cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

Brain about to fall out of head. I have 46 days left until I get to meet my son and I feel like I'm not getting things done fast enough.

Things like: buy wicks, fuel, and safety gear. Spinning fire is amazing, wonderful, and filled a hole in my life that I hadn't been aware of. Things like: fill out your darn pre-admit form for having the baby at Local Hospital. Things like: work on the projects around the house that you've promised you'd have done. Things like: keep the house and yard looking like adults live there. You know, some random and unimportant things like that.

Existing project list:

• Downwood - Vest: All fabric cut, all lining cut, all interfacing ironed in. Ready to sew.
  
• Emi - Chef coat: Done. So freaking adorable.
  
• Downwood - Giant brown coat of doooom: Two seams, two hems, 7 button holes, and 7 buttons left to sew. Looks good.
  
• Galieth - Shirt: Done sewing. Needs grommets
  
• Galieth - Coat: Fabric located. Most of the pattern cut out, but some pieces remaining.
  
• Galieth - Vest: Fabric located, pattern cut out. Ready to iron, then cut fabric.
  
• Bex - Bodice: Fabric located, pattern cut out. Ready to iron, then cut fabric.
  
• Bex - Skirt: Fabric located, potential pattern proposed. Holding.
  
• Bex - Coat: Pattern located, not yet cut. Fabric not yet located. Holding.
  
• Emi - Fluffy pillows: Furry white and fluffy pink are done.
  
• Emi - Curtains: Done! Blue fabric from stash combined with cute dinosaur print makes curtains for her Big Girl Room that she loves. They also make the room dark enough that she'll sleep in there now. WIN!

According to my doctor, I am doing very well. My uterus is the right size, my weight is appropriate, I have a very active baby with good heart tones (150 bpm), and my blood pressure has remained relatively constant throughout this whole thing. Also, having reached 37 weeks, he has few worries about Peanut being born any time now.

Woot, I say, woot!

According to my greyhound, I am either the best doggy mommy or the worst in the history of the entire world. She was not given any of my Taco Bell last night nor was she given any of the cheese or garlic from the lasagna that we prepped for the freezer tonight. Woe is her. On the other hand, she has a yard that she will sprint across, roll in the grass, and play! And she gets tons of other treats and people food. She had a minor freakout on Sunday when Downwood was vacuuming her lawn (mowing it), but was ecstatic when I let her out so she could roll around and verify that the grass was still there. Silly dog.

According to my freezer, I am ready for an extended blizzard. There's fruit and veggies, BBQ pork, lasagna, meats, bread, cookie dough, and some other things that I can't remember right now. We also bought a whole bunch of pantry staples (canned tomatoes, beans, flour, sugar, pasta, etc) to restock all the things that I made a point of using up before the move. Aside from things like milk, eggs, and bananas, I think we're set for a while.

According to my team lead, I am doing a very good job at work. He's talked to my customers and heard all the good things they have to say about me. He also got involved with an escalation over the last few days and has been helpful in balancing my work load.

According to my dance teacher, I am going to have few problems pushing Peanut out. Hooray for core muscle strength! Also, I am very brave for doing a full-day dance workshop on Saturday. It was an amazing time and I learned a whole lot! I was sad that I hadn't signed up for the Sunday workshop as well, but realized that my body probably wouldn't have stood for it.

According to our former neighbor, some of the random kids were running in and out of our rental place over the weekend. He saw it, shooed them out, collected the few valuables (ie, the liquor cabinet) that were left in the place (the bottle of Templeton Rye being among them), and called the landlord to let them know what was going on. The landlords, being complete idiots, didn't tell this to Downwood when he called them to report a break-in. Luckily, the neighbor showed up before the police did and could give them his statement. The whiskey has been rescued and brought to its new home.

According to my psychiatrist, one of the reasons that I've been barely maintaining my grip on reality is because my blood level of one of my meds was just a hair above the minimum level required for functionality. There's something about having an extra liter of blood that dilutes blood levels of drugs. Dosage has been changed and we are continuing to monitor mood and thought patterns. Still not in a good place, but still able to keep moving.

According to my back and to Peanut, I need to not be sitting in front of my computer any longer. In fact, either chilling in the ultra-comfy rocking chair or just getting a little extra sleep are both sounding like excellent ideas.

