What I Did Today - Wednesday, January 2, 2008

1. After a glorious week off, I awoke at 5:30, before the alarm went off, on this, my first day back at work.
2. I made myself a terrific breakfast: a toasted sesame bagel with chive cream cheese, lox, red onion and caper, washed down with freshly squeezed orange juice;
3. I worked 10 straight hours, but when I left tonight, all my cases were current;
4. I came home and warmed up the last of the beef bourguignon which I enjoyed while watching Law & Order and vegging out in the gameroom;
5. I did a little online research on the newly popular for aging baby boomers (of which I'm one) oral bisphosphonates for prevention of osteoporosis. Bisphosphonates have a fascinating history; they were discovered in the middle of the 19th century and have been used industrially since that time as water softeners, due to their ability to inhibit calcium carbonate formation. I have more than a passing interest in this nerdy topic because last week my doctor prescribed a bisphosphonate for me, and this in spite of the fact that I don't have osteoporosis. Sally Field is currently touting one of these drugs on television, but despite her sunny demeanor, these are powerful drugs that no one should consider taking without doing your homework. For example, the reason the dosing is just once a month is that although bisphosphonates leave the blood in several hours, their half-life in the skeleton is estimated to be at the very least, years, and perhaps lifelong, information I gleaned from a manufacturer's website, where I also learned that 20 to 50 percent of any given dose is taken up by the skeleton. FYI, the biological half-life of a drug is the time required for half of that drug to leave your body by either a physical or a chemical process. So in plain English, if a drug has a half-life of many years in your skeleton, that means that for all practical purposes, whatever percentage of the drug is absorbed by your skeleton just stays there, and the amount is increased with each subsequent dose. No one knows the long term effects of taking these drugs orally, but coincidentally, they're are also the class of drugs associated with osteonecrosis of the jaw, a rare but incurable condition in which the jaw bone dies. Needless to say, I have decided this is yet another prescription that I'll do without. And I'll be doctor hunting soon, because I'm getting more than a little tired of Dr. Polypharmacy blithely writing yet another script each time I so much as yawn in her office...

Happy New Year!

I can't believe it's 2008. Happy New Year everyone! I've made some resolutions, one of which is to write more in 2008, sooooooooo...with that in mind...

I ended the old year and began the new in the best way possible, surrounded by friends and family. At 7:30 on New Year's Eve, Mike and his friend Brooke, who is visiting from Arizona, attended a Dallas Bach Society concert with me. I love baroque music, and have no qualms about subjecting my children and their guests to it. The Bach Society concerts are always beautiful, and last night was no exception, however, the Bach Society performed a medley of Bach works rather than the traditional New Year's Eve concert of the 6 Brandenburg concertos, and I admit I missed hearing those performed live (although I had the pleasure of listening to all 6 on the radio in the afternoon). After the concert, Mike & Brooke went to a party hosted by Chris & Stephanie; Katharine went out with a friend; A was in Las Vegas with friends; so I came home and was quite content to curl up in the gameroom with Mia asleep on the couch beside me as I ate beef bourguignon and watched Fred & Ginger, as 2007 became 2008.

Today, I went to see Charlie Wilson's War with Mike, Brooke, Chris and Stephanie after which Mike, Brooke, Chris, Katharine and Jon, in town for Christmas break from Indiana, came to my house for dinner. After wine and cheese and crackers in front of the fireplace, I served a dinner of Hoppin' John, a concoction made with black eyed peas, traditionally served in the south on New Year's Day for good luck in the coming year; veal meat loaf; a tossed salad, and orange poppy seed cake for dessert. Here's to a happy and healthy 2008.

2007 - My Year in Review...

This is a great way to review your year. I got the idea from Sue (Inner Dorothy - check her out), whom I linked to from Wyld (VERY interesting blog, check him out too). These are the first sentences of the first post I did for each month in 2007. Reading them, it’s pretty obvious the theme this year (thoroughly unintended) was remodeling and work...here’s to having a little more interesting life in 2008!

