Dec 01, 2005: It's been a while. I still have marks from the ant bites. The knee shots didn't work after all. The little bit of relief was actually from the cortisone shot. It wore off in about 4 weeks as usual. Oh well. Trying a new type of glucosamine stuff. Hope that works as my left knee is now bothering me and so are my feet. On Thanksgiving Day, I could barely move. Have discovered that going barefoot aggrevates my legs so I'm trying to remember to wear shoes in the house all the time now. I've also quit riding my bike and using stairs. I make sure I get up every hour or so at work to walk around. That helps to keep from getting stiff (and when my knees get stiff, they HURT).

Oct 10, 2005 Just got back from the dr. Have to take some antibiotic for the ant bites. They are over 1 week old and still red (don't forget there were about 200+ of them). They are starting to itch really bad now. Also got some knee gel injected in both knees. Get 2 more of them then should be relatively pain free for about a year. I sure hope so. They freeze the knees before the shots, that is nice and makes the shots easy. But my knees are still cold and as people at work will tell you..... I'm already ready for the spring - I've had all the cold I want to take this year.

Oct 6 Haven't been riding as I've been sick. Monday morning I was feeling much better when I noticed that my sprinkler system valve stuck again and the front lawn had been watered for several hours. This was around 5:30 am, it was dark, and I had just gotten out of the shower. So I throw on shorts and a t-shirt (yes it was still HOT then), run barefoot outside, kneel down on the grass by the curb and turn off the main valve at the street (it was full of water, lovely thing to stick your hand into at that time of the morning). I stood up, saw my legs all dark and thought to myself "I'll have to take another shower to get all this dirt off". I took 2 steps and discovered the dirt was fire ants and they all decided to bit at once. I fled across the acorn strewn lawn (I didn't care how that felt), grabbed the water hose and hosed myself off. Then thinking I had done a good thing, I picked up the paper, calmly walked back in the house to discover I still had fire ants on me. Ran through the house to the back (and over the cats who thought I was playing with them), jumped back in the shower (but with my clothes on this time) and showered all the ants off. Discovered later that the cold water keeps the histamines from being released (and that can cause allergic reactions). I go on to work, but I had to wear a jean skirt because I have about 200 bites. Got a cortisone shot at the Dr that afternoon so the itching isn't too bad. They are really ugly looking bites now. But the major swelling is down. I have them all over but mostly around my knees and thighs. I've got to get the valve fixed now. And now it is cold here. We dropped from the mid-90's to the mid-60's brrrrr. I'm ready for summer again.

It is too hot to ride until after dark and I don't have a headlight - I can't seem to remember it until the stores are closed.

While out riding I did find a house similar to mine (brick and straight lines) that has wonderful landscaping with rock edging. It looks better than the rectangular shaped rocks that I was looking for so I'll have to see where they got the rocks. I can carry only a few at a time in the car though and I sure can't afford to buy them all at once or have someone else do it. I need to make the cats get and earn a living for me.

Thursday Aug 18, 2005 It is still hot but I did ride my bike for a little bit this evening. The breeze was nice. Tomorrow, one of the guys at work will put on the 'computer' as he calls the odometer that does more than measure miles. I had trouble because of the shocks and don't want to mess up the new bike.

I added JimBob's picture. He seems a little stiff right now but I'm sure he'll become comfortable in his new home soon. It took both of the cats about a month before they were completely comfortable here.

Just a short note from Texas where it is HOT and the humidity is high thus the heat index is really hot. Too hot to go out to ride my bike this early in the evening. Finished watering the hanging baskets - everything in the garden looks pretty good thanks to all the recent rains.

The new gargoyle in the garden seems to be doing his job. His name is JimBob and his job is to keep the neighbors rats out of my yard (they built a raised deck around the above ground pool so now we all get to watch them and lots of rats live under their desk). Hopefully, when he does this task for a while, I can add weed watching to his job description.