A Christmas Memory...

I was listening to the radio a few minutes ago (which I have turned to Christmas Music), and the song that was playing was "Silver Bells" by Bing Crosby.  After a bit, a neat old memory came to mind that I'd like to share from when I was a child.

When I was a wee boy, not but five or six-years-old, I had a grandmother who had an old trailer with the neatest old stuff in it.  In fact, I think it may have been my Great Grandmothers house, Dulcie Morrow/Cason.  I'm not sure of the spelling of any of that though, so don't quote it.  Anyway, one of the things I can credit Great Grandma doing was introducing me to my second musical instrument, the air organ.

In the Old Days (by which I mean the 40's and 50's..LOL) there were these little keyboard organs that were made that chorded and made notes by air being blown through the organ and changing tones when keys were pressed.  This was the type of organ that it was, and you can still find these ocassionally in thrift stores or at auctions where they sell for a buck or two.  Anyway, I digress...

I took to this organ like a duck to water.  I remember sitting there with her books, which rather than notes on a sheet of music had numbers.  These numbers corresponded directly with numbers that were printed on the keys.  It was kind of "Learn to play the organ by numbers" LOL!  But I was pretty good at it.  The first song I learned was "Silver Bells", and to this day I still remember the numbers I would press on that keyboard to play that song.  In fact, I'm ocassionally find myself stuck singing the numbers rather than the song itself...apologies to Bing.  Now isn't that silly???

So...  For your enjoyment:

8 6 5 3   8 6 5 3   10 9 8 6 6 6   9 8 7  6 5 4 4+  4 4 3

8 6 5 3   8 6 5 3   10 9 8 6 6 6   9 8 7 6 5 4 4+ 4 3

3 4 5     6 7 8     7 7 8 9   8 6 8 5

3 4 5     6 7 8     7 7 8 9 8 6 8

Oh yeah....the sharp keys were noted by + signs or minus signs.

I miss you great Grandma....  Wherever you are, I hope you have a Very Merry Christmas!

Ciao!

Why is it that things ALWAYS go worse before they get better?

Does anyone know?  Why is it that things have to go so very very wrong when they go wrong?  Why can't things just go a little wrong?  Why does everything have to completely crash and burn around me before it gets better????  What the frick did I do??  

All I wanted to do was make my damned car payment!!!!

And the depression sets in...

I don't normally hate the holidays, but this one is truly different.  It sucks.  If everything could have gone wrong, it has, and it turns out that this year, unless I can get in touch with the real reason for the season, I'm doomed to continue in a horrible depression.

I've been trying my hardest to go on disability for the past few months, and so of course finances have been extremely low.  On the 9th, I was 40 dollars short for making my car payment, so I went ahead and took it out of my bank account thinking that I had a little bit of float time to play with.  Apparently I didn't.  The things that I thought had gone through hadn't gone through yet, and I had an amazing chain reaction take place in which 4 items went through at the same time, causing me to overdraw my account $182.    The insipid irony of this is that one of the items was an automatic withdrawal for the Des Moines, Register in the amount of $5.44, and of course there had to be a $35. service charge on that one too....One very expensive newspaper that wasn't even authorized to draw on my account!  It's just strange, how all of the things that weren't expected just began to spiral in...small things that really make no difference in the big picture, but their appearance in the absolute incorrect order took any chance of having a decent Christmas away from me.

This normally wouldn't be a big thing if I was making my full salary, but nowadays it's almost certain death to me.  I can't possibly think of any way of making this kind of money up to the bank and continuing to pay my bills.

There will be no Christmas this year.  The bank took it from me.  I hate Wells Fargo.

November wasn't a total loss!

Hey all!  I won the Nanowrimo Challenge!!!!!  I wrote 50,000 words toward a novel!  Unfortunately the novel is only about one-third done, but it's a good start on one.  Once December and the Christmas madness is over, I will take January and start writing on it and editing it, and with a little luck I'll go ahead and publish it.  Right now it's not very good, so I'm not even going to put an excerpt up for your perusal.  

Things are really rough right now otherwise.  I've been having a LOT of financial trouble since I've dropped down to part time.  I did that just because of the pain, which has been a bit overbearing lately...especially for the past three months.  I've been all over my Doctors about this, and they've come up with a few new things for me...things that scare the hell out of me.

Yesterday I started the Fentanyl patch--100 mg.  It is supposed to take the place of the Oxycontin.  I'll be honest and admit to being surprised at how well it's done as far as satisfying my dependence on the Oxycontin.  I figured that if I went off of the Oxycontin altogether after being on it for more than a year that I'd be climbing the walls needing it.  I guess the Fentanyl is pretty strong if it's good enough to cover that craving.  It's either that, or I'm just so saturated with the Oxy that I've not had the opportunity to withdraw yet, which I find highly unlikely.

