Scraps (n. ,fem., singular)

I like my independence. I like knowing that I control my day-to-day, my schedule, my choices. I like knowing that the people or things that do take up my time are there because I allow it, and if one gets too onerous I can block it out. These are some of the many reasons I choose to stay single.

But there are times, oh, there are times.

Times when the quiet of my apartment does get to me just a little. Times when I wouldn’t mind there being someone to talk to, someone to be cute for, someone to intrigue just a little.

When I’m down I do appreciate the solitude. I prefer my breakdowns to not have witnesses. And we all have them–anyone who’s never had a low moment and just lost it, completely and utterly broken, are either lying, overdue, or seriously medicated against such things. It’s natural.

But then there are nights when it’s quiet, calm, and you don’t really need anything from yourself or anything else. Those are the nights when it would just be wonderful to lean your head on a sympathetic shoulder and appreciate that particular moment. That’s what I miss: Permission to lean.

So, it’s a little after eight and you’re mentally cataloging the closet, cross-referencing the weather report for tomorrow, and verifying your calendar during a commercial break. An outfit is decided upon so you go to the closet, assemble the various parts, make sure nothing needs repair or revision, and return to the television program already in progress.

Then there goes that little voice in the back of your head:

Self, it says, you know what would be great with that outfit tomorrow? A necklace. Earthy, a little chunky, basically nothing you have in your jewelry wardrobe. Too bad, it would really go great with that shirt.

What’s a girl to do?

Well, if you happen to be me you head into the Abyss (which remains navigable), collect a supply of semi-precious stone chips, a focal bead you haven’t had the first idea what to do with in 2 years, tools, and wire and make the damn thing yourself! To be honest it came out pretty doggone spiffy if I do say so myself.

Do you know how long it’s been since I just made something for myself on a whim? Me neither! It felt so good not only to be creative but to have a piece finished in 2 hours, ready to wear and pretty much the way I pictured it. Instant gratification, baby! (Something not often seen around these parts lately I might add.)

I’ll try to get a picture posted tonight, there’s no time to fiddle with that just now. Yay for new shiny!

I don’t know what carries it but I’ve certainly been bit… and how!

I have the attention span of a newborn fruitfly and a host of other inclinations that are best left unsaid (I would like to retain some infinitessimal shred of, um, propriety for days that I actually have to be a grown up). Woe for the unsuspecting, though, you just never know what I might come up with!

But I happened to forget my allergy pill yesterday morning and payed for it with an early night last night. Not that there was much to miss around my place, but I hate a ‘wasted’ night. Oh well, it was only knitting night and I did get a little work done on the second guantlet. I had a couple of other ideas to try out but I think it’s best to work on pattern creation when I’m not so distracted, headachey, and tired. Maybe next week?

Oh, wait. It wasn’t a total loss of an evening. I did find a very cool, very red lipstick this afternoon. I might need a different lip-liner, though. Here’s a hint for the non-girly out there: red lips really should be lined… keeps things from looking messy and prevents bleeding and feathering. Also, using a lip brush to apply give highly superior results. Yay for the return of the vamp-lip. Have I ever told the story how a total stranger stopped mid-walk on his way through a room, turned around, and said ‘Excuse me, but you have the most incredible lips’? Well, I guess I just did…

Happy Hump Day my Peeps!

Though I really wasn’t keen on any sort of traditional excercise last night I did decide to give housework-as-cardio a try. 40 minutes later not only can I actually walk to the closet in the Abyss but things are stacked in a good imitation of an orderly fashion. Oh there’s plenty left to do in here–no where near complete–but it’s a start. A good one.

After that it was 2 hours and 1 glass of red wine with iWeb. Not exactly a hot date, in fact it was rather tedious, but I got the basic site in place and uploaded to the test site for the powers that be to have a go at it. I want to say the worst is over, but I know better.

I have to say that as much as I mentally fought off doing anything of substance last week, avoided cooking like the plague, and totally ignored the plans to workout, getting back into the groove of things last night by cooking dinner and prepping my breakfast and lunch for today and all felt really good. I think every now and again I need that sort of break, but the routine really is comforting.

