Red Scarf - Finished! (UPDATED)

I spent my lunch hour finishing up my red scarf, even as the winter weather is settling over northeastern OK. I still need to block it to get it to not curl up into a tube, but it'll do to get me home with a warm neck this evening.



If you're interested, here's the pattern, a simple stitch set similar to the broader ribbing in the sweater I'm making for my husband:

Cast on 16 stitches.
Row 1: *P1, K2. Repeat from * to next to last stitch. Pearl last stitch.
Row 2: Pearl.

That's it. Repeat those two rows until you have the length you want, then bind off loosely. I used two balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky (minus the amount used in the ear warmer) and US Size 8 needles, but the pattern looks good in just about any gauge, so don't be afraid to play around with what you have. And, of course, the fringe is optional.



UPDATE: Of course I can't talk about knitting today without discussing how much I covet the skull and knitting needle crossbones tee shirt Lorelei Gilmore wore last night, the only great thing about that episode other than Luke finally growing a pair where his babymomma is concerned. Oh, and Danny Strong. But the point is: I WANT! And now, I can have, and so can you.

At Least It's Not Fescue

I was in a weird mood yesterday. I didn't sleep well the night before, and as it tends to do, sleep deprivation made me introspective. Sometimes, introspection makes me all nostalgic. Such was the case yesterday. It was the kind of mood that gets me to sign onto Classmates.com under the pseudonymous account I've set up there (99% of the time I don't give a squirrel's nut about 99% of the people I went to high school with, and I don't want any of them to know about the 1% of the time that curiosity gets the better of me) and see if I can glean any news about the 1% of schoolmates with whom I was actually on friendly terms. It was that mood that also got me to Google the rock band of This Girl I Once Knew.

I knew This Girl in college -- my first attempt at the U of OK when I was actually college-age, not my more recent and successful return. She didn't actually go to school there, but she was the good friend of a good friend who did, and she and I were friendly by association, hanging out with the same people, going to the same parties, sometimes even hanging out with each other. She was one of those Fabulously Cool types, all cultured and well-travelled and ueber-talented and always gorgeously put together, who made me feel like a completely inadequate dork poseur. I never felt I could truly be friends with her because I felt like I could never be cool enough for her. Not that she ever said or did anything to make me feel that way, mind; she was also a genuinely sweet person with a fun and self-depracating sense of humor. But she gave such an impression of being so much more than adequate at everything she did that all I could see when I was in her presence were my own faults and how I failed to measure up.

Taking all of this into account, I should have taken her a little more seriously when she said she was going to start a rock band, and not been so surprised when it actually turned out to be somewhat successful. But you know how it is when your friend says s/he's going to start a rock band--90% of the time you both know that it's just wishful thinking, and if they do go so far as to actually assemble a group of musicians, they probably won't make it out of their parents' garage. But This Girl is someone who actually does the things she sets her mind to. Before long, she and her critically-acclaimed local band were packing up and moving to LA to be bona fide rock stars--headlining at famous LA clubs, national tours, rabid groupies, the whole works. We kept in sporadic touch via e-mail, and I tried to keep up with the band's doings, but somewhere in there we lost touch, as I had already lost touch with most of the rest of our friends from those days.

I haven't checked up on her or her band in years, or given either that much thought, until yesterday. For some reason, she was on my mind. So I plugged TGIOK's band name into Google. What I learned is that the band is now defunct. She's living in north Cali and is starting a solo career, and also has a few other creative and business ventures going. She appears to be doing well, and also appears to be even more fabulous than ever.

Somehow, this news bummed me out. Not that I'm not thrilled for her and her successes; but just as I did back in the day, I suddenly find myself using her extraordinary life as a measuring stick for my own ordinary self, and coming up wanting. She's a few years my junior, which just adds to my sense of failure and mediocrity. She's thirty now, and spent her twenties living a dream and building a great life for herself. I spent my twenties floundering and struggling to figure out how this whole adulthood thing works. She has numerous successes already behind her. I have numerous false starts behind me, with hardly any finishes. She's right where she wanted to be by 30, and I'm nowhere near where I thought I would be by the time I got to my thirties.

The grass on her side of the fence is a lush, tropical garden.

