What was I thinking?

I'm too broke to buy you a present -- even something cheap, like denture glue -- which, by the way, you should never put on your tongue -- and I couldn't find a card that befitted our wonderful friendship in the five minutes I had to spare between . . . whatever it was I was doing. I can't remember. See previous post. Anyway, in honor of your birthday, I'm blogging at you. Congratulations on accomplishing new feats of oldness! You might need a cane pretty soon, but don't worry. Just decorate it for your favorite holidays, and people will start thinking of it as a fashion accessory.

In honor of your birthday, I'm eating frozen cookie dough, like we made last time you visited, only this time I remembered the chocolate chips. I thought about sending you some, but by the time it gets there, it would be sticky and rancid, so I'll just have to eat your share. I'm also digging through old photos, remembering how much fun we used to have. I wanted to post one of the two of us, but the only one I can find has us wearing purple glitter paint all over our faces. You look adorable, but I ended up with a mustache and a sole patch. And in so many of my photos of you, you're making a weird face, or wearing clown makeup, or sporting a very fashionable set of hot-pink play-doh sunglasses, that I just decided to forget the photo. Especially since I can't get glossy prints into a digital format with any sort of quality.

Not much of a birthday celebration, is it? Try to remember that fabulous birthday where I made cupcakes and invited all your friends and spent your birthday money from that creepy stalker guy on gas, so it could burn up on the way to Wal-Mart and not be a part of your life any more. Remember how much fun that was? Next birthday, come visit, and we'll do it again. Without the creepy stalker part, unless you've acquired a new one. (The old one IS gone, right?)

I wish I could be with you on your birthday, but I know you are surrounded by loved ones, and knowing your mother, there's no shortage of cake and ice cream. Unless you asked for peanut brittle and gummi bears instead, which wouldn't surprise me too much. May you be wonderfully blessed this birthday with joyful new memories and not a platypus in sight. May your next year be filled with love, peace, happiness, and good friends who will speak wisdom into your life the way you have into mine. I hope you have a happy birthday, but more than that, I hope today is the beginning of something wonderful for you.

Love,
Julie

The details are making me crazy. I've been buried in details at work lately, and they've consumed so much of my mental energy that I almost forgot it was payroll day today. Yikes! This is one of my major responsibilities at my job, where I look at everyone's time sheets and figure out how much they all get paid and send the numbers away to a magical land where strange little gremlins make the actual paychecks. Sometimes the gremlins are slow, and people start wandering into my office on payday and asking, "Aren't we getting paid today?" And I say, "I don't know, should you be?" because really, I can't keep track. And they start to get upset, but it's not my fault! It's the gremlins!

Only, not today. I would have forgotten all about payroll this week, except that one of you mistakenly turned in your time sheet in the wrong place, so I found it when I was looking for something else. Thank you, whoever you were. I've forgotten, because the rest of you confused me so much today. The one person I can count on to turn in a time sheet ON TIME, EVERY TIME, forgot to turn one in, and the people I usually have to chase down with threats of not getting paid, actually turned them in. You're knocking me off balance, people. But you can rest assured, I got the numbers to the gremlins on time, so as far as I know, you'll all get paid this week. On time. I hope.

In the meantime, the roof is leaking and our (male) guinea pig has mastitis. I've been spending lots of time working on my garden, and so far all the useless plants are thriving, and about half the vegetable plants have died. Maybe the details killed them, too.

The germs ate February. I'm starting to feel like I've been sick so long that I can't remember what it's like to be healthy. When people try to make plans with me, I'm very hesitant, because I never know if I'll be too sick to do whatever. It's pitiful.

And the really sad thing about being sick for so long is that whenever I'm reading the paper and I come across an article about a disease, I can't help but notice how many of the symptoms I have. After a while, it becomes very obvious that I have Lyme disease, and fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome, and hypoglycemia, and maybe scurvy.

So I didn't do my daily Things, and I didn't finish writing my fabulous short story, and my house looks like a tornado swept through. Here's hoping the germs will stay confined to February and I can have a much happier, healthier March.

First, a big THANK YOU to Jennifer, who showed me how to get my blog on Facebook. If you're reading this at my actual blog, or my RSS feed, (Does anybody actually subscribe to my blog? I don't know how to tell) don't bother reading on Facebook, because there won't be any new content there. I'm way too lazy for that. For all my Facebook friends who didn't know I had a blog . . . hope you enjoy my pearls of crazy brilliance.

Friday's Thing was a lot of fun, but not very exciting for the rest of you, because I can't share it here. I wrote a first chapter of a new story, which is something I haven't done in a long time. It's for a contest, and if I post it online, there will be copyright issues, so you don't get to read it. But I just wanted to say, for the record, that I met the challenge on the first day of February, on a miserable rainy day where I had to spend several hours in a car and several more hours being monitored by a large, cranky woman with a badge.

Saturday, the most creative thing I did was inventory the food in the house and make it last until payday. The foster puppies moved out that day, and various other things had to get done, and I didn't have any time or energy left. Such is February.

Yesterday, I had to watch the Super Bowl. Oh. My. Gosh. It was so. Boring. I'll admit that I'm not a football fan, and I don't have TV, so I never know who's doing well or badly in any particular year. I don't have a favorite team or favorite players. I'd never even heard of Michael Vick before the whole dogfighting scandal. But I understand football well enough to watch a game in person. It makes sense, when you can clearly see who's who and which direction they're running. But TV football drives me crazy. They insist on showing at least two instant replays of every play, even when the replay doesn't show anything interesting. By the time they get back to the actual game, the ball is in play again and I can't figure out who has it. Then it's on the ground and they're showing another instant replay. Then they show the next play from the opposite camera angle so the offense is facing right instead of left. Then they show you the people in the stands, because those people paid exorbitant amounts of money to be there and get their face on TV. Then they show you some pretty plastic people with microphones talking about the game. Then there's the coaches and random people yelling on the sidelines -- we wouldn't want to forget about them. And to top it off, this year's Super Bowl teams were wearing the same colors, so I kept getting the Blue Shirt guys confused with the Blue Helmet guys. I seriously don't understand why four hours of this ridiculousness is the most-watched thing on television.

Anyway, I'm going to do better today. Even though I lost my list of things I was going to make this month. I think the Bear Sloth ate it.

I'm camping out at library today. Which means I'm very thirsty. I tried to bring in a bottle of water with me, but the security guard sent me out. There weren't any signs or anything saying NO DRINKS! NOT EVEN WATER! but I wasn't too surprised, because libraries are always weird. The security guard is weird, too. When I walked in the door, she pointed at me and made a bunch of weird, incoherent noises. I just stared at her until she got around to telling me, "You can't bring that in here." For a second I thought she was talking about my laptop. That would have been preferable, because I have lots of stuff to do without a computer. I could be sitting here, well hydrated, researching my next novel, and instead I'm thirsty and wasting time.

I wish I'd been smart enough to bring a smaller water bottle, so I could stuff in it my bag, along with the apple, can of cashews, and two cans of soda I brought for lunch. Oh, no! Do you suppose the security lady will grunt and throw me out the window? Seriously, I can do way more damage around here with the stuff in my bag than with my water bottle.

The lady across from me is eating a snack. I bet she wouldn't tattle on me if I drank a soda. Then again, she might, because she knows the security guard.

