Author: Sharon

On a hillside.
In an aircast.
Brilliant!

We had rehearsals tonight. Normally when I come home, there are a 
bunch of emails in my box asking questions and whatnot. Tonight I 
got the following message, which made me cry.


Sharon, I just wanted to you to know how thoroughly Chloe enjoyed
rehearsal tonight.  She has been asking to do something like this for
years.  When I picked her up tonight, I asked how everything went.
She replied "I wish I had a time machine so that I could fast forward
to next Thursday night or go back and do it again tonight." Please do
feel free to share this with Mrs. F if you wish.
Thank you so much. My daughter is happier than I have ever seen her.
E.

Perfect!! It was just perfect, and certainly good to hear after a 
long night and feeling bone tired. This is exactly
why I love the job I have. It's always about the kids.

Today, I got nothing done. For whatever reason, I failed to work today and that means I’m going to have to work most of the night and  all morning tomorrow, and it’s all my darn fault.

Please, don’t feel sorry for me. In fact, you have my permission to laugh and point fingers in my general direction. I’ve been the Queen of the nation of Procrasti. It seems that every time I even thought about starting a project, my mind went numb. In some ways, I welcome the quiet gray fuzzy-headed thinking, because I believe it’s actually my minds way of making sure I have “down” time. Personally, I’d just stuff it with more and more stuff and maybe even be a workaholic if it would keep chugging along all the time. I guess I should be thankful for these foggy days and revel in the illusion that there’s not tons to do. Eventually, my mind kicks back into gear and I work it until it overheats and goes back to the fuzzy zone, so in some ways this is an expected cycle.

Beyond wandering the house avoiding work, I baked some mug cakes, walked, talked to my children, listened to some music, chatted with a friend (the highlight, actually) about our upcoming camping trip, exchanged lists of what we are supposed to bring/pack, wrote some emails, talked to another friend, did some laundry, cooked dinner, am writing my blog and poked around online. For me, that’s an off day. Now, whether I want to or not, I’m going to have to work on some spreadsheets and get rosters and uniform paperwork ready for tomorrow. – Uh oh… the thought occurs that I may have left my copies in the copy room last night, which would be bad. Hmmm… Meh.. I’ll figure it out.

In my cyber travels today, the top three things that caught my attention are as follows, but not necessarily in order of importance.

1. The recent floods from Tropical Storm Lee and Hurricane Irene have mucked up the Chesapeake Bay. For anyone who loves oysters, crabs or simply the Bay.. this isn’t good news. Chemicals, furniture, uprooted trees and tons of fresh water spilled into the Bay and disrupted what was an increasingly healthy ecosystem. I’m a firm believer that the Bay can work through these changes, Nature always does, but in the meantime, it’s got a bunch of scientists worried. 

2. Kirstie Alley!! Whoa, momma! She looks fantastic and is proof positive that getting your ass off the couch is a great way to lose some weight. 60 years young and she looks amazing. I’ve always fluctuated with my weight, so I can totally relate to her trials and tribulations (sinking in a gentle pool of wine… – JCSuperstar reference.. if you don’t get it, you don’t get it) The main point here is that the photos I saw today were definitely an inspiration and further proof that I can live to be 113 and be fit and cute forever!

3. Baltimore Homicides. Yep.. there you have it. Why in the heck the Baltimore Sun has decided to show you an interactive map of homicides in Beautiful B’more City is beyond me. And not only can you see the total amount for various date ranges, but you can sort by age, gender and type of death. Wanna know how many were shot or stabbed? You’re in luck! How about blunt force or asphyxiation? No problem…. just click HERE and you too can play the game of B’more Murder Battleship. It’s easy! Just pick a few cross streets, jot them down on a piece of paper and then check back next week to see if that guy with a sickle has found your hidden victims.

So, that’s about it for the day folks. I felt like I needed to leave you with something cute after #3, so here you go….

Oh WAIT!! That’s the wrong photo… did I mention it’s been that kind of day??  Here  you go!

*I did say I made some mug cakes today, right?

*No kitties were harmed today. I promise.

I have a bit of a secret. Well not much of a secret, actually, but it’s something I’ve been working on.

I have another blog that I work on with my Hubby called, ‘What Andy Does”.  www.whatandydoes.wordpress.com 

When Hubby was gifted with a small rubber HTC Android Toy, just before going on tour with the kids in Europe, he decided that “Andy” should go along with us for the ride. Almost immediately, Andy was a naughty little droid and came free from his lobster claw hook and that’s when we knew he’d never survive the rigors of travel through Italy and Germany in that fashion, so into Hubby’s pocket he went.

