March Madness

Wow, it was midterms since I last published anything. Since then my husband has been diagnosed again with a cancer in his bladder. Luckily the cancer has not breached the bladder wall and he is currently getting a targeted chemo treatment for six weeks. He's a fighter  but it has been telling on him this time. Any and all good thoughts, prayers, and good wishes are appreciated.
I'm still getting irritable bowel syndrome problems and bouts of insomnia but other than that I have been doing okay. Have a check up later this month with my cardiologist but I don't suspect to find any worsening of my condition.
We've been painting the living room, or I should say that our daughter and granddaughter have been painting it, and it's slow going but looking good. It's quite a large room.
On the political front we have he who shall not be named still in the Whitehouse and what seems like hundreds of democrats filing to run for president in 2020. Who knows what will happen. I favor Beto but will vote for whoever wins the nomination for the Dems.
I've not been writing or doing any art work and basically wasting my time feeling sorry for myself. Of course after I feel sorry for myself I feel guilty for doing so because I'm pretty lucky having a great family, enough food, a roof over my head, an operational car, and enough money that allows me to stay home and do nothing. Go figure why I feel depressed, I'm at a loss to figure it out. If I tell a doctor I feel depressed they just want to give me a pill for it and I don't want that. I take enough pills as it is for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, etc. .
Lately I find myself crying a lot and not just about real life happenings, but fictional happenings too. It's crazy but I don't guess it's harmful and in a way may be cathartic and therapeutic.
Anyway that's all that's been on my mind this morning. Hope you're having a great day whoever and wherever you are.

A Sunday in March 2016

The political race is going strong and the news channels are enjoying the whole spectacle of the Republican race. The only thing I have to say about the whole thing is that it's stupid.
We have some company coming today and leaving on Tuesday. It'll be nice to have something different going on.
SXSW is over, yeah!
Not anything to report on my exercise schedule...I'm lame, not in a physical way but in a mental way, and that's about it.
Been watching Sleepy Hollow, Lucifer (great fun but fluff stories), and waiting for the season finale of NCIS when Michael Weatherly does his last show as Tony.
Had some blood work done and the doctor says I'm holding steady. I read the report and while I understand some of the results some are Greek to me even if I look the words up on the Internet.
We had a lot of thunder on Friday but very tiny amount of rain. It's cooler the past couple of days and today but it's supposed to climb back into the 80's by mid-week. We've had no winter, and seem to have jumped over spring into summer. Ah well, that's the way it goes.

Things I've been doing.

Been a while since I've posted anything. My excuses are many but I'll not bore you by listing them here. I'm posting some pictures to let you know what's been going on in my life. The first one is about the things we put in my moms coffin (aaaah I hate writing that word). I figured ancient Egyptians did it to accompany the deceased to the new world so I could do it for my mom. She was buried in a green pant suit that she made and green was her favorite color. An elephant pin and elephant earrings because she had a love for them. She said she admired them for taking care of each other and working hard. A Pearl S. Buck book because she was her favorite author. Her black dancing shoes with rhinestones, and her little black and white hounds tooth checked bag she took to the dances with 2 dollars and some change in it (she always worried about having a little money on her), also a couple of tissues. A pair of clean under pants because she always told me you should have them just in case you had to go to the hospital. Her everyday shoes that I couldn't bear to throw out or give to anyone else. The photo was shown on a pedestal to let people see how beautiful she was plus she did not want an open casket so this seemed like the right thing to do.

The second picture is of the Mississippi River crossing at Vicksburg, MS. We stopped here to eat our lunch on the way back home from attending my brother-in-laws funeral in Alabama. It was a beautiful day and a lovely place to stop and relax.

 

 

 

Went to see the English comic Eddie Izzard. He was very funny and we enjoyed his show and the Q&A session after the show.

Out one sunny morning walking with Evie.

Doing the Walk to End Alzheimer's with Pam in San Angelo.

At the Molly Awards with Krystal. She interns with the Texas Observer and got a ticket and took me as her plus one. She did all the graphic design work for the event. The dinner was really good and the speaker was as well. She's the wife of a politician from Illinois but I can't remember her name at the moment. She was funny and informative.

 



I'm So Over Summer!

Love and compassion arising with a clear recognition of the importance and rights of others will reach even those who would do you harm. (Dalai Lama)

I follow the Dalai Lama on Twitter because I like his tweets. Some, like the one above make me fell better about things.

It's still excruciatingly hot here, in the 100+ range, and more of the same is in the forecast until next week when we can expect highs in the upper 90s. Big cool front huh? BTW no rain in that forecast either. Ugh.
It's difficult to enjoy a daily walk when the morning temperatures are 82 with 79% humidity. But, I'm still out there walking. Not fast but at least I'm doing my 3 miles a day 5 days a week.

Happily some Texans did get a bit of rain but a good old wide spread soaking is needed to bring any kind of relief .

Not only are farmers and ranchers in deep trouble because of the lack of the wet stuff and over abuncance of heat but trees are in distress and other vegetation is dying. Animals and birds in the wild are abandoning their young because of a lack of food and water. We've seen mockingbirds, bats, and other insect eating species looking pretty ragged and scrawny these days because no rain equals a low insect population and thus no food for them. We can help the seed eaters by keeping the bird feeder full and our two birdbaths filled with water. Insect eaters are harder to take care of but we did read that they would eat fruit so we often chop up a pear and add some raisens to the seeds. It's not much but we're hoping it helps the little critters out. I think other animals might be drinking out of the larger of the two birdbaths such as possums and a raccoon we've seen scooting across the yard early in the morning. While we are not in the horrible crises that Dafur is in the drought here is still pretty terrible and we hope it ends soon. 

I'm keeping out of politics this time around other than voting of course and the occasional donation. From what I've seen on the news things are already getting ugly and I have no desire to see anymore. 

Football has started and I hope the Longhorns do better this year...I know how could they do worse than last year but hey I can hope can't I?

It's September already and I started this post in the early part of August...hum, am I procrastinating or just lazy. Perhaps a little of both things.

I am reading Game of Thrones: Song of Ice and Fire and it's pretty good. Love me a good fantasy story. I do see a bit of the Lord of the Rings in the story though but I guess if you're going to borrow from a storyline you shroud borrow from one of the best. :-) Also downloaded Mile 81 by Stephen King but haven't read it yet.

So hopefully it's goodbye to the summer and its heat and a wishful, wistful, hello to winter full of cold days and lovely rain.