Well, for any of you that read yesterday's post, I followed your recommendations and went for cute and more casual clothing for the training conference. And there was no need to worry, as the variety of dress I saw there was wide ranging. Women there were wearing everything from a top with sequins on it, to a seersucker sundress with the type of flip flops you would wear in the shower, those plastic ones. Some were dressed nicely, and others were in little more than a sweatsuit. So I did just fine with my outfit.

And the day was a good one. My favorite part was the speaker we had from mid-morning up until lunch time. Her name is Janie Walters, and she was such a great speaker- so funny and engaging. I think everyone really enjoyed that part because I don't see how she would have let us do anything otherwise. Some people just have that gift. I even bought one of her books after the session because she had me so interested in what she had to say.

Her topic for the conference was "Normal is gone and and it won't be back" -Coping with and embracing change. She mentioned how when people say "when things just get back to normal I'll...(fill in the blank)" and how with the constant changes that are going on in the world around us and especially the work place, things won't be going back to normal, and that we need to be flexible and adapt to change if we want to be valued by our employers. She did a terrific job with it. Hopefully I can take with me some of the things I learned today and apply them to my life. I'm off to start reading that book of hers.

I am happy to be attending a women's training session/conference in Cocoa Beach tomorrow, all paid for by my company. It is for Federally employed women, and there are speakers in the morning and our choice of workshops in the afternoon. It looks like it is going to be a good session.

In all the literature I have on the confrence, nothing really says anything about the dress code except a little blurb that says to "layer your clothing or bring a sweater or jacket to ensure your comfort." I asked one of the admins at work who went to it last year, and she said "business casual." Have you ever looked up business casual? The definition is wide ranging- anything from a dress to nice jeans and a polo shirt, depending on the place. I am a dumbass when it comes to this kind of stuff because my work life is spent in jeans. And at my company, even high ranking directors and program managers do not dress up. We are a jeans type of company.

I spent some time this evening trying on just about everything in my closet looking for an outfit that was business casual and I am still not sure that I suceeded. The top will be no problem, my biggest issue will be shoes, as I don't really own shoes that I think are appropriate. Then I could either wear a pair of navy blue pants that make me look frumpy, or a cute pair of slightly cropped pants that run the risk of being a little too casual, but I look good in. I am leaning towards wearing those pants, because I will probably be sitting for most of the day and no one will see my pants anyway. Shoes will have to be a pair of dark brown Doc Marten's slide type sandals. That is pretty much all I have to work with for shoes. As Andy pointed out, what are they going to do, throw me out? After all, there is no dress code that was formally communicated, and I'd rather look cute than frumpy.

Last week, the nurse at the Gastroenterologist that my regular doctor had referred me to several months ago called. She said the same thing they had told me at my regular doctor's place, that my liver enzymes were way down. I told her about the zinc and asked if I had ever been tested for Wilson's disease. She looked and found that I had not. She said she would leave a message for the doctor about it, and I told her that my regular doctor had already ordered one of the tests for it.

Today she called back and after a bit of phone tag, she said that the doctor (the Gastroenterologist) doesn't think I have Wilson's disease and that he had written a letter to my regular doc to tell her that. I asked why he thought I didn't have Wilson's and what the letter said, and she read most of it to me. In summary, the main reason he thinks it is not a possibility is because of my age. The condition is present at birth and usually manifests itself during childhood or adolescence. But, as I have found in my research, it is not always found then- sometimes it remains asymptomatic and completely undetected until the afflicted person is in their fifties or later. This is not very common, but I have never been a normal person medically, so who knows? And everything I have read says that any patient up to age 40 that has unexplained liver problems should be screened for Wilson's. Another thing that I read said that the disease is highly variable and manifests itself differently each time, even within members of the same family. The letter went on to tell her what things would show up on tests if I had Wilson's, all tests that he has not performed on me yet. I think it is pretty silly to outright exclude the possibility of a condition when you haven't subjected the patient to a single test for it. He tries to justify not testing for the disease by saying that if a doctor suspects it and tests for it, the insurance company may "mark" me as having it regardless of the outcome of the tests and then I might not be able to get insurance ever again. That sounds like a pretty stupid reason not to test for something that could kill a person eventually when the conventional wisdom says that he should test for it. I say, do the tests and let me worry about the insurance.

