Life Viewed Through an Amber Focus

I am back from Virginia Mason and the news is very good.

( My Weekend So Far )

Thanks to everyone who tried to help me with the issue of LJ signing me out all the time.  Well, I uploaded the most recent version of Firefox (had an older one) and now LJ isn't signing me out anymore.  I don't really like IE9 much anyway (though I really liked IE8 and was resentful when I had to upgrade it in order to make my banking software work because it lost a couple of features that I used all the time.  Firefox doesn't have that exact feature but it does, I found, having something similar that serves the same purpose, so yay.  It is weird though.  Everything is fat, like it is in IE9 when you're in compatibility mode.  I'm sure I'll get used to it.


So is LJ still having brain freezes when it comes to editing and posting LJ cuts and embedding media, putting everything where you don't want it to go?  I don't even want to attempt to post a fic until that is straightened out.  Not that I've finished a chapter, but I am hopeful that I will have one ready this weekend, but I don't want to play LJ's reindeer games.


Now I just have to go read the instructions for returning the new so-called improved yahoo mail back to classic, that someone (Dev?) was kind enough to send me.  You know, sometimes an upgrade is not a grade up AT ALL.


Chris took Tobias to orientation at the middle school today.  I can't believe my little boy is starting sixth grade.  8th graders had it yesterday and 7nth graders this morning.  No one has been in this school since it burned down so it's like going to a totally new school for all three grades, since it burned when the 8th graders were in 5th grade.  It is so gorgeous on the outside now.  They kept the concrete frame but put in all new windows and painted it white and it's just lovely.  It no longer looks vaguely like a prison.  It'll be open to the public on the 1st so I will go see it that day. 


I managed to lock my lower back up on Friday (I think it was from using the electric wheel chair for several hours at the Fair) and it's just starting to get to the point now where I can walk without wanting to shoot things, so another week and it should be better.  Lots of ice on it meantime and forcing myself to at least walk up and down the driveway a few times a day and do some stretches and minor back strengthening exercises slowly.  Friday I am allowed back into the pool and to start moderate exercise as the incision has healed.  That will help with my back.  So will the hot tub.


Chris and I are thinking about discontinuing our health club membership.  I hate the machines there, you have to adjust them to every new person who uses them.  I much prefer hydraulic ones you don't adjust at all.  Since the kids are back in dance and tae kwon do respectively and we don't use the pool too much in the fall/winter because someone always has a cold, DH and I are thinking about getting seperate memberships instead, him at a much cheaper club next to the tae kwon do studio so he can work out while T has class and me at Curves (which I've done before and really liked, but had to quit when I messed up my knee a few years ago).  The PT has okayed the equipment they have there except one machine that I will have to skip.  Coincidentally it was the only machine I ever hated.  If we decide we want to use a pool there is always the city pool.  Paying a few bucks to go swim once or twice a month will be better than keeping such an expensive gym membership that we have barely used this summer because of my surgery.


Speaking of my surgery, it is looking more and more like I may not need the other one.  Which would really be amazing.  It would mean I could totally be up on my feet again and stay there without getting knocked down again in November.  Of course if I don't need it then I won't have an excuse to get out of jury duty again and will have to serve.  If I am feeling good that might be fun.  But I would really have to build the strength in my back up again.  After several weeks on bedrest those muscles have weakened and sitting for more than two hours at a stretch becomes really uncomfortable to downright painful.  I would have to be strong enough to sit for eight hours a day for 2 weeks.  That'll mean a lot of work, but I think I can do it.  I've lost 20 pounds since the surgery so that should help with any exercise I need to do.



All right, I'm off to write.  I think my fic brain is back.  I hope so.

Fifteen years ago today I gave birth to my daughter.  It is so hard for me to believe that that much time has passed.  She is such a good kid and such a sweet girl.  I have been very blessed with her, even if she does keep dyeing her hair funny colors.  If the worst she does is dye her hair green or blue or purple than I guess I'm pretty fortunate. :)

I am still pretty wiped out from the trip to Virginia Mason and back yesterday.  I fell asleep around midnight last night, slept until seven, got up until nine (I say got up, really I just went online on my laptop while still in bed eating a piece of toast), went back to sleep because everyone else was still asleep, and got up at eleven.

The follow-up went well.  They took the last tube out.  It hurt, but not as bad as I thought it would.  The worst part was when they cut the sutures which had grown into the skin.  They told me it might bleed and seep for several days, but today when I changed the bandage it was already scabbed over.  I only used half as much gauze as they did to resecure it.  It still might seep, but I think the bleeding is over.  It is so nice to wear my usual jeans again instead of dresses or loose trousers.

