Daily Ponderings

Yesterday, everyone along the East coast were prepared to be hit by Hurricane Sandy, especially areas of New Jersey and New York, which ended up being a couple of the worst hit places. Phriends from around the country started asking me how I was making out as early as yesterday morning, when nothing was happening. To be honest, I was expecting some big winds and nasty weather, but it wasn't going to be anything like those living right near the coast. We did have lots of rain here, and the winds were high, but we've had gustier winds than what was whipping up last night. The pictures from the storm have been jaw-dropping, and some of them just sad. Flooding in so many areas, tons of cars damaged, and buildings. Millions of people are without power. There have been some deaths, as well. There are a few phriends I haven't heard from since last night, so I'm praying they are safe and ok!! Last night, I was frustrated with my indoor antenna because the reception wasn't...

This post is to mainly see if the Blogger app can actually post more than one picture, which I see can! Thank you to the person who suggested using it!! This post also is to show off the lovely artwork created by myself and my niece and nephew on Saturday night when I babysat! They are 7 and 5 years old respectively, and pretty artistic! I was told by both of them that my picture would warrant me having my own art studio. Gotta love kids and their wild imaginations! LOL Can you guess which one is mine?? :)

Several years ago, I used some points from a survey site I joined to get my first ever crock pot. It was a large crock pot, and my first meal from it was lasagna. I didn't know you could make lasagna in the crock pot!! Anyway, I used it several more times, but the size of it kept me from using it more often. I mean, I'm only one person trying to eat a ton of leftovers, and not everything freezes well! So a couple years ago, Mandy's crock pot bit the bullet. Since it was near my birthday, I offered to give her mine if she'd buy me a 4qt crock pot. She agreed! The smaller size has been perfect for me! This is the time of year when I love using the crock pot the most. Soups are the best, but so are stews. And although I usually despise dealing with bones and skin on a chicken (which is why I only buy boneless skinless chicken breasts), a whole chicken in there comes out SO GOOD!! See how cute it looks in there?? It literally falls apart when done, so it's pretty easy...

When I moved into my apartment back in 1999 (whoa, still can't believe it's been that long ago!), I signed up with the local cable company for tv service. There really wasn't many other options at that time. Years later, I decided to try one of the satellite dish companies. I know some people think satellite is not as reliable, and you lose the signal with a drop of rain. But honestly, in all the time I had it, I think I lost the signal a handful of times. So I thought it was fine for me! Last month, I decided to join this century and upgrade my big old hunk of tv to a flat screen. I really like it, but I wasn't getting the full effect since I wasn't paying for HD programming. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to. But I was also thinking long and hard about ditching satellite altogether and using an antenna to get the local stations, which is what I watch the most anyway! That is precisely what I did today. I bought an antenna at Target, paying a little more than I...

Today was a pretty busy day for me, and I'm exhausted!  I'm waiting for my wonderful heated mattress pad to warm up so I can go to bed rather shortly!! This is what my day consisted of: 1. Going to pulmonary rehab, after picking up my mom since she also had an appointment at the same time at the hospital. 2. Dropping my mom back off at her house about an hour later. 3. Rushing through a very quick lunch and a 2 minute clothing change at my house all within 15 minutes. 4. Driving 45 minutes to get to an ear doctor appointment, stopping for a tall decaf caramel macchiato at Starbucks on the way (yum yum!!). 5. Waiting 35 minutes in the tiny little room to see the doctor when I WAS ON TIME TO SEE HIM. Grrr, that always irritates me! 6. Going to A.C. Moore to buy everything in the store  buy a trifold display, which I happened to get half off with a coupon!! 7. Browsing Old Navy in search of something to use my $25 gift card on, and walking out with nothing. 8. Dri...

My last post from a couple days ago was in regards to a blog giveaway by Sunshine! She was giving away an adorable owl she created with her own two hands and some beautiful yarn. Well, today she announced the winner, and I totally froze when I read that it was yours truly!! I can't believe it! I'm really excited!! You can see the announcement by going HERE !! And I encourage you to be a follower of her blog, because she always has wonderful posts, and really beautiful pictures of the area where she lives!! Thank you, Sunshine!! I'll definitely take a picture of my lovely new owl whenever she gets here! Yes, I have decided the owl is a she!!  hehe!

I've been reading a blog by a lovely lady named Sunshine for quite some time now! She loves to do little prize giveaways every once in awhile! I did win a great cookbook from her some time ago, and a sweet handmade panda bear (totally adorable), and I'll be honest, I'm a little selfish right now with the fact that I'd love to win what's up for grabs in her current blog giveaway!! LOL! I'll give you a little hint about why...her prize would go nicely with a new mug I received for my birthday last month that I totally adore and use quite often!! Here it is! Isn't it a hoot??? LOL!! So, any WHOOOOOOOO (I couldn't resist!!), Sunshine is giving away a cute handmade Amigurumi Owl! If you'd like to see it, please go here ! You can also enter to win if you'd like! Don't just hang out at that post, read her entire blog if you can! She's a pretty upbeat person who likes to talk about life on the Cayman Islands, which totally makes me jeal...

