June 20, 2022 Monday--11am

Good morning!

It's already 91 degrees.  Was 101 yesterday and supposed to be close to 100 today.  Sounds like a lot of the country is under a heat wave.  Whew!  I am so thankful to be in an apartment on the ground floor with an AC that works.  The last two top floor apartments I lived in since I moved up here in 1999 I was lucky if it was 10 degrees cooler inside...and I wasn't even facing west!

On with the week.

Monday 

I was so tired I had an over 2 hour nap after I finished blogging.

Tuesday

As suggested, I went out to pluck off the blossoms on those back coleus...only to discover that very likely some rabbit had hopped up there and eaten one off.  Looked like it had stood right on the coleus--LOL!  (in fact a whole section did get broken off and died by the next day.)

They didn't eat the one on the other side so I plucked that purple blossom off.  I know the bees love them but , apparently, so do rabbits--LOL!

Katie came Tuesday afternoon to clean.  Always nice to see her...and have clean floors and bathroom.  ;)

Wednesday

Did laundry.  Sprayed for bugs around my patio door after I watered--non toxic spray.  Been eating up the pot of soup I made (used stew meat).

Thursday

Loving the clean patio doors--thanks to Katie!

Was just cool enough to have the patio door open most of the day.  Annie was so happy.  Only shut partway because of the wind blowing things around in the apartment.

Love seeing the occasional red-winged blackbird visiting.  Everybody loves mealworms.  A pair of grackles load their beaks as full as they can get them and fly off--to feed babies, I assume.

I finally got going again on the second huge batch of bookcards on Thursday.  I had a stack of the watercolory paper to fold into signatures.  Got that done.  The next thing was to start on covers.  Mostly the handmade paper I bought years ago and the new ink drop (gorgeous) paper.

I spent the day listening to Cog Hill Farm video podcasts...

...while I cut, folded, and paired up covers.

I had a whole bunch of odd sized signatures that I made handmade paper covers for (right side of trays)

...and then I took signature stacks from the left side (the watercolory paper) and made ink drop covers for those.  The trays are divided into 2, 3, and 4-page bookcards.

By the time I had covers for all the pre-made signatures, I still had this much left.  Third big batch?  Eventually--yes!

I had one more tray with a few bigger bookcards with more than 4 pages.  They all got stacked up and are ready for the next step--hole punching.

How long it will take me to work up to that--not sure.  But I made it this far--tada!

Also on Thursday my Dick Blick order arrived...three small sets of watercolor markers.  My other markers are so old that I don't know if they would last coloring 90+ card fronts anymore.  I wanted to try out some other markers...so I dug out the Christmas cards Leah and I had started last year...I think...or the year before that?

We have the black card bases cut and folded--had cut the inside and outside pieces of white cardstock--stamped in black and embossed the front pieces (Christmas lights)--and picked out a sentiment for the inside to stamp on.  I need to color all the fronts that are full of old fashioned Christmas light bulbs.

Made a color chart and then did a sample coloring with each of the four sets of markers.  Trouble is--I like this color from this set and that color better from that set--LOL!  Some are streakier covering a larger area, too.  So, I brought the samples with on Friday so Leah and I could choose which markers to use.  

Friday

Clinic day with Leah.  I think it was up close to 90 degrees that day.  I closed up the apartment before I left and it has been closed up ever since due to the heat wave.

Anyways, lots of good news.  My ANC was up to 1.9!!  Whoohoo!  (1.5 is low normal and I haven't seen that for months.)  Had the lady doctor that day--and she said they decided that I only need to see a doctor every other time now as long as I am doing so well.  So next visit in three weeks I don't have to see a doctor--just get the bloodwork done, wait for results, and get the infusion if bloodwork is okay.

Leah and I figured it was because I have been on Keytruda for six months and not had any bad reactions to it.  Just the being extra tired which they've said is common.

I did tell the doctor about the eye light arc and she said I should see my eye doctor.  I planned to call Monday/today.  

The kinda bad news is that I asked about when I was due for my next scan--thinking 3 months again so like in July or August.  Not for six months!  So not till November.  Of course, I would rather know where I stand sooner.  (They can stop shrinking, I read.)  But that is what they plan.  All the rest was good news, though.  Well, my port has been touchier and needing more flushes...but I didn't need medication in it and waiting for half and hour for it to work, at least.  They got it going.  So was a good day!!

