recap + lunches

Quick, while the popcorms are doing their thing on the stovetop.

*2 nights of dress rehearsal and one tornado watch
*mother's day gifts done and done (whew)
*recovering black cat and multiple meds plus new diet of canned food (also whew and eewww)
*additional meds for me (day 2 of femara)
*message left for guy in charge of sperm washing machine
*lawn mowed
*semi-surly pre-teen carted around
*jambalya made by my roommate (good food in the house that I didn't make?! yay!)
*gimlets on the back deck with I (gimlets - woo! back deck - woo!)
*popcorms

And lunches. Yesterday and today: weird pseudo-humus thing on pita with chips and doctored-up salsa. Also known as Mother's Day Lunch in the primary classes that trickles down to the lowly toddler teachers. Decent with bonus lack of lunch packing. Log your lunch, y'all.

how to feel accomplished in 2 easy steps

1. start a blog
2. list day's activities on said blog
bonus step 3. mirate one's list

• woke up (always, always list this -always)
• stumbled around
• smelled and then cleaned up cat diarrhea from under the bathroom sink
• washed hands
• washed face
• went to city market
• bought food
• paid back vendors who nicely didn't charge me full price last week when I ran out of cash (this niceness sort of negates my market bugeting technique which is to leave when I am out of money)
• came home and started laundry, cleaned floors
• hung laundry out, continued cleaning floors
• went to parade!
• came home, started more laundry, summer-ized wood stove area and ate lunch
• hung out more laundry
• brought in laundry, first old (dumped on couch) then new (left damp in basket on porch), because of rain
• hung out old (damp) laundry, again.
• napped
• mowed half the lawn, brought in old laundry
• swept clouds - yes, CLOUDS - of pollen off the porch and washed porch down with old mop water
• watched the thunder storm

Now, here's how to feel unaccomplished in 1 easy step: go check out what this girl got done before 11 am.

a bird on the fridge door is worth 2 in the hand

I was thinking about a snack and I went to the fridge to get out the goat cheese (goat cheese and dates - seems fancy, but it's not) and lo and behold there was a fake bird attached to the handle of the fridge door. A rather disheveled fake bird - one minus most of it's feathers, pale plastic underbelly exposed for all to see. WTF right?

Well, no. You see, yesterday was Tuesday - or as I have come to think of it - T-day, because it's the day that T comes over. Yesterday, she brought her husband, teen-age step-son and 4 year old, let's call him Frank. The orange haired teen-age step-son left shortly after they arrived, his gf beckoning from across town. Ah, youth...... Anyway we all went out to dinner and had the usual fight about who would pay the bill. And to settle the issue quickly, it was decided that I would give up my fight for the bill if I was allowed to buy some beer on the way home, which we would all sit around and drink (well, not Frank, but you know what I mean). So that's what we did.

But what the fuck does this have to do with the disheveled fake bird on the fridge, you ask? Patience, y'all, patience. Frank, the aforementioned 4 year old, busied himself doing little kid things while we sat round on the porch after dinner and at some point he asked me again, for the fifty-eleventh time, what was the deal with with the bird cage on the porch. For some time now, he's been trying to wrap his mind around the fake bird hanging upside down in the bird cage - he can't quite get if it's real or not, if it's alive or dead. The whole set up is a mystery to him. So last night, I took the bird out of the bird cage so he could get a good look at it. And after turning it over in his hands several times, he told me he was going to find a new spot for it. Inside. I didn't pay that much mind until this morning when I went to get the milk out of the fridge and in the semi-darkness of the kitchen noticed there was a fake bird hanging off the fridge door.

So now I want to go eat my fab dates and goat cheese treats, but I'll log my lunch first: left over fish burrito from last night's dinner plus left over strawberries from morning snack. Log your lunch, y'all.

teh round-up plus bonus new idea (!)

Thanks for the sweet comments after my crap day last week, y'all. You're the best. For real.

