mixed bag...itchy and blurry and annoying and stupid

Hubby is due home this afternoon and I'm playing catch-up with the mess I've made around here. Truth be told, I needed to do the mundane crap that accumulates all too fast anyway. It's been a very quiet few days. Since Roger hasn't had to travel much in these past few years, I forgot how strange it is to be here alone. Well, James and Bob are around in the evening but it's a long day up here in a very secluded spot. I tend to really light up the place. Flood lights outside-multiple lights on inside that I normally never turn on. Bright...very bright. The paranoid in me wants to see what's coming to get me. Funny thing is that by the second day or so, I've made some kind of internal peace with it and by that time normal life resumes. James and I tried to have a bite to eat before he went off on his evenings with friends. It wound up being bagels and a salad for me. I had plenty of leftovers for Bob so cooking was minimal. All of this left me time to actually finish some things on the sewing burner. Feels good to get going again.

I have been experiencing some interesting and annoying side effects from a medicine I have to take. One of the things it itching. My dose was increased during the past year and over time I have this horrible itching in my hands mostly but some days it feels itchy on my arms and torso as well. I found some stuff by Eucerin called calming cream and it works for a while but since my hands are in water all the time it's a pain to constantly re-apply. Maybe gloves(ugh) are called for. The medicine also began to affect my eyesight in small ways over the past couple of years. I have some real trouble with focusing. It causes me to have to really struggle to put things into focus. It makes me very unsure and tentative in moving around. There is nothing I can do about this-I have to take the stuff. So, I've become slow and deliberate where I used to be a little dynamo walking and moving around. It affects my driving only in my ability to read signs-I get completely overwhelmed and so I just don't go anywhere except places around here I'm very familiar with. Getting old really sucks big time! Anyway, if you're out and about and you see a woman scratching, and crashing into stuff...slowly & deliberately...don't wave at me...it'll throw me into a panic(kidding). I would take Benadryl more often but then I'd be sleepy and itchy as well and that's one too many of the 7 dwarfs for me.

Today, for your viewing enjoyment, I show a couple things I've been finishing and two things that are stupid and annoying as well as a shot of what I look like while I'm itching. I leave you with 2 of my favorite cartoon characters( Pinky & the Brain) and two of my least favorite cartoon characters, Dumb & Dumber.

and now for something completely different

This morning Roger took off for Albany for 4 days. I have about a million things I would like to accomplish. Many of those things are to do with the holiday that swiftly approaches whose name I refuse to utter until Thanksgiving is over. I kinda feel like this guy. Every year the commercialism starts earlier and earlier. To me, it takes a lot of enjoyment out of the holiday which I will not mention yet. It sort of reminds me of when I worked in retail. By the time the holiday came all I wanted to do was hide in the closet and never see another decoration or hear another carol associated with the holiday which I will not mention yet.

That said, I have a thing I want to do that I must begin today or I will not finish in time. Can't say too much because members of the family(hi honey) read this from time to time. I recently heard some grumbling regarding my leaving the picture of the yummy Gordon Ramsay up too long. Let me just say one thing about that to the person in question...Telemundo!!!!

So I'm off to gather supplies and food and do various errands so that the next few days can be focused on important gift-giving type stuff. Someday I really will get back to the quiltmaking and show & tell. Can't remember if I showed these little baskets before.

The little houses are a gift for our friend who collects holiday houses and decorates her whole house with them. It really looks pretty and I think she will enjoy these as well.

That's it for now-hope your day is sweet and jingle-free.

For those who asked about Gordon Ramsay-here, he has his program, Kitchen Nightmares, on Wed. night at 8 on Fox network. I don't know if that translates to the same in different parts of the country. I understand that this weeks episode is the one they filmed in the too too posh Hamptons in a family-run Irish Pub that is famous here on the Island. I've never been there but I've seen it mentioned in the news several times. Can't wait to see what he does with the place.