Lord and lady of the flies

We've had a fly problem. Tens, dozens of flies, crawling on the windows, hopping around in the kitchen, gathering in my seedlings. "They're coming in from outside," Eric said, having read up on fly life cycles, and suggested we clean out under the back steps. But while this is undoubtedly a good idea, I thought that was unlikely to be the problem. And if it was, weatherstripping and a sweep made more sense. No, I was certain that something had died, probably in the basement, and we would have to find it and get rid of it. And before my mother comes for Maia's birthday in two weeks.

So tonight I said, "I want to figure out where the flies are coming from." In reality it could have been just me who did it...but I didn't want to find a flyblown corpse in my dark basement alone. 

So Eric got his shoes and accompanied me. More flies, dead ones this time, littered one of the back rooms in the basement. (The stairs go down to the laundry room, then curve back to this room, then to the one containing the furnace and the crawl space access.) "Okay," Eric conceded. "The source must be inside if there are this many dead."

We poked through storage boxes, the shrouded baby carrier, the defunct tool bench. "This is a fly graveyard," Eric said, looking at the tiny corpses. "But what killed them all?"

"I would think they starved," I offered. "Only no, wherever they're spawning should be able to feed them."

"Maybe not for long," he said darkly, and tried in vain to turn on a light over the tool bench. (Hey! I've never committed a true unintentional Tom Swifty before.) "Should I get a new bulb?" I offered.

"Yeah," he said, and proceeded to the rearmost back room while I tripped up the stairs to get a bulb. 

I heard a whunk and an "Oh!" and shouted from the top stairs, "What is it?" Then, noticing how loud I was, said, "I'll be down in a minute."

"Okay," he called, as Chloë called for me from her bed. 

"Who is here?" Chloë asked when I poked my head in.

"Nobody. We're moving things in the basement to find where the flies are coming from. So we can clean it out. Nothing to worry about." I removed myself and went back downstairs.

"What is it?" I called when I was back down in the basement and braced to hear "a squirrel must have gotten in..." or something similar.

"The crawl space door was wide open!" 

We'd been in the crawl space earlier in the year to fix the front porch, and evidently never closed it. Now that I think about it, I feel like I remember wondering if we'd closed the door, but never going to look before I forgot. Evidently the flies bred outside in a sheltered place, as flies do, and found the wide-open crawl space door...

"They'd fly through here," Eric said, gesturing at the now hammered-closed door. "They found themselves in darkness. They went toward what light they could find, which was that," gesturing toward a cutout in the wall that led toward the laundry room, "and the ones that were smart..."

"You realize you're talking about flies."

"...The lucky ones made it upstairs."

I looked around as we circled back to the stairs. "So what we should do is wait a couple of weeks and then come down here and clean up all the dead bodies."

"Yep," he said, and we mounted the stairs to get back to the light, and leave the fly graveyard.

Giving it a try

I posted at the baby blog about the frustration I've been feeling lately with housework and hobbies and free time in general. It only touched on the ambivalence on child #2 that I was having in the first trimester and that is coming back now that I'm actively counting weeks until my due date. I'm not sure whether I ought to be discussing that in front of my friends and family. (I guess I don't think here counts. Dunno if anyone reads it.) Also I don't want to give the impression I'm trawling for sympathy or something. A friend wrote to me and offered her services for housework or whatever, which was very sweet but which I don't think I could take her up on (however: if she were willing to entertain Chloë while I worked, that might be different), and Eric expressed concern and wanted to talk about what these projects were that I was stressing out about. (The fact that he had to ask sort of underscores my point, though, I think.)

However, we've been working on laundry and dishes the past few days, and I did some vacuuming tonight despite a very tantrum-y night (Chloë, not me), and having finished my nephew's quilt at last I'm feeling somewhat better about the state of things. Not great, but better. I'm working on the Shoelace rewrite at the moment--or anyway avoiding working on it. I'm at a scene that involves politics, and I haven't actually developed the politics of the region for this world beyond a vague sense of small countries with ever-changing alliances and very few certainties. I think this means I am not writing a good book, or at least that I'm not writing this book well. I've learned a lot these past couple of years about writing, I think, despite the fact that I haven't done much of it. It's been interesting, and useful, if disappointing at times.

