Insomnia

This is pretty much how I feel this morning. I have been awake since 2:30 a.m. I got up at 3:00 and started on the computer. Mostly work stuff. I had Thursday and Friday off. Thursday there were a few filter issues and I am responding to them today. Get out of my way.

I added some links to our Tech web page for the new filter and I am raring to go. Except for this cough. I have discovered that holding my stomach while coughing helps me a bit. At least the headaches seem to be gone for now.

My daughter has run the gamut on this one before. She said "You have this now? Okay, this stage is next." And she is spot on. Now comes the drainage. As if the dry hacking cough didn't do enough to rip out my throat and break my ribs, now the coughing and sputtering.

At least I can go into the office today with very few people working. Most have the day off. I will probably take my Clorox wipes with me and wipe down the phone, door knobs, the mouse, the keyboard, the microwave handle - all things I touch today.

I slept most of the day away yesterday. It was beautiful outside. I did manage to get a chair and let the sun beat down on me for about 15 minutes and get some fresh air into my lungs. It was quite heavenly. I had let the inside house temperature soar to 74º Fahrenheit. I immediately opened windows and doors and turned the fans on to cool it down and get the stale air out.

I am very short of breath with this cough. It is the kind where you start a slow panic when you can't get your breath. I would hate to suffocate. When I get short of breath I have to sit down and have a fan blowing directly into my face or I begin to get light headed and my limbs begin to turn to jell-o.

I don't know if you know what I mean by that feeling, but it is very unnerving. It makes me start to panic and I have to give myself a mental shake and remind myself to breath. Just breath. I can only imagine this is what it must feel like to be asthmatic.

There. I have regained some of my useless babble for the blog. Nonsensical stuff that gives me the chance to purge. Now that it is time to feed the critters and get into the shower, NOW is the time I would like to go back to sleep.

Ouch. One of my cats just nailed me a good one. She is impatient. She knows it is her feeding time and she stretched up and clawed my leg a good one. It hurt and I brushed her off. She got pissed and ran over under the table hissing at me. Hissing! I turned my chair around and glared at her. She glared back. Oh, she is a stinker that one.

Now, she has jumped up on my computer tower under my desk and I reach down to pet her and we are fine again. She licks my hand as if saying "Sorry."  I re-assure her and say "I know, I will feed you soon." I pet her some more and she is soft and furry and ...OUCH!! The damn thing bit me.

Click, click, click, click!

I have been up reading for over an hour. Oh, Peruby will you never learn?!  That large glass of cold and sweetened iced tea certainly tasted good at 8:00 p.m. Sigh.

My neighbor has one lone iris blooming this year. Strange year for the flowers. You could figure with the odd weather we have had. I snapped some shots of my one lone poppy blooming and my peony bush but they all came out blurry. What evah!

Anyway, Muse stated she was having issues loading a picture onto blogger with Firefox and had to use IE, so I had to test it. I had to click and click and click and click but it finally went. Who knows what is mucking things up this time?

From the same cloth

Whoops. I must have created this photo in a biggie size. Oh, well. The two above are brothers. Four years apart. Yesterday was the first birthday of the one on the left. We are celebrating on Sunday with a big family get together.

Both different. Both adorable. Their poor Mother. My nephew's wife. She had a son from a previous relationship. He is just starting his troublesome teen years. And my nephew (her husband). All those boys in the house with no other female companionship. It would drive me nuts!

Sister 1949 has stayed at their house before due to inclement weather because she works close to where they live. She is not my nephew's mother. Well  not THIS nephew. She said she is so impressed with how he really  helps out around the house and with the boys. Washing clothes, bathing the boys. I can only imagine the amount of work that needs to be done in that household.

My dinner plans are canceled for this evening. Outside it looks as if we only got about 3 inches of a very wet snow. So far. We are due to get more. No schools have canceled,  yet. I have been awake since 2 a.m. I must stop the late afternoon caffeine fixes I have been treating myself with. Sigh.

