Ladies who bake

Yesterday was the first time in years we've bought sandwich bread. Eric keeps saying that now that he's used to "real" bread, he'll never be able to go back to the storebought "bread" (complete with scare quotes). It's very endearing, if exaggerated, but with him still sick and Chloe too, and me suffering from my sleep loss (Maia gets up to five hours between feedings, but only every once in a while and only right after she goes down for the night, and I never go to bed when she does), I haven't been able to make bread and we had a grocery run and needed something simple for dinner. So Aunt Millie's whole-wheat bread went into the cart and we had grilled cheese sandwiches when we came home. And it turns out I really can tell the difference; there's a slightly odd taste to the storebought bread (which admittedly might be the length of time it's sat in the plastic bag, but might also be the additives) and while it's nice and soft, it doesn't stand up to buttering or grilling the way mine does. Eric's made me promise to make bread this weekend.

I joined a new writing site, Ladies Who Critique, intended to help members find critique partners. I'm not quite actively looking yet, as Shoelace isn't done, but I'm close. I hope. I've reclaimed my lunch hour from my work to-do list and am plodding along. It's really interesting how easy it is to write a scene now, assuming I know what I'm doing in it. I know these characters; I know this world; I know this story. I just haven't happened to write this scene before. After this long, I should know it this well, I suppose. I think that if I do not finish Shoelace by the end of the year, I'm going to stop. It's enough. I'll give it up and start something new. With luck the deadline will spur me on. (Getting away from work clients helps, too.)

A small illness

I wonder how many blog posts/diary entries/letters have begun with "I hate being sick." Or how many have begun with "I wonder how many..." (but let's not go down that recursive road). At any rate, I've had a nasty cold that knocked me out of life other than what was absolutely necessary: feeding Maia, caring for Chloe, going to work because the US sucks for maternity care and I don't have any sick days and we can't afford to lose any of my time. Ahem. I went to bed as soon as Chloe did for several nights running, or tried to; Maia's close to but not yet at the point where we want to start sleep training her (she needs to space out her meals a little longer first) and so if she wouldn't sleep, I couldn't. Theoretically Eric could watch her, but he's got a deadline on the textbook he's writing, and I do want to let him have the evenings child-free when he can since he has them all day. Of course that doesn't, or shouldn't, mean that he goes off duty when I get home, because that would mean I was working all hours while he wasn't, but I can be kind.

I'm still not well, but my body is in cleanup stage: cough winding down, gunk removed not being replaced, hunger starting to come back. I read the other day a description of shingles that ran something like "They don't just give you medicine for the pain, they give you antidepressants to manage your mood" and realized with interest that I'm never depressed when I'm sick. I mean, I'm unhappy about being sick; but I don't have that my life-is-worthless, the-future-is-dread kind of mopeyness. Maybe it's because when I'm sick, the future is bright because in the future I won't be sick. Or that when I'm sick my body shuts down higher-level things like existential angst and focuses on survival, which is wholly appropriate. At any rate, I look forward to being able to afford existential angst.