In which I have contracted a virus.

This is my weekend to work, so I got home at 7 this morning and went to bed, instead of going to church. Rich was downstairs having lunch, and he headed upstairs to have a nap after he ate.

While Rich was sleeping I went looking through the kitchen cupboards. There is a really deep pantry in the kitchen, where things get shoved to the back and are lost or forgotten, but I needed to find the bulgar for a recipe. I have a vague memory of bulgar being in a container at the bottom of the pantry, where I put largish boxes and big Tupperware containers of things that were bought in bulk.

I found the bulgar, and lots of other things, too, like a large quantity of lentils, and some powdered sugar, but everything was covered with a layer of floury stuff. I cleaned the powder off of the containers, but there was quite a bit of it on the floor, too, so I had to vacuum it out of the cupboard. Ugh.

I got most of it myself and then when Rich woke up he vacuumed it out way at the back where I couldn't reach, and he put everything away again. I hope he kept the bulgar near the front, so I don't have to excavate it again.

I had some chicken breasts that I baked yesterday when I didn't feel like making dinner, but they needed to be either used or put in the freezer, so it was easiest to just bake them in the oven for 30 minutes at 350. Rich ate a couple of them yesterday, and I used the rest and the bulgar to make a recipe from the South Beach Diet book, and it was really good. It was like tabbouli, with chunks of chicken. I didn't have a cucumber, but since I am the queen of substitution, I used a zuchini. I had some tomatoes from a friend's garden to use, too. So yay, I made dinner!

Then I got Rich to sit and watch a couple of episodes of The Big Bang Theory with me, because I love that show, and he likes it too, in spite of the lack of supernatural Nazis or boring history. AFter that I went to bed, and he ran some cleaning-type software on my laptop, because it was acting virus-y. He says Sarah must have been looking at porn last week when she used it.

Me and my dead plants

Remember those plants I bought at the farmers market a couple of weeks ago? They died. Remember when I started the spider babies and turned the upstairs bathroom into a green house? Dead. I'm tired of trying to grow plants that just die, and I shouldn't have gotten all puffed up with pride about that one lousy spider plant that is my only agricultural success.

What could be the cause of all this senseless plant death? I think it might be the lack of direct sunlight. Our house is surrounded by big trees, and it's nice that they keep us cool and shaded, but the downside is that we don't get enough light for plants. That's my theory, anyway, and it's good enough.

I was so sleepy last night that I went to sleep about 8:30, and I have a fuzzy memory of hearing Rich come home from Tae Kwon Do, but I missed a call from Kim. She left a voice mail and sent a text message, though. The text says she was on her way home from a writing class in which they read and discussed some feminist essays that were pretty traumatic!

My poor little girl! She is already a man-hater, and this will probably make it worse. I wish I could protect her from hearing all of the atrocities that men have perpetrated on women through time, and all around the world, but no, she has to hear it in her writing class? How is that going to make her a better writer? She has plenty of neuroses of her own, she doesn't need to soak up the traumatic experiences of anyone else to add to her burden of worry and guilt! I hope she made another appointment with her mental health counselor!

So I'm up, and I paid some bills and did some assorted paperwork I've been avoiding, and now what? I was thinking of walking on the treadmill, so maybe I'll get dressed and do that for a while. I can prop my laptop on the bars and watch TV over the internet to amuse myself while I walk. Maybe by the time I'm done, Rich will be up and he can entertain me with witty chatter while he eats breakfast. No, that's not going to happen.

Ah, the silence.

An hour and a half ago, the fire alarm monitor in my office went off, and it has been beeping shrilly ever since. It makes a constant shrill beeping noise, and it would not stop! Also, it was a false alarm. No fire. The maintenance men were searching the area and reported that there was no fire, but it kept going on and on, beeping and beeping...

The alarm monitoring company called twice to let me know that they had an alarm and that they were sending fire trucks. I called the fire department twice to tell them we had a false alarm and don't send the trucks. The nursing supervisor was calling to check on things, the security guard was calling me on his radio, the maintenance men kept calling me and each other on their radios, so it was pretty hectic for a while, and the shrill beeping of the alarm was making me feel like my head was going to explode!

After an hour of the constant beeping, someone came in to give me a bathroom break - I can't leave the office unless there is someone else here to monitor the alarms - and I was so happy to escape to the quiet of the ladies room for a few minutes!

The beeping and the phone calls and the radio traffic was still going on when I got back, and finally one of the maintenance guys came in amd found the spot on the alarm to cover with duct tape to quiet the noise! Oh, is this not happiness?

I don't hear it at all anymore, so I think the electricians must have arrived to work on the alarm system. Whew!

It took a while for me to calm down from the crazy stress of having everything going off at once, and I was feeling pretty batshit crazy from it all when Axel strolled in, plunked himself down and started babbling about the trench he is digging in his yard to fix his broken pipe, and at first he was talking but I couldn't listen at all, what with the clanging in my head, but gradually I was able to breathe deeply and get my zen back.

