For fun I went back and read posts from 2008 and the election time then.  I find it quite interesting that the SAME things were being said by and about Obama in 2008 as they are now.  Nothing new.  On either front.  My daughter tells me I ought to be political again..... I just haven't the heart.

What I did enjoy was reading comments.  Wow, a lot of people were commenting on my site then.  Most are not even active on Xanga anymore.  Goes to show trends come and trends go.  Did you know in 2003 Xanga was the "hottest" thing on the internet.  Now most folks don't even know what it is.  They kind of broke open the blogging world and then got left behind.

The biggest surprise?  AmeliaJake was commenting in 2008.  I honestly had no clue I'd been communicating with her for that long.  Good friends make the good times go by quickly I guess.

Don't miss the vet joke in the post below.  I am still chuckling over it.  Yes, simple humor sometimes really appeals to me.

A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon. As she lay her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest.
After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, "I'm so sorry, your duck, Cuddles has passed away."
The distressed owner wailed, "Are you sure?
"Yes, I am sure. The duck is dead," he replied.
"How can you be so sure," she protested. "I mean, you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something."
The vet turned around and left the room, and returned a few moments later with a black Labrador Retriever.
As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head.
The vet patted the dog and took it out, and returned a few moments later with a cat.
The cat jumped up on the table and also sniffed delicately at the bird from head to foot. The cat sat back on it's haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and strolled out of the room.
The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck.² There is nothing that can be done for Cuddles.
Then the vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman.
The duck's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "$150!" she cried, "$150 just to tell me my duck is dead!!"
"The vet shrugged, "I'm sorry. If you'd taken my word for it, the bill would have been $20, but with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it's now $150.00

31 1/2 years and I still get teary eyed at times missing my mom.  It just hits me sometimes and I don't know why.

@gokellyjo - How did I start running.  Well it was a challenge I gave myself.  Every year there is a marathon/half marathon here in Houston in January.  I determined in Feb. last year that I was going to run it in 2012.  Now I admit I don't really like running.  It's work!  I would much rather sit than run and I am slow.  Very slow.  So the miles go by slowly and it can get tiresome.  But I really wanted to accomplish a half marathon (no intention of ever running farther than that!) so I decided the only way to do so was to put my money where my mouth is.  I plunked down something like $80 to enter the Galveston half-marathon which was the first Sunday in February.  I decided against the Houston marathon because it's very crowded and they have now implemented a lottery system to get a position in it if you aren't a top rated runner.  I had talked my daughter Emily into running it with me and we both wanted to be sure we got a spot.  The Galveston marathon was open registration so that's where we ended up.  The day of the race it was a COLD (okay, relatively speaking, we do live in Houston) 45 degrees and raining.  Pouring buckets of rain actually.  If Emily had not been there I might have turned tail and run the other direction.  But we ran the race and I finished it in my goal time, less than 3 hours.  I tell you that mile 8 was the most glorious mile ever.  Up to that day I'd never run more than 7 miles in one stretch.  I did the full 13.1 miles and wasn't even sore.  I will admit that the ONLY reason I continued to train and run and push onward was because I was too cheap to lose the $80 I'd shelled out.  My niece @specialena sent me a book about marathon training that really helped and she has been a great cheerleader.  It does help to have someone say... 53 is NOT too old to start running!  Sometimes her text that says "great job!" really motivates me.  And a little side effect of my doing that half-marathon is that for the first time I really felt like I *could* do something new and totally different for me.  It made me willing to try a few new things.  Like Scuba diving, which I'm learning to really enjoy (and the running sure keeps me in shape for all that swimming!).

So here we are getting ready for the 2013 race.  A different one this year because my son signed up to run the Marathon portion of a race in a different part of Houston.  His race is the same day as the Galveston race and I decided that I wanted to see him run his first marathon.... so I signed up for the half-marathon portion of his race.  If I beat him across the finish line I will be a happy camper.  Even though he's running twice as far he runs a LOT faster than I do.  And once again my motivation is that I don't want to lose the $85 I've put out.  I am getting to where I enjoy running more.  I'm not as driven to have a certain speed, just building endurance more than anything.  I have sped up too, my pace last year was around 4.3 miles per hour and now I do a consistent 5 mph.  My goal this year is to finish the half in 2 1/2 hours.  I try to run at least four times a week.  Sometimes I make it, sometimes I don't.  Saturdays are always my long day and I'm just now getting to five miles in a run.

@Specialena - The date of our race is January 27th.  It is the  USA FIT Marathon. The website has the registration and map etc. It would be a city/street marathon but is a Boston qualifier.... if that motivates you. They limit entries to 2500 which is nice because the Houston marathon is over 10,000 between the two races. It's crazy! You should bring Travis and come see us and run with us!  Ken would heat the pool or at least the hot tub for recovery.  lol   Aaron needs someone to kick him into gear!   He says he is aiming for 4 hours for his first marathon.  I think he can do it faster than that. 

