Hey, cold!

You've been here for over a week. Changing from a head cold to a chest cold doesn't turn you into something new, so you can hang out longer. Go away! I need to be healthy now.

No love in the very least,
me

Ah, the return of an old tradition: the little head cold that hangs out and turns into a nasty chest cold. How fun, hacking up one's lungs.

As little fun as this is for me, I feel worse for poor albionwood who has to listen to all the hacking and wheezing and nose-blowing and general grunts and moans of malaise.

The wind slowed down to merely annoying yesterday, and since I was feeling better, I was stupid and went out and did some work. Three tanks of gas later, I put the weed eater away and felt great, for about half an hour when the coughing restarted and would not stop. Thank science for really good night time medication.

Since yard work is not a good idea, maybe I'll finish cutting out a pattern. Surely, the stupid cold will put up with that.

Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org

Meh. Still sick. I am never farther than a few feet from boxes of tissues. My voice is raspy. I cough all the time. Sleep is accomplished via the marvels of pharmaceuticals. Yes, you may feel sorry for poor albionwood, for he is being wonderful about trying to take care of Her Grumpiness.

Luckily, I guess, the weather here is terrible. The wind keeps us and the dogs inside. The chickens have to cope. There was a brief stab of guilt this morning, when I had the asinine idea that I ought to go outside and try to use the new weedeater to mow down the grass by the poultry yard. That passed quickly when I walked outside just as one of the 30mph+ gusts tore by the house. Nope. Time to hang out inside and get healthy.

Have managed a lot of quality time with Yuri 2's draft. I think it has a real ending now, not the weird author walks away one.

Still knitting the top-down sweater project, which has to be the most tedious sweater ever. I prefer knitting over purling, but this is all knitting all the time for skeins and skeins and skeins. I keep measuring it, hoping I've reached the right length, but there are always more inches yet to knit. Might pick up the stitches along the arms just to make something happen more quickly on this very dull project. Ribbing socks will now seem interesting (and I hate the endless ribbing on socks).

I cannot seem to read. This sucks. This also tells me that I'm not healthy and that my brain is screwed up. There seems to be no end of mom stuff to call on/fight about/write checks for/etc.... I wish I could walk away from the property and the bank accounts, but a) that would be stupid, b) it would infuriate my mom were she around to express her opinion, and c) I hate giving up. Reading all the crap that got sent to her has been an eye-opener. What a lot of evil predators there are out there. She got phising mail that was really tailored for her. All of the stuff that has a prepaid envelope gets returned with "deceased. Please remove from your mailings." but most of these scams only include an envelope and some really slimy text.

For everyone celebrating Memorial Day this weekend, I hope you have a great long weekend. This marks the official beginning of one of my favorite seasons: garage sales! However you celebrate, have a grand time.

Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org

Maker Faire almost did me in. Way, way too many people crowded into the San Mateo fairgrounds. The main hall with all the tables of neat things to learn and see was nearly impassable by two. It was bad enough with all the people, but those SUV double-wide strollers were too much. The people shoving those things around have no clue about how much room they're taking up, or more likely, they don't care.

Compared to the Faire two years earlier, this one wasn't as exciting. I attribute a lot of that to the fact that it wasn't all shiny and new this time, but there didn't seem to be as many places to plunk yourself down and learn a technique. I did get a lesson in basic book binding, which was pretty cool, but I'd hoped that Lion Brand yarn would be back and I could maybe finally get crochet drummed into my head. The tent of soldering had a line way out across the blacktop. I guess the damming point was there was no good coffee. We tried Ritual Coffee and a kiosk and both were terrible.

I wonder if Sundays are a better option, although a lot of the freebies would be gone and we loves us our silly stickers, tote bags, cards, and what-nots.

And, yes, we did see the eclipse, or as much as you can say you saw something via a paper tube capped on one end with aluminum foil and the other with white paper. We stopped three times to watch the bite on the sun grow.

To whomever shared this nasty cold with me, I sure wish you hadn't. Chills, fever, nothing tastes right, and I can't focus on much of anything due to the sinus dumb. Sick girl is going back to the couch and those nice, heavy blankets.

Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org

The first iced tea experiment -- which is terribly misnamed as there was no ice involved -- went okay. Eight teabags in two liters of water possibly over-steeped, because I got involved with feeding and medicating the dogs and making dinner. The end result was too tannic, but with a little extra water, it wasn't awful. Maybe, considering my tendency to be distracted by other tasks, next time will involve fewer teabags. Still, not-iced tea!