While we were on the bus, with plenty of time to act like silly people, we started taking some photos of Andy in different places for Hubby to send out on his Twitter Stream. Most of the photos were really cute and some were downright clever, but the response we got from people back home meant that Andy had claimed an audience of his own and so was born his blog, “What Andy Does”.

Now Andy travels with us everywhere and you never know where or when he’ll show up. Hubby and I have found that we look at the world with a new perspective. One that comes from the vantage point of a tiny lime green guy and his adventures in the world. Go check him out!

Found this at www.neatorama.com and just had to share…

Scientists are looking into a new technique for the fight against AIDS…and yes, it involves glow-in-the-dark cats! Two genes are inserted into feline eggs before fertilization, one being the jellyfish gene that causes cats to glow (“tracking purposes.”) The other is a rhesus macaque gene that blocks cell infection by feline immunodeficiency virus, which provides insight into how gene therapy can treat the virus affecting humans.

The macaque restriction factor, TRIMCyp, blocks FIV by attacking and disabling the virus’s outer shield as it tries to invade a cell. The researchers know that works well in a culture dish and want to determine how it will work in vivo. This specific transgenesis (genome modification) approach will not be used directly for treating people with HIV or cats with FIV, but it will help medical and veterinary researchers understand how restriction factors can be used to advance gene therapy for AIDS caused by either virus.

The method for inserting genes into the feline genome is highly efficient, so that virtually all offspring have the genes. And the defense proteins are made throughout the cat’s body. The cats with the protective genes are thriving and have produced kittens whose cells make the proteins, thus proving that the inserted genes remain active in successive generations.

So far there haven’t been negative effects seen in the cats. If time proves that the experiment was safe and without consequences, I have three words: I want one

Oh! Wait! Isn’t that supposed to be “Everybody’s working for the weekend” ?

I do a lot of my work via email and damnit, apparently I’m too friggin’ efficient. I got two emails today, Sunday remember, from people demanding answers immediately to their questions. Um, hello? It’s SUNDAY!!! Can’t I have a day off?? Cripes!

And none of this is earth-shattering, time-sensitive information. It can all wait until Monday morning. Can’t you people see I’m far too busy reading and posting on BLOGS to answer your silly little questions? Don’t you understand you might interrupt my napping schedule after my hard day yesterday of betting at the racetrack?

I mean, get a life! Maybe you want your information NOW, but did you ever consider that you might impact the reheating of leftovers for dinner?? Or the ultimately important task of actually reading a magazine I get BEFORE it goes to paper recycling. Don’t you want me to be INFORMED of the LATEST FASHION TRENDS?? Just because I work from home, doesn’t mean the cat and the dog don’t appreciate the most recent in haute couture!

Sheesh!

I’m not sure what to write today. It’s a gray day out and I feel I need to do something to get me up and running.

I’m fighting the coffee monster. I LOVE coffee, but it doesn’t like me. It makes me swell, gives me headaches within 12-24 hours if I don’t drink another cup and I get really cranky when I’m coming off of it. But the smell, the feel of it in my mouth, the warmth and taste is just too much of a siren song for me, especially on gray days. Those days, with their slightly damp chill in the air are the perfect days for a fresh pot of brew in the kitchen, some good music and time to reflect on how things are going.

What I would prefer would be that gray days meant I was a powerhouse worker, flying through the piles on my desk and whipping out spreadsheets, emails and reports, so that the sunny days would be free to wander in the woods or take care of things outside of the house. But for some reason, gray days just don’t seem as productive. I want to revert to when the kids were in the living room, playing games or watching tv and I would be baking something. We used to bake a LOT. Kids would come in and “help” for a bit and then disappear licking their fingers, only to return when they wanted to “help” again. It was ok with me. The measuring, the mixing, the smells from the coffee pot mixed with fresh cookies being baked blended with the chatter of small voices and random giggles were the stuff of my life. I miss them.

Now the Dr. says baked goodies are ok, as long as I give them away. The living room is quiet and the most I have to compare to the sound of kids in the house is the occasional spat the cat and dog get into. Sometimes I revel in the quiet. Sometimes I’m a bit lonely. All the time it gives my brain a chance to think. You know, there is something to be said for the old adage, “Sometimes you think too much.”

This weekend is my son’s 22 birthday. Hard to believe, but every year I say that. He planned his own party this year and invited us. It was kind of strange, but really, for this child, it was the best way to go. No one else ever seems to be able to provide for him the kind of party he wants, so it’s best to just attend. I’ll make dinner for him on Sunday and we’ll have a cake or something then. And his sister will be coming home to spend the weekend with him, so that’ll be good to see her. I miss her, she still likes to cuddle.