Anyway, I hope his letter he wrote doesn't close the mind of the doctor that actually is working with me on this. She is pretty sharp, and I am willing to bet that she will do her research. If not I will go and get another opinion. The GI doc also said in his letter to her that it wouldn't hurt anything for me to be taking the zinc, so that I could continue. Well duh, of course if it is making my liver better then I will keep taking it. The question is why is it making me better? And strangely, after I increased the amount of zinc I was taking, it also seems to be making the dilated blood vessels on my arms go back to normal. The dermatologist was convinced that the problem was liver related- maybe she was right.

I have been driving a Jeep for quite a while now. I have always liked Jeeps and back in 2000, when Andy and I first moved to this area I finally bought one. My Jeep Sahara is a very girly one with a/c and a cd player and everything and it really does not go offroad too much.

Andy was super sweet and washed it for me yesterday, or washed him, as my Jeep is named Jimmie. Today we were inspecting the wonderful job he had done when he mentioned that some water had gotten inside while he was washing it. We saw some areas over the driver's side door where the stitching is coming undone, and one small area where you can kind of see through to the inside. I suppose I could have it resewn, but then we were looking at the velcro around the rear side windows, and at the edges where they have been exposed to the sunlight, the velcro has started to dry rot. You can take your fingernail and just scrape off the little velcro nubs in that area. The top still looks pretty good even from a fairly close distance, but it is starting to fail, so I ordered a new one today. I don't want it to rain on me in there.

I am so excited! A new top for Jimmie is going to make him look like new again, plus I got an upgraded sailcloth replacement top that is supposed to cut down on wind noise by fifty percent, so I am anxious to see what a difference it makes. Maybe I will actually be able to hear myself think while I am driving on the highway now. What an interesting concept!

I don't post too much about it here, our dream house project, since I have a whole other blog dedicated to it, but today we've made a forward stride. We actually received our wetland permit today from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection that allows us to build our house on our land. It has been many months and many documents lost in the mail, and much frustration, but this is a sign of real progress for a change. There are still other hurdles in our path, but I feel that there is hope for our project, and that we CAN get through it.

So you know that thing with my liver? The one where I turned up with high liver enzymes all of a sudden and no one could figure it out? Well don't get too excited, they still haven't figured it out, but maybe they are getting closer. They have been drawing blood from me every month for about five months now to monitor the enzymes, and the numbers have been trending gradually down until they sort of leveled off at about four times what they were supposed to be a couple of months ago. The GI Doctor wants to wait until my enzymes have been high for six months before he will do something like a liver biopsy to see what is going on.

So anyway, last week I had my blood taken for the regular monthly check they have been doing, and the doctor's office called on Friday and said "whatever you are doing, keep doing it because your enzymes are way down." They were down to the normal range or just a hair above it. I thought about it, and the only thing I have been doing differently is that I started taking Zinc picolinate supplements. There's a reason I just started taking them too. I got several different supplements back when I first was told about the high enzymes five months ago and started taking them because they were recommended for a healthy liver. I never started taking the zinc because it says on the label not to take it within two hours of taking any medication or it could interfere with the effectiveness of it. I didn't want it to stop my allergy meds that I take in the morning from working properly. Anyway, a month or so ago I started bringing the zinc tablets with me to work and taking them with lunch, along with the other liver supplements like milk thistle that I had been taking for several months.

So now, to the real point of this story. Since the zinc seemed to be making my liver "get better," I started looking online and found that a certain disease that causes liver damage that is actually TREATED with zinc. It is fairly rare-only one in thirty thousand- and basically the problem is that the affected person can't get rid of copper in their body and eventually it builds up to toxic levels, affecting the liver first. Taking zinc blocks the absorbtion of copper, so it helps, though usually other treatment is needed. I also read that even people who do not have this disease can experience an "overload" of copper from getting too much in their food, and not enough zinc to block it. I don't know if a person could get enough copper from their regular diet that it could cause liver damage, but who knows? And of course go figure that I eat a ton of the foods loaded with copper and not very many with a lot of zinc.

So, after discovering this, I called and left a message with my doctor about what i had been doing differently. They callled today and are sending me for another test to check for the disease, called Wilson's Disease. From what i have read, there is not really one definitive test for it though, so it may take a liver biopsy to really know. It is a thought, anyway, and that is more than the doctors have been able to come up with, so we'll see.

