Two nights ago, I was dreaming I was in a high-level Russian literature course, taught in Russian (this isn't so far-fetched, I have a degree in Russian language and literature.)  The problem was (of course) it was MY first day in class, but it was the last day of class before the final.  I recognized the teacher, so I started writing him a note apologizing for not getting there sooner in the quarter, and how I didn't think I should be in this class anyway, he's a great teacher, it's nothing against him, but I just didn't want to be there, I would accept a 'no-pass' for the class.  Except as I wrote, other people's writing started appearing on the page.  It got harder and harder to read my note.  Halfway through I realized I should be writing this in Russian on a clean piece of paper so he would be more likely to give me a no-pass rather than an 'F'.  So I get ready to start over again and then I wake up, all tied in knots.

Three nights ago I was having another traveling dream (I used to travel for my job as a publisher's rep) and all of a sudden I was walking across country to sell books.  I kept having to climb these slippery grass hills to get from house to house.  I really didn't want to walk down these hills, as I was concerned about my knee bugging me and slipping out  of joint.  So I would go the long way around.  This gradually segued into going from school to school to sell books, tramping across flat-as-pancake farms with lots of grain crops planted.  Then I was walking home to my farm with lots of flowers and fruit trees and veggies and whatnot, and a house that was falling apart. (Virtual scratching of head...)  I've dreamed of this house before, this time it was built on top of the garage, and the garage was getting eaten by termites and it had to be replaced quickly before the house fell into it. 

..........................

Oh, shoot.  Now I can't remember the dream I had last night.  I even tried going back to the bedroom to lie down on the bed.  Sometimes it's as if bits and pieces of the dream have been left there, and when I go to bed the next night I remember bits as I lay on the pillow.  Didn't work this time.

Well, it's just that middle-aged-fusty-brain burn-out again.  It's happening more and more.  I in fact had a GREAT idea for something to blog about.  I've had it about three times now, and each time I remember it I think OH BOY!  Gotta write about that.  Next time I remember what it is I will say it out loud over and over as I run for my computer.

One of the things I remember from my high school biology class.  Generally, it means the son tends to take after the father. 

In my case, though, the son takes after the mother.

I will sometimes see a little idiosyncrasy displayed by one or the other of the children that can be directly related to my husband or me.  For instance, my husband tends to twitch a little while reading.  He will quietly drum his fingers on the recliner, or tap a foot, or click something, and not even be aware he's doing it.  Rose has started tapping while she reads. 

Rose used to twirl her hair in one finger when she was two or three.  Sometimes she'd twirl it so much, it would tie up in a knot.  Sam does this when his hair is too long.  (He just got a haircut, his head is nice and fuzzy now.)  Nature or nurture?  Who knows?

During the last days of school I was there morning and afternoon to sell the yearbook.  I was down to about 10.  My children would join me after school on the patio outside the main entrance.  The last day I was going to be there, Sam said, how many do you have left?  I showed him the pile on the desk, just this many.  He got up and started going up to students, parents and teachers, saying, have you got a yearbook yet?  Do you want to buy a yearbook?  

Oh my heavens.  This was just a total stunner for me.  I can't see Rose ever doing this.  My husband can't/won't try to sell school things at work.  I am the seller in the family:  I was a traveling sales rep for a publishing company in the Midwest, I worked selling books at a couple different bookstores, I have no problem taking the kids around the block or to grandma's job to sell the fund-raising stuff.  And here is my son, comfortably talking to people he doesn't know and asking them to buy yearbooks!   I was so proud.

The strawberries.  The red, ripe, juicy, incredibly delicious strawberries that are growing in our front patch.  About 3 weeks ago, one Saturday, the first thing I had to eat was a handful of this ruby morsels as I went to get the paper.  Oh, mmm, yum. 

We started picking the next day or two.  Our patch is so vehement, I could pick a quart easily in about 2 minutes.  I kept picking bits and pieces.  It was unseasonably hot.  I should have been picking gallons when I was picking pints.

