An Affair

Weekend: awesome.

We went to the Chocolate Affair Saturday evening, and gorged ourselves on chocolate until we could barely breathe and looked at beautiful displays like these:

Then, since Braz and Adin all but insisted we go out afterwards, we went with Vicki to the Corner Pocket to sip coffee and water and try to convince our stomachs that they weren't as full as they thought they were. (We were also hoping to meet Vicki's boyfriend, but he didn't arrive until a few minutes after Matt and I decided to leave.)

Sunday, we went down to my parents' house to visit my mom for a while (Dad was, as usual, at some camping/boy scout thing). Mom and I talked about Cancun for a while, and things we might do while we're there. Just in case you were looking for confirmation of a suspicion: yes, my parents are ridiculously excited about me bringing Penny to Cancun.

First things first: Alex had no accidents all day yesterday! That's two days in a row, whoo-hoo!

Of course, we're going into the weekend tomorrow, so I'm not sure how that'll roll. Obviously, we'll be keeping him in his "big boy" underwear, but I don't know if the accident-free streak will continue, as there are advantages the daycare has that we don't. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

***

Tomorrow is going to be busy: Penny's swim lesson in the morning, and then the cat has a checkup at the vet. And then the Chocolate Affair is tomorrow night! I can't wait! I'm still trying to figure out if I have a purse that I can discreetly line with tupperware containers... ;-)

We don't have any particular plans for Sunday, though we'd talked about dropping in on my parents, if they're available, since we haven't seen them for a while.

Hope you have a great weekend! See you on the other side!

Banner

Alex went all day yesterday wearing "big boy" underpants, and didn't have a single accident! Whahoo! Better yet, while he was watching Sesame Street before dinner, he actually stopped the show in the middle of a segment to go potty!

It's not over by any stretch, but the light at the end of the Diaper Tunnel is getting brighter!

***

Book club was fun last night. We'd read The Help by Katheryn Stockett, which was just a wonderful book. Touching and uplifting and funny and poignant. Of course, when we all agree on a book, we tend to discuss it less, and move on faster to talking about our kids.

And apparently, last night, we were all sporting the sense of humor of an 8-year-old boy, because the anecdotes we found funniest were all about body functions.

- One woman, attempting to educate her 9- and 10-year-old daughters about sex and reproduction in advance of the school's class, got them some books from the library, and sat them down for The Talk. She expected that they would be utterly mortified by the discussion, listen in embarrassed silence to what she said, and not really say anything themselves. So she was not prepared for: "Mom! Do people connect their butts?" "Can anyone connect butts?" "Do you and Dad connect butts?" "How often do you and Dad connect butts?" "When was the last time?"

- Another, who'd gotten a backyard trampoline for her kids, looked out the window one day to find her 8-year-old son peeing off the edge. She called him inside and demanded to know why; he said, "Because I had to go and couldn't make it to the house!" She told him that if he couldn't hold it long enough to get from the trampoline to the house, then he wasn't allowed outdoors anymore, and thought that was the end of it. A few days later, she saw her 10-year-old peeing off the edge... only the 7-year-old and the 4-year-old were still bouncing behind him, so his arc was shaped line a sine wave. She had real trouble stopping laughing long enough to read him the riot act.

- One 4-year-old asked her mother, "Mommy, did you pray to have babies?" She answered, "Yes, I prayed for babies." Then the 4-year-old continued, "Did you pray in the bedroom to get babies?" The mom thought, Well, there was an element of "Oh God, oh God, oh God!" at the time... This did not enable her to keep a straight face when the child said, "Where else did you pray?"

Weight For It

My weight popped back up this week, dangit. I knew I was overdoing it this weekend, but I didn't expect the numbers to keep climbing into this week, since I was back to being good on Monday. I even managed to resist the doughnuts in the office kitchen Monday! Stupid scale.

Tonight is book club, though Kris promised she'd pick up veggies and fruits, so I should be mostly okay there. But then this weekend is the Chocolate Affair. At which I refuse to count points. I'll just have to be good the rest of the weekend and hope for the best.

But dang, it sure would be nice to be back to baseline by the time my doctor's appointment rolls around in April; or even below that in preparation for the trip to Cancun in August.

Guess that means actually sticking to plan for a while, huh? Stupid cause-and-effect. I wish I could make myself not like food for a while. Then I could just eat-to-fuel and not care about anything else. Seriously, isn't there a switch in my brain I could flip? Come on, science, let's get on that!

