Ms. Ravelled. In the boudoir. With a gyro.

Just in case you think I haven't a "Clue."

This was Fourthborn's lunch on Friday (or what was left of it, anyway). She reached for what she thought was a cup of ranch dressing and poured it on her sandwich, took a bite, and realized immediately (by the pricking of her tongue, something lethal this way comes) that it was tzatziki sauce, which contains cucumber, which is toxic to her. Rather in the same camp as avocado, which is why she calls guacamole "death paste."

Her loss. Definitely my gain, and eaten for breakfast before sunrise yesterday with much appreciation.

We got the lower doors reinstalled on the linen closet, and the upper doors are ready to be decoupaged and hung. My goal is to decoupage the one which will hang closest to the bathroom door, after dinner tomorrow night. We will hang it Tuesday night or Wednesday before I take her home, hang the second, unembellished door, which I will decoupage later in the week. Why the change to our routine, you ask?

At work we get a periodic email from a business collective, highlighting upcoming events in the fifteen downtown districts. Tuesday night there is a Princess Bride quote-along, and I have purchased tickets for Fourthborn and me.

So Tuesday is going to be jam-packed. Well woman in the morning, J's driving test in the early afternoon, Knit Night (which we will leave a bit earlier than usual), and then the movie, which starts half an hour before my alleged bedtime. I will be too pooped to drive Fourthborn home that night, drive back here, and be any good at work on Wednesday. So she will crash here with a honey-do list, which we have already discussed, and I will come home to further progress and then take her home.

Going back to the upper doors of the linen closet. Why am I not decoupaging both at once, then hanging the doors? Because I don't remember if the doors hang straight. They've been off the wall for several months, and I've slept since then. So we'll put one up, hang the other, mark where the other half of the poster I will be bisecting will go, and my need for perfect alignment will be satisfied. I would be eternally cranky if the design were cockeyed. When the children's father replaced a light switch in the bathroom of our house, many years ago, he installed it about 5° off the vertical, and it bothered me every time I saw it. Not everything needs to be perfect. But 5° off the vertical is about 4.9° too much in this woman's book.

Yes, I am the woman who goes around straightening pictures in the passageways at work.

I continue to make progress on The Albatross. I make sure to work on it at least a little (and preferably a lot) Monday through Saturday. Last night was no exception. I was crazy-tired, but I gave it fifteen to twenty minutes then set it aside for the Sabbath with a clear conscience. I am also nearly done with a baby sock to go into the stash for the next baby shower. I have a plethora of pink socks and am evening it up with what I consider boy-appropriate colors.


Yesterday I got the oil changed on the Tardis, got my ends trimmed and my brows weed-whacked, gave J some drive time, and still made it to bed at a decent hour. Speaking of which, notwithstanding the nap I had before going to Mel and Squishy's for Downton Abbey, I am sleepy, and it's half an hour past my usual bedtime. And it's raining outside, which bodes well for being able to sleep all night.

Glimmers

Last year I began to ponder how I observe the Sabbath. I refined some of my choices, and I could feel greater peace, inspiration, and discernment. This year I felt impressed to reorganize how I study, in order to be more diligent in my preparations for, and participation in, Sunday School and Relief Society. This past week went particularly well in terms of study, and I think I am on the right track for now. At odd moments over the past several days, I have gotten promptings and glimmers of inspiration regarding some of the practicalities of daily life. By seeking first the kingdom of Heaven, and striving to be more obedient and more apt to receive guidance, I am seeing ways to become a better steward of the time, talents, and means which Heaven has provided. I am still unlearning bad habits from the years of poverty. I still have much to learn of true principles, but I am encouraged.

Things I am going to try: purchasing more stock in the company whose stock I inherited from Beloved. I will check into that this week. Setting up a plan to purchase US Savings Bonds, as I did a number of years ago. Setting up an IRA to go with my 401K. Studying trends and prayerfully considering other stocks to purchase ~ in a small way. Resuming the support of some of my private charities, even before I finish paying off my line of credit, so that when I am (yet again) debt-free, I will use the increase to bless others as well as provide for my future.

End of an era.

 

 I sold Lorelai last Saturday. Took this picture in the driveway before heading to Squishy's and then to the dealership. I had her for nearly one-sixth of my life. I've never kept a car alive that long. More precisely, she lasted four more years than any other car I've owned. So I'm hoping that the Tardis will do as well.

I've been puny again. Monday afternoon my eyes started watering for no apparent reason. Monday night the wind blew all sorts of nonsense around. Tuesday morning I started sneezing as soon as I stepped out the front door, and I was emulating the love child of the 1812 Overture and a Gatling gun until I came home early and went to bed. I'm taking a different antihistamine, and it seems to be working better than the Allerclear. It also makes me a little sleepy.

I stayed home from work today but expect to go back tomorrow. I've watched Star Wars 1 and 2, which I brought home from Squishy's a couple of weeks ago. I finished the first baby sock, which needs to be gifted on Saturday, and cast on the second. I worked a little on The Albatross. Very pleased with today's progress on that.

I also finished the first volume in The Work and the Glory and am well into the second.

Trying to figure out if I'm sufficiently sleepy to call it a night. I had a good nap in the middle of the day, and I've resisted the temptation to take another one. 

Another quick post.

Today was the tiniest bit frustrating at work. I had problems to solve, and solve them I did, just not as quickly or elegantly as I would have liked. Part of it was because I ate lunch half an hour early, since I was ravenous, and I didn't bring quite enough fuel to finish the day in a blaze of glory. Part was because a task that I thought was complete had to be revised. It wasn't anybody's fault, but I don't like having projects that I've crossed off my list, jumping back onto it. It's as if I'd given birth, delivered the placenta, had a sponge bath and a nice nap, nursed the baby to sleep, and then the baby woke up and climbed back in.

I came home, pieced dinner together, and spent most of the evening reading the fifth and final book in the Heroes of Olympus series. I'm maybe halfway through. I took the other four books back to the library on the way home, delivering the third volume to a librarian for a bypass or a kidney transplant or whatever metaphor is appropriate when half of the book comes unglued. I offered to pay to have it repaired, but the librarian just smiled and said no thanks, they'd take care of it.

I didn't just want to dump it down the return chute with its sisters.

I've worked some on The Albatross, and I made a vat of Fage/Nutella jollop to take to work tomorrow for our Super Bowl party. I'm aiming to leave the house early enough that I can stop at the grocery store for some strawberries to go with it. Right now I'm eating some Skinny Girl lime and sea salt popcorn, because my stomach is growling and I don't want it yodeling all night.

Tomorrow night I'll need to set The Albatross aside and make the quilt block to take on Saturday morning. Tonight I need to just stop and go to bed.

Just popping in to say how-do.

I had another good day at work. Kept steadily busy all day. Filed another answer. Got another one ready for SemperFi. Kept up with the emails and the To-Do's. Did not make it through the mail. Will catch up on that tomorrow.

I had already warned Fourthborn that I was not planning to go to Knit Night. I had just enough spoons to go home by way of the pharmacy and two fast food places. Why two? I vaguely remembered, something like 40 years ago, that Long John Silvers had clam chowder. And that I had liked it. Well, if they did, it's off the menu now. I got in the line, read the menu, and changed my mind. Hit Bueno on the way home.

Have spent most of the evening reading from the fourth book in the Heroes of Olympus series. Am going to read a couple more pages before hitting the sack. I did spend half an hour or so working on The Albatross. Am hoping that tomorrow night I will get a generous scoop of inspiration regarding the next segment of it, because tonight I am drawing a huge blank. I'm not liking the start I made and will probably pick it out when the alarm goes off in the morning.

But I do believe I'm tired enough, and sleepy enough, to fall asleep easily and sleep through the night. I think another couple of quiet nights at home will bring me back to what passes for normal around here. I am grateful for the increasing health and comfort. And I would prefer to be charging ahead rather than easing into first or second gear from granddaddy low.

Back in the saddle again (sort of).

I had a really good day at work. Thankfully, there were only a couple dozen new emails to wrangle, and I dealt with those pretty quickly. I got my To-Do's caught up, and my attorneys' calendars, and worked the mail from Friday and today. Filed one answer and did preliminary work for two new cases. Remembered to take my antibiotic on time. Ate and ate and ate.

I had quite the honey-do list when I left the office: file my taxes, pick up some OTC meds, wrap a baby shower gift for tomorrow, find out when the Plano quilt show is (August), get a dab of cash to help buy flowers at work, and do the laundry.

The second and final load is tumbling in the dryer as we speak. I worked for a few minutes on The Albatross. Texted Fourthborn to tell her that I don't think I'm up to a long drive and a late night tomorrow, so we will be skipping Knit Night.

I've nuked the bag of deer corn for my feet, taken my meds, and I'm going to read for about 15 minutes and call it a night. I've touched all of the important stuff, and I am both grateful and wiped out. I don't want to push my luck.

One last, really cool thing. I mentioned that the new female attorney in our office got married a couple of weeks ago. Today she showed me a lovely five minute video of highlights from her wedding. I cried. I hope she and her husband will be as happy as Beloved and I were, and I hope they get to spend many many years together.

Family stuff.

Yesterday I found my third great-grandparents, which made me happy and misty-eyed. Today Middlest and I were texting back and forth, discussing what to do when I pay a visit later this year. My child offered to accompany me to a nearby temple and hang out reverently while I served. Raleigh is the closest. I looked at my great great grandmother’s information and realized that she was born in North Carolina. And promptly burst into tears. She has a bushel of siblings whose work needs doing. So I’ve made the goal of taking one of my 2nd great aunts through what would be “her” temple if it had been on the earth while she was alive.

