Necessities

I've been thinking about some of the advice I gave in my previous post, about needed purchases, and taking care of yourself.  I'd like to give some small, practical "everybody needs these things" type of advice, here.  

You need a way to turn ingredients into food.  Which means kitchen implements.  And, for those of y'all who are just starting out (probably not that many) likely have little idea of which kitchen things are necessities, and which are niceties.  

I'm going to list, here, what I'll be sending my kids off with, when they move out: 

• a set of small, sharp kitchen knives
• two larger knives (one serrated)
• 1 knife sharpener
  
• two spatulas 
• two cooking spoons
• 1 set of wooden spoons
• 1 set of rubber spatulas
• 1 set stainless steel mixing bowls
• 1 set stainless steel measuring spoons
• 1 set stainless steel dry measuring cups
• 1 set of liquid measuring cups in 1, 2 and 4 cup sizes, either clear plastic or Pyrex
  
• 1 cast iron griddle 
• 1 cast iron biscuit/muffin pan
  
• 1 10" cast iron skillet, with a glass lid
• 1 10" stainless steel skillet, which the glass lid also fits 
• 2 stainless steel pots, in 1, and 3 quart, with pour spouts and strainer lids
  
• 1 stainless steel pot with lid, in at least 7 quart
• 1 9x13 casserole dish (likely stainless steel--my oldest is absent minded and a bit clumsy) 
• 2 sheet pans--one big, one small.  Also known as a cookie sheet.
  
• 1 pressure cooker, at least 5 quart, with a pressure gauge (or an Instant Pot)
  

I'd like y'all to note that nowhere on this list do I have anything labeled non-stick.  If treated right, cast iron is non-stick.  And non-stick skillets take very specialized care, and can and do become toxic if used over high temperatures.  

I'd also like y'all to note the knife sharpener.  I've seen people throw away perfectly good knives because they were dull, and the individuals didn't know what to do with them.  Even cheap stainless steel knives are perfectly adequate if you use a sharpener on them every so often.  

As for the pots...the 1 quart pot is great for single-servings of hot cereals.  Or for warming up a can of soup over a stove burner.  The 2 quart is...adequate for most other things, but not all; a three quart often is, if you're not feeding all of your friends.  If you're making pasta, you need the big pot for the pasta to not stick to itself when you're starting out.  The casserole is because I've taught both kids their favorite pasta dish: pasta bake.  You can find the recipe in the tabs up top.  You can also use it to turn flour into cake.  Or brownies. 

Many people are afraid of pressure cookers; I, on the other hand, am afraid of morons, since pressure cookers are perfectly safe, assuming that the person using it releases the pressure before opening the lid.  People may ask why I have one added as a necessity, rather than a nicety--well, it's simple.  A pressure cooker can take beans from dry to done in a bit more than an hour, without having to soak them first.  A pressure cooker can take inedibly tough cuts of meat and make them tender (maybe not to the point that bad dentures can handle them, but definitely to the point that a kid with baby teeth can manage).  A pressure cooker may actually, in fact, be a nicety, but it's one bordering on necessity.  A pressure cooker also goes by another name: a pressure canner.  You can use it to preserve food...which may well come under the label of "necessity" if things don't turn around.   

Now.  Nothing on the above list needs to be top of the line...or even new.  A lot of it is easily findable in yard sales, flea markets, or Goodwill.  Currently.  

As with everything else, it could change in a blink. 

Get ready...

We have been completely out of debt for the past year.  The mortgage is gone, we have one credit card that we use for gas and larger expenses than the debit card will cover (and which is paid off in full every month), and we'd owed nothing else.  

That brings...a lot of security.  I don't have to worry about keeping creditors off my family's back while I stretch what we have to make sure to keep a roof over my head, lights and water on, and food on the table (damn good food, too, even with a minimal grocery budget).  We are not to that point, but so many are...and the hell of it is that it's entirely because nobody taught them how to manage...well, life.  

And we are in for one hell of a ride, coming up.  I'm seeing prices climbing--not in obvious ways, but because I'm paying attention.  Even when prices aren't going up, package sizes are shrinking.  

I have been actively avoiding the news, because I don't need the stress when there's not a damn thing I can do to fix things.  All I can do is worry, and keep doing what I've been doing anyway.  

I have some bits of advice for people who are only just now starting to wake up.  

First: learn the differences between need and want.  That, for some reason, seems to be damn hard for a lot of people.  It's something I've been working on teaching my kids, and it's...not easy for them to pick up.  Then again, they're 12 and 10, and have never gone without because of their parents' stupid choices.  I'd be willing to bet that a lot of kids out there who get most of their nutrition through free school meals are going to grow up to keep a lot of food in the house...and will learn to cook.  I did, after all (and I only had one year in that situation, early on in my childhood memories).  Everybody needs a basic phone; nobody needs the latest, greatest, biggest smart-phone on the market.  

If you want it, and can afford it after all needs (shelter, food, water) are met, more power to you, but it's not a need.  

Not every home needs a gaming computer, the newest laptop, the biggest cable package (or even a cable package).  Not every home needs a gaming system.  

Thing is...it's gotten to the point where a basic something (desktop, laptop, netbook and internet connection) is kind of necessary.  It's getting harder all the time for people who haven't learned the difference between need and want in the past to figure it out now (and harder for those of us who have).  

And the hell of the matter is that it's getting harder and harder to meet basic needs, between prices going up, and availability of some things going down.  

Second: break the habit of pulling that credit card out to pay for everything.  Interest rates are going to have to go up.  Government "help" is going to force the issue, no matter what Wall Street wants.  If you have any debt, look up Dave Ramsey, and start working on his program.  Hell, if you have an adjustable rate mortgage (and some do, because it looked like the wiser option at the time) refinance to a fixed rate mortgage.  Do it now, before rates start climbing in an effort to combat the coming stagflation that'll make the 1970s look tame.  If you don't own a home, don't start looking now--everybody else already is, and the prices in real estate are already jacked up from government "help."  Because they didn't learn the first time.  

Third.  If you own a home, do any needed repairs that you've been putting off now.  Remember inflation?  It's already hit things like building materials.  It's one of the reasons (but only one of them) why we got the roof replaced now, rather than saving a little longer.  

If you've been putting off any necessary purchase and have the cash to do them, do them now.  Otherwise, there's no telling how long you'll have to stretch things.  Just...do not go into debt over a computer for the household...or a cookstove...or anything.  Remember the interest rates.  Yeah, you may have to settle for something different from what you'd planned because the Covidiocy shut down the wrong factory at the wrong time and what you want isn't available (see: last summer's dishwasher debacle).  But now is the time do do any purchases for durable goods.  

Oh.  Yeah.  And build up a stockpile of food, if you can.  Go for basics: legumes, base ingredients, etc, rather than packaged food.  God alone knows how bad it's going to get before people get pissed off enough to make it better. 

I've been productive (finally)!

I've finished the first draft of Liquid Diet Chronicles: Having a Pint, and finished the first edit; it's currently in the hands of three beta readers.  I finished the first edit of a short story, the first second draft of another one,* and am nearly finished with the first draft of a third.  I've got two more started, but I'm not sure yet where they're going.  I'm not too worried.  I figure I'll finish the first draft I'm working on, then do an edit of the second story while the other two percolate.  After that, I've got a finished novel that needs to be edited before I send it off to beta readers (my word do I!  It's The Schrodinger Paradox, and the first two parts have already seen some heavy handed editing and expanding--not to the point of different entirely, but they've shifted some).  

We've been productive in taking care of the house, too.  And that makes me happy. 

The roof is replaced; the ceiling's repaired.  I have thoughts on how to rearrange the entry hall for better utility (and for replacing the coat tree, which tips when it's heavily loaded).  It'll take some materials bought, though, but shouldn't be hard.   

That's it on the major upgrades.  We have some semi-major repairs/upgrades to do, and a few minor ones that we can do at least part of.

One semi-major project that needs to be done is repairing the carport.  It wasn't built right to start with.  

Another project that's going to require outside assistance is repairs to the garage doors: the tracks on one are broken, and the other works, but only sort of, and if I open it, half the time I can't get it closed because if it goes too far up on its tracks, I can't jump high enough to reach it to pull it shut.   So the one can't open, and the other stays locked.  I'm not sure the garage is usable as a garage--I'm not sure Odysseus's truck would fit with the door shut on either side--and needs some rearranging before it's truly usable as a workshop. 

As for the minor upgrades...both will require a plumber, at least for part of the work.  We need to fix the hall bathroom so that the bathtub has a shower fixture--I'm a little tired of having to send the kids to the master bathroom for their showers.  We can re-do the walls above the tiles around the tub (vinyl sheeting would do a lot), but we might need to get a plumber in to do the rest, and the faucet needs replaced, anyway.  I want a new faucet on my kitchen sink, with a sprayer nozzle that works.  I have the faucet--it just needs to be put on properly.   I don't think I can do that, and I'm pretty sure Odysseus can't fit under the sink to do that--not with as tall as he is, and as cramped as it is between the back of the sink and the wall.  

All of those are in the future, however.  I want a break to enjoy what we have done.  And so I can get the house back in some semblance of order before we tackle another messy project.  

*I wrote the first draft first person, re-read it, then rewrote it from third person.  First draft was just a little over 2K words...the rewrite almost tripled the word count, and I'm much happier.  It still needs work, and may well get longer still. 

