Life's been pretty sweet

Okay, it hasn't been all sweet, by any stretch of the imagination. But the good has mostly outweighed the bad of late. It has been really busy, though, which is no excuse for not blogging, but it's all I've got, so there you go.

My personal life has been kind of all over the place. The divorce drama has not died...it's merely mutated into something less costly in the financial sense, but more frustrating and disheartening than ever. This latest to-do (and no, I'm not going to elaborate in public, but it's probably even worse than what your imagination can conjure) has made me wonder, yet again, how some people can be terrified of marriage because it's a "serious commitment", but will often think nothing of having a child with that person they're too chicken to marry. You want to be stuck dealing with someone for the rest of your life, no matter how much you'd like to never see or think of him again? Have a dang child with him. Marriage is easy to get out of--especially these days. Kids are forever. Oy.

My job is going well. I like almost all the people there, and there's so little of the bullshit that went on at my previous job. It's fewer hours than the breakfast place, and I therefore have less money piling up under the mattress, but I still have plenty to get by, and enough to even exercise a little largess here and there. Likewise, the kids are all right. Steady as we go, onwards and upwards, and all that.

My royalty checks are still nice and big(gish), though they'd be bigger if I had more books out, for sure. Working on that. :)

I've been seeing someone fairly steadily since mid-November. It's been bumpy, but somehow we've managed to hang in there this long. He's...well, he's funny and brilliant and kind and honest and sweet. And a little weird--perhaps just weird enough to appreciate my own particular weirdness. And he's pushing me to write, and I think I need that kind of kick in the pants to launch myself full-on back into the habit at this point. So if I have a new book contract in the next month or so, you'll all know who to thank.

I'm still largely ignoring housework, and most of the writing I've been doing has been in emails to friends rather than fiction, or comments on blogs. I've been trying to stir up enough interest to join in on some discussions going on in the online romance community, but lately there hasn't been much posted around the neighborhood that arouses my passions, so to speak. Anybody feel like posting something outrageous enough that I can't resist jumping in, please do so. I'd appreciate it. :)

So there's the update. Still alive, cautiously optimistic about my life, but still dealing with stuff I'd rather wash my hands of. Gonna try to blog more, if I can think of anything to say that won't bore you all to tears, lol.

Hugs.

Christmas mayhem...

Well, my family, as wonderful as they are, have managed to put a crimp in my typically last-nanosecond (hey, the tree only went up yesterday, haha) preparations for the big event. Because my sister's son and stepsons will be celebrating on Christmas Day with their "other" families (oh, divorce, how you complicate matters), our family celebration--complete with turkey dinner and at least a portion of the gift-unwrapping--will be done Christmas Eve. This means I have ONE DAY to finish all the shopping and wrapping, instead of two. And I work at 5 on the 23rd, wheeeeee! Should be a fun day. :)

I haven't even counted the gifts I've managed to get for each kid (they should each have an equal number of presents under the tree, even if I have to wrap socks and underwear, dammit), so I'm not sure who I even have to buy for in the morning. But I did manage to get a few things I need for myself to wrap and put under the tree, so the kids won't feel I've been completely left out on the big day. (I'm usually ruthless about denying myself material things, but hey, it's freaking Christmas and I could use some nice, 300 thread count, 100% combed Egyptian cotton sheets, so what the heck. Hang the expense.)

This will be my first Christmas here in Edmonton in over a decade, and I can't freaking wait. But as much as I like having family around, the weather has been brutal. I think temps have averaged out at about -15C for the last six weeks or so, and my car is covered in crud and salt from the roads. Lugging stuff in from the car to the house leaves me hypothermic, my fingers stinging from the cold, even through gloves. Lugging it back to the car, all wrapped and nice, just to lug it into my parents' condo won't be fun, either. But it will be worth it. :)

Frankly, a turkey dinner cooked by someone else, with the dishes going into someone else's dishwasher? I can't even imagine what that's like. And we're having ham at my sister's on Christmas Day, too, even if we'll be three kids short. Two evenings of wine and comfort food, family and Christmas spirit, and no mess in my house...that's freaking priceless.

Next year is soon enough for me to have everyone over to my house. I still have renoes to finish in order to make this place liveable (oy), and I'll hopefully be in a better position to dictate days off with my employer by then. And maybe next year I won't leave everything to the last possible moment, too. But I don't think so, lol.

busy busy busy

So I was out all morning yesterday, but my amazing 15-y/o daughter fielded the delivery confirmation call from Leon's, gave the guy directions to the house, reviewed the invoice, and had her older brother sign for the bunk beds that arrived while I wasn't here. (Yet somehow she can't manage to throw her granola bar wrappers in the trash, even when the trash can is 4 inches from the table where she's left the pile of wrappers. Hmmm.....)

So now I will spend my day moving furniture, lugging the rest of the scrap from the wet bar out onto the back patio (to be carted away in the spring when the condo board brings back the "big bin"), and putting the boys' bed together. And working at 5, as usual.

Also spent my morning sorting out my money, trying to figure out how to juggle bills and stuff from my 4 bank accounts at 3 different banks (necessary, between rental income, debt payment and my US income, but annoying and a little confusing to keep track of, all the same).