I'm better now and I'm going to find something soothing to read, and pull out my peaceful, mindless, sock knitting, and just not think about anything. I am certainly not going to think about the cabled sweater vest I started for Kim, the one in which I had to pick back the entire set-up row for the cables because I am congenitally unable to read directions without first drinking a Ritalin milkshake.

I'm up early again.

I woke up at 4 a.m. again, but since I went to bed at 10 last night, I'm not feeling as tired as I was when I woke up this early yesterday.

Rich had an early meeting in Rockford, so he left at 6:30, and I'm here alone, in the quiet house, with all the animals sleeping. Sarah's dog Thila is sleeping in the doorway between this room and the living room, and my two cats are sleeping on the couch behind me, well away from any big dogs who might want to play with them. The cats are not feeling the Thila-love at all.

I finally got the yarn room cleaned up Thursday afternoon. I changed the sheets on the guest bed in that room, and by the time I finished I was so sweaty and had breathed in so much dust that I just wanted to find my inhaler and sit in front of my computer playing solitaire with the ceiling fan blowing on me. I had lost the will to live, or to find pillowcases that matched the sheets!

Sarah and Chris got a little lost on the way here, but they finally made it. Their GPS had stopped working on the way here, but Sarah remembered how to get to my house and was rightfully proud of herself!

I had made lasagna, and was waiting for them to get here to have dinner with me, but they were a little later than expected, and I was really hungry, so I finally ate without them, and then started playing Animal Crossing. They were pretty hungry by the time they got here, and they seemed happy to eat my (slightly dry) lasagna while watching me play World of Peacecraft Animal Crossing. It was dinner and a show!

Their friend Dean got here a little later, and had brought a sleeping bag, so I could have left the guest room bed unmade! Who knew? Oh well, it's got clean sheets on it for the next time we have company!

They were very pleasant company, and Chris and Dean were practically vibrating with excitement when they got up in the morning. They left early to go to Madison, so they could check out the course, and attend an orientation meeting, and Sarah stayed here with me, planning to drive up to Madison later to meet up with them.

I love having Sarah here, and it's the same when Diana is here! They are pleasant company, and easy to entertain. Sarah was happy to sit on the couch with her laptop, checking Facebook for status updates from her friends, and playing Scramble, which is pretty much what I do all day, too, so that was nice. We both needed an afternoon nap, and then later we cooked - she made noodles with butter and parmesan cheese for Chris to carbo-load on, and I made spaghetti and polenta with winter squash to feed the missionaries for dinner.

After dinner Sarah packed up her stuff, including the noodles for Chris, and left for Madison. Thila is staying with us for the weekend, which is why I was out in the front yard this morning in my nightgown, letting a dog potty, for the first time in months!

Better living through pharmaceuticals

I have a headache, and I took two Advil and a Tylenol as soon as I got to work. I think I have to much blood in my caffeine system. I ran out of Diet Pepsi today and I didn't go to the store because RA is out of town so I never left the house except to take a walk with Rondee tonight. I'm going to have to go shopping tomorrow.

I need to go to the store anyway to get a few groceries so I can feed Sarah and Chris when they get here on Thursday. I'm very excited to see them, and I want to make lasagna, because who doesn't like lasagna? and also roasted cauliflower, because I want Sarah to try it.

I slept until 3 this afternoon, and when I got up, there was nothing to get dressed for, so I sat in front of the computer, playing Solitaire on Facebook in my nightgown and talking on the phone until 6, when I forced myself to get dressed and started cleaning up the yarn room so that company can sleep there this week.

I have had two big plastic storage boxes with lids sitting in the hall for a week, that were bought especially for this purpose, and I've been throwing stray bags and balls of yarn into them as I find them. So I took the big boxes into the yarn room, and started opening the bags of yarn that I bought here and there over the last few months, and separating them into 1. a box of good sock yarns, i.e. hand-dyed or otherwise special (Harry Potter colors of Opal) and 2. a box of Cascade 220, some Brown Sheep, and a couple of other nice wools, and 3. an empty Xerox paper box that I filled with lesser sock yarns - cheaper stuff that I don't love, or odd balls that aren't quite enough to make a pair of socks.

When I had emptied all of the shopping bags and a couple of odd boxes, I moved the 3 boxes out into the hall, and, sweating madly, turned to look back at the yarn room, expecting to feel a sense of satisfaction. What I actually felt was sad and discouraged because the room? It looked like I hadn't even touched it! In fact, I had to go back in to move a couple of boxes out of the middle of the floor, because that room is the gateway to Rich's office and he complains if he can't walk through it because the path is blocked by boxes of yarn, the whiner.

So tomorrow I will have to go back into the yarn room, prepared to move more yarn out of the piles of boxes and baskets, and condense it into a couple of those big plastic storage containers that are only half full. If I can at least get the surface of the bed cleared, that will be good progress, and then Thursday I can change the sheets and shove all the knitting magazines and pattern books under the bed - they're sticking out a little now because I was rooting through them last week, looking for a pattern.

