My sad, sad story

This really is a very sad story. I have the flu and I'm miserable. Isn't that sad? I've been feeling bad since Christmas - kind of tired and run down. On Monday I started getting a sore throat and things have just gone downhill since then. I'm nauseous if I eat or drink anything. I've thrown up 3-4 times, I ache all over, my throat hurts, I have swollen glands, I'm dizzy, I have a fever, my ear hurts, my face aches from sinus pain and I'm exhausted.

The good news is I'm off work today! I worked Mon-Thurs - by yesterday I seriously didn't think I was going to make it through the day but I managed. I came home last night, did a few things and about 7pm took a shower. After my shower I was so exhausted I sat on my bed to rest a little and woke up at 9:00 pm. I got up, fed my cats and went back to bed and slept until 8:30 this morning. You'd think with all that sleep I'd feel better but unfortunately I don't.

My cats are taking care of me in their little cat way. Mellifera keeps meowing to make me sit down and pet her. I think it's motivated by concern for me. Pippin actually knows something is wrong - he's more tuned into my moods than Mellifera is - he comes and cuddles with me and sits by me a lot more than he usually does. Unfortunately he's also thrown up (which I had to clean up) and woke me at 4:00 am meowing because he wanted the front door open. When he cuddles with me he likes to curl up in my neck (as much as a 14lb cat can) and right now my neck is very sore to touch from swollen glands. It's a little painful to have a cat curled there but he means well. I'm trying to teach them to bring me things in their teeth but they aren't very interested.

So that's my sad, sad story. I was not planning to start the New Year sick but I don't seem to have a choice. I have to go out and do a few things over the next three days but they are short errands and aside from that I plan to lay around and hopefully feel a lot better by Monday. Wow you wouldn't believe how long it took me to type this. I'm very tired. I don't know who got me sick but I'm not happy with them!

Happy New Year Everyone! 

Photos from the Holiday Party

Hi family and friends, near and far. It's taken a day or two longer than I expected, but here are some photos from Christmas Eve at Colleen and Andres' house. It was great to see all of you who made it and we all toasted those of you who couldn't (at least, I think that's what we were doing). You can see more of the photos from that night by clicking here and visiting my smugmug site.

Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone! It was nice to see most of you last night! Have a wonderful Christmas Day!  Here's a link to my Facebook album where I posted some pictures from Christmas Eve! 

News from Jillandia

Greetings oh family and associates thereof!  I'm presently ill and running a rather high fever - don't worry I should be no longer contagious by the time I see any of you that I'm scheduled to see.  I went to Berkeley today and downed 5 slippery elm lozenges in the space of 25 minutes in a desperate attempt to rid myself of a sore throat.  Then I saw on the box it said "0ne every two hours"  But this was quite a while ago - so I don't think the overdose is fatal!  At any rate my throat feels a bit better.  Enough of my ramblings today as a vector, though!  In the world of exciting verdant growth Salvia gesneriiflora is blooming - long spikes of brilliant red!  S. "Jean's Purple Passion" is also joining the show, though it's bit shorter.  I also recently planted "Purple Gleam" and "Rose Chiffon" California poppies.  Let the rains be with us!

Eclipse!

I went outside to see if I could see the lunar eclipse and right outside my door I had a perfect view of the moon! I took the picture below from my patio and you can see a little bite out of the corner of the moon. Pretty cool! I wanted to try and take more pictures but unfortunately my batteries ran out. I guess I used them up on my cats and bead tree and I don't have any more. Oh well. I'm going to wait a little bit and then go out again and just look for awhile. It's cold outside though!

11:40 pm update: It's cloudy now & I can't see anything. I guess I'll go to bed.

More pictures & notes from my exciting life

I went to a bead class yesterday to learn to make a beaded Christmas tree. As you can tell I haven't finished yet. Aside from wishing I'd started with smaller beads at the top I'm pretty happy with the way it's turning out. The second picture shows two of the trees the instructor made. Admittedly they look somewhat better! But I'll keep practicing and pretty soon mine will improve. I have to practice making wire curls - it's kind of difficult and painful on your fingers! I'm going to finish this tree and then when Jill comes up Thursday I'll show her how to make one and I'll do a second one for me. I think I want to do a blue and silver tree.

The last picture is Mellifera. I know nobody but me is really all that interested in my cat pictures. . . she just looks so beautiful in this picture I had to share it.

Hmm what else am I doing? I'm trying to think of books to add to my 50 state reading challenge list. For some unknown reason I joined three online reading challenges for 2011. The first two were quite easy to find books for. One is to read vintage mysteries written before 1960. The second is to read 12 books from your to-be-read pile. If you want to see my lists you can check my Random Ramblings blog as I've posted them there. The 3rd challenge is to read a book set in each of the 50 states. The reading part will be easy, it's generating a list that's difficult. So far I only have 7 out of 50. Fortunately you can re-read books for this challenge so that helped a little. I'm posting what I have so if anyone has suggestions for the other 42 states you can share them with me! Yes, I can add. I don't need suggestions for California. I have lots of books in mind and just have to choose one. You know, I'm looking at this and 5 out of 7 are re-reads. Ok, fine. If you have suggestions for the states I already picked I'll listen!

