June 21, 2026 Sunday

Greetings!

Camera pics are working again!  They started working before Leah even had a chance to look at the issue.  Don't you love technology?  Sometimes you leave it alone and it fixes itself.  At least I've had that happen to me many times.  Have you?

Last Sunday Dagan and Leah came down and hung the two sets of wall shelves.  Makes such a huge difference to me!  Really starting to look like my studio!  

I had them move things off the table tops.  Boxes that were there went to the storage area and Dagan brought in six small boxes that were marked with "books" or "wall shelves" and such.  They went under the center table.

My plan was to empty everything off those shelves.  Was all stuck there just to get it out of the way.

By Tuesday night I had moved away everything I could easily reach and that wasn't too heavy.

Needed the paper shelves moved from the hutches...

...over to the bookcase by the door.

I wanted to move the books and binders into the corner bookcases first.

Wednesday.  Leah took me to the DMV so I could turn in my expired driver's license and get my first North Dakota ID card.  You can make appointments these days so it goes really quickly!

Dagan came down and moved the paper shelves for me.

He took down all the high stuff for me.  Wiped down the top shelves and the tops of the bookcases and hutches.

The other two tables are full of all the stuff that was shoved into the shelves, of course, but it has begun!

Allie conked out in her cat couch.  

I started emptying book boxes.  All the art books on to the center table in the studio.

Just piled them all over.  Tried to keep them in categories.

Same with all the college English and writing books I stacked on the end of the kitchen table.

Emptied all the boxes that had been stacked outside my bathroom door all these months that were labeled "books".

Allie loves getting ice cubes in her water dish to play with.  

For only the second time ever Allie wanted to sit up on the back of my chair.  I think learning about steps and jumping has really changed her life!  :)

By Friday I had gone through the art, calligraphy, and lettering books on the studio table.  Organized them by category, flipped through each book and purged quite a few of them

I am so very much slower than my former self--lol!  Need many breaks and they get longer each time during each day.  But it is so nice to hold my books again!  But some of them I don't need anymore.  Already have a donation box started.

I categorized and sorted the college books on the kitchen table.  Next I need to go through each one of these and decide on which ones go in the donation box.  Do you see the pretty magnifying glass?

I do have a larger magnifying glass packed away somewhere...but trying to read smaller print on so many books...well, I splurged and ordered myself a pretty magnifying glass!  Love it!  I will still use my old big clunky black one, too, when I finally find it.  

Speaking of orders.  In May I ordered a glass pen and spare nibs from GouletPens.  They have a new shopify app (Shop.com?) and somehow my shipping address and billing address  weren't the same anymore.  There was some other address in West Fargo it got delivered to, apparently.  Goulet Pens were so nice.  I've been a customer of theirs for 15-16 years.  Was texting back and forth with one of their customer service girls...and they did resend me the order to my correct address.  Just got it Saturday.  

This is something I had never seen before!  The glass pen has a nib that screws into a wooden holder AND has a cap to protect the nib!

Plus they sell replacement nibs in a set of three!  What a great idea!  Can't believe somebody hasn't thought of this before now.  Talk about motivation to write some hand dipped letters!  :)

Using a dip pen is a slow process.  I used to do it occasionally but it has been several years now.  I look forward to it.  The slower process may be even easier on my hand than fountain pens.  I'll find out.

Ian is 12 years old this Wednesday.  He is having his very first friends birthday party this weekend.  Two friends have been here since 11am Saturday, will stay overnight, and leave at about 10am today.  They went to that trampoline place, ate at Space Aliens, and had movies to watch.  What a fun birthday!  Maybe I can have some pictures to show you next time.

I don't know how a self-warming cat pad works but Allie certainly does like it...even though it is a little bit fluffy!  Not better than the cat couch, though--lol!  ;)

Wild Card

Believe it or not I drew a complete blank on this one.  I honestly don't remember being bored as a kid...or as an adult, for that matter.  No lie.  I always could find something to do...or if I was trapped somewhere with adults or shopping with my mom then I could always sit and observe them or people watch anyone around me.  People are always interesting to me.  I even used to ask to go with my mom when they built the first indoor mall close to us just so I could sit on a bench and "people-watch".  I used to write a few sentences describing people or jot down overheard conversations.  I was still doing that when I rode the bus to college up here when I was in my late 40s-early 50s.  God On The Bus--(another story on my other blog)-- was from notes I wrote after a bus ride to school.  Baby Girl--(also on other blog)--was a bus stop encounter jotted down after we were on the bus.  I have to have been bored sometimes, but I just don't remember.  I doubt it lasted long.  I kept myself busy for months here when I had trouble even watching shows and couldn't write letters or type much...or do much of anything.  Can't say I was bored.  Did a lot of thinking...contemplating.  ;)

I think I have been paying attention to the stories blog lately because I also came across the stack of places where I had things published.  I was just showing them to Ian yesterday.  (It made little impression and he was too busy to read them--lol!)  And then there's all the English and Writing books I have to go through next...makes me wonder if I should maybe try "writing-writing" again?  Even as a kid I wasn't sketching people at the mall I was writing about the people at the mall.  But not even half the entries on my other blog are finished writing-writing pieces.  All the rest are just excerpts from my blog that people would ask about years ago (where to find them because I rarely ever label my blog entries).  I have journaled since I was nine and written letters...and now have blogged the last couple decades.  But this is just undisciplined babbling on my part.  In head out hand.  The things I wrote for college classes had to be more polished.  From essays and reports to poems and short stories I had to revise and rewrite and make them better.  That's what I call "writing-writing"...like what you would send off to see if you could get it published or to be graded by a professor.  I'm basically a stream of consciousness kind of girl--lol! 

