Life Viewed Through an Amber Focus

This has been a long vacation, and I am totally ready to go home and sleep in my own bed that conforms to me. Everything hurts from the waist down, and this is despite riding on a scooter and not walking all day long every day. I'm badly sunburned on my arms despite there only being one day (yesterday) that was actually hot enough to take my sweatshirt off for a couple of hours. My face is burned, too, despite wearing an Indiana Jones style hat almost all the time. My hair has bleached a bit, at least the part not covered by the hat, so now it is a lighter brownish auburn gold on the bottom 10 inches, darker brownish auburn from the top to the nape, and with silver-grey at the center of my bangs and at my temples. I haven't colored in a long time, but maybe it's time after this.

Despite chronic pain it was a great week. I saw Amy on Tuesday from about 10:30 to 7 and then yesterday Chris's cousin Bobby came from Los Angeles to spend the day at the parks with us. The kids had a blast with him. It's been a couple of years since we've seen him. He was a lot more relaxed and funny then he is at family gatherings. We saw the World of Colors show last night and it was even better than Fantasmic. I thought at first it was going to be a little lame, but it turned right around and totally surprised me. It was worth buying the $15 picnic packs for the reserved viewing. Not that they were any good, but we just considered it the price of the reserved viewing. For reserved seating it would have cost $40 per person, though it would have been far better food.

This is our last day at the park and I decided to just stay in the condo. I might go over this evening for the fireworks, but I honestly don't think it is probably worth it for that. I can go up onto the roof of the condo and watch them from there, though. I'll have to decide if being up 14 stories is worth it. I'm not exactly afraid of heights, but I don't particularly like them, either.

It is nice having the condo to myself, though. If my laptop were working right it would be even better. It is under a service plan, so if I have to take it in, it won't cost me anything. I am on Chris's computer because the mouse in mine stopped working. I am hoping to get it working again soon as it is a devil to do anything online without it. I may write if I can get into my Word program without use of the mouse. I used to know how to do things without use of a mouse. The page down and arrow keys and the control functions are all working, so hopefully I can make Word work. Because I totally want to get started on the next chapter of The Watchmaker's Daughter. The slight block I had on it before coming on vacation has gone, so I am eager to get back to it.

I have written for seven of the drabble prompts, but will not be posting them tonight. I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. I think I am coming down with something, as I had a sore ear, sore throat, and headache hit me about 3 today, so I am going to bed early. I want to head this off at the pass if I can. It's been 13 weeks since I've had a full on cold and I don't want one. I will finish the drabbles up tomorrow. I'd rather post them all in one go than spam my f-list with that many different posts in a day. That may just be the LJ email spam I got today talking, but...yeah.

Today I received 7 pages worth of email notifications for a gift I receved in March. Umm...yes, LJ, I already know I got this item...5 months ago. And even if I didn't, one would have been sufficient. Not 175. Bad LJ.

And since I'm on here, I wanted to thank everyone who sent me information of how to get free books for the Kindle...or as we are now calling it in this household Free Kindle Krappe (TM). It is nice to see that there is so much of it.

I am hard at work on the drabbles and hope to have them ready, or at least some of them, by this evening.

Why is it the one morning I have to sleep in is the only morning in a week that I get an early moring phone call? *yawns* I was really tired, too. 26 laps yesterday and a walk. Plus it was too hot to sleep until 2 a.m. Yesterday was 90 at the height of the day. Right now it is only 67, but will get higher as the day goes on. Still, a day in the 70's is much easier to tolerate around here than a day in the high 80's, like most of the last few days.

Anyone have any experience with becoming a landlord? One of the workmen working on our house to get it ready for sale is interested in renting it long term (like a two year lease). Since the market is sucky out there we are thinking about it, but have very little idea of what to consider, other than criminal and civil background checks, credit checks, and calling old landlords for payment history. We have no idea what the tax ramifications are, either.

*sighs* I am still so exhausted. My left ear still will not pop. My nose may as well be a faucet stuck in the on position. My low grade fever comes and goes, but is sitting around 99, nowhere near last week's 101. My cough is better. It's way up in my throat now, not in the bronchials at all. I can cook things that don't just come out of a can again, though admittedly the tacos I made tonight for dinner were done in the microwave instead of on the stove top. But still...it wasn't chili from a can that I put in a tortilla and pretended was tacos, so go me.