I'm afraid to get up and leave my stuff sitting here. I haven't frequented a library since I was in college, and I can't tell if things are different now. Is it still okay to get up from your table and leave your books and papers and jacket and laptop lying around? Will other library patrons respect that this is my table, and they should camp elsewhere? Will they steal my stuff? It used to be okay to do that, but today I'm just not sure. This library is a little rougher than I'm used to.

Now the guy across from me is reading Seventeen magazine. Is that weird? Do guys read Seventeen? I can understand if there was a cute girl sitting there, saying, hey, read this, it's great. But he's all by himself. He looks like the kind of guy who'd tattle on me for eating an apple.

Anyway, the reason I'm camping at the library today is that the foster puppies are getting fixed. The SPCA does it for free, but it's an hour from my house. Rather than waste the time and money of two round trips, I'm staying here. I was going to do my taxes today, but my husband's employer couldn't be bothered to give him his W-2 yet, so I can't. I'm ready, though. Once that W-2 is in my hot little hand, I'll have my return mailed out the very next business day. I want my refund, darn it. I can't convince the powers-that-be to take less money out of our paychecks in the first place, so I have the pleasure of giving the government an interest free loan every year. While I'm waiting for my W-2s, my money is being used to provide the services we all rely on every day. Like roads. And national parks. And beefy security women to make sure nobody sneaks contraband into the library.

It's very dry in here. Think they'd kick me out if I went outside, stood in the rain long enough to get soaked, and came back in, dripping all over the place?

It's January. It's cold and gray and the days are not nearly long enough. You'd think we'd be used to it by now, right? It comes once every year. Well, not to worry. It's almost over. Just look at your calendar.

Oh, wait. See what's coming up? February. It just doesn't get any worse than that. In the interests of surviving February and breaking out of my creative rut (anybody notice the lack of blog posts this month?), I've joined thing-a-day.

The idea is to create something new every day for the month of February. You can sketch, cook, crochet, build, whatever works for you. But the goal is for one thing each and every day, not a big project that takes all month. Try some new recipes. Make homemade Valentines. Experiment with photography, or painting, or composing music, or whatever strikes your fancy. Draw up plans for your new deck. Write a short story. Build those shelves you've been meaning to install in that room where all the books are stacked up in piles.

Basically, get your brain moving. Don't let the slothful pace of February catch you, or you may not recover until May.

Now that it's a whole month into 2008, I found this list that I started in December and forgot to finish. Maybe 2007 wasn't so bad, after all.

Thirteen Things Really Cool Things That Happened to Me in 2007 1. Two people told me my cherry jam was the best they'd ever tasted. 2. I got to see my brother and sister-in-law for the first (and second!) time in over three years. 3. I cut off my hair for Locks of Love. I went to the same stylist that did my last haircut, and she didn't remember me! But she pretended, and she cut off two-and-a-half year's worth of hair growth and left me with a style that wasn't at all what she gave me last time, but still looked great. That woman is the best hair stylist I've ever had. I will be her customer for life. Which would be better for her if I got my hair cut more often. 4. My younger cousins got confused and thought my sister-in-law was my sister. Which wouldn't be so great if she wasn't one of the coolest people I know. 5. I learned to make gluten-free biscuits. Baked goods are the hardest thing to make decent gluten-free substitutes for, so this is a big victory. Now if only I could accomplish a yummy chocolate-chip cookie. I once got the texture right, but they tasted like garbanzo beans. 6. I learned how to knit. I mean really learned. People have shown me how to knit and purl before, but I'd always forget, and I never had much concept of how the stitches went together to make something worth wearing. Now I've made hats and scarves galore, plus a blanket, and I'm eyeing sweater patterns. With really cool fisherman cables. Yeah. 7. I got a free piano. People have told me for years that I didn't want a free piano, but they were wrong. Sure, it's out of tune and in need of repairs, but it beats not having a piano! I love it so much I have trouble seeing how I survived so many years without one. 8. My friend Emily got engaged and asked me to be a bridesmaid. I knew girls in college who were bridesmaids twice every summer, and I can understand how that would get old. But the first wedding I ever appeared in was my own, so I never burned out on the whole wedding thing. I love weddings! 9. I got a job at a place that is so cool I would work there for free. Actually, I used to work for music lessons, but now they pay me real money. 10. I introduced my husband to my mother's side of the family, and they loved him. He never feels like he fits in with my family, so it was really great to see him having fun at our family reunion. 11. I learned to play the guitar. A little bit, anyway. Okay, I started learning. And I got a guitar for my birthday, so I'd better get to practicing! 12. I visited Grandma for a week of quilting. This was my second solo trip to visit my grandparents. The first was the summer before I got married. That time, Grandma taught me how to make a quilt. This time, we worked on applique. My quilt pattern was way harder than the last one and we didn't get very far, but it was a wonderful trip! 13. I got rid of my nasty old kitchen. The cabinet doors hung crooked, the drawers fell off the tracks all the time, and it turns out there was a giant colony of something black growing under the tile countertop. Good riddance! Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

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Yesterday was one of those days when everybody I talked to asked if I was all right. I suppose that's better than those days when everybody says, "You should go home. You look awful." Still, it was no picnic. I had a migraine the day before (I'm afraid migraine headaches are becoming my annual January tradition) and it just left me totally wiped out.

I went to work anyway, just to do the things that were supposed to get done. After an hour, I started noticing funny halos around objects in my peripheral vision. Is that bad? After two hours, I called my boss at home (he comes in later than me) and asked if there was anything else I needed to do. He said no, and not to bother with the stuff I'd already done. Guess I could have stayed home.

No, I couldn't have. I had a guitar lesson. I think it went well, and I'm supposed to practice something new, but I've forgotten what it was in this funny headachey fog. I'll probably remember when I go shuffling through my papers later.

Migraines are definitely miserable, but I have to admit I'm amused by the random numbness that comes with them. One minute my entire arm is all tingly, then, poof, it's fine. During last year's migraine, my lips kept going numb. That was just plain bizarre.

Anyway, my husband, a.k.a. The Bear Sloth, was the real hero of the day. He left the lights dim and kept the dogs quiet and reheated chili for lunch.
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Him (quietly, so I won't have to cover my ears in pain): There's no beans in this chili.

Me: What?

Him: There are no beans in this chili.

Knowing that I have never once made chili without beans, I grab a spoon and taste it. Did I mention migraines can interfere with your sense of smell? I knew it smelled good, but I couldn't identify it.

Me: That's because it's spaghetti sauce.

Him: Woman!

Me: We have spaghetti.

Him: I know. And we have pagodas.

Me: Whatever. (I'm hungry. And cranky. And staring at you through a pain-induced fog. Just feed me.)

Leftover spaghetti sauce on pagoda pasta in the dark. Life doesn't get any better. Bear cooked me dinner, too, from scratch with an actual recipe. And we sat on the couch and read books and I did some knitting. At the end of the day, he said, "This was really nice," and I didn't know whether to hug him or smack him with a book. Since my head was pounding, I just squeezed my eyes shut and ignored him.

So I'm running water for a bath, and the dogs have been outside a while so I figure I should let them in. Only I forget to close the bathroom door, and when I come back to the bathroom, there's a puppy in there with his head in the litterbox.

It's morning. I'm only half-awake. And in dire need of a bath. So instead of handling the situation like the calm, rational person that I pretend to be after ten AM, I just scream.

