the_rck

I don't think that the cooking chickpeas from dry is a thing that works well for me. My digestive system hasn't been happy any day that I've eaten those, mostly gas issues which isn't usual for me with chickpeas and beans. Possibly soaking them longer would help; the packaging recommended 6-8 hours with a warning that longer would lead to the chickpeas splitting open. I stopped at about 7 hours.

I'm also not sure that I cooked the dratted things long enough. They taste fine and don't crunch any more than I'd expect from canned chickpeas, but there's something off.

I got our sheets changed yesterday and ran two loads of laundry (including the sheets). I had two prescriptions that needed to be picked up, so Scott did the week's shopping.

I got Cordelia started as a volunteer for one of those online archival transcription projects. She likes history a lot, and I sold it as something she could put on college applications. She says it's harder than she thought it would be but that she thinks she's better at it than some of the other volunteers. I can't evaluate the truth of the second part of that sentence, but I'm glad she feels like she's doing okay with it.

She has also started trying to learn some French. One of her friends is taking it and needs a study buddy. I don't know if that will go anywhere because she's embarrassed to do any of the spoken bits if Scott or I might hear her.

Scott did a watch-along of the Babylon 5 pilot and first episode last night with some people he knows from Facebook. The rest of the group will be doing it regularly, but they're aiming for evenings, so Scott won't be able to participate because he'll be at work.

My goals for the day include cleaning out the fridge to get rid of leftovers that are more than three weeks old. I also want to make a chicken pot pie. I'm not sure exactly what I'll put into it beyond the chicken and a lot of carrots (Imperfect Foods keeps sending us carrots). Possibly, Scott will chop an onion for me.

I'd like to finish my story for the Wayback Exchange. There are a couple of exchanges that I'm considering treats for and others I'm considering signing up for. Fandom 5K is in the middle of the sign up period, and there's a Naruto exchange-- Exchange no Jutsu! --that's currently in nominations.

I have several ebooks from the library and need to spend some time on those. A couple of them, I may not bother to finish because, while they're not actively bad, they're not really my thing. I have to keep reminding myself that I have options enough that I don't have to accept things that aren't good fits. When I was in high school, I was desperate enough for books that I'd finish things just because they were available.

I've also been working on catching up on reading WIP that I've subscribed to. I've got several subscriptions that have 10+ chapters piled up and waiting to be read. I keep looking at the size of the backlog and finding a cat to wax instead.

I've also got some phone calls I need to make. I haven't heard from my father, and I still haven't called to request c-pap supplies. I'm pretty sure there are other calls I should make, too, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

Oh, I know. I want to look into scheduling a tune up for our AC. The company that we use has emailed to say that they're still operating, having been designated as essential services. The question is whether or not such a thing can be done with safe social distancing. A lot of their technicians are older than I am.

At this point, I don't see any likelihood that Scott's work will close even temporarily. They make plastic bottles for water, milk, juice, etc., and each machine needs someone watching it to deal with problems and to make the changeovers to accommodate different types of bottles (handles and caps, mostly, but also labels and, sometimes, weight of plastic used).

His work is having staff clean all of the usual contact surfaces-- control panels, levers, tables, etc-- at the end of each shift. Normally, there's only one person using any given surface per shift. Mostly.

Scott has been stopping, briefly, at Meijer, on his way home from work every day in hope of finding toilet paper and distilled water. He's shifted to using boiled water for his sinus wash, but we can't do that for our cpaps. I hesitate to ask Scott to look for other things because each item adds time to his day; he doesn't know the store layout well enough to find things efficiently and keeps having to double back.

I'll probably ask him to pick up some extra things Friday night since he (hopefully) won't have to work Saturday. (Weekend work is possible given that there's an unexpectedly high demand for bottled water.)