At long last...

 My house was built in 1970.  It has acoustic texturing on the ceiling (also known as popcorn ceilings), with glitter.  Yes, glitter.  And the texturing is heavy--which hasn't been made at all, by anyone, in over a decade.  The glitter hasn't been made in longer.  And the applicators have had their seals rot from disuse and age.  

Which...has made it very difficult for the drywall guy to match, so that the patch on my ceiling doesn't stick out like a sore thumb.  

He's decided he's going to have to scrape and redo the ceiling with a coarse medium texture.  No word on glitter, yet, but he said he'd have to flick it up with his fingers, if he was able to find any at all.*

He said, when he called on Friday, that the material had just gotten to him, and that he'd be out on Monday to finish the job to my satisfaction.  

I'm thankful for that.  All of the things in the entry hall have been in the family room for a bloody month already.  

 I'm ready to put my house back the way it's supposed to be, rather than having stuff cluttering rooms it doesn't belong in (and I need to clear stuff off the old study table for moving it into the garage for kid art).  I have so much to do...and not a lot of energy to do it with, so it won't get done quickly.  

Hit a lick at a snake when I can, and things get done.  Eventually.  But they do get done.  

*I promised if he had to do that, I'd write a note for his wife, explaining what he was doing and swearing he wasn't at a strip club.  He got the giggles, and said he wasn't married anymore, but would have taken me up on that if he had been. 

Updates and random stuff

1. The drywall should be fixed Monday.  Turns out that it was a good thing the drywaller wasn't able to come out on Friday, since I had to run to Sam's Club.  That's the last thing that needs to be put right before the new roof project is completely put to bed.  Well, that, and the roofing company cashing the second check...

2. The imp's meds have been adjusted.  Rather than raising the dose on the extended release, the doctor has given us a second, immediate release version that he's supposed to take early in the afternoon.  I'm  watching to see if I can give it to him immediately upon picking him up, or if he needs me to leave it at the office: the deciding factor will be whether it interferes with bedtime.  

3. My meds have also been adjusted.  I have lost something like 20 lbs since Thanksgiving (when I started monitoring my weight to prevent holiday weight gain), and that means I needed a lower dose of thyroid meds.  Eventually, I may need to drop the celery seed extract, if it starts messing with my blood pressure the wrong way...which will leave me with Tylenol as a go-to for pain. 

4. Doc still has me on a massive, mega-dose of D2 once per month.  Today was the day scheduled for that.  And she told me to keep taking the fish oil caplets with 2000 IU per day on top of the 50,000 IU per month.  She wants another screening for that with my next blood test in July.  She says my vitamin D levels are "getting there." 

5. Still writing...as my brain is capable.  I'm an idiot, and keep trying to push myself to do more than I'm actually capable of, and setting myself way, way back in trying to keep to anything resembling a schedule.  Damn it.  

5a. I am within spitting distance of finishing the first revision on Having a Pint.  I'll be contacting people for beta reading as soon as I'm done.  There's been a lot of fleshing out.  It went from a hair over 51,000 words to a hair under 58,000 words, and I've got something like a chapter and a half to go.  

5b. I've got a short story that I was working on.  Got it finished.  Realized I hated it, and that I'd done it from the wrong POV.  I'm redoing it, am less than a third of the way done, and already have a hundred words more than the first draft.  It'll likely get chucked in another collection of my short stories, along with a couple with other odd creatures and pets.  So far, there are five stories that will likely go into the collection.  All semi-centered on critters showing up and making room for themselves in the human characters' lives.

6.  And that reminds me...I need to get off the blog, finish a story, then do planning for the next week or so of meals and chores.  

Oof. Unpleasant.

 My endocrinologist is...different.  She listens to me, yes; however...she's really uncomfortable with the natural thyroid that I've been doing well on.  I'm not sure she believes me when I say that I take it at the same time every day: about 5:40 am, and 4:00 pm.  I take it at those times because it disrupts the rest of my day the least at those times.  

Thyroid replacement requires an empty stomach.  You need to take it an hour before eating/drinking coffee, and at least two hours after anything you've eaten.  So, I take my first dose at 5:40, when other half's "go swim" alarm goes off.  He wakes up, I wake up, I go take my pills, he turns on light and gets dressed, then hits the snooze to give me another forty minutes of sleep.  On days he doesn't swim, the only change is that the light doesn't go on, and he doesn't get dressed.  

Basically, by the time I get to coffee, the hour I need between pills and coffee has passed: I get up, dressed, get the kids up, fed, and dressed, get their lunches fixed, and then I get to sit down with my first cup of coffee.  Yes, there's a check-list on the fridge for "brain no work sans coffee."  Yes, I sometimes still get lost.  

This morning sucked.  My doctor wanted me to get my blood draw done before I took my pill.  I dropped the kids off, and realized...the imp was missing his trumpet.  So, I took an extra ten minutes and went to go get it and get it dropped off...which put me at the lab at 8:15...and waiting for a half an hour.  Yep.  I got back to my car, and got my pills taken at 8:55.  More than three hours later than usual.  With only a cup of coffee on board beforehand, and having to wait until a) I got home, and b) a full hour had passed before I could have cup #2.  

Oh, and I take celery seed extract to deal with some of my joint inflammation...and that has to be taken no closer to either dose than 4 hours before or after.  And that made my "take your meds, stupid" alarm at 10:00 useless.  And the timing on this morning's thyroid dose has made my "take your meds, stupid" alarm for the second dose useless, as well. 

I have felt out-of-step all day, today.  And I have repeatedly checked my to-do list because I keep feeling like I've forgotten something.  And I can't tell if I have, or if having my meds timing FUBARed just threw me off that much.  

Yeah, I think I'll have a Scotch.  An hour after I take my second dose of thyroid meds.  Around 7:30-ish.  

I have definitely earned it, and I am in the mood for it. 

I...wow. I had no idea I was that good of a mom.

I'd been thinking for a while about getting a good desktop computer, and a better desk.  My desk is adequate as a writing desk, but would not be a terribly good computer desk.  I'd peg it at probably forty years old, maybe older.  It's got drawers on both sides of a knee-cubby, and they're too narrow for much.  I mean, they're full, but they're freaking narrow.  

And the desk itself doesn't have a whole lot of space.  

So, yesterday, when this posted, it crystalized a lot of my reasons.  I've only been getting a year--if I'm lucky--out of each laptop.  Next year, it may be difficult to replace it.  Between shipping chains being iffy and the whole damn world slipping away from capability as America loses its mind, they're going to be either priced out of reach, or totally unavailable.  

And so, yesterday, we went shopping.  Grandma'd taken the kids to give us a break after a stressful week, and gave us a lovely opportunity.  

We started at Sam's Club.  All they had in stock was one of the two brands I wanted nothing to do with: HP.  And it was a total zoo.  So, we moved on--left the cart with the book the kids wanted sitting somewhere out of the way, and just walked out.  

Then we went to Office Depot.  They had a couple of Dells, an HP or two, and several Lenovo systems--the other brand I wanted absolutely nothing to do with.  We wandered back, and looked at desks, and found a couple we sort of liked (one of which I really liked--the desk surface was a gorgeous, almost parquet type design).  And then we headed out.  

We...went to our favorite bookstore in town.  It's a small, used book store, and it used to be a house.  It shares a parking lot with a plant nursery, so the parking lot was full, but we were one of two couples in the entire store.  And yes, we came home with several books for each of us.  

By that time, it was time for me to take my thyroid replacement (since it's a natural thyroid, I have to take it twice a day).  And we fixed supper, and ate.  And I realized that I needed a visit to Hobby Lobby, because I needed some supplies I didn't have to learn a new threadcraft.  So, off we went again.  

Hobby Lobby was quick.  It took two minutes to get a ball of black tatting thread, and a ball of bright blue.  Everyone says that learning's easier when you've got different colors on the shuttle and the ball.  And...that has proved true.  My first two attempts failed miserably, but last night, after we got back home...dang, that's easy.  It takes some focus, and attention (which will make it a good meditation and quiet prayer aid), but it's pretty easy.  

The one thing we looked for that they didn't have was woodworking supplies: carving tools.  I think I may visit the local hardware store to see if they might have something.  

Then, we went to see what Walmart might have in the way of what we'd looked for at Sam's Club and Office Depot.  Oh, not the desks--Walmart furniture is shit--but the towers and peripherals.  

Yeah.  HP, Lenovo, flashy gaming Acers and Dells.  Don't want a flashy gaming machine.  Do one something semi-capable of some limited gaming, but nothing flashy and showy.  This is going to be used for writing (sometimes), and kid homework and research (sometimes), as well as limited gaming (my other half enjoys some).  Flashy and showy is distracting.  

We did find a monitor we wanted to ask about a price on, since there wasn't one anywhere on the shelf or the box.  We gave up after spending five minutes waiting at the electronics department desk for anyone to freakin' show up.  

So, we put the monitor back and wandered off.  Grabbed a movie that the imp was wanting to see that did not hit Disney+ like we'd assumed it would, and grabbed a folding umbrella chair for me.  Just a cheap one--the more expensive ones are heavier than I can manage on my bad days, when I actually need to go out and sit in the sun.  And we headed for the self-check aisles.  

Holy God.  I know there's a reason I go to Walmart when I need to be reminded that, in spite of slips and small failings, I'm not a shit parent, but damn.  