And--yes--Leah and I went through the marker samples and decided on which colors were the best.  I am going to make up a sample using 4 colors and another using 5 colors and then we can decide.  We are not sure if orange seems like a Christmas color or not--LOL!  Neither of us care for purple in Christmas lights.  So, when I have some energy again I will be coloring.

Typical--I fell asleep for a couple of hours not long after Leah dropped me off.  

That night--I don't know what I did by accident but my phone went berserk on me.  Somehow I turned on some kind of voice assistant or something and I couldn't turn it off.  Nothing worked.  I started hitting everything I could after while.  I couldn't turn it off, switch pages, get anything to actually work.  Finally in random poking at it some boxes came up to shut it down or restart, etc.  I hit shut it down and it was the first thing that actually worked.  Left it alone for an hour.  Started it up and it was just the same!!!!  Arggg!

I was trying to email Dagan and Leah...I think it was a gaming night for them.  When they did come across my string of emails they told me to leave it be till one of them could come and look at it.  Since alarms went off that I couldn't shut off it has been under some blankets in the bedroom so I can't hear it.  They haven't come yet or emailed.  

I've been super tired all weekend, though, of course (infusion)...but no phone means no back up when I leave the apartment.  I always take the phone with me just in case anything happens, you know?  So when I go out to water (which I've had to do every day in this heatwave) I realized how much security that phone is...even if I have never had to use it--thank goodness.  I am really super careful going across those big uneven rocks to get to the faucet.  When you don't have something then you realize how much you used it.  No pictures.  I did get a video before my phone went nuts.  I am so grateful Leah has my phone set up to automatically move my pics and videos to One Drive or I would have not been able to get to my pictures for the blog.  I'm used to checking the weather every morning...and playing different games sometimes.  I use that phone more than I think.  And even if Dagan and Leah prefer texts and aren't always quick to get ahold of--if I needed to I could call them.  I do miss my cell phone.  :(

Saturday

Before the phone went crazy I did take a short video of how windy it was here.  You've heard me talk about how it is always windy to some degree and the air is never still here...but I thought I'd try to catch some gusty wind for you.

NOTE: Much to my surprise the shortcut to posting a YouTube video actually worked this time!  At least it looks like it did.  I haven't been taking videos because I didn't know how to get them on my blog anymore.  At least for a while there nothing I tried worked--including their new shortcut.  But now it actually worked!  I hope.  Let me know if it didn't.

Anyways, had another couple hour nap on Saturday and slept 10 hours Saturday night.

Sunday

Still heat and wind advisories.  Was 101--heat index of 107 or "feels like" 107.  When I was watering plants at 7:30pm it was still 100 degrees.  At midnight it was still 87.  Whew!

And I had another eye thing but without the headache.  Flashing arc of pixelated light for about 20 minutes or so.  I did email Leah (who will have to drive me) to ask her to make the appointment with my eye doctor--I have no phone for one thing and she knows her calendar better than I do, anyways.  This was the third time with the eye lights and it is getting worrisome.  I haven't heard anything yet but they don't text or call before noon with my crazy inverted hours lately.  Leah knows I prefer afternoon appointments.  I hope to hear soon.

So that's what's happening over here.  It's 93 right now and supposed to get up to 98 again.  I know a lot of areas in the US are very hot.  

****

AHA!  There was a tap-tap-tap on my patio door!  Leah and the boys were here.  Really hot for them to sit outside on my lawn chair even if most of it was in the shade.  Liam didn't even want to.  Leah fixed my phone--I had it on speech assistant or something like that and her grandpa uses that.  I had accidentally pressed both the buttons on the side at the same time, she said.

Leah even got my tablet working, too, and my Kindle hooked up on WiFi.  She is going to call my eye doctor.  Ian just had tennis lessons and is on his way to a golf lesson.  94 degrees now and climbing.  The grass is turning brown.

Hurray, though!  I can end on a happy note.  Got my phone back!!

Stay cool, people!!  Or warm as the case may be.  Till next week...

June 13, 2022 Monday--2pm

Good afternoon!

There's a bumper crop of cottontails this year--LOL!  One little baby has just about taken up residence here.