The puppy is startled, and instead of backing out of the litter box like he's supposed to, like he usually does, like ANY PUPPY WITH A BRAIN WOULD KNOW HE WAS SUPPOSED TO DO, he just jumps in.

That's right. He's now IN the litterbox.

So I have to calm down just a little bit, just long enough to talk nicely and coax him to come out. Then I scoop him up and drop him directly in the bathtub. In MY bath. Well, the first two inches of it, anyway. There's nasty catbox mud swirling around his ankles.

I flip the shower valve so I can use the handheld spray, track down the dog shampoo, and scrub the puppy – who is a little freaked out by now – until I'm satisfied he's clean. Then I realize that I don't have a towel handy, because it's not like I was prepared for a doggy bath today, and no way am I using MY bath towel on this little guy. Uh-uh. So I go to look for a towel in the hall closet, and the puppy takes a flying leap out of the bathtub. I didn't know he could do that!

I'm actually a little proud. This is a rescue puppy with malnourishment issues, and when he got here, he couldn't even pull himself up the stairs. Now he can jump out of a bathtub! Good puppy! My job is done. (Right?)

The puppy's running all over the house, leaving wet puppy footprints everywhere. I decide not to care, because the house is warm and he will dry quickly, and also the house is dry, so those wet puppy footprints will be gone in the time it takes to locate a mop. Besides, I still haven't gotten my bath.

I track down cleaning supplies and scrub the tub. I don't really mind doing this, because it was about time to clean the tub anyway, I just wasn't planning on doing it before work today. Speaking of work, I'm running late.

Thinking of the nasty catbox mud, I scrub the bathtub twice, and rinse it extra well with the handheld sprayer. Now it's MY turn.

But the shower valve is stuck, and I don't want to use the handheld on myself. I need a hammer to fix it.

That is why the hammer is in the bathroom. If you have a problem with that, TAKE IT UP WITH THE PUPPY.

I wrote the annual Christmas letter last month, but for some reason we never got it printed and mailed. It's been busy around here. So, if you thought you were on our Christmas card list and wondered why you didn't hear from us, here's your copy:

2007: The Year We were Too Busy to have Any Milestones.

In a year in which everyone we know has bought/sold a house, had a family member get engaged/married/divorced/pregnant/born/religion, adopted a puppy/human/gerbil, graduated, started school, learned to walk/talk/drive, or at least had some sort of adventure outside the country, we have done none of the above. We haven't had the time.

In February, Alan learned that his company's government contract was coming to an end and he had to start job hunting again. They were great about keeping him on salary while trying to find him another position with the company, but none of the openings matched his skills and he had to move on. He ended up in a job that is too complicated for me to understand, but he kept saying it was mostly data entry and extremely boring. After applying for various transfers within the company, he is starting at a new position in December and really looking forward to it. He'll be doing computer help desk work again, which he enjoys.

I opted not to return to her job at the Governor's School after the school year was over. I am now working at Grace Center for the Arts, lining up music lessons and dance classes and other fun stuff. It's mostly accounting and recordkeeping, but it's a pleasant work environment and comes with fun perks. I took up guitar in January, and while I'm not very good, nobody throws rotten vegetables at me. So far. I just finished the winter recitals, where I was in charge of encouraging shy young singers, corralling wayward teenage guitar players, and keeping the drama students quiet whenever they weren't on stage.

Sometime in the spring, we inherited an old piano that was being given away by a local private school. We'd just rearranged our living room and left a space for a love seat so we could have people visit and not sit on the couch where the dogs sleep, but the free piano went there instead. (Who are we kidding? Nobody visits us!) I've been having a blast learning to play again, even though it's painfully out of tune. I took piano lessons for a few months, then decided to save money for a while and get the darn thing repaired.

For my birthday in July, we visited my parents, while my brother and sister-in-law happened to be there. It was the first time we'd all been together since our wedding, so it was a big treat for everybody.

In August, I indulged in a week of quilting with Grandma. (No, Dad, the quilt isn't done yet.) We had a wonderful time, and I made more little half-square triangles than I ever want to see again. I also helped Grandpa set up their new copy machine. Seeing as this year's Christmas letter from Grandma and Grandpa has yet to arrive, it seems possible that something went horribly wrong after I left. Oops.

Our new wood stove was installed in September. The old one did a fine job of heating the house, but it was made of steel, so that last February when Alan built a nice hot fire in it (some of you may remember that we had a giant ice storm in February, which resulted in the electricity being out for most of a day, and the phones being out for over three days), one of the sides warped and a weld cracked. The new one is cast iron, and smaller and prettier than the old one, and heats up a kettle on the top so I can make tea. Not that I've managed that yet, because the firebox is so much smaller and you have to pay a lot more attention to it. I can't seem to get a decent fire going, so defer to my husband, the self-proclaimed and acclaimed pyromaniac.

In October, we decided to quit talking about it and remodel our kitchen already. So we did. And when I say we, I mean the two of us, Alan and Julie. We've learned lots of great lessons, like how water and electricity don't mix, and how they say to use dark primer under red paint, but it doesn't matter, you're still going to need three coats anyway. It was a miserable process, which of course took twice as long as we expected. Many thanks to the friends who took us to dinner during the two weeks we were without a kitchen sink! Now that the dust has settled, we have a working dishwasher for the first time. There are no words to express our excitement. We still haven't installed the toekicks or wiped the plaster dust off the rafters, but our new kitchen is much nicer than our old one. I can't seem to stop myself from cooking in it, and Alan can't seem to stop himself from eating in it, so everybody's happy.

One day while we were eating lunch off paper plates and there was a big plastic curtain dividing our dusty kitchen from the rest of the house, my mom called and invited us to an impromptu family reunion in Nebraska. It seemed my mom's entire family was going to be there, and we were the only ones not going. Since it was the weekend of our fifth anniversary and Alan still hadn't met most of these relatives, and since it's only about once a decade that they're all in the same place, we went to Nebraska, where a good time was had by all. I fixed my aunt and uncle's computer, my sister-in-law fixed my guitar, my mom and aunts made a fabulous pre-Thanksgiving dinner, and my uncle taught Alan how to field dress a buck, shot by my cousin. What more can you ask for?

This Christmas, we're looking forward to some quality time with family in Illinois, Tennesse, and maybe somewhere else. We'll know when we get there. Then maybe in January, we'll catch our breath.

So I took a silly quiz, and here are the results:

You Should Be a Joke Writer

You're totally hilarious, and you can find the humor in any situation. Whether you're spouting off zingers, comebacks, or jokes about life... You usually can keep a crowd laughing, and you have plenty of material. You have the makings of a great comedian - or comedic writer.

Don't I wish! I was going to try to make fun of the terrible week I've had, but it just isn't funny. This was the week I was supposed to post pictures of all my Christmas knitting, but I didn't get it done. Because I was sitting in my office waiting for my computer to reboot (for hours and hours), wishing the whole time that I'd brought my knitting so I could at least get something done while I was on the clock. So the server upgrade, which probably wasn't necessary in the first place, spilled over and disrupted my entire life, and now people I love are not going to get their Christmas presents on time. I'm sure they won't love me any less, but I might love me a little less. Merry Christmas anyway.

An old friend of mine invited me to join Facebook a while back, so I did. Just to humor him. But then I got caught up in scrolling through the alumni lists of my high school and college, and I found people I thought I'd lost! Including one I mentioned in a post back in August. This is so cool!

