By supporting her husband!

Don’t forget to buy tomorrow’s USA Today, because Frank Fleming (that’s my Monkeyface) co-wrote an article with Jonah Goldberg for the issue. I hear it’s funny.

I called and left a message for my dad: “Hey, Spidade. I wanted to let you know that you need to buy a USA Today tomorrow. Because your son-in-law co-wrote an article with Jonah Goldberg, and I know you like both your son-in-law and Jonah Goldberg.”

I’m so excited for him. And proud! I take partial credit, because I laughed when he bounced ideas off of me.

Yeah, so tomorrow is the last day of March, and it is currently snowing at our house. I’m actually not that excited about it, just because I really want to get out and explore the area next weekend, and I was hoping to go to Monkeyface Mountain. On the other hand, I’m so excited that it’s not hot and muggy. And this is still running weather. Since I may actually get my evenings back this week, I plan to get started. We have lots of hills, which means I could actually enjoy running again!

Some days I’m amazed at how many diseases I researched before you, my dear readers, told me about celiac. I went through more than three years of doctors giving me band-aid drugs for my many symptoms while begging someone, just anyone, to try to connect the dots. The M.D.s didn’t connect the dots, so I spent so much time researching, blogging about my symptoms, digging around, and noticing my symptoms in other people. Oh, she’s been diagnosed with Lupus! It would be a horrible thing to have, but more than anything I just want a diagnosis! Please let it be Lupus. My symptoms are so similar. Yeah, Lupus was a big one for me.

Then there was Lyme disease. Hey, remember that one day when I had a painful burning rash from my ankles to my knees when we went to Epcot with the Pieras? It wasn’t a bullseye, but maybe, just maybe… it could be Lyme disease. That’s so much better than Lupus! Doesn’t require a lifetime of meds or anything!

At one point, I was convinced that I had lead poisoning. The house I’d lived in in Amarillo was old (really really old) with peeling paint on the walls, and the pipes had never been replaced. Maybe I’d been poisoned by showering in the water there. Or eating the peeling paint in my sleep. I could get intravenous chelation therapy or even look into oral chelation, and I’d be on the road to good health.

I think the saddest thing is that at one point, I actually prayed I would be diagnosed with MS. Those symptoms fit so well, especially when I started having the seizures in my hoo-hah. I did not want MS at all, but I really wanted any diagnosis, even if it meant injections and a degenerative nerve and muscle disease…

Every time someone asks me what I can and can’t eat (this happened at work today after we all ordered lunch from Goodwood Barbecue, and I had called and talked to the kitchen to be absolutely sure about what I could eat), I happily tell them. And I always assure them (after their looks of pity or *wow*) that it’s really not bad. I name for them all the things I can safely eat and emphasize that basically I have to be ultra-careful at restaurants and stay away from prepackaged foods. I tell them how wonderful it is to eat foods prepared from fresh vegetables, fruits, and herbs. How good the food tastes, especially the brown rice pasta and the fresh homemade bread. And I think of you. You and my blog and how thankful I am that I opened up and blogged about all of my insane symptoms. And how you helped me to start recovering.

Mwah. Y’all are the best.

Yeah, so Vista comes with a free trial of Office 2007. I’ll milk it for all I can, and then when my trial runs out, I’ll be buying it. I’ve already found new features that I can’t live without, and I don’t have any idea how I ever Excelled without such features.

Darn you, Microsoft!

This is more for purposes of being able to track what’s going on with me. Nothing to see here.
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FRANK J.: Can you put some music on or something? I get crazy when it’s quiet.
SARAHK: No, you’re always crazy. You just get *less* crazy when it’s *not* quiet.

So I can’t get Microsoft Internet Explorer to work with Microsoft Windows Vista. Hahahahaha.

The un-haha part of it is that I still have a lot of work to do this weekend, and our work software only works through IE. It won’t function properly in Firefox.

Grr.

UPDATE: I had to turn off my firewall and then also turn off IE’s internet protection. Basically, to use IE I have to surf naked. But at least non-Microsoft software works with Vista!

While I was at work today, tickets for Carrie Underwood’s concert in May went on sale. Frank promised to get tickets for himself, coworker L, and me when they went on sale. (He’s a good husband.)