My weekend wore me out. There's something about driving 800 miles in 2.5 days that'll take it out of you. It didn't help that for most of it I was on highway 20 across Iowa - Road of Very Few Bathrooms.

• Remember that scene in "Big" where Tom Hanks is jumping on the giant piano in the toy store? Peanut's been doing that to my ribs. She decided that this was a super-fun activity about halfway between Madison and Mapleton (7 hr drive). Brat.
  
  
• Apparently, I glow. I'm not sure what exactly my family is seeing, since I think I look puffy, oily, and awkward, but they disagree. Downwood would like to point out that he STRONGLY disagrees with my self-image right now and that, to him, I am Utter Hotness. I think he's delusional.
  
  
• It was wonderful to see my family again, even if it was for just a little while. I hadn't seen most of my dad's family since my wedding. I see my mom's family more often since they're a whole lot closer, but it was still good to spend time with them and relax a little.
  
  
• Almost all of my reactions to stress and plans changing at the last minute are either genetic or strongly learned. Watching my mom, two of her sisters, and my grandmother all react the same way that I do was...educational. Also, we all have the same reaction to getting hungry: we get cranky. It's a little terrifying how alike we all are.
  
  
• Did I mention that US Highway 20 is somewhat hellish when you're 7 months pregnant? There are no bathrooms. Woe. Angst.
  
  
• 8 weeks and 5 days from today. I'm still hoping for August 1st.
  
  
• Last night was quite possibly the best reaction to a critical botch in a game that I've ever seen. One of our intrepid band went off looking to score some of the highly dangerous drug that he got addicted to in the last session (don't blow a Toughness check in Dark Heresy - bad things happen). The dice failed him and he carried off the scene beautifully. If I had brain recording, that'd go on the highlight reel.
  
  
• Packing continues apace. You wouldn't really know that I'd cleaned out my sewing room last week as it has now been filled up with all the baby stuff my family unloaded on me over the weekend. One aunt has an 11-month old and another's youngest child is 3. Since I like hand-me-downs, they're cleaning out their basements/spare closets. We close on the house on the 25th, will be having a painting party over the weekend of the fourth, and will probably be shifting "home base" down there the weekend of 11/12, since our home internet will be going away on the 10th. If you like hauling boxes, moving furniture, or painting walls, we will take whatever help we can get.
  
  
• Work goes okay. Still not totally in love with my job, but not terrified/stressed out/hating it right now. I'll take what I can get.

I managed to go all winter without wiping out on the ice or snow. I was careful with how I walked, went slow on the days that were really bad, and managed to stay upright the entire time. Today, however, my record was broken.

In my body's defense, I was really tired when I got out of bed. Yesterday was a very long day of bus rides to Chicago, back from Chicago, and walking around a GIGANTIC trade show. Still, it was surprising when my foot slipped on the top stair and I skidded my way down half the staircase.

I got out of it with a skinned elbow and a bruised backside. My back is stiff now, but I don't know how much of that is leftover from yesterday and how much is from today. Peanut seems to still be doing fine. I've been feeling somersaults the last couple days, and nothing bad seems to have happened. It was more startling than anything else, which I suppose is good.

Bleah. Now to deal with the pile of email that came in yesterday. Joy.

I'm neither dead, incarcerated, nor sick - just haven't been able to remember what I want to post about when I'm actually at the computer. Work is not so much "busy" as it is "boring". I finally got my first customer issue to troubleshoot, but I do not yet have logins to their system.

With my free time, I started working with two new (to me) sites. I joined Good Reads and put in as many books as I can remember reading. I haven't yet taken my laptop up to my library to start putting in every book I own, but if I'm ever truly bored, I might. The hyperlink there should take you to my shelf. It's a pretty cool site and is fairly easy to navigate.

I've also joined Spark People and have been tracking my meals and fitness for the last week (dreadpiratejen, if you're on that site). I think this is what I've needed to actually get on the ball and lose some of the weight that's bothering me. Yes, I know that people looking at me don't see me the way that I see myself. Yes, I know that I'm hyper-critical, but I'm honestly much, much better than I used to be. There are three things that I want - more endurance for dance, more strength for dance, and to look a little better when I dance.

Notice a trend there?

I don't want to go back to how I looked in high school. Yes, I've put on 60+ pounds since then, but I also have things like a fabulous rack, hips, and muscle that I didn't have back then. I'm not carrying all that much extra fat, but I'd like to get rid of what I have so that I can fit into the waistbands of some of my nice clothes.

