First, there was Friday and heading out to El Camino Real with My Dear Friend Wendy. A girl’s night out that ended in The Boyfriend needing to come pick us up. But not before we made a new friend named Jeni who was there meeting a semi-blind (talked to him on the Internet but never in person) date. He turned out to be quite the jerk, so Wendy and I set about finding her a nice guy. She and Brian seemed to hit it off pretty well and text messages since then have reiterated that he is AWESOME!

Here are the teeny tiny cell phone shots:

Mmmm… strawberry margaritas

Wendy seems concerned that the pitcher is almost empty. (Let’s not talk about how many times it was refilled, ok?)

Who knew that Christmas in July meant beads?

And then there was Saturday, which started off a little rough (gee, I wonder why), but resulted in a trip to the Farmer’s Market downtown:

(I actually took that photo two weeks ago, but strangely enough, it looked EXACTLY THE SAME when we were there on Saturday.)

After the market, we went to The Blarney, an Irish pub downtown that we had been meaning to visit for a while. While I don’t have a photo, I can tell you that the service was superb, the Bloody Mary I had definitely kicked the remainder of my hangover out the door, and they have the most amazing Loaded Baked Potato soup. If you are ever in Toledo, I highly recommend you pay this place a visit. And call me first, so I can go with you.

After a relaxing afternoon, The Boyfriend and I headed back downtown for my first ever Mud Hens game at Fifth Third Field. A friend of JM’s couldn’t use his tickets behind home plate, so we were the fortunate recipients:

The Mud Hens beat the Pawtucket Red Sox, 1 to nothing. I was a tad disappointed that their scoreboard didn’t have a big “MUD HENS WIN!” plastered all over it, like their Major League counterparts up north. But here’s a picture of the scoreboard, anyway:

See? Here we are!

It was a gorgeous night for baseball. We had a lot of fun. And capping it off? Fireworks!

Sunday night kicked off OLSSI 2008, which was also a lot of fun, but that’s another post completely!

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That post I promised you a couple of days ago is still coming, I swear. But today, I’m at OLSSI, waiting for the first session to begin.

I’m not really going to be live blogging it. These keyboards are so loud, it would no doubt be a distraction to the presenter. I really just wanted people like Kimmer to know where the heck I am, in case she’s waiting impatiently for me to post again.

Oh, and hi to any people from work who might be reading this on their lunch hour. I thought I might be stopping by at some point today, but at the moment, the outlook isn’t good. Rest assured, however, I’m having fun. Wish you were here.

That’s all for now!

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I swear, a real post is coming soon, hopefully tomorrow. We’re dealing with a lot here at La Casa de Valerie. My battery is almost dead and I’m too tired (and lazy) to move the laptop close to an outlet to plug it in. Plus, I have no modem/router plugged in at the moment because something was burning in the office the other night and I unplugged everything: the desktop, the speakers, the printer, the router, the modem, the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria… everything.

And until I get a chance to check it all out thoroughly and eliminate whatever was causing the burning odor, I thank my lucky stars for neighbors who are running an unsecured wireless network. I don’t know who you are, Wonderful Neighbors, but thank you ever so much for allowing me to steal your bandwidth. I’ll try not to abuse this privilege.

Until tomorrow, folks….

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We never made it anywhere for breakfast yesterday, but both The Boyfriend and I were impressed with the farmer’s market downtown. Here’s what we bought:

1. Sugar snap peas (I LOVE these and surprisingly, so does JM)
2. Raspberries
3. One slice of raspberry cheesecake that we were too stuffed to eat last night
4. Broccoli
5. Cauliflower
6. Two quarts of blueberries

Honestly, we could have gotten more, but given that it was our first time there and we really just kind of wanted to check out the quality first, I think we did pretty well. And so far, the quality passes muster quite nicely. And CHEAP! We had to make a run into Kroger later in the day and what a difference in price for the same amount of produce. We will definitely be making this a regular stop.

Then we headed into the Libbey Glass Outlet where we bought new glasses. And then The Boyfriend found this Bloody Mary set that he had to have, which was fine with me because I discovered I kind of like them. Still haven’t tried that out yet, though. We thought maybe we’d need them this morning because we had every intention of hanging out on the porch drinking mojitos last night. We did, but after two of them, I was done. Meaning I was falling asleep.

