The longest night and cheap laundry

Well, that was harrowing.

It's winter in New England already, which means the start of power outage season. Oh, who am I kidding? That's year round.

If it rains, the power goes out. If it snows, the power goes out. If it's windy, the power goes out. If it's the nicest day you've ever seen, the power will probably go out.

It's not even that the power goes out, it's that it stays out for days and weeks. Season after season, massive power outages. You'd think they'd work harder to build a better infrastructure, but no.

Luckily, I live in a heavily populated area so we get priority- we were only without power for 17 hours. Some places mere miles from here are expected to be without power at least a week.

Last night we read scary stories by candlelight, and Anton only set himself on fire once.

And drank. Of course. Isn't that what everyone does when the power goes out?

I was resigning myself to weeks. months. years. without power and making plans on which cat would be eaten first when all the lights suddenly came on and I may or may not have yelped.

Anyway.

Before the six inches of heavy wet snow that brought down our power, I was sitting down to write a post about my newest obsession: homemade laundry detergent.

I'm not a fan of most commercial detergents- most conventional cleaning agents give me hives for some dumb reason; just walking down that aisle in the grocery store turns my skin red and blotchy. So, I usually use something like 7th Generation or Ecover and what ever granola crunching brands there are. They're great, but they are pricey.

Random clicking on Pinterest lead me to someone's fancy homemade laundry detergent, and more searching from there found the easiest recipe.

I knew that I've seen most of those ingridents at the grocery story- in the midwest at least. We went to Target, then Home Depot, then Lowes....without finding anything (well, except for the Oxyclean and Purex, but I didn't want those). Finally, the Ace down the street had the Fels Naptha soap and at least knew what Borax was, even if they didn't have it. Then, to the grocery story and sure enough- both washing soda and borax, side by side in the laundry aisle, and cheaper then I've seen anyone talk about. So hurrah.

The actual making of the soap was quick and relatively painless, with the exception of grating the soap- I made three batches so I wouldn't have to do that very often. Anton tried grating it with a hand grater for about  2 seconds before realizing how long it would take and we put it through the food processor. And that was it. Maybe five minutes all together.

I did a test load of laundry last night (pre-power outage) and...they were clean, albeit a bit soapy still- I have a HE washer and I think the tablespoon of this particular mix is still too much. I'm going to halve it next time and see what happens. Other than that- it's friggin awesome, and cheap, and my next goal is to perfect the dishwashing detergent recipe I found. Hurray frugality! 

No time to wallow in the mire

I've been home on sick leave for the past week and a half, but I've only been up to sitting up for maybe the last day or two. I don't recommend getting surgery in your abdomen region if you plan on doing things. I kept being told recovery was going to be so quick that I'd be bored and begging to go back to work. First of all, anyone who knows me knows I would never beg to go back to work. I go back only resigned to my fate, but never eager. Second, I was lucky enough to develop post-surgery anemia which slowed me down quite a bit- even without the medication I've been on, standing for any length of time would make me dizzy and winded. Standing. Add that to the pain heaped with pain, and it's been a pretty crappy week and a half. The only positive (which,was the goal, really) is that it has seemed to solve the problems I was having pre-surgery. So YAY.

My big plan for the obligatory two weeks off of work was to write, write, write. I keep saying what I need is a few weeks away from work to recharge so I can actually focus on writing, but I was overstretching it thinking I could do it while cut up. Today was the first day I actually pulled out my notebook, but I didn't write anything new. I did start typing the current draft, which is smart considering how many times I've misplaced my notebooks the past several months- even left one at my grandmother's when I visited in August.

I had a list of goals I wanted to do before I turn 30 in a few months- several of which I've actually accomplished, a few I won't be able to (thanks to my body turning on me over the summer. Jerk body. At least that is sorted now.) but one I'm going to be very fucking angry with myself if I don't manage it is getting this fucking story to the point I'd actually start looking for an agent or trying to shop it out to a publisher myself. I have wasted too much of the last decade half-assing and dreaming, and the time to hesitate is fucking through. 


Not that this particular story has been in the works for 10 years- last 3 in bits and pieces. I just get frustrated at myself for not having anything to show for the past ten years of my life. I've done nothing, contributed nothing.

I have three more days left until I have to go back to work, and then NaNoWriMo rolls around again. For whatever reason, it was very helpful last year (10th times the charm?) and I'm hoping the same holds true this year. I might even go to some of the meet ups this time if only to have some one to read for me. I love my family but they're not exactly the people you go to for constructive criticism. 

Spoilery, rambly goodbye

I'm trying to gather my thoughts on the end of an era. It's hard. I have been part of this fandom for a decade- okay, maybe not really involved with the fandom, but...

I love to hate popular things. It should be listed as one of my hobbies. If everyone loves it, I probably hate it, just to hate it. When Harry Potter first came around, it was popular, so naturally, I hated it. Thought it was stupid and silly, without ever picking up a book. I was working in a movie theater in Jackson, Tennessee when the first movie came out, and I gleefully mocked all those kids who came dressed up and were so earnestly excited. A few months later, I got mine when, bored and depressed, I started reading the books.

My mom is a 4th grade teacher, and like a good teacher she had copies of all the books the kids raved about with the intention of reading them, but never really got around to it. All through high school I was the guinea pig- she'd hand me some books and I'd report back on if they were good, fluff, or just plain awful. So, trying to convince myself I was going to read the books for the good of her students, I picked up the first one. And within three days had finished the first four books, all that was out a decade ago. I immediately bought the first movie (my first DVD evar, as it happens- I even scorned that media for years because everyone took to it so fast.).

I made friends because of mutual adoration for the Harry Potter books- some of my closest friends, friends that got me through some of my darkest times in Port Huron. Midnight book releases and movies were major events. When the Order of the Phoenix came out, we dressed up and stood in line at midnight, and took our books across the street to Denny's to read together. After a few hours, we all went home and I kept reading- through the night, and then went to see those same friends play in an outdoor music festival and read. And went to my cousin's open house and dished with another cousin about how fantastic the book was.

Please stop taking pictures of me and let me read.

I took the first dvd to my grandparents house, and my grandfather- not a fan of fantasy at all, he was more the western, bang bang shoot 'em up, black and white movie watcher- and even he got into it, and wanted to know why the Dursley's weren't taken to jail for their mistreatment of Harry. My second tattoo is the barcode from the first book. Every year I re-read the series. When the Half Blood Prince came out, I went to the midnight release alone, but picked up a spare copy for my friend (with me above) who had just had a baby and wasn't able to get her own. We read together and cooed at her baby, who is now unbelievably six and starting first grade in the fall.

One of the first movies Anton and I saw together was the Goblet of Fire- midnight release, of course. The test of a new relationship- if he could put up with my fandoms, then I guess it was meant to be. That Christmas he got me a time-turner.

The midnight release for Deathly Hallows was bittersweet- would there ever be another book I'd be so excited about that I'd be willing to wait in a crowd of people to get it instead of ordering it from Amazon? I hate people, but I love Potter people.