If you have read up on Fentanyl, you'll see that there are about a million lawsuits regarding the patch right now.  First off, before you  all worry, please be aware that these are for the 25 and 50 mg patch, and those are from a completely different manufacturer than the one that I get mine from.  If you are worrying about the side effects, well....so am I.  Please be aware that I am watching them with all of my paranoidness, which is quite considerable.

The next step is to consider a transdermal system that provides electric shocks to deaden the nerves in my back.  This SOUNDS fairly safe, but I don't know how I feel about being opened up again, even if it is just a minor opening to hide a battery pack.  The doctor's compare this to a pacemaker, and I guess that there are a lot of folks who have those, and I probably shouldn't worry about it.  If it will help me though, I really should consider it.  Right now, I'll stick with the Fentanyl patches though, at least long enough to give them a fair shake.

Christmas...Ugh.  Well folks this year Christmas is all BUT cancelled.  I can't even afford to put up a tree this year.  The only thing that I've been able to do is bake, and I'm doing the best I can with that.  So far I have Chocolate Chipper cookies, Fantasy Bars (yep, they live up to their name) and finally I have some "Electric Snowballs" to distribute to those who like the alcoholic candy.  I've still got Cherry Bars, Pumpkin Bread, and I have some candy melts to make a few chocolate covered Cherries with, but not a lot of time to make those.  I'll try my best though.  The rest of the time I'm going to have to beat my head to try to make ends meet.

Take care everyone, and have a great season!  Email me if you have time!

Mike

NaNoWriMo

Well, here I go again!  November is National Novel Writing Month and there is a site on the web that brings writers all together to get the most out of it all.  

Last year I decided to take the year off, having a new job and all, but since my back and leg are giving me such a hard time this year I've decided to drop down to part time at work.  I've also decided that I'm going to fill my spare time up attempting to write another novel.  

I wish that I could just finish my old novel that I started back in 2006, but I've read and reread the rules and regs and they just won't allow it to happen.  I started a novel called "The Demon Hunter Diaries" when I last competed, but I only made it to 25,000 words.  The rules state that you must write a minimum of 50,000 words to win the event.  I can't remember exactly what happened last time, other than me being side tracked because I had no job and no prospect of paying the mortgage!  I'll probably be having the same problem again soon, but hey...such is life.  I have to take care of myself too...and it's not like I have NO income at all.

The event has a badge that participants get to put on their websites, but since I don't actually have a website, I put it up at the top of this page.

If you fancy yourself a writer, you ought to give it a try!

Ciao for now!  

Going Crazy!

I don't think I've ever been as busy as I have been in the past week, but I don't feel as though I've gotten a darned thing accomplished.  My major project for the month is birthdays (I've got them on 17th, 19th, and 23rd) and I've had NO luck finding anything that I can actually afford for the people that I'm buying for.  I've even attempted to do something simple, like drawing a picture for one of the people (I can draw) and frame it for her like an art print, but I can't seem to even get that going.  I start, and nothing happens.  Im just so very very pathetic!  LOL!

Today I have finally made a decision.  I am going to file for disability because I am getting much worse.  I've learned for sure that my foot is linked to the injury in my back, and it wasn't like that before, so it must be from the arthritis that came from my limping around for the past two years.  How do I know that it's my back that's causing this rather than my diabetes?  Well, it's easy.  All I have to do is look down at the floor and I'll get screaming pains shooting around my ankle and half of my foot!  How stupid is that?  It's bad enough that I can't bend without causing pain in my back, but now I can't look down???  WTF!!

I've made an appt to see my Family Doctor on the 27th of this month to discuss the possibilities with him, and I also have a meeting with my pain Doctor's associate sometime in the next two weeks (I have to figure that one out...when is it?)  and with a little luck I will be able to get statements from one, if not both of them, declaring my situation.  I know that I will have to go see a doc of their choosing as well, but I should be able to get through that.   You know, I feel like such a wimp doing this, but things are really starting to get bad.  Even the pain meds are screwing with me now when they didn't used to.  I'm falling asleep during my shifts at work while I'm on the computer.  That is a very bad thing.  My back up manager has even caught me a couple of times.  It's embarrassing, to say the very least.

So, wish me luck.  It's going to be a hard road, and I won't be able to work at all while I wait to receive disability.  There are those that will say that it's going to take me two to three years to get it.  God I hope not, especially for the sake of my house.  If D doesn't get a job soon, then I'm most certainly going to lose it all.

I'm outta here for now.