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 |  My journal. Rated GC for an occaisonal four-letter word or two. |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Hmm...one day I'll write a newer introduction. Maybe I should make a static item of all my different introductions.  New Introduction, October 31, 2005 It's time to update this introduction. Since June 2005, I've packed up and moved from Armenia to the US, found a house, waited a month for settlement, moved in, found a preschool for my son, got settled in, and maybe found my sanity. Maybe. I'm just now getting back to writing. Read on for more about me and life in the US. Original Introduction: I live in the former Soviet Republic of Armenia nine months out of the year. The rest of the time you can find me living out of a suitcase in the US or on one of our travels somewhere. This journal started out as a description of my life in Armenia, but I've amended it since I've realized that life there is very similar to life everywhere. I don't have a car, clothes dryer, microwave, or dishwasher but I've learned one doesn't really need those things to have a fulfilling life. Some days I'm just estatic over a slow trickle of hot water which can mean the difference between being smelly for another twenty-four hours or being clean. By the way, DH=dear husband; DS=darling son; MIL=mother-in-law. You get the picture. |
| Mia is MIA. What's up with that? Anyone know? |
| Put a fork in me, I'm done! Yesterday was the end of the 3-day migraine from hell, so of course today I took it easy. NOT! We made it to Quaker Meeting, so nice to be in quiet for a while without little one pulling on me. Then we hit the grocery store and exchanged the empty gas tank for the grill (important since dinner was to be cooked on said grill) and came home for lunch. Pretty normal stuff. Then..... Hubby got out the alligater saw thingie (like a chain saw that's a giant pair of scissors-cuts through 4" of trees and stuff) and we hacked down another bunch of the little sucker trees in our back yard. No one ever pulled up the saplings, so there's a ton of little trees trying to grow into big trees (in curvy ways, no less) and a whole bunch of tall, skinny, dead ones. We're trying to clear the little guys out so the big ones can be bigger and we've more room to plant shade flowers, set up a hammock, tables and chairs, etc. It's a jungle out there, literally, full of poison ivy. Poor kiddo is so freakin' allergic to poison ivy-he get's within 5' of some and it just sprays itself onto him, I swear! We're creating itchy free zones so he can play in the dirt and look for worms and bugs and all the fun stuff 5 y.o. boys like to do. Three wagon loads of sawed trees and limbs taken to the curb later....I got the bright idea of trimming the butterfly bush. Now, the word BUSH does not do this monster justice. Some previous owners (I'd say when the house was built in 1999 due to the thickness of the trunks) planted this beautiful yellow butterfly bush right NEXT to the gas meter, and then NEVER pruned the damn thing. When we moved in, you couldn't get to the gas meter, mow underneath it, or even get throug the gate into the backyard because the thing was so huge! On that side of the house, it's a peaked roof at 2 stories. The top is almost up there! I've been hacking at it over the two years we've been here. Took out the lower branches so we could mow and the gas guy could do his stuff. Took out some of the bigger branches so the gas guy could come and fix a leak. Today, well, today I went to town with the loppers and the alligater thingie and we took out over a third of the bush, and it's still massive! The yard waste guys are not gonna be happy with us tomorrow, our whole frontage is stacked with branches and stuff (all cut to the requisite 5' mind you.) Oh yeah, and how could I forget? Before we started all the outside stuff, we.... --tried to get the darn flourescent bulbs out of the fixture in the garage to replace them. No luck. --dragged the 40 pound ladder upstairs to the bedroom closet and I proceeded to remove the old light fixture with the plan of replacing it with the one we bought at Home Depot yesterday. No luck, since the old one just had a wire coming through the ceiling and not a box as we needed (Hubby wanted to put a totally different style fixture up there). Trip two to Home Depot to get the same fixture as the one I took down since I didn't feel like ripping out drywall and installing the box and then installing the new fixture. No way, didn't want all that drywall dust on my clothes, thank you very much. Got to putting up the second fixture and realized we didn't have any toggle bolts. So yes, another trip to the hardware store, though this time I went to the new Ace Hardware (so much closer than Home Depot) and got what we needed. Third time was the charm and we've a new light fixture that works in the closet. It's been over a year since it broke. Hey, we're slow but getting there! --dragged the ladder back to the garage and made a second attempt at removing the flourescent bulbs. Success! Got the replacements in and THEY DIDN"T WORK! Just some flickers. Yes, we tried jiggling. Damn, that means next weekend I'm doing it all again, though hopefully this one has an easy ballast to repair, 'cause I don't want to replace the whole, big, heavy, thing. I'm the DIY person in our house. Right after we moved into our first house, I rewired all the phones. Blew hubby away! So now all these projects are mine. I don't mind. I miss working with my hands, actually. My college major was techincal theatre and I built and painted sets, hung lights, etc. And my first jobs were mall marketing...putting up Santa displays, fashion shows, special events, all that good stuff. I can light a Christmas tree like nothin' you've ever seen before! When we got married, I brought the cordless drill into the family.OK...enough. My muscles are tired and I've missed the beginning of a Raymond Burr mystery on TV. Toodles! |