I stepped on a construction staple tonight. Oh, I howled. It punctured my heel, but it did not really bleed. I mean, I can see where it is that it happened, but it is like this tiny red spot. I will call the doctor tomorrow to get in for a tetanus shot. It's been 12.5 years anyway, so I'm due a booster. Will ask him for more antibiotics because I have not beat this illness yet and I don't want a relapse.

I tried to write today, but really all I wanted to do was play Facebook and try to nap. I did not succeed at the latter and spent far too much time playing Cafe World on the former. I started reading The Omnivore's Dilemma. It doesn't really present any new information that I didn't already know and I am finding it awfully repetitive. It's more on the babyfood level when you're already used to eating steak. Or something.

I had to sit through tae kwon do tonight. I think that place is seriously damaging my hearing. They are so loud in there. And the benches are so hard I always feel like a stiff old lady when it's time to get up and leave.

I will try to write again tomorrow. Oh, I won challenge 96 at then_theres_us for the fic Ten Seconds. I've never won a challenge there so I was squeeing a little bit when I found out. Of course I forgot to vote myself. I really want my brain back.

When I woke up this morning my fever had finally broken. Well, I say broken. Instead of being at 101 like it has been for the last week, it was at 99.1 so I consider that mostly broken. It's a relief anyway. Also my ear will now pop. And my cough seems to have moved further up and is nowhere near as intense. I still feel awful, but I feel less awful. I have my brain back or at least I don't feel like I am walking around in an altered state of consciousness anymore.

I called the doctor anyway about the pertussis, but he doesn't think I have/had it. It didn't show up on the culture and he didn't hear that kind of noise when he was checking my lungs and bronchials, so I got all freaked out over nothing. But he did recommend I get a pertussis booster when I am better. I should get a tetanus booster while I am at it, because the last time I had one was when I sliced my knee open when I was pregnant with my twelve-year-old and you are supposed to get tetanus boosters every ten years. I should schedule a physical as well as it has been 2 years.

I am going to spend the rest of today and all day tomorrow in bed though, getting as much rest as possible. I don't want to start doing too much too soon and find myself horribly ill again. This has shut me down for over a week as it is. At least the weather is warming up, so that should help. The cold outside always gets to me when I am sick/recovering from being sick and can make things worse. I am still very, very tired, so extra sleep is a good idea as well. At least I feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel now and that it is (probably) not a train.

I didn't even know you could do that. *sighs*. I was meaning to just keep the most recent few pages and delete everything else. *grumbles*. Oh, well, it needed to be cleaned out. It had 1400 messages in it, so I haven't been erasing them for a long time. Probably since summer. Bad LJ housekeeping, I know. Oh, well.

I am spending the day writing today. I was going to write last night but I ended up with a cluster headache behind my left eye so I simply went to bed early. I fell asleep with my laptop running and all of my programs open, too. Fortunately I'd saved everything I'd been working on previously. I hope I get something done today and don't start procrastinating, but I had a restless night so concentration may not be at its best. I have ideas in my head and dialogue aching to come out, but it is so gorgeous out and there are baby ducks and chicks outside.

I'm sorry I haven't finished the drabbles yet. My headache (not a migraine, fortunately) is going on five days and I'm down with a nasty case of the Ick. Again. And today my throat started hurting on top of it. All I really want to do is sleep for a week, but sleep doesn't actually seem to be helping. Chris has been letting me sleep myself out, but I still feel lethargic and yucky. Tomorrow he flies to San Francisco for the day (leaves at 4 a.m., back at 8:30 p.m.) so I'm on my own with the kids. No sleeping in, but I can go back to bed once they're off to school. I hope this doesn't turn into bronchitis again. I may have to go buy some throat spray or some Fisherman's Friend. I hate them, but they work.

I do have a couple of the drabbles done, but one of the only annoying things about working with Open Office is that it doesn't keep a running word count at the bottom of the page like Word. Instead it takes three steps to get the word count which is not so bad on regular fic, but super irritating with drabbles. I do have a free month trial of Word on this laptop but I'm not sure I'll have my Sony back before it would run out and I'd have to switch back anyway. Still, might be worth it.