Recently in Pictures Category

I posted back on April 16th on my other blog, how Mark accidentally broke the handle off of the bathroom faucet, it was an old faucet, really has probably been in this duplex since the house was built in the 70's, but looking at it day after day is starting to get on my nerves.















I have not told the landlord yet, I know that I should, but I hate bothering him.
It's not because he's a mean landlord or a jerk or anything, it's just he works 6 days a week as a sheriff, and he only gets one day off per week to spend with his wife and two young kids.
I think they aren't much older than 9 or 10.
And it's really not that hard to install a new faucet, just shut off the water, unscrew the old one, screw on the new one and use some plumbers' tape, and turn the water back on.
It's literally like a 20 minute job at the max, but I don't want to bother him on his one day off a week.
He is still working on the empty unit next door, they trashed it so bad in there, it's been over 7 months, and it's still not clean enough to start showing it to new tenants.
 
Anyway, I think I'm just going to go find a nice new faucet, like a nice but reasonably priced  Kohler faucets, and install it myself, or help the teens, or maybe even ask Dustin to come help me, because it would require me getting down on my knees under the sink, and shutting off the water, and doing some other work under the sink with the plumbers' tape and stuff.
I think I'm just gonna go check out the faucet selection at the hardware store, see if they have anything on clearance, and then just do it.
I just hate the idea of making my landlord do more work when he only gets 1 day off and still has the unit next door to do.
I feel guilty asking him to fix stuff, especially small stuff like this that I can fix myself.
Just buy the parts, do it, and give him the receipts, and he takes it off of the rent.
He never complains about me doing that, and he actually has thanked me several times for just doing it myself.

Sorry, I just don't see it.
I logged into Myspace a couple days ago, and had 3 messages from 3 different guys.
Each one of them said I reminded them of Meg Ryan.
I really don't see the resemblance at all.
Here's one of the messages;
"Has anyone ever told you that you look similar to Meg Ryan , who I think is they sexiest woman alive ... I had just ran across the picture of yours and thought I would let you know."

The picture of me is the exact picture I use as my main profile pic on Myspace, so that is the one they are seeing to make the comments.
I honestly do not think I look like her.
At all.
Don't get me wrong, I think Meg Ryan is beautiful in these pics, not so much anymore since she had all that plastic surgery and has major fish lips now, but I just don't see how people can think I look like her.

I'll take it as the compliment it was intended as, but I still don't see it.

I've been going through every box, bag, and piece of luggage that contains all of my pictures, every single picture of everything ever taken, and it's amazing just how many places I put pictures.
I never put them all in the same place.
Why do I do that?!
I'm so freaking un-organized!

But I have to get them all, find them all, and go through every single one to find the most awesome pictures of the boys to use for the picture project that Christine and I are doing for the boys scrapbooks.
I'm really trying to get organized in my whole life, not just for this project, but every area of my life.
I want my home to be totally organized, I wish I could hire one of those organizer people, the ones who just know how to do it all so well, that once they get done organizing your home, you see how so very simple it all is and that you may have been able to do this all along if only you had known how.
I want to learn that, I want to learn how to be perfectly organized.
Like Bree from Desperate Housewives, I want to be anally organized in my home and life.

I'm posting this over here because even though the teens know I have this blog, they don't know the url off of the top of their heads even though it's my name.

Anyway, they are trying to make me fall in love with the cat, Carmine the lover kitty, by telling me every 10 minutes how awesome he is, how loving he is, how cute and well behaved he is, and taking a lot of pictures with my camera of Carmine the lover kitty.

I keep it on the table that is right next to my desk, but because of how I sit, it's always right in front of me.
I looked over a little bit ago and my camera wasn't there so I asked for it back.
When they gave it back, they said they took some pictures and I should look at them.
I figured they took just a few pictures, but no, they had filled up quite a good chunk of my micro sd card.
The way I have it set up, it takes pictures at 640x480, and it can hold 7,785 pictures.
They took 293 pictures of the cat.
Pictures of Carmine laying on Mark's bed, sleeping on Kali's spot, sleeping on my bed, eating cat food, drinking some water, sniffing Nova's butt, using the litter box, and all kinds of other crazy and totally mundane things that cats do.

