Adenosine "Addy" Triphosphate

On Wednesday, we said good-bye to Addy. She had been a part of our family for eight and a half years.

As the runt of a litter, Addy always had a wonky health problem to deal with. Nothing major but usually nothing easily diagnosed or treated. About two years ago, she started having some problems with her kidneys, but with the right diet and a few living adjustments, she seemed to adapt and keep up her usual activities and attitude.

Last weekend, I noticed that she felt ridiculously light when I picked her up, and she seemed lethargic and just generally out of sorts. We kept an eye on her with a mind toward gathering info before calling the vet. Then Wednesday morning she couldn't move her back legs and didn't seem to want to move much at any rate.

The vet told us we wouldn't be able to restore her health, that the best we could do was try to manage Addy's pain and stay perhaps one step ahead of her acute renal failure. That would involve a lot of procedures and therapies for a cat already too frail to even hold her head up. It really wasn't much of a choice.

I've got a lot of great memories of this cat, a wonderful companion I picked up from the Longmont Humane Society when she was only a few weeks old not too long after I had started grad school. She didn't care for Mark when he moved in a few months later, and only deigned to sit on him whenever she needed to fart. When Drew came along, she learned that the best way to get our undivided attention and demand petting was when we were stuck on the toilet. And as her health declined the past year or so, she still had to sleep snuggled up in the crook of my arm every night. She loved helping me with my work and writing and could often be found on a pile of papers on the desk next to me or sitting sentinel beside the laptop, watching a novel take shape.

She also enjoyed sneaking into closets and curling up in a dark corner on a pile of old shirts or pants. Of course, by the time she'd had her fill of the seclusion, we'd be elsewhere in the house or away at work, and she'd be stuck in the closet. Many times since Wednesday, I've found myself automatically sliding the closet door shut behind me whenever I step in to get dressed to prevent her from secreting away inside. That's when her loss hits me the hardest, when I'm aware of the ways we adjusted our habits and patterns around her quirks, and now those adjustments are not necessary.

What I've Been Up To

Work's been crazy lately as we packed up our old facility and moved to the new one this week (actually, the move happened today, and I missed out on that fun; they didn't want too many hands in the pot, and it seemed silly to drive 55 miles only to get in the way; I did, however, pull a twelve hour day on Thursday to help get everything packed up).

On top of the regular work I'm doing to get a couple of studies caught up and into a reasonable steady state, I've been diving into a project that hasn't been touched for all of 2008 and even some of 2007, and there's a deadline of Nov 24 for all that data that hasn't been entered yet. And, of course, Drew's brought home the next in a line of bugs from school and has lovingly passed it on to me (Mark seems to be immune).

Add to that the MRI from hell last weekend (over an hour with my legs taped together in an extremely painful position; I sobbed throughout the last fifteen or twenty minutes of the experience; the only positive is that my head wasn't into the tube as I had to go in feet first and they focused on my pelvis). More on this Monday when I have an appointment with the rheumatologist and she tells me the verdict.

I was supposed to buckle down and get back to work on PPR revisions today, but see above referenced bug gifted from Drewbie. So instead I'm using the limited brain function I've got tonight to get some work done for my RWA chapter. Tomorrow I'm hoping the bug won't be harrassing me as much, and I'll get back to my writing. I've had to take a break from it for too long. I'm getting cranky.

Things I Accomplished This Weekend Other Than What I Intended

Saturday was pegged for locking myself in my office and devoting many uninterrupted hours to PPR revisions as Muse has been cranky with my piddly half-hour lunch breaks devoted to same recently. (Usually I take an hour, but work be crazy.) Sunday I had slotted to blaze through this month's newsletter for my RWA chapter so I could go back to the proper writing focus the rest of the week.

Drew intervened by waking up every other hour Friday night and Saturday morning and demolishing any chance I had of catching up on a woeful lack of sleep from the past two weeks. Add in a mild but still mostly debilitating gastorintestinal bug, and I spent Saturday trying to recover some semblance of humanity. Sunday I just decided to kick away responsibility and just be Mom. So here's what I did manage to do:

1. Start and finish Charles Stross's The Family Trade, Book One of the Merchant Princes series. Fabulous fun book that while not being fluffy was a quick and engaging read. Of course, it ended on cliffhanger so now I'm eyeing my TBR pile and budget and wondering just when I can get to the rest of the books. I know at least four are out in the series, a fifth has either recently come out or will be out shortly, and he's just starting writing the sixth. I have my work cut out for me.

