We made it (again!)

Yay!

Recovering from a physically hard but emotionally happy weekend, and so, for today's post, you get this:

Bring on December! (Holy crap, it's December!)

One more day to post,

and there was more than one day I didn't think I'd make it, but here we are. I'll check back with you tomorrow! (Remind me that I absolutely posatutely do not want to try NaNo Writing Month next year, like I thought I might. No. Maybe in April, but definitely not in November. The End.)

Pie for breakfast is healthy, right?

So, Thanksgiving was fabulous here (Until I sort-of passed out, while trying not to pass out, and thought I was being really discreet and all, but everybody started getting up and leaving. Oops.) ~ I hope it was fabulous for all of you too (minus the passing out part).

I am recuperating slowly, which means leaving bed only for necessities, and checking e-mail only for short periods of time that my fever is down and my brain is functioning, but today is so much better than yesterday that I just wanted to check in and say that I hope you are all having a great, restful, thankful weekend.

Be back manana (in one form or another).

Be As Well As Possible.

In anticipation

of needing some rest: Happy Black Friday, all!

Happy Turkey Day!

After we built (tore down and rebuilt) a block city today, Lil Girl and I threw our own Thanksgiving Parade. Using all of the little people, birthday cake characters, and happy meal toys from our various childhoods (there's been a kid around here continuously since 1976), we wound up with a Sesame Street float, a Lion King float, a Lil Mermaid float, a bunch of clowns, a Bambi float, about 6 other Disney themed floats and had Woody from Toy Story leading the whole thing. Block City residents really seemed to enjoy, as did she and I. Afterwards, Lil Girl decided to invite every single float, wrangler and character back to the main house for Thanksgiving dinner. Here's hoping that your Thanksgiving has a few less participants, so that you don't have to rebuild your house (again) to fit them all in.

Today is pie day

and I have just two things to say -

1_ Baking pies is a LOT easier with a stove that works. *I will try to take pictures before they get eaten tomorrow.

and

2_I am in need of a hot shower and a warm bed.


Happy Thanksgiving Eve, peoples. Wish you all the best tomorrow.

Dear TV

I have never "wondered who grew my soup*".


On the other hand, thank you, Bravo, for starting the West Wing over from the beginning. :Sigh: I miss the Bartlett White House.

Fox: just so you know, I know that your American Idol previews are going to be better than the actual season of American Idol, so I don't mind that you're playing them already.

Also, bring on the Christmas specials everysinglestationever, because I have a DVR and will watch them next week, when I am feeling the Christmas spirit. Why aren't there any Thanksgiving specials, btw? May I suggest Planes, Trains, & Automobiles? Those Aren't Pillows!"

Carry on.

Sincerely, NTE


* Campbell's Soup commercial;

had a sleepover this weekend

with this boy:



We had a great time, and played enough card games to make up for the weeks since we've been able to play. We played War and Fish and Bullshit (which, for age appropriate reasons, we call I doubt it!) and BlackJack and Poker. This boy is a bluffer, for sure, and I don't know where he gets it from, because I am the one who taught him to play, and I apparently suck at bluffing (at least, that's what my family says). He also likes to go "All IN!" while I prefer to wager discreetly and sneak up on people when I have a pile large enough to knock them out. But we had a lot of fun, regardless of our different playing styles.

At one point he was laughing so hard that he passed gas and, of course, because he's a 9 year old boy, started laughing even harder. When he finally stopped giggling, he said "Excuse me: I must have laughing gas." If you don't think that started another wave of laughter, then you don't know me at all.

Don't forget to check out all the the other MBSM, where Tracey has asked us to share our heart. This boy is certainly a large piece of mine. Happy Thanksgiving to all my (mostly) Monday readers - Hope you have a great week!

Sunday night

came awfully quickly: Hope you had a great weekend, and (if you're in the US), that you've got your Thanksgiving plans in order!

I always get about this far into NaBloPoMo, and wonder what the heck I was thinking: there's sleepovers and Thanksgiving and pies to make; there's birthdays to scrap for and Christmas presents to scout out; there's doctor's appointments and relapses and every single germ in creation headed straight for me. In other words, November is not exactly a stress free month - for any of us.