Next month is Pulmonary Hypertension Awareness month. In the last few years, I've been using my blog and Facebook to write about PH and everything that comes with it. From the diagnosis, to the types, to the tests involved to get that diagnosis, to the medications now available, you name it, I've shared it all! I plan to do the same again this year, but I'm also trying my best to do something outside the world of the internet. That is why I'm so very excited to share the news that I will be putting up two displays (so far!) at the two local hospitals in the Niagara Falls area!!  Thursday afternoon I had emailed the woman who schedules my PH support group meetings at St. Mary's, asking if she knew who I would ask about setting up a display in their lobby. The next morning I received an email from another person in the hospital, and I eventually talked to him in the phone about a time frame for a display. He is giving me almost two weeks! From November 9-21, I'll ...

A week ago, I walked out of Walmart with a brand new cellphone. I had been able to upgrade my phone, and knew which one I wanted, but I had been pricing the phone at various stores and websites before settling with the brick-and-mortar Walmart. The Samsung Galaxy SIII is now mine, and I'm still trying to get used to it! It's been a little different than my Droid Incredible. Some things are easier (like turning off the mobile data with one touch), and some things are driving me nuts (the keyboard is annoying!!). But really, I have been enjoying the upgrade! My favorite part of the phone is the camera. I can take a picture of something in front of me, and then take a picture of myself by touching a button. The camera lens turns around inside to face me instead of me having to turn the phone around. How cool is that??? I take waaaay too many profile pics of myself for Facebook, and delete so many of them before I settle on one I like, because I can't see what I look like while...

I've spent the past week trying to get ready for my PH support group meeting tomorrow afternoon. I wish the weather around here would allow us to have meetings every month, or even every other month. I used to have them in May/October. May didn't always work so well because May is a busy month for people! Graduations, weddings, Mother's Day, you name it. The turnout for those meetings were often low, and we aren't a very large group to begin with. So this past year, I tried April/July/October. April was great! July I had to cancel. So tomorrow's meeting will be the last one for this year, and there will be a total of 13 of us. Not bad, really. But considering that the speaker is traveling all the way from the West Coast, and returning the same day tomorrow, I really wish we had more people coming!! I really hope he doesn't mind coming all this way like that!! I'm incredibly thankful that he is, however! He is going to talk about the PH Association , and what...

The last couple days have been really bad for me in terms of my PH symptoms. I still get shortness of breath (SOB), but it's not as often, and not terribly bothersome. But yesterday and today were awful. I didn't even have to be doing anything to be SOB. I'm thinking the weather is playing a big role, even though both days weren't too bad out. It was nice and sunny, a little cool out of the sun, but not really humid. So who knows?? All I know is that at K.'s yesterday, I kinda squashed his plans of going to the park nearby to walk a short trail to see if we could find any buck. I was having a hard time just walking around my apartment earlier, so I really wasn't sure what a walk outside was going to be like, and I didn't care to find out. He didn't seem to mind, just continued to work on some stuff that I knew he'd want to get done anyway. I'm hoping I didn't disappoint him, but if I did, he never said so. I got my flu shot yesterday mornin...

As I was driving home from pulmonary rehab today, I heard on one of the radio stations that it was National One-Hit Wonder Day! How funny, I've never heard of that before! So, I thought I would do a fun little post about artists who only had one major hit in their career. Now, there are soooooo many one-hit wonder hits that I decided to focus on the decade of music that I seem to absolutely love the most, and that is the 90s! I'm picking one song from each year of the 90s! Here we go! 1990: Biz Markie - Just A Friend I can't tell you how much I STILL love this song!! I have it on my Sony mp3 player, and when it comes on, I just sing along!! 1991: Mark Mark And The Funky Bunch - Good Vibrations This song brings me back to my high school days! 1992: Charles & Eddie - Would I Lie To You I'll be honest, I forgot that I used to love this song!! Had I not seen it on the list I found on the internet, I would still not realize who the heck sang this song. Quite ...

It's officially the season of Fall, and I'm officially sad. Don't get me wrong, there are things about Fall I actually do enjoy.  1.) I love the changing colors of the trees, especially when they are a gorgeous red, my favorite color! (I took these pics a couple years ago, the colors aren't changing quite that fast here yet! I was just using them for demonstration! lol) 2.) Fall means soup and stew season can begin!! It's so hard to eat a delicious bowl of hot soup when it's 80 degrees out! The crisp Fall temps make it much easier to create some sort of soup and enjoy it for dinners and lunches. Mmmmm, I'm wishing I had ingredients to make a pot right now!!! lol 3.) Fall also brings in the start of what I like to call, Bath Season. I'm usually so cold at night before I go to bed when the temps start to get chillier. I end up taking a bath before bed, so that I can warm up, get a bit sleepy, and then just crawl into bed all nice and...