Which means tonight will be another night of staring at iWeb. I found some links I missed on the original transfer and I need to redo the first side navigation menu and create the second one. Then I think it will be at a good point to upload another copy to the test server so the officers can see what I’ve done and add their contributions where necessary. Once I get that in place it will be time to go off-book as it were and start doing some of the code-tweaks and formatting things iWeb won’t let me do on my own. Probably in another two weeks I guess.

Not that I was having a ton of luck with computers this weekend. Yesterday my mouse was giving me fits so I figured it needed resyncing (being wireless and all, it’s a logical thing, just like recentering the pad on the laptop, it needs to be done every now and again). Well, that was probably the worst idea I ever had since it effectively killed the mouse. Yeah. Um, how in the world am I supposed to do ANYTHING without a mouse. Yes, I love keystroke commands as much (or more) as the next person, but really? A mouse is necessary. Thankfully I have my graphics tablet with its pen and mouse so I was able to hook that up, navigate around to the Kensington site and refresh my memory about the resyncing. Even after that it only worked about half-way: the buttons worked, and the scroll-wheel scrolled the page, but moving the mouse did /not/ move the pointer. Problem? I ended up sending a tech support email just before I had to leave and when I got home there was an email offering me a replacement. Kudos to Kensington for being on that ball. Stuff happens and I can work around it, and soon I’ll have replacement bits.

But in the mean time I had to go do tech-support for my little brother’s computer. I am a firm believer that when I am able to give tech support, the world is truly close to its end. Took about an hour of fiddling and then I tried my failsafe: uninstall Norton firewall and, lookie there: all fixed. That’s twice, folks, twice that Norton firewall has taken over someone’s computer even when it wasn’t activated! Norton is evil, pact with the devil evil. Which might be why the world is still standing: if I defeated someone with a pact with the devil, then the four horseman, it would follow, are stalled, not called into action. Glad to know I didn’t bring about the end of life as we know it after all.

As in: Well, I’ve pretty much slacked this entire week, why start being productive now?

Not that the week has been a total loss, mind you, but I really haven’t been very goal oriented. How very unlike me. Basically, I was forced with the decision to cook or not last night and that’s when I decided it bore only ill to actually start being productive so late in the week. So I ordered in. And that was the most I used my computer last night

Instead I watched the rest of Friends Season 1 and then Princess Diaries 2 (ah, the old favorites) and sketched on the couch. The takeout decided to not be the best idea I’ve ever had, but oh well… I knew it was a possibility. Tonight I envision more of the same: vegging in front of movies with my sketchbook though I may start scanning in some of the completed work so that I can start fiddling with the colors in PSE. Progress, even during a mostly non-productive week, is a scary thing some times.

Brief update because I’m running late today!

Just in case anyone else forgot that little bit of information. Still, Wednesday wasn’t all bad, it was just slightly painful. Today I remember the little faux orange-flavored disolvey-tab so I should be good to go for the next 24 hours.

Other than that? Well, honestly: I got nothin.

I mean, I could ramble on about how I finally started rewriting WT into a more script-like format. Or I could wax on about finally blue-pencilling installment four of RA. But I really don’t feel all that chatty right now.

I did make a concerted effort to get back to drinking water every day. I used to be really good at remembering but the past few weeks I’ve let it slide and have been existing in a pseudo-hydrated state for most of the time. But that shall change. Water it is, once again. I need to get back to keeping refilled bottles in the fridge, though, so it’s cold and ready when I get home. Bottles are also easier to tote around the apartment and are less prone to spillage.

ANTM provided lovely entertainment last night. What does it say about me that I really want the two girls who are probably among the most talented of the 8 or so remaining contestants to be eliminated quickly? They are gorgeous and take awesome pictures, but they just have the most horrible attitudes! It’s one thing to be confident but it’s another thing totally to be a bitch to everyone; much less a two-faced bitch. I would love to see someone like Jael win, though who knows if it will really happen. Whitney would be a good winner, too (go plus-size models!!!), so far she seems relatively gracious even around people that are just too whatever with themselves.

