I'm still alive

Stress will be the death of me, I'm sure.  But for now, I'm still here.

My oldest son requested that I spend more time online, blogging and Twittering and Facebooking.  I am going to try to update more often, since he's so far away and misses this part of his family.

We're down to about a year before my husband retires from the military.  It's time to start sorting through our belongings and preparing for our last military move.  We're anxious to get started on the next phase of our lives, while at the same time, it will be strange to actually be able to choose where we go next.  Obviously, we have to take jobs, schools, and housing into consideration, but we are free to make our own choices from now on.

It's going to feel strange at first, but I'll get used to it.

Con Crud

Believe it or not, that's a very popular term for the illnesses that typically strike after attending a major convention.  Whenever you gather 70,000 people in one small area for a long weekend, you're bound to have germs traveling from person to person.

I am trying to fight off a nasty cold this week.  It's not much fun.

Fortunately, a cold isn't truly horrible, so I'm thankful that the only germs that latched on to me were cold viruses.  It could have been worse.  I'm trying not to complain too much.

I still don't like being sick, though.

Dragon*Con 2010

Sweetie and I were able to leave the kids behind for a week, so we could attend Dragon*Con in Atlanta.  It was our first real vacation alone together since our oldest daughter was born in 1999.  Needless to say, our marriage required us to get away for a change.

We didn't do nearly as much as we would have liked to do, simply because it's a rather overwhelming experience.  I helped out a couple of the tracks as a staff member, and Sweetie basically wandered around and tried to absorb the chaos of the convention.  Dragon*Con isn't an average sci-fi convention.  It is one of the largest conventions in the country (and possibly the world), and the sheer magnitude of the things to see and do is incredible.

We are still recovering from the trip.  If I didn't have to go out in a few minutes, I'd join my toddler and take a nap.  We did have fun on our vacation, and I think we ironed out a few of our problems just by talking during that long, long drive to and from Atlanta.  It was well worth the expense.

Shipping, shopping, studying, slacking

I am slacking a bit by posting here, but I need a break from everything else I've been doing today.

Finished almost all of the shopping necessary for the trip, with the exception of the groceries.  Those will be purchased right before we leave town, to maximize the amount of food that my kids have in the house for the week we're gone.

After I finish this post, I'll go back to packing my eBay and Etsy shipments.  I had quite a bit of success with both lately, and while I didn't make as much money as I wanted to, I did make enough to cover the overpriced hotel we're going to stay at during our trip.  The quilts I'm finishing and the money from Sweetie's own eBay sales will cover the rest of the expenses.

I have a lot of homework to do this weekend, too.  I have two finals due, as well as three essays.  The exams will be done tomorrow, while the essays aren't due until Thursday.  I just need to get everything done.

I wish I could function without sleep.  Just for a few days.

Where did our summer go?

I was shocked to log into my blog today and discover that I haven't posted in nearly two months.  TWO MONTHS?  What happened?  It doesn't seem like two months have disappeared.

The kids are back in school, but since they go back in August, the first day of school didn't seem like the end of summer.  Labor Day weekend is coming up fast, but it's still hot outside, so summer must still be here.

It is getting colder at night, though.  Sure, just down to 59 degrees, but that's cold after a high near 90.

I guess autumn really is approaching.  I'm not ready for that yet.

Let the spinning begin!

Today marks the first day of the Tour de France bicycle race, and it is also the beginning of the Tour de Fleece spin-along. For the duration of the race, thousands of fiber spinners are creating new yarn and showing off their work over on Ravelry.

I decided to give spinning a try this year. Since I'm so new at this, I decided to buy an inexpensive drop spindle and one braid of ready-to-spin fleece. From the first day, I was hooked! My yarn may not be all that pretty, but it's MY yarn, handmade by me. I ended up buying another braid of fleece to use during the Tour, and I plan to start as soon as I finish a couple of assignments for college.

It's amazing that something so simple can bring me so much happiness.

The yarn on the drop spindle is part of my first braid of roving, in a color called "Electric Rose Garden." The braid next to the spindle is my Tour de Fleece roving, and the dyer calls the colorway, "Kaylee's Jacket."  She was inspired by the jacket worn by Kaylee during the pilot episode of Firefly.  I love the colors!

Back to school again

I am making a big push to finish my degree this fall. Unlike this winter, I am actually feeling good about school, and it looks like I'm going to have a good quarter this time around.

