Prep and Go

I got everything done on the list last week except for the Kawasaki dealer. I forgot they are closed on Monday. I'll deal with that after we get back. The steroid shot in the right knee really helped. Ahhhh.

As much as I personally don't care for this annual Pennsylvania trip, I have realized this week that I don't want Mr. L to decide we're not going to do it either, because that would mean his health has deteriorated to the point where he can't do it, and I don't want that.

The Week Ahead:

• Schedule blog posts
• Ensure we're as packed as we're going to be for the trip
• Be prepared for a tired, cranky, achy, lashing out Mr. L as he stresses about getting off on the trip
• Drive safely on the trip, relax, and go with the flow

Crunch Time

The next few weeks feel as if they are going to be somewhat stressful. I'm sure they'll shake out just fine, but I do need to do some prioritization.

We saved a ton of money at the swap meet in Decatur on Friday (neither of us saw anything we wanted to buy). We had a pleasant dinner with a friend on Thursday night. The younger daughter did not show, and the grandkids were otherwise occupied. We had a good time with older daughter and her husband.

My right knee is killing me. I'm seeing my surgeon on Monday for a followup for my hand. I hope he'll make good on his promise of giving me a steroid injection in my right knee to help tide me over. Then I hope it works.

Rossie and Sapphire did well in San Antonio. They had the run of the house. Both of them took refuge under the rocking chair, but they also spent a lot of time in the garden window. Sapphire adjusted to the change of venue within 24 hours, so she's getting better at adapting to change. She's still hiding from us, but she's a good-natured kitten otherwise. She has less patience for being held.

The Week Ahead:

• Retrieve Rossie and Sapphire from boarding -- don't forget to get cat food
• Hand follow up and hopefully steroid shot for right knee
• Kawasaki dealer to order a part and get estimates for tires, mounting, balancing, and other sundry items needed to get the bike back on the road
• Pick up prescriptions at Fort Hood
• Finalize details for Wednesday's closing
• Get a haircut
• Do scheduled blogs
• Trip preparation

I'm so glad you're getting settled into the new house, Wendy.

Taking shape

We have another week of reorganizing, unpacking, and general chaos settling behind us. I'm able to pay more attention to every day life matters again--dishes, laundry, cooking--without it being an undertaking. I'm starting to learn where things are. We still have a few boxes, but most of them are unpacked and in the basement. It's about time. We've been here a month.

A couple days ago I was sitting on my bed folding laundry. The windows were open and cicadas were chirping (buzzing? Whatever that noise is.), and I realized this house feels more like home than anyplace has in a long time. Maybe ever. I almost didn't look at it. I saw the listing on realtor.com and thought it was just another flip where the people came in, ripped out the character and soul, and modernized everything. And they did, sort of. As far as I know, the only things original are the stained glass and block glass windows in the living room, and the hard wood floors on the main floor. When the other offer fell through, Eric walked this house without me and brought me back the next day, and I realized they hadn't ripped out the soul after all. The day we closed, the sellers sent us the before pictures. This house needed to be gutted and redone. Someone had paneled or wallpapered every wall. The only bathroom was the one on the main floor and it was a train wreck. Maybe this house feels like home because it's happy to be pretty again! That hasn't stopped the weeds from growing in the back yard, though.

Work seems to be settling down a little. The newbies are getting more confident and asking for more hours. I'm not without personnel issues, of course, but I finally got it through my head that it's not up to me to fix everything. It's actually better for them if I make them find coverage for the shifts they can't work. I'm not obligated to give everyone the shifts or number of hours they want to work. I do my best, of course, but I don't feel guilty anymore.

I get to spend the day with family tomorrow. It's my grandma's 99th birthday. It's not the Official Party because my aunts are out of town, but Dad decided we needed to mark the day, so I'll drive up after church. It's only 3 hours, and I've been meaning to day trip up there since we moved to Chicago. I hope my cousins come, too. It's been too long since we were all together. I think it was my great-uncle's funeral.

