Tomorrow's the big day!

This is the last day I'll ever wear these glasses--and not a moment too soon. They broke this morning. I thought it was very fitting. I had to superglue them together. They've been a bit skewed all day. :-)

On Thursday I'll post the results. Can't do any computer work afterward tomorrow, but I can do a bit on Thursday. I'm not going to sit in front of my computer all day like I do now, but I'll check my work email periodically and do as much as I can.

Wish me luck!

Saturday's ride

We had a great time Saturday. Along with Norm and Deron, who arrived the day before from Nebraska, Joe from Cheyenne and Dave from Fort Collins showed up. The five of us rode to Lyons, where met up with Mayo, Russ, Chris, Tim, Jeanette, Carl and Debra. We were supposed to ride the Peak to Peak Highway down to Central City, and then we were going to continue down to Evergreen. But the pack leader missed the turn. We're riding along and all of a sudden I thought to myself, "Gee, this sure looks a lot like Estes Park." Well, guess what? :-) We were heading north instead of south. I sure didn't notice. I was enjoying the ride too much. We continued on back to Lyons, where we started, and then we rode south on the Peak to Peak Highway. We didn't stop in Central City, but continued on down to Evergreen, where we listened to some live music before continuing home. I was a great day for riding. Lots of twisties. New friends and old. What life is all about if you ride.

I felt really sorry for poor Alan. He looked kind of sad when we pulled away. I sure hope his bike is fixed in time for the trip to Montana in July.

Thunderstorm!

My friends Deron and Norm are on their way from Nebraska on their motorcycles. They just called from Sterling. It was a beautiful morning--not a cloud in the sky or the hint of a breeze. How quickly things change. I took this picture a couple of minutes ago. Look how dark it is! That big thundercloud is hanging right over our house. I can hear a ton of thunder, too. And it doesn't look much better out to the east. I hope they don't get drenched on their way into town. Maybe it'll pass over by then.

Visitors

We had some visitors in the back yard earlier this afternoon. It's unusual to see deer in town this time of day. Usually, they wait until dusk. I haven't seen as many deer in town in the past year or so because we aren't having a drought any more. In years past, there were a ton of deer (and bears!) in our neighborhood. We're right next to the foothills, and they come down here looking for food when it gets dry. It's a hot day today, too, which surprises me even more. But there they were--a mama and her baby, it looks like.

They work!

Funny how those punctal plugs work. My eyes are definitely less dry. I've been tearing up quite a bit, and not because I'm sad. :-) I've actually had to wipe tears away from my cheeks the past couple of days. It's going to be weird when I actually cry. Now I know why your nose runs when you cry. I never had any idea that those little drains went from your eyes into your nose. Now it all makes sense. ;-)

I'm off to my pre-op exam this afternoon. That's the last step before my surgery next Wednesday. I can't wait. I'm so, so sick of wearing these glasses 24/7.

Mom and dad were here Friday and Saturday. Mom is slimmer than I've seen her in years. She looks good! I hope she doesn't continue to lose weight, though. That would be a worry. I've offered to donate some of my excess poundage to her if she does, but she isn't too keen about taking me up on my offer. Looks like I'll have to come up with another idea.

Mom and dad slept on the new mattress. Dad liked it but mom thought it was a little too firm. Maybe I'll end up buying a memory foam topper like I have for my bed, but I'll see how other people feel about it. I'm just glad that I got the room done. Now I'm ready for more guests. It'll be nice to have two official guest rooms. We also have the overflow guest room in the basement that has two twin beds. So we can actually sleep quite a few people.

This weekend we'll have guests from Nebraska--good friends Norm and Deron, who are coming out here to ride with us. The only problem is that Alan can't ride, because he crashed his bike. Alan's OK, but the bike has $7500 worth of damage. Don't know when it will be fixed. So this weekend poor Alan will miss out on the big group ride on Saturday. We're going to ride the Peak to Peak highway all the way down to Evergreen. That's such a pretty ride. I'm looking forward to it.