Finally on a Friday when we were supposed to drive to Spokane to see my nephew graduate from college on Saturday, my husband decided to get involved in picking.  He was adamant that we not leave those berries to rot over the weekend.  Thursday afternoon my daughter and I had picked some Tupperware tubs full.  Husband got out there Friday morning about 10, after packing, and I finally managed to drag him away about noon.  Our biggest metal bowl (which is huge) was overwhelming full of ripe strawberries.  I had to totally rearrange the fridge to find room for them.  

Coming back Sunday night we were too blitzed to deal with them.  But Monday night Ed and I cleaned them.  Tuesday I made two batches of low sugar jam, with pectin.  I was going to make two more batches, but I ran out of canning rings.  All the rest of the berries I put in the freezer, about 12 pints.  I've picked a few more tubs full to give away.  But you know you're satiated when you leave the last pint of berries you picked out on the counter for a couple of days, and they get moldy.....

Now there's more ripe berries out there, but I'm thinking I should let them have a glorious end:  fertilizer for the next batch, next year.  

visited 22 states (44%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or jurisdische veraling duits?

I've lived on the West Coast most of my life, excepting about 9 years when I lived in Chicago as a traveling sales rep, selling books.  Louisiana and Florida are there because I've been to vacation or sales conferences or both.  I've vacationed in the Northeast.   I didn't mark some places:  I've been in Texas a couple of times, but only for a day or two for meetings.  I was in Las Vegas when I was five or so, with my family, but not been back since.  I've been to Boise once, for two days.  All the states I've marked, I've lived in or worked extensively in.   All that Midwest part is where my sales territories have been at various times.  Amazing, eh?  At one time, my territory consisted of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.  I was selling children's books for a new publishing company, and after a couple of seasons they came to their senses and cut Minnesota and Pennsylvania off my territory.  Phew.

I loved the travel in that job, except when I hated it.  I loved it at the beginning of the season when I'd been stuck at home for weeks or months.  I loved driving through states like Iowa and Ohio, which turned out to be much more than flat fields of corn, whoo boy.  Talk about gorgeous countryside--rolling hills, river valleys, trees, cliffs, wow.   I hated traveling towards the end of the season, when all I wanted to do was hole up in my condo like a little hermit crab, only venturing out for food and church.  There were times when I'd do one week of sales, working my way out, fly home for the weekend and fly back out, then work my way further out before driving my way home.  Other times it would be:  leave home Sunday afternoon or evening, drive to the city I needed to be in Monday morning, work all week, drive home Friday night, repeat.  Five or six weeks in a row of that, and you'd know why I needed to quit sales. 

I still dream about it, like you dream about college finals you haven't studied for?  I dream I have been selling like mad all season, I haven't been paid, I look in my briefcase and there's all those orders I've been taking and not sending in to New York.  Etc.  I sometimes find myself thinking about a certain road, and I can't remember what city it's in.  I drive that road in my thoughts until I come to something familiar, and I say to myself, "Oh, yeah, that's the main drag in Grand Rapids, Michigan" or "That's the side road to one of my bookstores in Champaign, Illinois."   These little mental excursions are becoming fewer, but it's only been about 15 years since I've quit being a sales rep.  It's been 30 years since I've been in college and I'm still having stress dreams about finals.

Great birthday, just wonderful! 

Glorious weather.  My brother took me out for breakfast at Mae's Phinney Ridge Cafe, where we split an enormous cinnamon roll, then went on to more serious things, like a California omelet for me (mmmm, avocado, cheese, sour cream, salsa, mmmm!).  Plus biscuits, too.  Lots of coffee.  Took him home, let him get on the computer to write down ferry schedules, yanked him off the computer several levels of Jewel Quest later, got him packed up, he left to wander around the landscape, called me ten minutes later, he'd left his credit card at Mae's.  Called them, they had it, called him, told him they had it.  He called three more times, he'd gotten lost. 

