Happy Anniversary

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the first post of this blog. I had wanted to have a little contest--you know, invite comments, draw names, give away a few little thises and thats. Oh well, maybe for the 5,000th hit. Thank you to everyone who's been reading--even if you don't leave a comment, it's encouraging to see the hit meter continue to go up.

For the first time in weeks I've got my head in the light, so to speak. One thing always, always surprises me, despite having been through this since I was in my teens--how completely different things--me, my relationships, life in general--look when I'm going through a bad bout and when I'm not. The last two or three bouts have been a little scary--they've been so bad, so dark, and have come so close together.

At the moment I'm having e-mail withdrawal. I think I told you that they've messed around with Zimbra so that I can't access it through Outlook, and that Zimbra just doesn't run on dial-up. Our spring break started here Friday, and I'm going to take a few days off, so I put all my groups on no-mail. I guess I'm going to cave and get dsl. Verizon doesn't offer it here--after all, this is Forgottonia--so I'll have to use the local provider, and I can only get the $25 monthly rate by letting them either charge my credit card monthly or automatically withdraw from my checking account. Well, NObody withdraws anything automatically from my checking account; I don't even let the bank take the mortgage out. But I think I'll start a separate checking account that's ONLY for this, and have like $30 a month auto-deposited into it. Then I won't see the money either coming or going. So one of my errands next week will be to set up that account.

I'm also going to see the doctor about my knees--I expect her to tell me to lose weight and get more exercise, but I'm hoping she might also give me some exercises to help strengthen the muscles around the joints and something that might work a bit better than aspirin for those really bad days (my basement steps are real killers). I'm taking the dogs in separately for their heartworm tests. I'm going to try to do some more cleaning and neatening. We have an electronics recycling center in town, so I think I'm going to put together a load--I've got a couple of old electronic typewriters, a couple of old VCRs, an old microwave, maybe an old printer.

Whatever happened to the nice-looking inexpensive furniture throws they used to make? I spent about 3 hours last night looking for some on-line and all the places I found had the same things. The cheap stuff looked cheap, and so did some of the pricier stuff. I'd like to get something heavier than sheets for the loveseat and futon; also with those sticky foam backs so they're not always sliding around--but I don't want to spend a fortune (not having one). I guess I'll just have to keep looking. There must be *something* *somewhere*.

Well, time to take the dogs out. Thanks again to everyone who's been reading this year.