But then I remember that coercing myself to write everyday reminds me that I have a connection to people who don't just exist within 65 miles of my physical self. It reinforces the idea that there are other people like me, who are just trying to make it through their days, and we're all helping each other out. It forces me to think of something to talk about, allowing for the instances when all I have to talk about is how sucky something has been & promoting instances when glorious things occur. It gives me something to look back on with pride and accomplishment at having met a goal and overcome obstacles.

So here's to another day down, and 9 days to go.

I am home again

(home again, jiggety jog). It was a relatively minor issue, which, as usual turns into something bigger because I am me. Whatever. I am over it. Back home with the heating pads, whatever virus Lil Girl managed to wipe on me (she sneezed into my shirt the other day, instead of her own, and while I know that didn't make me sick, I doubt it made me any better either), and more DVR-ed West Wings, Offices, and last night's Daily Show & Colbert Report... Then I'm going to take the hottest shower ever and zone out. We have a shiny new stove that I get to make pies in next week, and that is happiness making, indeed.

That's my update, What's cooking for you guys?

NaBloPoMo

Just made it... am relegated to the pull out couch of death again, because new stove = gas pipe = smell... back tomorrow!

Stepped in it this time

Today I managed to start a big family brou ha ha, which only reminds me why I try not to talk to people and makes me wish I lived in one of those hibernation caves you hear so much about. (Minus the bears.) Long story short(ish) - my grandmother, uncle and littlest sister weren't going to come for Thanksgiving, only littlest sister (SisterK) didn't know that. When I told her, her response was "Why do they hate happiness?" and then she called them and asked them what was up. 5 phone calls, (at least) 3 sets of hurt feelings, and one "let's not let this shadow the holiday" later, they're coming for Thanksgiving. And they'll be happy (ish) about it!

No, seriously: I have no idea how things went off the rails in regards to that whole discussion, but they went waaaay off the rails, and just blah. I know we are champion avoiders, so it will all be forgotten(ish) and never discussed again, but in the meantime, it's just too much drama. The kind of thing I have labeled (in my head) Llama Drama, because it is just so unnecessary, and everything in my life must somehow be related to a book, even if, in most instances, it's a picture book.

After all the Llama Drama, I just want to never answer the phone (and I wasn't too keen on it before all this), but I will have to, I suppose. In the meantime, I'm going to watch the cast of Nine on Oprah and hope for some rousing musical numbers ("Be Italian happens to be one of my favorites, because it is so, totally my dad).

"And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all"

Yes: this -

WANTED: A partner for richer or poorer and for better or worse and absolutely, positively in sickness and in health. A partner for fishing and French food and beach walks and kayak trips, but also for phone calls from physicians with biopsy results. A guy who knows that while much of marriage is a 50-50 give-and-take, sometimes it’s more like 80-20, and that’s OK, even when the 80-20 phase goes on and on. A man who truly doesn’t care what somebody’s breast looks like after cancer surgery, or at least will never reveal that he’s given it a moment’s thought. A guy who’s got some comfort level with secretions and knows the value of a cool, damp washcloth. A partner who knows to remove the computer mouse from a woman’s hand when she types phrases like “breast cancer death sentence” in a Google search. And, most of all, a partner who will sit in a cancer clinic waiting room and hold hard onto the purse on his lap

Because, also? This -

"What did it feel like, I wondered, to be kissed like that right out in public? Not like some passionate tongue-wrestling thing, just a kiss to declare: We are each other’s. I’d never been kissed like that. No one had declared me his, not for the whole world to see, anyway." - Story Of A Girl

and this

“He wished he knew the name of the gods who’d looked down on him the day he’d met her. If he could stack everything he owned, had done, had accomplished, on one side of a scale, it still wouldn’t out-weight the gift of her.” - Memory In Death

(and, if you want to read more about "Real/Everyday/99%/Omega/Sandwich Heroes" check out this Smart Bitches thread.)

I know these guys exist ~> I'm lucky enough to have some examples in a few friends and family members, so I know it's not too much to wish for; someone who loves you best. (I just worry if it's feasible for me, but I guess everybody does.)

Except for the punching, some pretty good advice.

Just can't get it together again here, people: My Best Shot Monday photo is stuck in my camera, and my energy is nil. So I decided to give you some of the most recent quotes that have caught my attention & go back to the West Wing marathon my DVR so kindly saved for me.

