Finally!

The insurance claims adjustor finally came out today. Our neighbor the roofer also came over. She (the claims adjustor) cleared us for a new roof. That means the wait will probably be a bit longer than if we were just going to get the skylights fixed. I really hate having that skylight covered. I didn't realize how much light we got from it. The other thing is I finally started painting the green (Northern Glen) on my bathroom walls. I did the cutting, or edging or whatever you call it. Most people roll first because that's easier and more gratifying, but I like to edge first, so that when I roll tomorrow, I will have full green walls. On Monday I will do any last touch ups, and if I don't do it on Sunday I will put the mini-blinds back up. I like to open the windows when I shower and I miss that. I've temporarily taped wrapping paper cut to fit on the windows and it's silver wrapping paper that says "wedding" all over, so it's amusing, and lets some light through, but I like to be able to look outside while I shower. I'm not going to sponge until next weekend because when I went to the doctor on Monday he said I have tendonitis in my right shoulder, so I want to give it a few days to recover. I did ice it today after I finished painting. And I'm not going to sponge the inside of the windows. I painted them the sponge color (Irish Paddock) and am going to leave them flat - that's why I can go ahead and put the mini-blinds back up. I hope I like the sponge pattern. I went to two places and wasn't thrilled with the sponges but I finally picked one out. Anyway I'm just glad that some things are finally (FINALLY!) getting done. But there will always be the next project. And yes, there IS a next project. Ack!

The Blogger Kinship

Tonight I found out in the most horrific way what my fellow bloggers mean to me. Magazine Man, who I've been reading for almost two years has suffered a terrible blow. Both of his parents were killed in an awful car accident on the way to see their new grandaughter, who was born last Saturday. They were also to take part in their older grandson's first communion and their granddaughter's 6th birthday. The accident was so bad it was on CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/26/indiana.tollroad.ap/index.html I was so floored when I read his post, I cried uncontrollably. He has told so many great stories about his childhood and family that I felt like I had lost people that I knew. Please send your warmest thoughts, prayers or whatever your spiritual inclinations deem appropriate to this man and his family.
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Rest in Peace Doug and Mary.

I.Am.Dumber.Than.A.Spoon

For absolutely no particular reason, which is why I do most things, I decided to send my first text message today. I had made tuna to have tuna sandwiches for dinner. My daughter just started a new job that requires 9 weeks of (8 hours a day) training. She loves my tuna. I figured since she is always reading text messages, it would be the easiest way to get her attention when she had a break or was finished for the day.
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It didn't start out well. I found the text message part on my cell phone easily enough but I couldn't quite understand the prompts. Also because my battery was low I decided to do this standing at the bar where I keep my phone plugged in. So I'm standing there pushing button after button trying to figure out what to do. After about 15 minutes, I think I've got it figured out. The only thing is, I don't know how to make spaces between words. So I typed: Madetunawantsome? I was actually pretty proud of myself for finding the question mark. Finally, I pressed the send button. My house phone rang immediately. I thought that was odd. Then I answered and a female computer voice said something like, "A text message has been sent to this land line. Would you like to hear it?" So I pressed # or whatever it told me to do and this female computer voice said "mad-et-oohna-want-some." I laughed and laughed. It sounded like an ancient curse (I've been watching a lot of "Buffy" lately). But I was very frustrated.
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After trying and trying to figure out how to change the phone number for the message, I decided to try a different approach. Instead of going straight to the texting part, I went to my phone contacts section of the phone. I scrolled down to my daughter's name, found a text option, typed out: Madetunawantsome? again and then hit "send." A screen came up and said message sent to ########. I can't put the actual number, but I had sent it to my daughter's home phone!!! At this point, I was sweating and flustered, so I went for a fresh beer and a smoke.
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I had probably wasted about 40 minutes of my life by this point. I came back in, sat on the floor, took some deep breaths and tried again. I never did find out how to make a space, but I found the period button. So after making sure I had Kate's cell phone number, I typed in: Made.Tune.Want.Some? It was enough. She got the message. A short while later, I got the message: Yes.
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When my daughter arrived I told her the whole story, which she thought was funny. She said, "It's like you were sending a telegram. I'm surprised you didn't put 'stop' between the words." Yeah, here's my next one:
Im.Stupid.Stop.Sending.Text.Messages.Stop

I'm 46!

