NaNo

Ok, well, I've been informed that it's a good idea to make this public because if nothing else will keep you in it, shame and/or encouragement from friends and family will. I know my mother-in-law reads this, and she already brings it up nearly every time we talk (may she be blessed; nobody else does, and that lets me hide most of the time).

I went and did something impetuous. I regret doing it, but it's done and I'm not going to back out.

I signed up for NaNoWriMo.

For those of you who don't know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. People from all over the world sign up to write a novel in 30 days. The website keeps track of your word count and lets you post excerpts, find writing buddies, and get in touch with other local people who are doing the project. There's a weekly writing group going on at Legacy Village, which is halfway between home and work for me.

It will probably be crap. I'm not even positive what novel I will start writing two days from now. But I've said I'll try, and try I will. It is helpful that I have the next week off from work completely because my employer is going out of town, so I will be sitting at home watching her dog and being bored. Or will I? No, I will not!

I will be sitting at home, watching my boss's dog, and embarking on any and every conceivable around-the-house project that I can find to keep from writing. And when I've done all those, I will be writing.

Listen, I'm just trying to be realistic here.

I've got two hours before work, because Friday is a late-start day, and I'm not sure what to do with it. Maybe a trip to the library, or JoAnn's? Maybe just hanging out at home with the kitties. We shall see.

Potpourri

My dad and my brother both came down with the influenza, apparently. However, because my mom is a ninja and reads the same interesting things that I do (because we have the same Facebook friends, in this case), they've all been taking elderberry, which, as you may recall, is a magic gypsy remedy against the flu and all other diseases ever. As a result, my brother's already back in school and my dad was only really sick for a couple of days and is now just dealing with hoarseness and sinus congestion but not actual flu flu.

I am buying elderberry extract immediately. For serious. Apparently it tastes delicious, which is how you know it has to be magic, because since when does medicine taste good? Since gypsies invented it, that's since when.

Yesterday, I bought a sweater at Target. It was $20 on sale for $15 and tomorrow, after I get paid, I am going back to Target and buying the four other colors that they had, because it is a delicious and cozy sweater, and I'm a sweater addict.

One of my goals this year is to knit a sweater. I'm starting out slow with the knitting projects, though. For instance, in August and early September I knitted one (1) fingerless glove. That was to practice cabling, which you should look up on our good friend google. I didn't make a second glove, but I meant to. Now I am knitting two (2) socks.. that is to say, I'm working on a sock and hopefully will not be so bored with it by the time it's done that I refuse to start the second. Inertia is strong in knitting.

But next, oh, next I will attempt to knit a sweater. I feel like there is some degree to which one is not actually a knitter per se until something of that magnitude has blossomed forth from the needles.

Once again, I am delaying my leave for work until the very last possible moment, which means snuggling in bed with the computer and my husband under our heavy pile of blankets. The house is freezing, because we still haven't figured out how the heat works. When I woke up this morning, my teeth started chattering as soon as I made my exit from beneath the aforementioned blanket pile.

It isn't that I don't like my job, and I love making money, but it's so cold and 7:15 is so early in the morning to get up and 9 hours is a long day and you can insert more whining here. It gets repetitive after a while, I know.

I will bottle it all up inside of me for the rest of the day, and nobody will know. Except for you.

Not sick yet

Ok, so, here's the deal.

I work in childcare. Dave is a waiter. Both of those jobs involve a pretty high rate of exposure to pathogens, and when flu season rolls around that means that it's time to think about what the heck we're going to do to avoid getting sick. With H1N1 on a roll around the country, this only gets more true. Sick time doesn't just mean being sick, it means being broke.

So imagine my surprise and curiosity this morning to see a link to this abstract posted on my Facebook page, of all places (it pays to be friends with people in some type of medicine).

Seriously? The results of Elderberry Flavonoids compared favorably to the effects of Tamiflu and Amantadine? Correct me if I'm wrong, but seriously, doesn't this say that Elderberry works better against the flu than the $90 flu drugs that they sell at the pharmacy?

If this is true, and let's hope it is because that would be rad and I would laugh, it solves a problem, because I am paranoid about the flu and also have no desire to drop $180 on two rounds of Tamiflu if one of us gets sick.

