| leatherman's log |
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February 2011 |
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| Week One: |
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| The Forgotten Month ---
Last Month |
OMG! I had pictures and I had some
stories about last month; but I got sidetracked into several other
projects and totally forgot to post anything last month.
I feel terrible! How I am supposed to get anyone to donate to
keeping reigningpages.com online (I got an email that the fees are
due in May so I thought I'd mention it. LOL), if I'm not even
providing timely, entertaining updates?!?!? |
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| But I'm sure I can get you to forgive
me! First there's this link back to |
| JANUARY |
| and it's filled with crazy pix and
stories!!! |
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| And then I'll tease you with some of
the upcoming events this month: |
Attending a Catawba Care sponsored
event recognizing "Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day";
a press conference and "Rally to Restore ADAP Funding" down in
Columbia SC;
Valentine's Day
(though I don't have a Valentine anymore); and the start to
"Birthday Madness"
when nearly every one in my family and most of my friends have
birthdays
making most of us Pisces (and the rest wanting to be Pisces
 ) |
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Week Two: |
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| Keeping Busy and Making Up |
To make up for my shoddy late update
last month, I've been extra busy this week and have all sorts of
stories and pix with which to entertain you early this month. |
BHAAD
Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day Event |
| The CDC has put together a
calendar with 11 days marked for different types of HIV/AIDS
awareness - days like World AIDS Day (12/1), Gay Men Awareness
(9/27), Aging Awareness (9/18), National HIV Testing Day (6/27),
Women and Girls Awareness (3/10). February 7th is Black HIV/AIDS
Awareness Day. Since 73% of all new infections in South Carolina are
within the African-American population, Catawba Care along with a
group of community sponsors hosted a special afternoon event this
past Saturday to bring this awareness to Rock Hill. |
The Catawba Care Prevention Department
put together this event and did a good job of it. My friends Monica
and Cecilio kicked off the event a little late but with a lot of
enthusiasm. |
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The event was held at the Emmett Scott
Recreation Center (near Clinton Junior College), and the director,
Latoya Mayes, took a few moments to speak about how it would take
the effort of the community to help stop the spread of HIV. |
Getting a break from hosting an event,
sitting in the audience, and enjoying the performances was our very
own Anita, director of Catawba Case. When she first arrived, I
couldn't tell from a distance if it was really her because her hair
looked so different. MouseOver this picture for a CloseUp to see
it's not her hair but a cute little hat! |
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| One of my friends from
volunteering at the agency, Pecan Sandy,
showed up just to hang out with me at the show. |
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While Sandy kept holding a chair for
me, I spent part of the time behind the camera. Using the agency's
FlipCam (that we used so much doing the videos for our World AIDS
Day event), I taped the entire show. |
| The first performers were a
sorority and fraternity from Winthrop University |
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| Alpha Kappa Alpha |
Alpha Phi Alpha |
The girls stepper troupe
went first and then the guys, representing the first and oldest
black Greek college organizations.
Then the groups joined together and really had the place jumping as
they stomped and chanted down the aisle! |
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| Next up were more of our
friends from Winthrop, the performance group Skin Deep, which
provided videos and entertainment at the World AIDS Day event. |
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| Their first skit shows how
easy it is for HIV to spread throughout a network of people and
their myriad relationships. Then they mimed and danced to a very
moving number showing couples in turmoil with how HIV can break up
or bring together couples. |
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| Of course, it came time for
a bit of the old "hard sell". We were there to talk about HIV and
sometimes that can get a little dull with facts, figures, and new
words being flung about. However, Cecilio did a great and
entertaining job of highlighting what the problem is (how HIV is
transmitted), how bad the problem is in SC, and how to prevent it
from happening to you. |
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| After Cecilio's 15 minutes
of HIV 101, more entertainment was on the schedule. First up for a
beat-boxer, Lil Rah Rah, who was awesome. It's amazing the amount of
sounds the human body can make - I mean sounds that sound good. LOL
Then we had a young singer sing acapella, who had the room swaying,
clapping, and humming along. |
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This group, Divine Purpose, was pretty interesting. With white-face
masks and white-gloved hands, they mimed an uplifting spiritual
song. |
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This modern day poet composed and
delivered a piece that was emotional, poignant and went right to the
point of the whole event as it was spoken from the viewpoint of HIV. |
| From
http://tellthemsc.org, I enjoyed meeting Sondra. The goal of her
agency is to help local communities understand the importance of and
to put together programs that reach out to their legislators
explaining how the community cares about issues surrounding sexual
health. The letter-writing campaign I am working on at Catawba Care
is right up that alley. |
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Another of the event sponsors was
X-Factor, a motorcycle stunt group. That group's director closed out
the main part of the event bringing the message back home, as Latoya
had started, that it takes a community and that we were that
community that had to act to stop the spread of HIV. |
After all the speeches and
entertainment, Cecilio played a movie about the HIV epidemic,
while the crowd was hot dogs with chili, chips, and desserts. |
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leatherman and Pecan Sandy |
| Some
Projects |
| I found an online video from a French
lady (thank goodness for the video! My high school French just
wasn't up to par to understand much of anything that she said.