Unfortunately, summer quarter presents a lot of challenges, since my children are home all of the time now. If all of them actually got along, it wouldn't be bad, but that isn't the case. My oldest daughter and fifth son seem to hate each other right now. They are constantly fighting, pushing each other's buttons every chance they get, and trying their best to hurt each other. Every now and then, they will play together like the best of friends, but so far this summer, that hasn't been happening very often. It's pretty sad. I hope that they outgrow this stage soon, so we can have some peace in our household for a change.

My youngest three children are almost always nice to each other, and they will play together for hours without fighting or yelling.

At the beginning of the quarter, I enrolled in an online textbook service, where I paid a fraction of the cost for the textbook and could read the book on any computer with internet access. I could even print out pages, if necessary. Thankfully, they had a return policy, because just trying to read the first chapter online was a major pain in the neck (literally, as well as figuratively). I was able to order the hardcover textbook in time for the quiz this weekend, but it was three times the cost of the electronic version, and that hurts. I hate spending money on textbooks, especially since they are worth next to nothing when you are done using them. Oh well. Such is the price we pay for an education.

I have several assignments due tomorrow. I think the kids are getting an early dinner tonight, just in the hopes of having a little extra studying time tonight.

A kindred spirit

As I was walking through the commissary today, I ran into a woman who was wearing an Oregon Ducks lanyard around her neck. I asked her if she was an Oregonian, or just a fan of the college team, and she said that she is actually from Oregon. When I mentioned one of the towns I lived in, her face lit up because she grew up just a few miles away from there. We talked for a few minutes, blocking traffic in the store, until I gave her my e-mail address. She needed to go meet her friend, and I could get my husband off to work. I hope that she writes to me; it would be wonderful to make a new friend from home.

It was so nice to meet someone who grew up near me. Most of the people I know here are either military or natives. With military families, I have only a 1/50 chance of meeting another Oregonian, so most of my military friends don't understand why Oregon is so important to me. Even well-traveled Midwestern people don't understand what it's like to grow up with mountains in your backyard, since this part of the country is relatively flat. To most of the people here, mountains are things you visit in other states, and while I respect their happiness with their home state, this is just not where I belong.

Sweetie is retiring in about 18 months. We are finally going to be able to choose our next location, although his job skills are in areas that aren't exactly common in the civilian world. I'm mature enough to realize that going home is probably not going to be an option for us right now, but I'm certainly going to keep my eyes open for possible jobs in the Pacific Northwest.

It would be awesome to go home for good. After more than four decades of roaming the country, I'm ready to settle down.

Peace and quiet

Sweetie took the kids to the base today, so that they could play at the playground and burn off some energy. It's nice to have the entire house to myself.

The bills are paid, the laundry is being done, my lunch is finished, and I'm on my way to quilt. I could get used to this!

A new experience

This afternoon, our lawn care crew showed up at the house to take care of our lawn. I went outside to unlock our gate, and I discovered something gruesome.

There was a dead rabbit in our yard.

It had obviously been something's dinner, and since the little ones didn't notice it while they were in the yard yesterday, we suspect that it had been killed yesterday evening. We do have an owl that hangs out in our neighborhood, so it's entirely possible that the owl was the culprit. Also, our cat had been acting very strangely last evening, but I didn't see anything when I glanced out the window. The rabbit was probably visible to Lucky through the slats of the deck; I admit that I didn't look in that direction, and that part of the yard was in shadow at that time of the day.

Anyway, I took a heavy-duty trash bag outside to pick up what remained of the rabbit. I'm not going to go into gory detail here on my blog, but I will say that my forensic anthropology class was well worth every penny I spent on it. Because of that class, I knew what was going on with the remains of the rabbit, and I didn't get grossed out by what I saw. If I hadn't had that class, well, things could have been ugly.

I have to admit that I'm quite proud of myself. Not only did I not freak out, I was able to show my children something that they don't get to see every day. It allowed me to give them a little bit more knowledge about our natural world, and it helped them understand that even bacteria and insects have a role to play on our planet.

The challenge for me will be erasing what I witnessed from my subconscious, because I really don't want to have nightmares about it!

Summer is here

The weather is warm (sometimes even hot), the sun is shining much later in the evening, and the kids are out of school.

Things are fairly quiet here. For now.

The value of Legos

My baby turned three years old recently. She received a couple of sets of Lego Duplos for her birthday; they are both farm-themed sets, and my little girl is now playing with her new toys on the living room floor.