But, y'know, the grass on my side ain't so bad, either. It's Bermuda--ordinary and not that pretty, but hardy in bad weather and still very green and fun to walk around barefoot in. I may be a mediocre wannabe with vague entrepreneurial aspirations who is still struggling to jumpstart a writing career and bring some semblance of fabulousness into my life. But you know what? I still believe I'll get there. It might happen ten years later than that girl back at OU who couldn't decide whether to girlcrush on or resent the hell out of This Girl She Knew ever dreamed it would happen, but it will happen.

In the mean time, I have a pretty fantastic life. I have a husband whom I adore, and a good job that I actually like, and... okay, I'm not so thrilled with my current living situation, but that's only a few months away from improving. I have a bright future. I'm still on the way up, and all of my successes are ahead of me.

I think, what with my ADD-ish tendencies to get really excited about a new idea, tackle the implementation with all I've got and then peter out and not see it through, that I naturally get depressed when confronted with someone who actually has the drive and ability to make something out of their talents, and This Girl is, to me, the embodiment of drive and ability combined with talent and energy. But I know that I shouldn't measure my life by anybody else's. I live according to my own time-table, and I've always been a late bloomer. If it takes till my forties to finally write a book that's fit to publish, by the time I'm fifty nobody will care that it happened ten or fifteen years later than I expected. So I just need to keep writing, and stop comparing myself to other people, and remember that I love my life. It's mine and it's good and it's going places.

One of THOSE days

I'm totally sucking today. I'm completely useless at anything requiring more than five minutes of concentration, and everything I try to write gets deleted again because it is teh suck. I've managed about 200 words worth keeping for further consideration, though I'm not currently convinced they're actual keepers. With under an hour and a half left to go, I think it's safe to say I'm not going to get that next chapter posted today. Blargle.

Maybe if I get one of those voice typing programs I could write and knit at the same time.

Which would be kind of awesome. Hmmmm.

Despite printing off what there is so far of my manuscript and taking it home with me last Wednesday, I didn't get a lick of writing done all weekend. What I did manage to get done instead, thanks to its perfect-for-multitasking nature, was a crapload of knitting, so I'm still feeling nice and accomplishy. I'm very close to finishing the front side of my husband's Christmas sweater. I also started a Christmas scarf for my sister-in-law. But what's really making me feel accomplished is this:



It's an ear warmer (the pattern for which can be found in Stitch 'N' Bitch Nation), and it's so pretty. It looks fairly complicated, but it's really a pretty quick and easy pattern to knit. The most time consuming part was the band itself (see below), which took about four hours, or two nights in front of the telly.



The flowers are knitted separately, and all four bits took me about two hours (and I knit slow):



I actually knitted all of the pieces week before last while I was home with the plague. This weekend I finally got around to blocking them, which took about a day of drying time, and sewing them on, which took another hour. And voila! Here's me modeling the finished project (in bad lighting and sans any makeup, so be warned):



It's very pretty in 3D, and I'm quite pleased with myself. It looks warm--if the temperature here ever drops below 60F I'll be able to test it. Actually, we have a cold front, complete with winter storms and possible snow, moving in later this week, supposedly. So last night I took the chunky red yarn that formed the flowers and started making this coordinating scarf:



It's priority one right now if I'm going to finish it in time for the weather to change, but come the cold I should look quite smashing (and be warm and toasty all wrapped up in cashmere).

Of course, my warm glow of accomplishment faded once I got back to the office this morning and saw how my workload managed to build even though supposedly nobody was here all weekend. Plus there was the realization that there is no way on God's green earth for me to make my own personal NaNo goal by the 30th, even though it was already considerably less than the official NaNo goal. That's not so bad, though, because I was able to stop stressing about the word count and spend a couple of hours this afternoon outlining the rest of the novel instead.

The month's not over yet, though, so I'm still going to try to get as close to my goal as possible, and between that momentum and having a roadmap for where to go next, I expect December to be a pretty productive month even without the NaNo deadline looming. Plus there's the Crapometer to look forward to. And hopefully now that Matt's in recovery mode, sickness will be banished from our household for a while and I'll be able to get some writing done on the weekends, too. I'm aiming to have a rough draft finished by the time we're ready to pack up and move, and as of now, it's looking good.

Meanwhile, I'm going to do my best to have a new chapter up before I leave work tomorrow. So if you're tuning in to the writing blog, you're safe not checking back before then.

Help, please

I was told this morning that the sidebar link to my fic archive at AdultFanFiction.Net ("The Butterfly Effect and other 'mature' cj fics") is broken. Since all I ever get when I click that link is a firm scolding from my company's net nanny, I can't check it myself. Would somebody kindly try the link and/or maybe fish around that site to find me the correct URL? 'Twould be much appreciated.