So the tickets went on sale at 10, and Frank called my work phone at 10:06. L (we share an office) said, “Oh! He must have gotten the tickets!” Um… YEAH he did! Floor section, third row! Suh-weet! I turned around told L (I think I’m going to call her Elle going forward — she needs a name). She said, “Wow! Great job, Frank!” and I repeated. “Great job, sweetie!” Elle and I were so excited. We can’t wait. Frank’s probably looking forward to the concert a little but I doubt as much as Elle and I are.

Woo!

My hubby co-authored a column with Jonah Goldberg for this coming Tuesday’s USA Today. He’s hoping it’s not a cruel April Fool’s joke. I’m so proud of him.

Hopefully my only working Saturday for a long time. But we’re really busy, and I’m still learning, and we have a Monday deadline, and I will spend Monday doing some things that halfhave to be done on the last day of the month. So. Hopefully it’s only a few hours, but I have a feeling I’ll be there all day. At least the boss is buying lunch, though (I’m taking my own lunch just in case).

Later, dudes.

It’s amazing. When I bought the VAIO four years ago, I bought a $300 spare battery, which became useless within months. Starting day one, the battery that came with the Sony started losing its ability to work past half an hour. When I first started it up, I was already disappointed that the battery barely lasted two hours (if I didn’t run the wireless network, didn’t play music, didn’t use Quicken, and didn’t use Excel – you know, if I just looked at a blank screen) , so I switched batteries, hoping that the spare would work better. It didn’t. And everything was just downhill from there. The battery eventually settled on twenty minutes, or half an hour if I turned everything off.

And then there’s my new baby. I can sit and blog for a couple of hours while using Excel, editing photos, and surfing the net. And the battery is only just over half depleted afterward. The other night I blogged and surfed for two hours, uploaded and edited pictures at the same time… all on battery. The next day I got on the machine for a little while in the morning, and later that day, Frank took the computer (which I’d not charged overnight) into the kitchen so he could follow my Mexican Chicken Soup directions. It lasted another good hour before it finally needed to be plugged in. So yeah, I think I’ll be looking for spare laptop batteries (or battery, singular, depending on how much they cost). I mean, I could use my computer all day long on one of our soon-to-be-frequent drives to state parks, national parks, and eventually Texas. Oh, and the all-day flight from Boise to Florida would be more bearable (especially if screaming kids don’t let me sleep or read books) – I have a few good games on here. Yes, wRitErsbLock, we do want to come back eventually for another cruise and more Disney and that Harry Potter world at Universal.

Have I mentioned how much I love my computer? Gateway is teh awesome. Just like me.

Now bigger and better!

I don’t know what was going on with my face. I think it was snowy and I’d just gotten back from shopping. Anyway, that’s me now. Actually, that’s me a couple of months ago. I’ve actually lost a couple of pounds since then, my stomach is smaller.

*Rowdi went back to the vet over the weekend, and they bandaged her head more heavily. Within hours, she already had the new bandages off. Every time I walked by Rowdi, I was sticking her good ear back through the hole in the headwrap. So Frank took her back today, and they bandaged her up even more. I’ll give you pictures tomorrow, because it’s so awesome. She looks like she has no ears.
*Obama’s racist pastor is building a $1.6 million house for his retirement. Crazy racist rhetoric is profitable, yo.
*I’ve been working a lot this week, and I will still be working Saturday. It’s okay. It won’t happen often, we’re just really busy right now.
*Frank cooked for me tonight. My Mexican Chicken Soup recipe. It was super yummy. It was really cute, though. I got home, and he asked me to make sure that peeling the garlic slowly with his fingers was the right way to do it. I showed him how to pop and smash off the peel. Then he said, “Oh wait. Three cloves of garlic. Is that three of these? [Cloves] Or three pods?” I just started grinning and then saw that the whole garbage bowl was full of garlic peels. “Three of these. These are cloves. The whole thing is a pod, or a bulb.” “Oh.” But actually, we tripled the recipe, so the garlic wasn’t overdone at all.
*A coworker is moving away, and tomorrow is her last day, so the accounting department went to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. That’s a good place for GF eating. And they have a few dishes that can be done GF and dairy free. The sad thing is that I only went back off dairy a couple of weeks ago, and when the waiter handed out the cheesecake menus at the end of lunch (he kindly skipped me, and I was glad), he said that they also have a cheesecake that isn’t on the menu. “It has a chocolate flourless crust…” was about all I heart. My mouth went gaga. A couple of my coworkers said, “But could you have the dairy?” They must have seen the longing in my eyes. “No…” I sadly admitted. If only this were two weeks ago. I never even went out of my way to eat cheesecake before. But I miss cheese (especially cream and parmesan) more than anything I’ve had to give up.
*Night, peeps.

