Blah blah blah

Spring has been slow in coming to Central Canadia. The winter was long and brutal and spring has been pretty chilly so far. Temps have been ranging from close to normal to 10 degrees below norm. Not really conducive to plant life. My tulips are only up about 4" and the trees and shrubs are just starting to grow tiny green leaves.

I moved one ton of river stone last weekend. My patio covers almost half of my tiny yard and goes from fence to fence width-wise. The horrible outdoor carpet that covered the whole thing is now gone, cut away in manageable sections. To get some moisture into the soil around the house (and hopefully stop the foundation from cracking any further and ruining my patch job from last year), I pulled out two rows of patio blocks along the west fence, put down a layer of landscape cloth, and covered that with several inches of river stone. Half a yard weighs approximately one ton! Thankfully the guy who loaded it into my little truck did so slowly, and I took my time driving home. I then shovelled it into a wheelbarrow and hauled it into the yard, spreading it along an area about 3 1/2 feet wide by 15 feet long. Took me about 3 hours. I slept really well that night!! And fortunately I was not too horribly stiff and sore the following day.

I've been having lots of aches and pains that seem much more than what should be normal for someone of my age, so a trip to the doctor was in order. All this has been building over a number of years and has gotten out of hand. I was grilled about family history for diseases like MS, lupus, rhematoid arthritis and the like. None of that in any relatives but a volley of blood tests done just in case. Everything came back negative so I don't have any horrible autoimmune disease. I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and have started on a medication to deal with the ongoing pain. It's a bit of a rocky start, as one of the initial side effects is mild nausea, but with time that should disappear. All I really want is to not hurt so much all the time so if this works, I will be jubilant!

Maart and I have been together for one year now and we've settled into our relationship well. We get along so easily, very much enjoying each other's company. It was his birthday on Saturday and we had family and friends over. He wanted an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen but I decided to make one instead. Banana split. Layer of chocolate cookies crumbs for the crust, then sliced bananas, chocolate ice cream, chocolate sauce, strawberry ice cream, strawberry sauce, vanilla ice cream. Topped with swirls of whipped cream, each bearing a cherry, and the centre of the cake top covered in crushed pineapple and chopped pecans. It was a huge hit!! Maart has been wonderful to me so all the years of slogging through the online dating cesspools has been very much worth it to find him.

The middle of June I have two weeks' vacation. No plans to go anywhere, but I do want to lay the rest of the laminate flooring that is sitting in my basement. Then there will be no more wall to wall carpeting, which I despise. Lila won't know what to do, as she scratches on it incessantly. I guess a few more scratching pads will have to be purchased. Then June 30th I will be having surgery on my left hand for carpal tunnel syndrome. My right was done in 2005. I totally planned this as I will now have almost all of the summer off! I saw the surgeon in February and picked my vacation times in March. So once I knew when I had vacation, I booked the surgery date. No point being off work in the middle of winter in this part of the universe! Maart has vacation the first two weeks of August so we have been discussing if we should go somewhere during that time. I will be off work 6 - 8 weeks. I think I will work on my tan.