Fifteen Minutes of Delusion

Today Kara and I defrosted the freezer, and we had a great time. Well, ok - that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it really was kind of fun. Kara melted the frost with the steamer, and I sucked it up with the shop vac. We were finished in record time. I dumped over five gallons out of the vacuum when we were done - evidence that the task was long overdue. As an added bonus, I found some bags of guava puree buried under all that ice. Tomorrow I'm going to start a batch of Guavalicious apple butter. Maybe I'll even have a contest and give some away - provided there's enough interest (hint, hint).

Man, what a total blog slacker I've become. I used to shoot for every day or two, but now it seems like I'm just hitting every three or four. No promises to improve, but I'll try. Wow, that really sounds like slackerese, doesn't it? In true slacker spirit, I'm going to link to somebody else's blog for the rest of my post. My friend from long ago Liz has a blog, and after I posted a couple of comments she decided to bring up the old days. You can read it here . Thanks for the shout out, Liz.

Alyssa asked me if she could play trains today. I asked Anna if she would help Alyssa. This is the layout they came up with. In addition to playing trains, we worked and ran errands and set out the flag and took a dip in a friend's pool Pizza and ice cream for dinner are especially appropriate on a holiday. I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day.

Today was a good day. Together we got a lot of things done. Here are a few of the highlights. We planted our garden. Since we only have a one acre lot, and most of that is dedicated to a Limestone and Prairie Grass Preserve, we opted for a container garden in large metal baskets. Anna and I made little pictures to label the many metal storage bins we have picked up at Ikea over the last few years. The photos really help. Now when it's time to get a pair of sterile rubber gloves, we don't need to search through the Barbies and wooden train sets to get find them. I mowed the front lawn. There is no photographic evidence. Kara organized her large metal storage bin. This one came from the Home Depot. Please resist the temptation to fill it with empty banana peels. I took care of my bi-weekly grooming. No more combs, brushes, gels, or mousse - just a No. 2 clipper guard and a steady hand. Before After Kara was busy in the kitchen: cooking, deboning, and pureeing three game hens. I...

I've decided to name the main characters in my novel Triiodothyronine and Thyroxine. What do you think? No, just kidding. These are thyroid hormones known as T3 and T4, and the blood work I had done on Monday showed that I was pretty much running on empty where these guys are concerned. This goes a long way towards explaining the increasing fatigue I've felt since February. It's been a while since I've had any blood work done, so I don't really know how long they've been low. The doctor has me on a hypothyroid medication, and it seems to be helping. Yesterday was the first day in a long time that I haven't been propped up with some kind of caffeine. I felt mentally alert, but physically drained - probably due to the antibiotics I'm on. Also, Kara started me on green smoothies, which are about half fruit half leafy veggies. I've been drinking them for breakfast. They taste pretty good, as long as I drink with my eyes closed.

Just a few bullet points to keep you caught up: As a result of last months hail storm, the insurance adjuster is coming to look at our roof tomorrow. It looks fine to me, but then again my neighbors' roofs all look fine to me and they have all been totaled by the insurance companies. I am scheduled to host four more blog tour book stops this summer. Watch this space! We went to the Lyme doctor yesterday. He was quite impressed with Kara's new look. I started antibiotics today. Kara needs to wait and discuss this with her GI doc. Yesterday I grabbed a jar of spaghetti sauce in the fridge. The jar was lightly stuck to the shelf, and rather than come unstuck, it broke in half. Later a tub of sour cream jumped to the floor. It was apparently food suicide day, and the result was lots of wiping. School is almost over. The girls are excited. I am, too - mostly because 5:30 revile really sucks. Hopefully we can keep some semblance of routine going. That's all for now. Thanks for st...

OK, so this isn't really a horny toad - it's a Texas spiny lizard. And this isn't even the actual lizard that has been running around in the office for the past week, and which was finally caught and set free today. That lizard was too fast for my shutter finger, so I stole this one from Wikipedia. (And a bit smaller, too...) The office got thoroughly trashed while I was trying to catch the little bugger. (That's my story, even though truth be told the mess just shifted around a bit.) This is what happens when you live close to TCU , I guess. Oh, wait - those guys are the horned frogs . Never mind.