“If exhaustion were a tangible object, something you could point to and say, "Look, there's my tiredness," mine would have it's own orbit. It would glow red in the night sky and be feared by villagers and prophets alike. Virgins, no doubt, would be sacrificed to it.”

From “Looky, Daddy” blog

"The only real way to get at how much real pain a person is in is to ask them and trust them. The danger of not believing people is much greater than the danger of overprescribing opioids. The big challenge we have is educating medical doctors. Politicians are even harder, but medical doctors are also thick as bricks." .

Jeffrey Mogil, PhD; From O Magazine, April 2009

"I ate a lot of widower food: peanut butter sandwiches, cereal, frozen steak burritos. I heated the burritos in the oven and if they didn't come out thoroughly defrosted I said, Hell, what's the difference, and crunched through the frost. The hungry feeling and the lonely feeling merged until it was hard to tell them apart. I stopped cooking. Couldn't stand the idea of it. Who would eat it? Who would notice? Who would care? ... But there's still hunger. The sun goes down and there are quick decisions to make."

Love is a mix tape; Life and loss , One Song at a time by Rob Sheffield

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.

-- Buddha

The to-read pile is more than just a physical stack of books: it's a tower of ambitions failed, hopes unrealised, good intentions unfulfilled. Worse still, it's a cold hard reminder of mortality. Already, I have intentions to read more books than I can hope to manage in a normal lifetime. How will this pile of books taunt me when I'm 64?"

Perils of the TBR

Everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that they are all alone in the world, and that nobody loves them now and that nobody will ever love them, and that they will never have a decent night’s sleep again and will spend their lives wandering blearily around a loveless landscape, hoping desperately that their circumstances will improve, but suspecting, in their heart of hearts, that they will remain unloved forever. The best thing to do in these circumstances is to wake somebody else up, so that they can feel this way, too.

- Lemony Snicket

In the Schrute family we believe in a five-fingered intervention. [raises fist] Awareness. Education. Control. Acceptance. And punching.

— Dwight Schrute, The Office

Ah, to be this organized...

Not feeling better today, so please enjoy pictures of bookcases - not ours, unfortunately, as the not feeling better has extended to still not getting the books any further than random piles on the floor - but ones from various tumblrs and whatnot. Bookcases... drool.

Via the blog on the bookshelf




Via FYReading

Via Infinite Butterflies

Check back tomorrow for things that make sense

I dared to venture out of the house last night, and am definitely paying for it today. I am lucky enough to hear things like "You look like you are hungover" without ever getting to experience the being fun (?) of actually drinking. Headaches, dry heaves, body aches, noises that are too noisy, lights that are too bright ~ just my normal recuperation period, basically. It was nice to be out - seeing my sisters while wearing something other than my pajamas; getting bubbles blown at us by the famous (probably only in Cambridge) Bubble Lady; embarrassing SisterK by having the waiters attempt to sing Happy Birthday (wow, they did such a bad job) - but it sucks to have to pay for it. To realize that (most likely due to whatever bug I am still trying to fight off already) the hours out/suffering afterwards ratio is definitely not tipping in my favor. Oh well: what's done is done, and we almost wound up with a leprechaun's jacket, so it was worth it.

Oh, also: I am so glad that you all liked the MILAs ~ I could spend forever reading those! I know they basically show that I am a big geek, since more than half of the ones I save are related to Harry Potter or things like that, but if you spend any time here, you already know that anyways. :)

Average Lives

All of these amusing little anecdotes are recent postings from My Life Is Average (which I have been calling "My Life Is Awesome", simply because it seems much more apt). If you haven't been over there, you should check it out - these are just a few of my favorites lately, but there are about 50 new posts a day, and there's usually 2 or 3 that give me a little chuckle. Enjoy yourself flipping through them... but beware: Time Suck Major!


Today, my liitle sister was playing barbies in her room. When I walked by all I heard was "First, my ninja barbies, we are going to destroy Hannah Montana and her awful music, and then we will take over the world!" I don't know whether to be terrified or extremely proud. MLIA

Today, while in my mother's 2nd grade classroom, I was looking at the bulletin board. It read "Believe in Yourself" and each student had to write one goal they wanted to achieve down. While most kids wrote "i can run faster" or "i can reach my reading goal", one child put down "i can hug a penguin". MLIA

Today, my sister and I turned our yard into the Godric's Hollow cemetery. We made headstones for all the important characters that had died in the Harry Potter books and played music from the Harry Potter soundtracks. Tonight, when I opened my front door to greet some trick-or-treaters, a young Harry Potter was weeping by his parents' gravestone in my front yard. I gave him the rest of the candy. MLIA

Today I dressed up as Gandalf and went to work. I was late. When I walked in my boss said "you're late", to which I replied "a wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to." I didn't get in trouble. MLIA.

