Um... those plums that were cooking boiling over on the stove?

BIG mess. Take-the-stove-apart-down-to-its-underwear-and-soak-all-the-juice-up-mess.

Hey, at least my stove is shiny clean.

I am so making pie.

But! On that note - I'd like to just say that over the last two months, I have misplaced about six pounds. Even with a wedding, a two-week holiday, and a BBQ party. And popcorn at the movies.

My two weeks out of town coincided with the peak ripeness on our plum trees. I'm just now getting around to them, and we've basically lost the crop. I pulled of a large bowlful of good plums from both trees, and that's going to be it. Everything else is wrinkled and shriveling away.

I'm only slightly disappointed. It's a lot of work to process those plums. They are quite tart, so must be used for jams or chutneys. They make great-tasting pies, but there's no texture to them. Once you cook them, they're nothing but juice. And of course, all of these uses, require huge amounts of sugar.

Lots of calories, in other words. And one jar of jam or chutney will last us a year or more. We just don't eat them very much.

I've got my small batch cooking boiling over on the stove right now. I'll probably make a chutney out of it and give it away as gifts. Or maybe I'll just go ahead and make that pie for myself. With ice cream....

The days do get away from me. How is it possible I haven't posted anything since the 1st?

My daily log is a thing of beauty and it's nice to see how I spend my days. Does wonders for my self-esteem, even if I haven't made a penny. I'd still like to make a few pennies, though...

Tiny additions have made their ways into both TTJ: Returning and Verdandi. I got some very helpful advice from my writer's group on Returning, which has just about cleared up how to start the book. I'm also figuring out ways to sneak in the infodumps about the previous book. The reader doesn't need to know much about what happened in Shipbuilder, but a little information is necessary. It's always better if this information is - ummm - interesting.

Also, I did one (1!) crit over at OWW.  Now, I'm not a whiz with statistics, but I think that makes me a hundred percent ahead of what I did the week before (and the week before that).

Go me.

We had a quiet holiday, meaning we didn't do anything, 'cept see Transformers. We watched Virtuosity over at Lulu.com, (thanks for the shoutout, Jarucia) and decided we liked it. It'd be nice if it gets picked up and we can see a few seasons of it. We also watched two DS9 episodes. The fun never stops 'round here.

But! Yesterday we did go to a BBQ at a friend's house. Lots of nice people that we only see a couple times a year, and lots of interesting conversation and a few debates. Rick and I especially enjoyed our chat with our friend's neighbor, who has been through many kinds of illnesses and is a strong health advocate for the public. We didn't know whether to cry or argue when she started in on all the local health problems caused by the Chevron refinery. The poor lady had no idea that Rick has worked for a certain company for 34 years.

Not that that means Chevron is totally innocent or anything. But it does give us a wider perspective on things.

We both silently elected to not inform our new friend of the toe she'd stepped on. Rick already knows that everyone in this group (it's my group of friends from my Berkeley days), is A) Liberal, B) Environmentally active, and C) slightly anti-corporation.

Rick is A and B, too, but not C, so much. He wants to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, it was a nice party. We just about closed the place and got home with just enough to time to take out the trash and get to bed at a decent hour.

Today, I'm busy with childbirth education. I have to assemble a database of local resources for pregnant parents. I'm a little curious about how LARGE this has to be, given that I live in an area with a few million people. There are lots of resources around here. I also have more reading to do and will settle back shortly to do some of that. Book reports are due on each book I read for this course.

Yes, I am keeping out of trouble...

 

Kelly Eskridge has an amazing post over at http://www.kelleyeskridge.com/parkour-women/

Looking at these videos, from the viewpoint of a body stiff with arthritis and under-use, I want to tell every young girl to Go For It. But more importantly, to stick with it. I was a gymnast in my high school days. Now it's an effort to climb the stairs.

But I'm determined to use my body more. With the exception of the last two weeks in San Diego, I've been spending some time every day, just dancing. Not fancy dancing. Just movement. Fast, like jigs or salsa, and slow, like ballet, interpretative, or a swaying-kind-of-tai chi. 

But lots of movement. Because the only way to keep arthritis from taking over, is to move against it. 

Last night, I got inspired to start trying something else: squatting. That may not sound like much, but this is something I used to do a million times a day. Without thought, and certainly without pain. I don't know when I stopped doing it, but I know I can't do it anymore.

Squatting is one of the exercises recommended for women planning on a natural childbirth. It keeps you flexible, stretches the thighs and perinium, helps you open up. It's a natural position that most of the world uses for elimination, and it's an excellent position for giving birth. I guess when I stopped having kids, I thought I didn't need to do it anymore. I didn't know how stiff I would become with age. Don't we all think our youth will last forever?