Finally I seem to have a Wednesday tv schedule (post ANTM). Which is good, because Wednesday’s are one of the nights where it works very well to sit on the couch with various projects that only take a portion of my attention span. Crossing Jordan I used to watch when it first came out but lost track of it for a few years, then I could never remember when it was on. Of course, I watch it last night and wtf? Are they trying to make this the last season? Brain tumor on the character the show is named after? Not a good sign. And Medium, something always seemed to conflict with it, so I was glad to see it in an unused (by me) timeslot.

Okay, so maybe I did have something. Honestly, though? I think all that rambling is a whole lot of nothing. I’ll try to be witty tomorrow.

Or, at least that’s what I said to my to-do list last night. Silly pollen. Silly headache. Silly me for laying down with a cloth over my eyes shortly after dinner and falling asleep until way after 10pm. Oops.

I did get up for a while and that was a mistake. You see, if I’d merely climbed under the covers at that point I probably could have gone right back to sleep and slept through til morning. Instead I–being the genius I am–got up and puttered around for a couple of hours before going back to bed. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Until I turned out the light at 2am only to toss and turn and not get comfortable until almost 3. Sigh.

But today is another day which, with the help of an alergy tablet, holds the possibility of productivity. Once can only hope…

(you know, that was a typo, but I think I’ll leave it just the same )

So! This weekend? I really didn’t do all that much and I loved every minute of it! Saturday I did get some exercise in: moving furniture for delivery of the new (to me) couch and the liberation of the old loveseat. This full-size sofa also features recliners at both ends and is cushy but not overly worn like the other one. Since it is very green (hunter with navy flecks or some such) and was delivered on St Pat’s, it’s name is Patrick. Simple enough.

Palmie came over that afternoon for the Firthiness. That is basically a pleathora of Colin Firth movies, including both Bridget Jones’ movies. Those movies were the meal inspiration of the day from the infamous Turkey Curry Buffet scenes. Now, granted, I was in not rush to actually prepare and turkey curry, nor was palmie in the mood to eat one. Instead I created a mix-and-match curry buffet with three curry sauces, three starches, and three meats. It was entirely too yummy. Bowing to the ‘pressure’ (not) of the holiday, we felt obliged (more like used it as an excuse) to drink Chocolate Leprechauns (chocolate milk and Bailey’s) towards the end of the evening. We actually made Fuzzy Chocolate Leprechauns because we added Godiva as well

Alcohol = palmie stayed the night (slept on the new sofa which is long enough for normal mortals to stretch out on–once you arrange yourself correctly over the support bars for the recliner bits) so I made pancakes for brekkie accompanied by Turkey bacon. Due to the texture of microwaved turkey bacon, palmie called it Turkey Pringles and, well, yeah: they are! Texture notwithstanding, the addiction factor is high. Mmmmmm

Eventually she left to go home and veg while I did the same on my new (to me) sofa. I lounged while reading a cheesy chick-lit-mystery and then worked on some sketching when done with that. Vegging was highly important as I’ve discovered that the only way I make it through a full work-week is to spend at least 24 of the weekend 48 doing abso-freaking-lutely nothing. How I’m going to manage things like Dragon*Con in September or Mom’s Birthday cruise in June are up in the air. I’m thinking naps may be required, regardless of how much fun I’m having.

For some strange reason I’ve been waking up (apparently on my own) at 5:15 every morning this week. The problem is (in case it’s not obvious) that this is WAY too early for me to get up on a weekday. Even when I was fitting in a morning writing session during NaNo, 6am was plenty of time for that. No, 5:15 will not work.

Of course, the simple answer is for me to go back to sleep. Here’s where it gets hinky. Usually the wake up is one of those ‘bink! eyes open, mind alert, I’m aWAKE!’ wake-ups. So getting back to sleep takes a while–about half an hour on average. Well, now we’re closer to 6am, which would be a fine wake-up time (and when my alarm actually starts to play), bit no: now I am asleep. 6:30 would be fine, but usually I wake up after all of this around 7ish, very groggy, with 30 minutes to shower, dress, and get out of the house.

So the last couple of mornings I’ve been running really late and then rather busy at work and the evenings have been hectic as well. (Hence no posting the last two days.) Last night, however, I was so very tired that shortly after dinner I went to bed. I didn’t necessarily think this was the best idea but I was too tired to care. So it was that waking up at 11:30 was not all that surprising. I went back to sleep. Woke up again at 2am. This time I got up for about 5 minutes then tried to go back to sleep. It took a good amount of effort and sleep was spotty until about 4 when I woke again, this time i think it had more to do with neighborhood noise than anything. Car alarms and so forth, very unpleasant, very close. Finally, though, I made it past the 5:15 mark withOUT waking up.

