Long week.

Technically, I suppose, a new one already. Wednesday I had to pick up a second prescription. Do boys get yeast infections from taking antibiotics? Or do they just get well?

Tuesday night I attended LittleBit's Phi Theta Kappa induction. So pleased and proud of her. This is her fourth semester of 4.0.

Thursday our attorneys took us to lunch for whatever the PC name for Secretaries Day is these days. A two block walk each way. I was thoroughly winded by the time I got back to my desk.

This respiratory infect is kicking my derrière. I just have no energy. I had a massage yesterday. She told me that she didn't see how I was able to walk. My body is that messed up.

After the ceremony on Tuesday night, I stopped at Firstborn's to drop off some stuff. 1BDH gave me a blessing. I called Firstborn on Friday and said I was a little curious about how badly I would be feeling had I *not* gotten a blessing.

I'm coughing less. I'm definitely itching less. Took a four hour nap after the massage. Still tired and achy, and my ankles look awful. I would like to skip church again. But that would mean skipping the potluck and fireside. And this is one that I actually want to attend.

The laundry is caught up. The rest of the house looks worse than my ankles. It's officially the Sabbath. I am turning off the phone and the lights and going to bed.

Everybody's a critic.

More specifically, the cat. After work I ran a couple of errands. One of which was to pick up a fresh tube of cork slick for my recorder, which I don't think I had touched since moving from Fort Worth, except to find a place for it in my studio.

I bought this one on eBay a few years ago. It got a little use at one time or another. I picked up some sheet music.

Last night I mostly did scales. I tried to pick out The Ash Grove, which is one of my favorite folk melodies. There really is no cork where my recorder comes together, just a band of a different kind of wood. So there were inadvertent octave jumps and all manner of weird blurts.

At one point I realized that the cat was singing counterpoint. Emphatically. I got up and let him out.

Humility. You find it in the oddest places.

Massage appointment.

I have one on Saturday with the brilliant and intuitive therapist who literally helped me to keep it together while I was waiting for Beloved to have enough information to be able to make up his mind to propose.

There is stuff going on in my life and in my body that I don't understand. She is very good at reading my body.

I know that my spirit knows stuff that my mind and my body do not. I know that the body has its own wisdom, which the human spirit understands but the mind does not.

I think that if I talk while she works on me, we will both get insights, and I might just come home with the next few steps on my journey.

Meanwhile, my head and lungs are clearing, and my ankles are deflating, and I am beginning to feel rested.

Medicated.

A fairly decent night's sleep last night and several naps throughout the morning. I took my third dose of Augmentin a couple of hours ago. And my fourth Zyrtec of the week.

I think the good guys are winning. The chronic swelling in my left ankle is nearly gone, which brings me to wonder how infection in other parts of my body relate to the blockage of lymph in another.

I remember that my massage therapist told me that there was inflammation somewhere in my body. And I think I remember that when I last took a course of antibiotics, my ankles both subsided.

I wonder if there is some deep-seated infection going on. Or if my body is being metaphorical again and I just haven't deciphered the metaphor.

At any rate, the meds are kicking in. I have read several chapters in the bio of Neal A. Maxwell but am no longer in the mood to eat, drink, read, or knit. Night, y'all.

Zombie mode.

But instead of brains for breakfast, I wolfed down a nuked potato with sour cream. I ended up leaving work early and going to the doctor. He gave me a prescription for Augmentin. Twice a day for ten days. No side effects so far.

I slept somewhat better last night. Five hours the first time and two hours the second. I suspect that I will be dozing off and on all day.

Have canceled all the fun activities I had planned to enjoy. No Main Street Arts Festival. No lunch with a dear friend. The goal is to be well enough to return to work on Monday. I am even staying home from church tomorrow.

I am beginning to understand why so many men like recliners. It would be nice to have one out in the living room. With a table to hold my CPAP. This dozing off semi-upright with no neck support is for the birds. When I wake up it's a two-handed job to straighten my head.

I think breakfast has settled. And I'm sleepy again. I hope y'all have as much fun today as I was planning to.

Life's uncertain. Eat the fortune cookie first.

This one said: YOU HAVE STRONG POTENTIAL FOR FINANCIAL SUCCESS.

If they tell you in all-caps and red ink, it must be true. Right?

It's a good thing that Turbotax is smarter than I am. I was all elated at the idea of getting a fat refund. That was founded on a couple of unwarranted assumptions. When I plugged in the first revised numbers for our itemized deductions, Turbotax showed me owing Uncle Sugar a much smaller amount than my first ghastly guesstimate. But still owing.

Before I crashed last night, I worked through my numbers again. Found some duplication. Fixed that. Put all the revisions on a sticky-note but didn't have time to enter them during my lunch hour today. Will try to take care of that either before or after work tomorrow. Am eating lunch with friends.

Good news is that I checked the IRS website yesterday and confirmed that I will again qualify to file married-filing-jointly for 2013. Unless the bureaucrats in DC change the statutes between now and then.

I think that when I plug in the latest stats I will just about break even. Which would put me back on track to be out of debt by mid-2014. With a nice chunk of change in one savings bucket or another. And maybe the house refinanced.

And maybe, just maybe, the Verizon refund sitting in one of those buckets.

Time for another Zyrtec. Hoping for less surreal dreams tonight.

Tender mercies.

It was a good Sabbath. Sharing Time went well. I had a good interview with the stake president after church. The paperwork for my sealing cancellation will go out in the mail before the end of the week.

Came home and ate leftovers and took a nice nap. When I got up, I grabbed various bits of paperwork and started to finalize numbers for my tax return extension.