I have been hanging out with the dead people again today. They are most insistent. It is kinda like being sucked into heavenly quicksand, but instead of my lungs filling up with death, my heart fills up with tears. So many of them lost in the Civil War. So many children dying young. So many widows and widowers. So often I tell them, "Oh honey, I'm so sorry."

In the Church we are taught that through baptism we become Abraham's seed, even if there is no direct lineal connection. I have always assumed that I was adopted in through baptism. And I was wrong. I learned last year that Joseph Smith is my 7th cousin 5x removed (via John Denison and Agnes Willie) through my mother; my 11th cousin 3x removed (via William Offley and Elizabeth Dillorne) through my father; my 14th cousin once removed (via John Dinham and Philippe Lovel) through my father; and my 12th cousin three times removed (via Richard Rich and Catherine Cutherey) through my father. There are, no doubt, other connections to discover.

The Candy Bomber (Gail Seymour Halvorsen) is my tenth cousin. Jon Huntsman is my 11th cousin once removed. Cleon Skousen is my 13th cousin once removed. J. Willard Marriott is my 13th cousin twice removed. Mitt Romney is my 14th cousin. Thomas Edwin Ricks is my 8th cousin three times removed (via William Harris and Alice Smythe) through my father. Beloved is also related to Thomas Ricks, but I haven't found the connection, so technically my husband is some sort of cousin.

But I digress. We know from the Book of Mormon that Joseph Smith was prophesied by Joseph the son of Jacob to be the prophet of the Restoration. Joseph Smith was a literal descendant of Abraham, through Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Which means that I am a literal descendant of Abraham, et al. This does not make me any cooler than the rest of humanity, but it deepens my testimony that Heaven wanted me to be found when I was one of the wandering.

What time I haven't been working on family history, has been spent reading the February issue of the Ensign. And there were two naps. And I ate what feels like a lot but probably wasn't. Meaning that I ate a lot of small meals but maybe not enough to fuel the recuperation, because I ate a couple of hours ago, and I'm hungry again.

I can't decide if I'm also sleepy again, but it's time to take my meds and do something else.

Sleep. Eat. Read.

 Somehow I don't think that title will make the New York Times bestseller list.

I hung out with the dead people today. A lot. I finished working my way through the emails from ancestry.com with hints. There are now more than 2800 people on my family tree. And I have over 10,000 hints waiting to be unwrapped.

I haven't knitted. Or worked on The Albatross. That will change shortly. I have two hours an hour and a half until the Sabbath begins, although I doubt I'll be able to stay awake that long. I just want to make a little more progress, while I can, and then I will most thankfully abstain tomorrow.

I've made arrangements for a substitute for church tomorrow. I am not at all sure that I want to get out of my PJs once I wake up.

I probably ought to check the mailbox to see if my W-2s came while I was hanging out with demigods and dead people. (What do you know? They did. Now I just need the stupid 1095C.)

I've taken my third dose of antibiotics. I'm still vaguely hungry. I'll go forage something and work on The Albatross for half an hour or so and call it a day.

Somebody needs to clean my glasses. I suppose that would be me.

Pole-axed

Shortly after I woke up yesterday morning, the sinuses on the right side of my head started to misbehave. I stayed up later than I should, finishing the second book in the Heroes series, falling asleep sometime after 11:30, only to awaken a little after 4:00 this morning with a head full of quick-set cement and a warning something in my right ear. Not pain, exactly, but the merest hint of tenderness.

I puttered for a couple of hours. Paid a couple of bills, shifted some funds, planned out my day. When I stopped, it was a little after 7:00. Ordinarily, I can throw myself into the shower, grab my stuff, and make it to work on time. But this morning I thought, Nah, all I want to do is go back to bed. So I called in sick, warmed up the deer corn bag for my feet, and crashed for another five hours.

I spent the day reading, puttering, studying background articles relating to this part of the Book of Mormon to deepen my understanding, and trying to decide whether to go to the night clinic. Finally, at the last possible minute, I did. I have a prescription and have cancelled my plans for tonight and tomorrow.

The doctor said something interesting. He told me that the new research indicates that the most serious part of an infection is not the infection itself, nor headaches, fever, discharges. It is the fatigue which accompanies infection. And that I had been right to sleep this morning, and to take that warning seriously. (I love being right. Not just thinking that I'm right, but actually being right.)

I've been sleepy-again for a couple of hours now. Rallied a little when I ate dinner, but I can feel myself drooping, and I'm going to do what I normally don't: I'm going to honor that. One of the blessings of my diabetes is that I am learning when to slow down, so that I have a chance to heal before attempting my normal full tilt boogie.

Life is good, and we caught this sinus/ear infection even earlier than the one last year. I am so blessed.

Fun with Fourthborn

One of the things I miss about marriage to the children's father, is our extended wordplay. It wasn't a matter of one-upmanship. No, we would build upon the other's contributions, great soaring spun-sugar jengas alight with wit and affection. Thankfully, Fourthborn has inherited her father's gift. It works best when we are both a little tired and loopy, as we were Tuesday night when I was taking her home.

We were vaguely hungry, notwithstanding a light dinner at Bueno and a shared brownie at Starbucks. So we detoured to Arby's for a junior roast beef sandwich (me) and a junior cheddar bacon sandwich (her). This turned into as scenic route as one can find after sundown. We crossed a street called Endicott, and I started to say, "Endicott? Epcot's slightly snooty older brother?" But she leaped on the first word and offered, "Begindecott?" After which we finished the last bites of our sandwiches simultaneously, and I mused, "Synchronized chewing?" To which she responded, "Better than synchronized other stuff ... but you're past that." Yeah. Six women in the house, all sync'd to either Firstborn or me. Maybe it's no wonder that their father retreated into talk radio.

A little later we spotted a clinic where the southern end of a park used to be: TMI Sports Medicine, which led to, "How did this happen? woah woah woah! [warding gesture] Don't tell me!"

Which pretty much guaranteed helpless laughter until I dropped her off.

I've finished the second volume in the Heroes of Olympus series. I love that Iris has semi-retired to a New Age shop called ROFL with inedible health food cupcakes. And that Amazon is run by real Amazons. I haven't worked on The Albatross all night, but I will go put in 15 or 20 minutes before calling it quits.

But first I need to look up Dyak black nickel modular needles. Night, y'all.

I want to write. Really.

But Monday night and tonight I came home, ate dinner, and worked on The Albatross until I needed to take a reading break. I stayed up much too late, several nights last week, and I'm trying to be sensible about bedtimes this week.

So you will just have to trust me when I say that much hilarity happened on the way back to Fourthborn's from Knit Night, and I had her transcribe notes for me into Evernote, where one day (sooner, I hope, than later) they will rise up out of my forehead like Athena and land themselves smack in the middle of a blog post.

I'm trying to find/feel balance, to move from one good thing to the next. While I worked on The Albatross tonight, I listened to the seven chapters from the Book of Mormon which are the basis for this coming Sunday School lesson. I will want to read them again, and study from the lesson manual, but at least they've made a first pass in one ear and out the other, sticking around long enough to give me plenty to ponder as I fall asleep tonight.

That thing where I got honored at work for third quarter? I was chosen as the overall poohbah for 2015, and there is a small honorarium which will show up in my bank account sometime next week. And I've submitted my expense report for the refreshment prize for the fourth quarter winner. That will show up around the same time. I'm still waiting semi-patiently (you can stop laughing, right now!) for my W-2 and the Obamacare whatsit form to show up so I may file my taxes and cross a few honey-do's off my list.

OK, y'all, I'm done for tonight. I've been helping Percy Jackson try to figure out how he stumbled into the Roman camp, and I'm nearly as tired as he is. You're on your own.

Itty bitty baby steps forward.

Mother, may I? Yes, I may. Another step forward on The Albatross. A small step backward financially while preparing to take a medium step forward. Sensible food for breakfast and dinner, even if I did not pack quite enough of it. Big old salad for dinner, and brownie brittle for dessert, a bite here and a bite there, as I finished increments of The Albatross.

I finished the first book in the Heroes of Olympus series and am going to start the second book in a few minutes. Just a handful of pages to give my dream brain something to chew on tonight.

I had a really, really good day at work today. And I suspect that tomorrow may be even better, notwithstanding the fact that we will have a support staff meeting which was postponed from earlier this month. For one thing, we will announce the fourth quarter winner of an incentive program we've been running for a little over two years. For another, we are not continuing that program this year, which means that I will get to step down as driver of the committee.

Plus, at the end of the day there will be Knit Night, and I have my colored pencil boxes stacked and waiting by the front door, and the trash and recycling will go out tomorrow morning, freeing up a smidgen more psychic energy. That's always good.

Book is calling, and my eyelids are heavy. Night, y'all.

Good Sabbath to y'all!

Weird dreams. I woke up at 5:30 and was ... really? So I puttered for a couple of hours, set the alarm and went back to bed. Woke up to the philosophies of men, mingled with scripture, from my radio. Remembered to reset the alarm for tomorrow morning. Before the waking-up, I dreamed that I was on a bus, and we stopped, and I went into a hotel restaurant to eat, looked down, and saw that I had a briefcase of some sort but had left my bag on the bus, which had disappeared. I spent the rest of the dream walking down wet, messy streets toward restaurants that disappeared, and I woke up hungry.