Did I watch the debate.  Well most of it.  Romney did well, everyone agrees with that.  I find the spin today to be interesting... oh Obama wasn't up on things because he didn't prep well (uh, He's PRESIDENT! This is supposed to be his job he's debating and if he doesn't know it.... ???)  or it was the altitude.... oh sure, altitude.  Like Romney was on a different elevation?  Oh wait, if you add together where Obama thinks he is (above us all) to the altitude it might be a little brain fuzzing....  Okay, enough sniping.  Romney was clear and I find it interesting that the pundits and media are saying he changed his tune and Obama has said he's lying... no.  Actually if you read Romney's platform he didn't change his thinking or platform, he just got to present it for the first time directly without the media spinning it or interpreting it for the American public.  I felt that he was much more direct to the American people than Obama was, less subterfuge than Obama.  And Obama looked angry, really mad when Romney pointed out issues with his administration and record.  He doesn't take criticism well at all.  I would sure like someone to come up with some answers as to the bungling of the Libya debacle.  He has done a very poor job of handling that and I'm surprised Romney didn't jump on that when Obama said his job was to keep Americans safe... uh.... FOUR of our embassies have been bombed in the last year.... and we have pulled security and apologized for a video that wasn't even the cause of the riots.... seriously?  Seems his aides can't even agree about things and they are determining what is told to the American public not the President.  That concerns me.  Has he turned the running of the government over to aides while he hits little white balls?  And once again... enough sniping...   I do wonder what the Chicago machine will come up with in the next month.  It's sure to happen.  Be watching.  And what did you think?  (I have a lively debate with a very liberal woman in California going on and we haven't hurt each other yet... we even still like each other.  lol)

And after that I think I need to go run.... @gokellyjo politics provides the fuel I need.  lol

Every morning that I do early runs I feel like my life is a movie.  You know the movie "Dances with Wolves", I'm living "Runs With Deer".  I went out about 6:15 this morning and the neighborhood deer decided I was a good running partner.  Five of them (one buck, two does and two young'uns) kept pace with me for a while.  It's always kind of surreal to have deer running beside you in the dark.  I figure they won't mess with me since I'm a provider of food for them.  Mess with me bud and I pull the Sweet Potato vines right out of the yard and you can go elsewhere for your candy!  (Okay, maybe that won't work but as long as it isn't rutting season nobody gets too aggressive. 

Today's run put me at 214 miles for the year.   

In water news... I spent a bunch of money yesterday and bought an Aqualung Lotus i3 BCD, an Aqualung Legend LX regulator, a Suunto SK7 compass,  and a Suunto Di6 computer.  I just need water and a tank of air and I'm ready to go.  Oh and a wetsuit because I'm a wimp and I don't want to be cold.    Next diving day is October 14th.  Doing a navigation class, a search and recovery class (learn how to bring up that underwater treasure we find lol) and a Peak Performance Buoyancy class to tweak my buoyancy with my new gear.

But until then I'm back to the pottery.  More stuff fired last night and I'm ready to glaze and load again.  Busy season for the kiln.  The grandchildren probably feel neglected.

I've been in therapy the past few weeks.  My therapist is my pottery wheel/studio.  It listens quietly, gives good sound advice (silence), and provides a place of peace.  I find that I get a lot of thinking done when I'm immersed in my studio.  Topics that passed through my mind this past week were varied.  From the purifying effects of fire (in reality and in the spiritual), fretting over the effects of dust on my work when placed in the fire (bubbles and imperfections), AmeliaJake and her zest for life and how I hope I'm as full of spunk as she is in a few years, the Credo section of the Mass by Beethoven we are singing in the concert and how I just can't get the Latin words to roll off my tongue like they should (come on, WHO speaks Latin these days? lol), OnTheHoof and her passion for things that matter to her, Uganda (been taken back there mentally a few times recently), church (uh.... I feel like church is a replay of a John Steinbeck novel... you can guess which one) and a few hot personal topics like forgiveness, contentment, surrendering.  Okay, so maybe it isn't therapy as much as a hot house/think tank session of one.

So what have I accomplished in my therapy sessions?

The before picture.  A lot of hours at the wheel to produce 30 pieces ready to glaze.  (I have about 30 more sitting on the shelf ready to go in another load)

One of the four shelves loaded in the kiln ready for the 2167 degrees to come.

The after picture (of a few of my favorites - a lot of mugs that are to be Christmas gifts)

Yes, that bowl below is a pretty purple.  I used it in combination with another glaze to make the blue/purple mug above.

My tiny vase, about 3 inches high.  Slightly modified to be "artsy fartsy" as my husband would put it.

I used a black glaze to make diagonal stripes under this glaze, turned out really nice.

This inverted handle looks rather unique but holds quite well and is balanced.  I just need to make a dimple in the bottom of the handle next time for a spot for the pinkie finger to rest. 

That purple/blue glaze combo.

My "delicate" teacup.  As delicate as pottery can be. 