My daughter's computer finally died the other day, so now I not only need a new one for my oldest (his planned x-mas gift, to replace the one he's outgrown), I need to look into a laptop for her if I ever want to get 5 minutes on my own computer again. So Christmas will be a little more pricey than I'd thought--but still essentially workable.

My sofa looks awesome, and I managed to fit it into the available space without having to rearrange everything in the room, which is cool. And it had a little bit of damage on the upholstery, so I called and they gave me a 15% discount on it--preferable to having another one delivered, and then having my kids end up doing the same amount of damage in the space of a week, no? Nicest thing about it is the lack of squabbling over couch space, though I'm sure they'll find something else to pick at each other about soon enough, lol.

Now that the wet bar is out of the way, the amount of space downstairs is HUGE. At least compared to what it was. The old sofa should fit there perfectly, and I'm planning a built-in computer desk that will serve all the kids. It should be a nice place for them to hang out when it's done (drywalled and painted)--less like a squat in a condemned building and more like an actual, you know, room. And finishing it will up the value of my sister's place, which will make me feel better about her giving me a break on the rent.

I'm getting lots of shifts at work--more than I really want or need--but at the same time, I do need to get a pot together for Christmas, so I'm letting that slide a bit. It's going to be busy over the next few weeks, but I'll manage. :)

getting settled...

Well, it's official, and I can now come right out and announce to you all that I've moved from the dismal, depressing rainforests of coastal BC to the alternately frigid and scorching wastelands of central Alberta. Despite the vagaries of the climate here (mosquitoes, how I loathe you), and the fact that I now have to contend with actual traffic (where I was before, well, we didn't even have a four-way stop sign in town, and if there was a single car within sight on the highway, I was cursing about having to deal with jerks who don't know how to drive), I am so very pleased with the move, because:

1) my parents are here, and they're the most pitch-inny parents ever. They help with the kids, with the housework, with the shopping, with lugging heavy stuff, with reminding me to do important things (I'm a chronic forgetter). They offer to take the kids places like McDonalds or the mall. If I need someone to stay overnight with them, or pick them up from school because I'm delayed at work, well, all I need to do is phone. I have promised myself I will not abuse this privilege, but it's soooooo tempting. Plus, they love me and they're nice to me and they're the kind of parents you can actually talk to about stuff without feeling judged. Mom and dad, you are totally, totally blammo.

2) my sister is here. I don't see her as often as I see my parents, because she has her own blended family to take care of, but the two of us installed a new toilet in the downstairs bathroom the other day and it went perfectly. Go team! I'm renting a townhouse she owns, and she's letting me have it at a huge discount to help me out, because that's what sisters do. And it's just really nice to be able to hang with her and talk to her about...sister things. Sis, you're some serious awesome.

3) I'll get to see my other sister (and her awesome hubby and kids) more often. They live way the eff across the country, but they certainly come out here more often than they ever managed to make their way to the sopping, isolated reaches of Middleofnowhereland, BC. She's also totally blammo, IMO, but I expect she knows that, lol. Can't wait to see her!

4) Sunday family dinners. I often hear people bemoaning such obligations as the big weekly or monthly family get-together, and sure, my own family is far from perfect. But after 16 years away from "home", I now revel in the assorted kookiness (my uncle still asks me what I learned in school today when I walk in the door, heh) that is my extended family. In a couple of months, I hope to have my house sorted out enough to host a dinner of my own, yay!

5) my kids get to go to schools that offer things like actual computer graphics courses (with computers that run more recent versions of Windows than 98), IB programs, and advance placement. When they're done high school, they might even get to go to college, too, because there are several within public transit distance--had we stayed where we were, they'd have had to live on campus, which we'd never be able to afford.

6) there is fast food. One of my friends from back in Middleofnowhereland, BC told me once, "I would kill a thousand cows for one bucket of KFC," and well...yeah. But now I don't have to kill any cows, or drive two hours to get my fix of the Colonel's eleven herbs and spices, or the drugs he puts in it to make you "crave it fortnightly"*. I can just drive three minutes and I'm elbows-deep in a bucket of original recipe, yay! And if I have pizza delivered, it doesn't cost me the shirt on my back, either.

7) there is work. Oh, there is lots of it. And it's lucrative. Even when business is slow, I'm earning what I earned on a typical "good night" at my old job. When it's busy? Double that. Or triple it. And if, heaven forefend, I decide I don't like this job? There's another one just down the block.

8) there are big box stores. Walmart, Canadian Tire, Home Depot, Superstore, OMG Ikea. And freaking Costco. There are two Costcos I can shop at--one five minutes away from my home, and another just a few blocks from work. And malls with actual clothing stores, not just those crappy discount chains or the ubiquitous small town boutique where a pair of jeans will cost you your firstborn son.