Anyways, this week I will hopefully be finishing up on the books for the corner bookcases.  :)  I am appointment free this coming week--whoohoo!  Do I notice anything taking the methotrexin?  Not really.  But I just had my second dose this last Wednesday.  Still am hopeful.  No side effects that I have noticed.  I hope you have a wonderful, enriching, peaceful week!  Till next time...

June 14, 2026 Sunday

Greetings!

I wasn't feeling all that great lately.  Went to see the R-doc (rheumatologist) on Wednesday.  Told her the low dose steroids had been messing with my sleep but that was just annoying.  The swelling in my hand goes up and down depending on how much I use it.  So basically all was going okay.  Dr. Goering believes what I have is seronegative rheumatoid arthritis.  Basically acts like RA but doesn't show up in the bloodwork.  She wanted me to start on a weekly dose of methotrexin which is commonly used with autoimmune diseases.  Takes 4-6 weeks to kick in apparently.  I would stay on the steroid in the meantime.  I need bloodwork done regularly because this methotrexin can mess with your kidneys, etc.  The dosage of the methotrexin can be increased slowly...or decreased.   So I will be seeing her regularly.

I have to go in to have bloodwork done before her visits.  I go to the lab July 10th and then I have a visit with her on the 15th.  It will be my very first virtual visit!  Leah is going to be here and help me figure out how that is done.  Have any of you had virtual doctor visits?  Sounds great to me! 

I spoke too soon about things going okay with the steroids.  There was a reason I was feeling off.  During the night Thursday night--rash again!  Not the blood red rash and not as large an area, but dark pink with blisters.  And by Friday cramping and diarrhea.  So no more steroids for me.  Even the tiny dose I reacted to eventually.  *sigh*  I really, really hope I don't react to the methotrexin and that it can help with the inflammation and swelling.  Time will tell, eh?

Allie hopes I get to feeling better, too.  :)

I did manage to change to a spring-like shower curtain. 

I have been forgetting even after they were finally located.  I will have to add them into my bullet journal's to-do lists, I guess.  Not sure why I have been forgetting.  Maybe because I am still not actually moved in so it doesn't feel like home-home yet.  

Still having photo issues, but they show up on my laptop eventually.  I should have Leah look at it when they come down today to hang the wall shelves.  Side effects are subsiding and I'm catching up on my sleep.  (R-doc said this new med could make me tired.)  

Wild Card:

I have had so very many!  From small to really big ones.  I am always calling them the silver linings.  I'd say from just disappointing to traumatic experiences have ended up being blessings in disguise.  

I have written before on this topic if you're interested.  These were just taken out of blog posts I wrote years ago.

Rape and Love

Positives and Hidden Blessings

Note: in this second one I briefly refer to Dagan ad Leah's first house they were having built where they got scammed by the company that wasn't doing the best job in the first place and disappeared when the house was half done.  Long story, but it got resolved--whew!  And they later had this house built that I am also living in now.  Happy ending.

Let me know if the links work okay.

This coming week I am finally going to turn in my expired driver's license and get a North Dakota ID card on Wednesday.  Other than that, I hope to be feeling better and be busy sorting things in the studio!  Oh, and hopefully have more pictures to show you, too.  Till next week, my friends.  :) 

June 7, 2026 Sunday

Greetings!

Going to be a very brief chat today.  No one has gotten sick since Ian.  (Knock on wood.)  Was a quiet week.  I set up letters owed (11) and worked on those off and on depending on the hand and eye good and bad days.  I think I have five left.  I do love handwriting snail mail so much.  With my cranky hand I have put the claim that fountain pens are easier to write with to the real test.  Yes, they are.  I have also found that writing by hand requires less movement and is much easier than pressing on keys to type.  Good to know.

I have been having troubles getting pictures from my cell phone to my laptop for some reason, so I don't have pictures this week at all.  Not that I would have had much to show--lol!  Made the soup and am still enjoying it.  After a day or so it becomes almost a stew.  So good!

Luckily, I had taken a picture of the next Wild Card before the technical troubles.  A very deep question this week.

Striving to become the best soul I can be while I am here.  Listening to my inner guidance.  The deepest spiritual lessons come from the worst that happens to me.  Be honest.  Especially with myself--be painfully honest.  Spread good energy as much as I can.  Try to live each day like it is my last.  

Obviously hard for me to put my life's path in just one sentence--lol!  These are the things I think about and have since I was a small child.  I will try to link a memory from when I was five from my other blog.  

Teddy Bear On The Bible

Let me know if the link works. If not you can find it on my other stories blog above on the right. 

OMGoodness!  I just now got one picture to come through manually for me that took about an hour to show up!!  I will end with cat bliss--lol!

Till next week.  *love and hugs from Fargo*