Dragons!

I captured a dragon egg. Help my dragon grow by clicking on this link.



Thanks!

PS. I refuse to comment on the fact that I haven't updated the blog in 6 months.

Still Busy

OK, I thought that after that last camping trip they constant strain of "I'm so busy" would fade and I would be free to do a post every day. Not that I believed I would have enough material to write something every day, just that I would have time to do so if I so chose.

The thing is, I don't. I'm working a string of 11-12 hour days this week, plus probably working on Saturday. The project is due Friday, but there's no way it's getting done by then. Understaffing a project for the first 5 weeks doesn't lend itself to meeting deadlines. Also, changing the requirements the week it is due doesn't help, either.

Anyway, I'm off to work now, I'll have to tell you about this terrific book I just finished later.

Schedule

I've been a bit lax about posting lately! My truly sincere apologies. I've been busy.

(That's always the excuse, isn't it? "Sorry I didn't do it, I was busy!!" Yeah right! )

But I actually have been. My schedule for the last week looked like this:

Wednesday evening: Improv, buy and make swaps
Thursday afternoon: run girl scout meeting, drive 4 hours to Nipomo
Friday: run errands for old troop's first big camping competition event, pick girls up at school, go on camping trip
Saturday: camping trip. lose voice.
Sunday: pack up from camping trip, drive 5 hours to get home.
Monday: rest... at work.
Tuesday: drive with HR to recruiting event at Poly, 3.5 hours
Wednesday: Recruiting event. lose voice again, since it was starting to come back. drive back home, 3.5 hours. make it to improv

And the rest of the week is like this:

Thursday: run girl scout meeting, introduce new girl, do camping trip shopping
Friday: shop for mom's party
Saturday: run mom's party. haul ass to girl scout camping trip, get there late.
Sunday: pack up camping gear, return home to air it out.

That's right folks. Two camping trips, one business trip and a b-day party to throw in one 9 day long week. What, your week doesn't have 9 days? Well, that explains why my kitchen smells funny and there are mounds of camping laundry to be taken care of.

Someone wanna clean my house? I'm too busy.

50 Book Challenge

You've probably noticed the list under 50 Book Challenge on the right getting longer and longer, so I expect it's time to share what the point is! Here's the summary from Librarything:

"The 50 Book Challenge is a way to track and share the books you read throughout the year. Some people also choose to set personal goals to read more books, or more non-fiction, or more new books. The point is that it's up to you what you want to do."

For me, the goal was to read at least 50 books in the first year of my blog. I figured I would have no problem with this, since I spend half my life with my nose in a book, but it's been harder than I expected - I assumed I'd reach 50 books in the first 4 months. This coming Friday is the 6 month anniversary of the beginning of this blog, so seems like a good time to assess how my challenge is going.

I also decided that I needed to identify which books were new. You will notice, now, that the list includes books marked (R). This is to signify that they are re-reads, (not adult-only content); books I have read anywhere from 1 to 15 times before. In fact, most of these rereads are my childhood or teen favorites, books I bought in college or books I've had since I was 12. I'm still counting them as part of my 50 book challenge, but I wanted a visual way to see how much I am actually reading for the first time. While I was doing this I noticed that one book is even on the list twice! It's now marked R2. (yeah, yeah, I'm an aspie, get over it)

To summarize, in the last 6 months, I have:
reread 17 books
reread 1 book twice
read 16 new books
started 3 books I intend to finish
started 3 books I do not intend to finish

...making a grand total of 35 books I am counting toward my 50 book challenge. Although I will not be reading 15 books by Friday, I have no doubt that in the next 6 months I will meet the 50 book challenge. Can you?

Grownups

I'm totally stealing this from the comment section of another blog I read. It's a response to someone who said that, as adults, if we liked the subject idea, we can't possibly be "real" adults, and should therefore grow up a bit. Neuffy, the responder, summarized exactly what I thought of this, better than I ever could, so I quote from him directly. Check out the links after the quote to see what he's talking about.