2. I tried my hand at a home-made version of The Vixen, my new fave drink last sampled in Vegas. Overall, it was a decent effort, though I think I had just a touch too much vermouth. Experimenting in this fashion is fun, though, so expect another report next weekend.

3. Found two perfect birthday cards on my first try this morning: one for my brother and one for my mother's Significant Other. This to go along with appreciated gifts, a wonderful dinner and great company made for a fantastic evening at my mom's.

4. Cheered (via watching an internet feed) my brother-in-law to his personal best marathon time, an obscene two hours, fifty-three minutes and change.

5. And...well...hmmm. I think that's it. Mostly my biggest accomplishment was unplugging the "must do this, must do that" cord and letting myself be a slug. Maybe now that I've gotten the lazy weekend out of the way, I won't need to indulge in one again until 2009. Ha.

Six Years Ago Today...

...Mark and I said "I do" and took lots of fabulous pictures on a beautiful if a touch windy day. So many of our family and friends were there to share in our special day and celebrate joyfully with us. If ever we develop technology that lets us relive our memories, that day would be a frequent choice for me. Thank you to everyone for making it such a wonderful moment in Mark's and my life together.

And, Mark, these six years (and the eight we've been together in any fashion) have been great. Great is such a small word, really. And even "supercallifragilisticexpeallidocious" is too small (also too silly). Maybe in another six years I'll have a better adjective to describe how much I have loved/love/and will always love our time together.

A Nice Night

I'm making an effort not to jinx anything, but I did want to report that Drew had a very good night tonight, free of the fits he's been throwing just about every other night since I started the new job. It's amazing how energized and good Mark and I feel when the night ends peacefully with Drew. Of course, then I went and used all that energy to get caught up with a college buddy on the phone instead of writing, but I certainly don't mind that.

I'm not going to hope or cross my fingers or anything like that, just reiterate again that this evening was very nice indeed. It was a joy to share time with Happy Drew instead of Fussy Drew.

The Back in Daycare Crud

We knew it was going to happen. We knew it would likely happen at least once a year. We didn't expect it to happen at the end of Drew's very first week back in daycare.

While suffering from only some minor congestion himself, Drew has lovingly passed on some sort of cold/flu ickiness to Momma and Daddy. Daddy is congested with a sore throat and mostly feeling lousy. Momma felt listless earlier today (and napped for an hour and a half to make the feeling that much more authentic) and has a sore throat.

This means that, since I'm in a probationary trial thingamajig at work, I can't take time off (and I'm already pushing that by demanding as a condition of my acception their employment offer three days off in October due to a pre-existing trip to Vegas planned and booked) and Mark generally isn't able to take time off due to being like one of two people who has to manage and care for (translation: actually, you're better off not knowing what my cruel cruel husband has to do to the dear sweet things) the mice, that the chances of my resuming regular blogging this week are slim to none. Better luck next week.

The Perils of a Geek Marriage

Mark and I were up until 1 AM last night having a heated argument. It wasn't about the bills or the house or the chores or the car or whatever the Greatest Hits of matrimonial dischord are. No, we were duking it out over, essentially, what the Grand Unified Theory will do about the logic dichotomy of classical physics vs quantum mechanics. The reason this got so heated is that I was approaching the discussion from a philosophical, follow-the-bouncing-ball-of-logic position (which, given my background in biochemistry, is clearly rigidly locked with classical physics and Can See No Other Way) while Mark was actually, you know, arguing from the current body of scientific evidence that quantum mechanics has produced.

This spat may well have unseated the previous Geek Marriage Moment of 03 when Mark and I went at it over dolphin and monkey intelligence metrics.

LONG Overdue Update

Um. Yeah. So the Month of Short Fiction has turned into the Month of Totally Slacking Off. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I've been doing some work on writing, particularly mapping out a better way to write PPR, though it means taking it from about 30K words to something more like 70K or more. I'm still trying to decide what to do about that and if I should focus my writing attention on that project rather than hunker down and fix THUMB. There are a couple of factors that have emerged this month to make this decision more difficult.