Such a little cutie.  Too small to be the petunia-eating culprit...but will grow up into one.

We have had some darker, overcast days...

...and some sunnier ones.  But little rain.

Been a quiet week filled with things like taking trash out to the dumpster, watering out on the patio every other day, vacuuming up kitty litter Annie drags all over the place, writing letters, doing laundry, and cooking (hotdish, soup, and made rice).  Watched a couple of DVDs (final season of Inspector Lewis) and two more DVDs came in the mail today.  Had my video call with the boys over dinner on Wednesday.  I'm just so happy I can do all those things.  :) 

Leah cancelled on our Thursday night video call--too tired and wanting to go to bed early.  They are really busy this summer.  Besides home schooling--Ian has tennis lessons and golf lessons, they are off to the park playgrounds quite often, trips to the zoo (I gave them a 2022 family pass for Christmas last year), visiting, picnics, visitors, etc.  Nice that they are able to do more things this year, but the heat and humidity are draining, for sure.  Makes me so happy, though!  Got to do more while you can these days.  

Watched the hearing a day late and will watch the one today sometime later, too, I imagine...or parts of it.  Had that weird arc of light in my eye again briefly on Friday.  If it happens again I will probably have to go in to see my eyedoctor.  Macular puckers could be up to some nonsense.  Had a few pajama days.  Just one of those weeks that has flown by.  

Annie is still jumping up on my chair on her own.  This is what I see--her little head peeking over the footrest.  She rocks back and forth a couple times and then has made it every time so far.  Makes me so very happy.  Makes her happy, too.  (We all hate to lose our independence, don't we?)

Saw a half grown cottontail out there, too.  That one is probably big enough to nibble on my flowers.

You know there are parent-sized, full grown ones about, too.  LOL!

It turned really hot--for up here anyways.  Been in the 80s and near 90 for days with like 75% humidity.  Had to close up and turn on the AC.

When I am out to water...well, it looks like someone has mowed a good-sized patch of grass in front of the planters.  

Well, guess who?

That baby bunny (growing fast) parks itself there to chew on the grass.  As you can see, it sprawls out in the heat on its belly and grazes--LOL!  Has made itself quite to home.  Doesn't even always hop away anymore when people walk down the sidewalk.

You'll have to pardon my rain splattered patio doors.  I am hoping it is nice out tomorrow afternoon when Katie comes and that maybe she can clean the glass for me.

I water out there about every other day.  On the days I don't I usually put clean water in the bird dish using a plastic gallon jug (which I also set out to use for watering the inside plants).  When I refilled it one day it had overflowed so I set the wet jug on the rug in the pantry to let it dry off before I stuck it behind the door.  Mistake.  Look who found it!

Annie is always so thirsty.  She has followed me into the bathroom every time--even in the middle of the night--just to climb in the shower and beg me to pour a little glass of water in there for her to lick up--for months and months.  It's our routine.  After I wash my hands I have to fill the little drinking cup and pour it on the side of the shower so she can lick off the water.

Well, now she is waiting and crying by the bathroom door as I wash my hands and wants me to go add water to the top of the water jug in the pantry!!  Good grief--what we do for our critters.  I'm sure she's convinced it tastes better than any other water.  Her actual water dish is right there just a few feet away--ROFL!  I don't know how much longer I will want to deal with the jug of water in the way in the pantry--LOL!  But--hey--she's old...and she trusts me to look out for her welfare...and Annie thinks this is important--LOL!  So--for a while longer, for sure.

Oh, BTW--the coleus I cut back that had frostbite...died.  Not a surprise.  The new ones battered by the storm are alive, but not growing much at all.  

Look about the same a week or so later.  Maybe filled out a tiny bit, but the leaves look all stunted.

Fingers crossed they bounce back.

The rest of them are doing okay.

The back coleus have flowered!  That usually doesn't happen till fall?

I think the rabbits have let up on the petunias finally.

But not one of the four red geraniums has had a flower?

They usually do really well for me.

The other blooming coleus.

I planted half the amount of flowers as last year but they are doing fairly well and filling out.  They were way too crowded last year.  I had gotten carried away by the new planter boxes--LOL!  The weather has been stressful (and damaging) for them but they are surviving.

