It's so nice and quiet, and it's a Friday night so there's nothing urgent I actually have to do :-) THe rain seems to have moved on (though I like listening to the rain), Sparky's quietly (for him) snoring away in the next room, and I'm getting little "to do" things done. Finishing up my last load of laundry, this is the time-consuming one where I have to air dry everything and then hang them up in the bathroom. I accidentally dried one of my new pairs of pants in the last load, I'm sure now they are really capris.

I have a couple of really old brown glass mist bottles from back when I used Beconase nasal spray (from what I remember, it smelled like roses), and I fished them out and cleaned them up tonight so I can reload one with saline and the other with part saline, part Afrin. I've had a lot of other nasal spray bottles since I got these but they've all been plastic and for some reason they just don't work as well. I stupidly used the one with Afrin last night when I was having my sinus attack, and after I opened them up and looked at them today, I'm surprised it didn't make it worse (yuck, in other words).

My hair salon finally wrote back to tell me what kind of straightening iron they had used on my hair last week, they said it was HairArt, not Chi, but the stylist mentioned Chi at least three times to me. They look to be comparable in quality and price, I hope mine arrives tomorrow, I can't wait to play with it.

I just ate my 4 am chicken salad sandwich, the kitty helps me with the crust. She's an odd cat, she pulls my salad leaves out of the bowl, devours bread, and loves yoghurt and my Atkins shakes. When I had dogs I was used to having at least one head in my lap looking sadly up at me, but a cat? She doesn't lower herself to beg, though, she just grabs what she wants. She is a princess, after all.

Maybe when the laundry finishes up I can beat Sparky to the bedroom (he likes his La-Z-Boy) and read a bit. I'm actually sort of sleepy already, which is unusual for me. I think I'm going to go back to Old Navy tomorrow and get a couple more of their tees, the heathered ones are unbelievably soft, still afraid to put them in the dryer, though... I desperately need new Dearfoams too, Foley's is having coupon days, I wonder if I can find any with backs in June. I have flat feet and can't wear the backless ones, but have to wear something with these wood floors or end up with tendonitis in my heels. Ramble, ramble... Gonna go respond to comments now :-)

Well, I sat down to type that I was sick as a dog all day yesterday and today I'm feeling better... and then I sneezed (duh, duh, duhhh!). So I went into the bedroom and got my arsenal of nose sprays and took a Singulair, which is the only type of oral medicine I can take (I'm allergic to antihistamines). And got a new box of kleenex from the garage, I went through an entire box yesterday.

I've had bad allergies my entire life, and a couple of times a year I'll just start sneezing non-stop and I know I'm coming down with a sinus infection. Lucky for me, my best friend's husband is a doctor and he gives me a prescription for a season's worth of antibiotics at a time so I can head them off when I feel one coming on. I need to use my nasal saline more often, I've found that's one of the best deterrants to getting sick.

So I spent the entire day yesterday basically sneezing, blowing my nose, and coughing, which makes it difficult to do much of anything else. I managed to wrap all of my packages for eBay so Sparky could bring them in today, but I stayed up till 7am doing so and was too tired (and dizzy) to even take a shower by that point. So I took lots of Keflex last night and before bed, used some Afrin to make my nose temporarily stop dripping, took a couple of codeine for the headache and coughing, and half a valium to make sure I actually slept because that's the only way my body knows to heal. And I did feel much better when I woke up, thank goodness. Still stuffy nose and ears, swollen lymph nodes, sore throat and sore ribs but so far only one sneeze (knock on wood).

And to compound matters last night, my postage program, Endicia, which makes my life SO much easier, was down for monthly maintenance and was supposed to be back up at 4 am CST, and didn't come up till 6:30 am (grumble). So no packing tonight, I think I'm going to be lazy and go watch TLC's "What Not to Wear". I hope they're doing a girl, the guys are no fun at all...

Lots of rain, hail and lightning today, and the power actually stayed on!

Fearless Phoebe enjoys watching the storm rage in nice, dry air-conditioned comfort.

In other news, more dirt this week on the White House. Dan Rather played some of the audio tapes of the idiots at Enron bragging about deliberately shutting down plants to increase oil prices and cheering on the California fires. And they had some mention of Cheney and Bush in the mix, which is somewhat satisfying since Houston was so screwed over by these greedy corporate bastards. I knew in the late 90's that the US was spiraling towards some sort of corporate Soddom and Gomorrah (sp?) after watching the company I worked for be taken over and corrupted in a period of about five years. And walking past the CEO's always brand new imported Mercedes on the ground floor of the parking garage daily.

And the news today was that Dubya has now got himself a lawyer because of the CIA "leak" about Joseph Wilson's wife. Didn't that used to be a treasonous offense, telling the public who our CIA secret agents are? I think they can write all the books they want about the scandals that are breaking daily, but they'd be more effective if they made TV movies so people would actually pay attention. As long as they didn't put it in the same slot as Fear Factor (sigh). Though I do think it was hilarious that none of the major networks would carry Dubya's speech last week, it's sweeps period for God's sake!

