Wanna Go West

More Arizona animals

2009-05-29T16:06:00.001-07:00

It's been way too long since I last updated and a lot has happened, so I'll start with my Dad's visit in April. Here we are in Vegas in front of my favorite store, Sephora:

This was the morning after we picked him up from the airport. We stayed overnight in Vegas since his plane got in kind of late, then we went to Sephora to do a little shopping and then drove home. Dad stayed for four days and on the last day we went back up to Vegas and had dinner at the Top of the World restaurant at the Stratosphere hotel. Here's a view of the strip from the restaurant:

I've been waiting since last spring to see more quail babies and I finally saw some last week and was able to get some pictures, though they chicks are hard to see because they're so small and blend in with the gravel in the yard. The mother qual is running away because she saw me coming to the window and the chicks are bringing up the rear:

I've seen several more quail families during the past week and I usually see between 8 and 10 chicks. It's amazing, but they can move as fast as the adults can. I saw two other kinds of birds and one quail in the back yard yesterday tormenting a snake. I'm guessing they were trying to drive it away from their nest or something. I couldn't figure out what they were doing at first because they were jumping around and spreading their wings and just acting weird, but then I saw the snake on the ground.

We got the gravel in the front yard done right before Dad came to visit and we were sucessfuly in making a star/sunburst pattern with lighter gravel on top:

Here's another view from the street:

Unfortunately our bird feeders are too close to the design and the birds keep messing it up. They like to dig around in the gravel for bird seed that's fallen on the ground and they are amazingly strong. The rabbits do it, too. I've seen both of them actually pick up pieces of gravel in their mouth and move them, though the most damage is done by the quail when they scratch around on the ground like chickens and throw gravel everywhere. So that means we need to find a new spot for the bird feeders.

Lately I've been seeing birds and rabbits napping in the front yard next to the rosebushes. They've dug some shallow holes and they lay down in them, I guess because it's cooler there, especially in the afternoon when the rosebushes are in the shade.

These last two pictures I took out of my computer room window, which is on the front of the house. It was cute to see the quail and rabbits lounging in the shade together. There's one rabbit laying down and one with its back turned to the camera over on the right, then there's a female quail on the right and a male on the left right under the rosebush.

The rosebushes are doing really well and it's really gratifying since we took a lot of trouble to make sure they didn't get frost damage this past winter. They've been blooming like crazy and they'll all about three times the size they were last year. I have two little cactus plants that I got from Home Depot last year and I was surprised to see one of them blooming a few days ago. I didn't realize it would ever bloom, but it has pretty little pink flowers on it. I also have a challa cactus that I picked up off the ground in our vacant neighbor's yard next door and it's been growing like crazy. I'm so happy to see it growing because this is the third time I've tried something like this and it finally worked.

Speaking of the vacant house next door, someone finally bought it. It went up for sale and sold almost immediately, I believe at an auction of some kind. It's been sold now for several weeks, but no one has moved in yet, which is fine with me. They can take their time. Also, the woman with the noisy dogs behind us moved out back in April. The house isn't for sale, as far as I can tell, so I'm guessing it was being rented and just doesn't have new tenants yet. So it's been really quiet around here and we are so hoping that neither of our new neighbors will have noisy dogs. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

I made a new Ayumi gif that's over on the right here. It's from her video "Sparkle" and I love that she has dark hair in the video. I think she looks best with dark hair. You can click the gif to see the whole video on someone's Myspace page.

I've been seeing a new pain management doctor now for about 4 months and I've been pretty happy with him. I actually saw a physician's assisant at my last visit and then another doctor came in just briefly before I left to go over my file with the PA and both of them were really nice and actually seemed to be listening to me. I think this will be the first time that I haven't run out of medication before my next appointment because they gave me plenty.

The other doctor that I saw briefly suggested I try Lyric@, which is something I've been interested in trying for a long time, so I was excited about that, but unfortunately I wasn't very excited about the results. I didn't notice any improvement with my pain level and it made me really groggy in the morning (I took it before bed each night) and it gave me weird, unsettling dreams, so I stopped taking it after a couple weeks. That was disappointing, but the good news is that the other medication I have is working well, and like I said, I have plenty. I really hope I get to the see the same PA and/or doctor at my next visit, which is coming up next Thursday.

New gif

2009-02-21T16:05:00.000-08:00

I made a new animated gif of Ayumi (on the right). Here's her newest video that I made it from:

Rule
Uploaded by Breat44

Woof

2009-01-29T12:34:00.000-08:00

There are four dogs living in the house behind me, or three dogs and one puppy. Initially there were two dogs there, then suddenly a third appeared and now, after Christmas, a puppy has appeared. They are normally good dogs, but for some reason the third dog has been barking like crazy every time they go outside and he gets the others all riled up. It's kind of annoying when we're out in the hot tub at night and this dog won't shut up. If we yell at the dog, he (she?) just barks more. B is threatening to send the owner a letter, but I'm hoping the dogs will settle down before that happens. I remember they went through a phase maybe 6 months ago when it was just the two dogs and they were barking a lot, but that only lasted a few weeks. I don't know what was going on with them then and I don't know what's going on now.

My dad called this morning to tell me that he's snowed in and probably won't be going anywhere for several days because he shoveled his driveway and there's thick ice under the snow. I bet all the kids in the area are excited about being off school. In the meantime, I'm here on the other side of the country and it's been mostly sunny with highs in the 50s and 60s. When it's not windy, it's pretty nice outside. We've been trying to take walks every day, but my back has been hurting me and B's ankle has been hurting him. We're falling apart here.

Right after I got a couple books from W@l-mart a few weeks ago, B wanted to get some more books for himself because he burned through the books I got him for Christmas. So we went to the bookstore together and I ended up getting 5 more books; a couple more Stephen King novels, a couple by authors I'd never heard of and a used biography of Madonna. B actually found the Madonna bio and suggested it to me, so I added that to the pile at the last minute and that's what I'm reading now.

I finished The Story of Edgar Sawtelle in about a week and that was pretty good. There were a lot of descriptions about dog-related stuff, which I was only kind of interested in, and the ending surprised me. After that I read Lisey's Story by Stephen King and that was pretty good, too. I decided I needed some lighter fare after reading those two kind of heavy novels, so that's why I'm reading the Madonna bio now. I'm finding out she was a real meanie, IMO. B has been watching a lot recorded football games, so I've had a lot of time to read lately.

Speaking of football, our home team is in the Superbowl this year! Whoo hoo! Pretty exciting, being our first year in Arizona. In fact, we are quickly approaching the one-year mark. We'll have been here a year in March. I don't remember exactly which day we moved in, but I know our house in NC closed on February 29th and we left NC on the 25th (I think).

Last weekend I kind of stole a little treelet from the foreclosed house next door. I noticed a little tree had sprouted in the front corner of the yard, very close to our yard, so I dug it up and then we replanted it in our yard. I hope it survives. I would've left it there to grow where it sprouted except every so often someone comes to that house to clean up the yard and I know they would've pulled it up and gotten rid of it, so really I did them a favor, right? I don't know what kind of tree it is, but we think it's the same kind of tree that's growing in the yard next door, which is not a very big tree. It has fragrant purple blossoms in the summer with tons of moths flying around it and the branches are kind of willowy. I suppose if it survives and gets bigger, we'll get to see if it's the same kind of tree or not.

I hope to get some Joshua trees for the front yard at some point. They don't grow in this area naturally, but they will grow if planted and taken care of because I've seen them in people's yards around here. We saw tons of naturally-occurring Joshua trees when we drove through Searchlight, Nevada on our way to Vegas in December.

We moved our bird feeders out into the yard so we won't have bird seed all over the front porch any more and they seem to have attracted a new bird; the Cactus Wren:

This is the Arizona state bird. It's a little too big to sit on the bird feeders, so it stays on the ground and picks up seeds that the finches drop. I've only seen one out there at a time, so I assume it's the same bird each time. We also get quail and sometimes doves and pigeons out there, but mostly little finches. Some of them are looking pretty fat and I wonder if they'll be laying eggs soon. I wonder how tiny the finch babies must be, since the grown finches are so tiny themsevles! I'm looking forward to seeing more quail babies and bunny babies this spring and I hope to get some pictures of them.

We've been trying our hardest to make sure our rose bushes out front don't die. We've covered them up several times when we had really cold nights and they seem to be hanging in there, even showing some new growth in places. I really hope they survive because we busted our butts (and almost broke our backs) planting them last year in this hard-as-rock soil.

I'm so excited that Lost and American Idol are finally back on, especially Lost. Last night was a real kicker, finding out that Charles Widmore is one of the Others. So that explains why he thinks he has a right to the island. I imagine he and Ben have been rivals for a long time, though it seems Ben is quite a bit younger than him. I wonder if Ben was alive in 1954 when Locke visited with Richard Alpert in last night's episode? And is Locke really dead now? Will the island bring him back to life somehow??

Britney on Japanese TV

2009-01-14T10:41:00.000-08:00

This is the time of year when I get to watch all the end-of-the-year musical shows that are on Japanese TV every year. Ayumi always performs on all of them and I get to see all my other favorite Japanese singers, so I always enjoy seeing them. So far I've watched 3 of them and I'm still downloading the 4th one. I was surprised to see Britney Spears perform on one of the shows and I was even more surprised to see how much they love her in Japan. Even the other performers on the show were really excited to see her. Basically she came out and lipsynched a song, as far as I could tell, then said a few words through her interpreter and everyone was just going nuts over her. She was the second-to-last performer on the show and Ayumi was last. They always save the best for last. :)

I also recently got to see Ayumi's annual Countdown Live concert from New Year's Eve. Her Countdown Live from last year was probably the worst concert I've ever seen from her, so I wasn't sure what to expect with this one, but she sounded pretty good. It was a live TV broadcast, so there was no editing, unlike her concert DVDs.

I've been working on a website with all the Ayumi desktop wallpapers that I've made, but I still haven't got the layout quite the way I want. I have about 80 desktops that I want to include, and I haven't really had time to upload them, either. You can see what I have so far here. Ayumi is often featured in Japanese magazines, so I find the scans online and use them to make the desktops.

Monday B and I went to see a movie, which is the first movie we've seen since we moved. I wanted to see The Day the Earth Stood Still, but it was no longer playing at the one theater in town, so instead we saw Marley & Me. Oh, my goodness, what a freaking sob fest. We were originally going to have dinner after the movie, but neither of us were hungry and we couldn't stop crying, so we just went home. I hate that I cry so easily at stupid stuff like that. It kills me that, in the logical part of my brain, I thought the movie was kind of corny and definitely not cry-worthy, but yet I cried anyway and I couldn't not cry. Believe me, I tried. I never used to cry when I was younger, and then suddenly it was like a cry-switch was turned on and now everything makes me cry. It's so unfair.

Yesterday I had some time to kill while waiting for my prescriptions to be filled at W@l-mart, so I browsed through their books and ended up getting two; Duma Key by Stephen King and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. It's been a long time since I read anything by Stephen King and I always enjoyed his stuff, so I decided to try this one, and the other book was voted one of the best books of 2008 at Am@zon.

B had to start some new hours at his job yesterday. Apparently his employer is having to pay more for their insurance, so they're requiring everyone to work 8-hour days, instead of the 7-hour days they used to work, and B is having a really hard time with it. He's talked about going to part time so he doesn't have to work 8 hours (but he can if he wants), but then we'll lose our health insurance. He's expressed his misgivings with his supervisor and she suggested that he just stay clocked in during his breaks to get the extra time in, but this is something B is struggling with because he feels the need to be working while he's clocked in, plus he's automatically clocked out after 15 minutes of inactivity.

In terms of the actual amount of work he's required to do, he can get that done in 5-6 hours, so it's frustrating to have to be chained to his computer for an extra 2-3 hours a day. He's talked about looking for another job, too, but for now he's going to try it and see if he can make it work. If he can hold out another 6 months or so, he'll then have 2 years experience and a lot more doors will be open to him.