Then I took off downtown to run an errand (or try), then to the library to pick up some great books on hold for me, then home.  Sketchy sort of dinner, no problem, daughter has to go to play in her fifth grade band concert.  Both fifth and sixth grade band and orchestra play (what a difference a year makes, the sixth graders were easier to listen to).  After the fifth grade band's first two pieces, the teacher conducting them started talking about the first piece the clarinetists and the flutists had learned, a little ditty called "Happy Birthday", and they were going to play it for a person celebrating a birthday in the audience, "a Mrs Nordquist".  Whoa.  Serious delayed reaction.  My husband and in-laws were pointing at me, someone else yells "stand up!" and I do so, bowing and smiling. My husband told me later that my face had turned beet red.   The band plays the song, I am wrapped around my 7 year old, trying to keep him still so I can listen, and he's whispering loudly, "Mom, they said your name, Mom!"  The band finishes, I stand again and blow kisses to the teacher and clap.    There's a large contingent of my yearbook staff there, and they make a lot of noise too.

This has got to be the biggest birthday surprise I've ever had, next to the time when I was turning 7, and my older brothers and sister had persuaded me that my birthday was the next day, the 27th, not the 26th.  Even when my Mom served what I'd requested for a birthday dinner, I had no clue.  When she brought out the cake with candles lit and everyone started singing "Happy Birthday", I still sat with my mouth open and my chicken leg halfway to my mouth.  I kept saying, "It's not my birthday today, it's tomorrow" until my siblings had convinced me that yes, indeed, it was my birthday today.

So at intermission during the concert, I took my hyper boy outside to run around, and then my daughter comes running out and I catch her in a huge hug, told her it was a fantastic birthday surprise, I loved it, and she was a sneaky devil.  We laughed and I cried a little and we smooched.

The birthdays, they keep getting better and better.

I was little, slender, size 12!  I had energy, I could walk for miles and not get tired (because of having no money for a car, just the bus).  I actually wasn't doing so bad in the way of energy until about February, when my knee got ouchier, and I couldn't work out.  Now, I'm a limp noodle.

I just went for a walk in the Arboretum today with my brother and sister who are visiting from out of state.  Such flowers!!!  The azaleas and the rhododendrons are in full bloom, and the wisteria smelled so sweet.  Sigh.  But I kept shifting into lower and lower gear, slowing way down, stopping to rest on the benches more often.  I wanted to get off Azalea Way and head up the ridge to check out the mountainous rhodies, but I knew that I'd never make it back to the car.

Got some good photos, though.

My daughter gets spelling words every week, that she is to practice spelling by using the word in a sentence.  She's to practice her cursive as well.  Being my daughter, she decided to put all the words into one sentence.  Recently her spelling words were:  kangaroos, pizza, restaurant, broccoli, zucchini, spaghetti, ballet, raccoon, menu, beige, crayon, yogurt, antique, karate, bouquets, piano, violin, crayon, cassette, cafe, moccasins.

Here is the sentence she came up with:

I saw 2 kangaroos:  one eating at a pizza restaurant, eating broccoli, zucchini, and spaghetti with a ballet dancing raccoon looking at a menu and ordering a beige crayon with a topping of yogurt and antique, karate-chopping bouquets; the other playing a piano and violin with a crayon and a cassette at a cafe that sell moccasins.  IT WAS WEIRD!   (all grammar, punctuation, etc, are hers).  She got a 3 out of 4 for creativity.

I took a look at this, and decided I'd try to show her how to make a little more sense and have fun writing a story.  I used her sentence for inspiration, and this is what I came up with:

     I saw 2 kangaroos sitting at a table at a pizza restaurant:  they were eating a broccoli and zucchini pizza while watching a ballet-dancing raccoon perform on the stage.  At another table an elephant was studying the menus while the panda next to her was drawing a picture with a beige crayon while eating her plate of bamboo spaghetti.  The two zebras at the next table were eating their dessert of frozen yogurt, and one of them was also munching thoughtfully at the bouquet that sat on their antique table.
     Suddenly a lion burst into the restaurant and karate-chopped the piano and the violin with a great crash, and the musicians who had been playing for the dancing raccoon shrieked and ran, slipping quickly along the floor in their moccasins.
     The lion looked at all the other animals sitting frozen in shocked silence at their tables, and roared, "I hate that classical music!"  All the animals sprang to their feet, and neighing, braying and trumpeting, ran to the nearest cafe that had jazz music playing on a cassette player.
     Then I woke up.

That was fun!  So I told my daughter the next time she had spelling words, we would each work on a story that included those words.  She liked the idea.  What a way to inspire some writing!