Yes, I am reading the Heroes of Olympus series. Yes, it is having an influence on what rattles around in my brain while I'm sleeping. Yes, I'm going to keep reading.

I made it to church on time, and a lovely surprise was waiting on the armrest of the chair next to where I sit for sacrament meeting. Last week for our intermediate hymn, our organist and a sister in the ward played a lovely duet of clarinet and piano: “I’m Trying to Be Like Jesus.” After sacrament meeting, I asked him, “Your arrangement?” Yes, it was. “What key is it in?” B-flat. “Could you transcribe it in C for soprano recorder?” Yes, he could. And there it was, waiting for me when I got to church today. I owe him a pan of brownies.

My hands and shins are gradually becoming a little less parched. I'm about to go slather myself and get into my jammies. Episode 4 of Downton Abbey is over. More loose ends are tied up. And I have leftover brownie brittle that survived yesterday and an hour of high toned British soap.

I've made arrangements with Mel and Squishy to get Lorelai to CarMax next Saturday morning, and me back home. I ran the numbers a couple of weeks ago, and what I could get for a private sale above what CarMax is likely to pay me, is not worth the hassle of dealing with people or having Firstborn and 1BDH deal with people for me. She needs to be inspected and have her license renewed by the end of next month, and I just want to be done. I'm a little nervous going back to having only one vehicle, and I may get something else when the mortgage is paid off, but in the meantime the Tardis will do just fine.

Oh, and I borrowed Star Wars 1-2-3 [the prequels] from Mel and Squishy. I've put the DVDs on my to-buy list for when I get my tax refund, but it might be wise to watch the movies first and see if I want to spend the money.

And now if you'll kindly excuse me, I'm going to prepare my overnight oatmeal for tomorrow's breakfast. After which I will jump back into The Lost Hero and see if I can help Percy get found.

It's been a good day.

Woke up a little after 7:30. Bliss. I know that some people wouldn't think that waking up before 10:00 on a Saturday morning could be delicious, but it was to me. For the past couple of months I've been letting myself sleep until 6:00 on weekdays, and I think it's making a small improvement in my vitality.

I made another batch of brownies to take to T's house today. He recently had a breakup with his partner, and some of us (including Fourthborn) met to help him do some spring cleaning. More on that, later.

The first thing was to get to Fourthborn's to give Roomie some driving time. He took us to the art supply store (I stayed in the Tardis but asked him to blow kisses at the Prismacolors for me), then to check out an apartment complex closer to his work, and from there to a grocery store, which Fourthborn scouted for a possible job, and where he did their weekly grocery shopping and I hit the loo and then bought a package of single-serve Blue Bell cups to take to T's.  Roomie drove back to the apartment, and I drove us to Firstborn's to drop off my spare shredder. T's house is maybe a mile from there.

When we got there T, a friend from Knit Night, and one of his friends from the renfest were dethugging the kitchen. Fourthborn and I tackled the patio doors. Hey, it's the only part of housework that I truly enjoy. I have no idea why I find it so deeply satisfying, but I do. When we were done, the doors were not perfectly clean (there are lots of scratches in the glass from his dog), but they were much improved.

Then most of us sat on the couch and knitted or crocheted while watching the last three-fourths or so of Strange Magic, which is an OK movie with a terrific soundtrack. Anytime you have someone of Kristin Chenoweth's caliber singing the part of the Sugar Plum Fairy, you are by definition in for a good time. At least musically.

Fourthborn worked on her entry for next month's art contest at the comic book shop where Roomie works. I hadn't seen it for a couple of weeks, and it's really coming to life.

At the library, I picked up the first two books in the next series by Rick Riordan. I've placed holds on the next three books. I can only hope that they become available in chronological order, and quickly. I'm a little put off that some of the characters take the Lord's name in vain. They would probably say that they were referring to the Greek or Roman gods, but it still makes me uncomfortable. If I buy my own copies when I finish the series, I will fix that with white-out. It is so unnecessary.

I'm tired, and my hands are parched and itchy. I deliberately left the remainder of the brownies out in the Tardis, so as not to be tempted by them. I'll take them to Mel and Squishy's tomorrow night for Downton Abbey.

I'm going to slip into my jammies, lotion up my hands and my feet, and read until I can't keep my eyes open any longer.

Fingerprints.

As I posted elsewhere, Heaven's fingerprints are all over this day. I awoke about 45 minutes after the alarm should have gone off. Oops. Was clean and dressed and out the door with my breakfast, lunch and knitting in less than half an hour. Made it to work safely and on time notwithstanding the damp streets. Worked steadily all day.

Hit Bueno on the way home. Ate dinner sitting up in bed, Percy Jackson #5 in one hand. Washed my hands and worked on The Albatross for awhile. Read some more. Finished a small component of the stealth project for Christmas. Worked on The Albatross some more. It is now 10:45, and my hands are tired but I fear my brain is not.

I made sure the alarm is set this time. Phone is charging. Crafty stuff is put away. CPAP has sufficient water. I've read my Sunday School lesson. Prayed about various people. A coworker's husband is about to step through the veil. I pray that he will live as long as life is sweet for him. (That's what I prayed for Beloved, in those last weeks and days.)

This is a tender time of year. I love the growing light, and the memory of Christmas. I was listening to Pandora last night on the way home, and an old Dixie Chicks song popped onto my station: Travelin' Soldier. I'm still mad at the Dixie Chicks for their lead singer's tacky comment in London in early 2003 (which is when I stopped buying their music, and I eventually sold all three of their CDs when I was low on cash several years ago). But they made beautiful music, and that song was one of their best. It was a favorite of LittleBit's. I was seven years away from meeting Beloved when first I heard it, and I had entirely forgotten its existence until last night. The keening chorus opened up something inside of me. Instantaneous sobbing for the length of each chorus, calm bemusement during the verses. I don't think I was crying for myself, although I'm pretty sure I'm "never gonna hold the hand of another guy." No desire to.

Sorry, y'all, you are getting brain droppings tonight. I'm hoping for another productive day tomorrow, and I am looking forward to another quiet night at home.

I've been thinking a little bit about retirement off and on this week. Trying to decide if I want to retire at age 70, with twenty-three years of service, or see if I can hold out two more years and make it an even twenty-five. Fourth of July 2024 might be a pretty good target for declaring my independence, all things considered.

Up much too late last night.

Went to bed a little after midnight, having worked some on The Albatross and read a whole bunch in the fourth Percy Jackson, which I finished a few minutes ago.

I am having a great week at work. When I log off at five, my eyes are ready to do something fun, and my brain is tired. I feel as if I were lifted up on angel wings, and quite possibly I am.

I completed a huge trial notebook for SemperFi today, and I thought I was done with the one for my other attorney, but there are still a couple of things I need to check out and print off. Both of them will be in trial on Monday. And theoretically SemperFi has a trial date in a second case, but we are way down on the docket, and you never know: that one could always settle before we have to show up. I may be putting together a third trial notebook tomorrow and Friday, or not. On the one hand, I'm getting a bit faster with each one that I do, and I genuinely enjoy the process. On the other hand, it would be nice to have a little break. I did get all of the mail read today, and most of my To-Do's worked, but tomorrow I have a trial date to calendar in a different case, and all of the paperwork that goes with that.

Every day is different, and I am thankful to be busy again, after the slow days before and after Christmas.

I'm a little ticked with the POTUS and the bureaucracies. When I got to work this morning, there was an email about a new form that I will have to file as part of my tax return this year, because of Obamacare. I thought I was home free once my W-2's arrive, because I have everything else, but this form will be mailed out by February 1, and it may take a week to ten days to get here. Oy to the veh.

I put in a few minutes on The Albatross this morning before leaving for work. I'm going to work on it a few more minutes before bedtime and hope that I don't get sucked into "one more stitch, and then I'll put it up."

And the good stuff spilled over into today.

There were only 45 emails waiting for me at work, after two days off. I got through all of them, responded to others that popped up throughout the day, participated in an hour-long meeting with the other secretaries, worked my To-Do's, got through three days' worth of mail for both attorneys, chased after a scheduling order that we should have gotten copied on three months ago, ate wisely, and remained focused, even after the text messages from Middlest regarding ER and kidney stone and morphine. Worked so steadily that I forgot to put on lipstick after finishing my breakfast. Oh well.

I was saddened to read of Glenn Frey's death. I imagine he is relieved to be free of a broken body, and I hope he was warmly welcomed when he went Home. I feel his loss far greater than I do David Bowie's, and about on a par with Alan Rickman's. It has not been, thus far, a good month for 60+ year old artists and musicians.

I made some progress on The Albatross before leaving for work, and more while the cornbread was baking. After that, I set it aside to finish book three in the Percy Jackson series. I may work on it for a scant few minutes before going to bed, or I may give some attention to the stealth Christmas presents. They come pretty close to being instant gratification.

I hope my kid sleeps well tonight. I hope Brother Frey's family is surrounded by angels to comfort them, as I was comforted when Beloved died. I am grateful for the moments of inspired silliness that happened throughout my day. There are brothers and sisters on the Widows and Widowers board who lost a spouse to cancer and are now fighting it themselves. When they post, I send a prayer skyward. I might be on to the next thing five seconds after the "amen" leaves my head, but I hope my oh-crap-not-another-one prayers do at least a little bit of good.

Tomorrow night is ward temple night, and part of me wants to go, and part of me wants to come home and do what I did tonight: make stuff, eat comfort food, and read. The singles are gathering for a session on Thursday night.