We're reasonably good on shelf stable food options, but I'm concerned about our status with perishable foods. For example, I use half and half in my coffee every morning. I haven't got any viable substitutions (same fat content and type of fat, no sweeteners, same consistency/texture, no separation), and I can't make an open container of the stuff not go bad after about 10 days. This makes stocking up hard.

I'm trying to come up with other alternatives for my morning caffeine, but it's really hard to hide 900 mg of salt in anything but coffee, and I can't drink the stuff without half and half. My body refuses it completely. The no sweeteners thing means carbonated caffeinated beverages are out for everyday consumption.

I can pretty certainly get past the caffeine withdrawal, but it will be miserable, and it doesn't solve the salt problem. I salt everything, all day, but that 900 mg in the morning is probably half to two thirds of what I add. I feel less well on days when I don't get that salt even when I get normal for me amounts of caffeine.

Our cleaning lady isn't coming today. Her text said something about someone being in the hospital (the exact bit was 'my da8at hospital'), but I'm not clear about who, and I didn't ask about the reason. I didn't think it was my business. I just assured her that we're okay and will be fine on our own. I told her that our prayers are with her.

She has a daughter who lives locally and who works in a nursing home, so I fear the daughter may be ill. Otherwise, our cleaning lady works mostly for people who are too old or too disabled to manage without help. She's semi-retired and not taking new clients to replace those who no longer need her. It's possible that the person in the hospital is another of her clients.

It doesn't really matter. Doing some cleaning around the house will help keep Cordelia busy. Her school work isn't filling even half of her normal school hours. Maybe it will eventually, but I suspect not. When school is meeting normally, she seldom has more than an hour of homework each night, total. Class periods are long enough (only 5 classes a day) that most of the work can be completed in class. Most of the teachers deliberately schedule to allow in school work time so that they can see what the kids are having problems with.

I haven't gone for any walks yet. Yesterday, it rained in the mid to late afternoon. Tuesday, I just got distracted. Repeatedly.

I have two Overdrive ebooks to finish today, before they expire. Part of me doesn't want to, but I know I'll regret it if I don't because I have been enjoying both. I have a couple of Overdrive audiobooks to finish, too, but I've got a few more days on those.

We got Chinese food delivered from Evergreen yesterday for lunch. The driver set the bag on the porch, rang the bell, and retreated. They stayed long enough to be sure that someone came out for the bag, but, judging by the volume of Scott's 'thank you!' the driver must have been out by the main sidewalk.

Last night, I wrote a treat for a flash exchange that I don't plan to sign up for. It's an exchange for having nice things happen to characters, and, while that's a thing I can sometimes write, I'm not certain enough of my current ability to make signing up seem like a good idea. Most of the request are things I simply can't write, and a lot of the rest are things I don't want to write. There are more than 20 pages of requests, and I think I found four that I'd consider trying. The one I wrote last night was the only one that felt like something I really, really wanted to write.

( To-do list for my own reference )

Other things to be added to the list as I think of them.

It's been a long month. I've written a few posts and then not gotten around to posting them. At this point, I'd have to edit so extensively that it doesn't seem worth my time to make an effort to get those to the point of being postable.

( The disability review/appeal stuff )

Earlier this month, evalerie came over and provided help and moral support while Scott and I got everything out of the bathroom cupboards and I decided what to keep and what went where. I think we got rid of more than half of what was in there, possibly as much as 75% of it.

I now know where everything is in there, and our cleaning lady is no longer putting things I need in places I can't reach.

( The eye related stuff )

( Experimenting with workarounds for physical issues )

( Scott's )

I'm a little frustrated because I have a very small window of time when I'm alone in the house and can work on things I find physically difficult or can easily watch DVDs or listen to CDs or audiobooks. (No, headphones, earbuds, etc. are not an option.) The watching and listening thing is not helped by the fact that the CD/DVD drive on my laptop has decided to die. Judging by how it sounds and what happens, I suspect a mechanical failure.