| I'll be surprised if she recovers fully from this. She's eating, but still in bad shape. I had to resist scoping out a replacment fishie while at the pet store getting medicine for her yesterday. Am I bad, or what? |
| with my migraine medicine. The same stuff I told my Doctor that I absolutely hated and would never use again! I felt so bad last night, it was worth feeling bad from the medicine to feel better, if that makes sense. So I tried it. I felt better. Didn't kill the migraine, but definitely helped. I took another pill this morning, fell asleep for a half hour, and now I feel like a new woman. My reaction to the medicine isn't as strong as it was the first time. Yippee! She had given me some samples to try, and now I'm going to definitely get the prescription filled! woo hoo! *off to enjoy the rest of the day* |
| I'm off to bed in just a few short moments. I only came downstairs to get my medicine (headache starting) and decided I needed a snack too. So a bowl of raisin bran later.... Kiddo is passed out! The laundry is sorted and started. The fish bowls have been cleaned. The female betta suffered the most while we were gone and has a nasty case of cotton mouth going. She's not eating. I changed and medicated her water but since she's had this before (I was treating her for this right before we left), I think I need to change the medicine (plus, I'm out so I have to go to the pet store anyway.) I was worried that they wouldn't eat, especially her, since the vacation feeders were relatively new for them. I put two in each tank, just in case. This little Quick Blog Entry form is pissing me off. So, I'm gonna end this here before I accidently lose a SECOND entry for the day. Toodles! |
| How can I do that? Wouldnt' that be so freakin' cool? |
| I had a nice, long blog entry going. But then someone called me, bouncing me off of the internet, and due to other problems, I had to reboot...losing said entry. I'm driving south, heading home, and getting internet access by tethering my cell phone. Fantastic when it works! Lost blog entries when it doesn't. More later, maybe. |
| We're staying at my inlaws this week and right now I'm hiding out in the guest bedroom, window AC blasting, lights off, laptop on. I'm tired of listening to my son's TV shows, too lazy to take him outside to play, and tired of listening to my FIL's staticy radio (tuned to the stock market shows). FIL and hubby were chatting, while hubby was reading the paper. And no, he wasn't being rude, FIL can TALK! And sometimes the only way to get anything done is to just do it. We've figured out how to tether my cell phone to the laptop so now the phone is acting as my modem. So much nicer than having to sit in one spot in the kitchen and continually switching the phone lines to use dial up. Hubby and I are rather connected people, so using dial up really ties up the phone lines here I can't imagine not checking my e-mail! I did go a few days without reading blogs, but as soon as I got time, I caught up. Felt more centered too! Today I take hubby to the train station. He's in Washington DC tonight and tomorrow for a conference, the main reason for the timing of this trip. He also had meetings at Hopkins and we went out to lunch with three friends to Sabatino's, a local Baltimore Eyetalian restaurant. Hubby loves their house salad with house dressing. Crap, kiddo is on the hunt for me! Discovered! More later.... |
| Ugg...sweating as I write. I so miss my central AC. Visiting family this week. More soon, just don't feel like writing, though I've plenty to get out of my brain. |
| Me: What do you want for lunch? Kiddo: Peanut butter and jelly He hesitates, considers Kiddo: without the peanut butter |
| Barista, lattes for the house, please. [_]> [_]> [_]> [_]> [_]> [_]> [_]> [_]> [_]> [_]> [_]> [_]> |
| Stayed up late last night finishing Harry Potter and entering a Tupperware order that I had forgotten about. Now my butt is dragging and I can't seem to get anything done. I was in bed by 11:30, so it's not like I was up super late or anything. I even slept well. We leave in a half hour to go to speech therapy for kiddo. I'm making a latte, writing this, and wandering around unloading the dishwasher. It's been a waste of a day so far as not much has gotten done, and there is more than enough! The house is trashed, the laundry needs to be caught up, the kitchen a wreck, book reviews to edit, book reviews to write, and get oragnized for our trip on Wednesday. At least the outside of the house looks good! I used out new hedge trimmers and gave three unruly bushes a haircut. It was hard because they are tall and I had to hold the trimmers above my head. Now my forearms are achey! But those bushes look better than they have in years. Still got a bunch more to do. We also washed both cars, inside and out, cleaned the garage, SUV load of stuff to goodwill, trimmed some of the trees in the back, cut 'em down to size, and moved them to the front for the trash guys. Oh yeah, and I read Harry Potter. Can't forget that! Loved it. Ain't saying no more. No spoilers here! I still have too many irons in the fire. That TW order I finally entered I'd had for a while and caused my sister in law some grief since her customer was asking for it and is pretty upset. I'm not going to charge her for the stuff, so while that doesn't solve the problem that I let her down, it will allow her to go get a pedicure. And I've had some edits for Novelspot for two weeks now, and I need to get rid of them! They shouldn't be with me this long. It's kinda embarrasing, actually. I said I was back to work, but haven't been. Not consistently. And that bothers me, too. Well, the latte is done. The kitchen is 3/4 cleaned (good enough for now), and we're outta here in a few minutes. Don't want to be late, that's just too stressful. Now, what to read/work on while he's in therapy???? ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Too much sleep is actually worse than not enough, believe it or not. I've had two nights of sleep without kiddo waking me up and I feel groggy! I certainly needed the sleep though. I still have a bit of my cold. My sinus' feel funky (sort of draining, not full but not normal, just weird) and one of my ears feels "stopped up". Can't concentrate. The house is a total pig sty. I'm still in my jammies and unshowered at 11:08 am. Just wandering around, unable to foucs. Man, I hate being sick. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
