Probably not...I am probably the only person who can hear lines and phrases from The Cow Cavalry running through my head at vague and sundry times. I should think that I ought to be able to quote the entire narration script seeing as I wrote it and have read it over and over...and heard it time and again...but I cannot quote it verbatim. Well...I haven't exactly tried. Probably wouldn't take TOO long to get it memorized where I could. :D

At anyrate, I started to write a blog post yesterday, entitled "A Testy Tuesday", but just couldn't bring myself to publish a post about the awful, irrational grouch that was myself. I really had "growl" issues yesterday. I was cold...I was hungry...I was probably herxing. Not that any of the above give me any excuse to be a regular pain. I tried to keep my mouth shut and my brain on lock-down (it wasn't long after getting up yesterday that I knew I was in for a day of grueling self-control)...I have a "feeling" that I oozed bad temper.

Still, for all that bad blood boiling in my veins, I managed to plough through 31 AfterEffects. Granted, I imagine some of them will need a little more tweaking, but each revision brings them closer to "perfect"...if anything can ever be completely perfect. I guess I would have to ask more experienced filmmakers if that is so...

Today, though with a much better temperament (Praise God! One day like that is enough at a time...), I only managed 9. Of course, one took all morning and I still wasn't done with it by the time it was time for lunch. I know that one is going to need revision...but because I used nearly all video (rather than stills), I cannot see it well enough (RAM previews are too choppy), to tell how fantastically (or horridly, as it might be) that it worked out. 

That leaves me with just a few more to do...and then I will RENDER and RENDER...and then drop them into the timeline...and cringe...and laugh...and growl... ;) 

Okay, so you get the point. More revision will follow. I'm getting so...SO close...and I'm getting excited. :)

One of the reasons I only got nine done (other than AE crashed around 5:15--not long before I was going to go feed the chickens anyway; I decided not to restart it today), was that I washed eggs and made bread after lunch.  

Cheers!

Note to the grammar-freaks out there...that mis-matched, mis-spelled title is purposeful. It's me at the moment...or really most of the day.

I have been borderline, crossed the border, back over to borderline on and off all day meningitis-y. I finally figured out (maybe again) how to describe it to an "outsider". I look kinda high...or drunk...

I feel kinda high...or drunk. 

I can't stand up straight. I can't sit up straight. I have difficulty holding my eyes open past half-shut.

I slur when I speak. 

I was singing while washing my hair this evening...and that was when it hit me...that I sounded drunk. I do. 

I have difficulty focusing my eyes.

I hear slow. Or maybe I should say that it takes extra time to process what I am hearing. 

I move slower than usual.

At dinner, in order to keep my face out of my soup, I had to prop myself up on my elbows. 

I would probably go into a giggling fit if something funny enough passed before me. One of those that leave me helpless and red in the face, unable to breathe. (Called "giggle gas" amongst our family.)

My thoughts are muddled. If I'm thinking at all. I can just sit here and be as blank as a clean slate if I don't force myself to be somewhat more alert. Not kidding. That's some serious "dead-brain".

Now...take that and imagine me trying to be of assistance to my grandparents. That's one of those "force yourself to be slightly mentally active" times. 

Grandpa apparently got up at 5 or thereabouts this morning. (He put himself to bed last night, for which I am grateful.) Grandma didn't get up until after noon. In the meantime, Grandpa had not eaten anything. He was complaining of his neck hurting and feeling to weak to hold up his head. He was literately holding it up with is hands. He was really pale and had terrible low blood pressure. Then I found out he hadn't had anything to eat since supper last night.

Grandma fixed him some eggs and I sat there for nigh on two hours...essentially force feeding him. He said he had "had enough" after half a dozen bites, but I kept demanding him to open his mouth and he did eventually get it all down. All the eggs...and a little over half the bread. I got him to eat all the eggs by telling him I wasn't going to make him eat all the bread (but I was slipping some onto the spoon with the eggs each bite). He did have a big cup of cocoa and half a mug of orange juice. By the time that force feed was over, his color had been restored to normal and I think he was feeling a little stronger.