I have a birthday party on Saturday and one on Sunday. I was hoping for a calamity day today so I could really sink myself into learning and developing my presentation. What will be, will be. I feel the headache starting. Maybe I can get back to sleep. I've already been drinking coffee. Nuts.

Droopy

Sigh. This will be me today. I have been awake for an hour, now. That was 2:30 a.m. Did I retire too early? Maybe. Am I worried about the conference coming up where I give a presentation on something I know next to  nothing about? You betcha.

I'd like to say I've been honing my skills in Linux. That would not be true. The filter has kept me busy at work. We have outgrown it and there does not seem to be any money to update the poor server. I am doing what I can to take the load off Fanny, but Fanny put the load right back on me. I think I'll nickname my filter "Fanny" after the song The Weight. You can follow that link - it is kind of an interesting read if you know the song. I like it and I listen to it now and again. If you followed this paragraph, fine. If not, it is because I am a bit sleep deprived and am probably making no sense.

As I said, I would like to say there is a good reason for me not posting since, what has it been, Friday? There is not. I have been watching movies. Well, I guess that is spending time with my daughter and her beau - so that is a pretty good excuse. I should have been honing my skills. Ah, well.

Anyway, we watched "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs".  This one is part 3 in a series. I think it is the best! I missed the second, so I can't say for certain it is the best, but I loved it. I had to watch it again the next morning. :)  If you have little ones... well, I don't know. I didn't have any little ones - but I hope they would like it.

Then we watched "Life as We Know It". Not my pick. It had some comedy. Bleh. And, "Easy A" - I would pass on. Also not my pick. What was my pick? Hey - I didn't get one this time around!

So, yep. I'd like to say I was off doing something productive, but no. At work I have been struggling to keep the filter running and at home I watched movies. Except for Sunday when I helped a family member with a computer problem. Got it fixed, but we took the long and hard way. When we resolved the issue it was so easy. If we had only tried that in the first place! Arrgghh!

Oh, woe is me

Using my backup computer again. Here is a photo a month or so old with our cat Teton looking at some fish in a bowl. They are there, up near the top. The food cover we use so the fish can't jump out and so the cat can't stick it's paw in is kind of covering them.

I have my main computer down to change the battery. I got one at Radio Shack and (par for the course) got the incorrect one. I also changed the fuse in my sub woofer and promptly blew the new one out. So that means a more serious problem. I must find a place that repairs sub woofers. Oh, woe is me.

And, I have insomnia. I have been up for an hour. The dogs have been taken outside and fed. I still have some kitty litter duty but I kind of procrastinate in that area. Work has been busy in an interesting kind of way.

I hope to visit some family and an old friend this holiday week-end coming up. Labor day. Hah.

The blues have it

I browsed the pictures at DQ and decided on this puppy image to put on my daughter's ice cream cake. It was delicious! I used to hate the taste of grainy sugar in my mouth, but the flowers were so soft and melted very quickly. Yum!

Yes, it is 4:30 a.m. I have been up for over and hour. I can't sleep yet, again. I am not drinking any caffeine in the evenings. Well, I did drink an extra cup of coffee at a meeting yesterday after lunch. Maybe?

I am dizzy when walking the dogs. It is stress-induced, I am sure. I have to sign a retirement paper and it is affecting me so deeply. It is like jumping off a cliff into the unknown. All I see down below is pure darkness.

I do not have any 'faith in' or 'respect for' the people (person) who are (is) deciding my work fate.

A simpler place and time

I so want one of these light up toys. I found them at the Tractor Supply store and gave them out to the kids. Now, I want one for myself.

My co-workers backed out of the legal endeavor. Whatever. What will be, will be.

I find myself mentally (and physically) exhausted these days. I'm sure it is stress (as my migraines have increased quite a bit) and my insomnia is kicking in. Two of the jobs I wanted to apply for were already filled. The third is much more complex and I must re-structure my resume to fit it better. There are a few things on the qualifications list that I have covered and a few things that I don't. I'll give it a go. Of course if I wait any longer, I'll let it slip through my fingers as I so easily do.