The Joys of Non-Parenthood

I had my first ever pregnancy scare over the weekend. Talkin' 'bout good times.

Apparently my being ill screwed up my cycle and made me an entire week late. I suspected all along that the sickness was the culprit, but about three days in I started to get a little uneasy and decided I'd better lay off the rum until I knew all things were as they should by. By day five I was on the verge of freaking out, and also really thirsty for some of Matt's imported beer, so while I was at the drug store picking up various cough and congestion remedies for Matt (who went to the emergency room Thursday morning, since Urgent Care was closed for the holiday, to get started on his own lovely antibiotics, but that's fodder for another post), I picked up a test kit.

Soon after I got back home, nature called, so I gave myself the test. The instructions said that the results should appear in two minutes, but could take as long as ten. After about a minute the negative sign appeared, so I set it aside and went to distract myself for another nine minutes, deciding to wait and make sure before I started celebrating. When I came back to the bathroom, Matt was standing at the sink, and the test was gone.

"Did you throw away the test?" I asked.

"Yeah. You were through with it, weren't you?"

"I guess. Did it still say negative?"

"Yes," he assured me. Then, "There was a plus sign. That means no baby, right?"

"Um. What?"

"A plus sign means you're not pregnant, isn't that what you said?"

".... Crap. What? Let me see that test! Was there really a plus sign?"

"Yeah. Why? Wait, does that mean you are pregnant?"

"Yes! Crap! Get out of my way, I have to dig it out of the trash and make sure!"

"No way," he said, not getting out of my way. "Are you yanking my chain?"

"NO! Plus sign means pregnant! Lemme... oh. You're yanking my chain, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Dude. That's just not something you do.*"

"I can see that now."

My husband is such a comedian. HA HA HA! Except not. Anyway, there is no bun in my oven, which has clearly disappointed my uterus to no end, because today she is punishing me severely, but at least she's confirming that the minus sign knew what it was talking about. All is right in my world.

In other baby news, over the long weekend we had one cousin show up with her son's new puppy, and another cousin brought his baby girl by to see us. Both were cuddly and warm and too cute for words, and any baby jones I may or may not have been feeling lately has been thoroughly satisfied. Although now I kind of want us to get a puppy.

During those few days that we considered the possibility that I might be pregnant, Matt and I had many discussions about how great kids would be some day but that day is definitely not today, as there are so many different ways we want to improve upon our current situation first. Of course, we knew, if it happened we'd have it and we'd love it and we'd both do the best we could with the resources currently available to us; but I know this for certain: as much as I might pine to hold and play with a baby from time to time, when that happens, I'm still all too happy to hand them back to their parents the second they become fussy or needy. I'm just not yet ready to be a mother. Thank God I still have more than nine months to get there.

*My true reaction was somewhat more volatile, to be sure, but I'm trying to keep it family-friendly in here, so it's not fit to print.

NaNo Update

I've finished and posted Chapter Eight.

Thangsgiving GMP

Spike's unhappy Thanksgiving:



Wishing all of my fellow Americans a happy Ritual Sacrifice With Pie.

Ruh-roh!

Matt had a "tickle" in the back of his throat last night, and this morning it was full-blown sore and he felt like crud. Considering that's how my symptoms started, things don't bode well for a sickness-free Thanksgiving.

In a few minutes I have to go set up coffee service for a meeting, and while all of my folks are in said meeting I'mma bust out the remainder of my paper backlog and spend the morning getting all caught up. I'm hoping that after the meeting everybody will start to trickle home to get a jump-start on the holiday, and I'll get to put in an entire afternoon of uninterrupted writing. Since it seems like I might be spending the entire holiday weekend playing nursemaid, this may be my last chance to catch up and make some headway toward my NaNo goal. So, *crosses fingers* here's hopin'!

Return of Gratuitous Marsters Picspam

I'm so sorry to have neglected you guys.

Remember the suit?



Oh, yeah. You remember.

Chapter Seven is up over at the writing blog.

And I'm outtie.

Back To Life

I'm back at work, catching up and getting back into the swing of things. I'm feeling somewhat better--Saturday night I took a turn for the worse, and last night I really didn't know if I'd be able to make it today, but I woke up this morning feeling--not good, but tolerably well enough to put in a day at the office. Thankfully I only have to put in three of them this week. Also thankful that I managed to put off getting sick until I was firmly ensconced in a real job with paid sick leave and good insurance. That's a pretty good start to my gratitude list for Thursday. Hopefully I'll be back to normal by then.