I had no idea there were grownups on Facebook. Maybe it's just because I worked at a high school until recently, but I thought Facebook was a mostly teenage thing. Much like Myspace is a mostly teenage thing. But there are all sorts of people on Facebook. And once you've put a few people on your friends list and explained how you know them, the site creates a Social Timeline including all sorts of important events, like the fact that I took 7th grade math with Jeanette in 1992. And I “went underground for a while” between 1993 and 1997. Which is ridiculous. I had a perfectly good social life all those years, with friends and a first boyfriend and everything. It's just that Facebook doesn't know about it.

I keep laughing at the profile pictures. You'd think most people would post a head shot, but a lot of people have posted full-body pictures, which means that by the time it's shrunk to thumbnail size, that could be ANYBODY at the top of your profile. A lot of people have also posted group or couple pictures, which means that if I don't already know you, I don't know which person belongs to that profile. And a lot of people posted pictures of their babies, or other random things. Which is fine, if you wanted to be obscure. Just remember: at that size, that could be ANYBODY'S baby. Maybe even Rosemary's. I went without a photo until people complained, but then I didn't have any of me, so I posted one of my hedgehog. So far, nobody's making inappropriate online advances, so I'm keeping it.

But the biggest thing I've learned from Facebook is that you can now, truly, do anything online. You can play with a hamster, start a food fight, or join in a kickboxing match. You can emote, because, you know, we humans have so much trouble doing that in real life. You can join a club devoted to any crazy thing you can think of, from singing loudly in public to destroying Hilary Clinton's campaign to eating at a favorite restaurant. I find it all a little scary. Do any of us have real lives anymore?

On the other hand, on Facebook, I can do all the things I can't do in real life. Like slay vampires. And throw pies with amazing accuracy. So there.

You know how when you're driving a familiar route, you don't bother reading the signs anymore? You know where to stop, you know the curves, intersections, and speed limits, so you just don't look. My husband was in that mode last night when we were driving home and I asked him, "Was that a Hot Pocket stuck to that stop sign?"

He looked at me like I was insane, then threw the car into reverse. "You can't ignore a question like that." He backed up through the intersection, stopped at the stop sign again, and stared.

"It looks like a Hot Pocket, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, sure does." Then he turned on the high beams.

"Oh. Nevermind. Not a Hot Pocket."

"What is it?"

"A maxi pad."

All the major appliances are operational including our sink -- try living without your kitchen sink for two weeks and you'll realize how much you rely on that sucker! -- and our brand-spanking-new dishwasher. We haven't had a working dishwasher in our five years of marriage, so this is a bright shiny luxury to us. Oh, yeah, we had our five-year anniversary while I was taking an unannounced blog vacation, and also went to Nebraska by way of Denver, which doesn't exactly make sense, but that's never stopped us before, has it?

Today, I roasted a butternut squash in our new kitchen. I've never roasted a butternut squash before (or any squash, really), but whoever said it smells and tastes exactly like pumpkin was dead right. While I was scooping it out, my resident floor-cleaning mini-mutt danced around the kitchen, looking up at me expectantly. I didn't think too much of it, because this is the dog that eats potato peels. And steals carrot sticks from the guinea pigs. Spill salsa on the couch, this dog will lick it so clean, you'll never know where it was. He's an all-purpose food vacuum.

Still, I was skeptical. "You don't really want this, puppy."

Mini-Mutt: Yes I do! Yes I do!

I dropped a bit on the floor. What can I say? I'm a clumsy cook, and this dog is my enabler. And the bit that dropped was gone before I could think about cleaning it up.

MM: (wags tail and dances some more.)

"You really like it?"

MM: Yes! Yummy! More squash!

Foster Dog: You are in the kitchen, addressing a dog. This can only mean yummy treats! I want some!

I taste the squash. It's pumpkinny, not bad, but totally bland, because I haven't done anything with it yet. "You guys are so weird."

MM: More squash!

FD: How come I don't get any?

Big Dog, who is much more suspicious when offered new foodstuffs: Something appears to be happening in the kitchen. I'd better check it out.

I finish scraping the squash rinds, and offer my spoon to the dogs to lick off.

MM: Mmm! Yummy! I love people food!

FD: Must eat faster! Can't allow little dog to eat more than me!

BD: What is that? Is it edible?

I raise the spoon up higher, so only Big Dog can reach it.

BD: (sniffs suspiciously.) Is there cheese in it? (licks his lips, but doesn't not actually touch spoon.) I don't think that's food. I'm going back to the couch now.

FD: Let me at it! People food!

MM: This dumb dog is getting in my way. Doesn't she know I'm the food spill cleaner-upper around here? She can't even clean out the bowl of the spoon right! Mmm! Yummy! No! Don't throw the rind in the garbage!

FD: Now I have to dig it out of the plastic bag! What were you thinking, human?

Silly me. Forgot to chuck in on the compost pile, which is surrounded by a doggie-proof fence.

Does anybody else have a dog that eats everything? Or a dog that turns down the majority of actual dog treats? Seriously, I think somewhere in between eating everything that could ever be considered food (fish flakes! stale bread! pelleted guinea pig food! birdseed!) and a discerning palate that only accepts meat, cheese, and brand-name dog food, there must be a happy medium.

Right?

And when I say we, I mean the two of us. Me and my wonderful husband. I'm tired. I was going to blog about it while the whole project was in progress, but there's just no time. So I'm just dropping in to say that I miss my kitchen, and I miss real food. My ability to work hard is decreasing with each day that I don't have a kitchen. I want to cook. I want to eat. I don't care if the cabinets are level. But my husband does, and he gave me plenty of time for the paint job, so I will let him fiddle with the cabinets a while longer. But I have a feeling that even once we have our kitchen back, it will be a long time before I have my sanity back.

I'm a night owl. Left to my own devices, I tend to stay up until 4am, then sleep until noon. Who needs mornings, anyway? When my husband was traveling for the military, he'd often be gone for weeks or months at a time, and I'd find myself in some kind of crazy sleep schedule. But I usually do better when he's home, because you can only make so much noise when someone's trying to sleep in a small house, and eventually you might as well give up and join them.

But for the past few months, my husband has been getting up a 3 in the morning to leave for work. This does NOT work for me. He goes to bed way early, and then I'm killing time by myself in the evenings. And usually losing all track of time, and staying up way too late. I've been trying to ease myself into a better schedule, setting my alarm a little earlier each day, but it wasn't working. I just slept right through it and woke up a little later each day.

So last night, I took the direct approach and set my alarm for 5am. Because it's a well-established fact that I need two hours more sleep each night than my husband does. This way we can go to bed at the same time, which means that neither of us is waking up the other by crawling into bed later, and we can both get some decent sleep, which would be a miracle.

Actually, the real miracle is that I actually got up this morning. Before 6 which is . . . an undisclosed number of hours earlier than I usually get up. And look at all this stuff that I got done, just because I got up early!

• Three loads of laundry before 9am! Not that I stopped there, but I can't even remember the last time I started laundry before noon.
  
• Rotated my mattress
  
• Dusted off the ceiling fan and flipped the switch for winter
  
• Started a yummy dinner in the crockpot
  
• Read the last few chapters of a novel
  
• Sorted through all 50 unread emails in my inbox, instead of just reading the highlights, deleting the advertisements and leaving a bunch for later
  
• Learned that chocolate cravings can be caused by bacteria in your intestines! Isn't that weird?
  