Trudgery

I feel like I'm slogging through muck today.

I did some proofreading for Torquere yesterday, including a short story by one of my absolute favorite authors, and once again, she did not disappoint. I found a few typos, but as always, the story was solid. Funny and hot and perfectly paced and except for a slightly awkward opening, completely adorable.

So when I sat down with the computer last night to write, I was feeling hopeful. And I managed to write 700 words and finish the scene I've been trying to finish for most of the past week. But I'm not happy with it. It's stuttery and jagged, but not in a good way, just in a my-pacing-sucks kind of way. It's neither hot nor sweet, it doesn't advance the plot... All I can say good about it is that the scene is finally finished.

Two months ago, I'd have killed for a 700-word night. But the last few weeks, I've been averaging 1000 or more words per writing session, so last night, 700 felt like a cop-out. Especially since it was 700 words that I'm wondering if I'm going to have to completely delete and re-write.

Editing and proofreading don't mix very well with writing, for me. Once I've flipped the switch in my head that makes me look for "how to make it better" then that becomes a drag on "how to get it out". I'm getting better with flipping back and forth -- if I edit in the morning, I can usually write in the afternoon. Yesterday just... didn't work for me, I guess.

Yesterday should have been a good day. I crossed off a lot of things on my long-standing "to do" list, and made my airline reservations for the trip to Cancun this summer, and Alex made it through the day with only one accident.

But I'm tired and trudging today.

Neil Gaiman had this to say back in '02 about writing and writers' moods:

When writing a novel that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: "House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day." "Got call this morning to say I'd got Nobel Prize for literature. Wrote less than 300 words (285) probably unusable, so lousy day." And so forth.

Yes. Very much yes.

On the other hand, I saw this from Kevin Smith yesterday about writing and the motivation to write:

Writing is the closest any man or woman will ever come to playing God (or a god).
...
Only writing – amongst not only all the arts, but amongst all of humanity’s waking endeavors – allows we mere mortals a true taste of all-encompassing creation along the lines of that which God (or a god; or a god-like energy from which the universe sprang) knew or knows.

You sit down with a blank page (let’s be honest: a blank screen) and you create a universe. You fashion a world. You populate it with whimsies and desires. You make the world the way you feel it oughta be. And you don’t have to show a single image to convey your creation to others: just words. The more you share it, the more your fiction becomes a reality.
...
When you write, you are as a god – or even the God. Who needs motivation for that? You wanna enjoy the perks of godhood without some jackass nailing you to a cross? Go write something. Right now. Stop reading me.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Presidential

Stupid President's Day. Matt and Penny have the day off, but I'm at work.

Fairly good weekend, though. We met up with Braz & Adin and company for dinner Friday, and rather spontaneously, in the middle of dinner, Penny got invited to spend the night at Adin's with Ripley and Sarah. I thought about it and couldn't come up with any reason why she shouldn't go, so we went home and threw together her suitcase.

Saturday afternoon, we'd planned for Jen and Brian to come down to hang out and have dinner with us. Jen is sort of chronically late, so I didn't worry when they didn't arrive on time, but after about forty-five minutes, they called to say they had been on time, but then had wound up stuck in completely unmoving traffic for over an hour. Another half-hour later, they called to say they still hadn't gone anywhere. Matt did a search online and discovered that all eight lanes of the interstate had been closed due to some brush fires. Eventually, the cops got everyone turned around (literally, had cars turning around and driving the wrong way up the interstate to get off and take alternate routes), so after four and a half hours of sitting in the car and essentially driving through fire, they showed up.

We had a lovely dinner, though, and greatly enjoyed sitting around talking and watching goofy shows on Netflix.

Sunday's plan was to join Braz & Adin and kids at Braz's apartment to play some Rock Band while Braz and Adin did their laundry, and that went pretty well. Though we took a risk on skipping Alex's nap, and while he was fine right up until about 5, he fell asleep on me watching TV and then was sort of cranky and easily-upset for the rest of the evening, so I guess he's not quite ready to give up the nap yet. But the Rock Band was fun, and after a while, all the girls went outside to play together, so the four of us grownups got to totally rock out.

