Holy crap buckets, Batman, it's already July!

My life is so crazy lately, I feel like a pinball banging around the 100 POINTS! bumpers with all of the dings, whistles, and pops that go with it.

I'm working on three different novels - yes, one's the next Dubric book - and have been writing daily again. ENDORPHINS is going to appear in an anthology titled BLACKBIRDS (pretty sure it comes out later this year but I'm not 100% positive). SID will be the lead fiction short in the opening of a new lit/art/music/etc webhub next year (I'll post more details when I can). I've been contacted about the possibility of doing a screenplay version of SPORE (I'm still considering the idea and need to make time to discuss the particulars with my agent once conference season settles down) even though the book hasn't sold yet. I've ALSO entered discussions with an independent small publisher about various things (yet another matter to discuss w/ my agent when we both have time). That's about it for writing, but holycrapbuckets! Nothing on my radar for years then in a less-than-48 hour span my writing life explodes. After all of that, I'm off to talk to the Two Rivers Romance Authors on the 19th. Yay!

My faithful sewing machine started acting up last October and stopped being able to straight stitch last month. My husband and friends pretty much made me buy a new one, not that I resisted. Much. I am generally, well, cheap. At least if you define 'cheap' as reluctant to spend substantial sums of money. But I narrowed my choices to two different machines and decided to open up the checkbook and buy one. It's... wow. I've been sewing for about twenty five years now, and it's quite a few steps above where I am, skill wise, but I'm learning. It's also whisper quiet (so I can sew while everyone else goes to bed) and happily sews through whatever crazy thing I try to shove through it. I'm a happy quilter.

My new machine.
I think it can calculate orbit trajectories in its spare time.

So I've been scrambling to get caught up on all of the projects and quilts that have piled up since last fall. There are a LOT. Oy. I'm staggered by the amount of work staring out from my fabric closet. One thing is a dinky dresden quilt I'd started last year, in blues, greens, and yellows.

That's a regular U.S. quarter there on the left
to give a sense of size of these teensy things.

There will be 320 itsy, bitsy wedges. I have them about half sewn and pressed, just not put together in arcs and circles yet, and still have half yet to sew and press so they're pointy. Been burning my fingers a lot, but it's MARVELOUS to sew again!

Then there are the medical issues. Nothing's exceptionally serious, but I will be having two separate elective surgeries in the near future. One to remove a troublesome cyst, the other to clear a path through a blockage in my sinuses. Whee! Doctor visits galore! Btw, getting a CT scan of my head and seeing all the internal bits was oh so cool! Plus I'm babysitting my supremely awesome 2-1/2 year old granddaughter most days while our daughter works, and trying to diet and exercise (I am failing so terribly at that!), and generally run, manage, and clean the house (insert more laughter here) and other life stuff, including our local community's festival the weekend before last (I made popcorn for two days straight) and my 50th birthday party the weekend before that, plus off to Des Moines for 4th of July last weekend, then there's the upcoming fun-run and fireman's ball (guess who's selling raffle tickets and t-shirts again this year?) and, well, LIFE.

There's nothing bad, just lots of it. :) Have a great week, everyone!

Forward thinking

I never know how to start posts like this, mostly because my brain is going forty seven directions at once, yet stuck in the same place.

It's weird how life is like that, everything's always changing yet it always seems to stay the same.

Anyway, let's start with the books.

Two novels (SPORE and MORGAN'S RUN) are out of my hands and seeking the next stopping point on their journey to publication. I currently have no idea when, where, how, or any other details. It's just a whole lot of waiting. Waiting's tough. Having no news while waiting is tougher. But we writers just have to stick it out because that's the job. People keep asking me when they can get the books, and I have to shrug and admit I have no flipping clue. As soon as I know, you'll know.

I'm struggling with SLIPPAGE, the book I intend to follow SPORE with (it, too, is a speculative thriller, in no story-line way related to SPORE, but I am gonna stick in a very slight connection between the two - Go Ghoulie! ;) ). It's crazy, how stuck I am, especially since the whole book is laid out and glistening in my head and in my notes. I'm just got getting any drama on the page. Seriously, WTF?!? I always have drama on the page. Another issue is getting the main characters (two kids on the run) to open up with me. Both are closed up tight, not willing to divulge anything to me beyond bare bones story essentials, and I haven't been able to crack them open. Yet.

