The Edge

Busy holiday weekend was long and busy!

Got a new fridge. Yay (!) since the old one consistently manages to freeze any produce I put into it. Except parsley. I am not sure what this means, although I'm willing to go out on a limb and declare parsley a demonic seasoning/condiment/whatever-it-is-thingy. At any rate, the new fridge should be delivered on Thursday, and I have high hopes for much veggie/produce happiness.

Made chicken and rice soup tonight. Mainly because I had to use up some left-over rice and some left-over green beans. It turned out fairly nicely, though. I thought it was good. And, not for nothing ... but carrots are yum.

Kiddo is still sick. All snuffly-congested. So I suppose another trip to the pediatrician's office is in order for us in the coming week. I am frustrated about this and just want my child to feel better. Talk about a horrible, helpless feeling.

My friend's surgery went well. Her hubby is a wonderful, caring man, and he has been posting regular updates on her progress. I can't even begin to thank him enough for this. It seems she is in for a long recovery, which is to be expected. But, overall, she is making progress. And her docs are optimistic that they got all the cancer during the operation. So far, additional testing indicates nothing has spread. Huge, huge relief on that front.

Another very good friend's dog, who I dearly love, had a stroke. This was very sad and distressing news, and I felt awful for my friend. Luckily, it seems that her pooch is making good progress, too. All around, things seem pretty hopeful, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for them.

I have felt strangely ... "not right" all weekend. I'm not sure why. I am very frustrated on a creative front. I have ideas for new cards, as well as some thoughts for additions to my book. And just the overall need to write, dammit (!!) so that I can make progress on my resolution to get back to doing that. But real life continually intervenes in a bad way. There are too many things to do, only me to do them, and not enough of me to go around, as it is. Just ... bah.

Hmmm. I would have preferred ending on a positive note. But I have run out of things to say. So, I will link to:

A cute pic of happy-smiley Goku with a kitty!

Heh.

My mom went home today. The house is surprisingly quiet; it's funny how having just one extra person around can totally change the feeling and dynamic of a house. For the most part, it was a good visit. I didn't start getting quiet (and slightly bitchy) until this past Wednesday, which is probably a record for me. *nervous laugh* With that said, I'm relieved to have the house back.

I'm kind of mentally ready for winter, I think. Or maybe I'm gearing up to work on Midroc some more. Whatever the reason, I switched out my Mac desktop wallpaper for one of my winter photos: a cloudy sky, snowy trees, and fluffed up birds sitting on a power wire. They look cold ... but also cute. Poor birds. LOL

I'm so exhausted. I think I'm catching a cold. I hate this. Bah.

I did some work on the next batch of Christmas cards today. Hopefully, I can get them put together tomorrow and Monday, depending on how busy things are. I need to get cracking on my Christmas shopping, though. I feel so far behind already. Yikes! >.O

My hubby told me something today that helped my mental state a lot. He told me that it wouldn't matter to him if I never got anything published -- so long as I was happy working on stuff and writing. But, if I didn't try my hardest and my best, then I really would have failed. (Wise words from the hubster ... o_o)

I know ... it sounds so obvious, right? And it is, I guess. But sometimes, I think I get so locked into different stresses in my life ... and so locked into my own fear of failure ... that I forget the simple things. It helps to have someone else tell me this. And, I dunno ... kind of made me feel like he really does believe in me. Maybe it was because I am mentally and physically exhausted, but I had a total warm-fuzzy moment. Warm-fuzzy is a good thing. =)

I snapped some pics of my current desk set up tonight to post on a forum. I can't remember if I ever posted anything like this here. If I did, it was probably quite some time ago. So ... yeah.

Pictures of my desk.

