Only five more days before the kids go back to school. We've been enjoying a relatively lazy winter break, staying home and trying not to spend money. Yesterday we ventured out to Walmart for groceries and picked up several skeins of yarn because my children are suddenly feeling crafty. (By the way, older child and younger child will henceforth be referred to as Bookman and Sunshine on my blog.)

All winter break I've been working on crochet projects, mostly hats for other people and an afghan. On Monday, Sunshine dug some soft fuzzy yarn out of her craft box and decided she wanted to make a scarf. She doesn't have the patience yet for the fiddliness of crochet, so we dug out the 'Knifty Knitter' set we got many years ago. She chose the smallest loom, and cranked out a scarf in about 24 hours. It will also double as a hand/arm warmer on the playground. Check it out!

Bookman was impressed, so much so that he is now half-way done with a cozy hat for himself. I made a super-cute baby hat, but will be sticking to crochet. For some reason the loom knitting thing killed my hands.

I mentioned the afghan I'm working on... *sigh* I've been working on the same afghan for at least three years. It's for Sunshine, but I guess I've had some sort of mental thing about finishing it--she's known to be tough on blankets sometimes, and I want her to be able to pass this one on to her children. So I guess I was waiting until she was old enough to appreciate the time investment before forging ahead to finish it. I think she's about there now, and I'm more than half-way finished. My goal for January is to get the darn thing done!

I have discovered over the last decade that I do like crocheting for other people, something I undoubtedly absorbed from my Gramma. When I start a project with someone else in mind, loving thoughts and prayers for well-being are embodied in every stitch, so I end up with a finished piece composed of long bits of yarn and lots of love. I'm watching my kids knit, and I'm hoping maybe I can pass that on to them by encouraging them to make a hat for Head Huggers or similar program. That's another goal for the year :-)

Modern medicine

Every year about this time, I say a prayer of thanks for modern medicine. Particularly for Dr. Matthew M. Weinecke, the pediatric cardiologist whose experienced eye recognized that my weeks-old daughter was very very sick, and for Dr. Lawrence Fox and Dr. Jeffrey Heinle, the pediatric surgeons whose skilled hands performed the open-heart surgery on that tiny heart and saved my baby's life. Were it not for modern advances in diagnosing and repairing congenital heart defects, our family would be very different without our Sunshine.

Today I am again thankful for modern medicine. My mother-in-law is in the hospital with an abscess on her jaw that isn't responding to antibiotics. She's in a lot of pain, and apparently has a lot of swelling. She had a CAT scan earlier this morning to hopefully locate the abscess so they can surgically remove or drain it. The doctor likely won't even see the results until later tonight, so for now we're just waiting. The toughest part for us is that she's three and a half hours away in Oklahoma, and it's hard to worry long distance.

So if you read this, please take a moment to give thanks for the blessing of skilled doctors and for the healing power of prayer.

New identity for an odd room

I'm kind of excited. As creative a soul as I am, dabbling in nearly anything crafty, I've never had a dedicated craft space. Lately I've been using the dining room table, among other places, and consequently our family has eaten many dinners sitting together in the living room, or picnicking on the patio or on the trampoline.

Well... about a week ago, I had a flash of inspiration, and devised a scheme to set aside a corner of our front room JUST for all my crafty cra-- er, stuff. Our house is odd. The front door opens into a room that is, I believe, intended to be a formal living room, but it's fairly small. For seven years, it has functioned as an office/computer room and library (with three large bookcases stuffed to the gills). When older child started middle school, I bought a 6' folding table and added 'homework space' to the room's identity. It then transitioned to 'homeschool'. But then he went back to the middle school...

That folding table came in handy for doing craft fairs, and it's been riding around in the back of my SUV for a month. Now I'm done with craft fairs for the season, so... I'm putting it to new use!

Scratch the homework/homeschool identity for the front room. It shall henceforth be known as the COLC (computer/office/library/CRAFT) room! I am, at this very moment, taking a break from getting my craft stuff organized in my new craft corner. The dining table is almost clear and I'm trying to figure out how to best utilize every precious inch.