Also, go sign the petition to have paper backups of the new electronic voting machines, don't let Diebold pick the next President!

OK, after almost a week with my new short hair I've finally snapped to the two things that really made it look look so gorgeous after my stylist worked on it. The First is the styling spray he used, which is Smooth and Seal by Straight Sexy Hair, which is really an incredible product. It does leave some of that mega hairspray smell behind (and in the bathroom!), though, which is not good for me all the time because I do my hair before bed usually. But it's fabulous stuff, really, adds a lot of shine.

I also realized that the two hot irons I had were not going to work real well with my new hair. Or my hairbrushes, I had to get new smaller ones. I have a Conair round iron that is usable, but kind of rough on my hair and dangerously hot. And I had bought a fabulous Babyliss straightening iron about a year ago, but it's over 2 inches wide and just won't work. But I kept thinking I'm missing something and after some research figured out what it is. I didn't have my glasses on while my hair was being styled (and wasn't allowed to look), but when I mentioned I had a straightening iron my stylist asked what kind of Chi I had, which I thought I heard wrong, but then he mentioned it a few more times. So after some Google searches, I found out he meant a Farouk Chi flat iron, which is top of the line professional and very pricey. It also has ceramic plates and lots of safety features that let him get right up to my scalp without burning me like my Conair does.

But I'm determined to recreate the super straight, shiny hair I had a week ago, so I looked around on eBay and found them for sale for about 2/3 of the retail price. After more reading up, I decided to get the new Turbo version, which has variable heat settings and some added features the older version (there are many of the older one on eBay) didn't have. So I bought a one inch iron and will hopefully get it in the mail this week, the seller was one of two salons that had them for Buy It Now, and both promised same day Priority shipping. Some of the big discount type sellers were kind of vague in their shipping, and also sold things like bed linens so I decided to stick with a specialized seller. I'm a big believer in getting the best you can afford for things you use all the time and rely on so we'll see how this does.

I think I'm going to have to play with my haircolor, though, the red is looking much too coppery, which I didn't want, I think I'm going to have to add some blue based dark red to it. I should just dye it black again, but then I'd be back where I started. But I'm going to wait till the semi-perm dark brown washes out a bit more. It's really nice having someone else do the dirty work on my hair color, but I think I may invest more money in keeping my cut in good shape and do my color myself.

I feel somewhat caught up (and slightly broke) after taking care of business the last few days. I try really hard whenever I get a bit ahead financially to actually buy things I need and that are on my wishlist instead of things I didn't know I needed. It seems like when I does have money, I can't think of anything I really need, but as soon as I get low it's really obvious.

I had bought a second book on Body Rolling, which required a different sized ball than the ones I already have (they sell them online, of course), but the exercises are completely different in the first book I got. So I ended up buying two of the balls from Yamuna Zake's website, I saw some on eBay that were similar and cheaper, but didn't really want to chance it. Had to buy a damn pump too, but I guess it's a good thing to have. The Miracle Balls I've been using have really been wonderful, great for both my fibromyalgia and the muscle tension from my MS. And they don't cost $60 an hour ;-) Back when I was rich (ha!) from working two jobs, I would try and go to a massage therapist every two weeks or so, but I'm one of those people that is so tight that it never really did a lot of good. But I'm having a lot of fun and getting good results from rolling, and who wouldn't like an exercise you do primarily laying down.

What else... got semi caught up on meds and groceries today, at least the refrigerator is full and Sparky has lunchmeat, bread, Diet Mountain Dew and bottled water, so he's happy. Sam's Club had more of my favorite Tropical Chicken Salad, they haven't discontinued it yet as I feared, awesome stuff to snack on! Plus an easy dinner for tonight, cold shrimp and potato salad, an all-time favorite with both of us. And a case of canned green beans, which should hold us for awhile (I'm a lazy cook, BTW).

Also ran into Old Navy today to try and find a belt for my poor jeans that won't stay up (maybe I really am losing weight, but I think it's more of a Lycra issue), and ended up also buying half a dozen of their Perfect Fit tees (two for $15!) which are actually sized big enough that adults can wear them and they are thick enough that they don't look like underwear. I even got some that weren't black. I wanted some Navy ones but they were sold out of anything above Medium, just looked online and they're out too, dammit. With the weather so hot I'm already tired of walking around in long oversized tees. I also got a couple more pair of their Just Lounge Capris (only the long ones are on their website but these look like just like the Capris), which hit me at the ankle and are great around the house (also on sale, yippee!). I used to buy their Yoga Capris but they're making them shorter now. They're really comfy for around the house, but they wear out pretty quickly, but for $15 what the heck. Did get belt, I wanted a leather one, but found a black and white brocade fabric belt that is very adjustable, plus comfy and attractive and got it.

And I paid Sparky back for the last few weeks of utility bills, and bought more mailing supplies. And... I bought a new curling iron (see next entry for info!).