Frank went to the mailbox last night and came back with a check. “Apparently I got another patent.” Sure enough, he was awarded his second patent this month. The first patent, when they wrote it, was broken into two separate pieces. The first was awarded a few years ago, and the second came through this month. So his old company mailed him a bonus check!

I was like, “Hey, we can go to P.F. Chang’s!” And he said, “Or I could get a second guitar for Guitar Hero.” Oh yeah. That. He earned it, so of course I agreed with him.

I’m so proud of my monkeyface.

We’re working overtime this week, and I’m going to try to work a lot during the week so I don’t have to work Saturday. I don’t like working Saturdays.

In TMI news (it’s medical stuff and seriously you don’t want to know):
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Friday, as you know, we had serious issues with Rowdi’s ear flap bleeding everywhere. This is the bandage job I did before she shook that off with half a shake of her head:

Yes. As I said, I am untrained. How can y’all not be impressed with my natural gift?

Frank took her back to the vet a couple of hours later, and right when Rowdi got into the vet’s office, she shook her ears and promptly started bleeding all over the floor. I’m sure they will always look forward to seeing us. So the vet tried several things. He rebandaged her ear, and as soon as she could shake her ears, she splattered blood all over the office. Awesome. He tried cauterizing the wound three different times, and every time he was done, she would shake her ears and resume bleeding heavily. By the way, she was tired the rest of the day from all the bleeding (or the excitement and anxiety of going to the vet’s office).

Frank was at the vet’s office for over an hour, and Rowdi only stopped reopening the wound after this:
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Here’s one.

I just now turned on my computer for the evening (we were at Bible study). When I left it this morning, I put it into hybernation, and when I opened it tonight, it just came up, which was weird since I hadn’t yet hit the power button to bring it out of hybernation. Then I got a message right away that Windows had recovered from a serious error. Details? Blue screen of death.

Now how does a computer get the blue screen of death in hybernation mode?

Rowdi seriously needs a pedicure. I think we’ll find out when the groomer will be stopping at the daycare place this week, and we’ll take her in that day so she can play with the other dogs and get her nails done. The owner has offered to paint Rowdi’s nails because she loves painting doggy nails. I didn’t think Frank would go for it, but he thinks it would be funny. So now it’s just a matter of convincing Rowdi. That may take some doing unless there’s a whole lot of peanut butter involved.

The snow is starting to melt. Only the very tops of the mountains are white now. They still have night skiing going on up there, it looks like, but we should be able to get out and explore Idaho soon. We’re really happy about that. I look at the mountains all around us every day in wonder that we actually live here. And when I see a sunset or the western sky after sunset, I’m amazed that there’s any place on earth with such beautiful sky.

I think I’m going to change my blog categories to more recognizable ones. Like “(most) politicians are stupid” may become “politics,” “and she can read, too!” will probably turn into “books.” Stuff like that. It’s just too hard for me to figure out what category to use, because I have so many and they all have goofy names.

I’m all about improvements now that I have my new toy.

I haven’t done them in a while because I haven’t had much to talk about, at least nothing I wanted to write about so much that I would deal with my old computer. (Seriously, we two have had a battle of wills in the last couple of months, and VAIO finally beat me down enough that I just gave up.)

But I finally decided that I don’t have to write something exciting every time I write something. This is my journal, so I can write little one-sentence posts, and that is just fine. Might not be great reading, but it’s my life, and I like talking about it.