Here's a clip of Britney performing at the Japanese show I mentioned. You can see how excited the other performers are to see her at the beginning of the clip.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T13:28:00.000-08:00

Our little trip to Vegas was fun, but man, were we pooped when we got home. We're not used to that much walking after sitting at our desks and typing all the time. So we opened our presents from each other on Saturday night and I also had a present from B's mom to open and we'd gotten a box from B's brother in NC. B's mom got me these cute Vans:

I'm totally not a skater girl, but I like Vans, so B suggested these to his mom. I'm not sure if he picked these out specifically or just suggested some kind of Vans, but either way I like them. Unfortunately, there's a piece of fabric inside the right shoe that gave me a blister when we took a walk yesterday. I tried to cut it out, but I couldn't quite get it all because it's way down in the front of the shoe on top. I'll have to figure something out, because I want to wear these.

B got me an Ayumi calendar for 2009, some things from Sephora that I asked for, some cozy fleece pajamas and a fleece robe and a little Ayumi purse that I actually already bought for myself a few months ago, but I don't mind having two. I think I'm forgetting something else, too.

We had some serious snow here recently, which came as a surprise. We figure we got about 4 inches. This is a picture taken looking out our front window:

I don't remember now what day this was, but it was snowing when we got up that morning and it snowed all day. It took a few hours, but it eventually started to stick on the plants and trees and then on the roads later. Then it mostly melted the next day, though there is still snow on the mountain tops now. There's no snow on the ground today, though, so no white Christmas for us.

We left for Vegas on Sunday morning around 9:45 and got there around noon, I think. We decided to have lunch at the Wynn first, which was good, but expensive, then we went to Bonanza Gifts, the worlds' largest gift shop. I've seen this place many times and it looks kind of kitchy, so I never really wanted to go in, but then I saw this thing about it on TV and turns out they have some cool Vegas junk in there. I found what I wanted, which was a pair of big fuzzy dice pillows, and a few other things.

Next we went to Sephora and dropped some cash. I had my makeup done while I was there and the woman did a nice job. She suggested some products to use for my melasma, but B just got me something for Christmas that's supposed to treat melasma, so I want to try that first. He got me this stuff by Dermadoctor called Immaculate Correction. I really hope it works. It's gotten some good reviews online. When I mentioned this product to the woman at Sephora, she didn't seem to know what I was talking about or recognize the brand, which is funny because they sell it. I guess you can't know all the brands, though, because they carry a lot of different ones.

So far, we haven't gotten anything from my dad and his wife or my mom and her husband, not even a card. That's kind of disappointing. I'm hoping they got their gift certificates in time.

Oh, speaking of gift certificates, and back to the Vegas story, we ate dinner at a place called Envy on Sunday night. I found this place online and read lots of good reviews, and several of the reviewers also said they were able to use a coupon from restaurant.com, so I looked into it and got a coupon for $25 off. This was a steak place, so we both got the filet mignon and it was perfect. My mouth waters every time I think about this meal. I like sweet rather than dry champagne, so I asked which of theirs was the sweetest and the waiter brought me one that's not on their menu, because they don't normally have it, and it was perfect, too. We ended up getting there a half hour early because we gave ourselves extra time to find the place, but they seated us anyway. I thought that was really nice. I took my leftover steak with me and heated it up in the microwave the next day and it was still delicious.

We were planning to eat at the Orleans breakfast buffet on Monday morning, but B's stomach was a little upset from dinner the night before, so instead we went down to the casino and I found a little place selling coffee, donuts and muffins. We went back to the Bonanza store because the sweatshirt I bought was too small, so I exchanged it for a bigger one, then we went over to this mall off the strip called the Boulevard Mall. B's mom sent him some money to buy a new pair of gym shoes, so we found a Foot Locker in the mall and he was able to find a nice pair of shoes there. I went to the Claire's next door and got a couple pairs of earrings.

Before the mall, we also went to the Bellagio to see what kind of Christmas display they had, and we took some photos there:

Parts of it were closed off because they were still putting it together, apparently. This was really the only place that had nice Christmas decorations up. After we finished at the mall, we had a little lunch in the food court and then left for home. Fortunately, we had no rain or snow to deal with on the way there or coming back, but it's been super cloudy and gloomy for the past few weeks now. I was hoping it'd be sunny, but we did get to see some snow here, so that was fun, and fortunately we didn't have to go anywhere that day.

Happy Holidays to everybody!

Christmas time

2008-12-16T13:54:00.001-08:00

We've seen a couple of these guys in the neighborhood recently:

Coyotes! I saw one in front of our house across the street this evening, just trotting along ver casually. B and I both saw two walking through our back yard, not at the same time, and we saw another one about a block away from us when we were out taking a walk a few weeks ago. Pretty neat.

It seems like every time I make an entry here, it's about some doctor's appointment, so...this one will be, too. I didn't go to the appointment with the general practitioner because they called me the day before my appointment and said they'd have to reschedule AGAIN because the doctor wouldn't be in that day. This is the same place that cancelled on me because I wasn't exactly 15 minutes early, so I'm done with them. I gave them two chances and I'm through trying to get in to see a doctor there. I haven't found another doctor to see yet, and I'm feeling pretty discouraged about the whole thing right now, so I haven't really looked for anyone else.

Today was my monthly visit to the pain management doctor and I had to wait almost an hour to see the doctor. Usually they aren't that slow and I've only had to wait a maximum of a half hour. I don't know what was going on today. I had kind of a psychic moment after finally being taken back to the exam room. B was waiting in the car for me and I knew he must be wondering what was taking so long, and I imagined he might come in looking for me. Just a minute later, I heard B at the check-in desk asking about me, so I poked my head out to show him I was back in the exam room. I felt really bad about taking so long because he had to adjust his work schedule to take me to this appointment, but really there was nothing I could do about it except sit there and wait. Then as usual, I saw the doctor for all of 20 seconds; he gave me my prescription refills and I left.

My hand has been feeling better, but I haven't been getting a lot of work the past couple weeks because this is typically a slow time of year. Course, I have plenty of other aches and pains to make up for that. Seems like when the weather changes, I feel worse. We were having lots of sunny, mild days here until last week when it suddenly got cloudy and we actually had some rain during the past few days. Isn't this supposed to be the desert? There's some snow on the highest mountain peaks in the area too, but there was no snowfall here in the valley. I wouldn't mind seeing a little snow.

Next Sunday is when we're going up to Vegas for a couple days and we're going to open our Christmas presents from each other the night before. B actually talked me into opening one present each early, last weekend. He wanted to give me some coffee that he ordered from my favorite coffee place back in NC, so now I have 6 pounds of fresh new coffee flavors. I really need to freeze some of it now so it stays fresh. The box the coffee was in smelled so good when I opened it up. My favorite is probably Sumatra Mandheling, but he also got a bunch of flavored coffees for me like Hazelnut, Chocolate Fudge, etc. And Mel, if you read this, my tried-and-true method for making coffee is one ounce of ground coffee to 6 ounces of water. I'm a fan of General Foods International Coffee, too. They make some instant chai tea that's very good in addition to the coffee flavors.

B and I enjoy watching The Dog Whisperer, even though we don't have any dogs, and last night we saw an episode where Cesar went to Vegas and helped various members of Cirque du Soleil with their dog issues. That was pretty cool because one of the people he helped was one of the main characters in Ka, which we saw back in 2005. That was our favorite Vegas show out of all the ones we've seen, I think. We've talked about going to see it again, in fact. Maybe one of these days my dad will come out to visit, like he keeps saying he wants to, and we could take him and his wife to see Ka.

We got the last of our Christmas stuff taken care of yesterday by going to the mail store and mailing our Christmas cards and also a box of presents to the store B used to co-own back in NC. I guess technically he still does own part of it, but only a small percentage. Anyway, we filled a small box with little presents, like a Route 66 mug, some Arizona keychains, candies, chocolates and toys, and then put a card inside telling them to divide up the stuff however they want. I think they'll enjoy getting a box of treats from us and hopefully won't feel guilty or obligated to send us anything. I ordered a set of nice-smelling body butters from Sephora for B's mom and I ordered gift certificates for my mom and her husband and my dad and his wife, and I've been finished with B's shopping for a couple weeks now, though I do plan to get him something else when we're in Vegas.

My mom's birthday was earlier this month and I sent her some things from Sephora and she sent me a nice email thanking me for the present. She invited us to come visit next summer and stay with them for a couple weeks, and I appreciate the invitation, but it is just so misguided. Several years ago, she and her husband were going to come visit us, but her husband was really rude to B on the phone and has never apologized or tried to make amends for it at all, so there's no way we're going to go stay at their house with the possibility of more hostility from him. This is something I know mom must understand, yet she still thinks we can come visit like nothing ever happened?? I don't think so. So when I answered her email, I simply thanked her for the invitation and conversely invited her to visit us, too. Frankly, I don't think either visit will ever happen, but I guess we have to be polite and ask.

I added a new Ayumi gif on the right side of the layout today using some more recent pics of her that I thought were especially pretty. I keep waiting for her to put out a cool video that I can use for a new gif, but none of her videos lately have been that great...just sort of average. I know she went to Shanghai to film one that was very expensive recently, but I just thought it was okay. Here it is, if you'd like to make an assessment for yourself:

Another doctor visit

2008-11-25T12:16:00.000-08:00

So yesterday was the day I had the doctor's appointment with a general practitioner and it was not a good experience. My appointment was at 8:45 a.m., so B and I had to get up earlier than we usually do, since we don't start work until around 10:00 on work days. They'd asked that I get there 15 minutes early to fill out paperwork, since I'm a new patient, so B and I tried to leave early enough to have time for that, but we actually got there closer to 8:40. I didn't think it would be a big deal since you always have to wait to see the doctor anyway, but as soon as I got there, I was told they'd have to reschedule my appointment because I didn't get there early enough.

I was standing at the check-in desk and I turned around to see if B heard what the receptionist had said, because I knew he was going to be pissed. He was reading a magazine and wasn't listening, so I stood there and waited for the receptionist to give me another appointment and she was kind of snotty with me. She had a look on her face like oh-my-gosh-you-are-so-stupid-what-is-wrong-with-you, but she did give me the paperwork they need filled out so I can do that at home and bring it back with me to the next appointment.

I still haven't decided if I'll go to this appointment or not because frankly I was really upset about what happened. I've never had that happen before and it makes me not want to go back, but I really need a primary care doctor and I need a refill for my Yaz soon.

In better news, I have our little trip to Vegas to look forward to and we decided to open Christmas presents from each other the night before we go, so if there's anything from Sephora, for example, that we really wanted and didn't get, we can get it while we're in Vegas. We got our white fake tree up on Sunday and it looks really pretty. I'll try to get a picture of it. Because it came with lights on it, we have a bunch of extra lights and I put one string of them outside on the front porch. If I feel up to it, I'll put some more up outside later on today. I'm actually waiting right now to see if I'll get any more work today. I had a little from one place earlier, but I've finished that, so I'm hoping the other place will send me some more while my hand is holding out. It's doing okay so far today.

Oh, just got the email that work is ready for me, so back to work!

Doing OK

2008-11-19T15:49:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update to say that my doctor's appointment went fine today and he gave me my prescriptions (with hardly a word to me) as usual. My hand seems to be feeling a little better today, but I only worked a half day, so I'm sure that has something to do with it. I didn't know how much I'd be able to type so I only asked for about half the work I normally do.

Yesterday I made hotel reservations for us at The Orleans in Vegas for December 21. We're only staying that one night and will be driving home the next day. The Orleans is where we stayed when we flew to Vegas last year during our house hunting trip and we were pleasantly surprised by how nice it was, especially since it was so affordable. Basically the room is a suite with a bed, a sitting area and a bathroom.

We had a nice view of the strip from our room last year, but I don't know if we'll be as lucky this time or not. I probably could've requested that, but honestly it's not that important to me. We'll see enough of the strip when we're on the strip. The Orleans is actually several blocks west of the strip.

We're not planning on seeing any shows during this trip. We're just going to look at the Christmas decorations, hang out and probably go bowling. The Orleans has a nice bowling alley that we didn't have time to go to last time we were there. I imagine we'll go to Sephora, too. That's a place we both enjoy going to, although I've already gotten B some Christmas presents from their website, so there may not be much there we'd want to buy (right).