Yesterday I rode up to Red Feather Lakes by myself. There were a lot of ominous-looking clouds in that direction, but I decided to ride, anyway. It was perfect. I got sprinkled on, which was great because it kept me from getting too hot (it was 80+ degrees out). A very nice day, and I enjoyed riding alone. I don't do that too often any more.

Punctal plugs

So this morning I had punctal plugs inserted by my eye doctor. They're teeny tiny little silicone plugs that go in the puncta--the drainage ducts that your old tears, or extra tears, escape through while your glands make new ones. The plugs stop the drainage so that your eyes stay more moist. They're used for people having lasik surgery and anyone who has problems with dry eyes.

It didn't hurt to get them inserted because the doctor put some drops in my eyes to anesthetize them a bit. That's worn off now, and I can just barely feel them. I'm sure that, after a couple of days, I won't even notice they're there.

Monday I go in for my pre-op exam. And then, on May 31, I have the surgery. I'm getting really excited about it. And I'm SO sick of wearing my glasses 24/7. Can't wait to throw these things away forever.

From now until my surgery I have to do a "lid scrub" twice a day. That involves holding a hot, moist washcloth to my eyes for about 10 minutes, then using a tissue (which the doctor gave me) to lightly scrub my eyelids (with the eye closed). I guess I have a bit of excess drainage on the little glands along my eyelashes, and it's causing some irritation to my eyes. I'm glad that the doctors are being so careful about all these little details. I think it will make for a much better outcome.

Finished the guest room

That ended up being a pretty major project, but it's all done now--in plenty of time for the guests I'm having (maybe this weekend and for sure next weekend). I ended up making a headboard, bedskirt, curtains (valance and drapery panels) and pillows. I hope it's not too much of the vivid pattern, but I used a solid-color bedspread and the walls and floor are really light and neutral, so I think it's OK.

Now on to the yard. We need to get some bark ordered so we can recover the beds this weeekend. They look terrible. A lot of the old bark is gone and you see the fabric in a lot of places. And I still haven't transplanted my tomatoes and herbs into the garden. They're in the sun room in front of the door, acclimating to the sun and wind and cold at night. I have to dig out the thyme bushes in the herb garden to make room for them. But I got some soil and fertilizer the other day, so I'm ready to plant them now. I'm going to use some of the water-absorbing granules I bought to make the cool ties. That should help keep some moisture in the soil. The herb garden bed has sprinklers, but the sprinkler system only comes on twice a week. I don't want to have to hand water if I don't have to. I'm lazy. My houseplants are lucky if they get watered on a regular basis.

More adventures in decorating

So I'm decorating the new guest room--the room that used to be Julie's. Last night I went out to buy a bedspread and sheets. I looked at bed skirts, but the lousy things cost a minimum of $40, and I just couldn't bring myself to buy one when I had all that fabric at home.

So I went home and made one. It wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, except that I ran out of thread with five inches left to sew on the last seam. So I had to change to a different color. I don't think anyone will notice, though, unless they're crawling around on the floor looking under the bed or something.

This picture is at a weird angle, but the room's not very big and I had a hard time getting most of the bed in the picture.

Tomorrow the mattress will be delivered, and I can make up the bed. I'm going to finish the curtains tonight. I made the valance a couple of days ago, but I have to finish the drapery panels and put up the rods. That means getting out the drill again... I just used it this afternoon to drill the holes through the headboard legs (so I could attach it to the frame). Why don't I think before I run and put things away? Argh.

Mom and dad get to christen the new guest room Friday night. :-)

Cool ties

Last year, when we went on our bike trip to Montana for my Kawasaki forum get-together, some of the guys had presents for everyone (one person gave everyone bells for their bikes; another had little refrigerator magnets made up that commemorated the event). I've been thinking about what I could take for everyone this year. I didn't want to spend a lot of money per item, because I suspect that there will be about 75 people there this year. Then I remembered these things:

http://www.cooltiesareus.com/

I'd been wanting to get some of these for Alan and me because it gets so incredibly hot riding in the summer, especially going through places like Wyoming. I found a site that tells you how to make them, and the other day I went out and bought six or seven pieces of fabric and the water-absorbing polymer granules that you put inside them.