That's pretty much it here. I think we're finally through crisis mode, just in time to go back to St. Louis for the Games next weekend, on our anniversary, no less.  It's nice to be able to breathe again.

Contemplation

Someone I know via Forward Motion, so you may know her too, participated in a program last year called the Master Key Mastermind Alliance. She blogged about it periodically, and I casually followed along. The new class is opening soon for 2015, and she's posting about it. If you want to find out more, check out her page here. It's launching in the typical three video format, and I can see a lot of the home based business influence, but the gist of the program is, you can't do many of the things you want to do in life until you get your head right.

The talk of living the dream and trips and money and all that doesn't do a thing for me. Frankly, I have all that. I'm not unhappy about it, but I'm not going to invest my time and effort into trying to get that when I have it. Other people? I totally get that they don't have it, and that's part of their dream -- and it's a good dream. But me? I'm still not right in the head. You can laugh about that. I'm not terribly wrong in the head, but I have things I want to do better in my life, and I realize my subconscious is sabotaging me achieving those goals. The opportunity to figure that out motivates me to look further into this program. I still have reservations, but I'm evaluating it. One intriguing aspect is the up front cost is $1. Everyone invited into the program receives a "pay-it-forward" scholarship from (I guess) someone who has been through the program before.

It seems to be based upon Napolean Hill's Think and Grow Rich and Charles Hannel's The Master Key System. Are either of you familiar with this? Do you find it remotely intriguing? Not just for the reasons I find it intriguing but as a way to help achieve the dreams you have?

On to the other stuff for the week. Sapphire is a healthy and happy kitten. She's out more. She's playing well. She is meeting and greeting the other cats. She's not scared of Lady or Daphne, but she's not stupidly allowing herself to be beat up by them either. Daphne seems as if she may be afraid of Sapphire, which it amusing, because Daphne has never been afraid of anything before now. Best of all, Rossie is playing with Sapphire, and that's encouraging to see.

Thanks for your brainstorming ideas the other night. I'm going to spend a few days this week looking for ways to incorporate them into Granite Hill stories.

The Week Ahead:

• Take Mr. L to SA and back
• Head to Dallas for the weekend
• Take a friend to dinner Thursday night
• Spend some time with the kids (hopefully younger daughter will come up from Austin on Saturday)
• Swap meet on Friday and maybe Saturday
• Cats will spend a lot of time on towers this week. 
• Rossie and Sapphire come to SA with us, then spend the weekend at the resort.

It's unlikely to be a productive week writing-wise, but family-wise, I hope it's good.

False starts

I keep starting this post. Each time the direction seemed wrong. Didn't seem to be what I needed to say. Deleted each false start. So I'm simply sharing my struggle and inability to know what to write. It feels like there's something profound to say, but the words are wandering around the huge warehouse of my mind, hiding behind stacks of nouns and pallets of verbs.

I wrote this several days back on my blog:

Somewhere inside me ... sometimes I feel that there is something inside me that wants out. It's fighting for freedom. It's trying to claw its way into the light. It's tearing away vast chucks of me, and I'm bleeding everywhere. Whatever it is, it's frantic. It's gasping for breath. It wants to leap into the sky, but it's held back, wings crippled, head forced down. It's fighting for that glimpse of blue, that vastness which lies beyond what we're allowed to see. 

It still feels true.

Speaking of my blog, 51313 Harbor Street, I caught it up. It now has a post for every day since July 1. My goal is to post once day for a year. Or at least have a post for each day for a year. Not sure why. But it's a goal, you know.

Otherwise, this week was a week of doctors and tests. No results yet. Hoped to get them today, but probably won't until Monday or Tuesday. Hoping for the best. Or at least better. I would love to be taking fewer meds.

What else?

Hope to start Murder by the Mile again soon. Been picking at the plot, trying to see where it went wrong. I have some thoughts about how to change it to accommodate a better story. I hope they bear fruit.

This coming week:
- Chores.
- Blogging.
- Editing a friend's story.
- Writing.