And that I haven't posted on here since April.  I've been thinking of all kinds of stuff I want to post, yet it's not here?!  Could have sworn I'd typed in some of that stuff.....

And now, memory mostly fails me.  Must think.

Hmmm.

Not working.

Oh, well.  In other news, I get to stay at home all day today to wait for the inspector to do the final inspection on our house.  We had what we thought was to be our final inspection a couple weeks ago.  The inspector said we needed a whole-house fan, see, here it is on the plans, why didn't it get installed?  And oh, the microwave is supposed to vent outside, not out the front.  What?  The guy who sold you the microwave said it was okay?  Well, no, it isn't, and you'll have to fix it.  Disregarding the fact that directly behind the microwave is a supporting beam helping to hold up the ceiling, and going into the roof to vent it is going to be difficult because it's tucked in under the eaves, and there's barely enough room to fit your head, not even swing a hammer. 

So.  Husband installed the whole-house fan in just a couple of days.  Yay, husband!  Tries to do the microwave vent--tries various ways to vent the microwave.  Finally climbs out of the attic dripping with sweat and saying, we're hiring a professional.  Absolutely, I say.  No problem.  And sure enough we're able to get a professional out here this week, Monday in fact, and he builds a manifold in the back of his truck, and vents it out the wall, missing the soffits that Ed had missed completely when trying to make plans for venting.  And he does this in an afternoon, for a small fortune, but who cares? It's done!  We now have a neat little vent on the outside of the kitchen wall, and venting through the cabinet the microwave is attached to, and now on the rare occasions I burn anything (usually just something spilled on a burner)  we can vent it to the outside.  Yay!

Now, as I said, I get to stay at home to wait for the inspector.  I hope he comes soon, I'd rather like to work out today, and plant some birthday flowers in my mother-in-law's flower pot from last year, for a month-and-a-half belated present (also giving her a six-pack of a variety of fancy beer, because she likes beer).   The permit dies on Saturday, and we'd sort of like to get the final inspection done before then so we don't have to pay an untold and unknown sum (that probably totals in the hundreds of dollars) to renew the permit. I have lots of things to do.  I'm looking forward to most of them:  sew a hat for my mother-in-law (to replace the one I made her for Christmas that didn't work), make cookies or lemon pie, do the laundry, clean the bathrooms, work on some writing (yeah!), finish reading frabjouslinz's novel (I'm on page 85!), start reading bhagwan's novel, and vacuuming.    Hurray for lazy yet busy days at home!

Let's see, ten years ago I was 40.  I was trying my very hardest to be the best mom ever to my darling 13 month old red-haired daughter.  I was trying to keep busy outside the house, not just inside, because staying inside all the time made me insane.  I wasn't as patient, I wasn't as good a listener, she wasn't in preschool yet.

Now?  I am 50, and after a certain amount of medication and exercise and time, I am, I think, a pretty good wife, mom, writer, exerciser, volunteer, school worker, healthier cook, healthier eater.  I have found that I can still keep learning to change my bad behavior into better behavior.  I think I am doing well with both my children, now 11 and 7.  We're still cuddling and talking and working on homework together when necessary.  I'm still spending way too much time on the computer, but now I get paid on occasion to play computer games for a local company for an hour.  I'm still singing and flute-ing.  I love my husband so much, he's been so good to me and to the kids. 

I think I'm better than ten years ago, yes, indeed.

I volunteer my time at my kids' school.  I just finished putting together the yearbook, but I greatly enjoy tutoring the kids that need help with math, reading, and so on.  It's such a rush when I see that light come on the child's face, when they finally figure out a problem!   I volunteer at my church, my husband and I sing and play instruments in the choir, and I help make sandwiches for the missions as a substitute, when one of those tireless energetic silver-haired ladies is laid up.  I love to sing and play music, singing is part of praying for me.

I donate to both school and church, when we can.  Why school?  That's a no-brainer, our schools are so underfunded right now it's not funny.  Our teachers work incredibly hard, for the future of our kids, and the state is giving us less and less money.  Why church?  They do quite a lot of good with the money that's donated.  They put money into more schools, into the missions, into services for the poor, the homeless, the temporarily disabled.

