So that’s why the owlies have been drooping despondently around here, languishing over books and pixels and casting sorrowful looks in my direction.
I missed our own sixth-year anniversary on Tuesday
So, er, happy six-years-and-two-days anniversary to us, blog! Here’s to many more years together!
(Why do I keep a public on-line journal? The About the Blog page captures some of my past thoughts on the subject.)
Bad. Day.
Very, very bad day.
I am fine. The car is fine. No thanks to the two different speeding snowploughs who forced me off the road into snowbanks where the car got stuck instead of slowing down and letting me pull into a driveway, or the jerk in the Hummer right next to me who forced me into the median when his lane merged into mine to get around a stationary city truck with hazards flashing, and who didn’t think that another car occupying the space he needed to occupy was important. (Do I need to say that he didn’t signal?)
And this on top of not being able to get out to the driveway for fifteen minutes because the wheels wouldn’t grip the surface, and being redirected twenty minutes out of my way while trying to drop Liam off this morning. Thanks to having to dig myself out of the second snowbank a plough drove me into and trying to get the car to pull away from the snow-filled median with little effect thanks to the slick surface, I didn’t get back home until eleven-thirty.
It’s not the weather that has driven me into the Spring Now! camp. It’s the unacceptable state of the roads, and the idiots who don’t think about the other people driving when it snows. I’ve had enough of it.
And you know what’s possibly the worst thing about the bad day so far? The fact that it’s only half over. I have to leave again in four hours to get the boy, and then I have orchestra tonight. And the roads won’t be any better, or the drivers any less self-absorbed. Shoot me now, please.
Total word count, hearthcraft book: 31,038
New words today: 3,000
I would call this experiment of HRH taking the car and dropping the boy off on his way to work a success, yes?
(What I am actually screaming inside is, ‘PAST THE HALFWAY MARK! GO ME!‘)
I think we’ll try to split the driving days, so he only has to drive in twice a week and the boy doesn’t have too many nine-hour days at daycare. The caregiver has cheerfully agreed to add the boy to her regular Thursday crowd (bless her!) so I’m set for a four day writing week for the next six weeks. They won’t all be 3K days, of course. I was making a particularly determined effort today to hit the halfway mark.
More cauldron stuff, metals, fire as sacred, defining sacred and spiritual (that was first, taking a large chunk of the day, and wasn’t ultimately that much of the daily word yield, and it got me all muddled because really, how do you define that sort of thing?), and a ritual. I seem to be slogging around in the three introductory chapters, mainly because they define what the book and the path are all about, and a lot of it is vague and hard to pin down. Once they’re in some semblance of order I’ll be able to turn to the later chapters with a better footing.
Pizza as a reward tonight! As much as I would like it to be my homemade pizza I do not have meat or mushrooms for it. I’ll get some tomorrow with the general grocery order. For now, it is good order-in pizza. And I’m off to eat it!
I am somewhat late on the annual Imbolc post-a-poem-for-Brigid fest (but not really by my calculation, since the way I calculate things Imbolc began yesterday and carries through today, and indeed I celebrate it for about ten days), but here is my offering. It’s a wonderful poem that Pasley found and asked HRH to read at Tallis’ naming ceremony yesterday.
Dear Friend,
Stand Tall and Proud
Sink your roots deeply into the Earth
Reflect the light of a greater source
Think long term
Go out on a limb
Remember your place among all living beings
Embrace with joy the changing seasons
For each yields its own abundance
The Energy and Birth of Spring
The Growth and Contentment of Summer
The Wisdom to let go of leaves in the Fall
The Rest and Quiet Renewal of Winter
Feel the wind and the sun
And delight in their presence
Look up at the moon that shines down upon you
And the mystery of the stars at night.
Seek nourishment from the good things in life
Simple pleasures
Earth, fresh air, light
Be content with your natural beauty
Drink plenty of water
Let your limbs sway and dance in the breezes
Be flexible
Remember your roots
Enjoy the view!
It was wonderful advice to give to an infant, and good for everyone to hear. (The ceremony was lovely; Tallis was the only one not crying. A success all round. More tomorrow.)
This poetry offering ties in to the ones being sponsored by Oak (who is carrying on the tradition begun by Reya), among others.
I had my follow-up with the doctor this morning. As a not-quite-aside, I am thankful that today’s weather with rain/snow/60 to 90 kph winds is indeed today’s weather and not yesterday’s, because I can just imagine how impossible it would have been to get the boy home from across town in this. The cold is biting, the additional gusts on top of the steady high-level wind are aggressive and dangerous, and rain on top of flash-frozen ice is No Fun. Anyway, I made it to the doctor’s office in one piece although late, which was fine because she was running late too.