Things I neglected while I was out (and at times out cold): Laundry, taking out the trash, my sister's birthday. Things I rocked at: sleeping, knitting, hacking up yellow goo, watching TV. I did manage to get a bit more writing done on Saturday, too--most of a short chapter that I hope to finish and post before I go home today.

It should also be noted that my husband rocked the caregiver role, dutifully bringing me soup and liquids and making sure the pets were watered and fed (a job that typically falls to me, seeing as transporting water and food bowls or whatnot is kind of hard when your hands are occupied with crutches) and taking naps with me when I wanted company and leaving me alone when I didn't, and generally doing his best to keep me cheered up. I married a good guy.

I did! The rest of Chapter Six is up over at the writing blog.

I'm going back to bed now.

What day is this?

So sorry for the lack of updates at either blog, but, you see, I have a good excuse. I've been waylayed by bronchitis. And that, you guys, is some nasty stuff. But yesterday I went to see a doctor, who prescribed for me some nice antibiotics and lovely sleepy-making cough syrup. Today I'm feeling much better. Coughing's not so much an issue, so I'm laying off the elixir, and I thought I'd take advantage of being awake for a change to get some writing done. Maybe I'll even finish that chapter and post the rest of it later. Maybe.

I hope you guys are doing well.

GMP!

Eugh. My writing output sucked today. I lose at NaNoWriMo.

Here's your daily James Marsters.

Kill me.

It's turkey day here at the office.

The LAST thing I need today is to give myself a tummy ache and fall into a tryptophan coma.

And yet....

We've been South Parked!

I think this is a fairly accurate representation of myself.



And here's my sweetie!



Really, folks, how could I resist that?

Okay. Writing now.

Make your own fun at the South Park Studio (via Miss Snark).

Zuh?

I'm in a Benadryl hangover haze this morning. Good times.

I didn't write a single word over the weekend. Matt decided to cash in a sick day on Saturday, and as I'd planned to do all of my writing that morning while he was at work... yeah. Not so much.

So instead he went with me to check out that house. The owner told me that they were having an open house on Saturday and that I should send him by to check it out. When we got there it was locked up, nobody was there, and owner/co-worker didn't answer her cell phone or return my messages. Matt was unimpressed enough by both that fact and by the house's outsides to make it a pretty firm no, so I guess it's back to obsessively refreshing Craigslist and spending Christmas cooped up in our attic. Sigh.

I've got a ton of paperwork and filing backed up here at work, and I think it's time I had a stern word with myself about my actual job coming first ahead of my NaNo word count. Still, I ought to be able to carve out a couple hours a day to write, so the novel will still creep steadily forward. It just won't advance in leaps and bounds. As long as it continues to advance at all, I'm a happy writer.

GMP! And a random list.

*My novel passed the 10,000 word mark today. I'm hardly a NaNo contender, but at least I'm making progress.

*Today's output is up at the writing blog.

*Royal Carribean says they're not liable for Matt's wedding ring and won't be reimbursing us for our loss. That's not what the security people told us when they searched our stateroom. I'm pissed. I know Matt will be, too, but he needs to be the one to call and fight with them, because I'm no good at that sort of thing.

*I have a car insurance payment due tomorrow that they never sent me a bill for, and when I called to ask what to write on the check they were already closed. Bastiges.

*I'm hungry.

*I'm picking up some sushi on the way home.

*But first I'm going yarn shopping. It's that time of year, and I've got my Christmas and winter projects all lined up, including a sweater for Matt. I think now that we're married we're safe from the sweater curse. I'm still apprehensive about it, though, because it's my first sweater. Here's hoping I don't screw it up.

*Yay yarn shopping!

*Finally, here's your gratuitous Marsters picspam. Yay James!



Have a good weekend, everybody.

POD PSA*

A few months ago my hometown started putting out a free monthly "magazine" (basically a glossy community newsletter filled mostly with ads), the latest of which was lying on the kitchen counter this morning while I was drinking my daily portion of calcium. One of the headlines on the cover read, "Local Author Publishes Novel," so I opened it up and flipped to the article. My first thought as I did so was, of course, pure envy. As I read the article my envy was tempered by the suspicion that said "author" self-published through a POD, even though the publisher was never mentioned in the article (or maybe because the publisher was never mentioned). Then, as I put the 'zine away and headed out the door for the morning rush, I felt good and ashamed of myself for being such a cynical critic who can't just be happy for a fellow local writer's success.