We went on a night dive last night.  It was in the Comal River up near New Braunfels, Texas.  The river is shallow so no depth issues but it turned out to be much more challenging than I expected.  It is very difficult to maintain proper buoyancy in less than ten feet of water and so I had to be real conscious of my breathing.  You can use your lung capacity to rise or sink.  The dive took about 35 minutes and we saw a LOT of moss, huge crawdads, bass and perch but we missed the giant (12 - 18 inch) picasimus.  I guess a few years ago someone dumped their aquarium fish in the river and since it is always around 72 degrees they lived and love all the algae available to them.  The most disturbing part of the dive was when I first went in and immediately hit the bottom getting swallowed by the moss.  It was about two feet deep and I just settled right in like it was a soft mattress.  Not my favorite experience.  Believe me I will be taking some weight out if I go diving in that shallow of water again.

Tomorrow we are going to go dive in a lake, not the one on the border.  Our drug lord experience will have to wait until another trip as our boat guy didn't come through for us.  But that's okay.

The rest of our trip has been good and relaxing.  We may only be three hours from home but it's not the office for my husband.

And a big happy birthday today to my favorite Russian in the world!  My son-in-law, Vladimir!

We are headed to San Antonio where we will lodge while doing day trips to dive in Lake Amistad on the Mexican border.  As long as the Mexican drug cartels stay out of our cove we should be good. 

The doctor discharged him yesterday (Monday!  A day early!) after he had been given his iv for the day.  He has to travel in to the pediatrician's office every day for five days now to get 500 mg of antibiotic by two shots.  I guess he really screams through the process.  That's a LOT of stuff for a little guy to have shot into him, but much better than an iv and a hospital room.  After the treatment is up they have to take him to the lead pediatric infectious disease doctor to get the all-clear from, which I'm sure will involve more blood tests.

Absolutely no idea where he might have picked it up from.  No snakes, turtles or reptiles in the house (geckos that randomly come in the house don't count we were told) so the source is most likely another person, probably an adult.  I guess that is more common for this strain of Salmonella than an infected surface.  Just to be safe we all have mopped and bleached our floors and tables. 

Well August ended with a down note.  Last Tuesday Fergal started running a fever.  Hannah gave him Tylenol and then when that didn't work the next time medicine could be given she tried Ibuprofen.  Neither one would bring down his fever for more than 1/2 hour.  The next day after about 15 hours of fever she called the doctor and took him in for a visit.  He was acting quite listless and didn't want to even hold up his head but other than the fever and being really tired he didn't have any other symptoms.  I was thinking just a virus but I'm glad Hannah followed her mama instincts and took him in to the doctor right away.  They did some basic tests and took blood to run some blood tests on him and sent him home.  The doctor said he really didn't know but said that if he had to guess maybe he had picked up a little food poisoning.  Salmonella poisoning.  The next morning at 7 AM Hannah is awaken by the phone, it was the doctor saying bring him in right now, before eight, his blood tests came back and he has a serious infection.  They didn't know exactly what type of infection because the bacteria hadn't been identified but his blood was growing bad stuff in that little petri dish.  So Wed. they were sent to the hospital and started the little guy on IV antibiotics.  It was after he got to the hospital that the typical Salmonella symptoms started, diarrhea, etc.   After about two days he was chipper and had perked right up, almost back to himself, standing up in the crib and being very restless because he couldn't get on the floor and crawl.  The bacteria got identified and the Dr. had been right, he had Salmonella that had gone septic.  Serious stuff for a baby to have a septic infection.  So he has to be on antibiotics for ten days.  The intention was to have him on IV antibiotics for the full ten days and they were going to insert an arm something or other (can't remember the name now) that would allow him to go home and have mom and dad administer the drugs at home since he was feeling better.  But the only people who could insert the special catheter were gone for the weekend/holiday and couldn't get him in until next Wed.  The rules are that if you have one of these you have to need it for at least seven days.  By Wed. he would only need two more days of treatment so they won't put it in.  So the expectation was they would be in the hospital trying to keep a baby happy for a total of 45 minutes treatment each day.  We took up the bouncer so he could jump and he got 20 minutes of great bouncing in..... then they had to hook him up to the IV.  His IV had blocked and they had to put in a new line, and the other arm's vein blew out so it ended up in his foot, which meant he couldn't jump or bounce or stand on his foot.... bummer.  So he hangs suspended it in sometimes because at least he's vertical without having to be held.    Today  they received news that the doctor believes that they will send him home on Tuesday or Wednesday and he will have to go in to the pediatrician's office to get shots each day until the ten days are up.  His blood cultures are not showing any bacteria growth now although he still has it in his intestinal tract.  They have no idea where he got it from, the most common cause of Salmonella in babies Fergal is not at risk because of (pet lizards, turtles and snakes) so the Dr. says it is most likely he got it through transfer from an adult.  We can have no sure idea of where it came from.

Hannah has been staying at the hospital every night, and almost all day so she's pretty much exhausted.  Chris is taking the night shift tonight.  Someone has to stay with Fergal the whole time he's there because he's not in a nursery, he's in a regular room and they don't have a nurse there to watch him or anything so a family member has to be with him.  Tonight I went up and babysat for a few hours so mom and dad could go out to eat.  They had a good time and I only had 20 minutes out of the 3 hours with "I want mom" screaming.  I consider that a success.

So hopefully Tuesday the little guy will come home!  Sure hope so.  I don't like having grandbabies in the hospital.