Good energy

I made travel plans for my mom and my sister to travel to Denver tomorrow, and I'm going to go ahead and go on vacation with Bob and his folks. My sister is doing better. She's still in ICU, but they are planning on moving her out in the next day or so, and things sound much more hopeful this weekend than they did last week. I really appreciate all the good thoughts and words and prayers, both in comments here and in email. I do believe that good energy and prayer makes a difference.

Bob and I went out today and bought new walking shoes since our old ones were a couple of years old and getting kind of worn out. Bob doesn't believe me--going by the number of pairs of shoes I have--but I really hate to shop for shoes. But sometimes it's necessary. With the amount of walking we'll be doing this week, good shoes are a must. So we went to Kohl's and tried on probably ten pairs each, and finally decided on Nike walking shoes. Mine, frankly, aren't as cute as I would have liked, but they are comfortable, and I suppose that's the most important thing.

After we bought the shoes, he brought me home and he went out to have lunch and I went back out to do the rest of my errands. I really didn't have too much to do, just a quick trip through Target and a brief visit to the bookstore. I didn't end up buying anything at the bookstore, I just wanted to take a look and see if there was anything I wanted to get for reading material on the plane. I have a couple of books already that I'm planning on reading, and Interweave Knits and Entertainment came in the mail today, so I'll have those also.

Then I came home, and we went back out to the hardware store to buy weatherstripping for the back door--the garage leads into the living room, and cold air comes in around that door, so Bob put weatherstripping around it. And we called our favorite Chinese restaurant and made an order to pick up on the way home. We picked it up, got home and unpacked it, and we were missing part of the order, so had to go back. We were getting so tired by this point, and I would have just forgotten it and chalked it up to experience, but I had ordered only appetizers, so I wouldn't have anything left over, and they hadn't given us any crab rangoon, which was going to be the main part of my meal.

So we put our coats back on and went back out, and got the crab rangoon, plus the owner was apologetic and gave us free eggrolls, so it was almost worth it.

I had jumbo fried shrimp, and crab rangoon, and spring rolls, and it was just enough, just right.

Now it's almost 12:30 a.m. and I'm still doing laundry--par for the course for the night before vacation. We don't leave until mid-afternoon, so I may leave the packing until tomorrow morning. It's probably going to be another hour before the laundry is done. I'm piddling around packing my backpack and tote bag and computer bag, and deciding what sock yarn to take, and being sure I have everything.

Travel is stressful for an obsessive-compulsive type like myself, even though I've done quite a lot of it.

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Good luck

Bob cleaned the oven yesterday. It needed it anyway, but one night last weekend while he was gone I cooked a frozen pizza directly on the rack without a cookie sheet or anything under it, and it dripped cheese onto the bottom of the oven, and it was really bad. He also cooked my dinner--salmon with spinach and cheese--and left it in the refrigerator for me to heat up (he was going to be out last night, attending a basketball game that the daughter of a friend was playing in).

When I got home last night I pulled the fish out of the refrigerator and heated it up in the microwave, and heated up some broccoli, and took my plate into the dining room. He had set a place for me with a placemat and silverware, and there was a four-leaf clover encased in acetate sitting on the placemat.

I thought: he not only cooks me dinner when he's not even home, he cleans the oven, and he goes out and gets me a good luck charm! Or, I thought, maybe his father had it and gave it to him for me--that sounded like something he would do. So when he called me later, I said, "You left me a four-leaf clover!" and he said that he had found it under the kitchen sink when he was getting out cleaning supplies.

So . . . I have no idea.

He said he thought maybe my dad had left it for me there. My dad has worked on the pipes under the sink, but it's been years. I suppose I must have found it years ago and pressed it between the adhesive acetate sheets, but I don't remember it. And why under the sink?? That's the weird one. I don't want to get too fanciful, but somehow it was left there for Bob to find and to leave for me on a day when good luck was something that I desperately needed.

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Willa update

Just a brief update to let everyone know that I am still around, it's just that life is a little overwhelming right now, and the journal is taking a back seat.

I always try to be very careful of what I say here in order to respect the privacy of my friends and family, but I also hate to post something that's light and fluffy, when my life is anything but at the moment. Briefly, my sister is very ill, and she is in intensive care at the moment.