9) dating options. In an isolated town of only 3000, well, the women hang onto their men because they know 99% of the local single guys of an appropriate age are likely gay (closeted or not), players, assholes, or weirdoes with more guns and dogs than teeth. Here, there are lots of single men, hence lots of women who think the grass is greener and ditch the good ones because they slurp their soup, or won't buy them a new flatscreen TV, or don't earn $100k/year or whatever. And yeah, I'm sure there are plenty of closeted gays, assholes, players and weirdoes, but hey, at least the pool is bigger.

10) I get to wear sunglasses. In fact, I have to wear sunglasses, because there is this thing in the sky (maybe you've heard of it? It's big and yellow and I've been told not to look directly at it) and it comes out more than every 15 days or so. Even in the winter!

11) no provincial sales tax (or more recently, the dreaded and much-maligned "BC Harmonized Sales Tax"). This makes everything from gas to shoes to light bulbs cheaper than they are where I used to live. And the fact that I'm now in an urban area instead of way the heck in the sticks, well, I didn't quite realize how much more we paid for things like milk and bread just because we lived so far from anywhere big. My grocery bills will likely be $2-300/month less just because of the move.

12) competition. From gas stations to cable/phone/internet providors to food stores to restaurants to schools, there are no monopolies here. That means better service for less money in almost every instance.

Yeah, it was hard saying goodbye to my friends (because they're some of the best people ever), and I was even saddened at the thought of never going back to sling chow mein at my old job (as thankless and frustrating as it often was). There were things about living in a small town that I absolutely adored. But I'm still so freaking happy with this move, and the kids seem to be settling in fine. There are things they miss about their old home, but there are things they love about where we are now, too, and the adjustment has gone even smoother than I could have hoped.

I just long for the day when the novelty of the escalator at the mall eventually wears off. I feel kind of like a tool taking Blammo up and down that thing several times just for fun whenever we go, even if I secretly find it kind of fun myself...

*from "So I Married an Axe Murderer", and still one of my favorite lines from any Mike Meyers movie. It's funny because it's true.

Two bedrooms (sort of) down....

Wahoo! The master bedroom is finished. And I mean finished--not one more thing left to do in there. Despite some difficulty getting the queen boxspring upstairs (we had to take it outside, around back of the house, and haul it up onto the balcony and in through the balcony doors because our inside stairway has an inconvenient bend in it, grr...), the bed's now in there, plus two nice antiquey dressers, an old steamer trunk of my grandmother's for a night table, and a lovely bench for the foot of the bed. Blammo will bunk with me on a little mat on the floor until we move, and when it's time to show the house his blankets will go in my bench, and the mat will go in the closet.

Other than a handful of pink stains that won't go away, the carpet looks nice. It didn't smell too great in there at first--after sitting wet for a week, well, there was a swamp-like redolence even after it had mostly dried--but I bought some baking soda carpet stuff and it stinks real pretty now (overpowering wildflowers, oy, but better than the reek of a bog in early spring).

The downstairs bedroom ceiling is now repaired. We'd been suffering from drippy ceiling-butthole syndrome from a leak in the tub drain upstairs, and I had to cut a piece out so the plumber could work. I managed to apply spackle in roughly the same pattern as the godawful popcorn on the rest of the ceiling, and now we just need to paint it all. The walls are done, the furniture's in, and I've even stuck a stereo in there so it looks like a typical teenager's room (only without any posters of Megan Fox or Marilyn Manson or whoever, because the kid who puts even one hole in any of these walls is the kid who will find himself gruesomely murdered by multiple thumbtack stab-wounds and then buried under the astilbes in the yard).

The hole in my daughter's bedroom wall is now mostly fixed (one more pass with sandpaper and drywall compound and no one will ever suspect that the plumber broke half the pipes while trying to replace the tub faucet), and tomorrow we start sanding and priming over the big, colorful flowers she and I painted on her walls a few years back.

In addition, my mom spent much of today weeding my mess of a garden. Due to the lack of an actual "winter" here, the weeds grow year-round, and every spring you have to break the land from a wilderness state like a bloody pilgrim. She got maybe half of the job done during the five hours of sun we had this morning and early afternoon (we're back to rain again now, and for the next week, according to the Weather Channel).

Dad drove out onto a logging road to dump the yard waste (not the bags, though, of course), and tomorrow we'll borrow my friend's truck to haul all the recycling and old carpet and broken hoses and crappy old furniture and dry garbage that was cluttering up the carport to the dump/recycling depot.

Next on the agenda: finding curtain tracks for the closets (I'm not spending a fortune on doors for the kids' closets), and then hemming the $6 queen size sheets I bought into curtains for them. I also have to call the local guy who owns the little baby back-hoe that will fit through my gate, so he can deal with the drainage problem in the backyard, and send my papers into the nearest EI branch so they can start processing my claim.

Oh, and call my lawyer to find out what the eff is going on with the clusterfuck that is my divorce negotiation. Busy busy busy...

argh...

Okay, the little, teeny-tiny cracks forming in the paint on my bedroom walls? Well, they were everywhere, scattered patches of little hairline cracks all over the place. So I tried touching them up, and nope. Still there. Shitty, crappy, cheap builder's paint--three damn coats to cover the blue in the room, and then it's all for nothing anyway.

