Another storm warning, and furniture-moving

We're supposed to get nasty weather later today, but boy, it's a nice morning right now--very still, not a breath of wind (for a change--very welcome), the sun *almost* shining through the clouds, not freezing cold. It's too wet for me to take the Ts into the puppy pen, but once I wake up a little, I'm going to take one of them with me when I go to Walgreens, and walk around campus on the flexi so he or she gets some exercise today. Then I'll do the cat in the early afternoon (before the weather gets here), and walk the other one.

I've got to reconsider my knitting style. Remember I separated my shoulder (slightly) this spring? It never has completely healed up, and often wakes me up about 2 or 3 in the morning after I've done an evening's knitting. I've found that working the trigger points helps a lot, and so does getting my shoulder under Taenzer if I can get her to hold still (Annie used to lie on it). This morning, besides the shoulder, I've wakened to a stiff, sore thumb--the 2nd joint. I'm thinking arthritis. Yay.

I know I tend to sit leaning slightly to the left, where the light is, so that means I'm reaching across my body a bit with my right arm, which is what triggers the shoulder stress. But even in bed, where I've moved the light so it's behind me (but still coming over my left shoulder), I still use that position. I'm thinking I might move that bed light even more to the right, and find something I can put under my right elbow to support it.

I'm also going to get a heating pad and stock up on MSM--hence the trip to Walgreens. The heat really helps--I don't think a heating pad will be quite as good as Taenzer or Annie, but better than nothing. :) And the MSM is an anti-inflammatory, which should help both the thumb and shoulder, and won't do weird things to my stomach like aspirin.

I've been trying to figure out some way of rearranging my living room so I can move my favorite rocking chair in here--although that does mean that Taenzer couldn't snuggle while I was knitting. But it would make me sit more upright. This room is so impossible--on the north wall is a great big old-fashioned hot air vent--about 2x square--and the door to the kitchen. The east wall is completely taken up by 3 windows, which I love, but it does limit what you can put there. The south wall has 2 windows, and the west wall has a set of french doors. It's a lovely, light-filled room, but not large. There's about 3 feet of wall on either side of the french doors, about 5 feet on one side of the kitchen door (the other side has the heat vent; can't block it), and on the south wall about 4 feet between the corner and the 2 windows. That is NOT a lot of wall space. And I'm trying to fit in enough seating for me and both Ts, my computer stuff, my entertainment stuff, all my knitting books and magazines, and about 1 third of my yarn stash.

Timber's other crate is also in here. It's one of those big plastic airline crates. BIG crate. It was Stella's travel crate. I set it up in this room because Timber really seemed to like it; he used it a lot the first year or so I had him, then when Annie s tarted peeing in it, he quit (understandably). Since she died, I've swabbed it out more than once with white vinegar, and gotten a new dog bed to put in it, and he's started using it a little bit, but not much, so I'm thinking about moving it--although where I'd put the stuff that's on top of the crate, I don't know.

One thing that would help a lot would be go get this big desktop computer out of here, but since the laptop I got turned out to be virtually useless on dial-up, I'm stuck with it. I've been thinking it might help if I got a flat-pane monitor--the price is coming down on them. Then I wouldn't need something big and sturdy to hold the weight of this big old-fashioned monitor, and could use like a tv-dinner tray for the monitor and keyboard, and the tower could get tucked somewhere unobtrusive. (It would make me sit straighter, too, since I could move the table-tray in front of me to work, instead of having it off to the left.)

Getting my old videotapes transferred to DVD would help, too; save a huge amount of space. Do you suppose videotape can be recycled?

I need to have someone look at it with fresh eyes. Maybe they'd see some solutions I can't see because I'm so used to it as it is.

Oh, speaking of Timber--no bad effects from the margarine, apparently. He wasn't hungry that night, but he ate right up last night. No runny poop. Seems just fine. I had a stool sitting by the kitchen cabinets which I've moved since I looked over while I was fixing dinner last night and there was this black-velvet head right at my elbow, looking on with great interest. I decided maybe I could make things not quite so easy for him!

Well, about time to take somebody for a walk.