January: Here's what it looked like after I stripped the wallpaper but before I did anything else, in the master bathroom of my house...pretty grim.
February: So the deal was, I accepted this contract gig in Fort Worth, a little over an hour’s drive away, because the money was good and it was work I could do without taking it home with me at night, psychologically, I mean.
March: it's officially mine...(a reference to a painting I bought on ebay)
April: I'm sitting here thinking that the title of my previous post (money - that's what I want) does so not apply, right now.
May: Today, having volunteered to participate in a meme that's making the rounds, I’ve agreed to answer 5 questions asked by one of my favorite bloggers, Chris, of Inane Thoughts and Insane Ramblings.
June: I am SO not a morning person, and evidence of that is that it’s after midnight and I have to be up at 5:30 and rather than sleeping, I’m at my computer keyboard, typing away...
July: Today being the 4th of July, but a rainy, overcast, 4th of July, I simply slept in until about 9:30.
August: Soooooooooo...I’m busy at work, busy at home, including shopping for a new mortgage, which is hardly my idea of fun...
September: I'm painting my bedroom, a nice rich sort of ginger brown, a variation on the theme of the rest of the downstairs in my house.
October: So I have jury duty tomorrow morning (hmmmmm, make that THIS morning), and what with not having to drive to Fort Worth plus having already logged 23½ hours at work on Monday and Tuesday of this week, I feel as if I’m going on vacation.
November: I love Halloween.
December: I cleaned my kitchen and most of the downstairs as I waited for the Time-Warner rep to show up to repair the cable line.

What I Did Today - Friday, December 28, 2007

1. I had the garage door guy come back out to fix the genie. The safety beam had stopped functioning, so I could open the door with the remote but not close it. There was no charge, and it took him 5 minutes to fix the problem (the guys who'd done the original installation about a week ago had run a wire beneath the track, rather than around it).
2. I finished a fun read; a crime/thriller set in Chicago: The Blade Itself, by Marcus Sakey.
3. I drove Mike to Banana Republic at the Allen Outlet Mall where his shopping quest was successful (he'd be mortified if I was more specific than that).
4. Mike and I went to one of my favorite places in Dallas, Half Price Books, where I bought 4 Larry McMurtry's (All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers; The Desert Rose; Duane's Depressed; and The Light Goes) and a Doris Lessing (Martha Quest). I love Larry McMurtry, a Texas writer who wrote Terms of Endearment, Horseman Pass By (on which the movie, Hud, was based) and Lonesome Dove, among others, all of which I've read and loved, but I think my favorite Larry McMurtry to date is Moving On. I'm looking forward to reading these new ones (new to me). And Doris Lessing...this year, she won the Nobel Prize for literature, and it occurred to me, I've never read any Lessing, and that bothered me, sooooooooo...I'd like to compile a list of Nobel prize winners for literature, and start working my way through it. I first thought of doing that a couple of light years ago, when I was in my 20's and read Kristen Lavransdatter. The author, Sigrid Undset, won the Nobel prize in literature for that trilogy in 1928. So if you're looking for good books to read, these are some great ones...
5. I spent a couple of hours on the net, looking at real estate across the country, which I do from time to time, to see what my options might be if I were to leave Dallas...

What I Did Today - Thursday, December 27, 2007

1. Had the stairs measured for carpeting.
2. Did after-holiday shopping at Crate & Barrel (candles) and Pottery Barn (desk lamp).
3. Had a late lunch with Mike at Chili's.
4. Had the driver's side headlight replaced on my car.
5. Went to see Into the Wild (terrific book, disappointing film) at the Inwood with Mike and Chris.

Ah, Santa!

A pic is worth a thousand words...

Gates BEFORE and AFTER

So they came and changed out the top of the gates from the thing that resembled a bordello entrance to the simple arch that I wanted. There is still work to be done to make the gates as secure as I want them, however, I'll hire a carpenter to make those changes.