This morning was the first in a while where my eyes opened at about 6:20, I was awake and alert and well-rested. I had plenty of time to get ready for work, life was good again.

Of course, now I’m facing the weekend. Maybe I should have reset the internal clock Sunday night instead of on a Thursday, maybe I’ll have to try this again next week at some point. But at least today I do not feel like I’m going to fall asleep at my desk!

Catchy title, no?

I slacked a bit last night in some ways and so not in others. Part of the slacking had to do with nutrition. I decided to forgo the stated menu and toss together something carbolicious out of some leftovers that needed eating. Afterwards I figured I’d have myself a smackerel of something sweet (nod to Pooh Bear).

A sinus-inspired headache had plagued me all day so I forwent the usual workout and went straight to the computer desk to spend a bit of quality time with iWeb. Now, I will say, that iWeb does what it does in spectacular fashion. HOWEVER. I am about at the edge of iWeb’s usefullness. There will come a time, in the not to distant future, that I will have to stop with the gui-licious editing and start using a text editor to do some HTML-work that iWeb doesn’t let you do on it’s own. There are work-arounds but once you take that path you’re pretty much stuck. Oh well, no worries, but I did create another 4 pages for the Barony’s revamp and most of my time last night was spent transferring links from one site to another. You would think this wouldn’t be such a bit deal, just copy and paste right? Uh, no. The old site uses a database for the links and so when you copy the list-o-links you get the database entry link instead of the actual url of the destination site. So, while I fully intended to check for broken links in the process of all of this, I really did NOT intend to have to copy and reformat each of the 198 links. But I did, and the site will be all the better for it. One thing I can certainly say, after dealing with this site revamp, is that I have a much better understanding of things like the bylaws and various SCAdian resources! Oy!

So, remember that smackerel of something sweet from a paragraph ago? Yeah, about this time last night (iWeb monopolized me for about 3.5 hours) was when I remembered, too. I had taken a carton of Edy’s Girl Scout Cookie (Samoas) Ice Cream out to thaw a smidge (I don’t like very hard ice cream, and while Edy’s is usually good about staying creamy, my freezer is incredibly efficient!). 3.5 hours later I had Samoa Soup. Or, what I chose to look at it as, Samoa Milkshake. Mmmmm. (Luckily most of the carton had already been consumed.)

No, this is not yet another entry about my neuroses… This is actually about productivity!

Saturday pretty much sucked for productivity: I did nothing of consequence and the only reason I actually got dressed was to drive out to Koosh’s for the Crawfish Festival to-go. The price wasn’t bad, but the quality of the crawdads, at least in the two pounds I brought home, was not so great. Worth it, yes, but we didn’t miss much by not going out there for the afternoon.

Sunday, on the other hand, was very productive. I decided to forego Knitting in Public at All Saint’s in favor of tackling my bedroom. Now, really, what was wrong with my bedroom was not all that much it was merely the preponderance of clothing EVERYWHERE that made it look bad. That and the stuff from the little folding table that, when I moved said folding table, I just sort of left where it fell and never dealt with. Most was easily organized once I actually took the time to do it, I just really hadn’t cared enough in the past to do it. It’s not like anyone other than me sees that room.

But the time had come to fix that (the state of affairs, not the lack of public viewing) and so I tossed a few hours at it. And, well, now the room looks so empty!!! It helped when I moved the quilt stand from the foot of the bed to the side wall where the miscellaneous crap was, but oh my goodness with the blank walls. I really need to do something about the expanses of off-white walls that are in that room. Still left to do is to organize the shoes and deal with the vanity table. I moved the table into place, the chair sits in front of it, but the boxes of stuff I need to go through to figure out what will and will not go onto the vanity table? Still underneath the table and trying to escape. Most of it will be tossed, I know this, but I haven’t quite worked my way up to dealing with that mess. Soon, though, it will happen. It has to, really, because my tiny little bathroom lavatory isn’t big enough to hold all the makeup, etc. that it would otherwise need to and putting an etage in there is out of the question!