Anton drove me nuts that night. He found a leaked copy on the internets and kept interrupting me to see if I'd gotten to the next death.I finally banned him from the room. I hate being spoiled for anything, especially the joy of reading something I hold dear. I've lost count of how many times I've read the books- but the only other books I re-read so frequently  are few: The Chronicles of Prydain, Dirk Gently series, Quest for a Maid and Mists of Avalon. The spines are all cracked, pages are loose, and I won't let anyone else touch them.

For me, the real test of a good story is if it can make me laugh out loud, if it can make me think, and if it can make me cry. The first time that happened was when I was reading the conclusion to the Chronicles of Prydain- I was 11,12 at the time, had read hundreds of books already, but none had moved me at all emotionally until then.  The moment I knew I was truly hooked on Harry Potter was the Goblet of Fire. Cederic's death caught me so off guard I stopped reading for a good 15 minutes and just sobbed. In the books, and movies I suppose, his death is when it stops being for kids and shit gets real. I can't watch Goblet of Fire without crying over it, and reading "Kill the spare" still makes my heart just clench. Knowing ahead of time that someone died in Order of the Phoenix took the gut punch out of Sirus' death, but it still makes me chocked up and teary.

Jo Rowling is magical. She has created a world in which one can't help but care for it's characters- cheer them on, mourn with them, and face palm at their mistakes. She's also incredibly clever, which many a writer tries to emulate but she just pulls it off so damn well. There are casually mentioned answers in book one that make you headdesk in book seven for not figuring out sooner. The world she made is rich and inviting and managed to do what Lloyd Alexander did so well by showing that the world is not split into "good people and Death Eaters."

Seeing the Deathly Hallows this past week was painful and joyous- I mourn the end of such a beautiful world but I'm so grateful for the richness it brought to my life. Even the silly fandom wank- Potter Pals, Wizard Rock, and of course, A Very Potter Musical/A Very Potter Sequel (and enough fanfic to fill a library). The epilogue to the move hit me right in the gut more so then the book version managed to do. Seeing the trio send their wee wizards off to Hogwarts made it finally hit home that it's all over, it's done- but  whole new generation will come up and find new and wonderful things through Harry Potter. It's almost like turning over the keys of the kingdom- we've had our adventure, now it's your turn. It's so hard to believe that something that always gave me something to look forward to is done.

Not to say I'm going to pack up my books and movies and be done. But my children will never experience Harry Potter the way so many of us did. The anticipation between each book and movie release (YEARS. YEARS OF WAITING.), the massive years long ongoing discussions between books trying to figure out what was going to come next. For so many people, myself included, even though movie canon and book canon take very different paths, the movie actors are who we see as the book characters. I ignore descriptions of characters in the books that don't match their movie counterpart. The last two books you can see a shift of certain characters (Snape, mostly) where she started writing the character to match more closely to how the actor was portraying them.

We're planning a trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter for my 30th birthday, as a send off to my very Potter twenties.

I don't think I'll stop hoping in the very back of my mind that an owl will finally show up with my Hogwarts letter. Better late then never.

Goodbye, the Boy Who Lived and all the fantastic witches and wizards, squibs and muggles from along the way. I'll always have a special place for you in my heart and on my book shelf.

making plans

When I was 13, after months of testing and seeing more of the inside of hospitals I ever wanted to see in my lifetime, I was diagnosed with IBS (which does not stand for International Breakdancing Society, which would be way more awesome). Even though I was in excruciating pain, my doctor treated the diagnosis as if it was what he first suspected: that I was faking being sick. The only reason he had even consented to any tests in the first place is because my father has Crohns disease, which hasn't proven to be hereditary but is likely to be- my father's father and my father's uncle both have the disease as well. So, since it wasn't the more serious diseases dealing with your digestive system, my doctor decided to not give me any sort of treatment plan aside from "take an advil". Great advice.

When I was in my late teens, early twenties, I had another bad flare up. New doctor, but same school of medicine apparently. I went back to the hospital for a ridiculous series of tests, followed up with a colonoscopy in which I almost died (the nurse let air get into the needle, my heart almost stopped, and my doctor told me it wasn't a big deal...yeah. ) and again, it wasn't Crohns, "just" IBS, so get over yourself and get back to work.

So, for the better part of my life, I've just dealt with the pain and need to always be close to a bathroom. I love road trips but only take them if I know we'll be close to a bathroom of some sort. I won't go camping or anything in the out of doors for longer than an hour and only if I don't eat or drink anything hours before. Even then I've had ridiculously close calls. I never feel good, but some days are better then others.

After we moved to Massachusetts, I had another really bad flare up. Went through all the tests again (all to ensure it wasn't the dreaded Crohns, but at this point in my life if I was going to develop Crohns, it would have shown up by now. Most people are diagnosed by late teens, early twenties, and I have had more tests then anyone needs for that to show up.) but the doctor went one step further and had me tested for Cealiacs. Negative, but at least she started looking beyond Crohns for the source of my pain.

Again, at the end of the testing, she came back with the same answer. IBS- but instead of shunting me out the door, she put me on painkillers and told me to find ways to de-stress and even got me in touch with a clinical study out of one of the medical colleges in Boston. The painkillers didn't work, but a few months later I found out about my wheat allergy. Cutting wheat out of my diet seemed to help- the pain remained but it wasn't as debilitating as it had been.

Cut to last week. Work has been more stressful than usual- I received an unpaid 'promotion' in February, which I'm pretty sure is just my boss's way of seeing how quickly he can get me to lose it daily. The later it is in the week, the earlier I break down. I leave work in tears or shaking in anger most days. My boss fought to create the position (after I indicated I wanted to leave the department and move to working as a product specialist in tech support), and once he got permission to create lead positions, he's done everything he can to work against us (the leads). It's been a frustrating, exhausting couple of months. The only person I could go to for help is in China most of the year now, and is scheduled with all day meetings the rare weeks he's back in the country.

Most nights I don't sleep more than 4 hours a night because my anxiety is out of control. I know all of this, yet I was taken by surprise last week when I was down for the count in crazy amounts of pain- pain so strong I couldn't go to work, and I always go to work. Blizzards, floods, no power, flu, laryngitis, fevers, it doesn't matter. I'm always there.

I had made Thai curry the night before with a mix I found at the store. I normally don't like Thai curry (coconut milk is of the devil) but figured almond milk would be a tasty alternative. The mix ended up being too salty for either of us to eat, so I just ate copious amounts of rice...and was sick the whole night through. I thought it was food poisoning at first- but Anton didn't get sick at all. By 6, when I hadn't slept a wink, I called out, wrapped myself in a heating pad and laid in the fetal position most of the day. Nothing helped- Pepto, Mylanta, ginger...nothing. I went back to work on Friday and by Sunday I was mostly feeling better.