Since SLIPPAGE isn't going anywhere other than circling around an assassin of sorts named Huey, who is NOT the focus of the book dammit, I've returned to poking Dubric's next novel, STAIN OF CORRUPTION, with a pointy stick.

There are a lot of issues with STAIN, not the least of which is its commercial viability. The original three Dubric novels didn't exactly create new sales records, and, after all this time, I don't think it's likely to sell to a traditional publisher. I could be wrong, yes, but I kinda doubt it. But the fans wants it, precious, but it's gonna be a long, brutal, convoluted, layered kinda book, which will become the pivot point for the second half of the series and I just.... ARRGH.

ARRGH.

Anyway, I've griped talked with a couple of friends about it this past week, and have told them about the big twisty storyline shift in mid book. They've been consistently OMG!! This is, OMG!! So cool! OMG!! Fuck, yeah!! and they've helped me maybe figure out a way to pull off the big shift without cheating (I don't want to cheat, but I don't want to show my whole hand for the plot by the midpoint either) so, anyway, I'm kind of back on it. Again. With new hope I can make the big pivot work.

That's been the sticking point all this time, how can I pull off the pivot that turns the series from a set of murder mysteries (sort of) to political upheaval and war (sort of) while maintaining the integrity of the storyline, characters, world, and all those pesky ghosts and still keep it exciting, honest, and brutal, all while writing essentially two books in two separate times and storylines all at once? Gah! One of my pre-readers currently has what I've written and I'm hoping he'll have some useable feedback on the actual viability of the overall plan. The book's looking like it'll be crazy-long, a real doorstop of a book, and a whole lot of bodies and ghosts will pile up before it's over

I also have a Lars based novella which is about 1/4 done, ish, called Six Sides of Blue where Lars is called to a rural area to investigate the rape of a handicapped girl. I need to get some words in on it this week. No ghosts, no magic, just straight up investigation into some brutality that ends up being bigger than it first seems. Fun, right?

Okay, that's pretty much it in writing related news.

In other matters, I'm back on plan with Weight Watchers, and it's going all right. I'd pretty much fallen off the wagon this past winter and I decided to climb back on a couple of weeks ago. So far so good, but it's a slow, aggravating process. But at least it's working forward again.

Health is okay. I'm getting my troublesome-but-not-dangerous medical issue re-checked in May. Really, really hoping it's improved. *fingers crossed* Stupid mutinous parts! Get back to work and quit screwing with my life!

Here in Northern Iowa, Spring and Winter are battling for dominance and, today at least, Spring seems to be winning. We've had snow the last few days, but today it's wind and sun, so I am thankful. Since Easter is just a few weeks away and I'm helping out at our community's annual Easter Egg Hunt, I really hope Spring takes control. I don't want to be hiding eggs in the snow. ;)

My sewing machine is still acting up so I have done NO SEWING since I sent a couple of quilts out to friends. None. Zippo. It's beginning to feel alarming but I don't know how to fix it. Grr.

I've had some depressive issues, mostly feeling stuck (see books above, and the weight loss stall) but it seems to be lifting.

Marketing is just, blergh. Since I do have two novels out in the world seeking publication, I've been looking at marketing (insert gaggy noises complete with exaggerated facial expressions here). My preferred social media venue (Facebook) is limiting the exposure of business page posts to 1-2% of subscribed readership unless you 'pay to play'. I refuse to do that, so I've opened my personal FB page to friend request from everyone. I am not happy about this since I've had some issues with boundaries, but it seems to be the best option, considering. I've let a few fans in and so far so good. I'm on Twitter, but since I don't have a smart phone and only tweet from my computer I'm not very involved there, plus I am on G+, at least I check it a couple of times a week. And then there are my rare blog posts, which auto-post to Goodreads and Amazon (which also gets my tweets).

Gah, I need a better marketing plan. I am so not good at this stuff.

Pets are all fine, but Puufy is acting a little.... uncomfortable. He's ten years old this year and he's had some medical issues in the past. We're all worried he might be creaking toward the end and it bothers me. I loves my Puufums Baby. All of the cats want Spring, dammit! They keep begging to be let out, go out, decide it's still to freaking cold (and there are no birdies, bunnies, etc to chase anyway) so they want right back in only to want back out again 5 minutes later because, surely, Spring has finally come. Right? The dog, tho, is perfectly content to laze around the house and doesn't want anything to do with outside unless he has to potty. MeowMeow, the cat we rescued last fall, is finally fitting in. Mostly. She gets along great with Puufy, but there are occasional altercations with Abbie and Peanut, mostly because MeowMeow starts them. These altercations, however, have decreased dramatically in frequency and noise level, so we're taking all that as indications she's being accepted into the group.

