I'm Back!

I'm back, whoohoo!

Nope, I didn't post at all while I was gone. I tried to do a post over on the writing blog the day after we arrived (this incredibly hot guy flirted with me at the airport on our way down -- yay, cleavage shirt! -- and I thought it would make a good anecdote for that blog) but by the time I got it all written up, the resort's flaky wifi had dumped me and I lost the whole thing. After that, I lost my taste for longer writing and stuck to occasional tweets. If you missed them, you can pick them up (and the pictures I posted) at this link.

We mostly stayed at the resort -- we went to the pool every day, and down to the beach a few times, and Penny spent a lot of time doing crafts, mostly while Alex was napping. We did go to the "swim with dolphins" place, though they've changed their photo prices to be even more horrible this year. But one of the shots was nearly perfect -- the dolphin's jump out of the water perfectly framed me and the kids. It would only have been better if Alex had actually been looking at the dolphin, and if the dolphin's tail hadn't completely obscured my dad. But it's a spectacular shot, nonetheless, so I was pretty pleased to get it.

We went out for dinner every night (and a few lunches), but stuck to eateries either at the resort or available via resort shuttle, so I didn't get to eat at La Habichuela this year (sigh), and we skipped El Conquistator, too, because it doesn't have a kids' menu at all and we didn't think we'd be able to find something for Alex to eat.

The kids bickered more and more as the week wore on and they got used to the novelty and tired of sharing spaces so closely, but I got to spend plenty of time sitting beside the pool drinking margaritas and other frozen concoctions, so it worked out pretty well for me anyway.

The view from my poolside lounge chair.
(This might have to be my new desktop picture.)

(Next time, though -- next year, if I can afford it -- I'm going to find a way to go by myself or with a friend. I love my kids, but taking them on vacation is not as relaxing as the hits to my budget and vacation time at work imply. Maybe I can talk Matt into coordinating his visit to Chicago with me.)

We didn't get back to the house until nearly 10pm last night, so I haven't even started downloading pictures yet, but rest assured that they're coming, and I'll add them to this Flickr set and let you know when it's done.

I took more pictures with my iPhone than with my nice camera, this trip. I don't know if it's because I didn't want to deal with the weight of the camera in addition to dealing with the kids, or because we didn't really go anywhere aside from the resort, but I did find myself wishing I'd just left it at home. Whether I'll take it on my next trip remains to be seen -- I'll probably do more touristy stuff if I'm going on my own or with a friend, and the camera might be worth the effort if I'm going to see Mayan ruins or wildlife exhibits. But for lounging around the resort, the lower (but still perfectly adequate) quality of the iPhone's pictures was more than sufficient. And heck, I have an app on the iPhone for taking panoramic shots, to which the beach lends itself.

Anyway, it was (aside from bickering/sullen/tired kids) a good trip. The only real fly in the ointment was that Matt emailed me earlier this week to say that he'd noticed, on one of his trips over to the house to feed the cat, that my car door hadn't closed entirely and the interior light had drained the battery. He'd jumped it for me and it had started okay the next morning, and the following night, but then he didn't turn it over for a few days, and the alternator won't recharge the battery unless you get it up to highway speeds, so it had died again. But after we got in last night, he jumped it for me again and took over getting the kids to bed while I drove around a bit (I took the long way around to the grocery store so we could have milk and bread this morning), and he promised to be on call to pick up the kids if it was dead this morning. But it started up okay, and taking the kids up to daycare was probably enough highway-speed driving to give it some juice, so as long as I manage to get it started and drive around some every day through the weekend, it should be okay. Though I'll be watching it, as it's several years old and may not hold its charge as well as it used to.

I'm working a half-day today, just to clear out my inbox a bit and flag the critical items to tackle, and then I'm off home to do laundry, start figuring out where I want to display my souvenirs (I might need to pick a room to have a Cancun theme), go grocery shopping, and run a few other errands. And, just possibly, take a nap.

Whirlwind

So, this being the first week that Penny was out of school, we took the kids to Busch Gardens last night.

The logistics could have been better, because Matt's car was in the shop, and he had to be home by 8:30 for a work thing, but we made it work. We ate dinner there, rode a few rides, and then came home. It's exactly why we paid for the year-long pass, honestly -- no pressure to do it all or see everything, the ability to go when the crowds are thinner and ride a couple of rides and then just mosey on home.

We got Alex on the skyride, and after we'd had some dinner, we got him on the Catapult -- which he got excited enough about to ride second time! After that, we took them on the carousel, and then we spent fifteen minutes or so at the Land of Dragons before we took the skyride back toward the entrance and headed home.

Next week, we've promised to take him to the Sesame Street area. Note to self: bring swimsuits and towels (or at least a change of clothes) so the kids can play in the water area.

As a side note, you know how you feed a diabetic when you're at an amusement park? TURKEY LEGS. OM NOM NOM.

Spotted

Blog posts are about to get spotty. I'm working two different proposals and dealing with Life.

We had a pretty good weekend, though our Father's Day dinner with my parents got canceled because my mom came down with a case of pinkeye.

But Matt seemed to like the presents I got him, and we had a nice, quiet day at home.

And I got my new computer, and got my files all transferred and worked through some idiot issues and am pretty much up and running!

And now I need to be in a meeting.

Sorry, guys...

23

I think I mentioned that, for Mother's Day, Matt signed me up for a genetic testing service. The results came back recently, and I've been poking around the site in complete fascination ever since. I thought I'd share some of it with you guys.

The analysis is broken down into several sections. The first is Health, in which it describes how your genetics affects your probability of developing certain diseases or reacting to certain drugs.

These are just the top 3 items in each category; the actual listing shows my comparative risk for over 100 diseases and conditions.

You can click on any item to get a page of information. Some of it is very technical and would only make sense to someone who's studied genetic profiling, but the key points are all well-summarized with graphics.

I'm more likely than most to develop arthritis. But then, I knew that already.

It also offers a whole section on what your genetics suggests about how you're put together: your most probable eye color, your hair texture, your probable blood type, whether your muscles are better suited to sprints or endurance, even whether you're genetically disposed to eat more or less.

(Oh well, it's genetic. Guess there's no fighting it. Pass the doughnuts!)

The next section talks about your ancestry. It even provides a nice map that shows you where your ancestors most likely lived, approximately 500 years ago.

This is my maternal ancestry. Lacking a Y chromosome, they can't definitively trace the paternal line.

It even breaks down the location tags by specific chromosome for you.

What we already knew: I am very, very white.

There are pages and pages of stuff you can read about where your ancestors came from and the likelihood of various ethnicities in your background.

For instance, I'd always heard that my grandfather's grandmother was Cherokee -- if you'd seen him, you'd know there was definitely some variety of Native American blood in there... but genetically speaking, I'm probably at least 5 generations away from any Native Americans. So maybe it was Grandad's great-grandmother, instead? Or, given that I'm fair and blue-eyed compared to my parents' and brother's dark hair and brown eyes, it's possible that I just received a combination of chromosomes that simply don't contain those Native American markers. (I'd love to see my brother's results, just for comparison.)

And the final cool thing that the site does is compare you to other people in their database and offer up the possibility that you might be related to some of them, as far out as 5th cousins.

You can fill in your profile with things like family names and locations your family has lived to try to help narrow the search, and the site will forward messages for you if you want to try to contact any of them.

You can fill in surveys to participate in research, too, which is both fun and makes me feel like a good citizen of the scientific community.

Nifty stuff! Cool present, Matt!

Mother'd

So KT and crew moved to their new condo on Saturday -- whoo! It's a really nice place, and I hope they enjoy it a lot. It's got a lot of advantages over the old apartment, even besides the whole "equity" question and the obvious bonus of "more space".