The big experiment for the weekend was trying to keep Alex in his "big boy" underpants. The daycare wants to go pretty much cold turkey on the pullups, so we're trying to support that. He only had two accidents on Saturday (and managed to hold his bladder for a whole hour while I took him out running errands!), but Sunday was a bit of a disaster, even though I had a timer set to remind him to go to the potty every half-hour. Oh, well, we'll see what happens, I guess. I dropped him off at daycare this morning with four changes of clothes. I expect we'll be doing a lot of laundry over the next week or so.

Turning Back the Clock

Dropping Penny off at school is usually the same. We stand in the lobby with a dozen or so other kids and parents until the school clock reads 8:15, and then the monitor will release the kids to class by grade. Usually she calls them in order, starting with kindergarten. Sometimes she'll send the 4th grade after 1st, just because those are the two grades whose classrooms are furthest from the lobby. Either way, when she calls for the kindergarteners, I give Penny her hugs and kisses so that when the 2nd grade is called, she can bolt down the hall without any delay. (Parting hugs and kisses, for Penny, is an involved process: five squeezes to the hug, five kisses each for her face and both hands.)

This morning, for whatever reason, the lobby was more crowded than usual. Thirty or more students crowded the line, and the monitor was having trouble keeping the kids from blocking the path to the office. The worst offenders were a clump of second graders.

So when it turned 8:15, she started calling the grades, but saved 2nd grade for last. And, in fact, refused to call them until the clumping kids finally got a clue and moved out of the way of the office path.

At 8:17, they still hadn't gotten a clue.

"I've got to go," I told Penny. She'd already had her hugs and kisses, as usual, so I said, "Have a great day! I love you!" and turned for the door. Like usual.

"Mom!" She held up her hands. "I want more!" More hugs and kisses, that means.

She hasn't done that to me in a while, but she used to do it a lot, as a stalling tactic. She always does it when I'm feeling time-crunched. She always does it as I'm leaving, not when we're standing there doing nothing. It always turns me into an angry ball of resentment.

"You need to do this when we're just standing, and not when I'm trying to get to work on time!" I hissed. I gave her the most perfunctory and un-loving hugs and kisses ever, and stormed out the door.

Stamping across the parking lot to my car (parked half a block further away than usual, thanks to a lingering bus that had caused at least ten cars to park somewhere other than their usual spots), I seethed. I hate that the school's before/after program won't take her. I miss being able to be at work at 7:30 so I can leave at 4. I resent every single little imposition on my time, even the ones that only take ten seconds.

But by the time I got to the car, I was starting to feel bad.

It's not her fault. She doesn't even know that I used to work from 7:30 to 4. And it's not like I was, actually, late to work. Or even that I've got a lot of work waiting for me today. I was just impatient with the school monitor playing headgames with the kids and feeling crowded by there being too many of them and wanting out.

By the time I'd got the car started, I felt like dirt. I wanted to get out and run back into the school and go to her classroom and pull her into my arms and tell her I was sorry. That I love her so much and that it wasn't her I was mad at.

When did extra hugs and kisses become a bad thing?

I feel like a bad parent today. I want to turn back the clock and start it over again. I don't need a lot of extra time. I just want to go back to 8:17.

Carpeted

We finally had a professional carpet-cleaning service come out and clean our living room yesterday. I swear, just prepping for them resulted in cleaning up about four cubic meters of dust and debris, not to mention going through stuff I hadn't even looked at in over five years and deciding that 80% of it could be summarily thrown out. Even when we put all our crap back where it belongs, I suspect it will look 100% better, just for that. And I think Matt's and my allergies will be significantly less troublesome, because we got rid of so much dust (or at least they will be once all the remaining dust settles).

And a good half of the stuff we moved out of the living room is stuff that, to be honest, we don't need to keep around. So this weekend, I think I'll be making a trip to drop that stuff off in our storage unit, and that, too, will improve our house.

The carpet cleaner gave me the name of an enzyme cleaner they recommend using on "pet stains" which we'll have to pick up and try. And she made some suggestions for when we get around to having the carpet torn out and replaced (which we'll have to do eventually).

They couldn't get all the stains out of our carpet, but they got most of them, and even the worst ones look much better. And they raked the carpet to fluff it back up, and the whole things looks like 2000% better.

We spent last night walking around barefoot or in socks, to keep dirt to a minimum while it's drying. I worried there might be trouble with Alex, who really likes to keep his shoes on all the time, but I asked Matt to prime him on the drive home, and he did great.