As we made our way toward the self check, I noted two little girls, no adult in sight, fighting over a clamshell of raspberries.  They abruptly quit fighting--the thing had come open, and there were several that hit the floor--and tried to jam it back closed, all while ignoring the raspberries they'd dropped, and cramming a few in their mouths.  They looked up, then hurried around the corner into the check-out area, and I noticed that both of them were in socks.  No shoes.  Oy.  

Mom and Dad (surprisingly) were around the corner, with a teenager, and a small boy in the shopping basket; the teen was whining at Mom, the little girls dancing (in socks stained with smashed raspberries) demanding that the raspberries be "paid for already--we're starving," the boy in the cart was standing, yanking at the cell phone in Dad's hands, trying to get it to play with, and Mom and Dad were ignoring the kids and each other.  

Yeah, we got the hell out of there.  We scanned both our items, and paid for them, and were gone before the "family" behind us had four items scanned, starting before us.  

Holy God.  

I'd been feeling a bit like a failure as a parent, the past week.  I'd been down sick--kidney stones, likely, and a bad reaction to a med prescribed to help me pass the stones--and dealing with the new roof going on, so...yeah, I was focused on getting through that, and not so much on the kids' needs last week.  

Not feeling like such a shit parent after that Walmart trip.  My kids aren't feral.  Even with a week of Mom not focused on helping them deal with school, they're not feral.  Even without Mom pointing out this, that, and the other that they needed for school, they didn't forget shoes in public.  And their socks mostly were matched (same type, same length, even if not same colors on toes and heels).  And their dress was presentable in public, not stained, too tight (one of the little girls couldn't fasten her pants, and they didn't go down past mid calf), and hole-y.    

No, by comparison, I'm a fucking paragon of motherhood.  

And we've decided to order mostly from Amazon.  Because I do not think I could stand more in-person shopping. 

A wee tad bit different...

 I've posted my egg muffin recipe here, before--the base one that's easy to modify.  I've found one my husband likes, in playing with the basic recipe.  

French Toast Egg Frittata*

1 dozen eggs

1/2 c heavy cream

1/2 lb bulk maple sausage

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/3 c (or so) cinnamon-sugar (ours uses about a tbsp of cinnamon for about 2 cups of sugar)

1 to 1.5 c shredded cheese (milder blend works well here)

1. Grease a 9" or 10" cast iron skillet (a very solid spray of cooking spray, or grease it with lard or Crisco, all the way up the sides.  Butter might work, but I haven't tried it), and put it in the oven.   2. Preheat oven to 350 with the skillet.  Yes, I mean that.  It's why I said use cast iron.  Trust me.  3. Brown and break up maple sausage.  4. Beat heavy cream into eggs, and mix in vanilla and cinnamon-sugar.  5.  Fold in cheese, and browned sausage.  6.  AFTER skillet is preheated with the oven, take it out carefully, and pour the mixture in quickly.  You'll hear it sizzle when it hits the puddle of melted grease in the bottom--this is a good thing.  7. Bake 45 minutes, or until golden brown and set.  I know ovens vary, so it may not be as long, or it may be longer.  8.  When your frittata is done, take it out of the oven and flip the skillet upside down over a plate.  The fritatta should fall right out.**

 I will warn you now: it's absolute torture, smelling this cook.  It's utterly delicious with a little bit of syrup.  My other half likes butter-flavored syrup best.  

*I use a skillet to make this, rather than muffin pans.  I should probably pull out my cast iron muffin pans, instead.  

**THIS is why I recommended the cast iron.  With anything else, these things stick.  Even to non-stick. 

*That's* done, now.

The last, major, expensive repair and upgrade on the house is done.  We have a new roof.  It needed a lot more work than was initially estimated (we figured it would).  We needed:

• 12 new rafters put in.  The 2' centers were just...too much.  

• 35 sheets of OSB put in.  The ones they were removing were crumbling as they removed them.  

• Something like 3200 square feet of shingles--Owens Corning Duration, Slatestone, if you're curious. 
  

• 12 new metal box vents.  We had a mix of box vents and turbines, and the turbines (one of which didn't work) were removed and replaced.  

• Soffit venting.  Sometime in 2011, the previous owners had a new roof put on, and whoever did it built in the soffit venting.  Covered it over entirely.  But still put the vented vinyl back up over the soffits.  Pisses me off that whoever did that to little old people.  Anyway, that's now fixed.

The dog has been inside, much against her will.  First, because they were working on the back of the house yesterday, and needed access to the back; second, because I didn't want anything dropped on her by accident (or not); and third, because she's capable of being the most irritating creature in creation, when she wants to be.*

The cats have...not been happy.  Cricket hid inside my recliner for part of yesterday, then managed to squeeze her 11 lb self under a cabinet set four inches or less up off the floor.  I have no idea where she hid while they were working today.  Shadow was jumpy and clingy--and that cat is never jumpy and clingy--but settled down faster than Cricket after everything was done. 

We had one minor disaster that the roofing company needs to fix: one of their guys stepped on a board that was just laid across a couple of rafters across the ceiling, not nailed down, and the board slipped.  His foot came through the drywall in the entry hall ceiling.  He caught himself, but there was a good deal of profanity (from him, and I doubt he realized I heard him).  There's a large-ish hole in the drywall, even now, and about a cubic foot or so of insulation came down.  I'm honestly not sure who was more startled, him or me.  

*This is the dog that pissed off a box turtle to the point it was hissing at her and trying to bite her.  And when I rescued it, it hissed at me before it turtled up.  And tried to get back in the yard at the dog who was snuffling under the gate, looking for it.  Turtle was that pissed off. 
 

The joys of home ownership, part...ye gods, I've lost count.

We've had several quotes, now, about a new roof.  We've done research.  It's down to whoever will give us the best deal for what we want: metal shingles.  Not the barn-roof type metal roof--I don't think that would look very good with our roof-line.  If we didn't have a hipped roof (and built-on garage, which complicates the hipped roof roof line just a bit) it might be different.  

I'd also rather not have the fasteners exposed to the elements.  

I do, however, want the benefits from having a metal roof.  I want to only do this once.  I want something that, if the neighbors who sell fireworks (and store them on their property) have a nasty disaster, will protect us from any fire jumping to our roof.  

We've had quotes from hair curling to "OH MY GOD!  I COULD ALMOST BUY A HOUSE FOR THAT!!"  

The lowest quote was the guy that quoted for asphalt shingles.  And his quote said that any lumber repair would drive the cost up.  We...we're going to need at least some.  So yeah.  Not only is his product not what we're looking for, I don't think his quote was particularly accurate.  

Thing is...my aunt needed her roof repaired.  She needed repairs for almost twenty years.  It kept degrading, to the point that she started needing a new roof something like ten years ago.  She left it for longer.  With all the leaks, and stuff.  And now, after the ice storm just after Christmas shattering trees and dropping them on her house...well.  You can imagine.  She needs the roof replaced.  All the way down to the ceilings and beyond, in some places.  Just to the ceilings in others.  Her roof is going to cost something like twice what mine would.  Because she didn't get it done before it got really bad (and doesn't have insurance on the place to pay for ice storm damage...which is another level of stupid I won't go into). 

I do not want to end up having to pay more than what I already will have to, by not doing the repairs/replacement as soon as it's needed.  

And that's ignoring the fact that we're already seeing some inflation on the money pumped into the economy by the igornatti in Washington, D.C.  

I want this done now, before the dollars we have won't stretch to pay for what we need. 

Trending...downward.

I started teaching back in '03.  I'd applied, and been accepted to, grad school, and applied for several types of financial aid (but not loans, because I'm not stupid).  I was offered a teaching assistantship, on the recommendation of my advisor for my bachelors' degree.  She said, when I thanked her for that recommendation the following spring when I visited my alma mater, that she watched me teach, when I was in her composition classes, and thought I'd do well in front of a classroom.  

Well.  I like to think I didn't do badly, in any case.  And I did manage to teach my first classes that writing wasn't something to fear.  

Those first classes...well, it was a Big 10 school.  Town population of 30K permanent residents; school population of 25K.  I had 22 students in my class.  

Three of them didn't know that there was such a concept as a complete sentence.  Three of them wrote on a higher level than I taught.  I arranged with the bottom three to come to my office hours and work with me as well as enroll in the tutoring program.  The top three I worked with to keep them from getting bored.  

My class--Freshman Composition 1--was the lowest level English class that the university offered.  There was no bone-head English for students who weren't at Freshman Composition 1-level of competence.  There was an advanced class, but it had extremely limited slots, and they were already full.  To bursting.  Because there was only one or two sections, capped at 22 students, for a university that had 25K students overall.  

I taught for that university for the two years I was in graduate school.  

Then, I came home.  Back to where I started.  With the same professors who taught me, and the same department head.  I started teaching in fall of '05 for that school. 

It was...well.  Different.  First of all, I wasn't told that I would teach these papers in that order.  (I used a few of the assignments I'd used for the big school, but wound up designing my own types of papers.)  I wasn't told that I'd use this textbook, that workbook, and the other supplemental reader.  Since I took the sections of someone who'd abruptly quit after she'd gotten her sections assigned and gotten her book ordered, I just...kept her book.  It wasn't any more utter shit than the textbooks I'd been working from, after all.  