My assorted physical issues make me a poor candidate for schlepping boxes, so my contribution to the effort was to take all the kids for the day. We went to the play area at the mall for an hour or so, then ate lunch there (of course each of the three kids wanted a completely different cuisine for lunch!) After lunch, I took them down the road to Kangaroo Jac's (an inflatable bounce-house place), where they ran insane for three hours or so. By the time we were into the third hour, the mutant worrybrain was in full swing, wondering why the hell no one had broken a limb yet, so I decided it was time for a calmer activity, and I took them to Barnes and Noble, where they seemed pretty happy to settle in to read and play with the toy trains in the kids' section. (I think I read Mo Willems' entire repertoire to Alex while we were there, plus an assortment of other books, including some Berenstain Bears, a couple of Cliffords, The Very Busy Spider, and Goodnight, Gorilla.)

I told Matt later that if I'd really thought about it, what I would have done was take all the kids back home. Alex could've gotten a nap and then gone down the street to play with a friend near his own age, lunch wouldn't have been such a cluster, and I would've had a comfortable place to sit while the kids were doing their thing. (Not to mention the headache I would've been saved from the sheer noise at the mall and Kangaroo Jac's.) But for some reason, when I'd made my original plans, I was thinking the moving would be done by 3 or so, and it didn't make sense to drive all the way back home to only be there for a couple of hours. Instead, we spent at least 2 hours at the mall, 3 and a half at Kangaroo Jac's, and more than 2 hours at Barnes and Noble. Oy.

Mother's Day, the kids woke me up at 8:30 with breakfast in bed (oatmeal, Penny's specialty tri-color toast, and a chocolate-covered strawberry) and presents. Alex gave me a little wooden flower with his picture on it, and Penny gave me a "coupon" book that she made in school. And Matt gave me (in addition to the flowers and chocolate-covered strawberries he'd had delivered to my office on Friday) a genetic testing kit. (This is why my husband is awesome. He comes up with these fantastic, nerdy gifts, completely off the beaten path and yet totally cool.) I sent it off this morning, and I can't wait to see what turns up in the results!

(How I'm going to even come close to matching that level of neat for Father's Day, I have no idea.)

Later, I went to Target and bought myself some Avengers toys. Because I'm just that much of a nerd.

We went to my parents' for dinner -- I made beef stew and brought ice cream and berries and cookies for dessert, and my brother brought the bread and salad. It was nice to sit and talk with my family.

Then we came home, got the kids put to bed, and I spent an hour or so doing the first part of the Avengers LEGO set I'd bought. (I also bought this one, because it's the only way to get Captain America. I'll probably get this one, too, for Thor and Hawkeye and Hulk. I'm on the fence about this one -- I'll already have all the characters, but the little truck is cool and also I'm sometimes a bit of a completist. Also: why do they not have a set with Nick Fury?!)

So it was a busy weekend. But good. Definitely good.

Gamed

Friday was supposed to be a D&D game, but one of our players was recovering from surgery, so neither she nor her husband could make it. So we decided instead to introduce the girls to a sort of D&D Lite via a free module that Matt found a while back.

Not Very Scary Monsters

It's a brilliant system, to be honest, a great introduction to some of the concepts of tabletop gaming without overwhelming you with choices. There are five pre-built characters to use. Each character has a number of hit points, an armor class, a speed/move rate, one "normal" attack, and one special ability. And that's pretty much it. Each player needs only two dice: a d20 and a d6. They roll the d20 to hit. Successful attacks do 1 point of damage. (Unless their special ability changes it, or they roll a natural 20, in which case they do a d6 damage.)

That's pretty much it. It's just enough game mechanic to get them used to moving around the game grid and rolling dice to attempt things and begin to understand some of the strategies of teamwork. Because it's aimed at kids, the artwork in the module is downright adorable. ("I want to be a girl!" they insisted when we started handing out characters. Thankfully, the names and character pictures are generic enough that they could be either gender, so we assured them that no one had to play a boy.)

The math is fairly simple -- basic addition and over/under comparison -- making it perfect for our 6-to-10 age range. To avoid squabbling over who got which character, we had them draw blind. Emma drew the elf wizard and made a gasping squee noise. "I'm an elf mage! That's all I've ever wanted in my life!" Penny drew the human fighter; I was worried she'd find it a boring choice, but she promptly dove into the character and began demanding blood and death from every opponent. (She also demanded to know what the damsel in distress looked like, and while I know her motives for asking were not along the typical fighter's line of thought, it still amused the hell out of me.)

"I want to spill blood!"

 Matt ran the adventure as it was written, with Braz sitting in to play the fifth character and Adin hovering nearby to help Ripley (who didn't really need help after the first few rounds, but was tired and therefore believed she did). I dashed back and forth taking pictures and live-tweeting it from my cell.

Aah! Scary monster!

Penny's fighter was swallowed by a bulette -- there was much squealing and "ewwww!"ing, but we promised her that the best kind of gaming events were the ones that you could tell awesome stories about later. (She survived the encounter, I promise.)

They cottoned on to simple strategy more quickly than I'd expected. The adults were gritting our teeth in frustration that they would flit from monster to monster instead of concentrating on one until it was dead, but they did quickly realize that they should try to arrange themselves to make it possible for Sarah (playing the rogue) to use her special backstab power (for which she had to be positioned directly opposite a party member), and Penny eventually started positioning her character to allow her to use her charge power.

When they successfully completed the module, Matt sealed their fates: he handed out a "hero badge" to each player that he had printed out for them to keep. They were so excited, it took us nearly an hour to get them calmed down and to bed, despite it being past 10pm.

The next day, all four of them demanded another game. So Braz wrote up a quick module, and this time he ran it while I played the spare character he'd played the previous night. He hammed it up for his audience with larger-than-life gestures and appropriately silly/gross touches like having Sarah's rogue attack hit the troll in his butt. Emma busted out a Princess Bride quote early on -- not just a TPB quote, but an adapted quote. "Hit it with the axe!" We swelled with pride.

Once again, everyone got an actual, physical reward for successful completion of the game -- this time, a penny that represented a token promising a favor from the town's mayor.

The girls would have demanded a third game on Sunday, but we told them more or less immediately that it wasn't going to happen, the adults having actual things to do. But we promised them another game soon. I guess it's my turn to write and run one.

Who'd have guessed that gaming with a bunch of elementary school kids would be so much fun?!

***

I also spent part of the weekend sanding and staining our new entertainment center/bookcase. There's not much to say about that. I planned marvelously for the actual sanding and painting, and made sure we got a dropcloth, and a tarp to put over it so it could stay outside overnight while it's drying, and everything... but didn't even think about cleanup. I had to call Matt and Penny back from an errand they were running on Saturday because I had polyurethane stain all over my hands and couldn't get it off with any cleaning substance to be found in the house. Matt kindly ran to the store and got some mineral spirits and Lava soap for me, and also some disposable gloves so I wouldn't have the same problem again for the second coat. Ah-heh.

At any rate, I got the shelf sanded and put two coats of stain on it over the weekend, and though my whole body still hurts this morning, I'm looking forward to getting it into place soon! Admittedly, it doesn't look like a professional job (either the carpentry or the finishing), but neither does it look bad. (It's those little imperfections that point to a handmade item, anyway, right?) Oh, well, whatever it looks like, it's going to do the job that our old entertainment center no longer does, and then we'll be able to hang our TV on the wall and get back the chair it's currently propped on!

***

And finally, a momentous moment for us: Matt and I took our baby boosters out of our cars this weekend. Alex is now officially, full-time on the regular booster, and Penny is now officially, full-time sitting on the car seat like a big kid!

A Real Character

If I hadn't mentioned it previously, Matt has started up a 4th Edition AD&D game. He's GMing, and we're playing with Braz and Adin and my friends Jenn and Brian, who are apparently desperate enough to game that they're willing to drive all the way down from the far side of Richmond for it.

I was a little dubious about the system, but we're all new to it except Matt, so we're all dragging through the unfamiliar rules together. So far, my impression is that there's a lot to keep track of and it's oodles less realistic than the 2nd Ed I'm used to, but it's so much more well-balanced.