)
who used recycled objects to make "awareness ribbons". Looking
around the house, I found an old Pringles can that had enough red on
it to make a few AIDS awareness ribbons. |
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With Spring just around the corner,
I've spent several night, while watching TV, putting together these
"greenhouses" so that I can start some of my vegetables growing
indoors this year. Since so many of the plants were adversely
affected by the heat last Summer, I'm hoping to give them a head
start, so that they start producing before the heat hits. |
For an upcoming class that I'm going to
teach (more on that in the next section), I tempted people to come
by offering snacks.
I baked up a batch of Chinese Almond Cookies and whipped up some
cherry-flavored red-ish icing. Red icing is pretty hard to make and
since I didn't want these to look like "Breast Cancer Awareness
ribbon" cookies, I sprinkled them all with some red Christmas sugar
topping.
Before the class, I stopped in at the office and shared cookies with some
of the staff. They didn't think that me calling them "AIDS cookies"
wasn't quite right, so they suggested that they be called "Positive
cookies". |
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I've been promising everyone that was
going to the rally with me, that I'd make lemon bars. It started as
a joke over at aidsmeds with my pictures of giant food and slogan of
"Make lemon bars, not war". Of course, I couldn't just
make lemon bars, so using some cut-outs while dusting the tops with
powdered sugar, I have "lemon-AIDS bars".
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| Leatherman
the Teacher |
| You know how it is. You
open your mouth, and you get picked.
But this time it worked out pretty good. A while back, when I was
discussing changes to the exhibition booth display with the Catawba
Care Staff, they asked me if I'd be willing to help lead a training
class to teach volunteers how to set up the display and how to
better engage the public. |
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| After years of visiting
all those car manufacturers' display booths, I jumped at this
opportunity to work on improving the display and workers. Although
we don't really have a product to sell (I mean, if we were selling
HIV I think we'd go broke!), we do have knowledge and protection to
give to the public. I felt that along with the jazzing up done to
the booth, a little invigoration of the crew would go a long way to
making our presentation much better. |
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| While Latisha, the Case
Manager Supervisor helped with spreading out the table cloth, I
displayed the two display boards newly re-designed by our Prevention
Coordinator, Monica. I just love these! Not only are they lighter
than the big old heavy display boards; but the information posted on
each is neater, more compact, and more appealing. |
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| Unfurling
the Banner |
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What do you know?!? We haven't seen one of
these in a while.
It's our friend the GBS*
(Gratuitous Butt Shot) |
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MMMM, candy! |
It's hard to see,
but I'm displaying
a
red ribbon sticker |
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I bet you all wish you had a lovely
red Catawba Care shirt like I do! |
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| Latisha stepped in to help
me find some specific pamphlets and then to help engage the class in some
role playing exercises. |
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| Pay no attention to the
man behind the curtain getting a sip of Coke! |
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| Mary Alice talked about
dress, decorum, the type of visitors and types of exhibition events. |
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| Of course the "Positive
cookies" that I baked up went over well, |
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| Wait till they get a load
of the "Lemon AIDS bars" I baked up for the rally. |
| Leatherman
the Activist |
| A group of us 4 Catawba
Care staff members and 4 clients met up Wednesday morning to go down
to Columbia for the SC Rally to Restore ADAP Funding. It was a cool
but sunny day - with snow predicted for late tonight into tomorrow. |
MMMM
Positive Cookies and
Lemon-AIDS bars
I left some of these yummies for my case manager, Christine, since
she couldn't go with us to the rally - because she was busy taking
care of people! |
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| We were greeted with
several activists, bravely facing the chilly morning, out front with
signs. |
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| Inside the Rotunda, the
Catawba Care Crew read up the talking points and schedule of
speakers. |
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| Most everyone gathered
behind the podium, behind the Bambi Gaddist (the director of the SC
HIV/AIDS Crisis Care Task Force which is the task force that I'm a
member of that sponsored this event) so that the television cameras
could catch all the crowd. |
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leatherman @ the rally
hanging out on the side with all the TV cameras |
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Senator Bradley Hutto was the first
speaker.... |
| ... followed by Representative Gilda
Cobb Hunter ... |
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... and Representative Joe Neal, a
staunch supporter in all HIV-related matters |
| Dorothee Alsentzer, representing