Random thought: I just realized that I stopped sneezing some time ago. I wonder why? I woke up yesterday morning very early, my CPAP nose-piece aimed a little off and irritating one of the little hairs deep inside my nose (sorry), and all of a sudden my nasal cavity was hollering "invasion from Mars! panic! run in circles, scream and shout!"

I told myself firmly, we do not have time to be sick. We have a talk to give, and we have family to visit, and you're not sick, you're just having a nasal hissyfit. Apparently my nose finally got the message. (When I sneeze it's kinda like the cannons in the 1812 Overture, only timed like a gatling gun. Ark! Ark! Ark-ark-ark! And approximately C#. Just in case you wondered.)

OK, I'm done.

One hatchet, buried.

I had a lovely visit with OlderTwin and his family tonight. Mel and Squishy were also there. The spirit was one of quiet and peace. I could detect nothing of hypocrisy or set-up.

I am so thankful. I have dutifully prayed for them since they became a part of my life four years ago, more often than not without any real hope. It will be ever so much easier to pray for them now.

OlderTwin said that it will take longer for his brother to come around, that it always has. But he seemed to feel it would happen.

My heart is full, and my eyes are heavy, and I'm heading off to bed shortly. I am invited back again when they host the family dinner next month.

Night, y'all. I have some blessings to count.

It's Greek to me.

In The Lightning Thief, one of the characters uses ergo in a way that seemed unusual to me. I knew it from cogito ergo sum, "I think, therefore, I am." So I googled it and learned that it is both Latin (which I knew) and Greek (which I did not), and in Greek it relates to work. Which got me to thinking: ergonomics to economics to ecology. Which led me to wonder, what is a nomic, and what is an ec?

Nomic: relating to a musical nome, melody, custom (what on earth is that?) and maybe related to nimble; having the force of natural law or generally valid; from the Greek nomikos ~ usage, custom, law. (From the Merriam Webster online dictionary, which did not want to let me back in to link after I'd done the links below.)

Eco: habitat or environment; from the Greek oikos, home. (Ditto.)

So, ecology is the study of habitat or environment. That one's easy. Economics = "a social science concerned chiefly with description and analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services". Which, naturally, benefit the home.

Ergonomics = an applied science concerned with designing and arranging things people use so that the people and things interact most efficiently and safely. Yeah. I just did a redneck chiasmus. I know a (very) little about chiasmus, because the Book of Mormon is filled with it.

Yesterday I read the second book in the Percy Jackson series. I also worked on The Albatross, and I took myself to lunch at La Madeleine, where I had a cup of tomato basil soup, quiche Lorraine, and strawberries Romanoff. Then I came home and played with the dead people for about four hours, ate a very little, fought chill (I don't think I'm sick; I think I just didn't eat enough yesterday!), and threw an extra quilt on the bed after praying that I would would be able to keep my commitment to help clean the meetinghouse this morning and go to a family thing tomorrow evening.

I didn't cry once, yesterday, because it was Beloved's angelversary. I did cry a little upon receiving a text message from Older Twin, inviting me to their son's birthday party tomorrow. I have been persona non grata with that part of the family since shortly after Beloved died.

And now if you will all kindly excuse me, I'm going to make a huge cheese omelette in the hope of  (A) having enough fuel to ma'am the vacuum or whatever and (B) warming up. Thankfully I don't feel ill. Just cold. I can fix cold.

Happy anniversary to us!

Four years, three of them in a distinctly long-distance relationship.

I crack myself up.

Today I have worked on The Albatross, read my scriptures like a good girl, and spent hours upon hours hanging out with the dead people. Who have strangely forgotten that mortals need to eat. I finally had to say, "No more, dudes! I'm so hungry that I'm getting crabby, and I'm no good to you if I'm crabby, so we're done for now."

I made a vat of soup for the missionaries and delivered it in a giant disposable loaf pan resting in the cardboard box bottom that came with my dozen cans of chicken broth. Plus two crisp apples and the last four snickerdoodles that I bought on Tuesday after Knit Night.

I went to Half Price Books and spent part of my gift card. The Percy Jackson books in paperback, and a Nigella Lawson cookbook. Dinner was four party tacos and a mug of pumpkin cheesecake ice cream, and I'm still vaguely hungry with no idea what sounds good.

I've read the first 103 pages or so of the first Percy Jackson book, and I really like it. Riordan's style is very American, very conversational, and I snort with laughter about every other page. This guy is good.

Facebook tells me that a year ago I made a field trip to La Madeleine. I was vaguely thinking about it today but only got out of my jammies in time to do the drive-by fooding of the elders. Maybe I will go have brunch there tomorrow before firing up the computer and playing some more with the dead people.

Successes: I found my Uncle Kenny's second wife's maiden name and the name of her parents. I have a surname for her first husband, but no hints yet as to anything more. I mostly worked on the kids of one of my great great grandmothers, and it got a little teary from time to time. I think she's happy to be remembered, and to have them found and connected together. I've started a spreadsheet, color-coded, to keep track of whose work is finished, who is still alive, whose work needs to be done, and whose work needs to be done but has been reserved by FamilySearch. (I don't know what that's about.)

I am now officially more than vaguely hungry. Time to forage, make one last dash through Facebook, and call it a night. Tomorrow is the angelversary, and I will probably need to have my wits about me.

There's your straight line...

Chick time.

Work was amazing today. Just amazing. I got through the To-Do's, the mail, kept the inbox in line, and toward the middle of the day was caught up through tomorrow. When I looked at the To-Do's for Friday, I discovered three trial notebooks that need to be done. I emailed SemperFi about two of them, for trials scheduled to start the same day, asking if either was likely to settle, and which one he would like me to do first, and that until I heard back, I would be working on the notebook for my other attorney.

I'm out for the next two days, but I've nearly completed the innards of that notebook, and I am poised to finish with a big huzzah when I get back to the office next Monday. I also had my end of year performance review, and I am pleased. I won't know how that translates into raise and bonus for a few more weeks, but there will be some of each, and for that I am immensely grateful.

Met a friend from my ward for ice cream after work, and we talked for two hours, and it was wonderful. She's the Gospel Doctrine teacher, is freshly divorced, and is a hoot. We've agreed to get together once a month for something like this. Like me, she has a job that she enjoys that she's been at this side of forever. (Her chunk of forever is two decades shorter than mine; I'm just barely old enough to be her mother.)

So that was good, and I grabbed a burger at In N Out on the way home, and that's settled, so I will post this and turn off the lights and go to bed. If I were a betting woman, I'd lay odds that I'll wake up within half an hour of when I normally would (assuming that the Insomnia Fairy does not decide to grace Chez Ravelled with her presence).

Tomorrow is my fourth anniversary. I plan to spend a good bit of the day hanging out with the dead people. They've been somewhat neglected of late. And I'm doing a drive-by fooding of the elders tomorrow night.

Later, gators.

Happy teeth. Happy dentist.

We were budgeted for an hour apiece, Fourthborn and I, but the cleanings went so well that we were both done in a little over an hour. So we ate some Bueno, went to the art supply place, stopped in at the comic book shop where Fourthborn has an entry in their art contest, then to her place briefly so she could walk her dog, and maybe an hour walking about in an antique mall where we saw several lovely bits but nothing that needed to come home with either of us.

We found ourselves strangely hungry after our stroll, so hit Arby's on the way to Knit Night and picked up kid-size sandwiches to stave off the jumbies. Stayed until about 8:00, headed back to her place by way of Braum's because snickerdoodles sounded good, and we could get a dozen to split for about what we'd pay for a single brownie at Starbucks.

Dropped her off, and alternately prayed and sang my way home. Spent an hour working on The Albatross, took my meds, and am about ready for bed. Brain would like to stay up and read awhile. Eyes and body-at-large are insistent upon being horizontal and unconscious as soon as decently possible.

It's been a good day. Tomorrow I have a full day of work, and then I'm meeting a girlfriend from church for ice cream and to get to know one another better.

Over and soon to be out.

Another short one.

Work went well. I have a couple of interesting tasks waiting for me in the morning. I managed to stay busy all day, even if some of that busyness involved researching places I might like to go on vacation.

Dinner with the Empty Nesters tonight. Applebee's. The food was generally good. The service was not quite as we might have wished, and the parking was abominable. I didn't foresee a problem when I parked the Tardis, but there was another truck parked behind me, on the other side of a narrow passageway, and I had to back and file half a dozen times before I was clear to leave. Not. Fun.

A little over an hour's work on The Albatross tonight. Hands are tired. Eyes are tired. Have just read one article regarding the status of women in Israel in the time of Lehi and Nephi, so my mind and spirit have something to chew on overnight.

Speaking of overnight, last night I was sufficiently weary when I went to bed that I forgot to change the alarm from 6pm to 6am. I awoke from a slightly frustrating serial dream to find that I was forty minutes past my usual hour. It made for an interesting scramble to get ready, but I made it to work on time, and I had a tender experience while listening to the Book of Mormon on the drive in. More on that later, if I remember. Which is not necessarily likely. A couple of weeks ago I asked Fourthborn to text me three words as a cue to tell her a funny story. I am still trying to figure out why I thought "LittleBit" "zombie" and "bee" would be enough to do the job.

Night, y'all. The bed is ready for me, and I am more than ready for the bed.

Veryquickpost.