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And Other Stuff:

Made it back from San Francisco. We got in around 8 or so on Sunday night. My parents are still visiting -- until next Tuesday -- and we are heading out again tomorrow for an overnight trip to Williamsburg. Things have been busy with grocery shopping (the day after I got back from SF) ... doing all the laundry ... and on and on and on. Cue the endless, mind-numbing cycle my life tends to become. I've been working on the book edit (yay!). It's slow going, but ... hey, at least it's going. This is an improvement. I do have San Francisco pics to post -- one of these days. I'm not sure if anyone is interested in them or not, but I'll clutter the interwebs with them, anyhow. *ebil laugh 'o' doom* Oh ... and ... MY TAGS ARE BACK!!! Wheee! *izsoveryhappeh*

Very stormy here at the moment. Lots thunder, lightning, and sheets of rain falling from the sky. The streets are slick and filled with swiftly moving streams of water. Reminds me of when I was a kid in S. Texas. We would sit out on the porch and watch the storms come sweeping in toward us across the hills. I used to imagine what it would be like to go on an adventure, our little house floating away on the rain and the storm. What kinds of things would we see and do? What kinds of places would we visit?

Today, I stood at the window for a while and watched the storm with my daughter. It is safe, warm, and dry in our house, and something about having a storm right outside makes everything feel more cozy than ever. I watched her and wondered what she was thinking ... what kinds of adventures she imagined out of the storm.

Gah. I had all this stuff in mind to post about, but I get to this point -- staring at the blank screen and the blinking cursor -- and my mind goes blank. I would say it's because I've been very hermit-like lately so I'm out of practice with posting on my LJ. But, sadly, the same thing happens when I sit down to work on my book, too. Go me. *woot* -.-"

So ... let's see ... stuff. And nonsense. And stuff. And more nonsense.

It's amazing how a little thing like being able to take a nice, hot shower can make you feel so much better about life in general. It's a small thing, really, but there's just something about feeling nearly human again that's just ... I dunno ... GOOOD. So, yeah. Hot shower (and washing my hair with my new favorite shampoo) was a win tonight.

Kiddo's playdate was ... odd. We ended up going to the other kid's house, although I was a bit worried about the smoking aspect. That part turned out perfectly fine. The other mom never smokes inside the house, and she never smokes around her daughter, either. Their house was so totally cute and way, way super clean. A level of clean my own poor house can never hope to attain. I was quite jealous of it, really -- although that probably makes me a smaller person, or something. Heh. The odd part was my own kid. I have no idea what was going on with her, but she was having a "weepy day". She does that sometimes. Like gets a sad thought in her head and can't quite get rid of it or something. This particular friend is from overseas and will be moving back at the end of the summer. And my daughter kept thinking about that, combined with being in a strange house and the fact that almost all of their stuff is packed, and, well ... I have to say the whole playdate thing was not a huge success. I felt really awful that my daughter pretty much cried the whole time. The other mom was very understanding, as was the other little girl; they are very nice people. But still ... EMBARRASSING! >.O I invited the little girl over to our house this next week, in the hopes that, finally, they will be able to have an actual play date. It was a little hard for them to "play", really, since the other girl's things are mostly all packed for the move. I mean, there wasn't really anything for them to play with. So, hopefully having toys and such to entertain themselves will ensure a better time for everyone. But, just in case, I've already had a long talk with my own kiddo and told her she has to be a good hostess -- which means playing with her friend and NOT spending all her time crying! Sheesh.

I've been sick for most of the past week. It started out as a really awful allergy attack, thanks to the DVD filing project I've undertaken for our movie collection (lots and lots of dust!). And it worked its way into a cold. Body aches. Sniffling. Sneezing. And just feeling all around crummy. No fever, though, which is both lucky and kind of weird. I feel better today, other than being tired, and am hoping for good things tomorrow.

Wrote a little bit today. Good and bad. What I'm writing now is the suck. It's like I've forgotten everything I ever learned and am left with only two nouns and three adjectives -- none of which fit my present plot line. So, yeah ... rough going. Still, I am convinced I must get through these doldrums in order to see any progress. Onward, I say!

I may be able to scan again soon! Hubby moved some stuff around in the office, and my scanner is now hooked up to my (almost like new) PC. He moved it so that it's on his desk, and I have easy access to it. I'm really happy with the changes, particularly since my scanner software isn't so great with the Mac.