I had a fun birthday. I had phone calls that were expected and not expected. It started out as a lazy day. My Sweetie brought my lunch, which was nice because he never comes home for lunch. Then I watched my soap and took a couch nap. After that it was pretty much phone stuff. I think I talked to my Mom for almost an hour. I also had a great chat with my best friend. The weirdest one was a call from my brother. I don't really care for him and am waiting for a HUGE apology, so I was very surprised when he called. I talked to him for a long time because I was dreading the saying goodbye part and was afraid he would say, "I love you." And no way could I say it back. So finally I said, "Well thanks for calling, that was sweet!" and I hung up. I couldn't even say that my daughter was here because she dislikes him more than I do and I was afraid he would ask to speak to her. The good part of the conversation - because I am all about good parts - is that i found out some neat stuff about my 11-year-old nephew.
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My Sweetie, my daughter, and I went to Mercado Juarez. They have the best salsa in the universe. After dinner we went downtown for the Main Street arts festival. I thought it would be okay at night but I was wrong. There were hordes of people and people with kids and strollers and it was after 9:00. WTF?!? Who has children out after 9:00 at a street festival? I finally forced myself to relax and we found a good spot to hang out near a great jazz/pop band. I was a little disappointed that a lot of the arts vendors were shut down when we got there. I guess it IS a long day for them. I was going to get myself something to be from my Mom because she sent me money. Oh well.
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My daughter needed to use the bathroom, so I said, "Let's go in the Marriott." It was the hotel we stayed in for My Sweetie's birthday two weeks ago, and I knew where a public bathroom was. It was fun being back in there. She was nervous at first and I said, "just act like you belong."
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We went to the Flying Saucer after that. We didn't stay long and headed home to drop off Kate. Then My Sweetie and I went to our neighborhood bar to play the NTN trivia game. It was very frustrating because the questions were awful and it was my birthday. I never did win, but I broke 10,000 - which is always my goal for that game. The good part is we took lots of pictures along the way. I hope some of them are good.
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So now I'm 46.

Yes, We Have No Segues

I'm not usually someone who likes to talk about their physical attributes, but I had a nice surprise yesterday. I wanted to order this dress from TravelSmith.com (thanks jammie j!), and I was confused about their sizes. I looked at their sizing chart and went into our guest room (also my sewing room) to take my measurements. Although the numbers are large, (yeah, I know I need to lose 10 or 15 pounds!) I was pleasantly surprised to find out that: my bust and hips are the same size AND my waist is 9 inches smaller. I was always told a perfect figure meant the waist was 10 inches smaller than the other two, so I was only an inch off. Ideally all three of my numbers should be about 4 inches smaller, but I still thought it was pretty cool that I had that balance. And thanks again J for that website. This dress is about the same color as my eyes and is wrinkle-free. I'm going to wear it in New York in June.
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Because I am so NOT computer (okay, internet) savvy, I've been putting all my photos on this computer. I realized the other day that if My Sweetie decides to get a new computer, all my blog pics would be dust. I just started a yahoo picture thing. That dress up there is my first one from that account. Now I need to go back and replace every single picture on my blog. Although I'm not as picture posty as some people, I think it's going to be a long and tedious task. I transfered 83 pics so far, but I don't think I have all of them on there. Yeah, this is gonna be some fun.
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Meals on Wheels was bittersweet in two ways: I had three weeks in a row with my daughter, but she starts her new job on Monday. On the plus side, after her 9 weeks of Monday through Friday training, she will have Wednesdays off. The other one is that one of my original ladies is dying. I know I shouldn't be sad, because she is 97, but I will miss her. I was surprised that she was still alive today. I hope her son calls me when she goes. She is one sweet lady.
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I'll be 46 on Friday. I wish I knew how to act 46. I'm the most childish person in the universe over the age of 12. Oh, except for that guy on Pegasus 12.

