I don't know if it was because of all the work I did last week (nearly 40hrs!!! and I'm part-time and there was a holiday in the week!!!), or because I'm tired of waiting on Summer, or because I'm not looking forward to a doctor visit, or because Jim egged me into it; but,

Thankfully, the color never turns out to look like it does when it's first put on; otherwise, my regular Light Ashe Blonde would have turned my hair purple. This only looked this red with the flash. Actually it was quite peach-y looking.

Rinsed out and checking out the NEW color!

When I chat with my mom through Yahoo Messenger, she frequently uses the icon to represent herself and the icon representing me (it has something to do with seeing me on the cam with "morning hair" ). MouseOver this webcam picture to see how correct her choice for me really is.

Obviously the red color has leaked down into my brain (I wonder if it'll show up in my next blood tests? LOL), because if you check out these pictures from the next evening, you'll see that I'm just not "quite right".

On my most recent doctor visit, I found out I have a medical condition that explains those odd pictures above,

Well, it's not really me that's a mutant; but it must be the virus in me.
My TCell count only changed by 2, so they're a "whopping" 146. Oddly, the viral load also went up slightly; but still less than 20,000. However, it was another blood test that led to the mutant diagnosis. This other test was designed to test all of the AIDS drugs against my blood to determine which ones would work for me. The surprising results where that there were no results! Only a note that explained that either there was not enough virus in the blood sample to culture enough to run the tests (very unlikely since that usually only happens when the viral load is 100 or less, and that's definitely not my range. LOL) or my strain of HIV had so mutated that their test just couldn't produce any results. My account was credited for the blood test, so we're kinda back to square one. The doctor did advise that I stay more cautious about being around germs, and that I should not work as much for a while. (Like that is going to happen. ROFL I've been threatening to work less every since my birthday back in March. I guess I'm really going to HAVE to slow down a bit now.)

So, I'm off to give blood again tomorrow to see if my counts are still holding, and a different test (sort of the reverse of that no-results test. I've had this one before and got results that led us to drop one med that wasn't working any longer).

My doctor and I are both clearly stumped now on why I don't get much better and aren't already worse; but I for one am happy as heck about it all. I'm just going to keep on popping all those pills, hoping for Summer, staying away from as many germs as possible, working in my yard, and trying to enjoy as much as possible.

To celebrate nothing really changing in my condition, I picked up this cute little plant stand for my front porch. (It's been so cold and rainy here lately, I probably should have brought my poor little plants inside a couple of nights!)
MouseOver to see just how cute it is!

It's just rainy and icky here in Ohio, and I've been working toooo damned much. Although my doctor told me I should slow down a bit, I've busted my butt at the Ford store this past week. Maybe next week I'll take some extra time off.

I took a couple of days off; but I sure didn't end up resting any. I finished cutting the other half of my shrubs (there was a rain delay of about a week LOL); I cleaned, drained and re-filled my fountain; I did a ton of laundry; and we started getting the pool ready!

After scrubbing the deck and inspecting the pool liner, Jim decided that he would just replace the liner - here was a gash on one side and some mildew that we were not able to remove.
It really wasn't too hard putting in the new liner. We prepped the bottom, and scrubbed the sidewall, and luckily, we opened up the folded liner with it's seam pretty close to the right spot.
As you can see from the pictures below, we didn't waste anytime getting into the pool. The water only reached a few inches before we had half the floats cleaned, back in the pool, and were trying them out. ROFL
Staying on a float in even a little bit of water is harder than it looks! It's much easier to just sit on the floats and smile for the camera.
A sure sign of summer - mIkIE in his Speedo!
Cowabunga, Dude!
	Jim debates on if he can ride the "un-rideable" Dolphin Lungren. MouseOver to see who wins the contest. My bet's on Dolph!
Even though Dolph won, Jim looks good on the boogie-board! MouseOver to see Jim riding the waves. Surf's Up!!

The last few days of Spring have been pretty dang cold, up here in Ohio. Although the pool is nearly filled, we'll still need a couple of really warm days before the water temperature is up high enough to take a dip. Of course, that didn't stop Jim. LOL While I only dipped my feet in and floated around in Gilligan's Island (), Jim has already gone in the water, and gotten numb. ROFL

Until the water, and the air temperature, warms up, Jim and I are spending our time clearing out some of the greenery surrounding the pool (I got to climb up really high, and chop down a tree. WooHoo! ) and playing tennis. Yes, I said tennis. Although it's been over 15 years, we've been out on the courts a couple of times now. For a couple of old guys, I don't think we're too, too bad.

Stay tuned for some pictures of the tree we took down, and cross you fingers that I get another project finished - POOL CAM!!!