My 
old friend, Tina, passed away on March 14, 2011. She had lung cancer. She was 57 years old, two years younger than me. Today would have been her 58th birthday.
This photo was taken at my house Christmas 1992; we were closer then.
I think of her every day, and thought I would post this video of “My Old Friend,” by Tim McGraw: Continue reading »
I lived in Knoxville for over a year before I ever went downtown. When my sister and my oldest son came to visit in April, we made it a point to explore downtown Knoxville.
We drove around downtown, stopping at the sphere, and then we strolled through Market Square. We wanted to have lunch in one of the local restaurants, but it was a madhouse with over an hour wait in every place we tried. We stopped at O’Charley’s on the way home, which was really good.
My sister went back the next day and took some really nice photographs of downtown Knoxville. Here are some of the photos:
We lived through many, many hurricanes over the years. My family moved to Fort Lauderdale in June 1964, just a couple of months before our first Florida hurricane, Cleo (Cat 3, 8/20/64 to 9/5/64). I think she was a Cat 2 when it made landfall, strong enough to do a lot of damage. I saw the aluminum roof peel off the carport across the street and fly away. I was 12 at the time, and it really freaked me out.
My firsthand experience with a catastrophic hurricane came in August 1992 with Hurricane Andrew (Cat 5, 8/16/92 to 8/28/92). This hurricane hit landfall in Miami, just 25 miles south of us. That was too close for comfort for us in Fort Lauderdale.
Anyway, jump ahead to 2004. In 2004, there were 9 hurricanes that formed in the Atlantic. The hurricanes that affected us (directly or indirectly) were Hurricanes Charley (8/9/04 to 8/15/04, Frances (Cat 4, 8/24/04 to 9/10/04), Ivan (Cat 5, 9/2/04 to 9/4/04), and Jeanne (Cat 3, 9/13/04 to 9/28/04).
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I have tinnitus – ringing in the ears. It’s annoying but I’ve learned to live with it for the past 2-1/2 years.
What is Tinnitus?
: tin·ni·tus
: Tinnitus Pronunciation:
: noun \ˈti-nə-təs, tə-ˈnī-təs\
: Definition of TINNITUS
: a sensation of noise (as a ringing or roaring) that is caused by a bodily condition (as a disturbance of the auditory nerve or wax in the ear) and typically is of the subjective form which can only be heard by the one affected.
I don’t mention it very often, and it’s hard to explain what it’s like to have tinnitus. I just tell people that it is a constant hissing that never stops. The only time that I don’t notice it is when I take a shower or when the outside hose was running. The sound of the running water washes out the hissing sound (pun intended).
It doesn’t stop me from going to sleep, but it might be why I sometimes wake during the night. Well, that and the fact that I have to go to the bathroom. I don’t dream of hissing sounds, so when I’m sleeping is the only time that I don’t hear it at all. So, the question is, “If I’m asleep and don’t hear it, is the hissing still there?” It reminds me of the riddle, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” I’m sure that it does.
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Now, 
if you recall my story about Ibis, the scaredy cat, you would think that he must be a little bit of a thing, too afraid of everyone. Well, he’s not. He is almost 14 years old and weighs at least 17 pounds (the last weigh-in at the vet, and he’s probably gained more since then). The vet wanted me to put him on a diet. She said to feed him 1/2 cup of dry food a day. LOL! No way! The first day, I filled his bowl with 1/2 cup and in no time he was crying for more. All day long. That first night, I figured, okay, I’ll split it up. So, I gave him 1/4 cup to last through the night. Nope! He lay outside the bedroom door, and started mewing around 3 AM.
So, I try not to feed him too much, but he continues to get fatter and fatter. 
My son just came back from a month long trip with his cousins (my niece and her kids, who are closer to his age because I gave birth to him when I was 42). His older brother is 18 years older than him. Anyway, I digress and that’s a whole ‘nother story. So, when Patrick came back from his month-long trip (by the way, this was the first time that he was away from us for more than a day or two), he took one look at Ibis and said, “Has Ibis gotten fatter?.” I said, “Nah, you just forgot how big he is.” He said, “No, I don’t think so, he’s definitely fatter.”
Remember 
when I told the story of Ibis, my cat, and the thunderstorm that came through here yesterday? Well, little did we know that there was a whole lot of excitement to come from that.
It was late, around midnight or so, and I was watching TV. I thought I smelled smoke, but it wasn’t very strong and I thought maybe it was just the smell of the burner where I had just been cooking up some chicken for tomorrow. The burner was turned off, but I thought maybe the smell was lingering a bit.
Then, my son Patrick, 17, came down to say, “Mom, do you know that there’s two fire trucks outside?” Continue reading »
So, while it was thundering and lightning, and the lights flickering 
yesterday afternoon, I went ahead and created the directory on my server to put my blog in. It’s in a subdomain for now.
Then, I downloaded WordPress and installed it. This may seem daunting for some, and it did for me the first two, three, four times I installed other WordPress blogs. Well, it still is, but I plunged ahead, anyway. Installs, or updates especially, don’t always go so smoothly. Then, finding a theme to use and setting it up is an even more hair-pulling experience. But I love this part, and I can spend hours learning about all the features of a theme, and I have. I’m probably going on eight hours work just to get this far, and I hadn’t posted anything, yet!
There’s layouts and colors and widgets, oh my! Of course, I couldn’t choose something simple, that’s just not me. I had to choose the theme that has, are you ready for this? Continue reading »
You know, I thought I was being cute when I chose the name of my blog. I tried to find something that rhymed, or at least had a nice ring to it. Maybe I should make the blog title “Susan’s Musin’s”, that would rhyme better than Susan’s Musings, don’t you think?
After deciding on a blog name, creating a sub-directory, and installing WordPress, it occurred to me to Google my blog name, “Susan’s Musings”. Would you believe there are over 5,600 exact matches that came up in the search results? So much for being original. Oh, well, there are lots of Susans out there and I hope they won’t be upset over one more. I am not changing it now. Continue reading »
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