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| Week One: Happy 4th, Happy Vacation and lots of Summer Fun! |
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Here are just a couple pictures from the tail end of June. The morning glories are beginning to climb out back. |
| Anybody know what this plant is? It's mixed in with the morning glories and really cute. |
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And the cosmos are blooming so well along Jim's driveway (at least one side anyway  ) |
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Nearly everyone is going on vacation now. Cliff goes to Florida in a couple weeks, while Tara, Austin and Jason are renting a cabin for a couple of days by the lake. Even Jim and I are going on a vacation and it's a repeat (almost) of last year's vacation. More on that shortly.  But speaking of Tara, she and Austin AND Jason got to go swimming at Jim's after closing up the body shop early (EAC is closed for a week for vacation). |
Mouseover Jason and Tara for Close-ups |
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| Lucy took a dip in the pool to cool off, |
and so did her baby brother Ricky. (MouseOver and you'll see that even after the water, Ricky still loves Jason. ) |
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| Tara takes a whale of a ride! |
Taking a nap after swimming, |
and waking up to wrestle. |
| Some Fun Movies! |
Jason jumps on the whale
and DOESN'T fall off |
Watch Lucy play ball with Jason  |
| Summertime means vacation time and this year Jim and I nearly repeated last year's vacation by going back to Kings Island. Click below for all the pictures! |
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Week Two: |
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With PorchCam, you can see the doggies awaiting,
greeting Jim on his arrivals at nights |
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That's Mike Poland at the door, coming to fix my car. |
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My poor old car lost it's brakes just before we went on vacation. Luckily, Mike P. was able to help me out and for a reasonable fee, got my car to stop again. |
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| Before heading to Kings Island, the pool was getting a little dirty, by the time we returned a day and a half later it looked like this!! And there's a pool party scheduled for this weekend! Do you think the pool will clear up in time? Stay tuned! |
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| Baba is a much bigger kitty now, but still a little skittish; however, she is finally coming around me and playing with me some. She found that my tail is a great toy. LOL |
Remember how green the pool water had gotten when Jim and I returned from vacation? Remember how worried we were that it would be cleared up by the weekend, when we had invited EVERYONE over for a pool party??
Good News!!
The water (after three days, $50 worth of chemicals and a lot of scrubbing) is back to crystal clear again. WooHoo! Click the picture below to see all the pictures from the parties (yes, the one day pool party turned into a two-day event!). |
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| By the way, thanks to a book that DO had, I have discovered that this is an "Asiatic
Dayflower". Each of it's blue blooms last only one day. There's even a variety that blooms only at night. |
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And while I was researching plants, I also discovered that the purple irises in my front yard are called "Sweet Reflection" and the peach-colored ones are of the "Happy Birthday" variety. |
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| As we near the middle of the month, things haven't been going so well for me lately. Although it's not all bad news though either. |
First, as you've already read, my car is having some problems.  The muffler is shot, the suspension has problems, the brakes are so-so, it needs a tune-up and for years and through several sets of tires, the right side tires both constantly seem to have tiny air leaks and have to be pumped up every couple of months or so. |
The solution for my car woes lies within my second problem though - money. Things are bad right now. Yes, I admit I let a couple bills slide for the Kings Island trip but I've also had a bad hit. EAC is not doing well, and is only going to use my services on an "as-needed" basis. The
monthly fee from EAC has been going to pay my house payment ($320) Ouch! That's a big hit right when I didn't need it; but "whacha gonna do"?  |
| And speaking of "Ouch!", I had to go "donate" some blood to the hospital for those dang tests again. Remember my counts last time hadn't been too good? (Oops! I think I forgot to tell you that. It must have been from all the heat we're having in Ohio this summer and it's affected my memory LOL ). Well, last trip at the doctor, my T-cells had dropped from 220 to 141 and the viral load took a huge jump up from 127 to 20,284!! So I had to wait two weeks and retest (that was today's "Ouch!"), then on the 26th I'll go back to the doc's and get the results. If they are better, then WooHoo! But if they are still bad (and I was barfing today before going to the hospital), then there will be another blood test - to see which medications my HIV has become resistant to. And, of course, that means the doctor will probably prescribe a new medication. (Think happy thoughts. Think happy thoughts.) |
| But even though things aren't so great, life still isn't too bad. At Kings Island, we WERE able to get the
discount rate at the hotel and the free extra ticket into the park the night before, so it didn't cost me too much at all. |
| Then there has also been all the beautiful HOT Summer weather. So many Summers in Ohio just suck, but this one sure doesn't! Luckily, I don't have to feel too well to lie out on the pool floats. LOL (and it's not like I've been sick every day. This stuff hits a couple of days and then chills for a while.) I've been making sure to take advantage of the good days for me and the weather. |