As for the PC, it seems to be running fine now. It should, though, all things considered. We took it apart and cleaned everything out really well. Cloned and replaced the hard drive. Upgraded the Bios. And added new (and additional) RAM. It's pretty much like a whole new computer. It reminds me of the Six Million Dollar Man: "We can rebuild him." *cue cheesy TV intro music*

And that's all I've got. For now.

Random journal entry is random.

Been in a pissy mood for a while now. Writing is frustrating. Too many demands on my time. And thus, life has become frustrating, too.

Parents are visiting. My dad just went home yesterday, and my mom has another week left of her stay. We redid our dining room to convert it into a playroom of sorts. Installed cabinets and then topped them out so they ended up looking like built-ins. They hold a lot of toys, too ... so I am the happy over that.

Rearranged the living room furniture because I had to move this HUGE (~200 lb) armoire out of the dining room. We have an open floor plan for our house, but the actual living room is pretty small. And I really have too much furniture to go in there. But I think we managed to find a room arrangement that fits the space and makes it feel cozy and comfy as opposed to overstuffed.

I found some old color photographs that I took years ago (sometime around 1998 or 1999) -- back when I was still shooting with film. Including my favorite photograph, ever, which is an above-view shot of a Greyhound bus station at night. I so love that picture. I framed a few of those and mixed them in with some of my black and whites, and I think they look nice in the new living room. I want to frame out some more photos to hang in the house. I take enough of the stupid things ... I should probably use them here and there.

The dining room / playroom and living room took most of a week to get done. It was a LOT of work.

My dad also built a new set of bookshelves for me in the office. They tuck in nicely behind the door, and so use that dead space really well. I always need more room for books.

Now that my dad is gone, I'm pretty sure my mom has her eye on some open shelving I have in the kitchen, my daughter's closet, and the linen closet (and probably more that she hasn't mentioned)-- all of which she thinks need to be "cleaned out". They probably do, but I'm not much in the mood to do it. So I'm not confident we'll get to it at all. I haven't admitted this out loud yet, as I don't think it will go over well, but ...

Slowly pecking away at the new prologue for my book. The past few weeks, for the most part, have been the suck for writing. But Saturday was a pretty good day. I managed to close myself in the office and get a good amount of work done. And moved the prologue along pretty well, too. So I was happy about that.

I've become totally addicted to Merlin, this show on Sci-Fi Network. I randomly ran across a marathon of it showing last weekend and watched a few episodes. Didn't take me long to get hooked. So I just got the first season box set at Best Buy yesterday. Yay for BB gift cards!

I'm (slowly) working on setting up a new production art gallery site. I think it's going to take me forever, as I only work on it here and there, when I'm not busy writing or doing other things. But at least it gives me something creative to do with my existing art ... which helps keep me from wanting to buy a lot of new art (because I really don't have the funds for that right now >.O). I do have some things I need to scan and update, though. I used to be so good about doing that stuff right away. And now I have become the suck about it. *shame*

No writing today. At least, not so far. *grumbles*

I made up my mind that I was going to change things for myself. Period. So, my new "schedule" was as follows: take the kiddo to school, come home and work out (every other day exercise = taking Fae walking), write. Then, after at least an hour or two writing, I could do other things: errands or whatever. The point being that I feel I need to treat writing as something more important. That way, the people around me will also treat it as important, eventually. Well, that's the plan, at least.

So, Monday and Tuesday, things went great.

Monday, I had to tutor ... so I did that, then headed off to Panera, where I got in two good, solid hours of writing. Then, I came home ... wrote a bit more until it was time to pick up the kiddo. And then even managed to do a smidge more that night. I can't really write much at night, generally, because it's too much of a rush with making dinner, getting the kiddo's bath and bed stuff done, and doing stuff like laundry, etc. Not to mention getting interrupted every ten minutes by either the kiddo or hubby. But I tried, at least.

Tuesday, I dropped off my kiddo at school. Then I went home and worked out (20 minutes on my Precor -- I'm starting small because I'm WAY out of shape). After that, I headed upstairs to my office, and wrote. I managed to get in a couple of hours, although it was kind of a slow writing day. I put in the effort, but didn't feel I had a ton to show for it. Eh. Some days are like that.