So today I went and bought a 5 gallon bucket of Sico paint (hang the expense), tinted to a really nice buff off-white. I primed over the worst patches, and then threw one coat of the new stuff on and yay! Looks damn fine. Just one more wall to do tomorrow, and then I can shampoo the carpet and start moving my furniture in there (it's the master, but Firstborn and Blammo were sharing it). Then, while there's no furniture in the downstairs bedroom, I'll patch the ceiling, paint that sucker, and then finish the walls.

I'm going to grab one of my daughter's dressers to put in the master bedroom, move her computer and desk downstairs, and then I'll have enough free space to paint in her room too. Then the stairwell, kitchen, living room and bathroom (including the bathroom ceiling).

Then I have closet doors to install, baseboards to nail in, tiles to grout, light fixtures to change, laminate flooring to trim out, toilet seats to replace...

Oy. Every time I think I'm almost done, I realize how much I have left to do. Bloody hell.

And I haven't even begun to think about dealing with the yard--which is in an advanced state of "naturalization" and if something isn't done about the drainage problem soon the government will declare it a protected bogland and I'll be screwed. Where's a big strong man with a back-hoe when you need him?

Think I'll leave the gardening to my mom when she comes. She lurrrrrves weeding. Really, she does. It gives her the warm fuzzies. Fresh air and sunshine and back to nature and all that. Honest. And ever since she moved into a condo, she hasn't been able to slake her demented garden-lust. So I'm doing her a favor, really, when you think about it.

And I think my dad has been jonesing to try out that power washer he bought me a couple years ago. 3000 psi? Subaru engine? A nozzle that can cut through solid granite? Boo-yah! Gotta keep an eye on him, though, or he'll start taking pot-shots at passing teenagers just for giggles. Not that I'd mind...dang whippersnappers always throwing their Slushie cups and Red Bull cans on my lawn.

Yup. Busy as heck and stressed out of my mind, but at least I'm accomplishing things. I'll post pictures as the rooms get done, just so you all can see how awesome I am.

Getting busy...

Not writing, so much, though I have been trying to find an hour or two every day to devote to finishing my many stalled WIPs. We'll see how that works out, heh. My editor hasn't heard from me in so long, she's probably gone through all seven stages of loss and accepted I'm gone for good. I can imagine seeing something from me in her inbox at this point would be as likely to induce severe myocardial infarction as pleasant surprise.

Mostly I've been trying to get my house in order--cleaning, washing walls, patching drywall, painting, getting the plumbing sorted out (the guys who built this place were clearly stoned, and according to my plumber, not overly concerned with legalities, either), getting ready to fork over some serious cash to deal with the drainage problems in the backyard, and summoning the will to trim out my laminate floor and grout my tiles.

In a week or two when the weather turns, I'll call my parents (otherwise known as the Fifth Elite Domestic Viking Brigade) in to help me haul a shit-ton of stuff to the dump and thrift store, get the lawn, flower beds and rock walls looking nice, and help my kids prioritize their belongings into two piles: 1) can't bear to part with this, and 2) pitch that shit in the dumpster.

Then it's time to stage the place and hopefully unload it before BC's Harmonized Sales Tax (11% on house sales and realtor commissions? yikes!) and new mortgage regulations for first time buyers (possible 20% down payment? double yikes!) get together in an orgy of fiduciary devastation and send property values plummeting.

So no, I won't be around the internets much, either here or elsewhere. Not that that isn't much of a change from the status quo, mind you. It's just that instead of moping, obsessing and contemplating the gruesome demise of the men in my life (except for my plumber, who has proved himself both useful and not a turd-ass), I'll be actually doing something constructive.

And if any of you all know how to slap paint on a wall or use a nail-set, you're welcome to come over and help me out. I have beer and sandwiches. :)

I got everything I wanted!

Okay, so I didn't want much, but well, that's the way I roll. Call me what you will--minimalist, frugal, a cheap date--it just doesn't take a whole lot to make me happy. Some time off work, the love of friends and family, the sight of three kids exhausted from an unbridled orgy of unwrapping, the smell of a turkey roasting, a few pairs of jeans with an inseam that won't leave me looking like I'm waiting for a flood....

Okay, so I really wanted complete peace in my house for 24 hours and didn't get it. What parent of more than one child does? And so I really wished I could be with all the people I love more than anything. What child of wonderful parents doesn't? But all in all, a good Christmas morning, with prospects for a great Christmas night. Hell, even the dog is in the spirit--I cooked a prime rib a couple nights ago, and she's gnawing on a meaty bone as I write this. The kids are up to their armpits in loot, and I'm two ounces into my first glass of wine of the day. My friend and her little boy and his daddy are due to arrive in just a few hours, and we all plan to gorge ourselves on the traditional seasonal victuals.

The stress of a couple days ago? Gone. This doesn't mean I got everything on my list done, mind you. But the deadline has come and gone, and I'm not about to sweat it anymore. It's freaking Christmas.

A merry one to you all! :)

Excuse me while I...

...indulge in a much needed, quasi-public panic attack.