Still With the Holes in My House

We haven't had anyone official out yet, but our neighbor, a roofer, went up on the house with My Sweetie this evening. He says we can get our whole roof replaced. He's going to meet with My Sweetie and the claims adjustor tomorrow. I have a feeling the insurance company is going to say "No" to the whole re-roofing thing, but what do I know? The thing is I don't like this neighbor guy. I don't have a legitimate reason not to like him as we really don't know any of our neighbors - I just get bad vibes or something. Several years ago, the guy replacing our hot water heater recognized the guy's truck over there and said, "Is that 'whatchamacallit'?" And I said, "Yeah." And hot water heater guy said he used to work for my neighbor. I said, "Really, I don't like him." And the hot water heater guy said, "Yeah, he's an asshole." I hope I'm wrong about him because My Sweetie seems determined to let him do the work. I just hope if he does NOT get approval on the roofing, he will replace our skylights in a timely manner. I have the feeling he just wants the roofing job.
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There was another storm system this evening and ping-pong and golf ball sized hail were reported west of us and of course, the storm was moving east. I was dreading it, but all we got was rain. Our tarp is still holding up. I wonder why hail is always described as various sized sports ball? If you've seen a large hail stones up close, they look more like heads of cauliflower than balls. I guess it would be too confusing to describe hail as a "two-inch cauliflower head" or a "three-inch cauliflower head."
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Sunday was very nice and I actually sat in the sun doing nothing but listening to music and drinking beer for a whole 50 minutes. Then I did a little project on my deck. I attached a metal trellis to the end of one of the built-in benches. I'm going to put some sort of climbling plant in a pot there. I hope it looks nice. If it looks nice, I'll take a picture. It will probably take a month for it to start climbing well, so I guess I better get something planted there soon. A couple of planter boxes were damaged by the hail as well as two resin chairs.
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Monday brought nice weather again so I tackled a project I thought of a couple of months ago. We had a lovely Rose of Sharon tree that died a couple of years ago that had a whole border thing around it with pebbles inside. We did some goofy quick fixes over the last two years like putting some large potted plants in there, but it just looked stupid, so I decided to let it be reclaimed by grass. I also have a very bad problem area in a raised box: no matter what I do, these horrid weeds grow in profusion in one large spot. I decided to relocate the rocks from the old Rose of Sharon bed to the raised planter. Basically I spent about 2 hours or more hauling rocks from one place to another. I kept thinking "Isn't there some sort of insect that spends its whole day moving rocks from one place to another?" The raised box looks really nice now, but the old bed still needs work. My Sweetie will have to remove the old metal border. I tried to pull at it with a pry bar, but I just don't have the arm strength.
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The weather is supposed to be sunny and 74 degrees tomorrow for Meals on Wheels. My daughter is going to go with me one last time before she starts her new job on Monday. I hope everything goes well with the insurance guy tomorrow and the roofing guy. I'm not positive, but I think all work will be done from the outside. I hope so. If we get a new roof though, I wonder how the cats will act?

One Hailacious Evening

They kept predicting bad weather and boy were they right. Around 6:30 this evening (Friday night - I'm posting this late so this will probably show up as a Saturday post) the sirens went off. We keep a little closet in the middle of the house ready for tornadoes. Several tornadoes had already been sighted west of us. Then the hail started. We watched it at first, but the hailstones got bigger and bigger and louder and louder so we got in the closet. It was crazy loud like thousands of people shooting guns all at once. Two giant ones popped right through our living room skylight and into our house leaving one giant hole and a smaller hole - the smaller hole is about the size of a dessert plate.
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So we are in the closet and it is hailing all over our living room floor. (Is hailing a word?) It finally started to let up and we came out of the closet and saw the mess. It was still raining IN OUR HOUSE. I started running around grabbing things like tarps and buckets and mops (oh my!). Well My Sweetie was not into having rain in the living room. He decided to go onto the roof to cover the skylight. While this was a good idea, housewise, I didn't see it as a good idea, Sweetiewise. It was still raining and there was some thunder and lightning in the distance, not to mention the roof being soaking wet. He stuffed his jacket with what he thought he'd need and I made him swear to forget about it if he had no traction on the roof. I made sure he got up the ladder okay, but now I was more nervous than I was during the storm. I stood under the skylight watching when he cussed very loudly. My heart jumped and I'm like "WHAT!?! WHAT!?!" He said, the duct tape wasn't sticking. I yelled "Would clothespins work?" He said, "No, what about alligator clips? Don't we have some?" Well they're called "binder clips," but I knew exactly what he meant and ran around gathering some up. I then ran out in the rain and threw them up to him, one at a time.