Aren't you dying to know what I've been doing? On the edge of your collective seat? I'll give you a list o' the highlights, because who needs narrative form? Not this girl.

Thursday

• pre-ovulation wanding showed good early response to the femara: cushy lining, 3 (!) follicles - 1 on the left (12.5mm), 2 on the right (15.5mm and 13.5mm)
• dinner of potato chips, fancy cheese and bread + lambic beer with LB on the porch
  
• nothing else of note

Friday

• stupid work thing turns out to not be so stupid in the end and anyway it's over
• 2 pitchers of gimlets at IB's house! (Cut me some slack, it was a small pitcher.) Yay IB! Topics of discussion included, but were not limited to: When Bad Things Happen to Good Friends (extended mega-mix edition), Generous Parents (grateful edition), What's Going on With Our Friends (vol. 1,000,354).
  
• what can top that?

Saturday

• the market! Sightings of Elsie, plus various other folks. Lots of fab spring produce (yay real food!) and additional goods, e.g. lesbian bagels! Plus, a kid from my school was there and she had a flower with her that she'd brought, just in case she saw me. And her ever-kind mama told me she had a small box of very nice organic baby clothes that she'd love to give me, if that wouldn't be too hard for me to deal with/seem like bad luck and if it was, she'd hang onto them for a while longer and check in again. Wow - generous and understanding together are an unbeatable team. All good things happen at the market.
  
• laundry! (I heart laundry)
  
• yard work made easier and better by various neighbors (note to self, when getting plants from mom, only take as many as you can remember the names of).
• lounging made easier by finished yardwork
• coffee date that brought up some interesting ideas about doula shit

Sunday

• Teh Coffeez with cho-girl!
  
• Sunday comics!
• stupid cold rain (blah)

Monday

• bonus wanding! With New and Sure To Be Improving Med Student! Honest, I love when there are students, because I can ask even more questions and listen in on the medical banter. My RE asked the tiny med student all sorts of fertility related questions and I could answer every one. To the point the the RE told me to shut up, joking, but really I think he'd had enough out of me. So it seems I responded quite well to the femara in terms of ovulation, now we'll see what it can do for my luteal phase issues.
• more stupid cold rain (blah again)

Good job getting this far! As a prize, I'll tell you my idea. See, I used to go on this sight called "Lunch Is Fun (TM)" all the time. All the fucking time. What's better than seeing what other people ate for lunch? Also, what's better than the word lunch? Maybe the word pants. Maybe. Anyway, as I was making tomorrow's lunch just a mere hour ago, I though, well, Starrhillgirl, you could just log your lunch on your very own blog and maybe that would make you post everyday. And maybe your internet people will want to log their lunches, too! In your comments! Because you love a good comment almost as much as a good lunch!

It's like a game! We'll even give it it's own cleverly named tag: Lunch. Woo and Hoo!

So today I had a piece of quiche and a little salad of watercress (yay the market!) and lentil/bean sprouts with ponzu, which is the dressing of the month here at Starrhill. What did you eat? Remember, a good lunch can salvage a crap day, so log your lunch, y'all.

the good, the bad, and the not-so-ugly

So there was the great post, all written in my head, about how today ran the gamut from bottom-of-the-barrel to woo-and-hoo! but I just finished figuring out how to post pictures over at wordpress for the CLAW blog and I am wore out, y'all. So, haha! I'll give you a list and you can sort things into the good, the bad, and the SOOOOO-not-ugly your own selves.

1. had very bad cold yesterday, as in very bad, causing me to miss brunch with some Crazytown extendo-family types and a memorial service that I really wanted to attend. Said very bad cold still present this am, but still I have to go to work because that is The Way It Is.
   
2. scramble to find tylenol at the only store open between my house and school, because that is the only pain killer I can take in the ttw, and a pain killer will keep me from killing the children at school, where I should not be because of above-mentioned very bad cold but too bad because that is The Way It Is.
   
