Hey Bloggers,

It's a beautiful day here in Walla Walla, WA, and the sheep and alpaca at Celtic Crossroads are doing well.

Lance and I just got over a bad bout of the latest crud going around, but neither of us have had it as bad as some. We took Zicam which is a homeopathic concoction that has taken care of most of the crud...and we're both okay as of today...yesterday was the last day we took the Zicam and no symptoms at all.

Saturday, the Icelandic sheep are coming. 15-17 of the little sheep or as George Hamilton said in "Zorro the Gay Blade," 'the ships in the f'ild.' We have small acreage, only 2.3 acres, but have a front and back pasture which we have divided into four parts to do pasture management and won't have just dirt in the pastures rather than grass/hay. So far, it's been working fine, but we only have two alpaca and two Finnsheep. Saturday the truth will be known. Though it's almost winter here in Walla Walla, and though they don't get much snow, the grass does go dormant so it gets rather brown here. We'll be buying 4 tons of hay, building shelters and mangers and other things to keep the sheep and alpacas in food/water for the winter. I'll be selling some of the unregistered Icelandic sheep as time goes buy though. I want to buy some more of them, but registered Icelandics.

We are getting two more alpacas, two more small boys eacj a year old, with beautiful white fiber from Caviar and Shoo Alpacas. I saw the boys live and their photos when I was at the NwRSA board meeting last Saturday. NwRSA is the Northwest Regional Spinners Association. I'm now the official Workshop Committee Chair person who will be coordinating the workshops throughout the regional areas in Oregon, Washington, Montana and Idaho...so the regional directors come to me to get their needs known. I'm a little worried about not having done this for 10 years, but I'm sure it will be fine. After all, I did the LeCocq Lecture in Orthopaedics and the Resident Research Days at the Orthopaedics department at the University of WA Medical Center in Seattle, WA for three years and that all went fine.

I stopped working for the Dept. of Orthopaedics after I went through brain surgery at the UWMC in December 1993. The MD (and hospital), who was supposedly the best, left me with a 3-day cerebral spinal fluid leak and residual level 10 head pain, which is still here to this day. The Orthopaedic Department, who decided I was too much of a risk to the hospital/MD, strongly suggested that I take permanent medical leave. When I declined at first, they took me out of the Chairman's office and stuck me in a windowless room out of the people areas (I'm a people person). Why? I was too much of a risk in that I might sue the hospital, never mind that most of my co-workers told me I should sue, but I didn't. I can hardly believe I've had this bad pain for almost 10 years now. December 2, 2003, will be exactly 10 years.

The boyfriend I had when I had the surgery and while I worked at the University Medical Center, who was also employed by them, told me after the surgery that he was seeing a "friend." Then broke up with me shortly thereafter for this so-called "friend," telling me that the only reason he told me he loved me and wanted to get married again was because he knew I wouldn't have sex with him... Nice guy, huh! He says he never lied to me, but that in itself was a downright lie. Now he's married to a woman he met at a Country Western Bar, and I feel so sad for her because he's lies to everyone, including himself, and she's not immune from his lies either. I think I feel most badly for his daughter because she has this from both him and her mother. His daughter and my daughter are 4 days apart in age and were even in the same birth announcement in the newspaper which I found out shortly after I met him when we were friends. I would have continued being friends with him if he hadn't told me he loved me and wanted to marry me, but I thought because we were friends for over two years that having a relationship with him was safe. Yeah, until things got a bit more difficult for him emotionally. He was also a few years younger than me. I mean this guy even lied to me about his height and weight because he was 2 inches taller than he told me and weighed 25 lbs. lighter than he told me because he was ashamed of his body. How sick is that? Something that trivial and he lied about that. I didn't find out about that until the end of the relationship. If I'd have found out about him and his lies sooner, I'd have been really happy to have dumped him right then. We all know that people like that don't change, so why stay longer waiting for it to happen, when we know it won't.

Thank GOD I didn't marry him...he did me a favor because if all that hadn't happened, I'd never have met Lance via the Internet. Lance knows everything about me, and we started out as real friends with no thoughts about having a relationship. We lived over 1,000 miles apart; he in Southern California (AKA SoCal) and me in Seattle, WA, so neither of us even thought we'd get together much less have a date. As life happens, I was dating someone else that didn't work out (same old story about lies, love and on and on), Lance felt badly for me. He asked me to come to visit him and he'd show me around SoCal, so we split the airfare for me to fly down to SoCal, after the Xmas Holidays, but before New Years (December 30, 1996, through January 3, 1997). When I arrived, we went to the Huntington Library/Gardens, where we saw the cutest cactus with sunglasses on, then went for dinner at the Elephant Bar, which serves great nouveau cuisine. The next night was New Year's Eve, and HE cooked me Ratatouille, Bouillabaisse and even baked a whipped cream cake for dessert, which he served on fine china with silver service and candlelight. Couldn't have been a nicer night or more romantic...such a guy!