Today ... the plan kind of fell apart, mostly thanks to the stupid GS cookies. I am so, so, so ready for this thing to be DONE already. And my troop has really screwed things over. They've been switching and trading among themselves and only telling me after the fact, so it's been impossible to keep track of everything. I had been dreading trying to figure out the final accounting because I knew it was going to be a huge hassle. And so I had put it off and put it off and put it off and ... (well, you get the idea).

So, today I dropped the kiddo off at school, came home and took Fae for walkies. That was good. It was a pretty day, and we had a good time. She was even pretty well-behaved -- a little bit of a spaz, but, hey, this is Fae we're talking about here. What else could I expect? We walked for about 30-40 minutes. Then I came home and had some errands to do for hubby. I had to drop off his dry cleaning and pick up some medication he had forgotten at his doctor's office. And I grabbed some lunch while I was out. I came home, ate lunch, and started in on the cookie stuff.

zOMG ... Four hours later, I still wasn't all the way done. Seriously, this was such a mess trying to recreate what everyone had done with their cookies and their money. It took forever. And then it took forever to add up all the money I had and get it ready to take to the bank tomorrow. Once that is done, I have to go on the tracking website and update all of this crap. @_@ X_X

I finished the cookie stuff (including sending emails to people who haven't paid yet) just in time to make dinner. Headed downstairs and made kiddo's meal first. After that was done, I made dinner for myself and hubby. He was running late coming home, as usual. I made migas and fruit salad for dinner, though -- so it was pretty good! Lots of chopping, but it was worth it.

And now I'm sitting here on LJ. I just got kiddo out of the bath about 10 minutes ago, and she headed downstairs to watch one episode of the Backyardigans. After that, I'll put her to bed, and then I'll be "done" for the night. Well, not "done" done, as I'm still doing laundry. There is always laundry. And other house things. The never-ending job, I swear. >.O I was going to try and write, but I'm tired. And my brain is all foggy-feeling. I'm going to take a hot shower and then see how I feel. Maybe I'll manage to write before the day is totally over. *hopes*

My brain is made of "Post Title Fail" at the moment. Maybe I'll think of a title later. Or not ... >.O

One more day off from school for the kiddo. Apparently, her school is having trouble digging out its parking lot and sidewalks and stuff. I'm not sure if it's as much a problem of actually digging things out, or a problem of having no place to pile the extra snow. There isn't a lot of extra room at her school. The parking lot is small, and the school is basically at the end of a very narrow little road. It's a nice, protected location normally. But, when you're talking about moving 55-59 inches of snow somewhere ... well, it doesn't leave a lot of space for making big 'ol snow piles. Heck, at this point, it doesn't matter if they take an extra day off or not. We already have to make up so many days it's ridiculous. I think, right now, we're at least a week in the hole for snow days. I'm not sure when they will make up that time, so it'll be interesting to find out. And I don't necessarily mean "interesting" in a good way, either.

Still stuck in GS Cookie H-E-Double-Toothpicks. I can't wait for this whole stupid cookie thing to be over and done with. I managed to find someone to pick up the cookies for me, as I can't be available to get them -- stupid scheduling conflict. And my vehicle wasn't big enough to hold all the cases, anyhow. The person who will pick them up has a cargo van, luckily, so putting the whole order into one vehicle shouldn't be much of a problem. We are supposed to do two booth sales, but I'm having the hardest time getting people to actually sign up for both sales. I mean, it's not rocket science, you know? We have a small troop. That means EVERYONE HAS TO DO BOTH SALES. Otherwise, there's no way we can fill all the slots. So far, I have some people not wanting to do anything for the booth sale ... some people who want to do one booth sale and not the other ... and then the very few who are actually stepping up, realizing that a small troop means everyone has to participate, and signing up for their share -- and even more. I guess that's the way it always is in any group: a few end up doing the bulk of the work for everyone else. That's always been my experience, anyhow ... but it never fails to irritate me. Someone mentioned possibly having a third sale in order to donate the proceeds to charity, and I had to tell them I didn't think it would work because I can't get everyone to sign up for the two they knew about, all along. I don't have high hopes of getting anyone to sign up for a third one. I'm sooo not doing this cookie thing next year. As it is, I just have to hang on and get through March. And maybe part of April. Then, I can be done.