I can barely get the trash out and the sink cleared out let alone find the mental energy to come up with a fresh and professional looking resume. There is a song out by Matchbox 20 ( a couple of years old, actually) that is called "Push". I changed some of the lyrics to fit my present condition:

I don't know if I'm up for an interview, I'm a little bit rusty,
And I think my head is cavin' in.
And, I don't know if I have a future with this job, it's a little uncertain,
And I feel the walls are closin' in. And, I'm a little bit angry.

So don't stand there, sayin' nice things to me.
I've been cheated, I've been wronged.
You don't know me.

Yeah, yeah. I've been singing it nonstop for two weeks, now. Now my head is really starting to hurt. I can go along just fine for an hour or two and then "wham!" just out of the blue I get a real bad pain. I'm sure it is from getting up too early this morning, and it only lasts for about 30 seconds or so.

But hey! I have not had any foot pain for a long time. I'd do the happy dance, but there is the headache and ... oh, you know.

I've been drinking lots of water because the weather here in Ohio is unbelievable! We marched straight into summer, skipped the spring cool air altogether. I've had the air conditioner on for about four days now. My office at work is hotter than an oven. The building was arranged poorly and they moved the server equipment room so a brand new air conditioner had to be put there to keep it all cool. Well, in the room next door to the server room is the thermostat that controls my temperature in my room. Since that A/C cools the equipment down so well that thermostat barely kicks on. I swelter.

But, I can't say anything because I don't pay any rent! I just roost there from some arrangement that was made in 1995 between a retired superintendent and one who has passed away. Nobody really knows what to do with me.

With the changes coming up at work, I'll probably have to drive to the home office every day. That is 60 miles one way. I will be an "at will" employee. I know, I know. Just be glad I have a job, right? Right. Be glad I have insurance, be glad I have dental coverage. Be glad I get sick days and vacation days. Remember my mantra. Just do the best you can and hold your head high. All well enough until that headache zaps me again.

Oh, and I was SO disappointed in "The Men Who Stare at Goats".

Open wide

I have kept this photo in it's original size (2592 x 1944). Still using my 5.1 mp camera from 2003. If you care to look at this sort of thing click the photo to see deep inside the mouth of this massive muskellunge fish. A.K.A. "muskie".

Note: You may want to set your browser to "NOT" re-size the photo automatically. For some reason when I download the photo (before I changed the browser settings so that it did NOT re-size the photo automatically) it saved it in a 400 x 300 pixel size. Boo!

In Internet Explorer, choose Tools. Choose Internet Options. Choose Advanced. Scroll down to the Multimedia selections. Remove the check mark from "Enable Automatic Image Resizing" and click Apply and click OK. You can view the photo in it's large format, now. You can return the browser to it's previous settings by going back through the steps and checking the box for "Enable Automatic Image Resizing."

In Firefox, choose View. Choose Page Style and select "No style". Warning: Your page format will change. Click on the photo to view the larger format. When you are finished viewing the photo, return the browser to it's Basic Page Style setting by choosing View. Choose Page Style and select "Basic Page Style."

My nephew (1984, I think) caught it last year or two years ago. They are just now getting it back from the taxidermist.

I can't sleep this morning. I awoke about an hour ago with a headache. I took some acetaminophen and am drinking a cup of java and reading blogs. The dogs are a bit confused. The cats are just angry that I have not fed them, yet.

I work today and am off tomorrow. That is all for the Easter break. Back to work on Monday. I am not minding so much because the weather forecast for early next week is lousy. Beautiful today and tomorrow. It may be tough getting through today. I am thinking of going to my little home town this evening for a benefit dinner. With not much sleep, I don't know how I will be feeling. I usually get a little "manic" when I am sleep deprived. Sigh. I suppose somebody will ask my daughter (if she goes) if I am on meds again. LOL!

Oh, and no April Fools' joke from me today. I love that Google changed their name to Topeka for the day. Of course they are trying to appear as if they changed it (as in for good) as an April Fools' joke. I know better.