They have fallen in love with him in just the few days that he has been here, and they want me to fall in love with him too.
Mark especially.
When we first moved here, we got 2 cats, Kali and her brother Mufasa.
Mark was only 6 years old, The Lion King was his favorite movie of the time, and Kali's brother kitten looked like Mufasa.
A light color orange tabby with big fluffy long fur, a huge sweeping and fluffy tail, and so Mufasa was his name.
Just a few years later, when Mark was 10, Mufasa escaped out an open window after having torn a hole in the screen, and was hit by a car and killed.
Carmine reminds him of Mufasa he says, his coloring, his long fluffy fur, his mannerisms, and Mark is right, this cat is so much like how Mufasa behaved.
Both are lovers, love to be held, hugged, cuddled, pet, snuggled with, love to have their butts gently smacked to get that elevator butt thing going on.
Both love people food, cat food, playful, and sweet.

Every time Mark looks at Carmine, he gets this look on his face of great sadness yet great joy at the same time.
He was all teary-eyed this evening while we were watching a movie after dinner, and I looked over at him laying on the couch with Carmine laying on him, nose snuggled right up against Mark's chin, one paw outstretched across Mark's chest like he was giving him a hug, and Mark looked over at me, a tear sliding down his right cheek, and he said, "Mom, he's so much like my Mufasa, I love him for that. I know we are looking for his owner, if we find them we have to give him back, but Mom, I really hope we don't find them, I love this cat.
He sleeps with me like Mufasa did, he licks my face like Mufasa did, right under my chin, his face is the same, he hugs me Mom, he wraps his paws around my neck at night and hugs me like Mufasa did", and then he broke down in tears.

He was laying on the couch, giant tears rolling down his cheeks, hugging tightly on this cat who reminds him of his beloved Mufasa who was his best friend for 4 years.
He was just weeping and I felt so bad for him, the loss of Mufasa was so devastating for him.
Mufasa was his best friend, he played with that cat every day, laying on his stomach on the floor playing with his Batman action figures, and Mufasa would be laying right there watching him play, meowing like he was part of the imaginary action, he'd knock over the action figures that took Mark time to make stand up, and I'd hear Mark say things like "Mufasa! Stop that, it's not time for Mr. Freeze to get his butt kicked by Batman yet, you have to wait till I say so!"
He talked like that cat could understand him, like the cat was actually playing along with him.
Mufasa was his whole world and the morning he died, Mark crumpled into a sobbing mess under the carport when the cat's body was brought to us by our old roommates at the time.
He was so distraught, he couldn't go to school that morning, he just cried and cried all day.
My sister had to come over and promise him that Mufasa was going to be taken to the vet and buried in the pretty cemetery near the little pond with all of the flowers around him.

Carmine reminds him of Mufasa in so many ways, and he is absolutely head over heels in love with this cat.
Had I known that this would be the effect of taking in this stray temporarily, I don't know if I would have done it.
If and when we find his owners, it's going to break Mark's heart to hand him over.
I'm not quite sure how to handle this situation.
I know Mark will get over it, that he will deal with it, but seeing him cry so much tonight broke my heart, and I don't know how either of us are going to deal with it when and if we find the owners.

I was digging around in my phone's pictures, and I found this pic I took of myself in the hospital.
That's the first brace I had right after surgery.
It was so uncomfortable and painful to wear, even though I was laying in bed the whole time with a pain pump.
And it smelled funny.
Not funny good, but funny gross.
I actually got nauseous a few times when I caught a whiff of it.
The nurses would come in and give me a bath with this awesome smelling body wash, and my whole body would smell really nice, and then just like 5 minutes later, I'd catch a whiff of the brace, either the plastic parts of it or the padding parts, but something on that brace just really stunk badly.
So between how it smelled and how painful it was on my chest, they switched me to another type of brace.

You can see how swollen my face was too.
My left eye was swollen and black and blue underneath, my left cheek was swollen, my top lip was swollen, basically, my whole face and neck were swollen up.
I also had that bandage on the side of my head from the bolt holes where they bolted me to the table for the surgery.

Just thinking about having to go through that again makes me kind of ill. 

Barack Obama will be here in Sarasota on Thursday October 30th 2008, at Ed Smith Stadium.
Gates open at 9am, and event begins at 11am.
My sister is wanting to go and asked me if I'd want to go, if I think I can physically handle the lines, all of the standing etc.
I honestly don't know if my body can handle it, but wow, it would be pretty amazing to go see and hear him speak.