Anyway, we're playing in Forgotten Realms, which is where the Meadehall was set, so on a wild hair, I sort of... well... Shall we say my character has some very interesting family, back home? And then, of course, I had to write a back story for her. Because that's what I do, you know. (I swear, I should post an advertisement offering to write character stories on commission...)

But Matt really liked the story I wrote, so I thought -- hey, a lot of my readers are old Meadehallers, and this isn't really a story that belongs over on my writing site (no romance here), so I'm going to share the story with you! Here's her character description:

At first glance, Zoyanne seems quite normal. She's tall -- about 5'10" -- and thin, but not excessively so. Her skin is pale and creamy, her hair a rich auburn, her eyes an unsettling stormcloud grey. Her clothes are well-made but undecorated and utilitarian, linen and wool and leather. There is a dagger in her belt, but its immaculate sheen suggests it sees little use. The staff is more worn, but is likewise unremarkable. She speaks Common with a Cormyrian accent and is a surprisingly earnest and capable drinker: she admits to a taste for Sembian brandy, Moonshaen whiskey, and Dwarven ale, but is happy to drink whatever the house has on tap -- anything except meade.

She carries several books in her pack, each lovingly wrapped in oilskin and studded with bits of foolscap to mark significant passages. Her fingers are often inkstained, and she often spends her evenings in reading and study. Sometimes, instead, she writes letters. Some of those are bound for her hometown of Marsember, to assure anxious friends and family of her continued well-being. Others have more mysterious destinations in store, being addressed to locations all over the world, each more exotic than the last: Candletown, Kara Tur, Maztica.

Inside her tunic, wrapped in paper and felt and oilcloth, Zoyanne carries four locks of hair, each tied with a bit of colored string: several long strands of snow white; a short, curled lock of chestnut brown; a thin braid of mixed black and copper; and most curiously, a finger-length lock that must have undergone some strange mishap to turn it that shade of grass-green. She does not particularly try to keep these secret, but she doesn't go out of her way to show them off or speak of them. In fact, though she talks readily enough, she rarely actually says anything.

And here's the story:

"Mother?" The girl's voice rings out in the still silence of the hall, but the woman does not turn from the window, does not even move to indicate she has heard.

The woman's waist-length braid is as white as driven snow, her thin shoulders bowed with age and long years of being hunched over her books and experiments. Her hands are still as they rest on the windowsill, her eyes seeing something that cannot be there.

"Mother!" The girl stamps a foot, impatient with her mother's daydreaming.

Finally, the woman turns, and the grey eyes, so like the girl's, focus once more. "What is it?"

The girl holds out a book, accusation in her every movement. "What is this?"

The woman takes the book, affecting not to notice the girl's anger, and flips through a few pages. "It looks like one of your father's old journals." Involuntarily, her eyes seek the window again.

"It says." The girl pauses to take a deeper breath. "It says he was in Seng Wa, in Kara Tur, during the White Lotus slave rebellion."

"Ah." The woman knows, now, what the girl has come to say. To ask. "Yes. He was." She looks down at the journal so that she will not have to look at her daughter's face.

"That was in the spring. And I was born that winter."

"So you were."

"He's not my father." The girl's voice breaks.

"He loves you, very much."

"He's not my father!" the girl yells, angry that her mother has not denied the charge, explained away the inconsistency with some tweak of fate. She eyes her mother's midriff -- too thin, as it always has been -- with suspicion. "Are you even my mother? Or am I some foundling that you took in because you--"

"Stop." The woman holds up a hand to underscore the command, and her eyes flash. "I know you're upset, but there's no need to descend into melodrama. Of course I'm your mother."

"But not Father," sulks the girl.

"No," the woman sighs. "No, he didn't come home that time until you were nearly crawling."

"And he left here at least a year before I was born," prompts the girl.

The woman nods, watching her daughter from the corner of her eyes. She is coiled, ready to contain an explosion.

"Gods." The girl eyes the journal still in the woman's hand, as if wondering whether it might hold the answers she seeks. "Does he know?"

"He can do math as well as you. Maybe even better."

The girl rolls her eyes. "I mean, does he know who my real father is?"

"No."

"Do you even know?" She means it to be impertinent and hurtful, a lashing punishment for her mother's having kept this secret from her. She is startled to see the look of resignation that comes over her mother's face, and then horrified. "You don't know!" She backs away.

Angry now, the woman gestures, and the door slams shut of its own accord, blocking the girl's retreat. "If you will ask the questions," she says, folding her arms across her thin chest, "you will hear the answers. Sit down."

An hour later, the door opens and the girl emerges. Her eyes are red, but no longer weeping. "I'll leave in the morning," she says.

"So soon?"

"Why wait?"

The woman gestures helplessly toward the window. "Your father--"

"May be home tonight, or next month, or a year from now," the girl interrupts. Or never, she might have said, but didn't, and in that omission, her mother knows that she is forgiven. The girl's eyes linger on the window, but then her shoulders square and her mouth sets mulishly. It is in this mood, her mother reflects, that she looks most like her father.

Whatever her parentage, the girl came by her wanderlust honestly. The mother was younger than this when she embarked on her own adventure. Can she really blame her daughter for wanting the same? Especially now? She sighs and bows her head in assent. "If you need anything," she begins, but the girl is already gone.

The woman returns to the window and her vigil, but she is unsettled now, memories stirred that she had thought long since faded into dust. It is a long time since she was even a footnote amongst the machinations of the gods, but that dubious honor has crossed her threshold once more. She had not much enjoyed the implacable hand of Fate when it rested on her own shoulder, and she had hoped to spare her daughter from its weight; but it seems that is not to be the case. After a time, she leaves the window in search of her cloak, and for the first time in months, company.

What do you think? I quite like the way it turned out. There was some further information that I gave just to Matt, as the GM, but I don't think you have to know it to get the story. Heck, I don't think you really need to know the 'Hall character here to get the story, though that does rather enhance its meaning.

Good News/Bad News

Okay, so I didn't get everything done that I wanted to do. Especially sleep.

Okay, Friday was pretty awesome. I met Adin for lunch, and then the two of us went to a pottery painting place and had fun making a mess of some ceramic. (We'll get our pieces back at the end of this week, I think. I'm looking forward to seeing how awful mine turn out, or if they're actually half-decent.) And then, because the weather was so nice and warm, we had grilled meats for dinner. Yum!

I'd forgotten I had a hair appointment Saturday morning, so even though I actually went to bed more or less on time (thanks to Alex throwing a hissy fit so I took him home rather than put him to bed at the Hegemony), I was up at 8 so I could caffeinate and get over to the salon.

Hair re-colored and trimmed, I considered Penny's plea that we join the Hedge at Busch Gardens' pre-opening preview day for pass holders, and decided it was good. So we left the boys at home (Alex was still in pretty dire need of a nap) and headed out. Naturally, the park was completely packed -- we left home at 11:30. It took us 5 minutes to get to the park grounds, and then another twenty minutes to get through the parking line. And then by the time we'd made it to the back of the park to where the Hedge were having lunch, it took us another hour to get our food. (Note to self: Remember, when at Busch Gardens this summer, not to eat at "normal" mealtimes. Get a snack at noon, and have lunch at 2.)

But we did eventually get to have some fun, though Penny didn't get to do any roller coasters, as she was hoping. (There were pictures, but I haven't had time to upload them to flickr yet.) But after we left Busch Gardens, I went home and collected Alex so Matt could go to his D&D game, and then we met up with the Hedge again for dinner. Some begging had induced me to agree that Sarah could sleep over at our house, so we packed up and came home shortly after dinner, and I got all three kids to bed.

Blam! Saturday gone.