( Computer stuff )

The bloodwork before my doctor's appointment last week shows that my A1c is up, so I'm going to have to work on that. Being able to go outside would help considerably. At this point, I can handle the bright light, but ice underfoot is still potentially an issue. I usually fall due to ice at least once each winter, and I would really rather avoid it if I can.

I have one exchange assignment still to complete. Chocolate Box 2020 is due on the 7th of February, and I've barely started writing. I have an unrevealed story in the Past Imperfect collection. I've also got a list of a dozen one shot WIP that I think I might be able to finish if I just give them a hard push for a few days. My current plan is to work on those rather than signing up for any other exchanges. I may take pinch hits or write treats, but I'd very much like to get these things done and posted.

I've gotten a couple of 'it's so sad this will never be finished' comments on Rheotaxis this month. It's made me look at it and wonder if I ever will go back to it. I know how it ends (I have a draft of a final chapter so I know where I'm aiming). I know what happens after. It's just been years since I worked on it. My style has changed a good bit, and I still don't know how to make that next chapter work.

I spent yesterday rereading an rp that hopeofdawn and I did years and years ago. It was a post-Rheotaxis thing, and I think it was a good story. We never finished it because the things we were interested in playing out diverged too much (I like writing claustrophobic discussion scenes, and she likes writing action scenes).

I'm a little tempted to see if I could pummel those chapters into something postable on AO3 or if Hope would be interested in working on it with me. I'm not sure it would work well because rp relies on the head hopping being okay. The scenes would lose a lot from being put into a single limited 3rd person POV, and I'm not good at putting that sort of thing into an omniscient 3rd. There are also gaps in the story that we left because they would have involved one person writing solo due to which characters each of us wrote.

I don't know if anyone would want to read that even if I did write it up. I don't know if I could come up with an ending that was even remotely satisfying.

I feel like there are a lot of interesting stories out there that don't end up archived because they're written as an rp narrative.

I'm estimating my 2019 word count by adding my posted words (22 stories with the last one listed by AO3 as posted in 2020 because of time zone differences) for the year to what I think is the new words on my various WIP. I stopped tracking carefully in May and never quite managed to pick it up again, so I may be off by a few thousand words. Or not. I'll start a new spreadsheet for 2020 and see if I can keep things up this time.

My goal was officially 200000 words; I managed slightly less than half that. I thought maybe I could manage 200000 because of how much I wrote in 2017 and 2018, but I wasn't heavily invested in getting there and am not deeply disappointed by failing to.

There are a lot of things on which I wrote less than 200 words. Most of those are things I still hope to finish, but who knows? This year might be less productive than last. I started a list of WIP to post here, but then I realized that it would be tedious for anyone who isn't me and also not useful for me except as cat waxing (which, by definition, isn't really useful).

Most of the really short and/or just barely started things are for specific prompts, and I don't want to detail them because that's too close to promising the people who made the requests that there will be a fic coming.

I have a story that needs to be done by the end of the day on the 31st and another due on the 3rd. I'm working in fits and starts. I keep falling into reading things instead of writing, but I'm making progress when I write. I've still got a long way to go on the first story that's due because it has a high minimum word count. The second story doesn't need to be as long.

I've signed up for inkingitout again for the upcoming year. I lowered my target word count to 150K. I may not manage that, but that's not the point of setting the goal. It's more me wanting to promise myself that I'll keep writing.

We decorated our Christmas tree today. Scott and Cordelia and some of Cordelia's friend went to see the new Star Wars movie. I'm currently in the pre-Christmas space of feeling like I have a gazillion things to do but not having many concrete things I can do right now.

Scott wrapped our presents for Cordelia yesterday while she was out at a choir thing. I haven't wrapped the things I bought for him yet. My hope is that I can get Cordelia to do the wrapping on Monday while Scott's at work. Two of them will be easy to wrap because they're books, but the third will be more difficult. That one may go in a gift bag.