He wants to see me again in a month just to make sure everything has healed properly (yay, pelvic, she said sarcastically).  It hurts less now than it did with the tube in it.  It's more like a constant irritation (sort of like a papercut) and I want to scratch it, because it itches, but what else is new?  At least the fungal infection cleared up so it's not nearly as itchy as it was.

I lost another pound since they weighed me last  week which means I've lost 16 pounds since my surgery on the 15th.  It would be nice if that would continue without too much effort on my part.  I know I am eating a lot less since before the surgery (and rarely eating take out) and I'm no longer retaining so much water.  I've also focused more on eating nutritional foods during the healing process.  More vegetables and fruits, organic eggs, chicken, salmon, and lean beef, and cut down on my starches.  I've had rice once, and am eating much smaller portions of potatoes and corn.  I do have the occasional homemade cookie or muffin, but rarely eat bread (toast this morning not withstanding).  So with all those dietary changes and smaller portions, I guess it is natural to lose weight like this.

I badly need to go to Costco, but I am not up for that yet.  I have run out of or am very low on some staples that I buy there because it is cheaper.  E.V. olive oil, flour, lemons, butter, nuts, Charmin, sea salt, and peanut butter.  I also need to pick up some fresh ginger at the regular store and milk.  I might make it to the regular store today.  I need to pick up a dust pan, too.  Mine cracked when the youngest stepped on it.

I am going to attempt to get the Nine drabbles written today.  We'll see if my brain will cooperate with me.

I got some writing done today.  It's been a pretty slow week writing wise but I am halfway through the next chapter of You're What? and I am halfway through the next chapter of Leap of Faith.  I am hopeful YW? will be finished tomorrow, but I am more doubtful on finishing LoF.  I am having an issue with this chapter mostly because of current canon.  Basically episodes 605 and 606 kid of Jossed me.  I've had this storyline planned for over a year and I was very, very unhappy to see it show up in canon at all.  At least when I wrote Wolf Moon and had the whole disjunction thing and the two Doctors from one Doctor thing, it was well before there were even hints of having two Doctors in Journey's End.  In other words, I got mine in first and there was absolutely no hint that I'd be copying (even just a little bit) what had happened on the screen.  But with LoF there is some stuff that was going to be pretty similar and I am trying to figure out a way to make it be far less similar.  Honestly the whole time I was watching those episodes I was basically screaming at the writers to GTFO of my head.  I mean, it's different enough, and totally not lame like the way they did it on the show and the moral implications are not even there, but still.

I should probably just get over it and proceed with my own stuff, but I guess I'm still trying to figure out another way, which really makes it hard to just plow forward.

As for me, I am going to have to have a root canal.  I am less than thrilled with this prospect.  But that tooth that has been bothering me since it had a cavity filled is getting worse.  It only hurts when I chew, but not having use of both sides of my mouth when I eat is exhausting.  If it weren't for that I'd let it go until August some time after my surgery.  But I know I'm not getting proper nutrition because I'm mostly just eating soft stuff and giving up halfway through a meal because it's so tiring.

Rose is having her wisdom teeth out on the 22nd of June and we just got a call that the insurance will cover all but $400, which is great because I thought they were only going to cover half of it.

Both Rose and I have managed to catch a summer cold.  I thought it was allergies at first because the cottonwood is blooming like crazy and so it the Scotch broom, but today we both got dizzy and mild fevers so...crap.  I am going to sleep as much as possible this weekend and  mainline vitamin C.  I had...two weeks, maybe, where I didn't feel yucky.  I am so tired of this.  I want to be well and stay well, please, 'kay, thanks.  At least Tobias has been nothing but well since getting his tonsils out.  One less thing to worry about.

There is nothing like hearing your favorite song ever butchered by 20 off-key fourth graders.  Fortunately the fifth graders were mostly on key and they were all totally adorable.  It was a cute concert, but oh my gosh, the chairs.  Cheap plastic things that I wasn't sure could support the weight of a toddler, let alone a full grown adult.  Fortunately they did, but whatever happened to folding metal chairs?  Plus if you have any sort of hips, which you do if you've borne two children, they were narrower than a certain headwriter's mindset.

My daughter filmed the parts of it my son was in, since DH, of course, missed being home for it by one day.  And the kids taught anyone who wanted to learn the Hustle how to dance it at the end.  Rose went up and danced with Tobias.  It was adorable.  Oh, for my knee to be good enough for me to do that sort of thing.  It looked really fun, the embarrassment factor notwithstanding.