About this time a year ago tonight, I was enjoying dinner with a man I had been chatting with for a couple  months online, and eventually on the phone. K. suggested meeting in person for a few weeks, and we finally did so September 19th. He was nice enough to say he'd come out my way, since he lives 30 minutes away. I waited for him outside the restaurant I suggested, and when I finally saw him walk around the corner, I felt rather at ease. It's funny, in the year since we've been dating, I don't think there's been any time that I haven't felt uncomfortable with him. I'm glad we met that night, and I'm even happier that he's been wanting to do things since. I haven't had too much luck with men, mainly because many are a bit intimidated with my health situation. I can understand that in some ways. Even K. hasn't been totally certain about it. I told him at one point that I can't tell anything about my future with my health since even _I_ d...

I hear so many people complain about getting older. Of course, I don't hear this from children or even teenagers. They seem oblivious to aging until they hit a certain point in their life when they realize that all they are doing is adding up the years. But the complaints about growing old sort of make me sad. Do people realize how blessed they are to actually BE older? Sure, I know aging isn't fun. The body loses physical abilities, the mind starts losing thoughts and words, aches and pains can become a frequent thing. I know this because I experience all of these things from time to time. I try not to complain too much, because I am THANKFUL for still being here. This past Monday (the 17th), I turned 37. This is such a blessing for me. I wasn't given much hope about my future when I was diagnosed at 9 months old with PH and congenital heart disease. The guess from the doctors was that I'd live anywhere from a couple years to maybe 50. I'll be quite honest, I thi...

It's been almost a month since I last posted. I thought of a great post a few weeks ago, and then just never got around to writing it. I'm not too sure what the heck's gotten into me, but I haven't felt like writing lately. But hopefully I'll get back into it soon!!

Summer is almost over, and it's making me really sad. I live for this time of year! I'm able to be outside much of the time (except for the really stupidly humid days which make me feel like I'm confined in a cold prison cell which is really my air conditioned apartment), and there are so many things to do! I've really enjoyed this summer so much, because I've done so many things with K. Oh, and I love summer because I can wear skirts and be barefoot almost all of the time!!! So it's depressing to me that it's coming to a close very shortly, and soon winter will be here. Although last winter was pretty mild compared to the standards for this area, winter is winter is winter, and I just don't like it one bit!! I'm hoping the winter weather will be tame again, because last winter actually allowed me to be out more than I thought I'd be. And I didn't have to wear long underwear on a constant basis!!! LOL!

K.'s birthday was last month, and I told him I wanted to take him on the Maid of the Mist ride down at the Falls. He mentioned months and months ago how he'd never been on it, and of course, the light bulb in my head went off! So Tuesday evening when were on the phone, I mentioned that the weather was going to be nice yesterday and then not so much the rest of the week. He decided to take a half day off of work, and came here so I could take him downtown. I was very excited! I have been on the Maid of the Mist ride twice, but the last time I was on it was 18 years ago! So I was excited for both of us to be going! I drove downtown and found a parking spot that was a bit of a walk from where we needed to go. I just didn't want to pay for the parking lots that surrounded so much of the area down there, and besides, I needed to walk! We got near the Observation Tower, which is where you have to go to take the long elevator down to the dock for the boat. Here are some views fr...

I just keep racking up the new experiences this summer! Flying on a plane, going to Florida, attending my first PHA conference, wandering Disney World, and also dealing with my first tropical storm was just the beginning! This past Sunday, I added another new thing to the list: jet skiing!!! No, that is not me, or K. above. lol I do have a picture with me on the jet ski, but K. hasn't sent it to me yet! When I get it, I'll share!  Anyway, it was such an awesome feeling!! We got the jet ski into the water, and I held onto it while K. parked the truck. When he got back, we climbed onto the jet ski, and before I knew it, we were taking off! I wasn't prepared for it! I wasn't sure how to feel at first, either. I thought maybe I felt a little seasick, but that lasted 2 seconds (THANK GOODNESS!!)! Then I felt like I was getting too winded, but nope! It was just WINDY! lol Then I realized I was just feeling a rushing experience! I was on the water, with a lot of other p...

Sooo, after the PHA conference last month, my phriend and her daughters and grand-daughter and I ventured on to Disney World! We were picked up at the Renaissance around 11am that Sunday, and off we went. It was a rather warm day, but wet and gloomy. I sat behind the driver, and soon we approached the Disney site. I took a picture of the entrance sign, which scared the poor driver because my flash went off and he thought it was lightning. Oops!! Soon we were at our hotel, All Disney Sports. There was a bit of an issue with checking in, and I also couldn't find out where my oxygen concentrator was located. After what seemed like forever, we were told where our rooms were, but only one of them was ready. So we headed to that one, and I was able to rest for awhile. Eventually the other room was ready, and I went down to it with my luggage. Then I had to go find the concentrator. I walked back to the main building, past the pool area. Which was flooded. I had worn my jeans and sn...