more bits

 We've been looking into getting another car, but haven't yet.  The other little car is still running so far, and we came up against a snag in getting a newer one, although we had found several we liked and could technically swing through and get.  The insurance price on a newer car is twice as high as all of our insurance combined, and that has to be figured out as a monthly cost along with the car payment.  We've always got around that before by buying much older beater cars, which came with low insurance payments and not much if any monthly car payment.  So, regrouping and rethinking, and hoping we have enough time to secure something else or work the budget around.

 I burnt my hand the other day with hot water, but it is getting better.  I stopped myself before I began to fret on it, and that helped a lot because in the past I've actually made the burn worse, Mark said at least, by getting all the stress hormones running etc.  I put it in cold water immediately and then some burn ointment on it after about five or six minutes.  It was a coffee machine that was stuck and I didn't even think properly - I just grabbed the filter cartridge which happened to be full of boiling water and all of the water came out of it luckily just onto my knuckles, and not on to my face or anything else.  And I will say - it would have happened to someone else, and who knows how they would have reacted to it.  I'm such a strange creature when it comes to skin that it could have went terribly bad as well, but luckily it hasn't - there is just a little bit of redness left now after two days and there weren't any blisters at all.  I've cut myself before and pressed it together and it has sealed back up, and I've also had just the opposite - a tiny cut tear and become a larger one.  There is little rhyme or reason except for the stress reaction.

Nothing else to report, except continued work on Japanese. I am doing the Duolingo on both the mobile and pc profiles and then the wanikani as well.   I keep staring at my Amelia book and not furthering.  I also noticed it will be Esme's birthday in two months.  It's a big one, and graduation not long after that.   

 I reminded Esme of the book Alice in Wonderland which she read as part of homeschool - and that there was a sequel.  I showed her the little cartoon again that was made by D - with the mouse - and she barely remembered it.  She said she thought most of the rest of her generation had read the first book at least, and I had to tell her that no, I don't think they have.  They may have read a picture book, but very few of them read the original text from beginning to end. 

bits and books

 I have studied the extra Japanese lessons on wanikani for three days now, as well as Japanese on both of my Duolingos (and a bit of Czech, why? it's me).  The little car did a scary thing this morning and now I have the mechanic picking it up and have rented something to drive for the week until we find out what that was.  We are looking over our budget more to see if we can afford another car payment.  I showed Esme the budget style that I use and explained to her what all the things were to know.

comment Mark made to me tonight : you know you probably drink more coffee grounds than most people, that might have a high lead content or something in it.  You were talking about your diet (seaweed and cucumber mineral contents) and have you considered that?  If it was a problem though, you'd probably already know by now, considering how long you have been drinking coffee (he drinks tea).  Me: Yes that makes you either an idiot, or insane.  And I don't think I'm doing too bad, I found my abstract algebra textbook on the shelf the other day and I was really happy about it.  Mark : You're not convincing me on the not-insane part there.  Me : What, I've been looking for it for a couple of years now, and it is red, but I was thinking it was a much thicker book because of the remembered difficulty level.  Mark : When you need a librarian for your own collection to say 'it's red, can you find it for me', then yes, you have a problem.  Me: Well, I've found it now, it was between a French textbook and that history book about corn.  Mark : Still not convincing me... *all in good fun banter*

 I need to kick my tail and put up more of my kindle books - which requires actually sitting down and editing them and getting them ready to format.  I was happy to see the 'Salt Magic' book had sold some copies.  That one was supposed to be just tucked into an anthology but I had thought it was good enough to go by itself and I had published it at the same time as Mikki Mack.

 These are the ones that I have finished and put up so far: 

 Salt Magic : The tale of an exhausted mage who rediscovers themselves.

Mikki Mack  : The quite pretty small grey cat with the gloriously long fluffy tail

 Unspoken Things Made Words : Poetry anthology with a few philosophy things

Time in December : Magic realism fiction.  Summary: "Bran exists but only in apathy. Isobel doesn't exist, but wants to. Paul, caught between the worlds, is prisoner to the watch. Ingrid, a tiger with her claws the wrong way in, blames herself for surviving her brother's death. To save them all, Bran must learn to fly."

 

And I have more in the wings waiting for me to actually get my tail in gear and make them ready. 

bits

They did the second part of the tooth extraction on Friday.  I remembered the tea bag advice and the bleeding stopped much earlier than last time.  I went to work on the postal route on Saturday, and even brought some groceries home.  I've eaten a lot more than I did last time, but I am still tired enough that I've crashed early and slept as late as possible both days.  Mark made a pork roast starting early this morning, and we've had that for lunch.  I've done an assortment of lessons on my language accounts, Russian, Chinese, Danish, Catalan, French-to-Spanish and Japanese.  I've played a lot in Minetest Luanti, and made a couple of quick-and-dirty computer graphic scrawls to avoid going directly to sleep last night.