I can't wait to have it done so I can sit down and make it messy!

Trapezius injury

I had a very sore neck yesterday. It was weird, because I could think of nothing I'd done that might cause it. I hadn't worked out at all (though I really need to), I hadn't slept oddly (no more oddly than usual, anyway), hadn't tweaked it... nothing.

Being the hyper-cautious person that I now am (damn that accident), I researched possible causes before I went to bed last night, and felt a little better knowing it was nothing serious, just... an unexplained sore neck.

Well... in the wee hours of the morning, I suddenly sat up and went, "Aha! I know what it is!" Are you ready for this?

I listened to "Bohemian Rhapsody" THREE times on Tuesday.

Yeah! I know! I totally earned that sore neck!

For those who have no idea why a song would cause residual muscular pain, particularly in the neck region, you need to log off your computer and go watch Wayne's World on DVD RIGHT NOW. It's okay, I'll wait. (Here's a link to just that particular scene on YouTube)

Hmmmhmmmmhmhmhmmmm....

You back? Okay, now I can proceed with the story...

Bohemian Rhapsody came on the radio as I was taking kiddos to school. Fortunately I got stopped at the light in front of the school as the song got to the head-banging part, but I'm imagining what parents around me thought... "Is that our PTA president rockin' out? Oh wait, sshhh...If you listen, you can hear her singing... And her windows aren't even rolled down."

I was still jamming when I got home, so older child (whose school starts later) asked me what I was singing. Of course I had to pull the song up on Rhapsody and let him hear (his toothbrush sings "We Will Rock You" so he already has an appreciation for Queen). And of course I had to sing along and rock out.

Took him to school, then came home to get to work on laundry, and had Rhapsody (the online music service) playing, which now had Bohemian Rhapsody in my playlist. So when it came on yet AGAIN, I had to stop what I was doing and REALLY rock it (Hey, I was home by myself, so there was no one around to go, "Uh... Is mommy having some sort of seizure?").

I know what you're thinking, and yes, it was worth it.

Alzheimer's sucks beans

My Gramma used to be the best Gramma in the world. When I was a kid, I loved going to her house because she had an enclosed front porch full of old toys and old furniture and lots of cousins to play with. There was almost always something yummy on the stove top or in the oven. She's not Italian by birth, but assimilated herself by marriage as quickly as she could. Holidays at her house included tables spilling into the living room to accommodate 30+ loud and laughing relatives. Her meatballs and braciole--oh, makes me want to reminisce with a Sicilian accent. (Inconthievable!!)(Sorry. *ahem*)

Even as recently as three years ago, we baked cookies and pitzels together in my mom's kitchen, talking about genealogy and great-great-great-great aunts and uncles. She was a wonderful great-Gramma to my kids.

Now, that Gramma is gone. No, she's still alive. She's just a mean, angry, resentful person, her former self eaten away by Alzheimer's and dementia. She lives full-time with my mom, about ten miles away. (You can read more about the accident that seemed to speed up her decline in this post.)

Now, she gripes at my kids for silly stuff (she once barked at younger child to 'Quit dancing! Do you behave like that at home?', threw a fit because older child stood at the counter to nibble some cheese and crackers). She makes up hateful things about me and my older child to tell her caregivers, sometimes even when I'm in the same room! She tells my mom's dog to eat my dog. She squints her eyes and covers her ears with her hands whenever there's a noise she doesn't like (like my voice speaking to my mother). She accuses all of us of stealing her stuff when she can't find something. She especially dislikes my son simply because he's a boy.

We see her every weekend, but it's hard sometimes, especially for my kids, because they don't really remember 'Great-Gramma'. I constantly remind them (and myself) that it's not really her--it's the disease, but that doesn't make visiting any more pleasant. How can we enjoy being with an old woman mean enough to make my teenager cry?