One of these days McFamily will show up out there to put the boards under the planters.  They'll have to all come because it takes two people to tip/lift these big planters so we need Dagan.  I might be able to tip (not positive) but I know I can't lift with my bum arm and cranky back--LOL!  Leah says they're too heavy for me to tip probably.  Hopefully they won't need actual lifting, but if they do--we will definitely need two people.  The boys would come with, of course, but not be helping with this project. 

They're so busy--so whenever they can make it and work it in is fine with me.  :) :)

Anyways, that's the week from my little corner of the world.  Annie is sleeping on the floor near my chair.

I am going to heat up some soup and watch one of the DVDs that came today.  Both are movies this time.  2 Guns with Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg from 2013 (how did I miss this one?) and The Courier with Benedict Cumberbatch from 2021 (I'll watch anything with Benedict--same for Denzel).  Glad I have AC.  They predicted 80 and it is already 85.

I have Katie coming to clean tomorrow and it's infusion day on Friday.  Hope all goes well at the clinic again.  I do feel so very blessed.  My days are filled with gratitude and contentment.  Spread the love, people!  

Life is good!  :) :)

June 6, 2022 Monday--1:15pm

Good afternoon!

This Friday on the 10th I will have been blogging for 16 years!  Amazes me.  First blog was in 2006--goodness!  How time flies!  I actually surprised myself in that I have managed to post once a week this past year with the rollercoaster cancer ride.  Yay, me!!

I am loving the clouds against the blue sky again.  Never seems to be the same sky in the winter months.

Let's get on with the week.

Monday

We had rain and thunder but not much wind during the day.  The wind and the storms picked up that evening.  I worked on switching over to summer clothes most of the day.

Tuesday

The winds were crazy during the night and still hung in there most of the day.  Nearly blew over a young tree at McFamily's!

Leah battled the wind to at least pull it back upright and stake it till she could do a proper bracing job when the wind died down.

The wind quite literally blew the leaves off the one new coleus...

...and knocked down the other three.  Removed a few leaves off of those, too, but they all look like they are surviving since then.

Boy!  My planters have really been taking a beating this year.  Frost, wind, rabbits (and they might be eating the geranium buds, too), storms...a slow start but I hope they hang in there.

I finally finished the clothes switching Tuesday night.  Five bins of winter clothes to go to the garage...

...and a big lawn bag full of donations.

Wednesday

Dagan came by to bring all the bins and the donation bag to the garage.  I worked on letters all day and watched The Valhalla Murders on Netflix streaming...which totally interfered with my concentrating on letters because I kept chuckling to myself.  Why?  The Icelandic series was dubbed and it was just so funny to me because I have closed captions on all the time because my hearing is so bad...and I have never seen subtitles and dialogue so mismatched for no apparent reason.  

The general meaning was usually the same but why not use the words spoken?  I wondered if the subtitles were taken off the actual script or what was going on?  Maybe the people writing the subtitles were just having a really fun time that day--LOL!

Some examples:  

Actor--Really?  Subtitle--Oh, come on!  

Actor--No way!  Subtitle--There. There. 

Actor--What?  How is that possible?  Subtitle--That can't be right!

Anyways, it was a hoot!  Distracted from the show and the plot, though.  If you watch it don't turn the CC on--LOL!

Thursday

Had a bit worse headache than normally do.  Took it easy, worked on letters and ended up binge-watching Cog Hill Farm videos on YouTube.  I've been following their vlogs for a few months and find them so uplifting (and I love animals).  Come to find out they also have a podcast video channel on YouTube.  I have never gone back to watch prior videos of anyone I follow before (can hardly keep up as it is--lol!)--but I went back about a year and am slowly watching both the vlogs and the pod casts.  I wanted to go back to before they bought the new, bigger farm they have been putting together from scratch.  Just sweet positive people.  Been through a lot I discovered through the podcasts.  

Have any of you ever gone back to posts prior to when you came across someone online?  I know a couple of you have gone back and read my blog posts from the beginning!  That is just plain humbling, I tell you.  Bless  you!!  

Anyways, late in the night I got an aural migraine.  Haven't had them since after I had cataract surgery.  I finally fell asleep for a couple of hours--woke up to a sharp, painful headache around my right eye, but the flashing lights were gone.  (Was like a pixelated arc.)  Slept again.  Woke up to a regular old bad headache--and been just my regular daily headaches since then--whew! 