Wednesday came around and I almost left work, the pain had gotten to ridiculous portions again. By Friday, Anton demanded I go to the ER. But I am Midwestern, and pain is no reason for an ER visit, so I consented to go to the Urgent Care instead.

The rotation doctor did a quick exam then literally threw his hands up and went "I don't have a good plan for you." Well, thanks for being honest.

So, he told me to reduce my stress (which at this point would mean never leaving my apartment. I don't think my work will pay me not to come in.) and doubled the dose on my pain killers. After I told him the don't work, upped the frequency I should take them as well. I left, dejected- I've been on these pills for two years and they've never helped, and advise to "de-stress" is unhelpful and annoying.

But, after my first higher dose pill, I promptly fell asleep. I've spent most of the weekend in kind of a limbo- the pain is still there, but most of the edge is off so I can actually move and do things and eat (the pain is usually so bad after eating that eating is, for many other reasons as well, my least favorite things to do). I'm going to make an appointment with my regular doctor on Monday, but I'm not confident if she's going to be able to help. The next step from here is to go on an anti-anxiety pill, but I really hate the idea of being medicated just so I can work.

I'm trying to explore my options. I've looked for other jobs, but there isn't much and I don't want to get stuck in the same cycle I'm in. I could tell my boss I need to step back from the responsibilities, but I don't think that would help- the problem is, even if I take a step down,those responsibilities are still mine AND it's the only hope I have for a raise in the near future. But in two weeks I've missed three days of work because of pain related with IBS and the pain is a result from stress and no amount of pills is going to help me lose the stress.

Eowyn, Nayowyn.

Sometimes I find myself worrying about what would happen to my cats should anything happen to myself and Anton. They're all a little weird and have their own special needs and nuances. Chester is clingy and distrusting of anyone but the two of us. Kira is needy and delicate (or so she'd have you believe. Annabelle is straight up crazy and particular, almost to the point of OCD, and Boyd is his own special brand of nut. If any of them was going to do well in another home, it would be Eowyn. She is gregarious- she loves and adores everyone she meets, from friends and family to maintenance or the cable guy. The others I got while they were still young enough to have their age counted in weeks, bu she was almost twice that age when I brought her home. She definitely doesn't view me as a surrogate parent like Boyd and Chester, who were both bottle fed by me.

The spring after Taran died, a coworker mentioned finding a stray gray kitten and thinking it belonged with me. I told her no thanks- three cats was more than enough. A few weeks went by and I stopped at her house after work, just to hang out, and her husband met me in the driveway, a little gray bundle in his arms. I said I'd see. We went in, and she sat next to me the entire night. She was not even vaguely interested in exploring their house or their cats. I left with her, and she sat, very sweetly, on the car seat next to me on the short drive home.

I made a vet appointment, locked her in the spare room, and fell asleep on the couch. I woke up later to find that Boyd had expressed his outrage in the only way he knew how- he managed to get out the window, onto the balcony and out into the world. 

Employing my mom and her husband, we looked all day for that orange brat, finally finding him under a car the next building over. Apparently he decided he'd come back home, confused which building and sat outside the doors on the second story, crying his head of before hiding under the dirty car. He's nothing if not melodramatic. 

Tangent: When our crackhead neighbors burnt us out of our apartment a year laer, the cats moved in with my mom and we went to stay at my grandparents home until our new apartment was ready. The day we went to pick up the cats and move, Boyd waltzed into the room, ignored us as we called to him, hopped up into the tv cabinet and wedged himself behind the cable box and refused to come out. 

After Boyd was safely home and washed, I went back and forth on whether I should keep his new cat. One the one hand, I had room and she needed a home. On the other, none of my other cats seemed to like her at all. But she was sweet and mousy and meeped instead of meowed...

When we picked up the cats at my mom's, and Boyd was such a jerk, Mom happily handed over Boyd, Kira and Annabelle, but offered to keep Eowyn. She wouldn't leave them alone the few weeks she stayed there. She has this annoying habit of poking you and meeping until you pay attention to her, and they ate it up. A few summers ago when Anton's parents stayed with us, she was the same way. She absolutely smothered them (these people who do not like cats, especially not in the house)- she slept in the bed with them, sat on the table while they drank their morning coffee, sat on their laps while they watched tv...

The last week they stayed with us- probably the last night if I'm remembering correctly, Chester, who hid almost the entire time they were with us, cautiously climbed onto the couch, crept onto my father-in-law's lap, sat there, very still, for less then a minute, then went and hid again. Night and day, those two.

But Eowyn is not my cat. She tolerates me, somewhat. She usually only wants my attention if Anton isn't home. She bully's Kira and Annabelle- she even drove Annabelle to destroy our carpet in our last apartment because she wouldn't allow Belle into the bathroom where the litter boxes were. 

She is, for all intents, Anton's cat. When he first moved in with me, she was still in the hyperactive and frisky stage of kittenhood, and the caricature of a cat: destroying furniture, climbing the drapes, eating lasagna... He hated her. But, everyday he was home alone she sat next to him, wouldn't leave his side. As she got older and calmed down he decided cats weren't that bad. Even now he says if we split, he'd keep her and leave the rest for me. 

Not that I don't love that cat. I do. Around Christmas I found a bump on her side. I tried not to panic- the cats are always giving each other nips and knocks. A month later, it was still there. Thankfully, it turned out to be nothing but she still had me up nights worrying about her. Right now, she's got our whole household topsy turvy because Ms. Thang still thinks she lives on the streets and has to eat ALL THE FOOD. When Chester was still young, she was able to keep the weight off because he tormented her, but now both of them are a wee bit chunky. So, now, the cats are on a feeding schedule which my older cats absolutely hate. They've always free fed and it's always been fine. Now, Boyd wakes me up at 5 in the morning to remind me that he has not eaten since 8 the night before. It's so. Much. Fun. 

But I'd like to keep them all around as long as possible, so if I get less sleep so she can continue to pester us for the next decade or two, so be it. 

Jealous of normal people

I need to hurry up and find a way to be a brilliant author and/or Mega Millions winner so I can have absolute control over my workspace.

It's not uncommon for me to have mild allergic reactions at work- I work with people who like to eat, and eat a lot.And eat everywhere. And are terrible at cleaning up after themselves. I'd say I get hives at least once a week from either something in the air or food that people don't clean off surfaces. It's never that bad, and I just go on with my itchy day.

This week, we had a crap ton of snow, again, and since the people I work with are too retarded to go "oh, it's going to snow a shit ton tomorrow, I should probably take a lunch since eating out won't be an option." EVERY. FUCKING. TIME. the company orders food for these idiots to eat.  Every time, it's pizza. And every time, I have a mild allergic reaction. I don't eat the food.I don't touch the food. But my dairy allergy is severe enough that the smell (which is it's ickly little proteins floating in the air, and it's the ickle little proteins I'm allergic to) can cause a reaction. I have to take the long way to the veg section at Whole Foods because their open air cheese area has been known to make me develop hives in my throat.  It's just crap- if I eat something knowingly, that's my own damn fault, but to not be able to be in a building because it sets my allergies off is just plain stupid.