The biggest differences...well, my alma mater had something like 4-5,000 students.  It varied by semester.  All the classes were small.  The university (which had been a college when I'd graduated, three years earlier) had not-for-credit below-level classes for people deficient in math and English.  I didn't get students who were wildly unprepared.  The university also had six sections of the advanced class that doubled for both sections of freshman composition, for a far smaller student population.  I also didn't get those who were so far beyond the work level that they were bored into cutting up. 

I taught there for several years--both in person, and online.  During that time, I saw...changes.  

Not one of them were good changes.  

First, the university president was fired.  It was found that he'd actually lied about finishing his doctorate...fifteen or twenty years earlier.  They only found it out because they'd gone looking for something to put him in breach of contract, because he was running the university into the ground, financially.   The guy they brought in to replace him was never going to be popular, because he was brought in for the sole purpose of bringing the spending back under control.  

Most of the things he did were incredibly good ideas, and excellent policy.  Some weren't, but overall, he was an excellent university president...

...who was chased out by his support staff refusing to support him, and his faculty actively campaigning against him, making his life utter hell.  

There was a succession of utter morons for a short time, as "temporary presidents"--none of which made an impression.  And then, they hired someone who was utterly unfit for the position.  

One of the first things he did was undo about half of the cost-saving measures the hatchet man had put in: the roses and perennials were torn out, and the budget for groundskeeping staff was expected to put in seasonal annuals and change them every month or so.  And the groundskeeping staff was expanded for that purpose.  That was the stupidest thing.  

This guy also started "the Great Game of Education."  He...didn't realize, despite having been English faculty while he was still teaching, that Kipling was not at all flattering about the Great Game of Nations.  And that most of the faculty on campus mocked the fuck out of his idiocy.  Until he realized it, and decided to get petty.  

He decided to step on his classroom professors.  Who were too busy teaching to play his "Game."  He decided to set stupid, campus-wide policies that dumped more busy-work onto all of the teachers, and set financial rewards for playing along...and punishments for not...without keeping in mind all his stupidity took time out of the teachers' schedules...time away from teaching, grading, planning, and their families.  

And the department heads were, one by one, forced out of their positions because they stood up for their teachers.  

Next, he decided the placement testing wasn't worth the cost (minimal), and that the bonehead and advanced courses weren't worth the cost, and that...well, bigger universities put everyone in the same classes...

And then, he decided that the classes had to be more uniform, and he'd start with teplate courses for the distance learning classes.  And hired utter morons to design them.  

It was at that point I quit teaching online--I'd had kids, and rather than quit teaching when I went into labor, I'd switched my last on-campus class to an online course, and kept going for five years while raising babies.  My youngest was three, at that point, and was at the age for pre-school.  So, I arranged things to put both kids in a good private school, and went back to campus.  

The second department head was a good one, the third one less good but competent.  And then, we got to the current twat.  

During the time in question--twelve years--I'd seen most of the department turn over.  Most of the good professors, the ones that did a damn good job, and were student-focused, had retired.  Instead of staying for forty years (like a couple had), they jumped at twenty because they wanted out of the increasingly-toxic environment.  The ones that were still there, still student-focused...well, none of them wanted the department head position.  Not even the newer hires wanted it.  So, they went out and looked for somebody they could jack into the slot.  

He...wasn't prepared for it.  Nor was he competent.  But the upper administration loved him because he also had no spine.  

And then, I noted that the adjuncts were turning over, too.  I noted that when I had to go to the actual department for something--I forget what--there was maybe one or two names on the adjunct roster that I recognized.  

They were dumping the longer-time adjuncts that they had to pay more (policy stated that after five years' teaching, adjuncts got an extra thousand per semester).  

By that time, I'd gotten hit with something.  Something that it took a year to get diagnosed.  I was less and less able to teach and care for my family.  By the time it was my turn on the chopping block, I was ready to go.  

I do not hold a grudge for the puff that fired me.  He was only doing as directed by higher up.  

I do hold one hell of a grudge for the absolute fucktard that ran my university into the ground, trying to pretend that we could do the same things in the same way as a Big 10 school...when we had always turned out better educated students than that big 10 school, because we didn't do the same things in the same way.  

The sad and scary thing is, I'm seeing the same trend playing out on the national level, at this point.  And I worry for my children. 

I NEEDED this.

 This.  This is good.  The tension in my neck and shoulders is melting away while I listen.  

Post. Turtle.

 I know y'all know the old joke about turtles on fence posts.  

I have become utterly convinced that the vast majority of politicians are post turtles.  As in: utterly clueless and useless.  

Case. In. Point.  

This senator wants an investigation into why natural gas prices went up.  

During a cold snap.

When natural gas is being used to heat homes.  

And when electricity used to mine and pump natural gas is shut off, which...creates more shortages...which creates more electrical outages because the power plants that use natural gas...aren't getting it.  So, not only are people using more of it, but there's actually less to be had.  At the same time.  

Cause.  

Effect.  

Fucking duh. 

Damn it.

 Rest in peace, good sir.  

"...May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

 

I really hate winter.

 So.  That storm.  It dropped around 7" of snow on us.  When I got up, our weather station receiver (the station itself is out on a fence post) said it was -18 degrees Fahrenheit--a record for cold in the area.  Yesterday and the day before didn't climb out of single-digit high temperatures.  Today's supposed to get up to the mid to upper teens.  We're having a real time of it, keeping the water lines from freezing, and only having mixed success in the fight.*

We'll be getting more late tonight/early tomorrow.  The meteorologist that knows his ass from his elbow is predicting a little more than 3" for the city where I live--farther north will get a bit less, farther south a bit more.  

Thankfully, though, that's the last of it.  We're supposed to be back closer to normal temperatures for the region and time of year by the weekend.  

Texas and Missouri have had...issues...with power.  Thanks to the utter stupidity of the vapid, virtue-signalling twatwaffles running the boards of the power companies, a significant percentage of power generation has been moved from standard, fossil fuels to windmills and solar panels.  

Except...

Windmills...freeze.  They ice up and quit turning, quit generating power.  

Solar panels...well, I don't know how much snow Texas got, but we have around seven inches of snow, and a quarter inch of ice covering ours.  And it won't clear off until the weekend.  

This leaves the power companies in a self-inflicted bind: they don't have sufficient power for the individuals paying for said power...because the weather is interfering with renewable-resource-based generation.  As it does.  Especially in this part of the country.  

It would be less of a problem if the mouth-breathing douche-clots hadn't shut down the fossil fuel plants--however, it seems that keeping them in reserve for situations like this is beyond the intellectual capacity of said fucktards.  

Instead, the dumbfucks running the electrical companies chose to impose rolling blackouts on their customers.  We were out of power for an hour and a half.  The temperature in the house dropped ten degrees in that period of time, even with the propane fireplace still burning.  Because we couldn't circulate the heat.  

Much longer, and the pressure tank in the garage might have frozen.  Which...would have necessitated getting the insurance company in on it.  Because while the plumbing repairs for frozen pipes might be less than the insurance deductible, the pressure tank would not have been.  And we would have filed a claim, and we would have pointed out to the insurance company that it was the complete and entire fault of the electrical company, and their idiotic virtue signalling fucking over their business model. 

I hope that enough people can point their home insurance companies at the electrical companies as the source of the new claims that the insurance companies sue the absolute fuck out of the electrical companies.  

And I honestly can't wait until tornado season.  Here's hoping God hates windmills as much as he hates trailer parks, and the idiots in charge of the electrical company go back to what actually works for this region.

*As I've already mentioned, the cold water line to the washer has frozen up.  Last night, the hot water line to the kitchen started to freeze up, and this morning, the cold water line to the kitchen has frozen.  And the plumber won't get to us today.  Maybe not tomorrow, either. 

FFFFFUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKK

It's damn cold.  It's really fucking damn cold.  It's cold like I moved away from Manhattan, KS, to get away from.  

It started Sunday.  I went to visit my mom and sister.  The temperature was starting to drop when I went up.  By the time I left for home, we were getting slushy mist: it was sorta frozen when it hit the car, then thawed, then re-froze.  I had an utter bitch of a time keeping the windshield clear of ice enough for safe driving.  And there was a quarter inch of ice frozen over the headlights and front end of the car.  

And the temperature kept dropping.  

Monday, the kids' school was cancelled because the roads weren't safe, and neither were the parking lots.  It never got above freezing, that day.  And we had freezing fog.  

Tuesday wasn't any better.  Wednesday got colder--it never got above 19 degrees.  Thursday...well, yesterday, it snowed a bit, hovered between seventeen and nineteen, and the water line to the washing machine froze.  

I got up this morning around 5:40 to take my thyroid meds, and get a drink of water.  It sounded...weird.  Labored.  So I left that tap on a drip, and other half turned the heater in the bathroom on when he went in.  

It's still dripping.  Because it's still only 12 degrees.  Running the propane fireplace heater, an infrared heater, and three oil heaters has it around 67 degrees in the main part of the house.  And that is with about half a foot of insulation added to the bit that was there, and another six inches under that where there hadn't been any.  

 I'm going to go through and turn up all the heaters.  Because between the frigid cold and the wind, they're just not quite keeping up.  