So, I googled "Elderberry for flu", because google knows everything (duh). Apparently elderberry is an ancient gypsy remedy for flu, among other things. Gypsies, man. Everyone knows that gypsy medicine is practically magic and therefore has to work.

According to one slightly questionable site on natural medicine, they did a study of Eldberry and flu in Israel in the 90's and had a 100% cure rate in 2-3 days. Now, a 100% cure rate is less impressive with the low mortality rate of most influenzas, but the 2-3 days thing is pretty impressive, given that without it the flu takes 6-7 to go away, and on Tamiflu it still takes about 5. I have no idea if they're telling the truth, but it isn't like elderberry is bad for you. People eat that stuff for food. Also, they make wine out of it, so it's got to be good.

Homemade elderberry extract takes 30 days to make, and I'd prefer to start taking it, well, immediately. But, we don't live five miles from a Whole Foods for nothing. Have you ever seen the pharmacy aisle in that place? It is a cornucopia of herbal remedies and weird supplements, not to mention their plethora, yes, plethora of bizarre and outlandish teas. And I will also check CVS because hey, you never know.

If Whole Foods doesn't have it, there's a Middle Eastern import store and I am quite positive that google and I can locate a health food store in the vicinity. I probably wouldn't do it if it were just a bunch of naturalists and herbalists recommending it (much as I love herbal medicine), but an actual, legit study published in a legit science journal is worth checking out, and it can't hurt. The worst that happens is we drink a lot of elderberry extract and/or tea for a few months and still get sick and have to take Tamiflu. That isn't really the end of the world, right?

Ok, time to go to work. But seriously, you all think about that. And don't breathe on me.

I am writing this at 11:45 in the morning because I woke up with a migraine so bad that I threw up at work and, because I am not a glutton for punishment and prefer to be at home when I am not feeling well, I came home. I'm feeling much better, having swallowed half a bottle of excedrin and a handful of aleve (this might be an exaggeration) and no longer having anything left in my stomach to expel. But I'm still glad I'm not at work, because it frees me up to deal with another problem... and here is its story.

Last night, after work, I snuggled into bed with a piece of maple candy (food of the gods, by the way) and the first season of Dexter. All was going well, and Dave had just called to say he was on his way home from gaming.

About ten minutes later, I saw a shadow under the bedroom door, which has about a 1-inch gap between itself and the floor. At first, I thought it was the shadow of Dave, about to come into our bedroom, but it turned out to be someone very different.

Yes, that's right... we have mice.

I'm not particularly surprised. The weather is getting colder, and we live on the ground floor in an old house. It only makes sense that mice would come and investigate.

Artist's depiction of possible mouse

Being a hardy sort of girl, I stared at it while it twitched its whiskers and waved its tail and stared straight at me, trying to decide if it was worth the risk of coming all the way into our bedroom. Ultimately, it decided that it was not. Once it had left, I got up, stamped my feet hard on the floor, and opened the hallway door. Of course, the mouse had fled and was nowhere to be seen.

"We're getting cats," I announced without preamble as soon as Dave walked in the door. "Immediately."

"Um..." he said, in the tolerant and loving way that he has when his wife announces ridiculous or unpredictable things without preamble, "okay."

"Because," I continued, fixing him with a narrow stare, "we have mice."

"Ah," said my husband.

"Yes," I said. "I saw one. It came into our bedroom."

"Well, then, I guess it's time to get cats," he said, nodding wisely.

He remarked later that he was somewhat surprised, because we've seen no evidence of mice, but we agreed that the cooler weather is probably driving them inside and that cats are the clear solution. I say cats, plural, because cats are pack animals and if you only get one, they get pretty loco, which is Spanish for homicidal psycho jungle cat*.

After some online browsing and negotiation with various Craigslisters, we decided to go to the Parma animal shelter, which offers cats at $75 a pop--a hefty fee, but they're already fixed, de-wormed, tested for FIV, and vaccinated, so essentially you're getting a free cat and paying for all of its veterinary care.

We're leaving as soon as Dave gets out of the shower. Pics when our new kitties are home.

*With apologies to Bill Watterson

Le Sigh

The alarm goes off every morning at 7:10. This is so that we can hit the snooze button once. A man named John Saunders once devoted three or four pages to describing the delicious half-asleep feeling of knowing that you have to get out of bed soon, but also knowing that you don't have to get out of bed yet, and being awake enough to enjoy it but sleepy enough to still be cozy and warm.

