Saturday - 5-26

It is Memorial Weekend this weekend.  I had one student today and will have none tomorrow but 3 on Monday so that is good.  I would have had Rick's lesson (he is back from being out of town for 2 1/2 months) tomorrow but as I already made plans I asked if we could do either today or Monday just this weekend.  He chose Monday.  It works fine for me.  I am looking forward to tomorrow with the girls in the afternoon.  I think we will either do dinner or ice cream after.  Pretty much whatever they choose works for me.

I am still re-reading Harry Potter number 4 right now.  I am about 1/2 way through it.  I am at the part where Harry just performed the first task of the competition and Ron realizes that someone wants Harry dead.  It is such a good book.  I just love it.  Of course, I love all the books of Harry Potter.  The girls are re-watching the Lord of the Rings movies right now too so I am bringing the extended versions for them tomorrow.  Their dad rented the Fellowship of the Ring theatrical version so I am bringing them the extended ones for them to watch.  I love those movies too.  I tried to re-read the books (I think I read them in high school because I had to) and I just couldn't get into them.  I will stick to the movies because they are so good.  I am watching the extended version part 2 right now, the commentary.  The cast commentary is so interesting.  I don't listen to all commentaries on DVDs but this one and a few others I do because you learn so much about how they did the movie.  That stuff is very interesting, not interesting enough for me to want to do that type of stuff, but fascinating as a film viewer.  These are such good movies and has several of my favorite actors, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, and Sean Bean.  Sean Bean is in the movie we are seeing tomorrow too.  He plays the King in Mirror Mirror.  Julia Roberts plays the evil queen and I think it will be so good, or at least I hope so.  At the very least, I will have a lovely afternoon with my beautiful girls and that is the best part, spending time with them.

Camille had her last lesson today.  I was very sad because she is such a good student and girl but she has moved and lives too far away to come to me anymore.  She was so sad too.  I gave her my email so she can write me.  Camille is really a good pianist.  I will miss her so much.  so for now, I just have Brianna on Saturdays.  Brianna is new to our group but not the newest.  Faith is the newest to our group.  She is also my neighbor.  Faith has had 2 lessons and is doing really well at this point.  Next week she will switch to C position and then the following week, Faith will start learning how to read music.  She is very excited about playing so I hope to keep that excitement.

I am not sure what I am going to watch tonight.  I am just going to relax and look at what music I need for students next week.  Perhaps I will actually start ahead of time, instead of waiting for the last minute.  One never knows with me, I am a procrastinator at times.  I am working on not procrastinating all the time, but so far, it is an uphill battle that I am so losing!

I hope your weekend is going well so far, mine is and tomorrow will be awesome.  I will need most of Monday to recover, thankfully I only have 3 lessons and they are spread all throughout the day.

Light Day of Teaching 5-25

Acer and Calli did not have lessons tonight.  I knew Acer wouldn't but I thought Calli was going to a little later than usual but either they forgot or forgot to call and say they weren't coming.  Maybe Heather, Calli's mom, was sleeping and didn't tell Calli about the schedule change.  I will see them next week.  Emily and Natalie had their lessons though.  Emily was rather excited about finishing 1B books and starting level 2.  I was happy that she was finishing up the books too.  Natalie is starting a new Broadway song.  The problem?  I didn't have the copy of the CD that I needed.  I burned a new one for her tonight so I will give it to her next week.  Camille is having her lesson tomorrow and then I am done with lessons until Monday at 10 am when Isaac will have his rescheduled from later in the day, lesson.  Antoinette and Selma will be having their regularly scheduled lessons.  My little Rachel is absent this week.  I will miss her a lot.  She is such a cute little girl.

I am not sure what I will do tomorrow afternoon.  Maybe I will watch one of the movies that I own that I haven't seen yet.  I do have about 5 to 6 of them piling up waiting for me to watch them.  Sunday, I will be busy until evening.  I am so looking forward to that.  It should be a good day.

My left shoulder seems to be doing better.  I can lift it higher than I have in a while so I am happy about that.  I hope it stays that way.  My head is about the normal pain for the day.  I have been out of my zantac medicine for about 5 days now.  I will call the doctor on Tuesday and have them call in a refill since they haven't done this yet.  I thought the doctor did when I saw her last but I guess she didn't put enough refills.  I won't see her again until after the next scope to see how my ulcer is doing.  I don't seem to get as much heartburn and stomach aches as I did nor do I feel like I am going to throw up all the time like I was before the prilosec medicine was added to the list of medicines I take.