Ol' Green Eyes

Mr. Tibbs peeking at me from inside the house

I have always been attracted to males with green eyes. I guess Mr. Tibbs is no exception. He was watching me take pictures of my poppies. Wondering why I was out there and he was inside.

My daughter cannot stand this cat. He is the cat you see on commercials or videos where the little girl takes and puts the cat into a dress or carries around upside down. He will let you do almost anything to him. And he comes back for more.

I don't dress him up. Well, there was that one time.... No, just kidding! He likes to come and rest on my arm. As long as he is touching me he is happy. He never wants to go outside. No interest. He does walk around the house with a pitiful meow once in a while. As if he is searching for something or someone.

I am trying to remember why my daughter does not like him. I think he gets into things in her room and knocks things over. He is rather clumsy and nosy. She says he is a stupid cat. The other cats know when to get out of her way or when to run when they knock something over. He just kind of slumps around. If you step on him in the dark he doesn't scamper out of the way. He just kind of lays there.

I don't know. I've seen him scamper away very quickly when something falls over. I like each of my cats in their own way. Mr. Tibbs. I guess Sidney didn't have green eyes. Drat!

I caved in and purchased some Dunkin Donuts coffee yesterday. I am trying it this morning. Since I woke up at 3:30 and can't sleep. I was worried that I was going to crave a donut or something while drinking it. Consumer Reports rated it the number one best tasting coffee. So far - big deal. Whoopee. I'll probably drink a couple of cups, read a few blogs and go back to bed for an hour.

Ahhh. It's Friday. Daughter graduates tomorrow. Now, where did we put that cap and gown?

A little out of focus

The picture I snagged of one of my tulips on Saturday morning appeared a little out of focus. But, that's okay because I feel as if my life is a little out of focus right now, too.

I am dragging because I have been up for over an hour and the sleep monster is trying to drag me back down. A shower should take care of that monster. If I give in and doze back off, I may feel worse than if I don't.

It was a two party Saturday and a stay home Sunday. I made lasagna. My niece (the one that lived with us for five years) came to visit. At least she likes my cooking. My daughter was gone all day. She won't touch my lasagna.

Work has become very quiet and sedate. The schools are beginning to gear down for the summer. Not purchasing anything, not starting anything new. Usually there are a lot of updates during the summer but I am thinking the poor economy may have squelched any projects of that nature. Any that involve money, that is.

Since my early morning insomnia is an on-going event, I grab towels and my robe as soon as I get up in the morning in preparation for me to go downstairs and shower. I know that if I had to walk back into my bedroom and grab my robe right now, I would collapse back into bed.

I drink coffee every morning. I can doze in between cups. The caffeine seems to have no effect on me. However, if I skip my morning coffee the head begins to complain. Something fierce.

I was very busy this week-end though. I re-financed on Saturday. Dropped an entire percent from my loan. I kept the same number of years and lowered my payment by about 50 dollars a month. No closing cost! My bank picked up everything! Everything! It was a no-brainer. Sweet.

On Sunday I went over the daughter's graduation party again. Who to invite, what foods to have, so on and so forth. The date has finally been chosen. I am going to skip my annual fourth of July party. Next is to get the invitations made. One month to graduation. Don't panic.

Slices

More layers and some slices. Tuesday I was much better - migraine was gone. Wednesday relapsed into a stress headache or tired, I don't know. Went to bed too early, awoke this morning too early. I caught an old movie. I kept thinking to myself 'That looks like Jack Lemmon'. It was. 1956 "You Can't Run Away From It." It was Jim Backus that helped me to nail down the movie. Once I have someone I can recognize, I can find the movie on www.imdb.com.

This will make for a long day today. I hope the snow is done for today because my daughter and I are taking a potential vehicle to our mechanic and are having it checked over before we decide to buy it. The car is located 40 miles north of us. We have to pick it up, drive it back here to our home town, have it looked at and get advice on it, then drive it back to the dealer by 7 p.m. Sigh. Long day. Especially if I have to drive in snow with a vehicle I have never driven before. Fun stuff.