Anyway, I'm laying on the bed with an icepack on my lower back because those chairs really were a hellish experience and debating on whether or not I want to go to abc.com and watch last night's episode of Dancing with the Stars (Nobody spoil me, please or I will ban you like a banning thing bans things, I swear, even though I've never done that before) or try to get a little more writing done tonight. 

( American Idol Spoilers, I guess )

Well, it's been a long week what with Tobias recovering from having his tonsils and aednoids out.  But yesterday he didn't take any painkiller until bedtime, and that was more my idea than his.  He's eating almost normally again.  Poor boy lost five pounds.  Fortunately he had it to lose.  He goes back to school tomorrow.  It is early release so he will get out at one, which is probably a good thing, giving him a half day on his first day back after surgery.  Of course this means Rose is out at 10:30, but she will hopefully go to a friend's house after school tomorrow as I have physical therapy from 12 to 1:30.  Which means Mom will have to pick up T but she agreed to do that.

Ever since I had the flu I've had this persistant cough that wouldn't go away so finally on Thursday I went to the Doctor just to make sure that it wasn't pnuemonia.  It was bronchitis/sinusitus.  AGAIN.  But at least it wasn't pneumonia.  So I'm on antibiotics since then and already feeling a ton better.  Though the tiredness is really hanging on.  I've been getting plenty of sleep, too.  That tends to happen when your early bird child is too drugged out to be awake much.  So I don't know why the tiredness.  I'm off caffeine but I was very tempted to go back on this week.

I'm hard at work on chapter 30 of Leap of Faith and yes, this chapter will have John in it.  Apparently you guys missed him a lot with his absence from chapter 29 due to plot.  Not sure when I'll be done.  I was hoping by tonight, but I keep getting distracted.  Facebook has this new game called Zombie Lane and you wouldn't believe how satisfying it is to whack zombies over the head with a shovel.  Just saying.  Good stress reducer.

I'm writing again.  I have finally adjusted to my new glasses.  Progressive lenses are a trip, but now that I'm used to them it is so, so nice to be able to see everything, even if at 41 I think I should be too young to wear trifocals.  *sighs*

So I've been working on the lovely challenge at then_theres_us, writing a Noir Doctor/Rose fic, and having a great time of it.  And Leap of Faith is coming along nicely once again.  I cut out 1500 words yet again and finally have the story back on track.  I don't know why it kept veering in the wrong direction.  I'm thinking maybe Wednesday.  It's hard to say though since I have physical therapy Monday, drive DH to the airport Monday night, meet with the nutritionist on Tuesday as Rose is borderline diabetic (can't remember if I said that) and Tobias gets his tonsils out on Friday so he may be extra clingy this week leading up to that.  Still, the groove is back so Wednesday is definitely my goal to finish the chapter by.

( Spoilers for Fringe and Supernatural )

We spent the whole weekend practically out at the house.  Except for the stuff under one bathroom sink and a few scattered things on the floor everything is out of the house except the piano.  It has been such a chore.  Next time DH comes home we are going to rip out the carpet.  At least if all goes well at Virginia Mason.  My appointment is on the 27th.  We are driving down the night before and probably spending the night at the Inn at Virginia Mason.  It's got comparable prices to other hotels in the area but has a full kitchen and I'd much rather eat my own food than too much restaurant food.

( Job Stuff and V update )
Not much else going on right now but I suppose that's enough, hmm?

 

Why couldn't you have exploded last night when I had time to read you?

*sighs*

Off to get my daughter's hair cut and have an eye exam and get new glasses.   It will be nice to be able to see teeny tiny print again.  Might actually be able to read my f-list afterwards without magnification of 125%.

Rose is sick again.  I can't tell if I'm catching something else or if it's just allergies.  Since everything that could be in bloom right now is in bloom and tossing its trampy little bits of pollen everywhere, I think (hope, hope, hope) it is just allergies and tiredness.  The circles under my eyes are black.  It looks like smudged eyeliner only I don't wear makeup.  I cannot be sick again right now.  I won't be.  I need to be able to swim and take care of my kids and have a life and write.  DH comes home on Wednesday and DS leaves on Wednesday for a class trip.  That might make things easier for a couple days anyway.

Three Hilary Duff movies in a row.  Someone kill me now.  Or, you know, at least remind me why I decided to have children?  And why I ever thought hooking the Wii up to Netflix streaming was ever a good idea?