First Mother's Day sans mom was really weird. I've never been a fan of the Hallmark Holidays, and since we've moved to our rural area where the next holiday isn't displayed for weeks ahead of the date, I've been marked as a bad daughter on more than one occasion when I missed the clues for Mother's Day and was late with a card/flowers. Funny how this year I knew exactly when the holiday fell, and this year, there was no mom. I know this will get easier, but I'm kinda down. Still working my way through notifying all the various agencies that she's dead. Today was the power and the water company. The trash company was having computer problems, so I'm supposed to call back tomorrow. I'm going to let the home/car insurances ride until the end of the month, and the cable/phone, too.

On a happier note, I moved a large shelving unit out of the laundry room and stocked it with all of the canning projects I could find. There's an entire shelf devoted to just pickles, another that's all chicken and vegetable stock, the bottom shelf has pears and peaches, while the top shelf isn't holding its own with just a few jars of pickled beets. Wow, there's a lot of food! Makes me wish there was an easy way to display all of the sausage we've made that's in the freezer.

Working my way through Yuri 2 on my way to starting Yuri 3. I'm about a third of the way through. I've hopes that, by the time I'm finished, my concentration and creativity will be back. Got homework to read and a couple of plot problems to fuss with before I can settle in and write. That'd be normal, right? Normal would be a nice thing.

Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org

After years of not drinking it, I want to drink iced tea. Seems weird, since our high temperature is going to hover around 60F for the foreseeable future, but I want tea!

The problem is I'm lousy at making it. I've read through several recipes that Google found, but thus far, I haven't found one that's for two quarts of tea that's going to be kept in the 'fridge until finished. The last time I tried to make sun tea, I made a liquid that greatly resembled paint thinner, and that was when I lived somewhere where it got hot, not here.

Anyone have advice? No mixes please. They're all too sweet for me. I like plain, unsweetened tea, with or without lemon.

Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org

I have spent most of today either waiting for a banker or talking to one. I can't say it was a waste of a beautiful spring day, but man, it sure felt like it.

For those folks making notes: talk to your aging parents and get them to set up at least one of you with a power of attorney on both the monetary and the medical sides. That won't be a fun discussion, but doing it now, while your parent(s) are healthy, will make everyone else's lives easier later.

Part of our problem is because we had a new banker set things up in February. She made a mistake, which is now causing us problems. Nothing we can do about it, so, well, damn. Probate, here we come.

As we didn't get home until doggy dinner time, not much else has been accomplished today. My back is quite happy about that. I think at least another day of no weeding is in order. Meanwhile, the grass and weeds are sprinting toward the sun. And, seeing as both the the riding mower and the weed eater are out of commission, that race will be unopposed for the nonce.

I foresee a quiet evening of some knitting, a movie, and some reading, all of which can be accomplished while flat on my back. Oh, yay. (sigh)

Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org

Dear back,

I know that I've been flailing toward normalcy, but did you have to get cranky in an attempt to help me reach that state?

No love,
me

I guess my back didn't like all the weeding. It's a pity, really, since there's a real visceral satisfaction when you rip out weeds. Three days was two too many. I didn't pick up the "Hey, stupid!" memo last night. Might be an I&I sort of night. Or maybe an early whiskey and an Ibuprofen before bed.

Contacted social security, the culinary union, and Teamsters. Teamsters will send me paperwork eventually. The bank wants probate papers, which the Nevada probate lawyer says we don't need, and the bank won't let us talk to the mysterious forces that be. Meanwhile, the bills keep arriving. I would scream and kick things, but I'm fairly mellow after a glass plus of wine.

I must be getting some of my concentration back. Finished "Explosive Eighteen" by Janet Evanovich in the Stephanie Plum series. Three hundred pages of no real plot, no character development, a few funny lines, and a feeling that I'll never get those hours back. Comfort re-reading "Girl Genius." I think I'm on volume eight. Avoiding "The New Nobility" by Soldatov (Russian non fiction about what's happened to the KGB post Fall). Elliptical reading is a catalog from the spy museum. I'm trying to get myself back on track to work on Yuri 3.

Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org

We buried my mother yesterday, Thursday. ( how not to have a funeral )

Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org

Death is all phone calls and paperwork. ( Read more... )

Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org

My mother died Tuesday, just before dinner. ( dealing )

Cross-posted from dreamwidth.org