Daily Adventures

Good wishes to all who are reading this for your Winter holiday, whatever it is.

I'm sitting here by my Christmas tree with the presents under it and the stockings up and the cookie and milk that Jet set up on the hearth, out of the way of the actual fireplace so that Santa won't trip over it. It's good to see family traditions being upheld. The several inches of powdery perfect Colorado snow outside doesn't hurt the ambiance either.

I have a mug of hot chocolate and a nearly empty fridge as John and I are prepping for an adventure. We'll be driving a whole van of instruments for the Silver Creek High School Marching Band to Florida for them to use at the Outback Bowl's half time show. Luckily, another set of parents are going to be driving the van back, so we don't have to make the 2000 mile trip twice in a week...

I am grateful.

Jet is now sixteen and will pretty much be taking care of himself until the night before his band heads for the airport. One of his best friends is one of the two drum majors for the marching band and their parents are going to be the ones driving the van back, so Jet's going to stay with them the night before they have to wake up at 3 am to hit the airport. Best to not have a teenager responsible for getting himself out of bed at 3 am... and they'll get him to the high school bus that will get them to the airport on time.

Our church had a super simple Sunday service this morning, and a fancier Christmas Eve one where all three of us were ushers. John wearing his traditional Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and red and green socks; and Jet all in slender, well-pressed black button up shirt and slacks. Very presentable....

And between the services, John buzzed his hair down to his usual Number 2, and he helped me by cutting about 16 inches of hair off. *laughs* We braided it first, and rubber banded it, and it's now sitting in an envelope to be mailed to Locks For Love when we get back. As usual, my neck and head aches from the change in weight... but John evened it all out very nicely, and the natural curl frames my face pretty well. What with going to Florida and having waited nearly two years to donate again, I figured it was time.

I also signed up for a 100 words a day for 100 days with Catie Murphy after the beginning of the year, and figured it would be best used here. There have been a lot of things in my life in the last few years that have been confidential, so it's been harder to lay some things out here in this journal; but there are still things I need to write about, and I haven't done fiction in so long that it felt like it was time again.

We'll see how it turns out, but I'm hopeful again. I've been tending to my tendonitis and overuse problems and they seem to finally be getting better. I'll be bringing my arm weights with me and my exercise equipment, and I won't be bringing a machine capable of gaming. I'll try and see if I can update some of the insanity while I'm on the road.

The funny thing is that, yesterday, I got my badge for Season 23, the season when I was captain of the UGC TF2 team... and all the memories that brought back just made me realize how long it's been since I kept this journal up to date. And I had a friend who was in comp with me come back to play with me for an hour or so last night, he's now out of college and working and doesn't have even the time to play that much with anyone, much less even think of comp; but it was soooo good to just play and laugh and coordinate together again. I miss the old team, which can never come back again as the guys have moved onto jobs, family, a life on the most part or onto other teams. But someone asked me to be on their team, and I wasn't sure what to say, especially since they want it to not be a try-hard team but just a friend-team, so there wouldn't be the time commitment.

Still... don't really think I can go back...

And a whole new year to figure it out.

Lots of things have been happening, some of them looked bad when they happened, but some of it has turned out all right.

Our 20-year-old Passat died a complete death, I've had periodontal problems, and my old overuse problems with my hands and arms have come back with the competitive video gaming. None of those things were particularly surprises, per se, but they haven't been that much fun.

( Coping has had a few good side effects... )

I am done with being moderator of the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Longmont, Colorado.

It's official.

( Read more... )

On the 14th of February it was pretty obvious I had an eye infection of some sort in my right eye, but I'd had a bunch of those in the past, and on the 15th John was going to Fort Collins to do a talk about the flood recovery work he was doing, so Jet and I went with him as support and as witness. It was important and a good thing, but that afternoon, my eye started really hurting, so we went to the Urgent Care clinic before it was going to close and I got antibiotics for what was a bacterial infection in that eye.