It's a hard thing to sit there and demand of your 92 year old grandfather, a man who has always eaten, to "Open your mouth. Grandpa. Open your mouth." 

By the time I got him fed (Savannah was in and out and helping hold up his head and rubbing the knot in his neck), I was so hungry myself that I had to come in and get something to eat before I could take my next set of killers.

We went back out later and he was in his recliner...but was needing to get up and go to the bathroom. Well...to shorten the story, we had what is known as a "crime scene" amongst elder-care persons...Grandma primarily took care of that, but I assisted in what ways I could without getting in the way. Grandpa decided to stay in bed at that stage of the game and there is where I left him. I hope he sat up to eat...Grandma was making shrimp. Between "breakfast/lunch" he had an ice cream bar. He is NOT getting enough to eat...and he doesn't want to eat. It's not even like Grandma isn't feeding him either...

I think protein shake is called for. However, I'm about wrote out...so I'm going to weave myself off to the big recliner in the living room. 

Now...how sane was all of that? *blinks trying to focus eyes* Nevermind...

It seems that so often, when ONE things happens, or goes wrong, something else is right on it's heels. Excitement tends to come in bursts around here, I guess I might say.

Savannah and I have been noticing that over the past couple weeks that when we stoked the furnace, there has been an increased level of smoke that came billowing out at us. Last night, things rather came to a head. Smoke was leaking out of the joints at the elbow where the pipe connects to the chimney. Well, at Daddy's suggestion we put metal tape around the cracks and that seemed to help. Then Savannah went back down to the basement again--and it was leaking from other areas, including around the door. She turned the blowers off and the thermostat in the house and we let it go out.

Thankfully, we have back-up with the electric heat (did I forget to mention the low was someplace around -5* last nigh?)...it isn't nearly as efficient, but it sure helps!! Well, anyway, that worked until shortly after 6:00 this morning when it quit too. 

Thus ensued the scramble to get some sort of heat up and running. When I went out to feed the chickens this morning, it was 0* outdoors and roughly 67* in the house. It had been determined that there had to be a blockage in the furnace chimney. I declared that, regardless of my fear of heights, I would go up on the roof and give the chimney sweeping a go. (Meanwhile we were on and off the phone and Skype with our parents.) Mama ended up giving that a very firm "No"...

I got to looking at the chimney and bonnet later (from the ground, that is) and decided that even had I been capable of getting the bonnet off (and Daddy told me it's hard for him), I am not sure that I would have been tall enough to force the brush down the chimney.

So anyway, we called a chimney sweep--who wouldn't be able to make it out here until Tuesday--and set an appointment with them. (It would later get cancelled; keep reading.)

Then, trying to trouble shoot even further, we went on an exploratory trek to the basement, Daddy in on-Skype consultation mode:

I would end up unhooking the elbow from the furnace and doing an initial clean out there. The amount of junk was, all told, very negligible. 

Well, there really wasn't anything to talk about up as far as I could reach there either, so we left it hanging. 

Then Daddy had another idea:

That's right, a candle.

See, we could feel a little tiny bit of a draft at the pipe, so Daddy told us to get a candle and light it, then hold it up to the pipe. If it didn't get blown out due to the suction then we would know for sure that we had a blockage of some sort.

Well, it didn't even think about being blown out.

Daddy next picked up the phone and called Mr. M...one of our deacons and a man who works at all kinds of stuff like this for his living. Mr. M said he'd be there within the hour. Daddy told me to go ahead and get the ladder set up and to have the chimney brush handy for when Mr. M arrived.

I had just sat down to eat my lunch when I noticed that Abby was craning her neck in an alert posture as she looked out the window. So, I hopped up, jammed my feet into my cowboy boots while at the same time pulling my denim coat on. Last step as I stumbled out the door was to cram Daddy's "Russian" hat onto my head. (That was my headgear of choice today.) 