 

This morning I pulled a third white scallop squash out of the little front garden - that was the plant I started in a yogurt cup this year because I really wanted one of them - and it has come along very well.  Not much else to report - back to work tomorrow.  Next month they will do an impression for making the denture - and then after that has been made, they will pull out all the smaller teeth in the top that are left and put the denture in - and I expect that will actually be the hardest one.  These two last appointments they were pulling out the largest two molars in the back on each side - that were leftover AFTER they took out my wisdom teeth many years prior.

 

 

bits

 Days continue to slip by - this weekend I will be getting two more teeth out, and two more appointments after that, at least, one of them to make a mold and one of them to take out the other teeth and fit the model. *sigh*  It has to be done sometime, though.

 

I am looking at different tech school programs with Esme.  I've shown her some things but I also really don't want to push her.  I know I have strong feelings about her studying a harder physical trade because she is even smaller than I was at her age, and she hasn't had the physical work that I was already used to doing from the farm.  The more physical course would have her learning construction and plumbing techniques with basic electrical wiring.  I showed her another local program that is quite a lot like what my dad did as a robotics engineer.  It has a lot more advanced math and science in it, and working on automated robotics and programming, along with a solid foundation in electrician work.  She still can't believe how many classes there are in it - and it is only a sixteen month course.  Her american graduates class in school was supposed to be already going over these things with her and she hasn't even heard from them about FAFSA or explored any career options.  

 

I wrote about two thousand words towards the other dog book I was formulating in my head.  It is basically how Charlotte came to be adopted here.  I should brush off my dachshund story, as well.  It was stalled at an action scene that was nearly 3/4 to the end and opened up great material for a sequel, but I've just let it sit there.  And I've still not gotten my  cat books to the gallery... will I ever?  They still send me a small check every once in a while for selling the other books and assorted cards/stickers there.

 

Studying Portuguese.  I understand it quite well, but just like Spanish, the French gets a bit in the way of production.  I will probably segue into Catalan again soon.  Got a bale of hay at the co-op and we are going forward with some plans to make a hay crib and see if we can figure out what we want to do for a bigger and better animal shelter outside. 

bits going into Saturday

 It has been two whole weeks plus a bit more and my stomach finally has worked out 'mostly' from that flu.  Ugh - that was a lot.  I had to rebuild my digestion from scratch, and everything had slowed way down.  I read a few articles by other people who said the same thing had happened to them - bad flu, not eating for a few days, violent throwing up and then digestion 'crashed' - which makes for stomach hurting and not wanting to eat again - remedy of lots of water, fiber foods, heavily-ginger spice and walking and a bit of castor oil twice - but it seems to have worked now.  I'm still going to be watching it.

Postal route tomorrow.  We did grocery store this afternoon and it was a complete rat race packed full of people.  I told Esme that it is okay to be anxious in that environment because she knows I get a bunch of tics and a bit angry at all of the people not knowing where to go and standing in gluts in the aisles during that, too.  A lot of things have gotten more expensive, but not everything.  Plus, we bought some things we don't normally buy, like I bought pitas and Mark found another kind of chips etc.  The spice mixture I had been using in our vegetable dishes wasn't available anymore, so I bought two other things - I hope that Esme likes one or both of them.  

When I didn't want to eat for those days we had some leftovers in the fridge that we had to throw out - so we didn't buy more of those sort of 'meal now and three more can be made' things for now.  I'm usually pretty good about using up all of those leftovers for Esme and I but when I was sick I let Mark cook more one-meal things for days on end there.

I finished the Japanese tourist mystery on my Kindle and have two others mysteries that I had saved at times the past few months - I just have to get myself to sit and read.  I had joined a local book club someone I knew invited me to, online, and using books from the library.  But I just couldn't get into that book - tried to speed read a few chapters and still, it didn't grab me.  I still have 'Exit' and 'Tentacles and Teeth' on my bedside table but for reasons I have stalled on both of them.  I did finish 'The Rule of One' and then gave it to Esme to read as well - she said it was an interesting read.  

She needed some help with her math yesterday morning and then when she got to school she said the teacher never even asked for the homework - that is the class she had trouble with and had to retake from last year.  The question she needed help on looked like a syntax trap, and I was hoping the teacher would go over what was actually wanted on it because of that.  But no. 

I completely overslept the other morning, had to have shut off my alarm - Esme was going to the bus when I woke up and I had to put it into overdrive gear to get to work on time.  I'm hoping I've got that figured out - but still don't know how I did it.  I have three alarms at night spaced out and even a backup one!  I guess I was just overtired from that digestion thing and finally could sleep that night. 