I'm not a basketball fan (Go Steelers!!) but I've been watching the NCAA tournament some because Iowa State is playing. I almost went to ISU and my niece is currently a student there (plus we shop in and drive through Ames fairly often). So, Go 'Clones!

I'm also rooting for Kentucky, mostly because they were plating Kansas State, and I don't like the Wildcats, so Go Kentucky! Yeah, I'm weird. Other than Iowa State and Kentucky, I apparently don't care at all about March Madness. lol I think they're in different brackets. Maybe they'll play each other?? That'd be cool and give me more good reasons to cuss at the TV.

Bill has remodeling on his mind, which is awesome, but we can't agree on what to do to streamline the house, which is not awesome. We'd like rearrange the plumbing, get a better kitchen (while my kitchen is lovely, it's not very cooking-friendly workspace and layout wise) and a downstairs bedroom/bath. Plus no ceiling on the upstairs-stairs. All without doing a massive gut job of our delightful old Victorian farmhouse or spending a crap-ton of money on a 2-story addition. Is that too much to ask?!? Is it? I mean, really! Geesh! :p

Bill wants a second floor addition over the back end of our existing kitchen, so he can move the bathroom and get rid of the 'landing' over the lower part of the upstairs stairs, plus straighten the stairs, and simplify the household plumbing and stack. I want a lower level addition so we can move the kitchen and get the bedroom/bath. But if we do the 2-story addition it'll free up all kinds of space to do stuff and we can basically rearrange everything, but we'd end up with 5 or 6 bedrooms and make the house about 3,200 sq. feet (which is insane, we really don't need that much space for the four of us) so it's been a mental exercise in floorplans, cost issues, how to change the basement to accommodate all the support/plumbing/electrical/etc, how do we even get TO the basement with each plan, and what the hell are we gonna do with SIX Bedrooms?!?

I have to disclose here that Bill and I utterly LOVE remodeling. We'd essentially gutted and re-built our previous 2 houses by ourselves (well, we did hire out the furnace work at the previous place, but that's about it) so we're both finding this wonderfully aggravating and, frankly, encouraging. It's a GOOD sign we're talking about this stuff, even if our house is pretty much awesome just as it is. We'd both been feeling stuck for a long time, no idea what to do to move forward again, to hope again, and we are. Finally. We've even done some rearranging within the existing house, have ordered new living room furniture (it'll be here in about 2 weeks! YAY!!) and are making plans for stuff to do later this year.

I am so, so happy with all of this, now if I could just get one of the books to click together (or one of the finished books to sell!), everything would be golden! Have a happy Spring, everyone and many, many {{hugs}}

Everything is Clutterin'

Like a lot of people, I have a tendency to accumulate clutter. For me, the main culprit is paper.

I print out recipes, writing tips, cute sayings, quilt patterns, all kinds of things. I save magazines, newspaper articles and birthday cards. I'm a sucker for office supplies, catalogs, and freebie calendars. In short, papers pile up. Since the papers are piling up, I don't get other things put properly away either. Before I know it, there's a paper and clutter explosion.

Frankly, I'm sick of it.

Cables and office supplies and books and papers, oh my!

We switched the office and living room a couple of weeks ago. I loved having both rooms empty of almost everything but furniture. No extra stuff, no clutter. But to do that, we had to move the extras to the kitchen table, my sewing room, and other places. Since then, the crap has begun creeping back, mostly because we occasionally need to use the kitchen table, etc. Right this moment,  I literally have a long pile of miscellaneous useful-but-rarely-used stuff sitting on the floor behind me with no better place to put it. None. Why? Because its almost entirely clutter.

I'm tired of stepping over it every time I go to my desk. I'm tired of the dog knocking it all over the otherwise clean room whenever he comes running past to see what eeeevil dog is peeing in his front yard.

I have too much paper clutter. I have too many quilting magazines and patterns. I have too many kitchen do-dads, too much fabric, and I'm one more kitten away from officially being a crazy cat lady.

It ends today.