Hope you had a productive week, and hope the upcoming one is good for us all.

easier than expected

We got back to the Cozy Wee Bungalow yesterday afternoon with a trailer full of antique furniture from downstate. I think we almost have everything I care about out of that house. All the family pieces are here and for the most part are being pressed into service. The sideboard built by one of Eric's ancestors is extra kitchen cupboard space. The cabinet that used to be my apothecary is a pantry. The dresser made by my great-somebody-or-other is in the dining room and will act as a sideboard, mostly because it's so old we're afraid to try to get it up the stairs, and I can use the storage downstairs. The whole house is a hot mess. The cats are getting neurotic. But every box I toss down the basement stairs gets me a step closer to the new normal.

This has been an odd summer. Except for Scotland, there is nothing we did I'm in a hurry to repeat. Even Scotland we will do differently the next time we go. At this point, I'm keeping my head above water by trying to work as few hours as I can possibly get away with and finding homes for all the stuff out in the open. I did dishes this afternoon and you can't tell a difference because my counters are covered with things that need a home. It doesn't help that the top 2 shelves in all my upper cabinets are too high for me to reach, so they need to house things I don't need much.

It is coming together, though. Slowly. I did write a little short story last week, more for therapy than anything. It's under 2,000 words and might not ever see the light of day again. I hope, in the next week or two, to have things under control enough to start working on the dragon story again. I have to dig out my notes. I'm not sure where they are. That's the story of my life this summer.

On the plus side, I saw Vicky, Erik, and my friend/adopted little sister, Jenn, on Saturday. Jenn, Eric and I loaded almost the whole trailer before Vicky and Erik got there, but the kids moved some of Vicky's stuff to storage. We had to tidy and leave the house before noon for a showing, so we took a two-hour lunch break at Chick-Fil-A. Alex was supposed to come, but he tweaked his back at the gym, and he had papers to grade along with his own homework. Oh, he's graduating a semester early--this December. The school doesn't have the funds to pay him next semester in his GA program, so they jiggled his course requirements so he can graduate. That means he has 3 months to figure out the next step instead of 9. He's applying for PhD programs and looking at the job market. The way they've been jerking him around the past couple of months, I don't see WIU getting any alumni funds out of him. Ever.

Work has been a trial by fire since my vacation ended. At the worst point I was down to 5 staff members, including myself, but that's when they started letting me hire my own people. I got us up to 10, and one of my openers quit last week. It's not a great loss. He saved me the trouble of firing him when I get the newbies trained enough. Thankfully I'm (so far) only working 4 days this week so I can maybe get my house under control. I have more managerial duties now, which suits me, and am waiting for the formal promotion and pay raise. I have to keep reminding myself we've only been open 4 months. It feels like years.

So that's what's going on here. Now that we're done moving stuff, at least for a while, the weather should break and fall can commence. Hope everything is going well in your little worlds.

Not Much

I didn't do much around the house, but I did putter at a few things. I mowed the lawn. I didn't see any sticker burs to speak of. My spring time Preen applications may be making a difference. Or it's just been too dry for sticker burs to prosper this year.

Bills are paid. As you know, the dark kitten came home with me, and we named her today (finally). After considering Misha, Zora, and Zelda with not much enthusiasm from Mr. L, he suggested Sapphire. Or Star (which sounds too much like Tar, which is what we call Tarzan). We'll call her Sapphire, perhaps shortening it to Saff or Fire, but her formal name will be Black Star Sapphire. I found Natasha's ophthalmic drops and applied them. She's not squinting. She also found a way to get up in the window with Rossie this afternoon.

In related news, we've long sensed that Rossie doesn't like her name, so we're experimenting with calling her Rosie.

I didn't unload trailers. I did neither the pool nor the bike. I did a little more work on the Granite Hill series. I'm trying to figure out how to make it mystery or suspense.

The Week Ahead:

• Tarzan needs his shot on Tuesday, and I may take Sapphire with me for an exam (but her eye looks better, and she's more active, so maybe not)
• I have a hangout to attend on Friday
• Stuff to take care of around the house
• Work on Granite Hill
• Help Mr. L as needed