I had made a pact with myself that I wasn’t going to drink alcohol again until Labor Day. I am so irritable, though. The Boyfriend wanted us to stay at his parents’ house last night, since they’re out of town and he’s feeding the animals. And I sort of flew into a rage because there is so much that needs to be done around my house and being away from it doesn’t get anything done. But staying there was stressing me out as well, so after yelling at both him and JM that “things have to change because I can’t live like this anymore,” I agreed to go over for one night.

The thing is, my mom, who has been staying at my uncle’s house, wants to come back and during the couple of weeks that she was out there, her room has gotten trashed again. So, while I’m relaxing over here (still at his parents’ house), I should be at home fixing up her room again. And that doesn’t exactly help with the relaxation effort.

I think I’ll stop worrying about it until after lunch. That seems like a decent plan.

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I hurt this morning. That’s the thing I don’t understand in all this. What the hell did I do for my back and shoulders to ache the way they do? And legs.

Zola and I just played a rousing game of Fishy. The great thing about this cat is that EVERYTHING is a toy. Strings. Milk jug rings. But Fishy is actually one of Alex’s toys and not one that she had expressed much interest in at first. She’s decided it’s pretty fun. And I wore her out because now she’s crashed out in the front doorway.

It’s very muggy here today. I’ve been instructed to be The Boyfriend’s alarm clock at 9 a.m. That’s in about… oh, five seconds ago. Here’s what we have planned for today, assuming I don’t wear out before it’s all done:

1) Breakfast, preferably somewhere downtown, but possibly just a sandwich from McDonald’s

2) Visiting the farmer’s market

3) Buying new drinking glasses because mine have apparently disappeared for good

4) Hitting the downtown branch of the library so I can do some genealogical photocopying. They have a book that I need that won’t circulate, so I’m going down to check it out.

The weather is warm and muggy and there are already thunderstorms brewing to the west of us, so we’ll see how far we get. Maybe I’ll take some pictures to chronicle our adventures.

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One of my sons, JM, has a job interview today at 2 p.m. Without getting into the details just yet, let’s just say that if he gets it, life will be infinitely easier for both of us.

All good thoughts directed his way will be greatly appreciated!

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Back in May, when my doctor proclaimed I had hypothyroidism, I hadn’t really noticed any symptoms. I wasn’t complaining of anything but a sore wrist and a lump in my breast (which I’m certain was a cyst since it has now disappeared again - damn thing surfaces every now and then, but yes, I have a mammogram scheduled anyway).

I went home from that doctor’s appointment and looked up hypothyroidism. The list of symptoms was a little more extensive and I did recognize a few that could have been a result of a slow thyroid. But they could just as easily be attributed to my age.

And then I started taking the medication. My doctor had mentioned that I might notice myself feeling better. He wasn’t kidding. I felt great! I had all kinds of energy. I was less irritable and definitely less stressed about stupid things. My head felt clearer, if that makes any sense. I was much less apt to talk myself out of doing something before I even started it.

Fast forward a month. I had a four day weekend. Now, the first day was unplanned, because I had an emergency in my basement, but The Boyfriend was there to help and we got quite a bit done. I kept moving because I had to. And on Saturday morning, I had a brief burst of energy and mowed the lawn. But aside from that, I had three relatively relaxing days where I wasn’t doing a whole lot. And I was completely drained.

Kat and The Punkin are in town and they came by work tonight. We showed off Punkin’s cuteness and then went out to dinner. She wanted me to stop by her mom’s house afterward, and I couldn’t. Not only because I had to do some laundry, but because I was utterly exhausted. I came home and collapsed.

I did do some laundry, and I did set the coffee pot for tomorrow morning, but all the other things I really wanted to work on tonight have been shoved aside yet again. I have to go back to the doctor next week and in the meantime, I need to go get another blood test, because he wants to see what my thyroid is doing on medication. And it may sound weird, but I’m hoping he finds that it’s still not right. Because at least that would explain why I feel like such a slug. And maybe, just maybe, I can start to feel better again.

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I was going to write something about turning 42 yesterday, something eloquent and meaningful, full of the wisdom I’ve gained over the years.

But then I thought, “Fuck it, I’m tired.” And I took a nap instead.

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It really doesn’t matter what I was dreaming about while I was sleeping. What matters is that during the dream, I was brushing my teeth. I could even taste the toothpaste in my dream, it was that realistic. I don’t think I recall ever tasting anything in a dream before.

Still, it was a little too real when I leaned over the sink (in the dream) to spit. Because I spit all over my pillow for real.

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