UGH.....

Been sick for almost a week now. Some kind of stomach bug....no fun. I missed 4 days of work, that is a new record for me. Tis the season.

Cold and Cold

Its really cold outside (-5 without the windchill) and I have a cold. I stayed home from work today hoping to recuperate. Instead I got a phone call from the caregiver of the summer residence I help clean.... the alarm was going off that the water pipes were at low temperatures...could I go over and open the sink cabinets (as he thought that was all it was). I said sure seeing as it would only take about 30 minutes. Well I get there to find a freezing cold house. The indoor temps were ranging from 32-47 degrees! Long story short, they ran out of propane and I hung out for 3 hours in a really cold house waiting and working with the gas man to get the heat back on. One of the 2 furnaces wouldn't go back on and remains off overnight, but I'm done. I did my good deed.

Teachers meetings at work tomorrow. Still will be sick but not having the kids there will make it a bit easier of a day to get through.

The bunnies are living indoors in our sunroom for the duration of this cold spell. They can withstand cold, but I would leave them out there in these temps, especially with the wind.

Hagrid has dirty feet.

Sunoom/sewing room/library/bunny and cat romper room
See the bunny?

They do seem to love their outdoor living quarters though. I blocked the underside of their hutch in with straw and laid down a deep bed of it on the ground. They have a nice little burrow going under there.
The chickens seem to be fairing well even with these temps. We have a light up in the coop which keeps it a bit warmer. They have also been getting lots of extra table scraps to help fatten them up and keep them warm. Red, our rooster also gets special vaseline treatments to his comb and waddle to help ward off frostbite (been there and done that with our first rooster, Buffy).

Post

Well, Earls apartment is offically ALMOST done. I didn't take any pictures while we were there yesterday, mostly because I am so over it. I think the black footprints that got tracked on the new rug I just installed and the green stain on the new vinyl in the middle of the bathroom floor pushed me over the edge. Anyways, the new tenant is in, and believe it or not she has expressed some interest in maybe purchasing the apartment house. I certainly don't have my hopes up though. In other EXCELLENT apartment house news, it seems one of the boilers has died and the upstairs apartment is only getting heat in the front half. SUPER.

I had my doctors appointment the other day. I feel like I have been there every week for the last month. They removed more skin around a mole that had a bad biopsy. They also took a third mole off my back. The big one.

We got a lot of snow last weekend and I am already ready for it to all melt. Our wood pile is looking dismal, and my latest call to buy more dry wood turned up empty handed. I am getting worried. It has been all over the news up here that everyone is out of seasoned firewood. We only have enough to get us through a couple more weeks if we are lucky. The bunnies waterbottles are freezing up. I have to dethaw once in the morning and once at night. The chickens haven't come out of the coop all week. They have stopped laying as well so I put the light back up in the coop in hopes to get them going. I had to buy eggs at the store the other day. Something I haven't had to do in over a year. Once you have fresh eggs the grocery store eggs just seem and look so wrong. Today I get to spend cleaning house. It has been so neglected due to our weekly trips out to Bath. Its bad. Really bad.

Eye-yei-yei

Just a quick post... I have lots of updating to do on here, but have not been feeling well for the last week or so and now I am having some eye issues. My lower right eye lid has become swollen and super super sore. I am taking my first sick day tomorrow and would have liked to have had all of today off as well but I am in the middle of Positive Behavior Systems training. I will update soon regarding bunnies, vegetables, shiny things, work stuff,second jobs, and whatever else I can remember to post when I am feeling better. I have a doctors appt tomorrow.

Walls and Breathing

Here is a crappy picture of the progress of the walls so far. You can see the new paint color,,,, yes it is orange, pumpkin toast. There would have been more progress on the walls had Tony not started losing the abililty to breathe. After sanding them down he started wheezing, which that in itself isnt so abnormal. The bad part was that it lasted into the next day and started to get worse. I took him to the ER yesterday. He was given a breathing treatment, told he has a virus and bronchial spasms or something along those lines. They sent him home with an inhaler that he has to take every 4 hours for a week and basically said it is something he has to live with.

On another note yesterday morning I was sitting at the computer and look out the window to see a moose in the backyard between the house and the pond. It was the first moose sighting on our property.

Growing Seedlings, Growing kittens, and Growing a Rash

The seedlings are doing well. So far the side vegetable garden has some onions or scallions (dunno, there were there when we moved in), rhubarb, snap peas, sugar peas, spinach, and a bean trio planted.

Indoors we have roma and beefsteak tomatoes, more peas, carrots, lettuce, lemon cucumbers, summer squash, sweet peas, lavender, flax, basil, potatoes, onions, and parseley.

tomatoes

peas &carrots

lettuce & cucumbers

onions, potatoes, parsely and flax

new sweet peas i am excited about

I started turning over the soil in the back garden (still no rototiller) and oh my! that dirt sucks and is packed full of roots. So, i will be pushing lots of wheelbarrow loads of my compost back there.