I turned in the yearbook today to the printers.  AWRIGHT!  Yes, it was a lot of work. Yes, it was a lot of fun.  Yes, I'm doing it again next year.  Why?  I've learned my lessons.  Next year, the kids do all the grunt work, AND THEN I PROOFREAD THEM, then they get to paste it all up.  I'll keep the fun stuff: the collage pages, the club pages, etc, for me.  I just hope it turns out all right.  I also wish we could have an all color yearbook, but maybe next year.   Or the year after.

I have been working on this stuff every day for about two weeks.  Two weeks hunched over the table, running to the computer, typing like mad, print and tape.  Hardly any exercise, although I did start taking walks during the day the last few days.  Eating cookies to keep going, I'm too busy to make a meal but too hungry to make something healthy.

Talk about making your mistakes....I had to retype the class lists, and then correct them several times, and pull off the old stuff and put on the new stuff.  The double-sided tape is nasty and difficult to work with.  I had to rearrange three different pages of class pictures (they're supposed to be in alphabetical order).  I had to rearrange almost every page because I totally forgot about the retakes.  I had to go digging for last year's paste-up, so I could pull old staff photos for the staff that hates to get their picture taken (urrrghghghgh, big hairy pain in the neck). 

The hardest part was deciding which photos to use in the collages and the 'asides' in the class pages.  The yearbook committee took a bunch of great pictures, and the principal and one of the teachers took some great shots at the sixth grade camp out this year.  Not to mention, the editor of the last few yearbooks took some awesome photos of the school musical.  All of these photographers gave me dozens if not hundreds of photos--for only about 6 total pages of yearbook copy.  It's stinking hard to figure out what to keep, and what to give away.

We'll see what it looks like the first week of June.  Keeping my fingers crossed......

Sponge baths sound so icky.  Yuck, how can you get clean with a just a wet washcloth?  Eeeuuuww.  Give me a shower with lots of pounding hot water and soap and shampoo and suchlike.  They sound yucky until you can't shower, until you have steeped in your wretchedness because your doctor has said "don't get that wet" and you feel as though you could be a chemical weapon all by your lonesome.  Then, you fill a sink with warm water, then you get a clean washcloth, then you strip down and scrub unmentionable parts.  Then, sponge baths sound good. 

Took the dressing off yesterday.  Looks icky.  I was kind of scared to take off the ace wraps, they were my friend at that point, helped give me support and kept me from flexing my knee too much.  But incisions need air too, so off they came, per doctor's orders.  By day's end I was off the crutches and moving well.  Almost too well, had to move fast before supper and crunched a few things.  By the time I was serving supper it was hurting lots.  I have gotten tired of yelping in pain from sudden attacks, so I tried to tone it down. My yelp turned into a deep long low growl, which startled my daughter immensely.  So back to yelps. 

I still want naps at regular intervals.  I guess I'm sleeping poorly because the knee keeps waking me up.  Of course, having my cat walk on the knee didn't help keep me asleep, either.  

It's always interesting to go under, whether under the general anesthetic, or the short-term-memory drug they give for colonoscopies and such-like.  You're chatting, or looking around at an operating room, then all of a sudden you're waking up in a different room.  I guess I'd like a little warning:  "Hey, you're going to go away for a little while about....now".  

Having it be Easter weekend doesn't help, neither does the thought of shoveling all the yearbook stuff into the car in about an hour and keeping 12 fifth and sixth graders busy pasting up photos onto large sheets of plastic after school.  I have no energy because of lack of working out, and very little breath left to sing in choir.   And there's so many wonderful Easter songs!  that I like to sing descants on!  that I can't sing high on now because there's no air in my lungs!  Dang it!  And it's Good Friday services tonight, Vigil services tomorrow, and Easter Sunday on Sunday.  Please, Lord, help me get through this, one day at a time.  

It's minor surgery, in and out in a couple of hours.  Still, it's under general anesthetic, and that tends to give me a little tiny case of creeps.  Cross my fingers, I'll come out of this with a painless joint, or at least a more responsible joint that won't buckle or collapse on me with no warning.