I spent all day today in a class learning Dreamweaver for work, which was great, but it means I spent nearly eight hours staring at a computer screen and now I have a massive headache, so this is going to be short.

Sometimes I think that my far vision might be getting bad. I have always squinted to see things far away, yet my vision tests as 20/20. My dad always used to tell me to stop squinting as a kid. I never did. Today we each had our own computer in front of us, but we were also looking at the instructor's screen projected on the wall and I was at the back. At one point in the discussion the instuctor said, "Jen, you have a confused look, do you have a question?" I said, "No, I am just squinting because I can't see" and everyone laughed. But sadly it is the truth. I have no problems with close up stuff, and really I can see far away fine, but I think I am straining to do so and maybe that is why I have had a headache most of the day. I suppose I could go to see the eye doctor, but the problem is that wearing any kind of glasses gives me a headache, just from how they rest on my head. I can't even wear sunglasses for very long before it happens. So I guess I will just deal with it.

I have Dreamweaver class again all day tomorrow, so I think I'll go rest my eyes for a while now. Perhaps I should sit closer to the front of the room tomorrow, huh?

Throughout the past year and then some, there have been many times when our house project has been stalled, or was up against seemingly insurmountable problems. It is so easy to get discouraged, to see the whole plan slipping away. Somehow, at least so far, we have always gotten through whatever issue it was, but that doesn't make it any easier when the next hurdle comes up.

Well, we are at the next hurdle. And I am still tired from jumping the last one, but still we trudge on. Please extend a little prayer for us that our access road issue will be resolved soon, if you are the praying kind. We'd just like to see a little forward motion on our project, instead of standing still or moving backward like we have been. I am about ready to just drag a damn trailer out to the property and set up camp. Then we would be real trailer trash but at least there would be no neighbors.

Andy is planning to fly up to Ohio to visit his family toward the end of March. The last time either of us was in Ohio was nearly five years ago, and after that one miserable rainy trip I don't care to go back, but I understand that he needs to take a quick trip up there because one of his grandmothers is not doing too well. So it works out well that I don't want to go anyway, because someone has to stay here with our little zoo of animals. He is looking for a plane ticket and will fly up there on a Thursday probably, and back on Sunday.

Thing is, I keep teasing him that he'll never survive the cold. He may have been born and raised in Ohio, but he is fully a thin-blooded Florida wuss now like the rest of us down here. This morning it was probably the coldest it has been here all year, in the upper forties, and we were inside the grocery store with the heat on and he was wearing two shirts and a coat and he said he was freezing. I just looked at him and said that he was never going to make it in Ohio. It was nine below there this week. I can't even fathom cold like that.

Tuesday night Andy and I attended the big awards ceremony our company puts on each year. Last year we were invited because Andy was one of the nominees, this year it was I am one of the board members. My group did very well with the awards, taking almost all of them. So now my director wants me to attend a meeting on Monday with all of his upper level managers so that we can talk about our successes from the past year and the areas we need to work on as far as employee recognition.

Some of you already know how terrified I am of public speaking. And around this time last year I was so worried about some public speaking I had to do in front of small groups of managers that I was a mess. But I have challenged myself by being on all of the boards I serve on and by being the sole speaker at monthly meetings with these groups, and it has gotten a lot easier. I can actually speak in front of people now without becoming a blithering idiot, at least not all of the time- sometimes I still sound like a dork. But I still get nervous to speak in front of manager types, I guess because of their power to ruin me or something. Strangely, I am fairly calm about this upcoming meeting, though. Maybe that means I have experienced some growth in the public speaking arena or have more confidence now. I don't even have to speak at the meeting, but I have been compiling all kinds of data and statistics that I actually WANT to share with these people. Amazing what a difference a year can make, huh?

Ah, so today I finally met Glitter, as I'll call her here, the pseudonym she uses on the internet. She and her boyfriend came over for the day to meet me and we had a good time. She was down in Orlando for a week from Boston, and was able to take a day to drive over and hang out.