Yesterday, I made my first batch of 10. They're pretty easy to make; it just takes a bit of time to cut the fabric, stitch it, turn it, sew the edges, add the granules, and sew up the opening. I made some little tags to go with them. This is what they look like in their little baggies. So 10 down, only 65 to go! :-)

Vegies and herbs

I went to the plant store yesterday and picked up a couple of tomato plants and some herbs. My herb garden was a disaster until a couple of weeks ago, when I dug out most of the thyme that had taken over the plot. I'm going to completely dig up the remaining plants. I didn't use the thyme that much, and it sends out roots that are even worse than mint, which I also have in the bed. So I'm basically starting over. I'll leave the chives and a little bit of mint. The rest is going.

I bought cilantro and several kinds of basil. Those are the two herbs I buy fresh most often. The only problem? I've tried twice to get cilantro to grow, and it has never done well once I transplant it into the bed. But I'm going to try again and baby it as much as I can. (I bought some nice fertilizer, too.) I have the little containers sitting in front of the open doors in the sun room now, where they can get exposure to the full sun they'll get outside and to the wind. Toughen them up a bit before they go in the ground.

I just ordered some lemongrass online. I've been trying to find a place that sells the plants locally, but no one does. It doesn't overwinter here (too cold), so I'll have to plant it in a pot in the greenhouse. I'm excited about getting it. I've been wanting to cook Thai food, but lemongrass is a necessary ingredient, and it's hard to find around here. I've only found one store that sells it, and that store is on the other side of town.

Decorating the new guest room

Now that I decided to make Julie's old room the real guest room (so Alan doesn't have to get thrown out of his room every time company comes--yes, he sleeps in there but only because his snoring keeps me awake all night), I started thinking about what to do in there.

Mom gave me some really nice custom-made drapes that she found at a yard sale. I had to cut them down and take out the pinch pleats to hang them in my room, but they didn't really work in there. The window is so huge that they make the room really dark, and the colors don't work with my bedspread. So I decided to use the fabric in the new guest room instead.

Today I spent some time looking around in the garage for wood. Alan had some particle board shelving out there (that he bought for more bookshelves in the crawlspace but never used). I figured that I could put two of them together and get a good-sized headboard. I also found some 1x4s to use to hold the shelving together and for legs.

So after work tonight I put it together. I have a blister on my palm from pushing on the screwdriver. What an old wimp I am. But it's nice and solid (heavy!). Then I covered it with batting and the fabric. Thank god we have an electric staple gun!

It's all finished. I carried it into the guest room and put it up against the wall. I'm going to have Alan help me line up and drill the holes for the bolts (the ones that hold it onto the hollywood frame). Then it'll be done. It looks funny because we only have a box springs in there right now (I have to go out and find a top mattress). But I think it will look all right once the mattress and bedding is on (pillows and stuff). It looks super tall right now.

I'm also going to make curtains and pillows with the fabric and cover the seat on my grandmother's rocking chair, which is also in that room. I think it should look pretty decent. Now to figure out what color bedspread to get. I could go with several different colors.

The picture at the top is what the headboard looks like right now.

Because I'm a man...

