Quickie Update... Well, not so quick...

Dubby's blogged about the trip to Lancaster, PA. If I get more time, I may put up some of my pics, too. I enjoyed the vacation immensely. We need to do that more often. Last week I put 10 gallons of paint on the inside of my mom's house in Jacksonville. Today I put 15 gallons of deck sealer on our deck. The bad part: I'm only half through with the deck (the downstairs part). I'll spend tomorrow putting another 15 gallons on the upstairs part. Thanks to Allen for pressure-washing the deck while I was in Florida. Dubby gave a fantastic talk in church yesterday, one of the best talks I've heard in years, possibly decades. (She very adeptly and skillfully aimed it right at me -- which made it a great talk right there, since it applied to just about every man in the room -- but she delivered it in a funny, entertaining, and completely inoffensive way which everyone enjoyed, appreciated, and felt good about in the end, both men and women. It was a great talk. A really great talk.) Of course, since my ego is thickly coated with several layers of Teflon, her words entered one of my ears and exited the other without the slightest impediment. But I enjoyed the experience immensely. The bits and pieces of her talk that I actually heard were indeed able to partially distract me from the continuous chaotic din of the ever-present over-abundance of small children which often get loose from their tethers and cages, and, being unmuzzled, run amuck jabbering, crying, fretting, fit-pitching, etc.'ing. On another subject: This Lyme disease bit is really dragging me down. I'm not quite in the feel-like-I-wanna-die misery or the nauseous agony I've experienced several times with the flu. But it is extremely unpleasant. The fever is gone and the rash is gone, but they've been replaced with a powerful flare-up of arthritis like I've never experienced before. Every joint in my body is intensely painful. My back, elbows, knees, fingers, ankles, toes, hips, and especially my right shoulder are experiencing intense, throbbing pain. It's hard to paint and apply deck sealer when your body makes it so perfectly clear that it just wants you to lie down and remain perfectly still 24 hours a day. Well that's all the news from Lake Woe-Begone, where all the women are strong, all the men are -- well, not really that good looking, and all the children make an above-average amount of noise. (apologies to Garrison Keillor).