I feel like my cell phone has been bolted to my ear--she lives in Denver, so yesterday evening was spent talking to her husband out there, then talking to my mom (several times) and my brother (twice) and my sister, then Denver again (a couple of times), then Barb in California . . . I think I was on the phone from the time I got into the car yesterday evening and left work until the time I went to bed. Well, that's not entirely true. I finished the last phone call sometime around 10:30, then did some web work, did client billings, paid bills and tried to get a little bit organized in case I needed to go to Denver, and ended up getting to bed about 1:00 a.m., I think.

And! I'm going on vacation Sunday! So work is incredibly stressful, my personal life is incredibly stressful, and I'm feeling bad that I can't just cancel my vacation and be with my family. If it was just me, I probably would, but it's also Bob and his parents, and Barb, and while I would just cancel it if necessary, it probably isn't necessary right now--my other sister and my mom will go out if they feel like they need to this weekend or next week, and if I need to go out when I get back, I'll work it out.

Thank God for Bob and his calming presence. And thank God for free long distance cell phone plans.

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Thankful

Thanksgiving menu:

Roast turkey
Mashed potatoes
Gravy
Baked sweet potatoes
Stuffing
Green (shelly) beans with bacon
Black olives
Cranberry sauce
Yeast rolls
Pumpkin pie
French Silk pie

We had a very traditional Thanksgiving dinner today. My father had eye surgery yesterday, so my parents very understandably didn't want everyone over today; I would have invited them to come to our house, but Daddy couldn't drive yet, of course, and they had planned to just have a very quiet dinner at home (they ended up having my sister and my niece over), so we had our own turkey dinner here.

I called my mom yesterday and got her recipe for stuffing; it turned out fine, but it wasn't as good as hers, of course. Bob cooked the turkey, which turned out beautifully; he mashed the potatoes, too, and made gravy. I cut up the onions and celery for the stuffing, and made vegetable soup while everything was cooking, and afterwards I washed dishes.

We used my Fiestaware dishes, and my grandmother's silver, and had the dozen red roses that Bob bought me for my birthday as the centerpiece.

It's really starting out to be a lovely birthday weekend. We got up fairly early and spent the morning cooking, then ate right at noon. I took a nap in the afternoon, and this evening I watched Wings of Desire, which I had never seen. I bought the DVD a few months ago, but just hadn't gotten around to watching it. I had been talking to David earlier today and he asked me what we were doing tonight; I told him nothing, probably--Bob was going to go to bed early so he could get up before dawn to go hunting tomorrow, so I might watch a DVD . . . I said I was thinking about watching Wings of Desire, and he said that he had it on DVD, too, and why didn't we watch it together?

So that's what we did, with me here, and him in England. We had an iChat window open, and it was very companionable. Bob and I had turkey sandwiches and pie at 7:00, then Bob went to bed.

He's sleeping now (his alarm is going to go off at 1:15!) and I've been trying to do a little picking up, although I'm trying to be very quiet so I don't wake him up. I made him turkey sandwiches to take tomorrow, and he has a cooler full of food for the weekend. He'll be gone until Sunday afternoon, and I don't have to work tomorrow, so I'm planning on having a quiet weekend--sleeping in, if I can, and doing a few fun things. I almost forgot that I'm getting my hair cut on Saturday. Thank goodness I looked at my calendar tonight. I thought I might see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tomorrow night, if the theaters aren't too crowded. That would be a nice birthday weekend thing to do, I think. And of course I'll go out and do a little shopping. Not much, but the day after Thanksgiving is traditionally the first shopping day of the Christmas season.

I need to get Christmas music loaded on the iPod. Barb sent me Brian Wilson's What I Really Want for Christmas CD for my birthday, and Bob gave me an iTunes gift card, and Janel sent me the Love Actually soundtrack, so I have a bunch of wonderful new Christmas music. Oh, and I bought the Il Divo Christmas Collection with my last Amazon commission.