And then I got to work and did some digging: Yup. POD. Worse, one with a big red scam flag, being that they don't mention on their site that they require a $4,000 "investment" to publish and market your work.

I mention this not because I want to be petty and out the local gal as being not "really" published (notice how I don't mention her name or the title of her book) and anyway, hey, good for her if the POD road works for her and makes her happy. But it kind of makes my blood boil that this fishy POD is not only trying to deceive aspiring writers into thinking that they're a legitimate publishing company, but that they're doing so under the banner of Christ.

Um... NOT.

Look, they may be Christians, and they may even believe that they are legitimate and aren't doing anything wrong. I guess that part's between them and God. I think my real point is that just because a company labels itself as "Christian" does not mean that they're on the up-and-up, and a quick Google search showed me that this one isn't. Basically, don't wave your Christian flag around while engaging in buttholish behavior. I've been guilty of this at times as well -- I'm sure every Christian has -- but, well, this is exactly why I don't have a Jesus fish or one of those praying Calvin decals on my car. I'm too susceptible to road rage and until I can develop the ability to maintain driving zen and keep my middling finger on the steering wheel, I don't need to be advertising my Christian status to my fellow drivers.

...

So anyway, Tate Publishing = expensive POD, in case you were checking them out and too misdirected by all of the evangelizing to realize that you have to give them money for your book to see the light of day.

I hope the local gal makes her money back. That's all.

*Procrastinating Sneakily Always

Cap'n, my Cap'n

So Nathan Fillion just got his very own Myspace, with his very own blog.

Promotional Keyword: SUPERSALE

Grumble. Yesterday I ordered a couple sets of Farscape from Deep Discount DVD, wondering vaguely as I hit submit when they'd have their next big super sale.

This morning, I got an announcement that, hey, they're having their big super sale! Starting today!

...

Yeah. Not so much with the pleased, that's me. But hey, if you want to load up on cheap DVDs, use the keyword up there in this post's title to save an extra 20%.

Housing Plans

I had no idea Ed Bradley was even sick. That's a damn shame.

I spent my lunch hour going with a co-worker to view her soon-to-be-available rental house. You guys, it's a cute house! It has a big, breezy front porch and a great fenced back yard with an in-ground swimming pool (!), and it's in a great neighborhood with a pretty park with a duck pond a few blocks away. Hardwood floors, two fireplaces (one decorative, one working), roomy kitchen, laundry room, three bedrooms, one of which connects to a den and can easily be converted into an office or family room or whatever, and for at least the next six months they'll be renting it in our price range!

The only catch--of course there's a catch--is that she and her husband think they want to ask for more in six months (apparently they plan to continue property improvements while somebody's living there) and, well, we don't want to have to move again in six months if they want more rent than we can afford. Especially not if we love living there, which we totally would.

So we're each going to discuss it with our respective husbands and see what they have to say on the matter. She flinched when I mentioned our pets, so that might be a dealbreaker right there. But she says they want to be sure they get "trustworthy tenants," and she feels I'd fit the bill. She's also a really nice lady who seems eager to help out a couple of newlyweds. So we'll see. It would be awesome if this works out (and we can spend Christmas in our very own place), but I'm not going to get my hopes up too high.

Needless to say, I haven't gotten much writing done today.

Zack Attack!

SNPotD

Chapter Five is up.

GMP-Spam!

Here's your semi-daily James Marsters fix.

Gymboree

I've finally managed to get a pretty regular, three-times-a-week gym routine going. Mostly it involves thirty minutes on a treadmill, but sometimes (the times when I just can't bring myself to run and really just want to sit someplace quiet and read a book) I'll opt for the reclining bikes instead. Monday I cut the aerobics (bike & book) session short by a few minutes so I could spend some time with the weight machines, particularly the ab machines.

I've been avoiding the weight machines. That whole section of the gym is just scary to me. Fortunately I tend to go at a time of day when it's mostly populated by senior citizens and fellow "average" women who are just trying to get healthy, so at least I don't have to navigate through the hardcore scary-grunty people in muscle shirts and weight-lifting gloves. But there's still the fact that I'm not that familiar with weight machines, and so I had to walk through the maze of contraptions and study them, trying to figure out what each of them are for and generally giving off the very genuine impression that I have no idea what I'm doing. And that last part is never fun, no matter how used to it I should be by now.

