Day 2 of Vacation

I couldn't sleep last night (lots of joint/other lupus-type pain), played videogames until 3, then sleep hit hard. Ran a few errands (nearly done listening to "The Ice Child" -- it really is a great book), worked out in the back yard for a bit.

So, I'm roasting a chicken right now with garlic, fennel, tarragon, and I don't know who's going salivating more -- me or Molly. Poor kitty, she's going bezerk! I guarantee when the chicken's done, she'll stick her nose up at it. But not me!

I'm going to have that w/an arugula, cilantra, grape tomato, avocado, red onion, grilled corn salad. Yum, right???

I started tackling the blinds in my bedroom today. Good grief, I've never seen such dirty blinds. And I've been sleeping next to them!!! I got ~1/3 done of one window, then pooped out. HARD work -- took almost an hour of scrubbing, soaking, rescrubbing each individual slat. I'm going to figure out an easier way to do this, short of buying new blinds. These are actually in good condition, just haven't been cleaned . . . I know the previous tenants lived here at least five years, probably more. I would fall over if someone tried to tell me that they ever cleaned or raked.

This is the hardest time of year for Lupus. My cheeks are cherry red -- women pay so much money for rosey cheeks -- I haven't used blush in a good 10-15 years. No need. Not only cherry red, but also raised and a little "scaley" for lack of a better word. It's the old butterfly rash. I tried to take some pictures last night, but they didn't turn out well enough to show the redness and kind of rawness. Instead of blush, I spent a lot of money on treatments to keep my skin semi-healthy looking.

I thought I'd go to Home Depot today to use my gift card; however, I've never seen the parking lot SO packed. I'll probably go Tuesday a.m., once everyone's gone back to work. Or I'll have to get up early tomorrow, which seems anti-vacation to me. I still need to decide which project to tackle first:

• Paint the bathroom,
• Paint the back bedroom (the walls are horrendous),
• Build shelves in the kitchen,
• Build new screens for my bedroom and the bathroom,
• Plant new things in the back yard,
• Flowers in the front,
• Flower boxes at my bedroom windows,
• Rugs.

Hard to decide! I hate the kitchen so much that anything I can do in there will be an improvement.

As you can see, the girls are being a great help by staying out of the way and sleeping.