My ability to delude myself into believing Christmas was still days and days away, still plenty of time, don't sweat it, it will all get done? Well, it abandoned me at about 8:30 last night. I suppose it had to happen sometime. I mean, I may have some mad denial skillz, but time and Santa wait for no man (or dirty book writing procrastinator). And right now, the fat man's red-velvet covered butt is about to squash me but good.

Still to do:

Wrap about 40 presents. Separate the stocking stuffers into piles.

Purchase two more presents (OMG, how could I have thought I was actually DONE?)

Buy a turkey with my IGA Turkey Bucks, plus potatoes, a loaf of good bread, veggies

Dig up my cattle prod and make my kids clean and toddler-proof the family room so my friend's half-demon hellspawn will be unable to blow up the house Christmas Day

Locate my HazMat suit and clean the upstairs bathroom

Work my last shift until the New Year

Get bank stuff in the mail to my lawyer

Bake a couple loaves of Christmas bread (optional, but if I don't, boy will my best friend be annoyed when she shows up with my bottle of homemade Irish cream and I have nothing to give her)

Swallow half a bottle of Tylenol with codeine so my head doesn't go all explody

Find SOMEPLACE in my cluttered little house to stow 60 bottles of wine

Drink 30 bottles of wine to make room

Yup. There are benefits to being a last minute kind of person, but right now I'm having a hard time remembering what they are. Still, it wouldn't be the holidays if I wasn't curled up into a ball in the corner, shivering and sweating and screaming "I want my mom!" and praying for it to just be over. I hope when the men in white coats come for me, they'll be gentle. It is the holidays, after all, and we could all use a little good will this time of year...

AWOL

Okay, just a small update for you all. I've been kind of incommunicado these days. I have a shit-ton of stuff to deal with, most of it less than pleasant, and haven't had the energy or the right mind-set for writing or blogging or even having long, convoluted email conversations with my online friends.

But, never fear. None of this is anything that a battalion of family law attorneys, a couple cases of beer judiciously applied and some primal scream therapy can't fix.

On the bright side--just so I don't close on a down note--I got my hair cut and it looks totally blammo. :P

Holding Pattern

Yup, that's my life these days. I'm...not in a funk, precisely, but I am feeling very introspective these days. I have a birthday coming up on Saturday (39--OMG, I'm staring down the gaping maw of 40, holy hell), I'm trying not very successfully to wrangle my ex to sit down with me and negotiate our divorce, Christmas and New Year's is coming, so it's kind of a weird time. A time for navel-gazing and figuring things out--what I want for me and the kids, how to get there, all that crap.

Of course, that means I haven't been around much at all--not in any of my usual haunts on these here intertubes. I have been lurking a bit, but not posting much at all. Haven't been doing much at all in the real world either (other than surviving 10 days of my kids having swine flu and various personal irritations like postage mix-ups and fixing scratches in my laminate flooring with a brown pencil crayon and stuff).

In other news, my van is making a horrible noise that three mechanics have told me is likely the flex plate for the torque convertor. For all of you mechanically uninclined folks, that most likely means a $100 part and $800 labor. In other words, they have to pull either the engine or the transmission to replace one little part. But one of the delights of living in a small, close-knit community is that people don't like to see people like me get the shaft. An acquaintance has offered to do the work for free, because I'm a single mom and he knows my finances are tight. So I'm going to bake him a couple of authentic Danish Kringles and dedicate a story to him, and talk him up to everyone in town. I think I almost cried when he offered to do it, and it just makes me feel so good to be living in a place like this.

In other other news, my buddy's trailer is being repoed. Not the bad news you might assume. She doesn't own it anymore but her name can't be removed from the mortgage, so a repo means she can start rebuilding her credit that much sooner. On top of that, as a thank you to me for all the help I've given her in her recent troubles, she gave me her kitchen appliances. We swapped out my 30 year old fridge and stove for her 5 year old ones (and OMG, her oven is a conventional/convection combo--and it's self-cleaning!), and for the first time in my entire life I have a dishwasher. I put it through its inaugural run tonight, and I am so freaking stoked. The Saell family rockets into the 1970s! Yay!

On the not so bright side, my muse is silent. I have three WIPs on the go and none of them are calling me. I was thinking of doing a short erotica piece to get my groove back, so we'll see. I need to write something to dedicate to my philanthropic mechanic. :)

Okay, when I disappear, I really disappear

Yes, it has been a while. More than two weeks, in fact, since I last blogged.

Can't say I even have a good excuse. I've been putzing around the net, lurking but not commenting, ignoring my writing, not doing much housework, just generally being a bum. I think it's likely the weather getting to me as it always does when the days finally start getting dark and short.

In addition, H1N1 has hit my house. My oldest came down with a fever, aches, joint stiffness and a cough on Wednesday, my daughter--always prone to extreme gastrointestinal distress--started bazooka barfing on Saturday morning, and Blammo got me up at 4 Monday morning with vomiting and headache. He had a nasty, phlegmy cough that made him sound like Tom Waits, a fever of 102 and a stuffy nose when we got up this morning. I took the day off work so I can keep a close eye on him. Unfortunately, whenever I give him enough Tylenol to bring his fever down and dampen the headache, he stops acting sick and starts acting like a regular, hyper kid who's cooped up indoors. Oy.