Today, I was in a large corn maze and began to be bored. To change this, I decided to yell "Marco!" at the top of my lungs. Off in the distance, I heard a single person yell "Polo!" back equally as loud. We continued for an hour and a half until I found her. We now have a date set up for tomorrow. MLIA.

Today, I was was at work (I teach kindergarten) when I noticed a little boy trying to steal a girl's barbie doll. I was about to go break up the argument when the girl yelled "Swiper no swiping!" the boy yelled "OH MAN" and walked off. Thank you Dora for teaching kids proper self defense.

Today, I was walking around school and I noticed a blue paw print taped to the wall. Intrigued, I removed it and looked around for the culprit. A student in a large blue dog costume peered around the corner, put a finger to his lips and promptly disappeared. I have never been more confused and excited in my life. MLIA

Today, it was our Year 12 Assembly, where everyone dresses up and we run the assembly ourselves for the rest of the school. One of my friends dressed up as the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland, and during the Principal's speech to us, he yelled out "CHANGE PLACES!!!" 1500 students got up and ran to a different seat, and the Principal continued with his speech and acted nothing happened. MLIA

Today, I realized that the Clapper does not only respond to clapping, it also responds to any exceptionally loud noise. It may be a bit noisy around here, now, but lights come on when I scream 'Lumos!' and that's all that matters. MLIA

Today, during SSR (silent sustained reading), I pulled out a book by Dr. Suess and began to read. Apparently the cute guy next to me was reading over my shoulder, because at the end of the book, he sighed and said to me, "I love happy endings." I'm in love. MLIA

Today, my friends and I were walking down the hall in a straight line across when one of my friends stopped and rearranged the order we were walking in. I didn't realize what he was doing until I noticed that our shirts were now in rainbow order. We're best friends for this reason. MLIA.



These are SO my people.

Well, today is Thursday (as opposed to Tuesday, when I just thought it was), but I don't get my four days off: we have Lil Girl tonight for a sleepover (her first in a very long time) because her other grandmother has to have day surgery tomorrow, and we're helping out. Of course, I'm also supposed to go out to dinner for SisterK's birthday, so we'll see how that goes. For tonight though, we've got a movie to watch, some mashed potatoes boiling, and Lil Girl is going to have her first bubble bath at the new house: sounds good to me.

(And then later, I'll have The Office to watch< so that's awesome too. )

Thank You

Last year on Veteran's Day, I posted a picture of my father , circa 1980 something, during one of his many tours of duty. He was in the United States Navy from 1978-1993 (? on the ending date), and it's one of my favorite pictures of him, even though I don't have any idea when/where he is in the picture. I was lucky enough to get the picture from three of his on-ship buddies when we met with them a few years back, & they couldn't remember where they might have been (although the consensus was that it was probably the Mediterranean). My father passed away 10 years ago, and our relationship was incredibly complex. But those men remembered him, and thought well enough of him to try to look him up 15-20 years after they had served together. They thought well enough of him to contact my brother, my sister and I and to arrange a meeting with us, after they found out he had died. They brought us pictures and stories and I will always appreciate them for doing it, because so many of my happy memories of my daddy have long been overshadowed by some of his more atrocious behavior during his last years on earth. Regardless of all that, though, I do know that he served his country well and that he worked diligently for many of his years in the service.

