Today will be spent...

...working on the Women Writers January issue. Lots of work to do there. I need to email a bunch of people and get to editing the stuff I do have. I think it may go a little later than my initial plan but with such a loose schedule for the next few months, I think I can get it done anyway. I will actually have free time! Yay!

Andrew's home sick today. Poor thing. He's kind of a wimp when it comes to tummy ailments, and is back in bed after trying to get up. I have the baby monitor on to hear him in case of an urgent need. I hope he just sleeps. :)

Yesterday, while the kiddos & daddy were watching TV, I worked on some scrapbooking. I love doing that and I'm about a year behind on pictures. But it really makes me feel a little crazy all the digital photos I have on my hard drive. I need to find a quick & easy way to back those up. I would be devestated if I lost all of those. I'm thinking an external hard drive would be a good idea.

Here's one of the "spreads" I did yesterday:

Red-Nose and All

I love the Fall-- but this weekend, just last night, I have a cold. Urgh. Runny nose, sore throat, headache, sneezing & coughing. I was kind of okay yesterday (a little cough) but I've been fighting this thing off now for a week. I've bailed on all my tentative things for today and am going to whine and moan at the husband and kiddos for a while.

Whine. Whine. Anyone for some chicken soup? Chamomile tea with honey & lemon? ME! ME! ME!!

Blech: 2 things I hate about today

I feel awful today. I don't know if it was just the weekend road trip or I've just picked up another of the interminable bugs that children drag home to you when they are young. I've sipped some chicken broth & ate a bunch of saltines and drank some water so I feel a little better than I did when I woke up, but I hope that the food doesn't come back to haunt me.

I'm also crazy tired and just want to take a nap.

I spent the morning googling things about the upcoming election and feeling irritated about generally the political climate. I think it's just me, but it seems like it's worse this time than it usually is. More negative rhetoric, less about actual issues.

This time, I'm voting for Hello Kitty.

Succumbing to the Masses

So, today, I popped in to Wally world and came out with the Tinkerbell shoes my daughter has been bugging me to buy her for the last two weeks. She would ask for them with the self-assurance that they were out there (in spite of me not finding them anywhere I had looked) as though she knew I just wasn't APPLYING myself, dammit. :) So ridiculously happy about that purchase, I also fell into a trap zone that I usually do not let myself fall into. What everybody is doing. Yes, here is my guilty lemming following: I bought one of the Stephanie Meyer teen vampire books--Twilight. I've been reading it; it's not too bad. I guess they're doing a movie on this, and I can see why girls (especially) are digging on it. I would have loved it when I was seventeen. A lot.

It's funny, too, (to me) that it takes place in an area that I lived for about four years (the Seattle area).

Anyways. I got stuff to do. But I wanted to blog that I am fine, babies are well again, I am mostly cured (still a little ick but not bad at all). The speech went fine last weekend (I know I haven't really blogged much about it. I don't really have much to say other than it went well.) I'm supposed to be sorting through the dozens of huge containers of baby toys and getting rid of stuff they don't play with. I don't wanna, though. I wish I could afford to pay someone to clean my house for me all the time. Dammit, why am I not a Hilton sister? :)

This book, the teen vamp thing, it qualifies as work. Really. Cause I might have to work it into my dissertation turned into first book. I need a new chapter, and something really current and really really popular would work very well. Anyways.

Maybe a nap. I love summer, but it is going too fast.

Damn Stomach Flu

Please pray for me, or do whatever it is you do to help out charitable cases. I have had sick babies for at least a week now (I think it's actually been longer but who's counting?). I was planning to take them to school this morning, but Maia got sick in the car on the way there. Poor little things. I myself still feel a bit icky, so that makes it twice as hard to deal with the sickies.

Ah well. This is one of those bugs that just holds on and on and on. My only consolation is that the boy (who was the first one to be sick) does seem better today, so perhaps that means we're all about a day away from being better.

Monday

The speech went fine. I'll post it soonish on my Women Writers website. I got a couple of nibbles on future speeches... so that's really nifty. We'll see if any of them pan out. I like doing that sort of thing, and practice always is good. I met a bunch of nice authors, and after lunch, when everyone loosened up a bit, it was kind of fun. The kiddos met Curious George, with Sean "stalking" him around the place for a good ten minutes before working up the courage to give him a hug around the knees. I have some cute pictures; I'll post them soon, too.

But today, it's back to the old grind. AND you know what they never tell you about parenting? How many bugs you catch from your little darlings. I have some kind of tummy bug right now that is really kicking me down. The babies are just fine; either they passed it through with no impact or it hit them more lightly or they were pretty sick last week and didn't appear to be. You never know with kids. But all I want to do is lie on the couch and complain. It reminds me of a quote from the Devil Wears Prada, though. The skinny assistant says "I'm just one stomach flu away from my ideal weight".... I'm not close to an ideal, but it has squeezed a few pinches off of my mom-inspired belly. So that's a silver lining, if I wouldn't gain it all back as soon as I feel like eating again.

Now to go moan on the couch about the injustice of it all. :)

Sick Day

I have a sick baby boy today. Well, actually, he was sick last night; he ran a fever of 102ish all afternoon and then last night. This morning, he's a little clingy/sweet but doesn't have a fever. I myself have a bit of a headache, so it's probable that whatever he has mommy has too in either a milder or its earlier form. So I kept both kids home from school/daycare. We didn't wake up 'til almost 9:00 (daddy left very early for work so we slept in).

So far, both kiddos have been pretty energetic, though. We went outside, weeded the garden, and now they're eating popsicles and watching Flushed Away. OOps. Well, I guess I need to go cause Sean just walked up and I can smell the fruits of his recent efforts. Mommy business calls.