I am already sleepy. Grrr. (rolls eyes).

Trouble

These two can wreak havoc in your life. Proceed with caution.

The past is the past. I fear them but I am still not even remotely interested in them anymore. And that is a good thing. I can put them on a shelf and never think about them. Today, anyway.

I have been having trouble sleeping. For some weird reason. I am not drinking caffeine late in the day. I just feel I have to explain because I. Fell. Asleep. During. TSO! I am so ashamed. I found the show very boring. I am sorry. I did. Just snatches where my head fell forward and woke me up. I had maybe 4 hours of sleep the night before the show. I forgot my camera. Maybe I would have stayed awake if I had it. I did bring binoculars but they were the tinted kind for outside daylight. Rats.

The laser show was a disaster to my eyes, yet I left with no trace of a headache. I would not recommend it for migraine sufferers, though. At times it was a constant strobe light display.

I have a lot of work to do, so Happy New Year to all ! Time is marching on and getting old is not for sissies. I have to buck up, endure the aches and pains and get some work done. Our doctor thinks that my daughter may have an allergy to our live tree. The cats, too. She said a lot of live trees cause allergy symptoms during the holidays and they mysteriously go away after the holiday. Huh. Figures.

Kool-aid mouth

Actually it was red punch. This little girl stole the show at the six year old boy's birthday party. He did not care. He was constantly running with the older kids. Bursting balloons (much to my dismay). This time my daughter had the headache. I had been battling a headache and had taken migraine medicine earlier.

Most of the time it looks as if some folks are sissies and are "scared" of balloons. In my case, I am scared of the headache I am going to get from the sudden "bang" of the balloon popping. This is why I hate loud noises. And they had a lot of balloons to pop. Most of the games were centered around the balloons. It was an afternoon nightmare.

My daughter's headache went away on the drive home.

We went to a gadget show at our local library. We did not win the drawing for the Wii. Drat. I did learn about the Kindle and Sony's version. Of course, now I want one. I also saw an iPod speaker that I wouldn't mind having. There was one GPS. There were the usual gaming stations and Verizon had a cell phone display. I was not interested in any of those. Overall, it was rather paltry. I heard others say the same thing. We are hoping it will grow into something more substantial next year. I may call some local vendors and mention to them that they missed a golden opportunity to show some of their stuff. It could be that the larger ones are not able to display their products in such a fashion.

Sony

Kindle

The salesman with the iPod speaker talked me into participating in Black Friday. almost. I despise crowds and I despise shopping. I also don't like to get up and get moving at that early of an hour. Although with my recent early morning insomnia, this may not be an issue. Another reason I don't participate is because I am too darn tired.

I usually go all out for the dinner on Thanksgiving. If I am not fixing stuff, I am helping a family member prepare. It still (and always will) infuriate me that the women still fix and clean up the mess while the men sit around watching football and sleeping off the heavy meal. Why my sisters let them get away with it is beyond me. What am I saying? I do the same for my nephew when he comes to visit. He does not help to clean up. (kicking myself). But, is he family or a guest? So, I am guilty. I have only myself to blame for this pet peeve.

I went with a small group to tour a Historical Museum on Friday. The house (museum) was just beautiful. I took pictures. It was sad to read some of the letters from soldiers to their families.

We watched Made of Honor (blah) and What Happens in Vegas. Vegas had some funny parts. Somebody please give Kutcher a decent hair style. His droopy hair was driving me crazy. Co-stars Hater and Tipper almost stole the show right out from under the stars. Lake and Rob were a comedic delight.

Hyper drive

It looks as if this soybean field is diseased with stem rot or stem canker of a sort. I am not sure. It makes for a colorful photo, though. I am still having the early morning insomnia.

I ended up being in a state of hyper activity yesterday, probably due to sleep deprivation. It wasn't the coffee I purchased because that was basically undrinkable. By the time I arrived at the meeting I was in supersonic "ON". I was practically beaming. I tend to be funny (quite possibly annoying) when I am in this state. I tried to "check" myself many times. I would say to myself 'calm down' or 'relax' a few times.