They arrived this morning, and it was wonderful to meet her, but felt like I already knew her so well that meeting in person was merely a technicality. She was exactly as I thought she would be: beautiful, sweet and funny. So we all set out to go on the Kennedy Space Center Visitor's Center tour. The tour is so-so. There are some neat things to see, but knowing all of the stuff out there, I think they could do a much better job and make it much more interesting. I think they liked the tour, but I so much wanted to be able to show them areas of the center that I visit on a regular basis that would be very exciting, but alas, those are not open for touring, except on rare occaisons liike last November when they held a "friends and family day" at KSC.

After the tour, we went to a nice casual seafood place right on the water and sat outside on the deck. The weather was fabulous and we had a really nice time, and then we headed back to our house where I gave them the grand tour and my two "girls," Annabel and Michaela tried to smother them with kisses and force my guests to pet them. They were being such silly little girls, but they are terribly loving little dogs. Glitter and her boyfriend loved our little teddy bear Cody, of course, and the very suspicious Louie kept his distance while I restrained Denny, who still needs some serious obedience training. Charley kept saying "Hi Charley" over and over. What a fun and relaxing day.

I went to a hoity-toity fancy awards event with Andy tonight. so I don't have too much to write about. I am taking the day off from work tomorrow to meet a blog friend in person that I have known online for two years now. I am taking her and her boyfriend on the Kennedy Space Center tour and hopefully out to eat some good seafood and maybe to the beach for a bit. It should be a blast- I'll let you know!

I was reading an article in a computer magazine the other day that was talking about the different virtual currencies that are part of video games and how people are making real money through them. Apparently there are items that can be earned and used in the virtual worlds of video games that are played by millions of people, and some of them actually have an unofficial trading rate on eBay. There are enterpreneurs that are making big money from these games and now the IRS is thinking of stepping into the virtual world with its hand out.

This is not very far fetched, as people are making real income this way. Pondering this makes me think of Blogging, and some of the blog traffic exchange services out there. Consider BlogExplosion. You can list your blog there and then earn credits by surfing blogs or playing different blog games. But credits can also be bought with real cash, and renters can even "rent" space on your blog with credits. In essence, if they can buy credits with real money, and they pay you to rent your blog space, then they are actually paying you, right? And there are other blog traffic exchange services that actually allow users to sell their credits for cash if they choose. How long before the IRS steps in and wants a cut of that too? Maybe not now while the monetary amounts are relatively low, but you can bet that will change at some point. How long before blogs income is a commonly reported type of income on tax returns across America?

Remember when I wrote about how it is hard for me to take a compliment about losing weight? Laurie from Crazy Aunt Purl, a blog I love, wrote something similar last week in much greater depth. She was able to verbalize some of the things I was feeling, so I am going to quote her here. This isn't her entire post, just a couple of pertinent excerpts I put together.

She said: 'So anyway. There it is. Ya'll are right, I suppose. I am physically not the same size I was. In the past few months of trying to take good care of myself, I have lost a few pounds. But I carry my largest size with me still, in my head and in my self-image. I cringe when people say, "Hi Laurie! Oh wow have you lost weight?" because what I hear is, "Well looky there! Your butt isn't as gigantically fat as it used to be!"

Because I really do have more interesting things to talk about than the size of my thighs. We all so much more than a number, or a jeans size, or a list of what we ate one day. Don't you agree?'

In her post she has basically echoed what I said about people's comments, and added more things that I didn't quite know how to say but I agree with completely. And I also wish that people's comments on my weight would stop. Especially because some people really screw them up badly. I had one guy at work tell me the other day that my face looked tall. WTF? I mean I guess I know what he was trying to say, that my face looked thinner, but how would he feel if I told him his head looked balder? It just seems kind of rude to constantly make comments like that. And then some people are so descriptive in their compliments of how you are versus how you were that they make it pretty clear that they thought you were a fat slob before. And I really love it when they bring up the fact that a room full of people were discussing my weight loss. Just what I want to hear. That kind of shit makes me want to disappear. Why does the amount of fat I am carrying around have to be everyone's business? I don't want to talk about it with people at work, and I don't want to discuss what I am eating either. It is not an interesting topic to me.

In another one of Laurie's previous posts, which you really ought to read if you haven't already, she wrote about the payoffs of being fat, and I guess I had never really thought about it, but she is right. And the payoffs are different for different people. One of the subconscious "payoffs" for me was that I felt I was valued for my intelligence, work ethic, and strong personality, rather than my looks. I have been appreciated at different times in my life for my character or my looks and I prefer being judged by my character every time. I feel that when I look good, especially working around so many men, I am judged more on my looks than anything and it makes me uncomfortable.