Ouch

2008-11-17T15:38:00.001-08:00

I got a picture of Spice lying inside my computer desk. I had my computer tower there for a while, but it turned out to be an inconvenient place for it, so I moved it back and then put a blanket in there, hoping the cats would use it as a bed. So this is one of the few times either one of them got in there. I like when they come in my room with me while I'm working, except when they get on my desk and stand between me and my monitor, which Miki likes to do.

Spice was sick for a few days this past week and threw up probably 6 or 7 times. All I can say is thank goodness for Resolve carpet cleaner. It really works on tough carpet stains, plus the carpet in this house seems to be stain resistant anyway, which is great with these cats barfing all the time. It seems like all cats are prone to barfing frequently. At least all cats that I've owned. Maybe it's me.

B and I wrapped some Christmas presents today after getting some wrapping paper at the store yesterday, so I busted out the Christmas music to listen to while wrapping and I'm still listening to it now. I guess it's a little early, but I'm the only one hearing it. We're going to put our tree up probably next weekend. We got a fake tree this year since I doubt anyone sells real trees out here and we got a white tree with lights already on it. I think the white trees always look so pretty when I see them in stores and stuff, so I'm hoping ours looks just as nice. We got a great deal on it from W@l-M@rt via their website. You can order stuff and have it shipped to your local store with free shipping, so that's what I did since we go grocery shopping there every weekend anyway.

The pain I have from fibromyalgia seems to move around my body and for now, it's in my left hand. It's been a tough week for me because it's been hard to type with my hand all wacked out like it is. This has happened before and I know that it will move out of my hand eventually, but I sure wish it would get a move on. Several weeks ago, it was my legs that were hurting, and before that it was my lower back/butt. This just seems to be the way it goes; one area will hurt for a while and eventually feel better, but then another area will start hurting. The worst part is, I ran out of my pain meds this month and I'm afraid to say anything to my pain management doctor because, for all I know, he may take them away completely. This is the same guy I've been seeing for about 6 months who is a real jerk and so obviously doesn't care about his patients at all (Dr. Boo).

I did call his office and ask about getting a refill just to hold me over between then and my next appointment, but I was told he would only give me a refill if I came into the office, and even then, there's no guarantee he'd give me a refill. So I said screw it, I'll just wait until my regular appointment, which is this Wednesday, but now I'm afraid he may give me crap about wanting a refill. Honestly, I don't even know if he knows that I called about a refill and hopefully he doesn't.

Needless to say, I'm nervous about seeing him on Wednesday. I'm really going to make an effort not to run out of my pain meds again, but the good news is, I'm seeing a general practitioner in a couple weeks and maybe this doctor will be a little more willing to talk to me about my options. Since B does medical transcription, he tells me all the time about what doctors are prescribing their fibromyalgia patients, so I'm going to ask this new doctor specifically about these things.

If B can get the time off, we're planning to go up to Vegas for a couple days in December. We thought it would be fun to be there around Christmas time and see all the decorations, etc., and as it turns out, the hotel rates are pretty cheap right up to Christmas day. That surprised me.

My hand is telling me to quit for now, so I better lay off the typing.

End of the trip

2008-10-28T17:06:00.000-07:00

I've been dealing with a lot of photo uploading while making these last few entries, and can someone tell me why, first of all, blogger puts them in the entry in the opposite order that I uploaded them, and second, why does it sometimes put extra spaces between the pictures in the entry? So annoying.

Anyway, last part of the trip. First we have me getting sunburned at Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah. This is where we drove to after camping in that really remote area near Lake Powell. I think it only took maybe an hour to get there. We were really close.

There was some pretty strange looking landscape here. The light-colored wavy-looking rock is called slickrock and is made from petrified sand dunes. You can hike all around here, but we were exhausted and chose instead to have lunch, stop at all the viewpoints and then leave.

Below is one of the natural briges in Natural Bridges. :) They are formed when streams cut new paths through the petrified sand dunes.

After we left Natural Bridges, I drove for a while. We saw some signs saying that the road was unpaved, steep and curvy ahead, and wow, was that an understatement. The road became a gravel road that snaked down the side of this huge butte down into a valley. You can see the road way, way down there in the two pictures below and that is the same road we were on, just much farther down.

This was pretty scary for me because I don't like heights and I don't really like driving, but it was perfect for B because he busted out the camera and got to take lots and pictures on our way down. The road was basically deserted, too. I only remember seeing two other vehicles, one ahead of us going down and one coming the opposite direction.

The road led us back to some places we'd gone through earlier in the week, like Mexican Hat, below.

Eventually we were back in Monument Valley and we camped there that night at a nice place called Goulding's. They had everything there. I said to B that it should've been called Goulding's City. In addition to a campground, they had a gas station, a grocery store, several gift shops, a retaurant, a hotel and cabins. We thought about camping there when we originally went to Monument Valley on the first night of our trip, but it was too cold. It was still a little chilly the night we did stay there, but we were comfortable in the tent. It was really, really windy that night, though, but we sat in the tent and played cars and basically relaxed after having dinner in the restaurant there.

The next day we had breakfast at the campground, packed up all our stuff for the last time and headed for home. That was on Friday, Oct. 10th. We had to be home no later than 2:00 p.m. on Saturday the 11th because this was going to be installed:

We actually bought this about a month before it was delivered and installed. We were supposed to go to this hot tub and spa show in Vegas, but we never received the tickets they were supposed to send us, so we went to the Mohave County Fair here in town instead and we bought a hot tub from a place that had a booth set up there.

This is something we'd been talking about since before we moved to AZ and we finally made it happen. It was SO nice to have this after our trip because we were still sore from our hike to Delicate Arch on the first day (or at least I was). We've been using it every day since we got it. We were told that we may be able to get a tax writeoff for it, if I can get a note from my doctor saying that I need it to treat my fibromyalgia. B still needs to ask our accountant about that, though.

We have some blue rope lights that are up on the ceiling above the hot tub that we use when we're out there at night. The hot tub is sitting on our back porch to the left of the sliding door and underneath the kitchen window. The lid is attached and it's really easy to swing it open. I can't say that I've felt any improvement in my fibromyalgia symptoms from using it, but I sure do enjoy it anyway. I'm always cold, but after being in this, I'm warm for a long time.

Trip continued

2008-10-27T11:01:00.000-07:00

The first picture is from the evening of Oct. 8, the third night of our trip, and this is where we camped. Our tent was actually over to the right and not visible in this picture and the Colorado River was to the right of that. You can see a vehicle belonging to the people who were camped at the sit next to ours and then way, way down there is the bathroom. The road was very close on the left at the bottom of that slope, but it's hard to see.

The following day we went back to Arches and I wanted to get some photos of the Delicate Arch trail that we'd hiked on Oct. 6. I've outlined the trail in pink and the arrow is pointing to Delicate Arch, which I have a picture of B standing underneath in a previous entry. This was a long, steep hike, but really neat.

I also got a picture of Delicate Arch from another angle at another trailhead. You can see some people hiking up this second trail where the white arrow is pointing and the pink arrow is pointing to people up at the top near Delicate Arch who took the first trail. Delicate Arch is circled. I'd like to try this second trail if we ever go back.

We went to one last place in Arches that day before we left and that was a place called Devil's Garden. Here is B on the trail standing in front of Landscape Arch (I think). We didn't make it all the way to the end because we were pooping out.

Next is another picture of B on the same trail. I think this was on the way back to the car. We tried to come here the day before, but there was no place to park because it was so croweded, but we got there earlier in the day the next day and were able to park there.

We left Arches that afternoon and drove south down to Lake Powell, which is in the picture below. This picture was taken from an overlook looking down onto the "city" of Hite. It's barely a city anymore. Apparently it used to be a mining town, but the mines went out of business and now there are just a few mobile homes there.

Not far from there is where we camped for the night. We ended up wasting a lot of time driving around looking for a camp site because our map said there was camping in the area, but none of the signs around showed where exactly it was. We finally figured it out after looking at a map in Hite and then picked out the spot in the picture below. There was absolutely no one else around here. That's me putting the sleeping bags in the tent and you can see someone built a fire ring with rocks on the left. We bought some firewood before we left the Arches area earlier that day, so we had a nice fire there.

Last is another picture of this camping area that I think B took the next morning. You can see Lake Powell way down there and you can see how absolutely desolate this area was. We slept better there than we had the night before, where the road was right next to us.

More next time!

More from the trip

2008-10-22T17:37:00.000-07:00

So stupid blogger uploaded these pictures in the opposite order than what I intended, so I'll have to explain them backwards. Anyway, this first picture is from the third evening of our trip after we spent the night in the nice hotel and had done some more hiking in Arches. This is B standing on the road up to Fisher Towers, the big rock things in the background. There's a little camping area up there, but we camped at another spot right next to the Colorado River.

The next picture is from a short hike earlier that day to some arch I can't remember the name of. Landscape Arch? I don't know. Anyway, that's me. The weather was a little cool, but it was warm in the sun.

Next is me again on another hike into . . . I don't remember the name of this either. It was very shady back here and the temperature dropped like crazy in the shade.

Next is a picture of B and I during our first hike of that day at . . . I don't remember the name of this arch, either.

And last is me at the head of the trail that lead up to that last arch I can't remember the name of.

We took three hikes that day, I think, and then we camped at our neat little spot next to the Colorado River that night. We had to pay $8 to camp there and we had to put the cash in a little envelope and put that in a box near the bathroom (outhouse). There were 6 or 7 places to camp in that little area and I think they were all taken by dusk. We took a spot all the way on the end where we hoped no one would bother us and would be the quietest, but we were right next to the road and the traffic kept us from really sleeping well. But we did have fun having our dinner there and we also had a nice fire later on. Someone had left several bundles of firewood there, so we used it and stayed nice and warm until it was time for bed.

Way overdue

2008-10-20T10:44:00.001-07:00

I've been a terrible blogger for the past few weeks (months?) and have not been writing anything in my own blog or reading any other blogs. I don't know what happened. I do know that B and I spend a lot less recreational time on our computers since we've moved. I guess it's because our computers are in separate rooms now. We used to spend time "together" on our individual computers in the same room, but now our together time is spent outside or watching TV.

Anyway, lots has happened since I last wrote, as you might imagine. I'll start with recent things and work backward as best I can. I'll have to make a second entry with more pictures because this one already has a lot. First is a picture of a lizard hanging on the wall outside from a few months ago. This was maybe 6-7 inches long and is one of the biggest we've seen. They like to hang around the front porch and sun themselves and do this funny bobbing-up-and-down dance, though we haven't seen them around much in the past few weeks.

You may remember that I had some back pain after our last camping trip, when I slept on an air mattress, so B and I set up the tent inside the house so I could do a test run with a foam mattress B had from his rolfing days. After setting it up, both cats got inside to have a look around. Here's Spice making herself comfortable.

The foam mattress worked out just fine for me, so we did do some camping on our trip to Arches National Park Oct. 5 through Oct. 10. On our way there, we went through Monument Valley. Here's a picture of our approach from the south.

This is how it looked when we actually got there.

It was a little windy there that day, as it was when we came back through on our way home.

We stayed in the Monument Valley area on Sunday night, Oct. 5, and it was pretty cold there that night, so we decided to stay in a hotel rather than camp. There was a place there called the Weatherill Inn where B had stayed years ago, so that's where we stayed. They had a gift shop there where B had seen a pen knife that he'd always regretted not getting, so of course we went to the gift shop to see if they still had it or something like it. They didn't have the exact one, but they had lots of nice looking pen knives, among other things, but B still didn't get one because he felt they were too expensive (and I agreed). He did get a very nice mug and T-shirt and I got a few things for myself.

This next picture is on our way to Arches and approaching the La Sal Mountains, which are very close to the Utah/Colorado border and are visible from Arches. This picture doesn't really do them justice because they were huge and pretty spectacular looking.