After greeting Mr. M, I supplied him with the brushes and held the ladder for him as he mounted to the roof. He started to say something about the roof when he reached the point of transfer, but he didn't finish his sentence for whatever reason. But I know it had to do with the trickiness of the transfer because Daddy told me that was the hardest part. :P

I scrambled back into the house and bolted the rest of my lunch. Abby was freaking out because she could hear Mr. M on the roof and the brush going down the chimney. 

After I finished my lunch, I suited up and headed back outside just about the same time Mr. M was coming down. Poor man was frozen! We invited him in to warm up and have a cup of coffee. I went back out and took the cleaning rod apart (he had been too cold to do it). I couldn't get enough friction to do it with my gloves on, so I had to take them off. I think that is why tonight the backs of my hands are red...and the whole surface is quite rough. Coming in contact with fabric is rather uncomfortable. 

After drinking half his coffee, Mr. M went back up onto the roof to put the bonnet back on. And then he came back in and finished his coffee. The three of us tramped to the basement and he put the rest of the furnace back together and Savannah got the fire going. (I didn't mention earlier, but we had taped a feed sack to the open end of the elbow to catch the junk coming down the pipe.) 

Mr. M informed us that we had had an one-hundred percent creosote blockage. That could have been way worse than a smoke filled house. It could have meant fire in the chimney...and worse. Praise God that we did not have that problem and that Mr. M so graciously came to our rescue!! 

Later in the day, the guys showed up to fix our electric heat. I am not exactly sure what they did...or exactly what the problem was--other than some sort of heat limit override sensor thingy. (So that sounded really brilliant. Sorry. I got out of bed running today and I have barely slowed down and I'm kind of tired.)

In between Mr. M and these other guys though, I brought in three buggy loads of wood--all by myself again. I'm hoping that I don't get a meningitis attack tomorrow. If I don't, that will make twice in the last week that I've done some good physical work without an attack! However, I'm not jumping to conclusions yet. It's not tomorrow. :D

Someplace in here I also made a trip to the apartment--some sort of paper-work that I was the gopher/runner for.  

Later, Savannah and I went into town; me driving. I have been "chauffeur" lately since her eyes are bothering her (Lyme shifting up again). When we got home, I fed the chickens...and stopped by Grandma and Grandpa's again. I got their kerosene heater going for them. They were both cold--and I can't say I was sweating even though I had five layers on; two shirts, a sweater, coveralls, and my heavy duty flannel-lined denim jacket. In other words, it must have been chilly in there. Usually in the wintertime their place is so down right hot you want a sleeveless shirt on out there. (That is slight hyperbole.)

Then I came in and hauled wood from the old oil room into the furnace room. I think it was about that time that I noticed my hip was bugging me a bit and that I had started limping again. Oh well. Grit your teeth and bear it. That's my motto when it comes to this Lyme-arthritis. There tends to be some grimaces that accompany that as well...but I really do try not to moan and groan and complain about it--though I have been driven to tears by the pain. (It's no where near that bad tonight, by the way. Just a nagging little irritation mostly.)

Some how or another, I also ended up the day with the tops of my knees chapped. I did go outside briefly three or four times without my coveralls on. I would hardly think that would be enough to chap my knees (through jeans), but I guess it was. Cold is strange. All in all, I think I prefer 99* and being soaked through and through with sweat. Heh...that brings it's own set of physical irritations, so guess I cannot claim that is "perfect" either! :D 

Oh well. I am VERY grateful to have heat tonight. 

So, some of us Lymies (ooh, terrible grammar!) had a Lyme appointment this morning. We sat in the opposite order as usual, but probably because I was on the phone with an "emergency" phone call. We were literally just getting out of the car when my phone starting it's froggy dance in my purse. I hauled it out and looked at the ID screen: "Ricky".
Huh? Why was Ricky calling me? He usually calls Daddy.