They worked fine. For a while. Then the wind picked up. My Sweetie found some more somewhere and went BACK onto the roof and added the other ones. That was several hours ago and they are still holding, but it is supposed to be very windy tomorrow. He hasn't been in the attic yet to see if there are roof leaks. He'll do that tomorrow. We were pretty much spent at this point, but I cooked dinner. He also spent a lot of time on the phone with our insurance company. They were overwhelmed with calls. I told him, well if they want to take their time, they just may end up replacing our flooring in here. There is hardwood AND carpet under the skylight - it's where they meet. The skylight over the kitchen table is also broken, but only on the outer layer - I didn't even know they HAD two layers, but the skylight in the bathroom made it through unscathed. There may be just one dent in my truck, but it was getting dark and it was hard to tell. My daughter's car was here, because she met her date here, and I think it made it, but daylight may bring a different story (like with my truck).

~

I was glad the cats were in their room this whole time, but I was afraid old Jake (the eighteen-year-old) might have had a heart attack. He is very weather sensitive. After we got back to some semblance of normalcy, I let them out. They were thrilled with all the strange stuff and loved playing with the tarp. I'm just glad we're all okay. I saw pictures of the tornado damage on the news, and it was awful: 18-wheelers tipped over, buildings flattened, the whole roof of a church gone. As of 10:30 p.m., there was only one death reported, but several injuries. It could have been worse. And now we have two holes in our house.