Last night, at my first childbirth class (well, my first in 30 years - I'm observing the classes as part of my own training), the instructor was demonstrating a squat for the women. Now this instructor is easily my age. But she's been teaching these classes for sixteen years, and she never stopped squatting. I nearly shouted in amazement when she did it.

And I thought - maybe I can do it again. 

I'll start slow. But I want to get it back.  

The Onion is at it again. I would only like to point out that I KNOW people who might actually think this makes sense...


Taco Bell's New Green Menu Takes No Ingredients From Nature

Okay. Got the pictures uploaded and one movie burned to a CD. Emailed off another video.

Now.

It's Monday, and it's time for me to start putting my life back together. Inspired by newguydave  and his writing log, I've put together a log of my own to help me keep on track. Not just writing - this log is more like a time sheet, the kind of thing lawyers and other professionals would use to track the time spent on any particular project. While I don't have to be ultra-anal about it, I can use it to track all my tasks, even things like gardening and housework.

Because, ya know, those things just don't get done by themselves.

Because there are only so many hours in a day, and because I keep adding careers to my life, I'm going cut myself some slack and divide up my week. I don't have a solid plan yet, but I'm thinking that three days a week, I will concentrate on doing crits for y'all (yes, I really do plan on getting to those), and preparing queries to send out on my completed novels. I will also spend time writing on those days, although I hope I can do a little of that every day.

Two days a week  will be devoted to the childbirth course and all the prep work for that. This will include attending meetings and touring hospitals.

Now, if I actually get a cooking job, I'll have to give up a day to that. I'm afraid it will have to come out of the writing days. But now that I think about it, I need to allow some time for that business - specifically, advertising, networking, etc. Because I need clients, you see. So this obviously needs more thought, and a little experimentation.

But I find that by charting the time I spend on each project, I tend to concentrate on that project. No dashing off to the 'nets to check the blog. No peeking at my inbox. Those are tasks, and they get done in their own time slot.

Yeah, I know I've accounted for just five days a week. But honestly, my weekends are weekends. I need a break, too, and Rick, who works all week at a real job, likes to do things with me on his days off. Sure, we do yard work on those days, and laundry and all the usual stuff. But nearly all our social stuff is on weekends. I'll do some work if I'm on a deadline, but in general - nada.

It was an exhausting and exciting two weeks, but I'm finally back home. Now I need a vacation!

But it was all worth it. Meet Van:



I think he's adorable. And I miss him, already.

I'm going to spend today getting caught up on my video and picture responsibilities. I'm way behind - we owe people movies of the wedding, and now I have pictures of Van's birth to send out. This is all time-consuming, but if I just get it done, I won't have it hanging over me.

I also need to prepare for my writer's group meeting on Tuesday. And in my never-ending search for something to do that will actually pay me something, I've begun the process of training for a new career. This will be in addition to the cheffing - something else I can do part time, while still allowing me to write.

Natural Childbirth Instructor.

You could say the idea came to me while I studied to help Mary with her labor and delivery, but this is something I've always thought would be cool to do. I certainly have experience at it, both in using it for myself, and in helping other women (my daughters) through it. So I decided to check into it and thus, I have signed up for a teaching workshop in September. But I have lots of preparatory work to do - several books to read and outline, hospital labor & delivery units to tour, La Leche League meetings to attend... oh, and since it's been about thirty years since my last actual "childbirth" class, I have to take THAT course again. The very course I plan on teaching! So that makes a certain amount of sense to me. I start the course on Tuesday - it runs every Tuesday for ten weeks.

I always seem to jump into things that I'm not otherwise involved in. In other words, I don't know anyone in my locale who is involved in natural childbirth or in breastfeeding. I don't even know many people with babies. This means I have to cold call people and introduce myself and in general, just start networking. The class I'm starting on Tuesday should help with that. And I've already shared a few emails with the woman who teaches in my immediate area. I'm not attending her class because she teaches on a day I can't make it, so I'm taking the class from a woman in Oakland. But I want to have a good working relationship with the local teacher, so we're going to meet for lunch one day and get to know each other.

There are lots of childbirth methods - I'm doing the Bradley method. As I mentioned, it's the one I used when I had my kids. All the methods have good points, but I know for sure this one works well. 

If I want to make money, perhaps I should just send out my resume or sign up with a temp agency.  But I'd go crazy with one of those temp receptionist jobs. I do not have the patience to perform well in that kind of situation. I've never been the kind of person who has a job, and does just that job for 40 years. My whole life has been a series of careers and training and more careers. Really disparate things, so that whatever experience I picked up doing one thing never seems to carry over to the next thing. That can be discouraging when applying for work - employers always want to know how what I did "before" fits in with what they need me to do. They don't understand that the whole body of experience proves I can diversify and multi-task, and handle just about anything. So I have hard time getting hired. Which drives me to create my own work.