First and foremost, I can now explain the one or two vague references to potential changes. I am moving on from the current DDJ to a new DDJ. The current DDJ was looking to be gone come January, so I've been trying to find something else to bring in the specific amount of dough required. The new DDJ does than and then some, though it also comes with the requirement of working full-time up in the Phoenix 'burbs. Drew will be attending a daycare/preschool hybrid (one of two we'll be touring today, in fact), and the commute will actually be something of a family experience, seeing as how my new job is only fifteen minutes beyond Mark's. A fun way to carpool.

Secondly, I accepted a request to take on arguably the most challenging leadership position in my RWA chapter next year. No, I will not be doing this and the newsletter--I'm not completely stupid. I'll be responsible for arranging all of our speakers for next year's meetings. In addition to serving my chapter (something that I really really like doing as it keeps me involved in a wonderful writing community), this means I might well be dripping in editor and agent contacts in the romance genre by this time next year. This has led me to consider revising PPR into the novel it so wants to be as the more pressing of my two writing projects. I mean, what good are genre contacts if you have a novel that most of the folks you'll be chatting with don't actually represent?

Finally, PPR served as an excellent window into my writing process as I struggled through parts of THUMB last year. I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to use that story in a similar fashion so I can tackle THUMB with some better understanding of what it is I'm doing.

So, yeah, time to sit down and ponder ponder contemplate the writing goals as the basic structure of my life goes through a shake-up. Mark and I have already done a fairly good job of figuring out how to weather that shake-up (theoretically at least) in other areas, and it helps knowing that the changes actually mean we'll be spending more time together (though it'll be in rush hour traffic, so the quality of said time may be lacking). I'm very excited about my new job (it's much closer to my scientific background than my current job) and really enjoyed meeting my future coworkers during my interview. Also, Drew really needs more interaction with kids his age and is ready for more structured learning and activities than I can provide while working at home.

That's the update: approaching a big change in lifestyle and looking at the other bits and pieces of my life that I need to adjust to make that change work and still maintain my sanity. If this blog descends into gibberish as the months wear on, you'll know why.

Wash of a Weekend

Friday: No writing due to date night with hubby. Writing time was sacrificed very willingly. Dinner (at Roy's in Chandler) was fabulous. My mango mojito divine. My outifit killer (shoes included; I've never been so excited to wear a pair of shoes, especially because I paid less than $30 for them).

Saturday: Drove down to Tucson to attend memorial service for a writing friend, the woman who resurrected the Tucson RWA chapter and is primarily responsible for the awesome writing community I found there. Writing time afterwards was sacrificed to go swimming with family and run what should have been a quick errand while Drewbie and Mark continued to swim. Said quick errand stretched from fifteen minutes to an hour and fifteen, and I was stuck at a grocery store with nothing to do. So I browsed the book section, intending to just see what was there and grab a magazine to while away the time. Found the latest of JR Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood novels, and that auto-buy reflex could not be stopped. Nor could the auto-read and auto-finish reflexes. Stayed up until 4AM to finish book.

Sunday: Writing time was sacrificed for sleep. Brain is not quite coherent, but I will take it out for a test run on THUMB as soon as the Drew Monster is out. My hopes are not very big. Am rethinking my July 7 deadline because time management and free-time discipline are skills of my past, apparently.

Back In Time for a Milestone

Yesterday was my last day of answering the question "How old are you?" with something that began with twenty. I am actually quite happy to be rolling the odometer into the thirties. It's adding distance to the silliness of my youth in a concrete fashion. I probably won't think in those terms once the big four-oh draws near, of course, but three-oh tain't nearly so big or imposing. It's a bit of a relief, a marker to many that I'm a real, honest-to-goodness, no foolin' adult.

I added to the notoriety of the day by acknowledging my body is indeed another year older: I bought an ergonomic mouse, wrist pad, and medicine-ball-as-desk-chair. All this because, at the tender age of 30, my body likes to pretend it's 50. Also, just to further drive in the point that I am now a serious adult, we puttered around the big RV dealership this afternoon, edumacatin' ourselves on costs, types, features, financing, engines, etc. Not that we're anywhere near ready or able to buy one, but it's part of our once Drew's out of the nest/retirement plans, so it don't hurt to learn up as early as possible.