• Bathed my 80-pound dog, who desperately needed it because he has allergies and something he touches in the backyard makes him itch! Poor puppy!
  
• Various household chores that should have been done last week. Oops.
  

Isn't that amazing? I feel like Wonder Woman today. Although, I think I forgot to eat, right up until that yummy crockpot dinner. And now I've stayed up too late, so my chances of repeating my productive day are slim. But stay tuned anyway, because tomorrow I'll be posting my adventures in sleep-deprived gardening, assuming I get that far.

I'm going out of town tomorrow. I was going to write a Thursday Thirteen about all the things I'm doing on my trip, but it ended up sounding really boring. So I'm going to drive to a small town that has the same name as my dog, pitch my novel to an actual literary agent, visit mom and dad, and spend some time with a friend I haven't seen in a while. Now you know why I won't be blogging for the next week or so.

Which doesn't explain why I haven't managed to update since last Thursday. We're fostering a dog through a local rescue agency, plus one of our current pets has gotten sick, so we've been busy medicating and house training. Oh, the joy. Plus I got sick, my husband was preparing for a job interview, and I've been trying to make sure the house and the groceries and the laundry were all squared away before my trip and, oops, a whole week went by. Don't you hate those weeks when everything gangs up on you? The good news is that while I was feeling too crummy to do anything else, I managed to finish one of my Christmas knitting projects. Unfortunately, I did not manage to finish my book. Grr.

In a pitiful attempt to make up for how boring my blog has been lately, here's a picture of all of us taking a nap on Sunday after we finished reading the paper. The dog at our feet is the new resident.

Thirteen Careers I'm Really Glad I Didn't Choose Let me just make it clear that I have the utmost respect for the people who perform these jobs. Every career on this list has been suggested to me by someone who knows me, or by one of those ridiculous computerized career assessment things. I'm sure all of these jobs are very important and necessary, except for number 6. They're just not for me. 1. Preschool Teacher – Little kids are adorable and all, but they do an awful lot of un-adorable things. My tolerance for that stuff is only so high. 2. Massage Technician – How can I put this delicately? The idea of touching strangers with their clothes off makes me want to break out in a rash. 3. Computer Programmer – I need my eyeballs for other things. 4. Network Administrator – I may be capable of cobbling things together so they'll work for a day or two, but running smoothly? Not a chance. 5. Plumber – I took apart my sink drain once. It wasn't fun. 6. Magician – I'm pretty amused that this one came up on a career test. I'm not graceful enough for sleight of hand. Nor do I really care for magic tricks. 7. Website Designer – Obviously the person who suggested this had never seen this pitiful excuse for a website. Again, I need my eyeballs for other things. I know they have all these fancy programs that let you design graphically now, so you don't have to know any code, but I still don't want to sit in front of a computer all day rearranging pixels. 8. High School Teacher – Since I'm a miserable public speaker, can't hold a crowd's attention, hate dealing with discipline and suck at explaining things clearly . . . need I say more? 9. Bicycle Mechanic – I learned to ride a bike when I was a kid, but have since lost the ability. Which makes me want to strangle anyone who says, “You can do it! It's just like riding a bike!” Because what they're really telling me is that it's a difficult feat and a surefire way to injure myself. 10. Medical Illustrator – Are these the people who draw the diagrams for textbooks? Really, I have no idea. But since I don't know anything about medicine and have no drawing talent, I have to say this career is not for me. 11. Industrial Designer – I just have no aptitude for this sort of thing. None. I couldn't design my way out of a paper bag. Good thing paper bags rip in half easily. 12. Mortuary Technician – I just don't think I have the stomach for it. 13. Systems Analyst – My systems classes in college made me want to scream. A lot. I would have screamed a few not-very-nice words about them, but my brain was so worn out I couldn't think of any. Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Brenda Coulter over at No Rules, Just Write recently asked her readers what they'd like to see on her blog, with the caveat that she won't write book reviews because she's bad at them. Which reminds me why I don't write book reviews, either.

For one thing, I'm REALLY bad at it. I guess because the reasons I love a book are often those mysterious, intangible things that I have trouble explaining. I'm not that good at dissecting my own books, let alone anyone else's.

For another thing, the last time I was involved in a book reviewing project, the only time I said I didn't like a book was the time the author showed up and commented on my post.

Speaking of which, isn't that bad etiquette? Aren't authors supposed to ignore book reviewers, even crappy amateur reviewers? Maybe those rules only apply to the elite New York Times reviewers, I don't know.

Anyway, I'd read a romantic comedy that was smart and hilarious, but had way too much sex for my taste. And it wasn't even believable sex. More like a window into somebody's fantasy life, which isn't something I care to read about. And while I made sure to mention in my review that I liked certain things about the book, I also said it made me want to wash my brain out with soap. The author apologized (which wasn't necessary—I'm the one that bought the book and chose to read it) and recommended another of her books that was supposedly not as dirty. She didn't use that word. And I didn't read the other book.

I've posted a bunch of books in the sidebar, and those are books that I recommend. If I'm rating books on a five-star system, those books all get at least four stars. I've probably read three times that many books over the past two or three months, but I only posted the ones that I strongly recommend, and that I think a lot of people will enjoy. I've read a whole stack of good romances lately, but most of those aren't on there because they'd only appeal to romance readers. I've also read books that I don't recommend, and I'm not mentioning them because I don't want their authors to show up and embarrass themselves. Or me.

What good books have you read lately?

Tanya Michaels just posted some have-you-evers on her blog that made me laugh out loud. Sometimes, we humans are such silly creatures.

Have you ever caught yourself ducking when you drive under a low beam/ceiling in a parking garage?

Have you ever been unable to sleep without first getting up to check under the bed and inside the closet?

Have you ever sucked in your stomach before getting on the scale? Only if the scale is one where the numbers are between your feet, instead of in front of your toes. I hate those, because they make everybody seem fat, trying to suck in their whole front half just to read their weight.

Have you ever done that thing where you fan your fingers in front of your eyes to try to keep from crying?

Have you ever secretly thrown away a storage container retreived from the back of the fridge rather than face the long-ago leftovers lurking inside? All the time! This is why I buy the cheap containers!


Have you ever passed off a pre-prepared dish as something you cooked?

You've done something on this list. People do these things all the time. Now that I think about it, I have no idea what's up with the finger-fanning thing, but I've never watched somebody doing it and wondered what that was about, because I've seen it a million times. And now I'm thinking, why do people do that? Why? It's a bizarre gesture that doesn't make any sense. If I hadn't seen it a million times, I would think it only served to make you look like an idiot. Does anybody know what finger fluttering is about?

This one, on the other hand, I totally get:

Have you ever googled a long lost love?

Yes. Yes, I have. Then I paid three dollars and fifty cents for his address. And I'm darn proud of it. He's watching a movie in the next room. Our five-year wedding anniversary is coming up in November. While you could try to label me some kind of crazy stalker chick for tracking down a guy after we lost touch, I like to think that for once in my life, I just knew what I wanted. I'm very lucky, and very blessed, that he wanted me, too. And that he doesn't care if throw out the containers of mystery food, and he tells me how cute I am when I duck under a low beam in a parking garage.

