Random ramblings

Odysseus, who has gone back to school for a CPA certification, took his last final for the semester on Thursday night.  I'm turning in my grades tomorrow, completing my semester. 

Next semester is going to be very much not fun for me.  Thursdays will be very, very long: I teach on Tuesday and Thursday, from 9:00-12:15 (75 minute classes).   The kids go down for their naps at one, and sleep until three.  Odysseus has classes MWF on campus, and works from 4:00 to 10:00 (getting home anywhere between 10:30 and 11:00) on Monday, Tuesday and Friday of every week. 

Which means that my best (perhaps only real) option for my required four to five office hours will be either Wednesday or Thursday afternoon.  All afternoon. 

So, since it's the simplest solution, my office hours will be set from 1:00 to 5:00 on Thursday, and I'll just stay put at the office.

The pixie had her annual checkup on Wednesday morning, this past week.  The doctor worked a miracle: she was actually quiet for five full minutes.  In any case, she's currently in the process of catching up to her brother in weight (since he's not putting any on), and is maintaining the same difference in height by putting on the inches so fast you don't see the weight.  She's a bit over three feet tall, at three years old.  And is in the process of eating everything in sight.

My imp...oh, my imp.  He truly never shuts up.  He isn't shy at all.  Not even a little bit.  The only thing he does at the doctor's office during his checkup is fight to keep all his clothes where he thinks they should be, and refuse to cooperate with the part of the checkup that makes sure his boy parts are doing okay and growing as they should.  "NO!!  DON'T TOUCH MY PENIS!!!" 

Which cracked the doctor up.  She just tells him that that's very good, and that he's not to let anybody touch him there except the doctor during checkups and mom or dad during baths.  And got me complimented for teaching clinical terms instead of euphemisms.

I am...looking forward to Christmas, this year.  I think I've figured things out to keep my aunts from ruining things for me.  I will simply...be elusive, and not give prior notice about when I'm going to show up to visit my mother.  Since the aunts I want to avoid live about half an hour away, and take an hour or so to get around and get ready to leave their homes, we should be nearly ready to leave by the time they get word, and get on the road. 

And if not...at least it'll be a short visit. 

I'm kinda sorry I have to miss one of them, missing the other one makes it worth it.  Really.

The dog has been a miserable dog since Thursday.  She got some outside time, but not a whole lot.  The weather has been miserable: wet and cold.  Frequent bouts of snow.  Ice, sleet, and freezing rain. 

The cats have gone crazy.  Shadow fished the plastic bag I've fastened the foil bag of catnip tea into out of the box to snuggle.  And watched where I put the box so that she could do it again after I took it away. 

Cricket has, again, found one of her knitted mice* and has been going stupid with it: she throws it in the air, catches it, picks it up in her mouth and carries it off to play with it around obstacles.  She will skitter and scramble around the kitchen and living room chasing this thing for an hour at a time.  That, in and of itself, isn't too bad, or it wouldn't be if she didn't talk to it.  Loudly.  The whole time she's playing with it. 

The only other cat I've ever had that's done that was full blooded Siamese, and wasn't a house cat.

I've been busy with housework lately, mostly in the kitchen, and mostly trying to battle a roach infestation.  I thought we'd finally gotten it handled--the bugs were, at least, fewer--but then I went in and turned on the light to finish loading and run the dishwasher, last night before I went to bed. 

Guess what?

So, between that and the kids needing pretty constant supervision (they don't fight when Mom's sitting in her chair in sight or earshot, only when Mom's up doing housework), my writing has suffered.  Think two or three hundred words per night (at most), rather than three or four thousand.  I may try to get a couple of hours of writing (instead of housework) in this evening.  I've got one really big fight sequence coming up in the chapter I'm on, and I'd like to get all of that done in one shot.  And after that, most of what's left will be mopping up what's left of the bad guys, and getting the good guys settled in somewhere safe.

After that, I'll be writing a children's book I've got in my head.  It's going to be a chapter book, but a short one.  About a horse.