And, as has happened at least once before but I think maybe twice, I share my birthday with Father's Day, which made for some fun passing the buck of who got to sleep in this morning between me and Mark. And, because we're just that sweet, we were arguing not about wanting it for our own self, but about letting the other have it. (We compromised: Mark slept in until just after 8, then got up to relieve me so I could nap until just after 9.)

So, now I am a thirtysomething. Most of the twenties were fun, and I was even able to get mostly over myself before they ended. The decade started with me in college, wondering just how in the heck my mother could have possibly gotten married as young as I felt. The decade ended with me in a completely different career track than I had anticipated, married with a toddler, and living in our own home. My last day as a twentysomething was spent driving back from Canyon de Chelly (featuring the ruins of an ancient civilization), taking the long way through Arizona's east central high plains and mountains, twisting and turning my way down the elevation to get back home, drinking in the amazing scenery of this beautiful state that claimed me at the age of 18 and waited patiently for ten years until I was able to return for good.

Not a bad way to end what society considers the last cusp of my youth.

Where Does the Time Go?

Life got nuts after my glorious Saturday. Budgets were mutilated and created anew. DDJ projects were ignored and conquered. Time was wasted and multi-managed. Parts of the house were cleaned and allowed to wallow in filth. Movies were praised and disparaged (the nuclear blast sequence in Indiana Jones was one of the most visceral images of warfare I've seen in a long while but, when pressed, I realized that the movie itself wasn't about plot, character, or action so much as it seemed to be an amalgam of all three that at least entertained more than it didn't). The Boy progressed and regressed (several new words have been added to the vocab, but he seems to be exploring the joys of frequent poopy diapers again). And...I've run out of "best of times, worst of times" ways to explain my hiatus from blogging.

I haven't written since Friday night, though the outlining and general focus on writing on Saturday makes me OK giving that missed day a pass. It's not that I'm blocked as the outline demonstrates. It's just that life got in the way. On the plus side, the reason I didn't write tonight is that I was busy tinkering with my various files and external harddrives and computer configurations to boost storage and music availability. I'm starting to get twitchy about not having written more this past three-day weekend, though, as I look at the looming deadline for my RWA chapter's June newsletter. So much for writing during Drew's naps this weekend. That's OK, though, as I would have used that time to revise PPR, but I'm not yet sure of how I want to proceed with the revisions. So the longer break from that project should serve me well. As for THUMB, I'm finishing the one chapter that's been dangling for a bit tomorrow night, come hell or high water.

Reprieve? Or Foil?

A lovely storm system blew it's way in yesterday and today, dropping temps into the 60s and 50s and making for an absolutely glorious cool for us folks in the Valley of the Sun in late May. But for those Phoenicians looking to hike, camp, boat, or otherwise be outdoorsy this weekend, there's the problem of a nasty Friday and Saturday (and potentially Sunday) in the forecast. Monday should be perfect, just in time for people to pack back up and head home.

There's even a snow advisory in effect up around Flagstaff, which means the folks heading up to the Grand Canyon are in for something really different. I wouldn't be surprised if Mt Lemmon, the highest peak in Tucson's Catalina mountains and a very popular Memorial Weekend getaway spot, got a decent dusting of the white stuff. Same with the Chiracahuas and the eastern higher elevations. Lake Havasu might have escaped the worst of the weather, though, but it's going to be insanely crowded regardless.

My big plans for the weekend? Saturday I'm going down to Tucson for my RWA meeting, after which I shall congregate with some of the RWAers at a nearby Barnes & Noble for a gabfest. Sunday evening, Mark and I have booked my mom to baby-sit Drew after he's down for the night so we can catch a late showing of Indiana Jones. Any other time not accounted for above will be split between family time and writing time. I'm hoping to get some more good words for THUMB (I've made progress to the tune of 3500 words that I haven't reported) and do a read-through of the new and improved PPR (for which I wrote about 3000 words earlier this week to fix a broken sequence in the previous draft).

Oh, and I'm going to have the windows open wide each night and bask in the cool weather during the day as much as possible. Maybe we'll go for a family stroll around the mini-lakes in our development, something I wouldn't have thought we could get away with this late in May. I'm feeling a bit spoiled with this delay in the heat's onslaughtonset. It might make me a wee bit cranky come mid-July.

