Michael is doing much better today, probably because of the steroid pills he started ydy. And for those of you who thought that our walking-every-day streak had ended you're WRONG! We drove over to Ivy Tech and parked. Maddy and I did our regular 3-mile Ivy Trek. Meanwhile, Michael took our Leki poles and did his own trek around the parking lot there. He went all around the building once and then several laps around the lot where we'd parked. He walked for 35 minutes and then worked out with our 5 lb dumbells for 10 minutes till Maddy and I returned.

Today we were hoping to have a friend come to get some pet things that we no longer need. We were going to just give them to her. She had told us that she'd be here first thing this morning. We had planned to do the transfer and then go for our walk. Then we were going to drive to Hagerstown.

Well... so she didn't show up. Michael called and she said that she'd be here at 2:30. So we went and did our walk and then came back and waited. And now it's nighttime and she never did come. Well... I am a nice person, but I feel like she owes us a Sunday. Tomorrow I'll call the Humane Society and see if they can use the things. [sigh]

Today started out great. Michael was going to be working all day with the Science Olympiad doing amateur radio. I was going to plant flowers and get caught up on email. But after Michael had worked for just a couple of hours walking around campus and up and down stairs, he came down on his left knee and, with a shoot of pain, it gave 'way. He caught himself with his right leg, and the pain was just excruciating.

He called me and said he was coming home and that he'd hurt his knee. Argh.

We went together to the Emergency Room where Dr. Willis examined him. He left there with crutches and a dosepack of cortisone. No swelling, no redness or bruising. He's going to his knee surgeon on Monday.

The bad thing is that he has hurt BOTH knees. Catching himself with his right knee.. hurt it! This evening he is feeling better, but still limping around and moaning a lot, because it hurts him to bear any weight on either leg.

His first concern is that he wants to keep walking. Today he'd done his walk on campus. I left with Maddy this afternoon and we walked the Clear Creek Trail. Tomorrow... we'll take as it comes. If he's hurting when he bears weight, I don't think that he should walk, even with the crutches. Instead, we'll have him do walking-type weight work with his arms. I'll keep you posted.

My yellow trucks took the Trophy in the Art Challenge! YAY! I am always surprised when I have a pure photo that wins, because I don't see my real strength as photography.

We were driving along in northern Indiana and went through a tiny town. There on the local dealer's lot ... right in front, were these 6 yellow trucks! LOL I just thought that this needed to be documented.

Let's see... other stuff... I'm getting more signups for my upcoming Summer Session classes. It's too soon to tell, but it looks like this could well be our biggest enrollment yet!

Excitement! We have sunshine finally today. The trees are all very green and the woods looks dark and mysterious. It's funny how it goes from being wide-open and bare to being a spooky place, almost overnight! There are deer in the backyard grazing and bothering Maddy. ;)

I really like being able to choose my font and color for each post. :) Now if Blogspot would just add emoticons to this interface... LOL!

Another cold and rainy day... sheesh when is it going to settle down and be summer?

Suzanne and I went to the Decorator's Showhouse in Carmel Indiana on Thursday! They decorated the Hilbert Mansion on 116th Street as a benefit for St Margaret's Hospital Guild. It was $20 to get in, but SOOO worth it. I forget how many bathrooms there were, but I'm thinking that I remember them saying 16. (I wonder if this counts powder rooms?)

Even on a rainy day, the gardens were magnificent. The house was so large that it easily accomodated the throngs of people who were there to see it. The only wait we had was to get onto the shuttle bus which took us from the parking area to the actual grounds.

Every room had been decorated by a different design firm. The prices of everything were displayed for the curious, which included us, of course! :) The furnishings were lavish and gorgeous, and the house itself was ... well, I think I could live there. I could actually live quite well in the master suite's "her closet!"

My Photoshop Classes are winding down for the Spring Session. All I have left to do is to take in the rest of the "finals," and create and send the Certificates. This is always a fun part of the classes, though. I just sent out the announcement for the Summer Session, which starts 24 May. (After this session, I'm going to be having much longer breaks in between sessions. This should help to save my sanity.)

