Day 2263

I fixed myself French Toast and sausage patties for breakfast, but I think I overestimated the effect that a little infusion of variety would have on my day. Today was basically exactly the same as yesterday. I made the bed. I cleaned up poop. I took a dog to the vet. I wrote another article. That was about it. Since it was Thursday, I also gathered up the trash and took it out to the curb.

I could tell that Dot has lost a little more energy when we had our water therapy session this morning. The decline has been subtle since we resumed her chemotherapy, but there definitely is a difference. It's going to be tough to decide whether to keep taking the Palladia pills or discontinue them again. I guess it depends on whether they are actually helping to slow the cancer growth. We will probably continue the pills until it's time to take another scan and measure the two tumors again. Since we have already established a baseline rate of growth, it should be possible to determine whether the addition of Palladia helps or does nothing. If the chemotherapy is working, we continue it. If the results are ambiguous, as they often are when you're dealing with cancer, we'll discontinue the Palladia. Dot is running on empty when it comes to her strength and energy level, but she still wants to live. Hopefully, with the help of Dot's oncologist, we can strike a balance that will keep her walking while continuing to fight the cancer. It's hard to make these kind of decisions, but it's not really fair to ignore them.

I read an article today that said there are a growing number of people making six figure incomes by posting pictures on Instagram and Pinterest. Evidently all you have to do is get 200,000 followers and post a continuous stream of selfies. When you develop a following, manufacturers will pay you to take selfies with their products. Somehow, all the success stories seem to involve young women taking pictures of purses and shoes. I doubt very highly that any men are making $100,000 a year on Pinterest.  I find this all a bit disheartening. I feel like Don Quixote by spending hours each day writing this blog for a few dozen readers. It's all tilting windmills.

I find myself losing interest in food. I hope this is temporary. Looking forward to meals is one of the few things that has kept me going this Winter. Most of my energy is used up taking care of the dogs and it's hard to get excited about anything else. This is when I should be writing new songs and assembling images for a gallery show. It's not going to happen though. I've just lost interest.

I am interested in going out for breakfast tomorrow. This is a good sign, since it means that my stomach has finally quit rebelling and my extended bout with the flu is just about over. I'll probably go vote after breakfast. Don't ask me who I'm voting for though. I think the old rule about no talk about politics or religion at the dinner table should extend to social media. I wish I didn't know who many of you are voting for. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. 

Cookie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 972

So far this month I've had four different clients tell me that I'll get paid a bit late this month because the boss left for vacation with a bunch of unsigned checks on his desk. This happens every August. Sometimes, I go on vacation myself, because everyone else is already gone. August is always the month with the highest electric and water bills and the least amount of money coming in. At least there's September. September's usually pretty good.

I finally reached the payout threshold on Google Adwords again. It took a while. Hey, if I could live on $100 a year, I'd be all set. Maybe you guys are getting rich, but so far, I haven't discovered the secret to making money online. I saw an article the other day that said "most people don't like to buy things on the Internet, they like to join things instead." So true. Almost every day I get one of those "join my cause" messages on Facebook. I never dreamed there were so many causes out there. Nobody is buying my Instagram pictures yet, but they sure are re-pinning them on Pinterest. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I'm the same way. Things are much more interesting when they're free.

I got a request this morning to put a picture of an award that one of my clients had won on their website. Of course, the client failed to attach the picture of the award to their e-mail. A few years ago I would have wasted half the day sending e-mails back and forth trying to get them to send me the right picture. Today, I just spent ten minutes making something that looked like the award in Photoshop and stuck it on the site. I'm tired of making mountains out of molehills. Hey, I specialize in molehills. I can make a nice looking molehill with no input whatsoever.

Dash's bath didn't last long. I caught him out in the backyard this afternoon digging a big hole which he subsequently took a nap in. Our new grass was supposed to prevent all this, but it's August and the grass is already dying.