Alabama	To Kill A Mockingbird	Harper Lee
Alaska	The Woman Who Married a Bear	John Straley

Florida	Alas, Babylon	Pat Frank
Georgia	Gone With The Wind	Margaret Mitchell

Louisiana

All The King’s Men

Robert Penn Warren

New York

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Ohio

Winesburg, Ohio

Sherwood Anderson

Between the three challenges it's a total of 78 books I'm committing to reading for 2011. That's 6.5 books a month so it still leaves me lots of room for extras that I find. For awhile last year I was keeping track of the books I read every month. It was between 5-12 a month but sometimes I forgot I read something so it's usually more. I think my goal is going to be to read 15 books a month. That's 180 a year. Although 200 is a nice round number but that's 16.66 books. I guess I'd have to read only 2/3 of a one book every month. I don't know, do you think I read too much? Nah, it was a momentary doubt - some things you just can't do too much of.

What else? My boss seems to like me. She's restructuring the entire organization (all 5 people) and plans to make me her Executive Assistant and something else. I'm not sure what the something else is - volunteer coordinator or something. Anyway the plan is to hire a receptionist so I don't have to be answering phones and doing shipping. This is a positive thing that does not hurt my feelings. She thinks I'm extremely competent and professional. Wow fooled somebody else!

I decided to make some Christmas cookies but remembered I don't have a cookie sheet so I had to buy a cookie sheet. I only brought one with me when I moved and it burned up in my oven one day. I bought the stuff to make cookies but still haven't done anything. Maybe tomorrow night. Or I may just wait and let Jill do it all!

Ok, I think I've rambled on long enough. Hopefully I'll see everyone on Christmas Eve!

Visit my new site

It may not yet be perfect, but my new site is up and I'm pretty happy with it. You can find it by visiting texeiraphoto.com.

When you have some time, take a look at the site and let me know what you think. There might even be a few people you know (quite well) on the site.

Finally, keep in mind that this is my new career (in addition to the teaching thing) and that I am actively seeking work. So...let the world know about this. Don't be shy about telling everybody you know that your son/brother/cousin/uncle/whatever is an amazing professional photographer and that they should hire him for their next wedding/portrait session/presidential inauguration/prison break/etc. The more people who hear about me through you all, the more people will hear about me. Get it? Cool.

That's all for now. Thanks for listening and reading. And do let me know what you think when you have a minute.

website is almost done

Hi everybody. If I haven't already told you, I am in the process of putting together a new website to promote and market my photography business (portraits and weddings). I have all my photos chosen and the site designed, but I still need to write a bit of text to finish it up. I am hoping to have the text done by Tuesday and the site up by Tuesday evening. In the interim, however, I thought I'd show you some of the pictures that are going to be on the site. Feedback is welcome, as long as it is glowing, unbridled praise.

What can I say. . .

I only planned to post once a week. Really, honestly and truthfully I did. I can't help it, I guess I'm an obsessive blogger. Oh well. Anyway I thought I'd share a few more pictures and my story.

As you remember from my earlier post, the other night I went to the State Capital to take pictures of the official Christmas Tree. They didn't come out great because I just had my iphone and it doesn't do so well in the dark so I went back tonight and took more and they're a little better but not what I was hoping for. At least you can see the tree better - it's really pretty! I also took some pictures of a street with a bunch of leaves, my cats and some decorations.

After I left the Capital I went down by the river to take some pictures of the Tower Bridge. I love the Tower Bridge in Sacramento. It's my second favorite view here. I got some ok pictures  and walked for awhile near the river which was nice. Then I decided I was going to get mugged so I left. There weren't a lot of people around and two teenage boys came up and asked me for money. I said I didn't have any and they said ok and walked off but they were looking at my purse and camera and it made me kind of nervous. I walk fairly often at night and see lots of different people and rarely does anyone make me nervous. Just something about these two made me decide it was time to go. I figure it's better to trust my instincts in that kind of situation!

Here's a few of the pictures and if you'd like to see the rest you can go to my Picasa web album and look at them!

Stockton News

Well I will give a quick update here. I have had an earache for about a week, it got really bad about 2 days ago. I finally decided it wouldn't go away on its own and went to the Dr. No big surprise that I have an ear infection. So drops and pills for 10 days.
We found a new dog (a pit bull) the first part of the week. That makes for dogs so either some of them have to go or we may have to go.
Elizabeth got her glasses yesterday. No one else can see anything clearly through them, but she seems to see better. She returns to Dr in 2 months to see if he gives her the stronger prescription.
Our oven has died and we are getting a new range this weekend. For those that haven't visited our new house we now have an electric built-in oven and stove-top. So he will remove those, take the cabinet out under the stove-top and install a gas range. I guess we'll remove the old built-in oven and try to convert that to storage space. Of course poor Andres has to run the lines under the house and such so we have gas, plus do all the other work in the kitchen to prepare for it. I'm glad he's willing to do that though. I'll try to post pictures of the before and after if possible.