But I finally found the ab machine, and figure out how it works, and got a pretty good stomach workout for my efforts, and that's a good thing. Lately I've been completely neglecting my stomach muscles--I don't think I've done a single crunch since we got back from our honeymoon--and my lower back is suffering for it. It's not like I want abs like Madonna or anything. I just want to be able to bend over and pick things up without my back giving out and dropping me to the floor in a howl of pain, where I lie whimpering and incapacitated for several minutes barking at my husband not to touch me. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Anyway. My main focus is still the running. When last I ran on Friday I was up to running 175 steps and walking 25 (you may recall that I started at 100/100). Next week I'm going to try running a solid third of a mile without any walking breaks, which for me will be a pretty big milestone. Or, I guess, third-mile-stone. But the point is, I'm still doing it, and I'm making progress, and even though my diet is currently crap and will probably remain so until January 2, 2007, I'm feeling pretty good and managing not to expand. If I keep it up, by next spring I might actually be able to go outside and run a whole mile.

I might be able to ride my bike by then, too, assuming I get it out of the garage and clean off the spider webs and mud dauber nests and put some air in the tires. I can fairly easily go for 10 miles on the stationary bike on a hilly setting, but of course there is a big, big difference between pushing through a "steep hill" resistance setting on a reclining bike and riding up an actual steep hill on an actual bycicle. Gravity is a much bitchier mistress than computerized resistance. But by spring, if all goes as planned, I'll be living in the city where the hills are lower and fewer, and where maybe my bike can actually serve as transportation and not just as a mobile exercise device. I can ride it on weekends to fetch myself lattes and books and knitting supplies. 'Twould be awesome. 'Twould be awesome just to live within bicycling distance to those things, but that's another post for another day, and if I keep going this route I'm going to end up spending my day looking up rental listings and daydreaming and getting no writing done at all. And so I'll just stop.

SNPotD

Chapter Four is up over at the writing blog.

I was pretty sleepy while I wrote most of this chapter. I think probably you can tell.

Gratuitous Marsters Picspam!

In an attempt to both take up some of the slack around here whilst I focus on my NaNo project and please the majority at the same time...



This won't happen daily. But it will happen often. Enjoy.

Marsters Mania

Huh. And also, heh. Looking at my blog stats this morning, I see that my recent post about James Marsters and his new movie is the most visited post in this blog ever. Not that that's much of a surprise, but it does tell me that if I want to drive up my blog traffic, I ought to work him in more often. Shouldn't be too hard. It's not like I mind talking about the guy.

Shameless NaNoWriMo Plug O' the Day

If things seem slow here, that's because all the action is happening over at Jean Writes Genre, where I'm doing my ever lovin' best to post a chapter a day (excepting weekends). I just posted the third chapter, and now I'm trying to get a start on chapter four.

Even so, I'm going to try my best not to neglect this blog all month; but, y'know, there are only so many writing hours in the day to go around.

I pretty much spent the entire weekend playing Personal Care Giver to my mom and my aunt. It didn't leave room for much else, although I did manage to get a little writing done. A very little--about 300 words--but that's better than nothing, right?

My mom's doing a lot better now, though. Her energy reserves are still low so she needs to take it easy, but otherwise she feels fine. She also started seeing a new doctor who put her on some extremely affordable blood pressure medication. Remind me to rant about idiot doctors who care more about drug company kickbacks than their patients' health and/or financial situations when I get more time.

NaNo update

In case you're not already following, I've posted my first two (complete!) chapters over at Jean Writes Genre.

Have a good weekend, everybody.

Upsetting things

Do you know what's upsetting?

Getting a call from your husband letting you know that your mommy has been taken to the emergency room is upsetting.

Getting to the ER and seeing your mommy looking very old and frail and miserable is even more upsetting.

Finding out that she hasn't been taking her blood pressure medication because she couldn't afford it, and knowing that you and your siblings could have taken care of that for her if she had only said something is also pretty damn upsetting.

But the most upsetting thing is being confronted with the fact that your mommy--the rock you've depended on for so many years, way past the point that you should have stopped doing so--has an expiration date.

I don't want my mommy to expire.

She's going to be taking her medication from now on.

Gratitude Journal, vol. 5

1. I'm grateful that my husband and I can argue in a way that's respectful and actually facilitates communication and solves problems.

2. I'm grateful for my husband, period.

3. I'm grate