March 29, 2026 Sunday

Greetings!

I had an exciting birthday yesterday!  But first the week began with me being determined to start working on letters owed.  I can wear the eye patch now without adding pain since my eyelid isn't painful to the touch anymore.  So I could get the eyepatch on and see how long my swollen hand would last.  I often wrote letters in segments, anyways, so now I just had more than before and took more breaks.  Regardless, I started.  I used to be able to write several letters in a day.  Out of the seventeen letters I want to write I finished three this week.  Not as long as usual, but...whoohoo!!  I do so love a nice paper-chat!  My hand is hindering me more than my eye anymore, but I am finally writing letters again.  I am very slow, but thanks to all of you who have been so patient.  Some of you have mailed me cards and letters more than once even!  Thank you so much.

But since I am working at handwriting letters that means I am using up good hand-time doing that and haven't been able to type comments.  Still reading all your blogs, though.  Like today is blogging and that will take hours and not much hand time left over after that--even with an ice pack--lol!  I am so used to having to prioritize my physical time for anything and everything the past couple of decades with fibro that this is just another area added, I guess.

BUT--Dr. Kessler did refer me to a rheumatologist so we'll see what she has to say.  I went to one for years, but that was over 20 years ago now.  They may have other meds or methods to help with pain and inflammation now.  Who knows?  I had tried almost everything available 20 years ago.  The only thing I could use for pain was Darvocet just to take the sharp edge off on bad days but they quit making it.  Nothing had any effect on my inflammation back then...but it also wasn't as bad as it is now.  I can't take Ibuprofen anymore because of my hand/wrist injury back in the 90s.  The doctor prescribed mega doses of it for so long I think it was eating out my stomach--lol!  If I take it for very long at all I get bad heartburn from it--and similar meds.  Anyways, wish me luck.  I actually got an appointment for April 14th--shock!  It can take months to get an appointment.

I finally took down the few Christmas decorations I had up--lol!  I had a small tree on either side of the TV up on the taller dressers...and a winter garland across the dresser under the TV.

Okay--I was going to show you why I can't do anything about the studio on my own and what is left to do to finish up around here.  The Billy bookcases aren't finished.

See these pegs on the top...there's another level to be added on top...and they need to be attached to the walls.

There are sections around here and there...

...that will make up the top level on the bookcases.

There is also other furniture across the hall in the storage room.  

Drawer units--I can see two of them to thr right...and that brown big set of wall shelves off to the left.  There's a second set of those brown and black wall shelves somewhere to be assembled and hung, too.

There are also additional regular shelves to be hung and additional shelves to be ordered for the kitchen cabinets (they were made locally).  After all the boxes are out of the storage room (all my supplies for the studio are in there still packed away in there)...then there are shelves to be brought in from the garage so we can actually use that as a storage room again.  There are things like vent covers that need to be attached (holes in the ceiling), hooks to be put up...all kinds of little things...before we can get to my peel and stick wallpaper for the kitchen and pretty knobs for the hutches and artificial plants in pots and the like.  So there you have it.  

Anyways, I got a beautiful azalea plant for my birthday from Janie!  (Yes, I took the stick out--lol!)  I had attempted to set it up by the window and Allie went for it right away to eat a flower!  So I moved it up next to my only other live plant--the Christmas cactus.

Allie was not happy!  LOL!  But she's not agile enough to leap up an across to get over there.

I watched three Oscar winner movies: One Battle After Another, Sinners, and Weapons.  All I could think was--what in the world!!  How did these movies win Oscars?  Maybe you really liked them...or one or two?  I was so disappointed.  Dark, violent, depressing with no redeeming qualities to me.  I went in pretty cold, not knowing there were horror movies with vampires and an evil witch...or an ongoing, hopeless, endless political situation where even the supposedly "good" guys were definitely not good people and were just as violent.  I was not in the mood to try any more Oscar winners on streaming for a while--lol! 

I am definitely not against violence in the movies, but I like to see some morality of some kind, I guess.  Like I watched Dead of Winter with Emma Thompson and I really liked it!  Have any of you ever seen any of those movies and what did you think of them?

My Alexa is several years old (probably 90 in tec-time) and bit the dust.  At least she showed me by going red.  Even Leah couldn't fix her.

While I worked on letters...

...Allie watched CatTV on YouTube quite a bit.

Friday morning the repairman came to check out the water softener.  Allie was a bit freaked out.  She is not like so many of my cats who ran to the door to greet visitors.  She's like several of mine who have been afraid of new people.

The repairman thinks with a new part it can be fixed.  Coming back Monday.  Hoping so...because their washer quit also upstairs.  Dagan and Leah have been down using mine for the past week or so.  A repairman is also coming to try to fix their washing machine on Monday.  Hoping that can also be repaired and doesn't need to be replaced.

Yesterday--on my birthday--Dagan and Leah came down and said they were going to put my new kitchen/dining room table together for me!  Moved things out of the way.  They found the three IKEA boxes that table came in...

...and worked away all afternoon.  The table is heavier and more substantial than expected.  The legs are meatal even!

Leah has always said she didn't think this table would fit.  I told her I only would probably use one of the two leaves but I was sure it could be opened all the way if I needed it for a sewing project or a larger art project.  Well, here it is with both the leaves in it!

Can still get around it okay.  (Leah was filling my ink cartridges for my printer.)  You can see the one leaf is a bit lighter than the other one...

So we put that lighter one underneath the table where it is stored.

Perfect!  And not too big!  :)

Still need room behind it to let the lounger/lift chairs lean back.  Plenty of room!

They stuck the two little rollie chairs at the ends of the table.  (Which will probably be living in the studio one day.)

A bit more tweaking.  I did put Allie's big memory foam cushion behind the red chair.

Moved her carrier--one of her favorite hiding places at the old apartment--over next to her cat tree.

Everybody left.  Allie desperately needed to try to catch up on her missed all-afternoon naptime.

In the middle of the night last night Miss Allie woke me by using my chair as a way to get up and over on to the new table!  And she did it again this morning!  With me sitting right there with the chair upright!  Leapt over from the high back of my chair and then clumsily also managed to leap back!  Goodness!  Crazy cat!  I hope she gives up on that route!  I guess I should maybe leave a rollie chair pulled back for her when I go to bed--LOL!  She doesn't like that rollie chairs move, but she also seemed quite genuinely shocked the back of my chair wasn't where it had been during the night.  Took her a long time to make the decision to jump from that height, but cats don't like to appear foolish in their decisions--ROFL!

Well, that was my exciting birthday.  I am sooo happy to have my new table!  I have always been one who needs to spread out.  Whenever I am writing, making crafts. or creating art I have stuff spread all around me.  I remember when I was writing papers in college as an old lady of 48 going to Concordia college up here...had a big L-shaped desk with an additional double wide file cabinet and I still often had a couple of TV trays set up beside me, too!  Books, papers, post it notes all over the place.  That's when I am happiest.  When I have space around me to put everything I need or might need--lol! 

Thank you for each card, ecard, email, and good thought this past week.  Greatly appreciated!  I do love my blog family...my correspondence family in all forms!  You all have kept me going all these years.  How surprising to be 75!  LOL!  Till next week.

Note: I was going to do a wild card every week, but sometimes my hand can't take any more.  I'll try to do one next week.  :)