 I've been doing Japanese and Greek for some reason, and Lithuanian on Babadum on my phone.  I've been reading a bit more in French but not doing more lessons.   

after-effects of flu

 My digestion did not return to normal after that flu, and not eating much for three days - I've tried the recommended things, water, fiber, walking a mile every night before bed, castor oil again - and it is 'ok' but not normal, and from what I've been told, it will take several months perhaps to get everything back to normal after this type of flu.   A week at a time though was very much /not happy, but not so bad off that some castor oil didn't straighten it back out.  At least I can hope.  I hate the health issues that you can't see and that are not easy to talk to anyone about at the same time.

 I got a large white pattypan squash out of the garden yesterday and chopped it up and used half of it in dinner tonight.  Fiber - those veggies, and banana and oatmeal, brown rice and seaweed and bread with peanut butter and blueberries, pinto beans with tomatoes and ground peanuts - my diet is usually quite high in fiber, but when I was sick I wanted hardly any of it - I was gearing towards milk, and cottage cheese, and soups, butter cookies and crackers and rice pudding.  So, I do have some catchup to do.

Esme started back to school - senior year, one semester, and we have to get all of her college paperwork applied for quite soon.  Not much else, working on Japanese. 

flu

 The summer is almost gone, Esme starts back to school this week.  Last week I went down with the flu, although I struggled through the fevers and the chills and the 'where is my bed' every day when I got home and actually made it to the end of the week without missing work.  I was literally sweating non-stop, and then a few hours later, so cold in the same temperature (87 degrees) that I could not stop my teeth chattering.  I was drinking as much as I could but food was out of the question more and more through Thursday and Friday.  On Friday I was still holding onto the hope that I would make it through the postal route and then rest for a day and a half and be miraculously better.  

 

But, at midnight on Friday I began to throw up, painfully - as I had a mostly empty stomach - and I had to call out of the postal route for Saturday.  Saturday turned out to be a very bad day - there were moments I didn't want to be upright, standing, laying down or anything - I was semi-aquatic taking baths or showers every few hours, and letting the water evaporate on me.  My hair bothered me on my neck, my head felt like the skull was coming apart into pieces, and my sinuses were upset because I had thrown up and anything I tried to eat or drink was immediately met with 'no you're done with that now, really'.  I would try to sleep and be back up in an hour and a half.  The day seemed like four stuck together, and not in a good way.  Sunday was a bit better, although I felt like someone had thrown me around like a rag doll and my muscles and joints hurt.  The spot I fell last month in the yard on my hip was hurting like new.  And vomiting so very hard had messed up my stomach badly, my gut was hurting and I took the rest of that week slowly getting my system back into order.  Castor oil *yuck*, but I think I'm mostly back on track now.  I do not recommend eight year old castor oil - but I was glad that we had a bottle of it, and I need to replace it.  One dose was all it took, but it was very unpleasant.  Take that over the pain though.

 

So I've been catching up on things, went to the feed store, made sure all the bills were paid, and replaced some other things we needed in the house.  My sense of smell during the flu was through the roof - and then after the chills stopped, my sense of hearing was overly sensitive, too.  I was hearing pops and squeals in the car and in appliances etc that I had not heard for a long time.  I even put coolant and oil in the car, and pulled in the dry bean harvest from the garden.  They are pole beans and the beans are a reddish-brown color.  I planted a handful of miscellaneous things this year since I've had such hit and miss planting something specific - and this is the type of bean that has thrived. 

 

Our little goat had a bad time last night, as well.  She is blind, and when she gets too worried she has no idea where she is - as she usually uses a system of counting steps and moving along certain edges to know where she is in the yard.  She ate a bit of watermelon - and that was a bad idea.  I've told Mark sure that looks cute and she likes it, but no, it was quite bad for her.  She got a bit disoriented, as that is basically alcohol for a goat, and she got tangled up in a vine behind the house here.  We went and pulled her in after she didn't come in with the cats for their dinner, as is her habit.  She wants to be involved, even though she doesn't eat cat food.  But she wasn't there, so we had to go find her.  She had gotten herself into a tizzy caught in the vine, and it took several more hours to calm her down and get her to sleep without startling.  She was very tired, and staggering.  She slept leaning on one or the other of us for a while, and then she felt much better and has been walking normally and getting around the yard fine today.  No more watermelon for goats.

 

We took Grandma to town for her groceries.  Mark is making dinner, he has been making dinner for Esme all the past week or so, as I was eating sparingly still and usually strange combinations.  Only last night I made her fish and rice, which is one of the few normal meals I'd eaten, as he had eaten too much of the potato that he cooked the night before and it hadn't been great for him.  I am glad though neither of them seem to have been hit with the flu - and the 'contagious' part of it would have been weeks ago.  I've been reading a book and did some laundry.  Another week, with school bus et al, to begin tomorrow.

 

For languages : I'm doing the highest level French (5th section on Duolingo) and have returned to the beginner Japanese on my phone.