So far I have not succumbed, but usually once Blammo gets something, I'm next. I'll update in a day or two to let you know.

Good news is, it seems to be mild in all three cases. Firstborn was back to school yesterday--he still had a bit of a gucky throat, but wasn't even coughing anymore. Daughter is perfectly functional, but still symptomatic enough that I'll keep her home one more day. And Blammo is possibly the least miserable sick kid in the universe. No lying around and moaning for him. A shame, really. There's nothing like a mean virus to take the edge off a kid.

I am hoping to buckle down and get some real work done soon. I've just been...sorting out some stuff in my head, and I think I've mostly figured it out. Word meters should be maxing out fairly soon.

I know, famous last words... :P

So, it's been a while...

...and just so you all can stop worrying, yes, I'm still alive.

I've been in a bit of a holding pattern the last few weeks. School's started, but I'm not back in my groove yet. I managed to bang out about a thousand words on The Mermaid's Curse yesterday (celebrate the little victories, heh), but my house is still a mess. My grass is not cut. My filing is still waiting to be done.

Mostly, I've been indulging my internet addiction. Not blogging so much myself (although I did a couple posts on LVLM if you want to take a look), just misbehaving in other people's houses as it were. My one comfort in that is that the addiction cycles on and off, so I know it won't last much longer. And part of me is happy to just do nothing. After the summer I had, I need to recharge. Just...have some time without anyone needing anything from me. My poor kids. Their mother is running on empty. I'm just glad they're mostly self-sufficient--as long as I keep them in Froot Loops, Mini Wheats, oranges, grapes, frozen pizzas, a couple home-cooked meals a week, and they can find a clean pair of pants in the mountain of unfolded laundry in my room, they're okay.

I've also been sick with the plague for the last several days and took three shifts off work (two of those were extra, so it's not so big a loss, really), and the time alone was...beautiful. I got hardly anything done and don't feel guilty at all.

In other news, my youngest, Blammo, has taken a bizarre interest in vegetables, and has developed the ability to belch on command. Daughter is almost taller than I am and can no longer borrow my shoes because her feet are bigger than mine (which means she'll likely grow up to be an Amazon). Firstborn has apparently discovered an attraction to the opposite sex. I know this because he now showers every day without being asked, asked me to get him some whitening toothpaste, and has started scrubbing his acne. I'm worried.

In other, other news, I received galleys for Chancellor's Bride the other day. It's due out in print in May, yay! Unfortunately, I have nothing to put under the "Coming Soon" heading at the front of the book. :( Which means I really need to get working on my...stuff. Soon.

If any of you all have a whip handy, feel free to ply it. I can take it.

That's it.

Just needed to say...

...something I don't say often enough, but that I think about lot, and never more so than the last couple of months.

Mom? Dad? Thanks.

Thanks for being you guys and not someone else. Thanks for raising me right, for teaching me that people matter more than money, that what you do is more important than what other people think of you. Thanks for showing me what it is to own your mistakes, to have the balls to admit when those mistakes have fucked things up for other people, and to have the decency to try to correct them when you can.

Thanks for being there when I need you, no matter how stupid I've been. Thanks for helping me clean up my shit, even when I have no one but myself to blame for the mess. Thanks for helping me be a better parent to my kids, and a better friend to those who are important to me. Thanks for listening to me bitch, and for telling me to shut up when I've bitched long enough.

Thanks for teaching me that having a clean house is less important than having happy children. Thanks for teaching me that I don't have to put up with anybody's crap, and I shouldn't make other people put up with mine. Thanks for showing me that being happy is more important than having money, but that there ain't nothing wrong with having a little money, either.

Thanks for being an anchor in my life, for encouraging me to be independent enough to stand on my own, but unafraid to ask for help when I need it. Thanks for being proud of me, even though I didn't become a doctor or a lawyer or an architect or a computer programmer because I'd rather write smut and sling hash for a living.

I don't know if I will ever be able to express how lucky I feel to have you guys as parents. All I can say is thanks.

Just thanks.

My sister told me to do it...

...blog, that is.

Being that we live on opposite ends of the second largest country in the world, she stays caught up on all the goings on in my life by reading this here edifying and edumicational blog. Being that I am one of those sneaky, crafty types, I have a tracker on this thing and am proud to say she visits just about every day, and has lamented of late that I don't post enough.

Well guess what? My life, it is boring. So boring I can't even come up with a half-way amusing analogy for how very boring it is.

To prove my point, here's a list of some of the highlights of my day:

1) Went to pee and noticed, to my dismay and chagrin, that an hour in a haz-mat suit with a bucket of bleach was not quite equal to the pervasive smell of "small boy, bad aim" around the toilet. Made a mental note to spend another hour de-peeifying the upstairs bathroom.

2) Answered the door in my jim-jams with sleep-goongas still clinging to my eyelashes to tell the dad of the little girl who is in love with Blammo that she wasn't in my house and I had no idea where she was. A half hour later, still in a state of dishabille, answered door again and repeated said conversation.

