Busy busy

The trip to Las Vegas with Turtle Lady and her Dear Husband was fun. We walked and walked, despite my best efforts to find efficient ways to get around. The bus system has been determined to be the most efficient way to get up and down the strip. Since we've been back here at my home the two of them have knocked down the Honey-do list to the point that I have no more chores for them. The place looks a lot nicer, and Bill (the Dear Husband) even installed a grab bar in the bathroom for when my Mom visits. The bathroom tub is a very large step up and down, and even I sometimes have trouble with it. He also resurrected the bakers rack that the movers who transferred the stuff between trucks in Wichita ended up almost destroying. TL has food in the house and has taken over my kitchen as promised. Life is good. They even had roses waiting for me when I got up to go to work yesterday to celebrate my birthday. I tell ya, I may invite them back again!

Later today we head to Payson and hopefully a short hike in the state park up there. For me, it is a chance to see trees. Amazing how that means so much to me after months at a time living in the desert and not seeing a real forest. Very different that the Southeast, or even Honduras. I took them out to Tortilla Flats a few days ago and they were impressed with the Superstition Mountains and all the cactus and such. We ate at the restaurant there, and it was good. I'll probably take Mom out there while she is here as well.

I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and a happy Holidays whatever you choose to celebrate during this season. Take time to stop, give thanks, and mostly CELEBRATE that we are here and the blessings that we have.

Exciting Times

Today is the first day of a week's vacation. I had some days that needed to be used before the end of the year. This has morphed into a trip to Las Vegas, leaving tomorrow to drive up there. My friends, Turtle Lady and her DH, will fly in from KY and meet me there. We spend 3 days enjoying Vegas, Baby! and going to a show this time, my first time doing so. I want to explore some around Lake Mead on the way up and stop wherever they want to on the drive back to Phoenix. They will stay here with me for another week and we will explore around here.

This is prompting a major shuffle of stuff around here. Luckily, they are good friends and are used to me and my stuff. Turtle Lady will take over my kitchen. She knows that there is usually no food around here, so a trip to the grocery will be up early on. Then IKEA. Then who knows.

In the shuffle I did find my camera charger and cable, among other things. I have assured TL and her DH that they have free access to my wifi as well as my yarn stash and supplies. Between all of the above the next weeks should be full. Maybe even some pictures included in blog posts, who knows. I'll have a couple of weeks to recover, then Mom flys out on the 20th of January for a visit. You know I'll be clearing and cleaning for that!

Hibernating

I will admit the primary reason I'm updating is that my blog list along the right side of the page isn't refreshing. I mean that other folks' blogs aren't refreshing for me, showing the list from yesterday. This happens sometimes. I can't seem to get it to update. I'm hoping that if I make a post it will jog it. Not a log going on as I'm in the middle of switching shifts again, back to nights. I only work and sleep when I'm doing that. I did start knitting a sweater again with the yarn I was looking for awhile ago. I was starting socks as a learning project, but with the sweater weight yarn and making up the pattern as I went to adjust they were going to be way too large. So I ripped them out and started the sweater. Now I've decided to make some cotton knitted dishcloths for my neighbors for Christmas, so the sweater may go to the back burner. I really like the yarn, though, so I'll probably sneak a row in occasionally. Now to post and see if this worked. *UPDATE* It worked. I have a refreshed blog list. I actually use my sidebar list to read the blogs, and use the blog lists of those I read to wander further. I don't 'follow', I go the the blogs and read. Just how I roll. I hope folks don't think I'm any less loyal for doing it that way.

Forgot what day it is

On the way into work tonight I started to swing by WalMart to get some snacks and a sandwich to take into work as I do a lot of nights on the way in. As I was stopped at the light getting ready to turn in I sort of wondered at the amount of traffic at 9:30pm on a Holiday and suddenly it hit me what I was about to do! I was going to WalMart on the cusp of BLACK FRIDAY!! NOOOOOOO!!! I made a circle of the parking lot, which had more cars than are usually there during the day (what few daytimes I've been there lately). I tend to be crowd adverse, so I decided I had what I needed in my locker at work, which was bread and peanut butter, and some yogurt in the fridge as well. When I walked into work I remembered that my employer had Boston Market deliver Thanksgiving dinner for whoever was working earlier in the day, and the remenants were in the fridge. So much for peanut butter!

