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| Week One: |
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Happy New Year and Welcome to 2004!
We're already a week into January and it's off to a bang!
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I'm still enjoying the look, the feel, the smell and the warmth of my Christmas present - a new leather jacket. Except for being used to a couple extra pockets, I find that I just love this jacket. It weights even more than my previous one but the thermal thinsulate lining more than makes up for anything, with the temperature hovering near zero. |
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Of course, since I've been telling you that it's cold up here in Ohio right now, you know that also means the evil white-stuff is around too. You know, SN@W !!!! EEK! I took these pictures at 2AM, with the wind howling and the snow blowing. It was a mini-blizzard for about an hour! (Take a look at the street sign! There's more about that later on.  |
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| Although Christmas has already passed, the Christmas presents are still hanging around. Aries is still chomping on some of the rawhide bones the doggies got at Christmas. |
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Gabby has claimed one of MY gifts as her own. Or so she thinks!  One of the gifts I received from Carolynn (Randy's mom) was a lovely, soft pillow. Although I was able to use it a couple of times, as soon as I left it unattended on the couch, Gabby claimed it. As you can see, she wasn't too happy with me trying to "steal" it back. ROFL |
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| Several years ago, I had a water problem with the line coming into the house. I guess, between the years and the recent extreme cold, my neighbors must have had the same problem. The worst part to having this equipment running in the neighborhood was that they had finally finished over at the school and I thought we were safe from heavy equipment tearing up the area. Hopefully, after this the construction will be over (until they tear down the old school LOL) |
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I turned into a red-head again this week; but I'm going to have to think about a different brand (or color) for next time. I did my hair hoping to look good on a recent outing (see the next section), and I guess I did look good - except for the horrible allergic rash that cropped up all over my body! |
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But I did want to look nice for the arrival of my last Christmas present - a concert by David Bowie! Although we had to go to Cleveland and it was terribly cold (about 5 degrees that
night), Jim and I had a wonderful time and enjoyed the excellent concert. Click the picture below to see even more pictures of the concert (I snuck my camera in and took a bunch of pictures and WASN'T caught by security! LOL) The "GBS" for the month is one of the concert pictures.  |
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Click the picture above to see more pix from the concert! |
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Week Two: |
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I've been working really hard on a project that I started well over a year ago and never finished. I'm hoping to announce a brand new look to my website by my birthday in March. Here's a
sneak-peek picture of what's coming soon!
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BRRRRRR! It's been very, very cold up here in Ohio lately (in single digits for a couple of days!) and now we've got snow on top of that! |
| Here's a couple of pictures of me, all bundled up and ready to brave the cold. |
the man in the mirror |
taken at arm's length |
Oh Gosh! I have some very exciting news!! (and it's temporarily postponed my new site going online!) I am going to have commercials on television! WooHoo!
A local cable company (Massillon Cable network) sells airtime for ads of 30 seconds. Expert Auto Collision (Mark and Tara) decided that it was time to get their business name out to the local area, so I produced a couple of commercials - using
PowerPoint! One may remind you of someone who could come to your rescue, while the second commercial takes you from before an accident to getting back onto the road. I had a little bit of a problem trying to get these files actually onto video tape; but on Friday I delivered the tape to the cable company and starting Monday, our commercials will start airing! WooHoo!
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Click on either commercial
to view a web-based simulation. |
If you have Microsoft PowerPoint 2003, you may like to use these links to download and view the commercials in their original format. If you don't have
PowerPoint, download the free Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer.
Right-Click and choose "Save As".
Instructions are included
in the "ReadMe.txt" file in each zip file.
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Week Three: |
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| The deep freeze of January has really settled in around here. We haven't seen a day over 30 degrees and we got a pile of snow! Actually, we got snow, then freezing rain, then sleet and then some more snow to top it all off. Yeech! |
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| MouseOver this picture to see my icicles up close |
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| Even though it's awfully cold and school has been closed for days, many of us still have to shovel the walks, and un-bury our cars so that we can get to work. I've been worried about my health, and haven't gone out every day; but even when I don't, I can still get to work - virtually! Thanks to the magic of webcams, I still get to "see" Tara and the gang at Expert Auto every day. |
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 | | Tara's husband, Matt, brought Austin out in the cold one day to see Mommy for lunch. |
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MouseOver this picture
and Tara will wave to YOU! |
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Week Four: |
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As some of you know, I haven't been taking my meds very well for a very long time. As a matter of fact, I blew off a doctor's appointment way back in July because I knew that I had been bad about not taking them for a while. Well, before everything goes to hell in a hand basket, I screwed up my courage and went back to the doctor. My counts hadn't magically improved from the last time, so they were still terrible (T-Cells 69; VL 200,000).
After chatting with me for some time about what meds I hated, which ones I like, and why I have such a hard time staying on the regime, the doctor has decided to start me up on a NEW regime of meds. With some luck, this batch should be easier to take than anything I've been given so far. As soon as I get the paperwork side worked out (more minor problems with Human Services), I'll be taking about 6 pills in the morning and 1 at dinner. This plan doesn't sound too bad at all. It's like I told the doctor, this means that I will only have two times in a day that I might barf from the drugs. And that's a lot better than the 6 chances a day, like with the current medications.
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Before you get to thinking that I'm desperately sick again (although the doctor would probably agree with that), I'm still a firm believer that it's all about attitude - a GOOD attitude. Regardless of the snow and cold and wind (a wind chill advisory is out for something like -20, on what has been the coldest day of the winter so far!), Jim and I had made plans to go SLEDDING! WooHoo!   We didn't bother with Jim's old wooden sled for this outing though; we decided to get the last use out of some of pool floats. If you've read through any of my summer adventures, then you know that "Gilligan's Island" is our most favorite pool float. However, after several years, it's starting to get thin and has a few un-repairable holes. We figured we could duct tape it together long enough for a few trips in the snow.
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Jim tests out the float and gets his camera ready |
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I'm wondering just how the heck we're going to get this float back out of the house and up to the snowy hill. |
| We knew the float wouldn't fit into the trunk; but with the school grounds with the big hill only a few blocks away, we just put the float on top of the car and held onto it by it's rope. |
MouseOver for a mIkIE
CloseUp! |
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| Hopefully, these are just some cute pictures of us, rather than pictures of us before being rushed to the hospital . ROFL (No worries there though. There's a fire station with paramedics just beyond the bales of hay at the bottom of the hill. Safety first, you know. LOL) |
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| Well, I snuck my camera into several concerts the last couple of months without incident, so I figured I could take my camera down the hill with me and get pictures during the ride. When I looked through the pictures I took, I found I DID get one while on the ride. However, as you can see, my aim wasn't too good, since all I got while on the ride was this picture of the sky. |
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| Here are three short movies (captured by Jim's camera) of us having fun
whooshing down the snowy, icy, below-zero wind-swept hill. You may need to play them a second time if the feed is too choppy during your first viewers. Take a look, and see how much fun we had! |
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| Of course, every trip downhill in the float also meant a trudge back up the icy hill. Click this picture to watch Jim make the climb! |
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Click to Animate |
| Jim on the crest of the hill preparing for one last trip down, as the cold is slowly destroying Gilligan's Island. |
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Goodbye "Gilligan's Island"!
Between it's age and the extreme cold conditions we were in, the float finally gave up the ghost, as pieces of it actually froze and broke or crumbled away. But we've already been online, and are now starting up the new "Island Fund" so that we can replace the float for the upcoming pool season. (Only 4 months to wait!!) |
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