I am looking forward to having a pretty busy weekend.  I hope yours is good too.

Choir Night 5-24

My Katie joined choir tonight.  She was so worried about whether or not the choir would want her.  Well, they all welcomed her with open arms as I knew that they would.  I introduced her to Lee, the choir director and he was very excited to see a new person in our midst.  I am excited about this too.  Oh, I have to email Katie the songs we are singing.  I will be right back.  There, it is done!  I am so happy she will be able to sing with us until she goes to college in the Fall.  I will miss my beautiful girl.  She is such a nice girl and has grown to a wonderful young lady.

It has been rather nice out these past few days.  I am very happy about that.  It has been about 80 or so degrees outside, which means the house is a nice temperature too.  I have pulled out my shorts outfits for the summer.  I love most of them even though they are old and a certain relative says to throw them out and get new ones.  Well, they aren't worn out yet and I like them, so I will keep which ones I like.  I don't dress for people, I dress for me and comfort, definitely for comfort.

Lessons were light again today.  My lovely Breanna is finishing up her school year so she had to cancel her lessons today.  Faith had her 2nd lesson and her sister, Courtney came with her today.  They rode their bikes and then they were headed to ice cream.  Courtney said I could borrow her and Faith for Chipotle's any day.  I said that was good info to know and will be keeping that in mind.  Faith is so excited to learn that it is so wonderful to teach her.  Courtney seemed to like her sister's playing.

I am looking forward to the weekend.  I only have 1 lesson on Saturday and so far, none on Sunday.  I do have a couple on Monday so that is good.  I have a busy Sunday planned.  I am going to church, then I have an appointment with a friend of mine, and then the movie with my girls!  It will be busy, but nice.

I start Physical Therapy on Wednesday.  I should have started a couple of months ago, but I kept forgot to call and then I waited a few weeks to get in.  I am not sure how much this is going to cost me so I am only trying it out and then I will know how much it costs.  I am kind of excited about Physical Therapy because I am hoping it works well for me.  I just hope I can afford it.  Two chances I suppose, either I can or I can't.  I will have another appointment with the Arthritis Doctor sometime soon.  I just don't remember what day.  I also have to see Dr. Gradolph next week for my protime test.  He wants to see me this time though.  I don't know why, but I will make an appointment for next week.

I am now on the 4th book of Harry Potter.  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  I started it yesterday.  I will probably finish it this weekend.  I loaned Maggie a couple of Kristen Hannah books for her to read.  I know she will like them.  She has 2 of my favorite, of course, since I wanted her to read the best of Kristen Hannah.

Well, it is time to read before bed!  Tomorrow I will have all my Friday lessons.  Next Friday, our choir is having a singing party to see what music the church has that we like and will do.  The church has so much music that the director wants to weed out the ones he doesn't like or we don't like.  Of course, he has final say.

Tuesday 5-22

It is the usual NCIS and NCIS Los Angeles night here in the house.  For some unknown reason, NCIS Los Angeles is on first followed by 2 episodes of NCIS.  It doesn't really matter to me what order they are in, not one bit!

It was a very light day for teaching, only 2 lessons, my little Samuel and my little Rahul.  Sam is 5 and Rahul is 4.  Both are very cute.  Rahul has this cute habit of leaning on me when we are doing his workbook.  It is quite cute and he is such a cutie.  He also has no problem walking on me to put the crayons away or to get the crayons.  He just walks on my legs, which actually does hurt because of the fibro but I don't say anything because he is so small.  Charlie and David are both absent today.  Charlie is at Cedar Point.  Today was definitely a better day for Cedar Point than yesterday as today is cooler and yesterday was so warm at about 82 degrees.  I am not surprise it is as warm as it has been since winter was so warm.  I foresee a hot, sticky summer.  That I am not too happy about but I will stay in my nice and air conditioned house.

I haven't been sleeping too well lately.  I have switched back to Tylenol PM hoping that would help, but it didn't so tomorrow I will go and get some Advil PM.  I ran out of Advil PM, which is part of the reason I switched to the other, but since it doesn't work too well, I am switching back.  It has been taking at least about 3 hours to fall asleep.  I will doze for a bit and then I will have to get up and out of bed to get rid of the extra pain before crawling back into bed.  It is getting a bit ridicules now.  I am hoping for a better night sleep tonight.  One can dream, can't they?  I can and do.