Sunday was the usual chores, mostly. We met up with the Hedge for lunch so we could give Sarah back to her dad, but other than that just lounged around the house. I made a pot roast for dinner that turned out very well, though, and I'm eagerly anticipating the leftovers. (Pot roast is always better as leftovers. I don't know why, but it's true.)

And then Monday -- yesterday -- was supposed to be my day off to really relax. Catch up on sleep, do some writing, maybe run a couple of errands. Matt looked at the calendar Sunday night and noticed a doctor appointment I'd completely forgotten about, so that was good, because otherwise I'd have missed it.

The morning got off slow, though -- I did more chatting with KT than writing (this is why I should register my copy of Freedom) and when that two hours was up, I finally guilted myself into doing our taxes.

That was a weird conglomeration of good news/bad news. Good news: We've paid down quite a chunk of the principle on our mortgage, so in 2011 we paid only half the interest we'd paid in 2010. Bad news: That drop meant that our itemized deduction was actually smaller than the standard deduction. Good news: Using the standard deduction is loads easier and lighter on the paperwork, so next year I can probably skip straight to the standard unless something happens to make me think itemizing would be a good idea again.

Good news: I actually did save the receipts from my Vistaprint orders and when I went to Roanoke Pride in September, so I could claim all that stuff as a business expense (advertising and promotion travel are allowable). Bad news: I made less than $1600 from my writing and editing combined; less than $1400 after factoring in the expenses. I won't be able to give up the Day Job any time soon. Good news: That means I got to use the "EZ" version of the self-employment form. (That would be Schedule C, for my writer friends who haven't done their taxes yet...)

Good news: We owed less than last year. Bad news: We still owed. Good news: We make enough money that we owe taxes.

Bad news: The VA form is still put together by epileptic meth addicts. Good news: The VA form still lets us claim a lot more of our daycare expenses, so we're getting a small refund from the state.

Back and forth like that. I think if I had to write them all down and add them up, the good outweighed the bad... but only just barely. Anyway, I lost a solid three hours to wading through all that paperwork. Which is nothing compared to, say, my brother and sister-in-law, who operate their own business out of their home. (Sam spent over 20 hours just gathering files and organizing things for their CPA.) But it was still three hours out of a day I'd really wanted to spend on less mentally draining efforts. Or at least, more enjoyable ones.

Then I ran some errands and ate lunch and tried to wake up a little. Later in the afternoon, I drove over to the doctor's office and had my annual boobsmashing. (I realize I am now old enough that even if I switched to a different insurance company, they're pretty much guaranteed to agree to pay for annual mammograms. I guess that's... good?)

I thought about going to bed early last night, but instead I thought I should recover some of the writing time I'd meant to have earlier in the day, so I started up Freedom (Twitter is my nemesis in the evenings) and dove into my current project. I didn't do a progressive word count, but I wrote a solid two and a half single-spaced pages, so probably 1500 words, give or take? That felt like pretty good progress. I'm only another maybe four pages from wrapping up the story, so I might make that April 1 submission deadline with it, after all. (And if not -- or if they reject it for the anthology -- I think it's good enough that a little scrub would let it stand alone.)

So that was my long weekend. Not nearly as relaxing and sleep-intensive as I'd hoped, but still (mostly, except for the taxes) pretty good.

Now, I just need a good, long nap... What? Work?

Dammit.

Krunk

Yesterday was the kind of day where I spent a lot of time scrambling to catch up with others' poor time management (or downright lack of consideration). I don't want to detail every instance, but it's not my favorite way to work. (On the other hand, I did compose several haiku for ThinkGeek's ongoing contest during my lunch break. I just have to decide which one I like best before I send it in.)

And then I lost a chip out of my favorite ring, and thanks to stacked meetings for both Matt and I, had to scramble to get dinner. Thank goodness for Matt, who cheerfully and uncomplainingly unloaded and re-loaded the dishwasher while I made lunches.

Still, I was so exhausted by the time the kids were in bed that I thought briefly about just sticking a fork in the day and going to bed early. (No, early. Like 8:45.)

But I'd skipped writing on Sunday, too, so I made a cup of coffee and told myself that I didn't have to write a lot, I just had to push forward until I'd finished the coffee. Just enough, I promised myself, to have a snippet for the writing blog. The story was 80% done, and I knew I didn't have the energy to write a sex scene, but I thought I could push it to right at the beginning of the sex scene, and then I could polish that off later.

An hour and a half later, I'd only written 500 words, but the more I looked at them, the more I thought that this story might not end with a sex scene anyway. It would, in fact, have been counterproductive. Which means, I think, that I might be done with the draft. So I'm going to let it rest for a day or two and then go back and re-write about two thirds of it (no, really, it's kind of rough and needs a lot of polish) and then it might be worth throwing over a wall.

So it wasn't the best-ever day, but it could definitely have been worse. (Which puts me in mind of Neil Gaiman's words of wisdom about writing:

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."

Yes. That's it, exactly.

Fourish

I had a lovely day off on Friday. I spent the morning at Panera, writing, and then Adin joined me for lunch, and after that we went shopping and got pedicures. We all met up again at Plaza Azteca for dinner, and then we went back to Adin's place so Alex could open his birthday present from them, which turned out to be an "I Spy" bingo game. (Like regular bingo, but with objects and letters of the alphabet, with a number of variations suggested by the rules, depending on how advanced the players are.) We played a few rounds of that, and then I went to my book club party.

For the first time this year, we decided to hold it at a restaurant instead of burdening anyone with the job of cleaning up and providing snacks. That turned out to be an awesome idea. We went to Food For Thought and had a fantastic time. As a clever holiday promotion, the manager was handing out what he called "Secret Santa cards" -- little envelopes that contained a surprise gift, ranging from a free glass of wine to a complete dinner for two on Valentine's Day. The catch was that we couldn't open them ourselves; we have to bring them in sometime in January and have a manager open them. So of course we decided that we have to have our January book club there, too!

Saturday was calmer -- we ran some errands in the morning (like taking a box of stuff to the post office so we can hope it gets to his mom's before we do), and Matt went to his monthly D&D game that evening. I took the kids out to dinner, and they were surprisingly good.

Sunday was a little crazier. We had the usual chores, and we exchanged presents with our next-door neighbors, and then Matt and Penny went to see a production of the Nutcracker ballet while Alex napped. After Alex woke up, I took him down to my parents', where Matt and Penny met up with us (they'd had a good time at the ballet, though as Matt said, it was a children's dance troupe, so the performances were a little uneven) for the family birthday party for Alex. Mom made her homemade mac-and-cheese, and Sam brought a gorgeous salad, and Alex seemed quite happy with all his presents. We all had big pieces of cake (except John and Sam, who were being good and making the rest of us look bad) and HOLY CRAP MY BABY IS (nearly) FOUR.

Who let that happen?

Speaking of crazier...

My office Christmas party holiday luncheon annual morale event is today. (Catered lunch, yum!) Tonight we're swapping gifts with the Hegemony. No plans yet for Tuesday, but I expect I'll spend a chunk of it packing, because. Wednesday morning has a doctor's appointment of some sort for everyone in the house except Matt, Penny has a half-day of school (if she goes at all, depending on how long her doctor appointment goes) and that evening, the Hickses are coming up to do the Christmas thing (and also so KT can give me my thirty-one gear and we can sequester ourselves in a corner and talk writer-stuff for a bit).

And then Thursday, we're off to Chicago for the holidays.

In the meantime, one of the gifts I ordered for Matt still hasn't come in, and I have to figure out a way to wrap another one. Details that I had thought long since established (like whether Santa wraps gifts) are being called into question, and since I haven't really been thinking past the Chicago trip, I was blindsided by the need to plan the events for New Year's Eve. I feel like my head isn't screwed on quite right; I'm dropping details right and left, and my body has reacted by making me drop into a drowse every time I stop moving for more than ten minutes.

But at least I finally remembered to load my holiday music onto my iPad!

WHEE!

Busy is Relative

Compared to the previous weekend, this last one was positively indolent.

