My Year in Photos

2009

January: Although I was living in Florida, I spent the holidays in Las Vegas, to be with my family. January saw me taking my first trip of the year from Las Vegas to New Orleans. Our ultimate destination was a 4.5 hour drive away.

January 2010 will be different. I'm now living in Las Vegas again, and will have spent the holidays with one daughter while the other one has been living in New Orleans since before Thanksgiving. Hoping to be able to visit her in the not too distant future.

Las Vegas Airport

February: Back in Florida, I was fascinated by the always changing sea. But it was a tough month for me, as I fought against obstacles in trying to complete a project that was of enormous importance to my family. It would not be completed until August, with literally only 1 hour before a deadline that was, for all intents and purposes, final.

Being hamstrung by the lack of productivity from others, I sometimes saw the many different faces of the tides as a metaphor for what I was experiencing. I named this photo Blah but, as you can see, it was actually a little choppy. That's how I felt for most of February.

March: I opened a Twitter account. I still can't decide if the good I get from it is worth the time suck that it is for me. I'm doing fine without Facebook, and I may even be able to do away with having a blog. But I think I need some kind of online presence, and Twitter can maybe function as the bare minimum.
April: This little baby has been a dream come true for me. Internet access from almost anyfreakingwhere. I know it's been possible for years now, using a cell phone. But it wasn't worth it to me to fool with the wires and not have access to my phone while I was online. I was even a little late coming to the party with this particular technology, but it hadn't quite gotten to where I wanted it.

Truthfully, I was even disappointed with it when I got it because it still wasn't the superfast, always available signal I was hoping to get. But it's serving me well. Still, I've recently come to the conclusion that what I really want is a built in SIM on a netbook. Hopefully in 2010.

ATT USB Mercury Data Card

May: Went to Las Vegas to visit my girls, then up to see my sister in Carson City. She introduced us to some nice hangouts, and one of my favorites was Firkin & Fox. They're a small chain, but I'd never heard of them. But I'm a sucker for outdoor dining, and I really liked this place. Lake Tahoe is not too far away, and it's simply gorgeous. But I don't think Carson City will ever be one of my choices. I only got a quick glimpse of Reno, and it does have some lovely areas, but nothing tempted me too much there either. I think I'd like spending some time by the lake, but not in any of the towns I've seen so far.

Yes, I view every place I visit as a potential place to live...at least for a while.

Firkin & Fox

June: Another trip, another return into New Orleans. I don't think it's anything too wonderful as an airport, but I gotta admit, the food choices are different. It wasn't until my older daughter moved there several weeks ago that I realized how many times I'd driven through, or flown into, the city during the year I lived in Florida, and never stopped to visit any old familiar places.

I did drive through the University section once, which is where we used to live, to take my mother to a doctor's appointment, and everything looked pretty much the same as I remembered it. And nothing's different near the airport, either. But it' probably been a good decade since I've been down to the Quarter, and I think I'd like to go back and explore it a bit more in depth. So, naturally, I'm kicking myself for not doing it while I had the time and opportunity. It would've been so much cheaper. Soon, I hope.




July: The 6 year old came to visit us in Florida over the summer. Kinda like a family version of camp. I found she had changed, grown up a bit, in just the several weeks she was with us. I looked at photos from right before she came to us and those from right before she went home and there's a definite difference. Also, between the one below and the one way below from this Christmas seems like a huge difference. Who would have thought that there were such major changes between being 6 and turning 7?

I've lived with this child at a couple of different points in her life, and spent much of the summer with her. We are very close and I really miss her. Probably because we can't Skype the way we did when I was in Florida and she was here. She's waiting on Internet repairs to get broadband. Sigh.


August: The photo below is of Hurricane Claudette closing in on the beach near where I lived in Florida. It was a weak hurricane and it didn't hit us directly, so it was more fascinating than frightening at the time. Looking back, though, it seems like a huge, hovering omen.

Within days of this shot, we were on our way out of Florida. The plan was that I'd drop off my mother at my brother's house near Baton Rouge, where she'd stay for several weeks and have cataract surgery. But before we could leave, we'd have to spend 24 hours at a local hospital because it looked like my mother might be having a stroke. Turned out to be a false alarm but, by the time we reached my brother's home, she'd had a real one and its effects began rolling out slowly. So slowly that it was days before she was correctly diagnosed.

So my road trip was postponed, as I spent more than 2 weeks in the hospital with her. She seemed to always be in fairly good condition, considering. The stroke was pronounced a mild one and her prognosis was very good. She'd walk and talk again. But when she got aspiration pneumonia and began weakening rapidly, I had to wonder if I'd be going to a funeral before moving back to Nevada. But she's a fighter, and she came back strong.

At the time, we all said that we'd be thrilled if she could just get to the point where she could go out to eat and see a movie. Because that was her favorite thing to do and it would greatly add to the quality of her life. We reached that point a few weeks ago. Now our hope is that she'll be able to manage alone while my sister's at work, because she'll be moving up there in less than 2 weeks, and she really doesn't want to have a stranger babysitting her. We'll find out soon.


