took me a little while to be able to think (much less write) about last night. Had to leave my company downstairs while I went prone about 4:30. Slept until 9:30 and then awake until 5:30. Lousy lousy habit I'm getting into! Anyway I slept until about 10:30 this morning. Woke up drenched in sweat from the nightmares. Normal dream-type nightmates, buy dayum. Set the tone for the whole day. I was on the run for most of the dreams, so I am now sore head to toe (funny how that ties together, eh?). Anyway, I'm seriously hoping tonight goes better.

In preparation for his "open garage day", Jamie cleaned said garage. One of the cool things about this activity is what he may find in that very scary place. This time, it was a very cool necklace that I had seen and admired. Darling man bought it for me, then put it out on his workbench, saving it for another day when he would surprise me with it. It was a surprise all right - I saw it last Road of California. Last January. It's been "lost" on his workbench every since. hehehe I'm not saying a word.

Took care of all the people who wanted to come over here for Thanksgiving. While I love the thought, I am not up to it. Even if other people "do all the work" there is still a fairly hefty toll it takes on me to have people at the house. Besides, there's a Thanksgiving tradition that I adore. As much as I used to love doing the feast and family thing at my own home, over the past decade, I've really fallen in love with a new tradition. I'm just so afraid of assuming the invitation will be there, or that I would be overstaying my welcome that I'm hesitant to assume, yanno? Anyway, Jamie and I will be at the Orphans' Thanksgiving Dinner at a dear friend's home. I'm grinning every time I think of it, so it must be the right decision.

We'll be there if I'm not sick, anyway. Yeah, I didn't want to disappoint my friends, so Friday I went way overboard on what I should have done. It was fun, but the piper is charging a bit more than normal, so paying him is a mess. I wasn't able to enjoy Sunday's gathering at all, and Saturday wasn't much better. I am hoping I'm not getting sick again - that would suck more than normal.

Right now, I need to get to the couch. After I water the front yard. I had garden fairies show up and winterize my front yard last week. hehehe another story worth tellng, but another time.

Okay, I can't stand the mess my home is in. Not for a moment longer. Up until Great Western War I focused my meager energy on getting ready, then gone for that week, and afterward too beat up (then too sick) to lift a finger around here. But I just can't stand living in squalor. So I made Jamie take me to Ikea for a couple of bookcases and a TV table. They are now assembled. My aim was to stay extremely medicated and work my ass off until the house was livable, then turn my attentions to my poor, ailing front yard. Haven't done diddly there, either, and it shows. Everything is overgrown, the windblown grass seed have taken hold, and it's just needing it's autumn cleanup.

That's the backstory. Now for the present. I took extra meds and worked all yesterday. The living room is almost habitable again. I woke today (technically this afternoon) to Sles in my bedroom, checking to see if I was alive. Apparently she had been knocking at the door, ringing the bell AND calling me on the phone for 10 minutes solid. She was a bit worried. Especially since she and another friend, Sharon, had been here since 7 in the morning. The only sign of life was the cat, sticking it's head through the blinds trying to figure out what those two women were doing in her yard.

I was just asleep - apparently very deeply. But Sles made me get dressed and come downstairs. I went out front and saw Sharon - happy grins!!!! Then I looked around at my porch and my yard. Holy sheet, Fatman! My yard is winterized. All trimmed back, swept, the paths relaid with stepping stones. The whole shebang. I honestly couldn't utter any words of thanks to either of them. I hope they realize how flabbergasted and overjoyed I was.

Every day I count my blessings, and include my friends among those blessings. I am just surrounded by the coolest, most creative and thoughtful people. Just ... wow, yanno?

(I don't think I could have done what they did - even highly medicated.)

So I'm at the computer, I don't want to get up (and when I'm elsewhere, I don't want to come check e-mail). Anyway, I started "playing" this stoopit little app on Facebook called 'Fish World'. It's a virtual fish tank. Yeah, yeah, yeah - don't say it. I thought the sounds of a fish tank gurgling would be relaxing. Nope - all it does is make me want to go pee. Sigh.

Not so much in a contrary mood as I am in a status-quo-itis mood. Yes, I have an inflammation of my status quo. If I'm on the couch, I don't want to go to bed (resulting in bedtime waaay too late). If I'm in bed, I don't want to get up (resulting in rising waaaay too late in the day). If I'm in my pajamas I don't want to get dressed (resulting in an embarassed mailman when he came back to deliver an envelope he forgot). If I'm dressed I don't want to change to pajamas (resulting in sleeping in my clothes a time or two). If I haven't eaten, I don't want to start. If I've started chewing, I don't want to stop. Whatever is happening in the moment, I don't want to change it. Oy.

But at least I'm not coughing up a lung as much. Perhaps that is because I haven't started talking today and, yup, I don't want to start!