Jenn and Brian came down on Friday instead of Saturday, so we took them with us over to the Hegemony for dinner and a round of Cards Against Humanity.

I'd meant to be productive Saturday, but Matt took Penny out to run some errands while Alex was napping, and I had a headache, so I went to lay down, too. I had to get up twice to answer the phone, but I crawled right back to bed and the next thing I knew, it was 5:00 and the whole afternoon was gone. So we ordered a huge order of Chinese and took it over to the Hegemony again. This time, we played Trivial Pursuit. I've always sucked at the game, but I got a fantastic selection of really ridiculously difficult questions, so eventually I gave up even really trying, and just enjoyed watching the other three jockey for the win.

Sunday made up for my indulgence Saturday, though. After I'd gotten up and done the grocery shopping, I set about clearing the kitchen of a wide assortment of items that need to be pre-prepared: I roasted five winter squash from our CSA box that have been waiting. I seeded a pomegranate. I peeled and roasted a whole bunch of root vegetables (sweet potatoes, potatoes, turnips, parsnips, and carrots). I made a batch of apple-pumpkin soup. The kitchen got cleaned not once, but a couple of times. So I felt pretty good about all that. The only things left to do on that front are another pomegranate and a batch of peanuts to be shelled and roasted.

I also took Penny out shopping to get some new "fancy" shoes to go with her Christmas dress, and I stopped by Target to pick up a new pair of jeans and a pair of leggings, and I found a couple of new shirts while I was at it. (Kudos to Penny for suffering through all my trying things on and bemoaning re-gained weight; she just sat on the floor in the dressing room with my phone and held the room while I ran back and forth getting things in various sizes.)

After our dinner of pumpkin soup and roasted vegetables, we had to drop Matt's car off at the dealership for some routine maintenance, so as long as we were all in the car anyway, we took the kids down to drive through the Newport News Park's Celebration in Lights. I was driving, so I didn't take any pictures, but Penny had her camera, and delighted in taking both videos and snapshots. (I'll be interested to see if any of them turned out at all.)

The timing worked out pretty well -- by the time we got home, we were only slightly late for Alex's bath and bedtime.

This coming weekend ramps things back up. My book club Christmas party is Friday night. Matt's D&D game is Saturday. Sunday, Matt is taking Penny to see the Nutcracker ballet, after which we'll convene at my parents' for Alex's birthday party.

Humpty

So, the Day Job's HR/benefits department is making changes to the schedule for our holidays which essentially is going to screw us out of a day of vacation next year. (Worse, they're moving it around so that we don't get our annual holiday pool until after the Christmas holidays, which completely sucks. I liked that they'd been giving it to us just before Christmas, because it ensured that we always had that time available. It's now essentially a gigantic sandpaper dildo for people who aren't good at planning a whole year in advance.) They're also changing how much vacation we're allowed to save up, but that's much less of an issue for me since I'm barely keeping my vacation balance above water right now, anyway.

***

Speaking of barely keeping things above water... the schedule probably could have a few more things crammed into it, but it would take a crowbar.

Penny has a half-day today, and tonight we'll probably do our usual Friday night shindig with the Hegemony. Tomorrow, Jenn and Brian are coming into town to do some shopping and then stopping to visit with us afterward. Matt has his D&D game, so he'll probably miss some of their visit, but that'll be okay. They can help me take the kids out to dinner and then we'll figure out something to do once the kids are in bed.

Sunday, so far, has no plans. I'm hoping against hope that the Christmas cards I ordered will arrive today or Saturday so that I can spend part of Sunday signing and addressing them and they can go in the mail on Monday. And I did kind of promise Penny that I'd take her out shopping to try to find some fancy shoes to go with her Christmas dress. I'm not sure when that will happen, but I'm betting on either Saturday or Sunday this weekend.

Next week, I have two doctor appointments on the books, plus I'll probably have to schedule a bloodletting so that my GP will refill my synthyroid prescription.

Then, next weekend, I've got my book club meeting/Christmas party on Friday night, and then nothing on Saturday (except probably doing Christmas cards, if they don't arrive in time to do them this weekend, and shipping those gifts that need to be shipped -- which means we should probably get a move on the last of our gift shopping -- and a box or two of stuff to Matt's mom in advance of our trip, like some presents for the gang there, and we can fill extra space in the box with some of our bulkier clothes), and then Sunday Matt's taking Penny to a local production of The Nutcracker ballet, followed by dinner at my folks' to celebrate Alex's birthday (for which I need to acquire a cake).

And the following Wednesday, Alex and I both have appointments with the ear/nose/throat doctor at the same time that Penny has her quarterly checkup with the endocrinologist, and then she has a half-day of school. We'll spend that night and Thursday morning packing stuff, and then pretty much right after lunch that Thursday, we're off to Richmond to catch our flight to Chicago. (Which should be a hoot, as the flight was already slam-packed full when I booked it in September, and I couldn't get ANY seats together. We'll be relying on the kindness of surrounding strangers to swap around so that the kids can sit with us.)

Matt has been trying to impose some level of organization on our time in Chicago, but my impression is that he's getting a lot of, "Oh, let's just wait and see" responses, so... not so much. I'm trying to stay out of it, for the most part. I'm just chalking those 9 days up to a blur of alternating running around and trying to keep the kids from getting so bored that they wreck his mom's house, and otherwise letting the chips fall as they may.

We're coming back from Chicago on the 30th (at least our seats are all together on that flight), and then on the 31st we'll "do" a mid-day Christmas with my family and end up at the Hegemony to ring in the New Year. (I've promised Penny she can try to stay up until midnight this year. We Shall See how that goes -- and whether I manage to stay awake that late, myself.)

And then I'll have the 1st and the 2nd of January to catch up on sleep, unpack our bags, try to figure out where all the new loot fits, and start un-decorating the house.

Somewhere in all that, we need to find a time to match schedules and meet up with KT and Kevin and Jess so we can give them their presents (and I can get the stuff I ordered from KT's thirty-one show). I need to get some occasional exercise, stay on top of everything at work, finish editing the story I'm working on, and gin up a couple of promotional blurbs for my publisher. I also need to do something with an assortment of vegetables and fruits in my kitchen before they start to go bad on me, and I'd really like to try out the all-edges brownie pan that Karen sent for my birthday. (Maybe Alex will get brownies in addition to cake for his birthday. Just 'cause.)

What I'm saying is -- if I miss a day or two of posting in the next couple of weeks, don't worry; I'm not dead, just insane. And between the 22nd and the 3rd, you probably shouldn't expect to hear from me at all, though I may manage a post or two via my phone. My twitter account is much more likely to see semi-regular posts, if you find yourself saddened by the silence here.

Runaround

What an insanely busy weekend! And yet, loads of fun!

Let's see. Friday night, we took the kids out to see The Muppets. It wasn't a perfect movie, but it was a fitting homage to Henson and Oz and the original Muppets. The kids enjoyed it, though Alex was about to turn into a pumpkin on us by the time it ended.

Saturday morning we got up and got dressed right away and headed into town to watch the Christmas parade. Alex found it alternately boring and too loud, but Penny loved it -- her favorite parts were the middle school and high school bands.

Waiting for the parade

When that ended at 10:30, we walked a few blocks up the street and had an early lunch at Wasabi. (They were nice enough to let us in even though they were still setting up and weren't officially open until 11. They got drinks for us and we were grateful just to sit down until they were ready for us.)

After lunch, we got Alex down for a nap and then I ran up to the store for supplies for the moon cookie party, which started around 1:30 or so. It was a smaller group than usual this year (I can't believe KT and Kevin would rather go to Disney World for a week than come to the moon cookie party!) but we had a great time making cookies and chatting. Though for the record, I seriously need to get some more cookie sheets, next year. Waiting on cookies to bake is a huge hold-up!