Happy Thanksgiving

It is currently 2:30am local time and I'm at work. I will get off work around 8am and just go home and sleep. I am making double time and a half, so I'm glad to have the hours this year. I am thankful for a lot of things. The past 3 Thanksgiving holidays I was in Honduras, so being back in the US is one thing I'm grateful for. I hope everyone has a safe Holiday season.

Testing, testing, 123

I'm trying the Google speech to text to see if I can just speak into my tablet computer and have it type it as I speak. Other than not knowing how to add punctuation, which it just did, I seem to be doing okay. I think I will make more use of my tablet now that I know how to do this. So far it hasn't made a single mistake. Such more accurate than my own typing in fact. Who news technology come this far.

SOLD!

The house in Nashville officially belongs to someone else! I got the confirmation email that told me to do my happy dance! I verified that the utilities were switched out of my name and canceled the homeowner's insurance. Then I took a nap. Only a couple of minor account and mailing address closures and I will have everything in my life, business wise, centered here in Phoenix. WOO HOO!!

On being quiet

I realized a few days ago that I think in two different cases I left virtually the same comment on folk's blogs that I had left before. I start to write a post and just never get to it. I don't feel much original coming out of my keyboard.

I am getting things done in real life. I hit the point a few days after finding my yarn that I am totally tired of stepping over and around all this stuff just sitting around as I've unpacked boxes and totes to find things. I now have found what I need to live for the near future, so I'm working on putting away and clearing and in a few cases even getting rid of stuff.

My vertigo is still here, although it only bothers me when I lay down or when I get up in the morning. It is more a backward and forwards (laying down and sitting up) vertigo than the spinning type. I did put together the shelves and fit them to be the base of my bed so I'm not on the floor on my air mattress. I just did that today, so I'll know maybe by in the morning if it helps or makes the vertigo worse. Mom's vertigo seems to be under control now, so I'm glad of that at least.

The closing on the house in Nashville is set for Friday, so starting tomorrow I have phone calls and paperwork to sign and get notarized and sent back and hope that nothing keeps this from happening. Selling the house makes my life a lot easier (massive understatement there...). So, that's what's happening.

I found my yarn!

It wasn't being held ransom by renegade sheep or auctioned off by Customs to fund their morning coffee after all. I decided to start working on the boxes in the attached shed/workshop and the second one I opened had the yarn. It also has the two really nice duffle bags I had the yarn packed in that I was sorry to have lost. So, life is getting settled in. Kinda scary after all these years.

Getting back to normal

News on the vertigo front is good. I found on YouTube videos to correct vertigo including one I just now found: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VWyPgfMuvM which explains it very well. The one I used showed the Epley maneuver. I called Mom to tell her about it, and she said that her vertigo had disappeared. It seems she did the movements in her sleep. She woke up with her head hanging off the side of her bed with a screeching in her ear. When she rolled over, the vertigo went away. After one Epley maneuver my vertigo was 80 percent better, only bothering me at night a bit. I'll try the movements in the video listed above, but I think even without it that I'm fine now.

Yes, I do believe mine was from the off-gassing of the shelves I bought at IKEA and laid right next to my bed that day. It was just too immediate and acute an attack. I don't know what caused Mom's. My new shelves are out on the screen porch, and I will put them together and move them back into the bedroom in a couple of weeks. If I have any return of the vertigo, I'll make other plans then. I think this was a recent shipment as the bin I got them from at IKEA was full, and I never had any reaction to anything else I've bought there. From now on, though, I will let any new furniture air out before bringing it into the living space.

I have a lot of other things to update, including that I finished the sweater I was knitting and my trip up to Jerome, AZ along with pictures, but I've misplaced my camera cable. Mostly it is irritating and I do have severalof those cables around here. I'm being stubborn and looking for the one I usually use as I just had it last week. The search is prompting me to clear out my office and rearrange, so all is not totally negative from this. Piles are getting put away, some things are being moved out and given away or trashed. I still have not found my yarn, so I will go buy some more today probably. I want to start making some socks. More updates when I either find the darn cable or use one of my other ones.