So. Tuesday, they order pizza. I had a mild reaction (just hives on my arms) itchy, but meh. Wednesday, they order pizza again. And this time, I broke out in hives from my scalp to my feet. My eyes itched, my lips itched. Everywhere fucking itched. I thought about taking an antihistmine, but I didn't want to drive while doped, as Benadryl tends to make me sleep, and sleep hard. 

Then my breathing got worse. I started to wheeze. My throat got tight and my chest became swollen (usually happens when I have a bad asthma attack) and then the hives in my mouth and throat turned up. Fucking. Party. I wheezed my way over to my boss and asked to leave, and he asked if someone should take me to the hospital instead. 

Had I been thinking clearly, I would have just taken the antishistamine at the first fucking sign and had Anton come get me, but nooooo. I waited until 3 hours after the first little hive broke out, and narrowly avoided going to the hospital when it took the second Benadryl to get my breathing some what normal.

I spent most of my night itching and wheezing, and chugging on Throw Back Pepsi because Anton was too nervous to let me sleep. Using my handy Epi pen would have probably done the trick, but it would have meant hours at the ER and as I was already in a state of panic, spending time in a place people go to die was at the bottom of my list. I ran out of Benadryl last night, so early this morning Anton drove me to CVS and stocked up on it, along with Cortizone cream and Dramamine (aside from only working in four hour shifts, Benadryl makes me insanely nauseated and dizzy). I called out of work and slept most of the day. 

I'm feeling mostly better now- my chest is still swollen and I'm still a bit itchy on my arms, but compared to yesterday, I'm fine. 

What I'm mainly struggling with is how to make sure this doesn't happen again. I don't think I can get away with banning dairy from the workplace like people have been able to ban fragrances, but it's not right that I should have to put my health at risk because people eat it. I'm taking my test Epipen to work tomorrow for people to practice on, should something like that happen again, but it's not enough. I lost 10 hours of vacation time because people are too stupid to prepare their own lunches. Had I waited any longer to take my first Benadryl, I would have had no choice but to go to the ER. I have no idea what to do to keep this from happening again that doesn't alienate people or hinder their right to eat what they want. 

Vegan, Gluten Free curry roux

So. I love Japanese style curry. I could eat it every day, all day. We used to buy a roux by S&B, and both Anton and I could polish off a package alone. That's like, 2 family portions.

After I was diagnosed with a wheat allergy, curry had to go along with bread and other things that taste good. Jamie was a very sad panda.

While I haven't found a decent vegan gluten free bread yet (SERIOUSLY WHY IS IT SO HARD), I have managed to perfect a gluten free curry that is oh, so good. A friend on Facebook asked for the recipe tonight, and since I had to type it up, I thought I may as well share this deliciousness with you lovely people as well. You are welcome.

Curry 

2 Tbs butter o' your choice

2 Tbs flour (I use brown rice, adds a nice flavor)

3 Tbs brown sugar

1 tsp grated ginger*

1 tsp grated garlic*

1 onion, thinly sliced

2 Tbs curry powder

2 C. broth (more if you like your curry thinner)

1/2 tsp garam masala (if you don't have any, substitute with chili and red pepper flakes)

Salt to taste

*if you use fresh ginger/garlic, cook with the onion. If you use the powder equivalent, add in with curry powder

Saute onions on low heat until brown

Meanwhile, heat butter until melted, then add in flour. Saute on low. Add curry powder. Slowly add in broth- mix well, and take your time so the curry gets thick before each addition of broth.  Simmer until desired thickness, add onions. 

If you like your curry with vegetables (potatoes, peppers, corn, whateves) in a more stew like fashion, double the recipe above and add the vegetables when you add the onion, and cook another 20 minutes. 

Serve it with rice or quinoa, or just eat it straight out of the pan. I like mine with rice and edamame. 

Oh My God.

So, It's Christmas! I tried, but never really got into the Christmas spirit this year. I think it was because we did absolutely nothing with family (or friends, I guess), and as Anton isn't big on celebrations, everything was just....meh.

I don't want to turn this into whine fest, so! I have absolutely no idea why I'm here. We're watching one of Anton's presents (season 2 of the Clone Wars) and as a birthday present to him, I'm doing my best not to criticize it. I like Star Wars proper, but I don't like the prequals at all. The series gets on my nerves, but. Birthday present.

I think I may have mentioned this a hundred years ago or so, but I think I have ADD- I had all the classic symptoms that girls present as kids, and I certainly have all the adult symptoms. Anton wants me to see a doctor to see if there's non-medicated way to treat it, but me sitting down, finding a doctor that treats adult ADD and takes my insurance and make an appointment with them is the same as tasking me to organize an expedition to the moon.

I've been trying to type up my NaNoWriMo story, but it's been slow going. Writing by hand is comparatively easy. I can change position and location quickly and easily. Typing in the same posture for hours is torture, especially considering I spend 8+ hours a day at work doing a similar thing. But I am going to finish before the end of the year-ish, so I can spend the early part of 2011 editing, re-editing and editing one more time, and seeing where I want to go with it from there. And starting a few more stories, too. My writing may be crap, but in it's rough form is still better than Twilight (hi, hubris!), so there's no point in being modest. That's what I keep telling myself, anyway. I know -these- posts are rambling and hard to follow sometimes (again, ADD. Writing on the computer is dumb.), but my fiction writing isn't- and even if it isn't the next Harry Potter (which it isn't), it's still better than Twilight. (Or Ballad, for that matter.) The only difference is they were published and I haven't tried to be yet. So. Yeah.

In other news, I have a migraine and this show is NOT HELPING. Off to smother some cats.

You may already be a winner!

So. It's December 4th, in case you don't have access to a calendar. Which means this year's round of NaNoWriMo ended 4 days ago. And guess who was a winner for the first time in 8 attempts?

If you weren't bombarded by my tweets and Facebook statuses, let me inform you that I, Jamie, your fearless blogger, finally. fucking. finished. a NaNo. FINALLY.

I'm hoping this weekend I'll finishing typing up the second of two notebooks I used during November. I'll have ample time- the husband is out visiting family in Arizona until next Friday, so no distractions other then then ones I make up myself, and, you know, work.

I managed to distract myself pretty well today. After waking up far too early to take Anton to the airport, I came home, decided that even though I haven't had my hair cut in nearly two years, now would be a fancy time for one. Once that was done, I went and got nacho fixin's and some Seagrams 7, came home and crawled into bed with the cats. I've nearly watched the entire season of Firefly, read a book and managed not to do any house work other then cleaning the litterboxes. I'll get to that tomorrow, but tonight I'm just worried about talking myself through my first night alone.

Since we moved in together, we have spent all but 6 of the last 1850 nights together. That's just WEIRD. It's like I've forgotten how to sleep on my own, even though I've slept on my own a lot more then 1850 nights. Thank the universe for 5 obnoxious cats that haven't left my side all day. Mad props to the people who have spouses who travel for work. I think it would drive me batty.