Ok.. time to get out in the cold and do our walk!

Things progress here, albeit slowly. We worked hard on Saturday, taking 2 carloads to the dump and a full load to Goodwill.

Now I'm working on getting some of the bigger stuff (including our queen-sized brass bed) to the Historical Society for their Garage Sale. That's on June 9 and 10, but they are taking stuff now. Books too.

My tutorial index page is down now, because insightbb (our IP) is doing its "scheduled maintenance." I don't know how long my page will be down, but it does blow having it down. I just hope that I don't lose my linkages on other tutorial sites because of this. I have another page with text links and I added that link temporarily to my main myJanee.com page.

Challenge is going well with some very fun entries -- including some of mine! :)

It took me all morning to get through my email and student work. Today's the last day of this session officially, though, so my work should ease up in a few days.

Then I'll be getting to work earnestly on my Fix Your Photos in Photoshop class. This one will be ready for Fall session.

Beautiful Friday afternoon here! I did my 15 minutes in the attic today -- woo hoo! LOL it was pretty bad. Tossed some old boxes and lugged down some trash. Then I took it out and readied it for the recycling/garbage run.

While I was out there, I cleaned out the carp from under our deck benches. I did that for just 15 minutes, and then bagged up the trash!

In case anyone reading this wants me to add your site to my Photoshop links, read this: Put my site into YOUR links. Then write and ask me to link to you. Come on... it's just common courtesy! And besides, your site looks a lot better to me when you have my link in your list. ;)

Wednesday's posting I wrote when I couldn't get on the internet:

Michael had just a half-day today so it felt like a Friday! I posted the early entries for the Challenge today -- yellow things! :) And I wrote many emails. (I wonder how many!) But the best thing I did today was to work on the garage. I had the whole back of the car filled and we took it to Goodwill. Woo hoo! I'm going to have our lives dejunked yet... and at the same time, other people will feel like they won the lottery when they get our stuff inexpensively.

Our walk was on the IU campus, and it was beautifully sunny and 75°.

My students are in Week 6 now and they're doing great! I've had several sign up for the next session already. Ok.. Deal or No Deal is on! :D

Today's posting:
Today my insightbb is experiencing "scheduled interruptions," and that makes for a less-than-cool day for someone who lives on the internet. The funny thing is that last night our water was shut off because of a break in a watermain (we didn't know why). AND our internet was off too. We were almost wondering if the internet is perhaps... WATER-powered!

I got my email to send! YAY! The Challenge is on. Topic for this month is "My favorite color is... Yellow!" I have gotten NO Challenge entries today! A flurry yesterday, but then none today.

I've just sent out Lesson 6 -- the last one for the Spring session. :) I really love teaching these classes, but it's always a relief to be at the end of a session, too. This one went particularly well, with affable and diligent students.

I already have several signups for next session, which starts 24 May, and these students seem like lots of fun, too.

I was writing an email to Dorothy and we had been talking about plastic. I wonder if my brother and sister share this memory:

I have a memory of a Christmas ... it was probably in the mid 60's... when my stepdad presented my mother with a *complete set* of Melmac dishes in olive green! Oh, but they were LOVELY! I thought that we must be the richest people alive to have such beautiful dishes! And we used those till the pattern wore off of them. LOL!

I did some updating in my Gallery today! Here are the new pages:

Drawings & Paintings

Greeting Cards

Photo Art

Gradations3

I have lots more stuff that I should post.

I got an email from an author in Spain who's going to use a couple of my pieces of art in his book on math and art:

and

The world is conspiring to end my Art Challenge, I'm afraid. I am just not able to send out emails to all 520 on my Challenge mailing list, or at least I just can't figure out how to do it. Hotmail limits me to sending to 100 recipients in a DAY, and so .. that doesn't work. Gmail... same thing, only I think it's 150.

I've always sent my announcements out with myJanee.com, but now, with their fancy new email thing, if one person in the list has an invalid email address, NONE of them go! How stupid is this? I could just cry.

And to top it all off, my Community Board is slow as pondwater today.