3. cho-girl subs in my class and as a bonus to her greatness, brings me tylenol, because above-mentioned store only had the sinus kind or the allergy kind and those kinds will probably make my Baby the Possible have 3 heads and so I did not buy them, but drove to school near tears instead (crying in the privacy of one's truck - or one's dad's truck - is far different from crying in front of Teh Public, plus, I said "near tears" not "in tears" see? I was sick! Cut me some slack.).
   
4. half the staff of my school is out today - ok, not half, but 4 out of 14. No lie. But I get to teach with above-mentioned cho-girl, who is occasionally sympathetic but mostly just large and in charge of the children, which is just what the non-existent doctor ordered (things starting to look up here). Too much sympathy makes me woozy.
   
5. manage to not kill any children at school, nor do I give them my very bad cold, because they must all be immune at this point, having already given it to me. Thanks, children.
6. it rains. All day. We do not go outside, which means that I don't have to wake up my nappers. More sleep = yay.
7. Sandy, Sophie's mama, is on the radio when I get in the truck after school (this is where things really begin to look up) and to sweeten the deal, Sophie is not too surly! That's 3 days in a row! And is worth both of those exclamation points and this bonus one!
8. my roommate makes enchiladas for dinner. Enchiladas which will also be my lunch tomorrow. It is nice to be hungry again.
9. (the best for last) I got these in the mail today:

Thanks Mrs. B. Art saves lives, y'all.

just another morning in spring

So it's been weeks since I worked a full 5 days in a row. Weeks, I tell you. There's no school today and it smelled like spring when I opened the front door to let the cats in. I've given up on cutting out coffee and so I am here in the sun with a totally indulgent cup of 2/3 coffee, 1/3 heavy cream. And did I mention the sun? And the lack of school today?

I woke up and walked down here to pick up my milk first thing, because I have been slack this week and didn't pick up on Wednesday, which is my usual pick up day. The whole milk deal is a little shady, which I kind of love. You cannot buy or sell unpasteurized milk in Virginia, so people get around it by purchasing a share in a cow, so the milk is technically theirs and they consume it at their own risk. I do sometimes wonder what part of my cow I own - the tail? The cute nose? Anyway, I'm not one of those Raw Milk Will Save the World people, but I'm pretty happy to have local milk and I'm always after food that's had less shit done to it. And it is good - the real test for what to buy and eat in my mind. Local and organic and unprocessed are fab and all, but really, I'm into food that tastes good. Which this milk does. The poorly lit warehouse and the old soda refrigerators and the sneaky hidden key are all pure entertainment for me - the real deal is that I like this milk better. Now if only I could ride my bike down to the IX to get it....

Yes, it's true. I do not know how to ride a bike. I thought this wasn't news here on teh internets, but the injector has only recently discovered my lack of biking prowess and is threatening to come come south and remedy the problem. Others have tried - valiantly - before, but with no luck. (somewhat embarassing pics here)I'm not so good at the whole practicing thing, you see, and I think that's probably key. Anyway - I do want to know how. It fits in well with everything else about my "Lifestyle." But falling is so scary!

Moving on to other things I cannot do yet - let's talk about ttc, shall we? (That' trying to conceive for those of you just joining us here in Starr Hill.) Here's the lowdown from the RE's visit this week: I will be doing an unmedicated, monitored, home insemed cycle this month. Woo and hoo for the home insems! Go DIY AI go! There's several things going on here so I'll try to be all linear and shit so you can get the full picture and the you can weigh in as you see fit.