In any case, I have some politics to work out, and a scene to write. I'm currently at 34,596 words in draft 2, most of it new. I'm not sure I can get this done before the new baby comes (April 26, or thereabouts), but I'm going to give it my best try.

Knitting like mad, or at least a little eccentric

Workin' on Chloe's sweater. Not because it's gotten cold. Because I just realized we're leaving for Seattle in eight days (Eight! Days!) and I have to have Addie's kitty hat finished by then, because it's for Halloween as part of her costume, and we won't be here after that Wednesday. And the needles I need are the needles Chloe's sweater is on. So. Knitting tonight.

We're going to Seattle because I got great tickets--$700 including taxes and fees for the three of us--and I'm sick of Toledo and my job and I need to get out of this town and this routine. So we're going somewhere I'll hardly have to look after Chloe and can laze about all day, or go sightseeing or shopping, or take over the kitchen and make cookies, just as I like. And where I can see my family. I miss my family. The plan to move out there hasn't been working out. I've been job-hunting diligently, but no bites, not even any false alarms. No nibbles on the house other than one showing. I'm trying not to let it get to me. It would help if the shelf in the bathroom closet wouldn't keep collapsing on me, and if my dresser weren't suddenly, rapidly deforming under the weight of my clothes.

I'm also a little depressed a bout giving up the garden, though I've known that one was coming. With a toddler and a pregnancy, there's simply no way I'll get out there and do what needs doing. This seems ridiculous, until I remember everything else I'm also trying to do.

So, lots of knitting the next several nights. When I'm knitting I want to spin. When I'm spinning I want to read. When I'm reading I want to quilt or garden. When I'm...you get the idea. But I do get things done. I've got to remember that, right?

Resolute

Hello, New Year. Hello, blog. Hello, world. (return 0)

I think I'm ready to come out of hibernation. Or funk, or whatever it is that I've had. Postpartum lost-my-grip-on-my-lifedness. I still haven't finished Chloë's quilt, but I've worked on it, and I've made some things and gotten back to something like my old life, only slower. And full of a cute baby who now sits up, and babbles, and grins like a spreading dawn. And also likes to grab my lower lip while nursing and pull, but never mind that.

I have yet to write my Annual Review for 2009, but I'm hoping to very soon. I'd do it at work, only work has been insane. My coworker left for maternity leave early, and she and I job-share, sort of, so I'm now doing one-and-three-quarters jobs (I can farm out part of it). I think I'm going to be constantly on the brink of disaster until she comes back. But I'm handling the work, so far, and in a way it's nice to be so busy. I feel very useful, and mostly pretty competent (except when I've messed something up, but with this much work it's probably statistically inevitable that that would happen).

Current status: I'm still on writing break. Thinking about breaking it, but I feel like I need to warm up a little first. Also decide whether to go back to Shoelace, or start the something new I've been wanting to do for a few years now. Craft-wise, I need to finish Chloë's quilt (Baby's First Spaceship) and make one for Raegan, my new niece, and then another for a friend of ours due in July. I'd like to finish Chloë's by ConFusion, the weekend after next. We'll see. I also want to try more weaving--I got a little loom and made a project and liked it, but haven't had time to do a second one--and get back to spinning, which I haven't touched for months and want to. Work-wise, I'd like to be in a new job by the end of the year--not because I dislike the one I've got, but because this is the year we're going to do our darnedest to move out to the West Coast. Anyone want to buy a house? We're starting to talk about what needs to happen to the house to get it in selling condition by spring.

I can't promise I'm going to write here any more often than I have been, but I'll try. The more I write, the more I have to say, I've noticed, and I think I've been too quiet. So onward we go. (But now I have to go get the Medela out and then go to bed.)