This next picture is driving into Arches National Park. You may notice that we're on the wrong side of the road. That's because they had just put down a layer of oil or tar or something on the other side and we were being led up this steep cliff into the park by a park vehicle. We initially had to wait about 10 minutes to go in because they were leading people down the one open lane from the other direction first.

That was on Monday, Oct. 6 that we arrived in Arches around lunch time. B found a nice spot near Balanced Rock where we set up our gas stove and made lunch. This picture is driving further into the park.

After lunch, we decided to hike up to Delicate Arch, below. This was a butt-kicking hike. I was somewhat prepared for this, having been doing squatts and lunges at home for weeks beforehand, but what was really sore afterwards were my shins. Here is B standing under Delicate Arch. You can see the La Sal Mountains in the background on the left.

You probably can't see just how steep this was from the picture, but that's me going back down, and that's where my shins got so sore. You can see the road we took to get there snaking downhill in the background and other people doing the hike on the right.

That night we decided we weren't quite ready to rough it yet, so we stayed in a hotel again. In fact, we were already so tired and sore from hiking to Delicate Arch, we decided to get a really nice room with a jacuzzi tub and we both soaked in the tub for a while that night, which I think probably helped a lot with our soreness the next day (though I was sore to varrying degress the rest of the week anyhow).

That's it for now, but I'll write again about the rest of the trip and include more pictures.

Camping and birthday

2008-08-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

Since I last wrote, we went on our little trip to Bullhead City/Laughlin and also camping at the Grand Canyon. The trip over to Bullhead City/Laughlin was the same day as my last doctor's appointment, and that went fine. I did have to see the doctor rather than just being given my prescription and sent on my way, but he actually seemed to be in a good mood this time. I should've taken the opportunity to (try to) talk to him about my fatigue, but I just wasn't prepared to do it, and frankly I just wanted to get out of there and get on to the fun part of the day.

Here are a few photos from that day:

This first one is driving west toward the mountains between Golden Valley, where my doctor's appointment was, to Bullhead City/Laughlin. Bullhead City is in Arizona and Laughlin is right across the Colorado River in Nevada.
This is a picture of the casinos in Laughlin. I think there were about ten of them.

The third picture was on way home going back over those same mountains.

We went to a couple places that sold hot tubs to see what they had on display, but the first place we went to was actually the wrong place (they'd moved to another location) and the second place only had two hots tubs on display, neither of which looked like what we want, so we got fed up and went to one of the casino's to have lunch. We ate at a small restaurant inside the Aquarius Casino. The food was good, but man was it freezing in there. We didn't stick around and play the slots or anything; we just went home after that. I think all together it probably took about an hour to get there from our house, if I'm calculating right. We didn't go straight there because we had my doctor's appointment in Golden Valley, which is between Kingman and Bullhead City/Laughlin.

Last weekend was my birthday (thanks, Heather!) and our camping trip. Overall I had fun camping, but unfortunately I got one heck of a backache from sleeping on an air matress in the tent. I guess I need something firmer to sleep on, like our bed, which is made of furniture-grade foam. Here are some pictures:

This is B at Meteor Crater, where we went first on Sunday. It was boiling hot out there that day, but there were big thunderclouds and rain not far away. We didn't stay outside long. There was a museum and gift shop right there on the edge of the crater.

This is me at our campsite on Sunday night. We only had a fire that night because it rained the next day and everything was too wet to burn. We didn't cook anything on the fire; just had it for warmth because it was a bit chilly after the sun went down.

And this is the two of us at Grand Canyon on Monday. I got sunburned that day on my arms and the part in my hair. I didn't think I'd need any sunblock. >:( We didn't stay very long at Grand Canyon on Tuesday because my back was hurting so bad that I didn't feel like doing much, so we had lunch there and then got home around 3:00 or 3:30.

It was fun using our camp stove and eating outside. There weren't a lot of bugs there, except for one place where we stopped to make lunch on Sunday afternoon. For some reason, that particular spot was crawling with flies, but where we actually camped for the night was much better.

We heard a lot of coyotes on Sunday night, but then didn't hear any Monday night. We camped at a different spot Monday, so I guess the coyotes weren't around there. We saw a deer as we were driving on a very crowded road who was eating right next to the road, totally unphased. We also saw a family of turkeys with little turkey babies crossing the road while we were looking for a campsite on Monday.

Here's what B got me for my birthday:

The pink shoes are plastic like jellies...remember those? I love jellies. They're so great for wearing to the beach or the pool. Not that I ever do either of those things now, but they're cute nonetheless. And the other shoes are comfy like gym shoes but a lot cuter. The pink shoes were only $15. Get them now while they're still on clearance at $ketchers dot com.

I hate bugs

2008-07-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning when I got up and stepped out of the bedroom, I saw this on the floor:

The good news is, it was mostly dead, but the bad news is, somehow it got inside. This was the first time I'd seen one of these and I much rather would've seen it outside. This morning I found another one, and this time it was IN the bedroom right next to the bed. I think it was mostly dead, too, since it didn't move when B sprayed it with alcohol, but still....eeewww!! It was on my side of the bed right when I put my feet when I get up. As you might imagine, I'm going to be looking at the floor very carefully when I get out of bed from now on. I've been wearing shoes in the house all day today because I do NOT want to step on one of these things in my sock feet if there are more around.

Like I said, this is the first time I've seen one of these, though I have seen lots of these in the house before:

These are a type of spider and aren't dangerous, but I'm pretty sure the former creatures are scorpions. B and I were thinking they might be these things called vinegaroons, which we'd heard are less dangerous, but they look quite different:

That's definitely not what we had here in the house today. Blech. I saw some kind of big, hairy, brown spider outside last week. I'm not sure what kind it was, but I'd say it was about three inches across. Not quite as big as a tarantula, but close. It might've been some kind of tarantula for all I know. I was over on the side of our house cleaning up our ex-neighbors crap that he left out in his driveway that got blown all over our yard the last time it rained, but after seeing that spider, I decided to just leave the stuff alone. Maybe it will blow out of our yard the next time it rains.

I got my hair trimmed this past Sunday because I wanted to have it done for our camping trip coming up, but she really chopped it this time and it's shorter than I wanted. I think it looks kind of awful, not cute like the first time she cut it, especially my bangs because she cut them way too short. I think they look best when they're just touching my eyebrows, but they're waaay above my eyebrows and it looks dorky. Hopefully it'll grow fast. I'm hoping by the time we go camping in a couple weeks, it'll look like it did the first time she cut it. Or at least the bangs. I'll probably be wearing hats all the time anyway.

Whoo comments!

2008-07-09T16:40:00.000-07:00

Since I got a couple questions in my comments, I'll see if I can answer those. (Thanks for the comments!)

First Mel - the humidity out here is almost nonexistant. For example, the humidity right now is 22% and that's kind of high because there are thunderstorms in the area. I've seen it as low as 2%. It makes a huge difference in how the temperature feels, too. Like last night, it was 101 around 8:00 p.m. and B and I sat on the front porch for a little while. To me, it felt like about 85 degrees rather than 101, but I know back in NC it would've definitely felt like 101 with the humidity there.

Second Heather - so far I'm loving living here. I love the warm temperatures, the low humidity and the almost-always sunny skies. I love our house and we're still doing some decorating here and there.

One thing I don't love are all the ugly tumbleweeds that have sprung up in our yard, but on the bright side, they seem to attract rabbits and birds and I love watching them. I really don't miss living in NC at all, except a few people there. In general, I like the low humidity, although I think my body is still adjusting to it because I wake up every day with a dry, sore throat. Part of the problem is the medications I take make my throat dry. We have a humidifier that I use in the bedroom almost every night, but unfortunately it's not totally getting the job done.

Another thing I don't love is the wind here, which can be pretty strong at times. The good news is, it was mostly windy in the spring and it's gotten way less now that it's summer. I'll have to wait and see what the other seasons will be like in terms of the wind. I've really been enjoying riding my bike around the neighborhood because there's rarely any traffic and it's not very hilly terrain, but it's not much fun when it's really windy. Believe it or not, it makes a big difference in terms of how much energy you have to use when the wind is blowing against you.

One thing I do miss from NC was my doctor there, as you know, and thanks for both of your comments on that situation. And Heather, you know if you want to see all the great hummingbirds here, all you have to do is move here. ;)

Oh, another thing I like about living here is that there are lots of organized activies in our community, though I have to admit I haven't really looked into any of them yet. We had our own 4th of July fireworks here at the golf course last week, so B and I drove up there to watch them. It was great because it was nice and warm, not very crowded, and best of all, there were no bugs, unlike being outside at night back east. There's a pool here, too, and I do intend to go swimming at some point, but I don't have a swimsuit that fits me right now. :( That's something I'm working on. I've lost about five pounds, so maybe by next summer I'll have lost enough to feel like going to the pool.

Another thing I love about living here is being so close to cool places like the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. It's amazing that we can drive to either of those places in just a couple hours, plus there are a lot of other cool places nearby that we plan to check out. I'm hoping also that maybe one day Ayumi will do a concert in the US, and I know she's been to Vegas several times, so just maybe she might do a concert in Vegas. There have been rumors, but nothing definite. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

2008-07-08T15:18:00.000-07:00

Thanks for your comments, Heather, about my doctor visit. I ended up having to see the chiropractor a second time last week, and when I did, I mentioned Dr. Boo and how much I did not enjoy visiting his office. The chiropractor said he'd recently gotten a letter from a new pain management place that opened up here in Kingman and suggested I might want to try this place instead, so I called them today. First I asked if they're able to treat fibromyalgia and second, I asked if they'd have a problem prescribing the two medications I take. The nurse I spoke with was very helpful, but she told me that they usually do a "medication vacation" with new patients and basically start from scratch to see what kind of treatment(s) may work.

I don't want to sound like a drug addict, but in my opinion, I don't need a medication vacation. I've tried probably a couple dozen medications during the past four years and I've now finally got two that work for me, so I'm not in any hurry to stop taking them. In fact, I'm looking to try even more medication, specifically to treat my fatigue, which I mentioned to the nurse on the phone. She's going to speak with the doctor and call me back tomorrow or the day after to tell me what he says, but I've kind of already made up my mind that this isn't what I want.

Even though there's no love lost between me and Dr. Boo, I'm hesitant to burn any bridges with him, because if I start going to this new place and don't like it either, I doubt I could go back to Dr. Boo. Maybe I should just stick with him for the foreseeable future and be content with what I'm getting. After all, if I don't have to actually see him during my next visit, it won't be so bad.

It's been pretty hot here lately, which is to be expected. We've been hearing from the locals that the months of July and August are the monsoon season, and that will bring some rain and more humidity. I can see some changes in the weather already, because we've had a lot of cumulus clouds the past three or four days in a row, and usually there are no clouds around. It hasn't rained here yet, but I've seen rain off in the distance.

We've been trying to keep up with our evening bike rides, but lately it's been too hot even after the sun sets, so we've either taken shorter rides or not gone at all.

We got a cute patio furniture set from Big Lots this weekend. It was only $70 for two chairs, two foot rests and a small table. It's just right for our front porch. We've been sitting out there after dark, usually after our bike ride. B also got a hummingbird feeder from Big Lots and hung it up outside, but the wind was blowing so hard that day, all the nectar spilled out all over the porch, the side of the house and the window. He's still trying to figure out a way to stabilize it. We also got some pretty windchimes and B had an idea to hang them from the ceiling over one of our potshelves, so he hung them up yesterday and they look really cute.

When I last saw the chiropractor, he showed B how to do a psoas stretch with me and suggested we do it every day because that muscle is too tight and is causing me pain. I had a lot of trouble with my psoas when I first met B and he's done a lot of work on it over the years, but apparently it's still giving me trouble. I'm still having pain while sitting, especially while sitting at my desk and working, so I'm hoping this stretching will help.

Our next-door neighbor, the hacker, has apparently moved out. I don't know if I mentioned this, but he told us a while ago that he more than likely was going to be foreclosed on, and that's what happened. B suggested I hook my wireless adapter back up and see if anyone hacks it again, and if not, we'll definitely know it was him. I guess his house belongs to the bank now. I wonder how long it will take to sell? I have a feeling it'll be vacant for a while, and that's fine with me.