Okay, so what spurred such a depressing post? My mom recently started a blog to catalog the daily struggles and triumphs of my grandmother's Alzheimer's (if you know/remember my grandmother, check out The Butterfly Net). Yesterday I made some custom graphics for the blog, and this morning I found a picture of my grandmother to put up. As I was adjusting the brightness and contrast of the photo and reducing the glare on her glasses in Photoshop, I got to thinking about how she used to be. And it made me sad. It's difficult to hang on to the good memories when our more recent experiences are so...daunting.

In all fairness, I must admit that she's been more mellow in recent weeks. On Thanksgiving day, she didn't gripe even once, not even at my son. It was such a departure from her normal self, that we all noticed and marveled. Let's hope she's still mellow tomorrow...

Bailout Soapbox

I just have to roll my eyes and sigh loudly every time I read or hear the word 'bailout'. I am not a financial whiz by any means, so my understanding of what is actually happening is likely very limited, but what I see this week is a bunch of extremely high-paid execs whining to Congress about how they deserve to be rewarded for their stupidity.

Okay, I can kind of see where the bank bailout was reasonable. Banks are, after all, federally insured, so the government has somewhat of a responsibility to assure the solvency of those institutions. I DO believe that the executives who contributed to the failure of said institutions need to be held accountable for their reckless spending and poor leadership--especially those bozos who celebrated their bailout with a $440,000 spa trip.

But a bailout of auto makers? Puh-leeze. GM has been operating at a significant loss for at least five years, Ford for at least three. They have already received the tax breaks associated with that.

Umm... Hello? Taxpayers should bail out these companies why?

I understand that there are tens of thousands of regular people employed by these companies, who will very likely lose their jobs in a time that is already financially challenging. And that is certainly something to take into consideration.

How about this for a solution: Every single person at GM, Ford, and Chrysler who makes more than $100,000 a year should sell off ALL their assets. The houses, the boats, the luxury cars, the timeshares, the hulking flatscreens. They should accept a salary of $60,000 a year, buy one small house (less than 2000 square feet) with no pool, two compact cars with cloth seats and no DVD players or satellite radio, and one 25" low-def television. Keep one iPhone ('cause we all need a little luxury), but nix the $40/month internet service fee for it. The combined difference from all those executives would certainly take a huge bite out of that $34 billion shortfall, and perhaps show those hoo-ha's what it's like to get by on a regular guy's salary.

*deep, cleansing breath* Okay. I feel better. I'm going to go back to ignoring the whole situation.

I am thankful that I drive a Toyota :-), that we don't work for the auto industry, and that people keep flushing stuff labeled 'flushable', thus assuring that plumbers have plenty of work to do.

I hate cold

I hate cold, and by cold, I mean anything below 40 degrees. I did my time as a kid in New York, Alaska, Denver, Ohio, and Germany. Got all that youthful enthusiasm for frozen fingers and snotcicles out of my system. That's why I live in Texas. Texas is nice and warm and dry, and usually not very cold.

It's 32 degrees outside right now! For the record, that is NOT nice and warm.... Okay, by winter-in-Fairbanks standards, it's rather toasty, but for ME, it's dang chilly. It makes me dang thankful that I have a warm (if a bit drafty) house, fuzzy thermal socks, a grungy-but-warm sweater, and a huge cup of hot tea. *sigh*

This month's theme for NaBloPoMo is 'Thanks'. I'm not gonna commit to a post a day, but I'm sure I can find stuff--every now and then--to be thankful for that I can share!

Another thing I'm thankful for today, is that my older child had a good half-day back at public school. I had two and a half kid-free hours. I ran to the bank, spent some needed time doing PTA stuff at the elementary school, and didn't stress about needing to be home to prod older child to do his work. *sigh*

My kids can see.... liver spots?

The kids got new glasses this week. They both went from nondescript wire frames (2 pair for $99) to dark chunky frames with attitude (2 pair for... um... more than $99). The timing on the expense could have been better, I suppose (like after Christmas), but Younger child could barely see out of her old glasses, and the days off from school presented an excellent opportunity to remedy the situation without disrupting a school day.