Beautiful day again today, unfortunately I spent a good chunk napping. (It feels as though I'm coming down with something.  Please no, I don't need a runny nose and sore throat tomorrow!)   At least tomorrow after surgery I'll have an excellent reason/excuse for napping in the middle of the day!  Church in the morning, flute duet went nicely (beautiful minor-key song for Preparation). 

Gardening after nap, got some of the front yard cleaned up.  My poor supposedly perennial fuschia seems to be dead.  Perhaps I didn't water enough during the winter, but hey!  This is Seattle!  Who would think it necessary to water during the winter?!  I watered it thoroughly, sprinkled slug bait profusely, weeded and swept.  There's so much to do, it'll take the whole summer to recover from the winter neglect.

Early to bed, have to get up at 520 am to get to hospital by 6.  Urchk. 

I need to write more often.  I've got all kinds of stray thoughts here.

Beautiful day today.  Spent the morning watching a Harry Potter flick with my kids, the early afternoon at church rehearsing music for Easter week, and FINALLY got to spend several hours outside working in the garden.  Whee!  There's so much work to be done.  That's what happens when you're a fair-weather gardener, things back up and back up until it takes the whole summer to get it into shape.  Now my back's sore and my knee's really sore, but I've made a dent in the weeds.

I finally figured out why I've been short of breath the last week or so:  I've pretty much quit working out because of the knee.  This is a bad time for me to be running out of air, what with all the singing and flute-playing coming up next week.  I'm on for Good Friday, Saturday vigil, and Easter Sunday morning.  And I'm having knee surgery Monday, so working out is iffy.  But I'm going to try to do something!  Oxygen is necessary for the good things in life, or rather, all things in life.

I'm wondering what to do about the rest of my life.  I know, big topic, small space.  But I want to accomplish something, do something, be something more.  I've got a good 25 to 30 years left, I hope, and I'm not going to spend it doing housework and cooking.  Granted, I'll be doing that, but I want to do something else that matters more, as well.  There'll certainly be some more musing about that.....

Now I'm too tired. 

I was all jazzed up when I was grocery shopping after dinner.  I found a few things to put in our goody bag.  (Our goody bag is a selection of prizes for writing/incentives to write.  I got home, helped bring it all in, helped put it away.  Put the kids away (ahem) to bed.  Peeled out my contacts.  Sat down and wrote several dozen emails.  Played some word games on Facebook.  Now I'm pooped, and I need to go to bed.

All those great juicy ideas?  I still have them.  I'm too tired to write them down.  Maybe tomorrow.  I'm going to take a day off from subbing, if I can.  I have lots of things that need to get done.  Photos for the yearbook, that I have to get at two separate times at school.  Working out (totally necessary even if I have a bum knee).  I really should start the procedure to refinance.  Our payments are nasty high.  I need to mail one or two things.  I need to make some very important phone calls, oh yes.

Note to self:  don't play computer games during the day, they're just a frigging waste of time.

I was all ready to write something profound two hours ago.  But. 

But my sweet wonderful geeky husband finally upgraded my computer!!  Yay!!  Everything's faster now!!  Yay!!

But.  I have to re-enter all my secret code words and magic buttons, and I have forgotten them all.  All!  Because I was lazy and let Firefox remember for me.  This is why I don't have speed-dial.  Because how often do you dial from just one phone?  So my husband is amazed at my talent for remembering phone numbers.  All I have to do is dial it two or three times in a week and I've got it, more or less.

So anyway, I tried to log on here to LJ, and my user-name space was blank, and I couldn't for the life of me remember what my user-name was.  So I had to ask them to send it to me by email, and it took a long time, and I got distracted by playing word games with my Facebook buddies.  So I have forgotten what I was going to write.

Now I need to wait til tomorrow to write my deathless prose.  Dang.  And I'm going to be pooped, because I have a job tomorrow in a special needs class, all day.  And all I will want to do is crash in the recliner, recline, and sleep.  And I can't because Wednesday is Ed and KC Laundry Day, and that's 3 loads that need to get through the washer and dryer and be put away before we go to bed.   And my clean laundry from last week is still piled high on the chest at the foot of the bed.   So I have to go to bed now.  So I won't be so pooped when I get home from working.