Grumpy pregnant lady

I was a total grumpy pregnant lady last night, caused partly by wearing maternity clothes to work (they were fairly comfortable physically but not at all psychically. I have issues, I know) and exacerbated by a last-minute all-evening babysitting gig for the eleven-year-old stepsister-in-law for no good reason (and the two-year-old niece for a good reason, but only for a couple of hours and we'd agreed to that earlier) and annoying dogs at the mothers' house. I'm not a dog person anyway, and slobbery tongues and noses all over my pants and hands just as I was finally sitting down to the dinner I had to argue to be allowed to prepare even though everyone else was hungry and wanted what I suggested did not make me any more so.

Ahem. I really am slightly better this morning, though not a lot.

Today Eric has promised to mow the lawn and build a bookcase. I do not actually believe he'll get both of these things done, but I hope to be wrong. We bought three bookcases from Target a couple of weeks ago for the purpose of moving the library out of what'll now be the baby's room while still leaving a couple of small bookcases for the baby's stuff (not to mention her own books--she only has five or six at the moment, aside from the kids' books that I still consider mine, but that will change). Our dream house will have a dedicated library with built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. (And a secret passage.) In the meantime, we're lining the dining room with cheap bookcases. If we ever get them built. There's also a corn syrup slick in the pantry to clean up, and a mouse to poison or track down and shoot, and a whole bunch of other work to be done. Part of my grumpiness last night (and this morning) was also due to the neverending messiness and dirtiness of the kitchen and the house in general. Why are we homeowners? Arrgh.

To be honest, I think I'm disgruntled because I don't think I should have to be the one to work. Or rather, not the only one to work. Not twice in two years. Not when the house isn't any cleaner or better kept than when we were both working. Eric said on the way home from Penguicon that he was wondering whether he shouldn't just stay home with the baby next school year (and maybe teach lab part-time at the university) instead of getting a job. We need to talk more about this--it would be nice if it doesn't drive him crazy and we can afford it, but I wonder if he's really considering it because he's afraid of not finding a job, or of being dismissed a third time if he does--but I'm feeling all kinds of unattractive things when I think about it. I want to be the one to stay home. I didn't have to worry so much about money when I was unmarried. I do all this emotional caretaking already, I don't see why I have to be the sole breadwinner and the household manager too. I want someone to lean on, not someone to support. I'm a woman and a wife and I'm not supposed to have to do everything.

I hate that I feel this way. It's really not that bad; I’m just disgruntled and tired and anxious, and also the baby's hiccups resonate in my bones and I have to go take a glucose test and I still can't eat much cheese so mealtimes are difficult. (Not because I can't cook without cheese, but because our shared meals often involve it, especially in the winter, so if we want to eat something together there's a limited selection to choose from and if we decide to eat separately Eric invariably says he'll just have some chicken nuggets/a ham steak/Testosteroni/a banana and a cookie, and he's lost seven pounds since February so I really want him to eat better than that. And if I suggest making something that I won't eat he protests, like with dinner last night. I'm glad summer's coming, and that we can get to the farmer's market this Saturday.) I'm going to skip the glucose test today--I have no appointment; I just need to show up at the lab sometime this week--and go talk to Eric before I start yelling at him, which I don't want to do. And maybe bake some bread. That might make me feel better.

This week

This week shall be Home Improvement week. We went to Home Depot to kick it off and got a tub refinishing kit, shelves for the craft room (so that the spare bed can go in there instead of in the nursery), new shelves for the bathtub (because the old one was utter garbage), and foam insulation and screening to, along with plaster we already have, patch up the mouse hole. We shall Improve our House, or at least Keep It From Falling to Bits.

We shall also visit hospitals--my doctor would have us go to Toledo Hospital, which would be fine except Eric's mom got all in a lather about Toledo and got Eric worried about it, so we're touring them, and Bay Park, and Flower (though Eric has to call that one because it's far away and has an annoying name and I wanted him to do at least part of the work since I would have been happy to stick with Toledo Hospital, especially since that means being able to stick with my current doctor). And Eric has a bunch of doctor's appointments that all somehow ended up being this week. It shall be a busy week. Maybe it'll be good for us for a change.