Have I mentioned how much I love it? Because I do.

I have pictures on my computer now (the card reader just up and decided it would start working), but I need to install my photo editing software before I can edit them. That will have to wait until tomorrow, so the conclusion of the Rowdi story will have to wait until then too. You need to see the pictures. I fear that it may be a couple of days because my software may not be compatible with Vista. If that is the case, I’ll probably just edit the pics on my old machine and jump drive them over to my new one for uploading.

Ah. I’ve been on my computer transferring files and blogging for a good hour and a half, and I still have over an hour of battery life left. So nice to have a battery that lasts longer than seventeen minutes.

This morning at church one of the men told us that since another woman in the congregation and I both have wheat issues, they are going to switch to rice crackers for the Lord’s Supper. He wanted to make sure that wouldn’t make us feel awkward, and nope, it doesn’t. How thoughtful is that? Frank and I always bring our own rice crackers, and now they’re changing the bread to rice for the whole congregation. I thought that was so nice. We love our congregation. The preaching is excellent, Bible classes are excellent, everyone is nice. I could do with more singing, though. We’re used to an hour of singing before even getting to the sermon. Which reminds me. I need to write letters to our Florida church and my Florida massage therapist. I’m so bad with correspondence. Evidenced by the fact that I still haven’t finished the wedding thank you notes (over two years later), and I fully intend to still send them. Bad bad bad.

Anyway. When I first went GF, I was really bothered by the fact that I couldn’t have the normal unleavened bread (matzoh crackers usually). I did a lot of studying to make sure it was okay for me to use something else. I couldn’t find anything in the Bible that said that the unleavened bread has to be made of wheat. Just that it is to be unleavened. And when the preacher at our new congregation first noticed that we always wave off the bread and use our own, he asked me about it. I told him it’s because of the wheat thing, and the first thing he said was, “Well, the Bible doesn’t say it has to be wheat bread. Just that it’s unleavened.”

We kind of lucked into this congregation. We actually have a couple of differences with the congregation doctrinally, but nothing I consider to be too big now that we understand more about what they believe. We believe all of the same things except a couple of smaller issues where they come down more conservative than I do. Frank doesn’t have a strong opinion either way but leans to my side, and we both can see both sides of these issues. I talked to a couple of the ladies about it last week and told them we believe differently on a couple of things but we wouldn’t leave because of those issues alone — as long as they don’t have a problem with the fact that we don’t agree on it and as long as they don’t have a problem with us believing differently. Their response was that they’re not the thought police, basically that the congregation needs to get along and that if there is a disagreement we need to all be open to studying about it, and sometimes the conclusion will be that we agree to disagree. That’s refreshing, actually, having been through a church split in the past (that was at least as bad as going through my divorce).

So we’re very pleased with where we ended up.

That was long and rambly, wasn’t it?

I think I fixed the time so I’m not still an Eastern Time Zone poser. You should see Mountain DST.

Well, I can’t get the built-in card reader to recognize my xD card, and my Olympus software won’t install. I’m going to do some research, but that’s why y’all haven’t heard the conclusion of Rowdi’s ordeal yesterday (I want to post it complete with pictures). For the record, the pictures we took of her yesterday are by far the most pathetic pictures of Rowdi ever. Y’all can’t wait to see them.

I can’t wait to get them on my machine!

Kris has ordered Nutiva’s EV unrefined coconut oil and also Nutiva’s hempseed oil (I don’t know much about hempseed oil except that it is also good for you). And I don’t think I’ve ever told y’all which brand of the coconut oil I prefer. Kris reminded me that you all need this information.

Nutiva is the best coconut oil I’ve had. I’ve also tried Spectrum refined coconut oil (before I knew that it’s only good for you if it is *unrefined*). That oil has no flavor and basically tastes like canola. And the refining process takes away all of the good stuff and makes it unhealthy. I’ve also had another brand that I bought at the co-op when it was on sale. I don’t remember the brand, but it had a bluish label. It was EV and unrefined as well, but the flavor wasn’t quite as good as Nutiva’s. I’ve never tried Garden of Life EV coconut oil, so I can’t opine in that case, but I’m particularly fond of the Garden of Life company and its founder, Jordan Rubin, who wrote The Maker’s Diet book. That book and his probiotics cured someone I dearly love who was dying, and they’ve helped me a lot as well. I know there are sites that call him a quack, but real life results are pretty darned convincing.

