Now, With Updates!

- Dad's surgery went fine, he came back home on Wednesday and walked around grumping about things. So he's good as new, hooray! And most of the parts of his brain are getting adequate blood flow!

- I've got my new house tonight, the house with the little girl who can't talk. It makes me nervous. Dad has a habit (totally understandable but no less freaky for that) of hovering when therapy is going on. Therapy consists of a lot of mimickry of the nonsense sounds she makes, which is kind of on this side of embarassing to do with an audience. She's also very climby, which makes a person tired. I can only sling around a forty pound moving sack of potatoes for about a half an hour at a time without getting too winded to speak. Or mimic nonsense sounds, rather.

- The amount of time I spend driving and money on gas is making me pretty seriously unhappy lately. I want a job I don't have to drive for, with steady and normal hours. They usually don't hire for aides at schools unless it's the beginning of the school year, though, so I've got a wait ahead of me.

- I'm excited to go to a conference for autism at the beginning of May in Appleton. Not the least of which because I'll be getting paid for it.

- Mom is finishing up my taxes as I type. Way to wait until the last second, Mom! Also: Way to bitch about your free and painless tax preparation, Sunny!

Sick-Oh

I am sick. I don't know the exact moment that it happened (mostly because I was sleeping), but I know that I woke up with a pretty wicked cough. A cough is a cough, though, and unless it's of the -ing-up-blood variety, I can usually handle myself at work. So in I went this morning.

After work, I went to Green Bay to figure out my size for the bridesmaid's dress I'm scheduled to wear in August. I'm a size bigger on top than on bottom. Thanks, boobs. You really enjoy making things difficult, don't you?

(Although, I talked to Lisa today and asked her to please tell me I wasn't going to be seen as the fat bridesmaid. No, she says, I will be the bridesmaid with boobs. Score. Also, the dress is somehow slimming, making this perhaps the only flattering bridesmaid dress in the history of marriage.)

After lunch (thanks Lisa!) and wandering around the mall some, I started to feel a little off. When I pulled out of my parking spot, I pulled directly into another parking spot to call my supervisor and call in sick to my second house. I drove home, feeling pretty loopy the whole way, and went directly to bed. I am doubtful about tomorrow, but we'll see. It's not like I can afford too many sick days.

Books

Whale Season: A Novel, by N.M. Keloy: Somehow, miracle of miracles, I stumbled across this book (on tape) at the library today. I have a feeling (bolstered by a review on Amazon comparing Keloy's humor to Terry Pratchett's and Christopher Moore's) I will love it.

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UGH, interruption. Mom is filing my taxes (thank you, Mom) and gah, I wish I knew what I was supposed to be doing in this regard. I am single? But married? I withheld as single, because back when B was working from home as an independant whatever, we were ill-prepared when tax time came and it was terrifying, so I like to tell the government to withhold as much as they possibly can. At times, I have told them to take EXTRA money. I am scared of taxes. I repeat, UGH. I don't like not knowing what I am doing.

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So I do like to be alone, but when I'm alone I end up doing strange things. Today I went to the library and checked out seven books. I will not read seven books in a month. But I can't help myself from checking them out if they look appealing. Sometimes I just like to look through them for an hour or two.

Seven books. Where do I start to read seven books?

Two of my recent borrows are books on feeding birds (makes me feel about seventy), one on yoga, one on reflexology and acupressure (cousin Michelle's speciality, my thought is there might be something useful for the kids I work with), on book on gardening (A Blessing of Toads), and two novels. Jitterbug Perfume is Tom Robbins, which should be nice. I enjoy his style. The other was one I picked up while walking the shelves, it's called All We Know of Heaven and should be interesting. Different.

90% Car

Drove to Milwaukee today.

Drove back today.

Oh, and I did the same thing on Friday.

Weekend? What weekend?

I jest. Despite the driving (partly because of it), I had a fantastic time.

And He Will Use His Thumbs to Make a Space

Hi.

Those posts down there need to stop being up here, so I'm posting something new.

I don't have anything inspiring to say, though, because for this chica, 2008 is sucky so far. Hopefully yours is going better.

Latest thing to suck: work hours cut by about 50% and big chance of benefits ending at the end of January.

Restless

I'm starting at a new house tomorrow. New house, new kid. I'm a little nervous, because one of the girls I trained with used to work at this house, and I think it might be part of the reason she quit. I don't know, all I can do is keep an open mind and help as much as possible and ask the boss if I have any concerns. Shouldn't be too hard, as the boss is a girl I went to school with for 13 years. Actually, I called her tonight on the way home to tell her a story. Today I said to Huck, in all seriousness, "Use your words!"

Yeah, that's a work phrase. Doesn't so much work on the non-verbal.

I'm feeling restless because I don't think I've done much lately. I'm bored with my usual (watch TV alone, go to work, read alone, go to bed alone) and I don't know how to fix it. Or the ways I can think of to fix it aren't appealing right now. The easy way out would be to find someone to spend some time with, maybe even doing the same things I'm already doing, but I can't think of anybody I want to do those things with. And I can't have anybody over, because the house is trashed. But who wants to clean the house? It all seems like so much work. I think I'm falling into a funk. I'm lonely, I guess. People have had this problem for millenia. Maybe I should suck it up.