Merry things

The weekend was busy with candy-making and cookie-making and hiring my stepsister-in-law to clean the house. (She's 11. She worked about three hours, including helping us with wrapping 220 caramels, and hung around for a few more helping with putting up decorations. I asked what she was going to charge and she hemmed and hawed and settled on $2 an hour. I gave her a twenty and, possibly, apoplexy.) We finally got our tree decorated last night. Next year I will begin the tree-buying process on December 3 or so, so that we can actually get it up by the time I want it (around December 15, which is when we actually bought our tree, but then it didn't go up for almost a week and then Eric was too tired to want to decorate and so on).

We got some good news in the mail: Anthem has overturned the denial of coverage on my HSG, so we won't be losing that $3600 after all. It will take a while for them to process the claims, of course, but then we'll get our money back from the hospital and doctor's office, or maybe apply it toward future service. I'm pleased. I wasn't looking forward to continuing that fight. (I wonder if this is why our insurance is going up next year. In fact I'm losing my very nice 100% coverage plan because my employer decided it was just too expensive to continue. I won't tell them it might be my fault.)

In other good news, the mouse is gone. It was getting bolder: not only taking the peanut butter from the traps without springing the traps, but darting from the pantry to the back entry (where the garbage can and recycling bins are) to under the stove while we were in the kitchen banging things around. Yesterday morning I was in the kitchen and noticed it run from the stove to the entry. Then I saw it creep into my garden tote. So I very slowly opened the back door, picked up the tote, and put it outside. I'd better check it before the weather gets warmer, since a frozen mouse body in my bag is bad enough but a thawed, decomposing one would be much worse and I like that bag.

Today, I'm finishing two socks (one for Mom, one for Dad) and a batch of cookies, and putting some last things away before my parents get here tomorrow. And then I'm on Christmas break. I've been so envious of Eric and his two-week break; it was so hard getting up quietly to go to work today. I only have to do it again tomorrow and then I won't for nearly a week.

When the homeowners are away, the mice will play

We canned apple pie filling a few days ago. It was a total disaster--one of the jars broke in the canner and then when I pulled out the rest they all oozed filling over the counter, so most of it's in the freezer now and I'm trying to decide whether I failed to secure every lid properly or whether I should blame the ClearJel--but it also gave us valuable but annoying information: we have, or had, a mouse. Or mice.

When I opened the drawer to get the quart jars I found a few pellets of what were undeniably mouse droppings in it. I cussed a little and got the jars out to be sterilized, and then I opened other drawers. The one below the jar drawer drew more enthusiastic cussing. It's where I keep the candy-making supplies I got for my wedding shower, and it was practically filled with droppings. We discovered later that the lower shelf of the storage under the counters also had droppings, and the bag of basmati rice had been nibbled and defecated into. (Luckily it wasn't a full bag--we keep most of our rice in a Tupperware container and the bag only held what wouldn't fit.) Eric ran out of Pop-Tarts before we thought he would (we stocked up at a good sale) and I'd swear the mouse/mice got that, too, except we can't find any wrappers.

We intended to get mousetraps yesterday, but went haircutting and Christmas shopping instead. Today I get the mousetraps (and make turnovers from the apple pie filling that's still in the fridge) and maybe some antibacterial spray for the drawers. I'm not sure how much that will help--I also have paint, which might be better--but we do need the space. Even if apple pie filling is out of our reach, we do just fine with pickles and apple butter.

Eric just called to tell me that our water has been shut off. There's a leak on our side, they said. We have to get a plumber. We don't know where this leak is, or whether they'll be able to turn on the water tonight if we do get a plumber in time. We were planning on having a New Year's party, but a party without water will be problematic.

Aside from that, the Christmas break has been lovely. The trip to Seattle was great; we met some online friends, I saw M for the first time in years and Eric met her for the first time ever, we ate lots, we saw family, we delivered presents, it snowed on Christmas for the third time in sixty years; good times all around. I also checked out an apartment rental brochure. Rent isn't too bad. We're thinking Lake City or Bremerton might be good places to try for if we're going to move to the Seattle area rather than Portland (or somewhere in between). Eric says it's starting to feel more familiar, which is a good step. And he enjoyed his two Jamba Juices very much.