Harvard Law School, presented the SHARP Report, and explained out
why it was a valuable resource to finding solutions to the ADAP
crisis, and why solutions have to been found. |
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Basically it comes down to
either the state can either spend $4mill for meds
or spend $33mill to care for people sick and dying in the hospital. |
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| The SCHACCTF banner |
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Allan Stalvey
Executive VP
SC Hospital Association |
Bill Lindsey
Executive Director
National Alliance of Mental Illness SC |
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Bonita Graves
P.O.S.I.T.I.V.E Voices |
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L Gregory Pierce Jr
Richland County Council |
Eugene Baten
Sumter County Council |
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| My favorite speaker of the
event was the Rev. Frank Anderson. He related his own personal
experiences with a relative who had HIV (and passed away) to the community needing to
care for their own. With modern medications, competent health care workers,
dedicated social workers, and eager activists the only things truly
missing are government support and funding. |
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Nicole Chisolm
Advocates for Youth |
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MouseOver HighLight! |
After the Press Conference, the Catawba
Care Crew gathered to discuss our next move. We could go back home,
we could attend the scheduled reception and network with other
activists, or we could go upstairs to the main lobby between the
House and Senate Chambers and actually speak with some of our
legislators. |
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| I'm very pleased to say
that our group chose correctly and went upstairs to meet with our
legislators and speak with them about the ADAP issue. Although we
were unable to reach Representative Greg Delleney
Jr., we did speak for several minutes to J. Gary Simrill
(R) serving York County, Tommy Pope
(R) serving York County, Ralph Norman
(R) serving York County, and Dennis Moss
(R) serving Chester and York Counties |
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| Anita, Catawba Care's
director, usually does the lion's share of the work and asked for
others than herself to talk, so I jumped right in when Mr. Pope came
out. As a new Representative, he is still learning the ropes of
working in the legislature. He was responsive and funny, and hopefully he'll remember us as one of
the first groups to visit him. After I gave a
quick spiel and mentioned how I used ADAP up in Ohio (and was still
here because I had help getting meds all those yrs ago!), the Rep
laughed and said it sounded like I knew all the buttons to push.
Let's see: I talked about how much to spend, how much we'd
save, how people could still be employed and productive citizens
paying taxes, and rounded it off with a good sob story about how my
life was saved by this same program. Yeppers, I had these talking
points down pat. |
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| Another Rep we spoke with knew about
ADAP and the funding issues; but didn't realize until I explained
that ADAP fills in the gap for many of the working, tax-paying
poor. (I read my talkin' point sheet real good, I tell ya!) The other
Representative also knew about ADAP; but didn't want to spend much
time talking to us about such things - although he had some promising
news of $130 million dollars that needs to be divided up and that a
portion of that could very well go into the ADAP and Medicaid
programs. |
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| Altogether, I thought the
rally/press conference went well, and felt very proud of our
activist/lobbying efforts. Of course, I'm going to follow up these
personal interactions with emails tomorrow thanking these
Legislators for taking the time to see us. I think too that these
meetings will help as I work on the letter writing campaign (http://reigningpages.com/schiv_campaign)
as now I have a sense of who we'll be writing and sending letters to
throughout the year. |
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| WooHoo!
Some of the Catawba Care Crew made it onto TV! |
MouseOver this picture for a CloseUp |
| Columbia SC TV Channel 10,
WISTV, has a
clip about the rally. If you pay close attention around 1:20,
you'll see us in the blurry background. That's mikie, Sandy, Earl
and Keith! |
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Week Three: |
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Medical Update
| Last week I did a lot of
work for Catawba Care and this week I had them working for me. It
started with a trip to see the Nurse Practioner about several
diverse health issues. By the end of the appointment, I had more
appointments to deal with my issues, more meds, and more needles
than I thought. Since I was scheduled to come back in a few weeks
for blood work, they went ahead and stabbed me while I was there. |
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| Since I was in the
hospital several times and always on my birthday (coming up on Mar
14th) perhaps dying, I've always liked knowing my stats here around
my birthday as sort of a benchmark comparison. Nowadays results from
the lab are coming back with a few days, so the blood they took on
Monday had results back that Friday. |
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| The good news is that
basically my numbers are still stable. My viral load, which had
blipped up to a low 120 last time (that's a statistical nothing!)