Worse, however, is now I think Anton really, really, really wants to move to Arizona. Rampant racism and no water? SIGN. ME. UP.

Birthday time again

I'm finding this hard to write because half of today's subject won't stop insisting that I rub her belly.

Kira and Annabelle, the only cats I have that came from the same place, are 8 now. MY CAT'S ARE GETTING OLD WHICH DEPRESSES ME. I may have to console myself with a basket of kittens.

It's not a great secret that 2001-2002 was pretty much the worst time in my life. I've had depression (been dealing with depression? Suffered from depression?) since I was 8-9, and received zero treatment until I was 19. That's... too long. 2001 was just a cluster-fuck in regards to my mental health and treatment. By summer of 2002 I had been cycled through 9 or ten different medications, none of which had worked very well for me. I went from a huge manic phase (my freshman year of college I was taking any where from 18-22 credit hours a semester, working several jobs and sleeping maybe 2 hours a night, if at all.) to a major depressive one- the medication made it so I slept...all the time. I barely passed winter semester that year- and was on my third college. I was back to living with my mom and her new husband in Port Huron, a town where I knew no one but.my mom and her new husband, and one ex girlfriend of my cousin's. She and I had a sort of friendship...we hung out at school and we both worked at the same store, and would go watch my younger cousin's basketball games back in Brown City. When my mom finally was fed up with me, Erika was the only person I had to turn to. I moved in with her, which was probably one of the worst things I could have done- I would have been better off living under a bridge.

Except for the fact that Erika tried really hard to bond with me for a time. We worked different shifts- I worked midnights and she worked days, and in between we had school, so the rare occasions we were both home, I was usually asleep. Her stealing my clothes and various things didn't really help foster the the sister-friend relationship she wanted. Her last ditch effort was to get a pair of kittens from another co-worker because she knew I liked cats. Really awful reason to get pets (kind of like- our relationship is on the rocks, let's have a baby to save it!), especially considering she'd never had an actual pet before.

Her father was like a lot of other men where we grew up- a total douchenozzle who hunts for fun. Her parent's house is one fucked up house of death, with stuffed 'trophies' everywhere. Bears, deer, pheasants, fish, bobcat...it's creepy. When their barn cat population got 'out of control' he would use the cats as target practice. Erika wasn't a hunter, but she had her father's detachment to the pain of living creatures. She had no idea how to care for cats, and wasn't interested in learning. Why she thought getting kittens would be super fun, I have no idea.

Did I mention the kittens were a surprise? And that they hadn't been socialized at all?

Our co-worker, Melissa, wasn't supposed to have cats because her dad hated them, so her cat was kept in her room at all times. Except that time she escaped while she was in heat. The kittens were kept in secret in her room- under her bed. They never saw anyone but Melissa, and when they were finally big enough to eat solid food, she got rid of them. I DON'T UNDERSTAND PEOPLE AT ALL.

So, these two pathetic black fluffs of fur were brought into our apartment, and hid under the couch for the first few days. They started to come out if I was home alone, but not if Erika was. She was fed up with the litter box existing after a week, and the fact that the kittens wanted nothing to do with her, and demanded I keep them in my room...

Let me explain about my room. Erika was in a one bedroom apartment when I moved in with her...into her boiler room. There was just enough room for a twin bed and a tiny white rack where I kept my clothes, and that was it. The kittens didn't seem to mind, but I felt bad about it and only kept them in there when I was at work.

I don't know how to explain how messed up I was at this time. During the months I lived with Erika I was on Lithium, which took my barely manageable depression and turned it into my own personal hell. I had started cutting the year before and that behavior hadn't lessened at all. I was a walking suicidal zombie. I had to drop out of school (again!) because I had lost all my financial aid when my mom got married, and was stuck working midnights in a grocery store where another employee was stalking me. Everyone thought it was funny. I was terrified. I had a falling out with my father the year before, and now my mom didn't want me around either- the reasoning for both was for something I had no control over. My father said my depression was a sickness that was going to infect his other kids (and then chased my out of the house with a knife and almost ran me off the road with his truck. True pillar of sanity, that one.), and my mom thought depression was something I was making up for attention (which is funny, since I didn't want to be around anyone, let alone draw attention to myself.), and that I was sabotaging her marriage.The only one who understood at all was my grandmother, but I wasn't about to move in with her unless I could be stable.

All I had at that point was those two kittens- Kira and Annabelle. They didn't blame me for anything, they just gave me undivided and devoted attention and love. I was the center of their world, and I truly believe that without them I was probably weeks from committing suicide, if that. The self harming behavior gradually decreased.  I started being able to push aside suicidal thoughts because if anything happened to me, I was terrified at what their future would be with Erika. They were completely dependent on me, and I couldn't go dying just because it hurt so hard to be alive.

My life started to get better little by little after that. I managed to make some actual friends that weren't just being pseudo nice to me to try to get back with my sleazy cousin. My mom took pity on the kittens having to live in that crappy apartment, and took them home with her. A few weeks later, she did the same with me. I got off lithium and stopped taking anti-depressants all together- I realize that anti-depressants help thousands of people. I wasn't one of them. (The only time antidepressants did anything positive for me was the first two weeks I was on Zoloft- after I had to sit and watch my apartment building go up in flames with my cats inside. After those two weeks, though, it was useless and I had to come back off it. My brain hates pills.)

After getting a new job and finding a place of my own, I was planning on just taking Kira, as my mom was very insistent on keeping Annabelle. She also told me if I didn't take Boyd, he'd find himself on a farm far far away. (Everyone says they love that cat, but no one likes to live with him.) After my first night away, I received a call to come get Annabelle, too. She had spent the whole night sitting at the door, crying for her sister.

Belle and Kira may be sisters from the same litter, but the most they have in common is their color and their love of Boyd.

Belle and Boyd

Boyd and Kira

Kira sleeps more than any cat I have, and is the biggest bully, too. The first time she met my mom's bully cat, Mia, she clocked her in the face and walked away- mind, Kira was about 3 months old at that point, and Mia was full grown. She puts up with no shit from anyone, but loooooooovvvveesss baby animals. Loves them. There was a bunny in our apartment for a day and she spent the hole day just cleaning him. A few months after I moved out on my own, my mom came home from a trip to her sister's with two kittens. She kept one and brought the other one over- a little gray blue kitten who I named Taran (because if I was already one cat over the 2 cat limit for my apartment complex, what was one more, right?). All three of my cats took too him, but he was Kira's little baby. There was never an acclimation time like there has been introducing any of my other cats to each other, they all took to him right away. I might write more about him later. After he died (he was a very sickly kitten), Kira herself fell into a deep depression. She wouldn't eat, she wouldn't drink, she just wandered the house looking for Taran and sleeping in his favorite spots. She lost half her body weight and it was a fight to keep her going (especially since the vet said there was nothing wrong with her). She pulled through, but she hasn't taken to any other animal she's been introduced to since.

