A Visit to the Cardiologist

I had an abnormal EKG - again - and my husband had tachycardia and was in the emergency room a week ago. So I made a non emergency appointment for myself on Wednesday using ZocDoc, and my husband made a semi urgent appointment by phone for Monday. We left early enough to make our way to the CardioCare office located downtown and arrived a little early. From the beginning to the end of the visit, it was a very pleasant experience. We were immediately put in to a room - no waiting in the wait room. The office itself was very sterile - but in a welcoming and clean way. It would be better described as very sleek and modern. I then asked if it would be at all possible if I could be seen today rather than having to come back on Wednesday - fully prepared to be told “no” given the typical Washington response we get. But that was not the case. We each sat comfortably in the chairs adjoining the exam room and completed our information on line using an iPad of sorts. Dr. Sanai is everything my husband was when he practiced medicine - warm, light hearted, and extremely confident. He has a way about him that few people do.  And every word was transcribed on to the laptop during the interview. All I can say is we were extremely pleased with the total experience - including the staff that fitted my husband with a modern day halter monitor. We would highly recommend Dr. Sanai to anyone with a cardiac issue. It makes us feel good to know there are really nice and competent physicians in Washington. It felt like we were back in Milwaukee with our close friends and colleagues. Aside from the typically annoying downtown garage parking, it couldn’t have been any better. 

German Shepherd Tie Sold on Zazzle

I have several websites to showcase my digital art. I just sent and received an “acceptance” letter to open a Merch by Amazon shop and spent a lot of time getting my images converted to their specifications. And I am happy to say I sold my first t shirt on Amazon to an American Eskimo dog fan. This morning I received an email from Zazzle that a German Shepherd tie was sold to someone in Germany. What’s even more interesting is that a German Shepherd tie was sold to another person in another city in Germany not that long ago. Then I looked back to see who buys my products. Half of them are to international customers - United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, and France. What I find stunning is that anything I add to my websites can literally be found anywhere on the planet - not something that would have happened even ten years ago. It’s not like I get huge royalties on any of these things, but it’s gratifying to know that out of the literally millions of images and products out there, someone likes whatever I painted enough to want to purchase the image or share it with someone they care about. It’s practically a full time job managing and updating all these websites. So whenever I get a notice that someone purchased one of them, it’s really a nice feeling. 

LITs Pooches, Kitties and Other Sweet Faces on Merch by Amazon

A couple of weeks back I opened a Merch by Amazon shop. I named it LITs Pooches, Kitties and Other Sweet Faces. I have always wanted to sell my digital art work on Amazon, and this seemed to be the best way - on T shirts. It took awhile to configure my artwork in the accepted format because I use my iPad for everything rather than a desktop with art software. They do encourage you to buy your renderings before actually making the selections “public” to ensure that you are happy with the quality of the product. I didn’t do that, but since I needed a few T-shirt’s to wear around the house, I decided to order a few in different sizes and colors after they were officially launched. And, I get them at a discount because I am buying from my own site. Anyway, I ordered two in size men’s medium and one in women’s size medium and one women’s size large. The colors were pink, white, silver and yellow with my favorite three dogs and one cat. I was very pleased with how the digital art printed on the shirts. So I have two more in the queue - extra large men’s size for sleepwear in olive and brown. One is a sketch to portrait rendering and the other is a bulldog. So I am very happy with the product and am hoping that a person with a unique style looking for wearable art finds my shop. If not, I am very pleased getting this far! 

Horse Pills

I am the worst pill taker. Even as a kid I had to have orange juice to take anything. And that practice continues to this day. I still marvel at people who can pop a pill without so much as a sip of water. So for someone who is taking some very hefty calcium pills to help prevent osteoporosis and even heftier looking fish oil pills to help with high triglycerides, it can be daunting. Add to that the high blood pressure pills and water pills and hormone pills and prophylactic aspirin. I used to think it was unusual when I saw all my mom’s pill containers in the zip lock bag when she came to visit. Now I do the same thing. One of the ways I have approached this pill taking dilemma is to make it more palatable by having the pills with a meal instead of in the morning or evening. So when I went for an annual check up this week, of course my triglycerides are higher and the bone density osteoporosis test was not as good as the previous one. So instead of two fish oil horse pills, I need to take four; because the vitamin D level was a little lower, I need to take more; and because the bone density wasn’t as good, add another calcium pill. I know things could be a LOT worse, and I have nothing to complain about. I just find it ironic that I get stuck with so many horse pills. 