The list of medical appointments for the last two years ran 9 pages. Scott is dropping off that and some insurance claims at the post office on his way to work. Scott was a bit put upon by me asking him to copy things and to address envelopes. I think it was the one thing after another part rather than that the tasks were so onerous.

My next task is to work on my UCon games. I have an idea for the space setting scenario that I think will let me get some words written for it. I have a general background for the supers game; I wrote that during a two person, last minute write-in last Saturday.

Which reminds me-- I need to send out write-in invitations for something this weekend. I wouldn't mind hosting more than one session, but it would be more fun and social all around if everyone can come at the same time.

( Writing goals )

I managed to send back that package that contained the incorrect item, and I've now got the right one. I ended up giving it to Scott early because it's a supplement for a board game he'll be running at UCon. The return process required an irate call to UPS after the driver who was supposed to pick up the package dropped the mailing label on our doormat and walked away without even climbing the steps to knock/ring the doorbell. We have a motion sensitive camera just above our mailbox, so I had video of the whole thing and was on the phone to UPS less than ten minutes after.

The camera is set so that it only reacts when a person is within about three yards of our door and is coming from directly in front of it. That means it catches most people right as they hit the foot of our steps (our walk is parallel to the sidewalk and runs from our driveway to our porch) or when they're in the middle of our front lawn. We'll very occasionally pick up bright headlights going by fast late at night, usually after something has happened to alter the settings, but we don't normally pick up people on the street or sidewalk. If we did, school drop off and pick up times would be a flood of notifications and a clogged folder of footage.

At any rate, the UPS guy came back less than an hour later and actually picked up the package this time. The woman I talked to was very unhappy that we had video evidence that he hadn't even come near the door.

( Voting )

Adjusting to Scott's new schedule is proving challenging. We're up until some time between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m. Cordelia gets up at about 5:45 a.m. Scott can only see her awake if he gets up then, so he has been. She leaves at 6:50 a.m., and he comes back to bed. I'm taking half a tablet of Halcion when we go to bed and another when Scott comes back to bed. I talked about it with my doctor before I tried it. So far, I think it's the best option for me. A half tablet seems to help me sleep for three to four hours, so that still has me waking for the day between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m. I'm spending much of each day wishing that I could sleep, though, and that's not a thing that makes the days enjoyable. I also have very little time when I'm home alone, and I miss that.

I'm still having problems with light headedness and fatigue with occasional flickers of a tickle in my lungs. I have no idea what's going on that way.

Scott worked 12.5 hours yesterday and is currently at work. He has tomorrow off (meaning he can go to the fundraiser for Cordelia's choir). I really, really don't like how physically exhausted he is by the time he gets home, and I think that the three day run coming up later this week is going to be very bad.

Scott will also be off on Tuesday which has me wondering about my appointment with the vocational counselor. If Scott were working, I'd absolutely ask to reschedule because I don't think I'm safe to go downtown and get back home again after, but Scott's going to be around to provide transportation. Then again, I can't think very well, and I haven't been able to do much of anything the last two weeks because of being sick, so I'm not sure that actually meeting with the guy does anything but check off the 'yes, I'm still paying attention' box.

Which might be a thing that I actually need to do. I don't know. But last time we met, I was still having constant trouble breathing (day 2 of the prednisone) and he made a point of saying that rescheduling isn't a big deal.

I just keep feeling like there's something I'm going to do that will be a breakthrough that lets me think and function clearly again. Past experience suggests that I'm wrong, but I keep reacting to the fog as if it's something I'm going to recover from if I just rest. I would rather that it be so, but I think this may be the new normal.

I have discovered that using the donut pillow around my neck decreases my neck and shoulder pain considerably. It does more than anything else I've tried and more consistently. Remembering that is, however, oddly slippery because the thing is inconvenient, prone to slipping off, and not easy to clean. It's also really unpleasant when the house is at summer temperatures.