From the information gathered during my monitored cycle in January, the RE thinks that I had 2 problems: old Polly and low progesterone. Now we'll all bow our heads a minute to Polly and then move on because that particular problem is gone. Woo! So then the issue becomes the prog. Now, I knew from blood-work with my nurse practitioner that my progesterone was low back last summer and she put me on prometrium (by mouth - whew) for it, but her protocol for the dosage was very different from my RE's protocol and I don't wonder (or rather I do wonder) if hers was not so hot. See, the half-life of prometrium is 12 hours and my NP only had me take it once a day, so I'd imagine the level could float around more than would be ideal. The RE has folks take it 3 times a day, which know knowing the half-life of it (thank you Obsessors) makes far more sense.

Anyway. My RE deals with low prog in one of 2 ways: dose with prometrium or take...... clomid. His thought process is this: The corpus luteum is what produces progesterone after ovulation, so if there is a problem with progesterone, perhaps tweaking the follicle that will become the corpus luteum will make for better progesterone production. Plus the "bonus" of more follicles - i.e. more "targets" for the sperm to hit. He very, very slowly and seriously did the math for me on how the chance of multiples goes up in this scenario and listened patiently when I said in no uncertain terms that I was scared shitless of the mood swings I hear can come with clomid and said femara was a fine choice when I asked about using that instead. The man's a dream. And he delicately pointed out that, in his view, time is not an issue. I'm young and healthy, as they kept telling me before my surgery. All that said, I am going with no meds for this cycle other than a prometrium supplement. Because I like to ramp it up slowly.

As for the home insem part - well, there's some bureaucracy involved here. In the past, sperm that needs washing for an IUI would get sent to Richmond, washed and sent back. But my sperm don't roll like that because they've been Bio-Tranzed. The shipping method my donors (Remember them? You can't beat them with a stick.) and I are using, bio-tranz, only keeps those kids alive for 24 hours. Not enough time to get from the West Coast to Richmond and then here. They'd be dead. Now, the University has been promising my RE a machine for washing sperm here for sometime now. They said October 2007 at the latest, he told me. Then we both looked at the calendar and sighed. Any day now, they keep telling him. He sighed again. So if there's a machine here, I'll wash those prostaglandins right out of my sperm and do an IUI. But I'm not going to count on that, so we'll just all plan on one very last home insem. What do you say?

There's a mess of us cycling together this time, which has to be worth something. There's me, the injector's best girl KK, Mrs. B, Chips, Tiff, Katie who has no blog (ahem) from FF.... damn. I though there were more of us. Anybody else? Anybody?

so much for that 3 posts a week bullshit

Have you missed me? Oh, poor us! It's been so long. And there's nothing to tell. No thing. Honest.

It's February. *sigh* There's been work and some blood draws (I have the dubious distinction of having gone to the RE's enough now that the lab techs recognize me) and more work and sitting around wishing the house was cleaner and cursing the cat-diarrhea and sleeping. Boring. I know. I'm living it. There's no sun (well, not enough for me) and the weather has had moments of decency, but no snow. I call for a blizzard or for May. Enough of this winter shit. As SJ said, "Go Team February! Mascot: apathy."

Tonight for dinner I raided the freezer for the last of one bag of last summer's broccoli. And had it with tiny elbow macaroni and sausage from Babes in the Wood. It was like locavore hamburger helper. I kept expecting the little hand guy from the commercials to pop out, only he'd have an ironic baseball cap on and carry a banjo and he'd want to have a serious conversation about how his time as a WWOOFer had helped him reconnect with The Land.

There's some radioactive dye in my uterus's future. Woo. And now for the audience participation section of this blog: How much and what sort of pain meds did you take for your HSG? When did you take them? I'm not so much for the invasive medical procedures, for all my love of the needles at the RE's lab.

random friday randomness

In list form! For you! (Ok, really for me, the lover of lists)

*Cappy-icy-pseudo-snow-day. There was ice, sort of, and so school opened late, which was great, but the weather was crap. We are Richmond again. *sigh* If it will not really snow, it should be May already. Because the weather should bend to my whim.