The Five Long Days

Wednesday: My daughter came over for Meals on Wheels Wednesday morning. We had a pretty short route - I guess because of the Easter holiday. I had holiday meals to give out, so it was nice to have an extra set of hands. I didn't have "Squiggy's" partner so if I don't have him again I will call MOW to check up on him. I also didn't have the sweet old Mexican lady that adores my daughter so much, but we checked her street and her son's car was there and it looked like another car was there so I'm guessing she had other lunch plans. It was a gorgeous day and one of my ladies, who doesn't do much moving around, was out in her yard wacking at weeds with her cane. That was awfully cute. It's one of those metal type canes with "legs" at the bottom. She was in a good mood. That was so nice to see. Kate wanted to eat lunch outside so we went to Abuelo's which has a really nice patio area. We lucked out and had a fun waitress. After lunch, we still had some time before our hair appointments, so we hit Italianni's for some drinks and flirting (on Kate's part) with one of our favorite bartenders. When we got to the salon, I explained the change I wanted to my hair. He put the color on, I moved to another seat and held my breath for the part that was coming up: seeing my daughter's hair wacked off. She had printed out the rules from the "Locks of Love" website and was ready to go for it. It all happened pretty quickly and then I watched Tyler clip away at her hair. He did a fantastic job! I don't think Kate has had hair that short since she was 9, but it looked great. Then it was my turn. Well just for a slightly different cut. He did a great job. I thought we were the two cutest redheads in the world! On the way home we stopped to order the birthday cake for Saturday's party.
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Thursday: After I woke up (I always sleep until noon or so) My Sweetie, who had the day off and had been waiting patiently for his gift, got to open his present. I got him a private boxing lesson at a real boxing gym! He is a giant boxing fan, is always shadow boxing all over the house and talking about boxing. I knew he'd love this gift. He thinks he even knows the gym owner from high school. We had lunch and I got ready and packed and we headed downtown to the Marriott (pictured above). We settled in and headed out. First, we stopped off on the 5th floor to check out the smoking area. It was a nice area by a pool and had speakers playing great music. Then we headed out to the Flying Saucer, one of our favorite drinking spots. We settled in at the bar and had a good ol' time for several hours. We met a guy from Dallas who was in town for a wedding shower/party thing. He said the funniest thing. We were discussing European travel and food. He said he had been to Spain and that the food was pretty good but "Everything was ham and something else." That really hit my funny bone. I laughed so hard. That still makes me laugh. Our new saying is "Everything was ham and something else." I love it! After that we had dinner at Chili's because it was across the street from our hotel, changed, and went to City Streets to dance and play. City Streets is a cool place. It has a classic dance music section, a hip-hop club, a karaoke bar, and a pool-hall type room with live music. We had a blast.
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Friday: After a nice room service brunch, I couldn't take it any longer. I said, "I have to tell you something. I contacted D and invited a bunch of your co-workers to meet us for happy hour at 8.0 for happy hour." 8.0 is a really cool bar downtown. I'm not a good secret keeper and My Sweetie is not a surprise lover so I figured this was a good time to let it out. He was actually tickled and called his assistant at work to see if he needed directions or anything. We were just going to spend the afternoon walking around downtown and My Sweetie wanted me to buy some little gifties for myself at the cool shops, but the weather had turned. The temperature dropped like crazy and the wind picked up. We did walk around a little and I did buy a neat mini-poster from the movie The Outlaw with Jane Russell which is already hanging over our bar. I also bought a cute green beaded anklet. And we had some beers at Risky's - it was fun reminiscing there about our various lunches and whatnot from 1995 and 1996. (That's actually where we were sitting when they read the O.J. Simpson trial verdict.) We headed back to the room to drop off our purchases and brave the chilly wind to head back out. One of his co-workers was already at 8.0 when we got there and then they just kept showing up over time. Along with my daughter. Most of My Sweetie's co-workers are guys so my duaghter became the "Belle of the Ball." It was fun to watch. After many rounds of drinks, we headed over to City Streets. Next is when Hell froze over. My Sweetie got up, IN FRONT OF MANY CO-WORKERS, and sang in the karaoke bar! I couldn't believe it!! I was so shocked. And then, well, and then, HE DID IT AGAIN! It was crazy. Over time people started splitting up. Some people loved the hip-hop club, but we both found the bass speakers in there were unnaturally shaking up the marrow in our bones. We did dance some in the classic disco part, but I barely remember it. At some point we stumbled out onto the street and went for a late night snack before calling it a day.
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Saturday: They were having the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure run this morning and I felt sorry for them because when I woke up at 9:22 a.m., I looked out the window AND IT WAS SNOWING!!! In April in Texas. Snowing. We didn't see that coming. We checked out at noon and there was a huge crowd waiting for their cars. It reminded me of trying to leave a cruise ship and if you've ever done that you know how hideous THAT is. So I did something unheard of. In practically my pajamas - sweats and a t-shirt - and just my jacket, I went across the street for a beer at Chili's. I felt so weird in there in my house clothes, no shower, no make-up, crazy hair and all. Not to mention watching the snow flurries. My Sweetie said he would call when he got the car so I could meet him outside. My phone rang. It was not him. Instead his sister was calling to see if we were okay with postponing the birthday party/shrimp boil for a day. It was awesome! We were so dead and hungover we were more than happy to wait a day. We would have made poor conversationalists! I spent the whole afternoon laying on the couch watching 3 episodes of my soap that I had missed. That night we watched the TV shows we had recorded like "Survivor" and "Numb3rs." We were brain dead. I think the only things we said to each other were, "I'm glad the party was postponed."
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Sunday: I got up, wrapped two gifts and we headed over to Mansfield, Texas. The house seeemed very quiet. We found out the two oldest kids were at their Dad's and the baby was sick in bed. I was disappointed that I didn't get to see my niece's reaction when she opened her (belated) birthday gift. She's 13 and we got her an iPod. Oh well. My brother-in-law, the fireman loved his t-shirt. I always get him a fire and rescue t-shirt. This one was from the Cherokee Nation. I have so much fun picking those out every year. I got some nice gifts and so did My Sweetie. My Mother-in-law kept saying, "You're really 46?" And I kept saying. "I will be on the 20th." It seemed to freak her out. The shrimp boil was excellent as always, but I think the crab legs were the biggest ever. THEY WERE HUGE. This time I brought home some leftovers and I had an awesome lunch today. Oh and everyone laughed at the birthday cake that I brought with the caption "We are Old" along with a some rosettes.
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Well that was our birthday weekend. I have a feeling My Sweetie will always remember his fortieth birthday. I hope so. And I hope he likes his boxing lesson.