Well, my guess is that he called Daddy's cell and it wasn't on him (he was in the basement), so he called me instead to talk to Daddy--but since I was in a completely different state, I explained quickly and promised to call Daddy as soon as I got off the phone. He was standing in Tractor Supply in order to pick up our fence posts and Daddy was a necessary part of the equation somehow. So I called Daddy; his cellphone went to voicemail...and I thought he'd never pick up the house phone. But he did--eventually, and I gave him the quick run down and we hung up and the rest is history.

Anyway, back to the real story...

After talking about this, that, and the other of our symptoms and what we have been taking...or not taking as the case may be...it was determined that both Savannah and I change protocol. She was ready for a switch up anyway having done Cowden for roughly 10 months. I'm someplace around 7 or 8 and have really not had much improvement over the past couple months. If anything, I seem to have digressed...maybe. I frequently think that my family can tell better than I can. We suspect that down in Florida I had a load of mold exposure which worsened things. (I mean, since I've been back, I have been pretty listless, sick with the GI track stuff, meningitis-y [I have a little of that feeling tonight], a little fever...) Thankfully, my joint pains have been practically gone since going to Florida. My hack is still around (it's always worse when I'm cold) and, as we were discussing on the way home, my head is, well...empty a lot. (Savannah has foggy brain, but for me it's more like there is just no thoughts at all. I "zone out" an awful lot.) I also seem to have some auditory issues--I believe Savannah's description of "hearing slow" works well.

Anyway, we are going to start on the Byron White (is that right, S?) protocol--starting with the Lyme treatment and the detoxers (Savannah said we were going to put Katherine on at least one of those to start with? Or were we going to take her off Cowden too? I forgot. I must have been getting hungry during this part of the discussion.) Once we settle in with the Lyme stuff, we'll start on the Bartonella killers. (My Bart has been acting up recently. It's horrid...I thought I was done with those flashes of irrational anger.)

I guess I stay on the artimisian (I'm out right now)...and some of the other detoxers I am to quit. Seems like there was one other change...but I can't remember what it was at the moment.

Savannah has seen quite a bit of improvement and that is very encouraging. Me, on the other hand...well, not so much. Katherine has been scheduled to see the doctor on April 2nd and then we will all go back toward the end of April. Very fun, this stuff... :P

My head hurts now...I wonder if unbraiding my hair will help...it doesn't usually when my head feels like this, so it probably won't. I'm not sure that my scalp doesn't feel like it's crawling as well...

Oh, sorry...maybe you'd prefer not to get the play-by-play of a Lymie's life. For mine I think you'd get a lot of dead air anyways!

I'll get back to work on the Cow Cavalry tomorrow (Lord willing) once I take care of my "one thing"...

See you some other time then! :)

If you have ever watched Columbo (an old TV detective show), you may be hearing Peter Fualk's distinctive, "Just one more thing..." However, that is not the philosophy behind "one thing", regardless of how amusing the apparently bumbly Columbo can be.

My mother coined our "one thing" in order to help her household of Lymies to be a little more productive. I, at any rate, seem to have difficulty completing anything. I frequently cannot place my finger on anything at the end of the day that I can say was really productive--or I simply cannot remember what I did. This is where the "one thing" comes in.

At the beginning of the day (or the night before as the case may be), we set ourselves one task to complete. Once we complete that--we set ourselves our next "one thing". 

Yesterday, I moved a small whiteboard off the refrigerator and stuck in on the air duct running up the wall next to my desk. (Yes, there is a metal air duct running through the dining room and into my room that is not covered by dry wall.) I find that lists are helpful...and that I tend to bury the ones I write on paper. So I thought the whiteboard would be useful. 

I scribbled my "one thing" (which was actually very related conglomeration of three things) up on the board, plus an all caps reminder of something very important. I can see this board from my seat at the dinner table. 