I'm so lazy today, I'm just copying my comment from Nada  's blog as my blog entry for the day! I had a perfectly, average, slightly boring day! Cleaned the kitchen, went out to lunch, took a nap, started a new book. Edited the final 2 pages on a project (they forgot to send them to me with the original project. I thought I was done last night, nope! Got 'em in e-mail this morning.) As a matter of fact, this is going to be my blog entry for today! Don't bother stopping by, 'cause you'll be bored reading it again! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I've a new siggie for when I wander through ports. I don't often write comments, so I thought this would be a cool way to let y'all know I came by. What do you think? ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ~*~Damiana Returned~*~  did it for me.And, if you didn't know, I'm a book reviewer (and editor) for Novelspot. When they switched sites, all the stuff got lost (darn corrupt database) and my reviews have finally been reloaded. I mention this because the most recent is a book by our own dear Vivian  and Holly Jahangiri . This link takes you to the listing of my reviews.http://novelspot.net/user/5/track There is also an author interview as well. I interviewed Viv, too! I don't know when it will be posted, someone else controls that. But I'll let ya know. The rush editing job is almost complete. I've just got to add in the final edits and do a final skim. It's due tonight!  This cold has knocked me on my butt, so it's taking longer than usual to get moving. Tomorrow, tomorrow we rest and relax. Take care, Susan ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| really, I am. My one editing client sent me a rush job and I'm giddy, almost giddy. If I didn't have a headache and if kiddo weren't throwing up, I would be. I need to figure out how to get more clients and how to get people to pay me to do this! |
| I shouldn't have celebrated the lack of migraines so quickly, though having one in two weeks is a record. I've one now, started last night, precipitated by a bad night's sleep and a short, interrupted nap. You know the kind, when you feel worse when you wake up than before going to sleep? Fuzzy and out of it for the rest of the day? That was it. And the medicine I have works best on tension headaches, not migraines, so while it's taking the edge off, it's not really solving the problem. We're experimenting (the Dr and I) with migraine meds and our first attempt totally failed. I felt worse after the medicine than the migraine, but the migraine did go away. Now we're working with the Nuva Ring (hormone birth control-low dose so it might not trigger my migraines) and Celebrex for a month. Too soon to tell if the hormones in the Nuva Ring are the culprit or not. So, while I have lots of things on my list to do, they ain't getting done. I'm being gentle with myself and just doing what I want, when I want, and chilling out the rest of the time. My 5 y.o. doesn't totally understand. Being headache free for two weeks has shown me how crappy my sleep is! Even with the CPAP machine (for sleep apnea) I'm not sleeping well. The darn machine makes noise, the mask, well, I hate it, and anxiety makes it hard for me to fall asleep and to go back to sleep if awoken. I tried ear plugs last night, but I could hear myself breath even louder-I guess because the plugs were hitting my ear drums and the machine tube was vibrating next to my ear. Darth Vader lives! The next step....switch respitory suppliers ('cause I hate the customer service, well, the lack thereof) at the current company and get a new mask. Just involves phone calls and paper work and administrivia that I haven't had the energy for since most of my admisitrative time has gone to my son's medical issues. My Dr. also said she'd prescribe some sleep aids once I went off the Celebrex (2 more weeks) so maybe that will help. I also picked up some essential oils that are supposed to help with anxiety. Do they help? Unknown. Phone call, about kiddo's medical records. I had the wrong fax number yesterday, so now I need to pull that fax that I'd already filed and resend it. Two minutes, but they add up. Plus the two minutes on the phone with her and the two minutes when I called and left a message this morning, plus the 20 minutes in finding and speaking with her yesterday, the time to write a fax (10 minutes) and send it. That's it for now. I lost my train of thought. I had more to say, but it will just have to wait until the words come back. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I'm loving my Dr. right now. She's got my migraines under control (2 weeks headache free!). I go back to see her in two weeks, so maybe we can work on my lack of sleep next. Imagine, sleeping well, no migraines! I might actually have the energy to get something done, exercise even, and not feel like I'm slogging through mud all the time. |
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