was back down to 40. Unfortunately my cd4 count went down too, so
I'm no longer flirting with those all-time highs around 300, instead
I'm back down to 266. You can see from the chart below how that
count is back in my "normal" range and how steadily the viral load
has stayed suppressed for many years now. |
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| If you need more
information about what those numbers mean,
click the chart! |
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| But it wasn't even blood
work that had me in the doctor's office, so I should tell you about
my other issues. |
| First, I haven't ever
replaced or had my dentures looked at since I got them back in Dec
1999. While they have still been working fine there's a small defect
in the bottom plate. So on Tues. the clinic sent me out to have a
new bottom dental plate made. I'm not certain if I like this new
plate or not yet. Of course, it sits a little different, so it's
taking some time to get used to and has rubbed a few sore spots. I
really haven't been able to eat yet with this set and have been
switching out with my old set some. The dentist did say that
sometimes it can actually take 6 to 8 weeks to become fully
acclimated to a new lower plate unlike the top plate or a first full
set of dentures. So I'll have to see how this goes over the next
couple of weeks. |
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| I've still been having
shoulder problems/pains, so after some exercises to show the Nurse
Practioner my range of motion, she suggested the next step was an
MRI. We already had an x-ray done back in October that showed some
inflammation but nothing specific. She told me that it's still
possible to have early stages of vascular necrosis (a bone/blood
supply issue that is HIV-related). So I went Wednesday, got slid
into the machine and listened to it whine, hum, thump and bang for
20 minutes while it scanned by shoulder. It'll take about a week to
get results and hopefully it'll show something about why my shoulder
hurts so bad at times. |
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| The NP loaded me up with
some new meds too. It seems I'm having a problem with HPV and got a
medicinal cream for that problem. Then because I'm allergic to
aspirin, I'm limited on what sort of pain/anti-inflammation meds I
can try. After consulting with a drug book, she's decided to have me
try a new pain medicine rather that prescribing move Vicodin (even
though I made that 30 day supply last for 4 months LOL). This time
I'm going to be trying Tramadol ER, a time-released pain med that
needs to be taken once every day. |
| Spring is
Just Around the Corner |
With a touch of warmth in the air, it
won't be much longer until Spring is here. So it's time to finally
start working on a new project - starting the garden.
It's not quite time to plant things in the ground yet; but it is
time to fertilize, throw in some compost and turn the dirt a few
times. I have the beds all ready to go now. Just a quick raking and
smoothing and they're ready to plant. |
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While it might not be time for planting
in the ground right now, it is time to start planting! You may
remember from my last update that I was readying a batch of Coke
bottles and turning them into my little greenhouses.
With the weather nicer, now it was time to take it all outside to
the gardening workbench and add dirt and seeds. |
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| I made some "pots" out of
paper towel and toilet paper cardboard rolls, and some out of
regular newspaper with just a little bit of masking tape. Each pots
gets filled up with potting soil and 4 pots go into each bottle. |
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My delightful hairdo uses
only leftover gel from yesterday and rolling around in bed all night
to achieve these pointed hair-raising effects. |
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After the dirt, next came sorting
through seeds and planting. I marked each bottle with duct tape and
wrote what I had planted into each: red, green, and yellow peppers,
okra, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, cauliflower, pumpkin, cantaloupe,
and squash.
Of course I have other things to plant; but other stuff (like the
herbs, radishes, etc), can wait and be sown directly out in the
garden. |
| The Indomitable Mr. Kitty |
You might remember that
Mr. Kitty, Mom's cat, was at the vet's last month. He spent a
snowy weekend and a few days there, and came home incredibly well
and much happier. I mean the difference from "old age that may have
had a stroke" to the cat running around and playing in the house has
been nothing short of remarkable. Why just the other day, after
running around and scrunching up all the throw rugs on the floor, I
found him batting around a wing nut - one of the wing nuts that
holds the table legs onto the dining room table! SO now we know how
he entertains himself sitting hidden under the table up on the
chairs - he's unscrewing the table! |
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| Poor Dennis though,
he gets the brunt of Mr. Kitty's happiness. Every night while Dennis
is trying to watch television, Mr. Kitty is on the prowl for love
and affection. If Dennis won't pet and rub him, Mr. Kitty pushes the
dogs aside or slides up under Dennis' unsuspecting hand. If that
doesn't work, then to get attention Mr. Kitty climbs to the back of
theThere sofa and uses his claws to "gently" rake Dennis' bald head. |
The other night as we were all retiring
to bed (Mom, Dennis and their dogs on their side of the house, and
me and boyz on our side of the house), I heard a commotion from the
other side of the house. Mom often worries about her older dog or
about Rudy with his seizures; but I could hear her saying something
about her youngest dog, Sunni. Afraid of the worse I ran into their
bedroom as Mom ran out.