Next week won't be any better, either.  We've got snow in the forecast.  Our local weather guy has noticed that our weather systems repeat every couple of months, and we're heading back into the same system that dumped a half inch of ice on us right after Christmas (and broke a lot of trees).  Weather guy says this time, with as cold as it is, we're likely to have around 5-7"...minimum...of snow.  Could be a lot more than that.  I wouldn't be surprised, with as humid as it is, and still this cold.  

The kids have been out of school for a week.  And it looks like they won't have much, if any, next week, either. 

When I was in grad school, in Manhattan, KS, we got something like 18" of snow dumped on top of 2" of ice, and it stayed in the single digits for highs for two weeks, and didn't get out of the teens for another couple.  That was a few hours north of here.  

I moved south because I wanted to get away from weather like that.  I live where we have venomous snakes and mosquitoes the size of attack helicopters because I don't like it when the air hurts my face.  Because when the air hurts my face, the rest of me hurts bad enough that I don't sleep well. 

Because it's funny

 

Reading

 As I've said before, I've been reading to the kids every night that they can get through their before-bed routine with time to spare before their read-in-bed, settle-down-for-sleep time.  I started with Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books, then read My Side of the Mountain.*

Then, I moved on to David Weber's A Beautiful Friendship.  I read one of the short stories in the collections that introduced the doctor character before I moved past the first part of the book, so that one took...a while.  And David Weber's work is really hard to read out loud.  I've promised I'll read them the second book (I've already bought and read it), but not the third one.  They can read that one for themselves, if they so choose.  

When I finished that one, I couldn't find what I'd done with book two (Fire Season), so I had the pixie bring out one of her books, one that Weber had mentioned in one of his Honor Harrington books: David and the Phoenix.  They loved it.  Honestly, I enjoyed it, too, and I usually don't care so much for kids' books.  

After I finished that one, I still couldn't find Fire Season, so I borrowed one from my sister that I used to have, but lost: Elizabeth Goudge's The Little White Horse.  We tore through that one pretty quickly.  And the kids loved it, and demanded we get a copy for our library (if you're going to, get the hardback--the paperback lacks the delightful illustrations that the hardback has).  I ordered two copies: one for us, and one for the kids' school library.  Because it's a delightful, allegory-heavy, powerfully Christian story.  It's also a bit of a coming-of-age story (again, I usually hate those, but this one was very well-told).  

The book we're on now is Daniel Defoe's Robinson Cruso.  The language has been updated, but I don't think the story has been changed or abridged at all.  The copy I'm reading from was mine from when I was around the imp's age.  

We're almost done with that one, though, and I have found our copy of Fire Season.  I've promised to read that one, next.  And the kids have found my copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and demanded those ones next.  So...I have the next several months' worth of night-time reading planned out.  

After those, I'll be reading Wrede's The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, and then Cooper's The Dark is Rising books.  I may read some Twain to them, too.  We'll have to see what I feel like reading when we get through the ones I'm planning.

*They loved this one...but hated the ending.  It's one of the reasons I'm reading Robinson Cruso to them. 

Cautious optimism...

I downloaded Pale Moon's browser, late last night.  Then messed with it a bit, and went to bed.  I've messed with it a bit this morning, and I'm not unhappy with it.  I downloaded an adblocker (first thing I did).  It's not perfect--the AdBlocker Ultimate does a much better job--but it's more effective than the one with Brave.  

It also works a lot more like Firefox.  Which...I greatly prefer over Brave (which works like Chrome...which I absolutely hate).  I'll probably try it out for a while, and make sure everything I use Firefox for works right before I make the switch between browsers.

I am working on divesting of everything that supports criminals and traitors; however, I am not willing to cut off my nose to spite my face.   There are things I don't think I can give up, due to budgetary concerns.  Walmart and Sam's Club, for example.  I can't afford stop shopping there for groceries just because they pay the Danegeld--there is one other option, and it's in the south end of town.*  I'm on the north end.  It's, granted, close to the same distance, but the grocery store is a hair farther away, and...well, the traffic is bad, dangerous, and rather unavoidable.

I also can't exactly give up Amazon, either.  I publish through them.  We use their Kindle Unlimited program, and buy e-books through them (mostly indie authors, too).  There are things we purchase through them that are simply unavailable locally, or are cost prohibitive--we are on a tight budget, after all, since we pay tuition for private school, and are saving for a new roof.  I can minimize money spent there, and do as a matter of course, but I can't boycott it completely.  

So.  In conclusion.  I kind of like Pale Moon.  No, the ad blocker isn't as effective as the one I use on Firefox--it permits DuckDuckGo to list ads first in a search, which the one I use on Firefox doesn't permit--but it otherwise works the same general way.  I do like it.  I'm not going to uninstall Firefox, but I'll switch my default browser to this one, and keep Firefox as a backup (along with Edge, which is used only for banking). 

 

 

*There's a Food-4-Less on the south end of town, and getting there involves streets and intersections that are among the worst for traffic accidents and careless driving in the area.  And is in the "masks required for doing business" city, which I won't reward with more of my money through sales tax than I absolutely have to.   

On its way...

My new laptop is out for delivery.  It's...a compromise.  Most of the ones I looked at when I was shopping in a hurry now lack a DVD drive of any type.  I'd rather have one than not, but we do have an external, USB DVD/CD write/rewrite drive...so, compromise.

The new laptop does not have a hard drive disk drive; rather, it's got a solid state hard drive, and 8GB memory.*

I'd been using Mozilla Firefox for the past decade or longer.  I'm going to have to change that.  I get that the piece calling for censorship on the blog was "opinion" only, but that opinion was voiced by someone who hasn't gotten fired, nor has it been made clear that opinion doesn't fly with corporate.  

I will not be downloading iTunes player.  I'll be grabbing MusicBee, instead--which plays the iTunes files, and isn't run by people actively engaging in the suppression of speech and thought.  (It's also easier to download, set up, and has a better interface.)

Hopefully, I'll be able to get on FB again, to check on family that can't or won't make the jump to MeWe.  And so I can download/back up my posts and stuff from there.  I'm not sure how long it will be before they start purging people who don't enthusiastically perform craino-rectal inversion, or perform it fast enough.  

Another thing I'm checking into is whether Open Office has added the functionality I'd wanted to see.  It was almost there with the last version I'd snagged, but not quite.  I will be downloading it, regardless, because it's compatible with, and will open some things Word won't.  

The first thing I do will be to disable Cortana as much as possible, and to disable microphone, camera, and location tracking.  Second will be to use Edge to download something else--I'll be looking into browsers, and deciding from there.  Third will be to download the music player: that has also become unreliable with this laptop, and I miss my music. 

I'm hoping this doesn't take long, but I won't be surprised if it takes me through mid-day tomorrow to get set up and back working.  

*Current system has 6 GB memory (some of which may be failing as well), and 1 TB disk hard drive. 

Current projects

 Yeah, the holidays kicked my ass.  I'm still working on recovery.  Not easy, when stress exacerbates symptoms.  

I'm still working, though.  At a snail's pace...and that's complicated by my laptop having hard drive issues (it's a disk drive, not a solid state hard drive).  I do have a laptop on order--a Dell, since my last few Acers have been disappointing.  It should be here...sometime between tomorrow and Wednesday.  

Other projects involve yarn.  

I ordered myself a set of interchangeable knitting needles, just after Christmas.  Knitter's Pride (India, not China), lacquered hardwood.  I finished a poncho I'd started on bamboo needles (the cord on the bamboo circulars was a tad too short), then picked up and started working on a scarf/hat set in the kids' school colors, for their superintendent (who was one of the best science teachers I'd ever had, long long ago--something around 25 years ago, when I was in 8th grade).  

These needles are freakin' awesome.  

I have been knitting since I was 13.  Started learning just after my birthday.  In that near-three-decades of knitting experience, I have worn the color coating off the tips of dozens of anodized aluminum needles, and flat worn out multiple sets of bamboo needles (as in: worn down to getting splinters every time I picked them up, and shredding yarn...which takes about three years or so, with the amount I knit).  

Until recently, my favorite needles were Clover Takumi bamboo needles (made in Japan).  Those are the ones I'd wear out in about three or four years (constant use will do that).  Mostly circular, with a few sets of double pointed.  They cost somewhere between double and quadruple what the aluminum needles did, but they were very much worth the cost difference--the yarn doesn't squeak along the needles when my hands would get a little sweaty, nor slide off when I set the project down for any reason.  

The Knitter's Pride interchangeable needles have the good points of the Clover Takumi bamboo.  I'm hopeful that the lacquered hardwood will be more durable a longer period of use.  They feel sturdier than the bamboo needles, and they're smoother.  One of the reasons I'd switched from metal needles (what I started with) to bamboo was because the bamboo was more comfortable to use for longer periods of time--the lacquered hardwood seems, so far, to have that same quality. 

The set I got is utterly gorgeous.  There is distinct wood-grain, highlighted by a very good, dark stain. It ranges from US size 3 all the way up through size 17, and came with three lengths of cord (two cords in each length), and all sorts of extra bits and pieces to make the set more functional.  The case...the company calls it "luxurious vegan leather," which is either an oxymoron, or something very amusing and disturbing.  But the case is also attractive--blue and tan--and has a pocket for the notions that snaps firmly shut, a magnetic board to hold your patterns for you and help you not lose your place in the knitting process, and a solidly reliable magnetic closure system.  

Oh.  And a ballpoint pen that matches the needles.  

I've finished a scarf.  I'm working on a hat.  