Second visit with Dr. Boo

2008-07-02T13:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my second visit with Dr. Boo (that's my nickname for the pain management doctor). I wasn't sure what to expect at this visit, so I was feeling nervous about going, but B offered to come with me and drive, so that helped a lot. He had to miss some work in order to come, because my appointment was at 10:10 a.m., but hopefully next time I'll feel more confident about going by myself.

Last time I was there, the doctor wanted me to have all these x-rays done, which ended up costing me an arm and a leg, so I figured he'd discuss the x-rays with me. Wrong! He never said a word about the x-rays. In fact, I don't think I would've even seen the doctor had I not expressed uncertainty about when my next appointment should be.

I had to wait about a half hour to finally be called back to the exam rooms, and then one of the nurses or assistants or whatever just said, "You're here for refills? OK, here you go. See you in a month," and handed me refills for my two prescriptions. I said, "Do I need to come back in a month?" and the guy said, "Uh, uh, you need to talk to the doctor." Then I had to wait out in the hall for another 15 minutes until the doctor was done with whoever he was talking to.

When I first got there and signed in, I was given a piece of paper to sign about receiving injections. I thought it was odd, because I don't get injections, but they said I needed to sign anyway just in case I ever did, so I signed it. While I was waiting in the hallway to see the doctor, he burst out of one of the exam rooms and reamed out another nurse or office assistant or somebody, saying, "Why are you guys having peole sign these injection forms when they're not even getting injections?!" The woman he was yelling at explained that someone else told her they had to be signed by everyone, but the doctor continued to yell at her and told her not to waste paper. As he walked away, he said, "Geez, what is wrong with you? Use your head!" So you can imagine how eager I was to see him after that.

Finally it was my turn and basically he just asked if my prescriptions were still working for me, told me I should continue to see a chiropractor (after I said I'd been to see one recently) and sent me on my way while hardly looking at me. So the good news is, I got refills, but the bad news is, I do have to go back again in a month. When I was checking out, the woman he was yelling at early was at the desk and she said, "You need to come back in a month?" and I said, "Well, I don't know. The doctor didn't say." She rolled her eyes, gave me this oh-my-god-you-are-so-annoying look and said, "Well, usually you come once a month for prescription refills," so I said, "OK then, I guess I do need to come back in a month," and she made me an appointment.

I'm guessing that when I go back again, I won't even see the doctor unless I have a question or concern, and you can bet I won't be asking any questions. I'm just gonna go in there, pick up my refills and leave. I don't need to stick around just to get attitude from these people.

Some good news is that I found a very nice chiropractor here in town and I've been to see him twice now; once on Monday and once two weeks ago. I've been having a real problem with pain in my lower back and butt on the left side when I'm sitting, and I seemed to have some improvement after I saw the chiropractor the first time, but then it came back, so that's why I went again on Monday. He said he wants me to come again later this week, but I'm hoping I'll be feeling better by then and won't have to. I did feel a bit better yesterday and this morning, but I'm not feeling so great right now. I finished my work for A really early today, so now I'm waiting to see if I R has anything they can send me. If they don't, I'm going to lay down and get off my butt for a while. That's what really seems to help.

The chiropractor gave me a handout on fibromyalgia when I was there on Monday. That was nice, but it really didn't tell me anything I don't already know. I've done a lot of reading about it online and B tells me what kind of treatments the doctors he transcribes for are currently using for their fibromyalgia patients. I talked to my dad on Monday morning and told him that I have fibromyalgia, which I'd never talked to him about before. He'd heard of it through commericals on TV and stuff, but didn't know anything about it, so he asked me what it was and how it affected me, etc. I didn't go into a lot of detail because I didn't want to bore him with a lot of whiny details, but I kind of gave him an overview, and I imagine that he'll go online and look it up if he wants to know more. He's really taking advantage of the internet now that he's retired and has the time.

25LIVE

2008-06-23T16:33:00.001-07:00

This past weekend we went on our trip to Vegas to see George Michael in concert. The concert was on Saturday night and we both had to work that day, but I only worked about half a day and B was able to finish by 4:00, so we were on our way by 4:15. It took us about two hours to drive there and even though the concert was at 8:00 p.m., we ended up just barely having enough time to grab some dinner before it started. It took a while to find a place to park in the MGM Grand's parking garge, find our way inside and then find the check-in desk. Then when we got there, we ended up having to walk waaaaay down to another part of the hotel because they upgraded us to a suite! Here's a picture of what our room looked like below:

I guess by the time we checked in, all the regular rooms were taken, just like when we stayed in Mandalay Bay back in 2005. The room was really nice. In addition to the standard amenities, it had a coffee maker, toaster, blender, refrigerator, flat screen TV, microwave, a stove top, pots and pans, dishes, glasses, silverware, a whirlpool tub and two bathrobes. It's one of the nicest rooms I've ever stayed in.

Our suite was in a separate part of the hotel called The Signature, and it had its own lobby (picture below). We had to walk past all these restaurants and stores and then take several moving walkways to get there.

So by the time we made it up to our room, it was about 7:20 and we still had to eat, so we ran back down to where all the restaurants were and quickly found a place to eat. Thank goodness the arena was practically right down the hall from where we ate because we made it there right before 8:00 as it was. After we got in and found our seats, I decided to run back out and see if I could buy some concert T-shirts and stuff. I was really afraid I'd miss the beginning of the concert, but I didn't want to wait until after the show to try to buy things because I knew the lines would be even longer then. I think I waited in line 10 or 15 minutes, but fortunately I didn't miss anything because the show didn't start for probably another 15 minutes after I got back to my seat. I don't know why it started so late, but I didn't mind. I got a couple T-shirts and a hat.

B and I bought some earplugs especially for this concert so our ears wouldn't be ringing and we left them in the suitcase up in our room. :( The good news is, our ears only rang that night after the concert and we were fine the next day. :) I thought he did a great show and he did two encores. I can't remember how many songs he sang, but he did quite a variety of stuff. Some songs from his Wham! days and some songs from each of his solo albums. The stage was pretty cool. There were two big monitors on each side of the stage and then one gigantic monitor-thing in the middle that actually went down onto the floor of the stage where he was standing (below).

Our seats were great, too. Even though it wasn't real close, we had an excellent view of the stage because we were in the front row of our section, so nothing was blocking our view.

The next day we had some breakfast there at the hotel and then we drove up to the Wynn hotel. I've been wanting to go there and just check it out since it's one of the newest hotels on the strip, so we went into the casino area and checked out all the stores and things. We had some lunch there, got ourselves some souvenirs and also found three really pretty pots/vases for our pot shelves at home for really great prices. We've got these nice vaulted ceilings here and all these pot shelves, but nothing to put on them, so now we have at least one of the pot shelves taken care of.

After we finished exploring the Wynn, our feet were getting pretty tired, so we decided to head home. Driving to Vegas, the traffic around Hoover Dam wasn't too bad, but for some reason, coming back home it was really congested. I expected more traffic on our way there because we were going to Vegas on a Saturday night. It was boiling hot outside too, but there were still tons of people walking around at Hoover Dam. I'm not sure what the temperature was, but I know it was hotter in Vegas there here at home, though it has been pretty hot here lately. In fact, it's 96 right now.

I've got my second appointment with the pain management doctor coming up on July 1, which I'm not looking forward to. I am curious to see what my x-rays reveal, if anything. I went to see a chiropractor here in Kingman last Monday because I was having pain in my lower back and butt on my left side that was making it hard for me to get my work done because it hurt most when I was sitting. It's been very, very slowly feeling better since then, but it's still not totally better. I'll probably go to this chiropractor again soon. He was really nice and the atmosphere there was much better than at the pain management place.

By the way, I got my hair cut a few weeks ago like this, but black because B colored it for me:

It's not that straight either, and I tend to push it behind my ears, which makes the sides curl forward. This is the shortest I've had my hair in a long time, and so far I like it a lot. It feels nice to have it short in the back because I don't get those hairs going down the back of my shirt. I hate that. I don't know if B's crazy about it, but he said it's cute and it makes me look younger, so that sounds good to me. I saw soooo many women with this haircut when we were in Vegas, but everyone had theirs super-straight, which I can't seem to do with my hair, so mine looks a little different (which I think is a good thing).

The second doctor

2008-06-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

Well, today was my appointment with the pain management doctor I was referred to. The good news is, he gave me refills on two of my prescriptions, so I'll be able to continue with those. The bad news is, the whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth because of his demeanor.

Right off the bat, when I was taken into the room where he was sitting, he didn't even look at me or say hi or anything. The nurse told me to have a seat, so I sat there and waited for the doctor to seemingly notice me. Maybe it's petty of me, but stuff like that makes me feel uncomfortable and gets things off on the wrong foot for me.

When he finally deigned to speak to me, he then asked me about what medications I'm taking, what they're for, how often and how much. He poked and prodded me, asking if it hurt, then said it seems I probably do have fibromyalgia (duh). He said something about me needing to exercise, and I tried to tell him what exercises I'm already doing, but he moved on to something else. Then he said I needed physical therapy and I explained that I've already had physical therapy (he said this while looking at a piece of paper where I had specifically written "had physical therapy"). Then he wanted to squabble about why I'm taking two different painkillers. I explained that one is for normal pain and one is for breakthrough pain - something I figured a pain management doctor would be familiar with - and he said he wouldn't prescribe both; just one or the other, so which would it be? I was at a loss for words for a moment, then I asked what I would do if I took the first painkiller and that wasn't enough to take care of my pain? Then suddenly he changed his mind and told me he'd give me prescriptions for both. I just said OK at that point. As you can imagine, by then I was feeling upset and defensive and really, really uncomfortable.

He told me he wanted to get some x-rays and handed me a slip of paper to give to some woman outside the door, then he basically said goodbye. I was told by some other woman that I'd need to come back in a month, so I made an appointment for July 1. Oh, I also tried to talk to him about my worsening fatigue and he more or less blew it off, saying "that's just part of fibromyalgia." WTF? I guess I'll go back in a month and see how it goes, but if this second appointment leaves me feeling just as crappy as the first one, then screw him. I'll find someone else.

In other news, B and I are going back to Vegas in June to see George Michael at the MGM Grand!! I don't know if I've even mentioned it, but I'm a huge fan and when I saw him perform on the AI finale, I was really excited. Then when he announced that he's on tour in the US, I immediately wondered if he'd be coming to Vegas. Sure enough, he's performing one night on June 21st, so I got us a couple tickets! It's been a long time since I've been to a concert, so that will be really cool, plus we get to go back to Vegas. Whoo hoo! We still haven't decided if we're going to spend the night there after the concert or just drive home. If I could find a place where we could stay for less $100, there'd be no question, but for some reason every place has their prices jacked way up. I'm still planning to research this some more and see if we can find some place off the strip that's not so pricey. Part of me wants to spend the night at the MGM Grand hotel because that's where the concert is, so after the concert we'd already be at our hotel, plus we've never stayed there and it looks really nice. But it's one of the more expensive places and if we're only going to be there for one night we won't get to really enjoy it much. Maybe that stimulus money is just burning a hole in my pocket. :)

The anniversary weekend

2008-05-28T17:03:00.000-07:00

Sometime late last week, I think on Thursday, I had already started working and B was trying to get started but suddenly had a weird Windows error pop up on his computer. It said something about a conflict with a computer on the network, so he asked me if I was having any problems. Just a minute after that, while B was resetting the modem and trying some other things, I got the same error about a network conflict, so I looked at our router management thing and guess what? Yet again, we had a computer named Scott on our network and I wasn't able to connect via our secure network anymore.

B once again created a new wireless network with a new password, which fixed the problem temporarily, but he decided he'd had enough of this and that we were going to get a big-ass networking cable to physically connect our computers as soon as possible. We made a stop at Staples on our way home from Vegas on Monday to get one and the guy working there said we should report this to the police because it's illegal to log onto someone's secure wireless network. What really blows my mind is that he's now done it three or four times and he's had to crack our password each time. I've done some reading about it, and apparently it's easy to get software to accomplish this. There's no way he's getting on our network anymore because B has turned off the wireless signal from our modem, so this should be the end of it.