I have always been proud to be a sailor's daughter, even when I wasn't proud of the sailor himself. I have pictures of his burial at sea, a few pictures of him in his uniform, but instead I'm going to choose another picture that his friends gave us when we met them. Here he is in the tiny little quarters on ship, being a goof:



My family has a long history of service, actually: My Nana's father was in the Navy, and served during World War I aboard the USS Mt Vernon. Originally a seized German ship, the Mt Vernon was torpedoed by the Germans in September of 1918, while James (my great-grandfather) was serving. Although luckily uninjured, he was sent back to the US following the attack, and served at a Naval Hospital (which is, coincidentally, right around the corner from the new house) near Boston until he was discharged. Here is a photo of the ship's crew I found online - He's in there somewhere:



And here he is up close, in uniform:



My other maternal great-grandfather, (my grandfather's father) also served during what his discharge papers call "The World War" as a Wireman and a Private in the United States Army from 1917-1919. (Unfortunately I don't have any photos of him in his uniform, and actually only two or three pictures of him at all.) And his son, my mother's father, my Papa, served in the Army during WWII: All I know about his service is that he was a driver in a convoy going up the narrow mountain roads (in Northern Africa, maybe?) and the truck in front of him was hit, and drove right over the edge of the mountain. When he came back from the war, he never drove again. Here he is at the very end of the chow line (and not nearly as excited as some of his fellow troops):

On my father's side, three of his brothers served in various armed forces; all of my great-uncles and two of my great-aunts served during WWII (my Grandfather was the only child (of 7) who could not); Both of my Grandmother's brothers fought during the Battle of the Bulge - One of her brothers was a medic, and later told her that his biggest fear was that he would be running through the battlefield and be called to a soldier only to see it was his brother - thankfully that did not happen, and they both made it back safely; And the oldest American Veteran in my family (that I am aware of) was my great-great-Grandfather - my Grandmother's grandfather - who was killed in a flash flood after enlisting in the Union Army.

I'm lucky enough now that none of my uncles, aunts or cousins are serving any longer, but I can remember how scared I was during the first Gulf War, knowing that my father was over there serving. I can specifically remember flipping off the Nintendo one afternoon and CNN was on, and they were showing the live bombings, and I was frozen in fear, worrying that one of those fighting might have been my father, and that something horrible could happen to him. I cannot explain how much gratitude I have for those who are serving, and for their families. Today and always: Thank you.

It is Tuesday,

and all day long I've been thinking it's Thursday. Both are Lil Girl days, which can explain some of the confusion, but one comes later in the week, meaning that I have the possibility of four days off in a row. Today is not that day. Today is Tuesday, which means I have only tomorrow off, if I am lucky, and that does not seem like enough for me, right about now. Actually, right about now, I would like to take a 12 hour nap, but since it is not Tuesday circa 1998, that is so not going to happen. My fatigue lately (and, as always, I have to laugh at the utter uselessness of a word like "fatigue" to describe the exhaustion I am suffering from) is irrefutable, and I spend a lot of my time afraid that I might be sliding backwards into the hell of previous years. The times where I couldn't be around other people at all, because their presence - their noise, their smells, their movement - made me sicker. The times where I would spend weeks and months in bed, just unable to sit up at all, unable to roll over or drag myself to the bathroom. I know I am not there yet, but there are just more and more days when I can not accomplish anything - where turning on the computer takes up my allotted energy resource for the day, and then I have to wait 6 hours until I can write anything; where craving and caring and wishing for an extra ounce of oomph are the only things I manage to cross off my to do list; where trying to figure out what the hell Colbert is talking about is beyond me. Physical and mental 'fatigue' are just normal states for me, my new normal, and I hate it when any little thing gets worse, and I have to try to adjust every other damn thing. Laying around without stretching or moving at all makes the pain worse, but I don't have any stamina for moving or stretching. Not eating throws off my pill schedule, which can make the dizziness, or the pain, or the vertigo worse, but I need to have enough energy to make a food. To eat a food. To not throw up a food.

I feel ridiculous for even mentioning it right now, because it's only like a minuscule worsening of things: I still got a bunch of stuff accomplished this weekend, I watched Lil Girl today and made slice and bake cookies - I know it is not at horrible, scary levels yet. It's just that every little thing, every tiny slip backwards, reminds me that I am not in control of my body (not really, anyways), that even if I do every.single.thing. I know how to do to manage my diseases and prevent worsening, things can still happen. I can get viruses and my tonsils can swell up and prevent me from breathing. Thirteen consecutive nights without sleep can cause me to fall and bang my face on the corner of something hard, and my POTS gets worse. I can just do everything right, and still wind up sicker. And that is a bitter pill to swallow, no matter when I am swallowing it. (And then, I also realize that this is true for everybody, and I think I should get over myself. Bah. )