( And it gets more interesting in that old Chinese Curse Sort of Way... )

Spent most of the morning helping the gallery coordinator hang paintings in the little space that I get for the next month. There were 22 paintings. Had to figure out how to hang two of the frames, and learned the niceties of using wire to hang them on the back.

I'm also completely aflutter about the pricing and maybe it won't matter anyway, though the coordinator, while hanging them said that she thought I'd probably sell some of them, at least. Wouldn't mind making back enough to pay for all the frames and mats, at least, and maybe some for paint and paper. *laughs* I have very modest goals, I'm afraid.

( For a picture of the stick bug painting and details of the day. )

I've been... trying to get my act back together again with the new year. Trying to write, trying to clear my plate of all the things on it so that I can write, and trying to get my brain back on track.

Silly things like the very last of my Christmas cards. Odd things like playing with Puppy Linux as a possible way to writing machine with no Internets (I'm realizing it's not a technology fix, it's an attitude fix on my part, word wars will have to do). Writing Winter War bits. Getting a Zippo lighter (something suddenly grabbed me and I had to get a lighter I would never have to throw away). Dealing with the paintings which I'd left for months. Fixing an intricately done crochet bedspread that someone had entrusted to me just before Thanksgiving (thing took me hours to just figure out the pattern and get ALL the thread ends worked in). Finding that I love my new coffee roaster (yes, I roast my own coffee) so much that we're actually only drinking coffee that I roast.

Plus just dealing with getting Jet back into school, finishing off two video games with him (we actually finished the very last percent of Indian Jones Lego and all of the levels of Crash Bandicoot 2), planning his birthday party, and dealing with the aftermath of thank you notes for Christmas. Not to mention getting the tree, decorations, and the last of the Holiday food dealt with. I'm also only two needle sizes from finishing the Shipwreck shawl, and I've been working on it steadily.

It seems a small thing, but my wallet is now over ten years old, and was made from duct tape by Ductbill wallets back in the day. It's wearing out and threadbare along the joints. And finally, on the same day I wrestled that bedspread into submission, I finally made myself a new one. I couldn't see dropping money for one when John had two rolls of ducktape in the garage.

( Cut for Pictures. )

Last summer, I got a new phone from Verizon and it died in the first two weeks. The support folks were pretty nice about getting me a new phone and getting me what I needed to ship the broken phone back to them. So I did that, and the lady at the shipping office said, "Make SURE you keep the UPS shipping slip to make sure you have a record of sending it to them."

I'm now thanking and blessing her for saying that. I filed it away in our celphone records folder, thinking I'd never see it again.

( Yes, I did see the #$@*&! thing again. )

... it's fun to watch everyone gearing up for NaNoWriMo, yet again...

I won't participate this year. I have far too many projects I want to finish and we're also traveling through the entire week of Thanksgiving, so no extra pressure.

I have two birthday requests still to do, Winter War, and the last multi-chapter arc of Twin Souls, and that may be plenty to do for the month, if I can get well enough to think again. *laughs* Though I seem to be going through a kind of a rollercoaster sort of writing, where I produce like mad for a while and then collapse for a few weeks.

Certainly, it might not be probable to get it all done, but if I don't try then it'll be a sure failure. *laughs*

It's cool. The new machine has behaved like a champ. It's working just fine, and far faster than anything else I've ever had before and it makes me want to play games that I've never been able to play before.

Also, a few months back, the boys and I ended up in Denver, and went for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. I had my usual blackberry cream Italian soda, and it came in one of the regular glasses instead of the "fancy" glass that one usually gets to keep. Normally, I notice that and shrug and 'give up' my free glass. For some reason, I decided to ask the waitress if it would be possible to just take one of the plain pint glasses home instead. She said she'd go ask.

When she came back, she had a chilled etched heavy pint tumbler in her hands, and she said, "Here, why don't you take this instead? I couldn't let you go home with just a plain glass."

There are moments when I think it's all just luck, and then there are times when I'm convinced that if one treats the universe as if it's going to be fair if one makes the effort, then it will be.

*laughs* Oh, yeah, the other day I thought of an amusing phrase, that's entirely true for me.

"I've never met a Deity I didn't like."