So Sunday morning we left for Las Vegas around 10:00 a.m. and got there around 11:30, I think. Of course, by the time we actually got to where we were going on the strip, parked the car and got inside, it was closer to 12:00, I'm sure. We initially went to the Fashion Show Mall on the strip because we wanted to go to the bath & body stores there and also check out the department stores for possible new bedding. We didn't find anything we liked for the bed, but we did get some goodies from The Body Shop and we ate lunch in the food court there. We drove around and around the parking gargage looking for an empty spot, because it was packed, but we ended up getting a great spot right next to an entrance to the mall, so that was nice. While we were there, we were up on the second level and I noticed that something was going on down on the first level, so we stopped to watch from above. There was a runway and it looked like they were going to have a fashion show, but we couldn't see any models anywhere, so B said, "I'm expecting them to come out of the floor or something like Ayumi does at her concerts," and a second later part of the floor started to rise up and underneath was a room with the models standing inside. That was pretty wild. After it rose up completely, the models walked out onto the catwalk and then went back into the room to change into their various outfits between trips down the catwalk.

We ended up driving over to Sephora after that because B wanted some things that he wasn't able to find at the mall. I got a few things, B found what he wanted and he got a butt load of free samples - all kinds of lotions, creams, perfumes and body washes. Then I got two more free samples when I checked out because I'm part of their club or whatever that I signed up for when I was there last year. Whoo hoo! I love that place.

After that we went to the Bellagio to pick up our tickets for "O." There was a long line of people waiting for stand-by tickets, but we just walked up, grabbed our tickets and were done. We debated about whether to just hang around there until it was time for the show or try to go over to Excaliber and check in first. We really wanted to go check in, but we knew it was going to take us a while just to drive up the strip, find a place to park, get checked in and get something to eat before we had to be back for the show. So we decided to go for it and go over to Excaliber. Fortunately we were able to get all that done and get back over to Bellagio in plenty of time. We had a nicer room at Excaliber than usual. The bathroom was nicer and there was a big flatscreen TV on the wall. That was unexpected.

So we saw "O" and then dragged our butts back to Excaliber for the night. Our feet were killing us because we're not used to being on our feet that much after working at home like we do. I have to say I was disappointed by "O" and so was B. It wasn't as good as "Ka," which we saw back in 2005. Not that "O" was terrible, but I guess we were expecting something as good or better than "Ka," and it was neither. Oh, well. I think we would've liked it much better had we not seen "Ka" first.

The next day we were going to maybe do some more shopping or walk around on the strip or something, but we were still pooped from the day before. Mentally, I wanted to stay and have more fun, but physically I just wanted to go home and relax. We both had to work the next day, so we decided to head home after breakfast. For some reason, the traffic coming back was way heavier than going there, especially around Hoover Dam. They have security checkpoints there and you don't have to stop (usually), but you do have to slow way down, so that probably added an extra half hour onto the drive, but truthfully I didn't mind so much. Maybe if I would've been driving I would. :) But I enjoyed seeing Hoover Dam again. They're still working on the big overpass/bypass there and it looks like not much progress has been made since we were there last year.

When we got home, we had a card from my mom and stepdad for our anniversary and they included a check for $400. Mom said half the money was for Christmas and half was for a housewarming gift (because she didn't send anything for Christmas last year). So then of course, I felt bad because I flaked out on Mother's Day this year and didn't send her anything. I did email her and thank her for the check and told her we're planning to use the money to landscape our yard. We got those rose bushes in, but we haven't done anything else. Maybe we can pay someone to come take care of the gravel and stuff for us.

It got kind of cold here for a while last week. We had the AC on, and then suddenly it was cold and we had to turn the heat back on. It really stunk because we were enjoying taking bike rides in the evening, but it got too cold for that. It was too cold in Vegas for me to wear the outfit I bought for the trip, too. It's warmed up this week, though. The lizards have come back out from wherever they were hiding and are slithering around the yard again. I'm still seeing tons of rabbits and birds around. I wonder if they'll be around all year?

AC!

2008-05-20T16:31:00.000-07:00

Two days from today is our fifth wedding anniversary. That means this coming weekend is when we're going to Vegas to celebrate. Yay! I can't believe I didn't realize that this coming weekend is Memorial Day weekend. No wonder all the hotels were so expensive. Duh. It's gonna be packed, I bet. Oh well, too late to make any changes now.

The doctor's appointment I had turned out to be a dud. I spent about an hour waiting to see the doctor, then when she finally came in she looked at my info, told me she couldn't prescribe the medications I'm currently on and gave me the name of another doctor to see. Fortunately they didn't charge me for the visit.

Yesterday I finally made an appointment to see this other doctor and I now have an appointment for June 3rd. I waited a while because I wasn't sure exactly what to say on the phone when I called to make the appointment. I wanted to somehow make sure I wouldn't be wasting my time like with the first doctor, so when I called I asked if he would be able to prescribe the medications I'm taking now. They said they couldn't tell me that before I even told them what I was taking, so still not sure how that part will go. I do know, however, that he treats fibromyalgia patients, so that's a good thing. That's why the first doctor gave me his name. The not so good thing is that he's a man. I'd really rather see a woman, but I guess I'll give this guy a shot. I had to call my old doctor's office in NC to get my records sent to this new place, so hopefully there won't be any glitches with that.

We've been having some really hot weather here the past few days. Friday was when it first got really hot, so B tried to turn our AC on for the first time and unfortunately it didn't work. B tried everything he could think of to get it going, but with no luck, so then we were stuck with no AC for the weekend and we were boiling. Yesterday morning B started making phone calls and he first called the company we have our home warranty with. They said they would call a repair place for us and that someone from the repair place would call us within 3 hours to tell us when they'd be coming out, but 3 hours went by and nothing. To make a long story short, it seems everyone in town turned their AC on for the first time this past weekend and the repair places were booked, so B ended up calling around himself, trying to find someone who could come out ASAP. While he was on the phone with one place, B explained the things that he'd tried already and they told him to try pulling this handle out and turning it upside down, and thank goodness that worked. Apparently this is a common thing they do on new homes so the AC won't have any chance of coming on until somebody wants it on. So that was around 2:00 or 3:00 yesterday that we finally got the AC going. It had gotten up to almost 90 in the house. It's true what they say about dry heat, though, because I wouldn't have guessed it was that hot in here. Still, it's much nicer now with the AC on. We have it set at 82 and that's pretty comfortable for us, though it's hotter in my computer room because I still don't have a blind for my window.

Arizona animals

2008-05-09T17:25:00.000-07:00

After having had no further problems with getting online since we got a secure wireless connection established weeks ago, suddenly yesterday morning I couldn't get online again. I kept trying to connect via the secure wireless connection and it just wasn't happening, then that connection just disappeared from my list of connections all together and I was being forced to connect via another connection, just like before. I checked the online modem utility and it said there were now FIVE people on our network, one being Scott (again) and another called Megan.

So B got on the phone with the tech support people again and had them walk him through the process of setting up another secure connection. This time he also set up a new password for the online modem utility that enabled him to create the secure connection because we're figuring that's how this person or persons hacked into our network again. Geez! It really sucks that this happened again. I wish we could find out for sure if it was our neighbor doing it or not, but it didn't even look like he was home yesterday morning. In fact, we haven't seen his car in his driveway in several weeks. Don't know what's up with him.

B and I took a walk in the evening the day before yesterday and I saw a little bird sitting on a street sign from a distance. It was starting to get dark and I didn't have my glasses on, but from what I could see it looked like an owl, even though it was small. I walked a little closer and sure enough, this is what it was:

It was the tiniest little owl I've ever seen, about the size of a finch. It's called an Elf Owl.

I'm really enjoying the wildlife around here. Yesterday there was a veritable bird-and-bunny convention going on outside my computer room window. There were four rabbits (two were babies) and at least a dozen birds. I saw some kind of red-breasted bird that I'd never seen before and I'm still not sure what it was. The cats are enjoying the birds and bunnies, too. Or maybe they're just frustrated because they can see them but can't get at them. While I was on the treadmill today, I saw a little bunny come flying out of some greenery growing in the middle of the yard and hop right over to the house. It was sitting practically right below where Spice was laying inside on the windowsill, just muching on some weeds, seemingly oblivious to the cat. Spice looked like she was going to bust right through the window to get it.

I've also been seeing some little lizards around recently. The cats like those, too. I still haven't seen any snakes, scorpions or anything scary like that, though we did have some roaches for a while (yuck). We've had an exterminator come and take care of that.

I took a little video of the birds and rabbits yesterday so maybe I'll see if I can get that up on Utube or something.

2008-05-05T13:45:00.000-07:00

I have some more pictures from around here. B took this first picture when we were out for a walk last week. It looks like the street sign is in the middle of nowhere, but there is actually a street there somewhere. A lot of the streets around here look like they were put in years ago and are now really overgrown; that's why you can't see the streets in this picture.

This next picture is of one of the rose bushes we planted in the front of the house yesterday. B spoke to someone on the phone about what kind of plants work well in this area and she said roses do great, so we got 5 rose bushes for the front yard. Apparently roses are a desert plant!

Here's a picture of all five of them. Ideally we want to be able to sit on the front porch and smell the roses, but we'll have to get some patio furniture. It's on the list of things to do. You see which way the wind is blowing here. I hope the bushes don't grow up all leaning to one side. We just about killed ourselves digging out the holes for these things. The ground was HARD and dry as hell and our backs are really complaining today.

B picked up some unusual mums at Wal-Mart last weekend and we have them on the kitchen table. They have everything you could imagine at this Wal-Mart in town, and Mel, I am totally sympathizing with you on the $100 Wal-Mart trips. I find something new and cool to buy there every week.

This next picture is the back of our house. The big tree is in our next-door neighbor's yard and that's where all the Gambels Quail like to hang out. The fence is around the yard behind ours.

Next are a few pictures of the wildflowers growing around here. They're all over the place right now.

I made an appointment to see a doctor next week. You may remember all the trouble I had finding a doctor I liked back in NC, but once I found her, she was a dream come true. It sucks having to find a new doctor again, so keep your fingers crossed that I'll have good luck with this one. I need to get established with someone new before my current prescriptions run out, plus I want to talk to the doctor about my fatigue. It seems to be worse than ever. It's ridiculous, but I often need a nap after grocery shopping and I get tired from just riding in the car sometimes. B has been talking about taking a trip to Zion Canyon in Utah in the fall and I'd love to go, but I'm concerned that I won't have any energy to do anything once we get there.

I got a couple new albums yesterday that I've just started listening to. One is Madonna's album Hard Candy and other is Kyle Minogue's X. I liked both of their last albums a lot, so I'm looking forward to hearing these. I'm so out of the Amerian music scene, though. These albums have probably been out for a long time and I just realized it yesterday.

Speaking of music, here is my favorite song right now from my second favorite singer, Namie Amuro. It has a definite 80s vibe going. I listen to it at least once a day. :)

amuro namie "What a Feeling"
Uploaded by GO-GO-STALIN

New gif

2008-05-03T14:58:00.000-07:00

I made another new animated gif, over on the right, mostly to use on the transcription message board. I have to make them really small. They can only be 65 x 65 pixels. If they're any bigger, they automatically get squeezed into a 65 x 65 space and look terrible.

I'm taking a little break from work at the moment because my hands are just hitting all the wrong keys today, my arms keep slipping off my armrests, I can't get comfortable in my chair and the people I'm transcribing are annoying. Argh. The good news is, we're going to Vegas three weeks from tomorrow. Yay!

I'm looking forward to getting that bonus money from the feds because I'm gonna do what they want and stimulate the economy. B and I have discussed getting a hot tub for ourselves for Christmas this year and I said if that didn't work out for some reason, I'd like to get new curtains and a new comforter for the bedroom. So B suggested we use our bonus money to get the bedroom stuff right now. I already have any idea of what I want. I'm really drawn to the colors turquoise/teal and brown together, so I was thinking of making those two colors the theme of the bedroom. Kind of like this, but not that pattern necessarily.