Hubby got me a surprise Valentine's Day gift: an awesome new keyboard for my computer! (And, on a funny side note: Apparently, it was supposed to come on Friday via Fedex. But, of course, our street was "Crime Central" on Friday, which meant the driver couldn't get here. We got it on Saturday, and found a note attached: "Road blocked by cops." Totally made me LOL. ) I know ... it doesn't sound very romantic, but I love it. I hated the keyboard that came with the new computer, although I was willing to live with it for as long as I had to. I used to use the diNovo Edge on my PC, and I missed it so much. It is the best keyboard I've ever used -- at least, I think so. Anyhow, he got me an Edge for my Mac. I'm such a happy camper now! I just love how this thing feels, and typing on it is so much easier. Now, if only my muses would cooperate, so that I could write up a storm. Woot! (Hear that, muses?? Huh? Huh? *pokes them*)

I finally have a bit of direction on my novel, editing-wise. My hubby has a lawyer friend, and she volunteered her husband to read the book. I've totally failed at getting most everyone else interested in it, so I was pretty unsure about sending it to him, especially because I don't know him at all. I think I've only met him once. But he actually read it. And he sent me some really helpful feedback and commentary on it. For the first time in quite a while, I feel like I might be able to tackle this darn thing and actually edit it for real. Which would be so great. Considering that I pretty much couldn't pay anyone to read it, I don't foresee it ever being published. But it would just be a good feeling to know I had really and truly finished it. Right now, that's pretty much all I'm working toward. Just that feeling of being "done" for real.

Other than that, things are ... eh. I've been feeling kind of under the weather for the past couple of weeks. Just draggy, tired, and a little achy in general. Along with an occasional slight fever. I'm not sure what's going on -- if anything. It could be that I'm just kind of burned out on my life, in general. Things have been pretty tough at home for a while now. Hubby is super busy at work, so I'm basically doing the single-parent thing. As well as trying to bring some kind of cohesive order to the house by cleaning out stuff we don't need. And all the cooking and cleaning and laundry I usually do. Toss in the whole lack of activity by my writing muses and ... yeah ... I have not been a happy camper, overall. In fact, I think I'm going to head to bed here in about ten minutes or so. Oh yeah ... I'm pitiful. >.O

Took a mini "photo safari" into Vienna (Virginia ... As opposed to a more exotic locale). I'm not sure if I got any decent photos. I've been in quite a funk lately, so I didn't feel very inspired. Still, the weather was gorgeous, and I loved being outside.

Trimmed back my rosebushes. Poor things ... I've neglected them horribly, and it shows. It took quite a while to get them trimmed, but it was worth it. They look so much better now.

Did a butt-load of dishes. I'm not sure of the exact measurement that makes a "bott-load", but I washed a LOT of dishes!!

Volunteered for the afternoon at Kiddo's school. Ended up doing a lot of laminating ... which is OK, as I find myself strangely fascinated by the laminator.

Helped the kiddo with her homework.

Went to a friend's house to watch their kiddo -- who happens to be one of my kiddo's best buds. That's where I am now, and why I'm posting this with my Blackberry. I don't think I'll make it home before 9 or so tonight. A long day. -.-"

Well, mostly nonsense. Let's be honest here. Did you ever expect to find anything but that here in my LJ? Exactly. ^.~

Mom-unit left early this morning. Well, her flight left at 9:50, but it's at least an hour's drive from our house to BWI, which meant we were all up at what felt like 0:dark-thirty. But, it was good. There wasn't too much traffic; we made good time to the airport, and the security line was pretty light. Mom made it through in about ten minutes, which has to be a new record. She made it home safely, too. She's already called me twice. *sigh* I think she's a little lonely.

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