I have some big totes and a deep vat of determination to put my 'rarely used but don't want to part with it' stuff in the totes, all separated and categorized by function. Writing-related books and articles. Fabric. Quilting patterns and such. Kitchen crap. All of my big clutter-monsters. They're going in totes and going in the basement. If I need something out of one of the totes - like my notes and articles on The Hero's Journey, for example - I can go down there, pull out the folder, and get what I need. If I don't need it, it'll stay in the tote. Next year, if it's still in the tote, it's outta here. No exceptions.

If I don't use it on a regular (at least weekly) basis, it's going in a !(@*$^ tote, dammit.

An incredible lightness of leftovers

I have this weird thing about frugality. I don't like to waste anything. I don't waste one thread of fabric I don't have to (it's one reason my quilts are all so scrappy). I don't waste money. And I don't waste food.

Nothing aggravates me more than finding something rotting in the fridge that I could have, should have, used up before it went bad. I can't say I've never thrown anything away - I do, on occasion, have to toss a slimy half-tomato or gushy hunk of cucumber - but I make a point to repurpose extra bits of food as much as possible, and make sure leftovers get eaten.

Today's breakfast was leftover fried rice that I'd cooked Tuesday from leftover chicken, leftover miscellaneous veggies, half an onion I needed to use up, some celery that was starting to edge toward limpness, and the last little smidge of soy sauce in the bottle. Other than the brown rice and a handful of frozen veggies to round it out, the whole batch was repurposing leftovers. And it's yummy, and cheap and, since it's homemade, reasonably healthy.

Last night I made burritos from Monday's leftover taco meat, some tortillas and a jar of salsa. I'll probably have some of them for lunch.

Remaking leftovers is awesome. And nothing goes to waste.

Yup, I'm 47. Not sure if I like it much.

It's my birthday today, and I'd like to say we had a big party and cake and gobs of presents, but that'd be fibbing. I did get to go out to lunch with Bill and Laura (which was nice), and we did a little shopping (also nice), but mostly we went through lists of postal sorting centers to filter out all the upcoming closings and places we really didn't want to relocate too (huge cities, like New York, Chicago, etc, and locations in the southwestern desert because Laura and I both burn like crazy) and then tried to pick our top contenders from what remained

Honestly, not a lot remained. It's shocking and quite worrisome how many postal centers are closing. We had twelve pages of centers, HUNDREDS to start with, and more than half are just gone or soon will be. Where are all their employees going to go? How can so many people relocate? Will they? Since Bill's only been a postal employee 5 years, will he even be able to find a place to relocate to? Hell, will he even have a job after October?

Very scary stuff. Neither of us are good with uncertainty and it's really dragging our psyches down.

Our house has been on the market for 2 weeks and no nibbles yet - not that we expected any this quickly - and we're having an open house tomorrow. Hopefully that will go well.

We really could use some good news.

Implosions

Life has, in its random pain-in-the-butt way, imploded. Hubby is getting 'excised' at work - which means he'll be forcibly transferred who-knows-where who-knows-when - and we're trying to get the house ready for sale. Our community wide yard sale is this weekend, and we're getting ready for that. Plus our daughter has moved back home, adding more stuff to the house and our worries.

Needless to say, I haven't written much. I have, though, decided that the original opening, where Lars and Dien deal with a child rapist, is still the opening, only changed somewhat, with Dien being the POV character in the initial scene, before Lars heads upstairs to talk to the victim.

My sewing room is all packed up and hauled off to storage, the kitchen is in shambles, the bathroom is half gutted, and I have a pile of, well, crap we're trying to get rid of, in my living room. I'm planning on working on Stain tonight, get chapter 3 roughed out at least, because I need to do something besides worry and pack boxes.

Here's hoping we all have a good weekend and this next upcoming week!

M is off to the next stage

My agent loved M and he's sending the book out to editors. I'm nervous and scared and excited, but it's been a great journey. Im pretty confident someone will buy it.

Managed to finish some sewing over the weekend and I've also started cleaning out closets and things for this spring's community yard sale. I'll be working on Stain's narrative starting either this weekend or the first of next week.

Starting with a clean desk

We have too much stuff. There, I said it. And while Bill and I certainly are not shop-a-holics by any measure, we both have 'keep this because we might need it' tendencies along with the ever popular 'I don't know what to do with this, so I'll just put it over here for now' general malaise. These two habits tend to clump in certain places, especially the back end of the bathroom, the entry room closet, and my desk.