Guess I better end this break now. Back to work.

No pics and Tai Chi

2008-05-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, Heather, I don't have any new pictures to share yet. We've taken some, but they're on B's computer. I have to wait for him to put them on a CD or email them to me. Mostly the new pictures we have are of the flowers in bloom around here. We noticed on our walks all the pretty little yellow, blue and orange flowers. Probably just weeds, but they're all over the place, and there are a lot of cactus plants with pretty fuscia blooms around here, too. Anyway, I'll see if I can get some of those pictures up soon. Maybe I can lure you guys out here. Tell CH how much I love it here so far. It's sunny every day!

B's weather station came yesterday and he got it somewhat set up with the various sensors outside, but so far it's not working right. It's supposed to automatically sync with the national atomic clock or whatever, and it looks like it's trying to, but it keeps coming up with the wrong time and/or date. The readings we're getting from outside don't agree with what weather.com says either, and sometimes by a lot. Don't know what's up with that.

I recently got a DVD on Tai Chi and have been using it most days, sometimes with B. It's an introduction to Tai Chi so it only has a few basic poses, but I like it so far. I've been using it to warm up before I get on the treadmill or the Total Gym. I may see if I can find another DVD that's a little more indepth so I can learn some more poses. It's supposed to be good for your health and I feel like my health isn't going to get any better on its own, plus I just want to feel better than I generally do, so I'm hoping this will help. Can't hurt, right?

I'm not dead...but I'm tired

2008-04-29T17:47:00.000-07:00

I am not dead, in case anyone was wondering. I've been having a lot of trouble with my left hand lately and I can barely finish typing my work some days, so I don't have anything left for a blog entry after that, unfortunately. The good news is it's slowly been feeling better over the past several days and, as you can see, it feels good enough for me to do some extra-curricular typing.

Nothing much going on around here. B and I are sloooowly getting pictures hung up inside the house and B has done a lot of work in the garage, getting it straightened up and more things unpacked. He got the Total Gym set up in there yesterday and I used it for the first time in months this afternoon. I only did a minimal workout so I'm not limping around in pain and soreness tomorrow (I hope). I've also been walking every day, either outside or on the treadmill. Mostly outside, since it's warm every day, but sometimes it's just too windy to go out there for a walk. Like today, for example. Right now the wind is 24 miles an hour gusting to 34. That's pretty windy.

B bought a little weather station yesterday that has inside and outside sensors and will show the temp inside and out, the wind speed, humidty, etc., so geeks like us will always know what the weather is like. He got it online so it's not actually here yet. I got him something like that for Christmas a few years ago, but it crapped out after a month or so. We're hoping this one will be nicer.

I was really excited to see a new episode of Lost last week, but I miss Eli Stone now. B and I were really into that show, but the season finale was the week before last. I've been bummed about AI ever since Michael Johns got sent home. I really liked him.

B and I have been riding our bikes out the neighborhood some and that's the first time we've been in our bikes since last summer, I think. Things are pretty flat around here, so there are no huge hills to climb, but I still get out of breath. That's just me, though. I have undersized lungs or something, I swear.

Well, time for dinner. I'll try to come back and update again soon.

Computer oddities

2008-04-10T14:27:00.001-07:00

B and I made it up to the Grand Canyon last weekend on the correct road. It was definitely closer this way, but it still took a while to get there because the road got rougher and rougher the closer we got.

This is a picture I took along the way as we approached Diamond Peak (the big cone in the background). There were tons of those yellow flowers in bloom starting about halfway down this road. As you can see, the road was dirt/gravel at this point, but towards the end it became dirt/gravel/water because it literally crossed Diamond Creek several times. Fortunately it wasn't very deep so we were able to drive through it, but I would've felt better in an SUV or ATV.

This is what we saw when we got to the end of the road. If you click on the picture, you can better see the Colorado River in the background, which looks muddier, and Diamond Creek joining it in the foreground.

There were some people there on a little beach over to the right of the area in the previous picture. I think they were getting ready to get on some rafts, or maybe returning from a rafting trip. This is Indian-owned land and they run a rafting expedition that leaves from this spot. In fact, they charge you money even if you just drive there to hang out, like we did. There was a woman waiting there to take $16 from each of us as soon as we got there.

This picture is looking back up Diamond Creek, showing where we came from. The creek is on the right side of the picture.

This is a picture B took looking east up the Colorado River. You can see the rafts the Indians own over on the right.

We would've taken a lot more pictures, but the camera batteries died about halfway there. It was a really scenic drive and we hardly saw anyone else until we got to the end. As we were driving back out, we saw several people in SUVs and a couple of tour jeeps driving in. One of the jeep drivers stopped to say hi and he seemed pretty surprised that we were able to make it to the river in our sedan.

From what I read about this place, apparently it's the only spot where you can drive down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. We definitely want to go back there, but maybe not until after we get another vehicle. We're planning to get some kind of SUV for trips like this.

Another thing we did this past weekend was take my computer to be looked at. The good news is, nothing was seriously wrong with it. No viruses, spyware or anything like that. Somehow the registry (I think) got messed up and things were missing, which was making my computer run really slow and get bogged down and eventually just kind of give up trying to run. Plus the guy at the store said it would run a lot better if I freed up some space on my C drive. He was able to fix the registry stuff and I deleted a bunch of things from my C drive and now I'm out $135.

After getting my computer home, it still didn't seem to be working quite right, though. I was still having problems with my internet connection via my wireless adapter because I couldn't connect to the secure network B set up when we first got our DSL established. I couldn't even see that network for some reason, and when I looked at our network specs, it showed that there were three computers connected; mine, B's and one named Scott.

This was really suspicious to us because our next-door neighbor's name is Scott, so B got on the phone with tech support to see if they could tell us what was going on. In a nutshell, we found out that our next-door neighbor was in fact connected to B's computer through the wireless connection and I was connected to the internet through Scott's computer and his network. How crazy is that??

So B and the tech support guy were able to get rid of that highjacked network connection, set up a new one that's password protected, and now I'm online and have been online all day with no problems. Keep your fingers crossed that this will be the end of my computer problems.

When I was finished with work today, I opened up Winamp to listen to some music and noticed that my playlist was blank except for one file called "J at the pool," which is an mpg I made from our home movies several years ago. I was really confused for a second, but then realized that the guy at the computer store must've opened that home movie file. By default, Winamp opened to play it and as a result, created a new playlist with just that one file. Caught ya! Fortunately it was just some video of one of the beach houses we stayed in and me reading by the pool. Nothing incriminating. ^_^

2008-04-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

I made a new animated gif yesterday and tried putting it on here as part of the entry, as you can see below. That didn't work, so I put it over on the sidebar. It's a clip from Ayumi's '07 concert DVD, which we finally got to watch this past weekend. It was really good. She sounded great and it was interspersed with behind-the-scenes clips, which was interesting to see. I'm hoping someone will eventually subtitle the DVD out of the goodness of their heart so I can watch it again and understand what they're saying in the behind-the-scenes parts.

I've been sick with something since last Friday night and I still don't know what it is. I woke up during the night with intestinal problems and then felt OK during the day on Saturday, but Saturday night I got a bad sore throat that continued through Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Actually, it's not completely gone now, but it mostly just feels scratchy at this point. Sunday I felt bad mostly because my throat hurt so bad, but Monday and Tuesday I was really, really fatigued and feverish and didn't do very much. B drove into town without me on Monday, which is our normal grocery shopping/errand running day, and got things done without me. I felt guilty about that, but I truly felt sick as a dog.

Saturday night, when my sore throat was first starting, B said he wanted to do some exploring the next day, so we got out a map and planned a drive to the Grand Canyon from here. We've driven to the Grand Canyon from here before, when we were here looking at houses last year, but we drove over to the south rim, which is east of here by a couple hours. So this time we decided to go for the western part, which looked to be much closer. Unfortunately we missed the road that would've taken us there and ended up taking another road that took us to the Supai Indian Reservation. It was a fun drive, though admittedly it would've been more fun if I'd been feeling better that day. The road we were on just sort of came to an end at Supai, where there was a parking lot right at the edge of a canyon. I'm not clear if this was actually part of the Grand Canyon or not, but it looked like it, except there was no river at the bottom. From this parking lot, you could take a mule ride into the canyon or hike or take a helicopter ride. Maybe we'll go back there at some point.

I just continued to feel worse and worse that day, so after we came home I just rested. B was tired from all the driving, too. I started using Zicam on Saturday night when I felt the sore throat coming on, but I'm thinking it wasn't a cold because the Zicam didn't seem to help this time and usually it knocks out my colds within a day. And of course, I got sick right after I decided to start exercising again. I haven't been back on the treadmill since Saturday, but I did take a short walk around the neighborhood with B yesterday and I felt OK afterwards.

I think I'm going to have to take my computer in to have it looked at this coming weekend. I did all kinds of diagnostic stuff on it last weekend, hoping to get it running better, but none of that seemed to help. It still gets really bogged down and starts running really, really slow after having been on for a while and I think it has something to do with the wireless adapter I'm using because the computer was fine until I started using that. I guess it's possible that something happened to it during transit from NC to here, but I doubt it. Maybe I need more ram with this wireless adapter. I hope they can get it fixed for me quickly because I need this thing for work.

2008-04-02T17:56:00.000-07:00

Testing this gif.

Wildlife

2008-03-27T20:57:00.000-07:00

Here's another new picture to the right. This is from last week when B and I drove the foot of the mountains just west of our neighborhood. If you click on it, you can see the neighborhood waaay in the background in the valley between where we were standing and the next set of mountains. It looks really far away, but it really only took us 5-10 minutes to get there, and that was partially because we had to drive slow on a bumpy dirt road. There are quite a few little dirt roads winding around these mountains, but we didn't have a lot of time to explore them that day, so we'll definitely be going back, maybe with our bikes.

We've been talking about places we want to visit soon, like the Grand Canyon and Zion in Utah, and I suggested we go to Vegas to celebrate our anniversary in May since we got married there and have been there for several other anniversaries. So we got tickets to see "O" at Bellagio and we're going to stay there in Vegas that night (not at Bellagio, though, because it's too expensive). It really blows my mind that we're going to be able to drive to Vegas for the weekend.

We met our next-door neighbor a few days ago. We really only have one next-door neighbor because there's only one house on our right side. The other houses close by are behind us. He brought over some canned apples that someone else had given him and suggested using them to make a pie, so I bought a pie crust at the grocery this past weekend. I guess I was supposed to bake the crust (graham cracker crust) before I used it, but I didn't know what the hell I was doing, so I just poured the apples in and baked it enough to warm it all up. Oh, and B suggested I melt some butter with sugar and cinnamon and drizzle that on top, which I did. The pie crust kind of dissolved into the apples, but it actually tastes really good. I've been just dishing some into a bowl, putting it in the microwave and eating it with a spoon. It's more like an apple crumble or apple mush, but it's yummy.

A few days ago I decided to get back on the horse with the exercise and B dragged the treadmill into my computer room for me. I've been walking a mile in the morning after breakfast every day and then B and I usually take a walk around the neighborhood in the afternoon, so that makes about 2 miles a day. The treadmill is set on an incline and my quads are really feeling it. I used to have a 2x4 under the back of the treadmill to make it level, because it's on an incline by default, but I don't even know where that 2x4 is or if we even have it. I figure it's a better workut with the incline anyway. It certainly feels harder and I feel sorer.

I'm still working on downloading Ayumi's concert DVD. It's going sooo slow. I probably could've had them done by now except I keep losing my internet connection. This wireless thing I have seemed really cool at first, but I cannot figure out why my internet connection drops after a while and I can't reconnect. It's like my whole computer kind of loses functionality and none of the programs will work right. It's especially inconvenient in the middle of my workday when things start crapping out and I have to restart. I returned the first wireless adapter I had and got a supposedly better, faster one, but they both have this same problem. Right now, this is my only choice in terms of having an internet connection because the DSL modem is in B's computer room and none of our cords are long enough to reach, but I may give up on the wirelss thing and just get a longer cord.

