In my search for more tasty snacks - I have found that I really like spinach leaves with berries (usually strawberries and blueberries).  This week - I added cooked, leftover chicken and found it to be a really good meal, as well.  I have a bad habit of buying fresh fruit and veggies and not eating them before they go bad, so I've been trying to work on it.  I especially like berries because I don't feel bad about freezing them if I don't get to them.  While I love melon - I don't like to freeze melon and I hate when they go to waste because I simply got tired of eating that particular fruit.

Yes - a little rambly, but I'm tired.

I feel : tired

Happy birthday, Kelly!

Hope you have a fantastic day and a good year to come.

Finally got things going with the clinical research.  Received my first dose today of what will hopefully be the study drug and not the placebo and will hopefully work out to getting me on my road to recovery.

One of my veins blew out, so I have a horrid bruise now.  The nurse felt so horrible, but I know it wasn't anything she did.  She's drawn blood plenty of times - my veins are just finicky and like to roll, close up, or otherwise be a pain.  I used to have really good veins.  Whenever I donated blood, they'd always be so happy because I was an easy stick - now, they have to use the itty-bitty butterfly needle and hope that the vein doesn't stop pumping part way through.  (Which it did today, but she didn't want to poke me again, so she said they'd make do with what they got - woot!)

The IV went smoothly.  The drug is administered on a gravity drip (no pump) for about half an hour, which is a lot nicer than the 2 hour infusion time for Remicaid.  They kept me for an hour afterwards for observation.  I got free Chili's for lunch and, although tired, I feel pretty good comparitively.  I'm in my hungry, I want to eat everything phase - which should last for 3 to 6 more days before I go back to the I don't want to eat anything lest I throw up phase.  I'm enjoying it while I can.  : )

I go back in February for the next step of the study.

Tags: health

Oye.  So much going on.  There appears to be some good news on the medical front in that I should be getting some much needed assistance very soon; so that is exciting news.

Thanksgiving is fast approaching, and we've finally gotten more than a single days notice of what's going on with the holidays, so we'll be eating with Chris' family.  I'm going to make broccoli-rice-&-cheese casserole which my mom usually makes and I think is very yummy and is part of Thanksgiving for me.  We'll be heading over there on friday so I can get the recipe to make sure I at least put all the right stuff into it.

I won a custom avatar for a message board, so I have to think of something or draw something that I can use.  That's very exciting since only a handful of people get custom avatars.

Looking forward to Christmas - will be the 4th one with myChris, so I am thankful for that.  Good support goes a long way.

I guess that'll do for a little bit of catching up, more to come!

I feel : hopeful

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/velociraptors.jpg

It tickled me.   :-P

LJ is better than email for this sort of thing - IMO.

SCATTERGORIES...it's harder than it looks! Copy and paste into a new email.  When you are done, send it on, including to the person who sent it to you.  *Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following . . . They
have to be real places, names, things...nothing made up! Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial.  You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

What is your name:  Christina
4 letter word:   Card
Vehicle:  Corolla
Boy Name:   Carl
Girl Name:  Carol
Alcoholic Drink:  Cordial
Occupation:   Cartographer
Something You Wear:   Camisol
Celebrity:   Chris Tucker
Food:   Chocolate Cake
Something Found in the Bathroom:  Cough syrup
Reason for Being Late:    Car trouble
Something You Shout: Crap!

 I got an extra 13" tv - figured it'd be perfect for my old nintendo system - I could set it up in my office area and play rather than play on the emulator on my computer.  Since it was already there - and I had to hook the VCR up anyway so I could use it's RCA ports (of which it has 2 - front & rear) - I decided to break out the old Commodore.  I'm so excited!  I wasn't sure it would work - since it's been sitting unused for going on 4 years now - but it works splendidly!  Had a few bumps when the RCA cables I had weren't working properly - and the right audio channel is either blown or non-existent as it was making a weird whirring noise - so I just disconnected the right cable and the sound is great, the picture is great - my games of old!  Hooray!

So - now that I have the Commodore working - I'm going to hook up the Nintendo (ye old grey box) and have my little corner of nostalgia.  Makes me wish I had kept my Atari.

So all this got me to thinking....