Last night, I cleared off my desk and emptied the drawers. Everything except my computer and desk lamp went into a clothes basket and, sitting here looking at it, I can honestly say it's a huge pile of crap. Yep, crap.  I have calendars and address labels and book plates and figurines and my stockpile of vitamins, music, data, and blank CD's, a dictionary, ball cap, tweezers, and I dunno how many miscellaneous papers, receipts, business cards and other papery things. And that's only what's on top of the pile.

It's awful, and it must stop because it's just... Uck!

I have decided that I shall, for one week, root through the pile when there's something I need. If it deserves to stay, I shall find a tidy, logical place to put it. Next Sunday, I'll haul everything else to the garbage can. Then it's the hall closet (most of which will surely end up in the garbage or Goodwill) and after that, the bathroom.

So far, the only items to resurrect themselves from the Laundry Basket of Doom are my eye ointment, mouse pad, and nasal spray. So far so good.

I should have stayed out of the kitchen :/

Most of y'all know that my regular day job is housewifery. I am incredibly lucky and blessed to have a fabulous husband who encourages me to be my creative if somewhat ditzy self (including doing various things that I know he finds outright wacky) and, honestly, he's pretty freaking awesome.

Since he works crappy hours and I adore him so, one of the usually-not-so-ditzy things I do on a daily basis is cook. I like to cook, it's another one of those creative outlets for me, and while I do occasionally talk him into taking me out for a burger or something, I'm making supper pretty much every single day. Have been for years, so one would think that I was fairly accomplished at it. I also bake regularly, cookies and quick breads and pies and things (for some strange reason I'm not compatible with yeast. Dunno why, it just never works right for me, but I've learned to adapt) and it *is* Christmas season. Christmas means I make lots and lots of cookies and other sweet treaty things, mostly because, well, it's what I *do*, and I hand out packages of treats and nummy goodness to pretty much everyone I can get to. So. Tonight. Supper and Christmas baking, which should have been easy squeasy but, for some reason was just about a total fail.

I'm going to link to three recipes just to show you how simple tonight's tasks were, and to encourage you to try cooking these things yourself, because they are usually awesome. And easy. Just not tonight. ;)

It started with the Saltine Toffee. The main ingredients are 2 sticks of butter, some sugar, and saltines. Seriously. This is like the simplest thing on earth to cook. I usually add chocolate chips or ground pecans when it's heading to the oven. Super duper easy. And I make it a LOT. It gets gobbled up like crazy around here and people request it. But, tonight, I tossed it in the oven for it's 5 min or so cook time to get the toffee into the saltines and...

I got distracted. Not sure with what, exactly (Ooooh! Shiny!!), maybe it was the creaming the butter for the cookies, or starting the rice (both of which are yet to come in tonight's goof-up-o-rama) or maybe the cats, I honestly don't know, but I smelled something burning, said some bad words, and opened my oven to a cloud of smoke and BLACK saltine toffee.

It was smoking so much and was so insanely hot that I had to take it outside and set it on a snow drift. Thank goodness for snow!

I hadn't set the timer for the toffee like I usually do because I needed to use it for the rice since we were having tambo fried rice. I'd made a roast a couple of days ago and it makes great stir fry leftovers. Yum! Me being me - and always looking for any possible way to get more fiber in our diet - I always make brown rice. You have to plan ahead for brown rice and while I sometimes use Alton Brown's oven method, tonight I made it on the stove because I *had* planned on using my oven for cookies and toffee.

Until it filled with smoke, that is.

I was good and not too ditzy, though, and I set the timer for the rice and cooked it just like I always do, but tonight it was a gushy, sticky, undercooked mess. Which NEVER happens (I've been cooking brown rice for pretty much all of my adult life) and the fried rice was sticky and gloppy instead of, well, super yummylicious. But we ate it anyway, it's not like I had time to make anything else before Bill left for work.

I'd mixed up popcorn cookie dough (a huge family favorite I make all. the. time. Like every couple of weeks.) while ruining the toffee-cinders and gloppy-rice, and had set it in the microwave to just, well, sit and be out of the way until after supper. The fridge is pretty much full and the microwave is really cold (because the below-freezing wind blows up the outside vent) and I thought it'd be fine. Nope. It dried out. I have never, ever, anywhere in my memory had cookie dough dry out while chilling. And it's not like it sat there for hours and hours.

So instead of being able to scoop it up with two teaspoons like I usually do, I had to make little cookie-balls by hand - sticky!! - which wasn't so bad, but I BURNT THEM TOO. While in the kitchen doing NOTHING but waiting for the cookies to cook. WITH a TIMER.