My blood test results (and there were pages and pages to go through) were all lovely and normal. My calcium and magnesium were a touch below what she wanted them to be, but my multivitamin is covering that. The rheumatoid and other arthritis indicators all came back negative, so the diagnosis has settled on fibromyalgia. I have a prescription for a minute dose of medication to take daily, another appointment in three weeks to see how it’s going, and permission to slow down and stop thinking of myself as somehow failing at what I’m trying to keep up with. The optimistic view, which we are taking, is that six months to a year should help the body recover some sort of equilibrium, and then we will re-evaluate and either taper off the meds to see what happens, or keep on with them.
So there you have it. Thanks, everyone, for your good thoughts and wishes that have been coming my way; I truly appreciate them.
Today’s excitement: having my car key snap off in the trunk lock as I prepared to load the car with a shopping trip’s worth of stuff.
Yes! So exciting! Liam and I called friends who used to have an extra copy of our car key, but they were not home. We called HRH to apprise him of the necessity of picking the car up on his way home from work, and then my phone died a messy death (it can’t hold a charge worth beans, but I am not complaining because it was second-hand, inexpensive, and has served me well for almost a whole year). Then we liberated the emergency umbrella stroller that languishes in the back of the car, covered the major purchases with the car blanket, made sure the immediate necessities and little things were in pockets or bags, locked up the car, and took the bus home.
Naturally, the freezing rain began halfway across the parking lot.
Luckily, Liam thought the whole thing a grand adventure, partially fuelled by my animated “Want to do something really cool? Let’s take the bus home!” pitch. And then we stopped in at a gas station on our fifteen-minute trek to a bus stop to buy a granola bar as a treat, and he was thrilled about that too. (It was an excuse to break the five dollar bill in my wallet to have sufficient change for the bus). He had been very well-behaved during our department store experience, walking next to me and holding my hand; I was very impressed. He’s on the verge of being too big for the seats in shopping carts, so learning how to walk while we shop is a good thing. His good mood made things easier to handle. So did the not-crowded bus. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a bus that empty on that route.
There is irony involved in all this, too. We went out to buy a new microwave, as the one we have been using by the grace of Tal for the past two years mysteriously ceased functioning last night. (Don’t worry, Tal, if/when you require a microwave oven again, we will replace it for you.) I was punching in a time when the lights went out and that was that — no crackles or sparks or warnings of slow death. I am mystified. It is currently in the garage while it thinks about the error of its ways (let’s call it a time out for appliances). We don’t use the microwave for anything other than reheating tea, warming up milk or leftovers, or defrosting meat that’s being stubborn, so the one we got is tiny and only 700 watts. And the irony of having gone out to buy the new microwave is that we cannot use it, as it’s sitting covered by the blanket in the back of the locked car of a parking lot at the other end of town. I discovered this when I went to warm up Liam’s pasta and veggies for lunch.
I also need a new car key, and HRH will need to get the snapped-cleanly-level-with-the-lock key out. Issues for tomorrow.
But the day is not a wreck (not that it was in any danger of being one, it wasn’t as huge a disaster as it could have been… I could have accidentally locked the passenger side car doors after buckling Liam in and then snapped the key), because the copy of the Druid Plant Oracle that I ordered from the UK arrived while Liam was eating lunch. It will not be available in North America until August. I win.
Also, when Liam watches the opening credits to the Muppet Show, he sings the final “SHOOOOOOOOW!” along with the cast, hilariously off-key.
That is all.
Snow! It’s a psychological relief to no longer see grass in the backyard. It was bothering me more than I realized. I’ve never seen that much snow melt that fast — twice within a couple of weeks, too.
The boy is home with us today, as he’s in full-blown cold mode. Actually, he’s better today than he was yesterday. We had a pretty miserable weekend that included a fall out of his bed on Saturday because he was coughing so hard and a visit to the local grandparents on Sunday that wasn’t as smooth as usual. He’s finally napping.
Today’s mail brought my new-to-me refurbished Creative Labs MuVo 2 GB MP3 player, which is also a USB flash drive for storing various files. I’m currently uploading music to it, so I can listen to it in bed or wherever I want. Seeing as how the last portable music device I bought was a CD player about seven years ago, and that player is now hooked up to speakers in Liam’s room for his bedtime music, I think I’m doing pretty well with musical devices. (Since I was twelve I’ve owned two Walkmans, and two Discmans. A very good record indeed, as each of them has lasted a very long time.)
People have been asking when I’ll get the results of the medical tests I did last week, and I’m afraid I don’t know. The doctor’s office will call to schedule an appointment when all the results are in with them. In the meantime, extra sleep when I can and alternating between ibuprofen and Excedrin Extra Strength are how I’m getting through the days.
I got a slew of test material for an ongoing freelance editing position today, including a three-hundred-page manuscript on which to do the detailed test review. It’s all due back next Monday at the latest, so I’ll be slotting that in where I can as well as working on the hearthcraft book this week. Liam is home with me again tomorrow, as is usual on Tuesdays, so I’ll have to work on the laptop at night in bed to get it all done.
The boy is awake again.