I left the three full boxes in the hall, and staggered downstairs to put on socks and shoes. One of the phone calls I made while I was sitting on my butt at the desk all day was to Rondee, to see if she wanted to go for a walk. I thought it would make up for all the laziness if I did one exersize-y thing.

I'm so glad that Rondee lives on my street! She wants to walk about as often as I do, that is to say, not as often as we should! She also has things to talk about, so it's entertaining to walk with her. She reads, too, so we can share books, and after the walk tonight, we searched all the book piles in my house for a book she wants to read, because I was sure we had it, but apparently we don't, because we couldn't find it anywhere. I asked Rich when he got home, and he says he doesn't think we ever had it, and maybe he's right, because I was looking for the same book a couple of weeks ago and didn't find it, but I thought I remembered buying it.

So here I am at work, and I've got a sock to knit - sock #2 of the sage socks for Becky - and a book to read, The Sari Shop Widow, on my Kindle. Also some work to do, but who wants to hear about that? Nobody.

OMG the malfunctioning fire alarm is destroying my soul!

I'm at work and the electricians are here to work on the never-ending installation of the new fire alarm system, which means the alarm keeps going off in my office, and it's getting on my nerves.

Kim was home this weekend, and it was nice to have her and her stuff spread out across the couch again. She spent a fair amount of time working on homework, but there was a bit of video game-playing, too. Sando came over on Saturday, and it was nice to see him in his usual spot, playing a game on his laptop while watching TV. Kim was questioning him (a rare thing!) about whether he was meeting anyone at school, and she advised him to join a club. He was just nodding and not really answering her while he continued to play a zombie killing game, and he finally said, "I don't have time for a social life! I work 30 hours a week, I'm taking 12 credit hours, and in my spare time I have to kill zombies!" I cracked up.

Rachel was complaining that her clothes were too tight, so we went shopping for maternity clothes on Friday, and I also bought a very cute pair of shoes for Kim, which sadly, were a bit too small. I'll have to return them this week. Rachel has some comfortable things to wear on the trip to Disney World this week, though.

That's right, Rachel and Ash are going out of town again, RA is gone until Thursday, and Kim went back to college, so it's just me and the cats again. Oh, and Rich, but yeah, I'm pretty much alone.

No wait, I forgot for a minute, but Sarah and Chris are coming here on Thursday, so I will have company for overnight, and Sarah might hang around a little longer the next day, too. Woot! Oh, but now I have to clean. There's always a cloud behind the silver lining.

Gotta get out of Cape Cod tonight

So, nothing going on here. Kim the overachiever is so busy with homework that she barely has time to talk, and anyway, she has nothing to talk about because she is studying all the time. Rachel is working, sleeping, and doing things with Ash, and Scott and Carolyn have a new baby and a smart cute busy boy, and they live too far away, so nothing is going on, nothing I tell you!

What I'm reading tonight:

Tonight I am reading Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich, and last night I read a book that was the story of how Facebook was invented, which was interesting, but I can't remember the title right now. I downloaded two books for my Kindle, but I haven't started reading either of them, because Twelve Sharp is comfortably entertaining, and it's getting me through another boring night at work.

What I'm knitting tonight:

Sock #1 of a pair for Becky, that I'm trading to her for something she makes. I'm using some sage/mossy green Opal and my usual pattern of 3X1 rib. Very relaxing to work on while I read.

Really, I just have nothing to tell. Nothing is going on at my house because I am so boring, and the most thrilling thing I did today was to strip my bed and remake it with clean sheets. When Kim is gone, I don't have as much laundry, and I needed the sheets to make a full load so I could wash Rich's karate clothes.

Rich followed me upstairs when I went up to make the bed, and offered to help. It really does go faster when two people make the bed, because it's big, and I am short and I have to run around from one side to another, tucking things in, when I'm by myself. So fine, he is welcome to help, but he says there are too many rules - that he didn't know bedmaking was so complicated!

It's not complicated, it's just that I like it done a certain way, and I never give it a thought when I'm making a bed by myself, I just know how I like to do it, and I do it! But when someone is helping, I have to explain it as we go, because Some People will just throw on the sheets and blankets any old way!

I like the tags on things like the mattress pad and the blanket to be at the foot of the bed, on the side farthest from the door, because tags are unattractive and I don't want them to show. I like the top sheet to go on with the right side down, so that when the sheet is folded back, the right side is up.

Also, the pillows? We have 7 or 8 of them, because we like to read in bed, and you need a lot of pillows to sit up comfortably, and some of them will have shams, and some of them are old flat pillows, and I know which pillowcases go where, not that it's an exact science, but I'm a little pickier about it than Rich, who would sleep rolled up in a blanket on a naked mattress if he didn't have me there to civilize him.

So yeah, we made the bed, and later when I took a nap before work, it was lovely to lay down on clean sheets. Ahhh.