When we got back, we exchanged presents with Eric's family, which was a bigger to-do since they like to give lots of presents. I got a rolling pin (good-bye wine bottle rolling pin), knitting needles, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, an "Ove-Glove," the non-indie Regina Spektor CD, and a greenhouse. A plastic greenhouse on wheels. I love it very much. I can't decide what to do with it, though--put it outside now and protect my strawberries and sage with it, or keep it inside for extra seed-starting room in February and March.

I gave Mom her quilt and she loved it, and Eric his astrolabe (from the Michigan Renaissance festival) and he loved that, and we gave Michelle The Daring Book for Girls and she loved that. We made friendship bracelets yesterday for her to give to her best friend. We still have a few presents to give out, but overall I think we've done very well on the gift-giving this year.

I spent an entire day in Seattle making Christmas cookies: honey-lemon cutouts, Christmas bells, gingerbread people, lemon bars, and fudge (well, James actually did that one, from a box kit). I intended to make plain chocolate chip as well, but got tired out. "Jenny always makes cookies like that," Bev commented at some point during the family party, and I was slightly concerned about being so predictable before realizing that was ludicrous since this was Christmas, wherein every little thing you do can become a tradition if you're not careful, and everyone loves the cookies. Mom requested a double batch of the bells, most of which James took home with him; Dad assisted in eliminating the cutouts with imperfect icing; Eric enjoyed making mutant gingerbread people (two heads, a peg leg and hook, a third arm, that kind of thing).

I think I need a different gingerbread recipe for next year, but otherwise I was quite pleased--even more so when Mom gave me the cookie cutters and her old Betty Crocker Cooky Book, which used to belong to Grandma, to take home with me. We're having Christmas here next year--Mom became mostly reconciled over our stay--so I'll be making the cookies here, plus Mom and Dad don't bake really anyway. They didn't even have a full set of measuring cups, and only one enormous mixing bowl.

Today I'm making cranberry-and-orange spiral cookies, for the party if we have water, for the mothers to buy the use of their bathroom if we don't. We're mostly ready for the party except for the water. I think we're ready for the new year, too.

I did astonishingly well this weekend, productivity-wise. I cleaned, baked, did laundry, made ice cream (we've had no ice cream of our own in the house for weeks and weeks! Travesty!), worked in the garden, shopped, ordered Christmas presents, got an oil change, bought antifreeze and de-icer, finally decided the design for Mom's quilt, and got Eric to throw away the cough drop wrappers that seem to follow him everywhere. I feel like I have practically nothing to do this week, though that's exceptionally not true. I've got two knitting projects and one quilting project, more cleaning and cooking for Thanksgiving, and some writing to maybe someday kind of think about doing.

Eric and I were talking about money again this weekend, what we had and what to do with it and what we expect to have in the next few months. We like to do that. We like it, in fact, as I posited on Saturday, more than we would like having the things we would otherwise buy with that money. He agreed. It helps that neither of us is terribly interested in really nice cars or TVs or clothes or whatever, and it probably also helps that we have enough money to be comfortable but not enough to be extravagant. "We indulge a little," he said, and that sounds about right. As I told him, when I went shopping at Meijer I saw plenty of things that I thought would be cute or I'd like to have; I'm not immune to marketing or covetousness; but I almost always say no when I think about buying something. Which is why I came home without a pie server or butter dish or large tea strainer, even though I went out intending to buy them. (Well, in the case of the pie server, it's because I want a pretty one. I can't help it. Now that we have our cool pi pie plate, we're going to be making pies, and I don't want an ugly or plain server to serve them with. And I don't plan to go somewhere I can get a pretty one until after Thanksgiving.)

And then there's my fish bowl experience. When I was in college I often went with my friends X and M to the dollar store on the Ave. We got cheap Christmas candy and mechanical pencils and things like that. One day, I bought a plastic bowl shaped like a fish, for no reason other than I thought it was kind of neat and it was only a dollar. Several months later I sold it at a garage sale for twenty-five cents. I had never used it. That bothered me a lot, and it helped me stop buying useless frivolities (most of the time, anyway...I now own another bowl shaped like a fish, in fact, but it's stoneware and I use it for dipping sauces and I agonized over the $2 purchase until Eric just told me to buy it already). In retrospect, that was the best seventy-five cents I ever lost.