The kittens are growing fast. They are getting around really well, learning to run and pounce. There is lots of wrestling and some of them come running when you call them. Nora has moved them back downstairs and they move too much to get any good pictures. PLUS, my camera is a mass murderer when it comes batteries. I mean it eats two batteries every two days. I would say maybe about an hour at most of the camera being on and the batteries are dead. This can't be normal can it?????

lil doobie

Speaking of not being normal, this is my arm.

It happens almost every week and is a result of cleaning fish tanks. No matter what i do to avoid it, some coral always stings me, my arm swells up and itches, then the swelling goes away and I am left with these itchy scab-y rashes. Just another reason to get out of this business.

I mey b dmaged

Study link migraines to possible brain damage.

Free Healthcare Sucks

I spent 6 hours at First Care Emergency room yesterday. I have had a headache for 2 weeks accompanied by eye pain, floaters in my right eye, and ear pain. Two days ago my vision in my right eye started to be horrible and i felt like major kaka, so I went into get checked out yesterday. It took 6 hours. They freaked me out like I had a tumor or something, gave me blood tests, urine tests, and CAT scans and then made me wait in my room made of curtains. Curtains do not block the sounds of your neighboring rooms like real walls might. I got to lister as the doctor told my old man neighbor that he was going to be given a rectal exam, and I was there to hear him say, bring your knees up a little further. I got to lay in that damn bed with my head feeling like it was going to explode from pain as a little girl that got her hand caught in a treadmill screamed. I heard the guy talk about how something fell on his head and he lost feeling in his arms. Then as I was waiting for my CAT scan, I got to talk to a really nice woman who had just had a historectomy cause they thought she had cancer, which it wasn't and she was all set to go home, then got really sick and now they think they might have abrupted her intestines or colon. And i got to sit with her as the nurse tortured her trying to get an iv in her arm. Anyways, i dont have a tumor, its just migranes

On the me front

On the Node Front-
Well today should be the day I get my blood tests back. These are the ones that tested me for cat scratch fever, rabbit fever (nothing having to do with my doggie bunnies so shut up), and toxoplasmosis ghandi ( not the good ghandi either). I starting to bank on all negative results which will leave me even more frustruated. I have been researching fish handlers disease, mycobacterium, and may request a Tuberculosis (and no its not really TB)test to see if that is possible. Then at least I would have a great excuse to get out of the damn fish business world all togther......which speaking of........
On the Store Front-


I sold the contents of my store to Aquatics back in September, so why the f is my store still loaded with shit of theirs. I am poor and have no money to pay rent for you Aquatics, so show me the money on lets get to stepping (eh,,, word yo?). The place is seriously messier and more packed now than when it was a functioning store. Here are some pics of it just before it's final days. I will post some current pics soon, seeing as I have to go there 2-3 times a week still, ugh.

On the Get Your Ass to Work and Go to School and Get a Real Job Front-
I go through the job listings every day at servingschools.com . I print out the ones I want to apply for, most ed tech positions for now. But it all comes down to letters of reference or reccommendation or whatever the hell they are. I need 3 of them and I can't find 3 people to do it. Do i suck that bad that i don't know anyone to write a letter to reccommend me. No one will even lie and just tyoe it up. I have 2 from past teachers, but they are specific to a marine biology position that I had planned on applying for back in August. So someone help me out here. I also need to send my offical transcript and Praxis exam results to the Dept of Ed so that they can tell me what classes I need to take. But I need $150 beans to do it. I am trying my best to scrape up that money this week, cause I fear if i don't do it soon, I won;t get any infor back in time for spring semester. Everything costs money and I have none. My medical bills are creeping up close to $1500 now, I have lawyer bills from my first hellride of a business, school loans for life, credit card debt that makes me angry, and lets not forget parental loans (hi dad, that moneys coming soon). So you see, I just need a job.

Healing

October 30th-
My arm is healing up nicely. The nodes are still swollen and hard, but no where near what they were. I have been taking daily pics of the wound so that i can make a kind of flipbook slide show type thing showing it healing, like time lapse i guess. Is that normal?

Warning, Grossness

I'll type later

Node Now

Here is right now, post surgery.

Infected

Here is a better picture showing how infected it was.

the saga continues

October 24th -
Well we are reaching the one month mark of this swollen lymphnode business, so today I went into Maine Medical Hospital to have it cut open and drained. It was actually a lot more painful of a procedure than I think I was expecting. I took a couple codenes prior to it, but didn't think to bring more pills with me. The ride home became very uncomfortable. It was a strong , sharp burning sensation. Guess that could be attributed to the open laceration they left on my arm. It needs to be left open to continue to drain. Anyways, I am all drugged up now and feeling okay. Thought I would put up a few before photos. I will add more later.

There is something wrong with me!

They told me I have mono.

Now they think there is something else wrong with me. All i know is there is an alien pod growing in my elbow and my armpit and if the damn doctors don't fix me soon, I will have a baby alien explode out of my arm.