Once I'm done with that, I'll probably make a poncho for me--the one that I made for the imp started out with me fiddling around, trying to make a pattern I liked (all the ones I'd found online sucked), and he decided he loved it and wanted it.  He's worn it on and off since I bound off the last stitch.  

Mine is probably going to be multi-colored--using up small bits of yarn from here and there (clear out some of the acrylic stash I inherited from both of my aunts, so that Odysseus can stop using "yarn!" as a curse word).  Or maybe mostly cream with other colors accenting.  I'm not sure yet.  

And yes, I'm doing a lot of this while I'm reading...and waiting on my new laptop so I can get back to writing, sometime next week.

Learned helplessness

We got a nasty lesson in that in November, then again yesterday.  

No matter what we do, no matter what choices we make, the outcome for us won't change.  It won't change not because we're making the wrong decisions, but because those with power are making all of the decisions, and fuck the voters.  

Evenenscence produced a song that, on its surface, isn't a bad message.  "Use My Voice" is, if you listen to the lyrics, about making yourself heard, making your opinions known.  The video is a leftest staged riot, which completely turned me off of the band for good.  I'm rather disgusted with Amy Lee for what she's advocating--it indicates in her an ignorance of history that's frankly...well, schadenfreudelicious.  

Remember what happened to the Brownshirts when they were no longer needed.  

However.  Back to the subject.  

We used our voice.  We used the ballot box, and reelected the man who was working for us.  They stole that by putting in another one of their overbred, inbred, cretinous brahmins through massive, obvious fraud.  We attempted to use the jury box--and have been laughed away by brahmins put in place through decades of careful work to preserve the illusion that we weren't being forced into neo-feudalism.  We've used the soap box.  

At this point, we don't really have much of a choice left.  I don't think the brahmins realize what they've done--they have no relation to reality, and cannot see the truth when it's breaking into the Capitol building to scream our outrage over their blatant fraud.  

A lot of people are going to shrug, and slide into depression--why bother doing otherwise, when nothing you choose, no action you take, can possibly affect the outcome?  Why do anything other than drift in a fog when nothing you do can make your life anything other than misery?  When the American dream has been strangled by neo-feudalists masquerading as public servants?  When all support structures have been carefully pruned and stripped away to avoid any possibility of the feudalists being toppled--again--by those nasty, filthy peasants?  

Others...won't.

I have reasons to do neither.  I grew up in a very similar situation--I was technically and legally a ward of the state from the age of twelve.  My mom had physical custody, but wasn't permitted to make any legal choices for us.  There were no choices I could make, no actions I could take, to make my life any better.  

I wound up drifting.  Diving into books and not coming up for air.  I wound up getting an incredibly good education in history, psychology, and politics from that.  Feudalism, when done right, could work--neo-feudalism is not feudalism done right.  It's always feudalism done wrong, and never works.  And we are in the end stages of it, no matter what it looks like, because it never works past about four generations--because competence is scary to the neo-feudalists, and thus they've deleted any chance of it from themselves. 

I also, when it was pointed out to me, realized that there were things I could do, choices I could make.  It wouldn't make things better, per se, but it would prepare me for the time when I could use my voice, when I could make choices and make them stick.  

If you have any land at all...put it to use.  Get some chickens.  Put in a garden.  If all you have is a yard, put in a garden--if your municipality won't let you grow veggies, you can grow flowers (and check your local ordinances--some places will let you have up to four hens, even in places where they won't let you put a veggie garden in your yard).  Learn to make things, and do that.  Draw.  Write.  Read.  

Pray.  

These things will help you fight off the massive, dire-wolf-sized black dog that is learned helplessness spawned depression.

And remember that, no matter what the neo-feudalist brahmins think, their path to power ends in a cliff, and they're rushing headlong toward it.  I'd say like lemmings, but they don't even see it.  

Take care of yourselves.  Take care of your families.  Pull in.  Fort up.  And don't let the inbred bastards grind you down. 

Not making resolutions, this year.

 Yeah.  About that hope I expressed late last night/early this morning, about 2021 not being as much of a shitshow as 2020? 

Right around the time I posted that wish, the rain we were getting started freezing.  I logged into my Walmart account and postponed my scheduled grocery pickup (normally done Friday mornings) to Saturday afternoon, thankful that I managed to get that done before the deadline.  And sometime before I manage to get to sleep (around 2:30-3:00), I started hearing...breakage.  

Woke up to snow, heavily iced trees, and lots of sagging, or broken and downed (or dangling) branches.  Lots. 

We've got no damage that we've noticed to the house or the heat pump, but the compressor housing has a decent-sized branch laying across it.  And there are a lot of broken stuff still hanging in the trees, and one LARGE branch hung up on the chimney, that we'll need help to get down...before it falls and takes down the patio roof.

This does not bode well for the rest of the year.  

I am not making any resolutions that circumstances will FUBAR. 

Happy New Year

The last week or so of 2020 was the same bitch the entire year has been since early February, despite a better than average Christmas with my family (no bickering amongst my aunts).  I am really, really hoping that 2021 is less of an unadulterated shit-show than was the year we just threw out the door after a knock-down, drag-out fight. 

Merry Christmas

Ew.

 We got about half an inch of snow, overnight.  Nothing on the roads, but the driveway has a decent covering.  Between the snow in my tire treads and the patch of ice in the middle of the road, right where I go turning left out of the driveway, I am wide awake.  

First sideways skid.  Ever.  Thank God for the Subaru's AWD.  

Nobody was hit, nobody was hurt, nobody shat themselves (though, given the imp's reaction, that might have been a near thing), and I kept it out of the ditch.  

But I really need more coffee, now.  I have the shakes like nobody's business, and a nasty reaction headache. 

Progress

I finished the first draft of Liquid Diet Chronicles: Having a Pint on Tuesday.  Yeah, a day later than I'd aimed at, but only a day.  I wrote the climax all the way through the end (nearly 5000 words) that day.  The first draft ended up at right around 52,000 words.  I've set it aside for the time being--I wouldn't be able to read, revise, and expand (and/or cut) where needed, right at the moment.  I need time away from it, first.  

After I did that, I went hunting for my files on The Schrodinger Paradox.  It...took some hunting to find the right files.  I last worked on it in November of 2017, and I've replaced my laptop at least once, since then.  I think only once, but I'm not entirely sure.  

I was too fried to start in working on it on Tuesday.  I tried, but I could not focus my attention on anything more complex than housework and dinner.  I did start working on it yesterday, as soon as I got the kids off to school.  Started up Starset's Transmissions, and pulled up the file that a friend had gone through and pointed out the flubs I'd made about which agency did what, and started in by editing, revising, and expanding some parts.  There's one or two new scenes, too.  All in all, I probably cut five hundred words in fixing things I messed up, then added that back in plus 2000 more words.  Right now, I'm almost through editing part one.  Part 2 is going to take a lot more work, and will probably end up 5000-10,000 words longer.  

When I started in on editing, the two parts together came in at around 55,000 words.  It's currently around 57,000, and may end up closer to 60K words before I even get to part 2.  

I'm aiming at being finished with a read-through and edit by the end of the weekend.  My goal is to finish the first draft by the start of the kids' Christmas Break.  If I can accomplish that, I can spend Christmas Break working on the first edit of Pint, so that I can get that to my beta readers in January.  

So.  That's what's going on here.  

Back to work...

First Sunday of Advent

 When I moved from low church to high church, I was introduced to the concept of Advent.  It is a beautiful tradition, but one that didn't fully make sense to me.  At the time.  

And then...then I became a mother.  And though I didn't carry either of my babies to their due date, I find I understand it a bit better.  It's...anticipation, breathless anticipation (partially because there's no room to breathe with a baby taking up most of the room), joy, and welcome.  

Also worry.  She knew her Son had a Destiny.  

As a mother, I understand much of how she must have felt...only, unlike her last month of pregnancy, mine was secure, sheltered, and protected.  Hers...was either spent walking, or riding on the back of a donkey, likely not knowing where or when her next meal or next sheltered place to sleep would be found.  I spent my last month of pregnancy in the care of midwives.  She didn't, and likely had no one but her husband to help her deliver her Son.  

It's...humbling. Something that makes me think, meditate on both motherhood, and His mother. 

Gratitude.

It's the time of year that Americans tend to reflect upon their gratitude--Thanksgiving.  I thought I'd share a few things for which I feel grateful.  

I'm grateful--very, very grateful--for my home, the six acres that came with it, and the fact that I can boot the kids out and they vanish into that six acres for a couple of hours at a time, in good weather.  I'm thankful that they love our property as much as I do, and have been doing their best to keep it nice.  I'm thankful, as well, for the garage that offers extra storage space, and a place for the kids to do messy crafts...when we finish getting it cleared out.  Yes, we are still working on that.  Yes, we have been working on that, on and off, for three years.  No, we're not finished yet.  

I'm thankful that we've been able to afford the maintenance that the house has needed.  And that we've been able to afford the kids' tuition, considering the school district we're in is utter shit.  

Honestly, I'm glad the district is utter shit, too--it helped keep the home price low enough we could afford it.  

I'm incredibly thankful that I have everything I do. 

I'm thankful that I still have my mother--so many don't--and my mother-in-law.  I'm thankful I have my aunts, my sisters, and my brothers (even the one I haven't met) still walking the world.  I'm thankful for my cousins, and my friends.