The difference in their prescriptions was enough for them to be marveling on the way home about all the things they could now see. Normal children might wonder again at the leaves on the trees, or the birds in the distance. Perhaps note the wording on signs at the next intersection... Not my children. Older child exclaimed, amazement in his voice, "I can clearly see the liver spots on that old lady in the car beside us!" Younger child leaned over to see and cooed, "Oooh! Me too!"

Yesterday, we braved Black Friday traffic to take older child back to the eye doctor, so he could get his new contacts, too. We go to the optometrist connected to Walmart, so I was dreading the Parking Lot of Doom, but we were shocked at how relatively empty it was at noon. I've seen that Walmart busier than that on non-holiday Saturdays. Maybe all the shoppers were huddled at the doors at 5 am, shopped, and went home, leaving a wide choice of parking spots for us. We even went IN Walmart after his appointment! We stood in the main aisleway for a few moments, decided we didn't need anything, then turned around and headed back to the truck.

And I almost got away with not spending a penny on Black Friday (contacts paid for earlier in the week), but we were hungry, and someone in the back seat reminded me that we had very little to eat at home (i.e., no Hot Pockets in the freezer), so we plunked down $8 at Taco Bell.

Reviving the comatose

Okay, perhaps 'comatose' is a little strong. But what else would you call it? That state of being in suspension, languishing in perpetual same-ness. No growing, no changing, just... there.

Alas, thus has been the woeful condition of this blog. Begun more than three years ago, played with every now and again over the course of a year, then veritably forgotten for more than two years! It's just sad. Sad, sad, sad. Sure it's there in the dashboard when I log in to blogger, way down at the bottom of the list, but you know when you see the same thing all the time, you quit seeing it? Like the christmas tree in the front room that stays up for eighteen months? It becomes part of the background noise and you don't even see it anymore.

So I'm rescuing this blog from the bottom of the dashboard list.

Actually, my baby sister has inspired me. She's been posting to her blog daily in honor of NaBloPoMo. It's been nice to be able to keep up with her (since she lives several states away). It got me thinking that I need to keep up with my blog. I do have a separate family blog (that is also in desparate need of updating), but I started this one just for me, and I'd like to keep up with it. At least every other day, if not every day.

We'll see :-)

Chaos and healing

For those wondering where I've been :-)

After RT, I flew from Florida to Ohio to help get my grandmother moved to Texas. She's 76 and now has full-blown alzheimers, but she's had frontotemporal dementia setting in for quite some time, I think. She's been obsessive about collecting things for years and years. She had fairly normal collections like coin banks (she had about 200) and miniatures, but also things like velcro wallets, cheap costume jewelry, slippers, anything glass--candle holders, lampshades, globes for light fixtures, ashtrays, brandy snifters, ohmygod she had a lot of useless glass stuff. And CLOTHES! She had six large dressers and five good-sized closets stuffed full of clothes she got at Goodwill. Clothes were stacked tall on top of those dressers AND on two twin beds and a rollaway bed. She had clothes hung on the backs of every door in the house, in the bathrooms on makeshift clothing rods... and other places I can't recall at the moment. Many of the clothes were way too small or way too big, in colors she hates, or in styles she hates (she hates purple and she hates turtlenecks). I was thinking she must have gone naked as a child, but her family was never that bad off, even with 13 kids. Every single thing in the house held some sentimental value. She often couldn't remember where she got it, but she was certain someone gave it to her, so it was therefore indispensable. Anyway... Cleaning, yard sale, gramma throwing temper tantrums, loading a truck, reloading a truck, etc., etc. All with my two very cooperative and helpful children at my heels since they hadn't seen me all the previous week.

We drove back to Texas, stopping to spend $700 to fix the water pump on my grandmother's car. While mom and gramma were waiting for the car to be fixed, the kids and I went on ahead and got home on Wednesday evening, about twenty minutes ahead of my sister, who drove in from Alabama. Mom and Gramma got in on Thursday afternoon. Gramma was pouty and angry.