I was involved in politics a little bit when I lived in Maine, to help change and enact some different child support laws, like taking away licenses for hunting, fishing, and driving, jail time for deadbeat parents, and stuff like that.
I had 2 meetings with then governor, Angus King, to talk about those child support laws, and other issues affecting single parents in the state.
Governor King was a very nice man, a good listener, and he asked a lot of questions about how life was for single parents in the state, the child support laws, what we'd like to see happen, and many more questions.
I was chosen to go and meet him to discuss those issues, because the daycare center I had my kids enrolled in was on the chopping block to lose some of their state funding due to statewide budget cuts.
The daycare's administrators asked for a mom willing to travel with them and try to help convince the governor to not slash funding to daycare centers because of how many single parents would be affected, might not be able to afford another center, and eventually lose their jobs because of the trickle down effect of losing child care, and I gladly agreed to go.
I was barely getting any child support back then, finding affordable daycare was very difficult, and if your kid got sick, employers weren't so patient when you needed a few days off because the day cares all said no sick kids could come in.
Things were hard for me and the other 40 some-odd parents who had our kids enrolled there.

Our first meeting with Governor King went so well, he invited us back to a much larger meeting to discuss it again, and other issues too, with some other lawmakers from the state.
I gladly went to both of those meetings, and within a year, child support laws in the state did get changed, and our daycare center did not lose any of it's funding.
I'm quite proud of the fact that I helped change some of those laws in Maine.
Now if only the laws for interstate child support cases could be changed to help speed up the process so parents aren't waiting almost 2 years for a 10 minute telephone hearing.

But anyway, about the campaign rally on Thursday, I've never been to a rally, it would be really exciting and interesting to go and see him, be a part of it.
I'm going to do my best to get plenty of rest and hopefully, sleep, on Wednesday night, so I'll be able to go with my sister.
I may have to bring my cane so I can lean on it when my body starts getting tired, but I really think I can do it, and this would be cool to go and be part of.

I love taking pictures, I'm ok at it, not great, not nearly as good as this chick is, but I still love to take pictures.
I take my little Sony Cybershot with me practically everywhere I go, just in case I see something cool to take a picture of.
I would love to get a really nice camera someday, not saying mine isn't nice or that it doesn't take good pictures, it does, but I'd love to have like a really nice Nikon someday.

So I went in search of Nikon cameras and found this one which has a great rating, and also found this one which has an awesome rating, but wow, that's a lot of money.
And I also found this one because that's the one that Robyn is now using for her picture taking business.
Most of those super nice Nikons are expensive, like way too much for me to ever dream of buying, and they don't even come with a lens, you have to buy those separately. *blink*
But I kept searching for nice cameras, I was just using the term "Nikon" in Google, and I found Nikon rifle scopes,
They make rifle scopes?
Yuppers, they sure do.
Now those I could afford, but you can't exactly attach a rifle scope to a camera.
I'll just have to keep saving my pennies, or maybe with next year's tax return, I could afford to buy the D70 or something.

We don't get "fall" here, we don't really get winter or spring either.
Fall consists of it being hot, but not August summer hot.
Winter is warm, about 70 every day, and spring is warm to hot.
Summer is just hot, hot, hot.
So I don't get to see the seasons changing in person, I don't get to see the beautiful spring flowers bloom, I don't get to see the first snow, or the blizzards that cover the back porch in person anymore, since leaving Maine 11 years ago.

But my mom sends me pictures all of the time of their yard, and from their fenced in and full of plants and trees back yard, I am now getting to see the beauty of the fall colors.



















The greens, yellows, and fire red colored  leaves, taking over the whole property. It starts off slowly, and in a few weeks, this whole yard will just be nothing but the beautiful colors of the fall leaves.




















Thanks mom for sending these to me.
I can pretend that it's really fall here while my ac cranks out the cool air, because it's still 81 degrees here.

I want to show you all some photographs from a girl I know from the local forums, her name is Ashley Bates.
Remember that name, she's going to be a famous photographer someday, I just have a feeling about that.
I simply love and adore her pictures, each one is a piece of art, so much thought and detail in each one, love them.
She goes by a few names on line, A.Bates on the local forums, Lady Bates on her ModelMayhem portfolio, mostly just abates though.

She works with all kinds of models, but mostly the non-catalog variety of girls.
The kind of girls who have tattoos and oddly colored hair, they dress differently etc.
She gets her models into some really unique outfits, hairstyles, makeup, and poses.
(I hope you click on all of the links in this post!)
But anyway, she does some really interesting yet beautiful shots, and some of them, I have to wonder if the models should have gotten a health insurance quote before going to the shoots.
Ya know, just in case there are knives involved.