State Capital Christmas Tree

Well I didn't see the official lighting but I went by tonight and took a few pictures of the State Capital Christmas Tree. The pictures aren't great - I just had my iphone and while it does good pictures in daylight at night they aren't great. Admittedly the skill of the photographer could be a factor. I'm going to go back later with my camera at night and during the day and take some better pictures but I thought I'd share these. It's a very pretty and very tall tree! Up close it looks really nice. I wanted pictures at night because you can see it lit up so hopefully I'll get better ones later.

You'll notice the lights on in the capital building. It's either your representatives hard at work, or more likely, they all went home and left the lights on. Which would explain the state deficit.

The last few nights I've driven around and taken pictures of Christmas decorations in my neighborhood and a little further out. There is one street that has almost all the houses decorated with really cool lighted arches on the sidewalk. I put those pictures on Facebook  - click on the link if you want to see them.

That's been my exciting week. I go to work and then drive around and look at Christmas lights. It's actually fun though - I like Christmas decorations. I even saw Santa Claus the other night!

I thought this was cool

I guess Jill was right - people do spontaneously burst into song.

A most exciting day

Since the point of this blog is to share what's going on in our lives I thought I'd share my day. I should warn you in advance that it's pretty exciting!

There are 28 libraries in the Sacramento library system. My plan this year was to visit each of them. Unfortunately I still have 10 left so I don't think I'm going to make it by the end of the year. I did visit a new branch today though - The North Sacramento-Hagginwood branch. As you can see it's a small store front style branch. I love large libraries but small are good too (ok I just love all libraries). In small branches you can look at all the books which is kind of fun.

After the library I went to Wal-mart which was not a lot of fun but they have Pippin's food and groceries cheap. I did get some nice peppermint body wash also! Sorry no pictures of Wal-mart or the body wash.

After I came home I took the middle picture from my bedroom window. I love the tree across the street. It's such a gorgeous red color and I get to look at it everyday!

While I was at Wal-mart I bought a few Christmas decorations. I couldn't decide whether I wanted a tree and I saw these little tree ornaments so I decided to get five trees in different colors! I also got some bells which for some reason scared my cats.

Now it's 9:37 and I'm sitting here typing this post and listening to the rain.  As you can tell I live a life full of fun and non-stop excitement. I do have some pictures of my cats that I took this evening but I thought I'd save those for another time. They are cute though!

Teaching Update

I received some good news yesterday from the Oakland Teaching Fellows program that I sent in an application for...I have an interview! That means I'm one step closer to being a high school teacher...which really is a good thing. I haven't scheduled the interview yet, but will do so tomorrow evening. The subject they would like me to teach is, not surprisingly, mathematics, which I'm okay with. It's not what I'd like to end up teaching exclusively, but it is one of the subjects that I plan to get credentialed in, so it's a good first step. I'll keep you all updated with the results from the interview.

FIRST BLOG

Seems like it's easier to blog than it is to keep reading inane emails from my eldest. Her impassioned pleas have finally eroded my will power to the point where I'm forced to submit my first and hopefully my last blog. Considering the stress of the marathon blogging that Robin indulges in, I doubt I can handle more than one blog in any given calendar year.

BLOG:

WEATHER........ It's pretty cold here in Fremont.
It got so cold I put on ten pounds...undershirt, PJs, socks (2), sweat pants, scarf, jacket, bathrobe, more socks, overcoat, gloves, blankets (3), earmuffs, a hat, slippers, and shoes - make that 20 pounds..
Better today since a good portion of my blood has turned to ice. Well my feet and hands turned blue. Not a problem, it will probably warm up by March or April.

EYES: ... Pretty cold so I've been spending time at Kaiser. They removed a part of my left eye (the lens [E.E.Doc.Smith] ), and now I can see sometimes. Actually I can't use my old glasses so I've been driving without glasses, and now see better than I did with my glasses. Hope I don't get stopped by a Cop because my license says I must use glasses while driving.
On December 7, Dr. Knox will do my right eye. Following this operation, I will get a new prescription and maybe new glasses.
Incidentally, Kaiser is much warmer than home.

How I forgot my only first-born daughter was coming to visit me:....
Robin, next time you have eye surgery, you will know how to forget.

Robin's Contribution: ...
Dad – I’m freezing in this mobile home and no one comes to see me except Jill & John and they are REALLY odd. I did computer stuff, went to dinner w/Sylvia, went to store, can see better with my new eye. How I forgot my only first-born daughter was coming to visit me.

PS: Jill and John don't seem odd to me. Bloggers however seem REALLY, REALLY odd.