Also, she loves water.

She's never been too impressed with other people, either. She used to sleep on the pillow next to me at night, but since Anton came along she won't get on the bed with him there- he apparently doesn't understand that's her side of the bed. She looks like a dragon, and while she's black, she has this warm chocolaty undercoat of brown fur that's almost red in the sunlight. She also has an obsession with water- the fresher, the better. She won't drink out of the same bowl as everyone else, so she gets her own bowl in the bedroom. Heaven help anyone who thinks they can go to bed without filling it.

She lay like that for hours.

Annabelle is a lover and a talker. She talks. A lot. I think her favorite time of the day is when everyone goes to bed- Boyd and Chester sleep in bed with us, and Kira and Eoywn sleep on either side of the bed. Annabelle takes that time to sing, in her fashion. Loudly. It's adorable. She certainly takes Boyd on a run for his money for goofiest cat, as well. When I get up in the morning, she's always found a new weird spot to sleep, and when I get home at night she's waiting by the balcony door asking to go out. Conversations usually go like this with her:

A: Out?
J: Not now.
A:....out?
J: Not now. Later.
A:...........now?
J:No, not now. Later.
A:..............................now?

I'm not one of those crazy people who think they hold conversations with their pets, really. I promise. But cats  have a wide range of vocalizations and can mimic human speech. Boyd and Annabelle love "out". They'll sit hopefully by the door and parrot it all day if they think there's a chance they'll be let out. Annabelle started with the "now" this summer. My mom's cat Mal will tell you "no."  Dogs, in comparison, have about 12 different vocalizations. Dogs are crap.

She's also crazy picky. She can't abide a mess. Just now, she came to sit next to me but the remote and my phone where there. Any of the other four would gladly kick the stuff out of their way as they jumped up, delighted to be inconveniencing me. Annabelle waits until you move it. She won't even step on rumpled covers on the bed- the blankets must be smooth or forget it. She's got several neurosis, and as long as you're prepared for them she's the best cat. If you try to change or fix her, forget it. She'll have none of it and will just make you miserable.

I love my girls. Happy birthday to the best little Halloween cats ever.

Personality Switch

I'll go ahead and say it: I'm ready for winter.

Why, I don't know. I generally hate all things cold and frozen and damp because they are miserable. But this year I keep looking out the window hoping for snow and leave the house bundled up even though it's in the thirties when I leave for work. Cool, yes, cold, not quite.

I really don't have proper winter clothes, so it's not like I'm trying to speed the seasons along to break out my favorite sweaters and boots. I just want to decorate for Christmas and snuggle in blankets with the cats and read and hole up till spring. I want to drink hot beverages and eat warm, hearty meals and day dream about warmer climes.

Anton is going off to Arizona for a week in December to see his parents while they're in the states. I'm staying home to tend the home fires and take care of the kittens. And work, boo. Next month I'm attempting for the, what, 8th? year in a row to participate in NANOWRIMO. I expect little but it's always fun to try. Actually, I think I'll be doing NANOFIMO* but, whatever. Still aiming for the same word count. Anton is signed up, we'll see if he plays along as well.



*National Novel Finishing Month

week full of memories

Last weekend marked the 4th year of having this little shit in our lives:

I honestly do not know what made Anton think that he was a good idea. We had four cats at the time: Boyd, Annabelle, Kira, and Eowyn. Anton was overwhelmed with them- "animals in the house" he'd always muse. When he was growing up, his dad raised birds, but they never had any of the fluffy, cuddly companion animals that I grew up with. We had just passed the sixth month mark on our marriage, we'd been through a fire destroying our apartment and meeting his family, so I guess we were due for a new challenge. 

We were up at my grandmother's helping her with a garage sale, and down the road several of her neighbors were also trying to take advantage of the holiday travelers. One of them had a crate full o' kittens, and Anton was enamored. By the time we actually went down to look at the kittens (because it doesn't hurt to look.) there were two left- a fiesty little tuxedo girl and a pitiful little lump of orange and white. We played with them for a bit and went back to my grandma's. To me, they were clearly too young to be separated from their mother, even though the owners insisted that all the kittens were litter box trained and eating solid food. Anton kept going on about how the little orange and white one was only just the ONLY CAT HE'D EVER WANT EVER. He was orange and white. He had star-burst blue  eyes! HOW COULD WE LEAVE HIM. 

The day were were set to go home, my Gram wanted to go down to see the other garage sales, so off she and Anton went in the golf cart while I stayed behind to man hers. I should have known better. 

Back they came, Gram cuddling that bastard little furball to her chest. 

"No. No no no no no. Absolutely not." I said over and over again. "Take him back. Take him back right now." Right up until my grandma shoved him into my arms and the furry little jerk has been with us ever since. 

His previous family SUCKED DONKEY DONG. Not only was he covered in fleas (the first thing we did was give him a bath. Way to bond!), he was not eating solid food. On top of that, even at 5-6 weeks, he was underweight and undersize. The first thing we should have been doing was getting his shots, but we had to weight almost two months until he was at a decent size. Even then, the vet wouldn't do bloodwork on him because he was so small. 

I can't say that everyone back at home fell in love with him right away. Eowyn kept trying to crush him. 

(omg. how tiny is he? How fat is she?)

Kira warmed up to him once she found out he got kitten milk, her favorite food in the whole world. Annabelle still hasn't warmed to the idea, and Boyd, the one I was most worried about (when we got Boyd, my mom's other male cat, Malachi, went so emo he still hasn't recovered) accepted his mini me without must hesitation.

I agonized over that little brat. I was on instant messenger at work sending Anton an endless barrage of worried questions about Chester's wellbeing while I was gone. More than once, I came home, couldn't find him, and would berate Anton for not watching him better, only to find him like this:  

It's still his coping mechanism. Whenever he's scared, be it from toddlers or noisy construction or sirens or sizzling pans, under the blankets he goes. It's adorable. 

The first few weeks he was a snuggly, cuddly, happy little baby. Then he turned into big ol' jerk face. And scratched and clawed his way into my heart. Bastard. 

  

And also he has mono. 

Seriously. Cutest. Kitten. Ever. 

Oh, Chester Lloyd Finneaus Suckbutt III, I heart you. 

This is long past teal deer, but Anton and I have been musing over our favorite stories from when he first came home with us.

~ I wanted him to be as comfortable in the car as Boyd is, so we would take him on little excursions around town. One trip took us to an ice cream stand, and they gave him a teeny tiny little ice cream cone that he got all over himself. This may or may not be why he's always stealin' my sorbet.

~ For the first couple months, we kept his litter box in the hallway, so we could make sure he was using it. He certainly was little box trained, covering his leavings was one of his favorite games. What we didn't count on was Kira thought having a litter box in the hall way was the BEST.IDEA.EVAR. She would happily use it, and he would angrily chase her off, and growl his little baby growl as he covered up whatever she left. He'd sit next to his box a good twenty minutes each time to discourage anyone else from trying it.