Yes, I know it's nearly 11:00pm.  Yes, I know that that is an hour after the time I try to be in bed. I had a short nap this afternoon, and I've been waiting to feel sleepy, which I now do. Am hoping that I got just enough nap to be useful and not so much that sleep is a laughable concept. Knock wood, I think I'm OK.

It's been a lovely, restful Sabbath. I made brownies to take to Mel and Squishy's to watch the second episode of Downton Abbey. It's fun to see various bits of plot begin to be tied up in neat little bows. Anna is no longer in danger of false arrest and imprisonment. There's about to be another wedding. Mary has shed much of her queen bee attitude and is becoming a modern woman in nearly the best sense. There's an outside chance that poor Edith may find happiness and escape her middle-child neuroses. Thomas is being his usual crabby self. Daisy is no longer the little mouse that she was in the early years. Education and opportunities have opened up her world, it it's fun watching her learn how to be assertive without being overbearing. The Earl's sister, who was rather a pain early on, appears to have softened and mellowed. She had a particularly poignant line tonight about the dangers in being comfortable, living alone. I thought to myself, right on, sister!

There was a modicum of knitting during Sunday School and Relief Society today. More grist for the Christmas boxes.

I suspect that tomorrow morning I will wake a little ahead of the alarm, and my hands will reach for The Albatross. I have dinner with the Empty Nesters to look forward to, and then more work on The Albatross, and then bed.

But I mustn't get ahead of myself. I did a little reading in supplementary material after coming home from the kids' apartment. It's an online book that was referenced in one of the KnowWhy links at Book of Mormon Central.

Night, y'all.

Much progress.

Fourthborn worked on the door mouldings for my bedroom and the smaller doors for the linen closet, plus several coats on the framework for the linen closet.

I worked on The Albatross. I am beginning to feel greater affection for it. The most fiddly bit is done. I have gone back over previous portions and improved a few of them. Before I took her home, I had begun a section that was entirely new territory. I was even hopeful that when I got back I would have the energy and the inclination to finish that bit, but no.

My hands ache, my neck and shoulders are stiff, my eyelids are drooping, and I have no wish to do anything more ambitious than sleeping. So that is what I am going to do. I'm very pleased with what we accomplished today, and enough is enough, and I'm ever so thankful that tomorrow is the Sabbath. When I awake on Monday morning, I can pick up where I'm leaving off, with a clear conscience and a rested body.

Night, y'all.

Taking a little break.

Because I was turning into a pretzel, sitting in bed, working on The Albatross. Yes, as in Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Only not as stinky. And I am making progress. As soon as I get my back and neck stretched out, I will get back to it.

I was able to calculate my sales tax deduction for last year. It is a very nice number, and it does lovely things to my refund, assuming that I haven't forgotten something crucial. I'm basically done until the W-2's and 1099's roll in and I can check my numbers.

Had another good day at work today. Got all the mail worked, and all the To-Do's worked or touched if I couldn't complete them. Did a quick special project for the office manager. Completed one item of mandatory annual training and began another. I'm hoping to finish the second one tomorrow.

Cousin emailed me the date of this year's family reunion, so I can now calendar that.

One of the women in the Knittin'Tiny group on Facebook posted a link to a really cool cast-on. It's called the Chinese Waitress Cast-On.  It was published in a book by Cap Sease (who is not the person in this video, but she credits her). This video is kinda talky, but in this case I think that's helpful.

OK, I'm done, except to say there's also a Chinese Waitress Cast-Off, but I haven't checked it out.

Inching forward.

A little progress on one of the stealth projects for next Christmas.

I listened to the first seven chapters of 1 Nephi while working on a different project. I also hauled four books out of the bookcase to serve as supplementary reading material, and I also checked out Book of Mormon Central.

I figured out the hymns for next Sunday and the one after that, and mailed the list to the powers that be.

I ate leftovers. Huge salad followed by about half of the purple potato and red onion jollop that I made last weekend.

My brain would like to color. I'm going to appease it by knitting to the next decrease on the stealth project. Something like two or three minuscule rounds. Because my eyes and my hands are crazy-tired.

It's been a good day.

More stuff made like Elvis and left the building.

I love Tuesdays. Trash goes out to the street. Every other Tuesday (this is not one of them) recycling also goes out. I dropped off a bag of miscellany behind Salvation Army on my way to work. I dropped off three pairs of glasses at my eye doctor's before picking up Fourthborn for Knit Night. Squishy picked up the affidavit of heirship that I signed for him so he can get Beloved taken off the title to his car. A friend from church is picking up the ice cream dishes. That was supposed to happen today, but did not.  If the box is still there when I get home tomorrow night, it gets donated.

I spent about twenty minutes this morning working on the resurrected project. I'm too tired to work on it tonight, but at least there was some progress today. There will be more tomorrow. I plan on giving it another 15-20 minutes before work and however much I can stand before bedtime.

Fourthborn and I are going to have to tweak her pickup and delivery this weekend. As I now have midday church, taking her home immediately afterward will interfere with a social commitment she has made. She needs to be there by 1:00. I will be zipping down the hall from Gospel Doctrine to Relief Society at that time. What we're both hoping is that she can hit the floor running when I bring her here on Friday night, work steadily beginning early Saturday morning, and then go home Saturday night (but not too late for me to make a safe round trip).

OK. I've nuked the bag of deer corn that warms my feet during the cooler months. I've topped off the reservoir in my CPAP. The phone is plugged in for the night. I don't want to read, or knit, or color. I just want to be asleep fifteen minutes ago.

Night, y'all. I'm handing over the baton.

So I crunched the numbers.

Came home from watching Downton Abbey with Mel and Squishy, and remembered to open up Lorelai (who has been sitting idle at the head of my driveway for a couple of months now), fire up the engine, and take down her mileage.

It ain't pretty. 215,303 of intermittently-maintained miles, dings and dents and peeling plastic from the rear bumper and a big gash on the driver's seat where my shoulder blade has rubbed along it for nearly ten years as I slide down into the car. Fair condition is probably a stretch. Looking at a trade-in value range of $287-792 (likely value $540). About three times as much if I sell her to a private buyer.

I want to empty her out and offload her before I have to re-license and reinspect her. Firstborn and 1BDH are willing to help me sell her privately. I am sorely tempted to forego the additional cash and have a friend follow me down to CarMax and take the $500 just to be done with it, as I did with Earl, her predecessor (as in, Earl's in the trunk; I used to be a Dixie Chicks fan until they got tacky about W after 9/11).

In other car news, I have a quitclaim deed to sign on Beloved's behalf for the car that he co-signed with Squishy, so they can get Beloved's name off the title. I'll get that notarized tomorrow and take it over tomorrow night after work.

I've written my visiting teaching letters, stuffed the envelopes, and need to weigh them so I can put on the postage. Pretty sure they will all require an extra stamp. I bought some of those last month. They have penguins on them! (Yes, I am easily amused.)

First episode of the final season of Downton Abbey did not disappoint. Spending time with Mel and Squishy is always the best part.

In other family news, a friendly tag on Facebook by one of the twins, and a brief, civil response from the other twin to a group text I'd sent to all three of the boys.

I feel as if I had been eating all day (I haven't), and it's nearly bedtime, and I'm ravenous again.

I need to buy spray starch tomorrow. They warned us at the quilt shop yesterday that the next three blocks have many, many long bias-cut edges, and that spray starch and careful pressing will be the only way to complete the blocks with any semblance of sanity intact. Heading out to the kitchen to nuke a mug of dark chocolate almond milk, take my meds, and call it a night.

I managed to avoid a nap after church, but it was a near miss. I leave everything in your capable hands.

What the grownup does on the second day of the year.

Procrastinate. Big time.

There is something I need to do, and I don't want to do it (but I will). Instead of working on it today, I have spent six hours scanning and organizing paperwork and files on my computer and external drive. A worthy project, and it needed to be done, but perhaps not today.

I also cleaned the silver earrings that I made in the silversmithing class in Fredericksburg in 1992 or early 1993, when I was teaching community education classes and taking them in an effort to stave off despair.

I re-glued the amber heart into its setting. Those earrings were Beloved's last Christmas gift to me, and I haven't worn them in months. I'll let them lie fallow for two more days, and then I should be able to wear them safely again.

I picked up the January quilt block for Fourthborn's quilt and the penultimate monthly kit for the medallion quilt. I bought two silver Verithin pencils to mark quilting lines.

I confirmed with Mel what time I should show up tomorrow for the lead-in to the final season of Downton Abbey.

I tweaked my 2014-2015 and 2016-2017 spreadsheets.

I thought about my assignment for Gospel Doctrine class tomorrow.

After I publish this post, I am heading over to the shredder to eliminate all of the paperwork I have scanned today. My desk is looking pretty good at the moment. There's a half inch sheaf of papers on the floor just behind me to my right. It won't be there much longer.

And then I am going to head into my room and climb up on my bed and spend at least 15 minutes working on The Thing, after which I will have the satisfaction of having begun. When it's well and truly done, which is not likely to be for several weeks, I will 'splain, Lucy. In the meantime, you may expect intermittent grousing, as this project involves not only my creative skills but some spiritual deep cleaning.

What the grownup does on the first day of the new year.

Add year-to-date interest from the credit union to my spreadsheet and to TurboTax. Attempt to do the same for the primary bank, only to be foiled by end-of-year number crunching on their end and the suggestion that I try again after 10:00a.m. Remember to add the new name of the primary bank to TurboTax. Add up the medical mileage, put it on the spreadsheet and into TurboTax. Put the log book into the storage box along with the 2014 log book. Eat a piece of Godiva in celebration.