The jury is still out, but I think I may survive this cold. Wow was it a doozy. But I think it may be on the way out of the house. I haven't yet mustered the energy to get dressed, but I'm thinking about it. That's a huge improvement. I dragged myself out of the house to the Quilt Show for a hour or so last Sunday, but that sent me into a bit of a setback. Getting over it, though. Everyone seems to having a bad case of creeping crud, so I'm hoping everyone takes care of themselves, yanno? It's bad enough that my house full of 6 houeguests for the weekend is down to two. Tell the truth, I'm kinda glad. I'm not sure I can handle two people, much less six.

Anyway, I live.

Today I have the worst cold in the history of known colds. I am thankful for the improvement over yesterday, which was an improvement over the day before.

I need to come to terms with the fact that if I get sick, I will get as sick as it is possible to be without dying, and that pain will center in my back. For the last two days my back has hurt as bad as it did when the disc disintegrated and I was vertebrae on bone-jarring vertebrae for a 13-hour trek on pothole-infested back roads from Salt Lake City to here. I am currently plastered with (I think) 6 or 7 lidocaine patches to make like semi-tolerable. There was a time or two I thought Jamie was going to have to take me to the hospital for an ectomy. I didn't really care what they took out, just anything would hurt less, yanno? Only he was sick, too, so I couldn't ask it of him.

Like I said, I am much improved at only being listed as partially dying. g'night.

I called him a moment ago, and the last four lines of the conversation went like this:

Yes, it's about the ring ...
Me - "But you didn't seem to take it very seriously."
Jamie - "How serious did you want me to take it?"
Me - "You could have cried yourself to sleep like I did."
Jamie - "But *my* ring is fine."

So ... divorce court or bag of lime?

Crisis semi-averted. I was going through every square centiment of the table next to the recliner. The stone was in there somewhere because when I stood up, it fell from my clothes. Whew! I knew it had to be here somewhere, and it wasn't like I could miss it - the stone isn't huge, but it *is* over 1/4" square at the top. Now, to have it remounted asap.

And recover from the search. And the tears.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

So, I lost the ring between 4:45 pm and 9:49 pm. I was mostly on the recliner, doing embroidery. I made one foray into the bathroom, and one into the kitchen. I spent a lot of time twisting my hair with my left hand.

Still can't find the stone. Lots and lots of good ideas from friends here in LJ. Will be trying them all, even the kittly litter suggestion.

Have been more active than I should, and must now spend time atoning for the bending over. Will look more later.

Must go shut up a dog now.

My wedding ring has lost a stone. It's got a peridot on top, and two largish square ones on each side. One of the side peridots has fallen out. I can narrow it down to a several-hour period this evening, and thank goodness this was one of my couch days. There's not a whole lot of places to look. Even so, I can't find it. I've been all over all the areas. Plain light. Superhigh flash light. Straight on, oblique, severely oblique. Anything I can think of. No luck.

Yeah, I know it's just a thing. It can be replaced. So why am I sobbing my heart out? Maybe cuz it represents my marriage and I obviously didn't take good enough care of it (and the first one to cringe about that sentence structure gets kicked). Maybe this and maybe that - I am still heartsick. Shit. Dammit.

I dragged myself out of the house last Saturday, all for a good cause.

Backstory: My bro, apparently, is a huge fanboy of Mr. Connelly's, and of some guy named Harry Bosch. Said bro thought the Bosch books were all done, so when I casually mentioned there's a new one, he went all ape-chitty with excitement. Then he promptly forgot about it.

I didn't forget. Mr. Connelly was doing a book signing at my favorite book store (Book Carnival if you're interested) of the new Bosch book. Birthday present! (And no, I have no idea when his birthday really is.) We went, waited an hour or so, and got a first edition signed. John will be here second weekend in November. I will give him a card with this photo in it. Of course, I'll be reading the book as he opens the card. We'll see how long it takes him to put it together and snatch the book from my hands!

Is it just my wonderful dial-up connection, or is anyone else having issues with flickr? Damned thing won't come up.

I've combined the dinner med with the night med (both neurontins, Mycroft, so I'm getting the proper dose now). Makes me sleepier than a fat cat caught in a sunbeam. I go to bed early, sleep through the night (unless the wind is blowing in which case I have to bring both dogs up to the bedroom because one is so afraid of wind and of course then I have to shift the cats out because OMG they can't sleep with
*that* dog and once the wind dies down I have to do the switch all over again because the dogs really want to be downstairs where they can guard things properly). So, I guess *mostly* I sleep through the nights. I wake up fully ready to greet the day around 8 or so in the am. I talk to Jamie, pick out my clothes, brush my teeth, and wake up again around 10 or 11 (or on Saturday 1pm). Don't quite know what occurs to make that happen, but it does and I am.