I just checked the movie guide.  Mirror Mirror is still playing!  Thank goodness!  I am so glad about that!  So I have messaged the girls to see if the time I picked will work with their schedules.  I figure we can go and get ice cream (for them, not for me) or something like that after the movie.  I love my girls!  We should have a good time, I think and we will see a good movie too.  I am not sure how many students I will have on Monday, since it is a holiday, but I am hoping at least a few.  Rachel will be absent and I am not sure if Isaac will be having his lesson, but i will find out as we get closer to the weekend.

I am getting tired now.  I may try to go to bed shortly instead of waiting until the regular bedtime.  The woman who does the vacuuming and scrubbing for me is coming tomorrow.  I have her come once a month to help.  It really helps me a lot because I have such a hard time doing the vacuuming and scrubbing myself.  She does a decent job so I am happy about that.

I finally received a phone call about physical therapy.  I am going to go to one session and see how much it is going to cost me because if it is too much, then I can't do it.  Although, I am not feeling as bad as I was when i saw the arthritis doctor in March so maybe that was a good thing.  I DO hope that I can try physical therapy because I do think it will help.

I am now on the 4th Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  I love Harry Potter books.  I simply do.

the start of a new musical week 5-21

I was watching NCIS Los Angeles on USA.  It was from the first season.  I don't know why, but it suddenly dawned on me that the bad guys always have horrible aim even when firing machine guns and the good guys are great shots with only pistols.  I don't know why it hit me today, but it did.  Of course, I do want the good guys to catch the bad guys, I am just noting how they always miss or get lucky shots in, that's all.

The day after the concert is back to regular music.  The Muglia girls had their lessons today.  Natalie started voice after her piano lesson.  Both Hannah and Natalie are playing the same Clementi Sonatina.  It is one of my favorites.  Both girls fly through the sections that they know really well and then slow down when they don't know the part very well.  Lydia does the same thing too.  It is something we will be working on for a while I foresee.  Overall though, I am so happy with how they play.  They are really quite good at this point and they are getting into some beginning advanced music.  I am so proud of them. Sarah is almost ready to start a new position next month.  She is doing very well.  Their younger brother, Patrick plays several songs by ear so we are thinking that perhaps in September the young man might start piano.  We shall see if he is interested.  He will be almost 7 at that point.  They are a very musical family and I am glad they do what they can with keeping up lessons.

Rachel had her lesson this afternoon too.  She is such a doll and a sweet girl.  She also likes to pretend she is a kitten during the lesson at times.  Today it was while we were doing flashcards.  I always know when she knows the answer, she scratches the card like a cat.  Fortunately, she does answer the question pretty quick or it would be hard to finish the flash cards.  Rachel started a new book a few weeks ago.  She is in her 3rd book now.  Selma also is getting ready to start a new book.  She will be in level 2 next week.  I have to go and pick up her books this week because I had to order them.  They are in now.  I will pick them up tomorrow.  I also need to copy some music for David tomorrow too.  Isaac has decided to finish working on the Hedwig's Theme.  He played the main part of the theme for the concert and we are working on the second part for the next few lessons.  He is such a talented young man.  If only he would practice more!  I know he is very busy, but he is just so talented.

I also just remembered, need to call the guy to cancel cutting the grass this week.  It doesn't need it so I don't want it cut.  Sean cut the 2 trees down in my yard today.  He found an old hose under one of the trees and apparently, it has been leaking.  Yeah, I wonder how long?  So Sean turned the water off at the tap and thinks it is turned all the way off now.  I sure hope so.  Sean is such a nice young man, just like his sister, Carolyn.  In fact, the entire family is wonderful and so very helpful to me.  We also get together for dinner and a movie nights.  I truly enjoy being with them.  I am very blessed with the friends that I have.

This weekend, I am planning on picking up my girls (the Muglias) and going to see "Mirror Mirror" with them.  It is the Julia Roberts version of Snow White.  One of my favorite actors is in it.  He plays the king, which I know, is not a huge role, but that is okay.  He is still in it for a bit.  If it is not at the regular theatre we are hoping it is at the $1 one, if not, we shall see something else.  I just love hanging out with the girls.  They are really good kids and don't get to go out too much so I like to come and take them when I can.  Plus, then I have someone to see movies with!  So all in all, it is a good trade, I get the girls for a while, catch up on their lives, and we all see a movie or do something together.