3) Cattle-prodded Daughter into washing the first sinkful of dishes. Forgot to cattle-prod Firstborn into doing the rest. Jeez that boy knows how to avoid work...

4) Took Blammo out to buy school supplies and also got shystered into buying a Push-Pop, two Kit-Kat bars to share with the other kids, and a box of Fudgecicles. Managed not to cave in when he wanted a Dragon Webkinz pet. Considered changing his online moniker from "Blammo" to "Iwanna", but deemed it too girlie.

5) Went out to help the little girl who is in love with Blammo get down out of the maple tree in the churchyard across the street.

6) Made trouble online by wagging my opinions in people's faces. Take that!

7) Cooked steak for dinner. Then decided after a couple of bites that I didn't really feel like steak, so filled up on garlic toast and corn on the cob instead.

8) Told the ringing phone to eff off, then answered it anyway. Agreed to send the kids back to their dad's for another overnight visit tomorrow, yay!

9) Told the ringing phone to eff off, then answered it anyway. Told the survey-taker that I'm just the babysitter and therefore not old enough to do his stupid survey. Gave him a better time to call--when I know I won't be home, bwahahaha!

10) Opened the file for Vessel, read it from the beginning, was suitably impressed by my awesomeness but then crapped out on continuing. I'm not quite there yet. Tomorrow afternoon, I think, is soon enough to pick it back up again. Decided to go read some back issues of Dan Savage's sex advice column at Straight.com instead. *Holy crapping damn that dude is funny.

So there you go. An average day off for Kirsten Saell. I tell ya, it's a thrill a minute. For those of you still awake, I solemnly vow not to do another of these posts again. Sis, I think from now on I'll confine myself to posting about barfing kids, gushing scalp wounds, assorted vermin and other crises that make for more riveting reading. But never fear, the season of gigantic, hand-size spiders and Norwalk is almost upon us, so I'll soon have plenty to blog about. :)

*Mom, I don't think you'd appreciate Mr. Savage's sense of humor, or his sense of...anything, really, so don't look. Just don't.

Update, the second

Well, my bud and her hellspaw--I mean, little boy--will be moving out. In a matter of days. I'd do a happy dance, but I'm too exhausted. Plus, I'm saving my strength to help her move, because despite my aversion to lugging heavy objects, I'm prepared to go that extra mile to get rid of h--I mean, help a friend in need.

This means that very soon my muse will rise from the ashes of stress and dirty dishes like some bloated, overweight Pheonix, glutted with scenes I've practically memorized but haven't had the time or a space of calm to put to paper.

This has happened before when things get stressful and busy here, and the ensuing episode of muse-barfing may not be pretty, but often proves to be hugely productive. Expect large jumps in my wordmeters.

In other news, the creepy crawlies of last week are gone. Unfortunately, an infestation of fruit flies has emerged to replace them. I've got a small bowl of rice wine vinegar on my kitchen counter, nearly black with their dead bodies. Also, a few larger ones impaled on bamboo skewers and displayed in prominent places as a warning to others. Too bad the little suckers are too dumb to choose another house to set up camp in, and opt instead to perish by the hundreds in my acrid, culinary pool of death. Die, arthropod scum, DIE!!

Ahh, the joys of summer.

In still more news, my royalty statement from July--which reflects a mere ten days of MBaM sales for The Chancellor's Bride--is almost three times the size of the largest of my previous statements, proving that two guys and a chick really do it for readers. I'll have to think more on this, and see if there are any more m/m/f stories lurking in the dark, evil recesses of my smutwriter's brain.

This does not mean, however, that I plan to abandon the hot girl-on-girl action anytime soon. Setting aside the dubious nature of metaphors that employ seafood and lady parts, I'd rather be a big fish in the small f/f pond than a small one in the vast guy-on-guy ocean. Money's nice, but it ain't everything.

Hugs. :)

All ur head are belong to us!!

So the rotten little girl was at my house when I got home from work Friday night.

Not IN the house, mind you, because she's not allowed. But she was standing outside the downstairs window with a Gamecube controller, playing Smash Bros with my three kids. My buddy (who's living with me until the end of the month) wasn't aware my daughter and her "friend" were playing fast and loose with the letter of the law, but had been wondering why the dog was growling and barking the whole time I was gone (George used to belong to my bud when she lived three houses down from rotten little girl, who made a habit of taunting and harassing the poor thing--the dog absolutley detests her).

This girl is absolutely the worst kind of influence. At only 11 years old, she's already manipulative and sneaky, and her parents just do not keep track of her. She'll knock on your door at 7 AM on a Saturday, and not go home until after 11 at night--and they don't even worry. They don't wonder where she is or what she's doing, or even whether she's eaten. They once phoned at around midnight wondering if I might know where she was. They didn't seem distraught. The mother told me "Oh, I know she's probably just sleeping over at a friend's house." WTF?

And she has lice. Ugh. I have a friend who works at the elementary school. She told me she spent the whole school year having the girl and her sister shower at school (they don't at home), and trying in vain to get rid of the damn things. But without the cooperation of the parents, it's a losing battle. And it's now been six weeks of summer vacation. Six weeks since the last treatment. I can only imagine the level of infestation at this point.