When I made the first calculations a few months ago, I used the standard deduction because I had no idea how the itemization would play out. And it looked as if I would have to come up with about three grand. So I have not been in any great hurry to sign the form and write the check.

When I started to fill out the extension form, I realized that I needed to calculate how much I would owe, because there are penalties for guessing wrong.

The good news, although it sure wasn't fun while we were paying them, is that because of all our medical expenses last year, and notwithstanding the 7.5% offset there and another 2% elsewhere, we can deduct so much that a refund is almost certain.

I took my paperwork to the office today, and during lunch I logged onto Turbotax to see if their numbers agreed with mine. They calculate medical expenses by category, so I only got partway through. I filed the extension and broke down the numbers once I came home. Will wait a couple of weeks and file the actual return.

My current thinking is that if there is a refund I will just throw it against the line of credit. In which case I might well have that paid off by the end of this year instead of the middle of next year. And all that lovely money can go into savings for Lorelai's replacement.

Work per se went well. Such a relief.

I hope they catch the bozo or bozos who set those bombs in Boston. What a cowardly thing to do.

Shoes for defense. No, shoes for de feet.

Robi, was that us when we were younger? Anyway, I went shoe shopping yesterday. Not because I'm a girl and "needed" them. But because both pairs that I wear to work and to church need a trip to the shoe repair shop for new heels.

After putting the first coat on the trim around the window, I sluiced off and drove to the Galleria. This is a place where, years ago, a local DJ said that people went to Valley View to buy clothes good enough to wear to North Park in order to buy clothes good enough to wear shopping at Galleria.

It may not be that ritzy now. But I did put on my best jeans and a scarf and earrings. And I got exceptional if unfruitful service at Nordstrom's, where I confirmed my suspicion that the patent Dansko's were not going to have enough give at the ankles for my poor abused feet.

So I ambled on down to The Walking Company and walked out with a black pair and a brown pair in basic leather in the closest men's size. I've been wearing men's sneakers for two or three years now. Just a little bit wider. Just a little bit higher in the arch. Bliss.

I then walked over to Pottery Barn and spent the last of the gift cards on a short bench or tall footstool. It will go in front of my favorite chair. The red velvet upholstery should be a close match with the red circles on the seat cushion. I just plunked the stool down in front of the bookcase and headed straight for the kitchen.

I had promised to take brownies for the YW fundraiser. I didn't promise to bake them. So three big brownies from Braum's on a plate and into a gallon bag. Times six. A bowl of raisin bran and back out the door. The last time I ate spaghetti at church, my ankles blew up. I dropped off the brownies, said hi to some of my friends, and made a quick run to the grocery store. Then home and reading and bed.

Weird dreams. I think I must be processing the stress of the past few weeks. Government plots. Sabotage. People glowing in the dark. It was something of a relief to wake at 3:00 for a comfort break.

Church in six hours. And only the barest idea of how to manage Sharing Time.

What to say.

Mostly good day with a few spectacular exceptions. Very glad that tomorrow is Friday. Hoping not to have to deal with anyone but the cat until church on Sunday. I may feel differently in the morning. The church meeting that I thought was next Thursday, was tonight. So I went. And I met with Bishop afterwards to sign a *third* application for the sealing cancellation. In six months it will probably be funny. Until then I don't wanna talk about it. Still no Verizon refund. Ran by Braum's after church for a double dip cone. Eating my feelings. Half of them were strawberry cheesecake and the other half rocky road. Night y'all.

Pooped. Mostly happy, but pooped.

General Conference is over for another six months. Attended all four sessions. Got a lot out of the first three. Got blessed for showing up for the fourth.

Finished the Anny Blatt scarf. Picked up Color Affection and worked two rows and frogged it. Swatched a little for the Knit Swirl that I want to make. Got distracted. Got inspired. Frogged the swatch. Cast on 46 stitches for my favorite mindless scarf pattern. Have two of the three yarns I need for my Knit Swirl. Not willing to shell out for the third one as yet.

Made mac and cheese from scratch for dinner tonight. Knitted a little. Read a little. It's 9:00. Seriously ready for bed.

Had an almost normal day at work today. Felt weird, but wonderful. Hoping for more of the same tomorrow.

Night, y'all.

I love General Conference.

I took six or seven pages of notes and added about two feet to the length of the scarf. Came home, let the cat out, and took two large paper bags of books to Half Price Books.

Bye bye Rush Limbaugh. Bye bye Ann Coulter. Bye bye Louis L'Amour.

Hello twenty bucks minus Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines and a miniature copy of The Joy of Cooking. Hello rocky road ice cream cone. Hello chunks of change into half-pint canning jars (a more manageable system for wrangling coins than a gallon jar; one small jar for each type of coin).

The angora scarf is nearly done. I will probably finish it tomorrow. Which means that I should be thinking about what to knit next.

Money.

Got the word on my raise and bonus the day before yesterday. Will be keeping my standard of living the same and throwing all but the tithing into paying off my line of credit. I've already upped my contribution towards that, effective next payday. Barring some catastrophe I should be out of debt except for the mortgage well before the end of next year.

I had another good day at work yesterday. Plus the excellent news that the secretary who has been out on medical leave will be back next week, and we will be splitting Mellow's docket between us.

Hoping and praying for another good day at work today. Hanging out with several of my single friends at an unofficial activity. Dinner at my friend J's house. And then a late-ish movie if I can stay awake. Having lunch out with some of my work friends today if my workload permits.

Really cool package in yesterday's mail. More on that later.