I'm thankful that I am, finally, starting to have days where I'm doing well enough to start deliberately exercising again.  I'd gotten up to being able to do eight minutes of flowing poses yoga before I got sick in February, and have had a flare-up every time I'd attempted to get back into the yoga after I recovered.  I have been able to do a little bit two or three days a week for the past week.  And I am thankful for that much, even though it's so much less than what I was capable of before I got sick in February. 

What I'm most grateful for, though, is that my immediate, nuclear family--my spouse, and both my children--are healthy, and that with God's help, I've been able to keep them that way, and well-nourished.  

What are you grateful for, this year?

Random stuff 2.0

The kids have all week off this next week.  Usually, they have school on Monday and half of Tuesday during Thanksgiving week; however, with this stupidity surrounding a cold, the school's decided to give the teachers (and the kids) the extra couple of days to rest and relax.  

I don't really object--I'm sort of exhausted, too.  This school year has rather inspired exhaustion: I've been doing a load of laundry every day, trying to keep the kids' buff/gaiters clean.  They've got two, so they wear one while the other's in the wash.  Friday and Saturday are the only days I don't do laundry, and I sometimes have to do an extra day when I get a load of towels and cleaning rags built up.  

Monday...I need to call the kids' doctor's office, tomorrow morning.  He'd had an appointment, but a call on a Sunday afternoon doesn't fill me with confidence that his appointment is still going to be tomorrow.  

The pixie's going to spend tomorrow night with Grandma, because of said appointment...which I'd had set up for a month.  Grandma will be picking her up something like half an hour before I need to leave for the imp's 10:00 appointment, for an overnight stay, to come home with Odysseus after work on Tuesday.  

Now.  Whether or not the doctor's office is going to let me keep that appointment...I have no idea, especially given the timing of the call from the doctor's office asking me to call them back about it.  But I won't be changing plans on the pixie. 

Christmas shopping's going to be...yeah.  Not good for Joplin, this year.  They posted another mask ordinance, effective immediately (as of Thursday or Friday, I don't recall), and running through the end of February.  Their last one--the one that lasted from July to August--fucked them over pretty badly with their sales tax revenue, to the tune of almost a quarter of the expected sales tax...not making an appearance.  I've already started ordering presents I can't find in Webb City for people, including at least one delivery from Sam's Club.  Yeah, sales tax on that was half what sales tax usually is...so ordering online for delivery bypassed Joplin's city tax quite nicely.   

And also postpones when I'm going to need to switch from my flip-phone to a smart phone, for Sam's Club's curbside delivery.  

Update: The kids' usual doctor is sick, this week.  The imp's appointment has been postponed until a week from today.  I've arranged so that he misses as little as possible at school.  

Why the school doesn't simply ask for this...

My imp has been having trouble at school: trouble keeping up with papers, and trouble keeping up with writing utensils.  His teacher told me, when we went in to pick something up yesterday, that he has trouble keeping up with stuff because he just crams stuff in his binder, then drops it, sending stuff flying.  Losing all of his pencils, erasers, and papers.  

I pulled out my old, college zipper binder, a hunter green Five Star binder with pencil/pen pockets in the inside front, floppy drive pockets that close with a velcro flap (yes, it's that old) that he's using for things like big pink erasers and the white art erasers, a glue stick...things like that, and another floppy drive pocket that he's using for sticky notes.  We moved stuff from his open binder and I helped him arrange stuff, and explained why it was arranged like that.  I swear I saw the light come on, but we're going to have to keep re-doing it and clearing out his locker on a weekly basis.  

Also in the binder is a to-do list for his school day to help him with the executive function "oh crap, what am I supposed to be doing now/I feel like I've forgotten something" thing; a three-hole punch; a red folder for stuff he's finished and needs to put in his binder, and stuff he still has to do; dividers for his subjects; paper (wide ruled), a blue folder for stuff he's supposed to do at school; and more paper (5 squares to the inch grid). 

He also has trouble differentiating in his planner which work he's supposed to do at school, and what he's supposed to write down as homework; I've ordered him another planner that looks different and will live in his binder with his stuff.  

After we'd gotten his binder set up, the pixie looked at me with humongous brown eyes and said, "Momma, I'd like a zipper binder, too, please."  

So, when I ordered the planner for the imp, I also ordered a pink zipper binder for the pixie.  And I'll have her get her school binder from the classroom before Thanksgiving Break starts, and we'll switch over if she wants.  I'll help her set up, but she's better at general executive function and organization than the imp is...or really, better than even I have become through hard work and practice. 

Random stuff

We now have adequate insulation in the attic.  There were places we had very little, and one place the guy looking at what we needed said he could see the hall light from in the attic.  

He said that they were swamped, and we were looking at the end of November, unless they got help.  Well, they got the help from a sister store in Arkansas, and the insulation was blown in in about 40 minutes on Friday, two and a half weeks ahead of where I was thinking we'd be.

Now, we have the rafters buried plus about 6" and that same 6"  over the decking they'd put down for storage.  There's none over the garage, but that wasn't really a concern.  I'm just hoping it helps cut both the electric bill and propane usage.  

We also have a new modem, as of last Thursday.*  We've got the wi-fi  password changed on about half the things that it needs changed on--I still need to take care of the printer, my Kindle, and those of both of the kids (both of which need to be charged, first).  So far, things have been working better.  Smoother.  I'd have just gotten a new router and plugged it into the hard line part of the modem, but that was the first thing to go, six years ago.  

Other than that...I've decided I kinda sorta need to break down and acquire a smartphone.  It's going to be kept battery-dead and/or left home most of the time, but I have to have one if I'm going to use Sam's Club's curb-side pickup.  I wish they'd have posted a phone number like Walmart did, but they didn't.  

I wouldn't bother with it, but my personal energy budget sort of requires it.  I've been having issues with my energy, to the point that shopping, if it's not curbside pickup, is all I can do on the days I do  it.  And I can't afford that: I have a house, pets, kids, and a husband to take care of.  

I'm trying to finish Having a Pint this month.  I've got it around half finished in first-draft form, something like nearly 34K words.  I'm still plugging away.  I'd have a lot more done, but I spent half of last week in severe pain because of mild diverticulitis (runs in my family, and I know what to do when it hits), and the other half recovering and managing the modem replacement and the insulation installation. So, it is moving along, but slow going because I was only barely functional last week.  I should do much better this week.  I'm planning to also do better the next week, considering I don't have to shuttle the kids around twice per day, and I have headphones.  

Once I'm done with the first draft of Having a Pint, I have another piece I'm going to be working on--The Schrodinger Paradox. That one is about 2/3 finished in first-draft form, and I know where it's going and how it's going to get there.  It's just going to take a while of actually writing to finish it. 

*We had the old modem from...I think 2007 or 2008, so, it was nearing the end of its functional life anyway.

Done, and working.

The cable/internet company is still using the same type of modem.  Mine was just 12 years old, and the electric company changing out the meter fried it a bit.  

Everything is going to have to be changed, though--the password will have to be put into everything.  Off the top of my head, there's at least half a dozen things, if not a few more, that will need the new password.  But we won't have time for that until much later.

One of the other projects we'd been working on was getting more insulation into the attic.  When the couple who owned this place before us died, their daughter (estranged, at least a bit) didn't get everything out.  She left her mother's cast iron,* and a ton of stuff in the attic.  

That...needs to come out.  All of it.  Before tomorrow.  

We've gotten a lot out, already.  Including a couple of very old boxes of very old National Geographic magazines, and very old Readers' Digest magazines (all of which will be read and enjoyed by my family).  A pretty good stack of records (vinyl, not paper, some from the '30s), and a screen, slides, and a slide projector.  And a framed photo of the earth from lunar orbit, taken in 1969 (with a broken frame, but intact glass), and a letter regarding the readings from Genesis that were done in that particular mission.  We...are going to find a new frame for that.  It's history.  And priceless. 

There's also a lot of...well, trash.  

And we have a fairly small dumpster, and I saw that the city dump is still closed to the public.  

There's a lot of trash.  A lot.  

*One of the pieces was a corn stick pan, the other?  A perfectly seasoned, 9" skillet.  Probably at least as old as Odysseus's grandma's 10" skillet we use all the time.  And yes, we've been using that skillet. I'm sure the lady who lived here and died here would prefer that it be used. 

Ffffuuuuuuu.....

Our modem is starting to die. 

Honestly, it's about time--we've had it since...gawd, a long fucking time.  

And in that time, it's run our internet, phone, and (since five or seven years ago) our TV.  Yeah, it's seen some seriously heavy use for a residential modem.  

But it is starting to die.  Wireless, especially.  I'm not sure but what it wouldn't have lasted a few more years had the electric company not decided to put in wireless broadcasting meters so that they can tell from their main offices what our usage is.*  

What I mean by dying is that it's been, well, cutting in and out.  Specifically with the internet and the TV streaming device.  The phone's not been as bad, but then again, the phone's kinda...wired into the modem itself, not picking up a wireless signal. 

It's a massive pain in the ass.  If a new modem doesn't fix at least the internet, I'm going to be spending A LOT of time on the electric company's FB page bitching, as well as complaining to every state agency I can think of.  

If one service is blocking other services that I pay for, I'm going to be...well.  Yeah.  Unhappy.  More than just about the windmill bullshit.  

