It has been a while!

Wow!  It's been over a month since my last post.  Things have been amazingly busy.  My Aunt Anne and Uncle Greg are in town for five weeks, so I am having fun playing tourist.




We went to the Midway Museum, which is really very well done.  I hadn't been before and it was kind of fun to go walk all over a ship again.  Seaport Village is always fun.  We went to Julian and stopped by the Tryyn Wooden Spoon Gallery out in Guatay.  It was funny, he searched and searched for a card on me since I'd been in before.  Lo and behold he found it!  I was last there in 2009 :-)  He also had a card on my Grandma Lausten, which we all thought was kind of interesting since we couldn't think of a time when she would have been in San Diego buying spoons.  Very, very cool dude.  Here is a pic of my collection.  He writes the funniest stuff on the labels!










Last weekend we went to the Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market.  It was amazing.  If anyone ever wants to go, let me know.  It's a 2 hour drive, we need to leave no later than 0630 (parking was horrible anyway since it opens at 0500 or something), it's only Sunday of one weekend a month, it's absolutely exhausting, and it's better than anything here in San Diego.  My kind of fun!  For the love of god, have a list of shit you want to buy.  You can't walk around aimlessly or you'll go insane.  Seriously.  I'm not kidding.

 I also went to the new library downtown with Summer.  It's very nice.  It reminded me of the Auburn Library a bit... maybe the chairs and tables by the windows or something.  But it has a nice vibe.  I walked up all 9 flights of stairs (not all at once! Good grief people) since the elevators were crammed full (it was a Sunday).  We also went to see MiXtape... the 80's musical.  So much fun!  If it's in your area you should see it.  Then we went to a new restaurant, Bang Bang.  Up a formidable flight of stairs.  The food was good!  A few months ago we went to the Alice in Wonderland bar... the one hidden behind the ivy wall (Vin de Syrah)... that was so cool I think I might want to do one of their wine tasting party thingies.

View from the 8th Floor of the library

View from the 9th Floor outside

I've also managed to squeeze in a ton of medical appointments (still being evaluated for re-transplant), time at the gym and time for making three quilts.  No.  I don't sleep much at all.

I had the best workout I've had in months on Monday evening.  I pretty much ignore my FEV1 now.  But I think I'm doing better.  The weeks I do photopheresis are not that fun.  I'm not really tired, but I can't breathe very well.  It sucks.  But the next week is generally awesome!  I'm still here, still fighting, and hopefully winning.

Jeff came in town last weekend.  Yes, the poor guy went to Pasadena.  He deserves the "best husband ever" award.  I'm getting super excited about DisneyWorld in November.  We are staying at the Grand Floridian (what???  yup.  Military discounts rock my world).  They have these new MagicBands.  Oh, they're just a new way to make it easier for you to spend money :-)  It lets you unlock your hotel door, access your Fastpass, and all sorts of other stuff with a bracelet.  We are also doing the Magical Express so we just get off the plane, get on a shuttle and go have fun.  Our luggage just shows up in our room.  And then we just get on a shuttle to the airport to go home.  Luggage gets to the airport magically too!  I know most of you know this stuff, but some of you wonder if it's worth it to stay in the Resort versus staying outside the park.  I say YES, it's worth it.  There are some tricks to getting the military discounts.  We called a few times a week for months to get the hotel because they don't know when the rates will be published.  Jeff happened to call on the day the rates were available, which is how we got the Grand Floridian.  People also want to know what we, adults with no kids, DO at Disney.  We eat at the amazing restaurants (mostly in hotels), hang out in Epcot, the hotels, the parks, avoid the kids at the end of the day who are cranky and tired, watch the joy and amazement on kids' faces when they see this stuff for the first time, and we drink to stay sane.  Jeff knows almost every bar in the whole park.  I love him :-)

I hadn't done Disney the way Disney should be done until I met Jeff.  His family does Disney in the most awesome way.  Even with PH I had a fantastic time but I'm super excited to be able to walk all over and have more energy this time.  There are a few businesses that continually impress me with their ability to make money and not be assholes.  COSTCO and Disney, man.  You are so happy to give them money!  There are lots of others, but these really rock my world.  20 or so years ago when there was a big hullabaloo over Gay Pride days in the park and stupid people were boycotting Disney my Mom went down to the Disney Store in our mall and bought stuff for weeks and weeks.  She has quite a few Disney mugs :-)

But back to my lungs... I am starting to have hope again.  Photopheresis may be saving my lungs very slowly.  I've actually been feeling really good for several weeks now.  My main goals are to keep exercising, not get sick, eat lots of veggies, drink tons of water, and try to keep the prednisone weight off.  It's a constant battle for all of them!  Especially keeping the weight off.  Ugh.  I've started meditating using binaural beats and a guided meditation.  I'm still searching for a select few go-to meditations out of the podcasts I'm using.  Some I like okay and some I don't.

I'm really, really proud of this quilt

The back

I also found an Anniversary gift for Jeff at the La Mesa Oktoberfest a few weekends ago.  It was handmade in the late 1930s.  It goes with the time period of our house, it has wings, and it's wood (5th anniversary present).  I can't do much better than this, so I'm tapping out :-)