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The Joy & The Pain

It’s 3a.m. and I’m overclocked. If you’re not up on Geek-Speak, the clock rate of a computer is essentially the speed at which a computer performs its most basic operations. Overclock means “to speed up a computer beyond the manufacturer’s specifications in order to make it run faster – the motherboard and CPU may or may not be able to handle the increased speed.”

In human terms, I’m constantly running faster than my motherboard brain and CPU body are meant to by my Maker, especially with the handicap of chronic thoracic pain and fibromyalgia. Sometimes I can handle the increased speed, but more often than not, there’s a price to pay for being overclocked.

But I digress.

I had half a dozen titles running through my head for this entry, like “The Agony and the Ecstasy”, “My Cup Runneth Over”, and “Family Fun.” We’ve been having such a great time visiting with Richard, Chrystie and Ellie. With them living in the far north these days, we don’t get to visit near as often as we’d like to, so what time we get is extra precious.

And speaking of extra precious… one word: Ellie. Grandma has been having such fun playing with the cutest little girl in the universe (and any parallel universes there might be too!). We went Trick-or-Treating, we’ve watched “La La” – otherwise known as Ariel of The Little Mermaid, and we’ve played a whole lot of “dress up.” We’ve got our live babydoll working as Super Model, and getting pictures taken for Ellie’s 2008 calendar.

Yesterday morning we got pictures of Ellie as a clown,

a princess,

and dressed up in a little red velvet dress for a Christmas picture. Yesterday evening we got shots of her in bib overalls in a harvest type setting, in a cart, and on Grandpa’s tractor. We also bought a cute little Halloween outfit on sale yesterday, and took a picture of Ellie with some pumpkins.

We tried for one of Ellie in one end of a wagon and the sheep eating grain from the other end, but that was a disaster. Even our little sheep are 3 or 4 times Ellie’s size, and she took one look at the sheep and started crying. Daddy had to rescue her while Grandma put the sheep away.

Uncle Geek (otherwise known as Jonathan) was an invaluable assistant yesterday afternoon, contributing ideas, helping to set up our backgrounds, and carting me around to find pumpkins and such. And of course Ellie’s valet, aka “Dad”, helped us keep Ellie smiling!

Later this morning, we hope to get pictures of Ellie as a Care Bear, and in a monkey suit (NOT a suit suit, but the furry little brown animal variety).

Then the pain part – time for the visit to end, and they’ll be flying off to Orlando to meet up with Chrystie’s family and their vacation time at Disney World. (I think I’m a little jealous.) Grandma will be left with a mostly empty nest again, cleaning up the mess I made all over the house dragging stuff out for picture props, and dealing with my greatly protesting body which is saying, “WHAT were you thinking!??? WHAT have you done!???” and “PAYBACK IS HERE!”

That’s okay. I knew I’d have to pay to play. It’s worth it.

1 comments:

The next year's calendar is off to a great start. These pics are good. What kind of camera do you have? RR