Well, it's official!

The doctor confirmed what I was beginning to suspect.  I tore the tendon in my right ring finger.  I fell a little over three weeks ago and I've been hoping that my finger would get better on it's own, but alas it hasn't.  The last digit on my ring finger is droopy, meaning it won't stay straight on it's own.  The only way I can straighten it is if I use my left hand to do it. 

Back when I fell, I was frankly more worried about the cut under my eye and my busted glasses than my finger.  In fact, my finger didn't hurt very much, and I could even make a fist, so I figured it couldn't be broken or anything serious like that.  So I gave it TIME to heal rather than opting to go to a doctor about it.  Today I finally broke down and went to see the doctor about my "slacker" digit.  I know, I know . . . three whole weeks . . . what a dunce I am sometimes.

The good news is that the doctor said I hadn't waited too long for it to be fixed without having to resort to surgery.  I'll be wearing a cast (a splint really) on my finger for the next 6 weeks.  I don't have any flexibility in that finger now and I'm not supposed to get it wet so I'm thinking this is going to be a challenge.  Cooking, bathing, typing . . .  I already know about the typing. . . this is slow going. I'm typing with one and two fifths hands.  I still use my left hand, but only the first two fingers on my right hand, and that means that I have to watch the keyboard rather than typing by touch.  AARRGGH. 

Another Stone House

Photo and enchancement by Chris Duffy . . . click on picture, then the F11 key to see a larger image.

Can anyone tell I like stone houses?  In fact, I like almost anything made out of stone.  Stone houses, buildings, fences, bridges.  I guess if it's made out of stone it just looks and feels older to me. 

This house was also in the town of Upper Slaughter.  It was a very tranquil setting and we enjoyed driving and walking through the streets. Some of the neighborhoods looked very much like our own, but others looked like snap shots from the past. 

Uppers and Lowers

Photo and enhancement by Chris Duffy . . . click on picture and then the F11 key to see a larger image.

There seemed to be an awful lot up towns in England that were named Upper something and Lower something.  We took this picture in a little town called Upper Slaughter.  It was one of the few houses that didn't have ANY flowers surrounding it, but I couldn't resist taking a picture of the stone fence. 

As you might expect, there was also a Lower Slaughter and we took the delightful path from Upper Slaughter to Lower Slaughter, which was only about a mile and a half.  The path even went through some pasture land on private property where we passed by a whole herd of grazing sheep.  They seemed to barely notice that we humans were trapsing through their dining room. 

The Old New Inn . . . Hmmmm?!?

Photo and enhancement by Chris Duffy . . . click on picture, then the F11 Key to see a larger image.

Here's another picture that I took in England.  Not only was it colorful, but I must admit I was tickled at the sign on the Inn.  It's called the Old New Inn.  Don't know what city it's in, because I didn't take the time to take notes as I was snapping pictures.  I just wrote in my diary every evening back at our cottage and didn't bother to notice which pictures had been taken on which days.   I must be subconsciously wanting to go back there, because recently I've been drawn to the English pictures for my blogs. 

Flowers A Plenty . . .

Photo and Enhancement by Chris Duffy . . . click on picture, then the F11 key to see a larger image.

One of the things that impressed me most about England (other than the preponderence of history visible everywhere) was the fact that it seems like everyone has flowers.  There were colorful flowers literally everywhere.  No front yard was too small to have it's share of beautiful flowers.  That along with the fact that I really like old buildings and England was bound to be a hit with me.   I'd love to go again, only next time I want my sister Alice to go with me.  I believe she would truely enjoy seeing England.   And, my goodness, the pictures she would  have after the trip.   Enough to fill her Xanga needs for months afterwards.

I could sure use a walk on the beach about now 

Photo by Chris Duffy

Today has been a VERY hectic day at work.  We're having an event tomorrow and the agenda has been changed and sent out three times already today.  Because tomorrow is a Friday, and typically it's hard to get sales people to stay focused after say 1 PM on a Friday afternoon, we opted to change the session from 9:30 AM thru 7:30 PM to a more managable 8:00 AM thru 5:30 PM.  Five thirty is going to be bad enough. . . we'd NEVER hold their attention thru 7:30 PM.  Anyway, when we redid the agenda that put all the speakers somewhat earlier than before, and a couple of them complained that they couldn't do the earlier time so we had to re-shuffle everyone's time slots to accomodate. 