This is one of my absolute favorites.
The model's name is Chelsey Darling, she is absolutely gorgeous in my opinion, and she takes some really beautiful and interesting photographs for a whole bunch of different photographers. (but Ash is the best)
It is clickable for bigger, and please don't repost without credit to Ash, (post her name, A. Bates, link to her profile please) do not remove her mark either. I've notified her that I've done a post about her, used a picture, and gave her full credit for her work.
 
Please respect any artist's work that you may post on your sites.
It's very important that credit is always given because of things like the Orphan Works Act.
If we always give credit and link to the artist's site when using an image, there will be no way that someone can claim they couldn't find the artist, and therefore they have the right to use copyrighted material without permission, basically stealing it, and the artist would have to search a notice of use archive for their works, and then prove it's theirs and they own the copyright. It's totally not fair to any artist be it a photographer, a painter, sketch artist, whatever kind of artist.
The senate should be ashamed of themselves for passing this.

But I digress..




































I don't know exactly what it is about this picture, but I just love it.
I know that alley too, it's over near Janus Landing in St. Pete. They have concerts there all the time. I've been to just a couple of shows there.
Ooops, off subject again!
But this photo, just draws me in.
I love the darkness of it, her pose, the way the light hits her face just right, and her expression.
It's a dark, gloomy, and slightly scary place, yet she's happy.
Her face is beautiful, flawless, and no matter the situation in this picture, she's still happy.
It makes me smile when I look at it.
Maybe that's what "it is" about this one.
It makes me smile.

My sister came over today with my niece Skye, and they brought us lunch from Boston Market.
Then she took Sebastian to Publix to get some more food and other items that they forgot when he and Mark went the other day.
I had her pick up the Glad Press n' Seal stuff  (yes, the plastic wrap for food, sticks to the skin and makes a water proof seal around wounds that need to stay dry) so that I can take a full shower and not get my sutures wet, and also some hair elastics so after she raked through the matted hair, she could braid it.
I didn't have any more of them in my basket because I always do the girls hair when they come over.

Then the hair hell began.
My sister has a considerable amount of patience and she tried so hard to not pull my hair and hurt me, but the hair was just so matted that no amount of gentleness could stop the pulling and pain.
Here's what ended up coming out, it's a lot of hair, it's all tangled and matted, there was absolutely no getting a brush, comb, or pick through it, so we did the only thing we could do.
We cut it out.

























































After we got all of the knots and matted clumps out, I wiped away my tears, and got a grip on myself, and she then braided my hair for me so that this won't happen again during the long recovery process.
At least once a week from now on, the hair will have to be unbraided, combed through with heavy conditioner, and then braided again.
 




















I look awful.
I had just spent nearly 2 hours getting my hair fixed, I cried a lot because it seriously hurt.
My eyes are all red, I have huge dark circles under my eyes, just ugly looking.
My hair had been in a ponytail since the 8th, had not been washed, conditioned, or brushed since that day.
It was a huge huge mess, and even after soaking it in de-frizz serum, Infusium, and half a bottle of conditioner all at the same time, that big huge matted section could not be combed or picked through, it was excruciating pain, every hair felt like it was being ripped out by the roots.
My scalp is raw, I'm surprised it's not bleeding from having all those hairs pulled on.
My sister tried to work through it, she really did, but I couldn't take the pain anymore and told her to just grab the scissors and just cut it out.
Hell, my surgeon's team had already shaved parts of my head, cut other areas, I knew I was going to lose some hair, so cutting it out was the only thing I could do for now.
Once I'm healed up a bit better, I'm going to have to go to a salon and get it all cut and evened out and stuff, and also get a pedicure.
 
My feet are a huge mess as well, but we can't just cut the toes off now can we?
It will be the usual embarrassment, the little Korean ladies will talk about my gnarly toenails and my rough heels in their native language, as they try to make my poor battered feet look more human-like and less disgusting looking.
The girl doing my feet will say something, and then the other ladies will find some kind of reason to come and walk by her station and take a glance at my feet, say something in Korean, and I know it's not nice stuff, it never is.
I may not understand the language, but disgusted and grossed out are a universal emotion that is easily recognized in facial expressions.
I have not been able to bend over and care for my feet on my own in just about 3 years now.
Having titanium rods running the full length of your spine makes taking care of your own feet damn near impossible to do.
I really wish I could find a mani/pedi place close to home and my local shopping places where at least one of the people speaks English so that when I explain why my feet are so bad, they'll understand me.
I try to explain it to the Korean girls, but they just don't understand words like spine fusion, titanium rods, no bending at all, impossible to take care of my own feet, sorry they look so bad but I tip really well for all of your troubles and good work making them look nice.


