Darkest Before the Dawn

This is what it's looking like here, the night before Easter:

Lessons Learned

We're on Spring Break here. Which means that most of us are home most of the time, and that's cool. Mostly. With some actual time and resources (i.e., tax refund that came in) on hand, I finally called the dentist. I finally got sick of this aching hole in my upper jaw and thought maybe I could get it fixed this week. Yeah.

Well, since the cavity had been festering for over 2 years while I had no insurance, it's not going to be a quick fix after all. Turns out that it's abscessing and will need a root canal and a crown now. Not to mention a week or 10 days' worth of nasty antibiotics to keep it from getting worse until they can fix it. Oh joy.

I'm not sure we have that much money after all. I am certain it would have been better to spend the $85 or $100 a couple years ago to get the small filling it would have taken to keep this from happening. So the lesson we take away from this week is, don't hesitate to look something ugly in the face as soon as you know it needs it. Because it will only get uglier if you wait. OK, that's also the lesson for the past 6 months, too.

Dashing Through...

... the snow, yes, and a lot of other muck. So much going on lately. So much I want to write about. No time. Cold cold cold. Sick kids, sick husband, sick self. Over and over. Lots of work to do, no money to pay any bills at all. Creditors calling. Maybe help will come in time. Borrowing medicine from the neighbors. Finding out that I'm not crazy after all. Having writers yell at me and bosses praise me. Realizing that I'm actually better off than some people. Feeling guilty about being so miserable. Whatever whatever. Goodnight. More later.

Stepping Out

So The Man and I are going out every week now. For marriage counseling. At the college. With a cute young thing named "HAHnnah" (well, that's how she says it). It might work. Anyone got a babysitter I can borrow?

Midnight Musings

Yes, I am still here. This time of year is always mentally draining for me. I usually stop and review where I've been, where I am and generally whether I'm on the right path.

This past year of course was... hard. Extra hard. And the news from last time didn't help. It represented a little bell ringing from my past life. And a nagging fear that I should have been there. I shouldn't have given up my old career in favor of my family. I could have helped. I should have... maybe.

But then I remember things like the recent escape of a dangerous criminal from a hospital in my former town back east. Apparently it's not uncommon there these days. And there was the sniper a few years ago, same area.

I really thought I had resolved all these second thoughts after 9/11. Eventually. It was another case of "I should have been there... I could have been there..." Then of course, I realized that if I had been there, I could have been dead.

So let's say we're OK where we are. At least I'm alive to be impoverished, crippled and unemployed. And I have some awesome people in my life. And who knows, maybe things will be OK after all.

More later.

Dark Day

I had a few things I was going to post about, but this day has been... well, weird. It's blizzarding here, which is always unnerving. And I've got migraines and other monthly yuckiness, but whatever. I was still recovering from getting almost no sleep last night, and waking up to find the boys had trashed the house with not just one but two science kits before 8 a.m., somehow.

But then I discovered that there's a hole in the world today. And it's anybody's guess what's going to fill it, besides violence and death. I mourn for the passing of a heroic and admirable woman. I hope you can rest in peace, Benazir. I weep for your country...

OK, You've Been Good...

...And I promised I'd give you the answer, so here you go. (Drumroll:) That picture is now about 6 weeks old. It's amazing what you can do with crop and B/W. The cat-eye glasses I wear gave me the idea. I feel like an escapee from the 60's.

As for the guesses-- hee hee. Thanks, guys. Just for comparison, let me say, that photo in my sidebar is me about 15 years ago. This photo was taken on a family trip 20 years ago:

(That's me in the middle; yeah, dig the crazy blue 80's eyeshadow. For Renee: my youngest sister is the one hiding her eyes. The other one is about 3 years older. Twenty years ago, our mom would have been the right age for the mystery photo.)

And finally, this is the original of the picture you've been wondering about:

The Scone clan in all our glory. Hope you all had a marvelous Christmas.

Speaking of Age...

How old do you think this photo is? C'mon, just guess...

Feel free to guess who it is, too. (This offer void for anyone who's seen it before.)

I'll post the right answer later.

Does This Site Make Me Look Old?

A couple nights ago, there was a headline on MSN.com about older women getting breast enhancement surgery. OK, this is not interesting in itself, and I wouldn't even have seen it if I didn't have Hotmail to sign out of. But what leapt out at me was the headline and tagline they used for this article. To wit:

"Bigger Breasts for Boomers?
Women over 40 going in for enhancement..."

Um, excuse me? Let's have a quick history and pop culture lesson, shall we? A) "Boomer" = Baby boomer generation; i.e., the large number of children born to soldiers returning home from World War II (not, I repeat, NOT from Vietnam). B) WWII ran from 1939 (or 41 if you're American) to 1945-ish. So the boomers started being born around 1946. C) "Over 40" these days is someone who was born in 1966 or before. And D) in case anyone still hasn't figured out what the problem is:
1966
- 1946
-------
20 years (that is, a generation)
My *mom* is a Baby Boomer. And while, yes, she is "over 40," she's also over 60 (or will be in a couple weeks).

So what does that make me and other 40-ish types? Check it out on Wikipedia if you don't believe me. There are also other sources out there. Point is, I'm not hallucinating when I remember being in that generation that people still insist is in its 20s. Especially people at MSN. (A search on their site reveals that this article isn't an aberration; the mistake is chronic. I think I'll send them my resume; they seriously need an intelligent editor.)