Emma is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 970

I'm trying to eat more fruit. I've acquired a taste for mangoes lately and thought I'd buy a few while I was at the grocery store. Instead of doing the sensible thing and buying whole mangoes, I got a box of mangoes that had already been sliced. "How do you tell if these are any good," a guy next to me asked. "These look good," I said. "They're all nice and yellow." Shows what I know about picking fruit. When I got the mangoes home, they were as hard as raw carrots. I guess they weren't ripe yet, because they sure didn't taste like the exotic looking peaches I thought I was buying. This is the problem with buying fruit. I can never tell when fruits and vegetables are ripe. It's much easier to buy cheese, or frozen pizza, or chocolate.  Janet will probably come home with a nice ripe mango and ask me why I bought these.

I didn't get nearly as much done as I thought I would today. I get easily sidetracked by trivial things and this morning when I turned on the computer, I noticed that the favicon on my website was gone. Favicons are those little 16x16 pixel square images you see on the menu bar when you bookmark a website in a browser. It doesn't even matter whether your website has a favicon or not, but I was determined to figure out where mine went. I looked at the HTML code. I tried uploading a new favicon icon to the server. I looked on Google for alternate ways to code the favicon script. Nothing worked. I finally decided that my ISP must have just turned off favicon support on the Apache web server. I put my little favicon icon on a different server that I had access to and referenced the URL back to my landing page. Everything works now. Time spent on this worthless endeavor: three hours.

I also opened up a Pinterest account and began pinning all my Instagram pictures. I never really liked Pinterest before, but when I discovered how easy it was to take the pictures that are for sale in my InstaCanvas Gallery and pin them on a Pinterest board, I was all in. I've got so many apps connected to other apps now that I never know what's going to turn up on Facebook or Twitter. I still write the blog by hand each and every evening, but everything else you see online is more or less automated.

I think the dogs are going to get a bath tomorrow. They've gotten themselves so dirty that they feel sticky when you pet them. Dash is the dirtiest. I have a feeling that a few of his spots are just dirt and are going to wash off when he gets his bath tomorrow. We'll go to the dog park first. Giving dog a bath before you take them to a dog park would be pointless.

Hannah is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 805

I just found out that if you call FedEx in advance, they'll hold your package at the nearest Fedex facility instead of putting it on the truck. I wish I'd known about this earlier. I've wasted entire days waiting for the FedEx guy to come, just so I could sign the little electronic "signature required" form. I started requesting "signature required" after FedEx started leaving packages with a neighbor who never bothered to tell me that he was holding them for me. At any rate, spending five minutes driving up to the Fedex facility vs waiting an entire day for the truck to arrive is a no-brainer. I may never have them put anything on the truck again.

I've been hearing so much about Pinterest lately that I've been thinking about setting up an account and then using it to drive more traffic to my site. Well, maybe that's not such a good idea. I just read the Terms of Service and discovered that if you pin your own original material on Pinterest, you are essentially giving them unlimited rights to do whatever they want with it. According to the Terms of Service agreement, Pinterest can re-purpose, edit and even sell your content. No thank you. I don't think I'll be putting any stories or photos on Pinterest.

I got a cool little USB Flash drive in the shape of a wristband from Klout today. It's probably the last perk I'll ever get though. My score has been dropping like a stone. That's the trouble with social media. It demands continuous attention. To avoid actually talking to anyone, I've linked virtually every story, photo, and song I've ever created to my Twitter account. I'm running out of new stuff to Tweet though. The original content is drying up and I'm discovering that nobody will re-Tweet something they've seen five times already. Maybe I could just start chit-chatting like everyone else to keep my numbers up. That's not me though. I'd much rather put notes in bottles and throw them out to sea than actually participate in a conversation with someone.

I don't have that much time to talk anyway. Just writing a few articles and running a couple of necessary errands used all my time today. At least I can cross a few things off my list. The big poster that I've been afraid the dogs would wrinkle or damage has been safely delivered to my veterinarian client. A new employee photo shoot has been scheduled with my doctor client. Another round of prescriptions have been picked up from the pharmacy and the dogs have had their dinner. I'll start tomorrow by going to the FedEx office.

Connor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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