Okay. I boiled water for chocolate malt-o-meal at least three times and had it all evaporate before I could add the cereal! Finally I used about half a pan's worth of water, let it boil, measured the boiling water, threw out the excess, and made the cereal. It is very hard to boil just a cup or two of water and have any of it left!

One of our nice neighbors gave us a whole bunch of oriental poppies that she was digging up, along with other plants. She did this on MOther's Day. And Tim had also bought me some stock starts and a strawberry plant (complete with green berries already fruiting), these, I am happy to say, were in pots. The poppies were more or less bareroot and not very happy about that. I planted them all ASAP and we watered the heck out of them. They recovered.

The medication, which cost $25, does not work! Lovely. I still alternate between that familiar burning sensation, times where they're only very faintly sore, and where the area feels numbed and I feel queasy and lightheaded and exhausted. It is, more or less, one of these three modes, almost all the time.

One of my legs is about 1/4" longer than the other, and this, incidentally, is also the leg with the foot that was turned inwards when I was a baby, the one I wore orthopedic shoes for. The left one. The same hip that hurts me. Hmmmm...... I forgot to mention to the doctor that my hips also dislocate during some activities...they haven't done so in a long time, but it hurts like hell when it occurs. The thing is, I wasn't in a LOT of pain when I went to see him. I'd had two days off work. And even with the hike, I was only mildly sore. So he'd ask, "does this hurt?" and I'd say..."Uhhh...yeah. I think so. Maybe." I have a high pain tolerance. I would have to be in agony in order to be able to tell him really well exactly what hurts and where, precisely. I would have to come in after working all day long.

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We're considerign buyign the house of the assistant manager that I wouldn't speak to for a while. I'm still not sure how well I like her. OK as a person, maybe. I still don't want her to be my boss. It's a really neat home, an underground one. It's like a little hobbit house! Very unique! YOu would expect it to be dark, right? It is not. It has a big skylight. What it IS: very well insulated by all that earth, and it feels very holistic and nourishing. It has 5 acres and is all set up for g oats already!! It has woods! It has water, power, phone, internet, AND a generator setup for power outages. It needs more gardens, they haven't been kept up. Also, it has a lot of outbuildings, storage sheds, barns, woodsheds, etc etc. I want to get this place, but I can only get $50 K financed. The house needs some significant work done on it (which I can do) and no bank will loan on it, because it's an earth home. They won't take payments in any form, they have to be bought out. Today they're getting it appraised....and I'm betting that it will be in the 75-100K range. I wonder who they will sell it to? Soemone who will build another house and demolish that one? :-( I really want this place. It feels right.