I think a lot of people probably feel this way, too. Unfortunately no one has got the word out to the masses that these casual comments or backhanded compliments are not very welcome. I think it is interesting that it is okay in our society to comment on certain things, but not others. What do you think?

I have been trying to convince Andy for a while that we needed a pool fence, like one of those mesh baby ones to just go around the pool inside our fenced yard to protect the dogs. The dogs all know how to swim and we have actually practiced with them so they know the places to swim to so that they can get out of the pool on their own. The pool has a beach or sloped entry, so they can run right out there, and then there is an area in the deep end called a swim out that has a step that is shallow and leads right out of the pool. Andy thinks I worry too much about the dogs and that they know to stay away from the water.

Yesterday Andy was home with the dogs and went out front for a minute to pick some more weeds for Virgil the tortoise. When he got back in he didn't see Cody, and Louie was outside barking. Cody was sitting on the top step of the swim out, soaking wet. The training we gave him paid off, because the little booger swam to the safe place and was able to get out. The water was about 65 degrees, though, so I am sure he was cold even though it was only for a minute. It scared the crap out of Andy and he gave Cody a warm bath and blow dried him. I know he felt very bad about it. The good news is that now Andy doesn't think I am being overly protective of my babies and has agreed to get a pool fence. There is someone coming out on Monday to give us an estimate, but I really don't care what it costs. My babies are worth it.

The weather here right now is what makes me really thankful to be a Floridian. It is cool in the mornings but the sun brings it up to a comfortable 70 degrees or so by afternoon. And the nice weather has been bringing out tons of wildlife at work again.

Yesterday on the way to work a huge wild boar ran out in front of my Jeep. I didn't hit him, but he startled me. And that was just the beginning. Later in the day during one of my breaks, I took a bike ride down to the pond where I saw all of those alligators before. There were a bunch of them there, but not as many as in the picture I took. But just as I rode past the pond, out of a thicket at the side of the road, a gorgeous bobcat pranced out into the middle of the road, just yards away from me. I was so stunned to see it that I drew in my breath a little in surprise, and he quickly turned and was gone in a matter of seconds. But so very beautiful. And the largest bobcat I have ever seen, for sure.

Today I set off on a bicycle again at lunch, and as I rode by a sign post by the side of the road, a red-shouldered hawk sat perched there and just watched me go by without even flinching. I passed by him very slowly and he seemed utterly unconcerned. I was close enough to him to see every little downy feather and every scale on his legs. Later in my travels I paused for a while to watch an armadillo rooting around, at least until he caught me watching him and squeaked and ran away.

I feel so lucky to be able to enjoy the wonderful weather and peacefulness out there. I feel sorry for all of the people that are stuck in office buildings all day. Of course, I have been one of them at times before, and it didn't really bother me then. It is just so nice to be able to get outside once in a while. I'm glad I have the opportunity.

I feel compelled to mention it, since it was all over the news today. In case you didn't hear about the female astronaut that was charged with attempted murder, the bizarre story can be found here.

I can't even imagine what must have been going through her mind to throw away her whole career like that, if the story is correct. This morning I saw a couple of inspectors that work over in the area that suits the astronauts up before flight. They had worked with Lisa Nowak and knew her a little. They were shocked and could not believe she had done such a thing. I guess you never really can tell what people are going to do, psychological profiles not withstanding. I do imagine that the NASA public relations department is dealing with some major damage control right now, though.

I have been having a hard time focusing on posting here lately, but it isn't because there is nothing interesting going on, it is more because my mind has been so very occupied with so many things to keep track of with our house project and so many new ideas that pertain to it. One of the things I have been reading about and researching today is beekeeping.

Okay, I know, you must be wondering, "where do bees come into the picture? I don't get it." Our new property is zoned residential/agricultural and it just so happens that we may be able to save a HUGE amount on property taxes each year if we participate in some type of genuine agricultural activity. In our case we are slightly limited due to the wetlands that cover much of our property. We can still take on agricultural pursuits, but they canot be at the detriment of the wetlands. So far, beekeeping seems to be the perfect thing. It doesn't take up much physical space and it satisfies the requirements, plus the surrounding orange grtoves would cause the bees to produce a very good honey- ever heard of orange blossom honey? So I am reading up on it, as Andy and I never really do anything half assed to see what is involved. We may be able to get by with just allowing an established beekeeper to keep bees on our property, I am not sure. I will explore all of the possibilites.

