I had a birthday recently. I just wanted to forget about it, but nobody would let me. Bummer.

My mom had already given me some birthday money, and she sent me a card, but every year she has to call and sing “Happy Birthday” to me. I was expecting that. Hubby and Pumpkin wished me a happy one, and Pumpkin gave me one of her necklaces. That was sweet and all.

My brother and sister also called to remind me how old I am. I’m now 30 for those of you who are keeping score, and I am keenly aware of it without being reminded. But they just had to rub it in. Oh well. No matter how old I get, they will both always be older than me.

Hubby didn’t get me anything, at my insistence, because we are still pretty low on cash. But he says he’s going to get me something when we get the money. I could care less. I’m not worried about getting gifts. But just for laughs, I think I might show him some Raymond Weil watches and tell him I would love to have one. And then I could listen to him tell me to dream on.

Hubby’s surgery went pretty well. They had to cut him up a bit more than anticipated, but they didn’t have to open him up completely. He is really sore, and he spent the first couple of days mostly either in bed or in the recliner, with me helping him get up and down. But he’s starting to get around better now, and hopefully he’ll be back to his old, ornery self soon.

I’ve gotten very little work done since his surgery, because I’ve been staying pretty much right by his side. My office is almost all the way across the house from our bedroom, so I’ve limited my work time to when he’s been in the living room so I could hear him if he needed me. But now I think he’s capable of doing most things for himself, and coming in here to tell me if he needs help.

Pumpkin has been pretty helpful as well. She didn’t behave very well the day after his surgery, and I think it was partly because she was concerned about him and partly because school was snowed out and she was bored. But other than that, she has really been looking out for him.

I keep finding myself being the voice of reason, telling him that he needs to watch himself and not try to rush things. But if I didn’t, he would probably be out trying to ride his four-wheeler right about now. I just hope he gives his body the time it needs to heal, and that once it does he feels much better than before.

Once upon a time, probably about 12-14 years ago, I drank lots and lots of water. I was in my mid to late teens, living with my parents, and they had the most wonderful tasting well water in the world. So I drank it regularly.

I got out of the habit of drinking water when I moved out. My first apartment had chlorinated city water, and I found it repulsive. I’ve never been one to buy bottled water, so I just fell back into the habit I had as a kid of drinking soda all the time.

I’ve since tried to start drinking water again, but it just didn’t happen. Most of the places we’ve lived since I got married have had passable water, but nothing was as good as the water at my parents’ house. So I’d drink it when taking medicine or something, but that’s all.

The water where we live now isn’t bad at all by most people’s standards, but it often has a slightly sugary taste that I don’t like. So when I got the opportunity to review a Pure Water 2Go water bottle with a water bottle filter, I pounced on it. I had never heard of such a thing, but I was willing to give it a try.

After I rinsed the bottle and filter per the instructions, I ran it full of nice, cold water, took a deep breath, and took a drink. No sugary taste! In fact, it tasted like store-bought bottled water, except it didn’t have that been-sitting-around-in-a-plastic-bottle-forever taste that I can’t stand. Impressive, but I had to test it a little further than that.

I went to the hospital to meet Hubby today because he had to do all of the preadmission stuff for his upcoming surgery, and I took my bottle along with me. The town water around here is not as heavily chlorinated as the city water that made me a water-phobe, but it’s enough to give it a definite taste. I took the bottle in and filled it up, took another deep breath, and tasted. It was great!

I even took a drink from the fountain to make sure that the water hadn’t improved since I last tasted it. It hadn’t. This bottle rocks!

Maybe now I can get myself to start drinking water again. I know it would be good for my health.

I really hope we can go somewhere this summer. I’m not going to get my hopes up and start comparing prices on beach resorts or even Branson hotels. But it would be great if we could just take a little day trip or two. Hubby, Pumpkin and I all need a vacation very badly.

If we can get the money together before summer gets here, I would settle for season passes to Tweetsie Railroad. Pumpkin loves it, and it would at least break the monotony for me to go there a few times. They don’t have a lot of great rides or anything, but I like the scrambler and the train.

Summer is still a while off. Maybe things will fall into place by then.