September: My birthday month, and I got to do one of my favorite things. ROAD TRIP!!! And all alone! I hadn't done that since my early twenties. The highlight was stopping in San Antonio. I'd driven straight through it several times, in a hurry to get back across the country in one direction or the other. But, all of a sudden, I wanted to see the Alamo. And I was more impressed by it than I expected to be. Even more unexpected was the beauty of the architecture downtown, and the gorgeous Riverwalk below. As I mentioned before, I just love outdoor dining areas. Big bonus points for outdoor dining on water. (Jackpot when it's a beach)


October: Two pieces of technology that have changed my life. No more carrying pound of books around. Ordering new reading material in the middle of the night? Didn't take long for me to make that dream come true. I waited too long to buy it, and the same is true of the phone. When AT&T came out with the second version of its TILT, the phone had everything I wanted. I think that was maybe 2007. I have no idea why I didn't jump on both of these. But I'm thrilled down to my toes to have'em now.

November: Looks pretty good for an 86 year old woman who's had a stroke, don't you think? I flew her over here on October 25. It was a nightmare, because she could not move on her own at all. Almost exactly a month later, on Thanksgiving Day, she left the rehab center for the 1st time, to spend the day with my sister's family. She got in and out of the car with very little assistance. Since then, I've taken her out all by myself several times - to eat out, or to eat out and see a movie and soon to doctor's appointments. If anyone ever tells you that rehab can seem to work miracles, you can believe them.

We went to a movie the day after Christmas and, while my sister was getting the snacks, I brought my mother into the theater. There was no special handicapped row, we'd have to sit in the 1st row. I asked my mother if she'd been practicing climbing up and down the step in the therapy room and she said yes, so I gave her the choice of craning her neck or trying to climb the wide shallow steps in the theater. She chose to climb and, while the going was slow, it was not very difficult. That was a major milestone, and probably the best gift of the whole holiday season for our family.


December: This month has been a lot about the special kids in our family. I'm living with the toddler and the almost 7 year old is halfway across the country. The two of them have made me realize just how easy I had it, raising two calm children, even though I was a single parent from the time my youngest was a year old. These two are waaaaaaayyyyyy more energetic, and are soooooooo much more cranky than either of my two EVER were. But I love'em anyway. They're both very entertaining, which helps.


2009 had some very difficult challenges for me, and for many in my family. But I know of others who have had it much, much worse. Also, our family seems to have come through just fine and we are extremely grateful for that. Net positive, I'll take it.

I am looking forward very much to 2010. There are signs that it may be the year I finally get to do some things I've been working toward for over 5 years, and that my daughters may be finally getting to achieve goals of their own that have been a long time in the making.

I'm not naive enough to believe that it will be all smooth sailing, life always has its ups and downs. But if we end the next year no worse off than this one, with everyone healthy enough and provided for well enough, then I will be more than satisfied. For all of us, and all of you, I wish 2010 be filled with peace and joy.

Happy New Year.

If You Have a Dream...

Fabulous advice from a guy who's an inspiration for following a dream.

"If you have a dream, decide today to make it a reality. Get a pencil and paper and make a list of what has to happen to bring your dream to life. Get detailed. Make it a huge long list. Then simply start knocking off each item on the list and you’ll get there."

Lee Winter

sailingforSOS.com

Silver Linings

Update: This post accidentally published itself before I was finished with it so, sorry for the duplicates in your feed reader.

I'm sure that my mother would have preferred not having a stroke, and I would definitely have preferred a different way but, as it turns out, participating in my mother's recovery has caused me to lose a great deal of unwanted weight. In fact, it's been tailor made for me.

When she first had the stroke, I was at my heaviest and needed to burn up a lot of calories to make a noticeable difference. Since she was pretty much dead weight on her right side, I was expending a lot of energy helping her to move around. Now that I've lost quite a lot of weight, I don't need to be quite so active...and I'm not. Because my mother is doing so much for herself now, I'm not needing to do nearly as much.

But I've still got a good 15 pounds left, at least, that I'd like to drop. And I do still have to do a lot of bending, lifting and supporting. So I'm hoping several more will be gone by the time she leaves in a month.

On the same topic, I hate the floors in the house we're renting. They are like dirt magnets and I have to deep clean them almost every day by going over them at least 2 or 3 times. And that is a very sweaty workout. So, more burning of calories.

And this one seems like it should be filed under the Mysterious Ways category. My mother went into the hospital today for a fairly routine outpatient procedure but, due to a snafu on the doctor's office's part, she couldn't have it done today. So we rescheduled for next week and then went upstairs to see my nephew, who was supposed to have been discharged yesterday but was waiting on bureaucracy. This was a very good thing, because she had been very worried about him since hearing he had pneumonia, and it helped a lot for her to see him looking so good.

So, major problems to minor inconveniences, it seems like we've been fortunate in our difficulties. There area worse things.

