in the living room and woke up to what I thought sounded like a cat getting into something she shouldn’t but when I stood up, there was a guy in the kitchen going through a box of my stuff. I said “what the hell” and he looked at me, totally surprised, said “oh shit” and ran out the door. I was just wearing a thin nightgown so I didn’t think to follow him out the door to see which way he went and it was really dark so I didn’t get a good look at him. I wasn’t much help to the police. I found a power strip (still in the box) out on the patio that he’d dropped when I startled him and my bottle of percoset on the kitchen floor. I thought I had discovered him after he had not been inside very long. I was wrong.

I called 911 within a minute or two and while talking to the dispatcher, realized my laptop was gone. It had been on a tray table about 3 feet away from where I was sleeping in the chair so I’m really surprised that he didn’t see me. After the officer arrived, I remembered that the power strip I’d found on the patio had been in my bedroom, not the kitchen so I checked and he had taken 2 VCRs and the DVD player. Not only that, my two laundry baskets were gone. He had dumped half my clothes onto the floor and presumably used the laundry baskets to carry out the electronics. He also took the small CD player from my bathroom. He took the remote for a VCR that he did not take and left behind the remote for the DVD player that he did take.

What is perhaps the most irritating is that the clothes he took were mostly new and they were hard to find in my size so it’s been a total pain trying to replace them and so far some of them I haven’t been able to replace. It was bad enough that it happened at all but to be woke up from it did not make for good sleep the next several days afterward and I still can’t bring myself to go to bed with all the lights off.

The maintenance guy came over to install the dead-bolt and his hand got hurt at the beginning of the project. Now I have a circle on the door where he started to cut the hole. I found out later that he was more than just injured, his had was broken in multiple places and they are waiting to hear if he will need surgery.

Also stolen was the black bag I always take to work, which had one of my checkbooks in it. So I had to close the account and open a new one.

I've chosen my mood for this day as "indescribable" because there are so many feelings I have when thinking about that day: anger at the thief of course, anger at myself for not locking the door, sadness that I lost stuff, irritation that a lot of the stuff was also really new, shock (you know the old "it will never happen to me" feeling) and tiredness because I hadn't been asleep long when it happened and then afterward I was too freaked out to sleep for many hours...

Date: September 4, 2006 -- Monday, 3:40 a Subject: red moon Security: Public Mood: curious

The other night, as I was turning into the parking lot where I work and I caught a glimpse of the moon. It was very low on the horizon and it looked almost blood red! It was really creepy. I so wished that I had my camera with me and that I hadn't already been 2 minutes late for work. ;) I wonder what would cause it to look like that.

Date: May 24, 2006 -- Wednesday, 4:40 p Subject: back to civilization! Security: Public Mood: pleased

First of all, check it out, I'm finally posting something that has a smile face for my mood instead of a face that's frowning. Ha!

After living with my parents for around 11 months, I made the decision to move back to the Eugene area. My financial situation had not really improved by the leaps and bounds that I had hoped.  After commuting about an hour each way to and from work for that long, it was was really taking its toll on me mental well being.

I found a place and moved back to town just a couple weeks shy of having been with Mom and Dad for one year. It was Mother's Day weekend and I was supposed to work from Friday night at 12:30 until Saturday afternoon at 12:30 but they did not want to wait for me to get off work so they started early and had almost all my stuff moved in without me. I felt guilty that I didn't help but man what a relief to not have to participate.  :)

Date: March 7, 2006 -- Tuesday, 5:25 p Subject: back / leg pain -- update Security: Public Mood: sore

Just wanted to give an update in case anyone was curious. I was in a lot of pain Saturday night, so much so that my mom had to drive me to work and by the time Judy arrived Sunday morning, I couldn't take it anymore and asked to go home early. I did my best to stay asleep the rest of Sunday, because lets face it, when you're unconscious, it doesn't hurt.

Mom drove me to Urgent Care on Monday and about 3 & a half hours later we left for the pharmacy. They had taken some x-rays of my hip area and those didn't show anything unusual. The doctor said that obviously doesn't mean that nothing is wrong considering the pain I've been in. He gave me a prescription to reduce any inflammation or swelling I might have and some painkillers, which of course I'm not supposed to have on an empty stomach. I took one while we had dinner and by the time we were done, I realized the hard way that the warning about "may cause dizziness" was definitely true. It hit me like that snap of your fingers and I suddenly thought I was either going to be sick or pass-out. Kind of scary but luckily the feeling passed quickly.

Date: March 5, 2006 -- Sunday, 7:16 a Subject: back / leg pain Security: Public Mood: sore

When the alarm went off tonight, I rolled over, or should I say TRIED to roll over. I let out a gasp of pain, thinking I just slept on something the wrong way. But once I stood up, I realized that the pain was a lot worse than I thought. Walking to the bathroom, I couldn't stop myself from gasping with each step. By the time I got there I was literally in tears and it had woken Mom. Crying made my nose run so when I blew my nose, OMG, I thought I was going to die.

Mom insisted on driving me to work, it was probably a good thing. I took 4 ibuprofen when I got to work, not that it did any good. Within 10 minutes of arriving, my foot started to tingle and my whole leg felt like it was trying to go numb, but was still painful at the same time. I ended up leaving work early.

Date: September 29, 2005 -- Thursday, 11:04 a Subject: back in Elkton Security: Public Mood: nostalgic

I've been back in Elkton for a few months now. I have finally gotten Joey to not sleep at the foot of the bed. I think I must have kicked him off too many times in my sleep. I do occasionally find him sleeping by my head but mostly he's just not in the room at all recently. I have a dining room chair sitting against the wall that Piper's been using the last couple nights. The strange thing is that there's a tall stand that she would sleep on top of when we first got down to Elkton but now she won't go up there. I wonder if it's the air conditioner; which would be strange since it's never running when I've tried sitting her up there.

I did finally notice heaters have been brought out at stores now. I bought myself a little black one for my room because it's the furthest from the wood stove and we are trying to keep on of the doors between us closed most of the time anyway. It turned out to be just a bit too small so I switched it with the one in the bathroom.

Date: June 26, 2004 -- Saturday, 11:01 a Subject: had a good birthday Security: Public Mood: happy

I had a birthday back on June 20. It turned out to be one of the better birthdays I've had. I didn't have any cash on me at the time so I ordered Chinese food on my credit card. (I did learn something the hard way though, don't order extra to use as a left over the next day, chinese food doesn't re-heat very well.) Anyway, it was good when it was fresh. ;) Daniel bought me a cake and took care of my kitchen duty that day! Then at the end of the shift, Brent called me from home to say happy birthday and LauraS took me to a movie after work. It was a pretty good day, and all of it before Noon. ;)

Date: June 22, 2004 -- Tuesday, 11:00 a Subject: A Night Of Improv Security: Public Mood: disappointed

I went to the Eugene Hilton back in the early part of June. I went with my mom and one of my sisters to "A Night Of Improv" which had (most of) the cast from the tv show "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" I like that show quite a bit, but the experience was a bit of a let down. We were sitting in the balcony so we didn't get a good view of them. Thankfully they had microphones otherwise I wouldn't have been able to hear them over the noise made by the other audience members. And let's just say that the seats were not meant for larger members of society. I couldn't sit with my mom and sister, I had to sit in a different chair (that was only slightly bigger) a few rows back. But still, I'm glad I went because I'm sure I would have regretted it if I hadn't gone.