* 5 dpo blood work. Scheduled early in the am so as not to require a sub at school (and the roads were so fine - see above). Charming woman and her 2 children also in for early am blood work present and accounted for. Waiting rooms are like heaven to me. Really. Also nice lab tech. Also, I kind of like having blood drawn. Honest. Plus! Bonus! No co-pay! Woo and hoo!

*Aye. The moodiness on the way home from above blood work. Aye. Related to: recently discovered differences in so called "core values" with some folks. Crap. Not that mine are better, but really, I can't roll with Teh Discrimination based on anything. Just can't. Plus, being taken to task about a whole other set of gender issues. Aye. Can't we all just get along and not exclude folks? Moodiness also related to general ttc angst. I'd like my baby now, please.

*Driving home of the friend of Sophie. Usually this friend walks, but it was nasty (see above) and this semester in gym is All Swimming All the Time (or at every other day), so both girls had wet hair and so I gave her a ride. Much to Sophie's delight. There has been Teh Drama Among Tweener Friends of late and it is Teh Hard. Poor Soph.

*Popcorms.

*Random unexpected visit from old friend A who is back in the country (and has a nice new car!). We had Jack Daniels and a fire and visited and visited. So good. So, so good.

*Feeling Badness over bailing on a commitment. One of the things I hate most. But it had to be done. Aye. Upsetting people is Teh Hard.

*Mail! Brought in by old friend A (see above) and containing a nice, nice letter from my insurance company, expressing their desire to pay for my upcoming HSG! Anthem - my new BFF. Thank you, oh thank you, great-but-under-paid teaching job that keeps me fully insured.

friday it is

So my full snow day did not materialize today, but it was a good day none the less. We started late and there were only 6 children and, although the post-nap period sucked, I did get a new hat from one of my kids, which he was very, very excited about. Pictures and lengthy prose about my lost hats to come.

Anyway - how about a list? You know you want it.
Teh Nice, in no particular order:

• new hat, see above
• at least half an hour in the card aisle at CVS with Sophie, buying cards for her mama, who does not want gifts for her birthday this year. The child's sense of humor is coming along nicely, thank you.
  
• guess who I just had drinks with? The currently most famous blogger near Starr Hill and my very, very dear old friend. Yes, you wish you'd been there. Yes, there was Maker's Mark.
  
• roasted chicken. Fuck me. I get chickens from my neighbor, who runs a restaurant and gets his meat from Polyface. The meat was falling off the bone, despite the over cooking and lack of brining. I rinsed it, salted and peppered it, stuck half an onion in it, stuck it in the oven and called it done. Amazing. All local all the time, y'all. Come over for chicken pot pie on Sunday.
  
• good news, or, rather, no news, about my lower GI challenged cat. All her blood work came back normal - no thyroid, kidney or liver issues. Whew. Now I get to dose her with anti-diarrheals and home made yogurt.
• sadly short but delightful phone chat with Hard Girl
• going to bed with a good but kind of scary book
• possible coffee with cho-girl tomorrow
  

friday night

I had a date last night! With my tiny bf, the smallest cho! He is soooo good looking.....*swoon*. As he is his mother's child, he came with gear: a big old bag o' tricks - movies and treats and feathers and who knows what else. Those cho's - they are happy to haul shit. And plans, he came with Teh Planz. For making ink out of charcoal and watching Planet Earth and making s'mores. And for not leaving the house. *sigh* My hero. There is always the Going Out Option when dining Chez Starrhill, because there are only a million restaurants within spitting distance, and my tiny bf first said he wanted to go to Mono Loco (he likes calamari), but then, seemingly out of the blue, he wondered aloud if I had ever ordered pizza at my house. So we stayed in.... ah....heaven. Also, he can correctly identify Giant Salamanders just by seeing their feet and he loves my cats. And we Shared. Emotions, I mean. He confessed to being "nervous" to come here without his brother, and that the last time he came over he was "weeping." I love a sensitive man. Especially one in a sweater.