All in all life isn’t bad now, it’s just so different. And it’s changed even more than I ever expected. I’m still very happy with my job, and my family is always first, but my friend base has changed somewhat and while I still feel a bit bereft by this change, I’m going out with a few friends tonight for a girls night out and I’m really looking forward to it. And I talked to an old friend the other day, and he made me laugh so hard that I felt bad that I hadn’t talked to him as much in these past years. I guess it was all the time and effort required by others that limited my time in developing and maintaining other relationships that made things difficult, but now that that isn’t a problem anymore, and while I can’t say I don’t miss them terribly, I’m not feeling guilty all the time or like I’m being torn in many little pieces by how I wasn’t able to be everything to everyone. Now I can focus on being me and catching up with dear old friends and developing relationships with new ones.

Such is the ever-changing path we wander in out lives, eh?

Time certainly does fly when you are being quiet. I get up in the mornings and come to check out my emails and blogs and before I know it, some mornings, it’s lunch time!

How does that happen. I’d imagine that if I spent the same amount of time reading a novel, or studying current events, as I do checking up on the blogs I read, I’d be a pretty smart cookie. But I’d rather see what others are thinking and check in with real life instead of some journalists view,or the political slant of a news agency. Just seems a titch more intimate and connected to reality to me, but I’m sure I’m twisted in that view.

I enjoy my cup of beverage du jour and my funny/sad/angry/enlightening/introspective/cookbook/jokes/photos/raunchy/political readings in the mornings.

I spent most of my weekend trying to do my taxes, with the emphasis on TRYING. I have all the information, mind you, but I tried one of the top online tax prep sites and found myself in a data loop. Every time I tried to get past this one area, it would just dump me back into the same screen with NO WAY OUT! Ergh. How are you supposed to trust the software, if it doesn’t work right? How many other things are wrong with it?

So, I decided I would try another popular online tax software. This one wouldn’t let me enter our full names, since it was limited to 30 characters for both taxpayer and spouse’s names. Um.. ok, who doesn’t get their first or last name then? A few more oddities like that and I went in search of yet another site.

Again I did all I was supposed to and this one let me complete just about the entire thing, but the amount owed was over $400.00 more than the first site said I owed.

hmmm… ok

I don’t deny that I probably owe some this year, but I really don’t want to pay MORE than I’m supposed to (nor less). So which one is right?? And why are they so far off if I put the same numbers in each program?

I decided that maybe I’d use the site that sends your returns to a PERSON so they can review your information. I registered, put in my info and answered their questions. Finally, a window popped up that said I needed to choose my professional. When I went to pick one, they are all over 25 miles away at a minimum. Ugh. Ok, maybe not that either.

I have two options now and I’m running out of time. Go pick up software and install it an hope there isn’t anything amiss with THAT version or go to the same people who take care of the Trust tax returns. Although with the second option, the amount I’d have to pay them to do the taxes might just break my tiny little bank account.

Decisions, decisions…..can I go back to my quiet place and start all over again? lol

I had another blog for a bit of time. There aren’t too many blogs over there, although I’m not sure why I didn’t stick with it. Since I’m importing blogs – I do have to get back to that – from my Multiply account, I figured I’d pull in a few from blogs that were not as long-lived.

This one was titled “Dreams” and was posted April 16, 2009

I don’t have a ton of time to write the whole dream, sadly, and maybe I’ll get to it later, but I do actually work and I have to get ready to run here very soon. I just didn’t think I could wait too much longer without losing my dream and my thoughts on it.

For as long as I can remember, bad dreams happened at my parents house. Scary monsters in the basement, natural disasters, ghouls, distress, unhappiness, you get the picture.

After my parents died and I cleaned out the house, sold it, and burned some pictures in a “letting go” ceremony, I started having dreams where I was outside of the house, and then across the street and then on another block. I had a few where people invited me inside, but I always stood outside and declined going in. I stopped having the REALLY bad dreams after that. I still have interesting dreams and some are rather nightmarish, but they don’t ever happen in my parents house anymore and I don’t experience the same kind of abject terror I used to. I was happy that my “nemesis” had been vanquished.

Last night, I had a dream that was confusing and slightly disturbing more than terrifying. I was walking in my old neighborhood, but not near my parents house. I’m currently wearing an Aircast to fix a foot problem, but I dreamed I was wearing plastic bags on my feet. (odd, I know) Anyway, I started up a hill to a house and suddenly I was parking my car in the carport.

