Update

The Child is making amazing progress in her math at Sylvan. Three weeks ago she could barely do subtraction. Last week, I looked over her addition and subtraction homework and she got the right answer on every question. Last night, we did multiplication flashcards ("times twos" -- out of order) and while she had to think about some of them, she got the right answer each time. Hooray for her!

Work is okay. Busy, but not particularly satisfying. I've been wanting to retreat a lot.

I've been doing some creative writing in the evenings that I'm feeling good about, primarily because I've finally realized this particular sequence really is trying to show me some things about my healing (or lack thereof) around my divorce and other romantic heartbreaks.

Work on the closet continues. We've been slowed by my friend's need to work on his own house on the weekends as well as mine, because he's trying to sell it. Then we had a bit of scope creep at my house, as he ended up patching some areas in my wall, near the floorboards, that were still open after we had done some leak-hunting. I'd forgotten they were there because my bed covered the area. Those are now patched, and the former big hole has been sanded and re-taped to make a neater patch than what the Ex left. There is also the problem of last week: he cut into the ceiling to insert a light in the new alcove, and found wood under the drywall of the ceiling, and didn't have the proper tool to make a controlled-depth cut (not knowing what exactly was behind the wood). So that's going to happen tonight or Thursday. Hopefully I get to paint a week from Saturday. Which means I need to get out and make a decision on my colors. And then buy new closet doors. I really want this project to be complete!

What else. . . ? Met a new friend, femalegamer, at the newly-created heroine_addicts community who allowed me to use this spiffy Mal icon she created. We need more members! I need to get more conversation started over there too.

Starting a new book today: Dreaming the Eagle by Manda Scott, recommended by shewolfsimmram (I think!) It's a novel about Boudicca, and I'm really looking forward to digging into it.

Senior leadership staff meeting this morning, so I'd better close and run.

heroine_addicts! Come over and sign up!

Home and Family

It's hard to put in a more than full day at work and then come home and try to cook dinner.

I realize that that's probably not news to anyone who reads this, but it's a particular source of stress for me. However, tonight I followed the meal plan The Child and I put together on Sunday, and instead of doing drive-through, going back out for a sit-down restaurant meal, or simply throwing a quesadilla on the mini-grill, I dragged out my South Beach Diet cookbook and made Oven-Baked Almond Chicken. (Okay, so I ate a few potato chips to take the edge off first -- but I still cooked dinner.)

The big hitch was that when I was shopping I decided to forgo buying "whole wheat breadcrumbs," because I have plenty of bread at home that can be chopped up. Unfortunately, given my lack of experience in such things, it quickly became clear this evening that what I had produced was more in the way of mini-croutons than "crumbs." So I ended up doing some extra knife chopping, and then simply sinking my hands into the breading mix (also containing ground almonds, some parmesan cheese, oregano, etc.) and making it all as small as I could. Which was unexpectedly fun. And it turned out pretty well. I'm sure it will be better with actual crumbs, but it was good.

And while I was eating my father called. His opening words: "I'd like you to make a pastoral call."

Okay, Dad, you've got my attention.

It turns out that my uncle (his sister's husband) is in the hospital with cancer, a punctured bowel, and general other Not-Good things. He is down to 122 pounds, which is terrifying. Dad wasn't going to ask me to drive out to the hospital (which is an hour or more from where I live) but he did ask that I call my aunt.

That aunt and uncle are not people with whom I'm especially close. They are fairly conservative Christians, and there isn't much to bring us together beyond family holiday celebrations. They are kind people, and have always treated me with respect, even when I've divorced, or taken up with a heterodox Christian group (the Swedenborgian church), but we don't have a lot that we share except love for my dad.

Well, when Dad calls me and appeals with those words, it's hard to say no. But there was no answer at their house, so I left a message for my aunt, invited her to call me if she felt like she wanted to talk, and told them I'd be praying for them.

If anyone else has prayers to spare for my "other" Uncle Fred (my mother's sister's husband Fred died two years ago), they would be welcome.

Fiction

I very rarely post some of my fiction.
If you would like to be on that filter, leave a comment and let me know.