To help with this, I downloaded the instructions for the Couch to 5k program. Tonight will be the end of week one, and it's very, very obvious to me that I haven't done any sort of serious running for about 2.5 years. Yikes. I would not do well in a zombie apocalypse right now. In two months, maybe.

So, that's pretty much the internal state of things. Externally, I went on a psychotic cleaning rampage two weekends ago and turned the downstairs from "post-college messy" to "actual adults live here". I threw out a TON of clutter and got everything else put where it belongs. This past weekend, we hosted a pre-Thanksgiving dinner for our friend-family group and had a blast! Also, YUM!

I may have more news later concerning the purchase of a new toy, but I don't want to say anything yet. Overall, I'm feeling much more positive and relaxed about life in general than I have in a very long time. This is an extremely good thing.

Seeing how Friday was Talk Like A Pirate Day, I garbed myself in my finest pirate regalia and headed to work to terrorize the rest of the crew of the Dread Evil Empire. Regretfully, I left all weaponry at home, as our Dread Pirate Queen doesn't approve of such measures. I finished some code, did some testing, solved a couple of things, and answered most of my email. About noon, I made my escape to head to the Northern Lights festival/workshop.

Once home, I packed the cooler and a grocery bag. I also ransacked my dance clothes and filled my half of the suitcase. Downwood packed his things, we threw the laptop into a bag, and headed out to run a couple of errands before leaving town.

While driving up to the Dells, we realized that this was the first time since our honeymoon that we were leaving town for the weekend and it was going to be just us. All of our other vacations or mini-vacations have involved either his family or mine. That makes for cheaper vacations, but there's a sense of obligation, too.

We arrived at the Kalahari resort at exactly check-in time. We breezed through the front desk and located our room. Holy crap. We had a king-size bed, a jacuzzi bathtub, a living room with comfy chairs, and a FULL kitchen with stove, microwave, fridge, AND dishwasher. It was gorgeous. I got checked in with the festival registration people and we spent the evening in Super Relaxation Mode.

When we got to the resort Friday night, I noticed that I remembered everything except my yoga mat. Thinking this would be a problem and that sleeping in sounded good, I skipped the 8 AM yoga workshop. Instead, I went straight to my morning Intro to American Tribal Style workshop. It was very different from the way that I've been taught to dance, but it was a lot of fun. I liked the improvisational style, but I think I need more than a two-hour session to decide if I want to keep learning it or not. The posture of the style made my upper back very, very sore, but I think that if I consistently practiced it, it wouldn't be so bad.

After lunch, I went to the vendors' room to do some shopping. It. was. OUTSTANDING. I only got two things, but there were so many more that I wanted to take home and snuggle and pet and love. I may not know how to dance tribal, but I adore the costuming for it. They had lots and lots of pretty things, which makes sense - I think belly dancers are actually magpies who crave and collect shinies.

I spent the afternoon in a single four-hour workshop. It was taught by Morocco. She's been a belly dancer for 48 years. Listening to her talk was...interesting. I kind of want to be her when I get old, but I don't think I want to dance her style. I learned a lot and she taught us a pretty spiffy drum solo choreography, so I think it was time well spent.

The show Saturday night was awesome. I may end up emailing the festival organizers to see if I can still buy a DVD of the performance. It was really, really impressive and inspiring. I need to practice more if I want to dance like Sonya. I very much liked watching the tribal fusion group and the Goth dancers. I don't want to dance like them, but I love watching when it's well done.

Sunday morning came very early, but since I was signed up for a Turkish workshop with Aliyah Sahar, I didn't really mind. She condensed a six-hour workshop into just over two hours. We did floorwork, learned skirt tricks, worked with zils, and got the patterns for dealing with 9/8 rhythm drilled into our heads. It was lots of bouncing around and a whole ton of fun.

When she let us go, I went out to search for Downwood. While I'd been in the workshop, he was supposed to pack the car and get us checked out, but I'd forgotten to ask him where he wanted to meet me when the workshop was over. Luckily, as soon as I stepped out of the building, I saw him walking in from the parking lot. We poured me and my wobbly legs into the car and raced home to watch the Bears.