As to the title? Yes, well, I sorted all of the clean clothes that were existing draped over various bits of furniture on my bed and put everything on hangers and into the closet or folded and into/onto the dresser. I ran out of hangers. This isn’t overly surprising but I had recently purchased 16 more hangers since the last time I vowed to hang everything up again and, well, no. Still not enough. And y’all, I haven’t done laundry in a week so even though, when all was said and done and hangers that had been hiding were uncovered, I was still a handful-shy of enough. I have a walk-in closet. One side is shirts and one side is skirts/pants. Dude, I almost don’t have enough room for it all. And almost all of these clothes? I wear. It’s not like half of my wardrobe just sits there collecting dust! I cycle through almost all of it every few months. And now that it’s warming up again? More will get cycled through. Sure, there is some chaff amidst the wheat, I admit, but even if I ditched that? Still loads of clothing.

But I need more hangers. I think I should just make the rule that if I buy a new article of clothing, even if it’s only one and comes with the hanger, I need to go buy a pack of hangers at the store. Because, y’all, I really don’t know how but they seem to multiply. And there are still some pesky wire hangers in there that need to be disposed of.

Somehow I think I’ll get more hangers before I get that scale.

(I couldn’t bring myself to use the word “ain’t” in the title, I just couldn’t!)

Since I seem to be delineating my weekly schedule so far, I figure I’ll continue. Just as Knit Night being on Tuesdays leads Tuesday to be my general knitting night at home, so the twice-monthly SCA meetings on Thursdays mean that I will spend at least part of Thursday evenings working on one SCA project or another. Since the website (see also Monday nights) revamp seems to be the most pressing project, I threw another couple hours working on assembling one of the new pages for it. Now I can set it aside until Monday when I’ll do the in-page linkages that iWeb does not have a shortcut for. Oh well, it’s not difficult, just tedious. But at least there’s a significant light at the end of this tunnel. Soon the majority of the revamp will be done and all that it will need is periodic updates. That is a very good thing, as it also means my personal sites may see some updates once my work for others is more contained.

The thing I did NOT do last night was work out. Just wasn’t going to happen. In fact, I’m possibly on the verge of another case of bronchitis (a suspiscious cough began the other day) so didn’t want to push it. As long as I don’t skip weeks entirely I still feel pretty good about the activity level, but it may take some more time to get up to twice a week.

But that’s only one each, right? What’s #3?

Well, that was an unexpected bit of good on my part: I didn’t make cookies. Oh, I was tempted to, sorely so. I refrained, however, and settled for baby carrots as a snack. Now, I know that pretty much no where in the world is baby carrots a convincing substitute for homemade, warm from the oven, chocolate chip cookies but if you can get away with the substitution it’s probably not a bad idea. Again, the idea is healthy here. Chocolate chip cookies will not help the overall weight loss goal so I refrained. At least for a day. Tonight may be another story, or maybe some time this weekend.

I still need to buy a scale.

(my ex, that’s who. According to V the only way one could multitask was to have more than one brain or processor. Which I get, but the switching happens so fast that it’s virtual multi-tasking, but anyway. He’s also the one who said ‘can’t compute with fruit’ and we all know that’s a load of bull, too.)

Anyway! Happy Bouncy Happy Days! J came in with the ‘yes’ verdict on whether he and K were interested in the cruise option for Mom’s 50th. The cruise is now booked, deposits paid, and most of us paid in full while we were at it. Yay! This is such a load off of my mind. I have been working on scheduling this trip for almost a year. I knew last birthday what I wanted to do for her but when I told her about it, she wanted to include the entire family. Which I could see, but that made the planning and budgeting infinitely more difficult. Add in the fact that I had to get a new car last Fall, my medical issue, the scheduling around K’s school schedule, my work deadlines, and affordability for all and you come up with what I did: no way this is going to happen.

Plan B was formed: long weekend at a beach house in St George Island. Research done, plenty of options found, we just needed to settle on a date and so forth. Dithering abounded, but we started to get somewhere. Until, of course, I called the rental agency to verify the availability of a weekend rental and was told, at best, those sorts of rentals were only done maybe a month before hand to allow optimal opportunity for the owners to get weekly renters instead. Which I understand from a economical point of view but I really wish they’d been a little more clear in the policies they have splashed all over the information site. Argh!