No Progress to Report

Haven't written since Wednesday night. Likely won't write tonight. Drew's had a couple of bad nights going to sleep, and it's pretty hard to concentrate on writing when he's either crying until 8:30 or Mark or I has to go back in to get him settled every fifteen minutes. Today I'm just wiped, despite sleeping in and a two-hour nap, and I'm not hopeful on Drew's going to bed routine this evening either. I think my body's trying to tell me to chill for a bit, so I'm going to listen.

And Now for Something Completely Different

I do have regular blogging to catch up on, I know this. And I should be back in the swing of things starting sometime this week, but definitely picking it back up by Monday.

In the meantime, I have to offer up the following as a public service announcement:

The Prisoner is quite possibly the best red wine I have ever had the pleasure of drinking. For those of you who like to imbibe, I cannot recommend this wine enough. It's a steal at $32, really. For those of you who are under age or allergic to sulfites, I weep for you.

Some history: On Valentine's Day in 2004, Mark and I splurged went to the Boulder Cork as we had just earned some unexpected winnings on a weekend gambling trip in the Rockies. We had a bottle of The Prisoner (2003 vintage) that night and were delighted to discover that the local liquor mega store was one of the few places in the country that stocked this label. We indulged as often as we could spare the money from then on. Then on Saturday as we were buying wine and cheese and other vittles for our delayed Valentine's Day dinner this year, Mark said, "Ohmigod, Kellie, look behind you." I turned and saw The Prisoner on display. Yes, it put as a bit above what we had intended to spend on the meal, but neither of us complained a single bit. We finished the bottle last night and were quite sad that we didn't have another to uncork. But now that we know we can get it regularly again, we'll be budgeting for it and drooling until we can pick up another bottle.

Seriously, if you like red wine, you've gotta try this stuff.

Drew the Chef

The Drew Monster has been big into utensils and measuring cups and bowls for a while now. It likely started when he discovered how much fun it was to take out all the tupperware from the lower cupboards in my mother's house, grab a spoon, and stir just like Momma. We put child safety latches on our cupboards, though, so Drew opted for dragging a chair up to the counter so he could rummage through the cooking utensil drawer (we have long since removed anything sharper than a butterknife from that drawer). He knows the word "hot" very well, not because he's burned himself, but because Momma and Daddy are so freaked about that chance given his predilection for cooking that we've drilled it into him.

He's added a new twist to his cooking fixation. In the past week, I've had to set up a cutting board for him and give him either a piece of celery or a carrot to work on with a butterknife. The kid's learned a lot by watching me, and his fingers haven't once come close to getting in the way. El Boyo Diablo appears to be a natural. Once he cuts up the carrot or celery into a number of pieces, he'll then load up a measuring cup with them. A couple of times, he's tried to toss the contents into whatever pot or pan I'm toiling over. He also tastes his diced vegetable at least once, discovering regularly that, no, indeed he doesn't like raw carrots.

I always try to give him something he can add safely to the pot or pan with dinner in it, usually it's a can of broth to add to the soup pot or something. But he's clearly learning and wanting to do more. I had just started getting items out for dinner and hadn't turned on the stove top when I turned away to take care of something (probably answer the phone). When I turned back around, Drew had climbed up onto the counter and opened the cupboard with all the spices and started rooting around for the perfect mixture.

Mark and I have known for a while that we'd be getting our son planning menus and cooking as early as possible as one of his "chores", but we hadn't realized that he would 1) take so well to it and 2) get a head start on things. Ironically, he's not all that interested in Ratatouille.

Sing Along, Sleep Along

The Drew Monster has started to sing. It's usually when the Backyardigans theme is on, and the singing is mostly in the vowel of "Ah" and the same note, but he is singing. He's pretty intense with it, too, as if he can tell that the sound he's producing isn't quite up to par with what he's hearing and he's trying to match the two better.

This warms my heart to have Andrew doing something that is clearly in alignment with my interests. I don't know if he's just mimicking the TV or if I've done enough random singing around him that he connects singing with me as well, but it's nice to know that, even if only for the next month or so, we'll have this little thing in common and laugh about hitting bad notes together.