There was nothing wrong with Sunni cause it was Mr. Kitty that was
freaking mom out. Somehow Mr. Kitty, now fit and hale, had dragged a
bunny rabbit, almost as big as himself, into the house. He hadn't
killed it yet and was trying to get the kicking, jumping bunny
underneath Mom's side of the bed. |
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| Needless to say, for the
next few minutes the house was in an uproar. I had pulled Mr. Kitty
off the bunny, and thrown him up onto the bed. He wasn't too happy
about losing his "friend" and was meowing quite loudly. Mom's dogs
were running around, all excited and barking, while Mom and Dennis
were trying to push the dogs out of the bedroom. My dogs, on the
other side of the house, were raising a ruckus because they were
being left out of the "fun". The bunny was busy jumping all around
the room, while I was laughing at it all like a madman. |
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| Luckily, the bunny wasn't
hurt; but he was scared. I was able to corner and grab him pretty
quickly, before taking him out of the house. He jumped a couple of
times around me on the deck, the hopped around the yard before
slipping through the fence and disappearing into the woods. |
| Run, Jon,
run. See Jon run. |
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| Most of my youngest
brother's family runs; but his oldest son (my nephew Jon) really
runs! He runs fast enough to win medals. |
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Yeah Jonathan! |
| Spring IS
in the Air! |
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| A while back, Mom and I
rearranged and reorganized the plants in the living room. Obviously
the night-blooming Cerebus (that my friend Bill gave me last year)
enjoys it's spot in the window. In just a few days of warmer weather
and brighter sunlight, it has grown out out those long two-foot
runners. We're thinking of naming it Audrey III.
|
MouseOver CloseUp
to see ME in the mirror
(yes, mIkIe is "The Man in the Mirror"
that Michael Jackson sang about.
And now you know. ) |
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(What was that about
"Audrey III", you say? If you don't understand that,
check out "Little
Shop of Horrors" in which the plant was named Audrey II") |
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With the weather still nice enough to go outside, it felt like time
to start doing "yard projects".
An easy first project of the season was to dump the bad water (and
leaves) out of the fountains, to refill them with shiny, sparkling
clean water, and then to plug them back in and turn them on. |
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the fountain in the big back yard |
the fountain in my side yard |
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I also took advantage of the nice
weather
to scrub down the deck outside |
I've got the gardens all dug up and
ready to plant...
...even though planting weather is still a few weeks away. |
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You'd think after all
those leaves that I raked back in the Fall that I would have raked
them all up.
Surprise! There were more out here in the backyard! |
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Week Four: |
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| Spring is
Here! |
All those early signs must
have been right!
Today I saw the first daffodil of Spring. |
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| I've been putting it off
for a while (I'm still used to hibernating through the Winters in
Ohio), so with this nice weather, it seemed like it was about time
for me to break out my bicycle. Considering I have been cooking and
eating my fair share of "LemonAIDS bars" and "Positive Cookies" (not
to mention the cookies and cakes back at Christmas just a couple of
months ago!), and it's probably past time for me to get in some
exercise. |
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My plans were temporarily derailed by a flat tire! |
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| Leatherman goes bike riding! |
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I just get the camera to focus;
but these are buds on the blueberry bushes |
The Lenten Roses are
blooming in the front yard |
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| The Magnolia tree has buds |
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| The Maple trees are
beginning to bud |
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MouseOver
for a Pear tree CloseUp |
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Although I had neatly braided and clipped all the "wild" branches of
the trellis rose bush at the end of Summer, the bush kept growing
much of the Winter and is just a wild as before I did anything to
it. I'm going to have to take the ladder, clippers, and some rope to
the bush before it grows much more and blooms. |
| More
Catawba Care Work |
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Catawba Care had the opportunity to set
up their booth and do more HIV testing at a recent health fair at
the North Medical Center in Rock Hill. This event was another part
of the "Black Health Series" that has been going on throughout the
month. Although we didn't have many visitors at this first time
event, we tested over a half a dozen people. |
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| Piedmont Mental and
Keystone were other agencies at this event. |
| Skipping
Spring and Moving on to My Summer Tan |
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I was using this image as an avatar for a while; but everyone kept
calling it a "Weekend @ Bernie's" picture. |
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| A Project
is Working Out Well |
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My project of Coke-bottle greenhouses to start off the vegetable
plants is going gang-busters! I've got plants growing!