"Neuffy Says:

"The serious work of either a marriage or raising kids?

"Regarding free time: Of course there is copious free time. If you don’t have such amounts of free time, why have you arranged your life that way? From the tone of your comment, it seems that you think those things that are not practical or “serious” are not worthwhile. In my experience, it is precisely those things that are most precious.

"Sure, they aren’t what “grown-ups” do, but that is precisely the point of the comic: “Because we’re grown-ups now, and it’s our turn to decide what that means.” As long as the basic necessities of life are not being neglected (income/sanitation/hygiene/nutrition/etc), then this is the “serious work” of life.

Examples of things that I group in with ball-pits: An afternoon couching. An evening fire with dry ice and water-filled bottles. Fancy dress for a no-occasion dinner out. Snow forts/Igloos. Ticklefights. Lego nights. Dress-up parties. Strange-food dinner (eg. peanut butter pizza). Impromptu public plays.

"The reason this resonates so intensely with such a large number of people is precisely because it involves the kind of life-definition that seems sadly lacking in the archtypes laid out for us as life-models.

"Then again, maybe I’m just baised. My parents were a musician and an artist, and they did what they loved throughout their lives, and managed to raise children while doing so. They didn’t make the kind of sacrifice that it seems is being implied. I’ve also seen what I feel is the near-inevitable end result of self-sacrifice in the name of “maturity”: People who are burnt-out, inactive, have routines and habits set in stone, and really do not take joy from life.

"I know which life I want. I think that this idea symbolizes the choice of favoring strangeness and joy over practicality and seriousness."

Hear, hear!

If you managed to read this far, check out these links:
The comic that started it all.
The Blog to go with the comic that started it all.
A company that installed a ball pit.
And so did Google: Scroll to "Kidtastrophe."

Now, using Xkcd's Ball Pit Calculator, you may all donate to my fund. I need about $5000 to create a ball pit in our spare room.

Fail

The good news is, my results came yesterday.

The bad news is, as you can tell, I didn't pass. I scored a 130 out of a possible 294. The cutoff score was 153. I'm feeling pretty miserable about it, and I didn't sleep well last night. I was looking forward to it so much because I thought I had passed. Now I get to swallow my pride and tell people that I didn't pass. With a 45% passing rate, I'm not sure how I expected to pass on my first try, anyway.

This is the first time in my life I've ever completely failed a test.

I'll just be over there, having a pity party. You're all invited!

I'm alive

I'm alive and counting down to next week, but it's making my anxiety attacks worse.

I've been having anxiety attacks right before bed for years. You know the kind I mean - you lie down in bed, last thing in the day, and your brain starts going over things that happened during the day. Suddenly you are cringing at yourself inside. "Why in the HELL did I say that to *HER*? What possessed me to behave in such an odd way?! I wish I hadn't shouted at soandso. Am I doing the right thing by leading my scout troop in to do such and such?"

Ok, so maybe I'm the only crazy person who feels this way at bedtime, I really don't know. It makes it hard to fall asleep, though, so I have gotten into the habit of telling myself little stories at bedtime. I make a conscious effot to push all that anxiety into a little space at the back of my mind, and then I concentrate on my story. I should really write them down at some point, but for some reason, I can't remember them the next morning!

Anyway, the anxiety attacks have gotten worse. I still only have them at bedtime, and I still can push them to the back of my mind. But now I have anxiety DREAMS as well. I woke up one night this week after a dream in which I was upset because - get this - I yelled at my grandmother. I felt so guilty I sat down and cried (in the dream) and then my sister opened all my wedding presents. Ok, it was just a dream, but obviously I am juxtaposing all my anxiety from the day onto family members. In any case, Grandma, I'm really sorry I yelled at you!

I really need to work on controlling my anxiety. Somehow I doubt that waiting on my test results is the true problem. I have a feeling this is a genetic anxiety disorder that I need to learn to live with. I'm like my mother in so many other ways, it's not surprising that I am like her in this, too!