Big Birthday Weekend

I won't be able to post for several days so I realized I needed to get something up. Tomorrow my daughter is going to drive me for Meals on Wheels and then I am getting my hair done and she is going to do the "Locks of Love" thing there. She has really long, thick beautiful red hair. It's going to be weird to see her with short hair. Thursday is My Sweetie's 40th birthday so we are going to spend two nights in a hotel in downtown Fort Worth to play and party. We'll get back on Saturday and then have to drive to Mansfield for our annual 3-Way Birthday Party. Every year, My Sweetie's, my Brother-in-law's and my birthday are celebrated at one big family event at the BIL's house. He makes a HUGE pot of crab/shrimp boil with sausage, new potatoes and corn on the cob. It's AWESOME!
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I'm really looking forward to hanging out downtown. We LOVE downtown. That's where we met. My knee isn't 100% recovered form my ice incident in January, but I plan to go dancing Thursday night. We're staying at a different hotel than the one we've stayed at in the past so that will be interesting. I thought it would make his 40th birthday more memorable if we stayed someplace different. I can't wait to tell you what his birthday present is, but he reads my blog. It's really cool. Speaking of cool, after a muggy 83 degree day, it's suposed to drop to the low 60's for the next 3 or 4 days. Nice.
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And speaking of weather, we had a week of dark dreary stormy weather last week. Then on Saturday, it was bright and sunny and everything was bright and green and lush. Spring has sprung! We took all the plants out of the garage and put them back on the deck. Now I just have to remember to water them. The downside of the whole "spring has sprung" thing is that there seem to be trillions of bugs outside. Trillions.
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And on bugs, my bite is doing better. It doesn't have the crazy itch. And lets me sleep at night. It's still a red lump about 1/2 inch in diameter, but the "nipple" is gone and I had to apply the cortisone only once today.
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If you're an "American Idol" fan, wasn't Melinda Doolittle overwhelmingly awesome tonight? WOW. She really blows me away. Plus the music tonight is my favorite style of music: Classic jazz standards. I LOVE that stuff. We also started watching "Dancing With The Stars" this year. It's a fun show. I'm not sure why we never watched it before. Heck, we didn't even watch the first season of "American Idol." Maybe we are late TV Fad bloomers.
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I hope everyone has a great rest of the week and a great weekend. I hope My Sweetie has a fun and memorable 40th birthday. I'm looking forward to the shrimp boil. I always bring the cake. This year the inscription on the cake will be "We Are Old."

Ouch! I want to scratch!

Early Friday afternoon I was chopping up some cucumber for my lunch when it felt like something was crawling on the left side of my forehead. I had the knife in my right hand and was holding cucumber parts in my left hand. I brushed the back of my left hand over the "tickly spot" on my head. As my hand left my forehead and was headed back to the cucumber, I felt a sting. Unfortunately, I reacted on instinct and immediately brushed the back of my hand against my hip without looking first. You know the "GET IT OFFA ME!" instinct. When I looked at my hand there was just a tiny gray smudge. I felt like I had been bitten or stung by something so I washed my hand and put some benadryl cream on it. I then continued making my lunch and went about my day.
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I forgot all about the whole incident until Saturday evening around 6:30. I was talking or watching TV or something when I realized I was scratching the hell out of my left hand. Once I realized what I was doing, I remembered the Friday event. I looked and sure enough there was a bump there. I put some more benadryl cream on it but it would not stop itching. Later, we were watching Children of Men and I realized I was having a hard time following the action because of the itching so I did my usual: I froze it. When I have a mad itch I hold ice on it until it becomes comfortably numb. Well that worked and again, I forgot about it. Until it woke me up after I had been asleep only two hours. I got up and applied more benadryl cream and willed myself to not think about it and go back to sleep. (That was a funny internal process!) Two hours later, the itch woke me up again. This time I got up and made another ice thing (one cube, with one layer of paper towel topped with one layer of cling wrap). I laid in bed and held it in place until I couldn't stand it anymore and went back to sleep.
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This afternoon I decided it might be a fire ant bite so I decided to treat it like one. I swathed it with alcohol, cleaned a needle with alcohol and stabbed it. And squeezed and squeezed. Then more alcohol. That's usually the end of the itching for me with fire ant bites. I went about my business of sanding my bathroom walls (yes, still doing that). As you might have guessed, the mad itching returned. Right now it looks like a Barbie boob - if Barbie were an A cup and had a really bright nipple. I am currently treating it with 2.5% hydrocortisone cream and that is helping. I'm leaning now towards some sort of spider rather than a fire ant. Next time I will look before I react. At least I'll know what I'm dealing with.