Sigh...

I've intended to blog, really I have! Because of some medicine changes and my chronic conditions I have experienced severe fatigue the last couple of months. I have been able to make it to work all but one day. Usually after work I come home and sleep for a couple of hours. Then I get up and am active a couple more hours, then back to bed. I faked it through November for National Blog posting month, but I just couldn't pony up for writing this month. I think I have determined which medicine made it impossible for me to keep food inside long enough for it to digest. I have been off of it for about five days and already feel better and have much less bathroom time!

Also - you're not going to believe this - just as I decided I would start attending my dancefit classes again even if I could only make it through TEN minutes of each class I FELL DOWN. I landed on my left knee AGAIN. I didn't break the skin this time, but it is a whopper of a bruise, basically from my knee down to my ankle. I have some pictures of it. I also have some Christmas pictures in the camera that I want to share. I think I will make it a weekend goal to download the pictures and do a photo-based post. So watch out blogworld, zombie leg and snowmen coming your way soon. I did NOT take a nap tonight. I even kinda sorta cooked a little dinner so I have to go to bed soon so I can make it to work tomorrow.

My Favorite Things #30

Photos of family and friends. These are just a couple of places I have them displayed. Honestly I only have them displayed in the purple room, the Disney collage in the hallway, and a couple in my bedroom. Somewhere, I don't remember if it was a novel or a "real" etiquette book, I read that family photos should not be displayed in the "living room" - that they are too personal, and I kind of took that to heart. I have multiple albums of photos that I have been making since I was about 10 years old. I also have all these "mini albums" of photos of my nephew and nieces and their children. I also have MANY photos that were just tossed in boxes that I took from Mom and Dad's house over the summer. I have been working on sorting them out. I hope to have some sort of organization to them and get them in this MARVY photo box I bought at Opportunity House for $3. It is beautiful cherry wood, holds several little photo albums inside and is like brand new. That will give Mom and Dad a way to have some of the photos back, organized and protected. I need to quit doing crap like watching Hoarders and Glee and work on my projects. I've just been SO FREAKING TIRED. I almost went to a dance class tonight, then decided I didn't feel well enough. I stopped at the store long enough to spend only $15 and by the time I got home I felt bad enough to test my glucose and it was only 78. It took me abuot an hour to get it back up to 100. I think I am going to have to start cutting some meds so I can go to dance without being afraid of falling down into a coma. I plan to try a class tomorrow and I am going to be sure to take some juice with me and try to really pay attention and stop and drink if necessary.

But that's off track from my favorite things! Anyway, I have accomplished blogging every day for 30 days, even when I haven't felt well, even when I traveled, even on a holiday. Yay me! I feel like some of this is incomplete. I have a few things I want to photograph and have at least one, maybe more addendum to "My Favorite Things." I don't want to do too much, because I don't want you to know how shallow I really am - ha! good luck to me on hiding my materialism and hoardiness after 30 days of this! Erin is doing the higher road and posted "Thirty Days of Grateful." I am grateful too, for my friends, my family, my home and MY FAVORITE THINGS! So there.

My Favorite Things # 29

Little plastic/rubber/vinyl amphibians, reptiles, arachnids.... Every once in a while I see a package at the dollar store or something and I just can't resist! I put them in random places around the house and just leave them until I get tired of them. The frogs are the most recent purchases, that is why there are still a lot of them. I also have a lizard who rides in the car with me. One day I went into the car wash on a total whim to vacuum the car - sitting there on the vacuum thing was a plastic lizard! I knew he was destined to be my escort in my Escort! The spider by the front door began as a legitimate Halloween decoration, but I liked her so much I didn't want to take her down. I think she has been there about three years now. Sometimes at Christmas I put a tiny bow on her, just to be festive. In my crap - uh I mean CRAFT closet I have a container with three hundred plastic flies. I found it for $1.50. I have a special plan for them. Just imagine what a twisted soul like me can do with three HUNDRED flies!

In other news. I am exhausted. Three hours sleep doesn't cut it. I had to make myself stay up until 9 so I could take my medicine at the right time. Now I plan to take it and get warm to go read "Loving Frank." until I fall into a deep slumber. Please plan - work!

My Favorite Things # 28

My sewing machine. I am not really big on sewing. I don't sew something unless it is something that can't be found to buy. I do enjoy having a machine that is pretty good quality available for when I do need it, however. Previous to this machine I had a cheapo "Brother" brand machine that I bought at Wal-Mart for some very low price. Every time I tried to use it the tension was messed up and I would get so frustrated that I could never complete ANYTHING. This machine does get messed up sometimes, mostly that is because It am not an experienced enough seamstress to know what adjustments need to be made to deal with different thicknesses and textures of fabric. I think that will come with practice and with time. My latest project was the Halloween "Cheerios" costume. I was really quite pleased with the result. I would have liked to have worked on it a little more and made it so the bottom part of the top under the letters was red. I just plain ran out of time and couldn't get that done. I have been collecting some fabrics that I see here and there that I really adore and I would like to learn to make either purses or tote bags of of some of them. Patterns are hugely expensive these days, but I think I can probably figure out a lined purse or tote bag on my own, with a little trial and error. I can pretty much guarantee, however, there will be NO ZIPPERS involved!