My parents do not have a carport, but a person who no longer speaks to me does. Also, his house and my parents house are slightly similar, in that when you walk in the side door, there are steps to the basement in front of you. His kitchen is to the left and the living room is to the right however there is a wall in the way, so you have to walk all the way around through the kitchen/dining room and then into the living room. In my parents house, the kitchen was to the right and the living room was to the left with no wall. You could run the whole circle around their stairwell. This is important in this dream because when I walked into the side door, this house was a combination of the two houses. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll call his house HH and my parent’s house MP.

When I walked in the kitchen was on the left, like HH, but the kitchen was MP’s kitchen. Talk about an odd sensation. Then at times I could see to the right into the living room and others I couldn’t, like the two houses were combating one another for prominence in the dream. When I did see into the living room from where I was standing, I saw fresh drywall, repairs and exposed drywall screws on the wall closest to the carport and a mix between MP furniture and HH old decor, but the walls were a different color. In fact – and this is the really strange part – all the colors in HH were the same colors as in my house, just not in the same places. The doors were new and white and I could see that some renovations were being done, as if construction was on going in this blend of HH and MP.

When I didn’t see into the Living Room, there was an institutional looking bathroom were the wall would have been in HH, and on one glance, filled with people just standing there, and then it would be the blank wall by the door again.

In the kitchen was a man with dark hair who said it was fine for me to be there. I remember feeling very antsy. Not only do I never wish to go into MP again, I never expect to go into HH either. The man with the dark hair (who often appears and is always calm and soothing to me in dreams) told me it was ok. That she wasn’t there. Now oddly enough, the night before last, I’d had a dream where the woman of HH and I were sitting and talking pleasantly to one another. There was a dog there and while slightly stiff, it wasn’t as horrible as either one of us had imagined it would be.

Anyway, the man says she’s not there, she’s gone on a trip and that it’s ok for me to be in the house. I have NO IDEA why I was there. The dark-haired man left and my husband was there in the MP kitchen situated to the left as in the HH with the MP window and dishwasher where the HH window and dishwasher should have been, but with the HH cabinets. I was sitting at the kitchen table from MP in the HH kitchen. The HH kitchen actually has a bar in it and NO room for a table. This was SO CONFUSING to me that I got even more distressed. I told hubby I wanted to leave, I didn’t want to be there. I went to the refrigerator from HH but in MP kitchen and took out a sock from the freezer and started putting it on. I was having troubles getting the blasted thing on my foot and noticed it was getting dark. I saw lights come up in the carport through the side door and started to panic. I told hubby that someone was home from work. I frantically tried to get my shoe on my foot. I saw MP door open into HH kitchen and then shut again really fast. I told hubby, “He’s calling the cops on us. We didn’t do anything, we were let in and had permission to be there. He’s calling the cops!!” Hubby agreed, but didn’t seem disturbed. I finally tied my shoe, but was in such a state of distress I woke up without leaving.

While looking around at dream meanings, most of this dream makes sense. In fact,the part that makes the least amount of sense, even makes sense.

Lemme ‘splain. When you dream about houses, you are usually dreaming about the status of your self, your psyche, your health and your emotional well being. Since I saw a kitchen, living room, bathroom, door, window, carport and new construction, it basically means that I’ve decided to expunge some old feelings (bathroom), that I’m building and changing (construction) that the blended living rooms of MP, HH and my home colors with construction going on means that I’m working on resolving emotional hurts from both my parents and friend and forging changes within my life. The fact that I came in the carport means that I’m at the end of a journey. I came into the kitchen, the only place I encounter people I feel secure with and neither of those people were the owners of the houses. Kitchens mean warmth and spiritual nourishment and transformation. I think it’s very important that my spiritual dream guide was in this room. I don’t think I can get away with not believing that I have a spirit or dream guide. I’ve had too many dreams where this one spirit and I interact and I never realize in the dream that it’s them, only after the fact do I realize that he was there again. Always on the fringes, always showing me which way to go.

The part that makes the least amount of sense, but at the same time makes the most amount of sense is that I experienced much emotional hurt and trauma in my parent’s house and fairly recently, I’ve experienced emotional hurt on the same level by my friend. The only other person on the planet, besides my husband, that knew me so well and I trusted, behaved in a fashion much like my parents. Abandonment, rejection and excommunication. I think that is why the two houses are intermingled within each other. The hurts are equally damaging.

I can take heart in the fact that there were plenty of positive clues in this dream that tell me that I’m working through these hurts. I’m sure they will never be totally gone, but if I can build new rooms and put on a fresh coat of paint, I think I’ll be good and whole again!

Addendum: I was wrong. I now know you can let go of more than you ever thought you could. That paint I put up?, it must have had a good primer base coat as well.