So I'm very glad Eric and I have similar attitudes towards money. Yesterday the mothers came over to look at the ductwork in our house, as they're thinking of putting in central heating and it would require similar ductwork, and we talked about the servant stairs that used to be where the coat closet is now. Apparently they're now being put into new houses again, but for kids rather than servants. One of the mothers said, "If you still have this house when you're making $300,000 a year (??) and having catered parties (???), you should consider putting them back in." The other mother said, "What makes you think they'd keep this house?" Eric said, "Why not? It's a nice house, big and well-made," and I said, "We could pay it off and keep the extra monthly income," and she said, "Do you know how many people your age wouldn't even consider that? They're all about the bigger house, the best everything," and we felt very pleased with ourselves.

Then I went to bed thinking about all the things we'd do to this house if we had the money and were staying. Eric's mom recommended we replace the patio in the back, as it's cracked as badly as our driveway was and slopes toward the house. I had actually thought about getting a quote from McMillan for it, but figured we'd see how the driveway turned out. We discussed putting in pavers ourselves, since Eric should have actual free time next year. We'd only get another year to enjoy it, but it would be good practice and would help with house appeal for when we sell it. And then, if we were really making $300,000 a year, we could put in another half-bath and put better carpet down and improve the master bedroom closet and put in more light switches and clean up the basement...but it's still a good house as it is, and I’m fairly happy with it, and I think the new garden and new driveway and patio are probably good enough.

Marvelous

The vanilla bean ice cream turned out marvelously. We made a good vanilla last year, and I used the same recipe but with a slightly higher cream:milk ratio and with the vanilla seeds simmered in the milk and cream rather than simply adding extract. The butter pecan was surprisingly good, but a little light on the flavor--if we do this again we'll amend Ben & Jerry's recipe. The lemon bar was a flop--too much lemon extract gave it a candy flavor, and the cookies didn't add all that much. And then I made cherry-vanilla using frozen cherries we had spurned for an earlier batch of ice cream, and I think it's pretty good. If it passes the taste committee (the birthday party tonight) I might try cherry-chocolate.

I also drove on our new driveway for the first time last night. So this is what a real driveway feels like! No bumps, no dips, no gentle steering around obstacles. I almost crashed into the back of the garage because I was waiting for the usual dip that tells me I've gone far enough. Marvelous. Maybe not $6803 marvelous, but marvelous nonetheless. I might even take it over ice cream--some ice cream, for some period of time, at least.

We're getting our driveway redone, finally. The price still makes me wince, even more so because we came home last night and found they hadn't laid things out the way we wanted. This was only digging out and laying boards, so we were able to talk to them this morning. Eric did most of the talking, because his family inclines towards belligerence and mine tends towards giving in, and when the contractor tapped on the kitchen door to show us what they'd done in the driveway (one beam is sagging, apparently), he asked for "the mister." That annoys me a bit, but I can let it pass. After all, Eric did most of the talking.

With luck, they'll finish everything today, and tomorrow's rain won't spoil anything. Then we wait ten days, and then we can start driving on it. In the meantime I'll see if I can rescue any of the plants that they've buried or clobbered while digging out the old driveway. I really shouldn't have planted anything there. Oh well...plants are on sale now, and there's always next year. Next year with a smooth driveway, even if it's also with a significantly smaller bank account.

I made potato-cheese casserole last night for dinner. Normally this requires potatoes, cheese, broccoli or green onions or neither or both (broccoli in this case), and cream of onion soup. Last night, I started the potatoes boiling and grated the cheese and then realized that I had no cream of onion soup. So I made my own, of sorts--it was more of a gravy or a roux, but it worked quite well, and it was interesting to see the cumulation of twenty years of watching my mother cook, then assisting, then doing it myself staring up at me from the pan. The casserole tasted fine.

My dad e-mailed me a news item about Rowling declaring that Dumbledore was gay and said he was disappointed in her. I contended it might not have been a political statement, maybe that was just her backstory for him; but I'm afraid of what this means about his own views.

I'm feeling very quietly discontented with my life. Not that this is anything new; but I wonder what it'll take to stop it. Moving? I've been here two years now.