Punkin Presents

We got two boxes of Christmas presents today. Hooray! It's almost more than Punkin Boy can bear. I've lost count of the times I've heard, "When can we open the presents, Mama?" but it's a lot. Just today. Does anybody here remember the first picture of Pirate Boy I posted, where he was wearing this sweatsuit? My babies are growing up...

And yes, that is a large orange pumpkin there in the background. Our neighbors have a small pumpkin patch, and we've been cooking with the orange stuff a lot lately. I found a good cookie recipe on the 'net the other day, and I think I've finally got the hang of making the bread. Anybody else got a favorite pumpkin recipe?

I mentioned the pumpkin thing to my folks the other day, so in the package we received from them today were all sorts of non-pumpkin baking supplies. Double and triple hooray! I have the best parents ever.

What's Up

Sick again. Don't know whether this has anything to do with the additional foot of snow we got this week, but maybe... Missed writer's group again because of it. They're gonna think I don't love them anymore.

#1 Son is at his first jujitsu exhibition tonight. He's already an orange belt, or is it brown? He's gotten both, I just can't remember which is which. All this as part of the wonderful school we send the kids to. I totally love it.

As I mentioned a while ago, we got a photo taken of our family, enough to send to all our friends and relatives. The photo cost $10; now we can't afford postage. I feel pretty silly. Well, eventually TM will get a job and we'll have some money again. Really. I have to believe it.

Speaking of my dear husband, he interviewed a couple weeks ago for a job that would be absolutely perfect for him-- and would pay twice what he could get around here. (Yeah, it's quite far away, and I don't know how we'd arrange the transportation, but we would. They'd let him telecommute most of the time "once he's settled in" so it would totally be worth it.)

We did take a test drive of a really spiffy new-model SUV recently; the dealership was offering restaurant gift cards. The sales guy was new, so he didn't remember to ask whether we could actually finance a new car before our test drive. Nope, sorry, no income means no sale. Sorry. This is one time when "no" is not the start of the sale.

Don't know what else. I've had a lot on my mind and have mentally composed several posts recently, but I can't remember what about. Maybe it'll come back later. Stay tuned.

Life as We Know It

Yes, I'm still here. And yes, we're still surviving. I suspect my subconscious of hiding things from me; I always have the nagging feeling that I should be worried or upset about something. But we're moving on with our lives, trying our best to keep the love uppermost in our actions and trying not to let our physical and financial circumstances get us down. Mostly we win. So it's all good.

Today's Weather

Y'know, usually our snow season is *ending* right about now.

Huzzah!

The Scone household performs synchronized spoon surgery on the season's last squashes. Shortly to become pumpkin pies, cookies, breads, and possibly a nice set of earmuffs.

Getting Better

Well, I'm mostly over the cold. Which is good, because The Man and the little pirates have it now, and I'm on call.

I'm not getting very far with my NaNo thing, but that's OK. It's Year 3, which is always the most miserable year anyway. And I'm not completely losing, just oh, about halfway to where I should be by now. The important thing is that I'm making a start on the script to the new musical.

And, um... Pirate Boy won a "Nobel Prize" the other day for a machine he built for 2nd grade science fair. Cool huh? He dismantled it before I could get a picture, though, darn him.

Speaking of pictures, we got a family photo taken last Saturday for the first time since Pirate Boy was a baby. Well, we got about 30 of them taken. One of them wasn't entirely horrible. So we bought it.

What else? It's cold here. Nasty cold. Can it seriously be late November already?

Sick This Week

Too sick to blog. Too sick to write my NaNo novel (which anyway sucks way worse than last year's). Too sick to do much of anything but lie in bed, though I occasionally crawl to the computer to check email. The Man promises he won't get sick until after I'm healthy again. I'm trying, really I am.

Otherwise, things are still going well. So I totally come out ahead here.

Chica Chica Boom Boom

Overheard at my house:

#1 Son: I want to make a present for my girlfriend.
[The Man and I exchange smirks. This will be his first.]
Pirate Boy: [startled] Girlfriend?! ... [thinks for a moment] I've got lots of those already.
TM: [singing] I'm the daddy of the Mack... Daddy...

And Punkin Boy? Quoth he: "Without us, the chicas got no boom!"

BWA HAHAHA HAHAHA!

I love our kids.

More Smiles

I'm sorry for the overkill. I just can't get enough of the happiness going on here. Wow. (And yeah, that's totally The Man with Punkin. I lost count of how many weird looks I got from people at the party: "Who is that guy with her? And why are they holding hands?" The things I do for love.)

Happy Family

I can't even begin to express how wonderfully things have changed for our family lately. The love just between The Man and the kids is awesome to see.

And the smiles! I love the smiles! So happy. I'm so happy.

Punkins at the Park

So, we took our boys to play at the park the other day.

They'd been feeling cooped up and were glad to get out. They climbed...

...investigated the use of seesaws to demonstrate a lever and fulcrum setup (Pirate Boy is working on simple machines in school)...

...and then they took a ride on the tire swing (Daddy-powered).

Wheee! They had fun!

But boy, then they started winding down...

Didn't even bother to get off the swing. Totally tuckered punkins.