And then we made s'mores. With a kit he'd been given for xmas. Note the kit above left. Also note that it appears to have been attacked by mice, but really it was just opened by an 8 year old. The marshmallows were slightly stale, but the s'mores were great all the same. Post s'mores, we sat on the couch to watch one of the Planet Earth DVDs. There was *almost* snuggling. Almost.

Here's an instructional video, just in case you don't know how to make your own s'mores.

i <3 lists

(I love a list, y'all - love, love, love a list. So tidy, so organized, so.... list-y.)

Things I saw on my way to the Valley today:

• One tall skinny white kid picking his butt on Main st. Really - he had several fingers up in there; I think it was an underpants problem. I laughed aloud. Loudly.
• The total and complete lack of the typewriter store. Oh, noes! I'd been meaning to get new typewriter ribbon there for years - litterally years. It was just over the bridge from my house, not a 5 minute walk and I always forgot to go in and get ribbon. And now? It is Teh Gone. I said, "oh, dear!" aloud. Really. (As a very, very sad commentary on the state of my town, there will probably be a ((good but)) overpriced restaurant there shortly. Let's play guess who will own it!)
• Millions of students crossing the street willy-nilly in front of any car they could. Yes, I did stop for them, but did they wave in thanks? Nope. Kids these days.
• Yet another skinny white kid (the place is lousy with them) - this one was doing something weird with his hair. He had both hands up in it, head bent down slightly and was shaking and ratting it around as if there was a spider in there he just had to get out. Then he thew his head back up, all Ferrah Fawcett-ish (or, rather just like my best friend in 2nd grade, Allison, used to do to get her "wangs" right), and looked smug. I was at a light, so I got to watch the whole damn thing. And, yes, I laughed outright again. And yes, I was alone in the car this whole time.

The rest of the drive was the usual - prettier than a picture. I took the slow way, 250 up to Afton and then 64 back down and over. The trees were all bare and a bazillion colors of brown and gray, except for a good-sized stand of pines off to the right just as you start to come down the west side of the mountain. I drove home in the dark and so there was less to see. Sorry to let y'all down.

tired yet?

Yes, I am . Blogging everyday is Teh Hard, y'all.

What do you want to hear about?

• How fab yesterday's soup was? (Fab.)
• What old Clear Blue told me this morning? (Another high reading - my estrogen's rising.)
• What I'm going to do about those 2 high readings? (Get pregnant tomorrow and Friday, instead of Friday and Saturday.)
• Why am I listening to a tiny machine that doesn't always communicate so well? (Because my CM is all sparkley and eggy, and when my cervix and old Clear Blue agree, the time to move is now)
• Who I'm chatting with right now? (Chicory.)
• Who I'll be teaching with tomorrow? (cho-girl - woo and hoo!)
• What I'll be bring to school tomorrow, just to make her day? (Teh Coffeez.)
• How many days of NaBloPoMo are left? (Two. That's 2.)
  
• Who loves you the best? (Me.)

The FedEx man comes tomorrow. Fasten your seat belts, kids, it's CD 11.

NaBloPoblahblahblah

How many more days of this?

My black cat has forsaken me. She is cheating on me with my current new and temporary roommate. She loves him. She never likes anybody, except for this guy and that was years ago. I'd be jealous, but that's not how I roll.

Also, I washed my hair today.

It's pretty exciting over here in Starr Hill.

this is what happened to me today

(so if I knew better what I was doing with this blogging shit you'd be able to see something interesting here, as it is, you have to click - boo)


But not sad! And not involving a restaurant. Bu yay, free cake! Ok, also, no cake, but Olive(s) which I like better anyway. So don't worry, y'all.

124 sounds fucking great to me

It has been a red letter day, y'all.

Conferences were a breeze, and it was kind of nice to have a morning without children. I kind of missed them when I got back to the classroom. There are no real "issues" with any of the kids, so it's fun to sit around with their parents and talk about how great they are.