Of course, it can't go without saying, that Jim is in my life, and that makes it all okay. My relationship with him still surprises me. Getting sick and losing Randy really screwed up things. Who would have thought that another man would come along that I was so in tune with? Although this isn't quite the same relationship as I had with Randy, the things that made that one good are here in this relationship with Jim too - the companionship, the interests, the same ethics, friendship, and, yes, the love.  |
It almost makes me ashamed to whine about all my problems sometimes. I've been alive and well (well, fairly well) for much longer than I would have ever imagined with a minimum of health problems. I've kept the roof over my head (sure hope I can keep the water running though. LOL). Add to that, not one but TWO packs of dogz that love me dearly and make me laugh daily. And now another great guy to love and that loves me.  |
Well, there. We laughed. We cried. We had some bad times, and some fun times for for first half of the month, and I left you thinking about LOVE  Keep having a Happy Summer and "see" you with my next update. |
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Week Three: |
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Normal
PoolCam View |
PoolCam after
Baba has been in the window
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I've been very lucky lately. Even though Jim has odd work hours (3pm to midnight), I've been able to spend quite a bit of time with him. Most of our lunches (sometime after my morning barfing  , and before Jim's last dip into the pool before work ) are spent on his patio with the kitties, enjoying the sun, the heat and the Summer. |
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| Back at my house one evening, Gabby wears Jim's necklace that he got at King's Island. As you can see, Jim loves Gabs, and Gabby loves Jim. But then, everybody loves Gabby and she loves them. |
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| Besides still being sick (more on that in Week Four) and hanging out by the pool some, not alot has been happening. It's hot, hot, hot here, and the plants are loving it. The cosmos are blooming, but the bugs are nibbling at the pretty petals, so I didn't take any closeup pictures. |
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| The hollyhocks, out front, are in FULL bloom. Behind the shrubs, they are
burgundy (Yeah!), and pale, pale pink. Beside the porch on one side, they are also burgundy; while on the other side of the porch, they are a nice pink. So weird. They used to ALL be burgundy until last year. |
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| Rain finally came to the area one afternoon and that was a good thing. Not only has it been hot; but it's been very dry. We only get an
occasional 10-15 minute shower every other day, and that's been it. |
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| Although EAC doesn't need me much this month, it doesn't mean that I don't miss them. And it also doesn't mean that I have to miss them, not with the webcams. LOL Tara has had a couple busy mornings; but by the afternoons, as you can see, everyone is usually chatting and sitting around. Wish I could be there. (He He He. I bet they wish they were with me though - at the pool beating the heat. ) |
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Life sure does repeat itself. Every summer, my digital camera has to go to the shop. It's been a year and a month, and now a little dark spot is appearing in all the pictures I take. I just went and checked and my camera developed this problem sometime after my canoeing trip last month. (MouseOver the picture to identify the bad area) |
| But this year things didn't totally repeat. Other years, the camera hasn't been able to be repaired and I've gotten another camera. (Rule to live by: If you can drop it on the floor, BUY the service plan!) It's been a pain to have to purchase another service plan after waiting through months of them "trying" to fix my camera; but this year my camera was UPS-ed back in a week repaired! WooHoo! (You'll notice below that I was still able to get PLENTY of pictures with Jim's camera while mine was away from home in the hospital. LOL) |
What's the best way to mark the end of the first month of summer? Another pool party, of course.  Click the picture for pictures from this party |
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Jim and I learned our lesson last weekend, and only held a one day pool party this weekend. Although the following day was two-thirds bad weather, the last third of the day was great and Gabby got to have another trip to Jim's! And the pool! Click this picture to see and hear about how much fun my little girl got to have,
in her own words. |
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Week Four: |
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Good grief, it costs a lot to live and get by. Technically, I've been broke for over two weeks now. A little loan from DO of $50 kept my water turned on, and a small loan from Jim has kept the doggies and cat fed and enough gas in the car to get to the pool and back most days. Boy, I can't wait for the start of next month. As soon as Expert pays me and the disability check shows up, my house payment will get paid, my friends will get repaid and I'll be able to stave off another utility turn-off until next month.  |
| On a happier note though, my camera was delivered back to me today and seems to be working just fine again. WooHoo! Although I would have liked to have upgraded my camera (my model is last year's) through the replacement plan, I didn't have the money for the new service plan. And I sure know that I need that! LOL |
Broken Camera Picture
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Repaired Camera Picture
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My second best friend (Jim is the first, of course) in the world got a little older, but I don't know about much wiser.  Joyce (DO) turned 66 this Monday. WooHoo! After spending the afternoon with me at the pool (and leaving JUST before a storm blew through town), I caught DO in her favorite chair (in front of the computer) with her piece of bday cake. |