As for another thing we've discovered he had in common with his father, I am less than thrilled about it. Drewbie suffers from occasional night terrors. Actually, he's more prone to them when waking up from a nap than during the night. We had somewhat suspected this after a few episodes over the course of the past year, but yesterday's nap made it very clear.

This wouldn't bother me nearly so much if I didn't have firsthand experience of what his father's sleepwalking is like. What I wouldn't give for the sedate getting up and shuffling to the kitchen and then shuffling back that seems to be the general consciousness regarding sleepwalking. No, as I've detailed here before, Mark likes to bolt upright out of bed, spring to his feet, vault over furniture, and run screaming through the house during his episodes. And I've recently learned that night terrors is often a genetic thing and will evolve into sleepwalking in the preteen years.

Meep.

The good news is that keeping a regular schedule with plenty of time for sleep seems to keep the night terror episodes at bay. And staying low on the Stress-O-Meter seems to stave off the full body antics of the sleepwalking episodes. Life doesn't always let you keep a consistent schedule with good sleep hours or keep the stresses low. I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed that High School Drew and 15 Years Older Mark don't have simultaneous bouts of high stress, low sleep periods. I might have to lock them into separate, well-padded rooms.

This Period of Silence Brought to You by...

Errand Friday, TusCon 34 Saturday, Christmas Shopping Sunday, and Tired Monday. And I almost didn't post this today because I've been so rigidly locked into schedules and pattern and logic in so many aspects of my writing life that I had a hard time not posting a Process Examination post even though I have stuff to talk about (regarding that rigidity of pattern, actually). So I'm going to break the confinement of the blog schedule and post on that tomorrow. Maybe it will help me break the confinement in my writing tonight.

TusCon 34, by the way, was a fun day. The Con is smaller than my only other fan con experience, Mile Hi Con, but fun nonetheless. I tried on a corset for the first time at a booth in the dealer's room. A very interesting experience, and if I had had $500 to spare, I would have bought an absolutely gorgeous corset/skirt combo that I wisely didn't even try on out of fear I would whip out the credit card before I could stop myself. Also, Emma Bull is great fun to hang around. I'm looking forward to starting Territory tonight, which she graciously signed for me (I used my lunch break to wander to a Borders in town to pick it up after I learned that they didn't have copies for purchase at the con; that's what I get for confusing a writing conference with a fan convention--one day I'll learn, but I've only got a couple of each under my belt at the moment).

Christmas shopping on Veterans Day weekend, however, was not fun. We did hit a lot of great sales and got the gifts we wanted for everyone on our list (except for each other and most of Drew's stuff), but the crowds were thick and the mall had chosen this week to renovate the play area, thus taking the wind out of Drewbie's sails.

It feels very weird that we are only nine days away from Thanksgiving. I've got family coming in town for it, so I'm eager for the holidays. But we're still flirting with the low 90s here. I can count on one hand the times I've worn jeans in the past two months. The only time I've put on a long-sleeved anything since March has been during early morning camping or hiking excursions. I even ordered a peppermint mocha at Starbucks the other day and was disappointed that, while yummy, it didn't taste as good as I remembered from a nippy winter day in Colorado. I will get adjusted to the weather. It's just going to take longer than I had thought.

Progress Report #1: Um, Maybe Overextended

OK, so when I mapped out my minimum end of the month word counts for THUMB and PPR, I hadn't considered that I would also be writing up summaries of the RWA talks at the end of the month. I also hadn't realized that it was my brother's birthday on Sunday and that a bro-sis dinner out would eat up a writing night. I also haven't gotten the swing of factoring in "sick" days, and I was dealing with sleep deprivation hardcore this weekend. And, while the plot points have been coming fast and furious for PPR, they haven't been as forthcoming for THUMB.

What does all of that translate to? I need to write 4K for THUMB by tomorrow to meet the minimum amount of words I want for the end of October in order to keep me on-target for a draft by the end of January. This wouldn't be too far outside the realm of possibility were it not for those summaries I have to do. I think I might nudge those to the 1st as the newsletter they're for goes out by the 5th. That should be close enough for government work. (OK, I really don't like that saying. I don't think I'll use it again.)