My mom always rolls her eyes a bit when I talk about video games/systems or computers.  But then - it dawned on me - what is wrong with my mother?  Growing up - we had an Atari and then a Commodore 64.  They both started out as HERS.  Does she not understand that an XBOX or a playstation is the same thing?  It's still a game console - just more advanced.  The Commodore 64 was a personal computer - not just a dedicated gaming machine (though many used it for that).  I have (or had - haven't actually found it yet) a printer and I've got a word processor program for the thing - so really - my mom had a computer ages ago - and I'm going to point this out to her next time she glazes over or rolls her eyes when I start talking about my technology - it really is all her fault.  :-P

I feel : excited

Not much to say, but figured I'd give another go.  LJ has been eating my posts for the past 8 entries I've tried to make which was annoying enough that I just didn't bother for a while.  This week has sort of flown by.  We've had our ferret for 2 weeks now and she is simply adorable.  She likes to dig a lot though, which gets annoying - we have to get a sand box for her so she can get her digging urges out during play time because the sound of her nails on the plastic bottom of her cage is really grating.

I hope she doesn't get cage stress.  I let her out all the time, but I don't want to let her run freely because she could get hurt - we have a lot of clutter which she could get lost in, and with me not being able to chase her down or get on my hands and knees easily - it's just not worth it for her to run around the house.  She has a play box and she also plays in the tub a lot - with and without water.  She tends to sleep a lot which is partly why we got her - we wanted a pet, but not something as demanding as a puppy.  She's already mostly litter trained and it's been a lot of fun watching her play.  She has so much energy and she makes little laugh noises which really are cute.  Anywho - hopefully LJ won't eat my post.

So - we were gonna play D&D tonight.  Our DM gets really into it and does a very thorough story/background/etc.  He puts 5 hours into set construction and prep work to get everything ready for the evening game.  It's fantastic!  He even built his own D&D table that fits into his current dining table.  It is just wonderful.  However - tonight did not happen - much to the disgust and dismay of those who did show up.

Apparently - 1 guy decided that he needed to spend the weekend with family since he's working the following weekend.  Another guy - totally excused, though still fustrating overall - family crisis which required his presence.  We're okay - there's still 4 of us, which is enough if some double up - no biggy.  We were running a little late coming from my mother's house, but we figured it'd give the others a chance to get their characters ready and we'd be caught up as I did mine in the car on the way over, more or less.  We get there - the 4th guy isn't there.  It's now 7pm.  We call his cell phone - no answer.  We leave message.  We wait.  We finish fleshing out our characters.  We call.  No answer.  We page him.  We wait.  We buy our starting equipment.  We call.  We wait...we called maybe a dozen or so times and finally at 10:00pm - we call it and decide it's not going to happen.  We hang out a bit and then drive home.  It's now 1:00am - we sit at our computer and lo and behold - there's the 4th guy.  The only message on our machine was from earlier that day when he called to get directions.  (we weren't home)  Now - the guy has been there before...there are 2 other friends we've got on that end of town that he could've called or stopped by to get directions or at least a phone number to call.  He says he drove to that end of town and drove around a bit trying to find the place - left his phone at home, and by the time he got back - felt it was too late.  He's only 30 minutes away - If he left at 6:59 (we called at 7:00) drove around for an HOUR and then went home - that'd have him back by 9:00pm.  Our last call was somewhere between 9:30 and 10:00.  I'm going to have to call Shennanigans.  Just fustrating, but not near as much as our DM was.  Somebody owes him a huge ass apology, IMO.

Hopefully, things will be smoother next time.

I feel : aggravated

Okay.  So...the fridge doesn't fit.  I measured like 10 times, we measured it in the store, when the delivery people came, they looked at it and said it should fit once we got the cupboard out...we got the cupboard out....and it doesn't fit!  It's too wide!  It's wider than the fridge specifications say it is...which to me, means not paying the restocking fee - which is like 10 or 15 percent.  My mother was lied to!  There's no way to make it fit, really.  So my mom says, I wasn't there once it was delivered, so haven't seen it for myself, but she says the wall is in the way.  I'm so annoyed at the whole thing.  She can get a different one...but then it's not THE one.  It's not the one she wants, so won't be as happy with - but she can't make this one fit.  Hopefully, when Dean gets home, he can look at it and figure something out.  I hope so.  It's a nice fridge and I don't want my mom to have to argue with Sears about the re-stocking fee.