I really appreciate my sis helping me today.
My hair was an absolute disaster and every single night of sleeping and naps, just made it worse and worse.
I can only lay on my back, so the hair was just getting more and more matted.
I feel a lot better now, it's fixed, it feels better, it will be less hot, less of a pain in the ass, and way less embarrassing when the nurses and friends come over to see me.

Now I'm off to find something to eat and then lay down on the couch and watch tv for awhile I guess.
Later days.

Well there it is, my new scar line.
It's pretty big and badass looking, it goes all the way up into my hair line which you can see to the far left of it all.

My skin heals incredibly fast as you can't even see the remnants of my scar from my AP spine fusion from February 2006 any more.
It's not visible at all on my back, so I know that this scar line will heal up just as nicely as that one did.
I have one minor complaint, but as I've been reminded, I'm alive, that's more important.

The details of the fusion now go like this; I am permanently fused from C1-S1, that is the full length of the spine, there is no space at all, top to bottom, what the fuck else can go wrong with my spine?
Not fucking much I would think.
I'm like the terminator in there now, all fucking titanium but absolutely no power.

Weak, human, powerless to do anything about anything.
While I have my small moments of self pity, tears, feeling all shitty for myself, I was reminded that I'm a mother and that I'm alive, I'm here and I need to stop feeling all shitty for myself.
Indeed.
Mother is the word for god in the hearts and on the lips of children.
I need to remember to do my crying in private, it's still all too much for them to handle.

The lab only took 2 vials of blood, which I was surprised about, the primary doc's PA, said they were going to take 8.
The guy only took 2, so I questioned him about that, he said they did not need 8, only 2 for the amount of tests she checked off on the lab work-up sheet, and oh by the way, pee in this cup.
So the blood draw was quick, not feeling faint or weak at all, then I went and peed in the cup, and they had those alcohol wipes in the bathroom for patients to use to clean and sterilize their pee-holes before peeing in the cup, and they had the ones that smell good.
No, no, I'm not weird, honestly, there are certain alcohol wipes that smell not much like alcohol, but more like a lemony candy sugar mixed with alcohol smell.
I love those ones!

Then I came home and ate my chocolate donut that was ever so patiently waiting for me in the fridge.
Actually, I ate 2, my bad, but I was hungry dammit!
Then I went out to the kitchen and cleaned out the microwave.
I ran that bowl of soapy water in the microwave for an hour the first time, then changed out the water and added a dash more dish soap, and ran it again for another 30 minutes, so when I came home and got to cleaning it, all the nukified on crud was liquefied, and just wiped right out.
Now, if cleaning the whole house were as easy as that.
I actually want to get (at some point) one of those little hand-held home steam cleaners, you know what I'm talking about?
I want one of these Scunci ones.
It's a small, portable, home steam cleaner for doing grout and tiles, the toilet bowl ickies, the baked on crud on the stove top, it would make cleaning the microwave even easier man.
Want, maybe that will be my xmas present to myself. (?)

Oh yeah, I finally got Twitpic all figured out, that is my actual link, but I finally figured out how to get the image info to post with the pic.
All of my failed attempts are viewable in the Twitpic badge in the sidebar over there.
On most of them, it's just the pic, but the last one that says "Sunset", yuppers, I got it to post the name of the pic.
I was putting that info in the body section of the text message, it needed to be added to the title.
I'm basically blogging how I did it so that I don't forget it.
Take the pic, label it, then address the text message to go to my Twitpic email addy, then click on the more button (left) and choose insert subject, as much info as I want to write, and then click send.
Twitpic completely ignores everything in the body section of the text message, so that's why the names of my pics weren't showing up on my page or in my sidebar badge, or on the public Twitpic/Twitter time lines.
Just the links to the images were showing with no info.
I was totally frustrated with it, and about to give up on yet another pic to post service.

See, for my last surgery, I used Flickr to post pics and blog by phone to post on my blog, but Flickr stopped working for me, just stopped, will not work from my phone at all, but it will post the test thingy from the website only.
Christine then suggested I try Utterz, so I tried to set it up for this blog, but it refused to accept my xmlrc stuff, so I tried to set it up for MSML, and it was going, it was accepting, but then it came back and said that my blog was pornography.
No, I'm dead serious!
See?!? Click that for bigger!

There is absolutely no porn on My Single Mom Life, but ya know what?
I don't feel like contacting Utterz and asking what the hell reason they have for stating my blog about being a single mom, talking about teenagers and new hair in armpits, qualifies it as pornography.
I just don't have the fight in me today.

