…because that’s the kind of mood I’m in.

• Saige is on a stickers reward system for not waking me up at 2am every night. Ten stickers = a new puzzle. It seems to be working. She wants those stickers BAD.
• I have taken over all household bill paying. No more of this doing everything in in our heads shit. Quicken is now our lord and master.
• I’m gearing up to begin work on a new garden over at the town’s weed infested community gardens area. It’s definitely a work-in-progress. Right now I’m waiting for a huge load of compost from the local university ag program, which was supposed to be delivered today, but for some reason was not. Anyway, to get ready for that I spent the better part of an afternoon weed whackin’ my soon-to-be luscious green space. I had to borrow the electric socket of the house next door (the lady there very kindly lent me that and an extension cord for this purpose). While the girls sat under a beach umbrella I made short work of my whole lot. Yay, I’m so glad that’s done, I thought. Until I realized I had whacked the wrong lot. Then I had to do the right lot. Interestingly, a woman across the street came over shortly afterward to tell me the bricks I was standing on her were hers and would I please move them back. Yeah, the lot I had just completely cleaned on accident was hers. You’re welcome ma’am, and I notice you didn’t come over until I was finished. Smart lady.
• My Interstitial Cystitis seems to be going into remission. After living with it for about a year and a half, I guess all the drugs finally worked (not that I can stop taking them just yet). Hallelujah! I can finally eat 95% normally. This includes two of the things I missed most: hot salsa and caffeine. With the caffeine we’re not talking about coffee yet; I am limiting myself to green tea, which by most people’s standards has a pathetic amount but for people with active IC it’s still very dangerous. And I have gotten away with it for two weeks. It’s weird how it just shut off–just like that–a few weeks ago. No more painkillers necessary. I’m still amazed. Of course this has meant that I have had to re-familiarize myself with, uh, limits. I drank an entire pot of green tea once this week and couldn’t go to sleep until 2am because I wasn’t used to the caffeine rush (I know, stop laughing), and I also forgot about my old rule of no drinking caffeinated anything past 2:30 in order to sleep that night. Now I also have rules when it comes to blogging, rules about no smileys or stupid dancing bananas, but I’m going to make an exception because if anything in my life called for a good ol’ dancing banana, this is it. Yay!
• I managed to lose about ten pounds a couple of weeks ago. I was so pleased. Then I got sick and couldn’t go to the gym, and gained most of it back. And I am still, you know, eating food several times a day. My husband’s weight-loss method is to simply consume air instead of food. Unfortunately, my blood sugar no likey that sort of thing. My sister has lost a ton of weight since she got divorced this month. She can wear a size six or something now. She says I should try her weight-loss method. The Lawyer Diet is kind of expensive, though.
• So damn excited about mp3tunes.com. I ponied up for a premium account so I could upload everything in my music directory. Yeah, ummm, all 70GB. The upload is…taking a while. But it’s great because not only will I have a backup of one of my most precious folders on my hard drive, but I can access and play my music from anywhere. Well, anywhere that has net access.
• Briefly installed Ubuntu on this machine after salivating over UbuntuStudio (finally a flavor of Linux for creatives!). Panicked about GRUB taking over the booting process and handed everything back over to Windows again. Chicken, you say. Yup. Maybe I’ll get brave again later.
• Considering getting A+ certified. Even though most of the computer shops I have talked to seem more interested in my experience–in fact one guy said he would hire me over all of the Cal Poly grads that have come to him for work because I have that and they don’t–but alas he said he can’t hire anyone at the moment. But it’s something I have occasionally thought I would feel better having. Looks good on a resume, for one thing. However, the test is 160 clams so if I decide to do it I have to really do it right and actually pass. Hmm.
• Feeling so grateful I came across this book: Making Work Work for the Highly Sensitive Person. I’ve just started it, but looking through it I can see why I went through 35 different jobs before I even finished college. It explains why finding work I can stand is so difficult, and doesn’t label me lazy or a freak.The author has made a long study of work and work issues in America and has it divided up into three categories: Drudgery, Craft, and Calling. All my life it’s been Drudgery. Completely meaningless shitwork for horrible wages. I got the book from the library because I am looking at returning to work next year after the girls go to school, and I’ve already told Bruce I am done with Drudgery. I don’t even expect to get to the Calling level; I’ll settle for the mid-level (Craft). Anything that doesn’t make me feel like driving straight into a tree after my shift. Which has been pretty much all other jobs I’ve had up to this point.
• Oh, and a friend just gave me two wonderful Buddhist books this afternoon: A Buddhist Bible, and The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching. This is the woman I gave all my Wiccan stuff to. I guess we are trading religions. Works for me.