I was reading someone's blog the other day who mentioned that they don't play any Christmas music until Thanksgiving, and then after Thanksgiving that's all they play, starting with the drive home from wherever they spent Thanksgiving, and I thought that sounded like a pretty good tradition, which is why I'll probably spent some time tomorrow loading up the iPod with my thoroughly eclectic Christmas music collection. Jimmy Buffett and Crash Test Dummies and Leon Redbone and Beausolseil . . .

This is the "head" that my folks gave me for my birthday. I gave my mother one for her garden a few years ago, and she decided I needed one, too. I love his expression.

My mom called tonight, and my sisters, and my brother, and one of my nieces. My other niece sent me some Einstein Brothers gift certificates for my birthday, so I'll probably have lunch there tomorrow. Barb sent me some of my favorite Aveeno Stress Relief bath products, and the Brian Wilson CD, and a wonderful pine scented candle in a holder shaped like a Christmas ornament, and a new journal, and a little box that she made herself out of a greeting card.

David sent me The Tarot of the White Cats. (As I type this, I have a black cat lying on my lap with her chin resting on my left wrist; I'm lucky they let me type at all.) This deck is really sweet. The symbology is very close--in some cases identical--to that of the Rider-Waite decks, except with cats!

I was sad that my parents weren't going to have Thanksgiving dinner for everyone this year. It isn't the first time--my mother had surgery a few years ago and we skipped Thanksgiving. I was also feeling guilty that, since they weren't going to host a dinner, I didn't step up to the plate and host it myself. My rationalization is that our house is too small for the whole family, and it is, but that doesn't make me feel any less guilty. So I've been something of a ball of misery the last week or so, although I think I probably hide it well (except from Bob).

That's why we called my mom for her dressing recipe, and why we had the very traditional dinner--Bob wanted to recreate my mom's Thanksgiving dinner for me. I kept trying to tell him that food is really very unimportant, that I would truly have been just as happy with a turkey tv dinner, and he said he knew that, but he was going to make me a real Thanksgiving dinner anyway. I'm glad he didn't listen to me. It was really a terrific day.

I'm very blessed, and very thankful.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at Bob's parents' house last Sunday. I took a few pictures, but they weren't very good--the picture quality was good, but I seemed to catch everyone with their mouths open and their eyes closed. This was really the only good one--our niece Tabatha, who likes to have her picture taken, and who obviously is very photogenic:

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Can't focus

Last night I started reading Charlaine Harris' newest novel, Grave Sight, and couldn't put it down. I finally did put it down, at about midnight, but only because I was yawning so hard I couldn't focus my eyes.

Harris is the author of several other series' that I enjoy--the Sookie Stackhouse "Southern Vampire" series (which I see by Ms. Harris' website may be made into a television series), the Lily Bard "Shakespeare" series, and the Aurora Teagarden librarian mysteries. The Sookie Stackhouse ones are my favorite--Sookie is a waitress at a dive in Louisiana; her sometime boyfriend is a vampire who died around Civil War time, and another close friend is a werewolf. Her boss at the bar is a shapeshifter, too, although his other persona is usually a dog. The books are a lot of fun. They're exactly what I look for, my favorite kind of book--something a little different, a little humorous, something with an "edge" that doesn't take itself too seriously.

When I saw that the new book was coming out, I assumed it was a Sookie Stackhouse mystery, so I was a little disappointed at first to find it was a new series. But I'm really loving it, and I hope she writes a lot more about these characters. The book is called Grave Sight. The protagonist, Harper Connelly, was struck by lightning when she was a teenager, and ever since, she's been able to find the dead. Police departments that have unsolved cases will call her to see if she can find a missing person, assuming that person is dead. She's no good at finding the living.

Her stepbrother Tolliver accompanies her and protects her, and it's the interplay between the two that I found most interesting. Their almost secret language, the glances that say exactly what needs to be said. A really exceptional book, I think. The first chapter is posted at Ms. Harris's website, as is the first chapter of the next (May 2006) Sookie Stackhouse novel, Definitely Dead.

I'm not doing very well on my NaNoWriMo novel this year. I've only got about 12,000 words. I'm going to try to write over the coming long weekend, but I'm pretty sure I won't reach 50,000. Which is okay. I'm not going to beat myself up about it. But I am going to try.

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