When that was done, we all went out to eat at La Tolteca, where Adin's sister met up with us, and then we trooped over to Braz and Adin's to put the kids to bed and have a seven-player game of Cards Against Humanity. (Adin's sister is sweet and giggly and precious, and also? has an incredibly filthy mind. I approve. A lot.)

Sunday morning, Matt threatened the kids with mayhem so that I could sleep in until almost 9. Then we got everyone dressed in their new Christmas clothes (or in Matt's and my cases, our old Christmas clothes) and we went down to New Town to visit Santa and take pictures. They had a different guy playing Santa this year, but he was nearly as good with the kids. A new thing they've got going this year is that if there isn't a line (which there wasn't, for us -- I can never quite believe it) Santa would read a story to the kids. Which was pure awesome.

Santa and Penny peruse her list

Santa reading to the kids

After our visit with Santa, we went out for lunch at Ruby Tuesday, then went home so Alex could crash into a nap. While he was out, Penny and I wrapped a bunch of Christmas presents and put them under the tree (Alex woke up in time to help with the last few) and then we all piled in the car and went to Busch Gardens to see Christmastown, which I have missed for the last few years and was determined to see this time.

I have to say, I loved it. And the weather was perfect -- brisk enough to add to the "winter wonderland" atmosphere without being so cold that it was unpleasant to be outdoors. I do sort of wish that Matt and I could go back without the kids, because it would be nice to a) sample some of the tasty treats without having to worry about the diabetic in tow, b) stay at the park later than Alex's bedtime, and c) stroll along and look at everything at our own pace, without having to deal with assorted whines about being bored/hungry/tired and wanting to go right now to the favorite show or ride.

After all that standing and walking and picture-taking, my back and hips are killing me today, but it was totally worth it. I got lots of fun pictures to use for our Christmas cards and the calendar for next year, and the kids had a great time, even if they were both getting a little tired and out of sorts by the end of it. (I can relate, as I was getting a little tired and out of sorts as well...)

I'm hoping to recover some of my aplomb this week -- there's not much happening at work until Thursday, and I've got 7 hours of what my office calls discretionary/holiday time (I'd been saving it all year for the day after Thanksgiving, but wound up working most of that day, so I still have it left over) that I have to use-or-lose by the 16th. So I'm looking at taking some extra time off -- either two half-days or one full day -- to wrap up my Christmas shopping and work on my writing and generally try to relax and recoup my holiday spirit, which has been badly frazzled by my perception of the schedule, this year.

Treed

Sunday afternoon, amidst all my other errands and running around, I stopped at the storage unit and brought home the Christmas tree and a bunch of other boxes.

When I got home, I started plugging in the tree sections, to make sure they worked before I went to the effort of assembling them.

Good thing, too. Because they didn't. Well, the middle section worked okay. But neither the bottom nor the top sections lit up at all.

There were a number of paths I could have taken from there. My dad, for instance, once actually went over the entirety of a pre-lit tree, testing each and every one of over 600 bulbs, looking for the one(s) that had caused the tree to go out. Yike. My time -- and my fingertips -- are more valuable than that.

Another possible route would have been to just get some light strands and string them on the tree where the built-in lights were dead, ignoring the dead bulbs and hoping the ornaments covered them up. I'd actually done this a couple of years earlier, when one section of the tree went dead. It worked okay, mostly, as long as I kept that section turned toward the corner where it wouldn't be in high profile. But I didn't want to do that for two thirds of the entire tree -- for one thing, I get pre-lit trees for a reason, and that reason is that I hate stringing lights. For another, there would be no way to turn the section with all the dead bulbs toward the corner, and covering ornaments or not, it would've looked pretty skeezy.

So I went with the third option, which was to toss the whole thing out and plan a trip to the store for a new tree. We went looking at Target on Sunday evening, before Matt's birthday dinner, and we picked out a tree we liked -- but there was no way we were going to fit the box in the car with all four of us. I love our Priuses (Prii?) and they have a lot more trunk space than it looks like from the outside... but not that much.

I said something to Matt about possibly picking it up on my way home from work Monday, but then he wanted to do some comparison shopping elsewhere. (Why, when we'd have been ready to get the tree from Target on Sunday if not for the space issue, I'm not sure. Is it possible to have buyer's remorse before you've bought something?)

So on Tuesday, after I'd done my writing, I went over to Wal-Mart. That took a bit longer than it should have; the two trees that were roughly analogous in size and shape to the one we'd picked at Target were both -- of course -- sold out. I thought about going back to Target, but there had only been one tree left of the sort we'd picked out. The chances that it was still there were... slim. So I spent some time waffling over my remaining choices at Wal-Mart.

The box did not fit in the trunk of my car, as expected. It only barely fit in the back seat, stretched across both kids' seats -- closing the car door nudged the box pretty firmly.

But I got it home, and even managed to get it out of the box, light-tested, assembled, and fluffed before Matt and Penny got home. Penny helped me put one round of ornaments on it, and then when Alex came home later, we all put on the remaining ornaments together.

So now we have a lit, decorated tree. Christmas is a go.

Thanks-given

Thanksgiving went pretty well, despite having clogged the sink drain with vegetable peelings the night before and having to summon the emergency plumber for Thanksgiving morning to clear it out with the shop vac. But the food turned out great, and Penny had a good time helping me, and Alex was thrilled beyond measure to drink his milk out of one of my china teacups. I was only confused about the lack of drippings from the turkey -- if I'd known it was going to drop so little, I'd have poured in some chicken stock to add extra heat to the bottom and to give me something to work with when it was time to make gravy. My apple-and-chestnut stuffing turned out awesome, if I do say so myself.

I had to work Friday (and surprisingly, there was work to be done, so I didn't get to enact my plan, which was to check email every couple of hours and otherwise just relax), alas. But Friday evening we went over to Braz and Adin's, and after we got the kids to bed, we played through the entire Cards Against Humanity deck. (Best question/answer pair of the night, and possibly all time: "What do I like to think about when I'm having sex?" "Being a dinosaur.") We wrapped up the game well after 1:30 in the morning. Matt and I didn't get to bed until after 2...

And of course the cat woke me up at 6:30. And when I got up, thinking I would feed him and go back to bed, I found Alex sitting on the edge of his bed, waiting for someone to stir so he could get up. So I was up. Alas. Once we were all up, we went down to my parents' for a little while, and then after Alex's nap we went back to Braz and Adin's for Matt's birthday party. We had hot dogs and bratwurst and ice cream cake, and we played a couple of rounds of Taboo after the kids were tucked into bed, but didn't stay up nearly as late, thank goodness.

Sunday was Matt's birthday, and also something of a crazy runaround day. I got up with the kids so Matt could sleep in, and once he'd gotten up and opened his presents, I did the grocery shopping. Then I came home, put the groceries away, and got the kids started on their lunch. While they finished that up, I ran across town to pick up Matt's birthday pie. (Matt always gets pecan pie for his birthday, and the best pecan pie I've ever had comes from the Jamestown Pie Company.) On my way back from that, I stopped at the storage unit to pick up most of our Christmas boxes and the tree.

When I got back, I took advantage of the excellent weather (it was over 70 outside!) to start putting up the outdoor decorations, and then while I started to assemble the tree, I let the kids distribute the candles in the windows.

But when I tested it, it turned out that of the 3 major sections of tree, only one of them lit up. Now, my dad once actually pulled and tested every single bulb on a pre-lit tree to find out which one had gone bad. I am not that determined. I declared the tree dead (we've had it long enough to have gotten our money's worth out of it, at least) and piled its sections outside with the trash.

Matt had promised Penny he would take her to Sweet Frog for snack on Sunday, so we did that, and then we stopped at Target on the way home to look at new trees. We got one all picked out, but the box was going to be way too big to fit in the car with all of us in it, so we had to leave it there. I did pick up a new door wreath and some plastic ornaments to decorate the porch and bushes, and we got Alex his Christmas outfit. (He did not pick the one I liked best, but he picked my second-favorite. I was tempted to get him both, but he really doesn't need clothes, and the little sets are not cheap.) We still need to take Penny out to look for her Christmas dress, as well. Maybe one evening this week, we'll do that.