I had a very quiet New Year's Eve, just the way I like it. Leftovers, a bit of knitting, pressing the fabric for the monthly quilt block, some coloring, and a modicum of reading that I think will have to be redone, as I brained very hard at work yesterday.

What am I doing today? In a moment, I will lay out my clothes (still in jammies at 7:24, woohoo!), sluice off, then head over to Fort Worth to visit with Secondborn and family, and to pick up the chairs I left there on Christmas Day. Thence to Arlington to give J some driving time. When I get home, there will be more knitting, some sewing, a bit of laundry, and I might even run the vacuum. I'll change the filter on the AC unit.

I bought two on the way to work yesterday, and when I change the filter in three months, I'll buy two more, repeating until I have a year's supply stashed in that closet. I also created an updated reminder system on my phone, as these filters do not need to be washed monthly, just switched out on a quarterly basis. If I have the next one here, and I change it on the first of each month, then my wonderful new AC will reach its maximum life expectancy. I don't know that I can expect it to last 44 years like the previous one, which was original to the house, and which was obviously the beneficiary of tithing blessings, but we shall see.

That's all I've got for you, for now. Happy New Year!

You get a post. Because I'm not asleep.

Last night was fun. I made a salad as big as my head. It wouldn't stay politely in its bowl when I tried to stir in the dressing, so I had to dump it into a medium size mixing bowl, and dinner took the better part of half an hour to eat, because I was reading. Bite. Paragraph. Bite. Interesting sentence. Bite. Likening unto my experience. Bite.

I've finished the first chapter of Mimesis, and I have to say that it's far easier going than the introduction. I read as little as possible of The Iliad and The Odyssey when I was in school. Now, I loved the Greek myths. I devoured Bulfinch's Mythology in fifth grade. I just didn't give a damn about Odysseus/Ulysses, although I had great admiration for Penelope. Still do. No, you bozos*, my husband's not dead. He's just not here, and I have no interest in dating any of you.

*These would be metaphorical bozos. Nobody is hanging around my living room, eating my food, and trying to get me to marry again. Any frogging of knitting projects is due to inattention on my part, and not the unwelcome attentions of one or more men.

When I finished that chapter, I resisted the temptation to start another, and I decided to crowd-source recommendations for good translations of Homer, because Auerbach juxtaposed his analysis of those classics against the Old Testament, and I have more than a nodding familiarity with that after forty years in the church.

It may take me years to read this book, if I keep getting intrigued by the source material.

I also worked a little on the stealth project for next Christmas, and I grabbed the other knitting project, worked a row and set it aside, then rooted around for a size 6 circ because one of my Options ends has a couple of rough spots where the wood might be thinking of coming de-laminated. I've been knitting a 7" wide scarf on 8" DP needles, which means that if I turn my back a few ~ or a lot ~ of stitches fly off one end of the needle or another. Fortunately, I had some size 6 ends in the new(ish) Caspian colorway, and I put a circ together and worked a final row and pronounced it good.

And then I colored a very little, took my meds, and went to bed, hoping for something like seven and a half hours of sleep. I woke about 3:30, near as I can tell (the clock and my glasses are across the room from my bed, and I could not see the one without the other). Since then, I have washed a load of laundry, which is now tumbling merrily in the dryer, made myself some toast, and played on Facebook.

The alarm goes off in half an hour. My toes are cold (it's 40 degrees out in the garage). I'm finally sleepy again, when there's no point in lying down. I am going to assemble my lunch, nuke the bag of deer corn that warms my feet when I go to bed, and go color for fifteen minutes or so. We get to wear jeans and sneakers to work today, and I'm hoping to have enough actual work to stay busy. I'm backing two extra attorneys today, which might keep me a little more occupied than might otherwise be the case.

What I want right now is two vats of hot chocolate. One for my innards, and another for steeping my feet. I may have to stop by Racetrac on the way to work and get a small hot chocolate, or swing by Kroger instead and pick up a half gallon of dark chocolate almond milk, which would be significantly more healthy.

Mmm, yeah. That's a plan. Later, gators.

I'm awake, I'm awake.

Went to bed at a reasonable time last night. Awake at 4:00. Poured myself a mug of chilled herb tea, knitted a few rounds on a project for next Christmas, and went back to bed. No luck. So now I am up, playing with my 2016-2017 spreadsheet, and thinking it's going to be a long, long day.

I have a few more pieces in place for my 2015 tax return. Next week I will be able to finalize earned interest, update the spreadsheet, update TurboTax, and be that much closer to submitting my return. I'm thankful that my medical expenses were low enough that I couldn't deduct them. Financially, that's a bit of a pain, but in the eternal scheme of things it's a plus. I spent less than $40 out of pocket on prescriptions. If I hadn't left my Metformin under the car seat, necessitating an emergency prescription when we were in Minneapolis this spring, it would have been closer to $25. I'm a little over a year away from official senior-citizenship. And I am in remarkably good health. And I am so, so thankful.

Work was interesting yesterday. The courts are kinda slow this time of year, so I'm waiting on a couple of dismissal orders before I can close more cases. The mail is lagging because of Christmas. The entire office got something like four pieces of mail yesterday, which makes me wonder if we are going to get a large bucket of oops-this-got-mislaid in the next day or so. I filed an answer on a new case for SemperFi. I worked as many of the To-Do's as I could, given that there was minimal mail. And I sent out a will type for food email, which resulted in a small but labor-intensive project for the office manager that I will finish sometime today.

Last night I attended a ring ceremony and reception for a young sister in our ward. She has consistently been one of the most friendly and affectionate Young Women since I moved in almost four years ago. Always there with a hug. I don't remember if she graduated this spring, or last year. But she's in love, and she's married, and she was radiant last night in a very simple dress. Long sleeved white knitted top. Big floofy white skirt. And a faux or otherwise fur infinity scarf around her neck. I got at least two hugs from her in passing, and I had great visits with several friends in the ward. Then I came home and crunched numbers until I was sleepy.

I have no idea why playing with numbers is so calming and satisfying. But it is. I love watching my mortgage balance go down. I love watching my tithing and other contributions increase. I like sitting down when I get my yearly raise and figuring out how much more to add to my 401K each payday, how much more to savings, and which buckets. It looks as if I will get another tax refund, and I know where some of that will go.

When I inspected the house Saturday night after the tornadoes struck nearby, I saw that the temporary fix that Wes did to my garage door in back, is coming undone. He used interior plywood and screwed a panel on either side of the door. Et voila! No more possum romping in my garage. When I get my refund, the first item of business will be a new back door to the garage. And, depending on how big my refund is, possibly a new garage door in front as well.

Projects for the coming year will include repainting the cabinets in the kitchen, new countertops if my bonus is large enough, and ripping out the carpet in the middle bedroom. When Middlest moves home at the end of spring semester, that room will have to serve as a functioning bedroom as well as food storage central. I want to buckle down and get the new baseboards in place. If all goes according to plan, the kitchen will be done, the middle bedroom will be done, the studio will be reorganized, and I can spend 2017 working on the bathrooms.

This is the part where I pack my lunch for today and get ready for work. Although today it is more like, ready or not, here I come. So glad that I will be off on Friday. I need to go to Secondborn's and pick up the folding chairs we left there on Christmas Day, and spend some time with J so he can practice his driving for his driving test in February.

Passover. And some exceedingly busy guardian angels.

Some of you are aware that the destroying angel had a field day in North Texas yesterday. Vehicles swept off overpasses, neighborhoods flattened, pets carried away or frightened off, and miraculously only a handful of souls sent Home.

We are under a flash flood watch until noon tomorrow (it is 100%-ing out there, again, with varying amounts of Wagnerian thunder) and have been bracing for a blizzard or an ice storm, although the current forecast from the National Weather Service says maybe just mixed sleet and snow, with some quarter sized hail for punctuation, and everything melting away tomorrow.

It has been so heartening to see the people of North Texas offer their homes, their backs, and their pickup trucks to help and comfort the afflicted. I love living in the Bible Belt, where religion is not just a Sunday thing or a Christmas thing or an Easter thing, and so many of our fellow Christians walk the walk.

For me this has been a day of relief and gratitude. Fourthborn and I were safe last night. We actually took counsel and sat in the guest loo for half an hour while the tornadoes went around us. I was able to get her safely home after church (it’s about an hour’s drive on clear roads, and we were driving into the leading edge of the next wave of rainstorms: cats, dogs, little fishes, the occasional rhino as we passed under an overpass with water cascading over its edge) and to return home safely as well.

Bonus: the Relief Society lesson was one of the most serene I have experienced in 40 years of church membership. The wife in our senior missionary couple taught from Neill Marriott's address at the most recent General Conference. The sisters shared pertinent stories about answered prayers and Heaven's timeline and patience. I thought about when it felt as if some of my prayers were never going to get answered in this lifetime, and then they were, and it was always worth the wait.

I feel wonderfully blessed. We didn't sleep well last night. At one point Fourthborn and I were both awake at the same time. I caught a nap after taking her home, and I'm half an hour late in taking my meds, so I'll take care of that and read a few more pages of Mimesis and call it a day, I think. The house appears to be unscathed. Lorelai and the Tardis, ditto. There are still a few stubborn leaves on some of my bushes. I joked last night that we felt pretty safe, because there are so many dead people waiting for me to get their temple work done that they were watching over us, and that may very well be true, but I think the fact that I live about two blocks from the chapel as the crow flies, had a good deal to do with it as well.