Yet, I'm still short of spoons. I answer the phone and get 5 or 10 minutes into the conversation and - no matter how interested I am in the person or the chat topics or both - I am so exhausted I cease to form words. Next time the phone rings, all I can do is stare at it. It's like being hypnotized and told you can't lift your arm. All the willpower in the world aien't gonna make that arm move toward the phone. So I listen to funny messages that my understanding friends leave on the machine.

But the head still sorta works. In all my lucid moments I'm plotting and planning. More blackwork patterns. More quilt projects. More writing projects. More web work stuff. More more more. So, body, hurry up and replenish. I got stuff to do!

so I see this kid lamenting the fact that his laptop died. He's a collee student and can't replace it. He's got a desktop computer, but he can't very well lug that to write-ins and other community writing events (during nano), so he's forced (forced I tell you) to solitary writing in his room for the month.

Dood! You're in college. You *must* be edumacated and at least stlightly itelligiment. Ever heard of a pad of paper and a pen? Lots of people, throughout history even, have written lots of books with those tools. In the recent past, too. (I did it my second book, the one that people seemed to like the best). Jeezo-pete it amazes me. To think you are unable to create because you don't have the latest (or even semi-latest) technology.

Goober must be in community college.

All showered and clean am I. (And yes, there was much rejoicing.) What amazes me, though, is how much a simple task like that will exhaust me. I got dressed, came downstairs and headed for the garage for a cold bottle of water (or soda, or beer, or some such). I had to stop and sit down for awhile in the office. Just too tuckered to finish the three steps to the garage, and then walk allllll the way back to the living room. (While my house is certainly not NYC-sized, it is also not a mansion. I can cover all 8 rooms without reaching triple digits when counting my steps.) The phone rang and I just looked at it. I couldn't have summoned the energy to pick it up if my life had depended on it. (Well, okay, perhaps a slight exaggeration, but only slight.) And it was even someone I wanted to talk to. Jeezo-pete, I sure wish my life were just a tab bit more average. (Translated that means I'd like just a few less "challenges" thankyouverymuch.)

Just. whew.

I am successfully unplastered! It's gonna take a bit for me to get my land legs back again, but whew! I need a shower so badly!!! And now it can happen. Trust me - there is much rejoicing.

I am quite used to strange dreams. Even in the realm of strangeness, I think mine are a bit wierd. I usually dream novels. Complete plots, characters, etc. I've talked about this before so it's nothing new. Whe *is* new, however, is the wealth of dream=dreams I've been having. Dreams like the rest of the world has. Now *that* is strange! Last night I dreamt of an SCA event at the beach, or river (depending on which part of the dream I was involved in). Spinning wheels, RVs, Mary and Aeddie, sand, bad backs, and it was complete with a fashion boutique in which I shopped for miniskirts. See? A normal dream. How strange is that? Anyway, such normalcy has be totally discombobulated today.

I had forgotten the last little tidbit of a side effect. Lucky for me, I have perfected the art of "resting" which is akin to letting the roast sit for awhile after it comes out of the oven. You know it's done because you stuck a fork in it. But you let it sit there, all by itself. You know it's sentient because you can feel it looking at you, watching your every move, knowing that it knows you are about to consume every last morsel. It's awake, but it's holding very still and simply counting the moments before its life will end (of natural causes, 'cause it's natural for me to eat it. all.).

Yeah. I don't sleep a wink the whole night when I take an Ultram.

But hey, the needlework is coming along just fine!

Whewee and shit howdy. I have now confirmed that the Ultram is giving me some rather special side effects. At least now I know that if I ever want to revisit a super duper balls out hormonal roller coaster, all I have to do is pop a little painkilling pill. Yes, folks, it's true. If I should ever want to revisit that biohazardious Chernobyl of the human body (you can call it PMS if you want to), one little Ultram will do it. Granted, it's not like I can really remember PMS - after all, it's been 30 years. Don't go getting all jealous on me, the payback was a bitch. No PMS anymore, but let's go through menopause TWICE. Once to see if you can take it, and once to remind you that the gods have a special brand of humor understood by only them. But I digress. One ultram and I am crying for poor dead little bunnies all over the world, while of course trying to physically debark the dog with my bare hands. And wondering if Jamie would notice if I jumped his bones tonight - while crying for the dead bunnies with a dog's drippy bloody throat clutched in my fist. Actually, what I wonder is if he will notice that my eyes are glowing red in the dark. Ah well, time for bed. I guess I'll find out, eh? Womanhood is wonderful, isn't it? So is back pain. Wonder which I hate worse.

Dead bunnies. That's what I hate the most.

Here, Keegan. Here, doggie doggie doggie...

Jamie? You awake? Dude?