8D

So, I told myself no whiskey and no fun stuff until the proposal is submitted. Well, things fell apart last night. SOMEONE is on strike as far as dealing with the kids (life) so I stepped up and said, OK, I’ll do my fair share this weekend (yeah, I’m just that kind of mother). So, the girls had a “hot date” to meet boys at the movies last night. I dropped them off at the cinema and LIQUOR STORE became a driving force in my brain. I went on auto pilot – I stopped, walked in, and bought Makers Mark. They had no 80 proof Wild Turkey in stock…my second favorite. I usually buy turkey because it’s $10 less per bottle (there abouts). So I bought the expensive MM last night but had second thoughts and didn’t open it….


I’m a little bit ahead with my school work this week. I have a giant paper due Monday night, but Monday is a holiday and I have all day to throw it together. Tomorrow I’ll start on it, and I only have two more posts, and the dreaded reflection statement to write by Monday night. The posts are easy this week. Students had to post last week’s big paper in a public forum. We were encouraged to critique each others’ assessments for participation credit this week. Since we all wrote basically most of the same ideas, mainly we’re just exchanging BS source summaries. Today I wrote about such lovely things as balanced scorecard systems, logistics as it should be considered as a vital part of a fully-integrated supply chain system, and some blib-blab about OLAP versus qualitative research.

So, tonight I’m making up for some lost time this summer. My ugly mug is still recovering from Fluorouracil, and I’m still supposed to avoid sun until all the red is gone. It’s probably now 60% gone, and I hadn’t played any tennis since early July. The sky was completely overcast this evening, never mind the 96 degree heat and nearly 100% humidity. I woke SOMEONE up and said, “Let’s go play some tennis.” He jumped up like a 2-year-old….OK, maybe like a 5-year-old.

I am WAY out of practice. All my serves were going long. I was hitting sky balls and hitting the net top. Skill leaves quick, but it was fun. October 3rd is the last day of the last class. My golf clubs miss me. They need new grips. I should get that done NOW.

Right now, my piano misses me….and I miss Sarah. How lucky that technology allows me to hear her and see her whenever I desire….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCLumqxRcrI




(Karly Dawn and Sarah)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCLumqxRcrI

  

Counting

Today is the 28^th day of having this mess going on with my face and I’m damn sick of it.  I’ve been hiding out as much as I can but Monday I’m going back to the office.  This morning I took Gracie to the vet.  I was grateful that nobody asked what the hell happened.  They probably assume I’m an unfortunate accident victim.  This is a picture I took yesterday. 

27th day of hell

Gracie got her second set of puppy shots today and they tested her for various parasites – she got a clean bill of health other than a few small spots of mange. The vet says this kind of mange is common on puppies and most of them are free of it by the time they’re a year old. For now, we do nothing. If it gets worse, we give her pills and if it goes away, hooray.

I have a big paper due and I’m having trouble getting into it because one of the mandatory items to be covered is not clearly defined and I can’t relate it to anything. What are (exactly) IST domains of management? To me, that means everything IST managers must manage. We are to analyze a case study scenario and relate all the problems we find to IST domains of management, database, networking, Web, programming, and all scopes of systems development. Perhaps if a problem doesn’t fit neatly into one of the other areas, I’ll just lump it into the catch-all domains of management.

Five more big individual papers, one more team paper, six reflection statements, 15 discussion questions, 34 reply posts, and one dissertation, and THEN….I’M DONE!!!! I’m getting close enough to almost see the finish line and now someone is acting all pissy about the time I’m spending and how the house has fallen to ruin. Maybe someone is just in a pissy mood because of shit going on in his life. If misery loves company, we should be a match made in heaven.

Face disgrace

I took another picture of my face yesterday, but I don’t want to post it. It’s too depressing. I look like an alligator who’s been blasted with a shot gun…sort of. Yesterday morning was the last dose of the flesh-eating chemical/drug. This morning I took a long warm shower and washed the last traces of the nasty, greasy stuff off my face as best I could – now it feels like if I smile my whole face would crack and shatter. Tomorrow I go back to the doctor and hopefully he will say I’m through and I pray he doesn’t want to touch anything on my face because if he does, it’ll probably hurt. Don’t touch! Back off, Jack! That would be fitting because his name really is Jack.


Our puppy is quickly growing; I’m lengthening her collar about every three days. She’s getting a bit more brave and troublesome. We have to gate her off or keep doors shut where there are plants, shoes, clothes, etc. She loves to chew and never mind that she has doggie toys to chew on, she loves nothing more than to grab one of the girls’ padded bras. It’s time for her next round of shots and I fear she’s probably got worms again. I won’t gross you out with the details, but her favorite food is not the puppy chow, but nasty stuff she finds in the woods. Here’s a photo of her being sweet and about the only time she is not getting into trouble:

Gracie



I took Gracie outside to “do her business” and discovered the apple tree had three squirrels in the top of it.  Two jumped to the ground and ran across the yard escaping up the maple tree.  The other held a large apple in his teeth by the stem, leapt over to the other apple tree (totally bare of apples), then over to the maple, then one more jump to the hickory.  He sat there looking down at me, then began munching his apple.  I ran for my camera and was able to grab a photo.  A few nights ago, I took Gracie out at night and heard a deer thrashing the limbs of the apple tree.  Then, thump, thump, thump of apples hitting the ground.  I assumed the deer shook all the apples out of the trees, but now I know squirrels take their fair share. 

Scary face

My face is heavy on my mind these days. Today is Day 15 of a 21-day treatment plan with Fluorouracil on my face. It’s a scary drug! The doctor didn’t give me the whole truth about it, which is probably a good thing because I never would have agreed to this. I hate pictures of myself, but I will post one that I snapped off quickly at work the other day. My hair looks wretched because the heat and air from the hair dryer make my face hurt more, so I let it air dry and do whatever it wants. I can’t wear make-up. What my co-workers tell me is that my face seems to change from hour-to-hour; swelling some parts then unswelling, turning dark red then light red in some parts, bleeding off and on. Look how gross!!

I went to a dermatologist because I had a little place above my lip that came and went until finally it came and stayed. I had two other scaly patches on my face that have been coming and going. On the day of the appointment, the two patches were cleared up and normal. The doc took a quick look at my lip and said it was pre-cancerous. He could cut it or burn – both would leave a noticeable scar. OR…I could use Fluorouracil for 21 days and no scar. That seemed easy!  I liked the idea of no cutting or needles.  He told me about it and how it works, and how if I treated my whole face, it would be like getting new skin – undoing all the damage over the years. He said nothing would change for 14 days, then it would get red like a bad sunburn, scab up, peel, and heal. OK!! It’s only supposed to react with sun-damaged abnormal cells – sounded good.

I’ve never been one to lay in the sun for long and I’ve worn sunscreen since it was available. A few memorable burns, not as much on my face as on my back and shoulders. I’ve played a lot of golf, but since I was late 30s, I get migraines triggered by intense sun so I always wear a visor when I’m playing golf or tennis in the sun. Anyway, the place on my lip and one of the scaly patches reacted to the drug the first time I put it on. Based on pictures I’ve seen online, I’m at least a week ahead of schedule as far as gross appearance. The red and burning is way worse than any sunburn.  It’s getting worse every day. It burns and itches like a mother! I got permission to work from home starting next week. I don’t plan to be seen in public until it’s somewhat healed up…at least no worse looking than the photo of me.