I didn't do anything productive today.  Squat!  I didn't make it to church.  I didn't clean anything (well, yes, the kitchen, but that was totally necessary).  I didn't go anywhere (well, I did drop Sam off at his play-date).  I didn't do the grocery shopping.  I didn't do any laundry. 

I got up at 930, ate breakfast while reading a book, showered and got dressed, drove son to play-date, came home, read some more, played some computer games, read some more, ate the lovely dinner my husband prepared, read and played computer games some more. 

We had plans to take the family to the Science Museum.  I pooped out first, told the husband he could take the kids to the museum, he pooped out later.  

I did manage to make one important phone call, to the previous yearbook editor to get some important questions answered.  But now?  I feel as though I should start scrubbing the floor or dusting.  Can't vacuum, the kids are in bed.  It's 1045 pm, for pete's sake.  I should just go to bed and hope I have more energy tomorrow.  At the very least I shouldn't give myself any excuses about spending hours in front of the monitor.

I haven't worked out in a couple of weeks and I just know I've gained weight (my scale is broken so I'm not sure).  I have a 3-4 hour doctor's appointment tomorrow, and of course I've had two calls from the sub-finder for jobs tomorrow that I can't take, grrrrr.  How does it always know when I'm not available?   Grump, grump, grump.

There's only one thing to do:  make sure the rest of the week is much much more productive.

Here's a meme, for fun. 

Do as you will. 

I've been lazing around for several days, fighting off a flu bug my husband is determined to pass on to me.  Luckily, napping in the recliner most of the morning after seeing the kids off at the bus stop seems to be keeping me from getting really sick.  Unfortunately, I've been using this as an excuse to spend most of the rest of the day playing computer games.  Instead of being productive, such as making the hat I promised my mom-in-law's partner.  Making more papier-mache stuff.  Writing.  Working on the school yearbook, which will be getting under way tomorrow after school.  Writing.  Photography.  Writing.  Clearing clutter away.  Writing.

I'm thinking I should find a part-time permanent type-job that would bring in a steady income, so I could give myself a little pressure to get things done.  I found when I was in college I got more done when I had a heavy load of classes and a job.  I couldn't laze around and say, oh, I can do my homework any time.  Nope, I had to schedule my time, and get things done, because there wouldn't be a 'later'.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to give myself deadlines right now.  

It helps that my writer's group has started to work on some more writing exercises.  I should do some of these exercises at home.  Just to get my fingers and my head used to "turn on computer, go to OpenOffice, type away."

It's Ash Wednesday.  Maybe I'll use Lent to help me work.  

Oh, uh, why are my arms not going to like me in the morning?  I decided to get off my duff at 1030 tonight and get my heart rate up a bit, so I played tennis, bowling and boxing on the Wii.  Boxing was fun, had 4 knock-outs in a row, hee hee.  But all those sports are not good to the shoulders, ow.

I work as a substitute teacher's aide for the local school district.  They have an automatic system that calls subs until someone agrees to take the job for the day.  The problem is, it starts calling people at 530 am.  O dark hundred.  IN THE MORNING.  Which is way too early for me.  So I started taking the phone off the hook before going to bed, then putting it back on the hook before showering in the morning. 

Then I found out  that I could block out times or days online.  Yay, joy, rapture, now I don't have to worry about getting a really early wake-up call if I forget to take the phone off the hook!  So I set the time to start calling me at 630 am. 

Never got another call.  The system ignored me.  I did start getting calls from the live person in charge of substitutes, so I got in some days of work here and there.  Finally I took the block off online.  STILL didn't get calls from the system.  

Then last Friday, I finally get a call for Monday.  Yay, hooray.  Except I'm coming down with some horrendous bug.  By Sunday morning I have to go online to cancel the job I had for Monday. 

That afternoon the system called me for two more jobs for Monday, which I declined, then Monday morning I got three more job requests through the automatic system.  Then I got a call from the live person, and I was whining and moaning about getting calls when I was sick and couldn't work, why couldn't I get calls when I was healthy, by gum.  She put a note in the system to not call me any more for that Monday.

Now I'm healthy.  Am I getting any calls?   Noooooooo.