A Miracle Drug! and Sparky on the John

Bradenton, FL      High:  89     Low:  77

Guess we are in the sweltering, rainy season for Sarasota/Bradenton. It's hot, hot, HOT---humid, humid, HUMID, and sweat pours down your back just walking from the car to the store. Ya better get used to it, kid! everybody says. It's going to be this way from now till October. So Sparky went to the grocery store and didn't come home with fruits and veggies, no siree....She came home with little tiny tubs of Hagen Daz ice cream and 100% fruit juice icy bars. I mean, if you are going to be bad, be bad in a little way not a big way...They are so cute!

She did buy other stuff, some healthy stuff--apples...low calorie frozen TV dinners--She knows, NOT very healthy really, but Sparky does read labels and looks for low in sodium/sugar/no high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, etc. kind of stuff. Sparky IS going to cook after we get settled in a bit more. Things are really coming along.....

Oh, and by the way, Sparky feels 110%! She thinks the meds are to blame for waking up at 2:00 AM. this morning and staying up ALL DAY. One of the side effects of prednisone is insomnia--grea-a-a-a-t! Sparky is extra hyper today, too. You'll see by the end of the blog..(Heck, you're seeing it now, explains E.) But all aches and pains are gone,  so are the swollen lymph glands, so is the fever. And the appetite is majorly back..which is NOT such a good thing.  "I'm BA-A-A-A-C-K!" (She's definitely back and wearing me out! sighs E.) Sparky went like gangbusters today....loaded more boxes from the motorhome, brought them back to the house, unpacked, helped Eldy fix the bathroom toilet which was leaking. He put in all new guts...Sparky had to get down on her knees and help him find the holes in the tank. He needs my knees and flexibility, Sparky needs his expertise on HOW to do the job because he reads all the directions first, thoroughly, and Sparky just jumps in and then gives up about half way through. Just like a little kid! This was no easy job. Ever look UP through bifocals, with your head just about upside down trying to align holes? Yeah, it's a real fun job...the lines on the glasses kept getting in the way. It's sort of like being half blind.  Kinda like looking through Eldy's dirty camera phone lens.... :-)

And you thought today's blog was going to have something to do with Sparky getting another symptom and spending lots of time in the bathroom, didn't you? Uh-hunh...Sure you did! And bet you're glad it didn't! :-)

It was a little complicated toilet fix only in terms of tight working quarters and getting in and around this ceramic (?) cultured marble (?) type sink extension OVER the tank. So Eldy was trying to get the tank off first, work on it away from the bathroom, then slide it back in and hook it back up. At any rate, he had trouble getting down under the tank. Sparky, not so much. Sparky had trouble getting the wrench to hang tight against the nut, gave a good tug, and BONK! whacked herself in the forehead. Got a nice little red knot where there wasn't one before. "Here, you try!" she says to Eldy.....He said it was tight enough and maybe that knocked some sense into her head. HA! One can only hope.....

Then, it was carpet cleaning time...Off to rent the machine from Lowe's, purchase cleaning materials, and by the time we got the upholstery cleaner as well, it was more than what one of those coupon special deals for "clean three rooms for 49.95. That's ok, we needed to get it done today! They couldn't come for a few days...

Then Salvation Army came and gladly took away some VERY old furniture that we couldn't use that came with the house. Some we are keeping, and Sparky is going to repaint and whitewash the finish...Like this dining room set. Here's an example of one of the chairs.

She is going to replace the cushions with some kind of tropical or ocean print. She's thinking marine blue,  cornflower blue, or cadet blue--remember, Sparky used to be a teacher, she likes to name colors she sees by the names she remembers from the 64 color box of Crayola crayons she had when she was a kid. So, SOME kind of blue seats with tannish starfish  or sand dollars stenciled on the fabric.....MAYBE....

What else today....That was enough, don't you think? Hey, glad you guys are still with us....Hope you'll stay awhile longer...Sparky thinks she will have lots to talk about for awhile and will try to keep your attention if she can keep her own focus! (And she's not kidding, folks! Starts doing one thing, changes to another, back to the first thing, loses her multiple lists, starts a list on her phone, starts another one on paper, forgets what she was going to get from the next room, can't find what she just unpacked, changes the location of where she's going to set our stuff in the cabinets more than once because she decides it's "not going to work", changes topics mid sentence, forgets where she was headed with the conversation--geesh!  I'll be glad when she finishes those meds!) So will Sparky. She's wearing herself out with exhausting, racing mental thoughts and not enough sleep. Maybe tonight will be a more restful night. (One can only hope, says E., who is struggling with his own sleep problems from what appeared to be an excellent mattress upon inspection, left by the previous owner, but now appears to be really bothering his back.)

To be continued.......