All of that is true, of course. The best part of the whole night is snuggling under the covers while the alarm is snoozing.

The problem is, eventually you can't hit snooze anymore. And then I'm sad, because all I really want to do today is stay in bed with Dave (who is burrowing further under the covers and making sleepy grunting noises next to me while I write this). I want to stay in bed all day and then get up around maybe six or seven, get some dinner, and then come back home and go upstairs to watch House on our neighbor's TiVo at eight.

Sadly, the only part of that which will actually happen is the bit about House, which is going to be rad, but really was the least attractive part of that whole mental picture.

Instead I will go to work, and I'll have fun and I'll feel good about it, but most of me will be lying in bed asleep next to my husband, who I love more than anything, feeling warm and cozy.

Oh well. Maybe tomorrow the stay-in-bed-all-day fairy will like me better.

Oops

I just realized that I haven't written anything here in a month. My excuse is that the "S" key on our keyboard is being sticky and so it's frustrating to write.

Here is a summary of our recent news:

I got a job. It's nannying--it's fun, it pays well, I'm working full time, and we've doubled our income. That feels good, cause we were pretty broke.

Now that we have some money, and now that the weather is cooling down enough that we are no longer wandering around in a soporific heat-zombie haze, we've started to look about ourselves and turn our apartment into someplace where grownups live. This is an improvement over its previous appearance, which can best be described as a glorified storage facility.

Today we rearranged the living room, hung artwork and clocks, and put up curtains. It's amazing how curtains and a few paintings will make a whole room suddenly feel like a "real" room, even if it's still a mess. There are boxes and things everywhere still, but it feels much more put together all the same.

I sprained my foot at LARP a week ago. Still sore, because I haven't been keeping off of it. Whoops. There is a somewhat less-than-thrilling tale connected to it that I may share at some point. Mostly I'm just annoyed because I didn't hurt it doing something fun and/or glorious out in the woods in the middle of the night. I did that for 3 1/2 hours without so much as a stumble.

Also, we bought a real live grownup alarm clock today after three months of using cell phones with alarm tones that we hate. It is a fancy schmancy $12 dealie from Wal-Mart that wakes you up with either alarm clock bells, cathedral bells, or wind chimes. It also plays noises to help you fall asleep. I am currently listening to the "ocean" setting ("brook" had too many frogs and not enough running water, and "wind chimes" was essentially an Enya song that never made it to the vocals). I feel sleepy already.

Now that I'm settling in to a work routine and our house is finally, finally getting to a state where it's set up, it's finally beginning to sink in for me that we are for-real married and not just on some glorious temporary vacation from life. It's a good feeling, but surreal in a too-good-to-be-true sort of way. Does that make sense? After the last year, my brain is convinced that seeing Dave every day means that I am on vacation from whatever drudgery I am normally involved in, ergo the fact that I see Dave every day--well, you see what I'm saying. The idea that I can live real life and see Dave every day is novel and exciting.

I think there were other things I was going to say, but, although I was being facetious about it a few minutes ago, the ocean sounds and seagulls really are starting to make me sleepy, so more later.

A Wee Update

Hello, friends and family.

Well, we just keep on keepin' on, so to speak. Dave is still looking for teaching work, but there is still a prospect or two on the horizon so keep praying for him. He did get hired as a tutor with the Princeton Review, which won't be enough for him to be able to leave his current job, but will be really nice supplemental income.

And speaking of supplemental income, I have discovered something. While I would love to stay home every day, and enjoy the theory of it immensely, I'm not sure it's worth the boredom when Dave works 12-hour days combined with the anxiety of being so close to the wire financially speaking. So, I've been looking around for some work and I've got a few prospects.

Of the three phone interviews I've had, all of them went well and were promising. One netted an in-person interview and got me to the next step of the vetting process. Of the other two, I have another interview tomorrow, and one interview that has yet to be scheduled. All of them are for part-time or extremely part-time work, but two or three of them in combination would make a huge difference in our current money situation, so let's all keep fingers crossed, yes?

We went to another LARP event this past weekend, which was super fun. I've got a new project--sewing a dress for my lovely sister-in-law--and we're continuing to settle in well to married life.

Someday I'll get the wedding photos posted, I promise.

Anyway, I have patterns to cut out and things to pin, so that's all for now.