Plan B was becoming Plan C when Aunt decided maybe she’d go in for the full week if Mom stayed out there with her and then the rest of us could come and go as our schedule allowed. Mom wasn’t sure how entertained she could keep herself for a week on a beach, so the lagging began again.

Until I found a new way to do Plan A, but did we want to go back to that at this late date? And could everyone make those arrangements (time, money, etc.) with less time to prepare? Turns out, after a few days on tenderhooks, we could.

So, back to that multitasking thing: my 101 list (over there –>, up near the top right corner, see it? 101 Scraps? yes, that) has three things on it that will be taken care of by this one trip: throw Mom a fantabulous 50th birthday weekend, take Mom on a cruise, and get a passport. By mid-June I will have done all of those things. That, my friends, is multitasking!

Take that, V!

Of course, there is one thing that this also means: No ship movies for 3 months.

What am I talking about? Well, at the Oscar party it came up that neither Izzie, nor I, nor Palmie had seen the new version of Posiedon. We discussed renting it. And, as is our want, it was bound to turn into a disaster movie party. I was even planning the line-up and the food in my mind. Now? It will not be happening til at least late June because here’s a whole host of movies I’m not allowed to see before the cruise or else I might need a valium cocktail to get me on board:

• Posiedon
• The Posiedon Adventure (original)
• Posiedon (the made for TV remake)
• Titanic
• U471 (or whatever its called)
• Hunt for Red October
• Das Boot
• Speed 2
• or any other movie that involves a boat and a catastrophe…

But come July? July is totally safe for such things! In fact, those locally who are prone to engage in such movie-watching-and-mocking parties? Here’s the line-up I have in mind:

Posiedon (the new one)
Twister (but of course!)
and a vote to be taken for the following:
Volcano vs. Dante’s Peak
Armageddon vs. Deep Impact

Who’s in???

Oh my, oh heavens, this is at once too cute to be safe and too wrong to be cute, and yet it is undeniably cute:

Kawaii Not

Techincally it’s safe for work, but only if you can get away with laughing out loud and, perhaps, tears while doing the same.

* * *

Last night was spent mostly knitting. There is a reason why Tuesdays are knitting nights and that would be that the first Tuesday of every month is Knit Night at Borders. It makes sense to me that, if I’m going to knit one Tuesday night, I might as well set aside Tuesdays for knitting in general. The presence of some decent TV (usually Gilmore Girls and House) on Tuesdays makes it even more conducive to such pastimes. But at Knit Night, in addition to talking with some fabulous ladies about knitting and all sorts of things, I managed to finish the knitting part of a gift for a certain baby-to-be. Now just the seaming and tassels and it’s good to go. I have enough of the yarn left, I believe, to make a matching item as well. Yay!

I had a surprise waiting on me at home. (No, not my video order from DMC… that still hasn’t arrived in all it’s Firthiness.) The maintenance guys (not being sexist here, I’m fairly certain that currently all the maintenance staff at my apt complex are male) came by and confirmed my suspicion: something really was wrong with my hot water heater. Turns out the thermostat was a bit faulty which would explain the frequent running of said item indirectly proportionate to the amount of hot water I had in the mornings for my shower. I mean, really, I’m one person. So one shower per day and the running of the dishwasher an average of every other day should mean plenty of hot water for my morning shower. 15 minutes does not constitute plenty of hot water. Not only did they note the problem, the did actually fix it. I have a feeling that this contributed to my utility bill increase over the last few months (I don’t pay for water, but the electricity of heating it makes a difference). That and the air filter I hadn’t changed in a while (don’t worry, I fixed that myself and now have two spare ones, too).

Tonight I shall work on editing my ‘04 NaNo Novel. When I’m not watching ANTM, that is. Yay for the return of guilty pleasures!

Okay, so I wouldn’t win any JD Power & Assoc awards, but what started out as a very ‘meh’-Monday ended with a strangely productive Monday night.

