Geek Stuff

Does making a two handed "lightsaber" out of plumbing items make me a geek?

My first attempt:

I spray painted the plastic tubes and such copper - I love copper and haven't seen a lightsaber out of copper except one steampunk style one.

a pop up sink drain, drain extension, rubber bands, copper paint, gaskets

I'm probably going to get a 6" extension tube as interchangeable with the long one. A couple more modifications and I think this will be a decent belt-hanging lightsaber replica.

Winter Holidays

My Hanukkah is in the mail (per Jackie's frustration).  Mine for Jackie is wrapped and next to a small tree. 

I had a good Hanukkah - no drama, depression at levels lower than previous years. Lit candles on all the nights, had fried potatoes and the cats dined by electric candlelight with my electric menorah in the window. LOL

I decided to do a little for Yule/Christmas and put up a fake white tree Jackie had and put her gifts next to it and my new nutcracker, a favorite nutcracker (the Rat King), the Christmas Yeti guy, and Snoopy and Woodstock (both play the Charlie Brown music) and, of course, a turtle.

Now if this stupid sinus infection would ease up, it wouldn't be a bad day.

Continuing Mom's Quilt

I finished the lower straight line in this row on the quilt, the one Mom had done a little on.  My stitches are getting better too.  Maybe we can finish this.

Reboot Reboot - Plan day 1

We went off the plan because of availability of food (i.e. we paid the entire year of property taxes and relied on what we had on hand in the freezer and pantry before we had gone on The Plan).

We went off the plan and we have paid for it. Jackie and I are hurting really badly after 2 week of being off and there's really no physical reason why my pain should be higher other than change of weather/colder temps.  We also had a bit more energy before.

So, we're going back on the Plan.  This morning I had rice for breakfast, lunch will be salad and broccoli soup with salad.  Tonight will be chicken and salad or pollock and salad.

Gotta start feeling better again. These pain levels are really hard to deal with. 

Sleeve Kitty!

Alannah decided the jacket that Jackie had pulled off was a perfect bed and that the sleeve was quite cozy.  She stayed in the sleeve for over an hour and curled up in the jacket for hours.

Grady decided my military satchel is a perfect bed. If he fits, he sleeps, I guess

Ugh fricking Ugh

Okay, we're back on The Plan.  We got back on a few days ago after a frustrating week.  I'm down several pounds from where I started.  Not the very quick loss of weight as highlighted in the testimonies of the Plan but I'm not surprised.  The Plan suggests not having any food or drink 4 hours before sleep.  I need to eat a graham sized cracker or something when I take my codeine, stuff makes me sick to my stomach.

Yes, a glitch that I have.  I could never become a heroin junkie.  After my first back surgery I was throwing up for 3 days.  I couldn't keep water down.  Mom asked what pain meds they were giving me, morphine.  She suggested changing to demerol. Viola! The opids make me sick.  I've been on codeine for decades - I take 1-2 at night with a little bit of food and try to go to sleep before the nausea hits.  So, about 8lbs down in 2 weeks. 

We also had our first major reaction to food.  Yesterday we had grilled hamburgers (patties, no buns) and eggs for breakfast.  We've tested beef and it went fine but the Plan suggests not to have well-done meat - to avoid extended high heat - the chemical makeup of the food changes.

We're not sure if we reacted from the burgers or eggs.  Shortly after having the eggs and hamburger (breakfast and lunch) I began to be down. By nightfall at 7:30 I was in a major depression and my muscles were hurting more than usual.  I was in a bad place last night and today has been kinda hard.  We've avoided any new foods today but I've had more sugar than usual.  I feel off, unbalanced and blah.  Jackie's legs were killing her today and she hadn't done anything yesterday.  Enough so that it has to be noted as not ordinary aches and pains.

So both of us had extreme reactions to either well cooked meat or eggs.

We're going to test eggs again and see how it goes and I'll know what's happening if I start a down slide.  My psych is really pleased with my progress and how I've developed tools to handle things coming our way.  So much so that my PTSD symptoms are way down (Thank G-d!).  The depression last night was horrible!

We'll see if this Plan keeps working.

Day 0

we're going to have to redo the Plan at this point. Jackie is reacting very very badly to something and the only thing new in the meal plans was romaine lettuce and crimmi (sp?) mushrooms and we don't think she'd be covered head to toe with a welt-like rash that started out small and spread over the last 24 hrs.  I'm going to take her into the emergency room at the VA in Atlanta tomorrow.

Worried as heck