I'm really loving the new styles and features on the profiles page, and some of the other nice touches that have been added to the look-and-feel of dA lately. I only regret that I do not have time to keep my own pages updated. Cripes, here it is February and I just now changed all the chrissmassy caboosta out of my own account.

It's not that I've been idle, no, no, not at all, dear ones.

My fans (yes, Mom, I know you're out there somewhere)...OK...maybe fan is more accurate.... knows that making a daily trip to the mailbox is about as much physical activity as I can tolerate. My nervous system has been deteriorating for the last several years, and as I approach the beginning of my third year of disability, I have come to some terms with the changes it has made in my life. Instead of being satisfied with those walks (ok....hobbles....) to the mailbox, I try to do a little more every day. Sometimes even two or three trips to the mailbox!

Over the last several weeks, I have made some improvements to the garden at the rear of my house. I laboriously dragged each bag of topsoil from the back of the pickup to the garden cart and then sliced it open and poured it in the garden until the soil level finally reached the lip of the patio. Took almost 25 bags, but I have to work around my disability, so I couldn't just get a yard of soil dumped into the driveway and haul it back myself. Finally yesterday I planted some ferns and some Spanish lavender. I'm paying for it today, and for the next several days, with screaming muscles and flaming nerve tissues, but I cherish the pain as if it were a medal awarded for a job well done. I earned these aches, and the garden gives me something to show for my efforts. What a masochist I must be, eh? Still, I bet you know just how good I really feel.

Carol is still spending her nights on the sailboat, but we have at least arrived at some sort of detente now. We are cordial, and while I know I am trying my hardest to keep the relationship going, I give her credit for trying too. Only time will tell what happens there, but I've really learned a lot of lessons about how much pain, both physical and emotional, a person can live through and still manage to get up every morning. Every day it gets a little easier to live with. I imagine some day I might not even notice this great gaping chasm in my heart....

It's not always easy, but the alternative is just not acceptable to me. I'm not built to give up, and I hate sounding like some whiny victim, but it's important to me to be honest here, even if it means that I may not come off as the perfect, macho guy who never sheds a tear....

I eat quiche, too. Yummy.

I've even tried making some new soaps lately! Nothing worth adding to my gallery here, but if I get enough bars made I may cough up the cash to rent a table at the Nautical Flea Market our Elkhorn Yacht Club throws each May and see if I can't sell enough soap to buy you all a drink next time you're in town!

Well, dear ones, that's it for me for now. I'll try my hardest to get back here more frequently to keep you all appraised on events as they transpire in my life, or at least entertain you. Thank you all for continuing to keep me in your thoughts and prayers. I have really appreciated the email and messages, and I think fondly of you every day, even if I don't get the chance to express it here as often as I would like.

Mmmm-wwwhhhhhaaaaahhh! (Big sloppy kiss!)

-=b=-