~ Whenever he ate his baby food, we started to keep him separate from everyone else, otherwise he'd stick his paw on the plate and growl as he ate. Angry growls. Growls that would get shelter dogs put down because they were food aggressive.

~I was scared of one of the cats getting too aggressive with him as we slept, so for the first few weeks he slept under a laundry basket (Boyd would sleep on top of the laundry basket. I'm not sure if this was to intimidate or to comfort him.) but eventually, he figured out how to get out, and would get in bed between mine and Anton's pillows and purr. For such a little baby, he had a loud, obnoxious, purr, and wouldn't stop until we let him know we were awake and cuddled him.

~ Now, when he wants me to get up, he doesn't go the obnoxious route that Boyd does (who headbutts and yowls until I get up). No, he cuddles. and snuggles. Then slowly moves closer and closer to my face. Then licks it. Then bites it. Wait. That's not cute.

~ Until he was about 7 months old, he could walk under Boyd. And did. All the time. It killed us each time. We are so easily amused.

I'm going to try something a little different today. I know that you know that I love love love to complain. LOVE IT. Only love it when the news is bad, only happy when it rains, that song may as well be about me. I don't mean to be, but I get a delicious sense of satisfaction when I get to be upset and rant about something. So tasty.

TODAY, however, my faithful minions  readers, I'll give a treat- Huzzah!- things that are making my cold heart warm and snuggly.

Numero Uno: The weather is finally acceptable to support human life. The humidity of the past two months has gone, as well as the need for the a/c. My asthma and electric bill are happy. 

Secondly: A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel.  Holy shit, why did no one tell me about this earlier? The video quality is shit- you can't hear about 25% of the dialogue. Even if you aren't a HP fan, it's completely worth it to watch just for Draco. And it's made in Michigan! By people who look vaguely familiar to me! (And some of them are really starting to irritate me. I know I know Brian Rosenthal. I just can't remember from where. I was in the theater program at U of M, too, but 800 thousand years ago and a different campus.nnnnnnnnnn)

Trois: The very thing that lead me to AVPM and AVPS, Mark Reads Harry Potter.  It's a chapter by chapter review of the Harry Potter series by a first time HP reader. That site devoured my life  when I was trying to get caught up to this weeks reviews, since I only found it...this week. 

Vier: My new favorite cookbook, "Incredibly Easy Gluten-Free Recipes". HolyShitILoveThisBook.

I love cooking, I do I do I do. I hate most cookbooks I run across, especially those geared towards my dietary restrictions (For the record, I'm allergic to: Dairy, Egg, Wheat, "sensitive" to corn, and won't eat animal products. And I'm not a big fan of coconut.). I have several "allergy free!" cookbooks whose main agenda is apparently getting you to eat large quantities of meat. (Which, even if I wanted to eat meat, I'd have to avoid beef and chicken, because guess what! The protein I'm allergic to in both dairy and egg is found in the meat of the parent animals! So FU, idiot nutritionist my allergist wanted me to see!) 

Ahem. I'm also not the biggest fan of vegetarian cookbooks- vegan, yes, vegetarian, no. Mainly because the main ingredients used in vegetarian foods tends to be cheese and eggs. YUM. 

Back to this cookbook to end my need for more cookbooks: yes, there are meat recipes in it, but used in a way that tofu or some other food substance can be easily substituted, and all the recipes are mouthwatering. We've made two in the week we've had it and I'm itching to make more. It even has me excited to try quinoa! And I tend to avoid foods whose names aren't pronounced phonetically! 

Vijf: New musics! I think I'm finally starting to accept that there shall be no more Flickerstick albums, and probably no more Great Lakes Myth Society albums, the two bands that make getting up in the morning bearable. I'm not a book snob by any means- I'll give just about anything a shot. I am, however, a music snob of epic proportions. I don't mind this, though it drives my husband nuts when I'm always asking him to turn off whatever vile noise he has coming out of the speakers (of course, he just refers to me as a withered husk of a soul because I don't like angry yelly sexist crap music. Hmph.). In an effort to give myself something else to listen to occasionally, I've allowed the following bands into rotation:

The Black Keys: I first discovered them last year watching "Hung" (which takes place in Michigan! And the exterior scenes really are Michigan! Michigan Michigan Michigan!), and I less then three them even if they are from Ohio. 

Band of Skulls: you know, from that car commercial. Filmed in Detroit. Featuring the only non-Chrysler car I would willingly buy. I think I'm noticing a pattern here. Hey people that want me to listen to their music: make it associated with Detroit somehow and I will listen! 

It helps that both bands are actually good. 

Six: I received a lovely package from my step-grandmother, full of nice smelly things from Backyard Soaps, a company in, you guessed it, Michigan. They're in my adopted hometown of Port Huron and I love their stuff, but any place out here that sells it overcharges like woah, so Carol was nice enough to send us a box of bathbombs and room sprays.  

Annnnd that's about all the happy I can handle right now.

I'm related to who?

I don't even know where to begin. I am feeling a renewed desire to blog, not just for my personal enrichment, but to save any offspring the headache of trying to figure shit out about their family.

Not that everyone has a burning desire to know their family history. I always have, but I think that has to do with only having one parent growing up, so instead of focusing on the half that was missing, I threw myself into finding out as much as I could about my mom's side of the family. Being as close in age with my youngest uncle as I am, and being with my grandparents for a good chunk of my life, I tend to forget I even -have- another biological family.

I sealed my fate as family biographer when I was a preteen- my grandfather gave me a book that belonged to his grandmother, saying I'd be the only one to appreciate it's history. Then my grandmother did the same thing with her sister's books. And then, the pictures.

Oh. My. God. The pictures.

I come from a long line of shutter bugs. Which is awesome- I have a visual history of my family going back to the start of photography.Thousands and thousands and thousands of pictures. Actually seeing different features that we all have, and who had them them first is amazing. The problem? Well, problems? 1- my relatives didn't like to label pictures, so pinning down dates and names is...fun. 2- half of what's labeled is in Flemish, and in a beautiful but hard to read cursive handwriting. The Flemish I know isn't as helpful as I'd like.

This past weekend, my mom and her husband were in town- we spent the first two days in Boston, then he went to NYC, and my mom came back home with us. Sunday afternoon through Wednesday morning saw us  either pouring over pictures, trying to sort and label them, or trying to find evidence of my great-grandparents, from their gravesite to the houses they lived in while in Massachusetts.

We were able to label about 3,000 pictures. I have about 8 or 9 thousand to go. On top of figuring out who people are, I've been scanning them and putting them on Facebook for the rest of my family to see and enjoy.  As much as I may complain about it, I really love doing it. There's just a real sense of urgency since pretty much the only person who may know who some of the mystery people are is my grandmother, and she's several states away and recovering from back surgery so she isn't online that much at the moment. Mom took the Rosetta Stone of pictures home with her and is going to go visit Gram and see what she can find out. That just leaves the Belgian pictures. I'm not sure that any relatives are still around that may know who these people are (though, there has to be- my great grandfather was the youngest of 23. TWENTY-THREE. And he had a mess of nieces and nephews, so there has to be SOMEONE around who still knows these people. HAS TO.)