Repainting, with (improvised) tackcloth (and no ashes)

We have pun-ished this day severely. Hangry eyes (I want a drumstick and maybe some thighs ~ that second line is contributed by Fourthborn.) I've gotten the double toggle switch plate installed in the master bathroom, since we won't be repainting it.

Found a framed print of a Chris LeDoux quote: "Saddle up and follow your dreams." (I miss that man. So gifted.) Purchased a one of those sproingy metal frames for displaying ornamental plates. I already had one, but Firstborn and 1BDH gave me two lovely small rectangular plates with scriptures on them, and they will go up on the wall with all the representations of the Savior. [The plates, not the kids.]

Found my belt sander, which was hiding behind the toolbox on my Mormon bar cart, and roughed up the finish on the frame and doors to the linen closet. Did some prep work on a stealth project for next Christmas. Knitted a little.

Went to IKEA to get one of those Billy bookcases with the yellow shelves, but they've been discontinued (the nerve!), so we came back by way of Costco, as planned, and tanked the Tardis after picking up the last bits of stuff I needed to restock fridge and pantry.

Did a drive-by fooding of the missionaries.

Before the sky clabbered up, Fourthborn got a coat of paint on the moulding for the doors in my room. She brought everything inside when we had the tornado warning, and we hung out for half an hour in the guest loo, making bad jokes and posting them on Facebook.

We didn't get any actual painting done on the linen closet because of the tornado warning, but after the skies cleared, Fourthborn taped off the frame, so next time we just need to jump in with the brush and git 'er done.

I'm edging into crazy-tired land and am hoping the washer is done so I can toss everything into the dryer and call it a night.

The improvised tackcloth? Numerous sheets of antibacterial wipes to get the dust off, since it was raining dogs and cats and little fishes, and I was not about to dash out in that mess to Home Depot for the real thing. Those wooden bits are cleaner than at any time since Beloved passed.

Sorry. You just get random brain droppings tonight.

Sluggish.

That would describe my internet connection for the past couple of weeks, after the most recent spate of rain. I was too busy getting ready for Christmas (insert huge grin) to take five minutes and see if turning off my modem would beam me up, Scotty. It would. It did.

The gifts for the grandchildren on my side of the tribe are wrapped and gathered up in a tote bag. The adult gifts are mailed out (my sister and Middlest) or boxed up and collected in more totes. The birthday gifts for LittleBit and BittyBit are bought and wrapped. I'm done shopping. I'm done cooking, at least for awhile. I blitzed through Costco last night and picked up a five pound bag of clementines, two ginormous bags of organic tortilla chips (as opposed to the inorganic kind?) and two vats of Wholly Guacamole, all for the tribal feast on Friday.

Work has been going well. We are a skeleton crew this week. Tomorrow I will be wrangling SemperFi, handling both halves of my other attorney's docket, and backing up three other attorneys whose secretaries (and their backups) are out. Only three of those attorneys will be in the office and likely to ask me for something, and the courts are all closed tomorrow, and the post office closes at noon but deliveries and pickup will happen as scheduled. So I may still be looking for stuff to do, and ways to help.

Fourthborn will be coming back with me after Christmas dinner, and we will spend Saturday working on projects. I'm looking forward to that.

I may be picking up a waif-and-stray from the ward and dragging him along to the tribal feast. Yes, I said "him". No, this is not a romantic thing. I do notice him as a disturbance in the Force, for lack of a better term, but I'm not feeling flirtatious toward him, and I'm pretty sure he's not feeling flirtatious toward me, either. But he's a long, long way from home, and I got this prompting, and the next thing I knew I was asking him if he had plans for Christmas dinner. Secondborn has a huge house, and her philosophy has always been "the more, the merrier". There are already 23 confirmed attendees. One more will not mean that we have to hang by our toes from the banister.

If this turns out to be another rich, platonic friendship like the one I have with Brother Sushi, I will be over the moon. Romance would be a Volkswagen-sized spanner in the works, and I just flat don't wanna. I have a job to do, and a mortgage to pay off, and art to pursue and a house to finish and and and and. Not lonely, thank you very much.

Thankfully, I do not hear Moroni tap-dancing on my front porch with this good brother (or any other good brother) in tow, so I think I'm safe.

And now if you will all kindly excuse me, it's time for me to try to wind down and go to sleep. I've already decided that the charming small knitting project will be an excellent start on next Christmas and have firmly instructed the Ooh Good Idea Fairy to knock it off, because la la la la, I can't hear you.

Oh, *man*!

Note: I drafted this on Saturday night but couldn't scrape together enough internet to publish it. Trying again on Sunday morning. And fed up with trying to change all of the time references. You're on your own.

So Friday was all about traffic snarlups, miscommunications, and Plan Z in general. It started out well (and it wasn't a bad day; just didn't turn out anything like we had planned).

I bought what I thought were the rest of the Christmas ornaments for the grands. Discovered that the T-rex which I bought for Bittiest was severely damaged. So when I got to Arlington, I headed to Hobby Lobby to see if I could find another one. Nope. Two triceratops: one with a broken foot, and one with all four feet but a broken front horn. Apparently it's not been a good year for dinosaurs anywhere in North Texas. Found something else that I think will please him.

From there, off to Container Store to get small boxes to hold the ornaments. From there, off to J's work to pick him up for his driving test. Got to the warehouse. Called him. "Marco." He didn't come out. About 20 minutes later I texted him again, "I'm getting nervous." He texted back, "We have plenty of time." Finally, about 15 minutes before he was supposed to take his test, I see a missed call and call him back.

No, I am not in front of the apartment. I am in the next town over, waiting for him to come out of the warehouse, which he is not in, because he took the day off. I'd been so good about confirming that he was testing at the same location as last time. I neglected to confirm where I was to pick him up. I assumed that, because it was the middle of the day, he'd be at work. He assumed that I knew he'd taken it off.

We know what happens when you assume.

He's rescheduled again for late February, on the afternoon of the day when I have my well woman, because I have no more spare vacation days before the first of June. I have a calendar entry in my phone, with a reminder to confirm where I'm picking him up.

So I took him home, and I picked up Fourthborn and her laundry, and we came home by way of Bueno, because I was ravenous, and I was in bed a little after 8:00p.m., utterly knackered.

I woke up yesterday at 3:30 after nearly seven hours of sleep, but still. Puttered for an hour and went back to bed. We were both up a little after 6:00. I cooked up my first batch from the multigrain oatmeal, which I think I will really like once I get used to it (it was way better than not-bad, just different from what I'm used to.)

Since then I have hung pictures and other stuff on various walls. The second short wall in the living room is completed, and I love it. I also hung a picture on my bedroom wall, replaced one of the switchplates and had Fourthborn replace the other, as it sits smack up against the underside of a shelf on the black bookcase. I was afraid that if I got down on the floor, I might not get back up again.

The eagle shelf is hung on the wall above the pictures of Dad that FirstHubby's dad took on a fishing trip. I've tackled two bags and one pile from the perimeter of my room. I found a flobbity-jillion keys in an old cigar box, and I warned a friend in our stake that I would either hand off a quart ziploc bag to them at the special stake sacrament meeting tomorrow, or drop it on their front porch afterward. Either way, it is leaving the building.

Today (yesterday, and I've given up trying to update the time frame) we went to Home Depot to get more of the replacement rollers for the handy tool we use to cut-in on the walls. Apparently it's been discontinued, or they no longer carry it. So I decided that we should go to Lowe's and see if they had it, and I decided to take the back route to get there and avoid traffic. Hah!

We found ourselves stuck behind a parade by a school on a residential street. I posted that on Facebook as well. I was torn between laughing and swearing.

Tonight was the ward Christmas dinner. I didn't want to go empty handed, and I didn't sign up to make any of the assigned dishes. I am just rebellious enough to not want to be told what to cook or how to fix it. So I nuked four packets of the brown rice and quinoa mixture, put it in an old Tupperware bowl I wanted to get rid of, and took it to the dinner. Just before Fourthborn and I were ready to go (I looked over to my left and saw a good brother scraping the last of the rice onto his plate. Success! Vindication!)

We left before the musical part of the evening. The food was good, and the company was better, and Fourthborn was not the only one of us who was peopled-out. So we scuttled on home, and I can't quite decide if I want to bang a few more pictures onto the wall, or just take my meds and call it a day. I ate sensibly and am vaguely hungry for something but not sure what.

All the stuff that I ordered on Amazon yesterday will be delivered to my office either tomorrow (boo) or Monday (yay). Note to self: once it's all safely here, cancel the free trial of Amazon Prime.

Feeling both wonderfully blessed, and more than a little crabby tonight. What's up with that?

Postscript: still crabby. And it's raining.

Juggling, juggling.

I'm not sure where this week has gone. Dinner with the Empty Nesters on Monday. BittyBit's choir concert on Tuesday. The office building management company's Christmas party at the end of the day on Wednesday, followed by a modicum of Christmas shopping and the first entries into TurboTax for my 2015 tax return. A little more work in TurboTax last night, but mostly frustration due to a slow running computer. I think the installation of Windows 10 has clogged up my memory. I deleted some obvious superfluities and set more to not run automatically at start-up. This morning I was able to add more data to my tax return, and I've done about all that I can until I get hard numbers from end of year statements, W-2's, 1099's, and the like.