In other news:
We met Jen's Billy the Kid. He's adorable, smart, loving, and funny. I hope it gets to be permanent and it sounds like it's highly likely.
We had a good visit with Emily. I had a little pissy fit last night with Michael, but I apologized and he said it was okay. He gets me, ya know? We went to Harry Potter at the IMAX theater. It was expensive, but um... very BIG. I think they chose to end part one at the perfect time.
Our ride home tonight was terrible, but lucky. I-80nand the I-65 were bumper to bumper. On 80 we went by a wreck with about 4 cars and then a car about two cars behind us ran into it and about three or four more cars hit it... I heard the first thump and looked in the rearview mirror and car parts were still flying through the air. I didn't stop because to try to would have been even more dangerous. The first wreck had happened long enough ago that the people were already standing by the side of the road waiting on emergency vehicles. I just hope that nobody was injured by the second round. It looked like what started out as a no injury, annoyance kind of thing could have turned into an 8-10 car pile-up. We finally exited the big highway and came all the way home on 231, which is just a state road and very curvy and dark, but tonight I think it was definitely the better option. What could have been a five hour trip turned out to be about six and a half, I think. I'm physically exhausted, but I drank BIG coffee to stay awake, so I'm not sure what's going to heppen with me tonight. PLUS I have to get up extra early and take Michael back to the dorm and get me to work by 8:00. He's not using the crutches full-time anymore, but he will still need help carrying his stuff up to his room in the morning. It has certainly been a role switch for me to be the door opener and thing toter! Michael is usually my go-to guy on that stuff.
I am super glad we got to visit Emily. It wasn't that we did anything HUGE, just the movie and eating, really, besides hanging out at the apartment. I napped, everybody played with the electronics (Scott and Emily have EVERYTHING!), we made a trip to Target, blah, blah, blah, but we learned that it is possible to go up on a Friday after work and make it back by Sunday evening, It would be even better if it weren't a holiday weekend and Michael were fully mobile. So if we can scrape the gas money together more frequently and not spend too much money eating out instead of in, maybe we can see Scott and Emily (and Jen and Billy) more frequently. I would be really happy with that!

My Favorite Things #27

So, you might think the favorite thing here is the silver container or the colored stones or the candles and yes, each of those are things I really enjoy, as well as the entire configuration. My favorite part of the entire configuration, however, is the SWEETGUM balls. The seed pods! These are from a tree outside my office. I love the way they look. I love the way they feel. I love the way they fall and cover the ground under the tree. It all just makes me happy. I love having them in my home. They remind me of the way nature takes care of itself!

In other news we saw Harry Poter tonight at the IMAX. It was big and loud and good. I had a kind of irritable evening, but it was nice to go see the movie.

My Favorite Things #26

Toys. I like toys. I get kids meals at restaurants and I usually really enjoy the toys. My favorite toys are the ones that "do" stuff. I like the Kung Fu Panda because he talks. One of the penguins also talks. I like the little stuffed ones a lot too, even though I am not a big stuffed animal fan. I like bubbles - there were two giant bubble wands in my wine rack and there are two more bottles here. Sometimes I get toys based on movies and I have never heard of the movies yet - that flying red thing on the shelf? still not sure what the heck it is! Tonight I went to Arby's on the way here (to Jen's - hi Jen!) and got a chicken strips kids meal with a Little Miss Daredevil in some ways SO ,ME in other ways so NOT me! She's riding on the dashboard of the car for a while. I'll have to take her picture tomorrow. I also need to add one more picture to this post later - my FAVORITE Happy Meal Toy EVER - Stuart Little in his little red convertible- and it's a WIND-UP. It really goes! Woo hoo Stuart. Sometimes when a child comes over and plays with my toys if he or she really likes something I will give it away, but STUART IS MINE FOREVER. So there. Kids meals are more than portion control - they are just, plain fun.

My Favorite Things # 25

The top two photos are a repeat of favorite thing number whatever. I moved it up off its normal shelf to get a better shot of it. It's important that my readers clearly see my favorites! The top photo I took with no flash, hoping you can see how it cast the starry lights.
Favorite thing # 25 really is COASTERS. Using coasters makes me feel ultra-civilized, for some reason. I think it makes me feel like I care about my home and that I want to protect the things I have from damage so I can use them a long, long time. I have two sets: the one above, which I purchased because the design is a reflection of my flooring and the multi-colored squares I like. They are fun, but they are only cork and after a lost of use get damaged or moldy. I think I started with eight and I am down to about five because Michael tosses them when he thinks they need to go. Set below is kitties. Even though I don't want to have any pets right now I still really like cats. I especially like whimsically presented cats. It is a better set of coasters as far as quality, because they are stone. The square coasters are in the living room. The kitties are in the purple room.


In other news after work tomorrow Michael and I are heading up north. First destination is the booming city of Hebron (I'm not even sure if it has ONE stoplight!), to see Jen and meet Billy the kid. Then Saturday morning we will complete our journey to the booming suburb of Chicago, Romeoville, to see Emily. Michael hasn't seen her in forever and he has been jonesing for a sister fix. Emily already saw Harry Potter, but I kind of hope we can talk her into going again so we can see it - and they have an IMAX somewhere nearby, that's where she saw it. It probably costs a million dollars, but I think that would be super cool.

Had a nice Thanksgiving. Mom and Dad were supposed to come, but then Dad didn't feel well, so they stayed home. I was a bad daughter and didn't call. I hate talking on the phone! I did post some pictures on Facebook at least so Mom could see we used some of the family items I took from the house. I promised her I would honor and use them and I am working hard to do it. We ended up with me, Michael, Chris and Miko, Heather and Ian, and my friend Karmin, from WAY back - starting in seventh grade! We've been closer the past couple of years and I have really enjoyed our friendship. Next year we're heading to NYC for the Thanksgiving Day parade. I am going to make SURE I can afford a trip next holiday season! Later in the day Alexander came over to spend some time with Michael and Debbie came over and we chatted a bit. I was so tired, I kept almost dozing off during our conversation! I need to get to bed soon, but I had to do a load of laundry to be ready for the trip and I didn't realize Michael (who shall be chastened) had left a wet load in the washer, so I had to finish that up too! Argh!