The game was disappointing. I worked on doing laundry and not falling down because of tired legs. I made some very tasty nachos for lunch and some yummy banana bread for dinner. I also finished the book that I'd been reading and started planning out the next quilt that I'm going to make.

I watched most of the Cowboys game, but about halfway through the third quarter, the tiredness of the weekend caught up to me. I crashed on the couch, woke up enough to stagger upstairs, and passed out until late morning. Since I knew I'd want to sleep in today, I took the morning off. It let me be lazy and get up slowly and was a really good idea. After work, I'll be hitting a grocery store and probably taking it easy.

All in all, this was a really good weekend for both Downwood and me. He got to relax and spend time recharging and I got to dance in new styles. The resort was lovely, but next time we need to either get there early or stay late in order to enjoy the water park. I said on my workshop evaluation sheet that I'd be willing to attend next year and I'm already kind of excited for it.

I have:
- Laundry sorted, ready to go in the wash
- A couple new Nadas shirts, including the 2008 State Fair exclusive design.
- A code to download all their shows, including the two that will be performed tonight.
- Some new Iowa yummies, including my Very Favorite Wine Ever
- A greyhound who shows she missed us by pulling back all the covers on our bed so she could snuggle in our sheets.
- A really cool mother and sister.
- Sore feet from yesterday's trek around the Fair.
- A new appreciation for Shrimp On A Stick.
- Some sewing that I really should get right on.
- Books I want to read.
- A game I should prep for.
- A party menu to plan groceries for.
- A slightly upset tum from a not-so-good lunch on our way home.
- Not gone through my flist yet, so if something happened, drop me a comment.
- Somewhat recharged my mental batteries and feel more whole than I have in a long, long time.

I have spent the last 24 hours in a daze. Remember how I said my shoulder/back was hurting? Yeah, it wasn't getting any better yesterday, so I called the doctor to ask their opinion on heat/ice/Advil dosage. They made me come in just to make sure that there wasn't anything else going wrong.

They sent me home with many pages of stretches and exercises and a bottle of muscle relaxant.

I'm at -5 INT, -3 DEX, -3 WIS, and +2 CHA - apparently, I'm cuter when I'm drugged into low coherence. I spent a good chunk of today on the couch reading cook books because they had about the highest complexity of plot that I could handle.

Everything still hurts, but I can stretch a little further than yesterday. I also am having short-term memory problems and very slow mental reaction time. At least they're not putting me as much to sleep as the doctor and pharmacist warned me.


And, obviously, the reports of my death were greatly exaggerated. I hear next year it's going to be Blog Like It's The War Of The Worlds, which would rock muchly.

I live! Well, I mostly live. I'm doing my best to fight off the Plague that always seems to happen right around the holidays (go, immune system, go!) and did I mention that the holidays are starting? I have orange juice thawing under the faucet and I've been drinking Calm and Candy Cane Lane like they're going out of style. Also, yay for exercise!

Thanksgiving with the in-laws was very nice. We got to get out town for a little while, Rain got to stay overnight at Grandpa's, and it was good to see Downwood's grandparents. His whole family are very nice and don't seem to be quite so breathing-down-your-neck as some of mine. We need to spend more time down there - or have them come to us - in general. I'd really like to have that happen.

Black Friday was spent at my desk at work. I got a couple of Major Projects Nearing Set-In-Stone Looming Deadline sort of done. The really slow part, the part that takes a solid block of time to just sit there and work through the code? Yep, I got that hammered through and the Projects passed back to the original owners for edits and rework. This was good, since I got another Major Project dropped on me this morning (due very early Thursday). Here's how that conversation went:
( Annoying coworker conversation. This will kill brain cells. )

This weekend was the D&D Certain Death Invitational. My players created very standard, very basic, very PHB/DMG 10th level characters of reasonably good alignment. They were told by their boss, the High Poobah of the Heroes' Guild, that they were needed to mop up a litter of baby chromatic dragons. They set forth with a chicken-livered guide and, after debating whether or not it was a good idea to ring the doorbell at the secret entrance to the dragons' lair, managed to beat down a magma drake.

I then called each player aside. I confiscated their character sheet and handed them a new one.

The baby dragons of Tiamat's Day Care - Quality Care for All Evil Wyrmlings fought valiantly against the wrongdoers of good who were trying to wipe them out. The players cheered when their original characters took damage and did a pretty good job at holding their own against the enemy. We had to call in reinforcements when the blue got KOed and the green got splatted (huge crit when she only had 3 hit points left. splat.), but Evil held their ground. A couple of the heroes got away, but they were seriously hurting when they did. I call this a stunning success!


