Can't tell goats milk from cows milk

I went on vacation. Yes, me! I haven't had a real vacation in probably 30 years and it was stress relieving and fun, fun, fun. My darling friend Nina arranged and paid for everything. And was the best companion ever. We get along like bread and butter (she's the butter, she eats keto). I only had to buy my food and good food it was, flavor enhanced by many cocktails. We went to Bend, Oregon for 4 days and stayed at the most beautiful airbnb. We had a house and an amazing view all to ourselves. The owners have a beautiful house a small distance away, but we never saw them, except to be greeted by the husband (a sweetheart) and lavished with kisses and tennis balls from their 2 very friendly dogs. We both love dogs so that was an added bonus.

I've never been to Bend. It's high desert so lots of Juniper trees and tumble weed and sage. I now love that environment. Bend is a small town, but very hip (we're not) but it was fun to walk and eat and drink and we did plenty of all three. Nina is incredible. She is a GPS genius. I probably couldn't have even gotten us there, but she navigated all over foreign terrain, finding us fun little places to go, one of which was a hands on dairy farm run by a young couple with 11 children, 6 of whom have been adopted from Uganda. Beautiful kids and great cow milkers, swift and smooth and confident. We herded chickens, yes, sometimes chickens need herding and Nina milked a cow while I milked a goat...poor little goat. We had a blind test drinking cow/goat milk and little miss know-it-all, bragging about how she could easily tell one from the other (I use a lot of goat milk products), of course, picked them ass-backwards. I want to live on a farm now...no I don't, they milk at 7am and 7pm, sun-snow-rain and ice. I don't book appointments until after 11am because I get a stomach ache if I have to get up before 8am. And obviously it takes me two hours to get ready to do anything.

Letting go of stress to such a degree that my shoulders and neck finally freed up after years of tight tension was a huge relief. Of course it was back in about 2 days after getting home but that respite was wonderful and made me feel that I am still capable of "letting go", in more ways than one. Hope for the future.

The third surgery is scheduled for Sept. 9th. It will all finally be over with and I can get back to trying to live life in a normal fashion, like normal people do, of whom I know none. I'm not looking forward to the pain, obviously, but putting a chapter of my life behind me, that has consumed everything since last January, will feel so good. That's all I'm really focused on. 

After I spent two whole weeks trying to create a website on my own "it's so easy, you can do it, I did my own" I finally gave up and had to say that I am not as smart as all the people who - did it on their own - and am hiring a nice young Russian guy who touts "lots of experience" and charges a reasonable price to do it all for me. I found him on this site called Upworks. It locates tech's all over the country so you can find one near you and they have been vetted so I don't feel like I am getting a wannabe webmaster off of Craigslist. I'm probably not going to be able to do much with it until after the operation because I think I need to rephotograph a lot of my pieces and show them with some contrast so people get a better idea of how large they are. Photographing is not easy. So much setting up and arranging and carrying of heavy stuff so I will have to do it before my arms are out of commission.

I've been lamenting lately, like a big first world baby, that I live in a rented house and don't get to putter-decorate like I used to. It's a stress reliever for me and keeps the boredom at bay. I could always flip a room around and change things up because I had a ton of storage and a work shop that allowed me to hold onto more furniture than I needed and gave me the ability to repair/rebuild/reupholster, all of which I love to do. But living here without space for all of that often leaves me bored and anxious. I feel like I need to change things once in awhile in order to breathe better. I think most people are happy to find an arrangement and become settled with it but I'm not like that. My environment needs to float and I love the feeling of it always evolving. So I am ecstatic with my new find! I've been getting back to my Goodwill haunting and came across this Chinese red lacquered chest the other day which has found a new happy home in front of my couch.

                                                                                 

The knobs make me so happy. I'm sure they say something in Chinese but I will probably never know. It's not exactly the "double happiness" symbol but similar. The two center circles are working brass locks (sans keys - pout) but the drawers are huge for lots of storage. (I now see my carpet is totally off center. How did I do that?) The coup is that it cost $14.99. I had a credit for $8.99 because I bought a pair of pants that didn't fit - why don't I try things on first? AND it was senior day, yea, discount! So it wound up costing me $4.49!!!! Now that's some shoppin!

So anyway, I'm feeling pretty good right now. 94 days sober for my little darling daughter, a vacation and Summer doesn't feel like it is scittering by as fast as it usually does. The problems are quietly resting somewhere, I don't want to go looking for them, so hopefully they will stay that way for awhile. All I need to do now is find a good book.

                                                                             

   

Thinking of you.
Love
Liv