Catching Up

It's been a busy few weeks here at Pendragon Hold, our little acre of sand in North East Florida. Today was the first day of a two week "vacation" which will include surgery, terrace gardening, leaf raking, carting, piling, and shredding, pain, and my Bob-knows-what-numbered attempt at kicking the evil nicotine addiction that's been riding my back for over thirty years now. Stick with me here, this may take some explaining.........

I know I have been somewhat lax in my posting habits of late, but I have every excuse a guy could come up with, many not even made up. I HAVE attempted to keep up with my favorite blogs, but have failed in that miserably as well, as you might have noticed by a lack of comments from THE Michael. No, he's not dead, at least not yet. I have been working a few extra shifts at work, because they have needed the coverage due to piss-poor staffing, AND due to my enjoyment of the extra green stuff they rewarded me with for doing so. I'm no richer now than I was a month ago, but I didn't have to contemplate selling an organ to pay the mortgage, thank Bob. And yes, extra 12 hour shifts, at my age at least, are payed for dearly. THE Wife has had issues with mood and knee pain, which hopefully the magic of pharmaceuticals will help with, mood wise, and she will be having her surgery this Wednesday, for the purpose of digging around in there to find out how bad it's deteriorated due to working hard and bad arthritis. We are crossing our fingers and hoping like hell he can clean it out, shoot some more of that chicken feather based lubricant back in there and keep her going for a few more years before I have to learn to live with a six-million dollar wife. "We can make her better; we HAVE the technology.....". Yea, sure.

One of the nurses at work discovered the new prescription Chantix, which is a new pill developed to deal with weight loss but has a happy side effect of helping many people quite smoking. She's not had a cigarette for four weeks now and hasn't tried to kill me or anyone else so far. And, get this; INSURANCE covers IT! So, before they realize their error, I got MINE and will be starting the regimen tomorrow. I am supposed to stop inhaling in seven days after starting the program. That was about the time I found out I was allergic to ZYBAN last time I tried to quit. If I find out I'm allergic to THIS stuff, I'll KNOW that fate is picking on me. I won't be amused to visit the ER once again. The doc doesn't think I'm likely to have that happen with CHANTIX, so wish me luck.

This week I was able to purchase the final number of landscaping timbers necessary to finally complete the terrace/herb garden that's been under construction for something like five years now, and all that remains to be done is to shred about 37 metric tons of leaves to make garden compost soil with. Oh, and I will have to dig up some actual dirt (which in my case is actually sand) to mix with all that. This calls for manual labor. HARD manual labor. PAINFUL at night requiring hot baths and advil kind of labor. But, it's a labor of love, so that's OK.

So, between taking care of THE Wife post-surgery, working on this garden project, cleaning house (DOG HAIR), cooking the meals, cleaning house (MORE DOG HAIR), listening to THE Wife complaining about the pain, cleaning house, and all those other domestic duties I try like any good husband to avoid like the plague, I should be too busy to notice that I took two weeks off of work and didn't go anywhere and probably will be so glad to get back to work and RELAX, that I won't notice whatever nicotine fit this medication allows to filter through. I love my life, I really, really do!

In an honest effort to cater to our feathered friends without having to get medieval on the squirrels, we shelled out for a squirrel-proof bird feeder. So far it seems to be doing the trick, either that, or these little bushy-tailed rats haven't noticed the treasure-trove of seed inside of it. The longer they can't brainstorm a way into our bird seed fort knox, the longer they live.

I am hoping that THE Wife is given major painkillers which allow her in her drug induced haze not to notice that I am trying to keep up with my blog. By wife doesn't really like my blog. She thinks I love this blog more than I love her. Nothing could be further from the truth. But face it, this blog doesn't require paxil, I enjoy reaching out beyond my almost isolated existence, and no, I don't do this 5 hours a day, like she likes to think it does. So, the number of posts you witness from this one onward will be a good gauge on how well I cope with domestic bliss, post-surgery drama, and being dog tired from terrace garden maintenance, amongst other things.

Admit it, photoshop just can't compare to the real thing, now can it?

Speaking of photoshop, I have been stopping by a once favorite blog for a good read when I had the time when I noticed that a certain link was absent. It seems I have been held to blame for a certain amount of hurt feelings that I had nothing to do with. Well, fine. I have feelings to. My link list reflects the fact that two can play that silly game.

OK, THE Wife is home from a hard day's work, I've fed her, and I have to devote my attention to her, so I leave you with the above. I will keep you all informed as best I can, but remember, a wife has an amazing ability to keep her husband off a keyboard when she wants to......so keep your fingers crossed.

And that's the latest from Pendragon Hold, where sand is plentiful, but beaches are far removed........