So great, in fact, that he didn't want to put his shoes on this morning when it was time to go to school. Aheh.

The Danger of Window Gels

It's a thing I do: whenever there are those gel window clings available in the $1 bin at Target, I pick out one or two and bring them home.

This started about a year ago, when I got some to decorate for Penny's Valentine's Day party, and not only did Alex enjoy them, he was enthralled by them. And not just him, but Penny as well. So when those little gel hearts were completely worn out and nasty, I replaced them with something else. And then something else. Et cetera. The kids like to play with them, and they're cheap, and when they start to look nasty or out of season, there's always something else in the $1 bin at Target.

So I'm working from home today (as evidenced by my lack of a post this morning) and in between work tasks, trying to clear out the living room as much as possible, because tomorrow morning the carpet cleaning service I hired is going to show up and -- please oh merciful gods -- Do Something About This Carpet.

I've schlepped a dozen or so boxes of stuff into other rooms, and when I moved a box from the living room into the play room, I paused, and opened the window shades there for some light. And I noticed the leftover Christmas clings still on the window. Which is not to say I hadn't noticed them before -- they're right in front of me every time I pull the car up to the house -- but today, I decided, it was time to get rid of them. (Past time, in fact, as I'd completely forgotten to put up the pretty new clings I'd bought on the Valentine's Day theme. Oops. And now we shall be gel-less until I get a chance to go to Target and find some spring flowers or St. Patrick's Day clovers.)

I peeled the clings off the windows and dumped them in the trash. Ah, the room looked better already.

Well, no, actually... it didn't. The clings had been there so long they'd left a sort of nasty residue/film on the glass. Well, I could take care of that! I grabbed a big wad of paper towels and my bottle of Formula 409.

Let me hasten to add here: I do not clean windows. I don't. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've cleaned the windows since we moved into this house twelve years ago. The light comes in, I can see what's going on outside, and grubby little fingers are going to mess them up anyway, so... I just don't bother. But for some reason, that residue from the gel clings was bothering me, and that's why I keep 409 in the closet. Just in case.

So I cleaned the windows. Had to actually put some elbow grease into getting the gel residue off, but not so much I had to go in search of my scrapey thing.

There. Now the windows are looking great! ...Well. No. Not really. Because the glass is clean, but all around the edges, they are completely nasty. But hey, that's only another spritz or two of 409 and another few swipes with my paper towels! And hey! Gorgeous windows!

But only on the inside. The outside of the glass is actually pretty nasty, especially in the living room (because those windows have 12 years of accumulated muck on their exteriors, whereas the play room windows only have 4 years of accumulated muck). But even though I think I've only ever done it once before, I know how to clean the exterior of these windows: You open them halfway, and then there are these little tabs that you pull, and the window tilts open! You don't have to take the screens out or go outside! (Granted, this only cleans the bottom halves of the windows. But I am not feeling energetic enough to get a stepstool and go outside to clean windows, so this is all we're getting! I'm cleaning the outsides of the bottom halves, and that's IT, I'm DONE.

Only, possibly on account of their only having been used once in 12 years, the little tabs that you pull so the window tilts open? Slightly stuck.

My hand slipped on one of them, and banged slam into the little lever that you use to lock the windows. Took some skin off the side of my hand. It bled sluggishly for a few minutes, and then subsided, but it hurts like a... a thing that hurts a lot. And it's exactly on the spot where the heel of my hand rests against the edge of the computer when I'm using the trackpad.

I told Twitter it was a window-cleaning injury, but then Matt messaged me immediately, worried I'd cut some glass and was even now bleeding to death on the sofa, tapping away on Twitter rather than going to the emergency room for stitches. So rather than worry you like that, I figured I'd trace this one back to its true root cause: those dang window gels.

I'm telling you guys to watch out. Those window gels are dangerous.

V-Day

Happy Fluffy Hearts Day!

Don't look at me like that. There's a sentiment out there for everyone. No, really. The Phineas and Ferb Valentines I got for the kids to give their friends came with teacher cards that read, "Happy Valentine's Day to an Eternal Optimist." The one I gave Matt had a bad pun in it. A couple of layers of them, in fact. (It was pirate-themed, and said "Happy Valentine's Day, me hearties!") I gave Adin a card that promised, if we were ever in prison together, to shiv anyone who dissed her. (The picture was a Victorian-style drawing of two women in corsets, one of whom was holding a small knife.) Braz and Adin took us all out for ice cream. (Though the rationalization for that was Penny and Adin's "half-birthday" on Saturday, not Valentine's Day. Still, everyone likes ice cream!)