I've seen a lot of similar things, but I particularly liked this one:

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Because I'm a man, when I lock my keys in the car, I will fiddle with a coat hanger long after hypothermia has set in. Calling AAA is not an option. I will win.
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Because I'm a man, when the car isn't running very well, I will pop the hood and stare at the engine as if I know what I'm looking at. If another man shows up, one of us will say to the other, "I used to be able to fix these things, but now with all these computers and everything, I wouldn't know where to start." We will then drink a couple of beers and break wind, as a form of holy communion.
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Because I'm a man, when I catch a cold, I need someone to bring me soup and take care of me while I lie in bed and moan. You're a woman. You never get as sick as I do, so for you, this is no problem.
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Because I'm a man, I can be relied upon to purchase basic groceries at the store, like milk or bread. I cannot be expected to find exotic items like "cumin" or "tofu." For all I know, these are the same thing.
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Because I'm a man, when one of our appliances stops working, I will insist on taking it apart, despite evidence that this will just cost me twice as much once the repair person gets here and has to put it back together.
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Because I'm a man, I must hold the television remote control in my hand while I watch TV. If the thing has been misplaced, I may miss a whole show looking for it.....though one time I was able to survive by holding a calculator.....(applies to engineers mainly).
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Because I'm a man, there is no need to ask me what I'm thinking about. The true answer is always either sex, cars, sex, sports or sex. I have to make up something else when you ask, so don't ask.
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Because I'm a man, I do not want to visit your mother, or have your mother come visit us, or talk to her when she calls, or think about her any more than I have to. Whatever you got her for Mother's Day is okay; I don't need to see it. And don't forget to pick up something for my mother, too.
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Because I'm a man, you don't have to ask me if I liked the movie. Chances are, if you're crying at the end of it, I didn't....and if you are feeling amorous afterwards....then I will certainly at least remember the name and recommend it to others.
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Because I'm a man, I think what you're wearing is fine. I thought what you were wearing five minutes ago was fine, too. Either pair of shoes is fine. With the belt or without it, looks fine. Your hair is fine. You look fine.
Can we just go now?
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Because I'm a man, and this is, after all, the year 2006, I will share equally in the housework. You just do the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning, the vacuuming, and the dishes, and I'll do the rest...... like wandering around in the garden with a beer wondering what to do.

I'm doing it!!!

I scheduled my lasik surgery for May 31. I'm really excited. And very impressed with Dr. Disher. He's probably one of the best--if not THE best--lasik surgeon in the country. He pioneered a lot of these procedures and developed some of the laser equipment himself, plus he's an FDA clinical inspector. He's performed 40,000+ lasik procedures. I know I'm in good hands.

The only downside is that I can't wear my contacts again. I have to wear my glasses until the surgery. And these glasses are an old prescription, so I can't see out of them very well. They're OK for close work (like the computer or reading), but I have to squint to see the TV. But it's well worth it. Only three weeks to go.

I can't wait! I'm not expecting to get 20/20 vision, but I think I'll get something very close to that. Anything I get will be a vast improvement, so I know I'll be happy. I'm doing the monovision thing, which I've really liked with my contacts. So I hope not to need reading glasses, either, for some time.

Lasik evaluation

This afternoon I go to Denver for an evaluation to see whether I'm a good candidate for lasik surgery. I've been wanting to do this for years and years. I finally decided that it's worth the money. I've been having a lot of trouble with my eyes. In the fall, I had a scary episode that sent me to the emergency room. It turned out to be just overwear of my contacts, but it made me realize how sick I am of the whole contacts/glasses thing.

I got my first pair of glasses in third grade. By then I was already pretty blind. I couldn't see the blackboard at school, and I remember sitting in the audience at the Hall and how the speaker's face was just a blur. I didn't realize I couldn't see; I thought it was like that for everyone. My first pair of glasses must have been pretty strong. I remember how the sidewalk sloped downward and away so that I could hardly walk and how I was amazed at seeing the buds on the trees.

So here I am, 40 years later, and blinder than ever. 20/700+. I see fairly well with my contacts, and I have adjusted well to monovision (am hoping to have my lasik done that way also). But when I take my contacts out and put my glasses on, I can't see worth a damn. I often get headaches because of it. It takes days for eyes to adjust, so switching back and forth daily between contacts and glasses just doesn't work.

