Busy, Busy Girl!

My head is spinning. I've been writing Elance articles just about non-stop for three days. Lots of different topics: medical tourism, design studio trumpeting, and finishing off the doctor's biography, which has really been fascinating! The doctor was 13 when Saigon fell and he and his family were among the "boat people" that the 7th fleet fished out of the water and brought to Guam, and thence to America in 1975. The funny thing is that he's so humble, he didn't think he had much of a story to tell... HAH! How does one go from being a teenage immigrant refugee to being an MD? He says he sort of "fell" into the profession after a couple of false starts. He thought he wanted to be something else a couple of times... but God had other plans for him! It's an amazing story and I was honored to be able to bring it to light.

Oh! And talk about putting cream on the coffee! He's getting married this Friday and Saturday (a Viet wedding on Friday, a Christian wedding at a church on Saturday) and it turns out that his bride-to-be is a huge, lifelong STAR TREK fan! He found out I'm a former DeForest Kelley fan and friend (while we were comparing and contrasting our life stories) and he's going to order the hardbound version of my book for his lovely new wife for Christmas! I've already mailed him a hand-written, personalized inscription (on a sticker) for him to insert into the book before wrapping it for her for Christmas. He says she's going to be thrilled.

Then today I got an assignment to reformat an interview into an article about a woman whose medical condition (spine) was deteriorating so rapidly that she was told she would have to undergo a complete spinal fusion. After trying out what life would be like with spinal fusion for six weeks (she was strapped into a full body cast 22 hours a day), she became desperate and started looking for spinal fusion alternatives on the Internet and found a German hospital that had been doing amazing things with artificial disc replacements for twenty years. She went for it. Her story is fascinating. And I get the honor of being paid to bring it to the attention of the general public!

It's all good!

Casey's birthday party on Saturday and her dinner on Sunday were well attended. I gave her all the aforementioned "writer stuff" that I wrote about several or more blogs ago, and she was thrilled.

Tomorrow Jackie and I will be at Casey's home again because her mom and dad host Thanksgiving at their place. It's a big place and multiple families show up for the afternoon. I've printed off a couple of holiday-appropriate quizzes from the Internet and will foist them off on the adults tomorrow afternoon at some time and see who knows the most about turkeys and Thanksgiving. It ought to be good.

Last night I sat on my bed and made some home made Christmas cards. The problem is, they're so pretty I don't think I'm going to be able to part with them!

They were super easy to make. I bought Christmas-related card making supplies at Wal-Mart and just cut some squares with fancy serrated scissors and glued them to a folded card and then glued the pre-made presents, trees, wreaths, angels and the like to the front of the cards. Then I took the scraps with serrated edges and slapped some glue on the back of them and laid them around the pre-made goodies. Instant Martha Stewart-looking results. It was embarrassingly simple. And I love them. And I have to wean myself from them so I can let them go at some point.

Now you know why I don't allow fecund cats, dogs or guinea pigs to come under my roof (everything's neutered!): I can't even part with freakin' hand-made greeting cards! Before a year was out, my place would resemble Noah's Ark!

It's a sickness, I tell ya!