I'd set the time, but apparently when I pushed start, the timer was off daydreaming or something because it didn't count down, therefore it didn't go beep-beep-beep like it was supposed to, so there I am, standing there, doing nothing more exciting than wiping up my assorted messes and waiting for my cookies. But they burnt. Black on the bottom.

Laura (our daughter) laughed at me, can you believe it?

The other three sheets of cookies are fine - thank goodness - but I do not like tossing a dozen cookies into the trash. Oh no.

So today I tried to cook three simple things, and failed each time. Three easy, routine recipes, stuff I don't even have to LOOK at the printed recipe to make, I make them so often. But today was not a good day to cook.

It had better be a better one tomorrow, because I have a LOT of Christmas baking to get done.

Yeah, I know it's been almost a month since my last post :/

I'd like to say that I've been super busy with tons of interesting stuff, but that'd be a fib. Mostly I've been blowing my nose and taking Sudafed. Harvest season always wreaks havoc on my sinuses.

I've joined yet another writers group (really looking forward to our first official meeting in a little more than a week!) and I've passed 60k words on Secret Project M. Lars's first story, Fire, is now available on Amazon (a free .PDF is still available if you email me!), and if I can just convince Amazon that I'm the same TSJ that wrote the Dubric books, it'll be all connected like it should be instead of under two separate search listings.

I've been sewing a good hunk, survived the quilt show, sent Stuart's quilt off to Scotland, and have begun working on Christmas presents, all while nursing this respiratory/allergy crud that's making me grumpy. Mostly, things are good, if cloggy, and I hope you're all doing well. :)

But my microwave is under warranty!

Way back this past April, Bill and I bought a new microwave/hood to go above our stove, mostly because the old one occasionally shot sparks, which surely were not a good thing.

Totally loving the microwave, btw. It's an Amana, it's white, and it nukes things quite well. Installing it was a bit of chore (it's taller than our old microwave and Bill had to cut and remove ceramic tile to get it to fit) but it's worked beautifully.

Anyway, a week or so ago, I noticed that there's a little, itty-bitty crack forming near the bottom of the handle. We had this problem before with the microwave at the old house, and it became kind of a PITA to use the microwave once the handle snapped completely off. I'd rather not go through that again, so we went to Menards to see if they had any suggestions.

Well, our microwave comes with a full one year warranty, and they said we could either order the part directly from Whirlpool for free, or call for a free service visit and have it fixed. Okay, we thought - knowing how crazy-nuts our life has become and how Bill already has too many 'fix it' projects - we'll just call for service. So we did. Last Wednesday or Thursday, I believe. And the service guy was supposed to come today, sometime between 1 and 5 pm.

Did I mention we've been kinda busy lately? Bill's working overtime, Laura's working and has college, I have writing, quilting, errand running and quilt-shop duties (plus the ever looming quilt show that's coming up) and, well, we haz thingz to do! Especially during those prime hours of 'thingz to do!' time. ;)

But we made a point to be available all afternoon. Bill stayed up until I got home from writing while Laura was at school, and I busied myself downstairs while the clock ticked along. Gozer, the poor guy, was banished to his pen in the back yard in case he decided to attack the service guy, or, more likely, lick him to death. All in all, folks every day face the 'wait around for the service people' issue, and it's really not a big deal, other than Goz desperately wanting in the house instead of being alone, in the rain, out back.

He was crying. It bothered me, okay?

About 5 minutes 'til 5pm, I called to see if they were gonna make it out today, mostly so I could let Gozer in. It's not like I have anywhere else to be this evening. Really, my life is VERY dull and I was kinda looking forward to watching the 'microwave handle removal and installation procedure'. Hey, you never know when something like that might happen in a book. Anyway, I called, and they had no idea what the bleep I was talking about.

The guy on the other end of the phone keyed in our phone number and had no service call listed. Nothing. And the information that popped up was for an address I'd never heard before in a town that's about eleven miles away for a name that's definitely not us, and they had no record of requesting a service call today. So he ran our address, which gave him some random non-local phone number and name. Our name turned up something totally not matching anything resembling our lives, and whenever he tried to re-enter information to match *us* instead of the whomever the computer said we were, it wouldn't let him key it in.

So, we and our microwave apparently do not exist, and if we *do* we never had a service call for today.