I was a very good girl and, despite the inadequacies these things inspire, popped in one of my Bellydance Fitness Fusion DVDs (yes, you can laugh, it’s okay) and ran through the first 30 minutes+ until I thought I was going to die. I decided that it wasn’t crucial to do the entire workout, bonuses, etc. as I’d tried in the past as long as I got a half hour in, got the heart-rate up, and got the muscles moving. Seems rather ‘duh’, doesn’t it? Well, I hadn’t given myself permission to turn it off when it got annoying in the past, and had struggled through the silliness, making myself feel very bad when I couldn’t get a particular combination down or some such. Uh, hello? So not the point. I know this now. I did the 30 minutes, got to a stopping point, and ended feeling very good about myself (even if my legs were about to wobble off their pins).

Next on the list: make dinner. Now, for those that know me, this is not a hard task exactly. And thanks to Menu Mailer I don’t even have to ponder the interminable question: What’s for dinner? I already know, it’s on the sheet in front of me and all the ingredients are bought because I used the supplied shopping list. But, even with all this done for me (for a modest fee every 6 months) there are nights when I really don’t feel like putting forth the effort. One thing not having convenience foods in the house does for you? Nothing to fall back on, no excuse for not cooking. There’s always take-out, but it takes a lot for me to get to that level. So, anyway, dinner made with a minimum of fuss and very much yum (Sweet and Sour Haddock is what the recipe called it, I prefer to call it Salted Haddock–I went a little heavy on the Kosher–with red wine and onion sauce. By either name it was quite tasty, I had forgotten how much I prefer Haddock to other white fish.) as well as the added bonus of 3 more servings into their containers and ready for 2 lunches and another dinner. Kitchen tidied as well.

On to iWeb. Being the list-maker that I am combined with the sheer magnitude of my interests, I try to block off certain nights for certain things. Either hobby or focus specific, each night has one or two reminders. The schedule might change periodically, but when I’m feeling overwhelmed it can help to have the fallback of ‘it’s Tuesday, I should work on knitting’ to concentrate my efforts best. Mondays are workout and web, and since I’m working on a revamp of a website (not my own, sadly, in due time I hope) I threw a couple of hours at that group of pages. I wish I could say it was done but, no, there’s still a couple more Monday nights to go on it, but nonetheless it sees progress. Enough, at least, to where I felt completely justified in shutting down the computer to watch Heroes while doing a little extra knitting.

Of course, being so goal-oriented after a week or so of coasting and or panicked focus on one project only made me feel very sleepy by the end of Heroes so I took myself to bed early with a book. All in all it was a good night, especially for a Monday.

For the right reasons, you might still feel like the bad-guy [girl], at least for a little while.

Oh well.

So it’s Monday! Wohoo! Um, yeah… But there are plans to make and numbers to crunch and a decision to wheedle out of Mom on her birthday stuff. We seem to be in an impasse: Cruise that will be mega-fun but only 4 of us can afford to go on or beach house for a week that 8 of us can use at various times but can Mom keep herself entertained for a week on St George Island??? But it’s not my decision (which is frustrating because originally it was going to be all my decision, me and Mom on a cruise ship, her getting her life-long wish, etc etc etc.) Phhfffft!

I feel like I need a new diversion, a jump-start if you will, but I don’t see myself as having time or energy for one right now. Such is the paradox, no? On the other hand, I will have plenty of time all to myself to work on my projects. Yup. Plenty of time. This is a good thing. Maybe tonight–after staring at iWeb for a couple of hours–I might tackle some more of the Abyss. Yes, that can be it. Spring cleaning and all that jazz. Maybe even find the patch-kit for Priscilla (the inflatible dress dummy named by Izzie, fabulous name btw, but it makes me want to add feathers…). Not that I would keep her inflated if I did patch her. Please… I’m so spooked by my own shadows some nights that I have to check all closets and cabinets for lurking beings, even to the point of looking behind the TRANSLUCENT shower curtain. Because I’m a dork and slightly OCD such that if I make the mistake of checking one place before bed I have to check them all or the paranoia gets to me. So can you see me not freaking out if I had the shape of a body somewhere in my apartment? Yeah, me neither.