I hope you had a good day too!  My arm is a bit sorer than usual tonight.  I am not sure why.  I took my pain medicine a bit ago so I am hoping it starts working soon.  I am going to lose myself in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for a bit now.

Concert Day 5-20

It was the Concert today!!!  All my students did so well!  One of my newest students, Brooke, went up there and place her hands at the proper place, but she didn't start to play!  I went up and she said she was fine, but then we sent Jillian (her twin) up and apparently, Miss Brooke was needing the music.  Oops!  After a long pause, Brooke played her song beautifully!  I am so proud of all my students.  We had some students who just wore nice outfits and others wore costumes.  The lovely Muglia girls and Isaac all dressed as Harry Potter characters while Brooke, Jillian, and Aubrey all dressed as Disney Princesses.  I was very happy that some had costumes.  All in all, I think it went very well.  I am thankful it went well and now it is over.  I went to go to Chipotles to pick up dinner but the line was very long so I drove thru Panera and got soup and a salad.  I love salads a lot.  I decided that at this point, I must lose weight so I will have the doctor adjust my blood thinners for me to eat salads almost everyday.  I have to eat more veggies and salads are the best way to do this so that is what I will do.  I also have given up all fast food because that has helped with the gaining of poundage.  Well, anyways, it was a lovely afternoon with a nice dinner while reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  I am in the middle of re-reading all of them again.  I am on number 3 right now.

My lovely Natalie wants to start voice lessons tomorrow.  I have to copy some music for her.  I think she will do well.  She just wants the basics so that is what I will give her.  We are going to start with a couple of Broadway songs.  I am thinking of giving her Feed the Birds and another Disney piece.  I am not sure about an Italian song although it is what I give students her age.  Natalie is a wonderful pianist.  She is doing very well with her music.  I also had her and her sister, Hannah create the Spring Concert Program. I had 2 covers, one by Hannah and the other by Natalie.  The program covers turned out quite nicely.  I had asked Charlie for some pictures and a paragraph about himself for the program.  I called yesterday because I still didn't have it.  Turns out the email went to spam instead of my email.  I got the pictures and the paragraph in time so that ended okay too.  Usually, I have a newsletter spotlighting the senior, but since I have no reason to have a newsletter, I had the Senior Spotlight on the Spring concert program instead.  It worked out well.

Oh my!  My legs and hips are rather sore tonight because of the walking at the concert and my new flats, mostly the up and down to the piano and back.  I have the usual, after concert headache, which is not a surprise as this happens after every concert.  I think the stress of getting ready for the concert adds to the extra headache.  It is hard to tell with me.  One never knows.  Army Wives will be on in about 35 minutes so that will be good.  I love that show a lot.  It is a nice one.

the night before the concert

As usual, I am printing the concert program tonight when the concert is tomorrow.  This is normal for me.  I used to try to print the concert earlier in the week, but I always had so many changes that I had to print and reprint over and over again so now I print the night before or in the case of the Christmas Concert, until wee hours of the morning.  I am simply hoping to miss that part of getting ready for the concert.  I am printing the covers now, 1 set is done and it is on number 31 of 35 copies.  I sure hope 70 copies of the program is enough because that is all I am printing.  It should be enough since there are only 25 students and the rest are for their parents.  The little ones won't need a program though as some of them can't read yet.

I am watching Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix on ABC family channel.  Apparently, it is a 4 day weekend treat to watch the movies.  Yes, I missed the first four but as I have them on DVD, I can watch them at any time.  I love these movies.

Well, I will finish printing tomorrow morning.  I am really too tired to continue right now.  I have 30 printed so far.  I also almost forgot to make the disc for Bill.  It is done now.  Thankfully, I only am missing one disc.  Of course, it is one that I need but what can say?  It could have been worse, I suppose.  I am tired of going to get discs that are missing.  Well, sometime during the year I will get a replacement for it.

I can't wait until tomorrow with the concert!  It should be a good time.

Friday 5-18

I have the concert order done and who is announcing who.  However, I don't have the program finished yet.  I will work on that tomorrow and Sunday.  I do have to remember to get ink for the printer in case I run out in the middle of printing.  I am not sure how many to print.  There are 30 songs, but only 17 families so I am not sure how many.  I think 60 should be enough, then the students can have one each too.