I really would like to be able to make an appointment with my primary care doctor about my hands/wrists because I think I might be having carpal-tunnel issues, but I really can't do it until the LTD stuff is resolved (even though this is likely pertinent).

I have written a little bit the last couple of days, but I'm struggling to make the words become story. I'll have a little time when things flow and when I can't imagine stopping writing, and then... it'll be gone again. Very frustrating.

( Complaints about Ingress Prime )

I managed to start my Fandom Trumps Hate story today. I’m only about 300 words along and am still searching for my POV character’s voice. I’m attacking the crossover from the side I know better.

I also signed up to complete two stories for Iddy Iddy Bang Bang. One Amber (HoSaM series) and one one Sky High set before the canon protagonists were born. I’m not sure I could argue the iddiness of the the stories by anyone’s standard but min. Mainly I look for things that will make me live in the story while I’m writing it. That state of being bypasses a lot of mental censors and makes me feel like I’m getting away with something.

I managed to finish my story for the Iron Triangle Exchange (two day writing time). I think it came out fairly well, but I suppose I'll see what other people think. It's kind an oddball thing.

Scott and Cordelia went to see the new Spider-Man movie today. They then found a place near the theater that offers both ice cream and bubble tea. They brought me back bubble tea which was nice. I was really wanting caffeine around then, so I was especially pleased.

I slept badly last night. Scott and his brother ended up playing online games together until quite late, and I lost track of time. Then we both woke at 8 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. I have PT at 10 tomorrow morning, so I'll be getting up when Scott does because I'm not likely to get more sleep between when he gets up and when I need to be up.

We spent a while this evening doing household chores. I made a list of small chores and then made sure that all of us did some.

The last week was just one damned thing after another. They were all annoying rather than horrible, but they added up to leave me mentally/emotionally frayed.

The mammogram was clear. I probably won't ever quite trust the results of a mammogram because of my personal history with them missing things, but they're simply not all that reliable before menopause. My period started the day of my mammogram which explained the migraines of the previous couple of days.

I didn't get rid of the migraine until Thursday morning. At that point, Cordelia was sick with something minor that needed a prescription. Scott had to go into work late because I was too done in to trust my ability to get me and Cordelia to the urgent care clinic. Thursday was stressful in a lot of small ways that added up to be nasty.

Our cleaning lady told me that she'll be away for at least three weeks in August. She said something about going to pray. I'm wondering, given the timing, if she's going on the Hajj. I will have to ask. I wonder if there's a gift that's appropriate to give to someone who's doing that sort of pilgrimage.

Cordelia and Scott want to get haircuts today. I don't think I need one, but I may go anyway because I'm thinking that I'll keep trims tied to when Scott gets them. That way, I don't have to judge when my hair is getting too long.

I did a lot of walking around on Tuesday, after my mammogram. I kept going because it helped my headache a bit. After a certain point, the headache started reasserting itself. I submitted four potential Ingress portals. Two have been rejected and one accepted. The fourth is still under review.

Cordelia and her friends spent yesterday afternoon out and about. Scott and I did the grocery shopping after he dropped her off. We even took back our returnables, almost $30 worth of cans.

I spent the last two or three days searching for the library book I meant to read next, but apparently I returned it accidentally because it no longer appears on my list of items checked out. There's no waitlist, so I can get it again. I'm just not sure how I ended up returning it. Possibly it fell out of my bag while I was at PT on Monday?

I am really liking the CBD lotion. If I put some on my neck and shoulder at bedtime, I sleep much better and longer than I do without. If I use it on my hands and am careful, I can spend a lot more time without the thumb splints.

I've got one story to write that has a due date, one story that's in the final (I hope) stages of editing, and my Fandom Trumps Hate story. There are several dozen other things that I'd also love to work on, but I need to focus on the thing with the due date because it's still very amorphous in my head. I'm wandering around the outer edges of a Doylist plot caldera (it's way too big to call a plot hole) and want to map it without it blowing up in my face.