Traveling Ever More Lightly

When I flew to Lousiana to bring my mother back to Las Vegas around the middle of October, I'd just gotten my new HTC Touchpro 2 and thought I'd try making the 4-day trip without my laptop. I still had the 6.5 pound Dell and I just didn't feel like lugging it around anymore if I didn't absolutely have to. I could check my e-mail, rss reader, twitter and textsfromlastnight.com from my phone, as well as any maps I might need. I figured those were about the only things I couldn't go 4 days without. And I was right.

Only, the day after I got back, my right middle finger felt like it was broken for over a week. I couldn't figure out why until I picked up the stylus for my phone. Um, yeah, waaay too much time online with a tiny screen.

Still, it was so wonderful to travel superlight, with just a tiny carry-on and my purse. It felt like freedom.

Both of those items were extremely cheap and bought years ago. I believe the duffle bag is actually decades old.

But the phone as a main computing solution was just not going to cut it, even for short trips, unless I wanted to totally kill my hand. So I was more determined than ever to get a netbook. I had...or, at least, thought I had...the luxury of time and was waiting for some models to become available when I suddenly found myself without a laptop.

My older daughter decided to move to New Orleans and actually moved to New Orleans all within just a few days. (Yep, I'd trained her well. *Wiping tear from corner of eye*) And I gave her my laptop.

I'd actually bought the pink laptop to give to 6 year old for Christmas last year, but she didn't seem quite careful enough to be responsible for it. And, to tell the truth, she still doesn't. She's been using computers since she was 3, but she's a very rough little girl. However, I finally realized that she will probably always be very rough and it so happened they were without a laptop, so I gave it to them.

Which meant that I was dependent upon the ancient desktop in my daughter's bedroom. My younger daughter, with whom I live, who goes to work at 6 a.m. and has to be in bed by 9 p.m., leaving me with my phone until I went to sleep hours later.

But, first...I finally gave in and got a Kindle. It may be several months - at the very least - before I board a transatlantic flight, but the lure of an international Kindle was too much for me to resist. I should have given it a post of its own so I could go into raptures over how much I love this device and verbally kick myself for not getting one sooner but, suffice it to say that it has become my constant companion and went a big way toward easing the pain of losing my laptop.

For a while, my phone and Kindle were all I needed to supplement the time I spent on the desktop dinosaur. But I never stopped trying to figure out what I was going to do about a permanent computing solution. It was going to have to be some combo of netbook and larger laptop, but I didn't want to commit to any of the combinations I was finding available.

Until...

I found an ad for a cheap refurbished netbook that I thought I could live with until I made up my mind about what I would do permanently. What made it most attractive is that I could get it bundled with a very slim, inexpensive external DVD drive, which I desperately needed if I was going to be buying netbooks and notebooks with no optical drives. Well, that and the fact that it was red!

Side question: When we will finally be rid of disks? Both my phone and the DVD drive came with disks. Of course, it may be that they are both also available online as downloads. I know that the Quicken program I bought is and, to this day, I can't remember why I didn't download it instead of buying the stupid disk. I am kind of afraid, though, that I'll get stuck when I change computers and not be able to re-download stuff that I've paid for.

Anyway, I am now in the happy position of being able to fit all of my tech in a smallish handbag and I find that both thrilling and amazing. What's really weird is that this purse seems to have been made with my tech needs in mind. Look at this:

There is a small outside zippered pocket which is perfect for keys, lipstick, etc. - small stuff I need to access often and quickly. I'd love to put my phone in there, but I don't want it getting scratched up by my keys.

Then there is the main zippered compartment in the middle where my wallet, phone, glasses, etc. belong. It's big enough to put a small brush, my camera and other things if I need to.

What is so cool, though, is that there are two open pockets on either side of the main zippered compartment. They are perfectly sized for items that are about the size of half a sheet of paper. This is where I put my itinerary and rental car info when I travel, to access quickly whenever I need to. But NOW, my Kindle goes in one pocket and my netbook in the other! And there's still plenty of room for my travel docs with the Kindle.

And, just for good measure, there is another small zippered compartment inside one of the open pockets. This is for small items I don't use very often, but are very important, and I want to keep them securely out of the way so they don't accidentally fall out when I'm taking stuff out of the larger areas. These are mainly my aircard and flash drives, but I will often put my camera there instead of the larger compartment.

So this is what I'm traveling with these days.

My (RED) netbook. It's an Eee PC 900HD, which I will post about later. My Kindle, phone, aircard and flash drive.

Seriously, I could travel the world with no more than this, for a very long time. And it all fits in my purse!!!

My goal is now to assemble a wardrobe that will fit into the duffle bag. I've already got several pieces that are lightweight and non-wrinkle, and I will soon begin a quest for more - plus some slightly heavier warmer pieces. But my tech is in place and I have the perfect container for it.

So, when I finally do get to the point where I'm ready to book that transatlantic flight, I will be freaking ready!

Well...almost, anyway. I will have to figure out what I want to do about international Internet access while traveling. But there's time yet for that. In the meantime, I will probably have at least 2 domestic round trips. And they will be a breeze compared to how I've always traveled, which was not nearly light enough even though I've rarely checked bags in the last several years.

Finally, I've almost got it all exactly as I want it.