About twenty minutes and much confusion later (it's rather surreal to give someone your address several times and have them repeat it back each time as something totally different) we're supposedly scheduled to get a new handle tomorrow. Between 1 and 5. And all names, numbers, addresses, and things repeated back match our information. Finally. Here's hoping they'll still match tomorrow.

Gozer, however, will stay inside this time, I think. No reason to traumatize him twice. ;)

It's all in the eyes

My surgery went great! I've tested twice at 20/15 vision in both eyes, and there hasn't been any real pain or problems. My left eye aches some times - kinda feels like a sinus headache, just all around and behind the eye (supposedly normal) - and there was some bleeding on my eyeballs from the suction thingy (also normal, and fading) and, lastly, it sometimes seems like I'm looking through plastic wrap. Things are in focus, just... slightly obscured. That's normal too, and at first it was like looking through milk, so plastic wrap is a definite improvement and it's getting better every day. Been driving just fine, going through my day to day life just fine, but I need reading glasses to pull stitches out of my sewing, and for some - but not all - reading. The coolest thing is having DEPTH PERCEPTION and I spent a lot of the first day or so boggling how bumpy things were, or tall, or thick, or all of these textural nuances I hadn't really ever seen before.

So two thumbs up on the eyes! (more below the cut)

The house is always changing

I'm really glad spring is here, and we're at this moment awaiting an electrician who's coming to see about moving and upgrading our breaker box. Bill's been working on the fence today, and there are so many projects to get done around here. Not sure when the painters will start - we're thinking sometime next month - then, once the breakers are moved, it'll be time to start the basement remodel.

We love remodeling and upgrading and making changes to the house. I'm still trying to find a place to put a bathroom on the main floor - we have a huge full bath upstairs and a half bath in the basement but nothing on the main level. Someday, we will be older and have trouble with stairs - and there's always the possibility that one of our parents might need to stay with us, so it'd really be nice to have something accessible.

I'm done sewing for a while, I think, at least at the manic, project-a-week level I've been at for months. Tried to write last night and I got one whole sentence. Which, obviously, isn't going to get a book written any time soon. Something will percolate up, it always does. If not sewing, or writing, then it'll be something else. Maybe I'll get into gardening and have tons of plants outside to play with.

Not likely, since I really dislike gardening - or being outside - but you never know. ;)

TURNIPS!!

Bill loves turnips but I rarely find decent ones at the store (I buy them fairly regularly at farmers markets, though) but, today, they had LOTS and they were on sale so, tonight, we're gonna have Bacon Turnip Mash with supper! Woot!

My progressive-lens/bifocal  headache isn't as bad today - thank goodness!! - so that's a definite improvement. Laura talked with the local community college and it looks like she's gonna start on the Medical Assistant program in the fall, plus take some classes over the summer to streamline her schedule for the AAS degree (a step above the regular med assistant certification) and improve her GPA. She nearly has enough money to pay cash for the entire curriculum, so we're all pretty excited about that. If it works out the way it's supposed to, she'll graduate next summer and just about be guaranteed a job since CMA's are really needed around here. Pretty awesome collegiate visit, I must say and she's VERY pumped!

I'd pulled a muscle in my mid/lower back late last week (especially the right side - owie!!) and took the weekend off from exercising - since all the internet medical stuff said to 'not exercise' if it hurt. But it felt pretty good last night, so I got back on the Wii Sports Active schedule and, well, the first exercise in last night's routine was Alternating Standing Knee Crunches or some such thing and, um, they aggravated my !(@*%^ back. I kept going, however, through the whole program, and by the end it really wasn't hurting much at all. So I think those standing crunch knee things are the problem. I'll just be more careful. Felt good to exercise, tho, after a weekend of sitting on my butt and I'm much more chipper and energetic today. Back's still a bit stiff on the right side, but a little ibuprofen seems to knock it down to a dull grumble.

I wrote a little while driving Laura around to all the places she had to go today, was just longhand in my journal, but that's something, right? I've cleaned the cat boxes, planned some quilting projects, drank a ton of water, even managed a game of sudoku, and I'm about to tackle the mess that's my kitchen. My mood is pretty damn excellent, which is nice. Probably because 1) I can mostly see and 2) I don't hurt. ;)

So, all in all, today's been a better day. :)

It's a Grumpy Monday

The new progressive bifocals are giving me a headache (but at least the nausea has passed). My wrist hurts, a lingering remnant from the surgery a couple of years ago that flares up whenever it's damp. Laura and I had an argument. I can't find my words for the book. I don't know what to make for supper and nothing sounds good. The house is a mess. And I just wanna go back to bed.