I am working on losing weight.  That is my new thing since I got weighed at the doctors.  Yeah, needless to say I bet it is a miracle that I don't have diabetes.  My biggest problem is the vegetable food group.  I love vegetables but I really like salads.  The problem?  Lettuce has a lot of vitamin K, which would counter act the blood thinners I take for my blood disorder.  I am not sure if I should just have my medicine adjusted and eat the salads.  I just don't know.  It is a balancing act I am working on.  I have managed to mostly stop the drive thrus with bad food so that is good.  I am open to suggestions on what to do about this.  I have to lose weight or eventually it will be really bad for me.  I am not considering surgery at all because of the blood disorder and the massive amounts of side effects after the surgery.  It has been suggested to me but I am just not interested.  Also, it would take a year before I could have the surgery because of everything you have to do before the surgery.  I need to work on this with good food and increase exercise.  That always has worked for me.  I am hoping that when I lose the weight, I will be able to exercise more.  I have pulled out my Richard Simmons' Sit Tight DVD to help with the exercise part.  I am going to be doing some at night a few hours before bed from now on.  I just have to do this.  I tried last summer, but I didn't follow through.  This year (after getting weighed at the doctor's office) I have to.  I have just gained way too much weight.  I know a lot of it was from the Lyrica, but I was overweight before that and gained some since then.

I am still waiting for the physical therapy place to call me back with an appointment.  It has been over a week now.  I am not sure how much it is going to cost me either.

It will be a very busy weekend with the spring concert.

thursday 5-17

Hmmmm, it has been a rather quiet type day.  A few lessons, one of them new, then picking up yet another prescription from the pharmacy.  Sometimes, it feels like I am there everyday picking up prescriptions.  Oh my.  Anyways, my neighbor's daughter started lessons today.  She is 9 and very cute.  She did very well with her first lesson.  Her mom was supposed to go to the bank while we had her lesson, but she feel asleep instead.  We put her to sleep with our calm piano music.  I think this will be fun for both of us.  At any rate, she can just walk here to her lessons.  That will come in handy this summer.

Speaking of summer, I am not sure how many students will be stopping lessons for summer.  The last few summers, not many have stopped and several have started.  In June, it will be a year for my beautiful Rachel.  She started just before her 6th birthday.  I am so thankful for the students who started last summer because most of them are still taking lessons!  I will be finding out in the next few weeks who will be stopping for the summer.  Hopefully, not too many.

I have to work on the program tonight.  I kind of haven't started yet outside of listing everyone in the concert.  Natalie and Hannah are working on the program covers.  We will have 2 of them since each of them will be creating one.  They are so good at art.  I would have to use clip art for the cover otherwise.  I am splitting the concert in two with a brief intermission so I can change the students around.  Students can sit with their parents in the half they are not in except for the group song.  Acer has requested that both his songs be in the same half.  I forgot to ask Calli but as she is announcing, I don't think she particularly care where she is in the concert.  She is singing and playing piano in the concert.  As of today, there are 31 songs in the concert including the group song.  It should be a good concert.  I hope so anyway.

Can you believe that it is the middle of May at this point?  I can't.  Time moves so fast some days and then other days it drags.  Weird how that works.  I remember one day when I was in 4th grade.  I felt like I had been there all day and that it was time to go home.  I looked up and it was almost 12 noon.  Yes, what felt like all day was really almost 3 hours.  I remember feeling so upset at that time.  Now, of course, it seems like that was forever ago.  Time is such a weird thing, isn't it.

I woke up this morning (yes, I mean morning - about 9 am) with such a bad headache but instead of what I usually do, which is nothing just roll over and hoped it would go away.  Instead, I got up and went downstairs to take some medicine!  Yes, I actually did!  When I finally got up for the day, my head was down to the normal pain level.

I hope you are having a good day.  Mine was nice and quiet.

mid week! 5-16

It has been a good day.  I met my friend, Jennie for lunch 1/2 way between each of our houses.  She is planning to come over in June for both a voice lesson and for what we call, "friend squad".  Jennie helps me around the house with jobs I can't really do myself.  I am sure there are a few things I need to get done.  There is so much upkeep with a house.  I am doing pretty well with it.  I do have someone come once a month to help vacuum and scrub the tile floor.  I just can't do these tasks myself.  Vacuuming can cause extreme pain in my lower back, hips, and legs.  I only vacuum if I have absolutely no choice.  It is worth the money to pay Mariela to vacuum for me.