She's been telling me about the sounds each animal makes, and she's reading the numbers that are printed on some of the blocks. Most importantly, she's having the animals "talk" to each other as they travel around the room. She has a very active imagination, which I think is a very important trait for children to have.

All of my children have played with Legos, and I plan to keep Legos in my house for the rest of my life. I enjoy playing with them, too. :)

A little better

After having so much trouble feeling connected to the world, I went ahead and reduced my anti-depressant medication this week. It seems to be helping. I feel more alive than I've felt in months, and that's definitely a welcome change.

Of course, it also makes me more emotional in general, so I find myself crying much more easily than I have since I started taking those pills. But that's okay! I like being able to experience life, with all of its ups and downs. Being a zombie just isn't my thing. I'm thankful that I had the medication when I needed it, but unlike many of my friends, I just don't see the benefits of staying on mind-altering medications for long periods of time.

Today was the first day in nearly a month that I used my quilting machine. Yesterday, Sweetie and I discussed selling the machine for what I still owe on it, mostly because I'm not earning any money with it. Since I've slowed down on my quilt making this year, even I was starting to think it wasn't worth keeping. Late last night, I received an e-mail from one of my customers, asking me to attend tonight's quilt guild meeting, so her cousin can give me a quilt to finish. Tonight, I received the quilt, and my customer told me that she has a bunch more quilt tops for me to quilt later on this month. I'm going to keep my quilting machine for a while longer! :)

I have a knitting meeting to attend tomorrow night. I'm going to print out my first shawl pattern and see if other knitters can give me honest feedback about my design. I love designing my own patterns, and I wish I had more time to knit all of them.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to go without sleep once in a while? I could get so much accomplished, if only I didn't have to sleep so much.

Slip, slipping away

I'm not sure if it's my medication or my age that's causing time to slip away the way it has been lately. One day is blending into the next, and I feel like I'm not really living anymore.

It's frustrating, to say the least.

Something has to change. I'm tired of feeling this way. I want my life back.

Three new family members

On Friday, I decided to adopt a trio of young cats. They are sisters from a large litter, and they are approximately 8 months old. The little girls named them Cinderella, Aurora, and Snow White.

Lucky wasn't very happy to see so many interlopers in his territory, but he finally started playing with them last night. I predicted that they would all be friends by tonight, so we'll see if I'm right. Lucky isn't hissing and growling at them very much anymore, so we are making progress.

The kids are happy to have more cats in the house, especially since these three are very affectionate and love to snuggle with the kids. They seem to be a lot healthier than Midnight was, too, so that's reassuring. Princess and Starbuck still ask about Midnight's whereabouts; they just are too young to grasp the concept of death, and I'm not in a hurry to make them understand it.

Everyone seems to feel better now.

Sad news

This week has been rough on my family. Sunday morning (Easter, of all days), I woke up before dawn to catch my flight to Orlando. The space shuttle, Discovery, was due to launch first thing Monday morning, and I was looking forward to being there to see it go.

I almost stepped on Midnight, our female kitten. She was laying in the middle of the bedroom floor, and she wasn't moving. I picked her up and immediately knew that something was horribly wrong with her, because she was incredibly limp. She was still alive, but when I moved her from the dark bedroom into the lighted hallway, her pupils didn't contract in response to the light. Sweetie took over and tried to comfort her, but we both knew that she wasn't going to survive whatever happened to her.

Sweetie practically had to shove me out of the house that morning. I couldn't stand the thought of going on vacation while my kitten was dying. However, launch tickets sell out within minutes now that the shuttle program is being retired, and Sweetie worked so hard to allow me to see my first and only shuttle launch. I didn't want to hurt his feelings by missing the launch, especially since we both knew that there wasn't much that I could do for Midnight at that point.

He took her to the animal emergency room as soon as they opened Sunday morning, but Midnight died in the car before he arrived.

We are all heartbroken. We worked so hard to bring that kitten back to health after her early setbacks, and it seemed like we finally had her back on the road to health and vitality. She was finally gaining weight, she was playing with Lucky and the kids, and she drove us nuts by pestering us whenever we sat down to eat.

The vets think that she had a stroke. I guess it's common for cats to develop blood clots that travel from their hind legs to their brains. The only thing I am thankful for was the fact that she didn't suffer for very long.

I miss my kitten.

