August 4-9, 2008

I received a call Monday morning that threw the beginning of this week all out of kilter. My mom's neighbors, who I gave my Saluki to almost two years ago, needed a dog-sitter Tuesday so that they could drive to New York. I agreed to watch Shandi and Nemo for them and drove up to Mom's Monday night following dialysis. All I had to do was feed the Salukis in the morning and take them for a walk a few times during the day. Joe and Susan were paying for my gas to get there and back, so how could I refuse?

The bonus was that it gave me time to spend with Mom, which we mostly spent playing our new favorite card game: Skip-Bo! I also went to Mom's office to eat lunch with her Tuesday afternoon between walks with Nemo and Shandi. I stopped at Wawa (I'm still addicted to their subs & Lemonade Tea) and bought for both of us.

I had the house to myself all day while everyone else was at work so I did some stitching on Mount Coot-tha by Dinky-Dyes Designs. This is the project I got frustrated with a few weeks ago and set aside. There isn't much progress, but at least I didn't have to do any frogging this time!

Sarah dropped Anna off this evening and we all shared in watching her. She helped me do some of my stitching again and then she and Mom and I went into Mom's bedroom to watch Shrek. Unfortunately, Mom and I were the only ones who fell asleep. Little Miss Anna Lynn watched the entire movie again. I'm beginning to think that letting her watch a movie at bedtime is simply cause for her to stay awake longer. They don't seem to make her sleep at all. As a matter of fact, when she catches one of us not paying attention she pats us until we acknowledge her and look at the television screen! It's really funny to see, but not if you're the one she's waking up and you only had 4 hours of sleep the night before!

In other happenings Monday and Tuesday: my laptop had a brain fart! I spent a majority of my free time trying to fix a problem with my main user profile in Vista. After installing McAfee, scanning twice for a virus or other malware, restarting several times, creating a new user profile, and even going back to Sunday's restore point, the problem wasn't solved. Every time I started the computer it said that my user profile opened incorrectly and a temporary profile was created, but all changes would be erased when I logged off/shut down. Finally, I e-mailed Dad!! He was working in New Jersey for the week and I didn't want to call him in the middle of a meeting.

He contacted his company's IT people and their suggestion put me on the right road to solving the problem. THANK YOU, DAD!! In the end, I had to rename my old profile, restart the computer (which caused another profile with my original name to appear), and copy all my info (15,301 files) from the renamed profile to the original name. It took me until 5pm on Tuesday to finally get everything back to the way it was. The only files that were lost was the information in RoboForm, but I'm re-entering all my passwords to websites as I need them.

Now I just have to back everything up! I think an external hard drive is on the top of my Christmas list this year!

I came home Wednesday in time for dialysis and stitched a little more on MCT. Wednesday was also my Grandma Murchake's 75th birthday, so I called to wish her a happy day. She said that she wishes all of us would forget it, but everyone keeps reminding her each year. I told her there was no chance of that because we all love her so much

It wasn't until late Wednesday that I remembered I was supposed to go to Partners In Care for lunch on Thursday with the ladies in the office. Can you guess where I stopped to buy my meal? Hehe!! I arrived early so that I'd have time to visit with everyone and browse the Upscale Retail Boutique. I came away with some frames that I'll be able to use for stitching-either now or in the future. Some may get painted/refinished, but they all have potential. I picked out one CD of classical music to relax with at dialysis and they also had books at BOGO! I found two that I was especially interested in: a book of Colonial Maryland Houses and The Most Complete Food Counter. I even picked up some romance novels to keep me occupied when I'm in a stitching slump. All of this was under $20!

And I'm in a slump, in case you can't tell. I haven't finished anything in over a month and I'm very frustrated. I've spoken to the ladies in my private group about taking a stitching hiatus because I'm not staisfied with it right now. I know I probably just need a finish-fix, and that was what I was attempting with "Good Dog" but that project stalled at the backstitching. I have a serious case of Stitching ADHD! I can't settle on any one project, therefore I finish nothing. That just exacerbates my frustration!

Friday started out fairly normal, except I was once again awake before noon. I went to dialysis as usual. I even worked on the border of Mount Coot-tha. The picture is my progress from Wednesday and Friday. After dialysis, I came home to change clothes and go have dinner with Uncle Wes at Eastport Yacht Club. Friday was Wessy's 55th birthday and it was also 8-8-08. There were eight EYC members with the same birthday, but only 2 or 3 of them were there that night. We watched the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics and were just amazed at the artistry. The thing that got the standing ovation, though, was the Budweiser commercial (debuted during Super Bowl 2008) where the Dalmation trains the Clydesdale, Hank, to get a spot on the Budweiser hitch. Laughter erupted at the "high paw/hoof" at the end.

I drove home passing through Downtown Annapolis and noticed how cool it was for an August evening and decided it was too nice to stay home. I went back to the house, told Kasey to get in the back of the truck, and we went downtown for a couple hours. We walked from the far end of City Dock to the top of Main St and back, then half way back up Main St to get Kasey's birthday ice cream. I know I said I was going to get her some Frosty Paws, but I never made it across town to the one store that sells it, so I got her a 1/2 scoop of vanilla in a bowl instead. A very nice couple held her leash for me so that I could go in the shop to get the ice cream. She had an audience while eating it, but she comported herself like a lady. There were a few comments made about how calmly and nicely she was eating it, while other dogs would be gulping it down and making a mess.

We returned home around 10:30pm and Uncle Wes came in the door less than five minutes behind us. Needless to say, after all that walking, Kasey and I were both wiped out. I think she might have gone outside once after that, but she spent almost the whole night laying on the cool tile of the bathroom floor.

Saturday was a usual weekend day for me: nothing planned, so just stayed in bed for a couple hours to read. When I finally got up around 1pm I started watching the Olympics. I have my DVR set to record the events I want to see. I finally got to watch the Opening Ceremonies in their entirety and it was an absolute feast for the eyes! I couldn't hear the explainations at the yacht club Friday night, but now that I understand the meaning behind everything as its happening it's even more beautiful. The precision with which everything was done was awesome! BRAVO!!

My friend Daniel called around 4pm to ask if I wanted to go to dinner. He asked me to pick a seafood resaturant because he hadn't had crabs in over a year. I checked online for some phone numbers and made phone calls to several restaurants on Kent Island. Then I found some magazine ratings. They were especially helpful because they ranked restaurants by including the average price of the entrees. I chose the Kentmoor Restaurant (sorry, no website) because it is right on the Chesapeake Bay.

We ordered the crab dip, which was very good, by the way! And we got a dozen steamed medium crabs. We each had a pitcher of our beverage of choice (Mountain Dew for him, Iced Tea for me) to help douse the burning from the Old Bay seasoning. Dinner was great until I got up while my foot was asleep and twisted my ankle. I was able to drive home, but I had to sit with my foot elevated for the remainder of the night. Lucky for me I had Olympics on the DVR to watch so they kept me occupied.