This is a picture of SisterK, from earlier this year, back when I was spending the summer at Grandmother's house. We were corrupting our nephew teaching Youngest Nephew to play poker using pretzel sticks and marshmallows. We had a ball that day, not only because Youngest Nephew rocks at poker and decimated SisterK's snack pile (see photo of the devastation below), but also because SisterK is usually phenomenally busy, and so having some family time was pretty amazing. (Just as an example of how busy she is, the day after I took this photo, she flew to San Fransisco for 4 days, then Colombia for 3 weeks. After that she taught at an extremely intense private summer school program, until the first weekend of September, when she went back for her Junior (!) year at Harvard. Like I said: very busy.) Today is SisterK's 21st birthday, and so MBSM is this shot of her, rocking the mini pretzel sticks, being her awesome self. (The completely decimated photo is just a little bonus, because it makes me laugh that a 9 year old, playing his first game of poker, can out-bluff my worldly baby sister.)


Have a great week, everybody!

Intimidation

That is the inside of my computer, which I never want to have to see again. The computer is currently running fine - cool, even, for the first time in forever. I am going to just keep my fingers crossed (not while typing) that we have cleared everything up, and it will all be fine and dandy. The End. No more NaBloPoMo posts about the state of my computer, thank you very much. I am sure you all agree.

Just to prove

that all sorts of electric equipment hates my guts, today, the carbon monoxide detector went off. Repeatedly, and ear-splittingly. (It is much louder than even the smoke detector: Who knew?) And then it told me we were all dying because the CO was at 900 ppm. A good number is less than 35. So we had to call the fire department, and they told us that it was just malfunctioning, because their meters had it at 0-2.

On the plus side, my dad and I dismantled my computer, and then put it back together. and now it's working, and I am pretending that it will continue to do so. There was a hunk of dust trapped between the fan and the vent, and of course, to get to it I had to take EVERY SINGLE SCREW out, and remove the keyboard and the entire back, and the motherboard. I am not brave, and doing these things made me want to cry, but I figured I couldn't be any worse off. And now, my lap is not catching on fire as I type, and the computer is staying on. These are good things.

Tomorrow, maybe we'll replace the stove - the one that came with the new house - because the electrical system in it doesn't work - banana bread at 350? Normally is supposed to take an hour. I baked for 3.5 hours the other day, and it was still raw-ish in the middle. It beeps, randomly, all night long. Of course, I am the only one on this floor, so it doesn't bother anybody but me. Awesome sauce.

Sorry guys: Another measly paragraph of a post today, since the computer has cut me down to 6 minutes at a go, and I spent most of the day trying to figure out how to get the fan out, only to find out that I have to go from the keyboard down, instead of the bottom up. Basically, they make it as ridiculously difficult as possible, so that you don't really have much of a choice but to take it to somebody to get it fixed. But - if at all possible - I am not going to spend $200 for the guy to tell me there's some dust or hair trapped in the fan. I'm going to have to ask for help, which is a complicated issue for me. It is something that I absolutely avoid as much as is humanly possible, because I feel like I ask for too much help that I don't have a choice in, health wise. It's like I can't ask for anything else, because I've used up my share of goodwill or that because I can't contribute as much as I would like to, I can't then turn around and ask for help. It's just one of my issues, and I'm going to have to suck it up here, because I definitely can't do it on my own. I didn't even think I'd get this up, but I asked my sister for her laptop, and here I am.

I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully. I'm not going to stress of NaBloPoMo, though: It's not a huge deal, and I'm just going to do what I can.

Happy Doc Brown Day!

Now go be a Genius; just try to do it without banging your head on the toilet.

(About the shutting down -> I think it's the overheating thing again - the underside of the laptop is scalding hot, and I don't hear the little fan thing going round and round the way it should. That's what I get for saying that my computer problems weren't that serious. Now I have to figure out if it's worth paying to get it fixed or not. Sigh.)

Of course,

after yesterday's post, about how my computer was fine, it shut down, unexpectedly (and for no. good. reason.) twice today. So instead of the long rambling post I was working on, you're going to get this (2?3?5?) sentences paragraph that I am hustling out to you before the whole thing collapses again. I am hoping it just got overheated... that happens sometimes, and maybe that's what it was. But I can't push my luck here, as far as NaBloPoMo goes.

Hip Hip... Boo.