For the kids, I went a more traditional "sweet and cute" route, and got them stickers and candy and little stuffed puppies. They were enchanted with the puppies and brought them along on the car ride to school this morning. I was charmed, until they started playing the Funniest Game Ever, which involved pretending that the dogs were peeing and pooping all over the back seat. (I don't even know which one of them started it. I was backing out of the driveway, and the next thing I know, they're both shouting, "Psssssssss!" and "Ooops! I pooped!" and giggling hysterically.)

Matt gave me three t-shirts (as my t-shirt collection was pretty much decimated by my weight loss): a Firefly logo tee, one with the Evil League of Evil seal, and one that says "Schrödinger's cat is dead" on the front, and "Schrödinger's cat is not dead" on the back. I think that's my favorite, but all three of them are awesome.

I got him a Poe t-shirt he'd asked me for, and some candy. And some other stuff, TBD. (To Be Delivered, that is.)

(Matt did not get me any chocolate, though, since he wasn't sure the discussion here on the blog was definitive, so obviously I will have to go out and buy my own.) ;-)

For Four

Yes, I ran out during my lunch break yesterday and got myself a Verizon iPhone 4.

The Verizon store was insanely busy, but they'd obviously brought in a bunch of extra staff for the day, so there were no lines. (One woman told me that they'd anticipated a line in the morning, but the weather seemed to have discouraged it.) So I was there for all of about twenty minutes and walked out with my new phone.

And in further good news, the website is a little confusing. I'd assumed I was required to get a "Talk & Text" plan, which has however many minutes plus unlimited text messages. But I only talk for about 30 minutes in a month, and I usually send fewer than 100 text messages, so the person helping me assured me that I could get the smallest "Talk" plan and do one of the cheaper, limited "Text" plans. Which means that my new phone should cost only slightly more per month than the old one did, instead of being significantly more.

Then I went to get my allergy shots and found the doctor's office completely closed. So I went home to sync my new phone and load it up before heading back to the office.

I spent half the afternoon turning the phone on and marveling at the way I had reception in my office. Not just "had reception", either, but usually a full three (of five) bars! I can actually send and receive text messages now without having to go out and stand in the lobby!

Whoohoo!

...Yup, I'm a dork.

Snowball

It snowed last night. Not a lot -- just enough to stick to grass and trees, but not enough to make the roads treacherous. My favorite kind of snow, really.

It makes me marginally less sad that I can't go to the Verizon store right now and get my iPhone 4 that I've been planning on getting since it was announced. After all, standing in line in the winter is not nearly as much fun as standing in line in the summer.

But it doesn't matter, since we have a stack o' deliveries to do today and I just got smacked with a Proposal-Type Thing, so I have to hope I can swing by the Verizon store on my lunch break or after work and pray they're not already sold out. Yeah, I know -- not much chance.

We'll see.

Za

Everyone likes pizza. What's not to like?

It's not very diet-friendly, though. And even less diabetic-friendly. So rather than dial out for Papa John's, I make pseudo-pizza at home every few weeks. Usually I use english muffins as a base, but this week, on a whim, I bought some "everything" bagel thins.

I'd given up on bagels as a basis for mini pizzas -- they're too thick. But the bagel thins are basically bagels that are only about half as thick as a normal bagel, which made them just about perfect. Half the calories/carbs, and just the right amount of chewy and crunch. Spread them with a little tomato paste, sprinkle on some shredded cheese, and pop them in the oven until the cheese melts -- blammo!

Must remember that one for the future.

Mission

So Penny's A1C was up, rather than down, which was a bit disappointing. Not to mention slightly frustrating, as there's no obvious pattern of high blood sugars that we can combat. The endocrinologist recommended some tweaking, and said if she was still running high in three months at her next quarterly checkup, that he'd want to put her on a continuous glucose monitor for five days or so to let us pinpoint the problem.

Penny is not too keen on the notion of the CGM. She thinks it will get in the way and make it hard to sleep at night. It's hard to counteract that, since it very well might, but I'm actually kind of interested to see how she adapts, since I'd like her to graduate to an insulin pump eventually, for better overall control, and that's another 24/7 attachment.

