The Bathroom Wars

My beautiful marble bathroom  (BMB) is finished.  It's the hall bath, larger than our master, with marble walls, marble floors, huge walk-in marble shower, marble vanity top... and I can see the pond and the fish swimming here and there while I brush my teeth.  Best of all, it's mine.  Totally, completely mine.  No man shall lift the seat in MY bathroom!  

 

While the hall bath project was in full swing, Hubby decided -- in his infinite wisdom -- to tear out the master vanity, install it in one of his rental apartments, and order a new one.  The master shower worked fine, but there was no where to brush teeth etc. and only one bulb hanging in the middle of the room. Hubby was relegated to the guest room in the back while I used the powder room downstairs for teeth brushing and other necessities. Last week we put the granite top into the master bath, and I started moving in the stuff I had moved out for the construction; the extra hair dye (yeah..  it's true, I do and have since I was 30), the nail polish and emery boards, the extra contacts, the cosmetics I don't use any more, and whatever else doesn't fit in my new hall bath.  Hubby puffed up his chest and said in a booming voice..  "No, this is my bathroom..  yours is down the hall."  Holding a box of my stuff, I put my head down and plowed past him.  "Like hell", this is the workhorse and remains ours.  Outta my way."  Seriously..  men.  You have to wonder.

I am learning about orchids.  My youngest gave me a beautiful peppermint striped orchid which, you may remember, was decimated by the tree surgeons last summer. It had torn leaves and the blooming stem broke off at the base.  I brought it in, cleaned it up, and babied it along all fall.  When the BMB was finished, I stuck it in the window overlooking the pond.  It gets the western sun, but it's dappled from the trees.  Its leaves are bathed daily in shower steam, and it gets cooed at every morning. I also bought it a companion for the windowsill, another tall moth orchid with waxy salmon colored blooms and bright orange centers. A few weeks ago I noticed a new flower stem on the peppermint orchid, pushing its way upward, and now there are tight bud bumps beginning to form along its 6 inch stem.  

My knees are healed.  I skied two plus days in New Hampshire this week with absolutely no problems.  It's a wonderful thing!   My legs felt tired, my quads were only a little sore, but a soak in the hot tub and a good nights sleep left my legs, from hip to toe, ready for another day of turns. 

Somehow, despite the abuse we put it through, nature survives and heals. When we discover that we've damage it, we need pick it up, protect it, and leave it alone for a while.  Don't immediately bring in alien things to try to "fix it", or built contraptions to mitigate the damage, or decide there's no hope and throw it out. Identify the problem, stop the injury before there's no turning back, leave it alone for a while and let it heal.

I Spy Something Red

I stand corrected!  To my great surprise, a motion sensitive, night vision IP camera was waiting for me on Christmas morning!  YAY!  It took a few days, and a call to customer service, to get it up and running.  The first night it took a picture of my bathroom window.  Unfortunately it doesn't work very well behind glass.  The second night I moved it out back to the pond area.  The next morning this was sent to my phone: 

Heheheheh...  foxie fox.

This morning I received a notice from the HR department that I qualified for retirement.  It's about time..  I told them in June that I was retiring in February.  

The aorta thing..  the old blood pressure is up again, despite doubling the meds in November and more exercise.  I like being in control of my health.  I have been careful about it all of my life, and it's really difficult being ineffective.  Seems like one thing after another.  I wonder where I would be if I didn't know what was going on inside of me.  I can't feel it or see it, and it never effected the way I lived my life or the things I wanted to do.  It seems very sudden, but it's really not that sudden if you know what's happening.  Takes years to get here.   The knees are ready for skis.  They don't like dancing though.  New Years Day found me taking nsaids and icing, but here a day later I am pain free again. 

Meanwhile, I am watching the snow reports.  Skiing is like flying in your dreams, with only slightly less effort.  Actually, depending on your mindset, it's the same effort.  Sometimes I have to really get a running start and flap my arms really hard to get just a few feet into the air.  Sometimes I just raise my hands to the heavens and I'm soaring into the treetops.  Mostly I need a little effort for a pretty good flight.   Once I've expended all the energy on clomping over to the lift, maneuvering onto the seat without dropping my poles or gouging someone's eye out, successfully scootching my way off of the lift chair, and slipping down to the flat landing spot without a boarder falling in front of me, the rest is easy.  Stand at the top, exhale, and slide.  I hear myself breathing and I hum a waltz in time..  past the beautiful pines, a range of mountains ahead, and below me is peaceful white all around.