It can be frustrating, but it's fun to be able to try new things. I would have liked to have had a good job I kept for decades, with a decent salary, retirement funds built up, health insurance, and the prospect of social security payments that are more than a couple of hundred dollars a month. But it didn't happen like that, and in the meantime, I've had lots of varied experience, and the pleasure of constantly learning and developing new skills. 

It's who I am, I guess.

Just a quick update: my daughter and grandson are going home today. Mary's still very weak from blood loss. She received iron intraveneously (I never heard of that being done before). If she doesn't improve enough in a few days, she'll need a blood transfusion. Other than that, everyone seems to be doing pretty well.

Scary days. Rick and I are going to stay here an extra day, then head home. I'll be glad to get back - I've been here nearly two weeks. I haven't any chance to do any critting or even any writing. It's going to take some work to get life back to normal.

But you already knew that.

Baby Van arrived this morning amid complications and concerns. I'll put the details behind the cut, since some of you might not be interested. Suffice it to say, everyone is fine, and I suspect that Van will give his cousin, Joshua, some real competition in the cuteness department.

( Details... )

We are in labor.

But there's no hurrying this child. Mary had consistent contractions all night, and is still having them, but they aren't particularly hard. Frequency has increased a bit.

What's driving her nuts is intense itching. Hands and feet are the worst, but it's all over. It kept her up all night - we were out on the patio at 3:30 a.m., because the cool air relieved her a little bit. I cooked a batch of oatmeal for her to soak her feet in. It helped, but of course, it was just temporary.

Adding to the adventure: the toilet is broken, and the landlord did not get a plumber out right away. So we rigged up a "camping toilet" - a bucket lined with plastic bags, with a little cat litter on the bottom, and a portable seat/lid on top.

Yeah. Not the most relaxing way to spend your time in labor.

Mary was crazy with itching, so we went to the doctor this morning. Doc didn't even examine her - just told her to go straight to the hospital, since "you've been in labor all night and you're probably farther along than you think."

Mary thought this was ridiculous - the contractions were hardly bothering her at all. She just wanted the itching to go away. But we went to the hospital, where they checked her and, no surprise, there's been hardly any progress. She's nowhere near ready to deliver. But they took forever, and none of us had eaten (or slept), and we were starving. So we escaped as soon as we could and went out to breakfast, stuffing ourselves silly and drinking prodigious amounts of coffee.

Since the plumber was now at the house and doing toxic things to the toilet, we elected to walk around a bit along the harbor. That done, we stopped at the store for Benadryl, which the doctor said Mary could take. We just got home and we are all going to nap, even though the plumber has to return in an hour or so. Yeah - the toilet still isn't fixed.

Old house.

Tonight is dinner with Mary's in-laws, and we hope, hope, hope, that later on there will be a baby. Today is my birthday, but I don't think little Van is going to make it - tomorrow is probably the soonest he'll put in his appearance. Darn.

Rick is driving down tomorrow, too. He sang "happy birthday" to me over the phone, the silly guy. I'll be glad to see him!

So I made an Executive Decision the other day, and came on out to San Diego. My daughter is not in labor and there are precious few signs that labor might be imminent. Meaning I'm probably here way too early.

We are, therefore, relabeling this as a "vacation," and a chance for so-rare mother-daughter bonding. And we have plenty to do: they just found out their landlord is selling their rented house (a victim of the mortgage crisis), and they have to move. Soon.

The baby (whose name is Van) probably thinks it's safer to stay where he is. When he's born, he'll have to help pack...

So, Mary and I spent the day looking at rentals. We'll be doing more of that all week. Tomorrow evening, we plan on going to the fair, for lots of walking around, junk food, and maybe a roller coaster or two. All right - we won't put Mary on a roller coaster. But it might get labor started, no?

Or - this weekend is the summer solstice. She can't possibly remain pregnant through that!

Probably everyone who reads my blog also reads Kristin Nelson's, but in case you missed it:

Never install Internet Explorer 8 on your computer.

That's all.

I'll keep it to two:


  My girls


   Grandsons

I'm still here, meaning No Baby Yet. The last of the kids left Sunday morning, at the so-dark hour of 4:00 am. Our house is now back to just us, and I'll be happy with that for a while. Best of all, the housecleaners come today, so I'll be able to have it back in some semblance of decency.

However, the carpet did not survive a month of 2 twentysomethings, 1 three year old, and 2 dogs.

There are spots. More or less everywhere throughout the bottom floor.

So after the cleaning today, I'll be on my hands and knees with a rag and cold water, to see if I can get them out. We've had this carpet for just 7 months, folks. I don't want spots.

