Random ramblings

Did you know that I've been awakened by screams every morning this week?  If they haven't gotten carried away playing, the imp has been tormenting the pixie.  I can't seem to impress on the two of them that doing that is completely unacceptable. 

Last night, I decided I wanted spaghetti.  Real sauce, not the stuff stores sell in jars.  So I went in a while before the kids usually get hungry, and started it.  Olive oil in the bottom of the pan heated to saute onions; add garlic, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, mushrooms, olives; chop up a green bell pepper and add; sprinkle cumin, basil, thyme, and marjoram (oregano if you like it--which I do) to taste; simmer while you cook the pasta.  You can add about a pound of hamburger meat, if you want meat sauce. 

And the pixie comes running into the kitchen, and says "I hungy.  Want eat?"

I turned around...and found a chocolate covered pixie.  She'd found her daddy's dark chocolate stash, and was chocolate from the eyeballs to the neck, and both hands were coated.  She was still chewing it out of the foil. 

And yes, it was on her shirt, and the shirt was white.

The imp was a real pain, yesterday.  He was mean to the pixie and to the kittens all day.  Today isn't looking better.  He says it was because I'd been yelling at him all day...because he woke me up making the pixie scream, and did not behave at all well all day.  How the hell do you explain that you're yelling at a kid because of the behavior they say they're indulging in because you're yelling at them?  And how do you get them to stop so that you can stop yelling?

Anyway.  I managed to half forget the dog last night.  It was when I got the pixie put down to sleep for the night that I remembered that the pup was still out in her pen.  I got her walked, then fed, then walked again in the half hour or so between when I got away from the pixie and the imp's bedtime.  Then, I got her put in her kennel for the night.  And I was starting to tell the imp to head for the bathroom, and he looks up with his big blue eyes, and goes "Mama, I need somefing eat, please."  So he had a snack, and was ten minutes late getting to bed.

Why oh why doesn't going to bed later translate to sleeping a little longer in the morning?

I would get to bed earlier in the evening, but it really doesn't work.  Especially not when Odysseus is working.

I've been working on writing, but it's really been a long, slow slog.  I'm too exhausted, mentally and physically, for it to be anything else.  I have some finished stories that I could post to my other blog, especially as I don't know if it's something I can or should try to publish commercially.  The main character is fourteen, gets into a sexual relationship with someone much older, and resists being written older, herself.  It's set in a different time, with different expectations.  Let me know what you think.

I've also been worried about my classes--I'm really unhappy about not knowing what the material I'm supposed to be teaching, or the assignments I'm supposed to be grading. 

On the upside, they haven't fucked my class site over yet.  I'm not sure when or if they're going to fuck my class, and if they've forgotten, I'm damn sure not going to remind them.  Never point out to the enemy that they're making a mistake.