The other news that came out of the visit is that Penny's height has gone from "on the short side" to "wow, really short". But it's impossible to know how much of that is the diabetes starving her of growth hormones and how much of it is just genetics, since I'm not exactly top-shelf-reaching, myself. But it's not that huge a deal -- it's not like Penny was harboring a dream to play basketball. And there's not much we can do about it, anyway.

***

I sat down to write last night and was... not feeling it. I managed to choke out about 700 words, but I didn't like any of them, and I was writing them with the distinct feeling that they were probably going to get yanked when I went through on the edits. Which is not a very productive feeling.

I was bitching to KT about it in chat, and she said something that completely challenged the whole structure of the story. Or more precisely, she took one of the basic premises of my story and wondered if it was necessary at all. And once she'd asked the question, I realized that... no, it really wasn't.

Changing it at this point will require re-writing somewhere between a third and a half of the story. But the main elements -- the ones that make up the story's beating heart -- they'll survive with only minor changes. The thing that I thought was integral to the story turns out to be just... a detail.

Which completely blew my mind for a while, and I'm almost grateful that tonight is not a writing night, because I need some time to back up and make notes about how the remaining plot points need to shift focus and the bits that will have to be rewritten, and the broader, more sweeping edits to look out for. (For one thing, my main protagonists' names are going to have to change. Again. And possibly my antagonists', as well.)

But for all the work that change is going to cause, it also relieves me of one really enormous bit of Ugly that I was hoping to avoid, so I'm grateful for it. Better toss out half now and rewrite than have to re-do 3/4 of it once I got to the editing stage, right?

***

Today's mission: head to Target to pick up Valentine cards for the kids to give to their classmates. Penny has requested "smelly" cards for her class, so I have to find either scratch-and-sniff Valentines, or scratch-and-sniff stickers to include with the cards. (Stickers might be easier, if I can find them.)

Alex's classmates, since Matt and/or I will be doing them for him, will be getting whatever I feel like getting.

And I need to get Valentine's presents for the kids, too. But that should be fairly easy -- a toy and a little four-piece box of chocolates should do the trick there.

Long Enough

Weekends are never long enough. Even when they're fun. Well, especially when they're fun.

I'm sleepy this morning, not really coming up with much of anything to talk about. Have a picture of Alex at the park yesterday, instead:

What's going on this week? Let's see... Penny's got an appointment with her endocrinologist this morning. Matt's taking her to that, and I'm hoping to hear that her A1C has come back down. I'm hoping to continue the writing streak I had going last week, though it's going to be a much busier week at work, so I probably won't be quite as prolific. I'll be happy if I can just get some writing done every day. I need to go out at lunch one day and do some Valentine shopping for the kids.

That's... pretty much it. A quiet social calendar to counterbalance my crazy work one.

Speaking of which, I'd better get on with it...

Waiting for Five

It's looking like a cold and rainy weekend, followed by a cold (if mostly sunny) week.

But for a change, we don't have anything much on the schedule. Penny's got her swim lesson Saturday morning, and Matt has his D&D game Saturday night. That's it.

I'm hoping to keep my good writing streak going, if I can. I've got about four more chapters to write and one bit of rewriting to do before it'll be time to sit down and read it all the way through with my red pen in hand, so I'm feeling pretty good about this one. If I can keep going the way I have been, I might even have it done by the end of the month!

Though we'll see. Next week is looking mildly crazy at work (it was already a heavy week, and then several things that were scheduled for this week got postponed to next week -- including two software deliveries), and that always seems to interfere with the way my brain functions. I have trouble changing gears, I guess. Well, I won't get any better without practice, will I?

The other thing I'm hoping is not to fall off the diet wagon. I've been doing pretty good, but being at home is more dangerous than being at work, and Saturday is eat-out/take-out night (well, since it's Matt's D&D day, we'll probably swap it, but the fact remains that at least one meal this weekend will be eaten from a restaurant) and that's always dangerous, too. Especially since I don't have a very solid grasp on estimating points with the new system, yet.

Yep, the Super Bowl is Sunday, but Matt and I are not football fans, and the game isn't until fairly late in the evening, which combined with the kids makes the notion of just using it as an excuse to hang out with friends kind of unworkable, so we'll probably mostly just ignore it, aside from whatever leaks through on Twitter. We have enough friends who are big Steelers fans that I expect we'll find out the end result soon enough. And then I'll check YouTube for the good commercials.