Friday

Maintenance came to fix the washing machine.  A bolt had come off and he got it back on again.  He just pulled off the dangly foam thingie on the patio door.  (I had almost done that myself, but I am glad he did it and not me--lol!)

Saturday

The new binder I ordered arrived.  Now this is how I can spend most of an entire day...doing things like this that nobody understands why a person would bother--ROFL!

Well, you know I have the trays of inked up fountain pens that I rotate as I write in my journals and with letters.  (I also use gel pens for letters--but my journals are strictly fountain pens.)  To keep track of which pen has which ink in it...I keep a written record.  

This is what I had been using.

A binder from JetPens.  (The sticker on the first page is a gift I got in a Goulet Pens order.)

This type of binder is very thin (which I liked) but it doesn't hold enough pages for me.

So the pages stick and occasionally the rings just pop open--and it's a beast to get the pages back in and the rings closed again.  This was about the third method I have tried to use to keep track of my inked fountain pens over the years.  I had wanted something thin but this just wasn't working.  (I'm very optimistic stubborn and keep trying long past when I should have given up.)  I need to be able to move pens and their pages around, too, so I do need some kind of binder.  Found that out the hard way right off the bat.

Well, I finally relented and got a small sized regular old-fashioned binder.

Supposed to hold 100 pages!  (I have between 50-60 pens inked up usually.)

I also ordered some pretty dividers I could number for the trays...

...and some extra paper.

I know...such a weird and tedious way to spend an entire Saturday...

...but this should work well!

Much fatter than I had wanted, but I think it will work beautifully.

I really do think my search for the perfect way to keep my FP ink record is finally over.  Only FP nuts will understand my delight--ROFL!  But I am SOOOO happy!  :) :)

Oh and I don't like to waste paper.  Since I had just redone the old skinny binder a few months ago (*sigh*)...well, I cut down all the unused parts of the sheets so I can use them for scratch paper.

I keep track of where I am in rotation with little colored post-it flags--one for daily journaling and one for letter writing.  I kind of bookmark my spots in the trays with old highlighter pens.  Every time I start a new pen tray I go through all those pens in that tray to make sure they are working well, can fit the rest of the sample vial if there's any left, and clean & fill any pens that need it.  I use scratch paper to test the pens out so these will last me a good long time.  :) 

I keep my in-use ink samples in alphabetical order in a drawer on my desk.

Yes, I am also an ink sample nut.

Once or twice a year I stock up on ink samples.  I should show you how much of an ink fanatic I am!  I have an entire small drawer full in the bedroom right now because I recently restocked a bunch for my birthday, as you may remember.

There are baskets for color ranges--blues, greens, blacks/greys, turquoises, reds/oranges, browns, etc.  I really do go through a LOT of ink samples in a year.  Probably 2/3 to 3/4 of these will be gone by next June.

Sunday

I finally caught up with the laundry and the washer didn't break or go crazy--or the dryer--tada!  I even got everything put away, too.  Now that would have been such a strange and funny thing to say pre-cancer.  I had always put everything away when I did laundry--ever since I started doing my own laundry at somewhere around 9 or 10 years old.  (Back when there was a whole lot of ironing involved--that might take another day or two.)  Even with chronic fatigue with my fibro I managed to get it all done.  (It's that optimistic stubborn, set-in-my-ways Swede, I think.)  You just never know how your life will change.

Well, today I am blogging from my comfy chair.  Annie keeping me company--wondering why I got up and down a couple of times.  Humans!

I should be up at the table but was too tired.  This is the organized chaos I have around me and where I write my letters 90% of the time.  

Looks like a mess but I know where everything is and each type of pen and highlighter in those black mesh pen cups (mostly my gels).

My life has changed a lot in this past year...and yet, in some ways, not that much.  Ha!  Way to the right above is my forehead swiping thermometer peeking up.  That's new this last year--LOL!  

Anyways, time to get something to eat.  Will probably finish watching the final season of Grace and Frankie...do some paper chatting...water the patio flowers...and pop in over at Cog Hill Farm.  ;)  It's a sunny day and 72 degrees.  Beautiful!  Till next week, my friends...