Thirteen Stupid Injuries I've Had 1.The summer before college, I did something horrible to my wrist when I was loading something heavy into a van. The doctors never could figure out what the heck was wrong, but I had trouble writing, typing, and opening doors my whole first semester in college. 2.I once broke a toe just trying to walk around a corner in my house. It's shocking how fragile those little bones are. I still can't believe it broke so easily. 3.I cracked my nose giving someone a hug. It was dark, and we were tired, and my nose collided with her forehead. It wasn't crooked or anything, but I could feel that little crack for weeks afterwards. 4.I hit my head on the runner of a rocking chair and had to get stitches over my eye. I barely remember it because I was so young, but I still have the scar. 5.My dog beat me up. I think it was last year. I was sitting on the floor, playing with my big, eighty-pound dog, who got really excited and went for a big full-body doggy shake. His head smashed into my cheekbone and left an embarrassing purple bruise, like someone had backhanded me. 6.I broke a toe (not the same toe as the first time) by falling down the only stair in my house. You read that right: a singular stair. It never healed right. It's still crooked. 7.Some time so long ago that I don't even remember it (and neither does my mother, I broke my tailbone. I only know about it because my chiropractor took x-rays, and instead of healing straight, it healed at a ninety degree angle. You'd think this would have caused problems by now, but all I've noticed is that it makes it really easy to balance in certain pilates positions. 8.I fractured my foot falling down the stairs at my grandparents' house. I forget why I was running down them in the first place, but to this day I'm extra careful on those steps. 9.On a beach in Costa Rica, I got a sunburn so bad that my skin was rough for over a year afterwards. It was my own dumb fault, because I didn't bother bringing jeans and hiking shoes to go for a hike in the woods in the middle of the day. And because all my friends went on the hike, there wasn't anybody around to re-apply sunscreen to my back, so I got fried. I think it was four weeks before I could stand a warm shower again. 10.I once threw my back out giving the dogs a bath. Still haven't figured out how that happened, because my dogs don't have to be wrestled into the tub and held down. Just bribed with cheese. 11.One Halloween in junior high, I tore my achilles tendon. Falling down the stairs again. I was on my way to answer the door for trick-or-treaters. I don't think I was even hurrying. 12.I sprained my wrist trying to wrestle my futon from bed position into couch position. Ever since getting married, this has been one of those things that I don't even try to do by myself. Do you know how hard it is to type with an ace bandage on your wrist? 13.My canoe capsized in the Clarion river in Pennsylvania, and I almost drowned. Actually, I was perfectly fine, but I can't think of another injury. Happy Thursday anyway. Links to other Thursday Thirteens!http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif 1. No Nonsense Girl 3. wahm 4. Robin 5. Retta 6. Joyful Days 7. Buck Naked Politics

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

I was checking on my blog traffic again (it's addicting) and noticed that another blog had linked to this site. So I tried to go visit, just to see what it's about and thank them for linking me. But I can't. I got a PERMISSION DENIED message reading, "This blog is open to invited readers only."

They're talking about me, but I'm not invited. This disturbs me. A lot. Besides the oh-no-what-could-they-be-saying-about-me-how-could-it-possibly-be-anything-good, I'm wondering about the purpose of a selective blog. I mean, if you wanted to put out information about your life for your family and friends, you'd just put it in a mass email, right? I just don't get it.

And really, what could they possibly be saying about me? Why does it have to be a secret? I don't have any secrets on my blog! I've been very careful to make sure of that, because I have job applications out, and everybody says that the first thing a prospective employer does with your application is google your name, and, yes, here I am. Blogging about cherries and dogs and silly things that happen to me. Not anonymous in the least. What of it?

Speaking of silly things that happen to me, I was knitting today and my husband glanced over and said, "Wow. I can actually see the physics of how that all holds together. It's really a very complicated one-braid." Does anybody know what he's talking about? He made my first scarf project sound really complicated, but it's just a basic stockinette stitch that likes to roll right up like a scroll. It's about a million stitches per row, so I got bored and bought some big fat yarn to make a much more complicated scarf, with twisty cables and everything, and they're about the same length so far. I'd take pictures, but they're going to be Christmas presents, unless I decide to keep one, and I don't want to give away the surprise.

So, in lieu of weird-looking half-done scarf pictures, I give you a list that I wrote in response to Danica's open challenge a whole week ago:

You Know You're a Writer When:

1. You've been known to get out of bed, up from the dinner table, or out of the shower to write down a great idea.
2. You have real conversations with imaginary people, and imaginary conversations with real people.
3. When you see people that you know, but aren't close to, you try to think about ways to use them in your current novel.
4. You seriously freak out if you can't find a pen.
5. People ask if you're talking to yourself, and you don't have an answer.
6. Someone finds your research notes and very cautiously asks you what you're doing with that information.
7. You catch yourself editing your own conversations.
8. You spent more on your computer keyboard than you did on the computer itself.
9. You analyze the plot structure of movies.
10. You feel like you accomplish more on the days you stay in your pajamas.

Thirteen Things I Wish I Could Do 1. Dance without hurting myself. 2. Finish something on schedule. 3. Make bread from scratch. 4. Replace my kitchen. 5. Convince my dog not to bark at people walking past our yard. 6. Sing like Martina McBride. 7. Get DSL at my house. (It's not available out here in the sticks.) 8. Find a lipstick color that I really like. 9. Eat real, honest-to-goodness chocolate chip cookies again. 10. A backflip. 11. Start up conversations with strangers, without coming across as a freaky stalker person. 12. Paint. Or draw, even. 13. Keep my house clean. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

I cleaned off my desk today! You'll never believe what I found:

A dozen pens
An undated anniversary card from my parents, with four bare feet on the front and the phrase "Solemates from the start!" on the inside
A temporary tattoo of some obscure Disney character
Last year's Christmas letter from Grandpa
A hat that was once part of my husband's military uniform
Five notebooks containing ideas, outlines, and scenes for the novel I'm working on, as well as three notebooks that didn't
Two complete novel-length manuscripts

They're single-spaced, so they only take up 100-150 pages each, but still . . . How did I manage to LOSE them? And why did I waste all that paper in the first place? No wonder I put off de-cluttering. It's a really scary process.

Welcome to a gratuitous About Me post. I don't think I've done one of these since . . . well, ever, so just roll your eyes and put up with it.

Accent: I don't think so. And I'm really bad at faking them, which saddens me greatly. I really wish I could pull off a sophisticated Brit accent, or even a sweet Georgia peach. Nope. I'm too Midwestern.

Booze: Not much! My alcohol tolerance is very low. One teensy little drink, and I'm a different person.

Chore I Hate: Anything involving garbage.

Dog or Cat: Two dogs, three cats. You could probably build an extra critter with a week's worth of hair swept off my floors.

Essential Electronics: My computer, definitely. And my refrigerator. And maybe that handy-dandy little back massager I got last Christmas.

Favorite Cologne: I'm not big on smells, either on me or my man. But that could be because I never figured out what that yummy-smelling guy who sat next to me in college was wearing. More guys should be using that, whatever it was.

Gold or Silver: Gold, in general. But some things look better in silver. Or platinum, or something else entirely.

Hometown: Normal, Illinois.

Insomnia: Yes. I am my mother's daughter.

Job Title: I need a new one. I'll be taking a poll next week.

Kids: Maybe someday.

Living arrangements: My hubby and I bought our first house three years ago, then the strays started following us home.

Most admirable traits: I hate questions like this. Maybe I'm too hard on myself, but I can never think of a truthful answer.

Number of states you've lived in: Seven.

Overnight hospital stays: Technically, no, but I did spend most of the night in the emergency room once. And I stayed the night with my sister-in-law when she was having surgery.