And then we come to tonight's subject line. I was trying to come up with something to make for dinner tomorrow night that wouldn't require me to get dressed and go to the grocery store tonight (ie, anything that needs advance prep was Dead Out - chili, roast, lasagna, etc). I poked around in my freezer and found venison loin, ginger, and orange juice. Since I helpfully have garlic on hand At All Times and I found both the soy sauce and the rice wine vinegar, I'm thinking that this marinade is going to be delicious. I just have to stop on my way home tomorrow for veggies and get Downwood to start the rice and it will be a Wonderful Dinner. Yus.

But since I hear my book, my tea, and the couch calling me, I will stop with the typing and make with the recreating. I love being an adult! Maybe, just maybe, I'll throw in the DVD of Hogfather that I picked up at Borders yesterday...

The Weekend of Awesome started Thursday night at belly dance class. Phaedra told us that she would be performing at Med Hookah on Friday night. When I got to work on Friday, I looked at my Inbox and task list and made a quick decision: instead of working later and going to the gym, I would leave right on time, hurry home, and get all my chores done early so that we might be able to go to the restaurant for the 8 pm show. I asked several people if they wanted to go with and got a couple acceptances.

Work was done. Rushing home was done. Chores were done. Dressier clothes were put on.

Phaedra is a beautiful performer. Wow. I SO need to practice more. After her set, she sat with us and chatted, since there weren't a whole lot of people in the cafe. It was so much fun. I totally recommend just getting appetizers and pomegranate martinis. Mmm...pomegranate martinis...

Saturday dawned beautiful and sunny and my alarm clock went off way too early. I rolled out of bed and took the dog for a walk, hollering at Downwood to get in the shower when I got back. I got the coffee started and had barely begun vacuuming when my parents knocked on our front door an hour ahead of when they'd told me they would show up. Crazy people left the house at 4 in the morning. Sheesh.

We chatted a little, they ran to get some donuts while I showered. We talked more and then went to the brewpub here in Verona to catch a bus to downtown. It was the first time that Downwood and my folks had ever been to Camp Randall. It was a total blast as we saw the Badgers totally demolish Northern Illinois.

I rejoiced when I saw that ISU was up over Oklahoma 7-0 and was flabbergasted when the ticker across the bottom of the scoreboard held steady at 7-0 well into the fourth quarter. I didn't find out about the end zone interception until I got home. Damn Cyclones. I love them to pieces but they've got to get rid of this habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

After the game, we hung out at the bar to get our free pints of the beer of the month (I love these people) and had a late lunch/early dinner/real food. Mom and Bob decided that they were going to head home, since they'd have to drive at least 30 min to get somewhere with available hotel rooms, so Downwood suggested that we go down to New Glarus and tour the shop where he works.

Machinery. Lots of dangerous looking machinery. And on a COMPLETELY UNRELATED note, I think I should increase the life insurance that I have on him. But it was a cool tour and the swords are awfully spiffy.

We came back to Madison and chilled out for the rest of the day. Played a little Puzzle Pirates, watched the Illinios-Michigan game on TV (damn penalties. grr.), and gave the dog some attention.

Sunday morning started with a bad omen: the coffeepot decided to not work again. This is distressing. But that meant we got to go out for lattes when we hit the grocery store for ingredients for cheesecake and soup. I made a totally kickass pot of soup, a loaf of bread in the bread machine, and a cinnamon struesel-apple cheesecake of yum.

The feast was fed to the Girly Pirate Crew, who were shocked and amazed to find that I actually had a "real" plot and had a storyline somewhat sketched in, including a Special Guest Appearance by Downwood as Cute Scottish Duelist With A Problem (ie, the plot). When one of the girls called at the last minute to say she couldn't make it, Val's man bravely stepped in, donned a metaphorical skirt, and sashayed with the best of them. And Deaf Artie is made of win.

Actually, that whole game is made of win. It's crack - fun, delicious, totally absurd crack. And I love it to pieces.

So, to recap, there was dancing, football, family, friends, gaming, and very good food. All in all, this weekend was exactly what I needed to be able to go to work today and not kill anyone. Yes, this is a very good thing.