Once we got back home, we pretty much turned around and headed straight back out to meet my family at Outback for Matt's birthday dinner. That was fun (and delicious), and then my parents came back to our house to share in that pecan pie. (John and Sam were virtuous, and avoided the temptation.)

All in all, a really good weekend... but I didn't get nearly enough sleep.

With Christmas coming in less than four weeks, I don't expect to get caught up for a while, either.

Party Time

Saturday was my birthday party. I invited my family and closest, longest-known friends (and their families) to have dinner with me at the Center Street Grill. We had a room to ourselves and a separate table for the kids, and of the 25 who'd RSVPed, I only had one adult and one kid who had to cancel at the last minute (due to illness, so I'm grateful that she kept it home). Which meant that the room looked like this:

And the kids' table looked like this:

It was a great party. I'd brought little activity bags for the kids with pencils and crayons and notepads and notebooks and play jewelry to keep them occupied, and it worked surprisingly well -- we only had to turn around to tell the kids to get back in their seats about once every five minutes instead of the usual ninety seconds.

The adults had a great time eating and talking and eating some more; I thought there would be more drinking, but I never even got around to ordering anything other than iced tea. As dinner was winding up, there were some fireworks outside that completely wowed the kids -- apparently, they thought it was, in fact, part of the party, and they all ran to the window to look. (I have no idea what they were really for -- the general consensus was that it was probably a Veteran's Day thing.)

When I stood up to do a general introduction around the table and thank everyone for coming, I found myself completely overwhelmed with gratitude that I could count so many wonderful and interesting people among my friends. I did the introductions, and then got about as far as, "Thank you all for coming. I'm really happy you could all make it, and I'm just... Just..." And then my mom chimed in with "...Forty!" and we all cracked up with laughter.

And one benefit of having guests at your party who've known you for more than twenty years is that they bring perfect gifts. I'm just sayin'. A "writer's kit" (gorgeous feathered quill, chocolate, and wine). A gorgeous new coffee mug and a Barnes and Noble gift card nestled in a reusable little book-shaped box. A board game that appears to be the evil twin of the bastard child of Candyland and D&D. And that's just a few! Plus, most of the card were hysterically funny. Do these people know what I like, or what?

The only downer was poor Henry's stomach rebelling at the combination of corn dog and chocolate milk and Sprite and ice cream, and reversing engines, so the entire Hegemony set had to pack up and head out pretty much immediately after dessert, while the rest of us stuck around for another hour, just chatting.

At one point, I saw the waitress bring in the bill folder, and I started to reach for it... but she went around to the far side of the table and handed it to my dad. "Hey," I said, "that comes to me!"

My dad took his already-run credit card out of the folder and said, "Yes, that's what they told me." And that on top of the gift they'd given me -- that I hadn't been expecting, because they'd bought me some very nice jewelry while we were in Cancun as my early birthday present!!!

And to top it all off, despite Henry's mishap, the Hegemony took Alex home with them, and when we were all done at Center Street, Matt and I took Penny over to their place as well -- they kept both our kids (along with all four of theirs!) overnight, so that Matt and I could have a child-free date night.

We'd talked about catching Cabaret at William and Mary, but the party didn't break up until after the show had started, so we just went over to the Barnes and Noble and wandered around, relishing the ability to peruse at our own pace and not having to take turns remaining confined to the children's area to keep an eye on the kids. I bought some stuff with the B&N gift card I'd just received, and we also picked up some Christmas gifts for the kids. Then we went home and watched one of our Netflix (Casanova, which I was expecting to be a sexy drama, or perhaps a dramedy, but it turned out to be completely campy and stupid, alas). But we got to sleep in a bit the next morning, and we went out to breakfast and got to bask in a meal where we didn't have to tell anyone to be quiet and sit down, argue with Penny about volume or carbiness of her selections, or cut up Alex's food for him. Ah, bliss.

It had been Alex's first sleepover anywhere, and he had a fantastic time. He was all set to do it again Sunday night -- alas, we had to shoot that down, as it was a school night. But Braz and Adin promised that both our kids had been well-behaved and wonderful (they'd only had to tell Alex and Henry to shut up and go to sleep two or three times!), so it looks like another sleepover could well happen in the future! Whoo-hoo! (And now, if we can just get Ripley comfortable with the notion of sleeping over at our place, we could trade sleepovers with them and get more frequent kid-free nights!)

So all in all: doubleplus good, awesome, amazing, fantastic weekend. As KT and Kevin told me: Obviously, I need to have 40th birthday parties more often!

Lordy, Lordy

I had, quite possibly, the best possible 40th birthday. No lie.

I couldn't take the day off from work -- too much workstuff to do, alas -- but the day before my birthday was a school holiday for Penny, so I opted to work from home, which turned out to be a great decision, as Adin and Ripley were at loose ends for the day due to a cancellation from another friend, so they came over and hung out with us. We went out to lunch at Penny's favorite restaurant (Wasabi!) and then later in the afternoon, after I'd cleared a little more workstuff, we went out and had mani/pedis. (It was going to be just pedicures, but it turned out that the shop runs a combo special on Tuesdays. How do you pass that up?!) So I had freshly painted, gorgeous nails ready to go for my birthday!

 

That afternoon, Penny and Ripley did coloring and papercrafts while I did more work (see, I do actually get work done when I work from home!) and they both made me birthday cakes! Ripley's was a flat cutout of a gorgeously-decorated tiered cake (she snipped a hole at the top and tied a string in it so I could hang it up) and Penny managed to craft a 3-D paper cake, plain and smooth, decorated tastefully with a ribbon around the middle and a small sprig of fresh blueberries on top. Penny also made me a sign to hang on my office door at work, "just in case anyone doesn't know it's your birthday!"

I got up on my birthday morning to even more hugs and kisses than usual (which is really saying something, as Alex and Penny are always both very affectionate) and presents from Matt (the OOTS Dragon Tales collection, Leverage Season 3 DVDs, and an Amazon gift card!). After I took the kids to school, I went to work, where I had promised Caren that she could decorate my office and be as evil as she wanted.

Thanks to a picky customer and a snarl of workstuff and a bored kid in tow, she hadn't had time to decorate liberally, but when she came in, she brought me a little pot of very pretty peach-colored begonias, to which were attached two enormous balloons. Well, the pirate ship is enormous. The other one was only enormous in its evil, because she'd deliberately gotten one with the wrong age on it.

Diabolical! But then she went with me to meet Matt and Adin for lunch at Plaza Azteca, where we all had margaritas and tableside guacamole. We got a couple of appetizer-type things to split, because dessert was the plan! But when we got to dessert, we just couldn't narrow it down, and we were talking about all getting different things and sharing, and Matt said, "I only want to share if I can have two," and there were only six desserts on the menu anyway, so when the waiter came back for the order, I just said, "Bring us one of each!" The look on the man's face was priceless, and we all laughed when all six desserts came out and we arrayed them on the table in the middle to sample. It was awesome.

(I should have taken a picture, but I didn't think of it. Alas.)

When I got home, Matt had a final present for me, which was the completely brand new expansion pack for Cards Against Humanity that was just released on Monday! Squee! I perused the cards, and now I can't wait to give them a whirl! (Though I may just have to order the official CAH starter deck so all the cards are the same size...)

Penny made dinner -- a "sandwich salad" recipe of her own invention -- almost completely by herself (I helped her core the lettuce and I sliced carrots, but she made the rest of our salads entirely by herself, sharp knives and all!) And then Matt and Penny had picked out a coconut cake from Martin's/Ukrop's for me -- which is one of my very favorite cakes, from one of my very favorite bakeries, so 100% WIN on that! Matt and I were still full from all the guacamole and dessert we'd had at lunch, so we didn't have much cake... but that just means more leftovers!