Phobias: Public speaking.

Quote: "Never insult a writer. You may wind up being immortalized in ways you may not appreciate." --Garrison Keillor.

Religion: Christian.

Siblings: One younger brother.

Time I wake up: This is embarrassing. Sometime between 10:00 and noon. I believe the inability to wake up on time is related to the insomnia.

Unusual talent or skill: I can wiggle my nose up and down. Not by wrinkling it in the middle, but by pulling it down closer to my mouth. I can also twirl a pencil. I learned both these things at gifted school.

Vegetable I love: Tomatoes and bell peppers. Technically, those may both be fruits, but I don't care.

Worst habit: I have so many!

X-rays: Wrists, ankles, toes, spine, teeth, head . . . yeah.

Yummy foods I make: I make nearly everything from scratch these days, so I can't think of a specialty. Yesterday I made vanilla ice cream. Today I made worcestershire sauce. Tomorrow, I'm thinking about gravy.

Zodiac sign: I hate zodiac signs, too. If anybody can think of a new question for Z, let me know.

I'm tagging Meghan and Erin, but I think I'm supposed to tag five people. So, if you're reading this and you have a blog, consider yourself tagged and let me know in the comments.

I've always wondered about those people who could figure out how visitors got to their blog. You know the ones: they post long lists of bizarre search terms that people used to get there, and when a new site links them, they notice it without being told. I had no concept of how they could do such a thing. Was it some kind of weird internet voodoo? Did they have a team of software geeks stowed in their basement, monitoring online traffic on a bank of dusty computers?

Turns out it's none of the above. It's actually very simple. This week, I've managed to confirm my long-held suspicion that PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY VISITING MY BLOG! You know who you are.

Nobody ever leaves a comment. I guess it's become a tradition. People stop by, they hang around for an average of 23 minutes and 53 seconds, and they never, ever comment. Occasionally, they email me to say they enjoyed their visit. Maybe it's too scary to leave a comment in public. Maybe this is the kind of website people don't admit they like. I'm right up there with grandma porn and mental illness self-treatment sites. You wouldn't want the whole world to know you've been reading my blog.

On the bright side, I discovered that about half the people who come here via google are actually looking for me, or at least somebody named Julie Dike. I did that on purpose, because I hate it when I realize I've lost touch with one of my old friends and she's moved and I can't find her address or phone number or any information about her anywhere. It's like she's dropped off the face of the earth. Jeannette, Jennifer, and Lana, you are all fabulously cool people, and if you're looking for me, here I am. Drop me an email.

I also discovered that people got here searching phrases like "allergic to skittles," which I did actually mention in a post about a year and a half ago. Because when you're gluten intolerant, Skittles are one of the many things you can't eat. But I have no explanation for the person who got here with the search phrase, "cold turkey sit out before spoiling?" Sorry, I can't help you. Try these people.

Yesterday, I hurt myself while exercising. It turns out that I'm in much worse shape than I thought, and I should probably give up exercising on my own and go to some kind of rehab or physical therapy or something. Anyway, all afternoon and evening, it hurt to stand up. My muscles were shouting at me. Which resulted in me shouting at nobody in particular.

Last night, the dogs wanted to go out while my husband was washing the dishes. Not wanting him to stop for even a second, I pried myself up out of my computer chair and groaned. Or maybe I screamed a little.

"What?" my hubby yelled from the kitchen.

"It hurts to walk," I called back, leaving my office through the back.

He raced into the front of my office, spatula in hand. "What? Where?"

I staggered to the back door and let the dogs out before he found me.

"Where?"

"Huh?"

"I thought you said a bear sloth."

"I said it hurts to walk."

"Oh. I was all set to rescue you from it." He waved the spatula menacingly. "I didn't know what a bear sloth was, but I knew it couldn't be moving very fast."

Today, I checked on an email account that I'd forgotten I had, and there was actually one new message. Well, one message that was three months old. From a visitor to this blog.

Apparently, at some point, I linked my blogger profile to that email account (did I mention I forgot I had it?) and someone named Anne came here and loved my blog enough to email me about it.

She got here by googling “maraschino cherry toilet paper.” I could tell you why she did that, but why? I think it's enough to know that I have now joined the ranks of bloggers who can be found by insane search terms. And I haven't even been planting them in my posts! I'm just insane naturally.

Anyway, Anne said she was reading my maraschino cherry story and just HAD to share it with her husband, so she read it out loud, only she couldn't stop laughing and kept having to repeat herself.

Thanks, Anne. You made my day. Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner!

In other news, I have at least eight pounds of cherries in my kitchen, waiting for my attention. But I've already made a batch of maraschinos this year, and one is really enough.

Really.

I've also made something called Cherry Obsession, which my husband calls Cherry Kaboom. I guess the Kaboom comes from the habanero peppers.

But the really fun thing about making Cherry Kaboom is pitting the cherries. Since the fancy new cherry pitter I bought doesn't work AT ALL, I pitted the maraschinos with a sharp knife, so they'd look all nice and neat when I was done. Cherry Kaboom only uses the juice, so it doesn't matter if the cherries are mangled beyond recognition. So I pitted them all with my bare hands. Squish, squish. I had to wipe cherry juice off the floor AND the underside of the range hood when I was done.

My mommy always told me you can't make good cookies without getting your hands in the dough. I figure that applies to pretty much everything.

Things I did this week:
Started my dog in an obedience class
Did payroll at my job for the first time
Made three batches of salsa (roughly 2.5 gallons)
Failed miserably at using my pressure canner
Started voice lessons with a new teacher who's really tough
Spent four hours going over a manuscript I wrote last year
Cleaned my living room
Got painfully sick and made my husband go to the store and buy me pills when I didn't know what they were called
Got better
Cooked pizza on the grill
Attempted to help my husband put a car door back together, but gave up after accidentally throwing his tools in the trash
Due to a series of kitchen accidents, made a pint of mixed berry jam and a pint and a half of pineapple jam
Bought an armored jacket for motorcycle safety
Found the big farmer's market in the next county over
Started a batch of maraschino cherries (read about last year's adventure here)
Went for an hour-long motorcycle ride
Sewed the elastic on my ballet shoes. My fingers still hurt!
Babysat a friend's dog for the weekend

Things I did not do:
Write fiction
Sit still

Today, I was reading Maggie Stiefvater's blog, which I subscribe to for the pretty pictures, but I also read it, until she gets to talking about horse shows and drawing, because I don't know anything about either. Other than that, though, she and I have a few things in common. We both live in Virginia. We both write. And we both google ourselves. It used to be that if you googled my name, the top ten hits were all for Mary Poppins. Then for a while last winter, most of the top ten hits were actually for me. Yup, I was that famous. Somehow. Now I think Mary Poppins and I are tied.

Maggie has a post called Kicking the Habit, in which she explains her reasons for going cold turkey this week and invites fellow bloggers to do so as well. Kick their own bad habits cold turkey, that is. Maggie's habit is Diet Pepsi, which isn't a problem for me. And we won't be discussing my drink of choice, because the headaches just aren't worth it. Besides, I'm already down to two a day or less.

Anyway, I was reading Maggie's blog, and thinking about kicking bad habits, and now that she put it out there, I feel like I HAVE to join in. I must have at least ONE bad habit that I could stand to be rid of. My problem is that they're not really cold-turkey kinds of things. Like failing to clean my house. Forcing myself to do something I don't normally do is a different issue entirely from stopping myself doing something I usually do. I'm stopping this line of reasoning right here because it's making me dizzy.