But for the moment, I'm going to assume it's just the modem reaching the end of its lifespan.  And contact the company that provides internet and phone to get them to replace it, since it's their equipment.

 

*We've had issues with radio stations abruptly going to static, on the ones with the digital tuners, too.  

I really don't think they've thought this out...

The local electrical utility has...misunderstood their customers.  Badly.  Really badly.  We are not California.  

What I mean is this: they have sent out letters articulating a "commitment to providing clean, green energy," and have announced that they'll be shutting down one of their plants that provides electricity for the area...because they've put up a wind farm in an area where the wind doesn't blow every day.  But  it's the best they've got.  

This part of Missouri is made up of farmers.  Farmers who rely on their utilities.  They need their electricity, and their internet.  And farmers are, by nature, problem solvers with little tolerance for leftist stupidity.  

This is not going to work out well for the electric company.  They already get lynching threats from the locals every time a storm knocks out power for longer than the locals think it should be out.  When the locals are facing rolling brown- and black-outs from power usage higher than the virtue-signalling can generate, there's going to be some serious repercussions.

And I am looking into how to minimize my house's dependence on electricity.  And will be doing my best to switch as many to propane as humanly possible, and will be looking into alternates to that particular electric provider.  

Now.  That said.  I'm doing this not because I think looking into alternates to pollution-generating plants is a bad idea.  I'm doing this because not a single renewable source electric provider is reliable enough nor cost effective enough.  I'm doing this because they're looking at renewables instead of a truly clean, green source of electricity: nuclear.   

Please don't do this.

President Trump has won re-election.  Fair and square.  By a fucking landslide.  

 Except...except for mail-in votes, technology "glitches" preventing precincts from counting their votes, and other such.  Except for blatant and obvious fraud.  

I really don't want to see what happens next, when the stolen election is contested by extra-legal means.  I really don't.  I don't want to see the legal system applied as a weapon against people who aren't fucking criminal communists.  I don't want to see it applied as a weapon at all.  

Nor do I want to see what happens when most of America wakes up.  

 It's going to be beyond fucking ugly.

I don't want this.  I really, really, really don't want this.  

Almost over...

Tuesday is voting day.  I honestly can't wait.  I am so sick of petty political partisanship that I could vomit.  I don't want to hear anymore about any of the parties, politicians, or any of the other inanities that surround election year for at least two years (but you know we will--this has become religion to most of the left).  

I am...concerned, let's say...that there's going to be unrest (for lack of desire to use a more accurate term) during and after Tuesday.  Tomorrow, I have plans to do some shopping--a few top-ups on groceries, some things Walmart doesn't do in curb-side delivery, and a new package of ear plugs.*  

We've already gassed up both vehicles and gotten extra pet food.  

I do not plan to leave the house more than absolutely necessary until things calm back down a bit.  

*I use ear plugs for sleeping.  They help a lot when I'm in the worst side of a chronic illness attack. 

FFS, life, give me a damn break!

 So.  Last week: not too bad, early in the week.  However.  Thursday...Thursday was awful, and bled through the weekend.  

Thursday morning, I had a 6 month follow-up with an endocrinologist.  I dropped the kids off, came home, bolted breakfast and a 2nd cup of coffee, then headed over for my appointment.  When that was done, I did the Sam's Club shopping.* Then, about 11:45, I got a call from the imp's doctor, telling me to come pick up his paper prescriptions to take to our pharmacy.  They closed for lunch from 12 to 1:00.  So, I had my lunch, then pulled my cell phone off the charger, only to find out that the plug had come unplugged from the wall.  And my phone was flat dead.  And, due to covidiocy, I have to have that to call the receptionist to bring me the papers out front.  Because I wasn't to be allowed in the building.  

So.  I found another outlet (one that wasn't loose as a dock-side whore), and plugged my phone in.  Didn't get out of the house (with the phone only half-charged) before 1:30.  Got to the doctor's office by 2:00, and back to Joplin by...2:35.  The kids get turned loose at 2:45-2:55.  The pharmacy is 15 minutes away, on the opposite end of town from where I came in, and that doesn't count actually dropping off the 'scrips.

I waited on the kids, brought them home to drop off their stuff and put dinner in the oven, then got to the pharmacy, dropped off the 'scrips, and made it home.  Staggering with exhaustion by this point.**  Got the kids' buffs*** put in the wash with the imp's weekly laundry, and started it going.  

Sometime during the wash/rinse cycle...the water cut off.  To the house.  No, we don't have city water.  Had Odysseus flip the well pump breaker a few times, to see if that would fix the problem (it has a couple of times).  No joy.  No water.  No water means the laundry didn't actually run all the way, the kids didn't get showers, and a whole host of other inconveniences.  

And we couldn't get ahold of a well pump specialist Thursday evening.  

Thank God I'd thought to store water in empty kitty litter buckets for flushing toilets.  Because we had to use that water for flushing toilets.  

I need to re-stock on emergency drinking water.  Because we were out, and Odysseus had to get a flat, and that's half-gone, now.  

Friday morning started with me doing the Walmart curbside pickup.  Then, I got home, and found that Odysseus had managed to get in touch with the well pump experts that have the longest-running local business, and that they'd be out to check on things.  They'd call before they arrived.  

The call, by the way, was made not just after they'd arrived, but after they'd ruled out one potential issue and while they were back at the well head, pulling the pump up to check it.  

We now have a new pump, and new pipe.  Both of the old ones had rusted shut.  In PVC pipe.  

This week, we've got a quote lined up to get more insulation put into the attic, and then on Thursday, we've got Parent/Teacher conferences.  

I need some time off.  I know this isn't as hectic as it could be, but it's about the maximum that I can handle, and then some. 

*I still don't have everything put away.  

**I don't get my energy levels brought back up by eating and resting, like normal people do.  It sometimes takes days--and has taken longer than usual because I couldn't just...recover.

***Buffs are school-specific gaiters that the kids are required to wear in the halls between class and lunch, or class and specials (art, P.E., Spanish, music, etc). 

How the fuck did that happen?

My son will be turning twelve on Tuesday.  He's in fifth grade, now (really?  really!), and is learning to play trumpet in band.  

I don't know how this happened.   I mean, last week, he was just a very little boy.  The week before that, a baby.  

So, since his birthday is during the school week, he'll be helping me make cookies for him to take for his class.  Over the summer, I got him to try chocolate peanut butter chip cookies--the recipe's on the back of the Reece's peanut butter chips--and he loved them.  We'll be making those, but with white chocolate chips and gluten free flour (one of his classmates throws up when she eats something with gluten).  Tuesday for supper, he's requested lasagna.  

He's growing fast, and starting to change from small boy into adolescent.  His face is maturing, and his shoulders are starting to fill out.  He's still scrawny as hell--the kid is closing in on 5' tall, but only barely tops 70 lbs...if he's just eaten and is soaking wet.  And it's all arms and legs.  

I dread the day he's too big to fit in my lap.  I really do.  But it's coming. 

Taking a health day.

Not just mental health.  Health.  

I woke up this morning feeling like I'd had an hour or so of sleep.  Even though it was more like seven or so.  And what's more, I felt like I'd laid down right after a hard workout with no warmup or cool down, and just slept for that hour.  In the most awkward position you can imagine.  

I can probably manage a couple things but those have to be chosen carefully.  Thankfully, supper is going to be grab it from the freezer and put it in the oven, so that's not going to be horribly draining.  

I think I know exactly what's going on.  But there's not really anything I can do except take a day off: I've spent the last two weeks worried out of my mind for my sister and brother-in-law, and the last week cooking meals that extend to feeding my sister and our older brother who's been traveling from the southeast corner of the state several times a week to help her out.  

My sister will recover.  She only* had a cracked pelvis and a few broken ribs.  My brother-in-law's recovery will be much longer, and nobody knows yet how complete it will be; however, the doctors are now optimistic that he'll regain the ability to walk.  They weren't sure at first whether he'd be able to move anything below his neck, but he's able to move his arms a little, and the feeling's come back in his legs.  

My sister's staying at a local hotel in the chain she works for.  They've moved her from front desk/housekeeping to public relations/advertising, and are working with her to take care of her (and keep her, because they like her). 

The SUV that was totaled in the accident was their only car.  My sister's without much transportation for the moment, other than our older brother.  She's spending most of her time with her husband in his hospital room because they keep forgetting to take care of him.  Yeah, that's exactly what I said: he's had one sponge bath in two weeks, right after his second surgery.  And they put the tray of food under his face, but forget that he can't use his hands to feed himself.  

So, yeah.  I've been worrying.  And doing what I am capable of to support them (i.e., making food that they can fix in the microwave, since they've got a microwave, fridge, and cook-top in the hotel room).  And that has taken a physical toll on me to the point that I am being forced to take the day off.  

Which utterly sucks, because I need to finish getting caught up with house cleaning tasks I'd dropped while I was trying to keep up with the dishes without the aid of a dishwasher. 

*Hah.  "Only" a cracked pelvis...that required surgery and pinning to make sure it didn't get worse.  And probably a concussion.  And broken ribs that make pneumonia a greater danger.  And she's over 50.  Not easy injuries for a much younger person to bounce back from.  But still better than my brother-in-law who's got three fractures in his neck, and one further down his spine...but thankfully little damage to the spinal cord, as they're discovering as the swelling decreases.