Spinning on that dizzy edge

2 weeks until Christmas, eek! I could really use a (non-evil) clone right about now.

So of course I'm adding another task to my to-do list. If you'd like a card from me, post a screened comment below with the following info.

1. Name
2. Address
3. Your choice of a Christmas-themed card, a more generally winterish one, or a whatever option because you don't particularly care.

Chances are, if I've sent you one before, you'll get another one this year, but feel free to indicate your interest. :)

TGIF to all, and to all a good night!

...Dang.

Anytime there's more than a month gap for me between posting, it means there's Stuff going on. When I'm lucky, it's all good stuff. When the days end in 'y', it's a mix of good and bad stuff. When I'm letting the sleep deprivation win again, all I remember is the bad stuff.

Which isn't to say that the Christmas visits weren't fun and loot-filled, because they were, although I have a bone to pick with Amazon and their wish-lists. Now that we have the families accustomed to using them, it would be helpful for items to be marked as bought when they're bought, so I don't have to deal with shipping back a Wii Fit Plus bundle. First world problems, I know. Also, every family visit appears to last the apparent duration of a movie montage on fast forward. We might have been there two days, but in retrospect it seemed to have lasted two minutes.

Today was a very good day for me to not have psychic powers. When the Emperor not only got on my last nerve, but gleefully stomped on it like he was squishing a bug, I would have been hard-pressed to not completely rewrite his mental map into Obedient Child from Willful, "Only Hears You When You're Screaming" Child. He should count himself lucky that the worst he got was Yelling Mom.

Then the traffic on the way into work was backed up and slooooow with no apparent reason for the first couple of miles, with the eventual reveal of the pothole filling crew that couldn't wait until after peak driving times to be unleashed on the world. Dark Phoenix Me would have left a trail of smoking, crumpled wrecks smashed into the side of the road behind me while I sailed gaily on without impediment.

Now I'm in a Jellicle mood, where my head is full of reorganization plans for home that will evaporate when I actually have the opportunity to implement them later tonight.

Hi! How are you?

...where by "outer space" I mean the vacuous cloud of nothing between my ears.

I was just thinking back to last year, where I was navigating between a bunch of story commitments, and planning Christmas shenanigans, and not having my cabana boy at home, and dealing with the Emperor's hard transition in school.

Now, I defaulted on the only story I've been interested in writing, my husband is home again (did I mention he got laid off a few months back? Yeah. Good times. In the good news/bad news vein, he's making almost as much from unemployment as he did at his job, which points out how grossly underpaid he was) and back to being my alternately surly/smiley cabana boy, and the Emperor is bored with daycare but not in active danger of being kicked out.

At least the Christmas shopping is almost finished. Oh! And the Space Battle Tree is all done, so we can pose the Emperor by it and get this year's holiday card knocked out.

Since I turned 36 this year, which is rather an arbitrary age except that it means I've been out of high school for as many years as my age when I graduated, I decided I really need to start taking better care of myself. I did my doctor visit for a full check-up, got mildly reproved for my cholesterol levels, and was referred to a dermatologist and the sleep clinic for other questions.

So this past weekend I did my sleep study and proved to their satisfaction that I have severe sleep apnea. (I might post my Frankenstein's monster pic of me all wired up.) Let me just say that calling it a sleep clinic is kinda like the misnomer of a speed zone - there was a minimum amount of sleeping involved. Anyways, I'm now waiting for my very own CPAP machine, and hopefully many restful nights will follow.

In other news, Creation is trying to kill me. I have no other explanation for why they scheduled David Hewlett, Joe Flanigan, Jason Momoa, and Rachel Luttrell all for the Vancouver con, and me with the not being able to go. (My TEAM!) I swear, if David Hewlett hadn't agreed to attend the Chicago one next August, I'd be really tempted to go postal. I shall clutch my receipt for my Gold ticket (SQUEEEE) and wait and hope that they add more non-Universe people.

I have been utter crap at following people on DW and LJ. My stalker lists (where I get things emailed so as to avoid the awkward friending dance) are beyond full, and I have no hope of ever catching up on my actual flist. My abject apologies for missing any huge life news and/or chiming in beyond late to your posts. Meanwhile, as a personal challenge to myself, I'm going to try to post more than once a month. Dammit.

Holy CRAP, I am so far behind with just about everything. Between the push to finish up the conclusion to my undermistletoe entry (posted last night) and getting this project at work ready for QA (done this morning, thank Zod), I've let pretty much everything else slide. I've got a ton of Christmas shopping left to do, I still want to get cards out (let me know if you want one and you're not on my usual list, eh?), we don't even have the tree up yet let alone have it or the homestead decorated, the house is an utter PIGSTY, and I'm at skip=900. 900! AGH!

Oh, and I have two other stories coming due this week. I can foresee my work productivity dropping to zero for the next several days.

Hey, but you know what? I wrote almost 15,000 words in the past couple of weeks, making that undermistletoe fic the longest story I've ever created, and I've still got the muse talking to me.

*Phew* I can do this. Really. Sleep is optional, right?

( Yesterday, the car died. )

( Today the car lived, and the Emperor partied. )
Christmas is a little over a week away, and I've got next to nothing done for it. But at least the tree is up, and it smells FABULOUS -- the childhood associations of joy and excitement are sparking all through me. Hopefully it will help fuel my last-minute preparations.

And now, to bed.