I ripped back the current knitting project to almost the first row, because I was doing the yarnovers wrong. Ordinarily, it doesn't matter much how they're done, but for this project they need to lie on top of a slipped stitch, and mine were wrapping around it, creating a faux cable that just looked junky. So I frogged and reknit sixteen rows, and I went to bed a happy knitter.

Today I am helping Fourthborn's roommate (he who was formerly known as Fiance) get his driver's license. Yes, I know we tried doing this month before last, but the VIN number on the Tardis did not match the VIN number on my proof of insurance, and they stopped us flat and told us to reschedule. We drove immediately to my insurance agent's office and got that little problem corrected on our end. I'm hoping that today goes smoothly for him.

I woke an hour ahead of the alarm, happy as a kid at Christmas, because today is payday, and I get to finish buying and/or ordering the Christmas gifts. At least I hope I will be done before the end of the day. I need to make a list so everything gets dovetailed neatly.

Now if you will all excuse me, I need to go drop a small bundle on Amazon.

Milestone.

By the time you read this (presumably sometime on Sunday), the children's father will have turned 75. I remember this because Firstborn reminded me at the quilt shop; she spent a good chunk of the preceding morning with him, so that he could speak with his sister in California for his birthday. She's a good daughter.

Middlest has made the entirely sensible suggestion that we abstain from the tribal Thanksgiving festivities next year, and while I am at least slightly tempted, I want to see my grandchildren. And if being kind to the children's father and his "wife" is the price of seeing my grandchildren, then I will pay that price. We can always come back here and do fun, palate-cleaning stuff when the tribal feast is over.

It's been a mostly terrific day. On the way to the quilt shop, I hit a run of sentimental songs on my favorite Pandora station, and I got a little misty-eyed. There are songs that I've never exactly associated with Beloved (one of which I only heard for the first time this week) that nevertheless bring forth a sweet and tender longing. I'm not sad. I'm definitely not depressed. Nostalgic would probably be the best word for it.

I didn't quite complete my block in time to take it to the shop with me, because when I ironed the white background fabric after pre-washing it, it was a pronounced rhombus, and I lost just enough in the truing that I could only get six of the eight larger pieces out of it. So I paid for the next month's block, and I bought a quarter yard of the white, in case there are other glitches in future blocks.

On the way home, I stopped at Hobby Lobby (Fourthborn: the one with the funky entrance that we went to when we were buying Christmas ornaments last year), and there is now a Trader Joe's in the same parking lot (what a mess that was to navigate!). I picked up the last Secret Santa gift, two boxes of the multigrain crackers I've come to love, and a box of seasoned pita crackers to try (they are delicious, but one serving is eight crackers, as opposed to 14 for the others).

My last stop was at the art supply shop, where I bought another dozen Prismacolor pencils at the 40% holiday discount. I've acquired the last of the greens, I think, and am edging into the brown tones. They're all entered into Evernote.

My own Secret Santa at work gave me a lovely BH&G quilting magazine. My technical skills are way beyond anything used for the featured quilts, but the photos and sketches are wonderful eye candy. I couldn't be more pleased.

I came home from all my gadding and took a shortish nap, maybe an hour and a half? Since then I've polished off the last of the leftover roasted veggies from Thanksgiving, enjoyed some hummus with the pita crackers, read a nice chunk in the Michener autobiography, and finished the November quilt block and the last of the piecing for the current installment of the medallion quilt. I've remembered to take my medicine, and as midnight draws near I am just about ready to call it a night.

After last Sunday's near debacle, when I awoke an hour before church was to start (half an hour before when I prefer to leave the house), I am definitely setting the alarm tonight.

I wish the children's father a happy birthday tomorrow. I am grateful for our children. They wouldn't be who they are if somebody else were their father. And, carefully tucked away, there are any number of good memories with that man. It is painful to see the shell of a human being he has become, although my pain does not begin to approach the pain our children feel in seeing him or dealing with him.

I hope I may be privileged to keep my marbles until my dying breath, and to be lively and feisty and not a burden, but a source of amazement and wonder and joy to our children. Something to strive for, anyway.

Night, y'all.

Sometimes I surprise myself.

Over the past couple of years, I have improved my diet, exercised more faithfully, and learned the basics of managing a chronic disease which I have brought on myself by choosing to do neither of the former, for much of my adult life. Tonight as I drove home, singing loudly to my Pandora station in order to stay awake until I could refuel, and as I was nearly to the house, a song I loved from the late 60's or early 70's came on, and I wanted to boogie. So I paused my phone and popped it into my purse. After I had come in, kicked off my shoes, put away the key to the Tardis and reattached the housekey to its tether, I fished my phone out of my bag, resumed playing the song, and boogied around my bedroom on that lovely smooth floor.

I need to do more of that. I am finding the holiday sweets ridiculously tempting, and I am losing muscle tone. But I did do a couple of good things: I resisted the temptation to hit Bueno on the drive home. I made a simple dinner of salmon burger, spinach-based salad, and the brown rice quinoa mixture I get at Costco. And then I filled a small basin with warm water, set the timer for 20 minutes, and soaked my feet while reading more of the Michener autobiography. Timer went off, and I gently scrubbed my feet with a very soft washcloth, dried them off, trimmed my toenails, and curled up on the bed with some lavender-laced lotion and a pair of white cotton socks

It may not happen again for three years, but I feel as if I have done something deeply nourishing for myself tonight. (And I'm not talking about dinner.) I take my feet for granted. They are battered and scarred, but they do a remarkable job of getting me where I want to go. And I understand, at least on an intellectual level, that as a diabetic I need to be more aware of them, and to take better care of them. I can't stand to have a professional manicure. I didn't mind when Sarah worked on my feet as part of a massage, and I didn't mind if a husband rubbed my feet, but while I've tried on three or four occasions to comprehend why most women like pedicures, I would frankly rather eat cauliflower. Or clean the commode. (The last time I got a pedicure, I also got a resurgence of the athletes foot which had taken two or three years to eradicate. So, no.)

I would love to turn this into a parable for you, but I am tired in both mind and body. I've worked hard all week. Today I got everything done. All of it. A scheduling order calendared. Drafts for letters regarding trial dates in a couple of cases, either already sent, or drafted with tomorrow's date and ready to pop into SemperFi's outbox when I hit my desk in the morning. One case closed. Copies of reports to our clients. Copies of various documents forwarded to claims. All of my To-Do's, to-did, that were doable. I have a running start on tomorrow, and I've made arrangements to leave the office early on Tuesday to pick up Fourthborn so we may attend the Bitties' choir concert in lieu of Knit Night, and I've figured out token Christmas gifts for my attorneys, and delivered the first Secret Santa gift when the recipient finally stepped away from her desk for more than fifteen seconds. When I left the office, I was tired, I was sleepy, and I felt as if I'd earned my keep.

I have not knitted. Not one stitch. I'm going to do something about that: last night while waiting for tithing settlement I bound off maybe a dozen stitches. I'm going to put my library book up, get the bed ready for sleep, take my meds, and bind off at least a dozen more stitches. I'd like to be asleep in twenty minutes, so there's no chance of finishing that cowl tonight.

I think I will be skipping the doll meet tomorrow night in favor of some quality time with my sewing machine. I haven't touched the quilt block that I need to take to the quilt shop on Saturday morning in order to pick up block number three. But I feel well-tended. And maybe within spitting distance of something like refreshed. I wouldn't go so far as to say relaxed. That's not likely to happen until I've been dead for two or three weeks.

But hey, I'll take every scrap of progress I can get. Night, y'all.

And it's Wednesday already.

Work has gone well. I have been busy. I like that. It got a little crazy yesterday afternoon just before quitting time. I was wrangling my two attorneys, and backing up two others. When I got to work yesterday morning, I realized that I had dropped the ball on something important. Thankfully, something fixable, and I won't be shot at sunrise.

My new attorney has two trial settings for next Monday. I have been working on trial notebooks. It is fiddly work. The first one was about five inches thick when I was finished. The second one is going to be that size, or possibly a bit larger. I couldn't find a jumbo notebook like I used yesterday, so the second one will be in two parts: I got the main part done this afternoon, and I'll finish the second part tomorrow morning.

SemperFi was on a tear this morning. He loathes technology. Our paralegal and I have been discussing the possibility of getting him a "Rage Against the Machine" shirt for Christmas, or something similar. I sent her one link. She sent another, but I was up to my ears in the trial notebook and didn't have a chance to check it out.

I signed up for the office's Secret Santa exchange this year. Got my name this afternoon and have picked up and wrapped two of the three gifts, which I'll smuggle into the office tomorrow. I haven't done this in several years. First there was the engagement and wedding plans. Then Beloved was dying. And that year I had just enough oomph to put up a tree. Last Christmas there were massive, unexpected expenses toward the end of the year, but this year I have both the means and the desire to participate.

And in knitting news, I am binding off the dark cerise mystery yarn cowl. I started while waiting for tithing settlement tonight. I don't think I'll finish before bedtime. I would rather read a few more pages in the Michener autobiography. The first half covered his life as if he had never become a writer. The second half is written as if he had never done anything else. Right now he's talking about how he figured out what kind of writer he wanted to be, what his native gifts were, how he's worked around his shortcomings. The first half of the book was interesting-to-fascinating. This half is riveting.

As the house draws nearer to organization and completion, I can feel the creative juices starting to simmer, drawing me in multiple directions at once. I am feeling a bit like an amoeba.

A sleepy one, so this is what you're getting tonight, and I'm going to grab a handful of chocolate covered ginger, pour myself a small glass of buttermilk, and go learn something.