Since I got up earlier than usual today and due to a horrible night sleep, I am getting rather tired now.  I see me going to bed rather early and hopefully have a good nights sleep.

I am re-reading all the Harry Potter books.  I just finished the first one, AGAIN.  I don't know how many times I have read these books.  I really love them a lot.  It is a toss up which books I like best, Anne of Green Gables or Harry Potter.  It is a toss up.  i just don't know.  Both are such good books.  I want to watch the movies again too.

I am going to go and see how long I can use the exercise machine whose name I can't spell at this time.  I can't even remember its name.  Yup, good old fibro fog!  Anyways, it is in the family room and I do like it although I can't be on it too long because I am just starting to use it.

I hope your day was good.  I had such a good time at lunch with Jennie and the girls' lessons went well too.  Brooke, Aubrey, Jillian are so cute and so excited to learn.  It is fun when the student really wants to learn.

Tuesday 5-15

Tonight is NCIS night.  I am relieved to find out that my beloved NCIS WILL be back next season.  I am so glad about that as I totally love that show.  The season finale was amazing and of course, a cliff hanger, which generally I don't care for but I have no choice in the decision to make them.  NCIS Los Angeles is on right now and it is a 2 hour season finale.  I love that show too.  They are my favorites at this point.  Mom liked them a lot too until she couldn't handle TV anymore.  I used to buy them on DVD but since I am able to pretty much watch them all, it isn't necessary to buy them plus they show the re-runs on USA.

It was so nice out today.  The sun was shining and a beautiful light breeze.  Oh my, was it wonderful!  I had to go and get some music today for my new student on Thursday.  She is a neighbor girl and I am very excited about this.  I have seen the young lady before and I have been at her house, but we have not been formally introduced yet.  Her mom is on the board of the subdivision like I am.  She is very nice.  I don't have much room for many more students, but I do have some room.

One of my student's mom was diagnosed with Breast Cancer just last week.  Wow, I am stunned.  It is always a shock to be diagnosed with cancer because no one expects this type of diagnose.  Jasmin is such a nice woman.  She is a doctor.  Jasmin delivers babies.  Laith seems to be taking it okay but he is only 7. He is a darling of a student but a bit of a mischievous young man.  He likes to come in the house and pretty much dive to the couch, which of course means I have to go and get him.  This is his plan, of course.  I get him and put him on the piano bench and during the lesson he tries to get away to the couch. He has been doing this for a couple of months now.  Generally, his mom does not like that he does this, but that doesn't seem to faze the young man.  Once in a while, I do get upset with him on this and then he behaves very well, but generally, he plays in between the escapes so I don't complain too much and he does come back to the chair when I ask him to.  Charlie had his lesson today too.  He was absent last week.  Next week he will have an hour lesson to make up for missing last week.  We will actually be having 2 one hour lessons in a row to make up for another missed lesson.  I love how he makes up the lessons instead of just being absent.  David had his lesson and a make up lesson for last week.  I have to copy some music for him next week plus his sight reading papers.

I just realize (as I looked at my planner) I am having lunch with my friend, Jennie!  I am so excited about this.  I had to cancel last month because of Breanna and Katie's practice with the pianist for the audition.  I am glad I didn't have to cancel this month.  She is so busy with the family that we would have to wait until next month so I am glad we are going to be able to meet tomorrow.  I only have a few lessons tomorrow.

The first hour of NCIS Los Angeles is over now.  So far, the mysterious killer has killed about 3 NCIS agents.  I think, but I am not sure, (according to the previews) Sam gets killed.  I don't like it when they do that.  I really like that character a lot.  Okay - good news, he is NOT dead and didn't get blown up in the warehouse.  I am rather glad about that.

Pain level is normal today.  My hands and feet get numb so easy these days depending on what I am sitting on or what i am doing.  Sometimes, when I type on the computer my hand goes numb.  I just don't know.  It is just a part of Fibro, I think.  When I was taking Effexor, it did help with the numbness but not too much for the pain.  I stopped taking it in 2008 because I couldn't afford the medicine.  Once I was off it, it didn't seem too different except for the numbing of hands and feet.  I don't take an anti-depressant at this time.  I tried Lyrica too.  Oh my, I don't think it worked all that well but I did manage to gain about 80 pounds on it, give or take a few pounds.  I have NOT managed to lose those added pounds either so that kind of stinks.  I do hope by the end of summer to have some of those awful pounds gone.  That is my goal.  I will also eat at home more like tonight.