Anyway, in case you were wondering, Nutiva is my coconut oil brand.

For a couple of weeks, Rowdi has been growing a… growth on the inside of one of her ear flaps. It was red at first and then grew to be this giant (1/2 inch) black bubble. So yesterday Frank took her to the vet to get it checked out. They said it’s a common growth-type thingy that dogs get all the time. And they lasered it off. Also gave her shots and her kennel cough vaccination. Good day for the dog.

When she came in from doing her business last night, her ear was bleeding a little. Just a little. But the bandage was still firm on her ear, and the blood stopped quickly.

This morning I went to let her out of her crate, and as soon as she got out, she flapped her ears wildly, as dogs tend to do. And then her ear started gushing. All over the rented carpet. And when she flapped, she splattered blood all over the wall, so it looks like something went down up there on the landing. Poor puppy.

I put her back in her room so she could gush all over her washable blankets while I went to clean myself off and get bandages. My hands and foot were covered in blood (dog blood, ick!). Cleaned that up and then took the bandages right back to Rowdi’s crate. Of course, I first went the lazy route and tried to put a giant bandaid (I had a couple) over the tape bandage that the vet had on the ear. But the blood continued to pour, and by this time Rowdi was starting to eat her own blood. I was pulling on her ear to get the old bandage off while trying to keep her head up so she wouldn’t eat her blood off her blankets and gently saying, “No, Rowdi. We don’t eat our own blood in this house.” I think she was trying to remove the evidence that she’s in a weakened state so the cats won’t take the opportunity to kill her and eat her carcass.

So I finally got the old bandage off and pulled out the alcohol swabs. I wondered if she would bite me while I tried to clean her ear. Tried being the key word, because the lasered spot had a big mess of congealed blood, and I was starting to gag. Future career as a doctor: not possible. That’s okay, though: I already have a typical white person job. Anyway, I cleaned as much as I could without adding barf to the mess in her crate and then started patching her back up again. First I used one giant bandage, which she did not like, because I was putting sticky stuff on her ear. Then I patched up around the edges of the ear with smaller bandages so the blood wouldn’t leak if the ear started up again. When she was all sealed up, I got her several cookies, which she ate heartily before going back to eating her own blood.

Meanwhile, Frank was cleaning the blood off the carpet. When he got it all cleaned up, we decided to let her out of her room. As soon as she got downstairs, she started rubbing her head against the back of the couch. Awesome. I am scared to look and see if she got her doggy blood all over it. After the head rub, she went to the middle of what will eventually be the pool table’s spot and flapped her ears wildly. My improvised bandage didn’t work so well. She started dripping on the carpet again, but being the good dog she is, she ran right for the hardwood floor and dripped all over that instead.

So the poor thing is back in her crate. Frank is going to Walgreens to try to get better bandages, and when he gets back from having coffee with a recruiter, he’s going to take her back to the vet. I just don’t know how you get a dog’s ear to stop bleeding, especially a dog who thinks if she shakes her ears around, it’s like she never heard that command you just gave, so she doesn’t have to do whatever you told her to do. She shakes her ears a lot.

I’ll have pictures later (for real this time!), but I haven’t loaded my camera software on the new machine yet. BTW, the computer came with a digital media card reader built in. Uploading pictures will be so much easier!

Haaaa, that is never ever going to get old. Expect to hear me say it often.

In Deathly Hallows, I’m almost to the wedding. To me, one of the most exciting parts of the book. I love when the Ministry falls and Hermione takes control of everything.

I think I left off somewhere around the time Harry and Hermione go to Godric’s Hollow, so I still have far to go until I get back to the blogging part of it. But I hope to get there soon.

Laters. It’s bedtime.

There’s a scantily clad chick in this video, but watching it is not necessary. Just listen to the words. I could not stop laughing. Nay, cackling.

It is about sex, so I don’t recommend you watch with your kids (or boss) around.

(via Hot Air)