And you know what? I got my "one thing" done!

Now...about that then. :) 

Forgive me if you find this a bit morbid, but I spent the day working on the recording of my Granddaddy's funeral.

I took the following two pictures with the still camera in my HMC40 before the funeral started and before I turned the video recording on.

They closed the casket (and slipped the casket spray in next to his hands) before the funeral actually started. 

I do not know how long funerals usually run, but Granddaddy's was close to an hour (give or take some). We sang twice, one of the songs two of my cousins and I played our guitars. It would have made him so proud. :) The pastor read the obituary (which I think Aunt Laurie wrote?) and gave a short sermonette. Three of the granddaughters eulogized. Savannah's eulogy was pre-recorded. (Later on, Tommy and Ricky told me that they could tell how much better she was doing just from that short little recording.)

At the very end, my aunt and one of my cousins played echo Taps. And if you want to know when I really, really wanted my hankie and didn't have it...it was this:

Well, anyway...what I did was adjust volumes (i.e. turn the singing/music down and turn up the speakers) and inserted the video of Savannah's eulogy since you can't see the totality of the church media screens as well as the photo of Granddaddy that we had on the wall for his final farewell, singing "It is Finished".

Then, I went in and reassembled the slideshow (thank-you, Katherine for taking the time out of your day to turn all those slides into JPG's for me! [I don't have PowerPoint on either of my machines.]) It only ended up with five of the songs out of...ten? because the slideshow was shorter than the music playlist and so that looped as the music played during the viewing. Anyway, I put the whole of it on a DVD...the funeral and the slideshow. For folks who want the full music playlist and/or the slideshow, something else will have to be worked out (like a USB drive or a data disk). I would, in the future like to put at least some of his songs up on YouTube, but I have another project (or two) to finish before I seriously think about that.

However, to give you a taste of the slideshow, here are some of my favorite pictures from it (clicking on the photos makes them larger so you can see them better; along with the captions):

There. I have tackled my first "one thing" of the day. My next "one thing" is another one of those multi-faceted ones...Cow Cavalry related! 

Blessings on your day!

I went to bed Christmas Eve with a case of meningitis...and I woke up Christmas morning with my Lyme throwing an all out hissy fit that lasted all day long. You know I'm not well when food is repulsive to me. However, I will spare you all the gory details. Just suffice to say that my digestive system was attempting to sabotage my enjoyment of the day (oh, how my stomach hurt!!) and that I had a fever on and off all day along with the stiff and sore neck and head that comes with the meningitis.  

However, for all that, being rather miserable and all, I had a pretty decent day. I even sang (in a weird sort of voice) while curled up on the couch. 

Everybody got up kind of late (that is what happens when it's so overcast that the rising of the sun doesn't make over much of a dint in the clouds)...as previously mentioned I woke up miserable, a condition I would carry with me in my flesh for the remainder of the day (and to be honest, I still don't feel in tip-top shape). However, I determined that I was going to enjoy myself (as far as possible) and took the first step towards that in the form of dressing myself in something other than my nightgown. I was going to at least look half way decent! (Forget the make-up though. I wasn't going to go that far.)

I returned to my spot on the couch and snuggled under the blanket were I would stay, more or less, until roughly 2 o'clock when we went out to the apartment for Christmas Dinner with my grandparents, were I requisitioned Grandpa's big overstuffed power chair. I tried to eat, but only managed a spoonful of green beans and some cranberry salad. It's almost scary to be off one's feed that kind of badly. 

However, to return to earlier in the day...

Savannah flipped the lid back on the piano and started playing...and I started singing (I don't know if howling like a puppy might not be a better description) or humming if I couldn't remember the words. I am positive I sounded terrible, but no one complained, so I guess I wasn't irritating anyone too badly.