My most recent long-term old roommate stopped by to get some mail that had come for him. He hung out for popcorms and comics. When he left, I was richer by one mixed cd, 1 aisan pear and 2 persimmons. A bunch of my favorite fruits.....mmm....

Sophie's mama showed up and announced that it was a night for Teh Diner. And all the Meads were there. Yes, Hard Girl, all the Meads. You'd be amazed at the size of those girls. Amazed. And my cheeseburger? Kicked some cheeseburger ass. It is amazing how much more I can eat when I'm not drinking a beer with dinner. Go figure.

Also, Sophie ate three ice cream cones and popcorn and cheese sticks after ArtQuest today. Lord.

I'm a boring blogger these days. But aren't you excited about my asian pear?

pass me the torch, please

Pro.cras.ti.na'tion
Did you think I was done with those reports for my parent teacher conferences? Haha! Fooled you. I'm working on them right now. I swear.

Meanwhile, I'm cruising craigslist, because you know, the right temporary roommate could be out there right now, waiting for my house.

6:55 pm - three done, three to go. Oh, come on. Did you think I was going to do the ones for Tuesday tonight? Please. Time for dinner.

Here I am! Why does blogger use the time one started a post as the time it was posted? You'd think it would make sense to time-stamp it with the time it was published. Ok, 3 more reports.

9:30, reports written, dishes washed, laundry hung to dry by the stove. Check, check and check. I am turning into my mother. There are worse things.

Today, I went to Richmond with my long-suffering parents, to help my great-aunt move from one apartment to another, smaller apartment. I now want to be sure to set fire to my house just before I die, so that no one will ever have to look through my highly unorganized desk and deside if the random scribbled note from Sophie about going outside to play is worth saving or should be given away or thrown away. Oh, and how about the broken rice cooker? Nobody but me needs to deal with that. Why do we hang on to so much crap? Fear of death? I'm here to tell you that fear of death is going to make me clean out all the useless shit from my house. Someday.

(Except for the couple few things I brought from my great-aunt's house today, like the cool knife that straps to one's belt. And the 2-part cast iron pan. And the wire-mesh sieve.)

down to the wire

Will you look at the time.
I've only got 1 and 1/2 hours in which to blog, or I fail NaBloPoMo. Fail.
Thank you, Jesus, for giving me a nice list of thing I did today to bore my reader with. All one of you.
In chronological order:

*woke up, temped (as in took my temperature, not as in short-term work - I don't have the correct skill set for that)

*got out of bed and went downstairs, spent way too much time on the computer checking in on y'all, and drank some nasty Chinese herbs (which are starting to taste good - the luteal phase ones at least; this Means Something, I'm sure) while reviving the fire (not a euphemism)

*made a million phone calls to organize my day

*went downtown to see cho-girl's stand at the market, bought the really and truly last bit of farmer's market style produce from the adorable Waterpenny kids, after bringing cho-girl a cup of coffee

*picked up some very cute baby things for the New Baby of the Valley, also some toilet paper and new twinkle lights

*came home and opted to skip Sophie's soccer game in order to mop the floors downstairs because they were disgusting, I tell you (ahem, did I mention she's first chair for violin?)

*made boiled custard from my great-grandma's recipe to take to the New Mother in the Valley, as it is my opinion that custard (the nice warm kind you drink) is perfect food for new nursing mothers; plus fun to make

*handled a leaf delivery from Kaity, true owner of my fig tree - why, you ask do I need leaves delivered in the fall? Because none of mine have fallen yet and I was told by the goatcheese man at the market to cover up my new and tender fig tree for the winter - and gave a her a smidge of custard (see above)

*drove to the Valley to hang with the Valley kids

*came home, realized I was close to failing Noblo-whatsiz-hoosie, because today was almost over and I had yet to post.

*wrote this crappy list


CD 21, 7 dpo, 7 days until my "best" friend, FF, says I can test. Ha.