After the meeting I went on to another job in a neighboring county. That went okay. I ate a quick lunch, then home to take a 20 minute nap.

At the dinner I was in super sonic mode again. I bounced around an overheated cafeteria chatting with small children who were complete strangers to me. That is what I do. I move around quickly so I don't come across as a freaky stalker. By the time it came for me to sell raffle tickets my hyper drive was in full force. This may have been in part to the cream stick I ate after my late lunch. Hmmm.

I kept the never ending line of folks in stitches. Again, maybe I was annoying. I didn't need to worry about the dinner falling flat. It was so successful they sold out of dinner tickets and had to start using them over again. It went all too fast and at the end I was left with a feeling of complete and utter melancholy. I walked the halls of the high school (no longer my daughter's school) lost in a wave of sadness, watching the students pump up for the pep rally. The band was in full swing as they marched through the halls to the cadence of their snare drum player (memories of when I was in the high school band).

All of a sudden I was in 1975 with my clarinet feeding off of the roar of the crowd. My daughter is not a part of this. She never was. She shuns school and her fellow students.

I watched five minutes of the rally and sadly walked to my car. I remember selling raffle tickets for a millennium quilt when she was in third grade. I had parked in the exact same spot. Nine years have come and gone. The crash had begun.

Running on empty

Time to refuel

Nothing much, tonight. I am tired from my late night last night. Moving slow and thinking even slower. Need sleep. Hopefully I won't sleep a few hours and then awaken at three or four in the morning and can't get back to sleep. I hate when that happens.

I am hoping to get out this week-end and get some good photos of the little bit of color out there on them Ohio hills. I do have a 75th surprise birthday party to go to. Other than that, maybe I can catch up on my yard work. It looks like we will have about five pumpkins from our surprise patch. I mowed around the vines this time. The pumpkin is more important that the grass underneath it. For now. I have not been in the mood to do any fall or Halloween decorating. Hell, my patio still has red, white and silver stars on it from the July 4th cook-out. Good grief!

Ugh. It was THAT kind of day

I Photo Shopped the above photo a bit. The rain is real, though.

I awoke at 2:30 a.m. unable to get back to sleep. Okay this is freaking me out. As I am typing the SAVE NOW blue bar at the bottom of my post keeps getting longer and longer and longer. Oh, there it stopped stretched all the way across the frame. What ever. It has been THAT kind of day!

To try and make myself sleepy, I cleaned up e-mail on my computer. The most boring thing I can think of. I finally drifted off again at around 5:30. Not a good sleep either. I kept waking up. It wasn't because of caffeine. Not sure what caused it. Worries? Maybe.

I made mistake after mistake at work. I transposed numbers in the subnet mask. How stupid is it anyway? In one part I type 255.255.252.0 and in another area 255.255.255.252. I typed the wrong one in the wrong place and I didn't catch it. I went over and over the router config and still I had to call and somebody else found it for me. Things did NOT go my way. Little tiny elementaries with little tiny rooms. Hot. Sweat running into my eyes. Forgotten console cables. Getting snappy with people. Sigh.

On my way home I thought I would do some shopping for red, white and blue decorations for my party on the 7th. The lights went out in the store 3 times while the cashier was trying to use my debit card. I finally wrote a check. The rain had begun to pour. And pour. I felt like Dorothy during the twister while I drove the 40 miles home. Except I was beyond tired and didn't much care. It was one of those rains where the oncoming cars splashed huge amounts of water onto your windshield and you are blinded until it is wiped away by your windshield wipers.

I got home and the electricity was out. That lasted for 3 hours. I tried to nap. The animals kept waking me up. It may have been too quiet with the electric off. I am just tired and I want to go to bed and forget about this day. I hurt my back somewhere at sometime today or yesterday. Each time I get up to do something I am jerked back into the reality that I try to do too much by myself and I have been that way all my life and it is beginning to catch up with me. I only have myself to blame.