The very next day (Friday, June 2nd), we were all at my mom's, and I noticed Gramma headed out the back door with her purse and keys. Knowing she was mad at me for aiding and abetting her 'kidnapping' *rolling my eyes*, I sent my dad to intercept her. When that didn't work, I went out to try to at least get some information from her. She wouldn't say where she was going, wouldn't even consider letting me drive her wherever she needed to go. When I asked "Where can we find you if we get worried?" she said--very tersely--"Well don't worry." Then she got in the car with her dog and left. I was mad that she was acting so childish, but after a few minutes, started looking for my sandals so I could go look for her, just for peace of mind. Then we heard sirens, and saw the city's white fire truck head down the street (my mom lives out in the boonies so we're still puzzling about that). Within maybe forty seconds, I'd located my sandals, keys, and purse, and was out the door, didn't tell anybody goodbye or what I was doing. My sister saw me go, though.

Two miles from my mom's house, I see the flashing lights, and then I see the back end of my grandmother's car on the wrong side of the road and facing the wrong direction. I'm still in denial--maybe it's a car that looks like my grandmother's-- but I call my mom on my mobile, and then see the Ohio plates on the car. "It's her!" I yell as I pull wonky between two other cars. I see my grandmother lying in the middle of the road, with EMT's working on her. I jump out of the car and run, yelling "That's my grandmother!" A police officer stops me, and my mom is on the phone in a panic, my dad left without her when she yelled 'Go!'. My hands are shaking so much I can barely hold on to the phone and I'm sobbing but too hysterical for tears. The car is 'C'-shaped, the passenger-side doors slammed all the way into the driver's side. I see her dog in a heap on the side of the road. I hear the words "thrown from the vehicle" and "not wearing a seatbelt" and "head injury." They won't let me near her, and my mother is on the phone hijacking my sister and her car. The stop sign is laying in the street, and blood, and another woman is sitting in the driver's seat of a brown minivan with its front end smashed in. Somewhere in there my dad arrives on the scene. My mom is telling me to tell the EMT's to take her to a specific hospital but they're adamantly refusing. The officer explains that they're taking her to the best trauma center, where they take cops who are shot or injured.

Sister and mom arrive just in time to follow the ambulance carrying Gramma. I've calmed a bit, and give the officer in charge as much information as I can. We tend to the dog, who is alive but obviously not going to make it. Then I head back to my mom's house to call aunts and uncles and cousins, and get whatever we're going to need for a hospital vigil. Dad calls to tell me Dinky, gramma's beloved Yorkie, has died.

But gramma survived! Fractured skull, broken ribs, multiple lacerations, and a collapsed lung, but nothing seriously life threatening. She spent five days in ICU, another two 'on the floor' (i.e. in a regular room), and is now home. She's got 12 staples in her head, and about 50 in the rest of her body. But she's hobbling around with a walker on bruised/swollen legs and ankles.

The other driver, miraculously, was uninjured. Just a few bruises and a bit of stiffness. The accident was totally Gramma's fault--she ran a stop sign and barreled into 55-mph cross-traffic. However, there have been many serious-injury accidents at that same intersection, another one just four days later.

Between visiting hours with Gramma in the hospital, my dad and I moved the cheesy laminate 'guest room' furniture out of Gramma's room. I painted the walls a pretty butterwheat yellow, shampooed the carpet (they were nasty since she didn't make Dinky wear his diaper in her bedroom), and moved in the set my mom and her sisters once used (two twin beds, a dresser and a vanity) that Gramma had insisted we haul to Texas. Bought all new bedding and sewed up matching curtains. Stamped butterflies on the walls, and re-wallpapered the adjoining bathroom, and bought new bath rugs and towels. I held my breath as my grandmother saw it all for the first time, but she grinned, and even without her glasses, noticed the big butterflies on the walls.

So that's where I've been for the last month. I'm still playing relief nursemaid at my mom's house, and trying to catch up on laundry and housework. But hopefully life will calm down for the next few weeks. :-) Here's hoping for a very boring rest of the month...