Now the weather has to cooperate so that I can transplant them into
the ground in the next couple of weeks. |
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| Blast from
the Past |
| Recently my Mom has been
working on a project with her Mom. It started out that we were going
to videotape Nana speaking for about an hour telling about her life.
Instead of that, Nana's notes have turned into Nana's booklet about
her life. Poor Mom has spent hours on this project and it's nearly
completed. I've proofread the booklet and found it interesting and
entertaining. One thing that makes it interesting are all the old
pictures - like this one below. |
MouseOver CloseUp
of Mom, Dad and Me!
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| Here's a picture of my Mom's side of
the family at the 50th Wedding Anniversary of my great grandparents
(the 4th and 5th people on the left side of the table). My
Grand-Daddy and Nana are also on the left (that's Nana, the 2nd
person on the left side, with the big smile). My Mom and Dad (Celia
and Doug) are the last two people on the right side of the table. |
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Hey! What do you know?!? I'm even in
this picture. Sure enough!
Just MouseOver the picture for the CloseUp and check out Mom's
pregnant belly - that's me! |
| Summer is
Just Around the Corner |
| With the weather staying
nice, it was time for me to start another project. You may remember
that I didn't level out the are for my pool as well as I had hoped
last year, so I took down the pool for the weather. Before I set the
pool back up, I need to get out there and dig out some more dirt to
level the ground up. |
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| After removing the liner,
I had to rake away the sand base to get to the dirt below. |
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| Quit posing Leatherman and
get back to work! |
It's going to take a while to finish
this project;
but I have until the middle of April to finish up. |
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| A Sickening
Situation |
| OMG! I've had a pretty severe reaction
to one of those new meds I've been taking. |
| |
| It seems the med alters the immune
response and it seems the low but good immune response that my body
has been giving me and keeping me out of the hospital all these
years could very well make using this drug very problematic. While
the side effects of using this cream medication can be flu-like
symptoms (fever, nausea, diarrhea, fatigue, aches, joint pains, etc)
which actually is a good thing proving the medication is working and
should be continued, for up to 4% of the people this side effect can
become extreme. My immune system in overdrive caused me to have all
those effects and more in spades! (It even made my body fight
against the herpes zoster virus in my body and caused a "shingles"
outbreak in my hand, and left my hip, where I had shingles 14 yrs.
ago all painful and tingly.) |
| |
| It wasn't too long ago that I was
talking about worrying about the bottom dropping out because I have
felt so good over the last couple years for not much apparent
reason... and then this happened.
I tell you it scared the bejesus outta of me cause I had forgotten
how terrible feeling sick was. This just so much felt like "teh
aids"
again for the last 6ish days. Needless to say I stopped using the
medication and now 6 days later, I'm still feeling very fatigued,
but I think I'm recovering. I'm hoping this chemical didn't forever
alter my immune response as it has for some people according to the
stories that I've since read online (the med is also used to treat
some cancers). |
| Happy
Birthdays! |
Happy
Birthday
to
Jonathan, Lisa,
TJ, Donny and Ann!! |
 |
| As many of you know from
years here at my blog, it's Birthday Party time - over and over and
over. |
| |
|
First we start off the
Birthday Season with a handful of my relatives celebrating here in
February -
one of my brothers, a sister-in-law, a nephew, a 2nd cousin and an
Aunt.
There are plenty more birthdays to come next month so keep those
hats, horns and noise-makers close by! |
| One Last
Glimpse of Spring in February |
 |
Closing out the month and celebrating
the early Spring weather,
we grilled out chicken kabobs! |
| |
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 |
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| I got news the other day about how
snowy it's been back in Ohio. Well, there's no snow here. Matter of
fact, the weather looks to be nice enough in the upcoming weather
report that I closed out the month planting broccoli, radishes
(white and red) and a bed of onions. |
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