For the month of November, especially given that we are having guests over for the Turkey Day weekend, I have already slashed a number of days that, without the holidays, I would use for writing. I think to prevent an end of the month crunch, I'm going to come up with weekly totals to help me stay on track. Assuming the story actually, yanno, decides to make itself known to me often enough to stay on track. Darn Muse.

I'm not worried about PPR in the slightest. That one is chugging along very well. I'm fairly certain I'll be done with it before the Turkey Day weekend, thus giving me some down time before I have to dive back in for revisions. I'd like to get this one out the door by mid-December at the latest. (And I just had a freak-out moment thinking about mailing something in mid-December until I remembered that this opp takes electronic subs only. Sweet.)

This is the last time (this year) that I have to write up the RWA meeting summaries, though I, fool that I am, have volunteered to be in charge of the newsletter next year. So I'm sure I'll be crunched at the end of the month again. Must account for this next year.

OK, That? Was Not Fun

Yesterday my writing got derailed twice. Andrew woke up from his nap forty-five minutes earlier than usual, giving me only fifteen minutes of writing time after my work day ended. I wrote about 250 words. Then I imbibed at dinner on a stomach that was emptier than I had thought with a margarita that was a great deal more potent than I had thought. Brain was not coherent after that. No words last night. Going to bed under these circumstances never makes me happy, but there's only so much prodding I can force my brain to endure, and there's only so much sleep I'm willing to sacrifice. So I retired with my measely 250 words for the day.

Then the Drew Monster woke up screaming about thirty minutes after we had turned out our light for the night. (This means Mark had been asleep for roughly twenty minutes and I had not even begun to drift off; inebriated or no, I take at least a half hour to fall asleep.) We tried to calm Drewbie down for a good 15-30 minutes, but he wasn't having it (we're pretty sure he had a nightmare). So we snuggled up with him in the living room and put an episdoe of his favorite show on. It still took him over five minutes, but he finally did calm down.

Only problem was, in calming down, he also managed to convince himself that it was morning and he was up for the day. Cue screaming when we tried to put him back to bed after the episode was over. We tried to calm him down for another 15-30 minutes. No joy. So back we went to the TV. Lather, rinse, repeat.

After the second round of TV watching, I took him outside to show him the moon in hopes that he might understand that it was, in fact, night time. He still squawked when we returned him to his bed, but it was brief and it was followed by thrity minutes of actual sleeping. (I may or may not have grabbed a few Zs during this time; it certainly didn't feel like I did.)

Then he was screaming again, and I went to his room and thought maybe if I crawled into bed with him he would settle. And he did, only he didn't settle very deeply, so every time I thought I had heard steady, sleepy breathing for five minutes or more, I would ease out of the bed...only to have him wake up, usually as I was shutting the door behind me. Back to his bed I would go. Lather, rinse, repeat. Finally at about 1:45 I was able to leave him asleep in his bed and crash into bed myself.

Trudging through the day on four hours sleep? Do not want! Likely I'll have to use Drewbie's nap time today to get some sleep myself instead of write. This does not make me happy. It's times like these you really wish your child could communicate exactly what's going on in his head. If he could've just told us exacty what was wrong...

Back Outside Again

One thing I never appreciated about the hot summers when I was only in the desert for just over two months each summer: they last a lot longer than two months. Another thin: the inability to play outside might not mean much to a college student, but it means quite a bit to a toddler.

Thus the Drew Monster and I have been ecstaticly welcoming the return of the low 90s and high 80s. We've resumed our daily treks to the mailbox and playground. We've taken to waiting for Daddy to come home by running around in our mostly rock-covered backyard instead of diddling around inside the house. This does mean that Drewbie needs a bath every night instead of every other night because he invariably spends a good deal of time exploring the one dirt patch we have yet to cover with rock.

In the four to five month gap since we've been outside regularly, Drew has grown enough to climb and crawl all over the playground in ways he wasn't able or willing to before, which made my heart beat a little faster the first time I saw him climb one particular set of bars. He likes to race me to chase down balls in the backyard too these days and actually work at kicking the things to me instead of kicking just to see them spin and roll away from him.

It's also nice to be able to explore a lot of the little parks and rec areas within an hour or two drive from our house without having to worry about heatstroke. It's good to be able to get out of the house every weekend and let Drew run around and hike and climb and get dirty. I've got to find a better way to handle the hot months, though. I've got until mid-May to put together a plan.