The nice thing is, if we can get an ag exemption, there is also an agricultural exemption to the building code for accessory buildings that makes it so a permit is not required. This would be very helpful for the workshop/storage building we want to build. If it is subject to the agricultural exemption it will be much easier, faster and cheaper to get approval. That is my project for tomorrow- checking into that. Check out the latest on the whole house project over at Tortoise Hollow- I have been keeping up with it as well as I can over there.

Andy's best friend from the Army called this morning, and he and his wife and kids are moving back here in the next couple of months. Andy's friend is also named Andy and the two of them were sent all of the same places during their time in the military, which is actually rather unusual. Andy -the friend- is actually a big part of the reason we are here geographically today. He grew up in this area, and after the Army, he went to work at the space center. He and my Andy kept in touch, and the other Andy encouraged mine to apply for a job there. After Andy got his job there, and we moved to the area, he got me to apply and the rest is history. But Andy -the friend- and his wife moved to Pennsylvania for his job nearly five years ago, and sadly we have only seen them a couple of times since then.

When he called this morning, Andy's friend said that they are moving back, as both of their families are here in Florida and I think they might be tired of the cold as well. They plan to be back down here in a new house by April. I know my Andy is ecstatic. It is going to be nice to have them back here locally. And we are keeping our eyes open for a job for the other Andy back out at the space center, which shouldn't be too hard to find, since he has worked there before. It is amazing how few people our age live here locally, especially since he cost of living has skyrocketed, so having friends move back to the area is a big deal. I hope they find a house nearby.

Our parrot Charley has always been a sort of secretive talker. He talks all the time, but rarely will talk if you are looking directly at him, preferring to yammer on when people are out of the room. He loves to yap when we are upstairs and we hear his silly "little girl voice" carrying up over the loft wall as he happily chatters away.

Tonight he surprised me, though. I had him out of his cage to play, just as is our routine every evening. He comes out of his cage and I put him on his play gym that hangs from the ceiling in my computer room, and he plays up there while I work on the computer or watch TV and hang out with him. He looks forward to this time we spend together every day. As I carried him out of the room on my arm after our play session was over he said "Come 'ere, Squirt" to one of the dogs in exactly my voice. I usually say that to Cody as we leave the room so he will come with us back into the living room and I sometimes say that to Charley when I want to pick him up. It was so cute, coming from Charley, and I have never really had him talk while I was holding him before. Maybe he is turning over a new leaf and will talk to people directly one day. I sure hope so.

Blech. I am completely fed up with the medical field. I went to the dermatologist for results today and she couldn't tell me a damn thing. She said that all they found was that the blood vessels in the skin on my arms are dilated. She thinks it is related to my liver problems and said I should figure that out first. Well, no shit lady. I have done everything humanly possible to find out what was going on with my liver but no doctor can figure it out. Screw it, I give up.

Of course the blood vessel thing is not fixable. Figures. My only option is to go to a plastic surgeon and get laser therapy for tons of money. Fuck it, I'm calling them tomorrow. It is only money right?

And then this afternoon I had to go see the rheumatologist, the one I see because of my Fibromyalgia. I told him about all the other stuff, and he said perhaps it was time to go to a place like Shands or the Mayo clinic to see a liver specialist, at least if the problem persists. I asked, "But what if they don't find anything there?" He said, "Then that is good, you don't have a problem." I asked, "What if they find a problem, but have no idea what it is?" This is my regular routine with doctors, they can never figure it out. He said "Well, at least you won't have liver cancer." Shit.

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I am leaving in a few minutes to go back to the dermatologist to have them take the one little tiny stitch out of my arm where they biopsied it and tell me the results. I kind of have a feeling it is going to be one of those things where they say you have whatever condition and you are just going to have to live with it, because there is nothing we can do. Either that or it will be something that can only be treted with oral corticosteriods, which I can't take because the side effects for me are worse than the original problem. That is the story of my life with doctors. It is never some easy fix for what is wrong with me. I'm praying that I am wrong about that, though.