The bug bites/stings/whatever seem to have stopped itching for good and the scabs are healing. I have yet to see any scorpions or any other scary desert bugs here yet, but I've seen lots of rabbits and these crazy looking birds called Gambel's Quail. You can see a picture of a male here:

http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/biology/aznature/images/thumbs/birds/gambels1011.jpg

They are always running around in the back of the house and they make a noise that's like a cross between a turkey and a dove. They're fun to watch because their walk looks like a pigeon, but then suddenly they run really fast across the ground like a road runner.

New pics

2008-03-19T21:45:00.000-07:00

I changed some pics on the layout. The picture on top was just taken this afternoon by B when we took a walk around the neighborhood, and the one on the one here and the one to the right are from when we had that snowfall the other day. I don't know if you can actually see the snow on top of those mountains or not with the pic being so small.

Thank you p. kennedy for your comments about my possible chigger bites. Since you don't seem to have a blog, I'll ask you here: Do you think they were indeed chigger bites or something else?

The damn things were itching again today. B said they looked like they werne't healing well, so I put some Neosporin on them. I also have been having really bad restless leg syndrome the past several nights and now during the day today. No connection with the bites/stings/whateverthehell. Any of you ever experience restless leg? It is the most horrible physical sensation I've ever had. I would almost rather be in pain than have restless leg. You've probably seen the commercials for whatever drugs they're marketing for restless leg and thought, "Restless leg? Is that real?" Yes, unfortunately it's real and it SUUUUUCKS. I really need to get some sleep tonight because it kept me up most of last night.

The weather here was really nice, around 70 degrees and sunny, but it was windy. When B and I went for a walk, I had my hair in a ponytail and had a hat on, but the wind was so persistent that somehow I still had hair blowing into my eyes.

B is waiting for me so we can watch some TV together, so gotta go!

The Itching

2008-03-17T15:45:00.000-07:00

Heather reminded me that I forgot to write about those bug bites on my left hip. I don't know if they were bugs bites or stings or just what they were, but they showed up on Tuesday morning in the hotel in Knoxville and continued to itch all week. Then over the weekend the itching got even worse and became this burning, stinging itch that was driving me crazy during the day and keeping me awake at night.

B suggested it might be chigger bites, which I've had before and treated by covering the bites with nail polish, so we got some nail polish and the itching did seem to lessen ever so slightly after that. It still drove me nuts during the day, but I was able to sleep at night. By the time we finally closed on the house on Wednesday, I'd say the itching was probably 50% better. Then by the weekend after that it was 90% better, but I have some nasty looking scabs on my hip that I know are going to leave scars.

After we got out computers running and online, I did some research to try to determine what those "bites" were, and the only thing that sounded close were bed bug bites. But strangely, B had no such "bites" or any itching. Also of note is that I was actually having some itching around that area for about a week before those "bites" showed up. I don't know if that's just a coincidence or what. I thought the initial itching was just some kind of nervous reaction to the stress of moving, and maybe it was. I'm just glad it's gone now. I was almost ready to go to the ER when it was at its worst.

I'm downloading Ayumi's latest concert DVD right now. I don't know why it's so late in coming, but this concert is from her 2007 tour which ended last May. You might remember me saying that I was expecting the DVD to come out in the fall of last year, but it took until now. Anyway, I always really look forward to her concert DVDs, so I'm eagerly waiting for this download to finish. That's the cover of her latest single at the top called Mirrorcle World. It's a remake of a song from her last album called Mirror, hence the weird name. I'm hoping to see some new music videos from her soon, too. Is it really fair that someone can look as pretty as she does? ;)

I'm not feeling very well today. We went grocery shopping earlier and I sometimes get so tired after grocery shopping. Bone tired is what I call it, because I'm tired right down to my bones. I've also been very cold today and I can't seem to get warm enough. Even my feet are cold in the down booties I was given for Christmas, and that never happens.

Oh, speaking of those, today is my dad's birthday and I sent him a pair of those same down booties. He's cold natured like me and I think he'll really get some use out of them. They're not supposed to arrived for another week and a half or so, unfortunately, so I'll have to wait and see what he thinks of them. I called him earlier to wish him happy birthday and he was getting ready to go out for dinner because he's 3 hours ahead of me there. He quit smoking 6 weeks ago and he said things are going well with that. I'm really happy that he's decided to quit, but this is the 5th or 6th time he's quit. Hopefully this will be the last time. He used to smoke before I was born and then quit because the price went up to, like, 40 cents a pack or something (ha!), then he started again when he and mom got divorced and smoked for years after that. Then his place of employment went totally smoke-free and he decided to quit again and didn't smoke for probably 5 years, but then suddenly I went to see him one day and he was smoking again. I said, "What are you doing?!" He said something lame like, "Oh, well, I just decided to smoke again," or something like that.

Anyway, I'm happy that he's quit again. It can only be good for him. I've never been a smoker myself, though for a period of several years I used to have dreams about smoking. It was weird. I was always kind of scared of cigarettes because I felt like, if I started, I'd be addicted right away and never be able to stop. I doubt that's true, but I'll never know for sure. I've never been much of a drinker, either, because alcohol puts me to sleep and/or gives me a headache.

I took some more pictures today and I hope to have them here soon. The mountains still have snow on top and they look awesome, so I tried to get some nice pictures of them.

Whew!

2008-03-16T17:37:00.000-07:00

I am sitting at my desk in Kingman, Arizona, looking at the mountains outside my window. Actually, I'm looking at my monitor at the moment, but I'm enjoying the fact that I can look over and see this view at any time.

This morning we woke up to snow falling outside. That was unexpected. In general the weather here has been very nice. This was the only day we had any kind of inclement weather. I took some pictures of the snow earlier, but I don't know how well it will show up. There wasn't much on the ground, but it was snowing really hard at one point. There's still some snow on the mountains to the northeast, but what little fell here earlier has melted.

The picture at the top is a picture of the front of our house. I think the moving truck was still in the driveway at the time, so B took the picture with the house all the way to the left so the truck wouldn't show. The small pic on the right is a picture looking northeast from the front of the house.

I guess I'll just go back to the day we left Greensboro and try to describe the trip as best I can remember. We finally finished packing and left on the afternoon of Feb. 25. The guys B hired to pack our crap into the moving truck showed up around 9:00 a.m. and B and I were NOT finished packing yet. In fact, we were still packing pretty much the whole time the guys were loading the truck. I really didn't like that, but we just had so much stuff left to pack.

Around 2:30 or 3:00 p.m. the guys finished loading the truck and we gave the cats some tuna with their tranks in it, but only Miki had some, so Spice didn't get tranked. We had to make a stop at the bank to get everything out of our safety deposit box and another stop at the cable company to return our DVR box, then we headed out of town. We were both exhausted before we even got on the road. My feet, legs and back were killing me, but I couldn't take any of my good pain meds because I don't feel I can drive while I'm on them. B took the first leg of driving that day and then I drove us through the mountains of Tennessee to Knoxville, where we stopped for the night. I think it took about 5 hours to get there. We let the cats out of their carriers in the hotel room and we were happy to see them eat and drink a little bit and also use their litter box.

Tuesday morning I noticed that I had some bug bites or something on my left hip that were itchy. More about that later. We left Knoxville and drove all day, then stopped in Maumee, Arkansas for the night. We again let the cats our of their carriers in the hotel room and they were very curious about the room. After she got done snooping around, Miki got under the covers on the bed and pretty much stayed there. I think she was feeling overwhelmed and hiding under the covers was her only respite. We were able to watch most of American Idol that night, but we missed the beginning because it came on at 7:00 p.m. there, not 8:00 like we were used to. There was a Taco Bell down the street, which is where I got my dinner from, so that was nice.

Wednesday morning we left Maumee, Arkasas and drove all day, then stopped in Amarillo, Texas for the night. We stayed in a Quality Inn (I think) that night and that was probably my favorite hotel. It was actually a little suite and there was a big, comfy red recliner in front of the TV that I sat on while we watched American Idol that night. The bug bites or whatever on my left hip were still itchy and kind of irritating. By this time, the cats were getting more used to riding in the car all day, and rather than having to shove them in their carriers, they just calmly walked into them when it was time to leave the hotel.

On Wednesday we drove through Oklahoma and we passed through Chekotah, which B was very excited about, because that's where Carrie Underwood is from. As we got to the far western part of Oklahoma, the landscape suddenly changed to desert.

Thursday morning we left Amarillo and drove all day until we reached Kingman, which was around 7:00 p.m. (I think). Just as we were coming into town, P (our realtor from Kingman) called B on his cell phone. Neither of us expected to hear from her because she's not been very forthcoming in the communication department. B ended up having to hang up with her after just a minute because he had to negotiate getting off the highway and finding his way into town, so we drove to her office to talk with her in person. I was irritated about that because 1) I find her irritating and didn't really want to see her at that moment because I was already tired and cranky, 2) she has a tendency to talk our heads off, which I knew would make us late for Survivor and/or Lost that night, and 3) I was really hungry for dinner.

So we went to her office and instead of getting right to it, she started in with the small talk. B did his best to redirect her to the matter at hand and we finally found out that the closing was probably not going to happen the next day. Apparently the seller still had not sent over some paperwork that we needed to sign, and without that paperwork, we couldn't close. Supposedly they had overnighted it or something, so there was still a chance that it would arrive the next day, but it was looking doubtful. Before we left her office, she told us she would pay for our hotel there in town until the house closed, so that helped my mood a little.

P put us up at a Days Inn, which was a sucky room, and by that time we totally missed Survivor and half of Lost. The next day we did not close on the house. I don't even remember what we did that day except probably sit around and wait for P to call us. Since it didn't happen that day, we then had to wait until the next business day (Monday) to see if it would close then, so we spent some time driving around the area, buying some food and other supplies and just trying to relax. We stayed in that Days Inn for two nights and then moved to another hotel that was a little nicer.

Monday came and went and we did not close on the house. The paperwork seemed to be lost in the twilight zone or something because they had a tracking number for it, but UPS or FedEx or whoever said the tracking number did not exist. The seller overnighted the paperwork AGAIN and we were told it would get there on Tuesday.

Tuesday we made a trip to this place to sign the papers and they still were not there when we arrived. We were then told the papers would NOT be arriving that day because they were never picked up from the seller for some reason. By this time, B and I were both ready to strangle someone or everyone.

Wednesday morning we got up, had breakfast, checked out of the hotel and loaded up the car again with all our stuff and then went down the street to this park and sat in the car, waiting for someone to call us and tell us if the stupid paperwork arrived or not. We waited until 2:00 and still no one had called, so we drove over to the place we'd been on Tuesday to find out what was going on. Apparently FedEx or whoever had just been there a few minutes before we arrived and the infamous paperwork was delivered! We then rushed out of there and B started making phone calls like a madman, trying to get our moving truck driven out to the house (it was in a holding facility) and trying to get the guys he hired out there to unload it. We also had to stop at this equipment rental place to rent a handtruck, and we just barely made it there before they closed at 4:00 p.m.

We met up with the moving guys at the rental place, they loaded the handtruck into their pickup truck and then drove out to our house with us. I think they were here until about 9:00 p.m. unloading that truck, and then B and I pretty much collapsed on the bed and went to sleep, but we were so happy to finally be sleeping in our house.

Between then and this past Tuesday, we unpacked as much as we could and ended up driving into town almost every day for one thing or another. We both got back to work on Tuesday and it was kind of a relief to get back to our normal routines. The cats are doing well, although Miki is still spending a lot of time hiding under the covers, but she seems fine when she's out with us in the livingroom or whatever. We still have a few boxes in the garage that haven't been unpacked; mostly books and other nonessential things like that. We haven't hung up any of our pictures yet, either, but I did put up my Ayumi 2008 calendar in my computer room today.

That's about all the typing my fingers can take for now, and that's basically the whole story, though I know I probably forgot some stuff. Right now I'm going to get some dinner. ^_^

Just a test

2008-01-06T15:17:00.000-08:00

Just want to see what this looks like.