After dinner and dessert, he lit a fire, we danced to Ottmar Liebert, and, at the stroke of midnight, he proposed. I told him that I'd like to think about it for a couple of days. On January 2, 1997, I told him, "yes, I'd love to marry you." We danced some more, kissed and then fell asleep. On the way to the airport, we stopped at One Main Place (a huge, expensive mall in Santa Ana) and bought my engagement ring, which I wore home on the flight. We decided to get married on June 1997, but changed it to Valentine's Day, 1997, when we talked about it after I arrived home. I don't think that between the two of us, we got more than 10-hours sleep the whole time I was there because we sat, talked, cuddled, talked and he showed me all the great places to go in SoCal near where he lived. SoCal was beautiful in winter, and did not prepare me for the changes in my life when we got married or when summer arrived in SoCal, not to mention missing all my friends and things I enjoyed doing in Seattle. Fullerton, CA, is a whole 'nother place and is as different from Seattle, WA as Milwaukee, WI, is different from Dallas, TX. It was hard for me to get used to. Let's do lunch means that you never see people again...as I learned from experience. I did make some wonderful friends there though, just not too many. Robin (owner of In Any Event), Diana (a web grrrl), Cheryl (another web grrrl) and Jon (an attorney) were the some of the best, then Nancy, who no longer lives in California anymore, is also one of the best people I met when I lived there who moved away from SoCal. Nancy lives in Germany now. She is one of the best animators I've known, and she writes great short stories about things that have happened in her life that I've read lately. I am hoping she is going to get published. But other than them, most of the people I knew were here today, gone tomorrow, other than Lance's relatives that is.

Lance flew into Seattle the day before Valentine's Day, and we talked, then fell asleep. The next day, my Matron of Honor stopped by so that I could get her the coursage, and picked up the cake. We were going to have the reception at the Maple Leaf Evangelical Church with Pastore Kent presiding over the ceremony. At 4 PM on Valentine's Day, we got married in church, with 28 of my closest friends. Herb, who gave me away, as well as being our wedding photographer (and close friend to both Lance and me). Sol, who lived down the street from me and is a close friend, stood up for Lance. Suzanne, who I'd known for 3 years, was my Matron of Honor (and has disappeared from our lives). Peggy, Lois, Sarah, and many others came to share our special day. The next day, we loaded up the van with my 2-bedroom apartment worth of furnishings and personal things, as well as my daughter, Alley (who's in college now), and my Persian cat, Miss Lacey (who's still with us). Alley and Lance are good friends, and whenever he's in the area for a seminar or business, he and she have lunch or dinner, or just talk.

Alley (19 yo) is seeing Tristan (21 yo), who is also in college (a Philosophy/Business Admin double major) and they've been seeing each other for almost a year. However, when she first moved to Seattle to live with her dad when she was 15, she knew him as a friend after she started school there. I'm happy that they were friends before they had a relationship. Too many people just jump into relationships before they really know who the people they're dating are. Heaven knows I've done that also, but I learned that if you don't really know a person, it doesn't always work out, hence the guy who lied to me over and over throughout our relationship about his height/weight, then about being friends with someone whom he was really sleeping with. But I am happy for her...and for Tristan. I met him not too long ago and really liked him, so I'm hoping it will work out for the two of them. They're both pretty young (19 and 21), but so far, it seems solid, so who knows.

Regarding the pain I mentioned earlier, I take 3 different medications to keep the pain at a level 7-8, I exersize (strength, flexibility, yoga, and aerobics), I have my animals and my hobbies, which all help to keep me participating in life. Lance married me despite the pain because he knew that I was fighting to have a life, and would continue to do so. He has more courage and is more honest than 95% of the men I've dated or known, including my father (who's a selfish, passive-aggressive, negligent schmuck). Lance helps me a lot when I have bad pain...brings me cold packs and/or hot packs, liquids to drink, crackers to help keep meds down, blankets and hugs, though most times, I just want to be left alone with the pain. He checks on me when I feel like that though, which is nice in itself. He's a good man. I know we'll be married for at least 50 years, and then if we make it that far and decide to stay together, we'll renew our vows for another 50 years. Both of our families' live long lives. At any rate, I work hard to keep the pain down as much as I can, and if it weren't for all the things I do to keep it down, I probably would be in bed all the time. It's hard, but it's worth it if it means I have a happy and healthy life.

Well, enough of my history, health and personal, so I'll close for now.

Take care and know that you are hugged.

Jet