SanDisk iExpand Thumb Drive for iPhone and iPad

A couple of weeks ago I got a new iphone 8 Plus and my husband inherited my iPhone 6 Plus. I don’t know what the guy did at the apple store, but he messed up the photo stream on my old phone. So now the photos my husband takes on my old phone don’t auto transfer to my iPad. And iCloud still remains a mystery to me. On top of that we now have three old phones that have accumulated years of photos that I need to save somewhere. A lot of the photos are garbage - I use them to write my daily blog and also store all my digital art. Anything from my blog is already preserved on google anyway! But the family and trip photos are definitely worth saving! So I finally came upon the idea to store them all on a thumb drive and began searching for some options. I came across the SanDisk thumbdrive. It has a flash connection to the iPhone and iPad. So I ordered one with a lot of storage. In the meantime I uploaded all the photos from the three old phones to my laptop. When I got the thumbdrive yesterday from Amazon, I copied all the thousands of photos to the thumbdrive. The whole thing went very quickly! When I connected the thumbdrive to my iPad it took me to the SanDisk app and I was able to see all the thousands of photos and videos with ease. Since our current phones are in good working order I didn’t copy those photos from those devices - yet. I first need to get on my husbands old laptop and see if I need to save any important photos from there to the thumb drive. There are many uses for the thumb drive - it’s a way to save space on your device too. After I get everything copied over I need to really clean up the junk that is there. But for the first time I finally feel like I found a way to preserve our photos. It feels like a weight had been taken off my neck! Now maybe I can eliminate the monthly payment for additional iCloud storage. I don’t seem to be using it. Then I’ll need to tackle all the digital art on my iPad. I have a feeling I’ll need to order another thumb drive. 

SanDisk iExpand Thumb Drive for iPhone and iPad

A couple of weeks ago I got a new iphone 8 Plus and my husband inherited my iPhone 6 Plus. I don’t know what the guy did at the apple store, but he messed up the photo stream on my old phone. So now the photos my husband takes on my old phone don’t auto transfer to my iPad. And iCloud still remains a mystery to me. On top of that we now have three old phones that have accumulated years of photos that I need to save somewhere. A lot of the photos are garbage - I use them to write my daily blog and also store all my digital art. Anything from my blog is already preserved on google anyway! But the family and trip photos are definitely worth saving! So I finally came upon the idea to store them all on a thumb drive and began searching for some options. I came across the SanDisk thumbdrive. It has a flash connection to the iPhone and iPad. So I ordered one with a lot of storage. In the meantime I uploaded all the photos from the three old phones to my laptop. When I got the thumbdrive yesterday from Amazon, I copied all the thousands of photos to the thumbdrive. The whole thing went very quickly! When I connected the thumbdrive to my iPad it took me to the SanDisk app and I was able to see all the thousands of photos and videos with ease. Since our current phones are in good working order I didn’t copy those photos from those devices - yet. I first need to get on my husbands old laptop and see if I need to save any important photos from there to the thumb drive. There are many uses for the thumb drive - it’s a way to save space on your device too. After I get everything copied over I need to really clean up the junk that is there. But for the first time I finally feel like I found a way to preserve our photos. It feels like a weight had been taken off my neck! Now maybe I can eliminate the monthly payment for additional iCloud storage. I don’t seem to be using it. Then I’ll need to tackle all the digital art on my iPad. I have a feeling I’ll need to order another thumb drive. 

LITs Pooches, Kitties and Other Sweet Faces on Merch by Amazon - First Sale!

I have wanted to sell something on Amazon handmade for a long time but they don’t do custom pet portraits. So when I heard about Merch by Amazon, that was the next best thing. So I requested an invitation and was accepted. The hard part was getting all my digital art images changed to png rather than jpeg files so the backgrounds were transparent to meet all the specifications. Since I do everything on my iPad instead of photoshop or other platforms, it was even more difficult to figure out. So after a lot of workarounds, I was happy to finally get my first ten images loaded. Then I followed the steps of the process including selecting T-shirt colors, and creating appropriate verbiage. I named the shop LITs Pooches, Kitties and Other Sweet Faces. Most websites I have products on send an email when something sells. It was by chance that I happened to check my Merch dashboard and saw that the American Eskimo pooch T-shirt was sold! It’s so exciting to know someone liked my image so much to buy a product. I’m hoping they like it enough that they leave some kind words and a nice rating! It’s certainly not the royalty I make off any of these items. I really enjoy just fiddling around on different websites and getting an occasional hit. So thanks so much to the person who noticed my shop - I really appreciate it! Now I can upload a few more pooch, kittie and other sweet face images. 

Sibley Emergency Room

When we lived in the Midwest both my husband and I were comfortable knowing all the health care facilities and care givers. It made a bad situation so much easier. But when we moved to DC, nobody knows my husband was a surgeon, and I was a nurse. And it is hell getting around this town for whatever appointment you make. And depending on the time of day, it can be even worse. So when my husband was having sustained tachycardia, we knew he needed to get evaluated - the urgent care center wouldn’t do. So the emergency room at Sibley is our hospital of choice. We both dislike the huge medical centers that are closer to us. Sibley is a lot like the neighborhood hospital we liked. Going to any emergency room is a long and drawn out process but we have generally had good experience with Sibley. We were in and out within five hours, and luckily it was not a traumatic event. At least we are familiar with this type of environment and understand what is going on. Any time this sort of thing happens makes one pause about everything around you. It’s tough being on the other side of the bed.