(You know what one of the best things is about being 40 years and 1 day old? Birthday cake for breakfast.)

My parents called to wish me a happy, and throughout the day, I got a ton of well-wishes on Facebook, too, which was incredibly sweet and nice. KT "combarded" me with snarky e-cards that made me giggle, and Karen sent another e-card later in the day containing an awesome, punny joke. (Knock-knock! Who's there? Señor! Señor, who? Señor share of birthdays, haven't you?!) (Actually, there were multiple puns, and the first one was even off-color, which goes to prove that Karen understands my taste in jokes quite well. Well, of course she does; she's played Cards Against Humanity with me!)

After we got the kids to bed, Matt and I watched all the special features on the Leverage DVDs, and after Matt went to bed early to sleep off his coconut cake, I finally finished the last level of Gemcraft: Labyrinth. A fitting and perfect end to the day.

Buggy

I know I don't usually post here on Writing Wednesday, but last night was pretty rough.

Penny had a persistent low at school and was complaining of a stomachache, so Matt brought her home early. The persistent low continued to persist, and Matt was feeling a bit under the weather as well, so instead of the planned dinner, I just made a couple of frozen pizzas. Penny ate three slices, I calculated the insulin, and we went on with the evening...

Right up until I sat down to read to Penny at bedtime. I got through exactly one sentence and then she jumped up, ran into the bathroom, and proceeded to puke her little guts up.

Here's a fun quiz: when you give someone insulin, but then they throw up all the food in their stomach before it can be digested, what happens? That's right! Low blood sugar! Whoo!

(In fact, I'm thinking that might have been the cause of that persistent low of the afternoon -- if the stomach bug was already beginning, it probably drastically slowed the rate of digestion, which meant her lunch insulin was going through her much faster than her food was.)

She was well within her range at bedtime, so Matt and I went about our evening routine, but alas, she thew up again around 9, and when Matt checked her blood sugar at 10, she was under 40 -- so low that she was groggy and unable to sit up on her own when Matt woke her up to treat it. So we skipped the candy remedies (that would probably only upset her stomach anyway) and went straight for a big old spoonful of honey. Half of it smeared on her face, but she opened her mouth for me to spoon it in, so we got a good teaspoon in her and waited.

Fifteen minutes later, she was up a bit but still in the 40s, so we woke her up again. This time, at least, she came alert relatively quickly and sat up on her own to eat another spoonful of honey, and washed it down with half a bottle of Gatorade, and then she remained upright until I'd gotten a washcloth to clean her face.

Another fifteen minutes or so, and she was up over 80, so we relaxed a bit. Matt and I stayed up another half hour or so and checked her again (over 100) before we went to bed.

This morning, her blood sugar was over 300, but rather than the usual frustration that causes me, I was relieved. (And unlike the "where the hell did that come from? highs, I knew exactly where this one came from: two spoonfuls of honey and half a bottle of Gatorade, duh!) The dangers of high blood sugar are slight but cumulative; low blood sugars are much more immediately terrifying. I hate it when she's so low she has trouble waking up. We have not yet ever had to break out the emergency Glucagon injection, and I do not ever want to. I probably don't even have to tell you what the Mutant Worrybrain was whispering when I first woke up this morning, do I?

She was feeling somewhat better on the stomach front, too -- she said her stomach didn't hurt any more, but she was Not Hungry. She ate a little cup of yogurt and drank some low-carb juice (I thought she should avoid milk) and I gave her a shot to bring her back down into range. She's staying home with Matt today, so here's hoping they're both feeling better by this evening.

Gardening

We took the kids to Busch Gardens yesterday. The plan was to meet up with KT and Kevin to celebrate Jess's birthday. We'd sort of forgotten about it being a "holiday" weekend (not for us, of course, but there are apparently still plenty of places that get the day off for Columbus Day) so we weren't really braced for the place to be as crowded as it was -- it took us over 45 minutes to get through parking and ticketing, and everything was crazy busy the whole time we were there.

We did eventually meet up with the others. We watched a dance show that terrified Alex, not because of its spooky Hallowe'en theme, but because it was so effing loud. Once it was over, Matt and Penny stayed with them so they could go do big-kid rides, while I took Alex back over to the Sesame Street area.

He had a blast. Since it was just the two of us, I gave myself up to it and let him make nearly every decision about what to do and where to go. We rode Prince Elmo's Tower about six times, and Oscar's Wiggle Worms once, and Gover's roller coaster once, and he spent ten or fifteen minutes getting soaked right to the skin in the water play area, until a show started and its noise terrified him. (That was a theme.)

The only real difficulty is that Alex has not yet given up his afternoon nap, so going without led to a little moodiness, from time to time. But it wasn't too bad (there was plenty to keep him entertained). He was so completely exhausted by bedtime, though, that he didn't even want me to sing when I put him to bed. So I kissed him and went to take my shower, and when I was done, I peeked in on him -- he'd fallen asleep so fast that he was still in the exact same position he'd been in when I left the room.

Next time, I'll remember to pack a swimsuit, or at least a change of clothes for him.

And there will be a next time, because while we were standing in line, Matt and I looked at the price of admission (almost $70) and then at the price of a one-year pass ($100) and decided, what the hell. So now we're all set for casual half-days or evenings or whatever we want to do for the next year. Matt and I want to go back some evening to see the scary parts of Howl-o-scream? Done. Come summer, want to take the kids over to play in the water park for an hour or two, or run in at night just for the fireworks? Done. Matt wants to take Penny to ride a couple of roller coasters some day when she's got a half-day of school? Done.

Plus half-off admission to Christmas Town, which I really want to do this year. Done.

We'll see how much we actually end up using them. Matt's had a year pass and Penny had a summer-long pass already, and I think they only went a couple of times.

But this morning, Alex is still chattering endlessly about how much fun the Elmo ride was. And I've got these great memories of him dashing in and out of the water spouts yelling, "Mom! This is so much fun!" And I think... Yeah. We're totally going back.

Tard

That post title is "tard" as in the Southern pronunciation of the word "tired", not an abbreviation of "retarded." 'Cause I'm an insensitive jerk sometimes, but not quite that much of an insensitive jerk.

I was at work for 16 hours yesterday. From 7:30 in the morning until 11:30 at night. Not counting lunchtime, when I ran out to Target to pick up a few things, or at about 8:30 in the evening, when I ran over to Subway to pick up some dinner. (Yes, I got cookies. I am neither proud nor ashamed of that.)

So I'm a little brain-dead this morning. But let's talk about the good stuff!

Have I mentioned lately how awesome my husband is? 'Cause he's very patiently done well more than the lion's share of housework and kid-watching while I was stuck at work last weekend and then in Roanoke for a day and a half, and then he took the kids to school yesterday and today and did all the childcare last night and even brought them by the office so I could get hugs and kisses... Matt is just awesome.

KT is walking in the Susan J. Kommen Walk For a Cure in Washington, DC this weekend! That's 60 miles of walking in three days, to raise money for breast cancer awareness and research. She's amazing.

I got new glasses! They're both subtle and quirky and perfectly me, and I love them even more than I love my old black-and-white frames from a couple of years ago. Love? Love. I'd post a picture, but with the whole 16-hours-of-work thing I didn't get a shower last night and I'm not feeling terribly photogenic.

And to continue with the shallow theme of accessories, I'm wearing a new skirt! It's called a Magic Wrap skirt (though I didn't buy it from that store, I bought it from this store while I was at the Roanoke Pride) and -- in theory -- there's 90 different ways to wear it. But the colors are absolutely gorgeous, and I got it for less than $30, so even if there was only the one way to wear it, I'd be happy. Because it's gorgeous. And because it's silk, so it feels nice. (I could use a can of anti-static spray, though.)

And I'm hoping for a good weekend! That's a good thing, right?!