I'm going to be terribly disappointed if I can't have the surgery. I want to know what it's like--for the first time in my life--to open my eyes in the morning and be able to actually see. And no more dealing with contacts and solutions and glasses that need adjusted and get scratched all too easily.

I'll know by 3:00 this afternoon. Wish me luck!

Nice weekend

I had a nice weekend. Poor Alan had to work most of the time (he has seven chips taping out at once), but I took advantage of the quiet time. Saturday I spent some time cooking (putting a lasagne together) because we were expecting company on Sunday, and I didn't know whether they'd be staying for dinner. Thought I would save myself some time and hassle the next day.

Sunday a friend from my Kawasaki forum came to visit. He lives in Manhattan and is visiting his brother, who lives in Denver. I hadn't met him in person before, but I saw in one of his posts to the forum that he was going to be in Denver, so I invited him to come by. So he and his brother drove up and spent the afternoon with us. Really nice guys. And we found out that we had something in common. They have lived in Geneva, too. Now how's that for a small world?

Our friends Tom and Kathy stopped by on their bikes. They were on their way home from a ride. In the meantime, Julie showed up because she needed to practice before her recital. Of course, that made any kind of conversation in the house impossible, so we stood around in the garage for a while. And then we went over and sat on our next-door neighbor's patio (he was gone). Kind of presumptuous of us, I know. But I sent him a note this morning confessing to our rude behavior.

My friend Dirt came by and ate dinner with us, so I was glad I'd made the lasagne the day before. The poor guy has been working on his thesis nonstop, and he needed a break. We sat in front of the TV, watching The Sopranos and feeding our faces. :-)

Why is it that the weekends go by so incredibly fast? I absolutely hate Monday mornings. Ugh.

My mom--the old woman who wouldn't die

I know that sounds insulting to my mom, but it isn't. She came up with that expression herself. :-)

I just realized that I've referred a few people to my blog to read about what happened to mom (because I'm too damned lazy to write long emails!), but I never really explain what happened--just that she is doing well. So I thought maybe I should post a very brief explanation of what my poor mother has been through in the past few months.

It all started with an infected pacemaker--an infection that her doctor never really acknowledged or recognized. It was only because she's so well informed medically that she realized herself what was happening and what the dire consequences would be if it weren't removed that she got treatment. She eventually was referred to a surgeon in Colorado Springs who removes pacemakers, but he couldn't do the surgery because he didn't have a thoracic surgeon on standby (they're needed in case the heart tears while they're extracting the leads, in which case they have to immediately open the chest and try to repair the damage). So he referred her to a hospital in Cleveland.

Mom, dad and I traveled to Cleveland, where mom had the pacemaker removed. I would say successfully, because she didn't die (and this is a very high-risk procedure), except that the surgeon left a tiny piece of the lead embedded in her heart when he removed it. He didn't tell us this; mom only found out when they were getting ready to put the new pacemaker in.

And that's a whole different nightmare. It's a long story, but after many delays and threats by my mom to go home without a pacemaker, they finally scheduled the surgery. But, as we found out later, when the doctor (a different one) was installing the new pacemaker, she pushed the leads so hard that one of them ripped through the wall of mom's heart. We didn't know this at the time. Mom only knew that she felt very ill. She traveled home the next day, and on the flight to Denver she got very ill-so ill that a doctor sat with her throughout the flight, monitoring her, and an ambulance picked her up on the tarmac and took her to University Hospital in Denver.

She went home the next day but continued to feel very sick. She had an appointment with her cardiologist the following week, so she decided to wait until she could see him. As soon as he saw her, he admitted her to the hospital. They did an angiogram the next day, and he informed mom that she needed bypass surgery. (The hole in her heart hadn't yet been detected at this point.) So the heart surgeon saw her and they scheduled the surgery for a couple of days later.

In the meantime, while they were running tests, they discovered that mom had some pulmonary embolisms and pulmonary hypertension. That resulted in the surgery being canceled. They sent mom home and told her that in six months or so she could have the bypass surgery.