Tuesday morning was the trip to the doctor. I was really dreading this trip. I always hate it when I think the doc is going to tell me bad news. Since I haven't gotten any better since those last tests (matter of fact, I've been worse!), I figured I was going to hear that we'd need to do another blood test to determine which meds weren't working anymore, and then have to start some new medicine. However, stunning both me and the doctor, my counts were better! Although my T-cells didn't change too much (up from 141 to 180), my Viral Load dropped a
whopping amount from 20,200 to 1,470!! So for the time being, I'll keep on barfing and taking my meds and believe that I'm not in too bad of shape after all (although my doctor is always quick on calling my meds a "salvage regime" to remind me that I'm a sick guy and can't afford to mess around this close to the edge.  ) |
For that last month, I've settled into a pattern for each day. A typical day is this:
I wake up several times through the early morning hours but try to keep dozing until at least 7:00am. After getting out of the bed, I usually spend some time in the bathroom heaving and feeling like crap until Jim wakes up. Then as I (usually) start to feel a little better, Jim heads to his house to check on the kitties and the pool. Within an hour or two, I am feeling good enough and I head up to DO's house (just over the hill from here) and she and I also go over to Jim's. Jim gets to play in the pool with us until about 2:00pm when he heads off to work; while DO and I stay for another hour or so. Before the thunderstorms roll in, we close up the pool and head back to DO's, where supper gets put together. Finally, back at my house, I nap some until Jim comes home around 12:30am. |
| Tuesday was just like one of my typical days, with the exception of the doctor appointment, with pool time and then dinner at DO's. After dinner, I came home with plans to do some laundry before napping; but my plans quickly changed. The sky grew ominously dark. Before leaving DO's, I had seen the radar and it only looked like a little rain would be coming, not something this heavy. |
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| As I stepped out onto my back stoop to check the weather, an Emergency Broadcast Signal went off on the television and the tornado sirens in town began to wail! Looking up, I could see a mass of dark clouds barreling over the city, swirling and beginning to drop down as it passed. I was stunned to see such a large mass of clouds swirling like that so closely. Luckily, it spread out as it dropped and began to
dissipate. |
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Just to the right of the school's vent stacks is the funnel cloud
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The sirens continued to sound, and I ran through the house checking windows, and shooing the dogs in from the front porch. Glancing at the sky, I saw another mass of clouds beginning to swirl faster and faster. As I watched, the cloud began to spin towards the ground. The dogs were already inside, and with my camera in hand, I was backing towards the door as the clouds swirled down. I wasn't going to stay out in a tornado; but I was going to catch as much of it as possible. (Wow! My camera came back at a good time! )
Click to see this video! |
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| Once again, the city was spared, as the storm seemed to sputter and the funnel cloud fell apart. But the storm hadn't spent it's fury out on us yet. For an hour, it poured buckets of rain, while lightning bolts slashed through the sky. |
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Looks like a nice afternoon, after a shower has passed through, doesn't it? But it's not! If you
MouseOver the picture, you'll see what it really looked like at 7:30 at night. The neighborhood was lit up that much by a single flash of lightning!! |
| Although it looks like things are clearing out, about three more waves of storms came through that night; but none as strong as the first wave that produced those funnel clouds. |
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| And speaking of birthdays earlier, my honey, Jim, is getting older this week too. Since I had such a big update so far this month, I'll put off pictures from his birthday (sloppy joes at DO's, and then over to the pool) along with whatever pictures I get from the upcoming Football Hall of Fame
Festival activities in town, until next month. (MouseOver this picture for a clue about what present Jim going to be receiving. Shhhhh!) |
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| Week Four and a half: |
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MouseOver Smile CloseUp |
Hey! What's Jim doing there at EAC? Darth (Jim's Hyundai) wasn't in an accident, was he? Nope, he's there as a surprise visit to pick up his birthday present! Ain't he cute in his Summit Racing light-up hat? LOL
MouseOver to see how happy he is!
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| And what was the present that DO, Tara and I got for Jim? Why, another "Gilligan's Island"!! It's a big float (although we figure eight of them could fit into the pool to fill it up) and took Jim and I a while to get it pumped up. Tara thought about pumping it up with the air at EAC; but I remember how it wouldn't fit in the car inflated when we went sledding with the last float |
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MouseOver for a cheesy Birthday Smile! |
DO takes a turn in the island
Another
MouseOver CloseUp Smile! |
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A video of Jim
enjoying the life of luxury |
| Feeding all the birds at DO's has produced a pleasant un-expected side effect. Now she has sunflowers growing in all her flower beds. I'm going to plant some next year for sure. They sure are bright and cheery! |
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