My day actually started at 3 this morning when I suddenly awoke and realized that we didn't have an analog connection in our new event room to hook up our Polycom phone for the 9 hour conference call.  I started working on that problem at 7:30 this morning as soon as I hit the office.  It was resolved about an hour ago.   Yeah for our I.T. department. 

Then around mid morning my boss called from out of town and suggested that since we'd moved the time up to 8:00 AM perhaps we'd better order breakfast catered.  So then we jumped on that and got a nice breakfast ordered. 

Then one of my other bosses who was also out of town called and asked that I print out three presentations that someone was going to send to me and could I then FAX them to him.   He didn't have a fax number just yet, but he'd call back with one.  So I printed out the three documents and when he did call back I heard him ask someone named June what her fax number was.  From that name and the area code on the fax number I guessed where he was and suggested that I merely forward the files to June and have her print them out for him, rather than having to fax them and him trying to read a faxed copy. 

Well, thank goodness things began to slow down around 3:30 this afternoon and I'm glad.  Now if I just had a beach close by that I could take that walk on. . . .

A Time to Laugh

We have some wonderful friends coming to visit us from Seattle tomorrow.  We only get to see them once a year when Barney goes to his annual Emanual Board meeting after which they stop over for 3 or 4 days at our house before heading back to the Pacific Northwest.  We always have a LOT of fun and laugh ourselves silly.  We play a lot of Pinnocle, we eat, but mostly we shop shop shop.  You'd think Seattle didn't have any stores the way Barney and Mary shop while they're here in Dallas.  I KNOW that isn't true, because we used to live there and there are plenty of stores.  One of Barney's favorites is the Fitz & Floyd store.  He collects Fitz & Floyd and they do NOT have any F&F stores in Seattle . . . that I'm aware of anyway.  Certain department stores carry the F&F merchandise, but there are no F&F stores there per se. 

Photo by Chris Duffy . . . Mary, Mike and Barney

Anyway, we haven't told them we moved.  We're just picking them up at the airport and taking them to the new house.  We can hardly wait.  Mary is quite the decorator and also very outspoken.  She doesn't sugar coat things.  If she likes it she tells you, and if she doesn't she tells you that too . . . but in a nice way.  Anyway, Mike is quite anxious for the new house to get Mary's "blessing". 

The Party's Over . . .

I can't say that I'm not relieved that it's over, because I am,  very much so.  But, it went very well and we had a nice turn out . . . about 55 people.  We had too much food as usual, but I'd much rather have too much than to run out.  I guess our menu will be hors d'oeuvres for the next couple days.  

It's OPEN HOUSE tonight

Well, tonight is the big night. . . our open house.  We've invited our friends, our old neighbors, our new neighbors and the people we work with.  Those of you who actually know me know that I look forward to this like I look forward to getting a root canal.  It's like we're on this run away freight train with no way to get off. 

Photo by Chris Duffy

The open house started out to be a small afair for our friends to see our new house and for us to meet our new neighbors.  Just cookies and coffee and sparkling cider.  Well, as with anything that my husband has anything to do with, it's grown with each passing day, until now it's going to as big a deal as the annual Christmas party.  Don't get me wrong, after the event commences and the visiting gets started in earnest, I'll most likely enjoy myself, but until then I'm just riding a tidal wave.  Wish me luck!!

The New Digs

Picture by Chris Duffy . . . click on picture, then the F11 key to see a larger image.

Well, I thought I'd share a couple pictures of our new digs.  This is a picture of the breakfast room, and that built in hutch is one of the reasons I fell in love with the house.  It's a perfect place for me to display my flo blue pieces rather than having them stacked up and unseen in a kitchen cabinet. 

Picture by Chris Duffy . . . click on picture, then the F11 key to see a larger image.

And here's another thing that made me love the house.  This wonderful stained glass window in the Master Bathroom.   You see, I love stained glass and leaded glass, and blue is my favorite color.  I mean, I was hooked.  And now we're making a lot of progress on making it feel like OUR home.