A Blur

The month of March has passed by in a blur for me. I can't believe it's almost April! Sweetie started a new job at the end of February, and it involves rotating shifts. He's been working mostly evenings and overnight shifts, and as much as I've tried to stay on a normal schedule, it hasn't been easy.

I'm tired all of the time now.

I have trouble going to sleep at night because of this. I've always been a night owl, and the temptation to stay up late is very strong. When Sweetie was working normal hours, it was much easier to go to bed at a reasonable time, since all of us had to get up in the morning. Now, I am enjoying the peace and quiet too much.

Thankfully, this week is spring break for the kids. I have been able to get away with sleeping in a little later because I don't have to get them off to school in the mornings. This won't last, though, so I need to find a way to get myself back on track. I may make up a bed in the basement for Sweetie, so he doesn't disrupt my sleep schedule as much (and so he can sleep in the daytime, which he needs to do after those murderous overnight shifts). We'll see how it works out. Something has to be done, but it doesn't have to be done right now.

I just hope that I can get back to a normal life soon.

Have I mentioned...

...how much I loathe stomach viruses? If I ever get all of my children well again, it will be a miracle. It seems like they are getting sick, feeling well enough to go back to school, then getting sick all over again. And they aren't doing it all at once.

Oh no. That would be too easy for Mommy.

They are doing this in shifts, thus keeping me busy with all sorts of messes. I need a vacation!

Stomach bugs

Have I mentioned that I absolutely hate stomach viruses?

We have been infested with them here. Right now, I'm washing sheets, clothes, stuffed animals, and young children. Towels and carpets, too.

I can't tell if I feel sick to my stomach from the smell of vomit (which I've never been able to tolerate) or from the virus (which is probably going to strike at the worst possible moment).

Hopefully, whatever is causing this will run its course soon, so my children will be happy and well again. I hate seeing my kids suffer, and truth be told, I hate having to clean up this sort of mess.

I have a major homework assignment due today, too. I hope that I can get it done in between cleaning up the house.

Is it wrong to want to run away from home for a few days?

College, knitting, and kids

Life has been pretty busy this week. I've been studying, knitting, and playing with my kids, so I haven't been on the computer very often.

We had Spot's IEP appointment on Thursday, and it was wonderful to see how much the teachers enjoy working with our troubled son. He's making very good progress on his sight words, and his writing is slowly getting more legible. His helpers were even able to convince him to eat school lunches, something that he absolutely refused to do earlier this school year. He's a sweet little boy. I just wish we knew what was wrong with him, so we could do more to help him.

I put up a chore chart for the kids last night. In the past, chore charts have never really worked, but I need to try again. Maybe my older children will actually step up and help out around here. That would be so awesome! They did a lot better when Daddy was gone, but for whatever reason, they often refuse to work now. There's only so much that we can take away from them, and they are smart enough to realize that we won't take away their team sports in the middle of the season. We'll see if the chart works.

Don't forget to support your local Girl Scout troops by buying cookies. :)

I've been doing some knitting just about every day this week. Not a lot, since there is never enough time for it, but a few minutes here and there do add up. I'm making a heavy lace shawl for Twirler, so she'll have something pretty to wear to school this spring. It's a neutral color, sort of a beige with a hint of grey, so it should coordinate with most of her outfits. I just hope that she won't lose it when the cool mornings turn into warm afternoons.

My college quarter will be ending soon, so I'm trying to get all of my work finished a little early. If all goes well, my oldest son and his girlfriend will be visiting during spring break, and I want to have time after I finish my classes to clean the house in preparation for their visit. After spring break, I will have a full load of classes to finish in order to graduate this spring. I'm looking forward to finally being done with my degree!

It's that time of year again. Palmer chocolate Easter bunnies are available in stores. There's just something about their chocolate that I just love; it's probably because we always got Palmer bunnies in our Easter baskets when we were growing up. They were always my favorite treat.

Our two little kittens are snuggled together in their bed right now. Midnight is finally putting on some weight, and they are both healthy and happy. Starbuck just came in and covered the kitties with a small blanket; she is always trying to make sure that they are tucked in when they are in their little cat bed.

The weather might be nice enough for a zoo visit this afternoon. That would be fun for the kids, since they hate being stuck indoors all of the time. Maybe Sweetie will take them by himself, so I can get some more work done here. It would be nice to be able to work without interruptions for a change. We'll see if he's up to that. I don't blame him if he's not. Our children are definitely challenging.