I think it was around 10:30 when everyone was "ready" and Katherine started producing stuff from under our very fat, almost huggable looking tree. We have a tradition in our house that the youngest kid passes out the gifts. I think, maybe, that part of the reasoning behind it in the beginning was the teach patience and a giving spirit (you know, littles tend to like getting more than they do giving...at least I did back when I was tiny); however, I'm just speculating since I don't really know why the tradition was initiated.

The following are slideshows...

"Meet Mrs. Fledge"

This was funny...as I unwrapped the package, I saw it was an Ariat boot box, so I said in a goofy sort of way "Oh, I got a boot-box!" (along the lines of the cereal or saltine cracker boxes that Grandma tends to package things in)...thing is, I completely forgot that I have only had one brand-new pair of Fat Baby boots--and the box is sitting on my shelf in Florida! So when Mama made some remark, I realized that "wait...are there really boots in here???" I like 'em, hot pink stitching and all! :)

Me (Bear in mind that I didn't feel well...)

When Mama, Savannah, and Grandma went to see Grandma's cousin Helen in the nursing home, I came in and amused myself in bed with my computer. I really didn't feel good, so I was thankful that the cats obliged me by not pouncing on my middle. When they came back, it was time for supper (of which I once again ate very, very little) and then the gift exchange with the grandparents. I think Grandpa liked his books, jeans, and heated blanket. Grandma was pleased with the pretty dolly we got for her at Fort Pierce. I knew she would like it. :)

The Evening

While I cannot say that it was the most physically comfortable Christmas I have ever had, I still think it was a good one... :)

I spent most of the day with my nose glued to one or another of my two computer screens. However, it really was a profitable thing. And it made sense on another front as well. See, it's been one of those days when I have not felt overly well. Not that I could say, "Oh yeah, such and such and this part of me hurts or feels sick". I've just been rather "blah" and tried...and semi-brainless today. My hip has hurt on and off (I tried doing some off the wall push-ups and forgot the idea on the first try because my hip screamed, "How DARE you treat me in such a fashion!!!" Of course, another day it probably wouldn't have even whimpered....but anyway.) And I have had some Lyme stomach burn too...but mainly I have just been having an undistinquished 'don't feel so grand' day. 

On the other hand, I had my nose glued to my editing machine most of the day. Did I already say that? Not exactly, I guess. 

Anyway, I have been working on The Cow Cavalry. I need three men to finish a few things up for me, but I will not start beating down any doors yet. I have most of the visuals to still put together yet, so why should I whine? I managed to fully complete (locked, I think) half a dozen or so over the last two days and worked on probably about a full dozen today. I would have to go dig my notebooks out of the drawer to tell you exactly...

After AfterEffects (oo! that sounds horrid, but how else do I say it?) froze up, I opened up Photoshop. I don't like Photoshop very well, but that's probably only because I don't use it often enough to really learn how it works. Anyway, I went into Photoshop to make lower thirds. Now, technically, I should be able to make lower thirds (with a transparent 'background' in AfterEffects, which I should then be able to layer over my interview footage in Premiere Pro. (Confused yet?) In fact, I have done this before (though I guess, I made the "art work" for those lower thirds in Photoshop as well; but the actual lower third was assembled in AE)...and it worked lovely. There is just something about this project that AE refuses to render a lower third with a transparent background. Black? You got it! Any other color of the spectrum you might choose? Absolutely! Transparent? WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THAT? 

Okay, okay...

After being frustrated with multiple attempts at different times (gracious! I could even say "different years" here and it would be true!) to make lower thirds in AE, today I decided to spare myself the further growlings about "dumb, stupid computer programs" and try it another way. 

The question you are all dying to have answered, I am sure, is, "Did it work?"

Um. I don't know. 

I had gone ahead and shut Premiere down as well before I opened up Photoshop. I guess we'll just have to wait and find out tomorrow--or whenever I next crank up the beast.

There...I got that update and the urge to write off my chest. I hope you enjoyed it. :) I rather had fun writing this post, so I hope you cracked at least one smile!

Cheekily,