You’d never know it by reading my blog right now, but I have been around for the past week. I just haven’t had the time to exchange any pleasantries.

I’ve got a lot of work I need to get done before Hubby’s surgery, and I don’t know if I’m going to make it or not. He has had some bad days over the past week, especially Saturday. And that inevitably slows me down, because I have to pamper him. I also have a greater tendency to get writer’s block when I’m worried about him. So what time I have spent in front of the computer has consisted mostly of spinning my wheels.

I’ll just be glad when all of this is over with and things (hopefully) get back to some resemblance of normalcy. If Hubby can get back to his old self, I can quit worrying so much and he can start bringing in some money. Then I can work on getting some higher-paying stuff going on instead of feeling obligated to take on everything that comes my way. And then maybe, just maybe, we can dig ourselves out of this mountain of financial obligations that has accumulated.

Hubby came up with a project for me a couple of days ago when I didn’t have much work to do: He decided that he wanted to combine the best songs off of some of his CDs. So we spent the evening going through them. I heard enough bluegrass and country songs about wedding rings to last me a lifetime.

I wrote down the ones he wanted, and got to work putting them on discs for him. By the time it was said and done, I had made him four CDs out of the songs on twelve of them.

So what did I get out of all of this? Ten of those twelve CDs. One was scratched really badly and not my cup of tea anyway, and he gave one to a friend of his who had coveted it. So now I have some tunes to listen to, and for the most part some pretty good ones.

I should add that a few of those CDs were mine in the first place. He just kind of took them over. But now they are mine once more.

Hubby had to go back to the doctor today. He is still hurting quite a bit, and he told the doctor so. And he finally agreed to go ahead with the surgery if that was what Hubby wanted. He had to take a long distance call after he told us that, so that left us alone to discuss it.

Hubby said he was ready to get it done. He has been on all sorts of different medications, and they haven’t taken care of the problem. Some of them have helped, but he hasn’t been his crazy, perpetually active self in months. On good days he can participate in some of his normal activities, but on bad days he just lays around on the couch.

After he got home from the doctor’s office, he started having a bad day. Nerves, most likely. Whenever he gets upset about anything he often has flare-ups. That and when he eats spicy or greasy foods. And he had a cheeseburger for lunch, so that was surely a contributing factor.

I’ll just be glad when he is back to his old self again. He drives me nuts sometimes, but I would rather be driven insane than see him hurting all the time.

I didn’t get on the computer until about 3:00 today. More on that shortly. But what I found when I checked my email blew me away: I have a grand total of 65 articles, 1 special report, and 50 short research and writing projects to do! Woot!

I knew about 20 of the articles yesterday, and the rest was waiting in my inbox today. I just hope I can get it all done in a timely manner. The research thing is really easy, and for the most part pleasant, work. I can knock off several of those in an hour’s time, and that’s doing a thorough job. I have to come up with my own topics for 20 of the articles, so that will probably take more time than anything. The other articles are on topics that I either have some basic knowledge about or should be pretty easy to research. So the main thing I need to worry about is whether there are going to be enough hours in the day to do them all.

The reason I didn’t get on the computer until late is a whole other story. So that will be found in my next post.

My first post of the New Year. How special.

So far 2008 has been pretty uneventful for me. We went to a small party on New Year’s Eve, but didn’t stay till midnight. To my surprise, the usually early-to-bed Hubby sat up with me until almost 2 a.m., and Pumpkin stayed up until after midnight. We all had a great time, playing games and just being crazy.

School was supposed to start back today, but it was called off due to snow. We didn’t get the huge amount they were calling for, but apparently it was enough to make the roads a little slippery. So I guess she’ll be going back tomorrow.

I haven’t had a lot of work to do since Christmas, and I got what little I had lined up done a few hours ago. I could have gotten it done much sooner, but it’s hard to get much done around here when the kids (the little one and the grown one) are home. I’m not complaining about that a bit, though. I’ve really enjoyed the time I’ve been able to spend with them, and I haven’t missed any deadlines. It would just be nice to have a little more money coming in.

I know it’s a little late, but I want to wish all of my readers a beautiful and prosperous New Year. And I hope you all can keep your resolutions better than I do. I haven’t even gotten around to making any yet! But I will.