Item one, that is, from yesterday’s list. Well, not completely, but I managed to finish one of the major headache projects last night and can hand it over tonight. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the project, nor is it that I am unhappy with the final result (at least as final as I’ll be involved in) it just, like many things, got out of hand. Having this finished lifts a tremendous weight off of my shoulders, now I just have to explain to my contact that I will not be helping her out anymore. Not exactly looking forward to that.

One to go!

There’s one more project in process but I managed to get a lot of the bones of it done earlier this week. Providing the powers that be on that one don’t want significant format changes, all that should be left is the filling-in, the polishing, and the spell-checking. It will never be “done” but it will be completed with periodic updates needed. Those periodic updates will be cake once this basics are done.

Last night, after finishing project 1 (I know, I’m being vague on purpose y’all) I sat down to a bit of mindless television which turned out to be first a rerun and then the next was preempted for the premiere of a new show. A show I do not like already. So I doodled. I doodled my way into drawing the first of a series of items. I feel so jazzed about this. Still being vague but only because it still needs work and companions before I spill the beans. This was awesome. It was just the idea that I had these massive things hanging over me that was keeping me from starting (or, in some cases, continuing) my own projects. The creative block is GONE (or, at least, significantly eroding). This is incredibly liberating.

So it’s March. Where in the hell did January and February go? How are we one-sixth of the way through the year already? 17% of 2007 down the tubes!

Not that I’m saying the whirlwind of the last two months was all bad or all a waste or anything like that. I’m just, once again, stunned and amazed at the speed of time whooshing by my head.

But anyway, I’m starting Month 3 with a severe case of the crankies: I didn’t sleep well, even though I made a point to go to bed in time to get 7 hours of rest. If I got 4 total I’d be amazed. What was with me? Well, my pre-bed convo with Mr SoCal was filled with the Negative (his job sucks, he’s sorta stuck, it’s quite unfortunate, and I took away some of the grumpiness when we said goodnight) so I had to wind down from that. Then I couldn’t find a comfortable position to sleep in. Then I just kept waking up various times throughout the night. I so didn’t need that. I so need a latte (venti caramel decaf soy if anyone’s buying).

On top of this, I’m still digging myself out from under a mound of obligations. Dude: I cannot juggle the way I used to. It used to be nothing to help one person with this, another group with that, AND still get my own projects worked on. Now? No way in Hell. Of course, I’m not quite selfish enough to just toss off the other committments I made. Nope, I’m slogging through them. The thing is, in the mean time? NONE of my own projects are being worked on. I have a fantastic idea for something: can I grab the supplies and make it? Nope. Not because I don’t have them but because I promised other things to other people. And the really horrible part? Some of these ideas could see real promise and, yes, monetary gain if I would do them and get them out there. Off the notebook page (because I do at least take time to write down what pops into my head, it’s something) and into reality. Imagine that.

So, starting this month I have some goals. (Well, okay, I’ve had these goals before now, but now I’m serious.)

1. Take care of certain outstanding obligations to other parties and then run like hell. Honestly, sometimes you want to help someone and so you do what you can and then you find yourself being expected to do it again and again. Nope, not this time. I will no longer allow myself to be used, even when its not malicious and that person really is a train with no breaks.
2. Lose 30 pounds by my next endo appointment in August. This works out to about 5# a month, not unrealistic, and will serve several purposes. First it will get him off my back about the potential for metabolic syndrome that I don’t have but I could have several years down the road (yes, apparently we’re ignoring the symptoms I currently have, but whatever, I’m over that for a while) and second, well, I will lose weight. I will be healthier. This is not a bad thing. I need to buy a scale.
3. Clean up the damn studio (aka the Abyss). Really. I had a dream during one of my sleeping fits that the computer desk and the work table were completely cleared off. It was beautiful.
4. Proceed with certain projects that will remain nameless until I’ve actually done them, but I know what they are, they are tormenting me with their un-doneness.

That about covers it. Basically, I’m taking back my time for myself. Does this mean I will never volunteer for anything again? Nope. It does mean that I’m going to be a little more selfish when it comes to what I agree to do, though. It’s not just a matter of doing what I want, it’s a matter of the stress that these things I want to do but cannot puts on me. That stress does bad things for my health and bad things to my psyche and does me no good. I want good in my life, dammit, and I’m going to have it!