At this point, we thought that what was causing the extreme pain mom had on the flight and her feeling ill were caused by either one of or both of the following: a pulmonary embolism or lack of blood flow to her heart due to the blocked arteries.

During all this time, an infectious disease doctor was treating mom for her staph infection, which had spread to her bloodstream. She didn't know whether her artificial hip or her mitral valve were infected. She went through a great deal of stress during this time wondering how far advanced the infection was and whether she'd have to face more surgery.

So she went home to wait for her lungs to clear up. But... she was only home two days and she crashed. The home nurse called an ambulance to take her to the hospital. It was during this treatment that they discovered that one her leads wasn't firing and subsequent tests revealed the hole and the presence of blood in her pericardium. Then it all made sense--why she'd been so ill since having the new pacemaker put in.

She was taken by helicopter back to the hospital in Colorado Springs. And now suddenly everything changed. Waiting for her lungs to clear became less important because she absolutely had to have surgery to repair the damage to her heart and replace the dislodged lead. So a few days later, after they waited for her blood to thicken (she'd been on blood thinners for the blood clots), they did those repairs and at the same time did her three bypasses.

Mom is incredibly tough. She got through all these things--any one of which could have killed her--and is doing amazingly well. She's no longer on oxygen. She's dancing again and volunteering at the museum. I'm really proud of her. She had amazing medical care (we loved her team of doctors in Colorado Springs), but I think most of it is due to her attitude. She was determined to fight, and she did.

It was an awful ordeal, but I think that things are going to be much better for her now. While she was having multiple tests, she found out that some areas of her health that she had been concerned about were actually OK. Her blocked arteries are now bypassed, which means the many years of angina are a thing of the past. I think she has many good years ahead of her. Dad had bypass surgery a few years ago, too, so they're both in great shape now. They take good care of themselves. I look forward to enjoying many more years with them.

Looks like spring is finally here

We had a cold spell last week. Really cold. So I was beginning to wonder whether spring was ever going to come. It has. It's warmed up nicely. The trees are all leafing out, and many of them still have blossoms. The air smells so good! The tulips and daffodils I planted last year are blooming, too. All the bushes are putting out new leaves. We're going to have to get out there and cut them back. Alan did the sage bushes, which were out of control, but we have to get to the rest of them. It's unbelievable how quickly they grow. Last night I found the picture above (top) taken just after we put the landscaping in. The picture on the bottom was taken just three years later. Crazy, huh? All that beautiful bark dust is long gone. We're down to fabric in some places. Guess we'll get a load weekend after next so we can cover it up again. The yard is looking rather pathetic.

Alan and I went for a long walk last night. We have a beautiful paved trail just a block from our house. The other night when we walked we headed east, but last night we decided to head west, toward a little park about 3/4 mile down the trail. We got about half a mile and saw that the trail had detours in two directions. The whole area is all dug up. We got very upset at first, thinking they were putting a development in that great open space. But they aren't. Apparently they're digging to lay down new water pipes and other utilities because they're expanding the parks in that area and making improvements to the open space. We took a detour off to the south and ended up on a road we didn't recognize. Very nice area; houses all on very large lots and hidden back behind the main road. It looks like it's in the country. We finally ended up coming out on Taft Hill Road and walked about 1/2 block down to where the eastern part of the trail that we walked the other night picked up. We ended up walking for about an hour at a very good clip. We're going to try to walk every evening--no matter what. Alan never gets any exercise, and I'm getting worried about his health. I need all the exercise I can get, too. I've been trying to exercise every day by riding the trainer and working out to my DVDs, but I really like to walk, too, and think it's a good form of exercise. I'd sure like to get in better shape before we take our big motorcycle trip in July.

It seems like Alan is still in high demand as an analog circuit designer. He told me last night that he's had interest from two other companies just this week. I don't think he'll make a change, not right now, anyway. But it's nice to know that he has options. Wish I had some! I wish someone would hire me to travel the world. Wouldn't that be nice?