And guess who now has the little bastards crawling around in their hair? My damn kids. There were no nits to speak of (that I could see), but Blammo, especially, is crawling with the little buggers.

So guess how I get to spend my days off? Scrubbing my kids' heads with extra-strength Denorex (apparently salicylic acid works well), and washing all the bedding in hot water. I am overjoyed, as you can probably tell.

I rinsed them all with vinegar tonight, combed through their hair and picked out all the adults I could find. By the time I was done, it was almost midnight.

All I can say is, "Some people's kids..."

Sigh.

update!!!

Okay, due to forest fires in our area creeping close to the power lines that service all of north Vancouver Island, they may be shutting off the power within the hour to minimize the risk to firefighters. It could stay out for as little as six hours, and it could be out for up to four days.

So if no one sees me around for a bit, don't worry too much. I'm just here in my dark house with four horrible children and nothing to entertain them but bickering. Maybe I'll have them fight to the death. Not only will they be entertained, but there will be less of them...

:)

Is it bleeding?

Hehe, there I am enjoying my first coffee of the day, and the front door bangs open. Howling skirls up the stairs as Blammo charges inside and starts wailing "Mom, I hurt myself!" I turn in my chair to see him coming up the stairs, the entire front half of his hair saturated and bright red, blood covering half his face and dripping from his chin and nose.

"What did you do?" I ask as I usher him into the kitchen and grab a tea towel to soak with cold water and press it onto his...whatever is bleeding.

"I slipped at the park," he wails, "and hit my head on a rock!"

My buddy is hopping from one foot to the other, looking panicky, then decides she'll deal with the trail of blood on the floor and stairs.

"You're okay, dude," I tell Blammo, pressing the towel hard onto his head.

"Is it bleeding?" he asks.

The kid is literally covered in blood and he asks if it's bleeding. Um, okaaaay. "Yeah, dude, it's bleeding quite a bit, but it's probably just a little owie. Scalp wounds tend to bleed a lot, even if they're small."

After ten minutes of swabbing and trying to see through his trademark Saell thick hair, I still can't see the wound clearly, so I get him into the bathroom and get a tub running. "Hey, dude, you need to hold the towel so I can get your shirt off." I look at the blood all over his shirt, the size of the neck-hole and the size of his head, and decide, "I'm going to cut it off."

"CUT WHAT OFF??!!" he howls.

"Your shirt, dude," I laugh.

"Oh."

After about five minutes of pouring water over his head, I see an abraded patch about an inch in diameter, and two tiny perforations maybe a millimeter long. Through which, he bled a half a gallon of blood. And it's still seeping a bit. Stupid scalp wounds. But he won't need stitches. He's now playing World of Warcraft with a teatowel pinned turban-style around his crown, with a baggie of frozen corn tucked inside.

And the little bugger has been milking it for all it's worth--"Mom, I want some juice. Mom, I want some Dibbs. Mom, I can't reach my grapes. Mom, can you help me sit up? Mom, I wanted my salami rolled up, not flat." Oy.

Oh well. He's fine, if a bit whiny. But that was my morning. Wheeee!

:)

Ahhhh....

So despite a delay caused by my inability to convince the ferry service to transport my children on a boat full of combustibles and toxic chemicals, I managed to get the little...uh...treasures off to their dad's for a Canada Day that will hopefully be filled with lots of laughs, togetherness and roasted marshmallows, and a minimum of bickering, fire-pit mishaps, and firecracker-mangled body parts.

This means that I....wait for it....HAVE THE HOUSE TO MYSELF FOR TWO AND A HALF DAYS!!111!!!111!

WOOT!

Odd thing is, I hardly know what to do with myself. I've already tidied the living room; got the kitchen mostly in order; went on a quest with my dog-catcher buddy to catch a stray husky (it eluded us, the sneaky devil); collected the laundry from all over the house (literally--there was a pair of dirty socks in the deep freeze. Don't ask); got the garbage ready to go out to the curb tomorrow; walked my dog with her new jabby collar that prevents her from strangling herself while simultaneously crushing the bones of my hands; eaten pizza (frozen, but still not bad); poured myself a Caesar; spent an hour looking at stuff on the internet I wouldn't want my mom to know about; watched some TV; did some editing; and now I'm watching Futurama (the episode with the anchovies) and doing this blog post. And coming to a realization that has shaken me to my very core.

I actually *gasp* miss my kids.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm overjoyed to see the rotten little cubs leave the den to go hang with papa bear for a few days. But it is hard to adjust to the lack of noise, arguing, mayhem and general distraction they create. But I swear, as god is my witness, I will not waste this time alone. I will write. I will fold nine loads of clean clothes and *shudder* put them away. I will vacuum and dust, without having to worry about a pack of young'uns following me around undoing all my good work. I will stay up as late as I want reading dirty books. I will dance around my house in my underpants if the spirit takes me.

Cue bagpipes and a gut-wrenching close-up of Mel Gibson's face as you scream one single, inspiring word with me: FREEDOM!!!

That is all.