All our investigating left us with more questions instead of answering them. For starters- do you know how many of my forebears had children, then got married? Almost all of them. So much for this puritanical nonsense people are always going on about. One of my great-great grandmothers was 13 when she left Belgium for Argentina, and was 14 when she had my great-grandmother. Then moved back to Belgium and got married. Just. What. And I spent so much of my life feeling bad for being a bastard. Apparently we all are.

Hair hair hair update

Welp. That was interesting.

As far as my hair experiment, it's not going the greatest. Not that the baking soda wash/vinegar rinse doesn't work as advertised- it does. Anton tried too, and his hair was -amazing- afterwards. My problem seems to be I have too much frickin' hair. I tried doubling and tripling the recipe, but so far, no luck. The parts that do get cleaned are beautiful, but the parts I miss are noticeable. I think I'm going to put the experiment on hold until my next hair cut and get my hair thinned.

To give you an idea of what I'm working with, my hair hangs eleven inches past my shoulders, and when pulled into a ponytail it measures 4 inches around, not including the hair band. I wasn't allowed to grow my hair out until I was in JR high because my mom hated dealing with it, and kept making me get page boy hair cuts, and now it's hard for me to get it short because I have flash backs to this:

Yeah, it's cute on a 3 year old. Not so much on a 12 year old. Or a 28 year old.

This is from a few months ago (Now the line from my old dye job is to my chin. Again, I neeeedd aaa haaaiiirrr cuuutttt.) but gives you a pretty good idea on what my hair looks like as a grown up.

Not that I'm complaining about it- My gram and my mom both claimed to have hair just as thick that they lost as they had kids. My gram is almost completely bald* now and my mom's hair is thinning**. I just need to find way to manage- probably going to invest in some squirt bottles for better coverage and try again. 

*Okay, it chemically abusing her hair with dyes for 50+years and her blood pressure medication probably have more to do with hair loss then her five kids, but I'm not risking it!

**Same thing. Perms and hair dye since the 80's. 

I swear I'm not a dirty hippie

Being as independent as possible has always appealed to me- case in point, growing my own veggies. Screw you, corporate farms! And, also, screw you to the farm stands around here that claim to have farm fresh veggies, yet somehow all the vegetables have stickers on them showing they are from the other side of the country or South America. 

I'm also not a fan of chemicals or synthetics at.all. I haven't used your standard household cleaners since I moved out from my mom's. I get horrible rashes whenever I'm close enough to -smell- your basic bleaches and Lysol's and what have you, let alone if they actually make contact with my skin. I haven't used toothpaste in almost two years, and before that I didn't use fluoride toothpaste for probably 4-5 years. (But, unlike Jessica Simpson, I still do -brush- my teeth several times a day.) I haven't used tampons or pads in over two years (I use this thing instead, and I less then three it) I have to use organic (read: expensive) lotions and body care products because, again, conventional ones make me break out and whatnot, but I'm trying to get away from those as well. Christ. Typing this all out, I sound like a frickin' hippie, minus the patchouli.

So, one of the things I've been meaning to do for awhile is getting rid of my shampoo and conditioner. I was blessed (or cursed) with thick, thick, thick hair, and there has yet to be a shampoo and conditioner combination that was kind to it. I don't wash my hair that much- three times a week, unless I've been rolling in mud or something, and it always air dries (using a blow dryer every time would become way too expensive- not just the 1/2 hour + I'd spend drying it, but I have a tendency to blow out hair dryers) but it's still so. friggin. unhappy. 

Working a short week last week, I didn't really feel compelled to wash my hair on my normal 3rd day (Thursdays), and then I didn't feel like washing it Friday...or Saturday...and now I'm pretty sure I should wash it tonight before I go back to work tomorrow. Despite not washing it in five days, it's not greasy like I feared. Just soft, softer then it was when I washed it last. Weird. During tonight's shower, I'm going to try the baking soda wash/vinegar rinse method and see what happens. 

If it works, and works well, I'll probably see about talking Anton into trying it as well. Since he's been so keen on cutting back on things to save money, I can't see how this would be any different. We don't spend that much on hair care products a year, but still, 180 bucks on shampoos and conditioners yearly is still more then 50-60 bucks yearly on estimated baking soda and vinegar use.

ALSO- plastic. I hate plastic. And if don't have to bring any more in the house, then yays!

Gardening update number something or other

Sometimes I wish I had a big straw hat and overalls for my urban garden. Though- Gram used to garden in jean shorts and tube tops, so I guess there really isn't one set dress code...

It's still early in the growing season, I suppose- even though we did start in March- but we've learned lots of valuable lessons. Aside from "don't start in March."

For one- some things can be grown closer to their mates then others. Peas? Separate those fuckers. We ended up with only 3 pods before ripping them all out. We'll try again this fall once it gets cooler again. 

For twosies- do not start leafy things in the mini-greenhouse. Start them right in their pots or they get all sad and die when you transfer them. Wimps.

For three- Don't try bok choy again until you have a proper garden. Stupid bok choy.

For four- Don't worry about spending money on containers. The window boxes for our green leafy things are great, and we only spent about 25-30 bucks all together on planters, but the majority of our plants are in re-purposed juice and soda bottles, and they are happy and big and lovely. 

For five- Research your broccoli! Ours is so so so dumb. It's tasty! but dumb. The florets of ours don't get very big, and aren't really useful for cooking. Unless all you're looking for a nibble of broccoli.

For sixes- Kentucky Climbers are obnoxious. They are on notice until they produce me a crazy crop of beans 

There are few things as sublime as walking out into my garden after work, though. Everything right now is so green and lush, and watching wee little flowers turn into something edible is awesome. If you've thought about growing something but don't know what to try first, do cucumbers. They are prolific. We've already had two off the vine, there are about 26 more in various stages of growth, and 50 some odd flowers. All that from 12 plants. We definitely we'll be cutting back on how many cucumber plants we have next year. 

Now exclusive to you, until I get around to posting them on Facebook, pictures:

One of the few flower plants I have. It's a mandevilla (we call her Judy*), expressing her desire for light. 

Judy, repotted and moved outside. This was last weekend, and now she's doubled in size. 

One of our first harvests, which turned into...

...a lovely salad. The radishes were store bought, but look how lovely it all is!

A few of my cuke plants, attempting to grow -off- the balcony.

This is the closest I could get to a full shot of the garden. There's more behind me and hidden at the other end as well. 

My jerk Kentucky Climbers. 

*When I was growing up, We went to church with a lady named Judy Madeville. All my gram's mandevilla plants were always known as Judy from then on, and it still seems to fit.