Sleep, headaches, and aluminum foiled neighbors

Since I'm still coming off the Diet Coke crankies (detox leads me into a depressive, headachy spiral) I've spent pretty much the whole, complete, and entire day sleeping. I slept till ten am. Finished the baby quilt top. Returned to bed at noonish, and slept till six. It's now nearly eight and I could so go back to bed again. Don't wanna do nuthin!

I really have to stop drinking that stuff.

So, I'm sleepy and have a poundy headache, but I still have to make supper. Since I an trying to cook healthier, I've chosen Italian Chicken and Peppers for tonight, but me being me, I'll make modifications. Like adding mushrooms and onions. Because we love them so. ;) The recipe calls for foil-lined cookie sheets though, and wouldn't you know it? I totally forgot to buy foil at the store this week and my little 3" strip left on the roll wouldn't cover anything. Dammit.

So I called my neighbor, Janna, who came right over with two kinds of foil! YAY JANNA!!

Good neighbors rock!

My mind wanders in troublesome directions when it's headachy and blue. Tonight, I really would like to know why our government has decided that incandescent lightbulbs must be phased out and replaced with CFLs. Yeah, incandescents take a bit more juice to operate, but they're like totally non toxic, have a 'better light' and are CHEAP. CFL's are rather pricey, their light colors things funny, they take longer to 'warm up' and really illuminate, and lastly, they're full of freaking MERCURY. Isn't it better to spend a bit more on electricity now (which is more and more commonly being created by water and wind energy) than poison the freaking planet for forever?

These are the things I ponder. No wonder I'm depressed all the freaking time.

Today

Today, we did two weeks worth of grocery shopping, hauled it all home, and put it all away.

Today, Bill and I walked to our teeny small-town library where we donated the four books I've just read (PUSH, Shutter Island, The Blind Side, and Julie & Julia) and a pile of science fiction Bill cleared off of his shelf.

Today, Gozer broke out of Fort Stewie and Stewie was quite happy to follow him to freedom.

Today, Laura had another job interview which I had to drive her to.

Today, Laura upgraded her cell phone, and we got to purchase it for her.

Today, I woke up too early and ended up taking a nap. I think I need another one.

Today, the shower grout was all fixed and I got to have my usual long, hot shower.

Today, I shall do a little more sewing, starting the piecing of a baby quilt, and continuing on a bag for a display at Tanya's shop.

Today I shall at least look at the book in progress.

And, so far today, no one has pooped, puked, or peed in the wrong place, dumped their food dish, broke their water glass, lost their keys, chewed a pair of shoes, ruined any soup, had a melt down, gotten lost, or spent too much time starting mindlessly at the tv.

Today, I am tired.

But that's okay. It's been a pretty decent day. :)

I am so not witty today...

I had planned on posting something witty, funny, or insightful today - planned to do so as I stood in the shower under lovely hot water which is always the best time for me to think such things. Instead, after my shower I made Potato Leek Soup - which I totally screwed up by accidentally pouring in about half a cup of salt instead of a few sprinkles so the whole panful was wasted. Then we went to the Soup and Sip for lunch (thank you, Tanya, for staying open for us!!). Once we came back home, I rotated around laundry, then putzed around online awhile, still steaming over my ruined soup. Then, unable to muster the gumption for anything productive, I took a long nap.

So here I am, nothing accomplished for the day except washing two loads of laundry, making perfectly good soup inedible, and napping.

I'm ready to go back to bed.

Beagle stuff. And more pet stuff. And, well... Stuff.

We have a Beagle - his name's Stewie - and he's generally a very sweet-natured PITA. He has, somehow, found a way out of the yard that leaves our Labrador (Gozer) stranded inside the fence. Stewie escaped yet again last night (escapes are fairly common for Stewie) and took off when I called him (as usual, hence the PITA part), so frustrated Tam went on to bed thinking it might do his 'ha-ha I'm FREE and you can't catch me!' pain in the butt attitude some good to spend the night out in the cold instead of asleep on a nice, warm couch. Gozer, of course, was quite worried and wouldn't settle down as he frantically searched the house for his missing Stewie.

So. Like, today...

Yesterday I sat on my butt getting this blog tweaked and writing two rather long posts. Today, I have to play catch up.

My fun filled and exciting list is below the cut ;)