But please don't think of me as a grouchy old woman. I'd rather have the kids around. I even like the dogs, in small doses. What I don't want, is carpet. But I'm stuck with it, since we couldn't afford flooring. So I'll just do my best to keep it clean.

Weeding continues to demand at least an hour a day. It could use more, but I think I'd die. I can hardly move after just an hour of it. One of these days, I'll post a picture of my garden. It's not fancy at all, but you know, it looks darn nice sometimes. Lots of trees and bushes and flowers, all set off by the redwood mulch. It's a calming place to be.

Writing continues, too. TTJ: Returning is growing ever-so-slowly larger, as I try to figure out where it's going. There's been a lot of fits and starts - this is not a book where the words just pour out. I already wrote those scenes. This is the part that ties it all together. I think its about 25,000 words right now - should end up around 100k, I suspect. Which means I have lots of thinking to do.

The hectic, weird stuff for the first part of the year is almost... over.

I'm on high alert, waiting for that call from my so-pregnant daughter, but for the moment, life is settling back into a quiet maelstrom. Which hopefully tells you how calm I'm NOT.

All the houseguests have either left for home, or are off visiting other relatives. My step-son and family will be returning tonight, to stay with us the rest of the week. Then they're off to Kansas, where they've rented a house.

The wedding was spectacular - simple, but beautiful. Yes, I cried. And yes, I've posted a picture

( behind the cut )

No writing is going on. I've got menus to prepare for a client, plus I'm trying to get everything ready to fly off to San Diego at a moment's notice. I just remembered (last night about 4:00 am) that I need to pack the camera and camcorder - oh, and be sure to charge up the batteries for both, since they just did full duty at the wedding...

It's things like that. I'm not thinking very clearly or sleeping well. As the time approaches for Mary to give birth, I'm edging up on terrified. It's been a long time since I had my babies. I was present when my oldest grandson was born, but even that was 14 years ago. What if I screw up? What if I give the wrong advice? What if I don't recognize what's happening? I'm really wishing I'd taken those doula classes, and maybe had a chance to observe a delivery.

So I'm reading everything again - all the stuff on childbirth. I MUST be ready.

"Normal" is a word I no longer know the meaning of. Life is more along the lines of Gilda Radner's "It's Always Something."

My poor grandson wiped out on his bike yesterday. There's a rather disturbing picture ( behind the cut. )

The picture actually looks better than reality. He'll be okay, but he needed the attention of a plastic surgeon, and he's got a lot of healing to do. There's also a shoulder injury.

It was a long night, with major problems to come. My daughter had let the health insurance lapse because she couldn't pay the premiums.

Now that's something I wish she'd asked us to help with.

I picked about a quarter cup of blueberries from my bush this morning. There are lots more little green nubs busily turning dark blue. Another bush has a nice bunch growing, too. A third bush is showing promise. The fourth is still empty, but these are all different varieties and they bloom at different rates. So I'm waiting. Oh and my lime tree has many teeny-tiny limes poking out under the dry flower buds.

Isn't that cool?

We're back from Baycon a day early because we have Much To Do. So this entry will be short, and I can't promise to be around much this week. But I will write about our Baycon experience as soon as possible (hopefully before I forget). The short version is: we had a blast, still don't have the hang of collecting ribbons, and we're already signed up for next year.

Two weeks from now, my daughter will have been married for a week, our houseguests will all be on with their own lives, and I MIGHT be able to get back to writing, submitting, and critting full time. But until my other daughter has her baby, I'm on call and will be spending a week or two in San Diego.

Once THAT'S over with, life will return to some semblance of Normal. Whatever Normal turns out to be at that point.

Y'all have a good Memorial Day.

Busy.

That about sums it up for me. Between work (I've had some work - it did't pay much, but it took a long time), houseguests, weeding, playing with my granddaughter, and yes, a little writing - I've hardly had time to think. We went to the zoo today and got caught in typical San Francisco weather - foggy and cold, despite the fact that over on our side of the Bay, it was sunny and nearing 100 degrees. Honestly, usually when it's hot like that here, SF is at least 70.

Not today. We actually had to buy sweatshirts at the zoo, that's how bad it was. And I feel like an idiot, because I KNOW not to go to SF without a very warm wrap.

Oh well.

Back at home, I've just made a lemon meringue pie that will function as a birthday pie for my husband and his son. Their birthdays are two days apart. I think the pie turned out all right, although the crust is a little crumbly.

Baycon - is anyone else going? Rick and I will be there, all decked out in our steampunk regalia. Mercedes Lackey is the guest of honor - perhaps I'll bring a book or two for her to sign. That would be cool.

The Baycon Powers-That-Be have not been able to post a schedule of panels, so I don't know which ones we'll be attending. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to it. We're staying the whole weekend and I hope it's a wild one!