The point is, my bad habit to kick this week is an ugly, murky, nebulous one. Idleness. Or maybe I should say, inertia. For the past several weeks, I was in a whirlwind of activity, where all my summer commitments were starting up before my springtime commitments were over. And now that that's over, and I don't have so many commitments to other people, I'm finding it easy to forget all the commitments I made to myself. The ones I had to put on hold due to all that hideous overlap. Someday, I want to live in a nice clean house. I want to finish the book I'm writing. I want to have a garden worth looking at. And it's so tempting to forget all those things in favor of three naps a day, just because I can.

So, thanks, Maggie. I'm going to get some things done this week. I'll let you know how it goes.

This is for Cole, because I gave him my blog address today, and what's the point of ever giving out your blog address to anybody if you don't update it? Except there's nothing to talk about today except how lame I am, so I'll do that.

Yup. I'm lame. Totally lame. I drove to Richmond today, because I needed ballet shoes. And a leotard, which is really the same thing as a swimsuit but less shiny. I'm taking a beginner ballet class, because I'm a clumsy sloth and I need to get into shape. And also because I was pretty sure my chiropractor would veto it, but instead he said, “That would be great!” and got all excited and wrote on my chart that I was taking ballet, so I had to sign up.

Anyway. Richmond. I hate driving in Richmond. Driving near Richmond is fine. I have no trouble driving around Richmond. Or even to the Richmond airport. Or many places in the suburbs of Richmond. Richmond itself, however, is a nightmare. I took a nice, friendly interstate and a harmless-looking exit ramp right into downtown, and found myself in a maze of one-way streets and parallel parking.

Last week, I parallel parked for the first time since driver's ed OVER TEN YEARS AGO. My passenger that day, a mother of teenagers, had to remind me how. Even then, it wasn't pretty, and I was saved by the fact that I drive a Volkswagen, which only takes up two thirds of a parking space.

So I found the store on my second trip around the block, not that there was a single parking space in sight. I ended up parking behind the store next to a dumpster and coming in the back door, which looked like every other back door on that street. I was a little worried I'd wander into a drunken bar brawl or something. And everybody knows that drunken bar brawls before two in the afternoon are the worst kind.

I made a big enough fool of myself in the dance store, what with not knowing where anything was or what anything was and not wanting to buy any of the things I could actually afford, because they were butt ugly. But the full-on hilarity didn't start until I got back in my car and rattled down the alley to another unnamed one-way street.

After getting myself back on the original one-way street I'd been on in the first place, I set about trying to backtrack my way to the interstate. Yeah, right. Turns out, you can only get on it going one direction – the wrong one. And it turns into a toll road after one exit, and that exit doesn't allow you back on the right direction. Yeah. Another maze of one way streets. I did a few loops around the neighborhood, looking for a way back onto my lovely interstate.

It was about that time that I forgot how to operate a manual transmission.

I stalled the car trying to start at a rather busy intersection, with the car pointing downhill (it should have been easier!), and it was so bad that my brakes lost their power assist, so I couldn't stop, either. I turned on the windshield wipers when I fumbled for the ignition. Is it possible that four years of near-total automatic immersion have permanently ruined me? What the heck?

What with the car having seizures and all, I gave up on trying to find the interstate and just started looking for a road I might have heard of. When I eventually did, I used the sun as a compass and aimed my punchbuggy towards home. I came across an interchange with one of Richmond's various interstates, but not the right one, so I kept going.

I thought my plan was working pretty well until the road turned, and it was no longer taking me home, but Somewhere Else. I hate that. I turned around in the parking lot of a high school. There were a bunch of kids there, just sitting on the curb. Because apparently they have nothing better to do on a beautiful day in June than hang around the school parking lot after hours. And I thought I had no life at that age. I, at least, had better places to go while I was being a loser.

All the turning around and backtracking had me on the verge of a full-blown panic, but then I found a radio station playing Dido, so I cranked it up and reminded myself that it's not so bad, it's not so bad. It's amazing how hard it is to worry about silly things like where you are when you're singing at the top of your lungs in a car that's shaped vaguely like a snowglobe.

I went back to the Wrong Interstate. Because if there's one thing I know about interstates, it's that they know where they're going. They always go where they say they're going. If you get on an interstate that says it's going east, it will most definitely take you somewhere east of where you are. It won't just change its mind and go north instead. And you see, the interstates are all connected. I once got on Interstate 10 in Arizona and took interstates all the way to Interstate 95 in Virginia. That is how good interstates are. Even the Wrong Interstate manages to be better than any other road in Richmond.

Sure enough, it got me home, even with the roads still being snarled from the three simultaneous car wrecks that happened during morning rush, eleven hours earlier. (Again, what the heck?) And now that I've survived the whole ordeal, it has taught me one very, very important lesson:

Never underestimate the convenience of online shopping.

Let me just say this up front: I love my husband. There.

My husband drives me crazy. Everything he hears seems to get muddled. When we were first dating, one of my friends said something completely normal, and my darling husband heard, "Flushed green with a yellow pigeon?"

I'm not kidding. I couldn't make that up. I don't even think he could make that up. Everyone in the room was so stunned and confused that we've never been able to reconstruct the phrase that was originally spoken.

The other day, I told him I'd gotten something from my friends Elizabeth and Sabra. He thought it was from the Wizard of San Pedro.

Right now, I'm just sitting in my office, silently reading over what I just wrote, and my husband yelled, "What?" I said, "I didn't say anything." I'm not sure he believes me.

Okay, so I'm a writer and I have a tendency to talk to myself. But at that moment, I wasn't. I SWEAR.

Last night, I thought his disability was rubbing off on me. He was saying something on his way out the door, and I asked him to repeat it. "I don't know what you said, but what I heard just wasn't right."

"Clown trolls with a club foot. Why? What did you hear?"

"Clown trolls with a club foot."

See, there's nothing wrong with my hearing. My husband is another matter.

My friend Erin tagged me, so now I'm supposed to post six weird things about me. Right here, for the whole wide world to see them. You mean eating Snickers bars for breakfast and never paying full price for toilet paper and making maraschino cherries from scratch isn't weird enough? Geez, you people are demanding.

1. I live with eight four-footed animals: two dogs, three cats, two guinea pigs, and a hedgehog. All of them shed.

2. When nobody's looking, sometimes I still paint with my fingers.

3. I was excavating my office recently and unearthed an old To-Be-Read pile. I had to add those books to my current TBR pile, which is divided into stacks: those I can consider market research, and those I can't. It's a matter of feeling productive, or allowing myself to waste time.

4. I learned how to decorate cakes just a few months before learning that I'm not allowed to eat anything with flour in it. I used to think I had a knack for it, but I've recently been corrected. More on that in a few days.

5. I've lived in seven states. I once moved seven times in two years. I wouldn't recommend that.

6. I never had a treehouse when I was a kid, and I still fantasize about having one. I'd build it myself, but as clumsy as I am, I'd probably fall and damage something vital.

Now I'm supposed to tag someone else, but I think every single blog that I read has already been tagged in the past month, so I'm just going to have to let the chain die. Unless you're reading this and you haven't been tagged yet. In that case, consider yourself tagged! (And post a comment, so I can drop by your blog!)