But it's a weekend and it's not work, and I'm looking forward to it. Huzzah!

Luff

Matt asked me last night, in light of my re-joining Weight Watchers, how much candy comprised the line  between, "Ooh, chocolate, thank you!" and "You ass, you know I'm on a diet!"


Which is an excellent question, but a difficult one. On the one hand -- I really like chocolate. On the other -- I'm on a diet, dammit. Well, if I lose all restraint and eat it all in a day, we could call it that week's "bonus" points, so that would be... about 20 or so standard sampler-sized chocolates? Ish? Any WW friends out there who've done the math on this and want to help me out?

Alternately, fruit is 100% free on the new plan, so there's always Edible Arrangements... Mmm, delicious pineapple.

But it reminded me that I needed to get something for him. The problem being that he doesn't really want anything. No, really. I asked. Anyone out there have any ideas? What do women usually give to men on Valentine's Day? ... Besides that, I mean. Help me out here, guys!

(I need something for the kids, too, but they're easy: a stuffie and a little candy and they're good to go. I just need to make a run to Target this weekend. Which I need to do anyway so I can get cards for them to give to their classmates and teachers.)

Wag'n

Oops. I crossed the line in the sand that tells me it's time to get back on the wagon because I'm not ready to fly without a net. (How's that for some mixed metaphors?)

At any rate, it's time to re-join Weight Watchers and actually track everything for a while before I expand out of all my new clothes. I need to lose at least ten pounds, and ideally twenty, before I go to Mexico this summer. (Ten pounds gets me more or less back to where I was before the holidays. Twenty gets me where I probably ought to be.)

But on the plus side, I managed to write at least 750 words yesterday, and I made some overarching plot decisions about the story that I think will both help it flow better and let it fit a little more snugly into its market. I think. I hope. I'm also considering a major re-write of the first chapter, which is way too long and possibly a little over-the-top.

What else? Nothing, really. That's all I've got. We're having one of those freakishly early spring days -- it's warm (really, it's already in the 60s) and rainy and all I want to do is curl up with a blanket and nap. If we get any groundhogs here, they'll be predicting an early spring, because there aren't any shadows. But tomorrow it will be back in the 40s, so what do the groundhogs know, anyway?

Vote Neigh

So in addition to the frustrating doctor visit, yesterday was a disaster at work, and I'm just not going to talk about it because I'm trying to be a little more optimistic today. Or at least less surly. So I'll tell you about my weekend instead.

This past weekend, we finally managed to reserve a day to go up and around Richmond and visit Jennie and Brian and check out their new house. It's a nice place, surrounded by woods and horse farms. When we took their dogs for a walk, we took along some carrots so Penny could feed the horses. She did okay holding out a long carrot, but was a little too nervous of the horses' teeth to let them take the stubs off her palm. But that was okay, because then I got to feed them, too. I even got to pet the colt, while Matt and Alex had the mother distracted.

Aside from feeding horses, we mostly just hung around their place and watched the kids play with the dogs and each other and then we watched DVDs. Jennie cooked up some lovely meals (homemade turkey soup for lunch, and lasagna for dinner, yum!) and we didn't get home until nearly 9, but it was a really nice day.

Then I spent Sunday sucked into a book (The Help by Kathryn Stockett) and grumbling anytime someone asked me to do something that wasn't reading. But I did manage to make a roasted chicken with roasted vegetables for dinner, and that was, really, lovely. I should do it more often. I just need to remember that parsnips need half an hour or so longer than everything else or else I need to cut them into thinner pieces.

And as an added bonus, when I realized yesterday that I hadn't bought chicken to make last night's dinner with (yeah, yesterday was kind of a wash, though playing WoW with friends was fun because I was 25 levels higher than the dungeon they were doing and just burned through everything insanely fast), I just pulled out some leftover roasted chicken and used that, instead. Whoo-hoo!

Today, I am trying really hard to pretend like I give a shit about much of anything, though; I'm sleepy and slightly grouchy and suspect I'm PMSing. The good news is that there's nothing on my schedule for the day, and tonight's dinner is super-easy -- soup and grilled cheese -- so I can just curl up and be a hermit for most of the day.