I still haven't slept, no lay down and rest either.
This afternoon has been a busy one of sitting here trying to write this post since 12:20 this afternoon, but it's been one thing after another.
Emails non-stop, messages, questions, comments coming in, Entrecard people wanting to advertise their so completely not relevant sites on my single mommy blog.
My plan was to figure out Twitpic, which I did, make this blog post which I'm still trying to do, and then go wash the dishes that didn't get finished this morning, and then maybe lay down for an hour or so before making dinner.
But now I've had to start another load of laundry, I have a mountain of emails to reply to, messages, posts, comments etc, before I can do anything else.
I'm not mad or anything, I realize I may be coming off as mad, but it's not anger, it's tired...LOL
So anyway, this post that I started writing at 12:20pm, will now finally be published at 2:27pm.
You would think with the amount of time it took, it would be far better quality content in this here post, but eh, I've been awake since 7am yesterday morning.
Ya gets what ya gets.

Holy hell, 6:45am came far too fucking early this morning.
I went to bed around 1am, but didn't fall asleep until like oh, 3:30am.
Yeah, that makes for a very short night of sleep, just like I knew was going to happen to me.
I knew it at like 10am yesterday, even said so in an email to someone.
"I'll be up all night in like full blown panic attack mode."
I woke up Mark at the usual school time of 5:45am, and told him that right before they walk out the door, they need to come in and wake me up.
I knew I was only going to get about an hour more sleep, but I needed it big time.
When they woke me up, I'm pretty sure I started crying.

I have a busy morning today.
I need to get my butt in gear, take a shower, shave everywhere, and head to my pre-surgery physical at 10am.
Then, as quickly as I can possibly get out of her office, I need to rush over to see my pain doc
before he goes out of town again.
He' gone out of town twice in the last 2 weeks, I know doctors do that kind of stuff, but geez, it makes it very difficult to get in to see him when he's out all of the time.

Flickr isn't working with my blogs very well anymore, don't know why, I can't even get it set up right with this particular blog, so I'm going to try using Twitpic while in the hospital to post photos.
I tested it last night, it's not showing any of the text notes I send with the pics, but at least the pics are showing up about 6 or so minutes after I send them in.
If you want to see whatever pics I send in during that week, you'll be able to follow me here,
http://twitpic.com/photos/mskat

Well I suppose I need to get my ass in gear and get going on everything.
Later days.

The neighbors did come back and they hauled all of the crap to the end of the driveway where it now sits in this mountainous pile of moldy, smelly, craptacular heap of junk.
It's embarrassing.
And we've had 3 trash-pickers already.
And I keep cringing because the stuff, it's really junk, it's bad, it smells, the dog pee'd on it, and people are digging through it.
I filmed one of them.
I don't know why, but I filmed a trash picker digging through all of the shit.
I feel sick.

====================

I really should finally, truly, look into some cheap term life insurance for myself.
This isn't healthy folks.
Not at all.
I've been awake since 9am on Wednesday July 30th, 2008.
It is now 7:43am on Thursday July 31st, 2008.
But it is a gorgeous morning folks, the sky was amazing at sunrise.
See?


It was totally beautiful.
I stood out there for about 15 minutes, just watching it slowly come up over the tree line across the street.
It's a truly perfect morning regardless of not getting any sleep at all.
I accomplished a lot last night, so I feel pretty darn good about not getting any sleep.
I was productive! *LOL*

I know it's kind of funny, but if I do have to get the neck fusion surgery, (Yes, it's on my mind a lot because my appointment with my surgeon is on Tuesday) I may actually buy a pack of adult diapers, because I recall laying in my bed when I came home and having to go pee, but first I'd have to put on the back brace, make sure it was on snug and secure, then get my cane, and try to get to the bathroom on time, and sometimes I'd barely make it in there, especially in the middle of the night when the teens weren't awake to help me get the brace on. I don't want to have any accidents or even a close call like last time...LOL Here is that picture I was talking about on My Single Mom Life. We had just moved here, this picture was taken in June 1997, so 11 years ago. It was a few years before the pain in my back got so bad that I had to quit working, but seeing this picture, it stopped me in my tracks. I knew that when I bent over to touch my toes and stuff, that my shoulder/rib hump was clearly visible, but I had no idea that the lower S-curve hump was so visible. june9703.jpg I thought I did a fairly decent job of hiding my scoliosis humps, but I guess not. ====================