My poor, 4.5 year old computer has been running so obscenely slow lately, and I didn't exactly know why. Ok: That's not entirely true... I did know that there were a lot of pictures on here. When I packed up all my stuff in April (and still have yet to unpack a good 3/4 of it), I loaded a bunch of pictures on here beforehand.. a lot as in, about 20 years worth of scanned pictures, to share with Grandmother. And since then, I've taken about 1500 more (a lot of them horribly atrocious, but I don't delete. WHY don't I delete? I have no idea.) Usually, I upload them to my computer, then onto a DVD & my back up drive, and then erase them off the main drive. But lately, between feeling like crap, and having a million of things that I have to do (like unpack that remaining 3/4 of a life; start/finish people's birthday presents/christening presents from 2 years ago, etc), the backing up of something that is already sort of done has just not happened.

This picture is a screenshot breakdown of my computer files, and I think it does a pretty good job of showing why my computer is running so slowly: All that blue? Those are pictures. They take up an outrageously large portion of my hard drive, (87.3 GB out of 1 MB - Full of pictures) and it's a wonder I can get anything accomplished at all on here. The next largest chunk of color - those reds? That's my music library. Which also needs intense whittling.

I am not sure if I am glad about this news or not: On the one hand, I had been thinking I would have to buy a new computer soon, because it takes me 45 minutes to get Firefox to load and makes me want to cry. So realizing that all I really need to do is sit my butt down and get some stuff deleted is great, because I can't really afford a new computer. But it also kind of sucks because A) I don't want to do a lot of boring erasing and B) I would, in fact, like a new computer. But I am also very cheap/poor, and I know I won't buy it if it can be put off. Which, apparently, if I actually do the work, it can be.

So hooray for figuring out what the hell is wrong, but boo for actually having to fix it, basically.

Halloween Best Shots

I'm assuming that the majority of today's MBSM will be Halloween related, and I am so excited ~ I love to see all the costumes!

As for our Halloween, Lil Girl and Youngest Nephew came over early and spent the day hanging out with us... I miss spending time with Youngest Nephew now that school has started back up, and was so glad to see him. His sister was in a pretty nasty mood for part of the day (Sharing; what's that? Standing still so that Auntie can get a good picture: Que es esta?), and nobody understood my costume at all (Oracle; but nobody knows who the heck she is), but the majority of the day went well, nonetheless.




Youngest Nephew wasn't feeling particularly inspired this year, and wore his Army man costume from last year (and the year before), but with additional weaponry (yippee). Lil Girl was going to be a cat; then she wanted to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz (because it came with a little stuffed dog), but while we were at the store, she saw this Dora the Explorer costume and decided she had to be Dora - because of Backpack (who she calls "Pack Back") - Lil Girl is all about the accessories. (There were a lot of comments in our family, about her being a little blond Dora, but I thought she looked adorable... I do wonder how many people she had to explain the costume to, though.)

We had more trick or treaters this year, in our new house, than I've had in the past 5 years at the old house, and were lucky enough that we had a bunch of older candy hiding in the cupboard, or else we would have run out of candy before 7 o'clock.

Now I'm off to see what everybody else did this weekend!

It's November...

And we all know what that means: It's NaBloPoMo again!

It's time for an overflow in Google Readers, an influx of random postings, an avalanche of "what the hell do I write now"s!

I'm actually excited to be participating in my fourth annual NaBloPoMo, because I have a million half-posts which have been brewing in my brain (and in the draft folder) for too long, and for the sake of actually finishing them, having a deadline is probably a good thing. Which means you'll finally get my post on the new XMRV findings, a few posts about ableism that I've been trying to hammer out the details on, some of my thoughts on the blogosphere, more than a couple of posts with some pictures, and probably a ton of quotes, because that's the kind of mood I've been in lately.

And I'm going to do my best to comment (at least) once a day too, this month, giving myself a new goal to meet. I feel like I've been reading so many good posts, and then clicking away without saying anything. Mostly because it feels like all I have to say is "Me too" or "Totally THIS.", and those feel inadequate to me. But following a recent discussion with a fellow blogger, I realize that when I get those comments, they mean the world to me, so leaving them is worthwhile, even if it doesn't feel like it.

So there we go: Two goals, thirty days, and a blogger who feels like setting goals might be akin to tempting fate, but is going to do it anyways.

Deep breaths, everybody; deep breaths.