Somebody please explain to me...

News flash: Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's biggest oil company, said first-quarter profits climbed to $8.4 billion from $7.86 billion.
News flash: Valero Energy Corp., the country's largest refiner, reported the highest first-quarter profits in its history, $849 million, up 60 percent (SIXTY PERCENT!!!!) from the same period last year.

Something is very wrong with this picture.

To mollify Americans, some senators are pushing for a $100 rebate check to all taxpayers, perhaps as a bribe to get us to quit whining about the government's crappy handling of the entire situation.

Okay, yeah, I wouldn't mind getting a check for $100, no strings attached. But there are always strings with the government. Rebate now likely means higher taxes later, and if they continue to give the oil companies huge tax breaks, nothing is solved. Besides, $100 will only pay for two tanks of gasoline.

And this nonsense about easing environmental regulations.... Can you imagine the utter glee at the headquarters of those gas companies? They're already making hundreds of millions of dollars MORE, and now they may get to save money on cleaning up their oil? WOOHOOO! Pass the Cuervo! Say hello to my little dead frog.

Return from the wilderness

Camping these days isn't quite the experience I remember from my childhood. Oh, sure, you can still camp in the wilderness with sleeping bags in a bare tent, choking on the fumes from the gas lantern. You can still fire up the old gas Coleman stove and eat chili or mac and cheese. You can still roast hot dogs over an open fire and eat trail mix 'til you're nutty... But why would you want to?

These days you can get water, electricity, telephone, cable TV, and wireless Internet, right in your tent! And most people don't even use a tent anymore.

We use a good-sized tent--big enough to sleep six but small enough not to blow away in a stiff wind--but we're still among the rumbling motor-powered, air conditioned giants at campgrounds. RV-ing is the 'in' thing now. Tents are passé.

And there seems to be an 'us' versus 'them' mentality among some RV-ers, who won't so much as nod hello to a tenter. When you meet up with them in the camp store or at the camp pool--away from your respective campsites, they'll nod and say, "So, ho big's your rig?" while tilting their hips in such away that suggests they might be talking about something else entirely. When you say "Seventeen feet," they'll raise an eyebrow and say, "Mine's twenty nine." Later, when they walk by your campsite, they'll raise their hand to say hello, then notice the TENT behind you. The hand will swipe through their hair as they quickly look away. While you laugh and decide not to tell them their zipper is down.

Yes, an RV would be nice, I admit. But tenting it has its advantages, too, aside from the difference in initial cash outlay. For one thing, it takes a lot less time to set up a tent than to hook up an RV, believe it or not, and you can do it almost silently. RV's are noisy and have so many bells and whistles--even the more basic ones--that getting them ready to actually sleep in is a major undertaking.

Tents don't require full hook-ups to be usable. In a pinch, a 'primitive' site will do--which is nice if you're on a long trip and stopping when and where you can. Tents also get much better gas mileage, and don't take up three parking spaces at McDonalds.

Next time we go exploring, we're taking the tent. And the microwave and portable A/C unit--but it will ALL still fit in the back of the minivan.

Blogging with both feet!

I decided to start a blog as much to keep track of myself as to be witty and entertaining. :-)

It's the wee hours of the morning, and my brain is still working... So what did I get done today?

After much swearing and hair yanking, I managed to successfully layout ToD in InDesignCS. And it only took seven hours. Unfortunately, all the italics were lost somehow, so I had to do a side-by-side search and italicize between the Word version and InDesign. I think I know what happened, so perhaps I can avoid that next time.

Also fixed typos and updated the ARC for SS, then formatted all five ebook versions. Put together an excerpt page for it, set it up in the store, and updated the main publisher website.

Oy, my shoulders ache!

I'll get some respite this weekend, since we are headed out of town. I'll be away from my main computer. Ordinarily I'd hate that, but I really need a day or two off! Perhaps I'll get some actual WRITING done, so I can meet some deadlines!