I did pumpkin-carving at the local Metropark yesterday, for the Ghosts of Providence program. I'm also going to be leading lantern tours on Friday. I've never seen the program before, so this should be fun. Afterwards I went to Andersons for produce and another wintergreen plant, and found that they have any number of potted citrus trees. I was tempted by the kumquat or the minneola--but not $60 worth.

I also stopped at a farmer's stand that I've been meaning to stop at every time I go out to the Metropark. All their summer produce is gone, of course; I wish I'd visited earlier. But they had very nice pumpkins and squashes, and lots of apples. I bought a buttercup and an ambercup squash (the latter purely because it's pretty) and I'll have to figure out what to do with them...later, though, as I accidentally nicked one of my four homegrown butternut squash later that night, so I'll be making roasted-squash-and-bean soup tonight.

I'm due to make apple butter and apple cider jelly this week as well...also stock, from the bag of vegetable leavings I've been keeping in the freezer. I wonder how much or how little of this do-it-myself business I'll retain once I have kids.

In Jennifer Housewife news, my floors are shockingly dirty. Also the laundry is going slowly because a three-inch spider has taken up residence just beside the washer, and so I'm either making Eric load and unload the washer or moving very slowly with my eyes fixed on the spider the whole time. I suppose I could ask him to get rid of it, come to think of it, and that would speed things up.

The construction company was supposed to come and fix our driveway last week. But they didn't come and didn't call, so I left a nasty (well, nasty for me) voicemail today, and not long after the owner called to say he was very sorry and they would be out tomorrow. We'll see.

So here's my week's list:

-vacuum
-mop
-make apple butter
-make apple cider jelly
-make stock (broth really, I guess)
-use butternut squash
-finish B's bear
-finish C's glove
-transplant herbs and strawberries

Why is so much of that food-related? I must also take some walks...

I'm tired. Eric had a bit of an emotional breakdown last night, which taxed both of us. But I think he's feeling a bit better now. I shall still keep an eye out for a psychiatrist referral though--I had called the local hospital to inquire a few days ago, because he's been having problems with sleep and depression and was thinking about seeing someone, and the woman who answered asked first "Why isn't he calling?" I didn't get that response when I called to schedule him a dentist appointment. Then she wanted to know his symptoms; then she told me the attending psychiatrists aren't taking new patients and his only option would be a resident's clinic from 9-10:30 Tuesday mornings.

James is home; they put a stent in his pancreatic duct (?) and didn't find anything specific, but the doctor suspects the general trauma and inflammation there were caused by his motorcycle accident a couple of years ago. I'll have to ask my dad whether I should send James some books or not.

I'm watching Michelle tonight, supposedly helping her spin, but after I agreed the mothers started talking about how they would be able to use the free time so I suspect they just wanted a childless evening. I was also asked to watch her tomorrow. To be honest I'm a little irritated by the mothers' assumption that we're constantly available for free babysitting. (Maybe they'll get Eric his expensive widescreen computer monitor and I'll forgive them.)

We're finally, finally, at last getting the driveway fixed, in two weeks. I have to move plants and reconcile myself to parking on the street. I will be so extremely happy to have a real driveway to park on this winter, though; for that I'd move ten times as many plants (or leave them to die, either way).

I do not think I will be posting here any more frequently than I have been. It may be time to give up a general-topic blog; I don't know. Or maybe it's just that I'm tired. I will be giving up crafts as a major hobby after the holiday work is done; I'll keep a project or two going, but nothing with a real deadline, so that I can concentrate on other things: writing and gardening and career and that sort of thing. Sorting myself out. You'd think there wouldn't be much to sort, and there isn't--maybe that's the problem. But clearing both my schedule and my head of the additional clutter can only help, right?

Things that grow (and shrink)

Eric asked last night whether I was going to have a gardening blog. I said no, two was probably enough. Now I kind of feel like starting one, of course. And then I’m afraid my current preoccupation with little green things will become very boring, very quickly. But whether I do or no, for now: things are growing! Yesterday morning I checked on the seed trays in my window before work, and decided to add a little water. As I did, I discovered a tiny slender shoot in a corner of an eggplant peat pot. It was so far in the corner, I was afraid it wouldn't have room to grow, so I fetched a plastic spoon and carefully dug a hole in the middle of the pot, then carefully dug up the seedling. I didn't go down deep enough--those roots are long; no longer they take two weeks to come above ground--so I dug the hole in the middle deeper, and disturbed another long root. I replanted the seedling in the new hole and watered it and prayed I hadn't killed my only two seedlings. Last night, the seedling was bigger, and a new one had come up in a different pot. So yes, I may end up with eggplants this summer…if I can keep them alive long enough.

Also two of my saved pepper seeds are pushing little green stalks up, which excites me since I had figured I'd harvested them too green. It's so amazing that seeds grow. Kind of like Eric's sister last night (we visited to play with the baby and see how they were dealing with being home with each other all the time--her husband took two weeks off), saying, "It's so strange to think that I make everything she needs to live and grow."

We met with Paula, the cake-making lady, last night before visiting Eric's sister, and had a great meeting. She loves our idea for the cake, and she's happy to make three or four different flavors for the three or four different cake layers. And she advised us to go with slightly less cake, because not everyone eats it. We met her through Edith. In the car afterwards, I asked Eric, "Are you okay with not having a contract?" He said yes. I said I was a little nervous but I trust Edith, and he said, "A lawyer friend of mine said in a [World of Warcraft] discussion that there are two types of contracts that never go to court. One is the four-hundred-page one with all the ts crossed, and the other is the neighborhood handshake over a backyard fence."

Of course I wouldn't sue Paula if she didn't show up with the cake. She said, "And you can pay me whenever, afterwards if that's easier for you or whatever." I'm figuring on giving her the check when she shows up with the cake. If she didn't, we'd just tell everyone that we'd decided on ice cream instead of cake and pretend we'd planned it that way. And then Edith would never eat at her restaurant again. And that would be sad, because it's good food (and ice cream).

This weekend we will, if all goes as planned (ha!), get three projects out of the way: taxes, invitations, and the trash pile by the driveway. This is the trash pile that the previous owners said they'd move, but didn't. Last summer it grew volunteer tomatoes, so I don't know what they put in there--it's mostly old boards and some paneling and a lot of dead vines. But it's ugly, and it's useless, and I want it gone. I have already secured Eric's consent to help, and if the weather cooperates at all, we'll be out there once he can't stand working on grading anymore (which shouldn't take long). Yay for a prospectively productive weekend, especially since these past couple days I haven't gotten much done at all. Well, that's not true--I've visited people, helped Shel make lemon bars (and thereby make Eric's mom drool), and accomplished a wedding thing. (I also called the ring people. The girl who answered took my information and said someone would call me in a few days. Dunno why.) But this weekend will be more conventionally productive. Especially if I turn out to get a tax refund.

Infested

My parents are coming today! I was thinking yesterday that not many people my age would be this excited about their parents coming to visit, but I'm glad I'm one of them. I pick them up at five. This is another thing fueling my gladness: only three hours of work today! My back has been hurting a lot at work lately (it's that or my hand, depending on how I sit), so this will be good for me.

So I think I've mentioned we have ants. The traps we put out seem to be helping, but the occasional one still runs across the kitchen floor. Last night a particularly insolent one climbed up the counter and ran through my mail. I knocked it off the counter with a pencil (I would have squished it except the idea with the traps is to let them live so they can take the poisoned bait back to the nest) and it ran right towards the counter again. Today I opened up the drawer that we keep plastic wrap and such in and found a squashed ant. "You got what you deserved," I told it as I tossed it into the trash.

Also, there is a cicada in our basement. It whirrs away, except when I go down to do the laundry or stomp on the ground floor. It will drive me nuts before long. I can't find it, of course, because it gets quiet whenever I get close, though I've tried going downstairs very slowly and quietly. I suspect it's somewhere near where the leak in the basement is. The trouble is we don't know where that is either.

Dad has offered to take care of a Daddy-Do list, should I have one, this weekend. Right now I feel bad making them stay here, let alone fixing up the place, but I did write out a list and KILL THE CICADA is on it.